Remarks of the President of the IAPA, Gonzalo Marroquin

Remarks of the President of the Inter American Press Association Gonzalo Marroquín at the 67th General Assembly October 17, 2011, Lima, Peru A people without freedom to express themselves, without the information needed for them to exercise their rights is not a people that is living in democracy. For the Inter American Press Association it is a real honor to be holding this 67th General Assembly in Peru, the country that has as an example of the battle for freedom a person such as Tupac Amarú, the first martyr that the Americas had in its struggle to defend freedom and independence. That occurred in the 18th century. At that time there had been no democracy and the concept of the press was hardly known. And now I would like to move to the middle of the 20th century, up to the 1980s,time in which Latin America was ruled by ferocious military dictatorships that silenced the voices of our peoples, and they did so by suppressing and silencing journalists and media. The result was a series of violations of human rights that we still lament today. With the return of democracy to Latin America, with the only exception being Cuba, also recovered were the freedoms and rights of people and societies, but at the same time the new political class began to show, in some cases, its worst side – that of authoritarianism and intolerance. Today we are living in the information age. Never before did man have so many facilities to learn about what is happening around him and in the world, and to express himself and communicate, but not for that reason has the extent of freedom necessarily increased, as there are those in government who base their struggle for retaining power precisely on control of another power – that of information. When such power is in the hands of the people it strengthens democracy and contributes to the freedom of society, but when it is the government that controls it, the result is totally the opposite. Yesterday, at the start of the discussions at this General Assembly, we made a review of the state of the press in the Americas, and we are perfectly aware that there are sufficient reasons to be concerned, and that when we declared 2011 the Freedom of Expression Year we had enough reasons to understand that we are in the midst of a war – the war between authoritarianism and freedom Today we have reasons to be concerned. Concerned because it is of little use that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights say that the right to freedom of expression must be respected without restriction when there are governments that constantly trample upon those international treaties that are the law in our countries. Concerned because we know that there is an intent to silence the press, with the aim of preventing citizens having access to information, aware that a society without information is able to be manipulated and can be kept under control. I am not speaking only of the right of journalists or that of any person to disseminate news and their opinions. I am speaking, basically, of the right that the people have to receive information as the only means that enables them to know about their political, social, economic or cultural environment. Let us then see what is happening in our hemisphere. There are two big enemies of free speech and press freedom, just to mention the principal risks that we are having to face today. Those enemies are: on the one hand organized crime and on the other the intolerant and authoritarian governments that I mentioned before. In both cases there is an intent to limit, restrict and completely do away with the unfettered flow of information that bothers them so much for reasons that are more than obvious. What bothers organized crime is that their activities be uncovered and they threaten or murder journalists. But also certain governments are annoyed that the press investigates and uncovers corruption, that it warns about their perverse intent to manipulate of simply reveal their incompetence. This comparison that I am making and have made at other forums may appear coarse, but it is true that both intolerant governments and organized crime are pursuing the same objective – to control information and take advantage of it. The means can differ. Some of them resort to threat and murder, as occurs in Mexico with the drug cartels, while others turn to more sophisticated methods – methods which are being employed in Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia and Venezuela, to cite the most notable, and we can name some of them: • Enactment of laws restricting press freedom; • Judicial prosecution of journalists and media; • Manipulation of official advertising to reward or punish; • Attacks, verbal harassment and campaigns to discredit with the aim of undermining the most important asset that the press has, which is its credibility. The press is called the fourth estate. We should not even contemplate being this, but rather what is important is that we be the watchdog over the powers that be and their abuses to the detriment of society which the government bodies are called upon to serve. There are governments in our continent that have woven into what they are doing a whole host of restrictive laws, with the clear objective of preventing the people from receiving information. The mechanism is thus to limit, attack, harass and silence the independent press, which become the target but not the main victim. The main victim is society itself, which is restricted and without doubt can then be subdued by authoritarian regimes. There is a common denominator in the speeches of authoritarian members of government when they attack the independent press and explain the reason for their actions. All, without exception, state that those who criticize them are against democracy, but of course they do not explain that in fact what they are referring to is “their democracy,” which is nothing more than a political system that is increasingly closer to out-and-out totalitarianism. That is why, based on the principles and values that we know and respect in a true democracy – and I cite particularly freedom, justice and respect, I can affirm that there are government