Evidence of US Economic Ties to Anti-Chavez Forces in Venezuela

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


NEWLY UNCOVERED DOCUMENTS PROVIDE EVIDENCE OF US ECONOMIC TIES TO VENEZUELAN ANTI-CHAVEZ MOVEMENTS AND ACTIVITIES


Monday, February 9, 2004, New York, USA. On Sunday, February 8, 2004, the Internet site http://www.Venezuelafoia.info was launched for public viewing. The site, funded by a private non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, is home to hundreds of documents from US government agencies including the Department of State, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Endowment for Democracy (“NED”) that evidence the direct economic and political relationship between these agencies and major anti-Chávez groups in Venezuela. The documents available on the webpage were obtained through Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) requests conducted by veteran investigative journalist Jeremy Bigwood. Bigwood has utilized FOIA requests over the past decade to investigate US involvement throughout the world, especially in Latin America.


Venezuelafoia.info has posted internal memoranda between the State Department and the NED that verify the continuous, covert intention to invest US taxpayer funds in efforts to oust Venezuela’s democratically-elected President Hugo Chávez. As the documents on the site prove, more than $800,000 has been awarded through NED grants to anti-Chávez groups in Venezuela, many of which participated in the failed April 2002 coup d’etat against President Chávez and the subsequent 64-day lockout that shattered the Venezuelan economy during 2003.


The site also contains numerous documents demonstrating the relationship between the US government and the anti-Chávez group Súmate, which led an unconstitutional ‘recall referendum’ against Chávez’s mandate back in February 2003 and claimed to have collected “27 million signatures in one day.” A clear majority of these signatures were later proclaimed fraudulent and found to have been obtained through a credit card and banking scheme that utilized photocopied customer signatures on the ‘referendum petitions’.


The newly launched website offers journalists and public viewers the opportunity to read these internal memos, email communications and grant awards from US agencies and to determine for themselves the extent of overt US involvement in the continuing destabilization campaigns against Venezuela’s democratically-elected leader. Venezuelafoia.info is dedicated to investigating and providing evidence of the extent of US intervention in Venezuela primarily through examination of these official documents.


Venezuelafoia.info is funded by the Venezuela Solidarity Committee/National Venezuela Solidarity Network, a non-profit 501(c)(3) dedicated to providing accurate information about social and political developments in Venezuela. For more information, please contact vscny [at] yahoo.com.