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Saturday, November 8, 2014

Resolving Bolivia's claim to the Pacific

David Roberts
By



Bolivia's demand that Chile provide it with sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean – a case the International Court of Justice in The Hague is soon to consider – offers the opportunity for the two countries to resolve their over 130-year dispute once and for all.

Bolivia lost its access to the ocean, along with a large chunk of its territory, to Chile in the Pacific War in the 1880s. Chile's argument is that it's an open and shut case – the 1904 peace treaty decided on the definitive and current border between the two and that is internationally recognized as valid. In fact, Santiago has decided to argue that the UN court does not even have jurisdiction to hear the case at all, because recognition of the court by both countries dates back to the 1948 Bogotá Pact, and so the tribunal does not have jurisdiction to hear cases that concern matters prior to then.

Bolivia's case, however, does not depend on arguing for the need to change the 1904 treaty. Instead, it is expected to claim that Chile has on several occasions pledged to resolve Bolivia's demand, most notably during a 1975 meeting between Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and his Bolivian counterpart Hugo Banzer. On that occasion the two agreed in principle to swap two pieces of territory, granting Bolivia a strip of land in the far north of Chile from the coast and along the border with Peru, which also lost a lot of land to its southern neighbor following the Pacific War. The idea never prospered, not least because of objections from Lima.

Bolivia's case is interesting, but as it doesn't actually seem to involve disputing legal documents but amounts more to what appears to be a moral argument – that Chile has some sort of obligation (a legal one?) to negotiate a solution to the issue – it is difficult to see how The Hague court can side with La Paz.

The above, however, begs the question as to whether Chile does indeed have a moral obligation to provide Bolivia with access to the sea. It is certainly easy to be sympathetic to the Bolivians. Losing the ocean drastically changed Bolivia's history, with serious detrimental effects for its economy and development. Not only did it lose access to ports, but the land ceded to Chile turned out to contain some of the largest copper deposits in the world, which have had a major beneficial impact on Chile's economy. Landlocked Bolivia, meanwhile, remains one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere.

But whatever the outcome of the court case – and it may take years before we have a decision – it is in both countries' interest to resolve the issue. It may be politically unfeasible for Chile to offer a sovereign piece of land to Bolivia, but one possibility – which has also been suggested as a potential solution in parts of the Ukraine and even the Falklands/Malvinas – would be for Bolivia to have technical sovereignty of a small plot with a port, while Chile remains the de facto administrator of the area in terms of legal jurisdiction, political control etc. Another option, which Chile has refused to consider, is to get Peru involved, as that country has made a port area available to Bolivia in the past, although without sovereignty.

As for Chile, there would be obvious advantages for the country if Bolivia were wealthier, with all the trade and investment opportunities that would represent. Ending the dispute would also open the way for Bolivia to export some of its vast reserves of natural gas to Chile, thereby helping alleviate the country's energy shortage and avoiding the need to import liquefied natural gas from as far afield as Trinidad, Qatar and Yemen, among other places, which is patently absurd given the proximity of Bolivia's reserves.

November 03, 2014

BN Americas

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Climate change an "existential threat" for the Caribbean


Desmond Brown
(Text & photos)






When it comes to climate change, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines doesn’t mince words. He will tell you that it is a matter of life and death for Small Island Developing States (SIDS).


For St. Vincent’s Prime Minister
Ralph Gonsalves, climate change is a
matter of life and death.

"The threat is not abstract, it is not very distant, it is immediate and it is real," Gonsalves told IPS.

"The country which I have the honor of leading is a disaster-prone country. We need to adapt, strengthen our resilience, to mitigate, we need to reduce risks to human and natural assets resulting from climate change.

"This is an issue however, which we alone cannot address. The world is a small place and we contribute very little to global warming but yet we are on the frontlines of continuing disasters," Gonsalves added.

Since 2001, St. Vincent and the Grenadines has had 14 major weather events, five of which have occurred since 2010. These five weather events have caused losses and damage amounting to more than 600 million dollars, or just about a third of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

"Three rain-related events, and in the case of Hurricane Tomas, wind, occurred in 2010; in April 2011 there were landslides and flooding of almost biblical proportions in the northeast of our country; and in December we had on Christmas Eve, a calamitous event," Gonsalves said.

