Global Research

Background

The Middle East Eye reports there are no gold mines under Dubai’s sands with artisanal miners or children toiling away trying to strike gold. But there is the Dubai Gold Souk and refineries that vie with the largest global operations as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) strives to expand its position as a major gold hub.

In recent years, the UAE, with Dubai in particular, has established itself as one of the largest and fastest-growing marketplaces for the precious metal, with imports rising by 58 percent per annum to more than $27bn in 2018, according to data collated by the Observatory for Economic Complexity.

With no local gold to tap, unlike neighboring Saudi Arabia, the UAE has to import gold from wherever it can, whether it be legitimately, smuggled with no questions asked, sourced from conflict zones, or linked to organized crime.

Blood Gold

The Sentry’s investigation (Sentry Investigations specialize in private and corporate investigations in the UK) found that 95 percent of gold officially exported from Central and East Africa, much of it mined in Sudan, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo, ends up in the Emirates.

Gold has become so important to Dubai’s economy that it is the emirate’s highest value external trade item, ahead of mobile phones, jeweler, petroleum products and diamonds, according to Dubai Customs.

And it is the UAE’s largest export after oil, exporting $17.7bn in 2019. Gold’s importance has only increased as Dubai’s oil reserves have dwindled and the UAE has tried to diversify its economy.

The Swiss connection

Dubai is not the only gold player with dirt, and even blood, on its hands.

“It is not just Dubai, it’s also Switzerland. The Swiss get large quantities of gold from Dubai. The Swiss say they are not getting gold from certain countries [connected to conflict gold], but instead from Dubai, yet the gold in Dubai is coming from these countries. Dubai is complicit, but Swiss hands are equally dirty as they can’t cut Dubai from the market,” said Lakshmi Kumar, policy director, at Global Financial Integrity (GFI) in Washington DC.

Switzerland is the world’s largest refiner, while [more than half] of all gold goes through the country at some point, according to anti-corruption group Global Witness. Switzerland’s trade is tied to the UK, which imports around a third of all gold.

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PressTV: Gold has become such an important commodity for the UAE, that it is the largest export after oil, exporting $17.7bn in 2019. But there is the other side to this story. A report by the UK’s Home Office and Treasury earlier in December also named the UAE as a jurisdiction vulnerable to money laundering by criminal networks because of the ease with which gold and cash could be moved through the country. Is this the case?

Peter Koenig: First, International Gold Laundering is a gigantic Human Rights abuse, foremost because laundered gold stems from many countries in Africa and South America where massive child labor is practiced. Children not only are put at tremendous risk working in the mines, in narrow rickety underground tunnels that could collapse anytime, and often do – but they are also poisoned on a daily basis by chemicals used in extracting gold ore from the rock, notably cyanide and mercury – and others.

Second, Gold laundering is an international crime, because it illegal and it is mostly run by mafia type organizations – where killing and other type of violence, plus sexual abuse of women – forced prostitution – is a daily occurrence.

There should be an international law – enforceable – issued by the UN – and enforced by the International Criminal Court against anything to do with gold laundering. Infractions should be punished. And countries involved in gold laundering should be held responsible – put on a black list for illegal financial transactions and for facilitating human rights abuses.

The United Arab Emirates — has no gold, so all of the $17.7 billion of their gold exports is being imported and “washed” by re-exporting it mainly through the UK into Switzerland and other gold refining places, like India.

With a worldwide production of about 3,500 tons, there are times when Switzerland imports more gold than the annual world production, most of it coming from the UK, for further refining or re-refining, for “better or double laundering” – erasing the gold’s origins.

From the refinery in Switzerland, it goes mostly into the banking system or is re-exported as “clean” gold coming from Switzerland. And its origins are no longer traceable.

Worldwide about 70% of all gold is refined in Switzerland.

Gold mine production totaled 3,531 tons in 2019, 1% lower than in 2018. About 70% of all gold, worldwide is refined in Switzerland. So, it is very likely that the UK, receiving gold from United Arab Emirates, re-exports the gold to Switzerland, for re-refining, for further export to, for ex. India. – Coming from Switzerland it has the “label” of being clean. How long will this reputation still last?

Metalor is the world’s largest gold refinery – established in Switzerland. And they are absolutely secretive, do not say where they buy their gold from, because the Swiss Government does not require the origin when gold enters Switzerland.

Once it is refined – the origin can no longer be determined, because gold does not have a DNA.

PressTV: The Sentry’s investigation found that 95 percent of gold officially exported from Central and East Africa, much of it mined in Sudan, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo, ends up in the emirate, through what’s known as blood gold:  gold obtained through brutal mining practices and illicit profits, including the use of children, how do you see this?

PK: Yes, this is absolutely true.

As mentioned already before – much of the gold from Africa / Central Africa, Ghana and South America, notably Peru, is blood gold. Of course, it passes through many hands before it lands in a refinery in the UK, Switzerland or elsewhere, and therefore is almost untraceable.

But, the company that buys the gold, like Metalor, they know exactly where the gold is coming from, but, as mentioned before, since the Swiss government does not require the importing company to divulge the origin of the gold – the human rights abuses will never come to light, or better – to justice.

It is estimated that up to 30% of all gold refined in Switzerland is considered blood gold. Imagine the suffering, disease, and even death – or delayed death through slow reacting chemicals like cyanite and mercury.

However, if there is no international law – a law that is enforced – that puts the criminals to justice – and put countries that facilitate gold laundering on an international list – for the world to see – and hold them accountable, with for example financial sanctions, little will change.

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he has worked for over 30 years on water and environment around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and  co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020). 

Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Thousands of people have been unable to work or perform daily activities, or required care from a healthcare professional, after getting the new COVID-19 vaccine, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

As of Dec. 18, 3,150 people reported what the agency terms “Health Impact Events” after getting vaccinated.

The definition of the term is: “unable to perform normal daily activities, unable to work, required care from doctor or health care professional.”

As The Epoch Times’ Zachary Stieber reports, the people reporting the negative effects reported them through V-safe, a smartphone application. The tool uses text messages and web surveys to provide personalized health check-ins and allows users to quickly tell the CDC if they are experiencing side effects.

The CDC and Pfizer, which produces the vaccine with BioNTech, didn’t respond to request for comments.

The information was presented by Dr. Thomas Clark, a CDC epidemiologist, to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an independent panel that provides recommendations to the agency, on Saturday.

Click here to read the document.

The CDC said that 272,001 doses of the vaccine were administered as of Dec. 19. That means most people who were vaccinated did not experience negative effects.

The CDC has identified six case reports of anaphylaxis, or severe allergic reaction, that occurred following vaccination with the new vaccine, Clark reported. Other case reports were reviewed and determined not to be of anaphylaxis.

In an update on Friday, the agency stressed that anyone who has ever had a severe allergic reaction to any ingredient in a COVID-19 vaccine should not get that vaccine. People with severe allergic reactions to other vaccines should consult their doctor about getting the new vaccine while those with a history of anaphylaxis not related to vaccines “may still get vaccinated.”

“CDC recommends that people with a history of severe allergic reactions not related to vaccines or injectable medications – such as allergies to food, pet, venom, environmental, or latex – may still get vaccinated,” the CDC said.

“People with a history of allergies to oral medications or a family history of severe allergic reactions, or who might have a milder allergy to vaccines (no anaphylaxis) – may also still get vaccinated.”

Anyone who experiences anaphylaxis after getting the first vaccine should not get the second shot, the CDC said. COVID-19 vaccines are meant to be given across two doses, spaced about three weeks apart.

At least five healthcare workers in Alaska experienced adverse reactions after getting the Pfizer vaccine, the Anchorage Daily News reported. One of two experiencing adverse reactions at the Bartlett Regional Hospital required treatment at the hospital for at least two nights.

An Illinois hospital halted vaccinations after four workers suffered adverse reactions.

Dr. Peter Marks, the director of Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, told reporters in a call on Thursday night that the agency is working with the CDC, and colleagues in the United Kingdom, on probing the allergic reactions.

“We’ll be looking at all of the data we can from each of these reactions to sort out exactly what happened. And we’ll also be looking to try to understand which components of the vaccine might be helping to produce them,” he said.

A container of 5 doses of COVID-19 vaccine sits on a table at Roseland Community Hospital in Chicago, Ill., on Dec. 18, 2020. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Noting that he was speculating, Marks said it’s known that polyethylene glycol – a component present in both the Pfizer vaccine and one from Moderna that regulators approved earlier in the day – can be associated, uncommonly, with allergic reactions.

“So that could be a culprit here. And that’s why we’ll be watching very closely,” he said. “But we just don’t know at this point.”

Both vaccines have “systemic side effects,” which are “generally mild,” Marks said.

They go away after a day. According to the FDA website, the most commonly reported side effects include tiredness, headache, muscle pain, and chills. The agency said they go away after several days.

One volunteer in Pfizer’s late-stage clinical trial experienced an allergic reaction. Two people in Moderna’s phase 3 clinical trial experienced anaphylactic reactions, the company said during a meeting on Thursday. But the data showed the benefits outweigh the risk, FDA officials said, as they granted emergency use authorization to the vaccines about seven days apart.

People who get a COVID-19 vaccine should be monitored for at least 15 minutes after getting vaccinated, according to the CDC.

If someone experiences a severe allergic reaction against getting a COVID-19 vaccine, vaccination providers are supposed to provide rapid care and call for emergency medical services. The person should continue to be monitored in a medical facility for at least several hours.

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Featured image is from Zero Hedge

A flurry of them has been expected, and just prior to Christmas, US President Donald Trump waved his wand of pardon with vigour.  On December 22, the president issued fifteen pardons and five commutations.  The choices so far have been, to put it mildly, problematic.

The power to pardon can be found in Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the US Constitution, a provision, which states, in part, that the President “shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”  That most eminent of judicial heads Chief Justice Marshall described a pardon as “an act of grace, proceeding from the power entrusted with the execution of the laws, which exempts the individual, on whom it is bestowed, from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed.”

Those of curious legal mind will detect the residue of the monarchical prerogative in all of this.  The great synthesising authority of English law, William Blackstone, praised the monarchy for having a distinct advantage: “there is a magistrate, who has it in his power to extend mercy, wherever he thinks it is deserved: holding a court of equity in his own breast, to soften the rigour of the general law, in such criminal cases as merit an exemption from punishment.”  Justifying the mirroring of this power in the US Constitution, Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist 74 argues that, “Humanity and good policy conspire to dictate, that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or embarrassed.”

The Supreme Court has not been blind to the potential abuse of the power, noting in the prohibition case of Ex Parte Grossman that exercising it “to the extent of destroying the deterrent effect of judicial punishment would be to pervert it.”  But Chief Justice William Howard Taft, having himself been a president, thought it unseemly to limit the presidential prerogative.  “Our Constitution confers this discretion on the highest officer in the Nation in confidence that he will not abuse it.”

The quality of mercy in Trump’s decisions has been peculiar and personal.  Jack Goldsmith and Matt Gluck go so far as to claim that “no president in American history comes close to matching Trump’s systematically self-serving use of the pardon power.”  In doing so, the president has also managed to circumvent the 125-year-old Justice Department office of the Pardon Attorney. The pardon attorney acts as sage and counsel in preparing a recommendation on the particular pardon or commutation, conveyed through the Deputy Attorney General.  By July 2020, Trump had made 29 of his 34 pardons without the tempering involvement of the pardon attorney.

Consistent to form, his latest round is heavy with the personal.  There is Alex van der Zwaan, who was charged with one count of making false statements in connection with the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller on possible Russian interference in the 2016 election.  There is George Papadopoulos, also of false statement fame in connection to the Mueller investigation.  “Notably,” goes the White House statement, “Mueller stated in his report that he found no evidence of collusion in connection with Russia’s attempts to interfere in the election.  Nonetheless, the Special Counsel’s team still charged Mr Papadopoulos with the process-related crime.”

Former Republican lawmakers Chris Collins and Duncan Hunter could also count themselves fortunate.  Collins, a firm backer of Trump, pleaded guilty in 2019 to insider trading and was serving a 26-month prison sentence.  Such an offence was never going to trouble Trump too much.  More interesting was his “particular focus on the wellbeing of small businesses, agriculture, and sciences.”  For his part, Hunter was found guilty of one count of misusing campaign funds.  This “could have been handled as a civil case via the Federal Election Commission, according to former FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith.”

By any moral or ethical stretch of the imagination, the most execrable use of the pardon power would have to be those issued for the four security guards of the private military firm Blackwater, convicted for the killing of 14 Iraqi civilians in 2007.  The butchering took place at Baghdad’s Nisour Square, when the contractors deployed sniper fire, machine guns and grenade launchers at a busy traffic circle.  The justification by Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, and Dustin Heard was crudely predictable: they opened fire only after being ambushed by Iraqi insurgents.  The slain and injured women and children, some with hands in the air as they fled the scene, suggested a different account.

Rather banally, the White House statement praises their record: they were inspired to serve their country; they did so in various capacities in Iraq.  As security contractors tasked with protecting US personnel, they were merely responsible for “the unfortunate deaths and injuries of Iraqi civilians.”  The reputation of the lead Iraqi investigator is also impugned, as he “may have had ties to insurgent groups himself.”

The murderous feats of the four did much to point a finger at how the military security complex had been outsourced to private security firms more concerned with pay packages than the enfeebling irritations of international law.   Their convictions were considered by Paul Dickinson, a legal representative for the Nisour Square families “significant” for showing “that paramilitary contractors who commit crimes abroad can be held accountable for their criminal actions.”

But the lobbyists had been busy bringing out the white wash, making the point that the four were sacrificial lambs for appeasement.  A website dedicated to defending their cause dubbed them “The Biden Four,” who “were sacrificed for politics and convicted by lies.”  Brian Heberlig, lawyer for Slough, was convinced by his brief.  “Paul Slough and his colleagues didn’t deserve to spend one minute in prison.”  Heard’s attorney, David Schertler, babbled on about honour and his client’s “well-deserved freedom.”

Such softening in the rigour of the general law seemed like a grand reversal in jurisprudence.  Hina Shamsi of the American Civil Liberties Union was quick off the mark in condemning the pardons.  The actions of these men had  “caused devastation in Iraq, shame and horror in the United States, and a worldwide scandal.”  As if it was possible, the office of the president had been further degraded.

Marta Hurtado, spokeswoman for the UN Human Rights Office, was more extensive in her criticism.  “Pardoning them contributes to impunity and has the effect of emboldening others to commit such crimes in the future.”  The victims of such egregious human rights violations and violations of humanitarian law also had “the right to a remedy. This includes the right to see perpetrators serve punishments proportionate to the seriousness of their conduct.”  Taft’s confidence in the probity of executive restraint seems comically quaint.

Consideration for the victims was conspicuously absent in Trump’s reasoning.  The Blackwater Pardons are yet another effort on his part to look good with gun toting personnel who served the United States and erred.  In the gesture, a faint electoral message could be detected.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

The whole world is facing the deepening and widening corruption which challenges the very survival of the free democracy and the free market economy. 

Korea has been suffering for last 70 years from the corruption culture. But owing to courageous fight of Korean people and the Candle-Light Revolution of 2016-2017, Korea is freeing painfully but steadily from the dark clouds of the corruption culture.

I hope that Korea’s experience will help developing countries for assuring the development of their economy without becoming the slave of corruption.

The literature on corruption is rich but it has two shortcomings. First, it is based on a definition of corruption which is too narrow to deal with the complexity of corruption. Second, it does not cover sufficiently the range of the impact of corruption on the society.

Most of the existing studies tend to define corruption as illegal activities which are designed to maximize personal gains at the expense of those of others. But, it must be pointed out that some of the laws and regulations are designed to justify corruption.

Therefore, I would define corruption as “illegal or immoral human activities designed to maximize personal or group gains at the expense of the welfare of other persons or other groups”

The objective of this paper is to find, on the basis of Korea’s experience, appropriate measures that would facilitate the fight against corruption.

This paper has five sections.

Section 1 offers a typology of corruption based on the Korean experience of corruption. I have found that the useful way of classifying corruption is to relate it to the behaviour of individuals and organizations involved in corruption.

Section 2 deals with the evolution stage of corruption. I argue that the phenomenon of corruption evolves by stage. The level, the contents and the impact of corruption vary by stage. Therefore, to find appropriate measure of anti-corruption, it is important to know at what stage the process of corruption finds itself.

Section 3 discusses the strategy of protecting the benefits of corruption. It will be shown that, in Korea, the strategy of protecting the fruit of corruption is brutal and sophisticated.

Section 4 copes with the impact of corruption. Here, I will distinguish between economic impact and moral impact. It goes without saying that these two types of impact are related. In fact, I argue that these two types of impact combined can destroy a country

Finally, Section 5 will show how the Korean people have fought for last 70 years against corruption risking their lives and enduring the violation of their basic human rights. In this section, I will show also how President Moon is conducting a total war against the deep rooted corruption in Korea. In addition I will show some lessons we can learn from the Korea’s experience of corruption

I. Typology of Corruption

The corruption takes several forms depending upon the individuals and organizations involved in the process of corruption. I am sure that the following types of corruption take place in many other countries.

Outright theft of public funds

One of the most notorious scandals in Korea is the embezzlement of billions of dollars of public funds by the conservative presidents of the country, civil servants, heads of public corporations, directors of research institutions, and even owners of even kindergarten.

One of the notorious cases was the embezzlements of more than $ 200 million USD by former conservative president, General Chun Doo-hwan (image on the right). He was imprisoned for corruption and abuse of power. He was ordered by the court to pay back to the government the embezzled money. But he is still claiming that he has only $260 USD in his bank; he is making mockery of Korea’s judiciary system.

Under President Lee Myong-bak, billions of dollars of public money was suspected to be stolen through what are called the “4-River Projects” and “Resource Diplomacy.” These scandals remain to be investigated.

Another case of the theft of public money is that of private kindergartens which steal openly a good part of government subsidies for personal use including the purchase of jewelry and other personal use.

Transaction of privileges 

The market of privileged rights is huge. To do business, one has to go through a long series of regulations. But, by paying bribes to government officials, one can get privileges of going over the laws and regulations.

For instance, by paying bribes to government officials, one can get more quickly a legal building permit or illegal building permit. With bribes, a land developer can transform greenbelt land into residential land.

The supply of these privileges is provided by the public authorities. The demand of these privileges is determined by the business. The price of these privileges is the monetary value of these privileges.

The market price of these privileges is the amount of bribery. It is by no means easy to have an idea about the amount of such bribery. But, for example, it is a known secret that the amount of bribery paid by the industry of construction is 5% of the amount of sales. The total amount of bribery could be tens of billions of dollars.

Theft of Information 

In Korea, some of those who are involved in the supervision of stock market and land development are known to be wealthy after their retirement.

The high ranking civil servants of the ministry of construction know in advance the land-development plan and buy land in the name of someone else and assure huge capital gains by selling it.

A person working at the institution which supervises the stock market has access to confidential information on investment plan of companies and can make fortune by buying or selling the stocks. God knows how much illicit money is made by these thieves of confidential information.

Fraudulent procurement 

The government and its numerous agents spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year to buy goods and services. For national defence alone, Korea spends a year $50 billion USD. It happens more often than not that the government and its agents pay an amount far above the real price for the procurement of goods and services.

The difference between the price paid and the real price is shared between the seller and the buyer. This is the “kick-back”. In the area of procurement of military equipment, the amount of kick-back is said to be 10% of the amount of military equipment bought.

Transaction of Freedom

Perhaps, another devastating form of corruption is the transaction of freedom. Under the corrupted judiciary system, those who have committed crimes and corruption can buy freedom with bribe money.

The police do not arrest people of power despite their obvious crimes and corruption in exchange of bribery. The bureau of prosecutors does not investigate clear cases of corruption, if the accused are leaders of business ready to pay bribes.

Even if the investigation shows undeniable proof of corruption, the prosecutor does not accuse the person involved.

Heads of the largest Chaebol were suspected several times for corruption but they were seldom sent to the court trial.

Even if they were judged guilty, they were soon liberated. In many cases, even if the prosecutor provides proof of guilt, the court makes ruling of not guilty.

Transaction of laws 

It is a well known fact that the powerful Chaebols persuade the law makers to pass laws in their favour in exchange of disguised campaign funds.

Laws adopted by the National Assembly can affect the interests of business and other interest groups. The groups which are the most sensitive to laws are large corporations. Large corporations have, in fact, a specialized group whose job is to prevent laws harmful to them and foster those laws which are favourable to them. The laws that have been the most visible target of lobbying have been labour related laws.

Chaebols have been spending a lot of bribe money paid to law makers to prevent the adoption of pro-labour laws. This is one of the reasons for low wages and long hour of work in Korea

Transaction of jobs 

Another form of corruption is the transaction of jobs. In the case of a Casino in Gangwon Province, 80% of jobs were illegally given, in exchange of bribes, to those who were close to lawmakers or other persons close to the government of Park Geun-hye.

It is suspected that Mrs Choi Soon-sil (image on left; now in prison for 20 years for corruption and illegally interfering in government policies) would have intervened, for large sum of bribe, in the nomination of cabinet ministers, judges and other high ranking officials.

II. Evolution Stages of Corruption

The corruption in Korea has evolved by the following stages:

• Economic development and collusion of government-business.
• Formation of oligarchy of corruption
• Creation of corruption community 

Stage 1. Economic Development and the emergence of bilateral collusion: government-business 

One of the key factors of the economic miracle in Japan and Korea was the concept of Japan Incorporated (Japan Inc.) and that of Korea Incorporated (Korea Inc) by which I mean the situation in which the government and the business act as one single company. The government and the business become almost equal partners for economic policies and development.

The close cooperation government-business led inevitably to collusion in planning and executing the project of industrialization and economic development.

The story of collusion between President Park Chung-hee and Chung Joo-young, founder of the Hyundai Group and Lee Byung-chul, founder of the Samsung groups is almost a legend.

The stage of government-business collusion was almost identical to the period of take-off of the Korean economy (1960-1970), In fact, owing to the Korea Inc. and the bilateral collusion, Korea could free itself from absolute poverty in less than thirty years.

Stage 2. Formation of Oligarchy

As the economy developed further and the process of planning of economic development was executed, the role of bureaucracy became essential for the success of planning. In particular, the Bureau of Economic Planning (EPB) became the key factor of success of economic planning. As a result, the daily participation of EPB bureaucrats and high ranking officials of the Ministry of Finance and other civil servants joined the collusion. This led to the trilateral collusion: politics-bureaucracy-business

No doubt, the trilateral collusion made significant contribution to the Han-River economic miracle. But in the absence of close supervision of the collusion, the members of the collusion became attempted to appropriate some of the fruits of economic development.

To do so, the collusion members formed a close circle to hide their illegal or immoral activities. In fact, this close circle became an exclusive oligarchy. One of the functions of the oligarchy consisted in allocating privileges to big businesses in exchange of bribe money

There were several ways of giving public resources to big businesses. The policy loans were the most lucrative gift to the businesses. The government made loans of huge amount of money at an interest rate of less than 5%, while the market rate was above 20%.

This money was designed to foster industrialization and exports. True, a part of these loans were used for the construction of factories and exports. But, in many cases, the businesses made a fortune by making loans of the money borrowed at an interest rate much higher than 5 %.

The big businesses were given tax incentives; they were allowed free entry to industrial complexes; they were given lands which were supposed to be used for industrial use but a part of these lands were used for land speculation. The Chaebols were given all sorts of permit and privileges; they were given huge amount of grants and subsidies for reasons which were not clear.

This stage of the formation of the oligarchy took place in 1980s and 1990s. We may remember that theses two decades were active in reordering the global economy into neo-liberalism, which gave more power to big business and considerably weakened the power of the government. Under this circumstance, it could have become easier for business to dictate policies in their favour by giving bribes.

It was also the period of the transformation of Korean industry into heavy and chemical industries allowing big businesses to have almost unlimited sources of funds.

Stage 3. Establishment of Corruption Community

The oligarchy might have felt the need for strengthening itself by sharing the illicit income with media, the academics and conservative civic groups. In this way, the network of corruption was expanded to form a community of corruption.

The community of corruption is designed to widen the network of corruption so that it can better defend themselves against the anti-corruption forces. Thus, the Korean society became doubly divided between conservatism and progressivism on the one hand and, on the other, between pro-corruption force and anti-corruption force.

The stage of the corruption community came in the 2000s during which the progressive government of Kim Dae-jung (1997-2002 and Rho Moo-hyun (2003-2008) governed the country.

During this period, the corruption community of conservatives had to slow down their activities of corruption. But, it invested money to widen and strengthen its network.

However, since Lee Myong-bak took power in 2008 and Park Geun-hye succeeded him in 2013, the conservative government ruled for 9 years (2008-2017).

During this period, the corruption community expanded and intensified its corruption activities.

In fact, the degree of corruption during this period was even greater than that of the corruption under the military dictatorship of Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan.

As a result of their crimes, Park Geun-hye (image on the right) is sentenced 25-year imprisonment, while Lee Myong-bak is judged for 15-year imprisonment and accused for additional crimes of corruption.

III. Strategy of protecting the benefits of corruption

The strategy of protecting the interests of the corruption community included the following.

First, in order to silence the voice of opposition, the conservative government massacred a few hundred thousand innocent people under Rhee Sygnman, Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan.

Second, the freedom of press was completely silenced either through the brutal police force or through bribe money. The sad situation is that majority of press cannot survive without Chaebols’ advertising fees which are used as bribe money

In Korea, there are three dominant national newspapers: Chosun, Joong-ang, and Dong-ah (Cho-Joong-Dong). These newspapers may account for more than a half of the circulation of major newspapers.

They exited during the Japanese occupation of Korea (1910-1945) and they are known to be pro-Japan and pro-conservative; they have been suspected to play major roles in protecting the corruption community.

Third, ordinary Koreans who were suspected for being a part of pro-progressive and anti-corruption force were the targets of false accusation for being North Korean spy by the intelligence services; they were victims of police harassment and other unlawful means of oppression.

Fourth, authors of academic publications unfavourable to the conservative government were deprived of research funds.

In Korea, there is a group of academics, called “the New Right” who justifies the Japanese invasion of Korea. They have revised the modern history book in which they have written that Japan had come to Korea for its economic development for Koreans.

They deny the existence of the crime of sex slavery of 250,000 Korean teen age girls committed by Japanese soldiers during WWII.

The New Right academics along with the conservatives have given themselves the role of criticizing the progressive force for being “Red” (Pal-Gaeng-Ie) in order to induce voters to vote for the conservative party.

Fifth, about 10,000 artists, singer, movie actors and authors of novels who were not for conservative government were put on a black list and excluded from government grants. The director of the movie “Parasite” Bong Joon-ho was also on the black list along with his crew.

Sixth, the corruption community provides money to several civic pro-conservative movements including the association of Korea War veterans and various organizations of the elderly. These people participate, in street demonstrations, to criticize the progressives. They are paid by Chaebols for their participation.

Seventh, the intra-group marriage is another way of widening and strengthening the corruption community. The most visible cases are the marriages between families of leading conservative politicians and Chaebol families.

IV. Negative Impact of Corruption

The major negative impact of corruption may be grouped into two groups: economic impact and moral impact.

Economic Impact

In the short run, corruption can weaken the competitiveness of national economy, while, in the long run, it may bring decades-long deflation as it has happened in Japan.

We may separate micro-economic impact and macro-economic impact.

Micro-economic impact my take various forms. The corrupted way of supervising competition may favour big businesses which may prevent the market from assuring fair competition leading to the loss of competitiveness of small- and medium-sized firms (SMEs).

The government’s bailout operation of insolvent firms in exchange of bribery would simply prolong the life of insolvent firms and, as a result, it could weaken the competitiveness of the Korean industries.

The corrupted system of government procurement may result in buying services and goods of unreliable quality. Korea bought    once a submarine which did not submerge in exchange of kick-back.

The macro-economic impact of corruption is as bad as the micro-economic impact.

The pro-export policy imposed upon by the oligarchy may make GDP increase, but exports do not create much the trickledown effects; it does not create jobs; it increases unemployment; it makes income distribution unfair and unequal..

In Korea, 99.9 % of the total number of firms is small-and medium-sized firms (SMEs). They create 87% of jobs. But, the oligarchy has adopted pro-Chaebol and anti-SME policies.

This policy has contributed to the increase in exports. At the same time, it has surely boosted the income of the Chaebols. The increase of Chaebols’ income meant more bribe money available.

Another feature of pro-Chaebol policy was the exploitation of the SMEs for the benefit of the Chaebols. The conservative government allowed the big companies to steal technologies developed by the SMEs, violate the contracts, delaying the payment due to the SMEs and cutting down unilaterally the price of products sub-contracted.

The results of these policies are serious enough; they have prevented the development of the SMEs; they have destroyed jobs accessible to ordinary people. The worst thing was that these policies have delayed the development of domestic industries and increased the possibility of chronic deflation.

Moral impact  

The moral impact of corruption is even more destructive than the economic impact.

In Korea, there is an old saying: “The downstream water becomes clean, if the upstream water is clean”

Korean people believe that the very root of corruption is the Blue House (Korean White House). In other words, the upstream water is muddy. Therefore the downstream water is muddy. So, the corruption is spread throughout the society.

Under the conservative regime, the primary objective of corruption is to accumulate money.

Man becomes slave of money; the money is above the law, above the Confucian values and even above Jesus.

The social status is determined by money. The money determines the hierarchy of the society. The rich Chaebol chief becomes the king and his family becomes royal family. The king of kings is the head of Samsung Group. In fact, under the conservative government, Korea was called the Republic of Samsung.

Chaebols hire former ministers of the central government to show off that they are more important than the government, demonstrate their wealth and power. These poor former ministers are fatly paid for their lobbying in favour of pro-Chaebol policies.

The power of money has created the phenomenon of “Gap-jil” in which the rich and powerful mistreat the poor as inferior beings.

The world may remembers the 2014 incidence of “macadamia nut” in which, the second daughter of the funder of Air Korea insulted and hit one of the personnel on board of a plane for the stupid reason for not opening the bag of nuts.

Pastors of mega protestant churches which have an annual income of millions of USD seem to have the illusion of having become a king and abuse their money power and mistreat congregation members.

In fact, a number of pastors have been accused of stealing church money, but they went free without being accused for the crime. The bribe money has played its role.

In many companies, the employees are forced to do something which has nothing to do with their job descriptions.

The perilous moral impact of the corruption of the conservative leaders is translated into the worship of money and the destruction of honesty, the decency, the integrity and the loss of mutual respect and love.

V. Fight against corruption 

If Korea remains one of the respected countries in the world for its economic performance, it is because Korean people fought back against dictatorship and corruption.

The candlelight movement in Seoul, South Korea, mobilized for change of government. Credit: Women Cross DMZ

In fact, before the Candle-Light Revolution of 2016-2017, millions of Koreans had gone down to the street and fought bravely against corrupted conservative presidents: Rhee Shygnman (19th of April  1960), Park Chung-hee (16th of October 1979), Chun Do-hwn (18th of May 1980 and the month of June 1987) .

Finally, from late 2016 to April 2017 for eight months, 17,000,000 individuals from all walks of life went down to the frozen streets and shouted:” Impeach the Park Geun -hye! Clean the corruption!”

The Candle-Light Revolution was successful in bringing back the progressive government after nine years of destructive conservative government. And Moon Jae-in became president.

President Moon is the third progressive presidents. The first was President Kim Dae-jung (1998-2002) and the second, President Rho Moo-hyun (2003-2008).

President Kim Dae-jung strengthened the anti-corruption force by encouraging the unionization of labour, vitalizing existing labour unions and fostering the development of progressive civic movements. In addition, he made a major reform of Chaebols asking them to specialize, to stop the circular intra-group financing and to be more transparent in counting..

It was President Rho Moo-hyun who tried hard to guarantee the freedom of media and accomplish a fundamental reform of the police, the office of prosecutors, the courts and the intelligence services.

Measures taken by President Rho were a real challenge to the community of corruption and they plotted his impeachment with fabricated reasons. He was not impeached after all. He finished his presidential term.

However, what worried the community of corruption the most was Rho’s political and ideological legacy of just society and egalitarian democracy.

In order to kill such legacy, the conservatives fabricated fake story that the first lady, Mrs. Rho, had received an expensive watch as bribery and hid it on a rice paddy. This story continued after the take-over of power by the conservative government of Lee Myong-bak.

The family of Rho was continuously harassed even after the retirement of Rho by the police, the conservative media and the office of prosecutors. This was a burden too heavy to endure for Rho and he killed himself.

This episode illustrates how deeply the conservatives were involved in the corruption and why they fabricated incredible story so that they could cling to the rich deriving from corruption.

President Moon Jae-in was President Rho’s chief of cabinet and he knows very well how difficult it is to clean the corruption culture accumulated for 70 years. But, he knows very well also that unless Korea gets rid of the corruption, it is difficult to survive as a normal and healthy nation.

President Moon has adopted the following measures to combat corruption which can be grouped into macro-measures and micro-measures.

Macro-measures anti-corruption

Macro-measures include the North-South peace process and the improved income distribution.

The North-South peace process has resulted in a peace situation in which North Korea no longer threats South Korea.

We remember that the conservative governments have been able to keep power largely due to the North-South tension allowing them to create an atmosphere of fear and win elections. They have been pretending that they are better qualified to deal with North Korea perhaps because of their long tradition of police and military dictatorship.

One of the major socio-economic policies of the Moon’s government is the policy of economic growth with fair income distribution.

Moon’s government increased the minimum wage, increased the national pension, instituted income allowance for the elderly, reduced the number of weekly labour hour, revised the real estate taxes and other measured to slow down the increase of income of the rich and increase the income of the poor.

This policy has the effect of providing a sound basis of economic growth. This policy also allows the poor to have more income and better resist corruption and “Gap-jil.)

Micro-measures of anti-corruption

Moon’s government has taken several micro-measures to tackle the corruption of the conservatives.

First, one of the roots of corruption is the influence peddling by the staff of the Blue House (Korean White House).

Since Moon took over the power, there has been no single case of influence peddling. The mother of President has met no person outside her family for last two years to avoid rumours of influence-peddling which can be fabricated by the conservative media.

Second, Moon has reduced greatly the functions of institutions of power. For instance, the function of the National Intelligence Service (former CIA) is reduced to the management of international information. Under the conservative government, its main function was to arrest those who oppose the government’s corruption by accusing them as North Korean spy.

Moreover, Moon abolished the Military Security Command whose function was to prevent unlawful activities with the armed forces. But, it was unlawfully involved in activities of spying those who criticized the conservative government.

Third, Moon’s government nominated a committee with the mission of re-investigating cases of obvious corruption and crimes committed by the community of corruption. For instance, there was the case of raping women by a deputy director of the Office of Prosecutor, but the case was not properly investigated partly because of bribes and partly because of his close relation with powerful people within the conservative government. 

Fourth, some of the leaders of media who sided with the community of corruption for the oppression of labour unions of reporters were replaced.

Fifth, Moon’s government has passed a series of anti-corruption laws including the Kindergarten Law preventing the theft of public funds by founders of kindergartens.

Sixth, Dozens of the Blue House personnel who collaborated with the corruption community of the conservatives have been punished

Seventh, Perhaps the most difficult fight President Moon has started is the fight against the Office of Prosecutors.

The Korean prosecutor system is the most powerful one in the world; it has the right of investigation of crime and corruption. True, he police also has the right of investigation, but it is the prosecutor’s office which has the final say. Moreover, the prosecutor has the monopoly of indictment right.

In the past, thousand cases of corruption and abuse of power have been accused. But few of them went beyond the office of prosecutor and to the court.

In short, Korea has not been able to win the war against corruption mainly because of the corrupted prosecutor’s monopoly of judiciary power.

In Korea, there is no power which can rule the prosecutor, not even the president. In a way, the prosecutor has been the most powerful and effective defender of the corruption culture.

To fight the prosecutor, Moon has been able to pass a law on the mechanism of supervising high ranking officials including prosecutors (Gong-Soo-Cheo). Moon has won a battle. But it is a long way to go before cleaning the corruption culture.

The ultimate defender of corruption is money. The conservatives have been stacking up corruption money for last 70 years amounting hundreds of billions of dollars hidden in cash, real estate, stocks throughout the world.

It may take more than 10 years, even 20 years of progressive government in power, before Korea can destroy completely the corruption culture.

Lessons

There are some lessons which can be drawn from Korea’s experience of corruption.

First, the corruption must be stopped at the first stage of the evolution of corruption, that is, the stage of the bilateral collusion.

Second, when the process of corruption attains the stage of oligarchy formation, it may take very hard measure to fight it.

Third, if we wait until the stage of the corruption community, it may take decades to clean it. This is the case of Korea

Fourth, one cannot rely always on the government for the elimination of corruption, because the government is often corrupted.

It is very fortunate that, in Korea, the progressive government of Moon is leading the fight against corruption. However, Moon needs the active cooperation of ordinary people to defeat corruption. The people are with him.

*

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Professor Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics and co-director of the Observatoire de l’Asie de l’Est (OAE) – the Centre d’Études sur l’Intégration et la Mondialisation (CEIM), Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). He is Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Here where I dwell in the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice has just occurred.

The darkest day of the year in a dark year.

A few days ago was also the Grand Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn and the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, which is interesting to those who like the musical Hair and believe their fates lie in the stars and not in themselves. Shakespeare’s Cassius had it right: such astrological determinism is for underlings.

Free people agree with Beethoven:

“I will take fate by the throat; it will never bend me completely to its will.”

Oppressors have always wanted people to believe their lives are fated, that they live in a prison and there is no escape.  It is the key to successful slavery. Many institutionalized religions have promoted such a belief, contradicting their founders’ messages of freedom. So have secular ideologies. There is nothing you can do, so rollover with Beethoven; it’s hopeless. “Do what you’re told,” as the great wise leader Anthony Fauci has said.

But a much wiser Kris Kristofferson sang:

Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.

Didn’t Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor say to Jesus in his cell in the gloomy vaulted prison:

We will show them that they are weak, that they are only pitiful children, but that childlike happiness is the sweetest of all.  They will become timid and look to us and huddle close to us in fear, as chicks to the hen.  They will marvel at us and will be awe-stricken before us, and will be proud at us being so powerful and clever, that we have been able to subdue such a turbulent flock of thousands of millions.

They will do as they are told and reject the freedom Jesus brought, “for nothing has been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom,” drones the Inquisitor.  They will do as they are told.  And the prisoner was silent.

As the year comes to an end and another begins, the contemplation of time, its passing, the days gone by and days to come, the new year, resolutions, and how to “keep safe” occupy many minds as governments across the world continue to impose lockdowns on their people that are creating suffering on a vast, unimaginable scale.

“Every ruling minority,” wrote the late great John Berger, “needs to numb and, if possible, to kill the time-sense of those whom it exploits.  This is the authoritarian secret of all methods of imprisonment.”

There is time for you and time for me is the mantra of all authoritarians.  We set the clocks to slow or fast.  You follow.  Alternating rhythm to keep you guessing.  When things are kind of slow, we’ll give you 5G speed as we reset your future to the online life.  Everything will be so fast that you won’t know whether you are coming or going or just running in place.

Slow is for prisoners around the world.  Here in the United States, the world leader in incarceration, there are more than 2 million people caged in such hell holes.  Doing time.  Very slow time.

For those on the outside, a year ago, permanent busyness and speed were the norm. Everyone was so frantic and rushing in the madding crowd of a consumer and cell phone frenzy, driven by an unseen nanosecond  digital dictator. Now the lockdown has brought a taste of boredom, slow time, and anxious waiting for the day the authoritarians will give the word that the new normal has arrived and the children can fling the doors open and run out to play. But they will have to learn the new rules of the game. Same game, but Built Back Better.  Better for the bosses.

Forget that criminal born in a manger. Getting there is a long and hard journey. We are in lockdown. Just do as you are told.

Or imagine that child as a grown man in a prison cell in Seville 15 centuries later.

Or in Bethlehem today, in the West Bank as Palestinian territory is inexorably disappeared by the Israeli government and Palestinians’ places to dwell on this earth grow smaller and smaller as their houses are bulldozed and land stolen.

Imagine the fates of all those locked down shut-in abandoned ones, those who are doing time to the slow ticking of the clocks. Or those who have no time to escape the supersonic hum of drone-launched missiles. Those whose time is up because the authorities deem it so.  Those who just won’t do what they are told.

In lockdown, there is plenty of time to imagine.

Thomas Merton, the inspirational anti-war Trappist monk, in “The Time of the End Is the Time of No Room” in Raids on the Unspeakable, said this about that child in a manger, soon to be radical anti-war criminal executed by the state:

Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ comes uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it, because he is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, his place is with those others for whom there is no room. His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world. He is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst.

Their numbers are growing by the day.

Pundits are fond of saying that time is all we have. This is untrue.  We don’t have time; time has us. We are born into it and in a techno-clock world those clocks start ticking and we turn with the seasons until our turning stops and our time is up. It comes with being born, being mortal. Human. We don’t need astrology to tell us this. We don’t want authoritarians controlling our experience of this greatest of mysteries.

If you listen closely, you can hear waves of empty words tumbling through the world, whistling windy words saying nothing.  Whining words, nodding heads, vacuous sayings. Media saturated fatuous words. About “time” more clichés have been coined and more quotable quotes recorded than nearly any other word. Quotes about what no one knows.

Time stands still, time flies, time is up, time is on your side, time is short, time is long, who knows where the time goes, time out, time starts, stop the clocks, start the clocks, we’re running out of time, clock in, clock out, time served, serving time, lacking time, losing time, having time, gaining time, the end of time.

Yet everyone knows what time is even though they can’t tell you. It comes with the territory of existing. Like silence, like love, like peace, like truth – simple gifts that authoritarians invert to suit their evil designs. Twisted people twisting words.

And yet:

It is no different now.
The yearning still gnaws.
The night dark, utterly silent,
Sky stretched endlessly back
Into an infinity beyond reach.
And the fears, the tears
Are they any different?

It is no different now.
Joy sometimes, hope too, divisions
Seemingly unbridgeable, vast chasms
Opening between those closest.
Little changes, though two thousand years
Dissolve into oblivion behind us.

It is no different now.
Plus ça change,
Plus c’est la même chose.
Always the same.

Yet a word is heard dimly
Laboring out of the deafening black
Silence, almost but not inaudible.
And the angel says, “Go out,”
And the angel said, “Go out,”
Always the angel, always the voice
Bearing us up along the way
(If you do not turn to the inner light,
Where will you turn?), always calling:
“Journey far through strange country,
Follow the light you barely see
But which is the light of your life.
Follow it across the desert of your heart
Where wild beasts seek to devour you.
There is no time, there is no time
To hesitate. Now is the star’s hour,
Now you are called on a fool’s journey
Into a pig’s pen and a child’s strange
And glorious presence.” Thus speaks the angel
Again and again, no matter how dark
The darkest day, nothing changes.

It is no different now.
Now as always is the star’s hour.
Now as then a star is born to men
To lead us on. A light that darkness
Cannot overcome, despite us.

Love is not a sometimes thing,
Though we abuse it like the earth.
It is all we have to hold us up,
And it always will.

A star is always born.

Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

First published on   Edward Curtin

For centuries, Koreans have been asking the Almighty to bless them with a true leader who would provide daily necessities, hope for the future, courage to fight for the justice and self respect for and self confidence in themselves. 

During the 500-year of Choseon dynasty, many kings could not perform their duties as national leaders because of the corruption of the “Yang-ban” (aristocrats).

King Gojong, (Image below) the last king of the Joseon dynasty was a total failure, because he could not prevent Lee Wan-yong from selling Korea to Japan for his own political and financial greed.

During 40-year Japanese colonial rule, Korea was governed by pro-Japan Korean bureaucrats who collaborated with Japanese for the oppression of Koreans.

