CINA

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Now three days after the end of the G8 "summit" it's time to have a (provisional) summary..

First of all: everyone is claiming now "victory" for him self. The state "leaders" of (the) seven industry countries (plus Russia), the protest movement (but not all!!) and the German police.

In many occasions CNN (int'l TV), for example, called the G8 "summit" just a "get-together". And that's reflecting just the reality. The G8 "summit" has definetely NO ASSIGNMENT, not at all!
So it also can't be successfull (except in spending a lot of public money and - simply said - annoying their opponents).

It's complete ridicolous when the opponents of the G8 are demanding any "positive" decision.. "You can't say on one side that the G8 isn't legitimized to make any decision but than to say that they have to make decisions..", so D. Cohn-Bendit (Der Tagesspiegel, 6.10). But despite this fact now the "left", especially in Germany is discussing about the possible results of the G8 "summit"..

But for a majority of the protestors - or better just their representatives - the entire week in Rostock/Heiligendamm was a absolute success. In complete self-delusion the "Interventional Left" - one of the main organisers of the protests - is declaring: "The G8 is on its end!" And summarizing: "The protest was a party/celebration of the globalization-critically movement"..

Until now actually there are no public discussions in the "left" about the results for the movement, only internally there are some "battles".. But for many on the more radical side (of the left) the reformist side (attac, Interventional Left, Block G8, Dissent!network..) - for now - could fortify its position. At least in the sight of the bourgeois media. They lost no opportunity to "tell the world" about their "peacefull struggle against the G8.." and delineate themself from the "radicals".. Harrharr on the other side for the preparing of the protests they published - for example - following stuff:

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Twenty years after the beginning of the "final" (mass) struggle for democracy - until now just the bourgeois "democracy" was/is achieved, i.e. still "the almighty of the capital" (K. Marx) is ruling  - in S. Korea..
The "left"-liberal daily newspaper Hankyoreh (6.08) is analysing the previous results:

A look at South Korean society, 20 years

after democracy

The massive pro-democracy movements which took place across South Korea in June 1987 led activists to step up their struggle for greater human and labor rights. Declarations and statements issued, especially during the intense period of demonstrations between July and December following June's successful fight for constitutional revision to allow for free elections, contained the demands of students, laborers, farmers, and other citizens who had been suffering under Korea's decades-long military dictatorships.

Twenty years after resistance and struggles, how many of these dreams for a better society have been achieved? Indices for sectors including politics, the economy, and social issues give a glimpse into what Korea's 1987 pro-democracy movement and laborers' struggle accomplished, and what remains unfulfilled.

Economy

During the 20 years since democracy, South Korea's economy has seen an astronomical rise, with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per annum jumping from US$140 billion to $887.4 billion, a sixfold increase. Individual income has increased fivefold over the same period. However, inequality in income distribution - specifically, the household income of an urban worker - has seen a series of fluctuations. This is measured using the Gini coefficient, a statistical measure of how 'equal' or 'unequal' a society's income distribution; the closer the coefficient is to 0.0, the more equal a country's income distribution; conversely, a score approaching 1.0 means near total inequality, with income concentrated in the top socioeconomic echelon of society. In 1987, South Korea's Gini coefficient was 0.31, which dropped to 0.28 by 1997, a sign that income had become more evenly distributed. This shows growth and distribution were achieved at the same time because of high economic growth and actual wage growth. However, 1997 was also the year that the Asian financial crisis dealt South Korea a crushing blow, and by 2006, the Gini coefficient had risen again to 0.31, back where it was in 1987. During the period between 1997 and 2006, Korea's economic size grew to around $800 billion from $500 billion, while distribution dropped.

Social welfare

The nation's social welfare spending has grown 18.3 percent annually for the past 13 years, and the percentage of such spending out of GDP has increased about twofold. Nevertheless, Korea's social welfare spending as a GDP percentage is about half that of the U.S. and Japan, and about a third of the European average. The percentage of those receiving public pension among persons aged 65 or over has increased by a factor of 12 over the last 16 years to 13.9 percent in 2004. However, the corresponding figure is 60-70 percent on average in advanced European countries. Despite rapid growth in welfare spending since 1987, all types of indices show that Korea's welfare standard has a long way to go.

