7.11.2005
Article on the AFL-CIO, the NED and Venezuela
ZNet posted an article by Kim Scipes on the AFL-CIO's "Solidarity Center" and the National Endowment for Democracy's (NED) involvement with the right-wing Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV) and the Venezuelan business community around the 2002 attempted coup. He's got a lot of interesting points and a good background on the NED.
Scipes states:
Scipes states:
"In short, a number of high-level AFL-CIO national leaders-based on the legitimacy of their Labor positions-have been invited into and have joined top-level US foreign policy circles, and actively participated in US foreign policy initiatives without informing their affiliated unions and their members, much less asking for a mandate to do so. They have consciously kept these affiliations secret from their members, and have lied when they have been exposed. In short, they have actively betrayed the trust of workers, both American and those in labor organizations around the world."
"[I]n fact, the AFL-CIO has a long-established history of undermining progressive, democratically-elected governments that try to extend human liberties-such as freedom of association, freedom of speech, and freedom of economic security-to working people. We see that in Guatemala, Guyana, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua and, most recently, in Venezuela."