"My Christmas Eve flood was 17.5 percent of GDP and I don’t have the base out of which I can climb easily. More than 10,000 people were directly affected, that is to say more than one tenth of our population.

"In the first half of 2010 and the first half of this year we had drought. Tomas caused loss and damage amounting to 150 million dollars; the April floods of 2011 caused damage and loss amounting to 100 million dollars; and the Christmas Eve weather event caused loss and damage amounting to just over 330 million. If you add those up you get 580 million, you throw in 20 million for the drought and you see a number 600 million dollars and climbing," Gonsalves said.

Over the past several years, and in particular since the 2009 summit of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, the United States and other large countries have made a commitment to help small island states deal with the adverse impacts of climate change, and pledged millions of dollars to support adaptation and disaster risk-reduction efforts.

On a recent visit to several Pacific islands, Secretary of State John Kerry reiterated the importance of deepening partnerships with small island nations and others to meet the immediate threats and long-term development challenges posed by climate change.

But Gonsalves noted that despite the generosity of the United States, there is a scarcity of funds for mitigation and adaptation promised by the global community.

Opposition legislator Arnhim Eustace is concerned that people still "do not attach a lot of importance" to climate change.

"When a fellow is struggling because he has no job and can’t get his children to school, don’t try to tell him about climate change, he is not interested in that. His interest is where is my next meal coming from, where my child’s next meal is coming from, and that is why you have to be so careful with how you deal with your fiscal operations," he stated.

Eustace, who is the leader of the opposition New Democratic Party, said people must first be made able to meet their basic needs to that they can open their minds to serious issues like climate change. (Excerpts from IPS)

October 30, 2014

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Immigration Policy debate in The Bahamas

Immigration Debate in The Bahamas


Branville McCartney DNA Leader

Crafting a Firm and Fair Immigration Policy



Former US President Ronald Regan once said that “A nation that cannot its borders is not a nation”. For years, successive governments in this country have failed to adequately control our borders and have failed to effectively address the long standing socio-economic problems stemming from the movement of illegal migrants across our borders. The absence of firm and fair immigration policy has given rise to resentment, anger, hatred, frustration and fear that has, particularly in recent weeks, spilled over in the public domain.

On November 1, this Christie led administration took the first of what will undoubtedly be a series of difficult steps to securing sustainability for future generations of Bahamians.

As a former Minister of Immigration, I understand all too well the challenges associated with this process. Regardless of those challenges however, THE LAWS OF THE BAHAMAS MUST BE CARRIED OUT!

While the Democratic National Alliance commends the government for finally taking seriously its responsibility to protect our borders, this issue cannot – as has been the case with other matters – be allowed to become overly politicized or emotionalized. Instead, a sound and humane approach which does not destroy the dignities of our fellow brothers and sisters –particularly children – should be taken to facilitate immigration reform in this country.

As Bahamians, we can no longer abdicate responsibility for the role successive administrations have played in allowing this matter to grow and intensify. We must not pretend that systemic corruption within the Department of Immigration which has manifested in the sale of passports and travel documents, the bribery of immigration officers, the over-charging of applicants and the general exploitation of the current system, has not also contributed to the critical situation which now exists.

It must be noted that while Haitian migrants continue to make up a large segment of the country’s illegal immigrant population, Haitians should not be the sole target of such efforts. With that in mind the DNA calls for balance on the part of officials as they work to weed out persons of ALL nationalities living and working in The Bahamas illegally. As these efforts continue, the DNA calls for calm from Bahamian citizens and legal residents as immigration officials work to carry out their duties as mandated by law. We should all refrain from making derogatory and/or negative comments about any group of people on social media or any other forum but must work along with the government to ensure the success of these new initiatives.

As part of its push this government must also focus on a bi-partisan approach to formulating a clear and concise immigration policy. A policy which targets not only illegals but those who harbor, aid and abet them as well. As an addition to the current policy changes, the DNA recommends that the government go a step further by enacting legislation which would bring about the swift prosecution to those Bahamians found harboring those here illegally. The law must also hold repercussions for legal residents who also harbor illegals including the possible revocation of their legal status.

During a press conference to be held on Thursday November 6, 2014, The DNA will present its full position on the current immigration policies and future changes to the law as well.

