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Government Corruption

THE UNIPARTY UNMASKED – They Believe They Are “Democracy”

2025-02-11

[X: DataRepublican (small r)]

🧵THE UNIPARTY UNMASKED – They Believe They Are “Democracy”

The seven NGOs in the chart below, in my view, represent the Uniparty. Each of these organizations receives substantial financial support from USAID or the Department of State.

Around 2019, the phrase “democracy in… pic.twitter.com/eG3mI1lOuQ
— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) February 11, 2025

Please note that @MikeBenzCyber
is the expert on this topic—I’m just a technical person researching and learning alongside all of you.

To understand how these NGOs connect to democracy, let’s take a look at what AI says about the purpose of each one:

🟥 International Republican Institute (IRI) (EIN 521340267) – Promotes democracy by training political parties and leaders, primarily supporting U.S. foreign policy interests through a Republican-aligned lens.

🟦 National Democratic Institute (NDI) (EIN 521338892) – Advances democracy by fostering political participation and governance reforms worldwide, aligned with Democratic Party priorities.

⚖️ Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS) (EIN 521943638) – A coalition of democracy-focused NGOs (IRI, NDI, IFES) that supports electoral processes, civil society, and governance reforms globally.

🗽 National Endowment for Democracy (NED) (EIN 521344831) – Acts as the primary funding hub for democracy promotion efforts worldwide, distributing U.S. government grants to NGOs supporting political and civil society development.

🗳 International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) (EIN 521527835) – Strengthens global democracy by providing technical assistance for election security, integrity, and voter participation.

📡 Internews (EIN 943027961) – Supports independent media and press freedom worldwide, shaping democratic discourse by training journalists and combating disinformation.

💰 Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) (EIN 521398742) – Promotes democracy through free-market economic policies, advocating for business-friendly governance and anti-corruption initiatives.

⚒️ Solidarity Center (EIN 472130723) – Advances democracy by supporting independent labor movements and workers' rights, often partnering with unions to promote political engagement.

Note what they all have in common? They are all dedicated to advocating democracy.

And they have redefined "democracy" to mean themselves.

Let's dig into each one in detail

Click on this article link to see each one in detail on X

Link

Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

EU enters decisive battle over Georgia. Russia stays out

2024-12-05

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Kamran Gasanov

[REGNUM] These days, Georgia is going through one of the decisive stages in its modern history. Will the opposition return to power, will Tbilisi again become a satellite of the West and a new anti-Russian front? The answer to these questions is given not only in high offices, but also in the squares, avenues and streets of the Georgian capital. Let's look for it too.

The parliamentary elections became the reason for the destabilization. Even before they were held, the country was periodically shaken by protests against the law on foreign agents and the ban on LGBT propaganda*, but this could not change the government's course. The opposition and its Western curators have placed their bets on winning the elections to the legislative body of the parliamentary republic. Then the laws can be repealed by a simple majority of votes, because the provisions of the new acts are not enshrined in the constitution. It already contains points on orientation towards membership in the EU and NATO, which, by the way, were enshrined by the ruling party "Georgian Dream", so everything is fine with this.

But the plan failed. The Georgian Dream, founded by oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, won the elections. The leaders of the opposition, which consisted of parties united in four blocs, first demanded a recount of the votes, a repeat vote, and then the deputies from the opposition coalition For Changes refused their mandates.

The opposition once again brought people out onto the streets and once again failed. And then the President of Georgia (who is also a resident of France) Salome Zurabishvili, who unites them into a single fist, suggested taking a break. The authorities demanded that Zurabishvili herself, who does not want to give up her post, explain her unsubstantiated accusations and appear in court, but in vain.

A CONVENIENT EXCUSE FOR UNREST
While the opposition sat and thought, the answer came from an unexpected source. Its political enemies, in the person of the re-elected Prime Minister Kobakhidze, themselves gave it the most powerful tool. Angry at the European Parliament, the European Commission and the EU ambassador for constant criticism, the head of the Georgian Cabinet said what is a "red line" in a Westernized country: Georgia refuses to aspire to the European Union until 2028, until Europeans begin to treat official Tbilisi with respect.

At that moment, on November 28, the demonstrators, who were obviously tired of senseless protests and seemed to have resigned themselves to their defeat, got a second wind. Fuel was added to the fire by the statement of the speaker of parliament Shalva Papuashvili that joining the EU would destroy the national economy.

The topic of European integration is a real taboo.

Even despite the increasing spats between the Dream government and the EU in the last year, Brussels’ threats not to grant candidate status, not to start membership talks, or to impose sanctions, Kobakhidze and his predecessor in office, Irakli Garibashvili, repeated the mantra that Georgia is still moving towards the EU, wants to “fix” relations with it, and that Brussels just needs to better study the law on foreign agents and try to understand the logic of the Georgian authorities.

In a word, Tbilisi took the position of eternally justifying itself.

And here Kobakhidze, although he did not renounce the path to the EU, said that such European integration is not needed until his party and government are treated as a government, not a colony. The Prime Minister explained his decision by blackmail from the EU through accession negotiations, demands to cancel a number of laws and Brussels' intention to impose sanctions against the Georgian authorities.

