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</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://ucs-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/global-warming/ExxonMobil-grants-2020.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://ucs-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/global-warming/ExxonMobil-grants-2020.pdf</a></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ExxonMobil Foundation and Corporate Grants to Climate Science Denier and Obstructionist Organizations</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Organization&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 2020&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Total Years</b></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Acton Institute $365,000 1998–2007</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Advancement of Sound Science Center $50,000 2000–2004</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">American Conservative Union Foundation $90,000 2005–2008</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">American Council for Capital Formation</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Center for Policy Research</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$1,779,523 1998–2015</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">American Council on Science and Health $345,000 2000–2018</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">American Enterprise Institute $100,000 $4,860,000 1998–2020</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">American Legislative Exchange Council $1,928,200 1998–2017</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">American Spectator Foundation $115,000 2005–2009</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Annapolis Center $1,153,500 1998–2009</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Atlas Economic Research Foundation $1,082,500 1998–2009</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Capital Research Center</span>&nbsp;/ Greenwatch $265,000 2000–2007</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Cato Institute&nbsp;</b>$125,000 1998–2006</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Center for a New Europe-USA $170,000 2003–2005</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Center for American and International Law</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">(formerly</span>&nbsp;<b>Southwestern Legal Foundation</b>)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$560,650 1998–2019</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Center for Defense of Free Enterprise $230,000 2003–2005</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Center for the Study of CO2 and Global Change&nbsp;</b>$100,000 1998–2006</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Chemical Education Foundation $155,000 2001–2007</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow $582,000</b>&nbsp;1998–2007</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Communications Institute $515,000 2004–2011</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Competitive Enterprise Institute $2,005,000 1998–2005</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Congress of Racial Equality $325,000&nbsp;</b>2003–2008</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Consumer Alert $70,000</span>&nbsp;1998–2004</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Environmental Literacy Council $100,000 2005–2007</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Federal Focus $125,000 2005</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Federalist Society $280,000 2000–2019</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Foundation for Research on Economics and the</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Environment</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$450,000 1998–2012</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Fraser Institute $120,000 2003–2004</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Free Enterprise Action Institute $50,000 2003</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Free Enterprise Education Institute $80,000 2004–2005</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">FreedomWorks (formerly Citizens for a</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sound Economy)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$380,250 1998–2001</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Frontiers of Freedom $1,272,000 2000–2007</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>George C. Marshall Institute $865,000&nbsp;</b>1999–2011</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Heartland Institute $676,500 1998–2006</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Heritage Foundation $830,000 1998–2013</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Hoover Institution (Stanford University) $430,000 1998–2019</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>ExxonMobil Foundation and Corporate Grants</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">to Climate Science Denier and Obstructionist Organizations</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Organization 2020 Total Years</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Hudson Institute&nbsp;</b>$40,000 2000–2015</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Independent Institute $85,000 1998–2007</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Independent Women's Forum $65,000</b>&nbsp;2002–2013</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Institute for Energy Research /</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">American Energy Alliance</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$337,000 2002–2007</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Institute for Senior Studies $30,000 2005</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Institute for Study of Earth and Man $76,500 2000–2005</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>International Policy Network - North America $390,000&nbsp;</b>2003–2006</div><div style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">International Republican Institute $115,000&nbsp;1998–2005</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Landmark Legal Foundation $90,000 2002–2010</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Law and Economics Center</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>(George Mason University)</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>$475,000 1998–2015</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lexington Institute $10,000 2002</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lindenwood University $40,000 2004–2008</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Manhattan Institute $1,415,200 1998–2019</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Media Institute $120,000</b>&nbsp;1998–2005</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Media Research Center / Cybercast News Service $362,500</span>&nbsp;2003–2009</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mercatus Center (George Mason University) $415,000 2003–2016</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Mountain States Legal Foundation $90,000</b>&nbsp;2008–2019</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">National Association of Neighborhoods $225,000 2002–2010</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>National Black Chamber of Commerce $1,195,000&nbsp;</b>2002–2018</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">National Center for Policy Analysis $645,900 1998–2008</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">National Center for Public Policy Research $445,000 1998–2008</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">National Legal Center for the Public Interest $216,500 1998–2006</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">National Taxpayers Union Foundation $865,000 2006–2017</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Pacific Legal Foundation $285,000&nbsp;</b>1998–2015</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy $665,000</b>&nbsp;1998–2009</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Property and Environment Research Center</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">(formerly Political Economy Research Center)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$155,000 1998–2007</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Reason Foundation / Reason Public Policy Institute $321,000</b>&nbsp;1998–2005</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Regulatory Checkbook $50,000 2006</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Regulatory Studies Center</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>(George Washington University)</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$140,000 $1,207,000 2013–2020</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Science and Environmental Policy Project $20,000</b>&nbsp;1998–2000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory $417,212 2005–2009<b>&nbsp;SOON</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Tech Central Science Foundation $95,000 2003</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Texas Public Policy Foundation $80,000&nbsp;</b>1998–2011</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">U.S. Chamber of Commerce $250,000&nbsp;<b>$5,045,000&nbsp;</b>2014–2020</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Washington&nbsp;<b>Legal Foundation</b>&nbsp;$655,000 1998–2019</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b>Totals $490,000&nbsp;</b>$39,273,935 1998-2020</span></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-making-of-juan-guaido-how-the-us-regime-change-laboratory-created-venezuela-coup-leader/254387/">https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-making-of-juan-guaido-how-the-us-regime-change-laboratory-created-venezuela-coup-leader/254387/</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><a href="https://grayzoneproject.com/2019/01/29/the-making-of-juan-guaido-how-the-us-regime-change-laboratory-created-venezuelas-coup-leader/amp/?