Dutch Royal Airlines KLM helped Nazis Flee to Argentina

Expatica News
2 May 2007

HILVERSUM – Dutch Royal Airlines KLM played an active role in helping fugitive Nazis flee to Argentina, according to current affairs programme Netwerk.

"The documents give the distinct impression that KLM was intensively involved in transporting Nazis," concludes aviation historian Marc Dierikx on the basis of documents from US and Swiss archives.

After World War II those suspected of involvement in the Nazi regime were prohibited from leaving Germany. Despite this a lot of war criminals fled, many to Switzerland, where they departed for South America. Despite warnings from the US, KLM transported the suspected Germans from Zurich to Uruguay and Argentina.

The air transport was lucrative for the airline because the Nazis were willing to pay a great deal to avoid trial.

Netwerk discovered that the KLM office in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires acted as a mediator in helping Nazis to flee. The practices did not go unnoticed. The Dutch embassy in Argentina wrote a letter to the foreign minister in 1949 about the "undesirable situation of a strong German element at the KLM office" in Buenos Aires.

KLM says it has found no evidence in its own archives of deep involvement in the exodus of Nazis.

Nevertheless historian Dierikx says it is "hard to imagine" that the KLM leadership in the Netherlands did not know about the help being given fugitive Nazis at the time. "You cannot really maintain that."

http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=1&story_id=39303

CNN's Lou Dobbs Compares Pro-Immigrant Activists to Nazis

Immigration Activists Nazis?
Time for CNN to say: Adios Lou Dobbs
by Daniel Maldonado
03 May 2007

Lou Dobbs has apparently offended American Jewry by likening San Francisco, CA Mayor, Gavin Newsom and pro-immigrant activists to Nazi Germany Propagandists. Although Dobbs’ likening was to Hermann Goering – who ran the Nazi air force – he apparently meant Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda chief.

In the shadow of Don Imus’ “Nappy Headed Hoes” remark and Michael Richards’ “N” word tirade, the heat is now on CNN’s Lou Dobbs. Dobbs’ racist rantings go beyond anti-immigrant dogma. His comments are often anti-American, as well. Dobbs repeatedly ridicules the U.S. Congress, Senate, Department of Homeland Security and the border Patrol. Although his criticisms may not be anti-American in and of themselves, they seam to be intended to stoke anti-government action by the “patriot” movements that have been somewhat dormant since 911. Dobbs is clearly a pro-nativst movement cheerleader, taking his queue from John Tanton and the Federation for American Immigration Reform. But this time Dobbs may have offended the wrong people. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society has recently called on CNN to axe Dobbs because of his Nazi comparison. Referring to Newsome and immigrant activists Dobbs said: "might as well work for Hermann Goering. I mean, they're running so much propaganda, trying to confuse the debate, the national dialogue, by talking about immigrants rather than illegal aliens and legal immigrants. It's mindless beyond belief." ...

Continued:
http://www.aztlanelectronicnews.net/content/view/146/1/

Bush Propopses to Expand Domestic Spying Powers

By James Risen
Wednesday, May 2, 2007

WASHINGTON: Senior U.S. administration officials have told the U.S. Congress that they could not promise that the Bush administration would fulfill its January pledge to continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program.

Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants.

As a result of the agreement in January, the administration said that the domestic spying program of the National Security Agency had been brought under the legal structure laid out in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which required court-approved warrants for the wiretapping of U.S. citizens and others within the United States.

But the senior officials, including Michael McConnell, the new director of national intelligence, said Tuesday that they believed the president still had the authority under Article II of the U.S. Constitution to once again order the NSA to conduct surveillance inside the country without warrants.

During a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, McConnell was asked by Senator Russ Feingold, a Democrat of Wisconsin, whether he could promise that the administration no longer would sidestep the court when seeking warrants.

"Sir, the president's authority under Article II is in the Constitution," McConnell said. "So if the president chose to exercise Article II authority, that would be the president's call."

The administration earlier had argued that both the president's inherent executive powers under Article II of the Constitution, as well as the September 2001 congressional authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda, provided him with the power to conduct surveillance without warrants.

