communist fanatic
21st November 2005, 16:01
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13221493.htm
From the Miami Herald
Posted on Mon, Nov. 21, 2005
VENEZUELA
Chávez builds base with grass-roots circles in U.S.
President Chávez mixes oil politics with grass-roots activism to create a political base in the United States.
BY PABLO BACHELET
[email protected]
WASHINGTON - Miami's Jesús Soto supports Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's vision of ''participatory democracy.'' Valerie Pusch of Chicago backs Chávez because of his policies on behalf of the poor.
And they say so loudly, as heads of their local Bolivarian Circles -- among the dozen or so U.S. copies of the groups Chávez has set up throughout his country to mobilize Venezuelans on behalf of his socialist ``revolution.''
Even as Chávez attacks President Bush as his sworn nemesis, his government is running a strong campaign to curry favor with U.S. citizens through leftist grass-roots groups, paid lobbyists and public relations operatives and offers of cheap fuel for America's poor.
The Venezuelan leader is running a ''grass-roots foreign policy,'' said Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Washington based Center for Economic and Policy Research, a group that supports Chávez.
''Obviously the government of the United States has not been very friendly and [the Venezuelans] figure they have a better chance at dealing directly with the people who don't have any particular reason not to like Venezuela,'' he added.
Chávez steadily accuses the Bush administration of planning to topple him, and his prosecutors have even filed charges of ''conspiracy to destroy the nation's republican form of government'' against four leaders of a Venezuelan activist group that got U.S. funds and helped organize a failed recall vote on the president last year.
Bush administration policy on both Venezuela and Cuba is to support pro-democracy groups -- and Chávez seems to be taking a page from the same book.
Earlier this month, about 1,300 persons paid $20 each to attend ''an evening of solidarity with Bolivarian Venezuela'' in New York. Partly organized by the local Bolivarian Circle, it also was endorsed by more than 80 left-wing organizations ranging from the U.S. antiwar group ANSWER to the Cuban legislature in Havana.
Organizers said it was the largest U.S. public demonstration to date in favor of Chávez, and was followed a few days later by a similar affair in Los Angeles.
Some 15 Bolivarian Circles -- named after Venezuelan independence hero and Chávez icon Simón Bolivar -- now operate in the United States, in cities with populations of Venezuelan expatriates like Cincinnati, Boston and Miami, but also in places like Salt Lake City, Knoxville and Milwaukee.
SPONTANEOUS GROUPS?
Although interviews with several members suggest the U.S. groups sprang up spontaneously and are not directed from Caracas, they seem to share strong left-of-center views.
One member of the Detroit circle, Martin Schreader, is also an activist in the Detroit Working People's Association, whose website defines it as ``working for the liberation of working people and the abolition of modern slavery -- wage-slavery.''
''Our purpose is to tell the world that there's no dictatorship in Venezuela,'' said Soto, a former police chief in Venezuela who founded the Miami circle in 2001. With 185 members of several nationalities, he says his group is the biggest of the U.S. circles.
Pusch, an adult education teacher married to a Venezuelan, said that if the United States is supposed to be supporting democratic processeses, ``why is there is so much trouble accepting this democratically elected president?''
The Venezuelan government appears to have started reaching out to U.S. organizations two years ago, when its embassy in Washington created the Venezuela Information Office -- fully-funded by Caracas with nearly $800,000 in the year ending Aug. 31, according to Foreign Agents Registration Act filings at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Its first head was Deborah James, who went there from Global Exchange, a group that shares Chávez's strongly anti-free trade views. The office's Justice Department filings say it contacts journalists, to seek ''balance'' in the reporting on Venezuela, and key congressional staffers.
''The Venezuelan government feels frustration that their side of the story is not getting out,'' said Eric Wingerter, a spokesman who used to work for Defenders of Wildlife and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
The filings also show the Venezuelan embassy hired a marquee Washington lobby firm, Patton Boggs LLP, in September 2003 and paid it about $1.6 million. But the contract was not renewed when it expired late last year because the embassy ran out of money, said Venezuela's ambassador in Washington, Bernardo Alvarez.
MONEY FOR LOBBYISTS
According to the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based group that tracks lobbying payments, Venezuela paid out $500,000 for lobbying in 2004, mostly through its state oil company PDVSA and its U.S. branch, Citgo.
In another effort by Chávez to curry favor with Americans, Venezuela, which already supplies 12-15 percent of U.S. oil imports per year, offered to send more fuel after Hurricane Katrina and to sell cheap heating oil for America's poor, working through members of Congress who are friendly to Chávez.
Just last week, Citgo clinched a deal to sell 12 million gallons of discounted heating oil to 45,000 families in Massachusetts, in a deal brokered with Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., and the nonprofit Citizen's Energy Corp.
Fadi Kabboul, a Venezuelan embassy advisor on energy issues, said Citgo hoped to reach a similar deal with the office of Rep. José Serrano, D-N.Y., who represents the Bronx.
Venezuelan officials say the savings for end users on both deals would be about $10 million.
Last month, Ambassador Alvarez sent Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, a letter highlighting Venezuela's decision to send an additional 2.5 million barrels of gasoline, jet fuel and diesel to help ease U.S. shortages caused by hurricanes.
To Bush administration officials the names of organizations that back the Venezuelan president have a familiar ring to them.
''The Venezuelans just got the Rolodex from Cuba,'' said one senior State Department official who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue.
One of the scheduled speakers at the New York event was actor Danny Glover, a strong critic of U.S. sanctions on Cuba. He could not attend because he was filming.
Another speaker, Rev. Lucius Walker of the group Pastors for Peace, routinely challenges the trade embargo on Cuba by organizing aid shipments to the island and all but daring U.S. Customs officials to seize the goods.
