Next after Ukraine — Belarus: US trains activists to promote “reforms”

From Rusvesna.su

March 21, 2017

The US government, through USAID, is looking for a contractor to implement its Community Connections exchange program in Belarus. In particular, the Americans plan to train Belarusians to carry out “economic and social transformations” by encouraging active participation by citizens in democratic processes.

As part of the program, the Americans want to train activists who will go on a three-week internship in the US to exchange experiences, visit American organizations, and communicate with experts.

“CC is a comprehensive exchange program that supports the priorities of the US government in providing assistance to foreign states by familiarizing the civil society of Belarus, individuals, and public sector representatives, with democratic practices and the values of the free market, and encouraging them to implement economic and social transformations in Belarus,” — from the announcement posted on the website.

According to the document, among the main tasks of the program are familiarizing the participants with the advantages and challenges of a democratic society, as well as creating a professional environment for the realization of economic and social transformations in Belarus.

The amount of funds that will be allocated to the contractor for the CC program is not specified.

In the name of democracy

The US government is not the first to provide financial support for the formation of democratic values in Belarus through the agency for international development. But the financial assistance of the US State Department to the Belarusians, aimed at supporting democratic and fair governance in the country, is on the rise: in 2016 was $ 8.3 million, in 2015 this figure equaled $ 7 million. For 2017, $9 million is allocated for this purpose.

It is noteworthy that in December 2016 a grant for funding independent Belarusian media also appeared on the US government portal. As reported by RT, the US State Department will allocate $ 520,000 to non-profit organizations for training independent journalists in Belarus.

One of the recipients of the grant from the US State Department is the American National Endowment for Democracy (NED). As previously noted by the media, the same fund was also involved in financing of Ukrainian NGOs.

In Belarus, NED also provided financial support for election observers in 2014, and also supported human rights organizations and activists. In 2016, NED allocated more than $ 2 million for the development of civil society and support for free and independent media in the country.

Protests of the unemployed

American money came in handy: on March 15, in Minsk, a protest rally was held under the name of “March of the parasites” against State Decree No. 3 “On the Prevention of Social Dependence.” The protesters demanded not only the cancellation of the tax on parasitism, but also the resignation of the president. After the protests, President Lukashenko suspended tax collection for a year, although he did not cancel the decree.

Currently, the opposition — in the person of the BNK bloc Nikolay Statkevich and the Right-of-center coalition of Lebedko, Rimashevsky, and Gubarevich — is actively participating in the protest movement. Previously, the Belarusian media reported that Statkevich would lead the “March of Angry Belarusians,” which is scheduled for March 25 in Minsk. Without “orange revolutions”

Grants for Community

Connections exchange programs represents nothing so much as the desire of the US to create centers of influence in countries that are of interest to American special services, believes political analyst and Americanist Alexander Asafov.

“The goal is to influence civil society. Support local activists, educate and educate them, and create their own opinion leaders,” said the political scientist.

Asafov noted that the United States will have to spend heavily to implement this program in Belarus.

“The scenario of the Orange Revolution is old enough and worked out, but it will not work directly in Belarus, as it worked in Ukraine, without significant financial resources,” the expert said.

However, the situation in Ukraine is a significant help for the work of the US in Belarus. President Alexander Lukashenko knows this very well, Asafov underscores.

“Lukashenko understands that the import of the revolution from Ukraine is real, because those oppositionists who got street experience there are much more dangerous than those who are merely trained according to American programs,” the expert said. [On this subject, see also armed provocateurs.]

Note that earlier in an interview with Bloomberg, Alexander Lukashenko said that he was satisfied with the Belarusian opposition. “I do not need another opposition, I have to look to the one I have, keep it in today’s form,” said the President of Belarus.

Источник: http://rusvesna.su/english/1490168287

The takeover of agriculture by Bill Gates, Rockefeller, Monsanto etal; the “doomsday” seed vault, GMOs, and the policies of impoverishment

A chilling historical account of the ongoing takeover of world agriculture and food, and the ultimate destruction of freedom. It names the players. This is an important article to distribute widely.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/doomsday-seed-vault-in-the-arctic-2/23503

Global Research, April 24, 2014
Global Research 4 December 2007

This article was first published in December 2007.

One thing Microsoft founder Bill Gates can’t be accused of is sloth. He was already programming at 14, founded Microsoft at age 20 while still a student at Harvard. By 1995 he had been listed by Forbes as the world’s richest man from being the largest shareholder in his Microsoft, a company which his relentless drive built into a de facto monopoly in software systems for personal computers.

In 2006 when most people in such a situation might think of retiring to a quiet Pacific island, Bill Gates decided to devote his energies to his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest ‘transparent’ private foundation as it says, with a whopping $34.6 billion endowment and a legal necessity to spend $1.5 billion a year on charitable projects around the world to maintain its tax free charitable status. A gift from friend and business associate, mega-investor Warren Buffett in 2006, of some $30 billion worth of shares in Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway put the Gates’ foundation into the league where it spends almost the amount of the entire annual budget of the United Nations’ World Health Organization.

So when Bill Gates decides through the Gates Foundation to invest some $30 million of their hard earned money in a project, it is worth looking at.

No project is more interesting at the moment than a curious project in one of the world’s most remote spots, Svalbard. Bill Gates is investing millions in a seed bank on the Barents Sea near the Arctic Ocean, some 1,100 kilometers from the North Pole. Svalbard is a barren piece of rock claimed by Norway and ceded in 1925 by international treaty (see map).

On this God-forsaken island Bill Gates is investing tens of his millions along with the Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto Corporation, Syngenta Foundation and the Government of Norway, among others, in what is called the ‘doomsday seed bank.’ Officially the project is named the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, part of the Svalbard island group.

The seed bank is being built inside a mountain on Spitsbergen Island near the small village of Longyearbyen. It’s almost ready for ‘business’ according to their releases. The bank will have dual blast-proof doors with motion sensors, two airlocks, and walls of steel-reinforced concrete one meter thick. It will contain up to three million different varieties of seeds from the entire world, ‘so that crop diversity can be conserved for the future,’ according to the Norwegian government. Seeds will be specially wrapped to exclude moisture. There will be no full-time staff, but the vault’s relative inaccessibility will facilitate monitoring any possible human activity.

Did we miss something here? Their press release stated, ‘so that crop diversity can be conserved for the future.’ What future do the seed bank’s sponsors foresee, that would threaten the global availability of current seeds, almost all of which are already well protected in designated seed banks around the world?

Anytime Bill Gates, the Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto and Syngenta get together on a common project, it’s worth digging a bit deeper behind the rocks on Spitsbergen. When we do we find some fascinating things.

The first notable point is who is sponsoring the doomsday seed vault. Here joining the Norwegians are, as noted, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; the US agribusiness giant DuPont/Pioneer Hi-Bred, one of the world’s largest owners of patented genetically-modified (GMO) plant seeds and related agrichemicals; Syngenta, the Swiss-based major GMO seed and agrichemicals company through its Syngenta Foundation; the Rockefeller Foundation, the private group who created the “gene revolution with over $100 million of seed money since the 1970’s; CGIAR, the global network created by the Rockefeller Foundation to promote its ideal of genetic purity through agriculture change.

CGIAR and ‘The Project’

As I detailled in the book, Seeds of Destruction1, in 1960 the Rockefeller Foundation, John D. Rockefeller III’s Agriculture Development Council and the Ford Foundation joined forces to create the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños, the Philippines. By 1971, the Rockefeller Foundation’s IRRI, along with their Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center and two other Rockefeller and Ford Foundation-created international research centers, the IITA for tropical agriculture, Nigeria, and IRRI for rice, Philippines, combined to form a global Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR).

CGIAR was shaped at a series of private conferences held at the Rockefeller Foundation’s conference center in Bellagio, Italy. Key participants at the Bellagio talks were the Rockefeller Foundation’s George Harrar, Ford Foundation’s Forrest Hill, Robert McNamara of the World Bank and Maurice Strong, the Rockefeller family’s international environmental organizer, who, as a Rockefeller Foundation Trustee, organized the UN Earth Summit in Stockholm in 1972. It was part of the foundation’s decades long focus to turn science to the service of eugenics, a hideous version of racial purity, what has been called The Project.

To ensure maximum impact, CGIAR drew in the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, the UN Development Program and the World Bank. Thus, through a carefully-planned leverage of its initial funds, the Rockefeller Foundation by the beginning of the 1970’s was in a position to shape global agriculture policy. And shape it did.

Financed by generous Rockefeller and Ford Foundation study grants, CGIAR saw to it that leading Third World agriculture scientists and agronomists were brought to the US to ‘master’ the concepts of modern agribusiness production, in order to carry it back to their homeland. In the process they created an invaluable network of influence for US agribusiness promotion in those countries, most especially promotion of the GMO ‘Gene Revolution’ in developing countries, all in the name of science and efficient, free market agriculture.

Genetically engineering a master race?

