COMMENT - This is what happens when there are no limits on what politicians can 'sell' from under the feed of the people of the country under neoliberalism/globalisation.
(GUARDIAN UK) Maasai herders driven off land to make way for luxury safaris, report says
Tanzanian government accused of putting indigenous people at risk in order to grant foreign tourists access to Serengeti wildlife
Jonathan Watts Global environment correspondent
Thu 10 May 2018 11.00 BST Last modified on Thu 10 May 2018 11.02 BST
The Tanzanian government is putting foreign safari companies ahead of Maasai herding communities as environmental tensions grow on the fringes of the Serengeti national park, according to a new investigation.
Hundreds of homes have been burned and tens of thousands of people driven from ancestral land in Loliondo in the Ngorongoro district in recent years to benefit high-end tourists and a Middle Eastern royal family, says the report by the California-based thinktank the Oakland Institute.
Although carried out in the name of conservation, these measures enable wealthy foreigners to watch or hunt lions, zebra, wildebeest, giraffes and other wildlife, while the authorities exclude local people and their cattle from watering holes and arable land, the institute says.
The report, released on Thursday highlights the famine and fear caused by biodiversity loss, climate change, inequality and discrimination towards indigenous groups.
Losing the Serengeti: The Maasai Land that was to Run Forever uses previously unpublished correspondence, official documents, court testimonies and first-person testimony to examine the impact of two firms: Thomson Safaris based in the United States, and Otterlo Business Corporation based in the United Arab Emirates.
It says Thomson’s sister company, Tanzania Conservation Limited, is in a court battle with three Maasai villages over the ownership of 12,617 acres (5,106 hectares) of land in Loliondo which the company uses for safaris.
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One Maasai quoted in the report said Thomson had built a camp in the middle of their village, blocking access. “Imagine, a stranger comes and constructs a big building in the centre of your home,” reads the testimony. “Our livestock cannot go to the waterhole – there is no other route for the villagers or their livestock.”
The report says villagers have been driven off, assaulted or arrested by local police, park rangers or security guards.
The restricted access to land has made the Maasai more vulnerable to famine during drought years, the report says, noting appeals that locals have made for the government to change policies because of growing numbers of malnourished children.
A Maasai villager contacted by the Guardian said access remained blocked and that uniformed agents had beaten, threatened or tied-up and driven off pastoralists, as recently as December.
Thomson strongly denies these accusations. It says Tanzania Conservation Limited employs 100% Maasai staff, allows cattle on the property to access seasonal water, and works with local communities and the government to conserve the savannah, improve access to water and formulate a sustainable grazing policy.
The company blames past conflicts on NGO activists who they say stirred up villagers and led to staff being assaulted by young warriors armed with clubs, spears, knives and poison arrows.
“These interventions have been played out to attract attention, provide stories, and to disrupt the working relationship between company and communities on the ground,” Rick Thomson, a director of Tanzania Conservation, wrote in an email to the Guardian. “In these events the endangered staff have a protocol of disengaging any way they can to avoid escalation, and reporting to the authorities any situation where any people and property, are physically threatened. These situations have been rare and no such events have occurred for the last four years.”
He said the company was not connected to government evictions of illegal residents in the national park, which is reserved for wildlife.
The report also claims Maasai have been driven off land as a result of government ties with Otterlo Business Corporation, which organises hunting trips for the royal family of the United Arab Emirates and their guests who fly into a custom-built landing strip in Loliondo.
Since Otterlo was first granted 400,000 hectares of land for hunting, the government has mounted successive eviction operations.
The company has warned the area needs greater ecological protection because herds are increasing while water sources are drying up due to climate change.
Despite past government promises that the Maasai would never be evicted from their land, the report notes Serengeti national park rangers burned 114 bomas (traditional homes) in 2015 and another 185 in August of last year. Along with other demolitions, local media report more than 20,000 Maasai were left homeless.
Maasai protests, an international outcry and domestic allegations of corruption have forced a reconsideration of this policy. In November 2017, the tourism minister revoked the hunting licence of Otterlo, suspended the state director of wildlife, and ordered investigations into the links between foreign firms and former officials.
But the authorities appear divided. Locals told the Guardian this week that Otterlo continues to operate safari tours in Loliondo to the detriment of villagers.
A tourist takes pictures of Maasai villagers.
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A tourist takes pictures of Maasai villagers. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
Lawyers representing the Maasai communities in a court claim over the land said the policies of the government were tilted towards foreign tour companies.
“The evictions are not justified because more and more land is being taken away from the villages without due process or compensation even though they have legal titles,” said lawyer Rashid S Rashid. “The policies of the government are based mainly on the arguments advanced by Thomson and Otterlo because they have more political influence than the villagers.”
The report’s authors say the problem dates back to the era of British rule. From then onwards, Maasai have been steadily dispossessed of land on the Serengeti. They urge the government to take urgent action to alleviate the risk of famine, establish a new model of land titling and an independent inquiry into disputes over ownership.
“Without access to grazing lands and watering holes, and without the ability to grow food for their communities, the Maasai are at risk of a new 21st-century period of emutai (eradication),” said Anuradha Mittal, the director of the Oakland Institute. “But it does not have to be this way. Unlike the emutai of the 19th century, the hardships and abuses currently faced by the Maasai can be halted.”
Labels: GLOBALISATION, LAND REFORM, LAND RIGHTS, NEOLIBERALISM, NGORONGORO
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COMMENT - Rhodesia was named after Cecil John Rhodes, the
Founding Chairman of the board of directors of De Beers, which was to become the world's largest diamond mining company.
De Beers was founded by the First Lord Rothschild in 1887. Zimbabwe could seriously upset the diamond market by supplying 20% of global diamond production from the Chiadzwa and Marange diamond fields.
Morgan Tsvangirai used to work for Anglo-American De Beers when he was a miner.
"Morgan loves the mining industry because he was a miner and was given his start in life by Anglo American. He is a miner at heart but he sees both sides of the picture and this policy is not good for the workers or investors," said Tsvangirai's biographer Sarah Hudleston.
Or their desire to turn Chiadzwa and Marange into DebZim or ZimDeb, like Debswana and Namdeb - the
MDC's Plans For The Mines:
We will nationalise diamonds and ensure that government goes into partnership with genuine investors.
Like the world's biggest diamond miner, De Beers. - MrK
(MINT PRESS NEWS) Mugabe: The Dictator?
Is Zimbabwe’s 92-year-old leader really the oppressive dictator the West makes him out to be, or is he demonized for not succumbing to a history of destabilization and intervention attempts by the West?
By Caleb T. Maupin | August 27, 2016
WASHINGTON — (Analysis) In covering a recent protest movement unfurling in Zimbabwe, mainstream Western media seem unable to report on country’s president without making references to him as a “dictator” and “authoritarian.”
Yet the case against Robert Mugabe, the 92-year-old president of Zimbabwe and leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), is difficult to justify, especially considering all of Zimbabwe’s recent elections have been monitored by the United Nations, and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the main opposition party, currently divided into two factions, is widely represented in the government.
Further, Zimbabwe’s emergence as a nation struggling against not just the power of colonialism and white supremacists, but also the economic domination of a settler minority, tells an entirely different story.
Opposition parties like the MDC, which receives support from the United States, are allowed to operate freely in Zimbabwe. Newspapers that support the MDC and openly praise the previously existing apartheid regime are widely distributed, coexisting alongside pro-government state media. The idea that Zimbabwe is a totalitarian state that forbids dissent is simply not consistent with reality.
While Western media has few positive things to say about Mugabe, Zimbabwean voters clearly disagree. A 2015 survey by Zimbabwe’s Mass Public Opinion Institute found that Mugabe continues to enjoy popularity among the country’s urban and rural populations.
Even in 2012, a year before the last elections were held, popular support for the MDC was on the decline. In May 2013, The Guardian quoted Raymond Majongwe, secretary general of the 14,000-strong Progressive Teachers’ Union, as saying: “I’m feeling seriously let down by the MDC.”
His statement came after the party entered into a power-sharing agreement with the ZANU-PF following contested elections in 2008, but before that so-called “unity government” ultimately dissolved. He noted, presciently:
“The power-sharing agreement could be the undoing of the MDC leadership. They exposed their own naivety and appetite for opulence and extravagance. In four years the level of wealth these MDC guys have accumulated is shocking. If the MDC wins the election, fine, they can go ahead and loot the country like their predecessors.”
US has long planned to oust Mugabe
U.S. machinations to overthrow the Mugabe-led government in Zimbabwe are nothing new, particularly in terms of Washington’s support to the MDC.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the MDC, who served as prime minister from 2009-2013, toured the world in 2009, meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.S. President Barack Obama. After his meeting with Obama, Tsvangirai said he was “grateful to him for his leadership” and that Obama would “continue to provide us with direction.”
In “Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2005-2006,” the State Department reported: “The U.S. human rights strategy in Zimbabwe focused on maintaining pressure on the regime, assisting democratic forces, strengthening independent media, increasing public access to information, promoting accountability for the regime’s crimes, and providing humanitarian aid for Zimbabwe’s suffering people.”
The report further noted U.S. efforts to disseminate information on civil rights and made accusations of fraudulent parliamentary elections.
The State Department’s 2007 Performance Report on Zimbabwe boasted of the United States’ role in propping up the MDC as a viable opponent to Mugabe’s ZANU-PF:
“Following the bloody onslaught of the Mugabe regime against the MDC and civil society during the past year, USG [U.S. government] assistance helped rebuild the party’s battered structure and better position it to participate in the upcoming elections. The USG also assisted the MDC to effectively identify, research, and articulate policy positions and ideas within Zimbabwe, in the region, and beyond. In particular, USG technical assistance was pivotal in supporting MDC\’s formulation and communication of a comprehensive policy platform, which demonstrates the party’s preparedness to take over the reins of government in 2008.”
