Canada Rejects Venezuela Vote, EU Mulls Sanctions & Russia Congratulates Government
By Rachael Boothroyd Rojas | Venezuelanalysis | October 18, 2017
Twenty-eight European Ministers jointly agreed to “establish the legal framework” for pursuing sanctions against the Venezuelan government Monday in the wake of the country’s regional elections, Europa Press has reported.
Venezuela’s government won eighteen out of twenty-three states in regional elections this past Sunday, but the results have been disputed by the right-wing opposition, the US, Canada and France, on the basis of alleged foul play.
Opposition spokespeople have so far been unable to corroborate their allegations of fraud, while international electoral observers have testified to the veracity of the results. Venezuelan political commentators have said that mass abstention of opposition voters due to disillusionment with their leaders was the reason for the shock result.
Speaking at an EU meeting in Luxembourg Monday, EU Foreign Policy chief Federica Mogherini cautiously described the election results as a “surprise” and asked for investigations to “clarify what happened in reality”.
Ministers also agreed to advance in the preparation of “selective, gradual and reversible” sanctions against members of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro administration, with some apparent reticence from Portugal.
The EU has been discussing the potential implementation of sanctions against individuals within the Venezuelan government since the US imposed economic sanctions against Venezuela in August. Canada also followed suit shortly after with asset freezes targeting top Caracas officials.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro responded to the decision Tuesday, accusing Mogherini of only listening to opposition voices in Venezuela, and inviting her to call him or arrange a meeting in Brussels.
Meanwhile, Canada officially added its voice to the international chorus of condemnation against the regional election results Tuesday.
In an official statement, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said that “Sunday’s elections were characterized by many irregularities that raise significant and credible concerns regarding the validity of the results.”
She also added her government would continue to “stand for the Venezuelan people and for the defence and restoration of democracy in Venezuela.”
Freeland had already tweeted on Monday that her government was “”very concerned by yesterday’s polling centre closures & relocations – clearly favouring #Venezuela regime, hindering free + fair elections”. Her stance was criticized by Canada’s Communist Party.
Canada is a member of the so-called Lima Group – a regional organization made up of right-wing regional governments opposed to the Maduro administration, including Argentina, Brasil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, and Peru.
On Tuesday, the Lima Group likewise claimed that the elections were marred by irregularities, and demanded a full “independent audit” of results. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro had already called for an audit of 100 percent of votes Sunday.
The Lima Group is due next to meet in Canada on October 26, when it will discuss Venezuela’s regional elections and the ongoing stand-off between the government and opposition.
But not all international governments have condemned the elections, and the Maduro administration has received supportive statements from Russia, Cuba, Bolivia and other Latin American leaders.
For its part, Russia said the elections represented a new opportunity to address the “pressing economic and social problems facing the country” and criticised the opposition’s refusal to accept the results.
“The population demonstrated its commitment to civilized, first of all electoral, ways of settling political differences,” reads a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry.
“Given this, the opposition’s refusal to recognize the results of the voting and calls for more street protests and tougher international sanctions are fraught with negative consequences. This may frustrate the emerging scenario of compromise and trigger another spiral of violence and confrontation,” the ministry added.
In addition, Russia urged Venezuelan political forces to refrain from violence, and spoke in support of dialogue between the opposition and national government “to stop attempts at destructive interference from outside.”
“The counter-productiveness of force and sanction pressure on Venezuela is obvious,” the ministry underscored.
Meanwhile, the government of Cuba also congratulated the Maduro government on the election win.
“Dear Nicolas: I congratulate you for the results of state elections. Venezuela has shown another example of peace, democratic vocation, courage and dignity,” Cuban President Raul Castro said in a letter published by Cuba’s Foreign Relations Ministry.
Bolivian President Evo Morales also took to Twitter to say that “In Venezuela, peace triumphed over violence, the people triumphed over the empire. [Organization of American States Secretary-General] Luis Almagro lost, along with his boss [US President] Trump”.
En Venezuela triunfó la paz frente a la violencia, triunfó el pueblo frente al imperio. Perdió Luis Almagro con su jefe Trump.
— Evo Morales Ayma (@evoespueblo) October 16, 2017
In similar statements, former Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said that the election results had “exposed” how biased international media coverage is on Venezuela.
Many international media outlets had predicted that Venezuela’s opposition would sweep to victory on Sunday, in a repeat of the 2015 National Assembly elections.
Canada passes US-style sanctions bill targeting ‘corrupt’ Russian officials
RT | October 18, 2017
The Canadian Senate has passed Bill S-226, known as the Sergei Magnitsky Law, mirroring similar US legislation. Moscow has repeatedly slammed the bill as a violation of international law and vowed to respond.
Although the bill, titled “Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law),” envisions imposing sanctions on any foreign national, not only on Russians, it mentions exclusively the high-profile cases linked to Russia in its preamble.
Among them is the death of Sergei Magnitsky in a pre-trial detention facility in 2009. Magnitsky was a tax accountant employed by the US-British investor Bill Browder, who was accused by the Russian authorities of orchestrating large-scale tax evasion and embezzling hundreds of millions of rubles from the Russian budget. The lawyer was a prime suspect in the investigation. Browder, however, insisted that Magnitsky fell victim to persecution and torture by the Russian penitentiary system after he allegedly uncovered corruption crimes by Russian tax officials. As result of a three-year lobbying campaign, spearheaded by Browder, in 2012 the US Senate approved the so-called Magnitsky Act, allowing the US to freeze the assets of, and bar entry to, Russians accused of human rights violations. The bill has soured relations between Washington and Moscow.
The other cases listed in the Canadian bill’s preamble refer to the death of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 In London, which was blamed by British investigators on Russian secret services, the assassination of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov in central Moscow in 2015 and the detention of former Ukrainian pilot turned MP, Nadezhda Savchenko, who was tried in a Russian court and found guilty of murdering Russian journalists in Eastern Ukraine. She was subsequently freed in a prisoner swap for two Russian nationals jailed by Kiev.
