There are a lot of good hints hear about how to find information on current
US policies toward its citizens and other countries. Delete now if you are
not interested. There is a long article about Venezuala which is a personal
interest of the writers and mine, but maybe not yours!
mike
Subject: Re: comparative contemporary news analysis
To: Mike Cole <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu>
Hi Mike,
Go to Google and for the INS info type in under
"search": "United Lawyers Gild".
There is a new addition to the basic google page:
"News file", on the far right side of the screen, then
type in anything : It is Excellent....
World News
http://www.independent.co.za/index.php?click_id=24
http://www.derwent.com/itp/
Foreign Policy In Focus:
http://www.fpif.org
the Project on the Present Danger:
(www.presentdanger.org)
Middle east maps:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east.html
Center for International Private Enterprise:
(CIPE)http://www.cipe.org/
Human Rights Watch: http://www.hrw.org
International Republican Institute to follow the
military and war activity: (IRI)http://www.iri.org/
National Democratic Institute for International
Affairs
(NDI):
http://www.ndi.org/
National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
http://www.ned.org/
The U.S. and Venezuela: Official Texts | U.S.
Department of State:
http://www.usinfo.state.gov/regional/ar/venezuela/texts.htm
Progress:
http://www.americaspolicy.org/index.html
http://www.ciee.org/ England
Internships:
http://www.un.org/Depts/OHRM/examin/internsh/intern.htm
UNation
Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61903-2002Oct21.html
http://www.unprecedented.org
American Civil Liberties Union
http://forms.aclu.org/
Here is a good article...
"THE LONG ARM OF THE NED
By Mike Ceaser (December 9, 2002)
Online at
http://www.americaspolicy.org/articles/2002/0212venezuela.html
After this April's aborted coup against Venezuela's
President Hugo Chávez, many observers accused
Washington of having been behind the attempted ouster.
The Bush administration denies any U.S. involvement in
the affair, and certainly Chávez has made plenty of
domestic foes for himself. However, one relatively
clear connection has emerged between the U.S.
government and the anti-Chávez movement: millions of
dollars in U.S. taxpayer money that funded groups
opposed to Chávez during the years preceding the April
coup--often in disguised ways.
As Turmoil Deepens in Venezuela, Questions Regarding
NED Activities Remain Unanswered
by Mike Ceaser | December 9, 2002
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After this April's aborted coup against Venezuela's
President Hugo Chávez, many observers accused
Washington of having been behind the attempted ouster.
The Bush administration denies any U.S. involvement in
the affair, and certainly Chávez has made plenty of
domestic foes for himself. However, one relatively
clear connection has emerged between the U.S.
government and the anti-Chávez movement: millions of
dollars in U.S. taxpayer money that funded groups
opposed to Chávez during the years preceding the April
coup--often in disguised ways.
Chávez was elected in 1998 by a landslide, and won a
second endorsement of popularity two years later when
his new Bolivarian Constitution garnered majority
backing. Despite his popularity with some sectors,
however, he has also antagonized church leaders,
unions, the business community, and much of the
Venezuela's middle and upper classes. Chávez also
earned the enmity of U.S. authorities by befriending
Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro, criticizing the war
in Afghanistan, and working within the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to raise oil
prices.
Against that backdrop, street protests triggered by a
strike of managers at the state oil company culminated
with the April 11 shooting of some 17 people by
still-unidentified gunmen. That day, military leaders
removed Chávez and installed as interim president
Pedro Carmona, a pro-U.S. business leader.
While several Latin American nations condemned what
they termed a coup, the United States appeared
disposed to recognize the new regime. A State
Department statement on the matter blamed the crisis
on "undemocratic actions committed or encouraged by
the Chávez administration," and the U.S. ambassador to
Venezuela quickly met with Carmona. However, Carmona
was expelled by Chávez supporters two days later and
Chávez reassumed the presidency.
Reports in the Venezuelan and U.S. media following
Chávez' ouster revealed that the generals who removed
him from power had met repeatedly with U.S. officials.
Since then, research has shown that public money from
U.S. coffers was channeled to anti-Chávez groups
without clear accounting of its use, raising
objections that these finances may have contributed to
political instability in Venezuela.
