A while ago, caricatures began to appear on the internet showing the Egyptian president, Mohammed Mursi, prostrating before the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The artists were inspired by his request for a $4.8 billion loan to revive the Egyptian economy, which has been in recession since the beginning of the revolution. More recently, the media has been discussing “news” of an offer by the European Union of a $1.29 billion loan, if Egypt secures the IMF loan.
These loans are usually conditional and are intrinsically tied to a series of economic policies, such as lifting state subsidies on some basic commodities and liberating the markets. In the past, implementing these policies has led to the outbreak of popular protests in Egypt as well as in other poor countries. This is why some activists in the field of social justice call the IMF the poverty, deprivation and debt makers, keeping Third World countries under the hegemony of rich countries.
The loans also come with political conditions to do with the government’s position on “Israel” and good neighborliness. Observers in the field of development are wondering whether Egypt under the Muslim Brotherhood will take the same economic path as Hosni Mubarak’s regime despite their talk of social justice and combating poverty in the latest elections.
Resorting to conditional loans may be dictated by the reality of the Egyptian economy in a world which is suffering from consecutive financial crises. It may even be marketed as political realism. But some are wondering about the limits of this realism, particularly when the Egyptian prime minister, Hisham Qandil, announced that Egypt will not cease economic and industrial cooperation with “Israel,” in reference to the qualifying industrial zones that make Israeli-Egyptian products in every corner of Egypt.
An Irish parliamentary committee on trade relations has come out in unanimous support of a ban on imports from illegal Israeli settlements, The Irish Times reported Wednesday.
The committee is about to write to the deputy head of government and the Foreign Affairs Minister Eamonn Gilmore to call for the implementation of the national ban.
A ban on Irish imports from illegal Israeli settlements is a significant step toward answering Palestinian civil society’s call for a global boycott of Israeli occupation. The call, issued in 2005, calls on individuals and groups to boycott products, companies and institutions that support the violation of Palestinian rights in Palestine.
The boycott movement also seeks to push groups to divest from corporations complicit in the repression of Palestinians, and to encourage states to place economic sanctions on Israel for discriminatory policy-making.
Israel has long history of subjugating indigenous Palestinians, starting with the creation of the state in 1948, when the few thousand Palestinians who were not expelled from their homeland were placed under nearly 20 years of military rule. Palestinians in territories occupied by Israel after 1967 remain under stifling and often lethal martial law.
A rapidly growing list of groups have heeded the call to boycott, including some major European labor unions and world-renowned artists. Several student unions in North America in recent months have voted in favor of having their universities divest from companies operating in Palestinian occupied territories. One French multinational, Veolia, is currently in financial dire straits after having lost large European contracts over illegal operations in the territories.
One Irish lawmaker, Senator Jim Walsh, suggested that Ireland completely implement the call to boycott. “In the background, we shouldn’t rule out banning all Israeli products,” said Walsh.
Another politician, Eric Byrne, urged the government to champion an EU-wide ban during Ireland’s presidency in the union next year.
“This new Irish parliamentary move should become a model to be emulated by all European lawmakers who claim to care about human rights and international law,” said founding committee member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, Omar Barghouti.
Palestine’s boycott movement takes its cue from the South African campaign to boycott, divestment, and sanction the apartheid regime, which collapsed under the strain of economic and diplomatic pressures in 1994.
Recently renewed Israeli efforts to ensure that Hezbollah is on the European Union (EU)’s list of designated terrorist organizations have not achieved the desired result. They have, however, succeeded in reopening the question, making it a topic of debate and controversy in Europe, and getting some countries, notably the Netherlands and Britain, to take strongly anti-Hezbollah stands. Yet these have not been translated into action.
At a meeting with Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu demanded the EU take action and adopt a clear stand against Hezbollah, which he described as “the world’s leading terrorist organization.” His guest sufficed with expressing an “understanding” of the Israeli demand and made no promises.
This was preceded by a campaign by the Israeli foreign ministry aimed at persuading EU states to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization on the strength of Israel’s accusation that it was involved in the bombing in the Bulgarian town of Burgas in July in which five Israelis and a Bulgarian were killed. Israel’s lobbies and supporters in various European countries continue to be highly active in this regard, with some success. Most notably, the parliamentary foreign policy spokesman of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party, Philipp Missfelder, publicly endorsed its demands. He said Hezbollah “threatens the security of our alliance partner Israel and is involved in countless terror activities,” and that “it is long overdue that Hezbollah be placed on the EU’s list of terror organizations” and “the EU should not allow any more time to elapse” before doing so.
Bulgaria continues to be put under particularly heavy Israeli pressure to accuse Hezbollah of the Burgas bombing. The ultimate aim of this is to get the Lebanese party indicted in a European court in order to facilitate its designation by the EU as a terrorist group. An indictment, and the possibility of a conviction, would embarrass the influential member-states – including France, Italy, Spain, Germany and others – who have been holding out against such a move out because of their interests in Lebanon and the region.
The Bulgarian authorities also appear to be holding out. They have steered clear of implicating Hezbollah in the bombing, and stressed they do not have enough evidence to accuse anyone of it, thus denying Israel the legal precedent it seeks. The Israeli pressure is unlikely to desist, and its effect will only become apparent once the investigations are complete, which Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladinov has indicated should be within the next two months.
