Putting Lipstick On A Dictator

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2007/05/extreme_makeover.html

Putting Lipstick On A Dictator

News: Rogue states hire PR firms to change public perception and win audiences with American leaders. Whatever happened to old fashioned diplomacy?

By Joshua Kurlantzick

May 7, 2007


On an unusually warm morning in Washington, D.C., last spring, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stood before a pack of reporters for a briefing, one of Africa's most notorious dictators at her side. Rice was her usual assured self, answering questions in thoughtful paragraphs. The man with her—Teodoro Obiang, president of the tiny, oil-rich nation of Equatorial Guinea—seemed less comfortable. As the journalists peppered Rice with questions, he clenched his hands against his suit coat and stared at her with a tight, puzzled grin. During his two-decade reign of torture and terror, Obiang has never faced such meddlesome media; Equatoguinean radio has declared that Obiang has "permanent contact with the Almighty" and therefore can "kill anyone without being called to account." Rice turned to Obiang. "Thank you very much for your presence here," she cooed. "You are a good friend, and we welcome you."

It was a moment so unsettling that State Department officials privately felt compelled to downplay Rice's demeanor, saying she had not meant to be so effusive. But for Cassidy and Associates, a prominent D.C. lobbying and communications firm, the secretary's comments were payoff for years of hard work. Since 2004, according to Department of Justice reports, Equatorial Guinea has paid Cassidy and Associates at least $120,000 per month to overhaul the country's image.

At times, Cassidy almost functions as a shadow foreign ministry for Equatorial Guinea. One longtime Africa observer says that at a recent D.C. event, he saw Cassidy staffers flanking the Equatoguinean ambassador passing her notes throughout her speech. "She was literally in the hands of her handlers," he says. Cassidy has also helped set up a social development fund to channel the country's oil money into welfare projects: "Obiang is intent on improving the country," says Juan Carlos Benitez, who is responsible for Cassidy's Equatorial Guinea account.

Yet on the ground, improvements are hard to come by. Equatorial Guinea has one of the world's highest incomes per capita, but in one of the 10 most corrupt nations on earth, little of that money trickles down. Obiang rules the country with an iron fist: According to State Department reports, suspects have been tortured to death and prisoners raped by police. Still, Cassidy has delivered results for Obiang in D.C. "A few years ago, at least U.S. officials wouldn't talk about the relationship with Equatorial Guinea, or they would admit all the problems and horrible human rights abuses," says Frank Ruddy, the former U.S. ambassador to Equatorial Guinea. Now, he adds, "you would have thought this is Mother Teresa's brother running Equatorial Guinea."

Such makeovers are the result of sophisticated campaigns. In the past, dictatorships simply used lobbyists to court the mostly below-the-radar support of American politicians. But in the post-9/11 world of 24/7 media coverage of every human rights crackdown in Kazakhstan or every whisper of Saudi Arabia funding extremists, authoritarians need a different strategy—an intensive, crisis-management approach to PR. Like Angelina Jolie, who transformed her image from wild woman to paragon of charity, these dictators have rebranded themselves completely, using every avenue to promote their new images.

"The Saudis were the first to get this new era of PR," says Kevin McCauley, editor of O'Dwyer's Public Relations, the leading trade publication covering the PR industry. Shortly after 9/11, Saudi Arabia entered into a $14 million-a-year contract with Qorvis, a Washington PR firm. Qorvis launched a TV campaign with ads on political talk shows featuring a procession of Saudi royals appearing alongside U.S. presidents, to highlight Riyadh as a close ally. Other TV spots, which ran in 14 American cities, touted the "shared values" of the United States and Saudi Arabia. The firm also shuttled Saudi officials on whirlwind tours of major media outlets, and broadcast ads promoting the 9/11 Commission finding that there was "no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded "—while omitting the report's conclusion that "Saudi Arabia has been a problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism." The PR blitz helped reduce the number of anti-Saudi articles and speeches, says McCauley, which allowed the Bush administration to keep ties to the kingdom close.

"Other countries saw how this worked," notes McCauley, and in the wake of the Saudi contract, several authoritarian regimes beefed up their PR efforts. In 2002, petro state Qatar hired PR and lobbying firm Rahall Consulting to promote its commitment to democracy, though Qatar has no real opposition party. Rahall's owner, Tanya Rahall, is the sister of Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), who, after the contract was signed, offered congressional resolutions praising Qatar's "democratic reform." Uganda hired public relations giant Hill & Knowlton to bat down criticism of its atrocious human rights record. Kazakhstan, where President Nursultan Nazarbayev won more than 90 percent of the vote in a widely criticized election, ran a U.S. advertising campaign touting itself as a "developing democratic country." Even the genocidal Sudanese government tried to get into the action, spending $530,000 on a firm called C/R International, run by a former State Department official, to organize trips to Sudan for congressional staffers and to emphasize that Sudan was "cooperating in the war on terrorism." The deal was canceled in the face of public scrutiny. Nation rebranding has become so common it even has inspired its own academic discipline, including a journal called Place Branding, in which professors pen lengthy, footnoted discourses on topics such as "How Can a Place Correct a Negative Image?"


We aren't supposed to post entire articles. Please go to the link at top to finish article...Lee

Unfortunately, I doubt this cozying up to these dictators will be any different with most of the current crop of candidates running for president from either major party.

Have any of these people running riased objections to this "Dictators are people too" style of diplomacy?

Seems like everything is packaged these days, and that packaging, called bubble packs, are almost impossible to open to get to the goods...oooh...just realized I came up w/an analogy...:D

I PMed you, just btw. Sorry I hadn't answered sooner.
Lee

Ras...:D