The opposition interpreted the statement in the way it needed, turned everything inside out and mobilized even more people for new mass protests. Moreover, unlike the protests immediately after the elections, the new ones have become anything but peaceful. Protesters throw stones at police officers, shoot fireworks, set fire to the parliament, damage infrastructure, and attack law enforcement officers. More than a hundred police officers were injured and suffered injuries of varying severity.

These are no longer just protests, or even a peaceful revolution, but a full-blown attempt at a coup d'état - as the State Security Service of Georgia has already dubbed them.

A DECISIVE PRIME MINISTER
Despite the terrifying footage of protests in Tbilisi, Batumi and Kutaisi (according to various estimates, up to 200,000 people came out), the "Dream" remains cool, determined and confident. The "dreamers" are not making any concessions, except for the routine statement that Georgia has not abandoned the EU and will continue the process of joining in the future.

Kobakhidze says that by 2028 Georgia will have fulfilled 90% of its obligations under the EU Association Agreement and Free Trade Agreement, and by 2030 it will be ready to join. Comparing the events with the Ukrainian scenario, he recalled that the country has already experienced three attempts at a "Maidan" in four years, and will not allow a fourth either.

The prime minister is partly right.

After all, every protest, every attempt at revolution and every act of sabotage (in the summer, the SGB uncovered an attempt to assassinate Ivanishvili) is an experience. The authorities have trained themselves on previous mass protests.

The current head of the cabinet is showing determination, and the authorities will not make any concessions. There will be no dialogue with the opposition, they will not be allowed on TV channels, and there will be no repeat elections, he said. Kobakhidze also made it clear that he will not allow Zurabishvili to pardon former President Mikheil Saakashvili. Moreover, she will have to leave her residence on December 29, the day of the new president's inauguration, whether she wants it or not.

And on December 2, the police arrested one of the leaders of the "Maidan", Zurab Japaridze. And by releasing him later, the authorities in fact showed flexibility rather than weakness, while simultaneously showing that in the event of provocations, those who call for any kind of unrest will not be exempted from arrest. On December 4, a series of searches and arrests of the leaders and instigators of the unrest also took place.

Along with this, the Dream wants to outlaw the opposition.

Plans have been announced to ban Saakashvili's United National Movement (UNM) party, the For Change and Strong Georgia coalitions, and former Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia's party Gakharia for Georgia. These parties have overcome the five percent barrier and, together with Zurabishvili, are the driving force behind the Georgian "Maidan".

The authorities have not revealed any secrets about the UNM: its liquidation was one of the points of the Dream program for the November elections. Kobakhidze said in August that he would do this after receiving a constitutional majority. Now the Dream does not have enough votes for such a decision, but the attempted coup provides additional grounds to ban not only the UNM, but also three other political forces.

FACES OF THE "MAIDAN"
"For Change" is the same UNM, only in profile. The link between the two parties is Nikanor Melia, a native of Saakashvili's party and at one time its leader. In 2019, during the visit of the Russian delegation led by MP Sergei Gavrilov, Melia led rallies against the government and was accused of storming the parliament. For this act, he was stripped of his parliamentary mandate two years later and sent to prison. But the "beacon of democracy" came to the rescue - the European Union posted bail for Melia and he was released after more than two months.

The leaders of Strong Georgia are businessmen Mamuka Khazaradze, head of the largest bank TBC Bank, and his business partner Badri Japaridze, who once built the deep-water port of Anaklia. Even without their participation in the attempted coup, there are enough articles against them: since 2022, they have been accused of fraud. Like Saakashvili, they built their election campaign on anti-Russian slogans, for example, they proposed banning the sale of land to Russian citizens, the entry of cars with Russian license plates, and opposed the restoration of air traffic between the countries.

Another leader of Strong Georgia, the head of the NGO Center for Multiparty Democracy, proposed at the end of November to create an “alternative parliament,” essentially a parallel government. Something similar could be seen in Venezuela in 2019, where Juan Guaido proclaimed himself president of the country. Zurabishvili, who refuses to resign, is already a parallel government.

The alliance of former Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia looked slightly more harmless against the background of the three aforementioned blocs. The party "Gakharia - for Georgia" positioned itself as an independent force and even after the elections was in no hurry to participate in the "Maidan". But in its ideology, it was not far from the Russophobic parties: Gakharia also promised to fight the "Russian occupation".

The former prime minister is another hero of the 2019 anti-government rallies sparked by the visit of the Russian delegation, although he was then engaged in dispersing the protesters as the head of the Interior Ministry. For two years after that, he acted as a crisis manager as prime minister, but at some point he resigned, and for the Georgian Dream he is a traitor, so there are even more incentives to ban his party than for others.

DANGEROUS "SOCIAL ACTIVISTS"
Foreign NGOs are participating in the escalation of the revolutionary scenario in conjunction with the opposition – the very same foreign agents against whom the law adopted by the “Dream” is aimed. MP Irakli Kadagishvili pointed out one of the main offices at the summer rallies against this law – the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), linked to the American Democratic Party and founded by the “National Endowment for Democracy” (NED, financed by Congress and aimed at “promoting democracy in developing countries”).

NDI, according to Kadagishvili, advised the opposition on how to conduct an election campaign and allocated money to inform citizens through opposition politicians about the harm of the law on foreign agents.

