The Daily Swarm

In what we hope will become a regular feature, we’ve invited some of our favorite musicians and producers to check in when they’ve got something on their minds to share with The Swarm. Today we heard from Jose Luis Pardo of the popular Venezuelan band Los Amigos Invisibles, who shares some thoughts about the loss of television station RCTV, which was not only a strong voice of opposition to the government, but an integral part of the country’s cultural fabric.

Last Sunday May 28th of 2007, Venezuelan TV station RCTV (Radio Caracas Television) went off the air for good. President Hugo Chavez decided not to renew their airwaves’ concession because the channel was supposedly disrespectful with the government policies.

That TV station was not only the oldest one in the country, it was also responsible for most of the pop culture that all Venezuelans share in common. TV shows that we grew up with, icons that made us feel special, girls to fall in love with, international stars that came to visit, telenovelas that made history, comedians that made us laugh for years, cartoons that often became the favorite subject of drunk conversations, TV shows, news shows, etc. RCTV is part of the history of our country and they just disappeared from Venezuelans’ TV screens last Sunday.

As part of Los Amigos Invisibles and as journalist, RCTV became for me a place full of friends: people who liked our band and people who I shared classrooms with. They opened the doors of their shows to let us play music during our entire career; they knew when we were in town and invited us to go on and tell everybody how everything was going for us and with our tours; they were happy to support us. We probably appeared at least once in every one of the shows they had—probably lots of Venezuelan bands did too, they were really supportive with musicians. I just feel sad for not being able to return the favor, but truth is that I just couldn’t believe that they were going off the air for good, I just couldn’t believe that Chavez made that happen, it took too much time to believe it.

Seeing all the crew of the station singing the national anthem in the last minutes on the air was just brutal, unbelievable. Let me try to tell you why.

For me, its really easy to understand that President Chavez is just not renewing the license of a TV station that was against the government policies, but for other I think its important to explore the context to have a better understanding of why some of us Venezuelans think that our country is heading towards becoming a really strong dictatorship.

The best way to start is by saying that the first public appearance of Hugo Chavez was on February 4th of 1992, commanding an unsuccessful coup against the government of Carlos Andres Perez. Getting in to a discussion of his being right or wrong is not the point now; I just want to make clear that in a democratic country, he tried to kill the president, he used violence and he wasn’t trying to express his opinion in a peaceful way.

He did go to prison for this crime, but the president who followed Perez’ period (Rafael Caldera) pardoned and released him, making it possible for Chavez to become a presidential candidate himself.

Chavez won the presidential elections in 1998 with the 56% of the voters support. He called a referendum, reformed the constitution and made another election (to become the president according to that new constitution) where he won again with almost 60% of the voters’ support. In December 2006, he got re-elected again, winning with almost 63% of the votes. Despite a lot of theories of cheating in the election, there is no proof that his people changed the final numbers. I would only call attention to two facts out of this: Jorge Rodriguez, the person who managed the organization in charge of all those elections (Consejo Nacional Electoral) was recently named Vice-president of Venezuela; and almost 37% of the voters didn’t support Hugo Chavez’ government.

I could now comment about slogans he constantly uses like “Patria, Socialismo o muerte”(Country, socialism or death) or “Rumbo al socialismo” (on the run to socialism); about how he terrifies his opponents in speeches about taking of private property or proposals of staying in power until he dies (“dos mil siempre”); about how Venezuela has become one of the most violent countries in the world (crime is 67% up since 1999, becoming the highest rated country in gun-related deaths according the an UNESCO report) or his latest idea of taking all the powers with his “ley habilitante” (in effect since February 2007) which allows him to make any decision for 18 months without having to ask the congress, the parliament or any other Venezuelan. Let’s just talk about freedom of speech.

There are about 10 open channels in Venezuela,only 2 of them air strong opinions against the government; while they might not always be objective (the Government’s own TV stations aren’t), they have definitively become the voice of the significant population that doesn’t support Chavez policies (37% last time they measured them). One of them (RCTV) lost its right to transmit last Sunday.

The main cause that the government had for not renewing that airwaves’ concession has a lot to do with the station disobeying government’s orders back on April 11th, 2002 when the president was victim of a failed coup against him. Let me take you back to that day really quick.

There was an opposition walk going on that day (04–11-02). Chavez started speaking on TV while the walk was happening. TV stations were not allowed to transmit anything else than him during that day when a percentage of the population that doesn’t support him was doing a symbolic walk to ask his resignation from power. The walk suddenly started to go towards Miraflores’s Palace (where the president works).

Shootings started near the palace when the walk was getting there. One side says that the national army was shooting the crowd ordered by the president; the other side says that there were people in the crowd shooting president’s supporters first. Chavez remained on TV; RCTV (Radio Caracas Television) and Globovision decided to show what was going in the walk, but how did they do it? They divided the screen in two. One half shows Chavez speaking and the other side shows the walk, the shootings and the people running terrified in the street. Many people that were still at home decided to go out to join the protest.

Debating if the station was calling for violence could go forever. Some people will say that those images were the cause of all the killings that ended up happening; some others will say that Chavez was trying to hide what was happening by forcing the media to transmit his speech; or the antennas used to transmit the signals were shot down by the army. No matter what happened, Chavez was out of the power that night and back to power the next day.

Ever since, Chavez has been attacking both channels announcing that they don’t support democracy, and has been mentioning that he will take back their concessions because they belong to the government.

So while you decide who is right or who is wrong, I will just say that the owner and one of the most important figures of the remaining TV station (Globovision) has been called to justice. The government just issued a statement where they promise to re-evaluate all the remaining media concessions, they also said they are going to sue all the media that refers to last Sunday’s events as shutting down a TV station instead of saying that it was the end of a contract.

Democracy and freedom of speech go hand to hand. A democratic country needs to know that the two sides of the story available to everybody. The president’s job is to take care of his country and make it a better place to live for everyone there, for people who like him and for people who don’t. It’s Hugo Chavez’ job to make Venezuela go forward, not to make its people think like he does.

That TV station off the air means that there will be less people saying that other side of the story. The rest of stations remain out of trouble just not mentioning anything that could get president’s people mad. Today students are in the streets protesting for freedom of speech, there have been shootings, repression there and people in jail for supporting that TV station (182), things are not quiet, things are not cool, doesn’t look like a democracy.

Jose Luis Pardo plays guitar for Los Amigos Invisibles. The group’s last album, Super Pop Venezuela, was certified platinum in Venezuela and was nominated for Best Latin Alternative album at the 2006 Grammy Awards. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.