Certainly the failures of former governments are now wreaking havoc on our modern day Bahamas. The many issues resulting from illegal immigration did not occur overnight and will not be solved overnight. It will take a sustained effort on the part of all the relevant authorities and Bahamians across the country. Decisive and Balanced Action must be taken as we work to protect our country for generations of Bahamians to come.

November 03, 2014

Branville McCartney
DNA Leader

Sunday, November 2, 2014

The 2010 Bahamas Census records a dramatic increase of the immigrant population in The Islands

Migration report: Immigrants represent 18 percent of population


By TRAVIS CARTWRIGHT-CARROLL
Guardian Staff Reporter
travis@nasguard.com
Nassau, The Bahamas


The total immigrant population in The Bahamas stood at 64,793, representing 18.4 percent of the population up to 2010, according to the Migration Report which was released this month.

The report relies on data contained in the latest census.

“The 2010 Census recorded a total immigrant population of 64,793 persons, of which 29,157 were recent immigrants who migrated to The Bahamas during the intercensal period 2000 to 2010,” the report said.

Of that group, 51,170 people (79 percent) were not born in The Bahamas.

And of the foreign born migrants, 47 percent (24,049) were born in Haiti, 16 percent in the United States, 13 percent in Jamaica and three percent each in Canada and the United Kingdom, the report notes.

Collectively, those countries accounted for 82 percent of the immigrant population.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) previously estimated that there are between 20,000 and 50,000 Haitians living in The Bahamas. Although the IOM notes the challenges in presenting accurate figures of the number of Haitians who have migrated to The Bahamas as it is difficult to determine those who are “flow through” residents and those who intend to remain in the country.

Multiple officials, including those from the IOM, have identified the country’s close proximity to the United States as a key factor contributing to irregular migration. Migrants often use the country as a transit point.

According to the Migration Report, as it relates to population distribution, of the total immigrant population, 70 percent resided on the island of New Providence, 16 percent on Grand Bahama, seven percent on Abaco; Eleuthera and Exuma shared equal distributions of two percent of the immigrants. The other Family islands accounted for four percent.

As it relates to employment, 55 percent of the immigrants age 15 and over were employed with slightly more than three quarters were employed in the private sector. An additional 12 percent were government employees while 10 percent operated their own business.

“Of the total immigrants 15 years and over, 45 percent of them had completed high school and 31.8 percent had completed college or university, while four percent had no schooling,” the report said.

The 2010 Census recorded a total of 29,157, persons who migrated to The Bahamas during the period 2000 to 2010. Of this number 52.7 percent were females and 43.3 percent were males for a sex ratio of 89.9 males per 100 females, the report said.

Recent immigrants have an average household size of 3.1 persons. Additionally 46.2 percent of the households occupied by these immigrants were one-person households.

The report said 62.5 percent of the immigrants were paying rent, 15.1 percent owned their homes fully, 10.6 percent were paying a mortgage, 10.1 percent were living rent-free and one percent was leasing their homes.

October 31, 2014

thenassauguardian

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

The Immigration Plight of the Haitians in The Bahamas Versus the Mexicans in America



photo

Politicole: The Real Problem That Bahamians Have With Illegal Haitian Immigrants


By NICOLE BURROWS:


THE story of the Bahamian national of Haitian parentage who lost his illegal home in a legal demolition has made its way across every form of local media, perhaps most of all social media, where people have dialogued on the verge of meltdown.

As the Anson Aly threat grew more newsworthy in the Bahamas, in Canada a Canadian national shot and killed a Canadian soldier on duty and then stormed into the Canadian parliament to see who else he could take out; he was subsequently identified as a “terrorist” by the Canadian prime minister.

The terrorist’s motive was said to have been vengeance, having been a suspected militant and repeatedly denied a passport for travel to the Middle East. According to his mother, “he was mad and felt trapped so the only way out was death.”

Some Bahamians have called Aly a terrorist, which, per definition, is someone who threatens people with the intention of intimidating a society or government. Using this definition, the only real difference between the Canadian terrorist and the angry Haitian Bahamian is the fact that the latter wasn’t carrying a weapon when he made his threat.

