Young ‘Chavista’ lawmaker Robert Serra killed in Venezuela

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Young ‘Chavista’ lawmaker Robert Serra killed in Venezuela

Serra, 27, was Venezuela’s youngest lawmaker

Reuters
Published: 13:13 October 2, 2014

CARACAS: A “Chavista” ruling party lawmaker was killed on Wednesday in Venezuela’s latest high-profile violent crime.

Robert Serra and his partner, Maria Herrera, were found dead in his home in the poor La Pastora neighbourhood of the capital, Caracas, state news agency AVN reported.

“They were vilely killed here in their house, a two-storied house, on the ground floor lay the woman and on the upper floor lay Robert Serra,” Interior and Justice Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres told state television. “I call on members of the PSUV (party), on youth in political parties ... to all citizens, to remain calm as we’ll investigate this fully,” he said.

Serra, 27, was Venezuela’s youngest lawmaker, according to his blog. He had a Master’s Degree in criminology, media reported.
He was seen as one of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela’s (PSUV) most promising young leaders and his death again puts the spotlight on one of the world’s highest homicide rates.


Read more: http://gulfnews.com/news/world/other-world/young-chavista-lawmaker-robert-serra-killed-in-venezuela-1.1393288

[Archae]

1. Before the "Blame the CIA" crowd arrives...

The "La Pastora" area of Caracas is not only poor, there is a lot of crime.

So it's very likely the two were killed by home invading robbers.

[Dreamer Tatum]

2. Bzzt. The CIA did it.

Because they just did.

Don't believe me? Read some book about some thing having to do with what some guy said about someplace
like Venezuela. It's all laid out for you.

[Louisiana1976]

28. I wouldn't put it past the CIA. It's what people in the spy business call "wet work."

[ColesCountyDem]

3. Yup. It's not that difficult to get murdered in Venezuela.

I've spent a LOT of time in Latin America over the last (almost) six decades. Poverty is far more widespread but, like poverty everywhere, it breeds violence. Latin American cities have 'bad' neighborhoods, just like the U.S.A. does, and this young man lived in one of them.

I despair when all the "the CIA did it" CT-ers hear hoof beats, and immediately start screaming, "ZEBRAS!!!!!!".

[Feral Child]

11. Accurate post.

And a really nice metaphor. Gave me a chuckle.

[FLPanhandle]

4. Substitute immediate outrage with common sense?

What fun is that?

[Octafish]

5. They never arrive as fast as the ''Protect the CIA'' crowd, though.

Here's what a (now deceased) CIA man had to say on the subject of Venezuela:

The Nature of CIA Intervention in Venezuela

By JONAH GINDIN
VENEZUELANALYSIS.COM, March 22nd 2005

Philip Agee is a former CIA operative who left the agency in 1967 after becoming disillusioned by the CIA’s support for the status quo in the region. Says Agee, “I began to realize that what I and my colleagues had been doing in Latin America in the CIA was no more than a continuation of nearly five-hundred years of this, exploitation and genocide and so forth. And I began to think about what, until then would have been unthinkable, which was to write a book on how it all works.” The book, Inside the Company: CIA Diary, was an instant best-seller and was eventually published in over thirty languages. In 1978, three years after the publication of CIA Diary, Agee and a group of like-minded journalists began publishing the Covert Operations Information Bulletin (now Covert Action Quarterly), as part of a strategy of “guerilla journalism” aimed at destabilizing the CIA and exposing their operations.

SNIP...

What was the most prominent strategy of US intelligence when you were at the CIA, for protecting US ‘strategic interests’ in Latin America?

When I was in the agency from the late 1950s on through to the late 1960s, the agency had operations going internationally, regionally, and nationally, attempting to penetrate and manipulate the institutions of power in countries around the world, and these were things that I did in the CIA—the penetration and manipulation of political parties, trade unions, youth and student movements, intellectual, professional and cultural societies, religious groups and women’s groups and especially of the public information media. We, for example, paid journalists to publish our information as if it were the journalists’ own information. The propaganda operations were continuous. We also spent large amounts of money intervening in elections to favor our candidates over others. The CIA took a Manichean view of the world, that is to say there were the people on our side, and there were people who were against us. And the agency’s job was to penetrate, weaken, divide, and destroy those political forces that were seen to be the enemy, which are those to the left of social democrats, normally, and to support and strengthen the political forces that were seen to be friendly to US interests in all these institutions I just mentioned a few minutes ago.

