Tala Dowlatshahi and the International Rescue Committee
Based in New York, Tala Dowlatshahi is the US representative of RSF: she is also a successful journalist who has previously worked with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Amnesty International, and various UN agencies. While RightWeb has produced a detailed profile examining the elite and ‘democratic’ linkages of the IRC, the IRC also received a massive $1 million grant from the NED in 1987 (which was used to support Solidarity’s work in Poland). Furthermore, in 1990 they received another $1 million from the NED which the IRC passed on to the Solidarity Social Fund (Poland). More recently, the Afghan Information Center received two $24,000 grants from IRC (via the NED) “to publish a quarterly journal in Pashtu-Dari to promote open discourse and the concepts of human rights, freedom and democracy among Afghanis living inside Afghanistan and abroad.”

Given that Dowlatshahi has recently worked for the IRC it is relevant to examine the ‘democratic’ credentials of some of the people involved with the IRC’s work. Thus particularly ‘democratic’ members of IRC’s board of directors include Vera Blinken (who is married to Donald M. Blinken, who is a honorary trustee of the Institute of International Education), Morton I. Abramowitz (who is a director at the NED, and has served as the president of both the International Crisis Group and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), Andrew H. Brimmer (who is a director of the International Crisis Group), Frederick J. Iseman (who is a director of the Academy for Educational Development), Winston Lord (who is married to Bette Bao Lord, who in turn is chairman emeritus of Freedom House), Jay Mazur (who is a trustee of Freedom House, a director of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, a former vice-president of the AFL-CIO from 1986 to 2001, and a former member of the League for Industrial Democracy), Indra K. Nooyi (who is a honorary trustee of the Asia Society), David L. Phillips (who is a director of Search for Common Ground), Samantha Power (who was the founding executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy (1998 to 2002), is a member of the strategy committee of the Project on Justice in Times of Transition, is a director of both the US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the International Center for Transitional Justice, and has worked as a political analyst for the International Crisis Group), and George Rupp (who is a trustee of the Institute of International Education, and a director of InterAction). In addition, other interesting members of IRC’s board of overseers are Madeleine K. Albright, Henry Kissinger, and Colin L. Powell.

While it is fairly simple to illustrate the intimate links between IRC and the ‘democratic’ community, demonstrating such a relationship between Amnesty International (AI) – where Dowlatshahi has also worked – and the NED crowd is not so straightforward. Unfortunately, it is not such of a stretch of the imagination to link AI to the NED, especially as I have already illustrated the close relations that exist between Human Rights Watch and the NED in my article Hijacking Human Rights. In the case of AI however, I have not undertaken a similarly detailed analysis of their ties to US foreign policy elites, but the little research that I have undertaken clearly illustrates that some of AI’s work can be linked to the NED.

Thus in 1999, AI’s Sierra Leone section (known as the Human Rights Now Association), received a grant from the NED to “reinforce its human rights education efforts by introducing a human rights curriculum in 10 senior secondary schools that already have AI clubs.” Moreover, in 1999 AI’s director for Africa, Maina Kiai, represented both AI and the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) at the World Movement for Democracy’s annual conference. This is significant because not only was the World Movement for Democracy created by the NED (in 1999), but Kiai’s attendance at the conference is noteworthy because the KHRC (of which Kiai was their founding executive director) has received numerous grants from the NED (in 1993, 1994, 1995, 2001, and 2003), and has also obtained grants from both the Westminster Foundation (in 1998) and Rights and Democracy (in 2001). [1] It is also worth pointing out that Kiai has also served as the Africa director for the NED-funded group, Global Rights.

A full examination of AI’s ‘democratic’ ties will be outlined in a forthcoming article. However, for those interested in exploring some of the problems associated with AI’s work a good starting point is Paul de Rooij’s (2004) Amnesty International: A False Beacon?

Todd Lester: RSF’s Second International Rescue Committee Connection

Other than Dowlatshah, another former International Rescue Committee (IRC) employee who has also worked for RSF is Todd Lester: who between 2006 and 2007 helped RSF “establish it’s New York communications desk”. As with Dowlatshah it is informative to examine Lester’s previous institutional affiliations. Prior to his working with RSF in New York, Lester served as the information and advocacy manager for IRC in Sudan before going on to act as the Katrina relief project manager for FilmAid International – a position that enabled him to design and implement “the organization’s first domestic and natural disaster response intervention.” Although there is little critical commentary surrounding the work of FilmAid, Lester’s links to this group are particularly relevant to this article, because many of the people associated with FilmAid have numerous ‘democratic’ ties, links which will now be explored in some detail.

FilmAid is a US-based non-profit organization that works closely with the IRC and a number of other human rights organizations (like CARE and Witness) [2] to use “film and video to promote health, strengthen communities and enrich the lives of the world’s vulnerable and uprooted.” Their website notes that although FilmAid was established in 1999 in response to the Kosovar refugee crisis, they have now extended their remit and aims to cater to the entertainment needs of people living in refugee camps all over the world. FilmAid has three specifically ‘democratic’ directors, these are Bill Carmichael (who currently serves on Human Right Watch’s Africa advisory board, is a former executive director of the (former) Soviet Union and Eastern European programs of the Institute of International Education, and prior to this spent 20 years working for the Ford Foundation), Bob Kissane (who is a director of both Human Rights Watch and Witness), and Bruce Rabb (whose substantial ‘democratic’ ties were outlined in one of my earlier articles).

