The Asia Pacific region has come in for much attention in recent years. Most of it a transparent attempt to contain China and its spectacular rise, remember Obama’s pivot to Asia? The dominant narrative is that China poses an imminent threat to its near neighbours. Rarely do we ever hear from the inhabitants of the region regarding their feelings about the threat. For Westerners who are constantly bombarded with the anti-China rhetoric, it is understandable that they think the Asians are terrified of China and are grateful to their Western guardians for protecting them. Let us examine that.

To understand the mindset we must revisit some inconvenient history. With the exception of Thailand, all of the S.E. Asian countries have been the victim of Western colonisation. Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia and China all suffered mightily under Western oppression. The Philippines, South Korea and Japan still host American bases and are de-facto client states as a result. Overwhelmingly the citizenry of these countries greatly resent this fact, countless anti-imperial demonstrations have made this plain, all ignored by minority factions in Government. It is the history of Asia that when white men with guns show up professing good intentions, Asians suffer. This has been the case for more than four hundred years and it persists to this day. Western rhetoric falls on deaf ears in Asia, every promise ever made to them by the West has been broken and they know that the west doesn’t regard or treat them as equals. Once again, they can see that they are being expected to suffer to serve Western imperialist interests.

Over the last 40 years the region as enjoyed a period of peace, stability and prosperity unprecedented in its long history. To be clear, there is much historical enmity in the hemisphere, Japan and Korea, Japan and China and others have a tragic history of conflict. There is little love and much residual resentment among them. There are disputes regarding the South China Sea, many of the countries have overlapping claims. The sea treaties that define the current maps are disrupted by all and recognised by none. These treaties were drawn up in the West in the post WWI era and were done without a single Asian present. They represented Western imperial interests, not those of the Asians. In the Asian way, they resolve these differences through diplomacy, no one is prepared to go to war over it. All still enjoy freedom of navigation, it is not the big issue that it is made out to be in the West.

When Trump first took office, he locked in on North Korea, while posing zero threat to America his interference in a long dormant issue was the cause of much uneasiness in the region. South Koreans as expected were particularly alarmed, the consensus view of the majority in this peaceful country was that they wished he would shut up and go home. Likewise, in Taiwan the majority accept that China wants peaceful reunification as it has clearly stated for more than 70 years. Despite constant provocations China has remained calm on the issue, which absent American interference, will likely resolve itself peacefully in time.

Japan has long been the reluctant local point man for America’s aggression against China. While the Japanese people are not friendly to China, China didn’t unnecessarily drop any nuclear bombs on them or occupy them and treat them as second-class citizens for the last 70 years. They have no interest in suffering further on behalf of the hated Americans. Japan and China have recently had productive bi-lateral meetings to dial back the American rhetoric. Left to their own devices the Asians will find resolution to their differences with reporting to hostilities. Obvious to all is that America is prepared to make sacrifices to contain China. It would sacrifice all its so-called “friends” in the region if it would slow China’s rise.

Parallels to the Asian situation can be found now in Europe with the manufactured Ukraine crisis. The Europeans are well aware that America sees the European interest in peace and stability as a threat to American hegemony. While Germany badly needs Russian gas and has heavily invested in the Nord Stream pipeline, America is prepared to see Europeans freeze rather than buy Russian gas. Its naked aggression in Ukraine seeks to provoke Russia into a conflict on European soil. Russia wisely has not taken the bait, much like China over Taiwan. The worst-case scenario for America is that the Europeans accept Russia as a peaceful member of the community of nations and continue to develop mutually beneficial economic ties. Without big bad Russia as the enemy, there is no need for NATO and the call for America to depart from all their European military bases would be resounding.

Any war with Russia or China would have unthinkable consequences for the world, and it seems clear that no one but America wants conflict. The Germans and French have been trying to make their own peace with Russia outside of the NATO clique. The NATO faction are Americas only real allies in Europe, this a Globalist faction, they don’t represent any countries national interest. The failing Empire is on its last legs, crumbling socially and economically at home, a war, any war, would serve as a useful distraction. It appears clear now that the Empire would see the world burn if it can rule over the ashes.

And the cheers from the crowds seeing off the expelled French ambassador must be seen for what Europeans are.

The chicken or the egg? Did the Mali military junta’s decision to bring in Russian military contractors create the inertia for Emmanuel Macron to reduce his own troops’ presence there and initiate EU sanctions – or did his earlier decision to reduce troop numbers push the regime to take the measure to bring in around 400 Wagner mercenaries to keep it in power?

Regional buffs might mull this at length, but in many ways it doesn’t matter. What is important is that Macron’s childish reaction to the Russians coming shows the world so much about him and the French and their outdated and unrealistic views about themselves. The apparent lack of gratitude for being the big brother in Mali with originally 5000 troops and supporting the regime is the real issue. For the junta to turn to Russia, it was showing not only a lack of gratitude but also a lack of respect. It was, in a nutshell, saying ‘we can’t take Paris seriously’ and even in the best scenario, can’t imagine the French helping the generals stay in power if the brown stuff hits the propellers.

The reality is that the regime saw through the flawed narrative and could see why Macron had the troops there in the first place. On paper, it was all about fighting terrorism as Mali is at a crossroads of Islamic terrorism to plague the Sahel and terror groups there could take control. What this means for Macron is simply huge migrant flows to France which is just another headache for him battling to take a second term as serving President and aiming at lapping up the far-right votes with his stand on nailing immigration. And if that wasn’t bad enough, France has huge investments in Mali as French multinationals operate there, staffed by French expats who need protecting in the event of another attempted coup.

The tenuous link which kept Macron happy and kept the troop numbers high was the promise recently by the generals in Bamako of elections which would usher in a civilian government, but when the junta announced that these would be rescheduled to a new date in five years time, Macron’s patience waned. How much longer could he juggle the awkward scenario that he was, in effect, propping up a military regime which didn’t even have the decency to tug its forelock and show reverence to France as the only world power which mattered?

Last year in October, he announced that France would reduce its numbers in Mali starting with its presence in Timbuktu. We can assume that the regime decided that this was the time to turn to the Russians for help to fill the void.

What the Mali regime probably didn’t count on though was the reaction from Macron. Within days, literally, of the news emerging of the Russian presence Macron had not only raised a flag signaling his anger and disappointment with the junta but also managed to stir up similar discontent in Brussels which wasted no time in slapping sanctions on Mali.

Red in tooth and claw

The move though makes the EU look weak and France even weaker. So, when France can’t sustain the respect from former colonies in Africa who are required to play a certain role to keep the French happy then the Elysee turns to the EU to stick the knife in the back? And what does this say about the European Union as a whole? Ready and willing to keep the French dream alive in Africa and even happier for its own so-called foreign policy to be hijacked by a French President red in tooth and claw from a ruse based on revenge and score settling?

The signal to the whole of Africa is far worse though. As we are witnessing in the Middle East with Gulf Arab countries welcoming Syria’s Assad back into their pack following Russia’s intervention, the Mali move will be watched keenly by a number of failed francophone states in Africa. Either accept full hegemony and all that it entails and more or less stay a colony – and don’t seek any geo military support from anyone else – or face the petulant wrath of the EU and France in one almighty blow which will more or less push you in the arms of the Russians anyway.

For those countries who don’t think they have a good deal from France and the EU anyway, their regimes might well consider working more closely with the Russians in either case as Wagner mercenaries will at least go the extra length in keeping a junta in power with no conditions or silly EU human rights handbook.

What Macron has done is signal to African countries and to Russia itself that there is rich pickings for Putin there as all he has to do to expand his empire is send in the Wagner boys and clean up. With one swift move, armies of EU countries scarper once they even hear the word ‘Wagner’ and any remnants of trade with the EU is wiped clean. The clean slate is the perfect basis for Moscow to step in with its partners China, Iran and others to offer a new deal – to be part of a new bloc which sticks two fingers up to western sanctions and backs up the security component with real soldiers prepared to do real fighting. The talks recently between Nicaragua and Iran where the latter proposed a new trade bloc made up of countries sanctioned by the US is a glimpse of the future, which may well include African countries like Mali who now stand tall as the Russian model for others to consider replicating.

