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By Carol Pagaduan-Araullo

Venezuela marks the first death anniversary of its charismatic, outspoken and hugely popular President, Hugo Chavez, in the midst of relatively small but persistent street protests that have turned violent and even deadly, originating from well-to-do municipalities, and led by Opposition figures that unabashedly want to bring down the government of Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’ successor.

Most international media coverage of the unrest in Caracas, the capital, highlights the death toll of 18 including a former beauty contestant, the purportedly large number of students participating, and the issues being raised centering around criminality, inflation, product shortages and alleged state repression of the protests.  Maduro’s accusation that the demonstrations are US-instigated and led by “fascists” is also invariably mentioned.  This is corroborated by Venezuela’s expulsion of high-ranking US embassy officials that was quickly followed by the US’ expulsion of Venezuelan diplomats.

Nonetheless, there is grudging acknowledgement that while the Maduro government appears “weakened” by the protests, the Opposition is not strong enough to bring about “regime change”, the US government’s buzz word for the overthrow of what it deems to be an “illegitimate” government.  What it really means is the taking down of a government unfriendly or hostile to US interests in a coup d’etat by disgruntled, foreign-backed military officials, sparked by orchestrated anti-government demonstrations and fueled by the creeping demonization even of democratically-elected governments like Chavez’ and now Maduro’s.

For Venezuelans, both supporters of the Maduro government that is continuing the essentially pro-poor, pro-people and anti-neoliberal globalization policies of the 14-year Chavez presidency, and those who oppose it, led by the socio-economic elite that engineered crippling strikes, a coup and several failed attempts to oust Chavez through recall referenda, the scenarios unfolding would be familiar by now given the events of the last fifteen years.  Since 1999, Chavez had counted mainly on active grassroots support and it is this strong backing that the Opposition is now hoping it could break with Chavez gone.

But the struggle of either side to prevail also counts a lot on international public opinion that unfortunately is subject to manipulation and distortion by the global media.  The Maduro government is at a disadvantage in this regard since global media is largely dominated by ideological and political views hostile to the Bolivarian Revolution (as Chavez’ wide-ranging socio-economic and political reforms have been named) given its control by Western corporate interests.

That is why any objective appraisal of the Chavez legacy, and the efforts of the Maduro government to defend and entrench it in the face of unrelenting attacks by its enemies, requires a familiarity and understanding of the phenomenon of Hugo Chavez, the impact of his radical reform movement on Venezuelan society, and what fuels the continuing political conflicts that have managed to grab international media attention in the first quarter of the year.

Hugo Chavez began inauspiciously as the son of primary school teachers who lived in a dirt-floor adobe house in a cattle state in Western Venezuela.  As a young military officer he saw action against the Maoist rebel group called Red Flag and objected to the military’s brutal war against the guerillas even as he saw the validity of their struggle against the inequities of Venezuelan society.

Chavez launched a coup in 1992 together with young military officers he had organized secretly but it failed and Chavez was sent to prison.  Released after two years, he set up a political party, the Fifth Republic Movement, quickly gaining nationwide grassroots support that eventually catapulted him to the presidency in the 1998 elections with 56% of the votes.

Chavez was reelected to office three times, each with majority votes. First,  in 2000, after he introduced a new constitution which increased rights for marginalized groups and major political reforms including the right of the people to recall its elected officials from the highest to the lowest positions through a referendum.  Chavez’ second term would be  hallmarked by democratic initiatives, i.e. a system of Bolivarian Missions, Communal Councils and worker-managed cooperatives, as well as a program of land reform and the nationalization of  various key industries.

In 2006, Chavez won a third term after he survived a 2002 coup that saw him returned to power in 48 hours.   Finally in 2012, he was elected to another six-year term which he was unable to serve because of a worsening cancer that led to his demise on March 5, 2013.

The strong support of the Venezuelan masses to the Chavez government (and which the Maduro government continues to enjoy) is a testament to how the lives of the ordinary people had improved under the Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolutionary Government. Another measure which might be seen as more objective, being independent and more quantifiable, is the UN Human Development Index for Venezuela.

From 2000 to 2012, the GNI (Gross National Income) per capita income increased by 24% from USD 9,446 to 11,745.  Life expectancy at birth increased 3% from 72.4 to 74.6 years.  Expected years of schooling went up by 37% from 10.5 to 14.4years; mean years of schooling by 29% from 5.9 years to 7.6.  All in all, the HDI of Venezuela rose by 13% from 0.662 to 0.748, placing it in the “high human development” category, ranking 71 out of 187 countries and territories.

Venezuela’s HDI values are generally higher than the average for Latin America and the Caribbean.  Just for comparison, the Philippines is in medium human development category, ranking 114 out of 187 countries.  Its HDI is 0.654 where average life expectancy is 69 years; mean years of schooling is 8.9 years; expected years of schooling is 11.7 years; and GNI per capita is USD3,752.)

The Chavez presidency is derided by the Western press as “polarizing” or “divisive” even as they make mention of how Chavez had definitely uplifted the lot of two-thirds of the Venezuelan people who had been mired in poverty and backwardness with redistributive programs funded by the oil wealth of the country hitherto enjoyed only by the economic and political elite of the old order.

In a society with a yawning chasm of income disparity and the social inequalities that accompany it, together with the political exclusion and repression that have been part and parcel of the Venezuelan political landscape, social unrest, turmoil and armed resistance are a fact of life.  Chavez did not bring  about such a state of affairs.  In fact 1989 saw the Caracazo or “the big one in Caracas”, a wave of protests, riots, looting, shootings and massacres by state security forces of hundreds of people protesting the effects of IMF-World Bank neoliberal policy prescriptions on the people’s standard of living.

The qualitative difference is that the Chavez government then, and now the Maduro government, champions the right of the people to what the UN calls the three basic dimensions of human development — a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living — against the wishes and machinations of the retrogressive US-sponsored elite who are hurting from the Venezuelan government’s democratizing reforms.

In short, the elite (and those among the middle class who, wittingly or unwittingly, have been lured into thinking like the elite) simply want a return to the benighted pre-Chavez era wherein generations of the poor and exploited masses of Venezuelans have no rights, no hope and no future.

In an ironic twist, the same elite, utilizing its high-profile media advantage and, of course, moral, political and funding support from the US, are currently mounting street demonstrations and violent attacks on Chavistas and government officials, in a bid to pass themselves off as anti-authoritarian, peaceful protesters with “legitimate” grievances.  Part 2 of this column will focus on the current destabilization moves by the US and local oppositionists versus the Maduro government.#

March 2014

Business World8

 

 

By Countercurrents

One pro-EU-US leader has suggested grabbing guns to kill Russians while rightists, as a show of anarchy, are robbing train passengers.

