Buhari Warns About Foreign Meddling As Nigeria Heads to Polls to Decide on Next President

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.

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:

1. 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
2. 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.¹⁹ amaBhungane 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:

1. Why is the Daily Maverick’s funding not fully and precisely disclosed—including, in particular, the details on all equity, loan, or subsidy transactions?
2. 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?
3. 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?
4. 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?
5. What other media projects are funded by the NED, OSF, Luminate and the Oppenheimers?
6. 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 [email protected] 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.
²⁰ AmaBhungane “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”.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Peoples Dispatch.

Tensions simmering between Sudan’s army and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) boiled over into armed clashes on the morning of Saturday, April 15, following disagreements over the integration of the autonomous RSF into the army’s command chain.

The issue of integration was a key aspect of a deal that Sudan’s ruling junta was to sign with right-wing civilian forces to share power with the latter. The left in Sudan has been critical of the proposed deal, questioning the sincerity of the parties. Speaking to Peoples Dispatch a few hours before the fighting broke out, the Sudanese Communist Party’s Foreign Relations Secretary, Saleh Mahmoud, said “Both the forces, the army and the RSF, have a mutual interest in escalating armed conflict, so that it can be used as a reason to not hand over power to the civilian forces.”

According to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the air force carried out strikes destroying RSF’s Tiba and Soba base in Khartoum State on Saturday. Heavy gunfire began in the morning in several cities, including in the vicinity of the Presidential Palace and the airport in the capital Khartoum city.

Earlier, the RSF, which is led by the ruling military junta’s deputy chairman, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, aka Hemeti, claimed to have taken control of the Presidential Palace, the seat of the junta’s chairman and army chief, General Abdel Fattah al Burhan.

Later, however, after continued fighting, the SAF claimed that the RSF troops had left their weapons behind and fled the the presidential palace area to hide in the residential areas. The army has called on the residents to stay home.

The RSF had also claimed to have taken control of the airports in Khartoum and in El-Obeid, over 400 km southwest of Khartoum in the state of North Kordofan. It also claimed control over the military airbase in Merowe, 200 km to Khartoum’s north, in the Northern State which borders Egypt.

While Hemeti is backed by the UAE, Egypt, which is said to be backing Burhan in this internal struggle, reportedly has planes in this airbase, making it a crucial infrastructure.

On April 12, at least a hundred RSF vehicles surrounded this airbase. Sudan Tribune reported that  “the army surrounded the RSF troops and requested them to evacuate but the paramilitary force refused.” Subsequently, military vehicles of the RSF also rolled into Khartoum and several other cities.

Complaining that “this deployment and repositioning” of the RSF “clearly violates the law,” the SAF spokesperson issued a statement at 3 a.m. on Thursday, warning that the  “continuation” of such deployments “will inevitably cause more divisions and tensions that may lead to the collapse of security in the country.”

According to the RSF, which first issued a statement on the fighting, clashes began after a surprise attack by the army on its troops in Soba, before simultaneous attacks on its bases in several other cities. The SAF has in turn accused the RSF of lying to conceal its own aggression.

RSF and the Army Worked Together to Protect Military Rule from Pro-Democracy Movement

Established in 2013, the RSF was formed by coalescing the various militias used by the state during the civil war in Darfur in the 2000s to commit alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

Omar al-Bashir, the former dictator under whose administration these alleged crimes were committed, stands trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC). He was forced out of power on April 11, 2019, about four months after the start of the pro-democracy protests that have come to be known as the December Revolution.

By the time of his ouster, the RSF had become, and remains, one of the most powerful organizations in the country with a vast financial network built on mining gold in Darfur. Hemeti had pledged over a billion dollars to help stabilize Sudan’s central bank in the aftermath of Bashir’s removal.

Such increasing power and influence of the RSF have been making the army uneasy over the years. Reports about underlying tensions between the Burhan and Hemeti have been frequent. However, united with the intent to maintain military rule and protect it from the December Revolution, the two forces had been working together.

The junta formed by the generals in Bashir’s security committee after his removal was chaired by army chief Burhan, who in turn declared RSF head Hemeti his deputy on April 12, 2019, exactly four years before he would deploy the RSF to surround Merowe military airbase.

