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Our gaze might be on
the markets melting down, but the upheaval we are experiencing is
more than a financial crisis, however large. Here is a historic geopolitical
shift, in which the balance of power in the world is being altered
irrevocably. The era of American global leadership, reaching back
to the Second World War, is over. 
You can see it in the way America’s dominion
has slipped away in its own backyard, with Venezuelan President Hugo
Chávez taunting and ridiculing the superpower with impunity.
Yet the setback of America’s standing at the global level is
even more striking. With the nationalisation of crucial parts of the
financial system, the American free-market creed has self-destructed
while countries that retained overall control of markets have been
vindicated. In a change as far-reaching in its implications as the
fall of the Soviet Union, an entire model of government and the economy
has collapsed.
Ever since the end of the Cold War, successive American
administrations have lectured other countries on the necessity of
sound finance. Indonesia, Thailand, Argentina and several African
states endured severe cuts in spending and deep recessions as the
price of aid from the International Monetary Fund, which enforced
the American orthodoxy. China in particular was hectored relentlessly
on the weakness of its banking system. But China’s success has
been based on its consistent contempt for Western advice and it is
not Chinese banks that are currently going bust. How symbolic yesterday
that Chinese astronauts take a spacewalk while the US Treasury Secretary
is on his knees.
Despite incessantly urging other countries to adopt
its way of doing business, America has always had one economic policy
for itself and another for the rest of the world. Throughout the years
in which the US was punishing countries that departed from fiscal
prudence, it was borrowing on a colossal scale to finance tax cuts
and fund its over-stretched military commitments. Now, with federal
finances critically dependent on continuing large inflows of foreign
capital, it will be the countries that spurned the American model
of capitalism that will shape America’s economic future.
Which version of the bail out of American financial
institutions cobbled up by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal
Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is finally adopted is less important
than what the bail out means for America’s position in the world.
The populist rant about greedy banks that is being loudly ventilated
in Congress is a distraction from the true causes of the crisis. The
dire condition of America’s financial markets is the result
of American banks operating in a free-for-all environment that these
same American legislators created. It is America’s political
class that, by embracing the dangerously simplistic ideology of deregulation,
has responsibility for the present mess.
In present circumstances, an unprecedented expansion
of government is the only means of averting a market catastrophe.
The consequence, however, will be that America will be even more starkly
dependent on the world’s new rising powers. The federal government
is racking up even larger borrowings, which its creditors may rightly
fear will never be repaid. It may well be tempted to inflate these
debts away in a surge of inflation that would leave foreign investors
with hefty losses. In these circumstances, will the governments of
countries that buy large quantities of American bonds, China, the
Gulf States and Russia, for example, be ready to continue supporting
the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency? Or
will these countries see this as an opportunity to tilt the balance
of economic power further in their favour? Either way, the control
of events is no longer in American hands.
The fate of empires is very often sealed by the interaction
of war and debt. That was true of the British Empire, whose finances
deteriorated from the First World War onwards, and of the Soviet Union.
Defeat in Afghanistan and the economic burden of trying to respond
to Reagan’s technically flawed but politically extremely effective
Star Wars programme were vital factors in triggering the Soviet collapse.
Despite its insistent exceptionalism, America is no different. The
Iraq War and the credit bubble have fatally undermined America’s
economic primacy. The US will continue to be the world’s largest
economy for a while longer, but it will be the new rising powers that,
once the crisis is over, buy up what remains intact in the wreckage
of America’s financial system.
There has been a good deal of talk in recent weeks
about imminent economic armageddon. In fact, this is far from being
the end of capitalism. The frantic scrambling that is going on in
Washington marks the passing of only one type of capitalism - the
peculiar and highly unstable variety that has existed in America over
the last 20 years. This experiment in financial laissez-faire has
imploded.While the impact of the collapse will be felt everywhere,
the market economies that resisted American-style deregulation will
best weather the storm. Britain, which has turned itself into a gigantic
hedge fund, but of a kind that lacks the ability to profit from a
downturn, is likely to be especially badly hit.
The irony of the post-Cold War period is that the
fall of communism was followed by the rise of another utopian ideology.
In American and Britain, and to a lesser extent other Western countries,
a type of market fundamentalism became the guiding philosophy. The
collapse of American power that is underway is the predictable upshot.
Like the Soviet collapse, it will have large geopolitical repercussions.
An enfeebled economy cannot support America’s over-extended
military commitments for much longer. Retrenchment is inevitable and
it is unlikely to be gradual or well planned.
Meltdowns on the scale we are seeing are not slow-motion
events. They are swift and chaotic, with rapidly spreading side-effects.
Consider Iraq. The success of the surge, which has been achieved by
bribing the Sunnis, while acquiescing in ongoing ethnic cleansing,
has produced a condition of relative peace in parts of the country.
How long will this last, given that America’s current level
of expenditure on the war can no longer be sustained?
An American retreat from Iraq will leave Iran the
regional victor. How will Saudi Arabia respond? Will military action
to forestall Iran acquiring nuclear weapons be less or more likely?
China’s rulers have so far been silent during the unfolding
crisis. Will America’s weakness embolden them to assert China’s
power or will China continue its cautious policy of ‘peaceful
rise’? At present, none of these questions can be answered with
any confidence. What is evident is that power is leaking from the
US at an accelerating rate. Georgia showed Russia redrawing the geopolitical
map, with America an impotent spectator.
Outside the US, most people have long accepted that
the development of new economies that goes with globalisation will
undermine America’s central position in the world. They imagined
that this would be a change in America’s comparative standing,
taking place incrementally over several decades or generations. Today,
that looks an increasingly unrealistic assumption.
Having created the conditions that produced history’s
biggest bubble, America’s political leaders appear unable to
grasp the magnitude of the dangers the country now faces. Mired in
their rancorous culture wars and squabbling among themselves, they
seem oblivious to the fact that American global leadership is fast
ebbing away. A new world is coming into being almost unnoticed, where
America is only one of several great powers, facing an uncertain future
it can no longer shape.
