Chávez Helped Ortega
Buy Nicaraguan TV Station, Media
MANAGUA - While Hugo Chávez is being
criticized for removing six Venezuelan TV
stations from the air, some news reports say
Chávez may have played a role in helping
relatives of President Daniel Ortega to
purchase one of Nicaragua's most important
private TV stations, Channel 8 Telenica.
Press reports such as this story in
Nicaragua Hoy suggest that Channel 8's sale
was purchased in part with funds from the
Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA),
which was originally proposed as an
alternative to the Free Trade Area of the
Americas (FTAA). Some media have reported
that Channel 8 was bought for $10 million by
the Albanisa business group, a private
company financed by the Venezuelan
government and controlled by Ortega, Diario
las Americas notes.
Telenica's secretive change of hands has led
some media in Nicaragua to warn of dangers
to freedom of expression. According to El
Nuevo Diario, the station's new owners are
relatives of President Ortega. His family
already controls several media in Nicaragua
and has channeled state advertising to them.
Last July, the Committee to Protect
Journalists (CPJ) reported hat Ortega had
launched a personal war against media
critical of his government.
Until last weekend, Channel 8 had broadcast
the programs "This Week" and "Tonight" by
well-known journalist Carlos Fernando
Chamorro, a staunch critic of Ortega's
government and the former editor of
Barricada, which served as the Sandinista
Front's newspaper in the 1980s. But Chamorro
announced on Sunday that he would no longer
be a part of the government-controlled TV
station, the Nica Times reports in English.
"Chamorro, a leading critic of Ortega and
son of martyred newspaper publisher Pedro
Joaquín Chamorro, who was gunned down in
1978 for criticizing the dictatorship of
Anastasio Somoza, said he refuses to be
Ortega's accomplice in any way," Tim Rogers
writes for the Nica Times.
According to Rogers, Chamorro gave his last
broadcast of "This Week," his highly popular
and respected weekly TV news program,
explaining, “today I ratify my position in
front of Nicaraguan society that I don't
want to be a partner or collaborator with
Mr. Ortega, either directly or indirectly,
in any of his economic or political
businesses that seek to help him whitewash
his authoritarian image.”
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