ASSASSINATIONS: From Nkrumah Through Lumumba To Chavez

Commandante Hugo Chavez of Venezuela

Over the last 50 years, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States of America has been fingered in the death or assassination of many left wing leaders across the globe.

Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, Congo’s Lumumba and Chile’s Allende are but a few of those prominent leaders whose death has been attributed to the CIA.

The death of South America’s strong man, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has also triggered allegations that the long arm of the CIA is behind his exit.

In this article, Peter Baofu looks at Hugo Chavez and the trend of hi-tech assassinations in global politics.

By Peter Baofu

Hugo Chavez, the Socialist president of Venezuela for 14 years, died on March 05, 2013, after having courageously fought against cancer in the last few months. Media reports superficially stated "heart attack" as the cause. But a troubling question is, Who killed him? This question is not rhetorical, since its answer points to the trend of hi-tech assassinations in contemporary global politics.

I. HISTORICAL CASES

In the last few years alone, quite a number of prominent individuals who opposed the policies of some powerful states on the world stage had been targeted for hi-tech assassination, which often leaves no trace behind and can kill the victim silently (often in a slow and painful death), and this kind of silent killing becomes an increasingly preferred form of very sophisticated assassination by some powerful states in our time -- unlike the crude use of shooting by an assassin in the older days. 

Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana

For illustration, just consider some controversial cases of both successful and unsuccessful hi-tech assassinations in the past 2 decades, as shown below:

1.  Cristina Kirchner, current president of Argentina, with thyroid cancer in 2011
2.  Ollanta Humala, current president of Peru, with cancer in the gut in 2011
3.  Hugo Chavez, former president of Venezuela, with prostate Cancer in 2011 
4.  Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, former president of Brazil, with cancer of the larynx in 2011
5.  Nestor Kirchner, former president of Argentina, with colon cancer in 2010 
6.  Fernando Lugo, former president of Paraguay, with lymph cancer in 2010
7.  Evo Morales, current president of Bolivia, with cancer in the nasal cavities in 2009
8.  Dilma Vana Rousseff, current president of Brazil, with cancer in the lymphatic system
     in 2009
9.  Alexander Litvinenko, former Russian secret service officer, with polonium-210
     poisoning in 2006
10. Yassar Arafat, former chair of the PLO, with brain hemorrhage in 2004
11. Khaled Meshaal, the leader of the Hamas, with the poisonous shutdown of the brain
     in 1996

Of course, there can be other examples, so the ones above are illustrative, not exhaustive. At first glance, all these cases seem isolated incidents, but, upon closer examination, reveal a growing and disturbing trend of hi-tech assassinations in contemporary global politics, in that all these individuals with the diseases were major opponents of the policies of some powerful states.

Yasser Arafat of Palestine

 For example, the first 8 cases above (cases #1-8) involve some recent leftist opponents of American intervention in South America. This led Mr. Chavez to thus wonder, back in 2011, "Would it be so strange that they [in the U.S.] have invented the technology to spread cancer and we won't know about it for 50 years?" and then added:

 "I don't know but...it is very odd than we have seen Lugo affected by cancer, Dilma when she was [presidential] candidate, me, going into an election year, not long ago Lula and now Cristina....It is very hard to explain, even with the law of probabilities, what has been happening to some [leftist] leaders in Latin America. It's at the very least strange, very strange," as reported by Tom Phillips on December 29, 2011. 

His friend Fidel Castro in Cuba, who himself had survived hundreds of hi-tech assassination attempts by the U.S. in the past half of a century, therefore gave him some advice: "Chávez, take care. These people have developed technology. You are very careless. Take care what you eat, what they give you to eat...a little needle and they inject you with I don't know what."

On the day of Chavez's death, Vice President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, said in an address to the nation that "there's no doubt that Commandante Chavez's health came under attack by the enemy," in that "Chavez's cancer was an 'attack' by his enemies" (meaning the U.S.), as reported by Tracy Connor for NBC News on March 06, 2013. 

Then, General Jose Ornella, head of Venezuela's presidential guard, "echoed the concern of Vice President Nicolas Maduro that some sort of foul play was involved in Chavez's cancer. 'I think it will be 50 years before they declassify a document (that) I think (will show) the hand of the enemy is involved,' he said. The general didn't identify who he was talking about [or what the classified document was exactly], but Maduro suggested possible U.S.

involvement...," as reported by Fabiola Sanchez for the Associated Press on March 06, 2013.

 

Shortly after the death of Chavez, Kurt Nimmo wrote on March 6, 2013: "For the naysayers who dispute that the CIA was responsible for the cancer death of Hugo Chavez, note the device in the following video. It is a dart gun developed in the 1970s (or possibly earlier) by the CIA. In the video, the weapon is described as inducing heart attacks. Cancer is not mentioned. However, we know that the CIA used Dr. Alton Oschner, the former president of the American Cancer Society, to run covert cancer research for the agency." If they could invent devices like this back in the 1970s, just imagine how much more they could do now in the 2010s!

Patrice Lumumba of Congo

In addition, Lubov Lulko wrote in January 05, 2012 that there were different technologies to inflict cancer on opponents, like "alpha radiation, electromagnetic waves, or chemicals" which can "cause emergence and development of cancer," as part of the larger efforts by some powerful states to "invent new kinds of biological, chemical and electronic weapons" to kill their enemies.

Then, case #9 on the list (above) has to do with the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko by the Russian government under Putin, since "upon his arrival to London, he [Litvinenko] continued to support the Russian oligarch in exile, Boris Berezovsky, in his media campaign against the Russian government" under Putin, and "the main suspect in the case, a former officer of the Russian Federal Protective Service (FSO), Andrei Lugovoy, remains in Russia," and "subsequent investigations by British authorities into the circumstances of Litvinenko's death led to serious diplomatic difficulties between the British and Russian governments," as reported in an article on Wikipedia.

