Cisneros Provides Details on 2004 Meeting with Chávez

CARACAS, July 23: Gustavo Cisneros, the chairman and CEO of the Cisneros Group of Companies, has released details about a controversial meeting he had in 2004 with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, asserting that “no agreement of any type” was made at the time.

The meeting was held June 18, 2004, at the Fuerte Tiuna military base in Caracas. Cisneros in the 12-page report says that the meeting was about “matters of public concern only.”

Cisneros met the Venezuelan leader at the request of Carter, in support of the Recall Referendum, which was announced that same month by opposition leaders and was intended to determine if Chávez should be recalled from office. The report says that Cisneros’s aim was to make sure the Recall Referendum would take place. At the meeting, Cisneros requested that Chávez stop attacking the independent news media. Chávez , in return, asked that TV stations and other outlets stop attacking him. Carter served as a mediator.

The statement from the Cisneros Group of Companies concludes: “Due to the proliferation of rumors and speculation by uninformed sources that were not at the meeting, we encourage journalists to corroborate these facts with the two presidents who were at the meeting.”