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| NDC General Secretary, Asiedu Nketsia |
By
Ekow Mensah
This
is what somebody posted online; “Dear Lord, you took my favourite dancer and
singer away (Michael Jackson), you took my favourite rappers (2pac, Biggie and
Dagrin), now you’ve taken my favourite actor (Andy Whitefield –Spartacus).
“Dear
Lord, I would like to let you know that (President Mahama and Aseidu Nketia)
are also my favourite politicians. I hope to hear from you soon, Baba God”
If
this is not a wish for the death of the President and the General Secretary of
the National Democratic Congress (NDC) then what can it be?
Ordinary
decent Ghanaians would atleast frown on such publications.
Indeed
in traditional society this would be considered most offensive and the author
would be subjected to severe sanctions.
Unfortunately,
this is Ghana in October 2013, where everything
is gloried in the name of the multi-party political dispensation.
A
leading opposition parliamentarian is declared a hero of his political party
for calling on Ashantis to attack Voltarians and Gas.
Another
opposition figure is carried shoulder high by teaming supporters, for
unprintable insults on Professor John
Evans Atta Mills whiles he served as head of state.
You
spice all these up with the reference to a sitting head of State as a poddle
and a chamber pot.
This
however is not the full picture because elements in Government or those who
support the ruling party can also dish
out venomous insults.
There
have been references to former President J.A Kufuor as “Ataa Ayi” and to the
Presidential candidate of the NPP in the
2012 elections as “that short thing”.
The question is why is this tolerated under
this dispensation with its pretention of being democratic?
The
multi-party dispensation promises to guarantee citizen’s rights to free speech,
to assembly, to conscience, to movement
and many more.
The reality however is that it has become a
system of perpetual antagonism between political parties and their supporters
who must get power at any and all cost.
In
this dispensation it would appear that the duty of Government and its
supporters is to run down the opposition
and its supporters to the extent that they would look like draculors
unfit to come anywhere near public office.
On
the other side the opposition can see no good in the Government and its
primarily responsibility appears to be making the Government sufficiently
unpopular so it can lose the next elections.
In
all of these the interest of the masses is relegated to the background. It
becomes relevant only to the extent that it helps in the grand agenda of
destroying political opponents.
The
focus has never been on how to improve the quantity and quality of housing. It
is not about expanding healthcare and education remains a subject that is only
discussed within the context of who wins the next election.
Interestingly,
the people of Ghana have not been fooled and it is now very common to hear
ordinary people say that all the politicians are the same.
Indeed the food vendor at a street corner in
Kokomlemle sums it all up when she said “what we need is food and somewhere to
sleep, if these parties cannot deliver this then they should stop worrying us”.
The
real test of the multi-party system is whether it can put food on the table and
deliver the sick from their affliction.
THROWING DUST
Both
the opposition and Government are throwing dust into the eyes of the people
over the so-called GYEEDA report.
The
opposition is deliberately creating the impression that Government is deeply
involved in a cover up of a criminal conspiracy to loot state resources.
Government
on the other hand is creating the impression that it is seriously pursuing
those who conspired to steal billions of Ghana cedis from GYEEDA.
The President has even gone to the extent of
directing that all those involved should be prosecuted.
In
our view, Government and the opposition are only creating wild expectation
which cannot be met in a low governed society like Ghana.
Conviction
can only take place under the ambit of the law and based on evidence.
An
analysis of the GYEEDA report reveals that the main issue is that companies
which signed agreements to perform some functions failed to do so.
If
this is the case, the Government has only one option; to sue the companies in competent
courts for breach of contract.
The
rush to prosecute can only bring about disappointment.
Ghana
needs to retrieve all its monies which have ended up in wrong pockets but it
must be done according to law.
More Mystery Over GNPC Ship
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| John Agyekum Kufuor |
Dr.
Amos Ofori Quaah, who was testifying before the Commission on Wednesday,
October 23, 2013 could also not confirm if a $19.5 million purportedly paid to
Societe Generale, in settlement of an action against GNPC over a hedging
transaction which he said had gone ‘sour’ was actually received by the French bank.
The
Acting Chief Executive, who was at the hem of affairs at the national oil
company, when the drillship, Discoverer 511 was sold and the
proceeds disbursed under circumstances yet to be unravelled, told the
Commission the circumstances under which he issued a Power of Attorney to then
Deputy Minister of Energy, Mr. K. T. Hammond, to enable him conclude the sale
of GNPC’s drillship.
The
Former GNPC boss told the Justice Yaw Appau Commission that he was invited to
the Attorney-General’s office, where the Power of Attorney had been drafted for
his signature. He disclosed that it was
at a time that Mr. Hammond was already in the United Kingdom, and had concluded
the transaction but needed GNPC’s consent to enable him transfer ownership of
the vessel, a property of GNPC.
He
conceded that even though the law that established GNPC, PNDC Law 64, gave
decisions on GNPC’s assets to its Board of Directors, “it was a very unusual
circumstances” he found himself as the corporation had no board and the
Ministry of Energy had taken direct control of the company at the time.
Counsel
to Commission: “Apart from the letter that the Corporation received from the
Minister, indicating how much the drillship was sold for, or what happened to
the balance of proceeds, did you ever receive or sight any evidence of how much
this drillship was sold? And how much
went to Societe Generale, from Societe Generale itself?”
Dr.
Quaah: No!
Justice
Apau: Did you sight any contract of
sale, any sale agreement between GNPC, represented by KT Hammond as the
Attorney and Societe Generale?
Dr.
Quaah: No
He
told the Commission that while Bassoe Offshore, represented Frontier Drilling
as buyers in the transaction on the sale of the drillship, GNPC was represented
by Mr. KT Hammond. He denied knowledge of any agency acting for GNPC in the
sale transaction.
Asked
if he sighted a Memorandum of Agreement, or document covering the sale of the
vessel, Dr. Quaah responded in the negative, adding that when he approached Mr.
Hammond for a feedback on his return, he retorted that he did not send him
anywhere.
DR. Ofori Quaah who was GNPC CE at the time of the sale of the
drillship, told the Commission that when he asked KT Hammond for documents on
his return, his response was that he had not sent him anywhere.
He said he never sighted any judgments, settlement, or documents
covering the sale.
Immediate past Chief Executive of GNPC, Nana Boakye Asafu-Adjaye
had told the Commission earlier, when he appeared on August 28 this year that
even though Societe Generale had sued GNPC in a UK Court, the corporation was
contesting the claim and had a counter-claim against the former.
