FINLAND: DEMOCRACY IN VENEZUELA

UNCLAS HELSINKI 000843 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PHUM WHA EUN VE FI SUBJECT: FINLAND: DEMOCRACY IN VENEZUELA REF: A. STATE 154674 ¶B. STATE 157005 ¶1. (SBU) Polchief delivered reftel demarche Nov. 19 to Jukka Pietikainen, Director of the Finnish MFA's Unit for Latin America. Pietikainen said that the UK had initially circulated a draft statement to EU partners condemning the Chavez Regime's proposed constitutional reforms in strong terms and calling for greater respect for democracy, civil society, and personal freedoms. However, Spain, Italy and Portugal, among others, will not support such a harshly worded public statement, so the UK has now offered "more balanced" statement that Finland hopes will win support from those member states. Finland supported the initial statement, Pietikainen said, believing that the EU has achieved very little impact through "silent diplomacy" with the Chavez government, and that the time for more robust public diplomacy is at hand. However, he added, Finland will also support the new draft statement in the hopes of winning EU consensus. ¶2. (SBU) On the bilateral level, Pietikainen -- who had just returned from Venezuela the day before -- said that Finland's small embassy in Caracas had been active in vocally supporting civil society and Venezuelan NGOs, but that other resident EU member state Embassies were not comfortable with public statements. He fully shared our concerns about limits on NGOs, the decline in free speech, and Chavez's increasing support to militias. However, because the Finns have limited bilateral access to the GOV, it still remains it their interest to work within the EU as well, Pietikainen added. HYATT