Archive for the ‘Caribbean’ Category
America’s Columbus Day: The True Legacy Of Murder And Slavery!
October 11, 2010: Eric Kasum / The Huffington Post – October 11, 2010
Once again, it’s time to celebrate Columbus Day. Yet, the stunning truth is: If Christopher Columbus were alive today, he would be put on trial for crimes against humanity. Columbus’ reign of terror, as documented by noted historians, was so bloody, his legacy so unspeakably cruel, that Columbus makes a modern villain like Saddam Hussein look like a pale codfish.
Question: Why do we honor a man who, if he were alive today, would almost certainly be sitting on Death Row awaiting execution? If you’d like to know the true story about Christopher Columbus, please read on. But I warn you, it’s not for the faint of heart.
Here’s the basics. On the second Monday in October each year, we celebrate Columbus Day (this year, it’s on October 11th). We teach our school kids a cute little song that goes: “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” It’s an American tradition, as American as pizza pie. Or is it? Surprisingly, the true story of Christopher Columbus has very little in common with the myth we all learned in school.
Columbus Day, as we know it in the United States, was invented by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal service organization. Back in the 1930s, they were looking for a Catholic hero as a role-model their kids could look up to. In 1934, as a result of lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, Congress and President Franklin Roosevelt signed Columbus Day into law as a federal holiday to honor this courageous explorer. Or so we thought.
There are several problems with this. First of all, Columbus wasn’t the first European to discover America. As we all know, the Viking, Leif Ericson probably founded a Norse village on Newfoundland some 500 years earlier. So, hat’s off to Leif. But if you think about it, the whole concept of discovering America is, well, arrogant. After all, the Native Americans discovered North America about 14,000 years before Columbus was even born! Surprisingly, DNA evidence now suggests that courageous Polynesian adventurers sailed dugout canoes across the Pacific and settled in South America long before the Vikings.
Second, Columbus wasn’t a hero. When he set foot on that sandy beach in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, Columbus discovered that the islands were inhabited by friendly, peaceful people called the Lucayans, Taínos and Arawaks. Writing in his diary, Columbus said they were a handsome, smart and kind people. He noted that the gentle Arawaks were remarkable for their hospitality. “They offered to share with anyone and when you ask for something, they never say no,” he said.
The Arawaks had no weapons; their society had neither criminals, prisons nor prisoners. They were so kind-hearted that Columbus noted in his diary that on the day the Santa Maria was shipwrecked, the Arawaks labored for hours to save his crew and cargo. The native people were so honest that not one thing was missing.
Columbus was so impressed with the hard work of these gentle islanders, that he immediately seized their land for Spain and enslaved them to work in his brutal gold mines. Within only two years, 125,000 (half of the population) of the original natives on the island were dead. If I were a Native American, I would mark October 12, 1492, as a black day on my calendar.
Shockingly, Columbus supervised the selling of native girls into sexual slavery. Young girls of the ages 9 to 10 were the most desired by his men. In 1500, Columbus casually wrote about it in his log. He said: “A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand.”
He forced these peaceful natives work in his gold mines until they died of exhaustion. If an “Indian” worker did not deliver his full quota of gold dust by Columbus’ deadline, soldiers would cut off the man’s hands and tie them around his neck to send a message. Slavery was so intolerable for these sweet, gentle island people that at one point, 100 of them committed mass suicide. Catholic law forbade the enslavement of Christians, but Columbus solved this problem. He simply refused to baptize the native people of Hispaniola.
On his second trip to the New World, Columbus brought cannons and attack dogs. If a native resisted slavery, he would cut off a nose or an ear. If slaves tried to escape, Columbus had them burned alive. Other times, he sent attack dogs to hunt them down, and the dogs would tear off the arms and legs of the screaming natives while they were still alive. If the Spaniards ran short of meat to feed the dogs, Arawak babies were killed for dog food.
Columbus’ acts of cruelty were so unspeakable and so legendary – even in his own day – that Governor Francisco De Bobadilla arrested Columbus and his two brothers, slapped them into chains, and shipped them off to Spain to answer for their crimes against the Arawaks. But the King and Queen of Spain, their treasury filling up with gold, pardoned Columbus and let him go free.
One of Columbus’ men, Bartolome De Las Casas, was so mortified by Columbus’ brutal atrocities against the native peoples, that he quit working for Columbus and became a Catholic priest. He described how the Spaniards under Columbus’ command cut off the legs of children who ran from them, to test the sharpness of their blades. According to De Las Casas, the men made bets as to who, with one sweep of his sword, could cut a person in half. He says that Columbus’ men poured people full of boiling soap. In a single day, De Las Casas was an eye witness as the Spanish soldiers dismembered, beheaded, or raped 3000 native people. “Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel,” De Las Casas wrote. “My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that now I tremble as I write.”
De Las Casas spent the rest of his life trying to protect the helpless native people. But after a while, there were no more natives to protect. Experts generally agree that before 1492, the population on the island of Hispaniola probably numbered above 3 million. Within 20 years of Spanish arrival, it was reduced to only 60,000. Within 50 years, not a single original native inhabitant could be found.
In 1516, Spanish historian Peter Martyr wrote: “… a ship without compass, chart, or guide, but only following the trail of dead Indians who had been thrown from the ships could find its way from the Bahamas to Hispaniola.”
Christopher Columbus derived most of his income from slavery, De Las Casas noted. In fact, Columbus was the first slave trader in the Americas. As the native slaves died off, they were replaced with black slaves. Columbus’ son became the first African slave trader in 1505.
Are you surprised you never learned about any of this in school? I am too. Why do we have this extraordinary gap in our American ethos? Columbus himself kept detailed diaries, as did some of his men including De Las Casas and Michele de Cuneo. (If you don’t believe me, just Google the words Columbus, sex slave, and gold mine.)
Columbus’ reign of terror is one of the darkest chapters in our history. The REAL question is: Why do we celebrate a holiday in honor of this man? (Take three deep breaths. If you’re like me, your stomach is heaving at this point. I’m sorry. Sometimes the truth hurts. That said, I’d like to turn in a more positive direction.)
Call me crazy, but I think holidays ought to honor people who are worthy of our admiration, true heroes who are positive role models for our children. If we’re looking for heroes we can truly admire, I’d like to offer a few candidates. Foremost among them are school kids.
Let me tell you about some school kids who are changing the world. I think they are worthy of a holiday. My friend Nan Peterson is the director of the Blake School, a K-12 school in Minnesota. She recently visited Kenya. Nan says there are 33 million people in Kenya… and 11 million of them are orphans! Can you imagine that? She went to Kibera, the slum outside Nairobi, and a boy walked up to her and handed her a baby. He said: My father died. My mother died… and I’m not feeling so good myself. Here, take my sister. If I die, they will throw her into the street to die.
There are so many orphans in Kenya, the baby girls are throwaways! Nan visited an orphanage for girls. The girls were starving to death. They had one old cow that only gave one cup of milk a day. So each girl only got ONE TEASPOON of milk a day!
After this heartbreaking experience, Nan went home to her school in Minnesota and asked the kids… what can we do? The kids got the idea to make homemade paper and sell it to buy a cow. So they made a bunch of paper, and sold the paper, and when they were done they had enough money to buy… FOUR COWS! And enough food to feed all of the cows for ONE FULL YEAR! These are kids… from 6 years old to 18… saving the lives of kids halfway around the world. And I thought: If a 6-year-old could do that… what could I do?
At Casady School in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, seemingly “average” school kids raised $20,000 to dig clean water wells for children in Ethiopia. These kids are heroes. Why don’t we celebrate “Kids Who Are Changing the Planet” Day? Let me ask you a question: Would we celebrate Columbus Day if the story of Christopher Columbus were told from the point-of-view of his victims? No way!
The truth about Columbus is going to be a hard pill for some folks to swallow. Please, don’t think I’m picking on Catholics. All the Catholics I know are wonderful people. I don’t want to take away their holiday or their hero. But if we’re looking for a Catholic our kids can admire, the Catholic church has many, many amazing people we could name a holiday after. How about Mother Teresa day? Or St. Francis of Assisi day? Or Betty Williams day (another Catholic Nobel Peace Prize winner). These men and women are truly heroes of peace, not just for Catholics, but for all of us.
Let’s come clean. Let’s tell the truth about Christopher Columbus. Let’s boycott this outrageous holiday because it honors a mass murderer. If we skip the cute song about “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” I don’t think our first graders will miss it much, do you? True, Columbus’ brutal treatment of peaceful Native Americans was so horrific… maybe we should hide the truth about Columbus until our kids reach at least High School age. Let’s teach it to them about the same time we tell them about the Nazi death camps.