Many Bahamians are concerned that if we take for a joke now threats of this nature, which approximate the definition of terrorist activity, who will be able to take such threats seriously or be themselves taken seriously later on? And where and when do you draw the line?

We’ve habitually allowed the little things that ail our nation to fall through the cracks, and we continue to do it, so we continue to suffer many a social ill.

On this issue, people are saying forgiveness is key. And, yes, I agree you can and should forgive. But forgiveness doesn’t exempt a wrongdoer from punishment. How many people in Fox Hill Prison are forgiven, yet they remain incarcerated?

In any other sensible, progressive country, our man Aly would have been made to incur some consequence greater than an apology for his threatening verbiage.

Only in this jokey little country can we not recognise a problem while it’s brewing. Maybe if we throw some political colours in the mix some people who need to jump would jump faster.

Many – including immigration minister Mitchell – are saying that Aly is just one person, and we should not allow one person to cause us alarm. But, to draw an analogy in the context of this subject, there was one person at the start of our problem with illegal immigrants, too. Look how that turned out.

I think the general idea amongst a large number of Bahamians is that it may be one person now, but who’s to say that the next “one person” won’t push the envelope further the next time, now that it is already clear how far threats can go unpunished and how silly we are in managing national security issues with no real demonstration of authority?

Our reality, whether you believe it, is that the one man, the one person, is representing countless others with the same mindset. And if you put Aly, or any other woman or man like him, in that situation again, or another situation like it, you’ll see where their allegiance really lies.

There is a very large group of compassionate people – of which I confess I am one – who understand the plight of immigrants to seek a better economic life in a country they think is prosperous. Hell, if the Bahamas is overrun by poor illegal immigrants or rich legal immigrants, many of us might find ourselves on a voyage to some other country we also believe to be prosperous, where we can seek a better quality of life all around.

But since Aly threatened his fellow Bahamians in a heated moment, there’s been a lot of dialogue about how unloving Bahamians are towards Haitians or people of Haitian descent. I won’t say that some Bahamians aren’t downright cruel, using “Haitian” as a derogatory word to describe someone unattractive, dark-skinned, broad-nosed, poor, colourfully dressed, with a high body odour. These are all hateful, hurtful things that would cause anyone to feel unhuman or marginalised. But this is not the real issue at hand.

The issue in this Aly incident is the specific underlying, ongoing problem Bahamians have with illegal Haitian immigrants and the inability or the refusal of our government and the Haitian government to stem the illegal influx of Haitian migrants to the Bahamas once and for all.

Minister Mitchell has been keen to point out that there is “not one international group” causing us problems with illegal immigration, but the fact of the matter is we all know where the biggest problem lies with respect to illegal immigration in the Bahamas – we can see it everywhere we turn. Yet the discussion somehow has centred on the statement that not only Haitians are a problem for us, but so are many other illegal populations.

Some have even likened the immigration plight of the Haitians in the Bahamas to the Mexicans in America. They ask why Bahamians are prejudiced against Haitians when we have other illegals to contend with. That we do. But there are a few significant differences between them, and I believe these differences are at the core of the anger and frustration that Bahamians have towards illegal Haitian migrants to the Bahamas.

Having lived in the Bahamas and America, and being exposed to both groups and their respective ways of life, I find that the problem many Bahamians have with illegal Haitian immigrants is a deep-seated frustration that goes far beyond their desire for a better life; no one wants to deny them that in principle. But illegal immigration of Haitians to the Bahamas is really a multi-pronged problem, and it is very similar in composition to the concerns US citizens have about illegal Mexican immigrants. And they are all legitimate concerns.

In my estimation, it comes down to three things, best explained by drawing comparisons to other large migrating populations, particularly of Chinese and Indian origin, as they are two of the largest in the world.

Within the Haitian and Mexican populations, there is often:

1) Violent aggression as a trademark of conflict management;

2) Low levels of education/ intellectual achievement prior to migration; and

3) Prolific reproductive lifestyles.

Firstly, by and large, as compared to the Haitian and Mexican immigrant populations, Chinese and Indian immigrants tend to have a higher degree of education before they migrate. Many have credentials for marketable skills beyond that of agricultural farmhands, and whereas the latter are necessary, the former present a diversity that is needed to build a country. Moreover, the (Indo) Asian immigrants have a better attitude about building a nation, which shows in the quality of their contribution to their host country.

