By Bruce B. Brugmann
Well, I’m non grata in the Venezuela of Hugo Chavez and so are hundreds of other members of the InterAmerican Press Association (IAPA), a hemispheric free press organization based in Miami.
I’m off early tomorrow morning, Nov.17, as a member of an IAPA delegation visiting Venezuela to try to put some pressure on Chavez and his accelerating crackdown on press freedom.
Earl Maucker, IAPA’s president and editor and senior vice president of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Ft. Lauderdale, put it this way, “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.”
This will be the l0th time during the Chavez administration that IAPA officers are visiting Caracas.
IAPA has stated that over the past six months, the Chavez government has committed more “transgressions: against the press than has any other country in the Western Hemisphere.
Chavez has countered by saying he does not recognize the legitimacy of IAPA. He declared the organization invalid through Parliament. The National Assembly declared that IAPA “feeds lies and misinformation in the media” and has declared the members “non grata,” according to Reuters. IAPA is so “non grata” to Chavez that his administration is making it difficult for IAPA to hold its March assembly in Venezuela, which has been scheduled for two years.
Three hotels in three different Venezuelan cities first accepted, then mysteriously canceled, IAPA’s reservations for its mid year meeting. The first two hotels told IAPA that they had no vacancies. The third hotel said it would provide rooms, but that the group could not use its conference facilities.
The delegation will try to meet with Chavez and is scheduled to meet with government officials, members of civil society, and individual journalists and representatives of the news media.
We will wind up our mission with a press conference on Tuesday, Nov. 20. I’ll keep you posted. B3