And cases #10-11 on the list (above) has to do with the Israeli involvement, for the critics, in the assassination of Yassar Arafat, former chair of the PLO, with brain hemorrhage in 2004, and of Khaled Meshaal, the leader of the Hamas, with the poisonous shutdown of the brain in 1996. 

II. SUCCESSES AND FAILURES

Hi-tech assassinations can be both successful and unsuccessful, of course.

On the one hand, the practice of hi-tech assassination has its own successes. For instance, in the above 11 illustrative cases, 4 attempts were successful, namely, the cases involving Hugo Chavez, Nestor Kirchner, Alexander Litvinenko, and Yassar Arafat.

On the other hand, there are failures, in 2 major ways, as explained below. 

Firstly, some attempts (like the 9 cases as mentioned earlier) have not been successful, for the time being at least -- and the most notorious one concerns case #11, when Israel unsuccessfully attempted to silently kill Khaled Meshaal (with poison), but "one of Meshaal's bodyguards, Muhammad Abu Saif, had chased the two Mossad agents who had carried out the operation and, with the help of a passing Palestinian Liberation Army officer, later captured them," and "the failed assassination proved to be one of the greatest fiascos in the history of special operations, and a pivotal moment in the rise of Hamas," and it had also humiliated Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister at the time (1996-1999) and also now (since 2009), since he was forced not only to provide "the antidote and the nature of the [toxins] used against Meshaal," but also "to release the founder of Hamas [Sheikh Ahmed Yassin] from jail in a prisoner exchange deal," as reported by Al Jazeera World on January 30, 2013.

 

Salvador Allende of Chile

And secondly, even the killings of the opponents do not necessarily bring the results as intended. For instance, the death of Nestor Kirchner has not made Argentina more pro-American; on the contrary, it only brought his widow Cristina Kirchner into power, who has sided with Chavez instead. The death of Yassar Arafat has not brought peace to the Middle East, nor has it made Israel safer from the Hamas, as the two sides recently had another military clash in December of 2012. 

The death of Alexander Litvinenko has not silenced the opposition against the presidency of Vladimir Putin; on the contrary, the opposition has grown even stronger nowadays, from 29% of the vote in the presidential election in 2004 to 37% of the vote in 2012. And the death of Hugo Chavez has made him a martyr in the eyes of his supporters, both at home and abroad, for his dual achievements (and visions) to give the poor (long treated with contempt and abused by the aristocrats in the region) a voice in the public sphere and to stand up against "yankee imperialism" for South American independence as a larger integrated bloc. 

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, former president of Brazil, eloquently wrote about Chavez in The New York Times on March 6, 2013, the day after his death: "No remotely honest person, not even his fiercest opponent, can deny the level of camaraderie, of trust and even of love that Mr. Chavez felt for the poor of Venezuela and for the cause of Latin American integration."

At home, "Chávez's social campaigns, especially in the areas of public health, housing and education, succeeded in improving the standard of living of tens of millions of Venezuelans," as Mr. Lula wasted no time to point out.

Abroad, "Mr. Chávez was instrumental in the 2008 treaty that established the Union of South American Nations, a 12-member intergovernmental organization that might someday move the continent toward the model of the European Union. In 2010, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States leapt from theory to practice, providing a political forum alongside the Organization of American States. (It does not include the United States and Canada, as the O.A.S. does.) The Bank of the South, a new lending institution, independent of the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, also would not have been possible without Mr. Chávez's leadership. Finally, he was vitally interested in fostering closer Latin American ties with Africa and the Arab world," as Mr. Lula thus praised him.

 

Commandante Hugo Chavez

But this does not mean that Mr. Chavez has no faults of his own making. On the contrary, as Lula thus criticized him: "One need not agree with everything Mr. Chavez said or did....There is no denying that he was a controversial, often polarizing, figure...." And, for his enemies, especially those in the corporate world of big-business capitalism, Mr. Chavez can be regarded as a curse from hell.

Yet, for all those countless folks who completely crowded the streets of Caracas on March 06, 2013 and waited for many hours only in order to bid him farewell when his coffin passed through in a military procession, with many crying and mourning, and some even stayed into the night to see his body at the Fort Tiuma military academy -- his death has made him larger than life in their hearts and minds, to the point that, as Lula aptly put it, "his ideas will come to inspire young people in the future, much as the life of Simón Bolívar, the great liberator of Latin America, inspired Mr. Chávez himself."

Already, "within hours of Hugo Chavez's death, makeshift altars were going up in homes and on street corners around Venezuela with candles, photos and offerings for the late president. 

Weeping beside his coffin, supporters are likening him to independence hero Simon Bolivar and even Jesus Christ. Ministers quote his words and precepts in reverential tones," as reported by Andrew Cawthorne on March 8, 2013. And Chavez's body will be "embalmed" and be "permanently displayed" inside "a glass tomb" at a military museum in Caracas, as reported by the Associated Press on March 07, 2013.

This then is the best thing that his enemies have done to him: his painful and untimely death makes him a martyr for his followers both at home and abroad, in the present and in the future. 

REPORT ON ALLEGED EXPIRED ALUMINIUM SULPHATE

Former Minister of Water Resources Works and Housing

When the attention of the Hon. Minister for Water Resources, Works and Housing of Ghana was drawn to the alleged expired Aluminum Sulphate (Alum) for treating water, a Five-Man Committee was set up to among other things establish whether expired Alum was imported and was used for treating water by Ghana Urban Water Limited.

The Committee established the following: -

In August 2010, Aqua Vitens Rand Limited, now Ghana Urban Water Limited (GUWL), placed adverts for the supply of 3,000 metric tones of aluminum sulphate granules (bulk), and 12,000 metric tones of aluminum sulphate granules (bagged and palletized) using International Competitive Tendering (ICT) procedure. 

