The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict is an independent, nonprofit educational foundation, founded by Jack DuVall and Peter Ackerman in 2002. It promotes the study and utilization of nonmilitary strategies by civilian-based movements to establish and defend human rights, social justice and democracy.
The ICNC was founded by Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall in 2002. Jack DuVall serves as ICNC's president and founding director, while Peter Ackerman serves as ICNC's Founding Chair. A writer, former military intelligence officer, and former public television executive, Jack DuVall was the executive producer of a television series, "A Force More Powerful", on the television station PBS and is co-author of the companion book of the same name, both of which explore major 20th century nonviolent action campaigns. Peter Ackerman, a venture capitalist who was a highly-paid associate of Michael Milken at Drexel Burham Lambert in the 1980s specializing in leveraged buyouts received his PhD from Tufts University's Fletcher School for Law and Diplomacy, and has written a series of scholarly books on strategic nonviolent action, has served on the board of Freedom House and is a member of Council on Foreign Relations. In raising public awareness of the history and ideas of nonviolent conflict in both democratic and autocratic societies, ICNC has disseminated books, articles, broadcast media, video programming, computer games and other learning materials. Staff members and associated scholars have led seminars in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East for journalists, activists, educators and NGO leaders on the history and dynamics of strategic nonviolent action. ICNC involvement in seminars and workshops involving activists in human rights, pro-democracy and social justice campaigns overseas have led to charges from some governments of foreign intervention, though ICNC policy prohibits its presenters from giving specific advice regarding any particular struggle. Such workshops, according to ICNC policy, come only in response to specific requests from activist groups themselves and are not initiated by ICNC. ICNC also maintains a strictly apolitical posture, in that it works with groups challenging autocratic governments regardless of a given regime's ideological orientation or relations with the United States. However, ICNC allegedly maintains connections with the "US-based 'democracy promoting' establishment groups of USAID and Reagan's National Endowment for Democracy as well as links to the CIA." ICNC has cooperated with other independent non-profit groups concerned with strategic nonviolent action, including the Albert Einstein Institution, Nonviolence International, and the Serbian-based Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies. ICNC is funded exclusively through a private family endowment and maintains a strict policy of not accepting funding from nor collaborating with any government or government-funded entities. Hardy Merriman who is president of the ICNC worked for the Albert Einstein Institution from 2002 to 2005. Peter Ackerman funded the Albert Einstein Institution from its founding in 1983 until 2002
ICNC has been criticized for involvement in US-backed regime change operations. For example, American-Venezuelan lawyer Eva Golinger alleged that during 2005 and 2006, the ICNC trained Venezuelan youths to try to reverse the government of Hugo Chávez, through " the electoral process and a scenario of fraud," claiming that the ICNC did this together with USAID and NED as part of a systemic plan of implementing United States foreign policy aims in democratic countries. ICNC denies it ever engaged in such trainings, which are a violation of its charter. Jack Duvall has claimed that the only time ICNC was ever involved in Venezuela was in 2006 when it supported the travel of two nonviolent activists to the World Social Forum in Caracas, at which they met with Chavez supporters to discuss methods of resisting any possible coup attempt.
Response to Criticisms
In response to criticisms made by Michael Barker, Stephen Zunes, who acts as the chair of the ICNC's advisory board wrote that the...
