U.S. Court Tosses Israel Lobby Lawsuit Against U.S. Scholars

NEW YORK CITY–Hours before Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., gave his first State of the Nation address on July 24, Filipino people throughout the world protested, holding their own “People’s State of the Union Address,” or PSONA.

“The Marcos-Duterte oligarchic symbiosis represents one of the biggest barriers for progress in the Philippines,” Gabriel Rivera told Toward Freedom amid a crowd of about 200 Filipinos who had gathered outside the Philippine consulate in midtown Manhattan, just a few blocks from the United Nations.

As a drumline’s rhythms echoed through the city streets, Filipinos spoke out against Marcos and his vice president, Sara Duterte, both of whom had been elected to office in the island nation on May 9.

The families of Marcos and Duterte have been accused of violating human rights. That includes during the 1972-81 Martial Law Era under Marcos’ father, Ferdinand Sr., and during former President Rodrigo Duterte’s War on Drugs, which has killed over 6,229 alleged drug users since 2016. Rodrigo is the new vice president’s father.

“Two historically violent dynasties with no regard for human rights or the rule of law have just been seated on the two highest positions in the land,” said Rivera, a member of the Malaya Movement, a progressive Filipino organization advocating for human rights in the Philippines. “I am terrified to even imagine how this could affect generations of Filipinos to come.”

To counter the violence in their homeland, grassroots Filipino organizations from the Northeast Coalition to Advance Genuine Democracy, such as Migrante, GABRIELA, Malaya Movement, Anakbayan and Bayan, assembled for the New York City rally. This rally was one of many held around the world for PSONA, an annual global grassroots event, during which Filipinos report on human-rights violations in their homeland to counter the Philippine president’s annual State of the Nation address that takes place on the same day.

The Philippines is a U.S. ally that has waged a war on its own population, killing alleged drug addicts and traffickers. Since 2002, the United States has shipped almost $900 million in arms and has provided more than $1.3 billion in security assistance to the Philippines.

In an interview with Toward Freedom, 25-year-old Momo Manalang denounced the disappearance of three Filipino women activists, allegedly abducted by the Filipino government. She demanded their return.

“Our movement is intergenerational, comprised of both martial-law survivors of families of those slain during the War on Drugs, which persists to this day under Bongbong Marcos,” said Manalang, a member of GABRIELA, a mass-based organization focusing on womens’ rights in the Philippines. “It is imperative as a diaspora to register our condemnation and call for the accountability of both regimes for their crimes against humanity.”

A.J. Santos, a migrant from the Philippines, recounted to Toward Freedom how these administrations have directly affected his family.

“My mom fought Ferdinand Marcos, Sr., during Martial Law and was even hunted by the military while her friends and comrades were tortured and killed,” said Santos, 38, of Migrante, a grassroots organization consisting of migrant Filipinos. “And Duterte, he killed five of my friends with his so-called ‘War on Drugs.’”

Shirley Atienza, a New York-based Filipino migrant and Migrante member, read aloud the nine points of the “People’s Agenda for Change,” while protesters standing behind her held signs outlining each. In bold black paint, they read:

1. Regulate prices
2. Revive local agriculture
3. Enact land reform and national industrialization
4. Defend and promote human rights
5. Defend freedom of press + speech
6. Institute a democratic, ethical and accountable government
7. Provide free health care and basic social services
8. Uphold national sovereignty and independent foreign policy
9. Ensure country’s natural wealth and resources

A protester had adorned cardboard signs to their body in an effigy that listed human-rights violations committed in the Philippines. Painted to look like flames, the signs read:

• “Extreme inflation & economic crisis,”
• “2.9 million unemployed,”
• “Forced migration/separated families,” and
• “Selling out to foreign interests.

The flames were surrounded by cardboard replicas of gas cans that read, “Corrupt family dynasties own all the land, make all the laws,” “US tax $$ funds Philippine Drug War,” and “Historical revisionism & fake news.”

At the top of the protester’s head sat a gas can that read “Marcos.” Draped around their back was the Filipino flag. As participants gathered to smash the gas cans, the crowd recited, “Makibaka! Huwog matakot!” (Struggle! Do not be afraid!) and other revolutionary Filipino chants, cheering for the downfall of Marcos and Duterte.

Being oceans away from their home country doesn’t stop these Filipino revolutionaries from fighting. At least not Theo Aguila, a 25-year-old organizer from Anakbayan, a mass organization consisting of Filipino youth and students.

“It is through action both here and [in] the Philippines that we may enact change for our motherland.”

Cygaelle Bergado is the Summer 2022 Claudia Jones Editorial Intern for Toward Freedom. She can be followed on Twitter at @cy_bergado.

From the outset, some clarification regarding the language used to depict the ongoing violence in occupied Palestine, and also throughout Israel. This is not a ‘conflict’. Neither is it a ‘dispute’ nor ‘sectarian violence’ nor even a war in the traditional sense. 

