A major theme recurring in WikiLeaks’ US diplomatic cables from Latin America and the Caribbean is an obsession with the government of the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez Frías, and with Chávez as a political actor. Chávez’s regional influence was a central concern for the State Department in the years after he was elected, and especially in the years following a tumultuous period in which the Venezuelan opposition (with varying degrees of US support) attempted to remove him from power by various extra-constitutional means.
US relations with Chávez would be tense from early on. Chávez broadly rejected neoliberal economic policies, developed a close relationship with Cuba’s Fidel Castro, and loudly criticized the Bush administration’s assault on Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks (the US pulled its ambassador from Caracas after Chávez proclaimed: “You can’t fight terrorism with terrorism”). Chávez—through public diplomacy—successfully lobbied OPEC members to raise oil prices, and would increase state control over Venezuela’s oil resources. These were moves that displeased Washington.1
Nevertheless, Chávez was popular and democratically elected. As the cables show, the US worked to bolster the Venezuelan opposition, which would engage in a series of attempts—some constitutional, some not—to oust Chávez: a military coup d’état (2002—overturned by mass public opposition just two days later); an economically damaging oil strike (2002–03); and a recall referendum (2004). US support for these efforts—especially for the coup—would poison relations between the two countries. The US provided funds to groups and individuals involved in the coup, and after the coup had occurred encouraged other countries to recognize the coup government. It was later revealed that the CIA had known of the coup plans in advance but did nothing to warn Venezuela’s elected government; and, perhaps most tellingly, despite Washington’s knowledge of the coup, US officials tried to convince the world when it was happening that it was not a coup, but that President Chávez had resigned.2 The US provided significant funding to Súmate, the main organization involved in organizing the 2004 recall effort;3 the cables also show near-constant communication between the State Department, Súmate, and other opposition leaders in the period leading to the vote.
Chávez would emerge from each attempt to remove him stronger than before. Other leaders who challenged Washington also began to emerge in the region: Evo Morales, who won Bolivia’s elections in 2005, Rafael Correa of Ecuador and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua (both elected in 2006), and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina (who would succeed her husband Néstor Kirchner—both often showing public support for Chávez), among others. Increasingly, “center left” leaders such as Brazil’s Lula da Silva and Chile’s Michelle Bachelet publicly defended Chávez against US criticism. The cables show that, disconcerted by this “pink tide,” the US saw Chávez as trying to establish his “dominion” [07ASUNCION396] in Latin America and—ironically, given the record of the United States itself in the region—expressed concern that he was trying to interfere in the internal politics of his neighbors. Containing the “Chávez threat” became a priority for Washington’s Latin America policy.
This chapter will examine the US strategy to oppose the “Bolivarian Revolution” in Venezuela, and beyond. Inside Venezuela, the cables reveal constant coordination between the US embassy and the Venezuelan opposition, and clear efforts to undermine the government by various means. These included the funding and training of students (some of them known to be violent, as cables show), support for NGOs and other civil society groups in their protests, propaganda campaigns, and other efforts against Venezuela’s elected government. Throughout years of cables, the embassy has shown concern over perennial splits within the opposition, and has attempted to foster unity while simultaneously attempting to co-opt and divide Chavistas. The embassy has aided opposition politicians in their campaigns as it has worked to isolate Venezuela diplomatically, politically, and economically on the world stage.
Pursuing its obsession with the idea of Chávez’s powerful influence abroad, US efforts to contain and isolate Venezuela became a central focus of its strategy in the Western Hemisphere. The United States pressured countries in the Caribbean and Central America to steer clear of Venezuela’s Petrocaribe program (which offers discounted oil on credit), often in vain; and it pursued efforts to keep Venezuela out of the South American trade bloc Mercosur—also without success. The United States attempted to enlist the support of Argentina, Brazil, and other countries in “containing” Venezuela. Finally, US diplomats expressed great concern over close relations between the Venezuelan government and emerging left-leaning presidents in the region, whom they also sought to undermine. In the post-Chávez era, but with the Bolivarian government still in place in Venezuela, there is little reason to think that the strategies the United States has pursued both inside Venezuela and internationally have been abandoned.
UNDERMINING THE VENEZUELAN GOVERNMENT FROM WITHIN VENEZUELA
Following the abortive military coup against Chávez in 2002, the US launched a USAID/Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) operation in Venezuela. While publicly the US embassy would say that “the United States seeks the best possible relations with all governments” [07CARACAS766], the cables reveal that it was actively working to undermine the Chávez government.
This cable from November 2006, written by Ambassador William Brownfield and classified “secret,” explains the USAID/OTI strategy and lays out a point-by-point plan to undermine Venezuela’s elected government:
In August of 2004, Ambassador outlined the country team’s 5 point strategy to guide embassy activities in Venezuela for the period [2004–2006] (specifically, from the referendum to the 2006 presidential elections). The strategy’s focus is: 1) Strengthening Democratic Institutions, 2) Penetrating Chavez’ Political Base, 3) Dividing Chavismo, 4) Protecting Vital US business, and 5) Isolating Chavez internationally. [06CARACAS3356]
We will examine several of these strategy components in turn.