Education

Most would contend that the educational sector has changed for the worse over the past two decades. The burden of private tutoring expenses for parents is growing daily, as students as young as elementary school age pack into after school cram academies until late at night in order to prepare for fierce competition with their peers for spots at top universities. This ever-growing competition means students' minimum human rights are being ignored. Neoliberal educational policies centering on competition, which have been pushed ahead with under the pretense of reform, have worsened the situation. One case in point is former president Kim Young-sam administration's May 31, 1995 reform plan, which was evaluated as an attempt to introduce more fierce competition to the national education system under the pretext of strengthening students' global competitiveness. The ideology of efficiency and competition gained greater momentum during the Kim Dae-jung and incumbent Roh Moo-hyun administrations, and is now affecting students even at the kindergarten and elementary school levels. In addition, as so called "special-purpose" magnet high schools have increased in number, with parents scrambling to get their children into what is rumored to be a sure ticket to a top university, the overall quality of education has declined, and university admissions thus depend more and more on parents' socioeconomic status. The 'polarization of education' is indeed intensifying.

However, positive changes have occurred, as well. Improvements have been made to educational conditions, such as the number of students per classroom. This figure used to be 60-70 students per room on average in the early 1980s, but had dropped to about 30 per classroom on average as of last year.

Human rights

The number of prisoners of conscience in South Korea has been on the decline, a result not of reform of related laws and regulations, but by people's broadened awareness of the issue of human rights. The social atmosphere in South Korea is now such that judicial or police authorities cannot detain people at will, as they did in the past. Yet problems regarding draconian laws such as the National Security Law have not been fundamentally solved, so the nation still imposes punishment in cases where their legal action could be seen as a violation of basic human rights, such as freedom of speech or conscience, all of which are guaranteed by the Constitution. The application of the notorious National Security Law in several recent cases of policing content on the Internet is tantamount to punishing free thinking in 2007 via a law dating from 1948.

Labor

Union membership reached an apex in 1989 with 19.8 percent of all workers participating in some sort of labor organization, but has shown a downward trend since, recording around a 12-percent rate between 1997 to 2001 and 10.3 percent in 2005, the last figure a 48-percent drop from 1989's figures. As far as sheer population figures, the number of unionists decreased from 1.93 million in 1989 to 1.5 million in 2005, a 22.3-percent drop. The percentage of earned (labor) income out of total national income fell from 63.1 percent in 1996 to 58.2 percent in 2002 and then went back up to 61.4 percent in 2006, still below the figures recorded before the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. The wage disparity of the lower 10 percent of earners versus upper 10 percent rose to a factor of 5.4 in 2006 from 4.8 in 2001, meaning that wages for the top decile of earners were nearly five-and-a-half times greater than those of the lowest decile of earners, a factor higher than that seen in the United States, whose wage disparity is the most serious among Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) members. South Korea also held a dubious first place in terms of abuse and discrimination against part-time and short-term contract workers among OECD members. While the unemployment rate is comparably low and real wages have increased, the quality of employment and structure of income redistribution leave a great deal to be desired.

Journalism

The number of newspapers and periodicals has increased by 6.5 times and 3.5 times, respectively, since 1987, a sign that freedom of speech has improved overall. However, while government influence on the media has diminished, advertisers and media owners have stepped in in its place. This is due to intensified competition stemming from the increasing number of media companies and the ever-strengthening influence of advertisers, such as business conglomerates, or jaebeol. The Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s aggravated such a tendency. In addition, worsening management at newspapers and other media companies has caused restructuring and fall of wages there. Journalists are increasingly giving in to pressure from media company owners as well as self-censorship, rather than considering the readers they are meant to reach.

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/214664.html

More about the issue I'll write likely later..

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Following some (WITHOUT - nearly - any of my comments^^) articles, reports, pics..

..by indymedia.de:

☞ 'This Is A Great Party'

☞ G-8 Protesters Block Roads to Summit

☞ G-8 Protesters Gear Up for Day Two of Blockades

☞ 15 Police Officers Against 5,000 Demonstrators

☞ Photo Gallery: Demonstrators Outfox Police at Heiligendamm

☞ G8 "summit", the first day in pictures (incl. many pics from the protests/German subtitles)

That's not one of my ("sensible"^^) comments:

Today afternoon: The 'Alternative Summit' - "A. Merkel is a bitch" (not literally..^^). The organisers of today's concert 'Your Voice Against Poverty': "A. Merkel.. she's soo sweet" (eeh~ f. them all!!). And A. Merkel on the German press conference: "Eeh~ bla, bla, bla..."

