I’ll admit that I’m one of those people that enjoys reading historical accounts of depraved Roman emperors, of brain-addled czars. I really don’t know why. I’m sure it’s a sickness and maybe it will appear soon in the latest DSM9. Maybe there’s an expensive big pharma-med in production that can help.  Perhaps that’s why I allow myself to listen to the piffle that these fellows are peddling. I’ve been desensitized from reading about the sexy historic train wreck characters. The thing is, this isn’t historical, but sadly very much in the now. Hence the need for the long showers. I’m so ashamed.

We’ve progressed little when a Mitt can look at the widespread misery, that only expands by the minute, and he can simply comment that the complaints stem from jealousy. We all want to be Wall Street zombies, of course. He projects his illness on the rest of us. The Mitt has actually said this in regard to the rumblings of the many — it is all just envy. I’m not sure if he said that at the gathering the other day which necessitated the removal of a young Harvard student who looked like someone that the Mitt didn’t want there. The poor kid spent the day in jail for looking like someone. But that’s the world the Mitt lives in. You get what you want. Period. And that kid looked like somebody. That kid is just lucky he wasn’t detained indefinitely for looking like somebody. You really need to be aware of your doppelgangers and what they are up to in this high security age.

In other psychotic plutocrat news, a guy in South Florida- one John Castle, a leveraged buy-out “king” was angry that the bill after a meal was brought to his table… so he promptly broke the waiter’s finger. Of course, you never bring a king, even a leveraged buy-out one, a bill. The waiter got off easy too.

In other, trod upon worker news, one of the infamous Foxconn plants in China  had workers threatening mass suicide due to salary lies and general dehumanizing jobs recently — all necessary privations to produce X boxes cheaply.

I could go on and on.

And right now, here in the US, almost everyone who has one thing go wrong will be pushed to the side of progress, to the stench of the alley. Preferably to die there.  Fuck you, waiters of the world. We will break your fingers. We might make you homeless.  It’s all at our whimsy. We have all the cards. We will make your conditions eventually so bad that you will think death might be preferable. The world is flat in it’s misery, or we will make it so, says Thomas Friedman. Because we get what we want. Period.

And the world will stand, awash in confusion. But what happened? How did we come to such a devolved time? Perhaps we should have noticed when they treated international humans with such disregard. Of course, it would come home eventually. They convinced us that poverty was our fault and that those not wealthy had no worth. But, in truth, they are the filth, the ravenous undead feeding on the fresh life of others. Because they can never know satiety. And they never look to slow their own malignancy.  They just look for ways to continue feeding at the expense of the healthy and the clean.

And the Obamas of the age will make a point of pretending to care, their only contribution is less directly worded insults. Obama won’t say you are jealous that you don’t have the power to keep people from breaking your fingers. He will talk about the loveliness of intact fingers, and how the many before us have worked for intact fingers and someday the world will only have intact fingers. Then the roses will fall from the sky and the soaring melody will swell in the hearts of the listeners. And the broken fingered waiter will clap awkwardly in the crowd.

Flee from these creatures, find meaning in your local. Unravel what you can, including their lies that reside in your mind. Some influences are so toxic there is nothing to do but denounce and shun them. Don’t for one moment take them to be anything that promotes “a common welfare” or general decency. They are the carnivores who have convinced the sheep that they deserve to be eaten.

Could I possibly use any more metaphors?

Probably not. But above all, try to limit your exposure to them — because after all, there just isn’t enough water. Trust me.

If Dr. King were alive today, there is a good chance the 83-year-old civil rights icon would be standing side-by-side with the African American Harry Holt family in Dickson County, Tennessee, located just 160 miles east of Memphis, whose 150-acre farmland and well were poisoned with the deadly trichloroethylene (TCE) chemical from the leaky Dickson County Landfill.  The landfill is located just 54 feet from the Holt family’s property line.

In 2003, the Holt family and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF) sued the city and county of Dickson, the state of Tennessee, and the company that dumped the TCE. And in 2008, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Sheila Holt Orsted and her mother Beatrice Holt filed a lawsuit against Dickson City and County governments seeking cleanup of alleged water contamination.  And after more than eight years of litigation, on December 7, 2011, a settlement agreement was finally worked out with the Dickson City and County governments. The county spent more than $3 million and the city almost $1.9 million fighting the black family.  However, the family’s legal battle did not end in December since the state of Tennessee, a defendant in the Holts’ civil rights case, did not settle. The case is scheduled to go to trial later this year.

Here are five reasons why on this MLK Day we should demand eco-justice for the black landowners in Tennessee.

The treatment of the Holt family is a clear civil rights violation of equal protection under the law. The discriminatory and differential treatment of the Holts at the hands of the state of Tennessee is a violation of their civil rights guaranteed under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Clearly, the U.S. is not yet in a post-racial era. Race still matters.

The right to clean water is a basic human right.  The poisoning of the Holt family’s well water and the failure of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) to protect them from environmental harm are clear human rights violations. On July 28, 2010, the United Nations, through Resolution 64/292, recognized the human right to water and sanitation and acknowledged that clean water and sanitation are essential to the realization of all human rights.

The Holts’ toxic nightmare on Eno Road is the “poster child” for environmental racism. The United Church of Christ 2007 Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty report describes the poisoning of the Holts’ well and the government response as the “poster child” for environmental racism.  The Dickson case conforms to the national trend in which African Americans and other people of color make up the majority (56%) of the residents living in neighborhoods within two miles of the nation’s commercial hazardous waste facilities, nearly double the percentage in areas beyond two miles (30%).  They also make up more than two-thirds (69%) of the residents in neighborhoods with two or more clustered facilities. Nationally, African Americans are 79 percent more likely than whites to live in neighborhoods where industrial pollution is suspected of posing the greatest health danger.

Toxic racism steals black health.  Harry Holt died of cancer in January 2007.  His daughter, Sheila Holt Orsted is recovering from breast cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, even though Caucasian women are slightly more likely to develop breast cancer than African-Americans, African-American women are more likely to die of the disease. The industrial solvent TCE is widely known to be harmful to humans. A 2011 EPA study found that TCE is even more dangerous to people’s health than previously thought—causing kidney and liver cancer, lymphoma and other health problems. This new EPA study lays the groundwork to re-evaluate the federal drinking-water standard for TCE:  5 parts per billion in water, and 1 microgram per cubic meter in air.

Toxic racism robs black wealth.  Poisoning of black land with toxic chemicals robs blacks of their wealth and widens the wealth gap between blacks and whites. Today, the typical white family has 20 times the wealth of the typical black family. That’s the largest gap in 25 years. This theft has robbed African American landowners of wealth that would normally be passed down to their offspring. This phenomenon is not unique to Tennessee. The world learned of this stolen legacy in the discriminatory treatment of black farmers at the hands of the USDA and their long wait for justice. And in December 2010, President Barack Obama signed a bill authorizing $1.25 billion dollars in appropriations for the Pigford II lawsuit after Congress approved the legislation in November 2010. According to the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, from emancipation to 1910, blacks amassed 15 million acres of land of which 218,000 black farmers are full or part owners.  A steady decline of black land ownership began after 1910 through theft, intimidation, discrimination, back taxes, and economic loss.

Finally, in the spirit of Dr. King, it is fitting that we lift up the Dickson, Tennessee case, a struggle that epitomizes the civil rights leader’s final campaign in Memphis involving garbage and human rights.

The Occupy Movement, fueled by the indignation of vast numbers of people who are increasingly disenfranchised and displaced by the modern marketplace economy, recognizes the primacy of place in social change that moves us toward a just and sustainable future. This aspect of the movement is articulated by the physical occupation of public spaces, and more recently of homes that have been foreclosed with their occupants evicted by a corrupt banking system.

The primacy of place in the movement reminds us that when people are denied access to the primary productivity of the land and the seas, they are relegated to a status of enforced dependency on an abstract marketplace primarily constructed to serve the interests of the rich and the powerful. The Movement’s emphasis on space also reminds us that we cannot live entirely within the realm of the abstract idea of the marketplace. We need real food, non-virtual water, wearable clothing, and shelter — all made available to us through the natural processes of the earth, captured and molded by human effort.

In what is perhaps a first step in (re)connecting with place in a world where the fantasy of an endlessly growing and satisfying marketplace is crumbling, the Occupy Movement articulates vital needs for human dignity: the need for efficacy — to be heard and to have one’s welfare and voice taken seriously within collective processes of decision making and action — and the need for dignified and adequate means to obtain physical sustenance to satisfy one’s basic needs. Both of these needs converge in the concept and construct of place.

Reviving place as a focal point of human life and community is essential to social justice and sustainability. When I invoke place in this context, I conceptualize it as a nexus of physical space (both the natural world and the built environment) and community life (that includes economic activity, interpersonal relationships between people and between people and environments, cultural identity and expression, and governance processes). We make our places, and our places make us. Place is a reciprocal relationship that continually emerges through the forces of nature and human activity.

In the techno-world of modern industrial societies, many of us have lost sight of place as an organizing principle in our lives. We find that virtual spaces may indeed satisfy many of our needs as environments for building social bonds and friendships and for purchasing just about anything we might need or want (as long as we have the money to do so, of course), but we still rely physically upon tangible places that provide the necessities of life, even if our needs are mediated and obscured by the modern phenomenon of the marketplace.

Whether we recognize it or not, we are intimately connected to places, though in the globalized world, the reciprocal bonds between people and place, once paramount to the processes of community prosperity and health, have largely been broken. We abuse the land and the sea, sometimes without even knowing it, but because we need nature, we cannot completely sever our ties to places.

Take, for example, our water. It comes to us through processes of the earth that occur in some particular place, even though most of us know little of the detail of how water appears in our taps. Food offers another example. Since we, as yet, only metaphorically eat words, our food must be raised, cultivated, hunted, or gathered from particular places with particular environmental characteristics, and most often it must be cared for and harvested by people living in those environments. Both food and water derive from particular social and ecological contexts. They are not abstractions, and their concreteness bonds us with natural and social processes that are hidden behind the facades of grocery store shelves and Internet shopping malls — the “places” where we make the purchases that support the way we live and provide the things we need to stay alive.

We live a paradox in which intimate physical relationships to nature and social processes of production are juxtaposed with ignorance and neglect of the places and people who sustain us. Our very lives are in the hands of people and ecologies that may be entirely foreign to us intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. We may never see the face of one person who has picked the bananas we eat throughout our lives, but we are connected to the banana pickers and to the ecology of the banana fields from which the fruit comes. Through our bodily existence and our own internal ecologies, we are connected to others and nature. In many ways, we are others and nature, for without them we would cease to exist.

And as human-caused depletion and damage of the natural world continues, the threat has become ever present: we may indeed cease to exist without a radical (re)conceptualization of, and (re)connection to, place.

Many indigenous societies have conceptualized the fundamental relationship between humans and nature as reciprocal, believing that people must respect and care for nature if nature is to provide for people. We cannot allow the continued plunder of the land and the sea to take place in our name, masked behind images of clean and orderly grocery store shelves, spotless storefront windows, and online shopping centers. I’m also convinced that we won’t protect that which we don’t know, and consequently don’t value. It takes years of paying attention and continual, mutual interaction to know a place, both the human community that is part of the place and the natural world within which that community is embedded. Growing into a place is a long term process of relationship building, and to do it well, we will need to learn to stay in place. In a world where careerists are rewarded for their willingness to relocate, this is no small challenge.

But we will have to stay put if we are to learn what we need to know to live sustainably on the land. To recover the health of our damaged places, we will need to learn what can and can’t be done sustainably within particular environments, and we will have to end the process of robbing that which we need from other places because as we deplete distant places, we threaten the survival of other people and the health of the biosphere — we behave as tyrants, and we threaten both nature and our own existence. We will need to (re)learn the art of neighborliness and of working together in spite of our differences, and we will need to make decisions embedded in a context of our love for each other and for place — and rooted in a desire to sustain that which we love beyond our short lifetimes. It’s time to rejoin the community of life, to belong in mutually sustaining ways. We need to (re)construct places in ways that bring to an end this era of loneliness.

The process will not be easy, especially because so much social power has been concentrated for so long in so few hands. But at least people around the world are recognizing this reality and working to change it. People are seeing the concentration of power and wealth itself as perhaps the central driver for social injustice in the globalized world. This recognition is a huge step in the right direction. It’s also important to recognize that virtually all of the processes that contribute to (re)building healthy places also serve to devolve social power to local contexts.

The (re)conceptualization and (re)construction of place can be both challenging and exhilarating. It’s an endeavor that can take many forms that coalesce in a long term process of articulating who we are in place — community gardens; potluck dinners with neighbors; bioregional resource management; reading, study, and discussion circles; governance work in local politics or in community organizations; farmers markets; community art and theater projects, formal and informal education; developing and using local currencies; localized production, retail, and banking; localized renewable energy generation; and simply authentic listening among friends and neighbors – any activity that helps to build a sense of community and to increase the provision of basic needs from localized sources. Community building and (re)localization of our economies will help us build the resiliency that we will need to weather the converging crises of climate change, peak oil production, and economic instability.

The Occupy Movement may well be the introduction to a new story about who we are in place. The plot line for this story will be grounded in communities and bioregions, not in the marketplace. And it’s a story for which there is no final draft. Chapters will be written and rewritten over time, and if we can write them in ways that continually deepen our efficacy, improve the health of our environment, and strengthen reciprocal ties between ourselves and our places, we just might come to occupy a place called home.

•  This article initially appeared in New Clear Vision.

On 8 December, with the headline “War Inevitable To Tackle Indian Water Aggression,” Pakistan’s Urdu-language Nawa-e Waqt, issued such a screed.

Nawa-e Waqt bluntly commented on India’s Kashmiri water polices and Islamabad’s failure up to now to stop New Delhi’s efforts to construct hydroelectric dams in Kashmir, “India should be forcibly prevented from constructing these dams. If it fails to constrain itself, we should not hesitate in launching nuclear war because there is no solution except this.”

Potential nuclear war over water rights – such sentiments ought to light up switchboards from New Delhi to Washington.

Needless to say, the fact that both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers is cause for concern.

Nawa-e Waqt is a privately owned, widely read conservative Pakistani Islamic daily with a circulation around 125,000 and is heavily critical of the U.S. and India. To put Nawa-e Waqt’s circulation in context, consider that the conservative Washington Times has a current estimated circulation of 50,000.

So, what has the editorial board of the Nawa-e Waqt so excited?

Indian dam building in the disputed area of Kashmir. Compared with much of South Asia, Kashmir has many rivers and relatively few people.

Bashir Ahmad, a geologist in Srinagar, Kashmir commented grimly about the Indians’ future intentions, “They will switch the Indus off to make Pakistan solely dependent on India. It’s going to be a water bomb.” A more dispassionate report by America’s Senate last February offered still a similar assessment, noting, “The cumulative effect of (the dam) projects could give India the ability to store enough water to limit the supply to Pakistan at crucial moments in the growing season” before concluding that dams are a source of “significant bilateral tension.”

How many dams and hydroelectric reports? The Senate report counted 33 hydroelectric projects in the border area, a number that Pakistani analysts nearly double to 60, which according to the state’s chief minister, Omar Abdullah, will add an extra 3,000 megawatts to the national power grid by 2019.

Pakistan’s vulnerability is underwritten by the fact that, like Egypt it exists around a single great river, although the Indus is nearly twice the Nile’s size when it reaches the sea. The Indus provides water to over 80 percent of Pakistan’s 54 million acres of irrigated land, via a canal system largely built by the British.

A further potential diplomatic tar-pit is that Afghanistan plans to build 12 dams on the Kabul river with a combined storage capacity of 4.7 million acre-feet, which Pakistan frets will further diminish the Indus water supply, quite aside from the fact that Indian support for these dams will increase India’s hydro-influence in the region.

The Kabul River Basin (KRB) is the most important river basin in Afghanistan and contains half the country’s urban population, including the city of Kabul. While New Delhi has not directly confirmed its support for the facilities, the proposed hydroelectric projects represent one of India’s largest assistance interests, with $1.3 billion invested in infrastructure projects.

So, is there any way out before the missiles fly?

The 1960 Indus Water Treaty (IWT) between India and Pakistan can not only assist in easing tension, but provide a template for developing an Afghan-Pakistani agreement on the Kabul river. The treaty, which has survived three wars, explicitly outlines how both India and Pakistan can use cross-border rivers and deals in particular with the tributaries flowing from Kashmir to form the Indus.

The IWT is considered one of the world’s most successful trans-boundary water treaties, as it addresses specific water allocation issues and provides unique design requirements for run-of-the-river dams, which ensure the steady flow of water and guarantee power generation through hydro-electricity. The IWT also provides a mechanism for consultation and arbitration should questions, disagreements, or disputes arise.

All foreign governments interested in avoiding further military conflict in South Asia should impress upon both New Delhi and Islamabad the ongoing value of their 51 year-old water agreement and urge them to resolve their conflicts within its framework.

First appeared at Oilprice.com.

On November 14th, two water wells were demolished in Baqa’a, east of Tammun, robbing hundreds of families of the ability to irrigate their land. On October 13, farmers received demolition orders on several water wells in Kufr al-Deek, a village in the town of Salfit near Nablus. In September, Israeli military forces demolished 6 water wells belonging to Palestinian Bedouin communities in the Jordan Valley, and have threatened to demolish six more. In all these cases, the unilateral IOF actions are explicitly illegal because these wells were built with full permission from the Palestinian Authority, in areas of the Valley supposedly under exclusive Palestinian civil and military control.

The injustice is especially pronounced in the Jordan Valley. On the 8th of September, 50 military jeeps, trucks and bulldozers sealed off Al Nasarayah as a closed military zone, and proceeded to illegally destroy 3 water wells and confiscate the attached water systems, the pumps of which cost $40,000 each to install. Five days later, the IOF returned to Al Nasarayah to demolish 2 more wells, stopping along the way to destroy another well east of Tamoun. The next day, IOF soldiers entered the village of Al- Fa’ara, near Nablus, to photograph and record the GPS coordinates of 6 more wells intended for demolition.

The IOF’s actions are illegal under Israeli, Palestinian and international law because these 6 water wells had permits from the Palestinian Authority, and operated in the 5% of the Jordan Valley designated after the 1994 Oslo Accords Area A, under full Palestinian civil and military control. The motives behind Israel’s actions on the ground, however, emerge into the light of day when seen in the context of other recent Israeli policy resolutions — a plan announced in September to uproot and transfer some 27,000 Bedouin out of Israel-controlled Area C in the West Bank (most Area C Bedouin live in the Jordan Valley), and a decision by the Settlement Division in early July to increase by 130% the land given to settlers for farming in the Jordan Valley, and to increase from 42 to 51 cubic meters per year the amount of water given to settlers to irrigate such farmland.

What do the destruction of Palestinian Bedouin water wells in the Jordan Valley, the transfer of Palestinian Bedouin citizens out of the Jordan Valley, and the expansion of land and water given to settlers in the Jordan Valley, all have in common? Together, they highlight the oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Jordan Valley that has typified Israeli policy since the Valley became occupied territory in 1967.

A focal point of this oppression — and a crucial locus of the Palestinian Bedouin struggle to resist the occupation and remain in their homeland — is the issue of water. For as Israel has seized absolute control over allocation and distribution of the resources of the 3 water aquifers under the West Bank for use on both sides of the Green Line, the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza, and especially the Bedouin population of the Jordan Valley, have seen the steady drying-up of the once-flowing springs around which they have built their villages, have found themselves unable to dig sufficient wells of their own because of crippling Israeli regulations, and have watched themselves become dependent on the exorbitant prices of their oppressor for access to so basic and indispensable a human right.

Far more than in the rest of the West Bank, the struggle over water for the Jordan Valley Bedouin is a struggle between life and death. The ‘draining away’ of Palestinian water rights in the Jordan Valley — to borrow the title of a 2010 report by Ma’an Development Center — has a long and tumultuous history. When the West Bank became occupied territory in 1967, the Israeli army established a military order to the effect that all West Bank water came under control of the state, and Israel’s national water carrier, Mekorot, seized water aquifers and developed wells throughout the West Bank to serve Israel and its newly expanding settlements. Between 1967 and the 1994 Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Bedouin in the Jordan Valley saw first their land, and then their water, disappear behind the heavily-guarded gates of settlements, where settlers were granted ample supplies of the latter in order to make the former bloom.

The situation grew increasingly dire until a brief ray of hope in 1995, when Article 40 of the Oslo II agreements set an interim agreement, designed to be revised within five years (but still in effect to this day), whereby approximately one quarter of West Bank water resources would come under Palestinian Authority control, and a Joint Water Committee would be established, in the words of the 2009 World Bank report ‘Assessment of Restrictions on Palestinian Water Development: West Bank and Gaza’, “to oversee management of the aquifers, with decisions to be based on consensus between the two parties.”

However, Oslo brought with it new institutionalized systems of oppression. Since Oslo 1 in 1993 consigned 95% of the Jordan Valley to Area C status (under full Israeli and military control), neither the Area C Bedouin communities themselves, nor the Palestinian Authority, nor the constant swarm of international NGOs, can commence with unregulated construction of their own initiative, because, in the words of Jordan Valley Solidarity, a grassroots movement, “across Area C, access to basic services such as water is restricted through the debilitating permit system which is regulated by the Israeli Civil Administration. Obtaining a permit for any form of construction –even for water- is notoriously difficult, nay impossible. This prevents Palestinians from building new infrastructure, or from making improvements to existing facilities.”

Atop this blanket layer of oppression, which effectively and intentionally squelches all trace of community autonomy, the Palestinian Bedouin in the 95% of the Jordan Valley which is Area C are deprived of the ability to improve their access to water resources through three interlocking buereacratic systems of control — the Joint Water Committee, where a group of Israeli and Palestinian decision-makers permits or denies water access or rehabilitation projects proposed by the Palestinian Water Authority (for Areas A, B and C); the Israeli Civil Administration, which, if an Area C project is permitted by the Joint Water Committee, pulls that project through a thicket of bureaucratic, technical limitations and scrutinies, effectively crippling its implementation if not grinding it to a halt completely; and, last but not least, the Israeli army, which ceaselessly continues, as it sees fit and irregardless of law, to demolish water wells, tankers, and infrastructure on the ground in Bedouin communities across Areas A, B and C, even if the proper permits are possessed.

Thus, what was promised under Oslo II to be consensus decision-making regarding water resources is in reality institutionalized unilateral control of the oppressor over the oppressed, and due to this matrix of Israeli control, it becomes nearly impossible for the Palestinian Authority, as well as most NGOs, to commit themselves to meaningful, sustainable infrastructural development in Area C of the West Bank.

At the level of the Joint Water Committee, details Ma’an’s ‘Draining Away’, “the fact that decisions are arrived at through consensus effectively means that Israel can veto Palestinian projects… [also], the PWA is not consulted regarding extractions from the aquifer for Israeli use (settlers or otherwise), which is not in accordance with the governance rules under Article 40. Nor does the Palestinian Authority have the right to access data on Israeli use of water resources, whereas Israel reserves the right for continual access to water resource data in the West Bank… around 150 water and sanitation projects are still pending JWC approval for “technical and security reasons”, while only one new Palestinian well project for the Western aquifer has been approved since 1993. In contrast, Israel is able to construct pipelines to its illegal settlements without going through the mechanism of the JWC. Thus Israel effectively has full control of water resources in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”

The World Bank’s 2009 report confirms the non-consensual reality of the Joint Water Committee’s supposed ‘consensus decision-making’ — “[the] JWC has not fulfilled its role of providing a supportive governance framework for joint resource management and investment… politics and policy issues have limited the number of project approvals…fundamental asymmetries — of power, of capacity, of information — put into question the role of JWC as a “joint” institution…Israel takes unilateral water-related actions outside the JWC… only one third (by value) of projects presented to the JWC 2001-8 have been implemented… (1) the process is in general slow; (2) the rate of rejection of PA projects is high; (3) the PWA has almost never sought to reject Israeli projects (only one has not been approved); and (4) well drilling projects and — until very recently -wastewater projects have had very low rates of approval… in order to solicit approvals on vital emergency water needs, the PA is forced into positions that compromise its basic policy principles. Such an asymmetrical power balance (one party, Israel, has virtually all the power and is not driven by emergencies), together with the observed track record of the JWC, have contributed to a loss of trust and confidence and to very poor outcomes (for Palestinians) that undermine the rationale for the committee as a de facto “joint” approach to water sector management.”

Deeb Abdelghafar, Director of Water Resources for the Palestinian Water Authority, relates how “we submitted our application two years ago to build two new production wells in the northern part of the Jordan Valley, [to supply] water for domestic and agricultural purposes, and we know that they have reviewed it, but up to now we have not gotten any response, and we are not optimistic… we have more than 80 agricultural wells that need to be rehabilitated in Jordan Valley, and we have had these wells in the JWC for more than 4 years, but unfortunately we could not get final approval from Joint Water Committee.”

Even if the Joint Water Committee approves a project, its effective implementation is crippled by the red tape of the Israeli Civil Administration. Abdelghafar continues: “the most difficult step in the process for us is the Civil Administration because there are more than 14 departments, and each department must approve on the project. So we can never get a project through the civil administration, because some departments approve and some do not.” Ayman Rabi, Assistant Director of the Palestinian Hydrology Group for Water and Environmental Resources Development, an NGO working to improve access to water and sanitation services in the Occupied Palestinian territories. echoes Abdelghafar’s frustrations that “there is a big problem now in implementing anything in Area C, and that is one of the major hindrances right now to our work in that area….we have to ask [for a] permit and this generally we do through Palestinian Authority, and then they are applying through the Joint Water Committee… [but] even if the Joint Water Committee approves any intervention or project, the Israeli Civil Administration requests more documentation procedures, the process is longer, they put more conditions for implementation in Area C, so you might end up not implementing any activity because of this long and complicated procedure.” The World Bank report quotes an anonymous donor who reports the same difficulties- “first thing we request is a letter from PWA approving the project. Then we go to the JWC. But then we have to go to the Civil Administration – and there delays of 2-3 years are normal. In fact, we have no positive outcomes for Area C.”

Since nearly every proposal for the construction of water infrastructure in Area C is shut down by the twin juggernauts of the Joint Water Committee and the Israeli Civil Administration, NGOs must focus their efforts, to quote Abdelghafar, on “civil emergency intervention — by delivering small water tankers, by supplying them with water tanks, by constructing rainwater cisterns — it’s emergency humanitarian relief.” While important, this small-scale aid is carried out in lieu of large-scale, long-term projects that would strike at the root of the problem, rather than merely seeking to alleviate its effects. Says the World Bank report, “in the light of the difficulty of implementing major projects, the reasonable response has been short term emergency projects, often small projects with NGOs, and these smaller projects have become a very large part of water sector development… however, the multiplicity of small donors and multiple projects are more difficult to fit within a planning framework… NGOs have a comparative advantage in a grass roots field presence and a certain demand-driven character…[they are] nimble… but are small scale and short term” (p.63).

In the village of Hamsa, near the Hamra checkpoint in the Jordan Valley, Abu Riyad, who has been living in Hamsa with his family for thirty years, must now travel long distances to get water for drinking and irrigation, after two huge water wells constructed for nearby settlements have dried up the springs upon which for generations the community of Hamsa has relied. Says Ma’an’s report ‘Draining Away’: “unconnected to the water network, Abu Riyad must now travel to Ein Shibleh for his water. Nor does the family know the quality of the water and if it has been treated. While he is fortunate not to have to pay for this supply, it costs 200 shekels to transport 10 cubic metres of water. As the water covers all of the family’s needs, from drinking, washing and drinking water for the animals, Abu Riyad must transport this amount every four days. With the price of fuel rising, this means that water represents an increasing financial drain for the family…the community receives little support. While several tanks and water coupons have been donated from local and international NGOs, this is only ever for limited amounts of time, and thus provides only temporary relief.”

Indeed, Abu Riyad is fortunate to receive water for free. Ayman Rabi of the Palestinian Hydrology Group laments that, regarding many of his organization’s aid initiatives, “[the recipients of water] are asked to contribute, unfortunately. Although we do not like this, it is something that has been agreed on by the [Palestinian] Water Authority. They have been asked to contribute by 10 shekels, though we are not happy with this arrangement, for each cubic meter. and then we refill them whenever they ask us to.”

Many organizations, instead of delivering water, deliver water tanks to imperiled communities, so that Bedouin may transport water from filling points. However, by delivering water tanks, instead of connecting communities to water networks, these NGOs, though well-intentioned, often compound the problem by forcing the Bedouin to drive long distances, through a myriad of checkpoints, to filling points in Areas A or B, in order to maintain a constant water supply. The World Bank report decries that “occupation checkpoints and curfews severely limit tanker access to communities… there are 36 fixed checkpoints across the West Bank, including the gates of the Separation Barrier, that seriously affect access of water tankers and maintenance teams to communities…. Given the risks faced by drivers for their physical safety coupled with the longer routes, the price of water through tankers has increased exponentially”.

The case of Abu Riyad illustrates how expensive this practice can become for Bedouin faced with no alternative. According to Fathy Khdirat of Jordan Valley Solidarity, “to use water tankers in this way costs the Bedouin 30 shekels per cubic meter of water, while their neighbors in Areas A or B pay on average between ½ and 3 shekels per cubic meter of water.” The perpetuation of this inequality works in the occupation’s favor, by encouraging Bedouin to move out of Area C into Areas A or B.

In addition, mobilizing short-term emergency relief is much more expensive for the NGOs than would be a project to install permanent pipelines linking the Bedouin to water sources. Fathy Khdirat estimates that a recent $700,000 initiative to accomplish the former could have achieved the latter with 10% of the budget. Between the Joint Water Committee, the Israeli Civil Administration and the IOF, however, the possibility of installing permanent water infrastructure for the Bedouin is practically foreclosed from the beginning, so that aid initiatives are forced to work within the restricting, oppressive parameters of Israeli law. Says the World Bank report, “at best, the PA role is reduced to improving water and sanitation services to Palestinian communities within the constraints laid down…stakeholders recognize the inefficiency and high costs of such fragmented and contingency development but see no alternative.”

The bueraucratic matrix of corruption and control, in which both Israeli and Palestinian political and civil organizations are enmeshed, causes on-the-ground human rights abuses in clear violation of The Right To Water, enshrined in General Comment no. 15 of articles 11 and 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by the United Nations Economic and Social Council in Geneva, in November 2002. The document stipulates that “the right to water contains both freedoms and entitlements. The freedoms include the right to maintain access to existing water supplies necessary for the right to water, and the right to be free from interference… by contrast, the entitlements include the right to a system of water supply and management that provides equality of opportunity for people to enjoy the right to water.” The covenant goes on to list specific water entitlements — the right of “physical accessibility: water, and adequate water facilities and services, must be within safe physical reach for all sections of the population. Sufficient, safe and acceptable water must be accessible… within, or in the immediate vicinity, of each household, educational institution and workplace…”; the right of “economic accessibility: water, and water facilities and services, must be affordable for all. The direct and indirect costs and charges associated with securing water must be affordable…”; and the right of “non-discrimination: water and water facilities and services must be accessible to all, including the most vulnerable or marginalized sections of the population, in law and in fact, without discrimination”.

