John Locke WAR on CITIZENS “Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence.” ~ John Locke, 2nd Treatise on Government.
Thomas Jefferson parasites "I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." Jefferson was most responsible for designing a form of government with citizens as sovereigns, the Constitution he produced, has been devoured by parasitic public official growths that will ultimately destroy its host America.
Mark W Lowry................................................................
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Republican_Institute
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Abbreviation | IRI |
---|---|
Motto | Advancing Democracy Worldwide |
Formation | 1983 |
Headquarters | Washington, DC, United States |
President | Mark Green |
Budget | $78m (2008)[1] |
Staff | 400 (2008)[1] |
Website | iri.org |
Founded in 1983, the International Republican Institute (IRI) is a United Nations-partnered organisation that conducts international political and institutional programs.[2]
Initially known as the National Republican Institute for International Affairs, the IRI's stated mission is to "expand freedom throughout the world". Its activities include teaching and assisting center-right political party and candidate development in their values, good governance practices, civil society development, civic education, women’s and youth leadership development, electoral reform and election monitoring, and political expression in closed societies. It has been chaired by Arizona Senator John McCain since January 1993.[1][3]
IRI has dramatically increased its efforts to bring institutional structure to Arab countries whose social and political fabric was frayed by the Arab Spring.[4] IRI controversially was helping organize Haitian workers and farmers in Haiti prior to the 2004 Haitian coup d'état,[5] organized conservative political parties in Poland,[6] and has been involved in organizing women in Egypt during and after the Arab Spring.[7]
The IRI is a non-partisan organization founded in 1983 after U.S. President Ronald Reagan's 1982 speech before theBritish Parliament in Westminster in which he proposed a broad objective of helping countries build the infrastructure of democracy. Quoting the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he stated: "we must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings."[8]
The Westminster speech led to the establishment of the National Endowment for Democracy by Congress in 1983. The endowment is a mechanism to channel congressional funds to the IRI and three other institutes: the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, and the Center for International Private Enterprise. These organizations provide technical assistance to political bodies worldwide.
The majority of the IRI's funding comes from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. State Department, and the National Endowment for Democracy.
At first, IRI focused on democratic institutions and processes in Latin America but has expanded its focus worldwide since the end of the Cold War. IRI has conducted programs in more than 100 countries and is currently active in 70 countries.
The IRI operates as a political organization abroad, providing training and assistance to favoured political parties. As a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, it plays no part in domestic U.S. politics. However, the majority of its board, staff and consultants are drawn from the Republican Party.[9] Its sister organization, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, draws mainly from the Democratic Party.
IRI works with the following organizations:
In Europe, IRI has established a partnership with the European People's Party (EPP).
It has pursued a nominally neutral agenda, which puts emphasis on promoting the involvement of Indigenous people in the electoral process.
The IRI is accused of training some of the leaders of the 2004 Haitian coup d'état, as well as funding Farmer's groups in the country in an opposition campaign in the months leading up the removal of Jean-Bertrand Aristide by a coalition of Canada, the US and France.
The IRI received funding for the Haiti project from USAID for two years (late 2002-2004).[10][11] IRI ended all programming in Haiti in summer 2007.[12]
The now defunct website http://www.haitigetinvolved.com/ was displaying the IRI logo together with the title "Haiti Get Involved!"[13] from about 2003 until mid-2005, and to be offering news, analysis, reports, documents and training manuals as well as information on the upcoming election and a list of political parties.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television premiered a documentary film about the IRI's role in the coup, Haiti: Democracy Undone, on 29 January 2006.[5]
Freedom of Information Act documents show that the IRI was involved in training and supporting pro-coup opposition parties[14]
IRI was accused by former US Ambassador Brian Dean Curran of undermining his efforts to hold peaceful negotiations between Aristide and his opposition after contested senatorial elections in 2000. According to Curran, Stanley Lucas, then IRI's representative in Haiti, advised opposition leaders not to compromise with Aristide, who would soon be driven from power. Curran also alleged that Lucas represented himself to the opposition as the true envoy of Washington, and his advice—which was contrary to that of the State Department—as advice from the American government.[15] IRI responded to Ambassador Curran's allegations in a letter to the New York Times, stating:
Otto Reich, who was the State Department's top official on Latin America under Colin Powell, described a change in US policy toward Haiti with the arrival of the Bush administration. According to Reich, Aristide fell somewhat out of favor with the change of US executive, though Powell continued to publicly profess U.S. support for the democratically elected leader. Curran's allegations were corroborated by Luigi R. Einaudi of the Organization of American States.[15]
The Cuban government accuses former Congressional staffer Caleb McCarry of orchestrating the 2004 Haitian coup and attempting to provoke a coup d'état in Cuba.[17] An anonymous State Department source told a Salon.com journalist that the funds McCarry allegedly used in Haiti came from the IRI.[18]
The IRI has been accused of supporting the 2009 Honduran coup d'état. The IRI refuses to term the event as such and rather euphemistically calls it a "constitutional crisis". The IRI received $550,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy in 2009 in order to "promote and enhance the participation of think tanks in Mexico and Honduras as 'pressure groups' to impel political parties to develop concrete positions on key issues", and to "support initiatives to implement political positions during the campaigns in 2009" following the coup.[19][not in citation given]
The IRI claims credit for having united and organised a diverse range of "center and center right-wing" political parties together to create the Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS), which was in government in Poland, together with its coalition partner the Freedom Union (UW) party, from 1997 to 2001.[6] It claims having provided training in political campaigning, communications training and research which helped organise and create the AWS. It also claims that once the AWS was in government, it organised an advertising campaign for the Polish government in order to stop the AWS splitting up over internal tensions:[6]
According to an April 2011 New York Times article, the IRI, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and other groups were credited for training activists in the Middle East, specifically Egypt and Tunisia, who were advocating for reform in authoritarian regimes.
A ministry of justice's report on foreign funding of NGOs in Egypt has revealed that IRI in Egypt has received funding of about 7 million dollars by USAID for the upcoming Egyptian 2011-12 elections. The military rulers who gained control of the country following the January 2011 revolution consider this foreign funding interference in internal affairs.[7]
IRI's current president, Mark Green, assumed leadership in February 2014. Its former president, Lorne Craner, assumed leadership on August 2, 2004. From 2001 to 2004, Craner served as Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor at the US State Department.
Board of Directors[21][edit]
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