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<div class="entry-date">Weekend Edition Feb 28-Mar 02, 2014<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/28/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-in-venezuela/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/28/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-in-venezuela/</a><br>
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<div class="subheadlinestyle"><big><big><b>The Stealth Destabilizer</b></big></big></div>
<h1 class="article-title">The National Endowment for Democracy in
Venezuela</h1>
<div class="mainauthorstyle">by<big><big> KIM SCIPES</big></big></div>
<div class="main-text"><big><big> </big></big>
<p><big><big>As protests have been taking place in Venezuela the last
couple of weeks, it is always good to check on the National Endowment
for Democracy (NED), the US Empire’s “stealth” destabilizer. What has
the NED been up to in Venezuela?</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Before going into details, it is important to note what
NED is and is not. First of all, it has NOTHING to do with the
democracy we are taught in civics classes, concerning one person-one
vote, with everyone affected having a say in the decision, etc. (This
is commonly known as “popular” or grassroots democracy.) The NED
opposes this kind of democracy.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>The NED promotes top-down, elite, constrained (or
“polyarchal”) democracy. This is the democracy where the elites get to
decide the candidates or questions suitable to go before the people—and
always limiting the choices to what the elites are comfortable with.
Then, once the elites have made their decision, THEN the people are
presented with the “choice” that the elites approve. And then NED
prattles on with its nonsense about how it is “promoting democracy
around the world.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>This is one of the most cynical uses of democracy there
is. It’s notable even in what my friend Dave Lippmann calls
“Washington Deceit.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>The other thing to note about NED is that it is NOT
independent as it claims, ad nauseum. It was created by the US
Congress, signed into US law by President Ronald Reagan (that staunch
defender of democracy), and it operates from funds provided annually by
the US Government.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>However, its Board of Directors is drawn from among the
elites in the US Government’s foreign policy making realm. Past Board
members have included Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, Zbigniew
Brzezinski, Frank Carlucci, General Wesley K. Clark, and Paul
Wolfowitz. Today’s board can be found at <a
href="http://www.ned.org/about/board"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.ned.org']);">http://www.ned.org/about/board</a>;
most notable is Elliot Abrams of Reagan Administration fame.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>In reality, NED is part of the US Empire’s tools, and
“independent” only in the sense that no elected presidential
administration can directly alter its composition or activities, even
if it wanted to. It’s initial project director, Professor Allen
Weinstein of Georgetown University, admitted in the <i>Washington Post</i>
of September 22, 1991, that “a lot of what we do today was done
covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>In other words, according to Professor William Robinson in
his 1996 book, <i>Promoting Polyarchy</i>, NED is a product of US
Government foreign policy shift from “earlier strategies to contain
social and political mobilization through a focus on control of the
state and governmental apparatus” to a process of “democracy
promotion,” whereby “the United States and local elites thoroughly
penetrate civil society, and <i>from therein,</i> assure control over
popular mobilization and mass movements.” What this means, as I note
in my 2010 book, <i>AFL-CIO’s Secret War against Developing Country
Workers: Solidarity or Sabotage?,</i> “is that instead of waiting for a
client government to be threatened by its people and then responding,
US foreign policy shifted to intervening in the civil society of a
country ‘of interest’ (as defined by US foreign policy goals) before
popular mobilization could become significant, and by supporting
certain groups and certain politicians, then channel any potential
mobilization in the direction desired by the US Government.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Obviously, this also means that these “civil society”
organizations can be used offensively as well, against any government
the US opposes. NED funding, for example, was used in all of the
“color revolutions” in Eastern Europe and, I expect, currently in the
Ukraine as well as elsewhere.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>How do they operate? They have four “institutes” through
which they work: the International Republican Institute (currently
headed by US Senator John McCain), the National Democratic Institute
for International Affairs (currently headed by former US Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright), the Center for International Private
Enterprise (the international wing of the US Chamber of Commerce), and
the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS), the
foreign policy operation of the AFL-CIO, with Richard Trumka the head
of its Board of Directors.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>As I documented in my book, ACILS had been indirectly
involved in the 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela by participating in
meetings with leaders later involved in the coup beforehand, and then
denying afterwards the involvement of the leaders of the right-wing
labor organization (CTV) in the coup, leaders of an organization long
affiliated with the AFL-CIO. We also know NED overall had been active
in Venezuela since 1997.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>The NED and its institutes continue to actively fund
projects in Venezuela today. From the 2012 NED Annual Report (the
latest available), we see they have provided $1,338,331 to
organizations and projects in Venezuela that year alone: $120,125 for
projects for “accountability”; $470,870 for “civic education”; $96,400
for “democratic ideas and values”; $105,000 for “freedom of
information”; $92,265 for “human rights”; $216,063 for “political
processes”; $34,962 for “rule of law”; $45,000 for “strengthening
political institutions”; and $153,646 for Center for International
Private Enterprise (CIPE).</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Additionally, however, as found on the NED “Latin American
and Caribbean” regional page, NED has granted $465,000 to ACILS to
advance NED objectives of “freedom of association” in the region, with
another $380,000 to take place in Venezuela and Colombia. This is in
addition to another $645,000 to the International Republican Institute,
and $750,000 to the National Democratic Institute for International
Affairs.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>The irony of these pious claims for “freedom of
association,” etc., is that Venezuela is has developed public
participation to one of the highest levels in the world, and has one of
the most free media in the world. Even with massive private TV media
involvement in the 2002 coup, the government did not take away their
right to broadcast afterward.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>In other words, NED and its institutes are not active in
Venezuela to help promote democracy, as they claim, but in fact, to act
against popular democracy in an effort to restore the rule of the
elite, top-down democracy. They want to take popular democracy away
from those nasty Chavistas, and show who is boss in the US Empire.
This author bets they fail.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big><em><strong>Kim Scipes, Ph.D.,</strong> is an Associate
Professor of Sociology at Purdue University North Central in Westville,
IN, and is author of <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0739135015/counterpunchmaga"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.amazon.com']);">AFL-CIO’s
Secret War against Developing Country Workers: Solidarity or Sabotage?</a>,
and <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/9711009609/counterpunchmaga"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.amazon.com']);">KMU:
Building Genuine Trade Unionism in the Philippines, 1980-1994</a>. He
can be reached through his web site at <a
href="http://faculty.pnc.edu/kscipes"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://faculty.pnc.edu']);">http://faculty.pnc.edu/kscipes</a>.</em></big></big></p>
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