Tuesday 4 July 2017

SFG CALLS FOR NEW MOVEMENT


Justice Kofi Henku
By Ekow Mensah
The Socialist Forum of Ghana (SFG) has called for the formation of a coalition for change “to generate a progressive counter culture of solidarity to combat neo-liberalism and crony capitalism”.

In a statement to mark the 57th anniversary of the achievement of a Republican status, the SFG said “this counter culture mass movement should aim at expressing the kind of exploitative system we are labouring under”.

The statement signed by Comrade Justice Heneku, the Secretary of the Forum described 1960 as a ground breaking year for Africa in which Ghana attained Republican status and 17 African countries gained independence.
The full text of the statement is published below;

STATEMENT ON THE 57TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE REPUBLIC OF GHANA
The Socialist Forum of Ghana salutes all comrades and citizens of Ghana who are celebrating the 57th anniversary of the achievement of the status of a Republic. This was a milestone in the just struggle of the people of this country against colonialism and for the building of a proud independent and sovereign state.

1960 was a ground breaking year for Africa when 3 years after the liberation of Ghana from the yoke of colonialism, 17 African countries gained independence and Ghana went to the polls to declare itself a fully-fledged sovereign Republic.

Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah
57 years after this declaration, there has been a lot of backsliding with a state of lawlessness, a resurgence of the feudal chieftaincy class, economic neo-liberalism and economic dislocation stalking the land. Corruption has increasingly become acceptable and we are now comfortable with the poverty, inequality and insanitary conditions which our Republic is now mired in.

The elite represented by the duopoly of the 2 main parties which alternate in power, have created a status quo characterized by exploitation and chaos so they just keep playing political football and distracting the attention of the people from the thievery, corruption, looting, destruction of the ecosystem, sale of state assets, handing over control and ownership of natural resources to predator companies and unbridled borrowing.

The SFG is very much concerned about the ongoing attempt to entrench the neo-colonial, neo-liberal exploitative system in Ghana and demands a “hands off” policy from our natural resources. We call on all progressive and democratic forces to form a coalition for change to generate a progressive counter culture of solidarity to combat neo-liberalism and crony capitalism. This counter culture mass movement should be aimed at exposing the kind of exploitative system we are labouring under amongst the Youth, women, farmers, workers, the unemployed, the small business entrepreneurs, students and the mass of ordinary citizens.

We call on all citizens and progressives on the 57th anniversary of the Republic to rise up, organize and takeback our country for our people. 
                                                                                                               
Justice Heneku
For Convener  

EDITORIAL
THE NEW MOVEMENT
We fully agreed with the Socialist Forum of Ghana (SFG) that there is the need for a new movement which will focus attention on the fight against neo-liberalism and what it calls crony capitalism.

This is because since 1992, national policy has not changed in any significant way in spite of the fact that power has alternated between the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Indeed, both parties have always rushed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) on their election for dictation on how to run the Ghanaian economy.

All of them have continued on the path of unbridled privatisation of state enterprises and the people’s access to social services remain limited.

We think that it is time to change this paradigm and only a new progressive movement can do this.

The progressive forces have serious work to do and it must be done now!

GITMO -2

Chief Justice Akufo
The decision of the Supreme Court on the GITMO-2 is very clear.

It says that the presence in Ghana of the two detainees is an affront to the 1992 constitution because the matter was not put before Parliament for approval.

The Supreme Court says that they ought to be sent back to the bossom of the United States of America.

However, if the Akufo-Addo Government wants to keep them in Ghana, then they have three months to put the matter before Parliament for approval.

The Insight believes that no useful purpose will be served by keeping the GITMO-2 in Ghana and that the Akufo-Addo government needs to send them back to where they came from without delay.

If the United States of America which arrested them cannot keep them why should we?

Please send them away now!

KONADU’S MOVEMENT IN WAR OF WORDS




Nana Konadu, Former First Lady of Ghana
It has become apparent that all is not well in the ranks of the 31st December Women’s Movement (DWM) and that a faction within it is determined to remove Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings as its President.

A statement published in the Daily Graphic of Tuesday, June 27, 2017 as an advertisers announcement states clearly that Nana Konadu’s mandate as President of the movement expired 20 years ago.

