[R-G] A Hidden Agenda: John McCain and the IRI

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.coha.org/2008/06/a-hidden-agenda-john-mccain-and-the-iri/

  A Hidden Agenda: John McCain and the IRI

Presidential hopeful John McCain is hiding a skeleton in his closet.  
Not your typical political scandal, Senator McCain’s dirty little  
secret is his longtime involvement with the International Republican  
Institute (IRI), an organization that operates in 60 countries and is  
budgeted by millions of US taxpayer dollars each year. The IRI is  
“officially” a politically independent entity, though in reality it is  
aligned in most respects with the Republican Party and its ideals.  
Senator McCain has been chairman of the IRI since 1993 and Lorne  
Craner, president of the organization, is one of the presumptive  
Republican candidate’s informal foreign policy advisors. If McCain’s  
involvement with the IRI does not worry Latin America yet, it  
certainly will if the policies that have had such a destructive  
influence in the past are backed by the power of the presidency. His  
connection to the IRI could endanger already stressed US-Latin  
American relations in the event of a McCain victory.

The IRI: A History
In 1982, Ronald Reagan delivered a spirited speech that would lead to  
the founding of the controversial “research group.” In that speech,  
Reagan said, “Let us now begin a major effort to secure the best — a  
crusade for freedom that will engage the faith and fortitude of the  
next generation. For the sake of peace and justice, let us move toward  
a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own  
destiny.” The IRI nostalgically identifies Reagan’s words as the  
“historic speech” in which the vision of the IRI first took shape. Not  
coincidentally, the years that followed became known as the “lost  
decade” in Latin America, something many have attributed in part to  
the Reagan Administration’s misguided policies toward the region.  
During this period, structural adjustment loans plunged regional  
economies and living standards into a downward spiral from which many  
countries have yet to recover. The 1980s were plagued by violence; US  
funded government security forces in Guatemala and El Salvador  
prosecuted dirty wars which resulted in the disappearance, torture,  
and massacre of thousands of the countries’ own citizens. In 1984, US  
became embroiled in one of the region’s most public and profound  
political scandals. The Iran Contra Affair, an attempt by the Reagan  
administration to overthrow Nicaragua’s democratically elected  
Sandinista government by providing funds to the “Contras,” a group of  
anti-communist rebels notorious for their appalling human rights  
record. These are the dubious auspices under which the International  
Republican Institute was founded, fitting when considering what the  
organization was to become – a covert operation to advance right-wing  
policy under the guise of promoting freedom.

The International Republican Institute claims to be a nonpartisan  
organization whose mission is to “advance freedom worldwide by  
developing political parties, civic institutions, open elections, good  
governance and the rule of law.” Unfortunately, the magnanimous goals  
of the IRI have been distorted by a quest to advance rightist US  
initiatives. Ghassan Atiyyah, Director of the Iraq Foundation for  
Development and Democracy (a beneficiary of a $116,448 donation from  
the IRI) commented on the inconsistency of the organization’s policy:  
“Instead of promoting impartial, better understanding of certain ideas  
and concepts, they are actually trying to further the cause of the  
Republican administration.” Though Atiyyah here refers to the current  
Bush Administration, the McCain administration promises to be equally  
compatible with the strong armed methods advocated by the IRI and  
practiced in Latin America in the past.

Furthermore, during the years that the presumptive candidate chaired  
the IRI, the organization has chosen ironic means to “advance  
freedom:” training corrupt opposition leaders and providing funds to  
groups that effectively undermine often democratically-elected  
officials that the US government views unfavorably. In addition to  
running training camps, the IRI also conducts polls in high-stakes  
elections; the organization has been known to conduct “secret polls”  
with the intention of skewing public opinion in order to yield a  
desired outcome. The problem with such secret polls is that they  
cannot be verified and often contradict the findings of other, similar  
studies.

The IRI: Breaking the Bank
The IRI currently operates with a robust budget of $79 million. Though  
one of John McCain’s goals as chairman of the organization has been to  
increase private funding for the IRI, the overwhelming majority of  
funds for the organization comes from two public sources, the National  
Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the US Agency for International  
Development (USAID).

