Toward Freedom board member Jacqueline Luqman (left) and Kamau Franklin spoke about their work as media makers for Radio Sputnik and Black Power Media, respectively, on a panel held December 11 in Washington, D.C., as part of the first-ever African Peoples’ Forum, organized to counter the Biden administration’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit / credit: Julie Varughese
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Hundreds of people of African descent convened this past weekend at two events that aimed to be the people’s opposition to the Biden administration’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, which is taking place this week amid a military buildup to enforce the summit’s security in Washington, D.C.
The summit is described as a four-day event (Dec. 12-15) that is designed to foster economic opportunities and reinforce the United States’ alleged commitment to human rights and democracy. It is the first summit of its kind since 2014.
“I look forward to working with African governments, civil society, diaspora communities across the United States, and the private sector to continue strengthening our shared vision for the future of U.S.-Africa relations,” U.S. President Joe Biden is quoted as saying on the summit’s website.
Activists from across the United States joined together for the African Peoples’ Summit held December 11 in Washington, D.C. / credit: Julie Varughese
However, the summit comes amid dim relations between the United States and many African countries, some of which have decried Western financial and arms support for the war in Ukraine. Western sanctions against Russia have caused price spikes in wheat, with 345 million people in the world expected to experience “acute food insecurity.” Several African countries have relied on Russia and Ukraine for large portions of their wheat imports. However, U.S. officials have been pilloried, too, for saying African countries that continue to trade with Russia would face consequences.
Speakers at both counter events said the Biden summit is really a U.S. attempt to maintain control over the African continent.
Netfa Freeman, an organizer with Pan-African Community Action and a member of the Black Alliance for Peace Coordinating Committee, spoke December 10, at the Global Pan-African Peoples Intervention on the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. The Global Pan-African Congress organized the event at Howard University’s School of Social Work in Washington, D.C. Freeman read aloud a December 9 statement the Black Alliance for Peace issued.
“The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) recognizes the ‘U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit,'” the organization states, “as nothing more than collusion between neo-colonial powers and U.S. attempts to advance and maintain dominance over the continent.”
The Biden administration invited leaders of 49 African countries. The exceptions were Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Guinea, Mali, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic and Somaliland. An unnamed “senior administration official” was quoted in a transcript of a December 8 background press call as citing the African Union suspending most of these countries for why they were not invited. (A background press call is meant to provide off-the-record information to invited press, hence officials went nameless in the transcript. Toward Freedom was not invited.)
However, long-time colonizer and U.S. ally, France, recently announced the removal of military troops in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. This came after coups and instability in these countries. Mali also recently banned French NGOs. Guinea experienced a coup in 2021 that appeared to be welcomed by its population. Meanwhile, the United States does not recognize Western Sahara, or the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, as a sovereign state.
While the officials mentioned various civilian-led entities the United States has deployed to cultivate leadership on the continent, none of them spoke about the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). That is one of 11 combat and technical military structures the United States has deployed throughout the world to ensure control of shipping lanes and resources. AFRICOM’s press officer has denied commerce is its only interest, while acknowledging it is one of AFRICOM’s reasons for being. Meanwhile, its 2022 “posture statement” to the U.S. Congress states, “Africa sits astride six strategic chokepoints and sea lines of communication, enables a third of the world’s shipping, and holds vast mineral resources. When access through these strategic chokepoints is blocked, global markets suffer.”
Speakers at the weekend’s events remarked on U.S. intentions.
“The U.S. government and their scribes are misguiding the public on what the roles of the U.S. government, NATO, AFRICOM and neoliberal leaders are in maintaining the state of unrest and violence in countries so they can steal their resources,” said Jacqueline Luqman, a Toward Freedom board member, who spoke as co-host of Radio Sputnik’s “By Any Means Necessary” on a panel about the role of the media.
“The US gov. & their scribes are misguiding the public on what the roles of the US gov., NATO, AFRICOM & neoliberal leaders are in maintaining the state of unrest & violence in countries so they can steal their resources,” @luqmannation1@Blacks4Peace#apf2022. pic.twitter.com/WQ5Xti8eMV
That panel was one of three held during the first-ever African Peoples’ Forum. The December 11 event was organized at the Eritrean Civic and Cultural Center in northeast Washington, D.C. Moderators included Eritrean activist Yolian Ogbu and Hermela Aregawi, an independent journalist of Ethiopian descent who has reported on the Horn of Africa.
