Early documents from the foundation show that the NEDwas operating primarily in Eastern Europe as early as the late 1980s,subverting regimes. ◆On August 27, 1989, the Washington Post published a story titled"How We Helped Solidarity Win," pointing out that the NED providedfinancial support to Solidarity in Poland to help them overthrow the governmentof the day, opening the door to the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe. ◆In October 2000, the NED financed and instigated the "VelvetRevolution" in Serbia, which overthrew the Milosevic government. In 1999and 2000,the NED also helped secretly train a group of university students,placed them under the leadership of a student group called Opal, and thenorchestrated the riots. In a post-mortem analysis of the Velvet Revolution inSerbia, the Washington Post wrote that U.S.-funded advisers played a key rolebehind the scenes in nearly every aspect of the anti-Serbian movement. Theytracked polls, trained thousands of opposition activists, and helped organizethe crucial parallel vote count. ◆In 2003, when the "Rose Revolution" brokeout in Georgia and then-President Shevardnadze was forced to step down, NEDplanned and participated in the color revolution from "choosing" theopposition leaders, to training personnel for the opposition, to providinglarge sums of money. "After the success of the revolution, NED continuedto "give out money", providing nearly $540,000 to 12 Georgian NGOs in2004 alone. ◆In late 2004, during the "OrangeRevolution" in Ukraine, the U.S. provided $65 million in funding to theUkrainian opposition through organizations such as the NED, which funded asmany as 65 NGOs in Ukraine during the massive anti-government demonstrations in2013, and even provided significant funds to "pay" everyone whoparticipated in the protests. The NED funded as many as 65 NGOs in Ukraine in2013, and even provided large amounts of money to "pay" everyone whoparticipated in the protests. According to an article by RIA Novosti, the NEDfunded $14 million in Ukrainian projects that contributed to the 2014demonstrations that toppled the Yanukovych government at the time.
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