McConnell said that all domestic electronic surveillance was being conducted with court-approved warrants and that there were no plans "that we are formulating or thinking about currently" to resume it without warrants.

The administration seeks new legislation to update the surveillance act to expand government surveillance powers, in part to deal with changes in communications technology since 1978, when the measure was enacted.

Source:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/02/news/spy.php

CIA Seeks to Bar Luis Posada Carriles from Speaking of His CIA Ties

caribbeannetnews.com
Published on May 01, 2007

MIAMI, USA (AFP): The US government is seeking to bar former CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles, who is wanted in Venezuela and Cuba for the downing of an airliner, from talking about his links with the agency when he goes on trial in May.

In a nine-page motion filed with a federal tribunal in El Paso, Texas, state prosecutors claimed Posada Carriles's relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency ended more than 30 years ago and that as testimony or questioning about those ties were not relevant to his trial on immigration charges.

A fierce opponent of Cuba's communist President Fidel Castro, Posada Carriles was convicted in Venezuela in 1976 of masterminding the downing of the Cuban jet off Barbados, but escaped from prison in 1985.

He was sentenced to eight years' jail in Panama in a 2000 bomb plot to assassinate Castro, and was pardoned four years later.

Posada Carriles was detained by US immigration officials in May 2005 for entering the United States illegally.

He was released on a 350,000-dollar bond on April 19, pending the May 11 start of his trial.

Declassified US documents show that Posada Carriles worked for the CIA from 1965 to June 1976. He reportedly helped the US government ferry supplies to the Contra rebels who waged a bloody campaign to topple the socialist Sandinista government in Nicaragua in the 1980s.

Reprinted from Caribbean Net News:
http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/news-1260--5-5--.html

The Murder of Indymedia Journalist Brad Will by Oaxacan Paramilitaries

https://publish.nyc.indymedia.org/nyc/servlet/OpenMir?do=getpdf&id=77757&forIE=.pdf

October 27, 2006 07:00PM EDT
general.addtranslation

NYC Indymedia Journalist Brad Will Shot Dead by Government Forces in Oaxaca

10/27 | A shooting occurred today in Oaxaca City, Mexico, leaving New York City Indymedia journalist Bradley Will dead after being shot in the chest by paramilitaries.

By Barucha Calamity Peller

Confirmed by La Jornada (Mexico) and Radio APPO Oaxaca, NYC indymedia journalist shot in chest today 

PRESS RELEASE

Oct. 27th: A shooting occurred today in Oaxaca City, Mexico, leaving New York City Indymedia journalist Bradley Will dead after being shot in the chest by paramilitaries. He died before reaching the hospital, according to La Jornada. A photographer from the newspaper Milenio Diario, who was at Will's side, was shot in the foot and reported injured, his status unknown. 

Radio APPO, the radio of the Popular Assembly of the Oaxacan People, is reporting truckloads of armed paramilitaries entering the city. They are calling for people to reinforce the thousands of barricades that have been constructed for months as part of the statewide teachers' strike and popular uprising that has demanded the removal of PRI governor Ulisis Ortiz Ruiz. 

Narco News Report: Brad Will, New York Documentary Filmmaker and Indymedia Reporter, Assassinated by Pro-Government Gunshot in Oaxaca While Reporting the Story

Centro de Medios Libres(es)

Last Communique from NYC Indymedia Journalist Brad Will | Massacre Under Way in Oaxaca | Llamado del Subcomandante Marcos a Movilizaciones Nacionales e Internacionales | Condena contra el asesinato de Brand Will de Indymedia NY

2004: Ecuador IMC Activist, Lenin Cali Najera Assassinated
Keywords: Analysis, Local, War & Peace, Media, Bradley Will,

THIS IS WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR ABOUT BRAD FROM A PERSON WHO WAS THERE WITH HIM:

- He was at the Santa Lucia Barricade

- He was shot from a distance of 30-40 meters right in the pit of the stomach

- They say it was urban paramilitary priistas in plain clothes who shot him

- People then pulled him away to safety; its confirmed that he's dead; his body is at the red cross in oaxaca

- 3 additional dead (4 total); 1 member of radio universidad was injured, he went to the hospital in a volkswagen cuz no ambulances would come

From Barucha Calamity Peller -

Oct. 27 2006 - As the federal police wage a continuing violent siege on Oaxaca City, local people have apparently identified the person responsible for the fatal shooting of Brad Will in Oaxaca City, Mexico, today, after a television station showed video of the incident.

