Category: Zimbabwe

Mugabe vote rigging allegations

By Stephen Gowans

It’s not the outcome of the upcoming March 29 elections that is foreordained, but the opposition’s, civil society’s, and Western media’s judgment of the election’s fairness that has been predetermined.

To see this, it’s instructive to note how the New York Times treated Mugabe’s chances of winning the election, before falling into line with the main opposition MDC party’s self-serving “Mugabe can’t win without rigging the vote” rhetoric.

On February 26, reporter Barry Bearak predicted Mugabe would “coast to victory” because the opposition had “failed to unite behind one presidential candidate.” The entry of Simba Makoni into the race, a former senior member of the ruling Zanu-PF party, would make the contest tighter, Bearak predicted, but acknowledged that “Mugabe…may still win handily.”

It was clear that Bearak didn’t think Mugabe would win because he had rigged the vote, but because the opposition was weak and fractured.

Three weeks ago, The Guardian (March 3, 2008) echoed Bearak’s assessment, declaring Zimbabwe’s opposition to be “weak and badly divided” and noted that MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s “credibility has been worn away by poor leadership.”

Only recently have both newspapers begun to treat Mugabe as an unpopular leader who has to resort to vote rigging to stay in power.

The same pattern characterized Western media assessments of the last presidential elections in Belarus. Belarus, too, is on Washington’s list of governments targeted for regime change.

Months before the vote, Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko’s popularity was openly acknowledged and his victory in the election confidently predicted.

However, in the final week leading up to the election, press reports suddenly reversed course, emphasizing the vote rigging allegations of the opposition. (See http://gowans.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_archive.html )

Significantly, Belarus’s opposition shares the same sources of funding, assistance and backing as Zimbabwe’s, and operates along the same lines and with the same goals.

The March 26 New York Times cited two leaders of US- and British-government funded NGOs, who averred confidently that the election would not be free and fair and that “the tabulated results are in the box and [Mugabe] has won.”

The newspaper did not acknowledge the NGO leaders’ connections to US- and British-government sources of funding – a significant omission, considering both governments have an interest in discrediting the Zimbabwean government.

At the same time, the newspaper’s reporters complained bitterly that Mugabe is buying votes by bestowing “tractors and plows on village chiefs whose gratitude is expected to be a reciprocal harvest of votes.”

The two allegations are contradictory. If Mugabe has rigged the elections, why does he need to buy votes?

As is true when imperialist states, the Western media, NGOs and peace and civil society scholars collaborate to bring down governments that refuse to do the West’s bidding, reality has been turned on its head.

While the case that says Mugabe has predetermined the outcome of the election has become the dominant view, through sheer repetition by a Western media that serves as a platform for a bought opposition and civil society, the evidence is paper thin.

The evidence that what is, in fact, predetermined, is the opposition and NGO judgment of the election, is far more compelling.

State, media, and NGOs collaborate in shaping public opinion on upcoming Zimbabwe elections

By Stephen Gowans

A New York Times story published three days before elections in Zimbabwe provides an interesting illustration of how the state and mass media cooperate with agents on the ground to shape public opinion.

The aim of the March 26, 2008 article, titled “Hope and Fear for Zimbabwe Vote,” is to discredit the elections that the current president, Robert Mugabe, seems likely to win, in order to justify continuing efforts to replace Mugabe and his policies of land reform and economic indigenization with the pro-foreign investment, pro-private property policies of the US- and EU-backed Movement for Democratic Change, Zimbabwe’s main opposition party.

Mugabe has provoked the ire of corporate executives, investment bankers, and those who have taken a leadership role in representing Western upper class interests by taking measures to invest Zimbabwe’s national liberation project with real content. His government expropriated the farms of white settlers and their descendants for distribution to the landless poor after former colonial power Britain reneged on promises to finance land redistribution.

Now the ZANU-PF government is proposing to place majority ownership of the country’s resources in the hands of indigenous Zimbabweans.

It’s all part of a program to achieve real national independence by turning Zimbabweans into owners of their own land and natural resources.

Zimbabwe has barred election monitors from the US and EU, but will allow observers from Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, South Africa and the Southern African Development Community to monitor the vote.

The barring of Western observers is pointed to as indirect evidence of vote rigging. After all, if Zimbabwe has nothing to hide, why won’t it admit observers from Europe and the US?

At the same time, it’s suggested that Zimbabwe is only allowing observers from friendly countries because they will bless the elections automatically.

By the same logic, one would expect that a negative evaluation is foreordained from observers representing unfriendly countries, especially those whose official policy is to replace the current government. Indeed, it is this fear that has led Harare to ban Western monitors.

With Western observers unable to monitor the elections directly, governments in North America and Europe are left with a public relations dilemma. How can they declare the vote fraudulent, if they haven’t observed it?

To get around this difficulty, the US, Britain and other Western countries have provided grants to Zimbabweans on the ground to monitor the vote. These Zimbabweans, part of civil society, declare themselves to be independent “non-governmental” observers, and prepare to render a foreordained verdict that the elections are rigged. Cooperating in the deception, the Western media amplifies their voices as “independent” experts on the ground.

The US Congress’s National Endowment for Democracy — an organization that does overtly what the CIA used to do covertly — has provided grants to the Zimbabwe Election Support Network “to train and organize 240 long-term elections observers throughout Zimbabwe.”

The NED is also connected to the Media Monitoring Project through the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, which it funds, and the Media Institute of Southern Africa, which is funded by Britain’s NED equivalent, the Westminster Foundation.

The Media Monitoring Project calls itself independent, but is connected to the US and British governments, and to billionaire speculator George Soros’s Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa.

When the New York Times needed Zimbabweans on the ground to comment on the upcoming election, its reporters turned to representatives of these two NGOs.

Noel Kututwa, the chairman of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, told the newspaper that his group would be using “sampling techniques to assess the accuracy of the results announced nationally.”

Yet, Mr. Kututwa also told the newspaper that, “We will not have a free and fair election.” If Kututwa has already decided the election will be unfair and coerced, why bother assessing its accuracy?

Andrew Moyse, a regular commentator on Studio 7, an anti-Mugabe radio station sponsored by the US government’s propaganda arm, Voice of America, is quoted in the same article.

“Even if Mugabe only gets one vote,” Mr. Moyse opines, “the tabulated results are in the box and he has won.”

Moyse, on top of acting as a US mouthpiece on Voice of America, heads up the Media Monitoring Project. While part of the NGO election observer team the US and EU are relying on on the ground, he’s already decided the vote is rigged.

Kutatwa and Moyse are the only experts the New York Times cited in its story on the upcoming elections.

