IAPA: We're Going to Venezuela -- Whether Chavez Likes It Or Not

By: Mark Fitzgerald Leaders of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) insisted Saturday that the press freedom group will meet next year in Venezuela -- and they essentially dared President Hugo Chavez to stop them.

IAPA officials say that in the past months, several
hotels in Caracas, Maracaibo, and the resort Margarita
Island have agreed to be the venue for the mid-year
meeting scheduled for next March -- and all have
withdrawn their offers, giving the same excuses.

IAPA will meet in Venezuela even if the expected 300
delegates have to stay in the homes of journalists and
assemble in local schools, association leaders
declared at a press conference at the Intercontinental
Hotel in Miami. IAPA?s annual General Assembly kicks
off formally in Miami on Sunday.

The only way that IAPA will not meet is if the Chavez
government moves ?legally? to prevent the meeting by,
for example, denying visas to members, said
association President Rafael Molina, director of the
daily El Dia in the Dominican Republic.

?The main reason behind this press conference is to
insist we are not going to cease our efforts to meet
in Venezuela,? Molina said.

IAPA has clashed with the Chavez government repeatedly
during the Bolivarian president?s administration. It
accuses the government of systematically repressing
the media and free speech. IAPA has sent nine ?study
missions? to Venezuela during Chavez?s terms -- and
every time high-level government officials have
snubbed the group.

IAPA sees Chavez?s hand behind the hotel problem as
well. IAPA Executive Director Julio Munoz said the
owner of the hotel in Maracaibo that made and then
withdrew an offer to host the meeting told him the
hotel ?would be confiscated if the meeting? were held
there.

IAPA officials would not discuss contingency plans to
meet in any other nation if the logistics of gathering
in Venezuela proved impossible. They also dodged
questions about whether they had set a deadline for
deciding whether or not to go ahead with a Venezuelan
meeting.

?What we will not permit is for IAPA not to have its
mid-year meeting,? said Gonzalo Marroquin, editor of
the Guatemala City daily La Prensa, and head of IAPA?s
commission on free press and expression.

This was the first time that a democratic nation has
tried to prevent the group from meeting in its
country, Marroquin said. IAPA First Vice President
Earl Maucker, editor of the Sun-Sentinel in Fort
Lauderdale, Fla., noted that Cuba has repeatedly
rejected overtures to host an IAPA meeting. But at
least, he noted, Cuban government officials have
discussed the issue with IAPA representatives.