[Peace-discuss] Venezuela denounces U. S. before the OAS (English)

[Phil Stinard]

Here is my translation of the lengthy document I sent to you yesterday in 
Spanish.  This event was underreported and almost completely ignored, even 
by the international press.  You are among the first to hear of this.  I'll 
send my translation to the English language press in Venezuela and see if 
they provide some follow-up.

--Phil Stinard
-----------------------------------------------

Foreign Intervention Against the Venezuelan Democracy
Discourse of the ambassador Jorge Valero before the Permanent Council of the 
OAS
By: Jorge Valero, Ambassador before the OAS
Published Wednesday, 31/03/04 08:42pm
Washington D.C., 31 March, 2004

The government presided by Hugo Chávez Frías has decided to denounce before 
the Organization of American States (OAS), acts that have injured the 
sovereignty of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

In force now—more than ever before—the fundamental principals consecrated in 
the Charter of the OAS, with respect to national sovereignty, independence 
and the nonintervention in internal affairs of countries.  Maganimous the 
ruling established in Article 3, where it is proclaimed:

“Every State has the right to choose, without external interference, its 
political, economic, and social system and to organize itself in the way 
best suited to it, and has the duty to abstain from intervening in the 
affairs of another State. Subject to the foregoing, the American States 
shall cooperate fully among themselves, independently of the nature of their 
political, economic, and social systems.”

At the same time, Article 19 of this same Charter solemnly declares:

“No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or 
indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of 
any other State. The foregoing principle prohibits not only armed force but 
also any other form of interference or attempted threat against the 
personality of the State or against its political, economic, and cultural 
elements.”

The Government of President Hugo Chávez Frías has always acted with absolute 
attachment to these principles.  And demands equal action on behalf of all 
countries that form a part of this organization.

The Bolivarian Government responsibly denounces before this forum, that the 
National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has been used – and continues being 
used – by the Government of the United States, to support antidemocratic 
activities of Venezuelan opposition groups.  That in a systematic manner 
they have the agenda to create a climate of political instability and 
sponsor the bankruptcy of the democratic institutions of the country.  
Actions are directed to achieve an ultimate goal:  the removal of the 
Constitutional President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez Frías.

Latin America lives in a new historical cycle.  Neoliberal policies applied 
to the region have failed, and have generated increasing poverty indices, 
starvation, and misery everywhere.  A model based on egoism and 
irrationality has collapsed.  Profound changes in our societies are proposed 
as an unavoidable necessity.

The Venezuelan Government is promoting a national project, inspired by the 
aspirations and dreams of all of the civil sectors that are disposed to 
participate in the construction of a just and egalitarian society.  From 
there, its desire is to vindicate the claims of the groups that make up the 
majority of its people.

The Bolivarian revolutioin has a peaceful and democratic character, but is 
being irrationally hurt by minority sectors that, allied with international 
interests, fear losing their immoral privileges.  Clinging to the 
superiority that they have flaunted since colonial times, they have reacted 
with hate and retaliation.

Venezuela is a pluralist country.  Our Constitution offers guarantees of 
dissent.  Every Venezuelan, no matter his political, cultural, or religious 
beliefs, has to right to express himself.  The Government of President 
Chavez has always respected the opposition.  He has guaranteed the free 
exercise of constitutional rights.  Dissidence and protest are welcome and 
can be exercised without restriction, always and when they are expressed 
within the bounds of the law.

Venezuela needs a democratic, civilized, and sensible opposition to the 
social drama that impedes us.  Unfortunately, it has been influenced by 
antidemocratic sectors.  For that reason, it tried to overthrow the 
Government during a coup the 11th and 12th of April of 2002, and sabotaged 
the petroleum industry, which caused losses to the nation of more than 10 
billion dollars.

The coup united the business elite ensconced in the Fedecámaras (Chamber of 
Commerce); the old and new parties associated with the ancient regime; and 
the principal communication media.  Its purpose was to restore worldly 
privileges.  The coup was possible because those groups counted on the 
consent of important factors in the United States.  Especially of personnel 
of the State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

The coup leaders carried arms against the Venezuelan judicial order.  They 
violently opposed legislative reforms oriented at restoring the dignity of 
all Venezuelans and, particularly, of the poor and people who have always 
been excluded from the political process.