In the meantime, the EU position remains unchanged, and falls short of meeting Israel’s demand, at least for now and the foreseeable future. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius’ statement declaring that his country is not prepared to take such a step reflects a longstanding French policy of avoiding provoking Hezbollah. British Foreign Secretary William Hague has adopted the Dutch extreme anti-Hezbollah position in theory, but in practice this seems to have enabled Britain to appear to strike an aggressive posture against the party without actually changing policy. Britain continues to draw a distinction between Hezbollah’s military and political wings. This was conceived of as a way of pre-empting the US and Israel and preventing them from foisting decisions on the Europeans that would damage their interests in the region. There has thus been no change in Britain’s policy, despite the hawkish turn it has appeared to take against Hezbollah recently.
Israel’s failed efforts have shown that it is not enough for it to demand Hezbollah’s inclusion on the EU terrorism list for the member-states to comply. For the major European capitals, there are interests and facts on the ground to consider before making any move against Hezbollah, including the likely impact on European interests in light of the party’s standing and influence in Lebanon and the region.
If the EU does end up submitting to Israeli pressure, it would signal something else. It could mean that the confrontation has begun. Yet the signs continue to indicate that no such decision has been taken, at least not at this stage.
Yahya Dbouk is Israeli Affairs Columnist at Al-Akhbar
British, Dutch foreign ministers urged EU nations Friday to impose sanctions on the military wing of Hezbollah for providing support to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.
The European Union has long resisted pressure from the Zionist entity and the U.S. to list Hezbollah, with many member states saying it was important to keep lines of contact open to a powerful organization in the Lebanese politics.
“It is necessary to move on that. I think we’ve taken action on that in the U.K. and I would like to see the EU designate and sanction the military wing of Hezbollah,” UK Foreign Minister William Hague said on his way into an EU foreign ministers meeting in Cyprus.
Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal said the European Union should brand Hezbollah a terrorist organization, a move that would enable the bloc to freeze the group’s assets in Europe.
“We have for quite some time now argued that effective European measures should be taken against Hezbollah,” Rosenthal said on the sidelines of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Cyprus to discuss the EU’s response to the Syrian crisis.
The U.K. lists Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist group. The Netherlands, like the U.S., lists the group but doesn’t distinguish between its military and political wings, despite the fact that the party of Resistance to occupation is a member of the Lebanese government.
But other EU member states, which have blacklisted the Palestinian Islamic group Hamas, have resisted U.S. and Zionist pressure to do the same to Hezbollah.
The Hezbollah issue has long divided European capitals. When the George W. Bush administration pushed Europe to list Hezbollah in 2005, a number of countries, led by France, opposed it. The issue hasn’t been seriously addressed since then.
Several EU countries have argued that such a move could destabilize the balance of power in Lebanon and add to tensions in the Middle East.
Some European diplomats say it would also be legally difficult to blacklist Hezbollah without a court ruling in an EU state that linked the group to terrorism.
“Until now the Europeans have said that to designate a group as a terrorist organisation you have to have a judicial process under way against this organisation, which is not the case at the present time,” said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.
Hezbollah, the Lebanese party of resistance, was set up in 1982 to fight Zionist forces which had invaded Lebanon. If it weren’t for the military wing of Hezbollah, the Lebanese land wouldn’t have been liberated in May 2000, and Lebanon wouldn’t have gained victory in the July 2006 war which the Zionist entity launched against it.
Iran chaired, hosted and led the recently rejuvenated Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) meeting in Teheran, attended by delegates from 120 countries, including 31 heads of state and 29 foreign secretaries of state. Even the United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon, notorious mouthpiece of Washington, felt obligated to address, a forum attended by two-thirds of the member countries of the UN, despite State Department and Israeli objections.
Any objective evaluation of the meeting, its venue, the attendance, resolutions and political impact leads to one paramount conclusion: the NAM meeting was a strategic diplomatic victory for Iran and a major defeat for the US, Israel and the European Union. The entire US-Israeli-EU diplomatic and propaganda effort to isolate and stigmatize Iran, especially over the past decade, was shredded.
The Politics of Attendance
Attendance by representatives of 120 countries demonstrates that Iran is not a ‘pariah state’; it is an accepted member of the international community.The presence of 60 heads of state and foreign secretaries demonstrates that Iran is considered a noteworthy and significant political actor, not a “terrorist state” to be isolated and shunned. The proceedings, debates and discussions among and between the delegates and Iranian leaders convinced those attending that Teheran gives primacy to reasonable dialogue in resolving international conflicts.
Both in terms of form and content the NAM meeting highlighted the superiority of Iran’s diplomacy over and against Washington’s bellicose posturing and improvised diversionary tactics. The fact that the meeting took place in Teheran, that Iran was elected chair, that a major part of the NAM agenda and subsequent resolutions coincided with Iran’s democratic foreign policy, highlights Washington’s policy failures and its isolation on issues of major concern to the larger international community. Pandering to the domestic Zionist power configuration has a high cost in the sphere of international politics.
