Zimbabwe and the Power of Propaganda: Ousting a President via Civil Society

[Im The Truth]

Zimbabwe and the Power of Propaganda: Ousting a President via Civil Society

By Michael Barker

Global Research, April 16, 2008

“Zimbabwe is a strategic country for the United States because events in Zimbabwe have a significant impact on the entire southern Africa region.” (US Agency for International Development, 2005)

In 2002, America’s key democracy manipulating organ the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) played a vital role in supporting the temporary ousting of Venezuela’s democratically elected President Hugo Chavez, so given their current interests in Zimbabwe it is critical to ask two questions: “what are their reasons for interfering in Zimbabwe’s affairs, and secondly, should progressive activists be concerned about these interventions?”

The simple answer to these questions is that numerous neoliberal governments are interested in Zimbabwe not because of democracy, but because they want to remove the thorn in their side that is President Robert Mugabe. Moreover, while the West views Mugabe as a tyrant that needs to be removed from power, it is critical that progressive activists not living in Zimbabwe problematize both the corporate and alternative media’s portrayal of Mugabe and Zimbabwean politics, and their own government’s manipulative interventions into other countries affairs. Indeed not every tyrant is a tyrant. For example, the same US National Security Strategy that identifies President Mugabe as a tyrant also identifies President Chavez as a “demagogue awash in oil money”. [1]

However, while both Mugabe and Chavez are clearly thorns in the US administration's side they present unwanted irritations for very different reasons. For instance, since coming to power in 1980, Mugabe who has long been considered a useful ally of Western elites has been showered with military aid – much of which (between 1980 and 2000) came courtesy of the British government – while throughout the 1990s Mugabe embraced harsh structural adjustment policies and undertook brutal military excursions in Zaire which together wreaked havoc on Zimbabwe's economy.

Yet as a result of the growing tide of popular resistance to Mugabe's devastating – Western formulated – land reform policies, in 2002, no doubt as a last ditch attempt to maintain his fading grasp on power, Mugabe shirked his post-colonial neoliberal 'advisors.' Consequently, most likely owing to his straying from the Washington Consensus, Mugabe (and Zimbabwe) is being punished by the international community, and imperial democracy manipulators are now seizing this opportunity to destroy the last vestiges of the popular people power movement that liberated Rhodesia from colonialism. This 'transitional' process of course involves facilitating the ouster of Mugabe and ensuring his replacement with a Western-backed neoliberal alternative, that is, the Movement for Democratic Change.

However in Venezuela's case, when Chavez was elected president in 1998, capitalist elites (both within and outside of Venezuela) vigorously opposed his presidency, and shortly thereafter with the aid of the National Endowment for Democracy in 2002 they organized a coup to remove him from power. As fate would have it this temporary coup was quickly reversed by a massive show of people power, and in January 2005, after ongoing public displays of popular support against ongoing capitalist attacks on Chavez's presidency, "Chavez declared his political program to be socialist". Consequently, it is important to remember that while the government's of both Mugabe and Chavez are being targeted for regime change, they clearly present themselves as very different thorns in the US government's side.

As the case of 'democratic' interference in Venezuela has been well documented, this article will provide a critical – although by no means exhaustive – investigation into the complex issues raised by the current political interventions by foreign organizations into Zimbabwe’s political affairs. Initially, this article will examine how ostensibly progressive mainstream media have acted as imperial flak machines to legitimize ongoing inference in Zimbabwe. Subsequently, it will demonstrate how Western governments’ carried out an overt cultural war to successfully manipulate Zimbabwean civil society, and will then conclude by recommending how concerned citizens might best further the protection of human rights in Zimbabwe and elsewhere.

The Liberal Propaganda Machine

“For Washington a consistent element is that democracy and the rule of law are acceptable if and only if they serve official strategic and economic objectives.” (Noam Chomsky, 2005)

As in other countries selected for ‘regime change’ by the democracy manipulating establishment, demonizing the target government is a vital part of any propaganda campaign. For example, the international mainstream media and the National Endowment for Democracy have, and continue to play, a vital role in working to undermining the legitimacy of Venezuela’s President Chavez.

Likewise, for many years now, both these groups have also waged a relentless offensive against Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe. Indeed, with regard to Zimbabwe’s 2005 elections, British-based media watchdog Media Lens contrasted the media’s coverage of Zimbabwe’s elections with those that took place in Iraq. Media Lens correctly pointed out how: “Claims of democratic elections in Iraq were not just nonsense, they were self-evident nonsense, repeated by every major media entity in the land.” A few months later, however, when elections were held in Zimbabwe, Media Lens observed that somehow “the media regained their mental faculties and were able to identify obvious flaws in the process”. As Media Lens’ surmise: “Where elementary common sense conflicts with the needs of elite power, journalists collapse into a Dumb and Dumber consensus.”

Given the parallels between ‘democratic’ interventions in Venezuela and Zimbabwe, it is fitting that in an earlier Media Lens article, they illustrated how Channel 4 news reporter, Jonathan Rugman, interviewed Maria Corina Machado, a leader of Sumate – a group which received support from the National Endowment for Democracy to oust Chavez – and described her “as a ‘civil rights activist’, citing her as the source for his claim that ‘government critics’ are ‘fearing another Zimbabwe here’.” This is an example of misinformation, pure and simple.

In 2002, George Monbiot – one of the lonely token dissidents at The Guardian (UK) – pointed out that problematically the “view of most of the western world’s press” is that “[t]he most evil man on earth, besides Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, is Robert Mugabe”. [2] Indeed, as British-based radical historian Mark Curtis also points out:

“The official theology has it that Zimbabwe is the only repressive regime in Africa – since it is an official enemy, it is the subject of endless media articles while Mugabe is (correctly) seen as a total despot. Nigeria, on the other hand, is a key ally and oil-rich state which our companies benefit from – therefore it wouldn’t be right to mention obvious facts such as that the military in Nigeria is complicit in far more deaths in recent years than even Zimbabwe’s.”

