US gives a million dollars to overthrow Chavez

Venezuela at the Crossroads

The "NED Report to the U.S. Dept. of State on Special Venezuela Funds," documents that the organization received a million dollars in April 2002, and since June of that year it awarded more than $800,000 to organizations working in Venezuela, according to VenezuelaFOIA.info.

The NED is no stranger to Venezuelan politics. According to the New York Times, the organization "funneled more than $877,000 into Venezuela opposition groups in the weeks and months before the recently aborted coup attempt." More than $150,000 went to "a Venezuelan labor union that led the opposition work stoppages and worked closely with Pedro Carmona Estanga, the businessman who led the coup."

Over the years [the National Endowment for Democracy] has actively destabilized governments in Central America and Eastern Europe. According to William Blum's book "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower," the NED "played an important role in the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980s, funding key components of Oliver North's shadowy 'Project Democracy' network, which privatized US foreign policy, waged war, ran arms and drugs, and engaged in other equally charming activities." For years the NED supported the Cuban exile community in South Florida, contributing $250,000 between 1990 and 1992 to the right wing Cuban-American National Foundation.

In President Bush's State of the Union address, he pledged to double the budget of the National Endowment for Democracy. When former Minnesota Republican congressman Vin Weber, a close ally of then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, took over as chairman of the NED's board in July 2001, he made it clear that the organization was interested in once again playing a more muscular role shaping and supporting U.S. foreign policy objectives. That's exactly what it appears to be doing in Venezuela.

In addition to US taxpayer money, the NED is receiving significant contribution from right wing conservative groups.

Someone should tell the NED that a coup is the opposite of democracy.

What is the NED? - Some claim the PR arm of the CIA.

Haiti was practice for Venezuela as the NED gave $3 million a year primarily to forces opposing the government.

National Endowment for Democracy website. How much of its budget is now for pushing destabilization instead of promoting democracy?

Rep. Ron Paul - The misnamed National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is nothing more than a costly program that takes US taxpayer funds to promote favored politicians and political parties abroad.

What the NED does in foreign countries, through its recipient organizations the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), would be rightly illegal in the United States. The NED injects "soft money" into the domestic elections of foreign countries in favor of one party or the other. Imagine what a couple of hundred thousand dollars will do to assist a politician or political party in a relatively poor country abroad. It is particularly Orwellian to call US manipulation of foreign elections "promoting democracy." How would Americans feel if the Chinese arrived with millions of dollars to support certain candidates deemed friendly to China? Would this be viewed as a democratic development?

The Libertarian CATO Institute - The National Endowment for Democracy is a foreign policy loose cannon.

Slate - The Skinny on the National Endowment for Democracy.

el - does seem like a loose cannon that directs money according to who's running it. An interesting fact is that it funded the pro-Noriega election campaign in Panama 1984 as well as the anti-Noriega campaign in 1989. Since Bush took office the Corporate/CIA side has been more evident.