The British media is still trying to get Prince Harry to resign from African Parks

Earlier this year, the British media became obsessed with African Parks, the conservation and anti-poaching NGO. Several African Parks rangers have been accused of rape, and in a separate issue, AP rangers have been accused of torture or too-aggressive, too-violent methods against poachers. At the time of the accusations becoming public, African Parks released a statement saying that they’ve been following up and investigating the claims and accusations for some time, and that at least one “victims’ organization” was refusing to provide any information to them. Still, African Parks’ investigations are ongoing.

It felt, initially, that the story picked up steam in the British media because Prince Harry was the president of AP for six years, and then he was promoted to a position on the board. The British media must destroy and exploit everything Harry touches, you see. Then something incredibly curious happened – the Times had a suspicious article which turned the African Parks situation into Prince William-vs-Prince Harry. It seems that William hates that African Parks wanted Harry on their board, and that Harry has all of these close associations with billionaire donors, and that Harry wouldn’t agree that Africa belongs to William. It certainly shed some light as to how and why the British media was amplifying all of these AP stories and why so many “sources” have been acting as if Harry personally authorized billionaire-funded hit squads to carry out atrocities. Well, here’s a follow-up – a Dutch journalist has done a three-year investigation into African Parks and the summary of three years of legwork is that Harry should step down from the board. Super-weird!

The Duke of Sussex is likely to face pressure to step down from the board of an African conservation charity after new allegations of abuse carried out by its armed rangers emerged, including the use of a torture method known as “the swing”.

First-hand testimonies about the alleged brutality meted out by staff managed and paid by African Parks appear in a new book based on a three-year investigation into the organisation, which is funded by British aid, celebrities and American billionaires.

Entrepreneurs in the Wild by Olivier van Beemen includes dozens of incidents of alleged abuse from interviews conducted with victims and those who claim to have perpetrated the abuse, including existing and former African Parks staff.

Prince Harry was the president of the organisation for six years before being promoted to the governing board of directors last year. His new duties include the shared responsibility for the organisation’s policy and supervising its management of 22 national parks in partnerships with governments in a dozen African countries.

After the prince’s acrimonious split from the royal family, Van Beemen was told that senior figures at African Parks debated whether he remained a useful connection. “Didn’t these controversies surrounding the prince pose a risk to the organisation?” was the question that triggered the discussion, a source told the author.

African Parks’s pride at having a “business approach to conservation” was one of the reasons Van Beemen decided to look closer at its ambition, structures and methods. Pay deals included bonuses in the event of armed confrontations with poachers, and confiscations of meat and weapons. African Parks confirmed “primes” — or incentives — were standard practices to motivate rangers.

Van Beemen said: “My investigation shows that African Parks is an opaque organisation with numerous human rights allegations made against them, including torture and rape, but is not open to external criticism. I think Prince Harry and others on the board should question the organisation’s model, its practices and governance and reconsider their own roles.”

Responding to the book’s publication, African Parks said the author was biased and said his book was “deeply flawed”. It said the investigation into alleged torture and rape highlighted by Survival International “is well under way”. The charity added: “African Parks has been in operation for more than 20 years, with long-term agreements with 12 different sovereign governments and numerous traditional authorities. We have received funding from most of the global institutions … all of which require detailed vetting processes, as well as intermittent grant audits.” The Duke of Sussex was approached for comment.

[From The Times]

“I think Prince Harry and others on the board should question the organisation’s model, its practices and governance and reconsider their own roles” – I genuinely wonder if Van Beemen or the Times has even asked for the names of the other board members or even suggested that they should resign. This is really strange as well: “After the prince’s acrimonious split from the royal family, Van Beemen was told that senior figures at African Parks debated whether he remained a useful connection. ‘Didn’t these controversies surrounding the prince pose a risk to the organisation?’ was the question that triggered the discussion, a source told the author.” So… what are these people actually doing here? In 2020, they thought Harry was surrounded by controversy because he left a toxic situation in England, and “sources” are trying to convince this guy that Harry could have actually been fired from African Parks because of it???

Here’s the thing – I genuinely believe that there have been serious incidents of torture, etc. This is an NGO operating across twelve countries, twenty-two protected areas and they have a staff in the thousands. They’re battling jihadists, bloodthirsty poachers and billion-dollar corporations. Of course everything is not going to operate perfectly and within the law. I get that, and I believe that AP is investigating, and there should be investigations at the local level as well. But all of the reporting on this has been bizarrely focused on Harry, and specifically on Harry’s relationship with his family. The reporting is what’s making me question the authenticity of these accusations. It feels like there’s a decent chance (certainly a non-zero chance) that the bulk of this is some kind of unhinged scheme cooked up in a palace.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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41 Responses to “The British media is still trying to get Prince Harry to resign from African Parks”

  1. Cessily says:

    So in other words Peggy is throwing tantrums screaming, “Africa is mine.. I said Africa was mine… MAKE Africa Mine!!!!” And the propaganda team is desperately trying to make it happen.