An alternative history to “Mugabe as despot,” which is rarely aired in the alternative media, let alone the mainstream media, is provided in some detail by Gregory Elich, who in 2002 wrote:

“As Zimbabwe descends into anarchy and chaos, land is irrationally seized from productive farmers, we are told. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is portrayed as a dictator bent on driving his nation into starvation and economic disaster while benevolent U.S. and British leaders call for democracy and human rights.”

He observes that it wasn’t so long ago that the “management of the economy in Zimbabwe was highly regarded in Western circles.” Indeed, from day one of Zimbabwe's 'democratic' transition in 1980 (and the beginning of Mugabe's presidency), Zimbabwe's new found 'independence' was conditional upon accepting the provisions of the British-led Lancaster House Agreements "that effectively stymied any meaningful attempt at land reform."

Moreover the 1979 Lancaster House Conference that undermined the liberation movements demands for land reform was chaired by British Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington, an individual who has more recently served as a founding patron of the Zimbabwe Democracy Trust (see later). [3] Subsequently, much to the delight of his Western advisors, Mugabe colloborated with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to effectively ensure that no meaningful land reforms eventuated. As Elich observed, when Zimbabwe moved to liberalize its economy in 1991, adopting the World Bank designed Economic Structural Adjustment Program, the immediate result was “pleasing for Western investors” but the “result was a disaster for the people of Zimbabwe.”

By the end of 2001, however, President Mugabe announced that Zimbabwe were ditching the Structural Adjustment Program, which Elich notes, combined with the land reform program his government launched in 1997, and “coupled with the statement that sectors of the economy would be placed on a socialist path, only increased the sense of outrage among Western leaders.” Seemingly Mugabe the ‘despot’ was rebelling against neoliberal advisors, an action defined by neoliberal governments as despotic. Such language is an example of the Western command of doublespeak: while Mugabe is a despot, leaders who oversaw the putsch that has led to the slaughter of over one million people in an illegal act of aggression, that was vigorously opposed by their ‘electorate’ are democrats.

Given this background it is no surprise that the international media demonizes President Mugabe, and, beating the drum along with all manner of ‘democracy promoting’ and ‘human rights’ groups, delegitimates Zimbabwe’s election. [4] For example, just over a week before the 2008 election, Human Rights Watch added to the anti-Mugabe chorus by publishing a report that noted that “Repression, Intimidation, Electoral Flaws Threaten March 29 Vote”. Yet considering the close ties that exist between Human Rights Watch and the National Endowment for Democracy it is fitting that many of the nongovernmental organizations that they used to document human rights abuses in Zimbabwe are also funded by the NED (see later). A good illustration of this symbiotic NED-Human Rights Watch relationship is provided by the reports’ reference to a Reporters Without Borders (another group that is intimately linked to the work of the global democracy manipulating community) press release that was released on February 26, 2008 that “highlight[ed] its concerns over a growing government crackdown on the independent media”.

Non-Governmental Organizations and ‘Democracy’ Networks

“Perhaps Zimbabwe has reached the low-point of its democratic development, but I would echo the opinion of the recently departed American Ambassador, Christopher Dell, ‘things will change soon.’” (Dave Peterson, 2007 – the senior director of the NED’s Africa program)

Like the misnamed National Endowment for Democracy, the US Institute for Peace (USIP) plays an important role in exporting low-intensity democracy globally. However, unlike its better known ‘democratic’ counterpart far less critical attention has been paid to the work of the USIP, even though in 1990 Richard Hatch and Sara Diamond described it as a “stomping ground for professional war-makers” with a board of directors that “looked like a who’s who of right-wing ideologues from academia and the Pentagon.”

While I will not be extending Hatch and Diamond’s critique, in 2003 the USIP issued a report titled “Zimbabwe and the Prospects for Nonviolent Political Change”, which amongst other things documented the rise of the non-profit sector in Zimbabwe. The report suggests that:

“In the late 1990s, civic coalitions began to emerge, build consensus, and gain collective strength around the need for nonviolent political change…This newer focus of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on governance, advocacy, and political change departed significantly from the earlier civic orientation. This change is at the heart of concerns by government and some social critics that NGOs are involved in politics, and are too closely aligned with, and compromised by, western donor interests.”

Despite their evident concern with compromising NGOs, the USIP itself is one of the US government’s most important democracy manipulating organizations, thus the USIP should be forgiven for failing to mention that they too are intimately linked to at least one Zimbabwean opposition group. Thus the current chair of the USIP, Chester Crocker, was a founding patron of the Zimbabwe Democracy Trust – and Crocker also happens to have served as US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 1981 to 1989, and is currently a member of the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion.

The Zimbabwe Democracy Trust was initially set up in April 2000 in the UK (although it is now based in the US) and the Trust describes itself as a “non-partisan pro-democracy group set up to campaign internationally for the rights of Zimbabweans to live in civic peace and freedom”. [5] Other ‘democratic’ patrons of the Trust other than Crocker include former Tory Foreign Secretaries Malcolm Rifkind, Douglas Hurd and Geoffrey Howe. Moreover, even the mainstream media acknowledges that this “prominent group of British and American politicians and businessmen – many with energy and mining interests in Zimbabwe – are behind an international organisation to fund opposition to the regime of Robert Mugabe.”

More interesting still, the chair of the Zimbabwe Democracy Trust, Lord Renwick of Clifton, served as the British Ambassador to South Africa from 1987 to 1991 (and then as Ambassador to the United States from 1991 to 1995), having demonstrated the weaknesses of economic sanctions (in his 1982 book of the same title) he was then placed in a crucial position to help oversee the ‘democratic’ transition in South Africa. [6] This transition was facilitated by various democracy manipulating liberal foundations, like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations; so it is fitting that Lord Renwick presently acts as the vice-chairman of investment banking for David Rockefeller’s JPMorgan (Europe). (Lord Renwick serves on a number of boards including those of BHP Billiton and Harmony Gold.) Finally it is also noteworthy that Julie Doolittle, Zimbabwe Democracy Trusts’ administrator, is the wife of Representative John Doolittle (Republican-California) and that their links to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff caused enough concern for their home to be raided by the FBI in April 2007.