In a 2008 analysis of the document, Stephen Gowans, a Canadian writer and political analyst, noted:
“The neo-liberal, foreign investor-friendly economic policies Washington favors are central to the policy platform of the Tsvangirai faction of the MDC. The State Department document reveals that the MDC’s policy orientation may be based more on US government direction than its own deliberations.”
It’s also important to consider the role of U.S. aid money and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, in Zimbabwe. The organization, which has a long history of imperialist intervention under the guise of humanitarian aid, has remained active in Zimbabwe despite targeted sanctions imposed by the U.S. In fiscal year 2012, for example, Zimbabwe received $152,534,664 in U.S. economic assistance, including $61,987,763 from USAID and $49,648,024 from the State Department.
‘Rhodesia’ was wiped off the map
To understand why Washington is working to topple Mugabe, the country’s repeatedly elected president, and the ZANU-PF, its internationally-recognized government, one must be familiar with Zimbabwe’s history.
Defenders of the Israeli settler regime will often accuse their critics of being “inflammatory” and “extremist” for wanting to “wipe Israel off the map.” However, there is historical precedent for the erasure of European settler regimes. Zimbabwe became a country after Rhodesia, a country whose 1969 constitution enshrined the rule of whites, was toppled.
Rhodesia was the name given by settlers to the region in southern Africa that the indigenous people called Zimbabwe. It was named after Cecil Rhodes, the famed colonizer and advocate of British imperialism. When Zimbabwe declared its independence from Britain in 1965, the white minority owned almost all of the land, except for the Tribal Trust Lands, where black Africans were forced to live, similar to the “bantustans” of South Africa. During the day, blacks worked as servants and laborers in the estates, plantations, and cities owned by whites, and at night they returned to the designated areas where they were allowed to live and farm.
Roger Riddell, a staff member of the Catholic Institute for International Relations and editor of the institute’s series “From Rhodesia to Zimbabwe,” wrote an article in 1980, titled “Zimbabwe’s Land Problem: The Central Issue.” In the article, Riddell explains that not only did Europeans hold vastly more land than the Africans, they also held more fertile agricultural land:
“The importance of land in Rhodesia does not lie so much in the inequalities per se, but because inequalities in access to land are accompanied by growing overpopulation, landlessness, land deterioration, and increasing poverty in the African areas alongside serious underutilization of land in the European areas.”
The 7 million Africans were not full citizens of Rhodesia, unlike the white minority, which peaked at just under 300,000 in the late 1960s. Ian Smith, the wealthiest white farmer and prime minister of Rhodesia from 1964-1979, said: “The white man is the master of Rhodesia, has built it and intends to keep it.” The country’s 1961 Unilateral Declaration of Independence, which was committed to independence from Britain but not majority rule, reserved 50 national assembly seats for the country’s white settler minority and just 15 for the African majority.
Receiving weapons and support from both China and the Soviet Union, the indigenous African population took up arms against Smith’s white-minority rule in the 1970s. ZANU-PF, currently the ruling party in Zimbabwe, is the result of a merger of several different armed revolutionary organizations that fought against the apartheid government of Rhodesia. Britain deployed troops to fight against the African people, and the U.S. formally recognized and backed the Rhodesian apartheid regime. International media and Western politicians generally referred to the uprisings of impoverished African people as “terrorism” and supported the white settler government in the name of opposing “communism.”
As the white settler government of Rhodesia faced a wider insurgency from African people, it became a favored cause among white supremacists. Neo-Nazis and fascists from all over the world went to fight against the African rebels. James Earl Ray, who was convicted of assassinating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., had worked closely with the “Friends of Rhodesia.” During his 2015 killing spree inside a church in South Carolina, the white supremacist murderer Dylann Roof wore the flag of the long deposed Rhodesian settler government.
Mugabe emerged as the charismatic leader of the armed uprising. With Mugabe as their commander and representative, guerrilla fighters carved out what the white settlers called “no-go areas,” liberated territories which were controlled by the African revolutionaries and served as bases for the uprising. ZANU-PF described itself as a socialist party. Interviewed during the war, Mugabe said:
“It is absolutely wrong to allow a set of individuals to acquire control and ownership of those resources that are God-given. They are not man-made, the land, the water, the forest, the animals, the fish in the river, the minerals. These are given to us by nature, and it is in principle wrong for any one man to claim ownership of such resources that should belong to the people as a whole.”
On Dec. 21, 1979, the prolonged conflict known as the Rhodesian Bush War concluded with the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement. Rhodesia was abolished, and the Republic of Zimbabwe came into existence. The treaty specified that the new government could not seize white-owned land for ten years. At the time of the agreement, the country’s 120,000 white families controlled at least half of the country’s arable farmland, while 7 million Africans lived in extreme poverty.
Eroding white supremacy, changing property relations
Many predicted a “white genocide” following ZANU-PF’s election under the new constitution. However, once ZANU-PF assumed power in the elections following the 1979 treaty, no such thing occurred. Despite leading a “white republic” and ordering his troops to slaughter tens of thousands of civilians, Ian Smith, the leader of the white settler government, was spared any punishment for his documented war crimes. He lived in luxury on his estates until his death of natural causes in 2007.
Many whites left Zimbabwe, relocating to South Africa or Europe, but aside from a few incidents, no reports of widespread revenge killings took place. In accordance with the Lancaster House Agreement, whites who were owed pensions by the oppressive Rhodesian apartheid government continued to received payments from the new government until 1990.
The government led by ZANU-PF vastly expanded access to education, and Zimbabwe leads Africa in adult literacy. During the 1990s, the economy of Zimbabwe, presided over and tightly regulated by the ZANU-PF, was described by the Washington Post as being “among the strongest on the continent.”
The ZANU-PF government stayed true to its promise not to forcibly redistribute property until 1997, long after the ten year period agreed to in the treaty. Prior to 1997, many white farmers left Zimbabwe, voluntarily selling their property to the state for negotiated compensation. Britain welcomed white farmers with open arms, and has even established Zane, a charity that supports whites who wish to migrate from Zimbabwe.
Beginning in 1997, land belonging to the white minority has been gradually, forcibly redistributed to Africans. Veterans of Zimbabwe’s revolutionary army were the first to receive land, and by 2011, over 237,000 African families had acquired their own land, while 300 white farms remained intact.
When the land seizures began, Western press reports alleged the land reform was corrupt and giving land only to government bureaucrats. However, The Zimbabwean published the results of a 10-year study of the program, which found that less than 17 percent of the land went to civil servants, and the overwhelming majority went to rural peasants, unemployed Africans, and others who were not deeply connected to government officials.
No one debates that the majority of those who have received land hold a favorable view of the ZANU-PF government. Following the land redistribution campaign, violence erupted on more than a few occasions when white farmers refused to give up land and held violent standoffs with government officials and locals.
‘We want to be left alone’
As the reforms began, Mugabe was subject to demonization in Western media. In 2000, ZANU-PF suffered its first major defeats at the polls and began sharing power with the MDC, which has received funding from the State Department and whose leader has openly admitted to taking “direction” from President Obama.
The redistribution process slowed agricultural production in Zimbabwe. The process of transitioning farms from the large plantations owned by white settlers, to small individual plots owned by African families, was difficult on its own. But it was also compounded by the fact that Africans who had never owned their own farms did not have easy, immediate access to many types of modern agricultural technology previously employed by white farmers. The U.S. made the economic situation far worse by imposing economic sanctions on Zimbabwe starting in 2001, heavily restricting its ability to export agricultural goods. The sanctions also limited Zimbabwe’s access to key agricultural imports needed to make fertilizer.
Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly in 2008, Mugabe said, “We want to be left alone.” He urged Western forces to stop meddling in his country’s internal affairs, and to allow Zimbabwe to alter its economic system toward one featuring a more equitable distribution of wealth.
Despite continued demonization in Western media, Zimbabwe continues to make economic changes. In December, Zimbabwe announced that it was adopting the Chinese yuan as legal tender. In exchange, the People’s Republic of China cancelled Zimbabwe’s $40 million debt to Chinese banks.
In March, Mugabe announced that the country’s diamond mines will be nationalized.
“Companies that have been mining diamonds have robbed us of our wealth,” Mugabe said. “That is why the state must have a monopoly.”
When making the announcement, Mugabe also pointed out that a recent drop in diamond prices has increased the frequency of swindling and corruption surrounding the already crime-stricken industry. Zimbabwe supplied about 13 percent of the world’s diamonds in 2013, but experts quoted by Reuters warned that the country is expected to account for less than 3 percent of the global supply this year.
The president criticized not only Western-owned mining corporations, but also those based in China, and argued that nationalizing the mines will ensure that the people of Zimbabwe get a fair share of the wealth created by their natural resources.
For those who follow U.S. foreign policy, it should be clear why Washington seeks an end to the rule of Mugabe and the ZANU-PF: Zimbabwe’s government is seizing control of the country’s natural resources, redistributing land, and cutting into the profits of Western corporations. Furthermore, Zimbabwe has aligned itself with China, an emerging economic rival of Wall Street.
Western intervention is never the answer
Western media and the CIA have learned to manipulate humanity’s basic feelings of compassion and solidarity for the purpose of conducting “regime change.” Media campaigns routinely highlight atrocities — both real and invented — and build up public opinion for “humanitarian intervention.”
This is the case in Zimbabwe, where Western media selectively report on corruption, violence and suffering in line with biases for regime change held by Washington and its Western allies.
