The President of Globovisión’s Response to the President of Venezuela

<http://www.globovision.com/news.php?nid=170029> [English Translation]

Globovisión
22 NOV 2010 9:17:04 p.m.

Dear friends and fellow team members of Globovisión, again here I stand before you, showing my face and
answering for what I say and for what I do.

President Chávez has accused me of being a criminal and a fugitive from justice. Mr. President, you know very well
that neither my son Guillermo nor I are criminals.

Mr. President, you know very well that, following your orders, the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic
investigated us for nine months and was unable to find or fabricate any crime.
Mr. President, you know that in Venezuela justice has become an instrument of yours, aimed at persecuting and
intimidating us, Venezuelans who dare to publicly criticize your Governmental charge. Faced with Venezuelan
courts lacking independence, where prosecutors and judges have been arbitrarily reassigned in our case, to the extent
of going to far as to find the one who dared to issue an order of arrest and imprisonment without even taking us to
trial, thus violating due process in an outrageous manner.

I took our case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, to which Venezuela is a signatory, and I
challenged you, President Chávez, to present before the impartial international judges, who make up the
Commission and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the accusations that you are making against us in
Venezuela, in order to see what would be the verdict of those judges. I am ready and willing to accept and respect
the verdict of those judges. Again, I challenge you, President Chávez, to do the same thing.

Mr. President, you accuse me of criticizing Venezuela. Let’s not confuse the issue, Mr. President; I am not
criticizing Venezuela, which is my country and which I love dearly. Yes I do issue reports about you and your
regime, which is very much different from criticizing Venezuela. You are not Venezuela, and, as was demonstrated
last Sunday in the march organized by Bolivarian students in your support, the Venezuelans who support you are
becoming fewer and farther between.

Mr. President, you know very well about all that was said about dangers in Latin America at the forum held in the
U.S. Capitol Building last November 17th. You must have watched the complete video that Telesur recorded and,
furthermore, an official from the Venezuelan embassy in Washington was there and she assumed the task of writing
down everything that was reported or denounced concerning you, your Government and your accomplices in Bolivia
and Ecuador.
Mr. President, do not invent things. You know very well that there was nobody, nor is there anybody there, planning
coups d’état or presidential assassinations. Through your own experience, you should know how coups d’état and
presidential assassinations are planned, but I do not believe it would take place at a public forum in the U.S. Capitol
Building.
What did become clear at this forum was the fact that your activities in support of terrorist organizations and your
allegedly secret negotiations with Iran are well known. And, yes, comments were made about the disastrous
Government our beloved Venezuela has had to suffer, a government that has managed to squander away the most
favorable moment Venezuela has ever had, and about the fact that after managing 990 billion dollars, all you can
show is the country with the highest rate of inflation in the Americas. We are the only country in the Americas with
a Gross Domestic Product with negative growth and with quite a number of expropriated business enterprises, which
are much less efficient today than they once were, that is if they have not already foundered.

Mr. President, sooner or later you are going to have render accounts to the Venezuelan people concerning how you
squandered that great opportunity we had for becoming a progressive country, with good sources of employment,
with a good education system and where today all Venezuela ought to have a decent house in which to live, with a
good quality of life. What we have instead is a shortfall of 2,300,000 dwellings, that is to say, more than 10 million
Venezuelans do not have, nor can they have, a house in which to live decently.
We have an electric grid that has collapsed and, perhaps worst of all, something that is truly tantamount to treason
against our homeland: the collapsed and inefficient condition of an oil industry which continues to be our main
source of revenues.

Mr. President, I do not want you dead. I want you to be healthy enough so that I can see you when you will have to
render accounts to the Venezuelan people and maybe somewhere beyond our borders, resulting from your
mismanagement of the Government and from the fate met by that enormous fortune you have squandered away.

Mr. President, yes, I do render accounts. I render accounts to my shareholders, to State agencies such as the
SENIAT [tax collection agency] and most of all to my family. As you know, Mr. President, despite the fact that I
only handle private money, earned honestly, and from a known source, you have accused me of being a fraudster. It
is not a man’s way of doing things to accuse me and other Venezuelans as you do, shielding yourself with your
investiture as President, and in order to be able to make those accusations, you would have to render accounts to the
Venezuelan people concerning how you have defrauded us by squandering away the largest fortune Venezuela has
ever received. In 10 years you have managed much more money than what was received by all the governments of
the democratic period and today all you have to show us is a country in ruins.

Mr. President, your obsession should not be with Globovisión. As you say, what Globovisión does is issue reports.
It reports how you have failed to fulfill your promises, it reports the bad quality of life that we as Venezuelans suffer
under your governmental regime.

Your obsession ought to be how to improve your Governmental administration and you are not going to accomplish
that, unless you seek the concurrence of all Venezuelans, uniting Venezuelans in a common project. That cannot be
accomplished by means of threats of war between Venezuelans, and that is your discourse.

Mr. President, no matter how hard you try, you are not going to succeed in having us, Venezuelans, fight among
ourselves. The Armed Forces may perhaps have their radicals, such as their latest General-in-Chief, but I am certain
that most of them are respectful of the Constitution upon which they took their oath of office and most of them love
their country and will know how to respect the will of the majority and restrain those who try to disregard that will.

Mr. President, do not try to deflect attention toward me; you know the truth is that Venezuelans have grown tired of
your inefficiency and of your Government’s squandering. That is the inefficiency we report everyday on
Globovisión, when we hand the microphone over to so many Venezuelans who are desperate, upon realizing that
their quality of life has disappeared and that their loved ones are being killed.

Mr. President, you know Globovisión is still located in that same small house where you visited us as a presidential
candidate, and twice as President, during the first year of your administration.

Globovisión has not been able to increase its coverage, over an open signal, because you have not allowed us to
receive any new permits whatsoever. What continues to exist is a group of Venezuelans with a vision of a country
where saying what one thinks, where exercising free and independent journalism is a right and not a concession.
Where freedom of expression is the right of citizens to be informed and something that does not have as a cost
confiscation, exile or jail. These principles and values have made of us Venezuela’s informational benchmark.

Mr. President, do not persist in manipulating the Attorney General of the Republic and the President of the Supreme
Court of Justice. Please accept my challenge and let us elucidate the Globovisión case and the accusations you
make against me before independent international judges, all Latin Americans, of the Inter-American Court of
Human Rights.

Mr. President, you know that any legal action taken against Globovisión will be an outrage against the company and
its workers, since you, as well as your advisors, know that Globovisión has all its permits and documentation in
perfect order and up to date and we are zealously careful not to infringe upon the law.

Thank you, Venezuela for the consideration you have given to me.
Guillermo Zuloaga N.