Is Europe Complicit in the Plundering of Western Sahara?
By Johannes Hautaviita | teleSUR | September 17, 2015
Western Sahara, formerly a Spanish colony, has been occupied by Morocco since 1975. Although the decolonization of Western Sahara has been on the U.N.’s agenda for 40 years, Morocco (together with its allies) has managed to freeze this process, while further entrenching its hold of the occupied territory.
One of the reasons behind Morocco’s aggression and annexation was Western Sahara’s abundance of natural resources, and ever since the occupation began, Morocco has plundered these resources for economic profit. Western Sahara has one of the largest phosphate reserves in the world and is famous for its rich fishing waters, perhaps the richest along the African coast. Furthermore, the prospects for locating oil and gas deposits has attracted exploration in the territory.
In a recent development, which is all too familiar, an Irish oil company San Leon Energy began drilling south of Morocco’s border, on the north-western coast of occupied Western Sahara. For the oil drilling – and other resource extraction – to have legal validity, however, it ought to be carried out with the consent and in the interest of the occupied population. But not only has the local population of Western Sahara not been consulted, the Sahrawi people have explicitly stated their opposition to San Leon’s activities.
In a letter to the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) Mohamed Abdelaziz stated, “We urgently request that the Secretary-General condemn these activities, which are in clear violation of international law, and call on Morocco and complicit foreign companies to stop the illegal exploitation of the natural resources of Western Sahara.”
The SADR’s position echoes that of the U.N. and the international community. In 2002, the Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs Hans Corell wrote, that if the exploitation of natural resources “were to proceed in disregard of the interests and wishes of the people of Western Sahara, they would be in violation of the international law principles applicable to mineral resource activities in Non-Self-Governing Territories.”
Contradicting countless U.N. resolutions and the clearly stated position of the SADR, San Leon claims that its “operations are in keeping with our obligations under international law and work for the betterment of all persons in the Southern Provinces of Morocco.” “Southern Provinces” is the term that the Moroccan government uses for Western Sahara.
San Leon is far from the only foreign actor engaged in legally dubious economic activity in occupied Western Sahara. The most profitable economic activity for Morocco in the occupied territory is the phosphate industry. A recent study by the watchdog organization Western Sahara Resource Watch identified nine companies that imported phosphate originating in Western Sahara in 2014 alone. The major importers were companies based in Canada and Lithuania.
Perhaps the most controversial act of the EU with regard to Western Sahara was the re-signing of a fisheries agreement with Morocco in 2013. In 2011, the European Parliament had suspended the agreement. In his speech before the parliament, professor of international law Pål Wrange stated, that were the fisheries agreement extended “it will make the EU and its member states further liable for a violation of international law, namely as a recognition of and assistance to serious breaches of international law by Morocco.”
Under the renewed fisheries agreement Morocco, in return for an annual payment of US$62 million (€40 million), European fishing vessels are granted licenses to fish in its waters, including in Western Sahara. This is legally questionable – as noted by Wrange – because it indirectly accepts Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara. In 2014, the representatives of the Sahrawi people demanded an annulment of the fisheries agreement and took their case to the European Court of Justice.
A somewhat similar dynamic is at play with regard to Israel’s settlement enterprise in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. While taking the position that Israel’s settlement construction in the West Bank is “illegal under international law, constitutes an obstacle to peace and threatens to make a two-state solution impossible”, the EU’s continued trade in settlement produce supports the sustenance of the settlements. Palestinian human rights organization Al Haq even maintains that, “Without the economic support generated by trade with international stakeholders, the very existence of settlements, in particular in the Jordan Valley area, would be seriously threatened.”
It seems that the EU continues to prioritize its economic and strategic interests over international law in its bilateral relations with Morocco. The EU’s and Morocco’s annual trade amounts to nearly US$46 billion (€30 billion), accounting for more than 50 percent of Moroccan trade altogether. In fact, the EU is the biggest trading partner of both Morocco and Israel. In both cases, the EU’s economic leverage is exceptional, and its ability to exert pressure on the occupying parties, if it so wanted, is considerable.
Russia Ends Production of Genetically Modified Food
Sputnik — 18.09.2015
Russia’s government has decided against producing genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said Friday.
The deputy prime minister underscored the need to draw a “clear distinction” between this decision and science and research projects in fields such as medicine.
“As for genetically modified organisms, we have decided against the use of GMO in food production,” Dvorkovich said.
A law requiring manufacturers to label products whose GMO content is higher than 0.9 percent has been in effect since 2007.
Burning cane and planting corn to reclaim territory in southwestern Colombia
By Lisa Taylor – NACLA – 09/15/2015
Sunlight filters through the trees and whiffs of vegetable beef stew float through the air as dozens of women, men and youths of the Nasa indigenous people congregate together in the southwestern Colombian province of Cauca once a month for a “minga.” During the minga – a type of communal work found throughout the Andes – approximately one thousand people clear hundreds of hectares of sugarcane with machetes and controlled fires.
Replacing the “green desert” of monoculture sugarcane with their own crops is part of the “Liberation of Mother Earth” movement initiated in 2005 by the Nasa. Cauca is one of the most militarized provinces in the country, and indigenous communities have been heavily affected by violence from armed groups including state security forces, paramilitaries and guerrillas. After suffering displacement and the exploitation of their lands by multinational corporations, the Nasa are reclaiming their ancestral territory, sowing subsistence crops including corn, beans, plantains and yucca.
