There is Nothing Cute About Regime Change

by Mark Fancher

"When they come for Chavez of Venezuela, or Mugabe of Zimbabwe, or Morales of Bolivia, they will come with a new set of lies.”

It’s a pretty safe bet that in the bowels of the NSA, the CIA and the State Department, there are armies of grunts who are working feverishly to generate assorted plots and schemes for the overthrow of those who currently lead Venezuela, Bolivia, Iran, Zimbabwe and various other sovereign states. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Condoleezza and others of their ilk probably badger hapless subordinate bureaucrats, demanding ever more devious, sinister methods of effecting what is now popularly known as "regime change." It is remarkable that through the years, various regime change projects have been the product of wicked, perverse creativity. When the CIA was plotting to kill Congo's first Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, they developed a poison that would cause symptoms similar to those caused by a disease that was endemic to central Africa. Congo’s CIA station chief was provided with a special hypodermic syringe and other materials needed to mix the poison in with Lumumba’s toothpaste and food. Success would have produced a brilliant assassination that would have been blamed on natural causes.

The plan to disguise Lumumba’s assassination was not an anomaly. In his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, former NSA operative John Perkins strongly implies that the mysterious death of Panama’s former President Omar Torrijos in a 1981 plane crash was engineered by U.S. intelligence agencies. Washington regarded Torrijos’ willingness to stand up to the U.S. corporate and military establishments as quite problematic.

“They continue the tradition of eliminating leaders whose stated objective is the return of valuable natural resources to the people.”

Dubious "wit" and creativity have been evident in other ways. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersch reported that the CIA’s original plan for the overthrow of the government of Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah in 1966, cleverly called for a squad of paramilitary experts dressed in blackface to break into China’s Embassy in Ghana and steal as much as possible from the embassy’s code room in the midst of the confusion surrounding the coup.

Finally, in his new book Overthrow author Stephen Kinzer describes how CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt (Teddy’s grandson), masterminded regime change in Iran because Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh was determined to nationalize the country’s oil. Roosevelt paid thugs to incite violence in the streets. He also triggered a wave of false rumors that Mossadegh was an atheist, Jewish homosexual. All of this set the stage for replacement of Mossadegh with the infamous, brutal Shah in 1953.

The evil genius that was at work in all of these cases and many more is surely enough to make Cheney and Rumsfeld wet their pants with joyful excitement each time they think about these plots. It is also not difficult to imagine that these episodes are enough to inspire them to embark upon further deadly shenanigans as they continue the tradition of eliminating leaders whose stated objective is the return of valuable natural resources to the people.

Regime change need not occur without resistance. Although Ronald Reagan and his advisors maneuvered the compliant little seven member Organization of Eastern Caribbean States into making a "request" that the U.S. military invade Grenada in 1983, Reagan’s people knew better than to approach the larger Caribbean Community (CARICOM) organization, for fear that it would do what it later did in the wake of the brazen U.S. kidnapping of Haiti’s President Jean Bertrand Aristide. CARICOM resisted enormous pressure to condone that heinous act. At great risk, Jamaica provided temporary refuge for the Aristide family. South Africa then provided the Aristides with a long-term residence. All of this demonstrated yet again that the people of Africa and the African Diaspora will resist imperialism whenever possible.

“Let us see how hard they laugh when the joke is finally on them.”

It is likely that when they come for Chavez of Venezuela, or Mugabe of Zimbabwe, or Morales of Bolivia, they will come with a new set of lies. In the sixties and seventies, they justified regime changes in Ghana, Congo, Chile, and various other countries with lies that targeted heads of state were Soviet allies, dupes or both. The people believed those lies, and the imperialists chuckled privately. More recently, regime changes have been justified with lies about targeted regimes’ connections to terrorism. The people believed those lies too, but they have begun to ask questions. In light of the fact that the imperialists are evidently quite amused by clever and imaginative regime change schemes, let us see how hard they laugh when the joke is finally on them. The day is fast approaching when, in the wake of the Iraq fiasco, even the people of the U.S. will finally wake up, hear purported justifications for some planned regime change, and then turn a deaf ear to all of it while declaring forthrightly that the imperialists are the liars that they are.

Mark P. Fancher is an attorney, essayist and Pan-Africanist organizer. He can be contacted at mfancher(at)comcast.net.  When sending email, you must of course replace the (at) with the character @. 

OTHER ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE OF BLACK AGENDA REPORT

BAR Home
The Black-Latino Future: Will African Americans rise to the challenge? - Glen Ford
Freedom Rider: American Terrorists - Margaret Kimberley
Congressional Black Caucus Monitor Report Card, fall 2006 - Leutisha Stills
Bruce's Beat: Juan Williams, Liar, Liar! - Bruce Dixon
The Oprah Effect - Tim Wise

A Brief History of Repression - William L. Katz
Black TV in Brazil - Shawn Lindsey