[R-G] Zimbabwe and the Power of Propaganda: Ousting a President via Civil Society

[Anthony Fenton]

Zimbabwe and the Power of Propaganda: Ousting a President via Civil  
Society
by Michael Barker
Global Research, April 16, 2008
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8675

         “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."

Michael Barker is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global  
Research Articles by Michael Barker