Eva Golinger: Washington Bureau awards to promote a Venezuelan media campaign against Chávez http://www.aporrea.org/internacionales/n153549.html

March 22, 2010. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an agency linked to the CIA, funded by Congress and overseen by the State Department, has just awarded a research prize to Venezuelan Andres Cañizález to continue to promote the media campaign against the government of President Hugo Chávez. In recent months, attacks through the media against the Venezuelan government has intensified a very dangerous way, seeking to demonize President Chávez and justify their forced removal from power. 

The award "Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow, which is a fund for research on issues favorable to Washington's agenda, was delivered to Venezuelan Andres Cañizález this March, and will last until 31 July 2010. The award includes a residency at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the NED in Washington for four months, a working scholarship and research funding and publication of a book. Cañizález was awarded the prize of this agency linked to the CIA for their project, "The Age Chávez: Political history and the Venezuelan democratic challenges of journalism." 

Since 2002, Cañizález led the Venezuelan chapter of the Institute for Press and Society (IPYS), funded by the NED and USAID to promote the media campaign to discredit the Venezuelan government and the Bolivarian Revolution. Over the past eight years, millions of dollars have gone through groups like IPYS NED in Venezuela to finance coups, sabotage, psychological operations, electoral campaigns and actions to destabilize the government of Hugo Chávez. IPYS has played a major role in the dissemination of information manipulated and distorted the policies of the Venezuelan government in an attempt to discredit him internationally and justify a "regime change". 

The award "Reagan-Fascell is appointed by former President Ronald Reagan and the late U.S. congressman Dante Fascell. Both were founders of NED in 1983 when the organization was created to do the job to the CIA but with a legitimate facade. Fascell was known as the "active representative of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) within the United States Congress," according to Canadian journalist Jean-Guy Allard. Fascell was responsible for "concrete care plans and the specific interests of the U.S. intelligence community." 

In 1967, Fascell had submitted a bill before the U.S. Congress to create a foundation "open" to handle the payments then the CIA's secret groups "civil society" in foreign countries of strategic interest to Washington. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED - National Endowment for Democracy) not officially born until 1983, but with that same mission, which has been maintained ever since. During his long career, Fascell stood very close links with right-wing sectors of the Mafia in Cuba, self-exiled in Miami, and used the NED to channel billions of dollars to anti-Castro groups in Miami and terrorists seeking assassinate Fidel Castro and invade Cuba. 

The award "Reagan-Fascell" of the NED says receptacles as part of its "global network" of "democracy promoters" tied with Washington's agenda. His stay in the U.S. capital will help "develop contacts and exchange ideas with their counterparts in Washington," said the NED. To receive this award, Andrew Cañizález, formally enters a circle of Venezuelans, U.S. agents, who have assumed key tasks to destabilize his country.

The current director of the NED for Latin America is Miriam Kornblith, Venezuela and member of the group Sumate, created in Venezuela in 2003 with funding from the NED in order to promote the recall referendum against President Chavez. Sumate director Maria Corina Machado, also signed the famous "Carmona decree" during the coup of April 2002, who ordered to disband the country's democratic institutions, launched his candidacy for the National Assembly elections in September this year. 

For 2010, the NED invested more than $ 2 million in Venezuelan opposition groups, to further promote a "regime change" in the country. The budget of the Agency for International Development (USAID) for 2010, which also maintains offices in Venezuela, over 15 million dollars to fund organizations that promote destabilization in Venezuela against the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez. IPYS receives funding from the NED and USAID.