"Democracy Now" and the "Progressive" Alternative Media: Valued Cheerleaders For Imperialism and War
by Finian Cunningham
Global Research, July 13, 2012
The major Western mainstream media outlets have been running a “shock and awe” propaganda offensive against the Syrian government of President Bashar Al Assad for nearly 16 months.
The misinformation has been unrelenting, monolithic, unverified, one-sided and, frankly, increasingly preposterous.With the
suppression of mounting facts that Western governments are waging a covert war of aggression in Syria, the Western public is right to
treat the conventional media sources with skepticism and outright contempt. Such media are seen as “politicized” and “unreliable”, serving a naked imperialist agenda for Western regime change. In a word, they are damaged goods.
This is where a segment of the so-called alternative media can play a valuable propaganda function for Western powers. Because such media are supposed to be independent, critical, non-corporate, the public tends to consider their reports as objective and unbiased. One such “alternative” news service is "Democracy Now" hosted by Amy Goodman. Goodman is seen as something of a campaigning critical journalist shedding the light of truth on the depredations of the US government, corporations and the Pentagon. But a closer look at what Goodman’s "Democracy Now" is reporting on Syria shows that the purported critical broadcaster has become a purveyor of Western government propaganda. While the mainstream media’s propaganda function is obvious to the informed public, Goodman’s "Democracy Now" plays a more subtle role. Camouflaged with the trappings of critical, independent journalism, "Democracy Now" serves to sow powerful seeds of misinformation in a way that the “compromised” mainstream media cannot.
This misinformation from "Democracy Now" is valuable to the ruling elite because to many of its readers it is not seen as misinformation.
Rather, the “news” on "Democracy Now" is viewed as reliable and representing the views of the anti-war, anti-imperialist constituency. In this way, Goodman is a valuable asset to Washington and Wall Street because her broadcasts can serve to disorient and undermine a constituency that is normally opposed to Western warmongering and imperialism. Many of the subscribers to "Democracy Now" may see through the misinformation. Many, though, may not, and therefore will become embedded with the imperialist agenda. The fact that Democracy Now ratings appear to be holding up would indicate that a lot of its followers are oblivious to the insidious effect of such misinformation. As such, Democracy Now is more valuable to the powers-that-be than, say, the New York Times or the Financial Times. "Democracy Now" ensures that the agenda of the powerful becomes infiltrated in a constituency that would otherwise be opposed to that agenda.
First, let’s recap on the mainstream propaganda offensive against Syria.
Since mid-March 2011, when violence was initially reported in that country, the Western mainstream television, radio and press studiously ignored the evidence of covert foreign-backed subversion and terrorism. Instead these outlets have sought to portray the protests as part of the pro-democracy Arab Spring popular movements that were seen in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Bahrain. The mainstream media have run saturation coverage to demonise the government in Damascus as a “brutal, authoritarian regime” that is cracking down mercilessly on its civilian population demanding democratic reforms. The narrative is monolithic in the major media outlets on both sides of the Atlantic. Whether the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, or the Financial Times, Guardian, Independent, Le Monde, BBC, ITN, the Irish national broadcaster RTE or the Middle East’s much-vaunted Al Jazeera – the “story” on Syria is uncannily uniform. A noble, civilian mass-based movement is being savagely crushed by a tin-eared dictator, so the story goes.
Every possible smear campaign against the Assad government has been indulged in and indeed fabricated. From the alleged killing of innocent civilians by the national armed forces, to the perpetration of massacres by pro-government militias, to self-inflicted car bombs in urban centres by Assad secret services, to the feckless shopping habits of the president’s wife. Russia Today, Press TV, Der Spiegel, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Vatican News Service (Agenzia Fides), to name a few, have been honorable exceptions in mainstream media journalism for conveying a more accurate picture of what is really happening inside Syria – showing that “protesters” are far from peaceful civilians, and much of the violence is actually stemming from Western, Turkish and Arab-backed mercenaries that have infiltrated the country. As the facts of US and NATO-backed violence in Syria become more transparent and harder to conceal owing to the sheer volume of covert involvement, the Western public has rightly become more skeptical about what the mainstream media outlets are telling them. Indeed, the blatant misinformation and lies that are being sold as journalism is increasingly seen as contemptible.
The Houla massacre on 24 May is a case in point. The BBC and other mainstream media outlets have been shown to be outrageously wrong in their initial rush to blame the atrocity on Syrian government forces when the evidence has slowly emerged that it was most likely the grisly work of Western-backed mercenaries.
It is all the more disquieting when a supposedly informed, alternative news service, Democracy Now, peddles such blatant misinformation – more than six weeks after the massacre occurred and after evidence has been reported that points convincingly to Western-backed perpetrators. On 9 July, Goodman broadcast an interview with Rafif Jouejati, a spokesperson for a Syrian opposition group called the Syrian Local Coordination Committees, based in Washington DC. Despite the mounting evidence of Western, Turkish and Saudi/Qatari covert operations, Goodman gave her guest a free rein to regurgitate the litany of mainstream media calumnies on Syria. Without a hint of scepticism from Goodman, her guest said:
“The bottom line is that the majority of the country is engaged in a popular revolution for freedom, for democracy, for dignity… We have mountains of evidence indicating that [Assad’s] armed forces have been engaged in systematic torture, rampant detentions, massacres across the country.”
