March 20, 2007
While the number of the world’s billionaires grew from 793 in 2006 to 946 this year, major mass uprisings became commonplace occurrences in China and India. In India, which has the highest number of billionaires (36) in Asia with total wealth of $191 billion USD, Prime Minister Singh declared that the greatest single threat to ‘India’s security’ were the Maoist led guerrilla armies and mass movements in the poorest parts of the country. In China, with 20 billionaires with $29.4 billion USD net worth, the new rulers, confronting nearly a hundred thousand reported riots and protests, have increased the number of armed special anti-riot militia a hundred fold, and increased spending for the rural poor by $10 billion USD in the hopes of lessening the monstrous class inequalities and heading off a mass upheaval.
The total wealth of this global ruling class grew 35% year to year topping $3.5 trillion USD, while income levels for the lower 55% of the world’s six-billion-strong population declined or stagnated. Put another way, one hundred millionth of the world’s population (1/100,000,000) owns more than over three billion people. Over half of the current billionaires (523) came from just three countries: the US (415), Germany (55) and Russia (53). The 35% increase in wealth mostly came from speculation on equity markets, real estate and commodity trading, rather than from technical innovations, investments in job-creating industries or social services.
Among the newest, youngest and fastest-growing group of billionaires, the Russian oligarchy stands out for its most rapacious beginnings. Over two-thirds (67%) of the current Russian billionaire oligarchs began their concentration of wealth in their mid to early twenties. During the infamous decade of the 1990’s under the quasi-dictatorial rule of Boris Yeltsin and his US-directed economic advisers, Anatoly Chubais and Yegor Gaidar the entire Russian economy was put up for sale for a ‘political price’, which was far below its real value. Without exception, the transfers of property were achieved through gangster tactics -- assassinations, massive theft, and seizure of state resources, illicit stock manipulation and buyouts. The future billionaires stripped the Russian state of over a trillion dollars worth of factories, transport, oil, gas, iron, coal and other formerly state-owned resources.
Contrary to European and US publicists, on the Right and Left, very few of the top former Communist leaders are found among the current Russian billionaire oligarchy. Secondly, contrary to the spin-masters’ claims of ‘communist inefficiencies’, the former Soviet Union developed mines, factories, energy enterprises were profitable and competitive, before they were taken over by the new oligarchs. This is evident in the massive private wealth that was accumulated in less than a decade by these gangster-businessmen.
Virtually all the billionaires’ initial sources of wealth had nothing to do with building, innovating or developing new efficient enterprises. Wealth was not transferred to high Communist Party Commissars (lateral transfers) but was seized by armed private mafias run by recent university graduates who quickly capitalized on corrupting, intimidating or assassinating senior officials in the state and benefiting from Boris Yeltsin’s mindless contracting of ‘free market’ Western consultants.
Forbes magazine puts out a yearly list of the richest individuals and families in the world. What is most amusing about the famous Forbes magazine’s background biographical notes on the Russian oligarchs is the constant reference to their source of wealth as ‘self-made’ as if stealing state property created by and defended for over 70 years by the sweat and blood of the Russian people was the result of the entrepreneurial skills of thugs in their twenties. Of the top eight Russian billionaire oligarchs, all got their start from strong-arming their rivals, setting up ‘paper banks’ and taking over aluminum, oil, gas, nickel and steel production and the export of bauxite, iron and other minerals. Every sector of the former Communist economy was pillaged by the new billionaires: Construction, telecommunications, chemicals, real estate, agriculture, vodka, foods, land, media, automobiles, airlines etc.
With rare exceptions, following the Yeltsin privatizations all of the oligarchs quickly rose to the top or near the top, literally murdering or intimidating any opponents within the former Soviet apparatus and competitors from rival predator gangs.
The key ‘policy’ measures, which facilitated the initial pillage and takeovers by the future billionaires, were the massive and immediate privatizations of almost all public enterprises by the Gaidar/Chubais team. This ‘Shock Treatment’ was encouraged by a Harvard team of economic advisers and especially by US President Clinton in order to make the capitalist transformation irreversible. Massive privatization led to the capitalist gang wars and the disarticulation of the Russian economy. As a result there was an 80% decline in living standards, a massive devaluation of the Ruble and the sell-off of invaluable oil, gas and other strategic resources at bargain prices to the rising class of predator billionaires and US-European oil and gas multinational corporations. Over a hundred billion dollars a year was laundered by the mafia oligarchs in the principle banks of New York, London, Switzerland, Israel and elsewhere -- funds which would later be recycled in the purchase of expensive real estate in the US, England, Spain, France as well as investments in British football teams, Israeli banks and joint ventures in minerals.
The winners of the gang wars during the Yeltsin reign followed up by expanding operations to a variety of new economic sectors, investments in the expansion of existing facilities (especially in real estate, extractive and consumer industries) and overseas. Under President Putin, the gangster-oligarchs consolidated and expanded -- from multi-millionaires to billionaires, to multi-billionaires and growing. From young swaggering thugs and local swindlers, they became the ‘respectable’ partners of American and European multinational corporations, according to their Western PR agents. The new Russian oligarchs had ‘arrived’ on the world financial scene, according to the financial press.
Yet as President Putin recently pointed out, the new billionaires have failed to invest, innovate and create competitive enterprises, despite optimal conditions. Outside of raw material exports, benefiting from high international prices, few of the oligarch-owned manufacturers are earning foreign exchange, because few can compete in international markets. The reason is that the oligarchs have ‘diversified’ into stock speculation (Suleiman Kerimov $14.4 billion USD), prostitution (Mikhail Prokhorov $13.5 billion USD), banking (Fridman $12.6 billion USD) and buyouts of mines and mineral processing plants.
The Western media has focused on the falling out between a handful of Yeltsin-era oligarchs and President Vladimir Putin and the increase in wealth of a number of Putin-era billionaires. However, the biographical evidence demonstrates that there is no rupture between the rise of the billionaires under Yeltsin and their consolidation and expansion under Putin. The decline in mutual murder and the shift to state-regulated competition is as much a product of the consolidation of the great fortunes as it is the ‘new rules of the game’ imposed by President Putin. In the mid 19th century, Honoré Balzac, surveying the rise of the respectable bourgeois in France, pointed out their dubious origins: “Behind every great fortune is a great crime.” The swindles begetting the decades-long ascent of the 19th century French bourgeoisie pale in comparison to the massive pillage and bloodletting that created Russia’s 21st century billionaires.
Latin America
If blood and guns were the instruments for the rise of the Russian billionaire oligarchs, in other regions the Market, or better still, the US-IMF-World Bank orchestrated Washington Consensus was the driving force behind the rise of the Latin American billionaires. The two countries with the greatest concentration of wealth and the greatest number of billionaires in Latin America are Mexico and Brazil (77%), which are the two countries, which privatized the most lucrative, efficient and largest public monopolies. Of the total $157.2 billion USD owned by the 38 Latin American billionaires, 30 are Brazilians or Mexicans with $120.3 billion USD. The wealth of 38 families and individuals exceeds that of 250 million Latin Americans; 0.000001% of the population exceeds that of the lowest 50%. In Mexico, the income of 0.000001% of the population exceeds the combined income of 40 million Mexicans. The rise of Latin American billionaires coincides with the real fall in minimum wages, public expenditures in social services, labor legislation and a rise in state repression, weakening labor and peasant organization and collective bargaining. The implementation of regressive taxes burdening the workers and peasants and tax exemptions and subsidies for the agro-mineral exporters contributed to the making of the billionaires. The result has been downward mobility for public employees and workers, the displacement of urban labor into the informal sector, the massive bankruptcy of small farmers, peasants and rural labor and the out-migration from the countryside to the urban slums and emigration abroad.
The principal cause of poverty in Latin American is the very conditions that facilitate the growth of billionaires. In the case of Mexico, the privatization of the telecommunication sector at rock bottom prices, resulted in the quadrupling of wealth for Carlos Slim Helu, the third richest man in the world (just behind Bill Gates and Warren Buffet) with a net worth of $49 billion USD. Two fellow Mexican billionaires, Alfredo Harp Helu and Roberto Hernandez Ramirez benefited from the privatization of banks and their subsequent de-nationalization, selling Banamex to Citicorp.
Privatization, financial de-regulation and de-nationalization were the key operating principles of US foreign economic policies implemented in Latin America by the IMF and the World Bank. These principles dictated the fundamental conditions shaping any loans or debt re-negotiations in Latin America.
The billionaires-in-the-making, came from old and new money. Some began to raise their fortunes by securing government contracts during the earlier state-led development model (1930’s to 1970’s) and others through inherited wealth. Half of Mexican billionaires inherited their original multi-million dollar fortunes on their way up to the top. The other half benefited from political ties and the subsequent big payola from buying public enterprises cheap and then selling them off to US multi-nationals at great profit. The great bulk of the 12 million Mexican immigrants who crossed the border into the US have fled from the onerous conditions, which allowed Mexico’s traditional and nouveaux riche millionaires to join the global billionaires’ club.
Brazil has the largest number of billionaires (20) of any country in Latin America with a net worth of $46.2 billion USD, which is greater than the new worth of 80 million urban and rural impoverished Brazilians. Approximately 40% of Brazilian billionaires started with great fortunes -- and simply added on -- through acquisitions and mergers. The so-called ‘self-made’ billionaires benefited from the privatization of the lucrative financial sector (the Safra family with $8.9 billion USD) and the iron and steel complexes.
How to Become a Billionaire
While some knowledge, technical and ‘entrepreneurial skills’ and market savvy played a small role in the making of the billionaires in Russia and Latin America, far more important was the interface of politics and economics at every stage of wealth accumulation.
In most cases there were three stages:
1. During the early ‘statist’ model of development, the current billionaires successfully ‘lobbied’ and bribed officials for government contracts, tax exemptions, subsidies and protection from foreign competitors. State handouts were the beachhead or take-off point to billionaire status during the subsequent neo-liberal phase.
2. The neo-liberal period provided the greatest opportunity for seizing lucrative public assets far below their market value and earning capacity. The privatization, although described as ‘market transactions’, were in reality political sales in four senses: in price, in selection of buyers, in kickbacks to the sellers and in furthering an ideological agenda. Wealth accumulation resulted from the sell-off of banks, minerals, energy resources, telecommunications, power plants and transport and the assumption by the state of private debt. This was the take-off phase from millionaire toward billionaire status. This was consummated in Latin America via corruption and in Russia via assassination and gang warfare.
3.
During the third phase (the present) the billionaires have consolidated and expanded their empires through mergers, acquisitions, further privatizations and overseas expansion. Private monopolies of mobile phones, telecoms and other ‘public’ utilities, plus high commodity prices have added billions to the initial concentrations. Some millionaires became billionaires by selling their recently acquired, lucrative privatized enterprises to foreign capital.
In both Latin America and Russia, the billionaires grabbed lucrative state assets under the aegis of orthodox neo-liberal regimes (Salinas-Zedillo regimes in Mexico, Collor-Cardoso in Brazil, Yeltsin in Russia) and consolidated and expanded under the rule of supposedly ‘reformist’ regimes (Putin in Russia, Lula in Brazil and Fox in Mexico). In the rest of Latin America (Chile, Colombia and Argentina) the making of the billionaires resulted from the bloody military coups and regimes, which destroyed the socio-political movements and started the privatization process. This process was then even more energetically promoted by the subsequent electoral regimes of the right and ‘center-left.’
What is repeatedly demonstrated in both Russia and Latin America is that the key factor leading to the quantum leap in wealth – from millionaires to billionaires -- was the vast privatization and subsequent de-nationalization of lucrative public enterprises.
If we add to the concentration of $157 billion in the hands of an infinitesimal fraction of the elite, the $990 billion USD taken out by the foreign banks in debt payments and the $1 trillion USD (one thousand billion) taken out by way of profits, royalties, rents and laundered money over the past decade and a half, we have an adequate framework for understanding why Latin America continues to have over two-thirds of its population with inadequate living standards and stagnant economies.
The responsibility of the US for the growth of Latin American billionaires and mass poverty is several-fold and involves a wide gamut of political institutions, business elites, and academic and media moguls. First and foremost the US backed the military dictators and neo-liberal politicians who set up the billionaire-oriented economic models. It was ex-President Clinton, the CIA and his economic advisers, in alliance with the Russian oligarchs, who provided the political intelligence and material support to put Yeltsin in power and back his destruction of the Russian Parliament (Duma) in 1993 and the rigged elections of 1996. And it was Washington, which allowed hundreds of billions of dollars to be laundered in US banks throughout the 1990’s as the US Congressional Sub-Committee on Banking (1998) revealed.
It was Nixon, Kissinger and later Carter and Brzezinski, Reagan and Bush, Clinton and Albright who backed the privatizations pushed by Latin American military dictators and civilian reactionaries in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Their instructions to the US representatives in the IMF and the World Bank were writ large: Privatize, de-regulate and de-nationalize (PDD) before any loans should be negotiated.
It was US academics and ideologues working hand in glove with the so-called multi-lateral agencies, as contracted economic consultants, who trained, designed and pushed the PDD agenda among their former Ivy League students-turned-economic and finance ministers and Central Bankers in Latin America and Russia.
It was US and EU multi-national corporations and banks which bought out or went into joint ventures with the emerging Latin American billionaires and who reaped the trillion dollar payouts on the debts incurred by the corrupt military and civilian regimes. The billionaires are as much a product and/or by-product of US anti-nationalist, anti-communist policies as they are a product of their own grandiose theft of public enterprises.
Conclusion
Given the enormous class and income disparities in Russia, Latin America and China (20 Chinese billionaires have a net worth of $29.4 billion USD in less than ten years), it is more accurate to describe these countries as ‘surging billionaires’ rather than ‘emerging markets’ because it is not the ‘free market’ but the political power of the billionaires that dictates policy.
Countries of ‘surging billionaires’ produce burgeoning poverty, submerging living standards. The making of billionaires means the unmaking of civil society -- the weakening of social solidarity, protective social legislation, pensions, vacations, public health programs and education. While politics is central, past political labels mean nothing. Ex-Marxist Brazilian ex-President Cardoso and ex-trade union leader President Lula Da Silva privatized public enterprises and promoted policies that spawn billionaires. Ex-Communist Putin cultivates certain billionaire oligarchs and offers incentives to others to shape up and invest.
The period of greatest decline in living standards in Latin America and Russia coincide with the dismantling of the nationalist populist and communist economies. Between 1980-2004, Latin America -- more precisely Brazil, Argentina and Mexico -- stagnated at 0% to 1% per capita growth. Russia saw a 50% decline in GNP between 1990-1996 and living standards dropped 80% for everyone except the predators and their gangster entourage.
Recent growth (2003-2007), where it occurs, has more to do with the extraordinary rise in international prices (of energy resources, metals and agro-exports) than any positive developments from the billionaire-dominated economies. The growth of billionaires is hardly a sign of ‘general prosperity’ resulting from the ‘free market’ as the editors of Forbes Magazine claim. In fact it is the product of the illicit seizure of lucrative public resources, built up by the work and struggle of millions of workers, in Russia and China under Communism and in Latin America during populist-nationalist and democratic-socialist governments. Many billionaires have inherited wealth and used their political ties to expand and extend their empires -- it has little to do with entrepreneurial skills.
