Media Under Siege in Much of Latin America

When President Hugo Chavez finally held a news conference last month, his first since fall, journalist Laura Weffer asked a simple--and, for her, very personal--question.

The Venezuelan leader had given an angry speech in December telling his supporters that the media were against them. Did he feel responsible for the wave of violence that followed--the mobs that had beaten reporters, the bombing of a newspaper office?

Instead of answering, Chavez challenged the young reporter: Which journalists were attacked? Weffer, punched in the face by a Chavez supporter, placed a hand against her chest. Who else, he demanded to know. A reporter stood up. Then another. Then another.

Chavez simply sighed.

“My dear girl,” Chavez said. “I am not going to continue with this, like a broken record. I have no answer to your question.”

The exchange was not unique to Venezuela. Throughout Latin America, journalists are asking pointed questions as they come under fire in a manner not seen since most of the region’s repressive dictatorships ended a decade or more ago.

Groups that document such threats have registered growing numbers of lawsuits, beatings and slayings compared to the 1990s.

Eleven journalist were killed in Latin America last year, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, compared with seven in 2000 and six in 1999. Last year, for the first time in more than a decade, journalists in Costa Rica, Paraguay and Uruguay were killed in connection with their work.

Colombia, in the midst of a vicious internal conflict, continues to be one of the deadliest countries in the world for reporters. Three journalists were killed last year in connection with their work; another five were murdered for unknown reasons. Two have been killed so far this year.

Lawsuits threatening to silence reporters also have risen. A decade after Latin American nations had enacted other democratic reforms, such as more open economies, not a single country in the region fully protects freedom of expression, according to a recent survey by the Inter-American Press Assn.

One of the problems is that legal systems still give special protection to public officials, allowing them to sue over stories insulting their “honor.” Some 15 Latin American countries have such rules, allowing senators and presidents to intimidate and silence criticism through legal means. In Panama, more than 70 such lawsuits are pending against reporters.

OAS Alerted to Situation

The problem has become so bad that the Organization of American States at its annual summit in 1998 created a high-level post to deal with reports of threats against the media.

Most alarming, perhaps, is that many court actions have come from democratically elected officials. Panama’s president sued a newspaper for running a ribald political cartoon. Guatemala’s government, which has been at war with the media for their corruption exposes, approved new licensing requirements affecting journalists. The measures recently were suspended by the country’s Supreme Court.

Chavez, a populist leader facing an increasingly unstable political situation in Venezuela, has launched an all-out verbal blitz, accusing journalists of blocking his leftist reforms and betraying the poor.

Journalists “cannot say they are innocent. No, here there are no innocents; everyone must assume their responsibility before history and the people,” Chavez said during a December address in which he excoriated the media. “People are tired of the lies, of the manipulation, of the deception. . . . 2002 will be the year of the offensive.”

The attacks against journalist are significant beyond the threat they represent to free and open media. They are an early indicator of a crisis facing democracy in Latin America.

Nearly a decade after every country in the Western Hemisphere but Cuba had adopted free elections and free-market reforms, most nations still find themselves mired in poverty, joblessness and severe social problems.

Latin America and the Caribbean have the most skewed distribution of income among regions in the world, according to a recent United Nations report. In Brazil, for instance, the richest 10% account for nearly half the country’s income, while the poorest 10% account for about 1%.

Democracy’s failure to deliver a better life to Latin America’s impoverished millions has endangered its future in the region. The attacks against media are simply an example of a greater frustration.

“With global recession and weakening democratic institutions throughout the region, what we are seeing is a surge in systematic attacks on the press and human rights groups,” said Bruce Bagley, a Latin American expert at the University of Miami. “It’s worse than it’s been in 20 years.

“Democracy is under siege,” he said.

A big part of the problem in Latin America is the increasing distance between major political parties and the people they are supposed to represent. There is a widespread perception of corruption and ineffectiveness. As the parties have become less relevant, allowing victories by populists such as Chavez or former dictators such as Efrain Rios Montt, now head of Guatemala’s Congress, the media have stepped into the breach, becoming an often aggressive voice of opposition.

This, in turn, has placed the media in conflict with those in power.