Speakers and moderators of the three panels that took place December 11 at the first-ever African Peoples’ Forum in Washington, D.C. / credit: Abena Disroe-Morris
The five-hour event featured three panels of prominent speakers like Eritrean journalist and activist Elias Amare; and Paul Sankara, brother of assassinated Burkina Faso leader Thomas Sankara; among many others.
Aregawi announced to the audience of a couple of hundred mostly African-descended people that the event was so successful, the forum may take place quarterly to create more opportunities for African anti-imperialist activists to come together. The event was pulled together in just three weeks’ time, she said.
To continue with the momentum in opposition to the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, BAP has organized a week of actions, December 13-16, to raise awareness about the nature of the U.S. role in Africa.
“BAP calls for the dismantling of NATO, AFRICOM and all imperialist structures,” the organization’s statement reads. “Africa and the rest of the world cannot be free until all peoples are able to realize the right of sovereignty and the right to live free of domination.”
U.S. and Burundi soldiers dismantle a SIPR NIPR Access Point Terminal (SNAP) at the Burundi National Defense Headquarters on May 19, 2021 / credit: Staff Sgt. Melissa Sterling
Editor’s Note: This was excerpted from the Black Alliance for Peace’s AFRICOM Watch Bulletin.
The imperialist powers are bent on exploiting the labor and looting the mineral wealth of as many poor, underdeveloped countries as they possibly can.
Britain, France, Israel, Germany and the United States conduct joint military action against Africans—acts such as the invasion of Grenada, a country of 110,000 African people, and the invasion and destruction of Libya. The imperialists are further intensifying their use of military “proxies” within Africa against other parts of Africa, not to defend the interests of Africa, but to further the interests of capitalist-imperialism.
No small or isolated group of Africans can defeat imperialism, no matter how good their intentions. Only the working, struggling African masses can do it. But to do so, we must be organized and bound together by a common goal and guided by correct ideas. In other words, the masses must be correctly organized!
U.S. Out of Africa: Voices from the Struggle
Dr. Gerald Horne is the author of over 30 books, among them most recently would be the Bittersweet Science: Racism, Racketeering and the Political Economy of Boxing and The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism and Capitalism, in the Long Sixteenth Century. He currently holds the John J. and Rebecca Moors Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. He is considered by many to be the gold standard for radical historians and the go-to scholar for alternatives to neoliberal political and historical narratives. We spoke with him about a wide variety of issues around our work concerning Africa.
AFRICOM Watch Bulletin: Counterterrorism was the espoused pretext for the development and installation of US AFRICOM onto the African continent which now exist in 53 or the 54 countries. Can you talk about how terrorism is used today compared to how Communism once was, and has it indeed surpassed communism as the go-to pretext for US imperial interventionism projects?
Gerald Horne: A central problem with “terrorism” as a lever for imperial intervention in Africa is the dearth of self-criticism. That is, during the Cold War, Washington collaborated with religious zealots and fanatics, not least in Afghanistan, not least with the rulers of certain Gulf monarchies, in order to weaken various socialist projects. Now like a perpetual motion machine, imperialism has now decided—at least on the surface—to target this phenomenon. I say “on the surface” because there is still collaboration with, e.g. Saudi Arabia and the vulturous regimes who signed the so-called “Abraham Accords” in September 2020 in order to weaken Palestinian resistance. Of course, today this phenomenon is now wreaking havoc in northern Mozambique.
AWB: You have done a great deal of comprehensive work on liberation struggles on the African continent. Unfortunately, your analysis is not the center of US curriculums. What steps can be taken the change that reality?
GH: I think that work should be done in league with the Zinn Project, which seeks to inject progressivism in educational curricula. This would also include the two major unions–the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. This would also include fierce fightback against current legislative efforts to circumscribe “Critical Race Theory”, which detractors could hardly describe or define, if pressed.
AWB: Israel has been making strides in establishing partnerships with several African countries despite its continued maintenance of an apartheid state and oppression of the indigenous Palestinian population. To what degree do you attribute this pattern of African countries turning a blind eye to Israeli human rights violations so short of a time after the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa?