He
told the commission also that while the court case was on-going, lawyers for
the parties were negotiating on the side-lines.
Nana Boakye Asafu-Adjaye testified
that the Corporation had
external lawyers, Bindman and Partners, representing it in the case but were
asked to hand over to the Attorney-General after change of government in 2001.
Mr. Asafu-Adjaye tendered in evidence a letter by then minister
of Energy, Mr. Kan Dapaah to GNPC Board Chairman dated 24th October,
2001 in which he cited $24Million as proceeds from sale of the GNPC drillship.
The former Energy minister further gave a breakdown of
disbursements from the proceeds as follows:
Payment to Societe Generale - $19.5M; Legal fees - $100,000;
Payment into Escrow account - $900,000; and Payment to Ministry of Finance,
$3.5million.
In the absence of a settlement agreement, judgment or receipt
covering the payment to Societe Generale, it is not clear if the $19.5 Million
purported to be the amount paid was actually received by the French bank.
It is also not clear, in the absence of a sale and purchase
agreement, if the $24million purported to be the proceeds from the sale of the
rig as per the letter of Mr. Kan Dapaah to the GNPC Board Chairman the full
proceeds realised from the sale.
KT Hammond had said in radio interviews that he went to the UK
to negotiate the payment to Societe Generale and sale of the GNPC drillship
with a Power of Attorney and Resolution from GNPC.
Analysts have argued that as GNPC did not have a Board at the
time of the sale in July 2001 there could not have been a Resolution from GNPC
or a Power of Attorney as that could only have derived from the powers of a
Board.
It is also not clear why after taking over the case from GNPC’s
external lawyers, the Attorney-General, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo did not go
to the UK court to represent the Corporation or go to negotiate with Societe
Generale.
The West’s contempt for Africa must end!
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| Thabo Mbeki |
We
had agreed that I would speak at the opening of your symposium, because I had
to go to Zimbabwe yesterday to participate at the ceremony of the inauguration
of President [Robert] Mugabe as President of Zimbabwe, and I am told this was
[his] seventh as president and more if you include his prime ministership.
The Zimbabweans insisted that I should come, and I agreed with them because they were saying that the inauguration marked the end of the Global Political Agreement which they signed in 2008, in whose evolution we had played a part. So, I am saying all of this to apologise for speaking to you in the evening rather than in the morning. But I [would] really like to say thank you very much for agreeing to participate in this symposium to look at this very important issue, the issue about solutions to Africa’s development. It is indeed very important that as Africans we must focus on all of this and mobilise the intellectual capital that exists among ourselves to answer this question.
What the principal [who introduced him] was saying about the Nelson Mandela Lecture here by Mo Ibrahim, raising questions of leadership on the continent, those remarks were correct. I think this is an important part of our challenge as Africans ourselves to find the solutions to Africa’s development.
So we meet at this symposium to look at what we do, [and what] we say as African thought leaders asking about where should we be tomorrow. It is important. There is nobody else to do this for us. The people who have done it for us in the past, and they are many, have said, who are these Africans? What are they? What is their past? Where should they be tomorrow? Other people have said that about us. And what has it produced? Disaster! A disaster from which we should rescue ourselves. I was saying that yesterday I was in Zimbabwe for the inauguration of President Mugabe. I don’t know who among us here, what opinions we have about Zimbabwe, but there are certain things which worry.
In Zimbabwe
With regard to the [31 July 2013] Zimbabwe elections, one of the things that worried me was a very intense and sustained campaign to discredit the elections before they took place. So I was saying to myself, “why?” And I could see clearly that the intention was in the event that the elections resulted in a victory for President Mugabe and Zanu-PF, they would obviously be unfair. In the event that they resulted in the election of Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC, then they would be free and fair. That was the intention.
Although it didn’t surprise me, what disturbed me was that many among us Africans seemed to buy into the story that was being told. And so I was saying to myself that this is very worrying because what it means is that we, as Africans, don’t know enough about ourselves and continue to be enslaved by a narrative about ourselves told by other people.
Any African, anybody following events in Zimbabwe for some time, would not have been surprised at the election results, not in the least. And indeed some of the people who were communicating these negative messages about the elections before they took place, actually predicted what would happen: That a particular politics of Zimbabwe meant we would have a particular outcome.
There is an old friend of mine in Zimbabwe, another intellectual like yourselves, I won’t mention his name. Shortly before the elections, he said, publicly, that the MDC was going to sweep in its major victory in the rural areas of Zimbabwe. So I read this thing and I said: “But what’s wrong with him?” I haven’t spoken to him for some time, but I [was] going to ask him that question. I said: “What’s wrong with him?” You could never make a prediction like that if you knew what had been happening in the Zimbabwean rural areas in the last 10 years.
Many years ago, and as part of the leadership in this region [the Southern African region], we engaged the Zimbabwean leadership – President Mugabe and [the] others – in a very sustained process to discourage them from the manner in which they were handling the issue of land reform.
We were saying to them: “Yes, indeed we agree [that] land reform is necessary, but the way in which you are handling it is wrong.” We tried very hard. “No, no, you see all of these things about the occupation of the farms by the war veterans, this and that and the other, all of this is wrong.” That’s what we were saying.
But fortunately the Zimbabweans didn’t listen to us, they went ahead. The consequence of it is that, I have looked at at least four books that have been written about the land reform in Zimbabwe, all of which say in fact the process of land reform has given land to at least 300,000 [to] 400,000 new land owners; the peasants of Zimbabwe at last own the land! The programme succeeded and has this direct benefit on these huge numbers of Zimbabweans. And so I found it very strange that this intellectual friend of mine could say the MDC would win the elections in the rural areas. They couldn’t, essentially because they were identified by the rural population to have opposed land reform, rightly or wrongly, we can discuss that.
The Zimbabweans insisted that I should come, and I agreed with them because they were saying that the inauguration marked the end of the Global Political Agreement which they signed in 2008, in whose evolution we had played a part. So, I am saying all of this to apologise for speaking to you in the evening rather than in the morning. But I [would] really like to say thank you very much for agreeing to participate in this symposium to look at this very important issue, the issue about solutions to Africa’s development. It is indeed very important that as Africans we must focus on all of this and mobilise the intellectual capital that exists among ourselves to answer this question.
What the principal [who introduced him] was saying about the Nelson Mandela Lecture here by Mo Ibrahim, raising questions of leadership on the continent, those remarks were correct. I think this is an important part of our challenge as Africans ourselves to find the solutions to Africa’s development.