Now the Svalbard Seed Bank begins to become interesting. But it gets better. ‘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.2

The same Rockefeller Foundation created the so-called Green Revolution, out of a trip to Mexico in 1946 by Nelson Rockefeller and former New Deal Secretary of Agriculture and founder of the Pioneer Hi-Bred Seed Company, Henry Wallace.

The Green Revolution purported to solve the world hunger problem to a major degree in Mexico, India and other select countries where Rockefeller worked. Rockefeller Foundation agronomist, Norman Borlaug, won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work, hardly something to boast about with the likes of Henry Kissinger sharing the same.

In reality, as it years later emerged, the Green Revolution was a brilliant Rockefeller family scheme to develop a globalized agribusiness which they then could monopolize just as they had done in the world oil industry beginning a half century before. As Henry Kissinger declared in the 1970’s, ‘If you control the oil you control the country; if you control food, you control the population.’

Agribusiness and the Rockefeller Green Revolution went hand-in-hand. They were part of a grand strategy which included Rockefeller Foundation financing of research for the development of genetic engineering of plants and animals a few years later.

John H. Davis had been Assistant Agriculture Secretary under President Dwight Eisenhower in the early 1950’s. He left Washington in 1955 and went to the Harvard Graduate School of Business, an unusual place for an agriculture expert in those days. He had a clear strategy. In 1956, Davis wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review in which he declared that “the only way to solve the so-called farm problem once and for all, and avoid cumbersome government programs, is to progress from agriculture to agribusiness.” He knew precisely what he had in mind, though few others had a clue back then— a revolution in agriculture production that would concentrate control of the food chain in corporate multinational hands, away from the traditional family farmer. 3

A crucial aspect driving the interest of the Rockefeller Foundation and US agribusiness companies was the fact that the Green Revolution was based on proliferation of new hybrid seeds in developing markets. One vital aspect of hybrid seeds was their lack of reproductive capacity. Hybrids had a built in protection against multiplication. Unlike normal open pollinated species whose seed gave yields similar to its parents, the yield of the seed borne by hybrid plants was significantly lower than that of the first generation.

That declining yield characteristic of hybrids meant farmers must normally buy seed every year in order to obtain high yields. Moreover, the lower yield of the second generation eliminated the trade in seed that was often done by seed producers without the breeder’s authorization. It prevented the redistribution of the commercial crop seed by middlemen. If the large multinational seed

companies were able to control the parental seed lines in house, no competitor or farmer would be able to produce the hybrid. The global concentration of hybrid seed patents into a handful of giant seed companies, led by DuPont’s Pioneer Hi-Bred and Monsanto’s Dekalb laid the ground for the later GMO seed revolution. 4

In effect, the introduction of modern American agricultural technology, chemical fertilizers and commercial hybrid seeds all made local farmers in developing countries, particularly the larger more established ones, dependent on foreign, mostly US agribusiness and petro-chemical company inputs. It was a first step in what was to be a decades-long, carefully planned process.

Under the Green Revolution Agribusiness was making major inroads into markets which were previously of limited access to US exporters. The trend was later dubbed “market-oriented agriculture.” In reality it was agribusiness-controlled agriculture.

Through the Green Revolution, the Rockefeller Foundation and later Ford Foundation worked hand-in-hand shaping and supporting the foreign policy goals of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and of the CIA.

One major effect of the Green Revolution was to depopulate the countryside of peasants who were forced to flee into shantytown slums around the cities in desperate search for work. That was no accident; it was part of the plan to create cheap labor pools for forthcoming US multinational manufactures, the ‘globalization’ of recent years.

When the self-promotion around the Green Revolution died down, the results were quite different from what had been promised. Problems had arisen from indiscriminate use of the new chemical pesticides, often with serious health consequences. The mono-culture cultivation of new hybrid seed varieties decreased soil fertility and yields over time. The first results were impressive: double or even triple yields for some crops such as wheat and later corn in Mexico. That soon faded.

The Green Revolution was typically accompanied by large irrigation projects which often included World Bank loans to construct huge new dams, and flood previously settled areas and fertile farmland in the process. Also, super-wheat produced greater yields by saturating the soil with huge amounts of fertilizer per acre, the fertilizer being the product of nitrates and petroleum, commodities controlled by the Rockefeller-dominated Seven Sisters major oil companies.

Huge quantities of herbicides and pesticides were also used, creating additional markets for the oil and chemical giants. As one analyst put it, in effect, the Green Revolution was merely a chemical revolution. At no point could developing nations pay for the huge amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. They would get the credit courtesy of the World Bank and special loans by Chase Bank and other large New York banks, backed by US Government guarantees.

Applied in a large number of developing countries, those loans went mostly to the large landowners. For the smaller peasants the situation worked differently. Small peasant farmers could not afford the chemical and other modern inputs and had to borrow money.

Initially various government programs tried to provide some loans to farmers so that they could purchase seeds and fertilizers. Farmers who could not participate in this kind of program had to borrow from the private sector. Because of the exorbitant interest rates for informal loans, many small farmers did not even get the benefits of the initial higher yields. After harvest, they had to sell most if not all of their produce to pay off loans and interest. They became dependent on money-lenders and traders and often lost their land. Even with soft loans from government agencies, growing subsistence crops gave way to the production of cash crops.5

Since decades the same interests including the Rockefeller Foundation which backed the initial Green Revolution, have worked to promote a second ‘Gene Revolution’ as Rockefeller Foundation President Gordon Conway termed it several years ago, the spread of industrial agriculture and commercial inputs including GMO patented seeds.

Gates, Rockefeller and a Green Revolution in Africa
With the true background of the 1950’s Rockefeller Foundation Green Revolution clear in mind, it becomes especially curious that the same Rockefeller Foundation along with the Gates Foundation which are now investing millions of dollars in preserving every seed against a possible “doomsday” scenario are also investing millions in a project called The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.

AGRA, as it calls itself, is an alliance again with the same Rockefeller Foundation which created the “Gene Revolution.” A look at the AGRA Board of Directors confirms this.

It includes none other than former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as chairman. In his acceptance speech in a World Economic Forum event in Cape Town South Africa in June 2007, Kofi Annan stated, ‘I accept this challenge with gratitude to the Rockefeller Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and all others who support our African campaign.’

In addition the AGRA board numbers a South African, Strive Masiyiwa who is a Trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation. It includes Sylvia M. Mathews of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Mamphela Ramphele, former Managing Director of the World Bank (2000 – 2006); Rajiv J. Shah of the Gates Foundation; Nadya K. Shmavonian of the Rockefeller Foundation; Roy Steiner of the Gates Foundation. In addition, an Alliance for AGRA includes Gary Toenniessen the Managing Director of the Rockefeller Foundation and Akinwumi Adesina, Associate Director, Rockefeller Foundation.

To fill out the lineup, the Programmes for AGRA includes Peter Matlon, Managing Director, Rockefeller Foundation; Joseph De Vries, Director of the Programme for Africa’s Seed Systems and Associate Director, Rockefeller foundation; Akinwumi Adesina, Associate Director, Rockefeller Foundation. Like the old failed Green Revolution in India and Mexico, the new Africa Green Revolution is clearly a high priority of the Rockefeller Foundation.

While to date they are keeping a low profile, Monsanto and the major GMO agribusiness giants are believed at the heart of using Kofi Annan’s AGRA to spread their patented GMO seeds across Africa under the deceptive label, ‘bio-technology,’ the new euphemism for genetically engineered patented seeds. To date South Africa is the only African country permitting legal planting of GMO crops. In 2003 Burkina Faso authorized GMO trials. In 2005 Kofi Annan’s Ghana drafted bio-safety legislation and key officials expressed their intentions to pursue research into GMO crops.

Africa is the next target in the US-government campaign to spread GMO worldwide. Its rich soils make it an ideal candidate. Not surprisingly many African governments suspect the worst from the GMO sponsors as a multitude of genetic engineering and biosafety projects have been initiated in Africa, with the aim of introducing GMOs into Africa’s agricultural systems. These include sponsorships offered by the US government to train African scientists in genetic engineering in the US, biosafety projects funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the World Bank; GMO research involving African indigenous food crops.

The Rockefeller Foundation has been working for years to promote, largely without success, projects to introduce GMOs into the fields of Africa. They have backed research that supports the applicability of GMO cotton in the Makhathini Flats in South Africa.

Monsanto, who has a strong foothold in South Africa’s seed industry, both GMO and hybrid, has conceived of an ingenious smallholders’ programme known as the ‘Seeds of Hope’ Campaign, which is introducing a green revolution package to small scale poor farmers, followed, of course, by Monsanto’s patented GMO seeds. 6

Syngenta AG of Switzerland, one of the ‘Four Horsemen of the GMO Apocalypse’ is pouring millions of dollars into a new greenhouse facility in Nairobi, to develop GMO insect resistant maize. Syngenta is a part of CGIAR as well.7

Move on to Svalbard

Now is it simply philosophical sloppiness? What leads the Gates and Rockefeller foundations to at one and the same time to back proliferation of patented and soon-to-be Terminator patented seeds across Africa, a process which, as it has in every other place on earth, destroys the plant seed varieties as monoculture industrialized agribusiness is introduced? At the same time they invest tens of millions of dollars to preserve every seed variety known in a bomb-proof doomsday vault near the remote Arctic Circle ‘so that crop diversity can be conserved for the future’ to restate their official release?

