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the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa in the running of next year’s national elections, one reader made an interesting remark. The story points out that the “dodgy partnership” “could influence the poll outcome.”
However, the reader accused Zanu-PF, which the reader perceived as expressing itself in the story, of “being afraid of its own shadow.”
In the same imagination, there was nothing wrong with EISA helping ZEC with voter education and there was nothing as to “open the door to the West to interfere with the electoral process”, which the story asserts.
After all, Joyce Kazembe, ZEC acting chairperson, had assured that everything was above board and that “EISA would only provide technical support while ZEC remained in the driver’s seat.”
Furthermore, said Kazembe, the Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs knew of the development (and approved, apparently).
She added with confidence: “It is clear we are in charge of the whole process. If anybody thinks that by signing an MoU with us they are in charge, they are day-dreaming. We are an independent body and we will not be influenced by anybody.”
Knowing EISA to be one part of a global network of western imperialism – executed nicely (though not at all times) in the name of democracy and good governance – one is prompted to conclude that we have blissfully but tragically ignorant people in ZEC, the Justice Ministry and those who think things are always what they seem. This includes the reader who saw a paranoid Zanu-PF always looking over its shoulder.
The truth of the matter is that EISA is a dangerous outfit by design, profile and association which simply transcends the rhetoric of “promotion of credible elections, citizen participation, and the strengthening of political institutions for sustainable democracy in Africa”, as EISA says of itself.
The one level is that of its financiers which comprise some (liberal) European governments and agencies known to be arms of western imperialism and neo-colonialism. The countries include Belgium,
Canada, Finland, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden and Denmark.
The EISA also lists the European Union as its funders. Some of the well-known imperial agencies include George Soros’ Open Society Initiatives, USAID, German Development Cooperation (GTZ) and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). From the ubiquitous George Soros who set out in 1984 to pave way for US corporatism and “help countries make the transition from communism”, to SIDA which masquerades as a pro-poor development agency, the grave intent and thrust of this outfit is out in the open.
EISA is linked to the Zimbabwe Election Network which in turn is supported and linked to overthrow organisations such as United States’ National Endowment for Democracy. EISA is as interesting in its personnel as presently constituted which tends to point to how it is steeped in the politics of regime change.
Take just two of its directors for example.
Its Executive Director is Denis Kadima who took up the position of Executive Director of EISA in December 2002. Before this, he worked for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.
The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs was by the United States via the National Endowment for Democracy to channel grants for “furthering democracy” in developing nations.
The less said about the NED the better. It will be useful though to know that recent reports indicate that it is training ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak’s successors in Egypt. Kadima’s profile also includes being currently an Associate Fellow of the Africa Programme of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, in London. There is a very perceptive description of the Chatham
House as an imperialist tool that is attributed to Arnold J Toynbee, Former Director of Studies at the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Writing in the American Chronicle, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle quotes Toynbee as having said the organisation sought to undermine sovereign countries.
Said Toynbee: “I will merely repeat that we are at present working, discreetly but with all our might, to wrest this mysterious political force called sovereignty out of the clutches of the local national states of our world. And all the time we are denying with our lips what we are doing with our hands . . . “
Doyle explains: “It is instructive to remember that the ‘consensual wisdom of the British foreign policy establishment embodied by Chatham House’ has as its primary goal to serve the interest of the British ruling classes.
“If this entails chaos and anarchy to rule in Africa, or anywhere else for that matter, as far as the British foreign policy establishment is concerned, so be it. One need not go far into imperial and colonial history to find examples, it suffices to explore their role in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan, etcetera and the many brutal puppet regimes that are prop up in Africa and beyond by these foreign policies.”
Kadima has worked for Amnesty International and Transparency International. Amnesty International has been described by Professor Francis A Boyle (International Law, University of Illinois) cited on Sourcewatch as not concerned about human rights as it claims.
Prof Boyle says: “Amnesty International is primarily motivated not by human rights but by publicity. Second comes money. Third comes getting more members. Fourth, internal turf battles. And then finally, human rights, genuine human rights concerns. To be sure, if you are dealing with a human rights situation in a country that is at odds with the United States or Britain, it gets an awful lot of attention, resources, man and womanpower, publicity, you name it, they can throw whatever they want at that. But if it’s dealing with violations of human rights by the United States, Britain, Israel, then it’s like pulling teeth to get them to really do something on the situation . . . it’s not like the official enemies list.”
Transparency has been described as a corrupt organisation which receives funding from corrupt multinational corporations and governments. It has been known to be as compromised as to misrepresent its findings on corruption, which it claims principally to monitor, in some countries to set an agenda.
False information on Corruption Index is used as “stick with which to beat” opponents of the West.
It has happened in Venezuela, for example, where TI damned the oil industry.
“It is worth asking why Venezuela’s oil industry should be a particular focus of investigation,” explains one journal.
“A possible reason is that Venezuela is one of very few countries with a state-run oil industry. The profits from its oil industry are put into social programmes. In other words, its oil industry is not in the hands of, or available to, the big oil companies, some of which are among the funders of TI.”
TI has done the same in Zimbabwe, fronted by the likes of Professor John Makumbe, a rabid critic of President Mugabe also linked to a range of regime change civil society outfits. Interestingly, Makumbe was once fingered in some fraud at TI. It is also important to note that Kadima is the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Diamond Development Initiative International.
DDII calls itself “a long-term investment in conflict prevention and sustainable development and is an important complement to the KP (Kimberly Process certification Scheme).”
Some bells should ring here, don’t they? Another director of EISA is Dr Nandini Patel.
She is the Chairperson of Malawi’s Institute for Policy Interaction. The Institute is known for its opposition to the status quo in Malawi. The institute’s head is Rafik Hajat, one of the most outspoken critics of president Bingu wa Mutharika.
The other directors, mainly educated in political science, have links to western-sponsored civil society work on elections and governance.
One does not have to be a Zanu-PF paranoid to read into what ZEC has waded into. It is wonderfully hopeful that ZEC can be in the “driving seat” in a grand scheme which it has no instruments to control.
Is Mrs Kazembe being naïve or trying to hide something?
Online Reporter