By Robert Parry | Consortium News | October 3, 2010

Last week’s grotesque revelation about American public health doctors infecting nearly 700 Guatemalans with venereal disease to test penicillin from 1946-48 marked just the start of the U.S. government’s post-World War II abuse of that Central American country.

Indeed, as troubling as the VD experiments were, U.S. administrations from Dwight Eisenhower to Ronald Reagan would do much worse, treating Guatemala as a test tube for Cold War counterinsurgency experiments that led to the slaughter of some 200,000 people, including genocide against Mayan Indian tribes.

Guatemala’s special place as Washington’s experimental lab for repression began in 1954 when President Eisenhower authorized the CIA to try out new psychological warfare strategies in destabilizing and removing Guatemala’s democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz.

Arbenz had offended U.S. business and government leaders by implementing a land reform project that threatened the massive holdings of United Fruit and by letting leftists compete within the political process.

The CIA ousted Arbenz with a combination of clever propaganda and armed insurrection, leading to a series of repressive military dictatorships that further radicalized Guatemala’s indigenous poor and urban intellectuals.

Washington grew more alarmed after Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution in 1959, his alliance with the Soviet Union and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. As the Cold War heated up with the U.S. intervention in Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson’s administration looked for new strategies to thwart the spread of leftist revolution elsewhere, especially in Latin America.

By the mid-1960s, the United States was assisting the Guatemalan military in developing more refined methods of repression. Guatemala’s first “death squads” took shape under anti-terrorist training provided by a U.S. public safety adviser named John Longon, according to U.S. government documents released in the late 1990s.

In January 1966, Longon reported to his superiors about both overt and covert components of his anti-terrorist strategies. On the covert side, Longon pressed for “a safe house [to] be immediately set up” for coordination of security intelligence.

“A room was immediately prepared in the [Presidential] Palace for this purpose and … Guatemalans were immediately designated to put this operation into effect,” according to Longon’s report.

Longon’s operation within the presidential compound became the starting point for the infamous “Archivos” intelligence unit that evolved into a clearinghouse for Guatemala’s most notorious political assassinations.

Just two months after Longon’s report, a secret CIA cable noted the clandestine execution of several Guatemalan “communists and terrorists” on the night of March 6, 1966.

By the end of the year, the Guatemalan government was bold enough to request U.S. help in establishing special kidnapping squads, according to a cable from the U.S. Southern Command that was forwarded to Washington on Dec. 3, 1966.

By 1967, the Guatemalan counterinsurgency terror had gained a fierce momentum. On Oct. 23, 1967, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research noted the “accumulating evidence that the [Guatemalan] counterinsurgency machine is out of control.” The report noted that Guatemalan “counter-terror” units were carrying out abductions, bombings, torture and summary executions “of real and alleged communists.”

A Diplomat’s Complaint

The mounting death toll in Guatemala disturbed some American officials assigned to the country. The embassy’s deputy chief of mission, Viron Vaky, expressed his concerns in a remarkably candid report that he submitted on March 29, 1968, after returning to Washington. Vaky framed his arguments in pragmatic terms, but his moral anguish broke through.

“The official squads are guilty of atrocities. Interrogations are brutal, torture is used and bodies are mutilated,” Vaky wrote.

“In the minds of many in Latin America, and, tragically, especially in the sensitive, articulate youth, we are believed to have condoned these tactics, if not actually encouraged them. Therefore our image is being tarnished and the credibility of our claims to want a better and more just world are increasingly placed in doubt.”

Vaky also noted the deceptions within the U.S. government that resulted from its complicity in state-sponsored terror.

“This leads to an aspect I personally find the most disturbing of all — that we have not been honest with ourselves,” Vaky said. “We have condoned counter-terror; we may even in effect have encouraged or blessed it. We have been so obsessed with the fear of insurgency that we have rationalized away our qualms and uneasiness.

“This is not only because we have concluded we cannot do anything about it, for we never really tried. Rather we suspected that maybe it is a good tactic, and that as long as Communists are being killed it is alright.

“Murder, torture and mutilation are alright if our side is doing it and the victims are Communists. After all hasn’t man been a savage from the beginning of time so let us not be too queasy about terror. I have literally heard these arguments from our people.”

Though kept secret from the American public for three decades, the Vaky memo obliterated any claim that Washington simply didn’t know the reality in Guatemala. Still, with Vaky’s memo squirreled away in State Department files, the killing went on. The repression was noted almost routinely in field reports.

On Jan. 12, 1971, the Defense Intelligence Agency reported that Guatemalan forces had “quietly eliminated” hundreds of “terrorists and bandits” in the countryside. On Feb. 4, 1974, a State Department cable reported resumption of “death squad” activities.

On Dec. 17, 1974, a DIA biography of one U.S.-trained Guatemalan officer gave an insight into how U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine had imbued the Guatemalan strategies.

According to the biography, Lt. Col. Elias Osmundo Ramirez Cervantes, chief of security section for Guatemala’s president, had trained at the U.S. Army School of Intelligence at Fort Holabird in Maryland. Back in Guatemala, Ramirez Cervantes was put in charge of plotting raids on suspected subversives as well as their interrogations.

The Reagan-Era Slaughter

As brutal as the Guatemalan security forces were in the 1960s and 1970s, the worst was yet to come. For several years the late 1970s, President Jimmy Carter took steps to shut down U.S. complicity in Guatemala’s state-sponsored butchery. Besides condemnations from his new human rights office at the State Department, Carter had imposed an embargo on U.S. military aid.

However, that brief period of American disapproval ended with Ronald Reagan’s election in November 1980. Celebrations swept well-to-do communities across Central America as the region’s anti-communist hard-liners were thrilled that they had someone in the White House who understood their problems.

The oligarchs and the generals viewed Reagan as a longtime defender of right-wing regimes that had engaged in bloody counterinsurgency against leftist enemies.

For instance, in the late 1970s, when Carter’s human rights coordinator, Patricia Derian, criticized the Argentine military for its “dirty war” — tens of thousands of “disappearances,” tortures and murders — then-political commentator Reagan joshed that she should “walk a mile in the moccasins” of the Argentine generals before criticizing them. [For details, see Martin Edwin Andersen's Dossier Secreto.]

After his inauguration in 1981, Reagan gave enthusiastic support to right-wing governments in El Salvador and Honduras, while ordering the CIA to organize a counter-revolutionary movement of Nicaraguan exiles to harass and overthrow Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista regime. Reagan also began whittling away at Carter’s arms embargo on Guatemala.

Yet, even as Reagan was looking for ways to support the Guatemalan military, the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies were confirming more slaughters by the army of indigenous Guatemalans in the countryside.

In April 1981, a secret CIA cable described a massacre at Cocob, near Nebaj in the Ixil Indian territory. On April 17, 1981, government troops attacked the area believed to support leftist guerrillas, the cable said.

According to a CIA source, “the social population appeared to fully support the guerrillas” and “the soldiers were forced to fire at anything that moved.” The CIA cable added that “the Guatemalan authorities admitted that ‘many civilians’ were killed in Cocob, many of whom undoubtedly were non-combatants.”

Despite the CIA account and other similar reports, Reagan permitted Guatemala’s army to buy $3.2 million in military trucks and jeeps in June 1981. To permit the sale, Reagan removed the vehicles from a list of military equipment that was covered by the human rights embargo.

No Apologies

Apparently confident of Reagan’s sympathies, the Guatemalan government continued its political repression without apology.

According to a State Department cable on Oct. 5, 1981, Guatemalan leaders met with Reagan’s roving ambassador, retired Gen. Vernon Walters, and left no doubt about their plans. Guatemala’s military leader, Gen. Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia, “made clear that his government will continue as before — that the repression will continue.”

Human rights groups saw the same picture. The Inter-American Human Rights Commission released a report on Oct. 15, 1981, blaming the Guatemalan government for “thousands of illegal executions.” [Washington Post, Oct. 16, 1981]

But the Reagan administration was set on whitewashing the ugly scene. A State Department “white paper,” released in December 1981, blamed the violence on leftist “extremist groups” and their “terrorist methods,” inspired and supported by Cuba’s Fidel Castro.

Yet, even as these rationalizations were pitched to the American people, U.S. intelligence agencies in Guatemala continued to learn of government-sponsored massacres. One CIA report in February 1982 described an army sweep through the so-called Ixil Triangle in central El Quiche province.

“The commanding officers of the units involved have been instructed to destroy all towns and villages which are cooperating with the Guerrilla Army of the Poor [known as the EGP] and eliminate all sources of resistance,” the report stated. “Since the operation began, several villages have been burned to the ground, and a large number of guerrillas and collaborators have been killed.”

The CIA report explained the army’s modus operandi: “When an army patrol meets resistance and takes fire from a town or village, it is assumed that the entire town is hostile and it is subsequently destroyed.”

When the army encountered an empty village, it was “assumed to have been supporting the EGP, and it is destroyed. There are hundreds, possibly thousands of refugees in the hills with no homes to return to. … The well-documented belief by the army that the entire Ixil Indian population is pro-EGP has created a situation in which the army can be expected to give no quarter to combatants and non-combatants alike.”

The Rise of Rios Montt

Yet, as grim as the violence was in 1981, it was only going to get worse.

In March 1982, Gen. Efrain Rios Montt, an avowed fundamentalist Christian, seized power in a coup d’etat and immediately impressed official Washington, where Reagan hailed Rios Montt as “a man of great personal integrity.”

By July 1982, however, Rios Montt had begun a new scorched-earth campaign called his “rifles and beans” policy. The slogan meant that pacified Indians would get “beans,” while all others could expect to be the target of army “rifles.” In October, he secretly gave carte blanche to the feared “Archivos” intelligence unit to expand “death squad” operations.

The U.S. embassy was soon hearing more accounts of the army massacring Indians, even as the Reagan administration sought to minimize the bloodshed.

On Oct, 21, 1982, one cable described how three embassy officers tried to check out some of the massacre reports but ran into bad weather and canceled the inspection. Despite the thwarted field trip, the embassy fired off an analysis that the Guatemalan government was the victim of a communist-inspired “disinformation campaign.”

Reagan embraced that claim when he met with Rios Montt in December 1982 and insisted that the Guatemalan government was getting a “bum rap” on human rights.

On Jan. 7, 1983, Reagan formally lifted the military embargo on Guatemala, authorizing the sale of $6 million in military hardware, including spare parts for UH-1H helicopters and A-37 aircraft used in counterinsurgency operations. State Department spokesman John Hughes said political violence in the cities had “declined dramatically” and that rural conditions had improved too.

In February 1983, however, a secret CIA cable noted a rise in “suspect right-wing violence” with kidnappings of students and teachers. Bodies of victims were appearing in ditches and gullies. CIA sources traced these political murders to Rios Montt’s order to the “Archivos” in October to “apprehend, hold, interrogate and dispose of suspected guerrillas as they saw fit.”

These grisly facts on the ground didn’t stop the annual State Department human rights survey from praising the supposedly improved human rights situation in Guatemala. “The overall conduct of the armed forces had improved by late in the year” 1982, the report stated.

A different picture — far closer to the secret information held by the U.S. government — was coming from independent human rights investigators. On March 17, 1983, Americas Watch representatives condemned the Guatemalan army for human rights atrocities against the Indian population.

New York attorney Stephen L. Kass said these findings included proof that the government carried out “virtually indiscriminate murder of men, women and children of any farm regarded by the army as possibly supportive of guerrilla insurgents.”

Rural women suspected of guerrilla sympathies were raped before execution, Kass said. Children were “thrown into burning homes. They are thrown in the air and speared with bayonets. We heard many, many stories of children being picked up by the ankles and swung against poles so their heads are destroyed.” [AP, March 17, 1983]

A Happy Face

Publicly, however, senior Reagan officials continued to put on a happy face.

On June 12, 1983, special envoy Richard B. Stone praised “positive changes” in Rios Montt’s government. But Rios Montt’s vengeful Christian fundamentalism was hurtling out of control, even by Guatemalan standards.

In August 1983, Gen. Oscar Mejia Victores seized power in another coup. Despite the power shift, Guatemalan security forces continued to show little restraint in killing anyone who got in the way, even local U.S. government employees.

When three Guatemalans working for the U.S. Agency for International Development were slain in November 1983, U.S. Ambassador Frederic Chapin suspected that “Archivos” hit squads were sending a message to the United States to back off even mild pressure on human rights.

In late November 1983, in a brief show of displeasure, the U.S. administration postponed the sale of $2 million in helicopter spare parts. The next month, however, Reagan sent the spare parts anyway. In 1984, Reagan succeeded, too, in pressuring Congress to approve $300,000 in military training for the Guatemalan army.

By mid-1984, Chapin, who had grown bitter about the army’s stubborn brutality, was gone, replaced by a far-right political appointee named Alberto Piedra, who was all for increased military assistance to Guatemala.

In January 1985, Americas Watch issued a report observing that Reagan’s State Department “is apparently more concerned with improving Guatemala’s image than in improving its human rights.”

Other examples of Guatemala’s “death squad” strategy came to light later. For example, a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency cable in 1994 reported that the Guatemalan military had used an air base in Retalhuleu during the mid-1980s as a center for coordinating the counterinsurgency campaign in southwest Guatemala – and for torturing and burying prisoners.

At the base, pits were filled with water to hold captured suspects. “Reportedly there were cages over the pits and the water level was such that the individuals held within them were forced to hold on to the bars in order to keep their heads above water and avoid drowning,” the DIA report stated.

The Guatemalan military used the Pacific Ocean as another dumping spot for political victims, according to the DIA report. Bodies of insurgents tortured to death and live prisoners marked for “disappearance” were loaded onto planes that flew out over the ocean where the soldiers would shove the victims into the water to drown, a tactic that had been a favorite disposal technique of the Argentine military in the 1970s.

The history of the Retalhuleu death camp was uncovered by accident in the early 1990s when a Guatemalan officer wanted to let soldiers cultivate their own vegetables on a corner of the base. But the officer was taken aside and told to drop the request “because the locations he had wanted to cultivate were burial sites that had been used by the D-2 [military intelligence] during the mid-eighties,” the DIA report said.

Perception Management

Guatemala, of course, was not the only Central American country where Reagan and his administration supported brutal counterinsurgency operations and then sought to cover up the bloody facts. Nor where these experiments in counterinsurgency strategies strictly limited to the hapless countries where the actual killings occurred.

The Reagan administration also tested out new concepts for deceiving and manipulating the American public, a secret strategy called “perception management” which was viewed as essential to enable the brutal policies in Central America to go forward, by confusing and diffusing any domesitic U.S. opposition. Part of the propaganda strategy involved discrediting journalists and human rights investigators who dug up the grim truth.

For instance, Reagan personally lashed out at a human rights investigator named Reed Brody, a New York lawyer who had collected affidavits from more than 100 witnesses to atrocities carried out by the U.S.-supported contras in Nicaragua. Angered by the revelations about his contra “freedom-fighters,” Reagan denounced Brody in a speech on April 15, 1985, calling him “one of dictator [Daniel] Ortega’s supporters, a sympathizer who has openly embraced Sandinismo.”

Privately, Reagan had a far more accurate understanding of the true nature of the contras. At one point in the contra war, Reagan turned to CIA official Duane Clarridge and demanded that the contras be used to destroy some Soviet-supplied helicopters that had arrived in Nicaragua.

In his memoir, A Spy for All Seasons, Clarridge recalled that “President Reagan pulled me aside and asked, ‘Dewey, can’t you get those vandals of yours to do this job.’”

So, to manage U.S. perceptions of the wars in Central America, Reagan authorized a systematic program of distorting the facts and intimidating American journalists. The project was run by a CIA propaganda veteran, Walter Raymond Jr., who was assigned to the National Security Council staff.

The project’s key operatives developed propaganda “themes,” selected “hot buttons” to excite the American people, cultivated pliable journalists who would cooperate, and bullied reporters who wouldn’t go along.

The best-known attacks were directed against New York Times correspondent Raymond Bonner for disclosing Salvadoran army massacres of civilians, including the slaughter of some 800 men, women and children in El Mozote in December 1981.

But Bonner was not alone. Reagan’s operatives pressured scores of reporters and their editors in an ultimately successful campaign to minimize exposure of human rights crimes committed by U.S. clients. [For details, see Robert Parry's Lost History or Secrecy & Privilege.]

The tamed U.S. reporters gave the administration a far freer hand to pursue counterinsurgency operations in Central America.

No Accountability

Despite the tens of thousands of civilian deaths and now-corroborated accounts of massacres and genocide, not a single senior military officer in Central America was given any significant punishment for the bloodshed, nor did any U.S. officials pay even a political price.

The U.S. officials who sponsored and encouraged these war crimes not only escaped legal judgment, but many remained respected figures in Washington, with some, like former U.S. Ambassador to Honduras John Negroponte, returning to senior government posts under President George W. Bush.

Reagan has been honored as few recent presidents have with major public facilities named after him, including National Airport in Washington. A major celebration of his 100th birthday is planned for 2011.

The concept of perception management also emerged from the Reagan years as a tested method for manipulating the American people through propaganda and fear. The same tactics were used in 2002-03 to herd the public behind George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq.

The broader success of perception management and its impact on an intimidated U.S. press corps was revealed, too, in the general disinterest shown by most of the major news media when the historical record about Guatemala’s atrocities was released in the late 1990s.

On Feb. 25, 1999, relying heavily on documents made available by the Clinton administration, a Guatemalan truth commission issued a report on the staggering human rights crimes that U.S. governments from Eisenhower through Reagan had aided, abetted and concealed.

The Historical Clarification Commission, an independent human rights body, estimated that the Guatemalan conflict claimed the lives of some 200,000 people with the most savage bloodletting occurring in the 1980s.

Based on a review of about 20 percent of the dead, the panel blamed the army for 93 percent of the killings and leftist guerrillas for three percent. Four percent were listed as unresolved.

The report documented that in the 1980s, the army committed 626 massacres against Mayan villages. “The massacres that eliminated entire Mayan villages … are neither perfidious allegations nor figments of the imagination, but an authentic chapter in Guatemala’s history,” the commission concluded.

A Genocide

The army “completely exterminated Mayan communities, destroyed their livestock and crops,” the report said. In the northern highlands, the report termed the slaughter a “genocide.”

Besides carrying out murder and “disappearances,” the army routinely engaged in torture and rape. “The rape of women, during torture or before being murdered, was a common practice” by the military and paramilitary forces, the report found.

The report added that the “government of the United States, through various agencies including the CIA, provided direct and indirect support for some [of these] state operations.” The report concluded that the U.S. government also gave money and training to a Guatemalan military that committed “acts of genocide” against the Mayans.

“Believing that the ends justified everything, the military and the state security forces blindly pursued the anticommunist struggle, without respect for any legal principles or the most elemental ethical and religious values, and in this way, completely lost any semblance of human morals,” said the commission chairman, Christian Tomuschat, a German jurist.

“Within the framework of the counterinsurgency operations carried out between 1981 and 1983, in certain regions of the country agents of the Guatemalan state committed acts of genocide against groups of the Mayan people,” Tomuschat said.

In 1999, the U.S. national press corps, which had obsessed for months over allegations regarding President Bill Clinton’s sex life, treated the Guatemalan disclosures, including the Reagan administration’s complicity in genocide, as a one-day story that got almost no attention on the 24-hour cable TV networks.

During a visit to Central America, on March 10, 1999, President Clinton apologized for the past U.S. support of right-wing regimes in Guatemala.

“For the United States, it is important that I state clearly that support for military forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and widespread repression was wrong, and the United States must not repeat that mistake,” Clinton said.

Last week, the Obama administration issued a similar apology for the medical experiments in the 1940s, but there is no indication that either the U.S. government nor the American news media has learned any lasting lessons or will act any differently in the future.

If the United States were really sorry for all the harm it has inflicted on Guatemala — and other developing nations in Latin America and around the world — it might at least dial back next year’s celebrations of Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday. But there is no sign even of that.

[Many of the declassified U.S. government documents regarding Guatemala are posted on the Internet by the National Security Archive.]

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek.

A Note About the Failed Coup in Ecuador

Atilio A. Boron

Translation: David Brookbank

1. What happened Thursday in Ecuador?

There was an attempted coup d’etat.

It was not, as various Latin America media reported, an “institutional crisis”, as if what happened had been a jurisdictional conflict between the executive and the legislature rather than an open insurrection by one branch of the executive, the National Police, whose members make up a small army of 40,000 men, against the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Ecuador, who is none other than the legitimately elected president. Neither was it as U.S. Under Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Arturo Valenzuela claimed, “an act of police insubordination”. Would it have been characterized this way if the equivalent of the Ecuadoran National Police in the U.S. had beaten and physically assaulted Barack Obama, injuring him? Or if they had kidnapped him and held him in custody for 12 hours in a police hospital until a special army commando unit liberated him following a fierce gun battle? Certainly not. But given that we are talking about a Latin American leader, what in the U.S. would sound like an intolerable aberration is made to appear like a schoolyard prank here.

Correa injured

Generally speaking, all the media oligopolies offered a distorted version of what occurred yesterday, carefully avoiding talking about an attempted coup. Instead they referred to it as a “police uprising” which, from any perspective, converts Thursday’s events into a relatively insignificant anecdote. It is an old rightwing ploy, always interested in minimizing the importance of the outrages committed by its supporters and magnifying the errors and problems of its adversaries. For that reason it is worth remembering the words of president Rafael Correa in the early hours of Friday morning when he characterized the events as a “conspiracy” to perpetrate a “coup d’état”.