A foreign national is subject to the restrictions under the Canadian version of the Magnitsky Law if he or she is found to be complicit in torture or other human right violations against “individuals in any foreign country” who wants to shed light on the illegal activity by the government or to “obtain, exercise, defend or promote” human rights. The bill also targets foreign nationals involved in corruption.
Speaking on the bill after it was unanimously approved by the Canadian House of Commons in early October, Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said that the legislation was designed to enable Canadian authorities to impose sanctions and travel bans on foreigners found to be complicit in these offenses.
The bill’s final reading was passed by the Senate on Tuesday. To become law, it now requires royal assent to be given by Canada’s Governor General, which is usually a mere formality.
The legislation’s apparent focus on the alleged misdeeds by Russian officials was slammed by Moscow as aggression that would not be left unanswered.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova described the bill as a copy of the “odious American Magnitsky Act,” saying that it will deal a blow to already strained Russia-Canada relations.
“We warn again that in case the pressure of the sanctions put on us increases … we will widen likewise the list of Canadian officials banned from entering Russia,” Zakharova said in early October.
Konstantin Kosachyov, the head of the Upper House Committee for International Relations, dubbed the bill “yet another confirmation of the existence of the dangerous tendency when national legislation is applied to international relations.” The lawmaker argued that neither Canada, nor any other single country, has the right to play the role of a “global ombudsman.”
“Who has empowered Canada with the right to do such things in the international arena, to decide who is corrupt in other nations and who is not, to apply repressive measures to foreign citizens?” he said.
The spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Ottawa, Kirill Kalinin, said that while the bill is “disguised as a pro-human rights and anti-corruption measure” it goes against Canada’s national interests, as it will alienate “one of the key world powers,” in times when diplomacy is of crucial importance.
“Unfortunately, we are witnessing the continuation of failed policies, pressed by Russophobic elements,” he said in a statement, noting that Russia would respond “with resolve and reciprocal countermeasures.”
Ugly Canadian face now belongs to Trudeau
By Yves Engler · October 14, 2017
The “Ugly Canadian” is on the march, but now with a much prettier face at the helm. Across the planet, Canadian mining companies are in conflict with local communities and usually have the Trudeau government’s support.
A slew of disputes have arisen at Canadian run mines in recent weeks:
Last week in northern central Mexico, community members blockaded the main access road to Goldcorp Inc.’s Penasquito mine. They are protesting against the Vancouver-based company for using and contaminating their water without providing alternative sources.
In Northern Ireland two weeks ago, police forced activists out of a Cookstown hotel after they tried to confront representatives from Dalradian Resources. Community groups worry the Toronto firm’s proposed gold and silver mine will damage the Owenkillew River Special Area of Conservation.
Last weekend, an Argentinian senator denounced Blue Sky Uranium’s exploration in the Patagonia region. Magdalena Odarda said residents living near the planned mine fear the Vancouver company’s operations will harm their health.
On Wednesday more than 40 US congresspeople, as well as the Alaska’s Governor, criticized the removal of restrictions on mining in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region, home to half the world’s sockeye salmon production. In May, Northern Dynasty CEO Thomas Collier met the new head of the US Environmental Protection Agency to ask for the lifting of restrictions on its Pebble Mine, which is expected to destroy the region’s salmon fishery. In a bid to gain government permission to move forward on the project, the Vancouver firm appointed a former chief of staff at the US Department of the Interior as its new CEO.
At the end of September, hundreds of families were displaced by the Filipino Army to make way for a mine jointly run by Australian and Canadian firms MRL Gold and Egerton Gold. The community in the Batangas Province was blocking a project expected to harm marine biodiversity.
In eastern Madagascar, farmers are in a dispute with DNI Metals over compensation for lands damaged by the Toronto firm.
In August, another person was allegedly killed by Acacia (Barrick Gold) security at its North Mara mine in Tanzania.
Last week, Barrick Gold agreed to pay $20-million to a Chilean a group after a year-long arbitration. The Toronto company had reneged on a $60-million 20-year agreement to compensate communities affected by its Pascua Lama gold, silver and copper project.
In mid-September, Eldorado Gold threatened to suspend its operations in Halkidiki, Greece, if the central government didn’t immediately approve permits for its operations. With the local Mayor and most of the community opposed to the mine, the social-democratic Syriza government was investigating whether a flawed technical study by the Vancouver company was a breach of its contract.
And in Guatemala, Indigenous protestors continue to blockade Tahoe Resources’ Escobal silver mine despite a mid-September court decision in the company’s favour. Fearing for their water, health and land, eight municipalities in the area have voted against the Vancouver firm’s project.
The Liberals have largely maintained Stephen Harper’s aggressive support for Canada’s massive international mining industry. Last month Canada’s Trade Minister François-Philippe Champagne backed El Dorado, denouncing the Greek government’s “troublesome” permit delays. Canada’s Ambassador to Madagascar, Sandra McCadell, appears to have backed DNI Metals during a meeting with that country’s mining minister.
As I detailed previously, the Trudeau government recently threw diplomatic weight behind Canada’s most controversial mining company in the country where it has committed its worst abuses. Amidst dozens of deaths at Barrick Gold’s North Mara mine in Tanzania and an escalating battle over the company’s unpaid royalties/tax, Canada’s High Commissioner Ian Myles organised a meeting between Barrick Executive Chairman John Thornton and President John Magufuli. After the meeting Myles applauded Barrick’s commitment to “the highest standards, fairness and respect for laws and corporate social responsibility.”
Two years into their mandate the Trudeau regime has yet to follow through on their repeated promises to rein in Canada’s controversial international mining sector. Despite this commitment, they have adopted no measures to restrict public support for Canadian mining companies responsible for significant abuses abroad.
The ‘Ugly Canadian’ is running roughshod across the globe and pretty boy Justin is its new face.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs: Stoking Islamophobia and Defending Racism
By Yves Engler | Dissident Voice | October 10, 2017
Would a farmer ask a fox to help design a security system for her free-range chickens?
