Global Research

It’s an open secret. The deep state is working hand in hand with Silicon Valley social media giants like Twitter, Facebook and Google to control the flow of information. That includes suppressing, censoring and sometimes outright purging dissenting voices – all under the guise of fighting fake news and Russian propaganda. 

Most recently, it was revealed that Twitter’s senior editorial executive for Europe, the Middle East and Africa is an active officer in the British Army’s 77th Brigade, a unit dedicated to online warfare and psychological operations.

In other words: he specializes in disseminating propaganda.

The news left many wondering how a member of the British Armed Forces secured such an influential job in the media.

The bombshell that one of the world’s most influential social networks is controlled in part by an active psychological warfare officer was not covered at all in the New York Times, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC or Fox News, who appear to have found the news unremarkable.

But for those paying attention and for those who have been following ’MintPress News’ extensive coverage of social media censorship, this revelation was merely another example of the increasing closeness between the deep state and the fourth estate.

Amazon owner, and one of the world’s most richest, Jeff Bezos was paid $600 million by the CIA to develop software and media for the agency, that’s more than twice as much as Bezos bought the Washington Post for, and a move media critics warn spells the end of journalistic independence for the Post.

Meanwhile, Google has a very close relationship with the State Department, its former CEO Eric Schmidt’s book on technological imperialism was heartily endorsed by deep state warmongers like Henry Kissinger, Hillary Clinton and Tony Blair. 

In their book titled, The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business,Eric Schmidt and fellow Google executive Jared Cohen wrote:

What Lockheed Martin was to the twentieth century…technology and cyber-security companies [like Google] will be to the twenty-first.”

Another social media giant partnering with the military-industrial complex is Facebook. The California-based company announced last year it was working closely with the neoconservative think tank, The Atlantic Council, which is largely funded by Saudi Arabia, Israel and weapons manufacturers to supposedly fight foreign “fake news.”

The Atlantic Council is a NATO offshoot and its board of directors reads like a rogue’s gallery of warmongers, including the notorious Henry Kissinger, Bush-era hawks like Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, James Baker, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security and author of the PATRIOT Act, Michael Chertoff, a number of former Army Generals including David Petraeus and Wesley Clark and former heads of the CIA Michael Hayden, Leon Panetta and Michael Morell.

39 percent of Americans, and similar numbers of people in other countries, get their news from Facebook, so when an organization like the Atlantic Council is controlling what the world sees in their Facebook news feeds, it can only be described as state censorship on a global level.

After working with the council, Facebook immediately began banning and removing accounts linked to media in official enemy states like Iran, Russia and Venezuela, ensuring the world would not be exposed to competing ideas and purging dissident voices under the guise of fighting “fake news” and “Russian bots.”

Meanwhile, the social media platform has been partnering with the U.S. and Israeli governments to silence Palestinian voices that show the reality of life under Israeli apartheid and occupation. The Israeli Justice Minister proudly revealed that Facebook complied with 95 percent of Israeli government requests to delete Palestinian pages. At the same time, Google deleted dozens of YouTube and blog accounts supposedly connected to the government of Iran.

In the last week alone, Twitter has purged several Palestinian news pages, including Quds News Network — without warning or explanation.

Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah wrote, 

This alarming act of censorship is another indication of the complicity of major social media firms in Israel’s efforts to suppress news and information about its abuses of Palestinian rights.”

Alternative voices not welcome

The vast online purge of alternative voices has also been directed at internal “enemies.”

Publishers like Julian Assange and whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning are still being held in solitary confinement in conditions that international bodies and human rights groups call torture, for their crime of revealing the extent of the global surveillance network and the control over the media that Western governments have built.

As attempts to re-tighten the state and corporate grip over our means of communication increases, high-quality alternative media are being hit the hardest, as algorithm changes from the media monoliths have deranked, demoted, deleted and disincentivized outlets that question official narratives, leading to huge falls in traffic and revenue.

The message from social media giants is clear: independent and alternative voices are not welcome.

One causality in this propaganda war is Daniel McAdams, Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, a public advocacy group that argues that a non-interventionist foreign policy is crucial to securing a prosperous society at home. McAdams served as Senator Paul’s foreign affairs advisor between 2001 and 2012. Before that, he was a journalist and editor for the Budapest Sun and a human rights monitor across Eastern Europe.

McAdams, who spent much of his time on Twitter calling out the war machine supported by both parties, was recently permanently banned from the platform for so-called “hateful conduct.” His crime? Challenging Fox News anchor Sean Hannity over his hour-long segment claiming to be against the “deep state,” while simultaneously wearing a CIA lapel pin. In the exchange, McAdams called Hannity “retarded,” claiming he was becoming stupider every time he watched him.

Yes, despite that word and its derivatives having been used on Twitter over ten times in the previous minute, and often much more aggressively than McAdams used it – only McAdams fell victim to Twitter’s ban hammer. Something didn’t make sense about this ban. One only needs to read the replies under any of President Trump’s tweets to see far more hateful speech than what McAdams displayed to suspect foul play.

I spoke with McAdams about the ban and began by asking him if he accepts the premise of the ban, or if he believes something else was afoot.

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Mnar Muhawesh is founder, CEO and editor in chief of MintPress News, and is also a regular speaker on responsible journalism, sexism, neoconservativism within the media and journalism start-ups.

Featured image is from Spirit Boom Cat | Shutterstock

In a largely unreported but hugely important story that played out this week in the Balkans, Washington is putting immense pressure on Serbia to shelve future plans for acquiring Russia’s advanced S-400 air defense missile systems.

The controversy began Wednesday when Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told a public television broadcaster in an interview that he had a desire to purchase the S-400 but lacked the funding to do so, and at one point said “Serbia was ready to accept S-400s from Russia as a gift,” according to TASS.

“You know, when you have such a weapon, no one would attack you. Neither US nor any other pilots fly where S-400s are operational: Israeli pilots do not fly either over Turkey or Syria, except for the Golan Heights. We have aviation, which the strongest than ever before. We will be strengthening the air defense with Pantsyr systems and other things, which are not on the sanctions list,” Vucic said in the interview.

This after Serbia is still reeling from what Belgrade and much of the public considers the ‘illegal’ US-NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, and later formal recognition of breakaway Kosovo as a republic under the Bush administration.

The president explained that he had attended the Slavic Shield-2019 Russian-Serbian drills in order to personally inspect the Russian systems and view their capabilities, which included Pantsyr-S anti-aircraft missiles.

Prior to the interview at least one notable Serbian newspaper reported that Belgrade was mulling purchase of the S-400 anti-air systems on long-term credit, with rumors that Serbian officers had even already begun limited training on the systems.

But as Russia’s TASS reported, all of this was enough to trigger US diplomatic threats and intervention:

The US was quick to respond to Vucic’s statement. US Special Representative for the Western Balkans Matthew Palmer warned in an interview with the Macedonian television during his visit to Skopje that the purchase of S-400 systems from Russia would entail US sanctions against Belgrade.

The sanctions threat worked, according to some Russian sources; however, the spat appears to be ongoing, given Reuters reported Friday that a US diplomat was promptly dispatched to meet with Serbian authorities over the issue.

Per the Reuters report:

U.S. concerns grew last month when Russia sent its S-400 missile defense system and Pantsir launchers to Serbia for a military drill. The move underlined Moscow’s wish to keep a traditional Slavic ally on side as Belgrade pursues links with NATO and tries to join the European Union.

Matthew Palmer, a U.S. envoy for the Balkans, said last week that Serbia could risk sanctions over its arms deals with Russia. Under the sanctions, Serbia could face punishments ranging from visa bans to denial of export licenses.

However, late in the week President Aleksandar Vucic had publicly addressed the country, telling Serbs “not to fear broad sanctions would be imposed on Serbia similar to those of the 1990s during the Balkan wars,” according to Reuters.

Serbia officially has a stance of “military neutrality” with regards to NATO, but joined its Partnership for Peace program in 2015, and remains a traditional close Slavic Balkan ally of Moscow.

Washington has of late actively sought to prevent the proliferation of Russian S-400s and its next generation S-500, especially after Turkey began receiving deliveries in the past months, which has brought US-Turkey relations near breaking point.

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Featured image: Vladimir Putin and Aleksandar Vučić, via EWB

After weeks of increasing right-wing protests, the Bolivian military demanded on Sunday that President Evo Morales resign. The protests had reached a fever pitch, with the police joining the side of the right-wing in the streets demanding the president’s ouster.

After the police, the military and the Organization of American States (OAS) united against Morales, he resigned. Shortly thereafter, his house was ransacked, and Morales went into hiding. President Trump along with other right-wing leaders tweeted his support for the ouster. The elites of the eastern city of Santa Cruz (the richest sector of the country, linked to agribusiness), among the right-wing opposition and Catholic Church, celebrated Morales’ resignation.

Protesters burned indigenous flags. Policemen cut the indigenous symbol off their uniform holding Bibles and claiming to defend “democracy.” The coup leaders Fernando Camacho and Carlos Mesa started a furious political persecution against the MAS party and the workers and indigenous people who rejected the coup. They burned their homes, detained people and brutally repressed the anti-coup demonstrations.

We should make no mistake: This is a coup organized by the Bolivian capitalists, agribusiness, the church and the armed forces. It is supported by U.S. imperialist interests organized in the OAS, and it has a deeply racist, homophobic, anti-worker and anti-indigenous perspective. Trump is using it to threaten Cuba and Venezuela;after the failed coup of Venezuela’s Juan Guaidó, U.S. imperialism is trying to support a puppet government to support its interests.

Morales has since fled the country, having been offered exile in Mexico. On Tuesday night, despite not having quorum in Congress, right-wing leader Jeanine Áñez proclaimed herself president of Bolivia. She walked to Congress holding an oversized Bible over her head, declaring, “The Bible will come back to the presidential palace.”

In the midst of this crisis, there is strong resistance on the ground in the city of El Alto, on the outskirts of La Paz. This area, which has a strong working-class mainly of Aymara origin, is organized in neighborhood councils that played a key role in ousting the noeoliberal government of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in 2003, and also confronting the failed coup against Morales in 2008. Now El Alto is on the front line again.

The Resistance

The day after the coup, Bolivians spontaneously came to the streets chanting “Now it’s time for civil war” and “Camacho, Mesa, we want your heads”—referring to the ultra-right-wing leaders of the coup. They set fire to a police station and burned the police in effigy in the streets, causing the police to retreat. They blocked highways and roads, closing schools and businesses. They rejected the racism and misogyny showed by the coupists against the wiphala (an indigenous flag) and “the women who wear the pollera,” in reference to the Andean traditional skirt worn by cholas (Aymara women). They suffer not only coup violence but also the structural racism of the Bolivian bourgeoisie.

They built assemblies to discuss next steps and self-defense. Indeed, the assembly concluded that it was necessary to “form self-defense committees, blockades, permanent and forceful mobilization.” As one protester said, “The police will no longer be in El Alto. We will take care of security within the community.” The Federación de Juntas Vecinales (Fejuve), the neighborhood organization that leads the protests, issued a statement calling for daily mobilizations. They demanded that the leaders of the coup abandon their posts within 48 hours and called on the military and government to obey the law. If they don’t, the Fejuve said, they will form “a Trade Union-Civilian Police Force” to resist the coup leaders’ violence and persecution.

These indigenous workers face harsh repression: tear gas and rubber bullets. There are images of children being carried to safety after protests, badly injured by the police and of indigenous people on the ground being kicked by the cops.

Faced with this resistance, the chief of the armed forces called for joint operations with the police in the places where the demonstrations are taking place. That is to say, a hardening of the repressive operations in the region of El Alto. But they still could not suffocate the resistance, and on Wednesday, the population of El Alto marched to La Paz (the seat of government) and held a massive cabildo (popular assembly) to reject the self-proclaimed president and continue the struggle until the coup falls.

A Rebellion in El Alto Is No Small Thing

El Alto is the largest city in Bolivia, with almost a million residents. It is a primarily indigenous city full of displaced peasants who come to work in the city. They have been the epicenter of radical resistance in the past, such as in 2003, when the neighborhood played a central role in overthrowing Sánchez de Lozada. Indeed, El Alto occupies a strategic position in Bolivia—all the major highways go through it, which means they can be blocked. The airport is also located there, as well as several gasoline plants.

In addition to playing a role in the overthrow of Lozada, El Alto has been central in other struggles, such as the struggle against privatization and multinational companies. Because of this combative history, a rebellion in El Alto is no small thing.

These neighborhoods tend to be sympathetic to Evo Morales—in fact it is because of their huge struggle in 2003 that Bolivia elected Morales as its first indigenous president. Morales integrated many of the leaders of the movement in El Alto into the government, and the movements have become increasingly co-opted—making excuses for and keeping people from struggling against Morales’ austerity policies and repression of the working class.

Despite this, there exists a small workers’ vanguard with independent unions and a sector of indigenous people among whom Morales lost support for his environmental policies. But, this loss of support doesn’t mean siding with the right. In El Alto, people have also protested Morales’ austerity policies, most notably in 2010 when he increased the price of gas. Some even participated in the initial mobilizations against the election results starting on October 20.

And the indigenous activists are clear on what they are fighting. As an indigenous woman in El Alto said, “The right wing that is in Santa Cruz is taking our territory and our riches. That’s why they want to humiliate us and step on us, as if they were the only citizens…. We say no more to being stepped on and humiliated by the transnational companies who have always stepped on us and humiliated us.”

Another woman says, “They have always killed us in the name of the Bible. The Spanish who showed up with their Bible and their sword. Now they want to kill us again, and we won’t allow it.”

Where Is Morales?

In the meantime, the right-wing is grabbing power. While they put on the facade of defending democracy until Morales was ousted, they have now shed that facade. Áñez, an ultra-religious right-wing leader of Congress, proclaimed herself interim president in a half-empty Congress. The Constitution says that votes can take place only with quorum. Áñez and the coup-plotters discarded that pesky detail and declared her president.

And just as the indigenous people in El Alto have begun a combative struggle against the coup, Morales left the country. As Bolivian socialists write in La Izquierda Diario, “The decision of Evo Morales to travel at this moment implies, objectively, to weaken that resistance to the coup.”

And it has been weakened further by Morales’ own rhetoric. Rather than encouraging the resistance, he tweeted, “I ask my people with great care to respect the peace and not fall into the violence of groups that seek to destroy the rule of law. We cannot fight among Bolivian brothers. I make an urgent call to resolve all differences with dialogue and discussion.”

This is a continuation of the Morales’ politics during the entire process of the right-wing coup: He sought dialogue with those who wanted to overthrow him. He urged patience and faith in the imperialist Organization of American States. And finally, he did not seek and encourage the mobilization of his indigenous base, or of the labor unions that are run by his own political party. The right-wing has done the exact opposite, going on the offensive in the streets, demanding the president’s overthrow—which they eventually won this week.

Morales came to power in 2006, expressing the enormous social rejection of the neoliberal policies implemented in Bolivia. Once in power, however, he co-opted and nationalized the mass organizations. This weakened their capacity for resistance and disarmed them in the face of possible attacks from the right. The right-wing maintained its economic, political and social power, in accordance with the agreements reached with the Morales government in 2008.

As Violeta Tamayo, a revolutionary socialist in Bolivia writes, “Far from socialism, Evo Morales encouraged capitalist profits and strengthened the right and the businesses who for years have been great friends of Evo. He attacked and violated the self-determination of the indigenous people, as well as attacking the student movement. I have been arrested three times under the MAS government for mobilizing.” Thus, the Morales government was not able to fight back against the rise of the extreme right which will create worse conditions for indigenous people, students and the working class.

Where Is This Going?

The emboldened far-right is trying to consolidate the coup by repression of El Alto with the support of imperialist powers. Far from upholding democracy, as they claim, they are attacking Morales’supporters and left activists, indigenous and working-class people. We have already seen right-wing attacks—including dragging a MAS party mayor through the streets, dousing her with red paint and cutting her hair. Now the anti-coup demonstrators say that the armed forces have killed and wounded protesters, and detained several of them.

The right-wing is trying to bring back the most retrograde, patriarchal and homophobic church to the center of Bolivian politics: The Catholic Church of the colonizers who committed genocide against indigenous people and continue to hate them.

They want a country run by agro-business interests, seeking to further plunder Bolivian lands and hyper-exploit the environment for their profit to the detriment of the native population of these lands. They want a government at the beck and call of the United States and their interests—opening the country to multinational corporations from the United States to plunder its labor and its resources. In fact, the imperialist governments of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, as well as Jair Bolsonaro, have recognized Áñez as president of Bolivia.

This is what makes the protests in El Alto so important: It points toward a way to defeat the right wing, as the people of El Alto already did in 2003. Worker, indigenous and peasant self-organization and self-defense can defeat the right-wing coup and open the door to discuss an independent way out for the working class and popular sectors of Bolivia. We have to surround the resistance of the heroic people of Bolivia with the broadest international solidarity—down with the coup! For the triumph of the working class and the indigenous people against the far right!

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Tatiana Cozzarelli is a former middle school teacher and current Urban Education PhD student at CUNY.

Featured image is from Natacha Pisarenko, AP

Long seen as a strategic partner, Russia has opened a new chapter and started building better relations with Africa, and most significantly made its move by writing off Africa’s debts accumulated from the Soviet era. After the Soviet collapse, Russia first attempted at collecting its debts. Indeed, these Soviet-leaning debt-trapped African countries were unable to pay them (these debts) back to Russia.

During the Soviet era, Moscow forged alliances with African countries, especially those that supported its communist idealogy, and supplied them with military equipment and offered technical assistance on bilateral basis. In particular, supplied arms  went to Angola, Algeria, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Namibia, Mozambique, Morocco and South Africa. That Soviet-era form of diplomatic engagement left many African countries indebted to an amount of US$20 billion, according to official documents.

In an interview with TASS, Russian State News Agency, ahead of the first Russia-Africa Summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin explained Soviet’s role in the liberation of the continent, support for the struggle of its peoples against colonialism, racism and apartheid. In addition, the enormous help offered Africans to protect their independence and sovereignty, gain statehood, support for national economies, and created capable armed forces for Africa.

“Our African agenda is positive and future-oriented. We do not ally with someone against someone else; and we strongly oppose any geo-political ‘games’ involving Africa,” he said during the interview before referring the debts write-off to Africa. “Let me point out that in the post-Soviet period, at the end of the 20^th century, Russia cancelled US$20 billion of African countries’ debts to the Soviet Union. This was both an act of generosity and a pragmatic step, because many of the African states were unable to service those debts. We, therefore, decided that it would be best for everyone to start our cooperation from scratch,” said President Putin during that interview.

On October 23, 2019, President Vladimir Putin and President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, African Union Chairman and Co-Chairman of the Russia-Africa Summit Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took part in the Russia-Africa Economic Forum. During the plenary session held under the theme “Russia and Africa: Uncovering the Potential for Cooperation” and attended by top officials, politicians and business leaders, and almost 2,000 Russian and foreign companies, the debts write-off as as basis for economic growth and for developing long-tern relations featured prominently. (See this)

“Economic issues are an integral part and a priority of Russia’s relations with African countries. Developing close business ties serves our common interest, contributes to the sustainable growth, helps to improve quality of life and solve numerous social problems,” President Putin said, and then added, “Russia provides systematic assistance to developing the African continent. Our country is participating in an initiative to ease the African countries’ debt burden. To date, the total amount of write-offs stands at over US$20 billion. Joint programmes have been launched with a number of countries involving the use of debts to finance national economic growth projects.”

On September 5, 2017, President Vladimir Putin attended a meeting of BRICS leaders with delegation heads from invited states, including the Heads of State and Government of Egypt, Tajikistan, Mexico, Guinea and Thailand. The meeting discussed the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and prospects for further developing their partner relations. Before the meeting, the BRICS leaders and delegation heads form invited states had a joint photo session, President Putin informed that “Russia has been working actively to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We have written off over US$20 billion of African countries’ debts through the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative.” (See this)

On January 30, 2015, President Putin sent his greetings to the 24^th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union Heads of State and Government. The message stated in part: The Russian Federation’s relations with our African partners are developing positively. We have established a substantial political dialogue and work actively together in international affairs. Russia’s decision to write off much of African countries’ debt and the preferential conditions we offer the majority of Africa’s traditional export goods open up new possibilities for trade, economic and investment cooperation. (See this)

On March 27, 2013, in Durban, South Africa, in a speech at meeting with Heads of African states, President Putin explicitly noted “Over the course of many decades, Russia has provided direct assistance to the African continent. I would like to note that we have written off over 20 billion dollars in debt; we have written off far more than any other G8 nation. We plan to take additional measures to ease the debt burden.”

According to the Russian leader, the BRICS group’s companies are working actively in the African market; there is a growing influx of investments into various sectors in Africa’s economies, from traditional mineral extraction and farming to high technologies and banking. He added BRICS countries are championing the rights and interests of Africa and other nations with emerging economies, speaking out in favour of increasing their role and influence in the global governance system, particularly international financial and economic organizations. (See this)

On June 28, 2002, in Kananaskis, Canada, there was a media conference after the G8 Summit. There was one specific question regarding Africa. The G8 approached the plan submitted by African countries in a creative way. What can be Russia’s role and place in addressing the global problem of combating poverty?

President Vladimir Putin answered:

“As regards Russia, it has traditionally had very good relations with the African continent. We are very perceptive of the problems on the African continent. I must say that Russia has been making a very tangible contribution to solving Africa’s problems. Suffice it to say Russia is making a big contribution to the initiative adopted here, a multi-lateral initiative, including the writing off part of African debts. Of all the African debts that are to be written-off, 20% are debts to the Russian Federation. That is US$26 billion.”

On May 21, 2007, The Kremlin made available Excerpts of the Transcript of the Cabinet Meeting. Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin on the meeting of G8 finance ministers. The issue about supporting and helping African countries. Minister Kudrin told the cabinet meeting;

“We discussed the implementation of a number of initiatives that should improve the management and transparency of public finances in those countries, including by better employing revenues from the extraction of mineral resources in Africa to fight against poverty.”

“We discussed responsible lending and relations with countries that have benefited from debt relief. We are writing off debt, reducing these countries’ debt burden, and meanwhile their opportunity to incur new debts is increasing simultaneously. And a number of countries are starting to make huge loans to these countries, taking advantage of the fact that they are no longer in debt and lending to them at such a rate that these countries will once again require help. These instances exist. In fact, this practice is liable to be perceived in a negative way. A number of leading countries in the world are engaged in this practice,” he said.

At Sochi summit, Putin’s announcement about “debt write-off” was, therefore, nothing new. The Africa’s debts write-off debt has been played for years. It re-occurred in Foreign Minister Lavrov speeches, at least between 2007 and 2015, as indicated here from the official website of the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Remarks by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the UN Summit for the Adoption of the Post-2015 Development Agenda, New York, September 27, 2015 (1814-27-09-2015).

He said:

“Russian development assistance is invariably aimed at solving the most pressing challenges faced by the countries in need. In these efforts, we are neither trying to lecture our partners on how they should build their lives, nor impose political models and values. Poverty eradication is the key objective of Russia’s state policy in the area of international development assistance at the global level.”

Debt relief is an effective tool in this regard. Under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC), our country has written off over 20 bn US dollars of the principal debt owed by African countries alone. Russia also contributes to reducing the debt burden of the poorest countries beyond the HIPC through debt-for-aid swaps. We also take other steps towards the settlement of debt owed to Russia, both within multilateral and bilateral formats, he added.

Speech by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the reception on the occasion of Africa Day, Moscow, 22 May 2014 (1243-22-05-2014). As it is known, Russia has written off over 20 billion US dollar debt of African states. We are undertaking steps to further ease the debt burden of Africans, including through conclusion of agreements based on the scheme “debt in exchange for development”according to the Foreign Minister.

In April, 2014, the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, approved the new State policy concept of the Russian Federation in the area of contribution to international development. Its practical implementation will contribute to the build-up of our participation in the area of assistance to the development of states of the African continent, according to the report posted to the website.

Transcript of Remarks by Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov at Reception on Occasion of Africa Day, Moscow, May 26, 2008 (751-26-05-2008).

“Russia has done a great deal to alleviate the debt burden, particularly in the framework of the Enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, and in writing off multilateral debts to the IMF and the International Development Association. The overall amount of the African countries’ indebtedness cancelled by us, including on a bilateral basis, exceeds 20 billion dollars, of which about one-half in the last two years,” Lavrov told the gathering on Africa Day in 2008.

As far back as May 2007, the Foreign Ministry showed interest in Africa’s debts.

“We are helping our African partners reduce the burden of foreign debt. We have written off African debt within the framework of the initiative to reduce the indebtedness of the poorest nations,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at May 25 gathering of a group of ambassadors, diplomats and ministry officials marking Africa Day.

The move signaled Russia’s intention to fulfill its commitments made at that time Group of Eight (G8) meetings as well as paving the way to increased trade with the African continent. It was then, signed into law March 10 ratifying the agreement between Russia and African countries it aided during the Soviet era. Russia continued discussions on a full debt write-off on bilateral basis, African countries owed nearly US$20 billion. The debt was primarily through weapon deliveries, according to the official transcript.

“The most important aspect of economic cooperation in our foreign policy is to encourage African countries to trade with us and to not only depend on development aid. Always looking for aid makes these countries less productive and funds for projects end up in foreign banks at the expense of the suffering population,” Lavrov said.

In March 2019, President Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting of the Commission for Military-Technical Cooperation with Foreign States and Kremlin’s website transcript pointed to the geographic reach of military-technical cooperation as constantly expanding, with the number of partners already in more than 100 countries worldwide.

Since then, President Putin has repeatedly called for renewed efforts, not only, in preserving, but also, in strengthening Russia’s leading position on the global arms market, primarily in the high-tech sector, amid tough competition. He further called for reliance on the rich experience in this sphere and building up consistently military technology cooperation with foreign states.

“We strictly observe international norms and principles in this area. We supply weapons and military equipment solely in the interests of security, defence and anti-terrorism efforts. In each case, we thoroughly assess the situation and try to predict the developments in the specific region. There are no bilateral contracts ever targeted against third countries, against their security interests,” he explained.

According to the Kremlin website, Russia targeted global export contracts worth 50 billion dollars in 2018. Russia’s export priority is to expand its scope and strengthen its position on the market.

Over the past years, strengthening military-technical cooperation has been a strong part of the foreign policy of the Russian Federation. Russia has signed bilateral military-technical cooperation agreements with many African countries. On the other hand, Moscow’s post-Cold War relations with Africa, undoubtedly, lean toward military support and arms trade. Analysis by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) indicates that between 2014 and 2018, Russia accounted for 49% of arms imports to North Africa and 28% to Sub-Saharan Africa.

Africa has started accumulating debts. For example, Johan Burger’s article details crucial information in relation to Russia’s military interests in Africa. Russia has established or intends to establish military bases in Sudan along the Red Sea Coast, Somaliland, and Egypt. Another publication highlights Russia’s military bases in Madagascar, Mozambique, and Guinea. Lately, the Central African Republic intends to host a Russian military base.

Last October, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, African Union Chairman and Co-Chairman of the Russia-Africa Summit, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, noted in his speech at the plenary session of the Russia-Africa Economic Forum: Africa welcomes the efforts to encourage an open door policy and cooperation with its partners with a view to making a breakthrough in developing its economy. Russia and other foreign countries as well as international financial organizations have to develop cooperation and invest in Africa.

Further, the Egyptian leader urged international and regional financial organizations to take part in funding Africa’s economic growth and to give it financial guarantees on consolidating its economic potential. This would help promote trade and investment. Further urged foreign countries to grant African states generous terms for their projects and development programmes, which will help Africa reach its dream – to embark on the road of progress, modernization and sustainable development.

Before concluding his speech, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi emphasized that cooperation with Africa must be based on common interests, on the protection of African property, which would allow Africa to promote comprehensive sustainable development by carrying out three major goals.

First, it is necessary to accelerate economic reforms and create a businesslike atmosphere by establishing close partnership with the private sector. Second, it is essential to implement social justice principles with the broad participation of society. Third, it is necessary to consolidate peace and stability in accordance with the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and Sustainable Development Goals 2030.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah is an independent researcher on Russia, Africa and BRICS. He is the author of the Geopolitical Handbook titled “Putin’s African Dream and The New Dawn: Challenges and Emerging Opportunities” devoted to the first Russia-Africa Summit 2019.

In July 2015, the security officials of Afghanistan and Pakistan were holding an important meeting in Islamabad to initiate a dialogue process with the Taliban when the Afghan National Directorate of Intelligence publicly announced that Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar had died two years ago in 2013.

Though the Taliban immediately announced Mullah Akhtar Mansour as Mullah Omar’s successor, who was also killed in an American drone strike a year later in May 2016 while returning to Pakistan from a visit to Iran, it transpired that for two years prior to the revelation of Mullah Omar’s death, the affairs of the Taliban were being managed by a Shura Council – an advisory council of the top cadres of the Taliban.

Similarly, confirming the deaths of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the Islamic State spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, who was killed in a US airstrike in northern Syria a day after the killing of al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s Amaq news agency announced Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi as the new caliph of the terrorist organization on October 31.

Al-Quraishi is such an obscure jihadist that even national security analysts tracking the details of militant movements in the Middle East don’t have an inkling about his origins or biography. Even his name appears to be a nom de guerre rather than a real name. Abu Ibrahim basically means the “father of Ibrahim” in Arabic whereas Banu Hashem was Prophet Mohammad’s family and Quraishi means the tribe of Quraish. Both are common surnames in the Islamic World.

Some security analysts surmise that Amir Mohammad Sa’id Abdal Rahman al-Mawla, who is also known by the alias Haji Abdullah and Abdullah Qardash, is the new chief of the Islamic State, as the US State Department has announced a $5 million reward for information leading to him. Haji Abdullah Qardash is from Tal Afar, a city in northwestern Iraq, and has previously served as an army officer during Saddam Hussein’s regime.

In any case, identifying individual militant leaders by name is irrelevant because as in the case of the Taliban and several other regional jihadist groups, the decisions are collectively taken by the Shura Council of the Islamic State. The title caliph of the Islamic State is simply a figurehead, which is obvious from the fact that al-Baghdadi remained in hiding for several years before being killed in a special-ops raid on October 27, and the terrorist group kept functioning autonomously without any guidance or directives from its purported chief.

Regarding the creation and composition of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, apart from training and arms which were provided to Syrian militants in the training camps located in the Turkish and Jordanian border regions adjacent to Syria by the CIA in collaboration with Turkish, Jordanian and Saudi intelligence agencies, another factor that contributed to the success of the Islamic State when it overran Raqqa in Syria in 2013 and Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in 2014 was that its top cadres were comprised of former Baathist military and intelligence officers from the Saddam era.

Reportedly, hundreds of ex-Baathists constitute the top- and mid-tier command structure of the Islamic State who plan all the operations and direct its military strategy. The only feature that differentiates the Islamic State from all other insurgent groups is that its command structure which is comprised of professional ex-Baathists and its state-of-the-art weaponry that was provided to all militant outfits fighting in Syria by the intelligence agencies of the Western powers, Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf states.

In fact, Washington exercised such an absolute control over Syria’s theater of proxy war that although the US openly provided the American-made antitank (TOW) weapons to Syrian militant groups, it strictly forbade its clients from providing anti-aircraft weapons (MANPADS) to the militants, because Israel frequently flies surveillance aircrafts and drones and occasionally carries out airstrikes in Syria, and had such weapons fallen into the wrong hands, they could have become a long-term security threat to the Israeli Air Force.

Last year, a report by the Conflict Armament Research (CAR) on the Islamic State’s weapons found in Iraq and Syria was prominently featured in the mainstream media. Before the story was picked up by the corporate media, it was first published [1] in the Wired News in December 2017, which has a history of spreading dubious stories and working in close collaboration with the Pentagon and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

The Britain-based Conflict Armament Research (CAR) is a relatively unknown company of less than 20 employees. Its one-man Iraq and Syria division was headed by a 31-year-old Belgian researcher Damien Spleeters.

The main theme of Spleeters’ investigation was to discover the Islamic State’s homegrown armaments industry and how the jihadist group’s technicians had adapted the East European munitions to be used in the weapons available to the Islamic State. Spleeters had listed 1,832 weapons and 40,984 pieces of ammunition recovered in Iraq and Syria in the CAR’s database.

But Spleeters had only tangentially touched upon the subject of the Islamic State’s weapons supply chain, documenting only a single PG-9 rocket found at Tal Afar in Iraq bearing a lot number of 9,252 rocket-propelled grenades which were supplied by Romania to the US military, and mentioning only a single shipment of 12 tons of munitions which was diverted from Saudi Arabia to Jordan in his supposedly ‘comprehensive report.’

In fact, the CAR’s report was so misleading that of thousands of pieces of munitions investigated by Spleeters, less than 10% were found to be compatible with NATO’s weapons and more than 90% were found to have originated from Russia, China and the East European countries, Romania and Bulgaria, in particular.

By comparison, a joint investigation by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) uncovered [2] the Pentagon’s $2.2 billion arms pipeline to the Syrian militants.

It bears mentioning that $2.2 billion was earmarked only by Washington for training and arming the Syrian militants, and tens of billions of dollars [3] that Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich Gulf states pumped into Syria’s proxy war have not been documented by anybody so far.

More significantly, a Bulgarian investigative reporter, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, authored a report [4] for Bulgaria’s national newspaper, Trud News, in August 2017 which found that an Azerbaijan state airline company, Silk Way Airlines, was regularly transporting weapons to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Turkey under diplomatic cover as part of the CIA covert program to supply weapons to militant groups in Syria.

Gaytandzhieva documented 350 such ‘diplomatic flights’ and was subsequently fired from her job for uncovering the story. Not surprisingly, both these well-researched and groundbreaking reports didn’t even merit a passing mention in any mainstream news outlet.

Notwithstanding, Damien Spleeters of the Conflict Armament Research (CAR) authored another report [5] in November last year, in which he stated that South Sudan’s neighbors, Uganda in particular, had breached an arms embargo by funneling East European weapons to the South Sudan conflict.

South Sudan is the world’s youngest nation which gained independence from Sudan in 2011. The United States is often said to have midwifed South Sudan by leading the negotiations for its independence from Sudan, because South Sudan is an oil-rich country and produces about half a million barrels crude oil per day.

But a civil war began in 2013 between Dinka tribal group of South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and Nuer rebels led by warlord and former Vice President Riek Machar, and has triggered one of the world’s largest humanitarian emergencies. Millions of South Sudanese have sought refuge in displacement camps in South Sudan and neighboring countries.

The Conflict Armament Research’s report on the weapons found in South Sudan notes: “One of the most astonishing findings is that 99 percent of the ammunition tracked by CAR is of Chinese origin. Some of it was legally transferred to South Sudan, but much of it was delivered secretly to the opposition via Sudan in 2015 and is still being used.”

Unsurprisingly, the Britain-based monitoring group has implicated China, East European countries and South Sudan’s neighbors for defying the embargo and providing weapons to the belligerents, and has once again given a free pass to the Western powers for creating the catastrophe in its supposedly ‘comprehensive and credible’ report.

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

[1] Tracing Islamic State’s weapons supply chain

[2] The Pentagon’s $2.2 billion Soviet arms pipeline to Syria

[3] Mark Curtis’ book review, Secret Affairs: How Britain Colluded with Radical Islam

[4] Journalist Interrogated, Fired For Story Linking CIA And Syria Weapons Flights

[5] Uganda breached arms embargo in funneling European weapons to South Sudan

Post-coup Bolivia is at risk of Croatian-style ethnic cleansing and South African-like apartheid unless the protesters succeed in putting substantial international pressure on the new “authorities” and ensuring that genuinely free and fair elections are held as soon as possible as the most realistic attempt to reverse the recent regime change.

Lying is a money making activity and lies are commodities. There is a profitable global market for media and public figures committed to spreading disinformation.

Needless to say, “Telling the Truth”, on the other hand, Is Not a Money-Making Proposition. The monthly deficit we have been faced with over the past year is proof of this concept.

With this in mind, can you spare a dollar a day to keep disinformation away? Your support could make the difference and ensure that GlobalResearch.ca is here for a long time to come!

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Washington Threatens Egypt with Sanctions Over Russian Su-35 Fighter Jet Purchase

By Sarah Abed, November 18, 2019

Washington’s latest attempt to dissuade an ally from making arms deals with Russia came in the form of a letter sent on last Wednesday to Egyptian officials warning them that they could face sanctions if they continued with their $2 billion dollar Su-35 fighter jets contract.

In addition to sanctions, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper warned Egyptian Defense Minister Mohamed Ahmed Zaki that “Major new arms deals with Russia would — at a minimum — complicate future U.S. defense transactions with and security assistance to Egypt,” in Wednesday’s letter. The United States sends Egypt $1.3 billion annually in military assistance.

Bolivia’s U.S.-backed Coup Government Has Given the Military a License to Kill Protestors

By Paul Antonopoulos, November 18, 2019

The de facto and unelected president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez, signed a decree that exempts all military personnel from being criminally responsible, even in the cases of murder, in the midst of demonstrations against the coup d’etat that ousted democratically elected first Indigenous President of Bolivia, Evo Morales. Effectively, Bolivian security forces have a license to kill now.

Since the decree was signed last Thursday, it has inevitably caused controversy with demonstrators and social media users alike. And it very well should – it is a blatant U.S.-orchestrated coup against Moraleswho helped his country reduce unemployment, poverty and illiteracy by at least 50% from 2006 to 2018, and liberated his country from strangling neoliberal policies of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Why Is Thailand Buying Russian Helicopters? Are They Better than “Made in America”?

By Joseph Thomas, November 17, 2019

Beginning in 2011, the Kingdom of Thailand began replacing aging US helicopters not with newer US-built models, but with Russian and Italian systems instead.

This includes Russian Mi-17 medium twin-turbine transport helicopters and several AgustaWestland AW149’s and AW139’s (for transporting VIPs).

Bolivia – A Color Revolution – or a New Surge for Latin American Independence?

By Peter Koenig, November 17, 2019

It’s become a classic. It’s being called a Color Revolution, and it’s been taking place on all Continents. The list of victim-countries includes, but is not exhaustive – Colombia, Honduras, Argentina, Paraguay, Ecuador, Chile, Brazil, in some ways also Uruguay (the current left-leaning government is powerless and has to remain so, otherwise it will be “changed”… that’s the name of the game) – and now also Bolivia. – Then there are Georgia, Ukraine, Iraq, South Sudan, Libya, Afghanistan, Indonesia; and the lawless rulers of the universe are attempting to “regime change” North Korea, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua – and on a larger scale China and Russia (I just returned from China – where the Government and people are fully aware what Washington’s intentions are behind every move they make).

Operation Northwoods. False Flag Attacks and Regime Change. US Intervention in India

By Great Game India, November 17, 2019

Operation Northwoods was a proposed false flag operation against the Cuban government that originated within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) of the United States government in 1962. The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or other U.S. government operatives to commit acts of terrorism against American civilians and military targets, blaming them on the Cuban government, and using it to justify a war against Cuba.

The Role of Russia’s Military Police in Syria. The Deal between Russia and Turkey?

By Steven Sahiounie, November 17, 2019

Turkey and Russia began joint patrols in the northeast conflict zone in Syria beginning November 1.  The Russian military police, formed in 2012, is tasked with convoy protection, area security, restoring law and order, and resettlement operations. Russia recently sent about 300 more military police and more than 20 armored vehicles to Syria. Russia landed attack helicopters and troops at a sprawling air base at Qamisli in northeast Syria, recently vacated by US forces.

Evo Overthrown, But Bolivian Socialism Will be Victorious!

By Andre Vltchek, November 17, 2019

They pledged to do it, and they did – Bolivian feudal lords, mass media magnates and other treasonous “elites” – they overthrew the government, broke hope and interrupted an extremely successful socialist process in what was once one of the poorest countries in South America.

One day, they will be cursed by their own nation. One day they will stand trial for sedition. One day, they will have to reveal who trained them, who employed them, who turned them into spineless beasts. One day! Hopefully soon.

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The mining industry continues to be at the forefront of colonial dispossession around the world. It controls information about its intrinsic costs and benefits, propagates myths about its contribution to the economy, shapes government policy and regulation, and deals ruthlessly with its opponents.

Brimming with case studies, anecdotes, resources, and illustrations, Unearthing Justice exposes the mining process and its externalized impacts on the environment, Indigenous Peoples, communities, workers, and governments. But, most importantly, the book shows how people are fighting back. Whether it is to stop a mine before it starts, to get an abandoned mine cleaned up, to change laws and policy, or to mount a campaign to influence investors, Unearthing Justice is an essential handbook for anyone trying to protect the places and people they love.

