This is part one in an investigation into government-funded, opposition-linked NGOs that pose as impartial monitors and investigators of the Syrian conflict.More on propaganda, disinformation, and the information wars as tools in hybrid warfare.
A bipartisan initiative led by senators Rob Portman and Chris Murphy has authorized 160 million dollars over two years to fight state actors through a little-known agency office housed at the State Department called the Global Engagement Center....
America’s state propaganda agency Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) released a report about the range of its last year’s activities.…
The report states that in 2016 the agency would cooperate with all sorts of investigators, directors and journalists for them to promote US foreign policy and national security interests “through independent journalism”.
The target audience of such instances of “independent journalism” can be found in Russia, across the entire post-Soviet space, China, Iran, Cuba, along with a number of other regions. The BBG would broadcast its propaganda manifests in national languages of the countries it has been operating in, while adding programs in the languages of national minorities living in the above mentioned regions. By the end of 2016, the total number of employees of BBG reached 2,940.
In mid-June, the [US State Department's] Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor would release a tender that would demand the contenders to present the bureau with considerable capabilities for “independent and objective media coverage” across the Baltic States, in order to promote the “values of democracy and human rights” and wage information wars. Under the conditions of the tender, it is emphasized that the media should create competitive modern content on actively developing digital platforms, while targeting the Russian-speaking audience in those states. The tender will provide the agency that would get an upper hand with a sum ranging from 1.5 million to 3 million dollars, however it would be forced to closely coordinate its activities with US embassies in the Baltic countries. In addition, the agency that is to win the grant should get registered with the NSPA – NATO Support and Procurement Agency.
Last month it has also become known that the Broadcasting Board of Governors remains in control of such propaganda stations as Radio Liberty and Voice of America demanded the US Congress to allocate a total of 22 million dollars on its operations in spite of the fact that public interest towards above mentioned stations has been declining due to all sorts of unfounded public statements that they have been making. In total the Board has demanded US president to allocate over 685 million dollars on its operations for the year 2018. It’s curious that Washington is spending almost as much money on spreading propaganda in Russia as it spends on similar activities in China....Simultaneously, US propagandist rail against Chinese government sponsored Confucian Institutes in US universities and Russian government sponsored RT operating in the English-speaking world.
Ludwig Watzal: After WW II, hardly any coup d’état or organized uprising happened without the helping hand of the CIA. As I understood your book, in the last 25 years, the CIA got quite a few so-called little helpers in the form of NGOs. Please, could you elaborate on that?
William Engdahl: During the Reagan Presidency very damaging scandals were becoming public about CIA dirty operations around the world. Chile, Iran, Guatemala, the top secret MK-Ultra project, the student movement during the Vietnam War to name just a few. To take the spotlight away from them, CIA Director Bill Casey proposed to Reagan creating a “private” NGO, a kind of cut-out that would pose as private, but in reality, as one of its founders the late Allen Weinstein said in a later interview to the Washington Post, “doing what the CIA did, but privately.” This was the creation of the NGO named National Endowment for Democracy in 1983. Soon other Washington-steered NGOs were added like the Freedom House or the Soros Open Society Foundations, the United States Institute of Peace and so forth….
Of course, not all NGOs are doing the work of the CIA. I focus on the ones with a hidden political agenda, who, as I describe in the book, have weaponized human rights and the word democracy for devious ends....
LW: If you could give the NGOs a piece of advice, what would you tell them?
WE: For the honest persons who may have got caught up in nice rhetoric about values, human rights and such, I would suggest looking more closely at the money trail feeding your given NGO.
Liu’s admirers seldom discuss at length their hero’s other major views. Among other things, he supported the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. He backed the Vietnam and Korean wars even long after they ended, in a 2001 essay. Despite the immeasurable human-rights abuses of those conflicts, Liu stated in his “Lessons from the Cold War” that “the free world led by the US fought almost all regimes that trampled on human rights.” He insisted: “The major wars that the US became involved in are all ethically defensible.” Liu Xiaobo also admired Israel’s positions in the Middle East’s, saying the Palestinians were “often the provocateurs.”
Worse, to Chinese sensibilities, was perhaps his advocacy of all-out Westernization for China. He told an interviewer in 1988 that “to choose Westernization is to choose to be human.” Reported Britain’s Guardian newspaper: “He also faulted a television documentary, He Shang, or River Elegy, for not thoroughly criticizing Chinese culture and not advocating Westernization enthusiastically enough: ‘If I were to make this I would show just how wimpy, spineless and fucked-up [weisuo, ruanruo, caodan] the Chinese really are’. Liu considered it most unfortunate that his monolingualism bound him in a dialogue with something ‘very benighted [yumei] and philistine [yongsu],’ the Chinese cultural sphere … In a well-known statement of 1988, Liu said: ‘It took Hong Kong 100 years to become what it is. Given the size of China, certainly it would need 300 years of colonization for it to become like what Hong Kong is today. I even doubt whether 300 years would be enough’.”Counterpunch
Funded not by the communities they claim to serve, but by these foreign interests, they often operate under the pretext of upholding the legitimate roles and responsibilities of genuine NGOs while in reality undermining a targeted nation's government, its people, its institutions, and national peace and stability. Ironically, such organisations also undermine the perceived legitimacy and effectiveness of real NGOs.