THAT'S JUST THE F.. REALITY!! (sorry!!)

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..40 years of failure (Guardian/UK, 6.05)

The world was gripped by Israel's swift triumph in 1967. But today the bitter conflict with the Palestinians seems more intractable than ever

It was Moshe Dayan, the hero of Israel's 1967 victory, who set the tone for what was to follow: "We are waiting for a telephone call," the one-eyed general said disdainfully as the frontline Arab states - Egypt, Jordan and Syria - reeled from their crushing defeat. Of the Palestinians - the newly conquered population of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip - little was said at the time. But the six-day war put them back at centre stage in their conflict with Israel. They have stayed there ever since.
"Rarely has so short and localised a conflict had such prolonged, global consequences," commented the historian Michael Oren. "Seldom has the world's attention been gripped, and remained seized, by a single event and its ramifications." Israel's triumph, someone else observed wisely, was "a cursed blessing".

Perceptions have changed so much in 40 years that it is hard now to recapture the sympathy that was felt for Israel as Egypt mobilised, and residents of Tel Aviv filled sandbags. If the country's leaders talked emotively about the vulnerable "Auschwitz borders" left after their 1948 war of independence, blood-curdling Arab rhetoric bolstered the image of Israel as the underdog.

But little David, just 19 that May, was rapidly to become a lumbering Goliath. As euphoric Israelis thronged across Jordanian lines to Jerusalem's Old City and marvelled at its Jewish and Muslim holy places, a little-known guerrilla commander named Yasser Arafat fled Ramallah and Palestinians adjusted to a new reality of curfews, informers and military occupation.

And it is that occupation, now as then, that stands at the heart of the conflict between two peoples engaged in a vicious, primordial - and utterly unequal - struggle over one small land. It has taken a terrible toll.

For Palestinians, 1967 was an extension of what began in Ottoman times, before they were a nation in the modern sense, when - half a century before the Nazi Holocaust - Zionists called for "solving" the Jewish problem in "a land without a people for a people without a land". If 1948 was their first nakba (catastrophe), the June war was the next devastating instalment.

It will long be debated whether Israel missed an early opportunity for peace. But the war reignited the dormant debate about the territorial limits of Zionism, fatefully fusing religion, nationalism and security. It produced no strategy for turning military supremacy into a tool to change relations with the Arab world.

"The truth of the matter was that when the Arabs finally called, Israel's line was either busy or there was no one on the Israeli side to pick up the phone," the Israeli scholar Shlomo Ben-Ami wrote later of Dayan's laconic quip.

Israel seemed to care less about peace than territory. It insisted that what it simultaneously called the "administered territories" and "Judea and Samaria" (the Hebrew names for the West Bank) were up for negotiation. (Unlike East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights, they were never annexed.) But the creation of "facts on the ground" gradually erased the old green line border, and nowhere more completely than around Jerusalem. The result - which some call apartheid - is 450,000 Jews living with full democratic rights in 125 settlements amidst 2.5 million Arabs under illegal occupation.

The wars of 1973 and 1982 and the return of Sinai to Egypt changed nothing on that central Palestinian front. Israel's "liberal occupation" - a flattering self-image that won wide international acceptance - did not outlive the 20th anniversary of the six-day war. The first intifada - the largely peaceful "war of stones" that erupted in 1987 - did more for the Palestinians than two decades of "terrorism" or "armed struggle," reminding the world, and growing numbers of Israelis, that a settlement had to address their demands.

Yitzhak Rabin's recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) at Oslo was a historic turning-point. But Rabin and Arafat could not translate their "peace of the brave" into a workable final deal. The Islamist movement Hamas, which rejected the legitimacy of Israel even in its pre-67 borders, pioneered suicide bombings and got the Likud's Binyamin Netanyahu elected. The militarised second intifada was the disastrous result.

