Tag Archives: Myanmar

Americans want clemency only for their own

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How gracious of us! The US is beneficiary of a succession of clemencies shown to American citizens. Iran releases an American propagandist, North Korea forgives two more, Myanmar allows us to extricate a oddly errant citizen. All of them Americans, for which we are thankful, but still indignant and unrepentant. When Scotland elects to release a Libyan prisoner on compassionate grounds, the US president cannot object enough.

Do I compare a terrorist against journalists; someone who’s been incarcerated since 1990, versus 2009; someone extradited based on dubious testimony versus Americans caught red-handed?

When Abdel Basset al-Megrahi returned to a hero’s welcome in Libya, American family members of Lockerbie victims are incensed. The man spent nearly two decades in prison, maintaining his innocence throughout. Al-Megrahi only dropped his appeal when the Scottish court indicated it might grant him clemency. Nevertheless, the usual parade of American terrorism-decriers still want his blood. The families of victims received compensation strong-armed from Libya. They have to believe in al-Megrahi’s guilt or else question their entitlement to the payments.

Do Americans know the evidence upon which Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was convicted? Forensic experts found fragments of a shirt thought to have been wrapped around the bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103. The garment was traced to a small slothing store in Malta, where the clerk identified al-Megrahi months later, from a photograph shown him by US investigators, as the customer who purchased the item.

Al-Megrahi made this statement upon his release:

“I always believed I would come back if justice prevailed … I say in the clearest possible terms, which I hope every person in every land will hear – all of this I have had to endure for something that I did not do,”

Who put the bomb into the suitcase, and who got the suitcase on the plane? How did the suitcase bomb escape detection by airport security? Was the package sneaked past inspectors through a security breach created by US law enforcement, to smuggle heroin across the Atlantic in a sting operation targeting a drug ring?

Al-Megrahi wanted such questions answered, to bring to light his innocence. The great travesty of al-Megrahi’s release is that there will be no further scrutiny. All the international participants, it’s being reported rather candidly, are relieved. The US is bellowing not about the miscarriage of justice, but about letting a non-American off the hook.

Mission not Impossible for John Yettaw

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Your mission: neutralize Aung San Suu Kyi’s eligibility for Myanmar’s upcoming elections, to assure the uninterrupted political instability critical to western oil and mining industries, your sponsors.

Swim to the compound of Aung San Suu Kyi, impose yourself and force the populist icon to violate the terms of her 20-year house arrest, thus giving her jailers cause to extend her imprisonment. The US government will disavow your employment, but if you act the sufficient fool, your extraction will be effected by fellow veteran, now senator, Jim Webb, whose visit with the Burma junta will initiate a formalization of relations with their criminal regime. It may sound confusing to Freedom and Democracy fans.

Where peoples and their governments behave autonomously in defiance of global pillage, the US promotes “reform.” Where professional militaries undo elections under the pretext of “corruption,” the US stands by. For example, Iran’s rebuke of US hegemony: needs reform; Honduras slipping to the Left: undo reform. Will Senator Webb next be stopping by Honduras to legitimize their recent military coup as well?

Name is Yettaw, John Hasenfus Yettaw.

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John William Yeattaw takes self-portrait before swimming Yangon Inya Lake to see dissident Aung San Suu KyiUgly American John William Yettaw snapped this picture of himself before swimming across a Burmese lake to meet with detained Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Yettaw claims to be writing an inspirational book on heroes and was apprehended on his return lap. Now Suu Kyi is facing charges of violating the conditions of her house arrest.

The last time a faceless middle-aged American bungled into world events, his funny name was Eugene Hasenfus, another pot-bellied religious Vietnam vet, who turned out to be a private contractor for the CIA. Could Yettaw have been plumbing covert communications equipment in anticipation of Suu Kyi’s role in Myanmar’s upcoming elections, or was Yettaw intended to trip the wire?

Burma refusing USAID military advisors

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“Myanmar military seize aid shipment.” As opposed to …? Who’s supposed to seize it then? We distribute aid using soldiers. Can’t they?

Not that the western media shouldn’t want to stack the deck against the Burmese junta, but isn’t Burma’s forced labor, brutality and repressive military rule reason enough to foment our disapproval? I say the headlines have been looking more and more like US calls for Darfur intervention. Cyclone casualty figures went from 800 to thousands to 20,000 and now 100k. Without NGOs being able to get in and say exactly. The numbers escalate like a bidder eager to overcome the seller’s reluctance. What figure will launch an outcry suitable to relax Myanmar’s borders?

Does Myanmar want to retain its sovereign privacy so much as prevent western influence from arming potential rebels in the countryside?

