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3.2. BASIC ELECTORAL CONDITIONS IN EL SALVADOR, GUATEMALA, AND NICARAGUA, 1982–85
All three of these countries, in which elections were held in the years 1982–85, were in the midst of serious conflict: Nicaragua was being subjected to regular border incursions by the U.S.-organized and supplied contras. El Salvador was in the midst of a combination civil conflict and externally (U.S.) organized and funded counterinsurgency war. Guatemala, as we noted earlier, had evolved into a counterinsurgency state, with permanent warfare to keep the majority of Indians and other peasants in their place, and violent repression was structured into the heart of the political system.
3.2.1. Free speech and assembly.
3.2.2. Freedom of the press.
3.2.3. Freedom of organization of intermediate groups.
All groups “which follow, or are subordinated to, any totalitarian system of ideology” (evidently an exception is made of the Guatemalan armed forces and the national-security ideology) are illicit.
3.2.4. Freedom to organize parties, field candidates, and campaign for office
3.2.5. Absence of state terror and a climate of fear
3.3. THE COERCION PACKAGES IN EL SALVADOR, GUATEMALA, AND NICARAGUA
3.4. EL SALVADOR: HOW THE U.S. MEDIA TRANSFORMED A “DERANGED KILLING MACHINE” INTO THE PROTECTOR OF AN INCIPIENT DEMOCRACY
In reporting on the 1982 Salvadoran election, the U.S. mass media closely followed the government agenda. The personalities of the candidates, the long lines waiting to vote, alleged rebel disruption, and “turnout” were heavily featured.65
3.5. “FIRST STEP: GUATEMALA OPTS FOR MODERATION”
Guatemalan Bishops’ Conference,
3.6. NICARAGUA: MEDIA SERVICE IN THE DELEGITIMIZING PROCESS
3.6.1. Tone of negativism and apathy
It is our belief that the invariable enthusiasm and optimism found by the U.S. mass media in client-state elections, and the apathy and negativism found in elections in states disfavored by the U.S. administration, has nothing to do with electoral realities and must be explained entirely by an imposed propaganda agenda and the filtering out of contrary opinion and information.
3.6.2. Ignoring the superior quality of the Nicaraguan election
Nicaragua went to great pains to provide for election secrecy, and for an easy and intelligible system of voting. For one thing, they had a massive literacy campaign before the election, making electoral printed matter generally accessible.
3.6.3. Rebel disruption into the black hole; turnout no longer an index of triumph of democracy
In the Salvadoran election, rebel disruption was a central feature of the government’s propaganda frame.
In sum, the two observer reports discuss rebel disruption in Nicaragua, turnout, and the meaning of that turnout. The U.S. mass media, which had featured these matters heavily in reference to the Salvadoran election—where they fitted the government’s propaganda agenda—found them entirely unnewsworthy as regards Nicaragua.
3.6.4. The revived sensitivity to coercion
As we described earlier, the “coercion package” was off the agenda for the U.S. government and mass media in addressing the S...
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3.6.5. The “main opposition” to the fore
The central dramatic propaganda line for the Nicaraguan election pressed by U.S. officials was the alleged struggle of Arturo Cruz to induce the Sandinistas to create an open system in which he would be able to compete fairly, the failure of the “Marxists-Leninists” to make adequate concessions, Cruz’s refusal to compete, and the subsequent “exclusion” of the “main opposition.”
In retrospect, Kinzer concedes the fact, although with the customary propaganda twist. He writes that “Ortega’s landslide victory was never in doubt,” because “the opposition was splintered” (and, as he fails to observe, had no popular base, in contrast to the well-organized Sandinista party), and “because the Sandinistas controlled the electoral machinery.”
3.6.6. The concern over freedom of the press and assembly
Richard Wagner, on CBS News (Nov. 3, 1984), citing as usual Arturo Cruz as the “strongest opposition,” also mobilizes a single Nicaraguan citizen (no doubt selected at random) who says: “How can this be free elections [sic] when we don’t have freedom of speech, freedom of the press?” Wagner says that “In addition to censorship” there were food shortages, a deteriorated transportation system, an unpopular draft, and church opposition, so that “it becomes apparent why a free and open election is not in the cards.”
The U.S. mass media did not concur, but it is striking how they avoid comparisons and data. The way in which the media can denounce restrictions on freedom of the press in Nicaragua after having totally ignored the question in El Salvador, where restrictions were far more severe, is remarkable.
3.7. QUANTITATIVE EVIDENCE OF SYSTEMATIC MEDIA BIAS
The elements in the upper part of the tables are the approved issues—rebel disruption, personalities, election mechanics, etc.—that the government wishes to stress in its sponsored elections.
3.8. THE MIG CRISIS STAGED DURING NICARAGUA’S ELECTION WEEK
As Newsweek pointed out on November 19, 1984, “The story of the freighter [to Nicaragua, allegedly carrying MIGs] first broke during the election-night coverage,” but at no point does Newsweek (or Time, the Times, or CBS News) suggest that the timing was deliberate.
The MIG ploy was, nevertheless, entirely successful. A tone of crisis was manufactured, and “options” against the hypothetical Sandinista “threat” were placed at the center of public attention.
3.9. THE ROLE OF OFFICIAL “OBSERVERS” IN REINFORCING A PROPAGANDA LINE
Official observers provide a perfect example of the use of government-controlled “experts” and “pseudo-events” to attract media attention and channel it in the direction of the propaganda line.
3.10. CONCLUDING NOTE
As we have seen, electoral conditions in Nicaragua in 1984 were far more favorable than in El Salvador and Guatemala, and the observer team of LASA found the election in Nicaragua to have been “a model of probity and fairness” by Latin American standards.
4 The KGB-Bulgarian Plot to Kill the Pope: Free-Market Disinformation as “News”
IN THE CASE OF THE SALVADORAN, GUATEMALAN, AND NICARAGUAN elections, the government was the moving force in providing the suitable frames of analysis and relevant facts, with the mass media’s role mainly that of channeling information and assuring that the government’s agenda was not seriously challenged.
4.1. THE STERLING-HENZE-KALB MODEL
Although the initial media reaction to the shooting was that the roots of the act would seem to lie in Turkish right-wing ideology and politics, some rightists immediately seized the opportunity to locate the origins of the plot in the Soviet bloc.
proof of Soviet and Bulgarian involvement.
ideological assumptions.
4.2. PROBLEMS WITH THE STERLING-HENZE-KALB MODEL
The basic Sterling-Henze-Kalb model suffered from a complete absence of credible evidence, a reliance on ideological premises, and internal inconsistencies.
While Agca’s November 1982 confession that he had Bulgarian co-conspirators made the Bulgarian Connection instantly “true” for the Western media, it wreaked havoc with the SHK model and with the logic of “plausible deniability.”
4.3. AN ALTERNATIVE MODEL
An alternative explanation of the Bulgarian Connection can be derived from the questions the U.S. press would surely have raised if an analogous scenario had occurred in Moscow, in which Agca, who had briefly visited the United States on his travels, and has been in a Soviet prison for seventeen months after having shot a high Soviet official, now confesses that three U.S. embassy members were his co-conspirators.
From the inception of the case, there were points suggesting that Agca was coached while in prison. After his long (and unexplained) silence, Agca identified the Bulgarians in a photo album allegedly shown to him for the first time on November 9, 1982.
