MISSIONARIES FOR DEMOCRACY: U.S. AID FOR GLOBAL PLURALISM

Using Federal money, it [NED] provided $180,845 to train teachers, conduct literacy courses for rebel fighters, reopen some schools and publish new textbooks with unflattering accounts of the Soviet role in Afghan history. ”They have been giving us help without any strings attached,” Mr. Kushkaki said on a recent visit to Washington.

…

The National Endowment for Democracy, a private group created for the purpose, has channeled a total of $53.7 million in Government money to foreign political parties, labor unions, newspapers, magazines, book publishers and other institutions in countries, predominantly in countries where democracy is deemed fragile or nonexistent.

The Federal money is being used for such undertakings as helping the Solidarity labor union print underground publications in Poland, buying materials for an opposition newspaper in Nicaragua, bolstering the opposition in South Korea, aiding a party in Northern Ireland that is a member of the Socialist International and getting out the vote in Grenada and Latin American countries.

Money is also going to monitor and publicize human-rights abuses by Vietnam, for union-organizing in the Philippines and for public-opinion surveys to help political parties opposing the right-wing dictatorship in Chile.

…

In some respects, the program resembles the aid given by the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s to bolster pro-American political groups. But that aid was clandestine and, subsequent Congressional investigations found, often used planted newspaper articles and other forms of intentionally misleading information.

…

The National Endowment was created in 1983 as an amalgam of various sectors of American society, including business, labor, academic institutions and the two major political parties.

…

The concept of the endowment took shape as the country moved from the dark self-doubts after the Vietnam War into a new era of confidence in its own virtues and a conviction that democracy should be supported publicly and proudly, without the secrecy that tainted the C.I.A.’s activities. From Covert to Overt: Evolution of Policy ”We should not have to do this kind of work covertly,” said Carl Gershman, president of the endowment, who was an aide to Jeane J. Kirkpatrick when she was the chief United States delegate to the United Nations. ”It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the C.I.A. We saw that in the 60’s, and that’s why it has been discontinued. We have not had the capability of doing this, and that’s why the endowment was created.”

…

Mr. Gershman says that there is no contact between the C.I.A. and the endowment and that before grants are made, a list of the potential recipients is sent by the endowment through the State Department to the C.I.A. to be sure none of them are getting covert funds. No such case has been reported, Mr. Gershman said.

…

Some grants seem at least superficially similar, however. La Prensa, the opposition paper in Nicaragua, is receiving $100,000 worth of newsprint, ink and other supplies this year to help it survive. In the early 1970’s, the C.I.A. gave at least $1.6 million to El Mercurio, the major Santiago daily, which also faced economic pressure from the Government of President Salvador Allende Gossens. Books and magazines were published with C.I.A. money, and campaigns to get out the vote were conducted, as they are now with endowment money.

The prospect of publicity causes discomfort to some who receive money. Because Congress has made the endowment subject to the Freedom of Information Act, Eugenia Kemble, head of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s Free Trade Union Institute, has expressed uneasiness about providing the detailed financial statements that are being required by the General Accounting Office. In a draft report, the G.A.O. criticized the endowment for inadequate monitoring of expenditures and recommended tighter procedures. Miss Kemble complained that any report going to the endowment can become public.

Since the end of World War II, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. has funneled money from various Government agencies to build up non-Communist unions abroad. Despite its denials, the labor movement has been suspected of conveying C.I.A. money. Miss Kemble expressed worry that publicity could endanger individuals facing dictatorial governments and involved in ”sensitive” work.

”There are some grantees we are phasing out because they cannot stand this,” she said. ”There’s a failure to empathize with the people out there in terms of the political difficulties in which they have to operate.” The Case for Secrecy To Protect Infiltrators For example, detailed expense reports, including names and specifics of the clandestine Solidarity printing operation inside Poland, would probably give the Polish police enough information to close down the operation. Miss Kemble said one European organization had infiltrators in Communist unions to report on their plans and activities; making details public would damage the effort, she said.

…

The lines between promoting democracy and promoting a particular party’s chances in an election are hard to draw, however. The A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s Free Trade Union Institute has channeled money to unions and other organizations associated with particular parties in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Western Europe. Furor Over Aid To French Rightists In an unpublicized move that was disclosed late last year, a $575,000, two-year grant was authorized to an extreme right-wing French group, the National Inter-University Union, known as U.N.I., its acronym in French. In 1982, a parliamentary inquiry found that U.N.I. had been created largely by a paramilitary, extremist nationalist organization called Service d’Action Civique, or S.A.C., which was founded in 1947 to provide order at meetings and protection for Gen. Charles DeGaulle.

Related:

Cato Institute Foreign Policy Briefing No. 27: Loose Cannon: The National Endowment for Democracy

An even more dubious initiative was NED’s involvement in Costa Rica. Not only is Costa Rica a well-established democracy–former president George Bush visited the country in 1989 to celebrate 100 years of democracy there–it is the only stable democracy in Central America. But Costa Rican president Oscar Arias had opposed Ronald Reagan’s policy in Central America, especially his support of the Nicaraguan Contras. Arias received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to dampen conflicts in the region, but he incurred the wrath of right-wing NED activists. So from 1986 to 1988 NED gave money to Arias’s political opposition, which was also strongly supported by Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. As Rep. Stephen Solarz (D-N.Y.) commented: “They may technically have been within the law, but I felt this clearly violated the spirit. . . . The whole purpose of NED is to facilitate the emergence of democracy where it doesn’t exist and preserve it where it does exist. In Costa Rica, neither of these [conditions] applies.”

Sometimes NED grants have worked in ways that are simply bizarre. In the mid-1980s, for example, the AFL CIO’s FTUI approved a grant of $1.5 million to defend democ racy in France, which was astonishing for several reasons. First of all, French democracy in the 1980s did not appear to be so fragile that it required financial assistance from American taxpayers to sustain itself. The government of Franáois Mitterrand was duly elected within a democratic system nearly as old as America’s. The AFL-CIO, however, determined that France’s socialist government was permitting a dangerous rise of communist influence. According to the late Irving Brown, Paris-based director of international relations for the AFL-CIO at the time of the incident: “France . . . is threatened by the Communist apparatus. . . . It is a clear and present danger if the present is thought of as 10 years from now.”

That mentality has resulted in AFL-CIO support for highly controversial causes. One of the French groups that received funding, the National Inter-University Union, was widely viewed as a cauldron of rightist extremism and xenophobia and rumored also to have ties to terrorists. Sure ly, the U.S. government did not intend to fund authoritarian groups that work to undermine the government of a stable democratic nation.

…

The policy is especially dangerous in view of the ambiguity that often surrounds the origins of grants that go through NED. Even the recipients do not always know the precise source of their funding. If NED obscures the sources of funds to the grantees, confusion between NED’s “private” foreign policy and official U.S. policy is to be expected. One grantee, the Committee for Transatlantic Understanding, received $49,000 from what it thought was the American Youth Council. The committee later found out the money was actually from NED. In another instance, a grant of $10,000 was given for three leaders of Equity, the actors’ union, to attend a conference on international ex change of stage actors.[17] While Equity realized the money came from the federal government, the recipients were unaware of the NED connection. If the recipients cannot clearly identify the source of NED funds, foreign governments or political movements certainly will have problems identifying the instigators of NED’s foreign policy ven tures.

…

Criticism of NED’s involvement in Romania is even stronger. The AFL-CIO’s FTUI Romanian representatives selected FRATIA, a trade union confederation, as their player in the Romanian democratic process. According to leaders of other independent trade unions, FTUI then proceeded to actively undermine all unions not associated with FRATIA