GH: With the erosion of the socialist bloc, post 1991, African nations–and indeed the entire global left–has faced difficulty in standing up to U.S. imperialism and its proxy: Israel. On the other hand, this is nothing new, for even pre-1991 nations e.g. Morocco stood alongside imperialism. (Parenthetically, in my 16th century book I pointed out that a gigantic step forward for the acceleration of the African Slave Trade took place in 1591 when Rabat collaborated with London in destabilizing the Songhay Empire; today, Rabat continues to suppress the liberation of “Western Sahara”.) The struggle continues…
AWB: What will it take for Black evangelicals, be they in Africa or the Diaspora, to rethink their unconditional support for Israel?
GH: In order to force the “Black Evangelicals” to move, we will have to heighten our own struggle and then they will find the ground beneath their feet moving. There are already signs of rifts between BE and Israel and I do not envision this trend dissipating any time soon.
AWB: Paul Robeson, Malcolm X, Kwame Ture are among the Pan Africanists who tied African American progress to the liberation of Africa. How can we grow the number of Black folks in America to this line of thinking?
GH: We must continue what we have been doing–with more. We must organize more picket lines and study groups. We must make more media appearances. We must launch more documentary projects. We must establish a presence at the African Union in Addis Ababa and CARICOM too. We must picket the OAS headquarters in Washington, DC, especially re: the crisis in Colombia. We must **organize**.
AWB: Thank you for your time and revolutionary analysis!
Left to right: French President Emmanuel Macron, U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Background: Sudanese protest in July 2022 / Photo illustration: Toward Freedom
Editor’s Note: This analysis originally appeared in NewsGhana.
Several geopolitical powers are seeking to enhance their influence and cooperation with the continent of Africa.
United States President Joe Biden announced during July that he would host a summit with African leaders at the White House in December. This announcement by Biden comes in the aftermath of several important political developments which have exposed the ineffective foreign policy orientation of the world’s leading capitalist country. Within the United Nations, many African states abstained from two resolutions which condemned the Russian Federation during the early phase of Moscow’s special military operation in neighboring Ukraine.
In addition, most African governments have not made pronouncements in favor of the war program of the U.S. Compounding these complicated relationships is the reliance by several AU states on Russian and Ukrainian agricultural products and inputs. The imposition of unprecedented sanctions by the Biden administration and the European Union (EU) has hampered the flow of goods and services.
The two leading officials of the AU, President Macky Sall of Senegal, who is the chair of the continental organization and Commissioner Chair, Moussa Faki Mahamat, traveled to Sochi in June to hold high-level discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The AU statement issued in the aftermath of the meeting reiterated the position of the organization that the conflict in Ukraine should be resolved diplomatically through negotiations. This is a position at variance with the Biden presidency which has openly declared that the administration wants to remove Putin from power and weaken Russia as a world power.
Also, the talks between Putin and the AU resulted in the reconvening of the Russia-Africa Summit which will meet towards the end of the year in Ethiopia. In fact, during late July, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov embarked upon a tour to several African countries including Egypt, Uganda and Ethiopia.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said in a press conference with Lavrov that the enemies of the U.S. were not the adversaries of his government. He noted that Uganda wants to trade with the U.S., Russia and any other country which respects its independence and sovereignty.
The Russian envoy emphasized that Moscow has always supported Africa in the struggle against colonialism. Museveni exclaimed during the press conference held at Entebbe: “How can we be against somebody who has never harmed us? If Russia makes mistakes, we tell them. When they have not made mistakes, we can’t be against them.”
A report published by the Tass News Agency said of the Kremlin’s chief envoy’s trip to Africa emphasizing: “Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived on Tuesday (July 26) in Ethiopia on a working visit, TASS reports from the site. On Wednesday, Lavrov is expected to hold talks with his Ethiopian counterpart Demeke Mekonnen. The top diplomat visits Ethiopia on the last leg of his tour of Africa. From Ethiopia, he will travel to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Council of Foreign Ministers.”
Lavrov visited four African states during his tour. These countries were Egypt, Congo-Brazzaville, Uganda and Ethiopia, where the AU headquarters is located in the capital of Addis Ababa. The Russian foreign minister denied the allegations made by the U.S. and the EU that Moscow is responsible for the global food crisis.
According to Ahram online, published in Cairo, Egypt, Lavrov said: “There is a very loud campaign around this, but our African friends understand their root cause. They are not related to what is happening within the special military operation.”
