By Mary Anastasia O'Grady The Wall Street Journal November 10, 2008
Venezuelan businessman Franklin Durán sat perfectly still last week, staring straight ahead, as a Miami jury pronounced him guilty of acting illegally as an agent for Venezuela on U.S. soil. He could be sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Yet while Durán showed no emotion in the courtroom, back in Venezuela the intellectual author of his crime, President Hugo Chávez, went bonkers.
The problem for Mr. Chávez is that, for almost a decade, Latin American democrats have been accusing Venezuela of violating the sovereignty of its neighbors by supporting the radical left with money and weapons. Mr. Chávez has denied it.
Now comes the Durán conviction, which has revealed that sizable financial contributions went from the Chávez government to Peronist candidate Cristina Kirchner in the 2007 Argentine presidential race. For Mr. Chávez, who appears to be still toiling at a number of other similar projects around the region, the bad publicity is devastating.
