The Devil's Excrement

A guide for understanding
freedom of speech in Venezuela by Teodoro Petkoff in Tal Cual

I don’t know if it is a
coincidence, but what is happening to the Villegas brothers, Vladimir, Mario
and Ernesto is something that should be in Ripley’s. Besides the curious detail
that three members of the same family, reporters all three, have been victims
of measures that if they are not repressive they are quite close, the case of
the three Villegas’ could serve well to the “revolutionary tourists” to
understand well how it is that freedom of speech is handled in Venezuela. These
good souls, like Ignacio Ramonet and Danny Glover, when not the kids from the
Unified Spanish Left, always have on the tip of their tongue the topic of
freedom of speech in Venezuela.
One explains to them that certainly, there is no censorship here and that in
some media outlets you can say all you want against the Government and its owner. One
attempts to clarify that this is due more to the fact that these people do not
allow the Government to intimidate them with its pressures, threats and
blackmail, but that quite a few of these media outlets have been broken and
become “accommodating” to the Government. Then, so that they understand well
how things work, here is the Villegas case. Mario, the oldest, who is not
pro-Chavez, works as a professional at the tax office SENIAT, but because as a
columnist for El Mundo he has spared no effort to criticize and point out things
about the regime, SENIAT sent him to Santa Elena de Uairen in the border with
Brazil. Vladimir, the second oldest, pro-Chavez but not unconditional nor the
type to shut up, has just been fired from the TV Station run by Maripili
Hernandez, precisely because his opinions do not adapt themselves to what “I the
Supreme” expects from his followers. Ernesto, the third one, one of the anchors
of channel 8, who is also pro-Chavez, came out to defend the cameramen
attacked by the top Capo. “Coincidentally” his morning program has been
suspended since then. Do you Sean Penn now understand how things work in
Venezuela?

This entry was posted on September 8, 2008 at 8:20 pm and is filed under Venezuela.