Messrs Santa Baron Ventures Limited emerged the winner and was to supply 12,000 metric tonnes of bagged granules of alum. The first consignment of 1,250 was cleared without difficulty. However, the second and third consignments totaling 750 metric tonnes faced challenges during clearing. They were finally cleared in August, 2012, and January 2013 respectively, that is ten and fourteen months over stay at the harbor. 

According to the Supplier, he handed the original documents needed for the clearing of the chemicals to the Procurement Officer, Ghana Water Company Limited. The Procurement Officer agreed receiving the document from the Supplier's Messenger but did not open it until a week after when the Logistics Officer returned from leave. The Logistics Officer after taking the unopened folder to his office, returned to inform his boss
that the documents were photocopies and so could not use them to clear the chemicals. This delayed the clearing of the chemicals which stayed at the ports until January 2013 when the label on them indicated they had expired.

 While the chemicals remained at the port, Ghana Standards Authority upon the request of GWCL took samples and tested them before GRA (CEPS Division) allowed the consignment to be cleared. The chemicals were cleared out and delivered to the Warehouse of Ghana Water Company Limited at Mile 18, Tema. 

Upon the directives of the Chief Manager, Water Quality Assurance at Ghana Water Company Limited, an order was placed to supply a quantity of 7,500 bags of the alleged expired Alum to Weija. 

Upon the break-up of the news on 18^th February 2013, National Security cordoned off the Warehouses where the chemicals were kept to prevent their further use. The rest of the Alum labeled expired were carte to the premises of National Security Offices (Blue Gate).

THE COMMITTEE'S OBSERVATIONS

The Committee observed the following: -

That Ghana Urban Water Limited/Ghana Water Company Limited contracted Messrs Santa Baron Ventures to supply 12,000 metric tonnes of Alum. The last consignment was to be delivered by February 2012. 

That in evaluating the bid documents of Messrs Santa Baron Ventures Limited, due diligence was not done. For example, though he provided sample of Alum manufactured by AVS Bhagvatee Chemicals of Gujarat, India, he ordered the chemicals from China
without permission from GUWL. 

That though at the time the Alum entered the port of Tema, they were not expired, by the time they were cleared, they had expired. 

That 0.7% of the total of 12,000 metric tonnes was used at Weija Treatment Plan.

That the Acting Managing Director of GWCL requested Ghana Standard Authority to certify the potency of the alum before GRA (CEPS Division) allowed it to be cleared. 

With the request of GWCL Ghana Standards Authority conducted analytical test and declared the sample potent. This is contrary to the Ghana Standards Authority mandate as per their Act, NRCD 173. 

That Messrs Santa Baron Ventures Ltd won the contract for the 2012 supply of Alum to Ghana Urban Water Limited. 

            8.         In the opinion of the Committee, the testing of the alleged expired Alum by the Standard Authority is clearly not within the mandate of the Authority.

            9.         An independent Chemist who spoke to the Committee on the matter indicated that Alum does not expire when stored well. It is also not poisonous or harmful when used to treat water. He explained further that when the potency goes down quantity used may be increased without any harm to the body.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The Committee recommends the following: -

The retrieved expired Alum should continue to be in the custody of National Security.

Both the Procurement Officers of Ghana Urban Water Limited and Ghana Water Company Limited should be held responsible for failing to handle the procurement and clearing of the Alum professionally. 

The Logistics Officer at Ghana Water Company Limited should be held partly responsible for the delay in clearing the chemical. 

The Committee recommends that the second contract given Messrs Santa Baron Ventures Limited needs to be monitored into closely. 

The Committee finds the one year shelf life of the alleged expired Alum as strange since it is a stable inorganic salt, which will not expire when it is stored in a good condition.

The Supplier should be made to provide explanation for the one year shelf life from the Manufacturer. 

Further investigation should be conducted by the Bureau National Investigation (BNI), into the following: 

Circumstances that led to the undue delay in the clearance of the Chemicals

The circumstances leading to the loss of the original documents for clearing the chemicals.

The rationale behind the testing of the alleged expired Alum by Ghana Standards Authority.

Finally, to facilitate further investigations into the matter, the following officers have been interdicted. 

1. Miss Dora A. Bonnah - Procurement Officer GUWL

2. Mr. David Yankson - Procurement Officer GWCL

3. Edwin Kwamivi - Logistics Officer

4. Evans Balaara - Chief Manager, Water Quality Assurance GUWL

BOG Must Cut Interest Rate 

Logo Of the Bank of Ghana

By Margaret Jackson

It is the business of every government to put in place credible measures to stimulate growth. That is why we often hear that, governments have no business trying to generate employment but rather have the responsibility to put in place actions to assist the pillars of growth – the private sector.

The private sector in Ghana is a sleeping giant. Past governments have not done a deeper dive to put in place those bold measures to help lift up the private sector to where it needs to be. Therefore, most of the measures that have been floated in the past to lift up the private sector have turned out to be cosmetic and not geared towards making the private sector the main engine of growth and sustainability in the country.

Throughout the world, the private sector, especially those in the small and medium scale industry, largely relies on heavy borrowing to finance their activities. Therefore, when the cost of borrowing becomes prohibitive, it naturally inhibits the activities of the private sector and stunts its growth.

And if the private sector hits that snag of financial difficulties, unemployment naturally follows, because the private sector employs more people, or has the capacity to employ more people than the government when it thrives in the right environment under good comprehensive measures.

Borrowing and the ability to finance borrowing are the two main issues that often confront the private sector. That is why in the United States the Federal Reserve never sets or changes the interest rate without seriously taking into account the paramount interest of the private sector. There can never be any serious growth recorded in any country if interest rate is pegged too high.

