The World League for Freedom and Democracy (WLFD, formerly the World Anti-Communist League, WACL) is an international anti-communist political organization founded in 1966 in Taipei, Republic of China (Taiwan), under the initiative of Chiang Kai-shek. It was founded with the aim of opposing Communism around the world through "unconventional" methods. It had eight regional branches, with a presence in up to 100 countries on six continents. The honorary life chairman of the WACL was Dr. Ku Cheng-Kang, a senior leader of the Kuomintang (KMT), and the president of Taiwan's National Assembly.
The U.S. chapter of WACL, the United States Council for World Freedom (USCWF), has been one of the most active branches. USCWF was founded in 1981 by Major General John K. Singlaub. This branch has generated controversy, as it prominently supported Nicaraguan guerrillas in the Iran–Contra affair and, in 1981, the USCWF was placed under watch by the Anti-Defamation League, which said that the organization had increasingly become "a point of contact for extremists, racists, and anti-Semites". During the 1980s, the USCWF and WACL conducted a purge of these elements, and invited ADL observers to monitor its conferences; by 1985, the Anti-Defamation League declared itself "satisfied that substantial progress has been made since 1981 in ridding the organization of racists and anti-Semites."
Read more about World League For Freedom And Democracy: History, Some Members or Former Members
Famous quotes containing the words world, league, freedom and/or democracy:
“Let us beware of saying there are laws in nature. There are only necessities: there is no one to command, no one to obey, no one to transgress. When you realize there are no goals or objectives, then you realize, too, that there is no chance: for only in a world of objectives does the word “chance” have any meaning.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“He will deliver you from six troubles; in seven no harm shall touch you. In famine he will redeem you from death, and in war from the power of the sword. You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, and shall not fear destruction when it comes. At destruction and famine you shall laugh, and shall not fear the wild animals of the earth. For you shall be in league with the stones of the field, and the wild animals shall be at peace with you.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 5:19-23.
“The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do. It is the freedom to refrain, withdraw and abstain which makes a totalitarian regime impossible.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“The more I see of democracy the more I dislike it. It just brings everything down to the mere vulgar level of wages and prices, electric light and water closets, and nothing else.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)