The recent bizarre meeting in Paris between Macron and Ursual Von Der Leyen, the European Commission president where both harp on about the need for a new defence strategy for EU countries (probably within NATO) was a desperate move by both the French President and his EU concubine. Macron was clinging on to an informal arrangement in Mali where other EU countries as well as the UK show support to his disingenuous stand against Islamic terrorism in the Sahel. But he is clearly afraid that countries like Germany, which has 800 troops there will be asking themselves just how far this farcical situation can sustain itself all in the name of keeping the Elysee fantasy alive of still being the only relevant power in francophone Africa. After all, if the EU has imposed sanctions and France is pulling out its own troops, then why should others keep theirs there? Mali now knows that the blurred lines of diplo talk with Macron’s people who might have suggested that France would help keep the junta in power have now been made clearer. The UN mission there now can only be there to keep Islamic fighters at bay but not to keep a junta in power. If others follow Macron, then isn’t this a clear sign that western powers are more interested in their own geopolitical goals and hegemony over fighting terrorism? Just look how the Europeans run like chickens when the Russians turn up. And the cheers from the crowds seeing off the expelled French ambassador must be seen for what they are. A landmark between the West and Russia, just as the current talks are between EU leaders and Putin. The times really are a-changin’.

By Ben NORTON

Transcript

BEN NORTON: This is Ben Norton with The Grayzone. I am in Nicaragua’s Foreign Ministry, and I just sat down for an interview with Foreign Minister Denis Moncada.

We talked about Nicaragua’s historic decision to leave the Organization of American States, and other regional issues here in Latin America.

And we discussed how Nicaragua is part of a movement of countries around the world that are trying to create a new political and economic architecture, resisting US unilateralism and sanctions.

Good morning, Foreign Minister Denis Moncada, thank you for the interview.

On November 19, you announced that Nicaragua is leaving the OAS. Can you explain why Nicaragua made this historic decision?

DENIS MONCADA: Yes, thanks a lot Ben, and greetings also to your readers, listeners, or viewers in this case. I want to say that Nicaragua made this decision, the government of President Ortega took the decision to denounce the OAS charter.

And the reason for that is it is a decision that concerns the dignity of the Nicaraguan people, the dignity of the government of reconstruction, of reconciliation and national unity, the government of President Ortega, truly to defend the dignity of the Nicaraguan people.

Because we, in our foreign policy, we are open. We truly seek communication, bilateral relations, and also multilateral relations.

But we have been very clear, and we say that we do not accept foreign interference, nor interventions, that try to meddle in the internal concerns of our country.

And the reason that we have denounced the OAS is because of the policy and attitude, primarily by the United States and the countries subordinated to it, that try to direct and impose the internal policies of Nicaragua and maintain a permanent policy of interference and interventionism, disrespecting the dignity of the Nicaraguan people.

And that truly says why Nicaragua, the government of Nicaragua, the Nicaraguan people, and it has been demanded by the Nicaraguan people, and the institutions and powers of the state have suggested and urged the president of the republic to denounce the OAS charter.

That is to say, ending the state of Nicaragua’s relationship with the OAS, suspending relations. And this is precisely why we sent the statement to the secretary general of the OAS, at the instruction of the president of the republic, Commander Daniel Ortega Saavedra, saying enough is enough.

BEN NORTON: And you said in the letter to the OAS, and to the secretary general of that organization, Luis Almagro, you said that the OAS is an “instrument of interference” of the United States that seeks to impose US hegemony in this region.

The OAS says it is independent. But you don’t think that is true?

DENIS MONCADA: It is not a matter of what I think; it is a matter of what is the concrete, true, objective reality.

The OAS was designed, created precisely by the United States as a way to impose its political decisions, which is defined by the policy of the Monroe Doctrine.

And when the OAS was created, I believe it was Commander Fidel Castro who described it as the “ministry of the colonies.” And truly, that concept, which has already been said for decades, is exactly what defines the OAS.

And think about it, Ben, the OAS, where is it located? It is located, one, in Washington, its permanent location. The OAS is captured there, like a prisoner of the United States.

But in addition to being in Washington, where exactly it is located? A few blocks from the White House, and on the other side a few blocks from the State Department.

If we understand even the geographical location of the OAS in the city, in a building that was built more a century ago, it clearly says that this is a US political and diplomatic instrument, one that supports the main strategic decisions of the United States in relation to the power and hegemony that it tries to maintain over Latin America and the Caribbean.

I think that is the clearest way of explaining why the OAS is not an independent organization, but rather a strategic, political, diplomatic instrument of the United States, that decided to bring together, there near the White House and the State Department, the representatives of all of the states of Latin America and the Caribbean – excluding Cuba, excluding Venezuela, excluding Nicaragua, which is precisely why it is denouncing its charter – so that there the US can simply make its commands and “agreements,” in scare quotes, so that they do what the North American empire decides to do with Latin America and the Caribbean.

BEN NORTON: Recently, there has been a lot of criticism of the OAS, because of the coup d’etat in Bolivia in 2019, and because of the role of the OAS in publishing false accusations of supposed electoral fraud.

Moreover, we have seen that Juan Guaidó, who has never won a single vote to be so-called “president” of Venezuela, he represents Venezuela at the OAS, in Washington.

The OAS, in its charter, says that it is against interference, and in fact it says in its charter that interference in the internal affairs of member states is a violation of the OAS charter.

So, do you think that the OAS violates its own charter?

DENIS MONCADA: Definitely. And there is an interesting element to think about, because the charter of the OAS, if one looks at it in theoretical and conceptual terms, according to the text, it could seem like the charter aligns with the interests of countries, in terms of defending their sovereignty, their territorial integrity, the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of states, if the OAS did not have more powers than those that are clearly established in its charter.

If you look at it from the conceptual and theoretical point of view, we could say that the founding charter of the OAS has some elements that could be valid. But the concrete truth, the reality is precisely [the opposite]. You mentioned the case of Bolivia, for example.

That is to say, when those policies are actually carried out in the countries of Latin America, of the peoples defending their own rights, exercising their sovereignty, of self-determination, protecting their historic and fundamental rights, that is what the United States does not like.

And that is precisely when they, in the most intense ways, keep making policies to destabilize and overthrow governments, legitimate, constitutional, democratic governments.

And then the figure of the OAS appears, in very active ways, trying to fulfill the orders of the United States.

If there is a progressive government, if there is a revolutionary government, if there is an advanced government that goes down the path of trying to strengthen the rights of the people, defending itself from aggressor countries, then they act.

The United States orders the OAS to act. And the OAS, we already saw exactly how it acted to destabilize Bolivia and bring about the overthrow of President Evo Morales, in such an unjust, arbitrary, barbaric, savage way.

BEN NORTON: You mentioned that Cuba, the revolutionary government of Cuba, has long criticized the OAS. Commander Fidel Castro said that the OAS is the “ministry of the yankee colonies.” And Venezuela also left the OAS two years ago.

But more and more, it is not just the revolutionary governments in the region, but even liberal governments, like the Argentine government, the Mexican government, they also have criticized the OAS for the coup d’etat in Bolivia.

And this September there was a meeting, a summit of the CELAC, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, in Mexico City. You participated in the summit in Mexico.

More and more, there is debate in Latin America about the CELAC being an alternative to the OAS. Do you think that the OAS could serve as an alternative?

DENIS MONCADA: In fact, the CELAC emerged precisely as an alternative for the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, excluding the United States and Canada, which do not participate in the CELAC.

That was precisely the vision of heads of state and governments, and above all the peoples of Latin America, of having an autonomous, independent forum, which responds to the concerns, to the vision, and to the historical needs of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.

So the CELAC is a real alternative to the OAS. And in fact countries have made an effort precisely to maintain the continuity of the CELAC.

And separately we know that the United States and other countries, including also countries in Europe, are doing everything to neutralize, to stop, to prevent countries from creating and sustaining their organizations that make it possible for them to take a different path, with a vision of strengthening their rights, their policies, their freedoms, and their struggles for independence in defense of sovereignty and self-determination.