Both represent NGOs funded by hostile governments whose official policy is to replace Robert Mugabe and his government’s land reform and economic indigenization policies.

Both present themselves as independent election monitors, though they can hardly be independent of their sources of foreign government and foundation funding.

Both have declared in advance of the election that the vote will not be free and fair and that the tabulated results are already in the box.

Their foreordained conclusions happen to be the same conclusions their sponsors in the US and Britain are looking for, to obtain the consent of a confused public to intervene vigorously in Zimbabwe’s affairs.

It’s a symbiotic collaboration of media, state, and NGOs on the ground.

The target is public opinion, and ultimately, the poor of the world, and their struggles to break free from centuries of oppression.

(References to follow)

The Company Patrick Bond Keeps

By Stephen Gowans

While Patrick Bond likes to create the impression he offers an independent left perspective on Zimbabwe, it’s difficult to reconcile the impression with the reality. Bond has, in the past, recommended that progressives look to two of Zimbabwe’s “pro-democracy” groups, Sokwanele and Zvakwana, to find out what’s going on in Zimbabwe. (1) Both groups are modeled after Otpor, a Western-funded youth group that worked to oust Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Like their Serb progenitor, the Zimbabwean groups are handsomely funded by Western governments (2), not to oppose the interests of wealthy individuals, corporations, banks, investors, and imperialist states, but to promote them.

“The United States government (is) working with the Zimbabwean opposition” “trade unions, pro-democracy groups and human rights organizations” “to bring about a change of administration.” (3) It supports “the efforts of the political opposition, the media and civil society,” including providing training and assistance to grassroots “pro-democracy” groups (4) – groups Bond celebrated in a Counterpunch article as “the independent left.” (5)

The US also supports “workshops to develop youth leadership skills necessary to confront social injustice through nonviolent strategies,” (6) a project enlisting the kinds of nonviolent imperialists Stephen Zunes has made a practice of vigorously defending. (7)

Bond’s most recent attempt to bamboozle the West’s progressive community is a Z-Net article co-authored with a woman who is part of US-sponsored regime change operations in Zimbabwe. (8)

Last April, Grace Kwinjeh traveled to Washington with Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of one faction of the Zimbabwe opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, and representatives from NGOs funded by the US Congress’s National Endowment for Democracy: Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition. (9)

The NED does overtly what the CIA once did covertly, namely, meddle in the affairs of foreign countries to bring down governments that refuse to do Washington’s bidding.

Soon after it was established, the MDC became the party favored by white farmers in Zimbabwe for its opposition to the government’s land reform policies. The party is backed by the US and EU. Tsvangirai, the party’s original leader, and now leader of one its two factions, wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend, pledging to restore property rights and to compensate white farmers for the loss of land their settler ancestors took by force. (10)

Last April’s delegation to Washington was organized by the Open Society Initiative, a project of billionaire speculator George Soros, to “build and strengthen the values, practices and institutions of an open society throughout Southern Africa” (11) — roughly, to promote open markets and free enterprise where governments are pursuing programs of economic indigenization.

SW Radio Africa, which operates on funding provided by the US State Department’s Office of Transition Initiatives, reported that the group was in Washington to “brief Western institutions like the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Woodrow Wilson Center.” (12)

The CSIS is a little known think-tank run by a bipartisan collection of upper class leaders, including Zbigniew Brzezinski, Frank Carlucci, Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft. It recently prepared a report recommending that the West use preventive nuclear first strikes to stop other countries, like Iran, from acquiring nuclear weapons. (13)

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is a US government established center that links “scholarship to issues of concern to officials in Washington.” The Center’s Africa program was launched with a grant from the Ford Foundation to promote dialogue between scholars and US policy-makers on Africa. The tenor of the dialogue is obvious in the latest edition of the Center’s journal, The Wilson Quarterly. Articles extol competition (it’s hard-wired into humans) and the US Department of Homeland Security (it doesn’t get enough credit.)

Kwinjeh is a frequent guest on Studio 7, a radio station sponsored by the US-government’s propaganda arm, the Voice of America. (14) She calls herself “a founder member of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change, (MDC),” and says she “spent some time in Belgium as the MDC Representative to the EU.” (15)

At one point, she was the deputy secretary for international relations in the Morgan Tsvangirai-led faction of the MDC. She ran for the post of MDC secretary of information (the party’s propaganda office) unsuccessfully.

When writing for Western audiences, Kwinjeh conceals her MDC connections and presents herself as a journalist – not a senior member of the US and EU-backed MDC, not a part of US-government regime change operations.

The key questions for Western progressives are: Does Patrick Bond know who Grace Kwinjeh is? If so, why is he co-authoring articles with her? Is Bond’s definition of “independent” the same as that of the US state and Western media, i.e., any individual or group that facilitates the US government in its efforts to bring down foreign governments that refuse to do the West’s bidding? If Patrick Bond doesn’t know who Grace Kwinjeh is, why is he passing himself off as a left expert on Zimbabwe? Surely, someone who professes to have a knowledge of Zimbabwe greater than that of Western progressives would know about Kwinjeh’s role in US regime change operations. And what separation is there between the views of Bond and those of Kwinjeh, an MDC operative who has traveled to Washington on George Soros’ account to brief a ruling class think-tank that promotes a nuclear first strike strategy?

Follow Up, April 11, 2008

Z-Net changed Kwinjeh’s bio after I wrote to Chris Spannos about it, complaining the omission was deceptive.

Bond, usually obsessive about rising to these kinds of challenges, hasn’t replied to the article above, or to the questions asked of him at the end of it.

His most recent writing on Zimbabwe of which I’m aware (this time authored without the help of the US, British, and Australian government-backed MDC) appeared on Pambazuka News. Pambazuka News is directly financed by the Ford Foundation and billionaire speculator George Soros and indirectly by the Canadian government, the European Union and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

You can’t help trip over Bond’s connections to corporate foundations and groups and political parties financed by imperialist governments. They fund his civil society center and pay for his junkets. Groups he urges leftists to look to as an “independent” left voice are bankrolled by the US, British and other Western governments. Is it any wonder he’s known as Bond…Patrick Bond….of Her Majesty’s NGOs?

At one time, CIA spooks channeled money to left scholars like Bond covertly. Now, the funding is open, and the connections are hardly concealed.

Incidentally, Spannos mounted a sophistical defense of Z-Net’s accepting Bond’s MDC co-authored Zimbabwe article. Explained Spannos: If Z-Net refused to accept submissions from people who are connected, in some way, to parties or institutions dominated and funded by corporations and imperialist governments, Z-Net would have to dissociate itself from most of the submissions it gets on a daily basis.

