Independence or Nothing: Fidel Stands By Maduro

Farooque Chowdhury

Latin America again sets example of solidarity and unity against imperialist intervention as the Empire threatens Venezuela with sanctions. In this moment of anti-imperialist struggle, Fidel Castro expresses solidarity to Venezuela, and Venezuela debunks a mainstream manufactured myth – the mismanaged country is on the brink of defaulting – as the republic recently serviced its debt with a US$1 billion payment.

Venezuela expresses its preparedness to talk to the US in a peaceful and civilized manner. At the same time, the republic has expressed unequivocally: Venezuela will never tolerate threats or impositions of sanctions.

Fidel: Last drop of blood for homeland

Fidel Castro, the leader of the Cuban revolution, in a message to Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, said: Venezuela is prepared to confront US “threats and impositions”. The March 16 message said: The US could no longer count on the Venezuelan military to do its bidding.

Referring to the ALBA summit scheduled to be held in Caracas Fidel’s message said: The summit will analyze the outrageous policy of the US toward Venezuela and ALBA.

Fidel’s message cites background of ALBA that tells enormous possibilities in the region:

“The idea of creating this organization came from Chavez himself, wanting to share with his Caribbean brothers and sisters the enormous economic resources with which nature had blessed his native homeland, the benefits of which had however landed in the hands of powerful US corporations, and a few Venezuelan millionaires.”

The Cuban revolutionary leader cites the old days the Venezuelan people have thrown away: “Corruption and squandering were the fundamental motivations of the first oligarchy with fascist tendencies, addicted to violence and crime. The violence and crime committed against the heroic Venezuelan people was so intolerable that it can never be forgotten, and a return will never be allowed to the shameful past of the pre-revolutionary era which led to attacks on commercial centers and the murder of thousands of people, the number of which no one can today confirm.”

He referred to Venezuela’s oil resources: “With less than 1% of the world’s surface area, Venezuela possesses the world’s greatest oil reserves. For a full century, the country was obliged to produce all the fuel which European powers and the United States needed.”

Today’s imperialist interference in Venezuela, and propaganda by the mainstream turns clear if the old days of corruption and squandering of the Venezuelan rich class, their external alliance, and Venezuela’s resources are not forgotten.

Fidel, in the message, raises a question that actually is an answer: “Why are the fabulous means of communication not used to inform and educate about these realities, instead of promoting trickery, which everyone in their right mind should recognize?”

He mentions Venezuela’s preference to peaceful approach: “Venezuela has stated in a very precise manner that it has always been disposed to talk with the United States, in a peaceful and civilized fashion, but will never tolerate threats or impositions on the part of this country.”

The position exposes the opposite propaganda being carried out by the mainstream media. Countries that face imperialist interference have the same experience.

There is always a question in countries like Venezuela: Imperialist power use armed forces against government elected by people. Countries are “rich” with this experience.

Fidel mentions the factor in his message: “Whatever the US imperialism may do, it will never be able to count on” the armed forces of Venezuela “to do what they did for so many years. … [T]hey were ready to give their last drop of blood for the homeland.”

On March 9, 2015, in another message to Maduro, Fidel said: “I congratulate you on your brilliant and courageous speech against the brutal plans of the US government. Your words go down in history as proof that humanity can and must know the truth.”

On the same day in a statement the Cuban government told its position on the US aggressive measure against Venezuela. Earlier, an executive order by the US president against the Venezuela government declared the Bolivarian republic a threat to US national security. The order is a reprisal for the measures taken by Venezuela in defense of its sovereignty against the US interventionist actions.

The interventionist actions were exposed as the Cuban statement said: “[S]uch a statement during a year in which legislative elections will be held in Venezuela reaffirms once again the interventionist nature of US foreign policy.”

It questioned: “How does Venezuela threaten the United States? Thousands of kilometers away, without strategic weapons and without employing resources no official to plot against US constitutional order,” the US executive order “is unbelievable, and lays bare the intentions of those who have come up with it.”
Not only Venezuela, other countries have also experienced similar interventionist actions. But, unfortunately, all of those were not exposed. Even, parts of political forces claiming to be anti-imperialist have not discussed those. People have not been made aware of imperialist intervention. Rather many of the interventionist measures and announcements are considered “helpful” to democracy.

Reiterating unconditional support to the Venezuela government and the nation of Venezuela the statement said: “Nobody has the right to intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign state or to declare it, without grounds, a threat to its national security.”

The statement declared: “Just as Cuba was never alone, Venezuela will not be either.”

In January 2014 at a summit in Havana, governments of Latin America and the Caribbean countries declared the region a Zone of Peace. But imperialism persists with its interventionist design.

Fidel’s messages and Cuba’s statement are reflection of the situation in the hemisphere, which has experienced imperialist interventions for years. It’s still continuing. Still there are imperialist threats, subversions and interventions.

Imperial interference rejected

But the region is different today. The stand the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) has taken is a reflection of the changed reality. The union extended strong support to Venezuela. UNASUR in an emergency summit addressing the aggressions from the US president Obama extended the support.

A statement issued after the meeting said: UNASUR rejects the US government’s executive order declaring Venezuela a threat to national security. The statement described the US executive order as “interference” and a “threat to sovereignty and to the principle of non-intervention.” It called upon the US “to evaluate and implement dialogue as an alternative” and for the “derogation of the Executive Order.”

The rejection shows the empire’s isolation in the hemisphere, and repudiation of imperialist practice.

The significant position of the union was made clear as the statement said: UNASUR believes “the internal situation in Venezuela shall be resolved through the democratic mechanisms established in the Venezuelan Constitution.”

“Democracy” defined by imperialism, and its practices to impose that “democracy” are also rejected as the union emphasized the democratic mechanism detailed in the constitution of Venezuelan.

Later, Delcy Rodriguez, foreign minister of Venezuela, said in an interview: “UNASUR has stood firm against imperialism”, and the union is “aware of the seriousness” of the threat “not only for Venezuela but for the whole region”.

Referring to the UNASUR statement Rodriguez said: “We know Venezuela is not alone”.

The important part of the situation was indicated as she said: “If there were to be an intervention on Venezuela, we wouldn’t know when it would move beyond our borders.”

It’s not only the union, Cristina Fernandez, Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, Daniel Ortega, presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaraguan respectively, and other leaders in the region have also rejected the US measure.

With the position expressed in the statements a broader perspective emerges. Unity of the countries in the region is one part of the perspective. Isolation of the empire is another part.

It’s not a group of leaders’ unity. A people across the region or peoples in countries in the region have made the unity possible. It would have been impossible for the leaders to take the position without the peoples’ aspiration, urge and support. A long political work is required for such a support by people.
A long period of imperial subjugation, dictation, control, political and military intervention, plunder, and the imperial backing to murderous regimes played a part in political education of the peoples in countries. There were other parts including non-sold out and non-stupid leaders and organizations in the political education process.

