Conspiracy and Propaganda Centers: Illegal US Consulates in Venezuela

Conspiracy and Propaganda Centers: Illegal US Consulates in Venezuela By Eva Golinger*. Translated for Axis of Logic by Iris Buehler* and revised by Les Blough, members of Tlaxcala* Mar 28, 2009, 12:40

Design by Carlos Lattuff

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Eva Golinger, Venezuelan-U.S. attorney and author

At the end of 2005, the Embassy of the United States in Venezuela, under the leadership of then Ambassador William Brownfield (present U.S. Ambassador in Colombia), inaugurated the first of what would become a total of four seats of “virtual consulates”, known as “American Corners” in Latin America. These are no typical diplomatic seats, given the fact that they do not have any authorization from the Foreign Ministry of the respective countries in which they are situated; neither do they offer services to the US citizens who reside in the country. Documents of the US State Department, recently declassified in the realm of my investigations, explicitly emphasize that the purpose of these “American Corners” is to facilitate an “unfiltered” dialogue and relation between the Embassy of the United States and the Venezuelan people. In a clear flagrancy [of their disregard] for international law and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations in particular, Washington intends to ignore the authority of the Venezuelan government in order to manage establishing bilateral relations directly with sectors of the Venezuelan society.

Since President Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution came to power in 1998, Washington has intended to undermine the Venezuelan democracy through different acts of destabilization, including the coup d'état of April 2002, the economic sabotage and the sabotage of the petroleum industry of 2002-2003, Guarimbas¹, electoral interventions, media warfare, and a constant flow of dollars into the pockets of the violent and anti-democratic groups of the opposition. Hence, when the Embassy of the United States seeks to establish an “unfiltered” relation with the Venezuelan people, it cannot be understood other than that they have the same intentions as always; their objective continues to be the overthrow of President Chávez and the destruction of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Officially, the American Corners are partnership programs between the Embassy of the United States and certain local institutions that create small spaces, or “corners”, with access to information about the United States through the Internet, and books and documentaries produced by the Department of the State (DOS). Its goal is to create a kind of “virtual consulate” that would not be sponsored formally by the government of the United States but by a local organization, association, school, library or institution. Actually, the American Corners constitute another propaganda instrument of Washington which works not only as launching pad for psychological warfare, but also subverts and violates the diplomatic regulations by establishing places for “consular” access in a nation without the authorization of the host country's government.

James Franklin Collins opened American Corners in Russia

The Corners are closely monitored by the US State Department that keeps a record of its efficacy. The concept of the American Corners originated in the 90’s and was inaugurated in Russia. The idea was to preserve the advances achieved and the work realized during the Cold War and to manage that Washington's presence would go unnoticed in Russia, with the objective to guarantee that the US propaganda would continue to exert influence on public opinion.

In 2002, the US State Department's Bureau of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs expanded the American Corners program, and at present more than two hundred “Corners” exist worldwide.² The majority of them are located in nations in Eastern Europe, like Bulgaria and Poland; in Asian countries like Uzbekistan, Kirguistan, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh; and in countries of the Middle East, including Oman, amongst others. Venezuela is the first Latin American nation that forms part of this program. On December 9th, 2005, then Ambassador William Brownfield inaugurated in Barquisimeto, a city in the State of Lara, the first American Corner inside the office of the Incorparated Law Society (Colegio de Abogados) of said region. During the following six months, an additional three of those illegal consulates were inaugurated in Margarita, Maturín and Lecherías (cities in the State of Anzoátegui), almost all situated in the offices of the regional incorporated law societies, except for Lecherías, where they were given a space inside the municipal mayor's office.

There are 395 American Corners worldwide, 50 in the Middle East. This AC map shows US presence in Georgia when they attacked South Ossetia in a confrontation with Russia in September 2008

According to the recently declassified documents, which include a series of contracts between the US Embassy in Venezuela and the host entities, and according to other reports on the functioning of said non-authorized diplomatic seats, the American Corners in Venezuela receive their funding from the US State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs and the US Embassy. As a matter of fact, the host entities, such as the Incorporated Law Society or municipal mayor's office, signed contracts with the Embassy and receive money from the US State Department. This fact converts them into Washington's actors, financed and monitored by a foreign government that has maintained an aggressive attitude against the Venezuelan government during the past decade.

Terms of the AC contract

The contracts between the Embassy and its Venezuelan hosts are renewable in ten years and oblige the host to provide a space that would be “to the complete satisfaction” of the Embassy “to hold The Corner, including its collections of printed work and electronic material, its public access to Internet, and other related programs and activities…”.

Next, the contract emphasizes that the Embassy would provide

“…The Corner with a basic print material and CD-ROM collection about the United States … to the discretion of the PAS [the Embassy's section for public affairs] and with the assessment of La Biblioteca, the PAS would select and buy new print material and electronic publications to incorporate them into the collection of The Corner, concerning subjects that are related with: economy, management, business, studies on the United States, English lessons, political science, law, and democratic societies. The PAS agrees to provide The Corner with multiple copies of the publications produced by the State Department designed for public distribution…”.