This follows along the lines of a Stephen Zunes argument. Almost everyone, if they have a job, gets paid by capitalists or capitalist-supported governments, so what’s the fuss? The fuss is that few people get paid to undertake funded political activity. Equating a clerk who works for Sears and writes on Zimbabwe to Grace Kwinjeh, is like saying, “Just because George Bush is president doesn’t mean his views on public healthcare are more reflective of the interests of the US ruling class than those of Walmart employees, whose livelihood is also linked intimately to the US ruling class through their employment by a giant corporation.” Walmart employees, unless they’re in the PR department or boardroom, don’t get paid to represent Walmart’s political interests or those of the US ruling class. Kwinjeh, on the other hand, has a direct material interest in representing the interests of the MDC, and through it, the MDC’s patrons.

Sadly, Z-Net, and Z-Net favorites, Bond and Zunes, have a penchant for this kind of specious nonsense.

1. https://gowans.wordpress.com/2007/04/15/zimbabwe-and-the-politics-of-demons-and-angels/

2. Los Angeles Times (July 8, 2005)

3. The Guardian (August 22, 2002)

4. U.S. Department of State, April 5, 2007 report on human rights. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/shrd/2006/

5. http://www.counterpunch.org/bond03272007.html

6. U.S. Department of State

7. https://gowans.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/stephen-zunes-and-the-struggle-for-overseas-profits/

8. http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2008-03/11bond-kwinjeh.cfm

9. http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-04/2007-04-27-voa54.cfm?CFID=213706089&CFTOKEN=96857847 and http://www.swradioafrica.com/news290407/un270407.htm .

Regarding NED funding of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition see http://fanonite.org/2008/03/10/nonviolent-imperialism-major-revision/

10. The Herald (Zimbabwe) (March 23, 2008)

11. http://www.osisa.org/

12. http://www.swradioafrica.com/news290407/un270407.htm

13. https://gowans.wordpress.com/2008/01/27/whose-nuclear-first-strike-strategy-is-this-anyway/

14. http://www.voanews.com/english/africa/zimbabwe/

15. http://gracekwinjeh.blogspot.com/

Who is Grace Kwinjeh (and why did Patrick Bond co-author an article with her)?

By Stephen Gowans

Patrick Bond and Grace Kwinjeh wrote on article on March 11 for Z-Net on the upcoming elections in Zimbabwe. Titled “Zimbabwe’s political roller-coaster hits another deep dip,” the article took the current government to task, predicted a Robert Mugabe victory “by hook or crook,” and declared civil society to be Zimbabwe’s “main wellspring of hope.”

Civil Society Center director Patrick Bond (as in Bond…Patrick Bond…of Her Majesty’s NGOs, as one wag put it) has been lambasting the Mugabe government for years as a self-declared “independent” left voice on Zimbabwe. Bond’s independence includes celebrating activist groups that receive US government funding as part of the West’s regime change program in Zimbabwe.

But who is Bond’s co-author, Grace Kwinjeh?

Kwinjeh is listed at the end of the duo’s article as a South African-based Zimbabwean journalist. But according to Kwinjeh’s blog, Kwinjehviews, Bond’s co-author is also “a founder member of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change, (MDC)” who “spent some time in Belgium as the MDC Representative to the EU.” At one point, Kwinjeh was the deputy secretary for international relations in the Morgan Tsvangirai-led Movement for Democratic Change. (She also says she is a South African-based Zimbabwean journalist. Since this matches the brief bio provided at the end of the Bond-Kwinjeh Z-Net article, I assume Bond’s Grace Kwinjeh is also Tsvangirai’s Grace Kwinjeh.)

Inasmuch as Kwinjeh’s and Bond’s analysis of the upcoming elections is highly critical of the current Zimbabwean government, it is hardly an insignificant point that Kwinjeh fails to disclose her connection to the MDC. This is tantamount to an IBM employee writing a scathing review of Mac computers and then presenting herself as a technology journalist without acknowledging her connection to IBM.

It’s no less significant that Patrick Bond should be caught up in the deception, given his history of promoting “independent” left voices that are hardly independent (and does so once again.) But, then, maybe that’s what a civil society center director does. See Talk Left, Funded Right.

The MDC, which soon became the favored party of white farmers in Zimbabwe, has manifold connections to the US and British states and EU. The leader of the MDC faction Kwinjeh was deputy secretary of international relations for, Morgan Tsvangirai, worries in the Wall Street Journal about the effect the current government’s land reform policies have had on foreign investor confidence, and favors a policy in which Zimbabweans compensate settlers and their descendants for land taken from them and never paid for in the first place. This is akin to insisting you pay a thief for the return of the goods he stole from your house.

The issue, here, however, isn’t the MDC’s politics, but the deception and Bond’s part in it. Readers of Kwinjeh and Bond ought to be aware that they’re being bamboozled when either writer says or implies he or she is providing an independent left perspective. Kwinjeh should acknowledge her ties to the US- and EU-backed MDC. As for Bond, he should stop misrepresenting groups and individuals linked to corporations, capitalist foundations, and imperialist governments as an “independent” left.

Reply to Zunes on 10 Rules for Understanding Civil Society Imperialism

Stephen Zunes has written a brief reply to my last article, 10 Rules for Understanding Civil Society Imperialism, which you can read here. The following is my response.

Stephen,

Let me address your points one by one.

1.You say: “I do not and have never singled out leftist governments for criticism.”

I guess that depends on what you consider a leftist government to be. I would surmise that your definition is different from mine. If I said, “You criticized government x,” you would reply, “But government x isn’t leftist.” You’re using a difference of opinion about what a leftist government is, to construct a straw man.

2. You say: “I have supported anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist movements around the world.”

I’m sure you have supported some anti-imperialist and some anti-capitalist movements around the world, but who says you haven’t? My comments concerned anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist governments, not movements. I suspect you haven’t supported anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist movements that take up arms, but that’s another matter.

3. You say: “I have opposed the agenda of ‘wealthy individuals, corporations, capitalist foundations and imperialist governments’”.

I’ve never said you haven’t, but some would say you certainly haven’t opposed the agenda of Peter Ackerman as it relates to the ICNC and you certainly didn’t oppose USIP when you accepted a USIP research fellowship (i). These are good points, but they’re not my points and they’re hardly necessary points. Churchill opposed the agenda of the Soviet Union, but that didn’t stop him from working with it.

