Leave it to the wretched regimein Caracas to send Venezuela—home of the Orinoco basin, theterrifically incompetent state run oil company PdVSA, and SouthAmerican’s 6,151st experiment in egalitarianism—into a humiliatingenergy crisis. As The Guardian’s Rory Carroll reported last week, “Businesses have reported a collapse insales and employment, which is expected to aggravate a recessionalready the deepest in South America, and compound the president’swoes ahead of legislative elections.”
So what does a squalid little autocracy do when faced with anincreasingly angry opposition, irritated that a country of suchmassive oil wealth cannot keep the power on or the shelves stockedwith meat or sugar? Well, don’ttell Sean Penn (he’ll get a big head), but the Chavez regimehas taken his advice; cracking down on free speech and the pesky,disorganized political opposition. First, it was anti-Chavezpolitician Oswaldo Alvarez Paz, who recently told a televisioninterviewer that the well-documented charges emanating from Spainconnecting the Miraflores gang to FARC and ETA could not be easilydismissed. The country’s reptilian Justice Minister Tareck ElAissami responded by throwing Paz in jail (on charges of “spreadingfalse information”) and commenting: “Someone cannot stand up todefame, to lie, to manipulate in the media here and not haveanything happen.” It’s eerily reminiscent of Sandinista censorNelba Blandon’s classic vulgarity, when asked why the governmentshuttered an opposition newspaper: “They accused us of suppressingfreedom of expression. this was a lie and we could not let thempublish it.”
So with the independent channel RCTV now out of the picture,having had their broadcast license twice revoked (both forbroadcast and cable), the vultures are circling Globovision, theonly non-sycophantic news station still broadcasting in thecountry. Today the channel’s owner Guillermo Zuloaga was arrestedand charged with “contempt and for offending the chief executive ofthe republic.”
The Los Angeles Times has details. Cato’s Ian Vasquez comments.
In related news, Oliver Stone’s hagiographic (and assuredlysoporific) Chavez movie has found adistributor!
Someone Finally Takes Sean Penn's Advice – Hit & Run : Reason Magazine