$1 billion

A bold step has been taken by Venezuela while implementation of the design for intervention by its opponents is going on. The highly efficient mainstream media failed to report the Venezuelan step although scarcity of toilet paper in Caracas is repeatedly reported by it. Its reports over the last few weeks show the toilet paper-trend.

Venezuela serviced its debt with a US$1 billion payment in mid-March, 2015. The mainstream manufactured myth – Venezuela is on the verge of a default – has been busted. Maduro said: “Venezuela will continue to meet its international obligations in 2015 … one by one.” Rodolfo Marco Torres, the country’s finance minister, said: “The Bolivarian government meets all of its national and international obligations.” Torres also informed: Venezuela made an interest payment on its 2015 Euro bonds.

Violation of sovereignty

The Bolivarian republic’s position is expressed in an open letter to the US people. The March 17, 2015 letter by Maduro said: Venezuela is not a threat. It said: “[O]ur people believe in peace and respect for all nations…. [O]ur fathers founded a Republic on the basis that all persons are free and equal under the law….Our nation made the greatest sacrifices to guarantee South American people their right to choose their rulers and to enforce their own laws today.” Referring to history the letter said: “In two centuries of independence, we have never attacked another nation. Our people live in a region of peace, free of weapons of mass destruction, and in freedom to practice all religions. We uphold respect for international law and the sovereignty of all people of the world.”
Citing present condition the letter said: “We have freedom of press and we are enthusiastic users of social media.”

Indicating to historical relationship between the peoples of the US and Venezuela the letter said: “The histories of our people have been connected since the beginning of our struggles for freedom. Francisco de Miranda, a Venezuelan hero, fought with the American people during their independence fight. We share the idea that freedom and independence are fundamental elements for the development of our nations.”

It referred to business relations between the two countries: “Historically, we have shared business relations in strategic areas. Venezuela has always been a responsible and trustful energy provider for the American people. Since 2005, Venezuela has provided ‘heating oil’ through subsidies for low-income communities in the United States … This contribution has helped tens of thousands of American citizens survive in harsh conditions, giving them relief, and necessary support in times of need …”

The letter cited the executive order issued by Obama as “a disproportionate action”, “unilateral and aggressive measure … in violation of basic principles of sovereignty and self-determination under international law”.

It referred to the unanimous rejection of the US measure by all 33 nations of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the 12 member-states of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).

It termed the US executive order issued “without any authority to interfere in our internal affairs … with potentially far-reaching implications”, and “interfering in our constitutional order and our justice system.”

It further said: “[O]ur world must be based on the rules of international law, without interference in the internal affairs of other countries.”

The letter said: “Never before in the history of our nations, has a president of the United States attempted to govern Venezuelans by decree. It is a tyrannical and imperial order and it pushes us back into the darkest days of the relationship between the United States and Latin America and the Caribbean.”

Addressing the US people it said: “We alert our American brothers and sisters, lovers of justice and freedom, of the illegal aggression committed by your government on your behalf.”

The letter made the following demands:

(1) Immediately cease hostile actions against Venezuelan people and democracy.

(2) Abolish the executive order that declares Venezuela a threat to US national security.

(3) Retract US government’s libelous and defamatory statements and actions against the Venezuelan officials who have just obeyed laws and constitution of Venezuela.

The letter said: “Our sovereignty is sacred.” It reiterated Venezuela’s position: “The defense of our freedom is a right we shall never give up …. Independence or nothing”

The Venezuelan position shows path to countries that face imperialist interference. For the “poor” world, it’s the path to follow that requires making people aware of imperialist interference, mobilizing people, creating space for people’s participation in social, economic and political life.

The Permanent Paranoia of Empire

Jason Hirthler

“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”

― Albert Einstein

The unmitigated effrontery of the Senate this month is hard to excel, but President Obama is doing his best to do just that. Over the past week the President has issued a couple of indictments from the Oval Office, both of which involve traditional rivals, Venezuela and Iran. Their sin? Thinking for themselves, a rare condition that must be instantly condemned with the most inflammatory rhetoric available, before steps are taken to eliminate the condition altogether. There’s nothing so inimical to the freedoms of empire as the freedoms of others.

Crackdown on the Chavistas

First, Obama produced a breathtakingly daft Executive Order (E.O.) declaring Venezuela “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.” The cause? A confused pastiche of unproven items including the “erosion” of “human rights,” “arbitrary arrest and detention,” and “public corruption.” Does anyone believe this farrago of libel actually expresses an actual threat to the United States?

Sadly, many of the brainwashed disciples of the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and FOX NEWS mostly probably do. But can anyone not so heavily propagandized take the President seriously? One need merely summon the records of our faithful aid to such beacons of human rights as Colombia, a world-class slaughterhouse for unionized citizenry; Nicaragua, still scarred by the legacy of Regan’s attempts to destroy populism there; Egypt, where President and former General Sisi has shamelessly conducted his sanguinary violations in the public square; Mexico, where we rely on corruption to keep our candidates in office; and Honduras, where the coup government we have supported since 2009 has turned the country into the bloodiest and most lawless nation in Central America. Still the money flows.

So this isn’t at all about the causes Obama mentions. Perhaps the President misspoke. There is really only one way in which Venezuela presents a threat to the U.S. That is the threat that the stunningly successful Bolivarian Revolution poses to the neoliberal fascism practiced in America and Europe. After all, just compare the statistics. Across the board, the Bolivarian model is unquestionably superior to the neoliberal model when it comes to lifting the quality of life for the majority. It has liberated the Venezuelan people in numberless ways. Jobs, incomes, health, political participation, all surged while poverty plummeted under Hugo Chavez and his beleaguered successor Nicolas Maduro. Employment, incomes, political participation, all headed south under George W. Bush and Obama, just to limit one’s gaze to this century.

Did the President rather mean to say that no single country has larger crude reserves than Venezuela, and that American access to it has been limited since Hugo Chavez skyrocketed into the presidency on the backs of massive popular support and immediately nationalized the oil industry? A real black eye for the Exxons and BPs of the world.

Interesting that the order targets seven individuals in particular, members of Venezuela’s armed forces, its national intelligence services, its department of homeland security (yes, it has one, too), a former member of its national guard, its national police, and its justice department. Looks like another “divide and ruin” strategy, as progressive political author Dan Glazebrook puts it. Sow division, seed turf wars, and splinter the Chavistas with the hammer and chisel of frozen assets. Seems similar to the sanctions imposed on Russia, which targeted members of the military, the security forces, and parliament.

Forget that the United States is openly violating Venezuelan sovereignty, sponsoring coups in 2002 and just last month, and aiding the rabidly anti-democratic opposition behind both failed coups as well as last year’s outbreak of violence. Returning the opposition to power would likely return the country to 80 percent poverty, which is where it stood before Chavez. Forget that 33 nations from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean states (CELAC) announced their support for Venezuela and condemned U.S. interference. Forget that a majority of Venezuelans vociferously reject U.S. intervention of any kind. Forget that Maduro’s government has produced some pretty damning evidence against the thwarted coup d’état planned by members of the Venezuelan right, including links to U.S. front organizations (all dismissed by U.S. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki).