After 1945, Korea has been ruled, for 60 years, through all forms of dictatorship, by former pro-Japan collaborators and their descendents who regarded themselves as a superior  race and who were primarily concerned with their own interests at the expense of those of the rest of the Korean population.

Moon Jae-in came along and, for Koreans, he is the first true national leader they have been waiting for so long. He is the true leader who would give them their daily necessities, the hope for a better future, courage to fight for justice and respect for and confidence in themselves.

President Moon will leave his office in little more than one year. Before he leaves, I thought that it is right time to discuss what and how he has accomplished his historical tasks.

President Moon had to overcome two sets of challenges: the internal challenges and the external ones. In this paper, I will discuss the internal challenges.

The internal challenges are those which are related to the liberation of Korea from deep rooted corruption culture of the conservative forces in Korea.

This paper has three parts. The first part explains the nature of the internal challenges, while the second shows how Moon’s government has tried to meet these challenges. Finally, in the final section, I discuss what remains to be done to complete what President wanted to accomplish.

1. Nature of Challenges

During the election campaign in 2017, President Moon Jae-in promised to return the country back to the Korean people suggesting that Korea had been stolen by someone. Who was the thief? The progressive intellectuals, politicians and informed public have been saying that Korea was stolen by the pro-Japan conservative forces (chin-il-bosu-pa-親日保守派). In fact, the liberation from the conservative forces means the liberation from the corruption of these forces.

Corruption Culture

The phenomenon of corruption is a universal problem and every country is exposed to it. However, the reality of corruption in Korea has unusual elements which are specific to Korea and difficult to deal with. It started with the establishment of Korean government in 1948 after WWII. In contrast to France and other countries which had punished the collaborators with enemies, the Korean government was formed with the Korean bureaucrats who had more than collaborated with the Japanese colonial government in stealing land and other assets of Koreans, sending students to the frontline to kill Koreans, capturing and sending teenage girls to comfort women camps and forcing Koreans to work in Japanese mines and factories as slaves.

Thus, in reality, the liberation of Korea from Japan in 1945 was followed by a new version of Japanese occupation through the pro-Japan government. From there on, Korea was divided between pro-Japan elite and anti-Japan Koreans. In the history of mankind, there have been many cases of internal division of population, but it has been rare that the division was generated by mutual mistrust and even reciprocal hatred as it has happened in Korea.

The pro-Japan elite were aware of their sins; they knew that they were hated. This created inevitably a situation in which they were enemies of Koreans and the Koreans were their enemies.

As a result, the pro-Japan elite had to develop a closely knit community capable of defending themselves and attacking the anti-conservative Koreans. To do this, they needed financial resources. To their advantage, they were in good position to get these resources. To begin with, while they were serving the Japanese masters, they enriched themselves by sharing the Koreans’ assets, especially land, stolen by the Japanese. Moreover, they appropriated the huge assets belonging to the Japanese who had to leave Korea after Japan’s defeat in WWII.

If there is any positive aspect of the pro-Japan conservative camp’s money, it facilitated the take-off of the Korean economy in the 1960s and 1970s. Moreover, the collusion between the pro-Japan businesses and the pro-Japan conservative government was surely one of the key variables of the sustained growth of the economy in the 1980s and the 1990s.

However, on the other hand, such collusion led inevitably to corrupted relations between the business and politics. Moreover, in the absence of balancing and checking mechanism, the corruption became so widely spread over and so deeply penetrated into the Korean society that it produced a corruption culture and formed a corruption community.

By corruption, I mean illegal or immoral actions designed to maximize the interests of the person and those of the group of which the person is a part at the expense of the interests of the people. Remember that some of the laws are intended to legalize illegal activities. Such activities may be legal de jure but they are de facto illegal.

The corruption community is composed of the core group and the periphery group. The core group includes large corporations, leading politicians and elite bureaucrats. The periphery group includes those who are not in the position to influence the national policies; they are the beneficiaries of the corruption system. This group includes the core group’s family members, relatives, friends and supporters of the pro-Japan conservative camp. The corruption community has several ways of acquiring and distributing the funds.

The system of generating and distributing the corruption money may be summarized as follows.

(See also my previous paper: The Political Economy of Corruption in Korea, Global Research,  March 14, 2020)

• Outright theft of tax money and government debts embezzled by presidents and people around the presidents. In fact, three of six presidents of the conservative government were imprisoned and two of them are now in prison for embezzlement of these funds
• Transaction of privileges: bribe money for the issuance of illegal construction permit; bribe money for illegal university admission; bribe money for government contract without bidding
• Theft of government subsidies by subsidy recipients. A part of government subsidies paid to private sector kinder-gardens is used for directors’ personal use, personal cosmetics.
• Transaction of freedom: bribe money paid to judges and prosecutors for non-investigation of crimes, non-indictment and the reduction of prison terms
• Transaction of information: bribe money paid to government officials who provide confidential information on urban planning project or classified information on stock market
• Transaction of laws: bribe money paid to lawmakers who pass laws in favour of specific interests groups
• Theft of public funds through kick-backs and other means.

The interesting question here is about the amount of corruption money generated and distributed. Nobody knows. But, there is one thing which is certain. The corruption community of the pro-Japan forces has been expanding and reinforcing itself for last 70 years. This gives you an idea about the amount of the money generated and distributed. Some well-informed people including lawmakers of the progressive party (the Democratic Party) suggest that hundreds of billions of USD have been generated and distributed within the corruption community. They also suggest that a good part of this money is hidden somewhere within and without Korea invested in real estate and other investment outlets.

The conservative pro-Japan camp’s corruption community has more than enough financial resources to sabotage the progressive camp’s battle to destroy the corruption culture. Therefore, it is imperative to find these funds and return it back to the government. General Chun Doo-hwan, the notorious military dictator, was ordered by the court to return a part of stolen money amounting to several hundreds of millions of dollars. He did, but he still has to return a few hundreds of millions of dollars.

In view of the seriousness of the hidden corruption money, the National Assembly is debating a law on the repatriation of stolen public money.

It goes without saying that the existence of the corruption community itself a national shame and threatens the very survival of the country. But what is more scandalous is the strategy deployed by the conservatives to protect the corruption community.

Strategy of Protecting the Corruption Community

The objective of the strategy is the perpetuation of the conservative government by means of the double strategy including on the one hand, the elimination of the progressive forces and, on the other, the pardoning of the wrongdoings of the conservative corruption community members.

Measures designed to eliminate the Opposition Forces 

These measures include the eradication of opposition voice and the political assassination of opposition leaders:

Eradication of Opposition Voices

• Physical elimination of those who criticize the government or those who are suspected to do so.
• Illegal arrests
• Torturing of those who are arrested
• Citizen harassment by civil police, CIA, military intelligence services
• House search with no search warrant
• Refusal of progressives camp’s access to government jobs
• Prohibition of anti-conservative government street demonstrations
• Tight collusion with the media.

It is impossible to know the number of victims of these harsh measures. However, during the 60 years of police dictatorship, military dictatorship, CIA dictatorship and other forms of subtle dictatorship of the conservative government, perhaps half of the population have been victims directly or indirectly.

However, there is one estimate of victims which is reliable. It is about the citizens who have been murdered by the conservative government; it is more than possible that more than three hundred thousand Koreans have been murdered for being “reds”, that is, for being suspected to be anti-conservatives. This happened especially, during the pro-Japan conservative governments of Rhree Syngman (1948-1960), General Park Chung-hee (1962-1979) and General Chun Doo-hwan (1980-1987).

Political Assassination of Opposition Leaders

The most serious conspiracy undertaken by the penal and judicial system is the political assassination of the present and potential leaders of the progressive camp. The process of political assassination of opposition leaders proceeds by step.

First, select the opposition leader who is or will be a threat to the power of the conservative camp.

Next, undertake investigation designed to find any weakness of the prey. If the prey does not have any weaknesses, the prey’s family, relatives, friends are investigated to find out any proof of wrong doings involving the prey. If there are no proofs of wrong doings in the prey’s world, the prosecutor fabricates proofs by forcing prison inmate to make false witnessing. If there is a slight proof of wrong doings, the prey is immediately indicted.

Finally, the interrogation lasts months, even a year until the prey has no more resources to defend oneself.

One of the notorious cases was the imprisonment of a former prime minister of a progressive government. The prosecutor forced one of the inmates of the prison to declare that he had seen the former prime minister receiving bribe money. The inmate was promised to have shortened prison terms in return of false witnessing. The former prime minister has spent two years in prison. Now, the inmate confessed that he was forced to lie.

There are more cases where the prominent leaders of the progressive camp were indicted for fabricated misconduct or groundless violation of election law. All these cases have been revealed to be groundless. But the inevitable result is the fatal destruction of their image and their political career.

Recently, one of the key leaders of the progressive camp was respected to have killed himself because of the groundless accusation by a conservative lawyer for sexual misbehaviour. It is possible that the whole drama was politically motivated by the conservative camp to eliminate the eventual rival for the presidency.

Measures to pardon the wrong Doings of the Conservative Corruption Community Members

The wrong doing of the conservatives, in general, and the members of the corruption community, in particular, are seldom punished because of the prosecutor’s biased leniency. The prosecutor’s office is the best guardian of the corruption community. In fact, the prosecutors are the key members of the corruption community. The main ways of protecting the corruption community members may be summarized.

• Disregard or invalidate the police investigation results. In Korea, the prosecutor has the right of criminal investigation and the right of indictment, while the police have only the investigation right. Moreover, the prosecutor has the right to supervise police investigation
• If the police investigation looks valid, the prosecutor will take over the investigation and make it invalid.
• If there is ample proof for the crime, the prosecutor delays the indictment until the legal delay of indictment is expired.
• If the proof of crime is convincing, the prosecutor will send the case to the court with recommendations for reduced punishment.
• In the case where the accused are key leaders of Chaebol groups, it is very rare that they are condemned to prison confinement; they pay small amount of fine and they are freed on bail for a few years.

In the Korean penal and judicial system, the members of the pro-Japan conservative corruption community seldom go to prison, unless the crimes are so obvious that the public opinion forces the system to condemn the accused.

Consequence of the Corruption Culture 

So far, we have seen how and why the conservative camp has created the corruption community. It is of course important to know this unfortunate phenomenon. But, what is more important and relevant is to know its harmful consequences on the society. To be sure, there can be a host of ill impacts of the corruption community on the Korean society. But, two types of impacts stand out.. One is the impact on the national economy and the other is the social impact.

Economic Impact

The conservative government’s pro-Chaebol and pro-exports policy has, undoubtedly, contributed to the miracle of Han River. But, it has a few serious ill effects on the national economy. On the other hand, this policy has the effect of enriching the conservative corruption community and, on the other hand, impoverishing the rest of the population. Here is why.

First, the excessive reliance on exports and high technology has resulted in increasing unemployment.

Second, the pro-Chaebol policy has brought about a situation in which national financial and other resources have been allocated mostly to Chaebols at the expense of SMEs. The generous tax allowance for Chaebols, countless grants, and bailouts of Chaebols have meant shortage of resources for the SMEs preventing them from developing normally, creating jobs and generating income for the ordinary people. Remember that the SMEs create 85% of all jobs in Korea. Remember also that most income of the ordinary people comes from the SMEs.

Third, the Pro-Chaebol policy has accelerated the concentration of wealth and income in the hands of the conservative elite.

Fourth, the combination of unequal income distribution combined with increasing unemployment has ended up by shrinking consumer demand and contracting domestic market. If this continues, in the long run, decades-long depression of the economy may follow. In other words, the corruption culture can ruin the economy.

Korea should not repeat what has happened in Japan The three decades-long depression of the Japanese economy was primarily attributable the corruption culture.. (See my previous paper: “Japanization and Abenomics”: the Saga of the Falling Japanese Economy, Global Research, November 4, 2019).

Social Impact

Two types of social impacts of the corruption culture deserve our attention: the destruction of the social ladder and the “Hell Korea”.

The corruption community is so rich and so powerful that it has erected an invisible wall so high that the ordinary people cannot come into their community. In other words, the social ladder of the people cannot go over the wall. In the old days, a boy from provincial town with modest family background could go to Seoul National University, marry a daughter of a rich family and go over the wall, have a nice job and lead “successful life”. In other words there was a time when vertical social mobility was possible. Now it has gone.

There are many ways of keeping the wall high. One way is to send the kids abroad and study at expensive universities and get top jobs on return. Ordinary Koreans have no means to send their kids to study abroad. Another way is the promotion of intra-community marriage. The popular pattern of intra- community marriage involves the kids of Chaebol groups, high ranking politicians, judges and prosecutors. You can see why the conservative corruption community is so rich and powerful.

In this situation, most of the young people who are not connected to the corruption community end up with low paying jobs or part time jobs or no job at all. Thus, for decades, under the corrupted conservative rule, Koreans have lived with uncertain future, fear of being suspected to be anti-conservative, despair of being jobless, the sorrow of having to give up what the life offers and, in particular, the self pity for not being capable of looking after their elderly parents. Korea has become “Hell Korea” for many.

Here is how Hell Korea affects the Korean youth. The Hell Korea consists of several “Give-UPs”. or Po-gi (포기) in Korean, simply “PO”.

• 3 POs: dating, marriage, children.
• 5 POs: 3 POs plus social relations, dwelling
• 7 POs: 5 POs plus, dream and hope
• 9 POs: 7 POs plus, physical health and physical look.

At first, the youth give up dating, marriage and having children. But, as the situation gets worse, they gave up nine basic youth desires, even physical look. This alarming picture of Korean youth is heartbreaking and infinitely sad.

The Korean youth spend their entire youth period to prepare university entrance exams; they go to universities; the get papers saying that they have completed their 4-year studies. They go to the labour market but nobody hires them, unless they went to the Korean Ivy League Universities (SKY universities: Seoul National University, The Koryo University, the Yonse University) where the kids of the corruption community have much better chance to go.

Many young people kill themselves. There is one particular bridge connecting the North Shore and the South Shore of Soul City, called Mapo Bridge. This is the bridge where the young people take their last action on the earth; they fall down to their death in the dark water of Han River. There are so many youth suicides that the police have established a watch-post near the bridge. Many young people kill themselves by falling from the roof of high-rise apartment building down to the parking lot below.

Many workers spend a year, risking frozen death, on the roof of 24-five story building to protest unfair firing, non-paying of wages, refusal to recognize labour union and other illegal and immoral treatments of workers by the employer. This is the horrible picture of Hell Korea; this is the tragic consequence of the corruption culture.

Even if they get the job after their studies, they are the object of employers’ abuse of workers’ rights and the violation of human rights. There are no labour unions which could protect the workers’ rights. For the sake of labour market flexibility, the conservative government has been forbidding the unionization of workers. The rate of unionization in Korea is only 9 %. Furthermore, most of these unions are unable to protect workers’ interests because of anti-labour policy of the government authorities. The conservative government considered labour unions as an obstacle to the enrichment of the corruption community.

Many workers become human torch and burn themselves to death. They do this in order to appeal to the world their tragic lot. For them, it is only way to show injustice reigning over the Korea society under the conservative regime. They choose such desperate way, because the media heavily bribed by the conservatives do not report the suffering of the workers.

The elders are also members of Hell Korea. The rate of suicides of the elderly is one of the highest in the OECD countries. They have had to sacrifice their own happiness all their life by working long hours with neither vacation nor over-time pay. By the time they retire, they have no savings, because they have had to carry out parents’ sacred duties of sending kids to expensive academies (hak-won), paying university fees, buy or rent a dwelling house for marrying children and finance expensive wedding of children.

In the absence of proper old-age pension system, it has been the duty of kids to look after their parents. But the kids do not have jobs. No boy looks after the elderly. Normally, it should be the duty of the government to look after the elderly. But, the conservative governments have not spent enough money for people’s welfare because of the fear of increasing the fiscal burden of the conservative elite.

To sum up, the conservative corruption culture not only have increased the danger of the economy’s falling toward the depth of decade-long depression but it also destroyed the raison d’être of the society. It has brought about the unrecoverable divide between the conservative and progressive; it has created mutual distrust; it has destroyed the hope of the youth; it has undermined the people’s confidence in itself; it has hurt the people’s pride of being Koreans.

2. Moon Jae-in’s Response to the Challenges

Thus, the task of President Moon Jae-in is enormous and difficult. However, he has done a lot. His reforms comprise the anti-Corruption measures, economic policy measures and social policy measures.

Anti-Corruption Measures

• Abolishment of some selective public security authorities which have been oppressing the public. This will, to some extent, stop harassment of the people and the violation of human rights
• Modification of the law on CIA (now National Information Service: NIS) so that it will limit itself to the management of foreign intelligence and that it should not gather information on citizens
• Imprisonment of two conservative presidents (Lee Myong-bak and Park Geun-hye) who are in prison for their abuse of power and corruption.
• Imprisonment of a large number of high ranking civil servants for abuse of power and corruption.
• Modification of laws on government’s subsidies so that the subsidy- recipients cannot embezzle the subsidy funds

Measures to strengthen the Economy    

Measures to strengthen the economy include the policy of development of SMEs, the promotion of labour unionization and the increase of minimum wage. These policies are designed to expand and reinforce the domestic market.

The government of Moon Jae-in has created the Ministry of SMEs and appointed, as its first minister, Mme Park Yeon-sun, one of the innovative and courageous ministers. Mme Park has made the Chaebols to establish new value chains in which the SMEs can receive proper rewards for their new technology and products. In the past, the Chaebols used to exploit unfairly the SMEs and in many cases they even stole the technology invented by the SMEs. Now, owing to new pro-SME policy, the SMEs have a new hope, confidence in themselves and they have increased their international competitiveness. This is a well balanced industrial policy allowing both large corporations and SMEs grow together and assure sustained growth of the economy.

President, Moon has encouraged labour unionization and reinforced the voice of labour in economic policy in general and labour policy, in particular.

Moon’s government has increased the minimum wage, which is now above the American minimum wage. Moreover, some provinces have introduced a regime of “basic income” whereby every citizen can receives a given amount of income provided that the money is spent in the locality.

Measures to improve social Welfare 

The government has substantially increased the welfare budget including funds for pensions, medical insurance, housing allowances and other income assistance.

Moreover, Moon’s government has decided to nationalize regional hospitals, kinder-gardens, professional high schools and several other institutions which are important public good producers.

Finally, the government has decided to expand public welfare budget even with public debts, which the conservatives had been avoiding by fear of their increased fiscal burden. Given the size of Korean GDP, it is not too early to expand the welfare budget.

3. Remaining Challenges

For a government which took over the power only four years ago, the government of Moon Jae-in has done a lot. What it has done so far may be summed up by saying that the corruption community is still alive but it has lost some of its force. The precarious industrial structure has been improved. The SMEs are finding their right place in the economy. The welfare of the people is improving and it will continue to improve. In short, Moon’s government has done a good job.

In addition, the government’s handling of the corona-virus crisis has been so successful that Korea’s model has become a global model.

But, President has two difficult challenges to overcome before he leaves. One is the further advance in the reform of the judicial reform. The other is the media reform.

Reform of the Judicial and Penal System

The prosecutors in Korea should exist to protect laws and assure the judicial fairness and justice. But, in reality, they are most powerful law breakers. We saw above how they violate laws. There are less than three thousand prosecutors but, they form the most powerful and most fearful organization. What is tragic is the fact that they think they are special people; they think they are above the law. The tragedy is this. They think that they can topple the government by judicial coup d’état. In fact, what they are doing now is precisely a judicial coup d’état.

A year and half ago, President Noon Jae-in appointed Professor Cho Guk to the post of Minister of Justice. The Minister of Justice is the boss of the chief prosecutor. Professor Cho is a well known expert in judicial affairs. He was nominated for the realization of the judicial reform. Therefore, this nomination has meant, as far as the prosecutors are concerned, a serious threat to their cosy and very lucrative prosecution business.

In order to prevent Cho’s judicial reform, the chief prosecutor, Yoon Suk-yeol, mobilized a large number of prosecutors to find something to justify Cho’s indictment. The prosecutors have used, in the name of investigation, every possible legal, illegal and immoral tactics such as intimidation, harassment, threats, fabrication of false witnesses, illegal house search, and outright lies. The prosecutors have investigated the Minister Cho, his family, his relatives and all individuals who might have relations with Cho and all institutions which might have been involved in Cho’s personal and professional activities. This ordeal lasted more than a year; it is still continuing. But, they have found nothing to indict Minister Cho and find his culpability. The idea of discrediting Professor Cho as Justice Minister was intended to discredit President Moon for having appointed a wrong person as Justice Minister. In other words, the ultimate objective of the prosecutors is the toppling of Moon’s government.

The successor of Minister Cho is Mme Choo Mi-ae, one of the most expected jurists and one of the most able politicians; she has made significant progress in reforming the prosecutors system. But, she has met persistent resistance of the prosecutors under the leadership of the chief prosecutor, Yoou Suk-yeol.

Choo has found out that the illegal activities of the chief prosecutor are so many and so serious that she has nominates the Committee of Discipline of the Ministry of Justice and, on December 16, the committee has recognized the culpability of the chief prosecutor. This is the first time that the chief prosecutor becomes the target of discipline. He is given two-month suspension of work.

Furthermore, President Moon has created another historical institution which will surely speed up the reform of Korean judicial system. The National Assembly adopted, on November 10, 2020, the establishment of the Corruption Investigation Office for High- Ranking Officials (CIOHRO). This is indeed one of many historical achievements of President Moon. Moreover, there will be another law which will be adopted. By virtue of this law, the prosecutors will lose most of the criminal investigation right; this will decrease considerably the prosecutor’s power.

The Media Reform

There is one reform which is even more difficult to realize. It is the reform of the media. Normally, we all expect that the media would produce and diffuse information which is professional, objective, critical, unbiased and useful for public policies designed to promote the welfare of all citizens.

Unfortunately, the Korean media do not have these virtues for the simple reason that for last 70 years they have been created and managed by the conservative governments. The conservative government’s media policy is to glorify the conservatives and demonize the progressives.

The core of the conservative media policy may be summarized.

First, it maximizes the number of media outlets so that the production of pro-conservative information and the anti-progressive information be maximized.

Second, it encourages the creation of small media outlets so that they depend on the conservative corruption community for their income.

Third, it sets up a mechanism of information coordination. The Chosen Ilbo, the Jung-ang Ilbo and the Tong-ah Ilbo (Cho-Jung-Tong) have the function of producing information which is often fabricated and distorted or lies in order to discredit the progressive camp. The reports of Cho-Jung-Tong are copied by most of the media.

Fourth, the main source of media income is the conservative corruption community, especially the major Chaebols.

Fifth, illegal and immoral activities of the media are seldom punished because of the collusion between the conservative camp and the penal and judiciary system.

Sixth, if the prosecutor decides to condemn an innocent person for political or financial reason, the media describes the person in such a way that the person looks guilty so that the person deserves criminal investigation and indictment.

In many cases, the media report what the prosecutors ask the media to report. In this way, the media plays a role condemning innocent people by means of fabricated public opinion.

In fact, the media is the most formidable enemy of the anti-corruption war of Moon-Jae-in. And, the reform of media has not yet begun. The future of media reform depends on which camp will form the next government. If it is the conservative camp, nothing will haven. If it is the progressive camp, the media reform will have the policy priority, but it will be a tough task.

To conclude, President Moon Jae-in has prepared the way to a new era of prosperity, justice, safety and security for all citizens. Koreans thank him, respect him, love him and admire him for what he is and for what he has done for them.

Yes, he is the leader Koreans have been waiting for so long.

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Professor Joseph H. Chung is professor of Economics and co-director of the Observatoire de l’Asie de l’Est (OAE) – the Centre d’études sur l’Intégration et la Mondialisation (CEIM), Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). He is Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Ein Ehrenkodex ist laut Duden „die Gesamtheit der in einer Gesellschaft oder Gruppe geltenden, die Ehre und das ehrenhafte Verhalten betreffenden Normen“ (1). Dieses ungeschriebene Regelwerk über das Wohlverhalten von Berufsgruppen, das mit entsprechenden Verpflichtungen und Privilegien verbunden ist, scheint bei akademischen und anderen herausragenden Berufsgruppen nicht mehr zu gelten. Die Menschen weltweit werden dadurch in einen Zustand von Not, Armut und Hoffnungslosigkeit, von Vereinsamung und Ausgestoßenheit getrieben. Ein Handwerker darf sich ein solches Verhalten nicht leisten, ohne dafür bestraft zu werden und seinen Arbeitsplatz zu verlieren. Haben zum Beispiel auch Politiker, Ärzte, Journalisten oder Psychologen angesichts offensichtlich eklatanter Verstöße gegen ihre Berufsethik derartige Konsequenzen zu befürchten? Wer wird sie eines Tages für ihr Verhalten zur Rechenschaft ziehen?

Der Artikel eines Kollegen von „RUBIKON“ veranlasste mich dazu, mir den Ehrenkodex herausragender Berufsgruppen noch einmal näher anzusehen. (2) Ich empfehle jedem Mitbürger, das Gleiche zu tun, sollte er noch nicht aufgewacht sein: Beginnen Sie mit dem Eid des Hippokrates, dem ursprünglich in griechischer Sprache verfassten Arztgelöbnis und fahren sie fort mit dem Amts- beziehungsweise Diensteid von Politikern, den berufsethischen Richtlinien von Psychologinnen und Psychologen bis hin zu den national sowie international verpflichtenden Vereinbarungen für Journalisten!

Wie können Ärzte oder ärztliche Politikberater Verordnungen treffen, die nicht „zu Nutz und Frommen der Kranken“ sind und die sie nicht bewahren vor Schaden und willkürlichem Unrecht (3)? Wie können Politiker ganz unverhohlen gegen den geleisteten Amtseid verstoßen und ihre Kraft nicht dem eigenen Volk, sondern vielmehr der Milliardärs- und Macht-„Elite“ widmen und gegen die Gesetzes des Bundes verstoßen? Wie können Psychologinnen und Psychologen entgegen ihrer Berufsethik traumatisierte Kriegsheimkehrer wieder dienstfähig schreiben, Folterern bei ihrer Arbeit sekundieren und derzeit die Mitmenschen zum Durchhalten und Zurückstellen ihrer elementarsten menschlichen Bedürfnisse auffordern? Wie kann die „Journaille“ (Presse-Gesindel) ihrer Verpflichtung zur wahrheitsgemäßen Information der Bürger und zum Frieden in keiner Weise nachkommen – und das ungestraft?

Ein Beruf ist eine „aufgrund besonderer Eignung und Neigung systematisch erlernte, spezialisierte, meistens mit einem Qualitätsnachweis versehene, dauerhaft und gegen Entgeld ausgeübte Betätigung eines Menschen“ (4). Ist man ihm nicht gewachsen, sollte man sich einen Job suchen, der meist nur vorübergehend ausgeübt wird, nicht an eine besondere Eignung oder Ausbildung gebunden ist und vor allem keinen Schaden anrichten kann.

Alle Mitbürger sind dazu aufgerufen, die eklatanten Verstöße der verschiedenen Berufsgruppen gegen das geschriebene oder auch ungeschriebene Regelwerk über das Wohlverhalten nicht weiter hinzunehmen, sondern es unverzüglich einzufordern. Sie dürfen es nicht zulassen, dass sich nur die „Ehrenwerte Gesellschaft“ an ihren Ehrenkodex hält.

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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel ist Diplom-Psychologe und Erziehungswissenschaftler.

Noten

1. http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Ehrenkodex

2. rubikon.news/artikel/die-diktaturdepression

3. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_des_Hippokrates

4. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beruf

According to the Duden dictionary, a code of honour is “the totality of norms concerning honour and honourable behaviour that apply in a society or group” (1). This unwritten set of rules about the good conduct of professional groups, associated with corresponding obligations and privileges, no longer seems to apply to academic and other prominent professional groups.

People worldwide are thus driven into a state of hardship, poverty and hopelessness, of isolation and outcastness. A craftsman cannot afford such behaviour without being punished for it and losing his job. Do politicians, doctors, journalists or psychologists, for example, also have to fear such consequences in view of obviously blatant violations of their professional ethics? Who will one day hold them accountable for their behaviour?

The article by a colleague from “RUBIKON” prompted me to take another look at the code of honour of outstanding professional groups. (2) I recommend every fellow citizen to do the same, should they not have woken up yet: Start with the Oath of Hippocrates, the doctor’s vow originally written in Greek, and continue with the oath of office or service of politicians, the professional ethical guidelines of psychologists, and even the nationally and internationally binding agreements for journalists!

How can doctors or medical policy advisors make decrees that are not “for the benefit of the sick” and that do not protect them from harm and arbitrary injustice (3)?

How can politicians blatantly violate the oath of office they have taken and devote their power not to their own people but rather to the billionaire and power “elite” and violate federal law? How can psychologists, contrary to their professional ethics, write traumatised war returnees fit for service again, second torturers in their work and currently call on fellow human beings to persevere and put aside their most basic human needs?

How can the “journaille” (riffraff of the press) in no way fulfil their obligation to inform the citizens truthfully and to promote peace – and do so with impunity?

A profession is “an activity of a human being which is systematically learned, specialised, usually accompanied by a certificate of quality, performed permanently and for remuneration on the basis of special aptitude and inclination” (4). If one is not up to it, one should look for a job that is usually only temporary, is not tied to a special aptitude or training and above all cannot cause any harm.

All fellow citizens are called upon not to continue to accept the blatant violations of the written or even unwritten rules of good conduct by the various occupational groups, but to demand it without delay. They must not allow only the “Honourable Society” to abide by its code of honour.

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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel is a graduate psychologist and educationalist.

Notes

(1) http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Ehrenkodex

(2) www.rubikon.news/artikel/die-diktaturdepression

(3) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_des_Hippokrates

(4) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beruf

Samos Dreaming: Reflecting on the Life, History and Social Injustice on Greece’s Samos Island

By Chris Jones, December 27, 2020

The Covid cases here are thankfully small but the lock-downs apply all the same with the closure of businesses and movement restrictions. Such regulations virtually wiped out the 2020 summer tourist season upon which so many depend on.

Democracies Don’t Start Wars. But U.S. Democrats Do.

By Philip Giraldi, December 27, 2020

The idea that pluralistic democracies are somehow less inclined to go to war has in fact been around for a couple of hundred years and was first elaborated by Immanuel Kant in an essay entitled “Perpetual Peace” that was published in 1795.

Elections in Venezuela: The Trump-Guaidó “Pyrrhic Victory” and Its Achilles Heel

By Arnold August, December 27, 2020

In the weeks prior to voting day, the civil-military union contributed to the peaceful exercise of the right to vote, acting as that Achilles heel, and helping turn the December 6 elections into a Chavista victory.

How Will Joe Biden “Resolve” the Syrian Crisis? The Viewpoint of a French Diplomat

By Steven Sahiounie, December 27, 2020

Thepaut treats the Syrian crisis as if it was only between various governments, such as; the US, EU, Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Those various countries listed are indeed involved in the Syrian crisis, but the suffering and effect on the residents in Syria must be considered in any US foreign policy changes.

Covid Death by Ventilator – A Personal Story – for the World to Know

By Peter Koenig, December 27, 2020

So, this is like an open letter about a personal drama, of which there are myriad of similar ones across the continents. A warning to what might happen to innocently trusting people – a warning, not to blindly trust authorities, nor the official covid-narrative and covid-science.

Europe’s Lack of Confidence Hampers Signing of Trade Agreement with China

By Paul Antonopoulos, December 27, 2020

After seven years of tough negotiations, the European Union and China were close to signing an investment agreement. However, at the last moment, it hit a road block as it faced pressure from those wanting Washington’s involvement, or those wanting to impose Western Liberalism on China.

After Trump Blocked UN Inquiry on Racist Violence, NGOs Are Conducting Their Own

By Prof. Marjorie Cohn, December 27, 2020

Shortly after the public lynching of George Floyd, the U.S. Human Rights Network and the ACLU organized an international coalition of more than 600 organizations and individuals to urge the United Nations Human Rights Council to convene a commission of inquiry to investigate systemic racism and police brutality in the United States.

Step Forth Divine Human. The Worldwide Rising Tide of Human Consciousness

By Julian Rose, December 27, 2020

The forces at work to subdue humanity into abject slavery are well aware of the rising tide of consciousness sweeping across our world at this time. They know their own existence is under threat due to the rising momentum of the aspiration for truth. 

Christmas Visions: Children and the Importance of Redemption

By Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin, December 26, 2020

The idea of a child-centred Christmas is taken for granted now but in Dickens’ time it was not so assured. A high child mortality rate, child labour, poverty and, a colder, more utilitarian attitude towards children prevailed.

Warning: Covid Vaccines! Huge Risks, Huge Injuries – Huge Compensations?

By Peter Koenig, December 25, 2020

Did you know that the US Government since 1988 paid as of 1 December 2020 more than 4.4 billion dollars to vaccine-injury victims? – It’s your money – Taxpayers Money. This is Health Services and Service Administration Vaccine Injury Compensation Data.

Notre site Web en français, mondialisation.ca

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Nuestro sitio web en español, globalizacion.ca

Brigadier General Mohsen Fakhrizadeh of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Command (IRGC) and Iran’s most important nuclear scientist was assassinated not too far from Tehran recently. Iran immediately accused Israel , an allegation confirmed by a senior Washington official soon after. Meanwhile Tel Aviv has remained silent. Given its many earlier assasinations of Iran’s nuclear scientists and Netanyahu’s specific mention of Fakhrizadeh in 2018 the assumption is a safe one.

This year saw the murder of two prominent Iranian leaders. Very early in the year US President Trump ordered the murder of Qasem Solaimani, a Major General of the IRGC and commander of the Quds Force, one agreed by all as formidable. He was on a diplomatic mission. In both instances Tehran vowed revenge but as time has shown prudence has been the watchword. The reported early warning bombing of the US Iraqi base, Ayn Al-Asad was intended to avoid deaths of US servicemen and women. Clearly the intention was to avoid a counter attack and prevent the outbreak of war.

The loss of Fakhrizadeh while great is not expected to paralyse Iran’s nuclear programme. It is only natural that the personnel pool in the area has grown over the years to meet the needs of Iran’s nuclear energy industry. Iran has denied that there was ever any effort to build a nuclear weapons programme, a stand very much part of its Islamic tenets. But Israel uses the nuclear weapons argument as a convenient strategy of undermining the Iranian effort to build its strength: economic and defence. Israel is fighting to maintain the uneven playing field of West Asia (Middle East) where it is the sole nuclear power but undeclared.

If then the Fakhrizadeh murder will not hamper Iran’s ability to build its nuclear energy industry, which for its own convenience Israel assumes will be flipped and weaponised, then why commit the crime? Observers argue that the intention is to tie President-elect Biden’s hands in the event he tries to resurrect US participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) or the Iran Deal making war the necessary option. The assumption is that the murders would inhibit Iran’s ability to return to the Iran Nuclear Deal. While plausible, this fails to recognise the pragmatism that has informed Tehran’s decisions thus far.

Indeed, most are convinced that vengeance will not bring about the declaration of war by Tehran. And yet, the failure to secure Fakhrizadeh’s safety is an embarrassment for Tehran.

The realization of justice is a much cherished principle of Shia Islam: “Everyday is Ashura. Every land is Karbala”, the former the day of Imam Hussain’s (Prophet Mohammad’s grandson) martyrdom, the latter where he was martyred in his fight for justice. The Islamic Republic of Iran has been at the receiving end of much injustice for defending its sovereignty and resisting the hegemonic proclivities of the USA. The 8 year Iran – Iraq war was nothing but a war where Iraq played proxy for the USA. The on-going debilitating American sanctions, including its refusal to lift those on medical supplies despite the Covid-19 pandemic have caused civilian casualties and deaths, intentionally targeted to trigger an uprising among the Iranian people against the government.

The pursuit of justice is the core of Shi’ite belief. When this informs the dynamics that drives awareness of the Iranian people then the country’s enemy is obvious: external forces. Obviously, too, the government is very mindful of Islamic tenets as is seen in their attitude towards nuclear weapons. Was this the rationale for not killing US troops when Iran’s missile attacked US bases in Iraq? Was this why they shot down the unmanned drone (UAV) and spared the manned US spy plane. If the answer is yes then revenge for the murders of Fakhrizadeh and Soleimani will not be a conventional hot war.

In a time when wars are fought by the weaponising of any means that can destroy society and economies, what can Iran weaponise to undermine Israel? In the case of Soleimani the shape of that justice can be surmised from Trump’s admission of murder. But the Fakhrizadeh murder?

The glean of a possible answer could be at hand. On December 17^th, 2020 a news story in the  Haaretz begins with “Israel is in the midst of a massive cyber attack by an Iranian group…”

“.…Iranian -linked hackers have targeted at least 80 Israeli firms in what experts say is a form of ideologically driven cybercrime.” Apparently, this attack by the group Pay2Key, is the latest “in a string of cyber campaigns against Israel.”Israeli experts suggest this is a war against their economy. What leads the experts to this belief is that, unlike the average sophisticated cybercriminals, the ransom demanded is comparatively small — although a report in The Times of Israel said “no ransom” was demanded — probably because the objective is political rather than commercial.

According to the headline of the report ”The Iranians Are Waiting for the Israeli Response…”

If the report is accurate and a cyber war ensues, given the assumptions of the experts that the ‘hacktivists’ have been in place for a considerable time it is then safe to assume that a planned attack has long been in place. If war it is then it is safe to assume that the objective is economic paralysis hitting all of the economy as what Russia did to Ukraine in 2015. There cannot be half measures on the Iranian part if they are to avenge themselves effectively. Data stolen can be engineered to cause substantial paralysis of whatever the future target maybe, possibly Israel’s supply chain given the nature of the targets.

Cyber warfare fits well into the Islamic principles of the Iranian state. Tehran has taken every opportunity to demonstrate its scientific and technological skills but unwilling to exploit any of it needlessly. It is not a Third World country struggling to develop. It is a major military power of West Asia. It builds missiles, a prowess the US is trying to end. The late Fakhrizadeh has the distinction of being compared to Oppenheimer the father of the nuclear bomb. It is a civilisation of some five thousand years. Iran is feared for its potential, especially by the Arab states of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies.

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Askiah Adam is Executive Director of the International Movement for a JUST World.

Featured image: Killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh (CC BY 4.0)

Shortly after the public lynching of George Floyd, the U.S. Human Rights Network and the ACLU organized an international coalition of more than 600 organizations and individuals to urge the United Nations Human Rights Council to convene a commission of inquiry to investigate systemic racism and police brutality in the United States. George Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, addressed the Council by video, stating, “You in the United Nations are your brothers’ and sisters’ keepers in America.” He implored the UN, “I’m asking you to help us — Black people in America.”

However, the Trump administration lobbied heavily against this investigation, objecting to limiting the inquiry to the U.S. The Council subsequently declined a request by a group of African countries within the Council to establish the inquiry commission. “The outcome is a result of the pressure, the bullying that the United States did, assisted by many of its allies,” said Jamil Dakwar, the ACLU’s human rights program director.

But the Council did task the High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet with preparing a report by June 2021 on “systemic racism, violations of international human rights law against Africans and people of African descent by law enforcement agencies, especially those incidents that resulted in the death of George Floyd and other Africans and people of African descent, to contribute to accountability and redress for victims.” In Resolution 43/1, the Council did not limit the subject matter of the report to violations in the United States.

To assist in the preparation of Bachelet’s report, the Council called for input from several entities, including nongovernmental organizations.

The International Association of Democratic Lawyers, National Conference of Black Lawyers and National Lawyers Guild responded to that call by establishing their own International Commission of Inquiry on Systemic Racist Police Violence Against People of African Descent in the United States.

Rutgers University law professor emeritus Lennox Hinds, who conceived of the idea for the commission, told Truthout, “This International Commission of Inquiry is an attempt to give voice to the international outrage resulting from the public lynching of George Floyd and to expose the racist and systemic nature of police violence against people of African descent in the United States and to hold the U.S. government accountable before the international community.”

Twelve commissioners, including prominent judges, lawyers, professors, advocates and UN special rapporteurs from Pakistan, South Africa, Japan, India, Nigeria, France, Costa Rica, the United Kingdom and the West Indies will hold public hearings from January 18 to February 6.

The commission will hear evidence in 50 cases of police violence that occurred throughout the United States from 2010-2020, including the killings of George Floyd, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor and Tamir Rice. Many resulted in the deaths of unarmed or nonthreatening African Americans.

Although the commission won’t have the money and resources a UN investigation would have commanded (were it not for Trump’s obstruction), the scope of this inquiry will go beyond the Council’s resolution by giving voice to the families of Black victims of police brutality.

Testimony of victims’ lawyers and family members, community representatives and acknowledged experts will occur in 25 cities via Zoom. The commissioners will prepare a report for submission to the UN high commissioner and the public by the end of March. They will be assisted in the hearings and preparation of their report by a team of four rapporteurs, including this writer. Students and faculty from Rutgers Law School will provide research support.

The commissioners will ask the UN high commissioner to use our report to inform her report to the Council. We will also publicize our report widely in the United States and throughout the world for people to use in litigation and advocacy.

This will be a thorough investigation of anti-Black violence perpetrated by police in the United States. It will examine: 1) Cases of victims of police violence, extrajudicial killings and maiming of people of African descent and entrenched structural racism in police practices throughout the U.S.; and 2) The structural racism and bias in the criminal “justice” system that results in the impunity of law enforcement officers for violations of U.S. and international law.

The commission will analyze whether several instances of police violence against African Americans violated international law. A 2020 study of the 20 largest cities in the United States found none whose lethal force policies complied with international human rights law and standards.

Finally, the commission will consider the lack of accountability for violations of human rights, and recommend effective measures to end impunity in the future.

Treaties the United States ratifies become part of U.S. law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. They are the “supreme law of the land.” The U.S. has ratified three human rights treaties that enshrine the right to life, the right to be free from torture and the right to be free from discrimination. All three require effective measures be taken for violations of the rights protected by those treaties.

During the hearings, the testimony will describe instances of police violence that deprived African Americans of the right to life, and the rights to be free from torture and discrimination.

“We want the [UN] high commissioner [Michelle Bachelet] to actually use this report,” said Kerry McLean, a member of the steering committee that is establishing the commission. “She’s not doing hearings, so we’re doing hearings.”

The hearings will be accessible to the public. The report and findings of the commission will be published in English.

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Copyright Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and a member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Fibonacci Blue/Flickr

The forces at work to subdue humanity into abject slavery are well aware of the rising tide of consciousness sweeping across our world at this time. They know their own existence is under threat due to the rising momentum of the aspiration for truth. 

The human being must now stand-up straight, mask-free and proud. Because that is the only way he/she will be recognisable as a warm blooded, essentially compassionate living example of the species.

Those using the mask are already signifying obeisance to the lie. The mask is a symbol of retreat into fear. What’s more in the near future it will be revealed to be the cause of serious health problems in its own right. This is, of course, one of its roles within the ‘great Covid reset’. The genocide disguised behind ‘the mask of caring’.

Once the individual human being grasps the nature of this great deception, stands straight and declares herself/himself to be an expression of the divine omnipotence from whence all life emerges – and where all life is heading – then truly a new springboard for the flowering of mankind is announced.

For in our defeat of fear and all the ill-will presently being afflicted upon humanity, we will have vanquished the final obstruction to our emancipation and enlightenment.

All the ‘elite’ despotic criminals’ plans for the future of mankind presently on display as ‘New World Order’ ‘Great Reset’ ‘One World Government’ and ‘Transhuman Singularity’ will dissolve away into nothingness once the light of this great awakening quickens and penetrates the veins of our living planet.

It is not a question of waiting for some ‘outside event’ to bring-about such a cleansing. It is our courageous stepping forward in the fullness of our divine human nature which sparks the arousal of benign macrocosmic energies into their conjunction with our innately divine microcosmic mirror energies. The two must come to meet if we are to be the creators of the real ‘Great Reset’, which is nothing less than the defeat of the darkest lies that imprison us – by the light of abundant truth. The truth that sets us free.

