Photo of Ortega and Dictator-for-a-Day, Pedro Carmona now hiding out in Bogota.
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...One unique feature of the general strike that began on December 2 is the absence of any demand other than the removal of President Chávez, either by resignation or immediate elections. All rhetoric is reduced to one simple message: Chávez must go. Recently, CTV president Carlos Ortega began calling Chávez "the dictator."
Every evening Ortega and Fernández sit next to each other and read a statement summing up the day's strike activity, which is broadcast live on the nation's four major TV channels. This prolonged cozy relationship between labor and management, in which all demands are subordinated to the government's ouster, is also a rarity for Latin America, if not the world.
Chávez has offered to hold a recall election in August, in accordance with the 1999 Constitution. But opposition leaders are unwilling to wait, claiming that by August, Chávez will have further consolidated his control of the armed forces by favoring his military loyalists with promotions. According to government supporters, the real reason is that the opposition wants Chávez out by January 1, the date of Lula's presidential inauguration in Brazil, which, along with the recent election of leftist Lucio Gutiérrez in Ecuador, fortifies Chávez's position. Both Lula and Chávez place antineoliberalism at the top of their agenda rather than promoting such radical visions as socialism, an approach now shared by many leftists throughout the continent. The two favor a government that plays a strong role in the economy in favor of economic development and social justice rather than bowing out to the private sector.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030113&s=ellner
This is Not The Nine O'Clock News
"We (the coup organisers) had a deadly weapon: the media."
Vice-Admiral Victor Ramírez Pérez, speaking on Venevision, a private
channel, April 11, 2002
...Four days prior to the coup, the editor of El Nacional, Miguel Enrique Otero, attended a press conference with leading opposition figures Carlos Ortega (head of union federation, CTV) and Pedro Carmona (head of the Chamber of Commerce, Fedecamaras and soon to be installed as the 'coup president').
The newspaper editor made common cause with Ortega and Carmona, claiming that: "We are all involved in this struggle in defence of the right to information." This process reached its denouement on April 12, when coup plotters and journalists openly congratulated each other on their apparent success, live on Venevision.
Indeed, according to Le Monde Dioplomatique,key conspirators -including Gustavo Cisneros – had met the previos day, April 11, at the offices of Venevision.When the government attempted to block the signals of the main offenders on the day of the coup, media owners simply rerouted their broadcasts through cable and satellite. On screen, they repeatedly broadcast selectively edited TV footage that appeared to show 'Chavistas' shooting into a crowd of unarmed opposition marchers.
And when Chavez was restored to power on April 13, the private media continued with their diet of fiction. Rather than broadcast the unpalatable truth, many instead showed cartoons, cookery programmes and action films.
http://www.earlham.edu/~rodrimi/politics/media.htm