France Attempting to Recover Lost Credibility
French President Emmanuel Macron started an African trip at the same time as Lavrov’s visit across the continent. France has come under fire in recent months for its military presence in several countries including the Central African Republic, Mali and Burkina Faso. The CAR and Malian governments are utilizing Russian military consultants from the Wagner Group, which Moscow has denied is an arm of its foreign policy.
Nonetheless, the burgeoning hostility towards Paris within its former colonies on the continent has proved to be worrisome for the Macron government. French military and diplomatic personnel in Mali were requested to leave the country immediately. France has maintained a military presence in many of its former colonies since the 1960s. These forces have intervened in internal political struggles in a manner which benefits France and not necessarily the African states involved.
Although Macron is obviously seeking to counter the heightened scrutiny being placed on France’s involvement in Africa, it is by no means clear what Paris has to offer countries such as Cameroon, Mali, Guinea-Conakry, the CAR, Ivory Coast, among others. In recent years, France has attempted to bolster its CFA zone domination over currencies in various African states even to the point of proposing a new monetary system which would maintain links to Paris.
Even the U.S. State Department-funded Voice of America (VOA), wrote on the mission of the French president while he visited Cameroon noting that: “Macron said European economic sanctions on Russia, which are having an indirect effect on Africa, are intended to stop Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty and not to punish Africans. He said France is interested in the well-being of civilians in both African countries and Ukraine. The visiting French president did not say how much France would invest to boost agricultural production in Africa, but said Cameroon is one of the countries chosen for agricultural investments. The U.N. says that Africa depends on Russia and Ukraine for more than 50 percent of its wheat imports.”
Such an admission by the VOA utilizing United Nations data raises the question of why have African governments turned to Russia to meet their domestic consumption demands? France’s foreign policy orientation has heavily relied on military force to advance its strategic interests in Africa.
Moreover, in recent months since the expulsion of French diplomatic and military personnel from Mali, it has become necessary for Macron to advance a new and ostensibly more “compassionate” approach towards various African states. Such a superficial policy shift conflicts with statements made by Macron leading up to the 60th anniversary of Algerian independence when the French leader suggested that atrocities committed by its colonial officials have been exaggerated by successive administrations in Algiers. France controlled Algeria as a colonial outpost for 132 years. Millions of Algerians lost their lives to French forces through massacres dating back to the 19th century notwithstanding the counter-insurgency operations during the war of independence between 1954-1962, when Paris withdrew its military from the North African state.
Biden Maintains Same Imperialist Policy Towards Africa
Mike Hammer, the U.S. Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa, began a tour to Ethiopia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates on July 24. Supposedly the purpose of Hammer’s trip was to facilitate a settlement surrounding the dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the status of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has opposed the GERD saying it will redirect water from the Blue Nile jeopardizing the well-being of its people. The current demarcations for usage from the strategic waterway was instituted by Britain during its colonial domination over Egypt in late 19th and early 20th centuries. Ethiopia maintains that GERD utilizing its full capacity would be beneficial to the entire regions of North and East Africa.
What is significant about the U.S. posture as a mediator in this dispute is that the previous administration of President Donald Trump sided openly with Egypt in 2020, even encouraging Cairo to “blow up” the GERD project. The Biden administration, similarly to Trump’s, has worked to either weaken or overthrow the Ethiopian government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
Biden and many members of the Democratic Party in Congress have imposed a ban on Ethiopia’s participation in the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) program which has been in operation since the concluding days of the administration of former President Bill Clinton. In addition to the purging of Ethiopia from AGOA, the Congress had threatened to pass legislative measures designed to implement even more draconian sanctions on the Horn of Africa state which houses the headquarters of the AU.
As a result of Washington’s posture towards Ethiopia, many women garment workers have had their plants closed due to lack of demand from the U.S. Hammer claims that the Biden administration is concerned about the equitable and efficient distribution of aid to Ethiopia where the government has battled the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in the north of the country. Successive U.S. administrations have supported the TPLF during its period in power from 1991-2018, when their government collapsed as a result of a national uprising in Ethiopia.
These factors must be taken into consideration when evaluating the diplomatic competition taking place between Washington, Paris and Moscow. If recent events are any indication, the African people along with their governments will struggle to make decisions which benefit the continent as opposed to the western imperialist states.
Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire, an international electronic press service designed to foster intelligent discussion on the affairs of African people throughout the continent and the world. The press agency was founded in January of 1998 and has published thousands of articles and dispatches in newspapers, magazines, journals, research reports, blogs and websites throughout the world. The PANW represents the only daily international news source on pan-african and global affairs.
