First, Hugo Chavez forced television station RCTV off the air. It was reporting too many things that put Chavez in a bad light. You know, niggling stuff like corruption, inefficiency, tyranny, disappearing dissidents. That left only Globovision among the media outlets that dared tell even a bit of the truth about conditions in Venezuela.But dictator Chavez is now taking care of that too. The majority owner of Globovision, Guillermo Zuloaga, was forced to flee the country after criminal charges were filed against him for...get this...having too many automobiles.
Excuse me, Senor Chavez, but Zuloaga owns car dealerships. Having a lot of cars is his business.
It is, of course, just another set up to get a political enemy in prison where he can be silenced...perhaps forever.
The reason for cracking the whip on Globovision right now stems from the station's recent reports on yet another Chavez scandal. This one involved the discovery of more than 2,300 shipping containers holding expired or decomposing food in government storage. Former station director Alberto Ravell said, "It's the only channel that reports about the containers of rotten food. It's the only channel that talks about the corruption."
Another major shareholder of Globovision, Nelson Mezerhane, was out of the country when the latest charges were filed against his colleague. And it turns out that Mezerhane himself is under the thumb of Chavez. In his case, the accusations concern "financial problems" with the bank he operates.
Mezerhane told CNN he would not return to Venezuela for now.
Good move.
For you don't have to be guilty of anything at all to be treated as guilty by crooked politicians. Indeed, when those politicians are as crooked, conniving and cowardly as Hugo Chavez or the Castro brothers, being innocent is even more dangerous.
