Will local civil society be complicit in the US imperial agenda?

11 November 2024

The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) condemns the planned participation of what we might term ‘civilised-society’ organisations in the November 20-22 Johannesburg ‘world democracy’ conference, which is being organised by the discredited conduit of U.S. imperialism, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The well-funded NED relies on local hosts, including the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, and Defend our Democracy, for legitimacy.

At least one local host—MISTRA, the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection—has withdrawn. SAFTU also calls on the Kathrada Foundation, Defend our Democracy, and Desmond and Leah Tutu Foundation to withdraw.

As for three South African keynote speakers, given their self-interest and class positions, we have no expectations, but we also request that they should also withdraw:

- Mathews Phosa – former African National Congress Treasurer (during the corrupt Zuma era) and, since 2018, chairman of Ivor Ichikowitz’s arms-dealing Paramount Group, with its Tel Aviv office and extensive business ties to Israel’s Elbit Systems;

- Roelf Meyer – early-1990s chief negotiator for the apartheid regime who thus prevented the prospect of economic democracy; and

- Mbali Ntuli – from 2008-22, a leading member of the Democratic Alliance, the main political force advancing the agenda of privileged elites in the world’s most unequal country.

This conference comes just two weeks after a fascistic U.S. government has been elected – to be led by a man, Donald Trump, who was once described by Vice President-Elect J.D. Vance as “America’s Hitler” and who is a firm supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocide of Palestinians.

This 12th Global Assembly of a supposed ‘World Movement for Democracy’ will attract 500 attendees, who are either fronts for nefarious democracy cosplayers or who are willing to be fooled by the aura of a democracy we fought for against the United States government which until the very last years of apartheid, was the friend of white racist settler-colonial power, opposing popular demands for ‘one-person-one-vote in a unitary state,’ the same way it is today in Palestine.

But not only has the election of Trump thrown the future of U.S. foreign policy into question, as the world’s leading superpower zigzags again from ‘neo-conservative’ to what Steve ‘Trump’s Brain’ Bannon terms ‘paleo-conservative.’

The 2024 election also concluded last week with many question marks over the state of U.S. ‘democracy’, not only because of the prominence of its slavery-era ‘electoral college’ (which enabled Trump to win in 2016 with a minority of absolute votes) but also due to the ‘voter suppression’ attempts by Trump’s Republicans against African Americans (documented by Al Jazeera). And because he was raised in Johannesburg and Pretoria, we offer profound apologies for the role Elon Musk played in distorting the vast X.com social media platform after he purchased it last year for $44 billion – an act for which Trump regaled Musk with praise in his victory speech: “A star is born.”

NED as a soft-power CIA

The seemingly innocuous conference purporting to celebrate South Africa’s 30 years of freedom is all the more worrisome given its legitimation of the NED’s role as an instrument for advancing the U.S. foreign policy agenda for over forty years. Under the pro-apartheid administration of Ronald Reagan in 1983, the NED was established to take over the reins of soft-power manipulation from the notorious US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The NED was established to achieve by more palatable means what was formerly accomplished by the CIA through unpalatable ones.

Since its founding in 1947, the CIA has engaged in covert operations in foreign countries. Through its network of agents, it spread its tentacles throughout the globe – gathering intelligence, assassinating leaders perceived as enemies of the US government, fomenting pseudo-popular uprisings, sponsoring coups and installing regimes more in alignment with Washington’s foreign policy interests.

History is replete with examples of the nefarious acts of the CIA. From Africa to Latin America, from the Middle East to Southeast Asia, and even in Europe, hardly any part of the world has been spared the meddling hand of the CIA.

But the CIA’s treacherous operations were covert. When these operations inevitably came to light, they often sparked public outrage and thereby embarrassed the US government – such as 17 attempts to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro. (A listing of scores of successful and attempted state overthrows was compiled and documented by William Blum.)