Myanmar’s leaders are refusing to permit entrance to US aid workers, so we’re told. While that sounds synonymous to saying they don’t want Americans distributing the aid, it really means quite precisely they don’t want USAID personnel. For some odd reason, our media report “US aid” and USAID as synonymous, even though USAID stands for U.S. Agency for International Development, not “aid.” USAID is a branch of the US government, widely accused of being linked to the CIA. Venezuelan opposition groups were funded by USAID. The same has been going on in Cuba.

Where the Peace Corps was avowedly not affiliated with the US State Department, it was famously used by the CIA. The US government agency USAID, which deploys military crews, is the emergency philanthropic arm of the world trade lending system. It’s full of capitalist partisans, and hooked up, in intelligence parlance.

Burma, Chevron, the US, and China

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Burma lies politically and geographically sandwiched between the 3 major encroaching powers of India, China, and the US. See India cuts to the chase in Myanmar

The country’s military rulers have tried to maintain some semblance of internal control over the national economy by brutally suppressing its own population, which is deeply divided along ethnic lines. All this began to fall apart when the regime was forced to more than double fuel prices this August, prices which had been previously held artificially lower than world world prices. Thus, the rebellion began.

In effect, the country is becoming yet another US-China battle line in the military and economic struggle for position to control world fuel sources. In the center smack dab, is Chevron, which owns the major source of fuel produced by the country Let’s hope that somewhere in all this international propaganda battle to place blame, that the Myanmar people themselves can gain control over their own country, and keep it independent of US, Chinese, and national military control.

Somalia- a US-made genocide in the making, tying it all in together

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Even as the US spreads its intentional genocide into Somalia, there are naive US liberals vocally demanding that the US intervene yet more into Africa, to supposedly stop genocide, they say!

Somalia’s main market for the whole country just burned down yesterday, a direct result of the war that the US unleashed on the country by its bombings of the country and then using Ethiopian troops as the US proxy army. Fire engulfs main Somali market US military contractors the Ethiopians are, so to speak. It is a made-by-the-US genocide that is slowly unfolding in that country.

Cry for the Somali people which the UN itself has says is now has the worst humanitarian crisis at this time in Africa. I have yet to see many (if any?) US pacifist antiwar activists demanding that the US get its butt out of Africa. What the hell are they waiting for?

We need to stop now with all our confusion and mobilize. It seems that the national, state, and local antiwar coalitions are led by folk addicted to solely staring at their own navels. At times, they appear to have entirely forgotten that the US is waging a total planetary war and just seem to be on Cloud Nine with their religous dogmas.

WE… CAPITAL LETTERS… are the problem, not the Bush gang all by itself. I have sat through 2 excruciatingly silly soul trips by local followers of this creed in the last few days about the importance of using only non violence. Religious paralysis and delusions that we have a democratic system where voting matters at this point gives people the excuse to do so little. Just get out of the house and talk to your neighbors and get them to make up some signs and do something together. It’s nonviolent! Then do it, please.

US Out of Africa Now! US citizens out of their king-super-boxes now! And please stop all this nonstop drivel about peaceful non-violence all the meanwhile sitting on your collective asses! Non-violence hardly worked in Myanmar, but at least the Buddhist monks got out and tried.

The US pacifists still are in church though. LITERALLY. Or in little group get togethers talking about much of nothing except the importance of being non-violent. Meanwhile, their opponents are entirely too violent yet the pacifists are out to lunch giving out hugs and love to them. Or ignoring their pro-war opponents’ activities altogether.

From Y to V- The CIA’s Otpor strategy to overthrow governments

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Since so many pacifists seem prone to accept at face value and fall for any rhetoric that appears to be supporting ‘peaceful’ means of protest, even when it is being pushed from the Pentagon and Washington DC, the following information is quite important. This is from Setting the Stage for Turmoil in Caracas…
—Repeating the East European experience in Venezuela—

The new imperial strategy includes something called “American Corners.” These “corners” are small offices set up by Washington throughout the target country that basically serve as mini-embassies. It is not completely clear what exactly these “corners” do, but inside you will find an array of information about the United States, including study abroad opportunities, English classes, and pro-U.S. propaganda. On top of this, the mini-embassies also organize events, trainings, and lectures for young students.

Interestingly, they seem to be very abundant in countries that Washington seeks to destabilize. The former Yugoslavian countries have a total of 22 American Corners, including 7 in Serbia. The Ukraine has 24, Belarus 11, Russia 30, even Iraq, with 11. By far the highest concentration of the “corners” is in Eastern Europe, where Washington has focused its destabilization efforts in recent years. [17]

There are at least 4 “American Corners” in Venezuela, the most for any Latin American country, and the U.S. also finances literally hundreds of organizations throughout the country to the tune of more than $5 million a year. [18] Together, these U.S.-funded organizations are working to implant the Eastern European experience in Venezuela. As reported by Reuters, the Venezuelan opposition is already learning the Serbian tactics to overthrow a regime from a retired U.S. army colonel named Robert Helvey.

