August 9, 2014 - No. 27

Supreme Court Delivers Colonial Justice

Grassy Narrows First Nation
Continues Fight for Rights



Grassy Narrows First Nation march and rally at Queen's Park, July 31, 2014,
defends rights and opposes clearcutting of their lands.


Land Ruling's Message to First Nations:
You Have No Place in Confederation

- Hayden King -

Who Said What
Ontario First Nations Assert Sovereignty
- Chiefs of Ontario -

Canada Joins Sanctions Against Russia
Reject Canada's Warmongering


Further Interference in the
Internal Affairs of Sovereign Countries
Dirty Activities of Canadian Embassy in Venezuela

Rejection of New U.S. Subversion Plan in Cuba

Sixth BRICS Summit Held in Brazil
Growing Opposition to the International Dictate of U.S. Imperialism
Fortaleza Declaration and Action Plan (Extracts)

For Your Information
U.S. President Obama's Westpoint Speech:
Further Institutionalizing U.S. Interference and Annexation
- Voice of Revolution -
The Return of George Orwell and Big Brother's War:
On Israel, Ukraine and Truth

- John Pilger -



Supreme Court Delivers Colonial Justice

Grassy Narrows First Nation
Continues Fight for Rights


Grassy Narrows has for over a decade carried out road blockade actions to prevent logging on their lands. Photo is from a 2006 blockade.

On July 11, the Supreme Court of Canada, in a 7-0 unanimous decision, ruled against the Ojibway of the Grassy Narrows First Nation (Asubpeechoseewagong) in a landmark case concerning First Nations' treaty rights.

Grassy Narrows First Nation challenged "Ontario's jurisdiction to unilaterally award logging and mining licences on a vast tract of Treaty 3 lands north of the English River (the Keewatin Lands). In Treaty 3, signed in 1873, Canada promised to respect the right of the Ojibway to hunt and fish in their territory. However, Ontario continues to plan for clearcut logging throughout Grassy Narrows' Territory that will seriously limit Grassy Narrows' rights, and has finalized a new 10-year Forest Management Plan for Grassy Narrows' Territory that includes numerous large clearcuts permitted by Ontario against Grassy Narrows' will."

Grassy Narrows was joined in the action by Wabauskang First Nation which has experienced logging as well as extensive mining developments in their traditional territory. These two First Nations argued that since the Treaty was signed with the Dominion of Canada, the province of Ontario had no unilateral right to take or encroach indigenous lands for development.

The Supreme Court disagreed. It stated that Ontario had the right to "take up land" for commercial purposes as long as it met certain standards for consulting, accommodating, compensating and justifying the reason for doing so, but did not make a determination if in the case of the Grassy Narrows First Nation, these standards were met. More importantly, the Supreme Court did not take up the meaning of Treaty 3, nor did it look into the Paypom document, which was the Ojibway understanding of the treaty, the basis on which the trial judge at the Ontario Superior Court had found in favour of the Grassy Narrows First Nation in 2011.


Grassy Narrows youth participate in Idle No More Day of Action, January 10, 2013.

Mining Watch Canada points out: "In her 2011 ruling in favour of Grassy Narrows, Ontario Superior Court Justice Sanderson had harsh words for Ontario's approach to Treaty rights: 'Ontario's approach to this litigation, while pleasantly civil, was strongly adversarial. Always focusing on its own proprietary rights, it downplayed the plain and clear reference in the Harvesting Clause to Canada. It characterized as a "mistake" what I have found to be [the Treaty Commissioners'] deliberate attempt to protect the Harvesting Rights of the Ojibway.' This judgement was subsequently challenged by the Ontario Liberals and overturned by the Ontario Court of Appeal in 2013."

The Supreme Court decision against the Grassy Narrows First Nation on the basis of a legal interpretation of Treaty 3, not a contextual one, gives the Ontario government the upper hand. It comes at a time when mining, logging and natural resource monopolies are licking their chops to exploit and enrich themselves at the expense of the First Nations across Canada, and provides governments in the service of these resource monopolies more leverage to use against the First Nations.

This decision has implications beyond Grassy Narrows and gives the federal and provincial governments more power to violate First Nations' treaty rights and champion monopoly right in the name of "prosperity of Ontario," the "future of Canada" and other disinformation. In this way, the Supreme Court has sanctioned continued violations of the hereditary and treaty rights of First Nations, and the theft of their lands and resources are given a veneer of legality. As well, the legal burden will be upon First Nations to use their often limited financial resources to pursue justice through the courts.

The Grassy Narrows First Nation has always defended its right to self-determination and has stood for the sustainable development of their lands and resources with a view of stewarding Mother Earth and ensuring a bright future for its members and all Ontarians.

In the wake of the Supreme Court decision, the Grassy Narrows First Nation stated that it will "fight to protect our lands and our people" and "continue to resist the expansion of unsustainable industrial logging in our territory." This is what is decisive, not the narrow ruling of the Supreme Court. It is in the united battle for the rights of the First Nations, the nation of Quebec and the people of Canada that the political and economic system in Canada will be renewed with a new direction in the economy and a modern constitution which enshrines the rights of First Nations and all people in a modern, democratic confederation.

(Source: freegrassy.net)

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Land Ruling's Message to First Nations:
You Have No Place in Confederation


Treaty 3 youth participate in action in Dryden, December 17, 2012.

The Numbered Treaties have always been contentious. First Nations view them as sharing agreements, while the federal and provincial governments as land surrenders. Amid a general refusal to earnestly discuss this gulf, the disputes end up in the courts, where there is an increasing perception of a First Nation winning streak. The Supreme Court's Tsilqot'in decision certainly reinforced that view. But if Tsilqot'in is a "game-changer" in the relationship between provinces, industry and First Nations in non-treaty areas, last week's Grassy Narrows decision on areas where treaties do exist affirms that the rules are still effectively the same.

There are two features of the decision that underwrite this belief. First, the court has recognized provincial government power to violate treaties. In Grassy Narrows v. Ontario, the Supreme Court suggested that since the province has jurisdiction over lands and resources, "owning the land" as the court said, they should have ultimate authority. So while First Nations have traditionally understood treaties as nation-to-nation and viewed the provinces as junior partners in the relationship, the Supreme Court sees that arrangement inverted and treaty First Nations as subordinate.

The only check in the exercise of provincial power in treaty territory is "the burden" of obligations owed to First Nations. These are three: consultation on potential treaty infringements; accommodation in the case of adverse consequences arising from infringement; and a fiduciary duty, which is the courts' way of saying the province should minimize harm to First Nations. In this ruling the court does not comment on Ontario's record and relies on a past decision to guide the province in alleviating its burden. The result is effectively the status quo ante, which has bordered on apocalyptic.

Known as Asubpeechoseewagong to the Anishinaabe, the community has dealt with residential school and Indian Act trauma typical among Indigenous peoples in Canada. But they have also had their territory flooded by hydro-electric dams, been forced to re-locate their community, been nearly poisoned out of existence by mercury contamination from a pulp and paper mill, and now watch as the source of their food, medicine and a viable economy is hauled away in logging trucks. Instead of addressing this made-in-Ontario tragedy, the province has continued to view its right to issue timber licenses as greater than the Anishinaabeg right to feed themselves.

The additional problematic feature of the Supreme Court's decision is the shockingly one-sided understanding of history. In a very terse ruling there are two glaring omissions. In its understanding of Treaty #3, the court decided to rely on the text version as well as subsequent federal and provincial legislation.

It neglected to consider the perspectives of the Anishinaabeg, including the oral version or the Paypom treaty (Grassy Narrow's record of Treaty #3). Given the voluminous academic literature on the misleading nature of the written English versions of the Numbered Treaties, evacuating the understanding of the Anishinaabeg from interpretations of the treaty is simply unfair.

Unfortunately this is a theme in the decision. Reflecting on the history of land use in Ontario the court claimed that, "Ontario has exercised the power to take up lands for a period of over 100 years without any objection by the Ojibway." Yet the history of the relationship between Ontario and the Anishinaabeg (as well as most other First Nations in the province) has been a history of conflict. Physical confrontation, court cases and protests are all endemic features of provincial land and resource management. The long list of Anishinaabe people jailed in Ontario because of these conflicts [over] land is crystal clear evidence of their objections.

So while the case does implore provinces to consult, accommodate and honour treaties, the decision has a dark undertone: First Nations have no place in Confederation. If the province can infringe on the very treaties that led to its creation and which underwrite the existence of the country, there leaves little room for the so-called third order of government that many believe should be embodied by First Nations. Moreover, the courts have embraced a view of history where First Nations simply do not exist except as objects, or rather, burdens who must be managed by one level of government or another.

It is a disappointing decision with a number of implications. For provinces governed by the Numbered Treaties, the ruling means business as usual: consult, infringe, accommodate. For First Nations generally and especially those who do not have a treaty, the Grassy Narrows decision reinforces the Supreme Court's unstated position in Tsilhqot'in that there is more power to be leveraged where treaties do not exist. In the eyes of the Court, treaties and the accompanying extinguishment of title are a dead-end for First Nations. Finally, for Grassy Narrows, it means that their very long pursuit of justice goes on.

