.
.
They have began to call it the Marigold Revolution but in reality it is the..- Bolivarian Revolution versus
- Daddy's BMW Revolution
Washington’s New Imperial Strategy In Venezuela
May 13th 2007, by Chris Carlson - Venezuelanalysis.com ,
link
Behind Venezuela's "Student Rebellion"
June 11th 2007, by George Ciccariello-Maher - CounterPunch
link
Venezuela Accuses U.S. of Instigating Student Violence
November 9th 2007, by Chris Carlson - Venezuelanalysis.com
link
Pro-Chavez Students Blame Opposition Students for Violence at University
November 9th 2007, by Kiraz Janicke - Venezuelanalysis.com
link
USAID in Bolivia and Venezuela: The Silent Subversion
September 12th 2007, by Eva Golinger
link
The Nature of CIA Intervention in Venezuela
Philip Agee interviewed by
Jonah Gindin, March 23, 2005 Venezuelanalysis.com
link
The Battle for Global Civil Society
William I. Robinson interviewed by
Jonah Gindin June 13, 2005 Venezuelanalysis.com
link
US Continues Destabilisation Push in Venezuela
Eva Golinger interviewed by
Sam King July 03, 2007 Green Left Weekly
link
NED Back on the Offensive in Venezuela
by Eva Golinger November 28, 2004 VHeadline
link
Washington's 'three fronts of attack' on Venezuela
by Eva Golinger November 27, 2006 Green Left Weekly
link
THESE "STUDENTS LEADERS":
- Stalin González, chairman of UCV's Students Association:
- Nixon Moreno
- Freddy Guevara,
- Rodrigo Diamante,
- Yon Goicoechea, Universidad Católica Andrés Bello
- Douglas Barrios, Metropolitan University of Caracas, Movimiento Estudiantil Mayo 2007
TRAINED BY:
WHICH IS SIMILAR TO GROUPS LIKE:
FINANCED BY:
- National Endowment for Democracy
- USAID
- Freedom House
- ...and others
2 comments:
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/723/37520
Inaccurate and unfair attacks on the ICNC
Stephen Zunes
31 August 2007
Michael Barker’s reply (“Promoting ’democracy’ through civil disobedience”, GLW #722) to a letter-to-the-editor by Jack DuVall (GLW #718, online edition) contains some serious factual errors and misleading comments regarding the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), for which I serve as chair of the board of academic advisers.
Green Left Weekly readers may recognise me as the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Zed Press, 2003) and scores of articles for Common Dreams, Alternet, Tom Paine and other progressive websites, including Foreign Policy in Focus, where I serve as a board member and Middle East editor. My visibility as an anti-imperialist scholar has earned me a prominent place on lists of the most dangerous “anti-American” and “anti-Israel” professors on websites and in articles of those backing US President George Bush’s global agenda.
This fact alone should raise serious questions regarding Barker’s claim that ICNC’s program is geared toward supporting US hegemony. If that were true, why would they have someone like me in such an influential position? And why would I agree to take such a post for an organisation if it really supported an imperialistic agenda?
As a result, I feel obliged to address specifically some of the false allegations brought up by Barker:
First of all, ICNC does not “work closely” with the Albert Einstein Institution, does not “provide its theoretical underpinnings” and has never had a single operational meeting with anyone representing them. The primary connection between the two independent non-profit institutes has been ICNC’s support for foreign-language translations of their literature, which have been used by nonviolent activists struggling for freedom and justice in dozens of countries.
(In any case, contrary to Barker’s assertion, the Albert Einstein Institution has never received any government funding nor does it take ideological sides in conflicts. The research on the power on nonviolent action by its founder and director Gene Sharp — who began his career as the personal assistant to the legendary radical pacifist and labour organiser AJ Muste — has inspired generations of peace and social justice activists in the United States and around the world. No evidence has emerged that he has ever worked with the CIA or any other organ of the US government, an idea that those of us who know Sharp and his work find completely absurd.