Ma’an’s report, ‘Draining Away’, clarifies that, in regards to the Right to Water enshrined in this document, that “while this right does not entitle people to unlimited use of free water or to household connection, it does mean that water and sanitation services should be affordable, that water and sanitation facilities should be in the immediate vicinity of the household, and that water should be used in a sustainable manner. This right exists irrespective of an individual’s ethnicity, gender, age, religious or political beliefs… it also stipulates that individuals and communities can participate in, and influence, decision making relating to water and sanitation services on national and local levels.”

Here are some quick facts taken from ‘Draining Away’, which should be measured against the UN-enshrined Right to Water-

In October 2009 Amnesty International noted that “180,000-200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities have no access to running water, and even in towns and villages which are connected to the water network, the taps often run dry.”

According to the WASH monitoring project, the cost of private tankered water in 290 communities in the West Bank has increased between 100-200% for one cubic meter since the start of the intifada.

40% of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley consume less water than the minimum global standard set by the World Health Organization, which is set at 100 liters cubed per day.

56,000 Palestinians in the Jordan Valley consume an average of 37 Million Cubic Meters (MCM) of water per year, as compared to an average of 41 MCM for only 9,400 settlers.

Palestinians are charged more than their counterparts in Israel for water: Mekorot charges Israelis NIS 1.8 per cubic metre, compared to an average of NIS 2.5 per cubic metre for Palestinians.

There is near-universal consensus that there exists in the Jordan Valley a systematic policy of oppression and ethnic cleansing, touching upon not only water but all aspects of life for the 15,000 Bedouin who are unconnected to any water network in the 95% of the Valley designated Area C. Says Deeb Abdelghafar of the Palestinian Water Authority, “the Jordan Valley is a unique area from the Israeli point of view. They are trying to [establish] control over this area, and they are trying to prevent any permanent water infrastructure in order to prevent the people to be there… they don’t want to support the existence of these people, they want to immigrate the people outside of this area.”

Advocates like Fathy Khdirat of Jordan Valley Solidarity, a grassroots movement that works to build infrastructure for the Bedouin of the Valley, are determined to encourage those under occupation to resist the oppression, and remain in their native land. “I spent all my life under the Occupation,” insists Fathy, “and I want to see a better future for my children. I am from there, and I will not shut up.”

Through the museum, community projects, fairs, workshops and media, CEDICAM educates the public and campesinos, or small scale farmers, about the history of the Mixteca’s land, belief systems, traditions, architecture and agriculture and how they can help remedy current problems. They promote the use of traditional and appropriate technologies (sustainable and affordable tech) such as reforestation, development of corn seeds through selective breeding, sustainable water and soil preservation techniques, green composting, and milpas, an organic agricultural system that produces large yields and mixes a variety of crops, usually including maize (corn), beans and squash. CEDICAM also works with groups such as Witness for Peace to share knowledge with visitors that can benefit communities in other parts of the world.

For 10 days in September I was a member of one of the delegations to Oaxaca organized by Witness for Peace (WfP). Our itinerary was loaded with experiences like our meeting at CEDICAM, focusing on global trade, food sovereignty, migration, indigenous rights and agro-ecology (the application of ecological principles to agricultural techniques). WfP is an international grassroots organization founded in 1983 in response to U.S. Government-supported violence in Nicaragua perpetrated by Contra soldiers. They advocate peace, justice and sustainable economies by changing harmful U.S. Government and corporate policies. The WfP Oaxaca office opened in the Summer of 2006. During this period state violence against striking teachers seeking living wages and improved working conditions led to many deaths and human rights abuses.

Carlin Christy and Tony Macias, our delegation’s WfP guides and interpreters, also shared a wealth of information about the histories of Mexico, WfP and corporate globalization as well as practical skills to improve our group’s cohesion and functionality such as anti-oppressive practice and consensus decision making. All of the delegates also had much knowledge and a diversity of experience to contribute to these discussions and to our conversations with Oaxacan farmers and activists.

As explained by Eleazar, Mixteca means “place of clouds” because long ago it was an environment with regular rainfall and lush vegetation. Today it’s one of the poorest regions in Mexico and one of the most eroded areas in the world. The importation of goats, sheep, pigs and construction methods by the Spanish led to mass deforestation and soil erosion. More recently, some farmers use chemical fertilizers, pesticides and machinery that damages and compacts soil leading to increased crop failures, water runoff and worsened erosion. Besides the ecological damage, a devastated local economy made worse by unjust free trade policies has forced many young farmers to emigrate. Eleazar and CEDICAM’s goal is to provide the community with hopeful alternatives to preserve the land and natural resources so that people don’t have to leave for the U.S. and elsewhere to support themselves and their families.

Before our arrival at CEDICAM we met with a variety of allied groups based in Oaxaca doing equally important and beneficial work on related issues but with differences in focus and approach. The first organization we visited was an NGO called Services for an Alternative Education (EDUCA). According to Miguel Angel Vasquez de la Rosa, a founding member of EDUCA, their focus is on two main goals, democratization of Oaxacan communities and the defense of rights of disenfranchised Oaxacans. One of their projects is “Our Rights Are Born From Our Roots” a campaign to train and organize communities through forums and media on the issue of rights; namely, self-determination, rights to land and resources, political rights of women and rights to education.

Another project, “The Initiative for Peace and Justice”, is a partnership with allied groups to create a truth commission for state-sanctioned crimes against activists. Miguel also shared recent data about Oaxaca State: its population is about 3.8 million people, it has over 500 municipalities, 16 indigenous groups and 8 major geographical regions. It’s the second poorest Mexican state after Chiapas with high child malnutrition and maternal death rates and approximately 76% living in poverty. The majority of work in Oaxaca is connected to agriculture and many farmers lost their livelihoods after the implementation of NAFTA in the 90s. He estimates that today about 60% of youth entering the job market are unemployed, forcing many to emigrate or enter the black market.

The next morning we visited Zaira de la Rosa Jiminez, Martha Miranda and Pete Noll of Puente a la Salud Comunitaria, a group promoting food sovereignty through cultivation and distribution of amaranto, or amaranth crops. Amaranth is a plant related to quinoa and is indigenous to Asia and Mesoamerica (in fact, it is one of Mesoamerica’s oldest crops). Puente views amaranth as an ideal crop to help overcome the problem of malnutrition. It’s higher in protein than rice, wheat and corn, contains more fiber and less carbohydrates and is gluten-free. Amaranth is a practical and affordable crop because it’s highly drought-resistant, easily harvested, grows quickly and is easy to cook. After having had a chance to try amaranth in the forms of breakfast cereals, snack bars, and drinks, I would add that it’s also delicious.

That afternoon we met with farmers in the milpa system where the amaranth plants are grown with corn, zucchini, and pata de leon, a type of red flower used in Day of the Dead celebrations. At the end of the day we travelled to the library in Mazaltepec to meet with town authorities, campesinos, mothers, and their families. We discussed our respective backgrounds and their struggles as a community including protecting crops from GMOs, inability to compete with cheap subsidized corn from the U.S., and how that has contributed to economic problems forcing people in the community to emigrate.

Following Puente, we joined a large contingent from Red Autonoma para la Soberania Alimentaria (RASA), an autonomous network of people working for food sovereignty through training workshops, urban gardening and sharing of knowledge and resources. Representatives including Aerin Dunford, Lydia Zarate Ubieta and Jorge Narvaes Perez showed us some of the current projects of RASA members such as mushroom cultivation, a rooftop garden, a cornfield and apricot orchard on the city outskirts, and even invited us into the home of some of the RASA members where we had a feast featuring some of the best tortillas and oyster mushrooms I’ve ever tasted.

From there we returned to the central district of Oaxaca City where we met with Wilfred Mendoza, a member of the board of directors of the Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juarez, Oaxaca (UNOSJO). They’re a prominent social organization which promotes sustainable economies, self-determination and respect for indigenous culture through media, technical assistance, fairs, educational workshops and conflict resolution for rural landowners. Wilfred sees agro-ecology as an ancient technology whose resurgence is essential for food sovereignty and a fundamental part of defending indigenous rights, a view shared by Beatriz Salinas and Esperanza Pilar Chagoya Minguer of the Center for Indigenous Rights Flor y Canto, whom we visited the next day.

Flor y Canto is a human rights center that promotes indigenous rights with a focus on women’s empowerment and the protection of natural resources through education, denouncement of rights violations, legal defense, and support of allied groups such as the People’s Committee for the Defense of Water. They see an extreme polarity between indigenous cultures that care for the earth and a capitalist system that commodifies and destroys the earth. Many laws are dictated by money and capital so one of Flor y Canto’s roles is to create spaces where solidarity and humanity are respected. By helping indigenous communities obtain water through well construction projects and legal defense of water rights, they’re also addressing the problem of emigration. The national water commission ConAgua charges for water at price levels beyond what many campesinos can afford. During drought years such as in 2006, waves of migrations occurred because farmers couldn’t access enough water to irrigate crops.

After our delegation’s meeting with CEDICAM, we travelled further out to the countryside to San Pedro Coxcaltepec where we had an opportunity to stay with a local family of subsistence farmers dealing with many of the issues we learned about throughout the previous week. While there we had an opportunity to speak to town elders, learn about different aspects of the local culture, learn more about the work involved in managing a milpa, as well as participate in the work by shoveling and mixing green compost. This was an especially valuable segment of the delegation because it gave us a glimpse into the daily experience of Oaxacan campesinos, revealed a sense of the beauty and challenges of life in the Mixteca, and gave us time to bond with the family. It’s one thing to read about struggles of farmers or even hear about them through allied advocacy groups, but to meet campesinos who express their concerns directly while sharing their hospitality (as we also did with Puente and RASA) is an empathic experience creating a personal connection to the issues we came to Oaxaca to learn about. This will undoubtedly inspire all of us in the delegation to make use of the knowledge passed on to us in our own lives and to share it with others. Given the current political and economic situation in America and most of the world, strategies for food sovereignty, education and community organizing will be increasingly important for all of us.

Two weeks after returning from the delegation I was at the Occupy Seattle demonstration where I had a chance encounter with a protester attending the rally because he was “tired of getting screwed by government.” I told him I was tired of everyone getting screwed by transnational corporations and financial institutions backed up by corrupt governments. He went on to say “Obama cares more about Mexicans than the American people,” to which I replied “I recently got back from Mexico where I heard firsthand accounts of how our government and Wall Street harms Mexican workers as much as American workers if not more. They wouldn’t need to migrate if they could support their families back home.” Rather than argue, he muttered “Well, they’ve been screwing all of us in the 99%…” before wandering back into the crowd, which wasn’t a bad outcome but sort of a letdown. I was ready to help him understand in greater detail how and why immigration and mass unemployment are both symptoms of neo-liberal policies at the core of economic crises in America, Mexico and around the world. It’s possible he simply didn’t feel like debating, but perhaps someone with a common but erroneous view that Mexicans (presumably immigrants) are a source of their problems was, in fact, with a few words and widened context, able to accept that they’re as much victims of an unjust system as ourselves.

Amidst the masses in Westlake Park, consisting of a diversity of ages, ethnicities, and socio-economic backgrounds, I visualized the Occupation Movement strengthening their solidarity, not only within separate communities but with the global 99% uniting against the wealthiest 1% who benefit most from the current system and are the true source of the most pressing social-economic-environmental problems of our time. If this were to happen we might stand a chance to ensure a better world for future generations. La lucha sigue! (The struggle continues!)

The amount of energy and water  required to make the oil useable, not to mention burning the oil itself, will put so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that internationally renowned NASA climate scientist James Hansen has said that extracting and refining the oil means it’s “essentially game over” in the global battle to avoid catastrophic climate change.  The question needs to be asked: how did we get from a president who once promised real action on climate change to a man who is complicit in the environmental crime of the century?  And having taken on that question, how should environmentalists respond?

Extracting oil from tar sands has only become economical as we have approached the End of the Age of Easy Oil and the price has shot above $100/barrel.  There’s plenty more out there but it’s dirty, dangerous, hard to extract and hence ripe for environmental calamities such as last year’s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  This explains not only the development of Canadian tar sands, which require mining two tons of tar sands to obtain a single barrel of oil, as Shell, Exxon-Mobil and that paragon of environmental responsibility, BP, are all in on the action, but also underpins the hunt for oil in deep-water deposits off-shore and in the new oil frontier of the Arctic as well as shale gas extraction from hydrofracking.

Furthermore, it brings sharply into focus the reality that under capitalism, particularly its unregulated neoliberal variant, massive transnational oil companies will not hesitate to bolster their bottom lines and appease their shareholders before any concern about the stability of the biosphere filters through into corporate head offices.

One tar sands mine in Alberta has excavated more rock and soil than was required to build the Great Pyramid at Cheops, the Great Wall of China, the Suez Canal and the world’s 10 largest dams combined.  Mining and processing is enough to heat three million homes and such is the electricity demand, it’s helping to fuel the requirement to build another environmental and health menace: more nuclear power stations.   Water use is 349 million cubic meters annually; water that becomes so heavily contaminated that it can’t be put back in the rivers it’s bleeding dry.  It must be kept sequestered in vast lakes of highly toxic effluent that already cover 50 square kilometers and are large enough to be seen from space.  The negative impacts on indigenous land and culture, wildlife, forests, water, air and downstream pollution run on and on.

Considering some of the facts of tar sands mining, and the appalling environmental damage it will cause, this is surely an area where one would expect democratically-elected governments to step in and say: we must find an alternative.  Yet, it seems almost certain that President Obama, who has the authority to stop the pipeline without recourse to Congress, will give the green light to further expansion as Canada seeks an export market to justify further production expansion.  The Keystone XL project, a 1,700 mile pipeline that will be able to carry 700,000 barrels a day from Canada all the way down to the refineries in Texas, cutting through multiple states and risking the contamination of such essential fresh water sources as the Ogallala aquifer is essential to Canadian plans for tar sands development.

Yet we know from Wikileaks that the State Department has been in collusion with TransCanada, the pipeline company, to ensure favorable press and hired a state dept official formerly with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign team to guarantee that her new department won’t look too closely at the negative environmental implications.   A company who counts TransCanada as one of their major clients, Cardno Entrix, was hired by the State Department to carry out the environmental assessment.

Desperate to retain their members’ dues base and taking a nationalist and short-term position with regard to “American jobs”, the AFL-CIO and the Teamsters union, rather than actively campaigning for jobs with a real future such as those in an expanded renewable energy sector, energy conservation and infrastructure development are backing the pipeline.

Yes, we certainly need jobs, but why do we only ever get offered jobs when it’s in the interests of the fossil fuel corporations or the banks and we have to trade them off for environmental stability?  Or when the government wants young American’s to go and fight and kill other young people in far off lands?  What about the millions of jobs that could be created by manufacturing a clean energy economy, with a new energy grid, retrofitting buildings across the country for energy conservation and in building an updated and efficient sanitation system?  Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of teachers we’d need to educate such a workforce.  The bankers foreclosed on our homes and the capitalists and politicians that serve them seem intent on foreclosing on the planet.

Organized by Bill McKibben of 350.org, over 1,000 people were arrested outside the White House this summer to pressure Obama into refusing to sign off on the pipeline project.  While this was a highly commendable and impressive action, it was also rather confusing as McKibben urged activists not to give up on Obama.  Despite more than two years of unremitting disappointment on environmental questions (and much else) activists were encouraged to wear their 2008 Obama campaign buttons at the protests and on their way to jail.  It was confusing because you can’t protest someone you simultaneously support and hope to build a robust and uncompromising movement for change in the teeth of corporate malfeasance and lobbying power.  Either you protest and create a large enough oppositional movement that forces a rethink of government policy, as has happened in Germany with the German government’s u-turn on nuclear power, or you weaken the movement and bamboozle your supporters with misplaced calls for loyal protest actions to get our supposed friend in the White House on the right track.

McKibben has called Obama’s upcoming decision a “watershed moment” for his presidency and environmentalists who previously enthusiastically campaigned for him have vowed to sit out his 2012 re-election campaign if he doesn’t follow through and refuse to authorize the project.  I hope they do.

In a statement that underscores the cynicism with which the Democratic Party take their most enthusiastic supporters, the New York Times quoted democratic pollster Mark Mellman: “Whatever qualms or questions they may have about this policy or that policy, at the end of the day the one thing they’re absolutely certain of — they’re going to hate these Republican candidates…So I’m not honestly all that worried about a solid or enthusiastic base.”  In other words, the Democrats will simply run a negative campaign that only promises to be not quite as bad as the Republicans.  Meanwhile, not quite as bad as the Republicans will fry the planet just as surely as if the Republicans had been in charge of the furnaces.

So this is a watershed moment not just for Obama, but also for McKibben and the mainstream environmental movement.  Only a complete and irrevocable break with the Democratic Party will get us anywhere.  In several articles written over the lifetime of the Obama presidency, including when he had super-majorities in both houses of Congress and could have acted with purpose on environmental questions, I have argued that, despite the rhetoric, Obama’s default position would always be to side with the corporations against a rational and forward-thinking environmental program.  One that would protect health, create jobs and give us a chance of avoiding global climate meltdown.  Obama has yet to provide any evidence that my analysis is incorrect.

In a coffin that should really have received its last nail some time ago, it is highly likely that he will further confirm my analysis with his commitment to the pipeline project.  The question then will be, will the mainstream environmental organizations such as 350.org follow through, ditch the Democratic Party, make good on their promise not to campaign for an Obama second term, and help build the only thing that will save us: the construction of a broad-based but completely independent movement for real social and ecological change.

Paradoxically, the only force that might prevent President Obama from burning all his bridges to the environmental movement is Occupy Wall Street, which has already sharply moved the political narrative to the left in the United States precisely because it is independent of the two-party corporate duopoly that masquerades as democratic political choice.  Yet, if OWS continues to grow and the Democratic Party are forced to respond by tacking to the left on environmental and social issues so as not to lose every last shred of liberal credibility, it further serves to underline my argument that we will only win real change when we categorically refuse to get taken for a ride by the Democratic chariot that is hitched so firmly to the corporate horse.

United Nations Declaration 181, which partitioned Palestine, thrust the Palestinians into an ongoing crisis, a subset of the conflict that serves as a violent testimony to its consequences. As their agony recedes from international conscience, the fearful and overriding conflict emerges – one masked by valid attention to the fate of the Palestinians – that between Israel and the Arab world, and now spreading to other parts of the Muslim world – add Iran and Turkey. This larger conflict has many roots, and each uncompromised root is sufficient to cause mass destruction to the Middle East and neighboring regions.

It is doubtful the Arab world will ever accept the entrance of a European styled nation into a major position in the Middle East. It is doubtful the presently constituted Israel will modify its preferences – aligning itself with the western nations and not integrating into the Middle East world. An Arab Spring, which has brought the Muslim Brotherhood to credible invocation in Egypt and Libya, and allowed those of similar characteristics to gain acceptance and popularity, the Ennahda Islamic Party in Tunisia, now considered Tunisia’s strongest political force, and the Sahwa, who are actually being accepted as the largest and best organized non-state group in Saudi Arabia, heighten these insinuations. On the other hand, Israel has moved from a secular managed and somewhat tolerant nation to a more religious dominated and more intolerant nation. Israel’s inflexibility combined with its military power easily dominated the Palestinian Fatah flexibility and lack of military power. Clash replaces dominion in a changing Arab region that portrays inflexibility and renewed power.

The real conflict had origins in 1905, when Naguib Azoury, an Ottoman official aroused Arab nationalism with a proclamation: “Two important phenomena … are emerging at this moment in Asiatic Turkey. They are the awakening of the Arab nation and the latent effort of the Jews to reconstitute on a very large scale the ancient kingdom of Israel…. [They] are destined to fight each other continually until one of them wins.”

A large influx of uninvited Europeans crossing the Mediterranean Sea, violating the natural demarcation between the Middle East and European world, creating permanent settlements and forcing out the local peoples, jarred the Arab psyche, just as an influx of uninvited Europeans crossing the Atlantic Ocean, violating the natural demarcation between America and Europe, creating colonies in the “New World” and forcing out the Indigenous peoples.

From an Arab perspective, the real conflict exploded when a relatively small number of European persons who had a need for locating themselves in the British Mandate, and could have located elsewhere in a safer and more habitable area, and a moderate number of European persons with self-dictated and subjective wants to relocate to the Mandate, replaced the needs of magnitudes greater number of Arab people who had an irrevocable bond with the land they had tilled for generations and ignored the wants of tens of millions of Arab peoples who rejected any European incursion into their territory.

The established conflict between a western supported Israel and the Arab world continued to generate reasons for pursing the conflict.

After the 1948 war, Arab nations had a new imposed role – contain and support the refugees – which they did, and as best they could without assuming Israel’s responsibility and inheriting Israel’s problem. Despite the impoverished state of all Arab nations in the mid-twentieth century, these nations provided land and facilities for international agencies to assist the Palestinian refugees. After a period of time, Jordan granted citizenship to the refugees, Syria gave them almost full citizenship, Iraq supported them with special privileges, Libya housed many for decades, and the wealthier Arab nations gave them education and employment. Only Lebanon reacted with an excessive hostility, maintained the Palestinians in their midst in refugee camps and denied them economic and social benefits appreciated by Lebanon citizens.

Israel heralded its efforts to assist and welcome the Jewish refugees (Mizrahim) from Arab nations. A better description is that Israel encouraged the emigration at a measured pace, used the new immigrants to immediately inhabit homes of Palestinians left vacant by those who moved several kilometers in order to escape hostilities, and treated the Mizrahim with racism and prejudice.

The mass immigration of Mizrahi Jews was received by Ashkenazi old-timers with mixed feelings. They thought that any immigrant was an asset to the new Jewish state, but they had neither expected nor wanted so many Mizrahi immigrants. The marginality of Mizrahim in the Yishuv was a precedent that augured ill for the new immigrants. The immense volume of immigration (the population doubled during 1948- 52) caused food and housing shortages, unemployment, and the near collapse of state services. The old-timers regarded the appearance and customs of the Mizrahi newcomers as strange and inferior and soon became alarmed by the dangers of Mizrahi immigration to the new Jewish society and state – demographic swamping, cultural erosion, and breakdown of democracy. The precious Zionist project that had been constructed for over fifty years was in jeopardy. These widespread fears prompted the government to practice the above-mentioned policy of selective immigration. Yet, the alleviation of the old-timers’ apprehensions required preventing the new Mizrahi immigrants from becoming a major force in Israeli society in order to insure the old-timers’ continued control of state and society.¹

If Israel treated its Arab Jews as inferiors, how did the Arabs expect Israel to treat Arab non-Jews? Instead of the western world demanding that Israel permit the return of the Palestinian refugees to their rightful homes, its apparently co-opted media circulated the bizarre assertions that the Arab nations were responsible for creating the refugee problem and were not being responsive to the needs of their Arab brethren. The circulation of these preposterous assertions throughout the American media and their acceptance by the American people must have angered the Arab populations.

Israel’s use of the Palestinian crisis for territorial expansion fueled the conflict.

Regardless of damage to the Palestinian community, due to Israel’s actions and policies, Israel explained everything with the word security.

Build settlements on West Bank hilltops – security
Seize Palestinian agricultural lands for military use – security
Divert West Bank water supply to settlers – security
Build roads that bypass Arab communities – security
Block Arab roads – security
Build a wall that passes through Palestinian lands – security
Take over the entire Jordan valley – security
Take over homes nightly for the army – security
Move troops into villages, kill people and take others to prison without legal proof for the actions – security
Destroy Palestinian wells, factories, olive fields – lapse of security

Similar to reversing responsibility for the Palestinian refugees, the western world and media reversed the use of the Palestinian crisis.

Disregarding the obvious, that Israel used any pretext for seizing Palestinian lands, expanding territory, rallying its people, and subduing Palestinian reaction, and not realizing the sub-text, that the Middle East crisis is only a seized upon opportunity for Israel to accomplish its territorial objectives, American media continually portrayed the Arab nations as blaming the crisis for faults in their economic and social fabrics. The wars, refugees, border attacks, loss of lands, and financial costs arising from the Middle East conflict have affected several Arab nations, but is there any record of Arab leaders cynically exploiting the plight of the Palestinians to excuse internal problems? Certainly not since the Egyptian and Jordanian treaties with Israel. What documented evidence proves otherwise?

Without reconciling the initial and highly volatile conflicts with the Arab world, Israel enlarges the battlefield with its attempt to permanently annex all of East Jerusalem.

Annexing all of East Jerusalem into the Israel nation essentially surrounds the ‘old city’ and endangers Muslim control of the Muslim Haram-al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) with its Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosques. This tactic expands the conflict from an Israel-Arab conflict to an Israel-Muslim conflict, with Iran prominent in objections to Israel’s actions.

Historical and religious perspectives support the Muslim attitude towards Jerusalem. From 637 AD until Israel conquered all of Jerusalem in the contemporary year of 1967, Muslims, of various nationalities, ruled and worshipped in Jerusalem. The Muslims left significant testimonials and structures that display their control. Absolute Hebrew control dates back to ancient history, to the Hasmoneans who ruled Judea and surrounding regions for only the 25 years between 140 and 116 B.C.E. Previous centuries had some Hebrew kings, but sketchy control. David and Solomon, two of the Biblical kings, have still not passed from Bible to authentic history. The Jews’ attachment to Jerusalem is principally spiritual and more supported by words than by concrete structures. Except for the Western Wall, which is only a reflection of spirituality, some houses and tombs, there are no significant structures in Jerusalem that attach modern Israel to ancient Israel. The Israeli government has been trying to discover attachments by characterizing excavations in unproven terms, such as naming a hill outside of the ‘old city walls,’ which contains structures from the tenth century B.C., the City of David, despite no evidence of any King David having resided on the premises.

A Jerusalem municipality twenty year plan increases green space, which is a euphemism for preventing Palestinian construction of homes and destroying those in the intended park zone, tourist complexes, and new housing for Palestinians in areas away from the historic sections, another euphemism for removing any traces of Arab history. A New York Times article relates that “The focus is clearly on Jewish heritage, however. In the larger government plan, much of the presentation is being shaped by a group with a right-wing Zionist approach, emphasizing ancient Jewish religion and history, even near mostly Palestinian neighborhoods.”²

In a past decade, when he fully controlled his leadership position, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, in an interview with the Cairo weekly tabloid, Rose El-Youssef, warned: “…a compromise over Jerusalem would lead to uncontrollable violence in the Middle East…no Arab or Muslim can relinquish rights to East Jerusalem and its holy sites.” He must know.
Behind every conflict is a hidden agenda, who controls the economic resources. In this case the resource is water.

IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, analyzed the situation:

Israel, Jordan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) all fall well below the internationally accepted threshold of 1,000 cubic metres of water per person per year (cmwpy). According to the IISD, Israel has natural renewable water resources of 265 cmwpy, Jordan 169, and OPT just 90. Only Lebanon and Syria have water surpluses, with Lebanon having a potential of 1,220 cmwpy and Syria 1,541.

The absence of hydro-diplomacy reflects conflict in the region. In 1965, Syria and Lebanon began the construction of channels to divert the Banias and Hasbani, preventing the rivers flowing into Israel. The Israelis attacked the diversion works, the first in a series of moves that led to a regional war two years later. In 2002, when the Lebanese constructed a pipeline on the River Wazzani intended to supply households in southern Lebanon with water, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared the action a causus belli. In the July War of 2006, Israeli warplanes targeted southern Lebanon’s water network. Bassam Jaber, a water expert at Lebanon’s Ministry of Energy and Water, argues the Shebaa is critical to Israel’s water needs, “especially because fresh water is critical when all sources within Israel are salty. The flows from the area help to regulate the saltiness of Lake Tiberius”. And it is not just the direct overland flow that the Shebaa provides Israel. According to the Lebanese Water Ministry’s Comair, 30-40 percent of the River Dan’s water flows into it through underground supplies originating in the Shebaa. “Israel is worried that if Lebanon gains control of the Shebaa, it can then control the flow to the Dan River,” said Comair.³)

Optimists predict the water shortages will bring consultation and not confrontation. A basic need to survive will force the involved Middle East nations to settle their differences and cooperate. Except for antiquated agreements between Israel and Jordan and Israel and The Palestinian Authority, this is not happening.

The problems and predictions:

Despite the 1994 Israeli-Jordanian Treaty – which established comprehensive guidelines regulating the distribution, preservation and availability of water from the Jordan and Yarmouk Rivers – conflicts over water have risen to the forefront of relations between the two countries. Jordan, fed only by underground sources and the Jordan River, has experienced an escalating water deficit – one that is expected to reach 250 million cubic meters (nearly 1/3rd of current annual consumption) by 2010. At the same time, Israel – currently utilizing almost all available water from its National Water System (consisting of the West Bank Mountain Aquifer, the Coastal Aquifer and the Lake Kinneret Basin) – has been forced to resort to overexploitation of available resources for expanding agricultural and industrial ventures.

A breakdown of relations between Jordan and Israel could lead to water grabs by either side. Plagued by escalating populations that are stretching water availability beyond sustainable levels, Jordan has placed increased value on its ‘hydraulic imperative,’ a move that has created growing Israeli fears of a Hashemite grab of resources. For its part, Israel, facing reductions of internal water sources as a result of expanding Palestinian populations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, may soon eye the Jordan and Yarmouk Rivers as important enough to risk conflict over.⁴

Note that Lebanon and Syria have water surpluses, giving them an advantage in any negotiations with Israel. Except for soliciting Israel with offers that paralyze Israel and compromise its military dominance, why would Lebanon or Syria negotiate with Israel? With that realization, if Israel reaches a route to an empty tap, will it seek a military option to quench its thirst?

Looming in the near future are other confrontations. The discoveries of gas off the coasts of several Mediterranean nations promise financial dividends to these nations, and promise disputes of who owns and who can sign treaties for the gas.

A U.S. Geological Survey estimated that the Levant Basin Province, encompassing parts of Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Cyprus, could contain as much as 122 trillion cu. ft. of gas and 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Possible disputes: (1) The maritime border between Israel and Lebanon is a source of friction. (2) Agreements made by Israel with Cyprus without Turkish approval will provoke the Turks. (3) An underlying feeling has the Arab world being cheated again; the gas deposits belong to the displaced Palestinians, who once again observe how a western world decision deprived them of their livelihood and security.

The Palestinian crisis is concluding, and not with a beneficial conclusion for the Palestinians. From the embers of that crisis arises the greater conflict. The closer the Arab nations get to achieving nationalist aspirations and political acceptance of its Muslim Brotherhoods, the more intense becomes their conflict with Israel. That trend has happened, and with it the conflict’s trajectory becomes predictable.

