Unpublished and written during Arab spring and Kudankulam controversy.

Western NGOs Through the Prism of History

The Whole world is passing through a period of financial upheaval, fighting hard against massive debt.,
unemployment etc. In spite of this severe financial roller coaster what is intriguing is that these western
nations donating trillions of dollars to NGOs in hostile foreign countries as aid. Why so much
magnanimity on the part of these countries which are never known to have looked beyond their own
selfish ends? Is it just out of normal human concerns that they are doing this or there is something else to
it? Do they have any agenda behind such huge monetary assistance? It does not seem that they are
without any agenda. Then, what is their agenda? Why respective local governments are vehemently
opposing foreign donations to local NGOs? After Russia and Egypt ‘s stern actions against USA funded
NGOs, astonishingly UAE, a close confidant of US in the gulf region, has also asked US NGOs of
standing to close their operations in its own country. Few days back Indian Prime Minister during an
interview accused US funded NGOs of thwarting (playing spoil sport) commissioning of the Nuclear
power project India, at kudankulam. Do these allegations hold any water? Let us examine them from a
historical perspective.

History of the NGOs dates back to the late 18th century. Western NGOs had played some decisive
roles in anti-slavery, Women's suffrage etc. movements in US & European nations. However,
after world war II intelligence departments of various western countries started using NGOs in
their covert operations .Their main jobs were to gather information from hostile nations, funding
pro -western institutions, political parties .This also includes political assassinations of hostile
leaders in foreign countries(predominantly the erstwhile communist regimes had been their
targets) .So after the world war II the number of NGOs in US and other European countries grew
significantly .According to B. Raman, Indian security &intelligence expert, “The increasing
resort to political ,economic & psychological covert actions by the western intelligence
agencies since the 1950’s was accompanied by a mushrooming of Non-Government
Organisations(NGOs) focusing on human rights, trade union rights, environmental issues
etc.” He further mentions for whose sake NGOs have been working “many of these NGOs were
inspired and funded by the intelligence agencies of the US & other western countries”

An intimate and clandestine relationship between western intelligence agencies and Non-
Governmental Organizations first came to the fore in the 1960’s.Amnesty International, one of
the most vocal critique of the human rights records of Indian government in Kashmir ,was
accused of turning a blind eye to the atrocities perpetrated by the British army in Southern
Rhodesia, Aden etc. It was later established by the British Parliamentary Committee that
Amnesty International had close nexus with British Intelligence Agency MI6 and the then
British government of Harold Wilson.

In the early 70’s allegations were started pouring in against American intelligence agency CIA of
meddling with and destabilizing of hostile countries, primarily the erstwhile communist
regimes. It was also involved in murders of hostile foreign political leaders, academicians
etc. In the aftermath of Vietnam war and Watergate Scandal the US government set up
several commissions (Rockefellers commission, Church commission etc.) to investigate
CIA’s covert activities since its inception in 1948.In these investigations it was found that
NGOs ,academicians, religious and political leaders(both national and international) were
being used to gather information secretly. According to Historian Christopher Andrew “At
a White House lunch for the publisher and editors of the New York Times on January 16
 [1975] the president(Gerald Ford) revealed that the intelligence files contained material that
it was against the national interest to reveal because it would"blacken the reputation of
every President since Truman.” All these controversies surrounding CIA ‘s covert
operations, both inside and outside of US, forced President Nixon to resign. After this
humiliation of the government later presidents took some stern actions against the CIA.
President Gerald ford in the early 1976’s banned political assassinations by the CIA.Jimmy
Carter in 1977 curtailed several of CIA’s rights and powers, including its covert actions in
foreign countries .

Later, The Iranian hostage crisis and the advent of Ronald Reagan as the president
of USA in the 80’s brought the debate to reengage CIA in its foreign espionage activities
back to the US political arena. But this time it was ordained that CIA would not directly
fund or engage itself with foreign academicians, religious institutes and NGOs, rather fund
indirectly through an independent body.Which would later fund international NGOs. Thus
came into being the National Endowment for Democracy(NED).In 1983 it was set up as a
non-profit, non- governmental, bi-partisan, grant making organization to help strengthen
democratic institutes around the world but deep down it is a US congress controlled
organization, according to B.Raman “Though it is projected as an NGO, it is actually a
quasi-governmental organisation because till 1994 it was run exclusively from funds voted
by the Congress (average of about US $ 16 million per annum in the 1980s and now about
US $ 30 million) as part of the budget of the US Information Agency (USIA). Since 1994, it
has been accepting contributions from the private sector too to supplement the
congressional appropriations.” Out of total budgetary allocation for NED 30% reserved as
discretionary grant &the rest goes to its affiliated or “Core” organizations, the International
Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), the
Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) and the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI).

Some of America’s major obtrusions in foreign countries internal political affairs through its NGOs,
under the banner of promoting democracy are “The Rose Revolution” in Georgia, ”The Orange
Revolution”in Ukraine from November 2004 to January 2005,”The Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan in
2005 and the continuing Arab Spring from 17th December 2010 onwards , The New York Times reported
that “United States’ democracy-building campaigns played a bigger role in fomenting protests than
was previously known, with key leaders of the movements having been trained by the Americans in
campaigning, organizing through new media tools and monitoring elections. ”It forced Egypt,UAE
banning some major NGOs ,including IRI and NDI.

Apart from these some other Organisations,Ford Foundation,George Soros,Rockfeller etc, have been
accused of having connived with CIA in perpetrating covert operations.According to Joan Roelofs ,
Keene State College, New Hampshire “Ford,Kaplan Fooundation and others became” “pass
throughs” for the CIA project, congress for cultural freedom(CCF). ” .( Foundations and Public
Policy: The Mask of Pluralism, By Joan Roelofs,P.85)
 One doesn’t need to do painstaking research into the history of Foreign policy practiced
by western nations to find out how NGOs have been used by them to subvert democracy and spread
propaganda in anti west,anti-US, pro communist hostile countries. The US gives training to foreign
activists.US always tries to promote its interest all over the world.

Gyan Ranjan Mohapatra

gyan.ranjan.92@facebook.com