Crackdown on the Mullahs

Not satisfied with one transparent fatuity for the week, the President produced another. This time he was confirming and extending the cruel E.O. against Iran. This second “national emergency” in seven days is for the supposedly grave problem posed by Iran’s efforts to produce civilian nuclear energy. This effort represents, in the administration’s paranoiac mind, another “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States constituted by the actions and policies of the Government of Iran.”

It makes the average observer wonder why anyone has attempted diplomacy at all, given the hysteria produced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nose-thumbing speech to Congress, the subversive letter from Republican freshman Senator Tom Cotton, and now the President’s own ruinous theatricality. Why bother? One supposes Obama sees this deal as another piece of his legacy, and this E.O. as an attempt to push it through. Add this nuclear agreement to the rancid TPP (part of the Asian pivot), and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and you can begin to mouth the words of fake progressives when they insist that Obama had major achievements in foreign policy, healthcare, and free trade. This before they enjoin you to vote (again) for the exceedingly venal Clinton dynasty.

Forget that Iran would be doing nothing illegal by enriching uranium to 20 percent. Under the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it is free to do as it likes in this regard. Forget that, despite this, it is being massively sanctioned on the basis of claims with no evidence to support it (namely, that it wants a bomb). Forget that it has already made generous concessions to the P5+1 on its nuclear capabilities, and made plenty of acceptable offers before that (all rejected by the West). Forget that 16 U.S. intelligence agencies confirmed that it quit its nuclear weapons program in 2003, that the Ayatollah has issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons. Even the leading right-wing think tanks agree. And above all forget that the United States and Israel together have thousands of nuclear bombs at the ready, and that both have attacked Iranian neighbors and allies on fallacious premises, and that both have openly threatened and clandestinely attacked Iran, murdering scientists or launching cyberattacks. Both of which are acts of war by the U.N. standard. Or even, to challenge the received view that Iran is the seminal profligate of the NPT, the United States, though having reduced its nuclear arsenal tremendously since the Sixties, by some 83 percent, a notable achievement, it is still openly modernizing its arsenal. This suggests what we all instinctively know to be true: the U.S. will never fully eradicate its nuclear arsenal, or even permit its nuclear stock to fall behind that of any other nation. None of this matters, because in the U.S.-manipulated IAEA language (“the absence of undeclared activities”), Iran must effectively demonstrate not the absence of evidence, but the “evidence of absence,” the impossible criteria former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once laid upon Baghdad.

Regime Change Best Practices

The standard tactic for “taking out” the various unsavory democratic and socialist governments around the globe pivots on three principals: first, conduct clandestine subversion inside the country’s borders, dutifully carried out by that most admirable of organizations, the CIA. Think here of dead scientists, vicious computer viruses and shadowy coup d’états. Second, sanction the country, a tactic best combined with some form of currency attack. Think here of shortages of medical supplies, secret deals to collapse the price of oil, and massive currency sell offs. If covert sabotage doesn’t destabilize the government, and if sanctions don’t “make the economy scream,” then take the last step, invade the country. Think here of Colin Powell’s U.N. theatrics and Netanyahu’s adolescent time bomb sketches. What this axis of evil tactics reveals is that a WMD can be a financial tool as much as an MQ-9 Reaper drone. Neither is ever “off the table” wherever Washington’s hegemony-happy neoconservatives need to uproot democratic flashpoints. These exigencies usually occur in the most delicate of places, atop lakes of underground petrol or pipeline crossroads.

Iran and Venezuela are being subjected to this strategy, but they aren’t alone. In the case of Russia, the economy has suffered a triple attack: sanctions applied by the U.S., EU, Japan, Australia and other allies; a U.S.-engineered price collapse in the oil market, driving prices below what nations like Russia, Iran, and Venezuela need to recoup to cover their production costs; and, just as the Russian economy was stung by both sanctions and the price drop in petroleum, the financial markets responded by attacking the currency, turning big profits by dumping rubles, watching their value crash, then picking them back up for a nifty profit.

Of course, all of this must be preceded by a pontifical decree. Before prescribing sanctions or intervention, the President must declare a nominally dire threat to national security. (Clandestine actions, by virtue of their blanket of anonymity, can happily dispense with such legal casuistry.) Hence the two memorandums of the last week.

Lessons from History

Yet Venezuela and Iran shouldn’t be surprised at the ongoing demonization of their nations. Had they studied the history of empire, they would know that if there’s one lesson for leaders of independent-minded nations, it’s this: never utter the word “nationalization” and never prescribe any system of governance other than “free-market capitalism.” There’s nothing imperial power fears more than a country with an independent streak. If you have one, expect a nasty shock. Just ask the Guatemala’s Jacobo Arbenz, Honduras’ Manuel Zelaya, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, Haiti’s Jean Bertrand Aristide, not to mention Venezuela’s own Hugo Chavez and Iran’s Mohammad Mossadegh.

All of these deposed leaders took the brave but fatal step of nationalizing—or attempting to nationalize—their own resources with the aim of developing their domestic economy. This is a bad idea when the hegemon that owns the biggest guns, controls the biggest banks, and intimidates its biggest rivals, isn’t keen on the idea. Much better to open your economy to commodity dumping, foreign takeovers, and imperial military bases. Your people may revile you, but you’ll probably survive, succeed in embezzling state funds, and perhaps arrange an amiable retirement in coastal Florida.

If “don’t think for yourself” is the central lesson for the subjects of empire, then “self-defense” is the dominant description of that empire’s behavior. If there is a single overriding lie that permeates Western propaganda over the last century, it is the fable of self-defense. In this country, it began when we were compelled to demonize the native Americans, declaring them an enemy that we must eradicate to save ourselves. Woodrow Wilson’s Red Scare ratcheted up the fear of the “Hun” such that a largely pacific populace was brought into a frothing fury, ready to defends its unthreatened freedoms. Hitler succeeded in invading numerous nations in a desperate effort to protect the vulnerable German people from the mad hordes lurking on its every border. Ronald Reagan told America that the little nation of Nicaragua, consisting mostly of forest guerillas armed by the U.S., was a mere 48 hours from Texas. This was perhaps inspiration for Tony Blair’s “45 minutes” fabrication from which Saddam Hussein never recovered. And now President Obama is continuing this tradition by telling us that we must be vigilant against the inscrutable deceits of two rogue nations. Countries that—at least when it comes to eradicating poverty or not starting wars—do pose a threat to the United States: the threat of a good example.

The Victory of National Democracy in Ukraine

Halyna Mokrushyna

What is democracy? It is a political, economic and social arrangement of a territorial unity of people in which the majority rules but minority rights are protected and there is a robust political opposition. How does Ukraine measure up to this standard? Very badly. A failure, I would say. And here is why.

