Dear Sirs:

We write to you as democrats from around the world to express our solidarity with and deep concern for some fellow democrats in your country who face prosecution for exercising their civic rights.

It has come to our attention that the leaders of Sumate, a civic organization, face criminal prosecution for accepting international assistance to help educate citizens about their rights under Venezuela’s constitution. As democrats, we are appalled that this group is being singled out for punishment, a group whose deep commitment to democratic principles we share and applaud.

We are equally troubled that this prosecution appears to be just the beginning of a larger effort to criminalize the receipt of foreign funds by Venezuelan NGOs. We agree with the denunciations of this proposed “reform” of the penal code by human rights groups in Venezuela and elsewhere as a clear violation of international standards and practices.

As you undoubtedly know, proceeding against nongovernmental organizations for receiving democratic assistance is a violation of both the Inter-American Democratic Charter and the Warsaw Declaration of the Community of Democracies, a document your government signed along with over 100 others four years ago.

The charges against Sumate include its having received support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a highly reputable and established nongovernmental foundation that promotes democracy in over 80 countries around the world. In fact, NED is but one of dozens of democracy foundations in North America, Europe, and Asia that receive public funding from their respective parliaments for the purpose of providing assistance to support democracy-related programs no different from the one conducted by Sumate.

We urge you to reconsider the prosecution of the leadership of Sumate, as well as the proposal to criminalize democracy assistance from abroad. Both are clearly inconsistent with international democratic norms and constitute a grave threat to democracy.

Morton Abramowitz, Senior Fellow, Century Foundation
Mahnaz Afkhami, Founder and President, Women’s Learning Partnership
Sergio Aguayo, Professor, El Colegio de Mexico
Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of State
Sergio Fernando Araya Alverado, President, Colegio Ciencias Politicas y Relaciones
Internacionales de Costa Rica
Zainah Anwar, Executive Director, Sisters in Islam, Malaysia
Bernard Aronson, former Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America and the
Caribbean (US)
Genaro Arriagada, former Chilean Ambassador to the U.S.
Timothy Garton Ash, Senior Research Fellow, St. Anthony’s College, Oxford and
Director European Studies Center
Ronald Asmus, German Marshall Fund
Dr. Werner Bohler, Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung, Germany
Robert M. Borden, CEO, Bumpers Corporation (Canada)
Jack Buechner, President, US Association of Former Members of Congress
Emma Bonino, former European Union Commissioner and former member, European
Parliament (Italy)
William E. Brock, former US Senator and former Secretary of Labor
Frank Carlucci, former National Security Advisor (US)
Violeta Chamorro, former President of Nicaragua
Lorne Craner, President, International Republican Institute and former Assistant
Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor
Michael Danby, Member of Parliament, Australia
Gianfranco Dell’Alba, Member of European Parliament, Italy
Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution and co-editor, Journal of Democracy
Philip Dimitrov, former Prime Minister, Bulgaria
Jorge Dominguez, Professor, Harvard University
Thomas R. Donahue, President Emeritus, AFL-CIO
Nicholas Eberstadt, American Enterprise Institute
Peter Eigen, Chairman, Transparency International
Jean Bethke Elshtain, Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political
Ethics, The University of Chicago
Joao Carlos Espada, Director, Institute for Political Studies, Portuguese Catholic
University
Francis Fukuyama, Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political
Economy, Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins
University
Richard Goldstone, former Prosecutor, International Criminal Tribunal for Former
Yugoslavia
Peter Hakim, President, Inter-American Dialogue
Vaclav Havel, former President, Czech Republic
Francois Heisbourg , French Academic
Bi-khim Hsiao, Member of Parliament, Taiwan
Penn Kemble, Senior Fellow, Freedom House
Harvey Klehr, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Politics and History, Emory University
Stephan Klingelhofer, President, International Center for Not-for-Profit Law
Robert LaGamma, Council for a Community of Democracies
Bolívar Lamounier, Augurium Consulting, Brazil
Amb Luis Lauredo, former U.S. Ambassador, Organization of American States
Ulrich Laute, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Germany
John McCain, US Senator
Edward J. McElroy, President, American Federation of Teachers
Matthew McHugh, former Member, US Congress
Edward McMillan-Scott, Member of European Parliament (UK)
Sascha Müller-Kraenner, Heinrich Böll Stiftung
Ghia Nodia, Chairman, Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development,
Republic of Georgia
Janusz Onyszkiewicz, former Minister of Defense, Poland
Marco Pannella, Member of European Paliament (Italy)
Amb Mark Palmer, Vice Chairman, Freedom House
Robert A. Pastor, Director, Center for Democracy and Election Management, American
University
Theodore Piccone, Democracy Coalition Project (US)
Surin Pitsuwan, Member of Parliament, Thailand
James N. Purcell, former Director General, International Organization for Migration
Xiao Qiang, Univ. of California at Berkley, Past Executive Director, Human Rights in
China
John Richardson, Chair, Council for a Community of Democracies
Markus Rosenberger, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Perú
Richard C. Rowson, Council for a Community of Democracies
John Shattuck, CEO, John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and former Assistant
Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor
Michael Shifter, Vice President for Policy, Inter-American Dialogue
Stephen Solarz, Former Member,US Congress
Theodore C. Sorensen, Former Special Assistant to President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Strobe Talbott, former Deputy US Secretary of State
Amb. Terence Todman, former US Ambassador to Argentina, Costa Rica and Spain
Elisabeth Ungar, Universidad de los Andes (Colombia)
Arturo Valenzuela, Director, Center for Latin American Affairs, Georgetown University
Gianni Vernetti, Member of Parliament, Italy
Alexandr Vondra, former Deputy Foreign Minister, Czech Republic
Gerhard Wahlers, Head of International Cooperation, Konrad Adenauer Foundation
Reinhard Willig, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung-Costa Rica
Jennifer Windsor, Executive Director, Freedom House
Kenneth Wollack, President, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs
Mortimer Zuckerman, Editor, U.S. News and World Report and New York Daily News

Note: Titles are for Identification Purposes Only

CCD Readers may also be interested to note:

On this topic, CCD recently received a letter from the International Venezuelan Council for Democracy. The IVCD is opposed to Venezuelan government prosecution of those "defending their democratic, politic and civic rights." Those who wish for more information can contact the IVCD at IVCDTeam@aol.com, or at P.O. Box 1251, Loveland, CO 80538-1251.

"The International Venezuelan Council for Democracy (IVCD) is a non-profit organization working to strengthen Venezuelan Democracy. IVCD will work in a global network with other organizations and volunteer experts, alongside government and non-governmental organizations in defense of Venezuelan human, political, and civil rights, in an effort to advance democratic values and institutions, safeguard elections and promote citizen participation, openness and accountability in government, in accordance to the principles established and agreed upon in the Democratic Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS). IVCD is a civil and independent organization with no affiliation to political parties."