_twitter_impression=true" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Project</a>&nbsp;—<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;</span></span><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Before the fateful day of January 22,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/venanalysis/status/1087447663153500166" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">fewer than one in five</a>&nbsp;Venezuelans had heard of Juan Guaidó. Only a few months ago, the 35-year-old was an obscure character in a politically marginal far-right group closely associated with gruesome acts of street violence. Even in his own party, Guaidó had been a mid-level figure in the opposition-dominated National Assembly, which is now held under contempt according to Venezuela’s constitution.</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But after a single phone call from US Vice President Mike Pence, Guaidó proclaimed himself as president of Venezuela. Anointed as the leader of his country by Washington, a previously unknown political bottom dweller was vaulted onto the international stage as the US-selected leader of the nation with the world’s largest oil reserves.</font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Echoing the Washington consensus, the New York Times editorial board&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/24/opinion/venezuela-guaido-maduro.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">hailed&nbsp;</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Guaidó as a “credible rival” to Maduro with a “refreshing style and vision of taking the country forward.” The Bloomberg News editorial board&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-25/guaido-s-bold-stroke-for-democracy-in-venezuela" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">applauded</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;him for seeking “restoration of democracy” and the Wall Street Journal&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/revolt-in-venezuela-11548289111" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">declared</a>&nbsp;him</span><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;“a new democratic leader.” Meanwhile, Canada, numerous European nations, Israel, and the bloc of right-wing Latin American governments known as the Lima Group recognized Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>While Guaidó seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, he was, in fact, the product of more than a decade of assiduous grooming by the US government’s elite regime change factories.&nbsp;</b>Alongside a cadre of right-wing student activists, Guaidó was cultivated to undermine Venezuela’s socialist-oriented government, destabilize the country, and one day seize power. Though he has been a minor figure in Venezuelan politics, he had spent years quietly demonstrated his worthiness in Washington’s halls of power</span>.</font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Juan Guaidó is a character that has been created for this circumstance,”&nbsp;</b>Marco Teruggi, an Argentinian sociologist and leading chronicler of Venezuelan politics, told the Grayzone. “It’s the logic of a laboratory – Guaidó is like a mixture of several elements that create a character who, in all honesty, oscillates between laughable and worrying.”</font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Diego Sequera, a Venezuelan journalist and writer for the investigative outlet, Mision Verdad, agreed: “Guaidó is more popular outside Venezuela than inside, especially in the elite Ivy League and Washington circles,” Sequera remarked to the Grayzone, “He’s a known character there, is predictably right-wing, and is considered loyal to the program.”</font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>While Guaidó is today sold as the face of democratic restoration, he spent his career in the most violent faction of Venezuela’s most radical opposition party, positioning himself at the forefront of one destabilization campaign after another. His party has been widely discredited inside Venezuela, and is held partly responsible for fragmenting a badly weakened opposition.</b></font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">“‘These radical leaders have no more than 20 percent in opinion polls,”&nbsp;<a href="http://www.caraotadigital.net/nacionales/luis-vicente-leon-la-oposicion-politica-venezolana-vive-su-peor-momento-historico/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">wrote</a>&nbsp;</span><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Luis Vicente León, Venezuela’s leading pollster. According to Leon, Guaidó’s party remains isolated because the majority of the population “does not want war. ‘What they want is a solution.’”</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But this is precisely why he Guaidó was selected by Washington: he is not expected to lead Venezuela towards to democracy, but to collapse a country that for the past two decades has been a bulwark of resistance to US hegemony. His unlikely rise signals the culmination of a two-decades-long project to destroy a robust socialist experiment.</font></span></p><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Targeting the “troika of tyranny”</font></span></h2><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Since the 1998 election of Hugo Chavez, the United States has fought to restore control over Venezuela and is vast oil reserves. Chavez’s socialist programs may have redistributed the country’s wealth and helped lift millions out of poverty, but they also earned him a target on his back. In 2002, Venezuela’s right-wing opposition briefly ousted him with US support and recognition before the military restored his presidency following a mass popular mobilization. Throughout the administrations of US Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Chavez survived numerous assassination plots before succumbing to cancer in 2013. His successor, Nicolas Maduro, has&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/27/maduro-assassination-plot-venezuela_n_3820765.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">survived</a>&nbsp;<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2344973.stm" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">three attempts</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;on his life.</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Trump administration immediately elevated Venezuela to the top of Washington’s regime change target list, branding it the leader of a&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-national-security-advisor-ambassador-john-r-bolton-administrations-policies-latin-america/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">“troika of tyranny.”</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Last year, Trump’s national security team&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/americas/donald-trump-venezuela-military-coup.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">attempted</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;to recruit members of the military brass to mount a military junta, but that effort failed. According to the Venezuelan government, the US was also involved in a plot codenamed Operation Constitution to capture Maduro at the Miraflores presidential palace, and another called&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-27/inside-the-failed-plot-to-overthrow-venezuelan-president-nicolas-maduro" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Operation Armageddon</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;to assassinate him at a military parade in July 2017. Just over a year later, exiled opposition leaders&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J71BT0stT3k" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">tried and failed to kill Maduro</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;with drone bombs during a military parade in Caracas.</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More than a decade before these intrigues, a group of right-wing opposition students were hand selected and groomed by an elite, US-funded regime change training academy to topple Venezuela’s government and restore the neoliberal order.</font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Training from the “‘export-a-revolution’ group that sowed the seeds for a NUMBER of color revolutions”</font></span></h2><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">On October 5, 2005, with Chavez’s popularity at its peak and his government planning sweeping socialist programs, five Venezuelan “student leaders”&nbsp;</span><a href="https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/venezuela-marigold-revolution" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">arrived</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;in Belgrade, Serbia to begin training for an insurrection.</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The students had arrived from Venezuela courtesy of the&nbsp;<b>Center for Applied Non-Violent Action and Strategies, or CANVAS</b></span><b>.</b>&nbsp;This group is&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2013/01/14/breaking-desperate-for-destabilization-in-venezuela-us-funded-otpor-rears-its-ugly-head/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">funded</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;largely through the&nbsp;<a href="https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/08/20/inside-americas-meddling-machine-the-us-funded-group-that-interferes-in-elections-around-the-globe/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">National Endowment for Democracy</a>, a CIA cut-out that functions as the US government’s main arm of promoting regime change; and offshoots like the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b style=""> International Republican Institute</b> </span>and the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.&nbsp;According to leaked internal&nbsp;</span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/17/1792423_information-on-canvas-.