After the footage of the shooting was shown on Televisa, a large Mexican television network, Radio APPO in Oaxaca received four different reports from people who identified the shooter as a plain clothes police or possibly a paramilitary hired by the far right PRI party, and that his name is Pedro Camona, however, it is not confirmed that this is in fact the name of the shooter.

Three others were also shot and killed during the incident, one a schoolteacher named Emililio Alofonzo Fabian.

Throughout the day, radios run by the oaxacan protesters have been coming in and out listening range, reporting multiple incidents of violent aggression from federal police and paramilitary forces along the thousands of barricades constructed by the protesters in recent months. Several groups of protesters and teachers unions, along with Radio APPO have been surrounded and attacked by police and PRI party sympathizers. The radios continue to call for Oaxacan people to reinforce the barricades throughout the day, urging people to defend themselves with sticks. The protesters in Oaxaca have been using sticks and stones to fight off police and paramilitaries since the uprising began this summer. The APPO(the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, a fusion of protest groups) has consistently refuted mainstream Mexican press reports that paint the group as armed and violent.

Reports from Oaxaca also say that health and medical collectives have been aiding the rising number of injured people.

Before his murder today, Brad Will had been in Oaxaca taking video and reporting on the state wide popular uprising and teacher strike that began in June with the violent attempted removal of the striking teachers from their encampment in the center of Oaxaca City by federal police forces. Since then, the teachers and other groups formed the APPO, the Popular Assembly of the Oaxacan People, and have called for the removal of the governor of state Ulises Ruiz of the PRI. Will is believed to be the first indymedia.org journalist to be killed while reporting.

There is a long history of Mexico using government sponsored paramilitaries to repress social movements, including a massacre of hundreds of students in Mexico City in 1968.

As reports of protesters surrounded by armed government forces and police continue to pour in, activists in cities around the world are planning protests at Mexican embassies in outcry against the violent aggression against the people of Oaxaca.

A shootout has occurred in the municipality of Calicanto, in Oaxaca City, Mexico today, leaving New York City Indymedia journalist Bradley Will dead after being shot in the chest. He died before reaching the hospital, according to La Jornada. A photographer from the newspaper millenio diario, who was at Wills side, was shot in the foot and reported injured, his status unknown.

Radio APPO, the radio of the Assembly Popular of the Oaxacan People, are reporting truckloads of armed paramilitaries entering the city. There are also calling for people to reinforce the thousands of barricades that have been constructed for months as part of the statewide teacher strike and popular uprising that has demanded the removal of PRI governor ulisis Ortiz Ruiz. www.vientos.info/cml www.lajornada.com

Article from La Jornada:

Matan a documentalista de EU en Oaxaca; un fotógrafo herido
La Jornada On Line - 27/10/2006 18:38

Oaxaca, Oax. Una balacera ocurrida en el municipio de Calicante causó la muerte del documentalista estadunidense Brat Will, de Indimedia Washington, quien recibió un balazo en el pecho. A su vez, un fotógrafo del periódico Milenio Diario, Oswaldo Ramírez, resultó herido con un disparo en el pie, informó la edición Web del periódico. El enfrentamiento ocurrió cuando grupos de supuestos guardias blancas, según reportó Radio Fórmula, agredieron a los brigadistas que resguardan las barricadas.

El dirigente de la APPO, Flavio Sosa, pidió la urgente intervención del gobierno federal en ese municipio, porque dijo que grupos al servicio del alcalde priísta están amedrentando con armas de guego a los brigadistas que resguardan las barricacas. Nosotros sólo tenemos piedras y ellos armas de fuego”, dijo.

