What is the National Endowment for Democracy?

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What is the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and why should we care? The NED was created by Ronald Reagan under the direction of William Casey as part of the CIA's covert political activities (SAAG). Casey recommended that activities be organized under an NGO with no links to the CIA. From 1983 to 1994 NED was funded by exclusively by Congress, at which point it began accepting private donations. NED works through four "core" organizations: "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)." Among its strongest US supporters is the Heritage Foundation (a right-wing think tank which has been influential in policy issues).

In answer to "why we should be concerned," the NED (and its spin offs) are acting openly in a wide array of countries (and now in Iraq), and have been directly linked to the overthrow and attempted overthrows of democratically elected governments - such as Haiti, and Venezuela.

From The National Endowment for Democracy of US (SAAG) on the Heritage Foundation:

It brought out two papers on the justification for the NED, when questions were raised in the US on the continued need for it after the collapse of the communist regimes of East Europe. In the first paper of July 8,1993, (Executive Memorandum No. 360) it described the NED as "an important weapon in the war of ideas" and said:" The NED has played a vital role in providing aid to democratic movements in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Nicaragua, Vietnam and elsewhere..... Communist dictatorships still control China, Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam. Moreover, ex-communists masquerading as nationalists continue to dominate several of the Soviet successor states. The NED can play an important role in assisting those countries in making the turbulent transition to democracy..... Local political activists often prefer receiving assistance from a non-governmental source, as aid from a US government agency may undermine their credibility in the eyes of their countrymen."

In the second paper of September 13, 1996, (Executive Memorandum No.461), it said:"The NED advances American national interests by promoting the development of stable democracies friendly to the US in strategically important parts of the world. The US cannot afford to discard such an effective instrument of foreign policy at a time when American interests and values are under sustained ideological attack from a wide variety of anti-democratic forces around the world...The NED has aided Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement in Poland, Harry Wu's human rights efforts in China and independent media outlets in former Yugoslavia. Russian political activists affiliated with the NED also played a major role in President Boris Yeltsin's re-election campaign against the reinvigorated Communist Party earlier this year.... The NED is a cost-effective way to encourage captive nations to liberate themselves without committing the US to a prohibitively risky and costly military crusade to free them from communism."

William Blum, author of Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, states:

In a multitude of ways, NED meddles in the internal affairs of foreign countries by supplying funds, technical know-how, training, educational materials, computers, fax machines, copiers, automobiles and so on, to selected political groups, civic organizations, labor unions, dissident movements, student groups, book publishers, newspapers, other media, etc. NED programs generally impart the basic philosophy that working people and other citizens are best served under a system of free enterprise, class cooperation, collective bargaining, minimal government intervention in the economy and opposition to socialism in any shape or form. A free market economy is equated with democracy, reform and growth, and the merits of foreign investment are emphasized.

From 1994 to 1996, NED awarded 15 grants, totaling more than $2,500,000, to the American Institute for Free Labor Development, an organization used by the CIA for decades to subvert progressive labor unions. AlFLD's work within Third World unions typically involved a considerable educational effort very similar to the basic NED philosophy described above. ..."

The Endowment has funded centrist and rightist labor organizations to help them oppose those unions which were too militantly proworker. This has taken place in France, Portugal and Spain amongst many other places. In France, during the 1983-4 period, NED supported a "trade union-like organization for professors and students" to counter "left-wing organizations of professors". To this end it funded a series of seminars and the publication of posters, books and pamphlets such as "Subversion and the Theology of Revolution" and "Neutralism or Liberty". ("Neutralism" here refers to being unaligned in the Cold War.)"

Ron Paul (Independent Representative from Texas) lambastes the NED (National Endowment for Democracy: Paying to Make Enemies of America, Rep. Ron Paul (TX), Antiwar.com):

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?

