USAID: Election Fraud around the world - now Venezuela

[BillORightsMan]

So much for exit polls...



Coup d'Etat in Venezuela: Made in the USA

The U.S.-designed Plan to Overthrow Hugo Chavez in the Days Following the Election
November 21, 2006

In 1999, when the U.S.-led bombing campaign in Serbia didn't get rid of Slobodan Milosevic, Washington changed its strategy. U.S. intelligence organized a $77 million effort to oust Milosovic through the ballot box. They sent in CIA front organizations funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Instead of guns and bombs, these U.S. forces were armed with fax machines, computers, and perhaps most importantly, sophisticated surveys done by the Washington-based polling firm Penn, Schoen & Berland.(1) Their mission: to take down Milosevic by strengthening opposition groups.

Milosevic is now long gone, as the U.S. effort to mobilize the opposition and produce mass protests was successful in unseating him in the 2000 elections. This victory was a landmark for U.S. intelligence agencies. They had developed a new way to overthrow unfriendly regimes, and it was much easier than a violent overthrow, or a messy invasion. Penn, Schoen & Berland played an important role; so important that the U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright commended them, saying "This may be one of the first instances where polling has played such an important role in setting and securing foreign policy objectives."(2) They did, indeed, secure their foreign policy objectives. Milosovic was out, and the U.S.-backed opposition took power.

Since 2000, this smooth new strategy to influence elections and topple regimes has been implemented in many other countries. Dubbed as the "post-modern coup" by Jonathan Mowat, the same brilliant techniques were used in Belarus in 2001, in Georgia in 2003, and in the Ukraine in 2004, to name a few. Although it ultimately failed in Belarus, in Georgia the U.S. effort produced the "Rose Revolution" which overthrew President Eduard Shevardnadze. In the Ukraine it was the "Orange Revolution" that installed Victor Yushchenko in 2004.(3) Each time, groups financed by the NED, and USAID worked inside the country to build popular support for the opposition candidate. Each time they constructed an appealing campaign image using the modern marketing tactics that they have perfected along the way. And each time, they used Penn, Schoen & Berland election "polls" to shape the public's perception.

In his article, "Coup D'Etat in Disguise," Jonathan Mowat described how these "polls" work:

"Penn, Schoen and Berland (PSB) has played a pioneering role in the use of polling operations, especially "exit polls," in facilitating coups. Its primary mission is to shape the perception that the group installed into power in a targeted country has broad popular support. ""...the deployment of polling agencies' "exit polls" broadcast on international television...give the false impression of massive vote-fraud by the ruling party, to put targeted states on the defensive."(4)

That is, the goal is to either get enough support to sway the election in their favor, or, if that isn't possible, to give the impression that the elections were fraudulent and encourage the population to overturn them. The strategy has been so successful in overthrowing regimes, or installing the regimes that the U.S. prefers, that the operation has evolved into a blueprint to be used in countries around the world. Ian Traynor described it in the Guardian in November 2004 as follows:

"he campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavory regimes...The operation - engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience - is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people's elections"(5)


Manufacturing a "Ukrainian" in Venezuela

These days the U.S. has a new arch nemesis; Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Surely Washington would be delighted to get rid of him in the same fashion as all the rest. But there is one small problem; Hugo Chavez is no Slobodan Milosevic. He is immensely popular among the masses in Venezuela and throughout Latin America. Pro-Chavez parties have continued to win democratic elections over the last 8 years, and will most certainly win again in the December 3rd presidential contest. This time U.S. forces have their work cut out for them. They know that it is basically impossible to beat Chavez at the ballot box; he's too popular. It looks like they will have to go to plan B: a coup d'etat.

The U.S. has already set up camp in Venezuela, and all the original cast members are here. We've got NED, USAID, and yes, once again, Penn, Schoen & Berland.

much more at link...