In addition, the Albert Einstein Institution has funded research and educational activities for scores of left-leaning scholars and activists, including Palestinian feminist Souad Dajani, Rutgers University sociologist Kurt Schock, Common Courage Press co-founder Greg Bates, Israeli human rights activist Edy Kaufman, Kent State University Peace Studies professor Patrick Coy, Nigerian human rights activist Uche Ewelukwa and Bradford University Peace Studies professor Paul Rogers, among others, all of whom have been outspoken critics of US foreign policy.)
Secondly, while some ICNC staff members attend conferences and meet with various individuals connected with foreign policy think tanks in Washington, this hardly constitutes a conspiracy to advance US imperialism. Indeed, anyone who bothers to read articles or speeches by ICNC president Jack DuVall and other ICNC staff would find that they regularly criticise the failure of the foreign policy establishment to appreciate or understand the power of nonviolent struggle. As DuVall, in a recent speech, put it, “It will not be Western policymakers [or] international institutions … who will rescue from oppression the people of the Middle East or Africa or any other region soaked with injustice and misery. It will be the ordinary people inhabiting what we call ’civil society’, who are now usually treated by outsiders as victims or beneficiaries of action by others.” This is hardly the perspective that would be taken by a supporter of US hegemony in the name of “democracy”.
Indeed, the idea that nonviolent theorists like Sharp and DuVall subscribe to a hegemonic ideology is ridiculous. Both have long sought the greatest possible diversity of thought and experience in the understanding of popular nonviolent struggle, for which the left has had far more experience and understanding than any government will ever have. Prominent American radical pacifists like George Lakey, Michael Nagler and David Hartsough — who are leading activists against US imperialism — have worked closely with both Sharp and DuVall and have strongly supported the work of their organisations.
The ICNC spends far more time with nonviolent activists from Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America than they do with anyone from the Washington establishment. The ICNC has supported workshops for progressive activists around the world challenging US-backed governments, including Palestinians struggling against the Israeli occupation, West Papuans struggling against the Indonesian control and Sahrawis struggling against the Moroccan occupation, as well as pro-democracy activists in Egypt, Azerbaijan, the Maldives, Guatemala and elsewhere.
Barker is also totally wrong in claiming that ICNC’s goal is to “help promote revolutions in geo-strategically useful countries”. In reality, ICNC’s only purpose is to help develop and disseminate knowledge regarding strategic nonviolent struggle in support for human rights, democracy, and social justice. ICNC’s operating guidelines prohibit the organisation from initiating contact with activists from any country; the initiative must come from activists themselves. In fact, ICNC responded favourably to an inquiry by Medea Benjamin — co-founder of Global Exchange and Code Pink — about leading seminars for anti-war activists in the United States.
Barker’s claims regarding ICNC president Jack DuVall are particularly absurd: DuVall has had absolutely no associations with the Congressionally funded National Endowment for Democracy. In his five years as head of ICNC, he has had just one meeting with one NED staff member for purely informational purposes, and there was no follow-up on either side.
Furthermore, also contrary to Barker, DuVall had no involvement in the founding of the Arlington Institute, though he did serve on its board for a couple of years at the request of his friend John Peterson, whom he got to know when they were active in the left wing of the Democratic Party back in the 1980s. There is nothing in common between the work of the two organisations and they have had no joint projects, no cooperation and no meetings. (Incidentally, Peterson, a co-founder of the Arlington Institute, is a member of the Coalition for Realistic Foreign Policy, which is a group of “scholars, policy makers and concerned citizens united by our opposition to an American empire”.)
Similarly, Barker’s misleading and highly selective overviews of past affiliations of ICNC staff fail to mention their far more significant work in promoting democratic struggles against US-backed regimes and their involvement in other progressive movements.
For example, Barker’s reference to ICNC’s manager for educational initiatives Maria Stephan’s work with NATO and the Pentagon fails to mention that these positions were short-term fellowships while she was in university some years ago; her primary focus since graduating has been research and advocacy in support of the resistance by the people of East Timor, Palestine and Western Sahara against US-backed occupation forces and she has become known as a sharp and persistent critic of US Middle East policy.