* Hayden King is Anishinaabe from Beausoleil First Nation on Gchi'mnissing in Huronia. He is the Director of the Centre for Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University.

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Who Said What


Following the Supreme Court Decision Concerning the Treaty Rights of Grassy Narrows First Nation on July 11, there was widespread opposition within and outside the community to the ruling.

J.B. Fobister, a Grassy Narrows hunter who initiated the original case against Ontario in 2005 noted that the people of Grassy Narrows "will fight to protect the health, welfare and culture of the people of Grassy Narrows using all tools available to us... Ontario and industry are morally and politically obliged to seek our consent before logging our lands. Our people will ensure that the government, public, corporations, and courts never forget the terrible effect that industrial logging has had on the health and welfare of our people."

Grassy Narrows Chief Roger Fobister pointed out: "We expect the Government of Ontario and Canada to learn from the last 10 years and come to the table ready to deal with the real needs of our people which requires ensuring a sustainable future both environmentally and economically."

Chief Martine Petiquan of Wabauskang First Nation, the partner in the lawsuit with Grassy Narrows affirmed: "Our Treaty is with Canada. It is Canada that is responsible for fulfilling the promises made to the people of Treaty 3. We have always maintained, and will continue to affirm, that the federal government needs to be involved in ensuring that our Treaty rights are respected."

Edmond Jack, a 19-year old youth activist and trapper from Grassy Narrows stated "I will continue to exercise my rights and obligations to use and protect the land as I see fit, because I am still Anishinabe. It would seem that our right to speak for the land that we use to hunt and fish is at stake, but in reality that cannot be taken away; it is the health of the land itself that is at stake, and therefore the health of the people is at stake."

The Chiefs of Ontario (COO) noted that the Supreme Court's decision "was a breach of Canada's obligations to uphold international laws/standards and undermines Indigenous laws that have already been in place for centuries." Grand Chief Stan Beardy of the COO noted: "The question that is being missed today is how did Canada and Ontario come to say they have decision-making power over First Nations' homelands in the first place? Please, let us not forget how the Treaties validated First Nations' Nationhood prior to Canada becoming a country, and prior to having a Supreme Court." He added: "Respectful resource development requires collaborative decision making respectful of First Nations original title, laws and Assertions. This respect requires Ontario to exceed the duty to consult and accommodate referenced in the Supreme Court's decision."

Regional Chief for Saskatchewan Perry Bellegarde, who holds the Treaty portfolio for the Assembly of First Nations, stated, "I remain unconvinced that justice will be achieved through Canada's domestic courts when it comes to the interpretation of our international Treaties. We are dismayed that the Supreme Court failed to recognize the First Nations' understanding of Treaty 3 including First Nations' jurisdiction over this territory. Today's decision illustrates two important issues. First, it is essential that our Treaties, which are international in nature, be guided by international standards and mechanisms. Second, the ruling today reinforced the requirement of the Crown to consult and accommodate. Again, given the snail's pace at which the provinces are moving on their duty to consult and accommodate, this also needs to be addressed according to international standards as affirmed in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples."

(Sources: biggrassy.ca,, www.chiefs-of-ontario.org, www.tworowtimes.com, www.afn.ca)

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Notice of Assertions

Ontario First Nations Assert Sovereignty

The following is a short list that establishes the basis for parties to engage with First Nations based on First Nations inherent and Treaty rights and jurisdictions. All those seeking to access or use First Nations lands or resources have, at a minimum, a duty to enquire, engage and consult in a manner consistent with the standard of free, prior and informed consent.

First Nations will take appropriate steps to enforce these assertions.

Purpose

By this Notice of Assertions, the First Nations whose territories and lands are within the boundaries of the Province of Ontario (hereafter: First Nations), give formal notice to the Province of Ontario and Canada, to other governments, to resource users and developers, to neighbours and the general public that First Nations inherent and Treaty rights are currently and will continue to be asserted over traditional and historical territory, and ancestral lands. These rights include, but are not limited to, those re-affirmed by Section 35 of the Constitution of Canada and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

This Notice has been adopted by the Chiefs-in-Assembly, comprised of leadership from First Nations throughout Ontario, by Resolution on the date of June 11, 2014.

This First Nations assertion is based upon the Treaties and Covenant Chains established with the Crown. These Treaties were made between sovereign, independent Nations who, based on mutual recognition of obligations, reached agreements.

Like the Constitution of Canada, the Treaties are living and continue to inform our ongoing relationship with other governments. The Treaties impart benefit upon each party, who must also accept the obligations attached to these benefits.

The purpose of the Notice is to assert that these Treaties still govern the relationship between the Crown and First Nations. This Notice does not lay out an exhaustive list of rights; rather, it sets forward several principles and understandings related to lands and resources. This Notice is without prejudice to the rights, titles or claims of any individual First Nation.

Self-Determination

As has been asserted by First Nations and re-affirmed by Canada through ratification of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, all First Nations have the right to self-determination. Consistent with the right to self-determination, First Nations have the right to assert jurisdiction over lands and resources and, consistent with these jurisdictions, govern their lands and resources in accordance to traditional and inherent laws.

Territory and Ancestral Lands

Treaties recognize that the lands of Turtle Island have historically been and are currently held by First Nations. First Nations have never ceded title to these lands, as was the understanding of the leaders of the sovereign First Nations who entered the Treaties. First Nations continue to hold and to assert rights and interests in their original territories and ancestral lands just as prior to any Treaty with the Crown.

Resources

First Nations maintain rights to resources within traditional territories.

These resources include, but are not limited to: fish, trees, wildlife, mines, minerals, waters, biological resources, medicines and plants.

First Nations have the right to access, manage and develop these resources.

First Nations have the right to derive benefit from these resources. First Nations have the right to determine third party use of these resources and the conditions under which third parties may access or use these resources. First Nations have the right to grant or withhold free, prior and informed consent on any activity that may affect First Nations resources or their rights or title related to these resources. First Nations may determine management, use and access consistent with traditional laws and governance.

Relationships

First Nations seek to proceed on the basis of mutual respect and to seek mutual understanding. While unyielding in the assertion of rights, First Nations will seek to build consensus with one another on local matters related to the assertion of rights and claims, and will enter into good faith dialogue to inform non-First Nations parties of their duties and obligations as per the Treaties.

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Canada Joins Sanctions Against Russia

Reject Canada's Warmongering

The U.S., European Union, Norway, Australia, Japan and Canada have announced sanctions against Russian companies, economic sectors and individuals. The sanctions against leading Russian government and economic personalities inhibit their ability to travel. The economic sanctions against Russian corporations and sectors will limit their capacity to raise capital in U.S. and European markets, to import and export certain commodities, and generally to engage in business with the sanctioning countries. The financial sanctions in particular can have repercussions beyond bilateral relations with the sanctioning countries, as U.S. dollar hegemony can exercise its power and influence almost everywhere in the world.

The reasons given for the anti-Russian sanctions vary with each country. The Harper dictatorship has been the most vociferous and warmongering in its statements, accusing the Russian Federation of aggression in Ukraine and personally slandering President Putin. Harper has been leading the Canadian mass media to generate a sense of hysteria amongst the people that war with Russia may be necessary to protect conservative fundamentalist values and Canada's national interests. To this end, Harper has loudly taken sides in the political disputes shaking the Ukrainian Federation, sending money and military equipment to the faction that recently seized power in a coup d'état in the capital Kiev.

The Kiev coup violently ousted the elected President and is now waging war against eastern Ukraine, where many demand a renewed federal structure with increased regional autonomy. The coup regime's war against Ukrainians in the east has killed almost a thousand people, caused the downing of a foreign civilian aircraft, destroyed much of the area's infrastructure and forced 800,000 refugees fleeing the military onslaught of Kiev's bombs and artillery shells to seek shelter in neighbouring Russia.

In retaliation for the sanctions, the Russian Federation has announced a one-year ban of agricultural products coming from the sanctioning countries, except Japan. This ban will significantly hurt Canada's pork industry, whose growing sales to Russia have made it the third largest foreign pork market.

Sanctions are a political weapon in the hands of the most powerful countries. U.S. imperialism has used sanctions extensively since the beginning of the twentieth century to extend its Empire, smash the resistance of nations struggling to escape its economic and political grip, and to isolate and strangle the Soviet Union. Sanctions are of little use for smaller countries as their trading capacity is limited unless they are used in cooperation with many others, such as what occurred to help bring down the racist apartheid regime in South Africa.

Powerful countries often expand sanctions into a blockade such as the infamous decades-long U.S. blockade of Cuba, the U.S.-led blockade of Iraq, which killed hundreds of thousands of children and weakened the country to the point of collapse, and the U.S. genocidal blockade of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in collaboration with the Zionist colonial entity and Egyptian military.

The political weapons of sanctions and blockades are often a prelude for war, occupation and annexation, as happened in Iraq, Yugoslavia and Libya. Those countries were small and not capable of defending themselves against the military might of U.S. imperialism and its empire-building collaborators. Attacking Russia with sanctions and talking in warlike terms to extend the politics of sanctions to a blockade and war, as the Harper dictatorship is doing, present the people with a different and very dangerous situation. Russia is not Iraq, Yugoslavia or Libya. Russia is a large country with a vast territory, resources and powerful military armed with nuclear weapons and the means to delivery those bombs anywhere in the world including Canada.

