Labeled as a “closure” by its current president Marcel Granier, the measure is intended to “tidy up" the Venezuelan media, as stated by the Venezuelan government and many apologists in editorials, forums and public demonstrations ... principally based on RCTV's role in the unsuccessful April 11, 2002, coup d'etat against President Hugo Chavez (with its menu of highly anti-government political advertising and propaganda, which instigated and supported the violent overthrow) as well as its “inadequate programming for Venezuelan children and families,” i.e. full of sexually explicit program content, violence, and vulgarity.

What seems strange to many Venezuelans is the fact that all of the privately-owned TV channels display the same sorry profile as RCTV, but only the latter will be sanctioned with the withdrawal of the use concession or broadcasting permission.

Why this double standard?

Beyond the fact the other privately-owned TV channels still have permission to air their programming (at least until their concessions expire many decades hence!) it is worth asking ourselves why Venezuelan children and their families have to endure such kind of shows and misinformation, given the fact that they also participated in the April 11, 2002 coup?

To understand these and other contradictions within the Bolivarian Venezuelan Government I'm showing all our readers some detailed facts and data that I am sure they don’t and will not find in any Venezuelan or international media; only on the Internet and then only in Spanish.

* For instance, RCTV, originally named Broadcasting Caracas TV, was founded by Venezuela-born William H. Phelps Jr., the son of a New York ornithologist who emigrated to this South American country at the end of the 19th Century.

Currently, RCTV is part of the 1BC Group (1 Broadcasting Caracas), whose main shareholders are Peter Bottome and Dorothy Phelps ... one of Phelps Jr.’s daughters and the wife of Venezuela-born Marcel Granier, who himself owns something like 3 to 7% of the company shares and really acts as their employee.

On the other hand, Lorenzo Mendoza, owner of Grupo Polar (the biggest food and brewing company in Venezuela, including Cerveza Polar-Beer and Pepsi Cola) is indirectly associated with 1BC and RCTV given their commercial links and regular public meetings. Grupo Polar is well-remembered in Venezuela (especially among the poor) for its participation in the December 2002-January 2003 lock-out and the resultant shortages of food products which formed part of the sabotage directed at ousting Chavez after the April 2002 coup fiasco.

Grupo Polar and 1BC are also archenemies of the Cisneros Group, owned by Cuban-Venezuelan Gustavo Cisneros (close friend of the Rockefeller family), an industrial and media conglomerate that includes Venezuelan TV channel Venevision, Caracol TV (Colombia), Univision, (USA), Playboy TV Latin America (among other pay TV channels), Claxson (a group of Radio and TV stations in Chile and Uruguay), Directv Latin America, Blockbuster Puerto Rico, Cerveceria Regional (brewing), Panamco Coca-Cola, Americatel, and undisclosed mining operations.

Gustavo Cisneros is married to Patricia Phelps, the other daughter of Phelps Jr ... that means that the commercial rivals are concuñados (spouse of one's own spouse's brother or sister), making the plot even more weird.

On perusing these profiles one begins to ask who is the real power in Venezuela ... and why Chavez and his government are having so many problems to develop their politics, much less to wonder if these classical capitalist elitists in permanent conflict with each other are going to give up their privileges and power to the New Socialism of the 21st Century.

All the moreso when Chavez calls Cisneros a Capo (italian mob chief) and fingers him as the leader of the 2002 coup ... until they met weeks before the 2004 presidential recall referendum, under the sponsorship of former US president Jimmy Carter at the Defense HQ (Fuerte Tiuna) in Caracas. Many people in Venezuela now question if, after that meeting, the relationship between Cisneros and Chavez has changed and that many other things were decided ... including the fate of their now common rival the 1BC Group.

It's chilling to think of a pact or a truce between them, turning their backs on the people, especially when we remember that the cover of Exceso magazine (published April 1, 2002) showed Gustavo Cisneros wearing the Presidential sash with the colors of the Venezuelan Flag and carried a 10-page report about his private and corporate life heralding him as a “trukt successful businessman” with many powerful influences ... including a picture with George Bush Senior fishing from his private yacht in the Venezuelan Caribbean archipelago Los Roques and with ex-President Carlos Andres Perez awarding him the Order of Simon Bolivar (the highest distinction given by the Republic of Venezuela).

* It’s more terrifying when we read that Cisneros attended Carlos Slim’s secret meeting of the 30 richest Latin American Billionaires in May 2003 , and we know that Slim tried to buy Venezuela’s phone company CANTV before Chavez bought it from US Verizon.

We also know that the Cisneros family was implicated in drug-trafficking and money laundering all over Latin America according to a book written by Lyndon H. LaRouche in 1985 entitled “Narcotrafico S.A.” showing that the sleazy “reputation” of this man goes beyond his current behavior and interests.

In 2006, Lorenzo Mendoza overtook Gustavo Cisneros as the 3rd richest Latin American Billionaire (according to Forbes Magazine), adding more fuel to the true economic debate in Venezuela ... the one that determines the political, social and cultural debate, without which it's impossible to know the truth about the Bolivarian Revolution and "The Chavez Phenomenon.”

Today, RCTV and Globovision (owned by Lebanese-Venezuelan banker Nelson Mezherane and Venezuelan Zuloaga business family) are Venezuela’s No.1 Public Enemies, while Venevision and Televen (owned by Venezuelan businessman Omar Camero) -- all of a sudden -- are not being demonized by Chavez and the state-owned media ... allegedly because “they have tempered their news and opinion shows content.”

* They have been blessed and welcomed into this 'born-again' socialist country, forgetting their political antecedents and their current role in the alienation and moral decay of the Venezuelan people, especially its youth.

The latest evidence of this public sackcloth and ashes re-styling is the re-broadcasting of ABC Barbara Walters' interview with President Hugo Chavez by Cisnero’s Venevision and Camero’s Televen ... together with state-owned Venezolana de Television and Vive TV last night.

* Is that enough to wipe a coup and oil sabotage and industrial lock-out out of the memories of the Venezuelan people, with all the associated deaths, economic damage and dissatisfaction?

* Why should RCTV uniquely be denied a renewal of its concession to broadcast?

* Will Cisneros and Venevision keep the newly "tempered" programming if the upcoming constitutional reform affects his/their economic interests?

* Or is it perhaps that this reform does not affect the Cisneros Group at all, thus keeping them peacefully undisturbed?

Let’s see who really is going to keep the broadcasting concession permanently removed from RCTV and 1BC Group from all of those that are anxiously waiting to show Chavez how to make a “decent and modern cultural and educative television.”

The Bolivarian Republic (“to create a new type of television for the people,” as stated by Information Minister Willian Lara) ... or another (old or new) private media group?

OR is it simply how to keep making good profits out of the minds of Venezuela's new, young, socialists.

Jesus Nery Barrios
 jesus@vheadline.com