Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Press abuses in Latin America

G. Philip Hughes, who was an Ambassador to Caribbean countries during the administration of George H.W. Bush, has an op-ed in U.S. News & World Report criticizing Barack Obama for failing to condemn press abuses in Latin America. Like many such op-eds, he notes only Venezuela, Ecuador, and Argentina (Cuba wasn't mentioned, though lack of any press freedom there is obvious).

Yet according to Reporters Without Borders, the Latin American countries with the worst abuses against the press are Mexico, Colombia, and Honduras. But since all of them are U.S. allies, he conveniently decides not to mention them. Or, in the case of Mexico, he claims that abuses are now gone because it is democratic.

In short, I don't disagree with the basic premise, namely that the Obama administration should be more vocal about attack on the press. But any such statements would have to start with government friendly to the United States.

2 comments:

Anonymous,  8:51 AM  

Or maybe with the government of the United States.

"Chile (80th) fell 47 places because of its many freedom of information violations, committed very often by the security forces during student protests. The United States (47th) also owed its fall of 27 places to the many arrests of journalist covering Occupy Wall Street protests."

also Bradley Manning.

Justin Delacour 11:38 PM  

I don't disagree with the basic premise, namely that the Obama administration should be more vocal about attack on the press. But any such statements would have to start with government friendly to the United States.

Unfortunately, that's just not how U.S. foreign policy works. (And it's not how U.S. media operate either). The long-standing tendency is to selectively emphasize breaches of liberal norms on the part of rival states and to deemphasize those of allied states. It should be a surprise to no one that the perceived interests of U.S. officials often get in the way of principled approaches to foreign affairs.

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