When the mass sit-in demonstration occupying the square outside the army HQ continued after Bashir’s removal, insisting on a civilian administration, the junta deployed the RSF on June 3, 2019. In the massacre that followed, RSF troops killed over a hundred protesters, wounding many more and raping several while the army watched over from its HQ.

Right-Wing Parties Seek Compromise with the Military Junta, Again

In the aftermath of this massacre, right-wing parties in the coalition, Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC), entered into negotiations with the junta, forming a joint civilian-military transitional government in August 2019. In protest against this compromise, the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP), a key player in the December Revolution, broke away from the FFC, which was formed in January that year to represent the pro-democracy protest movement.

Under this power-sharing arrangement with the FFC, the military controlled the defense, the police, the foreign policy, and much of Sudan’s economy. The little power that was ceded to the FFC-chosen civilians in this government was taken back with the military coup in October 2021, since when military rule has been absolute.

“No negotiations, No Compromise, No partnership” with the military, is a slogan that has been resonating in the mass-protests that have continued since the coup, regularly drawing hundreds of thousands to the streets in several towns and cities across the country.

Disregarding this popular call for the complete overthrow of the junta and the prosecution of its generals under a fully civilian transitional government, the FFC returned right back to negotiations after the coup, seeking a compromise and partnership with the military again.

The unpopular negotiations were supported by the Trilateral Mechanism, formed by the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), African Union (AU), and the seven-countries regional bloc, Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).

The United States threw its weight behind these negotiations, imposing pressure on the military as well as the right-wing FFC parties to make compromises and come to another power-sharing agreement.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which are backing Burhan, and the UAE, which is backing Hemeti, all want a military regime in Sudan, albeit with different hierarchical structures, Fathi Elfadl, national spokesperson of the SCP, told Peoples Dispatch.

“But the Americans,” he added, “have been pushing for a comprehensive agreement with the FFC to establish a civilian authority, which, however, will only serve as a cover for the real authority that will be invested in the Security and Defense Council controlled by the junta.”

Under much Western pressure and growing threats to their authority from the radical mass-movements below, the junta and the FFC signed a Framework Agreement in December 2022, laying the path toward a final political agreement on another power-sharing arrangement.

By then, at least 120 had been killed and thousands injured in the crackdown on pro-democracy protests by the army, the police, and the RSF. Yet, unwilling to compromise with the military, the network of over 5,000 local Resistance Committees (RCs) across Sudan, which have been leading the mass-protests since the coup, rejected the agreement, and vowed to continue mass-actions till the junta is toppled.

Hundreds of more protesters have since suffered injuries in the crackdown that has continued despite the junta’s commitment in the Framework agreement to respect “international human rights charters.. freedoms of peaceful assembly and expression”.

While the agreement stated that a civilian Prime Minister will be the supreme commander of the armed forces, Burhan clarified to media only days later that the “civilian Supreme Commander of the SAF” neither “presides over the army chief” nor appoints him, but “only approves recommendations made to him.”

Despite these demonstrations of bad faith, the FFC proceeded under the aegis of the trilateral mechanism to negotiate the contested issues left unresolved in the framework agreement.

These included the review of the Juba peace agreement which has brought no peace to the war-torn regions like Blue Nile and Darfur where hundreds of thousands have been displaced since in continuing armed attacks, mostly by the RSF and the militias it supports. Another contested issue was the nature of transitional justice for the victims of the June 3 massacre and other atrocities.

With several compromises, the FFC had found common ground with the junta on most of these issues by last month when the signatories of the framework agreement announced that the final political agreement will be signed by April 1. This was to be followed by a constitutional declaration on April 6, and finally, the establishment of the new joint transitional government by April 11, the anniversary of the overthrow of Bashir.

‘Only Way Out of the Crisis Is to Restore the Revolution’

However, on April 1, the signing of the political agreement was postponed to April 6, and then indefinitely delayed. The FFC said that the delay was caused due to a disagreement between the army and the RSF over the integration of the latter into the former’s structure.

While Burhan is insisting that the integration should take place within the two years of the transitional period by the end of which an election is to be held as per the agreement, Hemeti has refused, demanding 10 years.

“By lining up with the RSF in this dispute, the FFC has lost the little credibility they may have been left with after entering into negotiations with the junta for the second time,” SCP’s Foreign Relations Secretary, Saleh Mahmoud, told Peoples Dispatch.