So reads the announcement by MiningWatch Canada, the Ottawa-based mining watchdog organization founded in 1999 with Joan Kuyek as its first full-time staff person. In this book, Kuyek brilliantly combines her extensive knowledge of the mining industry and its sweeping control of government policy with the valuable lessons she and her colleagues have learned in fighting environmental depredation and community disruption by the industry, starting with the 30 years she spent as a community activist and organizer in the Ontario mining centre of Sudbury.

As Kuyek reports, Canada is a world mining power. Its two key stock exchanges, the TSX and TSX Venture account for almost 20 percent of the total mining equity raised globally.

“In 2015, the TSX and TSXV listed 57 percent of the world’s publicly traded mining companies, which together traded more than $148 billion of equity; 32 percent of the total number of mining and exploration companies in the world were headquartered in Canada.

“According to Natural Resources Canada, Canadian mining companies operate in more than one hundred countries around the world. In 2017, Canada had $62.6 billion worth of mining investment abroad. Its exports in minerals and metals reached $91.7 billion in 2015, 56 percent of this to the United States.”[1]

According to the Mining Association of Canada, the industry employs more than 426,000 workers across the country in mineral extraction, smelting, fabrication and manufacturing, and indirectly employs an additional 206,000. Canada ranks in the top five countries in global production of 16 major minerals and metals.[2]

The industry benefits from Canada’s taxation and royalties regimes, which are among the most lax in the world. Abroad, Canadian mining companies are protected and promoted by the “economic diplomacy” practiced by Ottawa’s embassies and financed by Canadian banks and the federal government’s Export Development Corporation.

Kuyek describes and analyzes all aspects of the industry: its structures and financing, its social and environmental impact, the role of Canadian laws and regulations in furthering mining investment, and Canada’s international mining presence now coming under increasing challenge in Latin America and Africa.

Special attention is given to the industry’s “ecological economics.” Kuyek documents how mining companies consistently ignore or underestimate the social and environmental costs of mining operations, the “externalities” not covered by profit and loss accounting of projects. “One of the places where ecological economics becomes strategically important,” she writes, “is in environmental assessment — the government process of looking at environmental effects before it licenses large projects to proceed.” She lists many of the crucial questions ignored by classical economics, and cites a growing movement to enlarge the system of public accounts to keep track of the depletion of natural capital, and the health of the people, the cultures, and the social services of our communities.” At the same time, she recognizes the limitations of this approach.

“Ecological (or social or Gaian) accounting is the development of ledgers for projects that measure the estimated real impacts of the activity on the individual, the household, the community, and the ecosystem. There is a serious risk to putting an economic value on nature, given how the dominant economy is capable of making everything a commodity. Any economic valuation of ecological services is going to be inaccurate. Such things are priceless and cannot be adequately compensated for once lost.”

Throughout, Kuyek illustrates her account with vivid examples drawn from the struggles of communities, many of them Indigenous, to stop prospecting on their lands or limit the damages resulting from the installation, operation, and closing of mining ventures.

Especially valuable is a final chapter proposing ways to “put mining in its place.” Among the many suggestions she offers, a key regulatory proposal is to force mining firms to pay the full monetary costs of their extraction of metals and gems. Although, as Kuyek said above, that alone cannot compensate the full cost to nature and human society, she maintains that “Forcing companies to internalize even some of their costs will make most mines uneconomic.”

More fundamentally, she says, “We all want stable economies that heal the environment and do not pollute the waters, land and air.…We want livelihoods that sustain the planet and communities.” Mining

“is a short-term, waste management industry with long-term consequences. It is not sustainable; it depletes the very resources upon which it depends. We need to reduce our consumption of metals, conserve, reuse and recycle them. We do not need more gold, silver, uranium, coal or diamonds. Only as a last resort, should we contemplate new mines. And those mines should be created in the most cautious way possible.”[3]

Also important are measures to help employees to “move from the extraction economy to a sustainable one….” Kuyek notes that out of the hundreds of thousands of workers employed in Canadian mining, only a relatively small proportion are working in actual mining and quarrying, and a smaller number are in scrap metal recycling. “Shifting from extraction to reusing and recycling would be unlikely to jeopardize the downstream jobs in smelters, refineries, or manufacturing.”[4]

Surveying the activities of MiningWatch and other organizations working in solidarity with mining-affected communities, both in Canada and abroad, Kuyek says that for her, “our experience raises more questions than it provides answers….

“How might we resist getting caught in the bureaucratic management wheel, and have more control over the process? How can organizations like MiningWatch best use their scarce resources? How do we reconcile the demands from communities that want us to rein in Canadian mining companies, with demands from movements—like that in El Salvador—to stop all large-scale mining? Should we resist reducing the ‘ask’ and instead make the demands of our government more profound and inspiring?

“Movements are made up of many different organizations and, by their nature, struggle on different levels and in different ways. At least some of the organizations in the movement need to engage with governments on regulation and face the power of the industry lobby. But we can do nothing without a sustained, audible outcry from communities and people on the ground. We can do nothing without a movement.”

This book is an outstanding contribution to that movement, a vital addition to every activist’s library. Read it, and apply its lessons.

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Richard Fidler is a member of Solidarity Ottawa and a member of Québec solidaire. He blogs at Life on the Left.

Notes

[1] Unearthing Justice, p. 126.

[2] Mining Association of Canada, Facts & Figures 2018.

[3] Unearthing Justice, p. 309. The quotation is from a statement of Ontarians for a Just Accountable Mineral Strategy, a coalition formed in response to the provincial government’s draft Mineral Development Strategy, released in 2015.

[4] Unearthing Justice, p. 141.

Any human being who values justice and freedom would condemn the coup that ousted the Bolivian president Evo Morales on the 10^th of November 2019.

Morales obtained 47.08 % of the vote to secure a fourth term as president in the election held on the 20^th of October. Since his vote was more than 10% of what his closest rival had harnessed, there was no need for a second round of voting according to the Bolivian Constitution. However his opponents did not want to accept the result. Neither did the Organisation of American States (OAS) nor the United States of America (USA) nor the European Union (EU).  They alleged “electoral fraud” without providing any tangible evidence. It should be emphasised that international observers from a number of countries testified to the legitimacy of the polls.

To protest Morales’s re-election, his adversaries organised strikes and boycotts. They disrupted public order and even resorted to violence.  The police allowed this to happen because like the military it was also opposed to the president. Indeed, the military and the police played a critical role in undermining Morales.

It was partly because of the failure of the military and police to protect the Constitution and the rule of law that chaos escalated accompanied by the intensification of violence. Morales did not want the situation to deteriorate further and decided to resign as president. A number of other top leaders also chose to quit. Mexico offered Morales political asylum. An opposition politician with the full backing of the military, Jeanine Anez, declared herself interim president of Bolivia. Anez had garnered only 1.7% of the votes cast in the October elections.

It would be naïve to believe that the ouster of Morales and the installation of a new president was the result of the dynamics of internal politics alone. The US had a huge role in the entire episode. Some members of the US elite not only colluded with elements in the Bolivian military but also helped to engineer the convulsions that forced Morales out of office. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an appendage of the US establishment with a reputation for orchestrating ‘regime change’ in  a number of countries all over the world was allegedly heavily involved in Bolivian political and civil society activities long  before the October elections.

Why is the US elite so determined to control and direct Bolivia?  It is partly because Bolivia since Evo Morales came to power in 2006 has sought to be a truly independent and sovereign nation. As the first president from an indigenous community (the indigenous constitute 63% of the population) Morales is deeply committed to protecting Bolivia’s wealth and resources and ensuring that they are utilised for the well-being of the people. It is widely recognised that he has succeeded to a great extent to reduce poverty, improve the standard of health of the people, especially the rural folk, and expand educational opportunities for the disadvantaged. Morales has also tried to curb the power of mega corporations in the economy.

In this regard, just before he was ousted, Morales , it is reported, decided to partner with Chinese firms to develop Bolivia’s lithium deposits since Western mining companies were not prepared to comply with the terms that the Bolivian government laid out. For Morales, the exploitation of lithium had to benefit the Bolivian people before anyone else.  Western companies and the US elite saw the Bolivian president as a hurdle.  They were convinced that Morales had to go.

In passing, it has to be highlighted that lithium is in great demand in the world battery market today. It is crucial for the electric car which is predicted to play a significant role in transportation in the near future. Bolivia claims to have 70% of the world’s lithium reserves.

Will Bolivia’s partnership with China in lithium mining come to an end with Morales’s overthrow? It is very likely. But the larger trend towards change in Latin America and the Caribbean in which Morales’s contribution was pivotal will continue. Opposition to the military backed coup in Bolivia is strong and sustained.

Though at least 23 Morales’ supporters have been killed so far by the new regime, the protest against the usurpation of power by an unpopular elite remains unabated.  In Venezuela all attempts, both external and internal, to crush a leadership that is determined to protect the nation’s independence have failed. A right-wing government in Brasilia has not been able to extinguish the Brazilian people’s desire for justice. In Argentina some of the progressive elements have returned to power through the ballot-box.  Ecuador is another example of a country where those with a progressive orientation are prepared to resist the retrogressive forces that seek to re-shape the nation.  The leadership of Nicaragua remains committed to people based policies in spite of all the challenges. The new president of Mexico is attempting to introduce reforms that matter to the people. Most of all, there is Cuba 60 years after a Revolution steadfast as ever in its pursuit of human dignity and national sovereignty and serving as a pioneer of that monumental transformation that awaits Latin America and the Caribbean.

All this has to be located within a broader tapestry – a tapestry in which US and Western power is declining significantly and new centres of power are emerging and becoming more assertive.

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Dr Chandra Muzaffar is the President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST). Malaysia. He is Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image is from OneWorld

Washington’s latest attempt to dissuade an ally from making arms deals with Russia came in the form of a letter sent on last Wednesday to Egyptian officials warning them that they could face sanctions if they continued with their $2 billion dollar Su-35 fighter jets contract.

In addition to sanctions, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper warned Egyptian Defense Minister Mohamed Ahmed Zaki that “Major new arms deals with Russia would — at a minimum — complicate future U.S. defense transactions with and security assistance to Egypt,” in Wednesday’s letter. The United States sends Egypt $1.3 billion annually in military assistance.

Russia has become one of Egypt’s major arms suppliers. This particular arms between Egypt and Russia for ten fighter jets was signed at the end of 2018, with delivery of the Su-35 Flanker-E air superiority fighter aircrafts as well as weapons for the planes starting in 2020-2021.

In order to counter Russia’s expanding military influence in the Middle East and dissuade countries from buying Russian-made arms, the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) was signed by President Donald Trump in August 2017. Countries that are trading with Russia’s defense or intelligence sectors could face secondary sanctions.

Russia estimates that since 2014 it has lost $760 million dollars in potential weapons sales due to the international sanctions sealing off the U.S. market.

However, the CAATSA is not limited to sanctioning Russia and those who purchase Russian-made weapons, this U.S. Federal law also imposes economic sanctions on Iran and North Korea.

The first case for secondary sanctions under CAATSA took place in September 2018 when sanctions were imposed by the Trump administration on the Chinese military for purchasing 10 Su-35 aircrafts and S-400’s from Russia, also 33 people and entities were blacklisted due to links to Russian military and intelligence.

The second case would be Turkey’s purchase of Russia’s S-400 air defense system with the first delivery of its components having taken place in July of this year. As a result of going through with their purchase and delivery, Turkey was also suspended from participating in the F-35 program and the F-35 air systems it had already purchased are now under U.S. control.

Although requirements have been met for CAATSA to be enforced there is a gray area as to how, and to what extent the sanctions should be applied. A waiver is also in place that the president can use. Also, both the U.S. executive and legislative branches play a role in determining the action that would be taken against Turkey for doing business with Russian personnel targeted by sanctions.

India is paying close attention to how the US is reacting to Turkey’s purchase as they too have purchased Russia’s S-400 SAMS system which would put them in conflict with the CAATSA as well. However, relations between India and the United States are strong and the likelihood that a waiver will be used to avoid making India suffer collateral damage is likely.

For the past decade Russia has been expanding its military influence in the Middle East, much to the dissatisfaction of the United States. Russia and Egypt’s military and technical cooperation has been deepening and expanding for years.  Both nations have repeatedly held joint naval and airborne counterterrorism exercises since 2015. From October 27th till November 7th of this year the Egyptian air force’s tactical training center near Cairo hosted joint Russian/Egyptian military drills dubbed Arrow of Friendship-1.

There’s even been speculation about the prospect of Russia setting up a military base in Egypt, due to the increase of Russian activity on Egyptian grounds. Just two years ago a draft agreement which would “allow each side to use the other’s airspace and air bases” was approved by Moscow and Cairo. Even though it didn’t specify setting up a military base it did set the ground for significant expansion in military cooperation between the two countries.

While the US fumbles around in the Middle East leaving death and destruction in its tracks, Russia has become the main peace broker. While maintaining good relations with all the major players in the region, Russia intervened militarily in Syria at the request of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad to fight terrorism and derail a strong regime-change plan by the Obama administration. Relations and business with Iran and Turkey have also increased.

Moscow knows that security in neighboring countries directly impacts its own and standing by allies will only help grow its influence and positive image in the Middle East and beyond.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Sarah Abed is an independent journalist and political commentator. Focused on exposing the lies and propaganda in mainstream media news, as it relates to domestic and foreign policy with an emphasis on the Middle East. Contributed to various radio shows, news publications and spoken at forums. For media inquiries please email [email protected].

Featured image is from InfoBrics

We’ve lost a great warrior in our fight. They murdered our friend, our brother, our tireless companion in the defence of the forest, Paulo Paulino “Lobo” Guajajara.

We’re mourning and our hearts are hurting.

Lobo was killed because he defended our land. Our forest that gives us everything. Our forest without which we cannot live. Lobo was killed for defending life.

There is so much evil in this world. The loggers want to kill us to steal our trees and make money. We are not violent to them, but they are heavily armed. They threaten us. They kill us. They killed our friends, our fellow Guardians Cantidi, Assis and Afonso. And now they’ve killed Lobo.

But his death will not be in vain. It makes us sad and angry, but it gives us strength. One more warrior has been planted in the soil. It will give us the strength to keep fighting to protect our forest for our families, and for the survival of our uncontacted Awá relatives. We will never give up.

We cannot give up because we have a great battle ahead. The government has declared itself our enemy. President Bolsonaro said he will not protect indigenous lands. He and others want to open our land to agribusiness. We will never accept that!

We want the government to fulfil its duty to help us defend our forest from illegal invaders and destruction. We want proper security for our land and our lives.

We want the government to investigate Lobo’s murder, and the attack on him and our fellow Guardian Tainaky. We want the killers and the logging mafias behind bars.

We’ve been denouncing the threats and crimes against us for a long time. Lobo and all of us Guardians had often warned the authorities that we could be attacked and killed at any time. Nothing was done. And Lobo was murdered.

Where is justice? We demand justice!

We will continue our struggle to rid our land of loggers. We know it’s working. We’re managing to greatly reduce the destruction.

The protection of our land and its biodiversity has always been our struggle and always will be. It does not depend on politics or money. It is simply a matter of life and death for us, our relatives and future generations.

While we are alive, we will fight for Lobo. We will fight to the last drop of our blood. And we will win. The health of the planet depends on this struggle.

We ask everyone to support our work to defend the lungs of the planet and to defend life. For Lobo, and for everyone, let’s fight to the end.

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Featured image: Paulo Paulino Guajajara was killed in an ambush by loggers. © Survival

The de facto and unelected president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez, signed a decree that exempts all military personnel from being criminally responsible, even in the cases of murder, in the midst of demonstrations against the coup d’etat that ousted democratically elected first Indigenous President of Bolivia, Evo Morales. Effectively, Bolivian security forces have a license to kill now.

Since the decree was signed last Thursday, it has inevitably caused controversy with demonstrators and social media users alike. And it very well should – it is a blatant U.S.-orchestrated coup against Morales who helped his country reduce unemployment, poverty and illiteracy by at least 50% from 2006 to 2018, and liberated his country from strangling neoliberal policies of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

The decree was immediately denounced by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), by Morales, and by regional leaders such as the newly elected president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández.

Although the decree is dated November 14, it was only made public on Saturday, a day after an anti-government march of coca growers in the department of Cochabamba left at least nine dead and 115 injured, according to the Office of the Ombudsman. For its part, the United Nations High Commissioner, Michel Bachelet, has expressed concern about the growing violence in the Andean country and the actions taken by the unelected government.

There is “information that at least seventeen people have died in the context of the protests, including fourteen only in the last six days,” Bachelet said in a statement from Geneva, adding that “while the first deaths occurred as a result of violent clashes between rival protesters, the most recent seem to derive from an unnecessary or disproportionate use of force by police or military personnel.”

However, this should not even be the least bit surprising for the UN commissioner since the U.S. has a long history of violent regime change in Latin America. It was revealed in a report by the Gray Zone that at least six of the main coup plotters were alumni of the infamous School of the Americas (SOA) at Fort Benning, a notorious training center that since the times of the Cold War has orchestrated regime operations against anti-U.S. Latin American leaders.  The report explained that “brutal regime change and reprisal operations from Haiti to Honduras have been carried out by SOA graduates, and some of the most bloodstained juntas in the region’s history have been run by the school’s alumni.” While U.S. President Donald Trump cheered on a “a significant moment for democracy in the Western Hemisphere,” the U.S.-trained Bolivian military have now killed at least 23 people, mostly Indigenous.

Although the U.S. espouses the endless mantra of ‘freedom and democracy’, it has continuously demonstrated, such as in Venezuela and Syria, that it is willing to move away from its ‘peaceful’ liberal ideology and utilize reactionary forces when its political and economic interests are under threat. Morales managed to re-found the country politically and economically by embracing the Multipolar World, where the U.S. is no longer the sole power in the world, by improving ties with China and Russia, and by nationalizing natural resources and strategic companies.

Evo Morales said during an interview in June 2016:

“We had a beggar state in 2005. In the economic part everything was imposed by the International Monetary Fund. The Fund had its office in the Central Bank of Bolivia. The CIA was a parasite that had its offices in the National Palace. The U.S. military group had its own at the headquarters of the Armed Forces in the Great Barracks General Miraflores. When there was political conflict and the parties on the right fought, the United States ambassador was the godfather… We had an agreed democracy. Everything was pact. It was legal, but there was no legitimacy.”

Although Morales ran Bolivia, one of Latin America’s poorest countries, mostly uninterrupted for 13 years unlike Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and Brazil’s Lula, the discovery of massive amounts of lithium was a gamechanger. The precious resource is necessary to power all batteries, a demand that is ever increasing for our technological world.

Although Morales’ impressive records speaks for itself, as he never prioritized the indoctrination of the Bolivian military, the SOA-trained officers were able to remain dormant until called upon by the U.S. to conduct a coup in the South American country. Two days before the Gray Zone report, in a previous article I already made the argument that former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez had radicalized and ideologized the military to the constitutional national ideology and built a people’s militia capable of defending the government from internal and external, which is why even to this day, Maduro has not been ousted in a coup despite endless U.S.-backed attempts. This is something Morales did not do, allowing the U.S. to gain a strong foothold in the Bolivian military.

Morales created the Anti-Imperialist Command School in 2016. Completing several courses related to the ideology of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA), as well on geopolitics and imperialism, became the only way to become a Captain in the Bolivian military. However, this is only a recent initiative, that began a decade after he became president, not even nearly enough time for him to reform the military ideology, especially since he never expelled pro-U.S. officers from the military, opting to wait for their retirements.

And now that Áñez is running the country with the military’s blessing, the years of advancements in Indigenous rights and living standards made by Morales will surely be reversed, especially as she considers their culture to be “Satanic” that is not compatible with modern life and should remain in the mountains or swamplands. Áñez criticizes socialism and expresses her fear that one day Bolivia will become like “Cuba” – this is mostly influenced by her adherence to radical Christian Evangelicalism that believes socialism to be the work of the devil.

Guided by her Evangelical beliefs, she is now an ally of Evangelical Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a staunch supporter of the Brazilian dictatorship and has said that “too bad the Brazilian cavalry was not as efficient as the American cavalry that exterminated the Indians,” in reference to the American Indian genocide. Supporting reactionary pro-U.S. forces in Latin America has always meant a contempt and hatred of the Indigenous people – and it has often been the Evangelicals that were used in Latin Americaalongside paramilitaries or coup plotters to carry out U.S. interests in this region.

Although Bolsonaro dreams of a Brazil that is purged of most of its native population, like what was achieved in the U.S., Áñez has begun her own U.S.-backed campaign against the Indigenous populations by already greenlighting the murder of Morales supporters, who are overwhelmingly Indigenous just as the population of Bolivia is.

Her license to kill has not just seen many Indigenous murdered, but it will mean we will continue to see the Indigenous being murdered by the Bolivian military as they continue their peaceful mass demonstrations in support of the exiled Morales.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies.

Featured image is from Massoud Nayeri

Scientists call on the World Health Organization International Agency for Research on Cancer to re-evaluate the carcinogenicity of cell phone radiation after the Ramazzini Institute and US government studies report finding the same unusual cancers.

Watch Dr. Belpoggi describe the results of the study.

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Listen to to the March 22, 2018 press conference below.

Researchers with the renowned Ramazzini Institute (RI) in Italy announce that a large-scale lifetime study of lab animals exposed to environmental levels of cell tower radiation developed cancer. A $25 million study of much higher levels of cell phone radiofrequency (RF) radiation, from the US National Toxicology Program (NTP), has also reported finding the same unusual cancer called Schwannoma of the heart in male rats treated at the highest dose. In addition, the RI study of cell tower radiation also found increases in malignant brain (glial) tumors in female rats and precancerous conditions including Schwann cells hyperplasia in both male and female rats.

The study findings are making headline news. Read the Corriere Di Bologna article “Cellulari, a study by Ramazzini: “They cause very rare tumors.” Scientific American  ran a story on the study entitled “New Studies Link Cell Phone Radiation with Cancer.”

“Taken together, the findings “confirm that RF radiation exposure has biological effects” in rats, some of them “relevant to carcinogenesis,” says Jon Samet, a professor of preventive medicine and dean of the Colorado School of Public Health, who did not participate in either study.” – Scientific American  

“Our findings of cancerous tumors in rats exposed to environmental levels of RF are consistent with and reinforce the results of the US NTP studies on cell phone radiation, as both reported increases in the same types of tumors of the brain and heart in Sprague-Dawley rats. Together, these studies provide sufficient evidence to call for the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) to re-evaluate and re-classify their conclusions regarding the carcinogenic potential of RFR in humans,” said Fiorella Belpoggi PhD, study author and RI Director of Research.

The Ramazzini study exposed 2448 Sprague-Dawley rats from prenatal life until their natural death to “environmental” cell tower radiation for 19 hours per day (1.8 GHz GSM radiofrequency radiation (RFR) of 5, 25 and 50 V/m). RI exposures mimicked base station emissions like those from cell tower antennas, and exposure levels were far less than those used in the NTP studies of cell phone radiation.

“All of the exposures used in the Ramazzini study were below the US FCC limits. These are permissible exposures according the FCC. In other words, a person can legally be exposed to this level of radiation. Yet cancers occurred in these animals at these legally permitted levels. The Ramazzini findings are consistent with the NTP study demonstrating these effects are a reproducible finding,” explained Ronald Melnick PhD, formerly the Senior NIH toxicologist who led the design of the NTP study on cell phone radiation now a Senior Science Advisor to Environmental Health Trust (EHT). “Governments need to strengthen regulations to protect the public from these harmful non-thermal exposures.”

“This important article from one of the most acclaimed institutions of its kind in the world provides a major new addition to the technical literature indicating strong reasons for concern about electromagnetic radiation from base stations or cell towers,” stated Editor in Chief of Environmental Research Jose Domingo PhD, Professor of Toxicology, School of Medicine at Reus University, Catalonia, Spain.

“The US NTP results combined now with the Ramazzini study, reinforce human studies from our team and others providing clear evidence that RF radiation causes acoustic neuromaa (vestibular schwannoma) and gliomas, and should be classified carcinogenic to humans,” stated Lennart Hardell MD, PhD, physician-epidemiologist with the Department of Oncology, University Hospital, Örebro, Sweden, who has published extensively on environmental causes of cancer including Agent Orange, pesticides and cell phone radiofrequency radiation.

“The evidence indicating wireless is carcinogenic has increased and can no longer be ignored,” stated University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health Professor Emeritus Anthony B. Miller MD, Member of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of Canada and the UK, and Senior Medical Advisor to EHT who is also a long-term advisor to the World Health Organization.

“This study raises concerns that simply living close to a cell tower will pose threats to human health. Governments need to take measures to reduce exposures from cell tower emissions. Cell towers should not be near schools, hospitals or people’s homes. Public health agencies need to educate the public on how to reduce exposure from all sources of wireless radiofrequency radiation—be it from cell towers or cell phones or Wi-Fi in schools,” stated David O. Carpenter MD, former Dean of the School of Public Health at the University at Albany. “This is particularly urgent because of current plans to place small 5G cell towers about every 300 meters in every street across the country. These 5G ‘small cell’ antennas will result in continuous exposure to everyone living nearby and everyone walking down the street. The increased exposures will increase risk of cancer and other diseases such as electro-hypersensitivity.”

Ramazzini Institute investigators have completed nearly 500 cancer bioassays on more than 200 compounds, and their study design is unique in that animals are allowed to live until their natural deaths in order to allow detection of late-developing tumors. Eighty percent of all human cancers are late-developing, occurring in humans after 60 years of age. This longer observation period has allowed the RI to detect such later-occurring tumors for a number of chemicals, and their published research includes studies of benzene, xylenes, mancozeb, formaldehyde and vinyl chloride.

The Ramazzini research results come in the wake of similar findings from the US National Toxicology Program (NTP) large-scale experimental studies on cell phone radiation. Both studies found statistically significant increases in the development of the same type of very rare and highly malignant tumor in the heart of male rats—schwannomas.

“This publication is a serious cause for concern,” stated Annie J. Sasco MD, DrPH, SM, MPH, retired Director of Research at the INSERM (French NIH) and former Unit Chief at the International Agency for Research on Cancer/World Health Organization, France, who commented that, “some of the results are not statistically significant due to the relatively small number of animals involved. Yet, that does not mean they should be ignored. Larger studies could turn out statistically significant results and in any event statistical significance is just one aspect of evaluation of the relation between exposure and disease. Biological significance and concordance of results between humans and animals clearly reinforces the strength of the evidence of carcinogenicity. The facts that both experimental studies found the same types of rare tumors, which also have pertinence to the human clinical picture, is striking,”

“Such findings of effects at very low levels are not unexpected,” stated Devra Davis PhD, MPH, president of EHT, pointing to a Jacobs University replication animal study published in 2015 that also found very low levels of RFR promoted tumor growth. “This study confirms an ever growing literature and provides a wake-up call to governments to enact protective policy to limit exposures to the public and to the private sector to make safe radiation-free technology available.”

In January 2017 at an international conference co-sponsored by Environmental Health Trust and the Israel Institute for Advanced Study at Hebrew University, Fiorella Belpoggi PhD, Director of Research at the Ramazzini Institute, presented the study design and the findings that RFR-exposed animals had significantly lower litter weights. Belpoggi’s presentation and slides are available online. The Ramazzini findings of lower litter weights are consistent with the NTP study, which also found lower litter weights in prenatally exposed animals. At that time, the  Italian journal Corriere published an article about the presentation of the Ramazzini study and quoted Belpoggi’s recommendation of “maximum precaution for children and pregnant women.”

Noting that “current standards were not set to protect children, pregnant women, and the growing numbers of infants and toddlers for whom devices have become playthings,” Davis, who is also Visiting Professor of Medicine of Hebrew University Medical Center and Guest Editor in Chief of the journal Environmental Research, added, “Current two-decade old FCC limits were set when the average call was six minutes and costly cell phones were used by very few. These important, new, game-changing studies show that animals develop the same types of unusual cancers that are being seen in those few human epidemiological studies that have been done. In light of these results, Environmental Health Trust joins with public health experts from the states of California, Connecticut and Maryland, as well as those in France, Israel and Belgium to call on government and the private sector to carry out major ongoing public health educational campaigns to promote safer phone and personal device technology, to require and expedite fundamental changes in hardware and software to reduce exposures to RFR/microwave radiation throughout indoor and outdoor environments, and to institute major monitoring, training and research programs to identify solutions, future problems and prevention of related hazards and risks.”

“More than a dozen countries recommend reducing radiofrequency radiation exposure to children, and countries such as China, Italy, India and Russia have far more stringent cell tower radiation regulations in place when compared to the United States FCC. However, this study provides scientific evidence that governments can use to take even further action,” stated Theodora Scarato, Executive Director of EHT.

The article is “Report of final results regarding brain and heart tumors in Sprague-Dawley rats exposed from prenatal life until natural death to mobile phone radiofrequency field representative of a 1.8 GHz base station environmental emission” by L. Falcioni, L. Bua, E.Tibaldi, M. Lauriola, L. De Angelis, F. Gnudi, D. Mandrioli, M. Manservigi, F. Manservisi, I. Manzoli, I. Menghetti, R. Montella, S. Panzacchi, D. Sgargi, V. Strollo, A.Vornoli, F. Belpoggi .  It appears in Environmental Research published by Elsevier.

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Months of violence and chaos in Hong Kong have US dirty hands all over them.

Orchestrated by the CIA in cahoots with other anti-democratic US agencies and anti-government Chinese hooligans, there’s nothing spontaneous about what’s going on endlessly.

Days earlier, the Trump regime’s State Department (up to its ears in what’s happening) expressed phony grave concern about violence and chaos in the city — ignoring US responsibility for what’s ongoing.

Pompeo threatened China, saying all options are on the table, including direct US intervention, if Beijing’s military intervenes to quell what’s unacceptable and must be stopped.

Over the weekend, masked hooligans clashed with police at Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University.

On Sunday, police surrounded the campus, warning elements involved in rioting and vandalism to leave or be dealt with harshly.

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that a “sedan without license plates tried to ram a group of police officers,” a live round and rubber bullet fired at the vehicle.

“(M)asked radicals” occupying the campus clashed violently with police, dozens arrested, hundreds more involved.

Highly inflammable “dangerous materials” that can be used for explosives were seized from elements arrested — “stolen” from the university’s labs, adding:

“(R)adicals shot arrows and hurled petrol bombs and bricks (at police) – sometimes from catapults mounted on the roof of campus buildings.”

“Police fired a large quantity of tear gas and deployed two water cannons and armored vehicles.”

Clashes raged for hours, a police statement saying: “Anyone who enters or stays on the campus and assists the rioters in any way will risk committing the offense of ‘taking part in a riot.’ ”

Hooligans arrested were not university students.Police called them outsiders. On Monday, classes at all Hong Kong universities were suspended — a Polytechnic Univ. statement saying in part:

“All classes have been forced to be suspended and all operations on the campus have been halted,” adding:

“The University is gravely concerned that the spiraling radical illicit activities will cause not only a tremendous safety threat on campus, but also class suspension over an indefinite period of time.”

“They are concerned about the safety on the campus, and they do not want to see the campus being destroyed further.”

A commentary published by Beijing’s official People’s Daily broadsheet on Monday said ending months of violence and chaos in Hong Kong “is a critical matter,” adding:

In multiple parts of the city, “rioters have been rampantly committing acts of vandalism and arson, paralyzing public transport, trashing rail tracks, hurling petrol bombs at running trains, indiscriminately causing bodily harm to civilians and even turning campuses into battlefields.”

If what’s going on isn’t stopped and the rule of law restored, “there would be no guarantee for the peaceful life of residents, to say nothing of Hong Kong’s future development.”

On Monday, SCMP’s deputy executive editor Zuraidah Ibrahim said the following:

“Hardcore mobs upped their violent game when they took over tertiary campuses last week, as bureaucrats came under fire for doing little and the police warned the city was on the brink of total breakdown,” adding:

“In the north, radicals occupying Chinese University took over the Tolo Highway. At Polytechnic University, they have shut down the Cross-Harbour Tunnel for five days, the longest forced closure ever.”

“The mobs broke into the campuses’ chemical laboratories and set up petrol bomb mills overnight and practiced throwing fire bombs with catapults and arrows.”

“Fiery battles between protesters and police spread across several universities, as mainland and international students evacuated.”

“The radicals finally withdrew, except at PolyU where a stand-off continues as I write this. Last week, the People’s Liberation Army soldiers took to the streets with brooms – not guns – to clean up, as did volunteers fed-up with the violence and their pockmarked streets. We still don’t see an end in sight.”

US dirty hands are all over months of violence, vandalism, chaos in the city, attacking China’s soft underbelly, trying to destabilize and weaken the country.

Beijing knows what it’s up against — US imperial rage challenging China’s sovereign independence.

Failure to curb what’s going on encourages more of it, Hong Kong’s future at stake.

Ruling authorities nowhere should tolerate what’s happening, orchestrated from abroad, following the CIA’s color revolution playbook — thuggish pro-Western 5th column elements involved.

Tougher tactics appear necessary to counter the threat posed by US imperial rage against China — toughness the only language its hardliners understand.

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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 is from New Eastern Outlook

Bolivia has a new US-backed puppet leader, and the Western media can hardly conceal their adulation.

Jeanine Áñez declared herself “interim president” in a near-empty Senate chamber on November 12, proceeding to don the presidential sash with the assistance of uniformed soldiers. Despite a lack of quorum rendering the move nakedly unconstitutional, Áñez was immediately recognized by the Trump administration and 10 Downing Street.

Tuesday’s scene seemed like a parody of January’s events in Venezuela, in which a virtually unknown lawmaker, invoking highly dubious constitutional arguments, proclaimed himself “interim president” to the delight of Washington.

For all the supposed threat Trump represents and the enthusiasm sparked by his possible impeachment, Western media continue to march lockstep behind his administration’s coups in Latin America.

Áñez has been sympathetically described as a “qualified lawyer” (BBC, 11/13/19), a “proud Christian” (France 24, 11/13/19) as well as a “women’s rights activist and television presenter” (Time, 11/12/19). Reuters (11/13/19) called her “Bolivian Interim President Jeanine Áñez,” AP(11/13/19) had her as “Bolivia’s newly declared interim president,” whereas for the BBC (11/13/19) she was simply “President Áñez.” AFP (published in France 24, 11/13/19) described her as “the South American country’s 66th president and the second woman to hold the post.”

This language mirrors corporate media profiles of Venezuelan coup leader Juan Guaidó (FAIR.org, 7/23/19), who was depicted as a “freedom fighter” (Fox Business, 1/29/19) and a “salsa-loving baseball fan” (Reuters, 1/23/19) who had “captured the heart of the nation” (New York Times, 3/4/19). References to Guaidó as “president,” however, have dwindled in the face of his repeated failure to seize power (FAIR.org, 7/23/19).

Meanwhile, corporate outlets have euphemistically labeled Áñez as “conservative” (Guardian, 10/13/19; New York Times, 10/12/19; Reuters, 10/13/19), eliding any mention of her far-right, virulently anti-indigenous politics. Áñez is a member of the right-wing Democratic Social Movement from the eastern lowland region of Santa Cruz, historically a bastion of separatist groups and home to some of the most powerful Bolivian oligarchic families. She has a history of making glaringly racist remarks, tweeting in 2013 (6/20/13) that the “Aymara New Year,” an indigenous holiday, was “Satanic”: “There is no replacement for God.” Just days before seizing power, she questioned on Twitter(11/6/19) whether some people being interviewed could really be Indigenous—because they were wearing shoes. For all of liberal journalists’ virtue-signaling concerning minority rights in the global North, the silence is deafening when it comes to blatant racism from pro-US elites in Latin America.

Áñez has another scandal brewing, which has yet to be reported in the English-speaking press: Her nephew was arrested for drug trafficking in 2017. According to EFE (10/20/17), Carlos Andrés Áñez Dorado was arrested in Brazil on October 15, 2017, in possession of 480 kilograms of cocaine—more than half a ton.

Given the extensive coverage corporate journalists gave to the arrest and conviction of Venezuelan first lady Cilia Flores’ “narco-nephews” in 2015–17 (e.g. Business Insider, 10/31/16; Miami Herald, 12/13/17; Daily Beast, 12/15/17), one could expect equally damning exposés in the case of Áñez. Readers shouldn’t hold their breath.

In addition to whitewashing Áñez, corporate journalists have sought to sanitize the image of the figure widely considered to be the real force behind the coup: Christian fundamentalist multimillionaire Luis Fernando Camacho.

Camacho is quite literally a fascist who got his political start in the sieg-heiling Santa Cruz Youth Union, an ultra-right paramilitary outfit that was instrumental in the Santa Cruz oligarchy’s 2008 US-backed secessionist plot which ultimately failed.

But none of this appears to matter to the Western media, which have portrayed Camacho as a “conservative protest leader” (BBC, 11/13/19), “a firebrand Christian” (Financial Times, 11/12/19) and a “civic leader” (Reuters, 11/7/19).

Also notoriously absent from mainstream coverage of the Bolivia coup are references to the fascist tactics employed by the opposition. Images and reports on social media showed MAS leaders attacked by mobs, tied to trees, their houses set on fire and several being forced to resign by opposition violence. Instead, corporate journalists innocuously described the increasingly violent right-wing mobilizations as “mass protests” (BBC, 10/31/19), “dissent” (AP, 11/8/19) and “civil disobedience” (New York Times, 10/31/19).

The right-wing violence was framed as “clashes” (DW, 11/8/19; France 24, 11/8/19) over “controversial” or “disputed” electoral results (Washington Post, 11/07/19; BBC, 11/7/19) enabling the US-backed opposition to don the mantle of pro-democracy protesters. To bolster this “fraud” narrative, Western journalists uncritically repeat the US-financed OAS’ claims of “irregularities,” and largely ignore a CEPR report that found no evidence discrediting the results.

Once Evo Morales was forced to resign, the switch was immediately flipped. State security forces, which had stepped aside to let Camacho’s fascist gangs wreak havoc and attack opponents, were now deployed to crush the inevitable resistance from indigenous MAS supporters. But now the media could resort to their tried and tested technique of criminalizing the anti-coup protests as “violence by looters or by Mr. Morales’ supporters” (New York Times, 11/12/19), just like was done in the case of anti-neoliberal rebellions in Chile and Ecuador (FAIR.org, 10/23/19). In some cases, journalists seemed to be preemptively justifying repression, for example writing that “violence erupted” after Morales’ resignation (Financial Times, 11/11/19), or that security forces were being deployed to “quell violence” (Reuters, 11/11/19). AP (11/13/19) asserted, perhaps wishfully, that “a sense of normalcy returned to the capital on Wednesday.”

Backed by Washington, the coup that the Western media deny is a coup (FAIR.org, 11/11/19) appears successful, at least for the time being. However, as in the short-lived 2002 coup in Venezuela, the media blackout and savage repression have not stopped multitudes of Bolivians from taking to the streets to restore democracy. Only time will tell if the pueblo will triumph.

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Featured image: Jeanine Anez receiving the presidential sash from a representative of the Bolivian military (photo: EFE).

On November 16, 1989, the US-trained and funded Salvadoran Atlacatl Battalion entered the grounds of El Salvador’s Central American University (UCA) and brutally murdered six Jesuit priests, sixteen-year-old Celina Ramos, and her mother, Elba Ramos. Nineteen of the twenty-five Atlacatl Battalion soldiers were graduates of the US Army School of the Americas (SOA) — a combat training institution with the ostensible aim of instructing Latin American militaries in control tactics over armed counterinsurgent groups.

SOA was founded in the Panama Canal Zone in 1946 and expelled from Panama to Fort Benning near Columbus, Georgia, in 1984. The slain Jesuit priests worked in solidarity with El Salvador’s poor and marginalized and were outspoken critics of the country’s military dictatorship. They are among the 75,000 civilians murdered during the US-backed war in El Salvador between 1980 and 1992.

The SOA has trained more than 83,000 Latin American security forces since its founding. Notorious graduates of the SOA — including nearly a dozen dictators and some of the worst human rights violators in the continent — are guilty of using torture, rape, assassination, forced disappearance, massacres, and forced displacement of communities to wage war against their own people. Former Panamanian president Jorge Illueca stated that the School of the Americas was the “biggest base for destabilization in Latin America.” US-led and supported state violence abroad has ravaged and devastated communities in Central and South America, many of whose people are forced to migrate north.