Really? The majority of the country engaged in a popular revolution for freedom, democracy and dignity? That sounds more like the fanciful imagination of someone safely based in Washington DC. By contrast, sources in Syria have confirmed that people are terrified by Western-armed gangs running amok in their communities, kidnapping, murdering, evicting families from their homes and burning down business premises. According to the leaked Arab League Observer Mission Report, which had initially been commissioned by the Arab League at Washington's request:
"In Homs, Idlib and Hama, the Observer Mission witnessed acts of violence being committed against Government forces and civilians that resulted in several deaths and injuries. Examples of those acts include the bombing of a civilian bus, killing eight persons and injuring others, including women and children, and the bombing of a train carrying diesel oil. In another incident in Homs, a police bus was blown up, killing two police officers. A fuel pipeline and some small bridges were also bombed. "
"Such incidents include the bombing of buildings, trains carrying fuel, vehicles carrying diesel oil and explosions targeting the police, members of the media and fuel pipelines. Some of those attacks have been carried out by the Free Syrian Army and some by other armed opposition groups." (League of Arab States Observer Mission to Syria, Report of the Head of the League of Arab States Observer Mission to Syria for the period from 24 December 2011 to 18 January 2012, Ironically, these fact-finding observations of the AL Observer Mission , went against the interests of its Western sponsors. It was barely reported by the mainstream media)
According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ):
"Those killed were almost exclusively from families belonging to Houla’s Alawi and Shia minorities. Over 90% of Houla’s population are Sunnis. Several dozen members of a family were slaughtered, which had converted from Sunni to Shia Islam. Members of the Shomaliya, an Alawi family, were also killed, as was the family of a Sunni member of the Syrian parliament who is regarded as a collaborator. Immediately following the massacre, the perpetrators are supposed to have filmed their victims and then presented them as Sunni victims in videos posted on the internet." (Neue Erkenntnisse zu Getöteten von Hula.Abermals Massaker in Syrien, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 7, 2012 translated from the German.)
The FAZ report quoted above echoes eyewitness accounts collected from refugees from the Houla region by members of the Monastery of St. James in Qara, Syria. According to monastery sources cited by the Dutch Middle East expert Martin Janssen, armed rebels murdered “entire Alawi families” in the village of Taldo in the Houla region.
Also of significance is the report of Der Spiegel (March 29, 2012) entitled "An Executioner for Syria's Rebels Tells His Story". A system of "burial brigades" for those executed confirms an organized process of mass-murder and extra-judicial killings. This single "burial brigade", according to the executioner's testimony, was responsible for the arbitrary execution of 350-400 people including "prisoners" and "traitors". The "traitors" are Sunni civilians within the occupied urban and rural areas, who express their opposition to the rule of terror of the Free Syrian Army (FSA):
"Since last summer, we have executed slightly fewer than 150 men, which represents about 20 percent of our prisoners," says Abu Rami. ... But the executioners of Homs have been busier with traitors within their own ranks than with prisoners of war. "If we catch a Sunni spying, or if a citizen betrays the revolution, we make it quick," says the fighter. According to Abu Rami, Hussein's burial brigade has put between 200 and 250 traitors to death since the beginning of the uprising." (Der Spiegel, March 29, 2012)
The Vatican News Service Agenzia Fides largely confirms that the Western backed "opposition forces" rather than the Al Assad government were responsible for countless atrocities:
"In Homs, called the "martyred city", "opposition forces have occupied two areas, Diwan Al Bustan and Hamidieh, where there are all the churches and bishoprics," the Archimandrite told Fides. "The picture for us – he continues - is utter desolation: the church of Mar Elian is half destroyed and that of Our Lady of Peace is still occupied by the rebels. Christian homes are severely damaged due to the fighting and completely emptied of their inhabitants, who fled without taking anything. The area of Hamidieh is still shelter to armed groups independent of each other, heavily armed and bankrolled by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. All Christians (138,000) have fled to Damascus and Lebanon, while others took refuge in the surrounding countryside.
The Syrian soldiers in fact, continue to face foreign fighters, mercenaries Libyans, Lebanese militants from the Gulf, Afghans, Turks. "The Sunni Salafist militants - says the Bishop - continue to commit crimes against civilians, or to recruit fighters with force. The fanatical Sunni extremists are fighting a holy war proudly, especially against the Alawites. When terrorists seek to control the religious identity of a suspect, they ask him to cite the genealogies dating back to Moses. And they ask to recite a prayer that the Alawites removed. The Alawites have no chance to get out alive." (Agenzia Fides, Vatican News Service, 4 June 2012)
These reports were known to the alternative media. "Democracy Now" chose to ignore them.
Overblown Casualty Figures, Blamed on the Government
Goodman also indulged in the overblown casualty figures from dubious Syrian opposition sources as if they were verifiable accurate data. She even sounded like Hillary Clinton in talking up the “defection” of the hapless former Syrian Brigadier General Manaf Tlass as “significant” when informed sources discount that news as a minor irrelevance.
In the interview between Goodman and her guest (whom sources describe as belonging to a family formerly aligned with the Syrian government), Bashar Al Assad was portrayed as an unhinged leader who is in denial over massacres – massacres, as we have noted, that have most likely been carried out by Western-backed death squads as confirmed by numerous reports.
Preposterously, Assad was described as guilty of much worse crimes than former Egyptian and Libyan rulers Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi. Then the “alternative” Democracy Now broadcast this statement from the supposed opposition spokesperson as if it were normal discourse:
“I would like to think that we will proceed with full prosecution in the International Criminal Court. I think the longer this issue goes on and the more violence he [Assad] commits, the more likely he will wish to have a fate such as Gaddafi’s.”
Recall that the Libyan leader was lynched on a roadside by a NATO-directed mob, and sodomised with a knife before being shot dead. It may also be recalled that "Democracy Now" gave prominent broadcasts supporting NATO’s intervention in Libya and justifying the criminal subversion of that country. Going by the latest coverage on Syria, Democracy Now is acting once again under a "progressive" cloak as a propaganda tool for US-led imperialist intervention. Given the misplaced respect among many of the public seeking independent, alternative, accurate news and analysis, this insidious role of Democracy Now is reprehensible. May it be suggested, in the name of media transparency, that the programme be aptly renamed "Imperialism Now".
Finian Cunningham is Global Research’s Middle East and East Africa Correspondent cunninghamfinian@gmail.com
Labels: AL-QAEDA, AMY GOODMAN, PROPAGANDA
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COMMENT - (Former) President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives looks like another neoliberal chancer, like Morgan Tsvangirai. Even the names of their parties are extremely similar - the Maledives Democratic Party (MDP) and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). His 'advisor' Paul Roberts is even British.
