January 18, 2022
image: Lacoste
Republican President Ronald Reagan created the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in 1983, which along with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has functioned as an economic arm of the United States government’s interventionist policies, financing non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and foundations disguised with names citing very laudable values like democracy and freedom, which in fact seek to change governments that do not subordinate themselves to Washington’s policies.
These interventionist policies have been implemented in many countries of the world, especially in those in what the United States considers its backyard: Latin America and the Caribbean.
As detailed on the NED’s own website in 2020, the organization provided critical support to allegedly promote democracy in our region, in countries governed by what they consider to be the most authoritarian regimes: Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Two countries, Ecuador and Bolivia, were described as “in transition,” offering important opportunities to reverse previous “authoritarian” legislation on freedom of expression and judicial independence and to encourage citizen participation in electoral processes.
The NED reports expanding what are presented as programs addressing corruption, digital media, and human rights, and reaffirmed its commitments to the region’s largest countries: Brazil and Mexico, which were considered to be facing threats from right-wing populist and leftist governments, respectively.
As can be seen, the organization defines Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela as “more authoritarian regimes,” countries that were openly attacked through the network of foundations and NGOs this entity funds, and are defamed by media that are also financed through these organizations or other similar ones.
The NED website also reports that, on November 30, 2018, a meeting was held in which Democratic Senator Robert “Bob” Menéndez, and the Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen participated, two well-known opponents of popular processes in the region and linked to the most reactionary sectors of Cuban emigration based in Miami.
Also on hand were NED President Carl Gershman, and USAID administrator Mark Green, both interested in promoting new compliant leaders in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Gershman took the opportunity to thank Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen for her unwavering support for the work of “democratic” activists around the world, presenting her with a framed print of the Goddess of Democracy, built in China’s Tiananmen Square, nearly 30 years ago.
Later, NED Senior Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Miriam Kornblith, participated in a panel with activists from Venezuela and Cuba, described as an event which served to familiarize U.S. development agencies and legislators with “democratic leaders” from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.”
INTERVENTION IN CUBA
Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the United States has resorted to all manner of means to force a change of government on the island. The criminal economic, commercial and financial blockade that Washington illegally and unilaterally maintains against Cuba, which has been condemned by the international community in 29 votes in the United Nations General Assembly is, without a doubt, the most concrete example of this systematic aggression that the U.S. government maintains against our people.
Promoters of the blockade have confessed on more than one occasion that this amalgam of measures is intended to asphyxiate the Cuban people, create chaos and generate a change of regime and political system.
During the years of the pandemic, 2020 and 2021, the U.S. government (first under the leadership of Donald Trump and now Joe Biden) tightened the blockade with new measures, preventing the import of medicines, respirators, fuel and economic resources to confront the crisis caused by COVID-19. In this difficult context, protests were fomented to destabilize the government in a failed attempt to deliver the final blow to the Cuban Revolution. The plan succeeded in generating more hardship and suffering for the population, but not in breaking the people’s will.
Appearing in the section devoted to Cuba on the NED website is a list of groups funded by the organization during 2020 to promote destabilization.
According to this data released by the NED, more than five million dollars (5,077,788) were invested for this purpose that year, to which must be added funding for NGOs and foundations that do not appear in the Cuba report but also take action against our country, as well as funds channeled through USAID and other similar organizations.
We reproduce below the long list published on the NED website February 23, 2021(www.ned.org/region/latin-america-and-caribbean/cuba-2020) revealing the names of groups which received funding to intervene in Cuba during the year 2020, with sums ranging from 20,000 to 650,000 dollars. Readers are invited to research the actual activities of these groups:
International Platform for Human Rights in Cuba – $87,253
Cubalex – $150,000
Fundacion Cartel Urbano – $110,000
National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) – $500,000
Freedom of Information – $80,000
Editorial Hypermedia – $93,941
Latin American Center for Nonviolence – $48,597
Instituto de Comunicacion y Desarrollo – $79,300
Transparencia Electoral – $74,945
Investigacion e Innovacion Factual – $74,000
Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Humanos – $150,000
Freedom of Information – $50,000
Agora Cuba – $75,860
Asociacion Diario de Cuba – $215,000
Freedom of Information – $72,000
Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba – $126,000
Instituto Cubano por la Libertad de Expresion y Prensa – $146,360
Freedom of Information – $56,500
Cultura Democratica – $49,106
Freedom of Information – $33,180
Cuban Democratic Directorate – $650,000
Democratic Ideas and Values – $23,500
Freedom of Information – $75,000
Accountability and Governance – $120,267
Freedom of Information – $91,319
Gobierno y Analisis Politico – $115,000
Asociacion Civil Cronos – $80,000
Freedom of Information – $50,000
Instituto Interamericano de Derechos Humanos – $95,000
Freedom of Information – $99,980
Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) – $309,766
Instituto Prensa y Sociedad – $70,523
Fundacion Espacio Publico – $108,000
People in Need Slovakia (PIPA) – $60,000
Clovek v tisni, o.p.s. (People in Need) – $150,882
Instituto Politico para la Libertad Peru – $85,000
Arlenica, Arte, Lenguaje e Investigación para el Cambio Social – $11,940
Center for a Free Cuba – $80,000
Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) – $145,230
Grupo Internacional para la Responsabilidad Social Corporativa en Cuba – $230,000
Vista Larga Foundation – $83,000
Democratic Ideas and Values – $71,339
Source: Granma