1. The Journal of Israeli History, 27(1), March 2008, 1-27. The mass immigrations to Israel: A comparison of the failure of the Mizrahi immigrants of the 1950s with the success of the Russian immigrants of the 1990s, Sammy Smooha.
2. “Parks Fortify Israel’s Claim to Jerusalem,” by Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kerschner, May 9, 2009.
3. Analysis: Shebaa Farms key to Levant hydro-diplomacy, Beirut, 10 September 2009 (IRIN
4. Ilan Berman and Paul Michael Wihbey, The New Water Politics of the Middle East, Strategic Review, Summer 1999.

Ours is a truly complex world — with interlocking systems of finance and debt, globalized supply chains for commodities and products, highly specialized social roles and professions, and multiple technologies that tightly interface with and depend upon one another. For people living in modern societies, there is virtually no escape from dependency — technology dependency, food dependency, oil dependency — you name it. What’s more, we actively participate in maintaining and expanding social systems that circumscribe our potential. These systems limit our autonomy, our choices, our development, and our authentic engagement with others and the world.

So what is this dependency that is enforced upon us, and who is doing the enforcing?

Let’s start with the first part of the question. At the heart of the issue is the fact that huge numbers of us globally no longer have direct access to the earth’s productive capacities in ways that would allow us to meet our essential needs in localized, self governed ways as families and communities. We don’t have the land and the water to grow our own food, and if we do, we probably don’t have the knowledge to earn our entire living directly from the land. Virtually all of us are heavily dependent on earning wages as a means to provide ourselves and our loved ones with what we need to live.

We also can’t fix most of the machines upon which we rely. We need computers to build the computers that we use at work and in our day-to-day lives. We require the services of lawyers who defend our legal interests and speak for us amid the complex web of laws that surround our business relationships, our physical and spiritual unions — and the dissolution of these unions.

We need specialists of all kinds to do complex work for us, and many of us have undergone extensive training in order to perform highly complex work for others. While learning and doing this complex work, we often don’t have time to care for our own children, let alone grow gardens and care for farm animals.

But, you might ask, haven’t people always depended on one another? Yes, of course. In fact, our social nature has been an essential factor in our ability to live in diverse, challenging environments, and most of us would agree that relationships with those we count on are at the heart of the joy of being human through love and friendship.

And, you might ask, doesn’t our ability to specialize form a foundation for technological advancement? Absolutely. But as we all know, technological advancement isn’t an unqualified good. It has its costs. We all can think of some of these costs to our health, to nature, and to our relationships.

The point I am making is that most of us are almost entirely dependent on the money system for our very survival, and this dependence has proven to be extremely profitable for industries of all kinds.

Take the food industry for example. If you can, through economic and land policy, effectively remove vast numbers of money-poor but mostly self-sufficient subsistence farmers from the land and make them dependent upon purchased food — even if their purchases are small on an individual basis — the sum of these millions of new food consumers presents a huge opportunity for money making in agribusiness. Similarly, if you can privatize and monopolize the water supply and force everyone including the poor to purchase their water — even if each pays very little — again, you’ve created a huge money making opportunity for water services corporations.

Dependency feeds the money-based economic system. Self-sufficiency does not. Therefore, creating dependency quite literally pays — at least for some — and those in a position to create money making opportunities by enforcing dependency use their economic and political influence to do so. Their actions dispossess vast numbers of people worldwide and simultaneously concentrate global wealth and power. Here we also see part of the answer to the question of who is enforcing dependency.

Debt as Enforced Dependency

Debt also enforces subservience and dependence. Anyone who has struggled to service credit card debt or make a regular car or house payment knows this. When you’re in debt, your time is not your own. You must sell your time in the wage marketplace so that you can service your debts. Debt, in fact, is one of the foremost mechanisms for enforcing the dependency of both individuals and entire nations.

Debt is also the very currency of our economic system. The money that we struggle to earn comes into existence through debt. Commercial banks create money out of nothing when they credit the account of an individual or business with borrowed money. Only a small portion of the lent money came to the bank through deposits. Without debt, money would not exist in its current form. And so, as we create the substance that sustains us in the globalized, industrial world, we simultaneously create the conditions for our own enslavement. It’s important to understand, though, that money can be created in other ways besides through debt. That just isn’t done now in the current economic system. Having the power to create money out of nothing and the right to confiscate real property (collateral) in the case of a debt default gives banks an incredible amount of power in modern economies and societies.

In taking out a loan, a business, an individual, or a nation also expresses faith in a growing economy — more products and services sold to more people at prices that allow repayment of the debt plus the interest incurred. This faith has been well placed in many cases in a world with plenty of energy in the form of fossil fuels, but global oil supplies appear to have peaked, and fossil fueled economic growth is coming to an end.

For many nations in the Global South, however, due to a combination of factors, their bets on future economic growth didn’t work out so well with regard to repayment of their external debts. Globally, debt has enforced the subservience of economically and politically weak nations to relatively powerful industrialized nations, foremost among these being the United States, the world’s only remaining superpower.

One problem debtor nations in the Global South face is that their debts are often dollar-denominated. They can’t be repaid in their national currency, so in order to repay, debtor nations must export raw materials and other products to earn the dollars needed to service their debts.

Furthermore, following the oil price shocks in the 1970s and much as a result of the declining value of the dollar at that same time, interest rates were raised sharply in the United States. A global recession ensued, and the adjustable rate loans of debtor nations in the Global South ratcheted up sharply, precipitating a debt crisis.

As a result of the defaults, the International Monetary Fund required structural adjustment programs (SAPs) as a condition for the reorganization of external debt in the Global South. The austerity measures and free trade regimes of SAPs tended to open up domestic markets to outside competition. Banks, farms, businesses of all kinds often found that they could not survive in steep competition with large and sophisticated global corporations, and many folded. Furthermore, taxes that might have been collected from domestic businesses were lost as the profits of global corporations were repatriated abroad.

Furthermore, as part of an SAP, a country was usually required by the IMF to raise its domestic interest rates far above those of banks located in more stable economies. This meant that people trying to start businesses, purchase homes, or borrow money for any other purpose within their own nations in the Global South were placed at a distinct disadvantage to those able to borrow money elsewhere in order to bring their business into a new market. Global corporations found great money making opportunities in these debt-ridden countries. They could expand their global market share while domestic economies faltered.

To make matters even worse for the Global South, they have to deal with the petrodollar standard. Most people in the U.S. know nothing about this standard, but it has a huge effect globally. Every individual, company, or nation wanting to purchase oil from OPEC must do so using U.S. dollars. This standard heightens demand for the dollar and, therefore, supports its value. It also means that all nations who import oil from OPEC nations must export commodities and products to the U.S. in order to obtain the dollars needed for these purchases.

SAPs and the petrodollar standard virtually ensure that nations in the Global South will export their natural wealth in the form of trees, minerals, agricultural products, and more. It’s basically colonialism all over again, but without the need for dominant nations to plant any flags.

Recognizing Enforced Dependency: A Starting Point for a Better Future

Those of us in the industrialized world, in many cases, would rather not know the extent to which we, too, have been colonized. We want to feel like our future is bright and we’re in charge of our own destiny. And we’ve assimilated cultural myths that support this notion into the very fiber of our being. One such myth is the notion of progress — the idea that we in industrialized societies have more choices and more opportunities than people of any other civilization or “primitive” society, past or present. If this story is true, it follows that we have little to complain about.

We’re also told that the cream always rises to the top, an explanation of the world as we experience it that diffuses resistance to hierarchical control in schools, the workplace, political structures — everywhere. This myth also provides a convenient explanation for the relative dominance of industrialized countries in the world economy and the inability of the Global South to solve its vast social problems.

We might be more comfortable, in a sense, limiting our vision to internalized myths. Seeing past these myths requires us to apply our energies to learning about systemic biases built into the global economy. It also requires us to develop empathy for others caught in the webs of global economic and political structures. Perhaps the part that is most difficult, though, is that this project requires a willingness to critique oneself and one’s culture — and a healthy measure of humility.

But I believe learning to recognize enforced dependency as an organizing principle in the modern, globalized world is well worth it because this knowledge truly is power. And I think most of us would agree that we need the power to make big changes. Understanding enforced dependency is a powerful starting point for a new clear vision that can see through cultural myths and the mystification of manipulators who benefit from all of us quietly playing their game of business as usual.

Recognizing how we and others have been colonized within the globalized world helps us see behind the divide-and-conquer strategies of many leaders, strategies that divert our attention to casting blame on other victims of systemic problems instead of paying attention to the systemic problems themselves. Knowing that forces beyond our control have left millions with very limited choices in attempting to better their lives provides fertile ground in which to cultivate empathy and solidarity rather than hatred and blame as we move through difficult times that promise to prove increasingly challenging as climate change, fossil fuel depletion, and other crises converge in often mutually reinforcing ways. This knowledge can help us build solidarity among all of those whose positions are slipping dangerously toward poverty and powerlessness as the global economic crisis deepens.

In a truly globalized world like the one in which we live, there really is nowhere to run or hide that will allow us to escape all of the ravages of rapidly converging crises. And so, we must face each other. In crisis, will we face each other as enemies or as partners? I hope it will be increasingly as partners. And if we are to be partners, we need to know each other and our respective histories.

That’s where learning about how and why dependency is enforced on diverse people globally comes into play. The specific manifestations vary regarding how people worldwide experience enforced dependency, but understanding the organizing principles of this phenomenon that affect us all allows us to see how our individual stories are living variations on a theme.

Breaking Free from Enforced Dependency

The global economy upon which most of us depend for our very survival isn’t sustainable. We simply can’t maintain a debt-and-interest-based money system that requires infinite growth within the bounds of a limited Earth.

So who is this system of enforced dependency serving anyway? Well, it serves all of us who participate in it in some ways, but it’s proving to be less and less reliable in satisfying our needs, and the system is sure to become increasingly unstable as the oil supply crisis deepens and as other crises including climate change continue to unfold. The system is already failing millions who realize they must emigrate from their homes for a chance at living life with some measure of material wellbeing.

Where can we go from here? The rest of this series on “Living and Learning Sustainability” offers a response to this question. For now, we can start by considering how we can reduce our dependency and become more resilient with regard to the basics of life — our food, our water, our energy. How can we produce these things more locally? What do we need to learn to do so? There are many actions that we can take, and all of our actions must match the possibilities inherent in the places we live: our ecosystems and our communities.

What is sustainability anyway? We’ll focus on this last question in next month’s segment. Doing so will help us prepare for a future in which we not only survive, but maintain and advance the best of our humanness within an increasingly unstable world.

•  This article initially appeared in New Clear Vision.

On August 9, police shot nine farmers, killing three, who were part of a mass protest against a water pipeline project in Baur Village, 50 miles east of Mumbai, India.  Police also smashed cars, fired tear gas and threw rocks at farmers as they fled the violence.  This was all caught on video.

Kantabai Thakar (age 40), Moreshwar Sathe (40) and Shyam Tupe (29) were fatally shot by police.  Over 100 others were injured, and nine vehicles damaged in the lethal attack on protesters, report several news outlets in India.

The next day, the Pune police “registered a case of attempt to murder and rioting against 1,200 to 1,400 protesters,” although no one has yet been arrested.  None of the officers involved in murder and excessive use of force have been charged or suspended.

Farmers from over 60 villages in Pune District in the state of Maharashtra have protested the pipeline project since its announcement in 2008, objecting to land takings and the potential for pollution of their water source.  Around 4,500 hectares (over 11,000 acres) of farmland are threatened by the project.

The pipeline would draw 140 million gallons of water a day (525 million liters) from the Pavana Dam to be used for industry and a growing urban center.

Overseeing the project are three government agencies: Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), Talegaon Municipal Council and Dehu Road Cantonment.

The MIDC has long promoted industrialization of this primarily agricultural state.  Its main objective is to “rapidly develop … the underdeveloped parts of the state,” by redistributing land and providing infrastructure like roads, lighting, water treatment and supply, communication, and police and fire services.

Lands seized are then leased or sold to industry.

Though the MIDC promises to compensate those displaced by the pipeline project, it has been 40 years since the Pavana Dam was built and 75% of those displaced still have not been compensated, reports Times of India.  For those lucky 300 who were given other lands, their name is not on the titled deed.  Nor have promised jobs materialized for displaced villagers.

Providing water to industry is “a unique specialty of the MIDC,” which also manages the toxic liquid waste from industry.

But locals don’t trust the government, and for good reason.

Lack of effective oversight of industrial pollutants has led to soaring cancer rates and other health problems in Bathinda, located in the northern state of Punjab.  Forty percent of that population requires medicinal inhalers in order to breathe.  Many of the waters are so toxic that no life survives.

State-sanctioned violence directed at farmers and tribes is common for India, including murder, torture and destruction of villages.

India’s state governments “have signed hundreds of [Memoranda of Understanding] with corporate houses, worth several billion dollars, all of them secret, for steel plants, sponge-iron factories, power plants, aluminium refineries, dams and mines,” explains activist Arundhati Roy.   “In order for the MoUs to translate into real money, tribal people must be moved.”

Maharashtra is the second largest state in India both in population (115 million) and land (308 lakh sq. km, or about 120,000 sq. mi.).  Forty-two percent of the population is urbanized. The ‘scheduled castes’ and ‘scheduled tribes’ – officially recognized populations seen as “historically disadvantaged” – make up another quarter in the state.

Maharashtra farmers cultivate cereals, pulses, sugarcane, soy, cotton, oilseeds and onions, as well as mangoes, grapes, bananas, pomegranates and oranges.

The Pune District is one of several major industrial sectors planned by the MIDC, which has so far developed 233 industrial parks on 160,000 acres, with another 80,000 acres planned.

Deregulated sectors now open to foreign investment include the biotech seed industry, mining, pharmaceuticals, chemicals & fertilizers, construction, and oil & gas.

Driving the destruction of tribal and agricultural lands is trade liberalization that began in earnest since 2000.  As a result, foreign direct investment (FDI) in India ranks third in the world, with Maharashtra bagging a quarter of all of India’s FDIs.

Officially, the Republic of Mauritius is the largest foreign investor in India, but a closer look reveals that through an indirect investment scheme, the U.S. is actually the top foreign investor.  Advisors explain that because the India-Mauritius tax treaty removed capital gains tax, it’s more lucrative for foreign firms to invest in India indirectly through Mauritius.

As part of the G20, the World Trade Organization, and a signatory to international trade agreements including GATT and TRIPS, India ranks 51 in overall “competitiveness” in a field of 139 nations, according to the World Economic Forum.

State-sanctioned violence increases as resistance to globalization grows.  People are left landless, jobless and sickened by industrial destruction of the biosphere. Episodes like these confirm Derrick Jensen’s “20 premises” from his book, Endgame.

Industrial civilization “destroys landbases. That’s what it does,” writes Jensen in his new book, Deep Green Resistance. “And it won’t stop because we ask it nicely.”

As the date approaches I can’t help but contemplate what all of this should mean to the original people of Louisiana and to my tribe, the Houma, specifically. What should our view be of American statehood? What can we learn from the history behind this event and how is that history relevant to us today?

Trade, Commerce, and Profit

At the end of the eighteenth century the enfant American empire set itself on a path that would come to be articulated as Manifest Destiny. As it sought to expand its economic base and political influence the newly United States quickly set their sights on the economic jewel of the continent, New Orleans.

The geographical location of the “Isle of Orleans” gave New Orleans control of the commerce of the lower Mississippi River and access to the vast markets of the Caribbean.

In 1795 the United States and Spain (who had controlled Louisiana since 1763) signed the Pinckney Treaty that gave the American merchants the “right of deposit” in the city, allowing them to store their goods for export. The treaty also gave them the right to navigate the Mississippi. With these rights in place the fledgling American economy expanded and the wealthy business class began to consolidate its base.

For almost three years the merchant class saw their fortunes rise to new heights till 1798 when new Spanish officials suddenly slammed the door by revoking the Pinckney Treaty. Though Spain would restore the treaty in 1801 the U.S. would not soon forget the economic price paid for its inability to control New Orleans and the trade that flowed through its port.

Thomas Jefferson would see an opportunity when he learned that Spain had transferred Louisiana back to France with the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1801. He quickly sent a representative to Paris to begin negotiations with Napoleon’s government for the purchase of New Orleans. To the surprise of many, after months of talks, Napoleon offered to sell not just New Orleans but rather the entire Louisiana Territory.

The process would come to a close on April 30th, 1803 when the Louisiana Purchase Agreement was signed in Paris. For fifteen million dollars the United States acquired over eight hundred thousand square miles, effectively doubling the physical size of the American empire.

For the population of Louisiana the visible reality came in December when the French tri-color was lowered for the last time in the Place de Arms and in its place was raised the stars and stripes.

American Indians?

The original colonial claim on Louisiana was made by France in 1682 when Rene-Robert Cavalier Sieur de La Salle, standing on the banks of the Mississippi near its mouth, expressed ownership in the name of his king. When the United States wrote a fifteen million dollar check for the same piece of real estate one hundred and twenty-one years later there would be one common denominator between the two events; nowhere in the process were the people of the land, the indigenous people of Louisiana consulted or their opinions or concerns considered.

For the Houma the early territorial, period brought a new colonial reality and new challenges. In 1806 and 1811 Houma chiefs met with W.C.C. Claiborne, the U.S. Territorial governor. Gifts and pleasantries were exchanged but the Americans would make no guaranties of Houma sovereignty or land rights.

Attempting to navigate the new colonial system the Houma sought to secure their survival through a variety of efforts. While Houma warriors were fighting with the privateer Jean Lafitte to defend New Orleans against a British invasion force in 1815 the tribe was also fighting its way through the American territorial bureaucracy.

Houma leaders understood that the Louisiana Purchase Agreement obligated the United States to respect the relationship between the tribe and the colonial governments that preceded the Americans. So in hopes of securing the land base that had been respected by both the French and Spanish the Houma filed a claim for twelve sections of land adjacent to the village at Pointe Ouiski (located near the modern city of Houma, Louisiana). The response of the federal land office was a refusal to recognize the tribe’s rights to the land. There would be no federal protection of those rights, a status of non-recognition that continues to the present day.

Louisiana statehood did little or nothing to secure the rights of the Indigenous Peoples of Louisiana; for the Houma those ghost of colonialism would to haunt the present and the future.

The Cost of Colonialism

In 2005 the Houma community was impacted by two major hurricanes, Katrina and Rita. Over half of the tribes 17000 citizens were affected by one or both of the storms. As the tribal government struggled, without direct federal assistance, to aide their people in recovery one question was asked of us over and over again by people unfamiliar with the tribe and its history.

“Why do your people live in communities so at risk from the forces of nature?”

The answer is both simple and complex; the simple answer is that the effects of coastal erosion have left the Houma communities along the south Louisiana coast at risk from any storm that enters the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana, as a whole, has lost nearly 2000 square miles of coast since 1930 and a large part of that has come from the lands of the Houma.

The complex answer goes to the root causes of this dilemma and examines the motivating forces that continue to perpetuate the problem. Much of this has been debated for years and the blame has been categorized and fractionalized but for the Houma the answer is quite clear. Our homeland has been subjected to a century of unchecked economic development. The pursuit of profit that motivated the American traders at the end of the eighteenth century energized itself with twentieth century technology and began to devour the resources of the land.

Neo-colonialism is a twentieth century term used to describe the relationship of former colonial powers to their former colonies. The term examines how resource colonies continue to be subjected to imperial aggression and control even after their declared independence. The term has great resonance here in the fast disappearing marshlands of coastal Louisiana.

The result of neo-colonialism is that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the world.

– Kwame Nkrumah, Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism, 1965

The early years of statehood saw the Houma forced out of their village at Pointe Ouiski by the expanding settlement that would become the town of Houma in 1834. Ironically the settlers would name the town after the band of Indians living at Pointe Ouiski while they were in the process of forcing them to surrender their land.

The Houma moved south to their seasonal villages in the lower bayous and found a degree of security in the swamps and marshlands along the coast. In relative isolation the tribal population rebounded and they grew strong as hunters, trappers and fishermen. The twentieth century would dawn on a Houma tribe occupying settlements from Mauvais Bois in the west to lower Bayou Lafourche in the east, all with a twenty-five mile radius of the central settlement at Point Barre.

With the twentieth century came first the academics (ethnologist, anthropologist, etc.), then Protestant missionaries, followed by land speculators, and finally the oil companies. The economic exploitation that would come to be defined as neo-colonialism was as much at home in south Louisiana as it was in post-colonial Africa and the Middle East. The second century of statehood would continue to see coastal Louisiana more closely resemble the neo-colonial resource colony rather than an equal member of the United States.

This exploitation would quickly establish the earliest causes of coastal erosion. Seeking to enhance commerce and protect rich plantation lands along the lower reaches of Bayou Lafourche it was dammed at its source in 1904. This effectively shut off the natural land-building flow of sediment laden fresh water that had replenished the swamps and marshlands for centuries.

By the 1930s the exploration of oil had begun and the industry began to dig a massive network of canals into the south Louisiana coast to facilitate access for their drilling equipment.

The effect was predictable; the loss of fresh water and sediment along with the introduction of marsh-killing salt water which poured in from the Gulf through the access canals began to eat away at the fragile estuaries. Added to this toxic combination was the industry pulling billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of gas from beneath those same estuaries. This caused a level of subsidence that scientist have only recently began to acknowledge. For the Houma the result is the land beneath our feet is literally washing away as the days go by.

We’ve lived in our coastal settlements for generations; most of our people still make their living as commercial fishermen. When the land speculators and oil drillers came to our lands they found an indigenous population that was illiterate in English and uneducated in the ways of American society. Indeed local governments had made a concerted effort to maintain that imbalance by refusing to allow Indian children to attend public school in the parishes of LaFourche and Terrebonne (home to the majority of the Houma people). A lawsuit and the Civil Rights movement finally opened the door to public education for the tribe but it was not until 1964 that the first Houma student breached those barriers.

College educated leaders were generations away; with few rights and little resources the effects of oil fueled neo-colonialism were beyond the ability of the tribe to stop. It continues into the present and is easily seen if anyone cares to look.

Coastal Louisiana provides nearly thirty percent of U.S. energy production and transports nearly forty percent with its network of pipelines, transfer stations and refineries. A large portion of this infrastructure sits atop the Barataria-Terrebonne estuary, the estuarine system between the Mississippi and Atchafalaya River basins that has been the homeland of the Houma for centuries.

The price paid for this resource extraction can be easily calculated with the nearly 500 square miles of land lost in this estuary alone in the last eighty years, an area of land comparable to the size of New York City.

With the loss of land comes increased vulnerability to the effects of tropical storms and hurricanes. Healthy marshlands that had once protected Houma settlements from storm surges are now gone and the people now exist on the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. Storm centers that pass a hundred miles away can still bring catastrophic flooding. Since 2005 the Houma have been impacted by four major storms.

This situation also leaves portions of the oil industry exposed as well. In 2005 hurricanes Katrina and Rita damaged pipelines and platforms and caused numerous spills totaling millions of gallons of oil. The industry claims the loss, collects their profits and rarely pays any compensation to the people of the land.

This would be amply illustrated on April 20th, 2010 when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig would explode off the Louisiana coast initiating the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

BPs World

For those who take the time to look and examine carefully the words and actions of the U.S. Government and the oil industry during the heated days of the summer of 2010 the reality of “colonial Louisiana” in the 21st century is easily seen and understood.

Louisiana politicians were in quite a dilemma in those days. With the effects of the BP spill multiplying by the minute and the population of Gulf Coast becoming more desperate, state and local leaders were caught in between opposing camps. They had to face up to the real needs of their constituency without alienating the largest source of campaign funding available to them.

If you lived outside of the region you may have had some difficulty understanding the scope of their problem. Most people in this country have a basic understanding of an elected official’s responsibility to those whom they are tasked with representing. What is hidden from sight is the other side of the equation, the level of influence and control that big oil exerts on the Louisiana political structure. If we lived in an open and honest society then Louisiana politicians would be forced to decorate their clothing to the level of their corporate sponsorship, with some of them looking a lot like NASCAR drivers.

In the real world they go out of the way to disguise their financial motivators which, in turn, give us some interesting mental exercises and verbal acrobatics. Watching politicians who both opposed and defended big oil simultaneously was quite a show.

Consider the rhetoric of Michel Claudet, President of Terrebonne Parish. As the tentacles of oil slowly crept into the bayous below Houma threatening the fishing grounds and settlements of the Houma People his major focus seemed to be on the economic impact of the drilling ban proposed by the Obama administration. According to Claudet commercial fishing accounted for only 20 % of the parish economy while oil and gas brought in 60%. In the press he was adamant about the economic benefits brought to the parish by big oil.

This of course was an interesting point of view expressed by an administration that filed suit against 29 oil companies in August of 2009. The suit alleged that the companies failed to report the ownership of tens of millions of dollars of property resulting in a loss of tax revenue to the parish. The parish is seeking the payment of delinquent taxes as well as penalties and interest accrued.

The parish had also filed suit against BP for projected damages from the Deepwater Horizon spill. Any awards from the suit were slated to be split between the State Conservation Fund and the Terrebonne District Attorney’s Office.

Despite the expressed appreciation of the oil economy there seemed to exist a great degree of mistrust and animosity between the industry and local government.

On the state level we were subjected to an unending string of photo ops and press conferences by Governor Bobby Jindal. He had been from Venice to Grand Isle and back extolling his own ability to understand the severity of the problem and the Obama administrations ineptitude. From helping to deploy oil boom to operating an oil suction truck he endeavored to prove he was a “hands-on” guy. Walking that same political tight rope his sound bites were full of condemnation for democratic opponents and light on real criticisms of big oil. Indeed most of his venom was reserved for the proposed ban on offshore drilling.

On the federal level we witnessed an American administration providing an amazing amount of cover to a “foreign” company. To the extent that Homeland security personnel were physically restricting press access to contaminated area not in the interest of U.S. security but because BP wanted to protect its public relations front.

As to the drilling moratorium, the truth of the matter was there was some substance to all of their economic arguments concerning the ban. It had a detrimental effect on employment in the local oil industry but the story is not as simple as it was portrayed.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimates that nearly 50,000 people are directly or indirectly employed by the offshore drilling industry on the Gulf Coast. U.S. Government figures were estimating that as many as 150,000 people nation-wide could be effected in some form by the proposed moratorium on offshore drilling.

The other side of the argument was that the federal government wanted a six month moratorium to determine if the industry was in compliance with current safety regulations in hopes of preventing another Deepwater Horizon-type accident.

Beneath the surface of this supposed conflict between government and industry lies the reality of neo-colonialism in the heart of Houma Indian territory for almost a century.

Like all poor and indigenous communities dealing with economic exploitation the magic cure for everything is money and jobs. Living amidst a depleted ecosystem we are cautioned to value the employment the oil industry brings. Politicians like Claudet, Jindal and others, both Democrat and Republican extol the economic benefits the state enjoys from big oil.

We must understand that to the neo-colonial politics of big oil we are pawns, a tool in their efforts to control government influence of corporate finance. Every attempt made by government to control the industry is met by the same response; it will cost jobs and raise fuel cost. The moratorium was a perfect example of this principle; though it affected only a fraction of the activity in the Gulf there was disproportionate layoff of personnel and heighten gas prices. This, of course, was not people employed directly by Exxon, BP, Shell, etc. but rather it was primarily support industries and lower paying jobs for the most part. This is not to say that there was no real economic downside to the moratorium but rather that the industry did its best to magnify the affect for political gain and cover its real neo-colonial relationship to coastal Louisiana. So for the families dependent on a job at the fuel dock or in a fabrication yard their financial stability could fail because of an ongoing power struggle between Washington, Wall Street and the Energy Corporation boardrooms.

A year after the spill corporate profits were in the stratosphere and the propaganda machine was telling the world that the oil is gone, a neo-colonial economic happy ending. For the Gulf Coast and the Houma communities the reality is, of course, not so neat and tidy.

The Endgame

For the Houma People this is more than just an academic exercise or a political critique, this is a sober assessment on where we are as a people and what does this century have in store for us.

We have survived three centuries of colonization and we still exist as an indigenous community despite all that we have endured. I have the greatest confidence in the strength and tenacity of Houma People which fuels my hope for the future. But to face that future we have to acknowledge the harsh realities of the present so that we may clearly see the path ahead. We must face the consequences of neo-colonialism and understand what it has done to our homes, our families, our communities, our homeland, our tribe.

After decades of oil exploration and production the 3rd Congressional District (in which all of the major Houma settlement reside in2010) ranked 403rd out of 436 U.S. Congressional districts according to the Human Development Index. The American dream or the colonial reality? It would seem that for all of the billions of dollars extracted from the land there is not much trickling back down to the people of the land.

And as the resources continue to be consumed the land is leaving with them, washing away at an ever increasing rate. A couple of years ago coastal scientist drew a horizontal red line across south Louisiana and proclaimed that everything south of that line was endanger of disappearing in the coming decade if the economic and political will could not be produced to tackle the problem of coastal erosion in the next ten years. This statement drove deep into the heart of the Houma People, every major Houma community is below that red line.

What about the industry at the center of the coastal erosion controversy, has the BP spill and the drilling moratorium it inspired shown a more critical light and highlighted its responsibility to the land and people? If we are to look to the recent past there is little to inspire hope. Less than four percent of the oil and gas permits issued require the companies to perform any mitigation to offset the damages caused by their activities. Between 2005 and 2009 some 4500 permits were applied for and not a single one was declined, indeed over one hundred were issued after the fact. Neo-colonial resource extraction continues unabated.

For the Houma who continue to live in the traditional communities existence becomes more difficult as time goes on. The penalties for coastal erosion are not allocated to the industries that bare most of the responsibilities but rather to the people of the coast who can little afford to pay them.

They come in the form of ever increasing insurance rates, the inability to get financing for a new home or the cost of elevating an existing home all of which continue to rise above the means of a Houma fishing family. Though the Houma have done nothing to cause the ecological devastation that surrounds them and have not profited from it they must continually absorb the cost.

Houma communities are edging towards extinction as businesses leave and local governments transfer resources north, effectively abandoning the Houma families. Between 2000 and 2010 the town of Dulac, which has the largest concentration of Houma people, has lost 40% of its population.

Houma fishermen contend with ever decreasing prices for their catch and ever increasing cost for fuel and supplies. Added to this is the lingering effects of the BP spill and the unknown long term damage the five million barrels of oil released into the Gulf has had and will have on the already fragile coastal estuaries that are the foundation of the Houma life ways.

The parameters of the Houma situation has a closer resemblance to the predicaments faced by the Indigenous Peoples of the Nigerian delta or the Ecuadorean Amazon than to those on the list of tribes seeking federal recognition from the U.S. Government.

The answers for the Houma will be found when they begin to acknowledge this common ground with international indigenous struggles and stop looking for salvation from the potential largess of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

After two centuries of living within the borders of the American state of Louisiana they are still on the outside looking in. The Houma exist today in the same state of federal non-recognition that they were assigned to in the early years of the nineteenth century. They would do well to heed the admonition of the great anti-colonial theorist Frantz Fanon.

