Venezuela’s Opposition: Manufacturing Fear in Exchange for Votes

[Judi Lynn]

Venezuela’s Opposition: Manufacturing Fear in Exchange for Votes
Written by Lainie Cassel
Wednesday, 01 September 2010 11:19

“Venezuela, more deadly than Iraq” read a headline in the New York Times on Aug. 23 – a headline of such shock value that it can only mean one thing: it’s election time in Venezuela. Inside Venezuela, similar headlines are printed almost daily in corporate media with the upcoming September 26 national assembly elections. Coincidentally, the Venezuelan corporate media and their allies among the Western press continually draw on the same crime statistics “leaked” from unidentified government sources or compiled by rightwing NGO’s.

The point of the articles is not to illuminate the real crime problem in Venezuela, but rather to persuade potential voters during the election campaign. Corporate media in Venezuela, which is owned by wealthy elites largely opposed to President Hugo Chavez, has continually used fear as a way to create an atmosphere of insecurity in an attempt to generate votes during elections.

~snip~
History of Media and Violence

A look back to before Chavez was elected in 1999 helps give context to the current challenges facing Caracas today. One of the wealthiest countries in Latin American largely due to its immense oil reserves, Venezuela also became known for its drastic inequalities of wealth. After the implementation of numerous neoliberal policies that cut social programs and raised the price of basic goods, many of the city’s poor were forced to turn to gangs and illegal activities. Police corruption and easy access to guns created a sense of chaos in the streets. In The Street is my Home, the Venezuelan author Patricia C. Marquez reports on research she conducted on violence in Caracas in the 1990’s:

“In effect, Caracas, is now in a state of siege. The walls that surround the properties of the well-to-do grow higher and higher, and even among the less well off and the poor, there is anxiety, uncertainty, and hopelessness. But while some seek to protect themselves in their fortresses, others cannot escape the bullets flying inside their thin rancho wall.” However, as Marquez claims, the media largely underreported the violence. She notes that, “The violence in Caracas is much more serious than anything portrayed in the media.” Before 1999, the media, she continues, underplayed “the dimension of the problem to avoid disturbing the public.”

When I spoke with Julio Cesar Velasco, the former civil boss of a poor barrio in central Caracas, he reaffirmed Marquez’ remarks: “Before President Chavez the media reported one of every hundred killings.” However, now he argues, “the media reports every killing a hundred times.” Yet one NGO, the “Venezuelan Observatory of Violence” (OVV) claims to use media as a method to generate statistics. Numbers published by the OVV, which is run by a right-wing opposition member, Roberto Briceño León, are widely quoted in numerous articles including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Strangely both articles were printed this month even though Reuters reported the same statistics in March of this year.3

Another report published in 2008 by Foreign Policy magazine claimed that according to “official” statistics, Caracas was one of the “Murder capitals of the World”. Mary O’Grady of the Wall Street Journal also quotes supposed “leaked” official reports in a piece published last week. Both articles fail to offer an explanation as how they obtained statistics that were not published and showed no investigation into their validity.

More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/venezuela-archives-35/2670-venezuelas-opposition-manufacturing-fear-in-exchange-for-votes-

[Doctor_J]

1. I wonder where they learned that

Would bet the PNAC crew is spending billions Beck-ifying Venezuela

[molly77]

2. Sounds like our media

There could be thousand in a protest march over the upcoming war in Iraq. MSM would barely mention it. And always always , the official numbers were lower than the actual number of protesters. The Beck rally in DC was reported to be tens of hundreds or thousands. And their trumped up rallies are all over MSM. To give the impression that it is a nationwide movement.Unlike the Iraq war. What do these two moments in history have in common? Oil.