THE National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a CIA-linked outfit, has been helping the opposition groups in Hong Kong that have been leading the massive demonstrations there in the past week, according to several accounts critical of the protest movement.
Yep, this is the same destabilizer now in Hong Kong, the NED, which has extended about P100 million in funds to vociferous anti-Duterte media outfits — the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, Rappler, Vera Files and the Center for Media Freedom and Democracy.
None of these outfits have denied these reports since I reported* it first in 2017 and subsequently, nor have they explained how and why their conscience allows them to receive money from a foreign power, known to have controlled our nation in the past and strives to continue to do so.
An article in the South China Morning Post (SCMP) the other day claimed that groups involved in the protests have received significant funding from the NED, “a CIA soft-power cut-out that has played a critical role in innumerable US regime-change operations.”
Solidarity Center
The report claimed that the NED has four main branches, at least two of which are active in Hong Kong: the Solidarity Center and National Democratic Institute.
“The latter has been active in Hong Kong since 1997, and NED funding for Hong Kong-based groups has been consistent, “ Louisa Greve, NED’s vice president of programs for Asia, Middle East and North Africa, was quoted as saying.
The report said in 2018, NED granted $155,000 to Solidarity Center and $200,000 to the National Democratic Institute for work in Hong Kong, and $90,000 to Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, which isn’t a branch of NED, but its partner in Hong Kong. Between 1995 and 2018, the Monitor received more than $1.9 million in funds from the NED. “During the 2014 ‘Occupy Central’ protests, the specter of NED in the protests also came up,” the SCMP report claimed.
The US government’s Agency for International Development (USAid) funded nearly all of NED’s finances that went to media groups in our country. It most probably also did so for NED’s operations in Hong Kong. No wonder that even China’s foreign ministry spokesman Hua Chunying said in a recent press conference: “As you all know, the demonstrations are somehow the work of the US.”
Chinese state media outlets have consistently been blaming the US as behind the recent chaos in HK. The state-run tabloid Global Times alleged Monday that there had been “unprecedented levels of contact” between Hong Kong pro-democracy leaders and Western governments. “It is an open secret in Hong Kong that the forces protesting the extradition bill have been sponsored by the US,” the paper said.
What bolsters these suspicions is that the protests grew from a mere opposition to a proposed law that would allow criminals in Hong Kong to be extradited to the mainland for trial to its present form demanding total democratization of island, which is a special administrative region of a one-party state. Placards held by the demonstrators even demanded the ouster of Communist Party rule in Hong Kong.
A documentary (which I posted on my Facebook timeline) by an NGO, Pacific Dialogue, showed a footage of Hong Kong leaders of opposition parties in a forum May 14 in Washington last month undertaken by the NED. There the NED official emceeing the dialogue said that “Hong Kong is a very strategic place for many of us.”
The documentary showed these leaders also meeting with top US officials. It claimed that they “begged for money and support from the US.”
“The trip must have been very successful because coincidentally enough, violent demonstrations in Hong Kong began shortly thereafter,” the documentary claimed.
It pointed out that the same sequence of events occurred in the so-called “Occupy Central” demonstrations there in 2014. “Five months before these broke put, the opposition leaders also made a trek to NED, held a similar panel of discussions, met with US office and begged for money and support. The US never hesitates to jump on an opportunity, especially when it smells blood.”
The documentary pointed out that NED, according to its own reports, had turned over to opposition groups in Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjang and mainland China, over $29 million in the past three years to help them in their separatist goals. “This is just the tip of the iceberg, since most of NED’s spending is too sensitive to be disclosed to the public.”
NED in fact doesn’t even hide its support for “democratization” in targeted countries in Asia. It proclaims in its website: “In 2017, the Endowment prioritized countries in Asia that faced fundamental democratic deficits and where the NED was positioned to have the greatest impact. Building upon NED’s strategy from previous years, programs continued to be concentrated on key countries within each sub-region that faced significant and systemic challenges to democratization: China, including Tibet, and North Korea in East Asia.”
The Pacific Dialogue on the HK demonstrations pointed out: “These require leadership, orchestration, and most importantly, money.” Believe me on this, having been a communist cadre starting 1969 through the massive youth demonstrations in the early 1970s: To believe that a demonstration is spontaneous and without a core leadership and without funding from some group is like believing the puppets in a puppet show are alive.
On Friday: Unfazed by exposés and criticism, NED steps up funding for anti-media outlets in the Philippines.
* “CIA conduit funding anti-Duterte media outfits,” October 9, 2017. Also: “US govt funding for anti-Duterte media: P74M,” May 1, 2019; “PCIJ and other media entities funded by US govt should disband themselves,” May 6, 2019.
Email: tiglao.manilatimes@gmail.com
Facebook: Rigoberto Tiglao
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https://www.manilatimes.net/hk-destabilizer-ned-is-same-outfit-funding-anti-duterte-media/596101/
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