REPORT ON STAFFDEL FEBRUARY 18-20

C O N F I D E N T I A L CARACAS 000699

SIPDIS


NSC FOR CBARTON
USAID DCHA/OTI FOR RUSSELL PORTER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/27/2014
TAGS: PGOV PREL PREF VE
SUBJECT: REPORT ON STAFFDEL FEBRUARY 18-20

REF: CARACAS 03674

Classified By: POLITICAL COUNSELOR ABELARDO A. ARIAS FOR REASONS 1.4 (B
) AND (D)

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SUMMARY
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1. (C) House Western Hemisphere Subcommittee staff members
met with opposition and government leaders, members of the
National Assembly, and the UNHCR representative in Caracas
February 18-20. Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel
emphasized the importance of maintaining a good
Venezuelan-U.S. bilateral relationship despite the flare up
of occassional conflicts. Opposition leaders told staffers
the GOV was only nominally a democracy, but acknowledged the
success of Chavez's social programs. OAS and Carter Center
representatives said the government-allied CNE majority had
rejected their proposal for verifying individuals' signatures
using a statistically random sampling of the disputed
petition forms. The UNHCR representative explained to
staffers that the GOV needs to rapidly improve its
application process in order to deal with its growing
Colombian refugee population. Staffers also discussed the
work of the "Boston Group" and pledged to continue plans for
establishing a TV channel for the National Assembly. END
SUMMARY.

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MEETING WITH THE G-5
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2. DCM hosted dinner for Caleb McCarry, Staff Director
Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, Jessica Lewis, Democratic
Staff Director Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, and Paul
Oostburg Sanz, Deputy Democratic Chief Counsel with leaders
of the opposition: Enrique Mendoza (head of the Democratic
Coordinating Committee and Governor of Miranda State),
Henrique Salas Romer (Proyecto Venezuela),Henry Ramos Allup
(Secretary General of Accion Democratica),and Juan Fernandez
(Gente de Petroleo). The leaders characterized the GOV as a
dictatorship in fact, with the cover of a constitution.
Ramos said the international community does not understand
that when a Venezuelan institution takes an action or makes a
decision (such as the National Electoral Council),that it is
typically subordinated to revolutionary politics. The
leaders agreed that the GOV's social programs have been very
successful, especially Mision Robinson (literacy),Mision
Barrio Adentro (medical services),and the Mercals
(subsidized food products).

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THE GOV'S MESSAGE
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3. (C) The Staffers and Ambassador met February 19 with Vice
President Jose Vicente Rangel. The Vice President
underscored the necessity for Venezuela and the United States
to maintain a good bilateral relationship, despite occasional
conflicts. He pointed out that the U.S. needs regional and
Venezuelan support to achieve its foreign policy goals and
vice-versa. He urged continued focus on the big picture in
order to overcome any problems. Rangel warned against
misunderstanding Venezuela's purpose, which is not to become
another Cuba, but to address long-standing problems in the
country. He noted that Cuban doctors established in other
countries, such as Guatemala, do not draw the same criticism
as those working in Venezuela and denied any political
purpose to the project. McCarry responded that the USG
remains concerned about the extent of the Cuban government's
role in Venezuelan policies.


4. (C) The Ambassador questioned Rangel about developments
in the CNE. The Vice President reiterated the government's
message about the existence of major fraud. He agreed that
the OAS and the Carter Center played a beneficial role as
observers but stressed that the CNE's opinion of the process
must take precedence over the opinion of international
organizations. Rangel accused WHA DAS Peter DeShazo of
giving more weight to the opinion of the OAS and Carter
Center over that of the CNE during his recent visit to
Venezuela and warned against this interpretation of the
process. Ambassador conveyed the USG's view that through
their presence the OAS and the Carter Center lend credibility
to an institution which, as Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez_ had

stated, has none. While the CNE has the legal authority to
make this decision, the OAS and Carter Center observers'
views were of great importance. McCarry added the U.S.
Congress's concurrence with Ambassador's points.


