[News] US funds aid Chavez Frias opposition

[News at freedomarchives.org]

US funds aid Chavez Frias opposition; NED at center of Venezuela dispute

Published: Sunday, April 04, 2004
http://www.vheadline.com/printer_news.asp?id=16911

In a cover story in the latest issue of the US independent National 
Catholic Reporter, former AP Caracas correspondent Bart Jones writes: The 
United States is using a quasi-governmental organization created during the 
Reagan years and funded largely by Congress to pump about a million dollars 
a year into groups opposed to Venezuela President Hugo Chavez Frias, 
according to officials in Venezuela and a Venezuelan-American attorney.

Some 2,000 pages of newly-disclosed documents show that the little-known 
National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is financing a vast array of groups: 
campesinos, businessmen, former military officials, unions, lawyers, 
educators, even an organization leading a recall drive against Chavez 
Frias. Some compare the agency, in certain of its activities, to the CIA of 
previous decades when the agency was regularly used to interfere in the 
affairs of Latin American countries.

"It certainly shows an incredible pattern of financing basically every 
single sector in Venezuelan society," said Eva Golinger, the Brooklyn, 
NY-based attorney who helped obtain the documents through Freedom of 
Information Act requests. "That's the most amazing part about it."

One organization, Sumate, which received a US$53,400 grant in September, is 
organizing the recall referendum against Chavez Frias, Golinger said. The 
head of another group, Leonardo Carvajal of the Asociacion Civil Asamblea 
de Educacion, was named education minister by "dictator for a day" Pedro 
Carmona, a leading businessman who briefly took over Venezuela during an 
April 2002 coup against Chavez Frias, she said. A leader of a third group 
assisted by the National Endowment for Democracy and its subsidiary 
organizations, Leopoldo Martinez of the right-wing Primero Justicia party, 
was named finance minister by Carmona.

"How can they [the National Endowment for Democracy] say they are 
supporting democracy when they are funding groups that backed the coup?" 
asked Golinger, head of the pro-Chavez Frias Venezuela Solidarity Committee 
in New York.

Chris Sabatini, the endowment's senior program officer for Latin America 
and the Caribbean, acknowledged the organization is handing out $922,000 
this year, largely to groups opposed to Chavez Frias, and gave out 
$1,046,323 last year. He said pro-Chavez Frias groups have not received 
funds because they didn't ask for any or they rejected the National 
Endowment's overtures.

Sabatini said there is no evidence that groups backed by the National 
Endowment for Democracy -- called NED -- participated directly in the coup, 
although he acknowledged Carvajal and Martinez were offered cabinet posts. 
He said the endowment made it clear to all groups it works with that it 
explicitly opposes unconstitutional actions. NED no longer funds Carvajal's 
group, he added, because it was not meeting its objectives of developing 
education policies.

As for Sumate, he said the organization is merely monitoring the recall 
process and ensuring citizens get to exercise their constitutional rights.

The endowment's work in Venezuela, he said, is aimed at promoting democracy 
and defusing festering tensions that could lead to a civil war. "There is 
no ideological content to our work except working with committed democrats 
in countries where democracy is developing or under siege," he said in a 
telephone interview March 2.

The revelations about the endowment's work in Venezuela is provoking 
criticism from some high-level officials, including members of the 
Congressional Black Caucus, that the United States is trying to destabilize 
and overthrow democratically elected governments in Latin America.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-NY, charged that the Bush administration helped oust 
Haiti's President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and that it is trying to depose 
Chavez Frias, as well. "We're doing the same thing in Venezuela because we 
don't like Chavez Frias," Rangel said on a radio roundtable discussion.

US officials deny the allegations, and say Aristide fell and Chavez Frias 
almost did because of economic mismanagement and human rights abuses.

The controversy over the US role in Latin America intensified March 16 when 
Chavez Frias joined Jamaica in declaring he would not recognize the interim 
government in Haiti that replaced Aristide. Chavez Frias also offered 
asylum to the deposed Haitian president, who arrived a day earlier in 
Jamaica, where he has received temporary refuge.

A populist firebrand first elected in 1998, Chavez Frias has polarized 
oil-rich Venezuela. Many middle- and upper-class residents charge he is a 
leftist dictator who has befriended Fidel Castro, wrecked the economy and 
fostered class hatred by referring to wealthy Venezuelans as corrupt 
"squalid ones." But millions of poor people adore him for creating massive 
literacy programs, handing out land titles to slum dwellers and peasants, 
and combating a ruling class they say pillaged the nation's vast oil wealth.