De acuerdo a las primeras informaciones, en Calicante se registró una balacera y aparte del periodistas muerto y el fotógrafo herido, tres personas más resultaron heridas. El reportero fue herido en el estómago, y falleció antes de llegar a un hospital.

Tanto en Calicante como en el municipio de San Antonio, ambos conurbados a la capital, priva un ambiente de tensión, debido a que en ambos grupos de appistas que resguardan las barricadas y de supuestos guardias blancas se encuentran separados por un centenar de metros y se corre el riesgo de un enfrentamiento mayor. Los brigadistas se mantienen agazapados tras las barricadas y de acuerdo con la información, uno de ellos se encuentra herido sin posibilidad de ser trasladado a un centro de atención.

Oct 27, 2006 10:18PM EDT
una companera

An American documentary maker killed in Oaxaca; a photographer injured 

A gunfight that occurred in the municipality of Calicante caused the death of American documentary maker Brat Will, of Washington Indymedia, who received a shot to the chest. A photographer from the newspaper Milenio Diario, Oswaldo Ramirez, was injured with a shot in the foot, stated the web edition of the paper. 

The confrontation occurred when groups of supposed white guards, according to the report of Radio Formula, joined the brigadistas that defended the barricades. 

The leader of APPO, Flavio Sosa, asked for the urgent intervention of the federal government in this municipality, because he said that groups in the service of the PRI mayor are frightening the brigidistas that are guarding the barricades with their weapons. “We only have stones and they have firearms” he said. 

According to early reports, a gunfight happened in Calicante and apart from the dead journalists and injured photographer, three more people were injured. 

The reporter was injured in the stomach, and died before arriving at a hospital. 

Especially in Calicante as in the municipality of San Antonio, both conurbados (like?) the capital, prevails an atmosphere of tension, because both the groups of appistas that guard the barricades and the supposed white guards are separated by a hundred meters and run the risk of a major confrontation. 

The brigadistas remain squatted across the barricades and according to reports, one of them was injured without the possibility of being moved to a center of attention.

One of Brad's Last Dispatches from Oaxaca.
Oct 27, 2006 10:31PM EDT

yesterday i went for a walk with the good people of oaxaca -- was walking all day really -- in the afternoon they showed me where the bullets hit the wall -- they numbered the ones they could reach -- it reminded me of the doorway of amadou diallos home -- but here the grafitti was there before the shooting began -- one bullet they didnt number was still in his head -- he was 41 years old -- alejandro garcia hernandez -- at the neighborhood barricade every night -- that night he came out to join his wife and sons to let an ambulance through -- then a pickup tried to follow -- he took their bullet when he told them they could not pass -- they never did -- these military men in civilian dress shot their way out of there 

a young man who wanted to only be called marco was with them when the shooting happened -- a bullet passed through his shoulder -- he was clearly in shock when we met -- 19 years old -- said he hadnt told his parents yet -- said he had been at the barricade every night -- said he was going back as soon as the wound closed -- absolutely 

just days before there was a delegation of senators visiting to determine the ungovernability of the state -- they got a taste -- the call went out to shut down the rest of the government -- dozens went walking out of the zocalo city center with big sticks and a box full of spray paint -- they took control of 3 city buses and went around the city all morning visiting local government buildings and informing them that that they were closed -- and we appreciate your voluntary cooperation -- and they filed out preturbed but still getting paid -- shut -- as they pulled away from the last stop 3 gunmen came out and started shooting -- 2 buses had already pulled away -- mayhem -- 10 minute battle with stones and slingshots and screaming -- one headwound -- another through the leg -- made their way to the hospital while the fighting continued -- shout out on the radio and people came from all parts -- the gunmen were around the side of the building -- they got away -- they were inside -- no one sure -- watchful -- undercover police were reported lurking around the hospital and folks went running to stand watch over the wounded 

