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National Endowment for Democracy – Whose Democracy?
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Polly Mann, W A M M
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President Bush has proposed to double the budget of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in connection with “the establishment of peace in the Middle East.” The increase is unlikely to advance true peace between Israel and Palestine. The name itself, the “National Endowment for Democracy” sounds as benign as the “Boy Scouts of America.” But today you can tell very little about an organization by its title. A ploy in frequent use is to obfuscate by names. According to its web site, the Endowment is a “private, nonprofit organization created in 1983 to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts. An independent, bipartisan board of directors governs the Endowment. With its annual congressional appropriation, NED makes hundreds of grants each year to support pro-democracy groups in Africa, Asia, et al.”
There is, however, a connection between the NED and the CIA. One of the drafters of the legislation establishing the NED, Allen Weinstein has said, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” While it identifies itself as a nonprofit organization, virtually all its funding comes from the federal government. NED doles out over 300 grants per year, with the average grant amount topping $50,000. The four biggest recipients, by far, are the International Republican Institute; the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs; an affiliate of the AFL-CIO (the American Center for International Labor Solidarity); and an affiliate of the Chamber of Commerce (the Center for International Private Enterprise). These institutions disburse funds to other institutions in the US and all over the world, which in turn disburse funds to additional organizations. According to a recent NED tax return, these four groups each received $4,606,250 in 2001.
William Blum, author of Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, says that the NED meddles in the internal affairs of foreign countries by supplying funds, technical know-how, training, educational materials, computers, faxes, copiers, and automobiles to selected political groups. These groups include, but are not limited to, civic organizations, labor unions, dissident movements, student groups, book publishers, and newspapers. The NED’s stated philosophy is that 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. Many groups funded by the NED appear associated with populist movements, but actually are seeded by agendas conducive to a free market economic agenda that serves U.S. business interests at the expense of true democracy.
The involvement of the NED in the unsuccessful Venezuelan coup of 2002 was revealed in a New York Times article of April 25, 2002 which stated that more than $877,000 had been funneled into opposition groups in the weeks and months before the aborted coup. In a New York Times article of March 11, 2004, the democratically elected President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela charged that the Bush Administration was still trying to defeat him in a referendum by supplying funds to right-wing opposition groups. Although Chavez won the referendum to continue for two more years as president, there is still no guarantee that the administration will not continue using NED funding to work against him.
Barbara Conry, a foreign policy analyst for the think tank, the Cato Institute, describes the NED as an organization that “has a history of corruption and financial mismanagement, is superfluous at best, and often destructive. Through the endowment, the American taxpayer has paid for special interest groups to harass the duly-elected governments of foreign countries, interfere in foreign elections, and foster the corruption of democratic movements.”
For the vast majority of U.S. taxpayers the National Endowment for Democracy is totally unknown. However, members of the California Federation of Teachers did their homework. As a result, in March of this year delegates from this organization opposed the AFL-CIO’s applying for a $3 to $5 million grant from the NED for its operations in Iraq. The Federation cited the fact that the NED served as a front for U.S. foreign policy objectives and intelligence operations, and was responsible for subversive interference in the internal affairs of the labor movements of other countries.
U.S. Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) wrote in a recent article, “The NED, by meddling in the elections and internal politics of foreign countries, does more harm to the United States than good. It creates resentment and ill will toward the U.S. among millions abroad. It is beyond time to de-fund this Cold War relic and return to the foreign policy of our founders, based on open relations and trade with all countries and free from meddling and manipulation in the internal affairs of others.”
The Bush administration intends to use the perfidious skill set of the NED to thwart progressive governments. In some cases, they may fail. Recently, many countries in Latin America—Uruguay, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela— have adopted populist agendas designed to aggressively combat poverty and corruption. These nations have learned to rightly suspect the NED’s “assistance.” Like Chavez, they will struggle to keep hard won gains. We must support self-determination for our Latin American neighbors. By educating our own citizenry to the destructive role of the NED we can counter their influence and actively promote policies based on mutual respect and non-intervention. |
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© 2004 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete December 2004 - January 2005 Index - click here
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