It is no accident that the Rockefeller and Gates foundations are teaming up to push a GMO-style Green Revolution in Africa at the same time they are quietly financing the ‘doomsday seed vault’ on Svalbard. The GMO agribusiness giants are up to their ears in the Svalbard project.

Indeed, the entire Svalbard enterprise and the people involved call up the worst catastrophe images of the Michael Crichton bestseller, Andromeda Strain, a sci-fi thriller where a deadly disease of extraterrestrial origin causes rapid, fatal clotting of the blood threatening the entire human species. In Svalbard, the future world’s most secure seed repository will be guarded by the policemen of the GMO Green Revolution–the Rockefeller and Gates Foundations, Syngenta, DuPont and CGIAR.

The Svalbard project will be run by an organization called the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT). Who are they to hold such an awesome trust over the planet’s entire seed varieties? The GCDT was founded by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Bioversity International (formerly the International Plant Genetic Research Institute), an offshoot of the CGIAR.

The Global Crop Diversity Trust is based in Rome. Its Board is chaired by Margaret Catley-Carlson a Canadian also on the advisory board of Group Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux, one of the world’s largest private water companies. Catley-Carlson was also president until 1998 of the New York-based Population Council, John D. Rockefeller’s population reduction organization, set up in 1952 to advance the Rockefeller family’s eugenics program under the cover of promoting “family planning,” birth control devices, sterilization and “population control” in developing countries.

Other GCDT board members include former Bank of America executive presently head of the Hollywood DreamWorks Animation, Lewis Coleman. Coleman is also the lead Board Director of Northrup Grumman Corporation, one of America’s largest military industry Pentagon contractors.

Jorio Dauster (Brazil) is also Board Chairman of Brasil Ecodiesel. He is a former Ambassador of Brazil to the European Union, and Chief Negotiator of Brazil’s foreign debt for the Ministry of Finance. Dauster has also served as President of the Brazilian Coffee Institute and as Coordinator of the Project for the Modernization of Brazil’s Patent System, which involves legalizing patents on seeds which are genetically modified, something until recently forbidden by Brazil’s laws.

Cary Fowler is the Trust’s Executive Director. Fowler was Professor and Director of Research in the Department for International Environment & Development Studies at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. He was also a Senior Advisor to the Director General of Bioversity International. There he represented the Future Harvest Centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) in negotiations on the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources. In the 1990s, he headed the International Program on Plant Genetic Resources at the FAO. He drafted and supervised negotiations of FAO’s Global Plan of Action for Plant Genetic Resources, adopted by 150 countries in 1996. He is a past-member of the National Plant Genetic Resources Board of the US and the Board of Trustees of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico, another Rockefeller Foundation and CGIAR project.

GCDT board member Dr. Mangala Rai of India is the Secretary of India’s Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE), and Director General of the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR). He is also a Board Member of the Rockefeller Foundation’s International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), which promoted the world’s first major GMO experiment, the much-hyped ‘Golden Rice’ which proved a failure. Rai has served as Board Member for CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center), and a Member of the Executive Council of the CGIAR.

Global Crop Diversity Trust Donors or financial angels include as well, in the words of the Humphrey Bogart Casablanca classic, ‘all the usual suspects.’ As well as the Rockefeller and Gates Foundations, the Donors include GMO giants DuPont-Pioneer Hi-Bred, Syngenta of Basle Switzerland, CGIAR and the State Department’s energetically pro-GMO agency for development aid, USAID. Indeed it seems we have the GMO and population reduction foxes guarding the hen-house of mankind, the global seed diversity store in Svalbard. 8

Why now Svalbard?

We can legitimately ask why Bill Gates and the Rockefeller Foundation along with the major genetic engineering agribusiness giants such as DuPont and Syngenta, along with CGIAR are building the Doomsday Seed Vault in the Arctic.

Who uses such a seed bank in the first place? Plant breeders and researchers are the major users of gene banks. Today’s largest plant breeders are Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta and Dow Chemical, the global plant-patenting GMO giants. Since early in 2007 Monsanto holds world patent rights together with the United States Government for plant so-called ‘Terminator’ or Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURT). Terminator is an ominous technology by which a patented commercial seed commits ‘suicide’ after one harvest. Control by private seed companies is total. Such control and power over the food chain has never before in the history of mankind existed.

This clever genetically engineered terminator trait forces farmers to return every year to Monsanto or other GMO seed suppliers to get new seeds for rice, soybeans, corn, wheat whatever major crops they need to feed their population. If broadly introduced around the world, it could within perhaps a decade or so make the world’s majority of food producers new feudal serfs in bondage to three or four giant seed companies such as Monsanto or DuPont or Dow Chemical.

That, of course, could also open the door to have those private companies, perhaps under orders from their host government, Washington, deny seeds to one or another developing country whose politics happened to go against Washington’s. Those who say ‘It can’t happen here’ should look more closely at current global events. The mere existence of that concentration of power in three or four private US-based agribusiness giants is grounds for legally banning all GMO crops even were their harvest gains real, which they manifestly are not.

These private companies, Monsanto, DuPont, Dow Chemical hardly have an unsullied record in terms of stewardship of human life. They developed and proliferated such innovations as dioxin, PCBs, Agent Orange. They covered up for decades clear evidence of carcinogenic and other severe human health consequences of use of the toxic chemicals. They have buried serious scientific reports that the world’s most widespread herbicide, glyphosate, the essential ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide that is tied to purchase of most Monsanto genetically engineered seeds, is toxic when it seeps into drinking water.9 Denmark banned glyphosate in 2003 when it confirmed it has contaminated the country’s groundwater.10

The diversity stored in seed gene banks is the raw material for plant breeding and for a great deal of basic biological research. Several hundred thousand samples are distributed annually for such purposes. The UN’s FAO lists some 1400 seed banks around the world, the largest being held by the United States Government. Other large banks are held by China, Russia, Japan, India, South Korea, Germany and Canada in descending order of size. In addition, CGIAR operates a chain of seed banks in select centers around the world.

CGIAR, set up in 1972 by the Rockefeller Foundation and Ford Foundation to spread their Green Revolution agribusiness model, controls most of the private seed banks from the Philippines to Syria to Kenya. In all these present seed banks hold more than six and a half million seed varieties, almost two million of which are ‘distinct.’ Svalbard’s Doomsday Vault will have a capacity to house four and a half million different seeds.

GMO as a weapon of biowarfare?

Now we come to the heart of the danger and the potential for misuse inherent in the Svalbard project of Bill Gates and the Rockefeller foundation. Can the development of patented seeds for most of the world’s major sustenance crops such as rice, corn, wheat, and feed grains such as soybeans ultimately be used in a horrible form of biological warfare?

The explicit aim of the eugenics lobby funded by wealthy elite families such as Rockefeller, Carnegie, Harriman and others since the 1920’s, has embodied what they termed ‘negative eugenics,’ the systematic killing off of undesired bloodlines. Margaret Sanger, a rapid eugenicist, the founder of Planned Parenthood International and an intimate of the Rockefeller family, created something called The Negro Project in 1939, based in Harlem, which as she confided in a letter to a friend, was all about the fact that, as she put it, ‘we want to exterminate the Negro population.’ 11

A small California biotech company, Epicyte, in 2001 announced the development of genetically engineered corn which contained a spermicide which made the semen of men who ate it sterile. At the time Epicyte had a joint venture agreement to spread its technology with DuPont and Syngenta, two of the sponsors of the Svalbard Doomsday Seed Vault. Epicyte was since acquired by a North Carolina biotech company. Astonishing to learn was that Epicyte had developed its spermicidal GMO corn with research funds from the US Department of Agriculture, the same USDA which, despite worldwide opposition, continued to finance the development of Terminator technology, now held by Monsanto.

In the 1990’s the UN’s World Health Organization launched a campaign to vaccinate millions of women in Nicaragua, Mexico and the Philippines between the ages of 15 and 45, allegedly against Tentanus, a sickness arising from such things as stepping on a rusty nail. The vaccine was not given to men or boys, despite the fact they are presumably equally liable to step on rusty nails as women.

Because of that curious anomaly, Comite Pro Vida de Mexico, a Roman Catholic lay organization became suspicious and had vaccine samples tested. The tests revealed that the Tetanus vaccine being spread by the WHO only to women of child-bearing age contained human Chorionic Gonadotrophin or hCG, a natural hormone which when combined with a tetanus toxoid carrier stimulated antibodies rendering a woman incapable of maintaining a pregnancy. None of the women vaccinated were told.