BEN NORTON: Three days after the November 7 elections here in Nicaragua, US President Biden signed the Renacer Act, and later imposed more sanctions against Nicaragua, and not only against government officials but also against institutions like Nicaragua’s public prosecutor’s office.

What do you think about these sanctions?

DENIS MONCADA: We do not recognize the extra-territoriality of the laws that the United States approves, whether it be through the Congress or ratified by the US president.

Its laws are laws for its country, for its state, but not for other countries. Nicaragua does not recognize that extra-territoriality.

Nevertheless, we are very clear that we are speaking about the same topic, and we see another factor, another facet of how the empire tries to expand its hegemony, creating laws, with the president approving them, and then trying to apply those laws in other countries.

This includes imposing unilateral coercive measures (sanctions), which we already know are illegal, arbitrary, absurd, and in the case of Nicaragua we have said it, we don’t accept them, we reject them, we condemn them.

It is a form of the empire continuing to exercise the role it believes it has in the world, of being a judge, of being a prosecutor, of playing a role that the international community did not assign to it.

Nevertheless, we see how there is a kind of consistency in that attitude, in that imperial behavior, using all of its different instruments, like the OAS, like the Congress, of passing a resolution and then the empire tries to impose it everywhere.

That is why Nicaragua, our government, the government of President Ortega, has maintained what we say is an anti-imperialist policy, but measured.

And when we say anti-imperialist, it is because we are clear that those who exercise power is a small group of extraordinary power, that even affects the North American people themselves.

The empire is not the North American people. The North American people are not part of the empire. The empire consists of the large organizations, the large economic powers, industrial and military powers, that try to impose themselves on the world to exploit it, to pillage it, to colonize it again.

And it does this to maintain a lifestyle, that is not imposed by the North American people, but rather by the powerful interests, through aggression, through robbing the wealth of countries, in an incredible, shameless way.

BEN NORTON: Currently, one-fourth of the global population lives in countries sanctioned by the United States and the European Union. That is to say, one-fourth of humanity lives in countries under sanctions.

So is there an attempt by sanctioned countries, like Nicaragua and Venezuela and other countries, to build an alternative to this financial system dominated by the United States?

DENIS MONCADA: Yes, that is a struggle that has gone on for many decades, because we have to change international relations and systems, among them the international financial system and the international order.

And Nicaragua is part of the countries that are fighting to make those transformations in the international community of nations, and to redesign, redefine, restructure the financial system, the international order in general, of political relations, diplomatic relations too, and above all having peace as a central point.

Truly, what the international community wants is peace, stability, security, work, progress, so that our peoples, all over the world, are able to make the effort to be happy. That is what all humanity wants and desires.

No wars, no conflicts, no tensions, no aggressions, but rather peace, stability, respect between states, respect between governments, respect between peoples.

And to continue advancing, fighting against poverty, strengthening programs of human development. In short, that is what humanity wants.

And doubtlessly we have to strengthen the common struggle of all peoples to change the system.

BEN NORTON: Nicaragua is one of the members of a new group in the United Nations which is called the Group of Friends in Defense of the UN Charter. There’s Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, China, Russia, Palestine, Eritrea, various countries.

What is this group, and what is the importance of an alliance of countries sanctioned by the United States?

DENIS MONCADA: The essence is to defend the UN charter. And the group of countries was formed precisely with that objective.

Why the UN charter? If we are discussing UN reforms and also transforming the system, in the UN charter you find precisely the basic principles that allow for peaceful coexistence, respect between states, attaining and strengthening peace, stability, international security, cooperation between developing countries, to achieve a comprehensive development, to make all of the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development possible.

So that group of countries thinks that we truly need to come together and defend those principles and those values, those fundamental declarations that are established in the UN charter, to be able to thrive as independent states, as sovereign states, and the keep reinforcing the work to maintain, sustain, and strengthen peace, international security, the right of all peoples to live in their own ways, with self-determination and mutual respect.

So it is a group of friends in defense of the UN Charter, which is very important. It has had meetings already in New York and also in Serbia, taking advantage of the meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement.

In short, it is keeping that important cause going, that position of countries, of the international community, of defending life and humanity, of having peace, of strengthening peace, and continuing to advance in a positive sense, in a sense of tranquility for all of humanity.

BEN NORTON: Another member of the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations is Iran. And you attended the inauguration of President Raisi, the new president of Iran.

What is the importance of relations between Nicaragua and Iran, and in general with the countries of West Asia? Do you think it is important to strengthen relations between anti-imperialist forces in West Asia and progressive forces here in Latin America?

DENIS MONCADA: Yes, Nicaragua and the government of President Ortega has said very clearly that we maintain broad relations with the entire world. Because they are relationships of friendship, of brotherhood, of fraternity, of cooperation, of solidarity.

And the world should live, should share its interests, its objectives, its needs, in its emergencies, in its pandemics, which is not just Covid-19 but also economic pandemics, political pandemics, pandemics of aggression, pandemics of neo-colonialism.

In this area, we are strengthening and widening our relations with Iran and with other countries in Asia, and in Africa too. Because there are common interests, common visions, shared rights between countries.

And combining together our forces, conversing, holding dialogue, we strengthen our bilateral relations, and multilateral relations.

We are now leaving the OAS, but we are going to strengthen and keep strengthening our communication with the CELAC, our communication and relations with the ALBA-TCP, our relations with other organizations, with the Non-Aligned Movement, with the UN as well.

In short, the relations with Iran and other countries are framed precisely around that vision of widening and strengthening relations with all the countries of the world, a vision that Nicaragua has, and that has been set out by Commander Daniel Ortega.

BEN NORTON: Today in our discussion, there is a theme that links together all of the themes, there is an issue, and that is imperialism. You mentioned that the foreign policy of Nicaragua is an anti-imperialist foreign policy, and internationalist.

In the Sandinista movement, what is the importance of this, of internationalism and anti-imperialism?

DENIS MONCADA: It is important, because if the empire wants to dominate you, it wants to subjugate you, it wants to make you into a colony, as historically has happened in many places, the peoples are conscious of the fact that they have a right to exist as peoples, as countries, as nations, as states, and that they have the right to defend those principles, those values, and that right.

Imperialism wants to dominate you. Internationalism is the relation between states. Anti-imperialism is resisting with justice, with dignity, with strength against this hegemonic policy, which continues to be carried out by the United States and European countries.

BEN NORTON: A few years ago, Nicaragua made an agreement with a Chinese company to build an inter-oceanic canal. And we have seen that this topic, this issue of the inter-oceanic canal, became a major point of conflict in international politics.

We have documents that show that the United States funded opposition groups to organize protests against the inter-oceanic canal. The United States has a long history of trying to build its own inter-oceanic canal.

So what is the importance of this project for Nicaragua?

DENIS MONCADA: Nicaragua has geographic conditions that have made it possible and still make it possible to build a route of inter-oceanic communication, that is to say, a form of facilitating international communication and commercial exchange, everything that a route of communication make possible, of cutting distances, and saving fuel, and making the transportation of consumer goods more efficient from all over the world.

And well, that is Nicaragua’s right. We are building a canal in our territory, sovereign territory, the territory of the Nicaraguan people. And with a vision also of sharing that geography to create a route of communication that benefits the entire world, with Nicaraguan control and management.

The construction of the canal, it keeps moving forward, with investigations being conducted into feasibility and the effects on the environment. In short, with all of the elements, in a responsible way, that say that a state should build a project of great significance, like an inter-oceanic canal.

BEN NORTON: To conclude, in the United States, we speak more and more of the idea of a new cold war, that is to say, the second cold war, but this time not only against Russia, but also against the People’s Republic of China.

In the United States, everything today is about Russia and China. They say that Moscow supposedly stole the election. They say that China created the coronavirus. There is a lot of propaganda in the United States about this.

And here in Latin America, we have seen that this region is part of this so-called new cold war. The United States says, “Latin America is ours, and we don’t want Russia and China to have relations and to do business with the countries here.”

So for Nicaragua, what could the role of Nicaragua be in this so-called second cold war? And what do you think of this conflict between Washington on one side and Moscow and Beijing on the other?

DENIS MONCADA: The United States is an empire. It has been an empire for a long time. Empires try to prevent themselves from disappearing or losing their hegemony. And they will use all instruments, all forms, to maintain their level of power and control.

