NED a tool of US foreign policy for subversion, Cuban expert says

HAVANA -- The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a tool of the US foreign policy, a Cuban expert has said.

"The US governments use the NED to subvert the political order of sovereign countries, interfering in their internal affairs," Luis Rene Fernandez, academic at World Economy Research Center at the University of Havana, told Xinhua on Wednesday.

The NED has worked as a facade of the US government's real interests, either providing training or funding to subversive organizations, said Fernandez, former senior researcher at Cuba's Center for Hemispheric and US Studies.

Created in 1983, "the NED collects private and state funding to support the US-led 'regime change' policy across the world," the expert said.

And here in Cuba, the NED has aligned with a six-decade US policy of unilateral embargo against the island, aiming to undermine the pillars of the political system in the Caribbean nation, he said. "The US government has provided the NED with funding and support to alter the constitutional order in Cuba."

The NED has also acted behind many coups in Latin America and the so-called "color revolutions" in Europe and Africa, he added.

Fernandez said that the US government lies when describing the NED as a platform for the defense of democracy and human rights worldwide.

"Through NGOs and other organizations, the NED masks the US government programs to seize democratically elected governments," he said.

The US administration had not shown transparency about the real purposes of the NED, Fernandez said, adding "the US foreign policy is guided by a lack of sincerity."