Foreign interests seek to do this for a number of reasons including pressuring a targeted government to make concessions regarding bilateral relations, competing with and eventually overrunning state institutions, and even replacing a nation's entire government.…
These foreign-funded organisations masquerading as NGOs are more than just foreign-funded "charities," "rights advocates," or "media platforms." This can be discerned simply by examining the intermediary organisations providing these groups money and examining the special interests and agendas they in turn serve.
The United State National Endowment for Democracy (NED) for example, lists among its 2013 sponsors (.pdf) petrochemical giant Chevron, Wall Street's Goldman Sachs, US State Department-connected and privacy usurping tech-giant Google and the US Chamber of Commerce which itself represents corporations ranging from defence contractors to oil companies to banks, as well as agricultural and pharmaceutical giants. Individual donors include pro-war Republican politicians including Frank Carlucci, Paula Dobriansky, Condoleezza Rice and Robert Zoellick.NED's board of directors represents a similar and troubling convergence of special interests who directly contradict the alleged purpose of both NED itself, and the many organisations it funds around the world.
Unfortunately, many people who work for foreign-funded organisations posing as NGOs are unaware of such facts. Senior leadership of these organisations often go through great lengths to conceal their foreign funding to avoid scrutiny and even in some cases, to avoid properly paying people who are led to believe no funds are available and thus are asked to "volunteer" to help. Those few who are aware of this funding, are usually unaware of who and what NED and other organisations like them truly represent.
To put it simply, any organisation or institution serves only the interests of those who support it. An NGO supported by local donations and volunteers serves its local community. A foreign-funded organisation posing as an NGO serves foreign interests.
And simpler still, an organisation funded by a foreign government cannot possibly be characterised as "nongovernmental." Even at face value, this notion strains credibility.…
Foreign-funded organisations posing as NGOs are more than a mere nuisance, or even simply a means by foreign governments and special interests to apply coercive pressure on a nation's government and institutions. They represent a patient, concerted effort to compete with and eventually fully replace a nation's existing sovereign institutions. This threat should not be underestimated nor should it be tolerated.The New Atlas
And beyond a threat to national security, these foreign-funded organisations attract and squander a nation's human resources, while undermining the very legitimate and essential work performed by honest, locally-supported NGOs.
The source claims the non-commercial organization "had received most of its foreign financing from the United States"…
A Justice Ministry source told TASS that a random check carried out by the ministry’s Moscow branch had established that the Levada Center was financed by foreign sources and was involved in political activities in the territory of Russia in the interests of its foreign sponsors. The center prepares and distributes by means of modern information technologies their opinion on decisions passed by Russian bodies of state power and their policy and forms socio-political views and convictions.
"The inspection revealed that the Analytical Center of Yuri Levada …had received a large part of its funds from the United States, including a grant from the University of Wisconsin - Madison, which is curated by the U.S. Department of Defense," the source said.…
For 30 years, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has been sub-contracting the legal part of illegal CIA operations. Without rousing suspicions, it has put in place the biggest network of corruption in the world, bribing trade unions and management syndicates, political parties both on both the Right and Left so that they defend the interests of the United States instead of their members. In this article, Thierry Meyssan describes the extent of this system.…Voltaire Network
Militants have used shells with a toxic gas in Syria’s city of Aleppo, the Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported on August 2, citing a local source among pro-government militias.…
The attack in Aleppo followed allegations that the Syrian government’s helicopter dropped barrels suspected to contain chlorine gas on the town of Saraqeb in Indlib province last night. The allegations were issued by the pro-Western NGO known as ‘White Helmets.’*Southfront
The Western backed NGO, known as “White Helmets” reported on August 2 a chlorine gas attack near downed Russian helicopter in Idlib province last night. No video or photo evidence of the attack has been provided
The group was created with the help of Purpose Inc, a U.S. company specialized in regime change NGO operations. Purpose Inc is also behind Avaaz which early on peddled fake war on Syria video propaganda. The White Helmets are financed, like all "Free Syrian Army" media propaganda, by USAID with some $23 million and by the UK Foreign Office with a total of some £23 million. The Netherlands and Japan also donated money to the scheme. The group was build up and trained since mid 2013 by a "former" UK military intelligence operator residing in Abu Dhabi. These are propaganda artists camouflaged as humanitarians.