A group that stokes Islamophobia and defends an explicitly supremacist organization shouldn’t be part of a Public Consultation on Systemic Discrimination and Racism in Québec. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) should be removed from the “list of selected organizations” for this important initiative.
While groups participating in the just launched consultation are supposed to “develop concrete proposals to combat systemic discrimination and racism”, last summer CIJA campaigned aggressively against a Green Party of Canada resolution calling on the Canada Revenue Agency to revoke the charitable status of an explicitly racist organization. The Green’s motion described the Jewish National Fund’s (JNF) “discrimination against non-Jews in Israel through its bylaws which prohibit the lease or sale of its lands to non-Jews.” Owner of 13 percent of Israel’s land – mostly seized from Palestinians in 1948 – the JNF systematically discriminates against the 20% of non-Jewish Israeli citizens. JNF racism is not the all too common ‘personal’ or even ‘structural’ variety, rather a legalistic discrimination outlawed in Canada six decades ago.
CIJA and the JNF Canada often work together and sponsor each other’s events. Additionally, JNF Canada CEO Lance Davis previously worked as CIJA’s National Jewish Campus Life director.
Beyond defending racist land-use policies in Israel, CIJA has stigmatized marginalized Canadians by hyping “Islamic terror” and targeting Arab and Muslim community representatives, papers, organizations, etc. In response to a truck attack in Nice, France, last year CIJA declared “Canada is not immune to … Islamist terror” and in February they highlighted, “those strains of Islam that pose a real and imminent threat to Jews around the world.”
In a bid to deter organizations from associating with the Palestinian cause or opposing Israeli belligerence in the region, CIJA demonizes Canadian Arabs and Muslims by constantly accusing them of supporting “terror”. Last week the lobbying arm of Canada’s Jewish Federations said it was “shocked” Ottawa failed to rescind the charitable status of the Islamic Society of British Columbia. CIJA alleges that the Vancouver area mosque supports Hamas, which the federal government considers a terrorist organization but Palestinians (and most of the world) consider a political/resistance organization.
In 2014 CIJA pushed to proscribe as a terrorist entity Mississauga-based IRFAN (International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy). The Jewish group’s press release about the first Canadian-based group ever designated a terrorist organization boasted that “current CIJA board member, the Honourable Stockwell Day … called attention to IRFAN-Canada’s disturbing activities nearly a decade ago.”
In the early 2000s pro-Israel groups and the Conservative Party accused a charity that supported thousands of orphans in a dozen countries of working for Hamas. But, a Canada Revenue Agency audit failed to substantiate the claim. As the two-year audit was about to wrap up at the end of 2004, Stockwell Day and the Canadian Coalition of Democracies (CCD) held a press conference where they accused IRFAN of being a front for Hamas, which prompted a defamation suit (CCD eventually retracted the allegation while Day was protected by parliamentary privilege).
When Day’s Conservatives later took power the CRA renewed their investigation of IRFAN in what appeared to be an effort to prove that Muslim Canadians financed “Hamas terror”. In 2011 the CRA revoked the group’s charitable status, claiming “IRFAN-Canada is an integral part of an international fundraising effort to support Hamas.” A big part of the CRA’s supporting evidence was that IRFAN worked with the Gaza Ministry of Health and Ministry of Telecommunications, which came under Hamas’ direction after they won the 2006 Palestinian legislative election. The Canadian organization tried to send a dialysis machine to Gaza and continued to support orphans in the impoverished territory with the money channelled through the Post Office controlled by the Telecommunications Ministry.
This author cannot claim any detailed knowledge of the charity, but on the surface of it the charge that IRFAN was a front for Hamas makes little sense. First of all, the group was registered with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank when the Fatah-controlled PA was waging war against Hamas. Are we to believe that CRA officials in Ottawa had a better sense of who supported Hamas then the PA in Ramallah? Additionally, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) viewed the Canadian charity as a legitimate partner. In 2009 IRFAN gave UNRWA $1.2 million to build a school for girls in Battir, a West Bank village.
In a sign of how the campaign against IRFAN stigmatized a marginalized group, the CRA’s findings were used to smear the 2012 edition of the Reviving the Islamic Spirit conference in Toronto because IRFAN was one of 17 sponsors of one of the largest Muslim gatherings in North America.
While quick to attack Arabs and Muslims’ support for “terror” or “anti-Semitism”, CIJA clams up when explicit Jewish Islamophobia is brought to their attention. In 2012 the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN) asked for CIJA’s help with an aggressively anti-Muslim textbook used at Joe Dwek Ohr HaEmet Sephardic School in Toronto. It described Muslims as “rabid fanatics” with “savage beginnings”, but CIJA refused to respond.
In a more recent example of the group stoking anti-Muslim sentiment, CIJA aligned itself with the backlash against the term “Islamophobia” in bill M-103, which called for collecting data on hate crimes and studying the issue of “eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination including Islamophobia.” CEO Shimon Fogel said the “wording of M-103 is flawed. Specifically, we are concerned with the word ‘Islamophobia’ because it is misleading, ambiguous, and politically charged.” It takes chutzpah for a Jewish community leader to make this argument since, as Rick Salutin points out, anti-Semitism is a more ambiguous term. But, Fogel would no doubt label as anti-Jewish someone who objected to the term anti-Semitism as “misleading, ambiguous, and politically charged”.
An initiative promoted by committed anti-racist campaigners, the Public Consultation on Systemic Discrimination and Racism in Québec is important. It should not include a group that stokes Islamophobia and defends an explicitly supremacist organization.
Yves Engler is the author of A Propaganda System: How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Canada in Africa: 300 years of aid and exploitation.
Canada’s House of Commons Passes Magnitsky-Style Law
Sputnik – October 5, 2017
Canada’s House of Commons passed a Magnitsky-style law that aims to impose restrictive economic measures on foreign nationals responsible for alleged human rights violations.