One of the constant problems that the CIA had from the beginning of these types of operations, that is 1947, was the difficulty that the people and organizations that received their money had in covering it up, because when you get large amounts of money coming in it can be difficult to conceal. So the agency, early on, established a series of foundations, or worked out arrangements with established foundations. Sometimes the foundations of the agency were simply ‘paper foundations’ run by a lawyer in Washington on contract to the CIA. From the early 1950s the international program of the National Students Association of the United States—this is the University association that is on practically every campus—was run in fact by the CIA, the whole international program of the National Students Association was a CIA operation. And as each President of the NSA would come into office over the years they were briefed on how this international program worked under CIA direction. But the man who came into the Presidency of NSA in 1966—and this is the time of the Vietnam war and the protest movement—he refused to go along, and he told the whole story to Ramparts Magazine in California, a magazine that had connections with the Catholic church. And Ramparts published the story creating an enormous scandal. Well, it didn’t stop there, because every news media picked up on the Ramparts story and in February 1967 the Washington Post published a lengthy exposé of the CIA’s international funding network. In other words they named foundations, and quite a few of the foreign recipient organizations of CIA money in these different institutions that I mentioned earlier—political parties, trade unions, student movements, and so forth—and it was a disaster for the agency. I happened to be at headquarters in between assignments in Ecuador and Uruguay when this happened, and it was a huge disaster for the CIA.

Within less than two months, after the collapse of this international funding mechanism, Dante Fascell—a member of the House of Representatives for Miami, with close ties to the CIA and to the right-wing Cuban-Americans in Miami—proposed in Congress the establishment of a non-governmental foundation that would receive funding from Congress and would in turn pass the money out openly to the different organizations that until that time would have been funded by the CIA secretly, under the table. But this was 1967 and bi-partisan consensus on foreign policy had, to a point, broken down and so Fascell’s proposal went nowhere.

For that reason the CIA continued, even after the collapse of its international funding mechanism, to be the action agency for the US government in these activities known as ‘covert operations.’ For example, the CIA was responsible for undermining the Salvador Allende government in Chile from 1970 on. It happens that Allende was nearly elected in 1958. Elections came every 6 years in Chile and in 1964, the next election year, the CIA began early on, more than a year ahead of time, working to prevent his election in 1964. The money was spent in part to discredit Allende and the Socialist party and his coalition known as Unidad Popular and to finance Eduardo Frei’s campaign—the Christian Democratic campaign. Frei won that election, but when the next elections came around in 1970 Allende was finally elected. It’s documented that the CIA tried to prevent his ratification by Congress following the election by provoking a military coup, which failed. Allende took power and the CIA was then the action agency for fomenting popular discontent, for continuous propaganda against Allende and his government, for fomenting the very damaging strikes that occurred, the most important of which was the truckers, which stopped the delivery of goods and services over a period of months, and which eventually provoked the Pinochet coup against Allende in September 1973.

CONTINUED...

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/1015

You sure are right. There is a lot of crime in Venezuela.

[ColesCountyDem]

6. I have no interest in protecting the CIA, but most often a cigar is just a cigar. n/t

[seveneyes]

8. 1947 and CIA Witch hunts

Not too long before 1947 they burned Witches. Time moves on.

[brooklynite]

9. This write-up is about policies from the Eisenhower Administration through Nixon...

...I think there have been some changes since then.

[Octafish]

10. History since then: CIA Venezuela Destabilization Memo Surfaces (2007)

Same Empire. Different Day.

Counterattack as Fateful Referendum Looms

CIA Venezuela Destabilization Memo Surfaces

by JAMES PETRAS
CounterPunch NOVEMBER 28, 2007

On November 26, 2007 the Venezuelan government broadcast and circulated a confidential memo from the US embassy to the CIA which is devastatingly revealing of US clandestine operations and which will influence the referendum this Sunday, December 2, 2007.

The memo sent by an embassy official, Michael Middleton Steere, was addressed to the Director of Central Intelligence, Michael Hayden. The memo was entitled ‘Advancing to the Last Phase of Operation Pincer’ and updates the activity by a CIA unit with the acronym ‘HUMINT’ (Human Intelligence) which is engaged in clandestine action to destabilize the forth-coming referendum and coordinate the civil military overthrow of the elected Chavez government. The Embassy-CIA’s polls concede that 57 per cent of the voters approved of the constitutional amendments proposed by Chavez but also predicted a 60 per cent abstention.

The US operatives emphasized their capacity to recruit former Chavez supporters among the social democrats (PODEMOS) and the former Minister of Defense Baduel, claiming to have reduced the ‘yes’ vote by 6 per cent from its original margin. Nevertheless the Embassy operatives concede that they have reached their ceiling, recognizing they cannot defeat the amendments via the electoral route.

SNIP...