They don’t continue to profess that their country of birth is better, or best, yet remain in the country they migrated to, taking everything they can, investing in nothing and repatriating their income or sharing it primarily within their own communities.

Secondly, Chinese and Indian immigrants tend not to breed by the half-dozen; not so for Haitian and Mexican immigrants. And this strikes a delicate and particular chord for me and many of my compatriots, because, in our younger years, we held off on reproducing to be responsible and to ensure that we were financially equipped to care for our children in the best way possible when we did have them, while the illegal Haitian immigrants multiplied and are still now procreating left and right with no care whatsoever for the burden it places on the Bahamian society.

Haitians and Mexicans are largely comprised of people who follow the Catholic religion, and they don’t readily subscribe to birth control. But when has “more mouths to feed” ever helped anybody’s economic situation or lifted them out of poverty? Clearly, there is something here that the Catholic church has failed to teach its followers: if you’re already in poverty, and you have little to no education to improve your opportunities, it tends to lead to greater poverty when you multiply inordinately.

Observing the growing numbers of illegal Haitian immigrants and their offspring in the Bahamas, it has become more than obvious that extreme/excessive reproduction is their way of life, and it is more likely to occur amongst the poorer Haitian and Mexican immigrant populations than the poor Chinese or Indian immigrants.

Finally, and without mincing words, Haitian and Mexican immigrants have a known culture of violent aggression, as demonstrated by the types of crimes they commit and the ways in which they commit them.

Chinese and Indian immigrants can be very pushy, maybe because they compete to survive in their very large populations, but their first idea to resolve a dispute isn’t to pop off 10 rounds on someone, beat them to a pulp, hack them to pieces, or tie them with a Colombian necktie. There’s a degree of responsibility in Chinese and Indian culture that makes them point their aggression at themselves.

I’m reminded of my Haitian neighbour who, only a few months ago, killed a baby bird on her porch with her slipper, when the little bird had only lost its way from its nest. The woman didn’t kill it because she was hungry and needed to eat it; she killed it just because it was there. And then threw it into the street.

It’s a simple, solitary incident, but it is still violent aggression for no reason whatsoever. All these isolated occurrences taken together reveal a strong tendency toward violence that lends itself to a colossal crime problem. And we have the numbers to prove it.

The reality is that extremely populated countries of the world have people who migrate to other nations in search of better lives for themselves and their children.

The countries they tend to migrate to are usually larger, developed countries, which have open job markets, the need for unskilled labourers, wide expanses of land to accommodate increases in population, and education and healthcare systems that are properly constructed and fairly well-operated and funded.

But what, of these things, do we have in our little Bahamas?

Is it not in the Bahamian interest to defend what little we do have, and insist that it be developed in a sustainable way?

To top it all off, when there is already a sizeable portion of the native Bahamian population that exhibits violent aggression, low education and high reproductivity, adding illegal immigrants of similar profiles only makes matters worse, because the Bahamian disadvantaged become even more marginalised in their own country.

But rather than impose a penalty on and make an example of the offender who threatens the little Bahamians have now, the authorities prefer to admonish the law-abiding. Their answer is for the people who are “up in arms” to “shoosh”. Be quiet. Stop talking about it. Don’t get upset. Move on.

Well, no. Because the path to being or becoming “ignorant” is to “ignore”, and to make no statement or movement with respect to the problem at hand.

And, if we don’t mind believing the genius Einstein, whose many theories about our world ring true to this day, “nothing happens until something moves.”

Give comments and suggestions at Tribune242.com, Facebook.com/politiCole, politiCole.com, or nicole@politiCole.com.

October 27, 2014

Monday, October 27, 2014

The limits of changes – Venezuela: terminal crisis of the rentier petro-state?

by Edgardo Lander:



Venezuela’s failure to develop an effective strategy to reduce its economy’s dependence on gas and oil threatens the social successes and future viability of the Bolivarian project.


Over the 15 years of the Bolivarian government in Venezuela, significant changes have taken place in the political culture, the social and organisational fabric, and the material living conditions of previously excluded low-income groups. Through multiple social policies (known as “missions”) aimed at different sectors of the population, levels of poverty and extreme poverty have been reduced significantly.

