What this means is, the US has budgeted money to interfere with the working
of another government and the article describes what this actually means
which is decidedly not the support of democracy. In other words, our
government is doing in Venezuela, what we are accusing Russia of doing here.
Miriam
US Has Budgeted $49M For Venezuelan Right-Wing Since 2009
U.S.-funded violent opposition protests continued into their seventh week. |
Photo: Reuters
Educate! US Foreign Policy, US Imperialism, Venezuela
By Staff, www.telesurtv.net
May 22nd, 2017
Above Photo: U.S.-funded violent opposition protests continued into their
seventh week. | Photo: Reuters
The funds have now become a mainstay of the U.S. State Department
congressional budget for foreign operations.
Since at least 2009 the U.S. Department of State has budgeted at least US$49
million in total to support right-wing opposition forces in Venezuela who
are now in their seventh week of violent protests to oust
democratically-elected President Nicolas Maduro.
According to the 2010 budget justification, which designated US$6 million
that year to Venezuela's "Economic Support Fund" the budget "will support
efforts to preserve and expand democratic space through programs that
strengthen and promote civil society, citizen participation, independent
media, human rights organizations, and democratic political parties."
In a more detailed breakdown of the 2011 US$5 million budgeted for
Venezuelan economic support, the budget indicates that US$1 million was
designated specifically for the support of "political competition and
consensus building."
Throughout its budget justifications for Venezuela, the State Department
repeatedly emphasizes its concern over the "increasingly authoritarian
tendencies" of the governments of the late President Hugo Chavez, and
current President Nicolas Maduro, in spite of regularly scheduled elections
that are internationally recognized.
The 2009 budget reiterated support and continued funding for the
Organization of American States in order to deploy teams of "democracy
practitioners" to Venezuela and Bolivia where they say "democracy is
threatened by the growing presence of alternate concepts such as
'participatory democracy'." The nature of the activities carried out by
these teams is unclear in the budgets.
OAS General-Secretary Luis Almagro has led a campaign to ousted Venezuela
from the regional organization and on April 26, the body voted to hold a
meeting on the situation in the country, which Venezuela called a violation
of its sovereignty, leading President Nicolas Maduro to announce the
nation's formal withdrawal from the group.
In its 2011 budget, the State Department wrote, "The United States has a
major interest in preserving and strengthening Venezuelan democratic
institutions."
Since the beginning of Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution, with the
democratic election of former President Hugo Chavez in 1998, the oil-rich
nation has been repeatedly attacked as "undemocratic." President Maduro has
reiterated that elections will be held on schedule in 2018, but the
opposition has demanded his immediate removal, seeking foreign intervention
in its destabilization campaign.
The revolutionary government has significantly eroded the political and
economic hegemony the U.S. had over Venezuelan oil, which holds one of the
largest petroleum reserves in the world. Prior to the election of Chavez, in
spite of its vast resource wealth, Venezuela was plagued by sharp class
inequalities.
According to United Nations sources, poverty rates in Venezuela were nearing
60 percent before 1998, and by 2015 were halved to less than 30 percent in
spite of an economic crisis triggered by falling oil prices. Under the
Bolivarian government, health care has been made widely available through
the Barrio Adentro program, and average life expectancy has steadily risen.
The U.S. government is silent on the widespread violence of the right-wing
opposition groups that they fund, which in 2014 resulted in 43 deaths, of
which the opposition was responsible for more than half.
Currently, violent protests by the right wing calling for Maduro's ouster
continue into their seventh week and have already resulted in at least 50
deaths and many more injuries, exceeding the causualties of the opposition
violence in 2014. In spite of the government calling for dialogue and
participation in its constituent assembly debates, the opposition has
refused to participate and called on supporters to continue protests.
Indicating an awareness that their regime change efforts are not
well-received among the mass of the people, the 2008 budget wrote,
"Democracy in Latin America, as it has been promoted by the developed
countries, is being increasingly defined by populist voices as exploitative
and imperialist."
According to a 2007 U.S. strategic document leaked by former
CIA-whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013, Venezuela was seen as the main
adversary of the United States in the Western Hemisphere. The country was
listed as one of the top six "enduring targets for the NSA," along with
China, North Korea, Iraq, Iran and Russia.