“Helvey, who has taught young activists in Myanmar and Serbian students who helped topple the former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, is giving courses on non-violent opposition tactics this week at an east Caracas university,” said the article. “Neither Helvey nor the organizers of the Caracas seminar would give details of exactly what opposition tactics were being taught. But in his work in Serbia before Milosevic’s fall, Helvey briefed students on ways to organize a strike and on how to undermine the authority of a dictatorial regime,” reported Reuters. [19]

And more recently, in the university city of Mérida, history professor from Texas, Neil Foley, hosted an event sponsored by the U.S. embassy and the Venezuelan-American Center (Cevam), not an official “American Corner” but serving the same purpose. Foley, who has also spoken in various “American Corners” in Serbia, gave speeches in both Bolivia and Venezuela on “American values.” [20]

I attended one of Foley’s speeches and, as expected, it was a complete pro-U.S. propaganda campaign imposed upon the university students. The professor gave exactly the message that the U.S. Embassy had paid him to give, speaking wonders about American society and “American democracy.” According to Foley, the United States solves all of its problems by tolerance for others and an all-inclusive “dialogue,” between opposing parties. And sending a clear hint to the Venezuelan students, Foley implied that any government that does not live up to these standards “must be overthrown.” [21

Also, besides the full article (which is well worth reading) from where this excerpt came from, the additional following article is also of interest. Behind Venezuela’s “Student Rebellion”. Who’s pulling the strings?

Otpor and the US made coup attempts against Chavez in Venezuela

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As a leader of Otpor (now called Canvas) meets with people in Colorado Springs and at Colorado College, it might be of interest to follow the trail of Otpor to Venezuela, and efforts of the US to overthrow Hugo Chavez there.

Contrary to how Otpor represents itself, it is not just a group of nice Serbian student leaders from Belgrade, that through Gandhi inspired tactics non-violently overthrew Milosevic in the wake of a very violent US war on Yugoslavia. The story is quite a bit more complex than that, so we follow their trail to Venezuela.

To understand the following Reuters report dated back in 2003, though, one must first realize that Otpor is connected with ‘The Albert Einstein Institute’ of which Colonel Robert Helvey is an integral part of. This is a US government run operation designed to link Gandhian methods of nonviolent protest to Pentagon and US State Department efforts to overthrow foreign governments. Hence, we move from Belgrade to Caracas as the US government goes after Hugo Chavez. It’s Gandhi in the service of the Pentagon to help make a coup!
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US democracy expert teaches Venezuelan opposition
By Pascal Fletcher

CARACAS, Venezuela, April 30, 2003 (Reuters) – Retired U.S. army colonel Robert Helvey has trained pro-democracy activists in several parts of the world so he knows something about taking on military regimes and political strongmen.

Now he is imparting his skills in Venezuela, invited by opponents of President Hugo Chavez who accuse the leftist leader of ruling like a dictator in the world’s No. 5 oil exporter.

Helvey, who has taught young activists in Myanmar and Serbian students who helped topple the former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, is giving courses on non-violent opposition tactics this week at an east Caracas university.

Secrecy surrounds the classes. A sign outside the door, apparently there to deflect the curious, reads: “Seminar on strategic marketing.”

But the strategies Helvey is sharing with some of Chavez’s foes focuses not on balance sheets but on how to resist, oppose and change a government without the use of bombs and bullets.

After initially declining to answer questions, Helvey, a former U.S. military attache in Burma and now a consultant with the private U.S. Albert Einstein Institution that promotes non-violent action in conflicts, told Reuters non-violence was the key to the tactics he taught.

“In every political conflict, there is a potential for violence, and it is incumbent on leaders to make sure they don’t cross the threshold of violence,” he said.

Organizers of the seminar did not welcome journalists. “This is a private meeting of friends,” one said.

The attendees included representatives of Venezuela’s broad-based but fragmented opposition, who are struggling to regroup after failing to force Chavez from office in an anti-government strike in December and January.

Chavez, a fiery populist first elected in 1998, survived a brief coup last year by dissident military officers who now form part of the opposition movement, which also includes labor and business chiefs, politicians and anti-Chavez civic groups.

CHAVEZ, DEMOCRAT OR DICTATOR?

Opposition sources said Helvey was invited to Caracas by a group of businessmen and professionals. They in turn organized the course involving a broad cross-section of the opposition.

Helvey’s presence comes at a time when a debate is raging inside and outside Venezuela about whether Chavez is a democrat or a power-hungry autocrat. That debate is important for the United States, which is a major buyer of Venezuelan oil.

Chavez’s critics portray him as a dangerous, anti-U.S. maverick who has extended his personal political control of the country’s political institutions, judiciary and armed forces.