The billionaires’ and the White House’s anger and hostility toward President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is precisely because he is reversing the policies which create billionaires and mass poverty: He is re-nationalizing energy resources, public utilities and expropriating some large landed estates. Chavez is not only challenging US hegemony in Latin America but also the entire PDD edifice that built the economic empires of the billionaires in Latin America, Russia, China and elsewhere.
Note: The primary data for this essay is drawn from Forbes Magazine’s “List of the World’s Billionaires,” published March 8, 2007.
James Petras' latest book is The Power of Israel in the United States (Clarity Press, 2006). His articles in English can be found at the website www.petras.lahaine.org, and in Spanish at www.rebellion.org. He can be reached at: jpetras@binghamton.edu.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
THE CIA, FROM CENTRAL AMERICA TO IRAQ - Negroponte and his U.S. gang for the dirty war
BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD — Special for Granma International —
“MISTER Bob” Seldon Lady is a former chief of the CIA station in Milan, where he was in charge of the 26 agents who were tried in Italy for kidnapping, torturing and then disappearing Muslim cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, in that city in 2003.
To get a better idea of him, we should recall that Seldon Lady was in Central America in the 1980s: he was a key element in the same network, along with John Negroponte, Félix Rodríguez, Colonel James Steele and Luis Posada Carriles, that sowed death and terror among the Sandinistas.
This 52-year-old American, who was born in Honduras and participated along with his own father in CIA operations in the dirty war organized by the CIA in Central America during the Republican administration of Ronald Reagan, became part of a Middle East version of Operation Condor after 2001.
Characterized by kidnappings, secret prisons, torture and disappearances, the operation has now culminated in the appointment of John Negroponte, former ambassador in Baghdad and former U.S. intelligence czar, as deputy secretary of state overseeing the Iraq dossier.
The 26 CIA agents who will go on trial June 8 in Italy also include the former CIA chief in Rome, Jeff Castelli, and Betnie Medero, a woman currently supposed to be based in Mexico, who led the commando; as well as a mysterious official with the U.S. State Department, Monica Courtney Adler.
This trial is the first criminal case in the world regarding the “extraordinary deliveries” authorized by George W. Bush after September 11.
Abu Omar was kidnapped from a Milan street in February 2003, taken to the Guerzoni military base, and after being placed into a windowless vehicle, was then transferred to the U.S. air base in Aviano, from where he was taken to Ramstein, Germany, with the collaboration of that country, and from there to Cairo, where he was tortured in the presence of Robert “Mister Bob” Seldon Lady himself.
Among the commando members that carried out the kidnapping is the particularly interesting case of Betnie Medero.
That 33-year-old woman was the second secretary of the U.S. embassy in Rome.
She arrived in Italy in August 2001 with diplomatic credentials, and according to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, directed the kidnapping on the ground and ensured the victim’s transportation to the U.S. base in Aviano, northern Italy. It is now believed that she was transferred to Mexico, where she is associated with the U.S. embassy, according to the same newspaper.
Monica Courtney Adler, another defendant in the case, was the State Department official who years before, under the Clinton administration, attended to banker Jorge Castro Barredo, a Cuban-born Venezuelan who contributed financially to Democratic Party election campaign funds and was involved in cases of fraud and money-laundering.
Seldon Lady, the ringleader of a group created in Tegucigalpa, is an illustration of the dirty operations of the U.S. spy agency.
The son of William “Bill” Lady, a former CIA agent based in Honduras, managed together with Manuchar Ghorbanifar, an Iranian businessman, the secret sale of weapons to Iraq, which along with drug-trafficking operations directed from within El Salvador by Félix Rodríguez Mendigutía and Luis Posada Carriles, turned into the biggest scandal to rock the Reagan administration.
Seldon Lady carried out his dirty work under the orders of U.S. Marine Colonel Oliver North, who also directed the operations at the Ilopango military base for illegally providing weapons to the Nicaraguan Contra forces.
His activity in Honduras coincided with the presence in that country of John Negroponte, notorious for his support as ambassador to the bloody operations carried out by Battalion 316, which tortured, massacred and disappeared hundreds of Hondurans.
“Mister Bob” Seldon Lady was still active in Central America in 1994 when spy Aldrich Ames uncovered him by revealing his name to Soviet intelligence forces, according to U.S. media reports.
His name was associated with the “Nigergate” scandal, the disinformation operation for justifying the occupation of Iraq under the pretext – completely false – that Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy uranium from Niger. For that maneuver, his old buddy Manuchar Ghorbanifar came to his aid, along with Larry Franklin, an American sentenced last year for spying for Israel.
Seldon Lady fled suddenly from Italy in June 2005 when he discovered that he was wanted in that country for the kidnapping of Abu Omar. Warned, his wife erased all of his computer files, but police experts were able to recuperate most of the material.
The reconstructed documents included several photographs of the victim, taken in the street 33 days before the crime, and Internet searches for the shortest route between the kidnapping scene and Aviano Airport.
Different sources affirm that Seldon Lady is currently on his way back to Central America, where he can take care of CIA work related to Cuba, Venezuela and other progressive governments in the region.
Argentine writer Stella Calloni recently compared the illegal CIA operations in Iraq with a “larger, more sophisticated Operation Condor.”
This was illustrated by the case of James Steele, who created the death squads patronized by John Negroponte, who participated in the supply operations for the Nicaraguan counterrevolutionary forces from the Ilopango air base in El Salvador, directed by Félix Rodríguez y Posada Carriles.
The unexpected exposure of the actions carried out by Seldon Lady and his troop in Italy, with complete disdain for that European nation’s sovereignty, shows once again how — according to imperialist intelligence — the dirty war has no borders.
It is the same CIA gang that has carried out dirty work in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas — who knows how widespread. That gang features John Negroponte, the recently-appointed No. 2 man to Condoleezza Rice in the State Department. What can be expected of him?
“MISTER Bob” Seldon Lady is a former chief of the CIA station in Milan, where he was in charge of the 26 agents who were tried in Italy for kidnapping, torturing and then disappearing Muslim cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, in that city in 2003.
To get a better idea of him, we should recall that Seldon Lady was in Central America in the 1980s: he was a key element in the same network, along with John Negroponte, Félix Rodríguez, Colonel James Steele and Luis Posada Carriles, that sowed death and terror among the Sandinistas.
This 52-year-old American, who was born in Honduras and participated along with his own father in CIA operations in the dirty war organized by the CIA in Central America during the Republican administration of Ronald Reagan, became part of a Middle East version of Operation Condor after 2001.
Characterized by kidnappings, secret prisons, torture and disappearances, the operation has now culminated in the appointment of John Negroponte, former ambassador in Baghdad and former U.S. intelligence czar, as deputy secretary of state overseeing the Iraq dossier.
The 26 CIA agents who will go on trial June 8 in Italy also include the former CIA chief in Rome, Jeff Castelli, and Betnie Medero, a woman currently supposed to be based in Mexico, who led the commando; as well as a mysterious official with the U.S. State Department, Monica Courtney Adler.
This trial is the first criminal case in the world regarding the “extraordinary deliveries” authorized by George W. Bush after September 11.
Abu Omar was kidnapped from a Milan street in February 2003, taken to the Guerzoni military base, and after being placed into a windowless vehicle, was then transferred to the U.S. air base in Aviano, from where he was taken to Ramstein, Germany, with the collaboration of that country, and from there to Cairo, where he was tortured in the presence of Robert “Mister Bob” Seldon Lady himself.
Among the commando members that carried out the kidnapping is the particularly interesting case of Betnie Medero.
That 33-year-old woman was the second secretary of the U.S. embassy in Rome.
She arrived in Italy in August 2001 with diplomatic credentials, and according to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, directed the kidnapping on the ground and ensured the victim’s transportation to the U.S. base in Aviano, northern Italy. It is now believed that she was transferred to Mexico, where she is associated with the U.S. embassy, according to the same newspaper.
Monica Courtney Adler, another defendant in the case, was the State Department official who years before, under the Clinton administration, attended to banker Jorge Castro Barredo, a Cuban-born Venezuelan who contributed financially to Democratic Party election campaign funds and was involved in cases of fraud and money-laundering.
Seldon Lady, the ringleader of a group created in Tegucigalpa, is an illustration of the dirty operations of the U.S. spy agency.
The son of William “Bill” Lady, a former CIA agent based in Honduras, managed together with Manuchar Ghorbanifar, an Iranian businessman, the secret sale of weapons to Iraq, which along with drug-trafficking operations directed from within El Salvador by Félix Rodríguez Mendigutía and Luis Posada Carriles, turned into the biggest scandal to rock the Reagan administration.
Seldon Lady carried out his dirty work under the orders of U.S. Marine Colonel Oliver North, who also directed the operations at the Ilopango military base for illegally providing weapons to the Nicaraguan Contra forces.
His activity in Honduras coincided with the presence in that country of John Negroponte, notorious for his support as ambassador to the bloody operations carried out by Battalion 316, which tortured, massacred and disappeared hundreds of Hondurans.
“Mister Bob” Seldon Lady was still active in Central America in 1994 when spy Aldrich Ames uncovered him by revealing his name to Soviet intelligence forces, according to U.S. media reports.
His name was associated with the “Nigergate” scandal, the disinformation operation for justifying the occupation of Iraq under the pretext – completely false – that Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy uranium from Niger. For that maneuver, his old buddy Manuchar Ghorbanifar came to his aid, along with Larry Franklin, an American sentenced last year for spying for Israel.
Seldon Lady fled suddenly from Italy in June 2005 when he discovered that he was wanted in that country for the kidnapping of Abu Omar. Warned, his wife erased all of his computer files, but police experts were able to recuperate most of the material.
The reconstructed documents included several photographs of the victim, taken in the street 33 days before the crime, and Internet searches for the shortest route between the kidnapping scene and Aviano Airport.
Different sources affirm that Seldon Lady is currently on his way back to Central America, where he can take care of CIA work related to Cuba, Venezuela and other progressive governments in the region.
Argentine writer Stella Calloni recently compared the illegal CIA operations in Iraq with a “larger, more sophisticated Operation Condor.”
This was illustrated by the case of James Steele, who created the death squads patronized by John Negroponte, who participated in the supply operations for the Nicaraguan counterrevolutionary forces from the Ilopango air base in El Salvador, directed by Félix Rodríguez y Posada Carriles.
The unexpected exposure of the actions carried out by Seldon Lady and his troop in Italy, with complete disdain for that European nation’s sovereignty, shows once again how — according to imperialist intelligence — the dirty war has no borders.
It is the same CIA gang that has carried out dirty work in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas — who knows how widespread. That gang features John Negroponte, the recently-appointed No. 2 man to Condoleezza Rice in the State Department. What can be expected of him?
The Fantasy of Freedom: A Venzuelan documentary
March 20, 2007
The Fantasy of Freedom: A Venzuelan documentary
The US peace movement through the eyes of a Venzuelan film crew. Features a short interview at the end with filmmaker Liliane Blaser.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Chile: The Lesson That Venezuela Learned? by Hugo Blanco
Global Research, March 19, 2007
Rebelion
While in exile, I was lucky to be part of the process of changes staged by the Chilean people up until Pinochet's coup d'état.
I can summarize my experience with the chess player's maxim: "Attacking is the best defense," a truth I painfully attested to in the case of Chile. As it often happens, these changes were soon challenged by the corporate sector with a number of attacks that the government failed to rebuff with a firm hand, taking a soft, conciliatory line on them instead of joining forces with the people against the saboteurs. Encouraged, the attackers reinforced their siege, whereas frustration and disappointment got the better of the ordinary citizens backing the process. Therefore, the time was ripe for the coup to succeed.
Overview
Having reached maturity in their struggle as well as in their conscience, the Chilean people became disillusioned with the Christian Democrat government and elected Unidad Popular's candidate Salvador Allende despite the smear campaign unleashed against him by the big owners.
Calmly and without taking any spectacular revolutionary measure, the government moved on and tried to implement the agrarian reform law enacted by its predecessors, decreed considerable price reductions for essential goods, and accorded the right to strike.
For their part, the poor were gaining ground:
The workers took control of industries where damaging actions like sabotage against production were committed, and prepared to defend themselves against right-wing paramilitary gangs tolerated by the police.
Organized by production sectors (in textile, metallurgical, shoe and other industries) like in any other country, they established another, more agile group, the "Industrial Cordons", geographically divided into production areas where workers from every branch united for self-defense and combat and planned mobilizations that included blockades and occupation of factories.
Also the marginalized and peasants, who seized lands to demand a faster agrarian reform, took part in self-defense preparedness.
Shopkeepers responded to the price reductions with hoarding, giving rise to shortages and thus forcing people to buy their goods in the black market at very expensive prices. The people reacted by condemning and publicly exposing the hoarders.
As the great media unleashed the usual smear campaign the right made aggressive public demonstrations in full view of a dismissive police.
As the driving force behind the coup, the American empire had already revealed its criminal intentions before Allende's inauguration by ordering the murder of Army commander Schneider for refusing to mount the coup. A crime, needless to say, that has remained unpunished.
Instead of taking any action against the saboteurs that the people had unmasked and denounced, the government hogtied the popular advance on the grounds that they were being supported by the "constitutionalist military", who were worried about the peoples' actions. One of such "constitutionalist military" was Pinochet.
"Confiscated" factories
As mentioned above, the workers occupied factories where irregularities were discovered and for which a provisional manager was appointed by the government. Called "confiscated" factories, they implemented labor self-management to some extent. A tomato sauce factory was seized after the boss tried to have it closed down by neglecting to buy raw materials during the harvest time. Once confiscated, the workers decided to produce much-needed canned baby food. Another factory where luxury furniture was manufactured was devoted to the production of affordable furniture. Clearly, when revolutionary awareness increases among the workers, solidarity replaces selfishness.
These were the factories attacked by fascist gangs that the workers decided to defend given the police's inactivity.
The end
The right kept undersupplying the economy while its media howled accusations against the government. Anti-government rallies and unfettered fascist violence were rampant while the regime prohibited self-defense, which of course encouraged the right-wingers and disheartened the people.
In June 1973 the Empire staged a "testing coup" to pinpoint where popular resistance was stronger. Once detected, those who took part in the action "surrendered" and the repressive forces proceeded to inflict cruel punishment on the sources of resistance thus detected (Cerrillos cordon, "Nueva Habana" village, the seamen who refused to take part in the coup, the mapuches, etc.), all under Allende's government and on account of his inaction.
In September, Pinochet's coup took place by extraordinarily violent means to make sure the courageous Chilean people could be defeated. And they killed Allende, who bravely refused to surrender and whose last speech had condemned the "treacherous military who until very recently swore their allegiance".
Perón's Argentina
I had already taken part in another similar event: Argentina in 1955, when the Yankee government mounted a coup against Perón. There was also a testing coup in June to find pockets of resistance, and then the real one in September, just like in Chile. There too the government put a curb on anti-coup activity and even punished those who opposed, with similar results: the right became bolder and the people lost heart, which paved the way for the September coup's success.