Other American organizations, such as the McCain Institute and the Marshall Fund, churned out negative reports on the election, positing that the Dream's victory was direct evidence of voter fraud. The reports were signed by former NDI Georgia office chair Laura Thornton.

The fact that 30% of those detained on the streets of Tbilisi are citizens of other countries also indicates active interference from abroad.

Kobakhidze said that it was NGOs that were supplying demonstrators with pyrotechnics and thus provoking violence. NGO leaders “hiding in their offices” would not escape punishment, he threatened.

The protesters' methods are the same as in 2013-2014 in Ukraine. Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze, speaking about "Ukrainization", drew attention to the "trained groups" that attacked the police.

KAYA WAGS HER FINGER
The West, as before, is driving a tailwind into the opposition's sails. The EU understands that it is the topic of relations with it that is fueling discontent, and it feels its strength. Two days after the Georgian presidential elections, the foreign ministers of 27 countries will discuss their intervention in the events.

Politico writes that the EU may impose sanctions against the top of the Georgian Dream. EU Ambassador Pavel Gerchinsky is rocking the Maidan from within: before the elections, he called on Georgians to vote for the opposition, and then supported the rallies.

The new head of European diplomacy and Russophobe Kaja Kallas went to Kiev on her first day on the job, supported the rallies in Georgia, calling them "the aspirations of the Georgian people to the EU", and threatened "consequences" for Tbilisi's decision to suspend European integration, although it had previously been frozen by Brussels itself. Kallas is behaving much more brazenly and clumsily than her predecessor Josep Borrell. While the former Estonian prime minister was wagging her finger at the "Dream", the first punitive measures followed from her homeland. Estonia, along with Lithuania and Latvia, banned entry to 13 Georgian officials.

Zurabishvili’s homeland did not disappoint either: the French Foreign Ministry warned against betraying Georgia’s “European aspirations” and demanded respect for “peaceful demonstrations.”

Zurabishvili herself is literally on a direct telephone line with the EU. She recently discussed the situation in the country with Callas, the new head of the European Council Antonio Costa, and the presidents of Poland and Estonia. Zurabishvili is the "Maidan's" channel of communication with the West. Before negotiations with EU leaders, she consulted with opposition parties.

The still-functioning Biden administration is also not shy about interfering in events - the US has stopped its strategic partnership with Georgia.

THE RESOURCES HAVE BEEN EXHAUSTED
For now, the authorities and security forces are dealing with the unrest.

The special forces managed to clear the square in front of the parliament, prevent the seizure of state institutions and the blocking of communication lines. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the "revolutionaries" aimed at blocking strategic facilities, train stations and central highways.

The monolithic nature of power also remains.

The Georgian Orthodox Church, which enjoys more popularity in the country than any politician, is on the side of the authorities. The Patriarchate condemned Zurabishvili's call for schoolchildren to take part in rallies.

The Constitutional Court is also not giving in to pressure. Despite Zurabishvili's call to attack the Constitutional Court building in Batumi, her lawsuit demanding that the elections be declared unconstitutional is rejected.

The Prime Minister believes that compared to the three previous attempts at revolution (summer 2022, spring 2023, spring 2024), the current one is already weaker. "It is now clear that many resources have been exhausted over these four years. Accordingly, the fourth wave of the revolution was much weaker than it could have been," Kobakhidze noted.

The security forces, special services and the army, which, thank God, has not yet been involved, remain loyal to the authorities. True, ambassadors and diplomats in the USA, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Georgia, Italy and the Czech Republic have resigned, but this happened under pressure from the "host" countries, and little depends on them.

The biggest threat now is not the mass protests, which have already shown their limits, but escalation.

Back in the summer, the Georgian State Security Service was catching militants from the Georgian Legion (a terrorist organization banned in Russia) who were fighting in Ukraine and preparing an assassination attempt on Ivanishvili. Some of them have already recorded a video threatening to come to the aid of the opposition. If fireworks and stones are replaced with bullets and grenades, and instead of the wounded, they start counting the dead, Georgia may repeat the fate of Ukraine.

RUSSIA BELIEVES IN THE "DREAM"
Russia is closely monitoring the situation and, according to the head of the SVR, Sergei Naryshkin, hopes that a new "color revolution" will fail. The country's president, Vladimir Putin, is surprised by the courage of the "Georgian Dream", but makes it clear that Russia does not interfere in the country's internal affairs.

If for Georgia the current events are a decisive battle for sovereignty, then for Russia they are just another stage in a series of attempts at velvet revolutions along the border perimeter.

Despite the enormous pressure from inside and outside, Kobakhidze is not shy about saying that he is going to maintain pragmatic relations with Russia and restore the country's integrity peacefully, engaging in dialogue with the Abkhazians and Ossetians. If the Georgian Dream survives, one could say that the backbone of the Maidan, at least in Georgia, will be finally broken. And in the post-Soviet space, its impulses will be reduced to a minimum.

Time is now on the side of the current authorities. The less successful the protests are, the more disillusioned the protesters become. The next reasons for a surge in activity will be December 14 and 29 — the dates of the presidential elections and inauguration.

For this position, "Dream" nominated former football player Mikhail Kavelashvili. Zurabishvili and the opposition can easily create a scandal, forcing the police to remove her from her residence by force. If these stages are passed, the "Maidan" will die out.