While we’re at it, let’s rewrite our history books. From now on, instead of glorifying the exploits of mass murderers like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, and Napoleon Bonaparte, let’s teach our kids about true heroes, men and women of courage and kindness who devoted their lives to the good of others.
There’s a long list, starting with Florence Nightingale, Mahatma Gandhi, Rev. Martin Luther King, and John F. Kennedy. These people were not adventurers who “discovered” an island in the Caribbean. They were noble souls who discovered what is best in the human spirit. Why don’t we create a holiday to replace Columbus Day? Let’s call it Heroes of Peace Day.
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: Because the government relishes the celebration of a mass murderer who is cut from the same cloth as they. Do 1,000,000 dead Iraqi’s ring a bell?!
The oil painting above done of Christopher Columbus by Sabastiano del Piombo in 1519, depicts Columbus flashing the cabalistic hand sign indicating the left-handed path of the initiate of either the Knights Templar, Freemasons, some other secret society or a combination of said Luciferian organizations, all with deep roots hidden within the catacombs and history of the Vatican.
Also, it was the Knights of Columbus who were the handlers of John Wilkes Booth as agents for the Rothschild banks who was ultimately duped into assassinating Abraham Lincoln because Lincoln had the audacity to print the greenback, costing the Bank of England millions in lost interest revenue during the Civil War…
Happy Columbus Day, America! - SJH
Link to original article below…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-kasum/columbus-day-a-bad-idea_b_742708.html
Whale Sharks Have Been Killed And Displaced By Gulf Oil Disaster
September 26, 2010: Brian Handwerk / National Geographic News - September 24, 2010
The BP Gulf oil spill fouled a vital stretch of feeding habitat for whale sharks, possibly killing some of the world’s largest fish, new research suggests. An estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil (one barrel equals 42 gallons, or 159 liters) flowed into an area south of the Mississippi River Delta, where of one-third of all northern Gulf of Mexico (map) whale shark sightings have occurred in recent years, scientists say.
The 45-foot-long (14-meter-long) fish, still largely a mystery to scientists, is considered a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. (See “World’s Largest Shark Species at Risk, Expert Says.”) “This spill’s impact came at the worst possible time and in the worst possible location for whale sharks,” said biologist Eric Hoffmayer, who studies whale sharks at the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory.
Sightings confirmed that the animals were unable to avoid the slick at the surface, where the giant fish may feed for seven to eight hours a day. The oil may have clogged the fish’s gills, suffocating them, or it might have contaminated their prey—though no dead whale sharks have been found, Hoffmayer noted.
“We’ve seen aerial photos with animals within a few miles of the wellhead and swimming in thick oil,” said Hoffmayer, a National Geographic Society Waitt grantee. (National Geographic News is owned by the National Geographic Society.) “At the end of the day, if these animals were feeding in an area where there was surface oil, and if they ingested oil, there is a good possibility that they died and sank to the bottom. At this point we have no idea how many animals have been impacted.”
Oil Toxic to Filter-Feeding Sharks?
Though much of the Gulf oil has disappeared from the surface, the spill isn’t going away—and scientists are still trying to uncover the extent of its invisible effects on Gulf wildlife. (Read about the Gulf oil spill in the October issue of National Geographic magazine.)
For instance, certain toxic ingredients of oil—and even the chemical dispersants used during the cleanup—could potentially cause long-term problems for whale sharks and many other species. Those may include compromised endocrine or immune response systems, scientists note. (See related blog: “Gulf Seafood With a Side of Oil Dispersant?”)
Whale sharks filter a lot of water through their mouths and gills—almost 160,000 gallons (605,000 liters) of water an hour—as they feed on tiny plankton and fish. These sharks swim with their wide mouths open to suck in plankton-rich waters, which they then force back out their gills, retaining only tiny morsels of food.
“They would no doubt absorb contaminants even in dispersed form. Does that build up in their tissues and affect their health?” said biologist Bob Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida.
To answer that question, many scientists are now searching for the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and other oil contaminants in the blood and tissues of Gulf whale sharks. “It will probably take years to see what the signature of this oil does to the health and physiology of these animals,” Hueter said.
Oil Driving Sharks to New Territories
Scientists hope that tagging animals can help them learn if the spill impacts whale shark behavior in the years ahead. But some observations have already suggested the whale sharks have changed some of their habits.
Sightings of sharks near Florida’s Gulf coast have led to speculation that the sharks and other large marine species may have been displaced by the oil and moved on to a more pristine neighborhood. During the summer months following the oil spill, Mote scientists began chronicling repeated near-shore observations of large marine animals, such as whale sharks, that are typically found in far deeper waters out near the eastern Gulf’s continental shelf. (See pictures of ten animals at risk from the Gulf oil spill.)
“This summer unusually high numbers and species of sharks were here on the West Florida Shelf, and that includes whale sharks in much larger numbers than we are accustomed to seeing,” Hueter said. Those animals may have headed east to escape the oil, though no one can say for sure.
The team tagged several fish to track their future movements in oiled waters and see whether the disaster causes lifestyle changes in the whales. (Learn more about Mote’s shark tracking project.)
Oil Still Unknown Threat
One problem is that no one is exactly sure where the bulk of dispersed oil has gone, or in what form it exists. For example, preliminary results suggest it’s settled on the seafloor or is still suspended in remnant undersea plumes. (Related: “Much Gulf Oil Remains, Deeply Hidden and Under Beaches.”)
What’s more, whale sharks can be found everywhere in the water column, from the surface to the depths, so pinpointing their possible exposure to oil can be difficult. “In some form or fashion, 60 to a hundred million gallons of oil are still out there, and all we know is it’s not at the surface,” the University of Southern Mississippi’s Hoffmayer said. “With this idea of submerged oil out there, we don’t know what threats exist to the animals.”
For instance, no one knows if the sharks will start to avoid the rich feeding grounds to which the migratory animals have returned regularly so far. “In coming years we’ll hopefully be able to say something about the sightings, either that whale sharks appear to be impacted heavily, or, we were lucky here and they haven’t missed a beat,” University of Southern Mississippi’s Hoffmayer said.
Whale Sharks Undertake Great Migrations
As scientists learn more about the elusive whale shark, they’ve already discovered that the impacts of the oil spill disaster could stretch farther than anyone would have suspected just a few years ago. (Read about whale shark migrations on National Geographic Channel’s website.)
That’s because seemingly disparate whale shark populations ranging from the Caribbean and Central America to the Gulf of Mexico are actually deeply connected, according to Rachel Graham, lead shark scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society‘s Ocean Giants Program.
Graham, who has been tracking whale sharks for 13 years, snapped a picture of a shark in Belize that later turned up near Tampa, Florida. Another animal acoustically tagged in Mexico was recorded by an underwater receiver on Bright Bank in the northern Gulf of Mexico.
Sixteen sharks that Graham recently fitted with satellite-location tags are dispersing into the Gulf from Mexico—and could move into the spill zone. (Related picture: “Smallest Whale Shark Discovered—On a Leash.”)
“One of the concerns that I have is that anything that happens to animals in the northern Gulf, where the spill occurred, will have an impact on the larger population in the entire region,” she said. “It’s one large population. And it’s at risk because we’re only talking about hundreds or perhaps a few thousands of animals in the region—not hundreds of thousands of animals. Due to their size, whale sharks require a lot of food to survive, and preferred food such as fish eggs is seasonal and concentrated in a small area—the seas certainly can’t sustain millions of these huge animals.”
Even so, there’s one bright spot: Multiple sightings of whale sharks suggest there are greater numbers of the animals than were once thought possible in the northern Gulf of Mexico, according to the University of Southern Mississippi’s Hoffmayer. “Up to this point it’s been a real success,” Hoffmayer said. “But as for the impacts of this oil spill, we just don’t know yet.”
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: And yes, that is oil on the surface of the Gulf in the image above… - SJH
All Kinds Of Sea Birds Paralyzed and Dead Near Sarasota, FL
http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/sarasota-area
Link to original article below…
Chavez Warns Of US Military Escalations In Costa Rica & Elsewhere
July 20, 2010: Inside Costa Rica Editor’s / Inside Costa Rica.com – July 19, 2010
CARACAS – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned Sunday of increased international tensions over the military escalation by the United States and its allies around the world.
“There are highly alarming elements: the military exercises that the South Koreans and gringos performed in the Yellow Sea; the pressure on Iran for daring to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes; the mobilization of U.S. and Israeli troops near Iran’s coasts, and the violence in Iraq and Afghanistan occupied by the empire,” Chavez said during his usual Sunday news commentary, “Las lineas de Chavez.”
