Venezuelan Authorities Reject Editor's Claim of Censorship
Caracas, December 13, 2007, (venezuelanalysis.com) - In a joint statement issued on Wednesday, Venezuelan Finance Minister, Rodrigo Cabezas and Communications Minister William Lara, rejected as "slander", claims by editor and publisher David Natera, that his regional daily, Correo del Caroni, is being forced out of print. Natera denounced the situation as a "politically motivated" failure of the government to grant access to U.S. dollars it needs to import news print.
Since 2003, the Venezuelan government has maintained foreign currency exchange restrictions in order to prevent capital flight. Natera claimed that Correo del Caroni was going out of circulation, "because the regime of Chavez has refused dollars to the company DIPALCA, that they know is the importer of Chilean newsprint, that we have used exclusively for the printing of this daily for many years."
However, Cabezas and Lara said that CADIVI, the government commission that handles foreign currency requests, had assigned US$ 82 million for importing newsprint in 2007, up from US$ 76.3 million in 2006, an increase of 8 percent.
DIPALCA, which supplies Correo del Caroni, has received US$20.3 million since currency controls were imposed in 2003, of which US$ 5.4 million has been assigned to them this year. This is equivalent to 6.62 percent of dollars assigned to importing newsprint for the press in 2007, the two ministers said.
The ministers dismissed Natera's allegations that the government is using currency controls as a "political weapon" pointing out that DIPALCA not only supplies newsprint to Correo del Caroni, but also many other newspapers, including the pro-government daily, Diario VEA.
DIPALCA assured yesterday that it has imported more newsprint which it will distribute in the next few days, and said that it had had problems with its inventories, which combined with increased demand for newsprint on a world wide level, had affected its operating circumstances.
Dagoberto Romer, president of DILPACA also expressed his satisfaction with his dealings with CADIVI and confirmed that DIPALCA currently has only six written requests for newsprint, three which were only received on Tuesday and are still pending, and another three which have just been approved through the "regular procedure."
Manuel Barroso, head of CADIVI also denied Natera's allegations; however, he admitted that due to increased demand for dollars in the lead up to Christmas which caused a breakdown in CADIVI's website, the government commission had had problems processing requests in the past week.
Reporters Without Borders, which receives funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the International Republican Institute, (which are in turn funded by U.S Congress), said, "We hope that exchange controls, like the allocation of state advertising, has not been turned into a way of penalizing publications for their editorial policies."
Similarly, Gonzalo Marroquín, from the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), said "We are deeply concerned that a daily newspaper has to discontinue publication of its print edition not because of economic issues, but because of the existence of a government-imposed regime of exchange control."
However, Richard Auda from the Venezuelan based group Reporters for the Truth said Natera's allegations "that there is a strategy to close the paper down" were unfounded, "the truth is" Auda argued, that Correo del Caroni, which owes DIDALCA money, "did not take sufficient steps" to ensure supply.
Natera is the chairperson of the Venezuelan Press Block, which groups more than 40 private national and regional newspapers politically aligned with the Venezuelan opposition.
"The attitude of the owner of the daily Correo del Coroni, is nothing more than the ratification of his opposition to the government, using the means of communication that is his property, not to inform, but rather as a political instrument," Lara and Cabezas said.
Ministers Lara and Cabezas said, Natera's "campaign of lies" aims to "generate an ill-intentioned matrix of opinion internally and internationally in relation to freedom of expression and information," in Venezuela.
However, the statement concluded, "The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ratifies its commitment, loyalty and defence of the constitutional principles in articles 57 and 58 of our Constitution. Both guarantee the right of all Venezuelans to express freely their thoughts, ideas and opinions without any type of censorship, to free and plural communication and timely, true and impartial information."
The majority of Venezuela's print, radio and television media outlets are privately owned and many put forward an anti-government line.