NAM Resolutions: Iran versus Washington – Israel
The centerpiece of US and Israeli strategic policy has been to claim that Iran’s nuclear program including the enrichment of uranium, are a threat to world peace and in particular to Israel and the Gulf states. The NAM meeting repudiated that position, affirming Iran’s right to develop a peaceful nuclear program including the enrichment of uranium. NAM rejected western sanctions against Iran and other countries. In fact many of the leading members, including India, brought delegations of business executives in pursuit of new economic contracts.
NAM declared its support for a nuclear free Middle East and called for an independent Palestinian state based on 1969 borders with Jerusalem as its capital, in total repudiation of Washington’s unconditional support of the nuclear armed Jewish state.
NAM rejected Egyptian Prime Minister Morsi’s proposal to support the Western backed armed mercenaries invading Syria, major blow to Washington’s effort to secure international support for regime change. NAM unanimously approved several resolutions which affirmed its anti-imperialist principles in direct opposition to US imperial positions: it rejected the US blockade of Cuba; it affirmed Argentine sovereignty of the Malvinas Islands (dubbed the ‘Falklands’ by Anglo-American pundits); it opposed the Paraguayan coup; it supported Ecuador in its dispute with Great Britain on asylum for Assange; it selected Venezuela as the site for the next NAM meeting; it rejected terrorism in all of its forms and modalities, including the state sponsored variant.
Western Propaganda Media: Self Serving Diversions
The resounding diplomatic successes of the Iranian hosts of the NAM meeting were countered by a mass media blitz directed at diverting attention to relatively marginal events. The Financial and New York Times, the BBC and the Washington Post featured a speech by Egyptian Prime Minister Morsi calling for NAM support for the Western backed armed mercenaries invading Syria. The media omitted mentioning that no delegation took up his proposal. NAM not only ignored Morsi but unanimously approved a resolution opposing western intervention and affirming the right of self-determination, clearly applicable to the case of Syria.
While NAM defended Iran’s right to develop its peaceful nuclear program, the mass media publicized a dubious “report” authored by US favorite, Yukiya Amano of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) questioning Iran’s compliance with his directives. Not surprisingly the report by Amano carried no weight in the deliberations of the 130 delegates, given his notoriety as a front-man for Israeli and US pro-war propaganda.
Overall the mass media deliberately ignored or underplayed the resolutions, dialogue and democratic procedures of the NAM meeting in an effort to cover up the enormous political gulf between the US, Israel, the EU and the vast majority of the international community.
Political Impact of the NAM Conference
NAM seriously undermined the images of the Mid-East conflicts which US policymakers and their acolytes in the EU and Gulf States project: the political reality, which came out of the meetings emphasized that it is the US. Israel and the EU who are outside the mainstream international community. It is the US and EU who lack political allies in the pursuit of colonial wars. It is the Israeli occupation of Palestine and Washington’s policies of ‘regime change’ in Syria and Iran which lack allies. Its Iran’s peaceful nuclear program which has legitimacy not Israel’s nuclear arsenal. The Iranian leadership gained prestige via its openness to international dialogue. In contrast its regional Gulf adversaries, who rely on multi-billion dollar US arms purchases and military bases were denigrated and discredited.
The Iranian proposals to reform the United Nations to make it more democratic and responsive to emerging countries and less a tool of US-EU policymakers resonated throughout the conference. The emphasis on free trade, was manifest in the large economic delegations who attended eager to sign agreements in defiance of US-Israel-EU sanctions.
Conclusion
Temporarily the NAM conference may have lessened the threat of a military attack against Iran, at least by the US and the EU – by demonstrating the political cost of alienating two thirds of the UN Assembly. Nevertheless by demonstrating Israel’s total isolation, (and truly pariah status in the international community), NAM may have heightened the pathological paranoia of the Israeli leadership and hastened its move toward a catastrophic war.
The follow-up of the NAM resolutions requires a permanent organization, a minimum coordinating secretariat to ensure compliance and rapid responses to crises. Otherwise the good intentions and positive moves toward peace via dialogue will be inconsequential.
The mobilization of the NAM members in the UN General Assembly is crucial to withstand the blackmail, bribes, threats and corruption which are used by the Western powers to secure majorities on crucial votes regarding US sanctions, coups and military intervention. Trade, investment and cultural boycotts of Israel should be promoted and enforced, until the Jewish State ends its occupation of Palestine. Clearly Iran, as the newly elected leader of NAM, has a major role to play in ensuring that the Tehran meeting of 2012 becomes the basis for a revitalization of the Movement. Iran can play a constructive leadership role providing it continues to promote a plural collective format based on common anti-imperialist principles.
World champions in arbitrary detention, the United States and the European Union, are now behind a campaign to free a person convicted for drug trafficking in Nicaragua. The US is notorious for its prisons at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and for its global network of secret detention centers. Its overseas accomplice, the EU, is also notorious, for having collaborated in setting up that network as well as for its own detention centers wherein tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants languish. Their support for the Puracal campaign is just one more political ploy, another clear example of the US-EU tandem at work to co-opt and corrupt the entire international human rights system.