The president also listed Israel’s blockade of Gaza with Washington’s blessing as another alarming factor. Chávez highlighted that the Barack Obama government “is proving to be, in words and actions, the second Bush administration (George W.), because it follows the same line as a warmonger and the same strategy of domination.”
Chavez denounced the continuing and false accusations by Obama government agencies regarding alleged links between Caracas and international drug trafficking, and the surprising presence on unconvincing explanations for thousands of U.S. marines in Costa Rica and the overflights of Dutch aircraft in Venezuelan territory.
He also mentioned as other reasons for concern the violent destabilization plans revealed in the wake of capture of Salvadoran terrorist Francisco Chavez Abarca on national soil; the Chilean Senate’s attempt to interfere in the September 26 elections and statements by the outgoing Colombian government linking Venezuela with Colombian guerrilla groups like the FARC and ELN.
“What a picture! We would be naive if we did not look at all of this aggression as a whole; everything is related,” he said. “I think we are looking at a reenactment of the U.S. imperial doctrine, which is facing the new projects for the sovereignty of our America” he stated.
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: Regardless what you may think of him, Chavez is right on the money here. US military escalations are occurring at an alarming rate… - SJH
Link to original article below…
http://www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2010/july/19/latinamerica10071901.htm
US Is In Costa Rica: Militarization Of Central America & Caribbean
July 19, 2010: Mark Vorpahl / Global Research - July 19, 2010
Nestled between Panama to its south and Nicaragua to its north, Costa Rica is a Central American nation roughly the size of Rhode Island.
If another nation were to send Rhode Island a force of 7,000 troops, 200 helicopters, and 46 warships in an effort to eradicate drug trafficking, it is doubtful that the residents of Rhode Island would consider this offer “on-the-level.” Such a massive military force could hardly be efficiently used to combat drug cartels. The only logical conclusion is that the nation whose troops now are occupying this other country had another agenda in mind that it didn’t want to share.
In early July, by a vote of 31 to 8, the Costa Rican Congress approved the U.S. bringing into their nation the same military force described above, justified with the same dubious “war on drugs” rationale. According to the agreement, the military forces are supposed to leave Costa Rica by the end of 2010. This begs the question however, if such an over the top display of military muscle is needed now to combat the drug cartels, what will be done in the next few months to make their presence unnecessary? The history of such U.S. military deployments around the world suggests a more credible outcome than what the agreement states. Once the U.S. moves such massive forces into a country, they rarely move them out.
When push comes to shove, the political machinery in Costa Rica is subservient to U.S. government and corporate interests. Nevertheless, there are many in Costa Rica who are declaring that the agreement is a violation of their national sovereignty and is unconstitutional. (In 1948 Costa Rica abolished its army, which was sanctioned in its constitution.) Legislator Luis Fishman has vowed to challenge the decision of the Congress in the courts.
Shifting Strategy And Tactics
The buildup of U.S. armed forces in Costa Rica is part of an escalating pattern that indicates a shifting of strategy and tactics for the U.S. in controlling what the Monroe Doctrine infamously described as the U.S.’s “backyard” — that is, all of Latin America. Since the U.S. government inspired covert coup d’etats and political reversals of popular governments and/or movements in Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua, and El Salvador in previous decades, U.S. rulers had figured they had things stitched up to their liking in Latin America. The political elites in Latin America were uniformly in the pockets of the U.S. corporate empire and appeared to be more or less in control of their people. They commonly outlawed strikes and at times even trade unions, eliminated minimum wage laws, and gave enormous tax breaks to U.S. corporations.
Therefore, the U.S. Empire builders could use their political and economic might alone to subjugate these neo-colonies to a very profitable neoliberal agenda. This agenda included allowing U.S. corporations easy access to pillage these nations’ public sectors through privatization, letting multi-national corporations overrun these nations’ local markets and farms through the elimination of trade barriers, and increasing the exploitation of their workers and the devastation of their natural resources by tossing out national labor and environmental standards. Because of the profits enjoyed by a few as a result of these measures, they carried the day, though they, in turn, created a simmering spirit of rebellion in the semi-colonies’ peasantry and workers that would inevitably find expression.
As the U.S. began to set its sights on, and send its resources to, other parts of the world, most notably the Middle East and Asia, the web they had wrapped around Latin America began to unravel. This was most apparent in Venezuela where a U.S.-backed coup attempt in April of 2002 failed because of the massive mobilizing of the Venezuelan people in defense of their democratic rights. All subsequent attempts of the Venezuelan oligarchy, in collusion with the U.S. State Department, to get rid of Chavez resulted in their humiliation because of the constant support and organizing of the country’s lower classes. It became apparent to the U.S. ruling class that they could no longer rely on the Venezuelan oligarchy which had lost direct control over the political situation. What is more, the popular upsurge witnessed in Venezuela in the past decade opened up floodgates for anti-imperialist organizing across the continent, resulting in the election of a number of left-wing presidents.
Not only was the neoliberal agenda of the U.S. being blocked, an alternative to the U.S. Free Trade policies was being set up. The Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA), which was initiated by Venezuela and Cuba, began to build a trading block based on exchange according to different nations’ needs rather than U.S. corporate profits. While ALBA needs to be more substantially developed in order to fulfill its promise, especially in regards to organizing grassroots control to determine its priorities, it is a challenge to U.S. corporate and political dominance in the region.
U.S. Military Moves
As a result, the U.S. government began to shift its reliance from solely economic and political means to control Latin America towards taking military measures, even while engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. What have been some of these measures?
In 2006 the U.S. conducted military exercises off the coast of Venezuela called “Operation Partnership of the Americas.” This exercise involved four ships, 60 fighter planes, and 6,500 U.S. troops.
In 2006 the U.S. State Department classified the islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao, with their military bases jointly contracted to Holland and the U.S., as “The Third Frontier of the United States.” U.S. aircraft carriers, war ships, combat planes, Black Hawk helicopters, nuclear submarines, and thousands of troops began to build up in Curacao in particular. In 2009 a U.S. military plane was intercepted in Venezuelan airspace that had flown from Curacao’s base.
In 2008 the U.S. reactivated the Fourth Fleet to patrol Caribbean waters. This fleet had been out of commission since 1950. Now it operates with the potential of acting as a floating base for the U.S. to conduct military strikes throughout Central and South America.
In 2009 the U.S. made a deal with Colombia to build up its military personal in seven bases, from 250 to 800 American troops with 600 civilian contractors, effectively taking control over these installations. This was widely denounced throughout Latin America as an action aimed at intimidating Venezuela. In December of that year a U.S. drone plane flying from one of these Colombian bases violated Venezuelan airspace.
From 2009 to 2010 the U.S. worked behind the scenes to legitimize a military coup in Honduras against lawfully elected President Zelaya, who had aligned the nation with ALBA. Part of the U.S.’s motivation behind its actions was to maintain control of Soto Cano’s Airbase, with its 550 U.S. troops and 650 U.S. and Honduran civilians. In the 1980′s the U.S. had used this base for a training ground and launching pad for the Contra terrorists in Nicaragua and El Salvadorian death squads opposed to the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN). There is good reason for concern that this Airbase will again be used for similar operations today.
In 2009 the U.S. and Panama agreed to open up two naval bases in Panama, which will be the first time U.S. military forces will be based in this nation since 1999.
War On Drugs?
Most of these measures have been justified on the grounds of combating drug trafficking, including the military buildup in Costa Rica. However, they have not curtailed this problem at all. Such U.S. military buildups have generally been accompanied by an increase in drug trafficking, as has happened in both Columbia and Afghanistan. Based on this record it can only be concluded that the “War on Drugs” rationale is a red herring for public relations consumption, not the actual motivation.
This military build up in Costa Rica is the latest in a series of moves the U.S. has made in Latin America that seeks to use threats and arms to reverse the strength of popular anti-imperialist forces across the region. The U.S. is playing with the possibility of erupting a continental conflagration for the sake of corporate profits.
While it is doubtful that the U.S. wants to directly engage in a military conflict with, most likely, Venezuela right now, preparations for this possibility are being made. What is more likely in the short term is that the U.S. military will use its forces to engage in sabotage and intimidation in hopes of reversing support for the nations aligned with ALBA. It is also very possible that the U.S. military will help to support proxy armies, such as Colombia’s, in military conflicts that align with U.S. interests. However, this is a dangerous game. Even in the short term, the U.S. ruling class may drag the nation into another direct conflict, in spite of their intentions, that could spread to involve numerous other nations.
