Armed Forces and the Media

Infogate, April 22, 2021

The parody of the Army triggered reactions from all sides, but as the week went on, it not only served to increase the ratings of the channel airing the program, but also to clarify what deliberation consists of.

The issue of the parody made in a television program about the Army triggered reactions from all sides, but as the week went on, it not only served to increase the ratings of the channel airing the program, but also to clarify what deliberation consists of.

Carlos Peña, in his opinion column on Wednesday, April 21, dedicates an entire paragraph to the concept of deliberation, which in his words is summarized as: “deliberation consists of exercising autonomy where obedience should exist”, but the most interesting part comes afterward when he concludes that same paragraph by stating: “By doing so, the Army is simply reaffirming the way it is conceived – opposing discourse to discourse – and not deliberating. The duty not to deliberate may equate to being silent in the face of civil authority, but not in the face of external discourse that, relative to its own identity, is expressed by individuals.”

Peña’s conclusions are quite definitive, but I suspect that many will not want to read them and will stick to their own definition of what the act of not deliberating is, which basically consists of the armed forces being mute and not speaking, which in truth sounds like an attempt to neutralize and nullify them as organizations and institutions. Who knows why they might be doing this? I suspect that nothing good can lie behind those intentions.

Another thing that the passage of the week has allowed is for the issue of the Army’stelephone interceptions to be clarified. The surprise is that Appeals Court Minister Juan Antonio Poblete confirmed that he was aware of what the interceptions were about and whom was to be intercepted. There have not been many comments from the left or the journalistic world, which until recently had been united in this case and accused the Army of not respecting freedom of communication and of attacking journalists. The moral is that one should not believe everything that is written in the media, and sometimes it is advisable to wait for time to pass for things to be clarified and not to judge based on the first information at hand. Let us see what conclusions the Public Ministry’s investigations reach and what justice says about whether or not a crime was committed.

Richard Kouyoumdjian
Vice President of AthenaLab

Source: Infogate