Editor’s Note: The following represents the writers’ opinion.
A free and transparent media is critical for any democracy. But in every society, defending the integrity of the media requires constant vigilance. We found ourselves drawn into the work of exercising this vigilance by complete chance.
When the independent left publication New Frame closed down after four years of operations, the liberal media rushed in, in unseemly haste, to put the boot in. Perhaps the worst of the attacks was penned by Sam Sole and Micah Reddy of the investigative journalism outfit amaBhungane. They alleged, based on nothing more than salacious gossip, that there was an attempt to influence public discourse in South Africa by the Chinese state. Not a shred of evidence was provided for this conspiracy theory by Sole and Reddy in an article that was largely based on innuendo. They abused the institutional authority of amaBhungane as a trusted publication to give credence to a conspiracy theory, one that aligned closely with the
key tropes being driven by the United States in the New Cold War.
The hostility towards us in this story can only be because our new organization, the Pan-African Institute for Socialism (PAIS), aims to create a non-sectarian space on the left to reach consensus on a pragmatic minimum program to increase the prospects for the Black poor and working-class majority in South Africa, Africa and the Global South.
PAIS has never had any sort of connection to New Frame aside from a single meeting held at their offices to inquire about the process for submitting opinion pieces for consideration, something that never actually happened in the end. But, to our complete astonishment, we found PAIS, a new and entirely unfunded organization, drawn into the conspiracy theories recycled by Sole and Reddy. This quite bizarre experience led us to wonder who funded amaBhungane, and what the drivers were for such vehemence by publications that claim to be fair, even-handed, and balanced. Those questions soon led us to an intricate web of relationships that are clearly designed to hide the influence of powerful funders and networks.
What is the real project of these U.S.-led imperialists and their surrogates in South Africa? A common thread has been the use of proxies to stymie the liberation of the majority of South Africans, particularly the Black working class and rural poor. First was Inkatha.1 Then came the DA. Lately, it is a hodge-podge of xenophobic opportunists. In addition, there are organizations that pose as being ‘Left’ and the so-called independent media. They all have one thing in common. They have an agenda to drive the ANC vote below 50 percent, in towns, cities, provinces and ultimately nationally.2
While PAIS may irritate them because we shine a spotlight on these reactionaries, their real target is the liberation movement. They wish to stymie the realization of the National Democratic Revolution, the as-yet unrealized goal of the struggle.
In this graphic the authors provided, they connect South African media leaders to major funders and the U.S. government / credit: Phillip Dexter and Roscoe Palm
We have been stunned by the extent of the capture of much South African media by the U.S. state and how most of it is hiding in plain sight. The first article to come out of our ongoing research project, “Manufacturing consent: How the United States has penetrated South African media”3 noted a few key points, including the following:
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was created in 1983 during the Reagan era to conduct operations and functions previously carried out by the CIA.4 It supported the mujahideen in Afghanistan and the Contras in Nicaragua and has been involved in many U.S.-backed coups.5 It now has vast tentacles across Africa.6
The NED funds the Mail & Guardian’s (M&G) weekly publication The Continent7 via its own non-profit arm, Adamela Trust, and international organisations like the International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM),8 and the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA),9 all of which are linked to key people and organisations in the South Africa media. The editor-in-chief of the Continent is Simon Allison, former Africa editor of M&G, Africa correspondent of Daily Maverick, and a former consultant with Open Society Foundation (OSF)-funded Institute for Security Studies.10 11 It is noteworthy that the NED has continued its program through Republican and Democratic administrations, from Reagan through to Biden, and was headed by Carl Gershman from its inception until 2021. Its agenda has not changed. 3. The OSF and Luminate, another major foundation, are official U.S. government partners that often work closely with the NED and other parts of the U.S. state, strategically taking on and funding projects that the U.S. state cannot or does not wish to directly undertake.12 Among the many examples of direct collaboration is that the NED and the OSF jointly founded Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD).13 The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) is an official initiative of NED that coordinates this work and lists OSF as a partner.14 Luminate, together with the MIDF, has facilitated “dedicated coaching and newsroom expertise in topics such as marketing, newsletters, community building, and audience development” for M&G.15 4. Key senior people in publications like the M&G and amaBhungane, including three former editors-in-chief of the M&G have gone on to work for U.S. and Western government-supported organizations, including three separate projects funded by the NED.16 17 18 5. At least fifteen people who passed through the fellowship program run by amaBhungane have been directly tied to U.S. government organizations and programs including the Voice of America.19amaBhungane has also led the formation of a regional investigative journalism network, IJ Hub.20 6. The M&G, the Daily Maverick and amaBhungane, as well as smaller projects like the M&G-linked Daily Vox and the local U.S. embassy-linked Africa Check,21 are part of a list of at least 24 publications that have been funded by one or more of the major funders that regularly partner with the U.S. government.22
As we continue with our research we are finding more NED links. For instance the NED has funded the Institute for Race Relations (IRR),23 which publishes the Daily Friend,24 a publication that is ostensibly liberal, but veers towards the reactionary right wing weltanschauung. Sam Sole, the editor of amaBhungane, is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ),25 which is funded by the NED.26 We are also finding more and more links between organizations, like the OSF and Luminate, and the U.S. state. It is also likely that some journalists are funded directly by organizations, so that the claim to independence of organizations can be upheld.
