CARACAS (Venezuela): When the White House released a report this week recommending a multimillion dollar aid package to opposition groups in communist Cuba, one of the angriest reactions came not from Havana but from Caracas.
President Hugo Chavez, a close ally of Cuba’s Fidel Castro, responded by saying Castro was “stronger than ever” and calling the US an “obscene, immoral and genocidal empire.”
But when it comes to foreign financing for Venezuela’s opposition groups, the world’s No. 5 oil exporter is preparing more than just another volley of insults with Washington.
Venezuela’s Congress is discussing a law that would increase state oversight of non-government organisations (NGOs) receiving foreign funding, a move analysts called a response to Washington’s confrontation with Chavez.
A spokesman for the United States Embassy in Caracas estimated US aid to Venezuelan NGOs at around $3.5 million a year, though government supporters say this figure is closer to $5 million — considerably less than the $40 million a year that the White House is proposing should go to Cuba.
Chavez is promising a socialist revolution to curb US influence, end poverty and unite Latin America. But the US State Department says Chavez is weakening Venezuelan democracy and has promised to continue financing for non-government organisations.
The International Cooperation Law — still pending final approval from Congress — would create a state fund to support NGOs and a registry of groups receiving foreign financing.
“This is a very unfortunate step for the ‘chavistas’ to take, but unfortunately the US is waging a total war against Chavez,” said Larry Birns, director of the Council of Hemispheric Affairs, a left-of-centre think-tank in Washington. “In a sense this (law) is a defensive gesture.”
The proposed law makes no direct reference to the United States, but supporters have justified it with much of the same rhetoric Chavez uses to describe the United States.
Legislator Saul Ortega said the law would “break with traditional imperialist criteria of cooperation based on dependence and neocolonialism.”
But critics say the legislation is simply meant to increase Chavez’ control over NGOs.
“With this law the government intends to regulate civil society, to control and monitor it in a way that is unacceptable in a democratic society,” said Hector Faundez, director of the Human Rights Center at Venezuela’s Central University.
A letter to the legislature signed by 72 Venezuelan NGOs said the bill is based on “the erroneous idea that ... associations receiving donations through international cooperation are negative for Venezuelan society.”
Chavez’ home-grown model of socialism dubbed the “Bolivarian Revolution” seeks to increase direct ties between citizens and government, and Chavez has at times presented NGOs as tools of foreign intervention.
But several analysts agreed the law is in part a response to US support for the opposition-affiliated electoral group Sumate, which was crucial in helping Chavez adversaries convoke a recall referendum on Chavez’ rule in 2004.
Sumate accepted $31,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a US organisation founded in 1983 that receives most of its funding from the US government, for electoral education workshops that the government said were actually used for political campaigning. This prompted state prosecutors to charge Sumate with treason, which critics — including the US State Department — have called political persecution.
Responding to an inquiry about US support for Venezuelan NGOs, the State Department said in a statement that “support for civil society in Venezuela is no different from anywhere else in the world.”—Reuters