The House of Commons passed the measure by a vote of 277 to 0 on Wednesday.
Earlier, Russian Foreign Ministry expressed deep disappointment in Canada’s plans to adopt the law.
“In many ways, it was simply copied from an odious US bill named after Magnitsky and leads to further deterioration of Russia-Canada ties,” — the ministry’s spokesperson Maria Zakharova said. “It will not be left without an appropriate response”, she added.
Russia has repeatedly warned Canada against the adoption of the law. Earlier, the head of the commission on state sovereignty protection of the Russian Federation Council, Andrei Klimov said that the possible adoption by the Canadian parliament of such act will be an “unfriendly step” toward Russia leading to a response by Moscow.
The United States was the first country to introduce the so-called Magnitsky Act, imposing travel bans and financial sanctions on Russian officials and other individuals believed to have been involved in the death of lawyer Sergei Magnistky, who had been arrested in Moscow in 2008 on tax evasion charges and later died of heart failure while in prison.
In 2015, the US Senate expanded Russia-specific human rights and corruption sanctions to other countries by adopting the so-called Global Magnitsky Act.
Undermining Venezuela’s socialist government nothing new for Canada
By Yves Engler · September 23, 2017
Alongside Washington and Venezuela’s elite, the Trudeau government is seeking to oust President Nicolás Maduro. While Ottawa’s campaign has recently grown, official Canada has long opposed the pro-poor, pro-working class Bolivarian Revolution, which has won 19 of 21 elections since 1998.
Following a similar move by the Trump Administration, Global Affairs Canada sanctioned 40 Venezuelans on Friday. In a move that probably violates the UN charter, the elected president, vice president and 38 other officials had their assets in Canada frozen and Canadians are barred from having financial relations with these individuals.
In recent months foreign minister Chrystia Freeland has repeatedly criticized Maduro’s government. She accused Caracas of “dictatorial intentions”, imprisoning political opponents and “robbing the Venezuelan people of their fundamental democratic rights”. Since taking office the Liberals have supported efforts to condemn the Maduro government at the Organization of American States (OAS) and promoted an international mediation designed to weaken Venezuela’s leftist government (all the while staying mum about Brazil’s imposed president who has a 5% approval rating and far worse human rights violations in Mexico).
Beyond these public interventions designed to stoke internal unrest, Ottawa has directly aided an often-unsavoury Venezuelan opposition. A specialist in social media and political transition, outgoing Canadian ambassador Ben Rowswell told the Ottawa Citizen in August: “We established quite a significant internet presence inside Venezuela, so that we could then engage tens of thousands of Venezuelan citizens in a conversation on human rights. We became one of the most vocal embassies in speaking out on human rights issues and encouraging Venezuelans to speak out.” (Can you imagine the hue and cry if a Russian ambassador said something similar about Canada?) Rowswell added that Canada would continue to support the domestic opposition after his departure from Caracas since “Freeland has Venezuela way at the top of her priority list.”
While not forthcoming with information about the groups they support in Venezuela, Ottawa has long funnelled money to the US-backed opposition. In 2010 the foremost researcher on U.S. funding to the opposition, Eva Golinger, claimed Canadian groups were playing a growing role in Venezuela and according to a 2010 report from Spanish NGO Fride, “Canada is the third most important provider of democracy assistance” to Venezuela after the US and Spain. In “The Revolution Will Not Be Destabilized: Ottawa’s democracy promoters target Venezuela” Anthony Fenton details Canadian funding to anti-government groups. Among other examples, he cites a $94,580 grant to opposition NGO Asociación Civil Consorcio Desarrollo y Justicia in 2007 and $22,000 to Súmate in 2005. Súmate leader Maria Corina Machado, who Foreign Affairs invited to Ottawa in January 2005, backed the “Carmona Decree” during the 2002 coup against President Hugo Chavez, which dissolved the National Assembly and Supreme Court and suspended the elected government, Attorney General, Comptroller General, governors as well as mayors elected during Chavez’s administration. (Machado remains a leading figure in the opposition.)
Most Latin American leaders condemned the short-lived coup against Chavez, but Canadian diplomats were silent. It was particularly hypocritical of Ottawa to accept Chavez’s ouster since a year earlier, during the Summit of the Americas in Québec City, Jean Chrétien’s Liberals made a big show of the OAS’ new “democracy clause” that was supposed to commit the hemisphere to electoral democracy.
For its part, the Harper government repeatedly criticized Chavez. In April 2009 Prime Minister Stephen Harper responded to a question regarding Venezuela by saying, “I don’t take any of these rogue states lightly”. After meeting only with opposition figures during a trip to Venezuela the next year Peter Kent, minister of state for the Americas, said: “Democratic space within Venezuela has been shrinking and in this election year, Canada is very concerned about the rights of all Venezuelans to participate in the democratic process.”
The Bolivarian Revolution has faced a decade and a half of Liberal and Conservative hostility. While the NDP has sometimes challenged the government’s Venezuelan policy, the party’s current foreign critic has echoed Washington’s position. On at least two occasions Hélène Laverdière has demanded Ottawa do more to undermine the Maduro government. In a June 2016 press release Laverdière bemoaned “the erosion of democracy” and the need for Ottawa to “defend democracy in Venezuela” while in August the former Foreign Affairs employee told CBC “we would like to see the (Canadian) government be more active in … calling for the release of political prisoners, the holding of elections and respecting the National Assembly.” Conversely, Laverdière staid mum when Donald Trump threatened to invade Venezuela last month and she has yet to criticize the recently announced Canadian sanctions.
NDP members should be appalled at their foreign critic’s position. For Canadians more generally it’s time to challenge our government’s bid to undermine what has been an essentially democratic effort to empower Venezuela’s poor and working class.
Venezuela Rejects Imposition of Sanctions by Canada
teleSUR | September 22, 2017
The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry has issued a statement categorically rejecting the illegal sanctions imposed by Canada on 40 Venezuelan government officials, including President Nicolas Maduro.