The Oppenheimer family, whose wealth was wrung from the super-exploitation of Black labor in the mines, have long had considerable influence over political life in South Africa, including during the negotiations where the right of capital to continue to exploit was affirmed.27 But it is clear that, like OSF and Luminate, the Oppenheimers are also key partners of the U.S. state. The Oppenheimers fund amaBhungane28 and are given the red carpet treatment by the Daily Maverick to platform for their surrogates such as Greg Mills to propagate their pro-Western worldview.29 Founded by Branko Brkic, the Daily Maverick does list some funders, but asks you to take a leap of faith that a group of ten trusts, companies, and individuals that own anything between 0.1 percent and 15 percent of its investment holding company, are not compromised or party to any external leverage, as a cohort or as individual opaque entities. It also raises questions that the Daily Maverick and its biggest shareholder, Inkululeko Media, are indexed by Google as sharing the same office address in St. George’s Mall, Cape Town.30 31 Their opaqueness flies in the face of the Daily Maverick’s claims of transparency, which are merely a marketing strategy. Since their reader covenant was drafted in 2009, the Daily Maverick has become an important and influential player in the polity. It has evolved beyond being a blog with an angle that punched above its lightweight class and has accrued a tremendous amount of institutional authority in shaping discourse and curating narratives. With this power comes the responsibility to precisely disclose its funding. In short, it’s time for Daily Maverick to grow up, just like its peers in the mediascape.
The Oppenheimers also fund the Institute for Race Relations (IRR),32 the South African Institute for International Affairs,33 and their own foundation, the Brenthurst Foundation34. In each case, the links to the U.S. state are clear. Chester Crocker, who was Ronald Reagan’s point man in southern Africa at the height of the Cold War35 is an “honorary life member” and board member of the IRR.36 The Brenthurst Foundation has clear and open links of various kinds to NATO. The director of the Brenthurst Foundation, Greg Mills,37 served as a special advisor to the NATO Commander David Richards, who commanded the Western coalition forces as they stomped their way across Afghanistan.38 Greg Mills39 is one of four foreign policy right-wing hawks who are “allowed” to write on geopolitical affairs by the Daily Maverick. The other three are former U.S. diplomat Brooks Spector,40 former editor of M&G and president of consultancy group Calabar Consulting, Phillip van Niekerk,41 and lifetime foreign affairs hawk and stenographer of Western imperial interests, Peter Fabricius. Fabricius and Spector are also linked to the South African Institute of International Affairs as “experts”.42 The SAIIA is funded by USAID and the U.S. Department of State.43 But the systemic capture of much of our mediascape by the U.S. state and its partners extends beyond questions of funding, training programs, revolving doors, boards and collaborations of various kinds. There is also the question of editorial lines. In a number of publications, there is a systemic bias towards pro-U.S. positions, and very, very little critique of U.S. imperialism. There are a number of people writing as independent analysts, who are in fact embedded in the U.S. state in various ways. We also see that while the media has often served the interests of the public in terms of uncovering corruption in government, it has often done comparatively little in terms of doing the same in terms of private sector corruption, abuse of workers and control of policy.