Netanyahu was right about one thing: the Middle East is a "tough neighbourhood," as he famously remarked. It has got a lot tougher. Today there is a generation of Palestinians who have known nothing but occupation and a generation of Israelis who have experienced only dominance and repression of the Palestinians. As the Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz pointed out, justice and occupation are not compatible. Both societies have been traumatised and brutalised.

Israel has its "separation wall," built to keep bombers away from its restaurants and shopping malls but perceived as another land grab. Palestinian workers have been replaced by Chinese and Filipinos. But its military superiority has not created the security and normality it craves. Gaza - unilaterally abandoned by Ariel Sharon - has become a vast prison, a global byword for misery, desperation and anarchy, a cruel parody of the freedom the Palestinians yearn for.

Pessimists believe too much water and blood have flown down the Jordan in these 40 years, that these changes are irreversible, that this is a land that can now be neither shared peacefully nor divided.

Optimists point out that time has not stood still. Egypt and Jordan have made peace with Israel, with realism if not joy. Syria (and Lebanon) will follow suit if Israel returns the Golan. March's summit in Saudi Arabia confirmed peace as the "strategic choice" of the entire Arab League, a far cry from the three noes - to peace, to recognition and to negotiation - of the Khartoum conference in September 1967. Mayhem in Iraq, jihadist fanaticism and Iranian ambitions are all part of the new geostrategic equation.

Still, the Palestinians remain at centre stage. A solution for the refugees is vital; so are the interlinked questions of Jerusalem, borders and a viable, independent state. Even Hamas claims it will settle for the pre-1967 lines, as it fires rockets - legitimate "resistance," it insists - across them. Much depends on whether it will learn to act pragmatically like the PLO before it: engagement is more likely to encourage that than isolation. Israel's acceptance as part of the Middle East is at stake.

Majorities on both sides say they want peace but few believe it is attainable. It has all been discussed countless times in the last four decades. It all still looks impossibly hard to achieve.

A kind of collection of articles/reports, incl. contributions by Olmert (Israel), Haniyeh (Palestine/Hamas), pictures and some interactive stuff you can check out here:

☞ ..six-day war, 40 years on (Guardian, incl. a lot of stuff..)

☞ Israel's Phyrric Victory (Der Spiegel/D)

☞ Yedioth Ahronoth Special (Israeli bourgeois propaganda)

☞ Haaretz Special (Israeli "left-liberal"..)

☞ Abbas sees Palestinians on brink of civil war (IHT)

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Now, three days after the "incident" in Rostock - the bourgeois media was/is calling it "Beginning of the civil war" - and just hours before the next main protests it should be a time to think how it came to such a situation/what was the reason why..

Already Saturday after the demo/"battle" I had several discussions with other (militant) activists and I came to the conclusion that it was/is just an extreme expression of a deep frustration, caused by different factors:

-> First of all, no doubt, the state repression against the militant left in the weeks before the g8 protests was/is one of the main factors.. But this is definetely not everything..

-> Many of the "militants" (i.e. activists of the so-called "black block") had to found out that there is NO "united" g8 protest movement. Unfortunately it tooks about two years (the time of preparation) for them to find out that the majority of the "movement" want to have just  a more "human" capitalism.. Only a really small minority (and even this minority is complete without any influence in the society..) wants a "regime change". Actually many of the "g8 protestors" now are complaining that the militants had destroyed their "beautiful, colorful party"..

-> On the other side the ruling class in the last weeks was getting closer and closer to the "protest mevement". For example H. Geissler, the former secretary general of the ruling (conservative) Christian Democratic Party (CDU) became just some days ago a member of Attac, one of the main/leading groups in the g8 "protest movement"..

-> For many of the militant activists it would be no miracle if the g8 summit would also adopt the motto "Another World Is Possible"..

-> In fact for many it became clear that (large parts of) the "anti-g8 movement" and the g8 are just "the two faces of the same coin/medal"..

AND NOW:
Attac: "We don't want to see them (the militants/the "black block") anymore on our demonstrations", they told the bourgeois media..
Die Linke/The Left(좌파당): "We are really outraged.." (of course just about the "black block's" activities..)

"Like war", so the BZ - mass circulation/yellow press - in Berlin

The bourgeoisie: "We need rubber bullets.." "Anti-Terror units against the 'black block'!!".. etc..