So we meet at this symposium to look at what we do, [and what] we say as African thought leaders asking about where should we be tomorrow. It is important. There is nobody else to do this for us. The people who have done it for us in the past, and they are many, have said, who are these Africans? What are they? What is their past? Where should they be tomorrow? Other people have said that about us. And what has it produced? Disaster! A disaster from which we should rescue ourselves. I was saying that yesterday I was in Zimbabwe for the inauguration of President Mugabe. I don’t know who among us here, what opinions we have about Zimbabwe, but there are certain things which worry.
In Zimbabwe
With regard to the [31 July 2013] Zimbabwe elections, one of the things that worried me was a very intense and sustained campaign to discredit the elections before they took place. So I was saying to myself, “why?” And I could see clearly that the intention was in the event that the elections resulted in a victory for President Mugabe and Zanu-PF, they would obviously be unfair. In the event that they resulted in the election of Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC, then they would be free and fair. That was the intention.
Although it didn’t surprise me, what disturbed me was that many among us Africans seemed to buy into the story that was being told. And so I was saying to myself that this is very worrying because what it means is that we, as Africans, don’t know enough about ourselves and continue to be enslaved by a narrative about ourselves told by other people.
Any African, anybody following events in Zimbabwe for some time, would not have been surprised at the election results, not in the least. And indeed some of the people who were communicating these negative messages about the elections before they took place, actually predicted what would happen: That a particular politics of Zimbabwe meant we would have a particular outcome.
There is an old friend of mine in Zimbabwe, another intellectual like yourselves, I won’t mention his name. Shortly before the elections, he said, publicly, that the MDC was going to sweep in its major victory in the rural areas of Zimbabwe. So I read this thing and I said: “But what’s wrong with him?” I haven’t spoken to him for some time, but I [was] going to ask him that question. I said: “What’s wrong with him?” You could never make a prediction like that if you knew what had been happening in the Zimbabwean rural areas in the last 10 years.
Many years ago, and as part of the leadership in this region [the Southern African region], we engaged the Zimbabwean leadership – President Mugabe and [the] others – in a very sustained process to discourage them from the manner in which they were handling the issue of land reform.
We were saying to them: “Yes, indeed we agree [that] land reform is necessary, but the way in which you are handling it is wrong.” We tried very hard. “No, no, you see all of these things about the occupation of the farms by the war veterans, this and that and the other, all of this is wrong.” That’s what we were saying.
But fortunately the Zimbabweans didn’t listen to us, they went ahead. The consequence of it is that, I have looked at at least four books that have been written about the land reform in Zimbabwe, all of which say in fact the process of land reform has given land to at least 300,000 [to] 400,000 new land owners; the peasants of Zimbabwe at last own the land! The programme succeeded and has this direct benefit on these huge numbers of Zimbabweans. And so I found it very strange that this intellectual friend of mine could say the MDC would win the elections in the rural areas. They couldn’t, essentially because they were identified by the rural population to have opposed land reform, rightly or wrongly, we can discuss that.
The
African reality
The point I am making is that we still have a challenge to understand our own reality, and I am using the example of Zimbabwe to say that I have a sense that even with regards to this issue, which for some reason for years has been a major issue in the international media and politics and so on, that even we as Africans still have not quite understood Zimbabwe. I think it is your task to change that, so that we understand ourselves better.
I think we should also ask ourselves the question: Why is Zimbabwe such a major issue for some people? Zimbabwe is a small country by any standard; there is no particular reason why Zimbabwe should be a matter to which The New York Times, the London Guardian and whoever else … why are they paying so much attention to Zimbabwe? Why?
I know why they pay particular attention to us [here in South Africa], because they explained it. They said: “You have too many white people in South Africa. We are concerned about their future. They are our kith and kin. We are worried about what you would do to them, so we keep a very close eye on what happens [in South Africa].” So we understand [their attitude about South Africa], we may not agree with the thinking, but we understand. But I am saying, why this focus on Zimbabwe?
Towards the end of last year, they asked me to speak at a conference on Zimbabwe diamonds. So I went, and what surprised me about the conference held at Victoria Falls was that everybody and anybody who has anything to do with diamonds in the world was there. From America, from Israel, from India, from Brussels, everybody! It was not about diamonds in the world, it was about Zimbabwe diamonds! So I was puzzled, saying, but why have they all come?
Maybe two hours before we left the conference to come back, we sat in a session which was addressed by one of the Indian diamond people. In the course of his presentation, he explained why [they had all come to the conference]. He gave an answer to this query in my head. He said in a few years’ time, Zimbabwe would account for 25 per cent of world production of diamonds. So I said, “I now understand. I understand why everybody is here.”
But I think the reason there has been this kind of focus on Zimbabwe is that for many years now the political leadership in Zimbabwe have been communicating a message which many among the powerful players in the world find unacceptable. I was saying earlier we opposed, [that] we tried to discourage the Zimbabweans from taking the particular steps they took with regard to land reform, acknowledging that it was indeed necessary to have land reform, and I was saying they ignored us. It is, I think, exactly the manner in which they came at that question of land reform that offended other forces in the world who said: “This is wrong, we don’t like it.”
The point I am making is that we still have a challenge to understand our own reality, and I am using the example of Zimbabwe to say that I have a sense that even with regards to this issue, which for some reason for years has been a major issue in the international media and politics and so on, that even we as Africans still have not quite understood Zimbabwe. I think it is your task to change that, so that we understand ourselves better.
I think we should also ask ourselves the question: Why is Zimbabwe such a major issue for some people? Zimbabwe is a small country by any standard; there is no particular reason why Zimbabwe should be a matter to which The New York Times, the London Guardian and whoever else … why are they paying so much attention to Zimbabwe? Why?
I know why they pay particular attention to us [here in South Africa], because they explained it. They said: “You have too many white people in South Africa. We are concerned about their future. They are our kith and kin. We are worried about what you would do to them, so we keep a very close eye on what happens [in South Africa].” So we understand [their attitude about South Africa], we may not agree with the thinking, but we understand. But I am saying, why this focus on Zimbabwe?
Towards the end of last year, they asked me to speak at a conference on Zimbabwe diamonds. So I went, and what surprised me about the conference held at Victoria Falls was that everybody and anybody who has anything to do with diamonds in the world was there. From America, from Israel, from India, from Brussels, everybody! It was not about diamonds in the world, it was about Zimbabwe diamonds! So I was puzzled, saying, but why have they all come?