We don't need no exit polls! We got Mass Media Propaganda!
So much for purple fingers.
:patriot:

[Peace Patriot]

1. Disgusting, disreputable, dastardly U.S./Bush activity in Venezuela!

Chavez should read this article in a nationally televised speech. It is incredible. Our taxpayer dollars are being used to fund and organize the opposition against Chavez--a losing opposition campaign with only 30% to 40% support (according to all objective polling)--and to provide PR political "branding" and false polls, as well as false claims of election fraud, in order to foment civil disorder and another coup attempt. The PR corporation (Penn, Schoen & Berland) that is being paid to do this by our State Department--and that has conducted similar CIA-instigated fraudulent campaigns in the Ukraine and elsewhere--is based in Washington DC!

If another country did that to us, it would be reason to throw their diplomats out of our country, and bar travel here by that country's citizens. It is ILLEGAL here, as it is in Venezuela, for political campaigns to accept foreign money! It would further permanently taint any politicians associated with an attempted coup here, and possibly get them charged with crimes and imprisoned. It is, in effect, treason. That's what Venezuela's rich oil elite is guilty of in this case, treason against their own country--fomented by the Bush Junta.

Chavez is right that the issue in Venezuela and throughout Latin America is their sovereignty and SELF-DETERMINATION. That is what the Boliviarian Revolution, of which Chavez is the most prominent spokesman, is all about. This massive interference by the Bushites, NED, USAID and the US State Department is a prime example of why Latin Americans need to focus on self-determination.

-----

"...they must get enough people out into the streets in order to create a situation in which a transition of power could take place.  Here is where Penn, Schoen & Berland comes in.  In the recent months in the lead up to the December 2006 elections, Penn, Schoen & Berland has been instrumental in shaping public perception.  In a series of election polls widely covered in the private media, the polling firm has consistently shown that Chavez's lead is shrinking and the opposition is gaining momentum, while all of the other surveys done over the last few months show that Chavez maintains a wide lead of between 20 and 30 percent.(9)

(snip)

"With the help of the mainstream media, almost all of which is vehemently opposed to the popular president, these fake polls have reached a wide audience.  All the newspapers, the major television channels, and internet news sites report the poll results as if they were true and valid findings.  They don't mention the fact that these findings are not supported by any other polling agency.  Again, although the reality is that Rosales has almost no chance of winning in the December elections, much of the population now believes he will.  The reality doesn't seem to matter.  All that really matters is what the populace believes.  When their candidate loses by a large margin, it will be a difficult reality to deal with.  If the opposition strategy works, it might be possible to produce large protests and even riots.

"Two weeks ago on Globovision, one of the major private channels in Venezuela, opposition leader Rafael Poleo called on Venezuelans to do the 'Ukrainian' on the day after the elections.(11)   Claiming the elections will be fraudulent, Poleo, who was involved in the 2002 coup attempt, described in detail a 'plan' to remove Chavez from power after the elections.  Comparing it to the 'Orange Revolution', the plan calls for Venezuelans to come out en masse to protest against the Chavez government and what they call 'fraudulent elections.'  Poleo then made a call to the high military command to back this 'movement', in what basically amounts to a call to overthrow the government."

-------------

I might add that it's not just the Bush Junta. Many Democrats voted FOR this funding to directly interfere in other countries' elections, in the interest of global corporate predators, who want to reinstall fascist dictators in South America.

I don't think it will work. The peaceful, democratic, leftist (majorityist) revolution that is occurring all over Latin America is deeply rooted and unstoppable. But this noxious interference can cause a lot of trouble and even get people killed, and that is likely its purpose. Bushites thrive on chaos. And if they can provoke the Chavez government to retaliate in any way against this disgusting "plan," or to take normal measures to maintain civil order, this would then be used to accuse Chavez of "authoritarianism." Our war profiteering corporate news monopolies have accused him of that--in lockstep, all speaking the same lines (dictated from the State Department)--with no evidence of it at all. So they would not hesitate to take the slightest evidence of a reaction and blow it up into "'Stalinism." In fact, I think that's the Bushites' purpose--to push the Chavez government to do something--anything--that they can "interpret" as dictatorial. If he calls out national guard troops to quell Penn, Schoen & Berland-instigated fascist riots, as any good president would, he will be charged with suppression. And I also think there is a dual purpose here--both to try to instigate riots and a coup, if they can, and ALSO to further slander and discredit the justice-minded Chavez government, so that we in the U.S. will not get ideas about what a true populist government could do for us here.

