Hey Maduro: Asking questions and building sources does not make a person a spy!

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered American film maker Timothy Tracer arrested for espionage and promoting unrest in the country. (Venezuela’s president orders arrest of American filmmaker)

Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez said they had evidence Tracy was promoting dissent and unrest in Venezuela. According to Rodriguez proof was in “the way he acted.” Rodriguez said it was clear Tracey was a spy because “he knows how to infiltrate, how to recruit sources.”

Well, gee, isn’t that what all journalists and documentary filmmakers are supposed to do?

Seeing how the official media from China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela are indeed agents of the security (spy) agencies one can understand how dictators could have a hard time understanding this “independent journalism” thing.

When I lived in China I saw how the government acted as if Western media outlets were part of the Western intelligence services.

In the 1990′s Western media were anxious to have bureaus in Shanghai.  Beijing allocated permission for foreign correspondents to be based in Shanghai based on the media outlet’s country of origin. So that meant if the Associated Press got permission to have a bureau in Shanghai, the New York Times would have to wait until requests from news organizations from other countries were filled one by one.

A Shanghai government official explained that it was the only fair way to make sure that each country was represented by its official media. (Again, missing the point that there is no “official” media in the United States or most of Europe.)

Then, in Iran western journalists are required to be accompanied by “handlers” while also being followed by the secret police.

Do I really need to say anything about North Korea. ‘Nuff said!

And now Maduro confirms that Venezuela has joined this happy band of dictators by equating anyone who asks questions or build sources of information with spies. And they will stretch anything to make their point.

The minister then showed a video, “so the people in the country can see what we are confronting.”

But in the video, purportedly shot by Tracy, young people joke and mug for the camera in a drab room. It is unclear how the video points to a destabilization plan. Nor does it explain Tracy’s role.

I guess mugging for the camera is something that only Maduro and his Chavistas can do.

One thing about the story in the Post…

While it points out the arrest and the accusations of Maduro that the opposition parties are in league with the United States, it does little to discuss the overarching issue that the arrest of Tracy exemplifies: The repression of free media.

Too many apologists for Chavez/Maduro have pointed to private-sector media being used to undermine the government. What these apologists fail to understand — or refuse to accept — is that government control of the media only means that unrest and instability are more likely.

Without independent and competing news organizations — i.e. government-controlled media — the people have no way of getting accurate information. The people pick up on how the media are being used for propaganda purposes pretty quickly and begin to ignore or disbelieve anything in the media.

There is nothing to check corrupt and/or inept leaders. So corruption runs rampant and inept officials get a free pass to keep causing problems because there is no method to peacefully correct the situation.

The only means of transferring information, then becomes word of mouth. (I think I hear someone saying: “Let’s play telephone!”)

When word of mouth — aka – rumors — become the norm for information transfer, societies become more unstable. Unrest grows and dissatisfaction with the ruling elite grows.

You see it in China by the increasing number of people who rely on text messages to get accurate info and in the number of reporters and editors who are constantly pushing against the censors.

We see it in the unrest in Argentina where the government arrests people for publishing the actual numbers related to inflation and national debt.

And we see it in Venezuela where the leadership is so nervous about their precarious position that they arrest an independent film maker for doing what independent film makers do, develop sources, ask questions and present the situation.

Internet Freedom in Latin America: Key Threats and Opportunities

Sounds like a great conference later this week.

Date: Thursday, April 25, 2013 – 6:00pm to 8:00pm

LOCATION: Casa Lamm, Alvaro Obregón 99 Roma Norte, Cuauhtémoc. 06700 México City, México

Freedom House along with co-sponsors Hack Hackers Mexico, the International Center for Journalists, and the Graduate Program for Journalism and Public Affairs at the Center for Research and Teaching Economics (CIDE) invites you to a regional conversation about internet freedom. Over the past year, a number of developments, both positive and negative, have altered the landscape of Internet freedom in Latin America. The discussion, as moderated by Alba Mora Roca, a distinguished journalist from Spain, will bring together media freedom specialists from Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, and Mexico to offer insight into the positive advancements and potentially restrictive legislation impacting internet freedom across Latin America.

Introductory remarks by: Mariclaire Acosta, @FHespanol, Freedom House, Mexico

Moderated by: Alba Mora Roca, @albamoraroca Hacks Hackers, Mexico

Concluding comments by: Ricardo Raphael de la Madrid, @ricardomraphael, CIDE, Mexico

Featuring speakers:

• Eleonora Rabinovich, Director of Asociación por Los Derechos Civiles, Argentina
• Cristiana Gonzalez, Senior Researcher and Ph.D. candidate University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
• Ernesto Hernández Busto, Blogger and Essayist, Cuba/Spain
• Carlos Correa Loyola, Senior Counsel to the Rector Technical Particular University at Loja, Ecuador
• Alejandra Ezeta, Social Media Consultant at EEB Consultoria/Ciudadanos en Medios, A.C, , Mexico
• Jorge Luis Sierra, ICFJ Knight International Journalism Fellow, Mexico

To register, click here.