On September 20, 1996, under intense public scrutiny, the Pentagon released the SOA training manuals, which advocated torture, extortion, blackmail, and the targeting of civilian populations. The release of these manuals proved that US taxpayer money was used to teach Latin American state forces how to torture and repress civilian populations.

A US congressional task force reported that those responsible for the 1989 UCA massacre in El Salvador were trained at the US Army School of the Americas, and as public pressure mounted to close the SOA, the Department of Defense responded by replacing the School of the Americas with the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) in January 2001. The measure passed when the House of Representatives defeated a bipartisan amendment to close the school and conduct a congressional investigation by a narrow ten-vote margin. The opening of WHINSEC is not grounded in any critical assessment of the training, procedures, performance, or consequences of the training program it copies. Further, it ignores congressional concerns and the public outcry over the SOA’s past and present links to human rights atrocities.

To this day, WHINSEC continues to train Latin American security officers — including immigration officials.

In 2015, the first US Border Patrol agent graduated from the infamous training facility. On October 24 of this year, a contract between Border Patrol and Winchester Ammunition became public, confirming that Border Patrol purchased 33 million rounds of bullets and could purchase more than 330 million additional rounds over the next five years. Training of Border Patrol staff at Fort Benning coupled with their increased firepower is setting the stage for US state agents to wage war against undocumented migrants and refugees at border crossings and within the United States.

Over the past fifteen years, nearly one hundred people have been killed by US Border Patrol as a direct result of their excessive use of force, including the cross-border killings of fifteen-year-old Sergio Adrián Hernández Güereca in 2010 and sixteen-year-old José Antonio Elena Rodríguez in 2012. Both teenagers were on Mexican soil when they were shot at and killed by US Border Patrol agents located on US soil. Not a single Border Patrol agent has ever been held legally accountable for these crimes. According to a recent internal government report obtained by Quartz, criminal misconduct by border officers is at a five-year high.

In addition to US Border Patrol agents now being trained at the location notorious for instructing Latin American security forces in civilian-targeted warfare, on September 9 of this year, an unredacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) report revealed that ICE agents will also begin training there. The report divulged that ICE contracted New Mexico training systems company Strategic Operations for almost $1 million to build realistic models of US cities at Fort Benning. This will be a training facility meant to simulate raids that ICE teams would carry out in places like Chicago and Arizona, and the ICE Special Response Teams will be trained to deal with immigrants crossing the border.

There are already extremely detailed designs of buildings meant to imitate the kinds of places that ICE teams will raid, such as a two-story brick residential building typical of Chicago and a single-family six-room home typical of Arizona, complete with “set props” such as furniture, clothing, and toys. According to the contract, the plans include expansion for the future, with as many as fifty more buildings to be added to the training facility.

ICE agents have carried out violence against immigrants across the country. In July, video surfaced of ICE officers in Kansas City assaulting a man named Florencio Millan-Vazquez in front of his children and girlfriend; they smashed his car window and dragged him out to arrest him after claiming there was a warrant for his arrest, despite not providing evidence of this. More recently, an immigrant man was shot by ICE agents in Nashville, Tennessee, this past September and had to be hospitalized. ICE remains a human rights threat across the United States.

The United States is directly implicated in training and financing the perpetrators of gross human rights violations. In South and Central America, this violence is marked by military, economic, and political intervention, in addition to training proxy fighters at the SOA/WHINSEC. Now, US Department of Homeland Security agents are being trained at the same location in the same tactics of civilian-targeted warfare. The results are already clear: lethally trained and heavily militarized state security forces that target civilian populations, specifically communities of color, without meaningful oversight or accountability.

On the thirtieth anniversary of the UCA massacre, human rights organizations are continuing to call for the closure of the SOA/WHINSEC training facility at Fort Benning. The school’s crimes aren’t just evident in the atrocities of the past — they’re also still found in the horrors along the US-Mexico border and through the atrocious violence of ICE today. Those who are horrified by the crimes of the Border Patrol and ICE should join the call to shut down the SOA/WHINSEC and similar training centers.

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Featured image: Students from the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly School of the Americas) and students from the Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School conduct a joint assault on a simulated narcotics camp during a field training exercise. US Navy photo

It’s been a year and half since you left us but for your father and mother, it seems like forever. We miss hearing your beautiful baby voice in the morning that made us feel like the luckiest parents in the world. It’s hard to explain our feelings after you. We really really miss you…

Baby Zainab, we had big dreams and high ambitions for you. But you left us as a baby and we did not have a chance to see you succeed. Today, we can only sit and look at your photos wearing your beautiful dresses. We imagine your beautiful smile that melted us everyday. We imagine hugging you with love after you wake up from your sleep. Me and your mom can only wish to cuddle you again to keep you warm during those cold night.

Our life changed forever after the criminal Saudis attacked our family home. Those moments changed our life and cost us our beautiful baby girl. After the airstrike on our home, I screamed in pain telling my self “what just happened? Where is my family? Where is my baby Zainab?”

I never imagined I would find my baby Zainab under rubble of our home.

I removed rocks from on top of you and picked up your small body from beneath rubble and rushed to the nearest hospital hoping to save you but they said it was too late. I did not give up, and with your blood was dripping on my clothes as I ran to a second Hospital hoping to see your smile again. Doctors were trying to bring you back but it was too late. I fainted to the floor when medics told me you did not make it.

Hours later me and your mom almost followed you and medics were trying to save our lives. Later that night we were up on our feet again still trying to find you. We did not care about our health conditions because life without you was useless for us.

What value do we have for our lives after we lost your smile? You laid dead in the hospital and I couldn’t save you. You were smiling as you lay dead the same way you smiled when you were at home. Me and your mom were in tears from your smile as we tried to cover your smile that broke our hearts when we looked at your dead body.

Even on your funeral day, I couldn’t believe you were gone forever. I couldn’t believe your time with your family is over. I needed to hold you one last time hoping to get you back. Before we buried you, I picked up your dead body wanting one last picture with you. Your family was pushing me away but I insisted to have the photo taken. I wanted to vow to you that I will seek justice and promise you that the criminals behind your death will not be forgiven. I hugged you for the last time and took the photo with you that shook millions around the world who joined my call for your justice. Just yesterday, you were sleeping in your small bed at home but Saudi, the killers of civilians, wanted you dead. And because of them, that today was your last and you will be sleeping in your grave.

Me and your mom are in tears as we write you this letter knowing we will never see our baby girl again.

Your family’s tragedy did not end after you funeral. Your mom was still in serious condition laying on hospital bed getting treated for wounds from the airstrike on our home. Your death took our lucky charm with it. We were sick, homeless and poor but don’t worry life is not over. It won’t be over until justice is served. Don’t be sad for us, because we are thousands of other families are suffering like us since you were not the only child killed by Saudi airstrikes. Your family is only one of thousands in Yemen who lost a child as result of Saudi attacks.

Your mom just left the room and couldn’t finish the letter so I need to go help her. One last thing we want you to know, due to the war imposed blockade on Yemen, I am still trying to find a good international lawyer and bring your case in front of international courts. We will never give up. You will never be forgotten. Your killers will pay the price, I promise you that. You will be alive in our hearts forever.

Your loving father.

Abraham AbdulKarim

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Today Wednesday, the deputy president of the National Assembly in contempt and “self-proclaimed” Juan Guaidó congratulated the president in charge – and also “ self-proclaimed ” – of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez, after the coup d’etat was consummated in that country and Evo Morales was forced to resign from the presidency.

The message was published in his official twitter account where he added

“From the legitimate government of Venezuela we recognize @ JeanineAnez as the interim president of Bolivia, her mission is to guide a constitutional transition towards a presidential election. They are an inspiration to our country, we have the conviction that we will achieve freedom”.

However, for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro,

”Evo Morales is still president of Bolivia because the resignation letter has not been formally received by the Senate and as they have not officially received it and approved it,” said the head of state yesterday regarding the suspension of the Parliament meeting due to lack of quorum.

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This article was translated from Spanish to English by JRE/EF and published on Orinoco Tribune.

Hasakah: The Syrian Arab Army continues its swift deployment in the northeastern province along the borders with NATO member state Turkey to protect the Syrians living there from the aggression by the Turkish Army, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Wahhabi terrorists loyal to Recep Tayib Erdogan.

The following video report by the Lebanese Al-Mayadeen news channel details further about the SAA deployment.

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Transcript of the English translation of the above video report

Marijat, Al Bustan, Swedieh West, Shamsiyah, Hob Al-Hawa and Ain Dewar, six new locations where the Syrian army has deployed to complete the deployment on the northern border strip of Hasakah, from the northeastern countryside of Ras al-Ain to Ain-Dewar with a 200-kilometer stretch.

The deployment of the army in these areas aims to link the Syrian-Iraqi border with the Syrian-Turkish border at the Ain Dewar site. It is the first deployment in seven years in cities and towns that are a reservoir of oil and gas resources, this allows the Syrian government to invest later in the event of an agreement with the Kurdish self-administration.

The deployment on the Syrian-Turkish border is one task to secure the area from Turkish infiltration and attack on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic.

This is the first time in seven years that we have reached this region, and, God willing, we will raise the flag of the Syrian Arab Army and remain high and protect our country, our families and our people.

The deployment of the army means full implementation of the terms of the Sochi Agreement signed between the Russian and Turkish presidents; it protects an important border area of tens of thousands of civilians who have been threatened with displacement under the weight of continued Turkish incursions into northern Syria.

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Soon enough the Trump mercenary forces he sent to ‘secure the oil’ from its owners will be encircled and he would need to call on the Russians to negotiate with Syria how to rescue them.

Meanwhile and on the Idlib front, northwest of Syria, the Syrian Arab Army units cleaned towns from NATO’s Nusra Front terrorists.

The Syrian Army recaptured the western village of Weibdeh and Tal Khazna in the southeastern countryside of Idlib, Army units carried out artillery and rocket launches on Jabhat al-Nusra fortifications in the area, followed by fierce clashes against armed groups deployed there. Meanwhile, army units carried out operations focused on militant gatherings in the village of Musheirqa in the southeastern countryside of the city.

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Featured image is from Syria News

Beginning in 2011, the Kingdom of Thailand began replacing aging US helicopters not with newer US-built models, but with Russian and Italian systems instead.

This includes Russian Mi-17 medium twin-turbine transport helicopters and several AgustaWestland AW149’s and AW139’s (for transporting VIPs).

According to a January 2019 article in Jane’s 360:

The RTA [Royal Thai Army] already operates five Mi-17V-5 platforms. In March 2008 the service ordered the first three such rotorcraft from Russia, which were delivered in March 2011, followed by the remaining two in November 2015 under a contract signed in July 2014. 

The article also noted that 2 more have recently arrived in Thailand, bringing the total number up to 7:

The Royal Thai Army (RTA) has received two more Russian-made Mil Mi-17V-5 ‘Hip-H’ medium transport helicopters, an RTA source told Jane’s on 8 January.

Russia’s embassy in Bangkok would note during the delivery of several Mi-17’s in 2015 that:

This model of the famous Russian MI-17 helicopter can be used not only for transportation purposes but also in combat circumstances as well as for civil needs, in particular for rescue operations and forest fire extinguishing.

Indeed, far from just new toys resulting from a military spending spree as US-backed opposition figures in Thailand claim, Russian-built Mi-17s have already been seen in action, most notably during the spectacular cave rescue incident last year where 12 children and their football coach made it out of flooded caves alive.

Mi-17’s could be seen bringing in heavy equipment and other supplies to aid in search and rescue operations, just as Russian representatives had promised they could. The rescued children were also in fact flown to safety on Thailand’s Mi-17’s.

While these initial 7 Mi-17’s sound insignificant, it should be noted that Thailand operates only 12 US-built UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters. While it has a much larger number of much older US-built UH-1 and UH-212 Huey helicopters (78 and 51 respectively) only 20 UH-1’s are being modernised along with 48 UH-212’s.

Interestingly enough, the resources needed to upgrade Thailand’s aging US helicopter fleet was so extensive it prompted Thai policymakers to look into and eventually decide to begin transitioning over to Russia’s Mi-17, using funds from the upgrade programme to do so.

Defense Industry Daily would report in its January 2019 article, “Thais Go Russian, Buy Mi-17 Helicopters – Now to Pay with Rubber,” that (my emphasis):

The Bangkok Post reports that Russia had offered to sell Mi-17s to Thailand at 168 million baht each in 2006, but the price has gone up. The first 3 helicopters will now cost 950 million baht, with another 50 million baht for pilot training and ground equipment (1 billion baht currently = $29.1 million). The other 3 helicopters will reportedly be paid for by funds diverted from the Huey upgrade program.

The article would also quote Thai representatives regarding cost and performance considerations over buying more US helicopters versus new Russian alternatives:

“We are buying three Mi-17 helicopters for the price of one Black Hawk. The Mi-17 can also carry more than 30 troops, while the Black Hawk could carry only 13 soldiers. These were the key factors behind the decision.”

This should hardly come as a surprise and is about more than just shifting geopolitics.

Even the US Agrees: Russian Helicopters are Better 

The US itself in the midst of its now 2 decade-long occupation of Afghanistan even at one point began buying Russian Mi-17’s to equip the Afghan military to save money both in initial purchases and maintenance as well as in terms of training mechanics and pilots.

The Washington Post in a 2013 article titled, “Congress fuming over U.S. purchase of Russian helicopters for Afghanistan,” would claim:

By the end of 2016, Afghanistan’s air force is due to have 86 Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters. Most of them will have been purchased by the United States from Rosoboronexport, the same state weapons exporter that continues to arm the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.

The article also admits:

The Pentagon says that there is no better, cheaper helicopter than the Mi-17 to operate in Afghanistan’s desert expanses and high altitudes, and that it is the aircraft the Afghans know best.

Later, a purely politically-motivated transition toward US-built UH-60 Blackhawks precipitated predictable problems, as Defense News would report in its 2018 article, “Afghans are switching from Russian to US helicopters, but senators are concerned over the approach,” noting:

As the Afghans transition from the Mi-17 to the UH-60, several operational challenges have cropped up regarding the Black Hawk’s capability related to the Mi-17. 

The IG report said that the Black Hawk does not have the lift capacity comparable to Mi-17s and is unable to take on some of the larger cargo an Mi-17 carries, which requires two UH-60s to carry the load of one Mi-17. 

Additionally, the Black Hawks can’t fly at the same high elevations as an Mi-17. As a result, the former cannot operate in remote areas of the country.

UH-60 Blackhawks cost 2-3 times as much as Mi-17’s, with less lift and a much smaller passenger and cargo capacity while being unable to perform across the same extensive environments as Mi-17’s.

For any policymaker, cost and performance considerations alone are enough to make a case for “going Russian.”

While political considerations in Washington have directed policy toward wasting money on inferior technology, in capitals elsewhere around the globe chaffing under US interference in their internal affairs and the US’ disruptive foreign policy in general, bolstering Russian industry (or China’s for that matter) at Washington’s expense can only help tip the balance of global power further in favour of a more equitable multipolar world.

Considering the success of Russia’s Mi-17, with even Washington itself having at one point bought them in great quantities, it should be no surprise that nations particularly in Asia are receptive to greater collaboration with Russian helicopter manufacturers.

Early in 2019, Russian Helicopters carried out a demonstration in Thailand and other Southeast Asian states to showcase their rotary-wing aircraft for civilian uses. The Bangkok Post in its article, “Russian Helicopters begins Asian offensive,” would note:

The demonstration is part of Russian Helicopter’s business strategy to break into the civil aviation market in Southeast Asia and China. The company already has many military contracts in the region, but would like to expand into civilian uses like medical emergencies, policing and VIP transport.

The article also notes that the company is already in the process of delivering several Ka-32A11BC helicopters (used for search and rescue) to Thailand.

Also earlier this year, it was reported that Russian Helicopters was interested in building a factory in Thailand. The Bangkok Post in its article, “Russian Helicopters keen on setting up Thai plant,” would report:

Russian Helicopters is seeking to form a joint venture with a Thai company to enter the country’s flagship Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), aiming to establish production of helicopter parts for aviation companies.

All of this is just one part of Russia’s wider interest in investing in and partnering with Thailand and other nations in the region.

Not Just Selling Helicopters, But Building Enduring Relations 

It should be noted that the purchase of complex systems like aircraft or naval vessels entails more than just the transfer of money and equipment.

It also requires closer ties between the two nations involved, with Russia now committed to training Thai pilots and mechanics in how to operate and maintain their growing collection of Russian aircraft. With such collaboration comes closer ties in general and helps further reduce Thailand’s dependence on and vulnerability to US interests, influence and interference. It also aids in doing so, however incrementally, for the rest of Southeast Asia.

A similar process is taking place between Thailand and China where Thailand is replacing the vast majority of its aging US armoured vehicles with modern Chinese alternatives as well as the purchase of several significant naval vessels including the Kingdom’s first modern submarine.

Because Russia and China create superior technology at a fraction of the cost of US alternatives, nations are faced with an easy, commonsense decision to make. While US pressure in the past was often able to coerce nations into making decisions contra to their best interests, this is no longer the case. Thus we are witnessing the tipping off of irreversible momentum against Washington’s favour.

It is not as if American engineers are incapable of creating comparable technology at competitive costs, it is a concentrated collection of special interests who monopolise the required physical and political resource, preventing them from doing so, all in pursuit of unrealistic ambitions of global hegemony. The desire to rule over the world’s nations rather than fairly do business among them appears to be costing America the ability to do either.

Until this part of the equation is solved in the United States, Russian helicopters and likely a wider range of technology and services across other industries, hold a bright future across Eurasia, including Southeast Asia and particularly in Thailand.

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Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Like Túpac Katari, indigenous Aymara leader more than 200 years ago, confronting the Spaniards, Evo Morales was betrayed and ‘dismembered’ by his own people, recruited and paid by the agents of the most destructive, nefarious and murderous dark elite that governs and has governed for over two hundred years our planet, the United States of America. With their worthless fiat-Ponzi-pyramid money, the made-out-of-thin-air US dollar, they create poverty throughout the globe, then buy off the weak and poor to plot against the very leaders that have worked for years to improve their social conditions.

It’s become a classic. It’s being called a Color Revolution, and it’s been taking place on all Continents. The list of victim-countries includes, but is not exhaustive – Colombia, Honduras, Argentina, Paraguay, Ecuador, Chile, Brazil, in some ways also Uruguay (the current left-leaning government is powerless and has to remain so, otherwise it will be “changed”… that’s the name of the game) – and now also Bolivia. – Then there are Georgia, Ukraine, Iraq, South Sudan, Libya, Afghanistan, Indonesia; and the lawless rulers of the universe are attempting to “regime change” North Korea, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua – and on a larger scale China and Russia (I just returned from China – where the Government and people are fully aware what Washington’s intentions are behind every move they make).

In Africa, Africom, the US military Africa Command, buys off almost every corrupt African leader put in place by Africa’s former and new European colonialists, so they may continue sucking the riches out of Africa. These African leaders backed by Africom keep the African population in check, so they will not stand up. In case they won’t quite manage, “they” created the fear-squad called, Boko Haram, an off-spring of ISIS / IS – the Islamic State, created by the same creator, the CIA, Pentagon and NATO. The latter represents the European US-puppet allies; they keep raping Africa and reaping the benefits of her plentiful natural resources, and foremost, make sure that Africans stay subdued and quiet. Those who don’t may easily be “disappeared”. It’s Arica. But, have “they” noticed, Africa is moving, is gradually waking up?

And yes, not to forget, the “developed” and industrialized Europe, where sophisticated “regime change” over the years has subdued a largely well-off population, numbed and made apathetic by endless pro-capitalist propaganda and consumerism – Germany, UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, France, Italy, Spain – look what they have done to Greece! – Greece has become a red-flag warning for every EU nation that may dare to step out of US-dictated lockstep, of what might happen to them.

The list goes on with Eastern European EU countries, mostly former Soviet republics or Soviet satellites. They are EU members thanks to the UK, Washington’s mole in the EU, or as I like to call it – the European non-union – no Constitution, no solidarity, no common vision. They are all fiercely anti-Russia and most are also anti-Europe, but are made to – and love to eat and drink from the bowl of the EU-handouts, compliments of EU taxpayers. That’s about the state of the affairs we are in. There is, of course, much more coercion going on, but you get the picture. US interference is endless, merciless, reckless, without scruples and deadly.

Bolivia is just the latest victim. The process of Color Revolution is always more or less the same – a long preparation period. The coup d’état against Evo has been under preparation for years. It began already before Evo was first elected, when Washington realized that after the Bolivian people’s purging of two of Washington’s imposed “stooges” Presidents, in 2003 and 2005, Bolivia needed a respite. But the empire never gives up. That is a golden rule written in their unofficial Constitution, the PNAC (Plan for a New American Century), the writing of which has begun just after WWII, is regularly adjusted and updated, even name-changed (from Pax Americana to PNAC), but is still very much alive and ticking.

The coup against Evo Morales’ Government is not only because Washington does not tolerate any socialist government, and least in its “backyard”, but also – and maybe foremost – because of Bolivia’s riches in natural resources, gas, oil, a long list of minerals and metals – and lithium, the use of which is expected to triple over the next ten years, as it is used in electric cars and batteries. And as we know from the rapidly growing Green Movement, the future is out of hydrocarbon-driven into electric cars. No matter how the electricity is produced and how much environmental damage is done in producing the new flag, but still individual ‘mobility’. As neoliberal economists would say, “that’s just an externality”.

The first of the two US-imposed Presidents at the turn of the century, was Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, also called “Goni”, who privatized Bolivia’s rich hydrocarbon resources to foreign, mostly US, petro-corporations for a pittance. He was “elected” in 2002 against the indigenous, Aymara candidate, Evo Morales. When Goni was disposed of in a bloody people’s coup (about 60 dead) in 2003, he was replaced by his Vice-President, Carlos Mesa, the very key opponent of Evo’s, in the 20 October 2019 elections – who, following the same line of Goni’s privatization policies, was also overthrown by the Bolivian people in 2005. This led to a new election late in 2005 – and that’s when Evo finally won by a landslide and started his Presidency in January 2006.

What he has achieved in his almost 14 years of Presidency is just remarkable – more than significant reductions of poverty, unemployment, analphabetism, increase in health indicators, in national reserves, in minimum wages, pension benefits, affordable housing – in general wellbeing, or as Evo calls it, “living well”.

That’s when Washington decided to step back for a while – and regroup, to hit again in an appropriate moment. This moment was the election three weeks ago. Preparation for the coup intensified a few months before, when Bolivia’s Vice-President, Álvaro Marcelo García Linera, told the media that every day there were reports that US Embassy agents were interfering in the country’s internal and local affairs.

The manipulated election in 2002 is recorded in an outstanding film, “Our Brand is Crisis”, a 2005 American documentary by Rachel Boynton on American political campaign marketing tactics in Bolivia by Greenberg Carville Shrum (GCS) – James Carville was previously President Clinton’s personal assistant – the documentary.

Then, like today, the coup was orchestrated by the CIA via the “legitimate” body of the Organization of American States (OAS). The US Ambassador to the OAS openly boasts paying 60% of OAS’ budget – “so, better don’t mess with us”.

Less than a week before the October 20 election, Carlos Mesa was trailing Evo Morales with 22 against 38 points. Under normal circumstances it’s is virtually impossible that in a few days a candidate picks up that much of a difference. The election result was Mesa 37% and Morales 47% which would give Morales a first-round win, as the winning candidate needs a margin of ten points. However, already before the final tally was in, the OAS, the US and the usual puppets, the European Union, complained about election ‘irregularities’ – when the only irregularities were manufactured in the first place, namely the drastic increase in Mesa’s percentage from 22 to 37 points.

Evo declared himself the winner on 20 October, followed immediately by violent anti-Evo riots throughout the country, but mostly in the oil-rich Santa Cruz area – home of Bolivia’s oligarchs and elite. The protests lasted for about three weeks during which at least three people died, when last Sunday, November 10, Evo was “suggested” by the military brass, supported by the OAS (US) to step down with his entire entourage, or else. He resigned, because he wanted the riots to stop and his countrymen to continue living in peace. But violence hasn’t stopped, to the contrary, the opposition has become fiercer in their racist attacks on indigenous people, targeting them with live ammunition. The dead toll as of today has reached at least 20.

President Morales asked for, and was granted political asylum in Mexico. The Vice-President, Alvaro Linera, and most of Morales’ cabinet members followed him to Mexico. The President of the Senate, Ms. Adriana Salvatierra, also of the MAS party, according to the Constitution, would have been the legitimate interim-President. But she was also forced to resign, and so were Victor Borda, the leader of the Chamber, and Rubén Medinaceli, First Vice President of the Senate. They all had to resign. In total some 20 high-ranking officials of Evo’s Government took refuge in the Mexican Embassy in La Paz, before they flew to Mexico.

Evo has since said he wants to return to Bolivia, to be there for the millions of his supporters. Yes, still a sizable majority of Bolivians support Evo and his Movement towards Socialism (MAS). There is a mass of peaceful unarmed Evo supporting demonstrators, growing every day. They are being brutally beaten by US trained and “bought” police and military forces. Indeed, the commander of Bolivia’s armed forces, Williams Kaliman, served in earlier days as a military attaché at the Bolivian Embassy in Washington. During that time he was secretly ‘recruited’ to be trained by what then was called the School of the Americas, and which is now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, located at Fort Benning near Columbus, Georgia. Apparently Kaliman was not the only one of high-ranking Bolivian military and police officers having been subjected to this torturer and coup plotter training.

On Tuesday, 12 November, an extraordinary session of both chambers (Deputies and Senate) of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly (Parliament) was convened, to officially accept President Morales’ resignation, but the representatives of the Movement to Socialism (MAS), which are the majority in both chambers, did not attend because they were told by the opposition that their safety and that of their families could not be guaranteed. As a consequence, Parliament had suspended its session due to the lack of quorum.

Nevertheless, Jeanine Añez, an opposition senator, declared herself interim-President, and even though her nomination is illegal and unconstitutional, the Constitutional Court confirmed the legality of the transfer of power. But who could blame the judges of the Constitutional Court? They want to be on the right side of the fence, now that the Americans are soon expected to rule the country. Ms. Añez is from the right-wing Social Democrat Movement (not to confuse with MAS = movement towards socialism), and she is known to be fiercely anti-Morales. If her coronation looks and sounds like the one of Juan Guaidó in Venezuela, it is because her self-nomination is like Juan Guido’s, a US-supported farce. Washington has immediately recognized Ms. Jeanine Añez as (interim) President of Bolivia. She, as well as Carlos Mesa, have been groomed to become the next Bolivian leaders, when new elections are held – probably sometime in January 2020. Especially, Carlos Mesa is well known as a US-supporter from his earlier failed stint at the Bolivian Presidency (2003 – 2005).

Earlier, Jeanine Añez, tweeted, “I dream of a Bolivia free of satanic indigenous rites, the city is not for the Indians who should stay in the highlands or the Chaco”. That says it all, where Bolivia is headed, unless – unless another people’s revolution will stop this nefarious course. Ms. Añez apparently has since removed the tweet.

One of the internal drivers of the ‘golpe’ is Luis Fernando Camacho, a far-right multi-millionaire, from the Santa Cruz region, where the US have supported and encouraged separatism. Camacho, a religious bible fanatic, received support from Colombia, Brazil and the Venezuelan opposition – and, of course, he is the US henchman to lead the ‘coup’ internally.

As Max Blumenthal from “The Grayzone” reports,

“When Luis Fernando Camacho stormed into Bolivia’s abandoned presidential palace in the hours after President Evo Morales’s sudden November 10 resignation, he revealed to the world a side of the country that stood at stark odds with the plurinational spirit its deposed socialist and Indigenous leader had put forward. – With a Bible in one hand and a national flag in the other, Camacho bowed his head in prayer above the presidential seal, fulfilling his vow to purge his country’s Native heritage from government and “return God to the burned palace.” Camacho added “Pachamama will never return to the palace,” referring to the Andean Mother Earth spirit. “Bolivia belongs to Christ.”

Still, there is hope. Bolivians are known to be sturdy and staunch defenders of their rights. They have proven that best in the overthrow of two foreign-imposed successive Presidents in 2003 and 2005, “Goni” and Carlos Mesa respectively. They brought their Aymaran Evo Morales to power in 2006, by an internationally observed, fully democratic election.

There are other signs in Latin America that things are no longer the way they used to be for decades. Latin Americans are sick and tired of their status of US backyard citizens. There is movement in Brazil, where Lula was just released from Prison, against the will of Brazil’s fascist also foreign, i.e. US-imposed, Jair Bolsonaro. Granted, Lula’s release from prison is temporary, but with the massive people’s support he musters, it will be difficult for Bolsonaro to put him back in prison – and preserve his Presidency.

Social upheavals in Chile for justice and equality, against a racist Pinochet era Constitution, violently oppressed by President Piñera’s police and military forces, have lasted for weeks and will not stop before a new Constitution is drafted, in which the protesters demands are largely integrated. That too is a sign for an awakening of the people. And the enduring resistance against North America’s aggression by Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, are all positive vibes for Bolivia – not to be trampled over.

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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21^st Century; Greanville Post; Defend Democracy Press, TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Featured image is from Massoud Nayeri

Operation Northwoods was a proposed false flag operation against the Cuban government that originated within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) of the United States government in 1962. The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or other U.S. government operatives to commit acts of terrorism against American civilians and military targets, blaming them on the Cuban government, and using it to justify a war against Cuba.

The possibilities detailed in the document included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

Operation Northwoods

Fidel Castro taking power in Cuba in 1959, aroused the concern of the U.S. military due to the Cold War. The Operation Northwoods proposed creating public support for a war against Cuba by blaming it for terrorist acts that would actually be perpetrated by the U.S. Government. To this end, Operation Northwoods proposals recommended hijackings and bombings followed by the introduction of phony evidence that would implicate the Cuban government. It stated:

Several other proposals were included within Operation Northwoods, including real or simulated actions against various U.S. military and civilian targets. The operation recommended developing a “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington”. The plan was drafted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, signed by Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer and sent to the Secretary of Defense.

Top Secret Cuba Project

The main proposal for Operation Northwoods was presented in a document titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba (TS),” a top secret collection of draft memoranda written by the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The document was presented by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on 13 March 1962 as a preliminary submission for planning purposes. The Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended that both the covert and overt aspects of any such operation be assigned to them.

Image on the right: Lyman L. Lemnitzer, who was in charge as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who signed Operation Northwoods

The previously secret document was originally made public on 18 November 1997, by the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board, a U.S. federal agency overseeing the release of government records related to John F. Kennedy’s assassination. A total of 1,521 pages of once-secret military records covering 1962 to 1964 were concomitantly declassified by said Review Board.

The Plan

In response to a request for pretexts for military intervention by the Chief of Operations of the Cuba Project, Brig. Gen. Edward Lansdale, the document listed methods, and outlined plans, that the authors believed would garner public and international support for U.S. military intervention in Cuba. According to the documents, the plan called for the following:

1. 1. Since it would seem desirable to use legitimate provocation as the basis for U.S. military intervention in Cuba, a cover and deception plan, to include requisite preliminary actions such as had been developed in response to Task 33 c, could be executed as an initial effort to provoke Cuban reactions. Harassment plus deceptive actions to convince the Cubans of imminent invasion would be emphasized. Our military posture throughout execution of the plan will allow a rapid change from exercise to intervention if Cuban response justifies.
   2. A series of well coordinated incidents will be planned to take place in and around Guantanamo to give genuine appearance of being done by hostile Cuban forces.
   3. United States would respond by executing offensive operations to secure water and power supplies, destroying artillery and mortar emplacements which threaten the base.
   4. Commence large scale United States military operations.

Although part of the U.S. government’s anti-communist Cuban Project, Operation Northwoods was never officially accepted; it was authorized by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but then rejected by President John F. Kennedy. According to currently released documentation, none of the operations became active under the auspices of the Operation Northwoods proposals.

A similar project was initiated in Syria for the overthrow of the Assad regime.

Operation Timber Sycamore

Operation Timber Sycamore is the codename of a covert operation officially authorized by Obama in June 2013 to train and equip the anti-Assad rebellion, but which actually started in October 2011, when the CIA was operating via Britain’s MI6 to avoid having to notify Congress that it was arming the rebels in Syria. Originally, the CIA and MI6 (the British foreign intelligence service) set up a rebel arms supply network in Syria from Libya — a plan that involved intelligence agencies of 15 countries.

Intervention in India

The Pentagon project Operation Timber Sycamore that spawned ISIS was the brainchild of former CIA Director General David Petraeus. It is now coordinated by the investment fund KKR, established by Henry Kravis and whose military activities are led by Petraeus.

Role of Gen David Petraeus

KKR where Petraeus sits as Chairman belongs to the equity partners who owns 80% stake in NXP Semiconductors who supplied chips for the Electronic Voting Machines in India – the integrity of which is being investigated by Indian agencies. Gen Petraus is also credited to have trained former United States National Security Advisor Herbert Raymond McMaster who is responsible for pulling India into the Anglo-American orbit as a “major defense partner” implemented through ‘Washington’s Man in New Delhi’.

Gen Petraeus is also the key in the ongoing plot for an Anglo-American base in #Kashmir under the trusteeship of the United Nations. The original policy drafted by Mountbatten himself. Read more here 》 Kashmir Conflict – An Anglo American Operation https://t.co/4wg0oUEKXF

— GreatGameIndia (@GreatGameIndia) September 12, 2019

Gen Petraeus is also the key player in the ongoing plot for an Anglo-American Airbase in Kashmir under the trusteeship of the United Nations – a policy drafted by Mountbatten himself. When asked about US intervention in Kashmir, then US Central Command Chief Gen Petraeus disclosed in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Kashmir: “Together with my great diplomatic wingman Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, this effort actually has started”.

As per intel with GreatGameIndia, Petraeus is the pointman for Deep State in India. In 2018, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar and former CIA Director David Petraeus together formed strategies for the “dramatic transition of India in the New World Order” at a six-day Raisina Dialogue also attended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Recently, a high-level conference was organized in London to chart our the strategies for this transition. Needless to say the key speaker for this UK-India Summit 2019 was Petraeus. The event is well known in intelligence circles to be organized by British intelligence.

It has been suggested that KKR had a role to play in Cafe Coffee Day founder V G Siddhartha's death. But what is KKR? Who owns it? What has KKR to do with the CIA?

Here we chart a brief overview of the various covert operations of KKR in India.https://t.co/N9DYF436V8

— GreatGameIndia (@GreatGameIndia) September 14, 2019

It were such meeting, albeit secret that took place in London in the late 90s where the blueprint for the return of East India Company was drafted. Called Vision 2020 the scheme was a brainchild of an American consultancy firm born out of US military, McKinsey and the Big Four. Fortunately the project was met with a lot of opposition and as a result was stopped in its tracks. Since then they have their eyes set on Kashmir now.

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Turkey and Russia began joint patrols in the northeast conflict zone in Syria beginning November 1.  The Russian military police, formed in 2012, is tasked with convoy protection, area security, restoring law and order, and resettlement operations. Russia recently sent about 300 more military police and more than 20 armored vehicles to Syria. Russia landed attack helicopters and troops at a sprawling air base at Qamisli in northeast Syria, recently vacated by US forces.

Armed Russian military police flew into the Syrian airbase in northern Aleppo province near the border with Turkey and fanned out to secure the area.  The facility is used as a distribution center for humanitarian aid for local residents.

“We entered the base and took the inner and external perimeter under control,” said a senior Russian military police inspector. “Now sappers are looking and going through every building to make sure there aren’t some kind of explosive substances left behind or some kind of surprises here for us,” he said.

Russia has two permanent military bases in Syria, an airbase in Latakia province, and the decades’ old naval facility at Tartus. On October 24, a column of Russian military police patrolled the Syrian-Turkish border. The patrol route was from the city of Qamishli to the settlement of Abouda. The Russian military police, from the southern Russian region of Chechnya, also helped to remove some of the Kurdish militias and their weapons 30 km away from the Syrian-Turkish border.

“The deployment of our forces and hardware, as well as the forces and hardware of the Syrian border guards, is currently taking place in the delineated zones,” the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Under the terms of the deal, Russian and Turkish forces will start to patrol a narrower, 10-km strip of land on the Syrian side of the border where US troops had been deployed for years alongside their former Kurdish allies.  The arrival of the Russian police marks a shift in the regional balance of power just weeks after Trump began pulling US forces out of northeast Syria. Major General Yuri Borenkov, head of the Russian Defence Ministry’s Reconciliation Centre in Syria, said the Russian military police will continue to patrol communities in the northeast of Syria.

The deal between Russia and Turkey

Russia has emerged as a major power who maintains loyalty to its allies, and who has served as an honest broker between opposite sides in a conflict.  On October 22, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed a deal concerning northeast Syria. According to the deal, Russian military police and Syrian border guards started to monitor the withdrawal of Kurdish military formations to the depth of 30 km from the border.

On Oct. 9, Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring, in which Erdogan will clear the border zone of the northeast of Syria of Kurdish militias, such as SDF, YPG/PKK, which Turkey views as terrorists.   Previously, Ankara halted its assault under a US-brokered ceasefire, and the Putin-Erdogan deal built on that agreement, while highlighting a growing security relationship between Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and NATO member Turkey.

The role of the Syrian Arab Army

On October 13, SANA reported that Damascus had struck a deal with Kurds and sent troops to northern Syria to protect civilians from the Turkish army. In the next few days, the Syrian army took control over some cities and towns in Kurdish regions without any fighting, including Al-Tabqah, Manbij, Raqqa, and Kobani. On October 17, Syrian army units reached the Turkish border.

The Syrian Arab Army and Russian forces have entered two border cities, Manbij and Kobani, which lie within Turkey’s planned ‘safe-zone’ but are west of recent Turkish military invasion. The Syrian Arab Army’s frontlines are several kilometers from Qirat village on the Sajur River. Once the US forces left the northeast region, the Syrian Arab Army dispersed in all directions, taking up positions across a very large region.

President Putin’s statements

“When it comes to Russia’s own interests, they lay first and foremost in preventing many trained and prepared militants with combat experience from infiltrating Russian territory. In this sense, we cannot say that we resolved 100% of tasks, but in general we did. We have fulfilled the task that we had set for ourselves in Syria,” Putin said on November 14 from Brazil.  Putin stressed that after Russia started supporting the legitimate government in Damascus, 90% of the country’s territory was liberated from terrorists. “Not only liberated, but also returned under the control of the legitimate government. We have achieved what we had set out to do,” he noted.

The Russian leader has called on other countries to join efforts in the fight against terrorism.

“There is a threat of infiltration for all countries, a threat that militants will leave Syria and go to other places,” Putin said. “Everyone is in danger, that’s why we need to join efforts. I hope we will work together in a constructive manner,” he added.

The Nobel Peace prize

The 1988 Nobel Peace prize was awarded to the UN peacekeepers, who had served as observers and soldiers from 1948 to 1988, including over 500,000 persons, of which 733 had died.  Their task wasto report on the situation in crisis areas, set up buffer zones, keep up contacts between conflicting parties, monitor armistice agreements, maintain calm and good order, and give humanitarian aid.

The Russian military police in Syria are doing a similar job, which began in late 2016 in East Aleppo when a battalion was deployed and their mission was not to engage in frontline fighting, but rather to restore law and order and win the trust and confidence of a civilian population.  The Russian military police performed well and soon had earned a reputation of being fair administrators in the many cease-fire agreements brokered through the political process.  They have policed buffer zones between warring sides, escorted convoys of terrorists and their families to a safe-zone, guarded humanitarian corridors for civilians to flee a conflict area, providing temporary shelter, food and medical care to civilians fleeing to safety, and they provided security for OPCW inspectors.

The Russian military police are deserving of recognition as humanitarian peacekeepers, and were part of a multifaceted effort by Russian leaders and diplomats, as they sought to end a conflict that could have engulfed not only the entire Middle East but the world.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a political commentator.

Featured image is from Mideast Discourse

Evo Morales is Bolivia’s democratically elected and three-times reelected Bolivian president.

In cahoots with Bolivian fascists, military and police, along with US imperial tool Organization of American States (OAS), CIA forces toppled Morales for not subordinating the country’s sovereign rights to US interests.

Morales’ majority Movement for Socialism (MAS) legislators were intimidated and threatened not to interfere with the coup.