But again, the Latin Americans have become savvy about the ways of Bushites and global corporate predators. For instance, last week, the president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, visited Chavez for the inauguration of a new bridge over the Orinoco River between their two countries, in an obvious gesture of solidarity with Chavez only a few weeks before the election. The leftist candidate in Ecuador recently repeated Chavez's charge against Bush at the UN (that Bush is "the devil"). And the OAS will be present monitoring the Venezuelan elections, along with the EU election monitoring group, which has 130 monitors arriving in Venezuela right about now. The Carter Center will likely again participate. All three of these groups have declared Venezuelan elections honest and aboveboard in the past.

In Bolivia, the people rose up and threw Bechtel Corporation out of their country (for privatizing the water in one Bolivian city and then jacking up the prices to the poorest of the poor, even charging poor peasants for collecting rainwater!). The Argentinians rose up as one against the World Bank/IMF and the global corporate predators who were decimating Argentina's economy and society; and, with Venezuela's help (easy term loans), they are now free of onerous World Bank debt and well on the way to recovery. All over South America, leftist governments have been elected--often directly in reaction to US-spawned "neoliberal" policies, and/or past US-backed brutalities--in Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Chile, with strong leftist movements in Ecuador (where the leftist is ahead in the presidential polls), and Peru (where the leftists are on the rise and will likely win in the next election cycle), as well as further north in Mexico (a huge uprising) and Nicaragua (Ortega elected president).

The vast majority of Latin Americans now know what US/Bushite/corporate interference in their countries means. And I don't think they are going to put up with this crap any more.

[upi402]

2. i hope he hides for a couple weeks

they will do anything to eliminate a true blue democratically elected leader.

cuz anti-freedom's on the march again!

[mopinko]

3. so much for the orange revolution

i thought that smelled to high heavens. grated on my nerves when people here embraced it.

[IndyOp]

4. I am with you mo... I never trusted the orange revolution...

And I've heard Thom Hartmann speak with respect about the two guys in Georgia who engineered the first one - how we should emulate them in terms of "branding" election fraud to get people to take action. (I am not dissing Thom, just saying that even a bright guy like him hasn't caught on to this yet.)

A final thought: Chomsky is soooo dead-on-right about control of information being the modern way to control the masses. Just make them believe that "everyone else believes X" -- and they will too. Conformity & marketing - the ultimate power.

:(

[mopinko]

5. yea, thom still believes in

bev.

[lostnfound]

7. Ditto,

Haven't done enough reading to concludeit was instigated or funded by the west, but there was plenty of smoke

[EST]

6. Hugo Chavez

is a very smart man. I am willing to bet he knows a lot more about what's going on than any number of reporters and opinion makers - as well as any number of intelligent DUers.

I am also willing to bet his jibe about the podium smelling of sulfur was not an idle throwaway line merely meant to nettle the BFEE.

His masterful moves and thorough understanding of the needless destruction of the American economy and military, with our all time low reputation around the world, continue to impress me.

Virtually every other country with any knowledge of the US knows our elections are crooked as a dog's hind leg--ask any of the overseas visitors to DU or the other "lefties" websites.

With his help we may yet regain our democracy, here at home. THe whole world may yet rise up and demand a real democracy instead of the shit that our government and the other big players manage to install for them. (Fat chance, I know, but if one has a dream, it might as well be a big one.)