An example of the convoluted, and contradictory, nature of US covert actions is the case of Chile. Richard Nixon wanted Allende (then President of Chile out) and so supported a military coup that put Pinochet in power (Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973, Kornbluh, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 8). However, ultimately Pinochet became an impediment to US interests (not to mention his brutality), and the NED went into action to "support the opposition" (Loose Cannon: The National Endowment for Democracy, Conry, Cato Institute). As we all know, the effort was ultimately successful and Pinochet went "on the lam," taking uncounted monies with him. However, the ties to Pinochet were not completely severed or reversed as reported by the BBC on 7/15/04, US bank 'hid Pinochet millions'. The Riggs bank set up several accounts for Pinochet in 1998 while he was under "house arrest" in the UK.

The report alleges that between 1994-2002, Riggs helped Gen Pinochet set up offshore front companies and open accounts in the names of those companies to disguise his control of the accounts.

But let's turn to more recent activities of the NED that tie to the broader "war on terrorism." In an unreleased Draft Strategy Document, National Endowment for Democracy, January 2002 pdf (Also at UTJ), Gersham (the head of NED) states:

The response to the terrorists must obviously begin by dismantling their networks, ending the support they receive from states, and strengthening domestic and international defense capabilities. But in addition to responding to the immediate security threat, it is also necessary to help democracy take root in those countries of the Middle East, Africa, South and Central Asia, and other regions that now breed or support terrorists. It is in these Muslim countries or regions, more than anywhere else, that terrorism feeds off tyranny, finding recruits among the politically repressed and sanctuary from states that use terror against their own people. Building effective political institutions is the surest way to sever the link between terror and tyranny and to advance the values of democracy, individual rights, and cultural pluralism in the Middle East and elsewhere in the Muslim world.

Promoting democratic institutions and values in the Muslim world is thus one of the most urgent challenges now facing the NED.

...

Meeting the challenge of democratization in the Muslim world thus does not warrant a retreat from the Endowment’s global approach, which is rooted in the worldwide interests and moral concerns of the United States. On the contrary, it constitutes a powerful new argument for maintaining and strengthening this approach. The fact that NED already has a track record in the Middle East and a network of grantees and contacts upon which to build an expanded program there and in other Muslim regions is due entirely to its global approach, which assumes that no region where democrats are asking for help should be disregarded, no matter how difficult the challenges there might be.

The National Endowment for Democracy, and its core and diverse network, may do some good in the world, but it has been so frequently linked to covert, anti-democratic, interventions on behalf of "US interests" that all of its activities must be viewed with skepticism. The it is now including "Muslim" nations in its sights at the same time that the Bush administration is pushing for the same goal, should raise eyebrows and concerns. George Bush put the NED in the center of the "democratization" of Iraq with his speech at the NED's 20th anniversary. The question will be will the democracy in Iraq be shaped by the people of Iraq, or to the convenience of the US? Further, as the US pushes for "democracy" in the rest of the Middle East, Africa, and parts of Asia, will the NED be truly helping the peoples, or acting as a covert arm of US foreign policy?

Sources and Resources
The National Endowment for Democracy of US, South Asia Analysis Group

National Endowment for Democracy Home Page

Trojan Horse: The National Endowment for Democracy, Blum, Third World Traveler

National Endowment for Democracy: Paying to Make Enemies of America, Rep. Ron Paul (TX), Antiwar.com

National Endowment for Democracy, DisInfopedia

Loose Cannon: The National Endowment for Democracy, Conry, Cato Institute

The National Endowment for Democracy Funded Venezuelan Coup Perpetrators, MediaTransparency, 4/2002

The National Endowment for Democracy is back and up to its old tricks again, Berkowitz, Working For Change, 7/2001

Remarks By The President At The 20th Anniversary Of The National Endowment For Democracy , 11/06/03

Virtual Truth Commission - National Endowment for Democracy

Venezuela: What is the National Endowment for Democracy up to?, Duncan, Al Jazeera via VenezuelaAnalysis.com, 5/04/04

Draft Strategy Document, National Endowment for Democracy, January 2002 pdf (Also at UTJ

Heritage Foundation, RightWeb (FPIF) description

Our Gang in Venezuela? The National Endowment for Democracy has been busy - and far from alone., Corn, The Nation, 8/2002

Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973, Kornbluh, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 8

US bank 'hid Pinochet millions', BBC, 7/15/04

Posted by rowan at July 17, 2004 08:10 AM | TrackBack | Printable Version | [eMail this article!] |