A “conspiracy” because, as was more than evident on Thursday, there were other actors who demonstrated their support for the coup as it was underway: Was it not elements of the Ecuadoran Air Force – and not the National Police – that paralyzed the Quito International Airport and the small airfield used for regional flights? And were there not groups of politicians who took to the streets and plazas to support the coup leaders? Was not ex-president Lucio Gutierrez’s own lawyer one of the fanatics who tried to forcibly enter into the installations of Ecuador National Television? Didn’t Jaime Nebot, the mayor of Guayaquil and a major rival of President Correa, claim that this was a power struggle between an authoritarian, despotic character, Correa, and a sector of the police, mistaken in their methodology but justified in their complaints? This false equivalency between the two parties to the conflict was an indirect confession of his complacency about current events and his deep desire to be free of this – until now at least – unassailable political enemy.

And don’t even mention the lamentable reversal by the “indigenous” movement Pachakutik, which in the middle of the crisis made public its call to the “indigenous movement, social movements, and democratic political organizations to form a united national front to demand the ouster of President Correa.” “Life brings surprises”, said Pedro Navaja; but it is not much of a surprise when one takes note of the generous aid that USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy have provided in the last few years to “empower” the Ecuadoran people via its parties and social movements.

Conclusion: It was not a small isolated group within the police trying to carry out a coup, but rather a group of social and political actors at the service of the local oligarchy and imperialism, who will never forgive Correa for having ordered the removal of the US military base at Manta and the audit of Ecuador’s foreign debt and its incorporation into ALBA, among many other actions.

Incidentally, the Ecuadoran police have for many years, like other forces in the region, been trained and supported by their US counterpart. Have they provided some sort of civic education or instruction regarding the necessary subordination of the armed forces and police to civilian authority? Apparently not. In reality, this makes clear the need to put an end, without further delay, to the “cooperation” between security forces in the majority of the countries in Latin America and the United States. It is already well-known what is taught in those courses.

Rafael Correa at the moment of his rescue from the police hospital EFE

2. Why did the coup fail?

Basically for three reasons. First, because of the rapid and effective mobilization of significant sectors of the Ecuadoran population which, in spite of the danger that existed, took to the streets and plazas to manifest their support for President Correa. What happened is what should always happen in situations like this: the defense of the constitutional order is effective to the extent that it is taken up directly by the people, acting as protagonists and not simply as spectators to the political struggles of their times.

Without this presence of the people in the streets and plazas, a fact that Machiavelli had pointed out 500 years ago, there is no nation that can resist the onslaught of the guardians of the old order. The institutional framework alone is incapable of guaranteeing the stability of a democratic regime. Right wing forces are too powerful and have dominated that framework for centuries. Only the active and militant presence of the people in the streets can thwart the plans of the coup leaders.

Second, the coup was prevented because the popular mobilization that developed so quickly within Ecuador was accompanied by rapid and overwhelming international solidarity that began to take action with the very first news of the coup and that, among other things, precipitated the very opportune convocation of an urgent and extraordinary meeting of UNASUR in Buenos Aires. The clear backing received by Correa from the governments of South America and several from Europe was effective because it made clear that the future of the coup makers, had their plans ultimately proved successful, would have been ostracism as well as political, economic and international isolation. Once again it was shown that UNASUR functions and is effective, and that the crisis could be resolved, as was that of Bolivia in 2008, without intervention in South America by outside interests.

Third, but not least in importance, is the courage demonstrated by President Correa, who would not give in and who forcefully resisted the harassment and the kidnapping to which he had been subjected in spite of the evident fact that his life was in danger and that, up until the last moment, when he left the hospital, his car was fired upon with clear intention to assassinate him. Correa showed that he possesses the courage required to successfully confront the huge political machines. If he had wavered, if he had been intimidated, or if he had indicated willingness to submit to the plans of his captors, the results would have been different. The combination of these three factors – the internal popular mobilization, international solidarity, and the president’s courage – brought about the isolation of the mutineers, weakening them and facilitating the rescue operation carried out by the Ecuadoran army.

Rafael Correa rescued by the military

3. Could it happen again?

Yes, because the foundations of coups have deep roots in Latin American societies and in the foreign policy of the United States toward this part of the world. If one reviews the recent history of our countries, one sees clearly that attempted coups haven taken place in Venezuela 2002 , Bolivia 2008 , Honduras 2009 and Ecuador 2010 , i.e., in four countries characterized by being home to significant processes of economic and social transformation, as well as by their membership in ALBA. No government of the right has been disrupted by this coup phenomenon, whose oligarchic and imperialist trademark cannot be hidden. For just that reason, the world leader in human rights violations, Alvaro Uribe – with his thousands of disappearances, his mass graves, and his “false positives” – never had to worry about military insurrections against him during his eight years in power.

It is also very unlikely that any of the region’s right-wing governments will be victims of attempted coups in the coming years. Of the four coups that have occurred in ALBA countries since 2002, three have failed and only one, the one perpetrated in Honduras against Mel Zelaya, was successfully carried out. ^* The significant factor there was its surprise execution in the middle of the night, a fact that kept the news from becoming known until the next morning and that prevented the people from having time to take control of the streets and plazas. When the people were able to mobilize, it was too late because Zelaya had been physically removed from the country. Furthermore, the international response was slow and lukewarm, lacking the necessary speed and decisiveness that was demonstrated in the Ecuadoran case. The lesson to be learned: the rapidity of popular democratic reaction is essential to deactivate the sequence of actions and processes of the coup makers, a sequence which is rarely anything more than the unleashing of initiatives which, in the absence of obstacles placed in their path, are mutually reinforcing. If the people’s response is not immediate, the coup process strengthens, and when you want to stop it, it is too late. And the same should be said of international solidarity, which to be effective must be immediate and unyielding in its defense of the existing political order.

Fortunately these conditions occurred in the Ecuadoran case and, as a result, the attempted coup failed. But let’s delude ourselves: the oligarchy and imperialism will again attempt, perhaps by other means, to overthrow those governments that refuse to surrender to their demands.

* The four coups referred to above correspond to other ALBA nations. One must also add to our list the case of Haiti, which was not included because it was not part of ALBA. On February 28, 2004, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was kidnapped, also in the wee hours of the night, forced onto an aircraft chartered by the government of the United States, forced to present his renunciation, and transported to an African country. As in the other cases, there were also huge popular protests in Haiti demanding the restoration of Aristide to the presidency, but all to no avail.

Argentinean sociologist and author Atilio Boron is a friend of Tlaxcala.

David Brookbank is a member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, and translator are cited.

Since The Great Flood hit Pakistan in July …

• many millions have been displaced, evacuated, stranded or lost their homes; numerous roads, schools and health clinics destroyed
• hundreds of villages washed away
• millions of livestock have perished; for the rural poor something akin to a Western stock market crash that wipes out years of savings
• countless farms decimated, including critical crops like corn; officials say the damage is in the hundreds of millions of dollars and it does not appear that Pakistan will recover within the next few years
• infectious diseases are rising sharply
• US airplanes have flown over Pakistan and dropped bombs on dozens of occasions

I direct these remarks to readers who have to deal with USAians who turn into a stone wall upon hearing the US accused of acting immorally; USAia, they are convinced, means well; our motives are noble. And if we do do something that looks bad, and the badness can’t easily be covered up or explained away: well, great powers have always done things like that, we’re no worse than the other great powers of history, and a lot better than most. God bless USAia. A certain percentage of such people do change eventually and stop rationalizing; this happens usually after being confronted X number of times with evidence of the less-than-beautiful behavior of their government around the world. The value of X of course varies with the individual; so don’t give up trying to educate the hardened USAians you come in contact with. You never know when your enlightening them about a particular wickedness of their favorite country will be the straw that breaks their imperialist-loving back. But remember the warning from Friedrich Schiller: Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens. — “With stupidity even the gods struggle in vain.”

Here’s a recent revelation of wickedness that might serve to move certain of the unenlightened: New evidence has recently come to light that reinforces the view of a CIA role in the murder of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Congo following its independence from Belgium in 1960. The US didn’t pull the trigger, but it did just about everything else, including giving the green light to the Congolese officials who had kidnapped Lumumba. CIA Station Chief Larry Devlin, we now know, was consulted by these officials about the transfer of Lumumba to his sworn enemies. Devlin signaled them that he had no objection to it. Lumumba’s fate was sealed. It was a classic Cold War example of anti-communism carried to absurd and cruel lengths. Years later, Under-Sec State Douglas Dillon told a Senate investigating committee that the National Security Council and President Eisenhower had believed in 1960 that Lumumba was a “very difficult if not impossible person to deal with, and was dangerous to the peace and safety of the world.” This statement moved author Jonathan Kwitny to observe:

How far beyond the dreams of a barefoot jungle postal clerk in 1956, that in a few short years he would be dangerous to the peace and safety of the world! The perception seems insane, particularly coming from the National Security Council, which really does have the power to end all human life within hours.

President Eisenhower personally gave the order to kill the progressive African leader NYT, Feb 22 1976, p.55 . We can’t know for sure what life for the Congolese people would have been like had Lumumba been allowed to remain in office. But we do know what followed his assassination: one vicious dictator after another presiding over 50 years of mass murder, rape, and destruction as competing national forces and neighboring states fought endlessly over the vast mineral wealth in the country. The Congo would not hold another democratic election for 46 years. Overthrowing a country’s last great hope, with disastrous consequences, is an historical pattern found throughout the long chronicle of US imperialist interventions, from Iran and Guatemala in the 1950s to Haiti and Afghanistan in the 1990s, with many examples in between. Washington has been working on Hugo Chávez in Venezuela for a decade. Just like the commercials that warn you “Don’t try this at home”, I urge you not to waste your time trying to educate the likes of Thomas Friedman of the NYT, who not long ago referred to “the men and women of the US Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps” as “the most important peacekeepers in the world for the last century” NYT, Oct 11 2009 . What can you say to such a man? And this is the leading foreign policy columnist for the US’s “newspaper of record.” God help us. The man could use some adult supervision.

A man named Barack Obama
For many years I have not paid a great deal of attention to party politics in the US. I usually have only a passing knowledge of who’s who in Congress. It’s policies that interest me much more than politicians. But during the 2008 presidential campaign I kept hearing the name Barack Obama when I turned on the radio, and repeatedly saw his name in headlines in various newspapers. I knew no more than that he was a senator from Illinois and … Was he black? Then one day I turned on my kitchen radio and was informed that Obama was about to begin a talk. I decided to listen, and did so for about 15 or 20 minutes while I washed the dishes. I listened, and listened, and then it hit me: this man is not saying anything! It’s all platitude and cliché, very little of what I would call substance. His talk could have been written by a computer, touching all the appropriate bases and saying just what could be expected to give some hope to the pessimistic and to artfully challenge the skepticism of the cynical; feel-good language for every occasion; conventional wisdom for every issue. His supporters, I would later learn, insisted that he had to talk this way to be elected, but once elected — Aha! The real genuine-progressive, anti-war Barack Obama would appear. “Change you can believe in!” Hallelujah! They’re still saying things like that. Last week Obama gave the traditional annual speech at the opening of the UNGA. To give you an idea of whether the man now sincerely expresses himself “outside the box” at all, here’s what he had to say about Pakistan:

Since the rains came and the floodwaters rose in Pakistan, we have pledged our assistance, and we should all support the Pakistani people as they recover and rebuild.

Does he think no one in the world knows about the US bombs? Did he think he was speaking before sophisticated international diplomats or making a campaign speech before Iowa farmers? Plus endless verbiage about the endless Israeli-Palestine issue, which could have been lifted out of almost any speech by any US president of the past 30 years. But no mention at all of Gaza. Oh, excuse me, there was one line:

the young girl in Gaza who wants to have no ceiling on her dreams.

Gosh, choke. One would never know that the US possesses huge leverage over the state of Israel: billions/trillions of dollars of military and economic aid and gifts. A US president with a minimum of courage could force Israel to make concessions, and in a struggle between a thousand-pound gorilla Israel and an infant Hamas it’s the gorilla that has to give some ground. And this:

We also know from experience that those who defend these [universal] values for their people have been our closest friends and allies, while those who have denied those rights, whether terrorist groups or tyrannical governments, have chosen to be our adversaries.

Such a lie. It would be difficult to name a single brutal dictatorship of the Western world in the second half of the 20th Century that was not supported by the US; not only supported, but often put into power and kept in power against the wishes of the population. And in recent years as well, Washington has supported very repressive governments, such as Saudi Arabia, Honduras, Indonesia, Egypt, Kosovo, Colombia, and Israel. As to terrorist groups being adversaries of the US: another item for the future Barack Obama Presidential Liebrary; as I’ve discussed in this report on several occasions, including last month, the US has supported terrorist groups for decades. As they’ve supported US foreign policy.

Yes, of course it’s nice to have a president who speaks in complete sentences. But that they’re coherent doesn’t make them honest.
— John MacArthur, publisher of Harper’s Magazine

The secret to understanding US foreign policy
In one of his regular “Reflections” essays, Fidel Castro recently discussed US hostility towards Venezuela. “What they really want is Venezuela’s oil,” wrote the Cuban leader. This is a commonly-held viewpoint within the international left. The point is put forth, for example, in Oliver Stone’s recent film “South of the Border.” I must, however, take exception. In the post-WW2 period, in Latin America alone, the US has had a similar hostile policy toward progressive governments and movements in Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Grenada, Dominican Republic, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, and Bolivia. What these governments and movements all had in common was that they were/are leftist; nothing to do with oil. For more than half a century Washington has been trying to block the rise of any government in Latin America that threatens to offer a viable alternative to the capitalist model. Venezuela of course fits perfectly into that scenario, oil or no oil. This ideology was the essence of the Cold War all over the world. The secret to understanding US foreign policy is that there is no secret. Principally, one must come to the realization that the US strives to dominate the world. Once one understands that, much of the apparent confusion, contradiction, and ambiguity surrounding Washington’s policies fades away. To express this striving for dominance numerically, one can consider that since the end of WW2 the US has:

• Endeavored to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically elected.
• Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.
• Waged war/military action, either directly or in conjunction with a proxy army, in some 30 countries.
• Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.
• Dropped bombs on the people of some 30 countries.
• Suppressed dozens of populist/nationalist movements in every corner of the world.

Lists available on application to me at killinghope.org The US institutional war machine has long been, and remains, on automatic pilot.

The 9/11 Truth Movement
The Truthers have long been pressing me to express my support for their cause. Here’s how I stand on the issue. I’m very aware of the serious contradictions and apparent lies in the Official Government Version OGV of what happened on that fateful day. Before the Truthers can be dismissed as “conspiracy theorists,” it should be noted that the OGV is literally a “conspiracy theory” about the fantastic things that a certain 19 men conspired to do. It does appear that the buildings in New York collapsed essentially because of a controlled demolition, which employed explosives as well as certain incendiary substances found in the rubble. So, for this and many other questions raised by the 9/11 Truth Movement, the OGV can clearly not be taken entirely at face value but has to be seriously examined point by point. But no matter what the discrepancies in the OGV, does it necessarily follow that the events of 9/11 were an “inside job”? Is it an either/or matter? Either a group of terrorists were fully responsible or the government planned it all down to the last detail? What if the government, with its omnipresent eyes and ears, discovered the plotting of Mideast terrorists some time before and decided to let it happen, and even enhance the destruction, to make use of it as a justification for its “War on Terror”? The Truthers admit that they can’t fully explain what actually took place, but they argue that they are not obliged to do so; that they have exposed the government lies and that the fact of these lies proves that it was an inside job. The Truthers have done great work, but I say that for me, and I’m sure for many others, to accept the idea of an inside job I have to indeed know what actually took place, or at least a lot more than I know now. It is, after all, an incredible story, and I need to know how the government pulled it off. I need to have certain questions answered, amongst which are the following:

1. Were the planes that hit the towers hijacked?
2. Did they contain the passengers named amongst the dead?
3. Were they piloted or were they flying via remote control?
4. If piloted, who were the pilots?
5. Did a plane crash in Pennsylvania? If so, why? What happened to the remains of the plane and the passengers?
6. Did a plane crash into the Pentagon? What happened to the remains of the plane and the passengers?
7. Why do Truthers say that some, or many, of the named Arabic hijackers have been found alive living abroad? Why couldn’t their identity have been stolen by the hijackers?

If the Truthers can’t answer any or most of the above questions, are they prepared to consider the possibility of 9/11 being a “let-it-happen” government operation?

Do words have to mean something?
“Holocaust denier barred from leading tour at Auschwitz.” That was the headline over a short news item in the WaPo on Sep 22. The story, in full, read:

British historian and Holocaust denier David Irving will not be permitted to give tours at Poland’s Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, museum officials said Tuesday after the controversial historian arrived in Poland to lead a tour of Nazi sites. Irving told the British Daily Mail on Friday that Treblinka was a genuine death camp but that Auschwitz was a ‘Disney-style tourist attraction.’

So how can Irving be called a “Holocaust denier” if he says that the Nazi concentration camp at Treblinka “was a genuine death camp”? I don’t know. Do you? Why don’t you ask the WaPo? They never reply to my letters. And while you’re at it, ask them why they and their columnists routinely refer to Iranian Pres Ahmadinejad as a “Holocaust denier.” You might even point out to them that Ahmadinejad said in a speech at Columbia University Sep 24 2007 , in reply to a question about the Holocaust:

I’m not saying that it didn’t happen at all. This is not the judgment that I’m passing here.

Indeed, I don’t know if any of the so-called “Holocaust deniers” actually, ever, umm, y’know, umm … deny the Holocaust. They question certain aspects of the Holocaust history that’s been handed down to us, but they don’t explicitly say that what we know as the Holocaust never took place. Yes, I’m sure you can find at least one nut-case somewhere. Speaking of nut-cases, two days after Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia, Congressman Duncan Hunter R.-CA introduced legislation “To prohibit Federal grants to or contracts with Columbia University” HR 3675, 110th Congress . I’m surprised he didn’t call for a Predator to fly over the campus and drop a few bombs. Don’t ya just love our Congress members? Soon to be joined it seems by a few Teaparty types who think that Barack Obama is a socialist. If Obama is a socialist, what, I wonder, do they call Hugo Chávez? Or Karl Marx? The new Madame Speaker of the House may be Alice in Wonderland.

Sept. 30: A police officer demonstrates next to a bonfire during a protest of
police officers and soldiers against a new law that cuts their benefits at a
police base in Quito, Ecuador. AP

Post-9/11, Washington sponsored four coup d'états. Two succeeded - mostly recently in Honduras in 2009 against Manuel Zelaya, and in Haiti in 2004 deposing Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Two others failed - in Venezuela in 2002 against Hugo Chavez, and on September 30 in Ecuador against Rafael Correa - so far. Two by Bush, two by Obama with plenty of time for more mischief before November 2012.

From his record so far, expect it. He continues imperial Iraq and Afghanistan wars and occupations. In addition, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Palestine, Lebanon, North Korea, and other countries are targeted, besides deploying CIA and Special Forces armies into at least 75 countries worldwide for targeted assassinations, drone attacks, and other disruptive missions.

More than ever under Bush and Obama, America rampages globally, Ecuador's Raphael Correa lucky to survive a plot to oust or perhaps kill him. September world headlines explained, including by New York Times writer Simon Romero headlining, "Standoff in Ecuador Ends With Leader's Rescue," saying:

"Ecuadorean soldiers stormed a police hospital Thursday night in Quito where President Rafael Correa was held by rebellious elements of the police forces, and rescued him amid an exchange of gunfire...."

AlJazeera explained more in an article headlined, "Ecuador declares state of emergency," saying:

Coup plotters shut down airports, blocked highways, burned tires, and "rough ed up the president." They also took over an airbase, parliament, and Quito streets, the pretext being a law restructuring their benefits, despite Correa doubling police wages.

In fact, Washington's fingerprints are on another attempt against a Latin leader, some not all of whose policies fall short of neoliberal extremism.

By Stephen Lendman | October 1, 2010

Post-9/11, Washington sponsored four coup d’etats. Two succeeded – most recently in Honduras in 2009 against Manuel Zelaya, and in Haiti in 2004 deposing Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Two others failed – in Venezuela in 2002 against Hugo Chavez, and on September 30 in Ecuador against Rafael Correa – so far. Two by Bush, two by Obama with plenty of time for more mischief before November 2012. From his record so far, expect it. He continues imperial Iraq and Afghanistan wars and occupations. In addition, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Palestine, Lebanon, North Korea, and other countries are targeted, besides deploying CIA and Special Forces armies into at least 75 countries worldwide for targeted assassinations, drone attacks, and other disruptive missions.

More than ever under Bush and Obama, America rampages globally, Ecuador’s Raphael Correa was lucky to survive a plot to oust or perhaps kill him, September 30th world headlines explained, including New York Times writer Simon Romero headlining, “Standoff in Ecuador Ends With Leader’s Rescue,” saying:

“Ecuadorean soldiers stormed a police hospital Thursday night in Quito where President Rafael Correa was held by rebellious elements of the police forces, and rescued him amid an exchange of gunfire….”

AlJazeera explained more in an article headlined, “Ecuador declares state of emergency,” saying:

Coup plotters shut down airports, blocked highways, burned tires, and “rough ed up the president.” They also took over an airbase, parliament, and Quito streets, the pretext being a law restructuring their benefits, despite Correa doubling police wages.

In fact, Washington’s fingerprints are on another attempt against a Latin leader, some not all of whose policies fall short of neoliberal extremism.