The statement was allegedly read by Madam Aba Edusah, Central Regional Organiser of the 31st December Women’s Movement on behalf of members at a press conference in Accra.

It claimed that all decisions taken by the movement over the last 20 years are not valid because there has not been any Congress or National Executive Committee meeting over the period.

The statement also cautioned “any person or entity who has transacted any business on behalf of Caridem Development Company and 31st DWM with Dr Mrs Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, that they did so at their own risk”.

The authors of the statement also insisted that the name of the movement has not been changed to “Developing Women for Mobilization” and that it remains as “the 31st December Women’s Movement”.
They called for the convening of a National Congress of the movement.

The full text of the statement is published below;
By introduction and as a matter of record, we the members of the 31st December Women’s Movement bring to your notice that the 31st December Women’s Movement is a Non- Governmental Organization. Establish almost 34 years ago and registered under the laws of Ghana as a company limited by Guarantee under the Company’s code 1963 (Act179).

Sherry Ayitey, no shaken!
By this, the movement works within its regulation and constitution since it was established. The membership of the movement at one time stood at about one million Ghanaian women of ages 18 and above irrespective of creed, religion, tribe, profession, marital status, and social standing. It embraced women living in and outside Ghana.

The functions of the movement are based on democratic governance, which involves the participation of every member in the decision-making process. The Movement works through the following: -
1. Congress
2. Regional Delegates Conference
 3. District Delegates Conference
4. Workplace Delegates Conference

The congress is the highest body of the Movement responsible for all policy guidelines and it shall elect the National officers as the National Executive Committee / Council and Congress Patrons. The Congress is composed of National Executive Committee and proportional representation from each region to be selected at Regional conferences where Observers are to be invited by the National Secretariat of the Movement. The Regulations require that Congress shall be convened once every five (5) years to:
-Review the operations of the Movement,
-Approve any decisions from the National Executive Committee and
-Elects new national executive officers.

The National Executive Committee is responsible for running the affairs of the Movement and is required to meet every four months in the year. The National Executive committee is made up of all the National Officers, all heads of Departments of the Movement at the National Secretariat, all Regional organizers and chairpersons of the regional central committee, two ex-official members of the movement nominated by congress and representation for workplace.

There is a National Secretariat in Accra to support the work of the National Executive Committee. The National Officers report to the National Executive Committee.
National Officers:
President
General Secretary
Deputy General Secretary
National Organizer
Deputy Organizer
Publicity Officer
Finance Project Co-ordinator

All National Officers shall hold office for a period of five (5) years and may be eligible for re-election for at least two more consecutive terms for the same position. But not for more than three (3) consecutive terms.

We wish to state the following: -

Nana Konadu
1. That the last congress of the Movement was held sometime in 1992.
To date, Dr. Mrs. Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, former First Lady, has held herself out as President of the Movement (in total contravention of the stipulated five year- term) and has not called for a congress as per the regulations of the Movement.

2. The 3st December Women's Movement is the sole beneficiary of ALL the Assets of Caridem Development Company Limited, established as an investment (commercial) company to generate funds to support the programs and activities of the Movement and creates employment and jobs for the Women.

3. It has come to our attention that the audited counts are neither up to date nor filed at the Registrar of Companies.

4. That We have cause to believe that huge sums of monies have been dissipated and assets sold from the accounts of 31st  DWM by Dr.Mrs. Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings without following proper internal processes.

5. That by our Regulations, Audited accounts showing expenditures etc. must be submitted to the National Executive Committee and Congress for study and approvals.

We the members of the 31st December Women's Movement make the following statement:

1. That since for the past twenty years there has not been Congress or National Executive committee meeting, so making all decisions of the Movement not valid.

We disassociate ourselves from the:-

a. The letter written by Ms. Sylvia Ahorlu dated 15'h February 2016, REF: DWM/1Il/9766.

b. The publication in the Daily Graphic of 19'h June 2017 granted by Dr. Mrs Nana Konadu purporting that the Movement has changed its name to Development Women's Movement and changed its character. This publication is a fabrication and not true. The contents of the said publication are illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional. The laws of Ghana states clearly that each citizen has the freedom of association, therefore members’ of 31st December Women's Movement cannot automatically become members of the newly created Development Women's Movement without the express consent of each member. The 31" DWM is a Company Limited by Guarantee therefore any changes necessarily must follow due process as per the company code and the Laws of Ghana.