The ultimate objective of ‘Operation Pincer’ is to seize a territorial or institutional base with the ‘massive support’ of the defeated electoral minority within three or four days (presumably after the elections though this is not clear. JP) backed by an uprising by oppositionist military officers principally in the National Guard. The Embassy operative concede that the military plotters have run into serous problems as key intelligence operatives were detected, stores of arms were decommissioned and several plotters are under tight surveillance.

Apart from the deep involvement of the US, the primary organization of the Venezuelan business elite (FEDECAMARAS), as well as all the major private television, radio and newspaper outlets have been engaged in a campaign of fear and intimidation campaign. Food producers, wholesale and retail distributors have created artificial shortages of basic food items and have provoked large scale capital flight to sow chaos in the hopes of reaping a ‘no’ vote.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/11/28/cia-venezuela-destabilization-memo-surfaces/

Worked the same in Honduras. Ask Sec. Hillary Clinton.

[Dreamer Tatum]

13. This doesn't even prove the existence of the memo it describes.

So I fail to see what the point is.

It seems to me that in all matters Latin America, the "We did it" crowd has an almost infinite amount of horseshit
to supply, with the unspoken implication that because of the truly overwhelming amount of horseshit, SURELY
there's a pony in there. Yet there is never a pony. When someone has the temerity to point out the lack of a pony,
the Wedidits become extremely agitated, heap on more horseshit, and sniff that all the answers are clear from the
enormous pile of horseshit.

And what I find comical is that we are supposedly trying to destabilize Venezuela (through means as desperate and occult as restricting access to toilet paper) when economic institutions of their own choice, implementation, and insistence have created more destabilization and havoc than the CIA could have ever imagined.

Oh well. When things are slow on the 50-year-old Who Shot JFK, Inc. front, I guess you have to spend your days doing something.

[Octafish]

17. Sure, and all the underhanded State Department crapola that WikiLeaks revealed doesn't exist either.

“This strategic objective represents the majority of USAID/OTI work in Venezuela. Organized civil society is an increasingly important pillar of democracy, one where President Chavez has not yet been able to assert full control.”

SOURCE: https://cablegatesearch.wikileaks.org/cable.php?id=06CARACAS3356&version=1314919461

Do I need to call in Dr. Stiglitz to explain to you what that means, Dreamer Tatum?

[Dreamer Tatum]

20. This thread has to do with one Venezuelan man

and as usual, the Wedidtis have hijacked it with information that is probably useful to certain discussions, but not
this one.

And just to humor you, because I LIKE your posts (believe it or not), I opened that link and was highly amused to find the following (which for SOME reason you failed to quote):


------------- Strengthen Democratic Institutions -------------
4. (S) This strategic objective represents the majority of USAID/OTI work in Venezuela. Organized civil society is an increasingly important pillar of democracy, one where President Chavez has not yet been able to assert full control.

5. (S) OTI has supported over 300 Venezuelan civil society organizations with technical assistance, capacity building, connecting them with each other and international movements, and with financial support upwards of $15 million. Of these, 39 organizations focused on advocacy have been formed since the arrival of OTI; many of these organizations as a direct result of OTI programs and funding.

6. (S) Human Rights: OTI supports the Freedom House (FH) "Right to Defend Human Rights" program with $1.1 million. Simultaneously through Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), OTI has also provided 22 grants to human rights organizations, totaling $726,000. FH provides training and technical assistance to 15 different smaller and regional human rights organizations on how to research, document, and present cases in situations of judicial impunity through a specialized software and proven techniques. Following are some specific successes from this project, which has led to a better understanding internationally of the deteriorating human rights situation in the country: Venezuelan Prison Observatory: Since beginning work with OTI, OVP has taken 1 case successfully through the inter-American system, achieving a ruling requiring BRV special protective measures for the prison "La Pica". Also, on November 7th - 12th they will be launching the Latin-American Prison Observatory, consolidating their work with a regional network. OVP receives technical support from FH, as well as monetary support from Pan American Development Foundation (PADF). Due to the success of the OVP in raising awareness of the issue, the BRV has put pressure on them in the form of public statements, announcing investigations, accusing them of alleged crimes as well as death threats. Central Venezuelan University Human Rights Center: This center was created out of the FH program and a grant from CARACAS 00003356 002.2 OF 004 DAI. They have successfully raised awareness regarding the International Cooperation Law and the human rights situation in Venezuela, and have served as a voice nationally and internationally.

(boldface mine)

So right there onscreen, from your own source, the almighty and holy Wikileaks, which you cited without comment or disclaimer, there appears to be a progress report detailing efforts to bolster human rights in Venezuela, which ostensibly were restricted by, perhaps among other means, JUDICIAL IMPUNITY.