Returning to the USIP report, the USIP notes that the “[t]wo major impacts” of the increased civic organizing during the late 1990s “were the ‘no’ vote on the Constitution and the emergence of opposition politics in the form of the MDC Movement for Democratic Change].” Indeed they go on to note that:

“In 1997, several civic organizations formed the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) to press for a constitutional reform process driven by grassroots demands and popular participation... Unlike the more collaborative strategies employed by civil society in the early 1990s, the NCA adopted a directly confrontational approach to government in its demands for a new people- driven constitution. The strength of its organizing and its ability to fill meetings nationwide prompted a government response: the establishment of a government Constitutional Commission and a parallel process to develop a new constitution. With the government announcement that a referendum would be held on the commission's draft constitution, the NCA organized a surprisingly effective ‘no’ vote campaign, which won 54 percent of the vote.”

The USIP adds that this was the “first major defeat of ZANU-PF government”, and they point out that the “NCA was closely linked with the MDC, as the party's leadership had been very active within the NCA before 1999.” So it is very noteworthy that in 2006 the NCA received their first grant from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED); however, even before then the NCA had received ‘democratic’ support from groups like the German-based Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Oxfam, and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. The NCA’s ‘democratic’ connections have intensified more recently, as from October 2007 until January 2008, the coordinator of the South Africa office of the NCA, Tapera Kapuya, became the first Zimbabwean to act as one of the NED’s Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows. While based at the NED, Kapuya – who had formerly been an original working-group member of the World Youth Movement for Democracy – worked to develop “new strategies and opportunities for involving youth in the struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe.”

Controversially, Kapuya has also co-authored a report in 2006 with the head of the South Africa-based Centre for Civil Society, Professor Patrick Bond – who is also an editor-at-large for the progressive academic journal Capitalism Nature Socialism. [7] Furthermore, the report in question titled “‘Arrogant, Disrespectful, Aloof and Careless’ - South African Corporations in Africa”, was sponsored by George Soros’ Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa. [8]

Here it is also important to point out that the Centre for Civil Society (CCS) has even stronger ‘democratic’ ties as the former spokesperson for the NED-connected Zimbabwe Election Support Network (see later), Everjoice J. Win, serves on the CCS advisory board. (Everjoice is also a director of the ‘democratic’ Association of Women's Rights in Development, and is the international head of women's rights with Action-Aid International, a NGO that received more than fifty percent of their funding from the British government.) In 2003, Professor Bond also published a chapter in a book, whose other contributors included the coordinator of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (see later), and the chair of Transparency International (Zimbabwe) – for further details, see footnote #5. Finally it is ironic to note that, in 2005, Professor Bond co-authored an article with Virginia Setshedi (from the Freedom of Expression Institute, see later) that examined how “Trojan Horse NGOs Sabotage the Struggle Against Neoliberalism.”

Like the NCA, Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), is also closely tied to the democracy manipulating community. Indeed, in February 2002 consultants from the ‘democratic’ Albert Einstein Institution met with Zimbabwean opposition groups, which included the MDC, with sponsorship for the event provided by the core NED grantee the International Republican Institute. While it appears the NED has not provided any direct support to the MDC, the NED’s British counterpart, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), has been one of the most influential democracy manipulators in Zimbabwe. Writing in 2002, Gregory Elich observed that:

“WFD has been involved in over 80 projects aiding the MDC, and helped plan election strategy. It also provides funding to the party's youth and women's groups. The Foundation considers ‘the development of political parties as one of the key areas for our support and assistance,’ and in 2000 it provided the MDC with $10 million. No figures are available since then, but the flow of money has continued unabated, and some ZANU-PF officials indicate that the MDC had received at least $30 million by the beginning of 2002.

According to analysts, the majority of the MDC's funding originates from abroad. Passage of the Political Parties (Finance) Act in Zimbabwe in 2001 made it illegal for political parties to receive financing from abroad, thus requiring the MDC to be more circumspect about the extent of its financial support from Western sources. The need for such legislation was urgent, as the influx of Western money was grossly distorting the political process. The effect, however, was merely to drive such contributions into the shadows.” (See the full article for footnotes) [9]

One ‘democratic’ individual linking the MDC to the NCA is the human rights lawyer, Yvonne Mahlunge, who co-founded the MDC and has also served on the board of the NCA. In addition, Mahlunge was a founding member of the Zimbabwe Women Lawyers' Association and the NED-funded Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. In 2003 Mahlunge served as a Cape Town fellow at the ‘democratic’ International Center for Transitional Justice.

Revisiting once again the USIP report, its examination of NGO’s in Zimbabwe continues:

“Conflicts over strategies, relationships with government and the MDC, and struggles for power within existing organizations have also created a demand for new forms of civil society activism and cooperation. The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, established in 2001, is a broad coalition of more than 300 NGOs and 15 national coalitions presently working on various fronts to facilitate the development of a proactive and broad-based agenda and process for change.”

Thus it makes sense that the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (Crisis Coalition) is also linked to the ‘democracy’ crowd, because in 2005 they received a grant from the NED to “hold monthly public meetings and bimonthly township meetings on issues of food insecurity, the security forces, and the upcoming elections”; and to “organize a media campaign that will seek to provide alternatives to state-sponsored media.”

The following year they then received a further $50,000 from the NED to amongst other things “reduce citizen apathy in Zimbabwe by providing opportunities for public protest and debate.” The current chair of the Coalition, Arnold Tsunga, is an internationally celebrated human rights activist, who received the 2006 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, but he is also the vice president of the International Federation for Human Rights – a group whose work is supported by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, Rights and Democracy (the Canadian version of the NED), the Ford Foundation, and the Heinrich Boll Foundation.