Peace And International Solidarity
While U.S. workers are suffering from unemployment, insufficient health care, drastic cuts to education and social services, as well as environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico created by the Obama governmental collusion with BP, the priorities of the U.S. ruling class are elsewhere. They are more concerned with pouring money into military buildups that threaten war. The target of such a war, or wars, would be the popular working class movements in Latin America, whose only crime has been to struggle to liberate themselves from super exploitation and political repression. It is the same economic and political elite in the U.S. that are denying U.S. workers what is rightfully theirs that are opposing the efforts of workers and peasants throughout the continent to empower themselves.
It is the task of the anti-war movement not only to oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also to prevent future U.S. wars in Latin America. Wherever anti-war activists seek to mobilize people against war, they should also seek to educate about the U.S. empire’s military moves in Latin America.
Furthermore, it will require international solidarity to combat what the U.S. elite is doing in Central and South America. There was recently an event that could go some way towards preparing this solidarity. In Sanare, Venezuela, from June 21 – 25, a series of meetings were held entitled “Ecuentro of the Americas: Resisting Militarization and Promoting a Culture of Peace.” It consisted of delegates of organizations from 19 nations across the continent, including School of the Americas (SOA) ‘Watch of the U.S.’ – You can read more about this at http://www.soaw.org/.
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: The rogue American government and US military are the ultimate drug dealers who work for the international bankers and trans-national corporations to fund their black-ops… - SJH
Link to original article below…
Haiti Earthquake: Death Toll Reaches 200,000 As Protests Expand
February 4, 2010: London Telegraph – February 4, 2010
More than three weeks after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake, prime minister Jean Max Bellerive said his tiny Caribbean nation had been ravaged by “a disaster on a planetary scale” and detailed the tragic toll suffered by his people.
“There are more than 200,000 people who have been clearly identified as people who are dead,” he said, adding that another 300,000 injured had been treated, 250,000 homes had been destroyed and 30,000 businesses lost. At least 4,000 amputations have also been carried out due to horrific crush injuries — a shocking figure which is likely to strain the impoverished nation’s already meager resources for years to come. Mr Bellerive said he has proposed the formation of an “emergency government” in Haiti to focus on the crisis, but insisted that the authorities, devastated as their ranks have been by the disaster, remained “in control of the situation.”
Despite a massive aid operation, a lack of coordination and the sheer extent of the damage have hampered the distribution of food and water leading to mounting tensions among a million people left homeless.
“The Haitian government has done nothing for us, it has not given us any work. It has not given us the food we need,” Sandrac Baptiste said bitterly as she left her makeshift tent to join angry demonstrations.
In separate protests after a tense night when shots were fired in the ruined capital Port-au-Prince, some 300 people gathered outside the mayor’s office in the once upscale Petionville neighborhood. “If the police fire on us, we are going to set things ablaze,” one of the protesters shouted, raising a cement block above his head.
Another 200 protesters marched toward the US embassy, crying out for food and aid, and about 50 protestors also gathered late Tuesday outside the police headquarters where the Haitian government of President Rene Preval is temporarily installed. “Down with Preval,” demonstrators shouted at the president who has only spoken to the people a few times since the disaster struck.
Meanwhile, a group of US Christians were to learn whether they would be charged with trying to illegally take children out of the quake-stricken nation. The 10 Americans from the Idaho-based Baptist group New Life Children’s Refuge have been detained in Haiti since the weekend after they tried to take some 33 children out of the country to neighboring Dominican Republic.
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: In light of current world events, Haiti may be destined forever as a slave plantation for globalists to rape their resources… – SJH
Link to original article below…
Haiti: A Fateful Geological Prize (Oil) Discovered To Their Demise!
January 31, 2010: F. William Engdahl / Global Research – January 30, 2010
A President becomes UN Special Envoy to earthquake-stricken Haiti. A born-again neo-conservative US business wheeler-dealer preacher claims Haitians are condemned for making a literal ‘pact with the Devil.’ Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Bolivian, French and Swiss rescue organizations accuse the US military of refusing landing rights to planes bearing necessary medicines and urgently needed potable water to the millions of Haitians stricken, injured and homeless…
Behind the smoke, rubble and unending drama of human tragedy in the hapless Caribbean country, a drama is in full play for control of what geophysicists believe may be one of the world’s richest zones for hydrocarbons-oil and gas outside the Middle East, possibly orders of magnitude greater than that of nearby Venezuela.
Haiti, and the larger island of Hispaniola of which it is a part, has the geological fate that it straddles one of the world’s most active geological zones, where the deepwater plates of three huge structures relentlessly rub against one another—the intersection of the North American, South American and Caribbean tectonic plates. Below the ocean and the waters of the Caribbean, these plates consist of an oceanic crust some 3 to 6 miles thick, floating atop an adjacent mantle. Haiti also lies at the edge of the region known as the Bermuda Triangle, a vast area in the Caribbean subject to bizarre and unexplained disturbances.
This vast mass of underwater plates are in constant motion, rubbing against each other along lines analogous to cracks in a broken porcelain vase that has been reglued. The earth’s tectonic plates typically move at a rate 50 to 100 mm annually in relation to one another, and are the origin of earthquakes and of volcanoes. The regions of convergence of such plates are also areas where vast volumes of oil and gas can be pushed upwards from the Earth’s mantle. The geophysics surrounding the convergence of the three plates that run more or less directly beneath Port-au-Prince make the region prone to earthquakes such as the one that struck Haiti with devastating ferocity on January 12 (2010).
A Relevant Texas Geological Project
Leaving aside the relevant question of how well in advance the Pentagon and US scientists knew the quake was about to occur, and what Pentagon plans were being laid before January 12 (2010), another issue emerges around the events in Haiti that might help explain the bizarre behavior to date of the major ‘rescue’ players—the United States, France and Canada. Aside from being prone to violent earthquakes, Haiti also happens to lie in a zone that, due to the unusual geographical intersection of its three tectonic plates, might well be straddling one of the world’s largest unexplored zones of oil and gas, as well as of valuable rare strategic minerals.
The vast oil reserves of the Persian Gulf and of the region from the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden are at a similar convergence zone of large tectonic plates, as are such oil-rich zones as Indonesia and the waters off the coast of California. In short, in terms of the physics of the earth, precisely such intersections of tectonic masses as run directly beneath Haiti have a remarkable tendency to be the sites of vast treasures of minerals, as well as oil and gas, throughout the world.
Notably, in 2005, a year after the Bush-Cheney Administration de facto deposed the democratically elected President of Haiti, Jean-Baptiste Aristide, a team of geologists from the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas began an ambitious and thorough two-phase mapping of all geological data of the Caribbean Basins. The project is due to be completed in 2011. Directed by Dr. Paul Mann, it is called “Caribbean Basins, Tectonics and Hydrocarbons.” It is all about determining as precisely as possible the relation between tectonic plates in the Caribbean and the potential for hydrocarbons—oil and gas.
Notably, the sponsors of the multi-million dollar research project under Mann are the world’s largest oil companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, the Anglo-Dutch Shell and BHP Billiton.[1] Curiously enough, the project is the first comprehensive geological mapping of a region that, one would have thought, would have been a priority decades ago for the US oil majors. Given the immense, existing oil production off Mexico, Louisiana, and the entire Caribbean, as well as its proximity to the United States – not to mention the US focus on its own energy security – it is surprising that the region had not been mapped earlier. Now it emerges that major oil companies were at least generally aware of the huge oil potential of the region long ago, but apparently decided to keep it quiet.
Cuba’s Super-Giant Find
Evidence that the US Administration may well have more in mind for Haiti than the improvement of the lot of the devastated Haitian people can be found in nearby waters off Cuba, directly across from Port-au-Prince. In October 2008 a consortium of oil companies led by Spain’s Repsol, together with Cuba’s state oil company, Cubapetroleo, announced discovery of one of the world’s largest oilfields in the deep water off Cuba. It is what oil geologists call a ‘Super-giant’ field. Estimates are that the Cuban field contains as much as 20 billion barrels of oil, making it the twelfth Super-giant oilfield discovered since 1996. The discovery also likely makes Cuba a new high-priority target for Pentagon destabilization and other nasty operations.