“Midnight Express” in Central America
On August 2011, U.S. citizen Jason Puracal Zachary was convicted in a Nicaraguan Court of Justice to 22 years in prison for narcotics trafficking and money laundering along with 10 Nicaraguans, also sentenced to long prison terms.
Nine months earlier, Puracal’s home and office had been raided by Nicaraguan authorities without a warrant, an extraordinary procedure permitted in the country’s criminal code for serious cases in which there is suspicion that the investigation risks having evidence destroyed or concealed. Using the latest technology (provided, incidentally, by the United States) traces of narcotics were found in Puracal’s vehicle along with extensive documentation supporting the investigation, which the Nicaraguan judicial authorities argue justifies the charges against him and the other members of the network in which he participated.
As a U.S. national, Puracal has appealed the sentence and hearings begin this week in the district appeals court in Granada.
Jason Puracal is a former Peace Corps volunteer for the United States in Nicaragua. After having met and married a Nicaraguan, he decided to stay in the country, buying a real estate franchise after his volunteer service tour ended. His arrest has led to an unprecedented international campaign in the form of a petition organized in favour of his release which has gathered more than 90 thousand signatures on the internet.
The sentiment is understandable given the ease with which the situation can be turned into a parallel of the famous film Midnight Express (1978), by Alan Parker, from the screenplay by Oliver Stone. In the film, an American drugs trafficker is sentenced to 30 years in a Turkish prison. Over the decades the film, based on a true story, has become a classic of Islamophobia with all the clichés that portray countries of the non-Western “periphery” as lawless places where whites are exposed to all kinds of torture, including sexual abuse, at the hands of corrupt, ruthless and unpredictable locals. After years of enduring inhumane conditions and abandoning all hope of support from the U.S. government, Billy Hayes, the film’s protagonist, decides to escape from prison on his own.
Puracal’s case has been supported by groups in U.S. such as the Innocence Project and has received support from such influential persons as the former director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Tom Cash (who helped prosecute Colombian narcotics kingpin Pablo Escobar) and Irwin Cotler, former Canadian justice minister and Attorney General. Cotler wrote an inflammatory letter to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega referring to the Puracal case as one of “arbitrary detention” and “a serious abuse of justice”, according to Nicaragua Dispatch. Even the supposedly prestigious UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions recommends the “immediate release” of Jason Puracal.
According to the version of events put forward by the defenders of Puracal, Puracal’s rights were violated by Nicaraguan authorities in their failure to produce a search warrant when entering his home and business office. They also argue that he was denied the right to a proper defense and that his prison sentence is longer than Nicaraguan law allows. Finally they allege that he has been forced to live with seven other prisoners in the same cell, and that at one point he suffered burns from a water kettle used in the prison.
All of these allegations have been rejected outright by the President of the Court of Appeal, Dr. Norman Miranda Castillo, who in turn accused the U.S. Embassy in Managua of interfering in the course of Nicaraguan justice.
“Responsibility to Protect” the Narcos
This past May 24, the Secretary for the UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, Miguel De la Lama, sent a letter in response to a request by Jared Genser, on behalf of the “non-profit organization” Perseus Strategies LLC. In the letter, Lama informs Genser that the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in its sixty-third session issued a “text of opinion”, number 10/2012 on Puracal.
The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention was established by Resolution 1991/42 of the now superseded UN Commission on Human Rights, among other things to investigate cases of arbitrary detention inconsistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a task that according to the United Nations should be carried out “with discretion, objectivity and independence.”
The “text of opinion“, sent by the UN Group to the Government of Nicaragua, clarifies that the human rights body cannot comment on the charges against Puracal, nor about the evidence presented against him by the State of Nicaragua. However, given that the Nicaraguan government did not respond to the allegations made by the group within the stipulated period of two months, the Council recommended Puracal’s immediate release, and for a new trial to be conducted if deemed necessary, along with with an indemnity to Puracal for alleged damage to his person. Clearly, this letter from the UN body immediately became a powerful media weapon.
The Working Group’s members are Malick El Hadji Sow from Senegal, Shaheen Sardar Ali from Pakistan, Roberto Garreton of Chile, Mads Andenas from Norway and Vladimir Tochilovsky, from the Ukraine. It is not difficult to discern the influence of the European Union and NATO prevalent in this UN Working Group.
The Working Group chairman Malick Sow, is a Supreme Court judge in Senegal, a strong regional ally of France and a country lauded as a “strong and stable democracy” by the European Union. Senegal ranks 155th of the 169 countries that make up the Human Development Index, and is heavily reliant on EU aid, which exceeds 10% of the national budget. Meanwhile, the Working Group’s Pakistani vice-president is actually a law professor at the University of Warwick in England and at the University of Oslo, in Norway. It is hardly possible to expect actions deviating from the official line by a Chilean representative who, although a recognized human rights defender during the Pinochet era, today represents a state that practices arbitrary detention of indigenous Mapuche of all ages, as if it were a sport. Nor can one expect independent action from a Ukrainian trial lawyer involved in the first stages of organizing the International Criminal Court, widely criticized for its bias against any head of State identified by Washington as an enemy, and for its reluctance to investigate the crimes by allies of the White House.