“Strengthening democratic institutions”
When diplomatic cables discuss the promotion or strengthening of democracy, it is usually in reference to various forms of support for US allies. US support for—if not outright coordination of—a 2004 referendum to recall Chávez, and other efforts to see Chávez replaced by an opposition government, are apparent throughout numerous cables. One cable from Brownfield even links Súmate—an opposition NGO that organized the recall and played a central role in other opposition campaigns—to “our interests in Venezuela” [06CARACAS339]. Another describes coordination with Súmate: “Embassy will continue seeking ways to be helpful to Sumate, and will ensure that any efforts are carefully coordinated with Sumate and will help the cause of this valiant pro-democracy NGO” [06CARACAS2478]. Other cables reveal that the State Department has lobbied for international support for Súmate [05MADRID2557; 06CARACAS340] and encouraged US financial [05CARACAS1805], political, legal [06CARACAS3547], and other support for the organization, including via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Nor has such support and close coordination been limited to NGOs. A December 2006 funding request for USAID/OTI activities to implement the strategy outlined above and help to “counter [Chávez’s] anti-American axis” describes areas in which additional funding might assist the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) to “expand their party-building efforts toward 2008 local and state races” [06CARACAS3547]. Other NDI and IRI activities included:
Training the Next Generation of Political Leaders[:] IRI and NDI continue to work on political party renovation, primarily with young(er) leadership, primarily outside of Caracas. They are also identifying potential future political leaders who are not affiliated with a political party. Those identified will participate in a program to prepare them for a run at local council seats and/or mayorships in 2008. [06CARACAS2374_a]
While the NED, IRI, and NDI often claim that such political training and party support is purely non-partisan, the same cable notes that “target populations continue to be political parties and civil society” that “can counterbalance—even in a minor way—the billions of dollars that Chavez has at his disposal.” Political parties are, by definition, partisan; and in a polarized society like Venezuela during this time, there were few—if any—“civil society” organizations for Washington to fund that were “non-partisan.”
A 2004 cable notes that IRI did approach parties affiliated to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (BRV), but these declined participation in electoral party training “despite IRI/HD4 offering to hold separate courses for government-affiliated parties” [04CARACAS2224]. Considering that senior IRI staff had openly applauded the coup just two years before,5 the BRV parties’ reticence must have been expected by the IRI. It is likely that this approach was simply a formality.
So cozy has the embassy relationship with the opposition been that opposition leader Manuel Rosales asked the State Department for “help in arranging meetings” abroad. “The Ambassador advised that it would be better if [Rosales’s] own people took the lead, but said if approached by his international coordinator for help on specific appointments, we probably could help behind the scenes” [07CARACAS569]. The IRI also provided “technical specialists to assist the Rosales [presidential] campaign” in the weeks before the 2006 elections [06CARACAS3532].
Promoting international support for Venezuela’s opposition is another frequently described activity in the cables:
14. (S) An important component of the OTI program is providing information internationally regarding the true revolutionary state of affairs. OTI’s support for human rights organizations has provided ample opportunity to do so … [USAID/OTI contractor Development Alternatives, Inc.] has brought dozens of international leaders to Venezuela, university professors, NGO members, and political leaders to participate in workshops and seminars, who then return to their countries with a better understanding of the Venezuelan reality and as stronger advocates for the Venezuelan opposition. [Emphasis addded.]
Throughout numerous cables, the embassy expresses concern with divisions within the opposition6 and discusses its efforts to foster opposition unity. For example, in a section of a 2007 cable titled “The Opposition?—Divided, Of Course,” deputy chief of mission Philip French writes, “there is no unified opposition effort to oppose Chavez’ constitutional plans. Quiet efforts to coordinate opposition positions have so far been unsuccessful” [07CARACAS1611]. Encouraging opposition groups to unify behind a single national agenda was a key objective for the USAID/OTI program from the start [04CARACAS2224]. Embassy frustration with the opposition’s failures to unite around strategies in response to elections—whether to participate or boycott, claiming “fraud”7—are a recurring theme.8 (The opposition’s boycott of the 2005 legislative elections was a notorious strategic failure, leaving pro-government parties in complete control of the National Assembly.) “Encouraging voter turn-out” has been another priority for USAID/OTI activities in Venezuela [06CARACAS3532]. Election results over the past fifteen years in which the Chavistas have prevailed, coupled with the US government’s proven close coordination with the opposition, should leave little doubt as to which political sectors USAID and OTI wanted to see showing up in greater numbers to vote.
This 2009 cable from John Caulfield, the top-ranking US diplomat in Venezuela at the time, shows the degree of reliance on the US of some opposition organizations:
We risk losing these efforts as Chavez radicalizes his revolution. Without our continued assistance it is possible that the organizations we helped create, which arguably represent the best hope for a more open democratic system in Venezuela, could be forced to close as local funding options dry up for fear of possible government retaliation. As reftels indicate, the Chavez government is constantly attacking those who call for dialogue and consensus. Our funding will provide those organizations a much-needed lifeline. [09CARACAS404] [Emphasis added.]
Another cable, for example, notes that “USAID … is the major international funder of civil society” in Venezuela [06CARACAS2104]. For US diplomats in Venezuela and elsewhere, the term “civil society” typically refers to NGOs with strong international connections but limited local or national representation, rather than more broad-based community groups or indigenous and peasant social movements.
“Penetrating Chávez’s political base”
The importance of penetrating the Chavista base is highlighted again and again in cables from Caracas. Considering the wide margins by which Chávez won elections in 1998, 2000, and 2004—among others—the State Department understands that this task is central if the opposition ever hopes to regain the presidency, or even control of the legislature.
Crucial for this strategy, and related to the objective of “dividing Chavismo” (examined below), are efforts to highlight “failures” of the Chávez government, as this “secret” cable mentions:
When we have concrete intelligence on an issue about which our friends in the region share our concern—e.g., Venezuela’s relationship with Iran—we should share it to the extent we can. And when Chavez’s programs feed local elite appetites for corruption or otherwise fail to deliver on their promises, we need to make it known. [07SANTIAGO983] [Emphasis added.]