What does the Harper dictatorship hope to achieve with its warmongering agenda against Russia? Does it want war? Canadians should think about the situation carefully and discuss the politics surrounding Harper's warmongering. The people know about the contradictions and fighting in Ukraine mostly from what Harper and the mass media have been saying. Their depiction of the situation paints Russia as an aggressor bent on seizing control of the entire Ukraine, and those who won victory in the coup d'état in Kiev as virtuous saints defending democracy and similar fundamentalist values as Harper. The people's own experience teaches us that politics both here and abroad is never so simple.

In Canada, Harper tends to present every issue as the virtuous against the sinners. The virtuous are invariably those who hold positions of political and economic authority and privilege, while the sinners are those defending their rights, in particular the working class, the Quebec nation, First Nations and the most vulnerable. The Harper dictatorship is waging a non-stop battle to change Canada into a country where people defending their rights or even standing up for Mother Earth are criminalized.

If nothing else, Harper is very rigid in his thinking and actions. Knowing this and having experience with Harper inside Canada, would it not be a good thing to be very careful in accepting his arguments for sanctions and war against others?

The turmoil in the Ukraine is being played out more or less in all the former republics of the Soviet Union, as they find their way within the new conditions and as they struggle with the overbearing interference from agents of U.S. imperialism. Canadians may soon hear of struggles in Moldova and Armenia, which mirror those in Ukraine. In Ukraine, not only the eastern regions reject the coup regime in Kiev, even those in the west, such as many in Transcarpathia are questioning the direction being imposed on them. Ukraine is experiencing class struggle, imperialist interference and a fight over a new direction for the country. Certain elements in Ukraine have accepted the politics of annexation into the U.S. Empire and NATO, while others reject this line and want to build something else of their own doing independent of the big powers. Who are we to judge and interfere?

At any rate, it should come as no surprise that those in power in Ottawa, who have all but in name annexed Canada to U.S. imperialism, would be ranting about the glory and righteousness of bringing everyone all over the world into the U.S. Empire including Ukrainians and Russians.

Canadians are resisting the attacks on their rights and the anti-social offensive here in Canada and are striving for a pro-social direction for the country in opposition to and free from the influence of the U.S. Empire and the Harper fundamentalists. The people should reject Harper's warmongering politics abroad just as strenuously as they reject his anti-social and sellout politics in Canada.

Peace-loving Canadians of all lifestyles, occupations and backgrounds should unite in opposition to Harper's politics of war, and organize to build momentum towards a pro-social anti-war government.

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Condemn the Use of "Smart Power" to Interfere in
the Internal Affairs of Sovereign Countries!

Dirty Activities of Canadian Embassy in Venezuela

Opposition is being raised in Venezuela to the activities of the Canadian embassy and its new ambassador to Venezuela, Ben Rowswell. Rowswell was appointed by Stephen Harper at the end of February 2014 without a lot of fanfare and took up his new post in Caracas in March.

Mision Verdad, a blog from Venezuela described by its authors as providing "information to inform and expose" free from the manipulation that characterizes the media controlled by the rich, recently carried a report on the activities of Canada's new ambassador to Venezuela, titled "Who is the Canadian Ambassador to Venezuela?" One of the first questions it poses is why would Canada assign one of its "heavy" cadres, whose past assignments include some of the worst conflict zones in the world, to be its new representative in Venezuela?

The blog notes that Roswell's arrival in mid-March coincided with the suspension of Air Canada flights to Venezuela "for security reasons" and came shortly after the passing of a resolution in the House of Commons related to Venezuela. The resolution in question was sponsored by NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar and received unanimous consent from all parties in the House. It effectively condemned the Venezuelan government based on spurious claims of dubious "human rights defenders" linked to the reactionary forces in Venezuela behind protests taking place at the time to destabilize the country.

The report then provides information on what Rowswell, described as "an expert in conflict management" and "statebuilding," has been doing since the early 1990s. Perhaps most relevant to his assignment in Venezuela, it points out that "while he monitored 'democratic transitions' in Afghanistan, Iraq and Egypt, the young attaché specialized in the use of social media for diplomatic missions to interact directly with non-state actors, dodging the government of the nation." (See TML Daily, March 28, 2014, for further background information.)

Well-known Venezuelan journalist and former Vice-President during the first term of President Hugo Chavez, José Vicente Rangel, has also recently exposed and denounced dirty activities reportedly taking place at the Canadian embassy. In the July 6 edition of his weekly television program on Televen, he said there were reports of members of an important, internationally known intelligence agency being brought into Venezuela through Canada's diplomatic mission. Based on intelligence reports, he said, it was estimated that in the past three months some 30 agents specialized in destabilizing activities had entered Venezuela that way. He said they then obtain status in the country through a firm that provides such services to large companies operating in the country. It is run by an ex-military official who was among those who set up a protest camp in a wealthy area of Caracas in 2002 after the failed coup attempt against the government of President Hugo Chavez by military and political forces linked to the United States. More and more the Canadian embassy seems to be engaging in strange activities against the constitutional government of Venezuela, Rangel said.

The Mision Verdad article reports that in response to Rangel's revelations the Canadian embassy categorically denied the charges, dismissing them as a "pure invention." However even as Rowswell was denying the charges publicly, the Embassy was holding one of its direct diplomacy activities for a number of invited NGOs to "talk about human rights."

The article notes that while Rowswell makes it sound like the direct democracy initiatives of the Canadian embassy accept all opinions, regardless of invitees' political views, the perspective of the Canadian government is clear as shown in its monolithic support of the decisions of the United States on the global geopolitical stage. This includes Canada's membership in NATO, the role it plays in the OAS and the UN and its support for some of the world's biggest mining companies like Barrick Gold as they ravage countries like Colombia, Peru and Argentina.

(Translated from original Spanish by TML.)

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Rejection of New U.S. Subversion Plan in Cuba

On August 5, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement demanding that the U.S. end its subversive plans aimed at the Cuban government. It stated, "Once again confirmed are the Cuban government's reiterated condemnations of subversive plans which the United States government continues to carry out in Cuba." The statement followed reports from a U.S. news agency of a project financed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), with the objective of negatively influencing Cuban youth. This project, which the United States government shamelessly admits having designed and executed, attempted to convert young Cubans, identified by Latin American emissaries recruited for this purpose, into political actors and organize them to take action against the Cuban government. These reports follow those released in April about the Zunzuneo undercover operation.

The Cuban government states: "These acts reconfirm that the United States government has not renounced its hostile, interventionist strategy in Cuba, meant to create destabilizing situations and provoke change in our political order, and to which millions of dollars are destined every year.

"The United States government must immediately end all subversive, illegal undercover operations in Cuba, which violate our sovereignty and the express will of the Cuban people to perfect our economic and social model, and consolidate our democracy."

Granma International reports that the characteristics of this new subversive project place it within the scope of non-conventional aggression against Cuba, stating that this type of warfare seeks to engineer change of regime in countries that the United States considers to be hostile to its interests, seeking change without direct intervention of traditional military forces, at a much lesser cost to the aggressor country but not to the victim.

The program was initiated shortly after the inauguration of US President Barack Obama in 2008, when the president spoke publicly of a "new beginning" in U.S.-Cuban relations, Radio Havana Cuba notes.

"The idea of orthodox military conflict with the use of fighter and bomber planes, tanks and other conventional war machines devouring both land and lives is still current in US military thinking, but non-conventional aggression is gaining space in the plans of the world's main imperialist power. ...[USAID], an institution under the control of the US State Department, has become a preferred executor of a new type of hostile penetration. Cuba, of course, has never been absent from the list of targets, along with Syria, Libya and Venezuela," Radio Havana Cuba says.

The news agency AP revealed that the program has sent a dozen youth to Cuba, from Venezuela, Costa Rica and Peru reportedly to strengthen political opposition against the Cuban government.

Opposition to Attack on Cuba's Sovereignty

The Cuban Young Communist League (UJC), in a statement issued August 7, condemned the use of Latin American Youth in the USAID's project. "We, Cuban Young Communists, reject and condemn those maneuvers and reiterate our firmness against all attempts by the empire to unleash its dirty war against our nation."

The member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America -- Free Trade Agreement of the Peoples (ALBA-TCP) issued a special communiqué August 7 expressing their indignation at the interference of the U.S. in Cuba's internal affairs:

"This immoral project, which the United States government has cynically admitted to have designed and executed, confirms the hostile and interventionist nature of U.S. policy toward Cuba, and its intention of generating destabilization which would lead to the overthrowal of this sister country's political, economic and social order.

"ALBA-TCP repudiates this new plan directed against Cuba, and firmly demands that the United States cease its subversive, illegal undercover operations which violate the sovereignty and right of the Cuban people to self-determination.

"Member countries of ALBA-TCP express our strongest solidarity with the Republic of Cuba, and demand that the United States government respect the express will of the Cuban people to continue perfecting their social-economic model, and to consolidate their democracy without external interference."