Guatemala
A year before, the exiled Peruvian left discussed the case of Guatemala (another imperial coup). Both the Communist Party and APRA (on the reformist left at the time, not the current empire's lackey) believed that Arbenz's government was going too fast and therefore making a mistake. I joined the party that stated further progress was needed to avoid disaster, a current and a conception that led me to participate in the Argentinean and Chilean processes.
Venezuela learned
All indications are that Venezuela learned the lesson. Yesterday in "El Comercio" daily an alarming article headlined "A civil war in the making" decried the "threat to the militia" of "armed groups parallel to the Army".
We know it will only be a "civil war" if imperialism and its servants dare to overthrow Venezuela's legitimate democratic government.
Naturally, what concerns that newspaper is pleasant and reassuring for us.
Another piece of good news coming from that country: far from pushing Chávez back, the shortage of foodstuffs caused by hoarding merchants makes the Venezuelan president move forward to warn that if they keep hoarding supplies the supermarkets will be nationalized and assigned to the people's "community councils".
Way to go.
It goes without saying these are different times, not those of a Chilean nation surrounded by gorilla governments in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Uruguay, but the epoch of a failed coup d'état in Venezuela and the victories of Morales in Bolivia and Correa in Ecuador.
Defeat can also teach a valuable lesson.
Hugo Blanco was leader of the Quechua peasant uprising in the Cuzco region of Peru in the early 1960s. He was captured by the military and sentenced to 25 years in El Fronton Island prison for his activities. While in prison, he wrote Land or Death: The Peasant Struggle in Peru (Pathfinder Press, 1972), which is must-reading for anyone who wishes to understand the struggle of peasants and indigenous people in Latin America for liberation.
Originally published in Rebelión as Chile: ¿La lección que Venezuela aprendió? Translation by Cuba News, edited by Walter Lippmann
Rebelion
While in exile, I was lucky to be part of the process of changes staged by the Chilean people up until Pinochet's coup d'état.
I can summarize my experience with the chess player's maxim: "Attacking is the best defense," a truth I painfully attested to in the case of Chile. As it often happens, these changes were soon challenged by the corporate sector with a number of attacks that the government failed to rebuff with a firm hand, taking a soft, conciliatory line on them instead of joining forces with the people against the saboteurs. Encouraged, the attackers reinforced their siege, whereas frustration and disappointment got the better of the ordinary citizens backing the process. Therefore, the time was ripe for the coup to succeed.
Overview
Having reached maturity in their struggle as well as in their conscience, the Chilean people became disillusioned with the Christian Democrat government and elected Unidad Popular's candidate Salvador Allende despite the smear campaign unleashed against him by the big owners.
Calmly and without taking any spectacular revolutionary measure, the government moved on and tried to implement the agrarian reform law enacted by its predecessors, decreed considerable price reductions for essential goods, and accorded the right to strike.
For their part, the poor were gaining ground:
The workers took control of industries where damaging actions like sabotage against production were committed, and prepared to defend themselves against right-wing paramilitary gangs tolerated by the police.
Organized by production sectors (in textile, metallurgical, shoe and other industries) like in any other country, they established another, more agile group, the "Industrial Cordons", geographically divided into production areas where workers from every branch united for self-defense and combat and planned mobilizations that included blockades and occupation of factories.
Also the marginalized and peasants, who seized lands to demand a faster agrarian reform, took part in self-defense preparedness.
Shopkeepers responded to the price reductions with hoarding, giving rise to shortages and thus forcing people to buy their goods in the black market at very expensive prices. The people reacted by condemning and publicly exposing the hoarders.
As the great media unleashed the usual smear campaign the right made aggressive public demonstrations in full view of a dismissive police.
As the driving force behind the coup, the American empire had already revealed its criminal intentions before Allende's inauguration by ordering the murder of Army commander Schneider for refusing to mount the coup. A crime, needless to say, that has remained unpunished.
Instead of taking any action against the saboteurs that the people had unmasked and denounced, the government hogtied the popular advance on the grounds that they were being supported by the "constitutionalist military", who were worried about the peoples' actions. One of such "constitutionalist military" was Pinochet.
"Confiscated" factories
As mentioned above, the workers occupied factories where irregularities were discovered and for which a provisional manager was appointed by the government. Called "confiscated" factories, they implemented labor self-management to some extent. A tomato sauce factory was seized after the boss tried to have it closed down by neglecting to buy raw materials during the harvest time. Once confiscated, the workers decided to produce much-needed canned baby food. Another factory where luxury furniture was manufactured was devoted to the production of affordable furniture. Clearly, when revolutionary awareness increases among the workers, solidarity replaces selfishness.
These were the factories attacked by fascist gangs that the workers decided to defend given the police's inactivity.
The end
The right kept undersupplying the economy while its media howled accusations against the government. Anti-government rallies and unfettered fascist violence were rampant while the regime prohibited self-defense, which of course encouraged the right-wingers and disheartened the people.
In June 1973 the Empire staged a "testing coup" to pinpoint where popular resistance was stronger. Once detected, those who took part in the action "surrendered" and the repressive forces proceeded to inflict cruel punishment on the sources of resistance thus detected (Cerrillos cordon, "Nueva Habana" village, the seamen who refused to take part in the coup, the mapuches, etc.), all under Allende's government and on account of his inaction.
In September, Pinochet's coup took place by extraordinarily violent means to make sure the courageous Chilean people could be defeated. And they killed Allende, who bravely refused to surrender and whose last speech had condemned the "treacherous military who until very recently swore their allegiance".
Perón's Argentina
I had already taken part in another similar event: Argentina in 1955, when the Yankee government mounted a coup against Perón. There was also a testing coup in June to find pockets of resistance, and then the real one in September, just like in Chile. There too the government put a curb on anti-coup activity and even punished those who opposed, with similar results: the right became bolder and the people lost heart, which paved the way for the September coup's success.
Guatemala
A year before, the exiled Peruvian left discussed the case of Guatemala (another imperial coup). Both the Communist Party and APRA (on the reformist left at the time, not the current empire's lackey) believed that Arbenz's government was going too fast and therefore making a mistake. I joined the party that stated further progress was needed to avoid disaster, a current and a conception that led me to participate in the Argentinean and Chilean processes.
Venezuela learned
All indications are that Venezuela learned the lesson. Yesterday in "El Comercio" daily an alarming article headlined "A civil war in the making" decried the "threat to the militia" of "armed groups parallel to the Army".
We know it will only be a "civil war" if imperialism and its servants dare to overthrow Venezuela's legitimate democratic government.
Naturally, what concerns that newspaper is pleasant and reassuring for us.
Another piece of good news coming from that country: far from pushing Chávez back, the shortage of foodstuffs caused by hoarding merchants makes the Venezuelan president move forward to warn that if they keep hoarding supplies the supermarkets will be nationalized and assigned to the people's "community councils".
Way to go.
It goes without saying these are different times, not those of a Chilean nation surrounded by gorilla governments in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Uruguay, but the epoch of a failed coup d'état in Venezuela and the victories of Morales in Bolivia and Correa in Ecuador.
Defeat can also teach a valuable lesson.
Hugo Blanco was leader of the Quechua peasant uprising in the Cuzco region of Peru in the early 1960s. He was captured by the military and sentenced to 25 years in El Fronton Island prison for his activities. While in prison, he wrote Land or Death: The Peasant Struggle in Peru (Pathfinder Press, 1972), which is must-reading for anyone who wishes to understand the struggle of peasants and indigenous people in Latin America for liberation.
Originally published in Rebelión as Chile: ¿La lección que Venezuela aprendió? Translation by Cuba News, edited by Walter Lippmann
Understanding Empire: Hierarchy, Networks and Clients by Prof. James Petras
The structure of power of the world imperial system can best be understood through a classification of countries according to their political, economic, diplomatic and military organization.
Introduction:
The imperial system is much more complex than what is commonly referred to as the “US Empire”. The US Empire, with its vast network of financial investments, military bases, multi-national corporations and client states, is the single most important component of the global imperial system (1). Nevertheless, it is overly simplistic to overlook the complex hierarchies, networks, follower states and clients that define the contemporary imperial system (2). To understand empire and imperialism today requires us to look at the complex and changing system of imperial stratification.
Hierarchy of Empire
The structure of power of the world imperial system can best be understood through a classification of countries according to their political, economic, diplomatic and military organization. The following is a schema of this system:
I. Hierarchy of Empire (from top to bottom)
A. Central Imperial States (CIS)
B. Newly Emerging Imperial Powers (NEIP)
C. Semi-autonomous Client Regimes (SACR)
D. Client Collaborator Regimes (CCR)
II. Independent States:
A. Revolutionary
Cuba and Venezuela
B. Nationalist
Sudan, Iran, Zimbabwe, North Korea
III. Contested Terrain and Regimes in Transition
Armed resistance, elected regimes, social movements
At the top of the imperial system are those imperial states whose power is projected on a world scale, whose ruling classes dominate investment and financial markets and who penetrate the economies of the rest of the world. At the apex of the imperial system stand the US, the European Union (itself highly stratified) and Japan. Led by the US they have established networks of ‘follower imperial states’ (largely regional hegemons) and client or vassal states which frequently act as surrogate military forces. Imperial states act in concert to break down barriers to penetration and takeovers, while at the same time, competing to gain advantages for their own state and multinational interests.
Just below the central imperial states are newly emerging imperial powers (NEIP), namely China, India, Canada, Russia and Australia. The NEIP states are subject to imperial penetration, as well as expanding into neighboring and overseas underdeveloped states and countries rich in extractive resources. The NEIP are linked to the central imperial states (CIS) through joint ventures in their home states, while they increasingly compete for control over extractive resources in the underdeveloped countries. They frequently ‘follow’ in the footsteps of the imperial powers, and in some cases take advantage of conflicts to better their own position.
For example China and India’s overseas expansion focuses on investments in extractive mineral and energy sectors to fuel domestic industrialization, similar to the earlier (1880-1950’s) imperial practices of the US and Europe. Similarly China invests in African countries, which are in conflict with the US and EU, just as the US developed ties with anti-colonial regimes (Algeria, Kenya and Francophone Africa) in conflict with their former European colonial rulers in the 1950’ and 1960’s.
Further down the hierarchy of the imperial system are the ‘semi-autonomous client regimes’ (SACR). These include Brazil, South Korea, South Africa, Taiwan, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Chile and lately Bolivia. These states have a substantial national economic base of support, through public or private ownership of key economic sectors. They are governed by regimes, which pursue diversified markets, though highly dependent on exports to the emerging imperial states. On the other hand these states are highly dependent on imperial state military protection (Taiwan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia) and provide regional military bases for imperial operations. Many are resource-dependent exporters (Saudi Arabia, Chile, Nigeria and Bolivia) who share revenues and profits with the multi-nationals of the imperial states. They include rapidly industrialized countries (Taiwan and South Korea), as well as relatively agro-mineral export states (Brazil, Argentina and Chile).
The wealthy oil states have close ties with the financial ruling classes of the imperial counties and invest heavily in real estate, financial instruments and Treasury notes which finance the deficits in the US and England.
On key issues such as imperial wars in the Middle East, the invasion of Haiti, destabilizing regimes in Africa, support for global neo-liberal policies and imperial takeovers of strategic sectors, they collaborate with rulers from the CIS and the NEIP. Nevertheless, because of powerful elite interests and in some cases of powerful national social movements, they come into limited conflicts with the imperial powers. For example, Brazil, Chile and Argentina disagree with the US efforts to undermine the nationalist Venezuelan government. They have lucrative trade, energy and investment relations with Venezuela. In addition they do not wish to legitimize military coups, which might threaten their own rule and legitimacy in the eyes of an electorate partial to President Chavez. While structurally deeply integrated into the imperial system, the SACR regimes retain a degree of autonomy in formulating foreign and domestic policy, which may even conflict or compete with imperial interests.
Despite their ‘relative autonomy’, the regimes also provide military and political mercenaries to serve the imperialist countries. This is best illustrated in the case of Haiti. Subsequent to the US invasion and overthrow of the elected Aristide Government in 2004, the US succeeded in securing an occupation force from its outright client and ‘semi-autonomous’ client regimes. President Lula of Brazil sent a major contingent. A Brazilian General headed the entire mercenary military force. Chile’s Gabriel Valdez headed the United Nations occupation administration as the senior official overseeing the bloody repression of Haitian resistance movements. Other ‘semi-autonomous’ clients, such as Uruguay and Bolivia, added military contingents along with soldiers from client regimes such as Panama, Paraguay, Colombia and Peru. President Evo Morales justified Bolivia’s continued military collaboration with the US in Haiti under his presidency by citing its ‘peacekeeping role’, knowing full well that between December 2006 and February 2007 scores of Haitian poor were slaughtered during a full-scale UN invasion of Haiti’s poorest and most densely populated slums.
The key theoretical point is that given Washington current state of being tied down in two wars in the Middle East and West Asia, it depends on its clients to police and repress anti-imperialist movements elsewhere. Somalia, as in Haiti, was invaded by mercenaries by Ethiopia, trained, financed, armed and directed by US military advisers. Subsequently, during the occupation, Washington succeeded in securing its African clients (via the so-called Organization of African Unity according to the White House’s stooge, Ugandan Army spokesman Captain Paddy Ankunda) to send a mercenary occupation army to prop up its unpopular client Somali warlord ruler. Despite opposition from its Parliament, Uganda is sending 1500 mercenaries along with contingents from Nigeria, Burundi, Ghana and Malawi.
At the bottom of the imperial hierarchy are the client collaborator regimes (CCR). These include Egypt, Jordan, the Gulf States, Central American and Caribbean Island states, the Axis of Sub-Saharan States (ASS) (namely Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Ghana), Colombia, Peru, Paraguay, Mexico, Eastern European states (in and out of the European Union), former states of the USSR (Georgia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Latvia, etc), Philippines, Indonesia, North Africa and Pakistan. These countries are governed by authoritarian political elites dependent on the imperial or NEIP states for arms, financing and political support. They provide vast opportunities for exploitation and export of raw materials. Unlike the SACR, exports from client regimes have little value added, as industrial processing of raw materials takes place in the imperial countries, particularly in the NEIP. Predator, rentier, comprador and kleptocratic elites who lack any entrepreneurial vocation rule the CCR. They frequently provide mercenary soldiers to service imperial countries intervening, conquering, occupying and imposing client regimes in imperial targeted countries. The client regimes thus are subordinate collaborators of the imperial powers in the plunder of wealth, the exploitation of billions of workers and the displacement of peasants and destruction of the environment.
The structure of the imperial system is based on the power of ruling classes to exercise and project state and market power, retain control of exploitative class relations at home and abroad and to organize mercenary armies from among its client states. Led and directed by imperial officials, mercenary armies collaborate in destroying autonomous popular, nationalist movements and independent states.