Maybe two hours before we left the conference to come back, we sat in a session which was addressed by one of the Indian diamond people. In the course of his presentation, he explained why [they had all come to the conference]. He gave an answer to this query in my head. He said in a few years’ time, Zimbabwe would account for 25 per cent of world production of diamonds. So I said, “I now understand. I understand why everybody is here.”
But I think the reason there has been this kind of focus on Zimbabwe is that for many years now the political leadership in Zimbabwe have been communicating a message which many among the powerful players in the world find unacceptable. I was saying earlier we opposed, [that] we tried to discourage the Zimbabweans from taking the particular steps they took with regard to land reform, acknowledging that it was indeed necessary to have land reform, and I was saying they ignored us. It is, I think, exactly the manner in which they came at that question of land reform that offended other forces in the world who said: “This is wrong, we don’t like it.”
And
unlike us who said: “Well, they are not listening. They have done what they
want to do about their country, we have to accept that”, these others [the
powerful players in the world] said: “They have set a bad example which we
don’t want anybody else in Africa and the rest of the world to follow. So they
must pay a price for setting a bad example.” Bad example. Bad in the instance
of the interests of these other people; not bad in terms of the interests of
the people of Zimbabwe!
So
I think this is part of the reason that there is so much attention, globally,
on a country in a continent which actually in itself – never mind the diamonds
– is not particularly important, but is important because [Zimbabwe] is setting
in the minds of some a bad example which must be defeated. But principally, are
we as intellectuals telling that story? Are we explaining that in the first
instance to ourselves so that we know what is the correct position to take in
our own interests, in our own defence?
My sense is that we are not doing it, we are not explaining why. What is this enormous interest in a small African country here in Southern Africa which really … basically I can’t think of any particular reason why [Zimbabwe] would have such enormous, global, [and] geo-strategic importance, but it has. Why?
My sense is that we are not doing it, we are not explaining why. What is this enormous interest in a small African country here in Southern Africa which really … basically I can’t think of any particular reason why [Zimbabwe] would have such enormous, global, [and] geo-strategic importance, but it has. Why?
The
31 July elections
You know, all of us know, that the African Union and SADC, among others, deployed large numbers of observers for these recent elections. The African Union had even placed its observers there at least a month ahead of the elections. This was to ensure … I don’t think, at least I know of no deployment of African observers of this size; because between the AU and SADC, just those two, I think they had at least 1,000 observers. I know of no [other] instance when the continent has deployed that kind of number. Both observer teams have essentially said the elections were peaceful and everybody agrees with that. And they have said the elections were free, representing the opinion of the people of Zimbabwe.
SADC have said they need a bit of time to look at the matter of the fairness of the elections [following their initial appraisal when they said:] “Yes indeed the elections are credible, they represent the views of the people of Zimbabwe.” The reason the SADC observers said they want to look at this is because they want to look at it in detail and say, for instance, was the media coverage of the contending parties fair and balanced? Was the location of voting stations done in such a way that it would ensure equal access, [and] relatively [was] the access between rural and urban areas [equal]?
They are not questioning the credibility of the elections, but want to look at this matter about what is meant by “fair” in order to ensure that as a continent when we do indeed conduct elections in the future, we have some standards to follow in terms of what will constitute this element of “fair”. So they decided to leave a residual group in Zimbabwe to look at that question, and the AU agreed to join them [and also] left another group there to do that, which is fine.
I was talking three-four days ago to a member of the executive of the SADC Lawyers Association which includes all the lawyers in this region and their lawyer societies and this and that and the other. They decided to send an observer team to Zimbabwe, which they did. They have done their report and I have asked for a copy, but they said they would send it.
But what they are telling me is that one of the things that surprised them was that as soon as they made the announcement that they would be deploying an observer team in Zimbabwe, out of the blue, completely unsolicited, they got huge offers of money from the United States to say: “Look, we want to pay for your observer mission.”
And they said that we never asked for this money. We had never ever been in contact with these people. We don’t know how they got to know that we were going to do this, but they were very, very happy to support us with huge sums of money. But we said no. We refused. We said no, “we will finance ourselves”. The reason we did it was because we knew that if we accepted that money, then we would have to produce a report consistent with the views of the paymaster. So we said no.
Now, the very strange thing at the end of this story which I am telling you … well, let me say what the Zimbabwe government did was of course to refuse the organisations like the EU which have imposed sanctions against Zimbabwe, countries like the US which have imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe, [to] have election observers [in Zimbabwe] for the natural, and I think logical, reason that: “You declared yourselves as an enemy, in what way would you then send observers who are going to be objective in terms of observing these elections; please don’t come.”
I think they were right. Nevertheless, they said all the countries that had embassies in Zimbabwe, the embassies [were] free to observe the elections, which they did. African, European, Asian – all of them.
But I am saying one of the strange things is that you have the entire continent [of Africa] in terms of its credible and legitimate institutions say, “Yes indeed there were problems, and we are going to detail those problems, but these elections represent the will of the people of Zimbabwe”.
Then you have an alternative voice in Washington, London and Brussels which says, “No, you Africans are wrong”. How does that happen? Why this absolute contempt for the view of the Africans themselves? I was saying just these two organisations – the AU and SADC – had at least 1,000 observers in Zimbabwe. Even the ACP community had an observer team there.
When the chair of the AU Commission was in Harare and talked to all the political leaders, she said none of them raised any issues about serious problems with the elections. They hadn’t. And yet when all of these Africans say: “Yes problems, we will tell you what these problems were, but the [election] result presents a credible view of the Zimbabweans”, you have people in America and Europe who say the Africans are wrong. Why? Maybe because the Africans are stupid. The Africans can’t count or something.
British pressure
The latest SADC summit has just taken place in Malawi, in Lilongwe. In the days before the summit [and] during the summit, the British government was putting pressure on the government of Malawi to persuade the summit that there should be an audit done of the Zimbabwean elections.
The MDC decided to go to court in Zimbabwe to contest, as you know, the elections, and then suddenly withdrew the petition. Personally I was very pleased that they submitted the petition, because it would give a possibility actually to look in detail at all the allegations that had been made about what went wrong with the elections. So, I was quite upset when they said they were withdrawing the petition, because it denied us the possibility to do this thing.
But later I understood why they withdrew, because even in the petition they made various allegations and did not submit to the court any document to substantiate any of the allegations. At some point during this electoral process, the British ambassador to Zimbabwe spoke to one of the British television channels, and said in one constituency 17,000 people voted of whom 10,000 were assisted to vote. Now, this is allowed in terms of Zimbabwean processes: If you are illiterate, you might be old, you might be blind – whatever – that the people at the voting station can assist you [to vote].
