Secret British ‘black propaganda’ campaign targeted cold war enemies | Britain stirred up tensions, chaos and violence in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, according to declassified papers

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  2. > The British government ran a secret “black propaganda” campaign for decades, targeting Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia with leaflets and reports from fake sources aimed at destabilising cold war enemies by encouraging racial tensions, sowing chaos, inciting violence and reinforcing anti-communist ideas, newly declassified documents have revealed.

    > The effort, run from the mid-1950s through to the late 70s by a unit in London that was part of the Foreign Office, was focused on cold war enemies such as the Soviet Union and China, leftwing liberation groups and leaders that the UK saw as threats to its interests.

    The “unit” was the [Information Research Department](https://archive.ph/YwYiZ), officially shut down in 1977, but arguably succeeded by the Overseas Information Department, just plain old Information Department, and lately the Public Diplomacy Department, according to the latter link.

    > The campaign also sought to mobilise Muslims against Moscow, promoting greater religious conservatism and radical ideas. To appear authentic, documents encouraged hatred of Israel.

    > Recently declassified British government documents reveal hundreds of extensive and costly operations

    Info war historian [Rory Cormac](https://www.northbanktalent.com/clients/rory-cormac/), whose research brought the documents to light, told the Observer:

    > “These releases are among the most important of the past two decades. It’s very clear now that the UK engaged in more black propaganda than historians assume and these efforts were more systemic, ambitious and offensive. Despite official denials, [this] went far beyond merely exposing Soviet disinformation”

    > The Observer last year revealed the IRD’s major campaign in Indonesia . . . the IRD prepared pamphlets purporting to be written by Indonesian patriots, but in fact were created by British propagandists, calling on Indonesians to eliminate the PKI, then the biggest communist party in the non-communist world.

    Cormac, oddly, offers a couple of mitigating claims:

    > “The British were only one actor among many, and a fairly minor actor too, compared with the quantity of material being produced and disseminated by the bigger players . . .

    > “The UK did not simply invent material, as the Soviets systematically did, but they definitely intended to deceive audiences in order to get the message across.”

    The article goes on to explain:

    > The IRD . . . created an entirely fictive radical Islamist organisation called the League of Believers, which attacked the Russians as non-believers and blamed Arab defeats on a lack of religious faith, a standard trope among religious conservatives at the time.

  4. I guess we started the post war period as we intended to continue right up to the present day.

    The only newsworthy part of this story is that some people may actually be surprised by the extent of our Machiavellian foreign policy.

  6. It’s why I always find it so hypocritical when our government talks of spreading misinformation

    Obviously all they want is control on what misinformation is

  15. Russia is targeting those places now. Not destabilising countries or inciting violence, but propagandising. It’s a lot easier to convince people far removed from the Ukraine conflict and without a strong anti-Russian tradition (eg in Africa, Asia and South America) to support Russian claims of Ukraine’s nazification or that Russia is just defending itself. Similar to how it’s a lot easier to convince Brits that people in some far flung country are insane and want to kill you or kill each other, compared to trying to convince someone from near to the that country or with strong cultural links to that place.

    I read this Finnish article that mentioned it https://yle.fi/news/3-12420098

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