All this is just scratching the surface. We are finding much, much more evidence of widespread media capture with every hour of research. Already some key questions are emerging for future research and articles. They include the following:
Why is the Daily Maverick’s funding not fully and precisely disclosed—including, in particular, the details on all equity, loan, or subsidy transactions?
How are the amaBhungane fellowship and training programs funded? Are there project costs, fees and expenses received from programs funded directly or indirectly from U.S. government agencies? Why do such large numbers of the fellows go on to work for U.S. government funded projects?
Which publishers, editors and journalists have attended the regular events for editors held by the U.S. consulate in Cape Town? What are the details of other briefings held by U.S.-directly or -indirectly funded organizations that senior leaders of South African media attend?
Who are the former publishers, editors and journalists who now work for the U.S. state or for U.S.-state directly or -indirectly funded organizations?
What other media projects are funded by the NED, OSF, Luminate and the Oppenheimers?
What is the percentage of articles in our “independent” media on geopolitics that support the U.S. line on international affairs and the percentage of those that are critical?
Transparency is a basic democratic value. It is time we knew who the masters of our media really are. It cannot be acceptable that while the editors and reporters of these publications demand accountability and transparency of those in government, labor and, occasionally, in business, they arrogate to themselves the right to not meet the same standards.
Our research project is growing in scope and urgency by the day. We need help from all interested citizens of South Africa who wish to contribute to media reform in the interests of transparency and the important work of defending and deepening our democracy. As a start, we welcome suggestions for further questions for us to explore and, in due course, to present to the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF). Please do contact us at PaisSocialism@proton.me and share the questions that you think should be raised.
Phillip Dexter and Roscoe Palm are co-founders of the Pan-African Institute for Socialism, which can be found on Twitter at @PaisSocialism.
Footnotes
1 The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) started as a cultural movement in present day KwaZulu-Natal, but quickly morphed into a political movement to oppose the ANC’s liberation struggle. See “Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP),” South African History Online. 2 For example, in a recent opinion piece in Financial Times, Gideon Rachman wrote, “The best thing [the ANC] could do for the country’s future would be to lose the next election and leave power.” Gideon Rachman, “South Africa’s fear of state failure,” Financial Times, Aug. 15, 2022 3 See Ajit Singh and Roscoe Palm, “Manufacturing consent: How the United States has penetrated South African media,” MR Online, Aug. 8, 2022. 4 See David Ignatius, “Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups,”The Washington Post, Sept. 22, 1991 (“‘A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,’” agrees [Allen] Weinstein.” Weinstein was a co-founder of the NED.) 5 See David K. Shipler, “Missionaries for Democracy: U.S. Aid for Global Pluralism,”The New York Times, June 1, 1986. 6 For example, in FY2021 alone, the NED’s Africa program granted $41.5 million dollars across 34 countries and hundreds of projects. See National Endowment for Democracy, 2021 Annual Report. 7 See National Endowment for Democracy, “Regional: Africa 2021,” Feb. 11, 2022. 8 See International Fund for Public Interest Media, “About”. 9 See National Endowment for Democracy, Awarded Grants Search, (search: “Media Institute of Southern Africa”). Additionally, MISA has received funding from and is a “key partner” of the U.S. Agency for International Development. See United States. Congress. House. Committee on Appropriations. Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs, Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations for 2002: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, One Hundred Seventh Congress, First Session, U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001, p. 870. 10 See Simon Allison LinkedIn. 11 See Institute for Security Studies, “How we work”. 12 “Private sector funding of independent media abroad … has several advantages over public financing. Private funders can be more flexible … and their programs can operate in countries where U.S. government-funded programs are unwelcome. “In many places around the world, the people we train are more open to participating in programs funded by private sources than those funded by the U.S. government,” says Patrick Butler, ICFJ [International Center for Journalists] vice president.” National Endowment for Democracy, Center for International Media Assistance, Empowering Independent Media Inaugural Report: 2008, Ed. Marguerite Sullivan, (cited in Manufacturing consent article). 13 According to the Global Forum for Media Development, OSF and NED are its “core funders.” See Global Forum for Media Development, “Partnerships”. 