what can you say about this movement -- this revolutionary moment -- you know it is building, growing, shaping -- you can feel it -- trying desperately for a direct democracy -- in november appo will have a state wide conference for the formation of a state wide assemblea estatal del pueblo de oaxaca (aepo) -- now there are 11 of 33 states in mexico that have declared formation of assemblea populares like appo -- and on la otra lado in the usa a few -- the marines have returned to sea even though the federal police who ravaged atenco remain close by -- the new encampment in mexico has begun a hunger strike -- the senate can expell URO -- whats next nobodies sure -- it is a point of light pressed through glass -- ready to burn or show the way -- it is clear that this is more than a strike, more than expulsion of a governor, more than a blockade, more than a coalition of fragments -- it is a genuine peoples revolt -- and after decades of pri rule by bribe, fraud, and bullet the people are tired -- they call him the tyrant -- they talk of destroying this authoritarianism -- you cannot mistake the whisper of the lancandon jungle in the streets -- in every street corner deciding together to hold -- you see it their faces -- indigenous, women, children -- so brave -- watchful at night -- proud and resolute 

went walking back from alejandros barricade with a group of supporters who came from an outlying district a half hour away -- went walking with angry folk on their way to the morgue -- went inside and saw him -- havent seen too many bodies in my life -- eats you up -- a stack of nameless corpes in the corner -- about the number who had died -- no refrigeration -- the smell -- they had to open his skull to pull the bullet out -- walked back with him and his people

... and now alejandro waits in the zocalo -- like the others at their plantones -- hes waiting for an impasse, a change, an exit, a way forward, a way out, a solution -- waiting for the earth to shift and open -- waiting for november when he can sit with his loved ones on the day of the dead and share food and drink and a song -- waiting for the plaza to turn itself over to him and burst -- he will only wait until morning but tonight he is waiting for the governor and his lot to never come back -- one more death -- one more martyr in a dirty war -- one more time to cry and hurt -- one more time to know power and its ugly head -- one more bullet cracks the night -- one more night at the barricades -- some keep the fires -- others curl up and sleep -- but all of them are with him as he rests one last night at his watch

This is an agression versus american people from mexican government

Oct 27, 2006 10:53PM EDT
Oscar Amador Molina

kapellmeister_bach@hotmail.com
Greetings from Mexico: 

I think you all know that Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to work as a journalist, but this is way over the line. I mean, this is a direc agression from the mexican government against an american citizen, and I think that the USA should take actions against the both federal and state government. 

What we saw today is a murder, and the international laws should get this murderers behind bars, they should be taken to the law, prosecuted and executed. 

If you check

 http://senderodelpeje.blogspot.com, you can see pictures of the shooters, and how did they act against unarmed people. 

I hope Indymedia can turn the world's eyes to Mexico, where the government goes against the people.
horror
Oct 27, 2006 11:41PM EDT
kaitlyn tikkun

kaitlyn@terminal-moraine.info http://terminal-moraine.info
Oh my god. There is little that can be said as this void is punched into our community. We'll fight for you, Brad. Rest in peace. 

love, 
katie
Viva Brad
Oct 27, 2006 11:56PM EDT
Sonho Real

http://www.nidiaindependente.org
Nós aqui de Goiás, sentimos muito a morte de nosso irmão de luta! 

Ele nos apoiou muito quando esteve aqui! 

Brad you live in our hearts !!
Portrait Brad in Oaxaca
Oct 28, 2006 12:01AM EDT
Hinrich Schultze

Will Bradley 2 days ago in Oaxaca
Portrait Brad in zocalo Oaxaca/Mexico 2 days ago
solidarity

Oct 28, 2006 12:26AM EDT
Lauren

This is absolutely horrible. Such a nice guy, amazing activist. 

Something's gotta be done.
Brad...
Oct 28, 2006 12:40AM EDT
earthworm

I can't think of anything to say. Brad, you always found your way into the thick of it. It was where you felt the most useful, most alive - recording and reporting the truth. Speaking truth to power, always. 

My Dear, you will be remembered, loved and missed by your friends, by your community, by your family. 

May the Goddess hold you in her hands.... 

