Declassified Docs Back Venezuela President’s Claim of US Aid to Opposition

[Say_What]

The NED docs recently declassified won't be a surprise to those who have followed the Bushies dirty war against democratically elected President Hugo Chavez.

<clips>

Caracas, Venezuela. Feb 10, 2004 (Venezuelanalysis.com).- On his weekly live radio and television show, “Hello Mr. President”, Venezuelan head of state Hugo Chávez announced that his administration had obtained proof of funding directly from the United States government to virulent opposition groups in Venezuela seeking to oust him.

President Chavez declared that proof of US financing of groups working to destabilize and overthrow his government through unconstitutional means is now “circulating on the Internet.” Specifically, Chavez confirmed the existence of documents evidencing the opposition group Sumate had received USD$53,400 from the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (“NED”), as part of more than $800,000 distributed to various anti-Chavez organizations over the past two years.

The evidence referred to by the Venezuelan leader was made available to the public via the World Wide Web on the newly launched website, www.Venezuelafoia.info. The site, funded by a private 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in the United States, the Venezuela Solidarity Committee, contains hundreds of documents evidencing the direct chain of financial aid from various U.S. government departments to Venezuelan opposition groups. The documents on Venezuelafoia.info were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) by veteran investigative journalist Jeremy Bigwood, an expert in FOIA requests. The Act enables citizens to formally request access to classified U.S. government documents belonging to different agencies and departments. The respective government agency then analyzes the documents and decides whether or not to release them to the solicitor. Often such documents are released, but certain sentences, names or whole pages may be crossed-out with marker if determined in the interest of ‘national security.’

How the Freedom of Information Act has been used

The FOIA has been used to uncover US government involvement in the 1973 coup d’etat against President Salvador Allende, as well as numerous other US covert wars and interventions throughout the world. FOIA has also been used by U.S. citizens to uncover the brutal actions of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), the U.S. government’s domestic intelligence agency that destroyed entire social movements in the 1960s and 1970s, such as the American Indian Movement and the Black Panthers Party. Once the intrusive, aggressive and unconstitutional tactics of former FBI head J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) were revealed, public outcry forced the U.S. Congress to put the program to rest through denial of funding.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1190

[theorist]

1. Greg Palast was right! (no big surprise, though) n/t

[Bozola]

2. Oh shit.

http://www.ned.org/about/who.html#board

The Honorable William H. Frist, United States Senate


Directors
General Wesley K. Clark, Stephens Group, Inc.
The Honorable Frank Carlucci, The Carlyle Group

[Pale_Rider]

6. Relax ...

... since it also lists several Democrats ...

The Honorable Lee H. Hamilton
Director
The Woodrow Wilson Center

The Honorable Gregory W. Meeks
United States House of Representatives

Ambassador Howard Wolpe
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Mr. Leon Lynch
Vice President
United Steelworkers of America

However the NED is actually subdivided into primarly two partisan-populated organizations (in addition to CICP for private enterprise and ACILS for labor). The "Republican" sub-organization is the National Republican Institute for International Affairs (later renamed the International Republican Institute or "IRI"). The "Democrat" group is called National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI). Of these two, the IRI has been funneling the most money into destablizing Venezuela and ousting Chavez.

http://www.williambowles.info/guests/ned-venezuela.html


US AGENCY, IRI, BOASTS "WE WERE THE BRIDGE" IN VENEZUELA COUP
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/iri-ven.htm

.... there is evidence that the US has been involved over the long haul, setting up and funding the "civil society" groups that instigated the coup. There is even a public statement issued by the IRI, a US agency that specializes in setting up Fifth Column groups in foreign countries, boasting that it was a key force behind the coup.

[Bozola]

8. It's just that seeing Carlucci's name next to Clarks...ugh

Clark should sue them for defamation by association.

[Eloriel]

15. Relax? I don't think so.

I don't care of God herself is listed on the Board -- I don't want MY government helping overthrow democratically elected heads of state. (And yes, I know we've been at this for quite some time -- I want it STOPPED.)

[TankLV]

19. Uh - it's "Democratic" group.

Now, IF you are a democrat, why you would use that term which is an insult to all democrats?

Only repukes/rethuglicans, freepers and their fellow travelers use that term when describing the DEMOCRATIC Party.

We all await your apology.

[Judi Lynn]

3. So the pResident is continuing to fund Chavez' opposition through NED

The date, September 12th, 2003, the starting date of the last payment makes one think they actually expected the recall petition to fail, and that continued efforts would be needed to reverse the landslide election of Hugo Chavez.