“The Liberation of Mother Earth is a strategy for the defense of life; it’s the protection of life. It’s for our community well-being and so, convinced by this ancient struggle, we are here today,” said one representative attending the July minga from the indigenous reservation of Jambaló.*
The newest phase of the Liberation movement began last December when over 3000 Nasa began peacefully occupying seven sugarcane farms in three different municipalities (Corinto, Caloto and Santander de Quilichao) in northern Cauca. On these farms, they discovered various indigenous artifacts buried in the land, relics from previous generations of Nasa who had been displaced over the last century by armed groups and corporate interests. Statistics from the United Nations indicate that 3.1 million internally displaced persons in Colombia have abandoned an estimated 4 million hectares since 1985.
Under a 2000 ruling by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), certain lands currently occupied by sugarcane farms are legally owed to the Nasa people after the 1991 El Nilo massacre, when 20 indigenous people were assassinated by members of the national police and other unknown armed actors.
The Colombian state agreed to title 15,663 hectares to the Nasa people as part of a collective reparations deal negotiated by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). After a delay of more than ten years, the government turned over most of the land, but more than half of it is either infertile or located in protected forest reserves. The government argues that as the price of fertile land in the region has tripled in the intervening ten years, the national budget cannot cover purchasing land currently dedicated to sugarcane for reparations owed the Nasa.
When the government failed to fulfill the reparations agreement and guarantee their security – after El Nilo, three similar massacres occurred in 2001 nearby in the River Naya, Gualanday and San Pedro – the Nasa decided to take back their lands independently. They demand at least 20,000 hectares of land for their survival, adequate agrarian policy reform and special economic and social development programs tailored for indigenous peoples, as called for by Colombian government Decree 982 issued in 1999.
“We’re here because it is our right, but also because of necessity,” a representative from the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC) said. “We don’t have anywhere to sow. . .We’re not going to wait for the government to say, ‘here, have this,’ so bit by bit we’re going to go about achieving our own goals and liberating Mother Earth, liberating her from all monoculture crops.”
According to the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN), 56 percent of children in the region suffer from hunger or malnutrition and 6,000 of 25,000 local families have inadequate land for survival. Meanwhile, less than one percent of Colombia’s population owns 62 percent of all land, and eight sugar company giants possess over 330,000 hectares (about 1274 square miles) of local land which is planted horizon to horizon with sugarcane, used principally to produce foodstuffs, ethanol and molasses for both domestic consumption and export.
The Nasa have concentrated their occupation on the fields owned by INCAUCA, the multinational sugar company owned by Colombian billionaire Carlos Ardila Lülle. They contend his company represents a “transnational model of plunder and agribusiness.” The Nasa criticize this as an unsustainable model of development that depends upon the cultivation of monoculture crops (sugar, bananas, palm oil and flowers) for export.
“The story of capital and of those who accumulate capital is a project of death that ends up destroying all nature, including the lives of human beings. For us, the land is our mother and they are committing a crime against her,” wrote the ACIN in a 2010 statement.
Artisanal sugarcane production arrived in Cauca in 1538 after the Spanish invasion, and by the beginning of the 19th century, the first modern sugar mill was installed by the company Manuelita. Later railway expansion and mechanization led to a production boom in the 1930s and 1940s – a boom that corresponds with the first waves of indigenous displacement.
Although the Nasa’s recent land occupation is peaceful, since last December at least 143 indigenous people have been injured, 37 seriously, by firearms, tear gas, rubber bullets and confrontations with state security forces. On April 10, 19-year old indigenous guard Guillermo Pavi was killed after he was reportedly shot by the Colombian riot police (ESMAD) and the army. With the road blocked, his injuries proved fatal because his companions could not get him to a hospital.
On May 28, riot police attempted to evict people with tanks, tractors and tear gas, announcing over a megaphone that “this one will be worse than El Nilo.” State security forces have also repeatedly burned and destroyed newly planted crops, recently decimating 580 hectares of corn, beans, yucca and plantains in mid-June and returning for a second round of destruction in July.
The Nasa have received threatening letters, phone calls and text messages from neo-paramilitary groups such as the Aguilas Negras that falsely accuse them of being affiliated with guerrilla groups, which still have a strong presence in the region.
“The Aguilas Negras intelligence has a hundred names of people who are doing harm on the farms . . . who support the narco-terrorists [the FARC . . .] It won’t be a surprise when dismembered bodies appear among those Indian sons-of-bitches,” read one written threat.
Despite the attacks, the Nasa remain committed. Maintaining a constant presence and planting crops, they reclaim their territory day by day, hectare by hectare, advocating against the imposition of monoculture agriculture and extractive economic models, arguing that these do not lead to real development but rather the exploitation of the earth and people that can only be ended with the Liberation of Mother Earth.
“The truth is that today nature ought to be quite content because she has begun to feel our presence again,” said a CRIC representative. “Hopefully as soon as possible, we won’t see all of this sugarcane but rather we’ll see fruit, shade, water . . . This is the challenge each one of us has. It’s not easy but it’s not impossible.”
*Interviewees are unnamed at their request to emphasize the movement’s collective nature and because of concerns for their safety.
Lisa Taylor works for Witness for Peace in Colombia.
Venezuela’s Maduro Proposes Cucuta Gasoline Deal, Expands Border Closure
By Lucas Koerner – Venezuelanalysis – September 16, 2015
Caracas – In the lead-up to talks with his Colombian counterpart, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro proposed a series of measures aimed at resolving the tense border conflict, including the sale of Venezuelan gasoline in the Colombian border city of Cucuta.
Tensions between the two neighbors have been on the rise since mid-August when Maduro ordered a 60-day closure of sections of the joint border in response to an alleged paramilitary attack on three Venezuelan soldiers in the frontier zone.