Donald Trump may also help Georgian Dream. Kobakhidze hopes that relations with the EU, which are directly linked to relations with the United States, will “change significantly” after the inauguration of the new US president.

Link

Government Corruption

A Global Censorship Prison Built by the Women of the CIA

2024-05-20

[Absurdistan] The polite world was fascinated last month when long-time NPR editor Uri Berliner confessed to the Stalinist suicide pact the public broadcaster, like all public broadcasters, seems to be on. Formerly it was a place of differing views, he claimed, but now it has sold as truth some genuine falsehoods like, for instance, the Russia hoax, after which it covered up the Hunter Biden laptop. And let’s not forget our censor-like behaviour regarding Covid and the vaccine. NPR bleated that they were still diverse in political opinion, but researchers found that all 87 reporters at NPR were Democrats. Berliner was immediately put on leave and a few days later resigned, no doubt under pressure.

Even more interesting was the reveal of the genesis of NPR’s new CEO, Katherine Maher, a 41-year-old with a distinctly odd CV. Maher had put in stints at a CIA cutout, the National Democratic Institute, and trotted onto the World Bank, UNICEF, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Center for Technology and Democracy, the Digital Public Library of America, and finally the famous disinfo site Wikipedia. That same week, Tunisia accused her of working for the CIA during the so-called Arab Spring. And, of course, she is a WEF young global leader.

She was marched out for a talk at the Carnegie Endowment where she was prayerfully interviewed and spouted mediatized language so anodyne, so meaningless, yet so filled with nods to her base the AWFULS (affluent white female urban liberals) one was amazed that she was able to get away with it. There was no acknowledgement that the criticism by this award-winning reporter/editor/producer, who had spent his life at NPR had any merit whatsoever, and in fact that he was wrong on every count. That this was a flagrant lie didn’t even ruffle her artfully disarranged short blonde hair.

Christopher Rufo did an intensive investigation of her career in City Journal. It is an instructive read and illustrative of a lot of peculiar yet stellar careers of American women. Working for Big Daddy is apparently something these ghastly creatures value. I strongly suggest reading Rufo’s piece linked here. It’s a riot of spooky confluences.

Link

Africa North

Cairo appeal court drops charges against 20 NGOs in 2011 'foreign funding case'

2021-03-31

[AlAhram] Today’s ruling consequently lifts asset freezes and travel bans on 20 NGOs, which are included in case No.173

The Cairo Appeal Court issued a ruling on Tuesday, dropping charges against 20 NGOs in the 2011 foreign funding case, a judicial statement read, a few months after 20 others were also acquitted of charges.

The new ruling consequently lifts asset freezes and travel bans on the new 20 NGOs, which are included in case No.173.

The NGOs in the case, which dates back to the January Revolution in 2011 that toppled late President Hosni Mubarak
...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011...
, faced allegations of receiving foreign funds.

Defendants in the case faced prison sentences in 2013 that ranged between one to five years but were acquitted in 2018.

Today’s ruling denies any motion to move forward with a criminal case against five of these NGOs due to the absence of any crime and the acquittal of the remaining 15 NGOs due to insufficient evidence.

The first five NGOs are the Association for the Advancement of Education, Catholic Relief Services Egypt, Ansar al-Sunnah al-Mohamadeya,

... Supporters of the Tradition — queerly enough, there are jihadi groups called Ansar al Sunnah scattered all over the world...

Transparency International, and Caritas Egypt.

The remaining 15 NGOs include the Salam Institute for Peace and Justice; Ro’yah for Social Studies; Bokra for Media Productions, Media Studies and Human Rights; and the Right to Democracy and Human Rights Centre.

They also include the Human Development Association; the New Future Family Centre for Legal Studies and Human Rights; the Foundation of Full Promotion of Women and Development; New Perspectives for Social Development; the Female Lawyers Union; the People’s Rights Centre; the Transparency Centre for Development Training and Studies; the Association for the Development of Society, Women, Children, and the Environment; the Politics Association for an Open Society, the Technology Centre for Human Rights; and the Union of Rural Development.

The names of these groups were literally translated from Arabic as their exact names in English could not be verified.

"Civil society performs a pivotal role in sustainable development. This is its role that we believe in and in its importance and that all state institutions believe in," a judicial statement read.

The statement urged all Egyptian and foreign organizations, associations, institutions, unions, and entities in Egypt to settle their legal situation with the authorities in accordance with the law.

In December last year, the court issued a ruling lifting asset freezes and travel bans on 20 other NGOs in the case. Charges were also dropped against 14 organizations for insufficient evidence and six for absence of crime.

The six NGOs included the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES); Yalla Nesharek for Social Development; Internews Network; the Naqib Corporation for Training and Democracy Support (NCTDS); the al-Amal Charitable Society in Minya; and the Moslem Family Association in Damanhour.

The other 14 included the National Center for Human Rights; Sahm al-Theqa Association; Hand in Hand for Egypt Association; the Middle East for Development and Human Rights Foundation; Development Resources Center; the Human Rights Centre for the Assistance of Prisoners (HRCAP); and the Egyptian Centre for Development and Democratic Studies.