Victory is assured. Do not hold back. Your soul awaits your command. Rip away the coward’s mask of victim-hood and cease hiding behind the falsification of your divinity.  Step forth, cast aside those who hold this world to ransom. Brave spirit that you truly are, this is your greatest hour and our greatest victory.

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Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, writer, international activist, entrepreneur and teacher. His latest book ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through’ is particularly prescient reading for this time: see www.julianrose.info

Featured image is from howstuffworks

There is a tragic lack of attention given to the achievements and activities of people and communities in tackling the problems they confront. It is tragic because people need hope and inspiration in these dark times and the thousands upon thousands of grass root mobilisations across the globe provide this. But unless you are closely involved with such activities you are denied a crucial source of knowledge and understanding and with it the energy to mobilise or at least not to be left hopeless and demoralised.

As with all important human and social phenomenon there are many issues at play; local and global – particular to place and circumstance and also general when it comes to managing societies that enrich the few at the expense and on the backs of the majority. The strategies of such domination shift and change over time and are multi-dimensional as authority perpetually struggles to explain why the many struggle and suffer whilst others flourish as they capture the wealth and riches created by the people. Such struggles are never ending and always evolving as circumstances change. And they are not restricted to one site or mode ranging from hard and violent to softly softly : tear gas to youth clubs.

Very few in the world today escape being caught up in endless efforts of authority to shape our thoughts and manage our behaviour according to their needs. Efforts that come in many forms. Many of you reading this will know all too well how religion and ‘science’ have been deployed over time to legitimate inhumanity. I recall how in my English primary school we boisterously sang the Christian hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful at our daily school assemblies.

About the wondrous world God has created with the rich man in his castle and the poor man at his gate. And then later as a social work student being showered with sociological and psychological theories that explained why the poor were to blame for their poverty and hardship. At least I did not have to endure in my schooling in the 1950s and 1960s the experiences of my mum and dad who sat in class rooms with maps of the British Empire – where the sun never sets- and be told of the great gifts the British Empire brought to backward and uncivilised peoples. Yet me and my friends had to confront a schooling system that embedded the privilege of the few. We all sat the 11plus exam at the end of our time in primary school. As an 11 year old I was frightened by the 11 plus. I have a twin brother. At 11 we had never been apart going to the same schools. I had nightmares about one of us passing and one failing and being sent off to different schools. Even at that age you just knew that it was much more than going to different schools. It was about different worlds. Even if we didn’t understand it fully, even at 11 we knew that this exam was life defining. It was the entrance exam into British class society as it was then.

Passing the exam meant you were seen as a child with potential to be developed and encouraged. Failure was the reverse. You were not seen in terms of potential development. Instead your expectations were to be refocused shifting from the brain to the hand. If you passed you went to the grammar school for at least five years knowing that you were being prepared for a bright future in the middle and professional classes. If you failed it was 5 years in the secondary modern school and a future of menial labour. And in both regimes the impact of gender and race was enormous.

One of the most common cruelties of state schooling systems in many parts of the world is in its creation of failure. At very young ages children are labelled and treated as failures. They are told they are not intelligent, that they have no talent and to adjust their expectations of life accordingly. In a variety of ways and settings huge swathes of children internalise these negative judgements which come to shadow their lives whether or not they give in or fight back refusing to accept that they are stupid and useless.

This is just a tiny fragment of the processes at work. In different places and times similar socialisation processes are at work which are designed to cement and reaffirm privilege and power. It never stops. And it can never stop given the enduring characteristics of human beings. We all have agency. We all think. We are not pieces of plasticine to be moulded at will. There are billions of us around today and I would hazard a guess that many are at least like the frightened 11 year old boy facing the 11 plus who is troubled that what he faces is not right.

So how does this relate to my reaction to the work of the Lewisham (London) food bank which prompted this article? I was inspired by what the so called ‘ordinary’ people of the area were doing to feed and help those struggling including those with CoVid. Created in 2014 the We Care project is now feeding and supporting 5,000 people (and their pets!). They take no money from the state, local or central, which had in fact abandoned them. Now Covid is a major aspect of their work as it has deepened their poverty and hardship. They have created a charity shop to raise money which has allowed them to open a cafe as well as a community kitchen for those who no longer have the means to cook and prepare food. All this is done by volunteers. They have made a short film about their work:

“We are delighted that our film ‘Feeding Lewisham’, made out of love and with zero funds, has been selected for, and is winning, awards globally. We believe this is, in part because the world is all facing the same Covid challenges. But our film is also different. It does not go down the misery and poverty porn route. Instead, it shows how powerful communities can be when governments and councils fail them. It shows how awesome we as neighbours can be – united in solidarity. And it shows black people as leaders not as victims.”

(My emphasis: https://www.thecanary.co/feature/2020/12/13/a-short-film-made-by-a-community-is-getting-international-recognition/)

And listen to what they said about why they made the film:

“We cannot thank enough those people who gave their time and still do to help others during this crisis and those in the film team who gave hours of time for free because what was happening in Lewisham was [too] important not to be told whilst the film also is a model for others to copy and be inspired by globally.” (The Canary 13 Dec 2020)

I shouted out Yes ! when I read this. For here was yet another vivid example of how awesome we can be when we are united in solidarity. What is happening in Lewisham is happening world wide. People failed by their governments and elites uniting in solidarity to make a better life. I saw this myself in Easterhouse, Glasgow where the tenants of one of the biggest and poorest council estates in the UK created the Festival Society which gave us stunning performances transforming streets into massive theatres; that brought the holiday seaside into the centre of the community complete with deck chairs, donkeys, sand, a fun fair and sticks of their own Easterhouse rock ( a traditional seaside sweet).

Easterhouse was famous because of its knife, drug and gang crime with its population repeatedly insulted and dismissed. Many commentators said it was the worse place in Britain. BUT never a comment or a glimpse of a community recognising and drawing on its endless talents and achieving great things in the midst of harsh poverty and a depressing environment ( once described by the Scottish comedian, Billy Conolly) as a “desert with windows”.

No mention that they looked at their skills and found that collectively they had 57 trades which became the name of their company which took over an empty school and created workshops which in turn won major contracts for estate maintenance and repairs. No mention that they designed and built the largest outdoor mural in Britain and that contrary to mainstream sneering was never vandalised.

I saw something similar in Croxteth in north Liverpool where a similar mobilisation of an impoverished community following a fight to save a school has led to the creation of network of shops, a sports centre, community university and much more in terms of groups, networks and activities. And I saw the same energies and capacities being realised in the black and Hispanic communities of Fort Worth and Dallas, Texas which created and ran health clinics in the mid 1980s.

Part of the Easterhouse Mural

There are a multitude of such initiatives globally, some of enormous importance such as the mobilisation of communities in various west African countries in their ultimately successful campaigns between 2014 and 2017 to defeat Ebola. In the Basque region of northern Spain the Mondragon Corporation founded in 1956 has become one of the largest companies in Spain, employing 81,507 workers in 2019 in 257 companies. Its core principles are co-operation and solidarity and the subservience of capital.

There are so many examples to learn from! Collectively they help and sustain literally millions of people whether in co-ops, credit unions, food banks, health centres, play and sports, song, dance, theatre, village and town councils and on the streets and in our homes. And it is not just the sheer scale of what they do, but how they do it. With dignity, respect, solidarity, understanding, love and laughter; all qualities which are almost invisible in official agencies of various kinds. (I have learnt over the years that if I don’t hear laughter and don’t see smiles in organisations you need to be on alert as these tend to be bad places.)

That so little of this is ever taught in schools and colleges and given such little media attention is deliberate. So much about these public mobilisations, especially amongst those described by Fanon as the wretched of the earth fundamentally challenge the core precepts which underpin the deep inequalities of today’s world. Love trumps greed and happiness trumps wealth to put it simply. It is for good reason that authority tries to diminish, devalue and at times to destroy these grass roots activities and groups. This is especially clear in the state violence which is so often used against squatters for their violation of the sacredness accorded to private property. But there are many other examples across the spectrum where laws and statutes are dredged up or enacted to control grass root activity.

Occasionally we get some vivid examples of authority’s fears as was the case during the early 1970s when across much of the advanced capitalist world (North America, Japan and Western Europe) women, black and minorities, gays, lesbians and transgender, anti-war movements, students and school kids and other stigmatised and neglected peoples took to the streets demanding and fighting for their fundamental rights including dignity and respect. The convulsion took many forms and was constantly shifting. Authority was frightened. The elites collected in the Trilateral Commission “a mechanism for lubricating the thrust of co-operation and co-ordination between the major capitalist economies” commissioned a report on ‘The Crisis of Democracy’ undertaken by 3 conservative sociologists (Crozier, Huntington and Watanuki). It was published in 1975 and is full of their pessimism and fear about the mass mobilisations underway. For them this was the crisis of democracy. There was no way they could accede to what they called a “democratic surge” because Crozier and his colleagues claimed that it would lead to “the disintegration of civil society, the breakdown of social discipline, the debility of leaders and the alienation of citizens”. Their conclusion is simple; “democratic societies cannot work when the citizenry is not passive.”

(As a brief aside it is worth noting at the time of the Report being published many in the Trilateral Commission were doubtful that they could control these movements or moderate their demands of the state. But some of their key proposals were pursued. They argued that too many schools and universities were encouraging students to question and challenge. The Trilaterals in the final analysis want obedience from their minions and not questions. This had to change. They also argued for a renewed and energetic focus on individualism with people being encouraged to see themselves foremost as consumers and not as citizens. Credit cards and consumer debt were seen as having great potential in controlling behaviour.)

The point I am trying to make is that despite the lack of attention and acknowledgement of these thousands of activities this should not be taken to mean they are not scrutinised and watched by authority. There are moments when this is all too apparent when undercover infiltration by the ‘security service’ (whose security?) is occasionally revealed. But in the main the potential challenge is handled in a vast diversity of ways. For authority generally, the activities of these autonomous movements of the people tend to be viewed as social rather than political problems. This categorisation is reinforced as so many autonomous movements have no significant links with organised politics and rarely use an overtly political vocabulary to describe or even organise their efforts. Moreover, throughout the world, those at the bottom of the social pile are all too often ignored and abandoned by mainstream political parties and groups, even those who claim to be concerned with injustice and poverty. Like, Ramsey MacDonald, one of the leaders of the British Labour Party a century ago who declared that they would never seek the support of those who lived in the slums.

So many in power fear their fellow people. Look at their private banks and strong rooms; look at where they live surrounded by fences and electronic security systems managed by private security firms and guards. Look at their expenditure on the police. Last week in Greece the government in Athens announced a record equipment budget for the police next year. Without any embarrassment or shame they were instead proud to be announcing that the increased budget would provide nearly 700 new police vehicles, nearly 2000 bullet proof vests, armoured boots and helmets plus the usual array of drones, cameras and chemical weapons. It is a budget which reveals much about the way in which the Greek state perceives its people.

Named the wall of shame, the 10 km wall separates rich and poor in Lima, Peru. The rich live amongst us, but you won’t run into them (if they can help it)

For the past 15 years I have lived in a small mountain village on the Greek frontier island of Samos. This is the place where I now stand and dig. As regular readers of Samos Chronicles will know it is place of paradoxes and horrors. We have a beautiful nature but a refugee camp that defies humanity. The majority of the people, both refugees and locals alike, experience enduring poverty, few jobs and low pay. The 12 year economic and social crisis has been crippling. Basic services have collapsed. The public buses would be museum pieces in many parts of western Europe, indeed the same could be said for most of the cars, trucks and lorries here. Their age, condition and that they comprise the majority of the vehicles on the island reveals much.

All of these issues have worsened with Covid. The Covid cases here are thankfully small but the lock-downs apply all the same with the closure of businesses and movement restrictions. Such regulations virtually wiped out the 2020 summer tourist season upon which so many depend on. Then came the devastating earthquake at the end of October 2020 which was terrifying as it was destructive. The great majority of the many who now have homes and lands to repair have no money for the work. There is no expectation that the state will come to their aid quickly. After all, it is commonplace here for newly retired workers to wait up to 3 years before they receive their pension. (There are 300,000 pension cases outstanding in Dec 2020!) Not surprisingly many here are demoralised and feeling battered; not knowing when the next blow will come or from where. They feel unprotected and extremely vulnerable.

What seems new here is not so much the disdain and distrust in the state – this has long been a feature of Greek life – but the erosion in personal confidence and capacity. Most on Samos know there will be little or no help from outside, but what is so saddening is to see young people in particular despair of their own capacity to do anything. There are, as everywhere, amazing talents amongst the people but without some sense of hope they are redundant. This is not it should be noted, the general case for the refugees here who are tireless in their efforts to survive during their detention on the island. But there is still a wide gap between many on Samos and the refugees so the possibilities for energising solidarities are still few.

We desperately need to rekindle hope. Not idle hopes that someone or other will come riding to rescue but hope about our capacity to make life better by working together. There is no other choice. Many here know this to be true but are not clear as to how to move forward and have little or no energy to act. Here we vividly see the consequences of the Greek state denying the people the opportunity to learn from theirhistory.

Very few, and almost exclusively old people, know something of the extraordinary heroism of the Greek people during the Nazi occupation of the1940s. Under the yoke of a brutal occupation the Greek people came to control most of the countryside. They found ways to feed themselves; they created schools, clinics, theatres; women were for the first time involved in elected local councils and many became celebrated partisans and resistance fighters. It is not an exaggeration to describe what was going on in occupied Greece as nothing less than a social revolution. Their so called military allies were appalled and from 1943 they worked endlessly to weaken and defeat what they considered to be a communist uprising. Arms and finances were re-directed away from the peoples’ partisan units to create a conservative counter force. The British government which at that time was the dominant external power in war time Greece was adamant that the (widely hated) Greek monarchy had to be restored and that Greece’s strategic geography meant it must remain with the West and not fall under the influence of the Soviet Union. Once the Nazis withdrew, civil war followed and with significant military support from the US and the UK the peoples’ uprising was defeated. On Samos some of the older people remember as children, the shelling of left partisan groups in the mountains by British warships. In some parts of Greece napalm was dropped on civilian populations.

Many adults fled to neighbouring countries (often communist run such as a Yugoslavia) leaving their children behind in the care of friends and relatives. These in turn were rounded up by the thousands to be ‘re-educated’ under the tutelage of queen, Frederica who with her husband had returned to Greece. As the saviour of these ‘bandit children’ she created around 54 Queens Camps charged with bringing these children back into the Greek family. For Frederica and her ’queens helpers’ these children had to learn to see their parents not as heroes of resistance and progress but as basically evil people who wanted to destroy all that was great about Greece. Lady Norton, the wife of the British Ambassador to Greece was fulsome in her praise. After visiting a Queen’s School on Leros in March 1950, she expressed admiration for the way in which it was “civilising the bandit children” by “eradicating the memory of the wild untamed years of the Civil War”. Moreover, Greece “is the only country in the world where real creative work is being done to combat the cancer of Bolshevism.” (Cited by Danforth and Boeschoten, Children of the Greek Civil War 2012, p.102).

The Greek state, to this day, works to keep this crucial period in Greek history hidden – “eradicating the memory”. It is not unique to Greece as throughout the world similar processes to remove, ignore, ridicule the efforts of the people to survive, to organise and to achieve are ever present. Time and again we see that one of the first tasks of progressive social movements is their taking control over their history; of rescuing their past, and telling their story.

As far as I am aware no state school in Greece explores this relatively recent period of tumultuous social activity and change when the people across the country in small towns and villages took control of their lives and did amazing things in extraordinary circumstances. Yet we need this kind of inspiration like never before in places like Samos where a sense of defeat and hopelessness now shadows everyday life. We need to remember what so called ordinary people can and do achieve when they come together and simply refuse to give up. We have to rip down the curtains that try to stop us from seeing, understanding and imagining. We need to open eyes as to what popular mobilisations have achieved wherever they are. They give us reason to hope with confidence. They are an under-estimated source of our power. So the more we know the better. The more we learn of these events and activities the stronger we become. The phobia of the powerful has always been the people throughout history. After all they are very few in number whereas we are billions strong. Time to rise me thinks!

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This article was originally published on Samos Chronicles.  Chris Jones has been actively involved in the course of the last ten years in supporting the rights of refugees on Greece’s Samos Island

All images in this article are from Samos Chronicles

It may have been President Bill Clinton who once justified his wrecking of the Balkans by observing that liberal interventionism to bring about regime change is a good thing because “Democracies don’t start wars with other democracies.” Or it might have been George W. Bush talking about Iraq or even Barack Obama justifying his destruction of Libya or his interventions relating to Syria and Ukraine. The principle is the same when the world’s only superpower decides to throw its weight around.

The idea that pluralistic democracies are somehow less inclined to go to war has in fact been around for a couple of hundred years and was first elaborated by Immanuel Kant in an essay entitled “Perpetual Peace” that was published in 1795. Kant may have been engaging in some tongue in cheek as the French relatively liberal republic, the “Directory,” was at that time preparing to invade Italy to spread the revolution. The presumption that “democracies” are somehow more pacific than other forms of government is based on the principle that it is in theory more difficult to convince an entire nation of the desirability of initiating armed conflict compared to what happens in a monarchy where only one man or woman has to be persuaded.

The American Revolution, which preceded Kant, was clearly not fought on the principle that kings are prone to start wars while republics are not, and, indeed, the “republican” United States has nearly always been engaged in what most observers would consider to be wars throughout its history. And a review of the history of the European wars of the past two hundred years suggests that it is also overly simple to suggest that democracies eschew fighting each other. There are, after all, many different kinds of governments, most with constitutions, many of which are quite politically liberal even if they are headed by a monarch or oligarchy. They have found themselves on different sides in the conflicts that have troubled Europe since the time of Napoleon.

And wars are often popular, witness the lines of enthusiastic young men lining up to enlist when the Triple Entente took on the Germans and Austrians to begin the First World War. So, war might be less likely among established democracies, but it should be conceded that the same national interests that drive a dictatorship can equally impact on a more pluralistic form of government, particularly if the media “the territory of lies” is in on the game. One recalls how the Hearst newspaper chain created the false narrative that resulted in the U.S.’s first great overseas imperial venture, the Spanish-American War. More recently, the mainstream media in the United States has supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq, the destabilization of Syria, and the regime change in Ukraine, Afghanistan and Libya.

So now we Americans have the ultimate liberal democratic regime about to resume power, possibly with a majority in both houses of Congress to back up the presidency. But something is missing in that the campaigning Democrats never talked about a peace dividend, and now that they are returning the airwaves are notable for Senators like Mark Warner asking if the alleged Russian hacking of U.S. computers is an “act of war?” Senator Dick Durbin has no doubts on the issue, having declared it “virtually a declaration of war.” And Joe Biden appears to be on board, considering punishment for Moscow. Are we about to experience Russiagate all over? In fact, belligerency is not unique to Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo.  War is in the air, and large majority of the Democratic Party recently voted for the pork-bloated National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), endorsing a policy of U.S. global military dominance for the foreseeable future. If you are an American who would like to see national health insurance, a large majority among Democrats, forget about it!

But more to the point, the Democrats have a worse track record than do the Republicans when it comes to starting unnecessary wars. Donald Trump made the point of denouncing “stupid wars” when he was running for office and has returned to that theme also in the past several weeks, though he did little enough to practice what he preached until it was too late and too little. Clinton notoriously intervened in the Balkans and bombed a pharmaceuticals factory in Sudan and a cluster of tents in Afghanistan to draw attention away from his affair with Monica Lewinsky. His secretary of State Madeleine Albright thought the death of 500,000 Iraqi children due to U.S. sanctions was “worth it.” Barack Obama tried to destroy Syria, interfered in Ukraine and succeeded in turning Libya into an ungovernable mess while compiling a “kill list” and assassinating U.S. citizens overseas using drones.

If you want to go back farther, Woodrow Wilson involved the U.S. in World War One while Franklin D. Roosevelt connived at America’s entry into the Second World War. FDR’s successor Harry Truman dropped two atomic bombs on civilian targets in Japan, killing as many as 200,000. Japan was preparing to surrender, which was known to the White House and Pentagon, making the first use of nuclear weapons completely unnecessary and one might call it a “war crime.” Truman also got involved in Korea and John F. Kennedy started the intervention in Vietnam, though there are indications that he was planning to withdraw from it when he was killed. The only Democratic president who failed to start one or more wars was the much-denigrated Jimmy Carter.

So, it is Joe Biden’s turn at the wheel. One has to question the philosophy of government that he brings with him as he has never found a war that he didn’t support and several of his cabinet choices are undeniably hardliners on what they refer to as national security. The lobbies are also putting pressure on Biden to do the “right thing,” which for them is to continue an interventionist foreign policy. The Israeli connected Foundation for the Defense Democracies (FDD) has not surprisingly issued a collection of essays that carries the title “Defending Forward: Securing America by Projecting Military Power Abroad.” If one had to bet at this point “defending forward” will be what the Biden Administration is all about. And oh, by the way, as democracies don’t go to war with democracies, it will only be the designated bad guys who will be on the receiving end of America’s military might. Or at least that is how the tale will be told.

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Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from SCF

The US Constitution lets presidents grant pardons or clemency under Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 — stating the following:

The president “shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” 

Pardons may only be granted for federal crimes.

They cannot be issued for individuals impeached, tried, and convicted by Congress.

Thomas Jefferson granted pardons to individuals convicted of sedition.

Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon — even though he wasn’t formally charged or convicted of federal crimes.

He was unjustly tainted by cooked up Watergate offenses.

He was marked for removal from office for threatening entrenched military/industrial/security and other interests.

GHW Bush pardoned convicted felon Elliott Abrams and other Iran-Contra defendants – their high crimes forgiven, not forgotten.

Can presidents pardon themselves? The nation’s founders didn’t address this issue.

Constitutional experts disagree on it.

According to Law Professor Brian Galt, presidents “cannot pardon themselves.”

Judge Richard Posner disagrees, saying: It’s “inferred from the breadth of the constitutional language that the president can indeed pardon himself.”

According to pardon attorney Samuel Morison:

“My opinion is that in theory “presidents can pardon themselves.”

“But then he would be potentially subject to impeachment for doing that.”

“There are no constraints defined in the Constitution…that says he can’t do that.”

No precedent was set either way. No president was ever removed from office by impeachment and conviction.

John Adams once said that this action would cause a national convulsion.

Only three US presidents were impeached — Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Trump, none removed from office.

According to the Congressional Research Service, presidents can grant full pardons to individuals, amnesty to groups, commutations to reduce sentences, reprieves during sentencing, and clemency.

There are “no hard-and-fast rules” for granting clemency, according to criminaldefenselawyer.com.

Trump pardoned, commuted, or rescinded convictions for dozens of individuals — including four Blackwater mercenary hired guns.

In August 2017, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit reversed their first-degree murder convictions to life in prison.

In September 2019, three of the Blackwater Four were re-sentenced, their prison terms reduced by about half.

A federal judge called their 30-year sentences too harsh.

Nicholas Slatten was convicted of first-degree murder. Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were found guilty on multiple voluntary manslaughter counts, attempted manslaughter and various weapons offenses.

The above figures were responsible for the cold-blooded killing or injuring of 31 Iraqi civilians.

The incident occurred on September 16, 2007 in Baghdad’s Nisour Square.

Without provocation, they opened fire on cars carrying families, believing they’d be no accountability.

Washington grants so-called private military contractors (PMCs) blanket immunity. Paul Bremer’s Order 17 authorized it. Rare exceptions prove the rule.

The Blackwater Four opened fire preemptively on defenseless Iraqi civilians, using automatic weapons and a grenade launcher, including from two hovering helicopters.

An eyewitness to her mother’s murder said:

“They are killers. I swear to God, not one bullet was shot at them. Why did they shoot us?”

In October 2014, a federal district court in Washington convicted them.

Defense lawyers defied reality, falsely claiming that they fired in self-defense. Eye witnesses refuted them.

In pronouncing sentence, Judge Royce Lamberth said “(t)he overall wild thing that went on here just cannot be condoned by the court…You can’t just shoot first and seek justification later.”

Former federal prosecutor T. Patrick Martin called what happened “an atrocity.”

FBI investigators of the incident called it the “My Lai massacre of Iraq.”

Defendants were charged under the Military Extraterritorial Act.

It covers overseas crimes of Defense Department civilian employees, military contractors and others involved in US war theaters.

Defense lawyers falsely argued that the four mercenaries were in Iraq to provide diplomatic, not military, services.

Prosecutors argued that crimes committed “were so horrendous – the massacre and maiming of innocents so heinous – that they outweigh any factors that the defendants may argue for leniency.”

Trump’s pardoning of the Blackwater Four reopened unhealed wounds.

No Iraqi civilians killed or wounded were armed or insurgents. None threatened anyone.

Iraq’s Foreign Ministry slammed the pardons, calling them “inconsistent with…human rights, justice and the rule of law.”

They “ignore(d) the dignity of the victims and the feelings and rights of their relatives.”

Founder of Blackwater Erik Prince’s sister, Betsy DeVos, is Trump’s education secretary.

After convictions of the firm’s four mercenaries, it was renamed Xe, then Academi after being sold.

Time and again, the US honors, covers up, ignores, or reverses punishments for the nation’s worst.

It awards medals for war crimes, war criminals left unpunished for wrongdoing too egregious to ignore.

Hollywood glorifies US preemptive wars and honors terrorism — reinventing history on the silver screen.

In 2017, it honored a White Helmets propaganda film as the year’s best documentary short – portraying terrorists as heroes.

The group has nothing to do with civil defense as claimed, everything to do with supporting terrorism in Syria or wherever else they’re deployed to serve US imperial interests.

Individuals warranting high praise for doing the right thing on vital issues risk harsh recrimination.

Whistleblower Chelsea Manning was wrongfully convicted, imprisoned, and harshly treated for revealing unpunished Nuremberg-level high crimes.

Human rights lawyer Lynne Stewart was framed and wrongfully convicted for defending unjustly charged individuals Washington wanted imprisoned.

Numerous political prisoners languish in America’s gulag at home and abroad.

At Washington’s request, UK police forcefully dragged Julian Assange from Ecuador’s London embassy in April 2019.

Imprisoned and harshly mistreated, Trump regime hardliners want him severely punished for the “crime” of truth-telling investigative journalism the way it should be.

Will Trump undo what his regime unjustly ordered by pardoning Assange?

Will he do the right thing by reversing injustice against him, ending his long ordeal?

On June 9, 1954, during nationally televised US Senate Army-McCarthy hearings, I watched attorney Joseph Welch famously confront the senator by asking:

“Have you no sense of decency?”

I put the same question to Trump, asking as well:

Will you end gross injustice against Assange by issuing a full pardon so he can be released?

Will you do the right thing or stick to honoring the nation’s worst before January 20 when your tenure ends?

History awaits your call – up or down for long-delayed justice.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Lawyers for Assange

The CIA coup to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 would put the nation of Guatemala on the path to a nightmare future of poverty, war, and genocide. The United States would reshape Guatemala’s intelligence military and police to fight a counterinsurgency war on the majority of the population.

CIA, Special Forces, military advisers, and Office of Public Safety advisers would arrive in Guatemala to create a massive coordinated killing machine. The result was the introduction of death squads, wide scale torture, rape, mass murder, and genocide.

Guatemala became the textbook example of the worst dirty war in 20th century Latin America outdoing the crimes of the countries under the boot of Operation Condor in South America as well as the crimes of neighbouring El Salvador and Somoza’s Nicaragua. Hundreds of millions of dollars in development aid only served to further impoverish and fragment Guatemala so that today Guatemala is now a textbook example of the poverty and chaos produced by neo-liberalism and globalization.

Castillo Armas, leader of the CIA proxy army that invaded Guatemala during the coup, was finally installed as a dictator after two short lived juntas were maneuvered into and out of power. He banned unions and political parties; burned and banned books; locked up 9,000 Arbenz supporters and communists and forced thousands to flee into exile. Hundreds of union leaders were killed while the CIA, operating under the cover of the Committee Against Communism, composed a massive black list of “subversives” that already had 70,000 names on it by the end of the year.

Decades later the military and police would murder elderly, returning exiles who had ended up on the list because of union membership or other “subversive” activity during the Arbenz years. Armas confiscated all the lands that Arbenz had given to 100,000 peasant families returning them to wealthy landowners and the United Fruit Company.

Corruption was rampant under Armas as the US flooded the country with development aid. Armas had risen to power thanks to United Fruit but he would be assassinated for cracking down on its rival Standard Fruit Company and its gambling interests, casinos controlled by Ted Lewin. Lewin was part of the Meyer Lansky Syndicate (He had also worked closely with the CIA in the Philippines) and was closely allied to Standard Fruit through its President Seymour Weiss.

When Armas cracked down on Lewin, John Rosselli, a mobster who was a fixer for Standard Fruit, made a trip down to Guatemala and arranged for the military, who were being bribed by the casinos, to assassinate President Castillo Armas. Armas was killed by his own bodyguard, who immediately committed suicide (or at least it was made to look that way). The whole thing was conveniently blamed on the communists. Rosselli would later be contracted by the CIA to arrange the murder of Fidel Castro and was killed after testifying about the JFK case in front of the House Committee on Assassinations in the 1970’s. I can only hint at Roselli’s complex connections to the mafia and the CIA, which included people like Rip Robertson, John Martino, and William Pawley linked to covert wars coups and the assassination of JFK. Rosselli’s contact in the Guatemalan military Lt Col Enrique Trinidad Olivia was promoted to head the Guatemalan secret police after the assassination of Armas.

Back in 1953, the year before the coup that overthrew Arbenz, when the CIA was looking for the man to lead it, they had asked Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes a supporter of the dictator Ubico whose handpicked successor Arbenz had overthrown. Ydigoras had run against Arbenz in 1950 and lost by a landslide fleeing the country to avoid harassment by Arbenz supporters. Ydigoras had turned down the CIA offer to lead the invasion but referred them to Armas. Ydigoras had a secret deal with Armas to offer his secret support in exchange for the promise that he would be allowed to run for president after Arbenz was overthrown. However Armas had broken the deal by cancelling the presidential elections in 1956. With Armas dead the Government announced elections for 20 October 1957, Ydigoras saw his chance returning from his Ambassador’s post in Colombia to run (Colombia would also see decades of dirty war and death squads thanks to American advisers.) Armas’ party the MLN, which in future would become infamous as the party of death squads, selected Armas former Interior Minister Miguel Ortiz Passarelli as their candidate.

Ydigoras won the election but Ortiz was declared the winner anyway. Ydigoras threatened to launch a coup and his supporters flooded the streets. The military attaches at the US embassy managed to negotiate a settlement between Ydigoras and the MLN for new elections for January of 1958. Despite the CIA giving his new MLN opponent Luis Cruz Salazar almost $100,000 dollars in campaign funds Ydigoras won again and Congress voted to confirm him. He took office 15 March 1958. 

Voters elected him as an alternative to Armas hated MLN ignoring Ydigoras record of support for Ubico, the 1954 coup, and his far right views. They foolishly believed Guatemala would return to democracy as in 1944-1954. Instead in what would become a recurring pattern things were about to get much worse. Things began amusingly. A newspaperman called Ydigoras a feeble old man and Ydigoras appeared on national TV to skip rope and juggle Indian clubs. Of course most Guatemalans had no electricity let alone television sets. As a darker joke when Ydigoras visited Washington the Americans demanded he pay them back 1.8 million dollars to cover the costs of the 1954 coup. Back in 1954 a young Argentinian named Ernesto “Che” Guevara had arrived in Guatemala to defend the country against the coming coup. After the coup he’d been forced to seek asylum in an embassy while John Foster Dulles tried desperately to have him and thousands of others hiding in embassies illegally arrested then either killed or deported to the Soviet Union. Armas had himself been forced to seek asylum in an embassy a couple years before plus he didn’t want to offend every countries diplomatic corps by carrying out Dulles plan and refused. So “Che” Guevara headed to exile in Mexico met Fidel Castro and helped him liberate Cuba after an initially disastrous beginning to their campaign. 

The victory of the Cuban revolution on 1 January 1959 marked the beginning of the second of three phases of the “Cold War” culminating in the liberation of Vietnam in 1975. Both the goal of preventing another Cuba and the Empire’s ever deteriorating situation in Vietnam would shape the future of the third world in general, Latin America specifically, and especially Guatemala in the decades to come.

US advisers CIA, Special Forces, and police would rotate from Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos to countries like Guatemala, Colombia, and El Salvador or vice versa. In each country a version of Vietnam’s Phoenix Program would be created:Centralized control of Intelligence, military, and police. The creation of   communications and computer networks to share information on “subversives.”

They set up death squads, torture centres and disappearances followed. Eventually this massive killing machine would be coordinated across borders evolving into Operation Condor in South America in the 1970’s. In Central America this regional coordination began even earlier with the creation of CONDECA in the 1960s. The US became obsessed with counterinsurgency although of course these techniques were a feature of the earlier dirty wars in places like Greece, Korea, and the Philippines in the 1940’s and 1950’s. The roots of counter-insurgency went back much further to the marine corps “small wars” in Latin America and the Caribbean, to the invasion and occupation of the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico at the turn of the century and further back still to crushing slave revolts and committing genocide against the Indians. American counterinsurgency theorists combined this long American experience with the lessons learned by the British and French in places like Malaysia, Kenya, Indochina, and Algeria. The United States also learned from the Nazi SS and other fascist death squads who battled partisans and carried out mass murder and genocide during World War 2. These fascists were recruited by the Americans after the war. Many were founding members of US Special Forces. War crimes were an extension of policy, part of the science of psychological warfare.

Image below: Black and white photograph of General Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes in full military uniform decorated with medals of honor. (Source: Public domain)

Cuba’s revolution inspired panic in Washington that other countries in Latin America might follow the Cuban example. Soon plans were under way to train a proxy army of Cuban exiles to invade. Training camps were built in Florida and Louisiana as well as in Nicaragua and Guatemala. The CIA went directly to President Ydigoras and he agreed to host the training camps without even asking the military high command. The military was cut out of it’s share of the bribe and the camps were built on the land of Robert Alejos who had worked for both the CIA and United Fruit in the past, later becoming part of a massive drug smuggling ring.

These foreign bases in Guatemala offended the nationalist pride of the army. On 13 November 1960 there was a military uprising involving 120 officers and 3,000 soldiers at Ft Matamaros in Guatemala City (Where Arbenz’s uprising had begun) and at Zacapa base and Puerto Barrios. Ydigoras asked the Americans to intervene and the CIA had the Cuban exiles repaint their planes with Guatemalan air force insignia and begin bombing the rebelling troops. Eisenhower also sent in the US navy to patrol the coasts. The uprising was quickly crushed but it included future guerrilla leaders both US trained ironically Marco Aurelio Yon Sosa and Luis Turcios Lima who had attended ranger school at Ft Benning Georgia. In 1962 they would return from exile launching an unsuccessful offensive that inspired massive demonstrations and strikes in Guatemala City. In March of 1962,20 student demonstrators were killed further enraging the populace and soon 3 political parties including the far right MLN were demanding Ydigoras resignation.

The same month Ydigoras replaced his entire cabinet, except the Foreign Minister, with military officers. While all this was going on the CIA, the Pentagon and OPS (Office of Public Safety) were busy restructuring Guatemala’s intelligence, military, and police along COIN (Counterinsurgency) lines. Their Guatemalan point man for these changes was Ydigoras’ defence minister Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia who was a deep believer in COIN having served 2 years on the Inter-American Defense Board in Washington DC. By the Summer of 1962 the guerrillas had been crushed while the US embassy was working on an Internal Defense Plan which called for increased centralization and coordination between intelligence, police and military and the creation of an intelligence agency out of the president’s office that would combine the powers of the CIA and NSA and run the dirty war. The same request had been made of the US Embassy in El Salvador (and embassies around the world) and they came up with nearly identical solutions leading to a similar bloodbath.

The guerrillas had been crushed but Ydigoras was still wildly unpopular. Moreover, he had agreed to let ex-President Arevalo return from exile to run for president. In January 1963 a team of military advisers on a fact finding mission declared that the threat of insurgency was over. In January 1963 the JFK administration authorised a coup against Ydigoras. Arevalo returned from exile on 29 March 1963 and the next day Ydigoras awoke to discover tanks on his lawn. He had been overthrown by his Defense Minister Peralta Azurdia who had been in charge of restructuring the security services along the lines suggested by his American advisers. In fact they had used this fact to help finance the coup and after the coup sent a massive increase in MAP (Military Assistance Program) funds and OPS funds. After the coup the US State Department even bragged that by preventing the election of Arevalo they had achieved the primary goal of the internal defense plan. 

Peralta Azurdia (image on the right; from public domain) was declared Chief of State instead of President and the constitution was immediately suspended. His main goal was to completely restructure intelligence agencies, military and police along the lines set forth by the latest in US counterinsurgency doctrine. Further Guatemala was integrated into CONDECA (founded in 1964 and part of the OAS) a Central American precursor to South America’s Operation Condor of the 1970s and 1980s.

A surveillance net covered the whole region with state-owned (and military controlled) telecoms like Guatemala’s GUATEL listening in on every phone call, supplemented by American listening posts. Panama was the key US base of operations in Central America home to FT Gulick and the School of the Americas where countries like Guatemala and El Salvador sent their military to train COIN specialists. Panama was also where special forces like Guatemala’s Kaibiles were taught to carry out atrocities beginning like serial killers with torturing animals, and then witnessing torture of humans before carrying it out themselves. Panama was also home to US airbases whose planes would secretly bomb Guatemala and napalm villages during the dirty war.

Under the dictator Peralta Azurdia Guatemala’s security system was completely reshaped so that it could continue to carry on the dirty war no matter who was elected president. Nonetheless the military would only allow two civilian presidents over the next 25 years preferring to hand power to hand picked officers via fixed elections. Acting on US advice Peralta Azurdia created a Presidential Intelligence Agency, which combined the powers of the CIA and NSA directing the dirty war, and using a US supplied computer network to keep the entire country under surveillance.

They were in charge of the most high profile political assassinations and cases of kidnapping, torture and murder of the disappeared. It would change names being known as the Estado Mayor, or “La Regional.” The National Police also had their own centralized intelligence centre known as the “Box.” This centralization of intelligence also made it easy for the CIA and US MILGRP (The US Military mission) to secretly help coordinate the coming decades of dirty war as they worked daily alongside the Presidential Intelligence Agency allowing them to control things from the top. Information from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Labour was funnelled into this centralized intelligence hub and used to draw up death lists of teachers, union leaders, cooperatives members and others. Peralta Azurdia immediately brought back the black list of the Armas years with much more deadly results.

Since the role of the Military and Police would crystallize under Peralta Azurdia this is a good time to describe the structures that would remain in place well into the 1990’s. The military’s intelligence branch G2 or S2 operated out of every military region and reported directly back to their G2 superiors rather then base commanders. They ran networks of informants and organized kidnap torture and disappearances with extreme brutality.

They were the brains behind the dirty war. They also supervised the torture. The military was responsible for the vast majority of the killing and conscripts were expected to execute anyone they deemed a “suspicious” character on sight. They underwent 3 months of abuse and brainwashing after being basically kidnapped. The system of military conscription operated through kidnapping raids the military would surround a market or a village and seize any male from ages 15 to 21. Anyone capable of paying a small bribe was exempt so it was poor Indian peasants who made up the majority of conscripts. After their 3 months of torture brainwashing and forced Ladinoization (they were taught Spanish via beatings) they were always assigned away from their home regions so that their Indian victimswould speak a different Mayan language. The tiny officer corps in contrast was made up of Ladino’s who had passed through a series of military academies.

For them the military was a road to riches as the military gained increasing control of some sectors of the economy and were invited to serve as partners in enterprises owned by rich Guatemalans. Special forces and other counter-Insurgency specialists like the Guatemalan rangers were increasingly the elite of the military. Trained by US Special Forces in Panama, the US or in Guatemala the special forces called Kaibiles were trained to commit unspeakable atrocities as part of psychological warfare, counter-terror, and counterinsurgency warfare. 

The military was sometimes resistant to giving the police a greater role in the dirty war because of old rivalries, as a result the US advised them to create a mobile military police the PMA who would play the role of special police during the dirty war. They would terrorize the countryside cordoning off areas and conducting sweeps for subversives. Peralta Azurdia transformed the role of military commissioners. Now in addition to overseeing forced conscription raids they were armed and empowered to create auxiliary military commissioners.

The military commissioners were responsible for being the eyes and ears of the military making up lists of subversives. Increasingly they used their network of auxiliary military commissioners as death squads in the countryside killing torturing and disappearing any peasant standing up for their rights. The military commissioners usually recruited MLN party members of the increasingly fascist party the CIA had created for Armas during the 1954 coup. To carry out death squad killings and high profile assassinations the military used “confidenciales”. These were troops secretly requested from regional commanders who were sent to the capital for a couple of months to carry out assassinations requiring an extra layer of plausible deniability and then returned to their provinces. 

The National Police were the main Guatemalan police force. US OPS advisers helped them strengthen their investigative divisions so they could be used to hunt down subversives. The detective corps of the National Police carried out most of the torture and killings. The police had their own off the books force the rebajados. Police who got into trouble were forced to serve as rebajados paid out of the informants’ budget. They carried out killings targeting not just subversives but common criminals. Slum areas became dumping grounds for corpses of petty criminals and vigilantes were blamed for these police killings. Sometimes union leaders were killed by these “Vigilantes” and the police would manufacture a phony criminal record of the victim. Also murdered were people in jails, often buses transferring prisoners between prisons were stopped and prisoners were murdered or prisoners were murdered upon release.

OPS advisers also helped set up a counter-terror strike team commando six aka SWAT that was used to raid Guerrilla safe houses as well as arresting subversives and policing demonstrations. They would later be responsible for the infamous massacre of sit in protestors at the Spanish embassy in 1980. In addition to the National Police there were also the Treasury police and the Judicial Police both of whom served as political police and death squads renowned for their brutality, a role they had played since Ubico’s time.

The final element in the new security structure was the creation of paramilitary death squads. Fascist MLN members were recruited into paramilitary death squads. However civilian death squads in Guatemala existed merely to provide plausible denial for the military and the police who were the ones actually responsible for vast majority of the killings and disappearances. Death squads were blamed even when the military and the police had quite openly arrested the victim wearing their uniforms and the victims had been taken to the nearby military base or police station for rape, torture and dismemberment. They were a tool of psychological warfare adding to the confusion and terror. The death squads were the brainchild of the CIA and American Special Forces who talked quite openly of the need to terrorize the populace while maintaining plausible denial through the creation of paramilitary forces. 

They appeared in Guatemala just prior to the election of 1966 publishing manifestos and death lists threatening to target anyone they considered subversive. MANO Blanca was the most infamous one. There was also CEDAG and host of other names for the same group that was secretly controlled by the military. The plausible denial provided by death squads had a further advantage it allowed the Guatemalan press to magnify the terror felt by the populace by filling their papers and magazines with horrifying photos of the killings designed to terrorize even illiterate “readers” while at the same time hiding the role of the military and police in the killings.

Any journalist, politician or activist who dared to point out the connection between the military and the police with the killings was likely to end up dead. The MLN political party was headed by Mario Sandoval Alarcon, a former CIA student leader in CIA backed CEUA (Committee of Anti-Communist University Students) would later become infamous as the “Godfather of the Death Squads” mentoring Roberto D’Aubuisson in El Salvador and helping to create the Nicaraguan contras. Mario Sandoval Alarcon was also the head of the Guatemalan branch of the World Anti-Communist League with close ties to Taiwan. Many in the Guatemalan military would be sent to Taiwan to study political warfare. MLN bragged that it had a paramilitary force of 3000 men and was also happy to take the credit or the blame for the wave of death squad killings.

