The Murderous History of USAID, the Government Agency

[Douglas Caddy]

The Murderous History of USAID

By Mark Ames

April 8, 2014

Pando.com

http://pando.com/2014/04/08/the-murderous-history-of-usaid-the-us-government-agency-behind-cubas-fake-twitter-clone/

[Steven Gaal]

FTR #779 OUN/B Redux: The Underground Reich and the Ukrainian Crisis

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Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ March 9, 2014

AUDIO (section 10 USAID)

Side 1 Side 2

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Pierre Omidyar Co-funded Ukraine Revolution Groups with US government, Documents Show" by Mark Ames; Pando Daily; 2/28/2014.

On February 28, 2014 Just hours after last weekend’s ouster of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, one of Pierre Omidyar’s newest hires at national security blog "The Intercept," was already digging for the truth. Marcy Wheeler, who is the new site’s "senior policy analyst," speculated that the Ukraine revolution was likely a "coup" engineered by "deep forces" on behalf of "Pax Americana":

"There’s quite a bit of evidence of coup-ness. Q is how many levels deep interference from both sides is."

These are serious claims. So serious that I decided to investigate them. And what I found was shocking. Wheeler is partly correct. Pando has confirmed that the American government – in the form of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) – played a major role in funding opposition groups prior to the revolution. Moreover, a large percentage of the rest of the funding to those same groups came from a US billionaire who has previously worked closely with US government agencies to further his own business interests. This was by no means a US-backed "coup," but clear evidence shows that US investment was a force multiplier for many of the groups involved in overthrowing Yanukovych. But that’s not the shocking part. What’s shocking is the name of the billionaire who co-invested with the US government (or as Wheeler put it: the "dark force" acting on behalf of "Pax Americana"). Step out of the shadows…. Wheeler’s boss, Pierre Omidyar. Yes, in the annals of independent media, this might be the strangest twist ever: According to financial disclosures and reports seen by Pando, the founder and publisher of Glenn Greenwald’s government-bashing blog,"The Intercept," co-invested with the US government to help fund regime change in Ukraine. * * * * When the revolution came to Ukraine, neo-fascists played a front-center role in overthrowing the country’s president. But the real political power rests with Ukraine’s pro-western neoliberals. Political figures like Oleh Rybachuk, long a favorite of the State Department, DC neocons, EU, and NATO—and the right-hand man to Orange Revolution leader Viktor Yushchenko. Last December, the Financial Times wrote that Rybachuk’s "New Citizen" NGO campaign "played a big role in getting the protest up and running." New Citizen, along with the rest of Rybachuk’s interlocking network of western-backed NGOs and campaigns— "Center UA" (also spelled "Centre UA"), "Chesno," and "Stop Censorship" to name a few — grew their power by targeting pro-Yanukovych politicians with a well-coordinated anti-corruption campaign that built its strength in Ukraine’s regions, before massing in Kiev last autumn. The efforts of the NGOs were so successful that the Ukraine government was accused of employing dirty tricks to shut them down. In early February, the groups were the subject of a massive money laundering investigation by the economics division of Ukraine’s Interior Ministry in what many denounced as a politically motivated move. Fortunately the groups had the strength – which is to say, money – to survive those attacks and continue pushing for regime change in Ukraine. The source of that money? According to the Kyiv Post, Pierrie Omidyar’s Omidyar Network (part of the Omidyar Group which owns First Look Media and the Intercept) provided 36% of "Center UA"’s $500,000 budget in 2012— nearly $200,000. USAID provided 54% of "Center UA"’s budget for 2012. Other funders included the US government-backed National Endowment for Democracy. In 2011, Omidyar Network gave $335,000 to "New Citizen," one of the anti-Yanukovych "projects" managed through the Rybachuk-chaired NGO "Center UA." At the time, Omidyar Network boasted that its investment in "New Citizen" would help "shape public policy" in Ukraine:

"Using technology and media, New Citizen coordinates the efforts of concerned members of society, reinforcing their ability to shape public policy. "… With support from Omidyar Network, New Citizen will strengthen its advocacy efforts in order to drive greater transparency and engage citizens on issues of importance to them."

In March 2012, Rybachuk — the operator behind the 2004 Orange Revolution scenes, the Anatoly Chubais of Ukraine — boasted that he was preparing a new Orange Revolution:

"People are not afraid. We now have 150 NGOs in all the major cities in our ‘clean up Parliament campaign’ to elect and find better parliamentarians….The Orange Revolution was a miracle, a massive peaceful protest that worked. We want to do that again and we think we will."