And obviously they try to stop other countries from developing, growing, expanding their capacities, their possibilities in economic and commercial terms, in the development of their peoples, in the strengthening of their rights, in having a voice on the international stage, in having more responsible relations, that are not invasive, not interventionist, not meddling.

All of this changes the mentality and the perception of humanity as a whole, and shows the precise difference between a hegemonic empire, dominating, intervening, invading, destroying nations and countries, states, and humanity; and between other countries that develop, that resolve their own problems of their population, and socialize in some way their progress, their advances, their technology, their commercial exchange, and of sharing with other countries as well in a very respectful manner, their advances and their development.

And contributing, in a responsible and supportive way, to the facilitation with other countries as well of a plan of cooperation, of investment, of solidarity, to keep advancing, to keep developing and resolving countries’ economic problems which in a way, or very substantially contributes to consolidating peace, stability, security in every country.

And that is precisely the way that we avoid massive irregular migrations, and all of those problems that people are worried about.

So cold war, no, what humanity needs is peace, stability, cooperation, friendship, coexistence.

It is because of that type of tensions that are generated by powers like the United States, or Europe through NATO, that we now see moving to Latin America with the participation of Colombia, which is truly foolish.

So it is a war waged by one power, combined with the powers in Europe, that want to sustain, maintain their control over the world, their hegemony, and to try to prevent other countries from advancing, from developing, from having responsible state policies and sharing with humanity their development, their progress, and moving toward advancing the development of the peoples in a way that is peaceful, friendly, and cooperative, of mutual benefit for these countries that are developing themselves and the countries that are on the path toward developing in search of a better future.

BEN NORTON: Foreign Minister Denis Moncada, thank you so much for the interview.

DENIS MONCADA: Many thanks to you, Ben, and a cordial greeting as well to all of your friends, comrades, and audience.

BEN NORTON: Thank you.

thegrayzone.com

In part one, we were introduced to China’s surveillance state and broader social credit system and asked: Is this type of undemocratic behaviour justified in the modern world?

If the west were truly a beacon of liberty and if nation states were the only forces negotiating global policy between each other acting out of a concern for their citizens’ well being, and national interests then certainly the answer would be a loud negative.

However, when one accepts the reality of a supranational power structure operating above nation states committed to a specific dystopic formula for a world order, then the picture changes a bit.

In order to maintain the perception that China is a villain in the minds of credulous consumers of most conservative media, it is asserted that China is an atheistic monstrosity committed to crushing religion. If one wishes to practice religion in China, we are told the consequences are jail, draconian social credit scores or even the loss of one’s life.

Although popular, this perception is entirely bogus.

As far as freedom of religion is concerned, China is a land which is home to over 50 million Christians and has over 65,000 churches of protestant and catholic denominations. Muslims make up the majority of the population in Xinjiang which hosts over 24,000 Mosques which is a far greater per capita number than anything found in the USA. Buddhist and Daoist temples abound across China as well. For a refutation of the Uyghur genocide myth, click here.

While China is a secular state, it has come a long way from the anti-religious outlook dominant during the dark days of the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution. Even China’s constitution protects freedom of religion (article 36), with the simple caveat that “No state organ, social organization or individual shall coerce citizens to believe in or not to believe in any religion, nor shall they discriminate against citizens who believe in or do not believe in any religion. The state shall protect normal religious activities. No one shall use religion to engage in activities that disrupt public order, impair the health of citizens or interfere with the state’s education system.” And most importantly: “Religious groups and religious affairs shall not be subject to control by foreign forces.”

So basically, freedom of worship is constitutionally protected as long as your religious group doesn’t have the smell of color revolution on it.

Despite the fact that it is required that Churches, Mosques, and Buddhist temples receive a government license to operate legally and conform to China’s overarching national priorities, thousands of underground Churches also exist across China and for the most part, government officials tend to look the other way.

When, however connections are made between those unlicensed churches and foreign intelligence agencies like the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House, or Open Doors (all having vast CIA connections), then they are promptly shut down. Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and Daoists are thus encouraged to find less insurrectionary venues to practice their faith.

Most westerners who criticize China’s non-liberal relationship to its religious institutions tend to overlook the fact that the form of modern warfare relies heavily on infiltration, cultural manipulation, psy ops, and asymmetrical warfare from within target nations. One such organization is the NED-sponsored ChinaAid (based in Washington and Texas) which finances and coordinates networks of underground Churches as weapons for broader cultural warfare across mainland China.

This technique of utilizing religious cells as a cover for undermining China is nothing new, and actually goes back to the Taiping Rebellion organized over 160 years ago.

The Taiping Rebellion Bloodbath

During this twelve-year bloodbath (1853-1864), a synthetic Christian cult led by a failed school teacher named Hong Xiuquan unleashed a civil war that put the British East India Company on a fast track to crushing China during the second Opium War (1856-1860).

Hailed as a man-god by his devoted followers, Hong Xiuquan was little more than a useful idiot recruited by western intelligence operatives masquerading as protestant missionaries in 1843 and soon became convinced that he was the brother of Jesus himself. With his revelation, Hong became fanatically committed to cleanse China of evil spirits. This evil was not, however the hand of the British Empire that had bled China in the first Opium War (1839-1842) nor the plague of drugs more generally that had destroyed the lives of millions of his brethren. The “evil spirits” which Hong became obsessed with eradicating were rather Confucian and Buddhist thinking in general and the ruling government specifically!

The year of Hong’s great revelation (1842), was the same year that China lost the first opium war giving over Hong Kong to the British Empire along with a vast expansion of drug flows into the impoverished and drug addicted nation. Opium imports skyrocketed to 3200 metric tons per year by 1850 with every province of China soon forced to grow opium to service the ever-growing demand. What was not produced within China was supplied from British controlled operations in India, and the Ottoman Empire.

The Chinese messiah managed to institute a new government called the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom which soon gained control of one third of China’s southern territory making Nanjing its capital by 1851. Its program attracted over 30 million adherents to Hong’s particular brand of Christianity among the impoverished peasants quickly became converts under this synthetic cult. Part of the attraction was found in the Taiping Kingdom’s policy of equal distribution of all property and no private possessions.

Hong’s cousin and partner in crime was an anglophile trained by the British in Hong Kong name Hung Jen-kan. When Jen-kan returned to Taiping headquarters in Nanjing in 1859 he wrote:

“At present England is the mightiest nation of the world, owing to its superior laws. The English are noted for their intellectual power and national strength, are proud by nature and averse to being subordinate.”

Noted historian Michael Billington cited letters which Caleb Cushing’s agent, and protestant missionary in China, W.A.P. Martin had written to his handler amidst the chaos of the rebellion saying: “The Tartars [Qing] dynasty, too far gone in senility to afford any encouraging prospect of reformation, will now, perhaps, consider the expediency of recognizing its youthful rival [the Taiping] which, catching the spirit of the age, may be prevailed upon toe unlock the treasures of the interior and throw open its portals to unrestricted trade… Divide and conquer is the stratagem to be employed in storming the citadels of oriental exclusiveness”.

It is important to hold in mind that Cushing was a leading figure among the Boston Brahmins who made fortunes working with the British in the global opium trade and were always antagonistic to the spirit of the U.S. Constitution itself. Cushing and his fellow Brahmins had been hard at work by this time preparing the groundwork for a parallel Civil War in the USA while the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were still active in the east.

One of the bargaining chips the British empire used in negotiating the terms of China’s humiliating defeat was the threat to recognize the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom as the legitimate government of China. Beijing was so deeply bled from years of internal civil war that they easily bent to this threat and agreed to every condition demanded by the British resulting in the 1858 Treaty of Tien Tsin and Convention of Peking which granted unlimited access to foreign missionaries (again often covers for foreign intelligence operations), unlimited drug production, and free trade among other abuses that crippled China for years.

By the time the second Opium war ended in 1860, the British saw no more use in maintaining their synthetic cult and like a silk farmer who extracted all the silk from his worms, proceeded to work with the government to burn the cult which was finally exterminated by 1865.

In all, this civil war resulted in 30 million Chinese deaths, and still weighs heavily on China’s mind.