In other words, you're claiming that we are attempting to destabilize Venezuela by implementing the same sort of reforms, visibility, fairness, and oversight that people have been clamoring for in our own country.

Of course, I expect that you will now say something like "yeah, that's what they WANT you to think, but we REALLY know..." To which I have an exclusively semiotic response: .

[Octafish]

25. The death of one person makes all the difference in the world.

The guy was a threat to somebody's future.

As for Wikileaks, no need to embelish what I wrote. Without the leak, we'd never see how the United States' secret government operates on behalf of a few rich slobs who, in regards to Venezuela, are largely in the mineral extraction business.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/nsa-spying-on-venezuela-post-chavez-elections-and-petroleum-industry-were-priorities/5342288

[Dreamer Tatum]

35. Now I know why the murder rate is so high in Venezuela

because every time someone gets killed, prosecutors have to go back to Herbert Hoover to prosecute an
entirely different country.

I will take these bullshit conspiracy theories seriously, and will stop ridiculing their proponents, when a concrete
alternative theory is presented.

But I know that all I will ever get is more links to worthless, stupid bullshit that proves exactly zero except in
the mind of a CTer.

[Octafish]

36. Until then, you should read more.

Ad hominem doesn't really cut it.

[Dreamer Tatum]

37. Ad hominem is my only option

when a CTers response to a single murder is a litany of links to stolen communiques
from an unrelated time for unrelated things.

But then again, for a CTer, everything is related to everything, isn't it?

[Octafish]

40. ''What would Goldman think?''

"Summers looked at Stiglitz like Stiglitz was some kind of naive fool who'd read too many civics books."

http://www.gregpalast.com/larry-summers-goldman-sacked/

That has everything to do with Venezuela.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/2719

Knowledge with time may bring wisdom, as awful as that may seem, Dreamer Tatum.

[Octafish]

47. Only a character assassin would label someone as a 'CTer'

If the facts were on your side, instead of ad hominem, you'd show where I am wrong.

Seeing how you don't, I'll keep showing you why you can't.

[Dreamer Tatum]

48. Said the person who attends JFK CT conventions.

You are the one who is making some sort of statement, namely that this man's death is somehow our doing.

I can't prove that you're wrong, because you've said nothing with any factual content whatsoever. I am completely OK with the fact that you don't understand this.

[Octafish]

50. You say that as if it was a bad thing.

I met dozens of authorities at "Passing the Torch: An International Symposium on the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" at Duquesne University and reported on what they said. Did you see any of that mentioned on your tee vee? Did your local newspaper cover the conference? I doubt it.

Why does my sharing what I learned with DU bother you? Don't you want to know about the death of President Kennedy? You should. President Kennedy worked every day in office to keep the peace, got us started to the moon, and promoted prosperity of the New Deal through the New Frontier. IMFO, warmongers in high office, possibly including US government employees, murdered him and covered it up afterward.

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” -- George Orwell

For those interested in learning the latest, with links to details from the:

Octafish to attend JFK assassination conference. Do you think JFK still matters?

JFK Conference: Amazing Day of Information and Connecting with Good People

After JFK Conference, when I got home, I felt like RFK.

JFK Conference: Bill Kelly introduced new evidence - adding Air Force One tape recordings

JFK Conference: Rex Bradford detailed the historic importance of the Church Committee

JFK Conference: Lisa Pease Discussed the Real Harm of Corrupt Soft Power

JFK Conference: James DiEugenio made clear how Foreign Policy changed after November 22, 1963

JFK Conference: Mark Lane Addressed the Secret Government’s Role in the Assassination

JFK Conference: David Talbot named Allen Dulles as 'the Chairman of the Board of the Assassination'

JFK Conference: Dan Hardway Detailed how CIA Obstructed HSCA Investigation

Noah's Ark - Nov. 22, 1963

JFK Remembered: Dan Rather and James Swanson talk at The Henry Ford

Seven Days in May -- tonight on TCM

Machine Gun Mouth

As for the CIA and the murder of the Venezuelan politician, no that's not what I wrote. Those are words you falsely attribute to me. That, also, is a sign of a character assassin, Dreamer Tatum.

[Dreamer Tatum]

52. I guess I'd have thought you guys would have reached a consensus by now.

But clearly you don't want to, and that's fine. Football fans tailgate, CTers get together and bullshit.

[Octafish]

55. No consensus. Not all guys.

So you're wrong there, too.

About the conference at Duquesne: Everyone there, including John McAdams, a very polite man, was interested in learning the truth and sharing what they know.