As Maduro prepares to sit down with Colombia’s Santos in the coming days, the socialist leader announced Friday the creation of Mission New Border of Peace, which will be charged with expanding all of Venezuela’s social missions established over the previous sixteen years to the border zone.
“This mission is aimed at bringing all of the missions, Homes of the Motherland, Barrio Adentro, Robinson, health and educational missions to teach people there to read and write, [give them their] elementary, secondary, and university education.”
The Venezuelan Head of State also announced a proposal to sell Venezuelan gasoline in the Colombian border city of Cucuta at preferential rates, favoring “cab drivers, workers, professionals, poor people.”
“We are ready to do it, President Santos, as soon as we sit down to talk, because this is how it works, proposal, counter-proposal, conversation, dialogue, and results,” he stated.
Colombian frontier cities such as Cucuta are an estimated 80% dependent on contraband Venezuelan gasoline, which is smuggled across the border at a rate of approximately 100,000 liters daily.
New Border Closures
President Maduro’s initiatives were followed on Tuesday with the announcement of new border closures in ten municipalities along the Colombian border, including seven in the northwestern state of Zulia and three in southwestern Apure state.
These border municipalities, comprising Jesus Enrique Lossada, Rosario de Perija, Machique de Perija, Cañada de Urdaneta, Jesus Maria Semprun, Paez, Catatumbo, Colon, Romulo Gallegos and Pedro Camejo, will be the first to see the roll-out of Mission New Border of Peace, aimed at creating social and economic alternatives to paramilitarism and contraband.
Cross-border smuggling has played a key role in what the President Maduro has termed an economic war against Venezuela, with an estimated 35% of subsidized food items making their way to Colombia.
‘Lipstick on a pig’: EC’s proposed corporate court system slammed by campaigners
RT | September 16, 2015
Campaigners sharply condemned a European Commission (EC) proposal to create a new corporate court system to replace its highly controversial Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism on Wednesday.
The ISDS system is central to an EU-US trade agreement being negotiated behind closed doors, which could allow corporations to sue governments if they act against their interests.
Known as The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the trade deal has been shunned by almost 3 million European citizens. Some 97 percent of respondents to an EC consultation flatly rejected the trade deal’s ISDS dimension.
The EC put forward a proposal for an alternative court system on Wednesday – a move it said would make the ISDS mechanism more transparent and allow states to appeal against multinationals’ legal challenges. But campaigners say the suggested changes are merely cosmetic, and would still allow corporations to sue governments in secret court settings.
Another EU-Canada trade deal known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which is currently awaiting ratification, contains an old version of the ISDS mechanism. It has also received widespread opposition from campaigners worldwide.
Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden said the EC’s proposed new court system is effectively “a PR exercise.”
“The European Commission says that this new proposal is based on ‘substantial input’ from its public consultation, but 97 percent of the thousands of responses it received in this consultation were clearly opposed to ISDS in any form,” he said on Wednesday.
“This alternative proposal is essentially a PR exercise to get around the enormous controversy and opposition that has been generated by ISDS.”
Dearden said the proposed corporate court system will still give corporations unnerving new powers.
“The Commission can try to put lipstick on a pig, but this new proposal doesn’t change the fundamental problem of giving corporations frightening new powers at the expense of our national democracies,” he said.
“Although a little more transparency is no bad thing, the real issue at hand here is that of corporate power.
“This change shows the European Commission is feeling the pressure of nearly 3 million people opposing TTIP and CETA, the two looming deals featuring ISDS,” Dearden added. He noted, however, that the EC has failed to halt the ratification of CETA.
Redacted documents detailing covert meetings between the EC and powerful tobacco lobbyists recently compounded fears TTIP would allow tobacco giants to sue governments that attempt to legislate in the public interest.
The documents, which confirmed the EC had met with lobbyists paid to peddle the interests of Big Tobacco, were published in late August.
This glaring lack of transparency sparked widespread fear among TTIP’s critics that the trade deal would empower tobacco giants to sue governments that seek to regulate the tobacco industry more stringently.
Powerful tobacco firms have previously used comparable trade deals to sue the governments of other states, who sought to crack down on its advertising.
US tobacco giant Phillip Morris previously took legal action against the Australian government after it introduced mandatory plain cigarette packaging. The firm is also embroiled in a $25-million lawsuit against Uruguay’s government in a bid to stop it from enlarging health warnings on cigarette packaging.
EU Taxpayers to Pay 1 Bln Euros for Ukraine’s Gas
Sputnik – 16.09.2015
To keep Ukrainians warm, EU citizens will have to shell out a total of one billion euros, Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (DWN) reported.
As Ukraine is broke and needs money to pay for gas for the upcoming winter, European taxpayers will have to cover the bill, the German newspaper predicted.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak and European Commission Vice President on Energy Union Maros Sefcovic met in Vienna late last week. The sides agreed that Brussels will pay €500 million for Kiev’s gas supply.
“Ukraine urgently needs to fill its gas storages to survive the winter,” DWN said, adding that the €500 million only covered half of the bill and soon Brussels will need another half a million to pay Ukraine’s gas bill.
The bill might increase if winter months turn out to be colder than the last year, DWN reported.
Earlier this week, Ukraine’s Deputy Energy Minister Olexandr Svetelik said that Kiev was satisfied with the conditions for Russian gas supplies, which it suspended for the period July-September, despite Moscow’s discount proposal. Reverse flows from Slovakia, Hungary and Poland currently supply Ukraine’s gas needs.
Kiev expects to receive a foreign loan for winter gas supplies by late October, which Novak had said would help finance 2 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Ukraine’s underground storage facilities this and next month.
Saudi Navy Set to Order American Littoral Combat Ships
Sputnik – 16.09.2015
Saudi Arabia has selected a variant of a warship Lockheed Martin is building for the US Navy as the frigate for the kingdom’s Eastern Fleet modernization program, a source told Defense News.
The frigates sale will be the cornerstone of the modernization of the Royal Saudi Navy’s eastern fleet and its aging US warships in the Arabian Gulf.
A letter of request from the Saudi Navy that detailed requirements for the program was signed in early August, the source said, and the Saudis have asked the US Navy and Lockheed to complete a letter of agreement by November, Defense News reported.
The deal calls for four frigates capable of hosting Sikorsky MH-60R helicopters.
Saudi and US officials also are finalizing a $1.9 billion deal to buy 10 MH-60R helicopters, which can be used for anti-submarine warfare and other missions. Lockheed is in the process acquiring Sikorsky.
The ships are also expected to be fitted with a vertical launch system that can accommodate surface-to-air missiles.
The entire Eastern Fleet expansion program is expected to cost between $16 billion and $20 billion and also includes patrol boats, three maritime patrol aircraft, and 30 to 50 unmanned aerial vehicles, Defense News reported.
The four large frigates are expected to take up about 20-25% of the total cost. Saudi Arabia earlier this year budgeted $3.5 billion for the program, money that needs to be spent in calendar 2015.
The deal, if finalized, would mark the first international sale of a US littoral combat ship.
The Saudi Navy’s expansion program has been in the works for years, but US sources say Saudi Arabia’s concerns about Iran have accelerated the effort.
In July, world powers and Iran reached a deal aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions. Regional neighbors worry about the threat posed by a financially strong Iran.
Meet Jeremy Corbyn, Britain’s new Leader of the Opposition
By Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey – Pravda – September 13, 2015
Jeremy Corbyn has the Establishment on both sides of the Atlantic shaking in their boots. Representing a breath of fresh air, promising change and hope, the new leader of Britain’s Labour Party also represents a stand against austerity and a sensible economic policy which aims to stimulate the economy instead of stifling it.
The first act by Jeremy Corbyn after being elected on Saturday September 12 as Leader of Britain’s Labour Party (winning in the first round with almost 60 per cent of first-preference votes) was to send an e-mail to all Labour Party members and supporters promising to include them and their wishes in his policy-making process, asking them to forward questions to place to the Prime Minister, David Cameron, at Prime Minister’s Questions next Wednesday.
For Jeremy Corbyn, being Labour leader is about the opportunity to serve and to create viable public services. Indeed, his record presses all the right buttons for the socially leaning members of the public. And those who understand the first thing about economics.
Policy issues and some predictions
Let us take a look at the policies Jeremy Corbyn has supported and this will explain why he will cause concern and will be demonized by the media who will classify him as a dangerous radical who is unelectable and unstatesmanlike. The reason why, as we shall see, is that his policies go against the grain of government by proxy for the lobbies to which politicians today are connected and which place them in office or else close ranks around them when they are elected.
For a start, Jeremy Corbyn questions the pan-national weapons lobby called NATO, whose collective member states’ budget is a staggering one point two thousand billion USD each and every year – four times the amount it would cost to eradicate poverty, worldwide, forever. How Constitutional is it for any of the countries to have their foreign policy dictated by such a lobby? Predictably, the national security button will be pressed as enemies and dark forces are invented to justify NATO’s existence and new members are sought to bolster its budget and cater for the lobbies for which NATO is the cutting edge. Dictatorship of the Lobbies through the manipulation of fear.
Jeremy Corbyn opposed the war in Afghanistan (a foreign policy catastrophe in which the Taliban are paid not to attack), opposed the war in Iraq (another disaster which totally destabilized a sovereign state, murdered a million people and saw the creation of Islamic State), he opposed the war in Libya (another huge mistake) and opposes war in Syria. He is also Vice-Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and a member of Amnesty International.
He was a campaigner against apartheid, worked to free the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six, people wrongly convicted as IRA bombers. Needless to say, the media will have a heyday over this but then again, what is wrong with working to free people who have been wrongly convicted?
Jeremy Corbyn understands that austerity shrinks the economy, destroying jobs, taking away workers’ rights gained over the last century and favors an approach which combats tax evasion, bringing more money into the treasury. In fact, his policies would bring in an extra 100 billion pounds in the short term. He plans a public investment scheme to create housing and plans to take rail franchises back into the public sector and supports renationalizing the energy sector. Strongly opposed to tuition fees, Jeremy Corbyn wants to create a National Education Service. A service, not a business.
On foreign policy, he rightly saw that the Ukraine crisis was caused by NATO’s attempt to expand eastwards. As regards Israel, he realizes that no progress is going to be made until talks are held between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah and he opposed sanctions against Iran.
Who is Jeremy Corbyn?
Born in 1949, he began his working career in the National Union of Public Employees, becoming an organizer for the Union. From here he went on to the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers, was a member of a District Health Authority and was elected to Harringay Council, which he represented from 1974 to 1983 and was Secretary of the Islington Borough Labour Group.
He was elected as a Member of Parliament for Islington North in 1983 and has since been re-elected seven times. The Member of Parliament who claims the least expenses, he has served on the London Regional Select Committee, the Social Security Select Committee and the Justice Select Committee; he is Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Chagos Islands, on Mexico and Vice-Chair of the Group on Latin America and on Human Rights; he is member of the Groups on Bolivia, Britain-Palestine, Great Lakes and the International Parliamentary Union, among others. He is a vegetarian, an animal rights campaigner and supports the LGBT community.