    • Proud Mary says:

      Bingo! That’s what this campaign is all about; jealousy over Harry’s highly touted work in Africa.

      • Agnes says:

        YES, this has Huevo/Bulliam/Hairlessnet/Baldemort written all over it. What a pathetic POS he is.

      • Gabby says:

        Well now at least we know what Peg is spending his time on. Only the clueless would be surprised.

    • theRobinsons says:

      You know I think the BRF knows alot more about Princess Diana and her lover Dodi’sdeaths than they led the public to believe. I believe Dodi’s Father when he accused the palace of being involved. I do think they want major harm to come to the Sussex Family, but the Universe is protecting them. It’s all socrazy but it seems like there is a sanctioning ofcraziness from the BRF and the British media, and the UK govt is allowing it.

    • Yes this has Pegs fingerprints all over it.

    • goofpuff says:

      oh definitely. The “investigative journalist” seems way more concerned about Harry being a board member than actually about the accusations. Its very strange and only makes sense when you realize that they don’t actually care about any atrocities, they only care about Harry being a board member. And that desire is clearly coming from the Windsors so you know this is a paid piece by their propaganda machine.

  2. sevenblue says:

    Harry brought American senators as the President to visit the parks and even published some articles about the work. I don’t remember the BM was this obsessed before that. I think, that triggered the Palace as Harry was working with powerful people in USA. I doubt there is an institutional structure enabling or covering up these crimes, like Catholic Church did for centuries. The people who committed these crimes should be punished and removed from the organization of course. But, there needs to be a competent investigation for that, not unnamed sources on a british tabloid.

    Maybe they are trying to throw enough dirt that American government will see the organization as problematic and won’t work with them.

    • Proud Mary says:

      Your entire statement, especially the last paragraph is very poignant. The firm, that is, William and Charles, have been trying for years to make the Sussexes persona non grata. One way is to make it difficult for anyone to associate with them. They’re hoping that, not only will powerful people stop associating with the organization, but that the organization itself will deemed it too much trouble to have Harry on the board.

  3. equality says:

    So why is a Dutch journalist not questioning SAPF and the Dutch Postcode Lottery’s involvement with AP? Why is the Times not highlighting Postcode Planet Trust’s and other UK involvement in funding? PH alone is responsible and not the many countries funding and involved?

    • swaz says:

      They are not interested in questioning anything else because THIS IS ROYAL PROPAGANDA 🤢🤢 THEIR JEALOUSY OF HARRY IS OFF THE CHARTS 🤢🤢

  4. Joy Liluri says:

    There are many organizations – both big and small – that have been filled with corruption or with human rights violations and extremely credible rape allegations and continue to operate with that as the status quo or to tell their people to act with more secrecy. The United States military is one. The UN is another.

    The African parks organization has achieved something truly extraordinary in its ability to make agreements with individual governments and to work with local authorities in rural areas. This is a job fraught with peril and very little recognition for the incredible things they achieve and the continued survival of endangered animals solely due to their protection and efforts.

    With that said, no organization should be complicit or allow for tacit complicity in human rights violations and rape. It seems that they are taking all accusations very seriously and are attempting to discover the perpetrators. I truly hope that is the case.

    Harry isn’t to blame for this just as President Biden isn’t to blame when a soldier rapes another soldier or a civilian.
    The spotlight should remain firmly on the organization and its investigation process.

    • theRobinsons says:

      @JOY LILURI
      Hear! Hear!
      I concur

    • Cessily says:

      I believe wholeheartedly that this targeting was started by Peggy but there are a lot of people/big corporations that would love to have this land and wildlife to be unprotected and getting Prince Harry to step down would help them gain that. Imagine the headlines…

  5. Brassy Rebel says:

    The African Parks model is to preserve large tracts of land for wildlife and luxury tourism. The abuse by the rangers is the inevitable consequence of these goals because it requires removal of indigenous people from their traditional hunting, fishing,and trapping territory. These people are not poachers. They have worked this land (including farming it) for a very long time. African Parks is a deeply problematic neo-colonialist enterprise. Whether Harry, or anyone else, remains associated with it, is their decision. However, the Dutch journalist is on to something here and shouldn’t be dismissed. The problems with AP are not the invention of the Palace or the British media. There are real problems with the whole existential view of AP which is run by non-African billionaires for non-African billionaires. The Africans involved are co-opted or bought off. Conservation is a good thing but it should never be at the expense of indigenous communities which save and develop the land rather than exploit it.