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">emails</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;from<b>&nbsp;Stratfor, an intelligence firm known as the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/12/15/stratfor-canadian-government_n_4449505.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">“shadow CIA,”</a>&nbsp;</b>“[CANVAS] may have also received CIA funding and training during the 1999/2000 anti-Milosevic struggle.”</span></span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">CANVAS is a spinoff of Otpor, a Serbian protest group founded by&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO1Oct2017.php" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Srdja Popovic</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;in 1998 at the University of Belgrade. Otpor, which means “resistance” in Serbian, was the student group that gained international fame – and Hollywood-level&nbsp;</span><a href="https://vimeo.com/143379353" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">promotion</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;– by mobilizing the protests that eventually toppled Slobodan Milosevic. This small cell of regime change specialists was operating according to the theories of the late Gene Sharp, the so-called “Clausewitz of non-violent struggle.” Sharp had worked with a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, Col.&nbsp;</span><a href="http://peacemagazine.org/archive/v24n1p12.htm" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Robert Helvey</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">, to conceive a strategic blueprint that weaponized protest as a form of hybrid warfare, aiming it at states that resisted Washington’s unipolar domination.</span></font></p><div id="attachment_254388" class="wp-caption aligncenter" source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" width="width" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%; margin: 0px auto 24px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A fence covered with posters of Slobodan Milosevic behind bars, titled “When?” and “People’s Movement Otpor” in Belgrade, Serbia, March 30, 2001. Darko Vojinovic | AP]</font></p></div><figure id="attachment_1809" class="wp-caption alignnone amp-wp-inline-086b83d24e4412010a175ea3dba11ca3" source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 40px 12px; max-width: 100%;"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Otpor was supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, USAID and Sharp’s Albert Einstein Institute</span>. Sinisa Sikman, one of Otpor’s main trainers, once&nbsp;</span><a href="https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/17/1792423_information-on-canvas-.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">said</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;the group even received direct CIA funding. According to a&nbsp;</span><a href="https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/17/1713359_re-insight-venezuela-canvas-analysis-.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">leaked email</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;from a<b>&nbsp;Stratfor</b>&nbsp;staffer, after running Milosevic out of power, “the kids who ran OTPOR grew up, got suits and designed CANVAS… or in other words a ;export-a-revolution’ group that sowed the seeds for a NUMBER of color revolutions. They are still hooked into U.S. funding and basically go around the world trying to topple dictators and autocratic governments (ones that U.S. does not like ;).”</span></font></figcaption></figure><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stratfor revealed that CANVAS “turned its attention to Venezuela” in 2005 after training opposition movements that led pro-NATO regime change operations across Eastern Europe.</font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>While monitoring the CANVAS training program, Stratfor outlined its insurrectionist agenda in strikingly blunt language:</b>&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Success is by no means guaranteed, and student movements are only at the beginning of what could be a years-long effort to trigger a revolution in Venezuela, but the trainers themselves are the people who cut their teeth on the ‘Butcher of the Balkans.’ They’ve got mad skills. When you see students at five Venezuelan universities hold simultaneous demonstrations, you will know that the training is over and the real work has begun.”</span></font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Birthing the “Generation 2007” regime change cadre</font></span></h2><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The “real work” began two years later, in 2007, when Guaidó graduated from Andrés Bello Catholic University of Caracas. He moved to Washington DC to enroll in the Governance and Political Management&nbsp;</span><a href="http://sri.ucab.edu.ve/sites/default/files/Convenio%20UCAB-%20CAF%20George%20Washington%20University.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Program</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;at George Washington University under the tutelage of Venezuelan economist Luis Enrique&nbsp;<b>Berrizbeitia</b>, one of the top Latin American neoliberal economists. Berrizbeitia is a&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.caf.com/media/3571/resumenexecutive.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">former executive director</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;of the International Monetary Fund who spent more than a decade working in Venezuelan energy sector under the oligarchic old regime that was ousted by Chavez.</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">That year, Guaidó helped lead anti-government rallies after the Venezuelan government&nbsp;</span><a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2424" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">declined to</a></span><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;to renew the license of Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV). This privately-owned station played a leading role in the 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez.</span>&nbsp;RCTV helped mobilize anti-government demonstrators, falsified information blaming government supporters for acts of violence carried out by opposition members, and banned pro-government reporting amid the coup.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The role of RCTV and other oligarch-owned stations in driving the failed coup attempt was chronicled in the acclaimed documentary, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.</span></span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">That same year, the students claimed credit for stymying Chavez’s constitutional referendum for a “21st century socialism” that&nbsp;</span><a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2890" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">promised</a></span><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;“to set the legal framework for the political and social reorganization of the country, giving direct power to organized communities as a prerequisite for the development of a new economic system.</span>”</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">From the protests around RCTV and the referendum, a specialized cadre of US-backed class of regime change activists was born. They called themselves “Generation 2007.”</font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The&nbsp;<b>Stratfor</b>&nbsp;and CANVAS trainers of this cell identified Guaidó’s ally – a&nbsp;<b>street organizer named Yon Goicoechea – as a “key factor” in defeating the constitutional referendum.&nbsp;</b>The following year, Goicochea was&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.cato.org/friedman-prize/yon-goicoechea" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">rewarded</a><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;for his efforts with the Cato Institute’s Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, along with a $500,000 prize, which he promptly invested into building his own Liberty First (Primero Justicia) political network.</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[milton prize px]</font></span></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx pix</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Goicoechea receives the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, May 15, 2008. Seth Wenig | AP</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Friedman, of course, was the godfather of the notorious neoliberal Chicago Boys who were imported into Chile by dictatorial junta leader Augusto Pinochet to implement policies of radical “shock doctrine”-style fiscal austerity. And the<b>&nbsp;Cato Institute is the libertarian Washington DC-based think tank founded by the Koch Brothers, two top Republican Party donors who have become aggressive supporters of the right-wing across Latin America.</b></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Wikileaks published a 2007 email from<b>&nbsp;American ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield</b>&nbsp;sent to the State Department, National Security Council and Department of Defense Southern Command praising “Generation of ’07” for having “forced the Venezuelan president, accustomed to setting the political agenda, to (over)react.” Among the “emerging leaders” Brownfield identified were Freddy Guevara and Yon Goicoechea. He applauded the latter figure as “one of the students’ most articulate defenders of civil liberties.