Venezuela: U.S. NED Funded Exit Poll Co. Lied About the Election Results!

U.S. Poll Firm in Hot Water in Venezuela
By ANDREW SELSKY
.c The Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - A U.S. firm's exit poll that said President Hugo Chavez would lose a recall referendum has landed in the center of a controversy following his resounding victory.

``Exit Poll Results Show Major Defeat for Chavez,'' the survey, conducted by Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, asserted even as Sunday's voting was still on. But in fact, the opposite was true - Chavez ended up trouncing his enemies and capturing 59 percent of the vote.

Any casual observer of the 2000 U.S. presidential elections knows exit polls can at times be unreliable. But the poll has become an issue here because the opposition, which mounted the drive to force the leftist leader from office, insists it shows the results from the vote itself were fraudulent. The opposition also claims electronic voting machines were rigged, but has provided no evidence.

Election officials banned publication or broadcast of any exit polls during the historic vote on whether to oust Chavez, a populist who has sought to help the poor and is reviled by the wealthy, who accuse him of stoking class divisions.

But results of the Penn, Schoen & Berland survey were sent out by fax and e-mail to media outlets and opposition offices more than four hours before polls closed. It predicted just the opposite of what happened, saying 59 percent had voted in favor of recalling Chavez.

Cesar Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States who monitored the referendum, said the poll must have had a tremendous impact on Chavez's opponents, who felt they were about to complete their two-year drive to oust him.

``They were told they had a lead of 20 points and then when the results came, they lost by 20 points,'' Gaviria said. ``It's very difficult to deal with that.''

Both Gaviria and former President Jimmy Carter, another election monitor, endorsed the vote, saying the results coincided with their own independent samplings.

Mark Penn, of Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, said Wednesday he has limited knowledge of the exit poll. He said his partner, Doug Schoen, ``believes there were more problems with the voting than with the exit poll.''

Schoen could not immediately be reached, and another employee familiar with the poll declined to comment.

``We have to let the authorities do their investigation of the election,'' said Marcela Berland, with the firm. ``It would be irresponsible to interfere with that.''

Critics of the exit poll have questioned how it was conducted because officials have said Penn, Schoen & Berland worked with a U.S.-funded Venezuela group that the Chavez government considers hostile.

Penn, Schoen & Berland had members of Sumate, a Venezuelan group that helped organize the recall initiative, do the fieldwork for the poll, election observers said.

Roberto Abdul, a Sumate official, acknowledged in a telephone interview that the firm ``supervised'' an exit poll carried out by Sumate. Abdul added that at least five exit polls were completed for the opposition, with all pointing to a Chavez victory.

Abdul said Sumate - which has received a $53,400 grant from the National Endowment for Democracy, which in turn receives funds from the U.S. Congress - did not use any of those funds to pay for the surveys.

The issue is potentially explosive because even before the referendum, Chavez himself cited Washington's funding of Sumate as evidence that the Bush administration was financing efforts to oust him - an allegation U.S. officials deny.

Venezuelan Minister of Communications Jesse Chacon said it was a mistake for Sumate to be involved in the exit poll because it might have skewed the results.

``If you use an activist as a pollster, he will eventually begin to act like an activist,'' Chacon told The Associated Press.

Chris Sabatini, senior program officer for the National Endowment for Democracy, defended Sumate as ``independent and impartial.''

``Exit polls are notoriously unreliable,'' Sabatini said by telephone from Washington. ``Just because they're off doesn't mean that the group that conducted them is partial to one side.''

AP reporters Juan Pablo Toro in Caracas and Will Lester in Washington contributed to this report.

