[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 141 (Wednesday, October 8, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2007]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   COMMENDING NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO 
DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENT AROUND THE WORLD ON THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF ITS 
                             ESTABLISHMENT

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                               speech of

                             HON. RON PAUL

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, October 7, 2003

  Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise to express my grave concerns over H. 
Con. Res 274. The misnamed National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is 
nothing more than a costly program that takes U.S. taxpayer funds to 
promote favored politicians and political parties abroad. Madam 
Speaker, what the NED does in foreign countries, through its recipient 
organizations the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the 
International Republican Institute (IRI), would be rightly illegal in 
the United States. The NED injects ``soft money'' into the domestic 
elections of foreign countries in favor of one party or the other. 
Imagine what a couple of hundred thousand dollars will do to assist a 
politician or political party in a relatively poor country abroad. It 
is particularly Orwellian to call U.S. manipulation of foreign 
elections ``promoting democracy.'' How would Americans feel if the 
Chinese arrived with millions of dollars to support certain candidates 
deemed friendly to China? Would this be viewed as a democratic 
development?
  In an excellent study of the folly of the National Endowment for 
Democracy, CATO Institute scholar Barbara Conry notes that:

       ``NED, which also has a history of corruption and financial 
     mismanagement, is superfluous at best and often destructive. 
     Through the endowment, the American taxpayer has paid for 
     special-interest groups to harass the duly elected 
     governments of friendly countries, interfere in foreign 
     elections, and foster the corruption of democratic movements 
     . . .
       ``. . . the controversy surrounding NED questions the 
     wisdom of giving a quasi-private organization the fiat to 
     pursue what is effectively an independent foreign policy 
     under the guise of ``promoting democracy.'' Proponents of NED 
     maintain that a private organization is necessary to overcome 
     the restraints that limit the activities of a government 
     agency, yet they insist that the American taxpayer provide 
     full funding for this initiative. NED's detractors point to 
     the inherent contradiction of a publicly funded organization 
     that is charged with executing foreign policy (a power 
     expressly given to the federal government in the 
     Constitution) yet exempt from nearly all political and 
     administrative controls . . .
       ``. . . In the final analysis, the endowment embodies the 
     most negative aspects of both private aid and official 
     foreign aid--the pitfalls of decentralized `loose cannon' 
     foreign policy efforts combined with the impression that the 
     United States is trying to `run the show' around the world.''

  The National Endowment for Democracy is dependent on the U.S. 
taxpayer for funding, but because NED is not a government agency, it is 
not subject to Congressional oversight. It is indeed a heavily 
subsidized foreign policy loose cannon.
  Since its founding in 1983, the National Endowment for Democracy has 
been headed by Carl Gershman, a member of the neo-Trotskyite Social 
Democrats/USA.
  Perhaps that is one reason much of what NED has done in the former 
Communist Bloc has ended up benefiting former communists in those 
countries. As British Helsinki Human Rights Group Director Christine 
Stone has written:

       Both (IRI and NDI) are largely funded by the National 
     Endowment for Democracy (NED) . . . which, in turn, receive 
     money from the American taxpayer. Both have favoured the 
     return to power of former high-ranking Communists which has 
     also meant co-opting foot-soldiers from the new left who have 
     extremely liberal ideas . . .
       Skender Gjinushi, speaker of the Albanian parliament, 
     thanks the IRI for its assistance in drafting the Albanian 
     constitution in 1998. What the IRI does not say is that 
     Gjinushi was a member of the brutal Stalinist Politburo of 
     Enver Hoxha's Communist Party until 1990 and one of the main 
     organizers of the unrest that led to the fall of the 
     Democratic Party government in 1997 and the death of over 
     2000 people.
       President Stoyanov of Bulgaria drools: ``Without IRI's 
     support we could not have come so far so fast.'' Indeed. 
     Indeed. So far did they come that Ivan Kostov (who supplies 
     another encomium to IRI) was catapulted from his job teaching 
     Marxism-Leninism at Sofia University to being prime minister 
     of Bulgaria and a leader of `reform.' ''

  In Slovakia, NED funded several initiatives aimed at defeating the 
freely-elected government of Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar, who, 
interestingly, had been persecuted by the previous Communist regime. 
After the election, an IRI newsletter boasted that ``IRI polls changed 
the nature of the campaign,'' adding that IRI efforts secured ``a 
victory for reformers in Slovakia.'' What the IRI does not say is that 
many of these ``reformers'' had been leading members of the former 
Communist regime of then-Czechoslovakia. Is this democracy?
  More recently, IRI president George A. Folsom last year praised a 
coup against Venezuela's democratically-elected president, saying, 
``Last night, led by every sector of civil society, the Venezuelan 
people rose up to defend democracy in their country.'' It was later 
revealed that the National Endowment for Democracy provided funds to 
those organizations that initiated the violent revolt in the streets 
against Venezuela's legal leaders. More than a dozen civilians were 
killed and hundreds were injured in this attempted coup. Is this 
promoting democracy?
  Madam Speaker, the National Endowment for Democracy, by meddling in 
the elections and internal politics of foreign countries, does more 
harm to the United States than good. It creates resentment and ill-will 
toward the United States among millions abroad. It is beyond time to 
de-fund this Cold War relic and return to the foreign policy of our 
founders, based on open relations and trade with all countries and free 
from meddling and manipulation in the internal affairs of others.

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