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Flush with cash from libertarian oligarchs and US government soft power outfits, the radical Venezuelan cadre took their Otpor tactics to the streets, along with a version of the group’s logo, as seen below:</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Otpor | Venezuela px]</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Galvanizing public unrest…to take advantage of the situation and spin it against Chavez”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2009, the Generation 2007 youth activists staged their most provocative demonstration yet, dropping their pants on public roads and aping the outrageous guerrilla theater tactics outlined by Gene Sharp in his regime change manuals. The protesters had mobilized against the arrest of an ally from another newfangled youth group called JAVU. This far-right group “gathered funds from a variety of US government sources, which allowed it to gain notoriety quickly as the hardline wing of opposition street movements,” according to academic George Ciccariello-Maher’s book, “Building the Commune.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While video of the protest is not available, many Venezuelans have identified Guaidó as one of its key participants. While the allegation is unconfirmed, it is certainly plausible; the bare-buttocks protesters were members of the Generation 2007 inner core that Guaidó belonged to, and were clad in their trademark Resistencia! Venezuela t-shirts, as seen below:</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Juan Guaido | Protest</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Is this the ass that Trump wants to install in Venezuela’s seat of power?</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That year, Guaidó exposed himself to the public in another way, founding a political party to capture the anti-Chavez energy his Generation 2007 had cultivated. Called Popular Will, it was led by<b>&nbsp;Leopoldo López, a Princeton-educated right-wing firebrand heavily involved in National Endowment for Democracy&nbsp;</b>programs and elected as the mayor of a district in Caracas that was one of the wealthiest in the country. Lopez was a portrait of Venezuelan aristocracy, directly descended from his country’s first president. He was also the<b>&nbsp;first cousin of Thor Halvorssen</b>, founder of the US-based Human Rights Foundation that functions as a de facto publicity shop for US-backed anti-government activists in countries targeted by Washington for regime change.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though Lopez’s interests aligned neatly with Washington’s, US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks highlighted the fanatical tendencies that would ultimately lead to Popular Will’s marginalization. One cable identified Lopez as “a divisive figure within the opposition… often described as arrogant, vindictive, and power-hungry.” Others highlighted his obsession with street confrontations and his “uncompromising approach” as a source of tension with other opposition leaders who prioritized unity and participation in the country’s democratic institutions.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leopoldo Lopez | Wealth</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Popular Will founder Leopoldo Lopez cruising with his wife, Lilian Tintori.]</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By 2010, Popular Will and its foreign backers moved to exploit the worst drought to hit Venezuela in decades. Massive electricity shortages had struck the country due the dearth of water, which was needed to power hydroelectric plants. A global economic recession and declining oil prices compounded the crisis, driving public discontentment.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Stratfor</span>&nbsp;and CANVAS – key advisors of Guaidó and his anti-government cadre – devised a shockingly cynical plan to drive a dagger through the heart of the Bolivarian revolution. The scheme hinged on a 70% collapse of the country’s electrical system by as early as April 2010.</b></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“This could be the watershed event, as there is little that Chavez can do to protect the poor from the failure of that system,” the Stratfor internal memo declared. “This would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate. At that point in time, an opposition group would be best served to take advantage of the situation and spin it against Chavez and towards their needs.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">By this point, the Venezuelan opposition was receiving a staggering $40-50 million a year from US government organizations like USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, according to a report by the Spanish think tank, the FRIDE Institute. It also had massive wealth to draw on from its own accounts, which were mostly outside the country.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the scenario envisioned by Statfor did not come to fruition, the Popular Will party activists and their allies cast aside any pretense of non-violence and joined a radical plan to destabilize the country.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Towards violent destabilization</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In November, 2010, according to emails obtained by Venezuelan security services and presented by former Justice Minister Miguel Rodríguez Torres, Guaidó, Goicoechea, and several other student activists attended a secret five-day training at the Fiesta Mexicana hotel in Mexico City. The sessions were run by Otpor, the Belgrade-based regime change trainers backed by the US government. The meeting had reportedly received the blessing of<b>&nbsp;Otto Reich,</b>&nbsp;a fanatically anti-Castro Cuban exile working in George W. Bush’s Department of State, and the<b>&nbsp;right-wing former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.</b></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the Fiesta Mexicana hotel, the emails stated, Guaidó and his fellow activists hatched a plan to overthrow President Hugo Chavez by generating chaos through protracted spasms of street violence.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Three petroleum industry figureheads – Gustavo Torrar, Eligio Cedeño and Pedro Burelli – allegedly covered the $52,000 tab to hold the meeting.&nbsp;</b>Torrar is a self-described “human rights activist” and “intellectual” whose younger brother Reynaldo Tovar Arroyo is the representative in Venezuela of the private Mexican oil and gas company Petroquimica del Golfo, which holds a contract with the Venezuelan state.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cedeño, for his part, is a fugitive Venezuelan businessman who claimed asylum in the United States, and&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Pedro Burelli a former JP Morgan executive and the former director of Venezuela’s national oil company, Petroleum of Venezuela (PDVSA). He left PDVSA in 1998 as Hugo Chavez took power and is on the advisory committee of Georgetown University’s Latin America Leadership Program.</span></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Burelli insisted that the emails detailing his participation had been fabricated and even hired a private investigator to prove it. The investigator declared that Google’s records showed the emails alleged to be his were never transmitted.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Yet today Burelli makes no secret of his desire to see Venezuela’s current president, Nicolás Maduro, deposed – and even dragged through the streets and sodomized with a bayonet, as Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi was by NATO-backed militiamen.&nbsp;</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">View image on TwitterView image on Twitter</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pedro Mario Burelli</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@pburelli</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;.@NicolasMaduro, jamas me has hecho caso. Me has fustigado/perseguido como @chavezcandanga jamás osó. Óyeme, tienes sólo dos opciones en las próximas 24 horas:</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1. Como&nbsp;<b>Noriega:&nbsp;</b>pagar pena por narcotráfico y luego a @IntlCrimCourt La Haya por DDHH.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2. O a la&nbsp;<b>Gaddafi.</b></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Escoge ya!</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1,051</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">10:09 PM - Jan 16, 2019</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1,252 people are talking about this</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The alleged Fiesta Mexicana plot flowed into another destabilization plan revealed in a series of documents produced by the Venezuelan government. In May 2014, Caracas released documents detailing an assassination plot against President Nicolás Maduro. The leaks identified the&nbsp;<b>Miami-based Maria Corina Machado as a leader of the scheme</b>. A hardliner with a penchant for extreme rhetoric, Machado has functioned as an international liaison for the opposition, visiting President George W. Bush in 2005.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">maria corina machado | george bush</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Machado and George W. Bush, 2005.]</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“I think it is time to gather efforts; make the necessary calls, and obtain financing to annihilate Maduro and the rest will fall apart,” Machado wrote in an email to former Venezuelan diplomat Diego Arria in 2014.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In another email, Machado claimed that the violent plot had the blessing of US Ambassador to Colombia, Kevin Whitaker.</b>&nbsp;“I have already made up my mind and this fight will continue until this regime is overthrown and we deliver to our friends in the world. If I went to San Cristobal and exposed myself before the OAS, I fear nothing. Kevin Whitaker has already reconfirmed his support and he pointed out the new steps. We have a checkbook stronger than the regime’s to break the international security ring.