You come and say: “Look, I can’t read but I like Morgan Tsvangirai, please tick for me where it says Morgan Tsvangirai.” That is assisted voting which is allowed. So the British ambassador says there was this one constituency, 17,000 voters, 10,000 of whom were assisted, so many, but she doesn’t identify the constituency, up to today.
Morgan Tsvangirai, in his affidavit to the Constitutional Court, includes this. “There was a constituency where 17,000 people voted, 10,000 of whom were assisted voters.” He doesn’t identify the constituency like the British ambassador.
In the end, I can say [Mr So and So] is a very ugly fellow, but if I accuse him of that in court I should prove it. And that became a problem. So, we still don’t know what was the substance, what is the substance of all the allegations made, which Washington and London and Brussels have used to say the elections were not credible. We don’t know. In reality, the only reason they were not credible is because Robert Mugabe got elected. That’s all.
The African question
I am using this talk about Zimbabwe, as an example about our continent because all of these things I am saying relating to Zimbabwe you can find the same [or] similar examples [of] on the continent, but we are not challenging it as intellectuals. We are not challenging a narrative, a perspective about our continent which is wrong and self-serving in terms of our people’s interests.
The Zimbabweans are now talking about indigenisation and I can see that there is a big storm brewing about indigenisation. But what is wrong about indigenisation?
What is wrong with saying: “Here we are, as Africans, with all our resources, sure we are ready and very willing to interact with the rest of the world about the exploitation of all these resources, but what is the indigenous benefit from the exploitation of this, and even the control?”
You have seen examples of this, all of us have, when Chinese companies in terms of all this theory about free markets, have sought to acquire US firms [and] they got prohibited. “No, [it is] indigenisation of US intellectual property. We can’t allow it to be owned by the Chinese, so no!”
So when the Africans say “indigenisation”, why is this a strange notion? And yet when we talk about solutions to Africa’s development, one of the issues that we have to address is exactly this indigenisation. How are we utilising our resources to impact positively on African development?
I am saying that because I can see that there is a cloud that is building up somewhere on the horizon when Zimbabweans say “indigenisation”. But we have to, as intellectuals and thought leaders, address that and say: “Yes, indeed as Africans we are concerned about our own renaissance, our own development, and we must as indigenous people make sure that we have control of our development, our future, and that includes our resources. And therefore indigenisation is correct.” We must demonstrate it even intellectually, which I am quite sure we can. I wasn’t intending to speak for so long, but as you can see I get very, very agitated about Zimbabwe, because it’s very, very clear that the offensive against Zimbabwe is an offensive against the rest of the continent, and what has facilitated that offensive is indeed [the] wrong things that the Zimbabweans have done.
They have done wrong things. They have acted in ways that have been incorrect. So it has been possible for some people to stand up and say: “Look, look, look, there is a violation of democracy and human rights”, and all of us say: “Yes, yes, yes, what they did there was not quite right.”
But all of us make mistakes. We have made mistakes here [in South Africa], but they have used those mistakes to mount a particular offensive against Zimbabwe. [Of course] that offensive is not in the first instance about Zimbabwe, it’s about the future of our continent.
So the Zimbabweans have been in the frontline in terms of defending our right as Africans to determine our future, and they are paying a price for that. I think it is our responsibility as African intellectuals to join them, the Zimbabweans, to say No!
We have a common responsibility as Africans to determine our destiny and are quite ready to stand up against anybody else who thinks that, “never mind what the thousand African observers say about the elections in Zimbabwe, we sitting in Washington and London are wiser than they are. They say the elections are credible, we say that they are very foolish, those elections were not.
We stand up as Africans to say [there must be] an end, and really an end, to that contempt for African thought! We have to. If we don’t, this development we are talking about will not happen.
You know, all of us know, that the African Union and SADC, among others, deployed large numbers of observers for these recent elections. The African Union had even placed its observers there at least a month ahead of the elections. This was to ensure … I don’t think, at least I know of no deployment of African observers of this size; because between the AU and SADC, just those two, I think they had at least 1,000 observers. I know of no [other] instance when the continent has deployed that kind of number. Both observer teams have essentially said the elections were peaceful and everybody agrees with that. And they have said the elections were free, representing the opinion of the people of Zimbabwe.
SADC have said they need a bit of time to look at the matter of the fairness of the elections [following their initial appraisal when they said:] “Yes indeed the elections are credible, they represent the views of the people of Zimbabwe.” The reason the SADC observers said they want to look at this is because they want to look at it in detail and say, for instance, was the media coverage of the contending parties fair and balanced? Was the location of voting stations done in such a way that it would ensure equal access, [and] relatively [was] the access between rural and urban areas [equal]?
They are not questioning the credibility of the elections, but want to look at this matter about what is meant by “fair” in order to ensure that as a continent when we do indeed conduct elections in the future, we have some standards to follow in terms of what will constitute this element of “fair”. So they decided to leave a residual group in Zimbabwe to look at that question, and the AU agreed to join them [and also] left another group there to do that, which is fine.
I was talking three-four days ago to a member of the executive of the SADC Lawyers Association which includes all the lawyers in this region and their lawyer societies and this and that and the other. They decided to send an observer team to Zimbabwe, which they did. They have done their report and I have asked for a copy, but they said they would send it.
But what they are telling me is that one of the things that surprised them was that as soon as they made the announcement that they would be deploying an observer team in Zimbabwe, out of the blue, completely unsolicited, they got huge offers of money from the United States to say: “Look, we want to pay for your observer mission.”
And they said that we never asked for this money. We had never ever been in contact with these people. We don’t know how they got to know that we were going to do this, but they were very, very happy to support us with huge sums of money. But we said no. We refused. We said no, “we will finance ourselves”. The reason we did it was because we knew that if we accepted that money, then we would have to produce a report consistent with the views of the paymaster. So we said no.
Now, the very strange thing at the end of this story which I am telling you … well, let me say what the Zimbabwe government did was of course to refuse the organisations like the EU which have imposed sanctions against Zimbabwe, countries like the US which have imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe, [to] have election observers [in Zimbabwe] for the natural, and I think logical, reason that: “You declared yourselves as an enemy, in what way would you then send observers who are going to be objective in terms of observing these elections; please don’t come.”
I think they were right. Nevertheless, they said all the countries that had embassies in Zimbabwe, the embassies [were] free to observe the elections, which they did. African, European, Asian – all of them.