Founded in 1983, the NED is an organization that has come under  
significant scrutiny, much like the IRI. Critics claim that it  
illegally privatizes US foreign affairs that are supposed to be  
overseen exclusively by the legislative and executive branches of the  
government. Additionally, the NED is publicly funded but lacks the  
transparency of a public organization. The organization allegedly has  
funded far right parties in Eastern Europe, even working with  
convicted Nazi collaborators such as Lazslo Pasztor of the Free  
Congress Foundation. In Nicaragua, the NED spent what equated to more  
than $20 on each voter, considerably more than the combined  
expenditures of the candidates in the 1988 US Presidential election.  
Not only does the NED represent a misuse of taxpayers’ dollars, but  
its interference in the affairs of supposedly sovereign nations is  
illegal and its lack of transparency should disqualify it from  
receiving public funds. However, the opposite has happened and NED  
funding has risen from $59 million in 2005 to $74 million in 2006, in  
addition to $10 to $15 million in operation-specific funds mandated by  
Congress.

USAID is the other major donor to the IRI. Established in 1961, the  
organization has the “two-fold purpose of furthering America’s foreign  
policy interests in expanding democracy and free markets while  
improving the lives of the citizens of the developing world.” It is  
important to note that the ultimate goal of USAID is to advance US  
interests, with the secondary goal being to benefit the citizens of  
the world. This technicality explains why USAID sponsors the IRI, an  
organization that sometimes foregoes the latter goal in its pursuit of  
the former. USAID had a $176 million budget for operations in Latin  
America in 2006, a significant portion of which went to the IRI.

Big business, lobbyist groups and foundations annually donate $1.4  
million to the IRI, a small fraction of the organization’s $79 million  
budget. Such donors to the IRI include UPS, AT&T, Anheuser-Busch, Bell- 
South, Lockheed Martin, Blackwater, Chevron, ExxonMobil and BP. It is  
worth noting that several of these donors regularly lobby regarding  
issues under the jurisdiction of the Senate Committee on Commerce,  
Science, and Transportation where McCain is the second-highest ranked  
Republican. Private donations account for only $200,000, significantly  
less than 1 percent of the IRI’s total income.

In a speech regarding his presidential goals, McCain foresaw a future  
in which “Congress has not sent [him] an appropriations bill  
containing earmarks for the last three years. A top to bottom review  
of every federal bureaucracy has yielded great reductions in  
government spending… and [he has instigated] far reaching reforms of  
procurement and operating policies that have for too long  
extravagantly wasted money…” Will the IRI, which is a likely  
beneficiary of such “earmarks” and bureaucracy, be exempt from these  
“bottom to top” investigations? Will McCain fulfill his campaign  
promises or will he suffer from the conflict of interest resulting  
from his involvement with the IRI?

The IRI in Haiti
Founded in 1983, the IRI’s website reminisces about how it “planted  
seeds of democracy in Latin America.” Several of these so-called  
“seeds” were sown during John McCain’s tenure as the IRI’s Chairman.  
The main IRI project in Haiti involved the overthrow of the country’s  
democratically-elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. A  
former Roman Catholic priest, Aristide rose to power in the wake of  
the brutal Duvalier family dictatorship and was immensely popular with  
the poverty-stricken and oppressed masses of Haiti. Aristide was  
overthrown in 1991 (supposedly with the financial support from the  
outgoing elder Bush administration) but returned to power in 1994 with  
the help of the Clinton administration. Aristide was re-elected by a  
land-slide vote in 2000 but once again ousted in a 2004 coup.

In the years immediately preceding the most recent overthrow of  
President Aristide, the IRI sponsored several “political training”  
clinics for Haitian leaders in the Dominican Republic and Miami.  
Though the IRI claims to be an unbiased group that provides funding  
across the political spectrum, recent research has exposed the fact  
that the IRI leaders specifically chose virulently anti-Aristide  
Haitians, including members of the business elite and former military  
and paramilitary personnel to attend these clinics. The IRI also  
generously funded the anti-Aristide resistance efforts, the main  
benefactor of its practices being the Haitian opposition group known  
as the Democratic Convergence, a unified collection of the previously  
splintered anti-Aristide factions.

