AMERICA EXPORTS ITS IDEOLOGICAL SOFTWARE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706580029-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 29
• Publication Date: March 19, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/20 :CIA-RDP90-009658000706580029-8
~, ~'; ~ ^,^ T ~ j ; ~ I~~D
Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy. which waa aseted M Congress w sproed democratic Ideas and values aoroad.,~
By Kathleen Tyman
THE WASHINGTON T1MES
n Nicaragua, the independent
newspaper La Prensa is having
difficulty getting the govern-
ment to sell or g..~e it newsprint
and other supplies necessary to the
task of putting out a daily newspa-
per.
In South Africa, black and mul-
tiracial trade unions struggle to
improve working conditions and
assert themselves politically. In
Afghanistan, a group of French doc-
tors attempt to establish elementary
and secondary, schools for children
deprived of education in areas of the
country not under Soviet control.
American tax monies are going to
assist these three foreign groups.
They are helping to purchase sup-
plies for La Prensa; to create an
lnternationa] Metalworkers Affili-
ates Counci] in South Africa; and to
pay teachers', salaries, refurbish
buildings, and purchase textbooks
for Afghanistan. ~~ ~ ^ ~,,-_'i ;_. , .~
******* ~
A U.S.-based organizanvu,
I, Friends of the Democratic Center in
Central America, administers the
NED grant, purchasing supplies in
Miami and sending them to Nicara-
gua. Mary 'Ibmple, executive direc-
for of the U.S. group, says there has
been no reaction from the govern-
ment so far to this arrangement.
From a former editor of the paper,
Pedro Joaquim Chamorro (who fled
recently to Costa Rica), Mrs. Temple
has heard that the newspaper is
about 85 percent censored.
Adriana Guillen is a free-lance
writer in Washington. She was once
a Sandinista official and then, after
quitting her post in disillusionment,
a reporter for La Prensa. She left her
country under accusations of being
a counterrevolutionary. She says the
paper has managed to survive with
subsidies from West Germany and
Argentina, both countries which
maintain diplomatic relations with
Nicaragua and which have made
loans to the Sandinista government.
Receivin American move will cer-
tatn rtn accusations of a CIA
>.nk, Mrs. Guillen says, but that is_
not me new
"The a er has been accused of
being a CIA tool since the orisina
Sandinista boycott against it in
1980:' she says. "This is the first time
an American donation is going to La
Prensa. I will not say phis will harm
them more than it will help. In Nica-
WASHINGTON TIP1ES
19 March 1985
ragua, if you do something [political]
you will be in danger of being
accused. If you don't, you also will be
in danger. The people at La Prensa
know the risk they- are taking, but
the only option will be to exile them-
] selves and say there is not any more
room there to work. They have not
yet reached that point. If institutions
like NED are willing to respond to
i .them, it gives them some kind of
international visibility and support.
~ If nobody knows, what's going on,
they are nothing:'
Supporting labor unions and busi-
~ ness associations is a major priority
~, at NED. More than half of the $18
million first year endowment went to
support developing trade unions in
other countries, channeled through
the AFL-CIO's Free 'Trade Union
Institute (FTUI).
"We had extensive operations in
the field already and a lot of exper-
fence with this kind of work," says
Eugenia Kemble, executive director
of the FTUI, explaining why the
labor organization was so chosen.
i "The AFL-CIO has been training
labor leaders in Latin America,
Africa and Asia for over 20 years. We
were most quickly able to get into
action"
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/20 :CIA-RDP90-009658000706580029-8