Jerry John, did you robbed state assets for your wife?
2. We therefore caution any person or entity who has transacted any business on behalf of Caridem Development Company and 31st DWM with Dr Mrs Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, that they have done so at their own risk.

3: We are therefore demanding, based on the above for the Audited Accounts of the 31st December Women's Movement and Caridem Development Company Ltd from 1999 to date, including all bank account statements and the Asset Register to date from Dr Mrs Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, holding herself out as president of the 31st December Women's Movement.

4. We have resolved to call on the Regional membership to work in preparation towards the National Congress.

5. We shall give appropriate notice as per the provisions of our constitution.

Statement read by madam Aba Edusah, Central Regional Organizer for 31st December Women’s Movement on behalf of the Members during a press conference in Accra on Wednesday, 21st June, 2017.

Editorial
CHINESE LOANS AND GRANTS
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) is justifiably angry over the news that the Akufo-Addo administration has sought and obtained loans and grants of up to US$21 billion from China.
This is because whiles in opposition, Nana Akufo-Addo and his New Patriotic Party (NPP) accused the then government of borrowing too much and claimed that taking loans to solve national problems was a lazy man’s option.

In our view, even though the outrage of the NDC can be understood, it is time to place emphasis on the national interest.

As a fact given the conditions in which Ghana finds itself, it will have to borrow as President Mahama’s administration did to finance important projects.

China happens to be in a much better position than most western countries to give us the loans and grants we need.

What is important is not that we are taking loans but whether the loans will be used for viable projects which can repay them.

We salute China for its continued assistance to developing countries especially in Africa and we wish the Akufo-Addo government well.

Local News:

EPA extends waste segregation to basic schools
By Kodjo Adams
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in collaboration with Zoomlion and Jekora Ventures, has extended its waste segregation programme to first and second cycle schools in the Osu-Klottey Sub-Metro in Accra.

The programme brought together heads of selected Primary and Junior High Schools within the sub-Metro and stakeholders in the sector to create awareness about the programme.

The programme, launched in 2003, is to encourage separation of waste at source, promote clean environments and reduce diseases on the citizenry.

Under the programme, three waste bins labelled paper, plastic, food are given to each institution within the ministries and the selected tertiary and senior high schools in Accra.

The first and second cycle schools are to make arrangements for the emptying of their bins per institutions within the sub-Metro with monthly monitoring by Jekora Ventures and Zoomlion for recycling.

Mr Dodson Cudjoe Voado, the Chief Project Officer at Build Equipment, EPA, said implementation of the programme had started with institutions in the Ministries where 60 identified participating institutions have been given the sets of 240-litre and 30 litre capacity waste bins.

Mr Voado said source waste segregation was an efficient and environmentally sustainable way of managing waste and it would also help reduce the amount of waste in the basic schools.
He said successful implementation of the programme would increase public awareness, increase volumes of waste diverted through reuse and recycling and recovery of materials from waste would increase.

Mr Voado said it was estimated that waste generation per day in most urban centres in the country was about 2,800 to 3,200 metric tonnes, out of that about 60 to 70 per cent was collected and disposed of at approved dump sites and landfill sites while the rest of the waste end up in unapproved location causing environmental issues.

He called for effective ways of managing the huge volumes of solid waste to avert any health implications in the country. 

Mr Samuel Nortey Quaye, the Project Officer in charge of Education, EPA, said improper waste had negative impacts on the environment such as ground water contamination, aesthetic and odour nuisance and on public health.

He called for collaborative efforts and attitudinal change to address environmental challenges confronting the country.

Ms Akua Akyaa Nkrumah, the Innovation Manager at Jekora Ventures, said their outfit had reached 24, 000 households in the collection and recycling of the waste generated under the programme.
The heads of the beneficiary schools commended organisers for the initiative and affirmed their resolute support to create the needed awareness in their respective schools to reduce and manage waste.