It is not a conflict, because Israel is an occupying power and the Palestinian people are an occupied nation. It is not a dispute, because freedom, justice and human rights cannot be treated as if a mere political disagreement. The Palestinian people’s inalienable rights are enshrined in international and humanitarian law and the illegality of Israeli violations of human rights in Palestine is recognized by the United Nations itself.

If it is a war, then it is a unilateral Israeli war, which is met with humble, but real and determined Palestinian resistance.

Actually, it is a Palestinian uprising, an Intifada unprecedented in the history of the Palestinian struggle, both in its nature and outreach. 

For the first time in many years, we see the Palestinian people united, from Jerusalem Al Quds, to Gaza, to the West Bank and, even more critically, to the Palestinian communities, towns and villages inside historic Palestine – today’s Israel. 

This unity matters the most, is far more consequential than some agreement between Palestinian factions. It eclipses Fatah and Hamas and all the rest, because without a united people there can be no meaningful resistance, no vision for liberation, no struggle for justice to be won.

Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could never have anticipated that a routine act of ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem’s neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah could lead to a Palestinian uprising, uniting all sectors of Palestinian society in an unprecedented show of unity.

The Palestinian people have decided to move past all the political divisions and the factional squabbles. Instead, they are coining new terminologies, centered on resistance, liberation and international solidarity. Consequently, they are challenging factionalism, along with any attempt at making Israeli occupation and apartheid normal. Equally important, a strong Palestinian voice is now piercing through the international silence, compelling the world to hear a single chant for freedom.

The leaders of this new movement are Palestinian youth who have been denied participation in any form of democratic representation, who are constantly marginalized and oppressed by their own leadership and by the relentless Israeli military occupation. They were born into a world of exile, destitution and apartheid, led to believe that they are inferior, of a lesser race. Their right to self-determination and every other right were postponed indefinitely. They grew up helplessly watching their homes being demolished, their land being robbed and their parents being humiliated. 

Finally, they are rising. 

Without prior coordination and with no political manifesto, this new Palestinian generation is now making its voice heard, sending an unmistakable, resounding message to Israel and its right-wing chauvinistic society, that the Palestinian people are not passive victims; that the ethnic cleansing of Sheikh Jarrah and the rest of occupied East Jerusalem, the protracted siege on Gaza, the ongoing military occupation, the construction of illegal Jewish settlements, the racism and the apartheid will no longer go unnoticed; though tired, poor, dispossessed, besieged and abandoned, Palestinians will continue to safeguard their own rights, their sacred places and the very sanctity of their own people.

Yes, the ongoing violence was instigated by Israeli provocations in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem. However, the story was never about the ethnic cleansing of Sheikh Jarrah alone. The beleaguered neighborhood is but a microcosm of the larger Palestinian struggle.

Netanyahu may have hoped to use Sheikh Jarrah as a way of mobilizing his right-wing constituency around him, intending to form an emergency government or increasing his chances of winning yet a fifth election. His rash behavior, initially compelled by entirely selfish reasons, has ignited a popular rebellion among Palestinians, exposing Israel for the violent, racist and apartheid state that it is and always has been. 

Palestinian unity and popular resistance have proven successful in other ways, too. Never before have we seen this groundswell of support for Palestinian freedom, not only from millions of ordinary individuals across the globe, but also from celebrities – movie stars, footballers, mainstream intellectuals and political activists, even models and social media influencers. The hashtags #SaveSheikhJarrah and #FreePalestine, among numerous others, are now interlinked and have been trending on all social media platforms for weeks. Israel’s constant attempts at presenting itself as a perpetual victim of some imaginary horde of Arabs and Muslims are no longer paying dividends. The world can finally see, read and hear of Palestine’s tragic reality and the need to bring this tragedy to an immediate end. 

None of this would be possible were it not for the fact that all Palestinians have legitimate reasons and are speaking in unison. In their spontaneous reaction and genuine, communal solidarity, all Palestinians are united, from Sheikh Jarrah, to all of Jerusalem, to Gaza, Nablus, Ramallah, Al-Bireh and even Palestinian towns inside Israel – Al-Lud, Umm Al-Fahm, Kufr Qana and elsewhere. In Palestine’s new popular revolution, factions, geography and any political division are irrelevant. Religion is not a source of divisiveness but of spiritual and national unity.

The ongoing Israeli atrocities in Gaza are continuing, with a mounting death toll. This devastation will continue for as long as the world treats the devastating siege of the impoverished, tiny Strip as if irrelevant. People in Gaza were dying long before the Israeli airstrikes began blowing up their homes and neighborhoods. They were dying from the lack of medicine, polluted water, the lack of electricity and the dilapidated infrastructure.

We must save Sheikh Jarrah, but we must also save Gaza; we must demand an end to the Israeli military occupation of Palestine and, with it, the system of racial discrimination and apartheid. International human rights groups are now precise and decisive in their depiction of this racist regime, with Human Rights Watch – and Israel’s own rights group, B’tselem, joining the call for the dismantlement of apartheid in all of Palestine.

Speak up. Speak out. The Palestinians have risen. It is time to rally behind them.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons (Clarity Press). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC). His website is ramzybaroud.net

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”.