In his three years in office Peralta Azurdia was able to reshape the military and police into an efficient killing machine, linked by modern communications thanks to American OPS advisers like Alfred Naurocki who set up the communications systems for the militaries throughout Central America as well as in the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. In 1965 Peralta Azurdia created a new constitution founded on anti-communism. In 1966 he decided to hold elections and restore the democratic facade. It was a complete farce the left wing backed candidate Mario Mendez Montenegro was assassinated. His brother Julio Cesar Mendez Montenegro ran in his place but was forced to sign a secret nine-point pact with the military terms of which included complete military independence from civilian control, no negotiations with “subversives” to end the war, and complete immunity for all crimes committed during Peralta Azurdia’s reign. All the candidates were forced to sign this agreement.

The military took no chances on any negotiated settlement. Shortly before the election over 28 of the top communist party and labourleaders were arrested and disappeared eliminating anyone in a position to negotiate an end to the war. It was called Operation Cleanup and owed itssuccess to OPS adviser John Longan. Longan a police adviser had been assigned to Guatemala back in 1957 as part of the first wave of advisers then rotated to various hotspots like Brazil and the Dominican Republic and returned in 1965 to set up a police intelligence unit and strike force. He taught them the “frozen area” method cordoning off a few block radius and conducting house-to-house searches. This culminated in a series of raids where left wing leaders were arrested tortured and forced into giving the locations of their leaders.

It became known as the “Case of the 28” although the actual number of victims was higher. Its victims included Victor Manuel Gutierrez a former congressman and leading PGT leader in Arbenz’s time and Leonardo Castillo Flores who had founded Guatemala’s first peasant federation back in Arbenz’s time. Gutierrez died of a heart attack while he was being tortured. All of them were tortured, murdered and disappeared. Needless to say the American embassy helped mastermind this whole episode. When the university student Union AEU investigated their disappearance and exposed their perpetrators they were hunted down and forced to go underground.

The left wing candidate Mendez Montenegro won the election and was inaugurated July 1966. He was powerless to carry out his promises to end police torture or negotiate an end to the war. Instead he became completely silent on the ever-escalating brutality that even targeted his political party. The real power was held by his defense minister Colonel Arriaga Bosque Mendez. Bosque Mendez appointed Colonel Carlos Arana Osorio as commander of the Zacapa Izabal military zone. Col. Arana Osorio had served for 2 years in Washington DC as a military attaché and was a COIN specialist. The Zacapa zone was to become the laboratory of counterinsurgency warfare.

Over 1,000 American troops mostly Special Forces arrived there to train Colonel Arana Osorio’s troops and secretly taking a direct role in the combat. American bombers also flew out of Panama napalming villages believed to be sympathetic to the guerrillas. This covert war occurred at the height of the war against Vietnam and so is almost completely unknown in the US. Similar wars were taking place around the same time in Colombia and Peru, which are still largely unknown. Colonel Arana became known as the Butcher of Zacapa and he and other officers who worked closely with CIA and Special Forces in Zacapa became known as the Zacapa group.

The Zacapa group included Col Arana Osorio, Kjell Laugerud, Romeo Lucas Garcia, and Mejia Victores. They would dominate the presidency throughout the dirty war rotating through the post of Defense Minister to President. Zacapa was where the scorched earth tactics, the massacres, the death squad killings, torture, rape and murder rapidly escalated and then spread across the country. The Zacapa campaign began in October of 1966. In November of 1966 a state of siege was declared nationwide all civil rights were suspended and strict press censorship of the Zacapa campaign and death squad killings were instituted.

The Zacapa campaign was successful in crushing the FAR guerrillas in the countryside although their defeat in the 1960s only lead to the creation of new Guerrilla groups in the 1970s like EGP (The Army of the Poor) and ORPA who established even broader popular support especially among the Maya Indians. The poverty and misery that the US had imposed on Guatemala by overthrowing Arbenz continuously lead to more revolutionary discontent. Guatemalan planters began to set up sugar and cotton plantations, dispossessing peasants of their lands and transforming them into seasonal labourers who lived a miserable existence in shacks poisoned with pesticides. Both crops destroyed the future fertility of the soil in exchange for short-term profits for the planters while the real winners were huge American agribusinesses that sold them fertilizer.

The dirty war targeting unions, activists, and even church lay workers and priests made non-violent resistance more dangerous then armed resistance. It also fuelled a desire for revenge. In December of 1967 a former Miss Guatemala known for her left wing views, Rogelia Cruz Martinez was kidnapped raped, tortured, and murdered her body dumped in Guatemala City. On 16 January 1967, the guerrillas struck back machine gunning a truck carrying US military advisers, killing the head of the US military mission Colonel John D. Webber and Naval attaché Lieutenant Commander Ernest A. Munro. The attack was masterminded by the son of one, “The 28” Castillo Johnson, son of Castillo Flores. He also tossed a grenade at a military base before being gunned down. 

Interestingly “Strategy of Tension” architect Yves Guerin Serac was also serving as an adviser in Guatemala in the late 1960s. He was an ex-French paratrooper and OAS terrorist part of Operation Gladio (He ran the Portuguese branch Aginter Press). One definite and one possible “False Flag” attack took place in Guatemala although of course his presence could have been a coincidence.

He may merely have been training death squads or advising on counterinsurgency. His partner in crime and fellow GLADIO terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie would also serve as adviser in Guatemala in the late 1970s and early 1980s while working for Argentine intelligence. In any case Guatemala did suffer a false flag attack. The military kidnapped right wing Archbishop Mario Casariego on 16 March1968 and tried to blame FAR guerrillas. He escaped and exposed the military role and Col. Arana Osorio was sent into “exile” as Ambassador to Nicaragua. In August of 1968 Ambassador Gordon Mein was killed during an attempted kidnapping by guerrillas.

Later a whistle-blower came forward implicating the military. Ambassador Mein had warned his superiors that he felt the military was plotting to kill him and the German ambassador Von Speti. The guerrillas did not deny involvement but they may have been tipped off to Mein’s location by the military. Von Speti was later kidnapped on 31 March 1970 and then killed when the government refused to negotiate. The Mein kidnapping served to justify an increase in US aid and a wave of death squad killings in the city soon followed.

On 1 March 1970, Col Arana Osorio was elected president because no opposition candidate who had a popular following was allowed to run and in the countryside military commissioners threatened to burn villages that did not vote for the MLN. He was inaugurated in July 1970 and a wave of death squad killings swept the capital. He expanded the dirty war throughout the country. Torture and murder were rampant. In 1973 he picked as his successor his defense minister Kjell Laugerud another veteran of the Zacapa campaign. His opponent General Rios Montt won the 1974 election but Laugerud stole the election. Rios Montt was forced to go into exile in Spain as a military attaché when he complained. Laugerud’s specialty was the civic action side of counterinsurgency the winning of hearts and minds. Thus he initially pretended to support the labour and cooperatives groups during the 1974 election and early in his term. In reality it was a sinister ploy to find out who the leaders were so they could be eliminated. While publicly supporting cooperatives the Laugerud regime murdered hundreds of their leaders at the same time. There was a slight decrease in the number of killings in Laugerud’s first two years in office at the same time the power of unions and social movements began to grow. Laugerud was forced to drop his tolerant facade and the number of killings began to rise. This coincided with the catastrophic earthquake of 1976, dubbed an A-class quake, as the rich emerged unscathed while 22,000 poor people died, 77,000 were injured and hundreds of thousands homeless were made homeless. The poor lived in fragile shantytowns that had been built on what little unoccupied land they could find in Guatemala city which was ever expanding as people were forced to flee the war in the countryside or driven to the city by the ever unfolding economic catastrophe. Laugerud responded to the natural disaster by unleashing the death squads while the people were increasingly radicalized and demanding action to provide food and housing. Foreign NGO’s and missionaries descended on the country like vultures in the wake of the disaster. An evangelical cult, the Church of the Word based in Eureka, California arrived and in 1978 future president Rios Montt joined their church. American Evangelical Christians would later play a key role in the dirty war. They were invited into war zones to convert the refugees from the massacres as a way to combat liberation theology. 

Another dangerous legacy of the Laugerud years was the increasing alliance between fascist Guatemala and Israel. Laugerud had first visited Israel back in 1971. In 1974 upon coming to power he sent a delegation of military men to ask for counterinsurgency assistance. Soon Israel was sending weapons, mercenaries, and advisers to Guatemala and they would help design the plan for the coming genocide, help set up model villages turning them into cash crop exporters employing slave labour. Israel’s security assistance often operated under cover of its agricultural and development advisers and of course Counterinsurgency and development are always deeply entwined. Israel would update the Guatemalan intelligence computers in the 1970’s teaching the Guatemalans new tricks like monitoring utilities consumption to discover guerrilla safe houses. Israel provided planes, and guns and the Israeli Galil and Uzi became the standard weapon of the Guatemalan forces. Over half the victims of the genocide of 1981-1983 were killed with Israeli weapons. This relationship became even more important in 1977 when the Carter Administration announced it would begin enforcing the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974, which meant that countries human rights records had to be assessed if they received US military assistance. Guatemala, El Salvador and other countries defiantly renounced aid rather then risk criticism of their horrifying human rights record. The Pentagon however used accounting tricks to continue to supply Guatemala in the Carter years, a fact hidden from Congress. Israel however was left with a leading role in Guatemala and a major role in El Salvador, Panama, and Colombia (training death squads and terrorists for drug cartels) and other Latin American countries.

In 1978 Laugerud handed power via a fixed election to yet another member of the Zacapa group his defense minister General Romeo Lucas Garcia. On 29 October 1978, the Panzos Massacre occurred in which 78 peasants protesting for land rights and demanding an end to the killings by the military were massacred and 25 survivors were also machine gunned by helicopters as they fled. 6 Survivors managed to make it to Guatemala City winning the support of the PGT, unions and activists leading to massive demonstrations in support. President Lucas Garcia would ruthlessly set about eliminating even the moderate opposition death squad killings skyrocketed. His brother General Benedicto Lucas Garcia would oversee the start of the genocidal extermination campaign launched against the Maya Indians in the highlands. In 1979 the American Security Council sent General John Singlaub (CIA/Special forces) and Daniel O. Graham former head of the DIA to Guatemala with a secret message from candidate Reagan that he would resume military aid to Guatemala. Wealthy Guatemalans funnelled illegal campaign funds that helped get Reagan elected along with a series of machinations including the October Surprise by the CIA and ex-CIA loyal to former DCI and future President George H.W. Bush. Reagan was unable to overcome congressional opposition to a massive increase in military aid until 1985. However the Reagan Administration did find loopholes and technicalities allowing them to send weapons and advisers. More importantly his administration was willing to constantly conceal what was happening in Guatemala. US moral support meant Guatemala was free to carry out the genocide that began in fall of 1981 and continued into 1983.

The Reagan administration backed the coup in 1982 that would overthrow Lucas Garcia and install Rios Montt, the evangelical Christian. That made Montt very popular with Reagan’s Christian Right supporters, like Pat Robertson. They also provided a loophole to provide aid to fascist Guatemala. Food and medical supplies were donated by the Christian Right and transported free by the US military. It was part of a little known program that existed worldwide thanks to a law that had the military provide free transportation and logistical support for Christian right-wingNGOs. It was one of many ways that the Christian right had made itself part of global counterinsurgency war the US was waging on the planet. The food along with UN food aid was then used as a weapon of war in Rios Montt’s “Beans or Bullets” campaign. Indians who surrendered to the military were fed living in virtual slavery, doing forced labour building roads so the military could massacre more villages and in constant danger of being tortured and killed. Every other Indian was to be killed. Televangelist Pat Robertson organized the massive project Love Lift, which raised millions for food “aid” to be used in this campaign of slavery and genocide. They were also encouraged to send missionaries to the war zone many Indians converted in hopes that they would be spared by the military and in exchange for food and medicine. Some missionaries actively participated in torture and acted as advisers in the dirty war.  Yet again Guatemala had been the laboratory of imperialism. Back in the 1930s Ubico had welcomed SIL the Summer Institute of Linguistics to Guatemala where they first tested their strategy of learning Indian languages so that they could create a bible in that language and convertthe Indians. SIL soon joined with Nelson Rockefeller and the CIA converting Indians and helping to control them as they were wiped out across Latin America. Ironically the SIL converts of the 1930s were also being wiped out in the 1970s and 1980s because they were Maya Indians. Now in the 1970s and 1980s, with the need to wipe out left wing Catholic activists, American style fundamentalist Christianity was heavily promoted in Guatemala as an alternative to any social reform. By 1992 over 30% of the country had become evangelical Christians.

The genocide of 1981-1983 followed three stages. First there was selective terror: the military and police would kill community leaders, lawyers, doctors, village elders, Maya spiritual leaders, Catholic priests and lay members, labour leaders and mayors. The goal was to destroy anytraditional social cohesion that could rival total military rule. In cities and Ladino areas things never moved beyond selective terror. 50,000 people were “disappeared” in Guatemala. Sometimes a victim would receive death threats for years before finally being disappeared.  They were arrested at home, at work or at checkpoints. Women were often raped in front of their families before being taken off to the secret prisons set up in churches, schools and on every military base and in every police station. The victims were often kept in the Guatemalan version of Vietnamese “Tiger Cages” holes were dug, filled with water and sewage and covered in a tin roof that trapped the heat often they were forced to share these holes with other prisoners. They spent the first day starving in the sweltering heat constantly struggling to keep from drowning. Then they were pulled out of the hole for hours of torture usually wearing hoods filled with insecticide or lime. They were beaten, burned with cigarettes, raped, electric shocked, suffered, dental torture, drowned, and were mutilated with knives. Then they were killed or thrown back in the holes. Most were eventually killed but some were released so they could spread the story of the fate awaiting subversives. The survivors were often physically and psychologically crippled for life reliving the horror every night in nightmares. The mutilated corpses of the executed were dropped in public places or on their families doorsteps often with notes attached describing in detail the torture they suffered. Others were simply shot as the Guatemalan military conducted tens of thousands of extrajudicial executions. Other killings were far more gruesome as the Guatemalan military loved to slice people up with machetes and “Kill them slowly” was one of their favourite mottos. They had a dark sense of humour some victims were crucified; others impaled and buried the way one would barbecue a cow. In Indian areas the military loved to stage murders that would desecrate Mayan shrines and Christian churches.

The second phase of the genocide was mass terror, which meant massacres: the phase when the genocide proper took place. Villages were bombed with napalm and then machine-gunned. Then the troops arrived surrounding the village with orders to kill anything that moved. Residents were shot, chopped to pieces with machetes, and burned alive in their homes, tortured, raped and killed. Crops, were destroyed, livestock killed, and wells poisoned. Often since the military knew it was dealing entirely with unarmed civilians they decided to take their time with the massacre and enjoy themselves. Upon arriving they would demand a cow to barbecue. They would separate the villagers into 3 groups men, women, and children. The children were killed first. The military seldom wanted to “waste bullets” so instead, they were picked up by their legs and had their brains bashed in, or had their heads bashed in with hammers or were thrown down wells. The rest of the village listened helplessly while they were slaughtered. Then the women were raped. Afterward they werehacked up with machetes. Finally the men were killed with machetes, beaten to death or shot. The massacre often lasted for two days and the soldiers would get drunk and feast on the barbecue it was all a big party. They stole anything of value in the village, another perk. Between 200,000 and 300,000 people were killed in Guatemala’s dirty war and the massacres exclusively targeted the Indians. Hundreds of villages were destroyed and between 500,000 and 1.5 million people were turned into refugees. 

The third phase of the genocide was the reorganization. Israel helped design this strategy so it bore a certain resemblance to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Once one Indian village had been massacred the neighbouring villages would flee. The military would then arrive to burn their crops and destroy their homes. Fleeing genocide was considered a sign of disloyalty. Survivors of massacres as well as those who fled from nearby massacres were hunted with helicopters and machine-gunned. Many were massacred as they tried to leave the country. Even once they had fled the country the military sent secret missions to kill refugees in refugee camps across the borders. Those who tried to relocate to other parts of Guatemala were targeted because of their Indian dress and often killed. Many were forced to live in the wilderness foraging for food. Eventually starvation would force them to surrender themselves to the military in exchange for food. They were promised amnesty but it was a lie. Once they surrendered they were screened and the military would torture and execute some of them as subversives as an example to the rest. Often people were eliminated because their land had been stolen after they fled. They would spend months under the total power of the military subjected to constant threats and indoctrination forced to conduct forced labour. They were completely at the mercy of the military for food, medicine or even blankets. Finally they would be resettled in model villages where they were subject to constant surveillance and exploited to grow cash crops for wealthy planters.

In addition to model villages the military created civilian defense patrols called PAC. This was the most sinister aspect of the reorganization phase. Every Indian male between 15 and 60 had to serve in PACs patrolling the countryside and villages for signs of the Guerrillas and recording the movements of every peasant. Villages either agreed to join the PAC or were massacred. Once in the PAC they were ordered to carry out their own genocide. The military might order them to execute village elders or even their own families and they were forced to kill their victims slowly with machetes. Other times PAC were ordered to massacre nearby villages. PAC members who disobeyed orders were tortured or killed. PAC members that failed to round up subversives could be tortured or killed. Often as punishment they were put in the same water filled holes used to soften up torture victims. The PAC system would be in place until the peace deal in 1996, keeping the survivors of the genocide under total military control. Today those who lost family at the hands of the PAC are forced to live side by side with the killers. The system of model villages and PACs had some scandalous side effects as the cash crops grown came to include opium poppies and marijuana fields guarded by armed PACs. Of course the intertwining of the dirty war and the drug trade had begun long before and would grow far worse. In future torturers and mass murderers in the police and military joined the drug cartels. G2 Guatemalan military intelligence was deeply involved in the drug trade as was the brother of Guatemala’s first civilian president since the 1960sVinicio Cerezo. 

Rios Montt lasted in power only for a year. The Reagan administration had hoped that by putting in Montt they could mount a PR campaign that would fool congress into restoring aid to Guatemala. Reagan personally met with Rios Montt and praised him in the Press. Montt cooperated by calling a halt to death squad killings in the capital but soon replaced them with a system of arbitrary military executions. One of the goals of the scorched earth campaign had been to completely eliminate anyone living along the Mexican border and so news of the genocide soon leaked to the world press. Montt had also angered the Reagan administration by refusing to revive CONDECA and turn it into an alliance targeting the Sandinista’s in Nicaragua. Montt’s efforts to convert Guatemala to evangelical Christianity angered the Church. Montt had already alienated the original coup backers by abolishing the junta with key MLN allies in it. The fascist MLN had been a key backer of Montt. The young officers who had launched the coup were immediately betrayed when he overruled their demand for elections and an end to military rule. Montt was able to placate the coup plotters for a couple months by firing his economic advisers, the “seven dwarfs” military technocrats, as well as his advisers from the Church of the Word. That was in June 1983, when an open letter from the ex-head of military intelligence had provoked a military uprising. In August 1983 the top military commanders met and decided Montt had to go. His replacement was his defense minister General Oscar Humberto Mejia Victores.

The new president continued the dirty war concentrating on the reorganization of the countryside and the violent suppression of dissent in the cities. He was yet another veteran of the Zacapa campaign and ruled like the many dictators who had preceded him. Since the 1960s death squads and disappearances had continued. Nonetheless the Reagan administration finally managed to restore military aid in 1985. However while the Guatemalan military had won the war the economy was on the verge of collapse and many countries refused to trade with the country because of it’s appalling human rights record. The Guatemalan military decided it was finally time to allow for another civilian president. The CIA and the State Department also wanted to restore civilian rule for PR purposes. On 14 January 1986, Christian Democrat Vinicio Cerezo was elected president thanks to behind the scenes support from the US. Cerezo had barely managed to survive the dirty war himself having survived multiple assassination attempts. However once in office he broke his promises of reform. The military remained the true power operating with total impunity and the number of death squad killings actually rose instead of falling under Cerezo in his first two years. However the slow process of restoring civilian rule and ending the dirty war had begun. In reality the dirty war never truly ended but was simply waged with lower intensity.

President Cerezo began the peace process contacting the URNG, the joint group combining the 4 guerrilla groups FAR, EGP, ORPA and PGT. They demanded the end of PACs death squads and a purge of war criminals in the army before they would negotiate. Cerezo demanded they completely disarm before negotiations could begin. In August of 1987 a national reconciliation commission was set up which included church figures active in exposing the horrendous war crimes and human rights violations in the country. In 1990 American Michael Devine was arrested by the military and had his throat cut with a machete. The killers were CIA assets.  The American Ambassador Thomas Stroock convinced his long-time friend President George H. W. Bush to suspend aid. Ambassador Stroock asked the CIA if they had any connection to the killing and they claiming they didn’t. In 1995 the truth would be exposed thanks to the valiant efforts of lawyer Jennifer Harbury who was married to guerrilla leader Efrain Bamaco who was “disappeared”. For years she lobbied and engaged in hunger strikes demanding answers.  Finally in 1995 the government was forced to admit that her husband and Michael Devine had been killed by the same group of military officers and that they were CIA assets. Two former CIA chiefs of station in Guatemala were fired 8 members of the operations directorate were disciplined. None of them went to jail. 

Back in 1990 Guatemala’s new President Jorge Serrano Elias (an evangelical) hired the PR firm Patton Boggs and Blow to control the damage. Eventually they got House Foreign Affairs committee chair for Latin America Robert G Torricelli, a Democrat, to meet with President Serrano who then sent him to meet with the URNG. When Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 Torricelli got the Clinton administration to back a peace deal in Guatemala. Having a communist guerrilla movement still fighting in Central America was a threat to US plans to create a Central American version of NAFTA called CAFTA that would allow American corporations to loot the region and exploit it’s people. The URNG made the mistake of trusting the Americans who created a peace deal which enshrined the capitalist order. Serrano was forced to resign after launching his self-coupfiring his cabinet and trying to seize sole power. He was replaced by President Ramiro De Leon Carpio as the peace process slowly went forward. Finally in 1996 newly elected President Alvaro Arzu fired 8 of 16 generals and then signed the peace deal on 29 December 1996. PACs were finally abolished but G2 and the Estado Mayor remained. As part of the peace deal the UN set up a truth commission to study the dirty war. Worried that the result would be a white wash the Church decided to create its own report released in April 1998. Two days after it was published, its main author Bishop Juan Jose Gerrardi Contrera had his head bashed in. In 1999 Clinton apologized for the US role in Guatemala. Clinton meanwhile had already unleashed a far worse bloodbath in Rwanda and the Congo that would claim 10 million lives. Less than oneyear later Rios Montt’s preferred candidate Alfonso Portillo Cabrera was elected in 2000 and the death squad killings began again. Rios Montt himself headed congress from 1996 through 2007. Neither he nor any other former Guatemalan dictator was tried for his crimes despite the terms of the peace deal, which had falsely promised justice for the victims.

Guatemala was never to know peace. During the same period 1986-1996 where the peace process was moving at torturously slow pace the destruction of the Soviet Union took place and the age of TINA began. TINA means “There is no alternative”. The forces of neo-liberalism and globalization unleash chaos across the world. World War 3 “the Cold War” had become World War 4 aka “the War on Drugs”, the “War on Terror”, “the Long War”, and now “The New Cold War.” Poverty, terrorism, crime and chaos were unleashed by the triumph of capitalism leading to constant social fragmentation. The solution has been endless war on the planet, total surveillance, militarized police, private mercenaries, ultra sophisticated psychological warfare that weaponizes pop culture. An endless war on terror or war on drugs is waged using the same tactics that had created bloodbaths in Vietnam, Indonesia, El Salvador and Guatemala. It is a phony war since the CIA controls the global drug trade and is secretly in control of the terror groups it pretends to hunt. Capitalism creates chaos and insecurity and increasingly its profits come from selling security in the form of weapons, mercenaries, security firms. “The haves” live in gated communities while the have-nots live in shantytowns that are often urban war zones. The same blueprint used in Guatemala: centralized intelligence, fusion centres, counter-terror assassination squads, militarized police, torture in secret prisons, and paramilitary death squads continues to be used in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact many tactics of the Central American dirty wars are being used on the streets of the US today with activists kidnapped and fascist paramilitaries working in conjunction with police to crush protests.

It would require another article to do justice to the history of Guatemala in this new post cold war period. Guatemala became a poster child for what happens when a government follows the disastrous neoliberal advice of the Americans. The country opened itself up for tax-free foreign investment and was looted by foreign corporations. There was a massive expansion in the number of sweat shops where underage girls work 17 hour days, forbidden bathroom breaks, and earn $96 to $150 a month. They suffer systemic sexual abuse at the hands of their employers. 70% of Guatemalans work in the “informal sector” meaning they have no real jobs instead trying to survive by selling merchandise on the streets, carrying groceries, begging, dealing drugs, or selling their bodies.  The poverty and dirty war forces millions to flee the country. The US war on immigrants has exported American gang culture to Guatemala. Crime is rampant and many of the horrors of the dirty war continue. Vigilantes and gangs hack up or burn their victims alive. The torture, rape, and murder of poor women are rampant as is the murder of gays and transgender people. Of course it is equally dangerous to be a man or a boy. And the police and military are interchangeable with the higher levels of organized crime. G2 military intelligence in addition to trafficking drugs was caught running a kidnap ring. Indians are still being robbed of their land now in the name of mining and are being killed for resisting. On 5 October 2012, 7 people were killed in the Alaska massacre. Last month Indian journalist Anastasia Mejia Tiriquiz was arrested for exposing corruption. Union leaders are assassinated. In 2018 Guatemala was the country where the most environmental activists were killed in the region. 

Back in 2015 the US organized a colour revolution to overthrow President Otto Perez a former general who ironically was a US trained war criminal,having headed the notoriously brutal Kaibiles special forces during the dirty war. So much for civilian rule. Apparently despite his decade long ties to the Pentagon, CIA, and State Department, he was arrogantly refusing to follow orders and was toppled in an anti-corruption campaign masterminded by the future Colombian president Ivan Duque. He was replaced by Jimmy Morales, a staunch ally in Trump’s war on immigrants,who disbanded the anti-corruption agency. Now President Alejandro Giammatei has provoked an open revolt as he tried to slash health care and the zero hunger program that feeds poor children. An Angry mob burned down part of congress. Strangely though the left CODECA alliance of Indians and peasants are not part of these protests, which have more in common with the anti-corruption movement of 2015. The national police were able to crush the protests but Guatemala remains a powder keg. 60% of the country lives in poverty 60% of children go hungry and that was before Guatemala was hit by two hurricanes and the economic disaster brought by the COVID19 outbreak. Sadly Guatemala’s left was never able to recover from the dirty war or transform itself into a party capable of winning power. Unlike El Salvador or Nicaragua, Guatemala never joined the pink tide countries following the Venezuelan example. 

The struggle for Guatemala’s future continues. Guatemala might have known a very different future if the CIA had not overthrown Jacobo Arbenz destroying all hope of a better future. Instead Guatemala suffered a brutal dirty war that claimed 200,000 and possibly 300,000 lives with 50,000 people disappeared and 1.5 million people internally displaced. Their deaths were the inevitable result of the counterinsurgency strategy America continues to apply all over the world. Millions were kept in poverty to enrich a few. Chaos, misery and suffering were the inevitable result of the victory of capitalism in Guatemala, the victory of the American empire. 

Author’s note: With Special Thanks to Dr T. P. Wilkinson, J. Patrice McSherry and Isa Blumi

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Sources

Memory of Silence: The Guatemalan Truth Commission Report edited by Daniel Rothenberg exposes the dirty war and genocide in all it’s horror based on interviews with thousands of survivors.

The American Connection: State Terror and Popular Resistance in Guatemala by Michael McClintock provides an in depth account of the construction of the Guatemalan security system, the dirty war, and the social movements and revolutionaries who resisted.

The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War by Greg Grandin provides a social history of Indian communities and activists in Alta Verapaz culminating in the 1978 Panzos massacre.

The Mayan in the Mall: Globalization, Development, and the Making of Modern Guatemala by J.T. Way is a history of Guatemala City up to 2012 showing how globalization and US backed development programs have transformed Guatemala into a neo-liberal nightmare of poverty, crime and chaos.

Israeli Foreign Policy: South Africa and Central America by Jane Hunter exposes Israel’s role in providing weapons, advisers, and technical assistance to El Salvador, Guatemala and the Contras as role as their role backing apartheid South Africa and it’s wars on Angola, Mozambique, and in support of apartheid Namibia in the 1970s and 1980s. 

Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (revised and expanded edition) by Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer while focused on the 1954 coup also provides details on the dirty war and the peace process.

Powderburns: Cocaine, Contras & the Drug War by Celerino Castillo and Dave Harmon. A first person account by Celerino “Cele” Castillo of his career, which included being sent to Guatemala and El Salvador where he witnessed incredible brutality and corruption. He also conducted surveillance of the contra drug smuggling at Ilpongo airbase, destroying his career by trying to blow the whistle. 

Thy Will be Done The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil by Gerard Colby with Charlotte Dennet. A masterpiece discussing the relationship between missionaries, the CIA, academia, and the corporations in 20th century Latin America, including the role of the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Guatemala and its role in genocide against Indians across the continent.

Spiritual Warfare: The Politics of the Christian Right by Sara Diamond a must read book on the Christian right in the US and it’s little discussed role in supporting US dirty wars around the world in Africa, Latin America, and the middle east the 1970’s and 1980’s including their massive support for genocidal evangelical convert Rios Montt who was praised and supported in millions in aid donations by Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and others. 

Guatemala War and Revolution Part 1 http://anti-imperialist-u.blogspot.com/2020/10/guatemala-war-and-revolution-part-1.html

My Interview on Guatemala’s dirty war and genocide http://anti-imperialist-u.blogspot.com/2020/10/interview-guatemala-coup-dirty-war.html

El Salvador War and Revolution Part 1 http://anti-imperialist-u.blogspot.com/2019/10/el-salvador-war-and-revolution.html

Alternative views produced a shocking 2-part episode on Guatemala in the 1980s combining 2 short documentaries with interviews with a Mayan poet and genocide survivor and a Guatemalan professor living in exile in the US.

Part 1 https://youtu.be/LsuxXG4BL2M

Part 2 https://youtu.be/lHlgXiYFMKs

An article on Israel’s role in the Guatemalan genocide https://libya360.wordpress.com/2020/11/06/zionisms-bloody-history-in-guatemala/

An analysis of the recent protests that lead to the burning of Guatemala’s congress https://libya360.wordpress.com/2020/11/24/guatemala-why-do-social-protests-culminate-in-a-blind-spot/

More on the protests in Guatemala https://libya360.wordpress.com/2020/11/24/carlos-barrientos-there-is-rage-on-the-streets-of-guatemala/

Inequality and corruption in Guatemala https://libya360.wordpress.com/2020/11/20/guatemala-congressmen-torture-an-already-dying-people/

Why people are fleeing Guatemala https://libya360.wordpress.com/2019/12/26/families-fleeing-from-guatemala-a-case-of-corporate-and-state-aggression/

Guatemala’s Maya Indians face continuing repression including the recent arrest of community journalist Anastasia Mejia Tiriquiz https://libya360.wordpress.com/2020/10/06/eternal-abuse-of-the-original-peoples-in-guatemala/

On December 14, a live webinar was broadcast on the topic of “The National and Regional Impact of Parliamentary Elections in Venezuela.” It was organized by the Washington DC-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA). Along with electoral observers Dr. Margaret Flowers, and Danny Shaw, who had just returned from Venezuela, the main speaker was Venezuela expert Steve Ellner. He is Associate Managing Editor of the journal Latin American Perspectives, and a retired professor of the University of the East in Venezuela. 

During his informative presentation, Ellner called out Venezuelan opposition figure Enrique Ochoa Antich for writing recently “Are they [the victorious Chavista leaders] going to celebrate with thunder, drummers, trumpets and fireworks that ‘Pyrrhic victory’ (which, like those of the famous Greek general, only leaves a country more destroyed)?” Antich’s assessment fails to take into consideration the political and economic context of the December 6 elections. A non-stop hybrid war against Venezuela has been waged by the US, the European Union and the Lima group since (and even before) Juan Guaidó proclaimed himself “president” in January 2019. Their goal? The overthrow of the Maduro administration by any means necessary, to be replaced by the US surrogate Juan Guaidó and his US-funded shadow government.

However, not only did the strategy fail, but the Bolivarian government was able to organize the constitutionally mandated December 6 legislative elections right under the nose of the mighty Western nations and their Latin American allies. Indeed, the electoral process took place peacefully despite attempts at sabotage. Moreover, the Chavistas won over 70% of the vote and an overwhelming majority of seats in the new parliament. So where was the fraud? Even the newly-elected opposition deputies, who oppose Guaidó’s pro-US interventionist policy, agreed that the elections were legitimate.

So, how can the extremist Guaidó party deny the Chavista victory and instead claim a triumph? The only pretext was the relatively low voter turnout of 31%. However, as both Steve Ellner, in his presentation in the COHA webinar, and Leonardo Flores, in Common Dreams point out, a fair-minded perspective on the participation rate ought to take into account the economic war being waged against Venezuela, the pandemic, gasoline shortages, the opposition boycott by the hardline opposition, as well as historic participation rates both in Venezuela and in other countries that have recently held parliamentary elections. Given this context, the December 6 elections were a clear victory for the allied parties of the Great Patriotic Pole (GPP), led by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

Trump-Guaidó’s “Pyrrhic Victory”

In any case, the most salient feature of the election results, aside from the Chavista popular vote, consisted of the splits and infighting within the different sections of the opposition that promoted a boycott of the elections. An outstanding feature was not the voter turnout, which was to a large extent expected given the adverse situation. While there had often been division in the past, this time the intramural opposition descended into backstabbing, which was plain for all the world to see while the international corporate media focused on the elections. One example of this dogfight venting its frustration in public was when opposition figure and two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles told the BBCthat Guaidó and his Voluntad Popular party are “finished, closed, done.”

When the Trump-backed Guaidó faction declared “victory” because of the low voter turnout, it is reminiscent of the “Pyrrhic victory” cited above by opposition figure Ochoa Antich as having left behind “a country more destroyed.” However, the “country” here is not Chavismo or Venezuela, but rather the land that exists in the imagination of the extremist opposition. If ever the term Pyrrhic victory were to apply, it would be to this hara-kiri in motion. On December 6, the “Greek general,” that is Trump, his Venezuelan acolytes, and European and right-wing Latin American allies left behind nothing but their own political destruction . On the other hand, both Chavismo and Maduro came out of the elections fighting and in better shape than before. The former US-dominated National Assembly is dead and buried, while the new one is opposed to US sanctions and interference. Not exactly a Pyrrhic victory for the Bolivarian Revolution, but rather a real one.

The Trump-Guaidó Achilles Heel in Venezuela

How did millions of humble Chavistas turn the table on their formidable enemy in the weeks leading up to December 6? In a February 2019 visit to Caracas, I attended a semi-private meeting with President Maduro. This experience resulted in the first of a series of articles striving to explain how the Bolivarian Revolution has managed to stave off the combined criminal sanctions and coup attempts. It has done so to maintain its sovereignty, while clearly advancing the social, cultural, educational, health and housing goals at the heart of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Both the economy and the food supply however, have been greatly affected by the US sanctions. There have also been issues with the way the government has handled runaway inflation, the precipitous drop in oil prices, and the shortcomings of a country highly dependent on the fossil fuel industry–a chronic problem that Chavismo hasn’t been able to resolve. With a renovated National Assembly in January, the government will need to urgently address these challenges in the face of both a blockade and a pandemic.

The theme of my first article stressed the “Trump-led Alliance’s Achilles Heel,” referring to the civil-military union that Maduro brought to life for us that day in Caracas. No matter how hard the Trump-Guaidó faction has tried, it has not been able to remove that thorny arrow from its heel. It is its Achilles heel.

Have things changed since our February 2019 meeting in Caracas? Yes, in many ways. First, membership in the militia, a voluntary force that is part of the Armed Forces, has increased substantially. Second, the political consciousness and patriotism inspired by the civil-military union, when confronting the combined forces of the criminal sanctions and the pandemic, has moved up another notch. All efforts by the US and its allies to provoke a mutiny in the ranks of the military and an uprising of the people have dismally failed.

In the weeks prior to voting day, the civil-military union contributed to the peaceful exercise of the right to vote, acting as that Achilles heel, and helping turn the December 6 elections into a Chavista victory. Meanwhile, those who hoped for a Trump-Guaidó victory only experienced a Pyrrhic one.

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This article was originally published on the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.

Arnold August is a Montreal-based author and journalist whose articles are published in web sites across North America, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East in English, Spanish and French. He is a Fellow at the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute.

Featured image is from COHA

Charles Thépaut is a French diplomat and resident Visiting Fellow at The Washington Institute. He recently published a policy analysis concerning the US foreign policy on Syria.

While, much of his analysis demonstrates professionalism; he misses a very important point of view: that of the Syrian people living inside Syria, which amounts to about 10 million persons, or roughly 44 percent of the original 23 million before 2011.

Thepaut treats the Syrian crisis as if it was only between various governments, such as; the US, EU, Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Those various countries listed are indeed involved in the Syrian crisis, but the suffering and effect on the residents in Syria must be considered in any US foreign policy changes.

Thepaut writes,

“The first step in that direction is clear: using the momentum granted by the coming inauguration to signal Damascus, Moscow, and Tehran that their current strategy of trying to wait out the United States will not work,” while adding, “Ultimately, compromising with Russia is the only way to deliver a negotiated outcome in Syria.”

Political dialog with Russia is of utmost importance to find a solution for the Syria crisis, which is now at a stalemate. The battlefields are silent, the major cities and most highways are operating under normal conditions, and free of terrorist occupation. Idlib remains the last terrorist occupied province, with the Al Qaeda affiliate, HTS holding about 2 million persons as human hostages, while international aid agencies support the civilians, and the families of the Radical Islamic terrorists.

The upcoming Biden administration’s Syrian foreign policy is still unknown, and yet to be revealed.  We know that President-elect Joe Biden has asked Anthony Blinken to be Secretary of State, who as made comments concerning mistakes made in Syria during the Obama administration, and Blinken has stated that he cannot imagine a policy of reengaging with Bashar al-Assad.

The uprising which began in 2011, was not a grass-roots revolution. It was a US-NATO attack on the Syrian people for ‘regime change’.  When the US wants to remove a leader, they don’t always invade, such as the Bush war on the Iraqi people, to remove Saddam Hussein, they often choose to instigate chaos, and an armed struggle using locals acting as mercenaries for the US and/or NATO.

The fact that the Syrian people never fully supported the Free Syrian Army, who some called “Obama’s Army”, and the Syrian Arab Army never broke apart is clear proof the majority of the Syrian population did not support the US goal of ‘regime change’.  There was indeed a minor percentage of Syrian who were following the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the dominant group among the US-EU recognized Syrian Opposition.

The US foreign policy on the Middle East is designed to meet the security goals of Israel. Syria and Israel are at war because Israel is militarily occupying the Golan Heights, in defiance and disregard of multiple UN resolutions.  Instead of causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of unarmed Syrian civilians, the US could have negotiated with Israel to leave the Golan Heights. Syria has not attacked Israel, even in the face of missile attacks by Israel, which have become routine.

Syrian President Assad said in October that to hold Syrian-Israeli negotiations, it is imperative that Israel “restore all Syrian land” it is occupying.

Thepaut feels the “strategy employed against the Islamic State remains a good model for American military action in the Middle East. This may indicate a willingness to keep a small contingent on the ground to support local partners.”

However, he fails to acknowledge the Syrian and Russian military which largely contributed to the defeat of ISIS on Syrian soil.

The US military which is illegally occupying several Syrian bases is there to steal the Syrian oil resources, which was ordered by President Trump, and not fighting ISIS. This has prevented the Syrian government from refining their oil into gasoline and heating oil. This has left the Syrian people in constant shortages of heat and transportation. When Syria attempts to import oil for the needs of the population, often the ships carrying the lifeblood of basic services are prevented from arriving by the US.  Imagine the average Syrian sitting in freezing temperatures, not able to buy cooking gas to cook their food, and having to walk miles daily because their car, or the taxis, sit idle with empty tanks.

The war on ISIS in Syria is over. ISIS will always survive as an ideology of Radical Islam, akin to their brothers in Al Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood. ISIS holds no territory in Syria, but may continue to carry out random acts of terror in Syria, and in the US and Europe as well. There is no military justification for any US occupation of Syria.

Thepaut writes, “economic sanctions targeting the Assad regime are likely here to stay.”

The US-EU sanctions on the Syrian government has not created any revolution, or ‘regime change’. The sanctions are preventing Syrians from acquiring: money from relatives abroad; chemotherapy drugs, and other foreign specialty medicines; gasoline; cooking gas; materials from the US or EU countries which would be used to repair and restore homes, hospitals, schools, and businesses which were damaged in the war. Because the Syrian power generators run on fuel, which is being stolen by the US military, the Syrian population is living with one and one-half hours of electricity in three increments per day. This is not enough time to freeze food at home, and the result is food poisoning. Thepaut rightfully acknowledges that international banks and companies are so afraid of the US-EU sanctions that they refuse to deal with humanitarian needs such as foods and medicines.

Thepaut writes,

“One prerequisite for breaking the diplomatic stalemate is acknowledging that the United States has neither the means nor the ambition to solve the Syria quandary on its own,”

However, the nation which caused the war, which flooded the battlefields with mercenaries and weapons, should be the one who solves the conflict. A withdrawal of US occupation forces and removal of the sanctions which hurt the Syrian civilian population should be among the first steps.

The” Small Group” consists of the UK, Egypt, France, Germany, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Thepaut advises that Biden should work diplomatically with that group. Citizens from each of those countries were present in Syria fighting as Radical Islamic terrorists, for ‘regime change’ to a state governed by Islamic Law. Saudi Arabia spent billions of dollars supporting the US-backed terrorists and is accused of supplying the sarin gas used in the 2013 East Ghouta attack. The “Small Group” should be part of the Astana process, along with Russia, Turkey, and Iran, which has never had a US member.

“The United States and the EU have long conditioned their funding of reconstruction projects on making visible progress in the political process,” wrote Thepaut.

The UN resolution 2254 has been the accepted framework of the Syrian government, which has consistently sent delegations to the meetings. The Syrian constitution reform committee has made progress. The US-EU sanctions which prevent Syrian reconstruction should be removed.

As the new year, 2021 is days away, Syria prepares for its Presidential election. The last in 2014 was observed by an international delegation of activists. The upcoming election will have a UN monitoring system. The US-EU sanctions should be lifted before the election, otherwise, voters will not be able to drive to the polls and vote.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is an award-winning journalist. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. 

Featured image is from Syria News

Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

After seven years of tough negotiations, the European Union and China were close to signing an investment agreement. However, at the last moment, it hit a road block as it faced pressure from those wanting Washington’s involvement, or those wanting to impose Western Liberalism on China.

A strategic analysis document by the European Union in November 2019 claimed that China is “a systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance.” Josep Borrell, the head of the European Union’s diplomacy, called on Brussels to adopt in May 2020 a “more robust strategy” vis-à-vis Beijing. The investment agreement that was hoped to be reached between Brussels and Beijing seems to reflect this European ambition.

Launched in November 2013, negotiations accelerated in mid-December and was leading to the imminent conclusion of a compromise to mutually protect European investments in China and Chinese investment in the European Union. During a press briefing on December 18, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said “negotiations are in the final stage.”Significant progress was made during the ten negotiation sessions organized in 2020, and the European Commission seemed confident that an agreement could be reached.

“We are not quite there yet but it is definitely feasible that, if things move forward as they are moving now, that we can conclude still this year,” Valdis Dombrovskis, the vice-president of the European Commission in charge of the Economy, said to Bloomberg last week.

It is likely that if Beijing makes real concessions by opening its market to Europeans in the biotechnology, electric automotive and the medical sectors, Brussels would allow the presence of Chinese companies in the renewable energy market. The European Union’s objective is to ensure reciprocity as certain economic sectors must not become completely dependent on China.