Foreign News:
Comrades from Marea Socialista: Who is the enemy?
By BP
Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro
By Jorge Martin
Marea Socialista states that the main problem facing Venezuela is the authoritarian shift of the Maduro government. Starting from a wrong premise they reach conclusions which are completely mistaken and put them on the wrong side of the barricade. Let’s see.
[This article was published by Lucha de Clases, the International Marxist Tendency in Venezuela, on May 24, as a response to the political position of Marea Socialista (Socialist Tide)—an organisation which was part of the PSUV until recently—regarding the current crisis in Venezuela]

What is happening in Venezuela is clear: a sustained and concerted effort to overthrow the Maduro government by force in order to install a direct government of the oligarchy (capitalists, bankers, and landowners) under imperialist tutelage. If such a government were to come to power (whether through elections or an insurrection), that would be an unmitigated disaster for the working class and the people and their organisations. Such a government would implement a brutal austerity package as well as carry out an assault on democratic freedoms and a violent campaign against the workers’ and peoples’ movement activists.

In this context it is clear what revolutionaries (and more broadly, democrats) must do: denounce and oppose by all means this counter-revolutionary offensive.

As well as this, it is legitimate and necessary to criticise, in the strongest possible terms, the policy of the Maduro government, which is insufficient and even counterproductive in facing up to this offensive (making concessions to the capitalists on the economic front, and suffocating the revolutionary initiative of the masses on the political front).

We don’t necessarily have to agree on the latter in order to struggle in a united front for the former.

However, the position of the comrades from Marea Socialista starts from a wrong analysis and therefore proceeds to draw wrong conclusions which put them in the camp of the counter-revolution.

Marea Socialista states that the central point of the situation in Venezuela is “the deepening of the totalitarian course of the government”. From this they draw the conclusion that in 2017 “the priority, from our point of view, is to confront the totalitarian course which the government is following” through “the widest unity in action” (from which they do not exclude anyone, and therefore we assume it also includes the opposition) for which “all sorts of actions should be developed: local, national, and international”.

Nowhere in their statement there is any criticism of the attempted coup by the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD). They are only criticised for their “erratic, vacillating, and powerless policy” and the statements seems to lament that “it becomes very difficult to understand how experienced politicians, backed by powerful international and local operators, with the cooperation of an important section of the anti-Chavista intellectuals, have, in less than a year, wasted such an overwhelming electoral victory”. Finally, the Marea Socialista statement criticises reaction, not for wanting to overthrow the government and install one of brutal austerity against the workers, but rather, because “a section of this leadership is prepared to make a deal with the government in order to improve its position in the sharing out of the national income”.

All the quotes above come from the Marea Socialista statement on March 27. It could be said that at that time the current offensive of the counter-revolution had not yet started (it was unleashed with the excuse of the Supreme Court rulings on the last week in March). But a later statement by Marea Socialista about the convening of the Constituent Assembly is not better, but worse, and follows exactly the same political line.

Again, in this statement they do not say a word about the offensive of the counter-revolution and imperialism, but limit themselves to criticising some actions “of foco-ist [vanguardist] groups, or possible trained sharpshooters, which act under the cover of the MUD leadership”, but at the same time they centre their argument on “without any doubt we defend the right of self-defence exercised by the demonstrators when the state violates the exercise of citizens’ rights”.

Falsifying the truth, they state that “the majority of those killed, unarmed youth and women, have been killed as part of demonstrations which were exercising the legitimate right to protest”. Furthermore they point at the state as the main culprit for violence: “This constant violation is the main feature of authoritarian regimes which move to totalitarianism, and is one of the main factors which whips up violence”.

But perhaps the most scandalous case is that of the Mérida Marea Socialista statement regarding those who were killed on April 24 in this Andean city. What happened there was that sharpshooters from within the ranks of the opposition protesters killed two people who were part of a Bolivarian rally against the opposition. One of them was a regional government worker, the other a crime investigator, who was also employed by the (Chavista) regional government. The Mérida Marea Socialista statement about these events does not even mention “foco-ist groups” nor “possible trained sharpshooters . . . under the cover of the MUD leadership”. No, the statement blames the events on . . . the governor of Mérida!

Scandalously, the statement describes the reactionary opposition protests as “the intervention of the Mérida people to raise their voice against the national policies, and in order to sort out in practice the repression of participatory and protagonistic democracy which is viciously been violated by the higher body [the national electoral council]”.

