Largest U.S. union stirring Algerian chaos?

JERUSALEM – One of the main anti-regime organizations leading protests in Algeria is funded by a quasi-governmental group partly led by an arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO, the largest U.S. union organization.

Following protests that led to the resignations of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali – both key U.S. allies – Algeria has been similarly engulfed in anti-regime riots and strikes by workers unions.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has ruled the country with a tough hand. He has been an ally of the U.S. in fighting al-Qaida.

Islamist parties serve as Bouteflika's main opposition.

On Tuesday, Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mourad Medelci said his country may lift a 19-year-old state of emergency in the next few days, indicating the country may be ready for reforms leading to a more representative democracy.

The National Coordination for Change and Democracy, one of the initiators of the recent Algerian protests, demanded an immediate shift to full democracy, the lifting the state of emergency laws, as well as "labor and social justice and liberation in political and media fields."

Algerian Islamic groups have joined in the protest coordination, including the outlawed Islamic Salvation Front and its leader, Ali Belhadj.

The protests have also been spearheaded by a group called the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, ALDHR, which works closely with the National Coordination for Change and Democracy.

Scores of ALDHR members have been arrested in recent days while the group's leaders have been serving as spokespeople for the anti-regime riots.

ALDHR is an Algerian nongovernmental organization that has been leading the drive for electoral reform.

It has received near annual grants from the National Endowment for Democracy, a quasi-governmental agency. The NED purports to be a bipartisan group that "supports freedom around the world."

The NED receives annual funds from the U.S. government and a small amount of private donations.

It maintains four affiliate organizations that assist in the NED's work and they were the four principal initial recipients of the group's funds – the American Institute for Free Labor Development, an arm of the AFL-CIO; an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; the International Republican Institute; and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.

The NED has funded the AFL-CIO's foreign operations, which seek to promote international trade unions.

Indeed, according to NED founding documents reviewed by WND, the AFL-CIO was one of the original founders of the NED.

Through the NED, the AFL-CIO's American Institute for Free Labor Development has funded opposition labor movements across the group, most notably in Latin America, where it has advocated for union workers and has been implicated in stirring riots against multiple countries in the region.

In Algeria, just as in Egypt, civil society groups, including trade unions, have been central to the anti-regime protests in recent days.

In Egypt, the threat of maintaining strikes by labor unions has been used by Mubarak's opposition as a bargaining chip to secure political demands.

With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott