[R-G] Behind the US war on Venezuela

[Anthony Fenton]

REVIEW
Behind the US war on Venezuela
Review by Roberto Jorquera
19 April 2008
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/747/38631

Bush vs Chavez — Washington’s war on Venezuela
By Eva Golinger
Monthly Review Press, 2008
$26.00 (pb), available at <http://www.resistancebooks.com>

Eva Golinger’s latest installment in the battle between the US and the  
Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela, Bush vs Chavez — Washington’s war  
on Venezuela is a fascinating account that looks behind the scenes of  
US policy towards the government of President Hugo Chavez.

The book is a brilliant sequel to her previous book The Chavez Code.

Combing through thousands of documents attained through the Freedom of  
Information Act (FOIA) in the US, Golinger is able to bring to light  
the facts behind US policy towards Venezuela throughout Chavez’s  
presidency.

Golinger focuses on the role of the National Endowment for Democracy  
(NED), United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and  
the Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI), as well as their  
subsidiary organisations scattered throughout Latin America.

In the first section of the book, Golinger provides a history of US  
government intervention in Latin America and how its policy has  
developed in Venezuela, learning from past interventions such as in  
Chile, Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti. From the information that Golinger  
has been able to access, a clear pattern emerges showing how the  
political moves against Chavez since 1998 have had their roots  
directly in US government bodies.

Golinger is able to provide evidence that the major political attacks  
that have been made against the Bolivarian revolution have been  
orchestrated in the US. These include the December 2001 one-day strike  
organised by the bosses, the April 2002 coup attempt, the December  
2002 to February 2003 lock out of PDVSA (Venezuelan oil industry)  
workers and the shut down of the industry, the guarimba (a plan  
allegedly formed by opposition guru Robert Alonso, for right-wing  
forces to engage in widespread civil disobedience and violence in the  
streets of Caracas and other metropolitan areas) of February 2004, the  
recall referendum of August 2004, the continued build up of US troops  
in the Caribbean and Colombia, as well as numerous other events.

Golinger notes that “For the Fiscal year 2003 USAID’s OTI office  
requested [US]$5,074,000 for its Venezuela operations … In Fall 2003,  
the OTI requested an additional $6,345,000 for use in Venezuela during  
2004. USAID also gave the International Republican Institute and the  
National Democratic Institute (NDI) more than $2 million for  
‘strengthening political parties’ and ‘promoting electoral processes’  
in Venezuela during 2003-04. The NDI’s grant specifically mentioned  
collaboration with [“civil society” organisation Sumate”.

The guarimba of Feburary and March 2004 called for widespread civil  
disobedience in an attempt to provoke the Venezuelan authorities to  
crack down. Similar activities had been organised in Chile during the  
Allende government and in Nicaragua during the Sandinista government  
of the 1980s.

Golinger writes, “The information about the actions — many of them  
illegal — of the US government in Venezuela, through the Central  
Intelligence Agency, the State Department, and other entities  
operating within Venezuela and strategically from inside Washington,  
is voluminous and overwhelming.

“Since the publication of The Chavez Code in early 2005, we have  
witnessed a serious and scary shift in US policy toward Venezuela.  
Three major fronts of attack have been launched and are rapidly taking  
form: the financial, the diplomatic and the military. These have  
become the battlefields for which a new form of war — asymmetric  
warfare — is being waged on the Venezuelan people and their  
government. This is a war with no clear lines, a war without  
frontiers, and a war, it seems, with no end.

“The financial front commenced in 2001, when the National Endowment  
for Democracy quadrupled its annual funding to anti-Chavez groups that  
later used those same funds to plan and execute the coup against  
Chavez … President Bush requested Congress to double NED’s budget for  
its work in Venezuela during 2005-6, and again for the fiscal year  
2007-08.”

At the same time funding has grown for USAID and the OTI that operates  
out of the US embassy in Caracas.