Another cable by Brownfield from January 2007 describes a USAID/OTI-funded program through the Pan-American Development Foundation (PADF) that seeks to highlight the Chávez government’s alleged failings:
PADF has funded 9 NGOs to support projects focusing on documenting and reporting on the BRV’s failures, namely: judicial independence, the right of association, violent crime, the prison situation, self-censorship of the media, harassment of journalists, women’s political rights, human rights, and BRV support to micro-entrepreneurs. [07CARACAS175]
Brownfield explicitly lays out the purpose: “This project seeks to shine a flashlight into the dark corners of the revolution, to collect and document information and make it public, domestically and internationally. This will help deconstruct some of the mythology around Chavez and his revolution, and demonstrate that the lives of the Venezuelans really aren’t better.” Some of these organizations would also “add value to the Rosales debate” during the 2006 election campaign, Brownfield noted in a separate cable [06CARACAS3532].
Deputy chief of mission Kevin Whitaker highlighted an example of Venezuelan government failings in August 2006: “[T]he Observatorio Venezolano de Prisiones, regularly infuriates the Minister of Justice with bursts of non-partisan public criticism regarding prison-related issues. This leads to constant unkept promises to fix things and highlights the generalized incompetence of the government” [06CARACAS2374].
Here the priority is highlighting the BRV failure to improve deplorable prison conditions—a serious problem that long predates the Chávez government—rather than actually seeking to improve prison conditions. Indeed, such improvements would prove inconvenient to the USAID/OTI programs, as indicated by their stated objectives.
Related to penetrating Chávez’s base was the task of dividing it, as Brownfield’s secret November strategy cable explains:
9. (S) Another key Chavez strategy is his attempt to divide and polarize Venezuelan society using rhetoric of hate and violence. OTI supports local NGOs who work in Chavista strongholds and with Chavista leaders, using those spaces to counter this rhetoric and promote alliances through working together on issues of importance to the entire community. OTI has directly reached approximately 238,000 adults through over 3000 forums, workshops and training sessions delivering alternative values and providing opportunities for opposition activists to interact with hard-core Chavistas, with the desired effect of pulling them slowly away from Chavismo. We have supported this initiative with 50 grants totaling over $1.1 million. [06CARACAS3356] [Emphasis added.]
Another cable notes that “a local USAID partner has capitalized on the splits in Chavismo, incorporating government and pro-Chávez party leaders into democracy promotion programs” [06CARACAS3462].
THE RELEVANCE OF THE CABLES TO POST-CHÁVEZ VENEZUELA
it is worth examining cables that have some relevance for more recent events in Venezuela, such as the violent street blockades and protests carried out in 2014 in connection with the “Salida” (“exit”) campaign calling for the ouster of president Nicolás Maduro, elected following Chávez’s death in early 2013. While the US government has supported the whole spectrum of opposition groups and political tendencies in Venezuela, it has at times shown preference for some of the more “radical” actors within the opposition, such as Súmate, which Ambassador Brownfield characterized as “the most viable Chavez opponent in Venezuela’s political landscape” [07CARACAS1368; 05CARACAS93]. Súmate co-founder María Corina Machado—along with Leopoldo López—helped to launch the “Salida” campaign at the end of January 2014.9 Both Corina Machado and López supported the 2002 coup: Corina Machado supported the infamous “Carmona decree” of the coup regime, which abolished the elected National Assembly, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court [04CARACAS3219]; López—as mayor of Chacao—oversaw the violent arrest of the minister of the interior of the deposed Chávez government during the short-lived coup.10
Waves of violent student protests also rocked Venezuela several times during the Chávez administration. One secret cable from August 2009, well after President Obama took office, cites USAID/OTI contractor DAI referring to “all” the people protesting Chávez at the time as “our grantees”: “[DAI chief of party] Fernandez said that ‘the streets are hot,’ referring to growing protests against Chavez’s efforts to consolidate power, and ‘all these people (organizing the protests) are our grantees.’ Fernandez has been leading non-partisan training and grant programs since 2004 for DAI in Venezuela” [09CARACAS1132] (emphasis added).
Sometimes the protesters that the US has supported have been known to have violent histories. The cables reveal that the US Department of State provided training and support to a student leader it acknowledged had led crowds with the intention “to lynch” a Chavista governor: “During the coup of April 2002, [Nixon] Moreno participated in the demonstrations in Merida state, leading crowds who marched on the state capital to lynch MVR governor Florencio Porras” [06CARACAS1627]. Yet, a few years after this, “Moreno participated in [a State Department] International Visitor Program in 2004” [07CARACAS591]. Moreno would later be wanted (in 2007) for attempted murder and threatening a female police officer, among other charges.
Cables from 2007 to 2009 describe growing ties between López and the student movement. A June 2007 cable noted that López “is actively advising [students] behind-the-scenes” and another cable from later the same year noted: “The government sees Lopez as the best channel to the student movement” [07CARACAS1128; 07CARACAS2290]. By 2009, the embassy observed that “disgruntled figures like Leopoldo Lopez may be preparing to launch their own self-serving ‘movement,’” which it later described as a “movement of movements” [09CARACAS724; 09CARACAS1145]. López would indeed emerge on the world stage in early 2014 in conjunction with the “Salida” campaign and a violent and disruptive youth movement.