The incident in which workers of the regional government were shot at is described as “a violent delay [sic] which by chance resulted in one person dead and four wounded by gunfire, all of them workers of the regional government, according to the governor”. BY CHANCE!! Opposition sharpshooters fire on a group of workers, but they are killed BY CHANCE!

The statement then proceeds to accuse those killed of being paramilitaries, in order to justify their assassination: “the citizens must ask themselves if the Mérida State Governorship has changed its address to the aforementioned area, or this group of five belong to the terrorists or the killer collectives which have been threatening people throughout Mérida with their motorbikes, armed with weapons, and there is no moral authority to sanction these paramilitary activities, or perhaps these armed gangs belong to the government?”

Just in case, to cover themselves, they finally blame the governor: “If these state workers were in this high risk area, it has to be highlighted . . . under which interests were they in this high risk area”. So, those responsible for the killings were not the opposition sharpshooters who fired the bullets who killed the workers, but the regional government workers for being in the line of fire (!!), or the governor, for putting them in that “high risk” place.

At this point one doubts if Marea Socialista members should be addressed as comrades any more. In reality they have put themselves on the wrong side of the barricade.

Those who know the opinions of the author of this article are aware of the fact that I am a fierce critic of the policies of the [Venezuelan] government. Not just now, but for a long time—precisely because I think that the policies of the government, instead of pushing the revolution forward towards socialism, set it back. In many of these criticisms it is possible that we agree with Marea Socialista. But it is one thing to criticise the government and its policies; it is quite another to ignore that there is a counter-revolutionary offensive with the aim of overthrowing it and replacing it with a government which, far from improving the situation, would make it a thousand times worse, from the point of view of the working class and the people. In this battle we are not neutral. We cannot be neutral.

It would be like if in Spain in March 1936 one would argue that it does not make a difference, that we support neither the government of the Republic, which represses workers, nor the fascists who conspire to carry out a coup. Worse still, it would like if in Spain 1936 we said nothing about the preparations of the ruling class to carry out a coup, and at the same time concentrated our fire against the government of the Republic.

Leon Trotsky, whose writings we are convinced some in Marea Socialista must have read, was a fierce critic of the Spanish Popular Front government in 1936, during the Second Republic. He criticised it for maintaining bourgeois property of the land and the economy, for stopping the revolutionary initiative of the workers, for attempting to conciliate with the bourgeoisie, for its class collaborationist policy, etc. But Trotsky did not have a neutral attitude regarding the reactionary assault and the military fascist uprising which followed it. In his statement to the Dewey Commission, which investigated the Moscow Trials, Trotsky was specifically asked about this question. This was his answer:

With whom would you side at the present time in Spain?
TROTSKY: I gave the answer in many interviews and articles. Every Trotskyite in Spain must be a good soldier, on the side of the Left. Naturally, it is so elementary a question – you know it is not worth discussing. A leader or any other member in the Government of Caballero is a traitor. A leader of the working class cannot enter the bourgeois government. We did not enter the Government of Kerensky in Russia. While we defended Kerensky against Kornilov, we did not enter his Government. As I declared that I am ready to enter into an alliance with Stalin against the fascists, or an alliance with Jouhaux against the French fascists. It is an elementary question.

In his response, Trotsky mentions the Kornilov offensive in Russia during the 1917 revolution. Trotsky, like Lenin, opposed the Kerensky government, which was a class collaborationist government, backed by the reformists within the labour movement. It was a government unable to satisfy the demands of the masses who had carried out the February Revolution. In fact, the policy of the government was precisely the opposite: it continued with the imperialist war, it refused to give the land to the peasants, etc. But when General Kornilov, in August 1917, attempted to overthrow that government, with the aim of restoring the old regime, a direct dictatorship of the ruling class, the Bolsheviks did not hesitate, nor did they take a neutral position. Without giving any political support to Kerensky, without ceasing their opposition to his policies, they put themselves in a united front with Kerensky against Kornilov. “We shall fight, we are fighting against Kornilov, just as Kerensky’s troops do, but we do not support Kerensky. On the contrary, we expose his weakness. There is the difference. It is rather a subtle difference, but it is highly essential and must not be forgotten.”

