The
U.S. government is not only seeking to punish the Venezuelan
government with its increasingly draconian sanctions, but is seeking
as well to cripple the teleSUR media network, despite the fact that
it is funded by several other countries.
by
Whitney Webb
Recent
sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the Trump administration have
forced the Empire Files program, hosted by American investigative
journalist Abby Martin, to shut down. The decision to officially
announce the show’s end came after blocks on wire transfers
originating in Venezuela and sent to the U.S. were recently imposed,
thereby cutting off the show’s primary source of funding.
Issues
with funding caused by the U.S.’ Venezuela policy had, however,
been a problem for some time, leading Martin and her staff to halt
production in late May. While Martin and her team had hoped
conditions would improve, the recent sanctions make that such a
distant possibility that the decision to shut down the show was made
on Wednesday.
Empire
Files, which produces investigative journalism “from inside
history’s biggest empire,” is funded by a contract with the
teleSUR network, which receives the majority of its funding from
Venezuela but is also funded by the states of Bolivia, Nicaragua,
Uruguay and Cuba.
According
to a statement posted on Media Roots, wire transfers to the U.S. —
not just from Venezuela, but from all other countries that fund
teleSUR — have been severed. This suggests that the U.S. government
is not only seeking to punish the Venezuelan government with its
increasingly draconian sanctions, but is seeking as well to cripple
the teleSUR media network, despite the fact that it is funded by
several other countries. Indeed, other U.S.-located journalists
contracted by teleSUR, along with the Empire Files team, have also
come under financial attack.
Such
financial attacks targeting the network have been on-going, as the
U.S. government has been blocking funding sent from teleSUR to its
employees located in the United States for over six months. For much
of the past year, the U.S.’ Venezuela policy caused payments to be
both delayed and sporadic, particularly after as the U.S. Treasury
began to push American banks last September to “be on the
look-out for suspicious financial activity,” particularly “wire
transfers” originating from Venezuela.
U.S.
government attacks on the teleSUR network are unfortunate but
unsurprising, given the fact that teleSUR has long been a target of
U.S. government policy owing to its association with the Venezuelan
government. For instance in 2015, a failed coup plot in Venezuela
that had been backed by the U.S. included plans to bomb teleSUR’s
news building in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas.
More
recently, U.S.-funded opposition forces in Venezuela attacked a
teleSUR news team, while another teleSUR reporter was shot in the
back in a separate incident. Martin herself was also threatened by
violent U.S.-backed opposition protesters for her reporting on
Venezuela for the Empire Files.
In a
statement, Martin told MintPress that teleSUR has come under U.S.
attack because “it is one of the very few outlets in the US that
gives an alternative to the corporate media propaganda about
Venezuela while the US foments regime change against its elected
leadership.” She added that “the sanctions that have
severed TeleSUR’s finances are another way for the US government to
shut down dissenting voices it deems a threat, but this time in the
shadows” and thanked the show’s viewers for “the
outpouring of support” that she and her staff have received
since the show’s shut down was announced.
Empire
Files seeks alternative funding
Since
the program first launched in 2015, the Empire Files has produced
over 100 documentaries, interviews, and other media content from
around the world, focusing on the costs of war, inequality and the
far-reaching influence of U.S. empire. Most recently, right before
funds dried up, the program had hired a staff of journalists within
the besieged Gaza Strip. As a result, the program currently has
unreleased footage of recent events in Gaza, including the Great
Return March, as well as on-the-ground footage from Colombian “peace
zones.”
Given
the bleak financial outlook for the program and “no end in
sight” to U.S. financial attacks on teleSUR and Venezuela in
general, Martin and her team halted production of the series at the
end of May, before Season Two had concluded. In an effort to complete
the post-production of already recorded Season Two footage and to
produce a planned third season, Martin and the Empire Files staff
have announced independent fundraisers in order to keep the program
alive.
For
those interested in donating to the Empire Files, a GoFundMe
page has been set up to help meet essential
expenses. In addition, those wishing to donate cryptocurrency can
also donate BitCoin to the program’s wallet (information at the end
of this page) or become a monthly subscriber to the program via
Patreon.
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