CONTAINING THE VENEZUELAN REGIONAL “THREAT”
A quick search for “Venezuela” on the Cablegate search engine reveals that the South American country is mentioned in no less than 9,424 of the US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks. This is more than any other country in Latin America and the Caribbean except Brazil (9,633 cables)—a country with seven times the population of Venezuela—and four times the total number of cables sent from the US embassy in Caracas. Mexico, the biggest US trading partner in Latin America, is less frequently mentioned (8,966), and Argentina, the second-biggest economy in South America, is referenced in just 5,653 cables. Why does Venezuela receive so much attention?
A partial examination of the thousands of “Venezuela” cables produced by US diplomatic missions outside of Venezuela shows that, along with trying to remove Chávez from power, the US government has made enormous efforts to isolate the Venezuelan government internationally and counter its perceived influence throughout the region. During the Cold War, the US strategies of containment and rollback—targeting the alleged Soviet and Cuban “threat”—had a major influence on US policy toward all the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, and served to justify countless interventions to remove left-leaning governments and prop up right-wing military regimes. Similarly, the WikiLeaks cables show that a new set of strategies seeking to contain and isolate the new regional “bad guy” has had a major impact on US policy toward a number of governments in Latin America and beyond.
Cables show the heads of US diplomatic missions in the region developing coordinated strategies to counter the Venezuelan regional “threat” in joint meetings—for example, at a conference in Rio de Janeiro in May 2007 with the chiefs of mission of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. As WikiLeaks first revealed in December 2010,11 following the Rio conference a cable was sent to the secretary of state and to President Bush’s national security advisor with a detailed report on President Chávez’s alleged “aggressive plans … to create a unified Bolivarian movement throughout Latin America,” and what to do about it. Ominously, the “areas of action” include enhancing ties with the region’s military leaders:
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is aggressively seeking to divide Latin America between those who buy into his populist, anti-American policies and authoritarian message and those who seek to establish and strengthen free-market, democratic based policies and institutions.
…
Septel will offer our posts’ collective views about how to best address the threat this campaign represents to US interests, but it is clear we need more (and more flexible) resources and tools to counter Chavez’s efforts to assume greater dominion over Latin America at the expense of US leadership and interests.
1. … From posts’ perspectives, there are six main areas of action for the USG as it seeks to limit Chavez’s influence:
•Know the enemy: We have to better understand how Chavez thinks and what he intends;
•Directly engage: We must reassert our presence in the region, and engage broadly, especially with the “non-elites”;
•Change the political landscape: We should offer a vision of hope and back it up with adequately-funded programs;
•Enhance military relationships: We should continue to strengthen ties to those military leaders in the region who share our concern over Chavez;
•Play to our strength: We must emphasize that democracy, and a free trade approach that includes corporate social responsibility, provides lasting solutions;
•Get the message out: Public diplomacy is key; this is a battle of ideas and visions. Septel provides detailed suggestions.
[07ASUNCION396]
A second follow-up cable goes further into the specifics of how to keep Venezuela from deepening its relations with the countries of South America’s southern cone. The cable discusses pressuring governments belonging to the regional trade organization Mercosur in an effort to block Venezuela’s entry into the group:
9. (C) With regard to Mercosur, we should not be timid in stating that Venezuela’s membership will torpedo US interest in even considering direct negotiations with the trading bloc, and in questioning when and how Mercosur plans to apply its democracy clause strictures to Chavez’s regime. Without voicing hostility to Mercosur per se, we can continue to pursue FTA’s [sic] with interested countries, and encourage alternative arrangements, such as Chile,s [sic] “Arco del Pacifico” initiative. [07SANTIAGO983]
Though Paraguay’s right-wing legislature refused to approve Venezuela’s membership in Mercosur, Venezuela finally succeeded in becoming a full member in July 2012, after Paraguay was briefly suspended from the group following a “technical coup” against the country’s elected president. Meanwhile, US government officials—in particular Vice President Joe Biden12—have been increasingly active promoters of the Pacific Alliance, a “free trade” initiative that succeeded the “Arco del Pacifico.” Made up of some of the closest US allies in the region—Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Chile—the Pacific Alliance is seen by former Brazilian president Lula,13 Bolivian president Evo Morales, and others as a US-backed attempt to divide the region.
As the cables show, the US government also aggressively opposed Venezuela’s efforts to build strong relations with the countries of the Caribbean and Central America. US diplomats in those countries focused in particular on trying to prevent their host governments from becoming members of the Venezuelan regional energy agreement, Petrocaribe.
Halting the expansion of Petrocaribe
Petrocaribe provides oil to member countries on a concessionary basis, with only a portion of the bill paid upfront and the remainder financed by Venezuela with extremely low long-term interest rates. In this way, Petrocaribe is conceived to eliminate the middlemen—the multinational oil companies that have long dominated the market—and allows for the formation of state-run companies and joint ventures to handle the import, distribution, and other infrastructure of the oil market. Petrocaribe also generated additional available funds for member governments which, according to the agreement’s terms, are prioritized for social programs and other development projects.
Leaked cables show that, while US diplomats privately acknowledged clear economic benefits for countries joining Petrocaribe, behind the scenes they sought to prevent governments from becoming members—in some cases working with multinational oil firms in an effort to counter Venezuela in the region.
US authorities were concerned about Petrocaribe from the beginning. In July 2004, US deputy chief of mission in Venezuela, Stephen G. McFarland, warned: “We believe Venezuela is aggressively pushing its plans for the integration of energy companies throughout the Hemisphere to gain political strength” [04CARACAS2255].