In response to the OAS’ Big Lie about electoral fraud, none occurring, Pompeo congratulated the organization for serving US interests over the rights and welfare of Bolivia and its people.

Separately, he thanked self-declared, unelected, illegitimate usurper president Jeanine Anez for “lead(ing) her nation through this democratic transition (sic)” the Trump regime went all-out to eliminate, CIA-installed fascist tyranny replacing it.

An unnamed senior state department official called transition to despotism in Bolivia “a significant moment for…democracy in our hemisphere” — a notion both extremist right wings of the US one-party state abhor, especially at home.

Anti-Morales Bolivians in the streets post-election, “standing up for (the) legitimacy of their electoral process,” were CIA-recruited thugs.

Key Bolivian military and police officials were enlisted to support the coup. At first, majority pro-Morales legislators couldn’t enter parliament because security forces refused to guarantee their safety.

Days later, they formed a legislative quorum, swearing in MP Monico Eva Copa as Senate president and Sergio Choque as lower house Chamber of Deputies president.

Pro-Morales supporters control of Bolivia’s Legislative Assembly for now, tenuous at best without military and police support.

Anez illegally self-declared herself president, breaching the constitutional requirement for a parliamentary quorum to be in session for approval.

She breached articles 161, 169 and 410 of the Constitution.

Article 161 lists the Legislative Assembly’s functions, a quorum required for them to be performed. They include “accept(ing) or reject(ing) the resignation of the president (and) vice president.”

Article 169 states the following:

“In the event of an impediment or definitive absence of the President, he or she shall be replaced by the Vice President and, in the absence of the latter, by the President of the Senate, and in his or her absence by the President of the Chamber of Deputies. In this last case, new elections shall be called within a maximum period of ninety days.”

“In case of temporary absence, the Vice President shall assume the Presidency for a term not to exceed ninety days.”

Article 410 states:

“Every person, natural and legal, as well as public organs, public functions and institutions, are subject to the present Constitution.”

“The Constitution is the supreme norm of Bolivian law and enjoys supremacy before any other normative disposition.”

Anez is a US-anointed hard-right political nobody, elected to Bolivia’s Senate in 2014 with 91,895 votes – 1.7% of 5,171,428 ballots cast.

Until the CIA coup, most Bolivians knew little or nothing about her. Telesur noted that “Latin America recorded a new ‘self-swearing’ in coup script that, without a doubt, seems familiar,” adding:

“Violence in the country continues by radical opposition groups that have burned indigenous population symbols.”

“Meanwhile in La Paz, (the country’s political capital) thousands of supporters of Evo Morales are being mobilized in rejection of the coup d’etat and its discriminatory and racist acts.”

“Over 4,500 Twitter accounts (were) created to legitimize (the illegitimate) coup (with) almost no followers,” Telesur reported, citing Menta Communication’s Luciano Galup, adding:

“These action have scant effect on domestic politics…But worldwide they can function as (pro-coup) propaganda” — a way for dictatorships and their sponsors to legitimize what’s illegitimate.

Calling Twitter’s action “a scandal,” Galup noted that 3,612 accounts have “between zero and one follower,” adding:

“(T)he most scandalous thing is there are 4,492 accounts that were created between yesterday and today to participate in the (coup). They created 4,492 accounts in two days.”

Images released support it. On Friday, illegitimate coup d’etat regime communications minister Roxana Lizarraga threatened independent journalists reporting accurately on what’s going with “sedition,” saying:

“Law will be fully enforced against those journalists or pseudo-journalists who are seditious, whether they are nationals or foreigners (sic),” warning:

The (illegitimate) interior ministry is compiling a list of journalists opposed to the coup d’etat regime.

Arrests were made, more likely to follow. The coup d’etat regime cut diplomatic ties to Venezuela, ordered its embassy staff to leave the country — one day after Anez usurped power, likely acting on orders from Washington.

Separately, she warned that if Morales returns to Bolivia, his legal right, he’ll face charges, falsely saying:

“He knows he has to answer to justice (sic). There is an electoral crime (sic). Nobody has thrown him out, but yes, there’s a need for him to respond regarding electoral fraud (sic), in addition to many allegations of corruption (sic).”

Earlier she said her (illegitimate) foreign ministry will file an official complaint with Mexico’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s government for granting Morales asylum.

Coup d’etat regime foreign minister Karen Longaric announced Bolivia’s withdrawal from the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).

Established in 2004 by Venezuela and Cuba, other regional nations joining the alliance. The international organization is all about cooperative social, political and economic integration of Latin American and Caribbean nations.

Large-scale pro-Morales protests continue in La Paz and elsewhere — demanding Anez resign, calling for reinstatement of Morales as Bolivia’s legitimate president.

CIA-installed usurpers control things. Resistance continues. The US got another imperial trophy if its dark forces can keep it — no guarantee given Bolivia’s long history of resisting tyranny.

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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 is from OneWorld

Protesters recently threw a Molotov cocktail and burnt tires in front of the Canadian Embassy in Port-au-Prince. At another rally demonstrators hurled rocks at Canada’s diplomatic representation in Haiti and a protester was filmed holding a sign saying: “Fuck USA. Merde la France. Fuck Canada.”

While jarring for most Canadians, these acts reflect the anger of an impoverished people fed up with foreign governments dictating their affairs.

For more than a year Haitians have been engaged in a remarkable popular uprising against a corrupt and repressive foreign-backed president. Since September schools and businesses in Port-au-Prince have largely been shuttered in protests challenging the president, racism and economic inequality. But, Haitians are also rejecting Canadian foreign policy.

Jovenel Moïse remains president because he has the backing of Ottawa, France, Washington and other members of the so-called “Core Group”. Canada provides the unpopular president with important  financial, policing and diplomatic support.

During the past decade and a half Haitians have increasingly identified Canada with the country’s historic influencers. On January 31, 2003, Ottawa hosted a secret meeting – revealed by prominent Québec journalist Michel Vastel – to discuss Haiti’s future. No Haitian representative was invited to the summit where high level US, Canadian, French and Organization of American States officials discussed overthrowing elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, putting the country under international trusteeship and resurrecting Haiti’s dreaded military.

13 months after that meeting the US, France and Canada ousted Aristide. For the next two years they imposed a government responsible for thousands of deaths. The coup also ushered in a UN military force whose reckless sewage disposal caused a cholera epidemic that took 10,000 lives.

After the country was struck by a deadly earthquake in 2010, Canadian officials continued their inhumane and antidemocratic course. According to internal government documents the Canadian Press examined a year after the disaster, officials in Ottawa feared a post-earthquake power vacuum could lead to a “popular uprising.” One briefing note marked “secret” explained:

“Political fragility has increased the risks of a popular uprising, and has fed the rumour that ex-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, currently in exile in South Africa, wants to organize a return to power.”

The documents also explained the importance of strengthening the Haitian authorities’ ability “to contain the risks of a popular uprising.” To police Haiti’s traumatized and suffering population 2,050 Canadian troops were deployed alongside 12,000 US soldiers and 1,500 UN troops (8,000 UN soldiers were already there).

A year after the earthquake the US and Canada forced third place presidential candidate, Michel Martelly, into the runoff of an election that barred Aristide’s party. The central figure in the multi-billion dollar corruption scandal that has spurred recent protests, Martelly is Moïse’s mentor.

It’s no wonder Haitian are angry with the Canadian government. But, an alternative Canadian position is also being put forward. On October 31 Québec’s National Assembly unanimously endorsed a motion declaring “our unreserved solidarity with the Haitian people and their desire to find a stable and secure society.” It urges “support for any peaceful and democratic exit from the crisis coming from Haitian civil society actors.”A week earlier the Concertation pour Haïti, a collection of Québec NGOs and unions, called for “Canada to make the right choice and use its influence in the international community to support” a presidential transition. Last week David Suzuki, Amir Khadir, Roger Waters, Maude Barlow, Yann Martel and more than 100 other writers, musicians, activists and professors signed an open letter calling on “the Canadian government to stop backing a corrupt, repressive and illegitimate Haitian president.”

It is time for a change to Canadian policy in Haiti.

On November 17 Solidarité Québec-Haiti is holding a demonstration in solidarity with the popular uprising in Haiti.

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Marie Dimanche is founder of Solidarité Québec-Haiti #Petrochallenge 2019.

Frantz André is with Comité d’action des personnes sans statut and Solidarité Québec-Haiti.

Yves Engler is a member of Solidarité Québec-Haiti and author of 10 books.

The Second De-Colonialization

To an extent, this is a déjà –vu all over again. As the British and French colonial empires, crippled by the two world wars which not only bankrupted them but also plainly demonstrated “colored” soldiers could fight as well as “white” ones, collapsed, the two superpowers promptly filled the void. While in some cases the United States swiftly moved in as the French and the British were departing, leaving behind the elites their trained, those countries which experienced genuine national liberation movements nearly without exception opted for an alliance with the USSR.

Contrary to Western Cold War-era propaganda, the USSR was an attractive partner for international cooperation for several reasons, which included the demonstrated ability at defeating Western powers at war (a major consideration for developing post-colonial states), the economic development model which succeeded in industrializing the country in the space of only one decade, and the absence of legalized racial discrimination which, until the late 1960s, was the norm in the United States.

The ability to choose between two demonstrably different models of development offered by the two rival superpowers had both benefits and dangers for the developing countries of Africa, Asia, and even Latin America. The benefits lay in the fear of  a “domino effect”, which forced the “First World” to offer considerably better terms to the “Third World” than they would have had the “Second World” not existed. The danger lay in the form of superpower “proxy wars” fought to prevent countries from drifting toward the USSR or to subvert the economic and political systems of those countries which did join the East Bloc.

The murder of Patrice Lumumba, the war in Vietnam, the military coups in various Latin American countries, the economic blockade of Cuba, and many other such campaigns were all part of the US effort to eliminate Soviet influence from the developing world.

The end of the Cold War meant a shift toward global unipolarity where there would be no competing economic models. Economic neoliberalism was now “the only game in town” on a global scale, and the politics of TINA (“there is no alternative”) ruled the roost.

But the shift toward a multipolar world that became evident in the 2010s means both opportunities and dangers for the developing countries similar to those experienced during the Cold War, though the greater number of global power centers means the game is considerably more complex than it was during the era of bipolarity.

Watch the video here.

Multipolarity in Action

While on the face of it might look as if the world is moving toward bipolarity once again, in practice there are four major actors: United States, European Union, China, and of course Russia. While US and EU collectively form “the West”, they also are perfectly capable of undercutting one another in order to protect own spheres of influence, be it Monroe Doctrine, the British Commonwealth, or Francophone Africa. Russia and China so far are not showing coordination in their respective efforts in Africa, though the absence of visible clashes of interests thus far suggests the existence of an informal division of responsibilities.

Russia’s renewed interest in Africa was prompted by the West’s efforts to isolate it politically and economically. Prior to 2014, previous provocations notwithstanding, Russia appeared to be steady on its course toward economic and political integration with the West and had that course not been rudely interrupted by NATO expansion, regime change in Ukraine, and the general campaign of demonization, Russia probably would not have felt compelled to lean into what the West viewed as its rightful sphere of influence if its own security interests along own borders were respected.

What does Russia have to offer?

It would appear, many things. If the Russia-Africa Economic Forum held in Sochi on October 23-24, 2019, where over 500 agreements estimated at $12 billion were signed and which were attended by leaders from 50 African states and eight African international organizations is any indication, economic development and mutually favorable business ventures rank high on the list of contributions to Africa’s prosperity and political stability.

In a similar vein, Bloomberg network reported that Russian Railways were in negotiations over a contract potentially worth $500 million to modernize the railroad network of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rosatom is negotiating with Ethiopia to construct a nuclear power plant.  Russia’s forgiveness of $20 billion of debts owed by various African states is likewise expected to result in new economic cooperation projects. Even though these impressive numbers still pale in comparison with the Chinese investments in the region, they do suggest African countries are not averse to having more than one non-Western partner in the realm of economic development.

Where Russia does outpace China is in the realm of security cooperation with African states, and here there may indeed exist a tacit agreement with China over the delineation of responsibilities. The preference shown for Russia in the area of security cooperation is driven by several considerations. They include relationships established during the Cold War, the proven reliability and durability of Russian weapons on African battlefields, but also Russia’s recently re-established prowess at waging a variety of types of warfare, combined with its ability to face down Western military threats. That latter quality is of interest to developing countries which fear finding themselves on the receiving end of some 21^st century version of White Man’s Burden.

While China’s recent military developments are impressive, the country has not shown itself either willing or able to demonstrate an ability to defend distant allies through military force.  Should Chinese investments and assets in Africa be exposed to military or paramilitary threats emanating from the West, it does not appear likely Chinese military forces would be there to protect them. At the moment it’s rather more likely China would rely on Russia for that protection. For that reason Russia and China can potentially form an extremely effective tandem that would be difficult for Western powers to counter.

The security dimension of Russia’s involvement in Africa appears to be attractive to a number of African states concerned about US designs on the region, particularly in the wake of the failed US-sponsored “color revolutions” in the Middle East. Some African states, including Sudan and Central African Republic (the latter clearly in the French sphere of influence) have already openly expressed interest in hosting a Russian military base. Russia’s long reach was furthermore demonstrated by the visit of two Tu-160 strategic bombers to the Republic of South Africa that received considerable positive attention in that country’s social media. Combined with the growing presence of the Russian Navy in the world ocean made possible by the newly built modern guided-missile frigates, Africa is beginning to recognize the presence of Russia as an exporter of political stability.

The Dangers

The biggest danger of course is that the United States is unlikely to simply accept any challenge to its influence on the continent, after having accustomed to the idea of unipolarity. Sometimes that rejection of reality takes comic dimensions, for example, when Facebook bans pages allegedly “meddling” in African politics, a measure which speaks volumes about the US assumption of “ownership” of that entire continent.

But US policies are unlikely to stop at Facebook temper tantrums. We are once again likely to see death squads, paramilitaries, CIA-linked jihadists, and even US support for genocidal rulers who will serve as local proxies intended to roll back Russian and Chinese influence. The most frightening aspect of contemporary US policies is the willingness to despoil a country and plunge it into a civil war if it looks like it might slip out of the Western orbit and into Russian and Chinese one.

It is yet difficult to predict how the future proxy wars will play out. However, the US track record in other regions suggests that not only are its covert action instruments ineffective at achieving US foreign policy goals, US reputation as a trustworthy international actor is so badly tarnished that it is likely to operate at a significant disadvantage when attempting to recruit proxy actors on the African continent. The alternative would be, as in the case of Syria, to directly deploy US forces into combat in order to stave off a political defeat, but it remains to be seen whether such a measure would find political support in Washington or among the US public.

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They pledged to do it, and they did – Bolivian feudal lords, mass media magnates and other treasonous “elites” – they overthrew the government, broke hope and interrupted an extremely successful socialist process in what was once one of the poorest countries in South America.

One day, they will be cursed by their own nation. One day they will stand trial for sedition. One day, they will have to reveal who trained them, who employed them, who turned them into spineless beasts. One day! Hopefully soon.

But now, Evo Morales, legitimate President of Bolivia, elected again and again by his people, is leaving his beloved country. He is crossing the Andes, flying far, to fraternal Mexico, which extended her beautiful hand, and offered him political asylum.

This is now. The striking streets of La Paz are covered by smoke, full of soldiers, stained with blood. People are disappearing. They are being detained, beaten, and tortured. Photos of indigenous men and women, kneeling, facing walls, hands tied behind their backs, are beginning to circulate on social media.

El Alto, until recently a place of hope, with its playgrounds for children and elegant cable cars connecting the once dirt-poor communities, is now beginning to lose its native sons and daughters. Battles are raging. People are charging against the oppressors, carrying flags, dying.

A civil war, or more precisely, a war for the survival of socialism, a war against imperialism, for social justice, for indigenous people. A war against racism. A war for Bolivia, for its tremendous pre-colonial culture, for life; life as it is being perceived in the Andes, or deep in the South American rainforest, not as it is seen in Paris, Washington or Madrid.

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The legacy of Evo Morales is tangible, and simple to understand.

During almost 14 years in power, all the social indicators of Bolivia went sky-high. Millions were pulled out of poverty. Millions have been benefiting from free medical care, free education, subsidized housing, improved infrastructure, a relatively high minimum wage, but also, from pride that was given back to the indigenous population, which forms the majority in this historically feudal country governed by corrupt, ruthless ‘elites’ – descendants of Spanish conquistadors and European ‘gold-diggers’.

Evo Morales made the Aymara and Quechua languages official, on par with Spanish. He made people who communicate in these languages, equal to those who use the tongue of the conquerors. He elevated the great indigenous culture high, to where it belongs – making it the symbol of Bolivia, and of the entire region.

Gone was the Christian cross-kissing (look at the crosses reappearing again, all around the oh so European-looking Jeanine Añez who has grabbed power, ‘temporarily’ but still thoroughly illegally). Instead, Evo used to travel, at least once a year, to Tiwanaku, “the capital of the powerful pre-Hispanic empire that dominated a large area of the southern Andes and beyond, reached its apogee between 500 and 900 AD”, according to UNESCO. That is where he used to search for spiritual peace. That is where his identity came from.

Gone was the veneration of the Western colonialist and imperialist culture, of savage capitalism.

This was a new world, with ancient, deep roots. This is where South America has been regrouping. Here, and in Correa’s Ecuador, before Correa and his beliefs were purged and ousted by the treacherous Moreno.

And what is more: before the coup, Bolivia was not suffering from economic downfall; it was doing well, extremely well. It was growing, stable, reliable, confident.

Even the owners of big Bolivian companies, if they were to care one bit for Bolivia and its people, had countless reasons to rejoice.

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But the Bolivian business community, as in so many other Latin American countries, is obsessed with the one and only ‘indicator’: “how much higher, how much above the average citizens it can get”. This is the old mentality of the colonialists; a feudal, fascist mentality.

Years ago, I was invited, in La Paz, for dinner by an old family of senators and mass media owners. With no shame, no fear, openly, they spoke, despite knowing who I was:

“We will get rid of this Indigenous bastard. Who does he think he is? If we lose millions of dollars in the process, as we did in 1973 Chile and now in Venezuela, we will still do it. Restoring our order is the priority.”

There is absolutely no way to reason with these people. They cannot be appeased, only crushed; defeated. In Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador or in Bolivia. They are like rats, like disease, proverbial symbols of fascism as in the novel The Plague, written by Albert Camus. They can hide, but they never fully disappear. They are always ready to invade, with zero notice, some happy city.

They are always ready to join forces with the West, because their roots are in the West. They think precisely like the European conquerors, like North American imperialists. They have double nationalities and homes scattered all over the world. Latin America for them is just a place to live, and to plunder natural resources, exploit labor. They rob here, and spend money elsewhere; educate their children elsewhere, get their surgeries done (plastic and real) elsewhere. They go to opera houses in Paris but never mingle with indigenous people at home. Even if, by some miracle, they join the Left, it is the Western, anarcho-syndicalist Left of North America and Europe, never the real, anti-imperialist, revolutionary Left of non-European countries.

They don’t need the success of the nation. They don’t want a great, prosperous Bolivia; Bolivia for all of its citizens.

They only want prosperous corporations. They want money, profit; for themselves, for their families and clans, for their bandit group of people. They want to be revered, considered ‘exceptional’, superior. They cannot live without that gap – the great gap between them and those ‘dirty Indians’, as they call the indigenous people, when no one hears them!

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And that is why, Bolivia should fight, defend itself, as it is beginning to do so right now.

If this, what is happening to Evo and his government, is “the end”, then Bolivia will be set back by decades. Entire generations will again rot alive, in desperation, in rural shacks made of clay, without water and electricity, and without hope.

The ‘elites’ are now talking about ‘peace’, peace for whom? For them! Peace, as it was before Evo; ‘peace’ so the rich can play golf and fly for shopping to their beloved Miami and Madrid, while 90% of the population was getting kicked, humiliated, insulted. I remember that ‘peace’. The Bolivian people remember it even better.

I covered the civil war in neighboring Peru, for several years, in the 90’s, and I often crossed over into Bolivia. I wrote an entire novel about it – “Point of No Return”. It was an absolute horror. I could not even take my local photographers to a concert or for a cup of coffee in a decent place, because they were cholos, indigenous. Nobodies in their own countries. It was apartheid. And if socialism does not return, it will be apartheid once again.

Last time I went to Bolivia, few months ago, it was totally different country. Free, confident. Stunning.

Remembering what I saw in Bolivia and Peru, quarter of a century ago, I declare, clearly and decisively: “To hell with such ‘peace’, proposed by elites’”!

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None of this is, of course, mentioned in Western mass media outlets. I am monitoring them, from the New York Times to Reuters. In the US, UK, even France. Their eyes are shining. They cannot hide their excitement; euphoria.

The same NYT celebrated the massacres during the 1965-66 US-orchestrated military coup in Indonesia, or on 9-11-1973 in Chile.

Now Bolivia, predictably. Big smiles all over the West. Again, and again, ‘the findings’ of the OAS (Organization of American States) are being quoted as if they were facts; ‘the findings’ of an organization which is fully subservient to Western interests, particularly those of Washington.

It is as if by saying: “We have proof that a coup did not take place, because those who had organized the coup say that it actually did not happen.”

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In Paris, on the 10^thNovember, in the middle of the Place de la Republique, a huge crowd of treasonous Bolivians gathered, demanding the resignation of Evo. I filmed and photographed these people. I wanted to have this footage in my possession, for posterity.

They live in France, and their allegiances are towards the West. Some are even of European stock, although others are indigenous.

There are millions of Cubans, Venezuelans, Brazilians, living in the US and Europe, working tirelessly for the destruction of their former motherlands. They do it in order to please their new masters, to make profit, as well as various other reasons.

It is not peace. This is terrible, brutal war, which has already taken millions of lives, in Latin America alone.

This continent has the most unequally distributed wealth on earth. Hundreds of millions are living in misery. While others, sons and daughters or Bolivian feudal scum, are attending Sorbonne and Cambridge, to get intellectually conditioned, in order to serve the West.

Each time, and I repeat each time, a decent, honest government is voted in, democratically, by the people, each time there is someone who has invented a brilliant solution and solid plan to improve this dire situation, the clock begins ticking. The years, (sometimes even months) of the leader are numbered. He or she will either be killed, or ousted, or humiliated and forced out of power.

The country then goes back to, literally, shit, as has happened just recently to Ecuador (under Moreno), Argentina (under Macri) and Brazil (under Bolsonaro). The brutal status quois preserved. The lives of tens of millions are ruined. “Peace” returns. For the Western regime and its lackeys.

Then, as a raped country screams in pain, countless international NGO’s, UN agencies and funding organizations, descend  upon it, suddenly determined to ‘help refugees’, to keep children in classrooms, to ‘empower women’, or to fight malnutrition and hunger.

None of this would be needed, if the elected governments which are serving their people were to be left alone; left in real peace!

All this sick, pathetic hypocrisy is never discussed, publicly, by the mass media. All this Western terrorism unleashed against progressive Latin American countries (and dozens of other countries, all over the world), is hushed up.

Enough is enough!

Latin America is, once again, waking up. The people are outraged. The coup in Bolivia will be resisted. Macri’s regime has fallen. Mexico is marching in a cautiously socialist direction. Chile wants its socialist country back; a country which was crushed by military boots in 1973.

In the name of the people, in the name of the great indigenous culture, and in the name of the entire continent, Bolivian citizens are now resisting, struggling, confronting the fascist, pro-Western forces.

Revolutionary language is once again being used. It may be out of fashion in Paris or London, but not in South America. And that is what matters – here!

Evo did not lose. He won. His country has won. Under his leadership, it became a wonderful country; a country full of hope, a country that offered great prospects to hundreds of millions all over La Patria Grande. Everyone south of the Rio Grande knows it. Marvelous Mexico, which has given him asylum, knows it, too.

Evo has won. And then, he was forced out by the treasonous military, by treasonous business thugs, feudal land owners, and by Washington. Evo and his family and comrades have been brutalized by that extreme right-wing paramilitary leader – Luis Fernando Camacho – who is calling himself a Christian; brutalized by him and by his men and women.

Bolivia will fight. It will bring back its legitimate President where he belongs; to the Presidential Palace.

The plane which is taking Evo to Mexico, north, is actually taking him home, back to Bolivia. It is a big, big detour. Thousands of kilometers, and months, perhaps even years… But from the moment the airplane took off, the tremendous, epic journey back to La Paz began.

The people of Bolivia will never abandon their President. And Evo is, forever, tied to his People. And Long Live Bolivia, Damn It!

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Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Four of his latest books are China and Ecological Civilization with John B. Cobb, Jr., Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter. His Patreon 

Featured image is from the author

The Port Of Discord

Georgian banker Mamuka Khazaradze, the co-founder of the country’s largest universal bank and the man behind the Anaklia Port project, recently had a falling out with the government after being charged with money laundering and thus decided to form his own political party called “Lelo” in an attempt to unseat his opponents during next year’s parliamentary elections as revenge. This in and of itself wouldn’t be an event worthy of international attention had it not been for the fact that the US Embassy in Georgia signaled its support for him after the charges were made and reiterated that it also continues to support his Anaklia Port project as well. About that investment, it’s planned to be the country’s largest one in history and envisages the creation of a deep-water port for facilitating Chinese-European trade. It’s an interesting idea in principle that was formerly supported by the government, but the authorities balked at demands from potential international creditors that they underwrite the hundreds of millions of dollars in loans that would be required for its completion.

The Argument Against Anaklia

That’s a sensible enough stand for the state to take, however, considering just how risky of a venture the Anaklia Port is. On the one hand, the argument can be made that there’s definitely a demand for trans-Black Sea shipping along China’s many New Silk Roads, but on the other, the case can also be put forth that the costs far exceed the predicted revenue when considering that the People’s Republic also plans to use the Arctic Silk Road maritime road, the Eurasian Land Bridge, the Middle Corridor, and traditional Pacific-Afro-Asian (“Indian”) Ocean-Mediterranean maritime routes as it is so it’s unlikely to come to depend on Anaklia enough to the point to justify this massive project. It’s true that its Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is one of the financiers, but that’s more out of financial interest than anything too strategic. China’s modus operandi is to always have access to as many trade corridors as possible in order to avoid dependence on any given one, so it’s unsurprising that would make its capital available for financing yet another one of them for that purpose.

The issue, however, is that the US is also interested in Anaklia Port and potentially intends to make it an alternative to both the Eurasian Land Bridge and the Middle Corridor, the first of which runs through Kazakhstan-Russia-Belarus while the latter connects Central Asia with the Caucasus via the Caspian and then Turkey en route to the EU. From a logistics standpoint, it’s already a possible bottleneck loading and unloading cargo at the Caspian ports, so it’s not that efficient to repeat this process once more at Anaklia when goods transiting through Azerbaijan can just continue along the newly launched Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway on the way to the EU. Ditto that logic when it comes to the comparatively more cost- and time-effective unimodal Eurasian Land Bridge that Russia is facilitating through its ongoing work on the Meridian Highway that will reduce travel time across the country. As such, it’s completely understandable why the state doesn’t want to underwrite this risky project, though it’s that disagreement between the ruling party and Khazaradze that the US is exploiting.

American Infowar Narratives

The American-influenced innuendo being bandied about right now is that the founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party and the country’s current de-facto leader Bidzina Ivanishvili is much too pragmatic towards Moscow, with the government’s refusal to underwrite the Anaklia Port project’s international loans being held as purported “proof” that he’s “doing Russia’s bidding” by “sabotaging” a project that could supposedly compete with its nearby Novorossiysk port and also cut it out of China’s trans-continental Silk Road  connectivity. These nascent information warfare narratives are entirely misleading because they distract from the fact that the Anaklia Port is of questionable economic viability at best and is likely nothing more than a “patriotic” means for Khazaradze to get even richer with a wink and nod from his US partners at the general population’s expense. If the government gave him what he wanted, then it would probably end up being the case that taxpayers would have to pay for the project if it didn’t pan out as expected.

From “Strategic” Port To Color Revolution Debt Trap

That scenario would ultimately necessitate a reduction in social spending to compensate for its international financial commitments and possibly even requesting loans from the World Bank and other US-backed institutions if it couldn’t afford it, further compounding the looming economic crisis that America could later exploit with ease through a Color Revolution for regime change purposes. There is no realistic scenario under which the Anaklia Port replaces Russia’s Eurasian Land Bridge or Turkey’s Middle Corridor, let alone one in which this project proves profitable enough for the Georgian people to justify their government underwriting the loans that Khazardze is seeking, but Washington wants Tbilisi to commit to it because of its supposedly anti-Russian and -Turkish optics, as well as the US’ intent to see Georgia entrapped in debt so as to facilitate the forthcoming regime change scenario through “electoral” means or a Color Revolution failing the success of the former. Returning to the present day, it can therefore be concluded that the Anaklia Port project is a domestic economic dispute that’s since been externally exploited by the US for political and strategic purposes.

Khazardze’s new political party comes into play because it could function as both the most radical faction of the hyper-nationalist opposition (possibly leading anti-Russian riots in the future just like the ones that broke out this summer) and the wedge for dividing the two main political forces in the country and thus creating an opportunity to become the post-election kingmaker on which the ruling party might be forced to depend and thus make concessions towards if it doesn’t win next year’s parliamentary polls with a convincing majority. The US is so firmly against Ivanishvili because it regards him as being “too friendly” towards Russia, which incenses the neoconservatives in the American “deep state” who have a pathological hatred towards their Old Cold War-era rivalry and are convinced of the Russiagate conspiracy theory that President Putin supposedly controls Trump to this day. It’s worthwhile noting that the parliamentary elections have to be held by October 2020, but regardless of what time they occur, they’ll still happen in a pivotal election year for the US and could thus create a “deep state”-manufactured international crisis for further pressuring Trump to take a harder line towards Russia in an attempt to secure his own re-election later that November.

Concluding Thoughts

Georgia is a little-thought-about country with an outsized strategic significance for Russia, China, Turkey, and the US. The first-mentioned has an interest in retaining pragmatic relations with the state whom it fought a defensive war against in 2008 after its then-leadership killed Russian peacekeepers and civilians in an unprovoked late-night attack against its two autonomous regions at the time, while the other two multipolar states regard the Caucasian one as a crucial transit state for facilitating their Silk Road trade. The US, however, realizes that it could throw Georgia into chaos comparatively easily in order to harm all three of its aforementioned rivals’ interests by jeopardizing Russia’s physical security through a crisis on its southern borderland and the possible emergence of a hyper-nationalist government there along the model of Ukraine’s post-Maidan one, while also throwing a spanner right in the middle of China’s Middle Corridor by potentially disrupting trade across the Caucasus. Altogether, this means that the outcome of Georgia’s latent US-provoked political crisis could have a disproportionate impact on Eurasian stability, which is why observers should continue to closely follow events there as they develop across the next year ahead of the upcoming elections.

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Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Newly released pesticide usage statistics for 2018 confirm that the British people are being used as lab rats. That’s the message environmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason has sent to Dave Bench, senior scientist at the UK Chemicals, Health and Safety Executive and director of the agency’s EU exit plan. In her open letter to Bench, Mason warns that things could get much worse.

In 2016, the UK farming minister said that the nation could develop a more flexible approach to environmental protection free of “spirit-crushing” Brussels directives if it votes to leave the EU. George Eustice, the minister in question, said that the EU’s precautionary principle needed to be reformed in favour of a US-style ‘risk-based’ system that would allow for faster approvals.  

There is little doubt that Eustice had GM crops in mind: the Department of Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) says that the most promising crops suitable for introducing to England would be Roundup Ready GA21 glyphosate-tolerant crops as they synergise well with herbicides already widely used in the UK.

Similarly, Boris Johnson said in his first speech as prime minister in July 2019:

“Let’s start now to liberate the UK’s extraordinary bioscience sector from anti-genetic modification rules and let’s develop the blight-resistant crops that will feed the world.”

However, the ‘GM will feed the world mantra’ is pure industry spin. The technology has a questionable record and, anyhow, there is already enough food being produced to feed the global population, yet around 830 million are classed as hungry and two billion experience micronutrient deficiency. If Johnson wants to ‘feed the world’, he would do better by looking of the inbuilt injustices of the global food regime which is driven by the very corporations he seems to be in bed with.

Conservative politicians’ positive spin about GM is little more than an attempt to justify a post-Brexit trade deal with Washington that will effectively incorporate the UK into the US’s regulatory food regime. The type of ‘liberation’ Johnson really means is the UK adopting unassessed GM crops, using more glyphosate (or similar agrochemicals) and a gutting of food safety and environmental standards. It is no secret that various Conservative-led administrations have wanted to ditch the EU regulatory framework on GM for some time.

Unregulated chemical cocktail

Mason asks Bench why Defra and the Chemicals Regulation Division refuse to ban glyphosate-based herbicides in Swansea between 2014-2017 when she told them that it was poisoning her nature reserve:

“Analysis of local tap water in August 2014 revealed a 10-fold increase since August 2013: from 30 ppt to 300 ppt.  I told them that these were of the order of concentrations found in a laboratory study in 2013 that showed that breast cancer cell proliferation is accelerated by glyphosate in extremely low concentrations. We had several neighbours who have recently developed breast cancer. Now, in 2019, with many scientific papers reporting apocalyptic insect declines around the world, we are facing a global Armageddon; yet the public has no idea, because the press has concealed it from them.”

Bench is also asked:

“Have you seen the pesticides usage statistics for 2018? They confirm what a European NGO said in 2013, that the British citizens are being used as lab rats!”

Mason continues:

“Dave Bench, you presented a paper at the Soil Association meeting on 20 November 2017… [it] showed that pesticide active ingredients applied to three British crops had increased between 6-18 fold between 1974 and 2016, rather than halved as farmers and industry had claimed!! As well as hearing this new evidence of increased pesticide use in the UK, the conference heard new scientific evidence from around the world showing that very low doses of pesticides, well below official ‘safety’ levels, pose a significant risk to public health via our food supply.

“Were you shocked? Presumably you weren’t because you described the regulatory system for pesticides as robust and as balancing the risks of pesticides against the benefits to society. That statement is rubbish. It is for the benefit of the agrochemical industry. The industry (for it is the industry that does the testing, on behalf of regulators) only tests one pesticide at a time, whereas farmers spray a cocktail of pesticides, including over children and babies, without warning.”

Ian Boyd, the former Chief Scientific Adviser to Defra, says pesticides, once they have been authorised, are never reviewed.

Mason adds there is consistent denial by the National Farmers Union (NFU), Defra and the agrochemical industry about the massive amounts of pesticides used on farmland and herbicides used in towns and cities on weeds; and there is silence from the UK corporate media.

She informs Bench that although glyphosate was relicensed in Europe by a “corrupt” group of individuals, it is distributed to every organ of the body and has multiple actions: it is an herbicide, an antibiotic, a fungicide, an antiprotozoal, an organic phosphonate, a growth regulator, a toxicant, a virulence enhancer and is persistent in the soil. It chelates (captures) and washes out the following minerals: boron, calcium, cobalt, copper, iron, potassium, magnesium, manganese, nickel and zinc.

In her previous reports, as in her letter to Bench, Mason has documented the consequences of this for human health.

Just as concerning is the UN Global Chemicals Outlook II report that indicates large quantities of hazardous chemicals and pollutants continue to leak into the environment, contaminating food chains and accumulating in our bodies, where they do serious damage. Estimates by the European Environment Agency suggest that 62 per cent of the volume of chemicals consumed in Europe are hazardous to health. The World Health Organization estimates the burden of disease from selected chemicals at 1.6 million lives. The lives of many more are negatively impacted.

Business as usual: public health crisis

Mason goes on to highlight numerous disturbing aspects of the revolving door between the pesticide industry and public bodies/government in the UK. She also notes that David Cameron appointed Michael Pragnell, founder of Syngenta, to Cancer Research UK’s (CRUK) board and awarded him a CBE in 2017 for services to cancer research.

Mason explains that the British government’s UK life sciences strategy is dependent on funding from the pharmaceutical sector which has links with the pesticide industry. In 2011, CRUK started donating money (£450 million/year) to the government’s ‘Strategy for UK Life Sciences’ while AstraZeneca (Syngenta’s parent company) was providing 22 compounds to academic research to develop medicines in the UK. She argues that Syngenta’s products cause diseases, while its parent company tries to cure them with synthetic chemicals. And CRUK is a willing enabler.

In 2014, the NFU, the Crop Protection Association (CPA) and Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC) launched ‘Healthy Harvest’ to safeguard the crop protection pesticide toolbox. The NFU and the agrochemical companies have continually defended the use of pesticides for economic reasons and complain about any attempt to restrict the 320-odd at their disposal. CPA, AIC and the NFU commissioned Andersons to write a report: ‘The effect of the loss of plant protection products on UK Agriculture and Horticulture’. Conveniently for the report’s commissioners, Andersons predicted dire economic effects on UK farming if pesticides were to be restricted.

And it is not that these powerful interests do not have the government’s full attention. Between May 2010 and the end of 2013, the Department of Health alone had 130 meetings with representatives of industry. According to Mason, it is business as usual and patently clear that the pesticides industry is being protected.

While continuing to ignore and side-line important scientific research findings which highlight inconvenient truths for government and the pesticide industry, prominent public officials and scientists as well as the media attempt to explain away all the diseases now affecting the UK as a result of individual behaviour: bad lifestyle choices.

In her various reports, Mason has discussed the importance of the gut microbiome and the deleterious effects of glyphosate which result in various health issues, such as obesity and depression. By 2018, CRUK was claiming that obesity caused 13 different cancers, but Mason argues that contamination by residues from 123 different pesticides on the fruit and vegetables supplied to schools by the Department of Health is the real reason for childhood obesity – not biscuits or poor choices.

Each year, there are steady increases in the numbers of new cancers in the UK and increases in deaths from the same cancers with no treatments making any difference to the numbers. While certain prestigious research centres are lavished with funding, Mason argues their work merely serves to strengthen the pesticide and pharmaceutical industries and implies the entire process is little more than a profitable racket at the expense of public health.

In finishing, let us remind ourselves of what the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Hilal Elver, said in 2017:

“The power of the corporations over governments and over the scientific community is extremely important. If you want to deal with pesticides, you have to deal with the companies…”

Baskut Tuncak, the UN’s special rapporteur on toxics, added:

“While scientific research confirms the adverse effects of pesticides, proving a definitive link between exposure and human diseases or conditions or harm to the ecosystem presents a considerable challenge. This challenge has been exacerbated by a systematic denial, fuelled by the pesticide and agro-industry, of the magnitude of the damage inflicted by these chemicals, and aggressive, unethical marketing tactics.”

There is a lot more valuable information in Rosemary Mason’s 10,000-word open letter to David Bench, including many references and citations in support of her claims. Readers are urged to access ‘Pesticides usage statistics for 2018 prove that the British people are being used as lab rats’ via the academia.edu website.

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Colin Todhunter is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research.

Important article by John Whitehead first published by the Rutherford Institute and Global Research on April 24, 2019

“Children are being targeted and sold for sex in America every day.”—John Ryan, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

Children, young girls—some as young as 9 years old—are being bought and sold for sex in America. The average age for a young woman being sold for sex is now 13 years old.

This is America’s dirty little secret.

Sex trafficking—especially when it comes to the buying and selling of young girls—has become big business in America, the fastest growing business in organized crime and the second most-lucrative commodity traded illegally after drugs and guns.

As investigative journalist Amy Fine Collins notes,

“It’s become more lucrative and much safer to sell malleable teens than drugs or guns. A pound of heroin or an AK-47 can be retailed once, but a young girl can be sold 10 to 15 times a day—and a ‘righteous’ pimp confiscates 100 percent of her earnings.”

Consider this: every two minutes, a child is exploited in the sex industry.

According to USA Today, adults purchase children for sex at least 2.5 million times a year in the United States.

Who buys a child for sex? Otherwise ordinary men from all walks of life.

“They could be your co-worker, doctor, pastor or spouse,” writes journalist Tim Swarens, who spent more than a year investigating the sex trade in America.

In Georgia alone, it is estimated that 7,200 men (half of them in their 30s) seek to purchase sex with adolescent girls each month, averaging roughly 300 a day.

On average, a child might be raped by 6,000 men during a five-year period of servitude.

It is estimated that at least 100,000 children—girls and boys—are bought and sold for sex in the U.S. every year, with as many as 300,000 children in danger of being trafficked each year. Some of these children are forcefully abducted, others are runaways, and still others are sold into the system by relatives and acquaintances.

