WFP Travel Programs: Venezuela

Witness for Peace (WfP) is a politically independent, nationwide grassroots organization of people committed to nonviolence and led by faith and conscience. WfP’s mission is to support peace, justice and sustainable economies in the Americas by changing U.S. policies and corporate practices which contribute to poverty and oppression in Latin America and the Caribbean. Due to the organizational commitment to stand with people of the Americas seeking justice when faced with U.S. government aggression, WfP was called by our grassroots membership and Venezuelans to begin work in Venezuela in 2006.

We have been called to challenge U.S. policy towards Venezuela because, since Hugo Chavez was elected President of Venezuela in 1998, the U.S. government position has gone from one of caution to one which increasingly interferes with Venezuela’s sovereignty and right to define its own future. U.S. policy has attempted to isolate Venezuela in the international community and undermine the Venezuelan government through public statements, funding anti-Chavez opposition groups and, presumably, covert operations. The U.S. also apparently sought to oust the democratically-elected President through indirect, if not direct, support of a short-lived coup in 2002.

WfP believes that U.S. concerns about Venezuela, while most often couched in terms of the Venezuelan government’s “anti-democratic” measures, are actually based on that government’s independent economic policy and foreign policy. Clearly the security of the U.S. oil supply from Venezuela—currently the number four exporter of oil to the United States, accounting for almost 15 percent of U.S. oil imports—is the key concern. Venezuela has led a very active and high-profile policy opposing Washington’s oft-imposed neoliberal economic policy, including free trade, structural adjustment, institutional lending, and market-driven economies, while proposing and leading alternative, more inclusive economic models. Such independent economic policy, foreign policy, and regional integration threaten U.S. influence in Latin America.

The WfP mandate is limited in scope to singularly work to change U.S. government policy and corporate practices. We do not and will not support or condemn the Venezuelan Government, its policy decisions or practices. Witness for Peace partners in Venezuela are hopeful about their country’s economic policies which favor the poor, social programs that give oil wealth back to the people, and new forms of government which seemingly stimulate grassroots participation. Yet Venezuelan partners also express concern about large military expenditures and militarism in Venezuelan society as well as a concentration of power in the Executive Branch. Many Venezuelans continue to express concern about high levels of common crime and corruption, issues that pre-date the current administration. Nevertheless, we believe that we should leave the direction of Venezuela in the capable hands of the Venezuelan people, who have time and time again shown their ability to freely and fairly choose their elected leaders, engage in profound and crucial political debate, and use protest and civil disobedience to demand their rights.

Our faith and conscience, as well as 25 years of experience accompanying the people of Latin America and the Caribbean, have called us to work for U.S. policies that support peace, justice, sustainable economies and, perhaps most importantly, the peoples of the Americas’ sovereign right to elect their leaders and make policy decisions without Washington’s influence.

Towards that end, WfP calls for substantial shifts in both U.S. posture and policy towards Venezuela and look forward to the day when U.S. policy respects Venezuelans’ right to sovereignty. We call for:

2. An end to so-called democracy funding, much of which is funneled through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the United States Agency for International Development’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI),[2] and some of which may be provided by the CIA,

4. Respect for the sovereign decisions of the Venezuelan people with regard to their elected officials and the direction of their domestic, economic and foreign policy,[4] and

5. WfP is concerned that the U.S. government and its agencies could be considering covert, overt or proxy military actions against Venezuela. WfP, along with millions of people in Venezuela, the United States, the hemisphere and the world over would condemn such an action as unwarranted and illegal. Following our commitment to nonviolence, we would do everything in our power to stop such actions.

[1] Washington’s troubling rhetoric is too widespread to catalogue here, yet the following are some representative examples:

In Venezuela, a demagogue awash in oil money is undermining democracy and seeking to destabilize the region. 2006 National Security Strategy of the United States of America.
We've got Chavez in Venezuela with a lot of oil money. He's a person who was elected legally, just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally, and then consolidated power, and now is, of course, working closely with Fidel Castro and Mr. [Evo] Morales and others. It concerns me. Former Secretary of Defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, February 2, 2006.
(T)here is a growing hemispheric and international consensus that democracy in Venezuela is in peril… Thomas A. Shannon, Assistant Secretary, Bureau Of Western Hemisphere Affairs, U.S. Department of State, Nov 17, 2005.
I am convinced by the growing body of evidence that the government of Venezuela is dismantling the institutions of democracy. Representative Dan Burton (R - IN), then-Chair of the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Nov 17, 2005.

[2] The most visible current U.S. policy, which is subject to congressional approval, is so-called democracy funding by NED and USAID’s OTI. NED claims this funding “support(s) groups and individuals struggling to strengthen democratic processes, rights, and values, irrespective of their political or partisan affiliations.” OIT suggests its funding “provide(s) critical and timely assistance to maintain democratic stability and strengthen the country's fragile democratic institutions.” Yet in practice this funding often has the goal of undermining the Venezuelan government and its allies through clearly partisan funding to opposition groups, some of whom are engaged in politics. NED has provided funding to the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute to support opposition political parties, such as Primero Justicia, in order to assist them in developing campaign messaging and outreach strategies. NED also funded SUMATE, an organization which was a leading organizer behind the 2004 Presidential re-call referendum. Since 2003, NED has provided over $5 million in funding for Venezuela. Since its inception in August 2002, OTI has provided $24 million for its Venezuela programs. WfP believes this sort of funding is anti-democratic and calls for its immediate end.

[3] While U.S. espionage programs are classified and not subject to public scrutiny, one example of the rise in these efforts was made clear by the creation of a new “Mission Manager” for Cuba and Venezuela based in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). On August 18, 2006, the ODNI created this new Mission Manager position to increase U.S. intelligence gathering capabilities in Venezuela. According to the ONDI, the Mission Manager “will be responsible for integrating collection and analysis on Cuba and Venezuela across the Intelligence Community, identifying and filling gaps in intelligence, and ensuring the implementation of strategies, among other duties. Such efforts are critical today, as policymakers have increasingly focused on the challenges that Cuba and Venezuela pose to American foreign policy.” The Cuba and Venezuela Mission Manager, recommended by the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission and endorsed by President Bush, joins the five previous ONDI Mission Managers: Counterterrorism, Counterproliferation, Counterintelligence, Iran and North Korea.

[4] Perhaps the most grave U.S. violation of the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people came on April 11, 2002, when a coup d'état briefly ousted President Chavez from power. While the U.S. government publicly denies any role in the coup, numerous published reports show that at the very least the United States had a cozy relationship with many of the opposition figures who allegedly planned the coup—even providing “democracy funding” to some—and immediately welcomed the overthrow of the democratically-elected President, in contrast to the reactions around the hemisphere, which rejected the overthrow. There are also allegations that U.S. diplomats and military personnel did not discourage coup planning as official statements claim and even may have participated in that planning.