Congressman Joe Wilson could put Telesur in trouble
The Republican Congressman for South Carolina, Joe Wilson, asked the Justice Department to initiate an investigation to determine if the Telesur network acts as an agent of Nicolás Maduro's government in the United States. According to the representative, Telesur "seems to act under foreign direction and engages in political activities in the interest of its foreign director, mainly the government of Venezuela."
"As the Administration continues to help the people of Venezuela to recover their country from authoritarian dictators, I am writing to ask the Administration to help the people of the United States by investigating the state of Telesur under the Foreign Agent Registration Act. (FARA)", Wilson wrote in a letter sent on February 28 to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
He also declared that "the Telesur Tv channel is for Venezuela what Russia Today [RT] is for Russia, a propaganda team that poses as a news organization and disseminates information that undermines the interests of the United States in Latin America."
Recently, Wilson's office said it has not yet received a response from the Justice Department about the letter. As reported by McClatchy, Wilson would be interested in occupying the highest rank of his party in the Foreign Relations Committee of the Chamber.
Telesur, an initiative of the deceased Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro, is not going through its best moment. It began its transmission in 2005, as an "alternative" Latin American news channel, with the participation of the governments of Venezuela, Cuba, Uruguay and Argentina, which were later joined by Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador. Venezuela controls at least 51 percent of the shares as well as the content.
But with the political change that the region is experiencing, several governments have disconnected from the project, including Argentina in 2016 and Ecuador last month, arguing that the content it transmits is propagandistic. After a trial period, Telesur began broadcasting in English 24 hours a day for Washington D.C. and its surroundings in March 2015.
Telesur and RT, the chain financed by the Kremlin, in fact, share content. RT launched its channel in Spanish in 2009. Both channels produce "En la Mira", "a series of programs designed to counteract the mainstream media. The policy of sanctions carried out by the US, the opposition to Western media corporations, as well as the creation of a multipolar world, are among the main topics of discussion, "according to its website. The opinion columns of the American lawyer and presenter of Telesur, Eva Golinger, are also published in RT in Spanish and on the Cuban digital site Cubadebate.