28 September 2008
John Gray is the author of Black Mass: Apocalyptic
Religion and the Death of Utopia (Allen Lane)
Source: The Observer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/28/usforeignpolicy.useconomicgrowth/print
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By Chandra
Muzaffar
Today — 12 September 2008 — marks the tenth anniversary
of the arrest of the Cuban Five in the United States of America. The
Five — Fernando Gonzalez, Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero,
Ramon Labanino and Rene Gonzalez — were accused of conspiracy
to commit espionage and other charges and sentenced to terms ranging
from 15 years to double life in a Miami court in 2001.
The Five were not involved in any act of espionage against the US.
They were not in possession of any weapons. Neither did they kill
or injure any person. The Five were monitoring Cuban exile groups
in the US with an established track record of committing terrorist
acts against the Cuban people and the Cuban nation. They were gathering
information about the terrorist missions that these groups were planning
and had informed the US authorities about what they (the Cuban Five)
were doing. And yet they were arrested and jailed after an unfair,
unjust trial.
The legitimacy of the activities of the Cuban Five on US soil is
underscored by the fact that since 1959 Cuba has been confronted by
military invasions, bomb attacks and assassination attempts upon its
former President, Fidel Castro, all organized from the US by Cuban
exile groups with the connivance and collusion of US security agencies.
It is because the Cuban Five sought to expose such terrorist activities
that the US authorities took action against them. In other words,
the unjust incarceration of the Cuban Five is nothing less than a
brazen move to protect terrorism!
The world now realizes that the incarceration of the Cuban Five is
a terrible travesty of justice. Committees demanding liberty for the
Cuban Five have been formed in a 100 countries. People’s petitions
with signatures from international personalities including Nobel Laureates
have been sent to the US Attorney General asking that the prisoners
be released immediately. Human rights NGOs from different parts of
the world have also come out in support of the Cuban Five.
In spite of all these dedicated efforts, the Cuban Five continue
to languish in jail. This is a shame. It is an utter disgrace. The
incarceration of the Cuban Five is as disgraceful as the detention
without trial of hundreds of so-called terror suspects at Guantanamo.
We urge the mainstream media in the US in particular to expose this
ten-year long injustice. More NGOs and church, synagogue and mosque
groups, apart from other religious groups, in the US should campaign
for the release of the Cuban Five. The European Parliament, and individual
national parliaments in the West and in Asia should adopt resolutions
calling upon the US Administration to free the Cuban Five immediately.
For our part the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) will
continue to campaign for justice for the Cuban Five.
FREE THE CUBAN FIVE NOW!
Dr. Chandra Muzaffar,
President,
International Movement for a Just World (JUST).
12 September 2008.
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By US
Religious Leaders
In an open-letter to Senator Obama, over 150 American
clergy appealed to the Democratic candidate for President to retain
the ethical and spiritual vision that won him the nomination in the
first place. Rejecting the “inside-the-Beltway” wisdom
that a Democrat must “move to the center to win the election,”
the clergy disputed the very notion that this is an accurate understanding
of American politics.
Dear Senator Obama,
As strong supporters of your campaign to become President of the U.S.
in our own personal lives and as leaders in the religious communities
in the U.S., we understand well the pressures you must be facing to
tone down your message so that you can win the election and then later
be more courageous in challenging major assumptions in American public
discourse that have been inserted there by a powerful conservative
assault for the past thirty years by conservatives and champions of
the elites of wealth and power in this country.
Others have articulated elsewhere why “toning
down” or “moving to appeal to the Center” is a politically
disastrous strategy, not only because it causes disillusionment and
passivity among the youth who momentarily thought that something new
was happening in American politics and who might otherwise return
to apathy when they perceive you as “playing the game”
the same old way, but also because it generates despair among all
sections of the population that had momentarily allowed themselves
to hope that America might become under your presidency a society
that unequivocally supported a politics of peace and justice. People
who thought that they would vote for you as their peace candidate
who seemed more unequivocal than others about ending the war in Iraq,
for example, may become less enthusiastic about a candidacy that now
calls for escalation of the war in Afghanistan and talks about giving
Iranians ultimatums to be followed by green lights for military attacks.
We are writing you from a different angle, not as
your election strategists, but as people of faith whose primary allegiance
is to be prophetic witnesses to the ethical vision articulated in
the holy texts of our religion and the elaboration of those religious
traditions over the course of the past two thousand years.
It is our view that America needs “a New Bottom
Line” so that both corporations and non-profit institutions,
social practices, legislation, government activities, and even our
own personal life activities should be deemed “rational, productive,
or efficient” not only to the extent that they maximize money,
material security, power or gratification of our sensual desires but
also to the extent that they maximize love and caring, kindness and
generosity ethical and ecological sensitivity, enhance our capacities
to see others as embodiments of the sacred and enhance our capacity
to respond to the universe with awe, wonder, and radical amazement
at the grandeur of Creation.
It is from that perspective that we appeal to you
to fulfill the promise and the hopes you raised in the early months
of your campaign, and to sharpen the distinctions between you and
past politics by articulating new principles that would govern your
presidency. In particular, we call upon you to (unequivocally and
persistently in your public appearances and ads) call for:
* Replacing the “Strategy of Domination or
Power Over Others” (that has shaped too much of American foreign
policy in the past) with a new approach that gives at least equal
weight to “A Strategy of Generosity and Caring for Others”
(for example as manifested by the Global Marshall Plan suggested by
the Network of Spiritual Progressives. You should not allow the public
discourse to push you into having to prove who will be the most effective
candidate for running the next set of wars, but instead insist strongly
and make this central to your campaign that that strategy for achieving
Homeland Security is seriously flawed. Effective security strategy
must rely on two legs, one the strong military defense of our interests,
and second on the strong commitment to ending global (and domestic)
poverty, homelessness, hunger, inadequate education, inadequate health
care, and repairing the global environment (please see House Res.