As always, the way to know who they are and who they represent is to look at their economic platform - follow the money. His 'routine' is 'climate change'. From Democracy Now!:
The first democratically elected president of the tiny Indian Ocean state of Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, has been ousted in what he has described as a coup d’état at gunpoint. A longtime pro-democracy activist who was jailed for six years, Nasheed has achieved international prominence as a leading campaigner to save island nations from global warming. Earlier today, Nasheed said an arrest warrant has been issued for him following two days of street protests against the coup. We speak with Paul Roberts, who served as Nasheed’s communications adviser and was with him on the day of the coup. Roberts says he fears a warrant has been issued for his own arrest and speaks to us from an undisclosed location. [includes rush transcript]
Guest:
Paul Roberts, adviser on international media and communications, the President’s Office, Republic of Maldives. He is currently in an undisclosed location as he fears his own arrest.
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* Ousted Maldives Pres. Mohamed Nasheed a Leading Voice for Island States Threatened by Global Warming
* "Would You Commit Murder?"–15-Year-Old Maldives Climate Ambassador Asks World Leaders to Take on Climate Change
* Island Nation of Maldives Holds Cabinet Meeting Underwater to Highlight Danger of Global Warming
* Obama’s Support for Natural Gas Drilling "A Painful Moment" for Communities Exposed to Fracking
* "Gasland" Director Josh Fox Arrested at Congressional Hearing on Natural Gas Fracking
Rush Transcript
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
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Related Links
* Maldives Independent News Site "Minivan News"
* "The Dregs of Dictatorship" by Mohammed Nasheed (New York Times Guest Opinion, Feb. 8, 2012)
JUAN GONZALEZ: We begin today’s show looking at the tiny Indian Ocean state of Maldives, where the country’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, has been ousted in what he has described as a coup at gunpoint.
In 2008, Mohamed Nasheed beat the longtime ruler of Maldives, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, in the country’s first free and open election. Prior to the vote, Nasheed was a longtime pro-democracy activist who was jailed for six years. At the time, he was described as the "Mandela of the Maldives."
Once in office, Nasheed became an internationally recognized leader on climate issues, as he urged the world to do more to save small island states from rising sea waters.
MOHAMED NASHEED: If it was important for countries to defend Poland in the 1930s because it was a frontline state, it’s very important to take care of the Maldives now, because the Maldives and many other small states are in the frontline of what is happening to the world, to climate today. If you can’t defend the Maldives today, you won’t be able to defend yourself tomorrow.
AMY GOODMAN: Ousted Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed once held a cabinet meeting underwater to highlight the threat of global warming to the Maldives. He also pledged to make the Maldives the first carbon neutral country and installed solar panels on the roof of his presidential residence.
Nasheed’s rise to power is the focus of a new documentary called The Island President. This is an excerpt.
MOHAMED NASHEED: If we can’t stop the seas rising, if you allow for a 2-degree rise in temperature, you are actually agreeing to kill us. I have an objective, which is to save the nation. I know it’s a huge task. I’ve been arrested 12 times. I’ve been tortured twice. I spent 18 months in solitary.
We won our battle for democracy in the Maldives. A year later, there are those who tell us that solving climate change is impossible. Well, I am here to tell you that we refuse to give up hope.
JUAN GONZALEZ: The trailer for the new documentary, The Island President.
It now appears Nasheed may be jailed again after being ousted from office by the police and military, who accused him of unjustly arresting a senior judge. Earlier today, Nasheed said an arrest warrant has been issued for him, following two days of street protests against the coup. Police said on state TV Wednesday night that protests led by Nasheed after his ouster were, quote, "an act of terrorism."
Nasheed spoke earlier today outside his home.
MOHAMED NASHEED: They have issued an arrest warrant to arrest me. Now, the new home minister has pledged that I will be the first former president to spend all my life in jail. So, I think he is working on his delivery of his pledge. I hope that the international community will take note of what is happening in the Maldives. And if they can, do something right now; it certainly will be late tomorrow.
REPORTER: Why do you say that?
MOHAMED NASHEED: Well, we tend to work with facts on the ground. And tomorrow, the fact on the ground would be that I will be in jail, so it’s going to be difficult to rewind from there on. But it would be rather much more easier if people can start work now.
AMY GOODMAN: That is the ousted president of the Maldives.
We’re joined by several guests to talk more about the situation there and President Mohamed Nasheed, as well. We’re beginning with Paul Roberts. He served as Nasheed’s communications adviser. He was with Nasheed on the day of the coup. He’s joining us from an undisclosed location.
We welcome you to Democracy Now! Can you talk about exactly what has happened, Paul?
PAUL ROBERTS: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Amy.
Let me tell you what I saw on Tuesday, when I went into work at about 7:00 in the morning. There was an almighty fight going on just outside the President’s office by the military barracks, where some protesters—I’d say about 500—had been joined with mutinying police officers, and they were trying to break into the main army headquarters, which is also the armory. Later that morning, we heard that the military police and other members of the military were joining the protesters, calling for the overthrow of the government. A little later, we heard that one of the ruling party offices had been ransacked by police, and then the national television and radio station had been stalled by police. The journalists had been rounded up and locked in a room, and the cables had been pulled. And they pulled off the state television from the air.
But the thing that was my striking for me was, at just about 11:00—or, I’d say, just before 12:00 noon, the gates of the President’s office opened, and about three sedan cars swooped in with a jeep at the back. Nasheed got out of one car, the defense minister out of another. He was surrounded by 40 or 50 soldiers, some of whom were armed, and shepherded into a room. And I spoke to Nasheed this morning, and he told me that in that room army officers, who were carrying loaded weapons, told him that if he did not resign now, they would use force against him and his staff. So he wrote a letter of resignation, which the military kept. He was frogmarched to a press conference to declare his resignation. And he was taken to his house, where he was placed under military custody, while the Vice President, Waheed, quickly declared himself the new president. It was—it was deeply, deeply shocking.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, President Nasheed wrote a short piece that was posted on the New York Times website Wednesday titled "The Dregs of Dictatorship." He began by writing, quote, "Dictatorships don’t always die when the dictator leaves office. The wave of revolutions that toppled autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen last year was certainly cause for hope. But the people of those countries should be aware that, long after the revolutions, powerful networks of regime loyalists can remain behind and can attempt to strangle their nascent democracies."
