US: $20 Million for the Venezuelan Opposition in 2012

[Peace Patriot]

US: $20 million for the Venezuelan opposition in 2012

BY EVA GOLINGER

Washington is preparing funds to support the opposition’s campaign against President Hugo Chavez during the coming presidential elections in 2012

Since Hugo Chavez won his first presidential elections in 1998, the US government has been trying to remove him from power. With multimillion-dollar investments, every year Washington’s agencies advise and aid anti-Chavez groups with their campaigns and strategies against the government.

Despite multiple attempts, including a coup d’etat in 2002 that briefly ousted President Chavez, their efforts have been in vain. The Venezuelan President’s popularity continues to rise and opposition leaders have failed to convince constituents of their plans. The latest polls show Chavez’s support above 57%, while the opposition fails to even reach 20%.

Nonetheless, Washington continues to seek new mechanisms to achieve its eternal objective of recovering control over Venezuela’s strategic resources – the largest oil reserves on the planet – and this means putting an end to Hugo Chavez.

One of the US government’s principal tactics has been feeding the internal conflict in Venezuela through the consolidation of an opposition movement, that despite its impossibility of uniting, continues to maintain itself active in the country’s political sphere.

THE MONEY

The main engine behind this tactic has been the multimillion-dollar investment of Washington’s agencies, together with several European and Canadian foundations, in the Venezuelan opposition. The money has come with strategic support from top campaign and political consultants, who aid in everything from image to discourse.

Through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a congressionally created entity funded by the State Department, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Washington has channeled more than $100 million to anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela since 2002. A majority of those substantial funds have been used to run opposition candidates’ campaigns, as well as finance those well crafted media campaigns against the Chavez government that flood the national and international press.

Despite the economic crisis in the US, the funds to Venezuela’s opposition continue to flow.

In February 2011, President Barack Obama requested $5 million for opposition groups in Venezuela in his 2012 National Budget. It marked the first time a sitting US president openly requested money in the national budget to fund Chavez’s opposition, especially during a time when domestic funding is being cut. Apparently, Obama prefers to spend US taxpayer dollars on efforts to oust the Venezuelan President – elected democratically and supported by the majority – instead of investing in the health and well being of the US people.

Those $5 million comprise only a quarter of the total funds so far prepared by Washington for the Venezuelan opposition in 2012.

THE EMBASSY

The US Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, has been the center of distribution and coordination of the majority of USAID and NED funds since 2002. However, until the end of 2010, USAID maintained offices of 3 contractors in Caracas: International Republican Institute (IRI), National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI). Through these entities, particularly DAI, USAID channeled millions each year to hundreds of opposition groups, programs, projects and campaigns in Venezuela. IRI and NDI supplied more political advice and aid than liquid funds.

These three agencies abruptly parted Venezuela after the nation’s legislative body passed a law in December 2010 prohibiting foreign funding for political means in the country. In early 2011, USAID published a statement on its website claiming its Venezuela program had been transferred to the Washington office. No other information was provided.

Nevertheless, USAID’s 2012 budget includes $5 million more for its work in Venezuela. The agency, which is a funding branch of the State Department, has no authorized projects in Venezuela or agreements with the Venezuelan government. From the beginning, its motives have been purely political.

Without the presence of these three agencies in Caracas, the US Embassy has taken on an even more important role – evident in the major boost in its 2012 budget. In 2010, the Embassy in Caracas had an annual budget of $18,022,000; in 2011 it dropped to $15,980,000. But in 2012, the budget swoops up to $24,056,000, nearly a $9 million increase.

The US doesn’t even have an ambassador in that embassy, nor plans to name one. Relations with Venezuela are frozen and handled at the “charge d’affairs” level. Furthermore, the number of embassy staff has remained the same since 2010: 81 employees. So, what is the extra $9 million for?

There is no doubt that these funds are destined for the electoral campaigns in 2012, when Venezuela has both presidential and regional elections. Now that USAID and its contractors are no longer operating in-country, the embassy will be the principle channel to ensure those funds reach their destination.

So far, the total reaches $19 million – at minimum – from Washington to the Venezuelan opposition in 2012, but that’s not all.

In the State Department’s 2012 budget, $48,160,000 was requested to fund the Organization of American States (OEA). In the justification for those funds, State specifies that part of the money will be used “to deploy special ‘democracy practitioner’ teams to states where democracy faces threats from the growing presence of alternate concepts such as the ‘participatory democracy’ advocated by Venezuela and Bolivia”.

Additionally, the budget claims the funds will be used to support “the appropriate responses to threats on freedom of expression and abuses by governments against their people, particularly in states such as Venezuela and Cuba”.

At minimum, a few of those $48 million will be filtered to groups in Venezuela that work against the government of Hugo Chavez.

THE NED

And then there’s still the NED, which funds with at least $1 million annually a dozen groups in Venezuela, including Sumate, CEDICE, Futuro Presente, Liderazgo y Visión, Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPyS), Consorcio Justicia, Radar de los Barrios, Ciudadanía Activa, and others.

The NED’s budget for 2012, which is $104,000,000, states the following: “In the Andean region, the Venezuelan presidential election scheduled for December 2012 will have relevant consequences for the country and the neighborhood, as President Chavez seeks reelection for an additional six-year term. NED will support civil society organizations in their efforts to enhance voter participation and promote free, fair and competitive elections”.

Although the exact amount of money the NED will be providing to Venezuelan opposition groups in 2012 is not specified, it’s plans to intervene in Venezuela’s electoral process is obvious.