In 2006, Bush asked US Congress to increase its funding for  
“democratic initiatives” in Latin America. “Since 2005, NED and USAID  
funding in Venezuela has remained substantial. The total sum invested  
in the years 2000-4 in opposition groups in Venezuela was  
approximately $27 million in US taxpayer dollars. For the year 2005-7,  
NED was granted more than $3 million for its Venezuela activities and  
USAID issued approximately $7.2 million for its Caracas based Office  
of Transition Initiatives and other Venezuela programs.”

The US funds were shared among a variety of organisations, including  
the International Republican Institute, to “promote more responsive  
political parties … to educate citizens on the election law and to  
encourage and provide them with the tools to claim their right to  
free, open and transparent elections” and the Press and Society  
Institute-Venezuela “to promote freedom of expression and journalist  
professionalisation and safety”.

Not surprisingly many of the representatives of these organisations  
openly supported and, in some cases, put their signature to the  
Carmona Decree, which was the document that ousted Chavez in April 2002.

NED continues to classify Venezuela as a country that has moved away  
from democracy and engages in human rights abuses against its own  
citizens. Washington has consistently argued that Venezuela has not  
moved to stop drug trafficking, that it has not done anything against  
the trafficking of people and that it has not condemned terrorism.

The US administration has repeatedly claimed that Venezuela is a haven  
for Middle East “terrorist groups” and that the Venezuelan government  
provides “operational and financial support” to these groups.  
Successive US ambassadors to Venezuela have repeated these  
unsubstantiated remarks.

The US administration has also campaigned hard in the international  
community to create a front against what it calls, “the growing threat  
of Hugo Chavez”. US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice continued to  
classify Venezuela as a “threat to democracy” and a “destabilising  
negative force” in the hemisphere.

Rice said during her confirmation hearing in January 2005 that, “I  
think that we have to view at this point the government of Venezuela  
as a negative force in the region.”

Golinger also explores the new CIA agency the National Clandestine  
Service, which directly aims to gather intelligence on Cuba and  
Venezuela. She makes special mention of the report titled “What to do  
about Venezuela” authored by the Centre for Security Policy’s (CSP)  
Vice President for Information Operations, J. Michael Waller.

This report, which was published in May 2005 has become the premise  
for US policy towards Venezuela.

In its opening paragraph Waller’s report states, “Nowhere is the lack  
of a US Strategic approach to the Western Hemisphere more evident than  
in the unchecked rise of a self-absorbed, unstable strongman in  
Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, who has made common cause with terrorism and  
the regimes that support him, and has developed a revolutionary  
ideology that has begun to plunge the Americas again into violence and  
chaos.

“It is necessary for the democratic nations of the hemisphere to come  
together and stop this rising threat to peace before it is too late”.

The CSP also lays out a six-point plan for regime change in Venezuela,  
including promoting the continuation and establishment of anti-Chavez  
organisations within Venezuela.
Golinger argues that 2006 was a transitional year for US policy  
towards Venezuela changing from a “negative force” to a “threat to  
national security” and firmly placing it on the same radar as Iran,  
North Korea and Cuba, against all of which the US continues to  
consider the option of military intervention.

In conclusion Golinger writes, “Washington’s war against Venezuela  
will continue to increase as it loses its grip on power in the region.  
The people of the United States have the choice of supporting  
Washington’s unjust and dangerous war against a peaceful nation or  
actively taking the initiative to halt any further efforts to violate  
Venezuela’s sovereign right to self-determination.

“People around the world are already rising up against such  
aggressions and defending their right against US domination and  
bullying tactics.”

[Roberto Jorquera is on the management committee of the Centre for  
Latin America Solidarity and Studies based in Melbourne and co- 
national convener of the Australia Venezuela Solidarity Network.  
Visist http://venezuelasolidarity.org.]

From: Cultural Dissent, Green Left Weekly issue #747 23 April 2008.