The list also includes the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs; Coptic Orphans Organisation; El-Sadat Association for Social Development and Welfare; the Egyptian Democratic Institute; the Egyptian Centre for Human Rights; the Maet Center for Constitutional and Legal Studies; and the Future Generation Association.

Some of the exact names of these NGOs could not be verified.

Egypt last year ratified the bylaws of a new NGO law to regulate the work of tens of thousands of NGOs in Egypt.

This comes after an existing version of the law was criticized for imposing steep restrictions on the work of these organizations in the country.

Link

Africa North

Egypt court acquits 40 NGO workers after retrial

2018-12-21

[Al Jazeera] An Egyptian court has acquitted 40 pro-democracy NGO workers, in a retrial of a long-running case that has strained the country's relations with the United States.

In 2013, 43 Americans, Europeans, Egyptians and other Arabs were sentenced to jail terms ranging from one to five years on various charges, including operating non-governmental organizations (NGOs) without necessary approval. Their offices were ordered to close.

In April, Egypt's top appeal court overturned the jail sentences of 16 of the workers and ordered their retrial.

Many of the defendants, including at least 15 Americans, left Egypt at the time and received five-year sentences in absentia.

The remaining three defendants who were not acquitted on Thursday are among those who were sentenced in absentia, but did not apply for a retrial, a judicial source said.

Beginning in late 2011, Egypt's crackdown on organizations, including US-based groups linked to its two main political parties, caused outrage in Washington, which supplies Cairo with $1.3bn in military aid each year.

The court at the time ordered the closure of the NGOs involved in the case, including the US-based International Republican Institute (IRI), National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Freedom House.

The Americans sentenced in absentia include the son of then-US transportation secretary Ray LaHood.

Link

Africa Subsaharan

Boko Haram child captives 'forgot names'

2015-03-11

[BBC] About 80 children rescued from a Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
camp in Cameroon
...a long, narrow country that fills the space between Nigeria and Chad on the northeast, CAR to the southeast. Prior to incursions by Boko Haram nothing ever happened there...
cannot remember their own names or origins, according to an aid official who visited them.

The children - aged between 5 and 18 - did not speak English, French or any local languages, says Christopher Fomunyoh, a director for the US-based National Democratic Institute (NDI).

The children were found at a camp in northern Cameroon in November.

Nigeria-based Boko Haram gunnies have extended their campaign into Cameroon.

The gunnies are fighting to establish an Islamic caliphate in north-eastern Nigeria.

They control several towns and villages in the region and recently pledged allegiance to Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
(IS) bully boys, who have seized large areas of Syria and Iraq.

'Lost touch'
The children were rescued in Cameroon after security forces - acting on a tip-off - raided what was thought to have been a Koranic school.

Mr Fomunyoh told the BBC's Randy Joe Sa'ah in Yaounde that he had visited an orphanage that was helping rehabilitate the children.

He said the children had spent so long with their captors, being indoctrinated in jihadist ideology, that they had lost track of who they were.

"They've lost touch with their parents," he said. "They've lost touch with people in their villages, they're not able to articulate, to help trace their relationships, they can't even tell you what their names are."

Meanwhile,
...back at the cheese factory, all the pieces finally fell together in Fluffy's mind...
a suspected Boko Haram attack on Tuesday killed at least six people at a marketplace in the northern Nigerian town of Maiduguri.

The suicide kaboom was reportedly carried out by a middle-aged woman.

Link

Afghanistan

A Taliban Massacre Jolts Heart Of Kabul

2014-03-22

[STREAM.WSJ] The four men sat down for dinner, ordered juice and then excused themselves to the bathroom. There, they extracted tiny pistols from the soles of their shoes, and, after returning to the restaurant of Kabul's most luxurious hotel, started shooting patrons point-blank.

The first target was the Afghan family of Sardar Ahmad, a 40-year-old Afghan journalist with Agence La Belle France-Presse, the government said. The gunnies rubbed out Mr. Ahmad, his wife, his 5-year-old daughter Nilofar and 3-year-old son Omar. His youngest son Abuzar, not even two, is in coma with bullets in his head.

Then, the gunnies shot other prominent Afghans and foreign officials who had gathered on Thursday night for a festive dinner at the Serena Hotel here. Soon after, at least nine guests--including a U.S. citizen, two Canadians and a Paraguayan election observer--and the four attackers were dead and several injured. Even by the grim standards of the Afghan war, the Serena bloodbath was shocking.

President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
condemned the killings, saying that such attacks "are carried out for the purposes of the outsiders and unfortunately, the victims are innocent civilians, children and women."

The Taliban, which grabbed credit for Thursday's attack, has carried out a series of assaults in recent days aimed at disrupting the presidential elections on April 5 to pick a successor to Mr. Karzai.

A successful election--combined with the planned departure of foreign forces--would mark the first democratic transfer of power in Afghanistan's history.

That would undercut the Taliban's appeal, rooted in resentment against foreign presence and the widespread corruption of Mr. Karzai's administration. This explains the Taliban's attempts to derail the vote and undermine its legitimacy.

The Taliban's tactic is certain to reduce the international role in vote monitoring. The National Democratic Institute, a Washington nonprofit that planned to observe the vote, ordered its personnel out of the country Friday after one of its members was killed in the Thursday attack.