--earthworm
In our thoughts
Oct 28, 2006 01:14AM EDT
Bennett Baumer

You read about those killed by the various Latin American dictators and tyrants of the past. But now it has come home to the New York Left. One of ours was shot down by paramilitary agents acting from afar and doing the bid of the corrupt PRI government of Oaxaca. Our country and Mexico have alot in common these days, presidents not elected by the people and a violent reactionary political system using state terrorism to stamp out dissent. 

But we struggle. Indymedia NYC has had some shinning moments and may Brad Will's death be a reminder of his dedication to our media and the struggle for justice. I remember Brad Will tonight. 

Que vive la resistencia en Oaxaca!
Great Sadness and Mourning
Oct 28, 2006 01:50AM EDT
Modern Pitung

I can at best claim acquaintance with Brad, having been around the same demos whether they were against sweatshops, police brutality, or corporate globalization. He always struck me as someone of a consciousness that was both both broad and deep. It shows in his last writing, where he relates the violence of the state done to Amadou Diallo to that done to the APPO, from the Bronx to Oaxaca. 

The last time I spoke with Brad was all too brief, but touching. I was in a small but crowded group in Bluestockings, at a fundraiser for tsunami relief in Aceh. Being an Indonesian who was generally dissatisfied with the way leftists sought to simply ennoble the suffering Acehnese and Indonesians while asking no questions as to why it happened, I was impressed with how Brad seemed to know instinctually that we should question the official feelgood stories there. He seemed to feel, deep in his heart, that his purpose as a journalist wasn't to manufacture consent but to push dissent. 

Brad Will -- Presente!
Brad en Yucatán
Oct 28, 2006 02:20AM EDT
luixzz

http://imc-yucatan.espora.org

Brad en Yucatán
Comparto una imagen del compa brad, cuando anduvo en Yucatán con la karavana, estuvo en el Ajen Kaj, cubriendo la llegada del sup marcos. 
¡Hasta la victoria siempre compañero!
this is terrible news
Oct 28, 2006 02:24AM EDT
Bill Not Bored

I knew Brad from Blackout Books and the 13th Street squat. This terrible news saddens and terrifies me. Condolences to all who knew him.
Brad
Oct 28, 2006 02:35AM EDT
Lucy

[ ... ]

BLACKWATER'S COFER BLACK JOINS ROMNEY TEAM

MIKE BAKER, Associated Press Writer

Romney campaign hires Blackwater leader

Black worked for CIA for years

An executive with North Carolina-based private security contractor Blackwater USA has joined Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney as a senior adviser, the campaign said Thursday.

COFER BLACK, who was director of the CIA Counter-terrorism Center at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has been vice chairman for two years at the firm, which specializes in security and military services. Black also helped shape President Bush's counterterrorism policy after the attacks ...

Continued at:
target="_blank">http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/568168.html

Spooky Missionaries: The Summer Institute of Linguistics & the CIA

"WBT/SIL have been accused of scientific and political infiltration and espionage; control of foreign territory; violation of sovereignty; being a religious trans-national corporation; conspiracy with the CIA ... "
––––––––
Let There Be Light!

An Exposure of Fundamentalist Christian Involvement in Cultural Genocide,
Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Summer Institute of Linguistics

Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT) are a fundamentalist, millenarianist missionary organization who have a long history of using their belief in the doctrines of original sin, and the damnation of all unconverted people to justify any behavior. Together with other groups such as the New Tribes Mission, they have embarked on a quest called Vision 2025, to evangelize to every last uncontacted society on earth, largely because they believe that in doing so they will bring about the second coming of Christ and the end of the earth. Because their interpretation of Christianity encourages obedience to Authority and justifies acquisition of material wealth, they have enough financial support to make a go of it, particularly from people connected to corporations and governments that have interests in the natural resources where these tribal societies live.

The Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) presents itself as a scientific organization focusing on previously unwritten and untranslated languages. They have a number of programs and schools at which they teach people how to translate these languages. One of these programs operates out of Northwest Christian College in Eugene, a program that the University of Oregon will give students credit for.

SIL and WBT are the Same Organization.

Both have their roots in Camp Wycliffe, which was founded in 1934 to train missionaries in linguistics to facilitate their work with indigenous peoples, primarily in the Americas.