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Guaidó heads to the barricades</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That February, student demonstrators acting as shock troops for the exiled oligarchy erected violent barricades across the country, turning opposition-controlled quarters into violent fortresses known as guarimbas. While international media portrayed the upheaval as a spontaneous protest against Maduro’s iron-fisted rule, there was ample evidence that Popular Will was orchestrating the show.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“None of the protesters at the universities wore their university t-shirts, they all wore Popular Will or Justice First t-shirts,” a guarimba participant said at the time. “They might have been student groups, but the student councils are affiliated to the political opposition parties and they are accountable to them.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Asked who the ringleaders were, the guarimba participant said, “Well if I am totally honest, those guys are legislators now.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Around 43 were killed during the 2014 guarimbas. Three years later, they erupted again, causing mass destruction of public infrastructure, the murder of government supporters, and the deaths of 126 people, many of whom were Chavistas. In several cases, supporters of the government were burned alive by armed gangs.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Guaidó was directly involved in the 2014 guarimbas. In fact, he tweeted video showing himself clad in a helmet and gas mask, surrounded by masked and armed elements that had shut down a highway that were engaging in a violent clash with the police. Alluding to his participation in Generation 2007, he proclaimed, “I remember in 2007, we proclaimed, ‘Students!’ Now, we shout, ‘Resistance! Resistance!’”&nbsp;</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Guaidó has deleted the tweet, demonstrating apparent concern for his image as a champion of democracy.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On February 12, 2014, during the height of that year’s guarimbas, Guaidó joined Lopez on stage at a rally of Popular Will and Justice First. During a lengthy diatribe against the government,&nbsp;<b>Lopez urged the crowd to march to the office of Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz. Soon after, Diaz’s office came under attack by armed gangs who attempted to burn it to the ground. She denounced what she called “planned and premeditated violence.</b>”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leopoldo Lopez | Juan Guaido</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Guaido alongside Lopez at the fateful February 12, 2014 rally. Photo | PanAm Post]</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a televised appearance in 2016, Guaidó dismissed deaths resulting from guayas – a guarimba tactic involving stretching steel wire across a roadway in order to injure or kill motorcyclists – as a “myth.” His comments whitewashed a deadly tactic that had killed unarmed civilians like Santiago Pedroza and decapitated a man named Elvis Durán, among many others.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This callous disregard for human life would define his Popular Will party in the eyes of much of the public, including many opponents of Maduro.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Cracking down on Popular Will&nbsp;</b></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As violence and political polarization escalated across the country, the government began to act against the Popular Will leaders who helped stoke it.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Freddy Guevara, the National Assembly Vice-President and second in command of Popular Will, was a principal leader in the 2017 street riots. Facing a trial for his role in the violence, Guevara took shelter in the Chilean embassy, where he remains.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Lester Toledo, a Popular Will legislator from the state of Zulia, was wanted by Venezuelan government in September 2016 on charges of financing terrorism and plotting assassinations. The plans were said to be made with former Colombian President Álavaro Uribe. Toledo escaped Venezuela and went on several speaking tours with<b>Human Rights Watch, the US government-backed Freedom House,&nbsp;</b>the Spanish Congress and European Parliament.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Carlos Graffe, another Otpor-trained Generation 2007 member who led Popular Will, was arrested in July 2017. According to police, he was in possession of a bag filled with nails, C4 explosives and a detonator. He was released on December 27, 2017.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Leopoldo Lopez, the longtime Popular Will leader, is today under house arrest, accused of a key role in deaths of 13 people during the guarimbas in 2014.&nbsp;<b>Amnesty International lauded Lopez as a “prisoner of conscience”</b>&nbsp;and slammed his transfer from prison to house as “not good enough.” Meanwhile, family members of guarimba victims introduced a petition for more charges against Lopez.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yon Goicoechea, the Koch Brothers posterboy and US-backed founder of Justice First, was arrested in 2016 by security forces who claimed they found a kilo of explosives in his vehicle. In a New York Times op-ed, Goicoechea protested the charges as “trumped-up” and claimed he had been imprisoned simply for his “dream of a democratic society, free of Communism.” He was freed in November 2017.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">View image on Twitter</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@YonGoicoechea</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Hoy, en Caricuao. Llevo 15 años trabajando con @jguaido. Confío en él. Conozco la constancia y la inteligencia con la que se ha construido a sí mismo. Está haciendo las cosas con bondad, pero sin ingenuidad. Hay una posibilidad abierta hacia la libertad</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5:10 PM - Jan 19, 2019</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">136 people are talking about this</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Smolansky, also a member of the original Otpor-trained Generation 2007, became Venezuela’s youngest-ever mayor when he was elected in 2013 in the affluent suburb of El Hatillo. But he was stripped of his position and sentenced to 15 months in prison by the Supreme Court after it found him culpable of stirring the violent guarimbas.&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Facing arrest, Smolansky shaved his beard, donned sunglasses and slipped into Brazil disguised as a priest with a bible in hand and rosary around his neck. He now lives in Washington, DC, where he was handpicked by<b>&nbsp;Secretary of the Organization of American States Luis Almagro</b>&nbsp;to lead the working group on the Venezuelan migrant and refugee crisis.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This July 26, Smolansky held what he called a “<b>cordial reunion” with Elliot Abrams,&nbsp;</b>the convicted Iran-Contra felon installed by Trump as special US envoy to Venezuela. Abrams is notorious for overseeing the US covert policy of arming right-wing death squads during the 1980’s in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. His lead role in the Venezuelan coup has stoked fears that another blood-drenched proxy war might be on the way.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Smolansky</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@dsmolansky</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Cordial reunión en la ONU con Elliott Abrams, enviado especial del gobierno de EEUU para Venezuela. Reiteramos que la prioridad para el gobierno interino que preside @jguaido es la asistencia humanitaria para millones de venezolanos que sufren de la falta de comida y medicinas.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">10:46 AM - Jan 26, 2019</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2,619 people are talking about this</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Four days earlier, Machado rumbled another violent threat against Maduro, declaring that if he “wants to save his life, he should understand that his time is up.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A pawn in their game</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The collapse of Popular Will under the weight of the violent campaign of destabilization it ran alienated large sectors of the public and wound much of its leadership up in exile or in custody. Guaidó had remained a relatively minor figure, having spent most of his nine-year career in the National Assembly as an alternate deputy. Hailing from one of Venezuela’s least populous states, Guaidó came in second place during the 2015 parliamentary elections,<b>&nbsp;winning just 26% of votes cast in order to secure his place in the National Assembly. Indeed, his bottom may have been better known than his face.</b></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Guaidó is known as the president of the opposition-dominated National Assembly, but he was never elected to the position.</b>&nbsp;The four opposition parties that comprised the Assembly’s Democratic Unity Table had decided to establish a rotating presidency. Popular Will’s turn was on the way, but its founder, Lopez, was under house arrest. Meanwhile, his second-in-charge, Guevara, had taken refuge in the Chilean embassy. A figure named Juan Andrés Mejía would have been next in line but reasons that are only now clear, Juan Guaido was selected.&nbsp; &nbsp;</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“There is a class reasoning that explains Guaidó’s rise,” Sequera, the Venezuelan analyst, observed. “Mejía is high class, studied at one of the most expensive private universities in Venezuela, and could not be easily marketed to the public the way Guaidó could. For one, Guaidó has common mestizo features like most Venezuelans do, and seems like more like a man of the people. Also, he had not been overexposed in the media, so he could be built up into pretty much anything.