08/19/04 02:29 EDT



Please See Also:

May 2002 failed Venezuela coup
http://www.peacenowar.net/Venezuela/News/May%2017%2002--News.htm

1) Opposition Rejects Audit Plan in Venezuela Recall Dispute (New York Times)
2) Who is NED? What it's Connections with CIA and the U.S. Covert Actions Against Venezuela (Information Clearing House)
3) NED Venezuela programs FAQ (NED)
4) 2000 - 2003 NED Grants on Venezuela (NED)

====================================================
1) Opposition Rejects Audit Plan in Venezuela Recall Dispute
By JUAN FORERO, New York Times
August 19, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/19/international/americas/19venez.html

CARACAS, Venezuela, Aug. 18 - After demanding an audit of voting results upon failing to oust President Hugo Chávez in a recall referendum, representatives of Venezuela's opposition movement said Wednesday that they would refuse to participate in or recognize the review, asserting that the audit would fail to detect the deception that they insist took place.

The opposition has not offered solid evidence of wrongdoing to the Organization of American States or to the Carter Center, monitors of the 18-hour recall election on Sunday in which a large margin of Venezuelans voted to keep Mr. Chávez as their leader.

Both organizations said that their so-called quick count sampling of voting results on Sunday showed that Mr. Chávez had easily won.

But on Tuesday, Jimmy Carter, the former American president and leader of the Carter Center, which is based in Atlanta, said both monitors would oversee an audit of 150 voting tables - each with two or three voting machines - to dispel accusations of vote tampering.

On Wednesday, though, leaders of the anti-Chávez movement in Venezuela announced that the audit should not proceed because they had evidence that hundreds of machines had been manipulated to limit yes votes on the recall.

"We have given the order not to participate," Enrique Mendoza, an opposition leader, told reporters. "The results of this audit cannot be considered valid to satisfy the opposition's demands."

An official with the Organization of American States, however, said the monitor group had rejected the opposition's demand that voting machines be reviewed and tested.

Instead, the audit would go ahead on Thursday as planned, with the results ready in two or three days. Paper ballot receipts from across the nation would be compared in Caracas with the electronic results from the new voting machines, which were operated by Smartmatic, a company based in Boca Raton, Fla.

Officials of both the Carter Center and the Organization of American States said the audit was an infallible method of detecting irregularities. They also said that the voting machines had worked flawlessly on Sunday and that there was no evidence of tampering.

The opposition took part in a smoothly conducted pre-election audit of a sampling of voter machines, after tamper-proof software was installed that allowed the machines to record votes and transmit results to a central vote-counting bank.

"The system is designed to allow maximum transparency and security, and we welcome additional audits to demonstrate accuracy," Mitch Stoller, a spokesman for Smartmatic, said.

The opposition's insistence that the government had cheated, despite the assurances of monitoring officials, prompted a harsh rebuke from the Venezuelan authorities.

"They know that with the audit they will still look ridiculous before this country," said Mari Pili Hernández, a government spokeswoman. "Why? Because they have no evidence."

The opposition's claims are based largely on surveys of voters by members of Súmate, an antigovernment group that received $53,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy, a United States government organization whose stated mission is to promote democracy around the world.

Sumate also conducted a quick count sampling of votes similar to that conducted by the Carter Center and the O.A.S. that also showed the government had won. But opposition leaders seized instead on the surveys to support their case.

Mr. Carter has dismissed such voter surveys as inaccurate and has said that the quick count, which has a margin of error of plus or minus one percentage point and is used in elections worldwide, is a much more accurate measure.

=====================================================

2) Who is NED? What it's Connections with CIA and the U.S. Covert Actions Against Venezuela.

Former CIA agent tells: How US infiltrates "civil society" to overthrow governments
BY PHILIP AGEE
Information Clearing House
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4332.htm

08/03/03: Condemnation of Cuba was immediate, strong and practically global following the imprisonment of 75 political “dissidents” and the execution of three ferry hijackers. Prominent among the critics were past friends of Cuba of recognised international stature.

As I read the hundreds of denunciations that came through my mail, it was easy to see how enemies of the revolution had seized on those issues to condemn Cuba for violations of human rights. They had a field day.

