)
signifies the materialization of a long-cherished
dream of informational sovereignty.
It has been made possible thanks to the
initiative of President Hugo Chávez . Four countries
– Venezuela (51%), Argentina (20%), Cuba (19%) and
Uruguay (10%) – have provided the capital for the
multi-state entity, and Brazil is expected to join
the project. The leaders of these countries are
aware of the need for a media that makes it possible
to disseminate to the region’s inhabitants their
values, divulge their image, discuss their ideas
with total freedom and transmit their contents.
Latin America did not have any indigenous channel
of continental reach. The only ones picked up are
the versions for a Latin American audience emitted
by the large U.S. networks (CNN en español, Fox News,
ESPN, NBS). Thus the scandalous case of an entire
continent consuming an image of itself produced
outside the sphere of its imagination. And, to cap
it all, diffused from the United States, which has
been trying to dominate this region for more than
one century.
One of the founding ideas is that Telesur can
create bridges among the people of the continent. As
one of the channel’s documents says: "To see each
other is to know each other, to know each other is
to respect each other, to respect each other is to
learn to love each other, and to love each other is
the first step to integrating. If integration is the
proposition, Telesur is the means."
Some people are already comparing Telesur (which
can be received in Spain, via the New Skies
Satellite NSS 806) with Al Jazeera , the Arab news
channel broadcasting from Qatar, which has changed
the perception of news on the Middle East. Connie
Mack, the Republican congressman for Florida, has
dared to qualify Telesur as "a threat to the United
States" because, according to him, "it is attempting
to undermine the balance of power in the Western
Hemisphere." And the House of Representatives in
Washington went straight ahead and passed an
amendment last July 20 authorizing the government to
initiate radio and television broadcasts that would
offer Venezuelans a precise, objective and complete
news source, thus demonstrating an unprecedented
colonial arrogance and an astronomical ignorance of
Venezuela’s media situation. A situation dominated,
as known, by certain omnipotent private
conglomerates, the regular accomplices of
Washington, and which did not hesitate to foment a
coup d’état against democracy and President Chávez
on April 11, 2002. In the face of so much abuse,
Telesur is the response. It constitutes the first
serious attempt at audiovisual liberation and media
decolonization. At last.