    • sophie says:

      preach. this is well said. when an organization is largely funded by outside interests…local individuals interest are sidelined. along with allegations of abuse/torture, i’m glad they’re re-examining this organization. there’s always room for improvement and restructuring. and that type of leadership comes top down and the board needs to examine their organization

    • Juniper says:

      You explained so well the deeply problematic context which the AP scandal is really just a symptom of. That’s the reason why Harry referring to the people who live where tourists like to travel to as “custodians” also struck me as tone deaf. As if the local and/or indigenous populations’ primary role is to serve as caretakers of the places we westerners want to visit so we have a nice vacation.

      • Brassy Rebel says:

        The fact that AP uses “a business approach to conservation” is a huge red flag in itself. And I don’t know why anyone should be reassured that African Parks is investigating itself over these very disturbing allegations. Many of these post colonial nations do not have the necessary resources to oversee AP’s activities, much less investigate serious crimes committed by their employees (some of which may well be at the direction of and encouragement of AP management). This book sounds like a step in the right direction towards getting some oversight of this wealthy and powerful international organization.

    • BeanieBean says:

      I hope it’s not that bad. Per their website, ‘Management is done in collaboration with local communities and where applicable, established use rights are upheld and built into relevant agreements and plans’. NOTE: ‘…where applicable, established use rights are upheld & built into…agreements & plans’. That indicates to me, that at least in some countries local people will still be allowed their traditional access. I’m thinking it’s similar to federally-recognized tribes maintaining access to traditional gathering areas in National Forests, as one example.

      I dunno, it’s tough. Preservation, conservation & traditional use rights–they can work together, but it takes effort.

    • kirk says:

      @Brassy Rebel – After reading your criticisms of African Parks (AP) organization, I’m still scratching my head. It sounded like you had enough knowledge of the situation that you could have provided an effective counterpoint, verified proof of wrongdoing by AP, or alternative solution to governments partnering with this organization. But if you did so, I’ve missed it entirely. What is your proposed alternative to this nonprofit? Why did the Dutch journalist refer to AP as an opaque organization when they’ve entered into agreements with national and local governments that would be in the public sphere? If these agreements are done in secret, aren’t the governments complicit in the alleged opacity? I’ve read the entire Times source article, but I’m not convinced enough to read the Dutch journo’s story. Is AP operation worse than Chinese for-profit businesses making inroads to African continent with private agreements that undercut conservation efforts?

      • Brassy Rebel says:

        @Kirk: thanks for your reasoned response. I think the real root of the problem is the lack of oversight and that includes a lack of enforcement of these “agreements” with local governments. Two things can be true. Western powers in Europe and North America can be meddling in Africa for their own interests and China can be doing the same. It’s all neo-colonialism and continues the exploitation of the African continent and it’s people. I wish the African Union were a more effective body and could start speaking up on behalf of this abused continent.

        I have researched this issue a little but am not an expert. The Dutch journalist has a very good reputation as an investigative journalist. His first book on the exploitation of Africa by the Dutch beer multinational corporation, Heineken, won awards for investigative journalism. I only hope that he is able to shine a light on AP’s operations on the continent which are opaque in the sense that they operate unchecked and unsupervised. Local governments lack resources to make sure all agreements are being followed. And corruption allows AP and other bad actors to buy off officials when necessary. Hope this helps answer your concerns.

    • sophie says:

      these are all great points. the issue i have with both william and harry becoming board directors of essentially “figureheads” of these organizations is they lack the expertise to truly be in these roles. when harry was notified of these scandals, he “notified the CEO”. i think it would be best for harry to step down from a role, even if it is a “figurehead” role, until the dust settles. if you’re in the board of director you assume a leadership role, and if things go south you need to take responsibility. if you defer to someone else and things go south, the blowback will be justified if you’re in a leadership position bc your name is there.

      • Brassy Rebel says:

        Survival International, the indigenous human rights organization, notified Harry of the problems people were having with the AP militia groups in DRC last May because they knew he was a good guy. They never heard back directly from him. Instead a few months later they learned he had accepted the position on the board which shocked and disappointed them. Harry’s rep said he had escalated the complaint, along with the video he received of the community members describing being tortured, to the CEO. SI felt betrayed. It really seems like Harry might have handled this better. It made it look like he was promoted for not going public with the complaint.

    • bisynaptic says:

      Well said. I’m beginning to understand how the whole concept of conservation arose out of colonialism and the dislocation/ disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples.

      It doesn’t, however, negate the fact that, when it comes to Harry, some people lose their minds, especially, when given the opportunity to pile on..

  6. Talie says:

    When I saw this in The Times, my take was that they are pushing him to take the settlement offer – like, pushing these negative stories as a warning, but Harry is so used to this that I don’t see it affecting him one way or another. But I could see him and his lawyers throwing out an absurd number and The Sun will cave to it…right before the trial.

  7. Is that so? says:

    I remember that the British press reporting on SPARE before it was widely released had a little to do with the content therein.

