David Hoile of ESPAC
,Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001

By: Eric Reeves

Just how nasty is the background of David Hoile, mouthpiece for the "European-Sudanese Public Affairs Council" (ESPAC)? Just how vicious is the company he chooses to keep? Here are but a few of the revealing excerpts from the British investigative publication "Searchlight" (December 2000). Of particular note are revelations about the South African regime's covert funding of Hoile's publications on apartheid, and about Hoile's relationship to the terrorist organization RENAMO in Mozambique (the latter was Hoile's "career segue" to his present Khartoum propaganda efforts).
---Eric Reeves
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"Searchlight" (December 2000)
"The Democracy Movement" [article on "libertarian" politics in Britain]
by Nick Lowles and Steve Silver
[full text available at:
http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/stories/TheDemocracyMovement.htm

[Marc-Henri] Glendening's election represented the pinnacle of libertarian power in the FCS [Federation of Conservative Students]. Described as the "most outspoken and radical libertarian leader the organisation had ever seen", Glendening was certainly one of its most controversial personalities... In 1985 he was quoted as saying, "it is the right of any man to discriminate against blacks if he so wishes".

Although he was succeeded as FCS chairman by Mark McGregor, a former chairman of the Scottish FCS and representative of the "sound" faction, the libertarian influence did not end. As part of the right's electoral pact to retain control of the FCS, two libertarians, **David Hoile** and [Douglas] Smith, became McGregor's deputies. **Hoile**, a postgraduate at Warwick University with Glendening, was a former Rhodesian commando, while Smith had previously worked for the Adam Smith Institute, a prominent free-market think-tank.
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The following month **Hoile** set up the Committee for a Free Nicaragua (CFN) with [Marc] Gordon, another FCS chairman from the West Midlands. Gordon was to gain an unenviable reputation at Birmingham University as a right-wing bully. He was accused of smashing up an anti-apartheid stall, forming the Birmingham University Anti-Queer Society and telling a Jewish student that he had given the pro-Khomeini Iranian students his name and address. One CFN conference in London was addressed by Contra leader Arturo Cruz. Also in 1985 **Hoile** published "Nicaragua for Beginners," a pro-Contra booklet.

Encouraged by their experience with the CFN, **Hoile** and Gordon started to broaden their international operations. In August 1987 they launched the UK section of the International Freedom Foundation (IFF), the stated aims of which were "promoting the development of free and open societies based on the principles of the free market system" advancing the cause of freedom fighters who struggle for liberty and democracy". Among the freedom fighters they supported were the Contras in Nicaragua, UNITA in Angola, RENAMO in Mozambique and the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Also involved in the IFF (UK) was Glendening.

However, special emphasis was placed on South Africa. While they continually claimed not to support apartheid, taking the libertarian line that the system was "racial socialism", they viewed its African National Congress opponents as worse. Portraying the ANC as under the control of the Communist Party, the IFF repeatedly claimed that it would impose a Marxist state if it ever gained power.

The IFF (UK) produced a series of texts on Southern Africa, including "Understanding Sanctions" by **Hoile**, who in the introduction wrote that the book "is the result of a number of years' interest in the South Africa sanctions debate, including two as a parliamentary researcher at Westminster". What he failed to mention was that this research work had been for John Carlisle, the pro-South African Tory MP for Luton North.

Working for apartheid

The IFF claimed to be "supported by voluntary donations" and "accepts no government funds and maintains its total independence from government entities". This was a blatant lie. The IFF was a South African military intelligence operation designed to smear opponents of the apartheid regime. Codenamed "Pacman", the IFF had as its objectives, according to the Kahn Commission that investigated South Africa's secret intelligence operations, "the combating of sanctions and support to constitutional initiatives through publications, lobbying, conferences etc. It specifically supported Mr Jonas Savimbi and UNITA." In the year 1991/92, the last to be funded by South African military intelligence, the IFF received 10 million Rand (Ă