Fine way for a "leader of the "free world"" to conduct national policy.

[gold_bug]

4. the NED connection was exposed some time ago on

http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/
I can't find the article at the moment but if you do a search in the Latin America section there's an article explaining how NED funneled money to the Venezuelan opposition.

[Say_What]

7. True and it's been posted here many times, but there's nothing

like seeing the actual documents in contrast to the LIES and PROPAGANDA that comes out of Washington to the contrary.

Here's an interesting clip from NED's website:

International Republican Institute
$299,999
To train national and local branches of existing and newly created political parties in Venezuela, both on a one-to-one basis and through group sessions. Training topics include party structure, management, and organization; internal and external party communications; effective constituent relations; membership and volunteer recruitment; candidate/leadership development; and coalition building.

http://www.ned.org/grants/02programs/grants-lac.html#Venezuela

[stevedeshazer]

5. So many scandals

I can't keep up. This should be mind-boggling, but it isn't. :eyes:

[Judi Lynn]

9. The entire contribution for ONE YEAR to these opposition groups

comes to just below 1,000,000. That's through NED. Of course there are OTHER WAYS, as well, as usual.

It was quaint seeing the yearly contribution to their International Republican Institute being $299,999.00. For some reason they didn't feel they should step over the line by making it a clean 300,000.00.

Odd.

Thanks for posting this informtion. Not a shock in any way, but damned good seeing it getting out where those interested can take a look at it.

[Say_What]

12. Amount funneled from NED to Cuban *opposition* and Miami *opposition*

is near that figure--about $800,000. The IRI's contribution to Cuba was $350,000. The anti-Cuba industry is thriving in Batistaville!!

http://www.ned.org/grants/02programs/grants-lac.html#Cuba

[reprobate]

10. Does this remind anyone of Ray-gun

And his funding of the contras? Clandestine, under the table, not voted by congress. This bunch is just a crooked as reagon was.

[Say_What]

11. US cookie cutter destabilization efforts are the same in any decade

and any country. Take a look at what they did to Chilean President Allende in 1973.

<clips>

...Recall that arch reactionaries like the Dominican Republic's Leonidas Trujillo, moderate reformers like Brazil's Joao Goulart and of course radicals ranging from Chile's Salvador Allende to the Nicaraguan Sandinistas all fell victim to the CIA's punishing department. The covert tactics have included assassinations, coups, economic destabilization and psychological warfare; well, let's just call it state terrorism. In the case of Manuel Noriega. CIA and DEA agent who turned disobedient, President Bush I ordered the most expensive arresting force in the world. Naturally, the patterns of CIA efforts to overthrow popular governments also included attempts to influence the mass media. In 1970, while making a film in Chile, I witnessed parts of the "destabilization" operation that began even before Salvador Allende won his plurality in September of that year. After the election, as the CIA hatched plots to prevent Allende's inauguration, I occasionally dropped into Santiago's Hotel Carrera bar. Invariably, well-dressed Chileans would whisper that Allende had advanced syphilis. Another would confide that he was a homosexual, a sex tool of Castro, a love slave of Brezhnev, intent on turning over control of Chile to Moscow.

I almost gagged at the grossness of the anti-Allende cartoons in the right wing press (they controlled the majority of the Chilean media). I observed a campaign of planned violence, beginning with the October 1970 murder of Army Chief General Rene Schneider, by Patria y Libertad, a gang of fascists hired by the CIA. The "destabilization" continued through Allende's three years, by paying some labor leaders to call strikes in strategic sectors and by imposing economic hardships on Chile. Above all came the constant, daily flood of lies and distortion about the nature of the Allende government and its agenda, which was to better the lot of the poor working people urban and rural through legislation enacted under the existing Constitution.

When the various and combined tactics failed, the Chilean military aided by Washington resorted to a bloody coup. The US Navy played a crucial role, monitoring the traffic emanating from military bases so as to ensure that the coup makers could quickly dispatch any Allende loyalists.

September 11, 1973 stands for many Chileans as a day comparable to 9/11/01 for Americans. Chilean air force jets fired rockets into the president's office building and tanks blasted away at the revered structure as troops surrounded the symbol of democratic government and then proceeded with a campaign of terror: assassination, kidnapping, torture and exile for their political opponents backed by Washington. After seventeen years of Pinochet-led fascism, more than 3000 Chileans died at the hands of the terrorists that Washington had helped into the seat of government.

http://www.counterpunch.org/landau01112003.html

[Just Me]

13. Remind me "why" Venezuela is considered a "rogue" regime,...

,...to be toppled via this kind of maneuver. Is that leadership, let's see, I'll try to go through the litany: "communist", "socialist", "terrorist", "dictatorial", "liberul", or what? Someone PLEASE tell me the latest demonization.