Amongst other things, the seat:

“shall realize programs with speakers from the United States … [and] … shall provide information and material about the programs, donations and educational opportunities offered by the government of the United States.”

In other words, these American Corners are propaganda centers and meeting places of the US government, established without authorization. They are illegal. They serve as spaces for Washington to continue promoting their destabilization agenda in Venezuela behind the back of the Venezuelan government. If Venezuela would establish similar diplomatic seats in the United States without the authorization of that government, they would be closed down immediately and their US employees would be jailed for being “non-authorized agents of a foreign government”. Why then the Venezuelan government has allowed that those illegal and harmful actors and spaces would operate during more than three years? There is no reason why Venezuela should open the door to conspiracy. The people merit a better protection against those acts that attempt against their will and undermine the hard work done by all of us in order to achieve social justice.

Translator's notes:

See Eva Golinger's article Old School U.S. Intervention Model Used in Venezuela, published in Venezuelanalysis.com

1. The 'Guarimba', a plan allegedly formed by opposition guru Robert Alonso, intended for right-wing forces to engage in widespread civil disobedience and violence in the streets of Caracas and other metropolitan areas, provoking repressive reactions from State forces that would then justify cries of human rights violations and lack of constitutional order".
   
   
2. For a listing of countries and the official description and information provided about the American Corners Program Worldwide see (e.g.) American Corners and American Corners in the World

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Original Source in Spanish: YVKE, Radio Mundial - Los consulados ilegales de EEUU en Venezuela; published on March 18^th, 2009.

This article has been translated from Spanish into English by Iris Buehler and revised by Les Blough, who are members of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. Both reside in Venezuela.

Read Eva Golinger's biography and more of her articles. Contact the author: Eva Golinger

© Translation Copyright 2009 by AxisofLogic.com

This material is available for republication as long as reprints include verbatim copy of the article in its entirety, respecting its integrity. Reprints must cite the author, the translator & reviser and Axis of Logic as the original source including a "live link" to the article. Thank you!

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See more important translations by Iris Buehler
(author's listed are the original writers in Spanish)

President Hugo Chávez teaching a lesson on democracy, by Salim Lamrani. March 3, 2009

The new Venezuela of President Hugo Chávez: Ten Years of Bolivarian Revolution, by Salim Lamrani, January 25, 2009

Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) against Venezuela: Washington and its war on the Bolivarian Revolution, by Eva Golinger, March 11, 2009

BBC looking for experiences about ten years of Chávez... but only in English, Rebelion Editorial, December 13, 2008

Reporters Without Frontiers against Hugo Chavez, by Salim Lamrani,
December 5, 2007

Venezuela: "The CIA plans to destabilize the country after the November 23 elections", by Prensa Web RNV (Radio Nacional de Venezuela), November 29, 2008

What is normal in any other country is always a scandal in Venezuela by Pascual Serrano, November 26, 2007

Senior US Officials give go-ahead for sabotage operations against constitutional reform in Venezuela, Jesus Moreno, October 26, 2007

Venezuela's debt to Cuba, by Salim Lamrani. October 24, 2007

Hugo Chavez presents Gramsci to hundreds of thousands of people. A beautiful revolution, by Antonio Maira, June 28, 2007

Venezuela: On the non-renewal of RCTV's open signal broadcasting license, by J. David Carracedo, March 31, 2007

Obama Is the Best BS Artist Since Bill Clinton By Matt Taibbi

Last Friday night a friend called and told me that Barack Obama had posted a sort of pre-announcement of the start of his presidential campaign on his website. I immediately cued it up and within ten minutes was writing a column blasting him for ripping off half of his campaign speech from a smorgasbord of '04 Democratic candidates -- then stopped when I realized that I'd already written exactly that column about Hillary Clinton's kickoff speech a few weeks ago.

So I went back and watched the speech again, and I actually felt chills run up my spine. A few weeks ago, Hillary Clinton's launch speech ripped off John Kerry and the DLC with its "Let's have a conversation" theme; Obama, meanwhile, went the Howard Dean route, nicking "A campaign to take America back" from Dean and RFK Jr., among others. The fact that Hillary, like Kerry, is set up as the DLC-acolyte candidate while Obama, like Dean, is set up as the antiwar candidate suggests a kind of permanent template for the Democratic primary process. Maybe soon the race for the Democratic primary will be like Everytown USA's annual high school production of A Streetcar Named Desire, where every year they find a new antiwar Blanche and a new pro-corporate Stanley. The faces are different, the lines are the same.

I've been on the fence about Obama for more than two years now, ever since his breakout performance at the Democratic convention in '04. When I saw that speech -- an iconic piece of inspired nonsense/political showmanship, one that set flashbulbs popping like Michael Jordan's virtuoso 1988 dunk contest performance -- I knew right away that he would be the Democratic presidential nominee someday, perhaps even in the next election cycle.