In the wake of disclosures about the National Endowment for Democracy, 
Chavez Frias has dropped his past caution on the topic and now openly 
accuses the United States of backing the 2002 coup attempt and bankrolling 
efforts to destabilize and overthrow his government. He is also threatening 
that Venezuela, one of the world's top oil suppliers, might cut off 
shipments to the United States if the Bush administration persists in its 
efforts to undermine him.
    * After Golinger had some of the NED documents delivered to Chavez 
Frias, the Venezuelan President on February 8 angrily denounced the funding 
of Sumate on his nationally broadcast television and radio program, 'Alo 
Presidente.'

Then, as more information from Golinger arrived, Chavez Frias stepped up 
his attacks. "The government of Washington is using its people's money to 
support not only opposition activities, but acts of conspiracy," Chavez 
Frias declared in a speech February 17. He directly accused the Bush 
administration of involvement in the coup. "There is no doubt: The 
government of Mr. George W. Bush was behind the coup," Chavez Frias said. 
"We have photos, evidence."

The next day, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher accused Chavez 
Frias of trying to divert attention from the recall referendum, and said US 
funding in Venezuela is to "promote democracy and strengthen civil 
society." Speaking in Washington at the department's daily press briefing, 
Boucher added that pro-Chavez Frias groups and officials have benefited 
from the programs, although he and other State Department officials decline 
to name them. Golinger says that is because there are none, according to 
her research.

An investigation by the US State Department's inspector general two years 
ago into the United States' possible role in the coup determined that the 
work of the National Endowment for Democracy broke no US laws. It also 
found there was no evidence the NED or the US government did anything to 
encourage Chavez Frias' unconstitutional overthrow.

But the report, "A Review of US Policy Toward Venezuela -- November 
2001-April 2002," added that the endowment, the Pentagon and other US 
assistance programs "provided training, institution-building and support to 
individuals and organizations understood to be actively involved in the 
brief ouster of the Chavez Frias government," although there was "no 
evidence that this support directly contributed, or was intended to 
contribute, to that event."

The NED's work in Venezuela is not the first time it has provoked 
controversy. In the 1980s it generated criticism by funding organizations 
opposed to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, prompting accusations that its 
whopping $10.5 million in grants in a single year in the impoverished 
Central American nation "bought" the 1990 election that led to the 
Sandinista's defeat.

Many analysts contend the National Endowment for Democracy was created in 
1983 to replace some CIA activities -- covertly supporting political 
parties, unions, newspapers, book publishers, student groups and civic 
organizations -- after the agency's work was reined in by Congress 
following revelations it carried out everything from assassinations to 
economic sabotage.

The group's involvement in Venezuela "is in keeping with a pattern from 
NED's very origins when the Reagan administration used it to do overtly 
what it was trying to do covertly in Nicaragua -- undermine the Sandinista 
revolution," said Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archive in 
Washington. "The difference of course is that Chavez Frias was elected and 
the Sandinistas were a revolutionary government."

Kornbluh, author of The Pinochet Files and an expert on declassified 
government documents, added: "The NED was created to supplement the 
activities of the CIA."

NED officials vigorously deny that allegation. Sabatini said the 
organization has promoted democracy around the world, from South Africa to 
Chile to Poland, where it assisted Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement. The 
group's budget -- $44 million this year -- is approved by Congress, with 
both Democratic and Republican support.

Still, the NED's own Web page traces the group's origins to the late 1960s 
when lawmakers first proposed creating an institution that would replace 
the "covert means" US policymakers employed in post-World War II Europe -- 
including CIA assistance -- with "overt funding for programs to promote 
democratic values."

In a September 22, 1991, interview with The Washington Post, Allen 
Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing the National 
Endowment for Democracy and who was the group's first acting president, 
said, "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA."

The debate over the NED is the latest controversy over the Bush 
administration's role in Latin America. The United States initially blamed 
Chavez Frias for his temporary overthrow in 2002, then later condemned the 
coup after an international outcry. US Ambassador Charles Shapiro had 
breakfast in Miraflores Presidential Palace at 9:00 a.m. during Carmona's 
first day in power, indicating to some US support for the coup. Carmona 
wiped out the nation's democratic institutions including Congress, the 
Supreme Court and the Constitution -- moves Shapiro says he told Carmona he 
opposed. The institutions were restored when Chavez Frias returned to power 
two days later.

Support from Bush: Beyond those disputes, Bush has brought back into power 
several figures from the Iran-contra scandal, including Otto Reich, who 
until recently was Bush's top diplomat to Latin America. Now he's serving 
as the White House's "special envoy" to the region. His replacement as US 
assistant secretary of state is Roger Noriega, a former aide to Senator 
Jesse Helms, also known for his intense dislike of Aristide and Chavez 
Frias. Both Noriega and Reich recently warned voters in El Salvador against 
electing leftist Shafik Handal in the March 21 presidential election. 
Handal, who lost, was the candidate of the FMLN, the party of the former 
guerrilla movement that battled the US-backed government and its death 
squads from 1980-92.

