Venezuela: NED Will Send More Money to Súmate

The Miami Herald reports that the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which gets most of its funding directly from the U.S. Congress, has approved another grant for Venezuelan opposition group Súmate. The group organized last year’s recall referendum against President Hugo Chávez while it was receiving money from the NED, which has led the government to file legal charges against it. As attorney and researcher Eva Golinger predicted when she spoke to Narco News in May, the amount of money going from the U.S. government into Venezuelan opposition groups seems to be  increasing; Súmate’s new grant is three times greater than the one in 2004 that first got it into trouble… Miami Herald correspondent Pablo Blanchelet writes:

WASHINGTON - A U.S. government-funded organization has approved another grant to a Venezuelan citizens group whose leaders already face charges in Venezuela of using Washington's money to try to overthrow President Hugo Chávez's government, officials said Monday.

The board of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) approved the grant on Friday, an NED official said.

María Corina Machado, a spokeswoman for the Caracas-based Súmate, said the group planned to issue a formal statement once the paperwork was signed.

Read the full story here.

The Miami Herald story, of course, ignores all context and background, such as the fact that NED’s funding of Súmate is only part of a program that funnels millions of dollars into the Venezuelan opposition each year, in activities that would be illegal if another country tried to interfere in the same way in U.S. politics.