☞ G8 TV

☞ Pictures

Please read also:

☞ Rostock: Who’s at Fault?

(indymedia.de/BTW.. in my opinion: it's not the problem who "took the first stone"!!)

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When you read following article, published in yesterday's Observer (UK), you simply can come to the conclusion that the Lebanese Army is preparing for a massacre/blood bath in Nahr el-Bared refugee camp. And meanwhile, since last night, the clashes spread to a second refugee camp, Ain el-Hilweh(*).

Ain el-Hilweh this morning,

attacked by the Lebanese Army

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6.02, Rostock: The First Main Anti-G8 Protest

"In the run-up to the G8 Summit next week, tens of thousands of anti-G8 protesters, with several thousands on the Black Bloc alone, took part in the international demonstration in Rostock on 2 June, 2007. With colourful banners and puppets, protesters of different backgrounds tried to draw attention to the bigger problem of capitalism and the 'empire'. Police was very aggressive and provocative, using batons, water cannons and tear gas, not only against the 'bad protestors' but 'normal' ones as well. Violent confrontations were taking place while, on stage, the concert and speeches were trying to continue. Over 100 people were arrested and many injured on both sides" (indymedia Germany)

Well, it seems that yesterday's initial phase - the mass demonstration in the north-eastern German city Rostock under the motto "Another World is Possible" (*/what a surprise!!^^) - against the coming G8 Summit was a "full success" for nearly everyone, except the anti-G8/anti-capitalist movement (eh, is there any in Germany? I really don't know..)

First of all: the organisers of the demo expected 100,000 demonstrators, but only 50,000 people participated. So, it was not a success, not really..

But for the other side of the barricade it was successful: The permanently provocations by the cops before and during that day - only few hours before 150 anti-fascist demonstrators were arrested in Schwerin (a city also in the north-east of Germnany) - were leading to the expected result: some kind of street battles. Finally the proof that the 100 million Euro for the "security measures" are definitive necessary..

The (mainly) bourgeois media got their pictures/reports about "violent anti-g8 demonstrations"..

And last but not least it was a "giant bussines" for the multi-national companies, such as McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut.. Because "thousands of hungry protestors"..(^^) 

☞ The Rumble in Rostock (Der Spiegel, incl. video)

☞ German City Rocked by Violent Riots 

☞ G-8-Demo in Rostock, pictures (Die Welt, reactionary German daily..)

☞ "Photo Gallery" (incl. f****** Engl. subtitles, Der Spiegel)

For more informations, reports, videos..

☞ Rostock: Tens of thousands protest.. (indymedia Germany)

☞ GipfelSoli Information Group

* Unfortunately(harrharr..) the majority of the demonstrators and of course the organisers of the demo just want a more "human"/"beautiful" capitalism, according to the first speeches of the finishing rally..

*****

BTW.. 15 years ago the residents (of course not everyone) of Rostock joined (or at least applauded) the racial attacks against migrant workers/refugees in R.-Lichtenhagen  

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Especially the German bourgeois media is writing about the - in fact - senselessness of the G8 Summit. Actually it's just a show event of the "leaders" of the "leading" industry countries (plus Russia) - without any result. Except, according to a guest comment in yesterday's Der Spiegel (THE German "leading" bourgeois magazine), that the G8 will try to strengthen the front against the "developing 'power' China" ("The western industry nations are seeing China's boom as an attack against their own supremacy and fearing a World War about/for prosperity - what they only can lose", so today's Berliner Zeitung).

Of course another result will be the increasing repression against the anti-capitalist movement, especially in the days before and during the summit. And last but not least the excessive increasing of security measures and together with it the massive waste of public finances (the money of the "ordinary" tax payers).

Alone the "security fence/wall" around the Heiligendamm costs 12 million Euro (about 15 billion Won). The entire "security measures", incl. 17,000 cops, 1,100 heavy armed soldiers, US Navy war ships etc.. will cost at least 100 million Euro (around 125,000,000,000 Won^^) - for only a three-day "event"!!

Preparation for a "civil war"?