As some of the leading candidates voice fears that Mr. Karzai's favorite will win the presidency by fraud, the presence of foreign election observers is vital to legitimize any result. In contrast, their departure as a result of the Serena attack could spark a dispute over the outcome, fracturing the country's political and military establishment to benefit of the Taliban, which hope to retake political power.

Mr. Karzai isn't allowed to run for president again under the Afghan constitution. The leading candidates in the race--former Foreign Ministers Abdullah Abdullah
... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun...
and Zalmai Rassoul
... former foreign minister and a very close confidant of Hamid Karzai. Before serving as foreign minister Rassoul also spent seven years laboring as a national security adviser to the president. An ethnic Pashtun born in Kabul, Rassoul was the valedictorian of his class at the illustrious Franco-American school in Kabul, Lycee Istiqal. He has an MD from the Paris Medical School in France.....
, and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani--have been crisscrossing the country this week, holding campaign rallies despite Taliban threats.

Link

Africa North

Egypt court sentences 43 nonprofit workers, including 16 Americans, to up to 5 years in jail

2013-06-05

[Washington Post] An Egyptian court on Tuesday convicted 43 nonprofit workers, including at least 16 Americans, of illegally using foreign funds to foment unrest in the country and sentenced them to up to five years in prison.

Most of the Americans were sentenced in absentia because they had long left the country, including Sam LaHood, son of the U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. He received a five-year jail term.

The only American defendant still in Egypt was Robert Becker, who was sentenced to two years. Becker has maintained that his refusal to flee Egypt with fellow Americans who were in the country at the time of the crackdown on nonprofit groups was to show solidarity with his Egyptian colleagues.

Now he can show solidarity in jug...

After his verdict, Becker, who was not in the courtroom for the verdict, wrote on his Twitter account that he was reviewing his "legal/appeals options" with his lawyers.

I think Mr. Becker is about to realize that he is in a country ruled by the not-sane, and that unlike in the movies, this is not amusing for all involved.

The verdict, read out by judge Makram Awad, also ordered the closure of the offices and seizure of the assets in Egypt belonging to the U.S. nonprofit groups as well as one German organization for which the defendants worked. These are the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, Freedom House, a center for training journalists, and Germany's Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

Of the 43 defendants, 27 received five-year jail terms. Another five received two years while 11, all of them Egyptians, got suspended one-year sentences.

Link

Africa North

Islamists, Liberals Sure of Victory in Libya Vote

2012-07-07

[An Nahar] Libya's election on Saturday could well bring Islamists to power, but liberals under the leadership of the architects of the revolt that ousted Muammar Qadaffy
...a reminder that a single man with an idea can change an entire nation, usually for the worse...
say they too are confident of a win.

With more than 100 parties running in the upcoming polls of Libya, a nation with no recent history of democracy and no polling technology, it is impossible to predict the make-up of the General National Congress.

But three parties are seen as key contenders, including the liberal Alliance of National Forces, led by war-time prime minister Mahmoud Jibril, which faces stiff competition from Islamist parties Justice and Construction and Al-Wattan.

"We don't have surveys, so really we have no idea how powerful or how weak we are," said Ali Tarhuni, leader of a centrist party within the coalition, who served as the rebels' oil and finance minister during the 2011 conflict.

The winds of the Arab Spring that ushered Islamists into power in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt may well bring the same result on Saturday in the first national election since Qadaffy was toppled.

Mohammed Sawan, head of the Justice and Construction which was launched by Libya's Moslem Brüderbund, said his party enjoys a broad base of support in the conservative country unlike liberal "technocrats."

"We believe that the National Congress should have a solid bloc that has popular backing across the country," he said.

Sawan added that his party aims to dominate the incoming congress by linking up with similar parties, such as Al-Wattan, which draws on the popularity of members such as former jihadist Abdelhakim Belhaj, and the National Front.

Eighty out of 200 seats in the assembly have been allocated to party representatives. The party with the top votes will de facto need to reach out to 120 independents and smaller parties to dominate the legislature.

Proponents of political Islam believe that by banding together they can dominate the legislature, which was abruptly stripped of its constitution-making powers on Thursday.

But the Alliance of National Forces, which includes personalities such as Jibril and Tarhuni who proved themselves during the "crisis-period," or the early stages of last year's war against Qadaffy, also stand a good chance.

"Our goal is to get the majority, we will see later whether we need alliances or not," said its secretary general Faisal al-Krekshi

He rejects the "naive" notion that Libya's political scene is split between moderates and Islamists noting that "all Libyans are Moslem and all parties recognize Islam as the main source of legislation."

The dichotomy he prefers to draw is that of experience and inexperience.

"For the reconstruction of Libya, we need technocrats with experience, not newcomers testing the waters," he said, pointing out the weak grip on security of the ruling National Transitional Council now dominated by Islamists.

"The current authorities have clearly failed to manage the crisis."

"This is no time for ideologies, we need to foster unity," he stressed.

There are no major policy difference between the nascent parties, with all of them advertising themselves as nationalists, democrats, and Islamists in the same breath, while promising to tackle security, health and the economy.

All the parties agree that Islamic law, or sharia, should be a reference of legislation in the Moslem nation. Differences tend to center on what system of governance Libya should have -- presidential, parliamentary or a mix.