While the FFC has denied the allegation, Middle East Eye reported that according to a draft of the final agreement it has seen, a period of 10 years had been agreed upon for this process of integration. Given that the FFC claims that it is only the disagreement within the security forces that is impeding the final agreement, the provision of 10 years in the draft might be an indication of the FFC’s willingness to allow the notorious paramilitary another decade of autonomy.

One explanation for the alleged siding of the FFC with the RSF is that the RSF agrees with the FFC that parties that have not signed the framework agreement should not be a part of the political agreement or have a share in state power. Burhan, however, has shown his keenness to also include other parties outside the framework agreement, especially those who had been in alliance with the ousted Bashir’s Islamist National Congress Party (NCP).

With the escalation of hostilities, however, the prospect of a final political agreement on the basis of the framework agreement has practically fallen apart, argued Mahmoud.

SCP reiterated in its statement that “the only way to get out of the crisis is to restore the revolution and establish the authority of the people.”

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Multipolarista.

While the United States and Europe flood Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars of weapons, using it as an anti-Russian proxy and pouring fuel on the fire of a brutal war that is devastating the country, they are also making plans to essentially plunder its post-war economy.

Representatives of Western governments and corporations met in Switzerland this July to plan a series of harsh neoliberal policies to impose on post-war Ukraine, calling to cut labor laws, “open markets,” drop tariffs, deregulate industries, and “sell state-owned enterprises to private investors.”

Ukraine has been destabilized by violence since 2014, when a U.S.-sponsored coup d’etat overthrew its democratically elected government, setting off a civil war. That conflict dragged on until February 24, 2022, when Russia invaded the country, escalating into a new, even deadlier phase of the war.

The United States and European Union have sought to erase the history of foreign-sponsored civil war in Ukraine from 2014 to early 2022, acting as though the conflict began on February 24. But Washington had sent large sums of weapons to Ukraine and provided extensive military training and support over several years before Russia invaded.

Meanwhile, starting in 2017, representatives of Western governments and corporations quietly held annual conferences in which they discussed ways to profit from the civil war they were fueling in Ukraine.

In these meetings, Western political and business leaders outlined a series of aggressive right-wing reforms they hoped to impose on Ukraine, including widespread privatization of state-owned industries and deregulation of the economy.

On July 4 and July 5, top officials from the United States, European Union, Britain, Japan, and South Korea met in Switzerland for a so-called “Ukraine Recovery Conference.” There, they planned Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction and performatively announced aid commitments—while salivating over a bonanza of potential contracts.

New NATO candidates Finland and Sweden committed to assure reconstruction in Lugansk, roughly 48 hours after Russia and separatist forces announced the region had fallen fully under their control.

But the Ukraine Recovery Conference was not new. It had been renamed to save the expense of a new acronym. In the previous five years, the group and its annual meetings were instead referred to as the “Ukraine Reform Conference” (URC).

The URC’s agenda was explicitly focused on imposing political changes on the country—namely, “strengthening the market economy“, “decentralization, privatization, reform of state-owned enterprises, land reform, state administration reform,” and “Euro-Atlantic integration.”

Before 2022, this gathering had nothing to do with aid – and a lot to do with economics.

Documents from the 2018 Ukraine Reform Conference emphasized the importance of privatizing most of Ukraine’s remaining public sector, stating that the “ultimate goal of the reform is to sell state-owned enterprises to private investors”, along with calls for more “privatization, deregulation, energy reform, tax and customs reform.”

Lamenting that the “government is Ukraine’s largest asset holder,” the report stated, “Reform in privatization and SOEs has been long awaited, as this sector of the Ukrainian economy has remained largely unchanged since 1991.”

The Ukraine Reform Conference listed as one of its “achievements” the adoption of a law in January 2018 titled “On Privatization of State and Municipal Property,” which it noted “simplifies the procedure of privatization.”

While the URC enthusiastically pushed for these neoliberal reforms, it acknowledged that they were very unpopular among actual Ukrainians. A poll found that just 12.4 percent supported privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOE), whereas 49.9 percent opposed it. (An additional 12 percent were indifferent, whereas 25.7 percent had no answer.)

Economic liberalization in Ukraine since Russia’s February invasion has been even more grim.