It says this hostile action, whose only purpose is to attack Maduro’s government, breaks international law which is fundamental for the promotion of economic development and social, as well as for peace and security.
The statement said the objective is “to undermine the peace and social stability achieved in our nation after the formation of the National Constituent Assembly, as well as the continued efforts made by the National Executive in favor of dialogue and understanding between the different sectors that make life in the country. ”
“These are sanctions aimed at undermining efforts to establish dialogue between the government and the Venezuelan opposition, with the support and support of members of the international community.”
It went on to say that the measures are a violation of the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, the Charter of the OAS, and the rules governing friendly relations and cooperation between States.
The statement also warned they threaten to undermine efforts to initiate, with the support and support of members of the international community, the dialogue between the government and the Venezuelan opposition.
“On September 5, 2017, the government of Canada established an aberrant association of subordination to the government of President Donald Trump with the explicit purpose of overthrowing the constitutional government of Venezuela using economic sanctions as a political weapon.”
It ends, “This decision of the Canadian government profoundly damages the bonds of friendship and respect that for years have guided the relations between our countries and, consequently, will consider all the necessary measures to defend the national interest and sovereignty.”
Earlier Canada announced it would impose the sanctions as a punishment for “anti-democratic behavior.”
“Canada will not stand by silently as the government of Venezuela robs its people of their fundamental democratic rights,” the Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a statement, adding that the sanctions were “in response to the government of Venezuela’s deepening descent into dictatorship.”
The measures include freezing assets of the officials and banning Canadians from having any dealings with them.
As well as the sanctions on Maduro, the Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami and President of the National Constituent Assembly, Delcy Rodriguez have been added to the list.
The measures mirror those imposed on Venezuela by the United States which target Maduro and around 30 other officials.
Last month, the U.S. President Donald Trump also placed renewed sanctions on its Venezuela’s state oil company, while also issuing military threats against the country.
“Canada is a country that has a strong reputation in the world as a country that has very clear and cherished democratic values, as a country that stands up for human rights,” Freeland said. “To be sanctioned by Canada, I think has a real symbolic significance.”
The sanctions come in the wake of Trump’s comments criticizing Venezuela at the UN General Assembly, where he threatened to strengthen economic sanctions if Maduro “persists on a path to impose authoritarian rule.”
The (Criminal?) Subversion of the Academy in the Case Against Professor Anthony Hall
Power Against the Quest for Truth

Professor Anthony Hall. Image credit: The Lethbridge Herald
By Robin Mathews | American Herald Tribune | September 15, 2017
In “the civilized and democratic Western World” a huge battle is in process to control information, belief, understanding, ‘credible knowledge’, and the (real or contrived) ‘facts’ people hold to be true. The process involves a major activity of indoctrination – constant and on-going – towards the acceptance of an increasingly ‘top down’, undemocratic form of rule. The indoctrination does not just involve language as we (think we) know it but it involves a purposeful shaping and reshaping of language influenced by both action and inaction in the ‘public’ world.
The shaping of ‘the (apparently) real’ through language is darkly affected by action in society … and the failure of action. If Criminal Conspiracy – for instance – happens openly and observably and the State will not call it Criminal Conspiracy the real begins to become inauthentic and the language surrounding it begins to weaken. Criminal Conspiracy, just for instance, begins to possess a kind of non-existence although it really happens and really exists in law ….
In Canada (2015-2016), for instance, thirty-one criminal charges (put in place by the Canadian “Crown”) were levied against a controversial Senator in Canada’s “Upper Chamber” as part, many believe, of a huge campaign to indoctrinate Canadians about the (false) integrity of the people in power. The criminal charges were all (every last one!) thrown out by a judge of the Ontario Court of Justice with plain expression of his alarm at those conspiring to force actions upon the innocent Senator.
The judge gave every indication (without saying it outright) that Senator Duffy had been criminally conspired against. No criminal investigation, however, has been conducted against those conspiring and no criminal charges have been laid. None are expected. The Liberal government that has followed the Conservative government led by Stephen Harper (which undertook the unseemly set of actions against Senator Duffy) seems very clearly to be demonstrating that it doesn’t disapprove of criminal actions taken to indoctrinate the Canadian public.
The process of working at highest levels of government, of corporations, and the so-called Mainstream Press and Media to indoctrinate and condition the population to prescribed, false beliefs in a total or ‘totalitarian’ manner (‘as if exerted by a single force permitting no dissenting view’) is pervasive in almost all of ‘the civilized and democratic Western World’. The process is clearly intended to impose false views of reality upon whole, unsuspecting populations.
One of the significant, recent (in history) very successful (on-going) falsifications is described by Lance deHaven Smith in his book (2012) Conspiracy Theory in America. There deHaven Smith points out that the criticism of the Warren Commission inquiry into the assassination (1963) of John F. Kennedy was becoming so effective [the Commission and its ‘findings’ are now considered by many to be without any credibility] that the CIA set to work with surprising effectiveness to slander as “conspiracy theory” criticism of any spurious and/or fraudulent government or intelligence or police activity … and to designate that criticism as the product of cranks, imposters, and/or other wholly irresponsible rumour-mongers.
The CIA was so successful that the phrase “conspiracy theorist” has been lodged in the minds of a large population as a term indicating someone making fraudulent claims instead of someone pointing to possible unacceptable action taken by those in power. (Anthony Hall is accused – among other things – of being a conspiracy theorist.)
Since the Warren Commission (1963-1964) conspiracies against the “democratic” populations of the West have increased and grown in size. The falsification of evidence, supported by George W. Bush, U.S. president, and Tony Blair, British prime minister, in order to permit the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq – just for instance – are now common knowledge (and both continue their lives untroubled by legal actions). Those wars, without naming related others, are resulting (still) in enormous destruction, death, and devastation of community.
