Is Chavez Funding Evo? Si o No?

In the run up to the December elections the US State Department has made it a very clear policy to charge, over and over again, that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is providing secret funding to MAS and Evo Morales.

Here’s what the State Department has to say in a formal declaration posted August 5th on its Web site:

The U.S. State Department has expressed its concern that Venezuela is using its wealth gained from oil production to destabilize the country's democratic neighbors in the Americas by funding anti-democratic groups in Bolivia, Ecuador, and elsewhere.

Since the clear Bolivian reference is to MAS (see the additional statement below) it is now the official position of the US government that MAS is not a legitimate political party (the US regularly funds political parties in other countries through the NED) but an “anti-democratic” organization. It would be interesting to know what standard the US uses to establish an organization as “anti-democratic”.

A Pentagon official, deputy assistant secretary Roger Pardo-Maurer, went one big step farther, saying that MAS is actually being managed from abroad (money from Chavez, commands from Fidel). Here’s the quote from an article in the San Diego Union-Tribune:

"There is no question" that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is "providing money and moral support" for opposition forces in Bolivia, who are led by a populist congressman, Evo Morales. While Chavez provides the resources for the Bolivian opposition, Cuban President Fidel Castro provides the direction and organization, Pardo-Maurer said.

The “Fidel is calling all the shots” line is actually pretty funny to anyone who actually follows this stuff, the rough equivalent to “There are Commies under your bed.” How is he providing the “organization”? I have yet to find one Cuban going door to door here for Evo in Cochabamba, and believe me, you can tell a Cuban from a Bolivian by his or her accent. I am sure that Evo gets lots of advice from Fidel when they chat but mostly what MAS seems to be doing is operating without much strategy, reacting to events driven by others.

But is Chavez giving MAS moolah? Amidst all the declarations of such, the State Department has actually been hard pressed to offer up any hard evidence. Here’s an interesting dispatch about a news conference on the topic last week. According to this article:

US Department spokesman, Tom Casey had a rough time at the press conference in Washington attempting to brush off questions about concrete evidence of Venezuela's alleged destabilization campaign in South America. Casey refused to release damning details, claiming that they were based on intelligence secrets and unavailable for public distribution. Ducking an insistent call from reporters to provide evidence, an embarrassed Casey urged them to seek out public archives and read newspaper commentaries about the Venezuelan government's activities in Bolivia.

This is starting to sound a lot like the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

I am not saying here that Chavez hasn’t given support to MAS (it wouldn’t be a big surprise to me, frankly) but if anyone has actual evidence that he has, I’d sure like to see it. As the saying goes, “Show me the Money!”

All of this begs the question of course of how hypocritical it is for the US to charge any nation with seeking to influence the politics of another. Shall we recite the list...war in Vietnam, coup in Chile, backing the Shah, invading Iraq... The US has made invading and influencing other nation’s internal politics a national pastime. Saying that Chavez (rightly or wrongly) is giving cash to MAS is a little like Godzilla calling a lizard a reptile.

Have at it commentators.