Venezuela : Watchdogs don't bark at their imperialist USA master...
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=79621Published: Friday, May 08, 2009
Bylined to: Arthur Shaw
Arthur Shaw: Watchdogs don't bark at their imperialist USA master...
VHeadline commentarist Arthur Shaw writes: "Prominent Venezuelan nongovernmental organizations warned Thursday that a bill being drafted by lawmakers loyal to President Hugo Chavez could be used to financially strangle groups that criticize the government," the Associated Press, the largest bourgeois news agency, said May 7, 2009.
The proposed law working its way through the Venezuelan National Assembly increases oversight of the Venezuelan Government over foreign funding of groups and individuals in Venezuela who perform political services in Venezuela.
Paid agents of foreign governments in Venezuela oppose the proposed law, arguing that the proposed law, among other things, violates their free speech or their right to criticize the government.
But most of the political services rendered by these venal Venezuelan groups and individuals on the payroll of foreign governments consist of more that speaking freely. The political services for which these groups and individuals are paid commonly deal with various elections, like the presidential recall election of 2004, and like legislative struggles related to the constitutional reform of 2007 and the constitutional amendment of 2009.
Some of the so-called "watchdogs" deny that they engage in electoral and legislative struggles. But their denials are patent lies. Other times, these "watch dogs" concede they engage in these struggles, but they deny that their activity is in any way connected with the money they take from foreign sources. The proposed law calls their bluff or exposes their deceit on the latter contention, for if their activities are not connected with foreign money, then cutting off the foreign money will not end their activities.
The Venezuelan Government argues that the money from foreign government or fronts of foreign governments paid to operatives in Venezuela's electoral and legislative struggles is a form of corruption of civil society, of Venezuelan politics, and of the Venezuelan government itself and the government, under domestic and international law, has a right and a duty to combat corruption.
According to the AP article, a Feliciano Reyna, director of the "human rights watchdog Sinergia," said "The law would give the government discretional power to restrict the work of some NGOs or eliminate them.
" This is true only if these "watchdogs" perform political services or speak freely for money from foreign governments or fronts of foreign governments. Thus, if the flow of corruption money stops, then these canines will stop watching or performing.
The proposed law doesn't prevent the "watchdog" from watching or performing services or speaking freely.
The proposed law only prevents the "watchdogs" from taking money from a foreign principal in exchange for or in connection with the political services the "dogs" perform.
"Dozens of Venezuela's NGOs depend almost entirely on financing from foreign organizations and governments," Feliciano Reyna said, according to the AP piece. If these "NGOs depend almost entirely on financing from foreign organizations and governments," do they follow a foreign and anti-Venezuelan agenda externally imposed on them? And, if these "NGOs depend almost entirely on financing from foreign organizations and governments," then how can they call themselves "non-governmental" or NGOs? They are foreign governmental organizations or FGOs.
"These organizations must be autonomous, and financing through international cooperation allows them to be autonomous," Maria Corina Machado, director on one of these corrupt groups in Venezuela called Sumate, told the AP.
"Autonomous" from whom or from what?
Surely, these organizations are not "autonomous" from the foreign governments that corrupt them.
Machado's argument is that unless her organization depends on foreign funding, it isn't "autonomous." It seems to many of her critics that her organization will be more "autonomous" if it weren't corrupted by foreign principals. Machado is a celebrity in the reactionary and anti-democratic bourgeois movement in Venezuela and around the world.
At a photo-op a few years ago, she shook hands in the Oval Office with George W. Bush, the election-stealing and law-breaking US dictator. Machado who takes a lot of corruption money for US imperialist agency called "NED" argues that NED is a "private group."
In reality, NED gets 96% of its budget from the US government and it is either a US government agency or a front for the US imperialists.
Machado also argues the her activities are not political but educational ... she sometimes claims she "educates" citizens about their government. These are patent lies, for Machado is one of the most politically-active and influential persons in Venezuela.
Machado, Reyna, and the other corrupt "watchdogs" mentioned in the AP article say that a government that bars foreigners from paying citizens for political activities is repressive, dictatorial, no good, and deserves to be target of their "free speech."
In the 1970s the regime in Washington enacted a law ... the Federal Elections Campaign Act ... that bars US citizens from accepting anything of value from any foreign principal, whether public or private, "in connection with" any US election whether the election is national, state, county, municipal, or a mere school board district.
Here are the pertinent provisions of the US law which is a thousand times more restrictive than the proposed Venezuelan law: "It shall be unlawful for (1) a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make (A) a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election;"
And, the US law further says: "It shall be unlawful for (2) a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) from a foreign national."
"In connection with" an election can mean any kind of connection no matter how peripheral or no real connection at all.
Why don't the "watchdogs" like Machado and Reyna use their free speech to speak freely or criticize the bourgeois regime in the USA for setting a bad example?
The "watchdogs" don't bark at their imperialist master because the master will cut off their check or their corruption money. The "watchdogs" in Venezuela would no longer get those hundred of thousands and millions of US dollars from the bourgeois US regime ... the "watchdogs" care more about the dollars than their alleged political principles.
The US regime says it bars foreigners from making political contributions because there is already too much corruption ... domestically inspired ... in the US political system.
The Venezuelan Government insists that these groups and individuals ... the dogs ... will get the foreign money once they establish that it will not be used for corruption!
Arthur Shaw
arthur.shaw@vheadline.com
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