Although FilmAid’s advisory committee is dominated by Hollywood movie stars it is home to a number of individuals with ‘democratic’ ties, these include Lisa Anderson (who is a director of Realizing Rights, a member of the US advisory board of the Democracy Coalition Project, a member of Human Right Watch’s Middle East advisory committee and an emeriti member of HRW’s board of directors, and she is also the former head of Columbia University’s Middle East Institute), Robert P. DeVecchi (who is a director of the Foundation for a Civil Society, is on the advisory board for the Civil Courage Prize, serves on the strategy committee for the Project on Justice in Times of Transition, and is an emeritus director of Refugees International), Mathilde Krim (who is a director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a founder of the Carter Center, a former trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, and is a life trustee of the Africa-America Institute), Amy Mitchell (who is a former American Enterprise Institute media researcher), Susan Patricof (who is a member of IRC’s board of directors, and is an individual funder of the International Crisis Group), Richard Plepler (who is a trustee of the Asia Society, and serves on the advisory council of the Nixon Center), and actress Liv Ullmann (who is vice chairman of the IRC, and is the honorary chair of their affiliated Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children).

Returning to Lester’s career, it is informative to observe that he is currently the executive director of FreeDimensional, a group that “organizes community arts space and local resources for the support and protection of individuals [and] create dialogue on global issues and inequalities through their art and media.” Predictably, FreeDimensional – like many of the organizations described in this article – works closely with ‘democratically’linked organizations, some of which include RSF, Human Rights Watch and the International Women’s Media Foundation. Furthermore, FreeDimensional’s Africa representative, Ebenezer Obadare, has received awards for his work from two prominent liberal foundations (the MacArthur and Ford Foundations’) and also from the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA). (In 1996, CODESRIA received a $15,000 grant from Rights and Democracy, and their executive secretary, Adebayo Olukoshi, is a former member of the governing council of the ‘democratic’ Society for International Development.) Finally, two of FreeDimensional’s European representatives have ‘democratic’ ties: thus Melita Rogelj has previously received a two-year Leadership for Environment and Development fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, and Diana Fakiola has worked as a “practicum in the Executive Office of the EastWest Institute focused on building economic partnerships for Russia and Ukraine”.

Julien Pain Deliberates for Global Voices
Since 2003, Julien Pain, a “journalist who specialises in new technologies”, has been head of RSF’s internet freedom desk. In 2005 Pain served on the Deutsche Welle jury, a jury that gave their Best of the Blogs award to a media project known as Global Voices. However, it is intriguing that Global Voices was also nominated for Deutsche Welle’s Best Weblog prize, “but because two judges (Hoseein Derakshan and Julien Pain) were Global Voices contributors, there was [considered to be] a perception of conflict of interest” by Deutsche Welle. Although Pain only appears to be a contributor to Global Voices, this is still interesting because three members of the advisory board of this “non-profit global citizens’” media project (that was founded at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society) have ‘democratic’ ties. These three ‘democratic’ advisors are Akwe Amosu (who is a senior policy analyst for Africa at the Open Society Institute, and is a director of the International Women’s Media Foundation), Joi Ito (who is a director of Witness), and Isaac Mao (who is a co-founder of CNBlog.org which was the “earliest evangelizing site in China on grassroots publishing”, and was also “listed as the people of ‘2006-2016, Map of the Decade’, by Institute for the Future” – a group whose board of trustees is chaired by William P. Fuller – who is a former president of the Asia Foundation, and a former member of USAID’s Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid).

Faisal Elbagir: ‘Humanitarian’ Concerns for Sudan
In 2003 (at least) Faisal Elbagir was RSF’s correspondent for Sudan, while simultaneously acting as the information and research program director for the Sudan Organisation Against Torture (SOAT). The London-based SOAT was established in 1993 and describes itself as “an independent non-governmental human rights organisation” despite the fact that they received a $27,000 grant from the NED in 2003 to “organize the first ever symposium on human rights education in conjunction with the Ahfad University for Women of Sudan.” SOAT’s Sudanese partner organization, the Khartoum Centre for Human Rights and Environmental Development KCHRED, is headed by Ahmed El Mufti – an individual who acted as Legal Counsel for the Ministry of Energy and Mining in Sudan (from 1979 to 1980), and has also headed the legal department of the Khartoum-based General Petroleum Corporation (from 1983 to 1985). This is worth noting because while the corporate media is currently beating a drum beat for launching a war on Iran, it is also pushing for a ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Sudan: yet although rarely talked about, there appears to be clear geostrategic reasons for supporting such an intervention (read: humanitarian imperialism) in Sudan. As I noted in a recent article:

“Vijay Prashad (2007) draws our attention to the US’s oil interests in Sudan, while former NATO commander, General Wesley Clark (2007) explains that in 2001 a classified memo from the office of the Secretary of Defense described how the US planned ‘to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran’.”