But I am saying one of the strange things is that you have the entire continent [of Africa] in terms of its credible and legitimate institutions say, “Yes indeed there were problems, and we are going to detail those problems, but these elections represent the will of the people of Zimbabwe”.
Then you have an alternative voice in Washington, London and Brussels which says, “No, you Africans are wrong”. How does that happen? Why this absolute contempt for the view of the Africans themselves? I was saying just these two organisations – the AU and SADC – had at least 1,000 observers in Zimbabwe. Even the ACP community had an observer team there.
When the chair of the AU Commission was in Harare and talked to all the political leaders, she said none of them raised any issues about serious problems with the elections. They hadn’t. And yet when all of these Africans say: “Yes problems, we will tell you what these problems were, but the [election] result presents a credible view of the Zimbabweans”, you have people in America and Europe who say the Africans are wrong. Why? Maybe because the Africans are stupid. The Africans can’t count or something.
British pressure
The latest SADC summit has just taken place in Malawi, in Lilongwe. In the days before the summit [and] during the summit, the British government was putting pressure on the government of Malawi to persuade the summit that there should be an audit done of the Zimbabwean elections.
The MDC decided to go to court in Zimbabwe to contest, as you know, the elections, and then suddenly withdrew the petition. Personally I was very pleased that they submitted the petition, because it would give a possibility actually to look in detail at all the allegations that had been made about what went wrong with the elections. So, I was quite upset when they said they were withdrawing the petition, because it denied us the possibility to do this thing.
But later I understood why they withdrew, because even in the petition they made various allegations and did not submit to the court any document to substantiate any of the allegations. At some point during this electoral process, the British ambassador to Zimbabwe spoke to one of the British television channels, and said in one constituency 17,000 people voted of whom 10,000 were assisted to vote. Now, this is allowed in terms of Zimbabwean processes: If you are illiterate, you might be old, you might be blind – whatever – that the people at the voting station can assist you [to vote].
You come and say: “Look, I can’t read but I like Morgan Tsvangirai, please tick for me where it says Morgan Tsvangirai.” That is assisted voting which is allowed. So the British ambassador says there was this one constituency, 17,000 voters, 10,000 of whom were assisted, so many, but she doesn’t identify the constituency, up to today.
Morgan Tsvangirai, in his affidavit to the Constitutional Court, includes this. “There was a constituency where 17,000 people voted, 10,000 of whom were assisted voters.” He doesn’t identify the constituency like the British ambassador.
In the end, I can say [Mr So and So] is a very ugly fellow, but if I accuse him of that in court I should prove it. And that became a problem. So, we still don’t know what was the substance, what is the substance of all the allegations made, which Washington and London and Brussels have used to say the elections were not credible. We don’t know. In reality, the only reason they were not credible is because Robert Mugabe got elected. That’s all.
The African question
I am using this talk about Zimbabwe, as an example about our continent because all of these things I am saying relating to Zimbabwe you can find the same [or] similar examples [of] on the continent, but we are not challenging it as intellectuals. We are not challenging a narrative, a perspective about our continent which is wrong and self-serving in terms of our people’s interests.
The Zimbabweans are now talking about indigenisation and I can see that there is a big storm brewing about indigenisation. But what is wrong about indigenisation?
What is wrong with saying: “Here we are, as Africans, with all our resources, sure we are ready and very willing to interact with the rest of the world about the exploitation of all these resources, but what is the indigenous benefit from the exploitation of this, and even the control?”
You have seen examples of this, all of us have, when Chinese companies in terms of all this theory about free markets, have sought to acquire US firms [and] they got prohibited. “No, [it is] indigenisation of US intellectual property. We can’t allow it to be owned by the Chinese, so no!”
So when the Africans say “indigenisation”, why is this a strange notion? And yet when we talk about solutions to Africa’s development, one of the issues that we have to address is exactly this indigenisation. How are we utilising our resources to impact positively on African development?
I am saying that because I can see that there is a cloud that is building up somewhere on the horizon when Zimbabweans say “indigenisation”. But we have to, as intellectuals and thought leaders, address that and say: “Yes, indeed as Africans we are concerned about our own renaissance, our own development, and we must as indigenous people make sure that we have control of our development, our future, and that includes our resources. And therefore indigenisation is correct.” We must demonstrate it even intellectually, which I am quite sure we can. I wasn’t intending to speak for so long, but as you can see I get very, very agitated about Zimbabwe, because it’s very, very clear that the offensive against Zimbabwe is an offensive against the rest of the continent, and what has facilitated that offensive is indeed [the] wrong things that the Zimbabweans have done.
They have done wrong things. They have acted in ways that have been incorrect. So it has been possible for some people to stand up and say: “Look, look, look, there is a violation of democracy and human rights”, and all of us say: “Yes, yes, yes, what they did there was not quite right.”
But all of us make mistakes. We have made mistakes here [in South Africa], but they have used those mistakes to mount a particular offensive against Zimbabwe. [Of course] that offensive is not in the first instance about Zimbabwe, it’s about the future of our continent.
So the Zimbabweans have been in the frontline in terms of defending our right as Africans to determine our future, and they are paying a price for that. I think it is our responsibility as African intellectuals to join them, the Zimbabweans, to say No!
We have a common responsibility as Africans to determine our destiny and are quite ready to stand up against anybody else who thinks that, “never mind what the thousand African observers say about the elections in Zimbabwe, we sitting in Washington and London are wiser than they are. They say the elections are credible, we say that they are very foolish, those elections were not.
We stand up as Africans to say [there must be] an end, and really an end, to that contempt for African thought! We have to. If we don’t, this development we are talking about will not happen.
Who
Are ‘The Poor’?
 |
| Karl Marx |
All
the same, there are degrees of poverty. Being homeless or trapped in a
rat-infested tenement is very different from living in a comfortable house
(however heavily mortgaged) in a clean suburb. The focus here is on the people
conventionally regarded as poor in the United States. Socialists might prefer
to call them ‘the extremely poor’.
The
US government defines a ‘federal poverty line’ (FPL) – currently an annual
income of $19,530 for a family of three or $23,550 for a family of four – and
equates being poor with falling below this line. By this definition, 16.3
percent of Americans (up from 12 percent in 1975) are poor, although for
children the figure rises to 22 percent.
Poor
= black? Wrong!
In
the US ‘the poor’ tend to be identified with black people and especially with
residents of the city ghettoes, who occasionally draw attention to their
grievances by rioting. It is true that the poverty rate is higher for blacks
than for whites, but in absolute terms poor whites – sometimes called ‘the
invisible poor’ – are far more numerous than poor blacks.