For those who wish to see a health service run by a fascination with the bottom line, in which the haves get treated and the have-nots get second class treatment, for those who wish to see the education sector turned into a business in which you get a degree if you can pay and if you cannot, then you don’t get a chance, for those who wish to see train services cancelled, energy bills skyrocketing, for those who wish to be afraid to step outside the home after six o’clock, Jeremy Corbyn is a direct threat.
The question is, is Britain ready for Jeremy Corbyn?
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey can be contacted at timothy.hinchey@gmail.com
US, Colombia: Conspiracy against Venezuela
Nil NIKANDROV – Strategic Culture Foundation – 14.09.2015
“Airtec Inc. has been awarded a contract for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) services in support of the U.S. Southern Command. The deal is expected to be completed in September 2018. The contractor will provide ISR services utilizing a Bombardier DHC-8/200.
According to José Vicente Rangel, a Venezuelan journalist, the aircraft will be equipped with cutting-edge equipment to effectively survey the border areas of Venezuela.”
The US special services have applied a lot of effort to incite tensions in the “conflict zone” on the border between the two states. There are forces in the ranks of Colombian political and military leadership that are ready to help Washington in its subversive operations against the “main regional adversary”. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, a henchman of tycoons’ families, has said many a time that he supports further progress in the “special relationship” with Washington, including military ties. Santos believes that the deployment of seven US military facilities on Colombian soil is a step on the way of engaging Colombian military in NATO activities. Bogota is an integral part of the US plan to restore its dominant position in the region.
Colombia is used to undermine the process of Latin American and Caribbean integration. Nicolas Maduro, the President of Venezuela, displays great tolerance against the backdrop of hostile actions undertaken by Colombia. American supervisors apply no special effort to conceal their involvement. The intention is evident – the opposition is trying to prove tha Maduro’s government is unable to get the national economy back on track and fill Venezuelan stores to meet the legitimate demands of consumers for essentials. Internal sabotage is assisted by the activities of smugglers operating in Colombian territory.
Joint efforts are required to fight smuggling but Colombian border guards do nothing to interrupt the criminal activities often headed by former paramilitares (paramilitaries), the militants of AUC (the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia). According to Venezuelan counterintelligence, their leaders collaborate with Colombian power structures.
AUC fighters have recently staged a provocation near the border area. They laid an ambush for a Venezuelan patrol in pursuit of smugglers. Shots were fired and three servicemen were seriously wounded. President Maduro immediately introduced the state of emergency in one of the areas near the Colombian border (the state of Táchira) and sealed the border for an uncertain period of time. Police and military reinforcements were sent out to find the attackers. Venezuela launched operations to pinpoint the paramilitares strongpoints – the bunkers serving as prisons for kidnapped people and stashes of smuggled goods. Thirty five militants have been arrested so far. The interrogations provided information on the scale of crimes perpetrated by paramilitares in Venezuela, including even existence of secret burial places. Maduro said the findings about the activities of criminals and armed formations reveal the horrible truth and he, as president, has an obligation to do away with this evil in Venezuela.
His tough stand is justified. The economic war against Venezuela has come to the point when essentials, foodstuffs, hygiene stuffs and medicals evaporate from the stores located in the vicinity of border areas. Everything is taken out of the country – clothes, shoes, car parts, tires and oil production equipment. Filling stations run out of fuel. Gasoline prices are extremely low in Venezuela. It takes only 2 USD to fill a tank. That’s why great quantities of Venezuelan fuel are transported to Colombia along the whole length of the countries’ border. According to official data, the small town of San Cristobal, Táchira’s capital, “has consumed” more gas than Caracas. It has gone far enough. The situation has reached the point when gas smuggling brings more profit to Colombian paramilitares than drug trafficking!
Smuggling thrives because there is a great difference in the prices of consumer goods (Venezuela allocates subsidies to bring the prices down). The rate of bolivar, the Venezuela’s currency, is used for large-scale scams. The Colombian city of Cúcuta has become the center of financial and economic subversive activities. It boasts around three thousand currency exchange shops. The general strategy is to devalue the bolivar. It results in impoverishment of people and increasing discontent in Venezuela.
Cúcuta has always played an important part in conspirators’ plans. The US Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence agencies are active there. This is the place where radical cells of Venezuelan opposition get instructions. The leaders of three groups formed especially for anti-Venezuelan activities – El Centro de Pensamiento Primero Colombia» (the Center of Thought Foundation – Colombia First), FTI Consulting (Forensic Technologies International) and La Fundación Internacionalismo Democrático (the Democratic Internationalism Foundation) – hold their meetings there. The anti-Venezuelan conspiracy is led by former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency in mid-80s. The Agency used damaging information. He was number 82 on the list of drug dealers prepared by the US Drug Enforcement Administration. During all eight years of his tenure President Uribe was involved in subversive activities against Hugo Chavez trying to isolate the “Bolivarian regime” in the Western Hemisphere. With good reason the Venezuelan intelligence agencies consider him to be the key figure in the US-led plot to overthrow the “Maduro regime”.
The Sanchez government of Colombia enjoys the support of Western media, especially by the New York Times and the Washington Post. Their editorials say essentially the same thing. They spread the idea that the “border problem” with Colombia has been “invented by Maduro” and this entire hullabaloo is raised with the purpose to ratchet up the Venezuelan President’s support before the parliamentary election. Not a word is said about five and half million Colombians residing in Venezuela, part of them as refugees who fled the civil war, the activities of paramiltares, drug traffickers and smugglers operating on Colombian soil. Venezuela’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has hit the nail right on the head when it disclosed the purpose of these publications. According to the Ministry, it’s all part of another plot staged by US media against Venezuela and its Bolivarian revolution.