In March 2022, the Ukrainian parliament adopted emergency legislation allowing employers to suspend collective agreements. Then in May, it passed a permanent reform package effectively exempting the vast majority of Ukrainian workers (those at businesses with fewer than 200 employees) from Ukrainian labor law.

While the most immediate beneficiaries of these changes will be Ukrainian employers, Western governments have been lobbying to liberalize Ukraine’s labor laws for years.

Documents leaked in 2021 showed that the British government coached Ukrainian officials on how to convince a recalcitrant public to give up workers’ rights and implement anti-union policies. Training materials lamented that popular opinion towards the proposed reforms was overwhelmingly negative, but provided messaging strategies to mislead Ukrainians into supporting them.

West Calls for Aggressive Neoliberal Reforms at ‘Ukraine Recovery Conference’

The July 2022 Ukraine Recovery Conference, which was held by Lugano, Switzerland and jointly hosted by the Swiss and Ukrainian governments, featured representatives from the following states and institutions:

• Albania
• Australia
• Austria
• Belgium
• Canada
• Croatia
• Cyprus
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Hungary
• Ireland
• Iceland
• Israel
• Italy
• Japan
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Liechtenstein
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Netherlands
• North Macedonia
• Norway
• Poland
• Portugal
• Republic of Korea (popularly known as South Korea)
• Romania
• Slovak Republic
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Türkiye (formerly known as Turkey)
• Ukraine
• United Kingdom
• United States of America
• Council of Europe
• European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
• European Commission
• European Investment Bank
• Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

Among the prominent officials who attended were European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, Swiss President Ignazio Cassis, and UK Foreign Minister Liz Truss.

Ukraine’s Western-backed leader Volodymyr Zelensky also addressed the conference via video.

Physically present at the Switzerland meeting were Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Zelensky’s top political ally Ruslan Stefanchuk, the chairman of Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada.

Stefanchuk is the second-in-line for the presidency after Zelensky. He is also a member of Ukraine’s all-powerful National Security and Defense Council, which truly governs the country.

Even the United Nations gave its imprimatur to the conference: UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a video statement as well.

At the two-day meeting, the attendees agreed that Ukraine should eventually be given membership in the European Union. The country had already been granted EU candidate status just two weeks before, at a June summit in Brussels.

At the conclusion of the meeting, all governments and institutions present endorsed a joint statement called the Lugano Declaration. This declaration was supplemented by a “National Recovery Plan,” which was in turn prepared by a “National Recovery Council” established by the Ukrainian government.

This plan advocated for an array of neoliberal reforms, including “privatization of non critical enterprises” and “finalization of corporatization of SOEs” (state-owned enterprises) – identifying as an example the selling off of Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear energy company EnergoAtom.

In order to “attract private capital into banking system,” the proposal likewise called for the “privatization of SOBs” (state-owned banks).

Seeking to increase “private investment and boost nationwide entrepreneurship,” the National Recovery Plan urged significant “deregulation” and proposed the creation of “‘catalyst projects’ to unlock private investment into priority sectors.”

In an explicit call for slashing labor protections, the document attacked the remaining pro-worker laws in Ukraine, some of which are a holdover of the Soviet era.

The National Recovery Plan complained of “outdated labor legislation leading to complicated hiring and firing process, regulation of overtime, etc.” As an example of this supposed “outdated labor legislation,” the Western-backed plan lamented that workers in Ukraine with one year of experience are granted a nine-week “notice period for redundancy dismissal,” compared to just four weeks in Poland and South Korea.

In the same vein, the National Recovery Plan urged Ukraine to cut taxes on corporations and wealthy capitalists.

The blueprint complained that 40 percent of Ukraine’s GDP comes from tax revenue, calling this a “rather high tax burden” compared to its model example of South Korea. It thus called to “transform tax service,” and “review potential for decreasing the share of tax revenue in GDP.”

In short, the Ukraine Recovery Conference’s economic proposal was little more than a repackaged Washington Consensus: a typical right-wing program that involves implementing mass privatizations, deregulating industries, gutting labor protections, cutting taxes on the rich, and putting the burden on Ukrainian workers.

In the 1990s, following the overthrow of the Soviet Union, the United States imposed what it called capitalist “shock therapy” on Russia and other former constituent republics.