The political class and the elite business coup leaders tried to sell the 
national petroleum industry at ridiculously low prices to multinationals.  
President Chávez, making use of his constitutional faculties, frustrated 
their attempts.  It wasn’t a coincidence that one of the first measures 
announced by the coup leaders was the exit of Venezuela from OPEC.

Resistance to democratic changes generated the coup.  The Venezuelan people 
reacted against the coup and, in union with the constitutional and 
democratic Armed Forces, put President Chávez back in the exercise of his 
legitimate functions.  Millions of Venezuelans mobilized and peacefully 
restored the democracy.

The Coup was supported externally.  If that were not true, the coup leaders 
would not have launched their adventure.  Functionaries of the State 
Department and the Permanent Mission of the United States before the OAS, 
lobbied the OAS and the diplomatic body of Latin American and Carribean 
countries accredited in Washington intensively on Friday the 12th of April 
of 2002, to justify the coup in Venezuela.  Many of those are here are 
witnesses.  Meanwhile, in Caracas, the Ambassador of the United States, 
Charles Shapiro, held a “courtesy visit” with the dictator Pedro Carmona 
Estanga [who deposed Chávez as president of Venezuela during the coup].

This same day, Phillip Chicola, in the name of the Department of State, 
recommended to Pedro Carmona Estanga, according to a communication that is 
in our possession, the following:

1. That the “transition that is taking place right now in Venezuela, that he 
understands and with which he sympathisizes, must conserve the 
constitutional norms”;

2. That “the National Assembly approves the resignation of President 
Chávez”;

3. That “elections are called in a reasonable length of time, and that 
Observers of the OAS will be welcome at the elections”;

4. That “a copy of the resignation signed by President Chávez be brought to 
him”;

5. And that “the current Permanent Representative to the OAS be promptly 
replaced”;

Recommendations that Carmona accepted, according to his communication 
directed to the Secretary General of the OAS, César Gaviria, the 13 of April 
of 2002.

At the same time, the 12th of April, Phillip Reeker, in an Official 
Communication of the Department of State, blamed President Chávez for 
provoking his own overthrow.  He said that, “Chávez resigned the presidency. 
  Before resigning, he fired the Vice President and the Cabinet.  A civial 
transition government has promised elections soon….  The Venezuelan people, 
in accordance with the principles of the Interamerican Charter, will 
peacefully and democratically resolve this democratic situation.”

Our government is making available photos, recordings, and abundant evidence 
that demonstrates the participation of United States Government 
functionaries in the planning and execution of the coup.

I possess proof of U. S. military helicopters that landed at the airport of 
Maiquetía during the coup, warships that illegally penetrated Venezuelan 
Carribean coastal waters violating our sovereignty;  U. S. military 
personnel met before and during the coup with Venezuelan military coup 
leaders.

A U. S. plane was spotted the 12th of April 2002 on Orchila, the Venezuelan 
island to which President Chávez was taken during the kidnapping to which he 
was subjected by the coup leaders.  The plane left quickly when its crew 
realized that patrol boats of the Venezuelan Army were coming to that place.

Colin Powell, Secretary of State, during testimony he gave to the 
Appropriations Committee on Commerce and State of the House of 
Representatives March 3 of 2004, recognized that the Department of State had 
made a mistake.  His words were, and I quote:  “A Communication of the 
Department of State came out that I could have handled better, which doesn’t 
reflect our position, and we corrected it in less than 24 hours,” end quote. 
  However, even at that time, the Venezuelan people were already restoring 
President Chávez to the presidency.

An editorial in the newspaper The New York Times of last March 9, affirms:  
“The Bush administration has allied itself so openly with the anti-Chávez 
faction, that it will be difficult for him to play a mediating role [in 
Venezuela]”.

The coup having failed, the antidemocratic opposition sectors—with the 
support of the Department of State and the National Endowment for Democracy 
(NED) designed a new plan, with two phases, to remove the President; this 
time, by way of the electoral process:

1. In the first phase, they pressured for the next elections to take place 
sooner, knowing that this violated the Constitution.  This attempt failed.