Follow the event at @FHespanol on Twitter and by using hashtag #netfreedom

 

Cuban diplomats try to spike Sanchez UN visit

Cuban blogger and dissident Yoani Sanchez was the guest of the United Nations Correspondents Association this week.

The visit was part of Sanchez’s world tour now that exit visas are no longer required to travel outside the country.

But just because the exit visa law was changed does not mean the Cuban government has changed its views about dissidents.

In just about every country Sanchez visited, pro-Cuban forces showed up calling her a tool or mercenary of the United States. In Brazil, she was not able to view a film about her and other dissidents because of the demonstrations. At least Yoani saw the demonstrations for what they were: examples of people exercising their democratic rights to demonstrate for or against a particular point of view. Of course, the irony of the situation was lost on the pro-Cuba demonstrators. They would never have been able to mount similar demonstrations against a Cuban policy in Cuba. 

Cuban diplomats around the world were always suspected of being behind demonstrations. (The themes were universal around the world and the props were all the same. Too much uniformity for “spontaneous” demonstrations of “outrage” against Sanchez.) Finally, in New York, the Cuban government came out from behind the curtain.

The UNCA sponsored a press conference for Sanchez in the United Nations building, something that is pretty common.

Cuban Ambassador Rodolfo Reyes sent a letter to the U.N. Secretary General complaining the news conference would be “an anti-Cuban action” and a “grave attack” on the spirit of the United Nations. (He did not mention how dictatorships, such as Cuba’s, are also an attack on the spirit of the United Nations.) The ambassador continued that the U.N. should “not allow that the organization’s spaces to be tarnished and their use manipulated by spurious interests.”

Havana diplomats at UN try to block Cuban blogger’s news conference

Sanchez responded simply that it was time for the United Nations to “come out of its lethargy and recognize that the Cuban government is a dictatorship.”

“If this meeting was being held in the bottom of an elevator shaft, we would have more freedom than in Cuba,” she added. “I am proud that my first time in this very significant U.N. building is with my journalism colleagues.”

It is a pity that the Sanchez world tour — hell, even the U.S portion — is getting so little coverage by U.S. media. The exceptions are The Miami Herald (duh!) and Fox News Latino (double duh!). There are the occasional wire stories — as in McClatchy story linked above — but other than that, the presence of one of the most powerful and rational voices against the Cuban dictatorship is moving through Washington and New York with little attention by the mainstream press.

Why is her visit important?

To begin with Sanchez could only leave once Cuba repealed the exit visa requirement. That requirement alone should tell people more about what Cuba was and is than anything else. Only dictatorships require exit visas of its people. The fact that the Cuban government eliminated the exit requirement is a story about changes taking place in that country.

While the exit visa requirement removal is a big deal, the increased repression of freedom of expression activists in Cuba is also news. More people can leave (if they can get a passport, another problem), but only if they are not in jail or under indictment for “activities against the state.”

Freedom of expression is still stifled:

• Committee to Protect Journalists: Though Cuba projected an image of a nation opening up economically and politically, it took no substantive steps to promote freedom of expression.
• Freedom House: Cuba has the most restrictive laws on free speech and press freedom in the Americas. The constitution prohibits private ownership of media outlets and allows free speech and journalism only if they “conform to the aims of a socialist society.”
• Human Rights Watch: Cuba remains the only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent.
• Amnesty International: The Cuban authorities continued to stifle freedom of expression, association and assembly, in spite of the much publicized releases of prominent dissidents. Hundreds of pro-democracy activists and dissidents suffered harassment, intimidation and arbitrary arrest.

What does this mean to the average person in the United States?

For too many people in the U.S. population (and in Congress) the only Latin American countries worth noting are Cuba and Mexico, and Mexico often comes in as a second thought.

Irrational and emotional arguments are a dime a dozen when dealing with Cuba. Finally, there is a rational voice from Cuba that is highly critical of the Cuban government allowed to travel and she gets little or no coverage — again, with the exception of the Miami Herald.

The Herald sees the immediate connection between the Sanchez tour and its audience. But where are the stories from the New Jersey/New York papers? The second largest Cuban population in the United States is in New Jersey.