As mentioned earlier – see footnote #5 – in 2002 (at least) Transparency International (Zimbabwe) chair, John Makumbe, also acted as a director of the Crisis Coalition; and the former coordinator of the Coalition, Brian Kagoro, presently serves as Action-Aid’s regional policy and advocacy manager for the Africa region. Another ‘democratic’ connection is manifest in Gladys Hlatywayo, an advocacy officer with the Crisis Coalition, who in 2007 served as a Cape Town fellow at the International Center for Transitional Justice. Furthermore, just two years earlier, the Crisis Coalition’s information and advocacy officer, Philip Pasirayi, served as fellow at the International Center for Transitional Justice; his link to this Center is noteworthy as he was simultaneously a member of the National Constitutional Assembly, and he had previously worked as a reporter for the Daily News of Zimbabwe (see later), and as a media researcher for the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ). While not funded by the NED, MMPZ is funded by other ‘democratic’ bodies like the US Agency for International Development and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa. The Monitoring Project links to democracy manipulators are stronger still as it started as a “joint initiative of three organizations”: the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)-Zimbabwe (see later), Article 19 (an organization which between 1996 and 1997 received three grants from the Westminster Foundation, and in 1997 obtained a single grant from Rights and Democracy), and the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe.

The Crisis Coalition list their partner organizations on their website, one of which, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), received a grant from the NED in 2004 to “train and organize 240 long-term election observers throughout Zimbabwe” and “produce monthly reports for distribution to the media as well as the national and international community”. [10] The US Agency for International Development’s website also presently advertises how they are “supporting the ZESN in its efforts to ensure transparency in the electoral process for the upcoming 2008 elections.” Moreover, two of this Networks four founding members have received NED aid, the Foundation for Democracy in Zimbabwe in 1998, and the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (Zimrights) in 2004 and 2006; while both groups have also received money from the Westminster Foundation in 1997 and 1998. The chair of the ZESN is Reginald Matchaba Hove – another “leading human rights activist” – who in 2006 received the NED’s coveted annual democracy award. On top of this he is the chair of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, and “[p]rior to 1999, he was the chairman of Zimbabwe Human Rights Association”.

Another noteworthy board member of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network is Rashweat Mukundu, who also serves as the vice chairperson of the Crisis Coalition, and heads the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)-Zimbabwe. MISA was launched in 1992, and it is a non-governmental organization with members in 11 of the Southern Africa Development Community countries, and in 1997 they received a grant from the Westminster Foundation. In 2004, NED-connected media scholar Ellen Hume described MISA as the “top monitoring organization in Africa” which has received $800,000 from the US government: furthermore, according to their 2005 Annual Report, MISA received most of their funding from European governments, as their three largest donors, in order of magnitude, were the Royal Danish Embassy DANIDA ($0.8 million), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency ($0.6 million), and the Royal Norwegian Embassy NORAD ($0.5 million). In 2006 MISA-Zimbabwe received their first grant from the NED which amongst things enabled them to “host a series of four provincial meetings with the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists”.

In 1999, along with Article 19 and the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, MISA helped launch Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe, with funding provided by US Agency for International Development amongst others. The Media Monitoring Project works “with the Civic Alliance for Social and Economic Progress (CASEP) on social and economic issues, and the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) on electoral issues and the media.” Finally MISA is also listed as a collaborating organization with the Media Foundation for West Africa (which is based in Ghana). Incidentally five of the ten media groups listed as having a collaborative relationship with the Media Foundation for West Africa have received funding from either the NED or the Westminster Foundation.

Another ‘democratically’ compromised group that works closely with MISA is the South Africa-based Freedom of Expression Institute, as in 1998 the Westminster Foundation gave them a grant to help them publish ten issues of its monthly newsletter Update. Moreover, the Institute’s website notes that their work is supported by the aforementioned Centre for Civil Society, the Open Society Foundation for South Africa, and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa. [11] Originally formed in 1994 through the merger of three media groups, [12] the Freedom of Expression Institute, like the Centre for Civil Society, does not appear to exhibit close ideological links to democracy manipulators: for example, in May 2005 their executive director, Jane Duncan, gave a talk titled “Neo-Liberalism: The Media and Ideology” at a workshop organized by the Southern Africa Centre for Economic Justice. Yet despite the Freedom of Expression Institute’s seemly progressive credentials it is important that the Institute renounce their historical ties to the Westminster Foundation as soon as possible, as what better way for the Foundation to legitimize it’s work than by obtaining the passive support of a progressive group like the Freedom of Expression Institute. [13]

From the Trojan Horse’s Mouth

Speaking before the before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations' Subcommittee on African Affairs in July 2007, Dave Peterson, the senior director of the NED’s Africa program observed that, in Zimbabwe, the NED has been “successful in building a strong and vital program of support to civil society, including the media, political parties and trade unions.” He adds that:

“…the question of national sovereignty is perhaps most acute here. It is not NED's mission to promote ‘regime change.’ As distasteful as governments such as that of ZANU-PF and Robert Mugabe may be to some, our program is committed to democratic reform, no matter who is in power. Nor is NED exporting some secret, American imperialist agenda, as is sometimes alleged. NED is strictly committed to peaceful, open and transparent methods of political engagement. We are guided by our partners on the ground. Every one of our grants, including each recipient and the funding amounts, can be found in our annual report and on-line. Another key aspect of the Endowment is our independence.”

Peterson then goes on to list the NED’s “local grantees, such as the Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, the Media Institute, and the Crisis Coalition, among others,” noting that these groups appreciate the NED’s “willingness to support vital core costs, such as salaries, rent, and equipment, which allow groups to survive despite hardship, and enable them greater freedom to identify other sources of funding and support.” [14] The total sums of money involved are relatively speaking quite large, and while the NED distributed around $1 million to Zimbabwean groups in 2006, since 2002 the US Agency for International Development has “contributed nearly $600 million to humanitarian operations in Zimbabwe”.

Clearly the democracy manipulators play a vital role in sustaining (some) dissenting voices in Zimbabwe, especially those that are widely heard of in the international media. However, this begs the questions: (1) “what is happening to those progressive activists who challenge the government and do not work with democracy manipulating organizations?” and (2) “are these individuals silently disposed of by the Mugabe government and, if so, where is the outcry in the international press, or are they simply ignored by all?” These are critical questions that remain unasked and therefore unanswered.