It later came out that the Rockefeller Foundation along with the Rockefeller’s Population Council, the World Bank (home to CGIAR), and the United States’ National Institutes of Health had been involved in a 20-year-long project begun in 1972 to develop the concealed abortion vaccine with a tetanus carrier for WHO. In addition, the Government of Norway, the host to the Svalbard Doomsday Seed Vault, donated $41 million to develop the special abortive Tetanus vaccine. 12

Is it a coincidence that these same organizations, from Norway to the Rockefeller Foundation to the World Bank are also involved in the Svalbard seed bank project? According to Prof. Francis Boyle who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 enacted by the US Congress, the Pentagon is ‘now gearing up to fight and win biological warfare’ as part of two Bush national strategy directives adopted, he notes, ‘without public knowledge and review’ in 2002. Boyle adds that in 2001-2004 alone the US Federal Government spent $14.5 billion for civilian bio-warfare-related work, a staggering sum.

Rutgers University biologist Richard Ebright estimates that over 300 scientific institutions and some 12,000 individuals in the USA today have access to pathogens suitable for biowarfare. Alone there are 497 US Government NIH grants for research into infectious diseases with biowarfare potential. Of course this is being justified under the rubric of defending against possible terror attack as so much is today.

Many of the US Government dollars spent on biowarfare research involve genetic engineering. MIT biology professor Jonathan King says that the ‘growing bio-terror programs represent a significant emerging danger to our own population.’ King adds, ‘while such programs are always called defensive, with biological weapons, defensive and offensive programs overlap almost completely.’ 13

Time will tell whether, God Forbid, the Svalbard Doomsday Seed Bank of Bill Gates and the Rockefeller Foundation is part of another Final Solution, this involving the extinction of the Late, Great Planet Earth.

Notes

1 F. William Engdahl, Seeds of Destruction, Montreal, (Global Research, 2007).
2 Ibid, pp.72-90.
3 John H. Davis, Harvard Business Review, 1956, cited in Geoffrey Lawrence, Agribusiness, Capitalism and the Countryside, Pluto Press, Sydney, 1987. See also Harvard Business School, The Evolution of an Industry and a Seminar: Agribusiness Seminar, http://www.exed.hbs.edu/programs/agb/seminar.html.
4 Engdahl, op cit., p. 130.
5 Ibid. P. 123-30.
6 Myriam Mayet, The New Green Revolution in Africa: Trojan Horse for GMOs?, May, 2007, African Centre for Biosafety, www.biosafetyafrica.net.
7 ETC Group, Green Revolution 2.0 for Africa?, Communique Issue #94, March/April 2007.
8 Global Crop Diversity Trust website, in http://www.croptrust.org/main/donors.php.
9 Engdahl, op. cit., pp.227-236.
10 Anders Legarth Smith, Denmark Bans Glyphosates, the Active Ingredient in Roundup, Politiken, September 15, 2003, in organic.com.au/news/2003.09.15.
11 Tanya L. Green, The Negro Project: Margaret Sanger’s Genocide Project for Black American’s, in www.blackgenocide.org/negro.html.
12 Engdahl, op. cit., pp. 273-275; J.A. Miller, Are New Vaccines Laced With Birth-Control Drugs?, HLI Reports, Human Life International, Gaithersburg, Maryland; June/July 1995, Volume 13, Number 8.
13 Sherwood Ross, Bush Developing Illegal Bioterror Weapons for Offensive Use,’ December 20, 2006, in www.truthout.org.

Washington wants “regime change” in Ecuador: “What is the CIA planning before Ecuador’s 2017 elections?”

Global Research, September 15, 2015
Silent Crow 14 September 2015

The United States does not lack institutions that continue to conspire, and that’s why I am using this gathering to announce that we have decided to expel USAID from Bolivia” Bolivian President Evo Morales

Washington wants Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa removed from power. Washington says it is concerned about the freedom of the press in Ecuador because their non-government organization ‘Fundamedios’ funded and supported by United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and Freedom House among others is in the process of being shut down by the Correa government. According to Telesur’s report on September 10th “Fundamedios engaged “partisan political activities” by sharing material on its social media accounts, publishing articles unrelated to its stated mission and inserting itself into political debates in the country”which according to the National Secretariat of Communication or ‘Secom’ is prohibited under Ecuadorian law. The White House released a press statement on the same day:

We are very concerned about the increasing restrictions on freedom of expression and freedom of association in Ecuador, particularly the Ecuadorian government’s September 8 decision to initiate legal steps intended to dissolve Fundamedios, a non-governmental organization that monitors and defends press freedom.

An active civil society and tolerance of dissenting views are vital components of any democracy. We share international concern over the Ecuadorian government’s efforts to silence critical voices and deny its citizens access to a diversity of information and ideas. Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists, among others, have all spoken out in opposition to the government’s latest action against Fundamedios.

According to TeleSur ‘Fundamedios’ is funded by the NED and USAID:

The work of the organization mostly consists of issuing “alerts” regarding alleged attacks against journalists in Ecuador.  The organization is funded in part through a US$84,000 grant from the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy. U.S. Ambassador to Ecuador Adam Namm told El Telegrafo that Fundamedios received US$300,000 in 2012 from USAID, which is receives its funds from the U.S. government

USAID and NED are in the business of “Democracy Promotion” which uses public money (from U.S. taxpayers) for secretive operations with the intention to support pro-U.S. governments with the help of political and social movements abroad. The goal is regime change.

Why Washington wants Correa Removed from Power

Since 2009, the world has seen what the Obama administration has done to sovereign nations in the name of democracy. Libya, Honduras and the Ukraine are some of the recent examples of U.S. foreign policy that has only proved to be disastrous on many levels. Ecuador would be added to Obama’s list of countries ripe for regime change.

First, Correa is a staunch ally of Latin America’s leftist governments of Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Argentina and Brazil who are critical of U.S. Foreign policy. What makes matters worse for Washington was the closure of the Manta Air Force Base in 2009, a promise made by Correa in a 2006 campaign.

Washington wants a new government in Ecuador to reopen the Manta Air Force Base for surveillance and the so-called “War on Drugs”. In 2008, the New York Times reported that President Correa fired high ranking military officials who were loyal subjects of Washington:

Mr. Correa — who this month dismissed his defense minister, army chief of intelligence and commanders of the army, air force and joint chiefs — said that Ecuador’s intelligence systems were “totally infiltrated and subjugated to the C.I.A.” He accused senior military officials of sharing intelligence with Colombia, the Bush administration’s top ally in Latin America

The New York Times admitted that Correa’s administration is a challenge for U.S. policy makers regarding the “War on Drugs” and its presence in Latin America:

The gambit also poses a clear challenge to the United States. For nearly a decade, the base here in Manta has been the most prominent American military outpost in South America and an important facet of the United States’ drug-fighting efforts. Some 100 antinarcotics flights leave here each month to survey the Pacific in an elaborate cat-and-mouse game with drug traffickers bound for the United States.

But many Ecuadoreans have chafed at the American presence and the perceived challenge to the country’s sovereignty, and Mr. Correa promised during his campaign in 2006 to close the outpost

Reuters’ also reported in 2007 what Correa had said about the possibility of renewing the lease to the U.S. military“We’ll renew the base on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami — an Ecuadorean base,” Correa said in an interview during a trip to Italy. “If there’s no problem having foreign soldiers on a country’s soil, surely they’ll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States.” Correa did make a good point.

Another reason Correa is on Washington’s “hit list” involves Wikileaks. Its founder Julian Assange was granted political asylum in an Ecuadorian embassy in London because he feared that if he ended up in U.S. custody over the secret files he released from Chelsea Manning to the world, could have him face an unfair trial in a U.S. courtroom. Ecuador granted Assange political asylum status where he still remains to this day. Neoconservative and former Presidential contender Sarah Palin said that Assange is an “anti-American operative with blood on his hands…Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders?” Palin was saying that Julian Assange is in the same league as Al Qaeda so killing him is justified. Ecuador did take a stand to protect the life and liberty of Julian Assange, something Washington does not take lightly.

Ecuador’s Lawsuit against Big Oil

Litigation and various lawsuits against Chevron-Texaco has been going on for more than two decades which oil drilling operations which occurred between 1972 and 1990 in the Amazon as RT News reported in 2013:

Ecuador’s foreign ministry announced on Friday that the US has seemingly denied visas to a delegation that was set to travel to the UN General Assembly in New York to present their case regarding an ongoing dispute against Chevron-Texaco. According to the ministry’s official announcement, the visas for the five Ecuadorian nationals were returned by the US Embassy in Quito “without any explanation.”

That group was to present testimony during a special event at the UN regarding the ecological impact caused by Chevron-Texaco’s oil operations in the Amazon rainforest region of Ecuador – which contaminated two million hectares, according to the country’s government. At stake is a US$19 billion judgment awarded by an Ecuadorean court against Chevron for cleanup and ecological damage, which is currently being fought at The Hague.