Client regimes form a crucial link in sustaining the imperial powers. They complement imperial occupation forces, facilitating the extraction of raw materials. Without the ‘mercenaries of color’ the imperial powers would have to extend and over-stretch their own military forces, provoking high levels of internal opposition, and heightening overseas resistance to overt wars of re-colonization. Moreover client mercenaries are less costly in terms of financing and reduce the loss of imperial soldiers. There are numerous euphemistic terms used to describe these client mercenary forces: United Nations, Organization of American States and Organization of African Unity ‘peacekeepers’, the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ among others. In many cases a few white imperial senior officers command the lower officers and soldiers of color of the client mercenary armies.
Independent States and Movements
The imperial system while it straddles the globe and penetrates deeply into societies, economies and states is neither omnipotent nor omniscient. Challenges to the imperial system come from two sources: relatively independent states and powerful social and political movements.
The ‘independent’ states are largely regimes, which are in opposition to and targeted by the imperial states. They include Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Zimbabwe. What defines these regimes as ‘independent’ is their willingness to reject the policies of the imperial powers, particularly imperial military interventions. They also reject imperialist demands for unconditional access to markets, resources and military bases.
These regimes differ widely in terms of social policy, degree of popular support, secular-religious identities, economic development and consistency in opposing imperialist aggression. All face immediate military threats and /or destabilization programs, designed to replace the independent governments with client regimes.
Contested Terrain
The imperial hierarchy and networks are based on class and national relations of power. This means that the maintenance of the entire system is based on the ruling classes dominating the underlying population – a very problematical situation given the unequal distribution of costs and benefits between the rulers and the ruled. Today massive armed resistance and social movements in numerous countries challenge the imperial system.
Contested terrain includes: Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, Somalia, Palestine, Sudan and Lebanon where armed resistance is intent on defeating imperial clients. Sites of mass confrontations include Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Iran where the imperial powers are intent on overthrowing newly elected independent regimes. Large scale social movements organized to combat client regimes and the imperial patrons have recently emerged in Mexico, Palestine, Lebanon, China, Ecuador and elsewhere. Inside the imperial states there is mass opposition to particular imperial wars and policies, but only small and weak anti-imperialist movements.
The Anomaly: Israel in the Imperial System
Israel is clearly a colonialist power, with the fourth or fifth biggest nuclear arsenal and the second biggest arms exporter in the world. Its population size, territorial spread and economy however are puny in comparison with the imperial and newly emerging imperial powers. Despite these limitations Israel exercises supreme power in influencing the direction of United States war policy in the Middle East via a powerful Zionist political apparatus, which permeates the State, the mass media, elite economic sectors and civil society (3a). Through Israel’s direct political influence in making US foreign policy, as well as through its overseas military collaboration with dictatorial imperial client regimes, Israel can be considered part of the imperial power configuration despite its demographic constraints, its near universal pariah diplomatic status, and its externally sustained economy.
Regimes in Transition
The imperial system is highly asymmetrical, in constant disequilibrium and therefore in constant flux – as wars, class and national struggles break out and economic crises bring down regimes and raise new political forces to power. In recent times we have seen the rapid conversion of Russia from a world hegemonic contender (prior to 1989), converted into an imperial client state subject to unprecedented pillage (1991-1999) to its current position as a newly emerging imperial state. While Russia is one of the most dramatic cases of rapid and profound changes in the world imperialist system, other historical experiences exemplify the importance of political and social changes in shaping countries’ relationship to the world imperial system. China and Vietnam, former bulwarks as independent, anti-imperialist states, have seen the rise of liberal-capitalist elites, the dismantling of the socialized economy and China’s incorporation as a newly emerging imperialist power and Vietnam as a semi-autonomous client regime.
The major transitions during the 1980’s – 1990’s involved the conversion of independent anti-imperialist states into imperial client regimes. In the Western hemisphere, these transitions include Nicaragua, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Jamaica and Grenada. In Africa, they include Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Algeria, Ethiopia and Libya, all converted into kleptocratic client regimes. In Asia similar processes are afoot in Indo-China. Because of the disastrous consequences of imperial-centered policies administered by client regimes, the first decade of the new millennium witnessed a series of massive popular upheavals and regime changes, especially in Latin America. Popular insurrections in Argentina and Bolivia led to regime shifts from client to semi-autonomous clients. In Venezuela after a failed coup and destabilization campaign, the Chavez regime moved decisively from semi-autonomous client to an independent anti-imperialist position.
Ongoing conflicts between imperial and anti-imperialist states, between client regimes and nationalist movements, between imperial and newly emerging imperial states, will change the structure of the imperial system. The outcomes of these conflicts will produce new coalitions among the principal forces, which compose the imperial hierarchy and its adversaries. What is clear from this account is that there is no singular omnipotent ‘imperial state’ that unilaterally defines the international or even the imperial system.
Even the most powerful imperial state has proven incapable of unilaterally (or with clients or imperial partners) defeating or even containing the popular anti-colonial resistance in Iraq or Afghanistan. The major imperial political successes have occurred where the imperial states have been able to activate the military forces of semi-autonomous and client regimes, secure a regional (OAS, OAU and NATO) or UN cover to legitimate its conquests. Collaborator elites from the client and semi-autonomous states are essential links to the maintenance and consolidation of the imperial system and in particular the US empire. A specific case is the US’, intervention and overthrow of the Somali Islamic regime.
The Case of Somalia: Black Masks - White Faces
The recent Ethiopian invasion of Somalia (December 2006) and overthrow of the de-facto governing Islamic Courts Union (ICU)or Supreme Council of Islamic Courts and imposition of a self-styled ‘transitional government’ of warlords is an excellent case study of the centrality of collaborator regimes in sustaining and expanding the US empire.
From 1991 with the overthrow of the government of Siad Barre until the middle of 2006, Somalia was ravaged by conflicts between feuding warlords based in clan-controlled fiefdoms (3). During the US/UN invasion and temporary occupation of Mogadishu in the mid-1990’s there were massacres of over 10,000 Somali civilians and the killing and wounding of a few dozen US/UN soldiers (4). During the lawless 1990’s small local groups, whose leaders later made up the ICU, began organizing community-based organizations against warlord depredations. Based on its success in building community-based movements, which cut across tribal and clan allegiances; the ICU began to eject the corrupt warlords ending extortion payments imposed on businesses and households (5). In June 2006 this loose coalition of Islamic clerics, jurists, workers, security forces and traders drove the most powerful warlords out of the capital, Mogadishu. The ICU gained widespread support among a multitude of market venders and trades people. In the total absence of anything resembling a government, the ICU began to provide security, the rule of law and protection of households and property against criminal predators (6). An extensive network of social welfare centers and programs, health clinics, soup kitchens and primary schools, were set up serving large numbers of refugees, displaced peasants and the urban poor. This enhanced popular support for the ICU.
After having driven the last of the warlords from Mogadishu and most of the countryside, the ICU established a de-facto government, which was recognized and welcomed by the great majority of Somalis and covered over 90% of the population (7a). All accounts, even those hostile to the ICU, pointed out that the Somali people welcomed the end of warlord rule and the establishment of law and order under the ICU.
The basis of the popular support for the Islam Courts during its short rule (from June to December 2006) rested on several factors. The ICU was a relatively honest administration, which ended warlord corruption and extortion. Personal safety and property were protected, ending arbitrary seizures and kidnappings by warlords and their armed thugs. The ICU is a broad multi-tendency movement that includes moderates and radical Islamists, civilian politicians and armed fighters, liberals and populists, electoralists and authoritarians (7). Most important, the Courts succeeded in unifying the country and creating some semblance of nationhood, overcoming clan fragmentation. In the process of unifying the country, the Islamic Courts government re-affirmed Somali sovereignty and opposition to US imperialist intervention in the Middle East and particularly in the Horn of Africa via its Ethiopian client regime.
US Intervention: The United Nations, Military Occupation, Warlords and Proxies
The recent history of US efforts to incorporate Somalia into its network of African client states began during the early 1990’s under President Clinton (8). While most commentators today rightly refer to Bush as an obsessive war-monger for his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they forget that President Clinton, in his time, engaged in several overlapping and sequential acts of war in Somalia, Iraq, Sudan and Yugoslavia. Clinton’s military actions and the embargoes killed and maimed thousands of Somalis, resulted in 500,000 deaths among Iraqi children alone and caused thousands of civilian deaths and injuries in the Balkans. Clinton ordered the destruction of Sudan’s main pharmaceutical plant producing vital vaccines and drugs essential for both humans and their livestock leading to a critical shortage of these essential vaccines and treatments (9). President Clinton dispatched thousands of US troops to Somalia to occupy the country under the guise of a ‘humanitarian mission’ in 1994 (10). Washington intervened to bolster its favored pliant war-lord against another, against the advice of the Italian commanders of the UN troops in Somalia. Two-dozen US troops were killed in a botched assassination attempt and furious residents paraded their mutilated bodies in the streets of the Somali capital. Washington sent helicopter gunships, which shelled heavily, populated areas of Mogadishu, killing and maiming thousands of civilians in retaliation.
The US was ultimately forced to withdraw its soldiers as Congressional and public opinion turned overwhelmingly against Clinton’s messy little war. The United Nations, which no longed needed to provide a cover for US intervention, also withdrew. Clinton’s policy turned toward securing one subset of client warlords against the others, a policy which continued under the Bush Administration. The current ‘President’ of the US puppet regime, dubbed the ‘Transitional Federal Government’, is Abdullahi Yusuf. He is a veteran warlord deeply involved in all of the corrupt and lawless depredations which characterized Somalia between 1991 to 2006 (12). Yusuf had been President of the self-styled autonomous Puntland breakaway state in the 1990’s.
Despite US and Ethiopian financial backing, Abdullahi Yusuf and his warlord associates were finally driven out of Mogadishu in June 2006 and out of the entire south central part of the country. Yusuf was holed up and cornered in a single provincial town on the Ethiopian border and lacked any social basis of support even from most of the remaining warlord clans in the capital (13). Some warlords had withdrawn their support of Yusuf and accepted the ICU’s offers to disarm and integrate into Somali society underscoring the fact that Washington’s discredited and isolated puppet was no longer a real political or military factor in Somalia. Nevertheless, Washington secured a UN Security Council resolution recognizing the warlord’s tiny enclave of Baidoa as the legitimate government. This was despite the fact that the TFG’s very existence depended on a contingent of several hundred Ethiopian mercenaries financed by the US. As the ICU troops moved westward to oust Yusuf from his border outpost – comprising less than 5% of the country – the US increased its funding for the dictatorial regime of Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia to invade Somalia (14).
Despite the setbacks, scores of US military advisers prepared the Ethiopian mercenaries for a large-scale air and ground invasion of Somalia in order to re-impose their puppet-warlord Yusuf. Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian dictator, depends heavily on US military and police weaponry, loans and advisors to retain power for his ethnic ‘Tigrayan’ based regime and to hold onto disputed Somali territory. The Tigrayan ethnic group represents less than 10% of the Ethiopian multi-ethnic population. Meles faced growing armed opposition form the Oromo and Ogandese liberation movements (15). His regime was despised by the influential Amhara population in the capital for rigging the election in May 2005, for killing 200 student protesters in October 2006 and jailing tens of thousands (16). Many military officials opposed him for engaging in a losing border war with Eritrea. Meles, lacking popular backing, has become the US most loyal and subservient client in the region. Embarrassingly parroting Washington’s imperial ‘anti-terrorist’ rhetoric for his attack on Somalia, Meles sent over 15,000 troops, hundreds of armored vehicles, dozens of helicopters and warplanes into Somalia (17). Claiming that he was engaged in the ‘war against terrorism’ Meles terrorized the people of Somalia with aerial bombardment and a scorched earth policy. In the name of ‘national security’ Meles sent his troops to the rescue of the encircled war lord and US puppet, Abdullahi Yusuf.
Washington co-coordinated its air and naval forces with the advance of the invading Ethiopian military juggernaut. As the US advised-Ethiopian mercenaries advanced by land, the US air force bombed fleeing Somalis killing scores, supposedly in hunting ‘Al Queda; sympathizers (18). According to reliable reports, which were confirmed later by US and Somali puppet sources, US and Somali military forces have failed to identify a single Al Queda leader after examining scores of dead and captured fighters and refugees (19). Once again the pretext to invade Somalia used by Washington and its Ethiopian client – that the ICU was attacked because it sheltered Al Queda terrorists - was demonstrated to be false. US naval forces illegally interdicted all ships off the coast of Somalia in pursuit of fleeing Somali leaders. In Kenya, Washington directed its Nairobi client to capture and return Somalis crossing the border. Under Washington’s direction both the United Nations and the Organization of African ‘Unity’ (sic) agreed to send an occupation army of ‘peace-keepers’ to protect the Ethiopian imposed puppet Yusuf regime.
Given Meles precarious internal position, he could not afford to keep his occupying army of 15,000 mercenaries in Somalia for long (20). Somali hatred for the Ethiopian occupiers surged from the first day they entered Mogadishu. There were massive demonstrations on a daily basis and increasing incidents of armed resistance from the re-grouped ICU fighters, local militants and anti-Yusuf warlords (21). The US directed Ethiopian occupation was followed in its wake by the return of the same warlords who had pillaged the country between 1991-2005 (22).
Most journalists, experts and independent observers recognize that without the presence of ‘outside’ support – namely the presence of at least 10,000 US and EU financed African mercenaries (‘peacekeepers’) the Yusuf regime will collapse in a matter of days if not hours. Washington counts on an informal coalition of African clients – a kind of ‘Association of Sub-Saharan Stooges’ (ASS) – to repress the mass unrest of the Somali population and to prevent the return of the popular Islamic Courts. The United Nations declared it would not send an occupation army until the ‘ASS’ military contingents of the Organization of African Unity had ‘pacified the country (23).
The ASS, however willing their client rulers in offering mercenary troops to do the bidding of Washington, found it difficult to actually send troops. Since it was transparently a ‘made-in-Washington’ operation it was unpopular at home and likely to set ASS forces against growing Somali national resistance. Even Uganda’s Yoweri Musevent, Washington’s subservient client, encountered resistance among his ‘loyal’ rubber-stamp congress (24). The rest of the ASS countries refused to move their troops, until the EU and US put the money up front and the Ethiopians secured the country for them. Facing passive opposition from the great majority of Somalis and active militant resistance from the Courts, the Ethiopian dictator began to withdraw his mercenary troops. Washington, recognizing that its Somali puppet, ‘President Yusuf’, is totally isolated and discredited, sought to co-opt the most conservative among the Islamic Court leaders (25). Yusuf, ever fearful of losing his fragile hold on power, refused to comply with Washington’s tactic of splitting the ICU.
The Somali Invasion: the Empire and its Networks
The Somali case illustrates the importance of client rulers, warlords, clans and other collaborators as the first line of defense of strategic geo-political positions for extending and defending the US empire. The Somali experience underlines the importance of the intervention by regional and client rulers of neighboring states in defense of the empire. Client regimes and collaborator elites greatly lower the political and economic cost of maintaining the outposts of empire. This is especially the case given the overextension of US ground forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and in their impending confrontation with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Given the ‘over-extension’ of the US ground forces, the empire relies on air and sea assaults combined with regional mercenary ground forces to oust an independent regime with popular backing.