Deliberate or careless confusion between the political dissidents and the hijackers, two entirely unrelated matters, was also easy because the events happened at the same time. A Vatican publication went so far as to describe the hijackers as dissidents when in fact they were terrorists. But others of good faith toward Cuba also jumped on the bandwagon of condemnation treating the two issues as one.

With respect to the imprisonment of 75 “civil society activists”, the main victim has been history, for these people were central to US government efforts to overthrow the Cuban government and destroy the work of the revolution.

Indeed, “regime change”, as overthrowing governments has come to be known, has been the continuing US goal in Cuba since the earliest days of the revolutionary government. Programs to achieve this goal have included propaganda to denigrate the revolution, diplomatic and commercial isolation, trade embargo, terrorism and military support to counter-revolutionaries, the Bay of Pigs invasion, assassination plots against Fidel Castro and other Cuban leaders, biological and chemical warfare, and, more recently, efforts to foment an internal political opposition masquerading as an independent civil society.

The administration of US President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s decided that more than terrorist operations were needed to impose regime change in Cuba. Terrorism hadn't worked, nor had the Bay of Pigs invasion, nor had Cuba's diplomatic isolation, nor had the economic embargo. Now Cuba would be included in a new world-wide program to finance and develop non-governmental and voluntary organisations, what was to become known as “civil society”, within the context of US global neoliberal policies.

Coups
The CIA and the Agency for International Development (AID) would have key roles in this program as well as a new organisation christened in 1983 — the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Actually, the new program was not really new. Since its founding in 1947, the CIA had been deeply involved in secretly funding and manipulating foreign non-governmental voluntary organisations.

These vast operations circled the globe and targeted political parties, trade unions and business associations, youth and student organisations, women's groups, civic organisations, religious communities, professional, intellectual and cultural societies, and the public information media. The network functioned at local, national, regional and global levels.

Over the years, the CIA exerted phenomenal influence behind the scenes in country after country, using these powerful elements of civil society to penetrate, divide, weaken and destroy organisations on the left, and indeed to impose regime change by toppling governments.

Such was the case, among many others, in Guyana, where in 1964, culminating 10 years of efforts, the Cheddi Jagan government was overthrown through strikes, terrorism, violence and arson perpetrated by CIA agents in the trade unions.

About the same time, while I was a CIA agent assigned to Ecuador, our agents in civil society, through mass demonstrations and civil unrest, provoked two military coups in three years against elected, civilian governments.

Anyone who has watched the opposition to President Hugo Chavez's government in Venezuela develop can be certain that the CIA, AID and the NED are coordinating the destabilisation and were behind the failed coup in April 2002 as well as the failed ”civic strike” of last December-January.

The Cuban American National Foundation was, predictably, one of the first beneficiaries of NED funding. From 1983 to 1988, CANF received US$390,000 for anti-Castro activities.

NED
The NED is supposedly a private, non-government, non-profit foundation, but it receives a yearly appropriation from the US Congress. The money is channelled through four “core foundations”. These are the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (linked to the Democratic Party); the International Republican Institute (Republican Party); the American Center for International Labor Solidarity; and the Center for International Private Enterprise (US Chamber of Commerce).

According to its web site, the NED also gives money directly to “groups abroad who are working for human rights, independent media, the rule of law, and a wide range of civil society initiatives.”

The NED's NGO status provides the fiction that recipients of NED money are getting “private” rather than US government money. This is important because so many countries, including both the US and Cuba, have laws relating to their citizens being paid to carry out activities for foreign governments.

The US requires an individual or organisation “subject to foreign control” to register with the attorney general and to file detailed activities reports, including finances, every six months.

Cuba has its own laws criminalising actions intended to jeopardise its sovereignty or territorial integrity as well as actions supporting the goals of the anti-Cuba US Helms-Burton Act of 1996, such as collecting information to support the US embargo or to subvert the government, or for disseminating US government information to undermine the Cuban government.