While it was essential to speed up the timetable for talks in order to crown the end of the German presidency of the European Union, whose six-month mandate has only been marred by failure to protect European interests and servitude to Washington’s demands, it evokes just a purely symbolic text. The terms of the agreement remain vague as ratification by the European Parliament is unlikely because many European Members of Parliament continue a hostile policy against China due to its alleged human rights violations.

Some speculate that an agreement was never supposed to be reached but is rather an exercise to maintain dialogue between the two economic powerhouses. For the Chinese, their desire is to quickly conclude these negotiations, particularly during the American presidential transition period. However, despite this Chinese desire, certain European countries are resisting efforts to make an agreement with Beijing before the self-imposed deadline on December 31.

Unsurprisingly, Poland was the first European Union member to openly resist the “premature” investment deal with China.“Europe should seek a fair, mutually beneficial Comprehensive Agreement on Investment with China. We need more consultations and transparency bringing our transatlantic allies on board. A good, balanced deal is better than a premature one,” Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau tweeted on Tuesday. He effectively called for a European-Chinese deal to have Washington’s blessing and involvement by highlighting the necessity to have “transatlantic allies on board.”

Biden’s incoming national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, expressed his satisfaction that Poland wants to involve Washington in a European-Chinese trade deal, stating in a tweet that “The Biden-Harris administration would welcome early consultations with our European partners on our common concerns about China’s economic practices.”

The scepticism was not only reduced to Poland as France also joined the fray, albeit for different reasons. Franck Riester, France’s junior minister for trade, said to Le Monde: “We can’t facilitate investment in China if we don’t work to abolish forced labor.” He also admitted that trade deals should be used as a tool to “advance social issues” in China. In fact, it is this demand that trade deals be connected to domestic issues of a country that has resulted in France losing influence in Africa, while China, which makes no such demands in trade agreements, continues to advance on the continent as it does not interfere in the internal running’s of a country.

The French and Polish scepticism also has the support of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, and many Members of the European Parliament, such as Germany’s Reinhard Bütikofer who challenged the trade deal by questioning whether Europe should “really help [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] show Joe Biden the middle finger?”

What this demonstrates is that the European Union is stuck with a 20th century outlook for the 21st century.  Whereas Western Liberalism was protected and projected by Washington during the Cold War and the unipolar-era after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, European leaders and lawmakers are unwilling to relinquish this antiquated thinking. Poland’s insistence that Washington be involved in negotiations between Europe and China demonstrates that many countries in the Old Continent lack the confidence to engage in the multipolar system as part of an independent European bloc. Although the French are attempting to make the European bloc independent, it faces tough resistance by those wanting Washington’s approval. However, France also limits itself by imposing Western Liberalism as a condition for trade negotiations, not only with China, but with most post-colonial countries.

It is unlikely that China and the European Union will reach an agreement by the self-imposed deadline of December 31. This is due to Europe’s own lack of confidence as a Great Power, insistence that they do not act independently by continuously wanting U.S. input, and the insistence of imposing Western Liberalism on a Far East country. If European strategic thinking could change, an agreement could rapidly be made, however, it is highly unlikely to occur by the end of the year.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

In this interview, Alena Peryshkina, Co-Chair of the BRICS Civil Forum, Director of the AIDS Infoshare Foundation, Co-Chair of the BRICS and G20 CSOs Working Group, discusses some aspects of multicultural dimensions, especially the need to institutionalize cultural ties and further points to developing a mechanism for evaluating and monitoring the implementation of NGOs recommendations under BRICS. Below are the excerpts of her interview.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah: What aspects of cooperation strike you most during online roundtable discussions on “International Cultural Cooperation for Strengthening BRICS Unity” organized in Moscow?

Alena Peryshkina: It is really worth noting that the discussions on “International Cultural Cooperation for Strengthening BRICS Unity” were extremely interesting. Our roundtables covered a wide range of issues in the field of culture and the most fruitful dialogues were about institutionalization of cultural ties, development of people-to-people exchange through literature and art, and the most urgent issues in protection of the BRICS cultural heritage.

KKK: In your opinion from BRICS 2020 Chair’s position, how important could cultural cooperation strengthen unity among BRICS? Do you agree that there are diversities in culture among the group?

AP: Certainly, the cultures of the BRICS countries are very diverse and very different from one another. But our cultural ties are getting stronger, since they are based on the values that unite peoples, and therefore states. Cooperation in culture, sport, art, youth and tourism is a priority for the BRICS alliance. By developing and strengthening these ties between nations, we are building a language of communication based on mutual understanding, respect and support. The dialogue of our cultures, even the dialogue of the civilizations, if I may say so, is a symbol of our desire for harmony, trust and productive interaction.

KKK: Could you discuss some of the initiatives that were presented during the meeting? What were the reactions of your colleagues from Brazil, India, China and South Africa?

AP: The experts who participated in the meetings introduced many initiatives contributing to the institutionalization of cultural ties between the BRICS countries, such as creation of the «BRICS Non-Governmental Organizations Union (Association)», establishment of the joint Fund for Grant Support for Cultural Projects and Civil Initiatives or establishment of an organization for promoting joint projects in the audiovisual market, mass media, television and Internet, promoting exhibitions of cinematic and audiovisual content.

Obviously, such ambitious projects require elaboration and can be implemented in the medium or long term. Along with this, I also found very interesting initiatives that would contribute to the development of the culture of the BRICS countries right now, such as establishment of a general Register of cultural, architectural and landscape monuments of the BRICS member states and the inclusion of the given cultural heritage sites in the World Heritage List or establishment of the BRICS Literary Prize and organization of the BRICS Literary Forum with the participation of specialists and professionals of a wide range of knowledge from the five countries, including writers, thinkers, historians, sociologists, and philosophers.

I should note that all of the initiatives proposed by the Russian side were positively received by our BRICS partners. The proposals included in the recommendations to the BRICS leaders are the result of the consensus of all five countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

KKK: What challenges are there in promoting civil society, youth and tourism exchanges as part of public diplomacy of BRICS? How did the roundtable meeting participants looked at these in practical terms?

AP: If we talk about the practical aspects in the implementation of programs and initiatives in the sphere of civil society, youth and tourism exchanges, then we are always talking about addressing three key issues: the support of governments, funding, and the capacity of implementing agencies. Where there are political will and administrative support, where the issues of co-financing are solved, where there are human potential and experience – there is guaranteed success.

KKK: What could be the best way to systematize and to combine efforts in implementing all these new initiatives and recommendations arrived at the BRICS Civil Forum? In you view, how best do you see the way forward for the Association of NGOs as part of BRICS?

AP: Indeed, the best way to consolidate the efforts of BRICS civil dialogue partners could be the creation of the BRICS NGOs Association to unite the organizations within the Alliance, acquire new opportunities for providing effective cooperation, organize and coordinate multilateral activities, create a unified base of BRICS NGOs. Similar to any institutional process, the creation of an association should be a step-by-step process. In my opinion, the first step should be the creation of a steering committee of the BRICS civil society forum. This committee would not only ensure the continuity of the agenda from presidency to presidency, but also develop a mechanism for evaluating and monitoring the implementation of NGOs recommendations to the BRICS leaders.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Important text first published on September 25, 2020

Executive Summary

Evidence presented in this paper indicates that the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic as an event in the UK is essentially complete, with ongoing and anticipated challenges well within the capacity of a normalised NHS to cope. The virus infection has passed through the bulk of the population as a result of wholly natural processes and evidence indicates that in the UK and other heavily infected European countries the spread of the virus has been all but halted by a substantial reduction in the susceptible population. This has occurred because the level of infection required to introduce enough immunity into the population to reduce the reproduction number (R) permanently below 1 occurred at markedly lower infection rates and loss of life than had been initially anticipated. The evidence presented in this paper indicates that there should be no expectation of a large scale ‘second wave’ with smaller localised outbreaks when the virus contacts pockets of previously uninfected populations.

Current mass testing using the PCR test is inappropriate in its current form. If it is to continue, then results and reporting should be refined to meet the gold standard of testing methodology to give clinicians improved information so that they are able to make appropriate clinical decisions. Positive tests should be confirmed by testing a second sample and all positive tests should be reported along with the Cycle Threshold (Ct) obtained during the test to aid assessment of a patient’s viral load.

It is recommended that a greater focus be placed on evidence-based medicine rather than highly sensitive theoretical modelling based on assumptions and unknowns. Current evidence allows for a greatly improved understanding of positive infectious patients and using the evidence to improve measurements and understanding can lead to sensitive measurements of active cases to give a more accurate warning of escalating cases and potential issues and outbreaks.

Background

Based upon guidance from NHS England, our primary and secondary care service across the country are currently following protocols to limit access to care due to the dangers of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19) pandemic. Whilst work has begun to restore NHS services (the “restoration”), there remains a strong focus on preparing for a second wave as implied by the Imperial College epidemiological model designed by Professor Neil Ferguson and his team. While this model may have had some limited value when we were faced with a novel virus outbreak, the evidence that has emerged over recent months along with detailed analysis of previous outbreaks implies that the model that is still being followed is unreliable and not consistent with both previously measured systems and current evidence. This paper outlines the evidence and data we have gathered to support a change in focus to further expedite the return of both primary and secondary care to full capacity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly allowed for some very positive and rapid changes within NHS pathways, protocols and services which should be maintained. However, the current reduction in delivered primary care activity, referrals and elective care gives concern as to the degree of ‘collateral damage’ being caused in patients not receiving the diagnostic and ensuing care they should be receiving at the earliest possible stage of intervention. While there has been a very specific focus on the cancer and cardiology services, similar negative impacts can be seen across most services with, for example, neurological, dermatological and renal patients all presenting with more severe disease due to delays in receiving both diagnosis and treatment.

Mortality and Critical Care

National weekly mortality data is useful for looking at the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. The past four years data were used for comparison purposes and to calculate upper and lower control limits (based on two standard deviations).

This shows that in the pandemic peak (April 17th to 30th) more than twice the number of seasonal average deaths occurred, with the number of deaths above the upper control limit from March 27th through to June 12th, totalling 44,895 excess deaths. Since June 26th the number of weekly deaths has now fallen so it is not only below the weekly average but has regularly dropped below the lower control limit, showing that we are now at the lowest number of weekly deaths recorded in many years.

Over the last three months since lockdown measures started easing on the May 10th there has been no increase in weekly deaths. On the contrary, these have continued to fall.

Another useful measure of disease impact is the Adult Critical Care Bed Occupancy which showed a peak in bed demand between April 7th and 23rd with the number of patients occupying critical care beds significantly higher than our national baseline capacity. However, by the end of May the occupancy had dropped back to pre-COVID-19 levels, well below the national baseline capacity and has shown no statistical change since.

Restrictions have been progressively eased across the country for over three months. A continuation of the virus would be expected to manifest itself as an increase in both Critical Care bed occupancy and national All-Causes Mortality statistics. This has not been the case in either critical indicator.

A Complete Event of the Pandemic

There are very good reasons to believe that the population of the UK and of many heavily infected countries have arrived at a position where the prevalence of the virus is low and probably falling further because the reproduction number (R) has been below 1 for several months. We understand the term ‘herd immunity’ can raise hackles in some quarters of the media. However, it might be more acceptably expressed by stating that the proportion remaining of the population who are susceptible to the virus has fallen sufficiently far that a sustained and growing outbreak of disease is no longer supported. This end state is not at all new or, in our view, controversial. It is how mammals – specifically jawed vertebrates – learned to live with the thousands of viruses that infect every living organism on the planet, not just us, but even plants, fungi and bacteria.

We are of the view that a continued focus primarily on the virus flows from responding to what we are concerned is a seriously flawed transmission model. We are told that only seven per cent of the population have antibodies to the virus and it is implied that this represents the proportion of the population who have so far been infected. The model assumes that we started with 100% susceptibility, because the virus is new, therefore the virus hasn’t gone away and must sooner or later return. This is the basis of all the second wave fears we hear about.

However, we do not believe the model is correct and our assertions and inferences are based upon recently published science, some in highly eminent journals and some by researchers in pre-review online servers which have this year become crucial in keeping pace with emerging science.

While published data on deaths ‘with’ COVID-19 is dependent on testing regimes and therefore liable to inaccuracy due to missing information – for example undetected asymptomatic patients – the data does allow a sound approximation of the flow of the outbreak. Inspecting the daily COVID-19 deaths vs. time curve for the UK we see a Gompertz-type curve (Rypdal and Rypdal, 2020) which are typical of natural, biological phenomena, well documented in biomedical scientific papers over the last 40 years. Note the lack of discontinuities in the curve, suggesting no effective interventions have interrupted its development.

Epidemic Outbreaks

The Gompertz-type plot seen above, which is formed by a single surge in activity, often followed by smaller minor upturns as the disease reaches new populations is typical of previous virus outbreaks that have been well documented, none of which have demonstrated a significant second wave even though control methods were used to prevent the spread of disease in each case.

For example, below we see in the MERS CoV outbreak of 2015 what appears to be a significant double wave. However, it is actually multiple single waves affecting geographically distinct populations at different times as the disease spreads. In this case the first major peak was seen in Saudi Arabia with a second peak some months later in the Republic of Korea. Analysed individually, each area followed a typical single event Gompertz curve.

Similarly, when we look at the SARS outbreak of 2003 the initial identification of an apparent double wave when looking at world wide data is actually multiple single events or waves in disparate locations each following the typical Gompertz-type curve.

Population Susceptibility

It is now established that at least 30% of our population already had immunological recognition of this new virus, before it even arrived (Le Bert et al, 2020; Braun et al, 2020; Grifoni et al, 2020). COVID-19 is new, but coronaviruses are not. There are at least four well characterised family members (229E, NL63, OC43 and HKU1) which are endemic and cause some of the common colds we experience, especially in winter.

They all have striking sequence similarity to the new coronavirus. A major component our immune systems is the group of white blood cells called T-cells whose job it is to memorise a short piece of whatever virus we were infected with so the right cell types can multiply rapidly and protect us if we get a related infection. Responses to COVID-19 have been shown in dozens of blood samples taken from donors before the new virus arrived. The most recent paper by Mateus et al (2020) was published in the journal Science in August and supports the previous findings of Le Bert et al (2020).

Importantly, only Mateus performed detailed epitope mapping and found that epitopes present in each of the known endemic coronaviruses share sequence homology or close similarity to those in the new virus. Prior to this, three other groups including immunologists in Germany, Sweden and the USA each independently published similar findings (refs as above and discussed in Sewell, 2020). These papers showed this pre-immunity is geographically widespread and prevalent within each population studied, but it was only the Mateus paper that gave us the understanding as to why and how. It had previously been suggested that pre-pandemic immune responses in circulating T-cells might have occurred following exposure to one or more of the endemic coronaviruses. Mateus, by using parts of these endemic coronaviruses which also exist within COVID-19 confirmed this.

We understand that objections might be raised about the clinical correlates of this T-cell recognition. While that is a fair challenge, it would be unreasonable to dismiss it and assume is has no relevance. This is because this is how T-cell memory works (for example, Ling et al, 2020 show that convalescent COVID-19 patients analogously display exactly these T-cell responses) and more importantly because we have solid evidence in the case of SARS that those expressing T-cell recognition of that coronavirus were resistant to it. In a study of 23 people who survived SARS in 2003, every single one had memory T-cells that recognised the SARS virus 17 years later. (Le Bert et al, 2020). The T-cell response was consistent with measurements taken after vaccination with approved vaccines for other viruses. As important, these T-cell responses also develop even in recovering patients infected with the new virus but who were asymptomatic (Sekine et al, 2020).

In conclusion, we believe it is reasonable to take from this body of work that those displaying vigorous T-cell responses to this family of coronaviruses are resistant to or immune from infection. They are distinct from the others in the population who do not have these T-cell responses and are therefore susceptible to a new virus.

Immunity Threshold

Transmission models, such as the one used by the Imperial team, are highly sensitive to the input parameters they are based on and we argue that a modification of the current model should be applied with, at most, 70% initial population susceptibility. This is a conservative value since current literature finds that between 20% and 50% of the population display this pre-pandemic T-cell responsiveness, meaning we could adopt an initially susceptible population value from 80% to 50%. The lower the real initial susceptibility, the more secure we are in our contention that a herd immunity threshold (HIT) has been reached.

However, our concerns with the Imperial model are not limited solely to T-cell memory mediated reduction in initial susceptibility. This is because there are factors other than T-cell mechanisms which alter a person’s susceptibility to the virus. We now know that children, especially young children, appear harder to infect and/or they are less affected by the virus. To do us harm, viruses need to get inside our cells. To do that, they exploit as ‘grappling hooks’ receptors on the outside of those cells – in the case of the new virus, and at high speed, scientists determined it is an enzyme called ACE2. It turns out that the levels of ACE2 are highest in adults and much lower in children, becoming progressively lower the younger they are (Lingappan et al, 2020). That is a fortunate finding indeed, and goes some way in explaining why children have been relatively spared. In addition, other groups have shown that infectivity is significantly reduced in individuals with the O-blood group (Wu et al, 2020; Ellinghaus et al, 2020). There are approximately eight million children aged 0-10 in the UK and 12.7 million aged 0-15. These cohorts represent approximately 11.9% and 19% of the UK population, respectively

Taking this into account it is, in total, at least 35%, and likely to be significantly more of the population who are resistant or immune to the virus, meaning that they will neither get ill nor participate significantly in viral transmission (Lee, 2020). This is crucial to understanding where we are with respect to the epidemic in the UK and the potential for a second wave of infections.

The proportion of the population that need to be resistant to an infection, in order to stop it spreading, depends on the proportion who were originally susceptible and the initial reproduction number, or R0. If 100% truly were susceptible, then epidemiology suggests that 65% would have to be infected for the herd immunity threshold to be reached, given the initial estimates of R0. That would have resulted in very many more deaths than have been measured. But if, as we are now reasonably sure, a much lower initial percentage was susceptible, it takes far fewer people to catch the virus before there are too few susceptible people remaining within the population for the virus to be able to find the next person to infect.

Recent seroprevalence studies, which measure the proportion of the population displaying antibodies to the novel virus, are widely assumed to show the proportion of the population which has been infected. However, the observation that, for example, only 17% of Londoners have antibodies is not the same as saying only 17% have been infected (though the media often wrongly assumes it does). It is important to appreciate that much of the early serological studies were conducted on hospitalised patients who, by definition, are the most ill cohort. In such patients the majority do seroconvert (eg Theel et al, 2020). In mildly symptomatic and asymptomatic patients, a lower proportion seroconvert (Long et al, 2020). This is because the antibody system is but one of several tools our immunology has to defend us. There have been a number of papers illustrating this important principle. Long et al (2020) find that almost half of previously infected individuals are no longer seropositive a few months later. Gallais (2020) shows that none of the familial contacts of those testing positive to SARS-CoV-2 went onto to develop antibodies.

A reasonable hypothesis is that the lower intensity of immunological challenges tends to rely less on the generation of antibodies and more on innate and cellular responses. This means that a factor of two-fold and possibly higher would need to be applied to population serology data in order to better approximate the infected population. If 7% is the mean for UK, then perhaps 14-21% of the population has actually been infected (which would imply, very approximately, 9-14 million people infected). The authors recognise that the exact number in this example is speculative, but conversations with immunologists indicate that this principle is widely accepted as reasonable for community infection where viral load varies widely and contrasts markedly with seroconversion after vaccination, where the goal is close to 100%.

Interestingly, this question of what percentage of the population have been infected can be approached using a different methodology. Numerous estimates have been made of the infection fatality ratio (IFR) for this new virus. Naturally, it varies depending on the population under study as well as the methodology used and, accordingly, researchers have arrived at a wide range of estimates for IFR. The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine has done much work in this area and their current estimate is 0.1-0.4% (Oke and Heneghan, 2020). Let us take a midpoint value, especially as for months the US CDC displayed a value for IFR of 0.26% on their website. This implies that for every death from COVID-19, there were a preceding 100/0.26 or ~400 infections. The UK has suffered approximately 42,000 such deaths which, to a first approximation using IFR, implies 16.8million infections, or 25% of the population having been infected.

Consequently, two different and independent analytical approaches provide estimates that are at least in the same range for total population having been infected (overlapping at approximately 20%), and this is crucial in the argument put forward here. Other, theoretical epidemiological studies show that, with the extent of prior immunity that we can now reasonably assume to be the case, only 15-25% of the population being infected is sufficient to bring the spread of the virus to a halt (Lourenco, 2020; Gomez et al, 2020). Importantly, we emphasise there are additional schools of epidemiological work which show that variation in likelihood of becoming infected itself can greatly reduce the so-called herd immunity threshold and that this can be reached at even lower proportions of the population having been infected (e.g. Aguas, 2020).

We saw early on in the pandemic that the number of daily deaths rapidly soar and at that time did we not know where and when it would stop rising. It has been evidenced previously that the most easily infected people got infected earliest (see Gomez et al, 2020). Humans vary hugely, not only in our responses to viruses, but also in the ease or difficulty the virus experiences as it tries to invade us. The most susceptible were those already elderly and/or ill, some very ill, and so we saw very high death rates initially. Once that super-susceptible group were removed from the pool of susceptible individuals by the virus, it began a slower march through everyone else, slowing all the time, as the remaining population’s susceptibility fell continually towards the herd immunity threshold. That is where our evidence indicates we are now and why the virus is disappearing from the environment.

It is important to see this document in light of information available elsewhere in the world. It has widely been observed that in all heavily infected countries in Europe and several of the US states likewise, that the shape of the daily deaths vs. time curves is similar to ours in the UK. Many of these curves are not just similar, but almost super imposable. Italy, France, Spain, Sweden and the UK, for example (OWID, 2020). The shape of the deaths vs. time curve implies a natural process and not one resulting mainly from human interventions, given the widely varying non-pharmaceutical interventions in those countries. Taking this and applying it more widely, the very strong similarities of UK data with that of nearby countries which employed different responses yields another conclusion – that none of the interventions altered the broad course of the pandemic event. Further, it is reasonable to conclude that the pandemic event has ended in those countries, too. Famously, Sweden has adopted an almost laissez faire approach, with qualified advice given, but no generalised lockdowns. Yet its profile and that of the UK’s is very similar. The officials in Sweden appear to be of the view that their population has closely approached or in some places reached what they term herd immunity, with R persistently lower than 1.

The PCR Test

The PCR test for the virus is good enough to confirm infection in someone with symptoms. “Is it flu or is it COVID-19?” is a question easily answered. What it is very poor at, however, is what is being asked of it now, namely estimating the percentage of people who are currently infectious in the community. We do not know exactly what the false positive rate is, but it is widely believed to be greater than the actual, remaining prevalence of the virus (Heneghan, 2020), which is around 1:2000, or 0.05%. (ONS prevalence survey Aug 14th 2020). The result of continuing to use this test alone on a massive widescale screening program is inevitably to generate a high proportion of false positives. The problem of using any assay to conduct surveillance on a low prevalence virus with a PCR test has been widely discussed (Heneghan, 2020). Under present parameters, even accepting an unlikely 0.1% False Positive rate and a prevalence of 0.1%, more than half of the positives are likely to be false, potentially all of them. It is the opinion of the authors that the false positive rate is higher and the prevalence lower than this. Consequently, it is impossible for the positives to be much other than false. A recent letter to the British Medical Journal (Healy, 2020) exemplifies the extent of harm that actually arose in a setting in which all but one of the positives ended up being false positives. This resulted not only in considerable time and money wasted by surgeries, but also other medical issues being delayed. It is not rational and may even be dangerous to use these results to drive policy. Note that recent so-called ’spikes’ were never accompanied or followed by people getting ill, going to hospital and dying in elevated numbers. Consequently, it is possible that most of the positives from mass testing are either false positives or ‘cold positives’ (fragments of real virus which are not intact and incapable of replication or of causing disease or infecting others) and therefore begs the question of whether mass testing of patients without symptoms is in fact helpful or misleading? It may be of relevance to note that, on August 24th the US CDC changed its guidance on when PCR testing is appropriate. They now recommend not testing people with no symptoms who are not contacts in a contact-tracing activity.

There are practical alternatives to mass testing. For example, calls to the NHS111 service captures all reports of what is termed ‘influenza-like illness’. Change in this parameter is likely to be a much more sensitive measure of the presence of increasing prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection than flawed PCR testing without modifications. Obviously, and perhaps it has already happened, there is the potential for emerging influenza to complicate the picture. A modification to the strategy involving PCR testing which would easily resolve any uncertainty is this: every positive test result is followed up as quickly as possible, ideally within 24 hours of the positive result, and every one is retested. If this is done, almost all the false positives will be removed. We predict there would be few genuine positive results remaining. But even here, it is important to recall what it is that the PCR test measures, and it is simply the presence of partial RNA sequences present in the intact virus. This means that even a true positive does not necessarily indicate the presence of viable virus. In limited studies to date, many researchers have shown that some subjects remain PCR-positive long after the ability to culture virus from swabs has disappeared. We term this a ‘cold positive’ (to distinguish it from a ‘hot positive’, someone actually infected with intact virus). The key point about ‘cold positives’ is that they are not ill, not symptomatic, not going to become symptomatic and, furthermore, are unable to infect others. As each PCR test that is carried out returns the Cycle Threshold (Ct) used to obtain a positive result, it is important that this Ct is reported with every positive result. The Ct gives strong evidence of the viral load and aids clinicians in determining if a patient has a “hot” infectious positive result or a “cold” non-infectious positive result. Gniazdowski et al (2020) studied 161 positive PCR test samples with a Ct value below 23 that yielded 91.5% of virus isolates and the study showed a strong correlation between recovery of SARS-CoV-2 infectious virus on cell culture and Ct values. Ct values above 30 returned negative cultures in all except one case.

Expectations of a Second Wave

Daily deaths from and with COVID-19 have almost ceased, having fallen over 99% from peak. All the numbers monitored carefully fall like this, too: the numbers being hospitalised, numbers in hospital, number in intensive care – all are falling in synchrony from the April peak. Viral evidence historically tells us that you don’t generally get infected by the exact same virus twice, certainly not within a short period of time. It’d be a poor immune system which lets that happen and we’d probably not have made it as a species into the 21st century if that’s how it worked. So there’s an expectation of some duration of immunity. It needs studying, but our experience and evidence for coronaviruses (Le Bert et al, 2020) suggests that if you have memory T-cells, durability can be very long lasting. This study showed that people still had robust T-cell responses in 2020, 17 years after the first SARS outbreak back in 2003. The concerns people have expressed about falling antibody levels underscores a lack of knowledge about acquired immunity. It is not efficient nor required for immunity to maintain high levels of antibodies to everything to which you are immune. Instead, cellular memory enables very rapid re-generation of antibodies upon re-encounter with the antigen, if that is required to defend the host. Alternatively, innate and cellular memory responses can be sufficient.

The NHS currently remains ‘COVID-19 ready’ in preparation for an expected second wave, a highly unlikely scenario based upon an initial model with highly sensitive input variables that we already know to be inaccurate. The evidence we’ve presented leads us to believe there is unlikely to be a second wave and that while there have been apparent multi-‘wave’ respiratory viruses in the past, notably 1918-20, in many cases it became clear that this was either different populations being infected at different times or in some cases multiple different organisms involved. There is no biological principle that leads us to expect a second wave based on the accumulation of data over the past six months. Instead, it is likely there will be local, small and self-limiting mini-outbreaks as areas previously unexposed come into contact with the virus.

Spain and France

So what is happening in terms of second wave concerns in France and Spain? As the rate of hospitalisations, ICU utilisation and the daily death rate from COVID-19 all decayed steadily, it appears that several but not all countries have greatly expanded their testing capacity in the broader population of people who are not showing any symptoms of infection. We contend that the many claims in the media for outbreaks, spikes and second waves are all artefacts of amplified rates of testing. It should be noted that illness, hospitalisations and deaths have not reversed in any clear and sustained manner. Specifically, careful examination of the weekly all-causes mortality data in France is completely clear. Six weeks into an apparent surge of cases, the number of deaths remain completely flat and normal, in all age bands (as of mid-August when this document was written).

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Paul Kirkham, Professor of cell Biology and Head of Respiratory Disease Research Group at Wolverhampton University

Dr Mike Yeadon, former CSO and VP, Allergy and Respiratory Research Head with Pfizer Global R&D and co-Founder of Ziarco Pharma Ltd

Barry Thomas, Epidemiologist

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Ellinghaus et al. (2020) Genomewide Association Study of Severe Covid-19 with Respiratory Failure. New Eng. J Med. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2020283

Gallais, (2020). Intrafamilial exposure to SARS-CoV-2 induces cellular responses without seroconversion. medRxIV https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.21.20132449.

Gomez et al. (2020). Individual variation in susceptibility or exposure to SARS-CoV-2 lowers the herd immunity threshold. MedRxIV https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.27.20081893

Grifoni et al. (2020. Targets of T Cell Responses to SARS-CoV-2Coronavirus in Humans with COVID-19Disease and Unexposed Individuals. Cell 181, 1489–1501. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.05.015ll

Healy, B (2020). Covid-19 testing, low prevalence and the impact of false positives. Brit Med J. 2020;369:m1808.

Long, et al. (2020). Clinical and immunological assessments of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections. Nature Med 26, 1200-04.

Heneghan (2020). How many Covid diagnoses are false positives? The Spectator, July 20 2020.

Le Bert et al (2020) SARS-Cov-2 specific T cell immunity in cases of Covid19 and SARS and uninfected controls. Nature. Doi 10.1038/s41586-020-2550-z

Lee & Raszka (2020). COVID-19 transmission and children: the child is not to blame. Pediatrics, e2020004879 DOI: 10.1542/peds.2020-004879.

Ling, et al (2020). Detection of SARS-CoV-2-Specific Humoral and Cellular Immunity in COVID-19 Convalescent Individuals. Immunity 52(6), 971-77.

Lingappan et al (2020). Understanding the age divide in COVID-19: why are children overwhelmingly spared? Am. J. Physiol (Lung Cell Molec. Physiol) https://doi.org/10.1152/ajplung.00183.2020

Lourenco et al (2020). The impact of host resistance on cumulative mortality and the threshold of herd immunity for SARS-CoV-2. MedRxIV https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.15.20154294

Mateus et al (2020) Selective and cross-reactive SARS-CoV-2 T cell epitopes in unexposed humans. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.abd3871

Oke& Heneghan (2020). Global Covid-19 Case Fatality Rates. https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/

June 9 2020 update.

ONS coronavirus survey (Aug 14 2020). https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/latest

OWID (our world in data: display UK, Sweden & France, confirmed daily deaths, log plot per million) https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?yScale=log&zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-02..latest&deathsMetric=true&interval=smoothed&aligned=true&perCapita=true&smoothing=7&country=TWN~GBR~SWE~FRA&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc

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Other Data sources and Reference

https://github.com/owid/covid-19-data/find/master

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Middle_East_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_outbreak

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002%E2%80%932004_SARS_outbreak

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Severe-acute-respiratory-syndrome-epidemic-curve-in-Hong-Kong-2003-by-infection-cluster_fig1_8200905

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Epidemic-curve-of-cases-of-severe-acute-respiratory-syndrome-by-date-of-onset-November_fig1_8501177

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/303/5664/1666

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/

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Featured image is from LS

Did you know that the US Government since 1988 paid as of 1 December 2020 more than 4.4 billion dollars to vaccine-injury victims? – It’s your money – Taxpayers Money. This is Health Services and Service Administration Vaccine Injury Compensation Data

The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), was set up in 1988, to compensate for the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) of 1986 (42 U.S.C. §§ 300aa-1 to 300aa-34) which was signed into law by US President Ronald Reagan, as part of a larger health bill on November 14, 1986.

Under NCVIA nobody can sue a vaccine producing pharma-company or laboratory for injuries and / or death caused by a vaccine. NCVIA’s purpose was to eliminate the potential financial liability of vaccine manufacturers due to vaccine injury and death. The official explanation for the NCVIA is “to ensure a stable market supply of vaccines, and to provide cost-effective arbitration for vaccine injury claims.”

This is, of course, an euphemism for the result of massive lobbying of the pharma-industry. That shows the power they have over the US government – and you may extent this power to Europe and the rest of the western world. In the US, the vaccine pharmas are home free. Instead of themselves having to compensate vaccine victims for injuries and death, the US taxpayer compensates them for their mistakes, often profit-driven shortened testing phases, as well as the effects of toxins in the vaccines.

Let’s have a brief look at a recent CDC list (February 2020) on toxic ingredients of vaccines various types of vaccines –

See https://www.cdc.gov/…/appendices/b/excipient-table-2.pdf .

No wonder, their side effects may be severe injury and even death.

And here we are talking about mostly traditional type of vaccines, that have been tested on humans for at least ten to fifteen years. This does not even cover the new-type Covid-19 vaccines.

So far the shortest vaccine testing period is somewhat less than five years for the mumps vaccine, from 1963 to December 1967 . Normal vaccine trial periods range between 10 and 15 years, or more.

In any case, in the US, citizens are somewhat financially protected from vaccine-caused injuries through the 1988 National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program – VICP – see above.

But what about in Europe and the rest of the world, especially with the novel covid vaccine – the mRNA-type and the plasmid DNA-type vaccines – which are now being administered in warp speed to a human population which is not informed of the potential risks?

This question has not been addressed by any government – at least not officially – and it seems nobody – officially has asked for a response. During a recent press conference in Bern Switzerland, when the Swiss Federal Council presented the three covid vaccines Switzerland ordered and plans to start injecting this coming week – a journalist asked about compensation for potential injuries, or god-forbid, even death, from these hastily implemented vaccine programs, the Swiss Health Minister had no answer – “we will have to see”. This is a great consolation. Will in every country the government stand up for the vaccines’ potential shortcomings?

CDC reports as of 18 December 2020, thousands of severe reactions to the new Pfizer covid vaccine,

This is in the US, where vaccination has started less than a week ago. What will happen in Europe, the UK for example, which will start vaccination this coming week with the Pfizer- BioNTech vaccine – and the AstraSeneca inoculation (a Swedish-Oxford joint venture), based on yet another bio-chemical approach, called the double-stranded DNA? – For details of the two novel vaccine types see below.

Since neither one of the two vaccine types have been tested not even on animals, humans are becoming the new guinea pigs. Although about half of people in the US and Europe do not want to get the vaccine – at least not yet, of the other half, there are hordes already prepared to stay in line to get the jab – they can’t wait – hoping they will be free to go back to life as normal, as normal as it was until the end of 2019. They may be in for a big surprise.

They may want to read Klaus Schwab’s (World Economic Forum – WEF) “Covid-19 – The Great Reset”, available on Amazon.

See also several reviews of the Great Reset by the author published by Global Research:

The World Economic Forum (WEF) Knows Best – The Post-Covid “Great Global Reset”

By Peter Koenig, August 23, 2020

Covid-19: The Great Reset – Revisited. Scary Threats, Rewards for Obedience…

By Peter Koenig, October 18, 2020

The Post Covid World, The WEF’s Diabolical Project: “Resetting the Future of Work Agenda” – After “The Great Reset”. A Horrifying Future

By Peter Koenig, December 16, 2020

However, rest assured, all of this does not have to happen, if We, the People, stand up against these planned actions and measures in unison – yes, in unison – in solidarity – and create a front of disobedience and non-acceptance – starting now.

Dynamics work in strange ways. The longer the plan, the less predictable planned events become – as dynamics of life may interfere. Which may be one of the reasons, why this diabolical agenda (like in UN Agenda 2021 – 2030) has to be implemented in warp speed, not to allow dynamics to throw a spanner in the works.

The mRNA-based vaccines

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule essential in various biological roles in coding, decoding, regulation and expression of genes. RNA and DNA are nucleic acids. Along with lipids, proteins, and carbohydrates, nucleic acids constitute one of the four major macromolecules essential for all known forms of life. RNA is found in nature as a single strand folded onto itself, rather than a paired double strand, like DNA.

Cellular organisms use messenger RNA (mRNA) to convey genetic information that directs synthesis of specific proteins. Many viruses encode their genetic information using an RNA genome. In the case of the Covid-19 vaccine, the injected mRNA is expected to modify the RNA in human cells so ghat they become like antibodies against Covid-19. The risk is, whether and what kind of short- medium and long-term impact on the modified human genome the mRNA injection may have. All the official science tells you, the vaccines are safe, without even mentioning the risks of the unknown.

DNA-based vaccines

The AstraZeneca (Sweden-Oxford) vaccine uses double-stranded DNA. Researchers added the gene for the coronavirus spike protein to another virus called an adenovirus. Adenoviruses are common viruses that typically cause colds or flu-like symptoms. The Oxford-AstraZeneca team used a modified version of a chimpanzee adenovirus, known as ChAdOx1. It can enter cells, but it can’t replicate inside them. Research for a DNA-based vaccine has been going on for years. Currently, advanced clinical trials are underway for other diseases, including H.I.V. and Zika. – The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for Covid-19 is said to be more rugged than the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. DNA is not as fragile as RNA, and the adenovirus’s tough protein coat helps protect the genetic material inside.

However, like the mRNA-type vaccine, the DNA-based Covid-vaccine has not been seriously and long enough tested to be devoid of risks, or even to know the short- medium and long-term dangers. The AstraZeneca covid vaccine (AZD1222) is also modifying the human genome, and precisely what this may mean for human health and reproduction is unknown – and negative impacts cannot – ever – been corrected. Rather they are passed on to future generations.

Bill Gates and Vaccination 

Bill Gates is recorded as having said that of the about 7 billion people he wants to vaccinate, about 1% may die or suffer serious injuries. That would be 70 million people.

When you look at the ease with which Gates utters these figures – like it’s a small sacrifice for a tremendous progress – you might asked yourself does this project has something to do with protecting humanity.

Covid vaccines are a financial / profit bonanza for the pharmaceuticals including Bill Gates. He is one of the key shareholders of the major vaccine producing pharmas, and one of the principal magnates funding WHO.

Knowing Bill Gates’ eugenics agenda which he doesn’t hide – see his TedTalk, “Innovating to Zero” in 2010 where he proposes openly population reduction through vaccination, his heavily pushed covid-vaccination programs may also be an instrument for a much larger agenda, including a massive reduction of the world population – see 2014 tetanus toxoid (TT) vaccination scandal in Kenya, where a tetanus toxoid (TT) vaccine promoted by Gates was laced with an infertility agent —-

Given all these uncertainties, unspoken and unpublished Covid-19 vaccine risks – with politicians, like Boris Johnson along with the UK and German Governments and many more, beating their chest:

“We are the first ones taking the jab” – to encourage the hesitant populace to get the injection – one may wonder whether these politicians and “official” scientists and their families, representing the official UN / WHO narrative, may get a different type of vaccine – a riskless one, maybe a placebo?

They know the dangers of these novel vaccines, and certainly don’t volunteer taking it.

So, another breach of the social compact governments have with the people, who elect them and pay for them. We are very quickly moving towards an extreme form of tyranny and corporate fascism.
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For those who want to absolutely be vaccinated, but want to reduce the risk, there are other vaccines, made the more traditional way – based on decades-old research and not invading and altering your DNA.

The Russian Sputnik V – is based on a viral vector type, where weakened forms of a human adenoviruses (viruses that cause the common cold) are genetically modified to carry protein codes from SARS CoV-2 to trigger an immune response in the body. This vaccine uses two different strains of human adenoviruses (rAd26 and rAd5) for the first and second vaccination dose, to boost the effectiveness of the vaccine. Since they are based on human adenoviruses, they do not modify the human genome.

The Chinese CanSino Biologics, in partnership with the Chinese Academy of Military Medical Sciences developed the Covid-19 vaccine “Ad5-nCoV”. This vaccine uses a weakened form of a common cold virus, adenovirus type 5, which infects humans easily but does not cause Covid. The adenovirus is only used as a delivery system. It carries the genetic material that helps the cells to create spike protein of the SARS CoV-2. These cells then trigger the immune system to create antibodies that can fight off the infection. The Chinese government approved this vaccine for military use in June, considering the promising results of the initial phase I and II trials.

The Chinese SinoVac Biotech company – developed the COVID-19 vaccine, CoronaVac. It passed 2 trial phases in China and is now undergoing Phase 3 trials in Brazil and Indonesia. This vaccine uses an inactivated virus, a traditional and proven methodology that has been found safe and effective and used for influenza and polio. For this type of vaccine, the specific virus is killed or inactivated, and its dead cells are introduced into the body. Even though the pathogen is dead, the immune system can still learn from its antigens how to fight its live versions in the future. The Chinese government has already approved this vaccine for emergency use in July.

It may not be easy to obtain the Russian and the Chinese vaccines in the west. But if sufficient people insist on these lesser risk vaccines – there is no way their import can be banned.

For all those who have had Covid-19 it is recommended that they take a serological test to determine whether and how much anti-bodies their own system has developed. Your self-created anti-bodies have the same effect, or better – of fighting the virus – as a vaccine may have, but there is no intrusion into your body of a vaccine with all its toxic component – see the CDC list – above – of toxic ingredients in vaccines

See https://www.cdc.gov/…/appendices/b/excipient-table-2.pdf.

The best way of fighting the corona virus is – No Fear – and resist being overtaken by a rapidly advancing tyrannical world government that wants to reduce the human population and enslave the survivors by total control – digital ID that includes all your vital records, like health, legal, social – and digital money.

If we wake up to this truth which is carefully hidden from us with lies and propaganda and false media information – the official western narrative, a line of real “fake news” sold to us – we can fight the untruth by the mainstream media junkies.

Open your mind to this reality.

The sooner the better – and connect spiritually in a worldwide network of think-alikes.

The dynamics vibrating from such a growing net of truth will overcome the evil plans of darkness.

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he has worked for over 30 years on water and environment around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and  co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Here we are at the end of a year filled with upheaval, facing yet another round of lockdowns, this time ostensibly intended to fight off a supposed “second wave of COVID-19.”

In the foreground, we have the completely co-opted mainstream media bombarding us with an endless barrage of positive coronavirus case numbers. Plus we have the World Economic Forum—along with its lackey world leaders—hounding us with incessant calls for a “Great Reset.”

After listening to the media and WEF members, one wonders whether the alleged “pandemic” really struck from out of nowhere, for it appears to have more-than-coincidentally triggered a patently planned-for-decades upending of the global economy.

Meanwhile, emerging from the background are a growing number of scientific facts that overwhelming and unequivocally prove there is no second wave of infectious disease.

There is, however, another kind of wave—a tidal wave of injustice that has swept across the whole world in a way never before witnessed in history. It is a tsunami one could accurately describe as the single greatest con—the most massive crime—ever perpetrated against humanity. It comes to us courtesy of a globalist fascistic cabal that we will cover in more detail below.

But let us first address what we now know about the virus. Thanks to thousands of infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists who have signed the Great Barrington Declaration or have joined the World Doctors Alliance, not to mention thousands of other pathologists, virologists, and medical practitioners who have courageously presented the world with real scientific data in the face of overwhelming assaults on their careers, we have a much better understanding of what is really happening with the disease known as COVID-19. There is now a large body of scientifically verifiable facts. Here is a brief summary:

• MASKS: Numerous randomised control trials (RCTs) analysing the efficacy of masks in preventing the spread of an aerosol pathogen—such as the trials found in literature published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, MEDRXIV, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Canadian Medical Association Journal, theJournal of Hospital Infection, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Library of Medicine, the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Journal, and many more—all conclude that no mask, whether cloth, surgical, or N95, is capable of preventing the spread of an airborne pathogen.