2. Now they are trying to obtain a referendum to remove the President, 
violating the requisites established in Article 72 of the Constitution.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was created, in November of 1983, 
by Public Law 98-164 of the Congress of the United States, with the end of 
“promoting democracy in the world.”  The law provides that its programs will 
be financed by the U. S. Congress.

Nevertheless, even since its beginning, NED had already started to deviate 
from its purpose.  Because of the scandal that took place in 1984, whereby 
it used some of its funds to finance the electoral campaign of a candidate 
for the Presidency of Panama, Nicolás Ardito Barletta, Congress approved, 
the 16th of August of 1985, an Amendment to this Law, in which it was 
established, and I quote:  “No funds will be used, neither by the NED nor by 
any of its beneficiaries, to finance the campaigns of candidates for public 
office.”

In Venezuela, meanwhile, foreign financing of organizations that participate 
in public debate was prohibited by law.  The Constitutional Branch of the 
Supreme Court of Venezuela, in a ruling on November 21, 2000, determined 
that civil society, or “those that represent it, can’t be foreigners, nor 
organisms directed by, affiliated with, subsidiaries of, financed by, or 
sustained directly or inderectly by, [foreign] States or movements or groups 
influenced by those States, nor by associations, groups, or transnational or 
world movements, that pursue political or economic ends for their own 
benefit.”  As a consequence, civil organizations that receive foreign money 
to realize political activities in Venezuela are acting outside the law.

It is evident that NED is supporting, uniquely and exclusively, opposition 
political parties in Venezuela.  This is the list:  First Justice, 
Democratic Action, COPEI, Movement to Socialism, and Project Venezuela.

It is evident that NED is supporting, uniquely and exclusively, 
nongovernment organizations (NGOs) that function, for all intents and 
purposes, as opposition political parties, or as an appendix of them, and 
some of which were openly working in support of the coup.  Here is the list:

Súmate, Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CTV), Asociación Civil 
Comprensión de Venezuela, Asociación Civil Consorcio Justicia, Asociación 
Civil Consorcio Justicia –Occidente, Fundación Momento de la Gente, 
Asociación Civil Asamblea de Educación, Acción Campesina, Instituto de 
Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS), Fundación Justicia para la Paz del Estado Monagas, 
Asociación Civil Justicia Alternativa, Acción para el Desarrollo, Asociación 
Civil Liderazgo y Visión, Centro al Servicio de la Acción Popular, 
Asociación Civil Nuevo Amanecer, Agrupación Pro Calidad de Vida, Sinergia, 
PRODEL-Venezuela.

It is evident that NED is financing, uniquely and exclusively, political 
programs in the Venezuelan States, directed by opposition party Governors.  
Here is the list:

1. Miranda State, Governor Enrique Mendoza, leader of Coordinadora de la 
Oposición. He participated directly in the coup of 2002 and ordered the 
closing of the State TV Channel, Venezolana de Televisión, during said coup.

2. Carabobo State, Governor Henrique Salas Feo, of the party Proyecto 
Venezuela.

3. Zulia State, Governor Manuel Rosales, maximum leader of Coordinadora de 
la Oposición in that State. He signed the “Decree” of the coup leaders, in 
the name of the Governors of the State.

4. Monagas State, Governor Guillermo Call, of the party Acción Democrática. 
He supported the coup.

5. Anzoátegui State, Governor David de Lima, of the party Movimiento al 
Socialismo. He supported the coup.

The finance plan granted by NED to opposition groups in Venezuela for the 
year 2002—year in which the coup took place—was titled “Democratization of 
Semi-Authoritarian Countries.”  They channeled $2,103,200 through the U. S. 
Information Agency (USIA)  of the State Department.

NED has also received extraordinary resources from other organs of the State 
Department to carry on their operations in Venezuela.  The Office for 
Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), assigned to the Subsecretary for 
Global Affairs of the State Department, also sent $1 million the year of the 
coup, to expand and strengthen the programs of NED.

The following year, after the failure of the coup, the DRL assigned $285,000 
to NED so that “early elections” in Venezuela could be held, taking 
advantage of loopholes in the National Constitution.
The year of the coup, the United States Agency for International Development 
(USAID) of the State Department, also disbursed $2 million to support 
Venezuelan leaders and institutions characterized as “moderate,” but that, 
in practice, were opposed to President Hugo Chávez.