A RT report, “Time to grab guns and kill damn Russians – Tymoshenko in leaked tape” ( March 24, 2014, http://on.rt.com/6auysa), said: “Ukrainians must take up arms against Russians so that not even scorched earth will be left where Russia stands; an example of former Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko’s vitriol in phone call leaked online.

“Tymoshenko confirmed the authenticity of the conversation on Twitter while pointing out that a section where she is heard to call for the nuclear slaughter of the eight million Russians who remain on Ukrainian territory was edited.

“She tweeted ‘ The conversation took place, but the ‘8 million Russians in Ukraine ‘ piece is an edit. In fact, I said Russians in Ukraine – are Ukrainians. Hello FSB 🙂 Sorry for the obscene language.’

“The former Ukrainian PM has not clarified who exactly she wants to nuke.

“Shufrych’s press service flatly contradicted Tymoshenko, slamming the tape as fake. The press release reads ‘The conversation didn’t take place,’ as quoted by korrespondent.net.The phone conversation with Nestor Shufrych, former deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, was uploaded on YouTube on Monday by user Sergiy Vechirko.”

The report added:

“The leaked phone call took placed on March 18, hours after the Crimea & Sevastopol accession treaty was signed in the Kremlin.

“While Shufrych was ‘ just shocked,’ Tymoshenko was enraged by the results of the Crimean referendum.

“‘This is really beyond all boundaries. It’s about time we grab our guns and kill go kill those damn Russians together with their leader,’ Tymoshenko said.

“The ex-pm declared if she was in charge ‘there would be no f***ing way that they would get Crimea then.’

“Shufrych made the valid point that Ukraine ‘ didn’t have any force potential’ to keep Crimea .

“But Tymoshenko, who plans to run in Ukraine ‘s presidential election, expressed confidence that she would have found ‘ a way to kill those a*****es.’

“‘I hope I will be able to get all my connections involved. And I will use all of my means to make the entire world raise up, so that there wouldn’t be even a scorched field left in Russia ,’ she promised.

“Despite being incapacitated by spinal disc hernia the ex-PM stressed she’s ready to ‘grab a machine gun and shoot that m*********er in the head.’”

Tymoshenko rose to power as a key figure in the pro-EU “Orange Revolution” in 2004, becoming Ukrainian prime minister 2007-2010. She was imprisoned in 2012, under president Viktor Yanukovich, after being found guilty of exceeding her authority by signing a gas supply and transit deal with Russia . Tymoshenko served part of her seven-year sentence in prison before being relocated to a Kharkov hospital. She was released immediately after the Kiev coup which ousted Yanukovich.

The report also cited other incidents:

“This is not the first telephone leak scandal since the Ukrainian turmoil began last November.

“In February, a tape was revealed, in which US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, Victoria Nuland, said ‘F**k the EU’ as she was discussing the formation of the future Ukrainian government with the US ambassador to the country, Geoffrey Pyatt.

“At the beginning of March a phone conversation between EU Foreign Affairs ?hief, Catherine Ashton, and Estonian foreign affairs minister, Urmas Paet, was made public.

”Speaking with Ashton, Paet stressed that there was suspicion that the snipers in Kiev , who shot at protesters and police in Kiev might have been hired by Maidan leaders.”

Robbing train passengers

Citing a Russian foreign ministry statement RT in another report (“‘Revival of anarchy’: Ukraine radicals rob Russia-Moldova train passengers”, March 24, 2014, http://on.rt.com/2huz5q) said:

“The recent robbing of passengers, traveling from Russia to Moldova via Ukraine ‘s territory, by a local ultra-nationalist Insurgent Army is a manifestation of ‘anarchy’.

“On March 21, the train, en route from Moscow to the capital of Moldova , Chisinau, made a scheduled stop in the city of Vinnitsa in central Ukraine .

“‘ To the horror of passengers…people dressed in the uniform of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) got into carriages and began a “document check”. People who showed Russian passports were then made to hand over their money and golden jewelry, ‘ the Russian Ministry said on Monday in a statement published on its website.

“The robbery was accompanied with ‘political sensitization’, diplomats said.

“ Moscow also said it was ‘bewildered’ by the refusal of the Ukrainian police to take any action when the victims attempted to file a report.

“‘ That is the kind of “rule of law” that is currently being formed in Ukraine ,’ the ministry said. ‘ It seems that the anarchy of the beginning of the 20th century is reviving .’

Citing an NTV report the RT report mentioned another incident:

“A similar incident occurred with passengers traveling from the Ukrainian city of Krivoy Rog to the Russian capital … However, this time it was either Ukrainian border guards or customs service officers who were involved.

“According to passengers, during the border control procedure, Ukrainian officers grabbed passports from Russian citizens providing them with no explanation.

“Passenger, Angela Piskokha, told NTV that Ukrainian officials then offered her the opportunity to buy back her own passport for 6,000 rubles (US$ 166).

Russia and G-8

Meanwhile, the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has made comments on decision by the West to keep Russia excluded from the G-8: Russia is not clinging to the G-8 format, as all major world problems can be discussed at other international venues such as G-20. “The G8 is an informal club, no one gives out membership cards and no one can expel members,” Lavrov told a media conference at the Hague . “If our Western partners believe that this format has exhausted itself, let it be. We are not clinging to it.” (RT, “ Russia not clinging to G8 if West does not want it – Russian FM”, March 24, 2014)

He went on to say that many believe that the G-8 has already fulfilled its mission as many issues are now discussed at the G-20 forum.

“Generally speaking, there are also other formats for considering many questions, including the UN Security Council, the Middle East Quartet and the P5+1 on the Iranian nuclear problem,” Lavrov told journalists.

The Minister also commented on earlier reports regarding Australia considering not inviting Russian president Vladimir Putin to the November G-20 meeting, which is going to be held in Brisbane .

“The G-20 was not established by Australia , which voiced the proposal not to invite Russia to the meeting. We created the format all together,” Lavrov said.

G-7 – Canada , France , Germany , Italy , Japan , the UK and the US – leaders are also holding a gathering at The Hague .

Lavrov is in the Netherlands , where representatives of over 50 states and chiefs of the UN, the EU, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the European Police Office have gathered for the Nuclear Security Summit to address the threat of nuclear terrorism.