A 2001 UNICEF study found that these harsh neoliberal reforms in Russia caused 3.2 million excess deaths, and pushed 18 million children into poverty, bringing about rampant malnutrition and public health crises.

Washington and Brussels appear committed to return to this very same neoliberal shock therapy in their plans for post-war Ukraine.

More Calls for Neoliberal Shock Therapy in Post-war Ukraine

To accompany its July 2022 meeting in Switzerland, the Ukraine Recovery Conference published a “strategic briefing” compiled by a right-wing Ukrainian organization called the Center of Economic Recovery.

The Center of Economic Recovery describes itself as a “platform that unites experts, think tanks, business, the public and government officials for the development of the country’s economy.” On its website, it lists many Ukrainian corporations as its partners and funders, making it clear that it acts as lobby on their behalf, like a chamber of commerce.

The report that this corporate lobby wrote for the Ukraine Recovery Conference was even more explicit than the National Recovery Plan in its advocacy of aggressive neoliberal economic reforms.

Using right-wing libertarian language of “economic freedom,” the document urged to “reduce government size” and “open markets.”

Its proposal read as neoliberal boilerplate: “decrease the regulatory burden on businesses” by “reducing the size of the government (tax administration, privatization; digitalization of public services), improving regulatory efficiency (deregulation), and opening markets (liberalization of capital markets; investment freedom).”

In the name of “EU integration and access to markets,” it likewise proposed “removal of tariffs and non-tariff non-technical barriers for all Ukrainian goods,” while simultaneously calling to “facilitate FDI [foreign direct investment] attraction to bring the largest international companies to Ukraine,” with “special investment incentives” for foreign corporations.

It was essentially a call for Ukraine to surrender its economic sovereignty to Western capital.

Both the National Recovery Plan and the strategic briefing also heavily emphasized the need for robust anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine.

Neither document acknowledged that fact that Kiev’s Western-backed leader Volodmyr Zelensky, who spoke at the Ukraine Recovery Conference, is known to have large amounts of wealth hidden in a network of offshare accounts.

Zelensky was named in the Pandora Papers, a leak of suspicious offshore companies, and he is linked to luxury properties in London.

Even More Calls for Liberalization, Privatizations, Deregulation, Tax Cuts

In addition to the National Recovery Plan and the strategic briefing, the July 2022 Ukraine Recovery Conference presented a report prepared by the company Economist Impact, a corporate consulting firm that is part of The Economist Group.

This third document, titled “Ukraine Reform Tracker,” was funded by the Swiss government with the stated “aim of stimulating and supporting discussion on this matter at the 2022 Ukraine Recovery Conference.”

The Ukraine Reform Tracker analyzed the neoliberal policies already imposed in Ukraine since the U.S.-backed 2014 coup, and urged for even more aggressive neoliberal reforms to be implemented when the war ends.

Of the three reports presented at the conference, this was perhaps the most full-throated call for Ukraine to adopt neoliberal shock therapy after the war – a tactic often referred to as disaster capitalism.

Quoting the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the document insisted that Ukraine has “issues in deregulation and competition that still need to be addressed, such as ongoing state intervention” – depicting state intervention in the economy as something inherently bad.

In this vein, the Ukraine Reform Tracker pushed to “increase foreign direct investments” by international corporations, not invest resources in social programs for the Ukrainian people.

The report emphasized the importance of developing the financial sector and called for “removing excessive regulations” and tariffs.

“Deregulation and tax simplification has been further deepened,” it wrote approvingly, adding, “Steps towards deregulation and the simplification of the tax system are examples of measures which not only withstood the blow of the war but have been accelerated by it.”

The Ukraine Reform Tracker praised the central bank for “successfully liberalising the currency, floating the exchange rate.” While it noted some of these policies were reversed due to the Russian invasion, the report urged “the swiftest possible elimination of currency controls,” in order to “reinstate competitiveness within the financial sector.”

The report however complained that these neoliberal reforms are not being implemented quickly enough, writing, “Privatisation— which already progressed slowly before the war—stalled, with a draft law aiming to simplify the process rejected” by the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament.

It called for further “liberalising agriculture” to “attract foreign investment and encourage domestic entrepreneurship,” as well as “procedural simplifications,” to “make it easier for small and medium enterprises” to “expand by purchasing and investing in state-owned assets,” thereby “making it easier for foreign investors to enter the market post-conflict.”