In the six months before the coup, six other Offices of the State Department 
made direct disbursements for $695,300 to finance conferences and semiars 
that favored the opposition.
SUMATE is, in Venezuela, a political-electoral instrument of NED. María 
Corina Machado, its Vice President, signed the decree of Pedro Carmona’s “de 
facto” government, by which all of the democratic institutions of the 
country were dissolved. Súmate itself was the most principal actor in the 
sabotage of the Venezuelan petroleum industry.

Súmate received $53,400 from NED between September of 2003 and September of 
2004, to execute a supposed “Electoral Education” project.  However, the 
true purpose of this project has been to finance a media campaign in favor 
of a revocatory referendum against President Hugo Chávez.

NED has also financed the Center of Justice and International Law (CEJIL), 
to promote accusations against the Venezuelan Government—in the area of 
human rights—before the Interamerican system.  They assigned $83,000 for the 
period 2003-2004.

CEJIL, with money from NED, promotes ignorance of democratic institutions 
and of Venezuelan judicial system authorities, and helps Venezuelan NGOs 
appeal directly to supranational judicial bodies without previous 
recourse—as established by the Interamerican Convention of Human Rights—to 
the legal system of Venezuela.

NED, through the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), also 
assigned money to the Center for the Divulgation of Economic Knowledge of 
Venezuela (CEDICE).  NED gave them $462,686 between 1999 and 2003.  To 
justify this grant, NED falsely claimed that the Government of Hugo Chávez 
“has demonstrated militarist and Marxist tendencies”; that Venezuelan 
economic laws “obstruct financial and social development”; and that it is 
“imperative to seek the consensus of civil groups to help construct an 
alternative vision for Venezuela.”  In other words, to seek “consensus” from 
the opposition groups to oppose the Government.

In the program “Supervision of Agrarian Reform” funded by NED for the 
organization Acción Campesina [Farmer Action], President Chávez is attacked 
without foundation.  And when one examines—in NED’s documentation—the 
purposes of this organization, you can easily see that their true purpose is 
to attack the Land Laws and Agrarian Development and sabotage agrarian 
reform. Acción Campesina maintains an alliance with Venezuelan large 
landowners who have hired killers to assassinate, in recent months, 72 farm 
leaders and farm workers who were fighting for the right to own land.  NED 
gave $93,000 to this organization between 2002 and 2004.

NED gave $167,000 to the Civil Education Assembly Association between 2001 
and 2004 to bring forth the program “Education Reform.”  It was entrusted 
with promoting “alliances between civil groups, teacher unions, and 
representatives of the whole country” and to oppose the “packet of 
government education reforms.”

NED maintains that it is necessary to confront Chávez’s Government every 
time that it “uses education as an instrument of indoctrination to extend 
its personal, political, and ideological agenda.”  This organization is 
presided over by Leonardo Carvajal, leader of the Opposition Coordinator, 
and who was named Minister of Education by the dictator Pedro Carmona 
Estanga [president of Venezuela during the coup].

The Momento de la Gente [Time of the People] Foundation received $229,747 
between 2000 and 2004.  Its task is to bring “Legislative Assistance” to 
opposition parties and to lobby  the National Assembly to obstruct laws 
proposed by the parliamentary bench that supports the government, as well as 
to introduce projects of law written by the opposition.

The main organism for channeling money to Venezuelan opposition parties is 
the International Republican Institute (IRI).  This group has received money 
from NED and the State Department, $1,408,818 from 1999 to date, to train 
and assist opposition leaders and support parties that oppose the 
Government.

There is a program financed by the IRI, between 2003 and 2004, called 
“Strengthening of the Political Parties.”  NED, to justify its financing, 
paints a somber and dark picture of Venezuela.  NED considers it essential 
that the “international community call for a peaceful solution to the crisis 
relating to the celebration of early elections.”  In  other words, it gave 
money for an unconstitutional political plan, as Venezuela has electoral 
loopholes and procedures well defined in the Constitution.

