By Yisell Rodríguez Milán on February 5, 2022
Some 40 subversive projects in Cuba were funded in 2020, by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), one of the key economic arms of U.S. government’s interference in other countries, meant to destabilize governments that do not meet its expectations.
The NED website revealed that, in 2020, more than five million dollars (5,077,788) were invested, to which must be added funds allocated to NGOs and foundations that do not appear in the Cuba chapter of the report, but which take action against the island, as well as money channeled through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other similar organizations, notes Argentine journalist Héctor Bernardo, in an article published in Diario Contexto.
On February 23, 2021, the NED published a list of those awarded between 20,000 and 650,000 dollars to intervene in Cuba during the previous year. Its publically disseminated strategy is to support “efforts” to defend two imperialist pretexts for meddling in other peoples’ affairs: human rights and democracy. On the other hand, it is clearly evident that their real intention is to motivate mercenaries and pro-imperialists by offering them some money for selling out the homeland.
The list of beneficiaries attempting to earn a few bucks is long, generating lies and clouding public opinion about Cuba, but there is a common thread. These are projects focused on specific sectors of the Cuban population (artists, writers, journalists, the self-employed, women, the diaspora…) and address specific issues in an effort to foment dissent, some of which we have seen “explode” on social networks – especially over the past two years – gender violence, human rights, freedom of speech and the press, among other topics of interest.
Internet access, which for years was among the main issues exploited, no longer appears, although the NED continues to encourage the use of new technologies to facilitate the circulation of fake news and defamatory content meant to discredit the Revolution.
They are betting on a lack of knowledge about Cuban institutions, to promote what they call “independent thought,” and resort to media tricks to make themselves heard at the United Nations.
Even our labor unions, with their deep commitment to justice, are in the crosshairs of the NED, which allocated $230,000 to a group that in theory would provide assistance to independent activists in Cuba and work to promote labor rights in the informal sector, something the state already does, and which in 2021 gained momentum with the approval of a new legal framework for micro, small and medium-sized companies.
But Cuba was not the only country subjected to NED interference in 2020. As on previous occasions, Nicaragua and Venezuela were prime targets, followed by Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil and Mexico.
Like a television series that drags on with little novelty, NED’s efforts to destroy the Revolution will continue. We are really interested in seeing the 2021 report, to see how much they paid for the July 11 and November 15 episodes, in which they surely invested much more than they got in return.
Source: Granma