NED Weaponizes \u201cDemocracy\u201d in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
The brief freeze and rapid partial reinstatement of National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funding in early 2025 helped expose it as a US regime-change tool. Created to rebrand CIA covert operations as \u201cdemocracy promotion<\/a>,\u201d the NED channels government funds to opposition groups in\u00a0Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, meddling in their internal affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2018, Kenneth Wollack\u00a0bragged<\/a>\u00a0to the US Congress that the NED had given political training to 8,000 young Nicaraguans, many of whom were engaged in a failed attempt to overthrow Nicaragua\u2019s Sandinista government. Wollack was praising the \u201cdemocracy-promotion\u201d work carried out by NED, of which he is now vice-chair. Carl Gershman, then president of the NED and giving evidence, was asked about Nicaragua\u2019s Daniel Ortega, who had been re-elected with an increased majority two years prior. He responded: \u201cTime for him to go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seven years later, Trump took office and it looked as if the NED\u2019s future was endangered. On February 12, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Elon Musk froze disbursement of its congressionally approved funds. Its activities stopped and its website went blank. On February 24, Richard Grenell, special envoy to Venezuela,\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cDonald Trump is someone who does not want to make regime changes.\u201d<\/p> Washington\u2019s global regime-change operations were immediately impacted and over 2,000 paid US collaborating organizations temporarily defunded. A Biden-appointed judge warned of \u201cpotentially catastrophic harm<\/a>\u201d to (not in her words) US efforts to overturn foreign governments. The howl from the corporate press was deafening. The\u00a0Associated Press<\/em>\u00a0cried<\/a>: \u201c\u2018Beacon of freedom\u2019 dims as US initiatives that promote democracy abroad wither.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the pause lasted barely a month. On March 10, funding was largely reinstated.\u00a0 The NED, which \u201cdeeply appreciated\u201d the State Department\u2019s\u00a0volte face<\/em>, then made public its current program which, in Latin America and the Caribbean alone, includes\u00a0over 260 projects<\/a>\u00a0costing more than $40 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Created in 1983 under President Ronald Reagan following scandals involving the CIA\u2019s covert funding of foreign interventions, the NED was to shift such operations into a more publicly palatable form under the guise of \u201cdemocracy promotion.\u201d As Allen Weinstein, NED\u2019s first acting president, infamously\u00a0admitted<\/a>\u00a0in 1991: \u201cA lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.\u201d In short, NED functions as a \u201csoft power arm\u201d of US foreign policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The NED disingenuously operates as a 501(c)(3) private nonprofit foundation. However, it is nearly 100% funded by annual appropriations from the US Congress and governed mainly by Washington officials or ex-officials. In reality, it is an instrument of the US state\u2014and, arguably, of the so-called deep state. But its quasi-private status shields it from many of the disclosure requirements that typically apply to taxpayer-funded agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hence we encounter verbal gymnastics such as those in its \u201cDuty of Care and Public Disclosure Policies.\u201d That\u00a0document<\/a>\u00a0loftily proclaims: \u201cNED holds itself to high standards of transparency and accountability.\u201d Under a discussion of its \u201clegacy\u201d (with no mention of its CIA pedigree), the NGO\u00a0boasts<\/a>: \u201cTransparency has always been central to NED\u2019s identity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it continues, \u201c\u2026transparency for oversight differs significantly from transparency for public consumption.\u201d In other words, it is transparent to the State Department but not to the public. The latter are only offered what it euphemistically calls a \u201ccurated public listing of grants\u201d \u2013 highly redacted and lacking in specific details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NED enjoys a number of advantages by operating in the nether region between an accountable US government agency and a private foundation. It offers plausible deniability:\u00a0<\/strong>the US government can use it to support groups doing its bidding abroad without direct attribution, giving Washington a defense from accusations of interference in the internal affairs of other countries. It is also more palatable for foreign institutions to partner with what is ostensibly an NGO, rather than with the US government itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The NED can also respond quickly if regime-change initiatives are needed in countries on Washington\u2019s\u00a0enemy list<\/a>, circumventing the usual governmental budgeting procedures. And, as illustrated during that congressional presentation in 2018 on Nicaragua, NED\u2019s activities are framed as supporting democracy, human rights, and civil society. It cynically invokes universal liberal values while promoting narrow Yankee geopolitical interests. Thus its programs are sold as altruistic rather than imperial, and earn positive media headlines like the one from the\u00a0AP<\/em>\u00a0cited above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But a look at NED\u2019s work in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba suggests very much the opposite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Venezuela had passed an\u00a0NGO Oversight Law<\/a>\u00a0in 2024. Like the US\u2019s Foreign Agents Registration Act, but somewhat less restrictive, the law requires certification of NGOs. As even the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) \u2013 an inside-the-beltway promoter of US imperialism with a liberal gloss \u2013\u00a0\u00a0admits<\/a>: \u201cMany Venezuelan organizations receiving US support have not been public about being funding recipients.