US revealed to be secretly funding opponents of Chavez

[derrida]

Washington has been channelling hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund the political opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez - including those who briefly overthrew the democratically elected leader in a coup two years ago. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that, in 2002, America paid more than a million dollars to those political groups in what it claims is an ongoing effort to build democracy and 'strengthen political parties.' ... The funding has been made by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) a non-profit agency financed entirely by Congress... In Venezuela, the NED channelled the money to three of its four main operational 'wings'... These groups ran workshops, training sessions and provided free advice to three political parties in Venezuela - Democratic Action, Copei and First Justice - the leaderships of which have been at the forefront of efforts to recall Mr Chavez... Relations between the US and Venezuela have not been so tense since April 2002 when Mr Chavez was briefly ousted by opponents who had been supported by the US in the run-up to the coup. At the time, Washington blamed Mr Chavez for his own downfall.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=500711

[Zhukov]

I was three seconds away from posting this exact thing. >: Drat you Derrida.

For everyone else: What did I say, eh?

[mburbank]

Gol, do you suppose this non-profit is funded by congress with tax money? I don't now, I'm all good with funding the growth of democracy, but when the groups we fund engage in the military overthrow of a democratically elected leader, I think we ought to stop funding them. I mean, that's not democracy in action, right? A military coup? Why, that's down right anti-democratic. I'm sure we stopped funding those groups with American tax dollars after they did that, right? Right? I mean, if we didn't, and we knew, wouldn't that mean the adminsitration was activley in favor of the violent overthrow of democratically elected officials?