1078 introduced by Keith Ellison and endorsed by nineteen other Members
of the House for some helpful language in this regard-it endorses
our version of The Global Marshall Plan). Those who are ill-equipped
to articulate and implement the Strategy of Generosity are “weak
on national defense.”
* Rejecting the notion of armed struggle with Iran
and opposing any military blockade of Iran (universally understood
as an act of war) would then give the Iranians a reason to attack,
which in turn would provide the pretext for a war, either before or
after the U.S. elections. You should publicly call on the Bush Administration
to refrain from taking any such provocative actions that might lead
to military conflict before the next Administration takes office.
*A commitment to sign a Presidential Order that forbids
and criminalizes torture and the direct or indirect aiding or abetting
of acts of torture on the part of the U.S. , directs the U.S. military
to abandon Guantanamo prison and end the activities of the School
of the Americas related to training people in South and Central America
in the techniques of counter-insurgency and torture, and directs the
next Attorney General to explore criminal charges against those who
have violated US or international law in regard to torture.
* A commitment to make saving our global environment
a top priority not only through encouraging individual and corporate
environmental responsibility, but by alerting the American public
to the full scientific evidence about the degree of threat to the
survival of the planet that is likely unless we make major changes
in the way use the resources of our planet, how we decide what products
should be produced and how, and how we decide what items to consume.
Tell the American people what the planet faces if the US and other
countries including China don’t make a huge global effort to
reverse the patterns of destruction that are already endangering our
planet.
* Affirming the need for an American health care
system that is based on the principle that we have an obligation to
care for each other, not on the need for the health care profiteers
to make a good return on their investments.
* Affirming as a guiding principle for American society
in the 21st century that we have an obligation to care for each other,
and that this obligation requires a rethinking of many aspects of
American law, American corporations, government programs, education,
and personal life, and that you will use your time in office to encourage
this new ethos.
* Calling on schools to actively engage in teaching students the skills
of caring a. for each other; b. for those stuck in poverty or homelessness
or hunger; c. the disabled; d. our senior citizens; e. for their own
health and their bodies; and f. for the environment. This should include
teaching about “non-violent communication” and positive
negotiation skills, but also teach about the various religious and
secular traditions that have made “caring for others”
central to their teachings, or have made awe and wonder at the grandeur
of creation part of their approach to protecting the environment.
We are firmly convinced, Senator Obama, that these
are ways of thinking about what is needed in America that are unlikely
to succeed unless you build a strong foundation of support for them
during your campaign. By articulating this kind of thinking now, you
will not only strengthen the possibility of mobilizing parts of the
electorate who have given up on politics altogether, but you will
also be serving God in a way that is necessary at this historical
moment.
Your advisors may warn you of political dangers.
We think the opposite. But as we say, our calling is not to be your
political practitioners, but to provide you with the kind of ethical
and prophetic voices that you need to hear.
Finally, if you are elected, as we very much hope you will be, and
as we ourselves will try to help make happen by building support for
you, we urge you to meet with us during your presidency to hear the
voices not of religious cheerleaders, but of those who dare to speak
truth to power even when that power, as your own, is mostly for the
good and mostly in service of the God of the universe. It is precisely
because we believe in you and your strong ethical and religious commitment
that we are daring to write this to you, even though we know that
its impact might be to make it less likely that your advisors will
ever allow us to connect with you directly once you are elected.
With respect and blessings,
Signed by 150 religious leaders, mainly Christian, but also some
Muslims, Jews and people of other faiths.
21 August 2008
The appeal was initiated by Rabbi Michael Lerner,
editor of Tikkun and Chair, The Network of Spiritual Progressions.
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By Benjamin
Dangl
Bolivian President Evo Morales
announces that a coup d’etat by right-wing regional governors
is under way.
On Monday, Sept. 15, Bolivian
President Evo Morales arrived in Santiago, Chile for an emergency
meeting of Latin American leaders that convened to seek a resolution
to the recent conflict in Bolivia. Upon his arrival, Morales said,
“I have come here to explain to the presidents of South America
the civic coup d’etat by governors in some Bolivian states in
recent days. This is a coup in the past few days by the leaders of
some provinces, with the takeover of some institutions, the sacking
and robbery of some government institutions and attempts to assault
the national police and the armed forces.”
Morales was arriving from his
country, where the smoke was still rising from a week of right-wing
government opposition violence that left the nation paralyzed, at
least 30 people dead, and businesses, government and human rights
buildings destroyed.
During the same week, Morales
declared Philip Goldberg, the U.S. ambassador in Bolivia, a “persona
non grata” for “conspiring against democracy” and
for his ties to the Bolivian opposition. The recent conflict in Bolivia
and the subsequent meeting of presidents raise the questions: What
led to this meltdown? Whose side is the Bolivian military on? And
what does the Bolivian crisis and regional reaction tell us about
the new power bloc of South American nations?
Massacre in Pando
On Sept. 11, in the tropical
Bolivian department of Pando, which borders Brazil and Peru, a thousand
pro-Morales men, women and children were heading toward Cobija, the
department’s capital, to protest the right-wing Gov. Leopoldo
Fernández and his thugs’ takeover of the city and airport.
According to press reports
and eyewitness accounts, when the protesters arrived at a bridge 7
kilometers outside the town of Porvenir, they were ambushed by assassins
hired and trained by Fernández. Snipers in the treetops shot
down on the unarmed campesinos. Shirley Segovia, a Porvenir resident,
recalled to Bolpress, “We were killed like pigs, with machine
guns, with rifles, with shotguns, with revolvers. The campesinos had
only brought their teeth, clubs and slingshots, they didn’t
bring rifles. After the first shots, some fled to the river Tahuamanu,
but they were followed and shot at.” Others reported being tortured;
days later the death toll rose to 30, with dozens wounded and more
than 100 still missing. Roberto Tito, a farmer who was present at
the conflict, said, “This was a massacre of farmers; this is
something that we should not allow.”