Without the Ethiopian invasion, the puppet Somali warlord Abdullahi Yusuf would have been easily driven out of Somalia, the country unified and Washington would no longer control the coastal areas facing a major maritime oil transport route. The loss of a Somali puppet regime would have deprived Washington of a coastal platform for threatening Sudan and Eritrea.
From a practical perspective however, Washington’s strategic plans for control over the Horn of Africa are deeply flawed. To secure maximum control over Somali, the White House chose to back a deeply detested veteran warlord with no social base in the country and dependent on discredited warring clans and criminal warlords. Isolated and discredited puppet rulers are a fragile thread on which to construct strategic policies of regional intervention (military bases and advisory missions). Secondly Washington chose to use a neighboring country (Ethiopia) hated by the entire Somali population to prop up its Somali puppet. Ethiopia had attacked Somali as late as 1979 over the independence of Ogadan, whose population is close to Somalis. Washington relied on the invading army of a regime in Addis Ababa, which was facing increasing popular and national unrest and was clearly incapable of sustaining a prolonged occupation. Finally, Washington counted on verbal assurances from the ASS regimes to promptly send troops to protect its re-installed client. Client regimes always tell their imperial masters what they want to hear even if they are incapable of prompt and full compliance. This is especially the case when clients fear internal opposition and prolonged costly overseas entanglements, which further discredit them.
The Somali experience demonstrates the gap between the empire’s strategic projection of power and its actual capacity to realize its goals. It also exemplifies how imperialists, impressed by the number of clients, their ‘paper’ commitments and servile behavior, fail to recognize their strategic weakness in the face of popular national liberation movements.
US empire building efforts in the Horn of Africa, especially in Somalia, demonstrate that even with elite collaborators and client regimes, mercenary armies and ASS regional allies, the empire encounters great difficulty in containing or defeating popular national liberation movements. The failure of the Clinton policy of intervention in Somalia between 1993-1994 demonstrated this.
The human and economic cost of prolonged military invasions with ground troops has repeatedly driven the US public to demand withdrawal (and even accept defeat) as was proven in Korea, Indochina and increasingly in Iraq.
Financial and diplomatic support, including UN Security Council decisions, and military advisory teams are not sufficient to establish stable client regimes. The precariousness of the mercenary-imposed Yusuf warlord dictatorship demonstrates the limits of US sponsored UN fiats.
The Somali experience in failed empire-building reveals another even darker side of imperialism: A policy of ‘rule or ruin’. The Clinton regime’s failure to conquer Somalia was followed by a policy of playing off one brutal warlord against another, terrorizing the population, destroying the country and its economy until the ascent of the Islamic Courts Union. The ‘rule or ruin’ policy is currently in play in Iraq and Afghanistan and will come into force with the impending Israeli-backed US air and sea attack on Iran.
The origins of ‘rule or ruin’ policies are rooted in the fact that conquests by imperial armies do not result in stable, legitimate and popular regimes. Originating as products of imperial conquest, these client regimes are unstable and depend on foreign armies to sustain them. Foreign occupation and the accompanying wars on nationalist movements provoke mass opposition. Mass resistance results in imperial repression targeting entire populations and infrastructure. The inability to establish a stable occupation and client regime leads inevitable to imperial rulers deciding to scorch the entire country with the after thought that a weak and destroyed adversary is a consolation for a lost imperial war.
Faced with the rise of Islamic and secular anti-imperialist movements and states in Africa and possessing numerous client regimes in North Africa and the ASS grouping, Washington is establishing a US military command for Africa. The Africa Command will serve to tighten Washington’s control over African military forces and expedite their dispatch to repress independence movements or to overthrow anti-imperialist regimes. Given the expanded, highly competitive presence of Chinese traders, investors and aid programs, Washington is bolstering its reliable allies among the African client elites and generals (26).
-James Petras’ latest book is The Power of Israel in the United States (Clarity Press: Atlanta). His articles in English can be found at the website – www.petras.lahaine.org and in Spanish at - www.rebellion.org.
Footnotes
1. Petras, James and Morris Morley. Empire or Republic (NY: Routledge, 1995); Petras, J. and M. Morley: “The Role of the Imperial State” in US Hegemony Under Siege (London” Verso Books 1990).
2. Petras, James and Morris Morley. “The US imperial State” in James Petras et al Class State and Power in the Third World (Allanheld, Osmin: Montclair NJ, 1981).
3. (3A) see Petras, James The Power of Israel in the United States (Clarity: Atlanta 2006)
3. see Andrew England “Spectre of Rival Clans Returns to Mogadishu”, Financial Times (London), ) December 29, 2006 p.3)
4. Financial Times January 22, 2007 p.12.
5. Financial Times December 29, 2006 p.3.
6. William Church: “Somalia: CIA Blowback Weakens East Africa” Sudan Tribune Feb 2, 2007.
7. (7A) The Transitional government was restricted to Baldoa, a small town and its survival depended on Addis Abbaba. Financial Times December 29, 2006 p.3
7. Financial Times January 31, 2007 p.2.
8. Stephan Shalom “Gravy Train: Feeding the Pentagon by Feeding Somalia” Z Magazine February 1993.
9. Clinton claimed the pharmaceutical plant was producing biological and chemical weapons – a story which was refuted by scientific investigators.
10. Shalom ibid.
11. Mark Bowden Black Hawk Down (Signet: New York 2002)
12. FT December 31, 2006 p.2
13. FT January 5, 2007 p. 4
14. William Church ibid.
15 “Somalia” Another War Made in the USA” interview with Mohamed Hassan (Michel.Collon@skynet.be)
16 ibid
17. FT January 5, 2007 p.5; FT December 29, 2006 p. 3
18. BBC News “US Somali Air Strikes ‘Kill Many’”, January 9, 2007; aljazeera.net “US Launches Air Strikes on Somalia” January 9, 2007
19. FT February 5, 2007 p.5 “…there has been no confirmation yet of targeted al-Queda suspects according to Meles Zenawi, Ethiopian Prime Minister.”
20. aljazeera.net January 23, 2007; BBC News “More Ethiopians to Quit Somalia” January 28, 2007.
21. aljazeera.net December 29, 2006; aljazeera.net January 6, 2007; BBC News January 26, 2007; Aljazeere.net January 28, 2007, aljazeera.net February 11, 2007
22. “Looting and shooting broke out as soon as the Islamic fighters left the crumbling capital as militias loyal to the local clans moved on to the streets.” FT December 29, 2006
23. BBC News January 25, 2007; BBC January 30, 2007; BBC January 5, 2007/
24. People’s Daily Online “Ugandan Parliament halts bid to rush deployment of peacekeepers to Somalia”. February 2, 2007
25.Financial Times January 26, 2007 p.6
26.aljazeera.net February 7, 2007
Out-Flanked: A New War on Terra Arrives with Bush-Lula Ethanol Deal - Another Bush Family Energy Empire Now Forming in the Heart Of South America
Out-Flanked: A New War on Terra Arrives with Bush-Lula Ethanol Deal
Another Bush Family Energy Empire Now Forming in the Heart Of South America
By Garrett St. James
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
March 19, 2007
Now that the angry masses of demonstrators have gone home, clouds of tear-gas have dispersed and that peculiar “sulfuric odor” Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez likes to allude to is in the final stages of dissipation, let’s take another look at President George W. Bush’s latest tour of Latin America…
According to the mainstream media, Bush’s week long visit to five separate Latin American nations has been considered at best yet another typically half-assed fast-food episode of Bush diplomacy or a complete failure at it’s worst. Despite the never ending quagmire of Iraq and the seemingly imminent curtain raising of “Shock and Awe 2” on Iran, the domestically and internationally embattled American President decided it was important to once again head south. On one hand we were told it was to shore up the Nation’s eroding political and economic influence throughout Latin America, while on the other it was to act as an ideological counter-weight to the ever growing popularity of Hugo Chavez’s Neo-Bolivarian movement.
Unlike the fiasco of “Bush South of the Border Tour ‘05”, “Bush South of the Border Tour ‘07” was going to be different. Gone would be the endless references to the War on Terror and business as usual neo-liberal imperialism mentalities. This tour would be full of compassion and human elevation for the people of the entire Americas. It didn’t matter though.
Everywhere Bush went were angry crowds of demonstrators battling it out with police. The same old same old was happening on the television news and of course street violence always makes great copy! To make things much worse, Bush’s arch-nemesis Hugo Chavez was making an Anti-Imperialist Tour of his own, filling entire football stadiums and public arenas wherever the Venezuelan President spoke. Sadly for Bush it was very clear as to who was winning the hearts and minds of Latin America once again. However, upon a second glance it’s apparent Bush did accomplish a few things and it was quite more than a half-assed success. In fact, it was a spectacular success.
On March 9th, Bush kicked off his “South of the Border ‘07 Tour” in Brazil but I would like to review what he had actually accomplished in the other 4 countries of Uruguay, Columbia, Guatemala and Mexico first…
Uruguay: In a country very few people know about much less heard of, Bush met with President Tabare Vasquez on March 10th. The usual praise and cash was passed around but a door was opened up for Uruguay to begin direct bi-lateral trade with the U.S. With a couple of handshakes and monotonous speeches, the rival Hugo Chavez Mercosur trading block (which includes Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay) had been successfully circumnavigated.
Columbia: On March 11th, Bush traveled to one of the largest receivers of American foreign military and economic aide. Yes, the USA does import a good deal of oil from Columbia but it also imports billions more of illegal narcotics. President Alvaro Uribe was given another cool 600 million because of it. A curious side-event that transpired shortly after the visit was the fine imposed Chiquita Banana Brands International back in Cincinnati, Ohio for paying bribes to right wing paramilitaries back in 2003: a sign that this sort of thing (or for certain unfavorable companies) will no longer be tolerated by the Uribe administration.
Guatemala: Bush only spent 5 hours meeting with a very anxious President Oscar Berger on March 12th. For a country so small both geographically and in political stature, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. What was Senor Berger so nervous about? The continued unhindered “migration” of Guatemala’s extremely impoverished into the United States. Bush no doubt assured President Berger that “the wall” and recent highly publicized crackdowns on illegal immigrants was just for show and Corporate America will continue to value Guatemala’s most valued commodity, CHEAP LABOR. Though it is an unspoken taboo, everyone knows that much of Latin Americas ruling classes are using the United States as a steam valve to alleviate the ever-mounting anger and revolutionary tendencies directed at their respective regimes. The billions of dollars sent back by “the migrants” to their remaining family members also helps.
Mexico: Bush wrapped up his tour by staying a few days visiting newly/nearly elected Mexican President, Felipe Calderon. The secretive but very real North American Union was definitely the supreme topic of importance during the two leaders discussions. Merging the USA along with Canada and Mexico was going to continue on schedule with little regard to the national sovereignties and consent of its peoples. Business is business after all…
Brazil: Bush arrived in South America’s largest and most powerful country following the footsteps of a fresh new highly orchestrated “Green Campaign.” For weeks on end Brazil had been bombarded by heavy doses of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and the various evils of environmental pollution. The Amazon needed saving once again and the Brazilians needed to become much more “eco-sensitive” in their day-to-day lives.
For 23 hours the massive metropolis of Sao Paulo was virtually brought to a standstill the day Bush met with President Ignacio “Lula” da Silva. From the very outset, violence erupted along Avenida Paulista between thousands of anti-Bush protesters and Military Policemen clad in riot gear. Slogans were chanted, rocks and bottles were soon thrown and then the police moved into to administer extremely vicious ritualized beatings to whomever was unfortunate enough to be caught during the ensuing hours long melee.
As the well-televised street clashes raged, Bush and Lula were celebrating a new bio-fuels deal between the two countries and drinking champagne. The word of the day was ethanol. An interesting side-event was the same day indictment of the notoriously corrupt Brazilian politician, Paulo Maluf, in New York City. Perhaps his arrest symbolized an act of good faith on the part of the Bush Administration at the bargaining table. Then came the grandiose boasting of “an energy revolution” and “the beginning of a brand new civilization.”
These were no ordinary quotes and it was no ordinary deal, either. Ethanol is not only going to make Lula’s Oligarch buddies very rich but with the help of the United States, Brazil is also going to become very powerful. The ramifications run very deep as well as they are wide. If people begin to think the days of unrestrained First World exploitation upon Latin America are the things of a forgettable past then they are also sadly mistaken. When one begins to look at what actually transpired on March 9th, they’ll begin to realize this was the culmination of a deal at least 30 years in making and could last for another 30 years into the future.
Brazil’s notorious and brutally oppressive Military Government first introduced ethanol production, during the 1970’s as an experiment to find cheaper and more efficient forms of alternative energy. Throughout Brazil’s transformation into a democracy during the 1980’s, to the turbulence caused by corrupt administrations and market crashes of the 1990’s, the ethanol industry steadily and successfully flourished. By the time President Lula was first inaugurated in January 2003, ethanol was the most commonly used fuel for Brazilian automobiles. For Brazil, the future was looking rosy and after decades of struggle: the PT (Workers Party) had at long last taken power.
Almost from the very instant of Lula’s New Year’s Day inauguration things began to get a little strange in the capital, Brasilia, though. People were surprised by Lula’s new fashionable appearance. Gone were the red tee shirts and blue jeans often worn by the self-made leader of trabalhadoros e campahneiros, only to be replaced by super expensive Italian suits. Oh well, Lula was President after all so he had to look Presidential didn’t he?
People must also remember that Lula was the leader of probably the most radical and powerful political party in the western hemisphere if not in the world. The PT was a tough as nails and well organized coalition comprising labor unions, student groups, land reformers and intellectuals. The traditional ruling oligarchs had a lot to fear and began to brace themselves for the inevitable onslaught of socio-economic reforms sure to follow a PT Presidential victory. The Party of the People had arrived and those gringos up north were definitely going to take notice. So everyone waited, January rolled into February and then March, April, June, July but nothing happened.
There was of course Lula’s highly touted “Zero Fome” program aimed at eliminating the starvation of millions of impoverished Brazilians (Nordestinos) living in the arid North Eastern regions of the country. Upon closer look even this seemed odd considering Lula might have been possibly wasting millions of reais transporting truck loads of rice and beans rather than looking for more pragmatic approaches to arid weather farming. The mass migration of hundreds of thousands of Nordestinos to southern Brazil continued unabated which further eroded and over taxed the already decrepitating social infrastructures of major cities like Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. For these particular cities, the already insanely violent crime kept increasing. The Favelas that had absorbed the overwhelming majority of these displaced Nordestinos kept growing and growing. It was obvious to everyone that all of these new migrants were adding to the gross over-population of metropolitan centers. Everything was affected. Everything was falling apart faster and faster. Nothing had really changed except for the worst.
