Details on the U.S. interference in Venezuela

Philip Agee has come out with a series of articles analyzing how the U.S. is interfering in Venezuela. Reading them I am reminded of just how little all of us - even very informed leftists - are aware of the extent of the evil perpetrated by our government. I've excerpeted a few paragraphs from each of his first two articles.

How United States Intervention Against Venezuela Works Part 1 of 3

During the administration of Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) general agreement developed in the foreign policy establishment that the repressive dictatorships supported by the United States around the world (Philippines, Iran, the Southern Cone of South America, Central America, etc.) were not the best solutions to maintaining the long-term interests of the country. These interests fundamentally were free access to primary resources, labor, and worldwide markets especially those of the so-called Third World. This new concept favoring democracy over authoritarian regimes came to be known as the Democracy Project. In 1979 the American Political Foundation (APF) was established with both government and private financing, and with the participation of both political parties as well as business and union sectors. Its purpose was to determine how the United States could better protect its foreign interests through freely elected civilian governments based on the U.S. federal system or the European parliamentary model.

The APF began studies and investigations under the direction of a high-ranking CIA official assigned to the National Security Council. Its conclusions after two years’ work were to adopt something similar to the practice of the Federal Republic of Germany in which the Liberal, Social Democratic and Christian Democratic parties each had private foundations that were financed by the federal government. These foundations supported political parties and other organizations abroad that shared their political persuasions. The APF recommendations were broadly accepted, and in November 1983 Congress approved a law that established the National Endowment for Democracy awarding it $14 million for fiscal year 1984.
***

The NED and its associated foundations were conceived as a mechanism to channel funds toward political parties and other foreign civil society institutions that favored U.S. interests, above all the neo-liberal agenda of privatization, deregulation, control of unions, reduction of social services, elimination of tariffs, and free access to markets. The entire mechanism was, and is, nothing more than an instrument of U.S. government foreign policy. Nevertheless the NED and its associated foundations have always tried to maintain the false impression that their operations are private, and in fact NED has the legal status of an NGO.


Use of a Private U.S. Corporate Structure to Disguise a Government Program, US in Venezuela Part 2

However, after the coup, there was an obvious decision taken in Washington to multiply its efforts in Venezuela with much more money, but now through OTI/AID and a contracted consulting firm, Development Alternatives Inc. This firm would act as a branch of OTI/AID under the guise of a private company.
***

The contract makes it clear that OTI is the equivalent of an international political fire brigade that is used by the government to bring under control social and political upheavals that threaten U.S. interests – something similar to the military’s Special Forces.
***

To sum up this contract, after the failed coup of April 2002, the government of the United States widened its program of intervention in the Venezuelan political process through the Agency for International Development (AID) with budgets much greater than those of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its four associated foundations whose programs with the opposition nevertheless continued. In August 2002 AID/OTI contracted the consulting firm Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI) to develop various programs to support the political opposition with annual budgets of around $5 million. DAI then established an office in Caracas, very possibly as a front for and with personnel from the CIA, while passing as an ordinary subsidiary of a U.S. transnational corporation. In reality, it is a key office of the U.S. embassy disguised as a private company.
***

At least 67 projects up to end of 2004 have been financed by the DAI program called Venezuela: Initiative to Build Confidence. The first projects started in the fall of 2002 were designed to support the lockout and sabotage of the oil industry from December 2002 to February 2003. This support included financing the TV ad campaign in favor of the strike. When the strike failed, DAI focused its projects on the referendum of August 2004, and among its main beneficiaries was Súmate, the main NGO that promoted the referendum against Chávez. Parallel to these activities DAI has financed the development of the opposition’s political program against the Bolivarian Revolution known as Plan Consensus. Some of the beneficiaries of this project were Queremos Elegir (We want to Choose) and Liderazgo y Vision (Leadership and Vision). Now, since the victories of President Chávez in the referendum and in the local and state elections of October 2004, DAI is focusing on the national elections of 2005 and 2006.