• LOCKDOWNS: Basic epidemiological theory indicates that lockdowns do not reduce the total number of cases in the long run and have never in history led to the eradication of a disease.
• FATALITIES: Multiple studies have found the global infection fatality rate (IFR) of COVID-19 to be similar to seasonal influenza, despite its having been massively overhyped. For children under the age of 15, COVID-19 poses an even lower threat than annual influenza.
• ISOLATION/PURIFICATION: To date, not a single scientist has isolated and purified the SARS-CoV-2 RNA virus by using either Koch’s four postulates or Rivers’ six criteria. The six criteria, though slightly different from Koch’s four postulates, can be summed up as follows: first, isolate the virus from the diseased host; second, cultivate the virus in host cells; third, provide proof of filterability; fourth, produce the same disease in a new host; fifth, re-isolate the virus; sixth, detect a specific immune response to the virus.
• CAUSE/EFFECT: There is no scientific, peer-reviewed study providing conclusive evidence that a virus called SARS-CoV-2 causes a disease named COVID-19.
• RT-PCR TEST INAPPROPRIATE: The COVID-19 RT-PCR test cannot detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It was designed to amplify fragments of the viral genome of a virus. Therefore, the test is a completely inappropriate tool for the diagnosis of infections in clinical medicine.
• PLAGUED BY FALSE POSITIVES: The over-sensitivity of the RT-PCR test makes it prone to giving misleading and high false positive rates. For instance, a study from the Infectious Disease Society of America conducted by Jaafar et al. found that when a RT-PCR test is conducted at a cycle threshold (Ct) of 25 cycles of amplification, 70 percent of the “positive results” were not cases, since the virus could not be cultured. When running the test with a Ct value greater than 35 cycles, the accuracy dropped to less than 3 percent—meaning that up to 97 percent of positive results could be false positives. In other words, healthy, symptom-less people and non-infectious people may test positive—and often do—when the Ct level is greater than 25. (Note: Each Ct “cycle” level represents a quantum leap in amplification, or magnification, of the test specimen taken from the patient. The higher the Ct level, the greater the chance of finding irrelevant genomic material that can be wrongly interpreted.)

• Ct LEVELS ARE INTENTIONALLY OMITTED: Interestingly, the majority of laboratories around the world do not divulge the Ct value when presenting their case results. Nor are they encouraged to be transparent. In Canada, for instance, public health authorities do not recommend the inclusion of the Ct value when a RT-PCR test result is released. To date, Florida’s Department of Health (FDOH) is the only government agency in the world that has made it a mandatory requirement for all labs in the state to report the critical Ct level of every COVID-19 test they perform.
• RT-PCR TEST USELESS: A “positive PCR test result” does not mean that an infection is present or that an intact virus has been found. The test cannot distinguish between active and inactive matter. Thus, it could be picking up inactive genomic material (a snippet of genetic material) from a previous virus, such as the common cold virus. As long as testing is done with this inappropriate and misleading method, we will keep getting “positive cases” for years to come. No wonder many scientists call this—quite correctly—a “PCR-test pandemic.” Medical professionals should immediately stop using the test and focus more on the real clinical state of a person—namely, whether he feels ill or displays any symptoms of sickness.

• RAPID ANTIGEN TEST USELESS: The rapid antigen test—named for the viral proteins, or antigens, that it detects within minutes (and thus is used in drive-through testing)—has been found to be no better than the RT-PCR test for detecting COVID-19. It is equally plagued by false positives.

• SECOND WAVE: There is no second wave of COVID-19. There is only a global push by public health authorities to get everyone tested with the unreliable, inappropriate RT-PCR assay or the equally useless rapid antigen test. Clearly, then, the lockdowns, accompanied by other mandatory restraining measures, are based solely on fraudulent positive case numbers. The testing simply ramps up hysteria by pounding the public with a growing number of meaningless “positive case numbers.” Is the product of zero times hundreds of thousands of cases greater than zero?
• NEAR-ZERO RISK: The disease named COVID-19 poses virtually zero risk to someone under age 45, who has a greater chance of being struck by lightning than of dying from COVID-19.
• NEAR-100% SURVIVAL RATE: According to the CDC, healthy people in the 0-to-19 age group have a 99.997 percent chance of survival if they contract COVID-19; in the 20-to-49 age group, 99.98 percent; in the 50-to-69 age group, 99.5 percent; 70 years and up, almost 95 percent.

• DISTANCING: Since the SARS-CoV-2 RNA virus can travel up to 30 meters before landing on a surface, physical distancing—whether, 1 meter, 1.5 meters, or 2 meters (6 feet)—is scientifically illogical and absolutely useless in preventing the spread of the virus. Ironically, Italy, which was at the epicentre of the crisis last spring, decided that a mere 1 meter is an acceptable distance to curb the spread of the virus.

Despite the actual science underlying the preceding points, we are seeing governments around the world—with the exception of Sweden, China, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, and Belarus—use the implausible excuse of a “second wave” to once again implement onerous lockdown measures, enforce irrational physical distancing edicts, expand unavailing quarantine regulations, and impose oxygen-restricting muzzles on mouths and noses. It is as if every jurisdiction’s chief executive, whether president or provincial premier, prime minister or mayor, chancellor or governor, has been ordered by their behind-the-scene bosses to make damaging decisions designed to destroy what little remains of moribund Main Street.

(Aside: With regards to the US–China trade war, China is now the clear winner. As the Western nations, specifically the US, once again lock down their populations, causing economic havoc and destruction, China, the country where the alleged outbreak is said to have started, is now laughing all the way to the bank.)  

As hundreds of thousands of small and medium-size businesses—the backbone of the real economy—shutter their shops forever, sending millions of proprietors and their families into poverty and despair, the too-big-to-fail transnational corporations and financial institutions continue with business as usual without skipping a beat.

Take, for example, the US telecom Verizon Wireless and Canada’s equivalent, Rogers. Throughout 2020, these two companies have continued to roll out their 5G networks across North America—networks that will be used to monitor every aspect of our lives and send our once-private information to legalized snoops and spies at previously unimaginable speeds, all the while causing serious damage to our health and the environment.

What’s more, the combination of

(1) trillions of dollars being pumped by institutional investors into Wall Street and the City of London,

(2) insider trading,

(3) ongoing manipulation by central banks of the international financial markets, and

(4) an increasing reliance by locked-down households on online big box stores like Jeff Bezos’ Amazon and the Walton family’s Walmart ballooned billionaires’ wealth from $8 trillion to more than $10 trillion between April and July.

Returning to the real economy, we find industries from which the bulk of humanity earns a paycheck limping along. These include agriculture, manufacturing, mom-and-pop retail stores, restaurants and hotels, movie theaters and ballparks, travel, tourism, transportation, and other service-sector businesses. They are being targeted for appropriation at bargain basement prices or outright elimination by the parasitic multi-billionaire creditors. In short, what we are witnessing is the greatest redistribution of wealth in human history.

While some misinformed and gullible government officials may honestly believe they are saving their respective citizens from the dreaded “second wave” by shutting down their economies, the majority of the world leaders are not so naïve. They are wittingly, willfully—selfishly—serving the special interests of Big Banking, Big Defense, Big Pharma, Big Biotech, Big Telecom, Big Tech—even Big Mainstream Media.

For them, the pandemic serves as a convenient whipping boy: they can pretend to place blame for their economically ruinous decisions squarely on an illness—an illness they have deliberately overblown. Thus, they do not have to give an account to their constituents of the real causes of the economic devastation that their murderous actions have wrought.

These politicians could have followed Sweden’s example—leaving the real economy open for business while wisely ensuring that elderly residents prone to poor health were protected. Instead, many leaders chose to follow the instructions of their either ill-informed or utterly co-opted public health czars, who are invariably allied to, if not outright paid by, the drug-and-vaccine makers. They also gave undue heed to the unelected globalist technocratic overlords who are part and parcel of the World Economic Forum and its “Great Reset” agenda.

Most readers of Global Research are by now all-too-intimately acquainted with the WEF and its founder and executive chairman, Klaus Schwab, who in July 2020 published his third book, COVID-19: The Great Reset, in which he urges industry leaders and decision-makers from around the globe to “make good use of the pandemic by not letting the crisis go to waste.” The Great Reset plan is readily available for anyone to see in the WEF’s online publications, diagrams, and videos, and its agenda has been well articulated by Prof. Michael Chossudovsky in his December 5, 2020, article (The Covid “Pandemic”: Destroying People’s Lives. Engineered Economic Depression. Global “Coup d’Etat”?) and by Peter Koenig in his November 24, 2020, article (The Post-Covid World, The WEF’s Diabolical Project: “Resetting the Future of Work Agenda” After “The Great Reset.”).

Essentially, the Great Reset plan brings global intergovernmental institutions, like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations (UN) , together with public-private partnerships ,such as GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, and with influential foundations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.

These coalitions are formed with the ultimate goal of incinerating what little is left of parliamentary or representative democratic governments. From their ashes would emerge a “global government” or “one world government” to oversee the political and economic aspects of the plan. This transformative process, it is envisioned, would transcend national borders, making the concept of national and political sovereignty obsolete.

To be sure, the pharmaceutical industry is more than happy to act as the trigger for the Great Reset. After all, it stands to make billions on the sales of experimental mRNA gene-editing vaccines and RT-PCR test kits. But, despite the incessant chatter about the Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca rollouts of vaccines (vaccines that bypassed regular safety protocols, such as animal testing, and will only reduce the symptoms of the COVID-19 disease but will not stop the spread of the SARS-Cov-2 virus) and the secrecy surrounding their unknown ingredients, we must not lose sight of the fact that the COVID-19 “scamdemic” serves as a convenient pretext to accelerate the WEF’s nefarious economic agenda, which has been in the works for years.

The “New World Order” imperialist slogan, which was first announced by then-US President George Herbert Walker Bush in 1991 and has been echoed by the predator class ever since, has now morphed into momentous-sounding slogans like “the Great Reset,” “Agenda 2030,” “the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” “Build Back Better” and “Sustainable Development” (read: monopolization of the world’s resources for the benefit of the very few). Besides reciting these slogans at every opportunity, WEF believers hypnotically repeat three buzzwords—sustainability, equality, and inclusiveness—ad nauseam, as if trying to persuade themselves and their hearers that they really do care about the welfare of each and every human being.

But no matter how compassionate their latest catchphrases sound, the objective of these elitists is heartless and selfish. Namely, they seek to amass all the wealth of the world for themselves and place in their own hands all the levers of control over the entire earth.

Based on their actions, one wit has dubbed them the “Megalomaniac, Narcissistic, Psychopathic, Criminal Globalists.” More formally, they are known as Technocrats. These pseudo-scientists are instigating and promoting a recently re-popularized economic system called Technocracy. Their aim is to continue to infiltrate and eventually entirely appropriate the education system, the food supply, financial institutions, the monetary system, the global economy, the human body (especially the brain), and all types of technology, from AI to nanotechnology to biotechnology, thus giving themselves complete control over every aspect of every living being. In short, if allowed to come to fruition, their Great Reset portends the complete transformation—and possible disappearance—of humanity. The WEF script is not the end of globalism, as some have suggested. Rather, it is the continuation of globalism—in hyper-drive. Indeed, this very script portends the mammoth crimes against humanity spoken of in the opening sentences of this article.

The “COVID-19 pandemic” plays two key roles in hastening the WEF plan.

First, in the short term, the stay-at-home restrictions, accompanied by mask mandates and social distancing, create the ideal atmosphere of fear. On the one hand, fear of disease and death is causing many people to be afraid of each other. On the other hand, those who regard the restrictions as a farce are understandably frightened of the consequences of defying authorities—of standing up for their natural and legal rights. The latter fear makes people reluctant to assemble and protest against everything from the unscientific medical edicts imposed by unelected officials to the tyrannical orders imposed by elected executives who circumvent the legislative arm of their government. 

Meanwhile, people preoccupied by their fears are oblivious to other, equally devastating moves being made in front of their noses—namely, the trillion-dollar government bailouts of banks and investment firms on Wall Street and in other financial centres around the globe. These windfall rescue packages are being surreptitiously offered by wayward, unaccountable heads of state without any legislative oversight or debate or votes. The bailouts amount to debt servitude for the average citizen, since it is the taxpayers who will be on the hook to pay off governments’ obscene debts for generations to come.

Second, in the long run, the lockdowns and mask mandates are social engineering tactics used by the technocrats to soften us up and condition us to accept their imperialist, transhumanist (merging man and machine)  agenda, which is being implemented by degrees but has stepped up its pace in the wake of the oh-so-convenient pandemic. In a nutshell, this agenda, as outlined by Klaus Schwab in a speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on November  8, 2020, will lead to “a fusion of our physical, our digital, and our biological identities.”

Over the past few months, national leaders in Germany, France, the UK, Spain, Canada, and the US have been increasingly using the exact same WEF rhetoric of “Building Back Better” and calling for a “Reset.” At a UN conference in September 2020, for example, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau laid bare the globalist agenda:

“. . . This pandemic has provided an opportunity for a Reset. This is a chance to accelerate our pre-pandemic efforts to re-imagine economic systems that actually address global challenges like extreme poverty, inequality, and climate change. . . . Building back better means getting support to the most vulnerable while maintaining our momentum on reaching the 2030 agenda for sustainable development and the SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals].”  (emphasis added)

As magnificent as Trudeau’s pronouncement may sound to people who take mushy, meaningless words at face value, the skeptics among us point out three flaws in his logic:

• For one thing, nothing would need to be built back if the plutocrats had not destroyed the real economy and the lives of millions around the world. Keep in mind that COVID-19 did not shut down the economy; it was the unsubstantiated, illogical lockdowns that exacerbated the already precarious state of the economy.
• For another thing, poverty and inequality cannot be alleviated by the very organizations that have been wreaking and worsening these wretched conditions for untold generations.
• Moreover, while it is true that the globalists are using the pandemic as a propaganda tool for their perpetual promotion of climate change and their pretense of overcoming poverty and their means of hastening the SDGs of Agenda 2030, the fact is, they are determined to forward these objectives in any case, pandemic or no pandemic, so driven are they to fulfill their grand totalitarian design.

“President Elect” Joe Biden is no different from Trudeau or any other WEF groupie. He is a devout adherent of the Great Reset and the Build Back Better schemes. Former Secretary of State John Kerry—Biden’s special presidential envoy for climate change initiatives—made it very clear in mid-November 2020, at a panel discussion hosted by the WEF, that the Biden administration will support the Great Reset. While the globalists at the WEF and the UN are trying to link “climate change” and the Green New Deal (the long-term justification) with the “COVID-19 pandemic” (the short-term justification) to launch the Great Reset of the global economy, the two campaigns are in no way related. The pandemic is being used purely as the accelerant to propel the Great Reset forward at a faster pace.

Furthermore, like his predecessors, Joe Biden is a surrogate serving the interests of Big Pharma, the financial establishment, the military-industrial complex, and the new technocratic world order. Once in the Oval Office, he will maintain partial closure of the US economy, all in the appearance of fighting off a second (or even third) wave of COVID infections and the devastating economic and social consequences.

Crimes Against Humanity

The socioeconomic effects of the pretend pandemic, calculatingly created by the unnecessary closure of the world’s economy, is unparalleled in history. For example, at any given moment there are approximately 2.6 billion people living under some form of lockdown—a number larger than the entire world’s population at the onset of World War Two in 1939, when the population was approximately 2.3 billion.

Scientists have not even begun to fully analyse and quantify the unintended consequences of the lockdowns. Rates of alcoholism, depression, suicide, drug addiction, and domestic violence, which were already prevalent, have only increased with pandemic-induced feelings of isolation and helplessness. The initial exploratory studies done in this area are alarming, to say the least. For instance, quoted last August in a Financial Review article, Prof. Patrick McGorry, executive director of the youth mental health organization Orygen in Australia, noted:

“With another six weeks of a much more severe lockdown, people losing their jobs and youth unemployment, the consequences are severe on mental health and we are really seeing it. . . . We’ve probably lost about 400 people in Victoria to suicide this year, which is a lot more than the pandemic.” (emphasis added)

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) also paints a bleak picture of its country’s state of mental health during the crisis. In an NIH study released in August, authors William D. S. Killgore et al. concluded:

“[T]he percentage of respondents endorsing suicidal ideation was greater with each passing month for those under lockdown or shelter-in-place restrictions due to the novel coronavirus, but remained relatively stable and unchanged for those who reported no such restrictions. Public health policy and routine clinical care need to address the potential for increased suicidal thinking among those experiencing prolonged restrictions of normal social contact.”

Elsewhere in the world, other troublesome reports are also emerging. Take, for example, the signs of mental distress in Israel. During the country’s two lockdowns, volunteers at Eran, a service rendering emotional first aid, “received more than 70,000 calls,” wrote Lee Yaron in Haaretz. She added: 

“During the first lockdown, 732 of the 40,779 calls to Eran were suicidal. In the second lockdown a significantly lower number of calls were made—31,583—but 837 were suicidal, marking a 49.5 percent increase of suicidal calls.”

By comparison, in January and February, before any lockdowns had started, 480 calls were made to the Eran hotline.

It is therefore no surprise that Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration advocating against lockdowns, explained during a debate:

“Lockdowns have absolutely catastrophic effects on physical and mental health of populations both domestically and internationally.”

We may never know the full extent of the deaths caused by the socioeconomic effects of the draconian lockdown measures.

We do, however, know that the planned and coordinated global economic collapse has caused a breakdown in the global food chain, affecting the lives of many millions. UNICEF’s July 2020 report warned,

“[W]hile it is too early to assess the full impact of the lockdowns and other containment measures, at least another 83 million people, and possibly as many as 132 million, may go hungry in 2020.”

This same grim statistic was echoed in Bloomberg a month later.

Moreover, the well-respected Lancet published a report in July showing that, as a result of the lockdowns, 125,000 children were expected to die from malnutrition and another 265 million to be placed in a position of severe food insecurity. The same month,Oxfam released an equally dire warning:

“[A]s many as 12,000 people could die per day by the end of the year as a result of hunger linked to COVID-19, potentially more than could die from the disease.” I reiterate that COVID-19 did not cause the hunger; the unscientific and unnecessary lockdowns caused the travesty. Clearly, then, this has been a manufactured hunger crisis of historic proportions.

In light of these sobering facts, I wish to posit that any medical professional or politician  advocating for the continuation of lockdown measures is complicit in “Crimes Against Humanity,” as outlined in Article 7, Part 1, of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The people who are implementing and enforcing lockdown measures are directly contributing to the untold suffering and deaths of millions of people—deaths that we will not be able to fully quantify for years, if ever.

Navigating Our Course Forward

We must come to understand now, more than ever before, that there is no state of emergency that justifies removing each individual’s inherent, inalienable rights. No emergency should be permitted to suspend a nation’s constitution. It is wrong in every sense to treat the constitution of any nation as if it were merely an optional, antiquated set of suggestions dreamed up by unenlightened elitists from a bygone era.

This plandemic has laid bare the true agenda of the psychopathic criminal cabal. Indeed, it is not a stretch to call their motives and actions the greatest crime ever perpetrated on the whole of humanity.

It is high time for all of us to come out from the shadow of our fears and face the foe head-on instead of cowering timidly in a corner. We owe it to ourselves, our families, and mankind to proclaim the truth here and now: the liberty-trespassing measures taken by our would-be overlords are murderous. The poverty and famine wrought by their bald-faced lies about the pandemic are killing many more people than any coronavirus—even if it were isolated, identified, and infective—ever could.

It is up to “we the people” to bring this nightmare to an end.

Let us get it through our heads that elected officials (and unelected public health officials) work for us. We do not work for them, nor should we ever bow to their whims, their fraudulent “emergencies,” their pretend concern for “the greater good,” and their hidden (or not-so-hidden) eugenical agendas.

Anyone who has played a witting part in this criminal conspiracy must be held accountable, in a court of law, for their complicity. Those of us who recognize the crime s must refuse to comply with a single unlawful, unjustified, and unjust edict, either through peaceful non-compliance or peaceful civil disobedience.

Conclusion: We can stop fear from going viral by letting Truth, Life, and Love infect us instead.   

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David Skripac has a Bachelor of Technology degree in Aerospace Engineering. He served as a Captain in the Canadian Forces for nine years. During his two tours of duty in the Air Force he flew extensively in the former Yugoslavia as well as in Somalia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. 

Featured image: Public domain image from Wiki’s COVID-Protest page.

In several Western countries Christmas celebrations have been banned outright. Social and family gatherings are forbidden.

We are led to believe that the “Killer Virus” has triggered the Christmas Lockdown. What is really happening is that corrupt politicians are “killing Christmas”.  

Red Zones, the face mask, social distancing, the closing down of schools, colleges and universities, no more family gatherings, no birthday celebrations, music, the arts: no more cultural events, sport events are suspended, no more weddings, “love and life” is banned outright. 

And now Christmas is in a lockdown mode as a means to combating V-the Virus.

If the public had been informed that Covid-19 is “similar to seasonal Influenza”, the relentless 24/7 fear campaign would have fallen flat…

The lies and fabrications of the mainstream media are “killing Christmas”. They are killing the truth.

It’s Social Engineering: No critical analysis of the governments’ drastic policies is forthcoming.

We are told that the pandemic is not over. The governments have declared a “Second Wave”.

According to so-called “health experts”, the outright ban of Christmas celebrations is there “to save lives”.

And if you oppose these directives, you will be categorized as a “callous and deceitful psychopath”.

There is no legal justification nor scientific basis for the police state measures taken to prevent families and friends from celebrating Christmas. 

The entire urban services economy is in crisis. Shops, bars and restaurants are driven into bankruptcy. International travel and holidays are suspended.

Since September, spearheaded by the fear campaign, people have rushed to get tested: the number of “fake positives” has gone fly high.

There is no evidence that the virus is “out of control”. Amply documented the PCR test used to “estimate” covid “positive cases” is flawed.  What the media fails to mention is:

1) the RT-PCR covid positive case estimates are meaningless,

2) For 80% of the population, Covid-19 is NOT a dangerous disease.

3) the official data is manipulated

In the UK, according to a Daily Telegraph May 21 report: “samples taken from the same patient are being recorded as two separate tests in the Government’s official figures”.

According to the WHO, “The most common symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, dry cough, and tiredness. … These symptoms are usually mild and begin gradually.”

 Screenshot The Hill, March 19, 2020

In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned (without detailed evidence) that a new strain of the coronavirus had emerged.

“Christmas Lockdown” is an encroachment on civil liberties and the “Right to Life”.

Our thoughts during the Christmas holiday are with the millions of people Worldwide driven into unemployment, poverty and despair, who are the unspoken victims of this diabolical project.

Image CTV report, September 

First published on November 1st at the outset of “Second Wave”.

And now Christmas is threatened by the killer virus. According to so-called “health experts”, the outright ban of Christmas celebrations is there “to save lives”.

What the media fails to mention is

1) the estimates are meaningless,

2) Covid-19 is NOT a dangerous disease for a large majority of the population. It is similar to seasonal influenza.

According to the WHO, “The most common symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, dry cough, and tiredness. … These symptoms are usually mild and begin gradually.”

In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned (without a shred of evidence) that a new strain of the coronavirus had emerged.

Amply documented the PCR test used to estimate covid “positive cases” is flawed.

We are led to believe that the “Virus is killing Christmas”.

The “Christmas Lockdown” is an encroachment on civil liberties and the “Right to Life”

Michel Chossudovsky, December 24, 2020

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“Red zones”, travel bans, quarantines, “red lists”. A “Second Wave” have been announced. 

The fear campaign has gone into overdrive. Millions of people are lining up for Covid-19 testing.

Drastic state measures are contemplated, including restrictions on social gatherings, marriages, funerals, the closing down of restaurants and bars, the outright paralysis of civil society. 

Coming to the rescue of our citizens. What is the justification?  Is this is a global coup d’Etat sustained by a persistent barrage of media propaganda.  

This article focusses on the “Numbers Game”.  How statistics and “estimates” are used by politicians to justify the closure of the national economy and the derogation of fundamental civil rights.  

From the onset of the Covid crisis in January 2020, far-reaching decisions taken by the WHO and national governments have been justified by citing “estimates” of the Covid-19 disease as well “statistics” pointing to a  Worldwide spread of a new deadly coronavirus originating in Wuhan, China. 

Scientific analysis confirms that these estimates of “confirmed cases” tabulated by the WHO and the CDC are subject to error.  The tests do not detect or identify the virus. Moreover, the figures are often manipulated to justify political decisions.

Both the concepts as well as the test results do not point to the existence of a Worldwide Covid-19 pandemic. Nor do they justify social distancing, the face mask and the closing down of the global economy.

Corruption prevails at the highest levels of government as well within the upper echelons of the United Nations system. The entire state apparatus as well as inter-governmental organizations are controlled by powerful financial interests. 

Millions of people are now being tested which contributes to increasing the number of so-called “confirmed” Covid positive cases Worldwide. These statistics are then carefully tabulated.  The governments need those numbers to justify their totalitarian measures.

VIMEO (click screen) Michel Chossudovsky and Kristina Borjesson

What’s the Big Lie? What’s the Smoking Gun?

SARS-CoV-2 is NOT A “KILLER VIRUS”. The fear campaign has no scientific basis. (See analysis below)

The standard RT-PCR test used to “detect” the insidious Virus, “can not identify the Virus”. 

The Virus

In early January 2020, a so-called novel coronavirus  entitled SARS-CoV-2 , which causes “coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19” was identified. It was given a similar name to an existing coronavirus, namely SARS-CoV, i.e. the beta coronavirus that causes the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)

According to renowned immunologist Dr. Beda Stadler of Bern University,

“this so-called novel virus is very strongly related to SARS-1 as well to as other beta-coronaviruses which make us suffer every year in the form of colds.”

Stadler also begs the question: Is this a new virus or the mutation of an existing virus, “similar to the corona beta cold viruses”.

According to a recent study by Tsan-Yuk Lam, Na Jia, et al (Joint Institute of Virology, Shantou and Hong Kong universities):

“…the [SARS-2] virus [is] most closely related (89.1% nucleotide similarity) to a group of SARS-like coronaviruses (genus Betacoronavirus, subgenus Sarbecovirus) (Nature, April 2020).

Moreover, the studies of Dr. Anthony Fauci et al in the New England Journal of Medicine as well as the WHO acknowledge that Covid-19 has similar features to seasonal influenza (Viruses A and B). (For further details, see Michel Chossudovsky, September 2020)

What these scientific statements convey is that SARS-2 (which causes Covid-19) is not a killer virus. In fact quite the opposite.

But neither the governments nor the media have reassured public opinion.

The fear campaign not only prevails, it is gaining momentum.

At this juncture of the Covid-19 crisis, governments are envisaging the launching of extreme measures in response to a so-called “Second Wave”. In turn, several media are now spreading stories that this Second Wave is comparable to the 1918 Spanish Flu:

Flashback to March 11, 2020: The Launching of the WHO Pandemic 

On March 11, the WHO officially declared a Worldwide pandemic at a time when there were 18,000 confirmed cases and 4291 deaths out of a total World population outside China of the order of 6.4 billion people.  What do these “statistics” tell you? Most of these confirmed “positive cases” were estimated using the RT-PCR test which does not detect or identify the virus. (See our analysis below)

Immediately following the March 11 WHO announcement the fear campaign went into high gear. Confinement instructions were transmitted to 193 member states of the United Nations. The outright closing down of national economies was upheld as a means to resolving a public health crisis.

Politicians are the instruments of powerful financial interests. Was this far-reaching decision justified as a means to combating the Virus? Did the “numbers” (of confirmed cases) justify a Worldwide pandemic?

Unprecedented in history, applied almost simultaneously in a large number countries, entire sectors of the World economy were destabilized. Small and medium sized enterprises were driven into bankruptcy. Unemployment and poverty are rampant.

In some countries famines have erupted. The social impacts of these measures are devastating.

The devastating health impacts (mortality, morbidity) of these measures including the destabilization of the system of national health care (in numerous countries) far surpass those attributed to Covid-19.

The Rush to Get Tested

In a large number of countries, simultaneously, people are encouraged to get tested which in turn contributes to increasing exponentially the number of so-called confirmed  Covid-19 “positive cases”. Facilities are set up all over the country.

Screenshot, Daily Express

Panic prevails. national authorities establish testing facilities, do it yourself testing kits, etc.

People stand in line to get tested. The estimates are often manipulated.

In England “People stand in drive-thru lines as testing centres hit capacity”

CBC News Screenshot

Screeshot Reuters. Test at German airports

With increasing numbers, as of early June, the health authorities in several countries have pointed to an imminent “Second Wave”.

What is the intent of the Second Wave?

To postpone “normalization”? To prevent the reopening of national economies? To trigger more unemployment?

Currently, national economies have partially reopened.  This Second Wave constitutes the “second phase” of a bankruptcy program, targeting the services economy, air transport, the tourism industry, retail trade, etc.

Social distancing prevails. Schools, colleges and universities are closed down, social gatherings and family reunions are prohibited.

The face mask is reimposed despite its negative health impacts. We are told that it is all for a good cause. Combat the transmission of the virus.

These far-reaching decisions which derogate fundamental civil rights, are based on the “estimates” of Covid-19 positive cases, not to mention the manipulation of the test results.

Video; The Covid-19 Numbers Game with Michel Chossudovsky

The Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction Test (RT-PCR)  

The standard test used to detect / identify SARS-2 around the World is The Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction Test (RT-PCR) which is used to estimate and tabulate the number of confirmed positive Covid-19 cases. (This is not the only test used. Observations below pertain solely to the standard PCR).

According to Nobel Laureate Dr. Kary Mullis, who invented the PCR test: 

“PCR detects a very small segment of the nucleic acid which is part of a virus itself. The specific fragment detected is determined by the somewhat arbitrary choice of DNA primers used which become the ends of the amplified fragment.”

The PCR test was never intended to identify the virus.

“PCR detection of viruses is helpful so long as its accuracy can be understood: it offers the capacity to detect RNA in minute quantities, but whether that RNA represents infectious virus may not be clear” (see also Lancet report)

The standard PCR Test applied in relation to Covid-19 does not detect or identify the virus. What it detects are fragments of the virus. According to renowned Swiss immunologist Dr B. Stadler

So if we do a PCR corona test on an immune person, it is not a virus that is detected, but a small shattered part of the viral genome. The test comes back positive for as long as there are tiny shattered parts of the virus left. Even if the infectious viri are long dead, a corona test can come back positive, because the PCR method multiplies even a tiny fraction of the viral genetic material enough [to be detected]. 

According to Dr. Pascal Sacré, “these tests detect viral particles, genetic sequences, not the whole virus”

What this means is that the PCR test cannot detect or identify SARS-CoV-2. What it detects are fragments, which suggests that a standard “PCR positive” cannot be equated to a so-called Covid-19 Positive.

“Fragments of viruses positive” does not mean “SARS-2 positive” (or Covid-19 Positive).

PCR tests are a scam. They don’t work as claimed.

Yet their widespread use provides a foundation for manipulating people to be vaxxed with experimental, hazardous to human health vaccines.

PCR tests produce false positive results up to 90% of the time.

According to former Pfizer chief science advisor Dr. Mike Yeadon, PCR tests are junk science.

They lack credibility, creating a covid outbreak crisis that would not exist without them.

We’re being lied to by government officials, Pharma and their media press agents.

Asked if “(w)e are basing a government policy, an economic policy, a civil liberties policy, in terms of limiting people to six people in a meeting…all based on what may well be completely fake data on this coronavirus,” he said:

“Yes.”

“It is now established that at least 30% of our population already had immunological recognition of this new virus before it even arrived.”

“COVID-19 is new, but coronaviruses are not.”

“Almost all” PCR tests produce false positive results.

According to 22 eminent scientists, around 97% of PCR tests for covid produce false positive results.

The test “contains so many molecular biological design errors that it is not possible to obtain unambiguous results.”

“It is inevitable that this test will generate a tremendous number of so-called “false positives,” rendering them worthless.

“The test cannot discriminate between the whole virus and viral fragments.”

“Therefore, the test cannot be used as a diagnostic for intact (infectious) viruses, making (it) unsuitable as a specific diagnostic tool to identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus and make inferences about the presence of an infection.”

Dr. Pascal Sacre calls the flawed PCR test a way to “mislead humanity (by) using a (worthless) test to lockdown societ(ies).”

“Let’s stop this debauchery of RT-PCR testing,” he said.

“It is time for everyone to come out of this negative trance, this collective hysteria, because famine, poverty, massive unemployment will kill…many more people than” any virus.

What’s going on “is not normal.”

“We cannot let our rulers, for whatever reason, organize our collective suicide any longer.”

What’s going on with mass media complicity is a diabolical new world order plot against free and open societies.

Dark forces in the US and their complicit partners behind it want them eliminated everywhere.

They’re doing it by scaring us to death over nothing to get their way.

Without worthless mass-testing, they’ll be no more reported mass covid outbreaks, no mask-wearing, social distancing, and lockdowns.

Normalcy will return if state-sponsored mass deception ends.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

The Gaza Strip is “Uninhabitable”: Israel’s Genocide in Gaza Goes Uninterrupted, but Is Europe Finally Taking Notice?

By Miko Peled, December 23, 2020

A long and cruel siege, constant Israeli attacks resulting in the killing of countless civilians, destruction of homes and infrastructure, extreme poverty, and trauma remain the daily bread of Palestinians in Gaza.

COVID-19 Lockdowns Are in Lockstep with the ‘Great Reset’

By Dr. Mathew Maavak, December 23, 2020

We have entered a “new normal” where Pyongyang, North Korea affords more ambulatory freedom than Melbourne, Australia. While rioting and mass demonstrations by assorted radicals are given a free pass – even encouraged by leaders in the West – Facebook posts questioning lockdowns are deemed subversive.

VIPS MEMO: To Biden: Don’t be Suckered on Russia

By Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, December 23, 2020

We Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity wrote to the president before the Iraq war to let him know that our former colleagues were playing fast and loose with the “intelligence,” which was conjured up to “justify” the invasion.

Don’t Blame the Soviets for the War in Nagorno-Karabakh

By Max Parry, December 23, 2020

By October, the clashes had escalated past the state border between Azerbaijan and the internationally-unrecognized Republic of Artsakh which suffered heavy shelling from banned Israeli-made cluster bombs by the Azeris.

US Attack: Treasury Department Imposes New Sanctions on Cuba and Nicaragua

By Orinoco Tribune, December 23, 2020

According to Cuban authorities, the White House has applied nearly 200 measures and sanctions against Cuba including: entry bans on cruise ships and charter flights, sending remittances, financial persecution targeting any fuel entering the island, and an extensive “black list” that includes over 200 Cuban companies.

World Tourism Chief: Mandatory Vaccines Will “Kill” Travel Industry

By Steve Watson, December 23, 2020

Guevara’s comments come after a World Health Organisation spokesperson said “proof of vaccination for COVID-19 vaccine will be essential for public health purposes,” but added that “It is also important to make a distinction between an ‘immunity passport’—something WHO does not recommend—and such a vaccine requirement for travel.”

Staff at Hospitals in DC, Texas Turn Down COVID-19 Vaccine

By Ayla Ellison, December 23, 2020

The hospital, a major healthcare provider for the Black community, received 725 doses of the Pfizer vaccine Dec. 15 and expects to receive a second shipment this week. As of Dec. 18, only about 600 of the hospital’s 1,900 employees had signed up for the shots, according to Kaiser Health News.

British Government Contracts Firms to Make COVID ‘Freedom Passports’

By NWO Report, December 23, 2020

The British government has contracted two firms to develop COVID ‘freedom passports’, that would be used to segregate society between those who have been tested or vaccinated against COVID and those who have not.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Project (GERD) and the Quest for African Unity

By Abayomi Azikiwe, December 23, 2020

These events over the last two months are also overshadowing the ongoing differences surrounding the role of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Project (GERD) which is designed to provide energy resources to Ethiopia and the contiguous states throughout North, East and Central Africa.

Visit our Asia-Pacific Research website (see link below) for region-specific analysis. See our selected articles below:

Health and Wealth in India – Farmers’ Lives Matter

By Colin Todhunter, December 18, 2020

The deregulation of international capital flows has turned the planet into a free-for-all bonanza for the world’s richest capitalists. Under the post-World-War Two Bretton Woods monetary regime, governments could to a large extent run their own macroeconomic policy without having to constantly seek market confidence or worry about capital flight.

The Gold Comes Off: A COVID-19 Outbreak in Sydney

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, December 23, 2020

The decision to place convicts on the island by the British was audaciously cruel and illogical, setting a precedent for future decisions by Australian governments to send undesirables to distant, inaccessible outposts, at cost.

Notre site Web en français, mondialisation.ca

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Nuestro sitio web en español, globalizacion.ca

From 1975 – 1988, Senator William Proxmire (1915 – 2005) waged war on wasteful government spending — aka pork.

Along with other vital issues he championed, he was well-known for scores of Golden Fleece Awards (GFA) that exposed wasteful congressional pork included in federal legislation.

He wrote books on government waste and corruption.

Among many other recipients, GFAs went to US departments of war, treasury, labor, agriculture, commerce, interior, HHS and DOJ, the White House, Congress, NASA, the FAA, VA, US Postal Service, and EPA.

The so-called Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (that includes economic stimulus — HR 133) is heavily laden with pork.

If Proxmire was active in the Senate today, it would likely be top-featured for a GFA.

Over 5,500 pages in length, it’s likely certain that virtually all House all Senate members at most only glanced through it.

Nearly all congressional legislation includes wasteful and/or unrelated pork.

HR 133 overflows with what’s unrelated to stimulus aid for millions of US households that are enduring the Greatest Depression that’s likely to be protracted.

Crumbs are included for them, including:

A one-time payment of $600 for qualified adults, another $600 per child under age-16.

It’s for individuals with annual income of $75,000 or less — $150,000 or less for couples — the amount decreasing for higher-income households.

An additional $300 in weekly unemployment benefits runs through March — a woefully inadequate amount for hard-pressed households.

$284 billion goes for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans.

Most of what’s allegedly for troubled small businesses most likely will go to large ones.

According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), HR 133 “is a fraction of what is required to address” dire economic conditions for most US households.

Missing is aid for state and local governments.

EPI explained that without it, they’re forced to cut essential services at the cost of millions of lost public and private sector jobs.

Unemployment insurance (UI) in the measure is “woefully underpowered,” said EPI.

Most US households receiving UI benefits will exhaust them in mid-March.

EPI said it’s “imperative (for) the incoming Congress pass another substantial stimulus package early in the new year to ensure working people and states and localities receive the economic relief needed…”

It called for vitally needed $3 trillion in stimulus — pork-free.

Pork in HR 133 includes billions of dollars for weapons procurement, billions more for a space force.

According to former Treasury tax official Adam Looney:

HR 133’s Payroll Protection Program not only gives corporate America tax-free federal money, they get to deduct the amount received from the tax obligation.

Looney estimates that there’s about $120 billion windfall for big business from the stimulus bill provision.

Billions also go to US allies, including $3.3 billion in grants to Israel, $1.3 billion to Egypt, $461.3 million for Colombia, $453 to Ukraine, $700 million to Sudan, $241.4 million for Tunisia, $135 to Myanmar, $130 million to Nepal, $85.5 million to Cambodia, $25 million to Pakistan, and $1.4 billion for a so-called Asia Reassurance Initiative Act that aims to counter China.

Another $500 million goes for so-called Israeli cooperative programs that include purchases of US weapons.

Nothing goes for Occupied Palestinians. $40 million is for further destabilizing Syria.

$710 million goes for countering ISIS and likeminded jihadist groups that’s all about supporting them.

$3 billion is for continuing permanent occupation of Afghanistan.

$400 million goes to Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Oman.

A Caribbean Basin Security Initiative gets $74.8 million.

$290 million goes for countering Russia, $132 million to neighboring Georgia.

All of the above is related to advancing US imperial interests — at the expense of widespread unemployment, food insecurity, hunger, homelessness, and overall deprivation in the US.

$208 billion for the Census Bureau is for upgrading it computer systems.

The Kennedy Center gets $40 million. There’s $193 million for federal HIV/AIDS workers — not for their daily activities, to buy cars and insurance overseas.

A feminist museum got funding. More goes for addressing “youth risk behaviors” and establishing a commission to educate consumers about dangers related to “storing portable fuel containers for flammable liquids near an open flame.”

There’s $70 million for “internet freedom” that’s all about controlling the message by stifling dissent.

All of the above is in heavily pork-laden HR 133, likely a whole lot more of the same crammed into its 5,500+ plus pages.

It’s the most lengthy congressional bill in US history that passed both houses by large majorities.

So-called “democracy programs (aka advancing US imperial interests at the expense of peace, equity and justice)” got over $2.4 billion.

Nearly $6.2 billion more goes for foreign military financing programs.

$300 million is for countering China’s “malign influence,” $33 million for “democracy programs” in Venezuela that aim to eliminate Bolivarian social justice.

Of their combined 535 congressional members, only 53 House and 6 Senate members opposed the measure.

Trump may veto HR 133 in its present form.

He called on Congress to “increase the ridiculously low” relief for US households.

He wants it raised to $2,000 per adult, $4,000 for couples, along with “get(ging) rid of wasteful and unnecessary items” in the measure.

Dems, including Pelosi, said they’ll push for “unanimous (congressional) consent” pre-Christmas.

Only 59 of 535 congressional members opposed the bill. A veto-proof majority supports it.

It’s highly likely heading for enactment into law — warts and all.

A Final Comment

Ignored by the White House, Congress and establishment media is what’s most needed at a time of the greatest economic Depression in US history — large-scale jobs creation programs.

Real unemployment exceeds 26%. Most working-age Americans with jobs are way-underemployed.

During the 1930s Great Depression, FDR and Congress initiated an alphabet soup of jobs creation programs that put millions of unemployed Americans back to work.

No jobs creation programs were initiated today by the White House or Congress.

They’re vitally needed to put unemployed Americans back to work with full-time employment earning a living wage and receiving essential benefits that includes healthcare coverage.

When people have a steady source of income to rely on, they spend it.

It stimulates economic growth. Stopgap stimulus measures provide short-term relief and woefully not enough.

Instead of re-industrializing and otherwise rebuilding America, the nation is in decline, notably at the expense of its ordinary people.

Instead of a long-ago land of opportunity, today’s America is thirdworldized for most of its people.

It’s an increasingly totalitarian, plutocratic, kleptocratic police state, democracy for its privileged few alone.

Wealth, power and privileged interests never had things better.

Ordinary people are one or two missed paychecks away from impoverishment, food insecurity, overall deprivation and despair during what’s likely to be protracted Depression conditions.

When large-scale federal programs are vitally needed to change things, they’re nowhere in sight.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Since November 4, the focus of the international community in their observations of the internal conflict in Ethiopia has largely been centered on the central government’s suppression of a rebellion against its authority in the northern region of Tigray.

Within a matter of three weeks, the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had declared victory over the authorities and their supporters in Tigray.

Nonetheless, it has been reported that tens of thousands of Ethiopians have fled the northern region to seek refuge in eastern Sudan. These developments are occurring while a decades-long disagreement over boundaries between the Republic of Sudan and the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia is being played out on the ground in the territory in question.

Image on the right: Rendition of the main dam (Fair use)

These events over the last two months are also overshadowing the ongoing differences surrounding the role of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Project (GERD) which is designed to provide energy resources to Ethiopia and the contiguous states throughout North, East and Central Africa. Ethiopia has invested enormous sums of money in building the dam and is relying on its launching as a key element of its national and regional development schemes.

Surveys for the GERD development date back to the period between 1956-1964 when the United States Bureau of Reclamation issued a 17-volume report on the feasibility of the project. Since 2011, Ethiopia has been constructing the dam which was initially scheduled to begin operations in 2017. (See this)

An article on the mission of the GERD project says that:

“The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), formerly known as the Millennium Dam, is under construction in the Benishangul-Gumuz region of Ethiopia, on the Blue Nile River, which is located about 40km east of Sudan. The project is owned by Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCO)…. The people and Government of Ethiopia are funding the project, which will not only serve Ethiopia, but Sudan and Egypt as well. The latter two countries depend on the Nile River for their water although 85% of the river flows in Ethiopia. The dam’s construction is expected to create up to 12,000 jobs. Approximately 20,000 people will be resettled during the course of the project.” (See this)

Conflict Between Ethiopia and Egypt over GERD 

Problems surfaced over the objections of the Egyptian government which opposed GERD saying the full realization of the scheme would redirect waters from the Blue Nile to Ethiopia. However, the existing water arrangements governing utilization of the Blue Nile were instituted during the colonial period when Britain exercised tremendous influence over Cairo.

