“When the media tones down, there will be a solution to the conflict. These television channels have been poisoning our minds for over 40 years.”
July
21, 2003
By: Yolanda Ojeda
Reyes, El Universal
-A person who I appreciate a lot recommended to me not to get involved in internal politics. But I don’t commit myself to moderation and if I believe in something, I don’t see any reason not to express it. There are moments when you have to show your face.
-Is this one of those moments to show your face?
-I believe that Chancellors in the past have shown their faces, but, these times are more polemic, there is more conflict. It’s possible that showing your face implies greater risk.
-What makes these times
more full of conflict?
-The accumulated errors that we have committed during many years provoked an earthquake. We are reestablishing the stable ground and the factor that can contribute to stability and peace in this country is social justice. To be a diplomat in these times, in a larger context, obligates one to fall in line with this justice.
-Is the new diplomatic
language provocative?
-My way of speaking has always been very cautious. Think about the quantity of insults and lies that have been told of me and nevertheless, I have never insulted anyone. Trying to change this country into a democracy and to achieve peace, by removing by democratic means a leadership that was never capable of fulfilling democratic expectations, is provocative.
-There are two sectors in conflict and a society in the middle that is waiting for solutions.
-I believe that there have been efforts made to solve the conflict, the problem is that there are extremists who cause noise, but at this point, we have to start by looking at the visualization of poor people. An elite social class that held power and lived off the backs of the country for many years all of a sudden has to meet its own creation in the mirror: exclusion. Poverty is eliminated by opening doors so others can move up in society.
-The paradox is that this government aims at eliminating poverty, but only increase it.
-Statistics and UN studies have shown that the quality of life and medical attention have gotten better. When poor people begin to come down from the hills in peace and begin to be a theme of everyday life, some think that poverty has increased. We’d have to really look at whether it has worsened or not.
-Is there more sensibility?
Instead of becoming more sensible and reacting positively, it seems as though some have developed rashes and ulcers in the brain. There is no other way of explaining how the opposition has committed so many silly errors and helped the Government so much by their own mistakes.
-Do you think what you
said about Christianity in the OAS was misinterpreted?
-I tried to rescue the sacred values of Christianity, but at the same time alert us all about the threat and danger of fundamentalists in the name of Christianity. I cited some words of the Pope against the media: “They obstruct liberty by the way they distance themselves from the truth.”
-Why do you insist on this discussion about the media?
-Because they have been harming the country for more than 40 years, poisoning the minds of Venezuelans and educating them with mediocrity. There was better television programming during the dictatorship, better cultural and children’s programs on private television channels, better entertainment and less violence.
-There is a latent threat against freedom of expression by proposed
legislation and aggressive language used by the President.
-In the most advanced democracies in the world, there is a democratic control of the media. The owners of the media cannot be above the law. In Europe, there is control over the schedules of commercials, violence and sex. They do not permit attacks against institutionalism or calls for the assassination of political leaders, as occur here. I get the impression that those responsible for the media in Europe are more cultured, in contrast with the principal figures in the media here whose aggressiveness is directly proportional to their mediocrity.
-In those countries, there are courts of justice that don’t permit impunity in the face of complaints.
-In the oldest democracy in the world, the British, we have unfortunately on one side the most serious press and on the other side the most scandalous and therefore they place importance on complying with judicial determinations to pay for crimes and public and private moral offenses. In that country, justice works better than it does here.
-Have you felt attacked by the Venezuelan press?
They have called me everything from homosexual to the anti-Christ, but my favorite insult was the “apocalyptic beast”.
-A group insulted Cardinal Velasco after his death…
-There is an expression: “respect the dead” and that low-level group violated that norm, but they weren’t the first. In the East Cemetery, some people from the upper class tried to lynch the President of the Supreme Court in the middle of shouting fascist comments, and in my modest level, one day at midnight, in the same place, some individuals shouted insults at me as I was giving my condolences at a gravesite, which revealed a double sin: violent people don’t even respect their own dead.
-Can you visualize a solution?
-In the short term, it would be enough for the media to tone it down and to open an equal space for all viewpoints. The opposition are the media and this is a social aberration.
-Where else has this occurred?
-Venezuela is a laboratory for the worst media culture. We have the most mediocre television in the entire Continent.
-How do Venezuela’s neighbors see us?
-With interest and solidarity, depending upon the interlocutor.
-Wasn’t it President Chávez who provoked radicalization with his fiery words?
-Fiery words served to wake us up; some of us from dreams and others from nightmares. But now, we can see the reality as it is. There is no going back, but there is evolution, and there is sufficient space for democratic confrontations to settle down and arrive at an agreement.
-Who has to throw the first rock: the Government or the opposition?
-I see it as a natural evolution where each part progresses forward. We all will win; if we learn to live together.