We are all too familiar with the 2007-2008 global financial crises, considered as the worst financial crises since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The financial crisis that engulfed the world led to the collapse of large financial institutions, the downturns in stock markets, the bailouts of banks by national governments, the bubble in the housing market, huge unemployment, foreclosures and evictions. Those were terrible times that millions of people went to bed without any hope of whether there would be another tomorrow.

The global financial crisis also led to the failure of strategic businesses, significant drop in consumer wealth and the downturn in major economic activities which led to the global recession from 2008 through 2012. Ghana experienced the ripple effect and to date we have not recovered fully just like all other countries. The US, Germany, Italy and Britain among others have recorded insignificant GDP growths for the past three years.

It was as a result of the global financial tumble that the US Federal Reserve did the onerous thing by repeatedly cutting down on the interest rate to help boost the US economy. Between 1971 and 2013, the interest rate of the US has historically averaged between 6.18%. The rate was however cut down repeatedly from 2007 until it got to 0.25 percent where it has been for more than a year now. I do not want to belabour anyone by stressing that the Federal Reserve brought down the interest rate with two focal interests in mind – the private sector and job creation.

We are in Ghana always talking about making the private sector the main engine of growth, yet the Bank of Ghana’s (BOG) prime rate (interest rate) is very prohibitive. At 15 percent, the cost of borrowing by the commercial banks from the BOG is nothing to write home about. Between 2002 and 2013 Ghana’s interest rate has averaged 16.61 percent reaching an all-time high of 27.50 percent in March 2003. It simply does not make sense and does not help businesses especially the smaller ones to borrow from the commercial banks at a higher interest rate of 30 percent or more.

Ghana can never make any strides as far as the private sector is concerned if the BOG does not bring the interest rate down to as low as 5 percent. If we are today talking about a lower single inflation digit why do we still keep the interest rate so high? Why is the cost of borrowing so high and unaffordable? Businesses in Ghana are suffering because apart from not having the collateral security, many of these companies would not want to go out there and borrow so that they will use their little margins to service the loans.

If even advanced countries like the United States have cut their interest rates down to nothing in order to stimulate growth and employment, I do not see how Ghana can make any headway with her interest rate still hitting the roof. We are simply not going to help any business to grow but largely hurt them if the government as a matter of urgency and prudent policy does not cut down on the interest rate.

We can do all the talking and make all the arguments about helping the private sector, but if we do not apply the right medication by way of cutting down on the interest rate to make borrowing less costly and attractive, the private sector which is a sleeping giant will continue to doze off.

Vice President Amissah Arthur former Governor of Bank of Ghana

Currently, the private sector in Ghana is bleeding very badly with most industries especially manufacturing concerns folding up due to higher production costs and their inability to compete with foreign goods. As a result, most of the private entrepreneurs have resorted to buying and selling of finished products from China, Dubai and Turkey among others. Is this the kind of Ghana we want to see in the next four, ten and twenty years down the road?

The BOG must take the lead to help the private sector. Cut down the interest rate by 66 percent! And more banks will borrow from the BOG. Cost of borrowing by the private sector from the commercial banks will be lower and enticing. More businesses will be able to borrow to turn their businesses around. Competition with foreign goods will be keep and at par. Industries will have the confidence to hire more people. Finished products will have ready markets because cost of production would be less costly. Industries will be able to service their loans and pay their taxes to government. This is the way forward.

Ghana has reached a stage where pragmatic decision/s ought to be taken in order to move the country forward. Somebody has to forcefully drum home the point that the cosmetic approach of helping the private sector is not working, and that we need to adopt the right approach in order to see the right results. Over to you, President Mahama!

magjackson80@yahoo.com

http://majjacks80.blogspot.com

We have lost our best friend
 

Commandante Fidel Castro

The best friend the Cuban people have had throughout their history died on the afternoon of March 5. A call via satellite communicated the bitter news. The significance of the phrase used was unmistakable.

Although we were aware of the critical state of his health, the news hit us hard. I recalled the times he joked with me, saying that when both of us had concluded our revolutionary task, he would invite me to walk by the Arauca river in Venezuelan territory, which made him remember the rest that he never had.

The honor befell us to have shared with the Bolivarian leader the same ideas of social justice and support for the exploited. The poor are the poor in any part of the world.

"Let Venezuela give me a way of serving her: she has in me a son," proclaimed National Hero José Martí, the leader of our independence, a traveler who, without cleansing himself of the dust of the journey, asked for the location of the statue of Bolívar. 

Martí knew the beast because he lived in its entrails. Is it possible to ignore the profound words he voiced in an inconclusive letter to his friend Manuel Mercado the day before he died in battle? "…I am in daily danger of giving my life for my country and duty – for I understand that duty and have the intention of carrying it out – the duty of preventing the United States from extending through the Antilles as Cuba gains its independence, and from falling, with that additional strength, upon our lands of America. All that I have done thus far, and will do, is for this purpose. I have had to work silently and somewhat indirectly because, there are certain things which, in order to attain them, have to remain concealed…."

At that time, 66 years had passed since the Liberator Simón Bolívar wrote, "…the United States would seem to be destined by fate to plague the Americas with miseries in the name of freedom."

On January 23, 1959, 22 days after the revolutionary triumph in Cuba, I visited Venezuela to thank its people and the government which assumed power after the Pérez Jiménez dictatorship, for the dispatch of 150 rifles at the end of 1958. I said at that time:

"…Venezuela is the homeland of the Liberator, where the idea of the union of the peoples of America was conceived. Therefore, Venezuela must be the country to lead the union of the peoples of America; as Cubans, we support our brothers and sisters in Venezuela.

"I have spoken of these ideas not because I am moved by any kind of personal ambition, or even the ambition of glory, because, at the end of the day, ambitions of glory remain a vanity, and as Martí said, ‘All the glory of the world fits into a kernel of corn.’