In the wake of the rebellion and broader Opium War, life expectancy sank as 22.6 thousand tons of opium were being produced within China for domestic use by 1900. Poverty ran rampant, and Anglophile freemasonic groups shaped the policy of Triads in Hong Kong where HSBC pioneered global narcotics economics. The crushing of the spirits of the Chinese resulted in the backlash of the anti-Christian Boxer Rebellion that itself became a convenient excuse for western imperial powers to carve up China even further in retribution for damages to houses, rail lines and lives.

By 1910, only one year before Sun Yat-sen’s Lincoln-inspired republican revolution broke China free from the unwinnable Great Game, European and Japanese imperial interests had taken control of vast portions of China’s territory.

Whether we are looking at religious sects masquerading as Christian or Muslim fronts, or Asian scientology-esque Falun Gong cults run by nutty exiled messianic characters like Li Hongzhi who literally believes he is ordained by God to save humanity from interdimensional aliens, Xi Jinping has some messy problems to deal with both within China and abroad. Living in a 400 acre compound in upstate New York and controlling a vast array of cultural/intelligence platforms including Epoch Times, Li Hongzhi’s continuing role as an influence shaper tied to the worst elements of China’s exiled community (including criminal billionaire and Bannon partner Guo Wengui) should lead any rational person to understand why China has taken the position it has on cults like Falun Gong and religious groups more broadly.

In the next installment, we will look more deeply at one more aspect of psy ops in China with a focus on Jesuits, London’s Tavistock and other spiritual poisons threatening the free world.

The author can be reached at matthewehret.substack.com

Today’s global energy inequities are staggering.

Video gamers in California consume more electricity than entire nations. The average Tanzanian used only one-sixth the electricity consumed by a typical American refrigerator in 2014.

Globally, the top 10% of countries consume 20 times more energy than the bottom 10%. And 1.1 billion sub-Saharan Africans share the same amount of power generation capacity as Germany’s 83 million people. At least half have no access to electricity at all.

These stark energy inequalities are fueling thorny debates around financing Africa’s energy future as world leaders and their negotiators prepare for COP26, the United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.

One increasingly common theme from wealthy countries – including those responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions over time – is a vow that they will cease public funding for all (or nearly all) fossil fuel projects in less developed countries, even as they continue financing, and in many cases heavily subsidizing, fossil fuels in their own.

It is generally easier for countries that offer overseas development finance for energy projects to make low-carbon rules for others, rather than for themselves. For example, China, Japan and South Korea – some of the world’s highest coal-consuming nations – have each recently pledged to stop funding coal projects overseas and increase investments in renewables. But they have made no equivalent commitments at home.

The U.S. Treasury and the United Kingdom’s development finance institution, CDC Group, have taken a more nuanced approach. They are limiting all coal and oil-based power generation projects and leaving a narrow window available for natural gas projects in poor countries that pass a rigorous screening process. This is roughly similar to the approach of the World Bank.

As experienced clean energy policy researchers, we believe the blunt exclusion of all nonrenewable energy projects from development finance is an inequitable and ineffective climate strategy that gaslights over 1 billion Africans.

Tiny climate gains, major development losses

Focusing on limiting the emissions of the world’s poorest countries while emissions continue to rise in industrialized countries is clearly misdirected in our view. Given stark inequalities in energy use and emissions, this could instead entrench poverty and widen inequality induced by worsening climate change, while simultaneously accomplishing very little to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

Together, the U.S., U.K., European Union, Japan and Russia have almost the same population – 1.1 billion people – as sub-Saharan Africa, but 35 times more gas-fired power plants in operation or under development, and 52 times more coal plants.

When it comes to carbon dioxide emissions, sub-Saharan Africa is collectively responsible for barely half a percent of all global emissions over time, while the U.S., U.K., E.U., Japan and Russia are responsible for more than 100 times that amount, or about 57%.

The upper bound for Africa’s future growth in power sector emissions is also negligible. If the region’s electricity demand hypothetically tripled tomorrow, rather than doubling by 2040 as the International Energy Agency recently forecast, and if only natural gas was used to meet the new demand, annual global emissions would increase by only 0.62%, according to one estimate. That’s equivalent to the state of Louisiana’s annual emissions today.

What’s more, the share of renewable power in many sub-Saharan African national grids is already higher than for nearly all the big greenhouse gas emitters. In at least six countries – Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique and Uganda – renewables make up more than 50% of their annual generation. In 2018, hydropower, geothermal, solar and wind made up about 20% of the continent’s total power generated.

Most of the region will find renewable power to be the fastest and cheapest way to expand their generation capacity, but some areas may still need to rely on some fossil fuels in various sectors of the economy as they develop.

It has been clear for decades that the world needs to rapidly and aggressively cut its greenhouse gas emissions to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Many regions in Africa, including the Sahel and Mozambique, are already facing the effects of climate change, including worsening droughts, food insecurity and severe storms. Adapting to climate change and building resilience requires the very energy, economic development and infrastructure currently lacking in some of the most affected regions and those least prepared to adapt.

Climate colonialism and legacies of colonization

Other experts agree that this direction of climate policy is not just ineffective, it’s rooted in the historic inequities of colonialism.

The philosopher Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò defines climate colonialism as the “deepening or expansion of foreign domination through climate initiatives that exploits poorer nations’ resources or otherwise compromises their sovereignty.”

Colonialism’s legacy is a contributing factor to a wide range of issues, from conflict to corruption, and to the poor state of electricity access across much of Africa today.

While industrializing nations in the 1900s were building electricity grids through massive public spending campaigns, like Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the United States and the Electricity Supply Act of 1926 in the U.K., most of Africa was being actively pilfered of its rich natural resources. Much of the infrastructure built in colonial Africa during that time was built only to facilitate resource extraction operations, such as mined commodities, oil, timber, rubber, tea, coffee and spices.

In 1992, a coalition of low-income nations successfully advocated for the U.N.‘s climate mitigation pathways to include their right to development, and a “common but differentiated responsibility” to address the dual problems of development and climate change. This language has long been the basis of equity considerations in climate policy, including in the 2015 Paris Agreement, which expects deeper emissions cuts from developed countries based on their “respective capabilities”.

A transition from what?

Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo recently described “energy transition” as “a curious term” when applied universally, given the energy shortfalls in countries like Nigeria. He has argued for an energy transition in which Africa can develop quickly and grow. Increasing electricity in industrializing regions of sub-Saharan Africa would first power income-generating activities and public services, both drivers of economic growth.

Equitable and effective climate negotiations will require nuanced policy considerations that balance the priorities of alleviating energy poverty with urgent climate change mitigation and adaptation. A just energy transition would leave African governments to make and implement policies and deliver on their own national climate commitments under the Paris Agreement rather than shouldering the West’s.

theconversation.com

The African Union and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) condemn the state of Denmark and its Social Democrat government for xenophobia. An Uncle Tom, “integration” minister Mattias Tesfaye (Ethiopian-Danish), is used as a leading promoter of racist neo-colonialism. 

Mattias Tesfave, Minister for Immigration and Integration (sic), is leading a crusade to deport to one or more African countries asylum-seekers in Denmark. His ministry has rejected their status as refugees, but cannot return them to their land of origin as their lives could be in danger.

The African Union (AU) has strongly condemned Denmark for practicing “xenophobia”, i.e. racism, for its treatment of refugees, most of whom do not come from Africa but rather the Middle East. AU is a continental union consisting of 55 member states of Africa, founded May 26, 2001. Its headquarters is in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The bloc encompasses 1.3 billion people.

In a news release (August 2), the African Union “condemns in the strongest terms possible, Denmark’s Aliens Act, which was passed recently [June 2021], and which provides for Denmark to relocate asylum seekers to countries outside the European Union while their cases are being processed. This law effectively externalizes and exports the asylum process beyond the borders of Denmark.” Press Statement On Denmark’s Alien Act provision to Externalize Asylum procedures to third countries | African Union (au.int)

“African Union notes with concern attempts…to establish…an extension of the borders of [Denmark]…to the African shores. Such attempts [are] xenophobic and completely unacceptable.”