Millions
of poor people live in small towns and rural areas. In large parts of the South
the majority of them are black, but in some other depressed areas, such as the
Appalachian Mountains in the East, they are mostly white.
Poor
= unemployed? Wrong again!
There
is also a tendency to identify ‘the poor’ with welfare recipients and the
unemployed. In recent years, however, there has been growing recognition of the
‘working poor’ – the quarter of the American workforce whose pay is so low that
despite long hours of hard work their income still falls below the poverty
line.
According
to a 2011 study by the Congressional Budget Office, 10 percent of US wage
earners are paid under $8.90 per hour. This is also the current median wage of
workers in fast food outlets. The federal minimum wage is $7.25, which if a
bill now before Congress is passed will rise to $10.10 by 2015. But many workers
– especially but not only illegal immigrants – get less than the minimum wage.
The workers at a carwash near our home receive only $5.75.
How
can people possibly survive on such low wages? They work long hours or even in
many cases two jobs. They also draw government benefits and get help from
charity (so-called ‘income supports’). One increasingly important income
support is the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program, previously known as
‘food stamps’. The number of participants in SNAP has risen steadily from 17
million in 2000 to about 47 million at present. In fact, government and
charities subsidize the employers of low-paid labour, who in the absence of
such programs would have to pay higher wages to enable their workers to
survive.
The
near poor
The
Federal Poverty Line is an unsatisfactory yardstick in several ways. It ignores
taxes and ‘income supports’, it allows only for bare subsistence, and it takes
no account of the huge regional variations in the cost of living.
Some
researchers have tried to compensate for these defects by adding a category
they call ‘the near poor’ – people with incomes from 100 up to 150 percent of
the FPL. When this category is included, the poverty rate doubles to about a
third of the population. A clear majority of children (57 percent) are ‘poor or
near poor’.
These
must still be underestimates because a family needs an income of anywhere from
150 up to 300 percent of the FPL – depending on the cost of living in the area
where they live – just to cover ‘basic expenses’ (National Center for Children
in Poverty, nccp.org).
Lifespan
poverty experience
While
those who are ‘poor’ at a particular moment may be only a minority, though a
very substantial one, studies of ‘lifespan poverty experience’ show that a
majority of Americans have the experience of being ‘poor’ at some time in their
lives. Thus, a study published in 2001 found that 51 percent of 75-year-olds
had passed at least one year in ‘poverty’ since the age of 25 (‘Signs of
Declining Economic Security’, 28 July 2013, bigstory.ap.org).
It
is this continuous large-scale movement of workers into and out of ‘poverty’
that gives the lie to the conventional idea of ‘the poor’ as a separate social
group or even as a sort of special ‘underclass’. A large majority of Americans
are always at significant risk of falling into ‘poverty’; the fear of ‘poverty’
occupies a crucial place in their psyche.
The
typical suburbanite can become destitute and homeless very easily. All it takes
is a single ‘negative life event’ such as the loss of a well-paying job, a
serious illness or accident, imprisonment or divorce. Especially during a
slump, masses of ‘middle class’ workers are rudely awakened from the ‘American
dream’ to find themselves stranded among ‘the poor’.
‘Poverty’
and relative prosperity are alternate phases in the life of a single social
class, the working class – a life marked by abject insecurity and dependence.
Most members of the working class are not ‘poor’ most of the time, but it is
‘the poor’ who most starkly embody the essence of working class status.
War crimes: Penal sanctions
against Tony Blair
 |
| Tony Blair, Most Wanted War Criminal after George Bush |
The
Rt.Hon.,Chris Grayling,
The
Secretary of State for Justice
Ministry
of Justice
102
Petty France
SW1H
9AJ
23.9.2013
Dear
Sir,
Re:
Obligations of the UK High Contracting Party to the 1949 Geneva
Conventions IV Article 146
I
assume that, since you have not replied to my letters, dated 18 March
and 29th April 2013, asking for your
implementation of The 1949 Geneva Conventions IV Article 146, I
have finally found the identity of The Representative of The UK High
Contracting Party to those Conventions.
All
Departments in Whitehall, that could have been the Representative, have,
like servants in Kafka's Castle, sent immediate replies to my
requests, saying that it is not their Department and that I should try
another.
The
Attorney General directed me to the Home Secretary; The Home Secretary
directed me to the Crown Prosecution Service; The Crown
Prosecution Service directed me to yourself. Replies surely
composed by gate keepers anxious to absolve their
superiors of difficulties - because difficulties there are a plenty.
My
tutor, Sir Harry Hinsley, met Hitler in Munich in 1937, I followed his
footsteps, but to Munich and Nuremberg. As a historian you
will know that adjacent to Courtroom 600 at Nuremberg is a museum of the 1945 -
6 trials and a collection of the 40 Blue Books which recorded all
the proceedings.
The
museum pays tribute to the 2,000 idealistic American, Russian, and British men
and women who spent two years recording these trials and composing the
1946 Nuremberg Protocols, which formed the basis of 1949 Geneva Conventions IV.
Their idealistic aim was to make it impossible for such a war
of aggression again.
Vladimir
Putin, writing in the New York Times (13 September 2013) referred to the
importance of The Geneva Conventions, that Nations must support the United
Nations, not letting disintegrate as did the League of Nations. He
continued: " the preservation of law and order in today's complex and turbulent world
is one of the few ways to keep international relations
from sliding into chaos." Fortunately, in the case of Syria, his words, so
far, hold the day, and further violence by the USA, UK and France in the Middle
East is delayed.
I
have pointed out to you the strong evidence that Anthony Blair and
our ally, the USA, have, in the conduct of the Iraq war, committed
gravest breaches of the Geneva Conventions. The use of depleted uranium (DU),
white phosphorous, mercury, napalm equivalents and other toxins
against a civilian population penned up in Fallujah in November
2004, were a significant war crime.
Long
term damage to the natural environment and disastrous effects on the
genetic material of the Iraqi population, have been linked to a massive
increase in horrendous birth defects, and grotesque cancers on
childrens' faces and bodies, which you will surely have
observed on CNN, Sky News and on You Tube.
The agonised look
of a Fallujah mother staring at her otherwise beautiful child, marred by a
grotesque growth on her face - and the hatred and despair on that
mother's face, is of hauntings.
Yet
Whitehall continues to deny that DU is harmful, stating that its use
is perfectly legitimate under international law. The then Defence
Secretary Geoffrey Hoon said of the use of "Storm Shadow"
missiles in the initial "Shock and Awe" attack, and use of
cluster bombs over Hilla, "I will not compromise the safety of our
armed forces by restraint." (As you will know, pure military expediency
was not accepted as a defense in the trial of Hermann Goering).
