WASHINGTON - About two months before Egyptian police stormed the offices of US-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 International Republican Institute, described as nonpartisan, had excluded the country’s most popular Islamist political organization from its programs and collected sensitive religious information about Egyptians when conducting polls to send to Washington.
The US group also ordered employees to erase all computer
files and turn over records for shipment months before the raids, the
Egyptian workers said.
Interviews and documents show that the workers’ protest and a broader government crackdown helped expose what US officials do not want to admit publicly: The US government spent tens of millions of dollars financing and training liberal groups in Egypt, the backbone of the Egyptian uprising.
Don't think the world doesn't know how two-faced we are.
Institute 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 US-backed democracy programs were less about helping Egyptians and more about serving US interests.
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Also see: Egypt Antagonizes AmeriKa