Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com
Saturday, Aug. 14, 2004

Jimmy Carter is in Venezuela as an “observer” to the recall election that will prove critical in determing whether President Hugo Chavez can create another Castro-style dictatorship in Latin America.

History could be prologue.

In 1996, the Georgia Democrat and his Carter Center endorsed Yasser Arafat’s election, describing it as a “democratic” one, “well organized, open and fair.” But former CIA director James Woolsey concluded differently: “Arafat was essentially ‘elected’ the same way Stalin was, but not nearly as democratically as Hitler, who at least had actual opponents.”

Fast forward eight years to another controversial electoral venue.

In recent news from Venezuela, the ubiquitous Carter Center, one of the international “observers” of the recall vote Sunday on Chavez, was once again criticized by a board member of that nation’s electoral council as acting outside its role as observer when it recently met with the country’s political parties.

But with Chavez steadily gaining ground in the polls (he is spending enormous amounts of government money to buy off the lower classes), pundits suggest that the real worry is not the unwelcome meddling by the ostensibly neutral Carter Center, but that a Chavez victory, stamped with the heady imprimatur of the Center, will propel Chavez into a fresh era of apparently legitimate rule.

At stake: the future of U.S. relations with its neighbors to the south and a widened sphere of influence for Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Victory in August will allow Chavez to retain and strengthen his controversial “Bolivarian Circles,” or partisan support groups, which are modeled after Fidel Castro’s Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. Leaders in the groups are convinced that the rich landowners and big bosses in Venezuela, backed by President Bush and the CIA, tried to overthrow Chavez in 2002.

Some in Venezuela’s National Assembly have voiced concern that government money has been unlawfully funneled off to support these groups. In fact, $4 billion has disappeared from Venezuela’s macroeconomic stabilization fund that no one seems to be able to explain.

Venezuela at one time was on the American team, not Castro’s, in foreign policy and security, with U.S. military and intelligence advisors regularly working closely with their Venezuelan counterparts. But anti-Cuban sentiments began changing with Chavez’s election in 1998.

Apparently forgotten in the new wave of Cuban-Venezuelan friendship are the old days when Cuba armed and trained several Venezuelan leftist guerrilla movements.

Castro Boasts of Spreading His 'Rabies'

These days as Cuban “advisers” continue to flow into Caracas, Castro has been brazen about his country’s new alignment with Venezuela. U.S. officials “are saying that I will die soon and that once the dog is dead the rabies dies,” Castro recently boasted. “Well, now Venezuela has turned into a dog.”

Meanwhile, as Washington watches and frets, the usual suspects continue to stir the pot in this volatile country, which has seen a short-lived coup and a national strike batter away at Chavez since his election in 1998.

For his part, Chavez has cunningly turned to fueling his popular “missions” with cash – putting sheen on his administration as hard at work at the grass roots with spending on education and the like. Once proposing to raid the Central Bank’s reserves, then turning to Petroleos de Venezuela to fund them, Chavez is using these social programs to buy his way through the referendum that threatens to recall him.

Petorleos, for instance, is devoting no less than 30 percent of its investment budget this year to social projects designed to turn the heads of the electorate.

In the mix, in addition to the wily Chavez, there is Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE), charged with holding the referendum; the anti-Chavez camp consolidated within an organization called Coordinadora Democratica; a Supreme Court unlawfully packed by Chavez; the Organization of American States; and lastly, of course, Carter and his Atlanta-based Carter Center.

The fact of the matter is that Carter Center has been immersed in Venezuela’s election processes for the past six years, having monitored and passed blessing on the contest for president in December 1998 in which Hugo Chavez came to power.

Subsequently, it observed and gave passing marks to the referendum that approved a new constitution and then a new election in July 2000 in which Chavez was re-elected and governors, members of parliament and local officials were also chosen.