Chavez will live in the hearts of the people

"And so, upon coming here to talk in this way to the people of Venezuela, I do so thinking honorably and deeply, that if we want to save America, if we want to save the freedom of each one of our societies that, at the end of the day, are part of one great society, which is the society of Latin America; if it is that we want to save the revolution of Cuba, the revolution of Venezuela and the revolution of all the countries on our continent, we have to come closer to each other and we have to solidly support each other, because alone and divided, we will fail."

That is what I said on that day and today, 54 years later, I endorse it!
I must only include on that list the other nations of the world which, for more than half a century, have been victims of exploitation and plunder. That was the struggle of Hugo Chávez.

Not even he himself suspected how great he was.
¡Hasta la victoria siempre, unforgettable friend!
Fidel Castro Ruz
March 11, 2013
12:35 a.m.

Cuts kill US middle class

By Dr. Webster G. Tarpley

 Austerity psychosis grips this capital, as the US government lurches from fiscal cliff to sequester and soon from budget resolution to debt ceiling.

Lost in the chaos is the dearly bought lesson of the last world depression: austerity cuts never succeed in their announced goal of reducing deficits and debt, and instead tend to destroy the economic and political systems of countries where they are carried out. Austerity, in a word, kills. But austerity is the program, avowed or concealed, of both US political parties.

A week ago, the US federal budget for fiscal year 2013 was cut by about $85 billion, concentrated in defense and in domestic discretionary spending. These cuts, known as the sequester, are the poisoned fruits of the bipartisan Satan Sandwich of austerity measures approved by Obama and the Democrats in August 2011 as a means of blunting the insane fury of the Republican Tea Party faction, who were eager to drive the United States into default and national bankruptcy in order to stop further federal borrowing. When a group of twelve congressmen and senators widely known as the Twelve Tyrants could not agree on a package of draconian budget cuts and tax increases in the fall of 2011, the government was legally compelled to cut almost $100 billion per year in the impacted categories, starting now. Medicaid, Social Security, and food stamps are not targeted for the moment.

But Medicare faces $10 billion in new cuts over the next seven months, on top of the $700 billion already imposed by Obama. Long-term unemployed who have been jobless for more than six months and who therefore depend on federally funded extended unemployment benefits will see their checks cut by 9.4%. The elderly poor will receive 4 million fewer meals from federally assisted charities. School lunches for poor children will be cut. Some 125,000 families will lose rental assistance, and 100,000 may revert to homelessness.

Despite attempts by reactionaries and ruling class media to ridicule the notion that these cuts are hurting real people, it is impossible to carry out austerity on this scale without a measurable loss of life. As a result of the Budget Control Act of 2011, spending caps or limits will by 2013 cut defense, medical research, education, assistance for low-income families, food and water safety, law enforcement and related categories by 8% below the 2010 levels. Factoring in the additional cuts embodied in the sequester, spending in these areas will by 2013 be down 14% compared to 2010. By 2021, spending will be down 19% due to caps and sequester, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The impact of these cuts and be seen through the example of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children or WIC, which provides high protein nutritious meals for expectant and nursing mothers and their infants. This program is vital in preventing birth defects and cognitive impairment in babies whose mothers have suffered from malnutrition or vitamin deficiencies during pregnancy. Participation in WIC peaked at 9.2 million mothers and children in 2010, and has already declined to 8.9 million last year as a result of caps.

Joe Biden (left) Hussein Obama (Right)

Sequestration will cut the WIC budget by $692 million or about 5% compared to 2010 levels, meaning that 315,000 mothers will be denied benefits. Because the fiscal year began on October 1, this means that between 575,000 and 750,000 mothers would be turned away from the program in the final months of fiscal 2013, which ends on September 30.

How many babies must die, and how many must have their growth stunted for life, because of the absurd reactionary theory that budget cuts are required to reduce the deficit? Even for those who survive, childhood hunger and malnutrition can cause irreversible, life-long damage, with social costs many orders of magnitude greater than the relative pittance that can be economized by cutting a program like WIC.

Reflecting a growing pro-austerity consensus in the ruling class, the controlled media have tended to minimize the impact of the cuts.

But a survey of local media paints a much more disturbing picture. In Georgia, reconstruction in the wake of a tornado in the Atlanta area is being stopped because of sequestration cuts. At the same time, the Georgia Department of Labor is reducing unemployment benefits by 11%.

In Washington state, cleanup at the Hanford nuclear reservation toxic waste site is being slowed because of $171 million lost through the sequester. Border protection officers in Arizona will face unpaid leave for as many as 24,000 employees for up to 14 days each; homelessness will be increased in the state because less money will be available for rent assistance for the poor. In Utah, 23 employees of Tooele County are being laid off. Food pantries in Mississippi are preparing for a larger influx of needy people.

In San Antonio, Texas $140 million in budget cuts will impact Head Start, a program which offers breakfast and pre-school for disadvantaged children, as well as impacting WIC and transportation programs for the elderly. A total of 173 airport control towers are closing in places such as Detroit, San Francisco, St. Petersburg, Florida, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. Any airline disasters will henceforth be the responsibility of the austerity ghouls. The Weather Service, which has already fallen below European forecasting standards because of a lack of computer investments, will suffer.

Sequester cuts in biomedical research will set science back an entire generation
In a genuine crime against humanity, the National Institutes of Health - the greatest single biomedical research capability on the planet - will be cut by $1.6 billion over the next seven months. Younger scientists seeking new research grants will be facing hopeless odds, and it is feared that many will abandon their careers in scientific research altogether. This also applies to older and more experienced scientists. Dr. Elias Zerhouni, a Bush Republican who led the NIH from 2002 to 2008, has predicted that the sequester will set medical science back an entire generation. This is an act of the most grotesque vandalism.

