One of the most amazing things I find about the Government’s prosecution of Sumate leaders for receiving a meager $30,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) for training of voters, is not only that this is perfectly legal, but that this same government never allowed the prosecution of President Hugo Chávez for receiving US$ 1.5 million in illegal campaign contributions from a Spanish bank.
The story is actually quite interesting, since it was the same Spanish judge that charged Chilean President Augusto Pinochet, Judge Baltazar Garzon, that found out about these illegal campaign contributions to Chavez’ Presidential race in 1998. These contributions were illegal for two reasons: they were never reported and it is indeed illegal for candidates to receive money from foreigners.
But it is proof of the ethical decay of our judicial system that Isaias Rodriguez, the partisan Prosecutor/Attorney General, who was Chavez’ first Vice President, never allowed that case to go to the Supreme Court, to allow Chavez to be prosecuted. In fact, Chavez should have been impeached for that campaign contribution, since it was orders of magnitude higher than the amount for which Carlos Andes Perez (CAP) was impeached in 1993, and in this case the funds were used for Chavez own personal campaign, and were never accounted for. The funds CAP was impeached for were used to provide protection for Nicaraguan President Violeta Chamorro, when she won the Nicaraguan presidency.
This all comes to mind again today, because those illegal campaign contributions were also apparently illegal under the eyes of Spanish law. The same Judge Garzon today found that the bank accounts used in those contributions, were manipulated and crimes may have been committed, charging those involved.
Meanwhile in Venezuela, the leaders of Sumate are being prosecuted for funds received from foreign sources to educate voters! Such is the level of immoral behavior in our judicial system that besides this case, when a Minister (Chacon) accuses a Prosecutor (Danilo Anaderson) of extortion, nothing is investigated by the same authorities (Isaias Rodriguez). Of course, the Sumate case is simply political revenge, because Sumate did such an efficient job, that it forced the recall referendum vote, despite all of the efforts by Chavez to stop it by using manipulation of both the rules and the electoral Board. Oh, the double standard of this sweet revolution!
The Devil's Excrement 
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