Senior advisor and former ICNC vice-president Shaazka Beyerle, a former resident of East Jerusalem, has been active in research and advocacy in support of the nonviolent Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation. Former ICNC director of research and programs Hardy Merriman’s principal work with the Albert Einstein Institution was editing Waging Nonviolent Struggle — a book endorsed by leading radical scholars and activists — and his major personal contribution to the collection was the chapter on the United Farm Workers Union’s organising efforts among Mexican and Filipino farmworkers in California.
Joanne Leedom-Ackerman has no affiliation with ICNC. In any case, her work for International PEN and the International Center for Journalists, in which she has defended persecuted journalists and writers, can hardly be considered part of an imperialist plot, particularly since most of the people she has supported are being persecuted by US-backed regimes.
There are other errors and misleading statements in Barker’s response as well, but the bottom line is this: Unlike the National Endowment for Democracy and other US government-backed “pro-democracy” efforts, which focus primarily on conventional political campaigns led by pro-Western parties, the work of ICNC and related NGOs focus upon nonviolent direct action led by grassroots movements unaffiliated with established political parties.
The US government has historically promoted regime change through military invasions, coup d’etats and other kinds of violent seizures of power by an undemocratic minority. Nonviolent “people power” movements of the kind supported by ICNC and other NGOs, by contrast, promote regime change through empowering pro-democratic majorities that the United States and other foreign governments cannot control.
As result, the best hope for advancing freedom and democracy in the world comes from civil society, not the policies of the US government, which should neither receive the credit nor the blame for the growing phenomenon of largely nonviolent democratic revolutions which in recent decades have toppled authoritarian regimes from Indonesia and the Philippines to Madagascar and Mali, from Czechoslovakia and Serbia to Bolivia and Chile. (Most of the governments emerging from such struggles have not been as progressive as I would like to see, but they are certainly improvements over the dictatorships that preceded them.)
The emergence of civil society organisations and the growing awareness of the power of nonviolent action in recent years has been one of most positive political developments in what has otherwise been largely depressing political times. It is most unfortunate, then, that supposedly “progressive” voices have chosen to attack this populist grass roots phenomenon and the NGOs which support them as part of some kind of Bush administration conspiracy.
It is also ironic that so some on the left — after years of romanticising armed struggle as the only way to defeat dictatorships, disparaging the potential of nonviolent action to overthrow repressive regimes and dismissing the notion of a nonviolent revolution — are now expressing their alarm at how successful popular nonviolent insurrections can be, even to the point of naively thinking that nonviolent revolution is so easy to pull off that it could somehow be organised in foreign capitals.
In reality, every successful popular nonviolent insurrection has been the result of a protracted home grown movement rooted in the belief by the majority of the population that their rulers were illegitimate and the current political system was incapable of redressing injustice. By contrast, no nonviolent insurrection has ever succeeded when the movement’s leadership and agenda did not have the backing of the majority of the population. Washington cannot “cause” a nonviolent revolution to occur any more than Moscow could “cause” an armed revolution to occur. To pretend otherwise invalidates popular movements for freedom and justice everywhere and implies that the oppressed masses are simply pawns of great powers rather than the powerful revolutionary forces capable of making their own history that they are.
[Stephen Zunes (http://www.stephenzunes.org) is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco.]
From: Comment & Analysis, Green Left Weekly issue #723 5 September 2007.
http://www.thegringo.com/index.php?articleID=11995§ionID=294
Diplomacy, Trade and Security
Diplomacy, Trade and Security Inaccurate Information: An Open Letter
to President Hugo Chavez
Jun 12, 2007 – From Gene Sharp, Senior Scholar, The Alfred Einstein Institution
President Hugo Chavez
Caracas, Venezuela
Dear Mr. President,
I have viewed and listened to your address on Sunday June 3, 2007. I
fear that someone has provided you with inaccurate information about
myself and the Albert Einstein Institution that found its way into
your speech.