In 2006, Fernández,
who denies orchestrating this violence, was denounced by then Government
Minister Alicia Muñoz, who said the governor was training at
least 100 paramilitaries as a “citizen’s protection”
force. These paramilitaries are believed to have participated in the
massacre. Fernández is one of the opposition governors who
form part of the National Democratic Council (CONALDE), an organization
that includes governors from Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, Tarija and Chuquisaca
and who are organizing for departmental autonomy against the Morales
government and his administration’s redistribution of land and
natural gas wealth, and other socialistic policies.
After the massacre, Morales
declared a state of siege in Pando and sent in the military, and by
Sept. 15 a tense peace had reportedly returned to the region. Morales
also called for the arrest of Fernández, who fled across the
border into rural Brazil. (Fernández has since been arrested
and taken to the Bolivian capital.)
This massacre took place just
weeks after an Aug. 10 national recall vote invigorated Morales’
mandate: He won 67 percent support nationwide, showing that his staunch,
violent opponents are clearly in the minority. In Pando, Morales won
53 percent of the vote, an increase of 32 percent from the 21 percent
he received from Pando residents during the presidential election
in 2005.
A few key political developments
led to this recent increase in regional tension. On Aug. 28, Morales
announced a presidential decree establishing a Dec. 7 referendum on
the constitution, which was rewritten and passed in a constituent
assembly in December 2007. On Sept. 2 of this year, the electoral
court said it opposed the referendum because it had to first be passed
by Congress and the opposition-controlled Senate. The debate revived
existing conflicts, and opposition leaders began to block major roads
and seized an airport in Cobija on Sept. 5.
The days leading up to the
Sept. 11 massacre in Pando were full of anti-government protesters
ransacking businesses and human rights organizations across the country.
On Sept. 10, an explosion reportedly set off by opposition groups
disrupted the flow of gas lines to Brazil from Tarija, Bolivia.
U.S. Ambassadors Expelled
Following these tumultuous
events, Morales demanded that Goldberg, the US. ambassador, leave
the country. “Without fear of anyone, without fear of the empire,
today before you, before the Bolivian people, I declare the ambassador
of the United States persona non grata,” Morales said. “The
ambassador of the United States is conspiring against democracy and
wants Bolivia to break apart.”
The announcement came after
a private meeting Goldberg had with the right-wing governor of Santa
Cruz on Aug. 25, and a later visit to the opposition governor of Chuquisaca.
Throughout Goldberg’s time as ambassador, which began in 2006,
the Morales government has accused him of orchestrating U.S. funding
and support to opposition groups in the eastern part of the country.
(See the February 2008 The Progressive magazine article “Undermining
Bolivia” for more information on Washington’s destabilization
efforts in Bolivia.) Before coming to Bolivia, Goldberg worked as
an ambassador in Kosovo from 2004 to 2006 and consular in Colombia.
At a press conference that Goldberg held in La Paz before leaving
for the United States, he said: “I want to say that all the
accusations made against me, against my embassy ... against my country
and against my people are entirely false and unjustified.”
Following the U.S. ambassador’s
expulsion from Bolivia, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced
that the U.S. ambassador in his country had to leave: “He has
72 hours, from this moment, the Yankee ambassador in Caracas, to leave
Venezuela.” The United States responded by asking the ambassadors
of Venezuela and Bolivia to leave the United States. This all took
place during a tense few months in U.S.-Latin American relations in
which the U.S. Navy reinstated its Fourth Fleet in the Caribbean after
decades of inactivity. Chavez announced joint exercises with Russia
in the Caribbean, and Bolivia strengthened its ties with Iran.
On Sept. 15 in Santiago, Chile,
the nine presidents within the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR),
including Argentina, Ecuador, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Chile and
even Colombia, a close U.S. ally, met to come to a resolution on the
Bolivian crisis. This organization is one of the newest in a series
of regional networks that are making increasingly collaborative political
and economic decisions throughout South America. All of the leaders
backed Morales, condemned the opposition’s violent tactics and
emphasized that they won’t recognize separatists in the country.
Bolivian Military Alliances
Though the threat of a “civic
coup d’etat” Morales spoke about in Santiago still looms,
the Bolivian military is unlikely to back the government opposition.
I asked Kathryn Ledebur, a human rights specialist and director of
the Andean Information Network in Cochabamba, Bolivia if the military
might side with the opposition to overthrow Morales. Lebedur said,
“No way, they are in a tough bind, and CONALDE is trying to
set Morales up, drive a wedge between him and the military. But in
spite of their frustrations, they (the military) have received more
materially and in terms of a positive discourse from the Morales government
than any other civilian one, and that makes a huge difference.”
“CONALDE has intentionally
created a messy catch-22 for the Morales administration, a tense,
provocative, violent situation, in some cases targeting the security
forces,” Ledebur explained. “If Morales orders repression,
or there are clear-cut violent acts by the security forces, his legitimacy
as a socially conscious president erodes. But if the security forces
don’t (act), as they didn’t for a long time, the vandalism
escalates, and the military and police get humiliated and attacked
— which in the long term erodes what, at least for the armed
forces, had been a mutually beneficial marriage of convenience, with
friction along the way.”
This past June the Andean Information
Network released a report analyzing the Bolivian Armed Forces’
growing mission in the country under Morales. According to this report,
part of the military’s support stems from the fact that Morales
has given the military popular and lucrative jobs such as “enforcing
customs regulations and confiscating contraband at the borders, including
authorization to arrest offenders.” The AIN report explains
that “traditionally, military officers look forward to border
postings as ‘the most profitable part’ of their careers.”
In addition, “under the Morales government, the armed forces
are in charge of baking subsidized bread (the regular price has gone
up 270 percent in the past year) as well as passing out bonuses to
schoolchildren and senior citizens.” Improved wages among some
officials and better equipment have also kept the military on Morales’
side.