“Further pursuing the privatisation of large and loss-making state-owned enterprises” will “allow more Ukrainian entrepreneurs to enter the market and thrive there in the post-war context,” the report urged.

The Economist Impact study stressed the importance of Ukraine cutting its trade with Russia and instead integrating its economy with Europe.

“Ukraine’s trade reforms centre on efforts to diversify its trade operations and enhance its integration into the EU market,” it wrote.

The Western government-sponsored report boasted of significantly reducing Kiev’s economic ties to its eastern neighbor, noting: “Russia was Ukraine’s main trading partner in 2014, capturing 18.2 percent of its exports and providing 22 percent of its imports. Since then, however, Russia’s share of Ukraine’s exports and imports has decreased consistently, reaching 4.9 percent and 8.4 percent in 2021, respectively.”

“Ukraine made particular progress in diversifying its trade portfolio within the EU, raising its trade volumes with member states by 46.2 percent from 2015 to 2019,” it added.

The report added that it is “essential” that Ukraine carry out other reforms, such as modifying its railways by “aligning the rail gauges with EU standards.”

The Ukraine Reform Tracker presented the war as an opportunity to impose even more disaster capitalist policies.

“The post-war moment may present an opportunity to complete the difficult land reform by extending the right to purchase agricultural land to legal entities, including foreign ones,” the report stated.

“Opening the path for international capital to flow into Ukrainian agriculture will likely boost productivity across the sector, increasing its competitiveness in the EU market,” it added.

The document proposed new ways for exploiting Ukrainian labor in specific industries, “especially pharmaceutical and electrical production, plastic and rubber manufacturing, furniture, textiles, and food and agricultural products.”

“Once the war is over, the government will also need to consider substantially lowering the share of stateowned banks, with the privatisation of Privatbank, the country’s largest lender, and Oshchadbank, a large processor of pensions and social payments,” it insisted.

The Ukraine Reform Tracker concluded optimistically, stating that that “post-war moment will be an opportunity for Ukraine,” and “there is likely to be significant pressure to continue and speed up the implementation of the reform agenda. Continued business reforms could allow Ukraine to further deregulate [and] privatise lossmaking SOEs.”

While Pushing Disaster Capitalism, the Ukraine Recovery Conference Exploits ‘Social Justice’ Rhetoric

While these three documents published by the 2022 Ukraine Reform Conference (URC) were vociferous calls for the imposition of right-wing economic policies, they were accompanied by superficial appeals to social justice rhetoric.

The URC released a set of seven “Lugano Principles” that it identified as the keys to a just, equitable post-war reconstruction:

• partnership
• reform focus
• transparency, accountability, and rule of law
• democratic participation
• multi-stakeholder engagement
• gender equality and inclusion
• (environmental) sustainability

These principles demonstrate the ways that hawks in Washington and Brussels have increasingly weaponized ideas about “intersectionality” to advance their belligerent foreign policy.

In his report “Woke Imperium: The Coming Confluence Between Social Justice and Neoconservatism,” former U.S. State Department officer Christopher Mott discussed the growing use of left-liberal social-justice talking points to legitimize and enforce Western imperialism.

Mott observed that the “liberal Atlanticist tendency to push moralism and social engineering globally has immense potential to create backlash.”

Western-backed liberals in post-socialist Europe have spent three decades creating a false dichotomy between either a liberalizing cultural project that can only be realized under U.S.-led trans-Atlantic hegemony and neoliberal economic reforms, or a purely fictional socialist past whose political legacy is somehow reflected in right-wing anti-communist nationalist parties attempting to roll back advances that women had achieved under socialism.

Despite its patent absurdity, this narrative has won adherents among younger liberal intellectuals, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, who have little or no memory of the socialist period, and who face increasingly desperate career prospects outside of the Western-backed ideological apparatus.

On the other hand, right-wing nationalists like Hungary’s Viktor Orban posture as the only defenders of their countries’ cultural sovereignty against hostile outsiders, while also refusing to break from neoliberal capitalist orthodoxy.

In turn, organic local activists struggling for legitimate social justice causes find themselves portrayed as agents furthering the agendas of foreign powers.