The issues, here, are: (1) Are you willing to take money from one or more of: wealthy individuals, corporations, capitalist foundations and imperialist governments? And (2): Are wealthy individuals, corporations, capitalist foundations and imperialist governments willing to give you money to oppose their interests? The answer to the first question, judging by your comments on an earlier article of mine, is yes (ii); the second question can only be answered in the affirmative by the deluded or naïve.

4.You say: “I have never implied that (wealthy individuals, corporations…) were in any way a “wellspring of hope.”

Who said you had? The “wellsprings of hope” reference was to civil society (and Patrick Bond’s and Grace Kwinjeh’s description of it), not to the funders of civil society.

5. You say: “I have never ‘followed State Department’ narratives.”

I guess it depends on what you mean by “followed.” Maybe we should call it a case of simultaneous multiple invention. You can be Wallace to the State Department’s Darwin. The State Department talks about “democracy” and “freedom” in the abstract. You talk about “democracy” and “freedom” in the abstract. The State Department talks about Belarus as a dictatorship. You talk about Belarus as a dictatorship. The State Department talks about Zimbabwe as a dictatorship. You talk about Zimbabwe as a dictatorship. And so on. (iii)

But maybe I’m being too charitable. I’ve assumed you’ve aped the State Department narrative on places like Zimbabwe, Belarus and Iran because it’s easy to do. Perhaps I should be complaining about your false allegations and total fabrications about these governments.

6. You say: “I have never defended the practices of the NED, the USAID or other government agencies.”

Who says you have? Patrick Bond is wont to celebrate groups that receive NED funding as an “independent” left. I’m not sure whether that counts as defending the practices of the NED, but I have no information on your attitude toward these organizations. Accordingly, I have nothing to say about it. Claiming I have is (to use your language) a total fabrication.

7. You say: “I only wish I could be criticized about the things I’ve really said.”

If I said all the things you say I’ve said about you, I too would say they were total fabrications. But alas I haven’t said these things. You’re either misreading what I’ve written or you’re raising the straw man to an art form.

Stephen Gowans

(i) See point 11of your “A Reply to Stephen Gowans’ False Allegations Against Stephen Zunes” http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16613 .

(ii) Ibid. You write: “The unfortunate reality in capitalist societies is that most non-profit organizations — from universities to social justice organizations to art galleries to peace groups (and ICNC as well) — depend at least in part on donations from wealthy individuals and from foundations which get their money from wealthy individuals.”

(iii) You write, “The best hope for advancing freedom and democracy in the world’s remaining autocratic states comes from civil society” and “Similar claims heard today that the United States is somehow a major force behind contemporary popular movements against dictatorships in Burma, Iran, Zimbabwe, and Belarus or that the United States was somehow responsible for the successes of previous movements in Serbia, Georgia or Ukraine are equally ludicrous.” “Nonviolent action and pro-democracy struggles,” http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16538 .

10 Rules for Understanding Civil Society Imperialism

By Stephen Gowans

Stephen Zunes, chair of the board of academic advisors to the US ruling class International Center for Nonviolent Conflict, and Patrick Bond, director of the Centre for Civil Society at Durban, are regular contributors to Z-Net, Counterpunch and other left media. There’s nothing particularly new, interesting or exciting about their writing. When it comes to foreign governments that pursue a traditional leftist agenda of independent economic development outside the domination of imperialist powers they can be counted on to ape the New York Times and Washington Post, and by extension, the White House and Department of State.

Reading Zunes’ write about Belarus, Zimbabwe, Myanmar and Iran, is like reading State Department press releases. “The best hope for advancing freedom and democracy in the world’s remaining autocratic states,” says Zunes, “comes from civil society” (1). In its reference to freedom and democracy in the abstract, Zunes’ language is evocative of the propagandistic bilge that gushes in rivers from White House and State Department speechwriters trying to shape public opinion. Bond, who claims an expertise on Zimbabwe based on proximity to the country (he runs a civil society center on the other side of the Limpopo River) is hardly better. Both mimic State Department charges against the West’s leftist and national liberation foreign policy betes noire, and, like the State Department, both celebrate civil society. Bond has gone so far as to naively dub activist groups in Zimbabwe that receive Western funding as “the main wellspring of hope for a Zimbabwean recovery” (2). It would be more apt to say civil society is the West’s main wellspring of hope to return Zimbabwe to a colonial past.

Bond and Zunes are formulaic writers. They cleave to a basic set of rules to guide their analyses of governments that have disrupted property relations that once favored Western investors, banks and corporations. Once you know the rules, you can predict what either Zunes or Bond are going to write with astonishing accuracy.

Rule #1. All governments are bad, especially those that pursue traditional leftist agendas of placing control of a country’s resources and productive property in the hands of its public, its government, or its domestic business class. The leaders of these governments deceptively employ socialist, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist rhetoric to win and then to hang on to power. They enjoy enormous privileges secured and defended by corruption and abuse of authority. Governments, by nature, are corrupt, authoritarian and thoroughly rotten, particularly those that call themselves leftist and anti-imperialist. There has never been a truly leftist, anti-colonial or anti-imperialist government, and can never be one. All revolutions are betrayals and no one should expect that anything good can ever come from left and anti-imperialist forces taking power. The only good revolution is the one that has never happened, or the ones that have been financed by wealthy individuals and the US government.

Rule #2. Civil society is the main wellspring of hope. Non-governmental organizations funded by the US Congress’s National Endowment for Democracy, the US State Department’s USAID, Britain’s Westminster Foundation for Democracy, Germany’s Friedrich Ebert Foundation, and other Western “democracy promotion” agencies, are independent organizations that are working to build a better world. Leftists should look to these groups to understand what’s going on in countries led by nominally anti-colonial, anti-imperialist and socialist governments. Zimbabwe’s Lawyers for Human Rights, for example, represents one of the main wellsprings of hope for Zimbabwe. Never mind that it is funded by the US National Endowment for Democracy (3) – an organization that does overtly what the CIA used to do covertly. Plenty of civil society organizations take money from wealthy individuals, corporations, capitalist foundations and imperialist governments. Does that mean they’re not independent?

Rule #3. Decentralized, participatory democracy is good. It is the absolute good.

Rule #4. Process is more important than outcome. Zimbabweans becoming owners of their own land and natural resources is only half as important as the British parliamentary tradition in Zimbabwe being upheld; only a tenth as important as the freedom and democracy Zunes’ celebrates in the abstract; only a hundredth as important as civil society having room to operate to peacefully change the government. It’s not helpful to mention that peaceful regime change is often preceded by economic warfare and threats of military intervention and that non-violent activism and civil society are only part of a larger whole of regime change operations.