“The African Union views this [Danish] law with the gravest of concerns and wishes to remind Denmark of its responsibility towards international protection for persons in need of that protection as provided for in the 1951 UN Convention on refugees, to which Denmark is a state party.”

The Refugee Convention sets out the rights of individuals who are granted asylum and the responsibilities of nations that grant asylum. 4ca34be29.pdf (unhcr.org)

Less than a year ago, Denmark was strongly criticized by the European committee against torture, European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) (coe.int).

CPT found that many refugees in Denmark’s Ellebaek “Immigration Center” are met with violence and racism by “immigration” personnel and police. CPT also criticized refugee’s lack of access to healthcare, and that refugee detainees are jailed in police stations, sometimes for many hours without access to light and proper ventilation.

Conditions at the Ellebaek Alien Center protested. (Foto: Niels Christian Vilmann © Scanpix)

These refugees are among those that Denmark is attempting to bury in “reception centers”, which it will create in poverty-stricken Africa still under the foot of Western neo-colonialism. Danmark afviser torturkomités kritik om vold og racisme på udlændingecenter | Indland | DR. See also: 09000016809f65d6 (coe.int)

Many of these homeless refugees were denied asylum by the Tesfave-party led government, Social Democrats. Denmark, however, must not return them to the country from which they fled due to their being in risk for punishment or death, because the country is at war. Many are from Syria, which the Danish government has bombed and sent volunteer mercenary soldiers to kill patriots fighting for their country’s sovereignty. Denmark’s aggression is illegal by national and all international laws. Its’ actions are motivated to please USA’s imperial plans of global domination and to confiscate natural resources.

Denmark is Still a Colonialist

BT, a conservative daily, interviewed Stig Jensen, on August 6, 2021, a Copenhagen University African Studies associate professor, regarding the significance of the Refugee Convention and African Union’s statement. Jensen considered that Denmark is willing to be “strategic enough to go down and ask who is hungry enough to take on this task.”

Regarding African Union’s critique: “It’s a bump in the government’s desire to implement the plans,” but Denmark will not change coarse, Jensen mused.

Tesfaye and Development Minister Flemming Moeller Mortensen went to Rwanda offering bribes—“carrots”, Jensen calls them—to pressed government officials to accept Denmark’s unwanted foreigners, most not Africans, to a timeless existence in “reception centers”.

Denmark’s counterpart to USA’s secretary of state, Jeppe Kofod, was sent to Ethiopia to see if it could be so bribed. However, Tesfaye’s fatherland is engaged in a brutal civil war brought on by Denmark’s friendly government of Abiy Ahmed. Several ethnic groups, separated and pit against one another by European colonialists, are now in conflict with the government. A civil war in the northern area of Tigray is so devastating—the government forbids any food/medicine to reach the area—that even Uncle Tom Tesfaye has taken Ethiopia off the list. U.S. Paves Way for Intervention in Ethiopia, Horn of Africa — Strategic Culture (strategic-culture.org)

Tesfaye was born in Denmark. His mother was Jytte Svensson, a Dane with Swedish roots. She was a social-health worker. His father is not even named on wikipedia, only that he was from Ethiopia.
Mattias Tesfaye – Wikipedia, den frie encyklopædi.

Teenager Tesfaye joined Denmark’s Communist Party Marxist-Leninist (Stalinist) where he made a name for himself in Denmark’s small radical circle for 15 years. He quit for a more acceptable, wishy-washy leftist party, and moved his way up to the former worker’s party, Social Democrats. He was rewarded with a seat in parliament and now disintegration minister.

With Ethiopia out of the running, Tesfaye prefers Rwanda, despite decades of mass murder—majority Hutus against minority Tutsi’s, culminating in the genocide of 1994. In later years, Tutsi’s murdering Hutu’s and peoples in the Congo over who gets control of selling the world’s richest minerals (uranium, coltan, copper, tin, tungsten, diamonds, gold…) to Western countries with the ships waiting at African ports. Europe/US then use these minerals to make weapons with which they invade and murder peoples of color, like Tesfaye’s father.

thiscantbehappening.net

By Dan COHEN

Two weeks after the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, the specter of U.S. military intervention looms large over the island nation. While the Biden administration has rebuffed a request for intervention made by Claude Joseph – a longtime NED asset whom Washington briefly backed as prime minister in the immediate aftermath of the killing – it has not completely ruled out the possibility.

​In the days immediately following Moïse’s grisly machine-gun murder on July 7 by U.S.-trained Colombian mercenaries, the Washington Post editorial board published a call for a “swift and muscular intervention” — what would be the fourth U.S. military invasion of Haiti since 1915, when U.S. Marines first occupied the hemisphere’s second independent nation.

WaPo Editorial Board’s call for UN intervention in Haiti is dripping with colonial condescension and implies Haitians are incapable of running their country. It never mentions the revolutionary fervor gripping the streets, only warns of possible “anarchy.” https://t.co/lf0dKUVhXH

— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) July 8, 2021

On July 13, as the Biden administration signaled its reluctance to launch a full-scale invasion of Haiti, the Post editorial board published a second call for U.S. military intervention, suggesting that it was the least bad option.

WaPo Editorial Board’s call for UN intervention in Haiti is dripping with colonial condescension and implies Haitians are incapable of running their country. It never mentions the revolutionary fervor gripping the streets, only warns of possible “anarchy.” https://t.co/lf0dKUVhXH

— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) July 8, 2021

The same day, Post columnist and neoconservative writer Max Boot published an op-ed asserting that Haitians actually desire a U.S. invasion, entitled “Sorry, Haiti. The world’s policeman is officially off duty.”

WaPo Editorial Board’s call for UN intervention in Haiti is dripping with colonial condescension and implies Haitians are incapable of running their country. It never mentions the revolutionary fervor gripping the streets, only warns of possible “anarchy.” https://t.co/lf0dKUVhXH

— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) July 8, 2021

Even the ostensibly progressive lawmaker Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) refused to take a clear position against an intervention, saying that she opposed it “right now” and “without any sort of plan.”

WaPo Editorial Board’s call for UN intervention in Haiti is dripping with colonial condescension and implies Haitians are incapable of running their country. It never mentions the revolutionary fervor gripping the streets, only warns of possible “anarchy.” https://t.co/lf0dKUVhXH

— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) July 8, 2021

While the Washington consensus is firmly in support of U.S. military deployment in Haiti, MintPress News traveled to Port-au-Prince to ask random Haitians in the street what they thought of a possible intervention.

​“We don’t want a military intervention,” Adrien Willien told MintPress. “We are for Haitians putting their heads together.”

​“We don’t want any foreign intervention to come resolve our problems for us,” echoed Ernst C. Denoir. “On the contrary, that would be pouring gas on the fire, making the situation worse.”

Contrary to the claims of self-appointed spokesman for the Haitain people Max Boot and his fellow neoconservative ideologues at The Washington Post, not a single Haitian with whom MintPress News spoke agreed. In fact, many were outraged at the suggestion and hold the United States responsible for the current violence and dysfunction plaguing Haiti.

“The insecurity you see here is programmed by the oligarchy and the imperialists,” thundered Denoir.

Meanwhile, thousands of Haitians turned out on Friday, July 23 for Moïse’s state funeral in Cap Haïtien, the capital of the northern department where he was raised. Many hurled curses at the U.S. delegation — which included U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Michele Sison, and was headed by U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield — as it approached the funeral’s stage. The U.S. delegation fled the ceremony before it was over, when police fired warning shots and tear-gas to repel angry crowds wanting to enter the ceremony or stop it until the intellectual authors of the assassination are found.

​Despite its claims to have no plans “for now” to invade Haiti, the U.S. has appointed a Special Envoy to Haiti, Daniel Foote, and will begin advising the Haitian National Police (PNH) in “anti-gang fighting,” Haitilibre reported July 24.

​U.S. troops, backed by those from France and Canada, last invaded Haiti immediately following the February 29, 2004 coup d’état against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. As was done after their 1994 intervention, they handed the ensuing military occupation of Haiti over to a United Nations “peace-keeping” force after three months. UN forces occupied Haiti for the next 15 years.