That is now a decision to be made by a constituent authority of 60 experts which is to be elected by the people rather than appointed by the incoming General National Congress.

The fate of Libya's parties rides on the tribal and personal networks they can tap into in the run-up to the elections, what alliances are likely to be developed in the congress, and the impact of their advertising.

"They're all in a position to do well," said Carlo Binda, director of the National Democratic Institute's branch in Libya, noting none have run in elections before.

Parties were banned as an act of treason during the 42 years of Qadaffy's iron-grip on power. There are 142 parties fielding 1,206 candidates in the election.

The result is a lot of white noise.

"A lot of people haven't been able to really grasp how party (or independent) candidates differ from one another but they are willing to go out to vote and it will be very interesting to see what the result is," Binda said.

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Arabia

US pro-democracy group staffer under probe in UAE

2012-04-07

DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates authorities said yesterday they were investigating an employee of a US pro-democracy group after briefly detaining him as he tried to leave the Gulf state.

Time to fold up the quangos and bring them home...

Slobodan Milic works for the National Democratic Institute which was last week ordered to close its UAE offices. The Serb was detained at Dubai airport on Thursday evening, questioned and then allowed to return to his apartment in Dubai, NDI said. A UAE official said Milic had been questioned about NDIs activities and the investigation was continuing.

We are waiting for the results of the investigation, the official said, when asked if Milic could leave the UAE. He did not elaborate about the nature of the probe.

The UAE said on Thursday licensing irregularities were behind the closure of some foreign institutions in the Gulf state, a week after NDI and German democracy group Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) were told to shut their offices there.

Western-allied UAE allows no political parties and keeps a wary eye on signs of political dissent.

In Egypt, NDI was one of a number of civil society groups raided by police last year. Washington hinted at the time it could review its $1.3 billion in annual military aid to Cairo. That row was defused when Egypt lifted a travel ban it had placed on the groups American staff, whom it accused of carrying out political activities unrelated to their work, failing to obtain proper licenses and receiving foreign funds without Cairos approval.

NDI is loosely affiliated with the US Democratic party, while KAS has links with Chancellor Angela Merkels Christian Democratic Union of Germany.

Another NDI employee, Pat Davis, an American, flew out of the UAE on Thursday, said NDI regional director Les Campbell.

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Arabia

Quangos shut down in UAE

2012-04-06

ABU DHABI: The Foreign Ministry of the UAE has shut down offices of some foreign organizations because they have violated the countrys rules.

Either countries are playing follow the leader or the various governments out there are really steamed about the Quangos, and have decided not to put up with them any more.

In a statement, Dr. Abdul Rahim Al Awadhi, assistant UAE foreign minister for legal affairs, said these institutions violated the terms of their licenses.

Some foreign institutions were operating without licenses. This obliged the legal authorities to issue instructions that they should cease their work in the UAE, WAM quoted Al-Awadhi as saying. He did not name the affected institutions.

There were media reports that the Dubai office of the US-based National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Abu Dhabi office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, an organization based in Germany, were shut down last week.

The NDI is a US-funded pro-democracy group and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation has close ties with German Chancellor Angela Merkels party, Union of Christian Democrats.

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Africa North

U.S. Pressing Interpol to Deny Egypt's Request to Arrest Quangos

2012-04-05

The Obama administration is petitioning Interpol to deny Egypts request for the arrest of American and other nongovernmental workers accused of illegally operating democracy programs and stirring unrest, in a push to prevent further escalation of the planned prosecution that sparked the worst crisis in U.S.-Egypt relations in three decades.

More smart diplomacy from Champ. We should have gotten these people out of Egypt just as soon as it became evident that there was trouble with the military government. Think the Muslim Brotherhood is going to treat our people any better?

According to people familiar with the case, State Department counsel Harold Koh and Justice Department Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Swartz are trying to convince Interpol to dismiss as politically motivated Egypts request for worldwide notices seeking the arrest of some personnel from several nongovernmental organizations that receive U.S. funding.

Cairos continued plans to prosecute the NGO workers is a sharp rebuke to the U.S., which has been pressing Egypt to drop the criminal charges against 43 nongovernmental workers17 of them Americansfrom the Washington-based National Democratic Institute, International Republican Institute, Freedom House, and International Center for Journalists.

They may all be legitimate as far as we're concerned, but it's becoming clear that a fair bit of the rest of the world doesn't like -- or is learning not to like -- our quangos. This is why we should have had them registered as diplomats, and had them abide by diplomatic rules of engagement and procedure.

Tensions between Washington and Cairo eased on March 1 when seven American democracy workers were allowed to leave Egypt after their institutions paid some $5 million in bail to lift the travel ban against them. These Americansincluding IRIs Sam LaHood, son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHoodstill face charges in a trial slated to resume on Tuesday, but are not currently wanted for arrest in Egypt.

Shortly after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton signed off on military aid to Cairo, Egypt asked Interpol to issue so-called red notices for other nongovernmental workers who were not in Egypt at the time, or in some cases, who never worked there at all.

So they cashed our check and then went after our people. Nice. They don't stay bought...

As many as 10 of them are Americans. Among them are prominent figures in Washington, like Freedom Houses Charles Dunne, a former U.S. diplomat who also served on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush.