For the US government, this was not about economic development, or increasing the sovereignty of countries beholden to the whims of the oil market and monopolistic multinationals; it was a political game, and one that has continued under the Obama administration. In June 2009, John Caulfield, the top-ranking US diplomat in Venezuela at the time, explained clearly why the US had invested so much in trying to counteract Petrocaribe: “Chavez’s outsized ambition backed by petrodollars makes Venezuela an active and intractable US competitor in the region” [09CARACAS750].
The US was worried that these new regional alliances would further erode US influence in the region. In January 2010, the US ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy, wrote that Chávez’s “vision” for the hemisphere was “almost the mirror image of what the United States seeks,” and that: “To the extent that Chavez succeeds in creating ‘Bolivarian’ regional institutions, he may be able to secure his own role in the region even if elections in other countries remove his political allies from office” [10CARACAS15].
The US apparently feared that Petrocaribe would succeed and traditional allies in the Caribbean would be less reliant on Washington, and therefore less beholden to US interests, no matter whom they elected as their leaders.
The US pushes back in Jamaica and Haiti
In August 2005, Chávez traveled to Jamaica to finalize the Petrocaribe cooperation agreement between the two countries. While the US could not block Jamaica’s ascension, its displeasure was quickly revealed during a meeting on August 25:
Rattray [bilateral affairs director] then asked the USG’s perspective on PetroCaribe arrangements. Pol/Econ Chief acknowledged the seeming attractiveness of the agreement but observed that it seemed highly unlikely that the GOV would offer such favorable terms with no expectation of quid pro quo. He then outlined USG concerns about Chavez’s destabilizing activities in neighboring states, and his undermining of democratic institutions at home.
Though Prime Minister P. J. Patterson signed the agreement, the chargé d’affaires, Thomas Tighe, noted in the same cable: “Patterson is well aware of current difficulties between the USG and the GOV, and of potential downsides to concluding the agreement” [05KINGSTON2026].
But the potential downsides did not concern the impact of Petrocaribe on the Jamaican economy. Just a few months later, Tighe noted that, while “some quarters are beginning to fear a backlash from the US,” in fact, “PetroCaribe could have a transforming effect on the Jamaican Economy.” Later in 2008, as the world economic crisis spread, the embassy acknowledged: “Petrocaribe benefits have helped Jamaica avert economic disaster.”
Another powerful set of actors opposed to Petrocaribe were international oil companies operating in Jamaica. In the months after Jamaica joined, the embassy had multiple meetings with officials from these companies who expressed concern about competing with the new state-owned companies. Texaco’s country manager emailed an embassy official: “It is clear, that the present Government wants to vertically integrate into the [retail] petroleum sector. This is a significant policy shift which will have serious implications for the market” [05KINGSTON2495].
While the embassy officers had “repeatedly” engaged GOJ officials on Petrocaribe, they became frustrated that they had little to offer as an alternative. Consul General Ronald Robinson wrote in June 2006: “[I]n the absence of a clear USG alternative, traction is proving difficult” [06KINGSTON1298]. In August, Ambassador Brenda LaGrange Johnson suggested one such alternative, writing: “there are ways in which the USG can counter an over-reliance on the GOV,” for example through a Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) agreement [06KINGSTON1687]. In this way, US efforts were similar to what was seen in Chapter 17, above: leveraging aid to influence and counter perceived shifts toward Venezuela. In the end, however, Jamaica failed to qualify for an MCC agreement. Since 2005, Jamaica has received funding support in excess of $2.4 billion through Petrocaribe—quite a large sum, amounting to more than 2 percent of the country’s GDP from 2005 to 2013.14
In Haiti, the embassy worked hand-in-hand with big oil companies to try to prevent the country from joining Petrocaribe, despite acknowledging that it “would save USD 100 million per year,” as was first reported by Dan Coughlin and Kim Ives in The Nation.15 In April 2006, Ambassador Janet Sanderson wrote: “Post will continue to pressure [Haitian president René] Preval against joining PetroCaribe. Ambassador will see Preval’s senior advisor Bob Manuel today. In previous meetings, he has acknowledged our concerns and is aware that a deal with Chavez would cause problems with us” [06PORTAUPRINCE692].
Leading multinational oil companies also expressed reservations. In October 2006, the embassy encouraged the companies to express their concerns regarding Petrocaribe to the government [06PORTAUPRINCE1960], and later, in January 2007, chargé d’affaires Thomas C. Tighe reported: “Chevron country manager Patryck Peru Dumesnil confirmed his company’s anti-Petrocaribe position and said that ExxonMobil, the only other US oil company operating in Haiti, has told the GoH that it will not import Petrocaribe products” [07PORTAUPRINCE78].
The Haitian government eventually warned the oil companies that if they did not agree to the terms of the deal, “the companies may have to leave Haiti.” Though Chevron eventually agreed to the terms, their opposition to Petrocaribe was made clear in a cable from February 2008: “Chevron management in the US does not want to make a lot of ‘noise’ about the agreement because they do not want to appear to support PetroCaribe” [08PORTAUPRINCE234].
