sigma 27/04/2022
Prologue
Nicolas Guillhot from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique says the NED creates “a non-governmental crusade for human rights and democracy which avoided accusations of imperialism by presenting itself as a direct response to the needs of dissidents and reformers worldwide.“
1. Why was the United States of America Department of Defense funded Gene Sharp’s 1960s doctoral dissertation?
Sharp received partial research funding for his doctoral dissertation from Harvard University professor Thomas Schelling who got support from the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense (ARPA “invented” the internet).
2. Why did the neoliberal National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and International Republican Institute (IRI) make donations to the AEI (Albert Einstein Institute)?
The National Democracy Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), the Center for International Private Enterprise, which represents the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Solidarity Center of the AFL-CIO, make up the four “core institutions” of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which receives more than 90 percent of its annual budget from the U.S. government. Freedom House regularly receives the majority of its funding from the NED.
3. Why did Sharp sent a letter to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez insisting that “We have received no government funding ever,” knowing full well that the NED and IRI were created by the US government to conceal its covert activities behind a non-governmental façade, and that these very institutions are likely be spearhead of the imperial attack on the Venezuelan Revolution?
4. Has the IRI (credited in the organization’s annual reports) ever denied sponsoring the AEI’s recent, and ongoing, efforts in Serbia and Burma?
5. It is well known at his old 80-age, Sharp often met people that included some right-wing Cubans or Venezuelans who have sought him out to see if any of his research would be of relevance in their efforts to organize some kind of popular mobilization against the Castro or Chavez governments
6. Why did AEI consulted only with the anti-Chávez opposition that has historically been on the side of violent coups and massacres?
It is reported that Venezuelans opposed to Chávez met with Gene Sharp and other AEI staff to talk about the deteriorating political situation in their country. They also discussed options for opposition groups to further their cause effectively without violence. These visits led to an in-country consultation in April 2003. The nine-day consultation was held by consultants Robert Helvey and Chris Miller (more of these guys later) in Caracas for members of the Venezuelan democratic opposition. The objective of the consultation was to provide them with the capacity to develop a nonviolent strategy to restore democracy to Venezuela. Participants included members of political parties and unions, nongovernmental organization leaders, and unaffiliated activists. Helvey presented a course of instruction on the theory, applications and planning for a strategic nonviolent.
Sounds familiar? Hong Kong 2019/2020 violent protests?
7. Ofensiva Ciudadana, a pro-democracy group in Venezuela, requested and organized the workshop that led to be continued in contact with Venezuelans, and renewed requests for additional consultations (AEI Annual Report, 2000-2004, pp. 20-21).
(In the 2000-2004 Annual Report, Helvey was AEI’s President! ).
8. Helvey is a retired US Army Colonel, a graduate of the US Army General Command Staff College and the Navy War College. Helvey’s prior experience includes service in Vietnam, association with the US Defense Intelligence College and Defense Intelligence Agency, and several years as the US Military Attaché in Burma.
Helvey once wrote On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict (published in 2004 by the AEI:) that “nonviolent strategy is no different from armed conflict, except that very different weapons systems are employed” (xi).
Helvey is a realpolitiker par excellence (as is Sharp, it would seem), but one who couches his power games in the language of nonviolence.
9. The International Republican Institute (IRI), once chaired by the late John McCain (POW Vietnam) and responsible for, among other things, training and funding coup plotters from Haiti to Venezuela.
10. There was an opposition oil sabotage against Chávez that took place in late 2002 and early 2003, in which a small number of oligarchs and right-wingers nonviolently destroyed the Venezuelan economy for more than two months.
11. Thus, The Albert Einstein Institution plays a key role in the new generation of imperial designs of the United States. Indeed, General Petraeus (CIA chief, Afghanistan chief, US Armed Forces chief, Ukraine TV-chat chief) wrote the US Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, which argues pointedly that “some of the best weapons . . . do not shoot” (1-27).
12. Any wonder that violent organizations like the Venezuelan exile group ORVEX — who have in the past called for Chávez’s assassination and advocated bombing the Caracas Metro — are now advocating a “nonviolent” strategy and celebrating the work of Gene Sharp!
