National Endowment for Democracy and affiliated groups

[Magda Hassan]

NED - National Endowment for Democracy

"Together with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the National Endowment for Democracy has functioned as an instrument of the U.S. government’s democratization strategy over the past two decades. Whereas USAID is an agency of the State Department, quasi-governmental NED is organized as a nonprofit but funded almost entirely by the U.S. government. Since 1982, when President Reagan launched what he called a “crusade” to foster “free market democracies” and spread the a neoliberal version of the “magic of the marketplace,” both USAID and NED have channeled U.S. government development and public diplomacy funding into the democratization programs of the international institutes of the Republican and Democratic Parties, the AFL-CIO, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as a wide range of institutes, political parties, and nongovernmental organizations abroad." -- From World Movement for Democracy-Made in the USA 7/28/2009 Political Research Associates:

Representative Gregory W. Meeks, Democrat - 6th District, NY, is a member of the NED Board of Directors.

Particularly instructive are the NED activities in Haiti, where NED funding was viciously used to promote the elite and the military against the population. The articles below are sorted by country and include a section on Haiti.

Some of our research on NED funding of anti-Castro organizations

Invoking MLK and Rosa Parks in Cuban Exile Politics, Claude Betancourt, 5/30/09: Brothers to the Rescue, Florida's MLK Institute for Nonviolence, and manipulating Cuban dissidents.

The Discourse on Racism in Anti-Castro Publications, 2008-2009

The Discourse on Racism in Anti-Castro Publications, 2007

Cuban American business and terrorism, 2005

Funding Dissidents: 2002

Funding Dissidents: 2001

Dissidents and Race, 2001

Funding Dissidents: 2000 and before

Articles

Cuba

Getting Smart About Cuba 3/8/2008 Foreign Policy in Focus: "Beyond the blood ties, there is a more subtle and significant architecture that supports the status quo. It’s a taxpayer-funded “embargo industry” that employs hundreds, if not thousands, whose livelihoods depend on Cuba remaining, well - Cuba. It began during the Reagan years with appropriations for Radio and TV Marti that today top $500 million to beam U.S. propaganda into Cuba. In the case of TV Marti, even $225 million can’t buy Cuban viewers since the Cuban government jams the signal. But a half a billion bucks does buy jobs, contracts and political loyalties. Almost simultaneously, hardliners helped create the National Endowment for Democracy. One of the agency’s first grants went to the powerful Cuban American National Foundation - a group that delivered the first Cuban-Americans to Congress. Since 2000, NED has provided at least $4.9 million to Cuba related pro-democracy programs. The windfall from these first programs emboldened the hardliners to write more legislation funding more work for Cuba democracy-builders, that is - embargo supporters - in Miami and worldwide. U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) grants to “support political transition in Cuba” totaling more than $40 million have gone primarily to Miami-based groups since they were first doled out in 1996."

International Republican Institute Grants Uncovered Reporters Without Borders and Washington's Coups 8/1/2006 Counterpunch: "In spite of 14 months of stonewalling by the National Endowment for Democracy over a Freedom of Information Act request and a flat denial from RSF executive director Lucie Morillon, the NED has revealed that Reporters Without Borders received grants over at least three years from the International Republican Institute. The NED still refuses to provide the requested documents or even reveal the grant amounts, but they are identified by these numbers: IRI 2002-022/7270, IRI 2003-027/7470 and IRI 2004-035/7473. Investigative reporter Jeremy Bigwood asked Morillon on April 25 if her group was getting any money from the I.R.I., and she denied it, but the existence of the grants was confirmed by NED assistant to the president, Patrick Thomas. The discovery of the grants reveals a major deception by the group, which for years denied it was getting any Washington dollars until some relatively small grants from the NED and the Center for a Free Cuba were revealed (see Counterpunch: "Reporters Without Borders Unmasked"). When asked to account for its large income RSF has claimed the money came from the sale of books of photographs. But researcher Salim Lamrani has pointed out the improbability of this claim. Even taking into account that the books are published for free, it would have had to sell 170 200 books in 2004 and 188 400 books in 2005 to earn the more than $2 million the organization claims to make each year 516 books per day in 2005. The money clearly had to come from other sources, as it turns out it did."