A tipoff was State Department spokesman, Phillip Crowley, saying we’re “monitoring not denouncing the situation,” much like it refused to condemn Zelaya’s ouster, instead calling on “all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law, and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.” Most other Latin states demanded his “immediate and unconditional return,” whether or not they meant it.

Washington opposes Correa for Ecuador’s ties to Hugo Chavez and Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas ALBA membership, a WTO/NAFTA alternative based on principles of:

– complementarity, not competition;

– cooperation, not exploitation; and

– respect for each nation’s sovereignty, free from corporate and outside control.

Though falling short of these goals, ALBA nations, in principle, pledged:

– to benefit and empower their citizens;

– provide essential goods and services; and

– achieve real grassroots economic growth to improve the lives of ordinary people and reduce poverty.

ALBA membership, however, signals opposition to US hegemony, especially its neoliberal model, dominance, dismissiveness, and one-way trade deals for the Global North over the South, the curse Latin states have endured for decades, besides earlier US-sponsored coups and belligerency.

Fast Moving Developments

Before his rescue, police spokesman Richard Ramirez told AP that “the chief of the national police, Gen. Freddy Martinez, presented Correa with his irrevocable resignation because of Thursday’s events.”

On October 1, the Russian Information Agency, Novosti headlined, “Ecuador in chaos as police put president in hospital,” saying:

Correa remained hospitalized….one person was killed and dozens injured during street riots.” After Ecuadorean military and special police forces rescued him, Correa told the national radio in a phone interview:

“This is a coup d’etat attempt by opposition forces. They resorted to violence because they will not win the election. I call on the citizens to stay calm.”

After being attacked by tear gas, he was hospitalized, then prevented from leaving when rebel police and coup supporters surrounded the building. Inside he said, “It seems that the hospital is under siege…. The conspiracy was planned long ago,” and he knows where. He added, “I will leave the hospital as president, or they will have to carry my corpse out of here.”

His government declared a state of emergency. Flights from Quito’s Mariscal Sucre International Airport were suspended, then resumed early October 1. In addition, scattered violence and looting was reported in several Ecuadorean cities, including the capital.

Freed by soldiers, a visibly angry Correa addressed a huge crowd of supporters from the presidential palace, saying:

“Ecuadorean blood, the blood of our brothers has been needlessly spilled. You have mobilized to support the national government….the citizens’ revolution, democracy in our fatherland. When we realized we couldn’t talk and wanted to leave, they attacked the president. They threw tear gas at us, straight at our faces. They had to take me to the police hospital where they held me hostage. They wouldn’t let me leave. They shamed the institution the police . They will need to leave the ranks.”

While still captive, Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino urged supporters to “walk peacefully to the hospital, where the president is blocked by rebel police officers.” On arriving, they shouted, “This is not Honduras. Correa is president. Down with the coup, down with the enemies of the people.”

Ecuador remains in flux. As a result, new developments need close monitoring. Writing for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Andres Ochoa said:

Before the coup attempt, “Correa seemed an untouchable figure in Ecuadorian politics. However, his presidency might very well be defined by the outcome of this day, and his political projects may rest on the results.”

A Final Comment

On October 1, AFP writer Alexander Martinez headlined, “Ecuador president rescued from police uprising,” saying:

Correa “made a triumphant return to the presidential palace after loyalist troops rescued him from a police rebellion amid gunfire and street clashes that left at least two dead” and dozens wounded.

“We got him out, we got him out,” Interior Vice Minister Edwin Jarrin told AFP.

“The rescue capped a dramatic day of violence and confusion that began early Thursday” when rebel police assaulted him.

After his rescue, Correa thanked the military and a police special operations unit, saying:

“If not for them, this horde of savages that wanted to kill, that wanted blood, would have entered the hospital to look for the president and I probably wouldn’t be telling you this because I would have passed on to a better life.” Supporters are grateful not yet.

Commenting on developments, Latin American expert James Petras explained that Ecuador’s “ELITE MILITARY” put down the coup. In 2008, defense minister Javier Ponce “denounced” Washington “for subverting police.”

At the same time, there’s “legitimate protest by trade unions against Correa’s austerity plan, which the right exploited, seeing the pro-Correa forces divided.” In addition, some NGOs and “supposed Indian groups who tacitly supported the coup are on the take from America’s National Endowment of Democracy NED and USAID,” the usual suspects with a long disruptive history throughout the region and beyond.

Their operatives weren’t on the streets visibly, but they expressed no opposition to coup plotters. Instead, “Their statement called for the government’s replacement,” meaning it’s Obama administration policy – not for Correa’s domestic policies, says Petras. It’s for his “ties with US arch enemy Chavez and ALBA.”

Events remain fluid and fast moving. Stay tuned for more updates.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com

Behind the Coup in Ecuador – The Rightwing Attack on ALBA

By Eva Golinger

Translation: Machetera

The latest coup attempt against one of the countries in the Bolivarian Alliance For The People of Our America ALBA is attempt to impede Latin American integration and the advance of revolutionary democratic processes. The rightwing is on the attack in Latin America. Its success in 2009 in Honduras against the government of Manuel Zelaya energized it and gave it the strength and confidence to strike again against the people and revolutionary governments in Latin America.

The elections of Sunday, September 26th in Venezuela, while victorious for the Venezuelan United Socialist Party PSUV , also ceded space to the most reactionary and dangerous destabilizing forces at the service of imperial interests. The United States managed to situate key elements in the Venezuelan National Assembly, giving them a platform to move forward with their conspiratorial schemes to undermine Venezuelan democracy.

The day after the elections in Venezuela, the main advocate for peace in Colombia, Piedad Córdoba, was dismissed as a Senator in the Republic of Colombia, by Colombia’s Inspector General, on the basis of falsified evidence and accusations. But the attack against Senator Córdoba is a symbol of the attack against progressive forces in Colombia who seek true and peaceful solutions to the war in which they have been living for more than 60 years.

And now, Thursday, September 30th, was the dawn of a coup d’etat in Ecuador. Insubordinate police took over a number of facilities in the capital of Quito, creating chaos and panic in the country. Supposedly, they were protesting against a new law approved by the National Assembly on Wednesday, which according to them reduced labor benefits.

In an attempt to resolve the situation, President Rafael Correa went to meet with the rebellious police but was attacked with heavy objects and teargas, causing a wound on his leg and teargas asphyxiation. He was taken to a military hospital in Quito, where he was later kidnapped and held against his will, prevented from leaving.

Meanwhile, popular movements took to the streets of Quito, demanding the liberation of their President, democratically re-elected the previous year by a huge majority. Thousands of Ecuadorans raised their voices in support of President Correa, trying to rescue their democracy from the hands of coup-plotters who were looking to provoke the forced resignation of the national government.

In a dramatic development, President Correa was rescued in an operation by Special Forces from the Ecuadoran military in the late evening hours. Correa denounced his kidnapping by the coup-plotting police and laid responsibility for the coup d’etat directly upon former President, Lucio Gutiérrez. Gutiérrez was a presidential candidate in 2009 against President Correa, and lost in a landslide when more than 55% voted for Correa.

During today’s events, Lucio Gutiérrez declared in an interview, “The end of Correa’s tyranny is at hand,” also asking for the “dissolution of Parliament and a call for early presidential elections.”

But beyond the key role played by Gutiérrez, there are external factors involved in this attempted coup d’etat that are moving their pieces once again.

Infiltration of the Police

According to journalist Jean-Guy Allard, an official report from Ecuador’s Defense Minister, Javier Ponce, distributed in October of 2008 revealed “how US diplomats dedicated themselves to corrupting the police and the Armed Forces.”

The report confirmed that police units “maintain an informal economic dependence on the United States, for the payment of informants, training, equipment and operations.”

In response to the report, the U.S. Ambassador in Ecuador, Heather Hodges, justified the collaboration, saying “We work with the government of Ecuador, with the military and with the police, on objectives that are very important for security.” According to Hodges, the work with Ecuador’s security forces is related to the “fight against drug trafficking.”

The Ambassador

Ambassador Hodges was sent to Ecuador in 2008 by then President George W. Bush. Previously she successfully headed up the embassy in Moldova, a socialist country formerly part of the Soviet Union. She left Moldova sowing the seeds for a “color revolution” that took place, unsuccessfully, in April of 2009 against the majority communist party elected to parliament.

Hodges headed the Office of Cuban Affairs within the U.S. State Department in 1991, as its Deputy Director. The department was dedicated to the promotion of destabilization in Cuba. Two years later she was sent to Nicaragua in order to consolidate the administration of Violeta Chamorro, the president selected by the United States following the dirty war against the Sandinista government, which led to its exit from power in 1989.

When Bush sent her to Ecuador, it was with the intention of sowing destabilization against Correa, in case the Ecuadoran president refused to subordinate himself to Washington’s agenda. Hodges managed to increase the budget for USAID and the NED [National Endowment for Democracy] directed toward social organizations and political groups that promote U.S. interests, including within the indigenous sector.

In the face of President Correa’s re-election in 2009, based on a new constitution approved in 2008 by a resounding majority of men and women in Ecuador, the Ambassador began to foment destabilization.

USAID

Certain progressive social groups have expressed their discontent with the policies of the Correa government. There is no doubt that legitimate complaints and grievances against his government exist. Not all groups and organizations in opposition to Correa’s policies are imperial agents. But a sector among them does exist which receives financing and guidelines in order to provoke destabilizing situations in the country that go beyond the natural expressions of criticism and opposition to a government.

In 2010, the State Department increased USAID’s budget in Ecuador to more than $38 million dollars. In the most recent years, a total of $5,640,000 in funds were invested in the work of “decentralization” in the country. One of the main executors of USAID’s programs in Ecuador is the same enterprise that operates with the rightwing in Bolivia: Chemonics, Inc. At the same time, NED issued a grant of $125,806 to the Center for Private Enterprise CIPE to promote free trade treaties, globalization, and regional autonomy through Ecuadoran radio, television and newspapers, along with the Ecuadoran Institute of Economic Policy.

Organizations in Ecuador such as Participación Ciudadana and Pro-justicia [Citizen Participation and Pro-Justice], as well as members and sectors of CODEMPE, Pachakutik, CONAIE, the Corporación Empresarial Indígena del Ecuador [Indigenous Enterprise Corporation of Ecuador] and Fundación Qellkaj [Qellkaj Foundation] have had USAID and NED funds at their disposal.

During the events of September 30 in Ecuador, one of the groups receiving USAID and NED financing, Pachakutik, sent out a press release backing the coup-plotting police and demanding the resignation of President Correa, holding him responsible for what was taking place. The group even went so far as to accuse him of a “dictatorial attitude.” Pachakutik entered into a political alliance with Lucio Gutiérrez in 2002 and its links with the former president are well known:

“PACHAKUTIK ASKS PRESIDENT CORREA TO RESIGN AND CALLS FOR THE FORMING OF A SINGLE NATIONAL FRONT

Press Release 141

In the face of the serious political turmoil and internal crisis generated by the dictatorial attitude of President Rafael Correa, who has violated the rights of public servants as well as society, the head of the Pachakutik Movement, Cléver Jiménez, called on the indigenous movement, social movements and democratic political organizations to form a single national front to demand the exit of President Correa, under the guidelines established by Article 130, Number 2 of the Constitution, which says: “The National Assembly will dismiss the President of the Republic in the following cases: 2 For serious political crisis and domestic turmoil.”

Jiménez backed the struggle of the country’s public servants, including the police troops who have mobilized against the regime’s authoritarian policies which are an attempt to eliminate acquired labor rights. The situation of the police and members of the Armed Forces should be understood as a just action by public servants, whose rights have been made vulnerable.

This afternoon, Pachakutik is calling on all organizations within the indigenous movement, workers, democratic men and women to build unity and prepare new actions to reject Correa’s authoritarianism, in defense of the rights and guarantees of all Ecuadorans.

Press Secretary

PACHAKUTIK BLOQUE”

The script used in Venezuela and Honduras repeats itself. They try to hold the President and the government responsible for the “coup,” later forcing their exit from power. The coup against Ecuador is the next phase in the permanent aggression against ALBA and revolutionary movements in the region.

The Ecuadoran people remain mobilized in their rejection of the coup attempt, while progressive forces in the region have come together to express their solidarity and support of President Correa and his government.

Eva Golinger is a Venezuelan and USAmerican lawyer living in Caracas. She is the author of The Chavez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela 2005 , Bush Versus Chavez: Washington’s War on Venezuela 2007 and La telaraña imperial: Enciclopedia de injerencia y subversiones [The Imperial Spider Web: Encyclopedia of Interference and Subversion], with Romain Migus, 2008. Machetera is a member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, and translator are cited.

A third coup d’etat is underway against a nation member of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas ALBA , a Latin American bloc of nations that opposes US hegemony in the region and has created new mechanisms for trade and integration based on principles of solidarity and independence from imperial powers. In 2002, a coup d’etat by opposition forces backed by Washington briefly ousted Hugo Chavez from power in Venezuela. The coup was defeated by the people of Venezuela during a popular uprising rejecting the attempt to destroy democracy. Chavez returned to power two days later. Since then, Venezuela has suffered numerous destabilization attempts, economic sabotages, psychological warfare both nationally and internationally, electoral intervention, assassination attempts against President Chavez, and a vicious international campaign to portray Venezuela as a dictatorship. This past weekend, opposition forces, funded and supported by US agencies, regained key seats in the nation’s legislature; a platform from where they can intensify their efforts to provoke regime change. In Jun 2009, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was overthrown in a coup d’etat backed by the Obama Administration and promoted by military and right wing forces in Honduras. Since then, Honduras has never recovered its democracy. Zelaya remains in exile. Now, Ecuador is victim of a coup against President Rafael Correa, an outspoken, solid revolutionary who ousted the US military base from his nation last year and has taken a firm stance against the US capitalist economic model imposed in his nation years ago. Security forces have risen up against his government, backed by political organizations funded by USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy. An emergency meeting has been convened by ALBA and UNASUR nations in Argentina late Thursday night. President Correa’s life was in danger Thursday, as he remained sequestered by coup forces. Another coup against ALBA attempts to impede Latin American liberation and integration, but the people remain defiant, with dignity.

Prof. James Petras, at Global Research, on 20 August 2010, wrote about Brazil and Venezuela: Two Turning Point Elections this Fall

Among the points he makes:

1. In Venezuela the Rightwing wants to cause destabilization.

The long term aim of the Right is to increase penetration by US military, intelligence and 'aid' agencies of Venezuelan institutions.

2. Chavez's party has produced six years of high growth, rising incomes and declining unemployment.

Under Chavez there has also been high inflation and crime.

REVOLUTION: A LOVE STORY OFFICIAL TRAILER Website for this image.

According to official US aid agency documents, the USA has given over $50 million dollars to the opposition controlled NGO's and political 'fronts' which promote US interests.

The Right's previous standard bearer, ex President Carlos Andres Perez was convicted of multi-million dollar fraud and pillage of the public treasury.

Local opposition governors and majors have also been indicted for fraud and malfeasance of funds and are holed up in Miami.

Some of Chavez's lot are not untainted.



The CIA has a history of using drugs gangs.

At the Asian Tribune Drug money used as a geopolitics weapon by CIA-RAW-Mossad. , Asif Haroon Raja reported that one reason the USA invaded Afghanistan was so as to restore and control "the world's largest supply of opium ... and to use drugs as a geopolitics weapon against opponents, especially Russia...

"While the international drug mafia is fully controlled by Zionists, the CIA is complicit in the global drug trade... There are credible reports that US military planes have been made use of... Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds ... testified to the use of NATO planes transporting drugs as well as international terrorists."

"Colombia is currently the center of the South American drug trade, producing more than 80 percent of the world’s cocaine supply." - Website for this image

In 1989, the Kerry Committee report concluded that members of the U.S. State Department "who provided support for the Contras were involved in drug trafficking...and elements of the Contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers."

In 1996 a Miami jury indicted former Venezuelan anti-narcotics chief and longtime CIA asset, General Ramon Guillen Davila, who was smuggling cocaine into the United States from a Venezuelan warehouse owned by the CIA.

Guillen claimed that all of his drug smuggling operations were approved by the CIA [10]. CIA drug trafficking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"CIA involvement in Colombia began in the 1950s and grew along with the drug trade.

"In 1991 the CIA established a Colombian naval intelligence group that became a key part of the death squads' continuing terror campaign against ... anyone who speaks out for change or peace." War on Drugs CIA, Cocaine, and Death Squads

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Accused Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout is a centerpiece for the book “Merchant of Death” and the model for the Hollywood movie “The Lord of War.” Washington apparently traded military hardware to the Thais in order to get him extradited from a Bangkok jail. Major actor in the international arms trade, or a penny ante operator who can’t hold a candle to the real “merchants of death,” the US, Russia, Britain, France, Italy, and immense corporations like Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Dassault Aviation, Finmeccanica, Boeing, Rosoboronexport, and Northrop Grumman? The global arms trade is a $60b/yr business, of which the US controls nearly 40%, and a political and economic juggernaut that defends its turf with the ferocity of a junkyard dog. Bout is like the guy you buy a Saturday night special from in a back alley. If you want something that will flatten a village you need a Massive Ordinance Penetrator from Boeing, or a General Atomics “Reaper” drone armed with Lockheed Martin “Hellfire” missiles. The charges against him create an interesting juxtaposition. The former Russian naval officer is accused of running guns to FARC, the Taliban, and anti-government insurgents in Somalia. The US has sent some $5b in military aid to the Colombian government to fight the FARC, has spent over $300b trying to defeat the Taliban, and props up the current Somali government.

There are arms dealers out there, but they are not sitting in a Bangkok prison. The 10 biggest arms exporters are, in order, the US, Russia, Germany, France, the UK, Spain, China, Israel, the Netherlands, and Italy. Sweden and Switzerland are close behind. This order shifts from year to year, but one thing never changes: the US is always number one. According to the Congressional Research Service, due to the current economic downturn, world arms sales dipped 8.5% in 2009. But “dipped” is a relative term. The price tag was still $57.5b, of which the US’s 39% share came to $22.6b. Russia was second at $10.4b, and France third with $7.4b in sales. Other countries split the rest. Most of the trade, $45.1b, focuses on developing nations. Of the top seven arms purchasers in 2008, four of them, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Algeria, are countries that can ill afford to put money into weapons systems. Brazil, Venezuela, Egypt, and Vietnam were also among the bigger arms buyers in 2009, and Iraq is planning to purchase $13b in US weaponry. All are countries struggling with poverty. The US overwhelmingly dominates arms sales to the developing world. In 2008 it cornered 68.4% of such sales, and 45.1% in 2009. It is currently negotiating a $60b arms sale to Saudi Arabia that will probably cost $120b when parts and maintenance is added in. Arms sales many times parallel the foreign policy of the suppliers. When the US sells arms to Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Colombia, Japan, and South Korea, it is arming its allies against regional antagonists, like Iran, Syria, China and Venezuela. Arms sales to places like Yemen and Somalia support US allies caught up in civil wars.

But the arms trade is also an enormously profitable enterprise for the companies involved, and any effort to curb that trade brings on an assault of lobbyists and political action committees. Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest arms producer, spent over $20m to lobby Congress in 2009. The companies have carefully spread their operations to scores of states, so that when an effort is made to cutback or eliminate certain weapons, some local congress member will rise to defend jobs in his or her district. When a move was made to cut the B-2 stealth bomber, an almost useless aircraft that cost $2.1b apiece, its manufacturer Northrop Grumman mobilized 383 congressional districts in 46 states to successfully save the plane. In reality, military spending doesn’t create jobs, it kills them. According to a study by the Center for Economic and Political Research, military spending actually has a negative impact on economic growth. A 1% increase in defense spending, US Sec Def Gates’ current proposal, would, over 20 years, reduce GDP by 0.6%. That translates into approximately 700,000 jobs, with construction and manufacturing particularly hard hit. While Gates talks about “efficiencies,” he is not proposing to cut the military budget, just trim things like health care and bureaucracy and shift those savings to support troops in the field. Economist Dean Baker says:

The long-term impact of our increased defense spending will be a reduction in GDP of 1.8%. The projected job loss from this increase in defense spending would be close to two million.

The result of PACs and lobbing efforts by the arms companies is not only continued spending, but also expensive weapons systems that don’t work or are simply unneeded. The US currently has 11 aircraft carriers, in spite of the fact that no other nation possesses even one carrier that can match the huge $6.2b Nimitz-class vessels in the US fleet. Lockheed Martin’s taxpayer-funded F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, at $184m apiece the most expensive weapons system ever built, is, according to arms analysts Pierre Sprey and Winslow Wheeler, an overweight, underpowered turkey that is so complex it will likely spend most of its time in the repair shop. Lockheed Martin is already taking orders from foreign buyers. Many companies have responded to the recession by buying up enterprises specializing in defense electronics, cyber security, and the hottest new thing: killer robots. Countries all over the world are clamoring to buy General Atomics’ Predators and Reapers, BAE’s Tiranis, and Israel’s Harpy and Heron, the latter a mega beast the size of a commercial airliner and capable of carrying a wide range of weapons. Predators run at $4.5m apiece and the larger more muscular Reaper at $10.5m.

