US decmocracy aid goes to groups working on US directed programs

US democracy aid went to favored groups in Egypt
3 June, 2012 – By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE and DESMOND BUTLER — Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Two months before Egyptian police stormed the offices of U.S.-backed democracy organizations last year, seven Egyptian employees resigned from one of the American groups to protest what they called undemocratic practices.

They complained that the U.S. group, described as nonpartisan, had excluded the country’s most popular Islamist political organization from its programs, collected sensitive religious information about Egyptians when conducting polls to send to Washington, and ordered employees to erase all computer files and turn over all records for shipment abroad months before the raids.

“Our resignation is a result of many different practices we have been witnessing that seem suspicious and unprofessional,” the Egyptian employees wrote in their Oct. 17 resignation letter.

This wasn’t the democracy that Dawlat Soulam, one of those who quit, said she had hoped to deliver to Egypt when she went to work for the International Republican Institute.

Soulam, a New York City-born Egyptian with dual citizenship, and the others said they were troubled by work being done under the programs run by Sam LaHood, the son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

“Are we doing something we want to hide from the Egyptians?” Soulam, in a telephone interview from Cairo, said she asked her bosses. “Are you playing a political agenda and you don’t want to show that you want to take sides?”

IRI officials deny doing anything improper and dismiss the former employees as disgruntled. But the workers’ small revolt, unknown to most, was significant because it reflected a growing sense in Egypt that U.S.-backed democracy programs were less about helping Egyptians and more about serving American interests.

Interviews and documents obtained by The Associated Press show that the workers’ protest and the broader government crackdown with the raids helped expose what U.S. officials do not want to admit publicly: The U.S. government spent tens of millions of dollars financing and training liberal groups in Egypt, the backbone of the Egyptian uprising. This was done to build opposition to Islamic and pro-military parties in power, all in the name of developing democracy and all while U.S. diplomats were assuring Egyptian leaders that Washington was not taking sides.
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