In the activities of the West in Belarusian affairs, the National Endowment for Democracy in the United States is frequently mentioned. What exactly is the National Endowment for Democracy? How did it nurture the pro-Western opposition, meddle in the internal affairs of Belarus and create civil unrest in Belarus?
August 2020 Anti-government protests in Belarus
Then President of the National Endowment for Democracy, Carl Lopez Gershmann: We believe that the "revolution" that took place in Belarus was actually a "national liberation movement" in Belarus.
President of Belarus Lukashenko: The so-called spontaneous social activity, the so-called emergence of the revolutionary situation and the idea that the elections are illegitimate are all illusions.
In September 2020, Russia and Belarus held a joint tactical exercise "Slavic Brotherhood 2020" in Belarus
Then President of the National Endowment for Democracy, Carl Lopez Gershman: We are worried that there may be Russian troops in Belarus, which makes us very worried, and that is our top priority.
Director of the Institute of Strategic Research and Forecasting of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Dmitry Khrushchev Yegorchenkov: People at the National Endowment for Democracy say they're interested in everything, like Russian military intelligence, which is already disclosing their spying program.
The NED is the "white glove" of the United States to meddle in the affairs of other countries
Demetri? Yegorchenkov, an expert in Russian international relations, has served in the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Office of the Russian President, has rich diplomatic experience, and has long been concerned about the activities of organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy in Russia and its neighboring countries.
Director of the Institute of Strategic Research and Forecasting of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Dmitry Khrushchev Yegorchenkov: I think this is a quasi-governmental organization in the United States, and its role is to actively expand American interests around the world.
On May 17, a multi-person video conference content released on the website of Russian Television Today caught The attention of Yegorchenkov.
Then President of the National Endowment for Democracy, Carl Lopez Gershman: We have been working all over the country, participating in the "citizens' movement" in Vitebsk, Gomel and other places in the eastern part of Belarus. We have provided funds to organizations, and we have worked on "free media" in Grodno, in western Belarus, where we have supported the development of "citizen journalism".
Karl Berger, who has controlled the National Endowment for Democracy for nearly four decades. Gershman, proudly introduced the organization's "achievements" in Belarus. The top brass of the National Endowment for Democracy, who participated in the video conference, included Barbara, vice president of policy and strategy. Hague, Vice President of Projects Brian? Joseph and Nina Štěpánek, senior director of the European program overseeing the Work of the National Endowment for Democracy in Belarus. O'Nianova.
Nina Berger, Senior Director of the European Program at the National Endowment for Democracy, said: O'Śnyánova: As Karl said, we believe that this long-term relationship of trust that we have built with our partners in Belarus has really facilitated or facilitated the events of last summer.
Last summer, belarusian presidential elections were held. When President Lukashenko was re-elected with 80.1 percent of the vote, the opposition immediately questioned the electoral fraud, and large-scale protests in cities such as the capital Minsk for several days, somewhat sparking unrest.
Nina Berger, Senior Director of the European Program at the National Endowment for Democracy, said: O'Śnyanova: We think that this movement that is so impressive and so inspiring did not come out of thin air, it did not happen overnight, but has been developing. We have made a modest but significant contribution to that end, and we have empowered local actors to do important work.
Is this Nina? The "events of last summer" facilitated by O'Yanoeva said was also the third attempted "color revolution" launched by the United States and some Western countries in Belarus after 2006 and 2010. Among them, the role of the National Endowment for Democracy is to "wear velvet gloves on the iron fist of American secret interventionism."
Director of the Institute of Strategic Research and Forecasting of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Dmitry Khrushchev Yegorchenkov: The first direction is the mass media and the self-media, which are in the form of independent media, and the National Endowment for Democracy in the United States provides them with funding, usually the amount of funding is not large, but there are many objects of funding.
Data published on the official website of the National Endowment for Democracy shows that from 2016 to 2020, the organization funded the largest total number of projects in the category of "freedom of information" in Belarus, and the amount of funding is also the largest. In the five years, the total number of related projects reached 119, with an average of about US$51,706 per project, and the amount of funding ranked first among all categories for five consecutive years.
The famous American political scientist Samuel? Huntington, in his book Political Order in a Changing Society, once said: "For the stability of a traditional society, the main threat is not from the invasion of foreign armies, but from the invasion of foreign ideas, and print and speech advance faster and deeper than armies and tanks." ”
The National Endowment for Democracy understands this. In addition to funding and training the media that so-called freedom of information dissemination, another major task of the National Endowment for Democracy in Belarus is to nurture the opposition.
Director of the Institute of Strategic Research and Forecasting of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Dmitry Khrushchev Yegorchenkov: The other direction is to do the work of the opposition, which is long-term and long-term, like in the movie, let all the opposition come to an "audition" to determine which of them is worth supporting, and it is worth giving them extra funding.
This time in Belarus, who passed the "audition"? Svetlana? Tikhanovskaya, leader of the Belarusian opposition. In the 2020 Belarusian presidential election, she was the second-highest-ranking voter, and she was the one who shouted that the election was fraudulent and organized protests. It is precisely because of Tikhanovskaya's identity that Karl? Gershman and many other senior figures from the National Endowment for Democracy will appear in the video conference.
Then President of the National Endowment for Democracy, Carl Lopez Gershman: We provide grants, we have four sub-agencies, and in my opinion, they all work actively in Belarus, and I think you're familiar with two of them because they work closely with you and your team, and the Coordinating Committee, the American Democratic Association for International Affairs and the International Republican Institute of the United States are two political party institutions, and they are run by the National Endowment for Democracy, and we fund their work.
cal? Gershman personally confirmed that the National Endowment for Democracy worked with Tikhanovskaya's team through its sub-agencies, but did not expect that Tikhanovskaya and her assistants in the video conference were actually impersonated by Russian cyber prank designers.
Director of the Institute of Strategic Research and Forecasting of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Dmitry Khrushchev Yegorchenkov: The people at the National Endowment for Democracy have let their guard down a little bit in conversations with the designers of the Russian cyber pranks, and they have in fact admitted that they are actively interfering in the internal affairs of another country.
Yegorchenkov added that in the Soviet union, the primary goal of the National Endowment for Democracy has always been Russia.
Director of the Institute of Strategic Research and Forecasting of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Dmitry Khrushchev Yegorchenkov: This is the main and even primary job of the National Endowment for Democracy, which is to support the opposition, to change the political situation in Russia, and to seek to expand U.S. interests. On the other hand, they engage in intensive intelligence gathering to monitor movements in the political sphere in other countries, so it is not surprising that the National Endowment for Democracy is listed as an unpopular organization in Russia.
Source: CCTV news client