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>In December 2018, Guaidó sneaked across the border and junketed to Washington, Colombia and Brazil to coordinate the plan to hold mass demonstrations during the inauguration of President Maduro.&nbsp;The night before Maduro’s swearing-in ceremony, both Vice President Mike Pence and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland called Guaidó to affirm their suppor</b>t.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A week later, Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Rick Scott and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart – all lawmakers from the Florida base of the right-wing Cuban exile lobby – joined President Trump and Vice President Pence at the White House. At their request, Trump agreed that if Guaidó declared himself president, he would back him.</b></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met personally with Guaidó on January 10,</b>&nbsp;according to the Wall Street Journal. However, Pompeo could not pronounce Guaidó’s name when he mentioned him in a press briefing on January 25, referring to him as “Juan Guido.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Embedded video</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dan Cohen</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@dancohen3000</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just called the figure Washington is attempting to install as Venezuelan President "Juan Guido" - as in the racist term for Italians. America's top diplomat didn't even bother to learn how to pronounce his puppet's name.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1:58 PM - Jan 25, 2019</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">By January 11, Guaidó’s&nbsp;<b>Wikipedia page had been edited 37 times, highlighting the struggle to shape the image of a previously anonymous figure&nbsp;</b>who was now a tableau for Washington’s regime change ambitions. In the end, editorial oversight of his page was handed over to Wikipedia’s elite council of “librarians,” who pronounced him the “contested” president of Venezuela.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Guaidó might have been an obscure figure, but his combination of radicalism and opportunism satisfied Washington’s needs. “That internal piece was missing,” a Trump administration said of Guaidó. “He was the piece we needed for our strategy to be coherent and complete.”</b></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“For the first time,” Brownfield, the former American ambassador to Venezuela, gushed to the New York Times, “you have an opposition leader who is clearly signaling to the armed forces and to law enforcement that he wants to keep them on the side of the angels and with the good guys.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But Guaidó’s Popular Will party formed the shock troops of the guarimbas that caused the deaths of police officers and common citizens alike. He had even boasted of his own participation in street riots. And now, to win the hearts and minds of the military and police, Guaido had to erase this blood-soaked history.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On January 21, a day before the coup began in earnest, Guaidó’s wife delivered a video address calling on the military to rise up against Maduro. Her performance was wooden and uninspiring, underscoring the her husband’s limited political prospects.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>At a press conference before supporters four days later, Guaidó announced his solution to the crisis: “Authorize a humanitarian intervention!”</b></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While he waits on direct assistance, Guaidó remains what he has always been – a pet project of cynical outside forces. “It doesn’t matter if he crashes and burns after all these misadventures,” Sequera said of the coup figurehead. “To the Americans, he is expendable.”</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Top Photo | Venezuela’s self-declared interim leader Juan Guaido, center, greets supporters after a rally at a public plaza in Las Mercedes neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 26, 2019. Fernando Llano | AP]</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dan Cohen is a journalist and filmmaker. He has produced widely distributed video reports and print dispatches from across Israel-Palestine. Dan is a correspondent at RT America and tweets at @DanCohen3000.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Max Blumenthal is the founder and editor of GrayzoneProject.com,</b>&nbsp;the co-host of the podcast Moderate Rebels, the author of several books and producer of full-length documentaries including the recently released Killing Gaza. Follow him on Twitter at @MaxBlumenthal.</font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="amp-wp-inline-f62a86b1328cd4134bec55ddf6de989a" style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></font></p><p source="Source" sans="Sans" pro="Pro" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Source | GrayZone Project</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">INTERNATIONAL REPUBLICAN INSTITUTE IRI</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">The International Republican Institute (IRI), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that serves as a vehicle for the&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/National_Endowment_for_Democracy" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" background-image="background-image" initial="initial" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-size="background-size" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat">National Endowment for Democracy</a><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">&nbsp;(NED) and the U.S. Agency for International Development, was created by the Ronald Reagan administration in 1983 to push democratization efforts and roll back the influence of the Soviet Union. More recently, the taxpayer-funded IRI has claimed to play a role preventing global terrorism, though some of its interventions since 9/11 have been criticized for undermining democracy. A 2006 IRI brochure declared, "When IRI began its work in 1983, advancing democracy was seen as a noble endeavor; today, it is recognized as a defense against terrorism."</span><a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn1" name="ednref1" title="" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" background-image="background-image" initial="initial" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-size="background-size" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat">[1]</a></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IRI's activities have included funding clandestine opinion surveys in Cuba (2008),<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn2" name="ednref2" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[2]</a>&nbsp;monitoring the controversial and violence-tainted elections in Kenya (2007),<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn3" name="ednref3" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[3]</a>&nbsp;and undertaking public opinion polls in Pakistan after President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency (2007).<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn4" name="ednref4" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[4]</a>&nbsp;More controversially, its "democracy building" program in Haiti was accused of undermining both U.S. State Department diplomacy efforts and the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn5" name="ednref5" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[5]</a>&nbsp;IRI also channeled funds to forces in Venezuela that sought to overthrow the controversial but democratically elected President Hugo Chavez in 2002.<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn6" name="ednref6" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[6]</a>&nbsp;IRI has also been criticized for supporting and monitoring the 2009 elections in Honduras after the Organization for American States refused to send observers, seeing the election as an attempt to legitimize a right-wing coup that removed a democratically elected progressive government from power.<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn7" name="ednref7" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[7]</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Along with its Democratic-aligned counterpart, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the IRI has been active in monitoring elections in Egypt and other countries in the Middle East following a surge of democratic revolutions in the region in 2011. In early 2012, however, as part of a broader crackdown on international non-governmental organizations, Egypt's military government enacted a travel ban on several representatives from both NDI and IRI, preventing them from leaving the country.<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn8" name="ednref8" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[8]</a>&nbsp;As of February 2012, the Egyptian government was planning to prosecute at least 19 Americans, including IRI members, on charges of illegally operating unlicensed foreign NGOs in the country.<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn9" name="ednref9" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[9]</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GOP Ties and Links to McCain Campaign</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although officially nonpartisan, IRI is closely aligned with the Republican Party, just as its sister organization, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), is aligned with the Democratic Party. Sen.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/mccain_john" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">John McCain</a>&nbsp;(R-AZ) has served as IRI chairman since 1993, and Lorne Craner, the former assistant secretary of state for democracy and human rights and labor in the George W. Bush administration, is IRI's president.