MEDIA AND GOV MAKE HAY OUT OF GENERAL HILL

C O N F I D E N T I A L CARACAS 001331 SIPDIS NSC FOR CBARTON E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/21/2014 TAGS: KPAO PGOV PINR PM PTER VE SUBJECT: MEDIA AND GOV MAKE HAY OUT OF GENERAL HILL STATEMENTS Classified By: Victoria A. Alvarado, IO; Reasons 1.4 (B) and (D) -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) Leading Venezuelan national dailies, "El Universal" and "El Nacional," printed articles April 3 and 4 that distort parts of General James Hill's March 24 and April 1 statements on Venezuela to the U.S. House and Senate Armed Forces Committees. Both newspapers' articles were based on an article that ran in the Bogota newspaper "El Tiempo." The Venezuelan version had General Hill saying things about Venezuela and President Chavez, which in fact, he did not say. President Chavez then decried USG interference in Venezuela's sovereignty and Vice President Rangel issued a scathing statement condemning Hill's alleged statements. IO met with the papers April 12 to clarify General Hill's remarks. The next day "El Universal" published a clarification of the article, noting the inaccuracies of the article. The media appears to have embellished Hill's statements to discredit Chavez. The fact that the Venezuelan Embassy has a copy of Hill's actual remarks and the GOV did not check the veracity of the articles with us suggest that GOV officials took advantage of the media's distorted statements to condemn U.S.G. intentions towards Venezuela. End Summary. -------------- Private Print Media Take the Low Road -------------- ¶2. (C) Leading Venezuelan liberal pro-opposition daily "El Nacional" (circulation around 120,000) and leading conservative daily "El Universal" (circulation about 130,000) printed on April 3 and 4, respectively, articles that clearly distorted parts of General Hill's March 24 and April 1 statements before the U.S. House and Senate Armed Forces Committees. Both articles referred to an April 2 article on Hill's hearings that appeared in Bogota paper "El Tiempo." However, the two Venezuelan dailies modified parts of the "El Tiempo" article, making it appear that General Hill had made certain comments about Venezuela and President Chavez that were not attributed as such in "El Tiempo." ¶3. (C) The "El Nacional" headline read, "General Hill Accused Chavez of Decimating Citizens' Rights." The El Universal" headline blared, "General Hill Accused Chavez of Being a Radical Populist." Both headlines were inaccurate; General Hill did not/not make specific reference to Venezuela or its president when he commented on the loss in citizens' rights or the phenomenon of radical populism in some of the region's nations. (Comment: Though one could conclude that Venezuela and Chavez, along with some other countries and their leaders were on General Hill's mind when he made these remarks, these two pro-opposition papers appeared to have embellished Hill's words to fit the papers' and the opposition's apparent interests to discredit Chavez and drive an even bigger contentious wedge between the U.S. and Venezuelan governments. End Comment.) -------------- What Hill Said -------------- ¶4. (U) March 24 House Hearing: --The security picture in Latin America and the Caribbean has grown more complex over the past year. Colombia's considerable progress in the battle against narcoterrorism is offset by negative developments elsewhere in the region, particularly in Haiti, Bolivia, and Venezuela. --These traditional threats are now complemented by an emerging threat best described as radical populism, in which the democratic process is undermined to decrease rather than protect individual rights. Some leaders in the region are tapping in deep-seated frustrations of the failure of democratic reforms to deliver expected goods and services. By tapping into these frustrations, which run concurrently with frustrations caused by social and economic inequality, the leaders are at the same time able to reinforce their radical positions by inflaming anti-U.S. sentiment. (Note: This segment of General Hill's remarks does not/not make direct reference to either Venezuela or President Chavez. End Note.) --Venezuela remains an oil-rich nation that provides some 13 percent of oil imported into the United States. The domestic political situation continues to be exceedingly complex, and the prospects of the presidential recall referendum are still in considerable doubt. Venezuelan society is deeply polarized and will continue to be so, as long as the government of Venezuela continues along an authoritarian path. Well-organized street protests numbering in the hundreds of thousands occurred on a frequent basis over the past year. (Note: El Universal and El Nacional reported accurately on this segment. End Note.) ¶5. (U) April 1 Senate Hearing: --The security picture in Latin American and the Caribbean has indeed grown more complex over the past year, as events in Haiti, Bolivia, and Venezuela amply illustrate. Deep-seated frustrations over the failure of democratic and free-market reforms to improve the standard of living for all citizens are significantly challenging many of the region's governments. This frustration is exacerbated by endemic corruption and by the insidious impact of society of the threats I addressed last year -narcoterrorism, urban gangs and other illegal armed groups, arms and human trafficking, and support to international terrorism. --Question (Senator Bill Nelson): Does this committee need to take note of any of the terrorist and narcotrafficking that is going on in Colombia that might be seeping into Venezuela? --Response (General Hill): The borders of all the countries that border Colombia are porous. The most porous of those borders is the Venezuelan border. An the Colombians have let it be known in strong terms at the presidential level and at the military level that the Venezuelans need to do more on the other side of the border, and they need to. --Question (Senator Bill Nelson): Are we seeing any of the kidnapping that has been in Colombia start moving over into Venezuela? Response (General Hill): Sir, there's always been not only FARC but ELN and AUC presence