It also happened in Libya, where NATO bombing and a coordinated campaign to topple the government of Moammar Gadhafi were carried out with the stated objective of saving the lives of innocent people. However, the result has been widespread chaos and poverty in what was once Africa’s most prosperous country. The previously stable country stands divided today, as rival factions battle for power, while militant groups like Daesh (an Arabic acronym for the terrorist group known in the West as ISIS or ISIL) have set up shop.
Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria have all suffered the effects of U.S.-backed regime change waged in the name of human rights. The populations that were championed as oppressed victims in the Western media broadcasts that built the case for intervention, are far worse off than before.
American media’s talk about human rights is selective. Governments that reject economic domination by American-based banks and corporations, and those which compete with them on the global market, become targets of demonization. Meanwhile, atrocities perpetrated by repressive regimes that cooperate with the U.S. are generally overlooked, or, as in the case of Saudi Arabia, supported.
A movement like the one unfolding in Zimbabwe right now — a movement championed in Western media and led by someone who has since fled to the U.S. — is unlikely to improve the situation of Zimbabwe’s people. U.S. efforts to cripple Zimbabwe’s current leader and party by funding the opposition isn’t evidence of U.S. concern for human rights; it’s evidence that Mugabe and the ZANU-PF aren’t adhering to the rules of U.S. hegemony and Western dominance.
While Zimbabwe certainly faces social and economic challenges, the Pentagon will not solve them. Western destabilization and intervention will make matters worse. Only the African people — people who have defeated an oppressive regime and rolled back the horrors of white minority rule — only they can lead the country forward.
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Labels: COLONIALISM, GLOBALISATION, MDC, NEOCOLONIALISM, REGIME CHANGE, ROBERT MUGABE
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COMMENT - The monopolisation of land a major source of poverty in Rhodesia, South Africa, Namibia, Kenya. It used to be 'white farmers' who monopolised the land, however they too are now increasingly removed from their land by the giant corporations, assisted by the IMF/World Bank's policies and approval. (Moeletsi Mbeki,
02:50) See Ambreena Manji's The Politics Of Landreform In Africa.
It is time to take the land from the giant corporations, and give it to the people. - MrK
(THE PATRIOT ZW) The Struggle For Land in Zimbabwe (1890 – 2010)…..how the BSAC usurped Chief Mutasa’s land
By The Patriot Reporter -
August 25, 2016
By 1896, more than 1 500 000 acres (600 000 hectares), virtually 100 percent of all arable land in the Melsetter District (Chimanimani), had been acquired and occupied by the Boer settler-farmers from South Africa, writes Dr Felix Muchemwa in his book The Struggle For Land in Zimbabwe (1890 – 2010) that The Patriot is serialising.
THERE were lots of gold reserves in the Manyika Kingdom, both reef and alluvial gold, especially along the Revuwe, Chua, Chimezi and Nyahombwe river valleys.
From the mid-19th Century, the Portuguese, led by businessmen Colonel Joaquim Carlos Paiva de Andrade, well known as Gouveia, and Manuel Antonio de Souza, supported by the Portuguese Government, grabbed land from Paramount Chief Mutasa in Manyika.
The Mozambican businesspersons and their company, the Mozambique Company, owned goldfields particularly in Mutare, Revuwe and Buzi river valleys, but not by Mutasa’s permission, but that of the Portuguese Government.
In fact, the Portuguese Government claimed ‘large parts of Shona country on the grounds that their traders and adventurers had penetrated this region during the early 16th Century’.
The claims included Umtali District (Mutare) and Nyanga as on Portuguese maps of that time, but this only drew counter-claims by the British South Africa Company (BSAC) and another company, the African Portuguese Syndicate (APS), owned by South Africans. (Bhila, 1982: pp.234-7)
Then the BSAC went further to impose a treaty on Paramount Chief Mutasa on September 19 1890, which provided that no one could possess land in Manyika except with the consent of the company.
The terms of this concession were quite similar, both in content and in spirit, to the Rudd Concession.
Two months later, on the night of November 16 1890, Major Patrick Forbes, supported by Captain R. Fiennes, made his way to the Paramount Chief, stormed Mutasa’s court, disarmed Gouveia’s soldiers, arrested the Portuguese leaders who were celebrating an agreement with the Paramount Chief and then replaced the Portuguese flag with the Union Jack.
Later on, however, an Anglo-Portuguese Convention of June 11 1891 partitioned the Manyika Kingdom, giving Portugal the Mozambican part of Manyika plus Gazaland and following the partition and the conquest of Matabeleland in 1893, the BSAC went further to include Manicaland in the Matabeleland Order-in-Council on July 18 1894 on the pretext that Manicaland was ruled by King Lobengula as part of Mashonaland before 1893 and was therefore part of the conquest of Matabeleland. (Palley, 1966: pp.114)
But Mutasa was not amused by this and protested directly to the British Secretary of State for the Colonies in London.
And, he was very emphatic that he had never been under King Lobengula’s rule or any king and that since inception in the 14th Century, the Manyika Kingdom had never been under foreign rule. (Bhila,1982: pp.240)
The Paramount Chief’s son, Chimbadzwa, the heir-apparent, was even angrier with these insults from the British.
Despite the conflict between Paramount Chief Mutasa and the BSAC, the Company had, through the Order-in-Council of July 18 1894, laid claim to more than 1 907 492 acres (762 997 hectares) of land which was virtually over 70 percent of Umtali District which included Nyanga. (Palmer, 1977: pp.182)
By 1896, this amounted to 224 farms allocated and occupied by European settler-farmers in this most favoured agricultural region one on the Zimbabwean Highveld and it left very little land for Mutasa’s people who were being forced out of the district by the BSAC.
On January 9 1894, the acting resident magistrate of Umtali demanded the supply of compulsory labour from Chikanga, ‘one of Mutasa’s daughters in charge of a ward,’ and the Sub-chief totally refused to supply the ‘forced’ labour to the gold mines and farms in Umtali District.
The result was that when Magistrate G. Seymour Fort returned, he gave her a 48-hour ultimatum which she again ignored resulting in him moving to confiscate livestock as well as effect arrest.
During the ensuing altercation, Fambesa, the sub-chief’s husband was shot dead while defending her. (Bhila, 1982: pp.241)
In her trial, sub-chief Chikanga completely rejected the Company’s presence and any claimed rights in Manyika and the BSAC responded by banishing the sub-chief, her brother, Chimbadzwa (Mutasa’s heir apparent) and the Manyika Spirit Medium, Muredzwa, to Barwe country.
Paramount Chief Mutasa was also required to unconditionally surrender his whole territory, including the gold-fields, to the BSAC (Bhila pp. 244) and to promise that his people would pay ‘Hut Tax’ and ‘rent’ to the Company and to European settler-farmers.
Behind the scenes, the judgement was, of course, informed by Magistrate Seymour Fort’s prior knowledge of a raging succession war between Chimbadzwa, who detested the BSAC and his half-brother Chiobvu, who favoured the British.
It was a succession battle the Company had fuelled for over four years in a bid to win over Manyika.
So it was that by 1896, virtually all of Mutasa’s land had been usurped by the BSAC and the European settler-farmers and many of his people had left Manyika.
Chimbadzwa, his sister, sub-chief Chikanga, and the Manyika spirit medium, Muredzwa, had been forced into exile.
Tendai Mutasa was a very lonely man and he was little expected to rise against the European settler-occupation of land in June 1896, when the First Chimurenga broke out.
Melsetter District (Chimanimani)
South of Umtali District, Melsetter had been made an administrative district in 1895.
By 1896, more than 1 500 000 acres (600 000 hectares), virtually 100 percent of all arable land in the Melsetter District, had been acquired and occupied by the Boer settler-farmers from South Africa. (Palmer, 1977: pp.182)
Little land remained in African hands, the population of which had dwindled from over 40 000 in 1891, to less than 13 245 people by 1896. (Warhurst, 1975)
Most African people in the district had been gradually forced out of their ancestral lands and driven into the Odzi/Sabi low-veld areas of Zimunya, Marange, Nyanyadzi, Chibuwe, Chisumbanje and Chiredzi.
Those who remained in the district only remained as ‘forced’ labourers or ‘slaves’ called ‘Shangaans’ on settler-farms.
However, despite the great reduction in their number, subjugation of their chiefs and their enslavement, the people of Melsetter still rose up and joined the First Chimurenga against the Boer settler-farmers on August 13 1896.
But unfortunately for them, they were quickly defeated by the Boer territorial forces called the Burghers on August 27 1896.
Labels: GLOBALISATION, LAND REFORM, MOELETSI MBEKI, NEOCOLONIALISM, SOUTH AFRICA, ZIMBABWE
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COMMENT - Globalisation and land theft. This is the IMF's version of land reform, land title reform instead of land redistribution. Land title reform strenghtens the ownership of land in the hands of transnational corporations, and the banks that own their debt.
(BUSINESS INSIDER) Uganda's farmers battle palm oil Goliaths for land
AFP
Amy Fallon, AFP
Jul. 25, 2015, 2:10 AM 826
Even before the bulldozers arrived life was tough for John Muyiisa, scratching a living from a rented farm on Lake Victoria's Kalangala island© AFP Isaac KasamaniEven before the bulldozers arrived life was tough for John Muyiisa, scratching a living from a rented farm on Lake Victoria's Kalangala island
Now he has almost nothing and is seeking compensation in Ugandan courts from the palm oil plantations he blames for seizing the land and destroying his livelihood.
As land grabs by local firms linked to multinationals drive small-holder farmers out of business, a rights group behind a February bid for compensation by 100 farmers says rights violations and environmental degradation are also at stake.
Muylisa, a 53-year old father of nine, had leased a 17 hectare (40 acre) plot farming coffee, bananas, cassava and potatoes on Kalangala island. But in 2011 that land was taken and cleared for a palm oil estate.