Stanley Lucas, the head of the IRI effort in Haiti, was instrumental  
in the creation of the Democratic Convergence and, thus, the eventual  
fall of the Aristide government. Lucas has been described by Mother  
Jones Magazine as “the scion of a powerful Haitian family with long- 
standing animosity toward Aristide…” Lucas’ family had close ties to  
the ruthless Duvalier regime that preceded Aristide and has similarly  
close ties to the Haitian military, which was an important element of  
the 2004 coup. Two of Lucas’s cousins allegedly were responsible for  
organizing a massacre of 250 peasants protesting for land reform.  
Journalist Max Blumenthal has claimed that he had a source who lived  
and worked with Lucas in Haiti and who “saw documents indicating that  
while Lucas was working for IRI, he was being paid by Michelle  
Francois, who was a notorious FRAPH [paramilitary] leader…” The choice  
of a program leader with an allegiance to groups that opposed the  
democratically-elected government is strange considering the IRI  
claims its goal was to promote democracy.

Lucas’ involvement with opposition groups directly opposed the US  
government’s official policy of supporting all democratically-elected  
governments. There is every indication that Stanley Lucas’ involvement  
undermined the goal of Haitian democratization. US Ambassador Brian  
Dean Curran discovered that Lucas was encouraging the Democratic  
Convergence not to negotiate with Aristide to resolve the political  
conflict that lead to the coup, essentially encouraging the disruption  
of the democratic process. Yet when Curran reported Lucas’ apparent  
infractions to USAID, the result was an incredibly lenient 4 month  
suspension followed by an eventual return by Lucas to his old ways. In  
addition to originally being a scandalous choice to lead the Haitian  
program, Lucas’ behavior while holding the position and the subsequent  
failure of both USAID and the IRI to sufficiently punish Lucas and  
remedy the situation is a telling example of the mixed messages  
surrounding the IRI’s supposed “pursuit of freedom.”

When the coup finally occurred, Washington made very little effort to  
protect democracy and the rule of law, placing Aristide under great  
pressure to leave the country. Thus, a leader who was not once, but  
twice elected democratically, was evicted from his own country with  
the help of the IRI. While President Aristide’s record was not without  
real achievements – he dismantled the Haitian military, built more  
schools than had been constructed in the previous century, and doubled  
the minimum wage – his clearly promising social program was not the  
type of change the IRI was looking for.

In a 2005 speech, President George W. Bush congratulated the IRI on  
its accomplishments, saying, “The world is safer and freer and more  
peaceful because of the International Republican Institute.” This  
statement is far from the truth in the case of the IRI’s activities in  
Haiti. The year following Aristide’s overthrow—notably by IRI- 
supported opposition groups—was one of the most politically tumultuous  
times in recent Haitian history. Violence and corruption were at a  
high, with frequent kidnappings and a crooked police force crippling  
the justice system and Haitian society. The elections to choose a  
leader to replace Aristide had to be delayed on four separate  
occasions. The irony of the IRI’s involvement in bringing about this  
situation should not be missed. The organization’s activities in Haiti  
helped to cast a shadow over US foreign policy initiatives throughout  
Latin America. Yet Haiti is not the only victim of IRI policy.

The IRI in Venezuela
After a failed coup attempt against Venezuela’s democratically elected  
but left-leaning President Hugo Chávez in 2002, the Bush  
Administration faced accusations of being involved in the attempted  
overthrow. Despite Washington’s energetic denials, it became apparent  
that the Bush administration had tentatively interfered in Venezuela  
by providing opposition groups with considerable donations through the  
IRI. The US government has encouraged sensationalizing the negative  
aspects of the Venezuelan government and demonized its President more  
aggressively than might be warranted. Though Chávez has become more  
confrontational and his popularity has fluctuated since coming to  
power in 1999, he took office with and maintains considerable public  
support. Since 1998, the poverty rate has dropped from 54 percent to  
38.5 percent (30 percent if food and health subsidies are considered).  
The people of Venezuela gained free health care and more than half the  
population was enrolled in free, public education. Yet, on April 11,  
2002 Venezuelan military leaders briefly removed Chávez from power and  
replaced him with a pro-US businessman named Pedro Carmona. Despite  
the objections of almost all Latin American nations, the US hailed the  
overthrow of Chávez as a victory for democracy and the Venezuelan  
people. Before the coup had even been completed, the IRI president at  
the time, George Folsom, claimed, “The Venezuelan people rose up to  
defend democracy.” However, Chávez was reinstalled just two days later  
after his supporters took to the streets and Carmona was deposed. Upon  
his return to power, Chávez condemned the United States for its quick  
recognition of the new and illegitimate government.