[Dreamer Tatum]

56. Every year, from now til forever.

No worries - enjoy yourselves.

[EX500rider]

58. BUT CHILE 1973!!!!!!

Right?

[Judi Lynn]

26. Thanks for the reminder. It was all too familiar when we heard about it the first time. Typical. n/t

[Zorra]

7. Before damage control arrives....nt

[Ken Burch]

45. You're assuming the Company couldn't have recruited "home invaders" to do it.

Besides, why would you want to let Langley off the hook? They're still basically the home office of Evil.

[FairWinds]

12. To the extent that the US government . .

(including but exclusively the CIA) is
deliberately de-stabilizing Venezuela,
they are PARTLY responsible for the violence
that goes on there.
Are you righties denying that the US is and has
been de-stabilizing Venezuela?

[hack89]

14. VZ is wrecking their own economy just fine by themselves

they don't need our help.

[FLPanhandle]

15. I doubt the US really cares about Venezuela anymore.

Certainly not to the point of killing some young politician.

[MisterP]

16. Washington often does "break butterflies upon the wheel" in Latin America

and it's not like he was directly done in by Company wetworks: these are right-wing student unions, and even regular university affairs can get quite hairy without incitement by bloodthirsty right-wing journalism or a charismatic officer undoing the party system that had ruled the country for several decades

and this can escape any US control as well: in Honduras 1983 the Army's university arm FUUD took over the Ambassador Negroponte's applause: in 1988 Matta was illegally extradited and the far-right FUUD decided to start a riot at the US Embassy (since the military's officers were fighting over the trafficking business): so what even Washington's most fascistic factions and camarillas create can slip from their grasp very quickly (mujahedeen, anyone?)

[hack89]

18. Or we can consider that in a country with VZ's sky high murder rate

he was "done in" by a violent common criminal.

[Judi Lynn]

30. How is it the US gives millions of US taxpayers' $ to the Venezuelan opposition during elections? nt

[FLPanhandle]

31. Haven't seen any hard proof of that claim.

If you have it, please share.

[Judi Lynn]

32. You haven't seen anything because you never bothered to look. Simple.

Does It Matter That the Venezuelan Opposition Is Funded by the US?
By Ray Downs Mar 1 2014

~snip~

...the US has continued its longstanding practice of funding programs that it often claims are aimed at promoting fair elections and human rights, but also strengthen Venezuelan opposition groups – and this money may be influencing the ongoing protests that have helped put the country in a political crisis.

These programs have several names and objectives. Some have clearly benevolent goals; one is targeted at discouraging violence against women, for instance. But other US efforts in Venezuela are unabashedly political, such as a 2004 USAID program that, according to a Wikileaks cable, would spend $450,000 to “provide training to political parties on the design, planning, and execution of electoral campaigns.” The program would also create “campaign training schools” that would recruit campaign managers and emphasize “the development of viable campaign strategies and effectively communicating party platforms to voters.”

Interestingly, it's illegal for a US political party or candidate to accept funding from any “foreign national,” which includes individuals, corporations and governments. Venezuela passed a similar law in 2010, but this is easily circumvented by channeling the money through NGOs.

It's difficult to determine exactly how much money the US has spent on these political programs in Venezuela since Chávez was first elected in 1998, but some estimates put the figure around $50 to $60 million. This year alone, President Obama earmarked $5 million to “support political competition-building efforts” in Venezuela.

It's understandable, then, that some critics of Venezuela's opposition have argued that the protests are in part due to US meddling.

More:
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/does-the-uss-funding-of-the-venezuelan-opposition-matter

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
Published on Sunday, April 06, 2014
by CEPR's The Americas Blog

USAID Subversion in Latin America Not Limited to Cuba

by Dan Beeton

~snip~
More recent State Department cables made public by Wikileaks reveal that USAID/OTI subversion in Venezuela extended into the Obama administration era (until 2010, when funded for OTI in Venezuela appears to have ended), and DAI continued to play an important role. A State Department cable from November 2006 explains the U.S. embassy’s strategy in Venezuela and how USAID/OTI “activities support [the] strategy”:

(S) In August of 2004, Ambassador outlined the country team's 5 point strategy to guide embassy activities in Venezuela for the period 2004 ) 2006 (specifically, from the referendum to the 2006 presidential elections). The strategy's focus is: 1) Strengthening Democratic Institutions, 2) Penetrating Chavez' Political Base, 3) Dividing Chavismo, 4) Protecting Vital US business, and 5) Isolating Chavez internationally.

