(AMARC/IFEX) – In the early hours of 10 November 2005, equipment belonging to the Rubio community television station (Televisora Comunitaria de Rubio, TV Rubio) was stolen through a hole in the ceiling of its transmission facility on El Campanario hill in Rubio, Junín municipality, Táchira state. Unidentified people entered the facility and removed equipment intended […]
(AMARC/IFEX) – In the early hours of 10 November 2005, equipment belonging to the Rubio community television station (Televisora Comunitaria de Rubio, TV Rubio) was stolen through a hole in the ceiling of its transmission facility on El Campanario hill in Rubio, Junín municipality, Táchira state.
Unidentified people entered the facility and removed equipment intended to protect the station’s transmitters from electrical problems, as well as the facility’s air conditioner. Although they were unable to remove the principal transmitter, they took pieces of its front panel and repeatedly hit the equipment in an attempt to pry it away from its support structure, thereby damaging it.
AMARC is concerned that this attack has occurred when the station has received permission to operate and was preparing to begin broadcasting after the Ministry of Communication and Information had provided the community with transmission equipment in September.
The organizers of the station state that this attack is “sabotage” and is occurring amid community complaints and actions against the office of the Junín mayor, an opponent of the national government. The Junín mayor’s administration is accused of failing to fulfil contracts affecting basic services, especially the provision of electricity.
TV Rubio has also accused mayor’s office officials of unjustified delays in providing electricity for the initiation of the station’s broadcasts, the only thing delaying the station’s exercise of its right to communicate.
According to station coordinator José Angel Manrique, “We have repeatedly formally requested that the Junín mayor’s office arrange for electrical facilities to be provided to the neighbourhood, exhausting all the administrative avenues for that purpose, given that INMEMO C.A. was contracted and paid in the year 2000 to do that, but the mayor’s office has never obliged the company in question to fulfil its contract, which constitutes an offence by omission, violating the Rubio community’s collective interests and those of its media.”
“Junín’s mayor’s office officials have not paid any attention to the station’s petitions, nor do they want the community television station to begin broadcasting,” added Manrique. He attributes the officials’ attitude to the fact that the community foundation which runs the station has been supporting community actions aimed at increasing the accountability of municipal officials to the community.