The most common estimate is that the sequester will by itself wipe out 750,000 government jobs at all levels. Given the multiplier relationship between federal spending and private-sector jobs, this would imply between 1 and 1.5 million jobs lost across the entire US economy. Estimates of jobs destroyed by the sequester in defense industries specifically reach up to 2 million.

The alleged goal of the sequester is to cut total federal spending and borrowing by about $1 trillion or $100 billion per year for 10 years. But, as we have seen, the resulting damage is unacceptable. The example of Great Britain, now in the third dip of a triple-dip recession, suggests that austerity will also fail to deliver the promised shrinkage of the deficit. Indeed, researchers at the International Monetary Fund have studied no fewer than 173 episodes of fiscal austerity in developed countries between 1978 and 2009. Their finding is that austerity policies created economic contraction and made unemployment worse.

Wall Street: The greatest untaxed river of cash in the world

It would therefore be better to procure additional revenue. One obvious place to start is in Wall Street, where the majority of the too big to fail money center banks pay little or nothing in the way of federal corporate income tax (nominally 35% of profits), and almost nothing in the way of sales tax on their many quadrillions of dollars of yearly trades and transactions.

The zombie bankers and hedge fund hyenas, like the French aristocracy before 1789, evidently claim immunity from all taxation. The most basic cause for current world depression is the tremendous growth since about 1970 in financial services at the expense of tangible physical production and manufacturing. This has given rise to service economies in the US and Europe which cannot be viable. As long as manufacturers are taxed and speculators pay nothing, speculation enjoys a subsidy. A tax on speculation is therefore indispensable in tilting the playing field back towards the production of those commodities upon which human existence depends.

In response to the irrational and sociopathic demand for budget cuts, a movement has emerged to tap in to the largest untaxed flow of money in the US economy - the quadrillions of dollars in largely speculative transactions which pass each year through the New York stock and bond markets and the Chicago futures and options markets. This movement is now becoming a bandwagon, and represents our best hope of defeating the austerity ghouls.

On February 28, Senators Tom Harkin and Sheldon Whitehouse along with Congressman Peter DeFazio re-introduced their proposal for a Wall Street Sales Tax, which they call a financial transaction tax. (Calling it a tax on transactions is dangerous and misleading, since the average person might think that withdrawing money from one’s own savings account could be considered a transaction and taxed along with Wall Street flash trading at a million trades per second. Congressman DeFazio’s website warns against ongoing disinformation operations which seek to play on precisely this confusion. The answer is to call it a Wall Street Sales Tax!)

Officially entitled the Wall Street Trading and Speculators Tax, the new bill would tax sales of stocks, bonds, options, futures, swaps, derivatives and other financial instruments by financial institutions at three basis points or three one hundredths of 1%. Derivatives would be valued at the cash price actually paid, rather than the notional value of the underlying assets on which the derivative is based.

Even at this unrealistically low level, this proposal would generate an estimated $352 billion in revenue over the coming decade, or $35.2 billion per year, according to the Joint Tax Committee.

A trillion dollars of federal revenue to roll back austerity

The fully developed Wall Street Sales Tax advocated here is for 1% on all transactions of financial instruments, with a $1 million per person exclusion to allow for family investments. Assuming that trading and speculation would continue at the same level, the authentic Wall Street sales tax would therefore provide the federal treasury with $1.173 trillion of revenue, half of which should be passed on to the states as revenue sharing. In reality, revenue is likely to be somewhat lower because of the tendency of the Wall Street Sales Tax to discourage parasitical speculation.

Senator Harkin correctly estimated that the current protracted conflicts over the fiscal cliff, the sequester, the continuing budget resolution, and the debt ceiling offer real possibilities for getting a Wall Street sales tax enacted. Such a tax offers considerable revenue but would have “a negligible impact on middle-class Americans and Main Street businesses,” Harkin pointed out.

Harkin-Whitehouse-DeFazio is cosponsored by Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders. There are currently 19 cosponsors in the House. Previous versions of the bill have been co-sponsored by Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Bruce Braley (D-IA), John Conyers (D-MI), Donna Edwards (D-MD), Bob Filner (D-CA), Maurice Hinchley (D-NY), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Henry Johnson (D-GA), John Sarbanes (D-MD), Louis Slaughter (D-NY), Betty Sutton (D-OH), and Peter Welch (D-VT). Other versions of the Wall Street Sales Tax has been supported by House Democrats Raul Grijalva of Arizona, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, Elijah Cummings of Maryland, and Keith Ellison of Minnesota, currently the leader of the House Progressive Caucus, which is also backing the WSST.

At the February 28 press conference, Congressman DeFazio recalled that in 2009 the Obama administration had been “very interested” in a financial transaction tax. Indeed, such a measure is known to have enjoyed the support of Peter Orszag, Obama’s first budget director. But any notion of making Wall Street pay its fair share was blocked by White House economics czar Larry Summers and Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner, both incorrigible tools of Wall Street. Now, DeFazio noted, both Summers and Geithner are no longer in office. Senator Harkin added that Jack Lew, Obama’s new Secretary of the Treasury, while repeating pro-forma the administration’s opposition to a tax on speculation, “was basically open to looking at it and engaging on further discussions on it. That’s the difference in two secretaries of the Treasury.” (George Zornick, “Financial Transaction Tax Introduced Again - Can It Pass This Time?”, The Nation, February 28, 2013)

The Euro Tobin is coming soon to eleven countries

One standard argument used by Wall Street and the City of London against a tax on speculation it is that traders will go elsewhere if they are forced to pay their fair share. That argument is now much weaker because 11 countries of the European Union are in the process of enacting a Tobin tax (financial sales tax) of 0.1% on stock trades and 0.01% on derivatives transactions.

This tax may be enacted as soon as the end of 2013 by European Union countries including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Austria, Estonia, Greece, Portugal, Slovenia, and Slovakia. The impost is expected to generate about €35 billion in revenue. This EuroTobin is designed to have global bite, since the EU wants it collected on all financial instruments originally issued in Europe, no matter where they may change hands. It will also apply to all trades carried out by financial institutions based in the EU.