On the sidelines of the gathering, Lavrov met with US Secretary of State John Kerry and yet again discussed the Ukraine question.

Both Moscow and Washington understand that Ukraine needs constitutional reform, Lavrov said.

“We discussed the necessity to call on the authorities in Kiev to pay serious attention to the constitutional reform, which would take into consideration the interests of all Ukrainian regions,” he said.

However, Lavrov admitted, that it is their evaluation of the situation and they “cannot impose” this idea on the Ukrainian leadership. Still, it would be very difficult to overcome the “ Ukraine ‘s deep internal crisis” without such a reform, the Russian minister believes.

According to Lavrov, Kerry realizes that it is necessary to “push” the Ukrainian authorities into fulfilling the February 21 agreement on the crisis settlement, which was signed by ousted President Viktor Yanukovich, opposition leaders and foreign ministers of Germany , France and Poland .

On Friday, Ukraine ‘s coup-imposed government and the EU signed the core elements of a political association agreement; this is part of the deal with the EU (that was predominantly economic) that Yanukovich put on hold in November, which resulted in mass bloody unrest and his ousting.

In Lavrov’s view, the coup-installed authorities in Kiev should have waited until a legitimate government was formed in the country after elections, and should have only then decided whether to sign an agreement with Brussels.

25 March 2014

Countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents.org

Yugoslavia was bombed for 78 days. About 2,000 Yugoslav citizens died in the bombings. The air invasion started 15 years ago, in 1999. NATO either completely destroyed or damaged 40,000 homes.

Thousands of sorties of air strikes were made. International news organizations including Reuters and AFP sent news and photographs of the bombings, a few of which are above.

The bombings beginning from March 24 were called by Bill Clinton, the then US president, as “important to America’s national interests” and “humanitarian intervention”.

A RT report (“15yo NATO bombings of Yugoslavia in 15 dramatic photos”, March 24, 2014, http://on.rt.com/s3kp7d) said:

Clinton announced the bombing of Serbia.

NATO aircrafts took off from bases in Italy and Germany, the first of 1,000 sorties under operation “Noble Anvil”.

Along with carrying bombings, NATO launched Tomahawk missiles with 1,000-pound warheads from ships in the Mediterranean and Adriatic at military facilities in Pristina, Podgorica, Batajnica and an air base near Belgrade. Serbian night skies were lit by fire from NATO bomb air missile explosions.

At an emergency UNSC meeting only Russia, China and Namibia supported a resolution condemning NATO’s aggression.

NATO insisted it would only bomb military targets in Yugoslavia, regularly issuing photos to support the claim. However, the so-called “humanitarian intervention” killed 2,000 civilians. NATO destroyed homes and schools, libraries and hospitals, dismissing it as ‘collateral damage’. Vehicles burned in front of a Belgrade hospital as it was hit by NATO air strikes.

In one NATO air strike on April 26, six Serbian TV workers died.

Serbs in Belgrade protested against NATO air invasion on March 29.

In April, Belgrade announced a unilateral ceasefire to mark the Orthodox Easter and made an offer to allow refugees to return to Kosovo. The West replied with another night of bombing.

Thousands of people spent nights in bomb shelters.

In late May, NATO plunged Belgrade into darkness, destroying a power plant that supplied much of Serbia.

Refineries and chemical plants all over Serbia were destroyed, polluting the region’s ecology and damaging public health.

15 years after the NATO bombings, Serbia is still haunted by the memories of the aggression which cost it hundreds of lives.

25 March, 2014

Countercurrents.org

 

 

By Paul Craig Roberts

“America does not at the moment have a functioning democracy.” Former US President Jimmy Carter

I doubt that the Ukraine crisis precipitated by Washington’s overthrow of the democratic government is over. Washington has won the propaganda war everywhere outside of Russia and Ukraine itself. Within Ukraine people are aware that the coup has made them worse off. The Crimea has already separated from the US puppet government in Kiev and rejoined Russia. Other parts of Russian Ukraine could follow.

In Kiev itself where the unelected, imposed-by-Washington dictatorial government resides, extreme right-wing Ukrainian nationalists, whose roots go back to fighting for National Socialist Germany, are at work intimidating public prosecutors, media editors, and the US imposed “government” itself. There is an abundance of videos available on the Internet, some made by the extreme nationalists themselves, that clearly reveal the intimidation of the imposed and unelected government installed by Washington..

In Kiev US bribes contend with naked neo-nazi force. Which will prevail?

The murder of ultra-nationalist Right Sector militant leader Myzychko by police of the acting Interior Minister of the American stooge government in Ukraine on March 25 has resulted in another Right Sector leader, Dmitry Yarosh, demanding the resignation of Arsen Avakov, the acting Interior Minister and the arrest of the police who killed Muzychko. Yarosh declared: “We cannot watch silently as the Interior Ministry works to undermine the revolution.” Right Sector organizer Roman Koval in Rovno, Ukraine, warned: “We will take revenge on Avakov for the death of our brother.”

How this will play out is uncertain at this time. The violence provided by the Right Sector and other ultra-nationalist groups was essential to the success of the Washington-backed coup in overthrowing the elected democratic government. But the Right Sector has emerged as both an embarrassment and a threat to the unelected coup government and to its Washington sponsors who are selling the Washington-installed puppet government as a progressive exercise in democracy. This sell is difficult when ultra-nationalist thugs are beating up the imposed government.

Could civil war break out in Kiev between the Right Sector and the government installed by Washington? We know that the Right Sector was sufficiently organized and disciplined to take over the protests. We don’t know how well organized is the Washington puppet government or what force this group has at its disposal. We don’t know whether Washington has provided mercenaries to protect the government Washington has installed. It is not clear at this time where the power balance lies between the Right Sector and the US stooge government.

The American, UK, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, EU propaganda machine has blamed Putin for all the trouble. But so far the Russian government has not had to do anything except comply with the self-determination of the people in the Russian areas of Ukraine. Much of Ukraine, as it exists or existed today, consists of Russian territories added to Ukraine by Soviet rulers.

When Ukraine became independent with Russia’s agreement when the Soviet Union collapsed, had the Russian territories first been put back into Russia from whence they came, Washington’s coup would not have resulted in the same level of crisis.

Instead, under Washington’s pressure, the Russian territory was retained by Ukraine, and in compensation Russia was given a 50-year lease on Sevastopol, Russia’s Black Sea naval base.

The purpose of the Washington financed and orchestrated coup in Kiev was to put

Ukraine, with its artificial boundaries, into the EU and NATO and to evict Russia from its

warm water port and ring Russia with US missile bases. Washington and its European puppets described this as “bringing democracy to Ukraine.”