“Human trafficking—the commercial sexual exploitation of American children and women, via the Internet, strip clubs, escort services, or street prostitution—is on its way to becoming one of the worst crimes in the U.S.,” said prosecutor Krishna Patel.

This is an industry that revolves around cheap sex on the fly, with young girls and women who are sold to 50 men each day for $25 apiece, while their handlers make $150,000 to $200,000 per child each year.

This is not a problem found only in big cities.

It’s happening everywhere, right under our noses, in suburbs, cities and towns across the nation.

As Ernie Allen of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children points out,

“The only way not to find this in any American city is simply not to look for it.”

Don’t fool yourselves into believing that this is merely a concern for lower income communities or immigrants.

It’s not.

It is estimated that there are 100,000 to 150,000 under-aged child sex workers in the U.S. These girls aren’t volunteering to be sex slaves. They’re being lured—forced—trafficked into it. In most cases, they have no choice.

In order to avoid detection (in some cases aided and abetted by the police) and cater to male buyers’ demand for sex with different women, pimps and the gangs and crime syndicates they work for have turned sex trafficking into a highly mobile enterprise, with trafficked girls, boys and women constantly being moved from city to city, state to state, and country to country.

For instance, the Baltimore-Washington area, referred to as The Circuit, with its I-95 corridor dotted with rest stops, bus stations and truck stops, is a hub for the sex trade.

No doubt about it: this is a highly profitable, highly organized and highly sophisticated sex trafficking business that operates in towns large and small, raking in upwards of $9.5 billion a year in the U.S. alone by abducting and selling young girls for sex.

Every year, the girls being bought and sold gets younger and younger.

The average age of those being trafficked is 13. Yet as the head of a group that combats trafficking pointed out,

“Let’s think about what average means. That means there are children younger than 13. That means 8-, 9-, 10-year-olds.“

“For every 10 women rescued, there are 50 to 100 more women who are brought in by the traffickers. Unfortunately, they’re not 18- or 20-year-olds anymore,” noted a 25-year-old victim of trafficking. “They’re minors as young as 13 who are being trafficked. They’re little girls.”

Where did this appetite for young girls come from?

Look around you.

Young girls have been sexualized for years now in music videos, on billboards, in television ads, and in clothing stores. Marketers have created a demand for young flesh and a ready supply of over-sexualized children.

“All it takes is one look at MySpace photos of teens to see examples—if they aren’t imitating porn they’ve actually seen, they’re imitating the porn-inspired images and poses they’ve absorbed elsewhere,” writes Jessica Bennett for Newsweek. “Latex, corsets and stripper heels, once the fashion of porn stars, have made their way into middle and high school.”

This is what Bennett refers to as the “pornification of a generation.”

“In a market that sells high heels for babies and thongs for tweens, it doesn’t take a genius to see that sex, if not porn, has invaded our lives,” concludes Bennett. “Whether we welcome it or not, television brings it into our living rooms and the Web brings it into our bedrooms. According to a 2007 study from the University of Alberta, as many as 90 percent of boys and 70 percent of girls aged 13 to 14 have accessed sexually explicit content at least once.”

In other words, the culture is grooming these young people to be preyed upon by sexual predators. And then we wonder why our young women are being preyed on, trafficked and abused?

Social media makes it all too easy. As one news center reported,

“Finding girls is easy for pimps. They look on MySpace, Facebook, and other social networks. They and their assistants cruise malls, high schools and middle schools. They pick them up at bus stops. On the trolley. Girl-to-girl recruitment sometimes happens.”

Foster homes and youth shelters have also become prime targets for traffickers.

Rarely do these girls enter into prostitution voluntarily. Many start out as runaways or throwaways, only to be snatched up by pimps or larger sex rings. Others, persuaded to meet up with a stranger after interacting online through one of the many social networking sites, find themselves quickly initiated into their new lives as sex slaves.

Debbie, a straight-A student who belonged to a close-knit Air Force family living in Phoenix, Ariz., is an example of this trading of flesh. Debbie was 15 when she was snatched from her driveway by an acquaintance-friend. Forced into a car, Debbie was bound and taken to an unknown location, held at gunpoint and raped by multiple men. She was then crammed into a small dog kennel and forced to eat dog biscuits. Debbie’s captors advertised her services on Craigslist. Those who responded were often married with children, and the money that Debbie “earned” for sex was given to her kidnappers. The gang raping continued. After searching the apartment where Debbie was held captive, police finally found Debbie stuffed in a drawer under a bed. Her harrowing ordeal lasted for 40 days.

While Debbie was fortunate enough to be rescued, others are not so lucky. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, nearly 800,000 children go missing every year (roughly 2,185 children a day).

With a growing demand for sexual slavery and an endless supply of girls and women who can be targeted for abduction, this is not a problem that’s going away anytime soon.

For those trafficked, it’s a nightmare from beginning to end.

Those being sold for sex have an average life expectancy of seven years, and those years are a living nightmare of endless rape, forced drugging, humiliation, degradation, threats, disease, pregnancies, abortions, miscarriages, torture, pain, and always the constant fear of being killed or, worse, having those you love hurt or killed.

Peter Landesman paints the full horrors of life for those victims of the sex trade in his New York Times article “The Girls Next Door”:

Andrea told me that she and the other children she was held with were frequently beaten to keep them off-balance and obedient. Sometimes they were videotaped while being forced to have sex with adults or one another. Often, she said, she was asked to play roles: the therapist patient or the obedient daughter. Her cell of sex traffickers offered three age ranges of sex partners–toddler to age 4, 5 to 12 and teens–as well as what she called a “damage group.” “In the damage group, they can hit you or do anything they want to,” she explained. “Though sex always hurts when you are little, so it’s always violent, everything was much more painful once you were placed in the damage group.”

What Andrea described next shows just how depraved some portions of American society have become.

“They’d get you hungry then to train you” to have oral sex. “They put honey on a man. For the littlest kids, you had to learn not to gag. And they would push things in you so you would open up better. We learned responses. Like if they wanted us to be sultry or sexy or scared. Most of them wanted you scared. When I got older, I’d teach the younger kids how to float away so things didn’t hurt.”

Immigration and customs enforcement agents at the Cyber Crimes Center in Fairfax, Va., report that when it comes to sex, the appetites of many Americans have now changed. What was once considered abnormal is now the norm. These agents are tracking a clear spike in the demand for harder-core pornography on the Internet. As one agent noted,

“We’ve become desensitized by the soft stuff; now we need a harder and harder hit.”

This trend is reflected by the treatment many of the girls receive at the hands of the drug traffickers and the men who purchase them. Peter Landesman interviewed Rosario, a Mexican woman who had been trafficked to New York and held captive for a number of years. She said:

“In America, we had ‘special jobs.’ Oral sex, anal sex, often with many men. Sex is now more adventurous, harder.”

A common thread woven through most survivors’ experiences is being forced to go without sleep or food until they have met their sex quota of at least 40 men. One woman recounts how her trafficker made her lie face down on the floor when she was pregnant and then literally jumped on her back, forcing her to miscarry.

Holly Austin Smith (image on the right) was abducted when she was 14 years old, raped, and then forced to prostitute herself. Her pimp, when brought to trial, was only made to serve a year in prison.

Barbara Amaya was repeatedly sold between traffickers, abused, shot, stabbed, raped, kidnapped, trafficked, beaten, and jailed all before she was 18 years old.

“I had a quota that I was supposed to fill every night. And if I didn’t have that amount of money, I would get beat, thrown down the stairs. He beat me once with wire coat hangers, the kind you hang up clothes, he straightened it out and my whole back was bleeding.”

As David McSwane recounts in a chilling piece for the Herald-Tribune:

“In Oakland Park, an industrial Fort Lauderdale suburb, federal agents in 2011 encountered a brothel operated by a married couple. Inside ‘The Boom Boom Room,’ as it was known, customers paid a fee and were given a condom and a timer and left alone with one of the brothel’s eight teenagers, children as young as 13. A 16-year-old foster child testified that he acted as security, while a 17-year-old girl told a federal judge she was forced to have sex with as many as 20 men a night.”

One particular sex trafficking ring catered specifically to migrant workers employed seasonally on farms throughout the southeastern states, especially the Carolinas and Georgia, although it’s a flourishing business in every state in the country. Traffickers transport the women from farm to farm, where migrant workers would line up outside shacks, as many as 30 at a time, to have sex with them before they were transported to yet another farm where the process would begin all over again.

This growing evil is, for all intents and purposes, out in the open.

Trafficked women and children are advertised on the internet, transported on the interstate, and bought and sold in swanky hotels.

Indeed, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the government’s war on sex trafficking—much like the government’s war on terrorism, drugs and crime—has become a perfect excuse for inflicting more police state tactics (police check points, searches, surveillance, and heightened security) on a vulnerable public, while doing little to make our communities safer.

So what can you do?

Educate yourselves and your children about this growing menace in our communities.

Stop feeding the monster: Sex trafficking is part of a larger continuum in America that runs the gamut from homelessness, poverty, and self-esteem issues to sexualized television, the glorification of a pimp/ho culture—what is often referred to as the pornification of America—and a billion dollar sex industry built on the back of pornography, music, entertainment, etc.

This epidemic is largely one of our own making, especially in a corporate age where the value placed on human life takes a backseat to profit. It is estimated that the porn industry brings in more money than Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Yahoo.

Call on your city councils, elected officials and police departments to make the battle against sex trafficking a top priority, more so even than the so-called war on terror and drugs and the militarization of law enforcement.

Stop prosecuting adults for victimless “crimes” such as growing lettuce in their front yard and focus on putting away the pimps and buyers who victimize these young women.

Finally, the police need to do a better job of training, identifying and responding to these issues; communities and social services need to do a better job of protecting runaways, who are the primary targets of traffickers; legislators need to pass legislation aimed at prosecuting traffickers and “johns,” the buyers who drive the demand for sex slaves; and hotels need to stop enabling these traffickers, by providing them with rooms and cover for their dirty deeds.

That so many women and children continue to be victimized, brutalized and treated like human cargo is due to three things: one, a consumer demand that is increasingly lucrative for everyone involved—except the victims; two, a level of corruption so invasive on both a local and international scale that there is little hope of working through established channels for change; and three, an eerie silence from individuals who fail to speak out against such atrocities.

But the truth is that we are all guilty of contributing to this human suffering. The traffickers are guilty. The consumers are guilty. The corrupt law enforcement officials are guilty. The women’s groups who do nothing are guilty. The foreign peacekeepers and aid workers who contribute to the demand for sex slaves are guilty. Most of all, every individual who does not raise a hue and cry over the atrocities being committed against women and children in almost every nation around the globe—including the United States—is guilty.

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Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  (SelectBooks, 2015) is available online at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

On November 14, the Syrian Army backed up by the Russian Aerospace Forces launched a limited offensive on positions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its Turkish-backed allies in southern Idlib. Government forces liberated the town of Luwaybidah and the nearby Khaznah hill after a series of clashes with militants. Then, army troops supported by artillery and air strikes advanced on the town of Misherfah.

Clashes are now ongoing in the area.

HTS and its allies have been violating Greater Idlib ceasefire on a daily basis for months. The new ground operation is aimed at deterring these attacks or even expanding a buffer zone in order to push militants’ back from the government-controlled area and further.

On November 13, Syrian and Russian warplanes reportedly carried out over 50 strikes on positions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other radical groups in southern and western Idlib. In particular, militant positions were hit in Shnan, al-Najeya, Furaykah, al-Mshairfeh, Kafr Nabl, Rakaya Sijneh, Fatterah, Sutuh al-Din, Tramla, Kafar Sijnah, Ma’aret Hurmah, Jbala, Hizareen and Karsaa.

Watch the video here.

Clashes between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkish-backed militants are ongoing in northern al-Hasakah. On November 13, the SDF advanced on positions of pro-Turkish forces in the villages of al-Qasimiyah and al-Rihaniyah. At least 6 Turkish-backed militants were reportedly killed in the SDF advance.

The Russian military has deployed Mi-8 and Mi-35 helicopters and Pantsir-S air-defense systems air defense systems at the al-Qamishly airbase in northeastern Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry’s Zvezda TV reported on November 14. Mi-8 and Mi-35 helicopters are currently involved in the patrols along the Turkish border. The patrols are ongoing in the framework of the Turkish-Russian safe-zone agreement.

Earlier reports appeared, that Russia may have been planning to establish a constant military presence, or even a military base in al-Qamishly. The recent developments demonstrate that even if these particular reports were wrong, the Russians are already using the airport for military purposes.

On the same day, Russian troops took control of the abandoned US military facility in Sarrin in eastern Aleppo. At least 5 Russian armoured vehicles entered the facility and a Mi-35 helicopter was spotted flying in the area.

Following the US troop withdrawal from the north, the Russians took control of their garrisons. Most widely covered such cases happened in Manbij and Ain Issa.

The US military is expanding its presence in the towns of al-Qahtaniyah and Heemo near Qamishly. Recently a US military convoy of approximately 20 trucks loaded with military equipment and several armored vehicles entered northeastern Syria from Iraq. These forces will likely be deployed near Qamishly in order to secure the US control of the oil-rich area east of it.

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The UK economy has seen a spike in corporate insolvencies, particularly in the retail, manufacturing and travel sectors since the EU referendum, and the heavy debt burden imposed by private equity has often been a factor. Vulture funds are now circling in search of freshly weakened targets, soon there will be plenty to choose from.

Vulture funds work a bit like this. A vulture fund is a hedge fund, private equity fund or distressed debt fund, that invests in debt considered to be very weak or in default, known as distressed securities.

They profit by buying up troubled firms, pile on substantial new debt, fiddle with the balance sheets, then restructure and sell the relaunched entity as if it’s in good health. Private equity firms regularly benefit from tax breaks and are often based offshore – and it’s this bit that is important. They contribute next to nothing to economies, very often seeing the result of collapses falling into the laps of government. If not, many employees are left without work and end up on welfare.

Thomas Cook is a good example. It was in trouble 10 years ago, but successive financial restructures by ‘intermediaries’ such as private equity firms, has seen a debt spike being handled like some sort of overly stuffed pass-the-parcel. After several acquisitions and loading of debt – the company was weighed down with £3.1 billion around its neck. In its last 12 months, the company needed to sell three million holidays a year just to cover interest payments (not the capital).

And another 900 million pound restructuring plan wasn’t enough to save the 178-year-old travel industry icon from bankruptcy. At the last minute, the firm’s bankers demanded an extra 200 million pounds in funding to pre-pay for next year’s package holidays.

Wash, rinse, repeat

The same happened to another of Britain’s best-known high street brands, Debenhams. It announced in April the largest loss in its 206-year history, a pre-tax loss of 491 million pounds. From there it entered a Corporate Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) which allows firms to continue trading while restructuring and now has well over £1 billion in restructured debt. Profits are sucked into debt interest payments, very often requiring more loans to pay for the shortfall.

Fellow department store House of Fraser entered a CVA in May 2018 after struggling to rid itself of a debt pile worth 1 billion pounds which had built up since a private equity purchase in 2006.

Music and film retailer HMV went into administration for the second time in six years. Again, private equity firms were implicated in the downfall of the 98-year-old brand.

Another excellent example is luxury British carmaker Aston Martin, which confirmed it will pay 12% interest on an extra £120m of borrowings. If orders for its new DBX model don’t hit targets in 2020, the firm’s interest rate could spike to 15% as part of its financial restructuring package. The intermediaries make the money and walk – the company is left to the risk.

Don’t forget, these companies can take advantage of record long-term low-interest rates.

How bad is it overall? According to the Luxembourg-based Link Asset Services, total corporate debt in the UK climbed to record levels in 2019, hitting £638.3 billion, following eight consecutive years of rises.

Nest of vultures

Over to Ireland and focusing on a nest of just 15 Irish subsidiaries of global vulture funds where it was found that they pay just €250 a year in tax. This is despite the companies having in their control €10.3 billion worth of loans and debt located in Ireland, where in total, the 15 companies have paid just €8,000 in tax between them in a year. It is estimated that the loss to the Irish Exchequer is up to €500 million in just two years.

The analysis comes from the UCD School of Social Policy two years ago.

In another study at the same time, 24 Irish subsidiaries of so-called vulture funds had paid less than €20,000 in corporation tax over the previous two years.

This is despite the companies controlling almost €20 billion in distressed assets.

That analysis found that the 24 companies, as well as their Irish subsidiaries, will be able to make profits of 33% to 50% on their initial investment.

Circling

From Jonathan Compton – Money Week: “Since Brexit, UK economic growth has been sub-par, moving from being nearly the best among the larger economies to becoming one of the worst.” Compton reminds us why the vultures are circling. Britain was badly affected by the global financial crisis but was still suffering when Brexit came along. It continues to suffers from:

• growth in wages outside the top 20% of earners is weak – real take-home pay for these workers remains below the 2009 level
• a steady slowdown in car sales, new mortgage approvals and big-ticket items (items not affected by internet sales)
• growth in consumer credit has waned noticeably since 2016
• personal savings are near their lowest level since 1968
• capital expenditure and business confidence are flatlining.
• profit margins are being squeezed

“Until 2015 the UK ranked third in the world both in terms of the total stock and of net FDI investment inflows. The gross stock, at over $2trn, is enormous and, relative to GDP, far higher than the two global leaders, the EU and US. In terms of inflows, net annual FDI has also been gigantic, beaten only by the world’s two economic superpowers, China and the US. This foreign appetite for British assets has been the key factor in allowing us to live a lifestyle that we could not otherwise afford. Until 1995, FDI was relatively minor at 1%-2% of GDP. Since then it has soared, often to 4%-8% of GDP. The UK is a world favourite for well-known reasons: an impartial legal system, good contractual laws and property rights, and relatively mild bureaucracy. You may not like Russian hoods buying top properties or Kraft taking over a “national jewel” in Cadbury Schweppes, but foreign investors have been the economic paymasters for nearly a generation. Yet since 2016, these flows have abated dramatically – hence the feeble growth numbers. In the UK equity markets, the outflows have continued – hence the relative underperformance.”

The more savvy foreign investors clearly sense opportunity in our under-performing market, currency and government, and are moving fast. Approaches, bids or break-up threats have been made recently to well-known (listed) index giants. The trend is rising. The Vultures are circling looking for weakened companies to pick off. After Christmas this year, there will be a feast waiting for them for two reasons. Many struggling companies die after the December spending spree and then we have this December’s election. If Boris Johnson is elected with a workable majority – the currency will plummet and confidence will drain as he pushed his version of Brexit. If Corbyn is elected – it’s another year of uncertainty, even if the outcome is better. Either way, government debt will soar – from there, its anyone’s guess – but the vultures will still be flying in from Ireland looking for easy prey.

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Featured image is from the author

Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency proposed today to weaken protections for 23 pyrethroids, a class of insecticides linked to autism, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases and known to be highly toxic to bees and fish.

These reduced safeguards were requested by a consortium of sticide companies called the Pyrethroid Working Group. The neurotoxins are widely used on fruits and vegetables and in bug sprays and pet shampoos.

The EPA had initially considered a 66-foot-wide buffer of permanent vegetation between fields sprayed with the pesticides and any water body, as well as a 10 mph wind-speed cutoff for spraying. But the new proposal includes only a 10- to 25-foot-wide buffer and a wind-speed cutoff of 15 mph.

Today’s proposal follows the EPA’s August announcement that it would grant a pesticide industry request to end long-running safeguards meant to protect small children from pyrethroids, which have been shown to cause learning deficiencies.

“There’s no floor on how low this administration will stoop to appease the pesticide industry,” said Nathan Donley, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Ignoring independent science in favor of whatever pesticide companies want is par for the Trump course. In their relentless push to cripple pesticide protections, EPA officials are shrugging off huge threats to children’s health and the survival of bees and other environmentally crucial creatures.”

Today’s announcement included the proposed reapproval of five of the 23 pyrethroids.

Proposals regarding the approval of the other 18 are pending.

A compelling body of independent research has documented the many harms posed by pyrethroids.

A 2016 EPA scientific analysis found that continued pyrethroid use will likely cause a “reduction in survival, growth and reproduction to non-target aquatic animals” and a potential risk to pollinators. The EPA also estimated that some pyrethroids would exceed water concentrations known to harm aquatic insects for up to 89 percent of the year.

The EPA’s August announcement that it plans to increase threefold the amount of pyrethroid exposure considered safe for children relied almost exclusively on confidential pesticide-industry studies and a model developed by an entity called CAPHRA, which is a working group of pesticide companies that sell pyrethroids. The agency ignored contradictory evidence from peer-reviewed studies and advice from two separate scientific advisory panels.

Independent research has shown that repeated exposure to pyrethroid insecticides can cause learning deficiencies and neurodegenerative effects associated with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, among others.

Epidemiological data has also revealed higher incidences of autism spectrum disorders and developmental delay among children whose mothers were living within about 1 mile of sites of pyrethroid applications during the third trimester of pregnancy.

“Small children and the environment are sacrificial pawns in the profit schemes of this disgustingly anti-science administration,” said Donley. “We should be following the research and increasing protections from harmful pesticides, not ditching them at the request of a morally bankrupt industry.”

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In late October 2019, House Democrats adopted a resolution regarding the rules and procedures “for the public phase  of an impeachment inquiry into President Trump”. H. Res. 660 focusses on “how the impeachment inquiry will move forward against President Donald Trump”.

An impeachment motion against President Donald John Trump was introduced on July 12, 2017 in the US House of Representatives by Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) and  Rep Al Green (D-TX).

The Article of Impeachment (H. Res. 438) against President Donald J. Trump points to “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”. 

According to Rep. Brad Sherman, “the Article is based on Article 1, dealing with “Obstruction of Justice,” which was passed by the Judiciary Committee on a bipartisan vote on July 27, 1974, regarding Richard M. Nixon.”

Sherman accuses Trump of “obstructing investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election”.

Article H RES. 438 calls for the removal of President Trump from office.

According to reports: “The effort is likely to stall in the Republican-controlled congress…” (Al Jazeera).

There is no indication at this stage that Republicans would support an Impeachment procedure.

Read Sherman’s statement below, he refers to a resolution which will put Mike Pence into the White House.

“I served with Mike Pence in Congress for twelve years and I disagree with him on just about everything. I never dreamed I would author a measure that would put him in the White House” 

The “Russia Probe” is central to the Impeachment procedure: one does not go without the other.

Moreover, reference to the Donald Trump Jr. encounter with a Russian lawyer (which borders on ridicule) is being used as a justification. According to Rep.Sherman: “Recent disclosures by Donald Trump Jr. indicate that Trump’s campaign was eager to receive assistance from Russia.” The NYT candidly states without a shred of evidence that the Russian lawyer is “connected the Russian government” intimating that she is a stooge of the Kremlin.

Below is the statement of  Rep. Brad Sherman

“I am pleased that Congressman Al Green (D-TX) has joined me in filing Articles of Impeachment against Donald J. Trump. We now begin the effort to force the House Judiciary Committee to hold hearings on Obstruction of Justice and Russian interference in our election.

Recent disclosures by Donald Trump Jr. indicate that Trump’s campaign was eager to receive assistance from Russia. It now seems likely that the President had something to hide when he tried to curtail the investigation of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and the wider Russian probe. I believe his conversations with, and subsequent firing of, FBI Director James Comey constitute Obstruction of Justice.

Every day Democrats, Republicans, and the entire world are shocked by the latest example of America’s amateur President. Ignorance accompanied by a refusal to learn. Lack of impulse control, accompanied by a refusal to have his staff control his impulses. We’re no longer surprised by any action, no matter how far below the dignity of the office—and no matter how dangerous to the country.

But the Constitution does not provide for the removal of a President for impulsive, ignorant incompetence. It does provide for the removal of a President for High Crimes and Misdemeanors.

As the investigations move forward, additional evidence supporting additional Articles of Impeachment may emerge. However, as to Obstruction of Justice, as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 1512 (b)(3), the evidence we have is sufficient to move forward now. And the national interest requires that we do so.

Introducing Articles of Impeachment will have two possible outcomes. First, I have slight hope it will inspire an ‘intervention’ in the White House. If Impeachment is real, if they actually see Articles, perhaps we will see incompetency replaced by care. Perhaps uncontrollable impulses will be controlled. And perhaps the danger our nation faces will be ameliorated.

Second, and more likely, filing Articles of Impeachment is the first step on a very long road. But if the impulsive incompetency continues, then eventually—many, many months from now—Republicans will join the impeachment effort.

I author Articles of Impeachment not to change our national policy. I served with Mike Pence in Congress for twelve years and I disagree with him on just about everything. I never dreamed I would author a measure that would put him in the White House. I am introducing Articles of Impeachment to begin a long process to protect our country from abuse of power, obstruction of justice, and impulsive, ignorant incompetence.”​ Brad Sherman (emphasis added)

The Article (H. R. 438) concludes with the following statement:

Full text of  Article of Impeachment (H. Res. 438)

For further details click Rep. Brad Sherman’s Congressional website

For a generation, American political reformers have been obsessed with the idea of ‘money in politics.’ According to reformers, political organizations that bundle money and donate it to campaigns are corrupting politicians. So, the theories go, campaign finance reform would ‘get the money’ out of politics so politicians wouldn’t be bound to special interest groups and be free to vote their conscience. In this case, politicians voting their conscience coincides with the wish list of campaign finance reformers who are almost universally on the political left.

For all the talk of campaign finance reform, perhaps the biggest flaw in American politics today is the primary system by which the two parties select their candidates. The party primary campaigns unofficially begin after the midterm elections, more than a year before the New Hampshire Primary and Iowa Caucus. The system is easily manipulated by a candidate with money and organization. Such a candidate can portray themselves as the frontrunner and the inevitable nominee. George W. Bush, the GOP establishment’s pick in 2000, did this.

Hillary Clinton did so as well, though Obama beat her anyway in 2008 and Sanders would have won the nomination if the Democratic National Committee hadn’t rigged the system in Clinton’s favor.

But this year, after nearly a year of campaigning, there is no obvious Democrat frontrunner. According to the latest Morning Consult Poll, taken the first week of November, former Vice President Joe Biden leads the race at 31%. Composed of African American voters and what moderates remain among the Democrat party base, Biden’s support is broad but not deep. Trailing Biden are Socialist Bernie Sanders (20%), Senator Elizabeth Warren (18%), Mayor Pete Buttigieg (8%), and Senator Kamala Harris (6%). None of these candidates has appeal wide enough to lock up the Democrat Party nomination. Were they operating in the Westminster system, the Democrats would have a hung parliament.

Which brings us to Hillary Clinton. Since her husband announced his candidacy in 1991, Hillary has plotted her own path to the White House. Hillary took her first step in 2000 with her successful senate bid. She easily won reelection in 2006.  In 2008, Hillary was the Democrat frontrunner. No one could stop her, except for the junior senator from Illinois, Barrack Obama. Hillary had no answer for Obama’s youth, charisma, and biography, and she lost the close and bitterly contested nomination. At least Hillary was able to pad her resume by serving as Obama’s Secretary of State. In 2016, no serious potential candidate dared enter the race, the field was cleared and the process rigged by DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Even so, insurgent candidate Bernie Sanders almost beat Hillary. Then came Donald Trump and Hillary went home at the end of another bruising campaign.

Usually when losing an election, the nominee returns to his old political job, like Senator John Kerry in 2004 or John McCain in 2008, or retire from politics altogether, as Jimmy Carter did after 1980 and Walter Mondale after 1984. Not Hillary. Since 2016, Hillary Clinton has remained very much in the public eye. She published What Happened, her self-serving and whiney account of the 2016 campaign in which she blames everyone for her loss but herself. Hillary’s long list of grievances includes the press, the FBI, even the Russians. She has since toured the United States and the west slamming President Trump and repeating her conspiracy theories about Russian collusion, refusing to move on or let go.

In fact, even at this late date, Hillary refuses to rule out a third presidential run. In an interview with the BBC this week, Clinton claimed that ‘a lot of people are pushing hard’ for her to run again. She also said, “I, as I say never, never, never say never. I will certainly tell you. I’m under enormous pressure from many, many, many people to think about it.’ Given her two failed presidential bids, this is unlikely. But, it is very likely that Hillary wants to run for president a third time.

And why not? Hillary won the popular vote in 2016. In the eyes of the Democrat party faithful Trump is an illegitimate president and Hillary should sit in the Oval Office. Besides, the Democrat Party field is weak. Elizabeth Warren is a product of the elite, a college professor with a lot of ideas that appeal to affluent, coastal liberals. Bernie Sanders is an elderly socialist. Joe Biden is a relic. None of these candidates appeal to Midwestern working class voters that voted for Trump and gave him the election.

Hillary has been part of American political life longer than Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Everything she’s touched from the beginning of her political career to the end she has mess up, Arkansas land development, healthcare reform, Benghazi and Libya.

Yet still she refuses to retire quietly and enjoy her fortune. We’ll never be rid of her.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

William Stroock is an author of military fiction.

Former British military officer James Le Mesurier suspected of ties to MI6 and the co-founder of the so-called “White Helmets” front was found dead this month in Turkey from an apparent fall from his residence.

The Western media wasted no time linking it to claims Russia had recently made that he was an intelligence asset involved in sowing instability worldwide – attempting to portray Russia as somehow likely responsible for Le Mesurier’s death.

Not a Rescue Org 

In actuality, the “White Helmets” were an extension of Western armed and funded terrorist organizations operating in Syria with the “White Helmets” specifically serving the purpose of war propagandists thinly disguised as “rescue workers” or local “civil defense.”

They found themselves repeatedly at the center of alleged chemical attacks the US accused the Syrian government of – indicating their likely involvement in carrying out false flag operations – many of which may have actually killed real people.

The deceptive manner in which the “White Helmets” operated has already been extensively exposed and their credibility rendered moot – not least because the terrorist organizations they augment are nearing extinction – surrounded in Syria’s northern governorate of Idlib.

Cui Bono? 

Le Mesurier’s continued existence as the co-founder of a now irrelevant propaganda arm to a defeated proxy army makes no difference to Syria and its Russian allies.

Le Mesurier’s continued existence – however – did pose the perpetual threat of the knowledge he had of covert US operations in Syria including the use of the “White Helmets” in staging chemical attacks and other atrocities and their role in manipulating international organizations like the OPCW eventually becoming public.

It is obvious that his death – whatever the cause – benefited the US and UK which backed him and his faux humanitarian relief organization – meaning that whatever secrets he harbored are now taken to the grave with him.

Work for Horrible People, Meet a Horrible End

Finally, let Le Mesurier’s end serve as a warning for those serving the agenda of global aggressors particularly in the targeting and destruction of a sovereign nation like Syria.

Even upon death, the establishment that bank rolled him and propped him up used his corpse as a prop in their public relations campaigns. The truth of his death may never emerge. With the possibility that he was terminated by his own employers – pause for thought will hopefully reverberate across the peripheral operations created to prop up and promote the “White Helmets.”

Anyone who finds themselves in possession of facts and willfully distorts them for profit in the employ of nations willing to lie to promote death and destruction on a global scale cannot possibly believe they are ever safe or will perpetually be more useful alive than dead.

Regardless of the actual cause of Le Mesurier’s death, he was  certainly useful to the system that created him and whom he served. We must also acknowledge that he had accumulated 8 years of top secrets which were liable to spill out.

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Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer. He writes on his blog site, Land Destroyer Report, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Time and again, Russia stressed that it supports the sovereign independence and territorial integrity of other countries.

On Monday, its Foreign Ministry denounced the toppling of Bolivia’s Evo Morales, a statement saying:

“We are alarmed by the dramatic developments in Bolivia, where a wave of violence, unleashed by the opposition, has prevented President Evo Morales from completing his tenure of office,” adding:

“We are deeply concerned that the government’s readiness to search for constructive dialogue-based solutions, voiced during the domestic political crisis in the country, was wiped out by developments typical of a well-orchestrated coup d’etat.”

Russia clearly knows it was made in the USA, Trump regime hardliners OKing it, CIA dirty hands all over events leading up to Bolivia’s October presidential election and its violent aftermath, toppling democratically elected Evo Morales, forcing him to resign and seek refuge in Mexico to avoid assassination.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it supports “guaranteeing the rights of all (Bolivian) citizens and ensuring the socioeconomic development of that country.”

Time and again, Moscow voiced strong opposition to interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states by foreign powers — clearly what happened in Bolivia.

CIA dirty hands orchestrated the coup, co-opting key military and police officials to abandon support for Morales, conspiring with Bolivian fascists to force democratically reelected Evo Morales from office, replacing him with a self-declared, unelected, political nobody, coup d’etat president.

Bolivia’s usurpation regime has no legitimacy, unconstitutionally installed by brute force.

There was no constitutionally required legislative quorum in session when Jeanine Anez swore herself into power — illegally usurping it.

She got scant support in Bolivian legislative elections. Most people in the country knew nothing about her. Morales’ Movement for Socialism MPs were warned not to show up for the parliamentary usurpation, unconstitutionally anointing her president.

Her power grab with support from the US, Bolivia’s military, and fascist politicians is what despotism is all about.

Despite calling what happened in the country a coup d’etat, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said the following on Thursday:

“(I)t is clear that (Anez) will be perceived as the head of Bolivia until a new president is elected, and this is the internal affair of Bolivia.”

Moscow has commercial interests in the country. In March 2016, it signed an agreement with Morales’ government to build a $300 million nuclear center in El Alto, a city near La Paz, Bolivia’s political capital.

Reportedly it’ll include a research reactor, a cyclotron for radio-pharmaceuticals, and a multi-purpose gamma irradiation plant, along with facilities for research in energy, medicine, and agriculture.

At the time, Morales said

“(o)ur brother President Vladimir Putin has promised me the transfer of Russian know-how and technology.”

Russian energy giant Gazprom invested around $500 million in Bolivian oil and gas projects.

In February, Bolivian firm YLB signed a lithium industrialization agreement with China’s Xinjiang Tbea Group, a joint “financing and implementation venture.”

Uyuni, Bolivia salt flats reportedly have one of the world’s largest lithium reserves, an estimated nine millions tons.

According to mining.com, Bolivia has “around 25% of the known (lithium) reserves, but so far it has done nothing with it.” Other estimates indicate a greater percentage of world reserves in the country, an invaluable resource if developed.

The mineral has numerous industrial applications (including batteries), along with its use in producing a mood-stabilizing drug in treating bipolar disorders.

The coup toppling Morales came days after he cancelled a lithium joint agreement with Germany’s ACI Systems Alemania (ACISA)  to develop electric batteries — reportedly because of unfairly low royalities.

At the time, his government said it “invested huge amounts to ensure that lithium is processed within the country to export it only in value-added form, such as in batteries.”

With Trump regime-supported anti-Morales hardliners in charge, Bolivian agreements with Russia and China could be scrapped in favor of US business interests.

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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.

Commanders of Bolivia’s military and police helped plot the coup and guaranteed its success. They were previously educated for insurrection in the US government’s notorious School of the Americas and FBI training programs.

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The United States played a key role in the military coup in Bolivia, and in a direct way that has scarcely been acknowledged in accounts of the events that forced the country’s elected president, Evo Morales, to resign on November 10.

Just prior to Morales’ resignation, the commander of Bolivia’s armed forces Williams Kaliman “suggested” that the president step down. A day earlier, sectors of the country’s police force had rebelled.

Though Kaliman appears to have feigned loyalty to Morales over the years, his true colors showed as soon as the moment of opportunity arrived. He was not only an actor in the coup, he had his own history in Washington, where he had briefly served as the military attaché of Bolivia’s embassy in the US capital.

Kaliman sat at the top of a military and police command structure that has been substantially cultivated by the US through WHINSEC, the military training school in Fort Benning, Georgia known in the past as the School of the Americas. Kaliman himself attended a course called “Comando y Estado Mayor” at the SOA in 2003.

At least six of the key coup plotters are alumni of the infamous School of the Americas, while Kaliman and another figure served in the past as Bolivia’s military and police attachés in Washington.

Within the Bolivian police, top commanders who helped launch the coup have passed through the APALA police exchange program. Working out of Washington DC, APALA functions to build relations between U.S. authorities and police officials from Latin American states. Despite its influence, or perhaps because of it, the program maintains little public presence. Its staff was impossible for this researcher to reach by phone.

It is common for governments to assign a small number of individuals to work at their country’s embassies abroad as military or police attachés. The late Philip Agee, a one-time CIA case officer who became the agency’s first whistleblower, explained in his 1975 tell-all book how US intelligence traditionally relied on the recruitment of foreign military and police officers, including embassy attachés, as critical assets in regime change and counter-insurgency operations.

As I found from the more than 11,000 FOIA documents I obtained while writing my book on the paramilitary campaign waged in the lead up to the February 2004 ouster of Haiti’s elected government and the post-coup repression, U.S. officials worked for years to ingratiate themselves and establish connections with Haitian police, army, and ex-army officials. These connections as well as the recruitment and information gathering efforts eventually paid off.

In Bolivia, too, the role of military and police officials trained by the US was pivotal in forcing regime change. U.S. government agencies such as USAID have openly financed anti-Morales groups in the country for many years. But the way that the country’s security forces were used as a Trojan Horse by US intelligence services is less understood. With Morales’s forced departure, however, it became impossible to deny how critical a factor this was.

As this investigation will establish, the coup plot could not have succeeded without the enthusiastic approval of the country’s military and police commanders. And their consent was influenced heavily by the US, where so many were groomed and educated for insurrection.

Leaked audio exposes School of the Americas grads plotting a coup

Leaked audio reported on Bolivian news website La Época, and by elperiodicocr.com and a range of national media outlets, reveals that covert coordination took place between current and former Bolivian police, military, and opposition leaders in bringing about the coup.

Los audios de la conspiración del #GolpeDeEstadoEnBolivia. Por @elperiodicocr https://t.co/lw2qjpqsmm pic.twitter.com/P4M4dbIw2W

— Rompeviento TV (@RompevientoTV) November 10, 2019

The leaked audio recordings show that former Cochabamba mayor and former presidential candidate Manfred Reyes Villa played a central role in the plot. Reyes happens to be an alumnusof WHINSEC (formerly known as the School of the Americas), who currently resides in the United States.

The other four who are introduced or introduce themselves by name in the leaked audio are General Remberto Siles Vasquez (audio 12); Colonel Julio César Maldonado Leoni (audio 8 and 9); Colonel Oscar Pacello Aguirre (audio 14), and Colonel Teobaldo Cardozo Guevara (audio 10). All four of these ex-military officials attended the SOA.

Cardozo Guevara, in particular, boasts about his connections amongst active officers.

The identities of these individuals are confirmed by cross-checking the data of the School of Americas Watch lists of alumni with Facebook and local Bolivian news articles and the leaked audio recordings.

The School of the Americas is a notorious site of education for Latin American coup plotters dating back to the height of the Cold War. Brutal regime change and reprisal operations from Haiti to Honduras have been carried out by SOA graduates, and some of the most bloodstained juntas in the region’s history have been run by the school’s alumni.

For many years, anti-war protesters have staged a protest vigil outside the SOA’s headquarters at the Fort Benning military base near Columbus, Georgia.

A protest vigil outside the School of the Americas at Fort Benning

The leader of those protests, Father Roy Bourgeois, has described the SOA as “a combat school. ” He continued:

“Most of the courses revolve around what they call counter insurgency warfare. Who are the insurgents? We have to ask that question. They are the poor. They are the people in Latin America who call for reform. They are the landless peasants who are hungry. They are health care workers, human rights advocates, labor organizers, they become the insurgents, they’re seen as ‘el enemigo’ — the enemy. And they are those who become the targets of those who learn their lessons at the School of the Americas.”

Bourgeois was deported from Bolivia in 1977 when he spoke out against the human rights abuses of Gen. Hugo Banzer, a right-wing dictator who rose to power through a US-backed coup that toppled a leftist government. History repeats itself today as Banzer’s ideological heirs drive another socialist leader from power through time-tested destabilization tactics.

In the recently leaked audio recordings, coup plotters discuss plans to set ablaze government buildings, get pro-business unions in the country to carry out strikes, as well as other tactics – all straight out of the CIA playbook.

Also alluded to in the leaked audio is that the coup attempt would be supported by various evangelical groups as well as by Colombian President Iván Duque, ex-Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, and most notably Brazil’s neo-fascist President Jair Bolsonaro.

The plotters also mention the strong support of ultra-right U.S. senators Ted Cruz, Bob Menéndez, and Marco Rubio, who is said to have the ear of President Donald Trump when it comes to U.S. foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere.

