A German Broadcaster’s Gutter Journalism about Venezuela

[polly7]

By Joe Emersberger
Source: teleSUR English
February 13, 2015

.....DW shows part of El Universal’s front page for February 4, 2015, and below the snapshot tells readers “the front page of ‘El Universal’ has become a mouthpiece for government ministers.“ Had DW shown the entire front page, people who could read Spanish would notice that one of the headlines was “Merchants Reject Interventions.” That headline was for an article that conveyed only the views of the Caracas Chamber of Commerce about the government’s crackdown on practices allegedly responsible for shortages. The business group “warns that the crisis will deepen if rights are not respected,” according to El Universal’s report.

..........

Like countless inaccurate (or deliberately dishonest) articles about Venezuela that appear in the international media, DW cites Reporters without Borders and Human Rights Watch (HRW) to supports claims that “journalists have taken to censoring themselves out of fear.”

Reporters without Borders applauded two years of very brutal dictatorship in Haiti that followed a U.S.-perpetrated coup in 2004 as a big step forward for press freedom. HRW very recently declared the United States to be “the most powerful proponent of human rights.” HRW can’t see a problem with the revolving door it has with U.S. government officials, and it is happy to have Javier Solana, a man who should be prosecuted for war crimes on its board for many years.

I am sometimes tempted (only tempted and only sometimes I should stress) to cut corporate journalists a tiny bit of slack for distorting Venezuela’s economic situation. Reporters may lack the confidence to challenge what big credit rating agencies and many establishment economists say. But even in that case, the global meltdown of 2008/2009, which exposed most “experts” in economics as incompetent or worse, should have taught reporters to cite them much more skeptically and to diversify their sources. Regarding Venezuela’s media, there is absolutely no excuse for spreading lies. Any reporter who is honest, hardworking and courageous enough to break from the media herd should be able to report accurately. Anybody can read newspapers and watch TV.

Recently, a former editor of a major German newspaper said he planted stories written for him by the CIA. I’m skeptical of the prevalence of that kind of corruption. I’ve discussed in the past why I believe even honest corporate journalists will spread lies. I don’t think Jan D. Walter’s article was written by the CIA, but it might as well have been.

Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/a-german-broadcasters-gutter-journalism-about-venezuela/

Not surprising to see who is bent on distortions and lies regarding Venezuela. It all plays into the same agenda. Sickening.

[Scuba]

1. Nationalize your oil and you can expect the corporate media to spread all kinds of lies about you.

[COLGATE4]

2. Jesus Christ on a crutch. Not this again.

Venezuela nationalized its oil in 1976, almost 40 years ago. It has nothing to do with Chavez or Venezuela's meltdown today. Try and do some reading on Venezuela.

[Scuba]

3. TPTB understand, and can afford to play, the long game.

[COLGATE4]

4. I hear that the comeback is currently

planned for 2040.

[polly7]

5. Oh, yes.

And with each new leader elected in, the tactics are the same - with Maduro, they appear to be even more vicious. He's not quite as quick or loud in showing his contempt for it as was Chavez, and they see that as even more of an opportunity to reverse the progress Venezuela has made, imo.

[polly7]

6. WRONG.

It has everything to do with it. That nationalization pissed off a lot of huge companies who are aching to get back in. Look at the nations around the world recently who've been destroyed because they used their OWN resources to care for their country and people. Do you honestly think those at the top slobbering to get at Venezuela's resources have simply given up? No. They're doing what they can to destabilize it, economically, violently with protests bought and paid for, with the propaganda in print and all other media. The problem for them is that Latin America is becoming more united all the time, and they know that an outright coup against Venezuela wouldn't be tolerated. So they do what they can, but the dirty deeds and reason for them are still as obvious as the nose on your face.

[COLGATE4]

7. And the saddest part is

that you actually believe this claptrap.

[polly7]

8. No, the saddest part is -----------I'm right!!!! nt.

[COLGATE4]

9. Keep telling yourself that. nt

[polly7]

10. I don't have to tell myself anything.

Something as brazen and simple as this doesn't require reminding myself ............. it's just fact, like learning and knowing the alphabet, stuff like that.