Rule #5. Governments that call themselves anti-imperialist or socialist or both are neither of these things and are as deplorable as imperialists and neo-liberals. Civil society, though drawing its funding from wealthy individuals, corporations, capitalist foundations and imperialist governments, is the main wellspring of hope.

Rule #6. When writing about governments that pursue traditional leftist agendas, it is important to follow State Department narratives. This is equivalent to doing what the New York Times, CNN and other major media did when they amplified Washington’s lies about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction – an inconvenient reality, but skip over it. Charges made against leftist, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist governments of corruption, human rights abuses, and betrayal will resonate with a left population primed for cynicism. Accordingly, it takes little effort to make the charges stick. Don’t bother to cite evidence. You don’t need to. Tap into what everyone knows is true, because everyone says it’s true, because the media say it’s true, because the State Department and White House say it’s true. Who will ask for evidence? Insist that the other side present evidence. If you don’t like the evidence, say it’s not from a credible source.

Rule #7. Never shy away from basing your argument on appeal to authority. If you live close to the country civil society is to promote democracy in, or have visited it, claim authority based on geography. “I’ve been (or live close) to Zimbabwe.” This, however, might backfire. Opponents can reply: “If geography is so important, I’ll accept as a higher authority the analysis of the leaders of the government you denounce, since they are long-time residents of their country, and not merely tourists and residents of a neighboring country.”

Rule #8. Make definitive statements. For example, assert with certitude that Bob Helvey has never been to Venezuela to train civil society to bring down the Chavez government. When you’re shown evidence that Bob Helvey has indeed been to Venezuela, say “I only found about it last week.” Never let ignorance get in the way of self-appointed authority.

Rule #9. Defend civil society’s receiving its funding from wealthy individuals, corporations, capitalist foundations and imperialist governments by saying, “A people’s revolution cannot happen by generous funding alone.” This sounds compelling. Of course, if this were true, we could also say, “Acceptance of a ruling class ideology cannot happen by the ruling class virtually monopolizing the media and schools” or “George Bush won his first run at the presidency through a groundswell of popular support that had little to do with his connections to wealthy supporters and the king’s ransom spent on his campaign.”

Rule #10. Some say civil society should not take money from wealthy individuals, corporations, capitalist foundations and imperialist governments. Others say the reality that wealthy individuals, corporations, capitalist foundations and imperialist governments shower many civil society groups with money tells you everything you need to know about these groups. These people are not helpful.

1. Stephen Zunes, “Nonviolent action and pro-democracy struggles,” February 17, 2008, http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16538

2. Patrick Bond and Grace Kwinjeh, “Zimbabwe’s political roller-coaster hits another deep dip,” March 11, 2008, http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2008-03/11bond-kwinjeh.cfm

3. Michael Barker, “Nonviolent Imperialism: A Major Revision,” March 10, 2008, http://fanonite.org/2008/03/10/nonviolent-imperialism-major-revision/

Michael Barker’s Nonviolent Imperialism

Nonviolent Imperialism

Nonviolent Imperialism: Major Revision

Zunes’ Compromising with Capitalism’s Sad Reality

By Stephen Gowans

Stephen Zunes has written a reply to my article criticizing his connections to US government- and ruling class-funded “peace” organizations, but far from rebutting my criticisms, he helps make my point.

He writes, “The unfortunate reality in capitalist societies is that most non-profit organizations – from universities to social justice organizations to art galleries to peace groups (and ICNC as well) – depend at least in part on donations from wealthy individuals and from foundations which get their money from wealthy individuals.”

On this we agree: The capitalist class, through its money power, dominates capitalist societies, including its universities, social justice organizations, peace groups and scholars of non-violence (at least those willing to feed at the trough.) Is it any surprise, then, that handsomely-funded social justice organizations, peace groups, progressive media and scholars of nonviolence might be understood to be agents of capitalism and imperialism within the left community?

But Zunes continues: “Just because the ultimate source of funding for various non-profit groups is from members of the ruling class, however, does not mean that ruling class interests therefore set the agenda for every such non-profit group; they certainly do in some cases, but not in many other cases, including that of ICNC.”

There’s an obvious exceptionalism in Zunes’ argument. Maybe others are bought, but not me. Lay that aside. The ruling class doesn’t need to set the agenda for all organizations and individuals; it only needs to fund individuals and groups who promote its interests. This is the same argument Chomsky and Herman have made in connection with the mainstream press propagating elite narratives. Media outlets don’t need to set the agenda for journalists; they simply need to hire journalists who say the right things, and fire those who don’t. The New York Times won’t hire Chomksy or Herman to write a regular column, but it will hire Thomas Friedman, because he can be relied on to stay within a narrow band of opinion acceptable to ruling class interests. No one sets an agenda for Friedman. But, then, no one has to. As Humbert Wolfe once said, “You cannot hope to bribe and twist, thank God, the British journalist. But seeing what the man will do unbribed, there’s no occasion to.”

So what does Zunes do, unbribed, that obviates his funders setting an agenda for him? For one, he promotes a peaceful activism at home that is useful to the ruling class in channeling inchoate militancy into ritualistic, symbolic, forms of protest, whose effect in countering the ruling class is approximately zero. He says he “has even been arrested on a number of occasions protesting US imperialism” (doubtlessly in a ritualistic way that minimizes inconvenience for all concerned) but his being arrested has accomplished nothing, except to bulk up his credentials as an activist. And all those who have followed his lead had the same effect. The Washington Consensus is in no danger of falling apart and US war-making hasn’t been set back a millimeter in its relentless advance.

By contrast, non-violent activists in Belarus, Zimbabwe, Iran and formerly in Serbia can be much more effective; they have the US ruling class on their side. They’re helped immensely by the sanctions Washington deploys against their governments, by the threats of war the US uses to intimidate governments it wants to overthrow, by US bombing campaigns, by US assistance to the political opposition, and by the wads of money from the NED, USAID, and their equivalents in Britain, Germany and so on. Non-violent regime change in foreign countries is only possible as a result of contextual violence related to economic and conventional warfare. The contextual violence is absent in the case of peaceful protest in the US, which is why non-violent activism plus sanctions plus threats of war plus funding of subversion plus establishing media to broadcast anti-government propaganda works abroad and non-violent activism plus none of these other things doesn’t work at home.

Another reason the ruling class foundations on which Zunes relies do not have to set his agenda is that Zunes is an absolutely reliable amplifier within the progressive community of the arguments the State Department uses as the basis for its human rights imperialism. He assures us, without adducing the tiniest jot of evidence, that Belarus, Iran, and Zimbabwe are dictatorships and that Yugoslavia was in 1999. That’s helpful to the imperialist class in dampening interest among those politically conscious enough to be inclined to get in the way of imperialist designs being carried out against target countries. Who’s going to spring to the aid of foreign governments and anti-imperialist movements that are widely portrayed in the mass media, and seconded by foundation-supported “independent” progressive scholars, as oppressive and dictatorial?