Apologists for Cuba (and Venezuela and Ecuador) will not want to hear what Sanchez has to say, nor will they agree with it. Likewise, the rabid right-wing anti-Castro crowd will have difficulties with some of what Sanchez is saying — other than her unwavering belief in freedom of expression and democracy. Too many of the older anti-Castro group are hung up on returning property taken in the 1959 revolution. The issues are different now and many younger Cuban Americans know that. The anti-Castro lobby in Congress has not yet seemed to catch up.

It would be nice to see some stories of Cuban immigrants in the United States about how they got into the country, why the came and what they see as their future and the future of Cuba. I have talked with younger Cuban immigrants. They came to the States for the same reason most immigrants come: freedom and a better life. They are not from the elite families of the old dictatorship looking to return to power. They are immigrants, pure and simple.

Yes, they have opinions about the changes that should be made in Cuba — after all they still have family there. But if reporters took a few minutes to think about it, the stories of the 21st century immigrants will be different from those of the mid-20th century.

And once their stories are heard, then more people will stop thinking about Cuba and relations with Cuba with a Cold War mentality. They might even start looking at Cuba the same way the look at China, another brutal dictatorship that is famous for repression of freedom of speech and press, but with whom the U.S. is more than happy to deal with on the international scene.

If help comes and no one reports it, did it happen?

Loads of news organizations are following the disastrous club fire in Santa Maria in Southern Brazil. How can there not be a lot of attention when more than 230 people are killed in one incident?

Notes of sympathy and offers of help flooded the national, state and local governments.

Brazil is doing a pretty good job taking care of the survivors. The medical care in Brazil is good and the doctors and nurses well-trained. But they were short of a drug needed to treat some of the survivors.

A medication, called Cyanokit is needed to treat victims who inhaled cyanide poison as a result of the fire. The Brazilian health ministry put out a request for the drug and got it.

From the U.S. military, specifically the Southern Command.

Southcom Speeds Medications to Brazil for Nightclub Victims

The above link comes from the Department of Defense Public Affairs Office. And who reported this bit of altruism form the U.S. military? Damn few!

Reuters and AFP picked it up but a quick Google search shows NO U.S. news organizations carried the story. (The AFP story was seen in a Malaysia newspaper.)

• AFP/The Malay Mail: US medication for fire victims lands in Brazil
• Reuters: U.S. rushing treatment for Brazil fire victims

Usually the U.S. military does a much better job publicizing its humanitarian work. The best example is the way SouthCom and the U.S. Navy 4th Fleet responded to the Haiti earthquake. (Military official: U.S. hospital ship in Haiti near capacity)

And then there are the numerous medical teams that go into remote areas of Central America to provide basic and intensive medical care to people who otherwise would not get ANY medical care. (I am going off to see one such operation this week.)

This is not a publicity space for the U.S. military, even though I think they often get a raw deal for their work in the Americas. (And yes, sometimes they deserve it for being tone-deaf in some issues. But by and large, the Pentagon understands the news media a lot better than the news media understand the military and they do a lot of really good work that helps a lot of people.a lot is because they are SOOO bad at doing publicity.)

The issue here is that no one in the United States is learning about the U.S. connection to help the fire victims. The medicine is made by a U.S. company (Pfizer) and it is being donated by the U.S. military.

There are so many local U.S. connections it is sad that not one U.S. news outlet picked up the connection.

• Maybe the newspaper where the medicine was made could have done a story about how a local company helped survivors of a fire more than 3,000 miles away.
• Or maybe some of the business journals could have picked up on the rare action of U.S. medicine coming into Brazil without having a 150 percent duty charged.
• Maybe a story could have been done on the unusual step taken by the Brazilian government to admit that it needed outside help, especially help from the U.S. military. (This is a BIG deal.) 

But what else can you expect from an industry that more and more has been withdrawing from the world, with the exception of war or natural disaster.

Hell, one major network can’t even read a map. Notice how it misplaced Sao Paulo  by about 2,000 miles! About the same distance between San Francisco and Washington, DC. (If you don’t see the error, look it up yourself. You can start with: Sao Paulo is a coastal city and the industrial capital of Brazil.)

Colombian group issues pamphlet to help in libel cases

Colombia — like in too many places in the world — criminalizes libel.

According to the Free Press Foundation (FLIP in Spanish) there have been 48 criminal charges filed against journalists during the last seven years and 25 lawsuits for crimes like slander or libel.

To fight this situation, FLIP released ”Outside Justice: a manual for journalists facing slander and libel charges.”

Press freedom group in Colombia releases guide for reporters facing libel, slander charges

FLIP website