National Endowment for Democracy

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is an American endowment and think tank with the stated goal of promoting liberal democracy worldwide . It was founded in 1983 by the US Congress in Washington, DC and receives annual funding from the US federal budget for its work .

Congress created NED as a semi-public arm of foreign policy . Despite the state funding, it is legally a private, non-profit organization . This enables the state to pass on budget funds to foreign organizations through a third party.

financing

Annual US budget grants are part of the State Department budget . In fiscal 2010, it was $ 118 million.

The main recipients of NED project funds are four foundations that are firmly associated with the organization and that were already involved in its establishment:

Foundation activities

The NED supports over 1,000 projects carried out by non-governmental organizations with democratic goals in over 90 countries. This includes the support of political parties and groups and their international networking, help in building democratic structures, e.g. B. through advice on the organization of elections, the promotion of clubs and associations of civil society, training for entrepreneurs and trade unionists, support for independent media and much more.

Foundation staff

The President of the NED is the foreign policy advisor Carl Gershman, the chairman of the advisory council, which is independent of the government, is the former member of the Democratic Party in the US House of Representatives , Martin Frost . The NED has 145 full-time and seven part-time employees.

Similar organizations in other countries

The model for the NED in the conception of non-governmental foreign policy activities to promote democratic structures were the political foundations of the Federal Republic of Germany .

In 1992 the British government set up the Westminster Foundation for Democracy , which is similar to the NED in key respects.

At the suggestion of the Polish Presidency , the European Union founded the European Democracy Fund (EED) based on the US model of the NED .

Criticism and opinions

Right- wing critics like Pat Buchanan call the NED activities a "global agitation for democratic revolutions and interference in the internal affairs of other countries, especially in dictatorships and undemocratic regimes".

Left-wing critics claim that the NED only sponsors political candidates with close links to the military and willing to support investments by US corporations in their countries, but none who want to regulate or prevent this investment. So says Bill Berkowitz of the Working for Change initiative : " NED works like a complete infrastructural service. It provides money, technical support, media know-how, modern equipment and assists in public relations work for selected political groups, civil organizations, unions, dissidents - Movements, student groups, publishers, newspapers and other media. Its aim is to destabilize progressive movements, especially those with socialist or democratic-socialist inclinations ".

In October 2003, Republican Party member Ron Paul commented on the NED's activities as follows: "What the NED does in foreign states would be illegal in the US. (...) It is Orwellian to claim that US elections are manipulated in foreign states would promote democracy. How would the Americans react if the Chinese supported certain pro-Chinese politicians with millions of dollars? Would that be a 'democratic development'? "

Supporters believe that NED supports a large number of social democratic and liberal groups around the world , including anti-American groups, as long as they adhere to the norms and principles of democracy, such as in Indonesia and Ukraine . NED focuses its funding more on democratically thinking organizations than on opposition groups that openly represent fundamentalism or any kind of dictatorship . Michael McFaul , US diplomat and US ambassador to Russia from January 2012 to February 2014, argued in the Washington Post in December 2004 under the heading 'Meddling' In Ukraine: Democracy is not an American plot. that the NED foundation is hardly an instrument of US foreign policy, since it finances pro-democracy organizations against the opposition of the US government as well as non-democratic governments abroad.

Single examples

Central America

In 1984 NED financed the Panamanian presidential candidate backed by the de facto ruler Manuel Noriega and the US foreign intelligence service CIA . Congress then passed law banning the use of NED funds to "fund campaigns for candidates for public office".

Political activist John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton ( PRWatch ) wrote that prior to the 1990 elections in Nicaragua, " President George Bush committed $ 9 million to NED, including $ 4 million for the campaign of opposition presidential candidate Violeta Chamorro ." Chamorro's party won the election with 55 percent of the vote.

In the 1990 elections in Haiti , NED supported Marc Bazin with a large portion of his $ 36 million election budget. Despite funding, he received only 12% of the vote. Bazin was previously a World Bank employee.

Between 1990 and 1992, NED donated $ 250,000 to the political organization Cuban-American National Foundation, which opposed the regime of the then Cuban dictator Fidel Castro .

Venezuela

In 2004, Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez published documents showing that the NED was funding the country's civil associations such as Súmate (Association for the Promotion of the Constitution and Democracy) and tripling these grants from $ 250,000 to $ 0.9 million in 2000/2001. María Corina Machado , Alejandro Plaz , and other Súmate members were charged by the Chavez government with treason and conspiracy for accepting these funds to influence voters for the 2004 re-election referendum .

Western Europe

NED funded political groups in Western Europe in the 1980s. The French Liberation published a report, which was later taken up by the Cato Institute , according to which the US funded the right-wing student group Union Nationale Inter-universitaire (UNI). The US government distanced itself from this action. In 1983/84 NED supported a "union-like organization of professors and students" who opposed "left-wing organizations of professors". Series of seminars as well as books and tracts with titles such as " Subversion and the Theology of Revolution " and " Neutralism or Freedom " were funded. Something similar took place in other countries besides France, Portugal and Spain.

Eastern Europe

To drive the political transformation in Eastern Europe after 1990, NED is said to have invested millions of dollars. The US author William Blum described the destabilization campaigns of the US government using the examples of Bulgaria and Albania .

Greater Middle East

On November 6, 2003, with his forward strategy of freedom , George W. Bush laid the foundation stone for the US government's Greater Middle East program, which is officially aimed at establishing democracy in the entire Greater Middle East in a speech to the NED . The main content of the speech before the NED was to implement the introduction of democracy in the “Islamic” countries through an outside initiative. Despite the officially set goal of democratization, Bush praised a number of autocratically governed countries such as several monarchies on the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia , and the Moroccan Kingdom for alleged progress in democratization.

literature

  • William I. Robinson: A Faustian bargain. US intervention in the Nicaraguan elections and American foreign policy in the post-Cold War era , Boulder u. a. (Westview Press) 1992. ISBN 0-8133-8233-5 . ISBN 0-8133-8234-3
  • William I. Robinson: Promoting polyarchy. Globalization, US intervention, and hegemony , Cambridge u. a. (Cambridge University Press) 1996. ISBN 0-521-56203-1 . ISBN 0-521-56691-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c US State Department: National Endowment for Democracy (PDF; 115 kB) Chapter of the budget for the financial year 2012, from February 18, 2011, accessed on October 4, 2011 (English)
  2. ↑ NED Homepage (English)
  3. ↑ Board , website of the NED, accessed on January 4, 2014 (English)
  4. ↑ a b David Lowe: "Idea to Reality: NED at 30" on ned.org , accessed on December 4, 2018 (English)
  5. ↑ Solveig Richter and Julia Leininger: [Flexible and unbureaucratic promotion of democracy through the EU? The European Democracy Fund between desire and reality.] (PDF) SWP-Aktuell from August 2012, accessed on January 4, 2014
  6. ↑ Buchanan Columne
  7. ↑ workingforchange.com Article 11645 ( Memento of the original dated November 10, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.workingforchange.com
  8. ↑ Ron Paul gave a speech on October 7, 2003 in the House of Representatives on the occasion of the NED's 20th birthday
  9. ↑ 'Meddling' In Ukraine: Democracy is not an American plot. , carnegieendowment.org, December 21, 2004
  10. ↑ Article ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. by Democracy Now! @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.democracynow.org
  11. ↑ US Embassy Caracas ( Memento of the original from March 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / caracas.usembassy.gov
  12. ↑ cato.org article
  13. ↑ http://members.aol.com/bblum6/bulgaria.htm ( Memento from December 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ^ Origin and goal of the "Greater Middle East" program ( memento from August 19, 2013 on WebCite ) , Telepolis, February 4, 2005, by Bernard Schmid .
  15. ↑ Remarks by President George W. Bush at the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy - United States Chamber of Commerce, Washington, DC ( Memento of 19 August 2013 Webcite ) (English). National Endowment for Democracy, Nov. 6, 2003.
  16. ↑ President Bush Discusses Freedom in Iraq and Middle East - Remarks by the President at the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy - United States Chamber of Commerce - Washington, DC ( Memento of 19 August 2013 Webcite ) (English). The White House, President George W. Bush, press release, Nov. 6, 2003.