According to ECLAC, Venezuela has become – together with Uruguay – one of the two countries with the lowest levels of inequality in Latin America. People are better fed. Effective literacy programmes have been carried out. With Cuban support, the Barrio Adentro mission has brought primary medical care to rural and urban low-income groups throughout the country.

The state pensions system has been massively expanded to include millions of older people. The increase in university enrolment has been equally extraordinary. For the last few years, a housing programme for people with low incomes has been taken forward. Unemployment has been kept at a low level and informal-sector employment has been reduced from 51% in mid-1999 to 41% in mid-2014.

The amount spent on social investment between 1999 and 2013 is estimated to total some US$650 billion. According to the UNDP, Venezuela’s Human Development Index rose from 0.662 in the year 2000 to 0.748 in 2012, taking the country’s human development ranking from medium to high.

This has been a time of dynamic grassroots organising and participation, with the setting up of Water Committees and Community Councils, Health Committees, Urban Land Committees, Communal Councils, Communes... Most of this organisational dynamism was the result of government policies expressly aimed at promoting these processes.

Equally important has been the weight of Venezuela’s experience – particularly its constitutional reform process – in the progressive shift or turn to the left that has taken place in Latin America over these years. Its influence has also been important in the setting up of various regional integration mechanisms – UNASUR, CELAC, Petrocaribe, ALBA – that have strengthened the region’s autonomy and lessened its historical dependence on the United States.

Nevertheless, the social changes that have taken place were not the result of equally profound changes in the country’s economic structure. On the contrary, the last fifteen years have seen a consolidation of the rentier state model, with an increased dependency on revenue from oil exports. Oil’s share of total export value rose from 68.7% in 1998 to 96% in the last few years. The value of non-oil exports and private sector exports has fallen in absolute terms during this time. Industry’s contribution to GDP shrank from 17% in 2000 to 13% in 2013. [1]

October 24, 2014

International Viewpoint 

Sunday, October 26, 2014

“Economic Genocide” in Latin America: The Unspoken Legacy of Wall Street and the IMF. President Cristina Fernandez

United Nations General Assembly, September 24, 2014: Argentina's President Fernandez de Kirchner Denounces Economic Terrorism

By Carla Stea


Argentina-New-York-Court-Bankruptcy

Dazzling and supremely erudite, Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner denounced as terrorism the economic policies that have been strangling the developing world during the past century, and are continuing these criminal actions today, the legacy of Milton Friedman’s Chicago Boys’ gangster economic policies. These policies, implemented by the infliction of “shock therapy,” institutionalizing torture, murder and disappearances of individuals, groups, and often heads of state who defy these barbaric economic models, are policies which are more accurately described as global economic theft, sanctioned by the theory that “might makes right.”

The IMF’s “conditionalities” were described, in sanitized language, as “structural adjustment programs,” demanding the obliteration of free national education and health care programs, causing the destitution of majorities of citizens in the developing countries, and resulting in the gross indebtedness of collaborating governments to parasitic interests of multinational corporations, banks, hedge funds, vulture funds and their ilk. The Milton Friedman Chicago Boys policies were described by one of Friedman’s most brilliant students, the German born economist Andre Gunder Frank, as “economic genocide.”

President Kirchner described her late husband, President Nestor Kirchner’s success in rebuilding Argentina, despite the total bankruptcy into which decades of the Chicago Boys policies had plunged a devastated Argentina. She described the earlier chaotic situation, in which Argentina had five presidents in one week during 2001, a disaster rivaled, perhaps, only by Bolivia, which, similarly hostage of the Chicago Boys, had three revolutions in one afternoon, finally resulting Bolivia’s progressive presidency of Juan Jose Torres in 1970. President Torres was overthrown, ten months later, by fascist General Hugo Banzer, with the blessing of Washington, and was then murdered in Argentina in 1975.

The earlier history of Argentina described by President Kirchner, a history common to almost all Latin America Southern Cone governments hostage to the Chicago Boys’ policy of economic genocide, is succinctly summed up by Professor John Dinges in his work “The Condor Years,” (Pages 154-155).