5. (C) In a separate meeting, Deputy Foreign Minister
Arevalo Mendez and pro-government National Assembly member
Luis Tascon told staffers and Ambassador that they had proof
of extensive fraud in the Presidential recall referendum
signature collection. Tascon cited a few examples, but
claimed to have 20,000 testimonials from individuals
explaining how their names were fraudulently used. Tascon
also alleged 60,000 forms were handed out on the four
mornings of the signature drive and not returned in the
evenings of the same day, in violation of the rules. Mendez
expressed their conviction that President Chavez has already
won the 2006 election and that official candidates will win
governorships in Miranda, Anzoategui and Zulia. Mendez went
on to say that since democracy is best expressed in elections
and electoral processes, Venezuela currently has the
strongest democracy in the world.

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VIEWS FROM OAS & CARTER CENTER
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6. (C) Ambassador hosted a meeting in which OAS country
representative Patricio Carbacho and Carter Center
representative Francisco Diez gave staffers their assessment
of progress in the National Electoral Council (CNE). Diez
offered a more pessimistic view of the situation, saying he
saw no hope for an acceptable CNE decision on the question of
fraudulent signatures. Carbacho told staffers he was
optimistic that the CNE would be able to successfully mount a
system for validating any challenged signatures. Diez and
Carbacho said they had proposed contacting individuals in a
random sampling of the challenged population of petition
forms ("planillas planas") to verify their signatures. The
CNE directors rejected this proposed statistical sampling.
Diez noted that the directors were also considering obtaining
national identification information through the banking
system.
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BOSTON GROUP FIRMS PLANS FOR VENEZUELAN C-SPAN
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7. (SBU) Staffers met with Venezuelan Boston Group
organizers Pedro Diaz Blum (Proyecto Venezuela) and Calixto
Ortega (Fifth Republic Movement) and other members of the
group to discuss ongoing plans for establishing a TV channel
with continuous live broadcasting from the National Assembly
(ref A). The members agreed to move forward with the project
and to schedule another meeting on the topic with
Representatives Cass Ballenger (R-NC),Bill Delahunt (D-MA)
and Gregory Meeks (D-NY) for early May, 2004 in Venezuela.
In response to a request from Ortega, McCarry explained the
mechanics of NED project funding, emphasizing the
organization's bipartisan support within the U.S. After
debating the topic, the group members agreed to refrain from
making any public statements about GOV accusations that the
USG is spending millions of dollars to assist opposition
groups since it might affect the Boston Group's own
existence. In response to McCarry's outline of the proposed
Boston Group television project, Rangel promised support and
resources.

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A DIFFERENT CHAVISTA VIEW
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8. (C) DCM also hosted dinner for staffdel with five
Chavista leaders, only one of whom attended, Ibrain
Velasquez, Assembly deputy from Margarita Island. Velasquez
told staffers the political split among the different parties
is so wide that cooperation and compromise are almost
impossible. The pro-Chavez deputy said he does not think the
referendum will happen and asserted that there was mega fraud
in the signature collection. Ambassador and DCM asked why no
statements were issued at the time of collection, to which
Velasquez replied that no one had anticipated it as a
problem. He claimed that signature forms were not promptly
returned because they were taken to "laboratories" to be
fraudulently filled out. He stressed that only a technical
solution to the problems in the CNE offered an acceptable
resolution to the recall process. According to Velasquez, in
a yes/no vote, the President would win if an election were

called right now. However, the government will not call for
an election because it is unwilling to accept the conditions
which the opposition would insist on.

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ON THE TOPIC OF REFUGEES
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9. (C) Staffdel McCarry met February 20 with Virginia
Trimarco, the Caracas-based regional representative for the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),to discuss the
extent of the refugee problem in Venezuela, the GOV response,
and UNHCR's role. Trimarco explained to the delegation that
historically Venezuela did not have large numbers of refugees
and therefore had no system in place for processing them.
Also, movement across the border in both directions has
always been very fluid, which wasn't a problem until a few
years ago when large numbers of Colombians began to enter
Venezuela and stay. The number of applicants for refugee
status is large and growing due to guerrilla violence and
drug trafficking. Trimarco estimates that there are 150,000
Colombians in the Western Venezuelan states; Zulia, Tachira
and Apure. UNHCR vets applicants in conjunction with
security forces to weed out known criminals, but the security
forces need training in this area. Trimarco told the staffers
her office had sent VP Rangel a letter explaining the refugee
situation, and emphasizing the dire need for improved
personal ID documents issued by the Venezuelan state. She
also stressed the need for the Commission to establish clear
rules for the process of vetting refugee applicants.
SHAPIRO


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2004CARACA00699 - CONFIDENTIAL