Correa in Washington’s Crosshairs

From alliances with anti-Washington governments to the closure of the Manta Air Force Base, to protecting Julian Assange and a lawsuit against Chevron-Texaco for environmental damages to the Amazon, Correa is a target for regime change. Just remember back in history when the CIA orchestrated a coup against Ecuadorian President Carlos Julio Arosemena simply because he criticized the U.S. government and supported the Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro. Correa has done a lot more to diminish U.S. power in Latin America than any other president in its current history.

Correa has accused the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) earlier this year of “being increasingly involved in the political opposition with the avowed aim of dragging the country into chaos” and weaken the Ecuadorian government by “a series of coordinated nationwide protests.” Something Correa should be familiar with, after all the CIA attempted a coup in 2010 under Obama’s watch. One of the key reasons of the attempted coup by the Ecuadorian police was the Public Service Organic Law signed in 2010. It was designed to place regulations on public service workers namely the police and military and create a standard base of compensation instead of receiving their bonuses from foreign sources (the U.S. government) under Ecuadorian law. The main problem before the law was passed was that the police of Ecuador was receiving bonuses from the US embassy to spy on Ecuadorian politicians and others who were considered opponents of Washington.

Interestingly, Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton was in Ecuador in June of that year to convince Correa to join the“Dark Side” but ultimately failed. U.S. Ambassador at the time was Heather Hodges who was assigned to disrupt and weaken the Correa government through USAID which contributed $40 million. The Ecuadorian police, military officials, USAID, NED, the CIA and a former president and a puppet of Washington during the Bush years, Lucio Gutiérrez who was ousted by the Ecuadorian people who demanded his resignation were all behind the coup plot.

Obama has 16 Months Left in Office

Will the Obama administration authorize another coup between now and 2016? It is Obama’s last 16 months in office since the first coup attempt. Correa knows he is on Washington’s “hit list” following his actions on Fundamedios who claim the freedom of speech is threatened as Washington threatens Julian Assange for exposing their crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq by killing of tens of thousands of civilians, which they tried to keep secret. Washington is consistent when it ignores the sovereignty of nations and bypasses international law on a regular basis.

Recently, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie) and various trade unions called for a nationwide strike against the government, but many indigenous organizations opposed it. Telesur reported that WikiLeaks published diplomatic cables from the U.S. embassy in Ecuador from 2005 and 2006 that suggest members of CONAIE were interested in talking to U. S. Representatives within their own ranks including Vice President Santiago de la Cruz and Congressman Jorge Guaman who according to one cable “expressed interest in open dialogue.”Members of CONAIE also “asked the U.S. government to intervene with the president to get Conaie representatives back in these government institutions.” De La Cruz is described as “very interested in the possibility of visiting the U.S. on an exchange program,” and that he “appeared eager to engage in dialogue” with the U.S.  Wikileaks also released documents on Auki Tituana, a member of Pachakutik who also seemed interested.

Although representatives in both organizations have shown an interest in meeting with U.S. officials, other members are not so keen on the idea including Luis Macas, head of CONAIE. This is a positive sign that members within these indigenous organizations do not want to meet with U.S. diplomats.  Macas “has advised his organization to avoid dialogue with the U.S. government.” According to the cables “There appears to be division within the ranks of Pachakutik and (Conaie) on the level of interaction they should have with the Embassy”.

In 2007, Correa was an anti-neoliberal advocate was voted into power and has brought Ecuador political and economic stability. One other issue Washington is concerned about is what Correa said about the Dollarization” of the Ecuadorian economy; he said it was a “technical error” after pro-US president Jamil Mahuad adopted the U.S. dollar in 2000. Correa did acknowledge that it is a difficult process to move out of the U.S. dollar at this time, however, he does support a regional South American currency that would allow Ecuador to move out of the dollar which is something U.S. officials’ do not like to hear especially when the dollar is about to lose its reserve currency status.

What is the CIA planning before Ecuador’s elections in 2017?

It is important to note that if a presidential recall vote were to take place in Ecuador today at least 60% of the people would vote for Correa according to the main-stream media’s ‘CNN Spanish’ poll this past June. Correa proposed constitutional reforms including two bills that would increase inheritance and capital gains taxes on the ultra-wealthy. Anti-government protests followed, which later turned violent. That is something Washington wants to see more of right before Ecuador’s 2017 presidential elections.

“Swarming adolescents”, technology, branding, NGOs – US/NATO regime change operations

By Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post
April 9, 2015

As NATO-backed protests were beginning to take off in Ukraine after then-president Viktor Yanukovich agreed to accept a financial deal with Russia as opposed to the greater integration/austerity package proposed by the European Union, evidence of US involvement in the Euromaidan color revolution began to surface in the Ukrainian Rada.

Indeed, early on, there were individuals in the Ukrainian government who recognized that there was an international and NATO-centered plot at work in their country designed to overthrow the President and other elected officials using “swarming adolescents” and other more violent elements of protest and destabilization.

While color revolutions are often manifested through a variety of channels — the National Endowment for Democracy, USAID, IRI, NDI, are just a few examples, — there were a number of relatively new participants in the game of national destabilization at play in Ukraine this time around.

For instance, even something as a seemingly innocuous “TechCamp” acted as a front for the color revolution apparatus in Ukraine. While the “TechCamp” concept is one that is presented as bringing influential and important members of the public together with members of the technology community for the purposes of greater training and understanding, the truth is that these “TechCamps” are actually operations used to disseminate methodologies for the implementation of color revolutions throughout the target country.

This was recognized early on by Oleg Tsarev, former Deputy of Ukraine and now a member of the separatist parliament in Eastern Ukraine. In November, 2013, before he was ousted from his position in the Ukrainian government, Tsarev attempted to warn the Rada of the involvement of the West with the protests taking off in Ukraine and the use of the “TechCamp” as a tool of destabilization.

[Transcript — http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2015/01/must-watch-ukrainian-deputy-us-to-stage.html%5D

Tsarev took his chance to speak to the Rada amongst howls of protest and managed to produce a speech that ultimately went unheeded to say the least. He stated,

In my role as a representative of the Ukrainian people…activists of the public organisation “Volya” turned to me…providing clear evidence…that within our territory…with support and direct participation…of the US Embassy in Kiev…the “TechCamp” project is realised…under which preparations are being made for a civil war in Ukraine.

The “TechCamp” project prepares specialists for information warfare…and the discrediting of state institutions using modern media…potential revolutionaries……for organising protests…and the toppling of the State Order.

The project is currently overseen and under the responsibility…of the US ambassador to Ukraine…Geoffrey R. Pyatt.

After the conversation with the organisation “Volya“… I have learned…that they succeeded to access Facilities in the project “TechCamp“…disguising as a team of IT specialists.

To their surprise, briefings on peculiarities of modern media were held.

American instructors explained how social networks and Internet technologies…can be used for targeted manipulation of public opinion…as well as to activate protest potential…to provoke violent unrest on the territory of Ukraine…Radicalisation of the population and triggering of infighting.

American instructors show examples of successful use of social networks…used to organise protests…in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.

“TechCamp” representatives currently hold conferences throughout Ukraine. A total of five events have been held so far.

About 300 people were trained as operatives, which are now active throughout Ukraine.

The last conference “TechCamp” took place on 14 and 15 November 2013…in the Heart of Kiev on the territory of the US Embassy!

You tell me which country in the world would allow…a NGO to operate out of the US Embassy?

This is disrespectful to the Ukrainian government, and against the Ukrainian People!

I appeal to the Constitutional Authorities of Ukraine with the following question:

Is it conceivable that representatives of the US Embassy…which organise the “TechCamp” Conferences…misuse their diplomatic mission?

At this point, Tsarev was interrupted to the point that the officer chairing the session was forced to intervene in order to restore order and allow him to continue.

He picked back up where he left off and finished his statement. Tsarev said,
Continue reading

Agent Orange funding opens door to U.S. militarism and covert action In Vietnam

Posted on Global Research, March 26, 2015

Is the United States finally accepting responsibility for the devastating ongoing effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam,

Or is this funding just a way to get USAID in the door to meddle in the country’s affairs as part of Obama’s “Asian Pivot” strategy?

Originally published by MintPress News.
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers 

Martin Dempsey

U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, right, and Vietnamese Chief of General Staff of the Army, Lt. Gen. Do Ba Ty, left, during an honor guard review before their talks in Hanoi, Vietnam. The easing of an arms embargo against Vietnam and a military agreement with the Philippines show the Obama administration wants deeper security ties with Asia. On Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014, the State Department announced it would allow sales, on a case-by-case basis, of lethal equipment to help the maritime security of Vietnam, easing a ban that has been in place since communists took power at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Hanoi welcomed the step, saying it would promote the U.S.-Vietnam partnership. 

The use of Agent Orange constitutes a war crime with devastating effects on the people in Vietnam not only during the war but even today. The U.S. military knew that its use of Agent Orange would be damaging, but, as an Air Force scientist wrote to Congress, “because the material was to be used on the enemy, none of us were overly concerned.”

