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Life Onboard |
LAST UPDATE
April 10, 2007
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| December 6, 2006 |
TeleSUR Brings Latin America One Step Closer To Independence and Integration – Eduardo Rothe |
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| Eduardo Rothe (left) joins with a Japanese journalist to talk about issues in Latin America |
To many Americans, it would be inconceivable to have to rely on a big foreign television news station with a distinctive Latin American slant to get full and accurate coverage of their own country. Yet, Latin Americans have long gone without their own major television news network, and have had to settle on the American channel CNN for news of their region and of the rest of the world. In 2005, however, teleSUR, a television network jointly owned by Venezuela, Argentina, Cuba, Uruguay, and Bolivia was created to help bring more independence and integration to Latin America. Eduardo Rothe, a journalist and analyst for teleSUR joined part of the 55th voyage and spoke about the aims and challenges of this young but fast-growing and increasingly influential network. |
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| Mr. Rothe meets a 94-year old participant on Peace Boat. “In the world, everyone is a little girl and boy,” said Mr. Rothe |
“TeleSUR is an old dream in Latin America,” said Mr. Rothe, who himself grew up in Latin America and whose family was directly affected by instabilities in the region. “What it tries to do is to give countries access to a forum in which to speak. It's also a manner in which we can know ourselves, because by knowing ourselves, we can know the problems we have, and the solutions to them.” Based in Caracas, the network was proposed by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who aspires to transform conflict-torn Latin America into a bloc of peace and cooperation. The network devotes 80 percent of its broadcasts to news, and 20 percent to documentaries. Instead of commercials, it runs public service announcements and musical interludes between programs. |
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| Guatemala's Marlon Cordova, an NGO worker dedicated to quelling Guatemala's post-war violence, had a chance to meet Mr. Rothe on Peace Boat |
TeleSUR fills a much needed gap, said Mr. Rothe, because most people in Latin America consider CNN to be contrary to the interests and integration of the region. “To us, CNN is the line of the American Department of State, not the line of Latin America,” he said. The biases of the American press have long have a disturbing—if not deadly—affect on Latin America, he explained, using Guatemala as an example. “Guatemala was accused in 1954 of having weapons of mass destruction, even though it actually had only 8 little airplanes. The American press accused Guatemala of having a Russian submarine base in Puerto Barrios, and this gave the U.S. reason to invade Guatemala [on the pretext that it was fighting Communism], so they bombed the country and created 400,000 war orphans.” The true motive behind the invasion, he added, was to topple the democratically elected president of the country, whose support for indigenous peasants long dispossessed of their land posed a challenge to the United Fruit Company. This U.S.-based company owned half of Guatemala's most fertile land, while the majority of the population remained landless. |
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Not everyone is thrilled with the creation of teleSUR, however. The Bush administration opposes it, and some U.S. senators wanted to create a rival network to it even before it started broadcasting. “They call it a terrorist organization,” said Mr. Rothe. “We've had bomb threats.” Mr. Rothe, however, said he does not feel threatened by the U.S. “The U.S. has already reached its extreme,” he said. “Roses think a gardener is eternal, but he's not. No system is eternal.” Meanwhile, CNN has been copying aspects of teleSUR and making more interesting reports to compete with it, according to Mr. Rothe.
To learn more about teleSUR, visit – www.telesurtv.net. To watch live streaming broadcasts (in Spanish), click “Señal en Vivo.” |
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