No doubt to the dismay of Washington, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev flew to Havana one month after the Cuban giant oil find to sign an agreement with acting-President Raul Castro for Russian oil companies to explore and develop Cuban oil.[2]
Medvedev’s Russia-Cuba oil agreements came only a week after the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to meet the recuperating Fidel Castro and his brother Raul. The Chinese President signed an agreement to modernize Cuban ports and discussed Chinese purchase of Cuban raw materials. No doubt the mammoth new Cuban oil discovery was high on the Chinese agenda with Cuba.[3] On November 5, 2008, just prior to the Chinese President’s trip to Cuba and other Latin American countries, the Chinese government issued their first ever policy paper on the future of China’s relations with Latin America and Caribbean nations, elevating these bilateral relations to a new level of strategic importance. [4]
The Cuba Super-giant oil find also leaves the advocates of ‘Peak Oil’ theory with more egg on the face. Shortly before the Bush-Blair decision to invade and occupy Iraq, a theory made the rounds of cyberspace, that sometime after 2010, the world would reach an absolute “peak” in world oil production, initiating a period of decline with drastic social and economic implications. Its prominent spokesmen, including retired oil geologist Colin Campbell and Texas oil banker Matt Simmons, claimed that there had not been a single new Super-giant oil discovery since 1976, or thereabouts, and that new fields found over the past two decades had been “tiny” compared with the earlier giant discoveries in Saudi Arabia, Prudhoe Bay, Daquing in China and elsewhere. [5]
It is critical to note that, more than half a century ago, a group of Russian and Ukrainian geophysicists, working in state secrecy, confirmed that hydrocarbons originated deep in the earth’s mantle under conditions similar to a giant burning cauldron at extreme temperature and pressure. They demonstrated that, contrary to US and accepted Western ‘mainstream’ geology, hydrocarbons were not the result of dead dinosaur detritus concentrated and compressed and somehow transformed into oil and gas millions of years ago, nor of algae or other biological material.[6]
The Russian and Ukrainian geophysicists then proved that the oil or gas produced in the earth’s mantle was pushed upwards along faults or cracks in the earth as close to the surface as pressures permitted. The process was analogous to the production of molten lava in volcanoes. It means that the ability to find oil is limited, relatively speaking, only by the ability to identify deep fissures and complex geological activity conducive to bringing the oil out from deep in the earth. It seems that the waters of the Caribbean, especially those off Cuba and its neighbor Haiti, are just such a region of concentrated hydrocarbons (oil and gas) that have found their way upwards close to the surface, perhaps in a magnitude comparable to a new Saudi Arabia.[7]
Haiti: A New Saudi Arabia?
The remarkable geography of Haiti and Cuba and the discovery of world-class oil reserves in the waters off Cuba lend credence to anecdotal accounts of major oil discoveries in several parts of Haitian territory. It also could explain why two Bush Presidents and now special UN Haiti Envoy Bill Clinton have made Haiti such a priority. As well, it could explain why Washington and its NGOs moved so quickly to remove– twice– the democratically elected President Aristide, whose economic program for Haiti included, among other items, proposals for developing Haitian natural resources for the benefit of the Haitian people.
In March 2004, some months before the University of Texas and American Big Oil launched their ambitious mapping of the hydrocarbon potentials of the Caribbean, a Haitian writer, Dr. Georges Michel, published online an article titled ‘Oil in Haiti.’ In it, Michel wrote,
… .[I]t has been no secret that deep in the earthy bowels of the two states that share the island of Haiti and the surrounding waters that there are significant, still untapped deposits of oil. One knows not why they are still untapped. Since the early twentieth century, the physical and political map of the island of Haiti, erected in 1908 by Messrs. Alexander Poujol and Henry Thomasset, reported a major oil reservoir in Haiti near the source of the Rio Todo El Mondo, Tributary Right Artibonite River, better known today as the River Thomonde. [8]
According to a June 2008 article by Roberson Alphonse in the Haitian paper, Le Nouvelliste en Haiti, “The signs, (indicators), justifying the explorations of oil (black gold) in Haiti are encouraging. In the middle of the oil shock, some 4 companies want official licenses from the Haitian State to drill for oil.”
At the time, oil prices were climbing above $140 a barrel — on manipulations by various Wall Street banks. Alphonse’s article quoted Dieusuel Anglade, the Haitian State Director of the Office of Mining and Energy, telling the Haitian press: “We’ve received four requests for oil exploration permits…We have had encouraging indicators to justify the pursuit of the exploration of black gold (oil), which had stopped in 1979.”[9]
Alphonse reported the findings from a 1979 geological study in Haiti of 11 exploratory oil wells drilled at the Plaine du Cul-de-sac on the Plateau Central and at L’ile de La Gonaive: “Surface (tentative) indicators for oil were found at the Southern peninsula and on the North coast, explained the engineer Anglade, who strongly believes in the immediate commercial viability of these explorations.”[10]
Journalist Alphonse cites an August 16, 1979 memo by Haitian attorney Francois Lamothe, in which he noted that “five big wells were drilled” down to depths of 9000 feet and that a sample that “underwent a physical-chemical analysis in Munich, Germany” had “revealed tracks of oil.” [11]
Despite the promising 1979 results in Haiti, Dr. Georges Michel reported that, “the big multinational oil companies operating in Haiti pushed for the discovered deposits not to be exploited.” [12] Oil exploration in and offshore Haiti ground to a sudden halt as a result.
Similar if less precise reports claiming that Haitian oil reserves could be vastly larger than those of Venezuela have appeared in Haitian websites. [13] Then in 2010 the financial news site Bloomberg News carried the following:
The Jan. 12 (2010) earthquake was on a fault line that passes near potential gas reserves, said Stephen Pierce, a geologist who worked in the region for 30 years for companies that included the former Mobil Corp. The quake may have cracked rock formations along the fault, allowing gas or oil to temporarily seep toward the surface, he said Monday in a telephone interview. ‘A geologist, callous as it may seem, tracing that fault zone from Port-au-Prince to the border looking for gas and oil seeps, may find a structure that hasn’t been drilled,’ said Pierce, exploration manager at Zion Oil & Gas Inc., a Dallas-based company that’s drilling in Israel. [14]
In an interview with a Santo Domingo online paper, Leopoldo Espaillat Nanita, former head of the Dominican Petroleum Refinery (REFIDOMSA) stated, “there is a multinational conspiracy to illegally take the mineral resources of the Haitian people.” [15] Haiti’s minerals include gold, the valuable strategic metal iridium and oil, apparently lots of it.
Aristide’s Development Plans
Marguerite Laurent (‘Ezili Dantò’), president of the Haitian Lawyers’ Leadership Network (HLLN) who served as attorney for the deposed Aristide, notes that when Aristide was President — up until his US-backed ouster during the Bush era in 2004 — he had developed and published in book form his national development plans. These plans included, for the first time, a detailed list of known sites where the resources of Haiti were located. The publication of the plan sparked a national debate over Haitian radio and in the media about the future of the country. Aristide’s plan was to implement a public-private partnership to ensure that the development of Haiti’s oil, gold and other valuable resources would benefit the national economy and the broader population, and not merely the five Haitian oligarchic families and their US backers, the so-called Chimeres or gangsters. [16]
Since the ouster of Aristide in 2004, Haiti has been an occupied country, with a dubiously-elected President, Rene Preval, a controversial follower of IMF privatization mandates and reportedly tied to the Chimeres or Haitian oligarchs who backed the removal of Aristide. Notably, the US State Department refuses to permit the return of Aristide from South African exile.
Now, in the wake of the devastating earthquake of January 12, the United States military has taken control of Haiti’s four airports and presently has some 20,000 troops in the country. Journalists and international aid organizations have accused the US military of being more concerned with imposing military control, which it prefers to call “security,” than with bringing urgently needed water, food and medicine from the airport sites to the population.
A US military occupation of Haiti under the guise of earthquake disaster ‘relief’ would give Washington and private business interests tied to it a geopolitical prize of the first order. Prior to the January 12 quake, the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince was the fifth largest US embassy in the world, comparable to its embassies in such geopolitically strategic places as Berlin and Beijing.[17] With huge new oil finds off Cuba being exploited by Russian companies, with clear indications that Haiti contains similar vast untapped oil as well as gold, copper, uranium and iridium, with Hugo Chavez’ Venezuela as a neighbor to the south of Haiti, a return of Aristide or any popular leader committed to developing the resources for the people of Haiti, — the poorest nation in the Americas — would constitute a devastating blow to the world’s sole Superpower. The fact that in the aftermath of the earthquake, UN Haiti Special Envoy Bill Clinton joined forces with Aristide foe George W. Bush to create something called the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund ought to give everyone pause.
