Comments on: The War over South Ossetia

By: inthesenewtimes

inthesenewtimes — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:26:03 +0000

Here are Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall of the ICNC talking up earlier successes of the non-violent approach and recommending it as a means of facilitating the invasion of Iraq. Le Monde 2002 summarised by reseauvoltaire.net: Cette méthode alternative a été expérimentée aux Philippines, au Chili et en Yougoslavie avec succès, il s’agit de la désobéissance civile. Cela est il possible en Irak ? Il semble que la population irakienne soit opposée à Saddam Hussein et elle pourrait commencer à s’exprimer pacifiquement contre son dictateur. Si une telle opposition avait lieu, elle pourrait faciliter grandement l’avancée des troupes alliées en Irak et cela limiterait le nombre de morts, civils et militaires. Here ICNC muses on the possibilities of Central Asian non-revolutions which may go as far as Russia: Dans The Independent Shaazka Beyerle, vice-présidente de l’International Center on Non violent Conflict et donc proche de son président Peter Ackerman, un des signataires du dernier appel de la Freedom House contre Poutine, voit dans cette révolution l’amorce d’un mouvement pour toute l’Asie centrale tout en étant consciente de la fragilité de la société sur laquelle s’applique sa méthode. Notons que cette méthode dont il est question met largement à profit la Freedom House. Au Kirghizistan, elle a financé la presse locale et des mouvements de jeunes comme Kelkel (« viens-viens »). It strikes me a spretty naive to regard this stuff as being about democracy rather than US imperialism.

By: Tom Paine

Tom Paine — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:14:09 +0000

Stephen Gowans, on his own blog as well as here and elsewhere, has made a series of false allegations about the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), which he has repeated above, and about the rising phenomenon of nonviolent resistance, which he characterizes as promotion of “U.S. ruling class interests.” The latter is an outrageous assault on the motives, sacrifices and suffering of civil resisters in more than 20 countries around the world today, many of whom oppose governments backed by the U.S. (e.g. Egypt, Indonesia, Morocco). As to his claims about ICNC: First, as soon as Gowans and one or two other bloggers started making this CIA charge against it a couple of years ago, the Center denied that it ever had relations, contacts, or interaction with the CIA, and no one — including Gowans — has offered any proof to the contrary. He cites 60-year old ties via third-parties, before most of us were born, which are obviously not evidence of anything, except perhaps of Gowans’ disinterest in real documentation. Second, Gowans asserts that the movement against Milosevic in Serbia, the Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine all “received financial and other backing” from ICNC. This is also ludicrous. The events in Serbia culminated in 2000; ICNC didn’t even exist until 2002. The Center’s published charter and guidelines forbid it from providing any financial or material assistance to nonviolent campaigns or movements, and they’ve said frequently that they had no contacts with any Georgians or Ukrainians prior to the “color revolutions” in those countries — and again, no one including Gowans has furnished any actual evidence that they did. Moreover, their funding and major disbursements can be tracked on their tax returns, which are published on the internet. They’re an educational foundation and, as best as I can determine, basically ship DVD’s, books and other publications about nonviolent struggle to activists and teachers in dozens of countries, and put on seminars and conferences. The books authored by Peter Ackerman are used in hundreds of colleges and universities around the world as textbooks. Dear friends: How do you tell if someone is a propagandist? He keeps making claims he can’t prove about people and organizations he has apparently never bothered to contact, even after the claims have been shot down by people with real access to the facts. On the basis of his allegations about educators like Zunes and groups like ICNC involved in promoting nonviolent resistance, Gowans fits that definition.

By: Stephen Gowans

Stephen Gowans — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 13:36:19 +0000

Stephen Zunes is academic advisor to the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict. The Center is headed by Peter Ackerman. Peter Ackerman is also the head of Freedom House. According to Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, “Freedom House, which dates back to the early 1940s, has had interlocks with AIM, the World Anticommunist League, Resistance International and U.S. government bodies such as Radio Free Europe and the CIA, and has long served as a virtual propaganda arm of the government and international right wing.” (Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Pantheon Books, New York, 1988, p. 28.)