Unfortunately, the comrades from Marea Socialista seem to have learnt nothing from Lenin or Trotsky. Perhaps they think that there is no difference between a government of Maduro and a government of the MUD. Or worse, perhaps they think that the main enemy to fight is Maduro’s government. In fact, they are letting themselves be influenced by the pressure of petty bourgeois public opinion, and that pushes them into a position in which objectively they are on the wrong side of the barricade. If the MUD comes to power, it is likely that the repression it will unleash will not distinguish between Chavistas and “critical Chavistas” (as they, wrongly, describe themselves).
Those who support Marea Socialista abroad and publish their statements without any comment, are also responsible for this criminal political line.

Two-State Solution is 'the Only Way to End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict'


Israeli authorities have advanced plans for the construction of 1,500 housing units in the West Bank, including units for the first new official settlement in 25 years. Radio Sputnik discussed the issue with Anat Ben Nun, director of development and external relations at liberal Israeli non-governmental organization (NGO) Peace Now.

Israeli authorities did not respond to Peace Now’s requests to comment on the plans.
When asked about the impact the planned construction of additional housing units on the occupied Palestinian lands could have on the stuttering Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Anat Ben Nun said that it means that the Israeli government “has no goodwill or intention to arrive at a negotiated two-state solution.”

“That’s why I expect this to negatively affect the peace process.”
The move came shortly after US President Donald Trump’s visit to Israel. Anat Ben Nun said that the new US administration’s stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains unclear.
“Even though [the US has endorsed the construction of more Jewish settlements], many of those in Israel who celebrated his election now see that they are not getting what they hoped for,” he said.

Since most countries see the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands in the West bank as illegal, Anat Ben Nun said he expected a great deal of international condemnation of the Israeli decision to build more housing there.

Amnesty International has called for an international ban on the import of goods produced at illegal Jewish settlements.

Speaking about the likelihood of some kind of sanctions to be imposed on Israel, Anat Ben Nun said that even though he doesn’t think that sanctions are easy to implement, he still believes that some external pressure is necessary.

“The EU already has a policy of differentiating between goods from Israel proper and from [Jewish] settlements. And we would like more implementation of that.”

When asked about the future of the Israeli settlement construction and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Anat Ben Nun said that if this settlement construction on occupied Arab lands continues, it would put the future of a “viable Palestinian state” along the Israeli border on the line.

“That said, the situation on the ground still allows for the creation of a two-state solution physically to happen. We will advocate a two-state solution,” he continued.

He said that even though any final solution to the problem can hardly be expected now, the continued construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank would prevent such a solution in the future.

“The two-state solution is the only way to reach an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Anat Ben Nun emphasized.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier pledged to build a new settlement for around 40 families of a wildcat Jewish outpost in the West Bank.

This settlement known as Amona was evacuated under court order in February. Promotion of the new settlement comes as Israelis and Palestinians marked the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War, when Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

On December 23, 2016, the UN Security Council voted 14-0, with the United States abstaining, to pass a resolution calling on Israel to immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the areas.

However, in January, Israeli authorities approved the construction of thousands of new housing units in the occupied West Bank despite the resolution.

The Assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy: Questions, Hints and Allegations
Robert Kennedy
By Edward Curtin
If you were going to arrange a political assassination in an indoor crowded setting, would you plan to have one of your operatives (not the assassin) at the murder site be a strikingly curvaceous young woman in a conspicuous white dress with black polka-dots, and then have her flee the scene, yelling, “We’ve shot him, we’ve shot him,” so that multiple witnesses would see and hear her as she made her escape?

Would you have the same woman earlier in the day pick up a salesman in the hotel where the assassination was planned, spend the day with him driving around and having dinner together, while repeatedly inviting (i.e. luring) him to join her later that night at a big public event where they will shoot their famous victim, whom she names?

Would you have your operative tell this man that, although she wasn’t staying at the hotel, and although she had been in town only three days, having flown from NYC where she had arrived from overseas, that she knew the hotel stair routes very well, including an unobtrusive one that she shows the man?

