@Razarumi claimed that his NED fellowship doesn’t ‘prove’ him a CIA agent. Well, it may not “prove” him a CIA agent; it definitely ‘frames’ him.

How?

For this purpose, it is pertinent to consider the context.

[1]

Just like the way, the ideology of anticommunism brought strategization of national security and US idealism together with the initiation of Cold War, democratization converged human rights and US national interests in the last decades of Cold War.

[2]

This resulted in a policy shift introducing ‘free’ as a new keyword in strategic architecture of US national security. New infrastructure; free universities, a free press, trade unions, free elections, emerged central to this idea.

[3]

Moreover, “Civil society,” “leadership training,” “international networks,” “community action organizations,” “going to the core of other societies through NGOs,” an “architecture for democratizing human rights,” “democracy promotion efforts”—

[4]

All these terms appear prominently in the national security documents of those years.

Funneling funds to political parties was now “opening up the political process”; training security forces was “democratic crowd control”;

[5]

the Contras in Nicaragua and the Mujahideen fighting the Russians in Afghanistan were “freedom fighters” battling for democracy against “totalitarian forces.”

[6]

To democratize the globe; strategically significant developing countries and the Third World states, NSC after strategizing the realization of the diverse aims of democratization brought NED in Congress in 1983 resulting its creation.

[7]

NED then executed Casey’s CIA work with a legal cover under the shadow of democratization. NED was allegedly Casey’s idea as he wrote to a White House official, he was in favor of a “National Endowment in support of free institutions throughout the world.”

[8]

After approval from Congress, the NED was initially placed under the auspices of the National Security Council and Walter Raymond, Jr, a CIA propaganda expert who, according to the late Robert Parry, for years had acted as liaison between the program and Casey.

[9]

Hence, NED as a front organization of CIA started promoting US operations as enhancements of other countries’ “civil society” to aid only selected political and business groups, unions, media outlets, and electoral monitors while appearing to offer wide support to

[10]

democratic values and to a “transnational” network committed to their implementation.

As per Reagan it was reaching out reflecting a long American tradition of voluntarism. That generated platforms taking on board like-minded people and volunteer organizations

[11]

heralding a new democratic age in which human rights could triumph. Countries around the globe were tangled in a web of networks generated by a plethora of American NGOs and U.S. government programs to create the “infrastructure of democracy.”

[12]

Secretary of State George Schultz declared, “The industrial age is over, society is beginning to reorganize itself in new ways. Closed and compartmentalized societies cannot take advantage of the information age. People must have their human rights”.

[13]

Hence, NED in itself appeared and functioned as a highly visible part of a proliferating network of organizations that funded and operated the various aspects of the administration’s public diplomacy program including political warfare operations.

[14]

The groups and organizations linked to NED shared board members, funded one another’s projects, and generally kept the issue of whether projects were funded directly through the government or through quasi-governmental or private sources shrouded in secrecy.

[15]

Their purpose, one administration official explained, was to implement “aid, training and organizational support for foreign government and private groups to encourage the growth of democratic political institutions and practices.”

[16]

Democratization assistance, national security managers argued —“the support and cultivation of political groups and forces abroad that may serve the long-term interests of the US and the West generally”—was no more interventionist than humanitarian or economic aid.

[17]

Such timely external aid might tip the balance toward bringing prodemocratic leaders to power, defeating leftist groups, & shoring up human rights with “systemic support.”

Mainly, the NED distributed grants to organizations headed by the Republican and Democratic parties,

[18]

the AFL-CIO, the Chamber of Commerce, and various women’s and youth organizations; the idea was for private institutions to help their counterparts abroad.

“We’re engaged in almost missionary work,” stated the head of the National Republican Institute.

[19]

“We’ve seen what the communists do for each other. Now we’ve come a long way and we have a broadly democratic movement, a force for democracy.” Of course, these nongovernmental groups often worked in coordination with the State Department, the CIA, and local U.S. embassies.

[20]

Here it is significant to consider Paul Bremer, then executive secretary of the Department of State, when he wrote to William Clark, Reagan’s national security advisor, “democracy promoting institutes and foundations cannot as a practical matter stray very far from

[21]

government policy, or from what each party in or out of office approves.”

Former CIA director William Colby concurred:

“It is not necessary to turn to a covert approach.

[22]

Many of the programs which in the 1950s were conducted as covert operations now are conducted quite openly and consequently without controversy.”40 Overt funding, in short, cut the long-standing Gordian knot.

[23]

“It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the CIA.… That’s why the Endowment was created,” its director declared.

[24]

So, that convergence of INGOs, Human Rights and Democratization was a redefined securitization strategy came into being in the Reagan years?

As concerns @Razarumi's link with NED – National Endowment for Democracy is a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization.

[25]

NED has either been objected or sanctioned by Russia, China, Egypt and other countries.

However, @Razarumi has been found to be having its fellowship.

[26]

In 1991, the then-NED President Allen Weinstein in his interview said,

"A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA."

What does this indicate?

[27]

According to sociologist William Robinson, NED funds during the Reagan years were "ultimately used for five overlapping pseudo-covert activities: leadership training for pro-American elites, promotion of pro-American educational systems and mass media,

[28]

strengthening the 'institutions of democracy' by funding pro-American organizations in the target state, propaganda, and the development of transnational elite networks."

[29]

Political scientist Lindsey A. O'Rourke writes,

"Today, NED programs run in more than ninety countries. Although the number of US-backed democracy promotion programs have grown, most of today's programs pursue less aggressive objectives than their Cold War counterparts."

[30]

Last but not the least, Farhnaz Ispahani also has NED fellowship. Gulali Ismail belonging to the same liberal anti-national faction of Pakistan has been the recipient of NED as Youth pro-democracy activist.

[31]

@NadeemfParacha is also a research scholar at NED linked @ThinkDemocracy .

This raises serious concerns regarding the credibility of @nayadaurpk and the people associated with this platform.

References:

Franklin, B. A. (1984, May 29). Project democracy takes wing. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/29/us/project-democracy-takes-wing.html

Marcetic, B. (n.d.). Don’t mourn “Democracy promotion”. Retrieved from https://jacobinmag.com/2018/03/trump-national-endowment-democracy-foreign-policy

Peck, J. (2011). Ideal illusions: How the U.S. government Co-opted human rights. Metropolitan Books.