  8. Amy Bee says:

    It’s very weird that what spurred this investigation was Harry’s continued involvement with African Parks after he left the royal family and not the actual work of the organisation. Did the royal family and William in particular believe that Harry would be dropped by African Parks after he left and is it the real reason that the British press is trying to make Harry resign?

  9. MsIam says:

    I don’t know, it may indeed be that this organization is sketchy and Harry may decide to resign on his own because of that. Or he may be the one to lead the reforms that are needed. Its a big difference from being in a ceremonial role to being in a decision making role. As for the idea of conservation, I think its needed. If we didn’t have the National Park System in the US you think all of that land wouldn’t be covered with luxury homes and oil fields and mines and god knows what else? Land is the one thing we can’t make more of.

    • BeanieBean says:

      Worse yet, if we didn’t have the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, Fish & Wildlife Service (managing Wildlife Refuges), OR the National Park Service—all resources would be extracted at a higher rate & of course the most desirable places to live would have monster-sized 15000-square-foot ‘farmhouses’ built on them.

      And I completely agree with your point, but–Hawaii (the Big Island) is ‘making more land’ whenever the volcanoes erupt! 😉🌋

  10. Bluenoser says:

    William believes Africa belongs to him? How very colonialist of him.

  11. Pork Belly says:

    I always thought W’s interest in Africa only extended as far as Jecca Craig. I don’t think there’s any profound or deeply held feeling there for its people & culture, or any grasp of the continent’s various issues.

  12. Just Jade says:

    Instead of focusing on the taxpayers and the people who they supposedly serve the rats and company are spending all their energy on the one family member they pushed out and still trying to cause him and his family harm. I’ve seen things like that happen in the movies but to witness it live it’s something else. They truly don’t care about what happens to the firm as long as they get rid of the Sussexes.

  13. Mary Pester says:

    It’s a hit peice pure and simple even on his own page he says “Harry’s charity”, no its not Harry’s charity at all, Harry is on the board along with others, but beerman didn’t name them or the names of the so called insiders and witnesses. Africa is mine says Billy, yeah right, well when was the last time he did anything for africa, but how he would love to step into a ready made, billionaire sponsored CHARITY.YOU MAKE REAL CHANGE FROM WITHIN!

  14. Rosina says:

    What’s up with the picture selection? That’s what happened at Lainey before she switched sides. I truly hope I’m wrong 😔

  15. Saucy&Sassy says:

    Rosina, I don’t know what you’re talking about? If you go back to previous articles about this, you’ll find the same photos.

    • Rosina says:

      Thanks for the reassurance, I’ll trust you know this for sure. There seem to be less and less safe spaces for Harry and Meghan fans. Celebitchy is one of the last few. I love it here, truly ❤️ 💖

  16. booboocita says:

    Okay, tinfoil hat time:

    The criticism of the Sussexes seems to ramp up right before something negative about the Windsors comes to light. And we have yet to see or hear from Kate since the cancer announcement, and Willy doesn’t even talk about his wife. And the whole Africa Parks thing seems to be anchored in Willy’s jealousy of Harry.

    Could it be that Kate is moribund, and Willy is planning his life after marriage? He’ll resurrect his “global statesman” schtick, travel frequently to Kenya (and stay at Jecca Craig’s estate while he’s at it), try to join the board of some Africa-related nonprofit like Tusk, and generally swan around in his uniquely awkward, silly, bumbling way. And he’ll do it all without the encumbrance of a wife he can’t stand.

  17. Kingston says:

    @booboocita

    Apropos of all that you said, consider: today is Earth Day and yet, not a peep from Mr Earthshidt, wannabe global statesman.

    So youre right: the vitriol ramps up, they go into hiding and their mouthpieces in the shidtmedia go buckwild when something has to be revealed about the fug-4 leftovers.

    – None of betty’s relatives was at her statue unveiling yesterday

    – Today is earth day and Mr Earthshidt is MIA

    -The hit pieces on Africa Parks in recent times is agenda-driven

    – The Sussexes new projects (in particular, M, with ARO & new podcast, etc) are slated to go live in the spring. By the end of April we will be entering the height of spring and every expectation is that the unveil is imminent. Hence the hysteria in the britshidtmedia over the jam publicity campaign.

    – H’s recently revealed change of address has them feeling the sads. And theyre lashing out.

    -They fear……literally fear M’s new era and the fact that the globe is anticipating her excellence. And theyre flailing.

    • booboocita says:

      OMFG, Kingston — “fug-4.” Brilliant! Thanks for the afternoon laugh!

    • BeanieBean says:

      Oh, now that is interesting. Nothing from Mr. Earthsh*t on Earth Day? Excuse me, nothing from HRH Mr. Earthsh*t on Earth Day? Hells bells, that would have been an easy ‘event’ on his work calendar! And no member of the BRF at that QEII statue unveiling, really? Gad, these people!

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