Would you have this woman tell this man that a few days earlier she had met with a very famous political operative (whom she names), diametrically opposed to your victim’s political philosophy and that she would need to flee the country after the assassination and would like the man’s help?
Would you have your operative in the tight dress so conspicuously lay down a trail of breadcrumbs from morning until night, until she made her escape, never to be found despite having been seen by more than a dozen credible witnesses at the shooting site?

I think you would agree that you would have to be extremely stupid to plan an assassination in this manner, except if you were extremely devious, and the voluptuous stand-out girl was part of your intricate plot to create a false lead to someone other than the assassins.

This is exactly what happened when Senator Robert Kennedy, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, was shot shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, after celebrating his victory in the California Democratic Primary. The woman in question came to be known as “the girl in the polka-dot dress,” but unlike the ways we associate girls with innocence, this woman was a key player in hideous evil.

While many people are aware that President John Kennedy was killed five years earlier in a conspiracy organized by U.S. intelligence operatives and that Lee Harvey Oswald was the “patsy” that he said he was, far fewer realize that Robert Kennedy was also killed as a result of a conspiracy and that the convicted assassin Sirhan Sirhan did not kill RFK. In fact, not one bullet from his gun struck the senator. Sirhan was standing in front of Kennedy when, as the autopsy definitively showed, RFK was shot from the rear at point blank range, three bullets entering his body, with the fatal head-shot coming upward at a 45 degree angle from 1-3 inches behind his right ear.In addition, an audio recording shows that many more bullets than the eight in Sirhan’s gun were fired in the hotel pantry that night. It was impossible for Sirhan to have killed RFK.

While Sirhan still sits in prison to this day, the real killers of Senator Kennedy went free that night. For anyone who studies the case with an impartial eye (see thisthis,thisthis, and this), the evidence is overwhelming that there was a very sophisticated conspiracy at work, one that continued long after as police, FBI, intelligence agencies, and the legal system covered up the true nature of the crime.  That Sirhan was hypnotized to play his part as seeming assassin is also abundantly clear.
But it is not my intention here to detail all the facts of the case that still scream out for justice, as do the linked assassinations of JFK and MLK.  In fact, referring to the Kennedy assassination is a misnomer; we should speak of the Kennedy assassinations, since JFK wasn’t the only one.

I would like to focus on the so-called “girl in the polka-dot dress,” and ask you to think along with me as we explore why she was so conspicuous that day and night, and what function she may have served.  I know you will agree that it is counterintuitive for her to have behaved the way she did. Counterintuitive for the general public, that is.

The best detailed day-to-day account of this mysterious girl is in the book linked to above by Fernando Faura, The Polka-Dot File: on the Robert F. Kennedy Killing (see my review here). Faura writes,

“Seconds after the shooting stopped, a young woman in a polka-dot dress ran out of the kitchen, past Sandra Serrano [see video], a Kennedy campaign worker. The woman shouted, ‘We shot him, we shot him.’ Asked who they shot, the woman replied, ‘Kennedy,’ and ran into the morning darkness, never to be found.”

Although Serrano was interviewed by Sandy Vanocur of NBC News on live TV at 1:30 AM shortly after the shooting, she – as well as other eyewitnesses to this girl – was browbeaten by the police to retract her story, yet she never did. The police shut down its pursuit of this girl, despite all the witnesses. The LAPD officer in charge of the investigation, Lt. Manny Pena, was CIA connected, having worked for U.S. AID and been recently brought back to control the investigation. So too was the brutal interrogator, Sgt. Hank Hernandez, CIA affiliated.

It is obvious that this girl was part of a conspiracy to kill Robert Kennedy and that it is equally obvious that she was meant to stand out, be seen, and to be heard shouting what she did.  Why?