Detailed financial records reviewed by Pando (and embedded below) also show Omidyar Network covered costs for the expansion of Rybachuk’s anti-Yanukovych campaign, "Chesno" ("Honestly"), into regional cities including Poltava, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Ternopil, Sumy, and elsewhere, mostly in the Ukrainian-speaking west and center. * * * * To understand what it means for Omidyar to fund Oleh Rybachuk, some brief history is necessary. Rybachuk’s background follows a familiar pattern in post-Soviet opportunism: From well-connected KGB intelligence ties, to post-Soviet neoliberal networker. In the Soviet era, Rybachuk studied in a military languages program half of whose graduates went on to work for the KGB. Rybachuk’s murky overseas posting in India in the late Soviet era further strengthens many suspicions about his Soviet intelligence ties; whatever the case, by Rybachuk’s own account, his close ties to top intelligence figures in the Ukrainian SBU served him well during the Orange Revolution of 2004, when the SBU passed along secret information about vote fraud and assassination plots.

In 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Rybachuk moved to the newly-formed Ukraine Central Bank, heading the foreign relations department under Central Bank chief and future Orange Revolution leader Viktor Yushchenko. In his central bank post, Rybachuk established close friendly ties with western government and financial aid institutions, as well as proto-Omidyar figures like George Soros, who funded many of the NGOs involved in "color revolutions" including small donations to the same Ukraine NGOs that Omidyar backed. (Like Omidyar Network does today, Soros’ charity arms—Open Society and Renaissance Foundation—publicly preached transparency and good government in places like Russia during the Yeltsin years, while Soros’ financial arm speculated on Russian debt and participated in scandal-plagued auctions of state assets.) In early 2005, Orange Revolution leader Yushchenko became Ukraine’s president, and he appointed Rybachuk deputy prime minister in charge of integrating Ukraine into the EU, NATO, and other western institutions. Rybachuk also pushed for the mass-privatization of Ukraine’s remaining state holdings. Over the next several years, Rybachuk was shifted around President Yushchenko’s embattled administration, torn by internal divisions. In 2010, Yushchenko lost the presidency to recently-overthrown Viktor Yanukovych, and a year later, Rybachuk was on Omidyar’s and USAID’s payroll, preparing for the next Orange Revolution. As Rybachuk told the Financial Times two years ago:

"We want to do [the Orange Revolution] again and we think we will."

Some of Omidyar’s funds were specifically earmarked for covering the costs of setting up Rybachuk’s "clean up parliament" NGOs in Ukraine’s regional centers. Shortly after the Euromaidan demonstrations erupted last November, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry opened up a money laundering investigation into Rybachuk’s NGOs, dragging Omidyar’s name into the high-stakes political struggle. According to a Kyiv Post article on February 10 titled, "Rybachuk: Democracy-promoting nongovernmental organization faces ‘ridiculous’ investigation":

"Police are investigating Center UA, a public-sector watchdog funded by Western donors, on suspicion of money laundering, the group said. The group’s leader, Oleh Rybachuk, said it appears that authorities, with the probe, are trying to warn other nongovernmental organizations that seek to promote democracy, transparency, free speech and human rights in Ukraine. "According to Center UA, the Kyiv economic crimes unit of the Interior Ministry started the investigation on Dec. 11. Recently, however, investigators stepped up their efforts, questioning some 200 witnesses. "… Center UA received more than $500,000 in 2012, according to its annual report for that year, 54 percent of which came from Pact Inc., a project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Nearly 36 percent came from Omidyar Network, a foundation established by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife. Other donors include the International Renaissance Foundation, whose key funder is billionaire George Soros, and National Endowment for Democracy, funded largely by the U.S. Congress."

* * * * What all this adds up to is a journalistic conflict-of-interest of the worst kind: Omidyar working hand-in-glove with US foreign policy agencies to interfere in foreign governments, co-financing regime change with well-known arms of the American empire — while at the same time hiring a growing team of soi-disant "independent journalists" which vows to investigate the behavior of the US government at home and overseas, and boasts of its uniquely "adversarial" relationship towards these government institutions. As First Look staffer Jeremy Scahill told the Daily Beast…

We had a long discussion about this internally; about what our position would be if the White House asked us to not publish something…. With us, because we want to be adversarial, they won’t know what bat phone to call. They know who to call at The Times, they know who to call at The Post. With us, who are they going to call? Pierre? Glenn?