W. BUSH CON LOS FINANCISTAS DE ENCUENTRO 11/9/2003 Jiribillas: "Además de financiar a la terrorista Fundación Nacional Cubana Americana, la NED ha sido la principal fuente de dinero de las publicaciones fabricadas para la campaña de subversión contra Cuba, privilegiando entre ellas a la revista Encuentro, a la cual la «cuasi gubernamental agencia» beneficia con 83 000 dólares anuales, según consta en su página web."

NED Covert Action Cuba 1/14/1996 CIA Base: "Some of the entries on NED operations related to CUBA are listed below."


Haiti

Haitian recipients of USAID/IRI/NED/EU to destabilize, starve democracy and foment violence and Coup D'etat, mostly under the guise of "democracy or justice and peace enhancement programs 6/1/2008 Marguerite Laurent: "The subcontracted Haitians below have sold the nation to foreigners and their NGOs in exchange for visas, jobs and a few "trickle down" dollars."

Left, Right, Left, Right: Running off With Haiti's Democracy 2/15/2006 Zmag: "Further insight into the 'socialist coalition' is found in IRI reports from 2000 and 2001 for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), obtained through FOIA by journalist Jeremy Bigwood. These reports describe how prominent members of opposition parties OPL and KONAKOM, Irvelt Cherie and Victor Benoit respectively, attended meetings with the IRI and U.S. officials in Washington, along with other prominent Haitians including Rudy Boulos, a wealthy business elite who would later help found the Washington-based Haiti Democracy Project, an anti-Aristide lobby group and think tank, and the foreign public relations arm of the Group of 184 and Democratic Convergence opposition bloc. Interestingly, Boulos resigned from his seat on the Board of the HDP in order to run for Senate in the NorthEast department with the Fusion, the party which comprise part of the "socialist coalition" and "agreement for modernity and democracy" signed with Haiti's right-wing parties in November. We should also recall that another Haiti Democracy Project Board member, Timothy Carney, also resigned in order to take over as interim Ambassador to Haiti. Carney has long been a fierce defender of the IRI's activities in Haiti and an ally of Haiti's elite. It was while he was U.S. Ambassador to Haiti in 1998-99 under Clinton that the IRI was forced to shut down its operations there, and set up shop in the Dominican Republic under the leadership of IRI Program Officer Stanley Lucas. In a recent NYT article, the IRI and Stanley Lucas were singled out as, in effect, 'rogue elements' straying from an otherwise benign U.S. 'democracy promotion' program for Haiti. Nowhere in the extensive NYT piece, nor in the IRI-led propaganda melee that has ensued, is there mention of an across-the-board strategy coordinated by the State Department, the NED, USAID, among other foreign actors, to collectively foster the conditions for elite rule in Haiti in strict accordance with the dictates of neoliberal globalization. One example of the coordinated effort to help build and consolidate an opposition to Aristide and Lavalas came from a current program officer for the National Endowment for Democracy. I spoke to Fabiola Cordova in December, 2005. She had just recently taken over at the NED's Washington office after some staff turnover in the Latin American and Caribbean division. Her experience in Haiti came from a six month job as an in-country program officer for the National Democratic Institute (NDI), one of the four core grantees of the NED. With combined grants coming from NED, the State Department, and USAID, NDI's budget for "democracy promotion" is over $100 million a year."