What was also equally strange was Lula’s bizarre approach to international diplomacy. One example was when he quickly went to Libya attempting to open trade agreements between the two countries primarily with oil. Just days later, the international pariah Colonel Qadafi, became the new darling of the West’s Big Oil Companies which soon moved in to enjoy Libya’s world famous super-lite sweet crude. Then there was the Aristide Coup in Haiti. Lula was more than eager to supply the bulk of UN Peace Keeping forces much to the chagrin of his own government and people. Wasn’t Aristide and Haiti an American problem? Lula insisted and even today Brazilian soldiers are policing the streets of Port au Prince. Odd?
Then came wave after wave of corruption scandals, which have virtually destroyed much of the PT’s political infrastructure. Party Big Wigs and luminaries were falling like rain. It looked as if everyone in the PT was involved in some scandal or another: everyone that is except Lula. In spite of it all, Lula went on to comfortably win another four-year term in office in October of ‘06.
Today Brazil is still South America’s most powerful country. No one including Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez can do much without the support of Lula and Brazil. To the casual observer, It looks as if Lula rides the fence between the forces of radical socialist change led by Chavez and neoliberal free market capitalism from the imperialist giant up north. On March 9th, this all changed and Lula, despite what many experts are saying, is definitively now in the so-called neoliberal camp.
Not only will both Brazil and the USA become kings of the new worldwide ethanol fuels industry, but the very company running everything will be the Miami Florida based Inter-American Ethanol Commission. The former Brazilian Minister of Agriculture, and now agri-business tycoon, Roberto Rodrigues, created this newly formed company just last December. Who are his two principle partners? Luis Alberto Moreno from Columbia and Jeb Bush!
Now if people really begin to consider all the strange goings on emanating out of Brasilia from the Lula administration and the history of ethanol bio-fuels in general, things begin to make a lot more sense. Why was nothing of any importance done to stem the human tide of Nordestinos heading south year after year? Why would Lula turn his back on his Leftist past and do nothing to reform the crushing grip the oligarchs still have on the Brazilian economy? Why was the PT systematically gutted with scandal after scandal? Why was Lula so eager to commit troops after the anti-Aristide Coup in Haiti? Why was Lula running around “liberating” oil markets from previously pariah regimes like Libya and later Angola? Don’t forget that green and eco-friendly “Save the Amazon” campaign, either. Finally, what does the new ethanol bio-fuels pact between Brazil and the USA (Bush Family) really mean?
The answers are that the newly displaced Nordestino populations will make excellent slave labor for the expected ethanol producing sugarcane fields and sugar processing mills. The oligarchs as usual will be running and profiting from the enterprise. The PT has been effectively neutralized to keep anyone from getting in the way. Haiti is where the processed sugarcane will be refined into the new E10 ethanol based fuels which can be readily consumed by the American auto owners soon to be weaned off of fossil fuels coming out of the Middle East and Venezuela for starters. Lula has been an active agent promoting Big Oil’s interest in emerging third world markets and petroleum fields.
The Brazilian Amazon look’s like the perfect place to plant ever larger sugarcane crops for the soon to be exponentially growing worldwide ethanol demand. Brazil plans on doubling its ethanol production in five years to 30 billion liters. They’ll eventually have to quadruple this number once serious American ethanol consumption begins. In less than twenty years 300 billion liters are planned to be produced to feed other world markets such as China and India. Serious acreage is going to be needed to pull this off and take a big guess as to where this acreage can be found?
Finally, the Bush Family is re-diversifying its worldwide energy investments. Perhaps the sheiks of the Mid-East aren’t going to be such good close friends in the years to come? The Brazilian Oligarchs look much more interesting? Unfortunately it doesn’t stop there. The Bush Family has recently bought massive amounts of real estate in nearby Paraguay’s Chaco Region: an excellent geographical area to reside if you’re also interested in other energy industries and markets such as natural gas and hydroelectric Power. In the North it’s Bolivia, to the South is Argentina, to the West are Chile and Peru and to the East is Brazil. Well done.
Of course many people aren’t going to like these new arrangements. Lula and his eventual predecessors will have to continue to sell the idea that destroying much of Brazil’s world famous nature preserves is in the best interest of it’s economy. Bush (Hillary Clinton???) will have to convince the American Congress to strike down the unfair protectionist tariffs concerning Brazilian ethanol. Both Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska are strongly backed by the fledgling American ethanol industry that supports these tariffs. It’s very interesting if you consider that both men are now running for President.
What does this all mean for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his visions of Neo-Bolivarism throughout Latin America? He too is being out-flanked like the rest of us. Eventually The United States is going to become less and less dependent upon his oil in the years to come. What about the Middle East? Everyone has been so distracted by what is going on over there that many of us have failed to notice what is going on below our noses.
Most of us know very well that the continued exploitation and needless deaths of thousands of people are going to continue in South America if Bush and friends are allowed to get away with this out-flanking maneuver: A new war on terra. Nothing ever changes with these guys…
It's STILL the oil: Secret Condi Meeting on Oil Before Invasion by Greg Palast
It's STILL the oil: Secret Condi Meeting on Oil Before Invasion
by Greg Palast
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Four years ago this week, the tanks rolled for what President Bush originally called, "Operation Iraqi Liberation" -- O.I.L.
I kid you not.
And it was four years ago that, from the White House, George Bush, declaring war, said, "I want to talk to the Iraqi people." That Dick Cheney didn't tell Bush that Iraqis speak Arabic … well, never mind. I expected the President to say something like, "Our troops are coming to liberate you, so don't shoot them." Instead, Mr. Bush told, the Iraqis,
"Do not destroy oil wells."
Nevertheless, the Bush Administration said the war had nothing to do with Iraq's oil. Indeed, in 2002, the State Department stated, and its official newsletter, the Washington Post, repeated, that State's Iraq study group, "does not have oil on its list of issues."
But now, we've learned that, despite protestations to the contrary, Condoleezza Rice held a secret meeting with the former Secretary-General of OPEC, Fadhil Chalabi, an Iraqi, and offered Chalabi the job of Oil Minister for Iraq. (It is well established that the President of the United States may appoint the cabinet ministers of another nation if that appointment is confirmed by the 101st Airborne.)
In all the chest-beating about how the war did badly, no one seems to remember how the war did very, very well -- for Big Oil.
The war has kept Iraq's oil production to 2.1 million barrels a day from pre-war, pre-embargo production of over 4 million barrels. In the oil game, that's a lot to lose. In fact, the loss of Iraq's 2 million barrels a day is equal to the entire planet's reserve production capacity.
In other words, the war has caused a hell of a supply squeeze -- and Big Oil just loves it. Oil today is $57 a barrel versus the $18 a barrel price under Bill "Love-Not-War" Clinton.
Since the launch of Operation Iraqi Liberation, Halliburton stock has tripled to $64 a share -- not, as some believe, because of those Iraq reconstruction contracts -- peanuts for Halliburton. Cheney's former company's main business is "oil services." And, as one oilman complained to me, Cheney's former company has captured a big hunk of the rise in oil prices by jacking up the charges for Halliburton drilling and piping equipment.
But before we shed tears for Big Oil's having to hand Halliburton its slice, let me note that the value of the reserves of the five biggest oil companies more than doubled during the war to $2.36 trillion.
And that was the plan: putting a new floor under the price of oil. I've have that in writing. In 2005, after a two-year battle with the State and Defense Departments, they released to my team at BBC Newsnight the "Options for a Sustainable Iraqi Oil Industry." Now, you might think our government shouldn't be writing a plan for another nation's oil. Well, our government didn't write it, despite the State Department seal on the cover. In fact, we discovered that the 323-page plan was drafted in Houston by oil industry executives and consultants.
The suspicion is that Bush went to war to get Iraq's oil. That's not true. The document, and secret recordings of those in on the scheme, made it clear that the Administration wanted to make certain America did not get the oil. In other words, keep the lid on Iraq's oil production -- and thereby keep the price of oil high.
Of course, the language was far more subtle than, "Let's cut Iraq's oil production and jack up prices." Rather, the report uses industry jargon and euphemisms which require Iraq to remain an obedient member of the OPEC cartel and stick to the oil-production limits -- "quotas" -- which keep up oil prices.
The Houston plan, enforced by an army of occupation, would, "enhance [Iraq's] relationship with OPEC," the oil cartel.
And that's undoubtedly why Condoleezza Rice asked Fadhil Chalabi to take charge of Iraq's Oil Ministry. As former chief operating officer of OPEC, the oil cartel, Fadhil was a Big Oil favorite, certain to ensure that Iraq would never again allow the world to slip back to the Clinton era of low prices and low profits. (In investigating for BBC, I was told by the former chief of the CIA's oil unit that he'd met with Fadhil regarding oil at Bush's request. Fadhil recently complained to the BBC. He denied the meeting with the Bush emissary in London because, he noted, he was secretly meeting that week in Washington with Condi!)
Fadhil, by the way, turned down Condi's offer to run Iraq's Oil Ministry. Ultimately, Iraq's Oil Ministry was given to Fadhil's fellow tribesman, Ahmad Chalabi, a convicted bank swindler and neo-con idol. But whichever Chalabi is nominal head of Iraq's oil industry in Baghdad, the orders come from Houston. Indeed, the oil law adopted by Iraq's shaky government this month is virtually a photocopy of the "Options" plan first conceived in Texas long before Iraq was "liberated."
In other words, the war has gone exactly to plan -- the Houston plan. So forget the naïve cloth-rending about a conflict gone haywire. Exxon-Mobil reported a record $10 billion profit last quarter, the largest of any corporation in history. Mission Accomplished.
by Greg Palast
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Four years ago this week, the tanks rolled for what President Bush originally called, "Operation Iraqi Liberation" -- O.I.L.
I kid you not.
And it was four years ago that, from the White House, George Bush, declaring war, said, "I want to talk to the Iraqi people." That Dick Cheney didn't tell Bush that Iraqis speak Arabic … well, never mind. I expected the President to say something like, "Our troops are coming to liberate you, so don't shoot them." Instead, Mr. Bush told, the Iraqis,
"Do not destroy oil wells."
Nevertheless, the Bush Administration said the war had nothing to do with Iraq's oil. Indeed, in 2002, the State Department stated, and its official newsletter, the Washington Post, repeated, that State's Iraq study group, "does not have oil on its list of issues."
But now, we've learned that, despite protestations to the contrary, Condoleezza Rice held a secret meeting with the former Secretary-General of OPEC, Fadhil Chalabi, an Iraqi, and offered Chalabi the job of Oil Minister for Iraq. (It is well established that the President of the United States may appoint the cabinet ministers of another nation if that appointment is confirmed by the 101st Airborne.)
In all the chest-beating about how the war did badly, no one seems to remember how the war did very, very well -- for Big Oil.
The war has kept Iraq's oil production to 2.1 million barrels a day from pre-war, pre-embargo production of over 4 million barrels. In the oil game, that's a lot to lose. In fact, the loss of Iraq's 2 million barrels a day is equal to the entire planet's reserve production capacity.
In other words, the war has caused a hell of a supply squeeze -- and Big Oil just loves it. Oil today is $57 a barrel versus the $18 a barrel price under Bill "Love-Not-War" Clinton.
Since the launch of Operation Iraqi Liberation, Halliburton stock has tripled to $64 a share -- not, as some believe, because of those Iraq reconstruction contracts -- peanuts for Halliburton. Cheney's former company's main business is "oil services." And, as one oilman complained to me, Cheney's former company has captured a big hunk of the rise in oil prices by jacking up the charges for Halliburton drilling and piping equipment.
But before we shed tears for Big Oil's having to hand Halliburton its slice, let me note that the value of the reserves of the five biggest oil companies more than doubled during the war to $2.36 trillion.
And that was the plan: putting a new floor under the price of oil. I've have that in writing. In 2005, after a two-year battle with the State and Defense Departments, they released to my team at BBC Newsnight the "Options for a Sustainable Iraqi Oil Industry." Now, you might think our government shouldn't be writing a plan for another nation's oil. Well, our government didn't write it, despite the State Department seal on the cover. In fact, we discovered that the 323-page plan was drafted in Houston by oil industry executives and consultants.
The suspicion is that Bush went to war to get Iraq's oil. That's not true. The document, and secret recordings of those in on the scheme, made it clear that the Administration wanted to make certain America did not get the oil. In other words, keep the lid on Iraq's oil production -- and thereby keep the price of oil high.
Of course, the language was far more subtle than, "Let's cut Iraq's oil production and jack up prices." Rather, the report uses industry jargon and euphemisms which require Iraq to remain an obedient member of the OPEC cartel and stick to the oil-production limits -- "quotas" -- which keep up oil prices.
The Houston plan, enforced by an army of occupation, would, "enhance [Iraq's] relationship with OPEC," the oil cartel.
And that's undoubtedly why Condoleezza Rice asked Fadhil Chalabi to take charge of Iraq's Oil Ministry. As former chief operating officer of OPEC, the oil cartel, Fadhil was a Big Oil favorite, certain to ensure that Iraq would never again allow the world to slip back to the Clinton era of low prices and low profits. (In investigating for BBC, I was told by the former chief of the CIA's oil unit that he'd met with Fadhil regarding oil at Bush's request. Fadhil recently complained to the BBC. He denied the meeting with the Bush emissary in London because, he noted, he was secretly meeting that week in Washington with Condi!)
Fadhil, by the way, turned down Condi's offer to run Iraq's Oil Ministry. Ultimately, Iraq's Oil Ministry was given to Fadhil's fellow tribesman, Ahmad Chalabi, a convicted bank swindler and neo-con idol. But whichever Chalabi is nominal head of Iraq's oil industry in Baghdad, the orders come from Houston. Indeed, the oil law adopted by Iraq's shaky government this month is virtually a photocopy of the "Options" plan first conceived in Texas long before Iraq was "liberated."
In other words, the war has gone exactly to plan -- the Houston plan. So forget the naïve cloth-rending about a conflict gone haywire. Exxon-Mobil reported a record $10 billion profit last quarter, the largest of any corporation in history. Mission Accomplished.
Acuífero Guaraní: Un patrimonio regional por Virginia María Chiesa & Eduardo Rivas
ALAI, América Latina en Movimiento
2007-03-20
A lo largo del presente texto proponemos abordar la problemática de la escasez del agua dulce con la finalidad de identificar una agenda de intereses comunes referidos a su explotación, distribución y conservación, tanto para nuestro abastecimiento como para el de las generaciones futuras.
Actualmente, la Organización de Naciones Unidas estima que la cuarta parte de la población mundial carece de agua potable salubre y esta proporción se duplicará dentro de veinte años, bajo este horizonte destacamos que del total de los recursos hídricos de nuestro planeta, el agua dulce solamente representa el 3%. Según el Consejo Mundial del Agua, con el ritmo actual de inversiones hídricas públicas y privadas, el acceso al mencionado recurso no podrá garantizarse sino hasta el año 2050 en África, 2025 en Asia y 2040 en América Latina y el Caribe.
En general, entendemos a la mencionada crisis como resultante del creciente aumento demográfico, de la contaminación, de la utilización irracional del agua y de la privatización de la explotación de nuestros recursos hídricos, ya que como hemos observado, nuestro reciente modelo de privatizaciones no nos ha garantizado el acceso universal al agua, ni tampoco una buena calidad, ni mucho menos tarifas adecuadas.