Perhaps not coincidentally, in 2002 Elbagir was arrested and questioned about an international press freedom conference he attended in Senegal that was organized by International Media Support and the NED-linked IFEX. More recently (in 2007 at least) Elbagir has been acting as the Africa program officer for the ‘democratically’ funded Article 19 – an organization which between 1996 and 1997 received three grants from the Westminster Foundation, and in 1997 obtained a single grant from Rights and Democracy.[3]

George ‘Soros’ Tarkhan-Mouravi
Yet another former RSF reporter with ‘democratic’ ties is George Tarkhan-Mouravi, a reporter who acted as RSF’s correspondent in Georgia between 1996 and 1999. During this time, Tarkhan-Mouravi worked closely with George Soros’ local ‘democracy promoting’ organizations and in 1994 he cofounded the Open Society – Georgia Foundation, and headed the preparatory team for their social science support program between 1998 and 1999. Tarkhan-Mouravi maintained his relations with Soros after leaving RSF’s service in 1999 because from 2001 to 2003 he was an Open Society Institute fellow.

In addition , to his Soros connection, over the years Tarkhan-Mouravi has also obtained strong support from the US government. For example, in July 1996 he was a US Information Agency (USIA) international visitor to the USA, in January 1999 he was a USIA exchange visitor to the USA, and between 2000 and 2002 he was a NATO Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council research fellow.

Given Tarkhan-Mouravi’s numerous ‘democratic’ links it is not incongruous that in 1992 he cofounded the Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development (CIPDD), a group that received support from the NED between 1993 and 2001. Tarkhan-Mouravi was vice-chair of CIPDD’s board of directors from it’s founding until 1996, a during which CIPDD obtained four NED grants  used to “help promote democratic and free-market values and consider solutions to the problems of the democratic transition in Georgia and the Caucasus.” The present chair of CIPDD, Ghia Nodia, currently serves on the steering committee of the NED-created World Movement for Democracy.

More recently, in 2002, Tarkhan-Mouravi helped launch the Tbilisi-based Institute for Policy Studies, where his fellow co-director, Nana Sumbadze, also exhibits vigorous ‘democratic’ credentials. Between 1995 and 1997 Sumbadze was a NATO research fellow, and from 2001 to 2002 he was both an Open Society Institute fellow and a consultant to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Finally, Tarkhan-Mouravi is a member of the North America-based Central Eurasia Studies Society (CESS) – a society whose president, Alexander Knysh, currently acts as the moderator for a three-year summer institute (2005 to 2008) titled Teaching Islam in Eurasia (a project that is funded by the Open Society Institute and the Mellon Foundation). Another notable director of CESS, Anara Tabyshalieva, has also worked on numerous projects for the US Institute for Peace, and directed the Kyrgyzstan Institute for Regional Studies while it was being funded by the NED (CESS received NED grants in 1998, 2000, and 2001). It is also relevant to note that from 2000 to 2003 John Schoeberlein acted as CESS’s first president while also working (from 2001 to 2001) as the director of the Central Asia Project of the International Crisis Group.

Saleem Samad, Ford, and the Academy for Educational Development
The last RSF reporter to be examined in this section is Saleem Samad, an investigative journalist who specializes in reporting on South Asian affairs. Although no dates are available (online) to indicate when Samad last worked for RSF, in 2002 he was arrested by Bangladesh security agencies “along with two foreign journalists working for British Channel 4 TV for documenting Islamic extremism & expatriate jJihadis.” Subsequently, “[h]is arrest caused global uproar by international media, press watchdogs and human rights groups” (like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International) and he was released from prison after 55 days and now lives in exile in Canada. Samad has several ‘democratic’ ties. Firstly he has worked as a senior fellow at the Advocacy Center (in 1996) – a position funded by the Ford Foundation – and he has also worked training small town journalists for the Academy for Educational Development.

To be continued… Having investigated RSF’s ‘democratic’ ties, the following two parts of this series will go on to reveal how many of the recipients of their annual Fondation de France Prize are intimately linked to the ‘democracy promoting’ community.  

Michael Barker is a doctoral candidate at Griffith University, Australia. He can be reached at Michael.J.Barker [at] griffith.edu.au. All four parts of this article and some of his other recent articles can be found right here.

Endnotes

[1] Maina Kiai is currently he chairman of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights – a group that was appointed in 2003 through a parliamentary process – which has received NED support in 2005. Plenary Speakers.

[2] The current president of Witness is Andrew Blau, who is co-head of the consulting practice at Global Business Network – a strategic consulting firm that “works with Fortune 500 companies from virtually every industry and continent, as well as with many national governments, nonprofits, and foundations.”

[3] For an expanded discussion of Article 19’s ‘democratic’ ties see Barker, Polyarchy and the Public Sphere. (Forthcoming.)