Ukraine already had democracy, a young one trying to put down roots, and Washington

destroyed it. As Russian President Putin observed, overthrowing a brand new democracy destroys democracy. Washington’s coup established for Ukraine the precedent that force and propaganda rule, not democracy.

But Washington cares not for democracy, only for its agenda. And Russia, China, and Iran are in the way.

The neoconservatives, who have controlled US foreign policy since the Clinton regime, concluded that the Soviet collapse meant that History has chosen America as the socio-economic system for the world. They declared the US to be “exceptional” and “indispensable” and above international law. Washington had a free pass to invade, murder, destroy, and dominate. The neoconservative claims of “American exceptionalism” sound like Hitler’s claims for the German nation. When the White House sock puppet expressed in a speech the claim of American exceptionalism, Putin replied: “God made us all equal.”

Washington’s opinion is that the exceptional and indispensable nation–the US–is above not only all other nations but also above law. What Washington does is legal. What anyone else does in opposition is illegal.

Washington’s intervention in Ukraine has unleashed dark forces. Yulia Tymoshenko, the criminal Ukrainian oligarch, who braids her hair or hair piece over her head like a crown, was released from prison by Washington’s stooges and has not stopped putting her foot, or both feet, in her mouth. Her latest in her intercepted and leaked telephone conversation is her declaration that “it’s about time we grab our guns and go kill those damn Russians together with their leader.” She declared that not even scorched earth should be left where Russia stands. http://rt.com/news/tymoshenko-calls-destroy-russia-917/

Tymoshenko was sentenced to prison by Ukrainians, not by Russians. Contrast her extreme language and Russophobia with the calm measured tones of Putin, who reaffirms Russia’s interest to continue good relations with Ukraine.

On March 23 Tymoshenko was interviewed by the German newspaper, Bild, a mouthpiece for Washington. The crazed Tymoshenko declared that Putin was even more dangerous than Hitler. http://rt.com/news/tymoshenko-calls-destroy-russia-917/

This year 2014 is the 100th anniversary of World War 1. As my Oxford professor, Michael Polanyi, said, this was the war that destroyed Europe. He meant culturally and morally as well as physically. As John Maynard Keynes made clear in his prediction, the propagandistic way in which World War 1 was blamed on Germany and the “peace” that was imposed on Germany set up World War 2.

We are witnesses today to the same kind of propagandistic lies with regard to Russia that caused World War 1. In The Genesis Of The World War, Harry Elmer Barnes quotes the French chief editor of a French account of the organization of propaganda in France during World War 1. The French built a massive building called La Maison de la Presse. In this building images of people were created with hands cut off, tongues torn out, eyes gouged out, and skulls crushed with brains laid bare. These images were then photographed and “sent as unassailable evidence of German atrocities to all parts of the globe, where they did not fail to produce the desired effect.” Also provided were “fictitious photographs of bombarded French and Belgian churches, violated graves and monuments and scenes of ruins and desolation. The staging and painting of these scenes were done by the best scene-painters of the Paris Grand Opera.”

This vicious propaganda against Germany meant that Germany could be blamed for the war and that all of President Woodrow Wilson’s guarantees to Germany of no reparations and no territorial loss if Germany agreed to an armistice could be violated. The propaganda success guaranteed that the peace settlement would be so one-sided as to set up the Second World War.

Russia has observed Washington’s strategic moves against Russian national interests and Russian sovereignty for two decades. What does Putin think when he hears the vicious anti-Russian propaganda based 100% in lies?

This is what Putin thinks: The Americans promised Gorbachev that they would not take NATO into Eastern Europe, but the Americans did. The Americans withdrew from the ABM Treaty, which prohibited escalating the arms race with anti-ballistic missile systems. The Americans arranged with Poland to deploy anti-ballistic missile bases on Poland’s border with Russia. The Americans tell us the fantastic lie that the purpose of American missile bases in Poland is to protect Europe from non-existent Iranian ICBMs. The Americans change their war doctrine to elevate nuclear weapons from a retaliatory deterrent to a pre-emptive first strike force. The Americans pretend that this change in war doctrine is directed at terrorists, but we know it is directed at Russia. The Americans have financed “color revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine and hope to do so in the Russian Federation itself. The Americans support the terrorists in Chechnya. The Americans trained and equipped the Georgian military and gave it the green light to attack our peacekeepers in South Ossetia. The Americans have financed the overthrow of the elected government in Ukraine and blame me for the anxiety this caused among Crimeans who on their own volition fled Ukraine and returned to Russia from whence they came. Even Gorbachev said that Khrushchev should never have put Crimea into Ukraine. Solzhenitsyn said that Lenin should not have put Russian provinces into eastern and southern Ukraine. Now I have these Russian provinces agitating to return to Russia, and the Americans are blaming me for the consequences of their own reckless and irresponsible actions.

The Americans say I want to rebuild the Soviet Empire. Yet, the Americans witnessed me depart from Georgia when I had this former Russian province in my hands, thanks to the short-lived war instigated by the Americans.

There is no end to the American lies. I have done everything possible to respond to provocations in a low-key reasonable manner, offering to work things out diplomatically, as has my Foreign Minister Lavrov. But the Americans continue to provoke and to hide their provocations behind lies. The Americans brazenly bring to me a strategic threat in Ukraine. They intend to put Ukraine in NATO, the purpose of which expired with the Soviet collapse. They intend to put more missile bases on Russia’s borders, and they intended to evict Russia from its Black Sea naval base, its warm water port

Americans have no intention of working anything out. They intend to subjugate Russia. Washington wants Russia powerless, surrounded with ABM bases that degrade our strategic deterrent to uselessness. These Americans will not work with me. They will not listen to me or to Russia’s Foreign Minister. They only hear their own call for American hegemony over the world. My only alternative is to prepare for war.

The government of China, having read Washington’s war plans for war against China and being fully away of Washington’s “pivot to Asia,” in which the “indispensable nation” announced its “safe-guarding of peace” by surrounding China with naval and air bases, understands that it has the same Washington enemy as does Russia.

What the entire world faces, every country, every individual regardless of their political orientation, is a Washington-engineered confrontation with Russia and China. This confrontation is enabled by Washington’s bought-and-paid-for European and UK puppet states. Without the cover provided by Europe, Washington’s acts of aggression would result in war crimes charges against the government in Washington. The world would not be able to enforce these charges without war, but Washington would be isolated.