Roy Chaderton, the Venezuelan Ambassador to the Organization of American States, said such Columbian media outlets as El Tiempo, RCN and Caracol radio stations and TV channels, as well as CNN Spanish language broadcasts, incite hatred towards Venezuela and its people. According to him, this hatred campaign could lead to a war. This scenario was avoided because Venezuelan leaders adopted quite different behavior patterns giving “positive signs” to Colombia. The Ambassador called on all the diplomats accredited with the Organization of American States not to trust Colombian media outlets waging a war of the fourth generation.
The US State Department made a statement regarding the closure of the border. It emphasized the humanitarian aspect of the problem and recommended to normalize the situation with the help of regional organizations. It said US diplomats were ready to contribute toward launching a dialogue. But there are different types of diplomats. For instance, according to Contrainjerencia, a respectable website, Kevin M. Whitaker, the US Ambassador to Colombia, served as the head of CIA station in Venezuela in 2006. It’s hard to believe that Whitaker and the like will really do anything positive. They have a quite different missions to carry out.
Is Vice President Garcia Cracking Down on Dissent in Bolivia?
By Federico Fuentes – teleSUR – September 11, 2015
Recent statements by Bolivia’s Vice President Alvaro Garcia regarding nongovernmental organisations in Bolivia have triggered a heated debate on the left.
At an Aug. 11 media conference, Garcia accused NGOs of acting like political parties seeking to interfere in Bolivia’s domestic affairs. While respecting their right to criticize government policies, Garcia said foreign-funded nongovernmental organisations needed to understand their place within Bolivian society.
“Does this group of comrades have the right to form an NGO and produce and publish what they want? Of course they have the right to do this, but foreign NGOs do not have the right to come to Bolivia and say I am supporting Bolivia’s development while they do politics and defend the interests of transnationals,” he said.
He highlighted the fact that foreign companies and governments were the biggest backers of nongovernmental organisations. “What do we say to them?” he asked. “Finance in your own country, there is no need for you to come and interfere in our country, our relationship with foreign governments and companies is very clear: service in function of our policy and usefulness in function of a sovereign state; but not for the purposes of covert political action…”
Garcia said foreign governments were using NGOs to push policies that sought to stunt Bolivia’s development under the guise of protecting the environment. The four nongovernmental organisations Garcia singled out in particular during the media conference have been among the loudest critics of his government’s environmental policies.
In response, a number of academics from across the world signed an open letter stating concerns for what they viewed as “threats, which if they became a reality, would imply a grave blow in terms of restricting civil rights, among them, freedom of expression and association”. They argued the real issue Garcia had with these NGOs was that they had criticized his government’s shortcomings.
Others have defended these nongovernmental organisations on the basis of their role in promoting environmental struggles.
Contributing to the debate with an article on Alainet.org, Carmelo Ruiz said Garcia’s comments come at a time when falling commodity prices are exacerbating the contradictions of his government’s “progressive extractivist model”. Furthermore, he argued the Morales government was facing the threat of a rise in social and environmental protests.
Faced with this dilemma, Ruiz said critical voices had chosen to point out that “protest and repression is inevitable in extractivism”, while government spokespeople have preferred to blame discontent on “imperialist manipulations.”
Like Ruiz, many have tried to portray Garcia’s comments as something relatively new. However, his criticisms of NGOs predate his election to office or recent conflicts with certain indigenous and environmental groups.
For example, Garcia criticized the role of NGOs in Sociology of Social Movements in Bolivia, a book many of his current critics still hold up as the most authoritative studies of its kind.
In a chapter focusing on the highlands indigenous organisation CONAMAQ, Garcia notes that nongovernmental organisation financing resulted in the organisation taking on certain “bureaucratic-administrative characteristics”. It also in part explained CONAMAQ’s propensity to act less like a social movement and more like a lobby group that sought to “negotiate and reach formal agreements with government institutions and multilateral support organisms.”
The book noted how in certain communities, NGOs had artificially propped up “ayllus” (which make up CONAMAQ’s base) to compete for local influence against more radical peasant unions.
Criticism of nongovernmental organisations’ role in co-opting and dividing social movements is also present in another book he co-authored, “We Are No Ones Toys.” Notably, they appear in a chapter dedicated to the conflict between indigenous groups and coca-growers in the Isiboro-Secure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS).
In 2011, conflict between these sectors over a proposed highway through the TIPNIS boiled over to become an issue of national, and even international significance for the Morales government.
Throughout the chapter, a number of references are made regarding the heavy influence NGOs had over indigenous communities.
Commenting in the book on the role of nongovernmental organisations in TIPNIS, local coca-grower leader Feliciano Mamani makes many of the same criticisms Garcia Linera made more than half a decade later in his book Geopolitics of the Amazon.
Mamani said: “NGOs and other interests that come for our natural resources, control indigenous people through money… where ever there are natural resources there are hundreds of NGOs confusing indigenous peoples and making false declarations….”
Since coming into office, Garcia’s criticisms of nongovernmental organisations’ relationship with social movements have not changed, however his public critique of NGOs has broadened to encompass other issues.
Garcia has argued that nongovernmental organisations had a huge influence over government ministries prior to Morales election. He recounts: “When we came into government in 2006, we found an executive carved up and handed over to embassies and [NGOs]… We could not do anything without authorization either from the embassies… or certain NGOs.”
