One of the most ridiculous claims made by dictator Chávez is that his miserable revolution is based on love. Observers will remember that late last year, during the presidential campaign, a nearly sobbing Chávez appeared on Venezuelan TVs and newspapers, dressed in a blue shirt, essentially begging people to vote for him because the actions of his life -including the indiscriminate killings- were driven by nothing but love. Stripped of all legal pretexts, Chávez decided earlier this year that the broadcast license of RCTV, Venezuela’s oldest TV channel, would be canceled without any forewarning. RCTV has not yet been informed by the prosecution about the reasons behind this decision, which was not made by a court familiar with the case nor by any member of the judiciary but by Hugo Chávez. Since there is no open case, RCTV has been unable to defend itself in Chávez’s kangaroo courts.
Earlier this week, Aporrea published a banner on its main site calling on people to protest against RCTV. According to the president’s bleeding heart, the protest was aptly named “Vigilia del Amor” or “Love Vigil.” Let’s not forget that Aporrea is Chávez’s most potent e-propaganda outlet, officially funded, operating from offices in Miraflores, providing servers and bandwidth to Venezuelanalysis.com (its English-language branch); its founder –Martin Sanchez – is currently Venezuela’s Consul General in Chicago. In short, one can conclude that the calls for vandalism published on Aporrea -if not directly ordered- have official approval, or should we believe that Hugo Chávez is a pacifist?
The above is just one of many expressions of chavista love. On Tuesday night, RCTV’s headquarters in Caracas was covered in graffiti referencing the termination of the license, racist and homophobic insults, unfounded accusations; in short, the walls of RCTV became a canvas showcasing a nice compilation of the loving jargon characteristic of Chávez.
However, the total assault on any media daring to contradict the official line did not stop there. In a rather surprising turn, Eleazar Díaz Rangel, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Últimas Noticias, has been threatened by the Minister of Popular Economy, Pedro Morejón, who ‘warned’ that they could be guilty of an “international conspiracy” and “campaigning to harm companies, institutions, and individuals.” The threat, of course, didn’t stop there. Curiously, that same mouthpiece was used by the thugs behind the North American Opinion Research to publish a statement some time ago making very similar accusations against me. Unfortunately, neither Makarem nor Valbuena accepted my invitation to impose such charges in a British court, shall we say serious. But what are the chances of a fair trial for the creepy Díaz Rangel if Morejón is ordered to take matters further in Venezuela? How will RCTV see justice served, considering that no court in the country has been instructed to open proceedings against it?