The AIN report also stated
that the Bolivian military institution “will continue to categorically
reject aggressive regional autonomy initiatives or threats of secession
as risks to both national sovereignty and the budget they receive
from the national government.” As one high-ranking officer explained
to AIN, “The only way the military would even remotely consider
a coup, is if they took away most of our budget; at the core, we’re
really a bunch of bureaucrats.”
U.S. Influence in a Changing
South America
The current crisis in Bolivia
and the ongoing diplomatic drama between the United States and Latin
America says a lot about the future of the region and its cooperative
handling of economic and political questions. In an interview via
e-mail, Raúl Zibechi, a Uruguayan journalist, professor and
political analyst who writes regularly for the Americas Program, said
he believes the expulsion of U.S. ambassadors, and the regional leaders’
response to the conflict in Bolivia, “is the manifestation of
the fact that the USA can no longer impose its will on Latin America,
and very concretely in South America.” He says there are two
reasons for this change: “the birth of a regional power that
seeks to be a global player, such as Brazil, a capitalist power but
with different interests from the USA; and the existence of governments
born of the heat of the resistance of social movements in countries
that are large producers of hydrocarbons, as in Venezuela, Bolivia
and perhaps Ecuador.”
Zibechi emphasized Bolivia’s
importance as the leading supplier of gas to Argentina and Brazil,
and how this contributes to the support Morales receives from these
nations. “Brazil has big stakes in much of Bolivia, and it already
announced that it would not permit a destabilization of the country,”
Zibechi explained. “The key alliance in the region is between
Brazil and Argentina. They have problems, but in this topic they are
very united.”
Back in Santiago, Chile, after
six hours of talks between the nine South American presidents, the
UNASUR group issued a statement that expressed its “their full
and firm support for the constitutional government of President Evo
Morales, whose mandate was ratified by a big majority.” In the
statement, the leaders “warn that our respective government
energetically reject and will not recognize any situation that attempts
a civil coup and the rupture of institutional order and which could
compromise the territorial integrity of the Republic of Bolivia.”
They also decided to send a commission to Bolivia to investigate the
killings in Pando.
Though working to overthrow
leftist governments is unfortunately nothing new in South America,
region-wide cooperation between left-leaning governments, without
the presence of the United States, is new. As Morales and other regional
leaders forge ahead with progressive policies, there may be no turning
back for this changing continent — regardless of the challenges
posed by the Bolivian opposition. The geopolitical map of the hemisphere
is being redrawn, in large part by the new alliances between South
American nations, and the region’s increased resistance to Washington’s
political and economic interference.
The economic and agricultural
powerhouse of Brazil is a key part of this new regional defiance and
independence. “In Brazil, the right wing in the parliament questions
very strongly the (U.S. Navy’s) Fourth Fleet because they say
it is to control the new oil fields in Brazil,” Zibechi explained.
“In Brazil, things don’t depend just on Lula being in
the government. Brazil has autonomous politics that go beyond who
governs. ... Because of this, imperial policy is to overthrow Chavez
and Evo before there are changes in these countries that are so profound
that they no longer depend on who is governing.”
In Bolivia, much still depends
on what happens on the ground, outside of the presidential meetings
and negotiations. The opposition has lifted its road blockades for
now, and meetings between the government and representatives from
the opposition continue. Meanwhile, many of Bolivia’s social
organizations and unions have pledged their support for Morales and
against the right wing. On Sept. 15 thousands of workers, families
and students marched in La Paz, the nation’s capital, against
the massacre in Pando and the right’s violence. “We are
against the massacre of campesinos which has taken place in Pando,”
Edgar Patanta, the leader of the Regional Workers’ Center, said.
“We will not permit the repetition of these acts. We will defend
democracy and life as we have in the past.”
23 September 2008
Benjamin Dangl is the author of The Price of Fire:
Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia (AK Press, 2007) and
edits the international news Web site TowardFreedom.com.
Source: Alternet
By
Members of the International Anti-Occupation Network
The undersigned, friends of Iraq from
France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the
United States of America, Egypt, Sweden and Iraq, organized
in the International Anti-Occupation Network (IAON) and gathered
in Le Feyt, France, from 25 to 27 August 2008, have adopted the
following position and declaration reflecting our commitment to
a true end to the occupation and to a lasting, sustainable peace
in Iraq.
The US occupation of Iraq is illegal and cannot be
made legal. All that has derived from the occupation is illegal
and illegitimate and cannot gain legitimacy. These facts are incontrovertible.
What are their consequences?
Peace, stability and democracy in Iraq are impossible under occupation.
Foreign occupation is opposed by nature to the interests of the
occupied people, as proven by the six million Iraqis displaced both
inside and outside Iraq, the planned assassination of Iraqi academics
and professionals and the destruction of their culture, and the
more than one million killed.
Propaganda in the West tries to make palatable the absurdity that
the invader and destroyer of Iraq can play the role of Iraq’s
protector. The convenient fear of a “security vacuum”
— used to perpetuate the occupation — ignores the fact
that the Iraqi army never capitulated and forms the backbone of
the Iraqi armed resistance. That backbone is concerned only with
defending the Iraqi people and Iraq’s sovereignty. Similarly,
projections of civil war ignore the reality that the Iraqi population
overwhelmingly, by number and by interest, rejects the occupation
and will continue to do so.
In Iraq, the Iraqi people resist the occupation by all means, in
accordance with international law.1 Only the popular resistance
can be recognized to express and defend the Iraqi people’s
interests and will. Until now the United States is blind to this
reality, hoping that a “diplomatic surge”, following
the military surge of effective ethnic cleansing, will secure a
government it imposes on Iraq. Regardless of who wins the upcoming
US presidential election, the US can never achieve its imperial
goals and the forces it imposes on Iraq are opposed to the interests
of the Iraqi people.
Some in the West continue to justify the negation of popular sovereignty
under the rubric of the “war on terror”, criminalizing
not only resistance2, but also humanitarian assistance to a besieged
people. Under international law the Iraqi resistance constitutes
a national liberation movement. Recognition of the Iraqi resistance
is consequently a right, not an option.3 The international community
has the right to withdraw recognition from the US-imposed government
in Iraq and recognize the Iraqi resistance.