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The pace of Washington\u2019s efforts in Venezuela temporarily slowed with the funding pause, as US-funded proxies had to focus on their own survival. Venezuelan government officials, cheering the pause,\u00a0viewed<\/a>\u00a0the NED\u2019s interference in their internal affairs as a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty. In contrast, the\u00a0US-funded<\/a>\u00a0leader of the far-right opposition, Maria Corina Machado,\u00a0begged<\/a>\u00a0for international support to make up for the shortfall from Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n WOLA\u00a0bemoaned<\/a>\u00a0that the funding freeze allowed the \u201cMaduro government to further delegitimize NGOs\u201d paid by the US. Hundreds of US-funded organizations, they\u00a0lamented<\/a>, \u201cnow face the grim choice of going underground, relocating abroad, or shutting down operations altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the partial reinstatement of funding, now bankrolling at least 39 projects costing $3.4 million, former US senator and present NED board member Mel Martinez\u00a0praised the NED<\/a>\u00a0for its \u201ctremendous presence in Venezuela\u2026 supporting the anti-Maduro movement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leading up to the 2018\u00a0coup attempt<\/a>, the NED had funded\u00a054 projects<\/a>\u00a0worth over $4 million. Much of this went to support supposedly \u201cindependent\u201d media, in practice little more than propaganda outlets for Nicaragua\u2019s opposition groups. Afterward, the NED-funded online magazine\u00a0Global Americans<\/em>\u00a0revealed<\/a>\u00a0that the NED had \u201claid \u201cthe groundwork for insurrection\u201d in Nicaragua.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the\u00a0main beneficiaries<\/a>,\u00a0Confidencial<\/em>, is owned by the Chamorro family, two of whose members later announced intentions to stand in Nicaragua\u2019s 2021 elections. The family\u00a0received<\/a>\u00a0well over $5 million in US government funding, either from the NED or directly from USAID (now absorbed into the State Department). In 2022, Cristiana Chamorro, who handled much of this funding, was\u00a0found guilty<\/a>\u00a0of money laundering. Her eight-year sentence was commuted to house arrest; after a few months she was given asylum in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of the 22 Nicaragua-related projects which NED has resumed funding, one third sponsor \u201cindependent\u201d media. While the recipients\u2019 names are undisclosed, it is almost certain that this funding is either for outlets like\u00a0Confidencial\u00a0<\/em>(now based in Costa Rica), or else is going direct to leading opponents of the Sandinista government to pay for advertisements currently appearing in\u00a0Twitter<\/em>\u00a0and other social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Latin America, Cuba is targeted with the highest level of NED spending \u2013 $6.6 million covering\u00a046 projects<\/a>. One stated objective is to create \u201ca more well-informed, critically minded citizenry,\u201d which appears laughable to anyone who has been to Cuba and talked to ordinary people there \u2013 generally much better informed about world affairs than a typical US citizen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cuba\u2019s Foreign Minister Bruno\u00a0Rodr\u00edguez\u00a0criticized the NED\u2019s destabilizing activities, such as\u00a0financing<\/a>\u00a054 anti-Cuba organizations since 2017. He\u00a0advised<\/a>\u00a0the US administration to review \u201chow many in that country [the US] have enriched themselves organizing destabilization and terrorism against Cuba with support from that organization.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Washington not only restored NED funding for attacks on Cuba but, on May 15, added Cuba to the list of countries that \u201cdo not fully cooperate with its anti-terrorist efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyone with a basic familiarity with Washington\u2019s workings is likely to be aware of the NED\u2019s covert role. Yet the corporate media \u2013 behaving as State Department stenographers and showing no apparent embarrassment \u2013 have degenerated to the point where they regularly portray the secretly funded NED outlets as \u201cindependent\u201d media serving the targeted countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Case in point:\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0<\/em>columnist Max Boot finds it \u201csickening<\/a>\u201d that Trump is \u201ctrying [to] end US government support for democracy abroad.\u201d He is concerned because astroturf \u201cdemocracy promotion groups\u201d cannot exist without the flow of US government dollars. He fears the \u201cimmense tragedy\u201d of Trump\u2019s executive order to cut off funding (now partially reinstated) for the US Agency for Global Media, the parent agency of the Voice of America, Radio Marti, and other propaganda outlets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Behind the moralistic appeals to democracy promotion and free press is a defense of the US imperial project to impose itself on countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. Those sanctioned countries, targeted for regime change, need free access to food, fuel, medicines and funding for development. They don\u2019t need to hear US propaganda beamed to them or generated locally by phonily \u201cindependent\u201d media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Roger D. Harris<\/strong>\u00a0is with the\u00a0Task Force on the Americas<\/a>, the\u00a0US Peace Council<\/a>, and the\u00a0Venezuela Solidarity Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRegime change on the US agenda<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\nUS \u201csoft power\u201d<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Venezuela<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Nicaragua<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Cuba<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
The NED: Covert influence in the name of democracy<\/h4>\n\n\n\n