Indeed, there are three ways Zunes promotes the ruling class agenda within the progressive community which makes the setting of an agenda for him by the wealthy individuals and foundations who furnish him with money completely unnecessary. He (1) lionizes ritualistic and symbolic forms of non-violent protest at home which have no effect in impeding the ruling class in pursuing its interests, and which, therefore it seeks to promote as an alternative to potentially more effective opposition (and if this safe outlet of opposition can be promoted by someone with activist credentials, all the better); by (2) amplifying ruling class justifications for its meddling in the affairs of other countries and thereby turning progressives against ruling class foreign policy targets; and (3) by burnishing US government regime change operations, portraying them as legitimate home-grown operations against oppressive governments.

The only way we cannot accept that Zunes is an agent of imperialism, is if we accept that the ruling class is incredibly stupid and funds the activities of those who are against its interests and fail to promote its agenda. Since this is highly unlikely, it is also highly unlikely that he is not a grassroots lieutenant of imperialism, along with all the other left scholars who have made their compromise with “the unfortunate reality” that in capitalist societies peace groups and social justice organizations are funded by wealthy individuals and their foundations.

Stephen Zunes and the Struggle for Overseas Profits

“The name for our profits is democracy” – Phil Ochs, Cops of the World

By Stephen Gowans

Stephen Zunes, a professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, is bristling against what he calls the leftist attack on “independent” grassroots nonviolent activists who are trying to bring down “autocratic” governments and “dictatorships” in places like Zimbabwe, Belarus and Iran (1). People who have cast votes in these countries may be surprised to discover they’re living in dictatorships, but the U.S. government says they are, and “progressives” like Stephen Zunes are happy to lend credibility to Washington’s charges. “Independent” grassroots activists in these same countries may be surprised to hear they’re independent, despite the cataract of support they receive from U.S. and Western governments and Western ruling class foundations, but if Zunes wants to elevate them from fifth columnists to independent democracy activists, they’re pleased to receive his support.

These days, Zunes’ bristling against the leftist attack may have something to do with the attack hitting too close to home (2). His association with dodgy U.S. ruling class foundations that hide the pursuit of U.S. foreign policy objectives behind a high-sounding commitment to peace has increasingly come under scrutiny. And judging by his reaction, he doesn’t like it (3).

Although he boasts of having impeccable progressive and anti-imperialist credentials, Zunes chairs the board of academic advisors for the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (the ICNC), a Wall Street-connected organization that promotes nonviolent activism in the service of destabilizing foreign governments — the same ones the U.S. State Department (and Zunes) likes to discredit by calling them dictatorships.

The ICNC’s founding chair is New York investment banker Peter Ackerman, who is also a member of the board of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), an organization dominated by directors of major U.S. corporations, corporate lawyers and CEOs. The CFR brings together executives, government and military officials and scholars to provide policy advice to the U.S. State Department. Its key members circulate between the council, corporate board appointments and State Department positions. The CFR has never been particularly concerned about promoting peace, freedom and democracy, but has had a single-minded focus on promoting the overseas profit-making interests of U.S. corporations and investors.

Ackerman is also chairman of the board of Freedom House, an organization that champions the rights of journalists, union leaders and democracy activists to organize openly to bring down governments whose economic policies are insufficiently friendly to U.S. trade and investment. Funded by the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Congress’s National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House features a rogues’ gallery of U.S. ruling class activists who have sat, or currently sit, on its board of directors: Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Otto Reich, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Steve Forbes, among others. These people share Zunes’ rhetorical commitment to “freedom and democracy,” though the only freedom they’re interested in is the freedom of U.S. corporations and investors to accumulate capital wherever and whenever they please.

Ackerman’s Center has been heavily involved in successful and ongoing regime change operations, including in Yugoslavia, which Ackerman celebrated in a PBS-TV documentary, Bringing Down a Dictator, about the ouster of Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. Ackerman, who studied under U.S. nonviolence guru Gene Sharp, has a U.S. Marine Corps officer son who earned a silver star for service in Iraq, using bombs and bullets, not nonviolent activism, to change Iraq’s regime. Apparently, Ackerman did little to instill nonviolent values in members of his own family.

The Center’s vice-chair is Berel Rodal, a former senior Canadian government official in foreign affairs, international trade, defense, security and intelligence, hardly the kind of background you would expect of an advocate of nonviolence, but fits well someone who has taken a leadership role in promoting Western foreign policy goals. Put the two together and you get nonviolent direct activism in the service of US foreign policy goals – -exactly what Rodal, Ackerman, the ICNC and Stephen Zunes are all about.

Another Center associate is Robert Helvey, whose book “On Strategic Non-Violent Conflict: Thinking about the Fundamental”, is promoted on the Center’s website. Helvey is a retired U.S. Army colonel and former U.S. military attaché to Myanmar (like Rodal’s, an improbable background for a budding Ghandi) who has been linked to anti-Chavez groups. Chavez has accused Helvey’s employer, the Albert Einstein Institution, of being behind an imperialist conspiracy to overthrow his government (4). Zunes says that “charges that…Bob Helvey” or the Albert Einstein Institution or the ICNC “are serving as agents of U.S. imperialism are totally unfounded” and that “the only visit to Venezuela that has taken place on behalf of any of these non-profit groups engaged in educational efforts on strategic nonviolence was in early 2006 when” Zunes “led a series of workshops at the World Social Forum in Caracas.” (5) Chavez, he says, has fallen for a conspiracy theory. These “individuals and groups” are not “plotting with his opponents to overthrow him.” (6)

But a Reuters’ report says Helvey was brought to Caracas in 2003 “by a group of businessmen and professionals to give courses to young activists on how to ‘resist, oppose, and change a government without the use of bombs and bullets.’” (7) Is Zunes unaware of this, or is he paltering with the truth?

Helvey’s dalliances with the anti-Chavez opposition came fast on the heels of “his work in Serbia before Milosevic’s fall” where he “briefed students on ways to organize a strike and how to undermine the authority of a dictatorial regime.” (8)

Zunes has received at least one research grant from the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and has served as a fellow of the organization (9). USIP’s aim is to “help prevent and resolve violent conflicts”, an improbable mandate given that the organization was established by the U.S. government, receives funding from Congress, and has a board of directors appointed by the President, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense and the president of the National Defense University – hardly the world’s greatest advocates of peace, but pretty effective advocates of the pursuit of U.S. corporate and investor interests abroad.