Moral values
The Chancellor – a lawyer from the Central University of Venezuela – adopted the theme of social justice from his militancy in the COPEI party, which he doesn’t deny, but he regrets that they have distanced themselves from their values.
His family, especially his mother Elena, left him hard to erase scars of moral values. “She was a hot foot who took the children on the weekends to visit family members of the women who worked in our house. My uncles spoke a lot about social commitment.” In COPEI, social justice was an important theme, a common goal.
He went up and down the hills, “without socks and without complaining” and he saw “poverty directly in its eye.” He remembers Aristides Calvani, a political leader of the highest caliber and abilities. The Chancellor believes that “the level of comprehension of those who impose the rhythm of the upper classes prevented those in the French Embassy from understanding the emotional and important message of the communion of France and Germany celebrating the National Day of France; reconciliation, after worse conflicts. The brains of the most radical opposition members have been physically reduced by the poison on television.”
Relations with…
United States: Can be better
Brazil: Growing
Colombia: Building
Cuba: Strengthening
Russia: Giving us hope
England: Watchful
Spain: Working
France: Better than ever
End of the Party
-What happened to one of the most solid democracies in Latin America?
-The leadership and the political parties became insensible. We embarked on an orgy of lavish spending, of money, a product of our luck and not our abilities and we sold our soul to the devil and danced until the orchestra was long gone, the food and drinks were finished and we began to slip on our own vomit.
-Is there anything else you want to add?
-Social Justice, peace, democracy, tolerance, solidarity, reconciliation, reconstruction, construction and education.
-Are you saying this to the Government?
-This is our commitment. It corresponds to all Venezuelans, not just the Government”, concluded Roy Chaderton Matos.
A Dogma in Education
“The Jews who have experience in persecution and suffering, have prioritized education during centuries, because for an oppressed person, after being terrorized by intolerance, having had everything taken away – the only thing that can’t be taken is knowledge. This helps survival and recuperation. It also helps enjoyment and love for one’s fellow being. In the past, private education had to compete with the quality of public education. As a misfortune in our country, public education decomposed. Venezuelans without resources began to receive poor education. Academic aptitude tests helped those blessed with fortunes to enter into public universities and our houses of study became less populated, activating another time bomb. And that’s why I am against the dogma of free university education. With the money that those families happily pay for the education of their children – from elementary school – we could offer education of equal quality to poor children, without firing a single shot or engaging in a social confrontation.”
A functionary with a career of over 34 years insists on a social theme. Regarding the coincidence of his way of thinking with that of President Chávez, he said, “getting to know the individual by his words and his actions.”
In
Minor Tones
Andean Community
“It is the strengthening of the ANC and Mercosur that can make us strong. We talk about fiery language, but in reality, these words (dying, lethargic) were like a cold shower and helped to revitalize the ANC. If this type of language provokes reflection and confrontation, then I welcome it.”
Segments
“There cannot be lasting integration with some segments that are weakened and other that are strong. We all have to win.”
“It is the strength of the country that permits us to resist this massive assault on our democratic institutions, on our economy and our social fabric. And in just a short time, to have overcome the coup attempts of the opposition, we are recuperating ever faster than we had hoped, even in PDVSA.”
Grays
“Between the extremes of black and white, I don’t only see grays but all the colors of the rainbow. We need to agitate the moderates, calm the hotheads and rescue the alienated.”
Media
“The people believe less and less in the media. We are going to end up thinking without the poison of the television screen. The printed press, with exceptions, is as deformed as the television, but the biggest instrument of destruction of civil values, ethics and culture is the media.”
Multilateral
“In the
case of Colombia and precisely because of the concern about that situation, we
should think about a multilateral support for peace efforts, but never war; we
are totally against an international military invasion in Colombia, we prefer to
keep trying through all diplomatic channels as we have in the past. We have to
reinitiate efforts for reconciliation.”
“History
has shown us many examples of negotiation and reconciliation between enemies,”
he said in response to the criteria of the Colombian government, which qualifies
the guerilla as terrorists. He enumerated various cases and remembered “our
guerrillas came down from the mountains without killing anyone. Some of them
became so peaceful that they moved to the extreme right and ended in an embrace
with neo-liberalism.”
“The
Venezuelan fascists cannot excuse the French people and their ruling class for
having given the French fascists a big beating. Before the threat, they
reacted.”
“One
English cynic said that a diplomat is a decent man, sent to the exterior to lie
in the name of the interests of his country. If there is one thing that disturbs
traditional and classic diplomacy, it’s the truth. Presently, things are said
with great clarity. At this point in life one cannot lie. It’s good business
to tell the truth.
“We should reflect on the danger of using the media to exacerbate ethnic and religious fanaticism. Thank God for Christians, as well as Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa of Calcutta, etc.” (Speech at the OAS).