Lastly, the Norwegian, Andenas is, like the Pakistani Shaheen Ali, a professor at the University of Oslo’s Law Faculty, but he has also been a member of the board of a very exclusive organization, the Association of Human Rights Institutes (AHRI) of the European Union. This group, funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) organization, brings together some 41 universities in Europe to conduct research in the area of human rights. In December 2010, with funding from COST, AHRI conducted the seminar “International Criminal Court and the Responsibility to Protect – Synergies and Tensions.” One of the seminar themes was the suggestive name of “The Way Ahead”, a “discussion of the ways in which the “international community could coordinate their future actions” to implement the doctrine known as R2P.
The Responsibility to Protect, or R2P, is an idea that NATO countries have been promoting for several years within the United Nations. The basic concept of R2P is that when a state fails to protect its population, either deliberately or through being unable to, it is the responsibility of the “entire international community” to intervene, even when this is in contradiction with one of fundamental principles of the United Nations: non-interference in the internal affairs of other States. At the UN World Summit in September 2005, a majority of member states, under pressure from NATO countries accepted the idea of R2P in principle, but recommended a more extensive discussion of the topic. Little more than five years later, that doctrine would be put into practice by NATO forces through a war of aggression against the Libyan people.
Within the stretch of a few days in March 2011, Soliman Bouchuiguir of the Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR) released a statement to an assembly of more than 70 NGOs for the 15th Special Session of the UN’s Human Rights Council beginning February 25, 2011. The session for the first time in its history decided to expel a member state, Libya, for alleged bombings against its civilian population. A few weeks later would mark the beginning of a NATO slaughter against the North African country.
“To be honest, it’s was not a very difficult undertaking because all these NGOs are known to each other (…) and finally, the session of the UN Human Rights Council made it all come together in Geneva, and so the statement was launched, signed by all members,” said Bouchuiguir interviewed for the documentary film “The Humanitarian War”, directed by Julien Teil.
The figures that Bouchuiguir convinced the other members of the Council of were shocking: March 17, 2011, reported 6,000 dead, 12,000 wounded, 500 missing, 700 rapes and 75,000 refugees. Just two weeks later, Bouchuiguir spoke of 18,000 dead, 46,000 wounded, 28,000 missing, 1600 sexual assaults. It was these figures that were used to justify the “no fly zone” and NATO bombing that resulted in a veritable slaughter. All these figures were invented.
Remember that on March 2, the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S., Mike Mullen, testified before Congress: “we could not confirm that Libyan planes had opened fire on their own population.” Around the same time, the Russian Joint Chief of Staff reported that satellite monitoring over Libyan territory since the crisis’ beginning in mid-February, failed to detect any kind of bombing.
“There is no way to do it”, replied Bouchuiguir to Teil’s question about how to check whether the figures he had given the UN were true. “The Libyan government never, ever, gives information on human rights (…) so you have to do an estimate,” he said. “… his information (on the number of civilian casualties in Libya) I did not receive from just anyone. I received it from The Libyan Prime Minister – on the other side,” added Bouchuiguir referring to the National Transitional Council (NTC) sponsored by the so-called “rebels” in turn supported by NATO.
“It was Mr. Mahmoud… of the tribe Warfallah. It was he who gave me these figures. I used them, though with some caution,” he adds. Bouchuiguir was referring to Mahmoud Jibril, the “Prime Minister” of the “Libyan rebels” designated by NATO and the CIA.
Ali Zeidan, introduced in early March as the LLHR spokesman, would also become spokesman for the NTC. Later, when pressed by Teil, Bouchuiguir recognized that several members of the NTC were also members of the above mentioned “human rights” organization. “You know, these people in the government (the NTC), we are all part of the same group! They are members of the Libyan League for Human Rights! The Minister of Information, for example, the Education Minister, the Minister for Oil, the Finance Minister, all are members of our league! … None occupy positions of responsibility, but are members of our league,” he explains.
The true scale of the slaughter committed against the Libyan people may some day be known. For now, though, through some heavily embellished figures from NATO itself, detailing the use of 7,700 missiles and bombs on some more than 10,000 flights, one can get an idea, one that would very probably pale against the horror of the true facts. As long as those in charge of the task of counting the bodies on the ground continue to show the same unethical behaviour as individuals such as Bouchuiguir Soliman and the officials of the 70 “human rights” NGOs – who without even thinking voted so that others would execute their “responsibility to bomb” the Libyan people – the truth may never be known, simply because there are interests to ensure it never does.
All this begs the question: If these kinds of humanitarian bureaucrats have no qualms about inventing a genocide so as to sanction their own genocide in accordance with the interests of Western powers, why would they refrain from demanding the release of a convicted drug dealer like Jason Puracal?
What are the chances that the UN Working Group will deal seriously with these issues? None whatsoever, because its members are totally supportive of countries that are known human rights violators. Israel, arguably the closest ally of the United States, and it’s largest recipient of military aid, is also a de facto member of the European Union under generous trade and other agreements of cooperation and association.
Rising stars
Nothing happens spontaneously in the corrupt world of institutional “human rights”, controlled by NATO. As an example, one should ask, who is the person charged with requesting the UN Working Group to investigate the case of Jason Puracal?