The European, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and UK governments have betrayed not only their own peoples but also the peoples of the entire world by lending the support of Western Civilization to Washington’s lawlessness.

The propaganda that the West represents the hope of the world is a great lie.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal.

26 March, 2014

Paulcraigroberts.org

 

China’s proposal to build a New Silk Road Economic Belt is poised to spearhead positive change in Central Asia and beyond. In a recent interview with a Beijing Review reporter, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and President of the Schiller Institute, an economic and political think tank headquartered in the United States and Germany, shared her thoughts on the ambitious multinational plan. Excerpts follow: 

Beijing Review: What are your opinions regarding the New Silk Road Economic Belt as a blueprint for regional cooperation?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: I’m very happy about it because it will transform this region of the world in a positive way and it will increase the living standard of the population there.

There is a general recognition in the world that the New Silk Road is only the beginning of a much larger integration of the world economy. We are very happy about this initiative because it will be the beginning of a complete new epoch of civilization.

The Central Asian region has undergone major security and economic pressures due to threats such as terrorism in recent decades. In what ways will the establishment of the New Silk Road Economic Belt affect change in the area?

Drug production in Afghanistan has increased 40 times since NATO moved in there 13 years ago. The profit from that drug production has become the financial support of terrorism. I think there must be international cooperation among all neighboring countries of Afghanistan, i.e. China, Russia, India, Iran and hopefully others, to wipe out the drug traffic. The drug traffic problem has become a major security problem for Russia—hundreds of thousands of people die every year as a result of drug smuggling from Afghanistan. It has become a big security problem for China, because one of the drug routes goes through Xinjiang. It is also feeding terrorists in Tajikistan, Russia’s Chechnya, Pakistan and the whole region from Afghanistan all the way to Syria, North Africa and even Central Africa. This has become a major source of threat to the stability of the region.

There must be international efforts to stabilize this region. That is why we have been proposing a very concrete extension of the Eurasian Land Bridge to the whole region, and even to Afghanistan, Syria and North Africa. You have to give incentive to the population and let them see the economic cooperation that gives them the chance to have a better future. There is better incentive than to go to drug production, or to support terrorism, which many people do because it’s being paid. Many people are just poor. You have to change the entire region with an economic development prospect which can only come from the New Silk Road Economic Belt.

How will the overall geopolitical situation in Central Asia change with such an economic belt? What would be the implications for the international community?

I think we are now at a moment of history where the old geopolitical thinking is not functioning anymore. Right now we see an immediate war danger coming out of the development of Ukraine. You have to see the effort to pick Ukraine away from Russia in connection to the U.S. defense systems in Poland, Romania and the Aegis destroyer sent to Spain, which shows the first-strike doctrine. The Russians have said very clearly that they will not accept this U.S. missile defense system being built in the third or the fourth phase, because it’s aimed to take out the second-strike capability of Russia. There is a similar Utopian policy against China in the form of the air-sea battle doctrine in the Pacific which has the illusion that you can basically disarm China without China being able to defend itself, which China has clearly refuted.

If you look at the whole situation, we are on the road to World War III. That is our absolute conviction and it has everything to do with the fact that the West European and U.S. financial system is about to blow out, and the Pacific countries are prospering. Now the collapse of the financial system will happen. It can be saved if you get rid of the casino aspect of economy. It is fortunate that not all people are going for this war escalation.

The countries in Central Asia will be confronted with: Do they want to join the only available solution, which is the New Silk Road? The normal thinking is ethnic and historical tensions will all be superseded by the big issue of the financial collapse and the danger of World War III. We need to change the paradigm quickly and abandon the idea of solving problems through war, and stop thinking in terms of geopolitics. We must focus on the common aims of mankind or we all may not exist.

We have 2 billion people starving every day. Many of those are in Africa but also in other developing countries. We are in a breakdown crisis. If there is any future for mankind, we have to go to a completely different way of cooperating in our mutually beneficial interests. I think the Eurasian Land Bridge or the New Silk Road has the idea of improving the living standard in all the landlocked areas of Eurasia. It is a new phase of evolution because as we look at the first people many thousand years ago, they settled at the oceans and then the river systems. It took quite some development for people to conquer the landlocked areas through roads and channels between the rivers, and this process has not yet been completed.

In Eurasia we have many landlocked areas which are not easily accessible because they are not yet developed from the standpoint of waterways or railways, as there are only dirt roads. So we have to do a lot of work in the next 20-50 years. I think the key thing is to get a change in the thinking of the responsible people before it’s too late.

Emerging economies, particularly the BRICS member countries, have been the engine of the global economy for the past few years. But some economists pointed out that the development of emerging economies has slowed down due to the global economic crisis, predicting these economies would be unable to sustain their growth. Do you agree with them? 

It depends. If you stay within the system of globalization, then the future will not look so great because the system is collapsing right now. There are people even in the United States like Vice Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Thomas Hoenig, who made the argument that the financial system is so bankrupt that if one or two of the too-big-to-fail banks go bankrupt, it will bring down the whole system because of the connection of the market segments.

The derivatives have created a situation where once a major bank like the Lehman Brothers collapses, then the whole system could evaporate immediately. Some people even talk about the system collapsing like a supernova, a star dying. That is why it is so super urgent that we go to a different system and stop thinking about high profits like speculation and money making money—the whole crazy ideology that has developed during the last 50 years. We have to go back to the idea of focusing on the real economy.

The idea of the New Silk Road should not only be extended to Central Asia, but be made the concept of improving the living condition of the entire planet. That means the emerging economies will have a very bright future, as they become part of the Silk Road and join in the development. If they succeed in putting that on their agenda, I think we are at the beginning of a very promising new epoch.

Unlike the New Silk Road, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) for Asia and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) for the transatlantic world will really go one more step in the direction of a world empire, whereby the 500 largest corporations would have all the power, and the power of civilian governments will be diminished. We should oppose this conception because it does not serve the well-being of the population, but it does serve the profits of the CEOs of the 500 largest firms. The latest statistics show that the world’s 85 richest people hold as much wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion, or half of world population. Why should 85 people have the fortune of half of mankind? The TPP and the TTIP would escalate that even more. It will just lead to mass starvation and mass poverty, which are already getting bigger and bigger. Therefore the need for reform is very, very urgent.

By Colin Todhunter

Indian Oil and Environment Minister Veerappa Moily has added fuel to the debate about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) by approving field trials of 200 GM food crops on behalf of companies like Monsanto, Mahyco, Bayer and BASF. This is despite Supreme Court appointed Techn ical Expert Committee (TEC) recommending a ten-year moratorium on GM organism approvals until scientifically robust protocols, independent and competent institutions to assess risks and a strong regulatory system are developed.