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A July 2008&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">New YorkTimes&nbsp;</em>article described IRI as "McCain's institute" and highlighted the connections between the IRI, the McCain presidential campaign, and various lobbying interests. Reporter Mike McIntire described a 2006 IRI event: "First up that night in September 2006 was the institute's vice chairman, Peter T. Madigan, a McCain campaign fund-raiser and lobbyist whose clients span the globe, from Dubai to Colombia. He thanked Timothy P. McKone, an AT&T lobbyist and McCain fund-raiser, for helping with the dinner arrangements and then introduced the chairman of AT&T, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., whose company had donated $200,000 for the event. AT&T at the time was seeking political support for an $80 billion merger with BellSouth—another Madigan client—and Mr. Whitacre lavished praise on Mr. McCain, a senior member of the Senate Commerce Committee. When Mr. McCain finally took the podium, he expressed 'profound thanks' to AT&T before presenting the institute's Freedom Award to the president of Liberia, a lobbying client of Charlie Black, an institute donor and McCain campaign adviser."<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn10" name="ednref10" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[10]</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McIntire reported, "The institute is also something of a revolving door for lobbyists and out-of-power Republicans that offers big donors a way of helping both the party and the institute's chairman, who is the second sitting member of Congress—and now candidate for president—ever to head one of the democracy groups. Operating without the sort of limits placed on campaign fund-raising, the institute under Mr. McCain has solicited millions of dollars for its operations from some 560 defense contractors, lobbying firms, oil companies and other corporations, many with issues before Senate committees Mr. McCain was on."<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn11" name="ednref11" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[11]</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Accompanying the&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Times&nbsp;</em>story was a list of IRI directors and their connections to corporate interests, lobbying groups, and the Republican Party, as well as the amount of money they donated to McCain's presidential campaign—a total of $36,700.<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn12" name="ednref12" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[12]</a>&nbsp;The list indicated IRI board members who are also involved in McCain's presidential campaign: Craner, IRI president; Gahl Hodges Burt, former White House social secretary; Janet Grissom, automaker lobbyist; Madigan, IRI vice chairman and a lobbyist for foreign governments; Alec Poitevint, Republican committeeman;<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Scheunemann_Randy" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Randy Scheunemann</a>, head of the lobbying firm Orion Strategies, a campaign adviser on foreign policy and national security to Senator McCain, and a former member of the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Project_for_the_New_American_Century" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Project for the New American Century</a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Committee_for_the_Liberation_of_Iraq" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Committee for the Liberation of Iraq</a>; Joseph Schmuckler, senior executive at Mitsubishi Securities; and Richard Williamson, lobbyist for AT&T. Other IRI board members include&nbsp;<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Bremer_L_Paul" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">L. Paul Bremer</a>, former special envoy to Iraq; Alison Fortier, vice president of Lockheed Martin; Frank Fahrenkopf, head of the American Gaming Association and former Republican National Committee chairman; Michael Kostiw, a Senate aide to McCain and former Texaco lobbyist; and John Rogers, managing director of Goldman Sachs.<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn13" name="ednref13" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[13]</a>&nbsp;The article also featured photos of McCain presenting IRI's "Freedom Award" to Vice President&nbsp;<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Cheney_Dick" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Dick Cheney</a>&nbsp;in 2001, National Security Adviser&nbsp;<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Rice_Condoleezza" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Condoleezza Rice</a>&nbsp;in 2004, and George W. Bush in 2005.<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn14" name="ednref14" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[14]</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite this, the IRI seems hesitant to acknowledge its partisanship. For instance, in response to the July 2008&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">New York Times&nbsp;</em>article, the institute released a statement saying, "While some IRI staff are Republicans, some are also Democrats and some are not members of any political party. … Some of IRI's board members have chosen to support Senator McCain's candidacy, just as some of NDI's member's [sic] have chosen to support Barack Obama's."<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn15" name="ednref15" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[15]</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Origins and Leadership</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The IRI is the indirect product of the democratic globalism efforts of the AFL-CIO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the two main U.S. political parties.<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn16" name="ednref16" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[16]</a>&nbsp;In 1982, President Ronald Reagan proposed a new organization to promote free-market democracies around the world, the NED. In 1983, Congress approved the creation of NED, which was funded primarily through the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) and secondarily through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Designed as a bipartisan institution, NED channels U.S. government funding through four core grantees: IRI, NDI, the Center for International Private Enterprise, and the Solidarity Center (the AFL-CIO's international operations institute).<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn17" name="ednref17" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[17]</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Like NED and the other core grantees, the early focus of IRI was on the Caribbean and Central America—a region that in the 1980s was the focal point of the Reagan administration's revival of counterinsurgency and counter-revolutionary operations. After the Soviet bloc began to disintegrate in 1989, according to IRI's website, the institute "broadened its reach to support democracy around the globe."<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn18" name="ednref18" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[18]</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McCain became IRI chairman in 1993. "Shaken by the loss of the White House in 1992," writes Mike McIntire of the&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">New York Times</em>, "Republicans scrambled to reinvigorate their party by giving higher profiles to some of its promising prospects. Mr. McCain, just re-elected by a convincing margin, was given two new positions: head of fund-raising and recruiting for the Senate Republicans and chairman of the International Republican Institute." Among the changes he brought, reports the&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Times</em>, was a shift in focus from Latin American to the former Soviet bloc.<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn19" name="ednref19" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[19]</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The IRI has expanded greatly in recent years. Its 2008 budget was about $78 million, with programs in some 60 countries and about 400 employees.<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn20" name="ednref20" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[20]</a>&nbsp;Most recently, it has extended its operations into Central Asia, having opened offices in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. In Latin America, IRI has offices in Guatemala, Peru, and Haiti. In Africa, IRI has offices in Kenya, Nigeria, and Angola. IRI's offices in Asia are found in Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, and Mongolia. In Central and Eastern Europe, IRI has offices in Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, and Turkey.<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn21" name="ednref21" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[21]</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">War on Terror</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The IRI has actively supported the "war on terror" with programs in at least 10 countries in the Greater Middle East region, as well as the occupied Palestinian territories. During the Bush administration, the institute was accused repeatedly of using misleading polling data to push the Bush agenda, both at home and abroad. "During the Afghan presidential election of October 2004," reports Raw Story, "IRI's pre-election poll showed Hamid Karzai with a strong lead, and its exit poll, released immediately after the vote and well before the ballots were counted, also gave him over 50% of the vote. The British Helsinki Human Rights Group subsequently suggested that these polls might have helped head off scrutiny of an election that had initially been met with well-founded suspicions of fraud. IRI's polls also serve to influence public opinion in the United States. A year ago, MediaMatters pointed out that the&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Washington Post</em>&nbsp;had cited an IRI poll showing that '60% of Iraqis believed the country is headed in the right direction' without indicating the partisan nature of its source. In September 2004, President Bush had cited a similar IRI poll at a press conference, saying, 'I saw a poll that said the right track/wrong track in Iraq was better than here in America. It's pretty darn strong. I mean, the people see a better future.'"