Is there any real political opposition in Ukraine? No. The official opposition party, the Opposition Bloc, which includes deputies from the former Party of Regions, has forty seats in the current Ukrainian parliament out of 422 .  In the last election to the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s Parliament) on October 26, 2014, this party won the majority of votes in five oblasts (regions) of Eastern Ukraine – Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Luhansk, Donetsk, and Zaporizzhia. It obtained the second largest number of votes in Mykolaiv and Odessa oblasts, and the third largest number in Kherson. The participation in the election in the whole of Southeastern Ukraine reached an all-time low – less than 50 per cent in all of the oblasts. This is a clear indicator of the population’s apathy and mistrust of the current Ukrainian parliament.

In the Verkhovna Rada, the ruling coalition for the first time in the history of independent (post-1991) Ukraine has the largest majority in the Parliament – 303 deputies. The breakdown of the majority is 150 deputies from the Poroshenko Bloc, 82 deputies from the Narodnyi (Peoples) Front of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk, 31 deputies of the Samopomich party of Lviv mayor Andriy Sadovyi, 21 deputies of the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko, and 19 deputies of the Batkivshchyna Party of former Ukraine’s prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

The Opposition Bloc is the only official opposition party in the Verkhovna Rada. Deputies of the Bloc have stated on several occasions that they are ignored in the Parliament and their work is blocked. For instance, Vadym Rabynovych said that he has registered 19 bills but none of them has been proposed for examination by the Rada.

Tatiana Bakhteeva has been a Rada deputy since 2002 and has experience working in the opposition as well in the ruling coalition in the Rada. She stated recently that for the first time in the history of the Ukrainian Parliament, there is not a single deputy from the opposition in the executive of the Rada – for instance, the positions of speaker or vice-speaker. Not a single member of the opposition chairs a parliamentary committee, whereas in the previous Parliament under President Victor Yanukovych, 12 out of 26 parliamentary committees were chaired by the opposition. Bakhteeva also says that the first 100 days of work of the Euromaidan parliament have shown it to be the most unprofessional Parliament in the history of independent Ukraine.

The Ukrainian NGO CHESNO, which was created in 2011 with grants from various European agencies with the goal to monitor the parliamentary elections of 2012 and in general the work of the Rada, has conducted its own analysis of the Euromaidan parliament. It found that the old plagues of Ukrainian politicians persist in the new parliament. Deputies vote on behalf of their absent colleagues. The Rada does not respect standing orders – bills are put to a vote with blatant violations of procedures. As a result, deputies sometimes do not know what they have voted for, as was the case during the adoption of the 2015 budget, when deputies voted “blindfolded” during night of December 29, 2014 for a budget without having seen a print copy.

Another example is the voting of the bill to reduce pensions at the demand of the International Monetary Fund. When the bill was put to a vote for the first time, there were not enough votes in the ruling coalition to support the bill. So the speaker of the Rada put the bill to a repeated vote until it finally passed, on the fifth time. But according to the standing orders of the Rada, a bill which has been rejected cannot be put to a vote again during the same session or a next special extraordinary session of the Verkhovna Rada.

Tatiana Bakhteeva has noted another violation of the regulations by the Euromaidan Rada. According to the standing orders of the Rada, any bill, before being put to a vote, must be sent for evaluation by a group of experts and scholars. Upon examination, the group recommends whether the bill can be submitted for a vote. Bakhteeva says that none of the bills approved during the first 100 days of the new Ukrainian Parliament have been sent for expert review.

Democracy is also about the rule of law. How do Ukraine’s new power holders score in that respect? I have already written about the witch-hunt of former members of the Party of Regions and specifically about the so-called suicide of Mikhail Chechetov. Chechetov’s death was but one in a series of recent deaths of former members and leaders of the Party of Regions. There have been nine such deaths since the coming to power of the “most democratic” politicians in the history of Ukraine.

Another prominent member of the Party of Regions, Oleksandr Peklushenko was found dead in his country house in Zaporizzia oblast. He died from a gunshot wound in the neck. To no one’s surprise, it was officially declared a suicide. Peklushenko was suffering from depression, it is said, exactly that has been said about Chechetov. Like Chechetov, Peklushenko was under a criminal investigation, charged with enacting laws to disperse Euromaidan protests in Zaporizzhia in January of 2014. Peklushenko was appointed as head of the Zaporizzhia regional administration in 2011. As stated on the website of the Party of Regions, he was a man of principle and was not afraid of standing up for his positions. He did not quit his post, as the participants in Euromaidan demanded. He stayed until the end because he wanted to ensure order in Zaporizzhia. He once said: “I have lived with the Party of Regions membership card, and I will die with it”. So he did.

The Opposition Bloc has called upon the ”civilized world” to react to this series of suspicious suicides and to give a legal assessment of the actions of Ukrainian power holders who are organizing cynical reprisals against their political opponents. According to the Opposition Bloc, those in power in Ukraine are “effectively creating an internal concentration camp for over 11 million Ukrainians who once supported the biggest party in the country, the Party of Regions”.

Western governments and media have ignored the Bloc’s declaration. They are too busy calling upon Russia to investigate the February 27 murder of Boris Nemtsov. Why would the European Parliament be concerned? After all, Ukraine is now a free and democratic country, where the rule of law and freedom of expression reigns.

What about freedom of expression in Ukraine? Dissent is not allowed. It is seen as treason against the national interests of Ukraine, infringement on the inviolability of the territorial integrity of the country. Oleh Lyashko, leader of the Radical Party in the Rada, known for his scandalous behavior and declarations, has called upon the Rada to dissolve the city and regional administrations in Kharkiv (Ukraine’s second-largest city) because they have refused to declare Russia an aggressor country. He says that makes them accessories to separatism.

Not surprisingly, the mayor of Kharkiv, Gennadiy Kernes, is under criminal investigation, charged with kidnapping, torture, and death threats regarding two residents of Kharkiv who are members of the Euromaidan movement. Kernes does not believe in the possibility of a fair trial. He says the investigation against him is politically motivated. He has been harassed and intimidated by the new Ukrainian power holders for a year now, aiming to discredit him in the eyes of Kharkiv residents.

Kernes is a separatist, according to black-and-white logic of the jingoist patriots in Ukraine. However, the same Kernes was not afraid to come out into the streets during the conflicts  between Euromaidan and Anti-Maidan supporters in February of 2014 and ask the Anti-Maidan protesters to take down  the flag of the Russian Federation they hoisted on a flagpole in downtown Kharkiv.

Kernes was elected mayor in 2010. He has a reputation as a good manager and has done a lot for his native city. In March of 2014, he stated that he as well as members of his family had received dozens of threats over the telephone and that Arsen Avakov, the former governor of Kharkiv region and the current minister of the interior (of police) of Ukraine, might be behind this campaign of intimidation. On April 28, 2014, while cycling on a road near Kharkiv, Kernes was shot and seriously wounded. He was taken to hospital and operated on. His condition was life-threatening and he was taken to Israel by plane for further treatment. After returning to Ukraine, he reiterated that, in his opinion, Avakov and the new governor of Kharkiv region, appointed by the Euromaidan Parliament, were behind the attempt to kill him. Kernes rejected allegations of a “Russian footprint” in the attempt on his life.

