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<font size=3><br>
</font><font face="georgia" size=5 color="#A80000">US funds aid Chavez
Frias opposition; NED at center of Venezuela dispute<br><br>
</font><font size=3>Published: Sunday, April 04, 2004<br>
</font><font face="georgia" size=5 color="#A80000"><a href="http://www.vheadline.com/printer_news.asp?id=16911" eudora="autourl">http://www.vheadline.com/printer_news.asp?id=</a><a href="http://www.vheadline.com/printer_news.asp?id=16911" eudora="autourl">16911<br><br>
</a></font><font face="georgia" size=2><b>In a cover story in the latest
issue of the US independent National Catholic Reporter, former AP Caracas
correspondent Bart Jones writes:</b></font><font face="georgia" size=3>
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.<br><br>
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: <i>campesinos</i>, 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.<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>"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."<br><br>
</dl>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</i>, 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.<br><br>
<font face="georgia" size=2>"How can they [the National Endowment
for Democracy]</i> 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.<br><br>
</b></font><font face="georgia" size=3>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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
</font><font face="georgia" size=2>As for Sumate, he said the
organization is merely monitoring the recall process and ensuring
citizens get to exercise their constitutional rights.<br><br>
</b></font><font face="georgia" size=3>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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
</font><font face="georgia" size=2>US officials deny the allegations, and
say Aristide fell and Chavez Frias almost did because of economic
mismanagement and human rights abuses.<br><br>
</b></font><font face="georgia" size=3>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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.
<ul>
<li>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.'</font>
</ul><br>
<font face="georgia" size=3>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."<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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."<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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."<br><br>
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."<br><br>
</b>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.<br><br>
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."<br><br>
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."<br><br>
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.<br><br>
Support from Bush:</u></b> 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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
"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."<br><br>
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."<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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."<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
</font><font face="georgia" size=2>As for the opposition, he added,
"there's this ambivalence about democratic methods."<br>
National Endowment for Democracy<br><br>
</b></font><font face="georgia" size=3>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.<br><br>
"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.<br><br>
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.</font>
<ul>
<li><font face="georgia" size=2>Bart Jones is a reporter for Newsday and
a former foreign correspondent for The Associated Press in
Venezuela.</b></font>
</ul><font size=3><br>
</font><div align="center"><font face="georgia" size=2><a href="http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives2/2004b/040204/040204a.php">This
editorial first appeared in the<br>
National Catholic Reporter, April 2, 2004</a><br><br>
</b></font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
</div>
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