Jared Genser, named by the National Law Journal as one of the “40 rising stars under 40 in Washington”, is the manager of Perseus Strategies, LLC and founder of Freedom Now, an “independent”, “non-profit ” organization devoted to defending alleged prisoners of conscience worldwide. Genser worked for the law firm DLA Piper LLP and the famous consulting firm McKinsey & Company, among whose clients are several multinational companies and governments along with their militaries. One detail in this bright star’s career: In 2006-2007 he was a visiting professor at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), one of whose founders, Allen Weinstein, said back in 1991, “much of what we do today is what the CIA was doing covertly 25 years ago.” Another detail: amongst his official clients are former Czech president Vaclav Havel, Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, the Chinese Nobel prize winner Liu Xiaobo, South African Bishop Desmond Tutu, and the Hungarian-Jewish Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel. Genser is a graduate from prestigious universities such as Cornell, Harvard and Michigan. Nor should one omit from his curriculum a year spent as Raoul Wallenberg Scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Genser is also the author of “Review and Practical Guide” for the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (to be published in 2013) and co-editor of another work on the R2P doctrine: “The Responsibility to Protect: The Promise of Stopping Mass Atrocities in Our Times “(Oxford University Press, 2012). Who was the editor of that book? None other than the former Canadian justice minister who sent the inflammatory letter to President Daniel Ortega demanding the immediate release of drug trafficker Jason Puracal in the first place: Irwin Cotler. With such a backdrop, it’s not surprising that the Nicaraguan Government has not paid much attention to the Puracal campaign, nor replied to the letter from the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. When a group of influential allies with close contacts within the most powerful circles of the empire begin a campaign of letters and statements to the media, this is not a social movement, but a conspiracy.
One of Genser’s partners in Perseus Strategies, LLC, is Chris Fletcher, more a CIA agent than an idealistic lawyer. Fletcher is an expert on human rights and corporate social responsibility with office experience within the UN, he participated in the trials of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and worked for the NGO Oxfam in the United States among other organizations. Furthermore, Fletcher has been involved in “Tibet Forum, Governance and Practice”, at the University of Virginia. This university is a well-knownCIA recruiting ground with professors active in national security and intelligence circles for decades, such as Frederick P . Hitz, at the university’s law school. Other temporary appointments of Chris Fletcher have been at the State Department and the World Bank.
Perseus Strategies, LLC, is a company dedicated to providing legal consulting services to large NGOs, multinational corporations and governments in the field of human rights, corporate social responsibility and the implementation of R2P. Their activities often include the promotion of U.S. interests in various countries, and the preparation of various documents to justify the application of imperialist aggression under the guise of R2P against target, as in the case of North Korea.
In parallel, or indeed as a special division within the organization, Genser and Fletcher operate a sui generis “social movement”, Freedom Now. This organization works to free “prisoners of conscience” from around the world by giving them “pro bono” legal assistance. It is no surprise that the list of Freedom Now defendants fails to include cases such as the Cuban-American citizens René González and his four Cuban comrades unjustly incarcerated in maximum security prisons for working to obtain information in order to prevent terrorist acts against Cuba from Miami. Incidentally, this August 13, within three days of Puracal initiating his appeal in Nicaragua, René González turned 56 years old somewhere in the U.S., unable to be with most of his family still living in Cuba.
These cases are of little or no interest or concern for the UN Working Group, for Genser, or for Fletcher and other individuals like them. They are only interested in cases that promote US government interests: for now, these include Chinese dissidents, Iranian “activists”, perhaps some journalists in some dark nether region of the Third World, or convicted U.S. drug traffickers in countries like Nicaragua, or some other nation being targeted by White House smear campaigns.
Genser is just one member of the Freedom Now board. Another, the president of Freedom Now, is the lawyer Jeremy Zucker, a former law clerk at the International Criminal Court and a member of the influential Council on Foreign Relations, where the elite of American power, both Democrats and Republicans, decide United States and allied foreign policy. In Norway, the Cuban-American Teresita Alvarez-Bjelland, works as a specialist “non-profit” consultant with the directors of the Norwegian-American Association, positioned to exert pressure on the UN Working Group through their strong Norwegian influence there. Peter Magyar, the attorney in charge of expanding the activity of Freedom Now in Europe, is an influential lawyer in the fields of privatization and international capital markets.
Freedom Now does not defend just anybody. Their work is designed “strategically” so as to promote political changes in the countries where they have selected defendants. Nor is their work limited to the courts, but is also devoted to developing public relations and propaganda campaigns with a broad range of agents and actors.
Freedom Now say they only defend prisoners of conscience. But in the case of Jason Puracal, convicted for drug trafficking, it is difficult if not impossible, to use that argument. In short, their activity is merely one more way, under the guise of human rights campaigns, to intervene with political motives in countries targeted by the United States.
Innocence? What innocence?
One of the most influential organizations sponsoring the campaign for Puracal is the group called the Innocence Project, whose mission is to protect the rights of American citizens unjustly imprisoned inside and outside the United States. In addition to media support, the organization has given Puracal legal support through its network of lawyers in the United States. This organization in 2011 received a grant of $ 400,000 for two years for overhead as part of US financial magnate George Soros’ “Open Society Foundations”, belonging to his Open Society Institute.