It is also worth contemplating how unions in Zimbabwe might have evolved without NED interference. Since 2000 the NED has provided $0.8 million to the American Center for International Labor Solidarity – a group which is better known as the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center – to work with the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). [15] Peterson describes the ZCTU as “arguably the leading institution of civil society in Zimbabwe”, and with no hint of irony he adds: “the ZCTU has been careful to remain non-partisan, and has also avoided direct assistance from the U.S. government.” Fortunately there already exists a well developed literature critiquing the vital role that labor unions fulfil in promoting imperialism, so it is concerning that in July 2007 the leader of the MDC, Morgan Tsvangirai (who is also the former head of the Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions), was in Britain visiting the Trade Unions Congress (TUC) headquarters to rally support for his political campaign against Mugabe. [16] Yet this link makes more sense when it is known that in 1996 and 1997 the TUC themselves also received funding from the Westminster Foundation to undertake organizing work in Hungary, Nambia, and Russia.

Human Rights Watch and Democracy Manipulators in Zimbabwe

As mentioned earlier many of the groups that Human Rights Watch rely upon to document human rights abuses in Zimbabwe are tightly linked to the democracy manipulating establishment. This of course should be no surprise given that Human Rights Watch’s founder, Robert L. Bernstein, is currently the chair of the NED-funded Human Rights in China. Thus, in their most recent report on Zimbabwe, under “Police Involvement in Incidents of Intimidation and Violence against the Opposition, Students, and NGOs in 2008” they provide two examples of oppression, one of which involves a NED-funded group. They note:

“On February 14, 2008, police raided the offices of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (Crisis Coalition) looking for Marvellous Khumalo, advocacy officer for the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU). Marvellous Khumalo is a student who is running for a parliamentary seat for the MDC (Tsvangirai) in St Mary’s constituency, Chitungwiza, Harare.

…

“In another case, police beat and arrested 25 members of the organization Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe (RoHRZ) in Harare on January 25, 2008, as they marched to protest against repressive legislation and police harassment of the MDC.”

As the second group, Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe, has yet to be introduced within this article it is important to note that it is the sister organization of the British-based Zimbabwe Vigil Coalition, a group that was “set up” in 2002 by the Central London Branch of the Movement for Democratic Change after suggestions from Roy Bennett, MDC MP and Tony Reeler of the Amani Trust.

Later sections of the Human Rights Watch report point out that:

“The independent (non-governmental) election monitoring body Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network (ZESN) and nongovernmental organizations such as the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) have expressed serious concerns over political interference in the distribution of free agricultural equipment (under the government’s farm mechanization program) and state subsidized maize and seed from the government’s Grain and Marketing Board (GMB).”

Human Rights Watch refers to the two groups as providing “credible reports” owing to their ostensible independence, which unfortunately only refers to their independence from the government they are criticising, but not from foreign governments. Indeed as mentioned already, ZESN received NED aid in 2005, while two of the nine members of the Zimbabwe Peace Project are linked to the NED, these are ZESN and ZimRights. [17] Although the Zimbabwe Peace Project does not have a website, a web search revealed that in 2007 they received a $70,000 grant from the Canadian International Development Agency. Furthermore, another member of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, the Civic Education Network Trust, is headed by an individual named Wellington Mbofana. This information is noteworthy because in 2003 Mbofana served as a Cape Town fellow at the ‘democratic’ International Center for Transitional Justice, and “sits on several boards, including the Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Peace Project, and Zimbabwe Election Support Network”, and he has also held a leadership role at ZimRights.

Later still in Human Rights Watch report on Zimbabwe, they obtained evidence of human rights abuses from another NED-funded group, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR). [18] Finally, in the section of their report focusing on press freedom in Zimbabwe, Human Rights Watch observes that:

“The government’s determination to ensure that there is no independent daily press is exemplified by the case of the Daily News, Zimbabwe’s only independent newspaper, which was shut down by the government in 2003. Despite claims by the government that it would consider the paper’s reapplication for accreditation under the new laws, the government has stalled, and at this writing the paper’s application has yet to be heard by the courts”.

This example is particularly interesting because in 2003 the Daily News won the ‘democratic’ Reporters without Borders’ Fondation de France Prize – a prize that is regularly given to media groups (or individuals) that work closely with the NED. (In 2005, Reporters without Borders received a grant from the NED to "strengthen free press and drecrease press abuse in Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Somalia, and Cote d'Ivoire.") The Daily News was launched by Geoffrey Nyarota in 1999, and it “quickly became the largest selling and most influential newspaper” in Zimbabwe. Therefore, it is significant that Nyarota – who “now lives in exile in the United States from where he publishes thezimbabwetimes.com” – was awarded the Committee to Protect Journalists International Press Freedom Award in 2001. [19] In addition, the following year he received the World Association of Newspapers Golden Pen of Freedom award, from 2004 to 2005 he served as a fellow at the US-based democracy manipulating organization the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, and he is presently a director of the ‘democratic’ World Press Freedom Committee. (The Daily News closed operations in 2004 after “constant harassment by state monitors” and is now being published by the Amnesty International’s Irish section.)

Finally, worth mentioning is the work of another award winning ‘democratically’ linked media outlet, Zimbabwe’s SW Radio Africa. In 2005, the British-based SW Radio Africa received the International Press Institute’s Pioneer Award – an award that is normally given to NED-linked media outlets – making it the first externally broadcast media group to receive the award. SW Radio Africa first started operating in December 2001, and according to diplomatic sources they are funded by the USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives. Furthermore, from 2005 to 2006 Violet Gonda, a “producer and presenter for the news section of SW Radio Africa,” served as a fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University. This is particularly noteworthy because the Director of the CDDRL is Michael McFaul, an individual who happens to be a director of the NED’s International Forum for Democratic Studies, and is a trustee of both Freedom House and the Eurasia Foundation. [20]

Ending Inhumanitarian Interventions

As Edward Herman and Frank Brodhead (1985) demonstrated in their classic book, Demonstration Elections, the manipulation of electoral politics has long served as a vital means to legimitate both antidemocratic foreign policies and politicians. Yet, as Herman and Brodhead note in their book, in all cases the “public relations triumphs” of such demonstration elections only eventuate “by virtue of a level of media cooperation that amounts to propaganda service.” [21] In the eyes of ruling neoliberal elites, there are ‘legitimate’ elections (e.g. Iraq) and there are ‘illegitimate’ elections (e.g. Zimbabwe), but whatever their decision (yay or nay) the international media can always be relied upon to manufacture consent for their imperial masters. Moreover, as this article has also shown, the development and selective support of independent media outlets (and NGOs more generally) by ruling elites, is yet another critical foreign policy tool that is used by Western governments’ to facilitate the ouster of ‘unfriendly’ governments’.