Military and Police Attachées in DC: A breeding ground for U.S. intelligence networking

As tensions built over recent weeks, it was the commanding general of the Bolivian Police, Vladimir Yuri Calderón Mariscal, who broke the stalemate by leading large parts of the police force to revolt on November 9th, just a day prior to the resignation of Morales.

Then-Col. Vladimir Yuri Calderón Mariscal (third on the left) with other APALA officials in 2018.

In 2018 Calderón Mariscal served as President of Police Attachés of Latin America in the United States of America (APALA), which is based in Washington, DC.

APALA has been described as a “multidimensional security” program that works to build relations and connections between U.S. authorities and police officials from many of the Organization of American States members.

At APALA’s founding in 2012, then-OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza (center in photo below) met with the group’s leadership.

Today APALA hosts police attachés from 10 countries: Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Peru, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

According to its Facebook page, the group “was created, with the objective of generating, promoting, and strengthening ties of solidarity, friendship, cooperation and support between the members of the group and their families through social, cultural activities, which allow to generate integral development.”

It claims to be facilitating the “integration and exchange of the police institutions that comprise it, in addition to promoting the exchange of successful experiences developed by the different police forces of Latin America.”

Photo of Calderón Mariscal (center-right) at the FBI training academy that is 36 miles outside of Washington, DC

A mysterious organization, APALA has shut down its website ApalaUSA.com and does not answer phone calls. It functions in some capacity as an arm of U.S. federal agencies as its social media platform and now defunct website showcase numerous meetings and photos of APALA officials and participants alongside FBI, DEA, ICE, and other U.S. officials.

As Philip Agee explained in his book Inside the Company, the CIA often uses other U.S. government agencies such as the FBI and USAID, as well as various front-organizations, to carry out its clandestine activities without leaving fingerprints.

Below: APALA participants at the FBI headquarters in Washington DC

Visita de trabajo de @apalausa a @FBI En las instalaciones del J. Edgar Hoover, en Washington, D.C. pic.twitter.com/gaDZrjHaHB

— APALA (@apalausa) November 16, 2017

One of APALA’s key local members is Alex Zunca, a police officer in Baltimore who is the director of international affairs for the Hispanic National Law Enforcement Association, which is based in Washington, DC.

APALA’s street address listed on its now defunct website is the same address as the embassy of Mexico in Washington, DC. The group was apparently run out of the Mexican Embassy, at least between 2017 and 2018 when its website was active during the administration of the US friendly former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.

Interestingly, a colleague of Calderón Mariscal’s and also a former President of APALA is an associate minister of the Federal Police of Mexico named Nicolás González Perrin.

Below, he can be seen seated beside a Mexican national flag and an FBI hat.

In a 2017 interview with the Washington Hispanic, a DC-based Spanish language newspaper, González Perrin declared

“that APALA holds meetings, permanently, with the most significant federal agencies in the United States, ‘from INTERPOL to DEA, ICE and the FBI, who work with us, based on mutual needs.’”

Another important APALA participant is Hector Ivan Mejia Velasquez, the former General Commissioner of Honduras’s National Police, who has led brutal operations against protesters in his own country, and regularly posts anti-leftist screeds on social media.

En la @EmbamexEUA primera reunión anual de @apalausa contamos con la presencia de @FBI @ICEgov @CustomsBorder @DEAHQ @ATFHQ. Juntos construimos un mundo más seguro 👍👮🏻‍♂️🌍. pic.twitter.com/S3CZCMnJXt

— APALA (@apalausa) January 12, 2018

Calls to APALA’s public contact, whose name appears to be Alvaro Andrade, went unanswered. My calls to his number, which is listed as being located in Rockville, Maryland, went straight to a voicemail stating that it was restricted. The webmaster of APALA’s former website is Mario Ruiz Madrigal, a system’s engineer in Mexico.

APALA, whose Facebook page Andrade appears to operate, has worked with other Bolivian police officials as well, such as Bolivian police attaché Heroldina Henao.

#apala Reconocimiento a la Agregada Policial Bolivia Heroldina Henao por parte del Presidente NICOLÁS G. PERRIN. pic.twitter.com/DvUbRNTtA1

— APALA (@apalausa) November 30, 2016

The other key official that helped to bring about the November 10th coup is General Williams Kaliman (image below), the current head of Bolivia’s military. He served as a military attaché for his country’s embassy in Washington, D.C. in 2013. A decade prior, he had taken part in training at the SOA.  Little is known about his time in the United States.

At different times both Kaliman and Calderón Mariscal appear to have either been loyal to or feigned loyalty to the constitutional government, but ultimately split from it or were convinced over time to carry out a military putsch.

For his part, deposed President Morales has claimed that a member of his own security team was offered $50,000 to betray him.

The November 10 coup d’état did not materialize out of thin air. Events that have transpired inside Bolivia are intimately connected to U.S. efforts to influence military and police forces abroad through programs like SOA and APALA.

While U.S. President Donald Trump cheers on a “a significant moment for democracy in the Western Hemisphere,” Bolivians are suddenly under the control of a de facto military regime.

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Jeb Sprague is a Research Associate at the University of California, Riverside and previously taught at UVA and UCSB. He is the author of “Globalizing the Caribbean: Political economy, social change, and the transnational capitalist class” (Temple University Press, 2019), “Paramilitarism and the assault on democracy in Haiti” (Monthly Review Press, 2012), and is the editor of “Globalization and transnational capitalism in Asia and Oceania”(Routledge, 2016). He is a co-founder of the Network for the Critical Studies of Global Capitalism. Visit his blog at: http://jebsprague.blogspot.com

All images in this article are from The Grayzone unless otherwise stated

Bolivia’s legitimate President, Evo Morales now in exile in Mexico said that the “The OAS is in the service of the North American empire” and that he “could not understand” how his military leaders betrayed Bolivia. “That confirms that my great crime is to be indigenous. It’s a class problem” rt.com reported.

Regardless, Morales still has the support of the majority of the Bolivian people. Morales’ made history as Bolivia’s first indigenous president who was a poor farmer and without a college education.

“The exiled president said that after freeing itself from the International Monetary Fund, the Bolivian economy was doing better” the report said.

Historically speaking, many Bolivian presidents before Morales were aligned with Washington’s interests and were oppressive against the poor and indigenous peoples. They had murdered workers who were on strike and they even sold off Bolivia’s mineral wealth to U.S. and European corporations. The Bolivian people remained poor for decades under right-wing dictatorships who joined forces with the U.S. and even militarized coca producing regions where Morales experienced firsthand tyranny according to an Al Jazeera story from 2014 on Evo Morales’s rise to power titled ‘Bolivia: Has Evo Morales Proven His Critics Wrong? “One event vividly stuck out for Morales after moving to the coca-growing region: In Chipiriri, a cocalero (coca farmer) was killed by the military for refusing to plead guilty to trafficking drugs.

“Without any contemplation, [the military] covered his body in gasoline and, in front of many people, burned him alive” Morales said.

However, the story also mentioned Morales’s success

“The GDP has steadily grown from 2009 to 2013, and the UN reports that Bolivia has the highest rate of poverty reduction in Latin America, with a 32.2 percent drop from 2000 to 2012. Employment rates and wages have also gone up, with a notable 20 percent minimum wage raise last year.” Morales’s economic plan turned out to be successful as stated by Al Jazeera “Morales approach of putting various industries under state control, from mines to telecommunications companies, has generated enormous funds for the government, which it is using for infrastructure – only 10 percent of the country’s roads are paved – and social programmes to lift children, mothers and the elderly out of poverty. Thanks to a successful literacy programme, UNESCO has declared the country free of illiteracy.”

When Morales was declared the winner in the October 20th elections, violent right-wing protests soon followed. The leaders of the opposition led by mostly fascist elements of Bolivian society including Luis Fernando Camacho who Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton of The Grayzone described him as “a powerful multi-millionaire named in the Panama Papers, and an ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalist groomed by a fascist paramilitary notorious for its racist violence, with a base in Bolivia’s wealthy separatist region of Santa Cruz.”

No surprise that Camacho has the support of the right-wing governments of Colombia and Brazil along with the Venezuelan opposition leaders who are still trying to overthrow Nicolas Maduro after their recent failures to do so. The violent protests that has erupted against the Morales government has led to extreme violence resulting in deaths, beatings of politicians which forced the resignation of Morales and his vice president García Lineran and others in his administration on the advice of army officials and police chiefs who were bought and paid for by Washington.

The Morales government called it a coup by U.S. backed opposition forces. Morales did propose dialogue with the opposition parties, but was flatly rejected. It was reported that Morales even accepted Washington’s lackey, the ‘Organization of American States’(OAS) advice to set up new elections, but was ignored.

The violent protests were directed at leaders of the Movement To Socialism (MAS) which is Morales’s political party and journalists who were beaten by right-wing mobs.

The BBC reported that the mayor of a small town in Bolivia was dragged from her home and then they covered her in red paint and cut her hair.

“Patricia Arce of the governing Mas party was handed over to police in Vinto after several hours. It is the latest in a series of violent clashes between government supporters and opponents in the wake of controversial presidential elections” the report said. In wake of the chaos, Evo Morales and others in his administration decided to resign to end further bloodshed. On Friday Morales said that “I would like to tell you, brothers and sisters, as well as entire Bolivia and the whole world. I will not give up (the presidency). We have been elected by the people, and we respect the constitution.”

Trump Claims That Latin America Is On Its Way to Democracy, Prosperity and Freedom 

On Monday, President Trump praised the coup as a “significant moment for democracy.” Trump said that

“after nearly 14 years and his recent attempt to override the Bolivian constitution and the will of the people, Morales’s departure preserves democracy and paves the way for the Bolivian people to have their voices heard.”

Trump also threatened Venezuela and Nicaragua because it will “send a strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua that democracy and the will of the people will always prevail. We are now one step closer to a completely democratic, prosperous, and free Western Hemisphere.” Washington supports its current right-wing puppets in Ecuador with Lenin Moreno and Chile’s own billionaire President, Sebastián Piñera. Perhaps, Trump should ask the Ecuadorian and Chilean people about democracy and economic prosperity under those two fascist governments. Do you remember what Trump said when he was a presidential candidate and then, president-elect in December 2016? He said that

“We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn’t be involved with.”

Trump’s attitude was obviously going to change given the fact that the Pentagon and Washington’s deep state insiders are in charge of Trump’s foreign policy. Recently, The Trump regime tried to topple Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, but failed. Now Trump is on board with the deep state and the right-wing opposition in Latin America to re-establish U.S. dominance by carrying out the same strategy of regime change in Venezuela, Nicaragua and others despite the rising pink tide with Lula Da Silva of Brazil who was just released from prison. Lula was sent to prison after a July 2017 conviction for allegedly accepting $1.2 million bribe from a Brazilian construction company called OAS for helping them obtain lucrative government contracts. Lula Da Silva has always denied the false allegations. However, Washington’s influence along the wealthy right-wing oligarchs played a role in Lula’s imprisonment. One of Lula’s attorneys at the time, Valeska Texeira Zanin Martin said that

“This politically motivated judgement attacks Brazil’s rule of law, democracy and Lula’s basic human rights. It is of immense concern to the Brazilian people and to the international community.”

Lula along with leaders from Argentina, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela have condemned the coup in support of Morales.

Why Washington Wanted Evo Morales Out of Power

Morales was targeted for a number of reasons. Back in 2013, Morales kicked out one of Washington’s main tool for regime change operations ‘USAID’. on May 1st, 2013 Reuters’ reported that

“Morales said he was kicking out the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as a “protest” after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry recently referred to Latin America as Washington’s “backyard.” Morales had said that “today we’re only going to nationalize … the dignity of the Bolivian people,” Morales said. “USAID is leaving Bolivia.”

That was a blow to Washington’s agenda in its “backyard.” However, the CIA influenced National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which it has funded Right-wing causes with millions of dollars of grants since Morales was elected.

Morales is also a critic of U.S. foreign policy in general no matter who is the President of the United States. Although Washington and its military-industrial complex including the CIA had planned to remove Morales from power before Trump was in office, however, Trump was criticized at the U.N. security meeting in 2018 when Morales said that

“I would like to say to you, frankly and openly here, that in no way is the United States interested in upholding democracy’’ and that the U.S. under the Trump regime “could not care less about human rights or justice.” Morales added that “If this were the case, it would have signed the international conventions and treaties that have protected human rights,” he said. “It would not have threatened the investigation mechanism of the International Criminal Court, nor would it promote the use of torture, nor would it have walked away from the Human Rights Council. And nor would it have separated migrant children from their families, nor put them in cages.’’

Sensitive Trump did not like that, his alter-ego was crushed at the U.N. security council meeting and that’s why he praised the coup.

As For Bolivia’s Natural Resources, The American Establishment Wants It All

It’s well known that Bolivia has the largest reserves of lithium in the world. As reported by Bloomberg News last year in ‘Bolivia’s Almost Impossible Lithium Dream’ based on Bolivia’s lithium reserves:

Demand for lithium is expected to more than double in 2025. The soft, light mineral is mined mainly in Austria, Chile and Argentina. Bolivia has plenty-9 million tons that have never been mined commercially, the second-largest amount in the world-but until now, there’s no practical way to mine and sell it

One major economic development for the Bolivian government is when they chose Xinjiang TBEA Group Co Ltd,  a Chinese consortium for its lithium production projects which is also a threat to U.S. economic interests and its waning dominance in Latin America. As reported by Reuters earlier this year “China’s Xinjiang TBEA Group Co Ltd will hold a 49 percent stake in a planned joint venture with Bolivia’s state lithium company YLB, the Bolivian firm said.” As for China and Bolivia working together to produce lithium in America’s Backyard? Both Democrats and the Republicans including the neocons who are in both parties in Washington will not tolerate such a joint venture especially when China is involved.  The report said that

“Bolivia estimates that development of the projects will cost at least $2.3 billion. The Chinese firm will provide initial investment and YLB will pay its share with future lithium production, YLB’s executive manager Juan Carlos Montenegro said by phone.” Morales was quoted as saying “Why China? he continued “There’s a guaranteed market in China for battery production,” Bolivian President Evo Morales said in broadcast comments at a signing ceremony in the highland city of Oruro. China, the biggest global consumer of lithium, will need 800,000 tonnes of the metal per year by 2025 to support its booming electric car industry, China’s Ambassador to Bolivia Liang Yu said at the same event, hailing the deal as “historic.” Lithium is a key component in batteries that will power the next generation of new electric cars.

From the time that Evo Morales was elected, Washington had plans to oust him especially when Morales joined forces with the late Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and other anti-US left-wing governments that were rising throughout Latin America. The Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported that Morales had tweeted “It pains me to leave the country for political reasons, but I will always be watching. I will be back soon with more strength and energy.” With Lula coming back to politics and with Venezuela, Mexico, Nicaragua, Cuba and now Argentina with the President-elect Alberto Fernández who was the Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers during Néstor Kirchner’s presidency and for a short time for Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s presidency. It’s starting to look like the fight for Latin America to free itself from the claws of the American Empire, has just begun.

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This article was also published on Silent Crow News

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The Bolivian tragedy teaches us various lessons that our people and the peoples social and political forces must learn from and record in our consciences forever. Here is a brief list, jotted down quickly, and as a prelude to a more detailed analysis in the future.

First: despite the exemplary economic administration of the Government of Evo which guaranteed growth, redistribution, flow of investments and improvements in the macro and micro economic indicators, the right-wing and imperialist forces will never accept a government that does not lend itself to the services of its interests.

Second: it is necessary to study the manuals published by diverse agencies of the US and it’s spokespersons disguised as academics and journalists in order to perceive, in time, the warning signs of the offensive.

These texts invariably highlight the necessity of destroying the reputation of the popular leader, what in specialized slang they call “character assassination”, classifying him as a thief, corrupt, dictator and ignorant.

This is the task entrusted to social communicators, self-proclaimed “independent journalists,” that in favor of their almost monopoly control of the media, hammer this defamation into the mind of the population, accompanied by, in the case we are dealing with, messages of hate directed against the Indigenous people and the poor in general.

Third: once the prior is completed, the time comes for the political leadership and the economic elite to demand “a change,” to put an end to “the dictatorship” of Evo that, as the disgraceful Vargas Llosa wrote a few days ago is “a demagogue that wants to eternalize his power”.

I bet he was toasting and drinking champagne in Madrid when he saw the images of the hoards of fascists looting, burning, chaining up journalists to a post, shaving the head of a female mayor and painting her red, and destroying the ballots of the last election, to carry out the mandate of Don Mario and to liberate Bolivia of an evil demagogue.

I mention him as an example because it is the immoral flag bearer of this vile attack, of this limitless felony that crucifies people’s leaders, destroys democracy and installs a reign of terror led by bands of hit men hired to punish a dignified people that had the audacity of wanting to be free.

Fourth: the “security forces” enter the scene. In this case we are talking about the institutions controlled by numerous agencies, military and civic, of the government of the United States.

They train them, arm them, do joint exercises and they educate them politically. I had the opportunity to witness this when, at the invitation of Evo, I inaugurated a course “Anti-imperialism” for officers of the three armed forces.

In this opportunity I was astonished by the degree of penetration of the most reactionary North American slogans inherited from the era of the Cold War and due to the undisguised irritation caused by the fact that an indigenous person would be president of the country.

What these “security forces” did was withdraw themselves from the scene and give free range for the uncontrolled actions of the fascist hoards -as they acted in Ukraine, in Libya, in Iraq, in Syria to overthrow, or try to do so in this last case, leaders that bother the empire- and as such intimidate the population, the militant sectors, and the figures of the government themselves.

So it’s a new socio-political concept: military coups “by omission”, allowing the reactionary groups, recruited and financed by the right, to impose their law. Once terror reigns and with the defenselessness of the government, the outcome was inevitable.

Fifth: The security and public order should never have been entrusted in Bolivia to institutions like the police and the army, colonized by imperialism and it’s lackeys of the local right-wing.

When the offensive was launched against Evo, he opted for a policy of appeasement and of not responding to the fascist provocations.

This served to embolden them and allow them to increase their bets: first, demand a second round run-off election; then, fraud and new elections; shortly after, elections but without Evo (like in Brazil without Lula).

Then, they demanded the resignation of Evo; finally, due to his reluctance to accept blackmail, they instilled terror with the complicity of police and military and to force Evo to resign. Straight from the manual, everything. Will we learn from these lessons?

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This article was first published in Spanish at Atilio Boron.com.ar.

South Korea has historically paid an unusually large percentage of the cost of keeping US forces there, and under pressure from President Trump, agreed earlier this year to a substantial increase, with South Korea agreeing to pay $924 million annually.

Since then, Trump had suggested a few times that he wanted more, and that South Korea could easily afford it. His new demand, however, shocked everyone on both sides as he is demanding over five times what South Korea is paying, $4.7 billion annually.

This is raising a lot of questions in South Korea about the viability of keeping the US around, but the bigger task is for US officials, who are trying to somehow justify a $4.7 billion price tag that seemingly came out of nowhere.

South Korea, after all, was paying a lot of the cost of US forces already, then agreed to pay more. It is going to take massive amounts of creative math to even argue that the US presence costs what Trump is now demanding. Early indications are that officials will try to argue that South Korea’s relative economic prosperity is because of the US presence and that the US deserves to take a cut.

But some officials are also worrying that this isn’t an isolated matter, and that what Trump is doing now in South Korea could be a bellwether for upcoming demands in Germany and Japan, other nations Trump has long been keen to get more money out of.

Though Trump seems to believe these nations have no choice but to pay up, they may ultimately decide the US troop presence simply isn’t affordable, and that other arrangements make more sense.

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Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com.

Featured image is from Antiwar.com

Evo Morales’ fourth term was over before it began. After winning the latest presidential election by over 600,000 votes, a flurry of violence on the part of the U.S.-backed opposition in Bolivia pressured Evo to step down. Evo’s home was vandalized and several party members of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) threatened with violence. The coup in Bolivia, which was solidified by recommendation from the military, is the latest of dozens of military coups spearheaded by the United States over the last century and a half. U.S. imperialism has viewed Latin America as its backyard since 1823 when it declared the “right to protect” the region in the Monroe Doctrine. It was at this time that the American Empire replaced the Spanish Empire as the foreign power responsible for keeping Latin America in a state of oppression, dependency, and poverty.

After over a century of U.S. imperial aggression, Evo Morales arose as one of the most revolutionary leaders of the movement for socialism in the 21^st century in Latin America—a movement that gained significant traction after the election of former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in 1998. MAS has been in power since 2006. The MAS has acted as a vehicle for workers and peasants to assert their dignity and self-determination. Trade union, indigenous, and women’s organizations have all played a major role in the implementation of social policy under Evo’s leadership. Economic growth in Bolivia has increased by an average of five percent per year, with many of the gains distributed to the indigenous populations formally dispossessed by centuries of colonial and neocolonial rule. Extreme poverty has been cut in half over the same period.

U.S. imperialism sought to dispose of Evo Morales and his indigenous-led movement even before it came to power. A FOIA request found that in 2002, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had earmarked 97 million dollars to assist “regional autonomy” projects and right-wing opposition political parties in Bolivia. These funds helped develop a U.S.-aligned political infrastructure in Bolivia responsible for the coup. The USAID has acted as the political arm of the IMF, World Bank, CIA, and the Bolivian elites who do their bidding. One of the “protest leaders” of the right-wing opposition, Luis Fernando Camacho, is the son of the founder of Sergas, a gas corporation which owes over two million USD to the Bolivian state for tax evasion and fraud. Under U.S. leadership, petty capitalists such as the Camacho family have used NGOs funded by USAID to overthrow Evo and his nationalization decree that placed petroleum, electricity, telecommunications, and mining sectors under the direction of the state.

The coup being waged by the right-wing opposition has been labeled a “protest movement” by the U.S. corporate media. Coup plotters such as oligarch and former Bolivian President Carlos Mesa have alleged that their protests have come in response to election fraud. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, no evidence of irregularities or fraudulent activities were found in the election results. The baseless claim was used by the imperialist corporate media to provide cover for the violent military coup. MAS politicians have been forced to flee their homes, government buildings have been burned, and the Bolivian economy has been ground to a halt. The oligarchy in Bolivia is out for blood and it has the police and military on its side.

This is not the first time that the American Empire has waged a violent coup in Bolivia. The CIA provided military and technical support to right-wing military dictator René Barrientos. Barrientos took power by way of military coup in 1964. His brutal suppression of the peasant uprising to his rule led to the assassination of Che Guevara. In 1971, the U.S. backed right-wing general Hugo Bánzer Suárez with the help of the U.S. Air Force. Hundreds of leftists and political activists would be murdered by his regime.

The coup of Evo Morales comes as the left in Latin America was making a resurgence amid countless attempts by the American empire to destroy their social democratic project. In late October, Argentina elected Alberto Fernandez and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as president and vice president, effectively ending the right-wing and neoliberal rule of Mauricio Macri. Tens of thousands took to the streets in Ecuador and forced Lenin Moreno to back away from an IMF deal which would have imposed harsh austerity measures on workers, students, and peasants. Lula Da Silva was released from prison to begin November. Lula’s freedom represented a concrete victory for a Brazilian left currently facing enormous challenges under the rule of former officer of the fascist military dictatorship, Jair Bolsonaro.

The American Empire has struck back against the left in Latin America with a devastating blow in Bolivia. There are many lessons to learn from the U.S.-backed coup. For one, too few in the belly of the U.S. empire are prepared to come to the defense of the peoples’ struggle in Latin America or anywhere else. The corporate media has placed a national blinder on the host of coups staged by the American empire in the last ten years alone, whether we are talking about the Clinton-Obama coup in Honduras in 2009 or the ouster of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in 2016.  Awash in white supremacist ideology and confined to the most unrestrained form of capitalism on the planet, workers and poor people in the U.S. have few avenues from which to express concrete solidarity with the Bolivian masses.

Another lesson of the U.S.-backed coup in Bolivia is that the so-called “end of history” proclaimed by the American empire after the fall of the Soviet Union was a complete and utter lie. The American empire is “capitalist to the bones” and its rulers believed the world would remain under its thumb indefinitely. Evo Morales and the rest of the socialist left in Latin America, while unable to completely expropriate the property and power of the oligarchs, were able to lead a mass movement toward the dignity and self-determination of the oppressed. This path required that the seeds of socialism were sewn into the fabric of governance throughout Latin America. Whether it’s called “Chavismo,” “21^st century socialism,” or the “pink tide,” this movement has empowered workers and peasants to unify across borders to alleviate poverty, underdevelopment, and imperial dependency.

Evo Morales was at the forefront of Latin America’s burgeoning internationalism. He was a huge supporter of Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).  Furthermore, Evo challenged the American empire on the military front by advocating for the development of a continental military united in defending the sovereignty of Latin America. The so-called “end of history” was thus nothing more than an arrogant display of American imperial hubris that only clouded its true interests abroad. Socialism has remained the American empire’s public enemy number one even after the end of the so-called Cold War. The American Empire does not respect democracy or elections, just the profits of the few. Evo’s Bolivia is paying the price for placing the needs of poor Bolivians ahead of the riches of the elite.

Perhaps the most important lesson from the coup in Bolivia is that the struggle for socialism and self-determination is far from over. The oligarchs seeking to wrestle control of Bolivia and the entire continent back from the workers and peasants will stop at nothing to lynch Evo Morales. A warrant is out for his arrest even though he has committed no crime. The oligarchs want to bring the working class back into a state of total misery. While the ouster of Evo Morales is indeed a significant defeat, the socialist movement in Latin America will no doubt fight back. The people of Bolivia will fight back. Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and other allied nations will do everything they can to support the MAS through a difficult transition. It is important that the left living in the belly of the American empire find a way to do the same.

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Danny Haiphong is the co-author of the book American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People’s History of Fake News-From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror.

Featured image is from RT/Youtube

¡Chile despertó!
¡Piñera, renuncia!
¡Piñera ya fue!
¡Que se vayan los milicos! 

Chile Has Woken Up!
Piñera Resign!
Piñera Has Gone!
Let the “Milicos” leave! (“Milicos” is a derogatory word for police and military personnel)

These are some the powerful chants that have echoed throughout the streets of cities small and large in Chile during mass protests that began in October 2019. Poor, working and oppressed people and students have united to demand dignity and human rights – in one word, an end to neo-liberalism in Chile.

This movement began following the October 6 announcement by the government of Chile that there would be a 30-peso transit system fare hike. This increase, which amounts to about $0.04 USD, was enough added pressure to an already tight household budget for many Chileans to bring millions of people out into the streets.

“It’s not about the 30 pesos. It’s about 30 years” 

For the first two weeks, protests were organized by high school students who called on people to refuse to pay transit fares. By October 18 the President of Chile, Sebastián Piñera had not responded to the students’ demands – and instead declared a State of Emergency and deployed the military and riot police to attack the students.

Despite the extreme repression and curfew, people in Chile continued to demonstrate. Then, on October 21, President Piñera, extended the State of Emergency, declaring,

“We are at war against a powerful enemy, who is willing to use violence without any limits.”

With these words, Piñera displayed outright contempt for the people of Chile, and his true colours as an ally of the U.S. and staunch supporter of neo-liberalism in Chile at the same time. By then, protests which had largely been contained to the capital city of Santiago, spread to other cities. At least 10,500 police and soldiers had been deployed by October 21 (BBC).

Protests against the government and neoliberalism have continued to grow and spread throughout the country and into the most oppressed sectors of society. The Indigenous Mapuche people of Chile, who make up about 10% of the population, have also organized and led protests demanding their self-determination and land rights.

Despite the severe repression, on October 25, 2019, 1.2 million people marched in Santiago, representing diverse sectors of Chilean society including social movements, Indigenous people, women, retired people, unions, students and more. The protests have continued since then, and the repression and cruelty of the Piñera government and his military and police goons has reached a severity not seen in Chile since the bloody Pinochet dictatorship ended over 30 years ago.

As reported by the National Institute of Human Rights (Instituto Nacional de Derechos Humanos – INDH), a nongovernmental organization in Chile, at least 177 people have faced severe eye injuries or lost their vision after being deliberately hit in the face by tear-gas canisters and rubber bullets. The same organization has also investigated possible torture sites, and documented cases of un-uniformed police or military throwing people into car trunks and vans. As of October 30, 2019, at least 19 people have been killed and over 1,200 people have been wounded. INDH has also filed 18 cases of sexual violence, including rape, and 92 cases of torture, against police and soldiers.

Why are People in Chile Protesting?

So, how is it that in the face of so much violence, people in Chile have continued their mass protests? What started with a transit fare increase has led to a revolt against Chile’s neoliberal government and institutions – and even demands to change the constitution. As Alan Vicencio, a 25-year-old call-center worker told Time Magazine, “The whole constitution makes me angry, the constitution allowed the privatization of every aspect of our lives and it’s being doing it for more than 30 years.”

Often hailed as “business friendly” and the prime example of the “success” of a free market system, Chile is the most unequal of the 36 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In 2017, the United Nations released a report “Unequal. Origins, changes and challenges in Chile’s social divide,” which explained how the richest 0.1% of the people in Chile control 19.5% of the wealth.

Privatization runs rampant in Chile through all sectors of life including water, roads, energy, healthcare and the pension system. Although some education is public, there is a great divide between the public and private school systems.

The minimum wage in Chile is not enough for a dignified life – especially as everything is privatized, making everyday life in Chile very expensive. For example, if someone in Chile made minimum wage the cost of transit to and from work would eat up 21% of their paycheque (NACLA.org).

Protestors in Chile are fighting for their dignity. They are fighting against inequality. They are fighting against police and military brutality. These are all symptoms of neoliberalism, which is the economic policy expression of the agenda of imperialism around the world.

One only must look towards to the United States’ relationship with the government of Chile to understand just how Chile has become such a good ally to the U.S. With regard to the violence against protestors, the White House stated that,

”The United States stands with Chile, an important ally, as it works to peacefully restore national order,” and “President Trump denounced foreign efforts to undermine Chilean institutions, democracy, or society.”

More broadly, as President Trump put it in a press conference a year ago,

“There are so many issues that we have to discuss because Chile and the United States are likeminded countries. We share the most important things, which are values — democracy, human rights, freedom. But Chile is really something special. If you look at what they’ve done, how far they’ve come. You look at how well run the country is.”

This is what is sounds like when a government in Latin America is following the orders of the U.S. government and their financial institutions.

Clearly, behind the repression in Chile is the support of the United States, but also the support of many of their imperialist allies, including the government of Canada. In fact, Prime Minister Trudeau had a phone call with Piñera in the midst of severe police and military repression and didn’t say one word to him – as reported by CTV News,

“A summary from the Prime Minister’s Office of Trudeau’s phone call with Pinera made no direct mention of the ongoing turmoil in Chile, a thriving country with which Canada has negotiated a free trade agreement.”

This is no surprise given that, as reported by the government of Canada, 14% of Canada’s mining assets are in Chile including copper, gold and silver mines. This includes Barrick Gold, which had to shut down a $429 million gold mine earlier this year due to severe human rights and environmental violations.

Both the governments of the U.S. and Canada also want to hold up the repressive Piñera government because having a neo-liberal “success story” and a staunch ally in Chile serves them well in their drive to re-establish imperialist hegemony in Latin America. Having a U.S.-supported government in Chile puts imperialists in a better position for their continued attacks against the sovereign and independent countries of Cuba and Venezuela.

Chile – Target of Imperialist Aggression and Exploitation 

The modern history of Chile is a history of colonization, imperialist domination and exploitation. Although Chile won independence from Spain in 1818, it wasn’t until 150 years later that the people of Chile had the opportunity to be truly independent from colonial and imperialist rule. In 1970, the people of Chile chose to reverse their history of colonization and exploitation, and elected Salvador Allende, who had a progressive and popular agenda to improve the life and oppose imperialist exploitation of Chile.

However, only three years after his election, in 1973, the United States and their imperialist allies orchestrated a bloody coup d’état, murdering Allende and installing a bloody military dictatorship. In just the first 5 years of his brutal rule, the U.S-backed dictatorship of General Agosto Pinochet imprisoned and tortured at least 30,000 people and disappeared 3,000 people. A constitution written under the dictatorship, which is the same one that enshrines privatization, is still in place in Chile today.

Reviewing the modern history of Chile also helps to explain the continued determination of the people of Chile to continuing protesting in mass in the streets until their demands are met. Despite some concessions that Piñera has been forced to give, such as the increases to monthly pensions or the minimum wage, a cabinet shuffle, or agreeing not to raise the transit fare, people are not leaving the streets.

As, Vilma Alvarez, a leader of the Jumbo Union (Jumbo is a chain of grocery stores in Chile) explained in an interview with the Argentinian news agency Pagina 12, the concessions that Pinera has offered to the protesters are not enough. They are, “another way to continue transferring money to the financial sectors and not giving any relief to the population,” and “The demand is for Piñera to resign and for a Constituent Assembly to be held.” The people of Chile have had enough.

Building Solidarity with the People of Chile 

Why should working and oppressed people in Canada support the struggle of people in Chile? For one, the people of Chile are facing a criminal and violent repression of their basic human rights. They are being arrested, tortured, raped and killed because they have taken to the streets in the millions to oppose inequality and austerity and to struggle for their basic dignity.

As Isabel Sanchez stated to Aljazeera news on October 26,

“We are of the generation that began our lives in the dictatorship, and we had no youth. We lost friends; we saw people slaughtered. We lived with fear, but now the young people have blossomed, they have lost that fear.”

It is time also for us, as poor, working and oppressed people in Canada and the United States to recognize the courage and struggle of the people of Chile, stand with them, and echo their voices.

Also, as people living in the United States and Canada, we have the added responsibility to stand in solidarity with the people of Chile because the governments of Canada and the U.S. are supporting the brutality and repression of the Piñera government.

Chile Diaspora Supports the Struggle

In the U.S. and Canada, members of the Chilean community and their allies have also taken to the streets to call for human rights for people in Chile and denounce the indiscriminate violence waged against protestors by the Piñera government. There have been solidarity protests organized in major cities across the United States, and in Canada, including in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Vancouver and Victoria. These solidarity actions have not only brought together people from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences, but also many generations of Chileans – from those that fled during the Pinochet dictatorship, to young people from Chile who are in the Canada and the U.S. to study.

In Vancouver, the Chilean diaspora has come together with others living in Canada in a new group named Van4Chile. Van4Chile has organized protests and public demonstrations in solidarity with the people of Chile, including an energetic protest in front of the CBC in downtown Vancouver on November 2, 2019. At this action, more than 200 people, from all walks of life, came together to demand that the CBC cover the protests in Chile. They also called out the government of Canada’s complicity in the repression of people’s human and democratic rights in Chile. To get involved and follow the work of Van4Chile find them on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @Van4Chile.

Don’t Boycott Chile

It is also important to say that within the movement in solidarity with the people of Chile, there has been calls for a boycott against Chilean wine or other products produced in Chile. While this call for boycott may have been made with good intentions, the most important action that we, as peace-loving people in Canada and the U.S. can take for the courageous people of Chile is not to boycott them, but to support them. Perhaps, we must think more critically about what boycotting Chilean wine will do for people in Chile.

Today in Chile the working class and oppressed people are under brutal attack, economically, politically and socially, by the Sebastian Piñera government and imperialist exploitation. So, it is possible that a boycott that targets Chile’s economy has the potential to damage their movement and to reinforce the austerity which they are already living under. Any damage to the economy of Chile will surely be passed on from Chile’s richest families and capitalist class (they have billion dollars to survive) to poor and working people in Chile, increasing the austerity, pressure and inequality that they face. And Chile is not only a wine producer! Do we want also to boycott the mining, metal, mineral companies whose products amount to 60%, or $40 billion, of all of Chile’s exports, making up 20 percent of Chile’s GDP? The wine industry exports only $2 billion of the $70-77 billion of total exports from Chile.

That being said, do we really want the wine industry in Chile go bankrupt? Who is benefiting from that? Working people? Of course not. Do we want workers and people who work in wine industry to lose their jobs, or do we want to help the capitalist class to find excuses to lay-off workers and impose downsizing and overtime? Aren’t these the very policies of neoliberalism that Chilean people, and we, are opposing? Isn’t this shooting ourselves in the foot?

Furthermore, it is also important to consider the alternative – if people around the world are asked to boycott Chilean wine because the government of Chile is reactionary – is drinking wine from the U.S., Canada, France, Spain, England, Australia, Italy, or Germany, who are responsible for the slaughter of tens of millions of people around the world (including Chile’s coup September 11,1973), really any better? The difference is that Chile is an oppressed country, a third-world country. Chile is not an imperialist country with vast finances and industrial resources. Chile as a country struggles within the world market which is overwhelmingly dominated by imperialist countries and their corporations (including wine companies).

Applying any given tactic to any struggle could be very damaging to the struggle itself if it is not well thought out. In the history of the struggle for a better world, a boycott movement has never been the most effective way to build solidarity. The only effective boycott movement was one that was demanded by the people within the country being boycotted, and this was the successful boycott movement against apartheid South Africa.

If we can take all the energy that could go into a boycott, and instead use it to raise sympathy and solidarity with Chilean people in Canada and the U.S. through street actions, petitioning, educational events, and more, our impact will be much greater.

As poor, working and oppressed people in Canada/U.S., and around the world we must raise the question of human rights, torture, rape, execution, repression and yes, neoliberalism and austerity measures in Chile. We need to expose the atrocities of Piñera, and the complicity of governments like the U.S. and Canada in this brutality.

Sebastian Piñera must go!

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This article was originally published as Volume 13, Issue 11 of Fire This Time newspaper.

Alison Bodine is a social justice activist, author and researcher in Vancouver, Canada. She is the Chair of Vancouver’s antiwar coalition, Mobilization Against War and Occupation (MAWO). Alison is also on the Editorial Board of the Fire This Time and is the author of “Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Venezuela” (Battle of Ideas Press, 2018). @alisoncolette

A Canadian political commentator and author of “Voices from Syria” said if a new constitution is approved by the Syrian Constitutional Committee, the foreign-backed “unelected” opposition cannot guarantee to adhere to it.

“Unelected opposing parties cannot guarantee anything,” Mark Taliano said in an interview with Tasnim.

“Their (opposing parties’) masters are not Syrian,” he said, adding, “Ultimately they will have no say in substantive matters.”

The following is the full text of the interview.

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Tasnim: The United Nation’s envoy for Syria said recently that first talks in the Swiss city of Geneva on the country’s constitution involving Syrian opposition, government and civil society representatives have “gone much better” than many would have expected. Geir Pedersen said the two co-chairs of the constitutional committee from President Bashar al-Assad’s government and the leading opposition have agreed to meet again on November 25, and that delegations would in coming weeks “hopefully come up with a work plan”. Representatives of both sides met to discuss a future constitution, part of plans for a political settlement to end eight and a half years of war. Expectations for the talks have been low, with Damascus and its allies having made gains on the battlefield that left them few reasons to grant concessions. What do you think about the developments? How possible is it for the Constitutional Committee to reach an agreement given the deep differences and lack of trust between its members?

Taliano: “Opposition” members may become more pliant as time passes and Syrian victories become more entrenched. “Opposition” members will likely be given an opportunity to “save face”. In substantive matters, the Syrian state will remain ascendant as the spectacle continues.

Tasnim: The Syrian Constitutional Committee was established with the aim of paving the way for a political settlement in Syria. If a new constitution is approved by the committee, how practical will it be?  How can the opposing parties guarantee to adhere to the new constitution?

Taliano: Unelected opposing parties cannot guarantee anything. Their masters are not Syrian. Ultimately they will have no say in substantive matters.

Tasnim: Given Turkey’s military operation against Kurds in northern Syria and the presence of Ankara-backed extremist groups in the area, what do you think about the negative impacts of foreign intervention on the political settlement of the Syrian crisis?

Taliano: Turkey and its NATO (terrorists) will be reined in, but on-going imperial war crimes and occupations will slow negotiations and continue to be enemies to Peace. Terrorism will be a challenge for as long as Empire illegally occupies Syrian territory.  The head of the Opposition’s “Syrian Negotiation Commission (SNC)”, Nasr al-Hariri, will find that on-going terrorism will hinder rather than advance his foreign-influenced agenda.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. Visit the author’s website at https://www.marktaliano.net where this article was originally published.

Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.

Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

Voices from Syria 

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-1-6

Author: Mark Taliano

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As the military coup continues to entrench itself in Bolivia, the first goal of the perpetrators is to appear to be following the constitutional process. But the façade is not enough to hide the real disaster of yet another self-proclaimed president in Latin America. When you thought that the Juan Guaido experiment in Venezuela was a total failure in every respect, Bolivia repeats the same pathetic tragedy.