​The troop deployment violated Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which specifies that the Security Council can use force only “to maintain or restore international peace and security” (i.e., in a conflict between two states), not to meddle in an internal political conflict. The Haitian Constitution also forbids foreign troops on Haitian soil.

​The 2004 intervention began on February 28 when a SEAL team, led by U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Louis Moreno, surrounded Aristide’s home, then threatened and browbeat the president into boarding an unmarked jet, which whisked him away to Africa. Aristide later called the abduction a “modern kidnapping.”

​“We remember that the U.S. came and took our charismatic leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide,” in 2004, recalled Willien. “That coup d’état is the cause of the state we are in today.”

“The U.S. betrayed the Haitian people when it kidnapped Aristide,” Willien concluded.

The bitter taste of past military interventions and occupations informs the almost universal Haitian public opinion against another U.S. incursion.

mintpressnews.com

By Vijay PRASHAD

In 1963, the Trinidadian writer CLR James released a second edition of his classic 1938 study of the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution.

For the new edition, James wrote an appendix with the suggestive title “From Toussaint L’Ouverture to Fidel Castro.” In the opening page of the appendix, he located the twin revolutions of Haiti (1804) and Cuba (1959) in the context of the West Indian islands:

“The people who made them, the problems and the attempts to solve them, are peculiarly West Indian, the product of a peculiar origin and a peculiar history.”

Thrice James uses the word “peculiar,” which emerges from the Latin peculiaris for “private property” (pecu is the Latin word for “cattle,” the essence of ancient property).

Property is at the heart of the origin and history of the modern West Indies. By the end of the 17th century, the European conquistadors and colonialists had massacred the inhabitants of the West Indies. On St. Kitts in 1626, English and French colonialists massacred between 2,000 and 4,000 Caribs — including Chief Tegremond — in the Kalinago genocide, which Jean-Baptiste Du Tertre wrote about in 1654.

Having annihilated the island’s native people, the Europeans brought in African men and women who had been captured and enslaved. What unites the West Indian islands is not language and culture, but the wretchedness of slavery, rooted in an oppressive plantation economy. Both Haiti and Cuba are products of this “peculiarity,” the one being bold enough to break the shackles in 1804 and the other able to follow a century and a half later.

Osmond Watson, Jamaica, “City Life,” 1968.

Today, crisis is the hour in the Caribbean.

On July 7, just outside of Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince, gunmen broke into the home of President Jovenel Moïse, assassinated him in cold blood, and then fled. The country — already wracked by social upheaval sparked by the late president’s policies — has now plunged even deeper into crisis.

Already, Moïse had forcefully extended his presidential mandate beyond his term as the country struggled with the burdens of being dependent on international agencies, trapped by a century-long economic crisis and struck hard by the pandemic. Protests had become commonplace across Haiti as the prices of everything skyrocketed and as no effective government came to the aid of a population in despair.

But Moïse was not killed because of this proximate crisis. More mysterious forces are at work: U.S.-based Haitian religious leaders, narco-traffickers and Colombian mercenaries. This is a saga that is best written as a fictional thriller.

Four days after Moïse’s assassination, Cuba experienced a set of protests from people expressing their frustration with shortages of goods and a recent spike of Covid-19 infections. Within hours of receiving the news that the protests had emerged, Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel went to the streets of San Antonio de los Baños, south of Havana, to march with the protestors.

Díaz-Canel and his government reminded the 11 million Cubans that the country has suffered greatly from the six-decade-long illegal U.S. blockade, that it is in the grip of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s 243 additional “coercive measures” and that it will fight off the twin problems of Covid-19 and a debt crisis with its characteristic resolve.

Nonetheless, a malicious social media campaign attempted to use these protests as a sign that the government of Díaz-Canel and the Cuban Revolution should be overthrown.

It was clarified a few days later that this campaign was run from Miami. And from Washington, D.C., the drums of regime change sounded loudly. But they have not found find much of an echo in Cuba. Cuba has its own revolutionary rhythms.

Eduardo Abela, Cuba, “Los Guajiros,” 1938.

In 1804, the Haitian Revolution — a rebellion of the plantation proletariat who struck against the agricultural factories that produced sugar and profit — sent up a flare of freedom across the colonized world. A century and a half later, the Cubans fired their own flare.

The response to each of these revolutions from the fossilized magnates of Paris and Washington was the same: suffocate the stirrings of freedom by indemnities and blockades.

In 1825, the French demanded through force that the Haitians pay 150 million francs for the loss of property (namely human beings). Alone in the Caribbean, the Haitians felt that they had no choice but to pay up, which they did to France (until 1893) and then to the United States (until 1947). The total bill over the 122 years amounts to $21 billion. When Haiti’s President Jean-Bertrand Aristide tried to recover those billions from France in 2003, he was removed from office by a coup d’état.

After the United States occupied Cuba in 1898, it ran the island like a gangster’s playground. Any attempt by the Cubans to exercise their sovereignty was squashed with terrible force, including invasions by U.S. forces in 1906-1909, 1912, 1917-1922 and 1933.

The United States backed General Fulgencio Batista (1940-1944 and 1952-1959) despite all the evidence of his brutality. After all, Batista protected U.S. interests and U.S. firms owned two-thirds of the country’s sugar industry and almost its entire service sector.

The Cuban Revolution of 1959 stands against this wretched history — a history of slavery and imperial domination.

How did the U.S. react? By imposing an economic blockade on the country from Oct. 19, 1960, that lasts to this day and has targeted everything from access to medical supplies, food and financing to barring Cuban imports and coercing third-party countries to do the same. It is a vindictive attack against a people who — like the Haitians — are trying to exercise their sovereignty.

Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez reported that between April 2019 and December 2020, the government lost $9.1 billion due to the blockade ($436 million per month). “At current prices,” he said, “the accumulated damages in six decades amount to over $147.8 billion, and against the price of gold, it amounts to over $1.3 trillion.”

None of this information would be available without the presence of media outlets such as Peoples Dispatch, which celebrates its three-year anniversary this week. We send our warmest greetings to the team and hope that you will bookmark their page to visit it several times a day for world news rooted in people’s struggles.

Bernadette Persaud, Guyana, “Gentlemen Under the Sky (Gulf War),” 1991.

On July 17, tens of thousands of Cubans took to the streets to defend their revolution and demand an end to the U.S. blockade. President Díaz-Canel said that the Cuba of “love, peace, unity, [and] solidarity” had asserted itself.

A few weeks before the most recent attack on Cuba and the assassination in Haiti, the United States armed forces conducted a major military exercise in Guyana called Tradewinds 2021 and another exercise in Panama called Panamax 2021.

Under the authority of the United States, a set of European militaries (France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) — each with colonies in the region — joined Brazil and Canada to conduct Tradewinds with seven Caribbean countries (The Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago). In a show of force, the U.S. demanded that Iran cancel the movement of its ships to Venezuela in June ahead of the U.S.-sponsored military exercise.

The United States is eager to turn the Caribbean into its sea, subordinating the sovereignty of the islands. It was curious that Guyana’s Prime Minister Mark Phillips said that these U.S.-led war games strengthen the “Caribbean regional security system.” What they do, as our recent dossier on U.S. and French military bases in Africa shows, is to subordinate the Caribbean states to U.S. interests. The U.S. is using its increased military presence in Colombia and Guyana to increase pressure on Venezuela.

Elsa Gramcko, Venezuela, “El ojo de la cerradura” or “The Keyhole,” 1964.

Sovereign regionalism is not alien to the Caribbean, which has made four attempts to build a platform: the West Indian Federation (1958-1962), Caribbean Free Trade Association (1965-1973), Caribbean Community (1973-1989), and CARICOM (1989 to the present). What began as an anti-imperialist union has now devolved into a trade association that attempts to better integrate the region into world trade. The politics of the Caribbean are increasingly being drawn into orbit of the U.S. In 2010, the U.S. created the Caribbean Basic Security Initiative, whose agenda is shaped by Washington.

In 2011, our old friend Shridath Ramphal, Guyana’s foreign minister from 1972 to 1975, repeated the words of the great Grenadian radical T. A. Marryshow: “The West Indies must be West Indian’. In his article “Is the West Indies West Indian?,” he insisted that the conscious spelling of ‘The West Indies” with a capitalized “T” in “The” aims to signify the unity of the region. Without unity, the old imperialist pressures will prevail as they often do.

