Venezuela eyes foreign donations with new law

Venezuela eyes foreign donations with new law
By Brian Ellsworth Thu Jul 13, 9:05 AM ET

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - 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 U.S. 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 organizations (NGOs) receiving foreign
funding, a move analysts called a response to Washington's confrontation
with President Hugo Chavez.

A spokesman for the United States Embassy in Caracas estimated U.S. 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 U.S. influence, end
poverty and unite Latin America. But the State Department says Chavez is
weakening Venezuelan democracy and has promised to continue financing
for non-government organizations.

The International Cooperation Law -- still pending final approval from
Congress -- would create a state fund to support non-government
organizations (NGOs) and a registry of groups receiving foreign financing.

"This is a very unfortunate step for the 'chavistas' to take, but
unfortunately the U.S. is waging a total war against Chavez," said Larry
Birns, director of the Council of Hemispheric Affairs, a left-of-center
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."

NGOs CONCERNED

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 U.S.
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 U.S. organization founded in 1983 that receives most of its funding
from the U.S. 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 State Department -- have called political persecution.

Responding to an inquiry about U.S. 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."

TENSIONS WITH U.S.

However, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice earlier this year said the international community
needs to be "more active in supporting and defending the Venezuelan
people" in response to Chavez' "particular brand of Latin American
populism that has taken democratic governments down the drain before."

Chavez accuses the United States of plotting to invade Venezuela, and he
charges some U.S. financing went to organizations involved in the 2002
coup that toppled him briefly with tacit White House approval.

A recent NED report entitled "Backlash Against Democracy Assistance"
says Venezuela is not the only nation working to curb foreign aid. The
report cites Venezuela, China and Russia among many nations using "new
restrictive measures of a legal and extra-legal nature, specifically
directed against democracy promotion groups."

For Riordan Roett, director of the Latin American Studies program at
Johns Hopkins University, the International Cooperation Law represents
"a slight ratcheting up of tensions between Caracas and Washington."

"If the United States is going to use democracy assistance as a major
policy vehicle, I would expect the Venezuelan reaction would to be to
try to stop it," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060713/lf_nm/venezuela_usa_opposition_dc_1