July 7, 2009

For some time now, the writer and blogger Stephen Gowans has made a series of false charges and spurious claims about our organization, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and our colleague Dr. Peter Ackerman. The most egregious of his articles in the past that have attacked us have been corrected in other articles posted by the chair of our academic advisors' committee, Dr. Stephen Zunes. Most of Mr. Gowans' articles have had the context of defending or apologizing for various repressive regimes and authoritarian rulers around the world, including Roberto Mugabe in Zimbabwe, the Burmese military junta, the Chinese occupiers of Tibet, and the Ahmadinejad-Khamenei ruling group in Iran. Gowans wrongly perceives our Center and my colleague Dr. Ackerman as engaged in "regime change" operations directed against such governments. This constantly repeated charge about our work is simply false. None of Mr. Gowans' characterizations of our purpose or activities is true, and none is based on credible evidence.

Below is a point by point refutation of his latest article, with each excerpt in quotes followed by a correction.

Gowans: "As the head of Freedom House, a CIA-interlocked think-tank that promotes free markets, free enterprise and free trade, Peter Ackerman has been at the forefront of efforts to topple foreign governments that place more emphasis on promoting the welfare of their citizens (and often their own bourgeoisie) than providing export and investment opportunities to US corporations, banks, and investors."

Correction: Peter Ackerman is no longer head of Freedom House. He has never had any links to the CIA. He has had no involvement in "efforts to topple foreign governments". None of his activities in international relations involve "providing export and investment opportunities to US corporations, banks and investors." All these statements by Mr. Gowans are false, and there is no factual information to support such claims.

Gowans: "An ex-Wall Street investment banker who was once junk bond trader Michael Milken's right-hand man, Ackerman's speciality these days is regime change civil disobedience – training activists in the use of civil disobedience destabilization techniques to bring down foreign governments."

Correction: Mr. Ackerman holds a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University, and is co-author of two influential books on nonviolent action, Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: The Dynamics of People Power in the Twentieth Century (Praeger, 1994) and A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict (St. Martin's Press, 2000). The investment-banking period of his career lasted 15 years; the academic and international affairs period of his career has, cumulatively, spanned over 25 years. Neither Mr. Ackerman nor the organization of which he is founding chair, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), have been involved in any training of activists for the purpose of "regime change" or "bringing down foreign governments." Political change has been one goal of some participants in workshops on nonviolent action that ICNC has supported (e.g. Egyptians, Maldivians, Iranians, Vietnamese), but the goals of just as many participants in such workshops have included resistance to military occupation (e.g. Palestinians, West Papuans, West Saharans, Tibetans), resisting organized social and criminal violence (e.g. Guatemalans, Nigerians), and struggling for immigrants' rights (Hispanic Americans) and against the war in Iraq (Americans).

Gowans: "A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington-Wall Street insiders' group that brings together corporate CEOs and lawyers, scholars, and government and military officials to recommend foreign policy positions to the US State Department, Ackerman also heads the International Center for Non-Violent Conflict (ICNC). Working in parallel with billionaire financier George Soros' Open Society Institute, the ICNC deploys civil disobedience specialists to teach 'activists how to agitate for change against' governments on Washington's regime change hit list, 'going everywhere from Eastern Europe to train Belarusians to Turkey to coach Iranians.'"

Correction: ICNC has never worked with George Soros or the Open Society Institute, nor have we "deployed civil disobedience specialists" to teach activists "on Washington's regime change hit list." We have never seen such a list, nor do we even have a list of countries to which we intend to distribute educational materials, since all such distribution is done in response to requests. We have never supported any training of Belarussians, or of Iranians in Turkey.

Gowans: "Ackerman and other civil disobedience imperialists...give their efforts to topple foreign governments the deceptively reassuring name 'democracy promotion.' Democracy promotion, a Bush administration official once said, is a rubric to get people to support regime change without saying the words."

Correction: ICNC has never described its activities as "democracy promotion" and has never collaborated with any agency of the U.S. government to further "democracy promotion." As a private educational foundation, it is required by law to devote its entire budget to educational activities that transfer knowledge about nonviolent conflict and nonviolent struggle. The political, social or other goals of those who request and receive this knowledge are their own, and the recipients have included many struggling against rulers or occupiers backed by the U.S. government (such as Morocco, Egypt, Israel, Guatemala, and the U.S. government itself).

Gowans: "In a January 6, 2006 International Herald Tribune article, prophetically titled 'Iran's future? Watch the streets,' [Peter Ackerman and Ramin Ahmadi] complained that Ahmadinejad promised 'to redistribute wealth to the poor and curb capitalists,' and described the new president's electoral victory as plunging Iranian 'society into a mood of despair.'...Instead, it was the losers, 'Iran's parliamentary reformists' and the wealthy, Western-educated Iranians they represented, who were in despair. In Ackerman's and Ahmadi's view, this stratum, a budding comprador class, was equal to Iranian society as a whole, rather than a minority whose interests were about to be curbed by the newly elected president. Looking ahead, Ahmadi and his Freedom House co-author, pointed to 'a grass-roots movement...waiting to be roused in Iran'...'Grass-roots' by Ackerman's and Ahamdi's restrictive definition, was anyone targeted by Ahmadinejad's redistribution and capitalist-curbing program."

Correction: This passage by Gowans, attempting to characterize the Ackerman-Ahmadi article, is entirely misleading. The article cited can be found here: Read it yourself. It makes no complaints about Ahmadinejad's economic programs, except to note that he had not delivered on his promise to curb capitalists or redistribute wealth to the poor. Grass-roots resistance was predicted to come from "ordinary citizens", not one privileged class.