The IRI, furthermore, supported the Venezuelan coup.  In a press release 
given by its president, George Folsom, the 12th of April of 2002 [during the 
coup], it is stated that the IRI served as a “bridge” between political 
parties and the civilian opposition groups to achieve the overthrow of 
President Hugo Chávez.

Programs financed by NED that I have listed here are only a small 
respresentative sample.  Many more exist.  Documents that support all of 
this information have been declassified thanks to the Freedom of Information 
Act (FOIA), and are available on the web page: www.venezuelafoia.info.

Journalists, analysts, as well as U. S. Congressmen, have observed the same 
problems that are now afflicting the Venezuelan State with respect to NED.

This organism claims to “promote political pluralism,” but it uniquely and 
exclusively finances movements and political leaders than maintain 
confrontation with the Venezuelan Government, not caring that these groups 
are involved in antidemocratic campaigns.

We denounce NED for obstructing democratic and progressive changes in our 
country, counting on the cooperation of unscrupulous and antipatriotic 
people of Venezuelan origin, eager for North American dollars—the same ones 
who daily ask for foreign intervention in Venezuela.

If NED is prohibited from financing the campaigns of foreign candidates for 
public office, how is it that they can finance campaigns to revoke the 
mandate of leaders who have been democratically elected?  NED has gone to 
the extreme to finance people who, in their moment, were considered 
potential presidential candidates in Venezuela, for whom they held workshops 
to “put make-up on” their images.

The opposition—together with the principal communication media —have 
recently launched an intense campaign to distort the reality  of human 
rights in Venezuela.  In the Interamerican Commission of Human Rights, they 
count on the the support of its Executive Secretary, Santiago Cantón.  The 
same person who refused to dictate cautionary measures in favor of President 
Hugo Chávez Frías when his life was in danger at the hands of the coup 
leaders.  The same one who addressed the government of the coup leaders on 
April 13 of 2002, calling them the “illustrious government.”  The same one 
who asked the coup leaders for information about “Mister Hugo Chávez”, 
depriving him of the Presidency.

In Venezuela, human rights and fundamental liberties are in full force and 
effect.  Freedom of expression is freely exercised.  We categorically deny 
that there are political prisoners or “disappeared people” in Venezuela, as 
frequently occurred during previous governments.

We make the denunciation that there is a very well-organized network 
operating in Venezuela against the democratic Government of Hugo Chávez.  
Each one of the organizations that receives money from foreign sources plays 
a specific role:  to harrass the Government in different spheres of 
economic, political, educational, communicational, sindical, and legislative 
life.

We make the denunciation that Christopher Sabatini, Director of NED for 
Latin America and the Carribean, has been converted into a key political 
adviser of the opposition in Venezuela.  That he promotes and supports every 
conspiratory network in our country.  That he has close, permanent, and 
complicitous relations with the principal opposition leaders, including the 
coup leaders.
What would be the reaction of the United States, if a foreign government 
financed political parties and NGOs to obstruct its national or 
international politics; to sabotage its nuclear industry; to call on North 
American citizens to deny or to react violently against its democratic 
institutions?

We Venezuelans have the full right to promote a sovereign political and 
democratic project, inspired by the thinking of our Liberator Simón Bolívar. 
  Millions of people, especially those who have been excluded from the 
political process, embrace this project.  Original, unedited, profoundly 
democratic and representative.  No one has the right to impede the 
realization of the dreams and hopes of our people.

Times of change are overrunning the continent.  The neoliberal model has 
collapsed in the region.  According to data of CEPAL, 64% of the population 
in Latin America and the Carribean live in conditions of poverty and extreme 
poverty.  Each year almost 6 million people are added to this list.  By 
2003, poverty—which continued to increase—reached 227 million people in our 
region.  Today, social and political currents are expanding which, inspired 
by superior ethical principles, question injustices and struggle for a new 
order based on equality and social inclusion.

We have come to formally denounce that the Government of the United 
States—through the State Department and the National Endowment for 
Democracy—is intervening in the internal affairs of Venezuela, violating 
articles 3 and 19 of the Charter of the OAS.  We demand that the foreign 
intervention in Venezuela cease.  We ask that this denunciation remain 
registered in the memory of the Organization of American States.

Translated by Philip Stinard.

Original in Spanish at:  http://www.aporrea.org/dameletra.php?docid=7633

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