VenEconomy: Does the Venezuela Case Ring any Bells, Spain? From the Editors of VenEconomy Latin American Herald Tribune February 18, 2015
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A report that representatives of Spain-based companies in Venezuela (Telefónica, Repsol, BBVA, Mapfre, Iberia, Air Europa and Meliá) were summoned for a meeting at the Miraflores presidential palace so they could apply pressure on their government and the Spanish media to put an end to an alleged smear campaign against the Venezuelan government, as well as the harsh criticisms against its sponsored Spanish party Podemos (we can) and the information on an investigation against Parliament head Diosdado Cabello for his alleged links with drug trafficking, has caused such a stir in the public opinion of that European nation.
According to Spanish daily ABC, the representatives of these companies also confirmed they had been warned that, if they don't do this, the Venezuelan government may retaliate against them with expropriations.
In light of the report, José Manuel García-Margallo, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain, responded that "the freedom of opinion and press are two absolutely indispensable principles" in a democratic state under the rule of law such as Spain, and stressed that the Spanish government has the "right to protect its companies from any arbitrary decisions."
Setting aside the nonsense pressure exerted by the government of Nicolás Maduro to Spanish companies, the reality is that there is nothing surprising about this undiplomatic method, so typical of criminals who believe they can be above the law as much as they want, which unfortunately has become the common behavior observed in Venezuela's ruling elite over the last 16 years.
One, because other multinationals have also been subject to retaliation and expropriations by the Venezuelan government in the very recent past, due to other causes and interests, and because this is the very same poison that has been injected for 16 years to a domestic private sector that has not yielded to the whims of the State, a fact that has condemned the population to starvation and the lack of the most basic goods for its survival.
Two, it is no secret that the Venezuelan government has been providing financial support to anti-system parties and movements in other countries, as is the case of Spain today.
The Spanish press has already picked up the story of the support and patronage given to the Podemos party, a chavista clone that has been gaining ground among the Spanish electorate, by the Venezuelan government. According to reports of Spanish daily ABC and Spanish NGO Manos Limpias (hands clean), some of the directors of Podemos and the Center for Political and Social Studies Foundation (CEPS) that gave rise to that leftist political party, have been receiving enormous economic contributions from the Venezuelan government as compensation for alleged consultancies. The CEPS has charged Venezuela some 4 million euros for different contracts, one of them with the Ministry of the Presidency that has already raised some 270,000 euros per year between 2002 and 2004.
Another common aspect shared by Miraflores and its Spanish peers is their taste for imposing censorship and violating the freedom of information, a fact that has affected the media, journalists and domestic and foreign analysts all the same, being the Colombian news channel NTN24 one of the Venezuelan government's latest victims. After being taken out of the grid by local cable TV operators a year ago, it received a new blow when both of its web site ntn24.com and web platforms were blocked by all telecommunications carriers in Venezuela, in accordance with the orders of Maduro. In addition, Conatel (the nation's telecommunications ruling body) sent specific instructions to newspaper El Nacional to "refrain" from playing content of that news channel.
It's not in vain that Venezuela ranks 137th on the list of 180 countries analyzed with regard to the restrictions on press freedom – also becoming the third worst country in Latin America –, according to data by Reporters Without Borders, a French NGO.
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