According to Marguerite Laurent (‘Ezili Dantò’) of the Haitian Lawyers’ Leadership Network, under the guise of emergency relief work, the US, France and Canada are engaged in a balkanization of the island for future mineral control. She reports rumors that Canada wants the North of Haiti where Canadian mining interests are already present. The US wants Port-au-Prince and the island of La Gonaive just offshore – an area identified in Aristide’s development book as having vast oil resources, and which is bitterly contested by France. She further states that China, with UN veto power over the de facto UN-occupied country, may have something to say against such a US-France-Canada carve up of the vast wealth of the nation. [18]
Notes:
1 Paul Mann, Caribbean Basins, Tectonic Plates & Hydrocarbons, Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin, accessed in
www.ig.utexas.edu/research/projects/cbth/…/ProposalCaribbean.pdf .
2 Rory Carroll, Medvedev and Castro meet to rebuild Russia-Cuba relations, London Guardian, November 28, 2008 accessed in http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/28/cuba-russia.
3 Julian Gavaghan, Comrades in arms: When China’s President Hu met a frail Fidel Castro, London Daily Mail, November 19, 2008, accessed in http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1087485/Comrades-arms-When-Chinas-President-Hu-met-frail-Fidel-Castro.html.
4 Peoples’ Daily Online, China issues first policy paper on Latin America, Caribbean region, November 5, 2008, accessed in http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90883/6527888.html .
5 Matthew R. Simmons, The World’s Giant Oilfields, Simmons & Co. International, Houston, accessed in http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/giantoilfields.pdf .
6 Anton Kolesnikov, et al, Methane-derived hydrocarbons produced under upper-mantle conditions, Nature Geoscience, July 26, 2009.
7 F. William Engdahl, War and Peak Oil—Confessions of an ‘ex’ Peak Oil believer, Global Research, September 26, 2007, accessed in http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6880 .
8 Dr. Georges Michel, Oil in Haiti, English translation from French, Pétrole en Haiti, March 27, 2004, accessed in http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/oil_sites.html#oil_GeorgesMichelEnglish .
9 Roberson Alphonse, Drill, and then pump the oil of Haiti! 4 oil companies request oil drilling permits, translated from the original French, June 27, 2008, accessed in
http://www.bnvillage.co.uk/caribbean-news-village-beta/99691-drill-then-pump-oil-haiti-4-oil-companies-request-oil-drilling-permits.html
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid. The full text indicated that, “five big wells were drilled at Porto Suel (Maissade) of a depth of 9000 feet, at Bebernal, 9000 feet, at Bois-Carradeux (Ouest), at Dumornay, on the road Route Frare and close to the Chemin de Fer of Saint-Marc. A sample, a ‘carrot’ (oil reservoir) drilled up from the well of Saint-Marc in the Artibonite underwent a physical-chemical analysis in Munich, Germany, at the request of Mr. Broth. ‘The result of the analysis was returned on October 11, 1979 and revealed tracks of oil,’ confided the engineer, Willy Clemens, who had gone to Germany.”
12 Dr. Georges Michel, op. cit.
13 Marguerite Laurent, Haiti is full of oil, say Ginette and Daniel Mathurin, Radio Metropole, Jan 28, 2008, accessed in
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/oil_sites.html#full_of_oil.
14 Jim Polson, Haiti earthquake may have exposed gas, aiding economy, Bloomberg News, January 26, 2010.
15 Espaillat Nanita revela en Haiti existen grandes recursos de oro y otros minerals, Espacinsular.org, 17 November, 2009, accessed in
http://www.espacinsular.org/spip.php?article8942 .
16 The Aristide development plan was contained in the book published in Haiti in 2000, Investir dans l’Human. Livre Blanc de Fanmi Lavalas sous la Direction de Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Port-au-Prince, Imprimerie Henri Deschamps, 2000. It contained detailed maps, tables, graphics, and a national development plan for 2004 “covering agriculture, environment, commerce and industry, the financial sector, infrastructure, education, culture, health, women’s issues, and issues in the public sector.” In 2004, using NGOs and the UN and a vicious propaganda campaign to vilify Aristide, the Bush administration got rid of the elected President.
17 Cynthia McKinney, Haiti: An Unwelcome Katrina Redux, Global Research, January 19, 2010, accessed in
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17063.
18 Marguerite Laurent (Ezili Danto), Did mining and oil drilling trigger the Haiti earthquake?, OpEd News.com, January 23, 2010, accessed in
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Did-mining-and-oil-drillin-by-Ezili-Danto-100123-329.html.
Link to original article below…
The Earthquake Machine (Pamir 3): Haiti And The Seismic Weapon
January 27, 2010: Thierry Meyssan / Voltaire Network – January 27, 2010
The controversy that followed the publication on our website of an article entertaining the possibility that the earthquake in Haiti was caused artificially, calls for clarification. Yes, seismic weapons do exist and the United States, among others, have them. Yes, the U.S. military forces were pre-positionned to be deployed to the island. These facts are not conclusive in themselves but they certainly warrant heightened scrutiny into this matter.
In publishing “Was the earthquake in Haiti caused by the United States”, our purpose was to bring out an issue that is stirring military and media circles in several countries, but which is being ignored in others [1]. What matters here is not to take a stand. In keeping with our approach, though often misunderstood, we maintain that it is impossible to have a good grasp of international relations without studying what the leaders of this planet are thinking.
Prevailing conformity has led to a situation where, while no one is ruffled when we report on contentious issues kindling in Washington, a general outcry is fueled when the controversy stems from a non-aligned country. It would appear that Europeans have a preconceived opinion that only “western” concerns are pertinent while all the others should not be taken seriously.
One of our collaborators attempted to trace the origin of the allegation regarding the possible artificial causes of the earthquake in Haiti. He was concerned that the whole thing might have been a hoax launched by a certain David Booth (alias Sorcha Faal), which then penetrated government circles throughout the world. In the end, we are not sure exactly who is behind the allegation, but what we know for certain is that this issue is being heatedly discussed at the highest level in several countries in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia.
As editor-in-chief of Voltaire Network, I made the decision to research and translate the dispatch from VivéTv, which had been disseminated as a communiqué on the website of the Communications Ministry of Venezuela, and to publish it together with the related video from Russia Today, preceded by the remark: “Oddly enough, the Venezuelan channel designates the Russian Army as the source of these claims whereas the Russian channel attributes them to President Chávez.”
While these elements were faithfully relayed by numerous newspapers, especially in the Middle East, they were distorted by the Atlanticist media which chose to reflect Sorcha Faal’s article. Faal pulled certain fragments from the VivéTv text, and by adding inverted commas put them into Hugo Chávez’s mouth. What was initially intended as a working hypothesis has been converted into the Government’s position. Some of these media outlets went so far as to completely fabricate the context in which President Chávez expressed himself, pointedly implying that the President and his audience suffer from acute anti-american frenzy and that Voltaire Network shares the same ailment. But instead of yielding to this manipulation, let us go deeper into this hypothesis.
How much do we know about seismic weapons at present?
During the Second World War, a group of New Zealand researchers attempted to develop a device capable of provoking tsunamis that could be unleashed against Japan. The research work was conducted by Thomas Leech, an Australian national, at Auckland University behind the code name of “Project Seal”. Several small-scale test explosions were carried out successfully, between 1944 and 1945, at Whangaparaoa off the coast of Auckland.
The United States deemed this programme to be as equally promising as the “Manhattan Project”, involving the development of the atomic bomb, and appointed Dr. Karl T. Compton to maintain the liaison between the two research units. Compton was an American physicist and president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1930 to 1948.
The work started by Thomas Leech was pursued during the Cold War. In 1947, King George VI elevated him to the rank of Knight of the British Empire for his role in the elaboration of this new weapon. At the time, Project Seal was still a military secret and it was therefore not disclosed that Thomas Leech had in fact been rewarded for concocting the “tsunami bomb”. Subsequently, the US intelligence services covered it up by claiming that the research had never really existed and that the whole thing had been an artifice to impress the Soviets. However, the authenticity of Leech’s tests was established in 1999, when the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs declassified part of the documentation. The research studies are officially back on track and taking place at the University of Waikato. [2]
It is not known whether the research undertaken by the Anglo-Saxons continued during the 60’s, but it was resumed by force of circumstances when atmospheric nuclear tests were abandoned in favour of sub-marine tests. The United States were afraid of provoking earthquakes and tsunamis unintentionally. They preferred to learn how to do it intentionally.
Officially, at the end of the Vietnam War, the United States and the Soviet Union gave up environmental wars (earthquakes, tsunamis, environmental balance destabilization, atmospheric modification – clouds, rain, cyclones, tornadoes -, modification of the climate, ocean currents, the ozone layer and the ionosphere) upon signing the 1976 “Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques”.