Efforts to develop an opposition civil society in Cuba had already begun in 1985 with the early NED grants to CANF. These efforts received a significant boost with passage in 1992 of the Cuban Democracy Act, better known as the Torricelli Act, which promoted support, through US NGOs, of individuals and organisations committed to “non-violent democratic change in Cuba”.

A still greater intensification came with passage in 1996 of the Cuban Liberty and Solidarity Act, better known as the Helms-Burton Act.

As a result of these laws, the NED, AID and the CIA (the latter not mentioned publicly but undoubtedly included) intensified their coordinated programs targeted at Cuban civil society.

CIA
One may wonder why the CIA would be needed in these programs. There were several reasons. One reason from the beginning was the CIA's long experience and huge stable of agents and contacts in the civil societies of countries around the world. By joining with the CIA, the NED and AID would come on board on-going operations whose funding they could take over while leaving the secret day-to-day direction on the ground to CIA officers.

In addition, someone had to monitor and report the effectiveness of the local recipients' activities. NED would not have people in the field to do this, nor would their core foundations in normal conditions. And since NED money was ostensibly private, only the CIA had the people and techniques to carry out discreet control in order to avoid compromising the civil society recipients, especially if they were in opposition to their governments.

Finally, the CIA had ample funds of its own to pass quietly when conditions required. In Cuba, participation by CIA officers under cover in the US Interests Section would be particularly useful, since NED and AID funding would go to US NGOs that would have to find covert ways, if possible, to get equipment and cash to recipients inside Cuba. The CIA could help with this quite well.

Evidence of the amount of money these agencies have been spending on their Cuban projects is fragmentary. Nothing is publicly available about the CIA's spending, but what is easily found about the other two is interesting. The AID web site cites $12 million spent for Cuba programs during 1996-2001, but for 2002 the budget jumped to $5 million plus unobligated funds of $3 million from 2001. AID's 2003 budget for Cuba is $6 million showing a tripling of annual funds since the George Bush junta seized power. No surprise given the number of Miami Cubans Bush has appointed to high office in his administration.

From 1996 to 2001, AID disbursed the $12 million to 22 NGOs, all apparently based in the US, mostly in Miami. By 2002, the number of front-line NGOs had shrunk to 12 — the University of Miami, Center for a Free Cuba, Pan-American Development Foundation, Florida International University, Freedom House, Grupo de Apoyo a la Disidencia, Cuba On-Line, CubaNet, National Policy Association, Accion Democratica Cubana and Carta de Cuba.

In addition, the International Republican Institute received AID money for a sub-grantee, the Directorio Revolucionario Democr tico Cubano, also based in Miami.

These NGOs have a double purpose, one directed to their counterpart groups in Cuba and one directed to the world, mainly through web sites. Whereas, on the one hand, they channel funds and equipment into Cuba, on the other they disseminate to the world the activities of the groups in Cuba. Cubanet in Miami, for example, publishes the writings of the “independent journalists” of the Independent Press Association of Cuba, based in Havana, and channels money to the writers.

Interestingly, AID claims on its web site that its “grantees are not authorised to use grant funds to provide cash assistance to any person or organisation in Cuba”. It's hard to believe that claim, but if it's true, all those millions are only going to support the US-based NGO infrastructure, a subsidised anti-Castro cottage industry of a sort, except for what can be delivered in Cuba in kind — computers, faxes, copy machines, cell phones, radios, TVS and VCRs, books, magazines and the like.

On its web site, AID lists purposes for the money: solidarity with human rights activists; dissemination of the work of independent journalists; development of independent NGOs; promoting workers' rights; outreach to the Cuban people; planning for future assistance to a transition government; and evaluation of the program. Anyone who wants to see which NGOs are getting how much can visit <http://www.usaid.gov/regions/lac/cu/upd-cub.htm>.

AID's claim that its grantees can't provide cash to Cubans in Cuba, makes one wonder about the more than $100,000 in cash that Cuban investigators found in the hands of the 75 mostly unemployed “dissidents” who went on trial. A clue may be found in the AID statement that “US policy encourages US NGOs and individuals to undertake humanitarian, informational and civil society-building activities in Cuba with private funds”. Could such “private funds” be money from the NED?