This will involve a deliberate release of GM organisms in the open environment and a potential contamination of non-GM crops, as has been the case in the US, with GM open field trials having contaminated parts of the wheat supply (1). Despite mounting evidence appearing in peer-reviewed journals that GM and glyphosate are adversely impacting human health, the nutritional value of food crops, plant immunity, soil fertility, biodiversity, the environment and yields (2 – 15), politicians seem hell-bent on facilitating the aims of the GM biotech sector.

It was a similar story with the ‘Green Revolution’. The Rockefeller and Ford Foundations backed this chemical-laden revolution in agriculture and managed to co-opt strategically placed scientists, institutions and politicians in various areas of the globe (16). With their compliance, the result has been that over the past 50 to 60 years, thanks to chemical fertilizers and pesticides, agriculture has changed more than it did during the previous 12,000 years.

We need look no further than Punjab to see the impact of the Green Revolution. Reports of water scarcities and contamination, increasing levels of cancer, farmer indebtedness and decreasing yields highlight the unsustainable and deleterious impacts of chemical-industrial agriculture (17). It all begs the question, what was wrong with agriculture in the first place that warranted this disastrous shift towards chemical agriculture and now GMOs? The answer to that is, by comparison, probably not a lot.

In 2013, researchers at the  University of  Canterbury in  New Zealand concluded that the GM strategy used in North American staple crop production is limiting yields and increasing pesticide use compared to non-GM farming in  Western Europe  (18). Led by Professor Jack Heinemann, the study’s findings were published in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability. The study found that  Europe is decreasing chemical herbicide use and achieving even larger declines in insecticide use without sacrificing yield gains, while chemical herbicide use in the  US has increased with GM seed. In effect,  Europe has learned to grow more food per hectare and use fewer chemicals in the process.

Moreover, a September 2013 report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) states that farming in rich and poor nations alike should shift from monoculture towards greater varieties of crops, reduce the use of fertilisers and other inputs, provide greater support for small-scale farmers and move towards more locally focused production and consumption of food. More than 60 international experts contributed to the report (19).

The report states that monoculture and industrial farming methods are not providing sufficient affordable food where it is needed, while causing mounting and unsustainable environmental damage. The system actually causes food poverty, not addresses it.

As for India, Arun Shrivastava notes that the world doesn’t need modern technology of poisonous pesticides, destructive fertilizers and patented GE seeds that can’t match 1890 or even 1760 AD yields in India (12). But even if we discard the debate over yields, Shrivastava (and others) asserts that modern technology has actually destroyed the nutrition in common foods and that, failing to set any yield or nutrition standard in any food crop, it is part of an insane industry that has muddled through.

So, how did we arrive at this stage, whereby 12,000 years of conventional farming were swept aside in favour of chemical/oil-based agriculture?

As William F Engdahl argues, the Green Revolution was a Rockefeller family plan to monopolize global agriculture as it had done with oil. It was aimed at removing traditional agriculture from farmers and placing it in the hands of corporate agribusiness. As a result, large multinational seed companies were able to control seed supplies. Moreover, the introduction of modern US agricultural technology, chemical fertilizers and commercial seeds made local farmers in developing countries dependent on US agribusiness.

Developing nations could not pay for the huge amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This new form of agriculture was also water intensive and required large irrigation projects. Nations would therefore get credit courtesy of the World Bank and special loans made large US banks to construct huge dams and flood previously fertile farmland. The loans went mostly to the large landowners. For the smaller peasants the situation worked differently. Small peasant farmers could not afford the chemical and other modern inputs and had to borrow money at higher rates of interest from elsewhere.

Engdahl notes that super-wheat produced greater yields only by saturating the soil with huge amounts of fertilizer per acre, the fertilizer being the product of nitrates and petroleum, commodities controlled by the Rockefeller-dominated major oil companies.

After two generations of the green revolution, is it any surprise that agriculture in India is in the grip of a combined social, financial and environmental crisis (20)?

Ordinary people, if they are not to be what Vandana Shiva calls ‘ignorant links in a malicious corporate-controlled food chain, therefore need to question why governments have kowtowed to a US-driven agenda of chemical and now GMO agriculture. Africa is now targeted for more of the same as the Gates Foundation spearheads the GMO onslaught in that continent (21).

12,000 years of traditional agriculture and biodiversity are being swept aside along with ordinary farmers by vested interests in the US whose geopolitical aim has to been to monopolize markets and ultimately use food as a weapon to control nations and people by destroying national food sovereignty and potentially using food as a means to depopulate (22,23).

“If you control the oil you control the country; if you control food, you control the population.” – Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (12)

Wider ‘corporate America’ is already setting the broad political, ‘development’ and economic agenda in India:

“And something Americans don’t know much about, the nuclear deal with  India  has a twin agreement, and that twin agreement is on agriculture. It’s called the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture, and on the board of this agreement are Monsanto,  ADM and Wal-Mart. So a grab of the seed sector by Monsanto, of the trade sector by the giant agribusiness, and the retail sector, which is 400 million people in  India , by Wal-Mart. These are issues that are preoccupying us regarding democracy in  India  right now. ” Vandana Shiva (24).

 

It’s not just ‘American’ that don’t know about this, but most ordinary Indians too!

But even with the upcoming national elections, no one should expect self-proclaimed Hindu-nationalist party BJP to protect the country from the foreign jackals if it gains power. BJP candidate for PM Narendra Modi is fully backed by Wall Street (25).

What future Indian agriculture?

What future India?

600 million booted off the land and the further hollowing out of Indian agriculture and society at the behest of Wall Street (26)?

Colin Todhunter : Originally from the northwest of England, Colin Todhunter has spent many years in India.

24 March, 2014

Countercurrents.org

 

By Jonathan Cook

 

Nazareth: For the first time since the US launched the Middle East peace talks last summer, the Palestinian leadership may be sensing it has a tiny bit of leverage.

Barack Obama met the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Washington last week in what Palestinian officials called a “candid and difficult” meeting. The US president hoped to dissuade Abbas from walking away when the original negotiations’ timetable ends in a month.

The US president and his secretary of state, John Kerry, want their much-delayed “framework agreement” to provide the pretext for spinning out the stalled talks for another year. The US outline for peace is now likely to amount to little more than a set of vague, possibly unwritten principles that both sides can assent to.