In 1975, the Cuban poet Nancy Morejón published a landmark poem called “Mujer Negra” or “Black Woman.” The poem opens with the terrible trade of human beings by the European colonialists, touches on the war of independence and then settles on the remarkable Cuban Revolution of 1959:

I came down from the Sierra

to put an end to capital and usurer,
to generals and to the bourgeoisie.
Now I exist: only today do we own, do we create.
Nothing is alien to us.
The land is ours.
Ours are the sea and sky,
the magic and vision.
My fellow people, here I see you dance
around the tree we are planting for communism.
Its prodigal wood already resounds.

The land is ours. Sovereignty is ours too. Our destiny is not to live as the subordinate beings of others. That is the message of Morejón and of the Cuban people who are building their sovereign lives, and it is the message of the Haitian people who want to advance their great Revolution of 1804.

Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research via consortiumnews.com

By Vijay PRASHAD

Two hundred years ago, on June 24, 1821, the forces of Simón Bolívar trounced the Spanish royalists at the Battle of Carabobo, a few hundred kilometers west of Caracas. Five days later, Bolívar entered the city in triumph; the Spanish fortresses of Cartagena and Puerto Cabello had been seized by the Liberator’s armies, making a return to power for Spain impossible. In Cúcuta, a congress assembled to draft a new constitution and to elect Bolívar as the president.

Bolívar, now the head of the Republic of Gran Colombia (today’s Colombia and Venezuela), would not rest. He got on his horse and rode south towards Quito, where Spain’s forces remained and would eventually be defeated on May 24, 1822, at the battle of Pichincha. It would take two more years to eject Spain from the hemisphere, but the trend was inevitable. Carabobo had broken the imperialist spirit of the Spanish monarchy.

The Spanish monarchy lost its grip on the Americas, but other threats emerged. On Dec. 2, 1823, U.S. President James Monroe told the U.S.  Congress that the Americas were no longer the domain of the old European powers. But the Monroe Doctrine did not imply that the various parts of the Americas, including Gran Colombia, would be sovereign.

The doctrine meant that the United States of America could behave in the hemisphere as if it were an old imperial power, a trend that would become clearer as U.S. military technology improved.

Clarity regarding the aims of the Monroe Doctrine came in two ways. First, through the behavior of the United States, whose armed forces intervened directly across the continent, from Peru (1835-36) to Guatemala (1885) to Cuba and Puerto Rico (1898). Second, through U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1904 corollary to the doctrine, which included the right of the U.S. to act — in Roosevelt’s words — as an “international police power” in the hemisphere.

Bolívar understood the nature of this new threat. In his 1829 letter to the British chargé d’affaires, Patrick Campbell, Bolívar wrote that the United States “seemed predestined by Providence to plague Americas with miseries in the name of liberty.” This is why he called for a congress in Panama in 1826 to create a platform of political unity. Unfortunately, few of the new states came to Panama. Regional unity remained a dream, but one that would punctually find adherents who tried to make it reality.

In the 21st century, Hugo Chávez took up the project for regional unity in the Americas. For a good reason, he called the revolutionary processes in Venezuela and in Latin America the Bolivarian Revolution. “What we see in the period of history between 1810 and 1830 are the outlines of a national project for South America,” said Chávez.

This is the project that Chávez developed inside Venezuela and in the region through the Bolivarian Alliance for Peoples of Our America (ALBA) and through the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), both founded in 2004.

Since Chávez’s first electoral victory in 1998, the United States has attempted to derail the Bolivarian process. The stench of Monroe pervades U.S. policy, while Venezuelan resistance is lifted up by the spirit of Carabobo. Vindictive U.S. sanctions against Venezuela, precisely defined to overthrow Bolivarianism, continue despite the pandemic.

Pressure on Vaccines 

Last year, pressure from the U.S.  Treasury Department prevented the International Monetary Fund from allowing Venezuela to access its own funds and other emergency pandemic-related money. Between April and May of this year, Venezuela authorized the Swiss bank UBS to pay the COVAX mechanism $10 million to buy Covid-19 vaccines. On June 7, COVAX wrote to the Venezuelan government to inform them that UBS had blocked the payments. The bank felt the heavy weight of U.S. policy on its doors.

César Mosquera, Utopix (Venezuela), “Ejército de Zamora,” or “Zamora Army,” 2021.

At the recent G-7 meeting, the seven governments from the United States to Germany agreed to tepid language towards the provision of vaccines. Promises of a billion vaccines to be circulated around the world came without any specifics; it is well-known that the promises made at G-7 meetings are rarely honored.

UN Secretary General António Guterres questioned the headline about the billion vaccines. “We need more than that,” he said. “We need a global vaccination plan,” which would require increased production of the vaccines and “an emergency task force to guarantee the design and then the implementation of that global vaccination plan.”

To that end, three important voices from Asia, Africa and Latin America —K. K. Shailaja (former health minister, Kerala, India); Anyang’ Nyong’o (governor of Kisumu County, Kenya); and Rogelio Mayta (foreign minister, Bolivia) — came together to write about vaccine internationalism. They laid out three proposals:

1. Remove intellectual property patents on the vaccines.
2. Share the knowledge about how to make the vaccines.
3. Focus on collective disobedience to override intellectual property rights.

The third aspect requires their own words, imbued with the spirit of Carabobo:

“Certain provisions to override intellectual property protections already exist, for example, through the 2001 Doha declaration of the WTO. Yet countries have been hesitant to do so due for fear of sanctions from certain governments and reprisals from big pharma. We will consider how we could introduce national legislation to override intellectual property protections collectively, introducing a credible threat to the monopoly pharmaceutical model currently at play.”

There are two key elements to this point about collective disobedience. First, it recognizes the cold-heartedness with which “certain governments” will place sanctions on anyone who dares to break the stranglehold of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights or TRIPS, which benefit big pharma above all else.

Second, it puts forth the brave suggestion for nations of the Global South to find legal means within their countries to set aside big pharma’s capture of the knowledge commons. There is a hint of realism in this last suggestion. It would be far more powerful if the countries of the South — especially the 25 states that spend more on debt servicing than on health care — would band together and create a bloc for vaccine internationalism.

But this kind of broad-based regional solidarity is not easily available today, since the regional and global platforms — including the 60-year-old Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) — are considerably weakened. To strengthen regionalism was precisely the program of Chávez and the Bolivarian movement.

César Mosquera, Utopix (Venezuela), “Ejército de Zamora,” or “Zamora Army, ” 2021.

Regionalism, as Chávez recognized it, is not merely a platform of common markets and institutions to advance the interests of global corporations and national elites. This is the kind of regionalism that defines the European Union, for instance. Nor is it sufficient to develop a regionalism limited by the ideology of culture, which has often pervaded pan-Arabism and pan-Asianism.

The immense power of global corporations provokes the need for some kind of barriers, which can perhaps no longer merely be erected by individual countries, since they are vulnerable to sanctions and threats.

What is needed is a broader platform, the unity of entire continents or of sections of the world that refuse to defer to the authority of the G-7 or of this or that global corporation. Regionalism of this sort does not merely mean the unity of a set of countries in a continent; it requires that state power in at least certain key countries be held by the working class and the peasantry.

Only a government backed by the force of the masses will have the fortitude to stand up to the authority and the power of “certain governments,” as Shailaja, Nyong’o, and Mayta said with care.

Daniel Duque, Utopix (Venezuela), “Comunas Socialistas” or “Socialist Communes.” 2021.

As Bolívar lingered on his deathbed in Santa Marta (in modern-day Colombia), his doctor read to him from French newspapers. They came upon a song that had been sung by the partisans of the July 1830 Revolution as they entered the Hôtel de Ville to seize Paris:

America, to cheer us,
Looks on us from afar.
Her fire ring of republics
Was lit by Bolívar.

The memory of Carabobo continues to light those fires in Venezuela’s communes, in the streets of Colombia, the farmers’ revolt in India and shack settlements in South Africa.

Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research via consortiumnews.com