Como se advierte, el agua dulce es uno de los recursos naturales no renovables más preciados, por lo tanto de su adecuado suministro y gestión dependen la agricultura, la ganadería, la salud y alimentación de las personas, los ecosistemas, la industria, la energía, el mantenimiento de la paz y la estabilidad social. En tal sentido, el analista norteamericano Hughes Butts sostiene que: “ningún país podrá ser económica o socialmente estable sin una provisión de agua segura”.
Al respecto, resulta importante dejar establecido el concepto de “agua” que se debate en los conflictos globales, ya que el mismo se postula a través de dos presupuestos antagónicos: “un bien social ligado al derecho a la vida versus una mercancía de lucro”.
En virtud de la proyección descripta observamos intereses contrapuestos, por un lado las empresas privadas persiguen como única meta la ganancia y por otro los consumidores tienen por finalidad la preservación de este recurso finito y vital.
Bajo este enfoque, no podemos perder de vista que las naciones del Norte necesitan de los recursos naturales del Sur para continuar con sus procesos de expansión motivados en la acumulación de riquezas y en el presente escenario estratégico internacional, se avisora que quien logre controlar el agua dulce, dominará la economía mundial y la vida en un futuro no muy lejano.
Realizada esta introducción, debemos destacar que “nuestro Acuífero Guaraní” es una de las reservas de agua dulce más grandes del planeta y goza de una capacidad para abastecer a la población mundial aproximadamente por doscientos años. Esta cuenca descansa en el subsuelo de los territorios de Brasil, Uruguay, Paraguay y Argentina, países signatarios del Tratado de Asunción del 26 de marzo de 1991 que dio lugar al nacimiento del MERCOSUR y se aloja en formaciones geológicas antiguas que tienen entre 200 y 132 millones de años, época en que aún África y Sudamérica estaban unidas.
Si bien la cuestión medioambiental fue una preocupación para los Estados partes desde el propio origen del MERCOSUR (1) , lo relativo a las aguas subterráneas y al Acuífero Guaraní en particular debió esperar algunos años para ver la luz.
Fue más de once años después de la primer referencia sobre el tema ya citado que la cuestión del Acuífero Guaraní se convirtió en un tema de referencia por parte de los Presidentes del MERCOSUR en sus Declaraciones Presidenciales, que son los lineamientos básicos que éstos trazan para el devenir futuro del proceso de integración regional. Así, el 15 de agosto de 2003, en ocasión del recambio presidencial en la República del Paraguay con la asunción a la primera magistratura del citado país de Nicanor Duarte Frutos, los Presidentes del MERCOSUR tomaron cuenta de la cuestión del Acuífero Guaraní aunque con una vaga referencia en el último punto de la Declaración que firmaron (2)
.
A partir de esta reunión extraordinaria celebrada en Paraguay, el tema del Acuífero Guaraní comenzó a tomar mayor relevancia (3), fundamentalmente por el impulso del Gobierno uruguayo que presentó las “Bases para un Acuerdo de los Estados Partes del MERCOSUR relativo al Acuífero Guaraní”, a través de las cuales procuraba implementar en Proyecto de Protección Ambiental y el Desarrollo Sostenible del Sistema Acuífero Guaraní con el objeto de garantizar su preservación y el uso responsable de sus recursos. En este sentido, por medio de la Decisión MERCOSUR/CMC/DEC. 23/04 se creó un Grupo Ad Hoc de Alto Nivel con el objeto de elaborar un Proyecto sobre el Acuífero Guaraní que desarrollaría su tarea en el transcurso del segundo semestre de 2004.
Pese a que durante el año 2004 el tema del Acuífero Guaraní ocupó la agenda de los Presidentes del MERCOSUR, el tema poco a poco comenzó a perder protagonismo, sin siquiera alcanzar los resultados planteados en ocasión de la ya citada reunión extraordinaria de Asunción del Paraguay. En este sentido, la última referencia, en lo que a Comunicados Presidenciales se refiere, se encuentra en el redactado tras la XXIX Cumbre Presidencial de diciembre de 2005 en Montevideo, donde los Presidentes “Tomaron nota del estado de las negociaciones del proyecto de Acuerdo sobre el Acuífero Guaraní, que consagra principios y criterios que garantizan la soberanía permanente e incuestionable de los cuatro Estados Partes sobre ese importante recurso hídrico transfronterizo, asegurando su utilización racional y sostenible. Asimismo, destacaron la importancia de ampliar el conocimiento técnico y científico sobre el Sistema Acuífero Guaraní”.
Ahora bien, mientras esto ocurría en las Cumbres Presidenciales, los Estados parte del MERCOSUR firmaron un Acuerdo para la consecución del "Proyecto para la Protección Ambiental y Desarrollo Sostenible Integrado del Sistema Acuífero Guaraní (SAG)", del cual tomaron parte Argentina, Brasil, Paraguay, Uruguay. El citado Acuerdo cuenta con financiamiento del Banco Mundial y su unidad ejecutora es la Organización de Estados Americanos.
Este Acuerdo, del cual tomaron parte los Estados parte del MERCOSUR se desarrolla por fuera del proceso de integración, quien hasta aquí limita su accionar sobre el tema a declaraciones de tipo políticas pero no trabajos en profundidad sobre como vehiculizar esas declaraciones en hechos concretos que garanticen, como señala el "Proyecto para la Protección Ambiental y Desarrollo Sostenible Integrado del Sistema Acuífero Guaraní (SAG)", que “El Sistema Acuífero Guaraní será preservado de la contaminación y gestionado sobre la base de criterios de uso racional, equitativo y sostenible, teniendo en cuenta las características particulares del recurso y los factores pertinentes”.
Para ello, es necesario avanzar en una gestión conjunta del recurso por parte de un organismo creado en el seno del MERCOSUR y no por fuera de éste, que administre y proteja el Acuífero de una manera global. Sin pretender transpolar experiencias históricas, el ejemplo de la CECA (Comunidad Europea del Carbón y del Acero) puede ser útil para diseñar un modelo de Administración del Acuífero, dado que son muchos los temas en común que tienen ambas situaciones, ya sea por el carácter transnacional del recurso o porque se trata de un recurso natural fundamental para sus poseedores. Sin embargo pese a estas cuestiones coincidentes, hay dos elementos centrales que le dan una particularidad al caso que estamos analizando, en primer lugar el recurso natural del que se trata, puesto que el agua resulta sumamente más importante a futuro de lo que el carbón y el acero representaban a mediados del siglo pasado y, junto a esto, la relación existente entre los Estados que comparten el recurso natural, dado que quienes comparten el Acuífero Guaraní llevan más de 100 años sin conflictos bélicos entre sí.
Dada la “rara” coincidencia entre la desaparición de la esfera pública política de la cuestión del Acuífero Guaraní y la tecnificación de su estudio, financiado por el Banco Mundial fundamentalmente, entendemos que es sumamente importante como ciudadanos procuremos echar luz sobre el tema, para que el “futuro de todos” lo podamos decidir “entre todos”.
En función de lo expuesto hasta aquí, deviene impostergable la adopción de normas mercosureñas que establezcan reglas del juego claras respecto a la explotación sustentable de las aguas superficiales y subterráneas, la referida legislación deberá contemplar la legitimación activa de las generaciones futuras, el control social y la participación ciudadana que son herramientas fundamentales para la preservación y el mantenimiento del mencionado recurso.
A los fines de llevar a cabo dicha labor, consideramos necesario un cambio radical de actitud por parte de los ciudadanos, quedando a cargo de cada Estado orientar al usuario sanitario para asegurar una mejor utilización del agua, reduciendo el derroche, aumentando el compromiso de la comunidad con el medio ambiente y por medio de la educación, estimular una conciencia universal acerca de los peligros que nos amenazan, ya que de los datos analizados es claro que el agua dulce constituye un medio escaso de supervivencia.
En este sentido, entendemos conveniente que los Estados mercosureños adhieran a la Convención de Aarhus de Dinamarca de 1998, sobre el acceso a la información, participación pública en procesos de toma de decisiones y acceso a la justicia en problemas ambientales para garantizar de esta manera un mayor involucramiento de la ciudadanía en las cuestiones relativas al ambiente.
Finalmente y a modo de reflexión sobre esta problemática de interés general, creímos oportuno citar la siguiente poesía del querido poeta uruguayo Mario Benedetti, con la esperanza que siga siendo una poesía y no se convierta en una profesía:
Aguas
Dicen que el agua será imprescindible
mucho más necesaria que el petróleo
los imperios de siempre por lo tanto
nos robarán el agua a borbotones
los regalos de boda serán los grifos
agua darán los lauros de poesía
el nobel brindará una catarata
y en la bolsa cotizarán las lluvias
los jubilados cobrarán goteras
los millonarios dueños del diluvio
venderán lágrimas al por mayor
un capital se medirá por litros
cada empresa tendrá su remolino
su laguna prohibida a los foráneos
su museo de iodos prestigiosos
sus postales de nieve y de rocíos
y nosotros los pálidos sedientos
con la lengua reseca brindaremos
con el agua on the rocks.
Notas
(1) En la Declaración firmada por los Presidentes de los Estados parte del MERCOSUR en ocasión de la celebración de la I Cumbre Presidencial, el 17 de diciembre de 1991 en la ciudad de Brasilia, se señala en su punto 9 “9.- Los Presidentes destacaron la conveniencia de que las cuatro Repúblicas lleguen a la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo, en Río de Janeiro, en junio de 1992, con idénticas posiciones de principio e iguales propuestas, incluso en cuanto al tratamiento legislativo común de las infracciones y delitos contra el medio ambiente, recomendando, para ello, el empeño de sus organismos competentes”.
(2) El punto 10 de la Declaración suscripta tan sólo señalaba que “10. Los Presidentes del MERCOSUR tomaron nota con interés de la iniciativa de Uruguay con respecto al tema del Acuífero Guaraní, en el sentido de presentar las bases para un instrumento que aborde este tema”.
(3) Algunas referencias sobre el tema se encuentran en la Declaración Presidencial firmada en Puerto Iguazú el 8 de julio de 2004, tras la clausura de la XXVI Cumbre de Presidentes del MERCOSUR, donde en su punto 28 se señala que los Presidentes “Coincidieron en la importancia de adoptar compromisos a nivel MERCOSUR con relación al Acuífero Guaraní y, en este contexto, manifestaron su apoyo a la creación de un Grupo Ad Hoc de Alto Nivel, en el que los Estados Partes debatirán los principios básicos y lineamientos que garanticen sus derechos sobre los recursos hídricos del Acuífero, como así también las políticas y medidas que impulsen la protección ambiental del Acuífero y el desarrollo sustentable, con miras a la eventual suscripción de un acuerdo sobre la materia”; en la Declaración Presidencial de diciembre del mismo año, tras la XXVII Cumbre Presidencial desarrollada en Ouro Preto en ocasión de celebrarse el décimo aniversario de la Firma del protocolo de Ouro Preto. En dicha ocasión, y en referencia a la cuestión del Acuífero Guaraní, los Presidentes “Reafirmaron que los recursos hídricos del Acuífero Guaraní integran el dominio territorial soberano de la Argentina, Brasil, Paraguay y Uruguay y decidieron convocar a una Conferencia de los Estados Partes para concluir la negociación de un acuerdo sobre el Acuífero Guaraní, con base en el proyecto elaborado por el Grupo Ad Hoc de Alto Nivel, que se reunió en el segundo semestre de 2004”.
Y finalmente, como corolario de la XXVIII Cumbre Presidencial del MERCOSUR, desarrollada entre el 18 y el 20 de junio de 2005 en la ciudad de Asunción del Paraguay, los Presidentes de la región “Destacaron los importantes avances logrados en el marco del “Grupo Ad Hoc de Alto Nivel del Acuífero Guaraní” para la elaboración del “Proyecto de Acuerdo sobre el Acuífero Guaraní”, que tiene como cometido reafirmar la soberanía de los Estados Partes sobre el referido Acuífero, la defensa de este extraordinario patrimonio para evitar su contaminación y determinar el uso de este recurso natural transfronterizo. Expresaron sus deseos de que la Conferenciala Conferencia y proponer fórmulas para resolver los temas aún pendientes”. convocada por el CMC concluya el Acuerdo, y concordaron en realizar los máximos esfuerzos posibles para apoyar los trabajos de
Virginia María Chiesa
Abogada (UNR) - Rep. Argentina. Alumna de la “Maestría en Sistemas Ambientales Humanos”, Centro de Estudios Interdisciplinarios (U.N.R.). Adscripta en la asignatura “Derecho Agrario y Ambiental”, Cátedra “B” (U.N.R) - (cursando 2do. año). Participante del “Grupo de Interés de Agronegocios” de la Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales de la Universidad Austral de Rosario. Autora del libro: “MERCOSUR: Un nuevo desafío para la humanidad. La crisis del agua” UNR Editora: e-mail: apistone@unr.edu.ar, prólogo: Dr. Luis Orlando Andorno y de otros artículos sobre recursos hídricos. E-mail: virginiachiesa@argentina.com
Eduardo Rivas
Licenciado en Ciencia Política (UBA) - Rep. Argentina y Magíster en Estudios da Unión Europea (UdC) - España. Investigador corresponsal en Argentina del equipo de investigación «Intégrations dans les Amériques Latines» del Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur l'Amérique latine (CREDAL) y del Institut des Hautes Études de l'Amérique latine (IHEAL) - Université de Paris III - Sorbonne Nouvelle.". Autor de publicaciones sobre integración regional en Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, etc. E-mail: eduardo-rivas@advancedsl.com.ar
2007-03-20
A lo largo del presente texto proponemos abordar la problemática de la escasez del agua dulce con la finalidad de identificar una agenda de intereses comunes referidos a su explotación, distribución y conservación, tanto para nuestro abastecimiento como para el de las generaciones futuras.
Actualmente, la Organización de Naciones Unidas estima que la cuarta parte de la población mundial carece de agua potable salubre y esta proporción se duplicará dentro de veinte años, bajo este horizonte destacamos que del total de los recursos hídricos de nuestro planeta, el agua dulce solamente representa el 3%. Según el Consejo Mundial del Agua, con el ritmo actual de inversiones hídricas públicas y privadas, el acceso al mencionado recurso no podrá garantizarse sino hasta el año 2050 en África, 2025 en Asia y 2040 en América Latina y el Caribe.
En general, entendemos a la mencionada crisis como resultante del creciente aumento demográfico, de la contaminación, de la utilización irracional del agua y de la privatización de la explotación de nuestros recursos hídricos, ya que como hemos observado, nuestro reciente modelo de privatizaciones no nos ha garantizado el acceso universal al agua, ni tampoco una buena calidad, ni mucho menos tarifas adecuadas.
Como se advierte, el agua dulce es uno de los recursos naturales no renovables más preciados, por lo tanto de su adecuado suministro y gestión dependen la agricultura, la ganadería, la salud y alimentación de las personas, los ecosistemas, la industria, la energía, el mantenimiento de la paz y la estabilidad social. En tal sentido, el analista norteamericano Hughes Butts sostiene que: “ningún país podrá ser económica o socialmente estable sin una provisión de agua segura”.