According to U.S. investigator Eva Golinger, the Open Society Institute has been involved in the destabilization of governments that have withstood the post-Soviet colour revolution offensive. The Open Society Institute was active in Yugoslavia, Ukraine and Georgia, working closely with both Freedom House and the Albert Einstein Institution (AEI) to overthrow governments by financing media and opposition groups. While the area of most interest for the Open Society Institute is Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, it is also very active in Africa and Latin America.
According to Barry C. Scheck in the New York Times late last year, the new director of Soros’ “philanthropic empire”, Christopher Stone, “has a passion to change things and a great vision and understanding of how to build institutions and re-engineer them to endure”. Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, is notorious as O. J. Simpson’s lawyer in the highly publicized 1995 case.
Scheck’s organization is just another in the dozens of NGOs and other groups that Soros has co-opted throughout the world to follow the empire’s agenda with his millions, last year alone, some 860 of them. An expert in breaking central banks around the world via speculative attacks on vulnerable national currencies, Soros criticizes the excesses of the financial system and advocates regulation, yet, he says, “not excessive regulation. Regulators are human beings who are fallible and are also bureaucrats who make decisions slowly and are subject to political influence.”
Soros’s speech about open societies, free markets and his criticisms of Bush have made him popular among Democrats, but he is by no means progressive. With respect to the strategy of empire, Soros is a leading player among the global power elite. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Bilderberg, the International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch, all organizations working to achieve U.S. geopolitical goals, often using “human rights” as a pretext for US and NATO interventions.
The white rags of the DEA
The “recommendation” by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention turned out to be political engineering at the highest levels of the U.S. government’s self-interested, politicized, corrupt “human rights” network. The former Canadian Justice Minister who so severely criticized Commandante Daniel Ortega, turns out to be an old friend of Jared Genser, the network’s orchestrator. Soros provides far-from-innocent funding to the international human rights “Innocence” organization
Likewise, there is more than meets the eye to former DEA chief Tom Cash as regards his support for Puracal. Thomas V. Cash is one of the men who helped prosecute Pablo Escobar. When he left the DEA, Cash went to work at the information and intelligence consulting company Kroll Inc., becoming head of it’s Miami office. Among its services Kroll offers advice to governments of various tax haven countries on how to improve their image and get themselves removed from the anti-money laundering lists of the Organization fro Economic Cooperation and Development.
Kroll hires former intelligence officers when they leave public office to go into the private sector. Kroll assigned Cash to whitewash the tax haven of Antigua by giving it a financial facelift and creating the loopholes through which contemporary Pablo Escobars can continue flushing drug revenues. What made Tom Cash fall from grace, however, was a different matter.
Last June, the fraudster R. Allen Stanford was sentenced to 110 years in prison. An investigation into his Ponzi scheme found that over a period of 20 years he stole $7 billion from 30,000 depositors, promising fabulous interest rates on their deposits at the Stanford International Bank in Antigua. The case first burst open three years ago, in 2009, when federal authorities raided the offices of the Stanford Group to investigate fraud.
In late July of that year, Cash left his position at Kroll. The reason? As a consultant working for Kroll, Cash gave investors the green light to invest in Stanford, but never bothered to report that his company had once been “hired and paid” as a consultant for Stanford. An electricians’ organization which lost more than $6 million in the Ponzi scheme then denounced Cash. Cash never told the electricians that Stanford had been penalized by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. Nor did he inform them that a former Stanford employee had sued the company charging that the scheme was all a scam.
Among Cash’s credentials, according to the New York Post, he has served as chairman of the Fraud Prevention International Bankers Association of Florida. The newspaper adds that the connections amongst the circles between Cash and state police were so large that a judge assigned to the electricians’ demand against Kroll, had to give up the case because he had been a personal friend of Cash for many years.
Blatant interference
On August 16th the appeal hearing begins in Nicaragua in the case of Jason Puracal. The Granada district appeal court will decide whether or not there are enough elements to declare a mistrial in the original trial that ended with his prison sentence of 22 years based on the procedures in Nicaragua’s Constitution and Penal Code. Even so, via their networks of political interference, false US human rights groups are using Puracal’s case for blatant anti-Nicaraguan propaganda. That in its turn does very little to help Puracal’s defense.
The campaign to free Jason Puracal, a convicted narcotics dealer, perfectly illustrates, yet again, the extent of the corrupt manipulation of human rights by the United States and its allies around the world.
South Korea, the fourth largest importer of Iranian crude, plans to resume purchases after a two-month pause due to a European Union embargo.
South Korean refiners and the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) are negotiating the details of a deal, which would allow supplies to restart from September, Reuters reported citing government sources. Tehran offered to deliver crude in its own tankers and provide up to $1 billion shipment insurance cover.
SK Energy and Hyundai Oilbank – the only two South Korean refiners that import Iranian crude, have confirmed that they are involved in negotiations with NITC. Though it’s unclear whether Iran had offered South Korea a discount for crude.
South Korea, India, Japan and China are the biggest importers of Iranian crude, accounting for more than half of its oil exports. In May, Seoul announced it would halt crude import from the Islamic Republic, becoming the first major importer of Iranian oil to give up supplies due to the EU sanctions.