“He who is reluctant to recognize me is against me.”

In a study that reveals the GOP pledge to protect business interests at all costs, the Center for Media and Democracy recently analyzed 800 bills supported by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). This secretive group consists of big businesses and conservatives who influence state legislatures around the country to lower wages and taxes on business, and weaken environmental protection that could crimp profits.

Undoing efforts to address climate change is a major priority of ALEC sponsors such as Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil, Wal-Mart, AT&T and Peabody Energy. For example, they created a model law – State Withdrawal from Regional Climate Initiatives – that is being introduced by state lawmakers to curb carbon reduction mandates and overturn cap-and-trade deals.

The GOP’s efforts don’t stop here. Because they believe private property should be the basis for environmental policy, owners become the only protection for the environment. According to the GOP, only self-regulation and a laissez-faire market can provide protection. Toward this end, House Republicans created a rider for the 2012 appropriations bill (H.R. 2584), consisting of items to weaken environmental regulations by cutting funding and rolling back rules.

While the Senate would have to confirm the changes and President Obama would have to sign the bill, it’s unlikely that such changes will pass. The bill continues to change; nevertheless, the attempt reveals GOP plans to roll back environmental protections agreed upon by both parties over the past 40 years. The GOP promises more jobs and recovery from the current depression as a reward for such actions.

“Many of us think that overregulation from the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) is at the heart of our stalled economy,” said Mike Simpson, Republican from Idaho. The bill cuts up to 18 percent of the funding from the Forest Service, the Department of the Interior and the EPA, and was voted out of committee by House Republicans.

The bill is loaded with a promise to business to end regulation and leaves only the profit motive to determine the use of land, water and wildlife.

By blocking regulations the GOP would allow:

– Automobiles to stop increasing gas mileage after 2016, and allow them to spew fine particles that cause cancer into the air.

– Pesticide manufacturers to use false and misleading information on their labels, and chemical companies and agriculture to dump pesticides into the waterways.

– Uranium mining in the Grand Canyon.

– The cement industry to pump cancer-causing dust into the air.

– Increased levels of arsenic, formaldehyde and other cancer-causing substances in the air, soil, drinking water, and sediment, as well as allow increased ammonia emissions from power plants.

– Oil conglomerates to ignore health-based air quality standards offshore, and make it more expensive for citizens to challenge government actions regulating oil extraction companies.

– Increased storm water discharge from commercial and residential construction sites, mountain top removal water to run off into streams, and prohibit the EPA from forcing Florida to enforce the state’s Water Quality Standards.

– Increased ash from the burning of coal, and methane from manure piles.

– Lawsuits over grazing on public lands to proceed more easily, livestock to move freely across government grazing land, and prevent reviews of grazing permits.

– Alaskan western red and yellow cedar to be cut and sold for shipment overseas.

– Unlisted endangered animals to be hunted and killed, and wolves to be de-listed from protection.

– Endangering of bighorn sheep by allowing more livestock to graze in their habitat.

In addition, the GOP would:

– Eliminate the regulation of livestock waste runoff or disposal.

– Allow greenhouse gas producers, such as coal plants, to continue emitting for one year, and bar lawsuits during this time.

– Prohibit funding for listing or protecting any new animal species under the Endangered Species Act.

– Block any updates to the Clean Water Act, and prevent regulation of cool water intake facilities.

– Limit public appeals of Forest Service timber harvest plans.

– Provide financial breaks for mining companies, and prevent any new hard rock mining regulations.

– Allow Texas to implement its own cap-and-trade system without Federal input.

– Prevent boat inspection safety checks on the Yukon River.

– Prevent the EPA from adopting water ballast requirements that stop the intrusion of invasive species into the Great Lakes.

– Force the EPA to ignore Clean Air Rules for power plants, and ignore the public health benefits of the Clean Air Act.

– Block the designation of Federal land to be set aside as wilderness areas.

– Require detailed records to be kept and quarterly reports on any gas or oil permits not allowed.

These efforts make it clear that Republicans ignore the role of deregulation of financial institutions that sunk the economy and robbed millions of Americans of their jobs and their savings.

They hope voters will forget President Bush and the Republican role in this disaster, blame the depression on Obama, and give them the presidency in 2012. They destroyed the economy once and they can do it again-this time taking the environment with it.

Around 10.7 million people already need urgent humanitarian assistance, while many thousands are fleeing a devastated Somalia each day to take refuge in makeshift camps across Ethiopia and Kenya. The United Nations has now officially declared two regions of southern Somalia to be in famine – a situation in which at least 20 percent of households face a complete lack of food and other basic necessities, and starvation, death and destitution are evident. As the Famine Early Warning Systems Network makes clear, the currently inadequate levels of humanitarian response are likely to see famine spread across all eight regions of southern Somalia within two months and could lead to “total livelihood/social collapse”.

With food insecurity in the East African region remaining an ongoing concern for decades, many humanitarian agencies have been trying to draw attention to a potential famine in these countries for some time. The UN made an appeal for $500m in 2010 to assist with food security, but managed to secure only half from donors. Consequently, hunger levels have rocketed over recent months, and in some areas the number of young children suffering malnutrition is now three times the normal emergency level. At least half a million children risk death if immediate help does not reach them, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

The humanitarian coordinator for Somalia has also described the lack of resources as alarming, with insufficient donations of food, clean water, shelter and health services to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Somalis in desperate need. The underlying problem is repeated by various aid organisations: that the international response is not commensurate with the urgent requirements of those affected by the humanitarian catastrophe, and there is a lack of international support to address the deep-seated causes of the crisis or to mitigate future crises.

Yet the extreme deprivation being widely reported across East African is just the tip of the iceberg. Needless impoverishment and death is an ongoing catastrophe that unfolds daily, largely without any attention from the world’s media or the public. At least 41,000 people in the developing world continue to die each day from easily preventable diseases that barely occur in high-income countries, such as diarrhoea, malaria or nutritional deficiencies. Despite the scale of these preventable deaths – amounting to 15 million lives lost each year, half of which affect young children before their fifth birthday – there is no official recognition that such extreme deprivation should also be considered a humanitarian catastrophe and treated accordingly.

These shameful mortality rates occur as a result of the ongoing silent disaster of world poverty, which receives a similarly inadequate international response to the periodic famines or food crises in countries like Somalia. For over a decade, international efforts to reduce poverty have centred around the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of globally agreed targets that are set to expire in 2015. Although the MDGs have done much to focus attention on global poverty, they are widely considered an insufficient and superficial approach to economic development and saving lives.

A Deadly Lack of Ambition

The politically sensitive principles of equity and distributive justice that featured in the original Millennium Declaration have gradually faded from the official development discourse, accompanied by a deadly lack of ambition. Even if the MDG goal on halving rates of poverty is met, a staggering 882 million people will still be living in absolute poverty in 2015. In effect, the MDG’s focus on merely reducing over time the number of people living below the threshold of human survival tacitly accepts the continuance of poverty-related deaths each day. Similarly, goals four and five commit to reduce maternal mortality by only three quarters by 2015, and under-five child mortality by two-thirds, which accepts not only a high number of preventable maternal and child deaths remaining at the end of the MDG period, but also many millions of such needless deaths in the interim.

In an interdependent and globalised world, there can be no meaningful process of development whilst so many people living in poverty die prematurely and unnecessarily. The impact on families, communities and economies are devastating, and preventing these deaths is an urgent moral necessity. Even in the crudest economic calculations, putting an end to avoidable deaths would amount to a significant investment in human capital, as healthy individuals whose basic needs are secured are far more likely to contribute to the growth of communities and nations. It is objectionable from any social, moral or economic viewpoint that sufficient resources are not immediately made available to address the crises of extreme deprivation, especially in its most acute manifestation well before the situation degenerates into a full-blown famine.

International efforts to address the life-threatening poverty of millions of people in the poorest countries must aim far higher and provide much more than the current insufficient, voluntary and often conditional donations of overseas aid and disaster assistance. A massively upscaled redistribution of resources from North to South is essential to avert humanitarian disasters and prevent extreme deprivation and poverty-related deaths. Given the scale of these related crises, an international program of emergency relief must become the highest priority of world governments, followed by assistance for developing countries to secure ongoing state-provided welfare and essential services for all their citizens. Efforts to improve the redistribution of wealth nationally through the development of local industries, better taxation and the provision of comprehensive social protection for all people should become the new focus of international development policy.

Central to this transformation of development is the principle of sharing, which embodies universally accepted ethical values that reflect our common humanity. Aligning the international policy discourse more closely to our shared moral obligations can help redeem decades of unjust economic and social policy, prevent future famines and help manifest an inclusive vision of progress and development. In the simplest economic terms, sharing points to the need for a redistribution of wealth from rich to poor, and a shift in power relations from financial and commercial interests to the world’s majority population. The East African crisis presents another opportunity for civil society to demand that wealth and resources are shared more equitably across the world, and that policy-makers prioritise the complete eradication of poverty above all other concerns.

Moalim, quoted by the British Telegraph, was not posing as spokesperson to the estimated 11 million people (per United Nations figures) who are currently in dire need of food. About 440,000 of those affected by the world’s “worst humanitarian disaster” dwell in a state of complete despair in Dadaab, a complex of three camps in Kenya. Imagine the fate of those not lucky enough to reach these camps, people who remain chronically lacking in resources, and, in the case of Somalia, trapped in a civil war.

All that Batula Moalim was pleading for was “plastic sheeting for shelter, as well as for food and medicine.”

It is disheartening, to say the least, when such disasters don’t represent an opportunity for political, military or other strategic gains, subsequently, enthusiasm to ‘intervene’ peters out so quickly.

UN officials from the World Food Programme (WFP) are not asking for much: $500 million to stave off the effects of what is believed to be the worst drought to hit the Horn of Africa in 60 years. This is not an impossible feat, especially when one considers the geographic extent of the drought and creeping famine. Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya are all affected, and terribly so. Sudan and Eretria are also not far from the center of this encroaching disaster.

60 percent of the amount requested by WFP has already been raised. More is needed, however, especially as the reverberation of the drought is already surpassing the immediate need for food and shelter. Five million are already at risk of cholera in Ethiopia alone, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Hundreds have reportedly died, and many more are likely to follow.

Cholera requires an immediate remedy as the intestinal infection leads to sever diarrhea, dehydration and death. Other figures are equally grim. 8.8 million people, also in Ethiopia, are at risk of contracting malaria, according to Tarik Jasarevic, WHO spokesman.  Jasarevic has also told journalists that these ailments have already been reported in Somalia, and other Ethiopian regions. This means the disaster is not confined to refugee camps and is thus much harder to control.

For refugees, there is nothing worse than having no safe haven in sight. Still, they must escape when death becomes the only alternative to aimless journeys. While hundreds of thousands are gathering in Kenya’s camps, an average of 1,700 Somali refugees venture to Ethiopia each day. The latter, a country with a population of about 85 million, is fully embroiled in the crisis. 4.5 million Ethiopians need assistance, a rise of over 50 percent in less than three months, according to WHO. One can only try to envisage the speed at which this disaster is unraveling.

International organizations, including WFP, WHO and UNICEF have made numerous appeals. Some major media outlets responded by giving the humanitarian crisis a degree of coverage. While donations have bashfully trickled in, the goals are yet to be reached. According to a report by the Telegraph, “no African country has offered a donation to help drought victims in the Horn of Africa outside of those affected.”

The report, published July 15, quoted Michael O’Brien-Onyeka, Oxfam’s Regional Campaigns Policy Manager for East and Central Africa, who said it was “disappointing” that “African states insist on ‘African solutions for African problems’ with regard to Libya but fail to respond to droughts and famines.”

On the subject of Libya, it may be helpful to consider some financial figures.

“The British Government has pledged £38 million in food aid to Ethiopia,” reported the Telegraph. The following day, British Daily Mirror reported on the seemingly different subject of Libya. Four more British jets were recently deployed to the war zone near Libya, raising the total to 22 RAF jets, according to James Lyons in the Mirror (July 16). The cost thus far is £260 million, only £40 million short of the total amount needed by the WFP to feed 11 million starving people.

Here is another example of the dubious nature of British involvement in the war on Libya (falsely slated as a war to prevent imminent massacres of civilians): “Tornado GR4s cost around £35,000 for every hour they are in the air and are having to fly long distances from their base in Gioia del Colle, southern Italy, to Libya,” according to the Mirror.

Major African countries and Britain are not the only parties involved in acts of duplicity. The US military adventurism in the Horn of African, especially Somalia, and its renewed use of costly unmanned drones can feed, cloth, shelter and treat countless refugees. More, Arab and Muslim countries tend to be the least responsive parties in such situations. While it is true that the chief of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu made several appeals for help, such singular calls generate feel-good moments but no major mobilization for action.

The disaster in the Horn of Africa is partly man-made. Countries with ‘failed states’ status (in other words, victims of outside interventions) cannot possibly fend off crises of this magnitude. For the last 20 years, Somalia has had no central government controlling the country’s territories. Outside intervention has made it impossible for any party to unite the disjointed country. What is a Somali refugee to do?

To help the millions disaffected by the multilayered disaster in the Horn of Africa, we need more than appeals for blankets and food stuff.  We also need a degree of human decency and common sense. We need to re-channel some of the funds wasted on disastrous wars into actually saving lives. If warning parties would ground their Tornado GR4s and other warplanes for a few days, the single action alone could save the entire region.

For now, though, let us all do what we can to help the Horn of Africa survive this terrible ordeal.

The Idiot Cycle
Written and Directed by Emmanuelle Schick Garcia
JPS Films (2009, 96 mins)
Screenings: Showtimes
The film can be rented for 4.99 € ($7 USD) at JPS

Authors William Engdahl and Shiv Chopra appear in Emmanuelle Schick Garcia’s powerful film, The Idiot Cycle: What you aren’t being told about cancer. Both writers provide detailed evidence of a corporate-government conspiracy to adulterate the food and water supply with dangerous substances linked to a host of illnesses. The Case Against Fluoride, a book using hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, provides more evidence. In David Gumpert’s Raw Milk Revolution, we get a peek at the US government’s war on the natural dairy industry.

Looking at six companies, Dow Chemical, BASF, Bayer, Dupont, Astrazeneca (Syngenta), and Monsanto, Idiot Cycle exposes corporate-government collusion in the release of carcinogenic chemicals, but also reveals how some of the same chemical companies then profit from treating cancer. It’s a cycle only an idiot would tolerate. Going further, much of the film then addresses genetically modified food and its potentially disastrous effect on health and the environment.

Before making the film, Garcia and her team spent three years on research, and it shows. The film is chock full of disturbing facts. How many people know, for example, which synthetic chemical will cause more cancer than any others? Or that only 5-10% of all cancers are genetically inherited? Or that testicular cancer in young men has increased 50% in every industrial country? In 2002, the film asserts, the top ten drug companies made more money than the top 490 wealthiest US companies combined. At $1,600 a month for cancer-treatment, we can see why it’s called Big Pharma.

Important tidbits like these make the film a must-see. But the filmmaker shows real courage when she then includes the connection with genetically modified foods. It is with this additional component that a global conspiracy more fully comes into focus.

Idiot Cycle interviews world renowned scientists Arpad Pusztai, Eric-Gilles Seralini and Shiv Chopra, two of whom suffered job loss and all of whom endured campaigns to smear their professional reputations. In the GM debate, getting the message out about hazards to human health and the environment can cost you your career.

Silencing Negative Findings of Independent Scientists

1. Arpad Pusztai

Arpad Pusztai is no doubt the most famous scientist in the film. He first blew the whistle in 1998 on the hazards of GM crops, costing him his job at Rowett Research Institute in Scotland. Having studied biotechnology for 35 years, Pusztai had well earned the title as the world’s leading expert in this highly specialized field. In 1995, he won a three-year, $1.5 million contract from the UK government to establish a testing methodology for regulators when assessing the safety of GM crops.

This marked the world’s first independent study of GM food safety, according to Engdahl. He interviewed Pusztai in 2007 for his book, Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation. Engdahl notes that Pusztai “was fully certain the study would confirm the safety of GM foods.” His team used potatoes modified by Monsanto to produce an insecticide. Writes Engdahl:

The rats fed for more than 110 days on a diet of GM potatoes had marked changes to their development. They were significantly smaller in size and body weight than ordinary potato-fed control rats in the same experiment. More alarming, however, was the fact that the GMO rats showed markedly smaller liver and heart sizes, and demonstrated weaker immune systems. The most alarming finding from Pusztai’s laboratory tests, however, was the markedly smaller brain size of GMO-fed rats compared with normal potato-fed rats.

When he reported his findings on national television, excluding the smaller brain size info for fear it would induce mass panic, he also added that he wouldn’t eat GM foods. For two days, the Institute applauded and supported him, even issuing a press release clarifying that his concerns were based on “ a range of carefully controlled studies.”

But then the firestorm hit. President Bill Clinton contacted Prime Minister Tony Blair, who then contacted Pusztai’s boss at the Institute. Within two days, he was fired, along with his wife, another respected researcher at Rowett. Then began a mass media campaign to discredit him and his work, as revealed by UK journalist, Andrew Rowell. The Pusztais were gagged from defending Arpad under threat of losing their pensions.

In Idiot Cycle, Pusztai called it “criminal” that GM crops have been foisted on the world without full and complete safety studies, especially in light of preliminary studies showing serious potential harm.

2. Eric-Gilles Seralini

The next most famous scientist in the GM debate, arguably, is Eric-Gilles Seralini, whose ground-breaking studies we covered here. Seralini has also been vilified by the biotech community. In The Idiot Cycle, he describes the battle that he endured to publicize Monsanto’s blood test results of rats that had eaten GM corn for three months. Once the information was made public, independent scientists could then review Monsanto’s “safe” finding.

Normally, two years of testing is the “gold standard” in the scientific community. Seralini called it “absurd” that only three months of testing allowed the GM corn to be approved in over a dozen nations. Any reputable scientist would agree. Upon reviewing Monsanto’s raw data, he and his team found, among other problems, liver damage and physiological changes into a pre-diabetic condition among the rats which had eaten Monsanto’s GM corn. And that’s just from three months of eating such food.

The rate of diabetes in the U.S. has nearly doubled since GM foods were secretly foisted on us in 1996. Today, 26 million people have it and another 79 million are pre-diabetic, according to new estimates released in January. These figures include those actually diagnosed with the disease, plus an estimate of those who have diabetes but are undiagnosed. If we look at just the “diagnosed” numbers over the last three decades (which is less than the actual number who have diabetes), we see that diabetes has tripled since 1980:

Many believe that the prevalence of GM corn and GM sugarbeets used as sweeteners in processed foods (such as high fructose corn syrup) is a leading contributing factor to the spike in diabetes. Actos, made by Takeda Pharmaceutical, and Avandia, made by GlaxoSmithKline, reportedly treat Type II diabetes, and both increase the risk of heart failure – in one study by 72%.

3. Shiv Chopra

Canada Health whistleblower, Shiv Chopra, who authored Corrupt to the Core: Memoirs of a Health Canada Whistleblower, explains the genesis of the misanthropic aims of these chemical companies and their government protectors. Beginning 50-60 years ago, he says in the film, chemicals began playing a major part in agriculture. “On the one hand, they’re contaminating people’s food, and they do damage. Then they come back with chemicals to treat them.”

Chopra was eventually fired from Health Canada, along with two others, for “insubordination” because they refused to authorize (among other food processes) the long-term use of antibiotics and GM hormones in food-producing animals, given their questionable safety. In particular, he adamantly refused to authorize rBST, a genetically modified bovine growth hormone created by Monsanto and Eli Lilly to stimulate milk production in dairy cows. Studies show that large percentages of cows develop lameness and mastitis from the GM hormone.

In Corrupt to the Core, we learn that one of the other “food processes” they objected to was feeding BSE-infested slaughterhouse waste to meat and milk animals. BSE, more popularly known as mad cow disease, gives humans the lethal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Chopra makes a significant contribution to human health when he discusses his Five Pillars of Food Safety:

“The source of food-borne diseases during approximately the last 50 years is reported to originate from indiscriminate application of the following five substances in food production: hormones, antibiotics, slaughterhouse wastes, genetically modified organisms and pesticides.”

In the book and in Idiot Cycle, he charges that use of these substances violates the Food and Drug Act of both the U.S. and Canada. Because the first three are banned in the European Union, the US and Canada cannot ship beef to the EU. This issue, incidentally, continues to be debated at the World Trade Organization.

4. Andres Carrasco

Though not in the film, another globally recognized scientist in the biotech world is Andres Carrasco. He and his team from Argentina and Paraguay found that Monsanto’s Roundup causes birth defects in frogs and chickens. “The findings in the lab are compatible with malformations observed in humans exposed to glyphosate during pregnancy,” he told GMWatch. In 2009, he was threatened at his lab, and in 2010 physically attacked by local police and the hired hands of a wealthy GM rice grower.

Contaminating the Natural Food Supply

GM crops contaminate natural plants, converting ownership to the patent holder under twisted, but recognized, legal logic. Idiot Cycle stresses this as a deliberate move toward complete control of the world’s food supply. It’s no idle accusation. GeneWatch UK and Greenpeace have documented over 300 contaminations through July 2010. Genetic contamination of natural plants is vast and ongoing and, until recently, courts have repeatedly penalized the farmer victimized by such contamination.

Many have heard of Percy Schmeiser’s battle with Monsanto that resulted in a pyrrhic victory for the farmer. Unaware his crops had been contaminated with transgenes, he reused the seeds. Monsanto sued, but this time, after a long and expensive litigation process, the Canadian Supreme Court backed Schmeiser and ordered Monsanto to pay for the clean up of his fields. Though not in the final release of Idiot Cycle, he does appear in the bonus clips.

An 84-page report by the Center for Food Safety published in 2005 details cases like these and others. In 2008, Vanity Fair’s Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele also posted an in-depth investigation, providing more details of farmers being victimized by contamination and then being successfully sued by Monsanto. The CFS report also describes cases where farmers bought GM seeds third hand, signing no agreement about their use or reuse. This happened to Tennessee farmer, Kem Ralph, who is also featured in The Idiot Cycle.

In court, Monsanto presented an agreement which bore his forged signature. Judge Rodney Sippel, a former Monsanto attorney, awarded judgment for Monsanto in the amount of $2.9 million. CFS documents evidence of Monsanto presenting forged signatures in court. “Forging farmers’ signatures on Technology Agreements is called ‘common’ by seed dealers. Nearly one in 10 of Monsanto’s lawsuits involve such forgeries.”

In the film we learn that Judge Sippel in Kem Ralph’s case sat on ten other lawsuits involving Monsanto, corruptly refusing to recuse himself. In all of those cases, Monsanto won.

We also find such conflicts of interest on the U.S. Supreme Court with the ethically challenged Clarence Thomas, a former Monsanto attorney. In 2001, he wrote the high court decision allowing biotech companies to patent GM seeds. Thomas also corruptly refused to recuse himself from Monsanto v Geertson Seed, which allowed the USDA to impose a partial deregulation of GM alfalfa last June. (This January, the USDA completely deregulated GM alfalfa, even removing the requirement for buffer zones.) Plus, Thomas’ new sidekick on the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan, defended Monsanto’s right to contaminate natural alfalfa crops when she served as Solicitor General arguing against Geertson.

But not all judges work for the biotech industry.

After Bayer CropScience contaminated a third of the US rice supply in 2006, it found itself facing 6,000 lawsuits. In addition to cases it has already lost or settled, each under $2 million, Bayer now faces a whopping $380 million lawsuit from Riceland Foods in a trial currently underway in Arkansas. Stuttgart Daily Leader has been covering the trial, with articles posted February 22, 2/24, 2/25, 2/28, March 4, March 8 and March 10.

Cases like these are what is surely behind a recent decision by the world’s largest seed company to modify its Technology Stewardship Agreement wherein Monsanto has shifted all liability arising from transgenic crops onto farmers who plant their seeds. How’s that for taking corporate immorality to new depths?

This falls in line nicely with a recent Supreme Court decision that protects vaccine makers from liability. In the film, one European regulator, Willy de Greef, informs us that GM crops only account for 5% of all biotechnology. Most drugs and vaccines contain GMOs. A host of deleterious effects from vaccines has been documented, including narcolepsy, sterility, mental retardation, paralysis, autism, and death. “First do no harm” has succumbed to “Make the most money.”

Given the USDA’s recent deregulation of GM alfalfa, and the certainty that natural alfalfa will become contaminated, Monsanto’s attempt to shirk responsibility with this no-liability clause “appears to be unconscionable” said environmental attorney Anthony Patchett in a video interview with Morph City. Patchett formerly worked as Assistant Head Deputy District Attorney of Environmental Crimes, OSHA Division.

That decision to deregulate a perennial plant with tiny seeds that can travel miles can be seen as nothing other than a deliberate intent to contaminate North American natural alfalfa. Biotech firms will gain ownership of contaminated fields. This will also destroy the organic meat and dairy industry in the United States, and likely Canada, as well. Biotech and chemical firms, along with all growers who chemically douse their crops, will profit enormously from the collapse of the untainted food industry. The question is, can we survive their victory?

Sick Food, Dangerous Vaccines & Eugenics

Controlling the world’s food supply is one thing. As evidence mounts that biotech crops sicken us, this assures increased profits for biotech companies that develop drugs to treat us. But some wonder if GM crops will do more than sicken us. We have preliminary findings that GM crops cause sterility in test animals, and that Roundup is associated with spontaneous abortions in farm animals fed wheatlage under weed management using glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup. Coupling this with globalist concern with rising population, how can we avoid questioning if biotechnology is being used as a weapon?

In the film, author William Engdahl talks about his research for Seeds of Destruction. He briefly describes the relationship between depopulationists like the Rockefellers and IG Farben, the company that gassed millions to death in Nazi Germany and which also killed thousands more when testing drugs and vaccines on captured populations. For these crimes against humanity, after the war, IG Farben was broken into its original constituent companies. Bayer, BASF and Hoechst (now Aventis) eventually expanded into plant genetics. (In 2002, Bayer acquired Aventis.)

Engdahl writes: “The Rockefeller-I.G. Farben relationship went back to 1927, around the same time the Rockefeller Foundation began heavily funding German eugenics research.” Paraphrasing from his book, he explains:

‘The Project’ I referred to is the project of the Rockefeller Foundation and powerful financial interests since the 1920’s to use eugenics, later renamed genetics, to justify creation of a genetically-engineered Master Race. Hitler and the Nazis called it the Ayran Master Race.

The eugenics of Hitler were financed to a major extent by the same Rockefeller Foundation which today is building a doomsday seed vault to preserve samples of every seed on our planet. Now this is getting really intriguing. The same Rockefeller Foundation created the pseudo-science discipline of molecular biology in their relentless pursuit of reducing human life down to the ‘defining gene sequence’ which, they hoped, could then be modified in order to change human traits at will. Hitler’s eugenics scientists, many of whom were quietly brought to the United States after the War to continue their biological eugenics research, laid much of the groundwork of genetic engineering of various life forms, much of it supported openly until well into the Third Reich by Rockefeller Foundation generous grants.

Seeds of Destruction provides a wealth of detailed evidence of “the hidden agenda of genetic manipulation.” It’s clear from having read the book why Garcia chose to interview him for her film. Seeds highlights bioweaponry, in the form of pandemics, and the drugs used to treat them. The recent Swine flu hype was a repeat of the Avian flu engineered just a few years before. Vaccines used in Nicaragua and the Phillipines actually sterilized people. Spermicidal corn was developed for Mexico.

Though Rockefeller et al may be looking to improve human genetics for traits they deem more desirable in their club, “you ain’t in it.” Neither am I; nor is 93% of humanity, if the Georgia Guidestones are any indication of what the ideal population level should be. What we get, instead, are toxic foods, grown or raised on toxic farms, and further treated and processed in toxic factories. Then we’re prescribed toxic drugs that cause side effects which hasten our death. Nice racket.

Bayer and BASF aren’t alone. Monsanto also has a history of “incidental” ecocide and genocide by the creation and deployment of Agent Orange (dioxin), PCBs, DDT, rBST, and the neurotoxin, Aspartame.

Biotech and pharmaceutical companies have also produced several hundred “pharma crops” – food that contains vaccines against a variety of diseases. Never mind that such a plan fails to consider appropriate dosage specific to a person’s age, weight and medical condition. The same failure applies to fluoride treated water, which lowers intelligence, causes skeletal and dental fluorosis, and induces depression and lethargy. (See the 2010 book, The Case Against Fluoride and this short 30-minute film, Professional Perspectives on Water Fluoridation.)

Criminalizing Nature

One final element briefly mentioned in the film plays heavily into this growing body of evidence supporting the idea of a global conspiracy to harm humanity for profit. The Idiot Cycle mentions Iraq Order 81, which bans the saving of seeds. Iraqi farmers must buy GM seeds, every year. This outrageous law is a direct attack on the right to food freedom: the evolutionary imperative of humans to eat whatever natural foods their bodies crave.

Beyond that, a string of national and international laws, rules, and regulations criminalize natural plants. This will give the pharmaceutical industry complete control of health care, since the world’s best medicines come from plants. For example, prior to 2000, Monsanto began genetically modifying marijuana, and last November, the US Drug Enforcement Agency proposed a subtle rule change that will decriminalize synthetic THC for use as a medicine, reports Pencil Method, a medical marijuana news site:

1. “Paul Armentano of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws reads the proposal as a way of legalizing marijuana so just Big Pharma can make money from it.
2. “’DEA is taking a shortcut by saying, well, we can reschedule organic THC because it mimics an existing drug on the market,’ Armentano said. ‘Which is ironic given that they are saying the organic substance is derivative of the synthetic substance that is actually based on the organic substance.’”

Kitty Campion, a world renowned herbalist who has written several books, and who holds a PhD from the School of Natural Healing (Utah), warns that:

[G]overnments all over the world are joining hands with Big Pharma and Big Food, (meaning the industrialised processed food giants) in an unprecedented pogrom against herbal medicine. I left Britain in December last year after 30 years in full time herbal practice and came into Australia on a Distinguished Talent Visa, precisely because so many of the herbs I needed in my extensive herbal pharmacy had been banned by the European Commission. The Gestapo tactics have long begun. In Germany and in the UK, the ‘drug police’ recently confiscated natural remedies as though they were contraband drugs. The EU’s main strategy has been to try and place every natural product, natural remedy or natural service firmly under the thumb of prescription drug law and, of course, if a substance is treated like a drug it has to be evaluated and studied like a drug. The millions that this costs, mainly for safety and efficacy evaluation, is out of reach of the vast majority of herbal manufacturers – in effect it is a de facto ban.