[Fargin Ice Hole]

14. If your sitting on any oil, consider yourself a rouge nation of some sort.

The Machine needs fuel!!!!!!!!

[Say_What]

16. U.S. Denies Charges It Funding Venezuela Opposition

LOL what f*ck'n hypocrisy!!

<clips>

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Monday denied Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's charge that Washington was funding opposition groups seeking a recall referendum to vote him out of office.

Chavez said on Sunday he would present documents showing millions of dollars were being channeled to the opposition through institutions created by the United States, renewing accusations of U.S. involvement in efforts to oust him.

"I'm happy to refute them (the charges). They're false," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters. "I think there's been some harping on this in Venezuela ... but what we're doing is we're supporting democracy, as we do many, many places around the hemisphere and around the world."

Chavez, a populist first elected in 1998, is facing an opposition campaign to secure a recall vote against his presidency in the South American nation, which is a major oil supplier to the United States.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4318980

[redqueen]

17. Hey, whatever the market will bear, right?

If people are stupid enough to buy it, and 'news' outlets are ethics-free enough to publish it, why shouldn't they sell it?

[Say_What]

18. Bush Admin. Harbors ‘Friendly’ Terrorists While Claiming to Lead Terror Wa

Most 'muriKans don't even know where South America is never mind Venezuela. Wait'll they hear what their *free and democratic* country is doing to Colombia (another blood bath ala Central America), reported all over the European press but not word one in the US corporate press.

This ran in Venezuela on Saturday...
<clips>

Bush Administration Harbors ‘Friendly’ Terrorists While Claiming to Lead the ‘War Against Terror’

The US press is not reporting on the contradictory actions of the Bush Administration with regard to some Venezuelan terrorist suspects. As George W. Bush continues to increase his defense budget by the billions and justifies unwarranted aggression and violence against other nations as part of his ‘war against terror’, the Department of Homeland Security looks the other way as terrorist flood the gates in Miami.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the division of the Department of Homeland Security that handles asylum petitions and immigration matters, is currently considering asylum applications filed by two terror suspects fleeing from justice in Venezuela. An Interpol alert has been issued for the two rebel military officers who are suspects in the terrorist attacks against the Spanish Embassy and Consulate of Colombia in Caracas last February. The suspects are being held at the Krome Detention Center in Florida, and a request by the suspects to be released was recently denied by a judge.

Major newspapers in the US are not reporting that suspected terrorists and rebel military officers German Varela and Jose Antonio Colina may very well soon be lawful US permanent residents, shacked up in the safe-haven of Miami.

These asylum seekers are fierce opponents of the progressive government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whom the Bush administration has sought to overthrow following a long tradition of U.S. governments toppling democratically elected leaders who refuse to comply with all of Washington’s demands. Southern Florida is home for thousands of Latin American exiles who have committed crimes in their own countries, including bankers, anti-Cuban terrorists, and ex-dictators.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1102

[Judi Lynn]

20. Venezuela formally receiving Colombian refugees

UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees)
UNHCR
http://www.unhcr.ch/
Suiza
Ong > Inmigrantes @
Noticia nº: 18535
Agencia emisora:
mié 11 Feb 2004


Venezuela recognises its first refugees



The UN refugee agency has welcomed Venezuela's recognition of the first 47 refugees to pass through a newly established asylum application process, hailing it as a historic step towards international refugee protection.

UNHCR Regional Representative Maria Virginia Trimarco said the new process demonstrates Venezuela's commitment to the 1951 Refugee Convention.

UNHCR on Monday received official notification of the development from the National Refugee Commission. As outlined in the Venezuelan Refugee and Asylum Law, the 47 Colombian nationals will be presented with formal identification documents recognizing their right to live, work and study in Venezuela.

Established in July 2003, the National Refugee Commission is the first such institution in Venezuela. In addition to reviewing individual asylum applications and determining refugee status, the commission oversees the government's efforts to provide protection and assistance to those seeking asylum.
(snip/...)

http://www.noticias.info/Asp/aspComunicados.asp?nid=18535&src=0