These features allow the EuroTobin to penetrate such dens of unbridled speculation as the London and New York stock exchanges, and the principal derivatives exchanges in Chicago. The US Chamber of Commerce, determined as always to defend the exorbitant privileges of the financier oligarchy, is already joining the British in screaming that the Bolsheviks are at the gates.

Since the beginning of 2013, a movement in favor of the Wall Street sales tax has been rapidly developing. One key turning point was doubtless on January 20, when activists of the United Front against Austerity brought a banner calling for a 1% Wall Street Sales Tax to the National Mall in Washington, DC on the eve of Obama’s inauguration.

 CNN was broadcasting from a special booth located near the Smithsonian Castle, and the banner was clearly legible in the background of CNN programming for a period of several hours.

The new Harkin-Whitehouse-DeFazio bill was immediately publicized and supported by Katrina vanden Heuvel, the doyenne of the left liberal establishment and publisher of The Nation. Vanden Heuvel, writing in the Washington Post, called the tax on speculation “an idea whose time has come,” and cited polling which shows that “when it comes to cutting the deficit, six in 10 Americans prefer taxing the financial industry to cutting social spending.

 Recalling that even some Republican financial experts are now backing a Wall Street sales tax, vanden Heuvel speculated on the ability of this measure to break the logjam in the Congress, asking: “For Tea Partiers, wouldn’t a tax on Wall Street, the beneficiaries of the bailout they so revile, be less objectionable than most of the revenue options?” (Katrina vanden Heuvel, “It’s Time to Tax Financial Transactions,” Washington Post, March 5, 2013, also published in The Nation) 

Sheila Bair, who was appointed by George Bush to head the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and who stayed on in that capacity under Obama, has been on record in favor of the Wall Street sales tax since last autumn. Bair wrote that “developed nations in Europe and elsewhere are moving forward with fees on financial transactions. Instead of resisting these efforts, the US should lead the way. For decades, we imposed a fee on stock transactions with no adverse effects on our markets.”

 In addition to the revenue, Bair also looks forward to a general calming of stock exchanges, noting that “… high frequency traders who buy and sell by the millisecond would pay a lot. Such a tax would penalize those who destabilize our markets with rapid-fire trading, while rewarding those who invest for the long term.” (Sheila Bair, “Four Ways Wall Street Can Ante Up for Fiscal Health,” Fortune, November 19, 2012) 

Robert Reich, who was the Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, and who is one of the most influential US economists thanks to his frequent television appearances, is telling Obama to build his second term strategy around the Wall Street Sales Tax. Reich recommends that Obama act to repeal the sequester using a reconciliation bill in the Senate, which could pass with 51 votes and would not be subject to filibuster, thereby isolating the House Republican austerity fanatics.

That should be followed up, argues Reich, with a Build America’s Future Act assembled around “a small (1/10 of 1%) tax on financial transactions....” This and other revenue would be used for “investments in our future through education (from early childhood through affordable higher ed), infrastructure, and basic R&D.”

 In Reich’s view, Obama could make the 2014 elections a referendum on this measure and a few others, and would have a fighting chance to take back control of the House of Representatives. More broadly, Reich sees the Wall Street sales tax as the keystone of a package of measures that would allow the reframing of the “public debate around the future of the country and the investments we want to make together in the future, rather than austerity economics.” (Robert Reich, “What Obama Should Do Now,” March 4, 2013, robertreich.org)

Other influential economists, including Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, James Galbraith, and others are also supporting the Wall Street Sales Tax. John Maynard Keynes was favorable to a tax on speculation, so those who belong to Lord Keynes’ school of economic analysis are structurally predisposed towards this measure. Two Washington DC think tanks of the middle rank are active on this front: these are the Center for Effective Government (the former OMB Watch), and The Center for Economic and Policy Research, whose chief resident economist is Dean Baker. Institutional support has been coming from National Nurses United, one of the most militant and intelligent trade unions, as well as from the AFL-CIO and the UAW.

Obama’s charm offensive for a grand bargain of killer cuts

All of these forces must realize the total contempt in which they are held by Obama. In a recent press conference, Obama flaunted his eagerness to carry out killer cuts in Social Security and Medicare, despite the fact - Obama gloated -- that key parts the Democratic base are totally opposed to any such cuts. To make matters worse, Obama’s pick to head the Office of Management and Budget is Sylvia Mathews Burwell, who served Bob Rubin of Citibank and Goldman Sachs as chief of staff during the Clinton years and who has most recently headed the reactionary Walmart Foundation, named after a family whose name is synonymous with low wages and shoddy merchandise.

The Republican Tea Party caucus is about as large numerically as the Progressive Caucus on the Democratic side, but the Tea Party gang wields far greater power because of their reckless kamikaze willingness to dump their own leaders and bankrupt the nation in pursuit of their illusory ideological goals. The cowardly Democratic Progressive Caucus, by contrast, counts for very little because of their track record of betraying their own values and caving in for Obama at decisive moments. Now that Obama is well on his way to becoming a lame duck, the Progressive Caucus would do well to dispense with the quasi-religious reverence they have generally shown for the current tenant of the White House, and instead fight for the program the nation needs.

All the more so because Obama is now preparing acts of colossal new treachery against his own base. The Washington scorecard for 2013 gives Obama one run for forcing the reactionary Republicans to raise income taxes on some rich people, in violation of the sacred GOP ideology of greed.

But conventional wisdom scores the sequester as a win for Republican budget fanatics who want to cut spending at all costs. Now that the score is tied, Obama regards the Democratic base as quiescent, and senses the time right for his monstrous Grand Bargain of austerity with the GOP. Accordingly, Obama has dropped his recent tactic of staging campaign events against Republicans in cities around the country and gone on a charm offensive instead. This past Wednesday, Obama met with twelve austerity ghoul Republican senators (selected by John McCain and Lindsey Graham) at the Jefferson Hotel to discuss what can only be called a package of genocidal cuts at the expense of the American people.

