Maucker Leads IAPA Group To Study Venezuela Press Problems Ahead Of Vote

By: E&P Staff South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editor Earl Maucker is leading an international delegation of Inter American Press Association (IAPA) members to Venezuela Sunday to investigate the threat to press liberty posed by constitutional "reforms" proposed by President Hugo Chavez.

This will be the 10th "study mission" over concerns about threats to press freedom IAPA has sent to Venezuela since Chavez was first elected president in 1999.

The IAPA delegation arrives in Caracas two weeks before a Dec. 2 referendum on the sweeping constitutional changes, which would allow unlimited reelection of a president, put the Central Back under the president's sole authority, make nationalization of certain private property easier, and put the nation on a course towards "Bolivarian" or "21st century" socialism.

The controversial changes would also allow the president to declare an indefinite "state of exception" in which freedom of expression can be banned. In recent weeks, demonstrations by college students against the proposals have turned into violent confrontations with police.

Maucker, who became IAPA president last month, is leading a delegation including Gonzalo Marroquin, chairman of the IAPA's Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information and editor of Prensa Libre in Guatemala City; Enrique Santos, IAPA vice president and co-editor of El Tiempo in Bogota, Colombia; Edward Seaton, former IAPA president and editor of The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kansas; Alejandro Miro Quesada, a former IAPA president and editor of El Comercio in Lima, Peru; Bruce Brugmann, editor and co-owner of the San Francisco Bay Guardian; and Mark Fitzgerald, E&P's editor-at-large and a member of IAPA's board of directors.

The group also includes IAPA's Executive Director Julio E. Munoz, and Press Freedom Director Ricardo Trotti.

The group has scheduled meetings with individual journalists and representatives of press groups, human rights groups, and other non-governmental organizations. Among the groups it will meet is Journalists for Truth, an association of pro-government journalists.

"Once again we are here in Venezuela to demonstrate our solidarity with journalists and news media at a time when they are facing difficulties in carrying out their daily task of providing information to the Venezuelan people, and to request that in the constitutional reform process absolute guarantees be given that freedom of the press will exist in full," Maucker said in a prepared statement.

As in the past four trips to Venezuela, it appears that no official representative of the Chavez administration will meet with IAPA. Chavez has accused the Venezuelan IAPA members of encouraging his overthrow, and administration officials have disparaged it as agents of the Bush White House and other enemies of Bolivarian socialism. Venezuela's vice president once referred to IAPA as a "latrine."

Earlier this month, the first deputy speaker of the National Assembly urged the government to declare IAPA delegation personas non grata.

"The IAPA is not coming here for anything good, but rather to incite violence and to say there is no freedom of speech here," Desiree Santos Amaral said, according to press accounts.

Here is an English translation of the resolution:

"Whereas the Inter American Press Association is an organization consisting of owners of print media outlets in the hemisphere, and as such it defends the financial and business interests of its members;

"Whereas the IAPA does not defend the right of the people to be informed in a timely, accurate manner, but instead spreads lies and misinformation and justifies acts of censorship by publishers, which in fact does curtail freedom of speech;

"Whereas the IAPA and its allies, Reporters Without Borders, the Venezuelan Press Bloc, the IAB, and the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce for Radio and Television, have defended and protected actions contrary to the professionalism that responsible journalism requires.

"Whereas the IAPA, its members and its allies from privately held radio and television outlets have acted and continue to act as political factors in order to discredit the Bolivarian revolution, insult the Venezuelan people, and assault the prestige and credibility of President Hugo Chavez Frias.

"Whereas the IAPA has deliberately lied in each of its reports in order to lead people to believe that there is no freedom of speech in Venezuela.

"Whereas the IAPA has reiterated its intention to hold its midyear meeting in Venezuela in March 2008, and IAPA leaders have announced their plans to visit Venezuela in November 2007 as part of a new propaganda attack aimed at turning public opinion against the Bolivarian process;

" Resolves:

"1. To reiterate the repudiation of the National Assembly of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela of the report by the Inter American Press Committee [sic] issued at its 63rd General Assembly in Miami, Florida, because it once again tells lies about our country, distorts information, and attacks Venezuelan institutions and their sovereign decisions, in a despicable display of interventionism that we Venezuelans are not willing to tolerate.

"2. To denounce once again that IAPA-member owners of private media outlets in Venezuela and some radio and television outlets have been assuming a strictly political position that compromises balance and truth in the news as standards of ethical, responsible journalism, thereby undermining the right of the people to be informed in a timely, accurate manner.

"3. To urge the national executive branch to declare the IAPA's presence unwelcome in Venezuela, as its representatives are coming here to defame the president, the government, and its institutions, and we cannot accept this because it constitutes an attack on the Venezuelan people.

"4. To publicize this resolution."