MEXICO CITY (By Pablo Bachelet,
McClatchy) August 27, 2006 — The Bush
administration is facing deep suspicions and strong reluctance as it adds
tens of millions of dollars to U.S. democracy-building programs in Latin
America, an important region where leftist, populist and anti-Bush
sentiments increasingly dominate politics, officials say.
"A new political class … has come to power, or
is coming to power, and they see a lot of this (U.S. aid) with a great deal
of suspicion," said Christopher Sabatini, who until recently ran the Latin
American programs for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a
congressionally funded group that gives grants to pro-democracy programs.
Cold shoulder from Chavez
Supporters of socialist President Hugo
Chavez in Venezuela have stopped attending political-training seminars
arranged by U.S.-based institutions, for example, and pro-Chavez lawmakers
are pushing a bill that would make it much harder for nongovernmental groups
to accept U.S. funding.
In the past, NED and its main beneficiaries
like the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National
Democratic Institute (NDI), worked well with what Sabatini called "more
traditional civil society organizations and leaders, many of them
Harvard-trained technocrats."
But new groups have emerged from the
fringes of Latin America society, like indigenous Bolivian groups with a
long history of grievances against the ruling elites and the urban poor from
Buenos Aires' industrial districts. Increasingly, they have challenged the
U.S. agenda that promotes political stability and more open economies.
More than $2 billion in aid
The Bush administration, in keeping with
its pledge to push for democracy around the world, has quadrupled worldwide
aid for pro-democracy programs to more than $2 billion a year, says Thomas
Melia, deputy executive director of Freedom House, which organizes exchange
visits for pro-democracy activists in Latin America.
U.S. government agencies contacted by The
Miami Herald for official aid totals said any such numbers are only rough
approximations because funds are being poured over multiple accounts into a
complex web of groups and government agencies.
The web spans from specialized sections of
the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
to the Pan-American Development Foundation of the Organization of American
States and nonprofit groups like the Carter Center, the Solidarity Center of
the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Center for International
Private Enterprise.
The biggest single winner appears to be
NED, which hands out grants directly to foreign groups. Its congressional
funding rose from $59 million in 2005 to $74 million this year — plus $10
million to 15 million for specific programs ordered by lawmakers, such as $2
million for groups in Venezuela, NED officials say.
So far this year, NED has awarded grants in
Latin America totaling $7.9 million, and expects to at least equal last
year's record of $10.9 million.
In 2004, NED gave out $6.7 million in the
region.
USAID is biggest donor
The biggest government donor is USAID,
which has a $176 million democracy-and-governance budget for Latin America
in 2006, with Haiti ($33 million) and Paraguay ($27 million) topping the
list of beneficiaries.
But there have been questions about who
benefits from the programs.
The International Republican Institute,
linked to the Republican Party, has denied allegations that it urged
opponents of ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to reject a
compromise with his government, and came under attack from the Venezuelan
government when it blamed a 2002 coup against Chavez on his "repressive"
ways.