Of the many problems that poses, none is more serious than the fact that Omidyar now has the only two people with exclusive access to the complete Snowden NSA cache, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. Somehow, the same billionaire who co-financed the "coup" in Ukraine with USAID, also has exclusive access to the NSA secrets—and very few in the independent media dare voice a skeptical word about it. In the larger sense, this is a problem of 21st century American inequality, of life in a billionaire-dominated era. It is a problem we all have to contend with—PandoDaily’s 18-plus investors include a gaggle of Silicon Valley billionaires like Marc Andreessen (who serves on the board of eBay, chaired by Pierre Omidyar) and Peter Thiel (whose politics I’ve investigated, and described as repugnant.) But what is more immediately alarming is what makes Omidyar different. Unlike other billionaires, Omidyar has garnered nothing but uncritical, fawning press coverage, particularly from those he has hired. By acquiring a "dream team" of what remains of independent media — Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Wheeler, my former partner Matt Taibbi — not to mention press "critics" like Jay Rosen — he buys both silence and fawning press. Both are incredibly useful: Silence, an absence of journalistic curiosity about Omidyar’s activities overseas and at home, has been purchased for the price of whatever his current all-star indie cast currently costs him. As an added bonus, that same investment buys silence from exponentially larger numbers of desperately underpaid independent journalists hoping to someday be on his payroll, and the underfunded media watchdogs that survive on Omidyar Network grants. And it also buys laughable fluff from the likes of Scahill who also boasted to the Daily Beast of his boss’ close involvement in the day to day running of First Look.

"[Omidyar] strikes me as always sort of political, but I think that the NSA story and the expanding wars put politics for him into a much more prominent place in his existence. This is not a side project that he is doing. Pierre writes more on our internal messaging than anyone else. And he is not micromanaging. This guy has a vision. And his vision is to confront what he sees as an assault on the privacy of Americans."

Now Wheeler has her answer — that, yes, the revolutionary groups were part-funded by Uncle Sam, but also by her boss — one assumes awkward follow up questions will be asked on that First Look internal messaging system. Whether Wheeler, Scahill and their colleagues go on to share their concerns publicly will speak volumes about First Look’s much-trumpeted independence, both from Omidyar’s other business interests and from Omidyar’s co-investors in Ukraine: the US government.

[Steven Gaal]

Morales Expels USAID From Bolivia on Conspiracy Charges

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-05-01/morales-expels-usaid-from-bolivia-on-conspiracy-charges

[Steven Gaal]

Leaked memo shows Soros NGOs payed Macedonian students $1,500 to come up with regime change ideas

see link for memo image http://wakeupfromyourslumber.com/leaked-memo-shows-soros-ngos-payed-macedonian-students-1500-to-come-up-with-regime-change-ideas/

While shocking to have these types of memos out in the open, it also should come as no surprise to anyone to see George Soros NGOs up to no good, and doing the bidding of their CIA backers.

Remember, Macedonia is a critical link into getting Gaxprom Turk Stream gas into Europe market…something the US government is 100% opposed too.

The fact that Soros is partnering up again with the Serbian based Canvas group is telling of a greater plan to instigate a Ukraine Maidan style of overthrow, and possible wider conflict in the heart of Europe.

The United Arab Emirates has listed Canvas in the same ranks as Al-Qaeda, and their handy work in organising and implementing color revolutions includes bringing down Milosevic, Ukraine Euromaidan, Mubarak’s Egypt downfall, and some experts even believe Canvas may have been a part of the murder of Russian opposition leader Nemtsov.

Via Macedonia Online News…

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The gang pretending to be NGOs and trained to overthrow Governments and stage Coups around the world is paying $1,500 for ideas how to better organize demonstrations, reports Vecer.

That gang is Soros’ Open Society Institute, USAid (Front for the CIA) and the Forum Group (another Soros “NGO”). This group has already backed and financed not just the Macedonian opposition SDSM, but their activists & protests, dating back to 2011.

Serbian based Canvas led by Srgja Popovic who specializes in demonstrations has been hired both by Soros and the CIA to “help” in Macedonia. Canvas has gained quite the notoriety. Namely, the UAE has listed Canvas in the same ranks as Al-Qaeda, it is the only non-muslim terrorist organization!

Canvas and Srgja Popovic were instrumental in bringing chaos to Ukraine (look at Ukraine today) and in removing Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak from power (look at Egypt now).

Canvas members have managed to get themselves permanently banned from ever entering Russia, but they are welcome in the Macedonian capital. Soros Open Society Institute and the CIA via its fronts (PNAC, NED, USAid) have hired Canvas to do work in Macedonia. Canvas issued a memo to Macedonian students (three weeks prior to protests) that they would award the two best protest ideas with $1,500.