[By 1975], “Inside the U.S. embassy Legal Attache Robert Scherrer quickly developed information that the Torres murder was part of the new security forces cooperation among the military governments…the bloody reality of mounting repression and the assassination of three prominent figures – the Uruguayan Senators Michelini, Gutierrez and Bolivian President Torres who had sought protection in Argentina… .Slowly, among those reading the most secret intelligence traffic about Latin America – in the embassies, in the CIA, in the Defense Intelligence Agency, the FBI and the State Department there was an awakening to a flow of hard evidence that was soon to become a flood: that by 1975 the government of Argentina was committing human rights violations on a massive scale never before seen in Latin America, and the six military governments of the Southern Cone were cooperating to assassinate one another’s opponents.”

This was the Argentina in which Presidents Cristina and Nestor Kirchner spent their earliest years. This was the environment in which the Chicago Boys’ murderous economic policies were forced down the throats of the majority of Argentina’s citizens, utilizing torture, murder and “disappearances” to facilitate the “privatization” of the country’s resources in the organized theft of the nation’s patrimony. This theft was engineered by one of history’s most deadly mobs of criminals, the Chicago Boys, trained by the sociopath Milton Friedman, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics in a decision grossly discrediting the legitimacy of the Nobel Committee.

President Kirchner described the economic and social recovery steered by her husband, President Nestor Kirchner, a program of social and economic inclusiveness which made education widely available to Argentina’s majority, which decreased unemployment while establishing social safety nets, a program in which Argentina’s economy began to thrive, as Nestor Kirchner weaned Argentina’s economy from the IMF ‘debt trap’ (the title of the superb book by economist Cheryl Payer), and made arrangements to pay off the astronomical debts amassed during the previous period of economic domination by the Chicago Boys, (debts for which Nestor Kirchner’s government was in no way responsible). President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner spoke with legitimate pride of Argentina’s success in reducing widespread poverty, despite the financial disaster engineered by the thugs of the international financial system who are currently still attempting to hold Argentina hostage.

President Kirchner voiced the concerns of the greater part of the developing world, which voted on September 9, 2014, for the United Nations General Assembly resolution: “Toward the Establishment of a Multilateral Legal Framework for Sovereign Debt Restructuring Process.” Argentina’s Foreign Minister, Hector Timerman (whose father, the great journalist and human rights advocate, Jacobo Timerman, had been imprisoned and tortured for two years in Argentina during that same “dirty war” of 1976 described earlier) introduced that resolution, “establishing an ethical political and legal pathway to end unbridled speculation.” The resolution was adopted, with 124 nations supporting it, eleven nations opposing it, and forty one abstentions…The scandalous profits made by parasitic “vulture funds” are funneled into campaign and lobbying to prevent change in the current viciously unjust economic architecture. The Cuban delegate stated the appalling fact that “Developing countries had paid many times the amounts originally received as loans and that devoured resources essential for development.” The distinguished American economist Joseph Stiglitz has repeatedly emphasized precisely this same fact.

President Kirchner denounced U.S. Federal Judge Thomas Griesa, whose currently strangling injunctions, prohibiting Argentina’s repayment of 92.4 percent of the debt until the “vulture funds” are paid in full, would force the return of Argentina’s economy to destitution, totally destroying the new economic and social programs which are empowering Argentina’s majority, and would quickly restore the earlier squalor of the economically colonized Argentina into which Milton Friedman’s thugs and the IMF had forced Argentina to subsist for decades of Kirchner’s earlier life.

In her masterpiece, “The Shock Doctrine,” exposing the criminal thuggery of Friedman’s Chicago Boys, Naomi Klein states:

“In the early nineties, the Argentine state sold off the riches of the country so rapidly and so completely that the project far surpassed what had taken place in Chile a decade earlier. By 1994, 90 percent of all state enterprises had been sold to private companies, including Citibank, Bank Boston, France’s Suez and Vivendi, Spain’s Repsol and Telefonica. Before making the sales, (former President) Menem and (former Finance Minister) Cavallo had generously performed a valuable service for the new owners: they had fired roughly 700,000 of their workers, according to Cavallo’s own estimates; some put the number much higher. The oil company alone lost 27,000 workers during the Menem years, An admirer of Jeffrey Sachs, Cavallo called this process “shock Therapy.” Menem had an even more brutal phrase for it: in a country still traumatized by mass torture, he called it “major surgery without anesthetic.”*