leaders, such as Hugo Chávez, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Daniel Ortega and Rafael Correa, who repeatedly betray these principles. We journalists must acknowledge that the press is not a perfect institution. However, it is the best tool that there is to date to report on what is happening. Today, the diversity of social media on the Internet enriches this exchange of opinions and that is why those who dream of controlling information are facing increasing resistance, and a recent example of that is how the social media have brought about the overthrow of dictatorships in other parts of the world. Something that I do not tire of repeating is that we are not facing a phenomenon that has to do with ideologies, but rather action arising from the authoritarianism that I have mentioned, added to which is the excessive desire to stay in power. That happened with the Alberto Fujimori government here in Peru, which went about buying up or bashing the press, something quite similar to what is occurring now in countries with a different ideological stance. Control of information used to be sought by the right-wing military dictatorships, just as the governments I have mentioned are doing now. We all know that power corrupts if it has no counterbalance, and if it is absolute there is absolute corruption of democratic principles and values. Even with the normal frictions that it has with every government the press is allied to those who seek to take the right path, who are at the service of the society that elected them, because the watchdog role it has and the denunciations it makes are an alarm bell that serves to correct the direction when errors are committed in any branch of government. That is why we regard as a positive message for society the presence in this General Assembly of President Ollanta Humala, because that demonstrates his willingness to show all amount of tolerance, with the intent of preserving those democratic values that we have mentioned so many times during these days. As a famous president of the United States said, at a time when he was the target of press criticism, and I quote, “If I had to choose between a government without a press and a press without a government, I would choose the latter.” Today, it would seem that the choice of our governments leaders is to seek to have a government without a press. When a president can have the luxury of taking out a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against journalists and media as a “personal” litigation, and using all the powers of the government to obtain a favorable verdict, when another government leader shuts down media outlets, when several of them pursue restrictive legislation, one has to recognize that we are facing a power that is too big and too ambitious. That is why in this Freedom of Expression Year we have made it our task to involve every person, every sector representing society, in the battle for freedom. We are not fighting for a privilege, much less for personal interests or those of the media, we are doing so because we believe that only well-informed societies, those in which there is discussion of ideas, can live in real freedom. The task has barely begun, but we must talk more to the people than to the government leaders, because the strength of democracies falls upon their shoulders, not on those in power. We are making this call because it is important it be understood that when a media outlet is silenced, when a journalist is murdered or gagged, the damage is not only to the press, it is to the people, who in that way see their right to information reduced. The attack is against everyone – against us but also against society. That being the case, we repeat in the Inter American Press Association that this is a war that we should not wage alone. It is a war that requires the participation of the citizenry, of all peace-loving people and those who wish for themselves and their children societies that are free to develop. When laws are made to restrict information, even by means of a manipulated concept of referendum, what is sought is control of the free flow of information. The cases of RCTV, Globovisión, Sexto Poder in Venezuela, El Universo in Ecuador, La Nación and Clarín in Argentina, but many more in those same countries, are not isolated ones. We are faced with governments that do not want the power of information to be in the hands of their peoples, and that is why they concentrate media and attempt to do away with an independent press. My reflection today is, in the first place, for journalists. We must practice our profession with a firm conviction and we must have closer ties with all sectors of society in each country, in each city. We must strengthen our commitment to the search for the truth and promote justice and development reaching everyone. We must be the voice of the people and we must also be united at a hemisphere level at this time. because what is happening to our colleagues in some countries tomorrow could happen to the rest of us. I make a call, too, to societies throughout the continent. To the inter-sectoral leaders in all of the Americas – Don’t let them fool you! When the press comes under attack, it is you who are being attacked. The end of freedom begins when we are not allowed to be informed, when we re not allowed to express ourselves. The panorama is not a rosy one, but neither is going down on our knees. Tyrants come and go, principles and values prevail. In the IAPA we have as a vision the Declaration of Chapultepec, and that is why I would like to end this evening by citing one of its passages that contains a profound truth. It says: “Only through open discussion and unfettered information will it be possible to find answers to the great collective problems, to reach consensus, to have development benefit all sectors, to practice social justice and to advance the quest for equality. We therefore vehemently reject assertions which would define freedom and progress, freedom and order, freedom and stability, freedom and justice, freedom and the ability to govern as mutually exclusive values.” Thank you very much and God bless Peru, God bless the Americas and always accompany the actions of the IAPA. ###