Egypt was a formal British colony from the 1880s until the early 1920s when the country gained political independence after the uprisings which began in the post-World War I period during 1919. Neighboring Sudan was also colonized by British imperialism and the consequent imposition of border demarcations and ownership of waterways can be traced to these historical events.

Ethiopia had fiercely resisted becoming a colony of Europe. Menelik II fought a successful war against Italy at the conclusion of the 19^th century. During the early to mid-20^th century, Ethiopian monarchies become even more surrounded by imperialist states which controlled territories in the countries known today as Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya and Eritrea.

Andrew Carlson, an historian who has studied the origins of the conflicts over the Nile, says of the situation involving Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and other states:

“After achieving its independence in 1922, Egypt negotiated the Nile Waters Agreement of 1929 with the East African British colonies. This accord established Egypt’s right to 48 billion cubic meters of water flow, all dry season waters, and veto-power over any upriver water management projects; newly independent Sudan (1956) was accorded rights to 4 billion cubic meters of water. The Ethiopian monarch was not consulted—at least in part because no one understood how much Nile water actually came from Ethiopia. The 1959 Nile Waters Agreement between Egypt and Sudan was completed before all the upriver states achieved independence: Tanganika (1961), Uganda (1962), Rwanda (1962), Burundi (1962), and Kenya (1963). The signatories of the 1959 Agreement allocated Egypt 55.5 billion cubic meters of water annually while Sudan was allowed 18.5 billion cubic meters. These 79 billion cubic meters represented 99% of the calculated average annual river flow. The treaty also allowed for the construction of the Aswan High Dam (completed in 1971), the Roseires Dam (completed 1966 on the Blue Nile in Sudan), and the Khashm al-Girba Dam (completed in 1964 on the Atbara River in Sudan).” (See this)

This Nile Water Agreement served to further the underdevelopment of the Horn of Africa and East African states. Founding Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, an anti-imperialist and socialist, called upon all post-independence nations to disregard the treaties established by Britain in the colonial era.

Former Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I was so outraged by the failure of the-then President Gamal Abdel Nassar to recognize Addis Ababa’s rights to the Blue Nile he severed relations with Egyptian Orthodox Church which had been closely linked with its Ethiopian counterpart for 1600 centuries. At this point $10 million was allocated from the Ethiopian treasury to research the development of dams along the Blue Nile, hence the eight-year long research done by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

Sudan, Ethiopia and the Tigray Conflict  

The disputed control of the region bordering Ethiopia and eastern Sudan has led to clashes between their respective armed forces along with militia groups loyal to Addis Ababa. Prime Minister Abiy has attempted to downplay the seriousness of the military encounters.

Sudan is at present in a transitional stage politically. The Sovereign Council, which is an interim body, is composed of a tense coalition of civil society groupings, popular mass organizations, professional associations, technocrats, and the leading officer corps within the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). The Sovereign Council is chaired by Sudanese military leader Gen. Abdelfattah al-Burhan and since his ascendancy to power through a Transitional Military Council (TMC) in April 2019, the country has moved even further towards the U.S. and its principal allies in the region, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt and the State of Israel. Khartoum normalized relations with Tel Aviv without any debate within the Sovereign Council and its components. The act carried out largely at the aegis of the White House of President Donald Trump is a complete violation of the Israel Boycott Act of 1958, adopted just two years after the independence of Sudan from Britain.

A report published by the Sudan Tribune on December 22 claimed that the SAF had ejected pro-Ethiopia militias and the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) from the contested border region. According to the dispatch: “The Ethiopian troops, from the Amhara region, waged severe attacks on the Sudanese army since last April. The outbreak of the Tigray crisis and a recent attack on a Sudanese force patrolling the border triggered Khartoum’s decision to control the whole international border in line with the 1902 agreement. In the same context, the Sudanese army deployed its troops in Mahaj area, which is located south of Lugdi town, of the Tigray region. The army reported that an Ethiopian militia, presumably Fano militiamen, attacked Alosra area inside the Sudanese border. They shot a shepherd in the area. Amhara militiamen have played a significant role in the fight against the TPLF fighters of Tigray.” (See this)

A joint delegation from Sudan and Ethiopia were scheduled to meet on December 22 to discuss the situation in the border areas, ironically on the same day that the U.S. Congress approved an agreement to delist Sudan from the targeted states accused of state-sponsored terrorism. Sudan will be assessed more than $300 million for alleged complicity in several attacks on U.S. interests in Tanzania, Kenya and the Gulf of Aden. In Tanzania and Kenya, the U.S. embassies were bombed in early August 1998. Two years later, several Pentagon soldiers were killed when the USS Cole was struck off the coast of the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. Additional U.S. aid has been promised to Khartoum in reward for the “normalization” of relations with Israel and the deeper penetration of Pentagon forces within the military apparatus of Sudan.

Implications for African Unity and Development

The Trump White House attempted to force an agreement on GERD in contravention of the interests of Ethiopia. The president later said in a phone call with Sudan Interim Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok that Egypt will have no alternative other than blowing up the GERD project. From these statements along with the role of Sudan in the internal conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, the mission of GERD is thrown into serious jeopardy.

Ethiopia is the headquarters of the 55-member African Union (AU) whose aim is to foster greater cooperation among continental states. Yet the contradictions which have arisen over the role of colonial-era laws, the necessity for respecting the existing and largely inherited territorial boundaries along with the imperatives of regional integration as a prerequisite to genuine independence, sovereignty, and economic development, must be resolved in the coming period.

This required mechanism for the resolutions of such conflicts must be found inside the current AU structures established by the Peace and Security Council. A broader regional conflagration in the Horn of Africa and North Africa will only provide opportunities for even wider deployment of U.S. troops on the continent.

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Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

A long and cruel siege, constant Israeli attacks resulting in the killing of countless civilians, destruction of homes and infrastructure, extreme poverty, and trauma remain the daily bread of Palestinians in Gaza.

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A report published by the United Nations in 2018 stated that by the year 2020 the Gaza Strip would be uninhabitable. It said specifically that, “the United Nations has stated that Gaza may well be unlivable by 2020.” The report emphasized also that “Michael Lynk, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967, drew attention to Israel’s persistent non-cooperation with the Special Rapporteur’s mandate. As with his two predecessors, Israel has not granted him entry to visit the country, nor the Occupied Palestinian territory.” Anyone who thinks that the Gaza Strip was liveable prior to 2020 is out of their mind.

The Gaza Strip has been a humanitarian disaster since it was artificially created in the aftermath of the 1948 Zionist campaign of ethnic cleansing. It was created primarily as a holding place for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians driven off of their lands by Zionist terrorists in southern Palestine. Impoverished and homeless, these refugees were forced to survive on handouts, and today they make up more than half of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million inhabitants. Considering the high standard of living Jewish citizens of Israel in that part of the country enjoy, living as they do on the very lands from which the Palestinians were exiled, the “Strip” was never “liveable.”

Now 2020 has come and gone, the United Nations report is shelved, and not a thing has changed. Over two million people remain imprisoned by Israel in the Gaza Strip. They suffer from a lack of the most basic needs like drinkable water, electricity, medicine, and nutrition. Israel also denies them basic human rights while Israeli Jews living minutes away enjoy a standard of living that is, by any measure, enviable with full access to the finest health care, nutrition, and clean water.

A European delegation comes to visit

A delegation of European representatives recently visited Gaza, yet Europeans have not used their influence, political or otherwise, to end Israeli violations of human rights and international law.

It would not have taken much for EU representatives to see the devastation, poverty, and severe shortages experienced by the people of Gaza. All one needs to do is drive through the Gaza Strip to see the evidence, and yet no change seems to be forthcoming from the Europeans.

In fact, according to the Israeli press, Germany just announced that in order to provide Israel with a European made vaccine for Covid-19, “Germany used its influence in the EU to bend the rule that a European-produced vaccination would be given to European countries first. Germany justified the decision in part through its “historical commitment to supporting Israel.” Knowing full well that millions of Palestinians are denied health care and that the spread of Covid-19 among Palestinians is alarming, no such commitment was made to assist the Palestinians in their fight against the deadly disease..

Complicity

The comfort that Europeans display as they cooperate with the State of Israel, even as they claim to be champions of human rights, amounts to complicity. According to the Geneva Convention, particularly the Rome Statute, European cooperation with Israel constitutes complicity in genocide. When one looks at the definition of genocide and compares it with the actions of Israel in Gaza, it is quite clear that the Zionist State is engaged in genocide.

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group;

Three of the five examples given here are constantly committed by Israel in Gaza. Furthermore, Article II of the Genocide Convention “contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements,” one of which is the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” Israeli attacks on Gaza for over seven decades  clearly demonstrate that they are part of a larger strategy and that there is clear intent to bring about the destruction of a people.

According to a report published by Human Rights Watch (HRW), the issue of complicity with genocide is quite clear. “Prior jurisprudence has defined the term complicity as aiding and abetting, instigating, and procuring […] Complicity to commit genocide in Article 2(3)(e) refers to all acts of assistance or encouragement that have substantially contributed to, or have had a substantial effect on, the completion of the crime of genocide.”

The report defined the following as elements of complicity in genocide:

• “complicity by procuring means, such as weapons, instruments or any other means, used to commit genocide, with the accomplice knowing that such means would be used for such a purpose;
• complicity by knowingly aiding or abetting a perpetrator of a genocide in the planning or enabling acts thereof;

According to that definition, both the EU states and the United States are complicit in the crime of genocide.

Human Rights Watch maintains that Israel has, “entrenched discriminatory systems that treat Palestinians unequally.”  It “involves systematic rights abuses, including collective punishment, routine use of excessive lethal force against protesters, and prolonged administrative detention without charge or trial for hundreds.”

It continues to state that Israel, “builds and supports illegal settlements […]expropriating Palestinian land and imposing burdens on Palestinians but not on settlers, restricting their access to basic services and making it nearly impossible for them to build.”

Regarding the Gaza Strip, HRW writes that “Israel’s more than decade-long closure of Gaza severely restricts the movement of people and goods, with devastating humanitarian impact.”

What constitutes aid?

The first order of business needs to be the immediate and unconditional lifting of the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip since 2007. A no-fly zone monitored by UN or European naval forces must be imposed on all Israeli aircraft. In addition to these measures, humanitarian relief must be made available to the people of Gaza without delay.

Israel must be sanctioned and all military and economic cooperation with Israel must be stopped until such time that it complies with international law and ends all its violations of human rights. This should be followed by setting a date for free and fair one person, one vote elections in all of historic Palestine. Then processes must be put in place for the repatriation of Palestinian refugees, and funding must be set aside for payment of reparations and restitution.

Israel must also be held accountable for its violations of international law since 1948 and Israeli politicians, as well as military commanders, must be investigated and charged with war crimes.

European countries are fully aware of the reality that exists in Gaza. A long and cruel siege, constant Israeli attacks resulting in the killing of countless civilians, destruction of homes and infrastructure, extreme poverty, and trauma are the daily bread of Palestinians in Gaza.

The reality in Gaza is no secret and Israeli violations of international law are well known. However, European governments are in the habit of seeing colonized and formerly colonized people as needing aid and doing little to provide the aid. The aid they provide is sometimes monetary and sometimes humanitarian in the form of food items, but rarely is it sufficient. In the case of the Gaza Strip, real political action is called for, but it is not clear if and when the EU will be willing to act.

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Miko Peled is an author and human rights activist born in Jerusalem. He is the author of “The General’s Son. Journey of an Israeli in Palestine,” and “Injustice, the Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.”

Featured image is from Desertpeace

The mind changer in Downing Street has struck again.  With UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the helm, changes of direction are compulsive, natural and sudden. The U-Turn has become the prosaic expectation.  “Too often it looks like this government licks its finger and sticks it in the air to see which way the wind is blowing,” Tory MP Charles Walker, deputy chair of the 1922 Committee, lamented in August.  “This is not a sustainable way to approach the business of governing and government.”

As unsustainable as it might be, the UK was treated to another round of vigorous U-turning ahead of Christmas by a leader who radiates buffoonery and steady incompetence.  On December 16, a decision was taken to ease COVID-19 restrictions over the festive period, a view distinctly at odds with a good number in the scientific establishment.

In November, submissions by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) to the government warned that mixing over the Christmas period could well lead to greater spread in the event restrictions were eased.  According to a paper by the operational subgroup of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M-O), a relaxation “over the festive period will result in increased transmission and increased prevalence, potentially by a large amount.”  The group also warned that, “SARS-Cov-19 has demonstrated high secondary attack rates in households (with estimates of up to 50% in one household infected from one infected member).”

The analysis also warned that the “bubble” policy – one where a certain number of households would be permitted to mix over a set number of days over the Christmas period – was still burdened by risk.  “Allowing households to ‘bubble’ (i.e. effectively form a single, larger, isolated household) reduces the risks, but is very susceptible to small numbers of links between bubbles.”

Despite this, Johnson was adamant in his Wednesday press gathering: the festive season would be an exception.  “I want to be clear we don’t want to, as I say, to ban Christmas, to cancel it.”  To do so “would be frankly inhuman and against the instincts of many in this country.”  This was a pointed reference to opponents sceptical about his epidemiological grasp of the dangers.  Labour leader Keir Starmer had previously pressed him during Parliament Minister’s Questions about any existing assessments on the impact “on infection rates and increased pressure on the NHS”.

Johnson’s response was far from helpful and, given the circumstances, ill conceived.  “I wish he had the guts to say what he really wants to do, which is to cancel the plans people have made and to cancel Christmas. I think that’s what he’s driving at, Mr Speaker.”  But even conservative forums such as The Spectator had to admit that the prime minister was taking an awful gamble: “that people will suddenly start adhering to government guidance and severely restrict their contact with their families, even though the law does not force them to do so.”

In his December 16 speech, Johnson praised the rollout of the vaccination programme.  With 138,000 recipients of the first dose, he felt there was “no doubt we are winning and we will win our long struggle against the virus.”  The reproduction rate of the virus had been brought below 1.  But Britons had to hold their nerve.  Infections were still rising in parts of the country.  London had moved into Tier 3 restrictions.

An appeal was made to those in the UK “to think hard and in detail about the days ahead and whether you can do more to protect yourself and others.” Never tiring of confusing the citizenry, such regulations were to involve limits of three households meeting over five days.  “I want to stress that these are maximums, not targets to aim for.”  Think, he pleaded, of having a smaller and shorter Christmas.

On December 19, the mind changer was again in full flow.  The very idea of holding Christmas was challenged and Johnson found himself doing exactly what he had accused the Labour leader of wishing.  “I am sorry that the situation has deteriorated since I last spoke to you three days ago.”  The reason given by Johnson in his address was ominous.  Data from the advisory group on New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats (NERVTAG) had revealed the emergence of a new variant of the virus.  “NERVTAG’s early analysis suggests the new variant could increase R [the reproduction number] by 0.4 or greater.  Although there is considerable uncertainty, it may be up to 70% more transmissible than the old variant.”

This new variant had been skipping at speed through London, the South East and East of England.  As things stood, it was seemingly not more lethal or causing illness of greater severity.  This new incarnation was also unlikely to blunt the effect of the vaccines.  But it was clear to Johnson that not taking immediate steps would lead to soaring infections, straining the NHS and causing the deaths of “many thousands more”.

The consequence: London, the South East and the East of England were to move into tier 4.  These have become generally familiar: the necessity of staying at home and working from home; the closure of non-essential services in retail, indoor gyms and leisure facilities.  People are not permitted to enter or leave Tier 4 areas; and residents in such designated zones cannot stay overnight away from home.  Exemptions apply for exercise, childcare and those who cannot work from home.

The corollary of such restrictions was that Britons could not “continue with Christmas as planned.”  Tier 4 restrictions meant that households were to be self-contained, “though support bubbles will remain in place for those at risk of loneliness or isolation.”  To add just another sliver of confusion, household mixing would be confined to Christmas Day for those in Tier 3 zones.

Not all gloom, Johnson unfurled the metaphorical flag.  “The UK was the first country in the western world to start using a clinically approved vaccine.”  Nothing, however, could take away from the fact that Johnson had again been outmanoeuvred by facts and circumstance.

In the scathing opinion of The Observer, it was a decision taken too late, causing grief to families “who have been encouraged to look forward to Christmas for weeks by a prime minister who, in characteristic form, foolishly over-promised in an attempt to avoid being the bearer of bad news.”

In the meantime, Johnson will have to deal with an increasing number of irate Tory backbenchers keen to recall parliament.  Walker is one them, increasingly suspicious of the government’s motives.  “The Government, in my view, knew on Thursday, possibly even Wednesday, that they were going to pull the plug on Christmas but they waited till Parliament had gone.”  A Johnson tactic, through and through.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image: Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a press conference on 16 March, with Chief Medical Officer Prof Chris Witty and Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance. Picture by Andrew Parsons

Who benefits from lockdowns that are destabilizing all facets of our society? Look no further than the emerging global oligarchy.

The US issued fresh sanctions on Tuesday against the wife of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and members of her London-based family, in the latest designation on Syria’s ruling family under the Caesar Act.

In addition to designating Asma al-Assad for “impeding efforts to promote a political resolution of the Syrian conflict”, the sanctions target her cardiologist father Fawaz Akhras and her mother Sahar Otri, along with her brother Firas and uncle Eyad Akhras – all of whom are British nationals.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement that both the Assad and Akhras families “accumulated their ill-gotten riches at the expense of the Syrian people through their control over an extensive, illicit network with links in Europe, the Gulf, and elsewhere”.

“The Assad regime, supported by its enablers and allies, however, refuses to end its needless, brutal war against the Syrian people, stalling efforts to reach a political resolution,” he said.

Asma was previously designated by the US in June alongside her husband, and Washington also previously placed sanctions on their eldest son Hafez.

In addition to the designations announced by Pompeo, the US Treasury Department announced an additional set of sanctions on Tuesday, blacklisting the Central Bank of Syria as well as Assad’s adviser Lina al-Kinayeh, her husband, Syrian parliamentarian Mohammed Masouti, and a number of businesses affiliated with the two.

The Treasury also blacklisted five entities that were found to be owned by Amer Taysir Khiti, a senior government official in Syria. Those businesses include concrete and plastic manufacturers, a shipping and transport company, and real estate and land businesses. Khiti was placed under US sanctions last month.

Tuesday’s announcements mark the latest round of sanctions imposed by the US under the Caesar Act, passed last year and put into effect over the summer, which aim to deter “bad actors who continue to aid and finance the Assad regime’s atrocities against the Syrian people while simply enriching themselves”.

The act is named after a Syrian military photographer who smuggled tens of thousands of gruesome photos out of the country that documented evidence of war crimes.

The US and the European Union have already frozen the assets of the Syrian state and hundreds of companies and individuals. Washington also banned US exports to Syria and investments, including transactions involving oil and hydrocarbon products.

The new sanctions brought on by the Caesar Act cover more sectors and can entail freezing the assets of foreign actors dealing with Syria, regardless of nationality. The legislation also targets those dealing with entities from Russia and Iran, Assad’s main backers.

Syrian authorities have blamed western sanctions for the country’s economic crisis, including a currency collapse that has led to soaring prices and people struggling to afford food and basic supplies.

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Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst. His writing has appeared widely in alternative media. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Max may be reached at [email protected]

Featured image is from the author

The US imposed sanctions on three Cuban entities and three Nicaraguan citizens, the US Treasury Department reported today.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Treasury Department sanctioned the Cuban companies Grupo de Administración Empresarial, Financiera Cimex and Kave Coffee for their operations on the island.

The three sanctioned Nicaraguans are: Vice President of the Supreme Court of Justice of Nicaragua, Marvin Ramiro Aguilar García; Deputy of the National Assembly, Walmaro Antonio Gutiérrez Mercado; and head of the National Police in the department of León, Fidel de Jesús Domínguez Álvarez.

The first of the sanctioned Cuban companies is described by the Treasury Department as a conglomerate that includes firms dedicated to tourism, international trade, and the remittance sector of the island’s economy.

For its part, Financiera Cimex was dedicated to financial investment and also worked in the remittances business, while the third is a coffee company.

According to the US Treasury Department the three companies worked with a Panamanian firm that they used to “circumvent (illegal US) restrictions on international trade.”

“[President Donald] Trump’s administration remains committed to targeting the malicious behavior of the Cuban regime and its attempts to avoid US sanctions,” Mnuchin claimed, as part of a tirade against any government that doesn’t follow the US’ dictatorial rule.

Regarding the Nicaraguan citizens, the Treasury Department affirmed that the designations are an effort to target officials who continue to support the efforts of the government, headed by Daniel Ortega, and “undermine democracy” in the country.

Those designated are—allegedly—responsible for collaborating with Ortega in the “identification, intimidation and punishment of political opponents,” the Treasury reported.

All properties of sanctioned companies and individuals within the US will be blocked, and citizens of the US will be barred from conducting any business with them.

Cuban reaction

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla rejected the new sanctions imposed by the United States government:

“I reject the new blockade measures announced by [US Secretary of State, Mike] Pompeo. Cuba will forge ahead no matter how many entities they include on their spurious lists. Every action of the US foreign policy reinforces the isolation and international discredit to which Trump and his team led it,” wrote the Cuban Foreign Minister on his Twitter account.

According to a press release from the US government in Washington, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the Treasury added three companies of alleged Cuban military ownership to its List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN List).

“All property and interests in the property of these entities that are in the United States, or in the possession or control of persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, continue to be blocked and must be reported to OFAC,” the State Department document states.

In the last three years, the administration headed by US President Donald Trump reversed the policies of rapprochement between Cuba and the US applied in 2014 during the term of former President Barack Obama (2009-2017), and intensified the application of the economic and commercial blockade against Havana, which has now lasted nearly sixty years.

According to Cuban authorities, the White House has applied nearly 200 measures and sanctions against Cuba including: entry bans on cruise ships and charter flights, sending remittances, financial persecution targeting any fuel entering the island, and an extensive “black list” that includes over 200 Cuban companies.

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The head of one of the world’s most prominent tourism lobby groups has warned that if governments embrace “no jab, no fly” polices, it will kill the travel industry.

Gloria Guevara, head of the World Travel and Tourism Council, said Thursday “I don’t think governments will require vaccination next year,” warning that “If they do that they will kill their sector.”

Bloomberg reported on Guevara’s comments, as she added that the first people to get the vaccine “are the last people who will travel,” the elderly and at-risk.

Guevara further noted that the tourism sector, including airlines, is facing combined losses of US$3.8 trillion.

Guevara’s comments come after a World Health Organisation spokesperson said “proof of vaccination for COVID-19 vaccine will be essential for public health purposes,” but added that “It is also important to make a distinction between an ‘immunity passport’—something WHO does not recommend—and such a vaccine requirement for travel.”

A host of airlines have indicated that they will implement the measures regardless of what governments decide, and hotels are the latest sector to indicate they will do the same.

UK based human rights group Privacy International has warned that if “immunity” passports are issued by some governments, it could signal a creep toward “digital identity schemes” and other mandatory ID schemes.

“Once you have multiple uses (e.g. access to services) in multiple domains (i.e. public sector, private sector), in multiple countries (i.e. travel), then we are approaching a global identity document needed to live your life,” the group warned.

Sweden based human rights group The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) warned last week that 61 per cent of countries have used COVID restrictions “that were concerning from a democracy and human rights perspective.”

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Many employees at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., have reservations about taking the COVID-19 vaccine, and CEO Anita Jenkins is trying to get workers to follow her lead by getting vaccinated, according to CNN. 

The hospital, a major healthcare provider for the Black community, received 725 doses of the Pfizer vaccine Dec. 15 and expects to receive a second shipment this week. As of Dec. 18, only about 600 of the hospital’s 1,900 employees had signed up for the shots, according to Kaiser Health News.

“There is a high level of mistrust and I get it,” Ms. Jenkins told Kaiser Health News. “People are genuinely afraid of the vaccine.”

The vaccination numbers, though low, still exceeded expectations, Ms. Jenkins told CNN. An internal hospital survey of about 350 employees in early November showed that 70 percent were not willing to take the COVID-19 vaccine or would not take it immediately after it became available.

Ms. Jenkins received the shot Dec. 15 in hopes of inspiring staff to get vaccinated. She’s part of a widespread effort by healthcare experts and community leaders to combat vaccine hesitancy among Black Americans. About 35 percent of Black Americans said they probably or definitely would not get the vaccine if it was determined to be safe by scientists and widely available for free, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study cited by CNN.

Howard University Hospital isn’t the only healthcare provider with workers who turned down the vaccine. At Doctors Hospital at Renaissance in Edinburg, Texas, so many workers declined the COVID-19 vaccine that the hospital offered doses to other medical workers in the region, according to ProPublica.

The hospital received 5,850 doses of the vaccine, and it quickly became clear that not enough people eligible for the vaccine, like staff who work directly with COVID-19 patients, were opting to get it, DHR Health CMO Robert Martinez, MD, told ProPublica.

“You start to see similar numbers across the country, all this mistrust and misinformation,” Dr. Martinez said.

After the first day of distribution, DHR reached out to other hospitals and healthcare facilities in the region to offer doses of the vaccine. ProPublica reported that the vaccine ended up going to non-medical personnel as well, including state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. He told ProPublica he was invited to take the vaccine by DHR after officials explained to him that all eligible workers who wanted the vaccine received it.

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Featured image is from Viacheslav Lopatin | Credit: scaliger – stock.adobe.com

The British government has contracted two firms to develop COVID ‘freedom passports’, that would be used to segregate society between those who have been tested or vaccinated against COVID and those who have not.

While the government is still saying that it will not introduce such a system, the firms have been given instructions to develop an app based system to integrate a QR code linking to a digital passport.

The QR code would be used to gain entry into pubs, clubs, venues, cinemas, basically anywhere in public.

“After scanning in the code, the venue could refuse entry to those without a recent negative result,” the Daily Mail notes.

The ‘negative Covid-19 test certification’ plans were discovered on the UK Government’s contracts finder.

The site shows that in November a £42,000 contract was awarded to a company called Netcompany UK to develop a ‘Covid-19 Certification/Passport MVP’ (minimum viable product’).

Another contract for £34,000 was awarded to Hub Company to develop an app that would include a personal QR code for COVID tests.

“It is about looking at ways we could use this in future,’ a Department of Health source claimed, adding “It is looking at whether it would be possible.”

“There are no plans to introduce immunity passports,” the source also claimed, echoing previous government assurances.

We previously reported, back in November, on the government’s active plans to develop a QR code system to use as an ‘immunity passport’.

The report, stemming from sources close to the government, noted that

“Those who refuse to get the Covid-19 jab would likely be refused entry to venues, as part of the same proposals.”

Other reports have suggested that an app already used prominently in the UK by people to book doctor and hospital appointments could implement a vaccination status section that will show whether a person has taken the coronavirus jab or not, and that businesses may use it to refuse entry to those who have not.

Government officials have previously signalled that the system could be integrated with the much maligned NHS ‘track and trace’ app.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who has repeatedly refused to rule out making vaccination mandatory for all UK citizens, previously announced that ‘immunity passports’ could be rolled out for those who have antibodies against the virus, allowing them to participate in society.

The system would be similar in nature to that being considered by Ticketmaster, who it was revealed are considering making customers prove they’ve had the vaccine or a negative coronavirus test before allowing them to purchase tickets.

Ticketmaster later clarified that a final decision on such measures would be up to event organizers but that they were still mulling over the implementation of the system.

The spectre of so called ‘immunity passports’ stretches beyond Britain. Recently, the government in Ontario, Canada admitted that it is exploring ‘immunity passports’ in conjunction with restrictions on travel and access to social venues for the unvaccinated.

Last week, Israel announced that citizens who get the COVID-19 vaccine will be given ‘green passports’ that will enable them to attend venues and eat at restaurants.

A litany of other government and travel industry figures in both the US, Britain and beyond have suggested that ‘COVID passports’ are coming in order for ‘life to get back to normal’.

Sam Grant, campaign manager at the civili liberties advocacy group Liberty has warned that “any form of immunity passport risks creating a two-tier system in which some of us have access to freedoms and support while others are shut out.”

“These systems could result in people who don’t have immunity potentially being blocked from essential public services, work or housing – with the most marginalised among us hardest hit,” Grant further warned.

While some see the idea of ‘immunity passports’ as antithetical to a free society, others support travel bans for the unvaccinated, and are begging for the health passes to be implemented:

What a bullshitting bastard. So in the blink of an eye, our freedoms we took for granted will have to be proven by a vaccine passport, which enables us to move freely. And at one point, we were conspiracy nutters. It appears we were right all along. https://t.co/S9lhB9Fm6m

— LordBilderberg #KBF (@LBilderberg) December 7, 2020

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Featured image is from Steve Watson via NWO Report

The Ohio-class nuclear submarine USS Georgia along with the guided-missile cruisers USS Port Royal and USS Philippine Sea transited the Strait of Hormuz and entered the Persian Gulf, the US Navy announced on December 21.

The guided-missile submarine USS Georgia is capable of carrying up to 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles. The submarine can also be configured to host up to 66 Special Operations Force. If there is such a decision by the US leadership, the submarine will allow to deploy groups of saboteurs to hit targets on the Iranian coast or attack Iranian ships.

The increase of the US military presence in the Gulf comes amid tensions with Iran that reached a new height following the recent assassination of a top Iranian nuclear scientist near Tehran. Just on December 20, eight rockets were fired at the Us Embassy in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone. The strike caused damage to buildings and cars in the area near the embassy. To repel the strike, the US military employed C-RAM air defense system, which was deployed in Iraq together with Patriot surface-to-air missiles earlier in 2020.

Expectedly, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iranian-backed forces for the attack. MSM and ‘anonymous sources’ that they quote regularly express ‘concerns’ that Iran may use the anniversary of the assassination of General Qasem Solemani to conduct a symbolic attack on US interest in the region. Any kind of such attack or even the ‘possibility’ of such attack could be easily used by the Trump administration as a pretext for a new round of active actions against Iran.

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MEMORANDUM FOR: The President-elect

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Attempts to Sucker You Into Russia-Bashing

Dear President-elect Biden,

“Fool Me Once …” You may recall that President George W. Bush could not remember the last part of that aphorism. No matter. It turned out that — on Iraq — Bush was not fooled by bad intelligence. Rather, he and Vice President Dick Cheney were determined to attack Iraq and asked malleable former colleagues of ours to manufacture intelligence to “justify” that catastrophic war.

It was so bad that Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Jay Rockefeller described prewar intelligence as “unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent.” James Clapper, who was in charge of imagery analysis, admits in his memoir that the Bush/Cheney pressure to document a rogue WMD program in Iraq was so intense that “intelligence officers, including me, were so eager to help that we found what wasn’t really there.” (Emphasis added) .

That coterie of “intelligence officers” — first and foremost CIA Director George Tenet and his protegé Michael Morell — were able to pull the wool over the eyes of enough members of Congress to grease the skids for unnecessary war. Many of the latest crop of intelligence leaders bubbled up to the top for services rendered under the malleable Tenet, and seem to have adopted his flexible attitude toward truth.

It is a safe bet that some of them are responsible for the recent “anonymous” leaks feeding the current media frenzy about what we shall call “Russian hacking 2.0”.

We urge you not to rise to the bait — the more so, since Russia is the target this time around.

‘Russian Hacking 1:0’ — a Proven Fraud

You may be unaware that horse’s-mouth testimony given on Dec. 5, 2017 to the House Intelligence Committee gave the lie to claims — still widely taken as gospel truth by consumers of major media — that there is persuasive technical evidence that Russia hacked the DNC emails that WikiLeakspublished on July 22, 2016. There is no such evidence.

We Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity wrote to the president before the Iraq war to let him know that our former colleagues were playing fast and loose with the “intelligence,” which was conjured up to “justify” the invasion. With that painful experience behind us, it was not difficult to spot the lies about Russia “hacking” the DNC emails.

Four years ago we warned, in somewhat technical — but easily understandable terms — why the alleged Russian hacking of the DNC would have been impossible without the National Security Agency detecting it. We were helped by revelations from Edward Snowden, the expertise of two former technical directors at NSA (members of VIPS), and, not least, by applying the principles of science, which — thank goodness — are impervious to political pressure. See our MEMORANDUM of Dec. 12, 2016.

Proving a Negative

It proved difficult, of course, to prove a negative, particularly in the face of copious commentary and pseudo-analysis bereft of supporting data — for example, the evidence-impoverished, misnomered “Intelligence Community Assessment” of Jan. 6, 2017.

We had to wait two and a half years, from Dec. 2017 to May 2020, for the House Intelligence Committee to publish the sworn testimony of Shawn Henry, head of the DNC-hired cyber security firm CrowdStrike. (For reasons best known to ex-FBI Director James Comey, the FBI deferred to CrowdStrike to perform the forensics on what Sen. John McCain was calling an “act of war” by Russia.)

In short, three years ago Mr. Henry admitted under oath that there was no technical evidence that Russia, or anyone else, hacked the DNC and exfiltrated those damaging emails.

What he said in his sworn testimony appears to be as close as one can get to proving the negative on this very key issue. If this is news to you, please check with your advisors. It may be not too surprising that the major media have suppressed that news since May. We would be disappointed to learn, though, that no one saw fit to tell you of Shawn Henry’s testimony.

As far as we can tell, you have been careful to avoid joining — lemming-like — the “Russians-did-it-again” chorus. For fresh insight on the current media frenzy, you may wish to skim through an article published Friday morning on “Russian Hacking 2.0” and what seems to be afoot.

We are hoping that you will continue to avoid putting your foot in the mousetrap being laid for you to make it more difficult for your administration to deal in a sensible way with Russia. There are a whole lot of people — in intelligence, the media, and the weapons industry who are determined to get you off on the wrong foot with President Putin — for reasons that will be obvious to you.

We stand ready to support you with objective, tell-it-like-it-is analysis. Our record speaks for itself. Links to VIPS’s earlier memoranda, starting with our same-day critique of Colin Powell’s UN speech shortly before the war on Iraq, can be found here.

FOR THE STEERING GROUP

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

William Binney, Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)

Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer and Division Director, State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (ret.)

Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator

Edward Loomis, NSA Cryptologic Computer Scientist and a Technical Director (ret.)

Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst; Presidential briefer (ret.)

Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East & CIA political analyst (ret.)

Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)

Kirk Wiebe, Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA (ret.)

Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq War

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Echoing calls from global grassroots campaigners, the top United Nations anti-torture official on Tuesday asked President Donald Trump to pardon jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is languishing in London’s notorious Belmarsh prison as he awaits his fate regarding possible extradition to the United States to stand trial for what critics say are unwarranted espionage charges. 

In a letter to the outgoing American president, Nils Melzer, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture, noted that “Assange has been arbitrarily deprived of his liberty for the past 10 years,” a “high price to pay for the courage to publish true information about government misconduct throughout the world.”

“I visited Mr. Assange in Belmarsh,” wrote Melzer, “and I can attest to the fact that his health has seriously deteriorated, to the point where his life is now in danger. Critically, Mr. Assange suffers from a documented respiratory condition which renders him extremely vulnerable to the Covid-19 pandemic that has recently broken out in the prison where he is being held.”

Melzer continued:

I ask you to pardon Mr. Assange, because he is not, and has never been, an enemy of the American people. His organization, WikiLeaks, fights secrecy and corruption throughout the world and, therefore, acts in the public interest both of the American people and of humanity as a whole… Mr. Assange has never published false information.

The cause for any reputational harm that may have resulted from his publications is not to be found in any misconduct on his part, but in the very misconduct which he exposed… Prosecuting Mr. Assange for publishing true information about serious official misconduct, whether in America or elsewhere, would amount to “shooting the messenger” rather than correcting the problem he exposed. This would be incompatible with the core values of justice, rule of law, and press freedom, as reflected in the American Constitution and international human rights instruments ratified by the United States.

Melzer appealed to Trump’s campaign promise to “pursue an agenda of fighting government corruption and misconduct,” writing that “because allowing the prosecution of Mr. Assange to continue would mean that, under your legacy, telling the truth about such corruption and misconduct has become a crime.”

UN Special Rapporteur on torture has published a letter requesting a presidential pardon for Julian Assange https://t.co/YAFuOiJtZN

— Freedom of the Press (@FreedomofPress) December 22, 2020

“In pardoning Mr Assange,” he added, “you would send a clear message of justice, truth, and humanity to the American people and to the world. You would rehabilitate a courageous man who has suffered injustice, persecution, and humiliation for more than a decade, simply for telling the truth.”

“Last but not least, you would give back to Mr. Assange’s two young sons the loving father they need and look up to,” Melzer wrote.

“For these reasons, I respectfully appeal to you to pardon Julian Assange,” he concluded. “I believe that, after a decade of persecution, this man’s unjust suffering must end now.”

According to the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the 49-year-old Australian has been arbitrarily deprived of his freedom since his arrest on December 7, 2010. Since then he has been subjected to house arrest, imprisonment in Britain, and seven years in political asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

While none of the people implicated in war crimes and other misdeeds revealed by WikiLeaks in the Afghan War Diary, Iraq War Logs, Guantánamo Files, the “Collateral Murder” viedo, and other leaks have been seriously punished, Assange and Chelsea Manning—the U.S. Army whistleblower who provided much of the published material—have faced the full fury of the U.S. government.

Assange is due back in court on January 4, when he will likely learn whether he will be extradited. If found guilty in the U.S. of violating the 1917 Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Assange could be sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars, most likely in a Colorado supermax prison, which a former warden called “a fate worse than death.”

In recent months there have been growing calls from activists and public figures around the world for Trump to pardon Assange before leaving office next month. In addition to Melzer, former National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, filmmaker Oliver Stone, actress and activist Pamela Anderson, and other leading press freedom advocates are among those urging Trump to act.

There is also a bipartisan push for Trump to pardon for Snowden, who is living in exile in Russia as a result of releasing classified documents regarding the U.S. government’s global mass surveillance program.

Democrats silence on a pardon for Edward Snowden is both shameful and bad strategy. He's seen as a hero around the world, and especially by younger voters. Letting the right pretend to be the true defenders of human rights makes me sick to my stomach. https://t.co/E85moiKhKE

— Evan Greer (@evan_greer) December 22, 2020

Trump is reportedly considering pardons for both Assange and Snowden.

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Virtually always when accusations surface against nations free from US control, no credible evidence supports them.

It’s because what’s claimed is fabricated.

In legitimate tribunals, charges without evidence backing them are dismissed straightaway.

Not in the US and other Western states, especially when targeting Russia, China, Iran, and other nations on Washington’s target list for regime change.

On December 13, Russian intelligence was again accused of conducting a major cyberattack against US private organizations, the Treasury, Commerce, and other departments in Washington.

The timing was suspicious, raising an obvious red flag, coming weeks before Biden/Harris replace Trump in January.

It’s unclear precisely what, if anything, happened.

All that’s known is what US officials claim. They long ago lost credibility, why nothing they say should be taken at face value.

What’s going is all about setting the stage for tough US actions against Russia when Biden/Harris take over in January — despite no evidence of unlawful behavior by Moscow against US interests.

Accusations without verifiable evidence backing them are baseless.

Throughout Russian Federation history over the last three decades, its ruling authorities never acted unlawfully toward the US — in stark contrast to Washington’s endless war by other means on all its invented adversaries, along with its preemptive hot wars.

On Sunday, Biden/Harris chief of stafff Ron Klain said their regime when installed in January will act against alleged Russian hackers, and “not just (by) sanctions,” adding:

“(S)teps” will be taken “to degrade the capacity of foreign actors to engage in this sort of attack.”

Reuters reported that options include “financial penalties and retaliatory hacks on Russian infrastructure, people familiar with the matter” indicated.

Congressional Russiaphobes demand a tough response despite no evidence of malign actions by Moscow against US interests.

The accusation was invented, likely by US dark forces to assure Biden/Harris straightaway begins on the wrong foot with Russia when they take office — made possible by brazen election theft.

Moscow understands the futility of attempting to foster cooperative relations with the US and West.

Its good will is consistently rebuffed by extrajudicial toughness.

Virtually everyone in Washington and other Western countries know Russia poses no threat to their security and other interests.

So they pretend otherwise, including hardline Dem Senator Mark Warner, calling the phony Russian cyberattack claim “an invasion,” adding:

“This is in that gray area between espionage and an attack. “

So Washington must let invented adversaries know “that if (we say) you t(ook) this kind of action, we and others will strike back.”

According to mentally unbalanced/over-the-top Pompeo clone Rep. Adam Schiff:

“I don’t think there’s any question that it was Russia (sic).”

Lots more likeminded neocon extremists like Schiff infest the nation’s capital, inventing reasons to bash nations free from US control.

Prospects for improved US relations with Russia, China, Iran, and other sovereign independent countries are virtually nil no matter which right wing of America’s one-party state runs things.

On Monday, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov slammed the baseless US accusation, saying:

Claims of cyberattacks on the US “ha(ve) nothing to do with us, because Russia is not involved in such attacks…including this.”

“We state this officially and decisively.”

“Any accusations of Russia’s involvement are absolutely unfounded and are a continuation of the kind of blind Russophobia that is resorted to following any incident…”

“As for some US actions…(they) have recently been very unpredictable, so we cannot say anything in this regard.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin also slammed the US, accusing its officials of “politicizing” cybersecurity, inventing reasons to bash its adversaries.

According to former US National Security Agency (NSA) technical director-turned whistleblower Bill Binney, CIA hacking tools can create the illusion of cyberattacks on US interests to falsely blame Washington’s adversaries for what they had nothing to do with.

Notably, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said “we do not see any break-in to our classified systems.”

“Our unclassified systems have been accessed. (W)e are completely on top of this.”

If Russia or other technologically capable nations wanted to penetrated classified US systems, they would have done it successfully.

Mnuchin’s statement is virtual proof of no Russian cyberattack as falsely claimed.

It’s the latest in a long line of fabricated US accusations against nations unwilling to sell their soul to Washington’s hegemonic interests.

A Final Comment

Outgoing Trump regime AG William Barr — a figure Paul Craig Roberts slammed for selling out DJT — joined with other Russiophobes in falsely blaming the Kremlin for cyberattacking the US despite no evidence proving it because there is none.

Barr also falsely claimed that Election 2020 was open, free and fair — ignoring brazen fraud.

At a Monday news conference, he was largely tight-lipped in saying the following:

“From the information I have, I agree with Secretary Pompeo’s assessment” — referring to his dubious claims about Russian hacking.

“It certainly appears to be the Russians, but I’m not going to discuss it beyond that.”

When accusations are unsupported by verifiable evidence, they’re groundless.

Suspiciously timed claims of cyberattacking the US by Russia appear all about preventing Biden/Harris from pursuing improved relations with Moscow — it’s virtually certain they wouldn’t do anyway other than perhaps tinkering around the edges of bilateral relations.

US hostility toward Russia and other sovereign independent countries is longstanding.

No evidence suggests a softening of this position ahead — no matter which right wing of the US one-party state runs things.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

On December 14th, two excellent news-reports were belatedly published about some of the massive corruption that was behind the initial U.S. federal coronavirus-relief law, the CARES Act, and about U.S. Senators of both Parties now intending to include such corruption in the next one. (NOTE: This present news-report may be viewed as a confirmation, and a further explanation, of what I was predicting in my article on April 22nd, “Why Post-Coronavirus America Will Have Massive Poverty”. What that was predicting is being confirmed in the two recent news-reports that are cited here.)