U.S. Gvt. Channels Millions Through National Endowment for Democracy to Fund Anti-Lavalas Groups in Haiti 1/23/2006 Democracy Now: "The NED operates with an annual budget of $80 million dollars from U.S. Congress and the State Department. In Venezuela, it’s given money to several political opponents of President Hugo Chavez. With elections underway in Haiti, it’s reportedly doing the same to groups linked to the country’s tiny elite and former military. Last week Democracy Now! interviewed Anthony Fenton about NED’s activities in Haiti and across the Caribbean and Latin America. Fenton is an independent journalist and co-author of the book “Canada in Haiti: Waging War On The Poor Majority.” He has interviewed several top governmental and non-governmental officials dealing with Haiti as well as leading members of Haiti’s business community. Last month, he helped expose an NED-funded journalist who was filing stories for the Associated Press from Haiti. The Associated Press subsequently terminated its relationship with the journalist."

Batay Ouvriye's Smoking Gun 1/10/2006 Znet: "Recently declassified National Endowment for Democracy (NED) documents reveal that a "leftist" workers' organization, Batay Ouvriye (BO), which promoted and called for the overthrow of the constitutionally elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was the targeted beneficiary of a US $99,965 NED grant routed through the AFL-CIO's American Center for International Solidarity (ACILS). Listed in NED's "Summary of Projects Approved in FY 2005" for Haiti, the grant states, "ACILS will work with the May 1st Union Federation- Batay Ouvriye [ESPM-BO] to train workers to organize and educate fellow workers."

Denial in Haiti 12/31/2005 Consortium News: "Major U.S. news organizations, including the New York Times, also have had to grapple with star reporters, like Judith Miller, who shed professional skepticism and parroted administration propaganda as news. A similar issue has now arisen in Haiti, where a stringer for the Times and the Associated Press appears to have done work for the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy. After the story broke, the AP severed its relationship with the stringer and the Times is investigating."

Denial in Haiti: AP reporter REGINE is wearing two hats ( 0) 12/30/2005 Haiti Action: "Regine Alexandre, whose name appears as an AP by-line at least a dozen times starting in May of 2004, and appears as a contributor to two NY Times stories, is a part of an NED "experiment" to place a representative on the ground in countries where the NED has funded groups."

The Reporters Without Borders Fraud 5/13/2005 Marguerite Laurent: [This article deals only marginally with Haiti, but it is crucial to understand the context of RSF's anti Lavalas bias and their reporting on Haiti that has been severely lacking in objectivity. D. Esser] "The strong suspicions that have surrounded the dubious and partisan activities of Reporters without Boarders (RSF) were not unfounded. For many years, various critics have denounced the largely political actions of the Parisian entity, particularly with regards to Cuba and Venezuela, whose characteristics that utilizes propaganda is obvious. The positions of RSF against the governments of Havana and Caracas are found in perfect correlation with the political and media war that Washington carries out against the Cuban and Venezuelan revolutionaries. Finally the truth has come to light. Mr. Robert Ménard, secretary general of the RSF for twenty years, has confessed to receiving financing from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an organization that depends on the U.S. Department of State, whose principal role is to promote the agenda of the White House for the entire world. Ménard was indeed very clear. “We indeed receive money from the NED. And that hasn’t posed any problem.” (1) Former U.S. president, Ronald Reagan, created the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in 1983, during a period in which military violence took the place of traditional diplomacy in order to resolve international matters."

Did the Bush Administration Allow a Network of Right-Wing Republicans to Foment a Violent Coup in Haiti? 7/20/2004 Democracy Now: "We speak with Max Blumenthal contibutor to Salon.com and author of a new investigative piece that examines the role of the United States in destabilizing the democratically-elected government of Jean Bertrand-Aristide through the International Republican Institute, a federally-funded [frequently by NED], nonprofit political group backed by powerful Republicans close to the Bush administration."


Iran

World Movement for Democracy-Made in the USA 7/28/2009 Political Research Associates: "Together with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the National Endowment for Democracy has functioned as an instrument of the U.S. government’s democratization strategy over the past two decades. Whereas USAID is an agency of the State Department, quasi-governmental NED is organized as a nonprofit but funded almost entirely by the U.S. government. Since 1982, when President Reagan launched what he called a “crusade” to foster “free market democracies” and spread the a neoliberal version of the “magic of the marketplace,” both USAID and NED have channeled U.S. government development and public diplomacy funding into the democratization programs of the international institutes of the Republican and Democratic Parties, the AFL-CIO, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as a wide range of institutes, political parties, and nongovernmental organizations abroad."