Other egregious falsifications of actions and events by governments are not common knowledge – in fact are disputed by every device of modern misinformation. The Afghanistan and Iraq invasions (2001 and 2003) are both connected to the enormous (2001) alleged False Flag operation to destroy three Trade Tower buildings in New York – which operation had very quickly attached to it an official version which, today, lies in tatters but is still forcefully maintained by all the Western governments. [As I write, 79 year old, former CIA agent Malcolm Howard – given only weeks to live – has reported that he was involved in the “controlled demolition” of the building called World Trade Centre #7.]
The growing library of works rejecting the official version is becoming immense. Professor Anthony Hall – as a scholar seeking the truth about official allegations against non-white (so-called) terrorists in the matter – is named as a Conspiracy Theorist partly because he has engaged in denial of the official 9/11 accounts and has considered the allegation that Israeli interests may have been deeply involved in 9/11.
To entertain that possibility is not necessarily to be opposed to the State of Israel – and it is clearly not evidence of anti-Semitism. But those claiming or asking if the Israeli State had a part in 9/11 are immediately under threat of being charged with anti-Semitism. Part of the basis for naming Professor Hall an anti-Semite lies in his on-going concern, as a broadcaster, with The False Flag Weekly News and with the on-going researches being undertaken on the causes of what is called 9/11.
The nature of scholarly endeavour is very frequently to reconsider accepted explanations of events … to re-configure “history”, and/or to offer new analyses of forces at work. Anthony Hall does those things in his two large scholarly volumes dedicated to the history of the displacement and erasure of indigenous peoples … and the developing Imperial Globalization accompanying their (on-going) oppression since 1492.
A criminal conspiracy was almost certainly entered into in order to attempt the destruction of Senator Mike Duffy. A much wider conspiracy is, I believe, in play to destroy Professor Anthony Hall of the University of Lethbridge. In the briefest terms there seem to be four more-or-less invisible global forces at work (and in conflict) which very likely have shaped the personnel and the nature of (what I call) the conspiracy against Professor Hall.
One is the view of Germany from 1930 to 1945. Another is the shifting view of the State of Israel at the present. Another – which has already been referred to – is the problem of False Flag events, the dishonesty involved in them, and the official explanations of them. The fourth is the role of universities in the examination of truth and the conflicts engendered when questionable or fraudulent ideas are held and championed by powerful forces in or connected to the university which – almost of necessity – come into contact with ‘truth seekers’ in universities … working in the traditional environment of “academic freedom”: freedom to inquire, to seek clear answers, and to speak freely without fear of censure or repression about findings.
A generally held view of Germany from the 1930s to 1945 has been one that believes the emergence of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party took Germany on a path of increasing brutality and social violence, and that the path seemed to be approved by the larger population. The “SS State” is thought to have enslaved, starved, tortured, murdered and otherwise destroyed “enemy” people: Jews, Slavs, political dissidents, gypsies, gays, etc. Moreover, it is said to have conducted what is now called The Holocaust: the active process of exterminating all Jews – ‘the final solution’.
Over the years since 1945 voices have been raised to challenge that view or aspects of it. On a video made recently by the Committee for the Open Debate of the Holocaust Professor Hall is asked if he approves of the work of the Committee. He replies there that he approves of open debate on all subjects and accepted truths. He has said, also, that he has been reading more recent materials on Germany from 1930 to 1945 that are making him re-think some of his ideas.
In short, the ‘truth’ about Germany from 1930 to 1945 is being reviewed and reassessed. Many Germans – often children and grandchildren of the adult members of the German community in those years – are seeking a re-examination and a reassessment of the “accepted” view, to provide, perhaps, a view of a much less brutal and single-minded State and population. Where the truth lies is in contest.
The accepted view of Israel in the West is of an unfairly punished people who have gained a homeland and are building a new society on sovereign territory. It is a people viewed not only as having been brutally oppressed and punished for their identity by Nazi power, but rejected and demeaned by many so-called democratic populations. That view has never been globally consented to partly because of the dispute about Israel’s legitimacy (“on Palestinian land”) held in parts of the Middle East.
As the State of Israel appears to become more warlike, oppressive of Palestinians, and greedy for the possession of territory, (the last condemned by the United Nations), the feeling for brutally mistreated Jewish people of the past does not diminish. But alarm at what is thought by some to be oppressive policies and actions of the Israeli State has created a body of people sharply critical of that State’s policies and actions – especially in relation to Palestine and the Palestinians.
That sentiment comes into sharp conflict with the efforts of at least a part of the Israeli State to equate itself with Jewish identity – and so with the attempt to equate criticism of the actions of the Israeli State with anti-Semitism.
Needless to say, in that context, any mitigation of the view of a ruthless, inhumane, and anti-Semitic Germany from 1930 to 1945 probably offends some in the State of Israel and its closest supporting organizations outside Israel. They seem to see the necessity of a consenting global community about the persecution of the Jews in order to have the global community accept Israeli State policies, however offensive. If the Nazi regime was not as viciously brutal to Jews as some sources wish it to be seen to have been, (and as it may have been) then sympathy for the State of Israel might diminish.
In the playing out of the astonishing (and growing) scholarship concerning what might be called the (alleged) false information disseminated by governments to explain extraordinary, violent, and/or visibly brutal events in the community, claims are made that ‘government’ and/or related forces create many of the violent events to condition the population to be fearful and so to accept increasingly fascist rule, and/or to believe the government-created violence is the act of the enemy (whichever ‘foreigners’, religion, or State the government wishes the people of the country to learn to hate). The work undertaken by serious and reputable investigators to reveal and to prove that governments (or their proxies) create random terrorist acts – or what are called “False Flag Events” – has grown to sizable and convincing proportions. Indeed, the growing “False Flag Investigative Industry” suggests a growing field of government criminal acts disguised as the random, insane, or purposefully effected acts of “enemies” (or those that governments wish to convince their populations are enemies).