"It's like I'm starting all over again now," Muyiisa said, adding he once could earn over 1,400 dollars a year (1,300 euros) but is now struggling to survive.
"With that land, some of my children even completed university, but now I've taken some out of school, some of my daughters are doing housework to earn money."
It is a story repeated elsewhere in Africa, where large internationally-backed companies are snapping up agricultural land, and activists claim their actions deprive local farmers of basic needs.
But Muyiisa did not legally own the land he farms -- the title deeds are held by the local Sempa family.
Horatius Sempa said the 14 farmers were "illegal squatters," but acknowledged some had received payments of between $35 and $200 while others had been allowed to continue farming smaller parcels of land. Muyiisa was left with three hectares (7.5 acres).
The palm oil project is being carried out by Oil Palm Uganda, a subsidiary of local food producer Bidco Uganda. Bidco in turn is a joint venture between global palm oil giant Wilmar International -- backed by several European banks and financiers -- and other international partners.
It is also supported by the UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), which offers government loans at subsidised interest rates to set up plantations.
- 'Total robbery' -
Campaigners say the Kalangala case highlights a growing conflict over land rights and ownership in Africa between those who hold the legal deeds and the generations of smallholders who occupy and invest in farmland, potentially earning themselves squatters' rights to remain.
"It is happening in Liberia, Nigeria, Tanzania," said environmental campaigner David Kureeba from Friends of the Earth in Uganda, which is supporting the farmers' legal challenge.
"Expansion of palm oil will lead to food insecurity, human rights violations, environmental degradation and climate change," he argued.
Friends of the Earth this month called for Wilmar to immediately halt its palm oil development plans in Nigeria, which they describe as a "key frontier country" for palm oil expansion leading to "conflict".
Muyiisa, one of over 100 farmers in Uganda who lost their farms, are hoping the court will order the land to be handed back, along with "fair compensation" for damages.
They claim they were kicked off the land without warning and the compensation they got was derisory.
Muyiisa's mother-in-law, Magdalena Nakamya, a 64-year-old widow with eight children, depended on a three-hectare (seven acre) plot growing cassava and potatoes, earning over 250 dollars (180 euros) a month.
"Then they came and measured up, and the next I heard there was digging," said Nakamya, describing the day the bulldozers arrived. "Now I'm making very little money."
Kalangala island in the vast freshwater Lake Victoria appears idyllic, but Bidco -- which launched the ambitious Oil Palm Uganda Limited (OPUL) development in 2004, and by the end of 2012 had been given 7,700 hectares of land (17 acres) by the government -- says it was once at the bottom of the pile for economic development.
The food producer dismisses claims it has caused harm, saying the palm oil farm has instead boosted development on the island.
Bidco boasts Kalangala now is among the top 10 developed districts in the east African country, after "working harmoniously and closely with the community" on the joint public-private partnership.
Wilmar said in a statement that the court had ordered mediation, pointing out the company had played no role in buying the land.
"We are disappointed that our efforts to engage with the stakeholders concerned, that is the alleged affected communities and NGO involved, were not reciprocated," the company said.
But for Muyiisa, the case is clear.
"In the end some were scared and took anything offered," said Muyiisa, claiming some farmers were paid as little as $16, others just $33. "It wasn't much. Some were offered really poor money and refused it because they thought 'this is total robbery'."
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-ugandas-farmers-battle-palm-oil-goliaths-for-land-2015-7#ixzz3hE0Dfp3V
Labels: GLOBALISATION, LAND REFORM, UGANDA
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Wynter is making sense
By The Post
Thu 21 Feb. 2013, 15:10 CAT
We share Wynter Kabimba's concerns about globalisation and how it has reduced the world into a "village of unequal partners and participants".
We who live in poor Third World countries need to collectively reflect on ways to face the new world realities in order to achieve development, eradicate poverty, defend the cultures of our people and occupy the place we deserve in making global decisions that affect everyone.
Actually, only a calm reflection and an honest exchange of ideas will show us the way to better consider the legitimate interests of all our peoples.
We benefit very little - and often not at all - from the advantages of the current world order with its dazzling technology, market expansion and financial bubbles.
Today we face the enormous challenges arising from a unipolar world order and a globalisation process that advances imperiously, shaping a world with greater technological potential than ever before, but also with greater inequalities and exclusions.
Globalisation is the historical process that is today defining the world scenario. Globalisation is an irreversible reality characterised by the growing interaction of all countries in the world, their economies and peoples. The major scientific and technological advances have shortened distances and allowed for direct communication and transmission of information among countries located anywhere on the planet.
With its impressive technological achievements, globalisation holds tremendous potential for development, the eradication of poverty and fostering well-being in conditions of social equality for all humanity. Never before has the world commanded today's formidable technological resources.
However, the world is still very far from materialising the potential of globalisation. It develops today under the aegis of neo-liberal policies that impose unregulated markets and unbridled privatisation.
Far from promoting the expansion of development throughout an increasingly interdependent world badly in need of sharing the progress achieved, neo-liberal globalisation has aggravated existing inequalities and raised to inordinate heights social inequities and the most disturbing contrasts between extreme wealth and extreme poverty.
In 1960, the difference of incomes between the wealthiest 20 per cent of the world's population living in the developed countries and those of the poorest 20 per cent living in the Third World was 30 to one. By 1997, that ratio was 74 to one. The cult of deregulated markets had promised a progressive convergence of development levels. However, the last two decades have brought an even greater concentration of revenues and resources and a wider gap between developed and underdeveloped nations.
The OECD member countries, with 19 per cent of the world's population, account for 71 per cent of international trade in goods and services, 58 per cent of foreign direct investment and 91 per cent of all internet users.
It is obvious that the opportunities offered by globalisation are distributed very unevenly in the conditions created by the cult of market competition and the reduction of the role of governments to passive recipients of decisions taken by the financial power centres.
In order for globalisation to realise its enormous potential to benefit humanity, it must be accompanied by a just and sustainable new world order. This new order must include the participation of Third World countries in global decision-making and a profound transformation of the international monetary system currently dominated by the privileges enjoyed by the United States' national currency.
Likewise, a comprehensive approach to development is required in order to avoid the separation of trade, investments and finance, thus facilitating control by the developed countries. It is essential to reduce the widening gap between the group of the wealthiest countries and the large majority of poorest countries, as well as to bring an end to protectionist policies, which clearly contradict the often-repeated rhetoric of liberalisation.
Globalisation potential for progress and development for all, and not just for a privileged minority, will elude full realisation in the absence of a dialogue between the developed countries and the Third World. This must be a wide-ranging and responsible dialogue based on a full understanding of the shared responsibility imposed by globalisation, of the different degrees of development that make it both unfair and absurd to demand equal contributions from such profoundly unequal parties.
Above all, it must be a dialogue on an equal footing and not a monologue in which the Third World is assigned the role of listening to a lecture on what it should do to earn a certificate for good behavior.
Never before has humanity had such formidable scientific and technologic potential, such extraordinary capacity to produce riches and well-being, but never before have disparity and inequality been so profound in the world.
Technological wonders that have been shrinking the planet and distances co-exist today with the increasingly wider gap separating wealth and poverty, development and underdevelopment.
It is said that globalisation is an objective reality underlining the fact that we are all passengers on the same vessel - this planet where we all live. But passengers on this vessel are traveling in very different conditions.
A trifling minority is traveling in luxurious cabins furnished with all sorts of hitech gadgets. They enjoy a nutritional, abundant and balanced diet as well as clean water supplies. They have access to sophisticated medical care and culture.
The overwhelming and suffering majority is traveling in conditions that resemble the terrible slave trade from Africa to America. That is, the great majority of the passengers on this ship are crowded together in its dirty hold, suffering hunger, disease and helplessness.
Obviously, this vessel is carrying too much injustice to remain afloat, pursuing such an irrational and senseless route that it cannot call on a safe port. This vessel seems destined to crash into an iceberg. If that happened, we would all sink with it.
We do not have only a corrective right, but also a collective obligation to take the helm and correct that catastrophic course. It is our duty to take our rightful place at the helm and ensure that all passengers can travel in conditions of solidarity, equity and justice.
For two decades, we have been repeatedly listening to only one simplistic discourse, while one single policy has prevailed. We have been told that deregulated markets, maximum privatisation and the state's withdrawal from economic activity were the infallible principles conducive to economic and social development.
In the last two decades, along this line, the developed countries, particularly the United States, the big transnational corporations who benefit from such policies and the International Monetary Fund have designed the world economic order most hostile to our countries' progress and the least sustainable, in terms of preservation of society and the environment.
Globalisation has been held tight by the patterns of neo-liberalism; thus, it is not development that becomes global but poverty; it is not respect for national sovereignty of our states but the violation of that respect; it is not solidarity amongst our peoples but sauve-qui-peut in the unequal competition prevailing in the marketplace. Two decades of the so-called neo-liberal structural adjustments have left us economic failure and social disaster. It is the duty of responsible politicians to face up to this predicament by taking the indispensable decisions conducive to rescue our countries from a blind alley.
This is the only way we can prevent the ship from colliding with the iceberg that could sink us all. This is the only way that we can look forward to life and not death.
The only way for our poor countries to succeed in making ourselves heard, in fighting for our interests, and in defending our right to life, development and culture is to stand united. And as Wynter correctly puts it, "this is the world where the rich in terms of natural resources are the poorest in terms of living standards and obviously it means we have to reconstruct this world economic order". Wynter is making sense.