The "White Helmets" cooperate closely with al-Qaeda. One of its leaders was recently deniedan entry visa to the United States. More details about the group researched by Vanessa Beeley can be found here and here.It turns out that the Big Lie told by G. W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Tony Blair, etc. was just the beginning.
The tactics of employing non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for the preparation of so-called “color revolutions” in North Africa, the Middle East and a number of former Soviet states has been the modus operandi of the US and its satellites, which have been thoroughly discussed in various NEO articles.
It’s curious that these NGOs who are heavily sponsored by Washington choose to act precisely in those moments when a specific state begins resisting pressure applied on it by the so-called Western World. This resistance often is manifested as a reluctance to support certain projects that were put forward by Washington.
If we are to talk about post-Soviet regions, all Western NGOs, and American ones in particular, have been particularly active in Central Asian and Caucasus states over recent years in a bid to launch “color revolutions” across the majority of them.
Western NGOs have been particularly active in Armenia recently, which remains Russia’s most faithful ally in the Caucasus region. In an effort to repeat a Ukrainian-style scenario in Armenia and to force this country away from Russia, these Western-backed organizations have been trying to use any minor concern among the civilian population to provoke demonstrations and unrest, taking advantage of the huge funds they have been receiving.…It's called subversion and it is a hostile act. That's why it is called hybrid warfare.
In a special investigation, teleSUR revealed how U.S. agencies directed attacks against the progressive government with the support of the international right wing.telesur
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa Wednesday described as “powerful” the reports issued by teleSUR on the CIA’s involvement in the country and its relation with journalists, media and politicians to destabilize his government through smear campaigns.
In a press conference, the Ecuadorean head of state affirmed he had evidence proving teleSUR's reports were true.
“The National Endowment for Democracy is the CIA’s financial branch—like in Venezuela, in Bolivia—it does not fund the Red Cross anymore, it funds groups providing training on democracy, this means, destabilizing the government and other opposition movements,” Correa claimed.
Last year, I reported about the draft law proposed during the National People’s Congress (NPC), March 2015, to govern the activities of foreign NGOs (FNGOs) in China. Every law proposed in China is published for public comments, from both Chinese citizens and outsiders. This proposed FNGO law created such a hue and cry among Western governments and agencies, bordering on apoplexy, that the NPC tabled it for further review and consultation. China’s law was largely based on Russia’s FNGO law passed previously, and which was also largely adopted by India.
In the interim, China’s NPC passed a comprehensive update to its National Security Law, which has many common features with the FNGO legislation.
A year later, it’s official. On April 28th, China’s new “Management of Foreign Non-Governmental Organizations”, was signed into law by the NPC Standing Committee.…Turning up the heat on foreign NGOs operating in the PRC in order to foil attempts at color revolution. Russia and India have taken similar steps.
Lawmakers are investigating whether academic freedom is being threatened at universities building campuses in China and partnering with the Chinese on "Confucius institutes" in the U.S.
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., chairman of a House subcommittee focusing on human rights, said at a hearing before the panel Thursday that he will seek a Governmental Accountability Office study of agreements between U.S. universities and China that allow China to promote its culture and language here through education programs it supervises and finances.
Smith said Congress could decide to withhold money for the Education Department or for State Department exchange programs if it decides the Chinese-sponsored efforts are compromising academic freedoms in the U.S.
"I think we can all agree that U.S. colleges and universities should not be outsourcing academic control, faculty and student oversight or curriculum to a foreign government — in this case a dictatorship," said Smith, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations.USA Today (December 4, 2014)
The Director of Amnesty International at that time was Suzanne Nozzel, who also worked as adviser on U.S. government – NGO relations for the then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The most disturbing NGO may, however, be the UN Interagency Framework Team for Preventive Action. The Framework Team is largely privately funded with George Soros as one of the primary sponsors. The NGO under UN cover is “coordinating UN, governmental and non-governmental initiatives.”
The UN organization could undoubtedly be useful but it has also been sharply criticized for “fanning the flames” of the inter-communal violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, and for its active role in creating rather than preventing ethnic and sectarian disputes and violence in Nepal. In both the case of Myanmar and in the case of Nepal it is easy to establish ties between the Framework Team and Western or Western allied intelligence services.nsnbc international
But they’ve forgotten they said that.Armstrong reminds us.
China has recently taken an important step in more tightly regulating foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) inside the country. Despite condemnation from so called human rights groups in the West, China’s move should be understood as a critical decision to assert sovereignty over its own political space. Naturally, the shrill cries of “repression” and “hostility toward civil society” from western NGOs have done little to shake the resolve of Beijing as the government has recognized the critical importance of cutting off all avenues for political and social destabilization.