Recall the fiction that the NED is a “private” foundation, an NGO. It has no restrictions on its funds going for cash payments abroad, and it just happens to fund some of the same NGOs as AID. Be assured that this is not the result of rivalry or lack of coordination in Washington. The reason probably is that NED funds can go for salaries and other personal compensation to people on the ground in Cuba.

The Cuban organisations below the US NGOs in the command and money chain number nearly 100 and have names [translated from Spanish] like Independent Libraries of Cuba, All United, Society of Journalists Marquez Sterling, Independent Press Association of Cuba, Assembly to Promote Civil Society and the Human Rights Party of Cuba.

NED's web site is conveniently out of date, showing only its Cuba program for 2001. But it is instructive. Its funds for Cuban activities in 2001 totalled only $765,000 — if one is to believe what they say. The money they gave to eight NGOs in 2001 averaged about $52,000, while a 9th NGO, the International Republican Institute received $350,000 for the Directorio Revolucionario Democratico Cubano for “strengthening civil society and human rights” in Cuba. In contrast, this NGO is to receive $2,174,462 in 2003 from AID through the same IRI.

Why would the NED be granting the lower amounts and AID such huge amounts, both channelled through IRI? The answer, apart from IRI's skim-off, probably is that the NED money is destined for the pockets of people in Cuba while the AID money supports the US NGO infrastructures.

Whatever the amount of money reaching Cuba may have been, everyone in Cuba working in the various dissident projects knows of US government's sponsorship, funding and of its purpose — regime change.

Far from being “independent” journalists, “idealistic” human rights activists, “legitimate” advocates for change or “Marian librarians from River City”, every one of the 75 “dissidents” arrested and convicted was knowingly a participant in US government operations to overthrow the government and install a US-favoured political, economic and social order. They knew what they were doing was illegal, they got caught and they are paying the price.

Anyone who thinks these people are prisoners of conscience, persecuted for their ideas or speech, or victims of repression, simply fails to see them properly as instruments of a US government that has declared revolutionary Cuba its enemy.

They were not convicted for ideas but for their paid actions on behalf of a foreign power that has waged a 44-year war of varying degrees of intensity against this poor country.

To think that the “dissidents” were creating an independent, free civil society is absurd, for they were funded and controlled by a hostile foreign power and to that degree, which was total, they were not free or independent in the least.

The civil society they wished to create was not just your normal, garden variety civil society of Harley freaks and Boxer breeders, but a political opposition movement fomented openly by the US government. What government in the world would be so self-destructive as to sit by and just watch this happen?

The threat of war against Cuba from Bush and his coterie of crusaders, all of them crazed after Iraq, is real. A military campaign against Cuba, coinciding with the 2004 electoral campaign, may be the only way he can hope to get himself elected for his second term.

[Abridged from Granma Internacional. Philip Agee was a CIA covert operations officer from 1959 to 1969 and is the author of Inside the Company: A CIA Diary. He lives in Havana, where he runs a travel web site, <http://www.cubalinda.com>.]

=====================================================

3) National Endowment for Democracy
NED Venezuela programs FAQ
http://www.ned.org/grants/venezuelaFacts.html

Background
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a private, nonprofit organization created in 1983 to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts. The Endowment is governed by an independent, bipartisan board of directors. With its annual congressional appropriation, NED makes hundreds of grants each year to support prodemocracy groups in Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union. The Endowment is open, independent of the US Government and fully accountable to the US Congress.