In 1942, Wycliffe alumni incorporated as two separate organizations, WBT and SIL, as a clever way to get around laws banning missionaries from working in countries including Mexico. It is a ruse that has continued to serve them quite well. WBT remains in the U.S. as the fundraising and recruiting wing, emphasizing the religious aspect of their operations, while SIL arranges fieldwork and deals with governments, and gives the venture a veneer of scientific legitimacy.

SIL and WBT have historically tried to deny their connection, until 1953 when they were outed by, of all people, the Catholic Church. Since then they have tried to explain it with statements like "SIL and WBT are the same people, but it is a question of two corporations dedicated to different things." Tidy, but logically somewhat dubious.

Evangelical ethnocide is defined as the stigmatization, demonization and ridicule of beliefs rites and symbols of indigenous cultures while glorifying missionaries own world and own culture as the only path.

By entering, uninvited, into a society and attempting to foist an alien system of beliefs and morality on them, all missionaries engage in ethnocidal behavior. By identifying godliness with capitalism and the American way of life, WBT/SIL carry out this process to a particularly fanatical extreme.

Their focus on societies with little or no previous contact with the industrialized world make them especially dangerous. Arriving in the bush in flying machines bearing penicillin and metal tools, they can easily present themselves as messengers from a society and religion where all of lifes problems have been solved by the grace of their god. They provide no context with which to understand and analyze the price of development. Furthermore, by entering and building airstrips in previously impassably remote areas, they blaze the trail for governments, the military, and corporate interests.

This is, of course, fundamental to their purpose. WBT/SIL have been accused of scientific and political infiltration and espionage; control of foreign territory; violation of sovereignty; being a religious trans-national corporation; conspiracy with the CIA; detection and extraction of strategic materials; clandestine landing strips; intrigue; sterilization without consent, and much more. Although many of these allegations remain unproven, some things, such as SILs collaboration with the CIA in counter insurgency in Latin America and in South East Asia during the Vietnam War, as well as their cozy relationship with numerous dictatorships, and the funds they receive from both the CIA and western multinationals are quite well documented. They get away with this, in your town and around the world because there is very little known about what they do.

by Solidarity South Pacific
Originally posted at:
http://www.greenanarchy.org/index.php?action=viewwritingdetail&writingId=146

The Real Scandal at the World Bank

The Bank is killing thousands of the poorest people in the world
26 April 2007

By Johann Hari
While the world's press has been fixated on the teeny-weeny scandal over whether the World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz helped to get his girlfriend a $300,000-a-year gig next door, they have been ignoring the rancid stench of a far bigger scandal wafting from Wolfie's Washington offices.

This slo-mo scandal isn't about apparent petty corruption in DC. It's about how Wolfowitz's World Bank is killing thousands of the poorest people in the world, and knowingly worsening our worst crisis - global warming - every day.

Let's start with the victims. Meet Hawa Amadu, 70-something, living in the muddy slums of Accra, the capital of Ghana, and trying to raise her grandkids as best she can. Hawa has a problem - a massive problem - and the World Bank put it there. She can't afford water or electricity any more. Why? The World Bank threatened to refuse to lend any more money to her government, which would effectively make it a leper to governmental donors and international business, unless it stopped subsidising the cost of these necessities. The subsidies stopped. The cost doubled. Now Hawa goes thirsty so her grandchildren can drink, and weeps: "Am I supposed to drink air?"

She is not alone. Half a world away, in Bolivia, Maxima Cari - a mother - is also thirsty. "The World Bank took away my right to clean water," she explains. In 1997 the World Bank demanded the Bolivian government privatise the country's water supply. So Maxima couldn't afford it any more. Now she has to use dirty water from a well her villagers dug. This dirty water is making her children sick, and she is sullen. "I wash my children weekly," Maxima says. "Sometimes there's only enough water to wash their hands and faces, not their whole body ... This is not a nice way to live." The newly elected socialist government of Evo Morales is planning to take the water back - and he is, of course, condemned and threatened by the World Bank.

