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Zimbabwe and the power of propaganda: Ousting a President via civil society
Michael Barker, Global Research
April 16, 2008

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8675

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"Zimbabwe is a strategic country for the United States because events in Zimbabwe have a significant impact on the entire southern Africa region." (US Agency for International Development, 2005)

In 2002, America-s key democracy manipulating organ the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) played a vital role in supporting the temporary ousting of Venezuela-s democratically elected President Hugo Chavez, so given their current interests in Zimbabwe it is critical to ask two questions: "what are their reasons for interfering in Zimbabwe-s affairs, and secondly, should progressive activists be concerned about these interventions?"

The simple answer to these questions is that numerous neoliberal governments are interested in Zimbabwe not because of democracy, but because they want to remove the thorn in their side that is President Robert Mugabe. Moreover, while the West views Mugabe as a tyrant that needs to be removed from power, it is critical that progressive activists not living in Zimbabwe problematize both the corporate and alternative media-s portrayal of Mugabe and Zimbabwean politics, and their own government-s manipulative interventions into other countries affairs. Indeed not every tyrant is a tyrant. For example, the same US National Security Strategy that identifies President Mugabe as a tyrant also identifies President Chavez as a "demagogue awash in oil money".

However, while both Mugabe and Chavez are clearly thorns in the US administration's side they present unwanted irritations for very different reasons. For instance, since coming to power in 1980, Mugabe who has long been considered a useful ally of Western elites has been showered with military aid - much of which (between 1980 and 2000) came courtesy of the British government - while throughout the 1990s Mugabe embraced harsh structural adjustment policies and undertook brutal military excursions in Zaire which together wreaked havoc on Zimbabwe's economy.

Yet as a result of the growing tide of popular resistance to Mugabe's devastating - Western formulated - land reform policies, in 2002, no doubt as a last ditch attempt to maintain his fading grasp on power, Mugabe shirked his post-colonial neoliberal 'advisors.' Consequently, most likely owing to his straying from the Washington Consensus, Mugabe (and Zimbabwe) is being punished by the international community, and imperial democracy manipulators are now seizing this opportunity to destroy the last vestiges of the popular people power movement that liberated Rhodesia from colonialism. This 'transitional' process of course involves facilitating the ouster of Mugabe and ensuring his replacement with a Western-backed neoliberal alternative, that is, the Movement for Democratic Change.

However in Venezuela's case, when Chavez was elected president in 1998, capitalist elites (both within and outside of Venezuela) vigorously opposed his presidency, and shortly thereafter with the aid of the National Endowment for Democracy in 2002 they organized a coup to remove him from power. As fate would have it this temporary coup was quickly reversed by a massive show of people power, and in January 2005, after ongoing public displays of popular support against ongoing capitalist attacks on Chavez's presidency, "Chavez declared his political program to be socialist". Consequently, it is important to remember that while the government's of both Mugabe and Chavez are being targeted for regime change, they clearly present themselves as very different thorns in the US government's side.

As the case of 'democratic' interference in Venezuela has been well documented, this article will provide a critical - although by no means exhaustive - investigation into the complex issues raised by the current political interventions by foreign organizations into Zimbabwe-s political affairs. Initially, this article will examine how ostensibly progressive mainstream media have acted as imperial flak machines to legitimize ongoing inference in Zimbabwe. Subsequently, it will demonstrate how Western governments- carried out an overt cultural war to successfully manipulate Zimbabwean civil society, and will then conclude by recommending how concerned citizens might best further the protection of human rights in Zimbabwe and elsewhere.

The liberal propaganda machine
"For Washington a consistent element is that democracy and the rule of law are acceptable if and only if they serve official strategic and economic objectives." (Noam Chomsky, 2005)

As in other countries selected for 'regime change- by the democracy manipulating establishment, demonizing the target government is a vital part of any propaganda campaign. For example, the international mainstream media and the National Endowment for Democracy have, and continue to play, a vital role in working to undermining the legitimacy of Venezuela-s President Chavez.

Likewise, for many years now, both these groups have also waged a relentless offensive against Zimbabwe-s President Mugabe. Indeed, with regard to Zimbabwe-s 2005 elections, British-based media watchdog Media Lens contrasted the media-s coverage of Zimbabwe-s elections with those that took place in Iraq. Media Lens correctly pointed out how: "Claims of democratic elections in Iraq were not just nonsense, they were self-evident nonsense, repeated by every major media entity in the land." A few months later, however, when elections were held in Zimbabwe, Media Lens observed that somehow "the media regained their mental faculties and were able to identify obvious flaws in the process". As Media Lens- surmise: "Where elementary common sense conflicts with the needs of elite power, journalists collapse into a Dumb and Dumber consensus."

Given the parallels between 'democratic- interventions in Venezuela and Zimbabwe, it is fitting that in an earlier Media Lens article, they illustrated how Channel 4 news reporter, Jonathan Rugman, interviewed Maria Corina Machado, a leader of Sumate - a group which received support from the National Endowment for Democracy to oust Chavez - and described her "as a 'civil rights activist-, citing her as the source for his claim that 'government critics- are 'fearing another Zimbabwe here-." This is an example of misinformation, pure and simple.

In 2002, George Monbiot - one of the lonely token dissidents at The Guardian (UK) - pointed out that problematically the "view of most of the western world-s press" is that "[t]he most evil man on earth, besides Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, is Robert Mugabe". Indeed, as British-based radical historian Mark Curtis also points out:

"The official theology has it that Zimbabwe is the only repressive regime in Africa - since it is an official enemy, it is the subject of endless media articles while Mugabe is (correctly) seen as a total despot. Nigeria, on the other hand, is a key ally and oil-rich state which our companies benefit from - therefore it wouldn-t be right to mention obvious facts such as that the military in Nigeria is complicit in far more deaths in recent years than even Zimbabwe-s."

An alternative history to "Mugabe as despot," which is rarely aired in the alternative media, let alone the mainstream media, is provided in some detail by Gregory Elich, who in 2002 wrote:

"As Zimbabwe descends into anarchy and chaos, land is irrationally seized from productive farmers, we are told. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is portrayed as a dictator bent on driving his nation into starvation and economic disaster while benevolent U.S. and British leaders call for democracy and human rights."

He observes that it wasn-t so long ago that the "management of the economy in Zimbabwe was highly regarded in Western circles." Indeed, from day one of Zimbabwe's 'democratic' transition in 1980 (and the beginning of Mugabe's presidency), Zimbabwe's new found 'independence' was conditional upon accepting the provisions of the British-led Lancaster House Agreements "that effectively stymied any meaningful attempt at land reform."

Moreover the 1979 Lancaster House Conference that undermined the liberation movements demands for land reform was chaired by British Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington, an individual who has more recently served as a founding patron of the Zimbabwe Democracy Trust (see later). Subsequently, much to the delight of his Western advisors, Mugabe colloborated with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to effectively ensure that no meaningful land reforms eventuated. As Elich observed, when Zimbabwe moved to liberalize its economy in 1991, adopting the World Bank designed Economic Structural Adjustment Program, the immediate result was "pleasing for Western investors" but the "result was a disaster for the people of Zimbabwe."

*Michael Barker is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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