Ecocide was committed when “the U.S. military sprayed 79 million liters of herbicides and defoliants over about one-seventh of the land area of southern Vietnam.” The 2008-2009 President’s Cancer Panel Report found that nearly five million Vietnamese were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in “400,000 deaths and disabilities and a half million children born with birth defects.”

In this photo taken on Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012, Le Van Tam, 14, is picked up by his father at a rehabilitation center in Danang, Vietnam. The children were born with physical and mental disabilities that the center's director says were caused by their parents' exposure to the chemical dioxin in the defoliant Agent Orange. On Thursday, the U.S. for the first time will begin cleaning up leftover dioxin that was stored at the former military base that's now part of Danang's airport.  (AP Photo/Maika Elan)

Le Van Tam, 14, is picked up by his father at a rehabilitation center in Danang, Vietnam. The children were born with physical and mental disabilities that the center’s director says were caused by their parents’ exposure to the chemical dioxin in the defoliant Agent Orange used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam war. Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012. 

No one has been held accountable for this crime. U.S. courts have blocked lawsuits brought by the people of Vietnam, and the United States has never paid adequate war reparations to assist in caring for the victims of Agent Orange or to clean up the environment.

In recent years, however, the U.S. has begun to fund cleanup and treatment programs for Agent Orange victims. The timing of this change in policy comes as the U.S. military has been building a relationship with the Vietnamese military as part of the so-called “Asian Pivot.” Yet this relationship has been impaired by the United States’ failure to properly deal with Agent Orange.

Funding for Agent Orange damages is being used to open the door to greater U.S. military involvement and influence in the region, but it will also allow an expansion of U.S. covert operations in Vietnam that set the stage for the U.S. to install a “friendlier” government, if necessary for U.S. hegemony in the region.

This funding is coming through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which has close ties to the CIA and a long history of covert intelligence and destabilization. Vietnam is experiencing a greater U.S. military presence along with USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, also known for fomenting regime change.

 Drawing Vietnam into US militarism

With its Asian Pivot, the U.S. intends to surround and isolate China by moving 60 percent of its Navy to the Asia-Pacific region, developing military agreements with countries there, and conducting joint military exercises with Pacific countries. The U.S. is also negotiating a massive corporate power-expanding treaty, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which excludes China.

Map of current US military deployments in S.E. Asia.  (Courtesy of the   Copyright Schiller Institute, Inc. 2015. All Rights Reserved.)

Map of current US military deployments in S.E. Asia. (Courtesy of the Schiller Institute, Inc. 2015. All Rights Reserved.)

Vietnam has been a focal point for the U.S. military since the end of the George W. Bush administration, a prelude to the Asian Pivotthat was formally announced by President Obama. For the last five years, the U.S. and Vietnam have been involved in joint military exercises. The U.S. has also started to sell weapons to Vietnam, seeking to transition the Vietnamese from Russian weapons to American weapons. And there has been a series of high-level meetings between the two countries.

In June 2013, The Diplomat reported, “the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff hosted the first visit by the Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army (and Deputy Minister of National Defense), General Do Ba Ty. Ty’s delegation included the commander of Vietnam’s Air Force and the deputy commanders of the Navy and General Intelligence Department. His trip included a visit to the Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state suggesting future possible joint activities.”

On July 25, 2013 Obama met with President Truong Tan Sang in Washington to form a U.S.-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership, covering a range of concerns including war legacy and security issues. They agreed to cooperate militarily through the U.S.-Vietnam Defense Policy Dialogue and the bilateral Political, Security, and Defense dialogue to discuss future military cooperation.

That meeting was followed by two high-level meetings between the U.S. and Vietnamese militaries. On Oct. 1, 2013 they held the 6th U.S.-Vietnam Political, Security and Defense Dialogue. The U.S. delegation included representatives from the State Department, Defense Department, USAID and the U.S. Pacific Command, while the Vietnamese delegation included representatives from the foreign affairs, public security and national defense ministries. The agenda included counterterrorism, counternarcotics, human trafficking, cyber law enforcement, defense and security, disaster response, search and rescue, war legacy and cooperation in regional organizations.

On Oct. 28 to 29, 2013 a second meeting was held in Washington. The 4th U.S.-Vietnam Defense Policy Dialogue was a deputy minister-level meeting and involved officials from their respective defense ministries. The Diplomat reported that “both dialogues were held within the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding on Advancing Bilateral Defense Cooperation signed on September 19, 2011 and the U.S.-Vietnam Joint Statement of July 25, 2013.”

“What was new?” The Diplomat continued. “The two sides agreed to step up cooperation between their navies and their respective defense academies and institutions.”

Yet the Vietnamese are continuing to move slowly in building a military relationship with the U.S. Vietnam limits the U.S. Navy to one port call per year and continues to bar U.S. Navy warships from entry to Cam Ranh Bay. Further, Vietnam has yet to approve a request made by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in June 2012 to set up an Office of Defense Cooperation in the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi.

A key factor holding back a closer military relationship is the inadequate cleanup of Agent Orange and the United States’ insufficient commitment to dealing with war legacies. After the 4th Defense Policy Dialogue, Vietnamese Deputy Defense Minister Nguyen Chi told Voice of Vietnam, “A better defense relationship should be based on the efficiency of practical cooperation, including overcoming [the] war aftermath… General speaking (sic), the U.S. has offered Vietnam active cooperation in the issue, but it is not enough as the consequences of war are terrible.”

Bloomberg reported last year on the fifth year of joint military operations, tying them to the Asian Pivot: “Two U.S. Navy ships began six days of non-combat exercises with the Vietnamese military as the U.S. seeks to bolster its presence in Asia at a time of growing tension between China and its neighbors.” Lt. Comm. Clay Doss, a Navy public affairs officer, described the evolution, saying: “The quality and depth of the exchanges is increasing each year as our navies get to know each other better.”

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey visited Vietnam in August – the first visit of a Joint Chiefs chairman since 1971. Dempsey’s trip came amid an escalation in conflicts between China and Vietnam. Among other things, he visited a U.S. military base where toxic defoliants had been stored.

In October, the U.S. eased a ban on lethal weapons sales to Vietnam. The U.S. said the arms sales would improve the maritime military capabilities of Vietnam so it could be more effective in conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region. In December 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry announced $18 million in assistance to Vietnam to provide its coast guard with five unarmed, high-speed patrol boats.

An October commentary in the People’s Daily, the flagship newspaper of China’s Communist Party, described these acts as destabilizing and “a clear extension of America’s interference with the balance of power in the region.” Maritime conflicts between Vietnam and China have been increasing as the U.S. adds military strength to Vietnam’s navy and coast guard. China maintains that disputes should be resolved through negotiations. Citing the Declaration of the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, the Chinese side maintains that “related countries should solve maritime disputes peacefully.”

Meanwhile, in Vietnam there are also concerns about an escalation of disputes: “Some senior Vietnam Communist Party leaders have worried over the years that moving to upgrade military-to-military ties with the US would provoke China to increase its pressure on Vietnam and its assertiveness in the South China Sea.”

In addition to challenging China, the U.S. also seeks to undermine the relationship between Vietnam and Russia. Russia, an arch rival of the U.S., has been the main weapons supplier for Vietnam since 2009. The U.S. wants to reorient Vietnam’s military away from Russia, which holds multi-billion dollar arms sales contracts with Vietnam, including the sale of submarines and fighter jets.

Sputnik, a Russian government-owned news media outlet, reported earlier this month that the U.S. “bullied” Vietnam to stop allowing Russia to use the Cam Ranh Bay naval base. The State Department says it has “urged Vietnamese officials to ensure that Russia is not able to use its access to Cam Ranh Bay to conduct activities that could raise tensions in the region.” Igor Korotchenko, director general of the Russian Center for Analysis of World Arms Trade, described the U.S. as stirring up tensions, instituting an arms race and creating regional instability.

Agent Orange funding a tool for US militarism — and what else?

A U.S. Air Force C-123 flies low along a South Vietnamese highway spraying Agent Orange on dense jungle growth beside the road to eliminate ambush sites for the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. During the Vietnam War, Air Force C-123 planes sprayed millions of gallons of herbicides over the jungles of Southeast Asia to destroy enemy crops and tree cover.

A U.S. Air Force C-123 flies low along a South Vietnamese highway spraying Agent Orange on dense jungle growth beside the road to eliminate ambush sites for the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. During the Vietnam War, Air Force C-123 planes sprayed millions of gallons of herbicides over the jungles of Southeast Asia to destroy enemy crops and tree cover.

The Vietnamese government told the U.S. that one thing preventing a closer relationship between the U.S. and Vietnamese militaries is the failure of the U.S. to deal with the lasting effects of Agent Orange. After 50 years of the Agent Orange crisis the U.S. is finally beginning to fund some cleanup efforts. This funding is coming from USAID, which has a sordid history of serving as a cover for U.S. militarism and the CIA in Vietnam and around the world.