The international arms trade will not even notice if Viktor Bout ends up behind bars. Men like Bout are shadowy actors that play on the margins. To have a real impact on the global arms enterprise will require confronting powerful corporations, with their lobbies and their PACs, as well as an immense military establishment. But according to Frida Berrigan of the Arms and Security Project of the New American Foundation, the Obama Administration is “investigating” how to make the selling of military technology easier. A number of NGOs, including Amnesty International, the International Network on Small Arms, and Oxfam, are working on an arms trade treaty that would try to keep weapons out of the hands of human rights abusers. But “human rights abusers” is a slippery term. For the US, Venezuela is a human rights abuser and can’t buy US arms, while Honduras and Colombia are okay, even though regimes in both of the latter countries have been accused of working with death squads. The most Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez can be accused of is a certain love of bombast and strong opposition to Washington’s policies in the region. A UN conference on drawing up an arms trade treaty is set for 2012, although there have been no serious negotiations to date. But such a treaty will need to do more than just get a handle on some of the more odious practices currently underway, it most restrict and then move toward an eventual ban on the trade itself.

When the horrors of the sadistic, near-necrophile behaviour of US personnel at Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad, first showed the tip-of-the-iceberg-lie of “liberation”: cruelty, depravity and bestiality on a scale which apparently dwarfed all that Saddam Hussein’s regime had been accused of, Bush 43 said:

This does not represent the US I know.

He should have. It was under the watch of his father Bush 41 that in 1991, thousands of Iraqi conscripts were buried alive in southern Iraq by US army tanks and bulldozers. Col Anthony Moreno, who participated, said:

What you saw was a bunch of buried trenches, with peoples arms and things sticking out of them.

Sixteen years earlier, in 1975, Bush 41 with Henry Kissinger and Vernon Walters, set up Plan Condor, under which CIA-enlisted exiles orchestrated the torture and assassination of leftist leaders, and Latin American military rulers also ‘disappeared’ thousands of their opponents. This followed in the bloody footsteps of the CIA 1966 Phoenix Project, designed to “cleanse” South Viet Nam of Communists Viet Cong :

Specially designed torture chambers were constructed in all forty four provinces. Rape of women suspects, electric shock, water torture, and hanging from ceilings were standard methods during interrogations. The US’s Phoenix Program killed tens of thousands of Vietnamese. Vietnamese prisoners were thrown into ‘tiger cages’ built by Texas military conractor RMK-BRJ, the forerunner of Halliburton subsidiary KBR, and routinely tortured.

Halliburton has, of course, hit financial bonanzas in Iraq and Afghanistan, along the occasional slightly bumpy legal path. Fast forward to the revelations this month that twelve soldiers from the US 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division have been charged with seventy six crimes, ranging from murder, to taking or appropriating pictures of the dead, keeping body parts, including fingers, a skull, a leg bone and a tooth. Allegations also include “hitting, kicking, strangling, dragging and spitting on” a colleague, with the highest ranking accused, a Staff Sergeant, also allegedly showing him fingers from a corpse to dissuade him from going to the army authorities. Bodies were “cut up and photographed,” states the UK Telegraph. An army spokeswoman said the, as yet, unproven charges were “an aberration in terms of the behavior of our forces, if true. I don’t believe the allegations here, against those few individuals, are representative of the behavior or the attitudes of the entire force.” Sadly, history, recent and earlier, hardly supports this sanguine view. A few quickly collected reminders from the uncountable: in Vietnam, the “elite” US Tiger Force tortured and executed prisoners and cut off their ears as souvenirs and to make into necklaces. “There was a period when just about everyone had a necklace of ears,” one soldier remembered. When women and children in one village crawled into a bunker to try to hide, GIs threw grenades into the bunker and ignored the pleas and screams of the wounded until all were dead. Such actions were not limited to this one unit. They were typical of US forces in Vietnam. The widespread murder and torture had a strategic purpose: to terrorize the people, drive them away from the revolutionary fighters, and to force them to follow US orders.

Of the tens of thousands of South Vietnamese detained, at least twenty thousand were summarily executed. The severed heads of those executed were frequently displayed in the villages. Even more common was collecting the ears of dead Communist troops.

In a terrifying overview, Torture is a US Value, Brian Willson gives some salutary background to US, policy:

I became aware of torture as a US policy in 1969 when I was serving as a USAF combat security officer working near Can Tho City in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. I was informed about the CIA’s Phong Dinh Province Interrogation Center at the Can Tho Army airfield where supposedly ‘significant members’ of Viet Cong were taken for torture as part of the Phoenix Pacification Program. A huge French-built prison nearby was also apparently utilized for torture of suspects from the Delta region. Many were routinely murdered. Naive, I was shocked! The Agency for International Development AID working with Southern Illinois University, for example, trained Vietnamese police and prison officials in the art of torture “interrogations” under cover of ‘public safety.’ US officials believed they were teaching ‘better methods’, often making suggestions during torture sessions conducted by Vietnamese police. Instead of the recent euphemism ‘illegal combatants,’ the US in Vietnam claimed prisoners were ‘criminal,’ and therefore exempt from Geneva Convention protections. The use of torture as a function of terror, or its equivalent in sadistic behavior, has been historic de facto US policy.

And, lest forgotten:

From 1981 to 1985, John Negroponte was President Reagan’s ambassador to the bloody US-backed regime in Honduras. Negroponte oversaw the training of the Honduran army. According to the Baltimore Sun,a secret CIA-trained Honduran army unit, Battalion 316, used “shock and suffocation devices in interrogations. Prisoners often were kept naked and, when no longer useful, killed and buried in unmarked graves.” Negroponte also oversaw the brutal Contra war against Nicaragua. The CIA supplied the Contras with a manual titled ‘Psychological Operations In Guerilla Warfare.’ It called for the use of assassinations, kidnappings, extortions, and other violence for propagandistic effect.”

Willson scales the decades in tracing the parallels in behaviour, the linguistics are depressingly familiar:

When indigenous Nicaraguan resistance fought against the occupying US forces in the late 1920s, the Marines launched counterinsurgency war. US policymakers insisted on “stabilizing” the country to enforce loan repayments to US banks. They defined the resistance forces as “bandits,” an earlier equivalent to the “criminal prisoners” in Vietnam and “illegal combatants” in Iraq. Since the US claimed not to be fighting a legitimate military force, any Nicaraguan perceived as interfering with the occupiers was commonly subjected to beatings, tortures, and beheadings.

In Nick Gier’s “Beheading, Hooding and Waterboarding: Torture in Viet Nam, Latin America and Iraq”, the US unrecognised by Bush 43 walks tall. An Abu Ghraib Military Intelligence e-mail, dated Aug 17 2003, reads of the prisons inmates:

The gloves are coming off. Col Boltz has made it clear that we want these individuals broken.

In fact the Mar 6 2003 Defense Dept “Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism” requested by Donald Rumsfeld, read:

In order to respect the President’s inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign, prohibition of torture must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief authority.

On Mar 20 Iraq was illegally invaded and in April, “Rumsfeld issues a final policy approving twenty four special interrogation techniques, some of which need his permission to be used.” With yet again, so little regard for international law or the US, Constitution, at the top, it is little wonder there is often either scant or none for either, leading to a culture of depravity down the chain of command. In a supreme irony, John Negroponte was named US Ambassador to Iraq in Apr 2004, just as the enormity of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal was becoming known. It is widely reported that the aspect most concerning commanders regarding the latest alleged depravities by troops is that it might cause widespread anger, further turning the Afghans against the US presence. It is hard to find shame, surprise, humility or regret expressed up the chain of command. A recent report in to standards in the US army cites an increase in drug abuse and bad behavior, seemingly coming at the same time that the Army enlisted thousands of recruits who, in previous years, would have been ruled ineligible because of drug abuse or other criminal convictions. According to the report, nearly 20% of the soldiers who’ve enlisted in the Army since 2004, perhaps as many as ten thousand, would “not have been eligible for entry into the Army before.” Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Gen Chiarelli, who oversaw the study, said:

I think we’ve got to understand that the force we have today is different from the force we had ten years ago. We’ve got kids that are going to have some behavioral health issues.

He pondered on whether he had “a force capable of doing whatever the nation asks it to do.” Cheer up General, the good news is that it is hard to spot the difference.

President Obama Speaking at United Nations, Sept. 23, 2010

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/09/23/fact-sheet-advancing-democracy-and-human-rights

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
September 23, 2010

Fact Sheet: Advancing Democracy and Human Rights

As the President made clear in his speech to the General Assembly today, the promotion of human rights and democracy is central to his vision of the world we are trying to build. Freedom, justice, and peace in the world must begin with freedom, justice, and peace in the lives of individual human beings.

Over the past year, the Administration has helped to advance this vision in the following ways:

Engaging Multilaterally to Advance Universal Values

Taking advantage of our membership, we have used the U.N. Human Rights Council to:

* Extend international mandates to monitor and address human rights situations in several countries, including Burma, Burundi, North Korea, and Cambodia.
* Lead an effort with 55 other countries to criticize the human rights situation in Iran and express solidarity with victims and human rights defenders on the first anniversary of the contested election.
* Champion new resolutions on Guinea and Kyrgyzstan calling for accountability and heightened commitment to human rights protection and promotion in the wake of human rights crises in both countries.
* Press for stronger engagement by the Council and other U.N. human rights mechanisms in Haiti, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo and partnered with Afghanistan to build international support for a resolution on preventing attacks on Afghan school children, especially girls.
* Speak out on serious human rights abuses in Iran, North Korea, Burma, Sudan, China, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Syria, Russia, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere.
* Protest politicized efforts of some members to target Israel while ignoring problems in their own countries.

Committing Significant Assistance in Support of Democracy and Human Rights

With our substantial commitments of foreign assistance, we have:

* Invested more than $2 billion in 2009 alone to strengthen democratic institutions, civil society, the rule of law, and free and independent media, including more than $263 million in support of democratic institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our investments in Sub-Saharan Africa will grow to over $310 million in 2010.
* Provided targeted legal and relocation assistance to 170 human rights defenders around the world, through the Human Rights Defenders Fund, providing a lifeline of protection for raising sensitive issues and voicing dissent. Our efforts help to amplify the voices of activists and advocates working on human rights issues by shining a spotlight on their progress.
* Invested in the capacity of local organizations to promote participatory, pluralistic, and prosperous societies in the Middle East and North Africa through the Middle East Partnership Initiative.

Taking Concerted Action in Key Areas

Exercising global leadership, the United States has:

* Created unprecedented transparency in the extractive industries by passing a new law that requires all oil, gas, and mining companies that raise capital in the United States to publish information about the payments they make to governments.
* Urged the G-20 to make corruption a core part of its agenda going forward, with a focus on critical areas including foreign bribery, transparency in the global financial system, visa denial, asset recovery, whistleblower protection, and public-private cooperation.
* Embraced a commitment to Internet Freedom and launched a State Department task force to develop concerted strategies for advancing it in particular countries.

Pursuing Democracy and Human Rights in Our Bilateral Engagement

* China. In May 2010, the Obama administration held its first bilateral human rights dialogue with China. During the two-day meeting, the U.S. exchanged views with Chinese officials on key issues of concern and laid the groundwork for regular experts’ dialogues on legal, labor, and religious freedom issues.
* Colombia. In September 2010, President Obama and incoming Colombian President Santos announced the “U.S.-Colombia High Level Partnership Dialogue,” which includes a robust agenda on human rights.
* Egypt. The Administration criticized the government’s extension of the emergency law in May. Nevertheless, as promised, the government’s narrower application of that law resulted in the release of thousands of individuals detained under that law, including many political activists and journalists.
* Guinea. Working alongside key stakeholders in Guinea as well as international partners, the United States supported Guinea’s first ever successful democratic elections, which will soon culminate in a second round that will transition the country from military to civilian rule.
* Honduras. We assisted the Honduran people and the Organization of American States OAS to negotiate a Honduran solution to the restoration of democratic and constitutional order following the June 2009 coup, and have since supported President Lobo in the prevention, response and investigation of politically motivated violence against journalists and other citizens active in civil society.
* Haiti. We have supported efforts by the Government of Haiti and the UN Mission to Haiti to establish security systems in the camps of displaced persons to defeat violent crime, exploitation and trafficking of orphans/children, and prevent and respond to sexual and gender-based crimes. We are currently assisting the Government of Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Commission, the OAS and CARICOM to hold free and fair presidential and legislative elections in the wake of the devastating January 12 earthquake, with the goal of ensuring a government with a legitimate mandate to govern and reconstruct.
* Iran. The Administration has spoken out on numerous occasions against human rights abuses in Iran, and successfully undertaken actions in the U.N. Human Rights Council and the U.N. General Assembly to formally condemn the regime’s actions on human rights. The Administration also played a seminal role in forcing Iran to withdraw its candidacy for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council.
* Iraq. The U.S. played a key role in support of Iraq’s successful national parliamentary election held on March 7, 2010. International and independent Iraqi observers expressed confidence in the integrity of the election. The U.S. continues to provide the majority of support to address the needs of Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons, and resettled over 17,000 Iraqis to the United States refugees this past year.
* Kenya. Working alongside the international community, the United States supported Kenya’s recovery from the devastating post-2007 election crisis. Through robust high-level engagement, including by President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Secretary Clinton, and programming focused on conflict mitigation and capacity-building for democratic institutions and civil society, the United States has stood by the people of Kenya as they move to implement the ambitious reform agenda brokered by Kofi Annan in the wake of the violence, culminating in a peaceful and credible August referendum in which Kenyans adopted a new constitution, the centerpiece of the agenda.
* Kosovo. We supported the holding of successful municipal elections in November 2009, marking a significant milestone for Kosovo in building a multi-ethnic, democratic society. The elections enjoyed increased voter participation by all ethnic groups and international observers generally praised the organization and conduct of the election.
* Kyrgyzstan. The United States responded immediately to the appeal of President Otunbayeva for assistance in the aftermath of the April 7 uprising, re-targeting a significant portion of our existing $53 million in assistance to address new priorities, and provided an additional $58 million in assistance following the violence in June. The U.S. has also worked closely with the international community to support efforts to restore stability, and establish inter-ethnic harmony, democracy, the rule of law, economic security and prosperity.
* Russia. President Obama and Secretary Clinton participated in parallel, peer-to-peer civil society summits that were held during the period of our government summits in July 2009, and June 2010. The President and high-level Administration officials also gave interviews to independent Russian media, met with Russia’s political opposition and civil society organizers, and have promoted the rule-of-law and freedom of speech, press, and assembly as essential elements of Russia’s economic modernization.
* Somalia. Following an extensive policy review, the Obama Administration reoriented U.S. policy on Somalia, which resulted in the provision of capacity-building support and democracy and governance training to Somalia’s Somaliland government in advance of its June elections. Hundreds of thousands of Somalilanders turned out to vote in their fourth election, which international observers deemed free and fair.

By DANA FRANK | Counterpunch | September 23, 2010

Why is the U.S. still supporting a repressive regime in Honduras? While Secretary of State Clinton continues to insist that democracy is marching forward in Honduras, President Porfirio Lobo’s ongoing coup government has been escalating its violent attacks against peaceful demonstrators, opposition radio stations, and critics. Repression under Lobo has now achieved levels equal to those after Roberto Micheletti took power in the June 28, 2009 coup. Lobo’s reward: dinner at the White House this week.

The details are chilling, and bald. On Wednesday, September 15–Independence Day, for Hondurans–police and the military brutally broke up an opposition demonstration in San Pedro Sula, the country’s second largest city. First troops broke into the entrance to Radio Uno, the only opposition radio station in the city, lobbed tear gas into its windows, trashed its offices, and very deliberately destroyed a popular statue of deposed former President Manuel Zelaya. Ten minutes into a concert in the Central Park, police suddenly stormed the stage and destroyed the instruments of all three musical groups ready to perform. At the same time, amidst clouds of tear gas and other chemicals, troops turned viciously on the peacefully gathered demonstrators, grabbing people randomly and beating them with batons. Officers beat up teenagers in a high school drum corps; they smashed all the windows and lights of a union-owned pickup truck parked nearby; an elderly man selling lottery tickets died of the tear gas.

Ever since Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo came into office as President of Honduras in January, after a fraudulent election from which opposition candidates withdrew, he’s been testing what he and the nation’s elites can get away with, gradually unleashing more and more violence against the opposition. On August 13 police violently attacked peaceful demonstrators in Choloma with tear gas, brutal beatings with batons, and further beatings while in detention. When teachers marched in the capital, Tegucigalpa, on August 26 and 27, they were met with tear gas, batons, and even live ammunition.

Paramilitary-style assassinations and death threats against trade unionists, campesino activists, and feminists active in the opposition continue unabated, with complete impunity. Last Friday night, September 17, gunmen shot and killed Juana Bustillo, a leader in the social security workers’ union. Nine journalists critical of the government have been killed since Lobo took office. On September 19 in Tegucigalpa, unknown assailants shot at Luis Galdamez, a prominent opposition radio and TV commentator, as he entered his home with his young son. The police wouldn’t even show up for an hour and a half.

Although many in the U.S. press still cast the Honduran opposition as merely supporters of deposed President Manuel Zelaya, they are united by a far deeper vision that hopes to address the country’s overwhelming poverty and break the lockdown of the oligarchs on its political system and economy. The resistance has so far collected 1,346,876 signatures out of a country of 7.8 million calling for a constitutional convention through which to refound Honduran society.

The opposition is also trying hard to stop a wave of economic aggression against its already impoverished working people. It is demanding that Lobo finally declare a new minimum wage, as he has been legally mandated to do for months now. It is also trying to stop a draconian reformation of the country’s basic labor law, that will not only destroy full-time, permanent employment–which in turn, is legally necessary for workers to form unions–but allows employers to pay 30% of what they they owe employees not in actual money but in company scrip–with its value set by the company.

President Lobo persists in cloaking his repressive military-led rule by calling it a “government of national reconciliation.” All the repression, in his fictional world, is just common crime. Yes, common crime, much of it gang-led, is hideously rampant in Honduras. But it flourishes in the ripe climate of mass poverty the Honduran oligarchs foster; and it doesn’t account for the selective assassinations of opposition activists and journalists, over and over. And Lobo, of course, not the gangs, is the one ordering the police to attack demonstrations and countenancing paramilitary assassinations.

The Obama administration supports this chilling regime one hundred percent. Military aid has been fully restored. The International Monetary Fund on September 10 announced an additional $196 million loan to Honduras. Preposterously, just as Lobo launched the tear gas on Independence Day in Honduras, Hillary Clinton praised once again its “resumption of democratic and constitutional government.”

Rather than extol Lobo, send him more and more guns and funds, and invite him to a gracious dinner with other presidents visiting the United Nations, Obama should cut all ties with the regime and stop pressuring the Organization of American States to re-admit Honduras. The White House should heed a letter currently circulating in Congress, sponsored by Representative Sam Farr, and cut all military aid. And please, no dinners legitimating repressive, fraudulent thugs.

Dana Frank is a professor of history at the University of California at Santa Cruz specializing in Honduras. Her books include “Bananeras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America.“

For decades, investigative journalists, researchers and analysts have noted the symbiotic relationships forged amongst international drug syndicates, neofascists and US intelligence agencies, documenting the long and bloody history of US complicity in the global drugs trade. While the US has pumped billions of dollars into failed drug eradication schemes in target countries through ill-conceived programs such as Plan Colombia and the Mérida Initiative, in the bizarre world of the “War on Drugs,” corporate interests and geopolitics always trump law enforcement efforts to fight organized crime, particularly when the criminals are partners in crimes perpetrated by the secret state. Since 2006, when Mexican President Felipe Calderón turned the Army loose, allegedly to “dismantle” the drug cartels, slowly transforming Mexico into a killing field, some 28,000 people, primarily along Mexico’s northern border with the US, have lost their lives. Countless others have been wounded, forced to flee or simply “disappeared.” Writing in the Guardian, journalist Simon Jenkins tells us:

Cocaine supplies routed through Mexico have made that country the drugs equivalent of a Gulf oil state. Rather than try to stem its own voracious appetite for drugs, the rich US shifts guilt on to poor supplier countries. Never was the law of economics that demand always evokes supply so traduced as in Washington’s drugs policy. The US spends $40b/yr on narcotics policy, imprisoning a staggering 1.5m of its citizens under it.

Judging the results, one might even think the drug war solely exists as the principal means through which wealthy elites organize crime. On Dec 13 2009, the Observer reported:

Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis.

Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he saw evidence that “the proceeds of organised crime were ‘the only liquid investment capital’ available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352b of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.” The Observer informed us that this “will raise questions about crime’s influence on the economic system at times of crisis.” Costa told the British newspaper:

In many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital. In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor.

Although the UN’s drug czar declined to identify the countries or banks that benefited from narcotics investments, he said:

Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities. There were signs that some banks were rescued that way.

On Feb 26 2010, responding to charges by left-wing critics and academics, Mexican president Felipe Calderón was forced to counter evidence that his government’s “offensive” against narcotraffickers has left the “largest and most powerful of the cartels relatively unscathed,” the LA Times disclosed. Critics accused the government of favoritism towards the Sinaloa cartel, claiming it “has been allowed to escape most of the government’s firepower and carry on with its illegal business as usual.” During a news conference, Calderón said such charges were “absolutely false.” The president said the suggestion was “painful,” and went on to say:

I can assure you that this government has attacked without discrimination all criminal groups in Mexico, without taking into consideration whether it’s the cartel of so-and-so or what’s-his-name. We’ve fought them all.

Edgardo Buscaglia, an academic expert on organized crime, challenged the president and said that arrest figures “skew heavily” toward the other cartels. The LA Times reported:

By his calculation, of more than 53,000 people arrested in drug-trafficking cases in the three years since Calderón took office, fewer than 1,000 worked for the Sinaloa organization.

Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the Sinaloa cartel crime boss, placed 937th on Forbes 2010 survey of the world’s billionaires, with an estimated net worth of $1b. A similar modus operandi is standard practice where foreign policy and corporate concerns of the US’s wealthiest clients overseas override efforts by law enforcement to choke off the flow of narcotics. In Colombia, secret state agencies such as the CIA have long-favored drug organizations that have served as intelligence assets or death squads. Examples abound. Consider the “untouchable” status enjoyed by the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers’ Cali cartel. During the 1980s, at the height of the US’s Central American interventions, cocaine shipped into the US as part of the US government’s “guns-for-drugs” arrangement with Nicaraguan Contra rebels was principally supplied by Cali traffickers. When Medellín drug lord Pablo Escobar’s group was brought down, the CIA, DEA and the Pentagon’s Delta Force relied on operatives funded by the rival Cali faction and Los Pepes, a vigilante group founded by drug lord Carlos Castaño and his brothers Fidel and Vicente. Los Pepes had operational links to the Colombian National Police, especially the Search Bloc Bloque de Búsqueda hunting Escobar, and acted on intelligence provided by the CIA/DEA/Delta Force to execute their missions.

After Escobar’s death, the Castaño brothers launched the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia AUC , a notorious right-wing death squad. The AUC in coordination with the Colombian Army carried out multiple attacks and massacred thousands of leftists, trade union organizers and peasant activists. In 2001 under pressure from human rights groups, the US State Dept designated the AUC a “Foreign Terrorist Organization.” This didn’t however, prevent US corporations such as Chiquita, Occidental, Coca-Cola or Drummond from allegedly hiring out AUC paramilitaries to murder trade union and peasant activists. In 2007, Chiquita pled guilty in federal district court and paid a $25m fine under provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1991 for funding the AUC. Dole Foods now faces similar charges. In 2002, the Justice Dept unsealed an indictment against Carlos Castaño and accused him of trafficking some 17 tons of cocaine into the US.

On Mar 9 2010, the National Security Archive published a series of documents linking the US secret state to Mexico’s dirty warriors and drug cartel operatives under official protection by a CIA-allied intelligence agency. Peter Dale Scott reported that:

Both the FBI and CIA intervened in 1981 to block the indictment on stolen car charges of the drug-trafficking Mexican intelligence czar Miguel Nazar Haro, claiming that Nazar was ‘an essential repeat essential contact for CIA station in Mexico City,’ on matters of ‘terrorism, intelligence, and counterintelligence’.

The National Security Archive disclosed that Nazar Haro’s corrupt Dirección Federal de Seguridad DFS was responsible for the disappearance, torture and murder of left-wing activists during the 1970s and ’80s. The Archive revealed:

There is a deep connection between the former Mexican intelligence service and the country’s drug mafias. As DFS agents took command of counterinsurgency raids in the 1970s, they often stumbled upon narcotics safe houses and quickly took on the job of protecting Mexico’s drug cartels.

Researchers Kate Doyle and Jesse Franzblau told us that although “the DFS was disbanded in 1985 following revelations that it was behind the murder of DEA agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena and Mexican journalist Manuel Buendia,” of the 1,500 agents who suddenly found themselves unemployed, many “found their training in covert activities and brutal counterinsurgency operations easily adaptable to the needs of the criminal underworld.” In 2006, the National Security Archive and investigative journalist Jefferson Morley disclosed that declassified US documents “reveal CIA recruitment of agents within the upper echelons of the Mexican government between 1956 and 1969. The informants used in this secret program included President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz and future President Luis Echeverría.” As we now know, when he served as Interior Secretary in the Díaz government, Echeverría oversaw the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre of student activists just days before the Summer Olympics were staged in Mexico City. Morley wrote:

The documents detail the relationships cultivated between senior CIA officers, such as chief of station Winston Scott, and Mexican government officials through a secret spy network code-named LITEMPO. Operating out of the US Embassy in Mexico City, Scott used the LITEMPO project to provide an unofficial channel for the exchange of selected sensitive political information which each government wanted the other to receive but not through public protocol exchanges’.

Peter Dale Scott wrote back in 2000:

One of the most crime-ridden CIA assets we know of is the Mexican DFS, which the US helped to create. From its foundation in the 1940s, the DFS, like other similar kryptocracies in Latin America, was deeply involved with international drug-traffickers. By the 1980s possession of a DFS card was recognized by DEA agents as a license to traffic; DFS agents rode security for drug truck convoys, and used their police radios to check of signs of US police surveillance.

Evidence suggests that similar protection and management of the global drug trade persists today. On Mar 16 2010, Wachovia Bank, a subsidiary of banking giant Wells Fargo, signed a Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the federal government. Wells admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report some $378.4b in suspected money-laundering transactions by narcotics traffickers between 2004-2008, “a sum equal to one-third of Mexico’s current GDP,” Bloomberg revealed. Cash laundered by drug mafias was used to purchase a fleet of planes that subsequently shipped some 22 tons of cocaine into the US. Wells paid the government $160m to resolve the case. American Express and Western Union also agreed recently to huge settlements with the government for similar offenses.

On May 19 2010, retired Mexican Army General Mario Arturo Acosta Chaparro was shot and wounded in Mexico City during an alleged robbery attempt. El Universal reports that police claimed that a thief wanted to “steal the general’s watch” and shot him several times in the chest. In 2007, after a six-year imprisonment on charges of providing protection to late drug-trafficking kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes, chief of the Juárez cartel and self-described “Lord of the Heavens,” Acosta Chaparro was released from custody after his conviction was overturned on appeal. According to documents published by global whistleblowers WikiLeaks in 2009, the Swiss Bank Julius Baer’s Cayman Islands unit allegedly hid “several million dollars” of funds controlled by Acosta Chaparro and his wife Silvia through a firm known as Symac Investments. WikiLeaks wondered whether Mexican authorities would “want to know whether the several millions of dollars had anything to do with the allegations that Chaparro, a former police chief from the Mexican state of Guerrero, stopped chasing his local drug dealers and joined them in business.” According to reports cited by WikiLeaks:

Acosta Chaparro was already the subject of multiple allegations not only that he was a narco-trafficker but also that he had played a leading role in the dirty war of police and army against rural guerrillas on his patch between 1975 and 1981. He was accused of organising the seizure, torture and murder of peasants who were suspected of helping the rebels, and, with particular persistence, of overseeing ‘flights of death’ in which well-tortured detainees were taken up in helicopters and pushed out over the ocean while still alive. No action was taken at all. Chaparro’s funds might still be managed by the former representative of Julius Baer in Mexico, Curtis Lowell, in Zurich.

On Jun 7 2010, Guerrero State Attorney General Albertico Guinto announced that 55 bodies were found deep in an abandoned silver mine outside Taxco, the Christian Science Monitor reported. In various states of decomposition, the victims showed signs of torture before being killed. “It was like a quicksand, but filled with bodies,” Luis Rivera, the chief criminologist investigating the scene told the WaPo. The recovery of the remains took nearly a week, “a task made more difficult” by the fact that some cadavers were mummified, others were dismembered by the fall and at least four of the victims had been decapitated. “There are headless bodies, but some of the heads don’t match the bodies,” Rivera said. Based on wound analysis of the corpses, investigators theorized that “many of the victims were alive when they were thrown down the mine shaft.” On Jun 12 2010, the Narco News Bulletin reported:

A special operations task force under the command of the Pentagon is currently in place south of the border providing advice and training to the Mexican Army in gathering intelligence, infiltrating and, as needed, taking direct action against narco-trafficking organizations.

A “former US government official who has experience dealing with covert operations,” told journalist Bill Conroy:

Black operations have been going on forever. The recent media reports about those operations under the Obama administration make it sound like it’s a big scoop, but it’s nothing new for those who understand how things really work.

Perhaps we should recall how “things” have worked in the recent past. Back in 2003, the Brownsville Herald reported:

Los Zetas, formerly the enforcement arm of the Gulf cartel, feature 31 ex-soldiers once part of an elite division of the Mexican army, the Special Air Mobile Force Group. At least one-third of this battalion’s deserters was trained at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Ga., according to documents from the Mexican secretary of defense.

According to the US Defense Dept, some 513 Mexican Special Forces soldiers received training at the School of the Americas, and about 120 “graduates” joined the Special Air Mobile Force. Luis Astorga, a drug trafficking expert at the National Autonomous University in Mexico City, told the Herald:

There is a higher level of danger with the type of knowledge that these people have, their arms capacity, their knowledge of techniques and specialization in traffic operations. Traffickers traditionally don’t have that; they pay other people for those services.

Is history repeating itself under the Mérida Initiative? A former DEA official told Narco News in 2005:

A lot of the Zetas came from former Mexican police offices or the military. So they come from a diverse background. Some of them have prior training from the DEA, FBI and the US military, as well as other agencies.

On Jun 28 2010, Rodolfo Torre Cantu, the leading candidate for governor in the state of Tamaulipas, was gunned down in one of the highest profile assassinations since a presidential candidate was murdered under suspicious circumstances in 1994. Four others, including local lawmaker Enrique Blackmore, were also killed when their campaign van was sprayed with machine gun fire by unknown assailants. Cantu had vowed to crack down on drug gangs if elected. On Jul 15 2010, a powerful car bomb exploded on a crowded street near a federal police headquarters in Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. Four were killed, including a police officer and doctor lured to the scene. On Jul 15 2010, investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker revealed:

Carmelo Vasquez Guerra, the pilot of the US-registered DC-9 N900SA from St. Petersburg, FL caught carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine in Mexico’s Yucatan several years ago, had been released from prison less than two years after being arrested.

Hopsicker reported on Nov 12 2007:

Readers will recall that the DC-9 and another US-registered plane, a Gulfstream II business jet N987SA that spilled 4 tons of cocaine across a muddy field were used in CIA rendition flights and had been purchased by Mexican drug gangs with funds laundered through Wachovia Bank. The shocking news was delivered via an international headline stating that a pilot named Carmelo Vasquez Guerra had been arrested in the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau on a twin-engine Gulfstream II carrying 550 kilos, a half-ton, of cocaine. The pilot was arrested and released from three countries under mysterious and unexplained circumstances. Maybe there is an innocent explanation for everything. Maybe drugs just show up, unbidden, like unwanted guests. And maybe Carmelo Vasquez Guerra didn’t escape each time he got busted. Maybe he just released himself on his own recognizance.

On Jul 18 2010, in the wake of the massacre of 17 people attending a birthday party in the northern city of Torreon, the Christian Science Monitor revealed that inmates from a prison in the nearby city of Gomez Palacio were the authors of the crime. Ricardo Najera, a spokesman from the attorney general’s office:

According to witnesses, the inmates were allowed to leave with authorization of the prison director, to carry out instructions for revenge attacks using official vehicles and using guards’ weapons for executions.

After the atrocity, inmates drove back to their cells. On Jul 20 2010, following the Juárez car bomb blast that killed four, US Ambassador to Mexico Arturo Sarukhan downplayed its significance and claimed, though disturbing, violence “has not yet reached the level of terrorism,” the WaPo reported. The US ambassador said:

Terrorism refers to the acts by groups with political objectives that seek to control the government.

But what if those with “political objectives” and limitless funds from the illicit trade already control the state’s security apparatus? By Jul 25 2010, nearly 6,300, a quarter of the total of the more than 28,000 people killed since Dec 2006 when President Felipe Calderón “hurled the Mexican Army into the anti-cartel battle,” had been murdered in Ciudad Juárez alone, the Nation reports. Under a three-year deal, the US has bankrolled the Army offensive with some $1.4b in funds under the Mérida Initiative. Journalists Charles Bowden and Molly Molloy wrote in response to Ambassador Sarukhan’s statement:

We are supposed to believe in their evidence that 90% of the dead are criminals, but that they have no evidence at all of narco-terrorism? This, despite numerous incidents of grenades and other explosives being used in recent attacks in the states of Michoacan, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, Guerrero, Sonora and many other places in Mexico. And that ‘armed commandos’ dressed like soldiers and wielding high-powered machine guns are witnessed at the scenes of hundreds of massacres documented since 2008.

According to expert Diego Valle, the steep rise in homicide rates correlates directly to increased military operations against some cartels. In his recent study, Statistical Analysis and Visualisation of the Drug War in Mexico, Valle writes:

Military operations in Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Veracruz and Durango have coincided with increases in homicides and attempts by the Sinaloa cartel to take over drug trafficking routes from rival cartels. After the army took control of Ciudad Juárez it became the most violent city in the world.

Building on alliances forged during the Cold War amongst right-wing political gangs and drug traffickers, cartel operations in Central America have soared, the WaPo informed us on Jul 27 2010. Since 2006, drug networks in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras “are burrowing deeper into a region with the highest murder rates in the world.” According to UN data, cocaine seizures in Central America “nearly quadrupled” between 2004 and 2007. The WaPo reported:

Over the past two years, two national police chiefs and the former president have been arrested on charges related to drug trafficking or corruption. Two former interior ministers are fugitives.

In Honduras, where a US-sponsored coup toppled a democratically elected president in 2009, Mexican cartels have established “command-and-control” centers to coordinate cocaine shipments by sea and air to North America and Europe. In El Salvador, that country’s leftist president has said that the violent street gang, Mara Salvatrucha MS-13 , have forged a working relationship with drug cartels that could eventually help the group mature into “an international syndicate.” On Aug 22 2010, journalist Bill Conroy reported in Narco News that despite surging violence in Ciudad Juárez, the murder-plagued city “where some 10,000 small businesses have closed their doors since 2008 due, in large part, to a wave of burglaries, kidnappings, extortion and murders that has washed over the city during the past two and a half years,” why is the violence not affecting the entire city? Conroy writes:

There is often an exception to most rules, and in the case of Juárez, the rule of violence does not extend to its industrial zones, which are home to some 360 maquiladora factories that employ more than 190,000 people.

According to a report obtained by Narco News from the El Paso Regional Economic Development Corporation, or REDCO, “there was only one homicide carried out in the maquila industrial zones” since 2008. Conroy avers:

That’s right, just one murder in this huge swath of Juárez that is dotted with maquila plants operated by huge corporations such as General Motors, Delphi, Motorola, Visteon, TECMA and Honeywell. Maquiladoras, also known as twin plants, are Mexico-based factories owned and/or operated by foreign companies that benefit from the cheap labor and favorable tax treatment. REDCO officials refused to comment to Narco News. However, TECMA executive vice president Toby Spoon told ABC’s El Paso affiliate KVIA that “If they got the maquila industry, or US companies or foreign companies, if they became targets of this, it would just take it to a whole different level, and nobody wants that.”

Isn’t that an interesting statement! So it would appear, based on that comment, that the narco-trafficking organizations, the Mexican government and the maquila factory owners have some sort of unspoken alliance of convenience that assures protection for the maquila factories and their professional employees. Indeed, Narco News discovered that at last three security zones have been set up in Juárez that are guarded by Mexican soldiers who assure safe passage for Maquila executives commuting from El Paso to the Juárez factory sites. In addition, the maquila industrial zones themselves, according to media reports, are under the close watch of Mexican state police as well as private security guards employed by the maquilas. This is the same Army and federal police force that is seemingly “powerless” to halt the slaughter of Juárez citizens by ubiquitous, yet invisible, drug gangs which have transformed that city, and northern Mexico, into a free-fire zone. Curious indeed!

On Aug 25 2010, a wounded Ecuadorean migrant stumbled to a Mexican Marine checkpoint in the northern state of Tamaulipas nd led officials to a blood-splashed room. Inside, authorities discovered the bodies of 58 men and 14 women, allegedly murdered by Los Zetas, or another cartel seeking to discredit their rivals. “Years ago,” IPS reported, “Los Zetas found a gold mine: kidnapping undocumented migrants.” The UN estimates that some half million undocumented migrants from Central and South America “cross Mexico from south to north every year in their attempt to reach the US.” And more than 10,000 were kidnapped between Sep 2009-Feb 2010, according to Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission. According to multiple press reports, the migrants were killed after they refused to serve as forced labor for Los Zetas. On Aug 26 2010, a veteran officer with the US Customs and Border Protection service, a satrapy within the sprawling Dept of Homeland Security, Martha Alicia Garnica, 43, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for drug trafficking, human smuggling and bribery. The Center for Investigative Reporting disclosed:

Three other defendants received prison sentences, ranging from two years to a little more than five years. A fourth defendant was murdered in February in Juárez.

On Aug 27 2010, the Nation revealed:

Federal prosecutors have used top leaders of Mara Salvatrucha MS-13 , known as the most violent gang in the US and Central America, as secret informants over a decade of murders, drug-trafficking and car-jackings across a dozen US states and several Central American countries. Former California state senator Tom Hayden told us that the informants are identified as Nelson Comandari, described by law enforcement as ‘the CEO of Mara Salvatrucha,’ and his self-described ‘right hand man,’ Jorge Pineda, nicknamed ‘Dopey’ because of his drug-dealing background. Comandari’s grandfather was Col Agustin Martinez Varela, a powerful right-wing Salvadoran who served as an interior minister during El Salvador’s civil wars. Comandari’s uncle, Franklin Varela, was a central informant in the Reagan administration’s scandalous investigation into the activist Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador.

In his 1998 written testimony to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, retired DEA Special Agent Celerino Castillo told Congress:

While our government shouted ‘Just Say No!’, entire Central and South American nations fell into what are now known as ‘cocaine democracies.’

On Jan 18 1985, retired CIA officer Felix Rodriguez allegedly met with money-launderer Ramon Milan-Rodriguez, who had moved $1.5b for the Medellin cartel. Milan testified before a Senate Investigation on the Contras’ drug smuggling that before this 1985 meeting he had granted Felix Rodriguez’s request and given $10m from the cocaine for the Contras. Contra drug operations were coordinated by the CIA out of El Salvador’s Ilopango airport and protected from prying eyes, and US law enforcement investigators, by troops drawn from by Col Varela’s interior ministry. According to the National Security Archive’s Oliver North File:

North’s diary entries, from the reporter’s notebooks he kept in those years, noted multiple reports of drug smuggling among the contras. A WaPo investigation published on Oct 22 1994 found no evidence he had relayed these reports to the DEA or other law enforcement authorities.

On Aug 28 2010, the bullet-ridden body of Roberto Suarez Vasquez, the lead investigator probing the murder of 72 Central- and South American migrants, was found on a highway not far from where the massacre took place. On Aug 31 2010, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that the entire 2,000 mile US-Mexico border will be monitored by Predator drones, as part of a $600m package passed by Congress earlier this year, and the border was now “safer than ever.” On Aug 31 2010, the LA Times reported:

Some 3,200 Mexican federal police, nearly a tenth of the force, have been fired this year under new rules designed to weed out crooked cops and modernize law enforcement.

Amongst the 465 cops arrested in early August, federal authorities took four commanders into custody after 250 subordinates in violence-plagued Ciudad Juárez publicly accused them of corruption. On Sep 6 2010, the LA Times reported:

Drug traffickers who siphon off natural gas, gasoline and even crude, rob the Mexican treasury of hundreds of millions of dollars annually. The cartels have taken sabotage to a new level: They’ve hobbled key operations in parts of the Burgos Basin, home to Mexico’s biggest natural gas fields. The world’s seventh-largest oil producer has become another casualty of the drug war.

A series of kidnappings and murders in the gas-rich region has curtailed production. Pemex officials refused to comment and have sought to “repress information on the kidnappings.” Despite a massive outcry by Mexico’s citizens against moves by the Calderón administration to privatize Pemex, which generates some $77b/yr in revenue, Chevron’s Latin American operations chief Ali Moshiri told the Houston Chronicle that the company wants to make Mexico “a big part of our portfolio.” In this light, violence against Pemex workers and crippled production is nothing more than an odd coincidence, right? On Sep 8 2010, speaking at the CFR in Washington, Sec State Clinton claimed that Mexico’s drug cartels “increasingly resemble an insurgency with the power to challenge the government’s control of wide swaths of its own soil,” the LA Times reported. Comparing Mexico to Colombia, Clinton’s comments reflect past US claims that Colombia’s well-entrenched drug mafias were part of a leftist “narcoguerrilla” strategy to topple the government. This is a mendacious comparison, given rich evidence that for decades Colombia’s leading mafia groups are allied with extreme right-wing forces in that country’s political establishment. Declassified US documents revealed that former President Álvaro Uribe enjoyed close ties to drug-linked paramilitary organizations. A darling of the Pentagon and the US secret state, according to multiple press reports and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive, when Uribe was mayor of Medellín, the epicenter of Pablo Escobar’s narcoempire, the now-dead mafia boss’s former lover Virginia Vallejo told the Spanish paper El País:

Pablo used to say, that if it weren’t for that blessed little boy [Uribe], we would have to swim to Miami to get drugs to the gringos.

