A Venezuelan discusses the media, politics & the people of Venezuela

Hugo Chavez received much attention in the mainstream media for referring multiple times to George W. Bush as the devil during his speech at the United Nations last Wednesday, just a day after the U.S. president spoke to the same assembly. The aftermath of the Chavez speech coincided with a previously scheduled discussion at Resource Center of the Americas with Maria de los Angeles Peña Fonseca, a Venezuelan journalist and activist who has lived in the Twin Cities for two years. Over the weekend, Fonseca discussed the changes occurring in Venezuela and the role of the charismatic leftist leader Chavez and his supporters in the South American country. “Poor people feel that we put Chavez in that place, in that environment, in government, so he could help us ...,” Fonseca explained to a group of about 30 people in the Oscar Romero room of the local community center. She further clarified that it is the people who are taking the future of the country into their own hands, with Chavez as their spokesperson. She showed a few short videos related to the grassroots nature of Chavez’s political support, the creation of a rural community radio station by local campesinos, and the creation of various independent media collectives reporting on a wide variety of issues. The number of alternative media has gone from 23 to 300 since Chavez first came to power in 1998, according to Fonseca.

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