Anyway.. About the latest developments Der Spiegel published in the last two days following:

Security Tightens as G-8 Summit Approaches

With just a week left before the G-8 summit in Heiligendamm in northern Germany, authorities are ratcheting up security precautions. On Wednesday, the razor-wire fence surrounding the venue was closed. But criticism of German authorities for their draconian security measure remains intense.

Even as foreign ministers from G-8 countries are meeting in Potsdam with their counterparts from Afghanistan and Pakistan on Wednesday, security along the Baltic Sea coast continues to get tighter. At 7 a.m. on Wednesday morning, police officially closed off public access to the seaside resort of Heiligendamm where the G-8 meeting of leaders from eight of the world's most economically powerful countries is to take place next week from June 6-8.

The early lockdown is part of an elaborate security strategy being pursued by the Germans to ensure that protests against the G-8 summit -- to be attended by Britain, Germany, Italy, the United States, Russia, France, Japan, and Canada -- don't get out of hand as they have in the past. Authorities have built a 12-kilometer long, 2.5 meter tall, razor-wire fence around the resort at a cost of some €12.5 million ($17 million) and only residents and those on official business will be allowed inside starting Wednesday.

Additionally, the coast in front of the resort will be patrolled by warships and all other boats are banned from the area.

German officials have been heavily criticized for their security strategy ahead of the summit meeting. Not only have demonstrations been banned near the site of the meeting, but police have been making headlines recently for a number of seemingly invasive tactics. Earlier this month it was revealed that the police were collecting odor samples (more...) from anti-globalization activists so that dogs could identify them more easily at demonstrations. Last week, it came out that investigators were opening mail addressed to anti-G-8 groups in Hamburg.

On Wednesday, the mass-circulation tabloid Bild reported that German politicians were considering confiscating the driver's licenses of protesters should they participate in violence. "I have nothing against peaceful demonstrations," conservative Christian Social Union politician Renate Blank told Bild. "But if it becomes violent, then courts have to also be able to ban people from driving."

A number of pre-G-8 protests have already descended into violence. On Monday evening in Hamburg, a 5,000-person-strong protest against the ASEM summit of Asian and European foreign ministers got out of hand as police cars were destroyed and barricades had to be erected in the streets. Earlier this month, another protest in Hamburg likewise turned ugly following police raids on the offices and apartments of violence-prone left-wing activists...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,485609,00.html

Related:

☞ Anxious Locals Proving Good Neighbors as Activists Move In (Der Spiegel)

☞ A Protest Culture Attempts to Reawaken Itself

☞ ABC-Waffen sollen G-8-Demos verhindern ("interview"^^, Die Welt)

☞ An Interactive Map of the Summit Site: World Leaders Fenced In

For latest news/informations:

☞ G8 Protests Timeline (indymedia Germany)

BTW.. if you don't know so far: It's absolute possible (^^) to make "good business" (aka maximum profit) in the name of "Another World (is Possible)":

"Bionade - The Official Drink of a Better World" (German commercial)

^^ With the "alternative" (the brand new) capitalism against the "old-school"

and the new (aka neoliberalism) capitalism!!^^

*****

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Following interesting (because it's a kind of objective, in my opinion..) article about the latest developments in Venezuela was published yesterday in the German bourgeois ("To fight your enemy you must study him/her", Lenin!!^^) magazine Der Spiegel:

REMOTE CONTROL "SOCIALISM"
Chavez on Every Channel

For Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, television is the ultimate instrument of power. Now, despite every protest, he has let the license expire for RCTV, a private station that has long been critical of the government. The country's last remaining opposition channel must now fear for its future, too.

Using water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets, the police used brute force against the close to 5,000 protesters. They had gathered on Monday to protest the shutdown of private TV channel Radio Caracas Television (RCTV), which had been critical of the government. Afterwards, small groups of demonstrators engaged in skirmishes with the police in several locations in the Venezuelan capital. At least three demonstrators and one policeman were injured.

"'Socialism' of the 21st Century" in action
5.29, Caracas: Riot cops - or simply death squats(??) - against protestors

Protests also occurred in the university town of Valencia on Monday. Four students were injured. At the protest rally in Caracas, RCTV anchorman Miguel Angel Rodriguez called out: "They will not silence us!" But the new public TV channel Tves was already broadcasting on RCTV's former frequency by then.