Among the ways in which USAID/OTI have supported the strategy is through the funding and training of protest groups. This August 2009 cable cites the head of USAID/OTI contractor DAI’s Venezuela office Eduardo Fernandez as saying, during 2009 protests, that all the protest organizers are DAI grantees:

¶5. (S) Fernandez told DCM Caulfield that he believed the [the Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigations Corps'] dual objective is to obtain information regarding DAI's grantees and to cut off their funding. Fernandez said that "the streets are hot," referring to growing protests against Chavez's efforts to consolidate power, and "all these people (organizing the protests) are our grantees." Fernandez has been leading non-partisan training and grant programs since 2004 for DAI in Venezuela."

The November 2006 cable describes an example of USAID/OTI partners in Venezuela "shut[ting] down [a] city":

11. (S) CECAVID: This project supported an NGO working with women in the informal sectors of Barquisimeto, the 5th largest city in Venezuela. The training helped them negotiate with city government to provide better working conditions. After initially agreeing to the women's conditions, the city government reneged and the women shut down the city for 2 days forcing the mayor to return to the bargaining table. This project is now being replicated in another area of Venezuela.

The implications for the current situation in Venezuela are obvious, unless we are to assume that such activities have ended despite the tens of millions of dollars in USAID funds designated for Venezuela, some of it going through organizations such as Freedom House, and the International Republican Institute, some of which also funded groups involved in the 2002 coup (which prominent IRI staff publicly applauded at the time).

The same November 2006 cable notes that one OTI program goal is to bolster international support for the opposition:

…DAI has brought dozens of international leaders to Venezuela, university professors, NGO members, and political leaders toparticipate in workshops and seminars, who then return to their countries with a better understanding of the Venezuelan reality and as stronger advocates for the Venezuelan opposition.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/04/06/usaid-subversion-latin-america-not-limited-cuba

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
The New Politics of Political Aid in Venezuela
Tom Barry, last updated: July 17, 2007
*This article was updated and corrected on August 17, 2007.

Five years after U.S.-funded groups were associated with a failed coup against Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, the U.S. government's political aid programs continue to meddle in Venezuelan domestic politics. A new focus of the "democracy builders" in Venezuela and around the world is support for nonviolent resistance by civil society organizations.*

In the name of promoting democracy and freedom, Washington is currently funding scores of U.S. and Venezuelan organizations as part of its global democratization strategy—including at least one that publicly supported the April 2002 coup that briefly removed Chávez from power.

When he first heard the news of the coup, the president of the International Republican Institute (IRI) praised those "who rose up to defend democracy," ignoring the fact that Chávez was the twice-elected president of Venezuela. Despite this declared support for a coup against a democratically elected president and for the opposition's blatant disregard for the rule of law, IRI still runs democratization programs in Venezuela that are underwritten by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The IRI, a supposedly nonpartisan institute established to direct U.S. democratization aid for which Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is chairman, is one of five U.S. nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that channel funding from USAID to Venezuelan organizations and political programs. USAID also funds the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDIIA) and three U.S. nongovernmental organizations: Freedom House, Development Alternatives Inc., and Pan-American Development Foundation.

More:
http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/articles/display/The_New_Politics_of_Political_Aid_in_Venezuela#sthash.s99hwvO4.dpuf

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
Venezuela’s Sovereignty Under Attack
August 25, 2014 - 8:59am | admin

By Ramiro S. Fúnez

In the coming weeks, the United States Senate is expected to vote on a bill authorizing boosted funding for anti-government groups in Venezuela for the upcoming fiscal year. If passed, the bill will only further violate legislation that prohibits said activities in the South American country, as recurrent U.S. government funding for insurrectional opposition groups represents a direct attack on Venezuela’s political sovereignty.

The U.S. government has continued to finance anti-government groups in Venezuela with millions of dollars annually, the Associated Press revealed late last month, irreverent of the 2010 Law for Protection of Political Liberty and National Self-Determination passed by Venezuela’s National Assembly. The Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act, originally proposed by senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) on March 13 of this year, now seeks to increase funding for undisclosed “pro-democracy” groups from $5 million to $15 million for Fiscal Year 2015. President Barack Obama’s administration already approved sanctions in May, which restrict travel to the United States for top Venezuelan government officials over alleged human rights abuses during violent February 2014 protests.

U.S. government officials, journalists, and NGO activists in support of boosted funding for “pro-democracy” groups in Venezuela have lauded the bill, based primarily on alleged evidence of government violence against protestors. However, they have failed to recognize the bill’s violation of Venezuela’s autonomy and the consequences financing these groups may bring.

“We’ve had enough of the United States assuming a role that belongs to multilateral bodies,” Venezuelan foreign minister Elias Jau said back in May, after part of the legislation was approved by the U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee.