The main character is Jeanine Añez, the second vice-president of the Bolivian Senate who proclaimed herself to be the “president” of Bolivia supposedly according to the constitution. She declared, “I immediately take the presidency of the State.” She is a senator for the rightwing party Democratic Unity and has been an adamant opponent of Evo Morales who was forced into exile in Mexico by the Bolivian armed forces top brass, who now have enthusiastically recognised the new “president”.

A couple of farcical moments maybe first, when Añez stood in the middle of an almost empty Senate hall. At least Juan Guaido had a small crowd when he self-proclaimed in January 23. The second moment may have been when she walked into the presidential palace barely able to carry up high an oversized bible and declaring,

“The bible returns to the [presidential] palace”. Later she added, “our power is God, the power is God.”

Her religiosity is apparently very prominent.

But more seriously, what makes this a tragedy is that she appointed herself  “president” in an almost empty Senate because the majority of senators are members of the government party, Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS), and they were not present. Consequently there was no required quorum for the “vote” to take place. Prior to that, she quickly had to appoint herself president of the Senate because the MAS president and first vice-president were not present. So she skipped quite a few steps of the hierarchy breaking the constitution in order to appear to be entitled to the presidency…according to the constitution.

Evo Morales from Mexico twitted:

“This self-proclamation is against articles 161, 169 and 410 of the State Political Constitution [Constitución Política del Estado– CPE] that determine the approval or rejection of a presidential resignation, the constitutional succession from the Senate or Deputy [Assembly] presidents and the higher authority of the CPE. Bolivia suffers an assault to the power of the people.”

In fact, Article 161 has two functions relevant in this case, one is “accept or deny the resignation of the President and of the Vice President of the State.” This has not been done. And secondly, “receive the oath of the President and the Vice President of the State.” We have not heard if the new “president” has done so, but regardless, all has to take place when “The [Senate and Deputy] Chambers will meet in Plurinational Legislative Assembly.” As we know, no such assembly is functioning.

Article 169 is crucial: “In case of impediment or definitive absence of the President of the State, the Vice President will replace him/her, and in case of his/her absence [in turn] the President of the Senate will replace him/her, and in case of his/her absence, the President of the Chamber of Deputies will replace him/her. In the latter case, new elections will be called within the maximum deadline of ninety days.” We have just indicated that this process has not been followed because the presidents of the two Chambers were not even present.

Article 410 states who will have to abide by the constitution. “All people, natural and legal, as well as public bodies, public functionaries and institutions, are all subject to this Constitution.” This clearly applies to all the coup perpetrators without exception. But they have not.

To invalidate even more this absurd unconstitutional scenario is that when the legitimate president of the Senate, Adriana Salvatierra, representing the MAS government Party, attempted to enter into the Senate to claim to be elected president of Bolivia according to the constitution she was not even allowed to enter. Admittedly she had resigned but her resignation was never formally accepted.

To conclude, we have to note that constitutions are written to lay down basic fundamental rights, guarantees and rules of the State. Everything else, including clarifications of any constitutional matter, is the attribution, in the case of Bolivia, of the Plurinational Constitutional Court. But this court in turn is composed of elected members who are now literally dysfunctional or disbanded, or nor legitimate.

But what is really important to note is that constitutions are written assuming normal circumstances in the country and that those normal circumstances will continue indefinitely. The reality is that there is nothing normal following a coup. All standard basic definitions and notions of democracy, independence, sovereignty and foreign intervention break down creating a vacuum that is immediately filled with ideology and interests. What really makes the whole event in Bolivia tragic is that it is triggered by a foreign induced Hybrid War not for the benefit of Bolivians.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Nino Pagliccia is an activist and freelance writer based in Vancouver. He is a retired researcher from the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is a Venezuelan-Canadian who follows and writes about international relations with a focus on the Americas. He is the editor of the book “Cuba Solidarity in Canada – Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations” (2014). He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Deputy Senate speaker Jeanine Anez speaks from the balcony of the government Quemado Palace in La Paz after proclaiming herself the country’s interim president (Source: AFP / Aizar RALDES)

The fake “whistleblower’s name— Eric Ciamerella—has been known for a long time, but not officially. Now it is official. Senator Rand Paul has officially released his name. Funny, isn’t it, that only the Republicans want Ciamerella to testify. The Democrats won’t hear of it. See this.

If the American people are paying attention, the Democrats are in trouble. When Russiagate fizzled out on them, Adam Schiff (D,CA) orchestrated a fake “whistleblower” whom the Democrats cannot risk putting on the stand to testify. The Democrats’ focus shifted to sleazy State Department types who could offer nothing but second or third hand hearsay followed by a hearsay second telephone call that cannot be confirmed.

Why are the Democrats out on a limb like this? They can rely on the presstitutes to cover up for them in every respect and to continue to repeat endlessly without any verification their charges against Trump, but after going through the hoax of Russiagate are the American people stupid enough to fall for the replacement hoax?

Some analysts believe that the House Democrats are using the so-called impeachment not to produce any evidence, as they have none, but to gin up hatred of Trump especially among the youth who are known to want to be included in whatever is cool. The Democrats’ project is to make hating Trump cool and to convince young people to base their vote on being cool and hating Trump.

I recently asked where are Attorney General Barr’s indictments of Obama regime officials for the attempted Russiagate coup against Trump. Some Republicans explained that Barr is waiting until closer to the election in order to get maximum impact on the voting public. If so, this is a mistake. The longer Barr waits, the longer the presstitutes and Democrats have to discredit the indictments in advance as Trump’s effort to produce a countervailing news story. The longer Barr waits, the more of Trump’s presidency is given up to the impeachment circus. The longer Barr waits, the longer Republicans have to become demoralized by the complete absence of integrity among the American media and House Democrats. It is really very disgusting for anyone not caught up in the emotion of hating Trump at all costs. Honest people with integrity don’t want to be associated with such dirty business.

There actually are a lot of Americans who have been conditioned to hate Trump so completely that they would accept his removal by a coup.

They are so emotional that they are unable to think about the consequences for democracy of a coup. This is the slippery slope the Romans went down. Once an emperor was removed by a coup, every emperor could be, and often was, removed by a coup. The subsequent internal disorder contributed greatly to the fall of Rome.

There are many issues on which Democrats could legitimately challenge Trump in the forthcoming presidential election that would resonate with many honest Americans.

Democrats could challenge Trump for the coup against Bolivian President Morales.

They could challenge Trump for dismantaling environmental protections and for permitting mining and energy companies to loot national monuments and wildlife refuges.

They could challenge Trump for persecuting Julian Assange for practicing traditional journalism.

They could challenge Trump for serving Israeli instead of American foreign policy interests.

These and other issues would make a real campaign, one worthy of a democracy. Instead, we get hoax scandals.

What this tells us is that there is not enough integrity in the Democratic Party and American media for democracy to survive. When the political process consists of nothing but lies and hatred, democracy is not possible. Why are the House Democrats and the American media destroying democracy?

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog, Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Shutterstock/cunaplus

On October 20, celebrations in honor of the 192nd anniversary of the Battle of Navarino (1827) (against the Ottoman Empire) with the participation of President P. Pavlopoulos were held in Greece. The President, in particular, addressed his speech on the importance of unity in protecting international law to the EU and Turkey. In addition, during the celebrations, he met with the Russian Ambassador to Greece Andrey Maslov.

It is worth noting that Russia, not being an EU member, has the greatest opportunities to influence Turkey’s policy towards Greece and Cyprus while the negotiations on Turkey’s accession to the Union were frozen on February 20, 2019.

As it is known, the first independent Greek state in modern history – the Septinsular Republic, was established with the participation of the Russian Admiral Fyodor Ushakov (image below), later venerated as a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church.

The trust that existed between the Russians and the Greeks at that time is evidenced, for example, by the long-term friendship of Admiral Ushakov and the Greek captains Sarandinakis and Alexianos who were the best in his squadron. Thanks to his skill, captain Stamatis Sarandinakis (“Yevstafiy Pavlovich”, as he was called by the Russians), a son of an archon from Monemvasia who died for the freedom of Greece, took charge of Ushakov’s flagship, and aboard this ship he bravely fought against Turkey and France. At the same time, their relationship was not limited to service and joint combat operations: Ushakov’s respect and trust in his Greek friend was so great that he entrusted him with the education of his nephew Ivan, whom Stamatis personally taught the art of navigation. In 1803, the hero of the Greek Liberation War, captain Sarandinakis retired and settled in the Crimea: he grew grapes, headed the provincial court of conscience (which used to perform the same functions as ombudsmen and human rights activists nowadays), but he certainly did not forget his homeland – he bequeathed most of his fortune to charity in Greece.

It is not surprising that later it was Ushakov’s figure, his role in the liberation of the Ionian Islands and the openness of the Russians to the co-religionist Greek people, as seen in the example of Stamatios Sarandinakis, that led Ioannis Kapodistrias, the future Secretary of State of the Republic, to the conviction that without reliance on Russia as the only Orthodox Empire, Greece would not be able to gain real independence from the Ottomans.

Russia definitely wanted to liberate the Orthodox Greeks from the Ottoman rule by creating an independent state. For some time Russia had neither opportunities nor resources to directly support the heroic efforts of the Pontic Greek Alexander Ypsilantis, but sympathized with him and made every effort to stop the violence against the Greek people. Thus, when the Ottoman Porte restricted the vital freedom of navigation for the Greeks and began cruel repressions, the Russian Ambassador Grigory Stroganov, with the consent of the Tsar, repeatedly met with the Grand Vizier, issued an ultimatum against the violent treatment of Orthodox Christians, and then left the country in protest and in sign of the rupture of relations.

The Russian Emperor Nicholas I, who succeeded Alexander I, was aware of the various opinions of the advisers inherited from his predecessor, and generally held the same position. Taking into account its then military capabilities, he considered impossible Russia’s unilateral participation in the war with the Ottoman Empire, because it would have to fight both with the Turkish and Egyptian fleets. And the Greek people, in view of the fierce and uncompromising reaction of the Porte to the rising liberation movement, needed only victory.

To stop the atrocities against the Greek population by the Porte, in the spring of 1826, Russia and Great Britain signed the Protocol of St. Petersburg on joint actions for the settlement of the Greek War of Independence. According to this document, it was supposed to work together to the autonomy of Greece under the supreme authority of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1827, taking the St. Petersburg Protocol as a basis, representatives of Russia, Great Britain, and France concluded the Treaty of London to assist Greece and to outline its future structure. As it is known, Britain and France sought to weaken the influence of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. Therefore, assuming Russia had the same goals, they also feared that Russian influence will increase as a result of the country’s participation in the war on the side of Greece. However, Russia was so willing to help the co-religionist Greece that in order to attract the necessary allies, it defiantly refused commercial benefits, which was recorded in the Treaty.

In the end, the capitulation of the Porte and the subsequent establishment of a completely independent Greek state (not autonomy) were the result of the Russo-Turkish war of 1828-1829: in September, 1829, the Russian army stood 40 km from the Sultan’s Palace.

Meanwhile, in the fight between the different parties (“Russian”, subsequently “National” and constitutionalist “English” or “French” parties supported by the Phanariots) in the years of liberation war, the only respected figure who could lead the young state was Ioannis Kapodistrias, a former Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, brilliant diplomat and humanist, one of the genius creators of the Swiss Constitution, honorary citizen of Lausanne, and a close friend of the greatest Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.

Ioannis Kapodistrias did not fear for his position and was perhaps the only one who truly cared for the welfare of the nation, while his opponents were only capable of imprisoning the heroes of the Greek Revolution. It was Kapodistrias who insisted, though unsuccessfully, that the Greek people should choose their own king at people’s assemblies. He fought international corruption that had infiltrated Greece along with the influence of other European powers. He refused his salary and gave his estate to the needs of the young Greek state. To him the British Admiral Edward Codrington, who had also taken part in the Battle of Navarino, said that England intended to look after its own interests only in Greece; but Ioannis continued to defend what mattered to the Greek people.

The case of the Ioannis Kapodistrias’ murder is still classified in the British Foreign Office. However, it is clear that when the Western liberating powers sought to force their influence upon the young independent Greece, such a faithful son as he could hardly expect any other future than to give his life for his Homeland.

No wonder the German diplomats said that Kapodistrias could not be bribed, and that elimination of him was the only way to stop him. Today, anyone can come to the place where he was murdered – the Church of Agios Spyridon in Nafplio– and make sure of it. At the same time, it’s a chance to think whether nowadays we have got politicians about whom we could say the same. And can we, looking at the figures of Kapodistrias and Ushakov, doubt the sincere love and sympathy for Greece from the Russian people?

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Christos Athanasiou is currently pursuing his Bachelor’s degree in History and Politics at the University of York. His main area of interest is Regionalism In World Politics.

On July 17, 2014, a Malaysian Boeing 777-200ER aircraft was conducting a scheduled passenger flight (MH17) from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. During a transit flight over the territory of Ukraine, the Ukrainian air traffic control charted the plane directly over the conflict zone between government forces and units of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.

At 13:20 UTC, the aircraft was shot down as a result of a fire damage from unidentified forces.

The Ukrainian side, with Western support, immediately blamed Russia for the incident. In turn, Malaysia, expresses deep concerns over the accusations against Russia and the course of the investigation.

On June 27, 2019, Ukrainian special services detained the ex-commander of one of the air defense units of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic Vladimir Tsemakh in Snejnoe, on the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic. Ukraine’s State Security Service claimed that he was involved in the MH17 incident. Later, his status was changed to the “witness”. On September 7, 2019, Tsemakh was transferred to the Russian side as a part of the 35 for 35 exchange of the detained persons.

We present to your attention an exclusive interview with Vladimir Tsemakh (original in Russian) (English Transcript below) that reveals many interesting details.

Watch the video here.

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Kirill Vyshinsky: Greetings. This is the second interview in the People of Donbass series. This man is not used to speaking on camera. He‘s giving the first interview in his life. In 2014, Vladimir Tsemakh was defending his home in Snejnoe in the region of Donbass. After 3 years, he returned to a peaceful life. In the summer of this year, he appeared in Kiev under strange circumstances, where he was arrested under even stranger circumstances. In September, thanks to the exchange of detained persons, Vladimir Tsemakh returned home.

Kirill Vyshinsky (KV): Vladimir Borisovich, good day!

Vladimir Tsemach (VT): Good day.

KV: We flew in the same plane in September, I saw you very briefly. We didn’t have time to say a word, but you were one of the most famous passengers and I really wanted to know your story, because you were made almost the main witness in the case of the downed Boeing.

KV: But this is not the beginning. Let’s start with your background. Tell us a few words about yourself.

VT: I was born in 1961. In 1978, I entered the Poltava Higher Anti-Aircraft Missile Command Red Banner College named after Army General Nikolai Fedorovich Vatutin. In 1982 I graduated. After that, I got to serve in the 40th Army, meaning in Afghanistan. I was there for three and a half months, after which I was sent to the Far East under an experience share (program), where I served until 1992 and went into reserve in 1992 on Victory Day.

KV: And after?

VT: After that, I returned to my hometown. Until 2019, I lived safely, with the exception of 2014, of course.  I had quite a few different jobs. I didn’t sit in any one place very long.

KV: But nothing related to the army?

VT: No, absolutely not.

KV: You were made almost the main witness in the Boeing case only because you had headed Snezhnoy’s air defense since 2014. Tell us how you got there, what it was; what the weaponry was.

VT: I asked the city commandant, ”Am I needed?“ “Yes.” he said, “The anti-aircraft guns are gathering dust.

KV: When did this take place?

VT: It was June 26th, 2014. When I realized that this circus in Kramatorsk and Slavyansk would not easily end. Semenovka… I realized that they would not calm down.

KV: The authorities?

VT: The Ukrainian authorities didn’t want to talk with the people. They decided to talk from a position of strength. If you think that my grandchildren will not think in my language, that they could be forced to think in Ukrainian, this is wrong, I think. So, I had to go to the militia and after Ukrainian aviation attacked the city center, I got people together immediately. On that same day, I had a lot of people there. The armaments we had consisted of two anti-aircraft guns and two man-portable air defense systems.

KV: Tell me. What did you know then -about this downed Boeing?

VT: I knew as much as the general population knew. I found out either in the evening or the next morning about what happened.

KV: And tell me. In 2019, were you still serving in the army, in the People’s Militia?

VT: No. I finished my service in 2017. I had a compression fracture of the spine. So, my health didn’t allow me to serve.

KV: You were detained on June 27^th. Right?

VT: Yes.

KV: On the 28th you were in Kiev. That’s actually the next day. You were detained in Snezhnoye which is around 60 kilometers from the separation line. Right?

VT: It’s further away by road. Turns out the city is only 78 kilometers to Donetsk.

KV: They detained you on the 27^th. On the 28th you were already in Kiev, and on the 29th you were in court, where a preventive measure of restraint was chosen. How, under what circumstances, did you end up on the territory of Ukraine in such a short time?

VT: They took me straight away to the separation line. There he constantly kept in touch with the other side.

KV: He? Who’s “he”?

VT: The driver. He participated in the abduction. There were two people. Mortars were fired from the other side. They said they would shell five times for cover fire. They started pushing the wheelchair, and then a sixth shell was fired. I said, “Hey! If you want me dead, why don’t you just get on with it and bury me right here? Why drag this on?” That sixth shell almost hit us. I was even covered with dirt. It seems that it was before the shelling. Was it our people responding so quickly? You can understand the condition I was in. Under tranquilizers, I couldn’t perceive what was happening around me very well. We sat around and waited for the shelling to end, then they put a bag over my head. They kept me in a basement for about 20 minutes.

KV: Did this happen on the other side or here?

VT: On the other side, literally across the Creek. Their position was just 20 meters away -not far away it turns out. With a bag on my head, we ran for about half a kilometer to a minivan. They measured my blood pressure as 190 to 110. They said, “Ok,” the insect is healthy, normal. My head was bandaged and I was immediately sent in a minivan to Kiev.

KV: Were you transported through the separation line in a wheelchair?

KV: So, you were in such a condition that you couldn’t walk?

VT: My legs buckled. Even when I was put in the wheelchair, I couldn’t put my feet on the step.

KV: But why?

VT: I couldn’t. They had to lift my legs, no more than 5 centimeters.

KV: Why did you feel like that? What happened?

VT: They injected two tranquilizers in me at home and a third, in front of Donetsk.

KV: What condition were you in when they brought you to Kiev?

VT: I began feeling normal about a week later. I’m not used to drugs like that.

KV: Was it something strong?

VT: Well, yes. I feel most rested when I sleep 7-8 hours. But I usually only sleep 6 or 7. When I was detained, I was always woken up at 6 AM; then I kept dozing off until around 10 AM.

KV: You said they took every document you had in your house and on your person?

VT: Yes.

KV: They attached them to the case file. Were they classified as secret?

VT: Yes.

KV: They fell under the stamp of secrecy with the consequence, in theory, of improving the case.

VT: That’s what happened.

KV: Nevertheless, in mid-July, your military ID appeared on some kind of investigative web site, it seems, Bellingcat. How can you explain this?

VT: It turns out the Security Service of Ukraine provided this information.

KV: Did it turn out to be a “classified” investigation?

VT: There was no secret. Collaboration was happening as if it was normal. There were no secrets.

KV: Where were you detained in Kiev, in what conditions? What was it like?

VT: At Askold’s detention center. The cell was two by five meters, with two bunks. I was alone there, literally. Just before being freed, a man was put in the cell with me. So, I was constantly alone. For the first two weeks I didn’t even have a bar of soap. I asked, “Give me at least a little piece of soap.“ But, “No”. They didn’t give me anything. For such a serious structure, you would think they could spend some money, at least for a bar of soap. It didn’t happen. As far as nutrition goes -you’ll live. You won’t die of hunger. For hours, it was lights out at 10 PM and rise at 6 AM.

KV: Were the lights turned off?

VT: No. The lights were on all the time. It was dim, but one light was always on. I was allowed to walk in the courtyard between 2 PM and 5 PM, always alone.

KV: Were you always under surveillance?

VT: Yes. The toilet was in the cell.

KV: How were the interrogations?

VT: If the Australians and the Dutch came, then this took place on the premises of the pre-trial detention center and if the SBU investigators conducted it, then I was brought to them.

KV: Were you subjected to polygraph testing?

VT: No. There weren’t any. The representative of the Prosecutor General’s office for some reason really “loved” me -constantly threatened me with a life sentence. But then, it was interesting. When the second interrogation was taking place, with alleged Australian or Dutch representatives, it was very obvious that they were brought up in Slavic families. The representative of Holland Ara Khataryan (I don’t remember the last name. It was like Armenian.) But she spoke the language exclusively. She spoke without an accent. She knew the language perfectly.

With the representative from Australia, Sergey, it was apparent that he was either an immigrant or that he was brought up in a Slavic family. He also spoke Russian well. But at that time, before the second interrogation, Ara was the only one present. The representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office told me, “Look. You’re not being exchanged. You’re going to get a life sentence, but a lot will depend on what answers you give to these comrades.” The camera is immediately turned on. Standard procedure. They asked, “Were there any threats?“ I answered, “If life imprisonment is not a threat, then everything is fine, good.“

KV: Do you treat this in a humorous light? Although, naturally, there was no way to have fun at that moment.

VT: I am a military man, after all.

KV: Can you tell us, in more detail, about these people, these foreigners?

VT: Representatives of the Australian police and the Netherlands police.

KV: Just them? Were there any Americans, or British, somebody else?

VT: No. No. Constantly, if the English-speaking comrade is sitting on the Dutch side, then the Russian-speaking one is Australian. And during the last interrogation -Ara and Sergey were both Russian speakers.

KV: Did they coerce you?

VT: They offered me to go into witness protection. They offered citizenship and a home in the Netherlands. I wondered why there and not in Australia, but I didn’t try to bargain. laughs

KV: Maybe you could have lived in the Netherlands?

VT: No. I’m used to living where I was born. If I came back to Khabarovsk I would still be closer to my native places. Nevertheless, they didn’t offer native places. In 2014, I was told that, for my Afghanistan service, a Moscow communal apartment is paid for and that I should live in it. How could I be cruel by leaving the elderly and the kids behind? Running away is always easy.

KV: Was there any “physical means of interrogation”?

VT: When they put me on the minivan, they struck my kidneys “a little bit.”

KV: Why did you talk to them at all, and not refer to the 63rd article of the Constitution, which allows you to not testify against yourself and relatives? This is a standard procedure. By the way, they should have introduced you to it.

VT: I know of the article. But why should I be afraid? I don’t consider myself a terrorist. I protected my home. Who am I afraid of? I believe that these comrades and I don’t deserve judgments. This is how I feel on the inside.

KV: The case against you, as I understand correctly, is the 258th, second part. Meaning the creation of a terrorist organization or group. Has the case not been closed yet?

14:04 VT: Yes. It turns out I’ve been released on bail.

KV: What do you think awaits you in Ukraine?

VT: Nothing good is waiting for me, especially if such comrades are in the Prosecutor General’s office. They start slobbering -probably over the thought of putting me away for life.

KV: Are you ready to talk in court about what happened to you, about the abduction, tranquilizers, forced detention, and interrogations? Are you going to appeal to international courts?

VT: I’m considering such a possibility.

KV: What’s your assessment of everything that has happened to you?

VT: I consider it an act of terrorism against me on the part of the Ukrainian state -trying to hang me. Well, I was the head of air defense. I explained to them that, for the most part, I did scare off their aircraft. Once the planes flew over and then didn’t fly any more in the area of Snezhnoye, I told my people, “Guys, bring me empty pipes.“ We filled them with sand, made triggers out of tin, painted them, and I had eight groups of “actors” which showed that we really did have MANPADS -and a lot of them too. Although we actually only had two Zu-23 guns and two MANPADS. And with just that we held the defense of such a territory! It’s just a title I had, “the head of air defense”. You could hardly even call it a platoon -by any stretch.

KV: Do you consider yourself a victim of terrorism?

VT: Of course. But this is a bigger mess because they really have nothing on me now or in the future. Maybe, because I didn’t like the events, he was trying to use me, the bigger man, for some sort of scape-goat absolution. It will be interesting to see how they try to hold their ridiculous stories together.

KV: Obviously, your attitude towards Ukraine has changed after what happened to you.

VT: For me it’s still my homeland. It’s bitter and insulting to look at everything happening there. For some reason, people religiously believe in help from the West. But I say it‘s probably necessary to read Taras Bulba. Everything is clearly explained there.

KV: Lyakhi (Poles/Polish) did not help?

VT: Right. They didn’t help. Such ideas are somehow new to this faith. It’s time to live, listening to your own head.

KV: Tell me, please, what is the nature of Donetsk character?

VT: During service in the Soviet army, if people from Donetsk came to serve, some of the gentlemen officers would clutch their heads. It’s a separate caste of people. We have a multinational side. More than two hundred nationalities live in the Donbass. The whole world built it in due time. So there you find friendship and camaraderie and cuisine -something like a special symbiosis.

KV: Did this help in 2014?

VT: Of course, it helped. There was no time to mobilize any forces. People were taught how to fight in literally three to four days. As subsequent events show, some can’t even learn this in two years -let alone three to four days.

KV: Thank you very much.

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The Strategic Battle for Lithium. Huge Reserves in Bolivia, Argentina, Chile

By Enzo Pellegrin, November 14, 2019

On March 15, 2018, Maurizio Stefanini, reporter of an italian right think-tank, complained that the huge reserve of Lithium present in Bolivia was in the hands of the State“” and of the bad example“” of Evo Morales. (1) In the same article it was pointed out that, on the contrary, Chile and Argentina, the other two Saudi Arabian”of Lithium, had generated a real race for lithium”, as in romantic Yukon era.

In Chile, according to 2016 data, 68,874 metric tons ™ of lithium carbonate equivalent (cle) were extracted by private companies Albemarle and Sociedad Química de Minerales de Chile (SGM). The latter is owned 29 percent by billionaire Julio Ponce Lerou, who ranked 422 on the Forbes chart of the rich planetary planets, thanks to the Lithium boom. At that time, Chile had a 33% share of the Lithium world market.

The Boom in US Shale Oil? The US is the Largest Oil Producer in the World

By Nick Cunningham, November 14, 2019

Forecasts from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), along with those from its Paris-based counterpart, the International Energy Agency (IEA), are often cited as the gold standard for energy outlooks. Businesses and governments often refer to these forecasts for long-term investments and policy planning.

In that context, it is important to know if the figures are accurate, to the extent that anyone can accurately forecast precise figures decades into the future. A new report from the Post Carbon Institute asserts that the EIA’s reference case for production forecasts through 2050 “are extremely optimistic for the most part, and therefore highly unlikely to be realized.”

The Rights of Undocumented Immigrants: DACA Arguments in US Supreme Court Leave Outcome in Doubt

By Prof. Marjorie Cohn, November 14, 2019

After the arguments before the Supreme Court in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) case, it is difficult to predict the outcome. Justices often play devil’s advocate when questioning the lawyers, so reading the tea leaves about how a case will ultimately be decided can be a dicey proposition. But the justices’ questions appeared to indicate that right-wing Justices Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh favor affirming Donald Trump’s termination of DACA, and liberal Justices Kagan, Ginsburg and Sotomayor want to uphold DACA. Justice Thomas, who almost never asks a question during arguments, invariably sides with the right-wingers. Chief Justice Roberts, who generally takes the conservative position, and Justice Breyer, who more often votes with the liberals, were harder to read. Roberts, who appeared to lean toward the government’s position, will likely cast the deciding vote.

Western Terrorists Are Coming Home to Roost

By Steven Sahiounie, November 14, 2019

Turkey has criticized Western countries for refusing to take back their citizens who were members of ISIS, also known as Daesh, and stripping them of their citizenship, although the 1961 New York Convention made it illegal to leave people stateless. Since 2010, the UK has stripped more than 100 people of British citizenship. One of the first deported terrorists was an American, unnamed, who was deported to the USA via Greece.  However, he refused to go into Greece, and returned to Turkey, upon which the Turks refused him re-entry and pushed him back to Greece.  Finally, when he asked to enter Greece, they refused which has left him in ‘limbo’ in a buffer space between Turkey and Greece.  The US State Department acknowledges they are aware of the situation but offer no further details about the man who has been photographed and was shown on Turkish TV.

The Costs of Post 9/11 Wars: $6.4 Trillion

By Prof. Neta C. Crawford, November 14, 2019

One of the major purposes of the Costs of War Project has been to clarify the types of budgetary costs of the US post -9/11 wars, how that spending is funded, and the long-term implications of past and current spending. This estimate of the US budgetary costs of the post-9/11 wars is a comprehensive accounting intended to provide a sense of the consequences of the wars for the federal budget. Since the 9/11 attacks, the Department of Defense appropriations related to the Global War on Terror have been treated as emergency appropriations, now called Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO).[3] When accounting for total war costs, the Department of Defense and other entities often present only Overseas Contingency Operation appropriations.

Can the EU’s New Sanctions Against Turkey Force the Cyprus Issue to Finally be Resolved?

By Paul Antonopoulos, November 14, 2019

The Eastern Mediterranean remains a strategic point for trade due to its proximity to the Suez Canal, transportation and more recently, natural resources. It is this very drive for exploiting the natural resources that in January, the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum was convened as a means for Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Jordan, Israel, Italy and the Palestinian Authority to develop a regional natural gas market. Notably, Turkey was missing from this Forum, which would have agitated Ankara as only a month later ExxonMobil announced a new gas discovery in offshore Cyprus that has more than doubled Cyprus’s estimated offshore resources. This is why Turkey has been in a desperate rush to exploit oil belonging to another internationally recognized sovereign country.

‘They Choked Me. They Threw Me Down.’: CodePink’s Medea Benjamin Assaulted by Right-Wing Venezuelan Opposition and Threatened with Arrest

By Jake Johnson, November 14, 2019

Benjamin and other members of CodePink protested the event while backers of the effort to overthrow Venezuela’s elected President Nicolás Maduro rallied in support of the new pro-regime change caucus, which was launched by Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.), and other lawmakers.

During the press conference, Benjamin shouted for an end to punishing U.S. sanctions in Venezuela and held a sign that read “No Coups in Venezuela or Bolivia.”

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Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK for Peace, is the author of “Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran” and  “Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection.” 

Nicolas J. S. Davies is a freelance writer, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of “Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.”

Featured image is from The Bullet

What does an Israeli peace activist do when the rockets are flying and the bombs are falling?

I have been going to demonstrations since I was 12 years old – that was 51 years ago. I can easily say that I have participated in hundreds of demonstrations. But I hate demonstrations. They frustrate me. I think in all of these years, there was only one demonstration that I recall that left me feeling empowered – that was after the Sabra and Shatilla massacres in 1982.

I have demonstrated for peace and human rights. I have demonstrated against war and military adventurism. I have demonstrated for social justice and I have demonstrated for a better environment. At demonstrations, I meet a lot of people that I know and it is often nice to catch up with old friends and colleagues, but when it is over, I usually feel that nothing has changed and the demonstration had no impact. More often than not, I go because if it is an important cause, then it is essential that the number of demonstrators be significant. But to feel empowered and to have political and social efficacy, I need to do something more concrete.

During recent years, in the absence of any peace process and any chance of helping to create a peace process, I have focused on building successful, cross-boundary Israeli-Palestinian partnerships. That, too, has become increasingly difficult with the passing of time and the constant deterioration in the state of affairs between the two peoples. Nonetheless, I push on and do what I believe in.

I suppose I live in a kind of schizophrenic reality. Just yesterday I met one of my Palestinian partners in Halhoul, just north of Hebron. I parked my car in front of the Halhoul city hall and joined him in his car. The streets were filled with young kids getting out of school early after ceremonies were held in the schools to commemorate their founding father Yasser Arafat. Many of the kids had the famous black and white keffiyeh draped around their shoulders.

We continued from there to the new industrial area in the city of Tarkumiya where we visited eight large factories to spark their interest in integrating solar energy into their enterprises. Most of these factories spend a fortune on electricity. They pay the Tarkumiya municipality, which buys the electricity from the Israel Electricity Company. We can sell them clean energy that will save them a lot of money, helping the Palestinian economy and increasing Palestinian independence. This work is built on partnership, trust and improving the lives of real people.

From Tarkumiya, after about five hours of visiting the factories, we went for a late lunch in Hebron. On the way from Hebron back to Halhoul, I bought some freshly made flat bread. My car was waiting for me in the now empty Halhoul city hall parking lot. We stopped at a bicycle shop on the way out of Halhoul that I visited last week, because my youngest son is shopping for a new mountain bike and the shop owner said that he expected to have some new models by the end of this week. He didn’t get them yet.

THIS IS ALL so normal – except that nothing about it here is normal. Israelis don’t go wandering about Hebron and Halhoul, or eating lunch in a new shwarma place in the middle of the Hebron business district, or visiting factories in Tarkumiya. The abnormality of it all was driven home while driving home to Jerusalem. As I passed the Al Aroub refugee camp, I saw the deployment of a large number of Israeli soldiers gearing up to enter the camp. Before I reached Jerusalem, I heard that the soldiers killed a young, unarmed Palestinian man in the camp. I saw the video footage later and heard both sides of the story of what happened, and how the young Palestinian man was killed. Tragedy in a tragic reality.

This morning, I drove to Givat Haviva in the North, where I was invited to lecture to a group of high schools students at the Givat Haviva International School. This school is made up of 11th and 12th graders – 25% from Israel, 25% from Palestine and 50% from about 20 other countries. Truly a remarkable group of young people. This week, they are engaging in a several day intensive seminar about the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Today’s panel, in which I participated, was organized by an Israeli and a Palestinian student together. The panel included four Israeli experts – two from the Right and two from the Left (you can guess which side I was on).

On my way to Givat Haviva, as soon as I got in my car leaving Jerusalem, I heard the news of the Israeli assassination of the Islamic Jihad commander and his wife in Gaza, the attempted assassination of the Islamic Jihad commander in Damascus (not succeeding in killing the target, but killing his son) and the barrage of rockets from Islamic Jihad once again falling on Israel. I heard about all of the schools and places of work in Israel from Tel Aviv southward being closed as a precautionary measure taken by the Israeli army and government. And I had to go to speak to high school students about peace.

A COUPLE of nights before, I spoke at the annual Rabin memorial event at the Beit Yisrael pre-army academy in Gilo, Jerusalem, composed of a large group of pre-army religious and secular Jews. There I spoke on a panel with the head of the academy, an Orthodox rabbi who served as a combat officer in the army for decades, and a well-known right-wing political activist who has lived his whole life in the settlement of Kiryat Arba next to the Palestinian city, Hebron. It was a very challenging task to speak about peace with our Palestinian neighbors in that context with that group of young Israelis.

This evening, I concluded by speaking to a group of American Jews from Vermont on an Israel Experience trip with their synagogue. Tonight was their last night after a 10-day intensive trip all around the country. Today, they were supposed to visit the communities around Gaza, but that was canceled because of the “security situation.” As I am writing this column, the Red Alert keeps flashing on my phone as rockets are being shot at Israel from Gaza, and I see on my Facebook and Twitter feed that my friends in Gaza are being bombed by Israel.

A close friend in Gaza just chatted with me that she is scared – she lives on the eighth floor of a 10-story building in Gaza City. The noise of the exploding Israeli bombs is frightening and she said that she doesn’t know what she will do if she has to run – there is no safe place to run to in Gaza. Without any ability to allay her fears, I said that I wished she could stay with me in Jerusalem where she would be safe. She replied “some day!” I said “inshallah.”

This is the definition of insanity. Someone from the Vermont group asked me as the final question to give a one-sentence line – the most important thing they should take back with them from my talk. I thought for a moment and said – we are all not going anywhere. Millions of Israelis and millions of Palestinians are not picking up and leaving. We will also continue to live here, and eventually we will get back to the table and talk. When we do that, I hope that we will have learned the lessons from all of the mistakes we have all made that got us to this situation. Until then, I will continue to work to build partnerships across these conflict lines in the interests of all of us – on both sides of the lines.

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Gershon Baskin is a political and social entrepreneur who has dedicated his life to the State of Israel and to peace between Israel and her neighbors. His latest book In Pursuit of Peace in Israel and Palestine was published by Vanderbilt University Press and is now available in Israel and Palestine.

Featured image is from Mondoweiss

A 2018 Pew Survey found that 89% of Greeks found their culture to be superior to others, by far the highest amount of people in Europe where it reached as low as 26% in Sweden, 23% in Estonia and Belgium, and 20% in Spain. The Greeks are by far the oldest civilization on the European continent, giving them the moniker as the founders of Western civilization, and a slight arrogance at times over other Europeans.

However, it was this very ancient civilizational pride that Chinese President Xi Jinping capitalized on during his extremely productive visit to Greece this week where 16 agreements were made that firmly puts the Mediterranean country into the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Xi’s final day in Greece on Tuesday was spent at the Acropolis Museum where the Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos asked whether Greece can rely on China to help pressure the British Museum in London to return the Parthenon Marbles they hold. Not only did Xi enthusiastically pledge that China would help Greece’s position against the United Kingdom, but he also empathized that China too has many of its ancient treasures outside of its borders against its will.

As Greece occupies a strategic space in the Eastern Mediterranean and has one of the largest merchant navies in the world, it was always going to be in the interests of Beijing to maintain close ties with Athens, even with issues over ancient artefacts. Over two thousand years of contact between the Greeks and Chinese, and the famous Silk Road connecting Xi’an with Constantinople, has ensured there are long and deep connections between the two countries today.

During the visit, 16 agreements were signed. Many of these are not so significant, but there were certainly some important ones.

The Port of Pireus

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told Xi on Monday during their visit to Piraeus Port that Greece has come to a deep understanding on the meaning of “friends” through the cooperation with China at the port. China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) acquired a majority stake in the port in 2016, creating direct and indirect employment for over 10,000 locals, and making it the largest port in the Mediterranean region and one of the fastest growing container terminals in the world.

This port has been a keynote feature for the BRI in Europe and Xi’s visit to Athens ensures Greece’s goal of turning Piraeus Port into the biggest commercial harbor in Europe can become a reality. Piraeus Port is strategically located in the Eastern Mediterranean, putting it at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa, which will be of significant interest to China as it continues to channel goods to the region.  Effectively, the upgraded port helps Chinese products enter European markets more easily and at cheaper prices

“We want to strengthen Piraeus’ transhipment role and further boost the throughput capacity of China’s fast sea-land link with Europe,” Xi said after meeting Mitsotakis, recognizing that access in the Mediterranean is best done through Greece because of its thousands of years of seafaring history, its strategic location and its large mercantile navy.

Chinese investment banks to open in Greece

Directly connected to the investment of Piraeus Port, lenders’ Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) will open branches in Athens to not only develop the maritime industry further, but also at a time when Chinese investors have become increasingly interested in Greek real estate.

The Chinese banks will not only create business opportunities in Greece and help develop the maritime industry, but it will also help finance renewable energy projects. This comes as for the past 10 years Western countries have done little to alleviate Greece’s economic crisis. It is expected that the Bank of China, the world’s fourth largest lender, and ICBC will invest in renewable energy to help develop Greece’s clean energy infrastructure and bring cheaper energy prices to Greeks.

Energy

Although Greece opened its domestic projects, such as wind farms, to Chinese investors, China has expressed no immediate interest in Greece’s heavily indebted Public Power Corporation despite speculation that the Asian country is interested in investing in Greece’s electricity distribution networks.

However, the State Grid Corporation of China, the world’s biggest utility, agreed to invest in a new electricity interconnector between mainland Greece and the island of Crete. It is hoped that Crete can become an even bigger solar energy hub as Greece aims to stop using coal energy by 2028.

Conclusion

By taking a soft power approach with Athens and not embroiling itself in regional issues, China has every advantage to deepen the BRI in the Balkans, Middle East, North Africa and Mediterranean Europe via Greece. There is little doubt that China sees Greece, specifically through the 2,500-year-old Piraeus Port, as a hub for its BRI expansion in the region.

The agreements between Greece and China come at a time when only in September the Mediterranean country allowed the U.S. to open three new military bases and Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow last week where “a new chapter” in Greek-Russian relations was announced. It is beginning to appear that perhaps Athens is not so much the U.S.-puppet as first suspected, but perhaps is masterfully balancing its relations with Washington, Moscow and Beijing in the Age of Multipolarity as its highly successful recent meetings with the Great Powers demonstrates.

