A Dictator in All but Title
Hugo Chavez isn’t officially “President For Life”, but the permission he has for ruling outside Venezuela’s legislative body and his crackdown on dissent shows he’s acting like one.
Tens of thousands of protesters on Saturday denounced President Hugo Chavez’s plans to close an opposition television channel, accusing their leader of maiming Venezuelan democracy as he forges a socialist state.
Chavez says RCTV, the country’s oldest private broadcaster, supported a bungled coup against him in 2002. He has had a long-running battle with opposition television stations, calling them “horsemen of the apocalypse.”
“Let us defend democracy, let us defend freedom, let us defend free independent media such as RCTV,” RCTV’s managing director, Marcel Garnier, told demonstrators in Caracas.
The majority that voted him in is now getting a taste of what real dictatorship is like. Buyer’s remorse is setting in.
Chavez, re-elected by a landslide last year, still enjoys support of about 60 percent of the public on the back of massive social spending. But a leading pollster has also found a majority of Venezuelans oppose the closure of RCTV.
Datanalisis found almost 70 percent of Venezuelans would rather RCTV kept broadcasting, but worried more about the loss of their favorite soap operas than free speech.
RCTV has been showing a nostalgic collection of clips from comedies, soap operas and Christmas specials that have been part of life in the Caribbean country since it started transmission in 1953.
“It is like losing a close relative,” said Renaldo Gonzalez, a student at the protest, whose family members have worked at RCTV as actors, producers and directors.
Do Venezuelan’s really aspire to be like Cuba? It’s a few steps backward. Hopefully, this will wake up the populace, even if their concept of free speech comes mostly from which entertainment shows are available.
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Filed under: Venezuela
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My country seems to be weak and tired of fighting right now. I hope that the majority doesn’t want this. But I cannot speak for others, only for myself and all I can say that anxiety that surrounds these days, where the closing of RCTV is just around the corner, makes you sometimes unable to breeeze.
PS: Excuses about the grammar and spelling mistakes. Like Celia Cruz used to say “my english is not very good looking”
Indeed, I hope for the same thing for your country, that they don’t really want this and will wake up to what Chavez is doing.