Venezuelan President Hugo Chavezs offer of subsidized heating oil
to the frosty northeastern United States this past winter was met
warmly by the broadcast media. But network interest in Chavez turned
stone-cold with the dictators springtime pursuit of Russian weapons
financed by his countrys state-owned oil supply.
A Business & Media Institute (BMI) review of the three broadcast networks
revealed no recent news stories on Chavezs move to socialize his
countrys oil supply even further, financing weapons purchases. This
continues the major networks trend of
ignoring Chavezs saber-rattling after
vilifying Big Oils profits. BMI previously
documented
the medias positive portrayal of Chavezs gift of subsidized
heating oil from Venezuelan-owned petroleum company Citgo. On March
9, BMI reported how the media largely ignored Citgos efforts to
avoid regulatory oversight by the Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC).
ExxonMobil (NYSE:
XOM),
among other oil companies, faced a March 31 deadline decision: to
sign over a majority stake in its oil operations to Venezuelan
control or pull out of the country. The
stringent terms of the new contracts facing Exxon and other companies included a
minimum 60 percent stake for the state oil company Petroleos de
Venezuela SA (PDVSA) in each field; PDVSA controlling the boards of
the new joint ventures; and a jump in income tax rates from 34
percent to 50 percent and royalties from 16.6 percent to 33.3
percent.
Ultimately ExxonMobil decided to sell its stake in Venezuela rather
than accede to Chavezs demands.
On April 4,
The Wall Street Journal and the
AP
similarly reported on the Chavez regimes latest move to consolidate
control over the nations oil operations through the state-run PDVSA,
which owns Citgo, an oil company operating in the United States.
Far from being earmarked to heat the homes
of working-class retirees in South Boston, an influx of cash from
heavier oil revenues will finance Chavezs order of Russian fighter
jets and small arms in time for his imagined U.S. invasion of
Venezuela. The
BBC reported on April 4 that Chavez has purchased Russian military
assault helicopters and Kalashnikov rifles in preparation for an
imminent U.S. strike against his regime. On April 3 the APs Natalie Obiko Pearson found that Chavez is not only drumming up fear of the
U.S. to buy military hardware, hes training civilians to be
militia.
Housewives, students, construction
workers, social workers and many unemployed have signed up for the
Territorial Guard,
Pearson wrote, following a group of 900 civilians whose 20 weeks of
instruction will turn them into resistance fighters prepared to
defend their communities in the event of a conflict. Pearson added
that Chavez critics fear the Territorial Guard would more likely be
a political weapon of Chavezs to stifle dissent.
Political repression at the hands of the
Territorial Guard is far from an improbable threat. The
Harvard Political Reviews Ryan Jamiolkowski noted that not only have Chavezs police and
intelligence forces cracked down on political dissent, but mobs of
his civilian supporters have attacked government critics. In
November 2005, journalists from right-of-center stations covering
student rallies were attacked with broken bottles and beaten by the
students, who were angry at being filmed by stations unsympathetic
to the government, wrote Jamiolkowski.
Venezuelan Dictator Seizes Oil to Buy Weapons
April 4th, 2006 2:00 PM
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