14 See Center for International Media Assistance, “Partners”. 15 See Luminate Group, “Sixteen media selected for Membership in News Fund,” Feb. 4, 2021. 16 Roper became editor-in-chief of M&G in 2009 and left in 2015 to become the Deputy CEO of Code for Africa (CfA). CfA is a member of Code for All, which is funded by the NED. Additionally, Roper was a Knight Fellow at the International Center for Journalists, which is also funded by the NED. See, Chis Roper LinkedIn profile; Code for All, “Our Supporters”; International Center for Journalists, Impact Report, 2022, p. 17. 17 Former editor-in-chief Khadija Patel (2016-2020) left the M&G to chair the NED-sponsored International Press Institute. In 2021, Patel became head of programs at the NED-funded International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM). See fn. 2 (above) (NED funding of IFPIM); International Press Institute, “Supporters and Partners”; International Press Institute, “Executive Board”; International Fund for Public Interest Media, “About”. 18 Former editor-in-chief Phillip van Niekerk (1997-2000) left the M&G to take up a senior position at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in Washington D.C. ICIJ is funded by the NED. See “New editor of M&G,”Mail & Guardian, Mar. 20, 1997; “Over to you, Dr Barrell,”Mail & Guardian, Dec. 15, 2000; International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, “Our Supporters”. 19 See “Manufacturing consent: How the United States has penetrated South African media.” Full citation at fn. 3. 20AmaBhungane “is incubating the Hub… As incubator, amaBhungane has continued to support the Hub administratively.” IJ Hub, Annual Narrative Report 2021/21. 21 See Africa Check, “Partners” (“The U.S. Embassy in South Africa is proud to team up with Africa Check to tackle misinformation and disinformation in the media.”). 22 In addition to their own media-related grants, OSF and Luminate jointly founded the South African Media Innovation Program, a multi-million dollar media investment initiative managed by the Media Development Investment Fund, which is also funded by OSF and Luminate. See South Africa Media Innovation Program; Luminate Group, “South Africa Media Innovation Program (SAMIP) launched by Open Society Foundation of South Africa (OSF-SA), Omidyar Network, and Media Development Investment Fund,” Aug. 29, 2017. 23 See i.e. South African Institute of Race Relations, 86th Annual Report, 2015, p. 7. Additionally, the IRR has partnered with the International Republican Institute, which is one of NED’s four core institutes. See International Republican Institute, “Democratic Governance in Africa”; National Endowment for Democracy, “How We Work”. The IRR is also a member institute of the NED’s Network of Democracy Research Institutes. (See National Endowment for Democracy, “NDRI Member Institutes” (https://www.ned.org/ideas/network-of-democracy-research-institutes-ndri/ndri-member-institutes/#Top). 24 “The Daily Friend is the online newspaper of the Institute of Race Relations.” Daily Friend, “About” (https://dailyfriend.co.za/about/). 25 See International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, “Sam Sole”. 26 See International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, “Our Supporters”. 27 See Sampie Terreblanche, “The New South Africa’s original ‘State Capture’”, Africa Is a Country, Jan. 28, 2018. 28 See amaBhungane, “About Us”. 29 See https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/ray-hartley-and-greg-mills 30 See https://www.sayellow.com/view/south-africa/daily-maverick-in-cape-town 31 See footer on Inkululeko website for address. 32 See Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, “All Beneficiaries – S” 33 See Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, “All Beneficiaries – S” 34 See The Brenthurst Foundation, “Our Story”. 35 Interestingly, a 1983 New York Times profile of the Oppenheimer empire opens with the following: “In an oracular vein, an academic named Chester A. Crocker once said of South Africa: That country is by its nature a part of the West. It is an integral and important element of the Western global, economic system. Mr. Crocker, who has since become the State Department’s top Africa hand and author of the Reagan Administration’s policy of “constructive engagement” with South Africa’s white minority Government, was openly embracing a premise found in both South African propaganda and the arguments of Marxist analysts: that the West’s formal condemnations of apartheid mask an enormous stake in the outcome of the shadowy struggle between the races there.” See Joseph Lelyveld, “Oppenheimer of South Africa,”The New York Times, May 8, 1983. 36 See South African Institute of Race Relations, 92nd Annual Report, 2021, p. 6. 37 See The Brenthurst Foundation, “Greg Mills”. 38 See Greg Mills, From Africa to Afghanistan: With Richards and NATO to Kabul, Wits University Press, 2007. 40 See J. Brooks Spector author page at Daily Maverick. 41 See Phillip van Niekerk author page at Daily Maverick. 42 See South African Institute of International Affairs “Expert” pages for Peter Fabricius and Brooks Spector. 43 See South African Institute of International Affairs, “Funders”.