Under the current nationalist-style democracy in Ukraine, dissenting opinion is not allowed. The former prime minister of Ukraine, Nikolai Azarov, stated in a February 21, 2015 interview on the Russian TV channel Lifenews that there are now seven thousand political prisoners detained by the SBU (Ukraine’s national police). On March 13, in front of Kyiv City Hall on Khreshchatyk Avenue, a crowd of around one thousand people wearing white bands and carrying white flags, protested against rises in the prices of food and public transportation, and drastic increases in the cost of housing services. They demanded the resignation of Kyiv mayor Vitaly Klychko. It was the third such action by Kyiv residents, the first two having taking place on January 28 and February 26.

Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Minister of Interior Avakov,declared that those protests were financed by the Opposition Bloc. Each participant, he said, was paid 150 hryvnia (approximately seven U.S. dollars). The budget for this ‘fake’ protest action, he said, was 500,000 hryvnias (app. 23 thousand dollars). The goal of the action was to create an “image” for Ukrainian and Russian television channels that in Ukraine, mass protests against the politics of the current government are on the rise. Herashchenko acknowledged that the people of Ukraine are disatisfied by the sharp increases in the price of natural gas, food and other essential goods, the freezing of salaries and pensions, decline in the value of the national currency, and “other negative phenomena accompanying war and loss of part of the territory of Ukraine”. But in the same breath, he said no one has the right to organize fake protests with “paid for” crowd scenes.

In order to stop such “shameful practices”, Herashchenko and his team immediately wrote a bill to introduce criminal liability for the organization of paid-for protests. According to this bill, organizers of such “black actions” will be punished by a fine for up to 500 non-taxable minimum monthly incomes, arrest for up to six months, or imprisonment for up to three years.

Another adviser to Avakov, Zorian Shkiriak, has also made inflammatory statements about the protests in downtown Kyiv. In his opinion, the protests are a special operation by the Russian FSB (Russian Security Service) aimed at destabilizing the situation in Ukraine. Moscow is doing this with the connivance of traitors of Ukraine, he said, namely the members of the “criminal-terrorist group” in the Rada which goes by the name of the ‘Opposition Bloc’. Enormous amounts of money have been spent on this anti-Ukrainian project by Moscow, said the perspicacious counselor.

Of course, who else could do this? The long hand of Moscow is everywhere these days in Ukraine. Russia shamelessly bribes ordinary Ukrainians to express their discontent on the streets. Members of the trade union of Kyiv’s transportation agency who went on strike and organized protests in December of 2014, demanding that their salaries be paid, are another group of agents of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Miners from Western Ukraine, who came to Kyiv to similarly protest and demand the payment of their salaries, are another group of Putin’s agents. Soon the whole working population of Ukraine will become Putin’s zombies.

Democracy in Ukraine is triumphant. The “most democratic power in the history of Ukraine” has an explanation for any political use and abuse of the law, any silencing of the opposition, any anti-popular austerity measure. And if you think that the new authorities are failing in their promises to ordinary Ukrainians to institute a “new Ukraine”, you are a traitor and an agent of the Kremlin. Glory to Ukraine, indeed!

‘Islamic State’ as a Western Phenomenon?

Ramzy Baroud

No matter how one attempts to wrangle with the so-called ‘Islamic State’ (IS) rise in Iraq and Syria, desperately seeking any political or other context that would validate the movement as an explainable historical circumstance, things refuse to add up.

Not only is IS to a degree an alien movement in the larger body politic of the Middle East, it also seems to be a partly western phenomenon, a hideous offspring resulting from western neocolonial adventures in the region, coupled with alienation and demonization of Muslim communities in western societies.

By “western phenomenon,” I refrain from suggesting that IS is largely a creation of western intelligence as many conspiracy theories have persistently advocated. Of course, one is justified to raise questions regarding funds, armaments, black market oil trade, and the ease through which thousands of western and Arab fighters managed to reach Syria and Iraq in recent years. The crimes carried out by the Assad regime, his army and allies during the four-year long Syria civil war, and the unquenchable appetite to orchestrate a regime change in Damascus as a paramount priority made nourishing the anti-Assad forces with wannabe ‘jihadists’ justified, if not encouraged.

The latest announcement by Turkey’s foreign minister Meylut Cavusoglu of the arrest of a spy “working for the intelligence service of a country participating in the coalition against ISIS” – presumably Canada – allegedly for helping three young British girls join IS, was revealing. The accusation feeds into a growing discourse that locates IS within a western, not Middle Eastern discourse.

Still, it is not the conspiracy per se that I find intriguing, if not puzzling, but the ongoing, albeit indirect conversation between IS and the West, involving French, British and Australian so-called “Jihadists,” their sympathizers and supporters on one hand, and various western governments, intelligence services, rightwing media pundits, etc on the other.

Much of the discourse – once upon a time located within a narrative consumed by the “Arab Spring,” sectarian divisions and counter revolutions – has now been transferred into another sphere that seems of little relevance to the Middle East. Regardless of where one stands on how Mohammad Emwazi morphed into a “Jihadi John,” the conversation is oddly largely removed from its geopolitical context. In this instance, it is an essentially British issue concerning alienation, racism, economic and cultural marginalization, perhaps as much as the issue of the “born, raised and radicalized” attackers of Charlie Hebdo is principally a French question, pertaining to the same socioeconomic fault lines.

The conventional analysis on the rise of IS no longer suffices. Tracing the movement to Oct 2006 when the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), uniting various groups including al-Qaeda was established, simply suggests a starting point to the discussion, whose roots go back to the dismantling of the Iraqi state and army by the US military occupation authority. Just the idea that the Arab republic of Iraq was lead from 11 May, 2003 until 28 June, 2004 by a Lewis Paul Bremer III, is enough to delineate the unredeemable rupture in the country’s identity. Bremer and US military chiefs’ manipulation of Iraq’s sectarian vulnerabilities, in addition to the massive security vacuum created by sending an entire army home, ushered in the rise of numerous groups, some homegrown resistance movements, and other alien bodies who sought in Iraq a refugee, or a rally cry.

Also conveniently missing in the rise of “jihadism” context is the staggering brutality of Shia-dominated governments in Baghdad and militias throughout Iraq, with full backing by the US and Iran. If the US war (1990-1), blockade (1991-2003), invasion (2003) and subsequent occupation of Iraq were not enough to radicalize a whole generation, then brutality, marginalization and constant targeting of Iraqi Sunnis in post-invasion Iraq have certainly done the job.

The conventional media narrative on IS focuses mostly on the politicking, division and unity that happened between various groups, but ignores the reasons behind the existence of these groups in the first place.

