Chavez threatens TV channel Globovision amid more protests (Roundup)

May 29, 2007, 22:19 GMT

Caracas - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday warned he could also take action against the television news channel Globovision if it ontinues to incite viewers over his closure of another independent station, RCTV.

The threat came as thousands of students shut down roads and protested against the closure of Radio Caracas television (RCTV). More than a dozen were reported injured in clashes with police.

In a speech transmitted by several radio and television stations, the left-wing populist Chavez noted that his Information Minister Willian Lara asked the Attorney General's Office to investigate a Globovision programme.

The show aired footage of the assassination attempt against the late pope John Paul II, to a song by Panamanian salsa singer Ruben Blades who sang, 'have faith, this does not end here.'

'I alert the Venezuelan people - the enemies of the homeland, particularly those who are behind the scenes ... I call you by your name, Globovision. You decide how far you want to get, I advise you to look well at how far you are going to get,' Chavez said.

'If you want, keep moving forward, if you want, keep calling for disobedience, inciting to murder,' he added.

Chavez charged that the programme under investigation wanted to encourage the murder of the Venezuelan president and did so 'openly.'

Venezuela's oldest and most popular television station, Radio Caracas Television (RCTV), was shut down overnight Monday and replaced by a new, government-controlled channel, Televisora Venezolana Social (Teves).

Chavez justified his government's decision not to renew RCTV's licence, saying that the popular TV station had supported the short- lived coup that briefly removed him from power in 2002.

On Tuesday morning, several hundred demonstrators blocked off one of the most important highways in Caracas and wreaked havoc in traffic, the daily El Nacional said.

On Monday, at least 16 people were injured in clashes between students and security forces. National Guard units fired tear gas on students at several colleges in Caracas and Valencia.

The authorities admitted that four students in Carabobo University, in central Venezuela, had bullet wounds but did not suggest who fired at them.

Chavez said Tuesday that student protestors are being used as 'cannon-fodder' by groups who seek to destabilize the country.

'Those who are using them want there to be a few people dead,' the president noted.

He also accused the opposition and private media of encouraging violence.

'I am talking very clearly to those (...) who are trying to heat up the streets, with some media playing at destabilization - television stations, radio stations, some newspapers, sending messages to the armed forces trying to make some military officers rise, trying to set fire to the streets of Caracas,' Chavez accused.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva refused to comment Tuesday on the refusal to renew RCTV's broadcasting licence. Lula told reporters in Brasilia that the decision adopted by the Chavez government 'is a problem to do with Venezuela's legislation.'

However, one of Lula's main allies - Senator and former president Jose Sarney - criticized Chavez on Tuesday in the Brazilian Senate.

'There cannot be a democracy in which there are no free institutions, strong institutions, a free, strong and open Congress, a free and unrestricted press. From the moment that the government has the power to hush any kind of opposition, for any reason, from that moment I go on to fear for the concept of democracy in that country,' Sarney said.

Chile's governing Socialist Party compared the closure of RCTV to the censorship during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship (1973-90). The governments of Peru, Colombia and Mexico have also criticized the refusal to renew the licence.

In several Latin American countries, television stations interrupted their programmes for several minutes in protest for the closure of RCTV. Baltazar Cardozo - archbishop of Merida, in Venezuela - compared Chavez's media policy to those of Hitler and Mussolini.