Professor Hall has engaged actively in “False Flag” inquiry and is a co-host of the weekly program (on the net) called The False Flag Weekly News in which recent (and suspected) manifestations of False Flag activity are tabled and discussed. Among the False Flag theories in play, one concerns the truth of the collapsed Trade Towers of 9/11 and who (if the official story is incorrect) was responsible for the attack. One theory (not by any means the only one) is that a major participant in the event may have represented the interests of the State of Israel or may have been, in fact, an arm of the State of Israel.
Professor Anthony Hall has encouraged open questioning of the standard view of Germany between 1930 and 1945 (without saying he believes the standard view is wrong). He has engaged in open discussion of the False Flag phenomenon and its relation to government and government policy. He has been willing to consider the possibility of Israeli involvement in 9/11 – the destruction of the Trade Towers in New York on September 11, 2001. He has exercised academic freedom and democratic ‘freedom of speech’ in those matters as well as others that have fallen within the scope of his research.
On August 26, 2016 a vicious anti-Semitic cartoon was posted on Professor Hall’s Facebook page when he was not in Canada. He was unaware of the posting, and of its removal – all happening in a period of several hours. And he was unaware of actions being taken over the next days against him as a guilty party wishing to defame and asperse Jews … by means of what (the posted cartoon, used as evidence) can easily be called Hate Literature.
He was unaware of all that went on … because he didn’t post the obnoxious cartoon and didn’t even know of its posting … and because the President of the University of Lethbridge, Mike Mahon, who was informed as soon as the next day and who entered into discussion with accusers of Professor Hall (and with others) over succeeding days did nothing whatever to make contact with Professor Hall, his colleague, and to test Hall’s reactions to news of the posting.
In the minds of many people the behaviour of president Mahon may well suggest he wanted to believe the accusers of Professor Hall and did not want to have to entertain the possibility that his senior colleague and twenty-six year member of the scholarly community of University of Lethbridge did not post … and had nothing to do with the posting … of the slanderous and hateful cartoon.
Some observations may be made about the conduct of President Mahon. One I derive from my own wide experience on every major campus in Canada (see “Canadianization Movement”,Wikipedia) where I consulted, variously, with student, faculty, and administrative personnel. The first observation is to note the failure of the President of the University of Lethbridge to respect collegial relations and to consult early with Professor Hall, simply as a colleague – and to gain absolutely necessary information about the incident. Secondly, one must observe President Mahon’s rejection of the demands of natural justice which would require him as President to consult and to inform (at the earliest possible moment) anyone at U. of Lethbridge whose reputation and livelihood were in peril by growing accusations (untested). Failing grossly on those two matters suggests, to me, that President Mahon might well appear to fair-minded people to have been astonishingly incompetent as a professional and as a human being in his treatment of the very serious allegations brought against Professor Hall.
An even more serious allegation may lie in another observation: President Mahon (growing evidence reveals) apparently consulted with some of the false accusers of Professor Hall, sat with committees of so-called investigators, and formulated punitive measures to take against Professor Hall without having asked to meet and speak with Professor Hall. That behaviour on the President’s part may well point to his participation in a Conspiracy to do irreparable harm to Professor Hall. A Conspiracy very strongly appears to have been undertaken against Senator Mike Duffy … as I have said … but a worse one may well have been undertaken against Professor Anthony Hall.
Though Professor Hall knew nothing about the vile cartoon posted on his Facebook Page, B’nai Brith Canada personnel and sympathizers knew about it very quickly. In very short order they – or a collaborator – informed the president of the University of Lethbridge, the Premier of the province of Alberta, the Solicitor General, and the Minister of Education of the province. Replies were returned to the person giving false information with what I call astonishing speed. In my experience of writing to top government figures I can provide witness that the average Canadian is not responded to with that alacrity. Who, then, could write to the Premier of Alberta and members of cabinet (conveying false information to them) and receive such speedy and sympathetic response? The name of that person is being (for some inexplicable reason) kept from inquirers by the Alberta government. What is the Alberta government hiding … what does the government of Alberta fear??
In a truly astonishing letter written to President Mike Mahon and sent to others like Premier Rachel Notley on September 1, 2016, Bert Raphael, Q.C., LSM, President of the Canadian Jewish Rights Association quotes the whole of the unsavoury text posted on Professor Hall’s Facebook Page. And he finishes his letter (a Queen’s Counsel assuming guilt with the rashness of a school boy) with the following paragraph:
“I trust you agree that such a statement has no place in Canada and most certainly from the lips of a university professor. I would respectfully suggest that such an odious pronouncement would warrant Professor Hall’s dismissal from your University. I would be interested in your response which I undertake to share with the members of my organization whose names appear on the reverse side of this stationery.”
President Mahon waited weeks without seeking a meeting with Professor Hall, then sought one (October 3) almost immediately – and when Professor Hall, otherwise committed, couldn’t comply, President Mahon announced the next day (October 4) (in a letter to Hall) that he was immediately “suspended, without pay from all duties and privileges as a member of the academic staff at the University of Lethbridge, including any and all duties and privileges associated with teaching, research, and community service.” Professor Hall was, in addition, told he could not “attend” at any University of Lethbridge campus.
Having thus, summarily effected in fact (and surely in the public mind) a punishment for wholly unproved (and, in fact, a false allegation against Professor Hall), President Mahon finished his letter by saying that the suspension was “being implemented as a precautionary, not disciplinary, measure… “
Receiving what was libellous, wholly incorrect information (and accepting it as truth without engaging in a word of consultation with his accused colleague) President Mahon wrote to the university community the following about the order that Professor Hall remain off campus, cease his on-going teaching there, and no longer receive his professional salary.
“This action is not focused on Dr. Hall’s published scholarship, driven by complaints of students, or the demands of external advocacy groups. It is focused on his You Tube based videos and comments in social media that have been characterized as being anti-Semitic, supportive of holocaust denial and engagement in conspiracy theories.” [Notice President Mahon uses the term ”conspiracy theories” in the way the CIA shaped the phrase in order to slander and make ineffective substantial criticism and research about government(s) (and others’) misuse of power.]
