Chavez's US-funded rivals in the dock

[justinsb]

Chavez's US-funded rivals in the dock

A Venezuelan opposition figure who was received by US President George Bush is to go on trial with three colleagues, accused of conspiring to change the government using US funds.

Judge Norma Sandoval ruled on Thursday that Maria Corina Machado and three other members of her Sumate group - which helped organise a referendum against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez nearly a year ago - are being charged with "conspiracy to change Venezuela's republican system".

The accused say Chavez's government has trumped up the charges against them in an attempt to intimidate critics who say his rule is becoming increasingly authoritarian.

Traitor accusation

Chavez has called Machado a traitor after her Sumate group received funding from the US Congress.

The president won the August recall referendum organised by Sumate, which said the vote was plagued by irregularities and held under conditions that favoured the president.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9C8AD573-F0C5-41CA-B479-D129A4C9DA2F.htm

[justinsb]

1. Please ask your reps in congress to stop meddling

in Latin American politics. It is outrageous that the US would fund canidates in a foreign election. Essentially using your tax dollars to decide who should lead Venezuela.

[lateo]

2. Is there a way to find out who authorized this funding?

[justinsb]

3. Congress did apparently

according to the Al Jazeera article.

[no name no slogan]

4. James Carville worked for the anti-Chavez side in the referendum

It's not just Repubs backing this crap up-- we've even got some so-called "good Democrats" who are buying into the lies of the ruling class in VZ. Call your congresscritters!!!

[justinsb]

5. Carville, IMO, has become nothing more than a hired gun

he'll support whoever signs the check

[Gyre]

7. That's what happens when

you don't have a "real job". Prostitution is "hard work".

Gyre

[no name no slogan]

11. I was never a Clinton fan, so Carville's always struck me

as little more than a giant sack of elephant poo.

[1932]

13. Carville was paid by Venezuelans (directly, at least).

I'm not saying that I don't find it distasteful that Carville would work for people opposed to the happiness of the vast majority of Venezuelans, but it's important to recognize the difference between Carville legitimately being employed by Venezuelans and the US Congress endorsing the use of taxpayer dollars to overtly subsidize only one side of the political fight (the right wing side) in a foreign democracy in violation of the laws of that country.

I think the better point to make is that the National Endowment for Democracy, the Congress-funded body that provided the bulk of this money to the opposition, has four parts, two of which are run by the Republicans and two of which are run by Democrats (like Madline Albright), and, IIUC, all four parts were funding the right-wing opposition in Venezuela.

[no name no slogan]

14. Madeline Albright isn't much better unfortunately.

She's got her hands in the imperialist pie, too. She was in favor of keeping the sanctions on Iraq, which led to the deaths of 1/2 million innocent Iraqi children between 1993-2000-- even though there was little evidence of Iraq continuing its pre-Gulf War WMD programs.

I was never a big fan of Clinton's policies, which were little more than "Imperialism with a Smille" for the most part. However, I will give Albright credit for getting and keeping the North Koreans at the negotiating table-- something the Shrub has a hard time doing.

Also, the National Endowment for Democracy has a checkered past-- the NED also "sponsored" the Chilean opposition to Salvador Allende, the democratically-elected socialist president of Chile, in the 1960s and 1970s-- actions which indirectly led to a military coup and fascist dictatorship that killed thousands.

The NED has the best of intentions; however, it has repeatedly subverted popular revolutions/governments who were not sufficiently "anti-communist" (or pro-American) enough for the US government.

[Vladimir]

22. If I may, the NED doesn't have the best of intentions

It didn't sponsor opposition to Allende, since it didn't exist then, but it has done plenty of other evil crap. See this thread, for example:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1256111#1256741

[lateo]

6. Well, what I meant was...

"Who" in Congress authorized it specifically?

[justinsb]

8. I'm not sure specifically who

apparently the funding came via the National Endowment for Democracy

http://www.ned.org/

who seem to be dumping money into nearly every election in the 3rd world

[peacetalksforall]

9. NED is nothing more than a money launderer for that faction of

Congress who believes in imperialism.