According to Vallejo, when Uribe was the director of Colombia’s Civil Aviation authority, he granted dozens of licenses for runways and hundreds of permits for planes and helicopters, on which the drug trade’s infrastructure was built. The 1991 document by the DIA noted that Uribe was a “close personal friend of Pablo Escobar” who was “dedicated to collaboration with the Medellín cartel at high government levels.” On Sep 9 2010, 25 people, including women and teenagers ranging in age from 15 to 60, were murdered in Ciudad Juárez by Juárez cartel gunmen, the El Paso Times reported. The operation was allegedly mounted against their rivals in the Sinaloa drugs organization, apparently in retaliation for a kidnapping. The well-coordinated attacks took place in different parts of the city. Despite thousands of Mexican Army troops and federal police stationed in the city, the attacks took place with impunity. Since 2008, more than 6,400 Juárez citizens have been killed. While President Calderón claims that 90% of victims are connected to drug organizations, evidence suggests that, like the 72 migrant workers slaughtered in Tamaulipas in August, most of the victims had no ties to the murderous trade. On Sep 10 2010, seeking to calm a “diplomatic furor” over thet comments by Clinton that Mexico “resembled Colombia” during the heyday of cartel power, Obama disputed Clinton’s assertion, the LA Times reported. In what could generously be described as a replay of President Ronald Reagan’s repeated denials that right-wing Nicaraguan Contra “rebels” were deeply mired in cocaine trafficking, Obama told the Spanish-language La Opinion newspaper:

Mexico is a great democracy, vibrant, with a growing economy, and as a result, what is happening there can’t be compared with what happened in Colombia 20 years ago.

Human rights abuses are widespread. According to Amnesty International, political dissidents, environmentalists, trade union activists and indigenous human rights defenders are routinely disappeared, tortured or murdered with impunity. On Sep 12 2010, an in-depth WaPo profile of convicted US Customs and Border Patrol officer Martha Garnica, sentenced in August for drug smuggling and human trafficking along the border, revealed:

The number of CBP corruption investigations opened by the inspector general climbed from 245 in 2006 to more than 770 this year. Corruption cases at its sister agency, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, rose from 66 to more than 220 over the same period. The vast majority of cases involve illegal trafficking of drugs, guns, weapons and cash across the Southwest border.

Although Garnica received a 20-year sentence for her crimes, not a single criminal indictment has been issued by the US Justice Dept for crimes committed by top corporate officers of Wells Fargo-owned Wachovia Bank, who admitted earlier this year to laundering hundreds of billions of dollars for Mexico’s ultra-violent drug mafias. Aside from Bloomberg‘s comprehensive investigation, neither the WaPo nor other US “newspaper of record” reported on the bank’s “deferred prosecution agreement” with the federal government. On Sep 15 2010, writing in the Nation, investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill revealed that the private security firm Blackwater “have provided intelligence, training and security services to US and foreign governments as well as several multinational corporations.” According to Scahill, “former CIA paramilitary officer Enrique ‘Ric’ Prado set up a global network of foreign operatives, offering their ‘deniability’ as a ‘big plus’ for potential Blackwater customers.” While Blackwater’s mercenary network was originally created to service CIA black ops, Prado wrote an email to a Total Intelligence executive a Blackwater cut-out with the subject line, “Possible Opportunity in DEA-Read and Delete,” a pitch to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The Nation reports “that executive was an eighteen-year DEA veteran with extensive government connections.” Prado explained:

Blackwater has developed a rapidly-growing worldwide network of folks that can do everything from surveillance to ground truth to disruption operations. These are all foreign nationals except for a few cases where US persons are the conduit but no longer ‘play’ on the street , so deniability is built in and should be a big plus.

According to Scahill, the executive wrote back and suggested that “one of the best places to start may be the Special Operations Division.” Scahill writes that the SOD is a secretive joint command within the US Justice Dept run by the DEA, and serves as the command-and-control center for some of the most sensitive counternarcotics and law enforcement operations conducted by federal forces. As we have seen with other clandestine operations run amok in the drug war, “deniable” assets, especially when they are “foreign nationals” with no direct ties to the US government, have a funny habit of lending their well-compensated “expertise” to drug traffickers. One is reminded of the case of Israeli mercenary Yair Klein, a former IDF lieutenant colonel. Klein’s private security firm Spearhead produced training videos and tutored drug lord Carlos Castaño’s AUC in the fine art of murder. In 2001, Klein was convicted by a Colombian court for his firm’s work with right-wing death squads and the enforcement arms of several drug trafficking organizations. According to Democracy Now!, Klein was “accused of training Mafia assassins” and “suspected of involvement in the explosion of a Colombian airliner in Nov 1989.” Given Blackwater’s sensitivity to human rights just ask Baghdad residents! one can be certain that the mercenary firm’s interest in the drug war will assure Mexico’s citizens that help is on the way!

It should be clear: the “War on Drugs,” like the “War on Terror,” is a colossal, multi-billion-dollar fraud perpetrated on the US people. North Americans consume drugs and line the pockets of state-connected killers; Latin Americans do the dying. Low-level dealers and the poor who buy their illicit products are rewarded with wrecked lives, devastated communities and one-way tickets to prison. US banking and financial elites reap whirlwind profits and are handed virtual get-out-of-jail-free cards by federal prosecutors and courts that levy fines regarded as little more than chump change by the banks. The CIA and their far-flung network of private contractors siphon off illegal proceeds from the grim trade laundered through US and European financial institutions. The US secret state, seeking geopolitical advantage over their imperialist rivals, deploy drug mafias and right-wing terrorists as plausibly deniable intelligence assets, just as they have for decades. Congressional banking and intelligence probes are killed. Black operations in areas of strategic interest to US policy planners spread death and destruction, particularly where rich petrochemical and mineral reserves owned by other people are lusted after by US multinationals. Corporate media collaborate in this charade; pointing the finger at black and brown citizens, white elites on both sides of the border escape scrutiny. It is far easier to demonize black and brown youth as “predators” than to take a hard look in the mirror at a ruling class that are the real drug lords. And still we wonder why Mexico is slowly transformed into a killing field.

By Nick Egnatz | Online Journal | September 20, 2010

A self-described representative democracy in which the only two political parties are both funded and controlled by elite corporate interests is a contradiction in terms. Control of the population through government propaganda and a monopoly corporate media have made the domination of the American working class and poor by the wealthy corporate elite consensual. The enormity of the crime against true democratic values is so complete that substantive reform of the present system is an impossibility.

A dilemma is a situation in which one is forced to choose between equally distasteful options. That has always been our consignment as Americans when we venture to the polls either vote for a wishy-washy Democrat or let the even worse Republican win . Every two years we are told that the fate of our democracy rests on our decision. Well it doesn’t because we don’t have a democracy, representative or otherwise. We have a plutocracy rule by the wealthy . Our two political parties answer out of necessity to the corporate world. No one represents the people and the monopoly corporate media will not allow for a discussion of democratic alternatives.

The chickens have come home to roost from the last 30 years of economic neoliberal globalization policies championed by both political parties. Supply side economics of massive tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation of the very modest checks on American capitalism necessitated by the Great Depression have made us the most unequal industrial democracy on earth. Imperial wars of aggression and massive bailouts of the very speculators who engineered the financial collapse leading to the Great Recession have allowed both corporate parties to take the stance that there is no money left for the people’s needs. This is poppycock. How can a consumer driven economy recover if the working class and poor have no jobs or money?

To cut spending on social programs with political cover, Obama came up with the brilliant idea of a budget deficit commission National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform made up of bipartisan hacks from both our two corporate parties, representatives from the corporate world of greed and a single union president. Green Party and socialists need not apply and in fact there are no even mildly progressive Democrats an oxymoron if there ever was one on the commission. The commission is not a result of legislation from our Congress. It was formed by Executive Order. This is the way dictators govern, but that’s another issue. The commission is charged to cut the Budget Deficit by cutting social programs only and leaving the military spending intact. If and when 14 of the commission’s 18 members agree on policy it will go straight to Congress for a vote with no amendments allowed.

Co-chairman of the commission Alan Simpson, former Republican Senator from Wyoming received some notoriety recently by referring to seniors on Social Security as “lesser people,” calling Social Security a “cow with 310 million tits” and asking the question of Vietnam veterans “what have they done for us lately?’ None of this bothered our President enough to ask for Simpson’s resignation. Their recommendation is due in December, after the midterm election.

We are expected to accept the government propaganda that the unemployment rate is 9.6 percent, when that figure does not include those no longer receiving or who never received unemployment compensation, part time workers desiring full time work or workers disdainfully referred to as having given up looking for work. Including all these would bring the unemployment figure to 22 percent. But that still doesn’t count those working for less than a livable wage, this would easily bring the figure well beyond the 30 percent range. This assault on the working class has been the goal of the neoliberal globalization policy accepted as gospel by both corporate political parties since Ronald Reagan started selling it in the 70′s and 80′s when he set out to save the country from the scourge of a prosperous working class. The Great Communicator pushed his dogma of bad government/good corporations with the same smile he used to push Twenty Mule Team Borax soap to TV viewers years earlier.

More than 3 million families have already been foreclosed and torn from their homes. Another 11 million families are “underwater” owing more that the home is worth . Research firm First American Core Logic reports that Nevada with 65 percent of home mortgages underwater, Arizona with 48 percent, Florida with 45 percent, Michigan with 37 percent and California with 35 percent lead the nation in this foreboding statistic.

The Republicans propose fiscal austerity for the poor and working class and continued tax cuts for the wealthy corporate class to find our way our of the Great Recession. Obama and the Democrats say that economic growth will do the trick. Both so called solutions are illogical. We are expected to believe that if the big bad bankers would just pretty please start loaning money to businesses, the economy will start humming and everything will be hunky dory?

I’m not an economist, but I have been a small businessman and I have been told on more than one occasion that I have half a brain. The road to recovery is both simple and difficult. For businesses to thrive, for the economy to hum, the business owners simply need customers with money in their pockets. The first step is to put our citizens back to work at a livable wage and the economy will flourish. It will be difficult, to the point of impossibility, for corporate politicians to consider the people at the bottom first, but that is what needs to be done.

We are told that the fall elections are for the control of our country. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are told that we cannot allow the Republican Party of No to win Congress, yet the Democrats have controlled Congress for four years, the White House for two and there has been no challenge to the draconian policies of social spending cuts, endless imperial war and progressively greater and greater inequality. All now completely part and parcel of the fabric of a nation once founded on the single statement that “all men are created equal.” Regardless of which party wins and controls Congress, elite domination of the poor and working class will continue.

Understand that the system is beyond redemption. Recognize that we have exported the cancer of elite domination through globalization across the globe and that the struggle belongs to all the poor and working people of the world. Boycott elections that give credibility to this monstrous system of inequality and class domination. Organize on the basis of class and struggle for the equality that was promised in 1776.

Or you can support the Democratic Party and continue to see more of the same; continued wars, huge military budgets, depressed home prices, foreclosures, abandoned underwater mortgages, progressively greater and greater inequality and Depression Era unemployment. All done while the Democrats complain that they would like to change things, but that they just don’t have the votes or the heart or the balls. The last two they won’t admit to, but we all know better.

I’m not painting a pretty picture, because it isn’t pretty and wishing it was better won’t make it so. Voting for third party candidates, independents or so called progressive Democrats only serves to give legitimacy to an undemocratic system. The first step toward a true participatory democracy is to vocally and publicly boycott elections and renounce the American system of money controlled policies and politics through the two corporate political parties.

Right-wingers and liberal Democrats both love to say that I advocate for some kind of nebulous utopian dream. If you want nebulous from the right tune in to Glen Beck and Sarah Palin’s call for restoring America’s honor. If you want the equivalent from the Democratic Party listen to Obama’s calls for hope and change. Both appeals are long on rhetoric and bereft of specific steps to alleviate the misery corporate America and their two lackey political parties have trickled down on the poor and working class.

This socialist utopian will instead give specific plans for a new birth of democracy in America:

• 100 percent federal funding for all national elections. Under the proposal below this figure will become minuscule.
• No election commercials allowed. This just allows money to pollute politics. Instead require all media outlets to publish and broadcast periodic side by side statements of all the candidates positions on the various issues. Mandate debates in which all the candidates get a chance to state their positions on the issues.
• Require run-off elections if no candidate polls more than 50 percent of vote. This will facilitate the growth of alternative parties.
• Either eliminate the anti democratic U.S. Senate or require it to do away with the filibuster rule which allows 41 Senators from the smallest states, representing only 11 percent of the U.S. population to halt all legislation with the exception of certain budget votes.
• Return U.S. income tax rate on the most wealthy Americans to 90 percent for their excess income over $1 million. For 45 years 1935-1980 the top tax rate was between 70-94 percent. It is now 35 percent and the ever widening gap between rich and poor has made the U.S. the equivalent of a banana republic.
• Institute a financial transaction tax on all financial transactions such as stock sales.
• Cancel all free trade agreements and renegotiate into fair trade agreements in which tariffs are re-instituted to even the playing field when dealing with nations with substandard wages and environmental regulations. This is in line with the policy instituted by the first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, done at the behest of George Washington and carried forward for almost two centuries. That is until the neo-liberal globalization crowd made their first appearance after WWII and in the last three decades especially have managed to lower tariffs to an average of 2 percent. The rationale behind tariffs is to level the playing field for our workers. If country A has the same wage rate and basic environmental safeguards as we do, a free trade agreement with them is in order. But if country B has a wage rate much lower than ours and pays little attention to environmental safeguards, then we should have tariffs reflecting these differences. Free trade is fine with equal trading partners, but not with countries paying slave wages and polluting the environment like China.
• Give workers a seat at the table on all corporate boards with veto privileges as a protection for the American people from corporate dominance.
• Do away with the minimum wage and institute a living wage guaranteeing all workers a wage allowing for basic necessities. This will vary with the cost of living in different areas and individual family commitments, but for a single worker with no other dependents in an average area it would presently be about $15/hour.
• Institute a massive program similar to the WPA to put all the unemployed to work at a living wage. There is much work to do, let us do it. Our cities need rebuilding, seniors need care, single parents need parenting help, homes need to be made energy efficient, infrastructure needs repair.
• For small businesses that show through their tax returns an inability to pay their workers the living wage, have the federal government make up the difference until such time as the small business can support its workers on its own.
• Abolish the Federal Reserve Bank and institute a national bank with the power to create money presently given to the Federal Reserve. As the population and economy grows there is a need to create money. If this is not done, it causes deflation and things get progressively cheaper. While that might sound nice at first glance, not creating money would be every bit the disaster that high inflation can be. Imagine buying a home with a mortgage and watching the price drop every year. That’s deflation. We now have that with home prices, but for other reasons. Anyway, the new national bank will have the power to create money and the profit from creating this money will benefit all the people instead of the present banking class.
• The mortgage crisis must be addressed. The megabanks and Wall Street brought it on and should be required to adjust all mortgage balances down by the local percentage that home prices have dropped. The federal government might then consider not prosecuting those responsible for the crisis.
• Capitalism requires continual growth. This is at odds with the earth’s environment. We need to create a sustainable economy which does not wreak havoc with the earth’s delicate ecosystems. Economic growth is good only when it is environmentally sustainable.
• Just as the poor and working class are required to pay social security tax on all their income, require the wealthy to do the same.
• Recognize that healthcare is a human right and immediately institute either 100 percent government single payer healthcare for all or have government take over the healthcare apparatus and be both the employer and the payer of all healthcare bills.
• End the wars for U.S. Empire overseas. Close our 700 overseas military bases. Cut the total military budget now in excess of $1 trillion in half and then half again.
• Disband the Central Intelligence Agency and apologize to the people of all the countries in which our CIA engineered coups to overthrow democratically elected governments. A partial list would include Chile, Brazil, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, Greece, Congo and Iran.
• End military aid to Israel and break off diplomatic relations with them until such time as they agree to abandon all the illegal settlements in the West Bank, tear down the apartheid wall, end the criminal blockade of Gaza and finally allow the Palestinian people a free and independent state based on the 1967 borders that are recognized by the international community of nations.
• The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Democratic Minority Report in 2005 declared that there was a prima facie case that the Bush Administration broke at least seven federal and international laws in taking us into war in Iraq. If we are to be a country of laws, Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell etc. must be investigated and prosecuted.
• Those responsible at the highest level for our policy of torture must be prosecuted.
• Equal diligence should be given to investigating and prosecuting the financial machinations behind the mortgage derivative bundling and trading scams. If they agree to reduce all mortgages by the local percentage drop in value, rework terms for those facing foreclosure, put already foreclosed families back in their homes and donate the rest of their ill gotten gain to charity, we might want to consider not prosecuting.
• The 9/11 Commission Investigation and Report was a complete whitewash. How can there be independence in the investigation when the President is allowed to appoint all the members of the commission? The American people are owed the truth and an independent investigation is absolutely necessary if we are to call ourselves a nation of laws.
• A democracy cannot exist without an informed citizenry. Media purveyors must be required to present the full spectrum of news and opinion.

Politicians from both political parties will avoid these issues like the plague. The question is, should you? Or are you content to support politicians who use soaring rhetoric in describing the plight of our people and then line up in support of corporate friendly legislation that continues the race to the bottom for the poor and working class of America? Will your vote for Congress and the U.S. Senate go to a Democratic candidate who supports not a single one of the above proposals? If the answer is yes and you consider yourself a progressive or liberal, what exactly does that mean?

We can’t fix this system by voting, petitioning, marching or lobbying. We have to change the system. The first step is to call the system what it is; monstrous, criminal and undemocratic. The next step is to refuse to participate in elections and to not be bashful in telling others why. This won’t save the world now, but it’s the only hope for the future.

Western economic imperialism contained the seeds for the rise of a powerful militarist caste capable, under certain circumstances, of affirming their supremacy in shaping the policies and priorities of empire building. This is exactly what has transpired over the past twenty years, especially with regard to US empire-building. The dual processes of military intervention and economic exploitation which characterized traditional Western imperialism gradually shifted toward a dominant highly militarized variant of imperialism. Economic interests, both in terms of economic costs and benefits and global market shares, were sacrificed in the pursuit of military domination. The demise of the USSR and the virtual reduction of Russia to the status of a broken state, weakened states allied to it. They were opened to Western economic penetration and became vulnerable to Western military attack.

Bush 41 perceived the demise of the USSR as a ‘historic opportunity’ to unilaterally impose a unipolar world. According to this new doctrine the US would reign supreme globally and regionally. Projections of US military power would now operate unhindered by any nuclear deterrence. However, Bush 41 was deeply embedded in the US petroleum industry. Thus he sought to strike a balance between military supremacy and economic expansion. Hence the first Iraq war 1990-91 resulted in the military destruction of Saddam Hussein’s military forces, but without the occupation of the entire country or the destruction of civil society, economic infrastructure and oil refineries. Bush 41 represented an uneasy balance between two sets of powerful interests: on the one hand, petroleum corporations eager to access the state owned oil fields and on the other the increasingly powerful militarist zionist power configuration within and outside of his regime. The result was an imperial policy aimed at weakening Saddam as a threat to US clients in the Gulf but without ousting him from power. The fact that he remained in office and continued his support for the Palestinian struggle against the Jewish state’s colonial occupation profoundly irritated Israel and its zionist agents in the US.

With the election of Clinton, the ‘balance’ between economic and military imperialism shifted dramatically in favor of the latter. Under Clinton, zealous zionists were appointed to many of the strategic foreign policy posts in the Administration. This ensured the sustained bombing of Iraq, wrecking its infrastructure. This barbaric turn was complemented by an economic boycott to destroy the country’s economy and not merely “weaken” Saddam. Equally important, the Clinton regime fully embraced and promoted the ascendancy of finance capital by appointing notorious Wall Streeters Rubin, Summers, Greenspan et al. to key positions, weakening the relative power of oil, gas and industrial manufacturers as the driving forces of foreign policy. Clinton set in motion the political ‘agents’ of a highly militarized imperialism, committed to destroying a country in order to dominate it. The ascent of Bush 43 extended and deepened the role of the militarist-zionist personnel in government. The self-induced explosions which collapsed the World Trade Towers in New York served as a pretext to precipitate the launch of imperial barbarism and spelled the eclipse of economic imperialism. The conversion from economic to militarist imperialism was largely the result of the pervasive and deep influence of policymakers of zionist persuasion. Zionist policymakers combined modern technical skills with primitive tribal loyalties. Their singular pursuit of Israel’s dominance in the Middle East led them to orchestrate a series of wars, clandestine operations and economic boycotts crippling the US economy and weakening the economic bases of empire-building.

Militarist-driven empire-building in the present post-colonial global context led inevitably to destructive invasions of relatively stable and functioning nation-states, with strong national loyalties. Destructive wars turned the colonial occupation into prolonged conflicts with resistance movements linked to the general population. Henceforth, the logic and practice of militarist imperialism led directly to widespread and long-term barbarism; the adoption of the Israeli model of colonial terrorism targeting an entire population. This was not a coincidence. Israel’s zionist zealots in Washington drank deeply from the cesspool of Israeli totalitarian practices, including mass terror, housing demolitions, land seizures, overseas special forces assassination teams, systematic mass arrests and torture. These and other barbaric practices, condemned by human rights organizations the world over, including those in Israel, became routine practices of US barbaric imperialism.

The organizing principle of imperial barbarism is the idea of total war. Total in the sense that 1 all weapons of mass destruction are applied; 2 the whole society is targeted; 3 the entire civil and military apparatus of the state is dismantled and replaced by colonial officials, paid mercenaries and unscrupulous and corrupt satraps. The entire modern professional class is targeted as expressions of the modern national-state and replaced by retrograde religious-ethnic clans and gangs, susceptible to bribes and booty-shares. All existing modern civil society organizations are pulverized and replaced by crony-plunderers linked to the colonial regime. The entire economy is disarticulated as elementary infrastructure including water, electricity, gas, roads and sewage systems are bombed along with factories, offices, cultural sites, farms and markets. The Israeli argument of “dual use” targets serves the militarist policymakers as a justification for destroying the bases of a modern civilization. Massive unemployment, population displacement and the return to primitive exchanges characteristic of pre-modern societies define the “social structure.” Educational and health conditions deteriorate and in some cases become non-existent. Curable diseases plague the population and infant deformities result from depleted uranium, the pre-eminent weapon of choice of imperial barbarism.