Labels: GLOBALISATION, NEOLIBERALISM, WYNTER KABIMBA
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(ZAMBIA REPORTS) Kabimba Embraces Cuban Socialism
Published February 21, 2013 By Nse Udoh
Following a visit by a Zambian delegation to Cuba this past week, Minister of Justice Wynter Kabimba has taken a confrontational stance against Washington
by stating his government’s “permanent support” for the Cuban regime on the issue of the blockade and the Cuban Five prisoners.
Speaking in an interview published by Cuba’s state-owned newspaper Granma, Kabimba shared some ideological perspectives that have been interpreted by some parties as step toward socialism by the ruling Patriotic Front.
Among other statements, he expressed criticism of foreign investors in Zambia, remarking that they do little to contribute to development, while also slamming “Western forces with economic interests” for intervening in the conflict in Mali.
According to the translated introduction in the article in Granma,
“Today we live in a world characterized by injustice, where the powerful nations have the ability to decide how to gain access to the natural resources of less developed countries and what they will pay for them. A world where the rich are getting richer, and the poor poorer. Such considerations relate to the secretary general of the ruling Patriotic Front party of Zambia Wynter Kabimba, who during his recent visit to Cuba spoke with Granma.”
“Currently we are facing the phenomenon of globalisation, which determines the global economic order and has turned the world into small village in which ‘the partners’ are in conditions of inequality,” Kabimba said to Granma, later emphasizing that the ideal solution would be to “rebuild the dominant economic order so that social justice wins.”
“In Africa, we now have political independence, but this won’t be enough for us to obtain economic independence,” Kabimba said.
Asked about the challenges Zambia faces from the global financial crisis, Kabimba said “the level of foreign direct investment is high, but most of it doesn’t contribute to the development of our people and this is something we must revert to from a legal point of view.”
Commenting on the PF’s social policies, Kabimba told the Cuban press that the Zambian government it has subdivided the districts so that government spending is distributed in the most equitable manner and so that each community decides what are its development priorities.
The issue of re-districting and creation of new provinces in Zambia has in the past created signficant controversies, as citizens complain that they were not consulted while opposition parties decried the unconstitutional decrees which circumvented parliamentary procedure.
Asked about regional security issues, Kabimba took aim at the foreign intervention in Mali:
“The question that we should be asking ourselves is ‘who is the instigator of this conflict?’ In my opinion, it’s the Western forces with economic interests who, once again, want to control our natural resources. The issue of terrorism in Africa is a smokescreen, a front.”
Kabimba said that in university he studied a course on Latin American history, and learned that today the Latin American people are uniting in search of economic independence “to fight against the multinationals who for years have taken control of their wealth.”
Kabimba also praised Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, who was recently reelected to a third term in office, and also praised the “good examples” of Bolivia, Venezuela, and Brazil.
“In Africa, we are watching with hope what is happening in Latin America and the Caribbean,” Kabimba said. “We see that it is possible for the people to defeat imperialist forces. For example, in Venezuela, when a coup de etat was organised by the CIA, we saw a people who went out into the streets to defend their government they had voted for. It’s important to understand that what happens today in countries like Honduras and Paraguay constitute the exception and not the rule, like it happened in the past.”
Concluding the interview, Kabimba said “our position with respect to the blockade and the Five is that of permanent support. For us, injustice is injustice, whether it is against Cuba, against Palestine, or against the the Polisario Front [Western Sahara]. Here you have an ally in Zambia.”
According to the 2012 report by monitor Human Rights Watch, “Cuba remains the only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent. In 2011 Raúl Castro’s government continued to enforce political conformity using short-term detentions, beatings, public acts of repudiation, forced exile, and travel restrictions.”
Kabimba’s comments are likely to raise concerns in Washington, which was previously supportive of the Patriotic Front’s campaign in 2011.
Many commentators online are also speculating what his comments will mean for future policies in Zambia.
Labels: CUBA, GLOBALISATION, WYNTER KABIMBA
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The Globalization of NATO in Africa: From Angola and Libya to Somalia
September 2012 Interview with Heart of Africa:
By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Global Research, February 16, 2013
Heart of Afirca 19 September 2012
This highly educative discussion is on how the globalisation of NATO is affecting Africa. Our expert guest is, MAHDI DARIUS NAZEMROAYA. Mahdi is an award winning author and global geopolitical analyst. He is also a sociologist and research associate in different regions of the world.
NATO developed from a supposedly defensive and North Atlantic organization into an predominantly offensive, aggressive and global one. We will look at NATO’s interventions in Africa historically right through the years to modern times, like in the “Arab Spring” which affected nations like Libya. Evidence shows that NATO has been progressively destroying Africa over the years, though mainline media would report otherwise. The re-colonization of Africa is under-way through NATO and European Union expansion.
Our guest, Mahdi is very generous with knowledge, you are encouraged to tune in with an ear ready to learn. We will also discuss his book, “The Globalization of NATO”. The show is concluded by applicable biblical perspectives.
Heart of Africa is broadcasted live every Wednesday night at 2000 hours Central Africa Time on www.morelightradio.com. It is dedicated to examining matters that affect Africa from a Pan-African Christian perspective, as we envisage the revival of the African dream. All rights reserved.
Labels: AFRICOM, GLOBALISATION, NATO
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Color Revolutions: Argentina Next?
Tony Cartalucci
Land Destroyer
November 9, 2012
Suspicion grows as Western criticism of Argentina's nationalization and rebuffing of "rules of global finance" sharpens in tandem with street protests.
Western media agencies have begun enthusiastically covering demonstrations in Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires.
CNN,
AP, and the BBC have all covered the protests in equally vague terms, failing to identify the leaders and opposition groups behind them,
while BBC in particular recycled "Arab Spring" rhetoric claiming that, "opposition activists used social networks to mobilise the march, which they said was one of the biggest anti-government protests in a decade."
The Western media claims the protesters are angry over, "rising inflation, high levels of crime and high-profile corruption cases," all the identical, vague grievances brought into the streets by Wall Street-backed opposition groups in Venezuela. Underneath these unsubstantiated claims, lies the International Monetary Fund, and threats of sanctions aimed at Argentina's turning away from the US Dollar and the Wall Street-London dominated international financial order.
And like in Venezuela, a coordinated campaign against the Argentinian government, led by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchne, has begun in op-eds across the Western media.
The Chicago Tribune in an op-ed titled, "A wrong turn in Buenos Aires: Argentina's populist economic policies court disaster," stated:
What a shame to see a country of such great economic promise swerving off the road to prosperity again.
The latest in a history of unforced errors began in 2007. National elections ushered in populist President Cristina Fernandez, who has led her nation to the brink of disaster by refusing to play by the rules of global finance. She restricted international trade, violated contracts and pumped out phony data to disguise the soaring inflation her policies brought about. All the while she scored cheap political points by blasting the rich countries of the north for their supposed economic imperialism.
Argentina took a grave step in May when it nationalized YPF, its main energy company. The takeover, condemned around the world, forced out Spain's Grupo Repsol, which owned a majority stake in YPF. Repsol was providing the engineering know-how and financial investment to develop Argentina's massive energy reserves—including the huge Vaca Muerta oil-and-gas find.
Negotiations to compensate Repsol for Argentina's asset-grab will end badly for Argentina. The European Union is likely to impose sanctions. Repsol wants $10 billion, and it has sent the message to rival energy companies that it will not permit others to profit from its confiscated assets. Argentina will have a hard time finding partners to help it develop what should be a lucrative resource.
The financial coup against Repsol won strong national support. The approval ratings of Fernandez temporarily shot up. Even opposition parties backed the move. Government officials talked about how they had restored Argentina's dignity by standing up to foreigners exploiting its natural bounty. Meantime, Fernandez kept the once-hot economy going by nationalizing private pension funds, redirecting the money into housing loans, and expanding welfare programs by decree.
Now Argentina has to pay the price.
What is likely to follow will be coordinated attacks including sanctions, isolation, political attacks, currency attacks, and of course US-engineered unrest in the streets, which can range from protesters merely clogging traffic, to escalating violence triggered by the now notorious "mystery gunmen" used in US unconventional warfare to destabilize, divide, and destroy nations.
But also like in Venezuela, if enough awareness can be raised in regards to what the West is doing, and the disingenuous intentions and interests driving opposition groups into the streets, these efforts being used to coerce Argentina back into the Western dominated "world order" articulated by US think-tank policy makers like Robert Kagan as serving "the needs of the United States and its allies, which constructed it," can ultimately be thwarted.
....
If you are in Argentina, or are familiar with the opposition groups now demonstrating against the Argentinian government, with knowledge of their leaders, demands, ideology, and affiliations, please contact the Land Destroyer Report at cartalucci@gmail.com.
Labels: ARGENTINA, COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, GLOBALISATION, NEOCOLONIALISM, NEW WORLD ORDER
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Greek Whistleblower: Billions in Secret Offshore Bank Accounts
By Stephen Lendman
Global Research, October 31, 2012
Doing the right thing is risky. Greek magazine publisher Costas Vaxevanis faces charges of violating state privacy laws. Potentially he faces two years in prison. Press freedom and whistleblowing should be inviolate. Not in today’s corrupt money controlled world. More on this below.
A previous article discussed a recent Tax Justice Network (TJN) USA report. It estimates up to $32 trillion of hidden and stolen wealth stashed largely tax-free secretly.
“The Price of Offshore Revisited” reveals what super-rich elites want concealed. Governments let them avoid taxes. Societal costs are huge. Ill-gotten gains are free to make more of them. Only ordinary people pay what they owe. Many pay too much.
A vast offshore industry operates out of sight and mind. Only financial interests running it and wealthy tax avoiders know what’s going on.
The benefit of getting rich is being able to break societal rules to get richer. When ordinary people try they’re punished. When whisleblowers expose potential wrongdoing, prosecutors victimize them.