U.S. overthrow (successful* or attempted) of a foreign government, 1945-2014
● China 1949 to early 1960s
● Albania 1949-53
● East Germany 1950s
● Iran 1953 *
● Guatemala 1954 *
● Costa Rica mid-1950s
● Syria 1956-7
● Egypt 1957
● Indonesia 1957-8
● British Guiana 1953-64 *
● Iraq 1963 *
● North Vietnam 1945-73
● Cambodia 1955-70 *
● Laos 1958 *, 1959 *, 1960 *
● Ecuador 1960-63 *
● Congo 1960 *
● France 1965
● Brazil 1962-64 *
● Dominican Republic 1963 *
● Cuba 1959 to present
● Bolivia 1964 *
● Indonesia 1965 *
● Ghana 1966 *
● Chile 1964-73 *
● Greece 1967 *
● Costa Rica 1970-71
● Bolivia 1971 *
● Australia 1973-75 *
● Angola 1975, 1980s
● Zaire 1975
● Portugal 1974-76 *
● Jamaica 1976-80 *
● Seychelles 1979-81
● Chad 1981-82 *
● Grenada 1983 *
● South Yemen 1982-84
● Suriname 1982-84
● Fiji 1987 *
● Libya 1980s
● Nicaragua 1981-90 *
● Panama 1989 *
● Bulgaria 1990 *
● Albania 1991 *
● Iraq 1991
● Afghanistan 1980s *
● Somalia 1993
● Yugoslavia 1999-2000 *
● Ecuador 2000 *
● Afghanistan 2001 *
● Venezuela 2002 *
● Iraq 2003 *
● Haiti 2004 *
● Somalia 2007 to present
● Honduras 2009 *
● Libya 2011 *
● Syria 2012
● Ukraine 2014 *

Since the U.S. government was desperate to maintain a favourable image as the pinnacle of democracy in the Cold War context before 1990, it could ill afford scandals occasioned by the CIA’s operations. In the context of the often embarrassing revelations of the CIA’s meddling in other countries’ internal affairs in pursuit of U.S. interests, a new method was devised to advance U.S. aims without public backlash. Thus, operations formerly within the CIA’s jurisdiction were outsourced and made overt.

To that end, the NED was founded to further the imperial interests of the U.S., as then CIA head William Casey confirmed in a declassified memo where he also insisted to Reagan’s chief aid: “nor do we wish to appear to be a sponsor or advocate.” The Washington Post once called this method a ‘spyless coup’.

As a conduit of U.S. imperial interest, the NED receives funding from Congress and has a footprint in over 200 countries worldwide. It uses these funds to sponsor business groups, “independent media,” and ” civil society” organisations—including conservative trade unions—that act in tune with its objectives at present or in the future.

The NED may be an organisation whose role is to foster democracy and the free press, and in some cases, its funding assists progressives opposing repressive regimes. But in truth, it is a long-term proxy for U.S. imperialist interests. Its presence here is to put its finger on the pulse of social consciousness given the many socio-economic failures of our democracy thanks to U.S. neoliberal policy influence during the 1990s transition. If local agents assist the NED, it will be better able to detect any political mood change that may be detrimental to U.S. interests.

South African civil society should become uncivil when confronted by U.S. imperialism.

In short, it is an insult to SAFTU that South Africans should submit to be lectured on democracy and the importance of a free press by an organisation established to foster foreign policy objectives of the U.S. government – an unashamed supporter of the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians under the Biden-Harris regime. (Harris lost hundreds of thousands of votes in key states because of her dogmatic refusal to halt the genocide by ending military, ideological and financial support to Israel.)

In the context of Trump’s victory, it is therefore scandalous that the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, the Desmond and Leah Tutu Foundation, and Defend Our Democracy have unwittingly, we hope, chosen to align themselves with the NED, an undoubted conduit of American imperialism.

We call on these valued civil society institutions not to self-destruct from the standpoint of society’s trust. If they value genuine democracy over the legitimation of U.S. imperialism, they can restore trust before November 20 by repudiating their relationship with the NED and denouncing the coming conference.

Anything less than a “Voetsek!” to the NED conference would amount to complicity in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinians and a confirmation that they are not yet reading the tea leaves of global politics, suddenly now so much more stressed thanks to Trump.

In that case, SAFTU must evaluate its relationships with the foundation participating in this quasi-civil society conference.

This call is only the first salvo of South Africans to do to the United States what we are also doing to Israel: Boycott, Divestment Sanctions. We expect many more such initiatives, especially once Trump withdraws from United Nations climate negotiations and authorises massive fossil-fuel extraction by Big Oil companies he wooed during his campaign. We anticipate a global trade war once Trump imposes the promised illegal tariffs on imports – and rolls back the African Growth and Opportunity Act to punish South Africa for opposing Israeli genocide at The Hague courts – and once he takes other unfair measures and gives subsidies to protect the U.S. corporate elite and a section of his supporters in the labour aristocracy.

In other words, we see ordinary South Africans, Africans and the whole world rising to say to Donald Trump: we reject your proto-fascist version of ‘democracy’, we reject your leadership in the Axis of Genocide, and we reject U.S. imperialism. We will Boycott, Divest and Sanction any such initiatives as the National Endowment for Democracy until the U.S. society and ruling class learn what a genuine democracy is and practice it at home before even thinking that Washington is welcome abroad.

Issued by SAFTU, 11 November 2024