The last thing the US president needs is for the negotiations to collapse, after Kerry has repeatedly stressed that finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is imperative.

The US political cycle means Obama’s Democratic party is heading this autumn into the Congressional mid-term elections. A humiliating failure in the peace process would add to perceptions of him as a weak leader in the Middle East, following what has been widely presented as his folding in confrontations with Syria and Iran.

Renewed clashes between Israel and the Palestinians in the international arena would also deepen US diplomatic troubles at a time when Washington needs to conserve its energies for continuing negotiations with Iran and dealing with the fallout from its conflict with Russia over Crimea.

Obama therefore seems committed to keeping the peace process show on the road for a while longer, however aware he is of the ultimate futility of the exercise.

In this regard, US interests overlap with those of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel has been the chief beneficiary of the past eight months: diplomatic pressure has largely lifted; Israeli officials have announced an orgy of settlement building in return for releasing a few dozen Palestinian prisoners; and the White House has gradually shifted ground even further towards Israel’s hardline positions.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, have nothing to show for their participation, and have lost much of the diplomatic momentum gained earlier by winning upgraded status at the United Nations. They have also had to put on hold moves to join dozens of international forums, as well as the threat to bring Israel up on war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court.

Abbas is under mounting pressure at home to put an end to the charade, with four Palestinian factions warning last week that the Kerry plan would be the equivalent of national “suicide”. For this reason, the White House is now focused on preventing Abbas from quitting next month – and that requires a major concession from Israel.

The Palestinians are said to be pushing hard for Israel’s agreement to halt settlement building and free senior prisoners, most notably Marwan Barghouti, who looks the most likely successor to Abbas as Palestinian leader.

Some kind of short-term settlement freeze – though deeply unpopular with Netanyahu’s supporters – may be possible, given the Israeli right’s triumph in advancing settlement-building of late. Abbas reportedly presented Obama with “a very ugly map” of more than 10,000 settler homes Israel has unveiled since the talks began.

Setting Barghouti free, as well as Ahmad Saadat, whose PLO faction assassinated the far-right tourism minister, Rehavam Zeevi, in 2001, would be an even harder pill for the Israeli government to swallow. Cabinet ministers are already threatening a mutiny over the final round of prisoner releases, due at the end of the week. But Israeli reports on Sunday suggested Washington might consider releasing Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, possibly in return for Israel freeing more Palestinians, to keep the talks going.

Simmering tensions between the US and Israel, however, are suggestive of the intense pressure being exerted by the White House behind the scenes.

Those strains exploded into view again last week when Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s defence minister, used a speech to lambast Washington’s foreign policy as “feeble”. In a similar vein, he infuriated the White House in January by labelling Kerry “obsessive” and “messianic” in pursuing the peace process. But unlike the earlier incident, Washington has refused to let the matter drop, angrily demanding an explicit apology.

The pressure from the White House, however, is not chiefly intended to force concessions from Israel on an agreement. After all, the Israeli parliament approved this month the so-called referendum bill, seen by the right as an insurance policy. It gives the Israeli public, raised on the idea of Jerusalem as Israel’s exclusive and “eternal capital”, a vote on whether to share it with the Palestinians.

Washington’s goal is more modest: a few more months of quiet. But even on this reckoning, given Netanyahu’s intransigence, the talks are going to implode sooner or later. What then?

Obama and Kerry have set out a convincing scenario that in the longer term Israel will find itself shunned by the world. The Palestinian leadership will advance its cause at the UN, while conversely grassroots movements inside and outside Palestine will begin clamouring for a single state guaranteeing equality between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. Israel’s vehement and aggressive opposition on both fronts will only serve to damage its image – and its relations with the US.

An unexpected voice backing the one-state solution emerged last week when Tareq Abbas, the Palestinian president’s 48-year-old son, told the New York Times that a struggle for equal rights in a single state would be the “easier, peaceful way”.

Bolstering Washington’s argument that such pressures cannot be held in check for ever, a poll this month of US public opinion revealed a startling finding. Despite a US political climate committed to a two-state solution, nearly two-thirds of Americans back a single democratic state for Jews and Palestinians should a Palestinian state prove unfeasible. That view is shared by more than half of Israel’s supporters in the US.

That would constitute a paradigm shift, a moment of reckoning that draws nearer by the day as the peace process again splutters into irrelevance.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism.

24 March, 2014

Countercurrents.org

 

By Patrick O’Connor

Statements issued by White House and NATO officials over the weekend on the Ukrainian crisis, including allegations that Russia is poised to invade several of its neighbours, point to advanced preparations by US imperialism for a heightened military build-up across Eastern Europe.

US President Barack Obama today begins a four-day trip to Europe, beginning in The Hague, Holland. On the sidelines of a pre-scheduled Nuclear Security Summit there, Obama has convened a meeting on Ukraine involving the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan—the G8 minus Russia.

After working with Germany to orchestrate a regime-change operation in Ukraine, Washington’s aim is to diplomatically isolate Vladimir Putin’s administration and consider further damaging economic sanctions against Russia, while also developing trade and energy mechanisms that bring Ukraine and other Eastern European states under the strategic control of the US and EU. On Wednesday, Obama will meet in Brussels with European Union officials and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, US Air Force General Philip Breedlove, yesterday issued a bellicose denunciation of Russia. He accused the Putin administration of building up its military forces on Russia’s western borders and of preparing to intervene into Transnistria, a part of the former Soviet republic of Moldova that has a significant ethnic Russian population and which attempted to become independent following the disintegration of the USSR. Breedlove also raised the spectre of Russian troops invading the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

“The [Russian] force that is at the Ukrainian border now to the east is very, very sizeable and very, very ready,” Breedlove declared at an event held by the German Marshall Fund think-tank. “There is absolutely sufficient force postured on the eastern border of Ukraine to run to Transnistria if the decision was made to do that, and that is very worrisome.”

After referring to the Russian annexation of Crimea, the NATO commander asked: “How do we change our deployment? How do we change our readiness? How do we change our force structure such that we can be ready in the future? We need to think about our allies, the positioning of our forces in the alliance and our readiness of our forces in the alliance, such that we can be there to defend against them if required, especially in the Baltics and other places.”

Breedlove added that Russia was now acting as “an adversary” of NATO—underscoring the active preparations of the US and its European allies to launch a war against Russia.

Obama’s deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken, speaking on CNN yesterday, backed Breedlove’s statements, declaring that it was “deeply concerning to see the Russian troop build-up on the border.” Blinken added that “it’s possible that they’re preparing to move in [to Ukraine].”