In summary, the ascendancy of barbarous imperialism leads to the eclipse of economic exploitation. The empire depletes its treasury to conquer, destroy and occupy. The evanescent goal of barbarous imperialism is total military control, based on the prevention of any economic and social rebirth which might lead to a revival of secular anti-imperialism rooted in a modern republic. The goal of securing a colony ruled by cronies, satraps and ethno-religious warlords, willing givers of military bases and permission to intervene, is central to the entire concept of military-driven empire-building. The erasure of the historical memory of a modern independent secular nation-state and the accompanying national heritage becomes of singular importance to the barbarous empire. This task is assigned to the academic prostitutes and related publicists who commute between Tel Aviv, the Pentagon, Ivy league universities and Middle East propaganda mills in Washington.

Clearly imperial barbarism as a social system is the most retrograde and destructive enemy of modern civilized life. Unlike economic imperialism it does not exploit labor and resources, it destroys the means of production, kills workers, farmers and undermines modern life. The discontent of the ravaged population and the pillage of economies under imperial barbarism, has led to the emergence of pre-modern ethno-religious mass movements, with retrograde practices, mass terror, sectarian violence etc. . Theirs is an ideology fit for a theocratic state. Barbaric imperialism is not sustainable because it leads to prolonged wars which drain the imperial treasury and cause injury and death of thousands of US soldiers every year. Unending and unwinable colonial wars are unacceptable to the domestic population. The ‘goals’ of military conquest and satrap rule are illusory. A stable, ‘rooted’ political class capable of ruling by overt or tacit consent is incompatible with colonial overseers. The ‘foreign’ military goals imposed on imperial policymakers via the influential presence of zionists in key offices have struck a mighty blow against the profit-seeking opportunities of US multi-nationals via sanctions policies. Pulled downward and outward by high military spending and powerful agents of a foreign power, the resort to barbarism has a powerful effect in prejudicing the US economy.

Today the overall picture is grim for the future of militarist imperialism. In Brazil, South Africa and Southeast Asia, China has displaced the US as the principal trading partner. In contrast the US wallows in unwinable ideological wars in marginal countries like Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan. The US organizes a coup in tiny Honduras, while China signs on to billion dollar joint ventures in oil and iron projects in Brazil and Venezuela and in Argentine grain production. The US specializes in propping up broken states like Mexico and Columbia, while China invests heavily in extractive industries in Angola, Nigeria, South Africa and Iran. The symbiotic relationship with Israel leads the US down the blind ally of totalitarian barbarism and endless colonial wars. In contrast China deepens its links with the dynamic economies of South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Brazil and the oil riches of Russia and the raw materials of Africa.

By JAMES PETRAS | My Catbird Seat | September 19, 2010

Imperialism, its character, means and ends has changed over time and place. Historically, western imperialism, has taken the form of tributary, mercantile, industrial, financial and in the contemporary period, a unique ‘militarist-barbaric’ form of empire building. Within each ‘period’, elements of past and future forms of imperial domination and exploitation ‘co-exist’ with the dominant mode. For example , in the ancient Greek and Roman empires, commercial and trade privileges complemented the extraction of tributary payments. Mercantile imperialism, was preceded and accompanied initially by the plunder of wealth and the extraction of tribute, sometimes referred to as “primitive accumulation”, where political and military power decimated the local population and forcibly removed and transferred wealth to the imperial capitals. As imperial commercial ascendancy was consolidated, manufacturing capital increasingly emerged as a co-participant; backed by imperial state policies manufacturing products destroyed local national manufacturers gaining control over local markets. Modern industrial driven imperialism, combined production and commerce, both complemented and supported by financial capital and its auxiliaries, insurance, transport and other sources of “invisible earnings”.

Under pressure from nationalist and socialist anti-imperialist movements and regimes, colonial structured empires gave way to new nationalist regimes. Some of which restructured their economies, diversifying their productive systems and trading partners. In some cases they imposed protective barriers to promote industrialization. Industrial-driven imperialism, at first opposed these nationalist regimes and collaborated with local satraps to depose industrial oriented nationalist leaders. Their goal was to retain or restore the “colonial division of labor” – primary production exchanged for finished goods. However, by the last third of the 20^th century, industrial driven empire building, began a process of adaptation, “jumping over tariff walls”, investing in elementary forms of ‘production’ and in labor intensive consumer products. Imperial manufacturers contracted assembly plants organized around light consumer goods textiles, shoes, electronics .

Basic changes in the political, social and economic structures of both the imperial and former colonial countries, however, led to divergent imperial paths to empire-building and as a consequence contrasting development performances in both regions.

Anglo-American financial capital gained ascendancy over industrial, investing heavily in highly speculative IT, bio-tech, real estate and financial instruments. Germany and Japanese empire builders relied on upgrading export-industries to secure overseas markets. As a result they increased market share, especially among the emerging industrializing countries of Southern Europe, Asia and Latin America. Some former colonial and semi-colonial countries also moved toward higher forms of industrial production, developing high tech industries, producing capital and intermediate as well as consumer goods and challenging western imperial hegemony in their proximity.

By the early 1990’s a basic shift in the nature of imperial power took place. This led to a profound divergence between past and present imperialist policies and among established and emerging expansionist regimes.

Past and Present Economic Imperialism

Modern industrial-driven empire building MIE is built around securing raw materials, exploiting cheap labor and increasing market share. This is accomplished by collaborating with pliant rulers, offering them economic aid and political recognition on terms surpassing those of their imperial competitors. This is the path followed by China. MIE eschews any attempt to gain territorial possessions, either in the form of military bases or in occupying “advisory” positions in the core institutions of the coercive apparatus. Instead, MIEs’ seek to maximize control via investments leading to direct ownership or ‘association’ with state and/or private officials in strategic economic sectors. MIEs’ utilize economic incentives in the way of economic grants and low interest concessionary loans. They offer to build large scale long term infrastructure projects-railroads, airfields, ports and highways. These projects have a double purpose of facilitating the extraction of wealth and opening markets for exports. MIEs also improve transport networks for local producers to gain political allies. In other words MIEs like China and India largely depend on market power to expand and fight off competitors. Their strategy is to create “economic dependencies” for long term economic benefits.

In contrast imperial barbarism grows out of an earlier phase of economic imperialism which combined the initial use of violence to secure economic privileges followed by economic control over lucrative resources.

Historically, economic imperialism EI resorted to military intervention to overthrow anti-imperialist regimes and secure collaborator political clients. Subsequently, EI frequently established military bases and training and advisory missions to repress resistance movements and to secure a local military officialdom responsive to the imperial power. The purpose was to secure economic resources and a docile labor force, in order to maximize economic returns.

In other words, in this ‘traditional’ path to economic empire building the military was subordinated to maximizing economic exploitation. Imperial power sought to preserve the post colonial state apparatus and professional cadre but to harness them to the new imperial economic order. EI sought to preserve the elite to maintain law and order as the basic foundation for restructuring the economy. The goal was to secure policies to suit the economic needs of the private corporations and banks of the imperial system. The prime tactic of the imperial institutions was to designate western educated professionals to design policies which maximized private earning. These policies included the privatization of all strategic economic sectors; the demolition of all protective measures favoring local producers “opening markets” ; the implementation of regressive taxes on local consumers, workers and enterprises while lowering or eliminating taxes and controls over imperial firms; the elimination of protective labor legislation and outlawing of independent class organizations.

In its heyday western economic imperialism led to the massive transfer of profits, interest, royalties and ill begotten wealth of the native elite from the post-colonial countries to the imperial centers. As befits post-colonial imperialism the cost of administrating these imperial dependencies was borne by the local workers, farmers and employees.

While contemporary and historic economic imperialism have many similarities, there are a few crucial differences. For example China, the leading example of a contemporary economic imperialism, has not established its “economic beach heads” via military intervention or coups, hence it does not possess ‘military bases’ nor a powerful militarist caste competing with its entrepreneurial class in shaping foreign policy. In contrast traditional Western economic imperialism contained the seeds for the rise of a powerful militarist caste capable, under certain circumstances, of affirming their supremacy in shaping the policies and priorities of empire building.

This is exactly what has transpired over the past twenty years, especially with regard to US empire building.

The Rise and Consolidation of Imperial Barbarism

The dual processes of military intervention and economic exploitation which characterized traditional Western imperialism gradually shifted toward a dominant highly militarized variant of imperialism. Economic interests, both in terms of economic costs and benefits and global market shares were sacrificed in the pursuit of military domination.

The demise of the USSR and the virtual reduction of Russia to the status of a broken state, weakened states allied to it. They were “opened” to Western economic penetration and became vulnerable to Western military attack.

President Bush senior perceived the demise of the USSR as an ‘historic opportunity’ to unilaterally impose a unipolar world. According to this new doctrine the US would reign supreme globally and regionally. Projections of US military power would now operate unhindered by any nuclear deterrence. However, Bush senior was deeply embedded in the US petroleum industry. Thus he sought to strike a balance between military supremacy and economic expansion. Hence the first Iraq war 1990-91 resulted in the military destruction of Saddam Hussein’s military forces, but without the occupation of the entire country nor the destruction of civil society, economic infrastructure and oil refineries. Bush senior represented an uneasy balance between two sets of powerful interests: on the one hand, petroleum corporations eager to access the state owned oil fields and on the other the increasingly powerful militarist zionist power configuration within and outside of his regime. The result was an imperial policy aimed at weakening Saddam as a threat to US clients in the Gulf but without ousting him from power. The fact that he remained in office and continued his support for the Palestinian struggle against the Jewish state’s colonial occupation profoundly irritated Israel and its zionist agents in the US.

With the election of William Clinton, the ‘balance’ between economic and military imperialism shifted dramatically in favor of the latter. Under Clinton, zealous zionists were appointed to many of the strategic foreign policy posts in the Administration. This ensured the sustained bombing of Iraq, wrecking its infrastructure. This barbaric turn was complemented by an economic boycott to destroy the country’s economy and not merely “weaken” Saddam. Equally important, the Clinton regime fully embraced and promoted the ascendancy of finance capital by appointing notorious Wall Streeters Rubin, Summers, Greenspan et al. to key positions, weakening the relative power of oil, gas and industrial manufacturers as the driving forces of foreign policy. Clinton set in motion the political ‘agents’ of a highly militarized imperialism, committed to destroying a country in order to dominate it.

The ascent of Bush junior extended and deepened the role of the militarist-zionist personnel in government. The self-induced explosions which collapsed the World Trade Towers in New York served as a pretext to precipitate the launch of imperial barbarism and spelled the eclipse of economic imperialism.

While US empire building converted to militarism, China accelerated its turn toward economic imperialism. Their foreign policy was directed toward securing raw materials via trade, direct investments and joint ventures. It gained influence via heavy investments in infrastructure, a kind of developmental imperialism, stimulating growth for itself and the “host” country. In this new historic context of global competition between an emerging market driven empire and an atavistic militarist imperial state, the former gained enormous economic profits at virtually no military or administrative cost while the latter emptied its treasury to secure ephemeral military conquests.

The conversion from economic to militarist imperialism was largely the result of the pervasive and ‘deep’ influence of policymakers of zionist persuasion. Zionist policymakers combined modern technical skills with primitive tribal loyalties. Their singular pursuit of Israel’s dominance in the Middle East led them to orchestrate a series of wars, clandestine operations and economic boycotts crippling the US economy and weakening the economic bases of empire building.

Militarist driven empire building in the present post-colonial global context led inevitably to destructive invasions of relatively stable and functioning nation-states, with strong national loyalties. Destructive wars turned the colonial occupation into prolonged conflicts with resistance movements linked to the general population. Henceforth, the logic and practice of militarist imperialism led directly to widespread and long-term barbarism-the adoption of the Israeli model of colonial terrorism targeting an entire population. This was not a coincidence. Israel’s zionist zealots in Washington “drank deeply” from the cesspool of Israeli totalitarian practices, including mass terror, house demolitions, land seizures, overseas special force assassination teams, systematic mass arrests and torture. These and other barbaric practices, condemned by human rights organizations the world over, including those in Israel , became routine practices of US barbaric imperialism.

The Means and Goals of Imperial Barbarism

The organizing principle of imperial barbarism is the idea of total war. Total in the sense that 1 all weapons of mass destruction are applied; 2 the whole society is targeted; 3 the entire civil and military apparatus of the state is dismantled and replaced by colonial officials, paid mercenaries and unscrupulous and corrupt satraps. The entire modern professional class is targeted as expressions of the modern national-state and replaced by retrograde religious-ethnic clans and gangs, susceptible to bribes and booty-shares. All existing modern civil society organizations, are pulverized and replaced by crony-plunderers linked to the colonial regime. The entire economy is disarticulated as elementary infrastructure including water, electricity, gas, roads and sewage systems are bombed along with factories, offices, cultural sites, farms and markets.

The Israeli argument of “dual use” targets serves the militarist policymakers as a justification for destroying the bases of a modern civilization. Massive unemployment, population displacement and the return to primitive exchanges characteristic of pre-modern societies define the “social structure”. Educational and health conditions deteriorate and in some cases become non-existent. Curable diseases plague the population and infant deformities result from depleted uranium, the pre-eminent weapon of choice of imperial barbarism.

In summary the ascendancy of barbarous imperialism leads to the eclipse of economic exploitation. The empire depletes its treasury to conquer, destroy and occupy. Even the residual economy is exploited by ‘others’: traders and manufacturers from non-belligerent adjoining states. In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan that includes Iran, Turkey, China and India.

The evanescent goal of barbarous imperialism is total military control, based on the prevention of any economic and social rebirth which might lead to a revival of secular anti-imperialism rooted in a modern republic. The goal of securing a colony ruled by cronies, satraps and ethno-religious warlords – willing givers of military bases and permission to intervene – is central to the entire concept of military driven empire building. The erasure of the historical memory of a modern independent secular nation-state and the accompanying national heritage becomes of singular importance to the barbarous empire. This task is assigned to the academic prostitutes and related publicists who commute between Tel Aviv, the Pentagon, Ivy league universities and Middle East propaganda mills in Washington.

Results and Perspectives

Clearly imperial barbarism as a social system is the most retrograde and destructive enemy of modern civilized life. Unlike economic imperialism it does not exploit labor and resources, it destroys the means of production, kills workers, farmers and undermines modern life.

Economic imperialism is clearly more beneficial to the private corporations; but it also potentially lays the bases for its transformation. Its investments lead to the creation of a working and middle class capable of assuming control over the commanding heights of the economy via nationalist and/or socialist struggle. In contrast the discontent of the ravaged population and the pillage of economies under imperial barbarism, has led to the emergence of pre-modern ethno-religious mass movements, with retrograde practices, mass terror, sectarian violence etc. . Theirs is an ideology fit for a theocratic state.

Economic imperialism with its ‘colonial division of labor’, extracting raw materials and exporting finished goods, inevitably will lead to new nationalist and perhaps later socialist movements. As EI undermines local manufacturers and displaces, via cheap industrial exports, thousands of factory workers, movements will emerge. China may seek to avoid this via ‘plant transplants’. In contrast barbaric imperialism is not sustainable because it leads to prolonged wars which drain the imperial treasury and injury and death of thousands of American soldiers every year. Unending and unwinable colonial wars are unacceptable to the domestic population.

The ‘goals’ of military conquest and satrap rule are illusory. A stable, ‘rooted’ political class capable of ruling by overt or tacit consent is incompatible with colonial overseers. The ‘foreign’ military goals imposed on imperial policymakers via the influential presence of zionists in key offices have struck a mighty blow against the profit seeking opportunities of American multi-nationals via sanctions policies. Pulled downward and outward by high military spending and powerful agents of a foreign power, the resort to barbarism has a powerful effect in prejudicing the US economy.

Countries looking for foreign investment are far more likely to pursue joint ventures with economic driven capital exporters rather than risk bringing in the US with all its military, clandestine special forces and other violent baggage.

Today the overall picture is grim for the future of militarist imperialism. In Latin America, Africa and especially Asia, China has displaced the US as the principal trading partner in Brazil, South Africa and Southeast Asia. In contrast the US wallows in unwinable ideological wars in marginal countries like Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan. The US organizes a coup in tiny Honduras, while China signs on to billion dollar joint ventures in oil and iron projects in Brazil and Venezuela and an Argentine grain production. The US specializes in propping up broken states like Mexico and Columbia, while China invests heavily in extractive industries in Angola, Nigeria, South Africa and Iran. The symbiotic relationship with Israel leads the US down the blind ally of totalitarian barbarism and endless colonial wars. In contrast China deepens its links with the dynamic economies of South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Brazil and the oil riches of Russia and the raw materials of Africa.

James Petras is a Bartle Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. He is the author of 64 books published in 29 languages, and over 560 articles in professional journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, Journal of Contemporary Asia, and Journal of Peasant Studies. He has published over 2000 articles. His latest book is War Crimes in Gaza and the Zionist Fifth Column in America Atlanta:Clarity Pres 2010

Above pic: Diaz c and Ros-Lehtinen r

U.S. Government and CNN Openly Protect and Support Venezuelan Terrorist

AVN reported that Diaz entered the U.S without any difficulties despite the charges against him, and while Telesur said he escaped prison last year, in his interviews Diaz claimed he escaped sometime after May this year.

Diaz was arrested in 2003 after explosions in the Spanish and Colombian embassies in February that year. He was sentenced to nine years and four months in jail for terrorism as one of the material authors of the attacks.

The explosions occurred towards the end of the oil industry lockout where opposition parties and organisations shut down Petroleos de Venezuela PDVSA , at the time still largely controlled by elites. The Venezuelan government argued that the embassy bombings aimed to destabilise the government.

Several discharged military men were also accused of being behind the attacks. Two lieutenants who were accused, José Colina and German Varela, fled the country and also sought political asylum in Miami. Venezuela has since tried to extradite them. Also, according to El Nuevo Herald of Miami, both officers had previously undergone military training courses in the U.S.

Diaz, under a program created by the current Venezuelan government for well behaved prisoners, was allowed to leave the prison to work or study, then returned there to sleep. It was on that basis that he was able to organise his escape.

On 11 September Diaz met with Ros-Lehtinen and Patricia Andrade, head of the Venezuelan Awareness Foundation, which is filing his case for political asylum, and talked to the press.

According to the Miami Herald, Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen sent letters to the Organization of American States OAS and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights asking for help in the case.

Ros-Lehtinen said herself and Andrade had worked hard for Diaz and told press, “The attacks by Chavez against human rights and the most basic freedoms… represent a serious concern for those who struggle against tyrants and their repressive systems… Hugo Chavez is a power hungry despot intent on destroying anyone and anything that he perceives to be an obstacle to his never ending rule”.

Ros-Lehtinen is a Cuban born Republican, plays a prominent role in the Cuba-American Lobby pressuring for political change in Cuba, actively supports the U.S embargo on Cuba, has also lobbied in support of Orlando Bosch, a Cuban convicted of terrorist attacks, and she once said in a documentary that she “welcomed” the assassination of Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Andrade’s Foundation is affiliated to UnoAmerica, the “Union of Democratic Organisations of America,” an organisation that supported the coup in Honduras last year, and whose president Alejandro Pena Esclusa was arrested in July this year after police allegedly found explosives in his home and after Salvadoran terrorist Francisco Chavez Abarca linked him to destabilisation plans.

Since arriving in Miami Diaz has conducted various interviews with the press, including with CNN host Patricia Janiot on 13 September.

In the interview Janiot asked Diaz how he managed to escape Venezuela, about his claim for political asylum and about supposed general repression by the Venezuelan government.

She asked, “How did you manage to get out?” and Diaz responded, “On the 13 May this year a Caracas judge… gave me a benefit, that lasted for three months… which allowed me to look for a way out of the country”. He explained the “open regime benefit” meant that he only slept in the jail from Monday to Thursday at night.

When Janiot asked why he considered himself a political prisoner, he responded that his innocence was proven and the state used all its power to prove him guilty.

He also said he was involved in a protest of militia against Chavez in October 2002, where he was a civilian, and claimed this was the reason he was “linked” to the bombings. He also claimed police tortured people to give evidence against him, and that other evidence was “falsified”.

Janiot asked a question about Cuban “political prisoners” following a general mainstream media line of trying to link so-called Cuban and Venezuelan repression. Diaz claimed there are “more than thirty [political] prisoners in jail in Venezuela” and that a further “one or two thousand” opposition members were being pursued.

Janiot ended the CNN interview by saying, “…Raul Diaz Pena, a Venezuelan student who managed to outwit, we might say, the Venezuelan authorities and come to the United States where he’s seeking political asylum”.

Eva Golinger also reported that two weeks ago CNN broadcast a documentary called “The Guardians of Chavez”, which attempted to link the Chavez government with criminals and terrorist groups.

Meanwhile, in another interview titled “Fleeing Chavez” on Maria Elvira Live, a Spanish language program on Miami TV, Elvira asked almost the same questions as Janiot but asked for more details about how Diaz fled the country.

Diaz said, “On Saturday I went home… then I went through the east of the country… by sea, to an island, and from there I managed to immigrate with some contacts”. The Miami Herald specified that this island was Trinidad.

“You had planned it all?” Elvira asked. “Yes I had it all planned,” Diaz responded. “That’s great that they helped you…How much did it cost you?” Elvira asked. “$6,000,” he said.

“You got out just like the Cubans,” Elvira concluded.

Elvira finished the interview talking about so called torture in Venezuelan prisons, and implied that Cubans were involved.