[polly7]

15. You really are out of touch.

U.S. tactics, in other words, are not narrow and simpleminded, nor do they have an expiration date. The masters of war certainly like to win big in a swooping violent thrust – yes, thank you, they might say. Good for war contractors. But mainly, good for scaring the shit out of those who might want to get uppity. So they will try bombs if they can, and, if the balance of forces precludes that, as so far it has and I suspect it will continue to, then they will try and try again to engineer a coup. They will do this by supporting thuggish allies within Venezuela, by spreading tool of violence to those thugs, and, even more so and most importantly, as once in Chile to overthrow Allende, by pummeling the society with economic pressure and blaming the ensuing immensely hurtful dislocations on the Bolivarians, of course, so that the broad public will grow tired, grow angry, and become more easily subdued. That is what current, recent, and past U.S. policy, since Chavez told the U.S. to go to hell, have been about.

https://zcomm.org/zcommentary/organize-for-venezuela/

[Judi Lynn]

16. Unmistakeable ring of truth. Anyone sober & sane can see the pattern. Excellent piece. Thanks! n/t

[hack89]

11. Venezuela is a member of the biggest capitalist cartel in the world

they sell their oil to whoever wants to buy it and those "big companies" can buy as much VZ oil as they want. VZ's problems are internal - they have spent more money than they have made and now the chickens are coming home to roost.

[polly7]

12. LOL. nt.

[Judi Lynn]

13. Caracas Chamber of Commerce... “warns that the crisis will deepen if rights are not respected...” !

That should clear up any loose ends, shouldn't it?

What more is needed to prove who's behind the "shortages" and hoarding?

While they were trying to underscore their threat to the people, they acknowledged it's completely reversible if the people will overthrow the government and hand everything back to the oligarchy, which everyone already knew.

That's what the people themselves haven't wanted running their country for decades. That decision was made long ago, and it's not reversible. No going back to the "good ol' days" for the racist, greedy right-wing.

This is a tremendous article. It was interesting learning Javier Solana is on the board at HRW.

Don't entertain him - arrest him!
Javier Solana's Visit to Belgrade is an Outrage! [2-7-2001]

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, Jared Israel (editor, Emperor's Clothes) and Nico Varkevisser (President, Global Reflexion)

Today several thousand Yugoslavs of varying political beliefs passionately protested against Javier Solana's visit to Belgrade. This protest, loud and spirited, was held in the center of Belgrade, on Knez Milosh Street, outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It represents a most important act of defiance, held in the face of widespread violence and intimidation following the U.S-backed coup in Belgrade, Oct. 5th.

Javier Solana was head of NATO during and after NATO’s 78 day bombing campaign. He was convicted of mass murder by a Yugoslav court and sentenced, in absentia, to 20 years hard labor. The court that made that decision still has jurisdiction under Kostunica, who insists that he stands for the rule of law.

Yet today Solana is in Belgrade. And the Kostunica/Djindjic regime is not arresting him.

Now, all the media lies that were used as a pretext to bomb Yugoslavia – from the lies about mass graves to the lies about the phony Racak massacre - have been refuted by NATO’s own data as well as by official organizations such as the FBI, Europol, the OSCE, the UNHCR and Finish Forensic experts. And yet it is now, mocking Yugoslav justice, that the new Belgrade regime, backed by NATO and the International Monetary Fund, invites Solana to Belgrade. Not to arrest him, but to meet with him and to celebrate, while at the same time they are hunting down those who resisted NATO and indicting them for NATO ‘s crimes.

Solana is a criminal. He is guilty of:

Crimes against humanity – Javier Solana was head of NATO when, in violation of its charter and all international law, it launched the bombing war against Yugoslavia, including the use of nuclear-sheathed weapons. It was Solana who was responsible for the destruction of the homes and lives of Kosovo residents of all nationalities. It was Solana’s NATO that has put 25 million people in the Balkans at risk by bombing the area with low level nuclear weapons. Solana’s NATO oversaw the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Yugoslavs from Kosovo after the bombing.