13. Since the power of asymmetrical warfare in Vietnam, the United States has pioneered ways of turning this warfare of the weak to its advantage. Chile, Nicaragua, and recent events in Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Pakistan are serving as the testing grounds, with Venezuela and Hong Kong & Xinjiang as prime foci under the Trump administration; and under Biden administration of proxy wars: one can add in case scenarios of Syria & Ukraine, though +43 years ago, it was supporting the mujahideen forces in Afghanistan to deplete Soviet resources PLUS the accelerated ICBM race under the Reagan administration to misdirect Russia’s wealth then.
14. Around 2002, a small number of oppositionists of varying ideological orientations visited Gene Sharp in Boston to learn more about his research on strategic nonviolent action in the hope that they might utilize some of these strategies against Chavez and others.
15. NGOs are promoting neo-colonialism, better known being Oxfam, Greenpeace, and Amnesty International.
Political scientists often refer to these NGOs as “pressure groups” or “lobby groups,”.
In the field of international relations, scholars now speak of NGOs as “Non-state Actors” (as are Transnational corporations TNCs).
16. The Arab and other Springs whence in December 2012, Egyptian prosecutors and police raided the offices of several groups, which called themselves “pro-democracy” NGOs. Four of them were based in, and with, the U.S. government agencies. Forty three people, among them 16 U.S. citizens, were accused of not only failing to register with the government but also of financing the April 6, protest movement with illicit funds.
Among those arrested were members belonging to the Freedom House; the National Democratic Institute (NDI); the International Republican Institute (IRI); the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung of Germany which is associated with the Christian Democratic Union which receives over 90 percent of its funding from the German government.
17. In 2009, sixteen young Egyptian activists completed a two-month Freedom House New Generation Fellowship in Washington. The activists received training in advocacy and met with U.S. government officials, members of the Congress, media outlets, and think tanks. As far back as 2008, members of the April 6th Movement attended the inaugural summit of the Association of Youth Movements (AYM) in New York, where they networked with other movements, attended workshops on the use of new and social media and learned about technical upgrades, such as consistently alternating computer simcards, which help to evade state internet surveillance. AYM is sponsored by Pepsi, YouTube, and MTV.
18. A 1996 Financial Times article revealed that Freedom House was one of several organizations selected by the U.S. State Department to receive funding for “clandestine activities” in Iran. Training and funding was provided to groups seeking regime change.
19. In April 2011, the New York Times published an article entitled “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings” in which it openly stated that,
A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6th Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the IRI, the NDI, and Freedom House.
20. Why is the National Endowment for Democracy fueling Hong Kong protests?
Senior U.S. diplomat Julie Eadeh has been caught meeting with. “pro-democracy” activists. Through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is bankrolling Hong Kong “pro-democracy” and anti-Beijing groups such as the Solidarity Center (SC), the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor to the tune of millions. In 2018 alone the NED reports giving 155,000 U.S. dollars to the SC and 200,000 U.S. dollars to the NDI.
Philip Agee, former CIA agent and author of “Inside the Company: CIA Diary” details how the CIA would set up front organizations and funnel money into destabilization campaigns. After destabilization would come the coup-d’etat. The Brazilian 1964 coup that overthrew President João Goulart and the Chilean 1973 coup against Chilean President Salvador Allende were initiated by the CIA.
In today’s world of coups and hybrid/proxy wars under neo-Imperialism, the funneling of money and the setting up of front organizations often would go through the NED. According to Allen Weinstein, who was responsible for setting up the NED during the Reagan administration: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.“
Epilogue
What would come out of AEI or NED or Soros or Harvard? A chandran here, a premesh in future: an asset got is a nugget compromised.
Bibliography
- The Machiavelli of Nonviolence: Gene Sharp and the Battle Against Corporate Rule, Dissent Magazine
- Role of NGOs in Promoting Neo-Colonialism, countercurrents
- The End of Engagement, Qiao Collective
Firestorms 