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US 'meddling' by funding Chavez foes -Venezuela

Posted on: Thursday, 15 September 2005, 16:40 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

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