The Irish Times and Latin America
The Irish Times is often referred to as the quality newspaper in Ireland. It enjoys a wide readership with a reported circulation of over 120,000 for the period between July and December 2010. Even the use of the word “Times” in the title would seem to suggest a shared lineage with the Times of London. Indeed when it comes to Irish matters it features some of best investigative journalists and correspondents around, such as Colm Keena, Fintan O’Toole and Vincent Browne, to name just three. Journalists such as these have brought a degree of balance and fairness to issues, mainly of a domestic nature.
Surprisingly, then when it comes to Latin American issues, The Irish Times seems to abandon it’s fair and balanced approach in favour of the kind of coverage usually associated with the more right wing elements of the US media, such as Fox News. Over the years the paper has had some exceptionally good reporters writing on Latin American affairs, such as Mick McCaughan and David Shanks. They also took copy from one of the noted experts in the area, Hugh O’Shaughnessy.
Most of these journalists lived for long periods and had built up huge expertise and knowledge of several Latin American countries. They could be relied on for balanced and impartial reports. In recent times this pattern seems to have changed and much of what’s appearing in the pages seems to be from journalists who are not always residing in, or reporting from the countries in their articles.
There are many cases that could be looked at, but one recent, particularly worrying example of how the Irish Times dealt with a story serves as a pointer.
The July 18, 2009, edition of The Economist contained an article on Bolivia (”Bolivia’s divisive president. The Permanent Campaign”) which asserted that, “Venezuelan troops helped quell a rebellion centred on the airport at Santa Cruz in the east in 2007″. The article did not bother to substantiate such a serious charge against Venezuela and was one of several unjustified and unsubstantiated allegations against the president and government of Bolivia. Venezuela’s ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland, Samuel Moncada, responded to the allegation regarding the participation of Venezuelan troops in the suppression of a rebellion in Santa Cruz in 2007, with a letter to Michael Reid, The Economist’s Latin American editor, in which he stated:
“Unfortunately, dangerous and negative consequences in the region may arise due to this blunder published in your magazine. I would therefore demand a correction of such fallacy”.
On its July 25, 2009, edition, The Economist agreed to publish a “correction” on its story: “Clarification: Bolivia and Venezuela”. This is part of what the Economist said :-
“In our recent story on Bolivia (”The permanent campaign”, July 18th), we stated that “Venezuelan troops helped quell a rebellion centred on the airport at Santa Cruz in the east in 2007″. Both the Venezuelan and Bolivian governments deny this (see Letters), and Venezuela’s government has publicly asked us to retract this assertion We based our statement on television footage aired at the time which shows a Venezuelan air force plane and uniformed Venezuelan personnel at Santa Cruz airport shortly after it had been seized by the Bolivian government from the local authorities. No official explanation has been given for their presence. However, we are happy to clarify that this footage does not prove Venezuelan troops played an active role in quelling the rebellion.”
In the Irish Times on the 28th of September 2011 under the heading “Claim Venezuelans took part in raid in Dwyer case” Tom Hennigan their Latin America correspondent states:
“In 2007 uniformed Venezuelan military personnel were filmed in Santa Cruz by a local television station during civil unrest in which the government seized back control of the country’s main international airport from local authorities demanding greater autonomy from La Paz.”
This time the allegations are even more serious as the article by implication links Venezuela with the death of Michael Dwyer. The Venezuelan ambassador to the UK and Ireland, Samuel Moncada wrote two letters to the Irish Times asking for a retraction. The first letter was written on the 5th of October and the paper’s foreign editor replied on the 13th saying that the paper saw no need to alter anything that it had published. The paper’s defense being that they did not state that the Venezuelan troops had been involved in the quelling of a rebellion in Bolivia. However anybody reading this article could easily have construed that Venezuelan troops had been involved in such a venture and there was also the “guilt by association” aspect in the death of the Irishman Michael Dwyer. Otherwise why bring these two non-sequiturs into the article? In fact, without them there’s no article. Again the ambassador wrote (20/10/11), pointing out that this so-called evidence had already been rejected by media outlets. The ambassador also asked for space in the paper to present his case and this was not granted.
Venezuela, since the advent of Hugo Chavez to the presidency has been the target of a huge disinformation campaign orchestrated by the US. The same country was heavily involved in the coup attempt against Chavez. This year alone the US has earmarked $20million for the opposition in Venezuela to fund their election bid in 2012. The Irish Times article, based on claims which had already been retracted two years previously by The Economist, falls into the category of disinformation and one must question the repetition. Does the Irish Times seriously think that if their story had any credence whatsoever that it would not have made news headlines worldwide?
No, this was a nasty piece of journalism that managed, in the course of an article, to link Venezuela with the unfortunate death of a young Irishman and the repression of protesters in Bolivia. There wasn’t even an attempt to explain the US role in the “civil unrest” in Bolivia and the subsequent expulsion of the US ambassador.
Those of us do not rely solely on the Irish Times for our foreign news may have heard retired US general Wesley Clarke’s remarks about his visits, soon after 9/11, to see his old colleagues in the Pentagon.
He mentioned the memo that had come down from the office of the Secretary of Defence describing how the US planned to take out 7 countries in 5 years. The countries are Iraq, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan and Iran. Two of these countries, Iraq and Libya have already been “taken out” and two more, Syria and Iran are being lined up to have “democracy” visited upon them in the near future. Another alarming moment is when he quotes Donald Rumsfeld as saying “nobody can tell us (the US) where and when to bomb”. Venezuela has received similar threats from the US and in view of recent developments it has reason to be worried. Articles such as this from the Irish Times could be seen as part of the campaign that leads to a case being made by the US for another intervention in the affairs of a democratic Latin American country.
This is not just scaremongering. In 2009 we saw a return to “normal” US interventionist policy in Latin America, when a coup planned and executed by US backed Honduran forces deposed the democratically elected President Zelaya in that country. Since that event there’s been a huge increase in extra-judicial killings and other human right abuses in Honduras. So much so that it has now joined Colombia at the top of the Latin American tables for these crimes. Unfortunately the Irish Times does not seem to think that these issues are worthy of their coverage. The paper seems to have reserved most of it’s ire for countries such as Bolivia and Venezuela which have tried to reverse the damage caused by their decades old histories of dictatorship, corruption and intervention.
In a recent column in the paper columnist Simon Jenkins (Irish Times 26th Nov 2011 - Dictators laughing as Europe tries to survive with straitjackets) stated that “democracy is everywhere in tears (except, dare I say it, in South America)”. However with a neighbour such as the US with it’s history of intervention, this democracy treads a tightrope and the need for fair and balanced reporting is of huge importance . Constant repetition of disinformation is one of the first steps used in the softening up process of the general public, prior to launching campaigns against countries and for the Irish Times to be involved, however innocently, in such practices cannot bode well for the perceived fairness and balance of that paper.
See Also A retort to Tom Hennigan, on the day the elections begin in Argentina
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