It is evident that Iraq cannot recover lasting stability, unity
and territorial integrity until its sovereignty is guaranteed. It
is also evident that the US occupation cannot avoid accountability
by trying to switch responsibility to Iraq’s neighbors. A
pact of non-aggression, development and cooperation between a liberated
Iraq and its immediate neighbors is the obvious means by which to
achieve this stability.4 In its median geopolitical position, and
given its natural resources, a liberated, peaceful and democratic
Iraq is central to the welfare and development of its neighbors.
All of Iraq’s neighbors should recognize that stability in
Iraq serves their own interests and commit to not interfering in
its internal affairs.
If the international community and the United States are interested
in peace, stability and democracy in Iraq they should accept that
only the Iraqi resistance — armed, civil and political —
can achieve these by securing the interests of the Iraqi people.
The first demand of the Iraqi resistance is the unconditional withdrawal
of all foreign forces illegally occupying Iraq — including
private contractors — and disbanding all armed forces established
by the occupation.
The Iraqi anti-occupation movement — in all its expressions
— in defending the Iraqi people is the only force empowered
to ensure democracy in Iraq. Across the spectrum of this movement
it is agreed that upon US withdrawal a temporary administrative
government would be charged with two tasks: preparing the ground
for democratic elections and reconstituting the national army. Upon
completion of these tasks the administrative government would disband,
leaving decisions regarding reparations, development and reconstruction
to a sovereign and freely elected Iraqi government in a state of
all its citizens without religious, ethnic, confessional or gender
discrimination.
All laws, contracts, treaties and agreements signed under occupation
are unequivocally null and void. According to international law
and the will of the Iraqi people, total sovereignty of Iraqi oil
and all natural, cultural and material resources rests in the hands
of the Iraqi people, in all its generations, past, present and future.
Across the spectrum of the Iraqi anti-occupation movement all agree
that Iraq should sell its oil on the international market to all
states not at war with Iraq, and in line with Iraq’s obligations
as a member of OPEC.
The 2003 US invasion was and remains illegal and the law of state
responsibility demands that states refuse to recognize the consequences
of illegal state acts.5 State responsibility also includes a duty
to restore. Compensation should be paid by all state and non-state
actors that profited from the destruction and plundering of Iraq.
The Iraqi people are longing for long-term peace. On the basis
of the 2005 Istanbul conclusions of the World Tribunal on Iraq6,
and in recognition of the tremendous suffering of the aggressed
Iraqi people, the signatories to this declaration endorse the abovementioned
principles for peace, stability and democracy in Iraq.
The sovereignty of Iraq rests in the hands of its people in resistance.
Peace in Iraq is simple to attain: unconditional US withdrawal and
recognition of the Iraqi resistance that by definition represents
the will of the Iraqi people.
We appeal to all peace loving people in the world to work to support
the Iraqi people and its resistance. The future of peace, democracy
and progress in Iraq, the region and the world depends on this.
Endnotes
1 The right to self-determination, national independence, territorial
integrity, national unity, and sovereignty without external interference
has been affirmed numerous times by a number of UN bodies, including
the UN Security Council, UN General Assembly, UN Commission on Human
Rights, the International Law Commission and the International Court
of Justice. The principle of self-determination provides that where
forcible action has been taken to suppress this right, force may
be used in order to counter this and achieve self-determination.
The Commission on Human Rights has routinely reaffirmed the legitimacy
of struggling against occupation by all available means, including
armed struggle (CHR Resolution No. 3 XXXV, 21 February 1979 and
CHR Resolution No. 1989/19, 6 March 1989). Explicitly, UN General
Assembly Resolution 37/43, adopted 3 December 1982: “Reaffirms
the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial
integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign
domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including
armed struggle.” (See also UN General Assembly Resolutions
1514, 3070, 3103, 3246, 3328, 3382, 3421, 3481, 31/91, 32/42 and
32/154).
2 Article 1(4) of the1st Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions,
1977, considers self-determination struggles as international armed
conflict situations. The Geneva Declaration on Terrorism states:
“As repeatedly recognized by the United Nations General Assembly,
peoples who are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation
and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination
have the right to use force to accomplish their objectives within
the framework of international humanitarian law. Such lawful uses
of force must not be confused with acts of international terrorism.”
3 National liberation movements are recognized as the consequence
of the right of self-determination. In the exercise of their right
to self-determination, peoples under colonial and alien domination
have the right “to struggle ... and to seek and receive support,
in accordance with the principles of the Charter” and in conformity
with the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning
Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States. It is in these
terms that Article 7 of the Definition of Aggression
(General Assembly Resolution 3314 (XXIX) of 14 December 1974) recognizes
the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples under colonial or alien
domination. Recognition by the UN of the legitimacy of the struggle
of peoples under colonial and alien domination or occupation is
in line with the general prohibition of the use of force enshrined
in the UN Charter as a state that forcibly subjugates a people to
colonial or alien domination is committing an unlawful act as defined
by international law, and the subject people, in the exercise of
its inherent right of self-defence, may fight to defend and attain
its right to self-determination.
4 The Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning
Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States
(General Assembly Resolution 2625 (XXV)) cites the principle that, ”States
shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or
use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence
of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes
of the United Nations.” Individually and collectively, Iraq
and its neighbors would commit to refrain from the use of force
or threat of the use of force, facilitating the use of force or
threat of use of force by other actors, and refraining from all
forms of interference in the affairs of other states. Individually
and collectively, Iraq and its neighbors would also commit to cooperation
and development on the basis of negotiation, arbitrage and mutual
advantage.
5 Article 41(2) of the United Nations International Law Commission’s
Draft Articles on State Responsibility, representing the rule of
customary international law (adopted in UN General Assembly Resolution
56/83 of 28 January 2002, “Responsibility of States for Internationally
Wrongful Acts”), prevents states from benefiting from their
own illegal acts: “No State shall recognize as lawful a situation
created by a serious breach [of an obligation arising under a peremptory
norm of general international law]”; Section III(e), UN General
Assembly Resolution 36/103 of 14 December 1962, “Declaration
on the Inadmissibility of Intervention and Interference in the Internal
Affairs of States”.