What’s not so improbable is that Zune’s ICNC colleagues (you know, the guys who are absolutely not agents of U.S. imperialism) are also connected to USIP. ICNC founder and Freedom House chair Peter Ackerman is on the advisory council. Former U.S. Air Force officer, presidential campaign speechwriter and ICNC director Jack DuVall – who Zunes must know well based on his assurances that “Jack DuVall…is not an agent of U.S. imperialism” (10) — is also connected to the USIP.

It’s hardly curious, then, that a group of Americans, many with backgrounds in the military, but also in foreign policy and investment banking, connected in some way to the U.S.-government funded and directed Institute of Peace, and involved in training foreign activists to destabilize foreign governments, might be seen as agents of U.S. imperialism. But Zunes says they’re not, offering his assertion alone (and his self-proclaimed credentials as a progressive and anti-imperialist) as proof.

Zunes’ rhetoric is reminiscent of Bush’s. He says nonviolent activists are pursuing “freedom and democracy” (in the same way, apparently, the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a project in bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East). He throws the charge of dictatorship around as facilely as Bush does. Yugoslavia (in 1999), Belarus, Zimbabwe, and Iran are dictatorships, he says. Apparently, Zunes has been too busy mimicking State Department press releases to notice there are elections and opposition parties in these places.

He says “there is no evidence…to suggest…that the U.S. government or any U.S.-funded entity has ever provided training, advice, or strategic assistance for the kind of mass popular nonviolent action campaigns that have toppled governments or threatened the survival of incumbent regimes.” (11)

Maybe he hasn’t been paying attention. When it comes to Zimbabwe, one of Zunes’ and the U.S. government’s favorite betes noire, there’s plenty of evidence. The British newspaper The Guardian revealed as early as August 22, 2002 that, “The United States government has said it wants to see President Robert Mugabe removed from power and that it is working with the Zimbabwean opposition” “trade unions, pro-democracy groups and human rights organizations” “to bring about a change of administration.” (12)

Washington confirmed its own civil society-assisted regime change plans for Zimbabwe in an April 5, 2007 report, revealing that in 2006 “The U.S. government continued to support the efforts of the political opposition, the media and civil society,” including providing training and assistance to the kind of grassroots “pro-democracy” groups phony anti-imperialists, among them, another ruling class foundation-connected academic, Patrick Bond, celebrate as “the independent left.” (13) The U.S. “supported workshops to develop youth leadership skills necessary to confront social injustice through nonviolent strategies.” (14)

Zunes tries to defend U.S. government meddling in the affairs of other countries by pointing out that “the limited amount of financial support provided to opposition groups by the United States and other Western governments in recent years cannot cause a nonviolent liberal democratic revolution to take place.” (15)

Who said it could? The real issue isn’t whether groups that challenge foreign governments are homegrown; it’s what they’re struggling for, why phony peace institutes are helping them, and what they’re going to end up with if they’re successful.

How curious that the governments Zunes really seems to be concerned about (Zimbabwe, Iran, Belarus and Myanmar) are hostile to the idea of opening their doors to unrestricted U.S. investment and exports. How curious that the successful soft revolutions Zunes admires (Yugoslavia, Georgia, Ukraine) have brought pro-U.S., pro-foreign investment governments to power.

And what happens when the soft revolutions Zunes and his colleagues assist, succeed? In Serbia, which Zunes’ ICNC considers to be the site of one of its most successful engagements, “dollars have accomplished what bombs could not. After U.S.-led international sanctions were lifted with Milosevic’s ouster in 2000, the United States emerged as the largest single source of foreign direct investment. According to the U.S. embassy in Belgrade, U.S. companies have made $1 billion worth of ‘committed investments’ represented in no small part by the $580 million privatization of Nis Tobacco Factory (Phillip Morris) and a $250 million buyout of the national steel producer by U.S. Steel. Coca-Cola bought a Serbian bottled water producer in 2005 for $21 million. The list goes on.” (16)

Meanwhile, in Kosovo, the “coal mines and electrical facilities, the postal service, the Pristina airport, the railways, landfills, and waste management systems have all been privatized. As is the case across the Balkans, ‘publicly-owned enterprises’ are auctioned for a fraction of their value on the private market with little or no compensation for taxpayers.” (17)

It should be recalled that prior to the soft revolution-engineered corporate takeover, the Yugoslav economy consisted largely of state- and socially-owned enterprises, leaving little room for U.S. profit-making opportunities, not the kind of place investment bankers like Ackerman could easily warm up to. That the toppling of Milosevic had everything to do with opening space for U.S. investors and corporations should have been apparent to anyone who read chapter four of the U.S.-authored Rambouillet ultimatum, an ultimatum Milosevic rejected, triggering weeks of NATO bombing. The first article called for a free-market economy and the second for privatization of all government-owned assets. NATO bombs seemed to have had an unerring ability to hit Yugoslavia’s socially-owned factories and to miss foreign-owned ones. This was an economic take-over project.

Zunes’ associate Helvey hasn’t limited himself to training activists to overthrow governments in Venezuela and Serbia. Wherever Washington seeks to oust governments that pursue economically nationalist or socialist policies, you’ll find Helvey (and perhaps Zunes as well) holding seminars on nonviolent direct action: in Belarus, in Zimbabwe, in Iraq (before the U.S. invasion) and in Iran (18).

Zunes would be a more credible anti-imperialist were he organizing seminars on how to use nonviolent direct action to overthrow the blatantly imperialist U.S. and British governments. With the largest demonstrations in history held in Western cities on the eve of the last conspicuous eruption of Anglo-American imperialism, it cannot be denied that there’s a grassroots movement for peace and democracy in the West awaiting Zunes’ assistance. So is he training U.S. and British grassroots activists to use nonviolent direct action to stop the machinery of war? No. His attention is directed outward, not on his own government, but on the governments Washington and ruling class think-tanks want overthrown. He’s also busy applying for grants from a phony U.S. government institute of peace, hooking up with Peter Ackerman and his gaggle of fifth column promoters and mimicking U.S. State Department nonsense about countries the U.S. ruling class would like to dominate but can’t being dictatorships and their Western-funded oppositions being independent.

Genuine progressives and anti-imperialists should carefully scrutinize the backgrounds of Zunes and others, paying special attention to their foundation and think-tank connections. They should also ask whether the “independent” grassroots groups these people celebrate are really independent, or whether they’re as tightly connected to Western governments and ruling class activist foundations as Zunes is.