Between 2000 and 2001, the National Endowment for Democracy (one of  
the main sponsors of the IRI) tripled its funding in Venezuela from  
$257,831 to $877,435. This allocation was granted to anti-Chávez  
groups, including two that participated in the protests that resulted  
in his brief overthrow in 2002. The IRI office in Caracas received  
$339,998 in 2001, a seven-fold increase from its meager $50,000 grant  
in 2000. Though the IRI claims to have used these funds in its work  
with the Youth Participation Foundation (FPJ), the organization  
ostensibly no longer existed at that time. Instead, funds were used to  
sponsor political party-building workshops, which conceivably could  
have been a legitimate use of funds had the participants not have been  
handpicked solely from opposition groups. During the month before the  
coup, the IRI flew a group of anti-Chávez politicians, union leaders  
and activists to Washington to meet with US officials.3 While it is  
possible that the meeting was perfectly innocent, the timing and  
secrecy delegitimize any explanation of coincidence. If the IRI is  
indeed guilty of intervening in Venezuelan politics, one must wonder  
which of its professed high moral standards it was pursuing at the time.

The IRI and John McCain
The aforementioned events in Haiti and Venezuela are significant, not  
only because they reflect gross abuses of power and the misuse of  
taxpayers’ dollars, but also because they received McCain’s stamp of  
approval during his tenure as chairman. McCain held that position for  
nearly a decade, so he cannot claim to have inherited these policies,  
nor can he argue that he did not know they were taking place. In fact,  
McCain has boasted that he has been a very involved chairman,  
informing the press, “All board members are involved in determining  
where IRI will work and in overseeing those activities.” Further  
evidence of the overlap in IRI policy and McCain’s foreign policy is  
his “rogue state rollback” plan, first mentioned during his 2000  
presidential campaign. When questioned about his policy plans  
regarding “rogue states,” McCain responded that he would “arm, train,  
equip, both from without and from within, forces that would eventually  
overthrow the governments…” Though McCain goes on to say that he would  
then install democratically-elected governments, the IRI’s tactics  
have, in the past, been directed towards governments that could  
already claim that mark of legitimacy. The prospect of IRI-influenced  
policies like “rogue state rollback” applied by the White House is a  
frightening one that shows a disregard for true democracy, which can  
not be achieved by outside intervention as McCain proposes, but only  
through the desire and efforts of a country’s own citizens.

The IRI has not only provided Senator McCain with certain detrimental  
policy tendencies, but has also heightened the superiority complex  
necessary to be comfortable with intervening in the affairs of other  
nations. Those who see McCain as a different kind of Republican point  
to his broad-minded stance on immigration. He had, after all, reminded  
Americans that illegal Mexican immigrants “are God’s children as  
well.” One of McCain’s favorite rhetorical phrases “boots on the  
ground,” is a telling implication of McCain’s predilection for  
intervening in the affairs of other nations, and a warning about the  
nature of his potential foreign policy. Even conservative-minded  
voters should have reason to be concerned, exhibited by a statement  
taken from American Conservative Magazine: “Such narcissism, unseemly  
in anyone, is especially unbefitting in a president, yet it is key to  
understanding McCain’s evolution from conventional Republican realist  
to relentless interventionist.” McCain’s campaign website also  
illustrates the bias the Arizona Senator may have inherited from the  
IRI. On it, McCain promises to build strong alliances with those  
governments “who reject the siren call of authoritarians like Hugo  
Chávez.” This unfounded statement neglects to acknowledge that not  
only was Chávez democratically elected, but that Venezuela’s popularly  
elected Asamblea Nacional is responsible for all legislation and can  
over-rule any presidential decree or veto with a simple majority vote.  
McCain has affirmed, “There is such thing as good international  
citizenship,” but it unfortunately seems as though the model upon  
which he has based his own regional policies is on the same misguided  
model as the IRI.

In a March 2008 speech, McCain said, “We must also lead by attracting  
others to our cause, by demonstrating once again the virtues of  
freedom and democracy, by defending the rules of international  
civilized society and by creating the new international institutions  
necessary to advance the peace and freedoms we cherish.” The IRI is  
undoubtedly an example of such a “necessary” institution in McCain’s  
mind, but the organization has undermined democracy, setting an  
example that favors government subversion and illegal interference in  
the affairs of sovereign nations rather than true promotion of  
democracy. McCain’s IRI does not set a model for democracy, it is a  
model for bureaucracy and an abuse of power that has no place in the  
White House.