“* In January 2006, long after Cavallo and Menem were out of office, Argentines received some surprising news. It turned out that the Cavallo Plan wasn’t Cavallo’s at all, nor was it the IMF’s: Argentina’s entire early-nineties shock therapy program was written in secret by JP Morgan and Citibank, two of Argentina’s largest private creditors. In the course of a lawsuit against the Argentine government, the noted historian Alejandro Olmos Gaona uncovered a jaw-dropping 1,400 page document written by the two U.S. banks for Cavallo in which “the policies carried out by the government from ’92 on are drawn up…the privatization of utilities, the labour law reform, the privatization of the pension system. It is all laid out with great attention to detail

….Everyone believes that the economic plan pursued since 1992 was Domingo Cavallos’s creation, but that’s not the way it is.” In the long term, Cavallo’s program in its entirety would prove disastrous for Argentina.

…So many jobs were lost that well over half the country would eventually be pushed below the poverty line.”

As President Fernandez Kirchner charges, today it is obvious that U.S. Federal Judge Griesa’s ruling is an attempt to destabilize Argentina, using a new imperialist tactic devised by the current gangsters of international capitalism who thrive by devouring the lives and patrimony of the majority of citizens of the developing world, and, indeed, impose these tactics upon the “99%” percent of citizens within the countries of the developed world.

President Fernandez Kirchner explicitly denounced as economic terrorists the “vulture funds” which, supported by the United States’ judicial system, are attempting to destabilize and ultimately overthrow her government. She stated: “Not only those who place bombs are terrorists, but also those who destabilize the economy of countries, and cause hunger, misery and poverty from the sin of speculation.”

Judge Griesa is attempting, in fact, to fine Argentina $50,000 per day for not complying with his ruling, and declaring Argentina in contempt of court.” In response to his brutal arrogance, President Kirchner cited a quote from former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who described such “creditors” as immoral, preventing countries from tackling problems of education, health and poverty.

Argentina’s president spoke fiercely of such engineered poverty and destitution as creating fertile breeding ground for terrorist leaders recruiting among those who have lost all hope of lives affording them options for fulfillment and dignity, and her voice echoed, 35 years later, the speech delivered on August 27, 1980 at the United Nations Eleventh Special Session on Economic Development: “Toward a New International Economic Order”: Joaquim Chissano, then Foreign Minister of Mozambique addressed the General Assembly, decades ago, and stated:

“The existing economic order is profoundly unjust. It runs counter to the basic interests of the developing countries…we see the perpetuation of underdevelopment in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The peoples of those continents are forced to face hunger, starvation, poverty, nakedness, disease and illiteracy increasingly. We denounce any kind of economic prosperity or independence for part of mankind built on the dependence, domination and exploitation of the rest of mankind…the developing countries have warned the world about the need to take measures to eliminate the main obstacles to emancipation and progress of the peoples struggling for a proper standard of living which would meet the basic needs of life.

…During the colonial period we were branded as rebels and insurgents when we demanded the restitution of our status as human beings. When we demanded independence we tried to talk peaceably with our masters, but no one would listen. The dialogue of force was imposed upon us. We took up arms. Much blood was spilt. But only in that way were we able to win.”

Twenty-nine years later, at the 64 Session of the United Nations General Assembly, on September 24, 2008, Stjepan Mesic, President of the Republic of Croatia, and the last President of Yugoslavia stated:

“Our world is finally still dominated by an economic model which is self-evidently exhausted and has now reached a stage where it is itself generating crises, causing hardship to thousands and hundreds of thousands of people. If one attempts to save this already obsolete model at any cost, if one stubbornly defends a system based on greed and devoid of any social note worthy of mention, the result can be only one: social unrest harboring the potential to erupt into social insurgence on a global scale.”

Cristina Fernandez Kirchner, President of Argentina today raises her powerful voice in, once again, the noble call for economic and social justice. Those who are guilty of perpetuating the injustices she and so many other world leaders abhor walked out of the hall as she spoke. And those are the ones who may ultimately pay the fatal price for ignoring her warning.

October 25, 2014

The Centre for Research on Globalization