Regarding the CARES Act, J. Robert Downen headlined in the Houston Chronicle on December 14th, “Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church got $4.4 million in federal PPP loans”, and he reported that “Lakewood received a $4.4 million loan through the Paycheck Protection Program, a part of the federal CARES Act that provided loans to pay employee wages or for other basic operational costs such as utilities. The program marked the first time federal lawmakers allowed for direct financial assistance to houses of worship. … More than 1,000 religious groups in Texas received hundreds of millions of dollars to retain a combined 59,000 jobs, the Chronicle reported in July.”

At around the start of the coronavirus-epidemic, the Texas state government had announced, on 24 January 2020, that “Our workforce continues to grow and is now 14,188,100 Texans strong”, and this means that the CARES Act’s breaking-of-precedent (“the first time federal lawmakers allowed for direct financial assistance to houses of worship”) was helping to retain employment for one two-hundred-and-fortieth of employed Texans, and therefore it couldn’t even possibly have produced any significant impact upon the rate of unemployment in Texas, but only improved the re-election chances of public officials in Texas, by its purchasing from Texas’s preachers (who have lots of political clout in that state) a more favorable attitude toward those incumbent governmental office-holders, who had provided this largesse, upon their special interest.

Downen’s article also listed 16 Texas corporations (such as “Percheron Holdings LLC”) which had been given federal loans of at least $10,000,000 each; and, so, the federal Government’s largesse wasn’t only to ‘non-profits’, nor to religious organizations.

However, if the actual intention of the CARES Act had been to help workers instead of to help their bosses, then nothing would have been funneled through the corporation down to its workers, but everything would instead have been paid directly to each individual worker, and any corporation that was suffering losses during the epidemic could separately have applied to the U.S. Small Business Administration after-the-fact, for loan-assistance, in order for that corporation (or church, or etc.) to be able to stay in business, if they otherwise would have gone bust.

In other words: all CARES-Act monies that went to corporations were funneling their benefits to workers by way of and through their employers, and thus were really political pay-offs to the richest, in order for political incumbents to be able to retain their seats as governmental officials. A ‘democracy’ like this is actually a kleptocracy. And that news-report in the Houston Chronicle appeared only after the 2020 ‘election’, not before it. So: it was no help to voters in preparation for the November ‘elections’.

Also on December 14th, the great investigative journalist David Sirota’s blog headlined “SCOOP: Stimulus Bill Bails Out Defense Contractors, Denies Direct Payments to Families”and reported that, “Buried in the new 525-page stimulus bill is a provision granting military contractors benefits that are being denied to workers and small businesses across the country.” He and his reporter Julia Rock opened by noting that, “Earlier this year, Republican senators slammed the idea of spending money to pay Americans not to work during the pandemic. Only a few months later, a group of GOP senators has signed onto stimulus legislation that would authorize the government to pay idle defense contractors to not work, even as those contractors rack up big profits during the pandemic. Meanwhile, the same bill excludes bipartisan provisions authorizing direct payments to millions of Americans struggling to survive.” They reported that Democratic Party leaders in Congress (especially West Virginia’s U.S. Senator Joe Manchin) were quietly working in the background in order to be able to pass this new corruption into law, and were no less corrupt than their bolder Republican colleagues were in in whoring themselves to ‘defense’ contractors — the “Military-Industrial Complex” or “MIC,” which basically writes America’s international sanctions, and other U.S. foreign policies, so as to maximize the global sales of U.S.-made military weaponry.

All of this news is “belated,” however, unless the major American ‘news’-media, such as the Washington Post and the New York Times and CNN and Fox and ABC and CBS and NBC and The Atlantic — all of which are owned and controlled by America’s fewer than 1,000 billionaires — will decide (which they never yet have done) to make a public issue out of the real issue here, which is the question of whether or not funneling public benefits through employers constitutes anything else than the corruption of any democracy and the installation of an aristocracy of the super-rich replacing that democracy of the people by a dictatorship of the aristocrats.

This is a fundamental issue, and it is always being simply avoided, banned to publish. (In fact, a recent law-review article, which was titled “The ‘Small Business’ Myth of the Paycheck Protection Program”, actually defended what had happened by saying that that program, which is commonly acronymed “PPP,” had been sold to the public as being intended to protect workers in small businesses, but never was intended to do that. This article claimed that “The misinformed condemnation of large companies obscured the fact that Congress had designed a flawed program with limited ability to help small businesses.”

But it wasn’t ‘misinformed’, and these weren’t merely ‘flaws’. In fact, lobbyists for huge corporations had heavily lobbied and paid Representatives and Senators to lard the entire CARES Act with huge give-aways to large corporations and to the investors in those corporations; and, as a result, Wall Street boomed even while unemployment soared. “Congress had designed a flawed program” because they were being paid to produce those “flaws” in it. Academia is, itself, often either grossly incompetent, or else part of the corruption, and therefore it should be viewed as being part of the ‘news’-media, itself — in other words: propaganda.)

Perhaps all of America’s ‘news’-media ought to be nationalized and donated to a public trust which is headed by a board of directors which consists of 100 certifiably low-income Americans who are otherwise (than their being in the lowest-wealth category) selected randomly from the general population, and who will, then, in turn, select and fire the top officials of all of the nation’s largest twenty media corporations, so as to make the news-media accurately inform the general public, instead of to continue deceiving the public in the ways that the super-rich — both liberal and conservative — collectively want the public to be deceived.

Maybe that would do it. Maybe that would restore democracy, to the United States of America. Democracy is impossible without there being an accurately informed public. And, in the U.S., the public is instead systematically deceived, so as to hide from them what the billionaires of both of the nation’s political Parties want the public not to know, or not to understand. That can’t be a democracy.

In an aristocracy, everything is just a racket. Even a covid-19 relief bill is.

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US Cyber Spy Scandal: Pompeo Blames Russia, Trump Blames China. Why?

By Andrew Korybko, December 22, 2020

Many people are confused after President Trump contradicted Secretary of State Pompeo’s claim that Russia was behind what’s been described by many as one of the most intrusive cyber espionage operations against America in history after he publicly suggested that China might have been the culprit instead and even downplayed the significance of this extensive security breach.

The Dystopian Western World

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, December 22, 2020

As the second decade of the 21st century comes to an end, democracy and free speech no longer exist in the Western World.  In all its respects, Western civilization no longer exists.

U.S.-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act: US Congress Votes $4 Billion to Israel for 2021

By Alison Weir, December 22, 2020

Congress just voted billions of dollars of U.S. tax money to Israel, No mainstream US media appear to have told Americans that both houses of Congress just voted massive aid to Israel, a tiny country with a long record of human rights abuses, violations of law, systemic racism, and damage to Americans.

Pakistan Returns $1bn to Saudi Arabia and Turns to China for Loan Assistance

By Areeb Ullah, December 22, 2020

Cash-strapped Pakistan has returned $1bn to Saudi Arabia as the second instalment of a $3bn soft loan, and is turning to China to help pay the rest. Saudi Arabia has historically never asked Pakistan to repay its loans. But earlier this year, the kingdom broke diplomatic norms and pushed Islamabad to repay the $3.3bn loan after Pakistan’s foreign minister admonished Saudi Arabia for not criticising India’s crackdown in Kashmir.

Seriously? Gunshot Deaths Counted Among COVID-19 Fatalities in Colorado

By Stephen Green, December 22, 2020

A pair of gunshot deaths that counted among COVID fatalities have earned the ire of a county coroner in Colorado. Grand County, in the sparsely-populated (but breathtaking) northwestern quarter of the state, is home to fewer than 15,000 people and has been lucky enough to endure only a handful of deaths related to the Wuhan Virus.

The Christmas Truce of 1914 and Other Unlearned Lessons from World War I

By Dr. Gary G. Kohls, December 22, 2020

Five months into the miserable death and destruction of the perpetually dead-locked trench war (featuring the now-infamous mass slaughter via artillery, machine gun and poison gas weaponry), the first Christmas of the war on the Western Front came around.

“Walk the Streets of Damascus, and Listen to the People Concerning US Sanctions and Aggression Against Syria”

By Janice Kortkamp and Steven Sahiounie, December 22, 2020

There was a multi-pronged effort on the part of the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar to take control over Syria, and when that failed, to divide and conquer it. This effort, begun during the GW Bush administration and flaring into violence during Obama’s administration, continues under Donald Trump.

What if the Christ Child Had Been Born in the American Police State?

By John W. Whitehead, December 22, 2020

Those nativity scenes were a pointed attempt to remind the modern world that the narrative about the birth of Jesus is one that speaks on multiple fronts to a world that has allowed the life, teachings and crucifixion of Jesus to be drowned out by partisan politics, secularism, materialism and war, all driven by a manipulative shadow government called the Deep State.

FDA Investigates Allergic Reactions to Pfizer COVID Vaccine After More Healthcare Workers Hospitalized

By Children’s Health Defense, December 22, 2020

The FDA is investigating allergic reactions in “multiple states.” The agency acknowledged the reactions may have been caused by PEG, a compound in the Pfizer vaccine that CHD previously told the FDA could put millions of people at risk.

Chang’e-5 Completes Lunar Trip, More Space Missions Planned

By Deng Xiaoci and Fan Anqi, December 22, 2020

On the freezing grassland in Siziwang Banner, North China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, a Chinese national flag was placed right next to the re-entry capsule of Chang’e-5 lunar probe, whose epic predawn landing on Thursday provided the perfect climax to China’s latest moon missions—an epic moon sample return mission.

Notre site Web en français, mondialisation.ca

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Nuestro sitio web en español, globalizacion.ca

The decorations and gifts of Christmas are one of our connections to a Christian culture that has held Western civilization together for 2,000 years. 

In our culture the individual counts. This permits an individual person to put his or her foot down, to take a stand on principle, to become a reformer and to take on injustice.

This empowerment of the individual is unique to Western civilization. It has made the individual a citizen equal in rights to all other citizens, protected from tyrannical government by the rule of law and free speech. These achievements are the products of centuries of struggle, but they all flow from the teaching that God so values the individual’s soul that he sent his son to die so we might live. By so elevating the individual, Christianity gave him a voice.

Formerly only those with power had a voice. But in Western civilization people with integrity have a voice. So do people with a sense of justice, of honor, of duty, of fair play. Reformers can reform, investors can invest, and entrepreneurs can create commercial enterprises, new products and new occupations.

The result was a land of opportunity. The United States attracted immigrants who shared our values and reflected them in their own lives. Our culture was absorbed by a diverse people who became one.

In recent decades we have lost sight of the historic achievement that empowered the individual. The religious, legal and political roots of this great achievement are no longer reverently taught in high schools, colleges and universities or respected by our government. The voices that reach us through the millennia and connect us to our culture are being silenced by “Identity Politics,” “political correctness” and the war against “white culture.” Prayer has been driven from schools and Christian religious symbols from public life. As Christian tradition fades as the basis of behavior, barbarity will gather more strength and reign over us.

Christianity is being gradually marginalized. Each year it becomes more difficult to find a Christmas card that says “Merry Christmas” instead of “Seasons Greetings.” In place of Christmas carols we get Hollywood Christmas songs. In some churches Christianity is being transmuted into Christian Zionism and the worship of Israel. Others fly LGBTQ and BLM flags. We are approaching a time when a Christian Christmas cannot be celebrated as it is not inclusive in a diverse society and therefore is politically incorrect if not a hate crime.

Constitutional protections have been diminished by hegemonic political ambitions. Indefinite detention, torture, and murder are now acknowledged practices of the United States government. The historic achievement of due process has been rolled back. Tyranny has re-emerged.

Diversity at home and hegemony abroad are consuming values and are dismantling the culture and the rule of law. There is plenty of room for cultural diversity in the world, but not within a single country. A Tower of Babel has no culture. A person cannot be a Christian one day, a pagan the next and a Muslim the day after. A hodgepodge of cultural and religious values provides no basis for law – except the raw power of the pre-Christian past.

All Americans have a huge stake in Christianity. Whether or not we are individually believers in Christ, we are beneficiaries of the moral doctrine that has curbed power and protected the weak.

Power is the horse ridden by evil. In the 20th century the horse was ridden hard, and the 21st century shows an increase in pace. Millions of people were exterminated in the 20th century by wars that served the ambitions of political leaders and ideological movements. Many were murdered simply because they were members of a class or race that had been demonized by intellectuals and political authority. In the beginning years of the 21st century, hundreds of thousands of Muslims in seven countries have been murdered and millions displaced in order to serve the neoconservatives’ agenda of extending Washington and Israel’s hegemony.

Power that is secularized and cut free of civilizing traditions is not limited by moral and religious scruples. Washington’s drive for hegemony over US citizens and the rest of the world is based entirely on the exercise of force and is resurrecting unaccountable power.

Christianity’s emphasis on the worth of the individual makes such power as Lenin claimed, and Washington now claims, unthinkable. Be we religious or be we not, our celebration of Christ’s birthday celebrates a religion that made us masters of our souls and of our political life on Earth. Such a religion as this is worth holding on to even by atheists.

As we enter into 2021, Western civilization, the product of thousands of years of striving, is in decline. Degeneracy is everywhere before our eyes. As the West sinks into tyranny and degeneracy, will Western peoples defend their liberty and their souls, or will they sink into the tyranny, which again has raised its ugly and all devouring head?

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog site, PCR Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

In 1935, reflecting on the creed of productivity which prevailed in modern technological societies, Bertrand Russell, philosopher, pacifist and devout humanist wrote that:

“I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.”

‘In Praise of Idleness and other essays’ is a collection of striking power and originality. Whereas the receieved wisdom of his era held that virtue consisted in yielding to work, monotony and routine, Russell maintained it was not the sole end of life, that beyond work, people needed leisure and pleasure in order to fully live, that what was sought to truly advance society and fortify the human condition was the “organized diminution of work.”

Through the 1920s and 30s Fordism advocated the exact opposite and the cult of productivity began to exert a strong hold on economic and social organization in Europe, the USA and Soviet Union. In the story Brave New World, Aldous Huxley envisioned a society of tyrannical collectivism which raised hell on Earth. In this dehumanizing, nihilistic oblivion, Henry Ford was worshipped as a deity and the fundamentalism of mass production crept in to all spheres of life, ridigly classifying people whose whole lives were planned out on a callow basis of crude economic worth. It was a study in how powerful forces of sublimation and repression incarnate in the edifice of the modern world mutilate our most vital, human instincts and wrench us from our roots.

Huxley’s main belief was that technological ‘progress’ had empowered the worst bureaucrats to assimilate citizens in to a sophisticated machine of repression and control which blocked and frustrated their freedom. Although, as Russell observes, in truth “with modern technique it would be possible to distribute leisure justly without injury to civilization“, the owners of the means of production in the capitalist economy absorb modern technique in to their arsenal against collective liberation. It is not in their interests to free us from bonds.

Of the proprietary class, Russell says:

“their desire for comfortable idleness is historically the source of the whole gospel of work. The last thing they have ever wished is that others should follow their example. “

That is to say that freedom and unfreedom aren’t opposites. The affluence and freedom of the proprietors actively depends on the subjugation of workers who create value.

Throughout his life Bertrand Russell was keenly involved with communities of students, activists and workers who organized against imperialism and the war machine. His belief that people could work less and live more was part of his belief that the economic system could be harnessed to more altruistic ends, justified more reasonably, attuned to satisfy people’s needs and fit to unleash their inherent creative power, instead of conforming to bourgeois imperatives.

Lately Professor Hawking has weighed in on the question of modern social organization and proffered the view that people need not be scared of machines, but ought to be wary of the systems and people who wield them. Why be scared of the unknown power of machines when what we know about the people who own them is far, far scarier?

Hawking said:

“If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.”

Hawking’s view is much like Russell’s and would be called post-scarcity economics. The crux of this view is that competition for resources is not a necessary feature of an economy, that material abundance may be universal instead of there being a socially imposed monopoly of access, regulated by money and work. Like trickle-down theory, scarcity economics is not necessarily based in reality. It goes without saying that obviously we need to find a way reach this economy and mode of production in accordance with environmental protection, which models after the Industrial Revolution got disastrously wrong.

The challenge of the future is to make machines our allies and not our jailers.

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Government produced safety instructions for a new coronavirus vaccine indicate that it should not be used by pregnant or breast-feeding mothers and children. In addition, they state that it is unknown what effect the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine will have on fertility.

The ten-page “Reg 174 Information for UK Healthcare Professionals” describes the vaccine, how it is to be stored, diluted, and administered, and the trial studies carried out to test it. To be effective, the vaccine is supposed to be administered twice.  In a section called “Fertility, pregnancy and lactation,” the guide says there is “no or limited data” on the vaccine. Therefore, it is not recommending its use for pregnant women.

“Animal reproductive toxicity studies have not been completed. COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 is not recommended during pregnancy,” the guide states in section 4.6.

“For women of childbearing age, pregnancy should be excluded before vaccination.”

The guide also advises that women should avoid becoming pregnant for the first two months after their Covid-19 shots.

“In addition, women of childbearing age should be advised to avoid pregnancy for at least 2 months after their second dose,” it says.

Because it is still unknown whether or not the vaccine can be transmitted to a breast-feeding infant through his or her mother’s milk, the instructions state that “a risk to the newborns/infants cannot be excluded.” Therefore, the guide specifies that the vaccine “should not be used during breast-feeding.”

But alarmingly the guide has only one thing to say about the vaccine’s impact on fertility: they don’t know if it does or doesn’t.

“It is unknown whether COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 has an impact on fertility,” it states.

The guide notes that the safety of the vaccine was tested in two clinical studies. The first study enrolled 60 people aged 16 to 55, and the second involved “approximately” 44,000 people aged 12 and older. The most common negative effects of the vaccine in people over the age of 16 have been “pain at the injection site” (a muscle), experienced by over 80%, fatigue (over 60%), headache (over 50%), sore muscles (over 30%), chills (over 30%), joint pain (over 20%), and fever (over 10%). According to the guide, these side-effects “were usually mild or moderate in intensity” and went away after a few days.

Fertility fears

Earlier this week, two leading doctors wrote to the European Medicine Agency, which is responsible for the safety of vaccines, in an attempt to stop human trials of all Covid-19 vaccines, especially the Pfizer/BioNtech COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 described above. Dr. Michael Yeadon, a former head of Pfizer’s respiratory research, and Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, a health policy advisor, think that human testing is still unethical.

Among other concerns, Yeadon and Wodart warn that some of the vaccines may prevent the safe development of placentas in pregnant women, resulting in “vaccinated women essentially becoming infertile.”

“Several vaccine candidates are expected to induce the formation of humoral antibodies against spike proteins of SARS-CoV-2,” the doctors wrote.

“Syncytin-1 […] which is derived from human endogenous retroviruses (HERV) and is responsible for the development of a placenta in mammals and humans and is therefore an essential prerequisite for a successful pregnancy, is also found in homologous form in the spike proteins of SARS viruses,” they continued.

“There is no indication whether antibodies against spike proteins of SARS viruses would also act like anti-Syncytin-1 antibodies. However, if this were to be the case this would then also prevent the formation of a placenta which would result in vaccinated women essentially becoming infertile.”

The doctors suggest that because the Pfizer/BioNTech trial protocol says that “women of child-bearing potential” can take part only if they are not pregnant or breastfeeding and are using contraception, it could take “a relatively long time before a noticeable number of cases of post-vaccination infertility could be observed.”

Pfizer can’t be sued for damages

According to the U.K.’s Independent newspaper, Pfizer, the owner of the COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 has been given indemnity in the United Kingdom, which means that people who suffer damage from the vaccine will not be able to sue the company.

“NHS (National Health Service) staff providing the vaccine, as well as manufactures of the drug, are also protected,” the Independent reported.

The newspaper also reported that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was authorised by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency on Tuesday under Section 174 of the Human Medicine Regulations 2012.

The regulation, which was altered by the British government this autumn, currently states that the ordinary “prohibitions” in Britain’s requirements for authorization “do not apply where the sale or supply of a medicinal product is authorized by the licensing authority on a temporary basis in response to the suspected or confirmed spread of— (a) pathogenic agents; (b) toxins; (c ) chemical agents; or (d) nuclear radiation, which may cause harm to human beings.”

The Independent noted that in a press conference on Wednesday, Pfizer’s U.K. managing director refused to explain why the company needed this legal protection.

“We’re not actually disclosing any of the details around any of the aspects of that agreement and specifically around the liability clauses,” said Pfizer’s Ben Osborn.

Curiously, in October the government’s Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), posted a bid request stating that “For reasons of extreme urgency,” they seek “an Artificial Intelligence (AI) software tool to process the expected high volume of Covid-19 vaccine Adverse Drug Reaction (ADRs).” The bid goes on to explain that “it is not possible to retrofit the MHRA’s legacy systems to handle the volume of ADRs that will be generated by a Covid-19 vaccine,” and that this “represents a direct threat to patient life and public health.”

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The Ontario government’s decision to extend and expand lockdowns across the province is another big hit in a long line of crushing blows to small business owners.

“Today’s announcement guarantees the demise of thousands upon thousands of Ontario’s small businesses,” said Dan Kelly, CFIB president. “The government should have used this as an opportunity to fine-tune existing restrictions based on the data, instead of expanding this blunt measure to additional regions of the province. Workers are going to lose their jobs. Business owners and their families will see their dreams crushed and their homes lost to the banks.”

“Ontario has now expanded the most anti-small business lockdown measure in the country. No other province in Canada closes small businesses while allowing big-box stores to sell similar goods in-store. Our members are dumbfounded as to why their government continues to feel that it is safer to buy a book, bracelet or pair of shoes at Walmart or Costco than to buy the same items at their quiet, local independent retailer,” said Ryan Mallough, CFIB’s director of provincial affairs for Ontario. “The government has consistently chosen big box over small business throughout the pandemic. Today’s move puts a bow on an even merrier Christmas for Walmart and Costco at the expense of Ontario’s small retailers.”

CFIB data shows that over a third of Ontario businesses report their business will not survive a second lockdown.

CFIB recommends that the Ontario government:

• Expand small business support to:
  o Immediately top up the federal Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS) to up to 100% for businesses in lockdown zones
  o Immediately top up the federal Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) to up to 100% for businesses in lockdown zones
• Expand eligibility for the Ontario PPE grant to all businesses, regardless of size or sector, and substantially increase the value from the current $1,000
• Increase funding to the $600-million program for energy and property taxes to reflect the additional volume of businesses in lockdown

“Today’s grant announcement is a step in the right direction, but the province must open its wallet even more to help small businesses make it through the lockdown period,” added Kelly. “Let’s not forget that the government chose to close small businesses, so they cannot be expected to survive without full economic support.  Nothing short of 100 per cent support for affected businesses will get them to the other side of COVID-19.”

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Along with hazardous to human health ingredients in all vaccines, alleged protection afforded by Covid vaccines is dubious at best,  unsupported by evidence at worst.

BMJ calls itself a publication “intended for healthcare professions.”

According to its associate editor/pharmacologist Peter Doshi, covid vaccine trials were “not focused on answering the questions many might assume they are.”

Doshi quoted Molecular Virology and Microbiology expert Peter Hotez, saying the following:

“Ideally, you want an antiviral vaccine to do two things: first, reduce the likelihood you will get severely ill and go to the hospital, and two, prevent infection and therefore interrupt disease transmission.”

Doshi: Covid vaccines “are not actually set up to prove either.”

“None of the trials (were) designed to detect a reduction in any serious outcome such as hospital admissions, use of intensive care, or deaths.”

“Nor are the vaccines being studied to determine whether they can interrupt transmission of the virus.”

Medscape editor/molecular medicine expert Eric Topol asked: What counts as an adverse covid event?

“We’re not talking about…positive mild infection(s).”

They must be “moderate to severe illness to qualify as an event…”

Doshi explained that covid trials were structured to minimize significant numbers of severe illness because the elderly, frail, children, and individuals with allergies were screened out as participants.

Last September, Doshi and Topol said covid trials “don’t answer (what) we need to know,” adding:

Based on how trials were structured, “(w)e may not find out whether (experimental) vaccines prevent moderate or severe cases of Covid-19.”

They may only “protect (against) the most mild form of” the disease.

Individuals affected this way need no protection as it passes in a few days, normality restored routinely.

For meds to be effective, they must protect against severe symptoms.

“(T)hat’s not (what) Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca” trial participants were tested for — mild symptoms alone.

“According to the protocols for their studies…a vaccine could meet (their) benchmark for success if it lowered the risk of mild Covid-19…’ ”

Their vaccines in trials were “never shown to reduce moderate or severe forms of the disease, or the risk of hospitalization, admissions to the intensive care unit or death.”

“To say a vaccine works should mean that most people no longer run the risk of getting seriously sick. That’s not what these trials…determine(d).”

“(T)here is no guarantee that reducing the risk of mild Covid-19 will also reduce the risk of moderate or severe Covid-19.”

“(S)ignificant increases in vaccination rates over the past decades have not been associated with reductions in deaths.”

“(V)accines…provid(ing) benefit(s) (for) mild” illness alone are worthless.

That’s what Pfizer, Moderna and Astra-Zeneca trials were structured to determine.

Doshi and Topol explained that “provid(ing) no benefit beyond a reduced risk of mild Covid-19 (risks) causing more discomfort than…prevent(ion).”

“Covid vaccine trials (failed) to address the aged…underrepresented minorities… children, adolescents and pregnant women since they” were excluded as participants.

“Vaccines must be thoroughly tested in all populations in which they will be used” — not so for covid trials.

Unless trials include a representative, large enough, sample of populations where they’ll be used for a long enough duration for results to be meaningful, results are meaningless.

Trials must also show whether meds in question protect against moderate and severe cases of disease.

Otherwise, results are incomplete for not addressing what’s most important to know.

Covid trials were “some of the most important (ones) in history, affecting a vast majority of the planet’s population,” said Doshi and Topol, adding:

“It’s hard to imagine how much higher the stakes (could) be to get this right. Cutting corners should not” have been allowed.

Yet that’s precisely what happened to fast-track covid vaccines to market.

What the FDA and Britain’s National Health Service permitted for mass-vaxxing against covid is playing fast and loose with the health and well-being of countless numbers of individuals being vaccinated.

Forewarned is forearmed.

A Final Comment 

The vast majority of individuals diagnosed with covid may, in fact, be ill from seasonal flu/influenza.

It’s because up to 90% of PRC tests  produce false positive results.

The vast majority of individuals ill from covid or seasonal flu/influenza have mild symptoms, not more serious ones that may require hospitalization.

Yet a mind-manipulation campaign has been underway for months — notably by government sources and and establishment media — to convince people to be vaxxed with what they don’t need and may be extremely harmful.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image source

New research released today by Global Justice Now examines the history of some of the leading corporations producing coronavirus medicines, warning that their business model is likely to make controlling the pandemic more difficult, despite the rapid production of vaccines.

The report, The horrible history of Big Pharma: Why we can’t leave pharmaceutical corporations in the driving seat of the Covid-19 response, finds that 6 of the biggest corporations in the coronavirus market generated $266 billion last year, with profits totalling $46 billion. Judged by revenue, Johnson & Johnson is more wealthy than rich countries like New Zealand and Hungary. Pfizer’s revenues are bigger than oil-rich Kuwait or Malaysia.

Yet these same corporations have taken billions of dollars from governments like the UK in research and manufacturing funding, as well as presales of medicines.

While this vast mobilisation of public money has been effective in producing vaccines in record time, the Big Pharma model means that these vaccines and treatments have essentially been “privatised”. That matters, campaigners claim, because it means rich countries being prioritised in terms of distribution, and it leaves governments with no leverage over the pricing of these drugs, making it harder to control coronavirus.

The report examines the history of some of the corporations producing these medicines:

• Pfizer and its UK distributor hiked the price of on anti-epilepsy drug which 48,000 NHS patients relied upon. As a result, NHS annual expenditure on their capsules rose from about £2 million to £50 million in a year. UK wholesalers and pharmacies faced price hikes of 2,300% – 2,600%.
• GlaxoSmithKlein was handed a $3 billion fine after it admitted to giving kickbacks to doctors in the US and encouraging the prescription of unsuitable antidepressants to children. Doctors and their spouses were flown to five-star resorts, given $750, and access to snorkelling, golf and deep-sea fishing.
• Gilead introduced a Hepatitis C drug to the US market at $84,000 per course. A US Senate investigation concluded: “it was always Gilead’s plan to max out revenue, and that accessibility and affordability were pretty much an afterthought.” Gilead corporate profits increased fivefold to $21.7 billion after the release of this and another very highly priced Hep-C drug.
• Pfizer and GSK produce a vitally important pneumonia vaccine, which health NGO MSF claim has earned the companies over $50 billion while 55 million children are unable to access to the pneumonia vaccine, largely due to high prices.

Campaigners claim these examples are inherent in a model driven by the need for very high returns, and that these trends are already at play during the pandemic:

• Pfizer has made no promise to limit profits, and has pre-sold over 1 billion doses to rich governments, representing just 14% of the world’s population.
• Moderna’s corporate executive have made tens of millions of dollars this year in automated share sales which former US regulators have called “highly problematic” and worthy of investigation. Moderna’s vaccine has been made with public money, yet the company is expected to charge between $64 and $74 per person for immunisation.
• Gilead made an extraordinary application for ‘orphan status’ on its drug remdesivir, which would have given it special protection owing to the fact the drug would be useful to a tiny number of patients – the very opposite of a pandemic. A public outcry led to withdrawal of the request.
• The vaccine being developed by Oxford University was to be produced on a nonexclusive, royalty-free basis. However, on entering a deal with AstraZeneca, the situation changed. The deal is now exclusive and while the company maintains it will not profit during the pandemic, it has failed to release details of its contract and how it calculates research costs.

Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, said:

“What’s been achieved during this pandemic by dedicated scientists and researchers is incredible. It’s amazing that they’ve discovered these potential vaccines in just under a year. That’s thanks to unprecedented amounts of government money poured into research. But given the public has paid for most of this research, any vaccines that come out should be owned by the public – true people’s vaccines. That would mean we could get vaccines out to those who need them in a fair way, prioritising the most vulnerable wherever they live.

“It’s beyond disgusting that a group of wealthy corporate executives and hedge funds are using this opportunity to further enrich themselves. Sadly, coronavirus has shown, once again, that the way we research and develop new medicines is not fit for purpose. We have a bunch of companies more interested in raking in massive profits than they are in providing for the needs of people around the UK and around the world. We must change that.”

The report can be downloaded here.

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The contradictory claims from Secretary of State Pompeo and President Trump blaming Russia and China respectively for carrying out what’s been described by many as one of the most intrusive cyber espionage operations against America in history are confusing for most observers but can be better understood if they accept that Pompeo might have some ulterior political motives for pushing his version of events.

As the second decade of the 21st century comes to an end, democracy and free speech no longer exist in the Western World.  In all its respects, Western civilization no longer exists.

In the United States, which poses as the model for democracy, a presidential election has just been stolen in full view of everyone.  There is expert testimony by qualified experts about how the voting machines and software were used to bias the vote count for Biden.  There are hundreds of signed affidvits of eyewitnesses who saw the fraudulent use of mail-in ballots to boost Biden’s vote count.  We know for facts that dead people were voted, illegal aliens were voted, out of state residents were voted, and some precincts had more votes cast than there are registered voters and even residents in the precincts.

Despite the abundance of evidence, except for members of state legislatures in some of the swing states, no one is acquainted with the evidence.  The presstitutes speak with one voice and deny that any evidence exists.  So do the Democrat election officials in the Democrat-controlled counties in the swing states where the presidential election was stolen.  The courts have refused to even look at the evidence.  The presstitutes misrepresent the courts’ refusals to examine the evidence as the judiciary’s ruling against the validity of the evidence despite the fact that no court has looked at the evidence.

The level of hostility of Biden supporters toward those who protest the electoral fraud is extraordinary.  Biden supporters threaten Trump supporters with loss of employment and with arrest and prosecution.  Tucker Carlson on Fox News reviews the extraordinary situation here:

Radicalized African Americans, unaware that they are being used by the Establishment, see the stolen election as their chance to rule and to displace white people.  That the winner is the Establishment is beyond their grasp.

It is obvious that if the evidence of election theft were bogus, the media would seize the opportunity to discredit President Trump and his supporters’ claims of electoral fraud by investigating the evidence for that purpose.

The Supreme Court knows that that the evidence is real. Being an Establishment institution, the Court does not want to damage America’s reputation by ruling that the election was stolen. Moreover, the Supreme Court Justices know that the American Establishment and its presstitutes would not accept a decision that the election was stolen.  The Supreme Court understands that the Establishment intends to rid government of a non-establishment president who is hostile to the Establishment’s agendas, which include globalism, destruction of the American middle class, war, more profit and power for the ruling class, and fewer civil liberties for the governed class.

The American Establishment includes the Republican Party.  In order to protect its agendas—war and US hegemony, the concentration of income and wealth, the elimination of the middle class which gave stability to the country and limited the ability of the Establishment to exercise complete control, and the overthrow of the First Amendment and our other civil liberties which limited the Establishment’s ability to control all explanations—the Establishment is willing to pay the price of the destruction of public confidence in American institutions.  The Establishment assumes that it can use the ensuing conflict to its advantage. The country will be further split apart and less able to unite against the Establishment’s self-serving agendas.

Conservatives blame the presstitutes for the Russiagate hoax that for three years kept Trump from his agenda and the subsequent attempt to impeach Trump over false charges that he bribed the Ukrainian president.  In actual fact, these efforts to destroy an elected president of the United States were orchestrated by the CIA and FBI.  It was CIA director John Brennan who alleged Trump was a traitor in league with the Russians, and it was FBI director James Comey who contrived false indictments and false prosecutions of General Flynn, Michael Cohn, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone hoping to extract in exchange for leniency false testimony against Trump. It is difficult for patriotic conservatives to get their mind around the fact that the CIA and FBI, which they think protect Americans against Russian and Chinese communists and Muslim terrorists, are in fact internal enemies of the people of the United States.

Except for a few Internet websites unknown to the majority of the people in the Western world, the only information people in the West receive is controlled explanations that serve the agendas of the Establishment.  Consider Covid, for example.  All experts who are critical of lockdowns, mask mandates, the suppression of effective treatments and the focus on vaccines, and who are skeptical of the seriousness of the pandemic are censored by the print and TV media and by Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.  As far as I can tell, there are more real experts—and by experts I do not mean doctors and nurses brainwashed in their training by Big Pharma—who are skeptical of the agenda of public health authorities than experts who support lockdowns and vaccines.

The presstitutes serving Fauci portray the dissenting experts’ views as “conspiracy theory.”  But clearly Dr. Kamran Abbasi, executive editor of the British Medical Journal and editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, is not a conspiracy theorist.  As I recently reported, he has this to say:

“Science is being suppressed for political and financial gain. Covid-19 has unleashed state corruption on a grand scale, and it is harmful to public health. Politicians and industry are responsible for this opportunistic embezzlement. So too are scientists and health experts. The pandemic has revealed how the medical-political complex can be manipulated in an emergency—a time when it is even more important to safeguard science.

“The UK’s pandemic response relies too heavily on scientists and other government appointees with worrying competing interests, including shareholdings in companies that manufacture covid-19 diagnostic tests, treatments, and vaccines. Government appointees are able to ignore or cherry pick science—another form of misuse—and indulge in anti-competitive practices that favour their own products and those of friends and associates.”  See this

Yet in place of such expert informed opinion, Western peoples only hear the ignorant propaganda from the bought-and-paid for whores on CNN, NPR, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post, and the rest of the paid liars.

There can be no democracy, no accountability, when people only have controlled explanations that serve the ruling agendas.

The disrespect for free inquiry, the only known basis for the discovery of truth, is so powerful today throughout the Western world that even in the West’s most famous universities—Oxford and Cambridge—censorship is entrenched.  Any student, especially a privileged “person of color” can brand any scientific fact, any historical fact, any expressed view or opinion to be “offensive.”

Those found to be the most offensive are white people whose statues and memorials are being taken down at both Oxford and Cambridge.  The founder of the famous Oxford University Rhodes Scholarships himself has been erased.  Cambridge University’s white academics and administrators have accepted a person of color as their political commissar to control their lectures, choice of words, and reading lists in order to ensure that no truth can emerge that might be declared by some ignorant student “offensive.”  Of course, white students cannot complain that it is offensive to denigrate the white creators of British accomplishments as racists. The use of political commissars to control what can be spoken was the way Stalin controlled Russia. This Stalinist practice has now been institutionalized throughout the Western world in schools, universities, media, corporations, and government.

Oxford University, in an act of contrition, has proudly announced that admission to Oxford will no longer be based on the outmoded and racist concept of merit.  Oxford University declared that the university is reserving 25 percent of its annual admissions to those unqualified to be at Oxford.

How are those unqualified to be at Oxford to succeed in graduating?  According to Oxford, before they begin on their degree studies they will be given up to two years in remedial preparation so that they become qualified to attempt receiving a degree. In other words, they will be coached through the process. Such an act of contrition cannot possibly be permitted to fail.

In other words, Oxford has abandoned merit and is discriminating against those students who displayed merit (and their parents who fostered merit) in favor of those who did not. Twenty-five percent of those qualified to be at Oxford will not be permitted to be there in order that those not qualified to be there can be. This is what “affirmative action” amounts to.

Cambridge has abandoned academic freedom and subjected the knowledge of its distinguished faculty to censorship in subservience to the idea that truth can hurt feelings and be offensive.  A university that values feelings more than truth is not a place where learning can take place.

In the event you think I am exaggerating the direness of the situation, here is an emeritus professor at the University of Kent in Canterbury explaining the factual situation.  The situation is so bad that even the professor himself is trapped in his opponents’ use of language. He refers to the truths under attack as the “dissident views.”

In the Western World the policing and censorship of thought and expression has now been institutionalized.  As the native-born white inhabitants of these countries have no right or privilege to censor the attacks on them, they are set-up for second class citizenship leading eventually to extermination.  Their civilization will proceed them in extermination.  Indeed, it is already gone. White people are people without a culture and without a country.

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog site, PCR Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The last few days in Syria was marked by a serious military escalation in the north of the country.

Members of pro-Turkish militant groups, supported by Turkish combat drones and artillery, launched an attack on the town of Ain Issa, controlled by the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The SDF is a Kurdish-dominated armed group that receives financial, weapon and training support from the United States. Turkey considers the SDF to be a terrorist group due to its links with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Tensions between the SDF and Turkish-led forces in northeastern Syria are a source of the permanent instability.

The attack on Ain Issa started on December 18 and lasted until the evening of December 20, but resulted in a total failure. The only tactical success achieved by pro-Turkish forces took place in the Ain Issa countryside, where they briefly entered the villages of Mushayrifah and Jableh located in a de-facto no man’s land. Nonetheless, even these villages remained a contested area.

As of December 21, the situation in the countryside of Ain Issa remains relatively stable and no side conducts active offensive operations. So far, the only impact of the Turkish actions is the increased presence of the Syrian Army and the Russian Military Police in the area. Abandoned by its main backer in the face of another Turkish attack, the SDF is forced to continue a slow rapprochement with the Damascus government and its Russian allies.

Meanwhile, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, ISIS cells launched several rockets at the US military facilities in the Omar oil fields. The rockets allegedly targeted US positions on the evening of December 17, when a US supply convoy was entering the area. The attack triggered a series of security operations by coalition forces along the bank of the Euphrates. Nonetheless, no details regarding their results are available.

ISIS cells are also active on the western bank of the river. According to reports, over 100 ISIS terrorists and Syrian soldiers died in clashes in the Homs-Deir Ezzor desert during the past month. Even if the numbers provided by pro-opposition sources are exaggerated, the high intensity of clashes with terrorists is being reported by the Syrian Army and its allies themselves.

Therefore, additionally to the permanent tensions in Greater Idlib, where al-Qaeda-linked terrorists still enjoy the protection of the Turkish military, the terrorist threat has once again became a visible issue in eastern Syria.

Congress just voted billions of dollars of U.S. tax money to Israel, No mainstream US media appear to have told Americans that both houses of Congress just voted massive aid to Israel, a tiny country with a long record of human rights abuses, violations of law, systemic racism, and damage to Americans.

This works out to over $7,000 per minute. The legislation passed both houses in such large numbers that Congress can likely override any potential presidential veto. This, despite the fact that George Washington warned that a ‘passionate attachment’ to a foreign country produces ‘a variety of evils…’

Press release from AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee)

“AIPAC commends the U.S. Congress for including significant pro-Israel provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2021. These critical provisions will help Israel protect itself against continuing security threats.

[IPN Editor’s note: Israel has one of the most powerful militaries in the world and is the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons, which US officials are banned from mentioning.]

“Importantly, the measure includes the United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2020 (S. 3176). This legislation authorizes $3.3 billion in annual U.S. security assistance to Israel through FY 2028, as called for in the 2016 U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding on security assistance. The legislation also includes key initiatives to galvanize U.S.-Israel cooperation in a variety of military and civilian spheres (major provisions detailed below).

“Beyond the elements of the U.S.-IsraelSecurity Assistance Authorization Act, the bipartisan defense measure authorizes $500 million in FY 2021 for U.S.-Israel missile defense cooperation with explicit sums for both R&D and procurement for the Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow missile defense systems.

“The bill also authorizes the Secretary of Defense to establish a U.S.-Israel Operations-Technology Working Group within the Defense Acquisition Advisory Group to focus on early R&D in key battlefield technology.

“The bill also encourages further U.S.-Israel cooperation in diagnosing and treating victims of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

“In adopting these pro-Israel provisions, AIPAC appreciates the leadership of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-RI), Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Chris Coons (D-DE), James Risch (R-ID), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Gary Peters (D-MI), and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) and Ranking Member Mac Thornberry (R-TX), and Reps. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Michael McCaul (R-TX), Ted Deutch (D-FL), Joe Wilson (R-SC), Michael Waltz (R-FL), Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Elaine Luria (D-VA), Lee Zeldin (R-NY) and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA).

“Major provisions of the U.S.-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act include:

• Authorizing $3.3 billion in annual U.S. security assistance to Israel through FY 2028, as called for in the 2016 U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding on security assistance.
• Extending authorization for the U.S. War Reserve Stockpile in Israel through FY 2025 and authorizing an additional $200 million annually in stocks.
• Lifting current limitations on the transfer of precision-guided munitions (PGMs) to Israel in an emergency and authorizing the President to exceed the current limitation of $200 million on the transfer of PGMs in a non-emergency setting under certain conditions.
• Authorizing the Secretary of Defense, following study, to establish a directed energy program with Israel.
• Authorizing a total of $14 million for U.S.-Israel cooperation in energy, water, agriculture, cyber and alternative fuel technologies.
• Authorizing $6 million over the next three years to finance cooperative projects among the United States, Israel and developing countries.
• Authorizing $12 million over the next three years for an initiative to enhance partnerships between U.S. and Israeli companies to develop innovative medical projects primarily aimed at detecting, treating and curing COVID.”

Read complete article here

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Featured image is from HAIM ZACH/GPO

Professor Leo Panitch was an equal-parts brilliant and generous public thinker who worked toward the betterment of humanity, his friends and colleagues say.

“If you watched Leo, you were immediately struck by his confidence,” said lifelong friend Sam Gindin. “. . . He was committed to (living) life as if it was possible for humans to build a better life.”

Panitch died Saturday of COVID-19 and pneumonia shortly following a cancer diagnosis. He was 75.

Panitch was born in 1945 to a working class family in Winnipeg. His father, a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine, worked as a garment cutter. The setting of his youth might have paved the way to his future philosophy, said friend Rick Salutin, an occasional Star columnist.

“He became a consummate academic and intellectual, but he wanted to put that at the service of the socialist movement and especially in the Marxist tradition,” Salutin said.

What struck Salutin over their years of friendship was Panitch’s “immense generosity.”

“He was always calling people, writing them and saying ‘That’s a wonderful thing you did,’ ” he said. “And that isn’t necessarily so with people who are somewhat famous, especially in academics, which can be a pretty cutthroat business.”

Panitch would go on to earn a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from the University of Manitoba.