The Syria civil war was another opportunity at expansion sought successfully by ISI, whose capital until then was Baquba, Iraq. ISI was headed by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a key player in the establishment of Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front). The highly cited breakup between al-Baghdadi and al-Nusra leader Mohammed al-Golani is referenced as the final stage of IS’s brutal rise to power and ISI becoming ISIL or ISIS, before settling finally at the current designation of simply “Islamic State,” or IS.

Following the division, “some estimates suggest that about 65% of Jabhat al-Nusra elements quickly declared their allegiance to ISIS. Most of those were non-Syrian jihadists,” reported Lebanon’s al-Safir.

Militants’ politicking aside, such massively destructive and highly organized occurrences are not born in a vacuum and don’t operate independently from many existing platforms that help spawn, arm, fund and sustain them. For example, IS’ access to oil refineries says nothing about its access to wealth. To obtain funds from existing economic modes, IS needed to tap into a complex economic apparatus that would involve other countries, regional and international markets. In other words, IS exists because there are those who are invested in their existence, and the highly touted anti-IS coalition has evidently done little to confront this reality.

Particularly interesting is the rapidly changing focal point of the debate, from that pertaining to Syria and Iraq, to a western-centric discussion about western-styled jihadists that seem removed from the Middle East region and its political conflicts and priorities.

In a letter signed by over a hundred Muslim scholars that was published last September, the theologians and clergymen from around the Muslim word rightly disowned IS and its bloodthirsty ambitions as un-Islamic. Indeed, IS’ war tactics, are the reverse of the rules of war in Islam, and have been a God-send to those who made successful careers by simply bashing Islam, and advocating foreign policies that are predicated on an irrational fear of Muslims. But particularly interesting was the Arabic version of the letter’s emphasis on IS’s lack of command over the Arabic language, efficiency which is a requirement for making legal Islamic rulings and fatwas.

The letter confronts the intellectual arrogance of IS, which is based mostly on a misguided knowledge of Islam that is rarely spawned in the region itself. But that intellectual arrogance that has led to the murders of many innocent people, and other hideous crimes such as the legalization of slavery – to the satisfaction of the numerous Islamophobes dotting western intellectual landscapes – is largely situated in a different cultural and political context outside of the Middle East.

In post-September 11 attacks, a debate concerning Islam has been raging, partly because the attacks were blamed on Muslims, thus allowing politicians to create distractions, and reduce the discussion into one concerning religion and a purported “clash of civilizations.” Despite various assurances by western leaders that the US-led wars in Muslim countries is not a war on Islam, Islam remains the crux of the intellectual discourse that has adjoined the military “crusade” declared by George W. Bush, starting with the first bomb dropped on Afghanistan in 2001.

That discourse is too involved for a transitory mention, for it is an essential one to the IS story. It is one that has involved various schools of thought, including a breed of Muslim “liberals,” used conveniently to juxtapose them with an “extremist” bunch. Yet between the apologists and the so-called Jihadists, a genuine, Muslim-led discussion about Islam by non-coopted Muslim scholars remains missing.

The intellectual vacuum is more dangerous than it may seem. There is no question that while the battle is raging on in the Middle East region, the discourse itself is growingly being manipulated and is becoming a western one. This is why IS is speaking English, for its language complete with authentic western accents, methods, messages and even the orange hostage jumpsuits, is centered in some other sociopolitical and cultural context.

Betrayal of the Game

David Macaray

Obviously, there are more important topics than baseball to write about (How do you say “Whitewater” in Arabic? “Benghazi.”), but with opening day just around the corner, and with the irrepressible Pete Rose having formally petitioned commissioner Bob Manfred to lift his lifetime ban from the game, it seems appropriate to comment on what should be done with this accomplished and wildly popular former player.

The question: Should Pete Rose—the man who broke Ty Cobb’s hallowed record for most hits in a career, and who earned the nickname “Charlie Hustle,” because, as anyone will tell you, he played the game the way “it’s supposed to be played”—finally and deservedly be inducted into the Hall of Fame? We have two answers: No, and Hell No.

On August 24,1989, Rose voluntarily accepted a lifetime ban from baseball. That was big news then, and it’s big news now, largely because of the word “voluntarily.” We baseball fans were stunned by the announcement. Pete was nothing if not a fighter, a scrapper, the last guy to “voluntarily” accept any bad news, much less banishment from the game he loved. Why on earth would he agree to such a thing?

The short answer is that Rose, a self-admitted compulsive gambler, did not want the full story revealed. Ever. He’d rather take a lifetime ban than have it be known that when he managed the Reds (1984-89), he regularly bet on his team to lose. And as team manager, he clearly was in the position to make decisions that would help his team lose. Pete, say it ain’t so.

As great a player as he was, Rose is an outrageous liar. He initially lied about betting on sports, and was forced to recant when they found proof. He said it was only football, then was forced to recant when they proved it was baseball too, as much as $10,000 a game. Then he said he never bet on his own team, but was forced to recant. In addition to breaking Stan Musial’s NL record for most career doubles, he broke Richard Nixon’s record for “most lies in a season.”

People also forget that, in 1990, after emphatically denying it, Rose pleaded guilty to income tax evasion, acknowledging that he had lied to the IRS and intentionally concealed hundreds of thousands of dollars from the sale of autographs and sports memorabilia. He wound up serving several months in a federal prison. People forget that.

Although the “Dowd report” didn’t specifically accuse Rose of betting against his own team (such a charge would have blown the lid off the game, taking us back to the infamous “Black Sox” scandal of 1919), John Dowd has stated publicly that Rose very likely did so. After all, what would prevent him?

Also, to be banned for life didn’t require betting against your team. “Rule 21 Misconduct, (d) Betting on Ball Games, Any player, umpire, or club, or league official, or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform shall be declared permanently ineligible.”

Again, what would stop an admittedly “helpless” gambling addict from betting on his own team to lose, especially when he was in position to affect the outcome of the game? What would prevent a compulsive gambler from betting against his team? Ethics?? Please.

So let Rose continue to earn his reported one million dollars a year from appearance money and the sale of memorabilia. If people want to shake his hand and fork out money for his autograph, so be it. But two pieces of advice for Pete: Don’t expect to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame….and don’t forget to pay your taxes.

The One-Day Siege: ISIS’s Conquest of Hit

Patrick Cockburn

It was on 4 October last year that Isis captured the small city of Hit, seizing complete control in the space of just a few hours. For the city’s 100,000 mostly Sunni residents the takeover by the self-proclaimed Islamic State has brought changes that some support, but others deeply resent.

Among those living in Hit when Isis rolled in was Faisal, a 35-year-old government employee who is married with two children, and a keen observer of all that has befallen the agricultural centre and former transport hub over the past five months.

He recently fled to the Kurdish capital, Erbil, where he described to me the rule of Isis and its impact on Hit, starting with the day the city was captured. “First let me tell you how Isis entered the city,” he says. “At 4am we heard an explosion; Isis had exploded a bomb at the main checkpoint. Then they started fighting inside and outside the city. This was because some of their fighters were attacking from outside but others were locals, who belonged to sleeper cells and attacked the Iraqi security forces from behind. They captured all the police stations, aside from two that resisted until 5pm, after which Isis had total control.”