Like Jamaica before it, Haiti ended up joining Petrocaribe, and has received over 30 million barrels of oil, amounting to well over $3 billion. The resources have become a key source of reconstruction financing following the January 12, 2010 earthquake, accounting for around 25 percent of all investment expenditures in 2013. Haitian president Michel Martelly has consistently praised the agreement, noting: “The cooperation with Venezuela is the most important in Haiti right now in terms of impact, direct impact.”16
The Caribbean as a battlefield—against Chávez
In March 2006, SOUTHCOM, the US military’s regional command, planned a “Partnership of the Americas” maritime exercise in the Caribbean. The US ambassador to Venezuela at the time, William Brownfield, wrote to regional embassies, SOUTHCOM, and the State Department in support of the plan:
Post supports Southcom’s planned “Partnership of the Americas” maritime surge to the Caribbean to be led by the aircraft carrier USS George Washington. The deployment will help us to counter President Hugo Chavez’ courtship of Caribbean countries and his attempts to pit them against the United States. The ship visit will provide benefits to participating nations that offer a stark contrast to the Venezuelan Government’s failures to provide concrete help against drug trafficking and to promote sustainable economic development. Finally, the deployment advances US interests by feeding into Chavez’ increasingly paranoid behavior and by creating conditions in which the Venezuelan leader could make a mistake.
Brownfield elaborated on what this “mistake” might be:
Post will promote the visit of the carrier group as a routine US military and humanitarian outreach to the region. Nonetheless, the BRV’s portrayal of the deployment as evidence of US imperialism will likely be the fallout. If the BRV does not allege the visit as proof of US plans to invade, it will certainly bemoan it as a show of power aimed at intimidating Venezuela. Any Chavez attempts to portray regional states as “colonies” of the empire will further undermine the Bolivarian President’s credibility. [06CARACAS776]
The USS George Washington would go on to dock not just in a number of Caribbean countries, but also in Honduras and Nicaragua. But if the US believed this show of force would prevent Caribbean countries from developing closer relations with Venezuela, they turned out to be mistaken. Despite intense lobbying from US embassies and the direct involvement of President Bush and other high-ranking officials, countries throughout the region continued to sign up for Petrocaribe.
Petrocaribe moves into Central America
In 2008, as Guatemala prepared to join Petrocaribe, US ambassador James Derham acknowledged:
Embassy officers have repeatedly urged the GOG to weigh carefully the pros and cons of a PetroCaribe deal, and suggested that the [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] ask current PetroCaribe members about their experiences with Venezuelan compliance with the terms of agreements. The influential private sector and some media have also urged the GOG not to sign. [08GUATEMALA600]
President Álvaro Colom backed out of the agreement after a visit to Washington, DC. Derham wrote in June 2008: “When President Colom returned from Washington after meeting with President Bush in Washington in late April, he instructed Meany [minister of energy and mines] to back off negotiations with Venezuela” [08GUATEMALA783]. In case that was still not enough, Derham then told Meany: “[T]he decision to sign a Petrocaribe agreement would be an unpleasant surprise to Washington.”
President Bush also became involved when the Honduran government began to give serious consideration to joining Petrocaribe. Ambassador Charles Ford wrote to the CIA, the secretary of state, and various other agencies in May 2006 in a secret cable: “A suggested POTUS warning to [President of Honduras Manuel] Zelaya that does not challenge his option for making a deal, but leaves him anxious about USG reactions to closer ties to Chavez, could prove a crucial bulwark against the spread of Chavez’s influence in the region.” Ford added that, “since the deal cannot likely be stopped, we should use it to extract maximum advantage in other areas of bilateral importance,” concluding: “Zelaya is no Chavez, but if left unchanged, circumstances could make him complicit in advancing Chavez’s influence in the region” [06TEGUCIGALPA985].
After the meeting with Bush, Zelaya actually portrayed it as a “green light” for Honduras to move forward with Petrocaribe—an interpretation that caused the embassy much grief. Chargé d’affaires James Williard wrote:
Despite very clear warnings from Post and from POTUS about the risks of a deal with Chavez, it seems clear from his remarks that Zelaya remains intent on pushing forward with his plan. It is unclear if his is a case of hearing only what he wants to hear, or of grossly misrepresenting POTUS’ remarks for political motives. In either case, it seems clear to Post that Zelaya seeks to convince his domestic audience that the USG would be comfortable with a GOH/GOV deal. This has two immediate, sharp repercussions: first, it makes the inking of such a deal more likely (with all the negative consequences that implies for warmer GOH relations with Chavez), and second, this public spin could be used to undermine Post’s credibility, by implying (as El Heraldo has done) that Post’s tough stance on this issue is not supported by Washington. [06TEGUCIGALPA1026]
The next year, in March 2007, Ford bragged in a cable: “Over the last year, USG action stopped a PetroCaribe deal with Venezuela” [07TEGUCIGALPA493]. Yet this victory was short-lived, as Honduras would go on to join Petrocaribe in December 2007. Relations would further deteriorate after this point between Honduras and the US, culminating in the June 2009 coup d’état, as will be discussed in more detail below.
Lasting impact
The diplomatic cables provide clear evidence that the US was both concerned about Petrocaribe and actively seeking to convince countries not to join—not because the deal did not make sense, but because of a perceived political battle for the region. For the US, however, it has been a losing battle. With El Salvador’s decision to join in May 2014 following the election of President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, there are at the time of writing nineteen countries participating in Petrocaribe.
According to PDVSA, the Venezuelan state oil company, the program is providing over 40 percent of the energy needs of member countries.17 It has become so important to these economies that SOUTHCOM commander General John F. Kelly told the press in March 2014 that, without Petrocaribe, “[t]heir economies would, I think, collapse.”18 More recently, the agreement has allowed for countries to pay back debt with in-kind goods, such as agricultural products, which now account for an estimated 21 percent of all payments.