U.S. legislators and health activists criticized Washington's plans to use an HIV-AIDS campaign in Cuba to carry out political activism, saying that such covert operations put U.S. health programs at risk in other parts of the world. According to documents prepared for the USAID financed and supervised program, cited by the Associated Press news agency, the HIV workshop was "the perfect excuse" to carry out political activity.

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, who heads a commission that supervises USAID's budget, said on Monday that the situation will be worse than irresponsible if the agency planned to design an HIV campaign with political aims.

Meanwhile, members of InterAction, an alliance for international assistance, said that the use of a group of people to do espionage under the umbrella of an HIV action is unacceptable and that the U.S. administration should never put at risk health or civic programs for the sake of conducting espionage.

(Radio Havana Cuba)

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Sixth BRICS Summit Held in Brazil

Growing Opposition to the International Dictate
of U.S. Imperialism


Leaders from BRICS countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, July 15, 2014.

Countries throughout the world are taking measures to defend their rights and interests against the predatory aim of U.S. imperialism to consolidate and expand its Empire. The BRICS formation of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa is an important step in uniting in action to resist the onslaught of U.S. imperialism and its axis of G7 fellow travellers.

The peoples of the world are resisting U.S. imperialism's subversion and manipulation of the United Nations and other international fora, such as the IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organization to serve its narrow interests and those of its most powerful monopolies. People everywhere are resisting U.S. imperialism's drumbeat of "Might Makes Right," its interference in their internal relations and incessant subversion of their economic, political, social and cultural affairs. The people are sick and tired of U.S. imperialism's continual use of predatory warfare, sanctions, blockades, U.S. dollar hegemony, spying and other acts of war and interference to force countries to submit to its dictate.

To strengthen resistance to the bullying and dictate of U.S. imperialism, to eradicate all remnants of colonialism, to provide a framework to promote the modern development of all countries and raise the standard of living of their people, especially those that have suffered exploitation and colonial oppression at the hands of the most powerful imperialists, and to provide an alternative, the BRICS countries met for their sixth Summit in the Brazilian city of Fortaleza and agreed on specific joint measures to defend themselves and build their economies.

Speaking to reporters prior to the summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, "Together we should think about a system of measures that would help prevent the harassment of countries that do not agree with some foreign policy decisions made by the United States and their allies, but would promote a civilised dialogue on all points at issue based on mutual respect."

A BRICS Summit press release says, "The leaders of the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Russian Federation, the Republic of India, the People's Republic of China and the Republic of South Africa, met in Fortaleza, Brazil on July 15, 2014 at the Sixth BRICS Summit." The leaders meeting concluded the discussions of the Summit and produced the Fortaleza Declaration and other important decisions and documents, which are available at http://brics6.itamaraty.gov.br/.

A BRICS statement says, "In Brasília, on the 16th, a working session was held between the Leaders of BRICS and the Heads of State and/or Government of South America. The dialogue between BRICS Leaders and their South American counterparts reflects the priority accorded to developing countries in the BRICS outreach strategy."


Leaders of BRICS and the Heads of State and/or Government of South America Meeting
in Brasília on July 16.

The content and tone of the Fortaleza Declaration and Action Plan and its practical politics for an alternative to U.S. imperialist dictate are evident in article 27, which reads, "We will continue our joint efforts in coordinating positions and acting on shared interests on global peace and security issues for the common well-being of humanity. We stress our commitment to the sustainable and peaceful settlement of disputes, according to the principles and purposes of the UN Charter. We condemn unilateral military interventions and economic sanctions in violation of international law and universally recognized norms of international relations. Bearing this in mind, we emphasize the unique importance of the indivisible nature of security, and that no State should strengthen its security at the expense of the security of others."

Concrete measures taken to counter U.S. hegemony in world economic affairs and to create an alternative include the agreement to establish the New Development Bank with headquarters in Shanghai, China with an initial authorized capital of $100 billion, the Treaty for the establishment of the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement with an initial size of $100 billion, in part to provide liquidity through currency swaps to avoid problems caused with the pervasive and debilitating use of U.S. dollars in international trade and other financial transactions, and the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation among BRICS Export Credit and Guarantees Agencies.

About BRICS from Its Website

More than an acronym that identified countries emerging in the international economic order, BRICS became a new and promising political-diplomatic entity, far beyond the original concept tailored for the financial markets.

In Durban last year, the first cycle of Summits was completed, each member country having hosted a meeting of leaders. In this period, BRICS has evolved in an incremental manner, in areas of consensus amongst its members, strengthening its two main pillars: (i) coordination in multilateral fora, with a focus on economic and political governance; and (ii) cooperation between members.

Regarding the first pillar, the efforts towards reforming the structures of global governance, especially in the economic and financial fields -- Financial G-20, International Monetary Fund, World Bank -- receive a special emphasis, as well the reform of political institutions, such as the United Nations.

Intra-BRICS cooperation has also been gaining density: a broad agenda has been developed, comprising areas such as finance, agriculture, economy and trade, combating transnational crime, science and technology, health, education, corporate and academic dialogue and security, among others.

For Brazil, BRICS has a special significance: it comprises four of the country's strategic partners, all of which have a strong regional leadership and growing participation in the global economy. Brazil is now in charge of the group's presidency, and will lead the implementation of the Plan of Action. In view of BRICS' informal nature, the role of Secretariat is played by its pro tempore presidency. BRICS is cautiously and incrementally being consolidated, gradually moving forward the institution-building process.

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Fortaleza Declaration and Action Plan (Extracts)

1. ... To inaugurate the second cycle of BRICS Summits, the theme chosen for our discussions was "Inclusive Growth: Sustainable Solutions", in keeping with the inclusive macroeconomic and social policies carried out by our governments and the imperative to address challenges to humankind posed by the need to simultaneously achieve growth, inclusiveness, protection and preservation.

2. In the aftermath of the first cycle of five Summits, hosted by every BRICS member, our coordination is well established in various multilateral and plurilateral initiatives and intra-BRICS cooperation is expanding to encompass new areas. Our shared views and commitment to international law and to multilateralism, with the United Nations at its center and foundation, are widely recognized and constitute a major contribution to global peace, economic stability, social inclusion, equality, sustainable development and mutually beneficial cooperation with all countries.

3. We renew our openness to increasing engagement with other countries, particularly developing countries and emerging market economies, as well as with international and regional organizations, with a view to fostering cooperation and solidarity in our relations with all nations and peoples. To that effect, we will hold a joint session with the leaders of the South American nations, under the theme of the Sixth BRICS Summit, with a view to furthering cooperation between BRICS and South America. We reaffirm our support for the South American integration processes, and recognize in particular the importance of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) in promoting peace and democracy in the region, and in achieving sustainable development and poverty eradication. We believe that strengthened dialogue among BRICS and South American countries can play an active role in enhancing multilateralism and international cooperation, for the promotion of peace, security, economic and social progress and sustainable development in an interdependent and increasingly complex, globalizing world.

4. Since its inception the BRICS have been guided by the overarching objectives of peace, security, development and cooperation. In this new cycle, while remaining committed to those objectives, we pledge to deepen our partnership with a renewed vision, based on openness, inclusiveness and mutually beneficial cooperation. In this sense, we are ready to explore new areas towards a comprehensive cooperation and a closer economic partnership to facilitate market inter-linkages, financial integration, infrastructure connectivity as well as people-to-people contacts.

5. The Sixth Summit takes place at a crucial juncture, as the international community assesses how to address the challenges of strong economic recovery from the global financial crises, sustainable development, including climate change, while also formulating the post-2015 Development Agenda. At the same time, we are confronted with persistent political instability and conflict in various global hotspots and non-conventional emerging threats. On the other hand, international governance structures designed within a different power configuration show increasingly evident signs of losing legitimacy and effectiveness, as transitional and ad hoc arrangements become increasingly prevalent, often at the expense of multilateralism. We believe the BRICS are an important force for incremental change and reform of current institutions towards more representative and equitable governance, capable of generating more inclusive global growth and fostering a stable, peaceful and prosperous world.

6. During the first cycle of BRICS Summits, collectively our economies have consolidated their position as the main engines for sustaining the pace of the international economy as it recovers from the recent economic and financial global crisis. The BRICS continue to contribute significantly to global growth and to the reduction of poverty in our own and other countries. Our economic growth and social inclusion policies have helped to stabilize global economy, to foster the creation of jobs, to reduce poverty, and to combat inequality, thus contributing to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. In this new cycle, besides its contribution in fostering strong, sustainable and balanced growth, BRICS will continue to play a significant role in promoting social development and in contributing to define the international agenda in this area, building on its experience in addressing the challenges of poverty and inequality.

[...]

11. BRICS, as well as other EMDCs (Emerging Market Economies and Developing Countries), continue to face significant financing constraints to address infrastructure gaps and sustainable development needs. With this in mind, we are pleased to announce the signing of the Agreement establishing the New Development Bank (NDB), with the purpose of mobilizing resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in BRICS and other emerging and developing economies....

12. The Bank shall have an initial authorized capital of US$100 billion. The initial subscribed capital shall be of US$ 50 billion, equally shared among founding members. The first chair of the Board of Governors shall be from Russia. The first chair of the Board of Directors shall be from Brazil. The first President of the Bank shall be from India. The headquarters of the Bank shall be located in Shanghai. The New Development Bank Africa Regional Center shall be established in South Africa concurrently with the headquarters. We direct our Finance Ministers to work out the modalities for its operationalization.

