CARACAS, Venezuela, July 12 (UPI) -- Venezuela's embattled president reiterated claims Washington is funding the nation's opposition, which seeks his ouster come August's referendum vote.
Hugo Chavez said the U.S. government has already channeled more than 300,000 to opposition groups to be used to help form new government policies if the president is voted from power Aug. 15, El Nacional newspaper reported Monday.
Ever since his brief ousting in a failed coup in April 2002, Chavez has accused the United States of supporting and surreptitiously participating in his removal.
Though the United States supported Chavez's removal from power at the time, it denies playing a part in the actual coup. Washington does, however, provide funding to some Venezuelan groups -- via its National Endowment for Democracy -- that oppose the president.
For years, his detractors have claimed the president's Marxist tendencies and authoritarian rule were ruining the country's economy. But his supporters -- largely Venezuela's poor -- revere him as a champion of their cause.
