National Endowment for Democracy
The National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, is a U.S right-wing think tank which claims to help train people in democracy and manages money grants to that effect. It was founded in 1983 and is funded for the most part by the United States Government.Its alleged links with fascist regimes in Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s lead some critics to claim that rather than supporting democracy, it in fact opposes democracy.
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2 Funding of foreign political parties 3 Source of Funding 4 Links with other think tanks 5 See also 6 External links |
The NED was first funded by President Ronald Reagan in 1982 and shaped by an initial study undertaken by the American Political Foundation. [1]
NED was created with a view to creating a broad base of political support for the organisation. NED received funds from the US government and distributes funds to four other organisations – one each created by the Republican and Democrat parties, one created by the business community and one by the labour movement.
The four affiliated organisations are Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the Free Trade Union Institute.
The NED regularly provides funding to opposition candidates in elections in countries other than the USA.
According to left-wing critics, the NED only supports candidates with strong ties to the military and who support the rights of US corporations to invest in those countries. They claim that the NED does not support candidates who oppose investments by US corporations or who promise restrictions on investment rights of US corporations. For example, Bill Berkowitz of Working for Change claims that The NED functions as a full-service infrastructure building clearinghouse. It provides money, technical support, supplies, training programs, media know-how, public relations assistance and state-of-the-art equipment to select political groups, civic organizations, labor unions, dissident movements, student groups, book publishers, newspapers, and other media. Its aim is to destabilize progressive movements, particularly those with a socialist or democratic socialist bent. [1]
In the 1990 elections in Haiti, the NED supported Marc Bazin providing a big fraction of his total US-supported campaign funds of $36 million. Despite this funding, he only obtained 12% of the vote. Marc Bazin had earlier been a World Bank official. He was seen by most Haitians as a "front man for military and business interests", and had been prime minister during military rule, for the presidential election. [1]
During 2001/2002, the NED gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to US and Venezuelan groups who organised protests and a coup d'etat against the elected president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. The coup happened on 11 April 2002. According to Wayne Madsen, a former intelligence officer with the US navy, US military attaches such as Lieutenant Colonel James Rogers had been in touch with members of the Venezuelan military to examine the possibility of a coup, while Roger Rondon claimed that both James Rogers and another US military officer, Ronald MacCammon, had been at the Fuerte Tiuna military headquarters with the coup leaders during the night of April 11-12. [1]
During the 1990s, NED invested some money, at least about $9,000,000 [1], in Eastern Europe to support its vision of economics and the shock therapy program, leading to unemployment rates of about 20-40% in Eastern European countries.
The NED receives an annual appropriation from the U.S. budget and while a non-governmental organisation is subject to congressional oversight. In the financial year to the end of September 2002 NED had a budget of US$48.5 million. [1]
Directors of the Board includes Frank Charles Carlucci III of The Carlyle Group, General Wesley Kanne Clark, of venture capital company the Stephens Group, Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and Dr. Francis Fukuyama, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University.
Founding of the NED
Funding of foreign political parties
Source of Funding
Links with other think tanks
See also
External links