Nevertheless, in 1975, the USSR embarked on a new research, this time in the field of Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) for the purpose of studying the earth’s crust and be able to anticipate earthquakes. The Soviets examined the possibility of provoking small quakes in order to forestall a big one. This research was quickly militarized and resulted in the construction of Pamir, the earthquake machine.
After the dismemberment of the USSR, those in charge of this programme decided to go to the United States for lure of money, but the Pentagon refused to pay them since their research was incomplete. In 1995, when Russia was governed by Boris Yeltsin and oligarch Viktor Chernomyrdin, the US Air Force recruited the researchers working at their Nizhny Novgorod laboratory. They built a much more powerful machine, Pamir 3, that was tested successfully. At that point, the Pentagon bought the men together with the material and shipped them to the United States, where they were incorporated into the HAARP programme.
Machine a tremblement de terre ! par lorelianeGTQ “The Earthquake Machine”, excerpt from a French television Channel 5 programme, based on a documentary by Jeff Swimmer “Les colères du climat” (The wrath of climate) aired on National Geographic (2005)…
Various instances where the seismic weapon might have been employed have been contemplated, especially in Algeria and Turkey. However, the most discussed one is the 12 May 2008 earthquake in Sichuan (China). During the 30 minutes that preceded the earthquake, the inhabitants of the region observed atypical colours in the sky. While some interpreted these events as a sign that the sky was repudiating the Communist Party, others reacted in a more rational way. The same energy used to provoke the earthquake is also likely to have perturbed the ionosphere.
30 minutes before the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China…
Nothing distinguishes an artificial earthquake from a natural one; this being said, they have the knowhow to induce only superficial earthquakes, like the one in Haiti.
What is particularly disturbing is the reaction of the United States. While the Western media are immersed in a controversy over the violation of Haiti’s sovereignty, the Latin American media are perplexed about the swiftness of GI deployment: as of the first day, more than 10000 soldiers and contractors arrived in Haiti. This logistical feat can be easily explained since these troops were already pre-positioned in the context of a military exercise. Under the orders of General P.K. Keen, Military Deputy Commander of U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM), they took part in an excercise simulating a humanitarian operation in Haiti after a hurricane. Keen and his staff had arrived a few days earlier. At the precise moment that the earth shook, they were already sheltered in the US Embassy, built in compliance with anti-earthquake norms; only two men who were not at the Embassy but at the Hotel Montana have been reported injured.
General Keen has granted several interviews to the US media, which has provided ample coverage mainly focusing on the relief operations. While Keen’s presence in Port-au-Prince during the earthquake has been referred to several times, the reasons for his presence were never mentioned.
Among the objectives of the military exercise was the application of a new software enabling the NGOs and the armed forces to coordinate their humanitarian efforts. In the few minutes that followed the catastrophe, the software was put on line and 280 NGOs readily signed up.
It is legitimate to question whether such coincidences are simply due to chance.
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: And the plot thickens in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake… – SJH
Link to original article below…
Bases, Missiles, & Wars: U.S. Consolidates Global Military Network
January 27, 2010: Rick Rozoff / Global Research – January 27, 2010
Afghanistan is occupying center stage at the moment, but in the wings are complementary maneuvers to expand a string of new military bases and missile shield facilities throughout Eurasia and the Middle East.
The advanced Patriot theater anti-ballistic missile batteries in place or soon to be in Egypt, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Poland, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates describe an arc stretching from the Baltic Sea through Southeast Europe to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and the Caucasus and beyond to East Asia. A semicircle that begins on Russia’s northwest and ends on China’s northeast.
Over the past decade the United States has steadily (though to much of the world imperceptibly) extended its military reach to most all parts of the world. From subordinating almost all of Europe to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization through the latter’s expansion into Eastern Europe, including the former Soviet Union, to arbitrarily setting up a regional command that takes in the African continent (and all but one of its 53 nations). From invading and establishing military bases in the Middle East and Central and South Asia to operating a satellite surveillance base in Australia and taking charge of seven military installations in South America. In the vacuum left in much of the world by the demise of the Cold War and the former bipolar world, the U.S. rushed in to insert its military in various parts of the world that had been off limits to it before. And this while Washington cannot even credibly pretend that it is threatened by any other nation on earth.
It has employed a series of tactics to accomplish its objective of unchallenged international armed superiority, using an expanding NATO to build military partnerships not only throughout Europe but in the Caucasus, the Middle East, North and West Africa, Asia and Oceania as well as employing numerous bilateral and regional arrangements.
The pattern that has emerged is that of the U.S. shifting larger concentrations of troops from post-World War II bases in Europe and Japan to smaller, more dispersed forward basing locations south and east of Europe and progressively closer to Russia, Iran and China.
The ever-growing number of nations throughout the world being pulled into Washington’s military network serve three main purposes…
Link to entire article below…
What’s Really Going On In Haiti? Another Crime Against Humanity!
January 27, 2010: Chuck Baldwin / Infowars – January 26, 2010
People of goodwill everywhere are rightly sympathetic to the plight of hundreds of thousands of innocent Haitians in the aftermath of the terrible earthquake that rocked the island country. Private donations and volunteer efforts are pouring into Haiti from all over the globe–especially from the United States. This is a good thing, right? So, why am I troubled?
Simply put, I cannot remember such an all-out “relief effort” by our nation’s military and government forces following a natural disaster anywhere–ever! Not even New Orleans, Louisiana, and surrounding Gulf Coast communities here in the homeland received the kind of attention from Washington, D.C., that Haiti is receiving.
According to Agence France-Press (AFP), “The US military is ramping up its mission in quake-hit Haiti, with 20,000 US troops expected to operate on ground and offshore by Sunday [January 24], the US commander overseeing the region said.”
No doubt, this would include ships and personnel from the USS Carl Vinson carrier group. Cost to US taxpayers to send an entire carrier group–along with more than 20,000 (so far) military personnel–to Haiti already numbers in the multiplied millions of dollars. It is also almost certain that there will be no quick exit from the island nation. There never is. In other words, our military presence (dare I say occupation?) in Haiti will doubtless last for years. At least, that’s the way Latin American and European countries see it. And they are probably right. Suffice it to say that the United States military is now completely in charge in Haiti.
At this point, it would be very enlightening for everyone to read Walter Williams’ column dated January 20, 2010, entitled “Haiti’s Avoidable Death Toll.”
See Walter’s column at: http://tinyurl.com/haiti-avoidable-death
In short, Williams notes that the high death toll in Haiti is directly related to the inferior political/economic philosophies of the Haitian government. There is no economic liberty, which has relegated it to being one of the world’s poorest nations, with no opportunity to build the kind of homes and businesses that can withstand natural disasters. Williams is right when he says, “President Barack Obama called the quake ‘especially cruel and incomprehensible.’ He would be closer to the truth if he had said that the Haitian political and economic climate that make Haitians helpless in the face of natural disasters are ‘especially cruel and incomprehensible.’”
Williams also observes, “Corruption is rampant” in Haiti. Crime is, likewise, ubiquitous in Haiti, with little real law enforcement. Private property rights are nonexistent. Like many (if not most) third world countries, people live in tyranny and bondage to insensitive, power-mad strongmen who use up the country’s resources for their own selfish purposes. Tyranny always impoverishes people; freedom enriches them.
Williams rightly concludes, “Haiti’s disaster demands immediate Western assistance but it’s only the Haitian people who can relieve themselves of the deeper tragedy of self-inflicted poverty.” Amen.
All of that said, however, there are still several things bugging me about the Haiti story…
For one thing, why was an earthquake of this magnitude not felt beyond Port-au-Prince? (The only reports saying tremors were felt out of Haiti belong to US-controlled sources.) All of the testimonies that I have read from people living in the adjoining country of the Dominican Republic (which shares the same island with Haiti) that were quoted by French, British, or Spanish outlets universally say they felt nothing. If the foreign press is reporting the story accurately, the devastation was almost exclusively contained in and around Port-au-Prince. That is very strange to me. Even most of the roads reportedly remained open after the quake.
Another oddity is the fact that this earthquake did not produce a tsunami. It is being called “miraculous” that an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter Scale did not produce a colossal tsunami, which would have affected everyone in the region.