Under Obama, it’s truer than ever in America. Greece operates the same way. On October 29, Reuters headlined “Greek editor stands trial over Swiss accounts list, saying:
Hot Doc magazine editor Vaxevanis was arrested for publishing the “Lagarde List.” In 2010, French authorities gave it to Athens. At issue is investigating 2,059 wealthy Greeks with secret HSBC Swiss accounts.
Whether they’re guilty of criminal fraud or other financial crimes, remains to be seen. Many tax haven depositors have considerable amounts of questionable wealth.
Lagarde’s List includes business people, shipping magnates, politicians, physicians, lawyers, architects, scientists, journalists, housewives, a painter, an actress, and others. How they accumulated wealth and why it’s held secretly needs explaining.
Vaxevanis believes most on Lagarde’s List are suspect. Many may be tax cheats. They may also be involved in other illegal activities. He told supporters:
“I was doing my job in the name of the public interest. Journalism is revealing the truth when everyone else is trying to hide it.”
“Instead of arresting the tax evaders and the ministers who had the list in their hands, they are trying to arrest the truth and free journalism.”
“If anyone is accountable before the law it is those ministers who hid the list, lost it, and said it didn’t exist. I only did my job. I am a journalist and I did my job.”
He also said 15 officers Sunday surrounded the home of a friend where he was staying. They acted like German storm troopers in Greek uniforms.
Ahead of his apprehension he Twittered, “They’re entering my house with the prosecutor right now. They are arresting me. Spread the word.”
Hours later he was released to appear in magistrate court Monday.
The Ta Nea newspaper devoted 10 pages to the story. It believes secret accounts held about $2 billion dollars in 2007. It could be double or more that amount now.
At the same time, it said it wasn’t prejudging the list’s “content nor the connotations it evokes in a large part of the public.” No evidence so far implicates anyone in criminality.
Perhaps it’s because no investigations were undertaken. Influential people usually avoid them. It happens all the time. Vaxevanis said, “Today, it’s not Hot Doc that’s on trial but press freedom in Greece and truth.”
He added that an anonymous source supplied the list. Some observers said prosecutors targeted free expression in democracy’s birthplace.
The Greek chapter of Reporters Without Borders issued a statement about the speed of Vaxevanis’ arrest. He’s “not a dangerous criminal,” it said.
“The pressure created by the arrest of a reporter is clearly disproportionate. This procedure simply encourages an excessive cover-up, and the authorities appear to be imposing the ‘therapy’ of this sensitive issue, which is a gripping matter of public interest.”
Some of the names on his list include:
George and Fotis Bobolas
Lavrentis Lavrentiadis
The Marinopoulos Brothers
Families of shipping magnates Martinou and Patera
Most well-known jewellers
Dimitris Kopelouzos
usinessman Benroubi’s family
Journalist George Trangas
Caricaturist Katherine Shina
Pegasus publishing house manager Alexis Skanavis
Adviser to Prime Minister Antonis Samaras Stavros Papastavros
Athens area obstetrician Panagiotis Agraniotis in the prestigious
Thessaloniki dentist Vassilios Daniilidis
Athens Surgery Professor Ioannis Karaytianos
Athens surgeon Sotirios Stiloyanis
ENT doctor Ptolemeos Petridis
Gynacologist Giorgos Papadimitriou
Pediatrician Eli Mantsi
Sakoula publishing house founder Amalia Moutousi’s wife Yioanna Sakoula
Sculptor Alexandra Atanasiadi
Spiridon Doukas
Deceased former Kostas Karamanlis deputy minister Ioannis Boutos
Former newspaper editor Spiridonas Doukas
Following the list’s publication, prosecutors issued a search warrant for Vaxevanis’ premises. He claims he did nothing illegal. Personal data isn’t disclosed. Nor are monetary amounts.
He wants prosecutors to explain their “illegal actions.” An opposition political party SYRIZA statement accused the government of provocative and unacceptable persecution, saying:
“Unfortunately, justice hurried to set itself itself going against the one who reveals facts, and it tolerates those who conceal the facts.”
SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras and at least one other Greek parliamentarian called for charges against Vaxevanis to be dropped. They ridiculed prosecutors for targeting him instead individuals on the list.
Tsipras added:
“It is unacceptable that in Greece, which has been on its knees in recent years, tax evaders are left undisturbed and those who conceal possible evasion are not prosecuted but those who make revelations are.”
The Independent Greeks party said:
“The vassals of the Three are scared to death – those who betrayed our national sovereignty, are now betraying our constitutional rights – victims of fear and court intimidation.”
Independent deputy Nikos Nikopoulos added:
“In Greece, the law applies to those who reveal lists of bank accounts. There are people among the names who have illegally obtained these accounts.”
“At the same time, however, those who are keeping ‘forgotten’ lists in their desks, and do not publicize them, are left undisturbed.”
President of the Athens union of newspaper editors, Dimitris Trimis, called what happened “absolutely hypocritical.”
“Because justice and politicians have allegedly been looking for these publicly disclosed data, but are mutually accusing one another that they cannot find them. Publicity and transparency are the soul of Democracy and Justice.”
Former finance minister George Papaconstantinou said he gave about 20 names to financial crimes unit head Ioannis Diotis. He asked him to investigate possible wrongdoing.
Diotis gave them to Evangelos Venizelos, Papaconstantinou’s successor. He said Venizelos hadn’t told him to investigate – case closed. Isn’t that how things always work? In America, London, and other financial capitals, it’s standard practice.
Papaconstantinou added that authorities didn’t act because they’re covering for elite tax cheats.
“My interpretation is they probably got scared. They looked at the names on the list and saw it was full of important people from business and publishing and decided not to go ahead without clear political instructions and cover.”
He added that what’s now known represents only a small part of a massive tax evasion problem. He called the Greek system “broken and corrupt.”
Author and social commentator Petros Markaris said:
“This really is a mess, and it has become a mess because the politicians have handled it so badly. This was not incompetence but because they did not want to make public what could harm them.”
The origin of the scandal began in a January 2009 raid. The French home of former HSBC Geneva branch IT consultant, Herve Falciani, was targeted.
Swiss authorities accused him of selling stolen data on the bank’s clients. French police found computer files on 130,000 potential tax evaders. Swiss authorities were furious about initiated investigations. About 15,000 HSBC clients are involved.
So far, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras withheld comment. He’s got plenty of other crosses to bear. Add one more to his list.
A Final Comment
On October 30, Vaxevanis addressed Athens magistrate court, saying:
“There is an effort being made to convict me of a ‘crime.” The prosecutors say that I have published personal data while Mr. Venizelos, the former Finance Minister, ‘lost’ the list down the toilet of his home.”
“Over the last two years, there is a public effort through the appearance of legality to cover a very big scandal. The people who are handling and manipulating this issue and the public prosecutor have got to realize that from a legal point of view, there was no violation of personal data at all.”
“A few months ago in Greece, the public prosecutor made public the personal information of people with AIDS! Why? They said it was because they wanted to protect the public interest. In order to protect the public interests, I did my job. The people on the list need to be investigated.”
“I am speaking to the public prosecutor when I say that he has the obligation to show the same sensitivity to my case. I don’t know why the public prosecutor behaves in this manner, but they must adhere to rule of law and treat all cases equally.”
“Today, several international newspapers have published the Lagarde list and there has been no outcry or repercussions. A journalist’s job is to tell the truth, especially when others are hiding the truth. Anything less is just public relations and propaganda.”
His trial is scheduled for early June.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled “How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War”
http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour
Labels: GLOBALISATION, GREECE, NEOLIBERALISM
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COMMENT - The IMF is up to it's old tricks again - more Structural Adjustment Programmes. To read Zimbabwe's experience with SAP from 1991-1996, read Antonia Juhasz "
The Tragic Tale of the IMF in Zimbabwe". They don't want to see the economic sanctions against Zimbabwe lifted (see
ZDERA, Section 4C (1) and (2), and Section 3), they just want to 'advise' them on their economic policies first. As a privately owned cartel, the IMF serves it's own shareholders interests and no one else's.
IMF eases Zimbabwe help restrictions
30/10/2012 00:00:00
by Gilbert Nyambabvu
THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Tuesday it had relaxed restrictions on providing technical support to Zimbabwe, rewarding the country for improvements in economic policy co-operation with the Institution. The Fund however, stressed that there would be no financial assistance involved.
Easing its restrictions, set after Zimbabwe fell behind in repayments, would however, allow the Fund to advise the government on its economic programmes as well as and monitor their implementation.
“The Executive Board has decided to resume IMF technical assistance in certain new areas to support Zimbabwe’s formulation and implementation of a comprehensive adjustment and structural reform programme that can be monitored by (IMF) staff,” the Fund said in a statement.
The relaxation comes at a time Finance Minister Tendai Biti is crafting the country's 2013 national budget amid concern over faltering growth and dipping government revenues. Biti recently revealed that the 2012 revenues had fallen short of projections, with the government facing a US$400 million blackhole.
Still, funding must be found for the new agricultural season, bonus payments to some 230,000 state workers as well as a constitutional referendum whose bill is estimated at about US$100 million.
Meanwhile, the IMF said its technical assistance would cover areas such as tax policy and administration, public financial management and expenditure policy, financial sector and central bank reform as well as monetary and exchange policies.
“The Executive Board took into account a significant improvement in Zimbabwe’s cooperation on economic policies, the authorities’ efforts and renewed commitment to address its arrears problems, and Zimbabwe's severe capacity constraints in the IMF’s core areas of expertise that represent a major risk to the implementation of the government’s macroeconomic stabilization program,” the statement added.
