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Democracy's 'special forces' face heat
By Jens Erik Gould
The Christian Science Monitor
February 6, 2006

CARACAS, VENEZUELA -- A diplomatic row between the United States and Venezuela escalated this past week when President Hugo Chávez expelled a US naval attaché for espionage, prompting Washington to order the Venezuelan ambassador's chief of staff to leave the US.

Mr. Chávez fanned the flames in front of thousands of supporters Saturday by vowing to buy more arms to defend his country from a possible US invasion.

Beyond the heated rhetoric on both sides, one of the actions the Chávez government views as most theatening is the US government's funding and support of opposition groups that Chávez charges hope to overthrow his government.

Tuesday, the attorney general is scheduled to take a get-out-the-vote group called Súmate to court on conspiracy charges for accepting $31,120 from the US-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The case, which comes at a time when US-sponsored democracy-building programs are facing increased scrutiny worldwide, has bolstered Chávez's claims that the US is meddling in Venezuelan affairs. Yet Washington says the persecution of Súmate, an organization highly critical of Chávez, smacks of a political witch hunt that damages democracy in the country.

Despite the attention the case has garnered, Súmate's NED money is small change compared with the millions of dollars given to Venezuelan groups by a little-known branch of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) called the Office for Transition Initiatives (OTI). The Venezuelan government and some analysts question OTI's motives in Venezuela, since it is less transparent than other US aid agencies, more directly tied to US foreign policy interests, and has unusual budgetary flexibility.

US aid agencies have been under scrutiny in Venezuela since it was revealed that some members of US-funded groups were at the forefront of the opposition movement and supported the failed coup against Chávez in 2002. But OTI's mode of operations, until recently, has gone under the radar.

Called "the special forces of development assistance" by Harvard University public policy professor Robert Rotberg, OTI was designed in the 1990s to help former Soviet Union countries make the transition to democracy. It now works in areas such as Iraq, Haiti, Sudan, and the West Bank.

Even though Venezuela is not experiencing the kind of civil strife seen in countries where OTI operates, OTI devoted $4.5 million to its Venezuelan program in 2005, more than six times NED's budget.

OTI, which derives its money from disaster-assistance funding, can issue urgent short-term grants much faster than normal USAID programs.

OTI says it works to nurture Venezuela's "fragile democratic institutions" by funding groups that strengthen human rights, the judicial system, and public dialogue in a polarized society.

But critics have raised concerns. "The [Bush] administration's nation-building mission includes trying to weaken or challenge the Chávez administration," said Riordan Roett, director of Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. "OTI is really at the front line of what the administration thinks of Venezuela."

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