Ban on foreign funding leaves Venezuelan activists in limbo about whether they are targets

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Ban on foreign funding leaves Venezuelan activists in limbo about whether they are targets
IAN JAMES
Associated Press
1:02 p.m. EST, January 30, 2011

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A single number topped the front page of El Nacional one recent morning: 1,734. It was the number of violations of private-property rights attributed to President Hugo Chavez's government since 2005, as tallied by an advocacy group that promotes economic and personal freedoms in Venezuela.

Now that group is one of many that could be affected by a new law that bans certain vaguely defined organizations from accepting foreign money. The law is one of multiple efforts during Chavez's 12 years in power that have given him new tools to clamp down on critics.

"There's great uncertainty in Venezuela today because many organizations are in doubt about whether to continue projects that were financed by U.S., European and Asian organizations," said Alonso Dominguez, whose nongovernmental organization, Liderazgo y Vision (Leadership and Vision), compiled the property rights tally.

He said his NGO relies largely on Venezuelan donors, but has also used foreign funding to run courses in leadership training and community policing. Some of it has come from the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Agency for International Development.


Read more: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-lt-venezuela-crackdown,0,2220742.story

[Sinistrous]

1. "National Endowment for Democracy" -

Now there is a bunch with no as to grind. Except for that support for the anti-Chavez coup a few years back and a long list of support for anti-democratic movements.

"A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." (Quote attributed to As Allen Weinstein, the NED's theoretical planner, 1991)

[upi402]

2. exactly ^+1,000 n/t

[Sinistrous]

3. "U.S. Agency for International Development"

Initially a good idea with a noble purpose.

However, it was bastardized under GWB:

In January 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice created the Office of the Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance ('F') within the State Department. F's purpose is to ensure that foreign assistance is used as much as possible to meet foreign policy objectives.<14> Under a Director with the rank of Deputy Secretary, F integrated foreign assistance planning and resource management across State and USAID, directing all USAID offices' budgets according to a detailed "Standardized Program Structure" comprising hundreds of "Program Sub-Elements." USAID accordingly closed its office responsible for overall budgeting and development policy. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agency_for_International_Development )
(Emphasis mine.)

Now what could possibly upset Chavez about funding from such stellar, independent, and unbiased sources?

[Peace Patriot]

4. Why the hell is our tax money going to rightwing groups in Venezuela?!

That is the question we need to be asking here. On the other hand, our government doesn't give a crap what we think, so why bother?*

I'm gad to see the Chavistas have smartened up about this. We are talking about U.S. multinational CORPORATE SPEECH in regard to these U.S. taxpayer funds in Venezuela, NOT "free speech." This money is not speaking for you and me--for workers, for ordinary people, here or there; it is speaking for Exxon Mobil and the banksters and all the shits who want Venezuela's "New Deal" to be over, so they can loot that country, too.

The same creeps also called FDR a "dictator"!

And the rightwing elite in Venezuela doesn't need any more trumpeting of their bullshit throughout the corpo-fascist press than they already have--which is day in, day out, 24/7 anti-Chavez, anti-Left, anti-the interests of the majority. They don't need the USAID contriving their "talking points" and faxing them to the Associated Pukes. They don't need "training" in how to stage protests that get the police to react, so they can cry 'Dictator!'

What they need to do is stop angling for the U.S. to install them back in power and start becoming responsible citizens of their own country. These were the people who kidnapped the president, and suspended the constitution, the courts, the national assembly and all civil rights. They don't give a crap for anybody else's "free speech" or other rights. They want to be back in control of the oil profits, now that Chavez has gotten Venezuela such good oil deals. They don't want that money "wasted" on the poor--on schools, on health care, on land reform, on bootstrapping. They want it to import more luxury goods for themselves, to buy vast estates where no food is grown, to hob-nob in Miami, to stash away in the Cayman Islands--to the utter ruin of their country and the utter impoverishment of its people, as they did before. They have NO IDEAS except that--get rich quick. That is who the "opposition' is, in Venezuela--the old oil elite, which nearly destroyed the country, and when people fought back with protests, mowed them down. That is their legacy. That is what the U.S. government is supporting with our tax dollars--while every public school system in the United States goes backrupt.

It is outrageous and since WE can't put a stop to it, I'm very glad that the Chavistas are doing so.

People should know that our tax money is going to John McCain's "International Republican Institute," which helped force the martial law "election" on the people of Honduras. THAT'S what the USAID means by an NGO. Fucking us over. Fucking everybody else over. And we're paying for it!


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*(I'm going to take that back. Not that our government doesn't give a crap what we think. They don't. But that we shouldn't bother to protest. I was just angry at yet another Associated Pukes article 'framing' Chavez as a 'dictator' when the real dictators are the owners of AP and other corpo-fascist 'news' monopolies and those whom they serve. Our government is serving those interests and, yes, we should protest. It is our duty and it's good to remind ourselves what free speech is, and to exercise our rights even if it is useless. We also need--or first of all need--to take practical action and get rid of the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines. They are the most important obstacle to reform. But we also need to voice our opinions, if, for no other reason, to educate and inform each other and to help each other to THINK--to overcome the sometimes very sneaky brainwashing that we are subjected to.)