This is probably one of the most under reported stories or certainly a story that has not had any in depth reporting. As the headline states, these organizations that are under investigation and which they intend to prosecute, are NGO's. In truth, some may be, we don't have the complete list, but the top three listed are actually US goverment funded organizations, two of which have been implicated in the overthrow of democratically elected regimes not considered friendly to the US. The tacit acceptance that these organizations are NGO's stretches the very definition of what an NGO actually is. Any organization which gets it's funding from one government and acts as an arm of that goverment's foreign policy is not an NGO.
The three US organizations mentioned: National Democratic Institute, International Republican Institute and Freedom House all get their funding from the US government. In addition the IRI has been implicated in the coup which overthrew the democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004 and the installation of a non-democratically elected government. It has been reported in the London Financial Times that Freedom House has been identified as a conduit for US state department funds for clandestine activity in Iran. There have been numerous complaints brought forth against Freedom House to the UN Committee on NGO's by governments who have accused them of engaging in political activity in their countries invariably supporting the right wing parties. All of these organizations get some funding from USAID (United States Agency for International Development) which has been accused of being a CIA front organization. The US government vigorously denies this, but USAID has been implicated in CIA operations on numerous occasions and has given cover to CIA agents.
So what we have here are three US government organizations that have the charter to interfere in the affairs of foreign governments under the cover of promoting democracy but actually having as their purpose the promotion of US interests: the removing of governments unfriendly to the US and US corporate interests and the installation of governments who are friendly irrespective of whether or not they are democratically elected.
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