US funding of Chavez opponents

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=500711

US revealed to be secretly funding opponents of Chavez
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
13 March 2004


Washington has been channelling hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund the
political opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez - including those
who briefly overthrew the democratically elected leader in a coup two years
ago.

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that, in
2002, America paid more than a million dollars to those political groups in
what it claims is an ongoing effort to build democracy and "strengthen
political parties". Mr Chavez has seized on the information, telling
Washington to "get its hands off Venezuela".

The revelation about America's funding of Mr Chavez's opponents comes as the
president is facing a possible recall referendum and has been rocked by a
series of violent street demonstrations in which at least eight people have
died. His opponents, who include politicians, some labour leaders, media
executives and former managers at the state oil company, are trying to
collect sufficient signatures to force a national vote. The documents reveal
that one of the group's organising the collection of signatures - Sumate -
received $53,400 (£30,000) from the US last September.

Jeremy Bigwood, a Washington-based freelance journalist who obtained the
documents, yesterday told The Independent: "This repeats a pattern started
in Nicaragua in the election of 1990 when [the US] spent $20 per voter to
get rid of [the Sandinista President Daniel] Ortega. It's done in the name
of democracy but it's rather hypocritical. Venezuela does have a
democratically elected President who won the popular vote which is not the
case with the US."

The funding has been made by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) a
non-profit agency financed entirely by Congress. It distributes $40m (£22m)
a year to various groups in what it says is an effort to strengthen
democracy.

But critics of the NED say the organisation routinely meddles in other
countries' affairs to support groups that believe in free enterprise,
minimal government intervention in the economy and opposition to socialism
in any form. In recent years, the NED has channelled funds to the political
opponents of the recently ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide at
the same time that Washington was blocking loans to his government.

"It the sort of stuff that used to be done by the CIA," said Mr Bigwood. "I
am not particularly interested in Mr Chavez - I am interested in what
Washington is doing." In Venezuela, the NED channelled the money to three of
its four main operational "wings": the international arms of the Republican
and Democratic parties - the International Republican Institute and the
National Democratic Institute for International Affairs respectively - and
the foreign policy wing of the AFL-CIO union, the American Centre for
International Labour Solidarity.

These groups ran workshops, training sessions and provided free advice to
three political parties in Venezuela - Democratic Action, Copei and First
Justice - the leaderships of which have been at the forefront of efforts to
recall Mr Chavez.

Chris Sabatini, the director of the NED for Latin America, claimed the
organisation's aim is to promote democracy and "build political space". He
told the New York Times that the endowment had been working with civic
groups in Venezuela with no political ties and human rights groups.

Relations between the US and Venezuela have not been so tense since April
2002 when Mr Chavez was briefly ousted by opponents who had been supported
by the US in the run-up to the coup. At the time, Washington blamed Mr
Chavez for his own downfall.

Washington's antipathy towards Mr Chavez is fuelled by his friendship with
Cuba's Fidel Castro and his open criticism of Washington-backed free market
policies. But Venezuela is also America's fourth largest supplier of oil -
something that gives Mr Chavez a degree of leverage but, at the same time,
makes him vulnerable to those who would like to see a more pro-American
leader in power.

In recent days, Caracas and other cities have been rocked by demonstrations
in support of the recall vote. Those intensified after the supposedly
independent elections council ruled that government opponents lacked enough
total signatures to force the vote. There have also been large and
vociferous marches by thousands of supporters of the president who oppose
the vote.
   12 March 2004 22:29

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