in the Venezuelan side of the border, and they go back and forth with essentially impunity into Colombia. And kidnapping does, in fact, take place on both sides of the border. --Question (Senator Bill Nelson): In these upcoming elections in the Dominican Republic that we're worried about some questions of honesty in the elections, do you have a force structure that you can call on if chaos were to erupt there, or, for example, in Venezuela, where the interests of Americans were suddenly threatened, that you would be able to get your hands of the assets to respond to that? --Response (General Hill): We very quickly put in a Marine fast team into the embassy in Haiti, in a matter of hours, to bolster the Marine force defending the embassy in Haiti. We were able to put in marines and follow-on forces from the French and the Chileans within a matter of 24 hours into Haiti. There's no doubt in my mind that we can respond in may area in the United States administration wants to do that. (Note/Comment: Neither the GOV nor the Venezuelan media appear to have picked up on this potentially explosive question and response. The Chavez government could easily distort General Hill's response and claim that Hill's message confirms Chavez's accusations that the U.S. is considering a military intervention in Venezuela. It is possible the GOV is keeping it under its sleeve for a more opportune moment. End Note/Comment.) -------------- GOV Lashes Back -------------- ¶6. (U) Though President Chavez did not enter into the details of General Hill's most recent statements, he lambasted Hill during his April 4 "Alo Presidente" program for once again interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign Venezuela in a manner that was not only improper, but also demonstrated Hill's ignorance of Venezuela. The same day, Vice President Rangel, who appears to have "bought" the opposition-leaning papers' versions of what Hill said, issued a scathing statement condemning Hill's alleged statements. Rangel's main points: --Hill has a militarized vision of the region, drawn from the School of the Americas' - the bastion of the U.S. national security doctrine and a center that forms military dictators and torturers - concept of Latin America. --Hill told the U.S. Senate that Chavez "uses his position and support to gradually decimate the rights of Venezuelan citizens. This degrades democracy." (Note: Hill did not refer specifically to Venezuela or Chavez when he made this comment. End Note.) --Hill's lack of knowledge of the region led him to confuse the region's struggle for social change with what Hill terms "a radical populism that is becoming a danger to hemispheric security." --According to Hill, the popular outcry for a better form of life and the search for solutions to the crisis, which is caused by unjust political, social, and economics systems, is an attempt against hemispheric security. This is the old language of the cold war; the characterization as subversive any social change the U.S. cannot handle. --The capricious definition of populism, which is nothing other than profound social change, a new economic model, and popular participation, leads to the typical demonizing of neo-liberal ideology, whose anachronistic leaders are the heart of the power in Washington. --The GOV does not have an authoritarian bone in its body and these remarks constitute an unacceptable insolence on the part of a foreign military chief against Hugo Chavez, an impeccably, democratically elected leader, which contrasts with the origin of President Bush's mandate. --The GOV's actions do not degrade democracy; rather the irrational opposition's systematic acts of terror and attacks against the Constitution indeed degrade democracy. Further, the U.S. President's aggressive international policies and absolute disdain for the United Nations are the object of outright world rejection. -------------- Embassy Action -------------- ¶7. (C) On April 6, IO wrote to the editors of the papers, clarifying what Hill had indeed said and urging the editors to confirm with the U.S. Embassy USG officials' statements. IO then met with "El Nacional" editor Patricia Spadero and "El Universal" Vice President Alcides Rojas April 12 to convey our concern over the papers' misrepresentation of a USG official's statements and to note that this misrepresentation could serve to boost the GOV's assertions that the pro-opposition media distort the truth to dupe the populace. Both papers agreed that parts of their articles were inaccurate. Rojas pointed out, however, that the coversheet list of "El Tiempo" articles that Reuters wire service had sent to El Universal had titled the article in question, "Populismo Venezolano Amenaza la Region: Estados Unidos," ("Venezuelan Populism Threatens the Region"),while the title of the article itself was "Populism Amenaza la Region: Estados Unidos," with no specific mention of Venezuela or any other country. ¶8. (U) On April 12, El Universal published a clarification of its previous article on General Hill, recognizing that parts of the article were inaccurate. Also on April 12, an official from Venezuelan Embassy's press section called our press office to inquire whether the U.S. Embassy had issued a clarification that "El Universal" had used. In response to our press assistant's reply that we had not issued a statement and her offer to send the Venezuelan Embassy General Hill's remarks, the Venezuelan press officer said that the Embassy already had a copy. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶9. (C) The pro-opposition media fell into the temptation of discrediting President Chavez by manipulating the words of a senior USG official. Similarly, the GOV, rather than attempting to verify the accuracy of the papers' articles on General Hill's remarks with the U.S. Embassy, GOV officials deliberately took advantage of the papers' distorted statements to once again condemn U.S. government intentions towards Venezuela. The fact that the Venezuelan Embassy alleges it has General Hill's words, supports this assessment. In Venezuela's polarized society, where the political stakes are rising by the day, we can expect more of this behavior. SHAPIRO