Gowans: "The model for overthrowing the income-redistributing, capitalist-curbing Ahmadinejad, they wrote, would be the Polish trade union Solidarity, which worked to destabilize another set of capitalist-unfriendly income-redistributors, the communist government of Poland. Solidarity...was instrumental in the collapse of Polish communism, and more widely, in the demise of socialism in Eastern Europe. Western corporations and investors seeking export and investment opportunities in Eastern Europe – people represented by Ackerman and Soros — profited handsomely, but for ordinary people, communism's demise has been a disaster."

Correction: This too is a false description of what the Ackerman-Ahamdi article said. The article includes less than one sentence about the Solidarity movement in Poland, and no references to its impact on economic policies in Poland, which would have happened in any case when its leaders entered government, ten years after its most notable use of nonviolent resistance against Poland's dictatorial regime. Unmentioned by Gowans is that the Ackerman-Ahmadi article also recommended attention to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, the movement against the dictator Ferdinand Marcos (supported by the U.S. government) in the Philippines, and the movement against Gen. Pinochet in Chile (who was also supported by the U.S. government), which led to the election of a socialist government. Gowans didn't mention the article's favorable citation of these movements, perhaps because they don't fit the ideological frame motivating his distorted account of the article.

Gowans: "Significantly, organizations like Freedom House, ICNC, and the Soros Open Society Institute, operating on grants from Western governments, parliaments and corporate foundations...would provide the strategic vision, leadership, as well as the money and training, for Ackerman's and Ahmadi's slumbering grass-roots movement."

Correction: It is quite simply a lie that ICNC has received "grants from Western governments, parliaments and corporate foundations" for any purpose. Receiving such grants would be prohibited by law, since ICNC is a private educational foundation whose sole source of funding is a single philanthropy, the Ackerman family. It is also completely untrue that ICNC has ever provided "strategic vision," "leadership" or "money" to any movements or campaigns anywhere. Its operating guidelines prohibit such forms of assistance, because vision and leadership can only be developed indigenously and should not be provided by external entities, and ICNC does not provide money because that would compromise its sole mission of transferring knowledge about the concepts and dynamics of nonviolent resistance. As for "training", that's a common term of reference usually equated with what happens at workshops, but in fact the real activity at workshops is educational.

Gowans: "Ackerman's ICNC was inviting Iranians to workshops to teach them how peaceful revolts in Georgia, the Philippines and elsewhere were set off. Training sessions were held 'every month or so, hoping to foment a non-violent conflict in Iran.'"

Correction: ICNC did not support and was not involved in "training sessions" held "every month or so" for Iranians. That is completely untrue. As widely reported, ICNC supported a workshop for Iranians held in Dubai in 2005. The content of the curriculum was a generic introduction to nonviolent struggle, as presented in more than 40 workshops done all over the world. To any student, scholar or journalist, we would be happy to provide a copy of that curriculum.

Gowans: "Ackerman's and Ahmadi's slumbering 'grassroots' movement has been roused by civil disobedience regime change promoters from outside and wealthy locals who have soaked up pro-imperialist values while studying abroad. They've taken a leaf from Western-backed color revolutions carried out in other countries, ones Ackerman and company have been instrumental in promoting. Their interest lies not in the social welfare of the majority of Iranians, who appear to have voted for Ahmadinejad, but in destabilizing the Iranian government to serve their own narrow class interests."

Correction: Neither Peter Ackerman nor ICNC have been "instrumental in promoting" any "Western-backed color revolutions." Neither Dr. Ackerman nor any staff person of ICNC had any contact with Serbians prior to 2000 (since ICNC didn't exist until 2002), with Georgians prior to its "Rose Revolution," or with Ukrainians prior to the "Orange Revolution" – the three "color revolutions." Moreover, any "grassroots" movement in Iran was not instigated, trained, organized or supported by Peter Ackerman or our Center. Such a claim is entirely spurious. If Mr. Gowans believes that a single workshop four years ago is responsible for facilitating demonstrations of millions of people in Iran last month, then he is hallucinating. In addition, ICNC has no political goals of its own, including "destabilizing the Iranian government" or any other government, and does not pursue "narrow class interests." These are pejorative allegations that cannot be substantiated because they are false.

Gowans: "Many leftists have turned a blind eye to the class character of Ackerman's and Ahmadi's 'grassroots movement,' as well as to the source of its strategic vision and leadership...The 'grassroots' movement is hardly grassroots, and its goals are hardly the lofty ones leftists have attributed to it. They are, instead, the goals a wealthy former Wall Street investment banker turned regime change promoter and Washington-insider and wealthy Iranians who have studied at expensive universities in the imperial center, are able to share in common – toppling a government that stands in the way of their mutual enrichment."

Correction: The charge that Peter Ackerman is an "investment banker turned regime change promoter" is a gross distortion of his career, as previously described, and to suggest that his motive in supporting worldwide education about nonviolent action is to further his own "enrichment" is absurd and defamatory. Attempting to use nonprofit educational activities for personal enrichment is prohibited by law in the United States, and our Center is audited to confirm its full financial integrity.

As can readily be seen from a review of these charges and corrections, Stephen Gowans' article rests on little if any factual basis. He has stitched together a quilt of his own false assertions and claims, along with factoids and miscellaneous quotes, to create a wholly fictitious picture of our Center and of Dr. Ackerman's career, intentions and actions. His article is propaganda, presumably intended to support the various claims of Western interference that the Ahmadinejad government in Tehran has used to justify its violent repression in recent days. Gowans article is not based on facts, it is based on misstatements and distortions.