NED in Venezuela
The NED has supported democratic organizations in Venezuela since 1993. In recent years in Venezuela the trade unions have been threatened with dissolution, journalists have been put at risk with their freedom curtailed and democratic institutions and processes have been manipulated and undermined. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reports that the conditions in Venezuela "demonstrate a clear weakness in the fundamental pillars that must support the rule of law in a democratic system, consistent with the American Convention on Human Rights and other international instruments." NED has increased its funding over the past two years for programs in Venezuela that help groups defend basic democratic rights. The objective of the NED's programs in Venezuela, as in all such countries where democratic rights are threatened, has been and remains to support groups and individuals struggling to strengthen democratic processes, rights, and values, irrespective of their political or partisan affiliations. All of these groups represent the most moderate, and democratic elements in what has become an extremely polarized situation.

What kinds of groups does NED support in Venezuela?
The Endowment program in Venezuela has focused on promoting citizen participation in the political process, civil and political rights, freedom of expression and professional journalism, and conflict mediation. Grantee Instituto de Prensa y Sociedad - Venezuela (Press and Society Institute - Venezuela) works to protect journalists through an alert network and improve their investigative reporting skills. Justicia Alternativa uses NED support to conduct training on conflict resolution, human rights, and police-community relations in the state of Aragua. The Center for Justice and International Law monitors the human rights situation in Venezuela and is training local human rights groups and journalists on how to prepare cases for the Inter-American system to defend freedom of expression. NED funding allows the Acción para el Desarrollo to conduct civic education workshops on democratic values and conflict resolution for presidents of neighborhood associations.

NED support for Súmate
Súmate received a discretionary grant of $53,400 from the National Endowment for Democracy in September 2003. In November/December 2003 Súmate mobilized a nationwide citizen campaign to monitor the signature collection process requesting a referendum on the current regime's mandate. According to the constitution, citizens have the right to a referendum on a leader's mandate if they can collect 20% of all electors' signatures (roughly 2.4 million). In talks brokered by the OAS and the Carter Center both the government and the opposition agreed to respect the constitutional provision that provides for a recall referendum, and the international Group of Friends that supported the talks has publicly endorsed the process as a means to resolve the country's political impasse.

What is Súmate using NED funding for?
The NED grant supports Súmate in developing materials to educate citizens about the constitutional referendum process and to encourage citizens to participate. Súmate played an observation role in the signature collection process; signatures were actually collected by staff members of the Consejo Nacional Electoral (National Elections Commission). In this, Súmate was helping citizens participate in a constitutional process, endorsed by the international community and the government, as a means to peacefully resolve the political impasse in the country. Much as it was originally intended in the constitution, the signature collection process is a right of all Venezuelans. In fact, the provision was also used to collect signatures on petitions requesting a referendum on several dozen opposition legislators.

Does NED only fund groups opposed to the ruling party in Venezuela?
NED does not, in Venezuela or elsewhere, fund groups based upon their support for or opposition to the government. All of the programs we fund operate on a non-partisan basis. All NED-funded projects have made extensive efforts to include representatives and elected officials from President Chávez's party (the MVR) and to work with government institutions, regardless of the political or partisan affiliation of the officials. This has included extensive efforts by NED grantee, Fundación Momento de la Gente, to work with legislators from all parties in the National Assembly in the drafting and debate of a number of laws, including the decentralization law and the elections law. Other NED grantees such as Acción Campesina, Consorcio Justicia and Liderazgo y Visión have also worked with pro-Chávez mayors throughout the country, conducted education and conflict resolution training workshops in hundreds of communities, and worked to strengthen judicial processes at the national and local level.

The programs of NED's political party institutes are multi-partisan as well. The International Republican Institute (IRI) invites and includes representatives from the MVR in its party training programs. In its NED-supported activities, The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) has worked with an equal number of Chavista municipalities as non-Chavista municipalities.


=====================================================

4) 2000 - 2003 NED Grants on Venezuela
from http://www.ned.org


FY 2003 Cycle

NED Venezuela grants approved FY 2003: In FY 2003 the NED funded 15 different projects in Venezuela totaling $1,046,323. This included projects with all four of the NED core institutes and 11 grants to Venezuelan organizations.

