Hugo Chávez knows how to piss people off. He gets his kicks out of winding up Bush administration, implementing policies contrary to US interests and crossing himself in front of the UN General Assembly after calling Bush the Devil. It’s all rather humorous, and generally I’ve admired his courage for introducing many policies. Anti-yank sentiment can be a big vote winner, but it’s one for trapeze artists: most Latin American countries have a difficult job untangling themselves from Uncle Sam’s sticky – and less than altruistic – fingers.
But, as they say, it’s all fun and games till someone loses a broadcast licence.

If you haven’t caught up with this already, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has refused to renew the broadcast licence of Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV), the most popular anti-government TV station in Venezuela. The station was described as a “threat to the country” and “destabilising”.

Granted, Venezuela has a turbulent recent history in terms of coups and counter-coups, and the media groups have taken a proactive role in defending their interests and beliefs. But – yeap, stating the obvious here – closing a television station because it doesn’t bow down to you is no way to deal with political opposition. The Venezuelan representative to the UN, Roy Chaderton Matos, came out in the paper on Saturday with the ludicrous statement that “A state may, without the need to give an explanation, renew or not renew a licence”. Um, what?

To take things a step further, Chavez ranted away on Thursday about the ridiculousness of the international reaction to his censorship. On the United States senators who condemned the closure, he said “they say they are worried by the freedom of expression in our country while their country is busy killing people, including children, in Iraq”. While the US statement was “comical” according to Chavez, that of the European Union “makes you want to cry”. A total of 65 out of 784 members of the European parliament voted on the resolution condemning Chavez’s actions. “Look at that historic vote!” exclaimed Chavez sarcastically.

Both criticisms are quite true. And the EU’s reaction is pretty damn pathetic – how hard is it for all the MP’s to show up for 10 minutes to vote? But nevertheless the enormous crevasse that stretches out between Chavez’s comments and the actual point is kinda obvious.

The whole thing is really not cool. If you can’t take criticism you should get out of politics, not silence the critics.

Other posts by Katie Llanos-Small