Zimbabwe has been behind in the repayment of $132 million owed to the IMF since 2001 and is also in default on another $1.5 billion owed to the World Bank and African Development Bank, according to a June 2012 IMF report.
The IMF said Zimbabwe was “the only case of protracted arrears to the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT), the IMF’s vehicle for concessional lending to low-income countries” leading to the suspension of technical assistance as well as removal of the country from the list of PRGT-eligible countries.
However, in a September report, the IMF said the government had begun co-operating more closely in discussions on its outstanding debt, including making a new commitment to repay the money.
COMMENTS
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Batanai
This is unwelcome news! IMF assistance has been bad for Zimbabwe. This offer is worse; they are going to tell us what to do without even offering us money in exchange for following their neoliberal policies.
Worse yet, Biti likes IMF ideas!
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ZuuluShaka(NDABEZITHA)
Colonisation euphemisms ,these bastards are so brazen to issue these statements .Same horse of oppression different jockey .Powerful lobby companies behind these dastard organisations because they are going to loose control of Zimbabwe land and natural resources ,since it has became law of the land.
Stay out of Zimbabwe!!!! we know your track record very well.We will continue suffering and smiling and shall overcome.Just look at SA people getting murdered for demanding a better wage.
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Gari WekuZviyambe
Biti aita sei? Ndiye akaunza ESAP here?
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dizomba
No IMF please! We dont need these predators, we are doing just fine without them. This debt they keep talking about comes form their "expert advice" of the 1990s, remember ESAP! This the perfect time for the old man Bob to tell them to go to hell. We will all be slaves to the IMF and WB soon just as the rest of the world is going towards there, just look around, we will all be issued a number, does tripple six ring any bells?
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ZuuluShaka(NDABEZITHA)
"The IMF eases restrictions ,however this doesn't involve credit lines ,but technical assistance ".They want to offer assistance and charge for it .Jeeze!!! these people are devils .
That is the most stupidest statement I have ever heard in my life time from people who aspire to have created English language .
It is very important we debunk this patronising rubbish.Zanu pf made payments in 1998 ,$960 million in interest only ,38% of exports .Futher remittances where committed when the Reserve bank was raided of hard currency in 99 ,a catalyst of fuel shortages and medicine .Imports are paid for in foreign currency. Then 500 million bailout from SA ,part of the funds used to manage this debt .Zanu pf has consistently paid this debt regardless of social and economic adversity compared to Greece and Spain .They might be guilty of somethings ,but not this falsehoods being cooked by IMF former Chief is a sex pest.
Now ,that out of the way .IMF has no say on how the constitution of Zimbabwe is supposed to operate to their liking ,we are a soverign country ,land reform ,indigenisation is irreversible .We Zimbabweans both Zanu and MDC are fighting for the betterment of our nation and we don't need outsiders to lecturer us on morals ,how and when .When their economies are in dire straits .
Like all other families we will and shall get through this and prosper again.Africa existed and prospered before IMF ,UN and World Bank and will raise again .SO TWO FINGERS UP.GO AND HANG!!!.
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Tobias
IMF ngaisiyane nesu. We have survived this long without and now that we are slowly coming out of the doldrums they want to come and steer our economy back to slavery.
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Sekuru VekuMhondoro
NO THANK YOU IMF. We will call you if we need you maybe in 2000&NEVER. We are no longer the dumb africans of yester years. We know your deals and we DON'T want them. STAY AWAY. BYE
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MweniTafara
Its cheap talk to say eased help will "allow the Fund to advise the government on its economic programmes as well as and monitor their implementation."
Is it not IMF that advised African govs to restructure by selling critical state infrastracture when in Europe, America or Russia they did not advise so.
Africa will do better if they have nothing to do with these colonial names like IMF or Commonwealth.
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RG_M
Mr Biti: The Lawconomist
Can you have a read of this before your next cup of tea with your IMF and World Bank masters:
If you look at t the 1980's, the IMF took on an expanded role of lending money to
"bailout" countries during financial crisis. Just take alook at the Greek example though slightly diffferent from our example. This gave the IMF leverage to begin
designing economic policies for all developing countries. Countries have to follow
these policies to get the IMF's go ahead to get loans, international
assistance, and even debt relief. Mr Biti you as an Active Architect of ZDERA 2001 you MUST be aware that is why Zimbabwe was crippled from the around the inception of ZDERA 2001 and prior to that with ESAP.... ThE IMF has enormous influence not only
in structuring the global economy, but also on real-life issues such as poverty,
environmental sustainability and development. But do they benefit Africans? I think not
The IMF is one of the most
powerful institutions on Earth and I am sure you know that Mr Biti. The IMF does not serve the interests of Zimbabwe and any other developing country! They have never and they never will.....and you Mr Biti smiling like that and setting our country for another long haul of debt burden is unacceptable
Why was the IMF created in the first place?
Well the insightful ones will say as
a system of modern day colonialism that drains via ESAPs the poor to fatten the rich former colonial masters
The IMF, along with the World Bank, is directing the global
economy on a path of greater inequality and environmental destruction. The IMF's
and World Bank's "economic structural adjustment policies" (ESAPs) ensure debt repayment
by requiring countries to cut spending on education and health; eliminate basic
foods and transportation subsidies; devalue national currencies to make exports
cheaper; privatize national assets; and freeze wages. These policies increase
poverty, reduce countries' ability to develop strong domestic economies and
allow multinational corporations to exploit workers and pollute the
environment.
The IMF caters to wealthy countries and the elite of this world....its only involvement with the poor is to make them even poorer!
Mr Bit you need to look at history and you will notice that the Western countries have not borrowed from the IMF in over twenty
years, yet it is the rich countries who dominate decision making. IMF Voting power is determined by
the amount of money that each country pays. The U.S. is the largest shareholder
with a quota of 18%. U.S., Germany, Japan, France and Great Britain together
hold about 38% of the vote. Each of these countries appoints their own
representative to the executive board, while other groups of countries elect a
representative. The U.S. Executive Director is Meg Lundasager, and she works
closely with the U.S. Treasury Department to design policy
for the IMF. The disproportional amount of power held by wealthy countries
translates into decisions that benefit wealthy bankers, investors and
corporations from industrialized countries at the expense of sustainable
development. Is it a surprise that the IMF then uses its leverage over
cash-strapped developing countries to force them to open up to powerful
transnational corporations? That is why I am telling you Mr Biti to wipe off that smile when dealing with these rogue organisations.
The IMF's imposing and conditionality model is a fundamentally flawed development model
So Mr Biti we urge you to think first.......we appreciate you are a Lawyer and not an economist
Labels: GLOBALISATION, IMF, NEOLIBERALISM, World Bank
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Globalism Is Killing Us All
Thursday, 25 October 2012 14:20
By Thom Hartmann and Sam Sacks,
The Daily Take | Op-Ed
In the past, diseases like tuberculosis and malaria have been number one health concerns around the world. But not anymore. In today's world, globalization is the number one health risk facing humanity.
A new study released this week by the Blacksmith Institute reveals, for the first time ever, the impact of industrial pollutants on communities across the planet. It found that industrial waste dump sites containing toxic horrors like lead, mercury, and chromium, poison more than 125 million people in 49 different low and middle income nations around the planet. And the authors of the study say this is a very conservative estimate and likely even more people are sickened by this rampant industrial pollution. In fact, the report says that industrial pollution is now a bigger global health problem for the world than malaria and tuberculosis.
Just look at what's happening in places like Zamfara, Nigeria. It's a state without children – or, at least, very few children walking around.
Why? Because hundreds of children who work in gold mines are exposed to high levels of lead. Back in March of 2010, the organization Doctors Without Borders arrived on the scene in Zamfara and found that hundreds of children had died from lead poisoning and thousands more were diseased by it. Mortality rates in some villages were as high as 43%.
This is a genocide carried out by transnational corporations that have no restraints on how they operate in what were once sovereign nations. And ultimately, this is a consequence of globalism.
Plain and simple, globalization is the empowering of transnational corporations and the neutering of sovereign governments to keep their populations safe from these transnational corporate behemoths.
Globalization tears down borders across the planet. It gives corporations free rein to move about the world and set up shop in nations wherever governments are the weakest, wherever there's the least amount of regulation, and wherever workers are willing to work for practically nothing.
And since most transnational corporations are far wealthier than nations in the developing world, they just move in and take over, enslaving local populations and using local communities as garbage dumps.
It's really simple: when you let corporations do whatever they want without regulation, when you leave their drive for never-ending profits unchecked, then they invariably will stop at nothing to satisfy their greed.
If it means they'll save a few million bucks a year, then they'll dump battery acid all over a playground if you let them. They are profit-making machines without compassion.
And as Richard Fuller, the President of the BlackSmith Institute, warned it's only going to get worse. "Life-threatening pollution will likely increase as the global economy exerts an ever-increasing pressure on industry to meet growing demands,” he said. “The damage will be greatest in many low and middle-income countries, where industrial pollution prevention regulations and measures have not kept pace."
But it's not just the developing world that's being poisoned - it's the United States, too.
According to that same report, there are as many as 300,000 toxic dump sites in the United States alone. And that doesn't include the over 400,000 fracking wells around the United States.
Industry funded scientists say that fracking is perfectly safe, however, study after study shows it’s deadly. Just last week, a new study on fracking found that the closer residents live to fracking wells the more they suffered from symptoms of throat irritation and sinus infections. Even their pets suffered from the same ailments, and in some cases died. Water and air samples in areas near fracking wells were also found to contain high levels of chemicals associated with fracking.