Faisal, not his real name, says he had no problems with Isis checkpoints even during the first days after the jihadist group captured Hit, because they were often manned by his neighbours who knew who he was. They had lists of wanted people and they sometimes checked ID cards.

One of the first things that happened was that the electricity went off. This was because 90 per cent of power in Anbar province comes from a hydroelectric power station, the largest in Iraq, at Haditha, 50 miles up the Euphrates river from Hit. Isis had seized most of the province but not Haditha.

Faisal explains: “When Isis took Hit, they stopped food being sold to people in Haditha because it was still held by the government. In response, Haditha cut off the supply of electricity to Hit and many other cities which had come under Isis control.”

This stopped all projects in Hit dependent on electricity, including the water-treatment stations, so there was a water shortage. People had to obtain their water from the heavily polluted Euphrates.

Because Hit is at the centre of an agricultural area there continues to be plentiful food available at cheap prices. The problem is that, although food is inexpensive, many cannot afford to buy it because all paid work has stopped and nobody is earning any money. Paradoxically, the only people still paid are Iraqi government employees, because even though it has lost control of the city, Baghdad wants to retain their loyalty – Isis does not want to prevent earnings that it can tax.

Isis provides some services itself by taking domestic gas cylinders, almost invariably used in Iraq for cooking, to be refilled in the group’s Syrian capital Raqqa.

Faisal particularly resents Isis’s vigorous intervention in every aspect of daily life in Hit. “They poke their noses into education, mosques, women’s clothes, taxes on shops (zakat), and many other aspects of life,” he said. “My parents and brothers told me yesterday via satellite internet call that there are about 2,000 men appointed to check the shops in the city and collect the taxes under the name of Zakat, not just from the shops, but from employees’ salaries.

“In education they changed the courses taught before and brought in new ones, that are being taught now in Raqqa and Fallujah. Some courses are modified or cancelled, like philosophy and chemistry. They cancelled classes in art, music, geography, philosophy, sociology, psychology and Christian religion, and asked mathematics teachers to remove any questions that refer to democracy and elections.

“Biology teachers can’t refer to evolution. Arabic classes are not allowed to teach any ‘pagan’ poems.” (Isis refers to anything outside the boundaries of its self-declared Caliphate, established on 29 June last year, as the Pagan World.)

Faisal says petrol and oil products are available in Hit, but they are expensive and of poor quality. “This is because the crude oil available in Raqqa [Isis captured most of the Syrian oilfields] is refined in a rough-and-ready way and then exported to Iraqi regions under Isis control. These poor-quality oil products ruin car engines, machinery and generators.”

Isis is paranoid about mobile phones and the internet being used to communicate information about it, giving away the location of its leaders and military units which could then be destroyed by US air strikes. Until February, mobile phones were working in Hit, but then there was heavy fighting in the nearby town of al-Baghdadi and Isis, fearing spies, blew up the mobile telephone masts.

The internet has not worked in Anbar Province for the last eight months, compelling people to use satellite internet connections that are monitored by Isis. More recently the group offered a limited internet service, though this is only available in internet offices and other locations monitored by the jihadist group. There is no internet access from private homes, while in the public locations, Faisal says, “Isis can spy on computers so they can see what you are surfing and to whom you are talking”.

Predictably, Isis focuses on religion and spreading its variant of Islam. Faisal says: “Many preachers (imams) were replaced by foreign preachers from the Arab world, mostly Saudis, Tunisians and Libyans, as well as Afghans. Some new imams are appointed temporarily just for Friday speech and prayer, while others are permanent appointments. Isis removed some of the old preachers who have left for Baghdad or KRG (the Kurdish-controlled region). These are often Sufis, whose beliefs are rejected by Isis.”

There are many other signs of Isis imposing its cultural agenda in Hit. Faisal says that “at the entrance to every main street and bazaar, there are Isis groups holding black dresses that cover the whole body including the face and head. If a woman does not have one, she must buy one [for about £8] and the money goes to the Isis treasury.”

Are people joining Isis in Hit? Faisal says they do, often for economic reasons. “I know many people in my neighbourhood in Hit who joined Isis,” he says. “They are paid little money, about 175,000 dinars (£80), but they say that the salary is enough because they also enjoy many privileges, including free fuel, cooking gas, sugar, tea, bread, and many other foodstuffs and services.

“Isis still has a strong financial basis. It confiscates the houses of the people who were previously employed in the police, courts, and security forces. These houses, and any furniture in them, are confiscated by the Sharia (legal or religious) court, where the judges are Libyan and Tunisian, though the other staff are locals. The ruling authority in Hit is headed by the military governor, the religious (legal) governor, the security governor and finally the administrative governor.”

Faisal’s account of life in Hit is confirmed by eyewitnesses from other parts of the Islamic State. Isis at first benefited from widespread popular relief that the Iraqi Army was gone, but there is deepening resentment against the enforcement of outlandish rules on personal behaviour that is contrary to local religious and social traditions. These include women being forced to wear the niqab (covering their faces), obligatory attendance at prayers and the destruction of mosques, such as the Younis mosque in Mosul, deemed by Isis to be un-Islamic shrines.

There is also the fear of conscription of young men to fight for the Islamic State, an obligation that is increasingly difficult to avoid and is leading many families to try to leave Isis-controlled territory, which is not easy to do.

But despite resentment by many at its takeover of mosques and schools, Isis is able to use these to propagate its views and to make converts – something that may strengthen the forces of the Islamic State. Conscription does not seem to have diluted the fanaticism of Isis fighters, or their willingness to take heavy casualties, according to Kurdish commanders who have come under attack by Isis units in recent months.

Local eyewitnesses confirm that the unpopularity of Isis is not universal. Sameer, a Kurdish shopkeeper in Mosul, told The Independent last November that “in spite of the coalition air strikes every night and every morning, Isis increases in terms of the number of its men and the territory they occupy”.

Since then, Isis has retreated from much of the Sinjar area west of Mosul, but Ali Hussein Mustafa, a 21-year-old university student who left Mosul last month, says that “many Isis men were much better than the fighters of the Iraqi Army in dealing with people and helping them”.

He says this better behaviour was not invariable and criticised Isis fighters at some checkpoints who harassed or swore at women whose face was not hidden. He added, however, that many people had now concluded that “Isis rule is no better, and maybe worse, than what they endured before [when the US or Iraqi government was in charge of Mosul from 2003 to 2014]”.

When discussing the origins and motivations of Isis as a movement, Faisal, hitherto factual and down-to-earth, falls back on conspiracy theories. Because he believes that the actions of Isis will be very damaging to the Sunni in the long term, he is convinced that it must be under the control of the Sunni’s traditional enemies. “To me, Isis is an Iranian-American project and, when its mission ends, Isis may leave the region,” he says. “Most of the Sunni people who experience the rule of Isis do not believe it is establishing a state, but intends to destroy Sunni areas.”