Their role with Cuba involves a little circle of money flow and it may be the same for Venezuela.

The taxes we pay are spent by Congress.
In the case of Cuba - Congress gave money to NED for anti-Castro purposes.

NED gave the money to CANF - Cuban-American National Foundation and similar foundations.

CANF uses the money to perpetuate the campaign against Cuba, including paying people to write the legislation for Congress that favors Cuban exile over any other immigrant group in our history. It may also be the conduit for money that goes to braodcasting propaganda over airwaves to Cubans, especially TV which is blocked in Havand and other big cities and can be received in the country, but there aren't many tvs around.

CANF and the other foundations send money back to the pockets of our Congresspeople, including Dems.

NED is a money conduit.

[cal04]

10. Vheadlines/ some information on this

A USA-funded coup d'etat is a non-democratic event ... it is a criminal act...

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=40566

[justinsb]

12. Thanks for that...

good info to have.

[Judi Lynn]

15. Looked for a photo for this Machado cretin........

Found one at V-Crisis, a seething anti-Chavez site with this mysterious caption:



"Poise, class and dignity at the White House"
http://www.vcrisis.com/index.php?content=letters/200506010934

Do you think they mean the guy by the door? The clock? The portrait of George Washington?

Still wishing a long, healthy, accident-and-assassination-free life for Hugo Chavez: a real Venezuelan hero.

[Peace Patriot]

16. "...held under conditions that favoured the president..."

Yeah, poor people got to vote.

(Chavez's re-election was closely monitored by dozens of international election monitoring groups, including the Carter Center, all of whom confirmed the big Chavez win.)

(Know what the Carter Center said about OUR election? That our election system did not meet MINIMUM international standards for transparency and verifiability, and they therefore COULD NOT monitor it.)

(Venezuela has an OPEN SOURCE CODE electronic voting system, as contrasted with Bushites at Diebold and ES&S counting all OUR votes--or not counting them--with secret, proprietary programming code.)

[Zorra]

17. Yes, taking funds from a foreign government that are allocated for the

purpose of overthrowing your own democratic government in the interests of the foreign power pretty much fits the definition of treason.

[rinsd]

20. According to that standard the CPUSA should have been locked up...

...$31,000 for a group that has at this point used only democratic means to depose their government(ie: the recall vote). Unless this group was part of the coup attempt, this is kind of scary.

If Chavez was rightwing and doing this, people would be screaming.

On Edit: One of the articles posted indicated this woman was part of the 2002 coup. Is she being prosecuted for that or her involvement in the recall?

[Zodiak]

23. There was one coup attempt, IIRC

There was a coup attempt, though.....I believe Chavez was taken out of power for three days because of it. I am not sure that the US fnded the coup, but I suspect that they have reason to do so.

When leaders survive coups, they become more authoritarian. Chavez survived two attempts.....one demoratic and one....not so democratic.

This Chavez thing is the reason I think the US is suddenly interested in fighting malaria, in my opinion. They do have the largest oil reserves in the Western hemisphere, but admittedly by their own admission.

[rinsd]

24. The coup attempt was in 2002...

...I've seen a guy that was involved mentioned in association other NED funded groups but I hadn;t heard about this woman.

"When leaders survive coups, they become more authoritarian."

I would definitely agree. Whihc is ironic considering Chavez's involvement with coup in the 90's to overthrow some asshat.

[Vladimir]

25. Not really

taking money from foreign governments makes you an agent thereof - the CPUSA did itself no favours at all by taking money from the USSR, and in any case this sort of thing is quite insidious because of the US history of funding regime change in this manner. The government of Venezuela is well within its rights to pursue this matter...

[TrogL]

18. the US is doing everything in its power to over throw Chavez

So they can control Venezuela's oil.

[TrogL]

19. EVERYBODY NEEDS TO READ THIS BOOK AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780385660105

I'm reading it right now and it discusses this at length.

[Vladimir]

21. I think we all know what the penalty for treason should be... n/t