Meet some more victims. I have met hundreds, from Africa to Latin America to the Middle East. Muracin Claircin is a rice farmer in Haiti - only he can't grow rice any more. In 1995, the World Bank demanded Haiti drop all restrictions on imports. The country was immediately flooded with rice from the US, which has been lavishly subsidised by the US government. The Haitian government barely exists and can't offer rival subsidies anyway: the World Bank forbids it. So now Muracin is jobless and his family are starving.

Some 5,000 miles away, Charles Avaala in Ghana is watching his tomatoes rot. He used to grow them for a government-owned community tomato cannery that provided employment for his entire community. The World Bank ordered his government to close it down, and to open the country's markets to international competition. Now he can't compete with the subsidy-fattened tomatoes from Europe. He, too, is starving.

How would Hawa and Maxima and Muracin and Charles feel if you told them none of this is considered a scandal, but business as usual?

These victims are not merely an anecdote soup; they are an accurate summary of the World Bank's effect on the poor. Don't take my word for it. The World Bank's own Independent Evaluation Group just found that barely one in ten of its borrowers experienced persistent growth between 1995 and 2005 - a much smaller proportion than those who stagnated or slid deeper into poverty. The bank's own former chief economist, Nobel Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz, says this approach "has condemned people to death... They don't care if people live or die."

Why? Why would a body that claims to help the poor actually thrash them? Because its mission to end poverty has always been mythical. As George Monbiot explains in his book The Age of Consent, the World Bank was created in the 1940s by US economist Henry Dexter White to be a further projection of US power. The bank's head is invariably American, the bank is based in Washington, and the US has a permanent veto on policies. It does not promote a sensible mix of markets and state action - the real path to development. No: the World Bank pursues the interests of US corporations over the poor, every time.

The bank's staff salve their consciences by pickling themselves in an ideology - neoliberalism - that says there is never a conflict between business rights and human rights. If it's good for Shell, it must be good for poor people - right?

This ideology also backfires on us in the rich world. In 2000, the World Bank was finally forced to undertake a review of its energy policies. It did its best to rig it, putting the former energy minister of the corporation-licking Indonesian dictator General Suharto in charge. Emil Salim was even serving on the board of a coal company at the time he was appointed. But - to everyone's astonishment - Salim concluded by opposing the carbon-pumping oil and gas projects that make up 94 per cent of all the bank's energy projects. He said they should be stopped altogether by 2008.

The bank's response? It ignored its own report and carried on warming. The business climate, it seems, trumps the actual climate. Feel the heat.

While the elites huff and puff about Wolfowitz's alleged small corruption and ignore his organisation's proven immense corruption, there is something we - ordinary citizens - can do. In the summer of 2001, at the global justice protests in Genoa, I met Dennis Brutus, a former inmate of Robben Island prison alongside Nelson Mandela. He had been repelled by the bank's actions in South Africa, and started his protests against them by asking a very basic question: who owns the World Bank? It turns out we do. Ordinary people in the West - through their trade unions, churches, town councils, universities and private investments - own it. The bank raises nearly all its funds by issuing bonds on the private market. They are often held by socially minded institutions, the kind who signed up to Make Poverty History. So, Brutus realised, we have a simple power: to sell the bonds and bankrupt the World Bank. "We need to break the power of the World Bank over developing countries just as the disinvestment movement helped break the power of the apartheid regime in South Africa," he explained.

The campaign to make World Bank bonds as untouchable as apartheid-era investments has already begun. The cities of San Francisco, Boulder, Oakland and Berkeley have sold theirs. Several US unions have also joined. Even this small ripple has caused anxiety within the bank about the threat to its "AAA" bond rating.

In the Genoa sun, as tear gas fired by the Italian police hissed in the background, Brutus told me: "I lived to see the death of political apartheid. Now I want to live to see the end of global financial apartheid."

This is the fight we should join. Not some petty squabble over which Washington technocrat is morally pure enough to lead the forces of subsidy-slashing and starvation.

j.hari@ independent.co.uk

© 2007 Independent News and Media Limited

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