Several similar laws around the globe further the scheme to criminalize nature. Here’s a brief sampling, with some victories for food freedom:

* On May 1, 2011, thousands of herbal medicinal products become illegal in the European Union. In an email, Shiv Chopra said, “As for the sale of herbal remedies, homeopathic, Ayurvedic and Chinese medicines, EU and NAFTA are on the same page. All of them, without counting Mexico, are determined to ban any substance that interferes in the sale of their big pharma products, including drugs and vaccines causing disease and death. I am not sure what China plans to do about it but India as we all know is selling out its stakes to join the rich man’s club, without any concern for the public interest.”

* Australia has proposed a ban on thousands of plants including its national flower, since they contain DMT – a naturally-occurring hallucinogen. Marketed as a war on drugs, the bill ignores that most of these common garden plants have never been used to extract DMT, since only trace amounts are found in them. Humans also produce DMT in their bodies, so we know this is something we need.

* Canada just passed a “consumer protection” law known as C36, though the final version exempted natural health products after a nationwide fight. However, the law violates human rights by authorizing home invasions to search for suspected products. Through Canada’s 2004 Food and Drug Act and other regulations, thousands of natural health products are no longer available, writes Karen Stephenson.

* Last December, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered one pharmacy to stop making injectable Vitamin C, a known cure for cancer. When taken intravenously in large doses, it has remarkable healing properties. IV Vitamin C even cured a New Zealand man on death’s door with the swine flu.

* The FDA is also waging a war on natural dairy, shutting down producers and distributors even though no one has become ill from their products. David Gumpert’s book, The Raw Milk Revolution, details the government’s war on food rights (which I reviewed here). As a complete food, raw milk provides innumerable benefits, including reducing childhood allergies. Many who are labeled “lactose-intolerant” safely drink raw milk.

* Also on the dairy front, Monsanto complained to the Federal Trade Commission about organic dairy farmers who labeled their product free of artificial hormones. Though the FDA allows such labeling, it maintains that rBST (also known as rBGH) is safe and that there is no difference between organic and GMO milk. Last September, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, overturning an Ohio law banning such labels. The court found a “compositional difference” between the two kinds of milk, and also ruled that prohibiting such labels violates the first amendment rights of organic producers.

* The US Food Safety Modernization Act, signed into law in January, “extends control over all food in the US, violating the fundamental human right to food,” explains Steve Green. Providing a comment for that article, Shiv Chopra said that the bill precludes “the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes. It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice.”

* Operating under the UN and the World Health Organization, Codex Alimentarius harmonizes international food standards, ostensibly to facilitate trade. Summarizing the work of Scott Tips and the Alliance for Natural Health, Brandon Turberville writes, “At best, the guidelines will reduce dose levels [of vitamins and other supplements] to minuscule amounts too small to be beneficial, as well as causing the prices to skyrocket for both consumers and producers.”

Taken together, we are witnessing corporate-government seizure of the means by which humans survive and thrive. Major corporations, backed by government, are causing cancer and other diseases with their toxic products. Yet, natural foods and remedies are being criminalized, forcing us to rely on Western drugs with often lethal side effects. On top of this, our water supply is deliberately treated with a substance that, among other problems, lowers intelligence.

The Idiot Cycle provides an excellent summary of the major forces working against humanity, which are well documented in several books, including those listed below.

In early September 2010, a small band of Mongolian citizens armed with hunting rifles opened fire on gold mining equipment owned by two foreign mining firms operating illegally in northern Mongolia. One of the four armed activists was Tsetsegee Munkhbayar, a 2007 winner of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize — the ‘Green Nobel’ — awarded annually to pivotal environmentalists taking a stand around the globe.

“With unwavering passion,” reads the National Geographic Emerging Explorers profile of Tsetsegee Munkhbayar, “he inspired thousands of local villagers, held press conferences, organized town hall meetings, lobbied legislators, and led protest marches — mobilizing an unprecedented level of grassroots participation among citizens who previously felt they had no power to shape government policy.”²

Three years after winning the award — and a whole lot more illegal mining and pollution later — Munkhbayar’s little gang of four and their militant actions against the capitalist invasion remain in complete media whiteout in the western press: it’s as if the early September shootings never happened. While the civic activists face possible prosecution and extended jail terms — if not sudden unexplained death — rapacious mining companies further plunder and pollute the land.

The gang of four — Tsetsegee Munkhbayar, G. Bayaraa, D. Tumurbaatar and O. Sambuu-Yondon — are environmentalists from the United Movement of Mongolian Rivers and Lakes (UMMRL), a consortium of Mongolian groups organized to fight foreign extractive industries that have invaded the fledgling ‘democracy’. UMMRL was formed in June 4, 2009 after its predecessor, the Mongolian Nature Protection Coalition (MNPC), dissolved in the spring of 2008. Tsetsegee Munkhbayar — and many collaborators he works with — was pivotal to the creation of both MNPC and UMMRL.

Behind the story of Tsetsegee Munkhbayar is a story of greed, private profit, deception, betrayal, stealth and heartbreak. Just three years after becoming a global hero, Tsetsegee Munkhbayar is today shunned by the people who lobbied to make him a Goldman Award winner, and they have even branded him and his colleagues as terrorists.

“The shooters sent a powerful message,” reported EurasiaNet, the only foreign media outlet to report on the recent shooting action. Puraam, a Chinese firm, and Centerra Gold, a Canadian-operated company, “aren’t welcome in the area, one of Mongolia’s only forested regions.”³ Centerra is also operating in Kyrgyzstan, a former Russian republic where paramilitary government forces repressed public protests and shot hundreds of unarmed protesters in 2010.⁴

Centerra Gold and Puraam Mining are operating on 168 hectares of land and contaminating the headwaters of the Selenge, Mongolia’s largest river, and the source for Lake Baikal, the world’s largest freshwater lake. The Gatsuur deposit, currently exploited by Centerra Gold, contains an estimated 1.3 million ounces of gold valued at tens of billions of dollars. Centerra’s Boroo gold mine began production in 2004 and yields an average of 180,000 ounces of gold annually.

The locals see very little from the gold taken from their lands. At least 70% of the population lives in absolute poverty. Alcoholism is a national epidemic. The social fabric is unraveling. Human trafficking is a big business. Everything is for sale, or already sold.

“[People] see the 1990s privatization rush and years of harsh weather as a kind of economic one-two punch. Twenty years after Mongolia peacefully threw off 70 years of communism, one-third of Mongolia’s 2.9 million people live below the poverty level of less than $2 a day; even white-collar workers like doctors and teachers can earn as little as $300 a month.”⁵

Mining operations devastate the sensitive Mongolian environment. Photo credit: unknown.

The mining companies arrived in Mongolia hand-in-hand with the international NGOs — euphemistically called ‘non-government’ organizations — and they promote the western imposed ideal of ‘privatization’. The unstated assumptions that came along with this are that freedom-loving westerners are uniquely qualified to teach Mongolians about democracy, human rights, good government and environmental stewardship. Tsetsegee Munkhbayar was patronized and promoted by this framework of foreign intervention.

“According to the promoters,” writes Dr. Joan Roelofs, “the precondition for such benefits is a ‘free market’ economy, or the adoption of ‘neoliberalism’, which entails the privatization of most government functions, deregulation of business, abolition of subsidies and welfare, and availability of all assets (land, TV stations, national newspapers, etc.) for purchase by any corporation, regardless of nationality. Freedom also means that foreigners can start any business anywhere…”⁶

A Hero’s Welcome

“Tsetsegee Munkhbayar spent his childhood herding yaks on the banks of the Onggi, one of Mongolia’s largest rivers,” wrote National Geographic in their Emerging Explorers profile.⁷ “About 60,000 people and one million head of livestock depended on the powerful waterway. But in the early 1990s the essential life source began shrinking, grew contaminated, and by 2001 water that had coursed through his village for centuries had vanished — leaving a rocky riverbed, thirsty herds, and devastated families.”⁷

“The dramatic dry-up was the result of unregulated hydraulic mining that used high-pressure water systems to extract gold and other minerals,” the National Geographic continues. “With more than half the nation’s land granted to mining, the effects were rapid and enormous — 1,500 rivers and creeks were cut off and 300 lakes were emptied. Desperate for drinking water, Munkhbayar’s family and neighbors dug wells. But groundwater was so contaminated that dozens [sic] of local children suffered serious liver damage. Munkhbayar’s son was taken ill, and his mother lost her life.”⁷

As a child, Tsetsegee Munkhbayar dreamed of his hero, Chinggis Khan, the great horseman of the Mongolian steppes, and of becoming a respected herder in the long nomadic tradition of his family. After the heartbreak of seeing his native Onggi River run dry due to unregulated foreign mining, and seeing his people and their herds dying from toxic pollution related diseases, Tsetsegee Munkhbayar took action, organized people, challenged corporations and government.

“The Onggi River Movement he co-founded convinced government officials to expand and enforce mining regulations, pass new legislation, establish citizen oversight for the entire mining process, and start environmental restoration work. As a result, 35 of the 37 mining operations in the Onggi river basin stopped destructive operations, the worst offender shut down, and for the first time in years the river flows again. Munkhbayar went on to unite 11 river movements, creating the Mongolian Nature Protection Coalition, one of the nation’s most influential civic and environmental organizations.”⁷

It wasn’t long before Tsetsegee Munkhbayar was noticed by the experts at the The Asia Foundation, a San Francisco-based ‘think tank’ and ‘advocacy’ organization that meddles, quite deeply, it turns out, in the foreign affairs of ‘repressive’ nations (e.g. China), little island protectorates involved in ‘counter-insurgencies’ (e.g. Philippines), former Soviet Republics (e.g. Kyrgyzstan) and so-called ‘failed states’ where the United States just happens to be prosecuting all out war (e.g. Afghanistan & Iraq).

“On Monday, April 23, 2007, Tsetsegee Munkhbayar of Mongolia, founder of a mass citizen’s movement to protect Mongolia’s national waterways, won a 2007 Goldman Environmental Prize — the largest accolade in the world for grassroots environmentalists,” wrote TAF’s director at the time, Bill Foerderer Infante. “Often referred to as the ‘Green Nobel,’ the $125,000 annual award was established in 1990 by San Francisco civic leader and philanthropist Richard N. Goldman⁸ and his late wife, Rhoda H. Goldman, to recognize outstanding individuals who are combating pressing environmental challenges, and was created to allow these people to continue their important work.”

“The only Asian recipient of the award this year,” Bill Infante continued, “Mr. Munkhbayar, 40 [at the time], was recognized for having successfully pressured 35 of 37 mining operations working in Mongolia’s Onggi river basin — a precious drinking water supply for rural Mongolians — to permanently stop harmful, ruinous mining and exploration activities. Beginning in 2001, and with a volunteer staff of more than 2,000 people, Mr. Munkhbayar’s Onggi River Movement organized multi-province roundtable discussions and launched high-profile radio and television campaigns to build public awareness.”

After winning the Goldman Environmental prize in 2007, activist Tsetsegee Munkhbayar was widely celebrated by western institutions and the English-speaking press for his peaceful and collaborative achievements in uniting nomads and organizing civil society to protect Mongolia’s environment. Tsetsegee Munkhbayar was not just an environmentalist, he was a national hero, standing up for ordinary people and basic human rights, a former herder turned national spokesman who rose out of the backward and repressive social milieu of communism in collapse. Tsetsegee Munkhbayar was rewarded for speaking up — an action unheard of in Mongolian society — in the former Soviet-run communist republic turned ‘emerging democracy’ of Mongolia.

Home, Home on the Range

I found Tsetsegee Munkhbayar and other key river movement activists from around the country at the offices of the Onggi River Movement in Mongolia’s capital city, Ulaanbaatar.⁹ Tsetsegee Munkhbayar is every bit a man deserving of awards.

“In Mongolia it is nonsense to speak about ‘pollution’ when the entire water source has disappeared,” Tsetsegee Munkhbayar told me. “Because of climate differences — it is not like the United States — we have to completely prohibit the use of water in Mongolia.”

The year 2000 saw massive livestock die-offs in Mongolia due to a regional climate (drought) condition called ghang — meaning that water resources in Mongolia were always scarce to begin with — exacerbated by global climate instability. On the great Mongol steppe, killing droughts come with the ghang, where summer sunshine scorches grasslands, and the qara zhud, a snowless winter in a waterless desert. Torrential rains bring floods. The caghan zhud is a blizzard of frozen snowy starvation and the tugharai-yin zhud defines another kind of hunger: too many cattle or horses, thousands of hooves ripping apart the land; too many sheep or goats, devouring every last grass. Winter plunges the mercury to minus 35 or minus 40º or colder — minus 70º in recent years — the killing temperatures. Whole herds vanish overnight, and with them the livelihoods of whole families. Hardest hit were small-scale Mongolian herders. Ghang struck again in the winter of 2010, killing some 8 million (17%) of the country’s livestock.

However, ghang and zhud have now also become big businesses in Mongolia: absent the appropriate land management policies, or the enforcement of laws, in a system rife with corruption, the effects of climate mayhem have been exacerbated by government officials with over-sized herds who capitalize on ordinary people’s losses and monopolize government subsidies, capitalize on western donors’ support, and dominate the best grazing land.

A landlocked nation of steppes and desert, Mongolia is known mostly for its nomadic herders and heroic former leader Chinggis Khaan.¹⁰ With an estimated $1.3 trillion worth of untapped mineral assets, according to Eurasia Capital, a predatory Hong Kong-based investment bank, “the investment world is eagerly eyeing opportunities in Mongolia”.

Capitalism arrived in Mongolia circa 1990 and the people saw more than 60 years of communist propaganda dissolve into capitalist propaganda overnight. Suddenly, everything that was bad was good, and everything that was good was bad. Now they are seeing the reality of capitalism.

The rapid expansion of rapacious profit-driven ecotourism is destroying Mongolia’s culture, people and land: Mongolia is the new wild, wild west, the last frontier. Tourist camps and lodges run by ‘entrepreneurs’ wielding the power of private-profit have sprouted up in pristine wilderness where only herders once roamed. More and more herders are landless and herd-less.

Big mining companies have forced more and more nomads into the sprawling poverty of ger cities.¹¹ Communities of herders that have stood up, peacefully and unarmed, for their environmental and human rights — clean air, clean water, clean pastures — for more than a decade. Mining and logging have dried up or poisoned whole rivers. Increasingly aggressive responses from increasingly desperate communities have been met with paramilitary violence and illegal western-style ‘legal’ actions in the elite-controlled courts.

The poverty in cities takes many forms: homelessness, over-crowding, squatting, slave labor. The urban poor — increasingly desperate and disillusioned — have robbed Ulaanbaatar’s graves of sacred artifacts that were long ago buried with the ancestors: pried open and ransacked, skulls and skeletons spill out of crumbling wood caskets.

Hundreds of street children were living in Ulaanbaatar’s underground sewer systems in the dead of the Mongolian winter: temperatures have plummeted to minus 40º Fahrenheit in cities and minus 70º F in rural areas in recent years. One Mongolian researcher who was involved in a street children study in Mongolia reports that according to the national statistics the number of homeless children in Mongolia reached about 2000 at its highest in the early 1990s, but the number hovered steadily around 1000-1400 annually, depending on the season (in winters some kids returned home). However, the numbers suddenly dropped since around 2006: people explain the drop by the trafficking of homeless children to China to use their body parts (kidneys, livers, hearts) for transplants.

Hundreds of people work each day picking through garbage in the city dumps; many of them live there: western charity and aid groups have preyed on them, promising all kinds of changes, using images of them in fancy brochures to win new grants, but providing no substantive relief.

Preying on the country’s 2.9 million people and polluting the vastly unpopulated land, transnational corporations backed by foreign governments and the western intelligence apparatus are plundering what some call ‘the Saudi Arabia of Central Asia’. The same companies are plundering Mongolia as Congo and Canada, for example, and Western mining works in league with NGOs claiming to be working for Mongolia’s conservation and development and freedom. The ‘intelligence apparatus’ includes the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA): The CIA has a long history of foreign interventions, tortures, drugs-running and covert operations — as bad as anything ever done by SAVAK (Iran), KGB (Russia), or STASI (East Germany).

Our Mongolian Land

“The government has sold out to mining companies and the government is fully under their control,” said M. Bold, a leader of the civic movement My Mongolian Land.¹² A former military commander, M. Bold’s movement attracted many other military — former soldiers disillusioned and disenfranchised by government. M. Bold has often been propositioned to take a bribe. He is worried about his life. “But someone has to speak out,” he said. “If not me, no one will.”¹³

Formed in 2005, My Mongolian Land organized 29 public protests between 2005 and 2008, averaging 7000-8000 people in each; the biggest was 13,000 people. To protest corrupt government deals that completely sold out to Ivanhoe Mines — one of the most notorious western corporations in Mongolia¹⁴ — the group camped out for weeks on the streets of Ulaanbaatar in April 2006. One of the largest mass gatherings in Mongolia’s history, they even burned an effigy of Ivanhoe’s mining magnate Robert ‘Toxic Bob’ Friedland. M. Bold shows me the minerals map of Mongolia — specked and dotted with deposits all over the land.

“Many top Mongolian military officials are linked to corrupt government officials,” M. Bold told me. “It’s not the ‘Democratic Party’ and ‘Communist Party’ fighting each other in Mongolia, it’s actually mining companies fighting for power and control.”

Western corporate lawyers sent by the mining companies have helped create tax and mining laws favorable to multinational corporations. Since 1991, the most progressive mining laws — hard fought for, hard won — have been reversed at least three times for the benefit of foreign extractive industries. However, most of the mining laws were copied over from Canada in 1997. Also helping to impose favorable mining and other laws are big western NGOS.

“As a newly developing ‘democracy’ we don’t know how to control these NGOs and their projects,” said M. Bold. “The money just cycles back to foreigners — advisers, experts, consultants — and these foreigners live very comfortably in Mongolia. There are so many of them. And we don’t know what they are doing.”

The big NGOs in Mongolia include the Soros Foundation, World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy and The Asia Foundation — funded by United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Department for International Development (DFID) United Kingdom, Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and the KEIDANREN.¹⁵ The big conservation and human rights NGOs work to ‘protect the environment’, but only selectively. They protect Mongolian resources from western capitalism’s competitors — from China, Korea and Russia, in Mongolia’s case — and blind the Mongolian people to the truth.

Saruul Avgandoorj is a former school teacher turned green movement activist from Hongor village, next to the mining metropolis of Darkhan — where mining has poisoned the whole village with cyanide. We meet in the ‘Veteran’s Building’ in Ulaanbaatar, where green movement and human rights activists have converged to form an alliance against government corruption and human rights abuses. They are also waging a war of occupation to hold onto the last public meeting space they have.

“Babies have been born with deformities,” Saruul Avgandoorj tells me, “and there have been more than 30 miscarriages. There are many birth defects in cattle too. Around 15 people died — not old people — of the same symptoms.”¹⁶

Problems in this case are caused by the Chinese gold mining company ‘Mich’, partnered with the government of Darkhan and a federal parliamentarian official named Mr. Khayanharvaa. “He poisoned the whole village — the cattle, the humans, the environment, the water,” says Saruul Avgandoorj. “He purchased and manipulated votes [in a recent election]. Now the green movement in Mongolia works in solidarity with human rights groups.”

In early July 2008 thousands of people protested the rigged national elections. Police responded with bullets, massive arrests, tortures, disappearances and secret trials. The western press produced superficial reports, but like most substantive news, the post-elections violence was mostly in whiteout. Saruul Avgandoorj, now the National Green Movement leader, and Arslan Gombosuren, leader of the Mongolian Citizens for Justice Movement, were imprisoned for 14 days in August 2008 for sitting down in a public place with pieces of tape emblazoned with the Mongol word for ‘release’ taped over their mouths.¹⁷

The Asia Foundation (TAF) provided ‘election observers’ — more US government funding — but according to Mongolian civil society organizations the entire show was a farce; even foreign expatriates agreed. Director Bill Infante published TAF reports claiming that the elections were ‘free and fair’ — it’s too bad about the elections-related violence, he said, dismissing it — but a good example of an ‘emerging democracy’ in the making.

“They [TAF] called the elections ‘free and fair’, and they were quoted by all the western newspapers,” said ‘Bayarma Ganbold’, a Mongolian civic activist afraid of being targeted for speaking out, “and they never changed their story, even when it became obvious it wasn’t true. Bill Infante’s wife Bettina started a public relations company with government candidates as her clients. Bill and Bettina created all this propaganda about how wonderful the elections were. But the elections were fixed from the beginning to the end.”¹⁸

In October 2008, some 230 innocent civilians — over 70 teenagers and 130 people aged 19-21 — remained locked in brutal Mongolian jails after police swept the streets in early July arresting 823 people. Mongolian witnesses claim that the post-election ‘riots’ of early July were designed to justify arrests, since they were manufactured by neo-Nazi provocateurs tolerated and promoted by police. More than 72 people disappeared, while official tolls reported only five people killed. Far-right groups in Mongolia are proliferating, and the neo-Nazis allegedly serve as mafia thugs for government parliamentarians and other recipients of western largesse.¹⁹

Nazi memorabilia and statues adorn the walls of a popular bar cafe in downtown Ulaanbataar, speaking to the rise of neo-Nazi factions there.

“The government hid the facts,” said ‘Bayarma Ganbold’, “and The Asia Foundation played along. They were partners in crime. We’ve made the human rights situation known to international human rights organizations — Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International — but they haven’t responded.”

In 2009, Amnesty International published a report blaming the July 2008 violence on ‘riots’: there was no mention of western interests in elections-rigging or neo-Nazi provocateurs who instigated the ‘riots’.²⁰

Those arrested were tortured into signing confessions, denied legal representation, tried in groups in secret government trials, and some were sentenced to 15-20 years in prison. A few people with money were able to buy their way out: one family paid $11,000 to police to release their son, who they quickly packed off to South Korea for safety.

Saruul Avgandoorj described how the George Soros Foundation funds a lot of police projects in Mongolia, projects like the ‘Police and Community Cooperation’ and ‘Achievement of a New Level’. “But we don’t know what they do,” she said. “Many [foreign] NGOs and organizations are working as agents for [corrupt] politicians. No one realizes the catastrophe that is unfolding here.”

Non-Government Euphemism

In the beginning, Tsetsegee Munkhbayar had a very positive understanding about The Asia Foundation (TAF), which had been working in Mongolia since (at least) 1990. One of the local Mongolia partners for the World Bank, TAF helped build the Mongolian Nature Protection Coalition (MNPC), an alliance of eleven domestic civil society conservation NGOs created through the organizational skills and respectful dialog of Tsetsegee Munkhbayar and his colleagues.

TAF financed a variety of Onggi River Movement projects with some $10,000 over four years, 2004-2008. In 2007, the first year of the MNPC, TAF donated $US 120,000 to be shared amongst eleven groups of the coalition; TAF gave $60,000 in 2008.

While pitching a few thousand dollars to the MNPC, TAF was at the same time filling its coffers and funding its foreign salaried professionals with money earned by leveraging the success story of Tsetsegee Munkhbayar and the Goldman prize TAF won him.

In 2006, for example, TAF used the success story of the Onggi River Movement and MNPC to leverage 2.7 million Euros ($US 3,630,000) from the Dutch government for a TAF project titled ‘To Guarantee the Future’.  It wasn’t long before TAF dropped the Mongolian Nature Protection Coalition altogether and the coalition disbanded. By October 2008, the MNPC hadn’t seen a penny of the Dutch funds.

It was the salaried professionals at TAF who nominated Tsetsegee Munkhbayar for the Goldman Prize, and an investigation into their motivations, their ties to big business and other facts, reveals that their agenda is not as pure as they would like the world to believe. In nominating and awarding Tsetsegee Munkhbayar, the people at TAF also wrote the script for his environmental heroism — not out of concerns for the environment, but to guide and shape the environmental movement to suit TAF — and the western corporate template for ‘social activism’ in an ‘emerging democracy’. TAF and their partners and sponsors used Tsetsegee Munkhbayar as a tool in their multibillion dollar plans for ‘shaping’ Mongolian civil society in the interests of western penetration and control.

While pumping money into domestic civic organizations, subversive neocolonial entities like TAF also impose limitations on grant recipients. NGOs affiliated with the MNPC began to notice ‘donor preferences’ — where funds were channeled to the NGOs that remained more silent and acquiescent about government policies, and especially those that did not protest against mining companies. Mongolian NGOs were expected to defer to TAF when dealing with the media, and they were compelled to sign contracts forbidding them from publicly protesting against mining companies or government policies. TAF also worked to determine and control the members of the boards overseeing the environmental coalitions that received TAF funds. Ultimately, river coalition members found they had no control over their own groups: TAF tried to maintain all control.²¹

Indigenous activists like Tsetsegee Munkhbayar are encouraged to ‘cooperate’ and subordinate themselves to powerful foreign NGO entities in a multitude of ways — much like self- and other forms of censorship in the western press model. That they will not cross a certain invisible but tangible line is expected of them. When members of domestic organizations like Tsetsegee Munkhbayar “make ‘noises’ in society they draw[s] public attention to issues which either are not known or were not able to be known previously due to a lack of access to information, secrecy and distance from the areas where issues exist.”²¹

Pictures Worth a Thousand Herds

Due to the influence and subterfuge of western interests, and their lack of accountability or transparency, Mongolian nationals sometimes harbor distorted perceptions. For example, one MNPC activist claimed that “TAF paid one photographer $90,000 to do some pictures in Mongolia. Meanwhile all eleven MNPC organizations, with $120,000 to split between them in the first year [2007], were tasked with buying computers and other equipment and establishing an environmental protection network across all Mongolia.”

Ted Wood claims that the MNPC activist was incorrect (they have not responded to my clarification inquiry of February 2011). “This is complete fiction,” Ted Wood responded [February 2011]. “The only fee I received from TAF for photography was $900 for a 3-day shoot in eastern Mongolia for their ‘Books for Asia’ program.”

Ted Wood would not answer questions about how much money he received from TAF for other projects or purposes. According to his own biography, Ted Wood is a Boulder, Colorado (USA)-based freelance photographer and author “who specializes in natural history and environmental images. He has photographed for Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Times Magazine, New York Times, National Wildlife, and Outside,” and his images are copyrighted, marketed and sold through the photo agencies Aurora Photos and Getty Images.

Ted Wood’s photographs from Mongolia were used in part for books peddled by TAF as part of their effort to penetrate Mongolian culture with ‘educational’ materials infused with western values and norms about private profit, individualism, and ‘free-market’ competition. However, not one of the elite US magazines that Ted Wood shoots for have published anything substantive about the western mining, human rights atrocities, or other foreign meddling in Mongolia. Both Ted Wood and TAF capitalize on their relationship: on their ‘Power of a Book: Books for Asia’ web page, TAF promotes Ted Wood; his biography is also listed on a TAF web page. Sponsors for TAF’s international “Books for Asia” program include Chevron Oil and USAID.

“The conclusions you are drawing here are wrong,” Ted Wood wrote me [February 2011], protesting my characterizations of his work. “I donated a couple images to TAF guides concerning citizen rights as they pertained to mining and the environment. I have no control over the editorial content of magazines that license my photos, as you should know. I’ve proposed many mining stories, but mining stories in Mongolia are not at the top of magazines’ lists I’m afraid. The connection you’re making here between my work and the absence of magazine stories is truly unfair.”

In fact, Ted Wood and his journalism colleague Jeremy Schmidt also formed an NGO in the United States called Conservation Ink whose self-advertised mission “is to support conservation and environmental awareness in natural and cultural areas through the production and distribution of educational materials.” The financial sponsors of Conservation Ink include the National Geographic Society, USAID, The Nature Conservancy, Wildlife Conservation Society, The Asia Foundation and — no small surprise — the Ivanhoe [Mines] Community Development Fund.²²

“Many corporations have funds or foundations,” Ted Wood replied [letter of complaint, February 2011]. “Ford, Microsoft, etc. Shell even supports Frontline and PBS, even when the story is anti-oil. The Ivanhoe Fund gave us money to translate our educational materials on Gobi Gurvansaikan National Park for use in Mongolian schools.”

“I suggest you contact Ivanhoe,” said Jeremy Schmidt, co-founder of Conservation Ink, responding to questions about their grant from Ivanhoe Mines, for the original publication of this story. “Alyson Croft was our contact with the Fund at the time of the grant we received. It was 2004 or 2005, a small grant to translate our Gobi map-guide into Mongolian for free local distribution.”²³

Alyson Croft is the wife of Layton Croft, the former Mongolia country director for The Asia Foundation and, as we will shortly see, he was one of Tsetsegee Munkhbayar’s primary advocates with the Goldman Foundation.

National Geographic has used some of Ted Wood’s images. In a single on-line story they did which talks in any detail about mining in Mongolia — a story where they cite Tsetsegee Munkhbayar — National Geographic blamed Mongolia’s mining woes on Chinese and Russian firms (who are certainly doing their share of plundering and poising the land) and on small-scale Mongolian miners — mom-and-pop herder families struggling to eke a living out of the harsh, cruel world that wiped out their herds — and the only hint of any western mining involvement was in a quote they inserted by Ivanhoe Mines spokesman Layton Croft.

Mining companies are always downplaying the size of mineral reserves, and western mining companies are not to blame for anything, they say, since they have hardly arrived in Mongolia and haven’t even begun to exploit the resources. Anyways, big things are in store for the lucky communities nearby, they promise.

“Mining to date has been relatively small-scale,” said Layton Croft, an executive with Ivanhoe Mines, a Canadian company with a massive copper and gold mine development project in southern Mongolia. The boom really hasn’t yet started. The prospect of mining is what’s on everyone’s mind.”²⁴

The statement was both true and false at once. More interesting, however, is how the western invaders quote each other, slap each other’s backs and butter each other’s bread, how the western media uses these select experts to give voice to select ideas, and how the money cycles back and forth between them — perpetuating the propaganda and private profits of predatory capitalism.

Follow the Money

Substantial efforts (2005-2006) by Layton Croft, TAF’s former Mongolia Country Director, and William Foerderer Infante, his successor, to lobby the Goldman Fund paid off when Tsetsegee Munkhbayar traveled to San Francisco, California (USA) to receive the $125,000 cash prize (2007).

Robert Redford introduces Tsetsegee Munkhbayar and the other 2007 Goldman Prize winners in the moving Goldman Foundation video.²⁵ The video applauds Tsetsegee Munkhbayar for his organizational skills and peaceful, collaborative approach. One mining company public relations executive –  Mongolian giving mining a Mongolian face — talks about restoration done by their mining company, suggesting a progressive mining climate in Mongolia, where companies comply with environmental stewardship, perform due diligence and work with communities. The video paints a happy and collaborative picture over the brutal realities attendant to the clash of civilizations.

And then, at minute 4:18 in the Goldman Fund 2007 video we meet Mr. Layton Croft, who left TAF in 2005 to become Vice-President, Corporate Affairs & Social Responsibility, for Ivanhoe Mines.

“The key to [Tsetsegee] Munkhbayar’s success as a leader for responsible mining in Mongolia,” says Layton Croft, in the Goldman Prize video, “is that he’s had the courage to acknowledge that mining could be good for Mongolia, as long as it’s done in a very open and participatory way.”