In April 2002, a temporary rebellion removed the president from office for about 48 hours, and domestic turmoil persisted after the crisis. “A belief that the United States gave at least tacit support for the coup attempt and harsh statements by President Chavez have strained relations between the two countries,” Carter concluded, after his organization failed to defuse the rebellion.

Despite the continued interference of Carter Center, there followed many street confrontations and a two-month petroleum strike in December and January that disrupted the normal economic, financial, and political processes of the nation.

At the request of the government and opposition forces, Carter Center joined the Organization of American States in what was to be a failed effort to mediate between the major political groups.

Early in 2003, Carter went to Caracas, met with the president and his adversaries, and offered two options for resolving the conflict. In May of that year, Carter Center helped to negotiate a pact based on one of the options, which would permit the opposition to seek signatures of 20 percent of the registered voters (2,436,000). This would automatically trigger a recall referendum on whether Chavez could complete his six-year term. In such a referendum, there would have to be the same number of votes against him as he received on being elected.

Sounded like a plan, but following the collection of 3,477,000 total signatures, the basic differences persisted, and the CNE accepted only 1,911,000 of them as legitimate, rejected 375,000 as invalid, and declared the authenticity of approximately 1.2 million names to be doubtful. This meant that 525,000 of the doubtful ones would have to be reaffirmed to meet the 20 percent requirement.

After five months of this Chinese fire drill, both sides finally agreed with an election commission proposal that a three-day period would be devoted to having these names reconfirmed by the individual voters, and the CNE also decided that previous confirmed signers could withdraw their names.

'Objectivity'

At one point in the confusion, Carter and his staff met with the chief justice of the Venezuelan Supreme Court, “who assured us in eloquent terms of his objectivity and commitment to preserving the constitutional and legal premises on which the political life of Venezuela will be preserved. He also assured us that legal appeals on the recall process would not delay or suspend preparations for an eventual recall vote, unless the allegations were extremely grave.”

Of course, all is not as rosy as the chief justice would have Carter believe. To this day, the allegedly well-intentioned court has yet to decide the $64,000 question: whether Chavez, if he loses the referendum, could simply turn around and run as a candidate in the interim elections that result.

It’s open questions such as this that motivated Chavez’s packing of the court from the get-go. The National Assembly gave itself the power to nullify the appointments of justices who are already on the court. Recently, pro-Chavez legislators voted to remove one justice from the court and to initiate proceedings against others.

Making the saga of Carter Center in Venezuela short, including an initial meddling incident when CNE President Carrasquero called to tell Carter that he and his group had violated their role and would be disqualified from further duties as observers, on June 3, 2004 adequate signatures had been secured to require a recall referendum.

Such a 'Triumph'

“This is a triumph for the democratic process in Venezuela, and all elements of the process deserve credit,” gushed Carter. “President Chavez fulfilled his promise to us and made a positive statement accepting the challenge. We will continue our role as the prime mediator between the government and opposition forces and work for harmony and peace in the country. There will be a massive electoral campaign prior to the vote, which must be before Aug. 19, and The Carter Center will help to ensure a fair and transparent referendum.”

But despite Carter’s pitch that all is well in paradise, Chavez recently lashed out week at Human Rights Watch for criticizing his stacking of the Supreme Court. Furthermore, his supporters at the electoral council are opposing the role of monitors in the August referendum.

But pressured to do so or not, Chavez is unlikely to give Carter Center the boot. Carter was recommended to him by Castro as a handy enough tool, and the leader understands that the organization's stamp of approval is a good thing, just as it was for Arafat. Additionally, Carter Center has a proven track record of approving the electoral processes in Venezuela.

In the end, most pundits are betting that it won’t be Carter Center or the OAS with their respective hands on the real electoral switch – it will be Chavez’s own Supreme Court, poised if necessary to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Chavez has no intention of going quietly in the night, whatever the result of the recall, and making a fool of the former president is not even a vague concern in his grand scheme.

Editor's note: Get Steven Hayward's "The Real Jimmy Carter" - Click here for free offer.

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