At best, during peacetime, this undermines their work and hinders progress for their causes. In a country like Ukraine, where Western governments have supported far-right, neo-fascist groups and eight years dragging out a civil war, this is life-threatening.

In Ukraine, What’s Even Left to Loot?

On May 9, 2022, the U.S. Congress passed the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act, greatly expanding Washington’s authority to provide military aid to Ukraine.

Lend-lease provisions originated during World War II and were used by the U.S. government to provide military aid to countries fighting Nazi Germany, including Britain and the Soviet Union, without formally entering the war.

Under this framework, the United States provides military equipment as a loan; if the equipment is not or cannot be returned, recipient governments are on the hook to pay back the full cost.

The Joe Biden administration explained its use of lend-lease by the need to quickly move the bill through Congress before other funding ran out.

While many North Americans protested what they saw as a pointless giveaway of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to a foreign country, lend-lease provisions are loans, not grants.

Britain, one of the United States’ closest allies, only finished paying back its 60-year-old lend-lease debt in 2006. Russia settled its former Soviet obligations the same year.

Given this historical precedent, Ukraine will likely be saddled with debts it can’t readily pay back—debts extended to corrupt Western-backed elites under wartime duress. This means U.S. financial institutions will have further collateral to impose neoliberal structural adjustment policies on Ukraine, subordinating its economy for years to come.

Washington and its allies have a long history of instrumentalizing debt to force countries to accept unpopular pro-Western policy changes, and difficulties of repayment often compel countries to accept even more debt, leading to debt trap cycles that are extremely difficult to escape.

It was in fact the International Monetary Fund, and specifically the refusal of Ukraine’s democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych to accept IMF demands that he cut wages, slash social spending, and end gas subsidies in order to integrate with the EU, which led him to turn instead to Russia for an alternative economic agreement, thus setting the stage for the Western-backed “Euromaidan protests” and eventually the 2014 coup.

Meanwhile, in the current war, Moscow and Russian-backed separatist fighters are occupying and may annex what were historically the most industrialized regions of Ukraine, located in the east.

At the same time, much of what remained of the country’s pre-war industrial base has been physically destroyed by the war. And these same regions hold much of Ukraine’s energy resources, notably coal.

Millions of Ukrainians have already emigrated and are unlikely to return, especially if they are able to access work visas in the EU. Young and educated people with technical skills are the least likely to stay.

The situation is even bleaker when one considers that, well before Russia’s February invasion, Ukraine was already the poorest country in Europe.

While Soviet Ukraine had thrived as a center of the USSR’s heavy industry, and a source for much of Soviet political leadership, post-Soviet Ukraine has been a playground for rival elites supported by the West or by Russia.

Post-Soviet Ukraine has been devastated by persistent economic crises and rampant and systematic corruption. It has consistently had smaller incomes and a lower standard of living even compared to neighboring post-socialist countries, including Russia.

Ukraine has not been able to restore the size of the economy it had in 1990, when it was still part of the Soviet Union. And looking beyond raw GDP data, the quality of life for many Ukrainian workers and their access to social services has significantly declined.

With limited financial means to provide for basic state functions, much less to repay foreign debts, a post-war Ukraine could be forced to accept humiliating and dangerous concessions in other spheres—serving, say, as an Israel-style trying ground for weapons testing, or hosting Kosovo-style black sites for U.S. covert operations, or providing Western businesses a Chile-style no-regulation environment for tax evasion and criminal activities—all while gutting what little remains of its domestic welfare state and labor protections.

Yet instead of advocating for a diplomatic solution to the war, which could help the Ukrainian government and people concentrate their resources on economic recovery, Western governments have adamantly opposed proposed peace talks, insisting, in the words of EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, “This war will be won on the battlefield.”

Washington and Brussels are sacrificing Ukraine for their geopolitical interests. And their Ukraine Recovery Conference shows they expect to keep benefiting economically even after the war ends.

Touched by the resilience, determination and hospitality of @ZelenskyyUA & @Denys_Shmyhal.

I return with a clear to do list:

1. This war will be won on the battlefield. Additional €500 million from the #EPF are underway. Weapon deliveries will be tailored to Ukrainian needs. pic.twitter.com/Jgr61t9FfW

— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) April 9, 2022