Al respecto, resulta importante dejar establecido el concepto de “agua” que se debate en los conflictos globales, ya que el mismo se postula a través de dos presupuestos antagónicos: “un bien social ligado al derecho a la vida versus una mercancía de lucro”.
En virtud de la proyección descripta observamos intereses contrapuestos, por un lado las empresas privadas persiguen como única meta la ganancia y por otro los consumidores tienen por finalidad la preservación de este recurso finito y vital.
Bajo este enfoque, no podemos perder de vista que las naciones del Norte necesitan de los recursos naturales del Sur para continuar con sus procesos de expansión motivados en la acumulación de riquezas y en el presente escenario estratégico internacional, se avisora que quien logre controlar el agua dulce, dominará la economía mundial y la vida en un futuro no muy lejano.
Realizada esta introducción, debemos destacar que “nuestro Acuífero Guaraní” es una de las reservas de agua dulce más grandes del planeta y goza de una capacidad para abastecer a la población mundial aproximadamente por doscientos años. Esta cuenca descansa en el subsuelo de los territorios de Brasil, Uruguay, Paraguay y Argentina, países signatarios del Tratado de Asunción del 26 de marzo de 1991 que dio lugar al nacimiento del MERCOSUR y se aloja en formaciones geológicas antiguas que tienen entre 200 y 132 millones de años, época en que aún África y Sudamérica estaban unidas.
Si bien la cuestión medioambiental fue una preocupación para los Estados partes desde el propio origen del MERCOSUR (1) , lo relativo a las aguas subterráneas y al Acuífero Guaraní en particular debió esperar algunos años para ver la luz.
Fue más de once años después de la primer referencia sobre el tema ya citado que la cuestión del Acuífero Guaraní se convirtió en un tema de referencia por parte de los Presidentes del MERCOSUR en sus Declaraciones Presidenciales, que son los lineamientos básicos que éstos trazan para el devenir futuro del proceso de integración regional. Así, el 15 de agosto de 2003, en ocasión del recambio presidencial en la República del Paraguay con la asunción a la primera magistratura del citado país de Nicanor Duarte Frutos, los Presidentes del MERCOSUR tomaron cuenta de la cuestión del Acuífero Guaraní aunque con una vaga referencia en el último punto de la Declaración que firmaron (2)
.
A partir de esta reunión extraordinaria celebrada en Paraguay, el tema del Acuífero Guaraní comenzó a tomar mayor relevancia (3), fundamentalmente por el impulso del Gobierno uruguayo que presentó las “Bases para un Acuerdo de los Estados Partes del MERCOSUR relativo al Acuífero Guaraní”, a través de las cuales procuraba implementar en Proyecto de Protección Ambiental y el Desarrollo Sostenible del Sistema Acuífero Guaraní con el objeto de garantizar su preservación y el uso responsable de sus recursos. En este sentido, por medio de la Decisión MERCOSUR/CMC/DEC. 23/04 se creó un Grupo Ad Hoc de Alto Nivel con el objeto de elaborar un Proyecto sobre el Acuífero Guaraní que desarrollaría su tarea en el transcurso del segundo semestre de 2004.
Pese a que durante el año 2004 el tema del Acuífero Guaraní ocupó la agenda de los Presidentes del MERCOSUR, el tema poco a poco comenzó a perder protagonismo, sin siquiera alcanzar los resultados planteados en ocasión de la ya citada reunión extraordinaria de Asunción del Paraguay. En este sentido, la última referencia, en lo que a Comunicados Presidenciales se refiere, se encuentra en el redactado tras la XXIX Cumbre Presidencial de diciembre de 2005 en Montevideo, donde los Presidentes “Tomaron nota del estado de las negociaciones del proyecto de Acuerdo sobre el Acuífero Guaraní, que consagra principios y criterios que garantizan la soberanía permanente e incuestionable de los cuatro Estados Partes sobre ese importante recurso hídrico transfronterizo, asegurando su utilización racional y sostenible. Asimismo, destacaron la importancia de ampliar el conocimiento técnico y científico sobre el Sistema Acuífero Guaraní”.
Ahora bien, mientras esto ocurría en las Cumbres Presidenciales, los Estados parte del MERCOSUR firmaron un Acuerdo para la consecución del "Proyecto para la Protección Ambiental y Desarrollo Sostenible Integrado del Sistema Acuífero Guaraní (SAG)", del cual tomaron parte Argentina, Brasil, Paraguay, Uruguay. El citado Acuerdo cuenta con financiamiento del Banco Mundial y su unidad ejecutora es la Organización de Estados Americanos.
Este Acuerdo, del cual tomaron parte los Estados parte del MERCOSUR se desarrolla por fuera del proceso de integración, quien hasta aquí limita su accionar sobre el tema a declaraciones de tipo políticas pero no trabajos en profundidad sobre como vehiculizar esas declaraciones en hechos concretos que garanticen, como señala el "Proyecto para la Protección Ambiental y Desarrollo Sostenible Integrado del Sistema Acuífero Guaraní (SAG)", que “El Sistema Acuífero Guaraní será preservado de la contaminación y gestionado sobre la base de criterios de uso racional, equitativo y sostenible, teniendo en cuenta las características particulares del recurso y los factores pertinentes”.
Para ello, es necesario avanzar en una gestión conjunta del recurso por parte de un organismo creado en el seno del MERCOSUR y no por fuera de éste, que administre y proteja el Acuífero de una manera global. Sin pretender transpolar experiencias históricas, el ejemplo de la CECA (Comunidad Europea del Carbón y del Acero) puede ser útil para diseñar un modelo de Administración del Acuífero, dado que son muchos los temas en común que tienen ambas situaciones, ya sea por el carácter transnacional del recurso o porque se trata de un recurso natural fundamental para sus poseedores. Sin embargo pese a estas cuestiones coincidentes, hay dos elementos centrales que le dan una particularidad al caso que estamos analizando, en primer lugar el recurso natural del que se trata, puesto que el agua resulta sumamente más importante a futuro de lo que el carbón y el acero representaban a mediados del siglo pasado y, junto a esto, la relación existente entre los Estados que comparten el recurso natural, dado que quienes comparten el Acuífero Guaraní llevan más de 100 años sin conflictos bélicos entre sí.
Dada la “rara” coincidencia entre la desaparición de la esfera pública política de la cuestión del Acuífero Guaraní y la tecnificación de su estudio, financiado por el Banco Mundial fundamentalmente, entendemos que es sumamente importante como ciudadanos procuremos echar luz sobre el tema, para que el “futuro de todos” lo podamos decidir “entre todos”.
En función de lo expuesto hasta aquí, deviene impostergable la adopción de normas mercosureñas que establezcan reglas del juego claras respecto a la explotación sustentable de las aguas superficiales y subterráneas, la referida legislación deberá contemplar la legitimación activa de las generaciones futuras, el control social y la participación ciudadana que son herramientas fundamentales para la preservación y el mantenimiento del mencionado recurso.
A los fines de llevar a cabo dicha labor, consideramos necesario un cambio radical de actitud por parte de los ciudadanos, quedando a cargo de cada Estado orientar al usuario sanitario para asegurar una mejor utilización del agua, reduciendo el derroche, aumentando el compromiso de la comunidad con el medio ambiente y por medio de la educación, estimular una conciencia universal acerca de los peligros que nos amenazan, ya que de los datos analizados es claro que el agua dulce constituye un medio escaso de supervivencia.
En este sentido, entendemos conveniente que los Estados mercosureños adhieran a la Convención de Aarhus de Dinamarca de 1998, sobre el acceso a la información, participación pública en procesos de toma de decisiones y acceso a la justicia en problemas ambientales para garantizar de esta manera un mayor involucramiento de la ciudadanía en las cuestiones relativas al ambiente.
Finalmente y a modo de reflexión sobre esta problemática de interés general, creímos oportuno citar la siguiente poesía del querido poeta uruguayo Mario Benedetti, con la esperanza que siga siendo una poesía y no se convierta en una profesía:
Aguas
Dicen que el agua será imprescindible
mucho más necesaria que el petróleo
los imperios de siempre por lo tanto
nos robarán el agua a borbotones
los regalos de boda serán los grifos
agua darán los lauros de poesía
el nobel brindará una catarata
y en la bolsa cotizarán las lluvias
los jubilados cobrarán goteras
los millonarios dueños del diluvio
venderán lágrimas al por mayor
un capital se medirá por litros
cada empresa tendrá su remolino
su laguna prohibida a los foráneos
su museo de iodos prestigiosos
sus postales de nieve y de rocíos
y nosotros los pálidos sedientos
con la lengua reseca brindaremos
con el agua on the rocks.
Notas
(1) En la Declaración firmada por los Presidentes de los Estados parte del MERCOSUR en ocasión de la celebración de la I Cumbre Presidencial, el 17 de diciembre de 1991 en la ciudad de Brasilia, se señala en su punto 9 “9.- Los Presidentes destacaron la conveniencia de que las cuatro Repúblicas lleguen a la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo, en Río de Janeiro, en junio de 1992, con idénticas posiciones de principio e iguales propuestas, incluso en cuanto al tratamiento legislativo común de las infracciones y delitos contra el medio ambiente, recomendando, para ello, el empeño de sus organismos competentes”.
(2) El punto 10 de la Declaración suscripta tan sólo señalaba que “10. Los Presidentes del MERCOSUR tomaron nota con interés de la iniciativa de Uruguay con respecto al tema del Acuífero Guaraní, en el sentido de presentar las bases para un instrumento que aborde este tema”.
(3) Algunas referencias sobre el tema se encuentran en la Declaración Presidencial firmada en Puerto Iguazú el 8 de julio de 2004, tras la clausura de la XXVI Cumbre de Presidentes del MERCOSUR, donde en su punto 28 se señala que los Presidentes “Coincidieron en la importancia de adoptar compromisos a nivel MERCOSUR con relación al Acuífero Guaraní y, en este contexto, manifestaron su apoyo a la creación de un Grupo Ad Hoc de Alto Nivel, en el que los Estados Partes debatirán los principios básicos y lineamientos que garanticen sus derechos sobre los recursos hídricos del Acuífero, como así también las políticas y medidas que impulsen la protección ambiental del Acuífero y el desarrollo sustentable, con miras a la eventual suscripción de un acuerdo sobre la materia”; en la Declaración Presidencial de diciembre del mismo año, tras la XXVII Cumbre Presidencial desarrollada en Ouro Preto en ocasión de celebrarse el décimo aniversario de la Firma del protocolo de Ouro Preto. En dicha ocasión, y en referencia a la cuestión del Acuífero Guaraní, los Presidentes “Reafirmaron que los recursos hídricos del Acuífero Guaraní integran el dominio territorial soberano de la Argentina, Brasil, Paraguay y Uruguay y decidieron convocar a una Conferencia de los Estados Partes para concluir la negociación de un acuerdo sobre el Acuífero Guaraní, con base en el proyecto elaborado por el Grupo Ad Hoc de Alto Nivel, que se reunió en el segundo semestre de 2004”.
Y finalmente, como corolario de la XXVIII Cumbre Presidencial del MERCOSUR, desarrollada entre el 18 y el 20 de junio de 2005 en la ciudad de Asunción del Paraguay, los Presidentes de la región “Destacaron los importantes avances logrados en el marco del “Grupo Ad Hoc de Alto Nivel del Acuífero Guaraní” para la elaboración del “Proyecto de Acuerdo sobre el Acuífero Guaraní”, que tiene como cometido reafirmar la soberanía de los Estados Partes sobre el referido Acuífero, la defensa de este extraordinario patrimonio para evitar su contaminación y determinar el uso de este recurso natural transfronterizo. Expresaron sus deseos de que la Conferenciala Conferencia y proponer fórmulas para resolver los temas aún pendientes”. convocada por el CMC concluya el Acuerdo, y concordaron en realizar los máximos esfuerzos posibles para apoyar los trabajos de
Virginia María Chiesa
Abogada (UNR) - Rep. Argentina. Alumna de la “Maestría en Sistemas Ambientales Humanos”, Centro de Estudios Interdisciplinarios (U.N.R.). Adscripta en la asignatura “Derecho Agrario y Ambiental”, Cátedra “B” (U.N.R) - (cursando 2do. año). Participante del “Grupo de Interés de Agronegocios” de la Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales de la Universidad Austral de Rosario. Autora del libro: “MERCOSUR: Un nuevo desafío para la humanidad. La crisis del agua” UNR Editora: e-mail: apistone@unr.edu.ar, prólogo: Dr. Luis Orlando Andorno y de otros artículos sobre recursos hídricos. E-mail: virginiachiesa@argentina.com
Eduardo Rivas
Licenciado en Ciencia Política (UBA) - Rep. Argentina y Magíster en Estudios da Unión Europea (UdC) - España. Investigador corresponsal en Argentina del equipo de investigación «Intégrations dans les Amériques Latines» del Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur l'Amérique latine (CREDAL) y del Institut des Hautes Études de l'Amérique latine (IHEAL) - Université de Paris III - Sorbonne Nouvelle.". Autor de publicaciones sobre integración regional en Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, etc. E-mail: eduardo-rivas@advancedsl.com.ar
Monday, March 19, 2007
March on the Pentagon - The Soldiers Speak
C-SPAN video from Saturday's March on the Pentagon, featuring antiwar soldiers Jonathan Hutto, Liam Madden, Darrell Anderson, and Garett Reppenhagen
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Cuba Que Linda Es Cuba...
Anyone following the news in recent times cannot be unaware of the wave of progressive change sweeping Latin America and the Caribbean. For many lonely years Cuba held high the torch through its exemplary programs to provide universal health care and education, both gratis, along with world class cultural, sports and scientific achievements. Although you won´t find a Cuban today who says things are perfect, far from it, probably all would agree that compared with pre-revolutionary Cuba there is a world of improvement. All this they did against every effort by the United States to isolate them as an unacceptable example of independence and self-determination, using every dirty method including infiltration, sabotage, terrorism, assassination, economic and biological warfare and incessant lies in the cooperating media of many countries. I know these methods too well, having been a CIA officer in Latin America in the 1960´s. Altogether nearly 3500 Cubans have died from terrorist acts, and more than 2000 are permanently disabled. No country has suffered terrorism as long and consistently as Cuba.
FULL ARTICLE by Philip Agee
One has to wonder if Chavez will next emulate Cuba with a permaculture/sustainability initiative in Venezuela. Much of the country has been dreadfully deforested, and the urban populations are still jammed into a lot of bidonvilles on dangerous mountainsides.
This article on the accelerating “continental drift” of Latin America focuses on Cuba, but raises many questions about the other nations there, just as Bush is inking deals for sugar-alcohol with Lula to the background noise of angry mass demonstrations.
I’m glad Agee has taken the time to show why many of us still stick by Cuba, and by Castro. History will show him to be one of the mosty decent people of our time… warts and all… because he accepted when he was wrong and took corrective action, and because he never saw himself as anything except “a river to his people.”
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