Unfortunately, for those persons who are familiar with my life and
work and that of the Albert Einstein Institution, these inaccuracies,
unless corrected, will cast doubts on your credibility. A
responsibility for those errors also lies with the person or persons
who were the source of information provided to you. I have read an
article by a Frenchman that may be a source of some of your
statements. It contains numerous factual errors about myself, other
individuals, and the Albert Einstein Institution. Accurate information
could have been obtained if your aides had consulted our website at
www.aeinstein.org and asked others more familiar with our work.
The Albert Einstein Institution is a small nonprofit institution for
research, policy analyses, and education on the nature and generic
potential of pragmatic nonviolent action in relation to the problems
of oppression, injustices, war, and genocide.
Nonviolent action is a technique for conducting conflicts, as is
military warfare, parliamentary government, and guerrilla warfare.
This technique uses psychological, social, economic, and political
methods, and has been used for a variety of objectives, both "good"
and "bad" ones. It has been used both to change governments and to
support governments against attacks.
The Albert Einstein Institution neither creates conflicts, nor becomes
a participant in a conflict once one exists. Nor does it take
ideological sides in conflicts. It simply conducts research, generic
policy studies, and education. Neither I personally, nor the Albert
Einstein Institution, have ever received funding or direction from the
CIA. When writing my 1968 doctoral dissertation for Oxford University,
I did in the 1960s indirectly receive partial financial support from
the Department of Defense from a grant to a Harvard University
professor, as acknowledged in my Preface to The Politics of Nonviolent
Action.
Financial support for our academic and strategic studies of nonviolent
action as a substitute for violence has been at times adequate but
over many years has been highly uncertain and extremely paltry. The
Institution is funded mostly by small individual private donations and
foundation grants. We have received no government funding ever.
Our work has not been backed by powerful political or economic
interests in the United States or internationally.
Indeed, one of the consequences of widespread use of the nonviolent
technique tends to be the diffusion of effective power among
populations that have previously been relatively powerless, and
therefore subject to oppression and injustices.
In making available knowledge of nonviolent action, the Albert
Einstein Institution never tells people what to do in their own
situations and countries. Our scholarly work is basic, and our policy
explorations are generic. That is, these analyses do not focus on
specific countries or conflicts. These explorations may be of interest
and of potential use as an alternative to violence wherever the people
of a society feels a need for them.
In my personal view, groups that seek significant social reform and
change would benefit and be more successful if they used nonviolent
struggle in place of violence or expanded government controls.
Violence and government controls can become oppressive, and the
government that uses them may be subject to a coup d'état to reverse
its efforts to achieve greater justice.
Some people may use nonviolent action with motives or objectives that
many of us would not favor. For the overall society, that is still
preferable to their use of violence for those same undesirable
purposes.
You certainly know that over the years major positive social changes
have sometimes been blocked by coups d'état against movements and
governments that were attempting to produce greater social and
economic justice.
Strategic nonviolent action can be applied to block and defeat such
coups. If you suspect that your own government could become the victim
of an attempted overthrow by a coup d'état, whether by internal forces
or with international intelligence instigation or manipulation, then
advance preparations and plans to block an anti-democratic coup would
be very wise.
One of our analyses might be of serious interest to you and your
government is an advanced study of the coup d'état. It includes
concrete steps that can be taken by governments and civil institutions
to block coups d'état. It is authored by myself and Bruce Jenkins,
titled "The Anti-Coup" (63 pp.), and published in Boston by the Albert
Einstein Institution in 2003. It can be sent to whatever address you
designate, and is also available in electronic format on our website
(www.aeinstein.org).
I hope that you will find time to explore the relevance of nonviolent
struggle for the development of a more just society. A major pioneer
in this exploration in the post-Gandhi years in India was the great
Indian socialist Rammanohar Lohia. Some of the work by him and his
colleagues is described in the book India Afire by Harris Wofford and
his wife, published in the US in the 1950s.
I hope you will find a way to correct the fictional account of my life
and work on which your aides have drawn. Thank you for this.
Good wishes,
Gene Sharp
Senior Scholar
The Alfred Einstein Institution (http://aeinstein.org/)
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