EU sanctions banning Iranian oil as well as insurance affect Asian customers as they rely on EU companies to insure their shipments. Nearly 90% of the world’s tanker fleets are covered by 13 international P&I clubs from the EU.
Meanwhile Japan approved providing $7.6 billion insurance coverage for Iranian tankers, while China offered to use its own vessels for delivery. India has given permission to its state-run refiners to import Iranian oil on condition Tehran arranges insurance.
The European Union has flatly rejected an Israeli call to blacklist Hezbollah as a terrorist group, saying there is no such agreement among the bloc’s member states.
“There is no consensus for putting Hezbollah on the list of terrorist organizations,” Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said on Tuesday.
Israel’s hawkish Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman made the request for blacklisting the Lebanese resistance movement while sitting alongside the Cypriot minister at a news conference held after annual EU-Israel talks.
“The time has come to put Hezbollah on the terrorist list of Europe,” Lieberman urged. “It would give the right signal to the international community and the Israeli people.”
But Kozakou-Marcoullis highlighted Hezbollah’s active role as a political party, stating that the EU would consider the move if there were tangible evidence of Hezbollah engaging in acts of terror.
Lieberman’s call comes days after the sixth anniversary of Israel’s war against Lebanon in July 2006, a 33-day conflict which ended in Hezbollah’s victory and heavy losses on the Israeli side.
This raised serious questions about Tel Aviv’s long-boasted military capabilities and forced several Israeli commanders to resign over their poor handling of the war.
UK daily the Guardian, is reporting on Monday that relations between the European Union and the State of Israel are to be upgraded. The EU is to offer improvements on both trade and diplomatic relations, including upgrades on migration, energy and agriculture.
The move follows Israel’s inclusion to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in late 2010 and is a revival of plans to upgrade relations between Israel and the supra-national body that were suspended following Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip in December 2008 – January 2009.
The Guardian reports that the details of the agreement are not as significant of an upgrade as the previous initiative, and that Catherine Ashton has delegated attendance at Tuesday’s meeting to Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis, Foreign Minister of Cyprus.
Ashton, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has been a vocal critic of Israel’s suppression of non-violent activism, settlement construction and Israel’s general policies towards Palestinians.
Despite this, Ashton recently received criticism for refusing to speak out against, and clearly state the illegality of, Israel’s policy of Administrative Detention, whereby Palestinian’s maybe detained without charge or trial indefinitely.
Administrative Detention orders are renewed every three months by the Israeli military, who are not required to present evidence as to the reasons for the order. Any justification is held in a sealed file which neither the detained or their legal representation may have access to.
The European Parliament has rejected ACTA, a controversial trade agreement, which was widely criticized over its likely assault on internet freedoms. Supporters of the treaty suggested postponing the crucial voting at the Parliament plenary on Wednesday, but members of the parliament decided not to delay the decision any further. MEPs voted overwhelmingly against ACTA, with 478 votes against and only 39 in favor of it. There were 146 abstentions.
A French international lawyer says the European Union sanctions agreed in early 2012 against Iran raise many specific issues regarding their lawfulness under international law.
Pierre-Emmanuel Dupont made the remarks in an article entitled “Countermeasures and Collective Security: The Case of the EU Sanctions against Iran,” which was published in the latest edition of Journal of Conflict and Security Law in June.
He said that the measures, “including an embargo on imports of Iranian oil and the freeze of assets of the Iranian Central Bank, go well beyond those mandated by the successive UN Security Council resolutions.”
He argued that “the EU measures cannot be characterized as measures of retorsion or as sanctions. Rather they are to be regarded as countermeasures. However, characterizing these measures as such raises the question whether it is open to States or regional organizations to take countermeasures in circumstances where the UN Security Council has already adopted measures under Chapter VII of the Charter.”
According to the International Law Commission, a retorsion is “unfriendly” conduct “which is not inconsistent with any international obligation of the State engaging in it.”
He added that the measures enacted by the EU in January 2012, restricting or impeding trade relations with the Islamic Republic, “go beyond mere expressions of disapproval and involve the suspension of the performance of international legal obligations otherwise owed to Iran.”
Dupont then mentioned bilateral investment treaties between Iran and Germany signed in 1965 and Iran and France signed in 2003 as instances showing that the EU measures actually imply non-performance of various international legal obligations owed to Iran.
He also said that the measures taken against the Central Bank of Iran may be deemed to conflict with rules governing immunities and privileges of foreign states under international law and the 2004 UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their Property, adding that the measure also violates Article VIII(2)(a) of the IMF Agreement.
On July 1, under US pressure, the EU imposed a new round of sanctions on Iran’s oil and banking sectors which had been approved by the bloc’s foreign ministers on January 23.
In March, the US administration approved new embargoes on Iranian crude that penalize other countries for buying or selling Iran’s oil. The sanctions took effect on June 28.
On the 1st of July Europe will cease importing oil from Iran and new US sanctions will also come into place. To talk about how this will affect the energy market RT is joined by prize-winning author and energy specialist Daniel Yergin.
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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British, Dutch foreign ministers urged EU nations Friday to impose sanctions on the military wing of Hezbollah for providing support to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.
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