At the minimum, whether Greece successfully balances its relations with the Great Powers or not, the Great Powers have certainly identified the importance of the Aegean country in the 21st Century and are all aiming to gain a foothold in it. It remains to be seen where Greece will show allegiance when push comes to shove, but it is likely to be a balance on its economic reliance on China against its military reliance on the U.S. With China having a strong foothold in the Eastern Mediterranean, it remains to be seen whether the Asian country will want to expand its military presence into the region too.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

On March 15, 2018, Maurizio Stefanini, reporter of an italian right think-tank, complained that the huge reserve of Lithium present in Bolivia was in the hands of the State“” and of the bad example“” of Evo Morales. (1) In the same article it was pointed out that, on the contrary, Chile and Argentina, the other two Saudi Arabian”of Lithium, had generated a real race for lithium”, as in romantic Yukon era.

In Chile, according to 2016 data, 68,874 metric tons ™ of lithium carbonate equivalent (cle) were extracted by private companies Albemarle and Sociedad Química de Minerales de Chile (SGM). The latter is owned 29 percent by billionaire Julio Ponce Lerou, who ranked 422 on the Forbes chart of the rich planetary planets, thanks to the Lithium boom. At that time, Chile had a 33% share of the Lithium world market.

In 2016, the Argentinean companies FMC Corporation and Orocobre produced 30,340 tm of cle, reaching a 16 percent share of the world market.

The article reported the opinion of an alleged expert in the field, named Joe Lowry, nicknamed in the branch as “Mr. lithium”. According to Lowry, the mineral mining industry would require large and adequate investments to achieve discrete extractive values.

The subordinate position of the Argentinean companies was precisely due to the absence of investment, due to the “conflicts with the Kirchner”, contrasts which would evidently have ceased with the establishment of the neoliberal government of Macri.

The global capital wants to put its hands on lithium, a strategic element for the production of batteries, not only for the mobile phone market, but especially for the new business of electric car industry.

Price indexes of Lithium Carbonate, Lithium Oxide and Cobalt (Source: Pricepedia)

In recent years, the “lithium rush” has generated a significant increase in prices of mineral, and, consequently, in the profits of mining companies. The price of lithium, in the form of carbonate, in 2015 was around 5 euro/kg, while in 2018 it reached 12 euro/kg (+140%). Lithium oxide increased from 7.5 to 12 euro/kg (+61%).  “Currently the Li-Ion accumulators are the most used and according to a report of the Chilean Chemical and Mining Society (SQM), one of the largest lithium producers in the world, The demand for key components for the production of this type of accumulator will also increase significantly in the coming years (2).

The important question we should ask ourselves is this: has this Lithium Rush brought wealth to popular classes of Argentina and Chile, as well as to the pockets of speculators?

The answer is obviously negative. This is demonstrated by the history of recent events in Chile and Argentina.

In the first of the two countries, a great popular riot has broken out against the neoliberal Pinera government, which has given rise to a bloody repression of demonstrators, on which there has been the complete disregard of the Western world.

Likewise in Argentina, a large popular opposition has decreed the end of the neoliberal government and the election of a government once again close to Kirchnerian popular politics.

Underlying both popular protests are extreme poverty, the indecent level of wages, privatisations, the high cost of living and services – largely owned by private companies – the subtraction of the nation’s wealth by monopolistic enterprises, in comparison with the high salaries of police soldiers and all government officials and bureaucrats who help to maintain the order of neoliberal autocracy.

In short, the money of the Lithium Rush has filled the pockets of monopolists.

From these pockets – now absolutely hermetic – despite neoliberal fables, no wealth poured in favour of popular classes.

Otherwise, what happened in Bolivia?

The government of Evo Morales had placed its attention on Lithium. In the Salar of Uyumni, the country boasts the most important reserve of lithium in the world. In 2018, its production amounted to around 120 tons of cle per year: a small share for the interests of speculators. The government of Evo Morales recalled that projects developed in Bolivia have tried to take account of environment. More importantly, the government had chosen a social route for the development of this mining industry. The aim of the projects was not only to export, but to manufacture the finished product (batteries) in Bolivia, reserving the monopoly of extraction and subsequent production to industries wholly owned by the State, such as the mining industry, entrusted exclusively to the Yacimientos de Litio Bolivia.

Evo Morales applied the recipe of reserving to community the means of production, in order to decide what, how, where to produce, in accordance with the conservation needs of the environment.

The goals achieved in recent years by the Bolivian State, the elections always won by its President, including the last, show that there has been a fair distribution of wealth in favor of the popular classes of the country.

Against this socialist path, in recent years almost all mainstream and all think-thanks of neoliberalism have been hurled.

The production sector of electric cars is also at the heart of great financial manoeuvres that are taking place in the green economy sector. There has been an undoubted massive investment of resources in the promotion of cultural hegemony within the Western mainstream, towards the need for massive investments in“technologies considered green”, even if these are not so “green” such as the production of battery-powered cars, which become impacting hazardous waste after a few years of operation.

These great manoeuvres were well explained by F. William Engdahl, in an article recently appeared in Global Research (3).

Engdahl notes that the mega-corporations and mega-billionaires behind the globalisation of world economy, whose pursuit for shareholder value and cost reduction has caused so much damage to our environment both in the industrial world and in the underdeveloped economies of Africa, Asia and Latin America, are the main supporters of the decarbonisation movement.

Engdahl also affirms:

“In 2013 after years of careful preparation, a Swedish real estate company, Vasakronan, issued the first corporate “Green Bond.” They were followed by others including Apple, SNCF and the major French bank Credit Agricole. In November 2013 Elon Musk’s problem-riddled Tesla Energy issued the first solar asset-backed security. Today according to something called the Climate Bonds Initiative, more than $500 billion in such Green Bonds are outstanding. The creators of the bond idea state their aim is to win over a major share of the $45 trillion of assets under management globally which have made nominal commitment to invest in “climate friendly” projects.” […] “In 2016 the TCFD along with the City of London Corporation and the UK Government initiated the Green Finance Initiative, aiming to channel trillions of dollars to “green” investments. The central bankers of the FSB nominated 31 people to form the TCFD. Chaired by billionaire Michael Bloomberg of the financial wire, it includes key people from JP MorganChase; from BlackRock–one of the world’s biggest asset managers with almost $7 trillion; Barclays Bank; HSBC, the London-Hong Kong bank repeatedly fined for laundering drug and other black funds; Swiss Re, the world’s second largest reinsurance; China’s ICBC bank; Tata Steel, ENI oil, Dow Chemical, mining giant BHP Billington and David Blood of Al Gore’s Generation Investment LLC. In effect it seems the foxes are writing the rules for the new Green Hen House.

Bank of England’s Carney was also a key actor in efforts to make the City of London into the financial center of global Green Finance. The outgoing UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, in July 2019 released a White Paper, “Green Finance Strategy: Transforming Finance for a Greener Future.” The paper states, “One of the most influential initiatives to emerge is the Financial Stability Board’s private sector Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), supported by Mark Carney and chaired by Michael Bloomberg. This has been endorsed by institutions representing $118 trillion of assets globally.” There seems to be a plan here. The plan is the financialization of the entire world economy using fear of an end of world scenario to reach arbitrary aims such as “net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.” (3).

This important concentration of financial forces, as also demonstrated by Cory Morningstar, author and environmental activist, have strongly supported that investment in cultural hegemony represented by the apparitions of Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Climate. Both this phenomena has been reproduced and amplified by the mainstream media, just as the size of these economic interests is great.

Follow the money trail, people say in USA about politics and media.

This economic path is now quite clear: the crisis of over-production needs new financial outlets: raising money from funds to invest in prospects that become credible and also necessitated, such as the decrease of CO2 in the atmosphere, presented as the last opportunity before the Apocalypse.

To give a concrete dimension to these investments, however, they also need neoliberal domination of raw materials needed: lithium is among them.

From the neo-liberal point of view, their management must be taken away from the bad examples of “nationalization”. Thinking about extracting and producing lithium for the needs of the people and in respect for the environment, outside of speculative ambitions, is an attack at heart of globalized capitalist economy.

This is the reason why a freely elected President who enjoys the granite consensus of the popular masses of Bolivia should be ousted and forced to resign and flee the Country.

It becomes also clear which is the main enemy of the self-determination of peoples: in Bolivia there is not a song much different from the one played by the United States, NATO and the European Union in Syria, trying to break up an oil-producing country in order to throw it into easy hands to run.

Italian main press agency, ANSA, reported a few days ago that an order of capture was allegedly issued against Evo Morales. The source were statements of Mr. Camacho, who is none other than the leader of that opposition which challenged without substantiated reason the President’s legitimate election. No official charge was held by Mr Camacho at the time of that statement.

This says a lot about how West Governments and European Union are aligned with the NATO imperialistic agenda, and with the interests of finance and globalized industry.

The enemy is naked, we have just to refuse to cover him up and start fighting.

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Notes

(1) M. Stefanini, Chi ha il litio non ha i denti, Il Foglio, 15.3.2018

(2) C. Ranocchia, I prezzi del litio su livelli da record, Pricepedia, 29.5.2019

(3) F William Engdahl, Climate and The Money Trail, Globalresearch, 25.9.2019

The prevailing wisdom that sees explosive and long-term potential for U.S. shale may rest on some faulty and overly-optimistic assumptions, according to a new report.

Forecasts from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), along with those from its Paris-based counterpart, the International Energy Agency (IEA), are often cited as the gold standard for energy outlooks. Businesses and governments often refer to these forecasts for long-term investments and policy planning.

In that context, it is important to know if the figures are accurate, to the extent that anyone can accurately forecast precise figures decades into the future. A new report from the Post Carbon Institute asserts that the EIA’s reference case for production forecasts through 2050 “are extremely optimistic for the most part, and therefore highly unlikely to be realized.”

The U.S. has more than doubled oil production over the past decade, and at roughly 12.5 million barrels per day (mb/d), the U.S is the largest producer in the world. That is largely the result of a massive scaling-up of output in places like the Bakken, the Permian and the Eagle Ford. Conventional wisdom suggests the output will steadily rise for years to come.

It is worth reiterating that after an initial burst of production, shale wells decline rapidly, often 75 to 90 percent within just a few years. Growing output requires constant drilling. Also, the quality of shale reserves vary widely, with the “sweet spots” typically comprising only 20 percent or less of an overall shale play, J. David Hughes writes in the Post Carbon Institute report.

After oil prices collapsed in 2014, shale companies rushed to take advantage of the sweet spots. That allowed the industry to focus on the most profitable wells first, cut costs and scale up production. But it also pushed off a problem for another day. “Sweet spots will inevitably become saturated with wells, and drilling outside of sweet spots will require higher rates of drilling and capital investment to maintain production, along with higher commodity prices to justify them,” Hughes says in his PCI report.

In addition, this form of “high-grading” does allow for rapid extraction, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that more oil is ultimately going to be recovered when all is said and done.

The same might be true for all of the highly-touted productivity gains, Hughes says. The industry has boosted productivity by drilling longer laterals, intensifying the use of water and frac sand, as well as increasing the number of fracking stages. These productivity improvements are “undeniable,” Hughes writes.

However, the “limits of technology and exploiting sweet spots are becoming evident, however, as in some plays new wells are exhibiting lower productivities,” Hughes says. “More aggressive technology, coupled with longer horizontal laterals, allows each well to drain more reservoir area, but reduces the number of drilling locations and therefore does not necessarily increase the total recovery from a play—it just allows the resource to be recovered more quickly.”

Already, some shale plays have seen production plateau while others are in decline.

In short, Hughes says that of the 13 major shale plays analyzed in the PCI report, the EIA has “extremely optimistic” outlooks for nine of them. Of the remaining four, three of them are “highly optimistic,” and only one – the Woodford Play in Oklahoma – is ranked as “moderately optimistic.”

He notes that in some instances, the EIA’s forecasts are so optimistic that the production volumes exceed the agency’s own estimates for proven reserves plus unproven reserves. The EIA also assumes that every last drop of proven reserves is produced, along with a high percentage of unproven reserves by 2050.

“Although the ‘shale revolution’ has provided a reprieve from what just 15 years ago was thought to be a terminal decline in oil and gas production in the U.S.,” Hughes writes, “this reprieve is temporary, and the U.S. would be well advised to plan for much-reduced shale oil and gas production in the long term.”

Regardless of the geology, climate policy and waning investor interest will likely result in a lot of oil being left in the ground. Hughes says that the EIA’s figures are optimistic, even without considering any mandates to cut greenhouse gas emissions. “If U.S. energy policy actually reflected the need to mitigate climate change…the EIA’s forecasts for tight oil and shale gas production through 2050 make even less sense.”

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Nick Cunningham is an independent journalist, covering oil and gas, energy and environmental policy, and international politics. He is based in Portland, Oregon. 

Featured image is from OilPrice.com

After the arguments before the Supreme Court in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) case, it is difficult to predict the outcome. Justices often play devil’s advocate when questioning the lawyers, so reading the tea leaves about how a case will ultimately be decided can be a dicey proposition. But the justices’ questions appeared to indicate that right-wing Justices Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh favor affirming Donald Trump’s termination of DACA, and liberal Justices Kagan, Ginsburg and Sotomayor want to uphold DACA. Justice Thomas, who almost never asks a question during arguments, invariably sides with the right-wingers. Chief Justice Roberts, who generally takes the conservative position, and Justice Breyer, who more often votes with the liberals, were harder to read. Roberts, who appeared to lean toward the government’s position, will likely cast the deciding vote.

On November 12, the justices heard arguments in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, a case that is testing whether Trump’s rescission of DACA was lawful.

DACA was created by Barack Obama in 2012 to encourage undocumented people who arrived in the U.S. as children to come out of the shadows and register for temporary protection from deportation. They are called “Dreamers,” inspired by the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which Congress has failed to pass. Nearly 800,000 Dreamers have work permits and other benefits. Many are lawyers, doctors, engineers and military officers. According to one study, over 90 percent of them are employed and 45 percent are enrolled in school.

To qualify for DACA, a person must be a current student, a high school graduate, have a GED or an honorable discharge from the military. Applicants cannot have prior convictions of serious crimes or be considered a national security threat. The program provides a renewable two-year period of deferred immigration action for people who came to the U.S. as children and continuously lived in the U.S. for at least five years before June 15, 2012.

In September 2017, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Trump administration would rescind DACA, saying, “Such an open-ended circumvention of immigration laws was an unconstitutional exercise of authority by the Executive Branch.”

Several states, DACA recipients and organizations challenged the termination of DACA in the federal courts, successfully arguing it was unlawful. The repeal of DACA was put on hold pending the Supreme Court’s decision.

The two issues facing the Supreme Court are: (1) whether the courts have jurisdiction to review the decision to end DACA; and (2) whether the rescission of DACA was legal.

Do Courts Have Authority to Review Legality of DACA Rescission?

The government is arguing that the decision of whether to enforce the immigration laws is solely within agency discretion of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and not subject to judicial review. Ginsburg pointed out the contradiction in that position: On the one hand, the government says the decision is not subject to judicial review because DHS has sole discretion to end DACA, but on the other hand, it claims that DHS had no discretion because it was illegally established.

Kagan cited another contradiction in the government’s argument, in which it “suggest[s] that the original DACA is reviewable, but the rescission of DACA is not.” She called that “an asymmetry in what’s reviewable.”

Gorsuch said, “I hear a lot of facts, sympathetic facts,” and “they speak to all of us,” but like Alito, he did not seem to think the case was reviewable.

Breyer appeared to be on the fence. “I’m saying honestly I am struggling,” he said. But Breyer also challenged the government’s argument that it has prosecutorial discretion to decide whether to enforce the immigration laws. Breyer distinguished a prosecutor’s decision whether to charge an individual from the policies of an agency.

Is Trump’s Rescission of DACA Lawful?

If the Supreme Court finds it has authority to review the government’s decision to rescind DACA, it must then decide whether the rescission was lawful.

Those challenging the DACA rescission argued that DHS did not sufficiently consider the Dreamers’ reliance interests when it decided to terminate DACA. People outed themselves as undocumented to apply for DACA in reliance on its promise of protection from deportation. Theodore Olson, the lawyer for the individual challengers, said, “Those reliance interests were engendered by the decision of the government that caused people to come forward.”

Breyer cited a Justice Scalia opinion saying that when an agency’s “prior policy has engendered serious reliance interests, it must be taken into account.” Breyer added, “That’s this case, I think.” He mentioned 66 health care organizations, three labor unions, 210 educational institutions, six military organizations, three home builders, five states, 108 municipalities and cities, 129 religious organizations and 145 businesses, most of which, Breyer said, listed reliance interests. In other words, these groups are relying on the Dreamers whose study and work they depend upon.

There was also discussion of the Dreamers’ reliance on Trump’s statements that they would be protected. Trump praised the Dreamers in February 2017, calling most of them “absolutely incredible kids.” He promised, “We are gonna deal with DACA with heart.”

Last fall, Trump tweeted, “Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military? Really!”

When Sessions announced that DACA would be repealed, Trump delayed enforcement for six months, giving Congress time to act to protect the Dreamers. But immigration reform has eluded Congress for years.

“There’s a whole lot of reliance interests that weren’t looked at, including … the current president telling DACA-eligible people that they were safe under him and that he would find a way to keep them here,” Sotomayor noted. But the administration’s position is tantamount to “I’ll give you six months to destroy your lives,” Sotomayor said.

Roberts told Olson, however,

“the whole thing was about work authorization and these other benefits. Both administrations have said they’re not going to deport the people. So, the deferred prosecution or deferred deportation, that’s not what the focus of the policy was.”

When questioning Michael Mongan, an attorney for the state challengers, Roberts mentioned the 2016 case in which he voted with right-wing justices to block another Obama order, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA). Since Scalia had just died, the case deadlocked 4 to 4, leaving in place a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision ending DAPA.

“Look,” Roberts said, “I’ve got a decision from the Fifth Circuit that tells me this is illegal, it’s been affirmed by the Supreme Court by an equally divided vote.”

In 2017, Elaine Duke, acting director of the DHS, issued a cursory memo announcing the end of DACA. It included no policy reasons. The following year, Kirstjen Nielsen, the new DHS director, issued another memo affirming the Duke memo and stating policy reasons.

Breyer cited “a foundational principle of administrative law that a court may uphold agency action only on the grounds that the agency invoked when it took the action,” concluding therefore that the court should only consider the Duke memo. By contrast, Kavanaugh invoked the Nielsen memo, which he said contains “sound reasons of enforcement policy to rescind the DACA policy.”

Ginsburg called the Nielsen memo “infected” by the view that the program was illegal, arguing that Nielsen would not necessarily have come to the same conclusion if there had been “a clear recognition that there was nothing illegal about DACA.”

Roberts Will Likely Be the Swing Vote

Roberts, who cast conflicting votes in two recent immigration cases, is the wild card here. Together with the four other right-wing justices, he provided the fifth vote to uphold Trump’s Muslim Ban. But he sided with the four liberals to halt Trump’s use of the citizenship question on the 2020 census, writing for the majority that the government’s stated reason for including it was “contrived.”

Roberts wrote, “Altogether, the evidence tells a story that does not match the explanation the [Commerce] Secretary gave for his decision.” He could adopt the same reasoning in the DACA case and agree with Olson and Mongan that the case should be sent back to DHS to determine the actual cost of ending DACA and provide a reasoned legal analysis.

The chief justice must be mindful of the legacy of his court, which would include stripping DACA protection from nearly a million members of society if he votes with the right-wing justices.

The Supreme Court will announce its decision by the end of June 2020.

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Turkey is deporting terrorists to their country of origin. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Tuesday,

“Some countries have started panicking after we began the repatriation process of foreign Daesh terrorists. Turkey has been worrying about this issue for years, let others worry now,” He added, “The American Daesh terrorists stranded in the buffer zone on Greece border is none of Turkey’s concern, deportations will continue regardless.”

The Turkish Interior Minister, Süleyman Soylu, said last week that Ankara would start sending ISIS terrorists back to their country of origin even if they had been stripped of their citizenship, adding that Turkey was not a ‘hotel’ for foreign jihadists.

“There is no need to try to escape from it; we will send them back to you. Deal with them how you want,” said Soylu.

Turkey has criticized Western countries for refusing to take back their citizens who were members of ISIS, also known as Daesh, and stripping them of their citizenship, although the 1961 New York Convention made it illegal to leave people stateless. Since 2010, the UK has stripped more than 100 people of British citizenship. One of the first deported terrorists was an American, unnamed, who was deported to the USA via Greece.  However, he refused to go into Greece, and returned to Turkey, upon which the Turks refused him re-entry and pushed him back to Greece.  Finally, when he asked to enter Greece, they refused which has left him in ‘limbo’ in a buffer space between Turkey and Greece.  The US State Department acknowledges they are aware of the situation but offer no further details about the man who has been photographed and was shown on Turkish TV.

Plans to deport eleven French citizens and seven Germans, along with three from Denmark and two from Ireland, were forming, according to Turkish Interior Ministry spokesman Ismail Catakli. A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry, Christofer Burger, announced in Berlin that ten people were to be deported to Germany suspected of ISIS involvement, including women and children.  The Germans were due to be flown home on November 14^th.

Turkey has deported 7,500 ISIS members, with another 1,149 ISIS terrorists in Turkish prisons. Turkish state media reported Turkey planned to repatriate about 2,500 militants, most going home to European Union nations.

Erdogan will meet with Trump today at the White House.  Erdogan will present documentation that Ferhat Abdi Sahin, who is known to the US military as ‘General’ Mazloum Kobani, is a PKK terrorist.  Recently, Trump spoke with Mazloum, who is the military leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and spoke highly of Mazloum and had invited him to the White House.  Trump ordered the withdrawal of US troops from northeastern Turkey, which paved the road for Erdogan to order an invasion on October 9^th, to remove the SDF. The US military partnered with the SDF in the fight to defeat ISIS in Syria.  However, the fight was over and Trump had promised his citizens to ‘bring the troops home’.  Many felt this was a betrayal of the SDF, who had fought and died in the fight to stop ISIS, alongside US troops.  However, Erdogan views the SDF, and Mazloum, as part of the internationally recognized terrorist group, PKK, who has waged a terror campaign against Turkey for more than 30 years, resulting in the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants.

Not every terrorist is being deported from Turkey, only the ones they don’t want.  The mercenary militia Free Syrian Army (FSA) is on the Turkish government payroll and fighting inside Syria today on behalf of Erdogan.

The ground troops used in ‘Operation Spring Peace’ are Syrian terrorists who are now mercenary soldiers employed by Turkey.  We first heard of the FSA in 2011 when Obama and Sen. John McCain called them ‘freedom fighters’ and funded them through covert CIA programs, as well as through Congressional funding, lobbied by McCain and others.  McCain made a personal trip to meet with the FSA near Idlib and the photos his office posted online were controversial. The FSA ended up a failure in Syria, while their ‘brother’s in arms’, Al Qaeda, arrived and were successful, with the FSA either switching uniforms to Al Qaeda or their ‘brother’ ISIS.  Erdogan continued to support them as the remnants of the FSA re-grouped in Turkey, and he rebranded them as the “Syrian National Army”; however, the new name never stuck and they are still called FSA.

Since the FSA have invaded northeast Syria, about 200,000 people have been displaced, according to the UN. Families are scattered across the area, and it is the FSA who are blamed for beatings, rapes, looting, kidnappings, and executions.

The FSA invokes the name of God in every action they take.  If they kill innocent civilians or armed SDF soldiers, they do so by invoking the name of God.  Their shouts of “Allahu Akbar” are remembered from their first appearance in 2011 in Homs, when the carried banners which read, “Christians to Beirut, Alowis to the grave.”  They were followers of the Muslim Brotherhood ideology which gave them the Islamic authority to slaughter in the name of God and to judge who is a ‘heathen’ or not.

“Those people are filled with hatred and a lust for blood,” said Fateh, a barber from Ras al-Ayn.  “They do not distinguish between Arab and Kurdish, Muslim and non-Muslim. They contacted me before the offensive and said that as an Arab Muslim, it is my duty to rise up against the Kurds and help Turkey invade my city.”

He refused and left the area.

“Someone called me and simply said ‘we want your head’ as if stealing my home and driving me out of my city merely for being Kurdish was not enough.” said Mohammad Aref, a radiologist from Tal Abyad.

He said he was reminded of how ISIS acted when they invaded his town in 2013.  The FSA terrorists “destroyed a lion stonework at the entrance of our building, thinking it was idolatry”, he said. “They took our carpets and threw them on the street to prostrate themselves on them during public prayers that they were holding.”

“Let’s be clear, Tal Abyad is not under the control of Turkey. It’s under the control of Turkey’s mercenaries.  They have taken over the houses of us Kurds and made them their own.  Each one of those mercenaries acts as if he was in charge of the town.  They walk into houses and proclaim them theirs. They kidnap and execute people for being ‘atheists’ or ‘blasphemers’. And they are looting people’s properties in broad daylight.” said Mikael Mohammad, the Kurdish owner of a clothing shop in Tal Abyad.

The FSA terrorists “believe that taking your life is doing God’s work and that stealing your property is their reward for it,” said a Kurdish aid worker from Ras al-Ayn, now displaced in Qamishli.

Graphic videos uploaded by the FSA showed them executing captives along a highway near Tal Abyad.  On October 12^th the Syrian Kurdish politician, Hevrin Khalaf, was tortured, murdered and dismembered after the FSA ambushed her car.  The videos of her body and the mutilations of the corpse went viral online.  Her mother said after receiving the body for burial, the only thing she could recognize was a portion of her chin.

Speaking to journalists recently, Erdogan defended his Syrian allies, saying they were not “terrorists” but Islamic holy warriors who were “defending their land there, hand in hand, arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder with my soldiers”.

In 2012, Daniel Wagner, the author of “Virtual Terror”, wrote about the FSA, at a time when the Obama administration and the US media were supporting the FSA regardless of the war crimes and atrocities they were committing. He wrote, “The West should not be surprised if an Islamic state results from an FSA victory.”  That was written seven years ago, while Turkey today, a US ally and NATO member, is using the same terrorists to murder in northeast Syria, and there is no international outcry, as they had all supported them before. Interestingly, the only international outcry is that their terrorists are coming home to roost.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a political commentator. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Mideast Discourse

BDS SA, COSATU, SACP, SSN, FOCUS-SA and others join South Africa’s ruling party, the ANC, in pledging solidarity with the Nelson Mandela of Latin America, President Evo Morales of Bolivia.

Over the weekend, in a shock to all peace loving people, Morales was removed from his position following a coup supported by the local oligarchy with ties in US-interest. This sentiment has been expressed by several Latin American leaders including the president and presidents-elect of Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Argentina and several others from across the globe.

We welcome the protection provided to Morales by the Government of Mexico and concur with their Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard who has explained that “Military coups never bring anything positive and that is why we are worried.”

We as South Africans are concerned by the interference by the USA and their allies as well as related structures in Latin America and other parts of the world.

We fondly recall Morales’ visit to our country in 2006 where he met our former President Thabo Mbeki, his successor President Kgalema Mothlante, our current President Cyril Ramaphosa as well as other senior South Africa leaders including the leadership of the ANC, SACP and COSATU.

Morales was one of the first indiengous people to be elected as President in Bolivia (where the indigenous people account for over 63% of the population. Having been born into a poor Aymarayan family from the township of El Alto (one of seven children, only three of whom survived beyond the age of one) Morales never betrayed his roots, having actively insured that racial discrimination against indigenous people and other injustices were confronted head on.

The leadership of Morales also saw greater economic prosperity for all people of Bolivia. According to the Washington Post:

“it’s indisputable that Bolivians are healthier, wealthier, better educated, living longer and more equal than at any time in this South American nation’s history…under Morales, data shows, Bolivia’s economy is closing the gap with the rest of the continent, growing faster than most neighbors over the past 13 years.”

An internationalist, Morales has also come under pressure from the USA for his support of the Palestinian struggle against Israeli Apartheid. In 2008 Evo Morales recalled Bolivia’s ambassador from Israel stating that “what is happening in Palestine is genocide”. In 2014 Morales, together with the late Cuban President Fidel Castro and others issued a statement in support of BDS. They wrote:

“We encourage you to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against the terrorist state of Israel, as it is time for active and creative solidarity that goes beyond statements of condemnation.”

We will urgently be consulting with our partner organizations involved in international solidarity efforts to arrange urgent protests and others actions against the US-backed coup in Bolivia and to support the Bolivian people’s democratically elected president, Comrade Evo Morales. We call for an end to the hybrid wars waged on progressive states in Latin America which are undermining democracy and the will of the people.

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“You must know a great fighter, he is a personality in his country” – the French worker of North African origin who introduced him to me told me. It was rigorously true. For many years Mamadou Mansaré has embodied the voice of the Guinean workers’ movement in the National Confederation of Guinean Workers (CNTG). We are at an obligatory stop in French trade unionism: a mansion in the middle of a natural habitat given to the Nazi occupants to be used as a brothel, and that the first resisters who entered Paris with their rifles took away from their former owners, and then converted it into a training centre for class struggle.

Because internationalism is acts and not words, Mansaré was being gratuitously hosted by the CGT, “the union whose comrades were by my side in my country, during the gun battles”. He was undergoing medical treatment. His pleasant voice did not allow us to guess that long trajectory in the front line of battle. Despite his fragile state of health, we agreed to an interview that finally lasted more than two hours. We barely noticed.

Mansaré had recently returned to Guinea. And only a few days ago he left us, on October 6. He was 64 years old and fought until the last moment for the humble of that plundered continent. His return is a message for the new generations: a whole life dedicated to social combat is worth living. Chapeau bas, monsieur !

We leave you with this interview published as a tribute. In it, Mansaré breaks into a thousand pieces the story of national history based on the work of a few individuals, restores the true history of African Independence and points out without cover those responsible for this deadly capitalist machinery.

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Alex Anfruns: How did Guinea’s independence come about?

Mamadou Mansaré: Guinea gained its independence on 2 October 1958. It was the first country of the French colonial empire to say “No” and to obtain independence in a referendum. That “No” of September 28 was perceived by De Gaulle and the whole West as a snub. My country had to pay a high price for having made this choice, for having said that “we prefer freedom in poverty to opulence in slavery”.

AA: How important is Guinea in the region?

MM: Guinea is the third largest bauxite producer after Australia, but it is the largest reserve in the world. And they are also quality reserves. We have the best iron, with extraordinary deposits. We have uranium, gold, diamonds, large expanses of arable land, our waters are abundant with fish… It is said that Guinea is the “Water Tower” of Africa, because all the great rivers of West Africa have their origin in Guinea. We have the Senegal River, the Niger River and the Gambia River, which originate in Guinea. It is as if we were talking about the importance of the Nile for Egypt.

AA: Guinea was on the right path to development. What happened then?

MM: What happened is that France withdrew all its teachers, destroyed all the documentation of the colonial administration, including our birth certificates that were burned. They left us nothing. Those who came to replace them to teach us in Guinea were Russian, Bulgarian, Haitian and Dahomey teachers – at that time already called Beninese. So I was educated by Russian professors throughout my cycle, until I graduated from university. Our first president, Sékou Touré, came from the union that made the country independent. He was also a deep Pan-Africanist.

AA: In the context of the “wave of independence”, what were the relations between the different liberation movements in West Africa?

MM: The company in which I worked, the SBK (Société de Bauxite de Kindia), was created especially to reimburse the Russians for the weapons that the Russians and other Soviet bloc countries sent to us for use in the various national liberation movements.

Our first contribution was to the FLN in Algeria. The weapons that arrived in Guinea passed through Bamako and then through the desert to finally deliver them to Boumédienne.

Then there was the liberation movement of the Portuguese-speaking countries, with Guinea Bissau very close to us. It was our own troops who fought there.

AA: What kind of cooperation was there?

MM: It was Guinea that provided the aid to Guinea Bissau. The weapons were bought from the Soviet bloc, landed in the port of Conakry, and then transported by road. The PAIGC, which had been formed by Amilcar Cabral, was based in Guinea. PAIGC combatants were trained in Guinea by the Guinean army and Cuban teachers, because in the 1960s there was military and health cooperation between Guinea and Cuba. The first combined intervention of both was in the Congo, where Guinean and Cuban troops were found. Che Guevara had gone to the Congo to help the Lumumbista movement in April 1965. But it was too late. That failure still explains today the current destabilization of the Congo.

PAIGC fighters were not only trained in Conakry, they were also given accommodation. Amilcar Cabral, Nino Vieira and the entire staff were there. And our troops also disguised themselves as PAIGC fighters to fight alongside them.

AA: In that unequal balance of power with the colonial powers, Pan-African unity was necessary…

MM: Yes, the Portuguese first attacked Guinea and then assassinated Cabral on January 20, 1973. On November 22, 1970, ships arrived in Guinea that landed mercenaries to carry out a coup d’état, but it failed. All the people participated in its defeat because everyone was obliged to have a militia formation. By the time we graduated from university, we had all completed a year of military training. We joined the company, but in case we were needed, if a war was declared we had to be prepared.

Fortunately, the war never happened. There were attacks, such as the incursion of mercenaries from Sierra Leone who came to attack us in 2000. But it only took us a month, we threw them out!

Then we had Angola. The first Angolan president was Agustinho Neto. He was very popular, he did his military training in Guinea. Weapons were also transported in the same way from Guinea to Angola.

AA: How do you explain this important welcome to Pan-African leaders in Guinea?

MM: Let us remember the coup d’état against the President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah. When that coup took place, we welcomed Nkrumah to Guinea. He was even appointed co-president of Guinea! Since independence, Guinea has been a country that has really wanted this unity. First we started by bringing together Guinea, Mali and Ghana. But it didn’t work in Mali, because of the coup against Modibo Keita. Then unity was also impeded by the dismissal of Nkrumah. In fact, Guinea is the only one of the three countries that was able to take on the Pan-African task.

The South African leader of the African National Congress (ANC) Thabo Mbeki, as well as President Nelson Mandela, completed their training in our country. Mandela’s first passport was Guinean! It was thanks to his Guinean diplomatic passports that all these leaders mentioned were able to travel, whether from Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe as Robert Mugabe or Mozambique as their first president Samora Machel from 1975 to 1986. Machel led his country to independence after a war of liberation against the Portuguese. After his death, his wife Graça Machel became the First Lady of South Africa at the second marriage to Nelson Mandela in 1998.

All these countries received aid from the Guinean Government through bauxite mining companies. We sent our bauxite via Russian ships to Ukraine. There was a factory that was built especially for our bauxite. The Nikolaev company was the base on which today’s Russal group was founded. It is a large mining group, but during the period of the Soviet empire, Nikolaev belonged to the state. Nikolaev was built especially to transform bauxite into alumina and pay off the debt to the Soviet bloc: the weapons, the teachers, the doctors who sent us, as well as the infrastructure we were building.

AA: Those efforts of pan-African unity were subjected to containment by the colonial powers. It is hard to imagine that Guinea, the heart of the resistance, could be saved from the storm. How did they proceed?

MM: As I said, Guinea has made a significant contribution to the liberation of the other West African countries. That is why it has been the victim of many coups d’état. In some writings, we can read that Sékou Touré was a dictator, a bloodthirsty man, who killed this and that… As always, it is very easy to distort reality by those who have the power of communication.

Let’s see how Françafrique was under De Gaulle, with the businesses of the Foccart network. They themselves have recognized all the coups d’état they organized in Guinea. They admitted to being behind so many coup attempts… but they did not succeed. Never. Until the natural death of President Sékou Touré, no coup d’état succeeded… because his people were with him!

AA: How did you get involved in the union?

MM: At that time everyone was organized. When a young man finished his studies, he didn’t have to look for three feet for the cat, but simply started to work. Automatically and whatever his level was. You could choose between three companies. When I graduated from college, I chose SBK. I said to myself, “Well, if this company is paying our debt, I’d rather work there than at CBG, which serves the American imperialists of Alcan (Alcoa and Rio Tinto). I made my own decision.

The union played a very important role, at least for me, in raising awareness among the black African population. It was the first to begin to explain the injustices we were suffering. The West has never acknowledged the black genocide! One can hardly imagine what the triangular traffic between Africa and Europe is like. America alone, the “slave trade”, represents more than 200 million deaths. In Nantes there is a memorial with all the names of the captains of the ships that took part in that “slave trade”. Blacks used to be put on ships in Africa… And from then on, they were distributed and sold like wild animals. Women were separated…

Under that system alone, 200 million people died. Isn’t that genocide, not to mention the blacks who died in America! Not to mention those who died in the raids! And how many Africans died just because of the rubber harvest, Michelin companies…? Isn’t it colonization, isn’t it genocide?

If Europe has developed, it is thanks to the richness of Africa. Today we are told that we are immigrants. The colonialists came and imposed their law on us. They have taken the wealth of our continent. They don’t need a visa, they continue to loot us!

AA: You say that companies from imperialist countries were also present to exploit Guinea’s resources. Can you go deeper into that?

MM: Yes, at the time of Sékou Touré there was the CBG, the Compagnie de Bauxite de Guinée, of which 45% belonged to the Guinean state and 55% to the Alcan group. There was Pechiney, a French group in Fria. It is the first alumina plant in Africa, built by the French. After the death of Sékou Touré at the time of Lassana Conté, it was sold to the Americans. Today, this factory belongs to the Russal group.

Let’s compare the price of bauxite, for example, with the price of aluminum, which is the final element of bauxite…It’s with aluminum that we make cans, flasks, etc. When you compare the price of a ton of aluminum and a ton of bauxite, it’s the difference between a stream and an ocean! The maximum they’ll give you is maybe $28 or $30 for a ton of bauxite. While aluminum reaches up to $2,000 or $3,000 per ton.

AA: In the 1960s, groups of countries in the South came together to defend their economic rights, their sovereignty over the price of raw materials…

MM: Yes, the case of bauxite in Guinea is an example of this. At the time of the First Republic, it was a Guinean who held that position. But everything stopped after the death of the President. They wanted to follow the example of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), do the same to regulate the price of bauxite. But the mining multinationals are very powerful and it was not possible. Today, those multinationals are Alcan (Alcoa and Rio Tinto), Vale, Russal, the Chinese… They come and take control of the concessions. There is no difference between them, but they copy each other.

AA: How does concessions work?

MM: To attract multinationals to your country, a country is forced to make many concessions. For example, let’s say that a country offers a concession of 20,000 dollars and the multinational answers “it’s too much, I can’t pay more than 10,000”. Then the government says: “Do you want me to exempt you from port taxes for ten years? You will not pay income taxes. Your expatriates will not contribute to social security”… Well, that’s a lot of taxes! In the meantime, the multinational uses the roads, the rivers, it pollutes with its various products! People and communities are deprived of the lands they occupied since their ancestors. And as compensation, they are not given any other working tool.

Let’s say that two countries have the same mineral, for example. Well, one country considers that it should give all those facilities to attract a multinational, because the neighboring country would also like it to come. Everyone wants him to come. So the multinational decides according to who has the best ore and the best advantages they offer. So Africa is fighting itself!

AA: How can one escape this vicious circle?

MM: Former South African President Thabo Mbeki’s report on illicit financial flows shows that the exemptions that countries granted multinational mining companies from various taxes were 10 times greater than the bilateral aid provided by Western countries.

Instead of providing us with this “aid”, our different countries could agree on a single, identical mining code, imposing the same requirements on the multinationals. In that case, there would no longer be competition between African countries.

AA: Today countries like the United States or France are very present in Africa. For example, with cooperation programmes in the “fight against corruption”. Are these their real objectives?

MM: Ridiculesness doesn’t kill! Instead of sending NGOs… may they help us recover our funds through mining tax havens! New Jersey is a mining tax haven. Toronto, in Canada, is a hub! The stock exchanges in England and Singapore are also centres of operations!

In Europe they have brought out a whole arsenal to fight against these tax havens from the financial point of view. But they never talk about mining tax havens. What are mining companies doing? They are all recovering their money in the places I have just mentioned. Even Chinese companies are trading in New Jersey. Everything they steal, they take there to launder, to make it clean money. We don’t even know how much real tonnage of ore is mined in our countries!

If you look at the map of Guinea, you can find Boké, next to the port and Guinea Bissau. The border near Boké was precisely where the main battlefields were located during the fight against the Portuguese army… The whole area of Boké is very rich in bauxite. Today, there are more than fifty multinationals of all nationalities in that small area of Boké-Boffa. Whether they are Chinese, Australian, Russian or American multinationals… Imagine the pressure that exists in my country! And if you look at the population, it’s very poor! So when I hear about NGOs… Why don’t they investigate where wealth goes?

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