1. “Nonviolent Action and Pro-Democracy Struggles,” Z-Net, February 17, 2008, http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16538. See also Zune’s “Leftist Attack on Nonviolent Direct Action for Democratic Change, www.canvasopedia.org/files/various/Leftist_Attack_on_NVA.doc
2. Michael Barker, “Peace Activists, Criticism, and Nonviolent Imperialism,” MRZine, January 8, 2008, http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/barker080108.html and John Bellamy Foster, “Reply to Stephen Zunes on Imperialism and the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict,” MRZine, January 17, 2008, http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/foster170108.html.
3. Stephen Zunes, “Spurious Attacks on Supporters of Nonviolent Resistance to Oppression, MRZine, January 18, 2008, http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/barker080108.html#zunes.
4. The Guardian, June 7, 2007.
5. Zunes, February 17, 2008.
6. Ibid.

Concerning Zunes’ assurances that Gene Sharp, Robert Helvey and the Albert Einstein Institution are not agents of U.S. imperialism and aren’t assisting groups plotting to overthrow the Chavez government:

“The AEI is run by Gene Sharp, a self-titled expert of what he calls ‘nonviolent defense,’ though better termed ‘regime change.’ His methodologies have been studied and utilized by opposition movements in Burma, Thailand, Tibet, Belarus, Serbia, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela. In the AEI’s 2004 annual report, Venezuela is highlighted as an area where actions are currently being taken:

Venezuelans opposed to Chavez met with Gene Sharp and other AEI staff to talk about the deteriorating political situation in their country. They also discussed options of opposition groups to further their cause effectively without violence. These visits led to an in-country consultation in April 2003. The nine day consultation was held by consultants Robert Helvey and Chris Miler in Caracas for members of the Venezuelan democratic opposition. The objective of the consultation was to provide them with the capacity to develop a nonviolent strategy to restore democracy to Venezuela. Participants included members of political parties and unions, nongovernmental organization leaders and unaffiliated activists…Helvey presented a course of instruction on the theory, applications and planning for a strategic nonviolent struggle. Through this, the participants realized the importance of strategic planning to overcome existing shortcomings in the opposition’s campaign against Chavez. Ofensiva Cuidadana, a pro-democracy group in Venezuela, request and organized the workshop. The workshop has led to continued contact with Venezuelans and renewed requests for additional consultations.”

Eva Golinger, Bush vs Chavez: Washington’s War on Venezuela, Monthly Review Press, New York, 2008, p. 136.

Either Zunes doesn’t know what’s going on, or is playing fast and loose with the truth.

7. Reuters, April 30, 2003.
8. Ibid.
9. See http://www.stephenzunes.org/ and http://www.fpif.org/advisers/37
10. Zunes, February 17, 2008.
11. Ibid.
12. The Guardian, August 22, 2002, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/aug/22/zimbabwe.chrismcgreal .
13. Stephen Gowans, “Talk Left, Funded Right, April 7, 2007, https://gowans.wordpress.com/2007/04/07/talk-left-funded-right/ .
14. U.S. Department of State, The U.S. Record 2006, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/shrd/2006/.
15. Zunes, February 17, 2008.
16. Elise Hugus, “Eight Years After NATO’s ‘Humanitarian War’: Serbia’s new ‘third way’”, Z Magazine, April 2007, Volume 20, Number 4.
17. Ibid.
18. The Albert Einstein Institution, Report on Activities, 2000 to 2004, http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/2000-04rpt.pdf .

Holiday Reading on Zimbabwe

With the holidays fast approaching, you may find yourself with time to get in some extra reading. If you’re interested in why the US and Britain are dead set on dumping Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, you may want to give these books, articles and commentary a try.

While it has been available since 2006, Gregory Elich’s Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem and the Pursuit of Profit is one of the best treatments of Zimbabwe around. Anyone looking for a thoughtful, critical and evidence-based understanding of Zimbabwe’s place in international politics (hard to find these days) should pick up Elich’s book.

Solidly ensconced at the other end of the spectrum is Abdiel’s Book of Demonology. Abdiel is a true believer who has rejected the inconvenience of having to think critically for the warm comforts of the absolutes of a new secular religion – one which features Robert Mugabe as the Prince of Darkness and a Jesus who bears a vague resemblance to Leon Trotsky. If you’re one of Abdiel’s co-religionists, steer clear of Elich’s brain-hurter. It’s tough slogging. Too many facts.

Instead, track down one of Pope Patrick Bond’s many homilies, written from his strategic coign of vantage just across the Limpopo River. Sing the old hymns. “Deliver Us From Mugabe,” “What a Friend We Have in the US-Funded “Independent’ Left,” And “Hark! The Independent Media Sings.”

Those who have a fondness for Ian Fleming novels, will want to curl up with one of Keith Harmon Snow’s tales of international intrigue and mystery.

The novelist’s latest potboiler, set in Zimbabwe, has Robert Mugabe being brought to power by an international conspiracy led by the British Croesus John Bredenkamp. Bredenkamp initially conspires to put the Rhodesian ship of state into Mugabe’s hands, but his plans go terribly awry when Mugabe successfully leads a national liberation struggle.

Snow follows Mugabe’s years in power. By rejecting the IMF, expropriating and redistributing land and setting out to indigenize the economy, Mugabe tricks the British and US governments into believing he’s an anti-imperialist.

(In an interstitial chapter, the author explains how, by writing Mien Kampf, whipping up nationalist fervor, and setting out to destroy Communism, Hitler gulled the world into believing he was a fascist.)

When a B-52 runs into trouble off the coast of Somalia and drops its nuclear payload into the sea, Bredenkamp launches a mission to retrieve the weapons. Fearing Mugabe is conspiring with Bredenkamp to hold the world to nuclear ransom for a million, kajillion dollars, the Americans declare Mugabe to be one of their most wanted. “That is why Mubage is under attack,” explains private investigator Keifer Snow Flake, the novel’s protagonist. “He’s too close to Bredenkamp. It’s really Bredenkamp they want.”

This is the first installment of a planned Zimbabwe trilogy by the novelist fans affectionately call Snow Job. In the second book, Bredenkamp and Mugabe hole up in Dr. Evil’s secret lair, and come face to face with Austin Powers, international man of mystery. In the trilogy’s final installment, the evil duo hijack a space shuttle the Americans have been secretly running to Mars, and meet up with the novelist himself at his Martian headquarters.

So, three choices for those interested in Zimbabwe this holiday season.

For escapist fiction: Keith Harmon Snow.

For the fictions of religion: Abdiel and Pope Bond.

For down-to-earth critical analysis: Gregory Elich.