When I mentioned this to my friends, they told me I was crazy. Obama had had absolutely no national experience at that time, he was a political virgin, there was no way he was ready for prime time. My answer to that was, compared to what? Throw a guy who can speak like that against the list of likely Democratic candidates in 2008 -- a sorry collection of human saline drips that included Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John Kerry, Joe Biden, and Chris Dodd -- and Obama could fucking walk to the nomination, even if he chose a page from the Betty Crocker cookbook as his stump speech.

Fast forward two years and that appears to be exactly what Obama has done. The Illinois Senator is the ultimate modern media creature -- he's a good-looking, youthful, smooth-talking, buttery-warm personality with an aw-shucks demeanor who exudes a seemingly impenetrable air of Harvard-crafted moral neutrality. If Hillary Clinton even dares to open her mouth within a hundred feet of him at any time during the campaign, she's going to come off like a pig digging for truffles. Even Edwards -- the so-called "slick" candidate from '04 -- sounds like a two-bit suburban Buick dealer next to Obama. You get past the "issues," and it's a wipeout.

Obama knows this, and so his entire political persona is an ingeniously crafted human cipher, a man without race, ideology, geographic allegiances, or, indeed, sharp edges of any kind. You can't run against him on the issues because you can't even find him on the ideological spectrum. Obama's "Man for all seasons" act is so perfect in its particulars that just about anyone can find a bit of himself somewhere in the candidate's background, whether in his genes or his upbringing. You can be white, you can be black, you can be Christian, you can be Muslim, you can be from the American heartland or from Africa... you can even, according to his book The Audacity of Hope, worship Norse Gods or bury your relatives according to Hawaiian rituals:

In our household the Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology. On Easter or Christmas Day my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites ...

As far as political positioning goes, his strategy seems to be to appear as a sort of ideological Universalist, one who spends a great deal of rhetorical energy showing that he recognizes the validity of all points of view, and conversely emphasizes that when he does take hard positions on issues, he often does so reluctantly. He is a black man from Chicago who gets away with praising Ronald Reagan, which is not an easy task. His political ideal is basically a rehash of the Blair-Clinton "third way" deal, an amalgam of Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton and the New Deal; he is aiming for the middle of the middle of the middle.

In short, Obama is a creature perfectly in tune with the awesome corporate strivings of Hollywood, Madison avenue and the Beltway -- he tries, and often succeeds, at selling a politics of seeking out the very center of where we already are, to the very couch where we've been sitting all this time, as an exciting, revolutionary journey into the unknown. And while most of what he says and writes is basically some version of the same old tired clichés about family and faith and hope and optimism and "working together" and "getting involved," he adds to those clichés real literary flair, wordsmithing far beyond the range of most politicians. Take this bit about his kids in his book:

... I sat at the dinner table, watching Malia and Sasha as they laughed and bickered and resisted their string beans before their mother chased them up the stairs and to their baths. Alone in the kitchen washing the dishes, I imagined my two girls growing up, and I felt the ache that every parent must feel at one time or another, that desire to snatch up each moment of your child's presence and never let go -- to preserve every gesture, to lock in for all eternity the sight of their curls or the feel of their fingers clasped around yours.


Here's the thing about Obama, the reason they call him a "natural" and a "rare talent." When Hillary Clinton spouts a cliché, it's four words long, she's reading it off a teleprompter, and it hits the ear like the fat part of a wooden oar. Even when Hillary announced she was running for president, she sounded like she was ordering coffee. Obama on the other hand can close his eyes and the clichés just pour out of his mouth in huge polysyllabic paragraphs, like Rachmaninoff improvisations. In this sense he's exactly like Bill Clinton, who had the same gift. He is exactly what is meant by the term bullshit artist.

My usual instinct when presented with this type of Zelig-esque, Eddie Haskell, non-stick personality is to violently reject it. But over the course of the last few weeks I've found myself increasingly amused by the Obama phenomenon. For one thing, he clearly pisses off Hillary to no end. Same with Biden and all of those other windbag jerk-off assholes in that revolting "national security Democrats" clan in the Senate. There is something subtly racist (in Biden's case, not so subtle) in the way these more entrenched Democrats are riding Obama's lack of credentials and acting like the '08 nomination is their birthright, like he hasn't "waited his turn" or something, paid his dues. As if any of these clowns would wait ten seconds to declare for the White House if they had the same odds that Obama has now.

I have no idea who Obama really is, but he is against the war now (and at least never voted for it) and he seems to infuriate the right people. He has people bitching now that he's not black enough, and there are obviously going to be plenty of people for whom he's too black. And both of those groups of people, frankly, deserve whatever's coming to them. So for the time being I'm going to enjoy his rise to the top, the same way I enjoyed reading The Red and The Black -- like another great phony, Julien Sorel, Obama is a perfect mirror of the society he was born to conquer, and his journey upward throws everyone he passes into stark, humorous relief. Whether I'll vote for him is another story. But he's certainly helping make it clear who shouldn't get my vote.

Matt Taibbi is a writer for Rolling Stone.

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