13. We are pleased to announce the signing of the Treaty for the establishment of the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) with an initial size of US$100 billion. This arrangement will have a positive precautionary effect, help countries forestall short-term liquidity pressures, promote further BRICS cooperation, strengthen the global financial safety net and complement existing international arrangements. We appreciate the work undertaken by our Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. The Agreement is a framework for the provision of liquidity through currency swaps in response to actual or potential short-term balance of payments pressures.

14. We also welcome the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation among BRICS Export Credit and Guarantees Agencies that will improve the support environment for increasing trade opportunities among our nations.

15. We appreciate the progress our Development Banks have made in enhancing and strengthening the financial ties among BRICS countries. Given the importance of adopting innovation initiatives, we welcome the conclusion of the Cooperation Agreement on Innovation within the BRICS Interbank Cooperation Mechanism.

16. We recognize that there is potential for BRICS insurance and reinsurance markets to pool capacities. We direct our relevant authorities to explore avenues of cooperation in this regard.

[...]

18. We remain disappointed and seriously concerned with the current non-implementation of the 2010 International Monetary Fund (IMF) reforms, which negatively impacts on the IMF's legitimacy, credibility and effectiveness. The IMF reform process is based on high-level commitments, which already strengthened the Fund's resources and must also lead to the modernization of its governance structure so as to better reflect the increasing weight of EMDCs in the world economy.... We reiterate our call on the IMF to develop options to move ahead with its reform process, with a view to ensuring increased voice and representation of EMDCs....

19. [...] We look forward to initiating the work on the next shareholding review at the World Bank as soon as possible in order to meet the agreed deadline of October 2015. In this sense, we call for an international financial architecture that is more conducive to overcoming development challenges. We have been very active in improving the international financial architecture through our multilateral coordination and through our financial cooperation initiatives, which will, in a complementary manner, increase the diversity and availability of resources for promoting development and ensuring stability in the global economy.

20. We are committed to raise our economic cooperation to a qualitatively new level. To achieve this, we emphasize the importance of establishing a road map for intra-BRICS economic cooperation. In this regard, we welcome the proposals for a "BRICS Economic Cooperation Strategy" and a "Framework of BRICS Closer Economic Partnership", which lay down steps to promote intra-BRICS economic, trade and investment cooperation....

21. We believe all countries should enjoy due rights, equal opportunities and fair participation in global economic, financial and trade affairs, recognizing that countries have different capacities and are at different levels of development. We strive for an open world economy with efficient allocation of resources, free flow of goods, and fair and orderly competition to the benefit of all. In reaffirming our support for an open, inclusive, non-discriminatory, transparent and rule-based multilateral trading system, we will continue our efforts towards the successful conclusion of the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization (WTO).... We affirm that this work program should prioritize the issues where legally binding outcomes could not be achieved at MC9, including Public Stock-Holding for Food Security Purposes. We look forward to the implementation of the Agreement on Trade Facilitation. We call upon international partners to provide support to the poorest, most vulnerable WTO members to enable them to implement this Agreement, which should support their development objectives..... We recognize the importance of Regional Trade Agreements, which should complement the multilateral trading system, and of keeping them open, inclusive and transparent, as well as refraining from introducing exclusive and discriminatory clauses and standards.

22. We reaffirm the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development's (UNCTAD) mandate as the focal point in the UN system dedicated to consider the interrelated issues of trade, investment, finance and technology from a development perspective. UNCTAD's mandate and work are unique and necessary to deal with the challenges of development and growth in the increasingly interdependent global economy. In congratulating UNCTAD for the 50th anniversary of its foundation in 2014, which is also the anniversary of the establishment of the Group of 77, we further reaffirm the importance of strengthening UNCTAD's capacity to deliver on its programs of consensus building, policy dialogue, research, technical cooperation and capacity building so that it is better equipped to deliver on its development mandate.

23. We acknowledge the important role that State Owned Companies (SOCs) play in the economy and encourage our SOCs to continue to explore ways of cooperation, exchange of information and best practices. We also recognize the fundamental role played by small and medium-sized enterprises in the economies of our countries as major creators of jobs and wealth. We will enhance cooperation and recognize the need for strengthening intra-BRICS dialogue with a view to promote international exchange and cooperation and to foster innovation, research and development.

24. We underline that 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations (UN) and the end of the Second World War. In this connection, we support the UN to initiate and organize commemorative events to mark and pay tribute to these two historical moments in human history, and reaffirm our commitment to safeguarding a just and fair international order based on the UN Charter, maintaining world peace and security, as well as promoting human progress and development.

25. We reiterate our strong commitment to the UN as the fundamental multilateral organization entrusted with helping the international community maintain international peace and security, protect and foster human rights and promote sustainable development. The UN enjoys universal membership and is at the very center of global governance and multilateralism. We recall the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document. We reaffirm the need for a comprehensive reform of the UN, including its Security Council, with a view to making it more representative, effective and efficient, so that it can adequately respond to global challenges. China and Russia reiterate the importance they attach to Brazil, India and South Africa's status and role in international affairs and support their aspiration to play a greater role in the UN.

26. We recall that development and security are closely interlinked, mutually reinforcing and key to attaining sustainable peace. We reiterate our view that the establishment of sustainable peace requires a comprehensive, concerted and determined approach, based on mutual trust, mutual benefit, equity and cooperation, that addresses the root causes of conflicts, including their political, economic and social dimensions. In this context, we also stress the close interrelation between peacekeeping and peacebuilding. We also highlight the importance of bringing gender perspectives to conflict prevention and resolution, peacebuilding, peacekeeping, rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts.

27. We will continue our joint efforts in coordinating positions and acting on shared interests on global peace and security issues for the common well-being of humanity. We stress our commitment to the sustainable and peaceful settlement of disputes, according to the principles and purposes of the UN Charter. We condemn unilateral military interventions and economic sanctions in violation of international law and universally recognized norms of international relations. Bearing this in mind, we emphasize the unique importance of the indivisible nature of security, and that no State should strengthen its security at the expense of the security of others.

28. We agree to continue to treat all human rights, including the right to development, in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing and with the same emphasis. We will foster dialogue and cooperation on the basis of equality and mutual respect in the field of human rights, both within BRICS and in multilateral fora -- including the United Nations Human Rights Council where all BRICS serve as members in 2014 -- taking into account the necessity to promote, protect and fulfil human rights in a non-selective, non-politicized and constructive manner, and without double standards.

[...]

38. We reaffirm our commitment to contribute to a comprehensive, just and lasting settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict on the basis of the universally recognized international legal framework, including the relevant UN resolutions, the Madrid Principles and the Arab Peace Initiative. We believe that the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a fundamental component for building a sustainable peace in the Middle East. We call upon Israel and Palestine to resume negotiations leading to a two-State solution with a contiguous and economically viable Palestinian State existing side by side in peace with Israel, within mutually agreed and internationally recognized borders based on the 4 June 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital. We oppose the continuous construction and expansion of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories by the Israeli Government, which violates international law, gravely undermines peace efforts and threatens the viability of the two-State solution. We welcome recent efforts to achieve intra-Palestinian unity, including the formation of a national unity government and steps towards conducting general elections, which is key element to consolidate a democratic and sustainable Palestinian State, and call on the parties to fully commit to the obligations assumed by Palestine. We call on the UN Security Council to fully exercise its functions under the UN Charter with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We recall with satisfaction the decision of the UN General Assembly to proclaim 2014 the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, welcome the efforts of UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in providing assistance and protection for Palestine refugees and encourage the international community to continue to support the activities of the agency.

39. We express our support for the convening, at the earliest possible date, of the Conference on the establishment of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction. We call upon all states of the region to attend the Conference and to engage constructively and in a pragmatic manner with a view to advancing that goal.

[...]

41. While reiterating our view that there is no alternative to a negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear issue, we reaffirm our support to its resolution through political and diplomatic means and dialogue. In this context, we welcome the positive momentum generated by talks between Iran and the E3+3 and encourage the thorough implementation of the Geneva Joint Plan of Action of 24 November 2013, with a view to achieving a comprehensive and long-lasting solution to this issue. We also encourage Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to continue strengthening their cooperation and dialogue on the basis of the Joint Statement signed on 11 November 2013. We recognize Iran's inalienable right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy in a manner consistent with its international obligations.

[...]

44. We express our deep concern with the situation in Ukraine. We call for a comprehensive dialogue, the de-escalation of the conflict and restraint from all the actors involved, with a view to finding a peaceful political solution, in full compliance with the UN Charter and universally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms.

[...]

49. We believe that ICTs (information and communications technology) should provide instruments to foster sustainable economic progress and social inclusion, working together with the ICT industry, civil society and academia in order to realize the ICT-related potential opportunities and benefits for all.... We agree that the use and development of ICTs through international cooperation and universally accepted norms and principles of international law is of paramount importance, in order to ensure a peaceful, secure and open digital and Internet space. We strongly condemn acts of mass electronic surveillance and data collection of individuals all over the world, as well as violation of the sovereignty of States and of human rights, in particular the right to privacy....