Logically it follows that she was meant to create false leads, and generate mystery when there was none. Writing of the JFK assassination, Vince Salandria, the eminent and early critic of the government’s false conspiracy story, has recently said something quite appropriate to the RFK case and this girl:

“The Kennedy assassination is a false mystery. It was conceived by the conspirators to be a false mystery which was designed to cause interminable debate. The purpose of the protracted debate was to obscure what was quite clearly and plainly a coup d’état….President Kennedy was assassinated by our national-security state…”

While far fewer people have yet to question the false narrative in the RFK case, when or if they do they will find that the polka-dot girl’s actions and her disappearance could keep them guessing for a long time, and that that guessing will lead away from the obvious and essential truth.
The investigative journalist Robert Parry has written about how Richard Nixon sabotaged a possible peace accord in Vietnam in the summer/fall of 1968. This he did through an intermediary, right-wing Republican Chinese émigré Anna Chennault, wife of General Claire Chennault, legendary founder of the Flying Tigers. Parry explains,

“Nixon’s gambit was to have Chennault pass on word to South Vietnamese President Thieu that if he boycotted Johnson’s Paris peace talks – thus derailing the negotiations – Nixon would assure Thieu continued U.S. military support for the war.”

This treachery has been confirmed. Having stumbled on Parry’s work in 2014, the reporter Fernando Faura was startled to find himself connecting the girl in the polka-dot dress to Anna Chennault and to Nixon. This was because he remembered that the man, John Fahey, who had spent all day with the girl on June 4, 1968 and dropped her off in the evening at the Ambassador Hotel, had told him that the political operative she had met with three days before the assassination was Anna Chennault. Faura speculates that perhaps Nixon was therefore connected to RFK’s assassination because he feared that, if Robert Kennedy were to become the Democratic presidential nominee, he would push to end the Vietnam War and would be more likely that anyone else to defeat him in the general election. He speculates that the “peace talks” conspiracy might have been the origin of the Kennedy killing; that the two conspiracies were connected.

But at the same time Faura writes,
“Why is the CIA’s shadow all over this?”
And since the CIA’s shadow is all over the RFK assassination, we are left to ask if Nixon and the CIA were operating on the same page. Or was it the reverse, that Nixon and the CIA were at odds? Did the CIA remove Nixon from office with Watergate? Could the girl have been used to create a false lead to Nixon? Or was it something else again?  Was it simply fortuitous that Sirhan’s Palestinian Arabic origins were emphasized and that his lawyers, who in no way defended him, suggested that he was mad at RFK for supporting the sending of planes to Israel and the oppression of the Palestinians by Israel? What were Kennedy’s positions vis-à- vis Israel? Who was the girl? What country had she come from when she arrived in NYC three days before?

Many questions leading hither and yon originate with this girl. And it is obvious that she was meant to do that: to muddy the waters and keep people guessing once they came to realize that Sirhan obviously did not kill RFK.  And she “disappeared” as quickly as she “appeared.”  And the authorities shut down their investigation and pursuit of her.  They denied her existence against all the evidence.  Meant to stand out, she was also meant to go out, leaving a trail of questions.
Former Congressman Allard Lowenstein, who was investigating Robert Kennedy’s killing and was also strangely murdered, put it well:

Robert Kennedy’s death, like the President’s, was mourned as an extension of senseless violence; events moved on, and the profound alterations that these deaths…brought in the equation of power in America was perceived as random…. What is odd is not that some people thought it was all random, but that so many intelligent people refused to believe that it might be anything else. Nothing can measure more graphically how limited was the general under- standing of what is possible in America.

While such pseudo-innocence prevailed then and is still very widespread, perhaps no one epitomized the twisted mind games played by intelligence agencies more than James Jesus Angleton, the notorious CIA Counterintelligence Chief for so many years, in whose safe were found gruesome photos of Robert Kennedy’s autopsy. Why, one may ask, were those photos there, since Angleton allegedly had no connection to the RFK killing and since Sirhan was said to be the assassin? Was Angleton’s work as CIA liaison with Israeli any way connected?

As I wrote earlier, if one objectively studies the assassination of Senator Kennedy, one cannot but conclude there was a government conspiracy and that Sirhan is not guilty. That much is not particularly complicated, although many people not familiar with the facts of the case may think otherwise.

The mystery girl is another matter. Everything about her has served to hypnotize, first Sirhan, and then those seeking to get to the deeper forces behind this American tragedy.
Robert Kennedy, like his brother John, was a great danger to those virulent forces of war and oppression within his own government, and he died opposing them as a true patriot.
We should honor him on this day – June 6th – that he died; honor him by pursuing the truth of why he died and why it still matters. Because it does.
Featured image: history.com
The original source of this article is Global Research