by Raúl Antonio Capote
The managers of chaos, as a fundamental part of the non-conventional war that the U.S. Government executes with the aim of preserving the imperialist hegemony, use the so-called Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) as a spearhead in their destabilizing strategy.
One of the most prominent, for its subversive actions, has been the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the most active promoter of regime change against progressive governments in Latin America.
This organization has created in our continent a deep network that recruits cadres, manufactures leaders and penetrates civil society; a veritable interventionist army of “experts”, “consultants” and “advisors”.
No less “outstanding” has been the role played by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). According to U.S. blogger and writer Max Blumenthal, “the NED is a leading agent of U.S. soft power, meddling in the affairs of other countries since its founding at the height of the Cold War.”
Created in 1982 by Ronald Reagan, under the auspices of the CIA and mi6, if any phrase defines it, it is the one said by Allen Weinstein, one of its founders, in 1991: “Much of what we do today was done, covertly, 25 years ago by the CIA.”
Its large budget comes primarily from the U.S. Congress, which gives it millions every two years as part of the State Department’s budget.
The money is distributed among the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), the American Center for International Labor Solidarity of the American Federation of Labor Unions-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and the Chamber of Commerce’s Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE).
In its first ten years of existence alone, the NED distributed more than $200 million in 1,500 projects to support the so-called “friends of America”.
While the International Republican Institute (IRI), born in 1983, also from the hand of Ronald Reagan and a group of fundamentalist ideologues of the Republican Party, considered the secret weapon of the most pro-right wing in the United States, has a large structure that includes more than 500 employees distributed by geographic zones, and with offices in several countries, depending on their priorities and possibilities.
The crusaders of the Yankee right, grouped in the IRI, began their work against Cuba since the 1990s. Their first program dates back to 1993, and was aimed at stimulating the so-called transition process in our country, with the final objective of overthrowing the Revolution.
Their program towards Cuba includes training, distribution of materials, money, technical means and equipment among activists and counterrevolutionary elements, using clandestine procedures and methods in order to cover up their destabilizing purposes.
Who puts up the money, calls the shots
During the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump (2017-2021), along with more than 200 measures and sanctions, subversive actions against Cuba increased.
It is enough to take a look at the website of the NED to realize the enormous amount of dollars received by counterrevolutionary organizations, institutions and media.
By that date, digital platforms administered by individuals linked to international courses and scholarships, academic exchange plans and other variants financed by private companies and media outlets began to increase in the country.
On May 26, 2016, Open Society Foundations hosted the Cuba Posible Ideas Lab at its New York headquarters. The New York event, funded by the Ford Foundation and Open Society, was about “Cuba’s current challenges”; the same Open Society of George Soros, the billionaire of color revolutions and soft coups.
Millions of dollars are destined to the different structures created inside and outside the island, organizations and projects such as: Diario de Cuba, Cibercuba, People in Need (PIN), Article 19 and the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), among others, receive year after year the money from the U.S. Government for internal subversion work on the island.
Many of these funds, essentially coming from the Usaid or the NED, have their origin in the CIA, and reach the Usaid through private intermediaries such as the Smith Richardson Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation or the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.
Another of the organizations financed with these assets is the El Toque project, known in Cuba not only for its disinformation campaigns and manipulation of reality, but, above all, for the “dedicated work” carried out to influence exchange rates, favoring the depreciation of the national currency against the U.S. dollar, and contributing to inflation in the largest of the Antilles.
As recently pointed out by the website Razones de Cuba, “the organizational design used by El Toque has not only monetary backing from the NED, but also from the Usagm Global Media Agency, which granted it 150,000 dollars, through the company Media Plus Experience Inc., a scheme created to launder funds from these institutions and send money to its secret collaborators on the island”.
Thus, they are committing a double crime. On the one hand, they violate Cuban laws by serving a foreign power against their homeland and, on the other hand, they can even be prosecuted in Spain for tax evasion and money laundering, together with another anti-Cuban project, Cuba Siglo XXI, and the biggest fish, the NED.
We must be clear that those who make up these platforms and other anti-Cuban projects are not fighters for “freedom,” nor enlightened beings moved by sublime ideas; behind them are thousands of laboratories, study centers, think tanks paid by the U.S. Government to achieve a political change that favors them in Cuba.
Although they insist on denying it, they are simply employees of the Yankees who prosper at the expense of the suffering of their compatriots on the island. They are simply executors of a policy doomed to failure, nothing more.