“We must remember that as a free and independent nation we do not recognize the United States parliament…as a legislative force over Venezuela. There are basic principles of the United Nations Charter that must be respected.”

More:
http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2014/08/25/venezuela%E2%80%99s-sovereignty-under-attack

(My emphasis.)

[geek tragedy]

43. No, the US is not to blame for Venezuela's crime rate. Try blaming, I dunno, the

people in charge of Venezuela for that. And also all of the violent people in Venezuela--there is no murder without murderers.

[FairWinds]

21. So Just to be perfectly clear . .

NONE of you righties deny that the US is
destabilizing Venezuela.
All you do is deflect.

[ColesCountyDem]

22. There are no 'righties' in this entire entire post and its sub-threads.

And furthermore, why would you think that there are?

Here's a hint: if you think someone is a 'rightie', contact MIRT or one of the administrators, but don't 'call people out' publicly-- it's not nice, and DU is not Discussionist.

[Throd]

23. Maduro is driving that bus into a ditch just fine on his own.

[Judi Lynn]

34. You don't imagine someone who mocks a man who drove a bus as a young man, at a Democratic website,

knowing Democrats have ALWAYS represented the working class from the start, is really coming across to Democrats as a gentleman, and a good American, do you?

Not so impressive.

Oh, look at Maduro. He was born poor, and had to drive a bus when he was young, just to earn enough to eat. Aren't poor people hilarious?

You'd be more at home with the imbeciles and loudmouths at the right-wing websites.

[Throd]

42. I'm sure he's a fine bus driver. Calm down.

[Judi Lynn]

33. They can't very well deny it, can they? US taxdollars are loaded into Venezuelan right-wingers'

opposition groups from the very first of Hugo Chavez' first term as the elected President of Venezuela.

Trolls work themselves into a frenzy infesting D.U., throwing themselves daily into threads like this to blast away at any and ALL Latin American leftists, sounding for all the world just like the fascists who murdered and tortured the Latin American leftists throughout the Central and South American countries for over 100 years.

They know their "moral" position is evil, but they can't help themselves. They were born to gibber against the poor of the earth, and to hate.

[geek tragedy]

44. Extreme hyperbole. Calm down nt

[FairWinds]

24. If you think it is acceptable for the USG . .

to destabilize the governments of other countries, even
ones like Venezuela that are democratically elected,
I think it's fair to refer to you as a "rightie", and as a
chauvinist (a person displaying aggressive or exaggerated patriotism)
besides.
I'm a member of Veterans For Peace, and a central part of our mission is .
"To restrain our government from intervening, overtly and covertly, in the internal affairs of other nations".
It's pretty basic. If you want the US to be able to decide its own destiny, then you should
grant that same right to other countries and peoples -
including the Venezuelans.

[Judi Lynn]

27. Your comments have real value. People who are democratic by nature can see that easily. Thanks. n/t

[Judi Lynn]

29. Pro-government Venezuela lawmaker slain at home

Pro-government Venezuela lawmaker slain at home
The Associated Press
10/02/2014 6:15 PM
| Updated: 10/02/2014 6:15 PM


[font size=1]
Venezuela's Education Minister Hector Rodriguez, left, and Sports Minister Antonio Alvarez, right, carry the coffin of the late lawmaker Robert Serra to the National Assembly in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014. Serra, a rising star in Venezuela's ruling socialist party, was stabbed to death in his home, officials said Thursday. The 27-year-old Serra was a lawyer by training and was elected to Congress in 2010 as a member of the ruling party. He gained prominence organizing youth to counter a wave of destabilizing student protests in 2007.Fernando Llano/AP Photo [/font]

CARACAS, Venezuela —

A rising star in Venezuela's ruling socialist party was found stabbed to death in his home, and officials said Thursday it was a carefully planned murder. Twenty-seven-year-old legislator Robert Serra, a lawyer by training, was elected to Congress in 2010 as a member of the ruling party after gaining prominence organizing young people to counter a wave of destabilizing student protests in 2007.

Neighbors discovered his body and that of a woman, Maria Herrera, in his house in the working class La Pastora district of Caracas on Wednesday night.

Mireya Midolo, who lives nearby, said her son had gone to check after seeing two large white motorcycles with their motors running in front of the house and the doors to the home open. "There was no sound of the door being forced or cries or anything," she said. She added that she was surprised the bodyguards who often accompanied Serra were not present.

Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres said at a news conference that the attack was "an intentional homicide, planned and executed with great precision." He did not give details about a possible motive.