50. We will explore cooperation on combating cybercrimes and we also recommit to the negotiation of a universal legally binding instrument in that field. We consider that the UN has a central role in this matter. We agree it is necessary to preserve ICTs, particularly the Internet, as an instrument of peace and development and to prevent its use as a weapon. [...]

52. Acknowledging that climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing humankind, we call on all countries to build upon the decisions adopted in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with a view to reaching a successful conclusion by 2015, of negotiations on the development of a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties, in accordance with the principles and provisions of UNFCCC, in particular the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities....

53. While bearing in mind that fossil fuel remains one of the major sources of energy, we reiterate our belief that renewable and clean energy, research and development of new technologies and energy efficiency, can constitute an important driver to promote sustainable development, create new economic growth, reduce energy costs and increase the efficiency in the use of natural resources. Considering the dynamic link between renewable and clean energy and sustainable development, we reaffirm the importance of continuing international efforts aimed at promoting the deployment of renewable and clean energy and energy efficiency technologies, taking into account national policies, priorities and resources. We stand for strengthening international cooperation to promote renewable and clean energy and to universalize energy access, which is of great importance to improving the standard of living of our peoples.

[...]

56. We recognize the strategic importance of education for sustainable development and inclusive economic growth. We reaffirm our commitment to accelerating progress in attaining the Education for All goals and education-related Millennium Development Goals by 2015 and stress that the development agenda beyond 2015 should build on these goals to ensure equitable, inclusive and quality education and lifelong learning for all. We are willing to strengthen intra-BRICS cooperation in the area and welcome the meeting of Ministers of Education held in Paris, in November 2013. We intend to continue cooperation with relevant international organizations. We encourage the initiative to establish the BRICS Network University.

[...]

59. Considering the link between culture and sustainable development, as well as the role of cultural diplomacy as a promoter of understanding between peoples, we will encourage cooperation between BRICS countries in the cultural sector, including on the multilateral basis. Recognizing the contribution and the benefits of cultural exchanges and cooperation in enhancing our mutual understanding and friendship, we will actively promote greater awareness, understanding and appreciation of each other's arts and culture. In this regard, we ask our relevant authorities responsible for culture to explore areas of practical cooperation, including to expedite negotiations on the draft agreement on cultural cooperation.

[...]

61. We are committed to promoting agricultural cooperation and to exchange information regarding strategies for ensuring access to food for the most vulnerable population, reduction of negative impact of climate change on food security and adaptation of agriculture to climate change.

[...]

72. Brazil, India, China and South Africa convey their appreciation to Russia for its offer to host the Seventh BRICS Summit in 2015 in the city of Ufa and extend their full support to that end.

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For Your Information

 U.S. President Obama's Westpoint Speech:
Further Institutionalizing U.S. Interference
and Annexation

President Obama gave the commencement address at the Army's West Point Academy May 28, a speech billed as a major foreign policy address. As expected, Obama emphasized that the U.S. will continue to use military force worldwide and continue to strive to secure its world empire. He repeatedly defended the criminal U.S. wars, drones and intervention worldwide saying the U.S. will take unilateral action and "should never ask permission" to do so.

In addition, however, Obama also brought to the fore that the military will be used for "training" and "development" purposes all around the world. The military is to work directly with the militaries of other countries. It will be a team with U.S. diplomats to ensure that "development" in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America follow U.S. demands. This also includes by-passing governments and working directly with non-governmental organizations, networks and "ordinary people." Obama is working to put in place funding and institutions for these efforts, most notably the Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund, with $5 billion to "train, build capacity and facilitate partner countries on the front lines." He also called for the NATO military alliance to expand beyond "Europe's borders."

Unilateral Action and Partnerships

Reflecting both the desperation of the U.S. that it cannot contain the struggles of the peoples worldwide for progress, and its arrogance, Obama said, "America has rarely been stronger relative to the rest of the world. Those who argue otherwise -- who suggest that America is in decline, or has seen its global leadership slip away -- are either misreading history or engaged in partisan politics. Think about it. Our military has no peer.... The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come."

Commenting on the current contention within the ruling circles about how the U.S. should achieve empire, he presented two extremes of either always intervening militarily or of being isolationist, then presented the Obama doctrine as one in the center.

"America must always lead on the world stage. If we don't, no one else will. The military that you have joined is and always will be the backbone of that leadership. But U.S. military action cannot be the only -- or even primary -- component of our leadership in every instance. Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail."

Then he reemphasized U.S. readiness to take unilateral preemptive military action:

"First, let me repeat a principle I put forward at the outset of my presidency: The United States will use military force, unilaterally if necessary, when our core interests demand it -- when our people are threatened, when our livelihoods are at stake, when the security of our allies is in danger. In these circumstances, we still need to ask tough questions about whether our actions are proportional and effective and just. International opinion matters, but America should never ask permission to protect our people, our homeland, or our way of life.

"On the other hand, when issues of global concern do not pose a direct threat to the United States, when such issues are at stake -- when crises arise that stir our conscience or push the world in a more dangerous direction but do not directly threaten us -- then the threshold for military action must be higher. In such circumstances, we should not go it alone. Instead, we must mobilize allies and partners to take collective action. We have to broaden our tools to include diplomacy and development; sanctions and isolation; appeals to international law; and, if just, necessary and effective, multilateral military action."

This multilateral military action includes expanding the role of NATO. Obama said, "NATO is the strongest alliance the world has ever known. But we're now working with NATO allies to meet new missions, both within Europe where our Eastern allies must be reassured, but also beyond Europe's borders where our NATO allies must pull their weight to counterterrorism and respond to failed states and train a network of partners."

This and additional remarks by Obama made clear to all that the U.S. will take unilateral military action, using drones and Special Operations forces. As Obama put it, "There are times when [drone strikes] are necessary and we cannot hesitate to protect our people." Obama will also "broaden our tools" of intervention and annexation, involving the militaries and governments of other countries to support U.S. action on "issues of global concern." He added, "We have to develop a strategy that expands our reach without sending forces that stretch our military too thin, or stir up local resentments. We need partners to fight terrorists alongside us. And empowering partners is a large part of what we have done and what we are currently doing in Afghanistan."

Counterterrorism Partnership Fund

Obama uses Afghanistan as his example of the partnerships he has in mind. He said "hundreds of thousands of Afghan soldiers and police" have been trained. He said that a lesson of Afghanistan is that "our military became the strongest advocate for diplomacy and development." As experience shows, this is destruction and control of, by and for the U.S. and its monopolies, not development in the interests of the people. And the forces trained, following in the footsteps of the U.S. military, act not as a force for development but as a repressive force against the people. The U.S. is also leaving about 10,000 occupation troops for at least another two years.

Obama does not speak to the massive death, destruction and violence unleashed by the illegal U.S. wars of aggression against both Afghanistan and Iraq. He also does not mention U.S. responsibility now to pay reparations and take responsibility for its crimes, including massacring civilians, destroying civilian infrastructure, toxic and radioactive waste poisoning humans and the environment, and the huge healthcare problems inflicted on the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead he speaks to how the U.S. plans to further institutionalize U.S. intervention and annexation worldwide.

Obama states, "Our reduced presence allows us to more effectively address emerging threats in the Middle East and North Africa. So, earlier this year, I asked my national security team to develop a plan for a network of partnerships from South Asia to the Sahel [in Africa]. Today, as part of this effort, I am calling on Congress to support a new Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund of up to $5 billion, which will allow us to train, build capacity, and facilitate partner countries on the front lines. And these resources will give us flexibility to fulfill different missions, including training security forces in Yemen who have gone on the offensive against al Qaeda; supporting a multinational force to keep the peace in Somalia; working with European allies to train a functioning security force and border patrol in Libya; and facilitating French operations in Mali."

He adds that the U.S. will continue funding violent forces in Syria and step up its interference in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq, while also making sure these partners "are contributing their fair share." Even without the $5 billion from Congress, which Obama is likely to get, as president he can proceed with the partnerships, training, development and other forms of intervention and annexation -- as is already evident in Africa.

Obama then expands on this plan to institutionalize intervention worldwide. He says, speaking to the cadets, the military will be "part of a team that extends beyond your units or even our Armed Forces, for in the course of your service you will work as a team with diplomats and development experts. You'll get to know allies and train partners. And you will embody what it means for America to lead the world." This team will "form alliances, not just with governments but also with ordinary people."

In this manner sovereignty is completely eliminated, use of military forces in all aspects of life is sanctioned and promoted, and all norms of government-to-government relations replaced by military relations with whoever the U.S. decides to fund and back. The results of this direction are readily apparent in Syria, where U.S. efforts at regime change have caused tremendous chaos, death and suffering. Similarly, it can be seen in repeated U.S. efforts to overthrow the government in Venezuela, first of Hugo Chavez and now of elected President Maduro.

The "opposition" and "rebels" the U.S. funds and arms are some of the "ordinary people" Obama has in mind, as are nongovernmental organizations, education institutions, and more. Obama wants to leave in place, for the Office of the Presidency, a military machinery involved in and militarizing all aspects of life in countries worldwide. There is no longer to be debate as to whether the military should be involved in development, nor is there debate as to whether diplomacy and all other aspects of U.S. intervention are to be subordinate to the military, which will command on all fronts.