In part, this process of media manipulation helps explain why progressive social movements, challenging the status quo in Western democracies, are so regularly denigrated by the mainstream media and politicians; while those groups whose interests are already aligned with, more easily incorporated into, or of marginal importance to the policy frameworks of powerful political and economic elites are more readily supported by the media. This occurs because the media in the West are powerful corporate actors themselves and are staunch defenders of the status quo, and their interests are one and the same as those of transnational capitalism. Consequently, it is readily apparent that Western media systems are not fulfilling their democratic role within Western societies, and are, in fact, acting instead in ways that work to undermine popularly understood conceptions of democracy. Yet the most problematic part of this dire situation is that even progressive activists often become sucked up into the extensive ‘democratic’ networks and stories propounded by the international democracy manipulating establishment. Indeed, writing in April 2007, Gregory Elich reminds us that:

“Western liberal-left critics demand more meddling by the U.S. and Great Britain in the affairs of Zimbabwe, under the delusion that Western-imposed regime change would be a ‘democratic’ act. It is only corporate and elite interests that would be served, for Zimbabwe’s crime in the eyes of Washington is that it jettisoned the ruinous structural adjustment program several years ago, rejected the neoliberal economic model and redistributed land on a more equitable basis. It is not lack of democracy in Zimbabwe that worries Western elites; it is the fact that democracy has produced a government that those in the halls of power in Washington and London wish to remove. What the West wants is to overturn democracy in Zimbabwe and impose a government of its choosing.”

Understanding the problems of such NED compatible delusions is of course key to countering the insidious influence of antidemocratic democracy manipulators on democratic movements worldwide. However, there are many barriers that prevent progressive activists from developing such knowledge, not least of which is the fact that many progressive activists and scholars see no problem in uncritically accepting money from antidemocratic philanthropists – be it the NED or the Ford Foundations – so long as there are “no strings attached.”This is of course one of the reasons why groups like the NED have been so successful in manipulating civil society.

It should be recognized that philanthropy – be it liberal or conservative – is in fact a crucial means by which elites exert their cultural hegemony: a process of domination that is all the more powerful because capitalism's Left hand is truly invisible to nearly all progressive scholars and activists. This ‘invisibility’ of capitalism's Left hand stands in sharp contrast to the Right hand of capitalism, which although often referred to as the invisible hand of the market, should more appropriately be referred to as the visible hand owing to the obvious way in which capitalists must lend a hand to one another to undermine competition in the marketplace.

As Nefta Freeman of the Institute for Policy Studies’ Social Action & Leadership School for Activists observes, Western policies against Zimbabwe “are not motivated by any desire to see democracy or justice for the people of those countries” instead they are “motivated by the need to dominate and exploit the labor and resources of those countries.” He adds: “Yet many on the Western Left cannot accept this fact.” Freeman explains why this happens:

“A practical reason is that most of this Left works through non-profit organizations or NGOs. And because most get their funding from, either their government, a corporate foundation, or some rich individual(s) with no interest in seriously challenging the system or world order, the West has effectively co-opted the Left by funding its activities. They then are torn between biting the hand that feeds them – that is, speaking complete truth to power – or acquiescing to merely an acceptable level of protest against them by speaking only select truths to power.” [22]

Thankfully breaking capitalism’s stranglehold over the financing of social change can be done so with relative ease. However, while progressive activists are usually more than happy to remove capitalism’s Right hand from their necks, they will not necessarily be lining up to loosen its Left hand, as, rather than seeing it as their executor, all too often they identify it as their means of support. In many ways such unreflective responses to elite manipulation can be compared to Stockholm syndrome – whereby the victim comes to identify with, support and, indeed, love their oppressor. Thus, it is easy to understand how progressive activists, sufferering from this syndrome, can easily fall victim to the lesser known Lysenko syndrome, which generates a “disposition to develop theories and conclusions congenial to power and orthodoxy” exerted by liberal philanthropists and has thus produced a resistance to the fact that there is a funding dilemma. Counteracting the influence of either of these syndromes first requires that progressive voices indentify their presence in their midst. Once this is done the ‘simple’ task that remains for all citizens is to create a vibrant civil society that relies upon good will rather than big bills.

Michael Barker is a British writer based in Australia. Most of his other articles can be found here.

Notes

[1] “Outposts of Tyranny.” According to the 2006 US National Security Strategy: “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.” Since 2002 they observe that US successes in ending tyranny include Afghanistan (where “the tyranny of the Taliban has been replaced by a freely-elected government”), and Iraq (“a tyrant has been toppled; over 8 million Iraqis voted in the nation’s first free and fair election”). However, the report goes on to note that tyrannies still exist in “nations such as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Iran, Syria, Cuba, Belarus, Burma, and Zimbabwe”.

[2] Occasionally less propagandistic analyses appear in The Guardian (UK), as Seumas Milne wrote in 2002: “Perhaps taking its cue from the government, most mainstream British media coverage of the Zimbabwean crisis has now abandoned even a veneer of even-handedness, as reporters and presenters have become cheerleaders for the opposition MDC.” However, as Media Lens noted in a recent interview: “People talk about the Guardian comment editor Seumas Milne as a radical force – but he won’t publish Pilger. We’ve asked Milne why and he refuses to answer. So our best living dissident – obviously one of the all-time greats - is required to write a fortnightly column in the New Statesman which reaches a few thousand people. So why is he treated differently to [Naomi] Klein and[George] Monbiot? Because he’s honest about the media – he criticises the Guardian, he draws attention to the vital role of the entire liberal media establishment in crimes against humanity. So he is persona non grata. The same is true of Chomsky.”