Obama offering $500 billion in health care cuts, chained CPI

Obama, who won his second term on a commitment to defend Social Security and Medicare from the Republicans, has placed the New Deal and Great Society entitlements firmly on the chopping block with a proposal for $500 billion in additional cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal health care programs. Cuts of this size by Obama may well be even worse than the 2010 Simpson-Bowles recipe for economic genocide. In return, Obama asked for the fig leaf of some new revenue from limiting certain tax deductions and loopholes.

At the same time, Obama reiterated his heinous commitment to the Chained Consumer Price Index, a trick to falsify the real rate of inflation even more that occurs at present, with the goal of gradually shrinking the Social Security benefit. This Chained CPI would allow Obama to realize Newt Gingrich’s old dream of letting Social Security wither on the vine.

Obama has placed phone calls to other senators, and on Thursday invited Congressman Paul Ryan, a top GOP budget honcho, to join him for lunch at the White House. Next week, Ryan is scheduled to present his latest long-term austerity budget, which will reportedly claim to balance the US federal budget within 10 years.

 (Of course, budget cuts have never balanced a national budget in a depression and never will. ) Already, the pro-austerity corporate media are beginning a campaign in support of Ryan’s savage cuts in entitlements and domestic discretionary spending. Obama, for his part, is always eager to use such a proposal as a pretext for capitulating.

All of this means that supporters of the Wall Street Sales Tax are now engaged in a desperate race against time to get this proposal into the center of public attention. Once the American people discover that Wall Street pays no taxes, the political climate can easily shift away from the current ascendancy of the austerity ghouls.

Democratic members of Congress must now be willing to push the Wall Street Sales Tax, whether Obama likes it or not. If a real solution is to be found, it must be built around the vastly increased revenue which can be procured by enacting the 1% Wall Street Sales Tax. 

France in Africa – An analysis of the intervention of the former colonial power

French President Francois Hollande

The aim of France's intervention is to drive the Islamist forces out of Mali's north, but the likelihood of such an operation's success cannot be taken for granted.

Last year, when the Economic Community of West African States agreed to a joint military intervention against Islamist rebel groups in the north of Mali, there were few signs of a quick deployment of troops. The United Nations were sceptical, warning that military actions could be taken in September 2013 at earliest. Instead, the organisation wanted to see an increase in efforts to solve the crisis peacefully. Malian officials met with different rebel representatives under mediator Blaise Compaore, president Burkina Faso, to achieve a peace agreement.

However, it turned out that Ansar Dine, the largest rebel group with an estimated 1 500 fighters, instead used the negotiations to buy time to prepare for the upcoming military confrontation.Instead of following the hesitant attitude of the United Nations, the Malian government called for fast military assistance for its insufficient army forces, and the first one to come rushing to the West African country’s aid was the former colonial power, France.

Currently, the European country has already deployed 2 300 soldiers in Mali, who – backed by heavy aerial support – managed to take back parts of the key city of Diabali. According to French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, the last 12 days of military operations had already caused costs of approximately 40 Million US$, and an end is not foreseeable. While ECOWAS troops are increasingly joining and replacing French soldiers, it is nevertheless still a question why the former colonial power is showing such commitment to the African country.

Firstly, French-Malian cultural connections play an important role. It is estimated that about 7 000 French citizens still live in the former colony. France is concerned for the safety of those citizens – a worry which was proven justified during the seizure of the Ain Amenas gas field in Mali’s northern neighbour Algeria by Islamist terrorists.

The European country also hosts a large Malian community. It fears that a deterioration of the security in Mali might not only endanger the French citizens in the African country, but also increase the international danger of terrorist attacks, initiated by northern Malian terror groups. For that reason, it is likely that other Western nations will soon support the French military efforts.

 

Map of West Africa

 However, France has also economic incentives in the stabilization of Mali’s deserted north. Critics have pointed out that France procures much of its uranium from Malian neighbours, particularly from Niger, which borders the troubled region. A spread of the Islamic extremist groups from Mali to other countries is a danger for France’s nuclear independence, especially its energy supply, of which electricity generated by nuclear power accounts for 78% of the whole energy produced.

France’s quick push into the country has not only helped to hold back the Islamist fighters, it has also made the situation more dynamic. European allies will not let France carry the burden of fighting against Islamist terrorism alone, and are likely to increase their support for the military intervention in the near future. However, the success of the operation is anything but clear. The Islamists are not only very mobile with their pickup vehicles, they have been found to be better equipped than expected – it was found out that northern Mali is the place to buy modern military weapons at the world’s lowest price. The mountainous desert landscape, and an internationally backed fight against Islamist fighters, brings back memories of the suboptimal fighting in Afghanistan.

Problematically, the enemy is not always recognizable at first sight. Although Mali’s black African population appear different to the more Arab orientated, not everyone who is light skinned and wears a turban is an Islamist rebel. The Touareg, a nomadic population group who follow a moderate Muslim doctrine, may not be mixed up with the Islamist fighters, but share physical characteristics to the terrorists who often originate from other Muslim countries, particularly Algeria, but also countries as far away as Pakistan. Touaregs have to fear violence by Malian soldiers who generalize them with the Islamist fighters, causing many of the nomads to flee into the neighbouring countries.

The current situation in Mali has taken the form of a war. The aim is to drive the Islamist forces out of its north, but the likelihood of such an operation’s success cannot be taken for granted. The only given is that there will be bloodshed, and that the local population will have to suffer before any satisfactory conclusion is reached.

Fabian Scherer

f.scherer@politicalanalysis.co.za