On innumerable occasions, Zunes has celebrated the Rose Revolution, and other US-sponsored and manipulated movements that have cleared the way for the rise to power of US proxies. In the opening paragraphs of his February 17, 2008 Z-Net article, “Nonviolent Action and Pro-Democracy Struggles,” he refers to these movements as “popular nonviolent civil insurrections” to topple “corrupt and autocratic regimes,” and mentions three: the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the ouster of Milosevic in Serbia. Significantly, all three swept Russian-aligned leaders out of power, and installed US clients who have imposed neo-liberal policies and re-oriented their economies toward the US. All three “popular insurrections” received financial and other backing from government agencies, wealthy individuals and ruling class think tanks in the West, including from Freedom House and the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict. At least two of the leaders installed as a result of these “popular nonviolent civil insurrections” have trampled on political and civil liberties and violated their own laws to promote US ruling class interests. In the same opening paragraphs, Zunes accuses the governments of Zimbabwe, Iran, Belarus, and Burma – all targets of Washington’s regime change program – as “disingenuously” claiming that “popular nonviolent civil insurrections of the kind that toppled” governments “in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine” are somehow part of an effort by the” US government “to instigate ‘soft coups’ against governments deemed hostile to American interests and replace them by more compliant regimes.”

While celebrating the Rose Revolution as a popular nonviolent civil insurrection to oust an autocratic and corrupt government, Zunes now claims to be critical of Saakashvili. Perhaps he is. But it is as impossible to separate Saakashvili from the Rose Revolution as it is to separate Lenin from the Bolshevik Revolution. Zunes’ celebrating the Rose Revolution while saying he is critical of Saakashvili is like celebrating unprotected sex with prostitutes and intravenous drug carriers and then deploring HIV. Indeed, therein lies the essential character of Zunes’ disingenuousness. He acts as cheerleader for a process which brings champions of US ruling class interests to power, and then deplores the outcome. Either he is incapable of following a causal chain, or his game is to bamboozle others into believing that the “popular nonviolent uprisings” he and his friends champion are not part of the apparatus of US imperialism, but are spontaneous uprisings against autocracy.

By: smeddum

smeddum — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 09:51:36 +0000

Reading Gowan's article I think he does not quote Stephen Zunes but infers an opinion. The article Zunes quotes seems ill researched blaming South Ossetia for breaching the ceasefire but that looks unlikely. It does no one any credit and helps back up Gowan's allegations: if unqualified misinformation is promoted; this helps things to look more black and white.

By: Tom Paine

Tom Paine — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:05:37 +0000

This article regrettably manages to misstate the facts about the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies in Belgrade. There are perhaps twenty people’s movements for rights and self-determination around the world (most of them operating against regimes supported by the U.S.) that have received training from CANVAS, so a huge global cohort of activists — one of which I am — knows the facts about its intentions and leadership. Contrary to this article’s claims, the Centre does not receive any funding from George Soros or his various entities or from the International Republican Institute, and it’s my understanding that support from Freedom House was only for workshops in one country, in which the U.S. also does not have any strategic interests. Unfortunately the world is less tidy and more complicated than is represented by the American-imperialists-behind-every-color-revolution thesis that Mr. Gowans appears to embrace, which could in any case not justify the factual mistakes in this article. It’s certainly possible to have a robust debate about just what the Saakashvili government is up to, but the Belgrade centre is not connected to it.

By: inthesenewtimes

inthesenewtimes — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:51:37 +0000

Thanks for your comment, Stephen.

I think Stephen Gowans has to respond to those points- it wasn’t on account of his reference to you that we posted the article.

I read your antiwar. com article with interest and particularly these comments by Susan Cornwell;

“Simes said U.S. encouragement of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, one of Washington’s staunchest allies, may have led him to believe he could get away with military action to take back control of South Ossetia.’

I don’t know whether this is a diplomatic way of saying Saakashvili was set up but we’re not the only ones who think that he was. The motive? Republican victory in November.

I’d say Russian and McCain were the beneficiaries of this bizarre little war.

By: Stephen Zunes

Stephen Zunes — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:01:00 +0000

Gowans falsely claims in his article that I believe that Georgian president Saakashvili is a “great democrat.” I never said such a thing. In fact, I am highly critical of Saakashvili (see my article http://www.antiwar.com/zunes/?articleid=13332 )and have written about his authoritarian tendencies.s well as U.S. support for the Georgian government and the U.S. role in the recent war.

More seriously, Stephen Gowans accuses me of being an associate of someone who heads an organization that is interlocked with the CIA. In reality, I am not an associate of anyone who heads any organization which has any connections with the CIA. Anyone familiar with the scholarly work, my political writings, and my activism know that I would never do such a thing.