More realistically, Faisal detects a lack of seriousness in Baghdad’s efforts to drive out Isis, saying that “so long as corruption prevails, any solution to the problems of the country, including the recapture of cities taken by Isis, will not work”. As for the impact of US air strikes, “they are limiting the movement of Isis a little bit and weakening it, but not more”.

How does Isis compare with its predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq? Faisal has strong opinions on this: “I remember when we were dealing with al-Qaeda in 2005 and 2006. Al-Qaeda men are angels compared to the demons of Isis. In Hit 10 years ago, there were many military operations by al-Qaeda, but nobody thought of leaving the city as many do today. The old al-Qaeda was much better than Isis. We hate the government, but Isis is not the appropriate substitute. We hate Isis, but imagine if the Shia militia were the substitute for it! The situation would be more horrible. Every substitute is worse than the previous one.”

U. S. Interventions in Venezuela, Peru, and Paraguay

W.T. Whitney Jr.

To refute official explanations for U.S. interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean is easy sometimes. Critics recently highlighted falsehoods and contradictions given off from President Obama’s executive order of March 9 that imposed sanctions against Venezuela, and the job was done.

That document mentioned “erosion of human rights guarantees” in Venezuela, attacks on press freedom, police violence in response to anti-government protests, and arbitrary arrests. Alternative voices told the truth: private media flourishes there, U.S.-financed counterrevolutionary groups recruited anti-government agitators of last year who accounted for most of the deadly violence cited by Obama. Critics highlighted abuse of Black people’s rights in the United States and the scandals of U.S. torture, poverty, and prisons. The Guantanamo prison was mentioned repeatedly.

There are other interventions, however, with other rationalizations. These too are poorly explained, but in a different way. They seem to shift depending on circumstances, and look like they are contrived for propaganda purposes. These official justifications marked by scatter apply particularly to military incursions in the region.

The U.S. military, for example, is implementing a scheme of collaboration with Peru. The Peruvian Congress passed enabling legislation in January and February. Some 3500 U. S. Marines will be in Peru for short or long periods during the coming year. Their purpose, according to an official Peruvian military source, is instructional. The first contingent of 58 U.S. troops arrived on February 1 and will stay for a year working in five districts. Two weeks later, 67 more marines arrived for a six-week stay. On September 1, 3200 soldiers will disembark from the amphibious assault vessel “America.” That ship visited Peru in September 2014.

On September 1-6, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington calls at Puerto Callao in Peru. The U. S. Fourth Fleet, reactivated in 2008 to support missions of the U. S. Southern Command, has operational control of both vessels.

The official Peruvian and U.S. story is that the troops will be helping out with Peru’s war on drug-trafficking. Two years ago Peru did regain its former status as the world’s top producer of coca. But it’s clear also the troops are there to strengthen Peru’s hand in anti- insurgency warfare. There are references to war on terrorism. The Maoist Shining Path Guerrillas have shown signs of reviving.

Peruvian academician and drug policy expert Roberto Soberon insists the United States intends to “retake the initiative in South America and implement a more visible military presence in the Andes and Western Pacific always taking into account open and covert actions developing in Venezuela and other countries that distance themselves from Washington.” The United States has “capabilities for intervening automatically in scenarios of socio-political convulsion.” He worries about U.S. targeting of “social organizations that are protesting, [especially] against the presence of mining and/or petroleum companies.”

Another local writer characterizes the arriving U.S. troops as “a true army of occupation.” And the intervention is midway between “Evo’s multicultural Bolivia and the region more to the North where the actions of Rafael Correa’s government don’t exactly depend on Washington’s approval.”

The drug-war rational for U.S. intervention famously has applied to Colombia. That’s a worrisome precedent what with drug – war interventions like Plan Colombia having led to direct U.S. participation in dirty-war” atrocities associated with counterinsurgency. One rationale merged into another.

Teams of U.S. military personnel purporting to deliver humanitarian aid represent slippage of yet another sort. Over many years the Southern Command has had U.S. soldiers settling down throughout the region to offer medical, dental, technical and/or engineering assistance. In 2012 military teams in Peru provided medical services in 11 locations for over six weeks. Since the 1980s this kind of military outreach has been called “New Horizons.” In 2008 the Southern Command adjusted terminology to “Beyond the Horizon.” Aid-dispensing soldiers have traveled to Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Belize, Haiti, Chile, and elsewhere.

The Southern Command opened its Center for Emergency Operations in Santa Rosa, San Pedro department, in northern Paraguay on February 22, 2014. The U. S. ambassador attended the inaugural ceremony. The facility cost $1.7 million, and U.S. military personnel would be there to provide “help to the Paraguayan people in the event of emergencies and natural disasters.” The Southern Command notes the area’s history of “seasonal floods, droughts and wildfires that have driven thousands of families from their homes and threatened the livelihood of its inhabitants.” Medical and dental care would be available.

At the time, Southern Command humanitarian aid specialist Steve Carro indicated “the U.S. military forces had in mind a network of 100 [such] centers (…) in 25 Latin American and Caribbean counties.”

U.S. military planners, however, had not taken on a new worldview of beneficence. Two days before the opening, Paraguay’s defense minister met with U. S. Defense Attaché Bárbara Fick and Rear Admiral George Balance. They discussed increased military cooperation, and Admiral Balance requested that Paraguayan soldiers attend U.S. military schools on scholarships. Drug war cooperation was mentioned.

All along, according to a November 2013 news report, the Paraguayan government had been projecting its own $2 million military base in Northern Paraguay. Its purpose, said the same defense minister, was “to bring back peace to the people.” The project was in response to the increasing presence in the area of Marxist Leninist guerrillas known as the Army of the Paraguayan People. A local newspaper revealed that, “The initiative for fitting out a military base (…) came from the United States.” The Paraguayan soldiers presumably would be working in tandem with U.S. counterparts nearby, that is, if the latter could break away from their good works.

Pablo Ruiz of the School of the Americas Watch says U.S. interest in Northern Paraguay stems from the strategic importance of the underlying Guarani aquifer (largest in the world), copious natural resources, the vantage point provided for spying on nearby Brazil and Argentina, and growing peasant resistance in the area to a land monopolization for soy production.

Ultimately the larger story is of adjustable, slippery motives. The phenomenon seems to cover up the truth as to why the U.S. government meddles. A process of mystification ends up in lies and contradictions, little different in essence from explanations as to why sanctions were imposed against Venezuela.

Obfuscation is the order of the day. Southern Command head Major General John Kelly responded to a reporter’s question about whether or not events in Caracas on February 12, 2015 represented a coup attempt, as Venezuelan leaders allege.

“A coup? You know, I don’t know anyone that would want to take that mess over, but it might be that we see, whether it’s at the end of his term or whatever, I wouldn’t say — I wouldn’t (say) necessarily a coup, but there might be with — the same ruling party … some arrangements to change leadership.”