In April 2008, Stephen Lendman wrote an excellent article titled “Media Disinformation and the BBC,” which concludes by examining the “BBC's War Against Mugabe.” Also see Australian-based Reason Wafawarova’s useful work as the Zimbabwe Metro’s chief political columnist.

[3] For a detailed account of the Lancaster House Conferernce see, Jeffrey Davidow's A Peace in Southern Africa: The Lancaster House Conference on Rhodesia, 1979 (Westview Press, 1984). Interestingly, Davidow who served as the head of the liaison office at the U.S. Embassy in Harare, Zimbabwe, from 1979 to 1982, had formerly served as a U.S. political observer in Santiago, Chile, from 1971 to 1974 (that is during the ouster of Allende), and he went on to act as the U.S. Ambassador to Zambia (1988-1990), U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela (1993-1996), and as the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico (1998-2001). Since 2003, Davidow has been the president of the Institute of the Americas, an organization that was “founded in 1983 to improve the opportunities for and relationships among companies and individuals who currently conduct or hope to conduct business in the Americas”.

[4] In 2000 the BBC ran an article headlined “Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe strongman”, while in October 2007 the Guardian was still referring to him as the “Zimbabwean strongman”. In July 2007, the Guardian in reference to a story about the government attack on Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change opposition leader, noted: “The beating was an act of high-profile brutality and intimidation, even by the standards of Robert Mugabe, the 83-year-old freedom fighter turned despot presiding over Zimbabwe's accelerating implosion.”

Also see Stephen Gowan’s (2008) article “State, media, and NGOs collaborate in shaping public opinion on upcoming Zimbabwe elections”; and (2002) “Media using double-standard in covering Zimbabwe election”. In another useful article, Gowans (2002) “Mugging Magabe” notes: “Zimbabwe's Hitler Wages War Of Land, screamed the headline in The Globe and Mail (Toronto) of April 8, 2000.” Other interesting articles include, Alice Thompson, “Murderous Mugabe should be treated like bin Laden”, The Daily Telegraph (UK), December 1, 2001; Richard Dowden, “Zimbabwe - Time for Mugabe to Go?”, The Economist, January 24, 1999.

[5] The website of the Zimbabwe Democracy Trust was redesigned in 2004 by Swebtec – “a leading provider of multi-lingual content management systems,” who had already been working with the Trust for four years. Swebtec have developed various pro-democracy websites for Zimbabwe, including that of the ZWNews (a media outlet that appears to be sponsored by the Zimbabwe Democracy Trust) and the Accountability Commission Zimbabwe. In 2004, the Director of the latter South African-based group was the human rights lawyer Gabriel Shumba. The previous year both Gabriel, his brother Bishop Shumba, and MDC Member of Parliament, Job Sikhala, were arrested and allegedly tortured in Zimbabwe. At the time Gabriel was a member of a group called the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum. At the time of Gabriel’s arrest, member organizations of this Forum included the Legal Resources Foundation (which obtained a grant from Rights and Democracy in 1992), Transparency International (Zimbabwe), Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (which received NED funding in 2005 and 2006), and Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (which received funding from the Westminster Foundation in 1997, 1998, and 2004, and funding from the NED in 2006).

Interestingly, the chair of Transparency International (Zimbabwe), John Makumbe, is even cited in the American alternative media as a “respected professor of political science” with no mention of his link to the democracy manipulating group, Transparency International. In 2002 Makumbe was also a board member of the ‘democratic’ Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, and published an article titled “Zimbabwe's Hijacked Election” in the NED’s Journal of Democracy. In 2003, Makumbe published a chapter in Richard Cornwell’s edited collection, Zimbabwe’s Turmoil: Problems and Prospects – a book that was published by a group which receives funding from many ‘democratic’ sources (including the British government) called the Institute for Security Studies; other notable contributors to Zimbabwe’s Turmoil included Patrick Bond, and Brian Kagoro who at the time was the co-ordinator of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (see later).

[6] As Professor Joan Rolefofs observes: “In the case of South Africa, the challenge for Western elites was to disconnect the socialist and anti-apartheid goals of the African National Congress. Foundations aided in this process, by framing the debate in the United States and by creating civil-rights type NGOs in South Africa. In 1978 the Rockefeller Foundation convened an 11-person Study Commission on US Policy Toward Southern Africa, chaired by Franklin Thomas, President of the Ford Foundation; it also included Alan Pifer, President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. In Eastern Europe, the 1975 East-West European Security agreement, known as the ‘Helsinki Accords’ prompted the foundations to create Helsinki Watch (now Human Rights Watch), an international NGO for monitoring the agreements; Rockefeller, Ford, and Soros Foundations are prominent supporters.” Joan Roelofs, “Foundations and Collaboration”, Critical Sociology, Volume 33, Number 3, 2007, p.497.

[7] Given the progressive nature of the journal Capitalism Nature Socialism, which is linked to two of the main scholars who critique liberal philanthropy, Professor Joan Roelofs and Professor Daniel Faber, it is ironic that Professor Bond seems not to understand the antidemocratic nature of the company he is keeping. Last year the Centre for Civil Society reposted one of my Znet articles with my permission: however, at the time I was unaware of the Centre’s ‘democratic’ ties.

[8] In 2004 Tapera Kapuya published a report through Patrick Bond’s Centre for Civil Society titled, “Conditions Necessary for a Free and Fair Election in Zimbabwe.”

[9] For a critical analysis of British interference in Zimbabwe, see the Zimbabwe Ministry of Foreign Affairs report UK Policy on Zimbabwe (2004). Another useful critique of foreign interventions in Zimbabwe is provided by the British-based anti-imperialist newspaper Lalkar Online, see “Zimbabwe Will Never be a Colony Again” (2004). A more recent examination Zimbabwean current affairs is provided in Stephen Gowans’ (2007) excellent CounterPunch article, “Mugabe Gets the Milosevic Treatment: What's Really Going On in Zimbabwe.”