He goes on to say, quote, "Let the Maldives be a lesson for aspiring democrats everywhere: the dictator can be removed in a day, but it can take years to stamp out the lingering remnants of his dictatorship." And he was referring, of course, there to the former—the former leader of that country. Could you talk about the ties, if any, between the protesters and the former leader?
PAUL ROBERTS: Well, yeah, sure. The former leader was a man called Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. And he was a brute, in a word. He led the Maldives for 30 years with an iron fist. Political parties were banned. There was no freedom of expression. Every election, he won with 99 percent of the vote, and his was the only name on the ballot paper. And Nasheed led a nonviolent resistance movement against him that ultimately ushered in the democracy, which culminated in the 2008 elections, which Nasheed won, the first multi-party elections in the country’s history.
And now the protesters involved in Tuesday’s—well, it is like—the coup were members of Gayoom’s party. But I stress again: there were only a few hundred protesters on the streets, which, in the Maldives, isn’t much. Nasheed and other parties regularly get a couple of thousand people to their normal rallies. So, this was not a revolution. Neither was it led by the rabble. It was a police mutiny, followed by a mutiny in the military. And it was the use of force that—it was something that Nasheed is saying—that forced him to leave office.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to what Mohamed Nasheed said on Tuesday, the day he announced his resignation.
MOHAMED NASHEED: [translated] The way I saw it, if I were to keep the government in power, I would have had to use excessive force, which would have resulted in a lot of people getting hurt, which is the reason I came to the conclusion I did. At the same time, if I were to have taken steps to sustain the government, there is a strong likelihood of external influences.
AMY GOODMAN: During a short interview with Al Jazeera the following day, Mohamed Nasheed said he was forced to resign in what he described as a coup.
MOHAMED NASHEED: I was forced to resign.
AL JAZEERA REPORTER: You were forced to resign.
MOHAMED NASHEED: I was forced to resign.
AL JAZEERA REPORTER: And in your perspective, this is a coup.
MOHAMED NASHEED: This is a coup. It definitely is. If you find any definition of a coup anywhere, this is a coup. This is not—this is a bloodless coup, because I did not take part in it. I did not want to defend. That is why there was no blood.
AL JAZEERA REPORTER: Why resign, though, even under—
MOHAMED NASHEED: Because I didn’t want them to go shooting our people.
AL JAZEERA REPORTER: And they were threatening.
MOHAMED NASHEED: They were threatening me, and they were threatening the people. So I didn’t want that.
AL JAZEERA REPORTER: And where do you go from here?
MOHAMED NASHEED: Another election.
AL JAZEERA REPORTER: And you’re still hopeful?
MOHAMED NASHEED: We are certain that the people of this country are with us.
AMY GOODMAN: That is ousted President Nasheed. The State Department here in the United States has defended the ousting of President Nasheed and has confirmed the new leadership has been in contact with the Obama administration. Robert Blake, the assistant secretary of state for South Asia, is expected to visit Maldives this weekend. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland was questioned about the U.S. stance and Blake’s visit Wednesday.
REPORTER: Are you going to withhold—I mean, are you taking any position on the suggestions that it might have been a military coup? Are you going to investigate that? Is Blake going to check that out? Or do you think that that’s not a sort of a reasonable suggestion here?
VICTORIA NULAND: Well, obviously, we are talking to all parties. That’s why we’re sending our folks down. But that is not the information that we have at the moment. But Assistant Secretary Blake will have a chance to be there and talk to everybody on Saturday. But in the interim, we are urging calm, we’re urging dialogue, we’re urging the—President Waheed, as you know, has committed to forming a national unity government, and we think that will also be an important signal to political factions across the Maldives.
REPORTER: Does that mean that a determination on whether this was an unconstitutional change in power is going to wait until after Blake’s visit?
VICTORIA NULAND: Well, our view, as of yesterday—and I don’t think that that has changed; obviously we’ll collect more information going forward—was that this was handled constitutionally.
AMY GOODMAN: That was State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland. Paul Roberts, you’re the adviser to the ousted president, Mohamed Nasheed, speaking to us from an undisclosed location. Your response?
PAUL ROBERTS: I think—in fairness, I don’t think the State Department are being malicious or [inaudible] anything more than and announces on what the information they were given on Tuesday. It was a cleverly orchestrated coup, because the army effectively put a gun to the President’s head and said, "Resign, or we’ll pull the trigger," and therefore he resigned. They then placed him under military house arrest and didn’t allow him to speak, whilst the former vice president, Waheed, who we believe was involved in plotting the coup, was quickly ushered into office. So, from the outside world, who were unable to speak to Nasheed for much of Tuesday—certainly only in the very [inaudible] on Tuesday—it looks like the President had resigned and, as per the Constitution, the Vice President was sworn in. But it was only on Wednesday, when Nasheed was able to talk and some of his officials were able to flee the Maldives and tell the international community what actually happened, that the truth is starting to filter out.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And what about the supposed pretext for these actions by the military: the government’s arrest of a senior judge? Could you talk about that judge and what the issue was that involved the judge and these protests that erupted in response to that?
PAUL ROBERTS: Yeah, sure. This judge was—he was the chief judge of the Criminal Court, which is one of the middle-ranking courts in the Maldives. And the government had accused him of defending the former dictatorship of Gayoom. There was a number of cases against former regime members for [inaudible] and corruption, and some involving hundreds of millions of dollars. And the government contended that this judge was essentially preventing those cases from ever reaching fruition. There also had been a Judicial Services Commission, which is a constitutionally appointed body to look into judges’ conduct. It also ruled that this judge was behaving in a way that wasn’t proper, and it asked for him to be disciplined. And the judge, effectively, was refusing to go and had even quashed his own summons by the police to come in for questioning. So at that point, the police turned to the military and asked for him to be detained. And, you know, this was the excuse for some of the protests that we then saw.