In William Blum’s 2004 book “Killing Hope,” John Gilligan, director of USAID under the Carter administration, describes the depth of the CIA-USAID relationship: “At one time, many AID [USAID] field offices were infiltrated from top to bottom with CIA people. The idea was to plant operatives in every kind of activity we had overseas, government, volunteer, religious, every kind.”

Likewise, The Washington Post reported in 2010 that, “In South Vietnam, the USAID provided cover for CIA operatives so widely that the two became almost synonymous.”

During the Vietnam War, USAID operated a police training program that was tied to death squadsFormer New York Times correspondent A. J. Langguth wrote that “the two primary functions” of the USAID police training program were to allow the CIA to “plant men with local police in sensitive places around the world,” and bring to the U.S. “prime candidates for enrollment as CIA employees.”

The covert role of USAID has persisted. As The Washington Post reported in 2010, then-CIA Director Leon Panetta promised spies “new cover” for secret ops, and agencies that provide such cover include USAID and the State Department.

USAID has recently used health crises as cover for its covert operations. In 2011, Pakistan had a polio crisis, recording the highest number of polio cases in the world; it was a spiraling health catastrophe. USAID used a vaccination program organized by Save the Children, which had operated for 30 years in Pakistan, as cover to find Osama bin Laden.

The USAID-funded vaccination program used a Pakistani doctor and a local group, Lady Health Workers, to gain entrance to bin Laden’s home by going door-to-door to administer vaccinations. When vaccinations were administered to bin Laden’s children and grandchildren USAID tested the DNA of the used needles. It is likely that the doctor and two organizations were not aware they were being used by USAID. Save the Children staff members were expelled from Pakistan and the doctor was sentenced to 33 years in prison. His lawyer was murdered last week, and 74 health care workers have been killed since December 2012.

Last year, The Associated Press uncovered a USAID HIV-prevention program in Cuba used for covert operations. Beginning in October 2009, USAID, working through the Washington-based Creative Associates International, sent “Venezuelan, Costa Rican and Peruvian young people to Cuba in hopes of ginning up rebellion. The travelers worked undercover, often posing as tourists, and traveled around the island scouting for people they could turn into political activists.” They created an HIV-prevention workshop that “memos called ‘the perfect excuse’ for the program’s political goals.” Cuba uncovered the covert mission when the youth were questioned about their funding.

David Shear Nguyen Chi VinhU.S. Ambassador to Vietnam David Shear, center, and Vietnam’s Deputy Defense Minister Nguyen Chi Vinh, third left, along with delegates, attend a ceremony marking the start of a project to clean up dioxin left over from the Vietnam War, at a former U.S. military base in Danang, Vietnam Thursday Aug. 9, 2012. 

Noting that USAID has “a long history of engaging in intelligence work and meddling in the domestic politics of aid recipients,” Foreign Policy reported on another USAID program in Cuba, also exposed in 2014, where USAID covertly launched a social media platform in 2010, creating a Twitter-like service that would spark a “Cuban Spring.” The digital Bay of Pigs failed to spark a revolt, but it did expose the political leanings of 40,000 Cubans. This was reportedly not a CIA project, but a USAID project meant to undermine the Cuban government. Indeed, USAID has evolved to carry out its own meddling in the affairs of governments.

A 2006 State Department cable, released by WikiLeaks in 2013, outlined the United States’ strategy for undermining the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez by “Penetrating Chavez’ Political Base,” “Dividing Chavismo,” and “Isolating Chavez internationally.” The same office responsible for the digital Bay of Pigs in Cuba, USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives, also carried out the program in Venezuela.

Bolivia expelled USAID in 2013 because it was meddling in Bolivian politics. President Evo Morales was upset that USAID money reached lowland regional governments that attempted to overthrow him in 2008. A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request showed that USAID provided “$10.5 million for ‘democracy-building’ awarded to Chemonics International in 2006 ‘to support improved governance in a changing political environment.’” (Democracy development is a common cover for programs to foment rebellion.)

Bolivia is one of the many countries that have recently expelled USAID over the organization’s meddling in internal politics. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2013 that “about 50 countries have adopted laws to limit foreign funding of civic groups or more strictly control their activities. About 30 other countries are considering restrictions.”

Meanwhile, U.S. covert actions in Vietnam have not ended. A blogger and lawyer who spent a year in the U.S. as a fellow the National Endowment for Democracy was arrested in December 2012 for pro-democracy activities. The National Endowment for Democracy has been providing hundreds of thousands of dollars to various Vietnamese projects related to changing the government in recent years. USAID has a major presence with 38 ongoing projects in Vietnam.

It may be that regime change activities are already beginning in Vietnam. In 2014, there were large anti-China protests and attacks on Chinese businesses in Vietnam. Some speculated that the Vietnamese government was behind the protests, but David Koh, a reporter for Singapore’s Straits Times, who works with NGOs in Vietnam, interviewed officials and businessmen in Vietnam and reported that the government was surprised by the protests.

The protests were also against economic conditions and other issues in Vietnam, and it remains unclear who planned and funded the events. Researchers in Singapore who interviewed people on the ground in Vietnam wrote:

“A large number of Vietnamese flags and T-shirts had been purchased before the demonstrations suggesting that the attacks were not spontaneous. Even maps locating Chinese and Taiwanese factories had been photocopied in large numbers. The leaders of the riots have been reported to have been using walkie-talkies to communicate with each other. The fact that the violence affected as many as 200 factories in a single day already suggests that a high level of professionalism and organization was involved. This suggests that the riots were premeditated, although unlike the earlier peaceful demonstration of the patriots, they were not announced openly. Workers were believed to receive from VND50,000 to VND300,000 VND (equivalent to US$2.3 to US$14) to follow the agitators. This begs the question: where did the money come from?”

It’s important to note that people were paid more than a day’s labor to participate.

The Singapore researchers ultimately concluded that the Vietnamese government was the big loser:

“However, for now, the notion that the riots and violence were simply the result of a wave of blind nationalism and anti-Chinese sentiments must be re-examined. The current crisis presents major challenges for not only Vietnam-China relations, regional stability and ASEAN’s unity, but most of all, for Vietnam’s political system.”

Agent Orange Trojan Horse compounds war crimes

In addition to opening up Vietnam to a deeper relationship with the U.S. military – which is dangerous enough for Vietnam, China, Russia and the broader Asia-Pacific region – what else will USAID do with its foothold in Vietnam? As USAID so routinely involves itself in the affairs of foreign governments, it would be foolish to assume that USAID does not have other plans for Vietnam.

Rather than paying war reparations, the U.S. is using Agent Orange as a Trojan Horse to further U.S. militarization in Vietnam, escalate conflict with China and break the Vietnamese relationship with Russia. It may also be laying the groundwork for regime change if Vietnam does not comply as a tool of U.S. empire.

Vietnam should continue to demand war reparations that are adequate for the problems the U.S. created and keep the U.S. military at arm’s length. Vietnam should kick out USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, and demand that payments be made directly to Vietnam to keep U.S. meddling out of their country. Indeed, the U.S. should not be allowed to leverage the war crime of its use of Agent Orange as a tool for more U.S. militarism and intervention.

http://www.mintpressnews.com/agent-orange-funding-opens-door-to-us-militarism-and-covert-action-in-vietnam/203634/

http://www.globalresearch.ca/agent-orange-funding-opens-door-to-us-militarism-and-covert-action-in-vietnam/5438809

 

 

 

 

Ukraine Finance Minister Jaresko’s questionable activities

From Consortium News, February 18, 2014
By Robert Parry

Ukraine’s new Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, who has become the face of reform for the U.S.-backed regime in Kiev and will be a key figure handling billions of dollars in Western financial aid, was at the center of insider deals and other questionable activities when she ran a $150 million U.S.-taxpayer-financed investment fund.

Prior to taking Ukrainian citizenship and becoming Finance Minister last December, Jaresko was a former U.S. diplomat who served as chief executive officer of the Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF), which was created by Congress in the 1990s and overseen by the U.S. Agency for International Development (U.S. AID) to help jumpstart an investment economy in Ukraine.

But Jaresko, who was limited to making $150,000 a year at WNISEF under the U.S. AID grant agreement, managed to earn more than that amount, reporting in 2004 that she was paid $383,259 along with $67,415 in expenses, according to WNISEF’s public filing with the Internal Revenue Service.

Later, Jaresko’s compensation was removed from public disclosure altogether after she co-founded two entities in 2006: Horizon Capital Associates (HCA) to manage WNISEF’s investments (and collect around $1 million a year in fees) and Emerging Europe Growth Fund (EEGF) to collaborate with WNISEF on investment deals.

Jaresko formed HCA and EEGF with two other WNISEF officers, Mark Iwashko and Lenna Koszarny. They also started a third firm, Horizon Capital Advisors, which “serves as a sub-advisor to the Investment Manager, HCA,” according to WNISEF’s IRS filing for 2006.