The ideas were sent to Sonja Ismail, daughter of Guner Ismail, a popular SDSM member and official. Several years ago Sonja Ismail was the focus of investigation for illegally owning three state owned apartments through her father (SDSM official) that she rented out for years, earning over 300,000 euros.

Canvas first earned its notoriety for bringing down Milosevic. But it didn’t stop there. Canvas was repeatedly hired by the CIA to organize protests in Gruzia, Moldavia, the Maldives, Lebanon, Egypt, Ukraine…. Canvas first appeared in Macedonia in 2009, when it became apparent the SDSM will be in opposition once again. The thug for hire himself Srgja Popovic was present in Ohrid to christen the opening of a “Canvas Academy” where future protesters and activists would be trained and be called upon when the time is right.

Who was the financier of this academy? USAID and Soros. Soros employees Gjuner Ismail and Sasho Ordanovski were the promoters.

“Students were paid and aggresively trained on how to protest in December of 2014 and January of 2015. Srgja Popovic himself showed up and met with Zaev in March, April and early May 2015. On May 6th Canvas (SDSM) activists violently attacked policemen, injuring 38″, reported Vecer.

Canvas was heavily involved in the death of Russian opposition leader Nemtsov, just few days before the opposition protest. The goal was to destabilize the situation, create internal conflict. But most Russian saw through the orchestrated murder for what it was, an ordered hit. When one takes into account the wife of Canvas’ leader worked at Stratfor (another CIA front), then things become clear, says Vecer.

Prior to Canvas, Serbia had another group created by undercover NGOs. It was called “Otpor”, financed by Freedom House, another front for the CIA. Even the UN investigated Freedom House for their ties to the CIA. Members of Otpor have today joined the ranks of Canvas.

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References:

http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/27443/1/

[Steven Gaal]

US installs 'leadership' of foreign countries with US citizens and CIA assets

Wayne Madsen

© Getty Images

The recent appointment of the austerity-loving U.S. citizen and investment firm chief Natalie Jaresko as Ukraine's Finance Minister continues a trend that has seen one Eastern European country after another appointing or electing U.S. citizens as major government officials. Jaresko had Ukrainian citizenship conferred on her by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko as she arrived in Kiev to take up her new post in the government of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, himself a former legal U.S. resident who has been linked to the crypto-Satanic Church of Scientology.

Jaresko is involved in contentious asset redistribution court battles with her ex-husband, Ihor Figlus. Together, the two managed the Kiev-based Horizon Capital, established 20 years ago with a $150 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Horizon Capital operated the Emerging Europe Growth Fund, a group charged with illegal insider trading of Ukrainian securities. According to court divorce documents, Horizon Capital bought Ukrainian artwork, Georgian carpets, expensive cars, and antique furniture, all of which are now subject to the battle for ownership between Jaresko and Figlus. Jaresko also managed the USAID-financed Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF), a CIA contrivance that steered U.S. investment dollars into "pro-democracy" movements in Moldova and Belarus and laundered much of the $5 billion in U.S. aid for the Maidan Square coup in Kiev that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych.

Jaresko's arrival in Kiev was shortly followed by that of former Reno, Nevada assistant police chief Ron Glensor,who became an official adviser to the Ukrainian police with an initial posting at the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Khmelnytsky region. Glensor has been very active with the U.S. Department of Justice's International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP). Glensor is also a former fellow of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) in Washington, D.C. In August 1999, The Progressive magazine reported that, "Janice Stromsen, a career employee of the Justice Department who served as ICITAP's director, resisted the program's takeover by CIA elements. In February [1999], Stromsen was relieved of her duties after complaining to the Justice Department Inspector General that ICITAP was being used by the CIA to recruit agents among foreign police officials."

© ICITAP
ICITAP provides the CIA with an official cover to infiltrate foreign police agencies

Mostly outsourced to a favorite CIA contractor, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), ICITAP provided cover for the CIA to infiltrate police agencies around the world. After initially blowing the whistle on ICITAP's intelligence-related operations, Stromsen was joined by another ICITAP employee, Martin "Mick" Andersen, who charged that agencies other than the Justice Department were engaging in "illegal activities" in Haiti. Charles Allen, who worked for the Richardson, Texas police department and was assigned to ICITAP in 1995, said that the CIA would approach foreign police students enrolled in ICITAP training programs during off hours and weekends in an attempt to recruit them to be American spies. Other CIA recruitment of foreign police officers occurred during ICITAP training sessions at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

ICITAP first began providing the CIA with "official cover" to infiltrate foreign police agencies in 1990 when it began its first operations in Panama after the U.S. military invasion. These operations were then expanded to Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Georgia, the Eastern Slavonia province of Croatia, Serbia, Armenia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Macedonia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Albania, Liberia, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, South Africa, and Iraq. ICITAP and CIA operations were closely linked in counter-narcotics/insurgency operations in Bolivia, Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize, Haiti, and Panama.