But again, I stress that the protests, while they were noisy and loud, there were a maximum 400 or 500 people every evening. That’s not enough to bring down a government. There’s 100,000 people in Malé, and Malé is a sort of a wealthy, urbane community that leans very, very heavily towards Nasheed. And in fact, in the local elections last year, Nasheed’s party one nine out of the 11 seats there. So, this was not a popular uprising. This was done by the security forces.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re speaking to Paul Roberts, adviser to the ousted Maldives president, Mohamed Nasheed. We’re going to go to break. When we come back, we’ll also be joined by the founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben, as well as the filmmaker who just finished a film called The Island President about President Mohamed Nasheed. Jon Shenk will be joining us, as well. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking about the coup in the Maldives and the ousting of the president there. In October 2009, Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed held a cabinet meeting underwater in an attempt to bring attention to the dire consequences of global warming. Nasheed and 11 of his government ministers wore scuba gear and plunged nearly 20 feet into the Indian Ocean.
PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: We are actually trying to send our message, let the world know what is happening and what might—what will happen to the Maldives if climate change is not checked. This is a challenging situation. And we want to see that everyone else is also occupied as much as we are and would like to see that people actually do something about it.
AMY GOODMAN: That is the ousted president, Mohamed Nasheed, of the Maldives. Bill McKibben, you’re founder of 350.org. Talk about what has happened this week.
BILL McKIBBEN: Sure. Look, Nasheed, who I know a little bit, is a remarkable man for two reasons. One, he was the—in certain ways, the first precursor of the Arab Spring, the Mandela of the Indian Ocean, you know, who really brought democracy to a country where it hadn’t been before. Second, he’s been the most outspoken head of state around the issue of climate change on our planet. He has provided the leadership, both symbolic and practical, that we desperately need. You know, until Tuesday, the Maldives was on target to become the first carbon neutral nation on earth. That won’t save the climate, but it’s the kind of thing that should shame the West into beginning to act itself. They also were—he and his government did a tremendous job of cooperating with activists around the world to try and bring attention to this most desperate of problems.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And Bill, the denial of the State Department that this is even a coup?
BILL McKIBBEN: You know, it’s so depressing to hear that. Let’s hope that the State Department is getting new information. We’re sending more than 30,000 signatures over there today that we’ve gathered in the last few hours from people around the world in the 350.org network who are incredibly upset at what’s going on.
I was at the Maldives 20 years ago, at the height of the Gayoom thugocracy, and it was an unpleasant place—people with machine guns on corners and things. Malé, the capital, during the Nasheed years was a very different place: open, vibrant, alive democratic, humming with people trying to make a difference in the world. It’s just the saddest of thoughts to think that we might be moving backwards and that the State Department—I mean, one trusts that they’re not—you know, that they’re taking this seriously.
Clearly, in certain ways, Nasheed was a thorn in their side, because he kept bringing up the topic of climate change, a topic they’re not that keen on. On the other hand, he, almost to a fault, was cooperative with U.S. efforts to try and do something—you know, what little we’re doing—about climate change. The State Department owes him, and I hope that they take this seriously.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me turn to a new documentary, The Island President, about Mohamed Nasheed, the one we just played a clip of, directed by Jon Shenk. This part looks at Nasheed’s time as a political dissident under the old regime.
PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: After graduation, I came back to the Maldives. By this time, the state had become more and more repressive. So we decided that it would be good to come up with a magazine.
MOHAMED ZUHAIR: Nasheed and I and a few others began a publication called Sangu, which was a political publication.
PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: It was talking about two things: corruption and human rights abuse. It was very critical of the regime. One night, at about 3:00 in the morning, they came to my house. They raided my home and took a whole lot of papers.
LAILA ALI: They came in. They took him away. It was in the middle of the night. I mean, we had heard so many stories of what they were doing in the jails and all that, so it was terrifying, you know, really.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Mohamed Nasheed’s wife.
PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: I refused to give a confession. So, because of this, I was taken to a corrugated iron sheet cell. The whole cell is five feet by three feet. You had a mat. That’s all.
AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed Nasheed eventually went into exile but returned to Maldives to lead a fledgling pro-democracy movement. Here is another excerpt from The Island President.
PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: The Maldives was looking very much like an occupied country.
MOHAMED ASLAM: I would be lying if I tell you that I wasn’t afraid. But—and he keeps telling us all the time, you know, "You must get courage from each other. So, stand by together."
PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: Demonstrations were taking place all throughout the country. There were huge demonstrations in Fares-Maathodaa, Thinadhoo, Kinbidhoo, Ukulhas—you know, many, many, many islands. This was spreading like wildfire. It just finally came to a point that Gayoom had to relent, and he had to allow free and fair elections.
AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt from the new documentary, The Island President. We are joined by Jon Shenk, who’s its director. This news—you have spent a good deal of time with the ousted president in the Maldives. This history—he has been held, he has been beaten and tortured by the ousted—by the former dictator. What about what’s happening now, Jon?
JON SHENK: Well, thanks for having me.
You know, when I arrived in the Maldives in 2009, a few months after the first-ever democratically presidential held election there, it was a—it was a very strange place. You know, on one hand, you had people who were clearly still looking over their shoulders from, you know, decades of having lived in a police state. And then you had, on the other hand, Nasheed and the new fledgling democratic government there, you know, acting in the most open, kind of democratic, transparent way that you can imagine a good government acting.
So, what is happening now, in some ways, is obviously shocking and stunning and, to those of us who know Nasheed well, very sad—but not surprising, given just the kinds of things that we heard during the making of the film, which is that, you know, it’s in a small country that was ruled for so long by an entrenched dictatorship. You had so much of society, you know, sort of, quote-unquote, "in his pocket," or, you know, sort of—or at least fearful of repercussions that might occur, you know, speaking out against him.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I’d like to ask Paul Roberts, the adviser to the ousted president, Nasheed, about this—the Maldives and the WikiLeaks documents concerning the Copenhagen climate talks. In 2010, The Guardian newspaper published an article titled "WikiLeaks Cables Reveal How US Manipulated Climate Accord." The Guardian reported that within two weeks of the Copenhagen—the climate change conference, "the Maldives foreign minister, Ahmed Shaheed, wrote to the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, expressing eagerness to back [the accord]."