International Republican Institute $116,000
International Republican Institute $299,999
National Democratic Institute for International Affairs $116,000
American Center for International Labor Solidarity $116,000 (FY 2002)
Center for International Private Enterprise $116,525 (FY 2002)
Center for International Private Enterprise $90,561 (FY 2002)
Center for International Private Enterprise $66,266 (FY 2002)
Acción para el Desarrollo $10,000
Asociación Civil Consorcio Justicia $54,000
Fundación Momento de la Gente $64,000
Instituto de Prensa y Sociedad - Venezuela $44,500
Centro al Servicio de la Acción Popular $65,000
Acción Campesina $58,000
Asociación Civil Consorcio Justicia - Occidente $14,412
Asociación Civil Justicia Alternativa $14,107
Asociación Civil Liderazgo y Visión $42,207
Center for Justice and International Law $83,000
Fundación Justicia de Paz del Estado Monagas $11,698
Sumáte $53,400


FY 2001 Cycle:

Grantor: NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (NED)
Grantee: American Center for International Labor Solidarity
Country(ies): Venezuela
Region: Latin America and the Caribbean
Subject(s): Labor
Grant Awarded: 2001
Amount: $154,377
Program Summary: To protect labor rights. ACILS will support the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers' efforts to organize diverse unions and federations into a unified national industrial union, and hold internal elections to select new leadership.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Grantor: NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (NED)
Grantee: Asociacion Civil Comprension de Venezuela
Country(ies): Venezuela
Region: Latin America and the Caribbean
Subject(s): Public Policy
Grant Awarded: 2001
Amount: $57,820
Program Summary: To promote a public discussion about the role of the military in a democracy. The Asociacion will organize meetings between civil society representatives and active and retired members of the Venezuelan armed forces to monitor and discuss the changing role of the military in the country. The meetings will be held in both civilian and military institutions under the consultation of instructors at military colleges, university professors and representatives of civil society.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Grantor: NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (NED)
Grantee: Asociacion Civil Consorcio Justicia
Country(ies): Venezuela
Region: Latin America and the Caribbean
Subject(s): Education
Grant Awarded: 2001
Amount: $19,740
Program Summary: To support civil society in Venezuela. Consorcio Justicia will host an international conference to explore examples of how civil society in other countries have organized in built coalitions in times of political change.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Grantor: NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (NED)
Grantee: Education Assembly Civil Association
Country(ies): Venezuela
Region: Latin America and the Caribbean
Subject(s): Education
Grant Awarded: 2001
Amount: $55,000
Program Summary: To organize grassroots groups to monitor education reform plans in Venezuela. The Education Assembly will create a network of parents, teachers and community leaders to pro-actively monitor the quality of education in the country and legislation in Congress effecting education reform.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Grantor: NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (NED)
Grantee: Fundacion Momento de la Gente
Country(ies): Venezuela
Region: Latin America and the Caribbean
Subject(s): Education; Legislatures
Grant Awarded: 2001
Amount: $40,000
Program Summary: To organize Venezuelan civil society to monitor the National Assembly on key pieces of legislation pertinent to civil liberties. Momento will organize meetings for representatives of civil society groups to analyze key bills and develop proposals to be submitted to congress.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Grantor: NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (NED)
Grantee: International Republican Institute
Country(ies): Venezuela
Region: Latin America and the Caribbean
Subject(s): Political Parties; Political Parties
Grant Awarded: 2001
Amount: $339,998
Program Summary: To provide training in political party structure, management, organization, internal and external party communications, and coalition building.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Grantor: NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (NED)
Grantee: National Democratic Institute for International Affairs
Country(ies): Venezuela
Region: Latin America and the Caribbean
Subject(s): Education; Political Parties; Public Policy
Grant Awarded: 2001
Amount: $210,500
Program Summary: To monitor the transparency and accountability of local government. NDI work with Momento de la Gente to conduct pilot programs to engage citizens in the policy-making process, government budgets.