Lobbying other governments in efforts to isolate Venezuela
In many instances, cables show US officials lobbying other governments to assist the US in its attempts to isolate the Venezuelan government. In November of 2007, for instance, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sent a cable to eleven US embassies in Latin America, its embassy in Canada, and the US mission to the European Union, asking them to urge their hosts to criticize Venezuela publicly:
Department requests action addressees demarche host governments, at the highest appropriate level, to: 1) share our concerns about the antidemocratic changes in the proposed constitutional reform package; 2) highlight growing dissension within Venezuela and the increasingly repressive methods employed by the GoV; and 3) request that host governments join the voices of international concern regarding GoV lack of adherence to its commitments under the Inter-American Democratic Charter. [07STATE154674_a]
The constitutional reform package may not have been to the US government’s liking but, given that it was to be voted on in a national referendum, as required by the constitution, it would be difficult to label it “anti-democratic.” Unsurprisingly, with the exception of staunch US allies El Salvador (at the time) and Canada, no other governments in the region complied with the secretary of state’s request. “This is an internal Venezuelan matter,” a Chilean diplomat told a US political counselor who delivered the demarche.19
A key component of the US strategy for “containing” Chávez regionally was to encourage Argentina and Brazil—the two largest economies in South America—to act as a mitigating force. The governments of Néstor Kirchner and Lula da Silva were seen in Washington policy circles as “center left” administrations when they first entered office; both would move farther to the left in their foreign policies as time went on.
After years of encouraging the government of Argentina (GOA) to act as a moderating influence on Chávez, US diplomats appeared frustrated when, later on, Argentina seemed to move closer to Venezuela. In a May 2006 cable describing Kirchner’s remarks to the press, Kirchner reportedly denies that the US (or Brazil) has “pressured him” to limit Chávez’s influence; but the US embassy in Buenos Aires appears to disagree:
President Kirchner said that the US and Brazil had not pressured him “to limit the influence of Chavez in the region,” although he acknowledged that US officials had expressed their concern about Chavez to him. (Comment: US officials, from President Bush to the Ambassador and leading Embassy officials have all repeatedly stated our concerns to President Kirchner and his top advisors about Chavez and his policies at home and in the region. While we have not enlisted the GOA’s support in “limiting the influence of Chavez” per se, we have repeatedly sought the GOA’s help in moderating Chavez and his policies in Venezuela and the region. [06BUENOSAIRES1176] [Emphasis added.]
However, during a February 2007 trip to Venezuela, Kirchner publicly repudiated the pressure to “contain” Chávez:
During the agreements signing ceremony, Kirchner commented “we are and will be absolutely respectful, both of us, of the relations and internal situations in our countries … It is said that some countries should ‘contain’ others, that Lula and I should ‘contain’ Chavez. That is absolutely wrong. Together with our brother, President Chavez, we are building integration in South America for the dignity of our peoples.” … In response to Kirchner’s comments, local media reports that Chavez said “they have failed and will fail—the travelers from the North who are coming to the South to try to divide us, to sow discord.” [07BUENOSAIRES360] [Emphasis added.]
The US also attempted to enlist Brazil in its effort to “contain” Chávez. As with Argentina, this has achieved little success. In a March 2005 cable, Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim pushes back hard when the US ambassador says that Chávez is a “threat to the region”:
2. (S) Ambassador outlined points … on the USG’s growing concern about Chavez’s rhetoric and actions, and stressed that the USG increasingly sees Chavez as a threat to the region. Per refs, he asked that FM Amorim consider institutionalizing a more intensive political engagement between the USG and GOB on Chavez, and standing up a dedicated intelligence-sharing arrangement. FM Amorim was clear in his response: “We do not see Chavez as a threat.” Amorim said that Chavez has been democratically elected (in a general election that was reaffirmed by a referendum), enjoys substantial domestic support, is a popular figure on the international left and is leader of a major power on the continent. For those reasons, “we have to work with him and do not want to do anything that would jeopardize our relationship with him,” Amorim affirmed. [05BRASILIA715] [Emphasis added.]
Instead, Brazil would support Venezuela’s entry into Mercosur [06BRASILIA206]—strongly opposed by the US government—and, in September 2009, privately urged the US government to re-establish diplomatic relations with Venezuela:
7. (C) While insisting they did not want to engage in mediation between the USG and GOV, both Garcia and Amorim used the opportunity to encourage the United States to establish “a direct channel of communication with President Chavez.” Amorim suggested that a good USG-GOV dialogue would have an impact on the domestic situation in Venezuela, as well, because much of the opposition to Chavez has ties to the United States. [09BRASILIA1113]
Opposing the rise of Venezuela’s “radical populist” allies
The cables clearly show that the US government opposed some political leaders in the region who it considered to be too close to Venezuela. US diplomats portray these leaders as agents of Chávez simply because they had warm relations with the Venezuelan president and supported a similar anti-neoliberal or nationalist agenda. For example, soon after Evo Morales was elected president of Bolivia, US ambassador David Greenlee commented that Bolivia’s government had “fallen openly into Venezuela’s embrace” [06LAPAZ1418]. In Ecuador, a US diplomat labeled Rafael Correa a “stalking-horse for Chavez” months before he was first elected president, in 2006.20 “Were he to be elected,” the same diplomat later wrote, “we would expect Correa to eagerly seek to join the Chávez-Morales-Kirchner group of nationalist-populist South American leaders.”21
While commander of SOUTHCOM in 2004, General James Hill announced that the region’s “radical populist” leaders were an emerging national security threat for the US.22 The State Department shared a similar view and, as we saw in Chapter 17, opposed these left-leaning leaders through various forms of internal intervention. Part of the justification for this intervention was based on the supposition that Chávez effectively controlled these leaders thanks to his political charisma and to Venezuela’s petrodollars.