NED's WMD 3/18/2008 Critical Montages: "The National Endowment for Democracy, in its tireless effort to give democracy a bad name, initiated a project called "World Movement for Democracy" in 1999. The project's acronym, WMD, may very well be a bad inside joke among the guardians of the empire today."


United States

NED Articles 6/5/2009 International Endowment for Democracy: The National Endowment for Hypocrisy Democracy

Change and Regime Change - What the 2008 Democratic Landslide Means for the National Endowment for Democracy 3/1/2009 Narco News: "... the biggest reason that it makes sense to close the NED is that, even under the best of circumstances, details about and the true nature of NED activities remain hidden. Its very structure is anti-democratic, no matter what the name says."

NED 2005 Africa Programs 5/2/2008 NED

Afro-Latinos in Latin America and Considerations for U.S. Policy 7/13/2007 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WASHINGTON DC CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE: "The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), funded by Congress since 1983, plans and administers grants to promote pluralism and democratic governance in more than 90 countries around the world. The primary focus of these organizations is to foster participation of citizens in their national political systems. Between FY2002 and FY2008, NED provided more than $1.7 million in grants to organizations working with Afro- Latinos in Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, and Peru. Two of its largest grantees have been the Association of Youth Groups Freedom, which supports Afro-Colombian citizen participation in local and national politics, and the League of Displaced Women, which supports training and leadership programs for displaced Afro-Colombian and indigenous women. NED has also provided some $297,066 to support AfroAmerica XXI, an organization based in Colombia that helps promote the political participation of Afro-Latino organizations throughout the region. In FY2008, NED sponsored programs related to Afro-Latinos in Cuba, Ecuador, and Peru."

NED Grants for FY 2005 1/1/2006 International Endowment for Democracy: [publication date approximate] "In the Name of Democracy researcher Anthony Fenton received this information (below) from a NED program officer in December. According to NED spokesperson Jane Riley Jacobson, it was not intended to be made public (all or portions thereof, in conjunction with the publication of their annual report) until May 2006. NB: Special DOS (Department of State) Funds are provided in addition to NED's yearly appropriation and are to be used in a specific, and often priority, country. In LAC in 2005, Cuba is the only country for which NED receives special funds. They review Cuba proposals following their standard guidelines and procedures; the only difference is the funding source (DOS rather than NED)."

National Endowment for Democracy: Paying to Make Enemies of America 10/11/2003 AntiWar: by Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) - "The misnamed National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is nothing more than a costly program that takes US taxpayer funds to promote favored politicians and political parties abroad. What the NED does in foreign countries, through its recipient organizations the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), would be rightly illegal in the United States. The NED injects "soft money" into the domestic elections of foreign countries in favor of one party or the other. Imagine what a couple of hundred thousand dollars will do to assist a politician or political party in a relatively poor country abroad. It is particularly Orwellian to call US manipulation of foreign elections "promoting democracy." How would Americans feel if the Chinese arrived with millions of dollars to support certain candidates deemed friendly to China? Would this be viewed as a democratic development?"

Trojan Horse: The National Endowment for Democracy 6/1/2000 World Traveler: from Rogue State, by William Blum, published in 2000 - "The idea was that the NED would do somewhat overtly what the CIA had been doing covertly for decades, and thus, hopefully, eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities. It was a masterpiece. Of politics, of public relations and of cynicism. Thus it was that in 1983, the National Endowment for Democracy was set up to "support democratic institutions throughout the world through private, nongovernmental efforts". Notice the "nongovernmental"-part of the image, part of the myth. In actuality, virtually every penny of its funding comes from the federal government, as is clearly indicated in the financial statement in each issue of its annual report. NED likes to refer to itself as an NGO (non-governmental organization) because this helps to maintain a certain credibility abroad that an official US government agency might not have. But NGO is the wrong category. NED is a GO. Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, was quite candid when he said in 1991: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." In effect, the CIA has been laundering money through NED."

THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY OF US 4/13/2000 South Asia Analysis Group: "The matter was further examined in 1981-82 by the American Political Foundation's Democracy Programme Study and Research Group and, finally, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was born under a Congressional enactment of 1983 as a "non-profit, non-governmental, bipartisan, grant-making organisation to help strengthen democratic institutions around the world." Though it is projected as an NGO, it is actually a quasi-governmental organisation because till 1994 it was run exclusively from funds voted by the Congress (average of about US $ 16 million per annum in the 1980s and now about US $ 30 million) as part of the budget of the US Information Agency (USIA). Since 1994, it has been accepting contributions from the private sector too to supplement the congressional appropriations. Thirty per cent of the budgetary allocations constitute the discretionary fund of the NED to be distributed directly by it to overseas organisations and the balance is distributed through what are called four "core organisations"---the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), the Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) and the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI)."


Venezuela

Beware Venezuela, Here Come the Democratic Hawks 11/13/2006 Venezuela Analysis: "With the Democrats now taking over Congress, the question is: what will the change in leadership mean for U.S. policy towards Venezuela? While it's heartening that some progressive legislators will be headed to Washington, unfortunately some hawkish figures stand to influence Latin America policy. Unless he is upended by Representative Howard Berman, Tom Lantos will become the Chair of the House International Relations Committee… The bad blood between the Venezuelan regime and Lantos goes back to 2004. Lantos, along with fellow lawmakers such as Republican Henry Hyde, sent a letter to Chavez complaining that the Venezuelan government was abusing its power when it accused Sumate, an opposition group, of conspiring with the U.S. to topple the Chavez regime. In the letter, Lantos and others admit that Sumate had been financed by the U.S. taxpayer funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) but that this financing would help encourage Venezuelan democracy. Lantos's letter elicited a sharp rejoinder from Venezuela's ambassador to the U.S., Bernardo Alvarez, who commented that the U.S. government was inconsistent when it came to democracy, and that the U.S. was the only country in the hemisphere to recognize the illegitimate Carmona regime which came to power in a brief coup d'etat in April 2002. Things deteriorated further last year when Lantos was allegedly refused entry into Venezuela and was stopped at the airport. Lantos had gone to the South American country as part of a high-level delegation headed by Republican Henry Hyde, the same legislator who had defended NED the year before."

US Works to Delegitimize Venezuela's December Presidential Election 10/28/2006 Znet: "Venezuela's ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) and Vice Foreign Minister Jorge Valero told us, "The enemy is not the opposition but Mr. Bush. Millions of dollars have been channeled into the opposition parties and leaders, not only formally through the NED (National Endowment for Democracy) and AID (US Agency for International Development) but informally. What right does the US have to fund parties in other countries when that is illegal if done in the US?" And Jose Albornoz, General Secretary of the Patria Para Todos party and member of National Assembly where he chairs the Committee for the Investigation of NGO Funding added, "Under Clinton we talked. When Bush came in the decision seemed to be to get rid of Chavez rather than work out our differences." The issue of US military intentions is not far from the thoughts of many Venezuelans. The US war against Iraq is intensely unpopular across the political spectrum. Freelance journalist Gregory Wilpert said many members of the Chavez government "from the top on down" are convinced the US will invade Venezuela. Several people we met with said that the US either participated in or knew in advance about the short-lived coup of April 11, 2002. Golinger told us that the US is building a new military base on Curacao, the Dutch colony off Venezuela's coast and near the oil state of Zulia. She speculated that one possible outcome of the December election would be for the US to refuse to recognize Chavez' election and for Rosales to go back to Zulia and refuse to recognize the central government. There is already a secession movement in Zulia. With US forces in Colombia, on Curacao, and nearly constant navy war games in the Caribbean, it is possible that Venezuela could be stripped of its major oil producing state."