[10] On April 1, 2008, the BBC reported that: “The Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a coalition of civil society organisations, said its random sample of poll stations indicated Mr Tsvangirai had won just over 49% of the vote and Mr Mugabe 42%.”

[11] The Freedom of Expression Institute’s 2000-01 Annual Report also acknowledges the support they received from the Westminster Foundation, the Friederich Ebert Stiftung, the Heinrich Boll Stiftung, the Konrad Adenhauer Foundation, the Canadian High Commission, and the American Embassy.

[12] The three groups that merged to form the Freedom of Expression Institute were the Campaign for Open Media, the Anti-Censorship Action Group, and the Media Defence Trust.

[13] Unfortunately, to date the Freedom of Expression Institute has not responded to emails sent by this author regarding their ‘democratic’ links.

[14] In April 2007: “The Woodrow Wilson Center Africa Program and the Open Society Institute cosponsored a briefing with Zimbabwean civil society and opposition leaders.” The four panellists at this event were Akwe Amosu (who is the senior Africa policy analyst for the Open Society Institute), Grace Kwinjeh (who is the Deputy Secretary for International Relations for the Movement for Democratic Change), Lovemore Madhuku (who is a lawyer and chair of the National Constitutional Assembly), and Otto Saki (who is the acting Director of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights). Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights has received a single grant from the NED for $50,000 to “ensure that proper restitution reaches communities affected by Operation Murambatsvina, a culture of human rights is established, and the rule of law and fair administration of justice is restored in Zimbabwe.”

In 2007, Roselyn Hanzi, a former consultant for Zimbabwe Lawyers’ for Human Rights served as a Cape Town fellow at the ‘democratic’ International Center for Transitional Justice. In addition, Hanzi was a former “intern at Zimbabwe HR NGO Forum and just completed an internship at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Tanzania. Ms Hanzi received her Master of Law degree (Human rights and Democratisation) from the University of Pretoria in 2006, and a Bachelor of Law, with honours, from the University of Zimbabwe in 2003.”

[15] The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) received their largest NED grant worth $0.4 million in 2006. It is also noteworthy that the ZCTU’s chief economist (and former Director), Godfrey Kanyenze, presently serves as a director of George Soros’ Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa. Kanyenze is joined on the Open Society Initiative’s board of directors by other ‘democratic’ individuals three of whom include: Fidelis Edge Kanyongolo (who formerly served as a director of the Media Institute of Southern Africa), Elinor Sisulu (s currently the media and advocacy manager of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition’s Johannesburg office, and is married to ANC activist Max V. Sisulu), and Immaculee Birhaheka (who was honoured with the NED’s annual democracy award in 2006, and is also the co-founder and president of the NED-funded group, Promotion and Support of Women's Initiatives).

[16] Indeed as Labour Party member Laura Bruni reported in April 2007, she participated in a “demonstration outside the Zimbabwean High Commission organised by the TUC and ACTSA [Action for Southern Africa to show solidarity with the Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions.” (For further details of the TUC’s support for the ZCTU, see here.)

[17] The Zimbabwe Peace Project was formed in 2000 and is headed by Jestina Mukoko. While it is unclear whether Jestina M. Mukoko is one and the same as Jestina Mukoko – she works as the programmes manager of the Zimbabwe Civic Education Trust. Ironically the 2006 report, that demonstrates that the Zimbabwe Peace Project is linked to two NED-funded groups, was titled “Politicisation of Aid.”

[18] Human Rights Watch noted that: “Irene Petras, the director of ZLHR, informed Human Rights Watch that two MDC freedom marches in Mutare could not take place in January when the police issued prohibition orders. Despite appeals, the Mutare magistrate’s court decided to allow the party to congregate but not to march through the town.”

[19] In 2006 Geoffrey Nyaro published the book Against the Grain: Memoirs of a Zimbabwean Newsman, and in 2006 he also attended the 7th International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees – a conference that was also attended by the NED’s president Carl Gershman.

[20] The BBC’s “Zimbabwe: Media guide March 2008” points out that Reporters without Borders “placed Zimbabwe 20th from the bottom in its 169-nation 2007 Press Freedom Index.” The BBC report also observes that: “The Zimbabwe chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA-Zimbabwe) said the amendments were ‘cosmetic’, as the government ‘retained the same repressive clauses that give the state the power to determine who can work as a journalist in Zimbabwe’.” The report adds that: “A long-awaited ‘independent’ media regulation body, the Media Council of Zimbabwe, was launched in June 2007.” The three members of this Council are the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe, the Media Institute of South Africa's Zimbabwe branch, and the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists.

[21] Herman and Brodhead note that: “In recent decades U.S. concern over and sponsorship of elections in Third World countries has shifted markedly toward their use as propagandistic and public relations (PR) instruments. Most notably, ‘free elections’ have been used to reassure the U.S. home population, defuse domestic opposition, and, in effect, ratify ongoing U.S. interventionary strategies.” Edward Herman and Frank Brodhead, Demonstration Elections: U.S.-staged elections in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and El Salvador (South End Press, 1985), p. x., p.3.

Also see Kenneth E. Bauzon’s (2005) excellent “Demonstration Elections and the Subversion of Democracy”.

[22] It is interesting to note that the group that Nefta Freeman is linked to, the Institute for Policy Studies,which is heavily reliant upon the largesse of the liberal funders that he critiques. Finally, it is worth pointing out that Sam Moyo, the Executive Director of Zimbabwe’s Centre for Agrarian Studies, and coeditor of the recent book Land and Sustainable Development in Africa (Zed Books, 2007), serves on the activities advisory committee of the International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs). IDEAs was formed in 2001, and is a “network of economists critical of the mainstream economic paradigm of neo-liberalism” whose advisory board includes critical scholars like Samir Amin: thus it is noteworthy that organisations that have “funded IDEAs by providing core support or sponsoring particular activities include UNRISD, Ford Foundation, UNDP and ActionAid."
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization.


The url address of this article is: http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintAr...articleId=8675