These multimillion-dollar funds destined to the Venezuelan opposition in 2012 leave no doubt that Washington will continue its plans to interfere in Venezuela’s internal politics, while trying – by any means – to impede the future of the Bolivarian Revolution. At the same time, these millions reinforce the decade-old belief that Chavez’s opposition remains “Made in USA”.

(original) http://www.chavezcode.com/2011/08/us-20-million-for-venezuelan-opposition.html

(found at) http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6418

(en español): http://www.chavezcode.com/2011/08/estados-unidos-20-millones-para-la.html

(Creative Commons License)
(my emphases)

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Fascinating!

Got to stop that "participatory democracy"! What a menace! Hell, it might happen here!

[99th_Monkey]

1. Thanks for posting this

I hate hearing about yet one more thing Obama's doing that I deplore,
but better to know than not to know, is my MO.

Hopefully shedding lots of light on it will lessen the dollars or the effect
they have.

I'm not always in agreement with Chavez, but I AM VERY MUCH IN
SUPPORT of DEMOCRACY that is fair and square everywhere, including
Venezuela.

[RC]

2. Ever notice the United States is usually on the wrong side of government toppling?

How many democracies have we toppled, to be replaced with Right Wing dictatorships?
Clue: Most of them. The rest were to replace one dictator with another, more to our liking. Sometimes even after toppling the original democracy and the replacement dictator proved to be too independent.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Would never expect to hear this about a Democratic President. Staggering.

He must be very afraid for the well being of himself and his family, so afraid he publicly works against a democratically elected leader in another country, sending big cash payoffs to the people there who will never support their elected
leader.

Baffling, disgusting, grotesque.

Long after he has left Washington, he may take time to peer more deeply into the choices he has made. As it is, I'm willing to think he just hasn't had time to gain perspective yet. It's a damned shame.

Those right-wing scumbuckets should be sure to take all the U.S. taxpayers' hard-earned dollars and put them all where the sun is least likely to fade them.

[polly7]

4. They never give up, do they? It doesn't seem to matter who's calling the shots. nt.

[Flatulo]

5. This is absurd. I can't think of a bigger waste of our money.

At best these games never work, and at worst they utterly backfire. Always.

I don't care for Hugo, but what happens down there short of genocide is just None of our business.

I can only think of umpteen better ways for our government to use our hard-earned money.

[Peace Patriot]

6. It really won't do to say things like this...

"I don't care for Hugo, but what happens down there short of genocide is just None of our business."

---

You associate "Hugo" with "genocide," for one thing--perhaps inadvertently--but that is the implication, that "Hugo" may be doing something horrible just short of genocide. If it's genocide then, what? Call in the Marines? And if it isn't, well, consider this: Whatever "Hugo" is doing, the U.S. government is mightily interested in it, is spending millions and overall (in LatAm) billions of our tax dollars to stop it, and that makes it our DUTY to find out what is REALLY going on.

'Head in the sand' will not do.

What is really going on in Venezuela and in other countries that have elected leftist, "New Deal"-type governments is a great expansion of human and civil rights and public participation and a huge DECREASE in poverty, unfairness and exclusion. That is why Venezuelans vote for "Hugo," why Ecuadorans vote for Correa and why Bolivians vote for Morales, by big margins, and why other leftist leaders are also getting elected and have high approval ratings.

The part that we cannot put our heads in the sand about is that the Corporate Press outright lies about these democratic advances in Latin America and blackholes real information about it, while the U.S. government funds, supports, trains and is allied with the rightwing opposition in all of these countries.

Chavez has not harmed ANYONE, and has done a whole lot of good. The leaders and militaries of U.S. client states, on the other hand, ARE committing something approaching genocide--the murders of thousands of trade unionists and other advocates of the poor and the brutal displacement of FIVE MILLION peasant farmers from their lands, in Colombia over the last decade alone, and the onset of similar atrocities in Honduras since the fascist coup. These are also things that we are responsible for. $7 BILLION of our tax dollars has gone to Colombia alone, and huge expenditures by the Pentagon to expand U.S. military bases in these countries. It is not Chavez who is killing people and robbing them of their lands. It is the puppet leaders and rightwing ruling elites in U.S. client states.

So, yeah, U.S. policy should be non-interference but it is not, very decidedly not--and U.S. interference and support of fascist dictatorships and destruction of democracy and exploitation of the poor and theft of resources has been going on throughout the modern era in a continuum to last week and yesterday--another journalist murdered by rightwing death squads in the U.S. client state of Honduras.

"...what happens down there short of genocide is just None of our business."

But very unfortunately it IS our business, as U.S. citizens and taxpayers, who our government hates in Latin America and who it fawns over and gives "Medals of Freedom" to and makes "free trade for the rich" deals with, and where the U.S. military is ensconced and what it is doing, and what the DEA, the FBI, the NSA, the AFT, the Secret Service, the CIA, the USAID, et al, are doing in Latin America and on whose behalf.

"I don't care for Hugo...". What a statement! Do you know why Venezuelans approve of Chavez's policies and of him, by big margins? That is what is important not whether you "care for Hugo" or not. Given his election and approval by big margins, in honest elections, why this relentless attack on Chavez throughout the corporate press and from the U.S. State Department, often using the same "talking points"? Those are the kind of questions that need asking and answering. Vague dislike and lack of interest in the facts under cover of "It's none of our business" has been the malaise of U.S. citizens on Latin America for a couple of centuries. It is how so much evil has been done in our name.

[Flatulo]

7. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the current government was in any way

involved with killing its civilians.

My intent was to say that one of the few times when the US should get involved in the affairs of other states (not Venezuela in particular), would be if there was irrefutable evidence that killing on a mass scale was happening. And even then, there should be UN involvement. We've seen what happens when we act more or less unilaterally.

Sorry for phrasing that so poorly.