Back in December I spoke at length to a NED program officer named Fabiola Cordova. She had recently taken over the Haiti file after some recent turnover which saw the departure of Program Officer Jennifer Stevens, and long time right hand man for Carl Gershman, Christopher Sabatini (Sabatini, from his new office at
Council of the Americas, refused to discuss his work with the NED in Haiti, even disparaging me because of my affiliation with Narconews). Cordova, new to her job with NED but bringing with her six months of in-country Haiti experience (with NED affiliate,
NDI, in 2002), gave me considerable insight regarding the NED's policies in Haiti and Venezuela prior to the overthrow of Aristide and the Lavalas government:
"When I was in Haiti when Aristide was still there he had obviously a prominent presence both in Congress and local government and everywhere else in public life. There were a lot of lines being drawn between Haiti and Venezuela, that, basically, Venezuela could become a Haiti where you have, well, a democratically elected leader but that's slowly taking over all the branches of government and then arming their own people and the opposition is getting armed..."