By February 23rd, 2010, "the Maldives’ ambassador-designate to the US, Abdul Ghafoor Mohamed, told the US deputy climate change envoy, Jonathan Pershing, his country wanted [quote] 'tangible assistance', saying other nations would then realise [quote] 'the advantages to be gained by compliance' with the accord."
According to a leaked cable, "Ghafoor referred to several projects costing approximately $50 [million]."
Your response to those WikiLeaks documents?
PAUL ROBERTS: Yeah, sure. I mean, I was in Copenhagen with Nasheed, and I saw him battling very vigilantly to get a deal. We were very nervous at that point that there would be no deal, with this almighty row that was breaking out between America and China. And eventually we did get a deal. It was a very bad deal. It was a very poor deal. It was a compromised deal. But it was a deal. And Nasheed played an instrumental part in that and in preventing those talks from collapsing. And then, you know, we’ve—since then, we’ve had some baby steps forward in Cancún and Durban, which seems to sort of justify his decision to keep the U.N. talks on the road. But, I mean, the last day of Copenhagen, Nasheed said publicly, and in writing, that the Maldives had written—sorry, had supported the Copenhagen Accord. So this was two months before these meetings.
But the—you know, one of the key parts of any U.N. accord is that some of the poor, vulnerable countries, like the Maldives, but like many others in Africa, have to spend an increasing proportion of their budgets on adaptations. In the Maldives, this is tens of millions of dollars on sea walls and beach revetments and stuff to protect these islands from the rising seas. So, you know, what the Maldives was saying was that, you know, if we can have some help, then—you know, then that’s great, and for other developing countries, too, that needs to be part of the accord. And suddenly there’s at least $50 million worth of sea walls and revetments and water breakers that are in need of building in the Maldives alone.
But I think one thing where some of the analysis is incorrect is that somehow the Maldives kind of used money as a bargaining chip to sign on to the accord. That’s not true. We had already signed on to the accord a month, months or weeks before any of these meetings took place.
AMY GOODMAN: And did the U.S.—
PAUL ROBERTS: But as I—
AMY GOODMAN: Did the U.S., Paul, deliver the money, the $50 million?
PAUL ROBERTS: Well, we never asked them for $50 million. If you look at the cable in detail, what it says is we have $50 million worth of adaptation that we need doing, and so, if anybody would like to help, that’s great. And, you know, of course, one of the big things at Copenhagen was that there was supposed to be this transfer from the rich to the poor to help pay for these sorts of things. But no, Amy, no, they didn’t deliver a cent. There’s been no financing from the U.S. for any adaptation in the Maldives.
AMY GOODMAN: So what’s going to happen now, Paul Roberts? You know, we go back to different attempted coups. In Venezuela, Chávez refused to sign a resignation letter, which seemed very important to the coup makers. He remained in office. President Aristide in Haiti was being pushed to sign a resignation letter by the—one of the U.S. officials from the U.S. embassy before he was ousted the second time. He did sign, and he was ousted and could not return. What’s going to happen now to your president, as we wrap up?
PAUL ROBERTS: Well, we’re very concerned. We think—you know, the new regime have got the—they already had—they always had the judiciary in their pocket. They’ve now stormed the state TV, so they have—they basically have most of the fourth estate in their pocket. They now have the executive in their pocket. And they’ll probably be able to get the legislature in their pocket, as well. The only thing they don’t have in their pocket is the fact that Nasheed is still extremely popular, then likely to win any new election. But this is where I think there’s another insidious thing going on. I think they are trying to arrest him. They’ve said they’re going to have 14 cases for his arrest. And I think what they will do is they’ll try and charge him with anything, with something, so he’ll have a criminal record, and that will prevent him standing in any future election.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we thank you very much for joining us, Paul Roberts, adviser to the Maldives. Can you say where you are?
PAUL ROBERTS: I’d rather not. There’s been arrest warrants out for all of Nasheed’s former aides.
AMY GOODMAN: As well as yourself?
PAUL ROBERTS: I believe so.
AMY GOODMAN: Paul Roberts, speaking to us from an undisclosed location, an aide to the ousted president, Mohamed Nasheed, of the Maldives. Jon Shenk, thanks for being with us. His new documentary film, The Island President, has premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Before we go, Jon, what will you do with this film now? It seems this is the point, more than ever, to get this information out.
JON SHENK: Yes, absolutely. You know, the film is being distributed in the U.S. by Samuel Goldwyn Films, and we’re moving ahead with our release next month, and obviously trying to get the word out. I think that, you know, one remarkable thing about the film is that it really is an unprecedented look at a sitting head of state. To my knowledge, no other project has ever followed a head of state with such transparent access. So I think, just by the nature of watching the film, I think people will get a sense of who the real Nasheed is. It’s kind of undeniable that he approaches his presidency, and pretty much everything he does, with just, you know, honesty and openness and a can-do attitude.
AMY GOODMAN: Jon Shenk, director of The Island President. And Bill McKibben, thanks very much for being with us, founder of 350.org, among his books, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.
Labels: AMY GOODMAN, NEOLIBERALISM
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On Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! - Smita Narula and Olivier de Schutter on the corporate/government 'land grab' in Africa and South Asia. Transcript:
JUAN GONZALEZ: Some 500 million small farmers in poor countries are suffering from hunger partly because of large-scale land purchases by foreign investors and the growing use of biofuels. That’s the message that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food had for the General Assembly last week. Olivier De Schutter added that the practice of so-called land grabs is taking place in a context where the world is already losing 75 million acres of farmland a year to environmental degradation, industrial expansion and urbanization.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, a new report being released here in New York today suggest that many of the land deals recently concluded in Africa and South Asia lack transparency. Based on a year-long study of four particular deals in Sudan, Pakistan, Mali and Tanzania, the report notes that the so-called land grabs could threaten local communities with eviction, undermine their livelihoods, and endanger their access to food.
For more, we’re joined here in New York by the report’s lead author Smita Narula, who’s the faculty director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU Law School. We’re also joined by Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Oliver De Schutter, let’s start with you. Give us the scope of this issue. I don’t think people are at all aware of what’s happening in the rest of the world when it comes to, well, what you’re calling land grabs.