The Long Arm of the NED
The funding was sent by the National Endowment for
Democracy (NED), a nominally private institution
created during the cold war, which receives nearly all
of its annual budget from congressional
appropriations. The NED's express mission is to
"strengthen democracy throughout the world." However,
many academics view the institution as a cold war
mechanism for deploying U.S. "soft power" during the
East-West standoff, and critics have frequently
accused the NED of simply being a tool for supporting
regimes friendly to the United States and opposing
ones considered hostile. The NED funnels its money
overseas either through direct grants to foreign
organizations or through four NED core institutes: the
American Center for International Labor Solidarity
(ACILS), the Center for International Private
Enterprise (CIPE), the International Republican
Institute (IRI), and the National Democratic Institute
for International Affairs (NDI).
Between 2000 and 2001, as the political and social
crisis here worsened, the NED more than tripled its
Venezuela funding, from $257,831 to $877,435. The
lion's share went to Chávez opponents.
A several-month examination of the use of more than a
million dollars in 2000 and 2001 NED grants has
revealed not only a consistent pattern of support for
Chávez opponents--including two groups active in the
protests that brought about his brief downfall this
April--but also apparent deception concerning some of
the money's use as well as the fact that other monies
never reached their intended destination.
Follow the Money--If You Can
One of the organizations prominent in the anti-Chávez
protests that received NED funding is the nation's
primary union, the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers
(CTV). It was granted $154,377 in 2001, nearly triple
the $60,084 it received in 2000.
The CTV, historically plagued by corruption and
closely aligned with the entrenched political parties
that Chávez displaced, receives its NED grants through
the ACILS, which is run by the AFL-CIO.
According to the NED's grant list, the CTV's 2001
grant was supposed to be used for organizing a
"unified national industrial union" and holding
internal elections for new leadership. However,
apparently none of the money was used for the November
rank-and-file elections held by the union. "We as an
electoral commission never received money," asserted
Daniel Santolo, who headed that CTV organ. "Absolutely
not."
Rather, all of the NED funds paid for union training
courses at the CTV's Institute of Higher Union Studies
(INAESIN), said the institute's director, Jesús
Urbieta. He said the CTV never handled the funds;
instead the AFL-CIO's solidarity center paid them
directly for things like room rental and teacher
salaries.
Meanwhile, Alfredo Ramos, one of the new members of
the CTV executive committee elected in November 2001
and an anti-Chávez parliamentary deputy for the Causa
R party, questioned that claim, saying that the
INAESIN has operated with little financial oversight.
"They don't have to show their accounts," he said.
Another prominent anti-government activist
organization that received a 2001 grant was the
Assembly of Educators, which was granted $55,000 to
"organize grassroots support to monitor education
reform." The group is headed by Leonardo Carvajal, who
was tapped by Carmona during his brief two-day April
presidency as prospective Minister of Education. The
assembly, which works to reform educational policy,
was one of the first organizations to carry out
anti-government marches, said Carvajal during an
interview. He added that during the grant application
process NED officials expressed no concern about the
activist side of his organization, and asserted that
all NED funds were used correctly for traveling and
carrying out workshops.
Several other NED beneficiaries are also headed by
Chávez critics, among them Primero Justicia, which is
linked by origin to one of the most radical
anti-Chávez political parties. Another organization,
Prodel, which received $50,000 in 2000 to "promote
government decentralization," is directed by Ignacio
Betancourt, the former executive secretary of
ex-President Carlos Andrés Pérez and a prominent
Chávez opponent who now lives in exile in the
Dominican Republic and the United States. In January
of this year, the Venezuela media acquired and
broadcast a recording of a telephone conversation in
which Pérez and the CTV's president plotted against
Chávez.
Betancourt said the NED funds went to their intended
purposes. Representatives of other organizations
contacted also said the U.S. money went for what it
was earmarked.
Circumstantial Evidence?
While on one hand Chávez has succeeded in alienating
major portions of Venezuelan society, the appearance
of so many Chávez opponents on NED grant lists angers
the president's backers, many of whom suspect U.S.
complicity in the president's April ouster.