Big Business and Big Bucks for the IRI Chairman
McCain and his presidential campaign have benefited financially from  
the Arizona senator’s connection with the IRI. During his time in the  
Senate, McCain became a champion of big oil, proposing a tax plan that  
will give the top five oil companies $3.8 billion a year in tax  
breaks. One oil company that has benefited from a friendship with  
McCain is Chevron, which also happens to be a contributor to the IRI.  
Chevron has its own murky past in Latin America and is currently being  
sued by Ecuador as part of a $16 billion lawsuit for allegedly  
exposing tens of thousands of native peoples living in the rainforest  
to fatal levels of pollution. The IRI’s connection to Chevron is  
almost as suspicious as the one it has to Blackwater, the private  
security firm that has played a controversial role in the Iraq War, or  
to Lockheed Martin, the world’s number one military contractor.

The overlap in funding between the IRI and the John McCain’s political  
career is worrisome: McCain received $392,000 in donations from IRI  
donor companies and their employees since January 2005 and his  
presidential campaign has received $670,000 from institute donors.  
Senator McCain has over 100 lobbyists working for his campaign and his  
connection to big business through the IRI contradicts his promise  
that if elected, “the United States will not bow to special interests  
seeking to block progress.”

McCain’s IRI and the Presidential Campaign
The most disturbing problem with the credibility of McCain’s foreign  
policy background is that much of his experience in international  
relations has come from his time with a very compromised IRI. The  
policies the IRI has pursued, if reinforced by the full might of the  
White House, could have a devastating impact on an already deeply  
fractured relationship between the US and Latin America.

As more Latin American governments shift to the left, they become  
almost too numerous to extinguish by either brute force or financial  
might, which could be described as the IRI’s modus operandi since its  
inception. Now is the time for a US administration to be willing to  
negotiate with our southern neighbors in a spirit of constructive  
engagement and compromise. A new president could spearhead such  
progress. This feat will be difficult to accomplish for a politician  
who “grew up” in the shadow of a cloak-and-dagger operation like the  
IRI.

Last year, the IRI presented Antonio Saca, president of El Salvador,  
with its “Freedom Award” for what McCain called a transformation of El  
Salvador’s politics and economy. Yet in 2006, just two years after  
Saca was elected President, crime had reached an all time high in El  
Salvador. In response, death squads unofficially linked to Saca’s  
ruling ARENA Party emerged to supposedly suppress the surge in crime.  
What resulted was rampant corruption, which remains a problem for the  
Salvadoran government to this day. Despite a questionable record,  
McCain has praised Saca, claiming, “Advocates of freedom have no  
better ally in the region than President Saca.” This is a worrisome  
statement considering Saca has publicly praised people like Colonel  
Monterrosa, leader of the massacre at El Mazote, stating, “Colonel  
Monterrosa knew how to defend the nation, with nobility…” Though Saca  
has been championed as a Latin American success story and a friend of  
the IRI, slipping popularity ratings and alleged ties to brutal  
disciplinary groups would appear to make his friendship a  
contradiction to the ideals of both the IRI and John McCain.

McCain’s Future in Latin America
The IRI has a long and infamous history in Latin America. Should he  
reach office, McCain will have to deal with foes like Hugo Chávez and  
other left-leaning leaders of governments that are typically targeted  
by the IRI. In a campaign speech, McCain claimed, “Relations with our  
southern neighbors must be governed by mutual respect, not by an  
imperial impulse or byanti-American demagoguery.” Yet the policies  
McCain has endorsed during his time with the IRI have in no way  
implied a respect for the democratically-elected leaders of the region  
or the sovereign rights of other nations. In order to salvage his  
reputation with our southern neighbors, McCain will need to sever his  
ties to the right-wing organization or have his Latin American policy  
suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that he will  
embrace such a change in favor of a policy of constructive engagement.  
In an interview with the Arizona Republic, McCain said, “Given my  
decades of involvement in promoting democratic values, it is safe to  
assume that I will remain a supporter of legitimate democracy- 
building.” This statement implies that McCain will continue to support  
policy much like that which he has advocated during his time as the  
IRI’s chairman, a prospect for US-Latin American relations that is  
about as “safe” as the IRI is “legitimate.”
This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associate Sarah Hamburger
June 25th, 2008
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