US ‘meddling’ by funding Chavez foes -Venezuela

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) – Venezuela on Thursday
rejected as hypocritical “meddling” a decision by a U.S.
Congress-funded group to send more money to Venezuelan
opposition activists who face trial after receiving financing
to promote a vote against President Hugo Chavez last year.

The National Endowment for Democracy, a nongovernmental
group that distributes U.S. congressional funds to promote
democracy, said this week it had approved another grant for the
Sumate association for election and civil rights programs.

A Venezuelan judge in August ordered four members of Sumate
tried for conspiracy after they received a grant from the
endowment last year and Chavez charged them with backing an
April 2002 coup during which he was briefly toppled.

The Sumate case has underscored the testy relations between
the United States and Venezuela, the world’s No. 5 oil exporter
and a key petroleum supplier to the U.S. market.

A firebrand nationalist, Chavez charges Washington with
plotting to assassinate him. U.S. officials say he uses his
country’s oil wealth to fund subversive groups and threaten
regional stability in league with his ally Communist Cuba.

“This puts in its place the argument the U.S. government
has tried to use against Chavez that he meddles in the affairs
of other countries,” Venezuela’s Vice President Jose Vicente
Rangel told reporters.

“Behind this aid, is the influence of a foreign government
meddling in Venezuela,” he said.

Chavez, a populist former army soldier elected in 1998 who
supporters say is a champion of the poor, has accused the
National Endowment for Democracy of backing U.S. attempts to
topple his government. He says Sumate members are traitors.

One Sumate leader, Maria Corina Machado, held talks with
U.S. President George W. Bush in the White House in May.

But opposition leaders and U.S. officials say the group is
the target of a political crackdown against critics of the
Venezuelan president. Chavez won the August 2004 referendum
Sumate helped organize.

Representatives of the group reject government charges and
say their trial is political. The Sumate members face up to 16
years in prison if they are convicted. No date has been set for
their trial.