U.S. AID apparently found nothing suspicious about these tangled business relationships – and even allowed WNISEF to spend millions of dollars helping EEGF become a follow-on private investment firm – despite the potential conflicts of interest involving Jaresko, the other WNISEF officers and their affiliated companies.

For instance, WNISEF’s 2012 annual report devoted two pages to “related party transactions,” including the management fees to Jaresko’s Horizon Capital ($1,037,603 in 2011 and $1,023,689 in 2012) and WNISEF’s co-investments in projects with the EEGF, where Jaresko was founding partner and chief executive officer. Jaresko’s Horizon Capital managed the investments of both WNISEF and EEGF.

From 2007 to 2011, WNISEF co-invested $4.25 million with EEGF in Kerameya LLC, a Ukrainian brick manufacturer, and WNISEF sold EEGF 15.63 percent of Moldova’s Fincombank for $5 million, the report said. It also listed extensive exchanges of personnel and equipment between WNISEF and Horizon Capital. But it’s difficult for an outsider to ascertain the relative merits of these insider deals and the transactions apparently raised no red flags for U.S. AID officials.

Bonuses for Officers

Regarding compensation, WNISEF’s 2013 filing with the IRS noted that the fund’s officers collected millions of dollars in bonuses for closing out some investments at a profit even as the overall fund was losing money. According to the filing, WNISEF’s $150 million nest egg had shrunk by more than one-third to $94.5 million and likely has declined much more during the economic chaos that followed the U.S.-back coup in February 2014.

But prior to the coup and the resulting civil war, Jaresko’s WNISEF was generously spreading money around. For instance, the 2013 IRS filing reported that the taxpayer-financed fund paid out as “expenses” $7.7 million under a bonus program, including $4.6 million to “current officers,” without identifying who received the money. Continue reading

U.S. citizens continue to infiltrate Eastern European governments

Posted on Strategic Culture, December 30, 2014
by Wayne Madsen

The recent appointment of the austerity-loving U.S. citizen and investment firm chief Natalie Jaresko as Ukraine’s Finance Minister continues a trend that has seen one Eastern European country after another appointing or electing U.S. citizens as major government officials. Jaresko had Ukrainian citizenship conferred on her by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko as she arrived in Kiev to take up her new post in the government of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, himself a former legal U.S. resident who has been linked to the crypto-Satanic Church of Scientology.

Jaresko is involved in contentious asset redistribution court battles with her ex-husband, Ihor Figlus. Together, the two managed the Kiev-based Horizon Capital, established 20 years ago with a $150 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Horizon Capital operated the Emerging Europe Growth Fund, a group charged with illegal insider trading of Ukrainian securities. According to court divorce documents, Horizon Capital bought Ukrainian artwork, Georgian carpets, expensive cars, and antique furniture, all of which are now subject to the battle for ownership between Jaresko and Figlus. Jaresko also managed the USAID-financed Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF), a CIA contrivance that steered U.S. investment dollars into «pro-democracy» movements in Moldova and Belarus and laundered much of the $5 billion in U.S. aid for the Maidan Square coup in Kiev that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych.

Jaresko’s arrival in Kiev was shortly followed by that of former Reno, Nevada assistant police chief Ron Glensor, who became an official adviser to the Ukrainian police with an initial posting at the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Khmelnytsky region. Glensor has been very active with the U.S. Department of Justice’s International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP). Glensor is also a former fellow of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) in Washington, D.C. In August 1999, The Progressive magazine reported that «Janice Stromsen, a career employee of the Justice Department who served as ICITAP’s director, resisted the program’s takeover by CIA elements. In February [1999], Stromsen was relieved of her duties after complaining to the Justice Department Inspector General that ICITAP was being used by the CIA to recruit agents among foreign police officials». Continue reading

“Vote or Suffer” — United States message to Bosnia

Posted on Gray Falcon, October 6, 2014
By Nebojsa Malic

I have already written about some incongruities in the campaign preceding the Bosnian general elections, scheduled for next weekend, but there is one thing I left out, as it deserved a post of its own.

Local TV stations aired two ads in the third and fourth week of September, produced by USAID – the Empire’s “Agency for International Development.” Both had the punchline “Vote or Suffer” (Glasaj ili trpi).

Still from the USAID propaganda video - "Vote or Suffer"

Still from the USAID propaganda video – “Vote or Suffer”

The first ad (watch on YouTube) blames the Bosnian authorities for failing to help the victims of May and August floods (!). On the same day it aired, the Imperial embassy website published a blog post co-authored by the military attache and the USAID head of mission, which accused the Bosnian authorities of embezzling the flood aid funds!

Both the Serb Republic and Federation authorities responded right away that the Empire was flat-out lying: they couldn’t have embezzled anything, as not a penny of the promised flood aid from the US and the EU had actually arrived. But the Imperial officials refused to retract their claims. A few days later, another ad appeared, this time criticizing the economic situation (watch on YouTube).

There is no question that Bosnia is in a dire economic predicament, but a great deal of blame for that lies in the absurd legislation the locals outright copied from the US and the EU, under constant pressure from Washington and Brussels. One example is a 2009 law on “animal rights” which turned the Sarajevo Canton into a free range for feral dogs.

Let’s also remember that US and EU officials supported the “demonstrators” with supposedly economic and democratic grievances, who earlier this year torched government offices in Sarajevo, Zenica and Tuzla, Maidan-style.

Lest you think this is someone impersonating USAID on YouTube, you can see both videos featured on the agency’s official website. The claim by the agency head and Embassy officials that this is purely a “get out the vote” campaign is absurd. The ads very specifically urge the voters to elect a different government – presumably one more willing to obey orders from Washington. More to the point, USAID is engaging in behavior that would be blatantly illegal in America itself. Imagine a foreign agency running TV ads urging Americans to “vote or suffer”!

This is but the latest in a series of attempts by the Empire to influence the outcome of Bosnian elections. Imperial officials have turned a blind eye to jihadist activity (even when directed against the US!) in Bosnia for years, backed the rioters who torched government offices in February, sent in additional troops as a way of signaling support to those they back and threaten those they oppose, and outright “midwifed” the opposition coalition in the Serb Republic, recycling a name of a previous creation in the process. Thanks to genuine activists on the ground, their interference has been documented and brought to light.

Keep that in mind when Empire’s stooges begin crying foul, after they lose at the polls.

 

http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2014/10/vote-or-suffer.html

Nebojsa Malic was formerly the Director of the R. Archibald Reiss Institute for Serbian Studies.

[Interesting comment posted on this article: The key for Yugoslavia/Bulgaria/Slavs is cooperation. And friendship. That’s what the empire fears most. LOVE. ]

Engdahl: Foreign bankers rape Ukraine

Published in New Eastern Outlook
December 18, 2014

If it were not for the fact that the lives of some 45 million people are at stake, Ukrainian national politics could be laughed off as a very sick joke. Any pretenses that the October national elections would bring a semblance of genuine democracy of the sort thousands of ordinary Ukrainians demonstrated for on Maidan Square just one year ago vanished with the announcement by Victoria Nuland’s darling Prime Minister, “Yat” Yatsenyuk, of his new cabinet.

The US-picked Ukraine President, billionaire oligarch Petro Poroshenko called “snap” elections at the end of August for October 26. He did so to make sure genuine opposition to his regime of murderers, gangsters and in some cases outright Nazis would be able to push an unprepared genuine opposition out of the Verkhovna Rada or Parliament. Because the parliament had significant opposition parties to the US-engineered February 22 coup d’etat, they had blocked many key pieces of legislation that the Western vultures were demanding, from changing key land ownership laws to privatization of precious state assets. By law, the old parliament would have sat until its five year term ended in October, 2017. That was clearly too long for State Department neo-con Ukraine puppet-mistress Victoria Nuland and her backers in Washington.

Now, with a new parliament that is controlled by the Petro Poroshenko bloc as largest party and the boyish-looking former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who is also new Prime Minister as head of the second largest party, the way was clear to get on with the rape of Ukraine. What shocked some is the blatant foreign takeover that followed, like a Wall Street vulture fund raid on a distressed debtor country of the Third World.

The ridiculous charade

Yatsenyuk, former finance minister in a previous criminal regime, and a suspected senior member of the US-intelligence-friendly “Church of Scientology,” has named three complete foreigners as cabinet ministers in key economic posts. And in an extraordinary act, the three have been made instant Ukrainian citizens by Poroshenko in a ridiculous ceremony. Ukraine is looking more and more like the US-occupied Philippines after the Spanish-American War of 1898 when General Arthur MacArthur, father of the mentally-dis-ordered Douglas, was Washington’s dictator on the spot.

The new Ukrainian Finance Minister, the one who will control the money and decides where it goes, is one Natalia A. Jaresko. She speaks fluent Ukrainian. Only problem—she is an American citizen, a US State Department veteran who is also a US investment banker. Now, the Ukrainian Constitution, prudently enough, stipulates that government ministers be Ukrainian. How then does our sweet Natalia come in? Continue reading