Opposition groups in Venezuela have tried to frame Diaz’s case, along with others, as an issue of human rights, and in the past, have made demands that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights IACHR investigate the so called “political persecution”.

However the Venezuelan government has responded that the cases cited by the opposition are all common criminal cases.

Diaz is the latest in a list of convicted or accused criminals who have fled to the U.S and received protection. Most recently, Nelson Mezerhane, owner of Banco Federal, fled to Miami after the government took custody of his bank for not maintaining minimum reserve levels in June.

While the U.S accuses Venezuela of not cooperating in the “international war against terrorism”, the U.S has denied all of Venezuela’s extradition requests for terrorists and criminals who have fled Venezuela to the U.S.

Published on Sep 16th 2010 at 1.14pm

John Le Carre, born David Cornwell

Le Carré alludes to the story of George Osborne, Peter Mandelson and Oleg Deripaska. Our kind of Traitor by John le Carré.

He refers to conflict diamonds, illegal oil deals with Iran, fake medicines and the banks kept afloat by drugs money.

He refers to a crooked British MP, on a yacht in the Adriatic.

Are there British traitors who have given away secrets to certain Russians?

Those who reportedly were traitors include Lord Victor Rothschild, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross.

Le Carre's father had links to The Kray Twins, who were Jewish gangsters. In 1999, the London Daily Mail pointed out that the gangster Kray twins, Ronnie and Reggie, were "of Jewish... stock."

John le Carré was a spook.

His father was a con man. John le Carré interview - Telegraph

Le Carre says of his father:

"He was a con man, a fraudster.

"He served four years for fraud, several of them in Wormwood Scrubs...

"When my sister, Charlotte, was researching her role in the film about the Krays she visited their mother.

"Mrs Kray showed her the family album and there was a photograph of our father with his arms around the Kray twins.

The Krays were murderous homosexual gangsters, allegedly linked to boy prostitution and top people.

Le Carre joined the secret service at the age of 17.

~~

Marc Rich

In 2008, The London Evening Standard That's Rich News reported:

"Few recognised the avuncular American chuckling with Naomi Campbell at one of the summer's most spectacular parties in St Tropez...

"This was Marc Rich, one of the world's most secretive billionaires...

"Rich ... has emerged from the shadows, quitting his fortress-like home above Lake Lucerne in Switzerland...

"His house, in Meggen, Switzerland, is his stronghold...

"Rich employs an impressive corps of security people...

"Investigators in the United States claimed Rich's company was dealing with Iran during the US hostage crisis... They also believed he was dealing with other rogue states, including North Korea and Colonel Gaddafi's Libya.

~~

1. Marc Rich Marc Reich , a Jew originally from Belgium, fled the United States in 1983 to live in Switzerland while being prosecuted on charges of tax evasion and illegally making oil deals with Iran during the hostage crisis.

According to Newsmax Marc Rich Helped KGB Create Hidden Government, , 31 March 2001:

"Marc Rich, the most-wanted fugitive pardoned by former President Clinton, was a key figure in the Communist Party and the KGB's creation of an underground government that survived the break-up of the Soviet Union and still rules Russia today behind the scenes."

2. The newspaper Scotland on Sunday reported, 16/9/ 2001, that Osama bin Laden made his fortune in part by working with Jewish-Russian mafia operations in Qatar and Cyprus.

Osama is from a billionaire family which has close ties to the Bush family and the Saudi royal family. aangirfan: The bin Laden Family

According to Wayne Madsen, "The Bin Laden drug network ... intersects with Geneva-based financial entities established by George H. W. Bush while he was CIA director and Vice President and President of the United States." aangirfan: Bush, Bin Laden, Drugs....

3. During the Yeltsin era, the Russian government allegedly allowed certain Jewish gangsters to steal a lot of the countries wealth.

"The fact is that Yeltsin was a hired tool whose job it was to turn Russia's wealth over to the same cartel of Jewish racketeers who controlled Clinton." Digg - Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin dies

After Friedman’s book was published, Russian Jewish Mafia leaders put a bounty on his head.

4. "The Russian Mafiya is into everything from Wall Street to African diamonds... It has compromised governments and threatens the integrity of world banking."

"Sometime in the '90s, the number of Russian mobsters in New York surpassed the head count of all five Italian famiglias combined." Salon.com Books "Red Mafiya: How the Russian Mob Has Invaded ...

"If Marc Mukasey, the Attorney General's son, can be the lawyer for Madoff's top executive Frank DiPascali via his firm Bracewell & Giuliani in New York, and if Madoff turns out as laundering for the Russian mob and drug cartels, then how in the world could Marc have avoided turning them in?" Euddoggwyn's World: MADOFF AND THE RUSSIAN MAFIA?

5. Bernie Madoff made $50 billion disappear.

Madoff may have links to the Mafia. Was Bernie Madoff a Mafia Front? - Jon Taplin’s Blog


6. Michael Collins Piper, at American Free Press, December 2007, writes about ' rudy giuliani godfather of the russian mob'

According to Piper:

Giuliani closed down the local, mainly Italian-American, mafias.

This allowed certain foreign mafias to take over.

These foreign mafias were mainly Jewish and mainly from Russia and Israel.

Sam Kislin is 'a Ukraine-born and now New York-based patron of Israel'.

Kislin is reportedly linked to high-ranking figures in the 'Russian' mafia.

Kislin raised more than $2 million for Giuliani’s intended bid for the Senate in 2000.

The initial base of operations for the Jewish so-called 'Russian' mafia was the Brighton Beach area in Brooklyn.

Giuliani 'looked the other way'.

Robert I. Friedman wrote in his book Red Mafia that 'one of the leading figures' in the Jewish mafia, Shabtai Kalmanovitch, was also working for Mossad.

Friedman pointed out that 'Russian mafia' figures, such as Joseph Kobson, have links to Likud in Israel.

Friedman wrote: "With two decades of unimpeded growth, the Russian Mafiya has succeeded in turning Israel into its very own 'mini-state,' in which it operates with virtual impunity.

"Although many in international law enforcement believe that Israel is by now so compromised that its future as a nation is imperiled, its government, inexplicably, has done almost nothing to combat the problem."

Friedman suggested that U.S. law enforcement has done little to counter the 'Russian' mafia.

The reason, Friedman said: "A large part of the problem was political: the Russian mob was predominantly Jewish."

Patrick Cotter, a top Justice Department prosecutor, reportedly said that while the FBI had squads targeting the Italian-American mafias, there was no squad targeting the 'Russian' mafias.

The Russian-Jewish mafia is "protected by the most powerful political force in the United States today: the Jewish lobby, represented by such groups as the Anti-Defamation League ADL of B’nai B’rith, a documented arm of Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad, as well as the American Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Committee.

"The mass media, largely controlled by Zionist interests, has also redirected attention away from these elements."

Tokhtakhounov

7. Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov is linked to the Russian Mafia and he is an Israeli citizen, according to reports in the Russian media. Radio Islam: Mobster linked to Olympics bribe scandal has Israeli ...

Rosenstein

8. On 17 November 2008, Yaakov Alperon, an Israeli mobster was assassinated in a car bomb attack.

Alperon's enemies included drug lord Zeev Rosenstein.

Alperon was killed by a bomb explosion in his car at a crowded Tel Aviv intersection. At least three other people were wounded in the attack, including a 13-year-old boy.

9. Sam Zemurray was a Russian Jew who became head of the United Fruit Company.

Reportedly, he made his money by keeping in power those dictators who would help keep down workers' wages.

"His 'style' in establishing his own company ... involved bribery and the subsidizing of revolution to overthrow a legitimate government [in Honduras] in order to place someone more favorable to his interests in the executive office." Langley/Schoonover - The Banana Men. American Mercenaries and Entrepreneurs in Central America, 1880-1930, 1995

10. The executive directors of Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds and HBOS earned a combined £122m in pay and cash bonuses over a recent period of 5 years. what bank chiefs earned before meltdown

Banks have lots of Jewish executives.

Eric Daniels, chief executive at Lloyds Bank, earned £10 million.

Sir Fred Goodwin, whose mother was Jewish, earned £15 million.

11. According to Mordechai Zalkin, a senior history lecturer in Israel, it was mainly Jewish mafias who, in the period before World War II, controlled the underworld in Warsaw, Vilna, Odessa and certain other large cities in Europe. World of our god fathers,/ the brains behind the sexslave trade

Reportedly, "Jews could be found at almost all levels of underworld activity, from the individual thief to gangs that numbered more than 100 members."

In his novel, In the Vale of Tears, Mendele Mocher Sforim describes how Jewish mobsters use underhanded methods to kidnap Jewish girls from poor, remote towns and then force them to work as prostitutes. the brains behind the sexslave trade

Bugsy Siegel was Jewish

The sources for the following include: http://www.jewishtribalreview.org/09crime.htm
'The Sacred Chain - A History of the Jews' by Norman Cantor - Harper Collins, 1995
http://www.jewishtribalreview.org/capitalists.htm http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp414.htm

12. "It was the Jews, by and large," says Norman Cantor, "not the Italians, who created what was later called the Mafia.

"In the 1920s the Italians began to replace the Jews in the New York organized crime industry, but as late as 1940 if you wanted a spectacular hit you were looking for a representative of the Lepke Buchalter Gang, also known as Murder Inc.

"Jews were also prominent in the gambling trade and developed Las Vegas in the 1940s. It was a Jewish gambler who fixed the 1919 baseball World Series - what became known as the Black Sox scandal."

Thaçi, prime minister of Kosovo, is alleged to have extensive criminal links.

Marvin Kitman has written: "The Jews were the first ones to realize the link between organized crime an organized politics. They led the way in corrupting the police and city hall."

Reportedly, the Seagram's alcohol fortune the Canadian Bronfman family 'grew to power by getting their alcohol into criminal hands who smuggled it into the United States. Bronfman, who bristled when anyone called him a bootlegger, had a distribution deal for his booze with Jewish mobster Meyer Lansky.'

Ben Gurion

David Ben-Gurion was jailed in Warsaw, Poland.

"That was the first time," he said, "that I ever came into contact with the dregs of society. I was shaken to the core at the language and behavior. I never had the slightest notion that such people ever existed ... The thing that shook me most was that these criminals were Jews."

According to the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, September 15, 1999, "Between 50 and 80 percent of the Russian economy is said to be in Jewish hands, with the influence of the five Jews among the eight individuals commonly referred to as 'oligarchs' particularly conspicuous."

~~

]]>

Leonel Sauceda, national police spokesman, called the attack in the northern city of San Pedro Sula “a massacre.’’ He said the motive had not been determined.

Sauceda said police were not ruling out the possibility the attack may have been related to drug trafficking. San Pedro Sula has been a hotbed of gun battles between drug traffickers and among the country’s Mara street gangs....

Doesn't the whole thing stink?

Also yesterday, thousands of supporters of Manuel Zelaya, former president, staged street protests in the capital, Tegucigalpa, to demand the ousted leader’s return, as well as a 15 percent rise in the minimum wage, currently about $290 a month.

Oh, NOW I SEE why the Globe CENSORED IT!!

You can TELL a LOT about an AGENDA-PUSHING NEWSPAPER by noting the PROTESTS it chooses to cover -- and those it does not!

Small rule of thumb: If it's gays, global warming, or immigrants the agenda-pushing press will find them.

Zelaya was removed in a June 2009 coup, and his term expired in January.

Yeah, a U.S.-BACKED and APPROVED COUP!

Another reason to censor this obfuscating PoS!

He was replaced by Porfirio Lobo, who won a fall presidential election that had been scheduled before Zelaya’s ouster....

As if it was all legit!

Well that’s it, summer’s over, back to school.

Washington Journal: 7:45am – Alex Isenstadt, Politico, Nat’l Political Reporter. 8:30am – Kevin Hassett, AEI, Economic Policy Studies Director. 9:15am – Paul Taylor, Pew Hispanic Center, Director.

ABC’s This Week: On the release of his new memoir, “A Journey,” Tony Blair reflects. Roundtable: George Will, Tom Friedman, Paul Krugman, Mary Jordan of The Washington Post.

CBS’ Face the Nation: Harry Smith hosts. Laura Tyson, Former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers; Mark Zandi, Moody’s Analytics, Chief Economist; Gretchen Morgenson, NYT Assistant Business and Financial Editor; Nancy Cordes, CBS News Capitol Hill Correspondent; Jim VandeHei, Politico Executive Editor.

Chris Matthews: Cynthia Tucker, Howard Fineman, Michael Duffy, Norah O’Donnell. Topics: If Democrats Lose Big this Fall, Will All Fingers Point at President Obama Himself? The Top Five Republicans Definitely Running for President.

CNN’s State of the Union: The economy. AFL-CIO’s President, Richard Trumka and the President of the National Association of Small Business, Todd McCracken. Roundtable: Ron Fournier, Editor-in-Chief of the National Journal, Michael Duffy, Assistant Managing Editor of Time, Elisabeth Bumiller, Pentagon Correspondent for the New York Times.

Fareed Zakaria – GPS: William Browder, once the largest foreign investor in Russia. His money made him a target and someone close to him paid the ultimate price. Then, one of London’s own jihadi radicals, Anjem Choudary. And then, Zhang Xin who grew up in the slums of Hong Kong and is now worth billions of dollars. Zhang, one of China’s biggest real estate developers, speaks candidly about what she finds wrong with the Chinese system that made her so rich.

Fox News Sunday: Sen. John McCain, R-AZ . Tim Kaine, Chairman, Democratic National Committee. Fox News AllStars: Stephen Hayes, Mara Liasson, Chris Stirewalt, Fox News Digital Politics Editor, Juan Williams.

NBC’s Meet The Press: Afghanistan, Middle East, the economy. Sen. Lindsey Graham R-SC . David Plouffe. Roundtable: Erin Burnett, Charlie Cook, E.J. Dionne, Rich Lowry.

Newsmakers: Admiral Robert Papp, Commandant of the Coast Guard. He restated the Coast Guard’s commitment to the Gulf States impacted by the oil spill. He also discussed the upcoming fiscal year and the budgetary challenges of the Coast Guard, as they relate to fleet improvements and the long-term mission of the Coast Guard. And lastly, the Admiral provided an overview of the Coast Guard’s daily domestic role for protecting U.S. waterways, particularly since 9/11.

Q & A: Financial analyst Meredith Whitney, chief executive officer of Meredith Whitney Advisory Group LLC. Her firm provides independent investment research and strategic advisory services for financial companies. In late 2007, she was the first analyst to predict major losses for Citigroup, one of the world’s largest financial services companies.

Religion & Ethics: Was the Iraq War RIght? Islamic Center Controversy. Shofar Family. Ethics and Iraq.

60 Minutes: The $60 Billion Fraud – Medicare and Medicaid fraudsters are beating U.S. taxpayers out of an estimated $90 billion a year – $60 billion of it from Medicare – using a billing scam that is surprisingly easy to execute. The SEED School – There’s a unique school that’s giving kids from an inner-city neighborhood that only graduates 33 percent of its high school students a shot at college they never had before. Tennis Twins – Pro tennis’ leading doubles champions are identical twins who are so coordinated on the court that their opponents actually suspect they have twin telepathy.

To The Contrary: Topics: 1- Wage gap reversal: Young women outearn their male peers; 2- Employers push more health care costs to workers; 3- Women in the labor movement. Panelists: Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton D-DC ; Former EEOC Chair Cari Dominguez; Karen Czarnecki; Amanda Terkel. Online exclusive: Ending Sexism in Politics – Women’s groups launch a new campaign in hopes of ending sexism in politics.

Univision’s Al Punto: Mauricio Funes, President of El Salvador; Porfirio Lobo, President of Honduras; Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV, Democratic Primary Candidate for New York’s 15th Congressional District; and Isabel Toledo, World Renowned Fashion Designer.

Virtually Speaking: No show today.

C-SPAN’s Book TV.

FDL Book Salon: to be rescheduled.

FDL Movie Night: to be rescheduled.

[As a courtesy to our guests, please keep comments to the book. Please take other conversations to a previous thread. - bev]

The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics

Paul Street’s new book, The Empire’s New Clothes, closely examines the first year of the Obama administration, critically evaluating it within a context of strong liberal-Democratic support and fierce – even hysterical right-wing opposition. Barack Obama is seen very differently by Americans. Many see him as a symbol of how far America has come since the days of openly-supported racial segregation and the terroristic violence directed against the black community. Others see Obama as a dangerous “socialist/Marxist” who is threatening the American middle class and crippling future generations with “big government” and “unsustainable” debt.

Street rejects the latter portrayal outright, focusing on the corporatist agenda promoted by the increasingly neoliberal Democratic Party. While conceding that Obama’s election represents a major historic victory in the fight for racial equality, Street cautions against a personality politics approach that frames politics as divorced from institutional factors such as the rise of corporate power among both parties today.

The Empire’s New Clothes is quite eclectic in its focus on a variety of issues, across both domestic and foreign policy issues. The first half of Street’s book provides a general overview of the Obama administration as it fits within the larger political economic system, directing specific attention to the economic crisis and Obama-supported bank bailout. Street also analyzes Obama’s role in streamlining American imperialism throughout the globe, “reluctantly” continuing the war in Iraq and pressuring against withdrawal, while supporting a dictatorial military coup in Honduras and masking occupation in Haiti under the banner of “humanitarian relief.” Another early focus is a critical examination of the 2009-2010 health care reform controversy, which Street frames as largely “corporate managed,” although containing some modest benefits for the poor and disadvantaged.

Latter parts of the book address the myth of “post-racial” America in light of Obama’s election. This topic has long been a focus in Street’s work, which emphasizes the continued structural segregation and racism that continue to define American society. Street finishes his book by emphasizing Obama’s continuation of the interrogation, incarceration, and torture tactics of the Bush administration. These same policies have been pursued by an Obama administration that is in many ways just as hawkish as its predecessor.

The Empire’s New Clothes is bound to incite controversy among those who unfairly demonize Obama as “too far to the left,” as well as among those who are staunch supporters of the Democratic Party brand. In a political era when most Americans strongly distrust government as well as the two major political parties, however, Street’s analysis will be well received by many critical thinkers.

Last Thu-Fri Aug 26-27, police and military violently repressed public school teachers who have taken to the streets for almost 3 weeks to demand, among other things, that the Pepe Lobo regime return some $200m that were taken from INPREMA, an institution that manages teachers’ pension funds, after the military-oligarchic coup against Pres Zelaya on Jun 28 2009. The 6 teachers’ unions that form the umbrella organization FOMH, representing 63,000 teachers nation-wide, believe that the funds taken from this institution were used to fund the military regime after the coup headed by Roberto Micheletti and Gen Velasquez, which repressed and terrorized the pro-democracy movement critical of the coup and its perpetrators.

The education system in Honduras has been in crisis for the last 4 months, particularly in August when university students occupied the National Autonomous University demanding the reinstatement of 180 workers fired from their positions and the resignation of the university director, Julieta Castrellano. Five fired workers remain on hunger strike on the university grounds, some now surpassing 126 days without eating. During the occupation of the university, police attempted to enter the grounds and were run off by the protesters. The stand-off between the students and police occurred while the US State Dept’s Maria Otero was visiting Honduras to investigate the human rights situation, another attempt by the US government to whitewash human rights violations such that Honduras might be readmitted to the OAS. Although the university students and the public school teachers have different immediate focuses and demands, they both claim that the form in which the Lobo regime is handling the teachers’ struggle and the education system in general reflects the oligarchic-governmental desire to privatize the public education system in Honduras. This massive teachers’ strike converges with and complements the ongoing struggle of the National Popular Resistance Front as well as the preparatory stages of a mass general strike involving the three major umbrella unions to which all unionized Honduran workers belong: the Unitary Confederacy of Workers of Honduras, the Confederacy of Workers of Honduras, and the General Head Office of Workers.

Last Friday, Aug 27, teachers were violently evicted twice from the area around the National Pedagogical University, first when they occupied the boulevard and second when teachers were regrouping and meeting inside the university. Police arrived at the university, located across from a business shopping centre, with 2 water cannons and fired more than 100 tear gas canisters and rubber bullets at the teachers and members of the resistance movement in and outside the university grounds. Protesters were chased and beaten with no regard for the presence of children and the public in this busy area of the city or for the peaceful form in which the teachers were protesting. From a black Toyota four-runner parked on the street in front of the university, a man opened fired at the protesters with a 9mm gun. Although no one was shot, the car was later identified as belonging to the National Congress. Over 100 people were captured and ‘guarded’ by police against a fence outside the university. They were later released after human rights representatives arrived and negotiated with the police. Many teachers and resistance members were trapped inside classrooms, where they suffered from severe exposure to tear gas. Over 7 people were injured from the gas and from police beatings, including a journalist from Globo TV/Radio Globo.

On Thursday, the previous day, teachers had been violently evicted after occupying a street close to the Presidential Palace in Tegucigalpa. Six teachers were reported injured from tear gas and police brutality. These two days last week were merely the icing on the cake to the violence inflicted against the teachers’ movement on Aug 20, when police and military again evicted the movement and brutally beat 3 union leaders and a teacher, who had apparently been pre-selected for said treatment and whose locations were apparently indicated to police by individuals who had infiltrated the marches. The major media outlets owned by the oligarchy meanwhile continue their campaign to portray the teachers as violent elements unconcerned with education in Honduras. At the writing of this article, the teachers are gathered in their daily assembly to discuss an agreement recently negotiated between the government and the leaders of the teachers’ movement. The teachers will announce today whether they accept the proposal or not.