Critics say the NED's activities in Venezuela parallel the Bush team's 
desire to topple Chavez Frias, an accusation NED officials deny. Like 
Ronald Reagan, who helped create the National Endowment for Democracy, Bush 
has proven to be a strong supporter of the organization. He spoke at the 
group's 20th anniversary celebration in November. Then, in January, he 
praised the endowment during his State of the Union address and called for 
doubling its budget, mainly for pro-democracy activities in the Middle 
East. Last fall the Senate and the House passed resolutions saluting the 
endowment's work.

Even some of the NED's critics concede the group's record is not all 
negative. "I don't think it's just the CIA reincarnated," said Elizabeth 
Cohn, a professor of International and Intercultural Studies at Goucher 
College, Towson, Md., who wrote her doctoral thesis on the National 
Endowment for Democracy. Parts of the organization do "some very good work" 
in strengthening democratic institutions and fostering democracy.

But the problem is when the NED oversteps its bounds and meddles in the 
internal affairs of other countries, radically altering the political 
landscape in pursuit of US foreign policy objectives, she said. The $10.5 
million it pumped into Nicaraguan opposition groups in a dirt-poor country 
with 4 million residents essentially threw the February 1990 election to 
Violeta Chamorro, the candidate for the US-backed UNO coalition, Cohn said.

"New organizations sprouted in Nicaragua and NED was first on the scene as 
their primary, sometimes only, funder," she said. "NED monies mobilized the 
opposition and with the enormous amounts of money NED funneled into 
Nicaragua, they essentially bought the election."

Kornbluh agrees the NED played a key role in ousting the Sandinistas. "It 
was very, very clear that NED was an overt side of a paramilitary war 
against the Sandinistas."

NED officials deny their activities swayed the 1990 Nicaragua election, and 
contend the Sandinistas lost because they mismanaged the economy and 
committed widespread human rights abuses. They say their work there focused 
on building democratic institutions including an independent press, unions, 
universities and political parties.

Despite the controversy in Nicaragua, Sabatini said he believes the debate 
over the endowment's involvement in Venezuela is overblown. The documents 
obtained by Golinger and Jeremy Bigwood, a freelance investigative 
journalist based in Washington, are not classified, Sabatini said, and are 
available to anyone -- as long as they file Freedom of Information Act 
requests. "There's a lot of bluster about something that is really entirely 
transparent and is entirely on the books."

While he contends the National Endowment for Democracy is a neutral force 
seeking middle ground in Venezuela, Sabatini also said he has doubts about 
the democratic credentials of Chavez Frias, who has "shown a troubling lack 
of respect for institutions and rules and rhetoric that tends to inflame 
polarization."  Some NED-funded organizations such as the "economic reform" 
group Cedice go farther. In one report Golinger obtained, Cedice compares 
Chavez Frias to the Nazis. The group suggests another coup may be in the 
offing, saying, "a democratic solution to the present political crisis will 
be well-nigh impossible" if the referendum doesn't take place.

Michael Shifter, a former NED grants officer for Latin America who is now 
an analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, said that if the 
NED is inserting itself into Venezuela under the premise that Chavez Frias 
is a cruel tyrant who is wiping out democracy and must be stopped, the 
group "is misreading the situation." While Chavez Frias, a former 
paratrooper who led his own failed coup in 1992, has shown some troubling 
autocratic tendencies, Shifter said, democracy remains essentially intact.

The jails hold no political prisoners, he said. The opposition-owned press 
operates freely, with Chavez Frias critics even calling for coups on 
national television. Tens of thousands of his opponents regularly protest 
in the streets. International observers considered the elections that 
brought Chavez Frias to power free and fair. Foreign investors generally 
are "happy," Shifter said. Despite significant opposition, Chavez Frias 
retains a strong base of support.

As for the opposition, he added, "there's this ambivalence about democratic 
methods."
National Endowment for Democracy

Golinger says she is working feverishly before that ambivalence dooms 
Chavez Frias. She says she and Bigwood obtained the NED reports over the 
last few months. Golinger has established a Web site where she is posting 
them, Venezuela FOIA Info.

"This is one of the first times FOIA requests are being done in real time 
while it's happening" rather than years after the fact, she said. "We 
posted them on the Internet so that the world would see them." After Chavez 
Frias himself announced the Web site on his show Feb. 8 -- the day it was 
launched -- it got 15,000 "hits" in three days, Golinger said.

Golinger said her group's goal now is to save Chavez Frias before he meets 
the same fate as Aristide. She and Bigwood also are submitting Freedom of 
Information Act requests to the CIA, the State Department, USAID and the 
Southern Command to determine the extent of their involvement in Venezuela.
    * Bart Jones is a reporter for Newsday and a former foreign 
correspondent for The Associated Press in Venezuela.

<http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives2/2004b/040204/040204a.php>This 
editorial first appeared in the
National Catholic Reporter, April 2, 2004


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