11) MADURO GOVERNMENT FACES INTENSIFIED U.S. INTERFERENCE
By W.T. Whitney Jr.
The 1.6 percent margin by which Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) took the presidential elections of April 14 was anemic, in comparison with former President Hugo Chavez' crushing electoral victories. The combined effect of a narrow victory margin and Chavez' death on March 5 has served to buoy up forces that backed defeated opposition candidate Henrique Capriles. The charisma of Chavez and his promotion of social programs and regional integration had held them in check for 15 years.
The U.S. government is taking advantage of the new reality. The Obama administration, alone in the world, has held off recognition of Maduro's victory on the pretext of election irregularities, a widely discredited notion. Paradoxically, U.S. recognition of the short-lived government after the coup that removed President Chavez in April, 2002 was immediate. Speaking recently to reporters, Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson did not rule out eventual U.S. economic sanctions against Venezuela.
The U.S. government's posture has emboldened perpetrators of violence. Immediately after the voting, the toll was eight Venezuelans dead and hundreds wounded. Partisans of Capriles ransacked health centers staffed by Cuban doctors, PSUV offices, subsidized food markets, and the broadcasting offices of TeleSur and Venezuela State Television. They besieged the homes of the National Election Council president and two former high‑profile aides to President Chavez.
The riots, student protests, and armed attacks recall destabilization campaigns launched at election time during the Chavez era. Street disturbances and destabilization efforts ushered in the U. S.‑ mediated coup against Chavez in 2002.
The alliance between powerful, well-heeled opposition elements and the U.S. government parallels an earlier symbiosis between right-wing Cubans self‑exiled in the United States and the government in Washington. In 1992, U.S. officials reasoned that disappearance of the Soviet Bloc was a fit time to apply a coup de grace to the Cuban revolution through the Torricelli legislation, referred to as the Cuba Democracy Act. Now, in alliance with Venezuelan reactionaries, the U.S. may be preparing to intervene there along similar lines.
The Washington branch of Maduro's opposition is used to waging so‑called low-intensity warfare against subject peoples. As with Cubans earlier, majority Venezuelans may soon be facing a destabilizing regimen of food shortages, inflationary pressures, and tumult in the streets, all aimed at causing distress and fostering uncertainties. Wealthy, propertied Venezuelans, of course, would be ready to pitch in.
As the Venezuelan government was engaged in building‑up social programs following the failed 2002 coup, the National Endowment for Democracy stepped up funding for the spread of U.S. influence. In 2003, the United States Agency for International Development and the newly formed Office of Transition Initiatives distributed $1 million and $5 million, respectively, to dissident groups. Payments increased, and in 2008‑2011 opposition groups received at least $40 million in direct U.S. assistance. Analyst Eva Golinger maintains the funds went primarily "to electoral campaigns against President Chavez and propaganda slated to influence Venezuelan public opinion."
The total amount of foreign funding for anti‑Chavez forces was considerable. Golinger indicates that, "A large majority of the $40‑50 million, donated [annually] by US and European agencies and foundations, is given to the right wing opposition political parties, Primero Justicia (First Justice), Un Nuevo Tiempo (A New Time) and COPEI (Christian Democrat ultra‑conservative party), as well as to a dozen or so NGOs, student groups and media organizations." U.S. money was funneled through the European Commission for the sake of "`triangularization' of US funding to groups in Venezuela, in order to avoid the stain of Washington on the Venezuelan organizations receiving foreign aid for political activities."
Apart from electoral work, groups receiving the funds went on to build an anti‑Chavez student movement. Students were recruited from private, expensive universities to fill out protests. Scripts were provided for students making public presentations. Additionally, U.S. support for espionage projects and separatist movements continued.
Presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, governor of Miranda state and scion of two wealthy families, belongs to the rightist Justice First Party. He and party founders Leopoldo Lopez and Julio Borges studied at U.S. universities. All are longtime recipients of NED funding. Capriles' own experience at destabilization includes leading a band of thugs that forcibly occupied the Cuban Embassy during the 2002 coup. The week prior to Chavez' death, Capriles was in Miami and New York, reportedly to cement relations with U.S. backers.
All signs suggest the U.S. government is working at disruption, not peace, in Venezuela. Secretary of State John Kerry set the tone on April 17 with a painful goof. Identification of Latin America as a U.S. "backyard" has long had symbolic value for imperialists and anti‑imperialists alike. Testifying before a congressional committee, Kerry opined that, "The Western Hemisphere is our backyard; it is of vital importance to us."
Meanwhile, the political opposition to President Maduro has little cause for concern over lack of home‑grown resources. Their domestic sponsors own 93 percent of all Venezuelan economic units which, in turn, account for 71 percent of GDP. State spending on social services, which nourish Maduro's own support base, stems almost entirely from oil exports managed for years under state auspices.
(The above article is from the May 16-31, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)