Lawrence Lewis, in his diary from yesterday, wrote:
The United States has no business meddling in the internal affairs of Venezuela, but anyone who thinks the ongoing uprising in Venezuela is due to the machinations of the United States isn't paying attention. And advocates of democracy and civil liberties should be no more accepting of corruption, repression, and brutality from left wing governments than they are accepting of them from right wing governments.
While Venezulea's human rights violations during the recent fiasco have been amply documented, so has covert US undermining of Chavez.
The US has been undermining Venezuela's governmental system for years through the International Republican Institute and the National Endowment for Democracy. Your taxpayer dollars at work.
Real News Network interviewed Keane Bhatt of the North American Congress on Latin America. He had this to say about Venezulea:
Well, there's no doubt that there are some serious imbalances. So you do have, you know, shortages in basic foodstuffs. You have a very high inflation rate, about 56 percent. So that is real.
If you look at unemployment, it's at a very low point. It's about, you know, 6 percent. If you look at poverty from 2011 to 2012, Venezuela presided over the sharpest decline in poverty throughout the entire region. So it fell by 19 percent in 2013. Despite the problems of inflation and so on, you have further reductions in the rate of household poverty. So that fell by an entire percentage point over 2013, despite the inflation.
So what you're seeing is a portrayal of Venezuela as some kind of a chaotic economic basket case. But when you look at a lot of the macroindicators, you've had real respectable per capita income growth. Over the past decade it's been at about 2.7 percent annually. Again, you know, if you look at this historically, poverty has been slashed by half, absolute poverty by 70 percent. The inequality has been reduced so drastically that it's now the lowest in Latin America.
The problem is, that even with Bhatt's figures, an annual increase of 2.7% in personal income is not going to cover 56% inflation. So even with better unemployment than the US, conditions are much tougher.
The US, however, through the IRI and the National Endowment for Democracy, have been laying the groundwork for years. The strategy here is simple -- build up opposition politicians, wait for the Socialist government to trip up, and then strike. Bhatt explains:
And that's what's taking place here. If you look at the leadership of Leopoldo López, who was the cofounder of Primero Justicia, you know, over the past decade, he's received training and support by the International Republican Institute. He was a direct National Endowment for Democracy grantee. They've received, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, these opposition groups. Marína Corina Machado, you know, who's the president of SUMATE, another opposition party, she--you know, SUMATE also received an NED grant, you know, to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars after the coup.
So, you know, while there's no indication that the United States is active in this particular effort, in which the opposition is clearly attempting to force a democratically elected government to withdraw and to actually--to resign, you have many, many indicators of a constant, ongoing, you know, U.S. support through financing, through providing training, and by incentivizing these kinds of behaviors with their immediate acceptance of the coup government of Pedro Carmona in 2002. You know, WikiLeaks actually produced a document, a 2006 cable, which talked about--you know, which was signed by the U.S. ambassador and described a number of positions, which included "Penetrating Chavez' Political Base," "Dividing Chavismo", protecting U.S. vital interests, and "Isolating Chavez Internationally." And I'm basically saying this almost verbatim. So the fact that this government may believe that there's a conspiracy against it on the part of the United States government is not very outlandish at all.
The
National Endowment for Democracy has been at this for years:
Most of the NED, and its affiliated organizations, deals with influencing political processes abroad. The means employed range from influencing civil society, media, fostering business groups, lending support to preferred politicians/political parties, election monitoring, and fostering human rights groups. Depending on the level of development of the political system and the sophistication of politicians, different strategies are applied. In underdeveloped countries (e.g., Haiti), it involves developing the civil infrastructure/civil society groups, human right monitoring groups, and especially, bonding with the country's business elite. In more advanced countries, with a civil society base, the focus is on fostering politicians/elite who favor the neo-liberal economic/political model. From the NED's website it is evident that the principal regions where it seeks to influence political outcomes are the Middle East, the former Soviet republics, some countries in Latin America, and Africa.
Alan Weinstein, one of its founders, was quoted in Sourcewatch as follows:
A lot of what we [NED] do was done 25 years ago covertly by the CIA.
The
International Republican Institute is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy.
The International Republican Insitute (IRI) is one of the components of the National Endowment for Democracy by which it seeks to influence political outcomes and civic society in lesser developed countries around the world. Its efforts are to channel politics and civic society to promote a neoliberal economic and political model; NED/IRI also engage in activities previously performed by the CIA. IRI is mainly funded by U.S. State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development and the National Endowment for Democracy. IRI is loosely affiliated to the Republican party – which doesn’t provide any of its funding.[
Both of these organizations are funded by your taxpayer dollars.
The moral of the story is that there are no good actors here. It's one thing to promote democracy around the world. But it's quite another to promote democracy only on the condition that certain candidates are elected. The problem is that Maduro is playing into the hands of the National Endowment for Democracy and the International Republican Institute with his massive censorship of the media and the Internet. The solution for the crisis has to lie in the hands of the people of Venezuela.
Let's put this another way -- Do we want the Russians or the Chinese to influence the next two elections by helping out the Republican Party?