The predictable argument, once again being made against China’s Overseas NGO Management Law, is that it is a restriction on freedom of association and expression, and a means of stifling the burgeoning civil society sector in China. The NGO advocates portray this proposed legislation as another example of the violation of human rights in China, and further evidence of Beijing’s lack of commitment to them. They posit that China is moving to further entrench an authoritarian government by closing off the democratic space which has emerged in recent years.
However, amid all the hand-wringing about human rights and democracy, what is conveniently left out of the narrative is the simple fact that foreign NGOs, and domestic ones funded by foreign money, are, to a large extent, agents of foreign interests, and are quite used as soft power weapons for destabilization. And this is no mere conspiracy theory as the documented record of the role of NGOs in recent political unrest in China is voluminous. It would not be a stretch to say that Beijing has finally recognized, just as Russia has before it, that in order to maintain political stability and true sovereignty, it must be able to control the civil society space otherwise manipulated by the US and its allies.New Eastern Outlook
People’s Daily has launched an assault on colour revolutions, saying the movements are a byproduct of the United States spreading its ideology.
The Communist Party’s mouthpiece yesterday filled its page five with five articles written by scholars exploring the roots of colour revolutions, their negative impacts, and how China might learn from the experience of those nations affected....
Zhang Zhizhou, professor of International Relations at Beijing Foreign Studies University, wrote that colour revolutions were an “aftershock” that followed the fall of the Soviet Union. He said blindly introducing Western social reforms led only to chaos.
“There should be exploration of one’s own path and model instead of following the ‘superstition of Western institutions’,” Zhang wrote.
Other articles warned of “a high price to pay for nations that fall into the trap of colour revolutions” and described the movements as “enemies of national security” and “a source of rioting”....
The development of public diplomacy in world politics, the activities of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are actively being discussed in public and political circles of various countries. According to some estimates, there are over 60 thousand international NGOs alone in the world today. Many NGOs are indeed non-political civil society institutions, structures of self-organisation of citizens in various spheres of life.
At the same time, a certain number of NGOs claim the role of umpire in matters of ideology in all of society and public policies, affecting the development of the political situation in a number of countries, interfering in the internal affairs of states, participating, as ordered by the West and especially US intelligence, in changing political powers in governments that are opponents of Washington. In the US intelligence community there are even special inter-agency groups responsible for coordinating the activities of a wide variety of non-governmental actors, particularly focused on Russia. For example, there is a National Intelligence for Russia and Eurasia in the National Intelligence Council (NIC).
These circumstances are objectively forcing many states, especially those seeking to pursue a policy independent from the US, to closely monitor the activities of NGOs, by opportunely identify their misuse of funds coming from abroad to support political parties and movements and affect the economic policy of the state, all the way to limiting NGOs activities.
And so, the Indian government, as part of the clean-up work in foreign financing of non-governmental organisations recently revoked the licenses of 8975 non-governmental organizations and charities for accounting violations (see ). In the future, organisations deprived of licenses will not be able to receive funds from foreign or domestic sources until a special order of the Indian authorities. The well-known environmental organization Greenpeace (operated in India since 1971) is on this “black list”, in regards to which the government has suspended their license for six months and has frozen the accounts of its Indian branch. In addition, India’s Ministry of Internal Affairs has launched an investigation into the activities of the American charitable Ford Foundation and several other foreign NGOs in the country.
The main complaint of the Indian authorities against the NGOs is their systematic violation of the law on foreign donations, NGO registration rules, failure to submit reports on their activities and revenues, misappropriation of funds, as well as providing charitable support without proper notification of the authorities of the country of India as required by current law. As appears from further clarification published by national authorities concerning the charges brought against the NGOs, for Indian NGOs to receive foreign financing they have to draw up a resolution in accordance with the Law on foreign donations and open special bank accounts. Incidentally the financing of activity of political parties, election campaigns, mass media, state machinery as well as the transfer of funds received by unregistered organisations is strictly forbidden.....
the hasty reaction of the United States and other Western countries in the efforts to strengthen controls concerning NGOs in India and some other countries, particularly in Russia, only reinforces the suspicion that Western “charity” is not selfless....
PowerPoint given by Russian opposition leader blueprints US-backed violent overthrow of Russian government.Video of Ilya Ponomarev, Member of the Russia State Duma, at CSIS.
It would be an extreme oversimplification, and not entirely honest, to characterize all Russian liberals as foreign agents. Some are simply socially liberal people who see in the West a political, economic, social and cultural template for their own society. Needless to say, such a view is a small minority in Russia where traditional values and social/cultural conservatism have been on the rise since the end of the Soviet Union, and especially since Putin came to power.
However, when one examines key figures and institutions of the liberal establishment in Russia – both in politics and civil society – it becomes clear that some of the most influential are in fact collaborating with foreign powers (especially the US) to undermine the Russian government.
