Extracts from

THE LaROUCHE CULT:

THE CITIZENS ELECTORAL COUNCIL

; i'i

Since the late 1980s, a branch of an American fascist political cult has been operating in Australia. Headquartered in Melbourne, the "Citizens Electoral Council" (CEC) functions strictly according to the dictates of Virginia-based cult leader Lyndon LaRouche, a 78-year old who has served time in prison for fraud and tax evasion.

Lyndon LaRouche believes in an impending world crisis engineered by an alleged cabal of Jewish bankers based in Britain. He has established a worldwide movement dedicated to the advancement of this idea through the use of varied misinformation, fundraising, and political campaigns. LaRouche's racist conspiracies have been adapted by the CEC with local targets including Aborigines, Jews, environmentalists and the Australian Government.

The CEC plays a small but important part in the global LaRouche movement and should not be dismissed as a relatively insignificant or ineffectual vestige of the racist fringe. For, by deceptively promoting itself as a legitimate grassroots labour movement, the CEC has been able to target trade unionists and politicians, as well as gain recruits and raise millions of dollars by preying on elderly and educationally disempowered Australians.

This Briefing Paper seeks to shed light on a group that has undoubtedly become one of the best organised and financed, as well as one of the most pernicious, racist groups in Australia.

Each new recruit is forced to undergo "deprogramming sessions" to attain mindless conformity to the cause. Former CEC staffer Donald Veitch has categorically stated: "The mind control operations commenced by LaRouche in the USA in the mid-1970s are still being practised today within his movement in Australia".

The LaRouchian cult-style ego-stripping mind-control techniques involve recruits being probed for sexual peccadilloes, especially their sexual relationship with their mother. The "Witch Mother" or her surrogate is blamed for a recruit's neuroses and is hunted down for exorcism: by a recruit denouncing the "Witch Mother", recruiting his wife to the cause, or leaving his wife and family, he will be declared "unblocked", "potent" and a "beautiful" person. ^XVI There have been several documented cases of recruits severing ties with their families as a result of the ego-stripping sessions. ^xv" National Secretary Craig Isherwood also apparently uses the techniques to unmask "threats" from within the CEC and then devises strategies to counter them, thereby promoting himself as the organisation's "dragon slayer".

Raising funds for LaRouche

Despite LaRouche's imprisonment for fraud and tax evasion, his movement continues to raise millions of dollars worldwide by misrepresentation and deception. CEC staffers are exploited by the cult, often working in a "boiler room" atmosphere to solicit funds over the phone. The financially and educationally disempowered and weak are targeted in the belief that the potential combination of fragility, loneliness and a final search for meaning make them susceptible to exploitation. Donors are assured that it is of no consequence if one's credit card is overdrawn, because the entire financial system is about to collapse anyway and the debts won't need to be repaid.

During the 1990s, the CEC netted about $3 million in Australia, more than the National Party and the Democrats. In its annual return to the Australian Electoral Commission in February 1999, the CEC says that it secured donations of more than $1 million.

Alien Douglas has control over the disposal of all funds raised in Australia, which are spent on:

i. Trips to the Leesburg headquarters for re-education and training for Australian cadres and potential recruits. (LaRouche headquarters in Leesburg apparently considers Australia as an offal from the British Empire and its inhabitants "head cases". Therefore, CEC cadres are frequently flown to the US for extensive psychoanalysis and training.)

II. International conference calls to maintain immediate and direct American control over the Australian operations,

III. LaRouche's public relations efforts.

Entering the cult

"They inquired into my relationship with my mother. That was pretty much standard procedure. It was an interrogation. The whole aim was to create a new person, making your past totally irrelevant and giving you a new personality. No matter what you said it was your mother's fault. It was pretty hideous stuff. Many people broke down and cried."

- Alex Rotaru, a former CEC intelligence officer, on the cult's indoctrination procedure.

"They would tell you there was something wrong with your mind if you are not pulling huge dollars in."

- Julie Warner, who blamed CEC brainwashing for bringing her close to suicide.

"They are a horrible bunch of people. When 1 first flew to Melbourne, 1 could only talk to her sitting on the fence outside (the CEC office)."

- Queensland farmer Joe Vella who was prevented from seeing his wife after she joined the CEC.

From Martin Daly's report, "Families fight back", The Age, 30 January 1996.