On August 1, the elected Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chavez announced it would revoke the concessions to use state-owned airwaves to 32 private radio stations and two regional TV stations and instead grant concessions for use of these airwaves to community stations.
This has been presented in the global corporate media as an attack on freedom of speech and further evidence of Venezuela’s supposed slide into dictatorship.
In fact, the government has the right to decide how to use the airwaves it owns, with no section of society having an automatic right to perpetually control them. The decision was based on the fact that the affected stations were operating illegally, due to licences having expired or non-payment of fees. Those affected can continue broadcasting via the internet.
The government said it would grant the licenses to community radio stations that have never had such access before.
The large majority of the media outlets in Venezuela are private and anti-government. Before this latest move, just 27 families controlled more than 32% of the radio and television waves.
However, via the promotion of community media as part of the push for participatory democracy in all aspects of society, poorer sectors of Venezuelan society are getting access to the media for the first time.
The elite are terrified by this threat to their power and privileges. The elite use their control over the media to destablise the process of change favouring the poor majority — including helping organise the failed 2002 military coup, heavily distorted coverage and calls for ongoing violent protests..
The campaign by the corporate media in Venezuela and globally against this latest move is a further part of the “media terrorism” directed at the Chavez government and the revolutionary process.
Given this, the AVSN:
(i) Rejects the accusations in the corporate media around the world, including in Australia, that label the decision to revoke the 32 concessions to private radio stations and two private TV stations as an attack on free speech. Rather, the decision to grant unprecedented community media access to these airwaves is an important step in democratising the media and ensuring all of society has access to the media in order to exercise freedom of speech;
(ii) Pledges to seek to continue to educate the Australian public about the reality of Venezuela’s democracy in order to counter the constant lies and distortions in the corporate media that seek to slander and undermine Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution.
[Statement adopted at the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network’s 2009 National Consultation, August 30, 2009.]
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