More:
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/dem.htm

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
Is Human Rights Watch Too Close to the US Government?
Monday, 04 August 2014 10:13
By Latifah Azlan, Foreign Policy In Focus | Interview

~ snip ~

Latifah Azlan: Former NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana, who joined HRW’s board of directors after presiding over NATO bombing raids in Yugoslavia that HRW criticized, is one person you mention quite frequently in your letters. Aside from Solana, who else has been or is currently part of this revolving door policy?

Keane Bhatt: Well, Javier Solana is not a participant in the revolving door in a strict sense, unlike Malinowski and Díaz, who are both current and former U.S. officials. But Solana is problematic because he is a U.S.-allied war criminal. He was once the subject of HRW’s campaigns on accountability for NATO war crimes.

Yet despite the fact that he initiated an illegal war against Yugoslavia in 1999 and presided over the use of cluster munitions and atrocities like the deliberate bombing of civilian targets—including a television station, where 16 civilians were killed—Solana was awarded a membership on HRW’s board of directors.

That is particularly egregious. The Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, former UN officials, and I wrote in our most recent letter to HRW that we believe war criminals should not have any say whatsoever in the functioning of an independent human rights advocacy organization. Solana connects in a way to Tom Malinowski, because Malinowski worked as a speechwriter for Bill Clinton to promote the Kosovo intervention.

And if you look at the advisory committee for the Americas, you’ll find former U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Myles Frechette. He directed U.S. diplomacy towards Colombia under Clinton during Plan Colombia, which led to human rights catastrophes and helped militarize the entire country. It facilitated the displacement of millions of people and gave the Colombian government free reign to commit the worst human rights atrocities in the hemisphere over a decade and more. The pretense of the program was ostensibly to eradicate drugs, but what it really did was continuously provide arms, training, and cover to Colombia’s security forces. Frechette went on to serve as a lobbyist for corporations engaged in major human rights violations in the hemisphere, like Newmont Mining, Barrick Gold, Exxon-Mobil, and Texaco.

Along with Frechette is Michael Shifter, who is now at the corporate-backed think tank, the Inter-American Dialogue, in Washington, D.C. He once directed the National Endowment for Democracy’s Latin America and Caribbean program. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is financed by the U.S. government and is widely recognized to have funded destabilization efforts against various governments. There is very clear documented evidence, in the cases of Venezuela and Haiti, that the NED was financing opposition groups and helping to overthrow the democratically elected governments of both countries. Itcontinues to fund political groups in Venezuela against Venezuelan law.

More:
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/25353-is-human-rights-watch-too-close-to-the-us-government#

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
Thank you, Polly, for this article.

[polly7]

14. Wow, that is VERY telling.

Thank you so much for adding all of this. Essential reading! I learned a lot about HRW and those involved in it with very special interests as the destroy Libya campaign began. It was very interesting to see who had deep, deep interests in resource acquisition and management. This, above, is scandalous.

Your quote:

Caracas Chamber of Commerce... “warns that the crisis will deepen if rights are not respected...” !

That should clear up any loose ends, shouldn't it?

What more is needed to prove who's behind the "shortages" and hoarding?

While they were trying to underscore their threat to the people, they acknowledged it's completely reversible if the people will overthrow the government and hand everything back to the oligarchy, which everyone already knew.

That's what the people themselves haven't wanted running their country for decades. That decision was made long ago, and it's not reversible. No going back to the "good ol' days" for the racist, greedy right-wing.

You're so right, and that people here work so hard to try (and fail miserably) to turn it around to be the fault of the Maduro gov't is absolutely sickening. No, there won't be any going back to the horrors of the past for the Venezuelan people. They're probably among the most well-educated, politically active people anywhere. These ploys and disgusting attempts to overthrow what they've fought and worked for are very plain for them to see. I'm so happy most of Latin America is also uniting to fight it ..... every bit of my being is with them.