Reporters Without Borders nailed

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

REPORTERS WITHOUT FRONTIERS

Bob Menard flies off the handle

• THE maniac guru of press freedom won’t accept the suggestion that his 
Freedom House buddies get their budget from the same sources that 
direct, finance and oversee his obsessive campaign against Cuba

• Threatens an interviewer • His obsession with Cuba completely matches 
his CIA profile

BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD —Special for Granma International—

IT seems that Robert “Bob” Menard, secretary general for life of 
Reporters Without Frontiers can’t bear any criticism of whose who 
provide the covert part of his finances. The maniac guru of “press 
freedom” (the neoliberal kind) recently flew of the handle when, in the 
course of an interview, a university researcher pointed out that the 
U.S. organization Freedom House, an acknowledged CIA associate, had 
distributed $775,000 USD to independent journalists feeding the networks 
with anti-Cuban disinformation from outside the island.

“I read in that great newspaper Granma that I’m a CIA agent,” Menard 
commented ironically, referring to an article entitled “Menard, CIA 
agent and liar without frontiers” published in Granma International.

Researching the theme of the Cuban-American community in the United 
Sates, Salim Lamrani questioned him about certain covert actions carried 
out by Frank Calzón, a CIA agent of Cuban origin who directs Freedom 
House’s anti-Cuba operations.

The interview, which took place in the framework of a comprehensive 
academic work entitled “The Cuban Lobby in the United States from 1959 
to the Present Day” was published in French on the Cuba Solidarity 
Project web site.

“They’re liars!” shouted Menard, well known for his explosive 
temperament and inability to accept other opinions. “You’re wrong. You 
don’t know what this is about, so you’d better be careful!”

Having apparently lost his self-control, the self-proclaimed RWF 
secretary general threatened (“you can’t say such things!”) in order to 
later launch an incomprehensible tirade. “I defend them 
because...they’re people that I don’t agree with...and because I don’t 
agree with them I can’t accept what they say about these slanderous 
things. That’s slander...Who lets them say such things?

Mr. Shuchman, the president of Freedom House, is a respectable man, very 
devoted to human rights,” reproached Menard, prior to making a strange 
apology for an organization as much identified with the CIA as the 
Eiffel Tower is with Paris.

“Freedom House are people who’ve been fighting for the freedom of the 
whole world for many years. Read their latest report! Have you read it?” 
an unleashed Menard burst out.

full: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2003/julio/mier23/29menar-i.html

--

The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org