More:
http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-world/article2483451.html#storylink=cpy

[Bacchus4.0]

38. Robert Serra was the chavista paramilitaries' guy in Congress.

Here he is posing with Valentin Santana, a wanted murderer. Head of the Las Piedritas chavista paramilitary organization.



Santana is the white shirt talking with Serra.


http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Mo2C4Hn0wzI/TyS0dcVJtbI/AAAAAAAACsI/f45Jb4OBB-Q/s1600/NI%C3%B1os+armados_+jeus+y+la+Virgen+tambien+armados+_Venezuela_sy3rn.jpg

Las Piedritas event with some "young" supporters and Jesus with weapons.

[Comrade Grumpy]

39. Which makes it more reasonable to wonder if he was killed for political reasons.

[hack89]

46. Or simple vengeance. Nt

[FairWinds]

49. OK, so here is Bacchus . .

writing without evidence or citations that Mr. Serra was
photographed with "Valentin Santana, a wanted murderer" . .
Wanted by whom?
Source?
Or is it going to just be more ad hominem & guilt by association?

[Bacchus4.0]

51. Well the picture of the two together I posted, here is more about the criminal Santana

El diputado del PSUV por la zona, Robert Serra, quien es abogado, dijo desconocer el estatus jurídico de Santana, acusado de varios delitos. La Fiscalía General señala que hay tres órdenes de aprehensión por la presunta comisión de los delitos de homicidio y lesiones personales, tramitadas entre 2007, 2008 y enero de 2009.

The PSUV deputy, Robert Serra, lawyer, said he didn't know the judicial status of Santana, accused of various crimes. The Attorney General said there are 3 arrest warrants on him for homicide and assault issued in 2007, 2008, and 2009.

http://www.reportero24.com/2012/01/23-de-enero-el-profugo-valentin-santana-dio-sermon-en-iglesia/

[99th_Monkey]

54. The Agency's Anti-Chavista long-knives are out, again. ~nt~

[99th_Monkey]

53. The Agency appears to be ramping up it's "Anti-Chavista" crusade.

I have even seen this hatred aimed at "Chavistas" displayed on DU recently:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1108&pid=34044
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1108&pid=34048

[FairWinds]

57. Sure Baccus, so purely by accident you happened to come across . .

this TWO AND A HALF YEAR OLD post on a tv station website . .

Know what? I don't believe a single word of what you post . .

[post] "The PSUV deputy, Robert Serra, lawyer, said he didn't know the judicial status of Santana, accused of various crimes. The Attorney General said there are 3 arrest warrants on him for homicide and assault issued in 2007, 2008, and 2009. "

Yup, that is how the anti-Chavezista media works . .

I am all in favor of an informed discussion about the pluses and minuses of Venezuela, and its government certainly does merit criticism.
Why don't you try to do that instead of posting totally unpersuasive propaganda?

[Bacchus4.0]

59. Oh it wasn't by accident, here is another one for you. Hugo asks for actions against Satana

http://www.aporrea.org/actualidad/n130121.html

In brief translating: Santana has 3 warrants against him for the same number of homicides. Santana, interviewed by Quinto Dia, said his group was responsible for the launching of tear gas and other dangerous projectiles at Glovovision, El Nuevo Pais, Ateneo de Caracas, Copei (political party), and residences. In response to these declarations, Hugo Chavez gave a harsh warning the supposed revolutionary groups who have committed violent acts and asked the Attorney General to take actions against Santana.

Apporea.org is a pro-chavista socialist seeking website. But back to Serra, any wonder why his was killed with the crowd he runs with including Las Piedritas and Tupamaros paramilitaries?


Valentín Santana, líder del colectivo "La Piedrita" tiene tres órdenes de aprehensión por igual número de homicidios, uno de ellos frustrado. Una de esas órdenes data de marzo de 2008 expedida por el Tribunal Quinto de Vargas y otra por el Tribunal 45 de Control de Caracas, registrada en enero de 2007.


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

Santana, entrevistado el pasado mes de febrero por Sebastiana Barráez del semanario Quinto Día, responsabilizó a su grupo por el lanzamiento de bombas lacrimógenas y objetos contundentes contra las sedes de Globovisión, El Nuevo País, Ateneo de Caracas, Copei, la Nunciatura Apostólica y las viviendas de Marcel Granier y Marta Colomina.

También Santana aseguró en dicha entrevista que "pasarán por las armas" a Marcel Granier.

En respuesta a estas declaraciones el presidente Hugo Chávez dio una contundente advertencia a este y a otros grupos, supuestamente revolucionarios, que han realizado acciones violentas de forma independiente, y se comunicó con la Fiscal General de la República, Luisa Ortega Díaz, para pedir acciones en contra de Santana.