OLIVIER DE SCHUTTER: Well, the pace at which this is developing is really impressive. Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen about 40 million hectares of land exchanged subject to such deals, which represents about twice the farmland of France, for example. So it is going very fast, and it’s driven by a lack of confidence that now investors have in international markets. And they seek to secure supply of food by outsourcing food production at the expense of the small farmers in developing countries who already have too little land to cultivate. Every generation, the plots they cultivate grow smaller. And they are now facing this competition from foreign investors and are basically priced off the market.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Are there particular crises that have sort of sparked this land grab in recent years? I’m thinking, for instance, of the financial crisis in Asia several years back. Or anything in particular that is driving this?
OLIVIER DE SCHUTTER: Well, I think there are four factors, essentially, which explain this. First, the prices on international markets are increasingly volatile and unpredictable. And so, countries understand that to ensure their food in the future, they need to buy land in order to secure stable supplies of food by outsourcing food production. They don’t trust the international markets anymore. And the global food price crisis of 2008 was, in that sense, a wake-up call for them.
Secondly, there is a push towards the production of biofuels, which is one of the main drivers behind this race for farmland.
Thirdly, we are losing every year some 30 million hectares of land to industrial projects, urbanization, and the land is shrinking. The land that is available to produce food is shrinking.
And fourthly, many countries are now lacking water. This is the case for China, for example, which has to feed 22 percent of the world’s population with eight percent of farmland, but which has not enough resources of fresh water. And they try to buy land abroad, because they know that in the future they will need this to feed the population.
AMY GOODMAN: Wall Street banks. Can you talk about the Wall Street banks that are doing this?
OLIVIER DE SCHUTTER: Well, absolutely. I think we have to realize that although much of the media attention has gone to countries purchasing land of broad, in fact the main actors here are private investors, and mostly investment funds, who use land as an asset, as a speculative asset, and they know that the price of farmland will continue to rise in the future. And so, they buy this without necessarily having a very clearly defined project, but they buy this because they know that the price of land will continue to rise. And it is, for them, a means to basically hedge the risk from other investments they make. They know that it’s a relatively safe way to invest their money. And it is, indeed, increasing the pressure on many populations.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you name names?
OLIVIER DE SCHUTTER: Unfortunately, it is sometimes very difficult to identify those—the main actors behind this. The reason is that many of these deals lack transparency. They are discussed in public, not presented to parliaments. They don’t lead to negotiations with the local communities concerned. And for everybody, it is very difficult to identify who are the actors behind this.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Smita Narula, you’ve tried to track some of these deals, especially in countries that people would not expect this is going on—in Pakistan, in Tanzania, two countries that are experiencing huge domestic problems, obviously. Could you talk about the specifics of what you found?
SMITA NARULA: Sure. The report that the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice is releasing today actually looks at this—hones in on four case studies, that tries to put a little bit more detail to the broader phenomenon that Olivier was speaking of, in the context of over one billion people going hungry today and over 40 million hectares of land transferring hands, particularly agricultural land. We tried to see who these investors are, the kinds of investments that are taking place. And our major findings, as well, speak to the lack of transparency that Olivier mentioned.
The report looks at investments in agriculture, in biofuels and in timber production in several countries and is led by investors from Europe and the Middle East. Our general findings are that these investments, by and large, are taking place with an extreme lack of transparency with sufficient detail to be able to effectively scrutinize the investments. They are taking place in an environment where there is a lack of regulation from the host countries themselves, either a lack of ability or willingness to effectively regulate the investments. And there’s also—the result of both of these is that the potential impacts on the rights of host communities is great. We are concerned, in particular, about food security, about water shortages, and about depriving millions of people to access to the very land that they depend upon for their livelihood and resources.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, when you say "lack of transparency," I would think that in most countries, when you—when land passes hands, there has to be a deed, and there has to be a registration of that deed, so that there has to be a way to find out who owns the land, right?
SMITA NARULA: So, in a number of the countries concerned, the rights of the communities that are occupying the land are actually very unclear. Their use of the land is very clear, and the dependence on the land is clear, but there isn’t formal registration of those lands. There is also a lack of a regulatory framework in how the land actually gets used, gets transferred. And in the agreements that we have been able to see, the commitments to host communities are written in remarkably vague terms for deals effecting a ninety-nine-year lease and thousands upon thousands of hectares of land. And we’re concerned that this lack of regulation and the vagueness attached to these are going to have severe impacts on the rights of communities.
AMY GOODMAN: Very quickly, give us the example of Pakistan.
SMITA NARULA: And Pakisan is a great example of non-transparency. There, the Pakistani government last year announced that it would make over 2.4 million hectares of land available to foreign corporate investment in agriculture. One farmers’ movement has noted that at least 25,000 villages threaten to be displaced by investments from Gulf state investors alone. Yet there is an enormous lack of transparency related to what these deals are, who’s driving them. And as far as we can tell, in most of these, the host communities have rarely been consulted about what their rights are. And, of course, their own agency over resources has not been respected in these deals.
AMY GOODMAN: Olivier De Schutter, talk about the remedies here.
OLIVIER DE SCHUTTER: Well, there are a number of proposals which are on the table. Particularly, the World Bank, with other organizations, has put forward a number of principles to regulate the lendings, to make them more acceptable. I think, however, that the main point is not just how to make them more disciplined, because the real question is, who will benefit most from the land? And it is not enough to say that the deals should be respecting a number of conditions, which investors should take into account. It’s important to ask the question, how is the land best used?
And my view is that, in many cases, it would be much better used by the local communities, if small farmers are supported and given more land to cultivate. It can be extremely useful for the raising of their incomes, for rural development, for the better preservation of the ecosystems. It has, in other terms, a number of social and environmental externalities which are positive and which, I think, we should take into account. The alternative, if you wish, today is either to develop further these large-scale plantations, which are not creating lots of employment, which are depleting the soils and destroying the climate, or supporting small-scale farming by distributing land and by ensuring more equitable access to land for those small holders. And that is where we have to focus our efforts, to support small-scale farmers and raise their incomes at the same time that we improve production.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And you mentioned earlier the impact of the search for biofuels on this. Any particular cases or examples where these land transfers are more a result of folks seeking land for biofuel purposes?
