US reform funds take different path
Cash for Mideast finances education and free trade
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration, while stating that democracy is the cornerstone of its Mideast policy, has directed more than half of the funds in its key democracy-promotion initiative to assist autocratic regimes in promoting free trade and education.
Only about $3 million of roughly $95 million went for direct funding for local groups promoting democracy or ''civil society," according to 2002 and 2003 data from the State Department's Middle East Partnership Initiative, which describes itself as ''the primary diplomatic policy and development programmatic tool" of President Bush's ''strategy of freedom in the Middle East."
Other expenditures included $6 million to help the kingdom of Morocco ''as it opens its markets to US competition" and $800,000 more to help ''develop a better business environment." One million dollars was allocated to help Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Algeria apply to become part of the World Trade Organization, and $250,000 to foster joint-venture relationships between companies in the United States and firms in Bahrain and Tunisia.
State Department officials say the money being spent on existing regimes is aimed at creating preconditions for democracy, under the theory that economic development and education will slowly lead to increased pressure for democracy.
''This is a philosophical question of whether one moves steady on a path of incremental improvements or one keeps looking for a breakthrough," said David Mulenex, acting deputy director of the Partnership Initiative, who said economic technical assistance has long been used to help push for democratic reforms, including during Bill Clinton's presidency.
Bush laid out a vision for democratic change in the Middle East last fall, stating that only democratic reform could make America safer. Administration officials say Bush's commitment to a democratic Mideast, spearheaded by the creation of a new government in Iraq, is a vision almost as sweeping as Ronald Reagan's pledge to see the end of communism. Last week, in a speech that frequently referred to the Cold War, Bush warned that the United States would no longer sacrifice ''liberty" to support stable but authoritarian regimes.
Bush's vision was set in motion in winter 2002, when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell introduced the Middle East Partnership Initiative. Headed by Dick Cheney's daughter, Liz, the program saw its budget grow to $100 million in 2003 from $29 million in 2002, offering governments in the Middle East a menu of programs to choose from concerning literacy, finance, and women's education. Detailed information was available for only about $95 million allocated, which the program spent in its first 15 months.
In recent weeks, Bush has touted democratic initiatives at three international summits, including expanding on the existing partnership by coordinating democracy-promotion programs with the Group of Eight industrialized countries.
The administration also doubled the budget of the National Endowment for Democracy, a nonprofit organization funded by Congress that supports the promotion of democracy worldwide.
But promoting democracy has been a difficult balancing act among competing US interests, administration officials acknowledge.
State Department officials say they are funding few reformers directly, in part because few apply due to lack of education about the program and the strong anti-American sentiment in the region.
Although some groups ''stand with us on the podium," he said, ''there will always be groups that say, 'Our constituency, our mission, is such that it makes us want to have other sources of support in financing than the US government.' And that's legitimate."
State Department officials also acknowledge that funding reformers without government consent can cause diplomatic problems in a region where activists can be thrown in jail for circulating a petition, as has happened in Saudi Arabia, and where independent civic associations are banned.
But critics say the administration's policies are merely modernizing the legal and financial systems of wealthy authoritarian regimes without necessarily making them more democratic. Rather than spend money on governments, the United States should empower nongovernmental organizations seeking to promote political freedom, the critics say.
''Almost nothing is going to NGOs that are really willing to challenge the government," said Nir Boms, a senior fellow at the Council for Democracy and Tolerance, a bipartisan think tank, who is in touch with about 20 groups from the Middle East that are pushing for reform. ''Various opposition groups have been complaining for a long time that they are unable to get access."
Boms said the US allocations stand in contrast with the European Union, which he said allocates more funds for opposition groups.
Tamara Wittes, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, a liberal-leaning think tank based in Washington, calculates that more than 70 percent of the partnership's funds were allocated to programs that directly benefited Middle East governments, including $600,000 spent on training Morocco's newly elected parliamentarians and $1.5 million on Internet connections for high schools in Yemen.
Allocations for projects that seemed to have a tenuous connection to democracy included $250,000 paid to Booz Allen Hamilton, a Virginia-based consulting firm for technical assistance on food safety, nontariff barriers, e-commerce, and other trade-related issues in Bahrain.
Amy Hawthorne, associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the funds are not ''really designed to press for reforms." She added: ''The stated purpose is to promote 'reform' in Arab countries, but it also is designed to support pro-American governments and pro-American policies."
In the funds devoted to education, American companies cropped up. The $1 million project to teach business to young people in the Middle East is a partnership with ExxonMobil Corp. and
The administration's funding priorities are worrisome to Farid Ghadry, president of the Reform Party of Syria, which broadcasts Radio Free Syria, a short-wave station expressing dissident viewpoints. He said Syrian businessmen fund his group and he has never asked for US financial support, because he has been told little money is available for programs like his. 