A Warning to Congress

Obama also says the military, rather than the "intelligence community," will have greater responsibility to explain U.S. actions publicly: "We must be more transparent about both the basis of our counterterrorism actions and the manner in which they are carried out. We have to be able to explain them publicly, whether it is drone strikes or training partners. I will increasingly turn to our military to take the lead and provide information to the public about our efforts. Our intelligence community has done outstanding work, and we have to continue to protect sources and methods. But when we cannot explain our efforts clearly and publicly, we face terrorist propaganda and international suspicion, we erode legitimacy with our partners and our people, and we reduce accountability in our own government."

Here Obama is reflecting the on-going conflicts within the ruling circles as power is increasingly concentrated in the Office of the President and those outside that office vie for other sources of power, such as the CIA and NSA. The role of Congress in deciding use of military force is largely eliminated by this Counterterrorism Partnership network. Obama also wants to lessen the role of the CIA and other intelligence agencies that are more independent of the military, including giving greater control to the military and its Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in drone warfare.

It is also an effort to use the great anger and lack of legitimacy the NSA and other agencies now have among the public. Obama wants to keep the anger directed at them and away from the military, which is presented as the most powerful on earth, embodying what it means to be an American.

In this manner he also makes clear that U.S. military force and partnerships will be used inside the country as well as outside. It is a warning not only to those in Congress, but the people more generally, to submit to the military, and its Commander-in-Chief.

Far from ending the U.S. crimes of aggressive war and interference, Obama is ensuring that a flexible military machinery, capable of unilateral action, drone warfare and acting to dictate economic and political development anywhere in the world, is in place. It is a dangerous direction that can only lead to even greater wars and destruction.

The peoples at home and abroad are one in demanding: All U.S. Troops Home Now! The peoples want a new direction, with international relations of mutual respect and benefit, not intervention and annexation. U.S. foreign policy can only contribute to world peace if it starts with the stand: Defend the Rights of All, Abroad and at Home!

(www.usmlo.org)

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The Return of George Orwell and Big Brother's War:
On Israel, Ukraine and Truth

"Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the
end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end."

- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859

The other night, I saw George Orwell's 1984 performed on the London stage. Although crying out for a contemporary interpretation, Orwell's warning about the future was presented as a period piece: remote, unthreatening, almost reassuring. It was as if Edward Snowden had revealed nothing, Big Brother was not now a digital eavesdropper and Orwell himself had never said, "To be corrupted by totalitarianism, one does not have to live in a totalitarian country."

Acclaimed by critics, the skilful production was a measure of our cultural and political times. When the lights came up, people were already on their way out. They seemed unmoved, or perhaps other distractions beckoned. "What a mindfuck," said the young woman, lighting up her phone.

As advanced societies are de-politicised, the changes are both subtle and spectacular. In everyday discourse, political language is turned on its head, as Orwell prophesised in 1984. "Democracy" is now a rhetorical device. Peace is "perpetual war". "Global" is imperial. The once hopeful concept of "reform" now means regression, even destruction. "Austerity" is the imposition of extreme capitalism on the poor and the gift of socialism for the rich: an ingenious system under which the majority service the debts of the few.

In the arts, hostility to political truth-telling is an article of bourgeois faith. "Picasso's red period," says an Observer headline, "and why politics don't make good art." Consider this in a newspaper that promoted the bloodbath in Iraq as a liberal crusade. Picasso's lifelong opposition to fascism is a footnote, just as Orwell's radicalism has faded from the prize that appropriated his name.

A few years ago, Terry Eagleton, then professor of English literature at Manchester University, reckoned that "for the first time in two centuries, there is no eminent British poet, playwright or novelist prepared to question the foundations of the western way of life". No Shelley speaks for the poor, no Blake for utopian dreams, no Byron damns the corruption of the ruling class, no Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin reveal the moral disaster of capitalism. William Morris, Oscar Wilde, HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw have no equivalents today. Harold Pinter was the last to raise his voice. Among the insistent voices of consumer-feminism, none echoes Virginia Woolf, who described "the arts of dominating other people ... of ruling, of killing, of acquiring land and capital".

At the National Theatre, a new play, Great Britain, satirises the phone hacking scandal that has seen journalists tried and convicted, including a former editor of Rupert Murdoch's News of the World. Described as a "farce with fangs [that] puts the whole incestuous [media] culture in the dock and subjects it to merciless ridicule", the play's targets are the "blessedly funny" characters in Britain's tabloid press. That is well and good, and so familiar. What of the non-tabloid media that regards itself as reputable and credible, yet serves a parallel role as an arm of state and corporate power, as in the promotion of illegal war?

The Leveson inquiry into phone hacking glimpsed this unmentionable. Tony Blair was giving evidence, complaining to His Lordship about the tabloids' harassment of his wife, when he was interrupted by a voice from the public gallery. David Lawley-Wakelin, a film-maker, demanded Blair's arrest and prosecution for war crimes. There was a long pause: the shock of truth. Lord Leveson leapt to his feet and ordered the truth-teller thrown out and apologised to the war criminal. Lawley-Wakelin was prosecuted; Blair went free.

Blair's enduring accomplices are more respectable than the phone hackers. When the BBC arts presenter, Kirsty Wark, interviewed him on the tenth anniversary of his invasion of Iraq, she gifted him a moment he could only dream of; she allowed him to agonise over his "difficult" decision on Iraq rather than call him to account for his epic crime. This evoked the procession of BBC journalists who in 2003 declared that Blair could feel "vindicated", and the subsequent, "seminal" BBC series, The Blair Years, for which David Aaronovitch was chosen as the writer, presenter and interviewer. A Murdoch retainer who campaigned for military attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria, Aaronovitch fawned expertly.

Since the invasion of Iraq, the exemplar of an act of unprovoked aggression the Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Jackson called "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole", Blair and his mouthpiece and principal accomplice, Alastair Campbell, have been afforded generous space in the Guardian to rehabilitate their reputations. Described as a Labour Party "star", Campbell has sought the sympathy of readers for his depression and displayed his interests, though not his current assignment as advisor, with Blair, to the Egyptian military tyranny.

As Iraq is dismembered as a consequence of the Blair/Bush invasion, a Guardian headline declares: "Toppling Saddam was right, but we pulled out too soon". This ran across a prominent article on 13 June by a former Blair functionary, John McTernan, who also served Iraq's CIA installed dictator Iyad Allawi. In calling for a repeat invasion of a country his former master helped destroy, he made no reference to the deaths of at least 700,000 people, the flight of four million refugees and sectarian turmoil in a nation once proud of its communal tolerance.

"Blair embodies corruption and war," wrote the radical Guardian columnist Seumas Milne in a spirited piece on 3 July. This is known in the trade as "balance". The following day, the paper published a full-page advertisement for an American Stealth bomber. On a menacing image of the bomber were the words: "The F-35. GREAT For Britain". This other embodiment of "corruption and war" will cost British taxpayers £1.3 billion, its F-model predecessors having slaughtered people across the developing world.

In a village in Afghanistan, inhabited by the poorest of the poor, I filmed Orifa, kneeling at the graves of her husband, Gul Ahmed, a carpet weaver, seven other members of her family, including six children, and two children who were killed in the adjacent house. A "precision" 500-pound bomb fell directly on their small mud, stone and straw house, leaving a crater 50 feet wide. Lockheed Martin, the plane's manufacturer, had pride of place in the Guardian's advertisement.

The former US secretary of state and aspiring president of the United States, Hillary Clinton, was recently on the BBC's Women's Hour, the quintessence of media respectability. The presenter, Jenni Murray, presented Clinton as a beacon of female achievement. She did not remind her listeners about Clinton's profanity that Afghanistan was invaded to "liberate" women like Orifa. She asked Clinton nothing about her administration's terror campaign using drones to kill women, men and children. There was no mention of Clinton's idle threat, while campaigning to be the first female president, to "eliminate" Iran, and nothing about her support for illegal mass surveillance and the pursuit of whistle-blowers.

Murray did ask one finger-to-the-lips question. Had Clinton forgiven Monica Lewinsky for having an affair with husband? "Forgiveness is a choice," said Clinton, "for me, it was absolutely the right choice." This recalled the 1990s and the years consumed by the Lewinsky "scandal". President Bill Clinton was then invading Haiti, and bombing the Balkans, Africa and Iraq. He was also destroying the lives of Iraqi children; Unicef reported the deaths of half a million Iraqi infants under the age of five as a result of an embargo led by the US and Britain.

The children were media unpeople, just as Hillary Clinton's victims in the invasions she supported and promoted [of] Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, are media unpeople. Murray made no reference to them. A photograph of her and her distinguished guest, beaming, appears on the BBC website.

In politics as in journalism and the arts, it seems that dissent once tolerated in the "mainstream" has regressed to a dissidence: a metaphoric underground. When I began a career in Britain's Fleet Street in the 1960s, it was acceptable to critique western power as a rapacious force. Read James Cameron's celebrated reports of the explosion of the Hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll, the barbaric war in Korea and the American bombing of North Vietnam. Today's grand illusion is of an information age when, in truth, we live in a media age in which incessant corporate propaganda is insidious, contagious, effective and liberal.