The questions that arise out of President Mahon’s strange statement are obvious: if president Mahon did not answer the demands of an external advocacy group, how did he come to know of the posting on Professor Hall’s Facebook Page? The President nowhere says he discovered it for himself in the brief few hours the posting was available. Moreover, he had to learn that the posting had been there by the (so far) anonymous writer and then by other writers plainly sympathetic to B’nai Brith … such as Bert Raphael QC whose astonishing accusation I have quoted above.
In addition, President Mahon is reported to have spoken personally on September 1, 2016 to the president of B’nai Brith Canada (but he did not speak to Professor Hall). The university, moreover, has refused to release for examination most of the records of its activities and communications involved in the actions against Professor Hall.
That, alone, is simply astounding – that a university (the bastion of free and open inquiry) would conspire to keep secret its actions and communications relating to what is almost certainly the most serious (and dubious) disciplinary matter in its history.
In addition, President Mahon writes not that he, the President, holds Anthony Hall’s (falsely alleged) comments to be “anti-Semitic” but that they “have been characterized as being anti-Semitic….” If that is the case, someone must have characterized them for President Mahon as the negative things he mentions; some “external advocacy” group or groups must have conveyed that impression to him. The President of the University of Lethbridge appears to be tripping embarrassingly over his own feet in an attempt to disguise the truth about his alleged knowledge and its sources. He has the knowledge of falsely alleged evil done by Professor Hall, “characterized as being anti-Semitic” but he doesn’t characterize it as that himself … and he appears to claim no one else does either!
Ken Rubin, contracted by the Canadian Association of University Teachers, reports further behaviour of the University of Lethbridge which points to a (criminal?) conspiracy to harm Professor Hall. I quote Ken Rubin:
“Incredibly, the records show President Mahon invited the 4 external groups (B’nai Brith et. al.) to consult with Robert Thompson, the university’s external lawyer investigating the Hall case where they could have their legal counsels present. Yet it appears Hall was never consulted or approached or at least there’s no record to that effect.” [Professor Hall reports he knew nothing of the meeting(s).]
The evidence convinces me that there is at least the likelihood that an intricate group of conspirators worked together to insult, to misrepresent, and to harm in character, reputation, and professional standing Professor Anthony Hall. President Mike Mahon of the University of Lethbridge, I believe, must be considered a possible central agent in such a concerted action. I may, of course, be wrong. The case being taken by Professor Hall against the University of Lethbridge should provide answers to most of the questions that the falsely attributed posting on Professor Hall’s Facebook have engendered.
At some time – quite early in this barbaric saga – the University of Lethbridge began and (apparently) completed a secret investigation of Professor Hall – an action repugnant in every way to the most basic principles of fairness held in university communities. In addition, it filed against him (without permitting him any participation) a complaint to the Alberta Human Rights Commission. The complaint was dismissed, but President Mahon’s team persisted, appealed the dismissal, apparently reformulated their materials, and had a complaint against Professor Hall accepted.
From the small part of it I have been able to examine, I judge I am reading a presentation that would be a delight to the CIA. Every statement of, for instance, “Islamic terrorism” or of a similar idea is accepted without murmur. Criticism of such easy acceptance is apparently a violation of someone’s Human Rights. That has to be a very peculiar state of mind in Canada. Especially since in July of 2016, Madam Justice Catherine Bruce of the B.C. Supreme court wrote a 217 page judgement making crystal clear that a so-called Islamic Terror Event staged at the British Columbia Legislature grounds (on July 1, 2013) was wholly undertaken by more than 200 RCMP employees, entrapping two socially challenged converts to Islam, spending millions of dollars of unknowing taxpayers money, and working with and through Ottawa Headquarters in relation to the action in British Columbia.
Other Islamic terror event shams have almost certainly occurred (probably frequently) in other places. Not to question those events may, indeed, contribute to the violation of the Human Rights of innocent people.
Anthony Hall – a wide-ranging, openly inquiring, continually scrutinizing Canadian – appears to have dared to ask questions and to be sympathetic to analyses that – while unproved – are in no way alien to discussion in democratic society … analyses that some forces in Canada wish to censor, to deny, and to erase from the attention of Canadians.
The seriousness of the attack on Professor Hall cannot be downplayed. Its perpetrators undertook to go around all established University of Lethbridge procedures built and agreed to by the faculty and administration there to manage such issues. The perpetrators undertook to ram into place a clause in a highly aberrant Alberta Education Law that permits university presidents to remove at will anyone they choose to remove. That strikes me as a plainly fascist initiative which President Mahon should have rejected openly and vigorously but which he seized upon to use against Professor Hall.
The size and the intensity of the conspiracy to destroy and defame Professor Anthony Hall can be glimpsed when one realizes it appears to want (A) to close down discussion of German history between 1930 and 1945. It appears to want (B) to close down discussion of False Flag (government and/or Deep State presentations of violent) events created apparently with the intention of placing blame for them upon whatever source those in power wish to defame and make ‘enemy’. It appears to want (C) to close down some perfectly legitimate considerations of the role of the State of Israel in Middle Eastern and global affairs. It wants (D) to keep secret almost all of its activities to inculpate Professor Hall. And, finally, (E), the conspirators appear to want to wipe out the idea of Academic Freedom – which is essentially what Canadians think of when they speak of “freedom of speech”. Canadians mean the right to inquire, to observe, to debate, to formulate and discuss ideas in public about public matters without fear of intimidation or punishment.
The (criminal?) conspirators (if that is what they are) acting against Professor Hall want, I believe, to decide what ideas Canadians in all walks of life are free to hold and to express. To name – as I think we must name – one university President as an actor among such alleged conspirators must be a wake-up call to all Canadians – and especially to those in the community of scholars – to make sure no one in the Academy can destroy its most fundamental and noble tradition: the open and unimpeded search for truth.
Robin Mathews is a retired professor who taught English literature at Carleton University in Ottawa Ontario and at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver BC. He is well known for his campaign to Canadianize the faculty and curricula of Canadian universities.