Polish Defence Minister Tomasz Siemoniak declared on Saturday that Washington “must increase its [military] presence in Europe, also in Poland.” During US Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to the country last week, Siemoniak explained, “There was a clear expectation from our side, and also from all NATO allies [in] Eastern Europe, that we expect a larger military presence of the US and that this eastern flank of NATO must be strengthened.”

Siemoniak added that it was “natural”, given developments in Ukraine, to discuss the prospect of a permanent, major US base in Poland.

These statements, which follow the US deployment of twelve F16 fighter jets and 300 troops to Poland earlier this month, underscore the brazen hypocrisy of the White House and its allies. Washington is now drumming up a war scare over alleged Russian troop movements within the country’s own borders, while at the same time the US armed forces are being deployed in a provocative effort to cordon off Russia from its neighbours.

The installed regime in Kiev is also ratcheting up the rhetoric. Foreign Minister Andrii Deshchytsia yesterday appeared on US television and stated that the prospect of military conflict with Russia was “very high” and “growing.” He added: “We are ready to respond… It’s very difficult to keep people restrained, and they are patriots of their homeland … [It] would be difficult for them just simply sit or stay and look at Russia invading their country.”

Deshchytsia’s reference to “patriots of their homeland” is an allusion to the extreme right-wing and nationalist forces that formed the base of the Washington-European operation in Ukraine, have been brought into top government posts and are being integrated into the armed forces.

Defence Minister Igor Tenyukh, one of several senior government figures who are members of the fascistic Svoboda party, yesterday bemoaned the failure of Ukrainian forces in Crimea to attack Russian troops. Over the weekend, Russian forces secured control of the Belbek air base, one of the few remaining bases in Crimea still occupied by Ukrainian troops.

Speaking to journalists in Kiev, Tenyukh declared that “our commanders had the authorisation to use force.” However, he complained: “Unfortunately, the commanders made decisions on the spot. They chose not to use their weapons in order to avoid bloodshed.”

Having installed a regime in Ukraine that includes forces intent on triggering a war between the US and Russia, the White House is now preparing to build up its military capacities. Republican congressman Mike Rogers, chair of the House of Representatives intelligence committee, yesterday told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Obama’s rhetoric did not “match the reality on the ground.” He demanded military aid that the Ukrainian government “can use to really protect and defend themselves.”

Obama’s deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken responded by declaring that the prospect of directly arming Ukraine was currently being reviewed.

 

24 March, 2014

WSWS.org

 

 

While Malaysians and people in other countries continue to pray for the well-being of the passengers and crew of MH370, many of us also hope that the whole truth about the missing aircraft will be known as soon as possible.

This is imperative in view of the numerous ‘theories’ that are floating around about what has really happened to the plane. Of course, to establish the truth, the aircraft’s black box would be a critical factor. We should all be patient and wait for the box to be discovered.

In the meantime, we should be concerned about the way in which theories about the disappearance of MH370 are appearing in sections of the foreign media and are being disseminated. They raise some disturbing questions. Are these theories the inevitable consequence of a tragic situation about which one knows so little? If we are ignorant about what has occurred, we are even more ignorant about the motives behind this mind-boggling incident.

Is it also possible that some of these theories are being spun as part of a massive disinformation exercise? Is false ‘evidence’ deliberately being churned out by some quarters in order to deceive us, to divert our attention, to stop us from pursuing the real leads? Are we being duped by red herrings all over the ocean?

In other words, are we witnessing some sort of cover-up, a cover-up that has larger geopolitical implications, a cover-up that goes beyond our shores?

For the sake of the crew and the passengers of MH370, for the sake of their families, for the sake of decent human beings everywhere, let us hope and pray that all of us will have the courage and the integrity to embrace the truth, when the time comes.

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar,

President,

International Movement for a Just World (JUST).

 

Malaysia.

23 March 2014

Justice for Romeo Capalla!

 

 

Dear President Aquino,

Once again, we are shocked by the brutal killing of another human rights defender, Romeo Capalla.  We condemn in the strongest terms, the silence of your Administration about these extrajudicial killings being committed almost every week since the beginning of 2014. The assassination of Capalla occurred 13 days after the massacre of Licuben Ligiw and his two sons, Freddie and Eddie, on March 2, 2014 in Abra.

Like the other victims of extrajudicial killing, Romeo Capalla was involved in work to improve the lives of marginalized communities. He was a Board Member of Panay Fair Trade Center (PFTC), formed by peasant women in 1991 to provide women farmers and food producers fair value for their products by engaging in post-harvest processing, opening alternative venues for marketing and establishing direct links between the farmers/producers and consumers within the country and overseas.

As in many cases of extrajudicial killings, activities promoting the rights and welfare of marginalized people such as those undertaken by PFTC are vilified by the military. The military claims that Capalla was involved in activities (i.e. PFTC) where “funds for the rebel group could easily be laundered.”  PFTC members and member organizations are clearly targeted by the military. PFTC, its members, including Romeo Capalla, its member organizations and its partners appear in the military order of battle. In 2005, Capalla was arrested on fabricated charge of arson which was later dismissed. Even then, the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police continued harassing and tagging him a commander of the New People’s Army.  An hour after Capalla was shot, a sugar rice mill and pick-up truck belonging to PFTC member organization, the Katilingban sang Magsasaka sa Dabong (KAMADA II) in Brgy. Dabong, Janiuay, Iloilo was set on fire.

• Mr. President, we are waiting to hear you publicly declaring that these killings must stop now. We are waiting for your decisive action to end impunity now.  We are looking to see concrete steps from you to give justice to the victims of extrajudicial killings and halt its escalation, including the following: The formation of an independent investigation and fact-finding team composed of representatives from human rights groups, the Church, local government, and the Commission on Human Rights to investigate the latest extrajudicial killings, including that of Romeo Capalla 
• An order from you, as  Commander in Chief of the Philippine Army, to stop the military policy and campaign of vilification under the Operation Plan Bayanihan, which gives state agents the licence to target human rights defenders and ordinary citizens
• Respond to the calls from Filipinos and human rights advocates from around the world to withdraw Operation Plan Bayanihan which is at the root of extrajudicial killings and other grievous human rights abuses

 

Mr. President, justice must be done NOW to Romeo Capalla and the other victims of extrajudicial killings! Extrajudicial killings must stop NOW! Impunity must end NOW.

 

*The International Coalition on Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP)  is a global network  of organizations  outside the Philippines who are concerned about human rights Philippines and committed to work for a just and lasting peace in the Philippines.