They say he has strengthened his country’s ties with anti-U.S. states like communist Cuba, Iran, Libya and — until the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein — Iraq.

Since the April 2002 coup that briefly overthrew him, Chavez’s relations with the United States have remained edgy. The U.S. government has fiercely denied accusations from some Venezuelan officials that it encouraged or supported the coup.

Chavez fiercely condemned the invasion of Iraq. But Venezuelan oil shipments to the U.S. have kept on flowing.

The Venezuelan leader, who was elected to office six years after failing to seize power in a botched coup, denies he is a communist, says his government is democratic and regularly pillories his opponents as “terrorists” and “coup-mongers.”

His foes have staged huge, anti-Chavez street protests over the last 18 months. He portrays them as a wealthy, resentful elite opposed to his self-styled “revolution” which he says aims to benefit the oil-rich nation’s poor majority.

Neither Helvey nor the organizers of the Caracas seminar would give details of exactly what opposition tactics were being taught. But in his work in Serbia before Milosevic’s fall, Helvey briefed students on ways to organize a strike and on how to undermine the authority of a dictatorial regime.

In the mid 1990s, he traveled to the Thailand/Myanmar border to give classes in non-violent resistance to exiled Burmese students opposing the military junta in their country.

His former students remember him as “Bob.”

“He used his military skills in strategic planning for non-violent protest methods … Everybody was fascinated by Bob, because he was a military man and was applying that to non-violence,” Aung Naing Oo, former foreign secretary for the All Burma Students Democratic Front, told Reuters.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Caracas told Reuters the embassy knew nothing about Helvey’s visit and had nothing to do with the secretive seminar.
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Oh, yes, for sure. lol… This article, interestingly enough, is from ‘Burma Related News’. It’s a small world it does appear.

http://www.burmalibrary.org/TinKyi/archives/2003-05/msg00000.html

Is Human Rights Watch really all that NGO?

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Human Rights Watch (HRW) is in the news pontificating again. They are like little tiny parkings ticket officers who spin around in their little 3-wheel vehicles, ticketing people in places like the Warsaw Ghetto and Nagasaki for not pumping coins properly into the human rights’ meters they are in charge of monitoring.

How do they do such a good job from their little office in New York City where they telescope the world looking for offenders? Where does their money come from? How even handed they are as they hand out parking violation summaries to both Big and Little. They are like that famous ‘American justice’ which is said to apply the vagrancy laws equally to both rich and poor. If either Hobo Joe or Bill Gates sleeps under the highway overpass, they both equally will be hauled off to jail for violating the law. Similarly, this is the HRW code of ethics.

If you visit their website, HRW will proudly inform you that it accepts no money from any government. Oh Wow! How impressive. They will also inform one that they are the biggest ‘human rights organization’ in the US of A. They have a staff of close to 250, and an operating budget of around $40,000,000. Look further, and you will see that they have ticketed offenders from BanglaDesh to Myanmar to the other side of the moon. And then strangely enough, you will find that there is nothing listed about how Iraq and Afghanistan being invaded by the US government is a human rights violation! A rather big one. I guess they don’t take political sides? lol. I don’t know about you, but I believe in proportionality when it comes to human rights and who violates them. HRW does not. Despite their pretense of going after everybody, the big human right’s offenders, like the US government and the Pentagon, mainly get a free walk.

This supposed neutrality in judgement that they push is like that of the Carter Center. Kind of suspect. If they accept no funds from the US government, then where does their money come from? From people like you and me their website will smilingly proclaim! uh… and from foundations. So who are these foundations? Well that seems to be HRW’s big secret. They just don’t really say. But i’m quite sure they’re ‘liberal’ foundations, though distinctly Americancentric ones. Snicker,snicker…. Democratic Party-minded foundations, shall we say. And last I heard, the Democratic Party was one of the 2 pillars of the US government. So much for the HRW’s claims to be without official US government backing. Let’s jiust say that it is unofficial support, then. From liberal Democrats like you and them.

So how does this supposed neutrality of pointing out supposed human rights violations work? If funding begins to decline because a bad thing or two was said about Israel, then denounce ‘equally’ the Palestinians. And that’s just what HRW is doing. Got to keep the staff employed. Got to get them liberal funds from liberal folk that liberally have supported Israel from inside the US back flowing. Let’s call our ability to talk out of both sides of our mounths, NEUTRALITY. Let’s parade ourselves as independent from the government. And let’s hide who those foundations are that give us the funds. I bet its not the Bradley Foundation, nor from the Walton family? Maybe Soros or Gates? People like you and me. chuckle.

HRW has just gotten through with condemning the way that Palestinans defend themselves from being slaughtered by Israel. See these 2 responses to that.

Would HRW have attacked MLK, too? by Jonathan Cook
and
HRW’s Shameful Press Release by Norman Finkelstein