In his 1859 essay On Liberty, to which modern liberals pay homage, John Stuart Mill wrote: "Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end." The "barbarians" were large sections of humanity of whom "implicit obedience" was required. "It's a nice and convenient myth that liberals are peacemakers and conservatives the warmongers," wrote the historian Hywel Williams in 2001, "but the imperialism of the liberal way may be more dangerous because of its open-ended nature: its conviction that it represents a superior form of life." He had in mind a speech by Blair in which the then prime minister promised to "reorder the world around us" according to his "moral values".

Richard Falk, the respected authority on international law and the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, once described "a self-righteous, one-way, legal / moral screen [with] positive images of western values and innocence portrayed as threatened, validating a campaign of unrestricted political violence". It is "so widely accepted as to be virtually unchallengeable".

Tenure and patronage reward the guardians. On BBC Radio 4, Razia Iqbal interviewed Toni Morrison, the African-American Nobel Laureate. Morrison wondered why people were "so angry" with Barack Obama, who was "cool" and wished to build a "strong economy and health care". Morrison was proud to have talked on the phone with her hero, who had read one of her books and invited her to his inauguration.

Neither she nor her interviewer mentioned Obama's seven wars, including his terror campaign by drone, in which whole families, their rescuers and mourners have been murdered. What seemed to matter was that a "finely spoken" man of colour had risen to the commanding heights of power. In The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon wrote that the "historic mission" of the colonised was to serve as a "transmission line" to those who ruled and oppressed. In the modern era, the employment of ethnic difference in western power and propaganda systems is now seen as essential. Obama epitomises this, though the cabinet of George W. Bush, his warmongering clique, was the most multiracial in presidential history.

As the Iraqi city of Mosul fell to the jihadists of ISIS, Obama said, "The American people made huge investments and sacrifices in order to give Iraqis the opportunity to chart a better destiny." How "cool" is that lie? How "finely spoken" was Obama's speech at the West Point military academy on 28 May. Delivering his "state of the world" address at the graduation ceremony of those who "will take American leadership" across the world, Obama said, "The United States will use military force, unilaterally if necessary, when our core interests demand it. International opinion matters, but America will never ask permission..."

In repudiating international law and the rights of independent nations, the American president claims a divinity based on the might of his "indispensable nation". It is a familiar message of imperial impunity, though always bracing to hear. Evoking the rise of fascism in the 1930s, Obama said, "I believe in American exceptionalism with every fibre of my being." Historian Norman Pollack wrote: "For goose-steppers, substitute the seemingly more innocuous militarisation of the total culture. And for the bombastic leader, we have the reformer manqué, blithely at work, planning and executing assassination, smiling all the while."

In February, the US mounted one of its "colour" coups against the elected government in Ukraine, exploiting genuine protests against corruption in Kiev. Obama's national security adviser Victoria Nuland personally selected the leader of an "interim government". She nicknamed him "Yats". Vice President Joe Biden came to Kiev, as did CIA Director John Brennan. The shock troops of their putsch were Ukrainian fascists.

For the first time since 1945, a neo-Nazi, openly anti-Semitic party controls key areas of state power in a European capital. No Western European leader has condemned this revival of fascism in the borderland through which Hitler's invading Nazis took millions of Russian lives. They were supported by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), responsible for the massacre of Jews and Russians they called "vermin". The UPA is the historical inspiration of the present-day Svoboda Party and its fellow-travelling Right Sector. Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok has called for a purge of the "Moscow-Jewish mafia" and "other scum", including gays, feminists and those on the political left.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States has ringed Russia with military bases, nuclear warplanes and missiles as part of its Nato Enlargement Project. Reneging on a promise made to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that Nato would not expand "one inch to the east", Nato has, in effect, militarily occupied eastern Europe. In the former Soviet Caucasus, Nato's expansion is the biggest military build-up since the Second World War.

A Nato Membership Action Plan is Washington's gift to the coup-regime in Kiev. In August, "Operation Rapid Trident" will put American and British troops on Ukraine's Russian border and "Sea Breeze" will send US warships within sight of Russian ports. Imagine the response if these acts of provocation, or intimidation, were carried out on America's borders.


People in Simferopol, Crimea celebrate vote to rejoin Russia, March 16, 2014. 

In reclaiming Crimea, which Nikita Kruschev illegally detached from Russia in 1954, the Russians defended themselves as they have done for almost a century. More than 90 per cent of the population of Crimea voted to return the territory to Russia. Crimea is the home of the Black Sea Fleet and its loss would mean life or death for the Russian Navy and a prize for Nato. Confounding the war parties in Washington and Kiev, Vladimir Putin withdrew troops from the Ukrainian border and urged ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine to abandon separatism.

In Orwellian fashion, this has been inverted in the west to the "Russian threat". Hillary Clinton likened Putin to Hitler. Without irony, right-wing German commentators said as much. In the media, the Ukrainian neo-Nazis are sanitised as "nationalists" or "ultra nationalists". What they fear is that Putin is skilfully seeking a diplomatic solution, and may succeed. On 27 June, responding to Putin's latest accommodation -- his request to the Russian Parliament to rescind legislation that gave him the power to intervene on behalf of Ukraine's ethnic Russians -- Secretary of State John Kerry issued another of his ultimatums. Russia must "act within the next few hours, literally" to end the revolt in eastern Ukraine. Notwithstanding that Kerry is widely recognised as a buffoon, the serious purpose of these "warnings" is to confer pariah status on Russia and suppress news of the Kiev regime's war on its own people.

A third of the population of Ukraine are Russian-speaking and bilingual. They have long sought a democratic federation that reflects Ukraine's ethnic diversity and is both autonomous and independent of Moscow. Most are neither "separatists" nor "rebels" but citizens who want to live securely in their homeland. Separatism is a reaction to the Kiev junta's attacks on them, causing as many as 110,000 (UN estimate) to flee across the border into Russia. Typically, they are traumatised women and children.

Like Iraq's embargoed infants, and Afghanistan's "liberated" women and girls, terrorised by the CIA's warlords, these ethnic people of Ukraine are media unpeople in the west, their suffering and the atrocities committed against them minimised, or suppressed. No sense of the scale of the regime's assault is reported in the mainstream western media. This is not unprecedented. Reading again Phillip Knightley's masterly The First Casualty: the war correspondent as hero, propagandist and mythmaker, I renewed my admiration for the Manchester Guardian's Morgan Philips Price, the only western reporter to remain in Russia during the 1917 revolution and report the truth of a disastrous invasion by the western allies. Fair-minded and courageous, Philips Price alone disturbed what Knightley calls an anti-Russian "dark silence" in the west.

On 2 May, in Odessa, 41 ethnic Russians were burned alive in the trade union headquarters with police standing by. There is horrifying video evidence. The Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh hailed the massacre as "another bright day in our national history". In the American and British media, this was reported as a "murky tragedy" resulting from "clashes" between "nationalists" (neo-Nazis) and "separatists" (people collecting signatures for a referendum on a federal Ukraine). The New York Times buried it, having dismissed as Russian propaganda warnings about the fascist and anti-Semitic policies of Washington's new clients. The Wall Street Journal damned the victims -- "Deadly Ukraine Fire Likely Sparked by Rebels, Government Says". Obama congratulated the junta for its "restraint".

On 28 June, the Guardian devoted most of a page to declarations by the Kiev regime's "president", the oligarch Petro Poroshenko. Again, Orwell's rule of inversion applied. There was no putsch; no war against Ukraine's minority; the Russians were to blame for everything. "We want to modernise my country," said Poroshenko. "We want to introduce freedom, democracy and European values. Somebody doesn't like that. Somebody doesn't like us for that."

According to his report, the Guardian's reporter, Luke Harding, did not challenge these assertions, or mention the Odessa atrocity, the regime's air and artillery attacks on residential areas, the killing and kidnapping of journalists, the firebombing of an opposition newspaper and his threat to "free Ukraine from dirt and parasites". The enemy are "rebels", "militants", "insurgents", "terrorists" and stooges of the Kremlin. Summon from history the ghosts of Vietnam, Chile, East Timor, southern Africa, Iraq; note the same tags. Palestine is the lodestone of this unchanging deceit. Following the latest Israeli, American equipped slaughter in Gaza of more than 800 Palestinians -- including 120 children -- an Israeli general writes in the Guardian under the headline: "A necessary show of force".

In the 1970s, I met Leni Riefenstahl and asked her about her films that glorified the Nazis. Using revolutionary camera and lighting techniques, she produced a documentary form that mesmerised Germans; it was her Triumph of the Will that reputedly cast Hitler's spell. I asked her about propaganda in societies that imagined themselves superior. She replied that the "messages" in her films were dependent not on "orders from above" but on a "submissive void" in the German population. "Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie?" I asked. "Everyone," she replied, "and of course the intelligentsia."

* John Pilger is an Australian-born, London-based journalist, filmmaker and author. For his foreign and war reporting, ranging from Vietnam and Cambodia to the Middle East, he has twice won Britain's highest award for journalism. For his documentary films, he won a British Academy Award and an American Emmy. In 2009, he was awarded Australia's human rights prize, the Sydney Peace Prize.

(johnpilger.com)

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