This was in large part due to the fact that international loans and aid made up about half of the state budget for public investment.
The Morales government was able to quickly assert its control over state institutions as a result of its policy of nationalizing natural resources. Increased revenue from resource extraction put the government in the position where it could set its own policies, free of dependency or interference by foreign governments or NGOs.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, nongovernmental organisations’ hostility towards the Bolivian government has paralleled its loss of influence over state policies.
All this is also part of the context within which Garcia’s comments need to be placed.
Framing the debate however, as though it is simply about a government hiding behind the rhetoric of national sovereignty to crackdown on opponents – or alternatively, viewing all government critics as stooges for imperialism – will only lead to a dialogue of the deaf.
For starters, it should not be too hard to defend free speech at the same time as respecting Bolivia’s sovereignty.
The left has always opposed attempts by governments to crackdown on free speech, and should continue to do so when this occurs. But this is separate to the issue of allowing foreign governments and corporation to do as they please on Bolivian soil.
It is one thing to shut down nongovernmental organisations or jail opponents for what they say. Garcia has made it clear in his response to his critics that his government will not be closing down any NGO.
But it is quite another thing to deny the right of a sovereign government to control the flow of funds from hostile governments into its territory. Or is the left now going to argue that, in the name of “free speech”, foreign governments and corporations should be able to fund whoever they want in Bolivia?
We should use this opportunity to seriously discuss the various issues the debate has already thrown up. This includes, among others, the role of nongovernmental organisations in the Global South, how extractive industries have helped loosen foreign control over the Bolivian state, what alternative sources of funding might exist to enable this situation to remain, and what it would really take for Bolivia to overcome extractivism.
By Their Words Ye Shall Know Them: the US Goal in Cuba
US Embassy in Havana.
By W. T. Whitney | CounterPunch | September 11, 2015
U.S. political leaders are rethinking Cuba. Business leaders have spoken out. Public opinion favors ending hostilities, even among Cuban Americans. Foreign policy specialists hold that fixing relations with Cuba may boost the U.S. image throughout Latin America. But primarily, beating up on Cuba did not work. Or, as President Obama said on December 17, 2014, “I do not believe we can keep doing the same thing for over five decades and expect a different result.”
Official statements shed light on proposed new methods, but less is said about purpose. The question arises as to whether the ultimate U.S. goal is new or is more of the same. Obama called for “begin[ning] to normalize relations to replace “an outdated approach.” (1) He explained that, “we can do more to support the Cuban people and promote our values through engagement.” New methods will not “bring about a transformation of Cuban society overnight. [Yet] through a policy of engagement, we can more effectively stand up for our values and help the Cuban people help themselves.”
Obama focused as much on the Cuban people as on their political leaders: “We are calling on Cuba to unleash the potential of 11 million Cubans by ending unnecessary restrictions on their political, social, and economic activities. In that spirit, we should not allow U.S. sanctions to add to the burden of Cuban citizens that we seek to help.” (In an offhand way he is acknowledging past grief visited upon the Cuban people.) But “[t]oday, the United States wants to be a partner in making the lives of ordinary Cubans a little bit easier, more free, more prosperous.” On July 1, 2015, while announcing that embassies would be opened, Obama noted that, “With this change, we will be able to substantially increase our contacts with the Cuban people. We’ll have more personnel at our embassy.” (2)
A press release accompanying Obama’s presentation spells out the new direction: “The U.S. efforts are aimed at promoting the independence of the Cuban people so they do not need to rely on the Cuban state. (3)
Speaking in Havana on August 14 Secretary of State Kerry added that “Cuba’s future is for Cubans to shape. Responsibility for the nature and quality of governance and accountability rests, as it should, not with any outside entity; but solely within the citizens of this country … And just as we are doing our part” – presumably no longer harassing Cubans – Cuba’s government also ought to “make it less difficult for their citizens to start businesses, to engage in trade, access information online.” (4)
Official explanations say little about past grief and suffering in Cuba at U.S. hands, but rather gloss over actual measures invoked against the Cuban people. The term “isolation” crops up as a sort of proxy version of resulting hardships. “Isolation has not worked,” Obama said, and “Today, Cuba is still governed by the Castros and the Communist Party.” What the United States actually did to accomplish its ends in Cuba evolved from a plan that, on comparison with methods being advanced by the Obama Administration now, serves to clarify differences between then and now.
The subject line of a State Department memo of April 6, 1960, says, “The decline and fall of Castro.” (5) Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Lester D. Mallory writes that: “1.The majority of Cubans support Castro. 2. There is no effective political opposition…. 4. Communist influence is pervading the government … 6. The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. If the above are accepted …, it follows that every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. If such a policy is adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”
Mallory addressed his memo to the “Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs (Rubottom)” and asked if it should go to the Secretary of State. He received a green light, according to the record. Later that year President Eisenhower initiated economic sanctions.
In addition to what became an economic blockade for “denying money and supplies,” the United States resorted to military invasion, military incursions, bacteriologic warfare, terror attacks, and the Cuban Adjustment Act. The Obama administration is clearly going to be relying on new methods for achieving U.S. objectives.
Whether or not U.S. purposes are different is the main question. Mallory envisioned the “overthrow of government” and presumably his superiors did likewise. At the Summit of the Americas, in Panama, the President in April assured reporters that “On Cuba, we are not in the business of regime change.” Instead, “We are in the business of making sure the Cuban people have freedom and the ability to participate and shape their own destiny and their own lives, and supporting civil society.” (6)
Regime change implies separating an objectionable political leadership from a population and replacing it with a more friendly leadership. Seemingly the U.S. government now seeks to remove the Cuban people from their leaders. Heaping abuse on them did not accomplish the U. S. counter-revolutionary purpose. Now they will be independent of government, at least according to U. S. rhetoric on care and nurture for the Cuban people.