ICITAP grew out of a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) program started in the early 1960s that saw U.S. police officers assigned to foreign police agencies for the purpose of training. However, it soon became obvious that the CIA was using the USAID program to gain influence over foreign police agencies to combat Soviet and Chinese influence. This was particularly the case in Somalia, where the Somali National Police served as a pro-U.S. counterpart to the pro-Communist bloc Somali armed forces. The chief CIA liaison working with the Somali National Police was a police officer on loan from the Los Angeles Police Department. Former Richmond, Indiana police officer Dan Mitrione joined the CIA to advise the Brazilian and Uruguayan governments, under USAID cover, on how to use electric shock and other torture techniques on political prisoners. Mitrione was kidnapped and executed by Uruguayan Tupamaro guerrillas for his crimes against humanity waged on the people of Uruguay. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was but one recipient of Mitrione's brutal torture tactics which were implemented by the Brazilian security forces.

© Wikipedia
Radoslaw Sikorski, the current leader of the Polish parliament and member of neocon American Enterprise Institute

The current leader of the Polish parliament (Sejm) is former Foreign and Defense Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, a former U.S. resident and British citizen. Sikorski is married to the neocon columnist Anne Applebaum, a member of the editorial board of The Washington Post. Sikorski served as a fellow of the neocon American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which provides employment for a number of anti-Russian warhawks, including Fred Kagan, brother-in-law of the foul-mouthed Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland. Lynne Cheney, wife of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton also serve as AEI fellows. Sikorski is also a close friend of neocon media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Sikorski has been at the forefront of calling for increased European Union sanctions against Russia and the further expansion of NATO to the east.

The bow-tied President of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, grew up in New Jersey and attended Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. Ilves was employed as the chief of the Estonian desk for the CIA-financed Radio Free Europe, working out of the broadcaster's main studio in Munich. Ilves' first marriage was to an American and his two children by that marriage are American citizens. Ilves' brother, Andres Ilves, was also on the payroll of the CIA- financed broadcasting operations, including the Afghanistan Bureau of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, for which he worked from the Prague headquarters, and Radio Farda, the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors-funded radio station that beams its programming in Farsi to Iran. Andres Ilves also worked on destabilizing operations in Serbia on behalf of the National Endowment for Democracy-funded and George Soros-linked National Democratic Institute and is now involved in political operations in South Africa's KwaZulu province, which are obviously targeting the African National Congress government of President Jacob Zuma.

Former President of Lithuania, US citizen and US government official, Valdas Adamkus

Valdas Adamkus served two terms as President of Lithuania. Adamkus was a U.S. citizen and a Ronald Reagan - appointed senior official of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and served as a non-commissioned officer for the U.S. Fifth Army Military Intelligence unit. Adamkus was not the only official of the right-wing Reagan administration to come to power in post-Cold War Eastern Europe. Kateryna Chumachenko, a U.S. citizen, served as the special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs in the U.S. State Department, the Reagan White House Office of Public Liaison for liaison with "Captive Nations" communities in the United States, the executive secretary's office of the U.S. Treasury during the George H. W. Bush administration, and the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress. In 2005, Chumachenko became the First Lady of Ukraine after her husband, Viktor Yushchenko, was sworn into office after the Soros- and CIA-financed "Orange Revolution".

Other Americans who have embedded in Eastern European governments and political organizations include Ljubica Acevska, who became Macedonia's first ambassador to the United States; Ukrainian anti-Russian politician Ivan Lozowy; Roman Zvarych, who became Minister of Justice in the Yushchenko government; and Peter Zwack, who became Hungarian ambassador to the United States and chairman of the Hungarian Entrepreneurs' Party.

Most of these Americans, prior to their renouncing their American citizenship, were in violation of the 1799 Logan Act, which forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments. However, the Logan Act, like many American laws, is not enforced because of pressure from domestic U.S. ethnic lobbies, as well as the CIA, which encourage dual citizens to engage in foreign ethnic- and religious-based activities on behalf of U.S. intelligence.

Edited July 18, 2015 by Steven Gaal