If convicted, they could face a hefty financial penalty and up to five years in an Egyptian prison.

The State and Justice departments, as well as Interpol headquarters in France and its bureau in Washington, all declined to comment on Egypts request for the red notices, which are usually viewed as precursors to filing extradition papers. The United States is making known in every relevant forum, and before every relevant agency, its objection to these politically motivated trials in Egypt, State Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez told National Journal.

Successfully convincing Interpol that Egypts prosecution is politically motivated would prevent the organization from issuing the red notices, because its constitution mandates neutrality and strictly forbids it to undertake any intervention in matters of political, military, religious or racial character.

The United States, unlike many of the 190 countries participating in the international police organization, is not obligated to arrest anyone on its soil subject to a red notice because it does not view this as probable cause for an arrest warrant, according to Douglas McNabb, a Washington-based international criminal lawyer.

Individuals wanted under red notices can appeal Interpols decision in a process that can take months or even years, said McNabb, who specializes in Interpol notice removal and international extradition.

Its serious when someone files a red notice, McNabb told NJ. Its used to try and locate an individual with a view of later having them put in extradition proceedings.

Those who are listed under Interpols red notices are effectively landlocked, McNabb said, because they are likely to be arrested if they travel to other countries.

There may be even bigger legal battles ahead for the U.S. government if Egypt chooses to follow up with extradition requests. In that case, the U.S. would have to abide by its extradition treaty with Cairo and arrest the suspects, McNabb said. A U.S. judge would then decide whether the individual is extraditable or not. However, the U.S. government would be forced into the uncomfortable position of having to represent Egypt in court-- against the American defendants it considers to be wrongly accused of violating Egypt's highly restrictive laws on civil society.

At what point would we abrogate the extradition treaty -- about the moment Ray LaHood's boy is arrested?

The Egyptians acceleration in its planned prosecution of the pro-democracy workers is sure to anger U.S. lawmakers and activists who were concerned Cairo might be emboldened by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clintons recent decision to waive new congressional conditions on the package of $1.3 billion in military aid.

It certainly makes clear that someone in Egypt is delighting in twisting the screw on us and making us look stupid and weak.

My worry is the [Egyptians] are going to feel they now have a green light to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law, Dunne told National Journal, referring to Clintons decision to waive restrictions that would have required her to certify Cairo was respecting the transition to democracy, and implementing policies to protect due process of law and freedom of expression, association, and religion.

So we hold all further financial transfers, remove all American military and diplomatic personnel, list Egypt as 'unsafe' for Americans to travel thus killing the tourist trade, decline to sell them wheat and corn, and flip 'on' the kill switches on the military equipment we've sold them.

Fayza Abul Naga, the Egyptian minister who coordinates foreign aid, has for years tried to clamp down on these NGOs and spearheaded the recent investigation of what she called their illegal activities. Naga, in a March 9 op-ed in the Washington Post, blasted Washingtons decision to redirect some funds to programs run by local and American civil society groups to aid the democratic transition in Egypt after Hosni Mubaraks ouster.

IRIs Egypt country director Sam LaHood, has dismissed as malarkey the claims by Naga, who is a holdover from Mubaraks government.

Shes alleged that the U.S. government is actively trying to sow unrest, trying to divide Egypt, and undermine the revolution, LaHood told National Journal upon returning to Washington last month. For a minister of another country to allege those things in a court of law and in public seems outrageous, and she points to our organizations as tools that are doing that.

That's how you see it. She's an Egyptian and sees it differently. Isn't it rather imperialist of you, Sam, to tell her how she ought to feel?

Despite the politicized pall over the case, the NGO workers face technical charges of managing an unregistered international organization. They sound like the things you might get a $20 ticket for-- but are being prosecuted as criminal charges, Dunne said. The Egyptian government had for years left pending the applications of some groups Washington considers most critical to democracy programs in the country-- like those of IRI and NDI-- even as it tacitly allowed them to operate.

Dunne, who has no plans to return to Egypt, said his lawyers plan to argue Freedom House did nothing wrong in court next week. The group had submitted its registration papers just before the late December raid in which the Egyptian authorities seized all their equipment and paperwork and sealed the offices. IRI and NDI had been granted permission to monitor the parliamentary elections just before Egyptian prosecutors raided their bureaus, backed by police and military forces carrying machine guns.

Freedom Houses Sherif Mansour, an Egyptian who just received American citizenship days ago, has not been in Egypt since July and was surprised to find out about the charges against him through a news conference in February. They one-sidedly declared me a fugitive, said Mansour, who like Dunne still hasnt seen any official documents proving he is actually being charged with crimes in Egypt.

That shows how political this case is, Mansour said. It is basically meant to indict people in front of the media and publish their image from the start."

Yup, and it's working on the streets of Cairo.

Meanwhile, the prosecution has effectively sidelined some U.S.-funded democracy programs in the Egypt. Our ability to operate as a fully functioning operation is nonexistent at the moment, Dunne said. With Egypt investigating as many as 400 organizations in the country, Dunne said, theres a terrible concern about the chilling effect on Egyptian civil society.

In turn we should sideline Egypt's ability to grab and spend our money, and use the military equipment we've sold them.

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