Furthermore, does the French government know something that we don’t–but should? According to a report of the Global Analysis International Intelligence (GAII), “Not coincidentally, Agence France-Press (AFP), which of course is closely affiliated with French intelligence, filed a report on 14th January which contained the following concluding sentence:
“‘On Wednesday, Obama ordered a “swift, coordinated and aggressive effort to save lives” in Haiti following the murderous quake, as a massive US aid mission swung into action, using troops, naval forces, aircraft and rescue teams.’ “FACT: An ‘act of God,’ or natural calamity, is NOT a ‘murderous quake.’ “The use of the word MURDEROUS here implies that someone is doing the MURDERING.”
GAII further speculates that the earthquake may have been the work of US Black Ops, which “flattened the French embassy and many of its officials, imploded the United Nations’ own establishments in the Haitian capital, and no doubt obliterated evidence of US Government and rogue official drug-running complicity . . . channeled through the Haitian capital for many years.”
See the intelligence report at: http://tinyurl.com/gaii-haiti
Intelligence reports are also circulating about the possible disruption of liens and seizures of trillions of dollars by the international community relative to past crimes committed by former Presidents George Bush I and II, and Bill Clinton, which were being channeled through Haiti’s Central Bank.
If any of this is even remotely true, it is certainly more than convenient that the Haitian capital was destroyed.
This particular part of the story is a real sore spot with me. And I know if I broach this topic, many readers (especially my Christian brethren who live under the delusion that the Bush family can do no wrong) will refuse to believe anything I report and will even take their anger and umbrage out on me. So be it.
I am personally convinced that certain members of the Bush and Clinton families have been involved in the international smuggling of illicit drugs for decades. I have spoken in confidence with those who were in positions to know, and they have emphatically told me that both then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton and then-President George H.W. Bush were complicit in CIA-assisted drug running out of Mena, Arkansas. (You don’t think I would say this if I did not have absolute confidence in the integrity and credibility of these sources, do you? Plus, why would they tell me this at potential great harm to themselves, if it were not true? And, no, I cannot divulge their names, for obvious reasons.) And there is absolutely no reason to believe that similar operations are not ongoing. In my opinion, it would be utterly naïve to think otherwise.
After all, it has been often reported that the CIA used Army Special Forces troops to facilitate the smuggling of drugs out of Indochina during the Vietnam War, has it not? Yes, it has. That rogue elements within the US government would use war–or even earthquakes–as cover and facilitation for illegal drug smuggling or money laundering would not surprise me one bit…
I realize it is extremely difficult for many Americans to contemplate that members of their own federal government could be evil enough to be involved in anything such as is implied above. According to the thinking of many Americans, evil people only live in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, or North Korea. And, of course, that is exactly what government propagandists want us to believe.
The truth is, no country or people has a monopoly on sin. As the prophet Jeremiah was inspired to say, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) The Apostle Paul agreed. He told the Philippians, “We . . . have no confidence in the flesh.” (Philippians 3:3)
Thomas Jefferson said virtually the same thing when he said, “In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”
This is why Jefferson and the rest of America’s founders insisted that we should be diligent to hold our civil magistrates accountable to the limits and protections of the US Constitution. They well understood the sentiments so wisely expressed by Lord Acton, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” Christians, of all people, should understand this.
So, why are so many of us so quick to believe everything our government and their toadies in the national media are telling us? Are we so naïve as to believe that unregenerate politicians in Washington, D.C., are incapable of the same evil acts of barbarity and savagery that might be found in other parts of the world? Are sinners less sinful because they happened to receive their fallen nature from American bloodlines?
Am I saying that Black Ops personnel manufactured the earthquake in Haiti–and killed tens of thousands of people in the process–for the purpose of hiding or facilitating illegal activity? No, I am not. How in the world would I know it, even if it were true?
What I am saying is that, once again, for me, there are many things that do not add up regarding what is going on in Haiti. The way the earthquake behaved; the lack of related seismic and tsunamic activity usually associated with earthquakes of this magnitude; the unprecedented involvement of US military forces being used for “relief efforts” even as commanders are desperate to fill combat theaters in Iraq and Afghanistan; the occupation of another independent nation, which occurred at lightning speed; the vast sums of US taxpayer dollars being expended; the devastation done to key Haitian governmental and banking institutions–which were known to be conduits for international financial disbursements–with virtually no devastation experienced anywhere else; and intelligence reports of surreptitious activity circulating all over Europe and Latin America all add up to one big question, What’s really going on in Haiti?
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: As I stated from the very beginning of this catastrophic disaster, it had all the signatures of being manufactured (HAARP?). Now, as time agonizingly passes for the devastated people of Haiti, more and more evidence is beginning to surface that indeed that was the horrific case. When the Lord Jesus Christ was asked what to look for at the end of times, the Lord responded…
“For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers (diverse) places.” – Matthew 24:7 KJV
God help us all as we enter these treacherous times. It is high time to awaken to the truth… – SJH
Link to original article below…
Obama Regime Orders World Bank To Keep Third World In Poverty
January 26, 2010: Paul Joseph Watson / Prison Planet – January 26, 2010
Under the provably fraudulent and completely corrupted justification of fighting global warming, the Obama administration has ordered the World Bank to keep “developing” countries underdeveloped by blocking them from building coal-fired power plants, ensuring that poorer countries remain in poverty as a result of energy demands not being met.
Even amidst the explosive revelations of the United Nations IPCC issuing reports on the Himalayan Glaciers and the Amazon rainforest littered with incorrect data, the U.S. government has “Stepped up pressure on the World Bank not to fund coal-fired power plants in developing countries,” reports the Times of India.
The order was made by U.S. Executive Director of the World Bank Whitney Debevoise, who represents the United States in considering all loans, investments, country assistance strategies, budgets, audits and business plans of the World Bank Group entities.
By preventing poor nations from becoming self-sufficient in blocking them from producing their own energy, the Obama administration is ensuring that millions more will die from starvation and lack of access to hospitals and medical treatment.
Not only does strangling the energy supply to poorer countries prevent adequate food distribution and lead to more starvation, but hospitals and health clinics in the third world are barely even able to operate as a result of the World Bank and other global bodies ordering them to be dependent on renewable energy supplies that are totally insufficient.
A prime example appeared in the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, which highlighted how a Kenyan health clinic could not operate a medical refrigerator as well as the lights at the same time because the facility was restricted to just two solar panels.
The Great Global Warming Swindle
“There’s somebody keen to kill the African dream. And the African dream is to develop,” said author and economist James Shikwati. “I don’t see how a solar panel is going to power a steel industry … We are being told, ‘Don’t touch your resources. Don’t touch your oil. Don’t touch your coal.’ That is suicide.”
The program labels the idea of restricting the world’s poorest people to alternative energy sources as “the most morally repugnant aspect of the global warming campaign.”
As we have previously highlighted, the implementation of policies arising out of fraudulent fearmongering and biased studies on global warming is already devastating the third world, with a doubling in food prices causing mass starvation and death.
Poor people around the world, “Are being killed in large numbers by starvation as a result of (climate change) policy,” climate skeptic Lord Monckton told the Alex Jones Show last month, due to huge areas of agricultural land being turned over to the growth of biofuels.
“Take Haiti where they live on mud pie with real mud costing 3 cents each….that’s what they’re living or rather what they’re dying on,” said Monckton, relating how when he gave a speech on this subject, a lady in the front row burst into tears and told him, “I’ve just come back from Haiti – now because of the doubling in world food prices, they can’t even afford the price of a mud pie and they’re dying of starvation all over the place.”
As a National Geographic Report confirmed, “With food prices rising, Haiti’s poorest can’t afford even a daily plate of rice, and some must take desperate measures to fill their bellies,” by “eating mud,” partly as a consequence of “increasing global demand for biofuels.”
In April 2008, World Bank President Robert Zoellick admitted that biofuels were a “significant contributor” to soaring food prices that have led to riots in countries such as Haiti, Egypt, the Philippines, and even Italy.
“We estimate that a doubling of food prices over the last three years could potentially push 100 million people in low-income countries deeper into poverty,” he stated.
Even if we are to accept the fact [(???) - Emphasis mine] that overpopulation will be a continuing problem in the third world, the very means by which poorer countries would naturally lower their birth rates, by being allowed to develop their infrastructure, is being blocked by global institutions who craft policies designed to keep the third world in squalor and poverty.
This goes to the very heart of what the real agenda behind the global warming movement really is – a Malthusian drive to keep the slaves oppressed and prevent the most desperate people on the planet from pulling themselves out of destitution and despair.
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: Are all you fake environmentalists and global warming/climate change zombies getting the picture yet? Here’s some more evidence that it’s all a genocidal fraud. Chew on this for awhile… http://stevenjohnhibbs.wordpress.com/category/global-warming-climate-change/ - SJH
Link to original article below…
