U.S.-Backed Political Group On Trial In Venezuela

by Humberto Marquez

(IPS) CARACAS -- The tension between Venezuela and the United States has been tightened by the start of a trial against four members of the U.S.-backed opposition group Sumate, including its leader, Maria Corina Machado, who met with President Bush in the White House in May.

Caracas and Washington have been caught up in a political and diplomatic war of words with skirmishes almost every month since January 2004, although Venezuela continues to sell 1.5 million barrels of oil a day to the United States, making it one of its top four suppliers, along with Canada, Saudi Arabia and Mexico.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has repeatedly accused the U.S. government of plotting to overthrow him, or assassinate him. In the meantime, the U.S. secretaries of state and defense claim that Venezuela is a destabilizing force in the region.

"The only country we have problems with in the whole world is the United States," Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez told journalists.

For his part, Rumsfeld alleged that there is an "emerging axis of subversion forming between Cuba and Venezuela," and stressed that these two countries are "no friends to the United States."

This diplomatic sparring is now the backdrop for a trial in Caracas against two directors of the opposition group Sumate, Machado and Alejandro Plaz, and two alleged "accomplices," Ricardo Estevez and Luis Palacios, who are charged with "conspiracy to destroy the nation's republican form of government."

The charge is based on the fact that Sumate received $53,400 from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) a U.S. organization financed by Congress to back politicians favored by the U.S. and used these funds to spearhead a presidential recall referendum against Chavez.

The referendum was held in August 2004, when Chavez received the support of 59 percent of voters to continue governing until the end of his term in January 2007.

According to the prosecution, it is against Venezuelan law for an organization like Sumate to carry out political campaigning with foreign financing. If they are found guilty, Machado and the others could receive prison sentences of between eight and 16 years.

Sumate is currently waging a campaign against the way the National Electoral Council, an independent body, has organized the local elections scheduled for Aug. 7 and the congressional elections set for December.

The NED has a controversial history of backing organizations opposed to governments that Washington deems unfriendly, and of injecting funds into the domestic elections of foreign countries. Critics say NED does openly what the CIA does covertly.

On July 8, when a Venezuelan judge ordered the trial of the four government opponents, U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said at a news briefing that the United States is "disappointed" over the decision, adding that the judicial action was "simply part of a Venezuelan government campaign that's designed to intimidate members of civil society, and prevent them from exercising their democratic rights."

Meanwhile, New York based Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated in a press release that "In ordering the trial of four civil society leaders on dubious charges of treason, a Venezuelan court has assented to government persecution of political opponents."

"The court has given the government a green light to persecute its opponents," maintained Jose Miguel Vivanco, the HRW Americas director.

In Venezuela, opposition political parties and media condemned the trial against the Sumate leaders, while Attorney General Isaias Rodriguez called for "respect for the independent decisions adopted by Venezuela's judiciary."

The United States "should show respect for the Venezuelan justice system," said Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel. As for HRW, he noted, it has "committed yet another error by trying to get involved in Venezuelan politics."

"We could respond to these criticisms by claiming that the decision to sentence U.S. journalist Judith Miller of The New York Times to four months in prison for refusing to reveal a source was a political decision made by the White House," added Rangel.

This past Sunday, during his weekly TV and radio show "Alo Presidente," Chavez did not refer to the trial. He did, however, respond to Rumsfeld's allegation that Venezuela is trying to sabotage the free trade agreement between the United States, Central America and the Dominican Republic (CAFTA) by "actively lobbying local legislators in Central America to vote against CAFTA."

"We aren't doing anything, because we don't interfere, out of respect for the sovereignty of other nations. But I wouldn't recommend this agreement to anyone, because it is just like the FTAA project (Free Trade Area of the Americas) based on colonialism and domination," said Chavez.

In an interview with the Caracas daily El Universal, Otto Reich, the former U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western hemisphere affairs, said Chavez's remarks demonstrate that "he has turned into a mirror image of Fidel Castro."

"Venezuela is a branch, a subsidiary of Cuba. Chavez has placed much of his country's wealth at Castro's disposal. Just look at the oil he gives him for free," said Reich, a far-right Cuban expatriate, referring to an agreement under which Caracas supplies Havana with 90,000 barrels of oil daily under preferential financing terms.

Venezuela has similar agreements in the works with other Caribbean countries, as well as Paraguay and Uruguay.

Reich also criticized Venezuela's recent weapons purchases from Russia and Spain, saying "you don't need a lot of imagination to think that they might be used first against its neighbors."

According to political analyst Alberto Garrido, "Reich is simply reinforcing the siege strategy used by the State Department on the diplomatic political front and by the U.S. Armed Forces Southern Command on the military political front as Washington's current tactic against the social revolution headed up by Chavez."

Chavez and Castro have said that "any imperialist aggression against Venezuela or Cuba will be viewed as an attack on both," Garrido remarked to IPS. "For the moment there is little possibility of direct intervention, which is why the allusion to neighbors takes on greater significance," he added.

Fellow political analyst Carlos Romero, for his part, told IPS that Washington's support for figures like Sumate leader Machado could be a sort of "test balloon for repeating the Violeta Chamorro experience in Venezuela."

After a decade-long bloody U.S.-financed contra war fatal to 35,000 and a debilitating economic blockade against Nicaragua, Chamorro succeeded in defeating the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front in elections of 1990.

After Machado's visit to the White House- where Chavez has not been invited once since taking office in February 1999 -- she said that she and Bush had discussed "concerns over the Venezuelan government's tendency to violate the principles of democracy and the law."