Layton Croft began his career as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mongolia (1994-1997). He later joined the Mongolian office of the big US government and intelligence organization PACT,²⁶ where he was the Program Director for Information Systems for their Gobi Regional Economic Growth Initiative/Mongolia (1999-2002), working for PACT-Mongolia in an alliance with Mercy Corps and USAID.

Mercy Corps has a very euphemistic name suggesting that they are merciful, caring, dedicated to helping — a.k.a. we are supposed to perceive them, as many of their workers perceive themselves, as selfless and charitable and serving a higher moral purpose: to alleviate suffering. However, the Merc Corps partners include at least one multinational weapons manufacturer whose business depends on the proliferation and actuation of war (The Boeing Company).  They are also affiliated with sweatshop companies (NIKE), predatory international banking (International Finance Corporation), and one of the US corporations (ITT) that directly supported the 1970 coup d’etat against Chilean president Salvador Allende and the rise of the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

One of Layton Croft’s USAID-backed projects with PACT involved bringing National Public Radio founder Bill Siemering and NPR personality Corey Flintoff to Mongolia to promote the USAID-funded fiction of ‘free and independent’ media.²⁷ Another PACT project Croft was involved with created and broadcast a TV sit-com “where marginalized herder and non-herder business operators are learning new skills to manage their diversified businesses for higher returns via a 26-episode educational TV soap opera broadcast on Mongolian National TV.” The show had more than 400,000 viewers.²⁸

One of PACT’s nationally broadcast TV dramas was called Endless Labyrinth, described by PACT as “a 26 part drama, focused on a family that had lost its entire herd through natural disaster. Destitute, and in need of income, the family moves to the provincial center in search of employment opportunities. The show addressed issues such as urban migration, and helped to unravel the tangles of life in a modern market economy.”

However, we can be sure that the show did not challenge the basic beliefs and tenants of predatory capitalism, or international finance (George Soros made his billions by currency speculation that facilitated the collapse of former communist countries), or the nature of western propaganda, or the predation that comes side-by-side with the “humanitarian” business sector (with all their attendant human rights and environmental atrocities and their undermining of labor and health standards) or the spread of disease that comes with the penetration of multinational pharmaceutical corporations (dumping outdated or forbidden products or testing untested medicines) and agribusiness (spreading genetically modified seeds) and multinational food corporations (laced with poisons like monosodium glutamate or aspartame).

The urban migration of Mongolian nomads is in PACT’s interest — getting the pesky people out of the way and freeing up the land for exploitation by mining, petroleum or other extractive industries. Meanwhile, the urban migrants can be more easily targeted by corporations peddling western commodities and serving the interests of companies like Nike and Wal-Mart, who also to be PACT partners.

In short, while the scourge of western capitalism penetrates further and further into the Mongolian hinterland, the scourge of western propaganda penetrates deeper and deeper into the psyche of the average Mongolian citizen (who is daily tuned in to these soap operas and herder dramas). The icing on the cake of indoctrination is the advertising that is infused between the segments of the episodes, filing up the airwaves and the minds of anxious listeners with ideas of consumption, the politics of desire, and the pathological western worship of individuality (and hostility to community, a.k.a., socialism).

Such foreign created and controlled propaganda is not purely entertainment: like the ‘educational’ books peddled by TAF and the TV sit-coms created by PACT, these programs rely on ‘behavior change communications’ — analyzing and changing local content to change attitudes and eventually change behaviors; creating desire, opening up new markets for western commodities, and selling advertising.²⁹

Layton Croft’s next career step was TAF, 2003-2005, where he lobbied the Goldman Foundation to recognize Tsetsegee Munkhbayar.

Layton Croft’s experience working with and for the big NGOs — Soros Foundation, Mercy Corps, PACT, USAID, TAF — certainly enhanced his next career move. Since 2005, Layton Croft has been the Executive Vice-President for Corporate Affairs and Community Relations at South Gobi Resources, an Ivanhoe Mines/Rio Tinto megaproject, and he is an “advisor for investor relations in Asia and corporate social responsibility” for Ivanhoe Mines. Alison Croft, his wife, works in ‘community relations’ with Ivanhoe Mines.

As the newly hired public relations executive for Ivanhoe Mines, Layton Croft wasted no time in accusing Mongolian civil society groups — including some of his former allies when he worked at TAF — of betraying the public. One of his first major public relations whitewash came in April 2006, when the effigy of ‘Toxic Bob’ Friedland was burned by My Mongolian Land, the Green Movement, and other civic groups.

“We also overturned Ivanhoe cars in 2007 protests,” M. Bold from My Mongolian Land told me. “Ivanhoe wanted to get a contract like the government had with the Canadian company Boroo Gold. They [Boroo] were robbing us for more than ten years (1997-2007). In one year of operations they used 800 tons of [toxic] chemicals,³⁰ so they were also destroying the place: it’s not useable for centuries. The company produced the only reports about water, for example, and what a wonderful job they were doing.”¹³

“The [Ivanhoe] company deeply regrets the fact that civic movements are misleading the Mongolian public by misrepresenting the real facts in order to further their own political interests,” said Layton Croft, Executive Vice President for Corporate Affairs for Ivanhoe Mines. “As a public company listed and traded on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges, Ivanhoe Mines respects the independence and sovereignty of the countries where it operates. To this end, Ivanhoe has not and will not interfere in internal Mongolian political affairs,” Croft said.³¹

In 2007, Ivanhoe mines came very close to physically changing the direction of the Kherlan River, but it was the intervention of the Mongolian Nature Protection Coalition (MNPC) that stopped it. Tsetsegee Munkhbayar and Clayton Croft engaged in a heated argument about this at a public meeting.

“Ivanhoe Mines had their own people already elected to Parliament,” said M. Bold of My Mongolian Land. “We don’t want Mongolia to be a playground for these criminals and their corruption. Our country is in grave danger.”³²

Shunned by Sponsors

On May 30, 2005 members of the Onggi River Movement traveled to Arkhangai aimag³³ to organize an MNPC training workshop for local herders facing critical water stoppages on the Nariin Hamar River in Tsenkher soum.³⁴ During the training an excited herder on horseback arrived to alert them that a new mining company was commencing operations at a new site on the river at that very moment. The workshop drew 128 people, and all of them moved quickly to the new site where a Mongolian company called Mongol Gazar was setting up a new ger camp.

Blocked from the site by armed security guards, the herders were attacked after they told the company personnel to immediately leave their land. The security guards tear-gassed the angry herders, beat them and shot into the air. A professional cameraman from Mongolian National Broadcast TV who was attending the rivers movement training was attacked, his equipment destroyed, along with all evidence of the attacks of violence by security guards. Herders were arrested and threatened by the company, who warned that Mongolian law protected all mining companies from protest.

For Tsetsegee Munkhbayar, this incident signaled his evolving awareness of how far mining companies would go — and how ruthless — to protect their stolen interests. Barely one year after Tsetsegee Munkhbayar was awarded the Goldman Prize he and his colleagues asserted their independence even further — much to the disapproval of the people at TAF — and they began to suffer for it immediately.

On May 16, 2008, at another protest in Selenge aimag, herders of the Khuder River Movement — another MNPC member organization — faced similar violence from armed guards with the Erdes Group, an iron and gold company. Erdes guards had guns and batons and they intimidated the river movement herders into keeping their distance.

A Mongolian front company with Chinese investors behind it, Erdes Group is allegedly partnered with Mr. O. Chuluunbat, ex-president of Mongol Bank and the Communist Party parliament member from Selenge aimag. The company clear-cut the local forests, but they left a wall of trees intact at the front of the clear-cut to disguise the devastation behind.³⁵ Similarly, Erdes Group publicly championed ‘restoration’ that never happened. Due to the protest, the company halted mining for two months, bribed everyone they could, and started up again. Bulldozing everything in sight, they turned the forest into mud and chopsticks — processed at their nearby factory, exported to China.⁹

By the spring of 2008, Tsetsegee Munkhbayar finally began to understand that TAF was acting against the interests of Mongolia and protecting the mining companies. When the Onggi River Movement demonstrated its independence, really taking on mining companies aggressively, TAF at first lobbied the Onggi River Movement to soften its approach, and then they attacked them.

Meanwhile, the mining companies had become increasingly violent in response to the successes of the conservationists in organizing civil society against illegal mining, privatization of natural resources, corruption in government, and the overuse and degradation of the commons. More and more, companies deployed armed security guards. Across the country there was a rise in attacks on herders and conservationists who protested the illegal land grab and environmental destruction of mining operations.

Tsetsegee Munkhbayar and his colleagues saw clearly that the government was not enforcing the environmental protections brought into law in previous years. It was the duty of the Mongolian government to regulate companies, they said, but the government was not doing so. There were no protections of citizen’s basic human rights and the environment. More and more herders and their herds were suffering due to mining and whenever the Onggi River Movement organized a protest in the countryside they were met by armed thugs.

Then on May 26, 2008, six of the member organizations of the Mongolian Nature Protection Coalition (MNPC) organized a press conference announcing their intentions to defend themselves and their lands with rifles — promising to meet intimidation and violence with a show of armed self-defense. Leading the charge was Tsetsegee Munkhbayar.

Given the MNPC’s commitment to defend their basic rights and sovereignty, on May 30, 2008, TAF dropped the Onggi River Movement and the five coalition partners who had pledged to defend themselves. TAF immediately began smearing and discrediting Tsetsegee Munkhbayar and the other environmentalists by issuing a letter expressing TAF’s ‘disappointment’ that they ‘threatened violence and the use of weapons’. The letter was reportedly picked up by the Mongolian newspapers — the state propaganda apparatus — and stories appeared that discredited and divided the MNPC.³⁶ Soon Tsetsegee Munkhbayar and the six MNPC members who stood firm began hearing stories portraying them as terrorists.

TAF director Bill Infante slammed Tsetsegee Munkhbayar and the others publicly and privately. While Bill Infante and TAF apparently circulated their statement about the MNPC,³⁷ TAF never took a similar stance against the armed violence or plunder of resources by foreign or domestic mining companies.

“Since May 30 [2008] Bill Infante has repeatedly called the six environmental groups terrorist organizations,” MNPC activists told me. “He said this personally, when they met face-to-face.”³⁸

In a meeting with the MNPC just after May 30, 2008, Bill Infante stated that The Asia Foundation activities are based on U.S. laws: TAF doesn’t follow Mongolian laws. TAF then directed its might at further dividing and co-opting the leaders of MNPC member organizations that did not adopt the stance of direct action and armed self-defense. With the defamation by TAF and the bad publicity that followed — and with TAF’s purchasing power buying the silence of groups and individuals — the Mongolian Nature Protection Coalition (MNPC) collapsed.

Tsetsegee Munkhbayar, photo by William Infante, The Asia Foundation.

“The [public] letter is in English, and it does accuse them,” said Tracey Naughton, country director for PACT-Mongolia, yet another ‘non-government’ organization — funded by the US State Department — whose mission is to bring about the US system of ‘democracy’ by and for the corporations and the corporate elites. “He [Bill Infante] does use strong language and it does say ‘terrorism’. Bill is very competitive and unpleasant and he slams other NGOs in front of donors. The real people who are running Mongolia are the ‘Infantes’ of the world: they’re in all the spaces.”³⁹

The Asia Foundation also undermined the MNPC by creating petty jealousies and leadership struggles within the Mongolia river organizations; they pitted the Onggi River Movement and Tsetsegee Munkhbayar against the other members of the MNPC.

On October 28, 2008, Tsetsegee Munkhbayar and five of the eleven member organizations of the defunct MNPC filed a lawsuit in federal court against The Asia Foundation. The coalition sought $1,000,000 compensation for the damages caused by TAF publicly branding the five organizations ‘terrorists’. TAF filed a counter suit, and the Mongolian courts demonstrated their bias in favor of western interests by rejecting both lawsuits as ‘unjustified’. But the damage was already done.

“The MNPC disintegrated,” said Tsetsegee Munkhbayar, “due to conflict created with and by The Asia Foundation. The main interest of The Asia Foundation is to assist mining companies in Mongolia. All events are showing that The Asia Foundation is behind the mining interests.”

Capitalism’s Trojan Horses

Through the Goldman Prize, TAF created an image of Tsetsegee Munkhbayar as a peaceful and cooperative Mongolian citizen organizing public awareness and politely challenging international mining companies to ‘do the right thing’. According to the TAF video, Tsetsegee Munkhbayar is a local champion of conservation, a proponent of democratic values and the hopeful image of the ‘win-win’ scenario falsely advanced by the mining industry, by NGOs like TAF, and by their agents like Layton Croft and Bill Infante.

But the real mission of TAF is to mold and manipulate domestic challenger groups into positions of cooperative acquiescence and competitive participation with the western plunder of Mongolia — to shape societies, in the interests of predatory capitalism, through cash-driven interventions that divide and conquer domestic groups and create strong constituencies that will serve the interests of the external organizations. It was a condescending relationship from the start, but TAF used Tsetsegee Munkhbayar to enhance their image and advance their interests in the game of international influence-peddling and transnational control.

“The Asia Foundation has really got some slick people.” Conservation expert ‘Jane Smith’ asked that her name be changed to protect her from retaliation. “Using my name and my organizations’ name would jeopardize our lives and years of work here. No one will touch us again. The government and big [international] donors would pounce on us.”

With years of experience in Mongolia, Jane Smith has seen the daily changes. She describes a government with no regulations, a black economy, trading in thugs and violence, where anyone bold enough to take something — those who have the allies and influence — can just take it.

“These big organizations like The Asia Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, WWF [World Wildlife Fund], WCS [Wildlife Conservation Society] and GTZ [German Technical Corporation],” said Jane Smith, “they all came to smaller NGOs like ours and they wanted to learn how to do things — things it took us years to learn — over lunch. They didn’t have any funding for us, and they never took up the ideas that we felt were most important. They have their glossy brochures and they make a show of being interested in the programs that really need to be done, but they don’t really do anything. They are the new wave of colonialists.”⁴⁰

“The Nature Conservancy is one of the richest conservation organizations in the world.” Jane Smith provided examples. “Yet they couldn’t fund their [Mongolian branch] offices here — it took four years to develop the office and it has to fund itself. The ‘sustainable mining’ idea came from The Asia Foundation: they know all the buzz words and jargon. They are really good at throwing around and adapting terminology. It looks good in their presentations and their brochures and government reports, and international donors accept it because they don’t know, or they don’t care.”

“One woman from World Wildlife Fund-Mongolia [WWF],” Jane Smith explained, “Yoko Watanabe, from Japan.⁴¹ She had this long, pedigreed career background. She stood up and gave a beautiful presentation in Ulaanbaatar, for foreign donors, about what WWF was doing across the country. She was talking about all these things WWF supported, like this [redacted project] in [redacted location]. I worked in [redacted] for years, and I thought to myself, ‘Where is this [redacted project]?’ My driver was from the soum center where this [redacted project] was and he cracked up [laughing]. We drove down there and there was this one guy with a shovel…”

“But this [Watanabe] woman was typical of the problem: a young, inexperienced person being hired on and elevated quickly to postions of responsibility, and making decisions on things they know little about, and then they move on to bigger and better things. They are usually removed from, and unaware of, the consequences of those decisions on the ground. They are well-educated, intelligent, not very curious, but they know who butters their bread, and they know exactly what to say and how to say it.”

“I know everyone, they are all nice people,” said Jane Smith. “The head of The Asia Foundation, Bill Infante, he’s really removed from reality and really removed from the local people.⁴² There’s no interest in long term development in the country, it’s all about long term development of their careers. They have to spend money — their careers are based on how many projects they can get going and all the assessments and reports they can show to donors.”

“The Asia Foundation helped bring the rivers movement together as a coalition,” Jane Smith continued. “They [TAF] lobbied very hard — especially Bill Infante — for [Tsetsegee] Munkhbayar to get the Goldman Prize. It makes them look very good, but it had the effect of weakening the river movement, which is counter to what TAF claims they are doing, which is strengthening. They brought the heads of the rural organizations and key figures to Ulaanbaatar, gave them nice offices.”

“They basically cut off the heads of the rural organizations. Rather than fighting the mining companies and protecting the rivers they [leaders] were fighting over offices and who would get the best computers. We worked with movements all over Mongolia, and we cautioned against removing the [movement] heads. We had a lot of experience in community development and organizing so that local people could take advantage of the new system under ‘democracy’. Instead of bringing all these river movements together to unite against the mining companies — and say ‘hey, you guys are killing us’ — The Asia Foundation just dropped them.”

Doublespeak and Gobbledygook

Interview after interview with Mongolian leaders in Ulaanbaatar confirmed the wall that lower level government officials slam up against when trying to enforce environmental regulations. Environment and human rights activists outlined rapacious logging — including logging in ‘strictly protected’ areas — for the building boom in Ulaanbaatar and they pointed to western mining companies who can do anything they want, anywhere, companies bent on destroying the pristine Lake Hovsgol ecosystem, for example, just as they are destroying the rest of the world.

These corporations are fueling an unprecedented disaster in Mongolia. They begin by corrupting officials and paying bribes in the capital city, and then they show up in rural areas where the local people know nothing about their plans, their methods, or their histories of terrorism and environmental destruction. They peddle human rights and democracy, and then they block off whole valleys, divert and drain vast rivers, throw herders off communal lands, and then arm themselves with thugs. They have their economic hit men and their propaganda experts.

My interviews with the foreign ‘experts’ at the big western NGOs were almost identical. They all threw around the language of sustainable development, democracy, and conservation; they knew exactly what to say and how to say it — if they would meet with me at all. They had fancy brochures announcing all their fancy projects, and when it came to answering the hard questions they became mute, squirmed in their chairs, and suddenly had another meeting to attend. They also threw volumes of information at me, demonstrating — in their eyes — their efficacy and indispensable presence.

I met with Rebecca Darling at TAF headquarters in Ulaanbaatar.⁴³ As TAF’s Director of Natural Resources and Development/Securing our Future Program, here was a perfect example of a nice, well-educated, salaried, career-track, western NGO professional who knew what to say and when to say it, and whose tune changed depending on her audience.

“We try to get information into the hands of the policy makers,” Rebecca Darling told me. “The past four years saw a lot of nothing happening. In the next four years some very serious decisions will be made about natural resource use. The environment is still in a pretty good state but headed for a world of hurt. Mining companies here are all frustrated because things have been stalled for four years. Mongolia is on the cusp of major changes.”⁴⁴

“They have transparency in mining Canada,” Rebecca Darling continued. Flags went off in my mind when she expressed sympathy for the mining companies, and now she was defending Canada’s mining policies. “Every piece of paper goes [public] there. Here it’s all behind closed doors, and there are no checks and balances. Western companies, Chinese and Russian companies, Mongolian companies — none of them are doing the right thing.”

She admitted that companies are so far out in the Mongolian bush that they can do anything and get away with it. However, she cited the effectiveness of TAF experts, like her, in formulating policy with government officials. She also acknowledged TAF’s involvement in revisions of mineral laws. “Government officials are under-resourced, undereducated, and understaffed,” she added, underscoring her faith in western expertise.

“For example, there’s a Canadian mining company that has a mining site out in Dornod,” Rebecca Darling says. “They have asked The Asia Foundation to come out and deliver community engagement seminars for them, as one of their goals is to have community engagement. We won’t go out to talk to the people about uranium, we go to talk to them about how to talk to the mining company, teaching them where their rights are, what legal avenues they have. We try to build transparency. We are trying to get them to engage.”

“Some citizens engage in unproductive and illegal ways.” Now Rebecca Darling is responding to my questions about civil society protests against mining operations. “They show up at the gates of companies and threaten violence. There are six organizations that threatened violence — all part of a coalition [MNPC] of 13 organizations from across the country. They are still threatening to take up arms, since April [2008]. Now they are threatening to hurt themselves — civil disobedience and stuff like that.”⁴⁴

“Their leader’s name is Munkhbayar, from the Onggi River Movement. We had to cease and desist all support of the [MNPC] coalition. We are not working with these six groups in any way because they broke the law and they advocate breaking the law. Most of them I have a tremendous amount of respect for, they are civic activists, and it’s true that there have already been environmental problems.”

Rebecca Darling holds up Canada as a model of transparency, good governance, and responsible mining and environmental policy. She maintained her storyline even after I provided evidence that Canada-based mining companies perpetuate poverty, human rights atrocities, terrorism and genocide around the world — even in Canada, where First Nations have recently made news, again, for blockading mining.⁴⁵ ,⁴⁶

“Can you do me a favor?” Rebecca Darling asked me at the end of a long interview where my questions were open and my role as a journalist was understood. “Please don’t quote me on anything that’s going to get my ass in a sling without checking with me.”

I’m quoting Rebecca Darling (above) because her private remarks don’t square with her public advocacy in favor of mining and the private profits to be had by TAF and others, against the people. In one commentary she authored, also published on the PACT web site, she extolled the virtues of mining and of NGOs like The Asia Foundation.

“A paradigm shift is underway in Mongolia,” Rebecca Darling wrote in April 2009. “The integration of ‘responsible mining’ and ecological protection in government policy papers, public speeches by elected officials, and platforms of political parties, reflects Mongolia’s growing environmental awareness and commitment to developing the minerals sector in ways that will protect natural resources and benefit all Mongolians. This is the result of significant advocacy efforts on behalf of a committed group of representatives from industry, government, and civil society.”⁴⁷

“Since 2006, The Asia Foundation in Mongolia has convened a Multi-Stakeholder Forum that brings together representatives from civil society, government, industry and academia,” the Rebecca Darling article continued. “After a year of regular meetings, a definition of responsible mining was developed and the Forum defined eight guiding principles. The Forum later elected a smaller group of 15 leaders, representing different sectors, to form a local non-governmental organization, named the Responsible Mining Initiative (RMI) that spearheads advocacy efforts.”

“No, I don’t agree with this rosy article,” Jane Smith countered. “The prime minister recently issued Government resolution 86, which states the intent to allow minerals (gold) exploration in protected areas, and Government ordinance 26, which forms a working group to discuss the possibility of mining in protected areas and to create a new law to allow this. This effectively undermines the Law on Special Protected Areas… The intent is to open up protected areas for anything they want, anywhere, any time… Some of the article may be true, but it’s not the rosy picture Rebecca [Darling] paints. A new law to undermine the protected areas to allow mining is not responsible, and will only degrade, if not dissolve the whole system.”⁴⁸

Blame the Victims

Who are the real terrorists? Big industry responsible for terrorism has a long history of attacking indigenous people and/or organizations fighting for their rights and labeling them terrorists. The private profit based western media and its clone institutions — domestic media aligned with corrupt elites and often funded by NGOs like TAF and NED — perpetuate this blame-the-victims inversion of reality and protect the mining interests that fund their rag sheets. Marlon Santi, President of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, is another heroic indigenous leader recently labeled as a terrorist for taking a stand against murderous and rapacious western extractive industries.⁴⁹

When I first contacted the Goldman Environmental Fund’s media relations office in early November 2010, I was surprised to find that they’d heard nothing about their past prizewinner’s armed protest two months earlier. “Technically, we don’t support winners with any more dollars, but we do step in if something is dire,” said one spokesperson. “The Goldman Foundation has some clout, here in the US, and we do work with the State Department. We don’t know how people will behave after they receive the award. In some cases we just let them slip off into obscurity.”⁵⁰

“The Goldman Environmental Prize has recently become aware of 2007 recipient T. Munkhbayar’s armed protest actions in Mongolia,” the Goldman media office wrote, when pressed, in a formal public statement on November 29, 2010. “The Prize does not condone armed protest of any kind. The Prize honored Mr. Munkhbayar for his leadership in Mongolia’s grassroots movement against mining pollution in the region’s waterways and is concerned about the recent developments. We are working to learn more about the situation as we have heard conflicting reports about his involvement and subsequent actions.”⁵¹

“Does the Goldman Fund condone armed paramilitary forces defending illegal mining companies?” I followed up. “Does the Fund agree with The Asia Foundation labeling Tsetsegee Munkhbayar a terrorist?”

“The Fund does not condone or support violent or armed actions of any kind by anyone,” they replied. “We find it hard to believe that they [TAF] would say this [about Tsetsegee Munkhbayar]. However, we really don’t have enough information from Mongolia to know what’s going on and our questions have not been answered. But no, the Goldman Environmental Fund does not agree with the definition of [Tsetsegee Munkhbayar] being a ‘terrorist’.⁵¹

I contacted The Asia Foundation offices in San Francisco in November 2010. After receiving my questions, they informed me that the people I needed to speak with were busy traveling but would get back to me when they could.⁵²

Invading Western Hordes

Since the early 1990′s, consortiums involving Centerra Gold (Canada/USA), Purram Mining (China), BHP-Billeton (USA), Rio Tinto⁵³ (Australia/UK/Canada), Itochu (Japan), Barrick Gold⁵⁴ (Canada/USA), Hunnu Coal (Australia), Xanadu (Australia), Cold Gold Mongolia (New Zealand), and many more, have snatched up mining and petroleum concessions. Many of these corporations are synonymous with environmental destruction and human rights atrocities all over the world.

QGX Corporation is a Canadian-based company that has been exploring for minerals in Mongolia since 1994.⁵⁵ By 2003, QGX held over 30,000 square kilometers in exploration rights in Mongolia, and was also partnered with Ivanhoe Mines in the South Gobi. QGX had ‘acquired’ 131 concession licenses by 2008. AngloGold Ashanti — who is partnered with De Beers and Barrick Gold elsewhere — has ‘acquired’ exploration ‘rights’ to 1.7 million hectares in northern Mongolia.

Canadian and US companies mining uranium in Mongolia include World Wide Minerals Ltd., Uranium 308 Corp., WM Mining Company, and Khan Resources Inc. WM Mining executive Wallace M. Mays is also tied to other companies in Mongolia, and his mining company IKH TOKHOIROL XXK received a $10,000,000 loan from the US government-controlled Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) in 2009. Uranium mining causes epidemics of cancer and birth defects in workers and surrounding communities. The desert steppes of Mongolia will soon be transformed into vast radiotoxic wastelands — as has happened elsewhere — but the windstorms of the high desert steppes will carry radioactivity and contaminate distant lands.

Toxic mercury is another pitfall of mining and has caused epidemics of disease around Mongolia.

Canada’s infamous Ivanhoe Mines is now in control of more than 90,000 sq. kilometers of copper, gold and coal concessions in Mongolia. Ivanhoe and its subsidiaries are run and owned by Robert Friedland — Toxic Bob⁵⁶ — a known associate of William Jefferson Clinton. Beyond his legacy of toxic cyanide poisoning in Colorado (USA), Friedland achieved notoriety in the 1990′s when his Sierra Leone subsidiary Diamondworks was linked to mercenary companies Executive Outcomes, Sandline International and Branch Energy, and to Colonel Tim Spicer and Tony Buckingham, mercenaries deeply involved in war and plunder in Iraq, Yemen, Uganda and Congo.⁵⁷

Oyu Tolgoi has been known for centuries by the local people as ‘turquoise mountain’ for the visible copper ores. This is the largest copper-gold mine in the world, located near Khobogd village in South Gobi province of southern Mongolia. Oyu Tolgoi LLC is the Mongolian subsidiary for a strategic partnership between the Government of Mongolia (34% stake), Ivanhoe Mines (66%) and Rio Tinto. It is scheduled to begin commercial production in 2013.

According to the Oyu Tolgoi public relations site: “Rio Tinto, which is the third largest mining company in the world, became a strategic partner of Ivanhoe in 2006 after buying 20% of Ivanhoe shares. Rio Tinto has over 150 years of experience in mining, in 30 countries. In recent years Rio Tinto has put a lot of emphasis on social relations and social planning. Oyu Tolgoi has adopted the high standards of social relations and planning set by Rio Tinto.”

“Once the mining begins, the Khobogd site will have a population of 20,000 within a few years and approximately 80,000 when the smelter is finished, potentially making the site the second largest city in Mongolia,” Peter Morrow, the American CEO of Mongolia’s Khan Bank [at the time], was quoted to say.⁵⁸

The article also quotes TAF’s Rebecca Darling. The local Gobi communities are in favor of the project, Darling says, because it will support them economically. There is no mention of any opposition. “Darling said that Ivanhoe and Rio Tinto have participated for three years in The Asia Foundation’s responsible mining project,” the UB Post reported. “‘As far as we’re concerned, they’re models in this country for responsible mining,’ she said.”⁵⁸

Delivering the equivalent of trinkets to the local people — scholarships for a handful of doctors, a few cars and trucks here and there, a few paved roads, token hospitals and token schools — the companies and their ‘responsible civil society partners’ work to shut people up and co-opt them into betraying the greater needs of the communities, and of the country as a whole, just as it is done with predatory extractive industries that are plundering and depopulating the Congo. The token schools and hospitals provided by the mining companies are used to silence the communities that are being mined. Roads are often constructed, or dirt tracks are paved, because it is in mining companies interest to do so: they want to drive their trucks on the roads! Its the same with railways: they want to ship their raw materials out to China or — as in the case of Science Solutions Incorporated, a San Diego (USA) company mining tungsten (wolfram) in Bayan Olgy — by rail to China and by boat to the United States. If the fair value of the natural resources was paid, every village would have a school with an extensive library full of the best books in the world, and every child in that school would have a brand new top-of-the-line computer. Most likely these schools will be little more than cement shells with tin roofs and chalkboards and wooden desks. That is not the American or Canadian standard for a school — at least not the kind of elite private school (in the USA or Europe) that these mining company executives send their children to or the kind that their Mongolian agents, the MPs they have bought, are sending their children to (also in the USA or Europe).

What the Mongolian people deserve as fair compensation are entire universities — with the assurance that every Mongolian who wants can have access to high quality higher education. Sometimes the mining companies even staff the hospitals with their own co-opted doctors — ‘professionals’ paid to conclude that the patients disease was NOT caused by the mercury or cyanide from the company mine. In the end, however, the mining company can say: We made a deal! Your leaders signed and agreed on our terms! We gave you schools and hospitals! The epidemics of tuberculosis and cancers are not our problems! Send your people to the hospital (we gave you)! Your (Mongolian) community leaders are responsible for these problems! Anyways, when all is said and done the foreign mining company executives jet out of the country waving a little American or Canadian or Swedish flag that says “Bye. Bye. See You!” The profits are expatriated. It’s always the same old story: promises, promises in the beginning; poverty, violence, pollution and disease in the end.

