IS AFL-CIO HELPING U.S. STAGE ANOTHER VENEZUELAN COUP? www.laboreducator.org/aflven.htm

HARRY KELBER, LABOR EDUCATOR – Hardly any union member knows anything about the AFL-CIO's American Center for International Labor Solidarity, because it operates largely as a clandestine organization. It was established in 1997 to replace the four regional organizations under former AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, whose staffs had worked with CIA agents to destabilize democratically-elected governments in the Dominican Republic, Guyana and Chile and to undermine governments that were either friendly to the then Soviet Union or hostile to American business interests. . .

Solidarity Center gets three-quarters of its budget from government sources, with annual grants from the State Department, the Agency for International Development, the Labor Department and the National Endowment for Democracy. The AFL-CIO also donates a significant amount to the Center. Repeated attempts to get a complete list of donors and the amount of their contributions have been rebuffed. . .

Solidarity Center maintains offices and staffs in at least 26 countries. They include Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Croatia, Paraguay, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. It's not clear how Solidarity Center's operations in these countries have any relevance to the problems of American workers and their unions. But they do have importance for the U.S. State Department and President Bush's foreign policy advisers by providing them with channels to U.S.-financed labor movements in countries around the world.

Solidarity Center was thrust into an embarrassing limelight by an article that appeared in the New York Times on April 25, 2002 under the headline, "U.S. Bankrolling Is Under Scrutiny for Ties to Chavez Ouster." The article by Times writer Christopher Marquis listed numerous grants by the National Endowment for Democracy to various pro-coup groups in Venezuela, prior to the April 11 coup against the democratically-elected president, Hugo Chavez.

Marquis wrote: "Of particular concern is $154,377 given by the endowment to the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, the international arm of the AFL-CIO, to assist the main Venezuelan labor union in advancing labor rights."

The article noted: "The Venezuelan union, the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers led the work stoppages that galvanized the opposition to Mr. Chavez. The union's leader, Carlos Ortega, worked closely with Pedro Carmona Estanga, the businessman who briefly took over from Mr. Chavez in challenging the government."

How the Center's $154,333 to the CTV was spent is still unclear. Stan Gacek, assistant director for the AFL-CIO's International Affairs Department, says it was for internal union elections, but CTV's Institute director, Jesus Urbieta, says the money was used for conducting training courses. . . A series of work stoppages by the CTV, followed by prolonged, widespread strikes, paved the way for the "democratic revolution" on April 11, 2002, with Pedro Carmona, a pro-U.S. businessman, selected to run the country. Carmona's first act was to dissolve the National Assembly. . .

The opposition to Chavez hasn't given up and neither has the Endowment, which is still handing out grants totaling more than one million dollars to organizations it feels can be of use in the anti-Chavez movement. Available records show that NED contributed $116,000 to the Solidarity Center every three months, from September 2002 to March 2004. In return, the Center had to submit five quarterly reports, whose contents were obviously designed to please its benefactor.