In March 2006, the US ambassadors from Central America held a strategy and coordination meeting with the assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, Thomas Shannon. The first issue on their agenda was “Populist Politics,” and they focused on the upcoming Nicaraguan elections that Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega was widely expected to win. His victory, according to US ambassador to Nicaragua Paul Trivelli, would signal the expansion of Chávez’s influence in the region:
2. (SBU) Ambassador Trivelli made it clear that Ortega is the same populist Mafioso who drove Nicaragua into the ground under previous Sandanista [sic] rule. An Ortega victory in upcoming presidential elections would give Chavez a foothold in the region and trigger another round of human and capital flight. A/S Shannon said it is important that neither Ortega nor Aleman win, given Ortega’s influence over Aleman. Leaders in the region must focus on how important these elections are, he added. [06SANSALVADOR963] [Emphasis added.]
The ambassadors also expressed concern about the potential rise of pro-Chávez “leftist demagogues” in Panama and Guatemala, the latter being where “the election of Morales in Bolivia [had been] a welcome event in the indigenous population.” But the US ambassador to Guatemala, James Derham, assured his colleagues that the indigenous in Guatemala were “still reeling from the war years” (during which a US-backed counter-insurrection campaign had killed an estimated 200,000 civilians) and, as a result, were “not yet organized enough to put together a political campaign.” Going forward, the diplomats agreed to “continue to monitor populist political activities in the region and share experiences on best practices to support democracies in the region.”
At the time of this meeting, the ambassadors did not yet consider Honduran president Manuel Zelaya to be a Chávez-aligned “radical populist.” But this perception gradually changed after Zelaya’s government joined Petrocaribe in 2007, and then the left-wing Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America group of nations in 2008. A February 2008 cable shows that the US embassy believed that Chávez had an influence on bilateral talks regarding the possible commercialization of Honduras’s Soto Cano airbase—the US military’s main platform in Central America:
12. (C) Under this administration, we can expect to continue to receive requests for “re-examining” the issue, especially as Zelaya creeps closer and closer to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. We believe that Chavez and other left-leaning friends might question Zelaya as to why Honduras has a US base within its borders, and press him to demand more “benefits.” [08TEGUCIGALPA165]
By September 2008, it was clear that the embassy had given up on Zelaya and was focused on the prospect of a political transition with the elections of November 2009:
10. (C) With only 16 months before he leaves office, our goal is to get Zelaya through his term without causing any irreparable damage to bilateral relations or to Honduras, [sic] future development possibilities, and to minimize further expansion of relations with Chavez. Successful elections that lead to a successor will play a key role. We intend to work with the other donor nations and international organizations to support this end. [08TEGUCIGALPA863]
Zelaya was ejected from office in June 2009 through a military coup d’état executed by General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez—“friend of the USG and the Embassy” according to a 2007 cable.23 Though the Obama administration eventually made statements against the coup, they balked at efforts by member countries of the Organization of American States to achieve the quick return of Zelaya to power.24 Instead, State Department officials first hinted, then announced, that they would support and recognize the November 2009 elections regardless of whether Zelaya was reinstated beforehand, thereby removing pressure on the coup government to restore democracy.
Cables show that, in the weeks before and following the elections, US embassy officials in a number of Latin American countries attempted to persuade host governments to recognize the Honduran elections,25 as did Arturo Valenzuela, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, when he traveled to Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.26 Despite this campaign by Washington, nearly every country in the region considered the vote—held under an illegal coup regime—to be illegitimate.
There is a great deal of consistent evidence in the cables, from within Venezuela and elsewhere, as well as declassified CIA and other government documents, suggesting that the US has generally followed the strategy laid out in cable 06CARACAS3356. The stated objective of “isolating Chavez internationally” has been pursued with particular zeal in the Latin American and Caribbean region, where the US has attempted to sway or pressure countries to avoid close relationships with the Venezuelan government, and has attempted to undercut Venezuelan initiatives (such as Petrocaribe), to isolate Venezuela from international fora (such as Mercosur), and tried, without success, to use other left-leaning countries—most notably Argentina and Brazil—to “manage” Venezuela and limit its influence. Within Venezuela, other components of the strategy have clearly been followed, such as efforts to “penetrate Chavez’s base” and “divide Chavismo.” Throughout the Chávez era, the US coordinated closely with various elements of Venezuela’s opposition, from law-abiding political parties to violent student protesters, coup-supporters, and others.
There is evidence that these strategies were not abandoned after Chávez’s death, and that in fact the US government may be pursuing them even more assiduously in the post-Chávez era. Only when more evidence emerges, through leaked or declassified State Department cables or other government documents, will we be able to judge to what extent many of their more aggressive actions were part of an overall strategy—for example, Washington’s refusal to recognize the legitimacy of Maduro’s 2013 election to the presidency.27 (The opposition took advantage of Maduro’s relatively narrow margin of victory to cry fraud, even as audits of the ballot showed clearly that Maduro had won fairly.28 The Obama administration alone refused to recognize Maduro’s victory—a clear signal encouraging the opposition to continue to claim the new president lacked legitimacy—and only later reversed its position, under pressure from South American governments.) Embassy cables rarely offer any glimpse into some of the most subversive activities being carried out by the US government abroad, so what they reveal may only be the tip of the iceberg in terms of US efforts to undermine and de-legitimize Venezuela’s government and counter its influence in the region.