FY 2000 Cycle:

Grantor: NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (NED)
Grantee: The American Center for International Labor Solidarity
Country(ies): Venezuela
Region: Latin America and the Caribbean
Subject(s): Elections; Labor
Grant Awarded: 2000
Amount: $60,084
Program Summary: To support the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV) to effect reforms intended to increase rank and file control over decision making. ACILS will conduct courses for regional federations of the CTV, focusing on problems and challenges for unions in a changing world, restructuring of labor organizations, and establishing internal elections for union leadership.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Grantor: NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (NED)
Grantee: Center for International Private Enterprise CIPE
Country(ies): Venezuela
Region: Latin America and the Caribbean
Subject(s): Legislatures; Business and Economics
Grant Awarded: 2000
Amount: $56,000
Program Summary: To enable the Center for the Dissemination Economic Information (CEDICE) to promote an informed democratic debate on legislation affecting economic reform, taxes and private property. CEDICE will sponsor large-scale national and regional forums on legislation that is constitutionally required to be enacted in the National Assembly's first year of operation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Grantor: NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (NED)
Grantee: Fundacion Momento de la Gente
Country(ies): Venezuela
Region: Latin America and the Caribbean
Subject(s): Elections
Grant Awarded: 2000
Amount: $41,747
Program Summary: To help promote civilian oversight and transparency of the July 2000 elections. Fundacion Momento de la Gente conducted a pre-electoral monitoring campaign to monitor the use of public funds in the campaign, participated in the electoral audit committee, reviewed election materials, and trained election observers.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Grantor: NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (NED)
Grantee: International Republican Institute IRI
Country(ies): Venezuela
Region: Latin America and the Caribbean
Grant Awarded: 2000
Amount: $50,000
Program Summary: To work with Fundacion Participacion Juvenil to promote democratic participation of Venezuelan youth.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Grantor: NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (NED)
Grantee: PRODEL-Venezuela
Country(ies): Venezuela
Region: Latin America and the Caribbean
Subject(s): Legislatures
Grant Awarded: 2000
Amount: $50,000
Program Summary: To promote and defend decentralization in Venezuela. PRODEL will establish and train a network of national and state legislators and mayors to monitor government decentralization activities, advocate for the rights and responsibilities of state and local government in Venezuela, and analyze and debate pending legislation affecting local government.

=============================================================
Peace, No War
War is not the answer, for only love can conquer hate
Not in our Name! And another world is possible!

Information for antiwar movements, news across the World, please visit:
http://www.PeaceNoWar.net

Please Join PeaceNoWar Listserv, send e-mail to: peacenowar-subscribe [at] lists.riseup.net

*Peace No War Network is an activist project of ActionLA
Action for World Liberation Everyday!
URL: http://www.ActionLA.org
e-mail: Info [at] ActionLA.org

Please join our ActionLA Listserv

go to: http://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/actionla
or send e-mail to: actionla-subscribe [at] lists.riseup.net
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
*To Translate this page to Arabic, please visit ajeeb.com:
http://tarjim.ajeeb.com/ajeeb/default.asp?lang=1

*To Translate this page to French, Spanish, German, Italian or Portuguese, please visit Systran:
http://www.systransoft.com/

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
**"Report From Baghdad" CD-ROM**

Pacifica Radio KPFK Los Angeles Reporter Lee Siu Hin's July 2003 trip to U.S. occupied Iraq. An interactive CD-ROM with articles, photos, audio and video interviews includes: people of Iraq, U.S. military, human rights workers, religious leaders and more!

Please Visit the Website: http://www.actionla.org/Iraq/IraqReport/intro.html


Each CD costs: $15.00 plus $3.50 S/H (work both PC and Mac)
The CD sells will be benefit the Baghdad Independent Media Center, ActionLA, and PeaceNoWar.net
*Additional donations are welcome, and it will be tax deductible.

For more information, tel: (213)403-0131 e-mail: info [at] ActionLA.org
URL: http://www.ActionLA.org

Send check/money orders to:
ActionLA/SEE
1013 Mission St. #6, South Pasadena, CA 91030