From the Miami Herald
Posted on Mon, Nov. 21, 2005
VENEZUELA
Chávez builds base with grass-roots circles in U.S.
President Chávez mixes oil politics with grass-roots activism to create a political base in the United States.
BY PABLO BACHELET
[email protected]
WASHINGTON - Miami's Jesús Soto supports Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's vision of ''participatory democracy.'' Valerie Pusch of Chicago backs Chávez because of his policies on behalf of the poor.
And they say so loudly, as heads of their local Bolivarian Circles -- among the dozen or so U.S. copies of the groups Chávez has set up throughout his country to mobilize Venezuelans on behalf of his socialist ``revolution.''
Even as Chávez attacks President Bush as his sworn nemesis, his government is running a strong campaign to curry favor with U.S. citizens through leftist grass-roots groups, paid lobbyists and public relations operatives and offers of cheap fuel for America's poor.
The Venezuelan leader is running a ''grass-roots foreign policy,'' said Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Washington based Center for Economic and Policy Research, a group that supports Chávez.
''Obviously the government of the United States has not been very friendly and [the Venezuelans] figure they have a better chance at dealing directly with the people who don't have any particular reason not to like Venezuela,'' he added.
Chávez steadily accuses the Bush administration of planning to topple him, and his prosecutors have even filed charges of ''conspiracy to destroy the nation's republican form of government'' against four leaders of a Venezuelan activist group that got U.S. funds and helped organize a failed recall vote on the president last year.
Bush administration policy on both Venezuela and Cuba is to support pro-democracy groups -- and Chávez seems to be taking a page from the same book.
Earlier this month, about 1,300 persons paid $20 each to attend ''an evening of solidarity with Bolivarian Venezuela'' in New York. Partly organized by the local Bolivarian Circle, it also was endorsed by more than 80 left-wing organizations ranging from the U.S. antiwar group ANSWER to the Cuban legislature in Havana.
Organizers said it was the largest U.S. public demonstration to date in favor of Chávez, and was followed a few days later by a similar affair in Los Angeles.
Some 15 Bolivarian Circles -- named after Venezuelan independence hero and Chávez icon Simón Bolivar -- now operate in the United States, in cities with populations of Venezuelan expatriates like Cincinnati, Boston and Miami, but also in places like Salt Lake City, Knoxville and Milwaukee.
SPONTANEOUS GROUPS?
Although interviews with several members suggest the U.S. groups sprang up spontaneously and are not directed from Caracas, they seem to share strong left-of-center views.
One member of the Detroit circle, Martin Schreader, is also an activist in the Detroit Working People's Association, whose website defines it as ``working for the liberation of working people and the abolition of modern slavery -- wage-slavery.''
''Our purpose is to tell the world that there's no dictatorship in Venezuela,'' said Soto, a former police chief in Venezuela who founded the Miami circle in 2001. With 185 members of several nationalities, he says his group is the biggest of the U.S. circles.
Pusch, an adult education teacher married to a Venezuelan, said that if the United States is supposed to be supporting democratic processeses, ``why is there is so much trouble accepting this democratically elected president?''
The Venezuelan government appears to have started reaching out to U.S. organizations two years ago, when its embassy in Washington created the Venezuela Information Office -- fully-funded by Caracas with nearly $800,000 in the year ending Aug. 31, according to Foreign Agents Registration Act filings at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Its first head was Deborah James, who went there from Global Exchange, a group that shares Chávez's strongly anti-free trade views. The office's Justice Department filings say it contacts journalists, to seek ''balance'' in the reporting on Venezuela, and key congressional staffers.
''The Venezuelan government feels frustration that their side of the story is not getting out,'' said Eric Wingerter, a spokesman who used to work for Defenders of Wildlife and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
The filings also show the Venezuelan embassy hired a marquee Washington lobby firm, Patton Boggs LLP, in September 2003 and paid it about $1.6 million. But the contract was not renewed when it expired late last year because the embassy ran out of money, said Venezuela's ambassador in Washington, Bernardo Alvarez.
MONEY FOR LOBBYISTS
According to the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based group that tracks lobbying payments, Venezuela paid out $500,000 for lobbying in 2004, mostly through its state oil company PDVSA and its U.S. branch, Citgo.
In another effort by Chávez to curry favor with Americans, Venezuela, which already supplies 12-15 percent of U.S. oil imports per year, offered to send more fuel after Hurricane Katrina and to sell cheap heating oil for America's poor, working through members of Congress who are friendly to Chávez.
Just last week, Citgo clinched a deal to sell 12 million gallons of discounted heating oil to 45,000 families in Massachusetts, in a deal brokered with Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., and the nonprofit Citizen's Energy Corp.
Fadi Kabboul, a Venezuelan embassy advisor on energy issues, said Citgo hoped to reach a similar deal with the office of Rep. José Serrano, D-N.Y., who represents the Bronx.
Venezuelan officials say the savings for end users on both deals would be about $10 million.
Last month, Ambassador Alvarez sent Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, a letter highlighting Venezuela's decision to send an additional 2.5 million barrels of gasoline, jet fuel and diesel to help ease U.S. shortages caused by hurricanes.
To Bush administration officials the names of organizations that back the Venezuelan president have a familiar ring to them.
''The Venezuelans just got the Rolodex from Cuba,'' said one senior State Department official who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue.
One of the scheduled speakers at the New York event was actor Danny Glover, a strong critic of U.S. sanctions on Cuba. He could not attend because he was filming.
Another speaker, Rev. Lucius Walker of the group Pastors for Peace, routinely challenges the trade embargo on Cuba by organizing aid shipments to the island and all but daring U.S. Customs officials to seize the goods.