6 Declaration of the Jury of Conscience, World Tribunal on Iraq,
Istanbul, 23-27 June 2005.
27 August 2008, Le Feyt, France
Members of the International Anti-Occupation
Network
Abdul Ilah Albayaty, member of the Brussells Tribunal
Executive Committee, www.brusselstribunal.org, France - Iraq
Hana Al Bayaty, Coordinator of the Iraqi International
Initiative on refugees, www.3iii.org, France - Egypt
Dirk Adriaensens, member of the BRussells Tribunal
Executive Committee, www.brusselstribunal.org, Belgium
John Catalinotto, International Action Center, www.iacenter.org,
USA
Ian Douglas,Coordinator of the International Initiative
to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq, www.USgenocide.org, UK - Egypt
Max Fuller, Author of ‘For Iraq, the Salvador
Option Become Reality’ and ‘Crying Wolf, deaths squads
in Iraq’ - www.cryingwolf.deconstructingiraq.org.uk,
Paola Manduca, Scientist, New Weapons Committee,
www.newweapons.org, Italy
Sigyn Meder, member of the Iraq Solidarity Association in Stockholm,
www.iraksolidaritet.se, Sweden
Cristina Meneses, member of the Portuguese session
of the World Tribunal on Iraq, www.tribunaliraque.info/pagina/inicio.html,
Portugal
Mike Powers, member of the Iraq Solidarity Association
in Stockholm,
www.iraksolidaritet.se, Sweden
Manuel Raposo, member of the Portuguese session
of the World Tribunal on Iraq, www.tribunaliraque.info/pagina/inicio.html,
Portugal
Manuel Talens, writer, member of Cubadebate, Rebelión
and Tlaxcala, www.tlaxcala.es, www.rebelion.org, www.cubadebate.cu,
Spain
Paloma Valverde, member of the Spanish Campaign
Against the Occupation and for the Sovereignty of Iraq (CEOSI),
www.nodo50.org/iraq/, www.iraqsolidaridad.org, Spain
Please circulate this statement widely.
For individual and organizational endorsements, contact:endorse@anti-occupation.org
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by Robert
Fisk
 Sami
al-Haj walks with pain on his steel crutch; almost six years in the
nightmare of Guantanamo have taken their toll on the Al Jazeera journalist
and, now in the safety of a hotel in the small Norwegian town of Lillehammer,
he is a figure of both dignity and shame. The Americans told him they
were sorry when they eventually freed him this year – after
the beatings he says he suffered, and the force-feeding, the humiliations
and interrogations by British, American and Canadian intelligence
officers – and now he hopes one day he’ll be able to walk
without his stick.
The TV cameraman, 38, was never charged with any crime, nor was he
put on trial; his testimony makes it clear that he was held in three
prisons for six-and-a-half years – repeatedly beaten and force-fed
– not because he was a suspected “terrorist” but
because he refused to become an American spy. From the moment Sami
al-Haj arrived at Guantanamo, flown there from the brutal US prison
camp at Kandahar, his captors demanded that he work for them. The
cruelty visited upon him – constantly interrupted by American
admissions of his innocence – seemed designed to turn al-Haj
into a US intelligence “asset”.
“We know you are innocent, you are here by mistake,”
he says he was told in more than 200 interrogations. “All they
wanted was for me to be a spy for them. They said they would give
me US citizenship, that my wife and child could live in America, that
they would protect me. But I said: ‘I will not do this –
first of all because I’m a journalist and this is not my job
and because I fear for myself and my family. In war, I can be wounded
and I can die or survive. But if I work with you, al-Qa’ida
will eliminate me. And if I don’t work with you, you will kill
me’.”
The grotesque saga began for al-Haj on 15 December, 2001, when he
was on his way from the Pakistani capital Islamabad to Kandahar in
Afghanistan with Sadah al-Haq, a fellow correspondent from the Arab
satellite TV channel, to cover the new regional government. At least
70 other journalists were on their way through the Pakistani border
post at Chaman, but an officer stopped al-Haj. “He told me there
was a paper from the Pakistani intelligence service for my arrest.
My name was misspelled, my passport number was incorrect, it said
I was born in 1964 – the right date is 1969. I said I had renewed
my visa in Islamabad and asked why, if I was wanted, they had not
arrested me there?”
Sami al-Haj speaks slowly and with care, each detail of his suffering
and of others’ suffering of equal importance to him. He still
cannot believe that he is free, able to attend a conference in Norway,
to return to his new job as news producer at Al Jazeera, to live once
more with his Azeri wife Asma and their eight-year old son Mohamed;
when Sami al-Haj disappeared down the black hole of America’s
secret prisons the boy was only 14 months’ old.
Al-Haj’s story has a familiar ring to anyone who has investigated
the rendition of prisoners from Pakistan to US bases in Afghanistan
and Guantanamo. His aircraft flew for an hour and a half and then
landed to collect more captives – this may have been in Islamabad,
the Pakistani capital – before flying on to the big American
base at Bagram.
“We arrived in the early hours of the morning and they took
the shackles off our feet and pushed us out of the plane. They hit
me and pushed me down on the asphalt. We heard screams and dogs barking.
I collapsed with my right leg under me, and I felt the ligaments tearing.
When I fell, the soldiers started treading on me. First, they walked
on my back, then – when they saw me looking at my leg –
they started kicking my leg. One soldier shouted at me: ‘Why
did you come to fight Americans?’ I had a number – I was
No 35 and this is how they addressed me, as a number – and the
first American shouted at me: ‘You filmed Bin Laden.’
I said I did not film Bin Laden but that I was a journalist. I again
gave my name, my age, my nationality.”