"This must be investigated, because almost all of
these organizations are open enemies of the Chávez
government," said Deputy Tarik William Zaab, a
prominent member of Chávez' Fifth Republic Movement
(MVR) party.
In April an NED official told The New York Times that
none of its 2001 money had gone to support Chávez's
ouster but did say that the endowment had "hurriedly
increased its outlays in Venezuela" that year to
"create political space for opponents to Mr. Chávez."
Neither the NED nor the AFL-CIO's solidarity center
responded to repeated telephone calls and emails
requesting comment for this article.
For some observers, the most troubling grant was that
to the IRI, because of its apparently false claims
about the institution's work and its director's strong
support for Chávez' ouster. The grant amount for the
IRI, which has an office in Caracas, more than
sextupled from $50,000 in 2000 to $339,998 in 2001.
In an April 12 facsimile sent to news media, IRI
President George A. Folsom rejoiced over Chávez'
removal from power. "The Venezuelan people rose up to
defend democracy in their country," he wrote.
"Venezuelans were provoked into action as a result of
systematic repression by the government of Hugo
Chávez."
Fanning the concerns about how the IRI may have
utilized its NED funds are doubts regarding the
accuracy of its reporting on activities in Venezuela.
According to the organization's website, it has
several times collaborated with a Venezuelan partner
organization called the Youth Participation Foundation
(FPJ). Indeed, working with the FPJ was the primary
purpose of the IRI's $50,000 year 2000 grant. But
dozens of Venezuelan politicians, activists, and
nongovernmental organization (NGO) representatives
interviewed for this story--including several who have
worked with the IRI--had never heard of the FPJ.
According to the IRI's Caracas office, the FPJ ceased
to exist "several years ago." According to the IRI
website, prior to the 1998 elections the FPJ arranged
a pair of youth forums featuring major presidential
candidates. But neither the candidates nor the
television station supposedly involved had any record
or memory of such events.
The Caracas IRI office referred inquiries to
Washington, where a spokesman said the institute was
not commenting on its Venezuela work.
The IRI did carry out other activities here, including
political party-building workshops, which participants
described as valuable. However, only opposition
politicians were invited to those events, they added.
Some here justify the IRI's work with opposition
parties because of what they call Chávez's autocratic
style and his cut-off of the opposition's public
funding. "It's absolutely legitimate for anybody
trying to rebuild a democratic system," said Enrique
Salas Romer, the leader of the Venezuelan Project
party who lost to Chávez in the 1998 elections. "You
have government parties who have a lot of money and
opposition parties who have none."
In the Name of Democracy
However, the IRI evidently began opposing Chávez even
before his 1998 election. Prior to that year's
congressional and presidential elections, the IRI
worked with Venezuelan organizations critical of
Chávez to run newspaper ads, TV, and radio spots that
several observers characterize as anti-Chávez.
The IRI has also flown groups of Chávez opponents to
Washington to meet with U.S. officials. In March 2002,
a month before Chávez's brief ouster, one such group
of politicians, union leaders, and activists traveled
to DC to meet with U.S. officials, including members
of Congress and State Department staff. The trip came
at the time that several military officers were
calling for Chávez' resignation and talk of a possible
coup was widespread.
Trip participants said the U.S. officials expressed
support only for a constitutional departure for
Chávez. The Assembly of Educators' Carvajal, who
participated in the IRI trip, said that bringing
varied government opponents together in Washington
accelerated the unification of the opposition. "The
democratic opposition began to become cohesive," he
said. "We began to become a team." Shortly after
returning from that trip, Carvajal said, opposition
organizations "precipitated" a plan of action against
Chávez.
Mike Ceaser is a freelance journalist based in
Caracas, Venezuela. He can he reached at
<msceaser@yahoo.com>.
--- Mike Cole <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu> wrote:
>
> Is there any (or are there any) web pages that are
> tracking simultaneously such linked stories as INS
behavior toward middle eastern visa holders, callups
and movement of troops to the middle east, events in
Venezuela
> and the Korean peninsula?
>
> mike
=====
Claudia DaMetz
Computer Resource Specialist
University of California, San Diego
Department of Communication
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0503
__________________________________________________
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