NED $$$ Out of Venezuela and Haiti 3/6/2006 Hands Off Venezuela: "The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) channels money on behalf of the US government through four core institutes: the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, the Solidarity Center (AFL-CIO) and the Center for International Private Enterprise (Chambers of Commerce). Under the guise of “spreading democracy” around the world, the NED has used these funds for everything from manipulating elections to coordinating coups against popular governments opposed to the domination of US corporate and military interests and the poverty and exploitation they impose on the world’s population."

Eva Golinger: NED on the offensive in Venezuela 3/3/2006 Vheadlines: published 11/04, background to the current controversy about Golinger's charges that Afro-Venezuelans are taking NED money

Afro-Venezuelans denounce divide-and-conquer scheme by Willie Thompson 3/1/2006 SF Bay View: "Eve Golinger-Moncada, a Venezuelan-American attorney and author of “The Chavez Code,” is reported by Afro-Venezuelans to be denouncing Afro- and Indigenous Venezuelans on radio and television in Caracas. She alleges that they are taking money from U.S. government agencies – NED, IRI and USAID – to destabilize and overthrow the Bolivarian Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chavez. The reports, brought back from the 2006 World Social Forum recently held in Venezuela and received in emails, are deeply troubling to both Afro-Venezuelans and African North Americans. Golinger-Moncada is said not to have named any specific Afro- or Indigenous-Venezuelan groups or organizations. Afro-Venezuelans believe she is trying to divide the Afro- and Indigenous Venezuelans from the Bolivarian movement so as to aid the real opponents of the Venezuelan government for personal gain. In 2004, Golinger-Moncada published a list of organizations receiving funding from the U.S., but it isn’t clear that they included Afro- and Indigenous Venezuelan organizations. It is important to know that Congressman Gregory Meeks of the Congressional Black Caucus is a member of the NED (National Endowment for Democracy) board of directors."

Declassified Documents Back Venezuelan President’s Claim of US Aid to Opposition Groups 2/10/2004 Venezuelanalysis.com: "The documents discovered through Bigwood’s FOIA requests on Venezuela reveal a consistent pattern of funding from various U.S. agencies and entities, such as the Department of State and the National Endowment for Democracy, to several known anti-Chávez groups in Venezuela. One of these groups, Sumate, received USD$53,400 for “Electoral Education” during the period September 2003 – September 2004. The funds awarded to Sumate were, according to the NED grant, to “train citizens throughout Venezuela in the electoral process and to promote participation in a recall referendum.” Sumate is the organization that led an unapproved referendum drive back in February 2003, attempting to remove President Chavez before half of his term, which is not permitted by Venezuelan law. Sumate claimed to have collected “27 million signatures in one day”, yet it was later discovered that a majority of these signatures were gathered through fraudulent means, including photocopied from bank records and credit card receipts."

Our Gang in Venezuela? 7/18/2002 The Nation

Viva Vin Weber 5/15/2002 City Pages, Minneapolis - St, Paul: "Weber, a power player in GOP political circles who retired from Congress in 1993, has served as chairman of the board for the obscure but influential National Endowment for Democracy since January 2001. The NED, a private nonprofit agency, was founded in the early Eighties with the express goal of fostering democratic ideals abroad...In all, some $877,000 in NED funds has been distributed in Venezuela in the past year. Most of those funds were funneled to opposition movements by the four NED affiliates, including the International Republican Institute (IRI). The day after Chavez's removal, IRI President George Folsom--an advisor to former President George H.W. Bush--issued a statement praising the coup, saying, "The Venezuelan people rose up to defend democracy in their country." Defending it against the 60% of the people who voted for Chavez, not once but twice?

http://www.afrocubaweb.com/ned.htm