After 16 days at Bagram, another aircraft took him to the US base
at Kandahar where on arrival the prisoners were again made to lie
on the ground. “We were cursed – they said ‘fuck
your mother’ – and again the Americans walked on our backs.
Why? Why did they do this? I was taken to a tent and stripped and
they pulled hairs out of my beard. They photographed the pupils of
my eyes. A doctor found blood on my back and asked me why it was there.
I asked him how he thought it was there?”
The same dreary round of interrogations recommenced – he was
now “Prisoner No 448” – and yet again, al-Haj says
he was told he was being held by mistake. “Then another man
– he was in civilian clothes and I think he was from Egyptian
intelligence – wanted to know who was the “leader”
of the detainees who was with me. The Americans asked: ‘Who
is the most respected of the prisoners? Who killed [Ahmed Shah] Massoud
([the leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance Afghan militia]?’
I said this was not my business and an American soldier said: ‘Co-operate
with us, and you will be released.’ They meant I had to work
for them. There was another man who spoke perfect English. I thought
he was British. He was young, good-looking, about 35-years-old, no
moustache, blond hair, very polite in a white shirt, no tie. He brought
me chocolate – it was Kit Kat—and I was so hungry I could
have eaten the wrapping.”
On 13 June, al-Haj was put on board a jet aircraft. He was given
yet another prison number – No 345 – and once more his
head was covered with a black bag. He was forced to take two tablets
before he was gagged and his bag replaced by goggles with the eye-pieces
painted black. The flight to Guantanamo took 12 to 14 hours.
“They took us on a boat from the Guantanamo runways to the
prison, a journey that took an hour.” Al-Haj was escorted to
a medical clinic and then at once to another interrogation. “They
said they’d compared my answers with my original statement and
one of them said: ‘You are here by mistake. You will be released.
You will be the first to be released.’ They gave me a picture
of my son, which had been taken from my wallet. They asked me if I
needed anything. I asked for books. One said he had a copy of One
Thousand and One Nights in Arabic. He copied it for me. During this
interview, they asked me: ‘Why did you talk to the British intelligence
man so much in Kandahar?’ I said I didn’t know if he was
from British intelligence. They said he was.
“Then after two months, two more British men came to see me.
They said they were from UK intelligence. They wanted to know who
I knew, who I’d met. I said I couldn’t help them.”
The Americans later referred to one of them as “Martin”
and they did not impress al-Haj’s senior interrogator at Guantanamo,
Stephen Rodriguez, who wanted again to seek al-Haj’s help. “He
said to me: ‘Our job is to prevent “things” happening.
I’ll give you a chance to think about this. You can have US
citizenship, your family will be looked after, you’ll have a
villa in the US, we’ll look after your son’s education,
you’ll have a bank account’. He had brought with him some
Arabic magazines and told me I could read them. In those 10 minutes,
I felt I had gone back to being a human being again. Then soldiers
came to take me back to my cell – and the magazines were taken
away.”
By the summer of 2003, al-Haj was receiving other strange visitors.
“Two Canadian intelligence officers came and they showed me
lots of photos of people and wanted to know if I recognised them.
I knew none of them.”
In more than 200 interrogations, al-Haj was asked about his employers
the Al Jazeera television channel in Qatar. In one session, he says
another American said to him: “After you get out of here, al-Qa’ida
will recruit you and we want to know who you meet. You could become
an analyst, we can train you to store information, to sketch people.
There is a link between Al Jazeera and al-Qa’ida. How much does
al-Qa’ida pay Al Jazeera?”
“I said: ‘I will not do this – first of all because
I’m a journalist and this is not my job. Also because I fear
for my life and my family.’”
Many beatings followed – not from the interrogators but from
other US guards. “They would slam my head into the ground, cut
off all my hair. They put me into the isolation block – we called
it the ‘November Block’ – for two years. They made
my life torture. I wanted to bring it to an end. There were continual
punishments without reason. In interrogations, they would tighten
the shackles so it hurt. They hadn’t allowed me to receive letters
for 10 months – even then, they erased words in them, even from
my son. Again, Rodriguez demanded I work for the Americans.”
In January of last year, Sami al-Haj started a hunger strike –
and began the worst months of his imprisonment. “I wanted my
rights in the civil courts. The US Supreme Court said I should have
my rights. I wanted the right to worship properly. They let me go
30 days without food – then I was tied to a chair with metal
shackles and they force-fed me. They would insert a tube through my
nose into my stomach. They chose large tubes so that it hurt and sometimes
it went into the lung. They used the same tube they had used on other
prisoners with muck still on it and then they pumped more food into
me than it was possible to absorb. They told us the people administering
this were doctors – but they were torturers, not doctors. They
forced 24 cans of food into us so we threw up and then gave us laxatives
to defecate. My pancreas was affected and I had stomach problems.
Then they would forbid us from drinking water.”
Al-Haj says he completed 480 days of hunger strike by which time
his medical condition had deteriorated and he was bleeding from his
anus. That was the moment his interrogators decided to release him.
“There were new interrogators now, but they tried once more
with me. ‘Will you work with us?’ they asked me again.
I said ‘no’ again – but I thanked them for their
years of hospitality and for giving me the chance to live among them
as a journalist. I said this way I could get the truth to the outside
world, that I was not in a hurry to get out because there were a lot
more reporters’ stories in there.” They said: ‘You
think we did you a favour?’ I said: ‘You turned me from
zero into a hero.’ They said: ‘We are 100 per cent sure
that Bin Laden will be in touch with you...’ That night, I was
taken to the plane. The interrogators were watching me, hiding behind
a tennis net. I waved at them, those four pairs of eyes.”
The British authorities have never admitted talking to Sami al-Haj.
Nor have the Canadians. Al Jazeera, whose headquarters George Bush
wanted to bomb after the invasion of Iraq, kept a job open for Sami
al-Haj. But Prisoner No 345 never received an official apology from
the Americans. He says he does not expect one.
25 September 2008
Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent
for the British newspaper The Independent.
Source : The Independent , UK
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