When La Nacion, the most influential daily in Costa Rica, published a story in 1995 about an honorary diplomat who had allegedly abused his powers abroad, the diplomat sued and won a $100,000 judgment.

Last September, the paper won a decision from the regional Inter-American Court of Human Rights suspending the judgment in order to determine the legality of the country’s “honor” codes, which make slandering a public official a criminal offense.

“Undoubtedly, the judgment has menaced us,” said editor-in-chief Eduardo Ulibarri. “It has produced not fear, but caution. There’s great worry.”

A final reason behind the increase in attacks against journalists shows another worrisome trend in Latin America: As economic and governmental reforms have advanced, the region’s centuries-old legal system rarely produces results. Most crimes go unsolved, and most arrests do not end in convictions.

“Impunity surrounds attacks against journalists,” said Marylene Smeets, the Americas expert for the Committee to Protect Journalists. “A message is sent to others who are thinking of silencing journalists that it is OK to do this.”

Nowhere is the problem of a government assault against the media clearer than in Venezuela, where Chavez has seen his support drop precipitously in recent months in the wake of unpopular reforms and rhetorical battles with major institutions such as the church, industry, unions and the media.

Protesters by the hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to oppose the recently enacted reforms, including one that allows the government to force the sale of land for redistribution to the poor.

The protests have been supported, indeed promoted, by the country’s bare-knuckle media, which have contemptuously opposed Chavez’s efforts. One recent front-page editorial referred to the president only by his first name and in a familiar form of address used with children or between friends.

Chavez has responded by becoming increasingly personal in his broadsides. In nationwide broadcasts that the government requires all radio and television networks to carry, he has singled out journalists by name as liars, oligarchs and worse.

Most worrisome have been Chavez’s recent exhortations to followers. He has indirectly encouraged assaults against the media, in much the same way that Shakespeare’s Richard II doomed an enemy when he was quoted as asking aloud, “Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?”

The government “is not going to restrict freedom of the press,” Chavez said in a televised address last September. “This issue with the media is something for the people, this issue and this problem is not for Chavez alone.”

Chavez Supporters Punch Reporters

The verbal attacks took on physical form in early January when several reporters, along with opposition politicians, were punched or hit by rocks thrown by Chavez supporters outside the National Assembly during a demonstration.

Two days later, a crowd of about 150 people--many of them identified later as municipal employees for a Caracas borough controlled by a Chavez ally--surrounded the offices of El Nacional, one of the country’s leading newspapers. Police dispersed the mob with tear gas and water hoses before serious damage took place.

Then, at the end of January, a bomb blew out the windows in front of the reception desk of Asi Es La Noticia, a tabloid owned by El Nacional.

Earlier that week, the tabloid’s director, Ibeyise Pacheco, and three other journalists had released a videotape that showed Venezuelan military officers meeting with leftist Colombian rebels to negotiate the release of a kidnapped Venezuelan.

The tape reignited controversy over whether Chavez has links with the rebels, though he insisted the contacts were purely a humanitarian effort to aid the hostage. Pacheco believes Chavez supporters were behind the attacks, though she has no proof.

In her small office, which is packed with television monitors and stacks of newspapers, Pacheco seemed undaunted during a recent interview. She promised to reveal more ties between Chavez and Colombian rebels in coming months.

“I will not cease to do this,” she said. “We will continue.”

Government Supporters Dismiss Claims

Chavez and his allies insist that the media are more free than in the distant past, when journalists were thrown in jail for their coverage. And no reporter interviewed could cite a case in which a story had been censored or suppressed in Venezuela.

“There is total freedom of the press here,” said Willian Lara, the head of the country’s unicameral National Assembly and a former journalist.

But many journalists said coverage already has changed. Miguel Otero, publisher of El Nacional, said the constant criticism has forced the paper into an unwelcome role: that of the opposition.

To make his point, he waved toward a darkened window in a bleak dun apartment building across from his office. From there intelligence agents were videotaping his every move, he said, citing military sources.

Objectivity “is a problem now. Unavoidably there’s a bias,” Otero said. “The media are the opposition. The church is the opposition. The industries are the opposition. The union is the opposition. He has taken all of us out of our traditional roles.”

“Our job is to inform,” Otero said. “We do not want to be protagonists.”