By forcing the U.S. government to do something different, Cuba scored a victory after 50 years of struggle. Now the United States will be trying to engineer a rift between people and political leaders in Cuba — presumably a short term objective. Silence prevails in regard to what happens later — in the long run. However, that silence and the foregoing words together say that the ultimate U.S. goal is as before, that the Cuban revolution will go away. In gentle words, Obama casts a soft light on U.S. counter-revolutionary resolve: “Decades of U.S. isolation of Cuba have failed to accomplish our enduring objective of promoting the emergence of a democratic, prosperous, and stable Cuba.”
Notes.
- https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/12/17/statement-president-cuba-policy-changes
- https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/01/statement-president-re-establishment-diplomatic-relations-cuba
- https://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/foreign-policy/cuba
- http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2015/08/246121.htm
- http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v06/d499
- https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/04/11/remarks-president-press-conference-after-summit-americas
W.T. Whitney Jr. is a retired pediatrician and political journalist living in Maine.
Stinging rebuke: Court rules against EPA’s lax approval of Dow’s bee-poisonous pesticide
RT | September 11, 2015
A federal appeals court in the US has rejected a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency to approve an insecticide harmful to honeybees without proper verification of the chemical’s effects.
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Thursday that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) improperly approved and registered the pesticide sulfoxaflor, made by Dow AgroSciences, in violation of the agency’s regulatory protocol.
Environmentalists and representatives of the honey and beekeeping industries said sulfoxalfor is a type of insecticide chemical known as a neonicotinoid that is associated with mass death among bee populations worldwide.
The court agreed with sulfoxaflor’s neonicotinoid status in its ruling, finding that the EPA based its regulatory decision on “flawed and limited data,” and that sulfoxaflor approval was not based around “substantial evidence.”
The EPA used studies and materials provided by Dow to assess the chemical’s effects on bees and other species. Based on insufficient data given to it by Dow, the agency proposed certain conditions on the approval of the chemical, the court found.
Yet the EPA went ahead with unconditional registration anyway even though Dow had not met those conditions or offered updated studies, the court said.
“Given the precariousness of bee populations, leaving the EPA’s registration of sulfoxaflor in place risks more potential environmental harm than vacating it,” the ruling stated, adding that the EPA must provide more data on impacts of sulfoxaflor before moving forward with the chemical.
“It’s a complete victory for the beekeepers we represent,” said Greg Loarie, an attorney representing the American Honey Producers Association, the American Beekeeping Federation, and other plaintiffs, according to Reuters. “The EPA has not been very vigilant.”
Dow AgroSciences, a division of Dow Chemical Co., first registered sulfoxalfor in 2010 for use in three of its products, including the brands Transform and Closer. In a statement, Dow said it “respectfully disagrees” with the court’s ruling and that it intends to “work with EPA to implement the order and to promptly complete additional regulatory work to support the registration of the products.”
The EPA said it will review the ruling, but offered no further comment to Reuters.
The plaintiffs in the case filed a lawsuit against the EPA in late 2013, arguing the EPA’s approval process of the chemical fell short of its legal oversight demands. Shortly before the EPA cleared sulfoxalfor in May 2013, the European Union enacted a two-year moratorium on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides (sulfoxaflor is considered by many to be a “fourth-generation neonicotinoid”) in light of scientific studies that indicate their harm to bees.
The suit was the first to invoke the US Endangered Species Act to protect bees, claiming the EPA violated the act by not sufficiently considering the impact of pesticides on honeybees and other imperiled wildlife categorized as threatened or endangered under federal law. Bees pollinate plants that are responsible for at least a quarter of Americans’ food.
Neonicotinoids were developed in the 1990s to boost yields of staple crops such as corn, but they are also widely used on annual and perennial plants in lawns and gardens. Researchers believe the neonicotinoids are causing some kind of unknown biological mechanism in bees that in turn leads to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).
CCD has led to the deaths of tens of millions of honeybees in the US, with annual death rates of about 30 percent. A 2013 US Department of Agriculture study reported that CCD has caused the devastation of an estimated 10 million beehives. This year, the USDA said that 42.1 of managed honeybee colonies were lost from April 2014 to April 2015, the second-highest annual loss on record.
Pesticide producers argue that the current massive bee die-off worldwide is not caused by chemicals, but mite infestations and other factors.
Honeybees pollinate more than 100 US crops – including apples, zucchinis, avocados, and plums – that are worth more than $200 billion a year.
In May, the US Environmental Protection Agency announced new regulations on pesticide use that seek to protect managed bee populations during certain periods of the year.
READ MORE:
Insecticides cause honeybee colony collapse, study shows
US govt’s wanton approval of harmful pesticides fueling ‘bee holocaust’ – lawsuit
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World War II Didn’t End The Great Depression
Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | April 4, 2024
A principal goal of Stark Realities is to “expose fundamental myths across the political spectrum” — and few myths are as universally embraced as the notion that US participation in World War II (1941-1945) lifted the American economy out of the Great Depression.
This myth is dangerous not only because it leads citizens and politicians to see a bright side of war that doesn’t really exist, but also because it helps foster a belief that government spending is essential to countering economic downturns. That belief, in turn, has helped propel us to a point where the national debt now exceeds $34.6 trillion, with interest payments alone on pace to reach $1 trillion a year in 2026, inviting financial catastrophe. … continue
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