We believe we can participate in the Word Forum on Communication Rights in one of these Themes you define: "Communication and Human Rights" or "Communication and Poverty".

Dear Sirs

I'm writing you on behalf of Aporrea.org (www.aporrea.org) a web site in Venezuela that has become a reference for those who don't believe in our traditional mass media (TV, Radio and Newspapers). As you all should know in Venezuela during April 2002 and December-January 2003 the minority -but
economic powerful- groups have been trying to outpost our legitimate constitutional President Hugo Chavez who has become the only hope for those who were always marginalized by our old "democracy".

The leaders of those economic groups are the mass media company owners. That means all the news and opinion generated by those media companies were partialize and support the violent way that tries to outpost our President
who have been ratified in 7 vote rounds during the last 5 years. The strong government support to community media (Radio, TV) has began to neutralize the media-matrix that only shows whatever the violent opposition wants.
Aporrea.org like an independent initiative of collaborative work that tries to give a voice for those who never expected to be heard, has become a Media Phenomenon in our country because of our ability to reflect what communities do and feel and our ability to break those paradigms that says ICT do not get the poorest.

In that context we respectfully ask you to let us show the word what's happening in Venezuela and how a Webpage can contribute to brake the mass media censorship, how a webpage can help to mobilize the masses that support a democratic government, how a webpage can give the poorest the communication right that has been expropriated for year by those who control de mass media and how a webpage can give voice to poor people.

Therefore we believe we can participate in the Word Forum on Communication Rights in one of these Themes you define: "Communication and Human Rights" or "Communication and Poverty". We are trying right know to get government support to finance our participation if you decide -as we believe and really need- to accept us to make a Multimedia presentation. In that case we really need some things:

1. -A letter of acceptance (if proceed): These is the most
important matter
2. -A list of activities you need us to attend in order to
collaborate in the Forum success
3. -And whatever other information you believe can help us to optimize our initiative in order to get government support. We already sent you an e-mail (Sunday, October 26, 2003) in Spanish in which we expressed our interest and our need for these elements. Venezuela really need to get heard internationally and now more than ever when the only film
that shows the reality about de coup d'etat agains the President, in April 2002, was censored in the Toronto Amnisty International Film Festival (see: http://www.petitiononline.com/vendoc)

For more details please ask us whatever you need or visit our section in English: http://www.aporrea.org/english.php

Best regards
Jesús Rodríguez Espinoza (jero...@cantv.net)
Aporrea.org team