Young ‘Chavista’ lawmaker Robert Serra killed in Venezuela

[Judi Lynn]

32. You haven't seen anything because you never bothered to look. Simple.

Does It Matter That the Venezuelan Opposition Is Funded by the US?
By Ray Downs Mar 1 2014

~snip~

...the US has continued its longstanding practice of funding programs that it often claims are aimed at promoting fair elections and human rights, but also strengthen Venezuelan opposition groups – and this money may be influencing the ongoing protests that have helped put the country in a political crisis.

These programs have several names and objectives. Some have clearly benevolent goals; one is targeted at discouraging violence against women, for instance. But other US efforts in Venezuela are unabashedly political, such as a 2004 USAID program that, according to a Wikileaks cable, would spend $450,000 to “provide training to political parties on the design, planning, and execution of electoral campaigns.” The program would also create “campaign training schools” that would recruit campaign managers and emphasize “the development of viable campaign strategies and effectively communicating party platforms to voters.”

Interestingly, it's illegal for a US political party or candidate to accept funding from any “foreign national,” which includes individuals, corporations and governments. Venezuela passed a similar law in 2010, but this is easily circumvented by channeling the money through NGOs.

It's difficult to determine exactly how much money the US has spent on these political programs in Venezuela since Chávez was first elected in 1998, but some estimates put the figure around $50 to $60 million. This year alone, President Obama earmarked $5 million to “support political competition-building efforts” in Venezuela.

It's understandable, then, that some critics of Venezuela's opposition have argued that the protests are in part due to US meddling.

More:
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/does-the-uss-funding-of-the-venezuelan-opposition-matter

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Published on Sunday, April 06, 2014
by CEPR's The Americas Blog

USAID Subversion in Latin America Not Limited to Cuba

by Dan Beeton

~snip~
More recent State Department cables made public by Wikileaks reveal that USAID/OTI subversion in Venezuela extended into the Obama administration era (until 2010, when funded for OTI in Venezuela appears to have ended), and DAI continued to play an important role. A State Department cable from November 2006 explains the U.S. embassy’s strategy in Venezuela and how USAID/OTI “activities support [the] strategy”:

(S) In August of 2004, Ambassador outlined the country team's 5 point strategy to guide embassy activities in Venezuela for the period 2004 ) 2006 (specifically, from the referendum to the 2006 presidential elections). The strategy's focus is: 1) Strengthening Democratic Institutions, 2) Penetrating Chavez' Political Base, 3) Dividing Chavismo, 4) Protecting Vital US business, and 5) Isolating Chavez internationally.

Among the ways in which USAID/OTI have supported the strategy is through the funding and training of protest groups. This August 2009 cable cites the head of USAID/OTI contractor DAI’s Venezuela office Eduardo Fernandez as saying, during 2009 protests, that all the protest organizers are DAI grantees:

¶5. (S) Fernandez told DCM Caulfield that he believed the [the Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigations Corps'] dual objective is to obtain information regarding DAI's grantees and to cut off their funding. Fernandez said that "the streets are hot," referring to growing protests against Chavez's efforts to consolidate power, and "all these people (organizing the protests) are our grantees." Fernandez has been leading non-partisan training and grant programs since 2004 for DAI in Venezuela."

The November 2006 cable describes an example of USAID/OTI partners in Venezuela "shut[ting] down [a] city":

11. (S) CECAVID: This project supported an NGO working with women in the informal sectors of Barquisimeto, the 5th largest city in Venezuela. The training helped them negotiate with city government to provide better working conditions. After initially agreeing to the women's conditions, the city government reneged and the women shut down the city for 2 days forcing the mayor to return to the bargaining table. This project is now being replicated in another area of Venezuela.

The implications for the current situation in Venezuela are obvious, unless we are to assume that such activities have ended despite the tens of millions of dollars in USAID funds designated for Venezuela, some of it going through organizations such as Freedom House, and the International Republican Institute, some of which also funded groups involved in the 2002 coup (which prominent IRI staff publicly applauded at the time).

The same November 2006 cable notes that one OTI program goal is to bolster international support for the opposition:

…DAI has brought dozens of international leaders to Venezuela, university professors, NGO members, and political leaders toparticipate in workshops and seminars, who then return to their countries with a better understanding of the Venezuelan reality and as stronger advocates for the Venezuelan opposition.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/04/06/usaid-subversion-latin-america-not-limited-cuba

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The New Politics of Political Aid in Venezuela
Tom Barry, last updated: July 17, 2007
*This article was updated and corrected on August 17, 2007.

Five years after U.S.-funded groups were associated with a failed coup against Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, the U.S. government's political aid programs continue to meddle in Venezuelan domestic politics. A new focus of the "democracy builders" in Venezuela and around the world is support for nonviolent resistance by civil society organizations.*

In the name of promoting democracy and freedom, Washington is currently funding scores of U.S. and Venezuelan organizations as part of its global democratization strategy—including at least one that publicly supported the April 2002 coup that briefly removed Chávez from power.

When he first heard the news of the coup, the president of the International Republican Institute (IRI) praised those "who rose up to defend democracy," ignoring the fact that Chávez was the twice-elected president of Venezuela. Despite this declared support for a coup against a democratically elected president and for the opposition's blatant disregard for the rule of law, IRI still runs democratization programs in Venezuela that are underwritten by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The IRI, a supposedly nonpartisan institute established to direct U.S. democratization aid for which Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is chairman, is one of five U.S. nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that channel funding from USAID to Venezuelan organizations and political programs. USAID also funds the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDIIA) and three U.S. nongovernmental organizations: Freedom House, Development Alternatives Inc., and Pan-American Development Foundation.

More:
http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/articles/display/The_New_Politics_of_Political_Aid_in_Venezuela#sthash.s99hwvO4.dpuf

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Venezuela’s Sovereignty Under Attack
August 25, 2014 - 8:59am | admin

By Ramiro S. Fúnez

In the coming weeks, the United States Senate is expected to vote on a bill authorizing boosted funding for anti-government groups in Venezuela for the upcoming fiscal year. If passed, the bill will only further violate legislation that prohibits said activities in the South American country, as recurrent U.S. government funding for insurrectional opposition groups represents a direct attack on Venezuela’s political sovereignty.

The U.S. government has continued to finance anti-government groups in Venezuela with millions of dollars annually, the Associated Press revealed late last month, irreverent of the 2010 Law for Protection of Political Liberty and National Self-Determination passed by Venezuela’s National Assembly. The Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act, originally proposed by senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) on March 13 of this year, now seeks to increase funding for undisclosed “pro-democracy” groups from $5 million to $15 million for Fiscal Year 2015. President Barack Obama’s administration already approved sanctions in May, which restrict travel to the United States for top Venezuelan government officials over alleged human rights abuses during violent February 2014 protests.

U.S. government officials, journalists, and NGO activists in support of boosted funding for “pro-democracy” groups in Venezuela have lauded the bill, based primarily on alleged evidence of government violence against protestors. However, they have failed to recognize the bill’s violation of Venezuela’s autonomy and the consequences financing these groups may bring.

“We’ve had enough of the United States assuming a role that belongs to multilateral bodies,” Venezuelan foreign minister Elias Jau said back in May, after part of the legislation was approved by the U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee.

“We must remember that as a free and independent nation we do not recognize the United States parliament…as a legislative force over Venezuela. There are basic principles of the United Nations Charter that must be respected.”

More:
http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2014/08/25/venezuela%E2%80%99s-sovereignty-under-attack

(My emphasis.)