$20 million in U.S. aid to Venezuela's rightwing opposition for 2012

[Peace Patriot]

US: $20 Million for the Venezuelan Opposition in 2012

By Eva Golinger - Postcards from the Revolution, August 12th 2011

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.

(SNIP)

The main engine behind (Washington's) 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.

(SNIP)

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

(MORE)

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6418
(my emphasis)

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The second part of the article is about how the U.S. is evading Venezuelan laws against foreign governments infusing money into Venezuelan political campaigns through non-profit rightwing front groups, by channeling the money through the U.S. embassy.

Eva Golinger is such an invaluable resource for those of us in the U.S. who want to know what our government is doing! She watches these U.S. budgeting matters very carefully, and also frequently makes FOIA requests for whatever info can be gotten that way. She knows more about U.S. government interference in Latin America than all the so-called journalists of the Associated Pukes, the New York Slimes, the Wall Street Urinal, the Miami Hairball, Faux News, ABC-CBS-NBC-CNN, Rotters, the BBCons and The Economyths combined. When they are not promulgating disinformation about Latin America, they are promulgating the black hole of no information at all.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Twenty million. Apalling! It's there for the world to see, easily checked.

No way for the reactionary right to screech we got that from the terrifying "Eva Golinger," since she got her information from the U.S. through public access.

That figure speaks for itself. Major intentions. A-holes! Rec.