Americans could have been protected from these dangers of industrial fracking, but Dick Cheney - being a loyal corporate globalist - put in an exemption for the fracking industry in 2004 that keeps the EPA from regulating fracking under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Since then, fracking has exploded and so have diseases associated with fracking. Yet Republicans want this epidemic to continue. Texas Governor Rick Perry so eloquently recited the mantra of the corporate globalists while he was running for President, “America needs to be about freedom,” he said, “freedom from over-taxation, freedom from over-litigation, freedom from over-regulation.”
Let me translate that for you: That means freedom for chemical companies to dump pesticides in our backyards, freedom for fracking companies to inject toxins in our drinking water, and freedom for oil companies to spew unlimited amounts of carbon into our air to accelerate global climate change.
These guys want the new Zamfara, Nigeria to be in Pennsylvania.
The point of all this is corporate globalism is killing us all. Without government regulations in place to keep "we the people" safe from industrial malfeasance, then say hello to ever increasing cases of cancer, asthma, heart disease, you name it.
This struggle is nothing new. In fact, it's as old as time. It's the struggle between organized people (or governments) and organized money (or transnational corporations).
We rebelled against transnational corporate power in the form of the East India Tea Company back in 1773, leading to our national independence a few years later. And today - almost 230 years later - we need another revolution against these transnational corporate killers.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license.
Thom Hartmann and Sam Sacks
Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling Project Censored Award winning author and host of a nationally syndicated progressive radio talk show.
Sam Sacks is a Progressive Commentator and former Democratic staffer on Capitol Hill. He is currently the Senior Producer of The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann airing weeknights at 7PM EST on RT and Free Speech TV.
Labels: GLOBALISATION, POLLUTION
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Rockefeller Global Tentacles Exposed in 1959 by the Soviet Union
By Wayne Madsen
Global Research, October 18, 2012
Strategic Culture Foundation
The Rockefeller global oil and banking empire has been the subject of much critical commentary on the Internet. However, the Rockefeller Octopus’s tentacles into every facet of America’s banking, oil (through their control of Standard Oil), military, educational, and foreign policy apparatus was exposed in a monograph prepared by the Soviet Union in 1959. An English translation of the Soviet article prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency’s Foreign Documents Division and dated December 16, 1959, was uncovered from the CIA’s archives. The paper is titled: “About Those Who Are Against Peace.”
The arguments in the Soviet paper generally concur with President Dwight Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the American people shortly before the inauguration of President Kennedy in January 1961. In his speech, Eisenhower warned the American people about the dangers posed to America’s democracy by the “military-industrial complex.”
There is nothing in the Soviet paper that rings false about the Rockefellers… The oligarchic family has exercised control over America’s foreign policy through their part-sponsorship of the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, and Bilderberg Group – all three shadowy organizations of the world’s elite class who determine monetary, foreign, and military policies behind closed doors. Rockefeller funding of Columbia University and the University of Chicago have helped inflict on the United States some of the most brazen neo-conservatives serving inside and outside of government.
The paper states “In 1957, the Rockefeller oligarchy of American oil industrialists controlled a capital of 61.4 billion dollars. The precise size of the Rockefeller fortune is a state secret in America: the American press noted at one time that special measures are taken so that data concerning the largest fortunes of the U.S. are not published.”
Fifty-three years later, the fortunes of America’s elite are still secret as can be seen with the secrecy surrounding Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s taxes and his offshore financial holdings in such locations as the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, Bermuda, and, according to some reports, the British Virgin Islands.
But the Rockefellers wrote the book on hiding their immense fortune in corporate contrivances and secret bank accounts, an easy task considering they own Chase Manhattan Bank, which is now known as J P Morgan Chase.
The Soviet article also exposed the Rockefellers’ much-ballyhooed “philanthropy” and “work ethic.” The article revealed: “The Rockefellers do not buy yachts worth many millions, like the Vanderbilt magnates; they do not install doorknobs and water fountains of pure gold in their palaces. But love for luxury is not alien to them. The play house where the children of the Rockefellers frolic cost a half million dollars. Bourgeois newspapers, willingly ‘forgetting’ about such ‘trifles,’ relate with tears of sympathy how the children of the billionaires earn pocket money by raising rabbits, cleaning boots, and even destroying flies at ten cents per hundred.”
Today, the successors of the same “bourgeois” media of 1959 prattle on about how Mitt and Ann Romney had it so “tough” after graduating from college. CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the son of billionaire heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, goes on about how tough it was for him to break into the news media, as if his mother had nothing to do with his rapid ascension in the corporate media.
The Soviet paper paints a picture of the Rockefellers that is similar to today’s Romney family: “The people want to know the truth. And the truth about the wealth of the Rockefellers consists of dark deeds, thousands of ruined families, hundreds of thousands of workers in many countries of the world tormented by work beyond their strength. The truth is the concealed history of many wars – it is oil stained with blood.” Of course, today the same can be said about the Rockefeller-linked Bush family, as well as Dick Cheney, George Soros, Rupert Murdoch, and the Rothschild family.
The article identifies the Rockefeller clan members in 1959: “John D. Rockefeller II does not direct his wide empire alone. He has five sons – John D. III, Laurance, David, Winthrop, and Nelson. They are all large capitalists. Each has his role, his department. Only Winthrop has not become famous for anything, unless one counts a scandalous divorce.” In fact, Winthrop became famous later when he was elected governor of Arkansas in 1966. His brother Nelson had served as Governor of New York since 1959.
David is the only survivor among John D. II’s sons and he has been a major player in secret organizations like the Bilderbergs and Trilateralists. David Rockefeller’s off demeanor is described in the Soviet article: “The bourgeois press advertises him as the owner of the best collection of insects in the world, and as possessing extremely gentlemanly manners. But when he enters the office of the bank [Chase Manhattan] and the steel doors close behind his back, the lover of butterflies turns into a greedy seeker after dollars. The hired biographers have every basis for calling him ‘the personification of the virtues of Wall Street.’”
Nelson Rockefeller, who, in 1975, would have become President of the United States had two attempted assassins’ bullets hit their target – President Gerald Ford – is recognized in the Soviet article for his scheming in Latin America, scheming that was supplemented by Richard Nixon and Ford Secretary of State and Rockefeller consigliore Henry Kissinger. The article states: “The Rockefellers have long nourished an irresistible attraction for the countries in Latin America: the provocatory smell of oil reaches them from the South American continent. Therefore, Nelson Rockefeller, who had long been trying to turn South America into his family estate, was at one time placed at the head of the so-called “Bureau of Inter-American Affairs.”
The article quotes the left-wing newspaper the Daily Compass, which once published the muckraking columns of investigative journalist I. F. Stone, in describing the Rockefellers’ stranglehold over the U.S. State Department: “The policy of the State Department is born in the offices of Standard Oil. From there it is transmitted to the Department of Defense, where the heads of the Army and Navy approve it. When this policy gets to the State Department, it becomes the policy of the government and is supposed to be confirmed by Congress quickly and without any changes whatever. When an order for laws designed to protect the interests of the oil kings comes from the Rockefeller dynasty itself, the entire Congress – from the small to the great – comes to ‘attention’ and does what the bosses order it to do.”
Considering the recent U.S. and NATO intervention in Libya and Syria, countries where oil is key, little has changed in how U.S. foreign and war policy is manufactured.
The Rockefellers ties to the CIA and Israel’s Mossad are also laid out in the Soviet monograph. The article reveals that the Rockefellers supplied a U.S. intelligence “cut out” – the School of Eastern Studies in Jerusalem – with money from the Arabian-American oil company (ARAMCO). The school, which operated with the full knowledge of the Mossad, trained American officers to conduct espionage throughout the Middle East.
There was a time when the U.S. government and the corporate (bourgeois) press dismissed such articles as the Soviet monograph on the Rockefellers as pure propaganda. In retrospect, the Soviet authors of the article understood in 1959 what many Americans have come late to fathoming: that the United States is being destroyed by a mega-wealthy elite intent on preying on the United States like a swarm of locusts.
1.
VIDEO: David Rockefeller behind SPP and North American Union (NAU)
A Rockefeller sponsored network is behind the process of “deap integration”
TO VIEW VIDEO CLICK HERE…
2.
The Rockefeller Boys
The Rockefeller Boys
Bichler, Shimshon and Nitzan, Jonathan. (2007). Science & Society. Vol. 71. No. 2. April. pp. 243-249.
Full Text Available As:PDF (File size: 92 KB) – Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader or other PDF viewer.
Abstract
Rockefeller’s global reach — from the University of Chicago to the Holy Land.…
3.
Rockefeller Center Continues to Support the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya...
Rockefeller Center Continues to Support the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya…
At New York’s Rockefeller Center, named after John D. Rockefeller Jr., the Green flag of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya continues to fly … Below the Green Flag is the golden statue of Prometheus, which constitutes a mysterious symbol of imperial power.
The Rockefeller Center symbolizes the US Financial establishment.…
4.
Development of US Military Facilities in Former Soviet Union: U.S. To Build Training Center In Tajikistan
Development of US Military Facilities in Former Soviet Union: U.S. To Build Training Center In Tajikistan
The United States has in past years built training facilities, financed military programs and established airbases in a handful of strategic ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia.
These include Georgia and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus as well as Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia.…
5.
Vaccinate the World: Gates, Rockefeller Seek Global Population Reduction
Vaccinate the World: Gates, Rockefeller Seek Global Population Reduction
The global elite has launched a world-wide operation against an unaware population to reduce and control fertility. Vaccines and even staple food crops have been modified to achieve these goals.
If you can’t seem to bring yourself to believe that such an undertaking is possible, or that there are human beings willing and capable; Look back in time, this kind of conspiracy isn’t new, in fact this kind of control was idealized by Plato some 2,300 years ago in his momentous work The Republic.…
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Labels: GLOBALISATION, NEOCOLONIALISM, ROCKEFELLER
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