<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn22" name="ednref22" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[22]</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IRI has continued to carry out polls purporting to show, for example, a "fresh burst of optimism" in Afghanistan in&nbsp;<a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/01/measuring-progress-toward-peace/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">2009</a>, as well as a sharp decline in public support for Pakistan's government in&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/20-Dec-2008/88pc-feel-Pakistan-heading-in-wrong-direction" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">2008</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IRI's efforts to fund democracy activities in the Middle East have at times backfired. In a June 2007 article for the&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">New York Times Magazine</em>, Negar Azimi recounted how efforts to funnel money to Iranian groups through the Office of Iranian Affairs, an outfit established in 2006 within the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and at one point overseen by&nbsp;<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/cheney_elizabeth" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Elizabeth Cheney</a>, were facing criticism "not only from Iranian officials but also from some of the very people whose causes it aims to advance."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reported Azimi: "For the Iranian government, the democracy fund is just one more element in an elaborate Bush administration regime-change stratagem. ('Is there even a perception that the American government has democracy in mind?' Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, Javad Zarif, asked me recently in New York. 'Except among a few dreamers in Eastern Europe?') In recent months, Tehran has upped the pressure on any citizens who might conceivably be linked to the democracy fund and, by extension, on civil society at large, making the mere prospect of American support counterproductive, even reckless. ... It is particularly telling, perhaps, that some of the most outspoken critics of the Iranian government have been among the most outspoken critics of the democracy fund. Activists from the journalist Emadeddin Baghi to the Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi to the former political prisoner Akbar Ganji have all said thanks but no thanks. Ganji has refused three personal invitations to meet with Bush."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Head of the Office of Iranian Affairs at the time was David Denehy, who according to Azimi is "a veteran of democracy promotion programs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia with the International Republican Institute and a close associate of [former] Deputy Secretary of Defense&nbsp;<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/wolfowitz_paul" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Paul Wolfowitz</a>. During the Iraq War, he served in Baghdad from June to October 2003, where his focus was on civil-society development."<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn23" name="ednref23" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[23]</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Attempted Coup in Venezuela</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although the Bush administration steadfastly denied any involvement, many observers accused Washington of being behind the failed April 2002 coup against Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez. However, a relatively clear connection emerged between the U.S. government and the anti-Chávez movement: millions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money channeled through the IRI and other U.S. organizations to groups opposed to Chávez during the years preceding the April coup.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Via NED funding, IRI had been sponsoring political party-building workshops and other anti-Chávez activities in Venezuela</span>. "IRI evidently began opposing Chávez even before his 1998 election," reported journalist Mike Ceaser. "Prior to that year's congressional and presidential elections, the IRI worked with Venezuelan organizations critical of Chávez to run newspaper ads, TV, and radio spots that several observers characterize as anti-Chávez." Further, according to Ceaser, "The IRI has ... flown groups of Chávez opponents to Washington to meet with U.S. officials. In March 2002, a month before Chávez's brief ouster, one such group of politicians, union leaders, and activists traveled to D.C. to meet with U.S. officials, including members of Congress and State Department staff. The trip came at the time that several military officers were calling for Chávez's resignation and talk of a possible coup was widespread." An opposition figure who benefited from IRI support told Ceaser that bringing varied government opponents together in Washington accelerated the unification of the opposition. "The democratic opposition began to become cohesive," he said. "We began to become a team."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an April 12, 2002, written statement to the media, IRI President George A. Folsom rejoiced prematurely over Chávez's removal: "The Venezuelan people rose up to defend democracy in their country," he wrote. "Venezuelans were provoked into action as a result of systematic repression by the government of Hugo Chávez."<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn24" name="ednref24" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[24]</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Coup in Haiti</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the first year of the George W. Bush administration, IRI received USAID funding for a new "party-building project" in Haiti, where it had been involved in since 1987. In 2004, the Aristide government collapsed. Before IRI closed its Haiti office in 2007, IRI's USAID-funded party-building activities focused on working with and training the political opposition.<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn25" name="ednref25" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[25]</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Robert Maguire, director of the Haiti Program at Trinity College in Washington, D.C., IRI was the key U.S. actor in Haiti for several years. In 2004 he said, "NED and USAID are important, but actually the main actor is the International Republican Institute (IRI), which has been very active in Haiti for many years but particularly in the past three years. IRI has been working with the opposition groups. IRI insisted, through the administration, that USAID give it funding for its work in Haiti. And USAID has done so but kicking and screaming all the way. IRI has worked exclusively with the Democratic Convergence groups in its party-building exercises and support. The IRI point person is Stanley Lucas who historically has had close ties with the Haitian military. … The IRI ran afoul with Aristide right from the beginning since it has only worked with opposition groups that have challenged legitimacy of the Aristide government. Mr. Lucas is a lightning rod of the IRI in Haiti. The United States could not have chosen a more problematic character through which to channel its aid."<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn26" name="ednref26" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[26]</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">New York Times&nbsp;</em>reported, "what emerges from the events in Haiti is a portrait of how the effort to nurture democracy became entangled in the ideological wars and partisan rivalries of Washington."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The Bush administration has said that while Mr. Aristide was deeply flawed, its policy was always to work with him as Haiti's democratically elected leader," the&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Times</em>&nbsp;reported. "But the administration's actions in Haiti did not always match its words. Interviews and a review of government documents show that [the IRI,] a democracy-building group close to the White House and financed by American taxpayers, undercut the official United States policy and the ambassador assigned to carry it out."<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn27" name="ednref27" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[27]</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.6em 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Raw Story reported: "The secretive aspect to some of IRI's activities, combined with its repeated involvement in subverting left-leaning politicians and parties, creates the appearance that it may be acting as one more tool in the Bush administration's arsenal for regime change by any means available. The recent increase in IRI's federal funding—which almost tripled, from $26 million to $75 million, between 2003 and 2005—adds grounds to this suspicion."<a href="http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#edn28" name="ednref28" title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[28]</a></font></p><span style="line-height: 19.696px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">- See more at: http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/International_Republican_Institute#sthash.h8o0EBmZ.dpuf</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div></div>