AMY GOODMAN: And what do you mean by biofuels?
OLIVIER DE SCHUTTER: Well, it is one major driver. In a study which the World Bank has not released, but which it presented in April this year, it scrutinized 389 projects. And 35 percent of these large-scale investments in land were for the production of agro-energy—biodiesel, ethanol—on the basis of a variety of plants. So it’s a very important driver, the production of energy crops. And one of the cases, indeed, that they studied, by the NYU report, concerns the production of biofuels, and it is just one of many examples. This is one major driver in this process.
AMY GOODMAN: Smita, who gets the money? I mean, when you talk about in Mali, in Pakistan, in Tanzania, who is being paid? And what happens? Are people just told, "Get off the land now"?
SMITA NARULA: So, there’s a variety of practices. And the example in Mali is actually an example of a good practice, where a company has come in, has made local farmers shareholders in the process, has not transferred land, and has actually tried to ensure that the benefits of the investment go straight back to the community. We include that as an example of a good practice in a sea of negative practices. In other examples—
JUAN GONZALEZ: And which is that company? Just to—
SMITA NARULA: Mali Biocarburant SA, and it’s a Dutch-financed firm. Other companies are in—another example that we look at taking place in Tanzania, where Swedish companies are investing in biofuels, a number of questions have been raised regarding how those investments may threaten local water supply, and also questions have been raised regarding community consent. On the question of where the money goes, right now the sums of money that are being offered in exchange for leasing large swaths of land are really token sums and very little, and there’s no evidence that it’s going back to the communities who may be displaced from the land.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you both for being with us, Smita Narula at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU Law School, and we also want to thank Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.
Labels: AMY GOODMAN, LAND RIGHTS
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COMMENT - From Democracy Now!:
Holding Corporations Accountable for Apartheid Crimes
A landmark class action case is under way in a New York federal court, with victims of apartheid in South Africa suing corporations that they say helped the pre-1994 regime. Among the multinational corporations are IBM, Fujitsu, Ford, GM and banking giants UBS and Barclays. The lawsuit accuses the corporations of “knowing participation in and/or aiding and abetting of the crimes of apartheid; extrajudicial killing; torture; prolonged unlawful detention; and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” Attorneys are seeking up to $400 billion in damages.
Holding Corporations Accountable for Apartheid Crimes
Posted on Jan 12, 2010
By Amy Goodman
A landmark class action case is under way in a New York federal court, with victims of apartheid in South Africa suing corporations that they say helped the pre-1994 regime. Among the multinational corporations are IBM, Fujitsu, Ford, GM and banking giants UBS and Barclays. The lawsuit accuses the corporations of “knowing participation in and/or aiding and abetting of the crimes of apartheid; extrajudicial killing; torture; prolonged unlawful detention; and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” Attorneys are seeking up to $400 billion in damages.
The late anti-apartheid activist Dennis Brutus, who died just weeks ago, is a listed plaintiff. Back in 2008, he told me that “for [the corporations], apartheid was a very good system, and it was a very profitable system.” As the U.S. observes the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, marks the first anniversary in office of the first African-American president and ponders the exposure of a racial gaffe spoken by Sen. Harry Reid, the issue of race is front and center, making this case timely and compelling.
The Alien Tort Statute dates from the U.S. Revolutionary War era and allows people from outside the United States to bring a civil suit against another party for alleged crimes committed outside the United States. Cases have been brought in recent years to address forced labor on an oil pipeline in Burma, the killing of labor organizers in Colombia and the killing of activists in the Niger delta. This suit alleges that the apartheid regime could not have succeeded in its violent oppression of millions of people without the active support of the foreign corporations.
Ford and General Motors built manufacturing centers in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, where Dennis Brutus grew up. He told me, “They were using ... very cheap black labor, because there was a law in South Africa which said blacks are not allowed to join trade unions, and they’re not allowed to strike, so that they were forced to accept whatever wages they were given. They lived in ghettos ... actually in the boxes in which the parts had been shipped from the U.S. to be assembled in South Africa. So you had a whole township called Kwaford, meaning ‘the place of Ford.’ ”
Likewise with IBM and Fujitsu. The complaint states, “The South African security forces used computers supplied by ... IBM and Fujitsu ... to restrict Black people’s movements within the country, to track non-whites and political dissidents, and to target individuals for the purpose of repressing the Black population and perpetuating the apartheid system.” Black South Africans were issued passbooks, which the apartheid regime used to restrict movement and track millions of people, and to enable politically motivated arrests and disappearances over decades.
UBS and Barclays, the suit alleges, “directly financed the South African security forces that carried out the most brutal aspects of apartheid.” The United Nations Special Committee Against Apartheid stated, in 1979, that “we learn today that more than $5.4 billion has been loaned in a six-year period to bolster a regime which is responsible for some of the most heinous crimes ever committed against humanity.” Banks (including UBS) were punished for helping the Nazis during World War II, so precedent exists for reparations in the case of apartheid.
One of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Michael Hausfeld, told me: “Who is a corporation and what are its responsibilities? If companies can affect lives in ways that make those lives worse, so that people are suppressed or terrorized ... you are basically ascribing to eternity the fact that companies can act with both impunity and immunity.”
South Africa went through a historic process after apartheid, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), led by Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Thousands of people took responsibility for their actions, along with scores of South African corporations. Not one multinational company accepted the invitation to speak at the TRC. The case, says Marjorie Jobson, national director of the Khulumani Support Group, which is filing the lawsuit, “takes forward the unfinished business of the TRC.”
The election of Barack Obama, the son of an African, was a historic moment in the fight against racism. But unless U.S. courts are open to addressing wrongs, past and present, corporations will still feel free to go abroad and profit from racist and repressive policies.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 800 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.
© 2010 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
Labels: AMY GOODMAN, APARTHEID, CORPORATIONS, NEOCOLONIALISM
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