Venezuelan Authorities Reject Editor's Claim of Censor****p

Caracas, December 13, 2007, (venezuelanalysis.com) - In a joint
statement issued on Wednesday, Venezuelan Finance Minister, Rodrigo
Cabezas and Communications Minister William Lara, rejected as
"slander", claims by editor and publisher David Natera, that his
regional daily, Correo del Caroni, is being forced out of print. Natera
denounced the situation as a "politically motivated" failure of the
government to grant access to U.S. dollars it needs to im****t news
print.

Since 2003, the Venezuelan government has maintained foreign currency
exchange restrictions in order to prevent capital flight. Natera
claimed that Correo del Caroni was going out of circulation, "because
the regime of Chavez has refused dollars to the company DIPALCA, that
they know is the im****ter of Chilean newsprint, that we have used
exclusively for the printing of this daily for many years."

However, Cabezas and Lara said that CADIVI, the government commission
that handles foreign currency requests, had assigned US$ 82 million for
im****ting newsprint in 2007, up from US$ 76.3 million in 2006, an
increase of 8 percent.

DIPALCA, which supplies Correo del Caroni, has received US$20.3 million
since currency controls were imposed in 2003, of which US$ 5.4 million
has been assigned to them this year. This is equivalent to 6.62 percent
of dollars assigned to im****ting newsprint for the press in 2007, the
two ministers said.

The ministers dismissed Natera's allegations that the government is
using currency controls as a "political weapon" pointing out that
DIPALCA not only supplies newsprint to Correo del Caroni, but also many
other newspapers, including the pro-government daily, Diario VEA.

DIPALCA assured yesterday that it has im****ted more newsprint which it
will distribute in the next few days, and said that it had had problems
with its inventories, which combined with increased demand for
newsprint on a world wide level, had affected its operating
cir***stances.

Dagoberto Romer, president of DILPACA also expressed his satisfaction
with his dealings with CADIVI and confirmed that DIPALCA currently has
only six written requests for newsprint, three which were only received
on Tuesday and are still pending, and another three which have just
been approved through the "regular procedure."

Manuel Barroso, head of CADIVI also denied Natera's allegations;
however, he admitted that due to increased demand for dollars in the
lead up to Christmas which caused a breakdown in CADIVI's website, the
government commission had had problems processing requests in the past
week.

Re****ters Without Borders, which receives funding from the National
Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the International Republican
Institute, (which are in turn funded by U.S Congress), said, "We hope
that exchange controls, like the allocation of state advertising, has
not been turned into a way of penalizing publications for their
editorial policies."

Similarly, Gonzalo Marroqun, from the Inter American Press Association
(IAPA), said "We are deeply concerned that a daily newspaper has to
discontinue publication of its print edition not because of economic
issues, but because of the existence of a government-imposed regime of
exchange control."

However, Richard Auda from the Venezuelan based group Re****ters for the
Truth said Natera's allegations "that there is a strategy to close the
paper down" were unfounded, "the truth is" Auda argued, that Correo del
Caroni, which owes DIDALCA money, "did not take sufficient steps" to
ensure supply.

Natera is the chairperson of the Venezuelan Press Block, which groups
more than 40 private national and regional newspapers politically
aligned with the Venezuelan opposition.

"The attitude of the owner of the daily Correo del Coroni, is nothing
more than the ratification of his opposition to the government, using
the means of communication that is his property, not to inform, but
rather as a political instrument," Lara and Cabezas said.

Ministers Lara and Cabezas said, Natera's "campaign of lies" aims to
"generate an ill-intentioned matrix of opinion internally and
internationally in relation to freedom of expression and information,"
in Venezuela.

However, the statement concluded, "The government of the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela ratifies its commitment, loyalty and defence of
the constitutional principles in articles 57 and 58 of our
Constitution. Both guarantee the right of all Venezuelans to express
freely their thoughts, ideas and opinions without any type of
censor****p, to free and plural communication and timely, true and
impartial information."

The majority of Venezuela's print, radio and television media outlets
are privately owned and many put forward an anti-government line.

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