For another simple example of how the propaganda and plunder system works, with parallels between Congo and Mongolia, consider again the US-based photojournalists Ted Wood and Jeremy Schmidt. In the spring of 1998 the two journalists were dispatched to Central Africa by the elite US conservation [sic] magazine International Wildlife to report on mountain gorillas. The article appeared in January 1999, and the contexts of the US- and corporate-backed war and bloodshed in Congo/Zaire, or Rwanda, were completely absent. Instead we found only a couple quotes from Wildlife Conservation Society’s expert [sic] Amy Vedder and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund Europe (DFGFE) expert [sic] Greg Cummings. [This writer has done an extensive series on how Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, DFGFE (now The Gorilla Organization) and Wildlife Conservation Society profit from the plunder and bloodshed in Congo -- and I have delineated the hidden interests of these organizations and these particular individuals.⁵⁹ ] The International Wildlife story was just fluff — which is all fine, as long as we are honest and admit how we (westerners) participate in, and profit from, the exploitation. International Wildlife is nothing more than the propaganda mouthpiece for big zoo interests and the industries of academic research (zoology, biology, primatology, oceanography), and such stories serve to indoctrinate and immunize the western world and its western readers, rendering western interests invisible and inculcating innocence and arrogance, a.k.a. white superiority.

Back in Mongolia, communities and a coalition of NGOs⁶⁰ have protested the Oyu Tolgoi project — located in the fragile ecosystem of the South Gobi Desert — and hunger strikers have been arrested and jailed. On April 1, 2010, the Mongolian NGOs, assisted by MiningWatch Canada and Rights and Accountability in Development (UK), filed complaints in the UK and Canada against Rio Tinto and Ivanhoe Mines Ltd for alleged breaches of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Companies.⁶¹

Economic Hit Men

Transnational capitalism also achieves its aims in Mongolia by controlling the banks. Mongolia’s Trade Development Bank is 34% owned by Americans but the 66% controlling interest is hidden — people suspect the previous president, Enkhbayar, who privatized it, circa 2005, when he was prime minister. Other people’s collectives, like the Ard Bank, were also privatized.

Mongolia’s Khan Bank was privatized (2000-2004) under the direction of Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), a Washington DC intelligence and defense outfit, packed with CIA types, that directly links USAID with the Pentagon (amongst other things, DAI conducts special operations trainings for the Pentagon’s Special Operations Command Europe). Khan Bank is now 52% owned by Sawada Holdings of Japan, with DAI, the International Finance Corporation (World Bank), and Khan Bank CEO Simon Morris (UK) and former CEO and present adviser Peter Morrow (USA). The Khan Bank shareholder Tavan Bogd Group is their Mongolian front company partner. DAI provided the two senior managers of the bank: J. Peter Morrow and Ben Turnbull, Deputy CEO. Establishing a clear link between global capital and military force, DAI’s Vice-President for Global Security is Colonel (Ret.) Barry Shapiro, who spent most of his career conducting U.S. Army Special Forces special operations missions throughout Southeast and Central Asia. DAI director Ann Hudock is a former Country Representative for The Asia Foundation. TAF is teamed with Khan Bank for their ‘Books for Asia’ program in Mongolia, and Khan Bank is funding all kinds of public relations initiatives — green-washing campaigns meant to sanitize their corporate image and blind the public about their true impact on the people and land.

Herders in Mongolia have been hard hit by Khan Bank. Strapped for cash but rich in livestock, slammed by the economic onslaught of capitalism and abandoned by the once-helpful Mongolian state, herders have taken out loans to feed, clothe and educate children, to purchase vehicles and gers and regular supplies. With some 98% of all herders in the country under debt with Khan Bank, almost every herder owes Khan Bank a minimum of 5 million tugriks (US$ 4000). Parliament member D. Baldan-Ochir reported in April 2010 that herders who took out loans using their herds as collateral owed Khan Bank some 63 billion tugriks (US$ 50.5 million), and he advised herders whose herds were wiped out by zhud “to get a good lawyer” and not pay Khan Bank. In 2010, Khan Bank took some 3000 herds from herders in Duut soum in Khovd aimag. In 2008, one herder from Chandmani soum in Khovd aimag who was indebted to Khan Bank lost his herds (zhud) and was unable to repay the loan: he committed suicide. “I can’t live any longer,” he wrote in a note to his family, “because I owe so much to the bank. Please help my wife and children. I am afraid that if I stay alive, I will go to jail.”

The transnational financial plunder of Mongolia is also facilitated through the most secretive multinational corporations on earth: the tax and auditing consultancies Arthur Andersen, Coopers & Lybrand, Deloitte  & Touche and Ernst & Young. These firms exploit taxation loopholes, manipulate profit and loss balance sheets, and help them utilize ‘offshore’ tax havens and subsidiary and front companies to maximize predatory exploitation. Extractive industries (mining, petroleum, logging) will exploit customs and evade tax duties through such illegal practices as ‘transfer-pricing’, over-invoicing, mis-declaration of ores or species (wood), under-measuring and under-reporting, and the practice of declaring maximum ‘losses’ for years — even when maximizing profits. Many of these practices cannot be achieved without the corruption of domestic (Mongolian) agents at all levels of the bureaucracy.  The international consulting and auditing firms put their stamps of approval on the corruption, while taking hundreds of millions of dollars profits, annually, from their global operations. Finally, a near-government organization (NGO) like The Asia Foundation closes the circle by producing reports on ‘good governance’ and ‘accountability’ and they do this, for example, through their multi-stakeholder Responsible Mining Initiatives — involving Mongolian NGOs like the MNPC or UMMRL.

In 2004, OPIC established a $50 million credit fund for US investments in Mongolia, and since then has funded three projects, including a $61,596 insurance loan to The Asia Foundation in 2007. TAF receives millions of dollars annually from OPIC for its other Asia operations.⁶²

American real estate scalper and investment banker Lee Cashell, who operates through his Hong Kong firm, Asia Pacific Investment Partners Corp, received a $250,000 OPIC loan in 2002 for a luxury tourist resort destined for the Mongolian hinterland. Lee Cashell is the founder of The Mongolian Institute for Sustainable Economic Development, he runs Mongolia’s first real estate agency, and he has been scalping properties in Mongolia’s ‘privatization rush’. Lee Cashell is also behind Belgravia Mining, a molybdenum firm with seven exploration licenses in Mongolia.

In 2003, Newsweek lauded American business penetration into ‘democratic’ Mongolia in a typical neoliberal whitewash of reality that applauded, for example, the ‘free-market’ acquisition of ‘low rent’ properties. “The reason: Washington sees strategic gain in supporting a free and democratic Mongolia, sandwiched between Russia and China in a region rife with dictators and swelling Islamic fervor.”⁶³

“Property prices have doubled in the last one and a half years alone,” American Express journalist Ron Gluckman (USA) quoted an excited Lee Cashell to say. “Rents are skyrocketing. Rental yields are the highest in Asia, by far…There are no big-name multinationals here, [just] a lot of guys making $150,000, one dollar at a time.”⁶³

“One day at a time,” said ‘Bayarma Ganbold’, the human rights activist and mother of three who took me around Ulaanbaatar, “these criminals are taking everything that we love: every public space, every publicly owned building, every public park, every river. The Selbe River runs through the city, but it’s quite dead already. We used to play by the water when I was a child. The Tol River is also drying up: Coca Cola has a bottling plant using water from the Tol for the past 5 years.⁶⁴ All the school playgrounds have been chopped up or destroyed.”

“I used to play in the children’s park, it was green and beautiful.” ‘Bayarma Ganbold’ is tearful. “There were carousels, swan boats, merry-go-rounds, people jogging, children laughing, birds flying all around, people kissing each other. There were skating rinks all over the city. It was all free. The Russian wife of President Tsedenbal⁶⁵ did so many things for women and children: she set up social welfare systems, she set up health systems; she built schools, children’s libraries — she built this children’s park. Like everywhere else, the land was bought for almost nothing by ‘private investors’ connected to the government. The park is dead.”⁶⁶

“No one knew what was ‘democracy’ or what was ‘privatization’,” said Tumur, a coal miner who previously worked for the state mining company in Nalaikh city, just west of Ulaanbaatar, for 8 years. “The first four years of democracy were hell. It was chaos and confusion and the mafias stole property and ‘privatized’ it. By now everything is being ripped apart.”⁶⁷

Pimping for Transnational Corporations

The situation in Mongolia is not unique. The very same NGOs involved in Mongolia are involved in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. Barrick Gold moved into Congo with Rwandan and Uganda forces in the US-backed invasion of 1996-1998. AngloGold Ashanti is another corporation behind war, genocide and plunder in Congo.⁶⁸

DeBeers will plunder Mongolia’s kimberlite pipes — read: diamonds — just as they have plundered Congo, Sierra Leone, Angola, Botswana, C.A.R., South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Canada: De Beers is also partnered with AngloGold Ashanti in Mongolia.⁶⁹

PACT-Congo has worked to support western mining corporations even while purporting to challenge them. One PACT official is Donald Easum, a US national security operative who was bad news in every country he worked — programs often coordinated with the Africa-America Institute and USAID, two more CIA fronts.⁷⁰ Similarly, Wildlife Conservation Society is tied to mining and petroleum companies exploiting Congo, and Hans Hoffman, a GTZ director in Mongolia until recently, was formerly working for GTZ in the Congo, where GTZ protects German interests involved in the warfare, genocide and plunder of minerals.⁷¹

TAF, WWF, The Nature Conservancy, GTZ and Wildlife Conservation Society are working to ‘conserve’ and ‘protect’ the Mongolian environment from Chinese, Russian and Mongolian companies, but when US, Canadian or European companies are involved — often tied to these NGOs’ boards of directors and donors — such NGOs are silent, acquiescent to mining interests and private profit plunder. There are plenty of western ties to Chinese and Russian banking and mining mafias, in any case.

It’s the same with the ‘human rights’ and ‘humanitarian’ NGOs: corporate entities like Save the Children, Mercy Corps, UNICEF and UNDP leverage and protect western corporate interests while co-opting domestic civil society and neutralizing opposition. Powerful US government intelligence and national security front groups — including TAF, the George Soros Foundation (Open Society Institute) — have been engineering elections, engineering laws, and channeling civil society to achieve and ensure political control and access for transnational capitalism in Mongolia. Most prominent amongst these groups is the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its core affiliates, Center for Private Enterprise (CIPE), International Republican Institute (IRI) and National Democratic Institute (NDI).⁷² ,⁷³

In 1983, the Pentagon, USAID, US State Department, and the CIA were all involved in the creation and implementation of ‘Project Democracy’ — National Security Decision Directive 77 (NSDD 77) — and this led to the creation of the National Endowment for Democracy. After that, many foreign covert interventions were shifted away from the CIA and onto the NED.⁷⁴] NED’s involvement with covert operations and foreign interventions are well-established.⁷⁵ ,⁷⁶ ,⁷⁷ ,⁷⁸

The Asia Foundation (formerly the Committee for Free Asia) was created by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1951 and served as the CIA’s main front group for covert operations in Asia for decades.⁷⁹ CIA funding was revealed in 1967 and was reportedly stopped, though TAF continued to operate as a secretive instrument of US foreign policy.⁸⁰ Primarily funded by USAID, US Department of State, US embassies, US Department of Labor, and the US Congress, The Asia Foundation uses the ‘non-government’ euphemism as part of its strategy of camouflage as a US government front group that is part of an extended US state apparatus for intervention.

TAF directors and trustees include national security, defense and intelligence operatives with long careers serving elite US corporate interests. TAF trustee J. Stapleton Roy, also one of TAF’s ‘Benefactor ($5,000-9,999)’ donors, was Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research under Madeleine Albright, 1999-2000, and he has worked for the secretive entities Kissinger Associates and Kissinger Institute. He is a director of Conoco Phillips and Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold — both known for human rights atrocities around the world.⁸¹ ,⁸²

TAF trustee Karl Inderfurth was a high ranking US official at the United Nations (1993-1997) during the war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocides in Rwanda, Congo and the Balkans; a ‘national security council expert’ with ABC News and has served on the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees and the National Security Council.

TAF trustee Ellen Laipson, also a former TAF president and CEO, was vice-chairman of the US National Intelligence Council under William Jefferson Clinton (1997-2002); director of the US National Security Council (1993-1995); and US national intelligence officer for Asia. In December 2009, President Barrack Obama appointed Ellen Laipson to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.⁸³

The Asia Foundation works as a conduit for ‘phantom aid’: official funds channeled to ‘pass-through’ organizations that then launder these funds and divert them for covert interventions such as elections rigging, intelligence gathering, and — most relevant to the Mongolian example — surveillance and infiltration of domestic organizations, psychological operations, and dissemination of propaganda. Mathew Nasuti, a former US military official involved in accountability investigations and budgets oversight with the US Department of Defense, claims that TAF operations in Afghanistan have diverted US State Department ‘aid’ funds for unknown operations.⁸⁴ TAF has one of their largest budgets and operations in US and NATO-occupied Afghanistan.⁸⁵

TAF also receives funding from some of the worst multinational corporations on earth, including big oil, banking, mining and defense contractors: Chevron, American International Group, Coca Cola, GE, Walt Disney, Halliburton, Boeing, HSBC, Pfizer, Qualcomm, Raytheon, PepsiCo and Wal-Mart.⁸⁶

Of course, TAF is also funded by the National Geographic Society, by the Goldman Environmental Fund, and by the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Foundation, thus completing the circle involving the socially constructed image of Tsetsegee Munkhbayar, in the public mind, as a model of Mongolian civil society’s acceptable behavior — as long as he was civil and pragmatic — and as an instrument (in this case an unwilling one) of US foreign policy.

Groups like TAF, NED, PACT, USAID, World Vision and the American Center for Mongolian Studies are closely aligned with western elites who benefit from neoliberal transnational capitalism that imposes the ‘Washington Consensus’ on Mongolia.⁸⁷ This is a full-blown operation to subvert democracy, control emerging Mongolian social groups and plunder Mongolia. This involves a campaign of attrition against the masses in Mongolia, working to create a situation where sooner or later the poor majority ‘gives up’ and abandons the struggle for basic human rights, basic dignities, and basic freedoms.

This strategy of attrition is accomplished by exacerbating economic hardships, creating difficulties and deprivations for ordinary people; by exploiting any mistakes made by the Mongolian resistance and preying on the vulnerability of the people. At the same time, the international power elite divide and conquer domestic groups by funding and grooming individuals and organizations that serve their agenda, while marginalizing, discrediting or eliminating those that challenge their agenda. Both international and domestic media — outlets like the UB Post are already sufficiently under elite control — highlight the actions and voices of the groomed individuals who are saying what the external elites want people to hear.

“No longer do citizens need to organize on their own behalf and engage in various forms of opposition, including social movements, rallies, and other forms of dissent,” wrote academic Shelly Feldman, in “NGOs and Civil Society: (Un)Stated Contradictions,” pointing out that the rise of the western NGO sector means that the people — in this case the Mongolian people — are no longer necessary and their voices are no longer heard. “Instead, the NGO sector, legitimized as a controlled, organized arena of public debate with institutional and financial support from the donor community, has come to speak on behalf of the citizenry, particularly those groups that have been targeted among the needy, women and the poor.”⁸⁸

Terrorism in Mongolia

The Asia Foundation is committing treasonable offenses against the people and state of Mongolia — imagine a Mongolian ‘non-government organization’ equivalent to TAF operating similarly in the United States! — and they are rewarded for doing so by Mongolian elites who are partnered with transnational capitalism and who use the domestic media and paramilitary forces against the people.

TAF and other big NGOs (NED, IRI, NDI, Open Society Institute, etc.) rig elections, fund political sects, bribe ‘citizen’ groups, and divide communities to gain access to natural resources. Behind the western rhetoric of promoting democracy, human rights and environmental protection is the reality that US foreign policy has nothing to do with these ideals: US interests like NED, PACT and TAF are a threat to democracy everywhere and, in Mongolia, violence, homelessness, poverty, desperation and environmental destruction are increasing.⁸⁹

The bottom line is that North American taxpayers are directly funding U.S.-government organized devastation and disaster in Mongolia and — blinded by corporate propaganda in the guise of daily news media — we don’t know enough to ask anything about it.

Many of those who have access to the big money flooding into Mongolia — from ‘independent’ photographer Ted Wood to the big NGOs GTZ, PACT and TAF — also work to sanction and greenwash mining companies. Ivanhoe Mines offers the perfect example: the NGOs are supportive of Ivanhoe’s massive Oyu Tolgoi copper/gold megaproject, deep in the heart of the Gobi, and they support the euphemisms of ‘good community relations’ and ‘herder relocation’ programs.

Of course, the mining companies also create their own NGOs — to promote their interests, leverage policy and buff their image. One of these is World Growth, a Washington-based NGO believed to be the creation of Ivanhoe Mines and/or Rio Tinto. World Growth Mongolia appeared on the scenes in 2008. Its Mongolian board of advisers includes one former president and several former top ministers.

In Central Africa, ‘relocation programs’ have displaced pygmies from national parks where big western NGOs work. In Botswana, diamond, oil and ‘wildlife conservation’ interests have backed the forcible ‘relocation’ of San bushmen. In Borneo, the nomadic Penan people have been dispossessed of land and resources and ‘relocated’ with only cursory notice by National Geographic or big conservation NGOs. Results are the same in each case: genocide.

The leaders I interviewed from Mongolian conservation, human rights and civil society were sincere, committed, frustrated and undervalued. They work hard, with little or no resources, challenging the roots of problems they know from the inside out. They know what is wrong, on the small scale, and with the big picture, but they have little awareness of the international machinery they are up against. Many have come from rural areas where they knew extreme poverty and hardship of the herders’ way of life, and so they know what would best serve the people and the land. They are Mongolians, they know Mongolia; we don’t and we never will.

They’ve seen rivers dry up and rivers completely diverted. They’ve seen whole villages with epidemics of mining-related diseases — silicosis and bronchitis, cancer, miscarriages and birth defects. They see Mongolian elites using (mostly Chinese) undocumented immigrants for slave labor. They know that young girls and boys are being trafficked in and out of Mongolia, and that prostitution and survival sex are on the rise. They’ve seen people beaten and arrested, others shot.

“People are afraid now to let their children out freely,” says ‘Bayarma Ganbold’, “afraid they will be kidnapped, afraid they will be run over. The Asia Foundation has a huge project dealing with trafficking: they produce fancy reports but they haven’t done anything: after five years not one person has been found — or arrested! — for human trafficking. Mongolian journalists have raised many questions about street children who have disappeared that have never been answered. And Mongolian girls are beautiful — it’s a big mine here: pretty young girls from urban and rural areas. They promise them a great ‘job’ abroad, luring and enticing them, buying them — even drugging them. The girls have no passports and no way to escape afterwards.”⁹⁰

Undocumented Chinese immigrants work for under slave conditions for the Mongolian power elite and for mining and construction companies.

“Chinese bring in at least 40 or 50 illegal workers for these labor camps,” said Tumur, the coal miner in Nalaikh, “and every night they bring 20 to 30 young girls, 17 to 18 years old, from poor districts. They have 20 or 30 girls having sex in these open barracks without caring about privacy. Once girls do this they are ostracized by Mongolian culture. We can’t protect our girls because the government sends in security and police, at the least sign of trouble, to protect the companies. There’s a law that every Mongolian has a right to own seven acres of land, but one morning you wake up and thousands of hectares are owned by foreigners.”⁶⁷

By October 2008 the civil society movements were feeling cornered, their backs against the wall, from the growing western influence-peddling, corruption, bribery, intimidation, and the massive propaganda apparatus backing up the multinational corporations, with government complicity. Since then the situation has only gotten worse. Worst of all, they see salaried western ‘experts’ rolling around in $60,000 4×4 Toyota Landcruisers, living in the best homes, eating at the best restaurants, doling out advice and producing policy papers with an intolerable hubris and righteousness, accountable to no one.

“People are afraid of being seen or photographed. People are being threatened and followed by security agents for organizing,” said Baasan Geleg, an economics teacher and the leader of Mongolia’s iSenior Citizen’s Federationi. After organizing a country-wide registration of all mining in Mongolia, and after informing the public, Baasan Geleg became a public target: she was arrested four times in 2007 and 2008, and held in isolation for up to 20 days. “More and more civic leaders and activists are becoming apathetic, discouraged and disheartened, and thinking nothing will change. So they turn toward the money — the NGOs — and then they are dead.”⁹¹

The Struggle Continues

After the iMongolia Nature Protection Coalitioni dissolved, thanks to The Asia Foundation, river coalition activists formed the United Movement for Mongolian Rivers and Lakes. Goldman Prize winner Tsetsegee Munkhbayar is one of the key organizers, but nothing would happen without the other pivotal activists he works with.

Now, three years after the movement faltered, the United Movement for Mongolian Rivers and Lakes (UMMRL) has worked hard to create, pass and strengthen Mongolian laws to protect communities and the environment. According to UMMRL, the directors and other officials of Puraam Mining and Centerra Gold — the two companies Tsetsegee Munkhbayar’s gang of four shot at — have committed crimes specified in Articles 202, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 214 of the Mongolian Criminal law.

“Actions of both companies are illegal,” notes UMMRL, “as they are violating Mongolian laws on the prohibition of mining operations at headwaters of rivers, protected zones of water reservoirs and forest areas. Because of these mining companies, local citizens, herders and livestock animals experienced environmental damages including skin irritation and formation of lumps; eye diseases and intoxication of internal organs of humans and livestock animals… in Selenge province. These companies are operating in the headwaters of Gachuurt and Budanch Rivers and have reduced the flows of these rivers. Local people and livestock animals have no access to drinking water sources.”⁹²

On March 10, 2010, the UMMRL established a student chapter named ‘Fresh Water’. Its main goal is to involve Mongolian young people and students in the protection of the environment and natural resources. In May, 2010, the UMMRL and Mongolian Water Agency were working to delineate boundaries to prohibit mining operations in 350 soums and 21 aimags. Another draft law advanced by UMMRL would enable local people and civic organizations to sue mining companies for compensation against environmental destruction and emotional damages.

On July 16, 2010, the Mongolian Parliament authorized a law imposing restrictions on exploration and mining near water resources and empowering local officials to adjudicate mining issues. The UMMRL began a process of petitioning government to enforce laws that have been passed and put some teeth behind their paper proclamations.

On August 24-28, 2010, some 60 participants from Russia, Germany and Mongolia — including Tsetsegee Munkhbayar and other members of UMMRL — participated in a conference to address the past decade of collaboration and future needs to protect the ecology and natural resources in the Lake Baikal and Selenge River basin, from northern Mongolia to southern Siberia.

Protests and conflicts between herder communities and mining companies escalated all summer long, and occurred all over Mongolia. “These clashes occurred because of illegal mining operations,” reported UMMRL, “local residents and herders are facing a lack of drinking water and livestock pastures.”⁹³

On September 2, 2010, UMMRL announced that they will implement the law by force of local citizens if the Mongolian government does not. When the government did not respond, Tsetsegee Munkhbayar, leader of the Onggi River Movement, and G. Bayarra, leader of the Khuder River Movement, and D. Tumurbaatar and O. Sambuu-Yondon from UMMRL, opened fire on the two foreign mining companies. They had previously written to the mining companies, well in advance, but there were no replies.

The Mongolian press reported the September 2nd action, noting that the gang of four Mongolian activists shot at bulldozer blades and other heavy equipment. There were no clashes with security guards and no arrests, though Tsetsegee Munhkbayar was summoned to police offices in Selenge aimag and questioned. (The English translations of the original Mongolian story were very bad and greatly distorted the facts.).

Civil society protests involving thousands of people have continued in Mongolia: more than 10,000 people were reported to have protested government policies against the people in April 2010. However, it remains to be seen whether Mongolia’s civil society leaders can endure and prevail against the big money and power of western mining and their NGO vanguard. Some mining companies use the argument that pollution is the fault of companies that preceded them on the site that is polluted. Companies also argue that any canceled mining licenses or revolved permits must be compensated, in the millions of dollars, no matter that they were stolen in the first place, and no matter that companies have already expatriated hundreds of millions of dollars that Mongolians will never see.

On a visit to Centerra’s ‘Boroo Mine’ site in June, 2010 Mr. John Kazakov, director of Centerra’s Boroo Gold personally warned UMMRL partners that the mining association and mining corporations were working to pass a new law to neutralize the 2009 law that prohibits mineral exploration at the headwaters of rivers, protected zones or water reservoirs and forested areas. “We have a lobby group in the Parliament,” he promised, “and hope that law will be passed very soon.”

On October 21, 2010 the UMMRL filed a lawsuit against Puraam Mining and Centerra Gold for environmental damages and violations of Mongolian environmental protection laws. “We targeted these companies because they are mining illegally in a historically important place,” responds Tsetsegee Munkhbayar, “right next to the headwaters of two crucial rivers in a healthy forest region in defiance of existing laws. They need to be shut down.”

“People have criticized our choice [to take up arms] but, tell me,” said J. Nyamdavaa, head of the NGO Protect the Security of Mongolia, an Onggi River Movement partner, “what could we hope to achieve through peaceful means like meetings and demonstrations in streets?”⁹⁴

In February, 2011, Mongolian news agencies reported that that six members of parliament MPs J. Batsuuri, Y. Batsuuri, O. Chuluunbat, D. Batbayar, A. Tleikhan, and B. Choijilsuren) are fiercely lobbying parliament to change the laws to allow Centerra Gold and other companies to continue plundering and polluting the land, and the six MPs have drafted a new law favorable to mining. Meanwhile, mining MP D. Zorigt issued at least 170 new licenses for exploration and extraction (one Mongolian M.P. claims he issues 192 new licenses) on land protected by current laws.

Not every western policy or idea should be rejected, and not every westerner in Mongolia is there to exploit: some of the most dedicated and honest conservationists and human rights people — like ‘Jane Smith’ who was afraid to go on the record here — can be found in some of the small foreign, reputable NGOs, and there are even a few good people working for some of the rotten NGOs. The former types give their entire lives to doing what is right, while the latter deceive themselves, while always collecting their paycheck, into thinking they can make a difference from the inside. What we are talking about here is dishonesty and deception, and many of the Anglo-Americans or Europeans working in Mongolia harbor deeply racist ideas about Mongolians being barbarians who do not wash and cannot think and could never runs things. Most tourists don’t give a damn, for sure; they are driven by self-interests and become another kind of ‘innocent’ visitor who exploits the people and the land. The mining corporations are determined to get what they want, one way or another, they always have, and they always do. In the Congo they kill the people to get what they want; in Mongolia it has not yet come to that.

1. Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan, Andreevsky Flag Film Company, 2007, was distributed by Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Picturehouse Studios, making a Hollywood blockbuster entertainment extravaganza. That is, it made a lot of money.
2. “Tsetsegee Munkhbayar,” Emerging Explorers, National Geographic.
3. Unsigned, “Eco-warriors call attention to Mongolia’s development dilemma,” EurasiaNet, October 26, 2010.
4. Liezel Hill, “Centerra’s Kumtor mine not affected by Kyrgyz violence,” Mining Weekly, April 7, 2010.
5. Daisy Sindelar, “Mongolian Democracy: ‘Unless Your Life Improves, What’s the Point of a Market Economy?’” December 12, 2009.
6. Joan Roelofs, Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism, SUNY Press, 2003: p. 161.
7. “Tsetsegee Munkhbayar,” Emerging Explorers, National Geographic.
8. Richard N. Goldman (90) died on November 29, 2010.
9. Private interviews with members of the Mongolian Nature Protection Coalition, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, October 2008: (1) Tsetsegee Munkhbayar, Onggi River Movement; (2) Tserenkhand Yadanbatar, Angir Nuden Mondoohei; (3) J. Tudevdoorj, Salkhin Sardag; (4) Enkhtur Duvchigdamba, Toson Zaamar Tuul Gol; (5) Chimgee Ganbold, Onggi River Movement; (6) Dashdemberul Ganbold, Onggi River Movement.
10. Chinggis Khan is known to the western world as Genghis Khan.
11. Mongolian nomads live in gers: tent-like structures similar to yurts.
12. ‘My Mongolian Land’ is translated from the Mongolian: Minii Mongolyn Gazar Shoroo.
13. Private interview, M. Bold, founder and director, My Mongolian Land: Minii Mongolyn Gazar Shoroo, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, October 2008.
14. On Ivanhoe Mines history of human rights abuses and environmental destruction elsewhere see, e.g.: Roger Moody, Grave Diggers: A Report on Mining in Burma, Mining Watch Canada, January 5, 2001, http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=1739; and Thomas Maung Shwe, “Canada urged to probe Ivanhoe over ‘arms-for-copper’ deal,” Mizzima, June 30, 2010.
15. The Keidanren is the coalition of the most powerful Japanese trading houses (Soga Shosa), corporations like Marubeni, Mitsubishi, C. Itoh, Hitochi and Sumitomo.
16. Private interview, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, October 2008.
17. “Leader of Mongolian Green Movement Arrested during Peaceful Protest,” Global Greens, August 12, 2008.
18. Private interview and tour with ‘Bayarma Ganbold’, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, October 21, 2010.
19. Chris Hogg, “Discontent fuels Mongolia’s far-right groups,” BBC News, September 5, 2010.
20. See: Amnesty International, “Where should I go from here?” The Legacy of the 1 July 2008 Riot in Mongolia, 2009.
21. Danaasuren Vandangombo, NGOs as Accountability Promoters: in the Mongolian Case, PhD. candidate paper, School of Accounting and Commercial Law, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
22. Conservation Ink.
23. Private communication with Jeremy Schmidt, co-founder of Conservation Ink, November 21, 2010.
24. Stefan Lovgren, “Mongolia Gold Rush Destroying Rivers, Nomadic Lives,” National Geographic News, October 17, 2008.
25. Tsetsegee Munkhbayar, Goldman Foundation.
26. Private Agencies Collaborating Together (PACT).
27. Layton Croft, “Public Radio Veterans Support Independent Mongolian Radio,” EurasiaNet, October 4, 2002.
28. PACT, Annual Report, 2005.
29. See, e.g., Joan Roelofs, Foundations and Public Policy: the Mask of Pluralism, SUNY Press, 2003.
30. Gold mining typically uses cyanide leaching processes and involves sulfuric acid and arsenic, creating vast expanses of toxic wasteland and poisonous aquifers around heap leeching, processing plants, and open pit mines.
31. Ch. Sumiya, “Opening of spring Parliament session marked by protest,” from UB Post, date unknown, republished on OREADS Daily on April 6, 2006.
32. Private interview, M. Bold, founder and director, My Mongolian Land, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, October 2008.
33. ‘Aimag’ is the biggest administrative unit in Mongolia. It is similar to a province. There are 24 aimags in Mongolia.
34. ‘Soum’ — similar to a district — is an administrative unit after aimag (province); Mongolia has more than 300 soums.
35. Exactly like western logging companies Maxaam, Weyerhauser and Champion International have disguised clear-cuts in North America with thin barriers of intact forest in front.
36. These stories have not been seen by this writer.
37. From 2001 to 2004, William Foerderer Infante was director of USAID’s Economic Policy and Finance Office and acting mission director in Belgrade, Serbia, then Mongolia Country Director for The Asia Foundation from 2006 until 2009, when he left to work for UNDP in the Balkans.
38. Private interviews, Onggi Rivers Movement offices, Ulaanbaatar, October 28, 2008.
39. Private interview, Tracey Naughton, PACT-Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, October 2008.
40. Private interview, Ulaanbaatar, October 2008.
41. Yoko Watanabe left WWF-Mongolia and at the time of this publication she was working for the Global Environment Facility (GEF). See bio.
42. In 2009, William Foerderer Infante quit The Asia Foundation for a position with UNDP in the Balkans.
43. Rebecca Darling left The Asia Foundation in 2009.
44. Interview with Rebecca Darling, The Asia Foundation, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, October 23, 2008.
45. Canada is the corporate home for over 75 per cent of the world’s mining companies. The mining and minerals manufacturing sector added $35 billion to Canadian GDP in 2009, according to the Mining Association of Canada, and in the same year the sector was reporting over $56 billion invested overseas. Canadian taxpayers and pension recipients contribute to these impressive numbers for the mining sector. Canada’s National Post recently reported that the taxpayer, mainly through Export Development Canada, supports Canadian mining companies to the tune of $20 billion annually through subsidized financing and insurance. See: Tom Sandborn, “Canadian Mining Firm Accused of Complicity in Congo Killings: Lawsuit highlights need for firmer hand in Ottawa, say human rights groups. Anvil Mining denies culpability,” www.TheTyee.ca, November 26, 2010.
46. For a tiny representative sampling of the criminal and terrorist operations of Canada-based mining companies and the protests or claims against them see: Chris Albin-Lackey, “Canada: Monitoring of Mining Companies Long Overdue,” Human Rights Watch in Toronto Star, October 27, 2010; Jeffery R. Webber, “Indigenous Struggle, Ecology, and Capitalist Resource Extraction in Ecuador: An Interview with Marlon Santi,” The Bullet, e-bulletin #391, July 13, 2010; Dylan Penner, “Canadian Civil Society Demands Canadian Mining Companies Be Held Accountable for Overseas Abuses,” Council of Canadians, November 22, 2010; “Development Protest: Goro delayed by blockade,” Daily News, April 9, 2006; Fernando Sanchez, “Violent protest in Barrick Gold’s Dominican mine injures at least 17,” Dominican Today, November 17, 2010; Nak’azdli Keyoh Huwunline, “Nak’azdli blockade enters second day: Mt Milligan mining project proponent threatens legal action,” Vancouver Media Co-op, November 16, 2010; Tom Sandborn, “Canadian Mining Firm Accused of Complicity in Congo Killings: Lawsuit highlights need for firmer hand in Ottawa, say human rights groups. Anvil Mining denies culpability,” www.TheTyee.ca, November 26, 2010; James Rodriguez, “GOLDCORP: No More Mining Terrorism,” MIMUNDO.org, May 2, 2007.
47. Rebecca Darling, “From Mongolia: A New Paradigm in responsible Mining is Taking Shape,” PACT, April 15, 2009 (blog content updated April 28, 2009).
48. Private communication, ‘Jane Smith’, conservationist with small NGO in Mongolia, May 5, 2009.
49. Jeffery R. Webber, “Indigenous Struggle, Ecology, and Capitalist Resource Extraction in Ecuador: An Interview with Marlon Santi,” The Bullet, e-bulletin #391, July 13, 2010.
50. Private communication, Goldman Foundation media relations, November 4, 2010.
51. Private communication, Goldman Foundation, November 29, 2010.
52. Private communication with The Asia Foundation November 2010.
53. For example, on Rio Tinto’s human rights and environmental atrocities in Papua New Guinea see: Gwen Kinkead, “Battling a Toxic Billionaire,” Men’s Journal, Dec. 1, 2009.
54. Barrick Gold Corporation is also partnered with Anglo-American, and AngloGold Ashanti. Barrick directors have included/include Brian Mulroney, former prime minister of Canada, Howard Baker, former US Senator, and international advisers George Herbert Walker Bush and Vernon Jordon.
55. Barrick Gold Corporation has a 9.5% stake in QGX, mining in Mongolia in a joint venture with Ivanhoe Mines.
56. See Robert Friedland on Sourcewatch.
57. On Robert Friedland, Tony Buckingham and Tim Spicer, see, e.g., Wayne Madsen, Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993-1999, Mellen Press, 1999; Stan Correy, “Robert Friedland: The King of the Canadian Juniors,” Radio National, April 6, 1997; keith harmon snow & Rick Hines, “Blood Diamond: Doublethink & Deception Over Those Worthless Little Rocks of Desire,” Global Research.
58. Danielle Mario, “OT Agreement Passes Parliamentary Committees,” UB Post, July 17, 2009.
59. See Keith Harmon Snow's "KING KONG" series.
60. The members of the NGO coalition include Oyu Tolgoi (OT) Watch, Center for Citizen’s Alliance, Centre for Human Rights and Development, Steps without Border, Drastic Change Movement and National Soyombo Movement.
61. “Mongolian NGOs Appeal to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Business and Human Rights to resolve Oyu Tolgoi Mine Dispute,” Press Release, Center for Human Rights and Development (Mongolia), OT Watch (Mongolia), MiningWatch (Canada), Rights and Accountability in Development (UK), April 23, 2010.
62. For example: The Asia Foundation received OPIC funding: 2007: $378,516 South Korea operations; 2007: $168,502 East Timor; 2007: $458,293 Bangladesh; 2007: $562,707 Afghanistan; 2007: $281,441 Thailand; 2007: $764,390 Indonesia. Source: OPIC web site.
63. Ron Gluckman, “Believe it or Not A mini-Boom in Mongolia,” Newsweek, September 2003.
64. In Northampton MA (USA), the local Coca Cola bottling plant uses over 1,000,000 gallons of fresh city water annually, and this is the people’s water.
65. President Yumjaagiyn Tsendenbal was president of Mongolia from 1952 to 1974.
66. Private interview and private tour with ‘Bayarma Ganbold’ in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, October 22, 2010.
67. Private interview, Tumur, Naliakh coal mines, October 30, 2008.
68. See e.g. “The Curse of Gold: Democratic Republic of Congo,” Human Rights Watch, June 1, 2005, or the many DRC related publications of keith harmon snow.
69. See, e.g., Janine Roberts, Glitter and Greed: The Secret World of the Diamond Cartel,” Disinformation Press, 2003; or keith harmon snow and Rick Hines, “Blood Diamonds: Doublethink and Deception over those Worthless Little Rocks of Desire,” Z Magazine, July-August, 2007.
70. See: Elizabeth Liagin, “Background to the Recent Nigerian Elections: General Obasandjo more than just a ‘Friend’ of the Americans,” World Socialist Web Site, March 17, 1999.
71. See, for example, keith harmon snow, “Congo: Three Cheers for Eve Ensler?” Toward Freedom, December 24, 2007.
72. On NED funding in Mongolia see NED Annual Report 2009: http://www.ned.org/where-we-work/asia/mongolia; IRI’s 2009 NED funding was $250,000 and NDI’s 2009 NED funding was $240,000. See NED.
73. In 2008 NED granted $137,977 to CIPE “[t]o establish more effective communication between the public and private sectors in Mongolia. CIPE will provide advisory support lending its expertise on policy advocacy and policy reform to its local partner, who will develop and submit official proposals for draft laws and policy recommendations to the government, organize training seminars, and create a monthly television program for educational purposes.” See NED.
74. William I. Robinson, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention and Hegemony, Cambridge University Press, 1996: p. 86-116.
75. Joan Roelofs, Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism, SUNY Press, 2003.
76. See: Jonah Gindin, “Interview with William I. Robinson: The Battle for Global Civil Society,” International Endowment for Democracy, June 13, 2005. See also: NED’s funding of groups in China, for example, which is considered an anti-democratic challenger state and ideology to the US.
77. See: William Blum, “Trojan Horse: The National Endowment for Democracy,” International Endowment for Democracy.
78. William I. Robinson, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention and Hegemony, Cambridge University Press, 1996: pp. 86-116.
79. E.g., Joan Roelofs, Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism, SUNY Press, 2003: p. 162; and, on TAF involvement in Afghanistan, see, e.g., William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since World War II, Common Courage, 2004: p. 343.
80. Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, Knopf, New York, 1974.
81. See, e.g., Freeport McMoRan’s criminal operations in Papua New Guinea, in league with terrorizing Indonesian security forces: John M. Miller, West Papua Report December 2010, East Timor and Indonesia Action Network, December 2010.
82. Both Conoco Philips and Freeport McMoRan have long histories of devastating interventions, human rights violations and environmental crimes in Latin America, Asia and Africa; Freeport McMoRan is also in Congo.
83. “President Obama Announces Members of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board,” The White House, December 23, 2009.
84. Mathew Nasuti, “Afghan AID Funds Diverted to The Asia Foundation,” Atlantic Free Press, January 31, 2010.
85. On TAF involvement in Afghanistan, see, e.g., William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since World War II, Common Courage, 2004: p. 343.
86. QUALCOMM is deeply involved in US government classified ‘top secret’ programs, and is probably, if not certainly, one of the big recipients of funding for ‘black’ programs.
87. James Baker traveled to Mongolia in the early 1990′s to press the ‘Washington Consensus’ as Mongolia’s savior and model for a successful transformation to democracy and free market capitalism.
88. Shelly Feldman, “NGOs and Civil Society: (Un)stated Contradictions,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 554, 1997: p. 44-66, cited in Joan Roelofs, Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism, SUNY Press, 2003: p. 168.
89. See: Jonah Gindin, “Interview with William I. Robinson: The Battle for Global Civil Society,” International Endowment for Democracy, June 13, 2005.
90. Private interview and tour with ‘Bayarma Ganbold’, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, October 22, 2010.
91. Private interview with Baasan Geleg, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, October 2008.
92. United Movement for Mongolian Rivers and Lakes, “Brief Update on UMMRL, Mongolia,” October, 2010.
93. United Movement for Mongolian Rivers and Lakes, “Brief Update on UMMRL, Mongolia,” September 9, 2010.
94. “Interview by Mongolian NGO: Our struggle is to protect our environment and land,” www.news.mn, September 16, 2010.

Water taken near a Nebraska feedlot had four times the trenbolone levels as other water samples and male fathead minnows nearby had low testosterone levels and small heads.

Nor do you have to see a doctor to imbibe a witch’s brew of prescriptions like pain pills, antibiotics and psychiatric, cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy and heart meds in your drinking water, says the AP. Free of charge.

Other “biosolids” found in drinking water include anti-fungal drugs and the toxic plastic, Bisphenol A, from some bottled waters which people ironically drink to avoid tap water.

While pharma and water treatment professionals routinely deny the existence of prescription drugs in public waterways and drinking water — easy to do when they are not tested for anyway! — Mary Buzby, director of environmental technology for pharma giant Merck, was a little more candid in 2007.

“There’s no doubt about it, pharmaceuticals are being detected in the environment and there is genuine concern that these compounds, in the small concentrations that they’re at, could be causing impacts to human health or to aquatic organisms,” she remarked at a conference in 2007, says the AP.

And if we need a second opinion from the antibiotics found in Tucson drinking water, sex hormones in San Francisco drinking water and seizure and anxiety meds in Southern California drinking water, there’s the animals themselves.

Fish caught near wastewater treatment plants near five major US cities had residues of cholesterol, high blood pressure, allergy, bipolar and depression drugs reported Discovery news in 2006.

Male fish in the estrogen-saturated St. Lawrence River around Montreal are developing ovaries, reported Daniel Cyr, at Quebec’s National Institute for Science Research according to the Independent Post in 2008.

And now fish in the same area are showing signs of the antidepressant Prozac in their systems says the University of Montreal.

(And that’s not counting the feminized frogs with both female and male sex organs which are increasingly found in US waterways and even suburban ponds, an ominous “canary-in-the-water” trend that indicates serious ecological damage say scientists.)

When scientists studied hybrid striped bass exposed to Prozac at Clemson University, SC they found the fish maintained a position at the top of the water surface, sometimes with their dorsal fin out of the water unlike the fish not on Prozac who remained at the bottom of the tank. Staying near the top of the water and maintaining “a vertical position in the aquaria” could increase the bass’ susceptibility to predators and decrease their survival reported the researchers. Nor did the bass eat as much as non-Prozac fish.

A similar loss in survival behaviors has been seen in shrimp exposed to Prozac who are five times more likely to swim toward light than away from it, making them also more susceptible to predators reports the Southern Daily Echo News.

”Crustaceans are crucial to the food chain and if shrimps’ natural behaviour is being changed because of antidepressant levels in the sea this could seriously upset the natural balance of the ecosystem,” says Dr Alex Ford, from the University of Portsmouth’s Institute of Marine Sciences.

For years public health officials have told people that just because the bass and other fish in their waterways are contaminated with chlordane, PCBs and methylmercury it doesn’t mean the drinking water is unsafe. But the prescription drugs levels in fish are precisely because the drinking water is unsafe.

UNICEF estimates that more than 1 million people – 380,000 of them children – still live in displacement camps.

“The recovery process” as UNICEF says, “is just beginning.”

One of the critical questions is how many people remain without adequate housing.   While there are fewer big camps of homeless and displaced people, there has been extremely little rebuilding.  The UN reported that 97,000 tents have been provided since the quake.   Tents are an improvement over living under a sheet but they are not homes.  Many families have lived many places in the last year circulating from rough shelters to tents to camps to other camps to living alongside other families.

It is important to understand that families may leave the huge unsupervised camps and still be homeless someplace else – like a tent in another part of the city or country.   Moving from one type of homelessness to another cannot be allowed to be declared progress against homelessness and displacement.

The key human rights goal is housing, not moving out of the displacement camps.

One illustration of the housing challenge facing the Haitian people can be found in a recent report from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).  The IOM December report announced a reduction in the number of persons remaining in displacement camps.  The IOM then wrongly concluded that the number of people displaced and homeless was reduced accordingly. Why is this conclusion wrong?  Because the IOM report does not even try to track where displaced persons go after they leave a particular camp.   They equate homeless families moving out of displacement camps as families finding housing.

These types of erroneous conclusions are not only misleading but threaten to hinder badly needed relief efforts one year after Haiti’s devastating earthquake.

Careful consideration of the IOM report provides an opportunity to examine some of the many important housing challenges still facing Haitians.

IOM Assertion: “We finally start to see light at the end of the tunnel for the earthquake-affected population…these are hopeful signs that many victims of the quake are getting on with their lives.”  IOM reported there has been a 31% decrease in the number of internally displaced people living on IDP sites in Haiti since July.

Fact:  Getting on with their lives?  Of an estimated 1,268 displacement camps, at least 29% have been forcibly closed – meaning tens of thousands of people have been evicted, often through violent means.  Many who are forcibly evicted from one site move on to set up camp for their families in another location, which is often more dangerous.   This is not getting on with life; this is searching for less dangerous places for the family tent.

IOM Assertion: People with houses labeled red (uninhabitable or extremely dangerous) or yellow (in need of repair) have “chosen to return to the place of origin or nearby to establish a shelter.”

Fact:  As of December 16, 2010, only 2,074 of the estimated 180,000 destroyed houses had been repaired and a small percentage of rubble had been cleared.  Decisions by desperate homeowners to move back into still destroyed homes is hardly progress.

It is also not even possible for large numbers of people who were renters to return to their destroyed homes.  The destruction of more than 180,000 private residences coupled with influx of international aid workers has made Haiti’s rental market soar.  An estimated 80% of those rendered homeless by the earthquake were renters or occupiers of homes without any formal land title. Current rents are unreachable by the majority of displaced Haitians, many of whom lost their means of livelihood during the earthquake.  The IOM admits “The lack of land tenure and the destruction of many houses in already congested slums left many of those displaced with few options but to remain in shelters.”

IOM Assertion: “Some households rendered homeless after the earthquake left congested Port au Prince all-together going home to the regions.  Others sent their children to the countryside for a better life.”

Fact: Rural Haiti before the earthquake was home to 52% of the population, 88% of which was poor and 67% was extremely poor.  Rural residents had a per capita income one third of the income of people living in urban areas and extremely limited access to basic services.  Disaster response following the earthquake has not tackled the extreme structural violence that exists in rural areas, and Hurricane Tomas further destroyed livelihoods of rural communities.  People moving from displacement camps in the city to living in a tent in the countryside have not really moved out of homelessness, they have just moved.

IOM Assertion: “Surviving in poor living conditions during the long hurricane season has persuaded many to seek alternative housing solutions.”

Fact: Homeless people are always seeking “alternative housing solutions.”  Camp conditions even before Hurricane Tomas and the cholera outbreak revealed that displaced Haitians were in camps because they had no “alternative housing solutions.”  According to a study conducted by CUNY Professor Mark Schuller before both Hurricane Tomas and the outbreak of cholera, 40% of displacement camps did not have access to water, and 30% did not have toilets of any kind.  Only 10% of families even had a tent, many of which were ripped beyond repair during the hurricane season; the rest were sleeping under tarps or even bed sheets.  A study conducted even earlier by the Institute of Justice & Democracy in Haiti found that 78% of families lived without enclosed shelter; 44% of families primarily drank untreated water; 27% of families defecated in a container, a plastic bag, or on open ground in the camps; and 75% of families had someone go an entire day without eating during one week and over 50% had children who did not eat for an entire day.

Human rights promise housing, not just forcing people away from displacement camps.  Haiti needs practical and sustainable solutions for re-housing along with services and protections for the people still homeless.

One year later, it is critically important for the international community to assist Haitians to secure real housing.   The million homeless Haitians and the hundreds of thousands who have moved out of the large homeless camps into other areas are our sisters and brothers and still need our solidarity and help.

The last four months of 2010, nearly 500 earthquakes rattled Guy, Arkansas.  The entire state experienced 38 quakes in 2009.  The spike in quake frequency precedes and coincides with the 100,000 dead fish on a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River that included Roseville Township on December 30. The next night, 5,000 red-winged blackbirds and starlings dropped dead out of the sky in Beebe.   Hydraulic fracturing is the most likely culprit for all three events, as it causes earthquakes with a resultant release of toxins into the environment. *

A close look at Arkansas’ history of earthquakes and drilling reveals a shocking surge in quake frequency following advanced drilling. The number of quakes in 2010 nearly equals all of Arkansas’ quakes for the entire 20th century. The oil and gas industry denies any correlation, but the advent of hydrofracking followed by earthquakes is a story repeated across the nation.  It isn’t going to stop any time soon, either.  Fracking has gone global.

Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) pumps water and chemicals into the ground at a pressurized rate exceeding what the bedrock can withstand, resulting in a microquake that produces rock fractures. Though initiated in 1947, technological advances now allow horizontal fracturing, vastly increasing oil and gas collection. In 1996, shale-gas production in the U.S. accounted for 2 percent of all domestic natural gas production, reports Christopher Bateman in Vanity Fair. “Some industry analysts predict shale gas will represent a full half of total domestic gas production within 10 years.” In 2000, U.S. gas reserve estimates stood at 177 trillion cubic feet, but ramped up to 245 tcf in 2008. These new technologies prompt experts to increase global gas reserve estimates ninefold.

The grid below shows a section of the Arkansas River, with Roseville Township at bottom, where the first reports of the fish kill originated. The green lines surrounding and crossing the river indicate gas pipes, ranging from 8-20” in diameter. Any number of leaks in the pipes can explain the fish kill. Gas wells are shown by yellow ‘suns’ (see red arrows) and range from 1,500 to 6,500 feet deep. (Disposal wells, where drilling waste products are injected at high pressures, go as deep as 12,000 feet.) The red numbers next to the ‘suns’ give the number of gas wells in that spot, numbering close to 50 in this small area.

(The gray numbers relate to the Township Numbering System. Each square equals one square mile.)

In December alone, over 150 earthquakes rocked Arkansas. [1] The swarm of quakes in Guy likely results from six years of intense drilling. Guy sits within the Fayetteville Shale Formation which, according to the Arkansas Geological Survey (AGS), is “the current focus of a regional shale-gas exploration and development program.”  A billion cubic feet of gas has been produced from this area since 2004.

Thousands of wells are in operation in North-Central Arkansas (blue section of the following map).  Beebe, where the bird kill occurred, is in White County and Guy is at the northern end of Faulkner Co., where the anomalous earthquakes continue.

Red-winged blackbirds roost in clusters up to a million or more birds, often with other species like starlings and cowbirds. (In the 1950s and ’60s, roosts could number 20 million birds.)  Blackbirds prefer low, dense vegetative cover in wetlands or near streams. Though some may perch 30 feet above the water, most perch within one to two feet of it, and some will roost with their feet resting in water. Blackbirds can range up to 50 miles a day from roost to feeding sites, but they all settle in for the night before sunset.

An earthquake of whatever scale can release a stream or cloud of gas and fracking chemicals which could easily explain why sleeping birds would suddenly take flight, and then quickly die as they succumbed to the toxic fumes. Of note, eight measured quakes within 40 miles of Beebe, and within 75 miles of Roseville, hit the area on December 30 through several minutes past midnight on January 1st.  This excludes any micro- or miniquakes which can have the same effect.  Significantly, the area is known for its prolific microquakes — numbering 40,000 since 1982.

Canadian Geologist Jack Century crusades against induced seismicity from irresponsible drilling. In a 2009 speech before the Peace River Environmental Society, he provided a brief explanation of how fracking induces earthquakes, completely refuting industry denial that fracking causes quakes. Fracking induces not only micro- and mini-seismic actions that can compromise the integrity of well casings, but also large earthquakes registering on the order of 5 to 7 on the Richter Scale, resulting in human deaths.

Scott Ausbrooks, geohazards supervisor for AGS, told CNN in December that while earthquakes aren’t unusual in Arkansas, the frequency is.  Indeed, they’ve had a 1,200 percent increase in earthquakes over 2009 data just in the last four months of 2010. All of the quakes registered less than 3 on the Richter Scale; over 98% of them occurred near Guy, where we find the largest concentration of gas wells; and 99% occurred outside the New Madrid Fault zone (circled in red below) where seismic activity is expected, implying they are human induced:

Though AGS publicly claims no earthquake relation to drilling, in early December, Arkansas banned new drilling permits until further notice.

CNN reported that “According to the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission, there are at least a half dozen ‘disposal wells’ within a 500-square-mile zone around Guy.” Ausbrooks noted similar “incidents in Colorado in the 1960s at Rocky Mountain Arsenal, where deep water injection was tied to earthquakes.”

Arkansas Earthquake and Drilling History

When comparing Arkansas’ earthquake history with its drilling history, a causative correlation becomes obvious.

The entire 19th century saw 15 recorded earthquakes and none in the first decade of the new century.  A total of 694 quakes rocked Arkansas in the 20th century.  That number was surpassed in 2009-2010, with the bulk (483) occurring the last three months of 2010. Table 1 was prepared using complete quake data through 2009 , complete data from August through December, 2010 , and just North Central Arkansas quake data from January thru July, 2010.

Arkla, Inc., through its many morphs, mergers and acquisitions,  is, and has been, a key gas driller in Arkansas.  Between 1975 and the early 1980s, the company found more gas than it produced. By 1982, Arkla was able to sell Central Louisiana Electric Company more than 100 million cubic feet of gas daily. By the early 1990s, it operated the sixth-largest pipeline system in the United States and was among the ten largest operators of natural gas reserves.  Its production timeline coincides with the massive jump in earthquakes in the 1970s and 1980s. Today, 37 companies drill for gas and oil in Arkansas.

Unregulated Fracking on a Global March

The U.S. and Canada are not alone in exploiting this highly destructive technology. Poland also embraces fracking. Several energy companies are currently exploring Poland’s reserves, including Conoco-Phillips, ExxonMobil, Marathon, Chevron, Talisman, Lane Energy, BNK Petroleum, Emfesz, EurEnergy Resources, RAG, San Leon Energy and Sorgenia E&P.   These new technologies will significantly impact the global trade in natural gas, according to Forbes:

Poland consumes 14 billion cubic meters of gas a year and imports more than 70% of it from Russia. It is easy to see how the country could benefit from starting shale gas drilling as soon as possible. Not only could it decrease its dependency on Russia, it might even turn into a gas exporter.

Bateman noted that Western and Central Europe have leased their lands to frackers. Australians are suffering from the same frack contaminations as Americans, and China is also exploiting the new technology.

Josh Fox’s 2010 film, Gasland, documents a multitude of harmful consequences on animal and human life, as well as property values. The most infamous scene shows people able to ignite their contaminated tap water.

Fox makes the point that Dick Cheney’s former company, Halliburton, lobbied for and won exemptions from the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, Superfund, and the Safe Drinking Water Act, thanks to our corporate-owned Congress.

Nor do drillers have to disclose the toxic chemicals used, contrary to the 1986 Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.   Though it did not hesitate to pass on Wall Street’s gambling debts to the public (twice), Congress has not found the will to pass the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act.

In 2004, the Environmental Protection Agency determined that fracking poses no threat to water supplies and that no further studies were needed.  From some Orwellian nightmare, however, at least 65 of the chemicals used in fracking are considered hazardous by the EPA. They have been linked to “cancer; liver, kidney, brain, respiratory and skin disorders; birth defects; and other health problems,” according to a 2005 report by the Oil and Gas Accountability Project. Of primary concern to citizens, OGAP notes that “Approximately half of the water that Americans rely on for drinking comes from underground sources.”

Wyoming took a proactive stance on full disclosure of fracking chemicals when it passed new rules in September. Loopholes, however, still allow companies to claim proprietary ownership of such information, restricting it from public view.

Given the EPA’s position that fracking is safe, it’s not likely that Arkansas citizens will get much help from the federal government. Nor will they find a friend at the state level. The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality has so far been unwilling or unable to stop UMETCO Minerals Corporation from illegally dumping toxic chemicals into streams.

The same situation applies across the nation where state governments protect industry over environmental and human health.  Recently, outgoing Governor David Paterson vetoed legislation that would have put a moratorium on vertical and horizontal hydraulic drilling in New York.   Already, Pennsylvania leases a third of its public lands to private energy drillers.

Given government bias toward energy giants, and BP’s destruction of the Gulf of Mexico is a case in point, more direct action may be required by citizens, if environmental and human health are to be saved from the fossil fuel industry.

* For additional information see here, here, and here.

How very odd, I thought: how could one of the wettest places in Europe run out of water. Just as the story ended my wife came into the room, and I told her about it. She too thought it was odd, so I changed channels so she could watch it for herself on BBC One, the Beeb’s main channel, where their “news” was just starting up. This time there’s no mention of dry reservoirs; we’re told instead that the water shortage was due to water pipes bursting as the long spell of recent freezing weather thawed them. Exactly the same story, told by exactly the same “news” provider, but with an entirely different cause.

The following morning that leading organ of British printed propaganda, The Times, ran an article about it on page 14. At the time I didn’t know that Northern Ireland was just about the last part of Britain whose water supply has not been privatised… but I started to wonder. I didn’t have long to wait. The story has been in the “news” ever since and the recurring theme, in The Times and on TV, is that Northern Ireland Water is a public company, whilst most of the mainland’s water supply is provided by private corporations.

Curiously missing from all these national “news” reports, however, is any information about how the rest of the mainland’s water supply has been coping after enduring very similar weather conditions. So it’s obviously quite difficult to know how the rest of Britain is managing for water, and one could be forgiven for assuming there simply isn’t a problem with the nation’s wonderful privatised water supply as the national “news” hasn’t anything to say about it. But my local “news” provider, which covers the East Midlands, has been reporting plenty of burst water pipes and an “unprecedented” number of calls from the public on the subject.

So contrary to the way the national “news” providers are spinning the story, it would seem that Northern Ireland’s burst water pipes have nothing to do with the fact that the supplier is a public company rather than a private one; and their water problems, like the rest of the country, are pretty much down to the fact that Britain has just experienced the coldest December in a hundred years.

Headlines are a very important part of the propagandist’s craft, and the story provided by last Saturday’s Times appeared beneath a fine example of the art: “UK taxpayers’ money goes down the drain in subsidy for failing Ulster water company”.

The article proceeds to suggest that households in Northern Ireland pay an average of just £80 a year for their water services, whilst households on the mainland pay around £350. This is because, we’re told, British taxpayers must subsidize Northern Ireland’s water to the tune of £10 per household. In case The Times readers struggle with simple arithmetic, the paper reinforces the point by telling us that Northern Ireland customers pay: “a quarter of the typical water bill that the rest of the UK pays.” Clearly we’re supposed to be outraged and offended by our hard-earned taxes “going down the drain” and wonder why the Irish should get away with such cheap water bills. Well, this reader is indeed outraged and offended – but wonders instead why customers on the mainland must pay FOUR TIMES as much for their water as Northern Ireland consumers when, if my home county is anything to go by, the service appears to be about the same.

The Times and the BBC “news” are, of course, produced by elites for elites, and it’s very obvious that Northern Ireland is being softened up to accept the privatisation of its water supply, so that the good people of that country can savour the benefits of paying FOUR TIMES as much for basically the same service as the one they’re getting now. A letter in that same edition of The Times by someone rejoicing in the name Lord Baker of Dorking, who proudly tells us he was intimately involved in the mainland’s water privatisation under Thatcher, advises Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister, “to privatise the operation in Northern Ireland so they can go to the markets for their capital requirements [because] Governments can only go to the taxpayer.”

No, Mr Baker, capital does not magically appear at “the markets” it comes from exactly the same place as governments find it: the taxpayer. It might have a different name, like Water Bill, but it’s still the taxpayer who pays it.

The suggestion that privatised utilities are better than public utilities is, of course, total bunkum – but absolutely central to the Chicago-school economic model that rules the world. The private organisation that provides water services to my English home is owned mostly by Australian and Canadian corporations, with a mere 15% of its shares held by a British company. This means the business end of the profits made on me spending FOUR TIMES as much for my water as some of my fellow Brits flies away to different parts of the globe instead of being reinvested in our own water services.

Not entirely unrelated to this story was a short discussion I heard on Al Jazeera the other night. I’ve long had my doubts about which side Al Jazeera is batting for, and their studio guest on this occasion did nothing to reassure me, being as he was from the Washington-based Cato Institute, a right wing “think-tank” that promotes itself as “dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace” (at least it has a sense of humour). The subject was Latin America and how remarkably well the economies of Latin American countries are looking at present. I had a sense of foreboding before the Cato-man even opened his mouth. Sitting back smugly in his chair he suggested to Al Jazeera‘s viewers that this was a direct result of the stringent-though-much-criticised economic policies imposed on the continent in the eighties and nineties. In the absence of any “balancing” studio guest at Al Jazeera I thought I’d add the words of John Perkins which flashed instantly through my mind:

Thanks to the biased “sciences” of forecasting, econometrics and statistics, if you bomb a city and then rebuild it, the data shows a huge spike in economic growth.

Much of the rest of the world is bracing itself for its dose of economic shock treatment this year. I’m predicting the “huge spike” in economic growth will start appearing when the next round of US/UK elections kick off in about two years time, when no doubt we shall all be treated to endless lectures on the far-sighted wisdom of our economic leaders for their savaging of public services in 2011.