Venezuela's new public television channel Tves went on the air at 01:50 a.m. with a weighty historical movie: "Bolivar eterno" ("Eternal Bolivar") was the title of the mammoth work on South America's liberator. The show was produced last year by the Villa del Cine foundation, created by President Hugo Chavez in order to battle the "dictatorship of Hollywood." The show was followed by a morning workout program (07:00 a.m.), a documentary film on an expedition to Greenland (09:36 a.m.) and a brief seven-minute portrait of a cattle breeder (10:30 a.m.).

Though ratings haven't been released, it seems likely fewer people tuned in than had watched the soap operas on the private RCTV channel, which previously broadcasted on Tves's frequency. Its license expired on Sunday night. The channel's stars and starlets sang the national hymn with tears in their eyes during the final minutes before closing down. Then a giant "Fin" ("The End") flickered across the screen before it went black. Shortly thereafter, Tves began broadcasting.

The Inter American Press Association (SIP) criticized the Venezuelan government's refusal to extend RCTV's license as a blow against freedom of the press. The European Union also criticized the muzzle placed on the private channel, noted for its criticism of the government.

The action taken against RCTV represents yet another step in Venezuela's shift towards authoritarianism. When Chavez was first elected in 1999, the government controlled only one TV channel and two radio stations. Today it controls four government-owned TV channels, including the international news channel Telesur, and seven radio stations.

Chavez cherishes television as an instrument of rule, and he's on the air almost daily with his own program "Aló Presidente." The "socialism of the 21st century" he wants to implement works by remote control: Zap through the channels in Caracas and you'll always see the president's face somewhere. Each of the state leader's public appearances is broadcast live on the state channels. Those who miss out on his golden words can make up for the lapse by tuning in to one of the numerous rebroadcasts.

Private Channels as Propaganda Weapons

But the private channels aren't exactly bastions of independent journalism either. The two largest channels RCTV and Globovisión are abused by their owners as political and propaganda weapons against the government. Those in Venezuela who want to inform themselves about the political situation have to tune in to CNN en Español or the BBC over the Internet. No channel that is independent and critical of both sides exists in the country. Indeed, the media are as divided as Venezuela itself: Either you're for the president or you're against him.

Chavez has settled an old score by with the blow dealt to RCTV. The channel supported a putsch against him five years ago. The tradition-rich channel, whose earnings came mainly from its telenovelas, sided with the businessmen and military officers who had planned the coup d'etat.

When Chavez returned triumphantly into the presidential palace 48 hours later, the channel's days were already numbered. While Chavez chose not to close RCTV down, he never minced his words about his decision not to renew the channel's license beyond 2007. RCTV refused to be intimidated by the threats: On the orders of Marcel Granier, the channel's director and now self-styled frontline fighter for freedom of the press, RCTV's journalists engaged in vitriolic attacks against the president every day.

Cooperation with Capitalist Media Moguls

Generally speaking, Chavez doesn't really have a problem with capitalist media moguls -- that is, as long as they're not hostile to him. Chavez has reached a kind of silent handshake agreement with discrete tycoon Gustavo Cisneros, owner of a giant media empire and one of the wealthiest men in Latin America. As part of it, Cisnero's TV channel Venevisión, the largest and most important private network in the country, spares the president from critical reporting. Millionaire friends like whiskey importer Arturo Sarmiento have also had licenses for new private channels arranged for them by Chavez. "Politics has no business on TV," says Sarmiento.

Now the opposition has only one channel left with which to wage its political battles -- the private network Globovisión. Its journalists valiantly continue their attacks on the president. They like to refer to Chavez's dark skin and lower-class origins. Class and race hatred are part of the Venezuelan propaganda war.

Globovisión's license expires in 2014. Experts doubt the license will be extended -- assuming Chavez is still in power then.

In fact the government asked the public prosecutors office on Monday to investigate the channel because it allegedly called for attempts on Chavez's life. The supposed proof consisted of images, aired by Globovisión as part of a feature, of the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, to which the song "Have faith, this doesn't end here" could be heard. "They incite the assassination of Venezuela's president," Venezuelen Information Minister William Lara said.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,485461,00.html

☞ Protest in Venezuela - pictures

☞ SOBRE LA NO CONCESIÓN A RCTV