Germany is taking the lead in tackling human rights violations in Latin America. Last week the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, associated with the country’s Liberal Party, hosted a delegation of journalists who were persecuted or faced problems related to freedom of speech in their countries: Honduras, Argentina, and Nicaragua among others.
There are two main menaces for this basic human right in the region. On the one hand, first in Colombia, then in Mexico, and now in Honduras and to a lesser degree in Guatemala and other Central American countries, organized crime is literally killing journalists. To publish the truth in several areas of those nations is becoming almost like a death penalty.
On the other hand, the so-called Bolivarian bloc, inspired in the populist ideas of former President Hugo Chavez and very poorly managed now by his successor Nicolas Maduro, is putting into action the same old manual.
Following the Castro brothers' experience in Cuba, they first went against the Constitution, completely changing the rules of the game. Then, by controlling the Legislative branch and the Judiciary, they use “legal” tools to combat and persecute both the opposition and the free press.
They fabricate tax accusations against the press, and they regulate the radio and television frequencies or impose other kind of limitations to the media. They control the importation and distribution of paper in order to domesticate the printed press.
They also use a veritable army of addicted bloggers, mainly paid by the government, to destroy the media’s credibility and the reputation of those journalists. But now they are going even further, by using pro-regime tycoons to buy hostile newspapers, radios, or TV stations, sometimes utilizing non-traditional methods, and by putting a lot of pressure over the advertisement market trying to reduce the media’s revenues.
All of these abuses are internationally known but have barely been condemned. In Latin America, independent journalists and media outlets are feeling abandoned by the international community, especially the U.S. Just a few voices speak about it in the land of the free.
Only international NGOs like Journalists Without Borders are exposing these kinds of abuses. For that reason it is very important that LED, Libertad de Expresión + Democracia, a regional institution based in Buenos Aires and lead by Silvana Giudici by preparing an extensive country by country diagnosis of the situation, started to expose these violations to the international community. Its close relationship with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation made it possible to present those cases to the German government, the German parliament and the media and journalist organizations in Berlin.
By paying attention to this serious situation, Germany is leading the free world in this matter, a role that in the past was played by the U.S. The freedom of the press in some countries in Latin America is under threat and the beacon in Washington is slowly dimming.
There is a systematic plan in the region to domesticate the press and monopolize the public opinion. We still have some time to stop it before it is too late — before we have another Cuba.
Luis Rosales was elected as the youngest state representative in Mendoza, Argentina, in 1989. In 2011 he was candidate for governor in Mendoza, representing Compromiso Federal, a union of three local and national conservative parties. He is the Latin American partner of Dick Morris. Together they have worked in more than a dozen presidential campaigns around the region. They have written the book “El Poder,” about their experiences in Latin America and other parts of the world. To read more of Luis Rosales' reports, Go Here Now.