The
perpetrators of these actions, Tony Blair and others, require - under the
1949 Geneva Conventions IV, article 146 - investigation by the
High Contracting Party to examine grounds for prosecution and penal sanctions
against the perpetrators of these breaches.
Your
Ministry of Justice is required to act, lest it become an Orwellian Ministry of
Injustice by inaction. Inaction in itself is breach of The Geneva
Conventions. As, by default, allowing the continuation of effects of
toxins and radiation on the genetic material of future
generations to continue. The radioactive 'half life" of depleted
uranium, is 4.6 Billion years.
Another
effect referred to by Vladimir Putin, is that inaction under
international law encourages continuous wars, death and chaos.
The
judgement of future generations, may find inaction itself a war crime.
Indeed, Article 146 asks for suppression of those
breaches of the Convention IV.
If
international law is disregarded, the Ministry of Defence will continue to
claim that DU is benign. Such weapons will continue in use in
"humanitarian" wars as Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere. Wider UK
sales of this weaponry will continue, citing depleted uranium's unique
penetrating power and incineration properties.
However
DU dust respects neither boundaries, or time. In the future,
your grand children, may, like Kenny Duncan or Jenny Moore, join the
army develop genetic damage as a result, or, say, work in Iran, and
drinking coffee in Tehran, on one shallow breath, absorb an alpha
particle carried on the wind, resulting in an agonising cancer or leukaemia.
Neither is inaction an option in the face of lethal, unending damage for future
generations where ever these weapons are used, for the population and our own
and coalition forces.
In
further support of Vladimir Putin's call to respect the Geneva Conventions I
refer to my letter of 1st March 2013, Indictment No.1, on the conspiracy by
Blair and others to go to war by: "wrong footing Saddam on the
Inspectors".
At
Nuremberg, in 1945-46, conspiracy to go to war was regarded as: "
the supreme international crime." In my letter to you I pointed out that
Tony Blair, was fully aware, in March 2003, that there were no weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq, yet in Parliament at the crucial debate of 18 March 2003
he pretended that there were. I quote from my letter of 1st March 2013 to
you :
Unfortunately
Hans Blix's report on the absence of weapons conflicted with the conspiracy
between Downing Street and the USA to wrong foot Saddam in
order to justify waging a war in March 2003. Sir David
Manning reported in a secret memo, that on 31 January 2003 Tony
Blair met George W. Bush in the US and they discussed the fact that probably no
weapons would be found.
Bush
was reported by Manning at this meeting to suggest three alternatives.
One was to "fly U2 Reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover
painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them he would be in
breach."
Instead
Hans Blix was recalled and instructed to abandon his
inspection on 28 Feb 2003. War was declared 2 weeks later. Blair, however
said, on 18th March 2003, that the idea that Saddam Hussein had indeed
destroyed these weapons was" palpably absurd. " I suggest that Blair
was lying and knew he was lying.
If
there is a failure by the UK High Contracting Party to investigate this
then it will be failing its obligations under the Geneva Conventions and future
generations will know that the UK finally abandoned the Geneva Conventions with
all the sorry consequences that President Putin pointed out.
If
Sir John Chilcot's legal Advisor, Ms Sara Goom's letter of 8th March 2011
is taken seriously ( copy enclosed ) Sir John has relied upon me to report to
"the appropriate authority " evidence of criminal offences that have
emerged from his Inquiry. If the report of Sir John's concern regarding the possibility
that there was a conspiracy to go to war between Blair and Bush, as reported in
The Times of July 20th 2013, is correct, then Sir John may be
concerned at my failure to alert you to an implementation of Article
146. I am therefore sending Sir John Chilcot a copy of this
letter.
Finally
you will surely have read Blair's biography "A Journey", which
states on page 571:
"I
had a vision for Britain. All the way I had believed I could and would
persuade the country it was the right choice, the modern way,
bigger than Iraq, bigger than the American Alliance,
bigger than any one thing; a complete vision of where
we should be in the early twenty first century; about how we finally
overcome the greatness of our history to discover the full potential of
our future."
I
suggest to you, as Secretary of State for Justice, that such
a vision should be restrained before it is emulated and
allowed free rein.
I
shall be grateful if you will confirm that you are indeed the Representative of
the High Contracting Party to The 1949 Geneva Conventions IV.
Yours faithfully,
Nicholas
Wood,
Secretary
Blair War Crimes Foundation;
Secretary
to 19 November 2009 Submission to Chilcot Inquiry.
Copy
to:
Sir
John Chilcot,
Ms
Glenda Jackson MP
Elfin
Llwyd, MP
The
most reverend Desmond Tutu
Dr.
Yakovenko , the Russian Ambassador to the U.K.
His
Excellency Mohammad Khazaee, the Iranian Ambassador to the U.N.
His
Excellency Bernard Emié, the French Ambassador to the U.K
2003-2013: The death of
interventionism
The
twentieth century saw the awakening of the United States of America as a global
imperialist power, following in the footsteps of its former colonial master,
Great Britain and its mentor, France, in globe-trotting and drawing lines on
maps, setting up bases and syphoning off resources. The first decade of the new
millennium draws an end to this chapter.
The
First World War saw the United States of America take its first steps on the
world stage, after the prelude which was the Spanish-American War of 1898. The
list of American military interventions from 1917 and particularly after 1945,
is as global in scope as it is long, covering the four corners of the Earth.
What
did it achieve? The only time a major campaign ended in victory and had a
positive outcome was when the United States of America teamed up with the Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics and the British Empire and decisively beat the
racist, xenophobic and expansionist Nazi regime in the Great Patriotic War
(Second World War).
Since
then, the list has, by and large, been a catalogue of catastrophes. The
monstrosity which is Kosovo is out of control, Iraq is out of control, Libya is
a study in lawlessness - the water and electricity supply are at best
intermittent - and promises to be a failed state, like Somalia and today the
only stabilizing and unifying forces in Syria are those loyal to President
Assad, who the USA and its allies have already chosen as an enemy.
American
citizens dare not step off an aircraft in huge swathes of territory which cover
a growing list of countries, where the collapse of the State, provoked by
military intervention, has seen societies descend into chaos, public services
owned by armed groups which make a living at the expense of the civilian
population.
American
interventionism is synonymous today with terrorism, with a collapse in public
services, explosions on a daily basis and an absence of freedom even to go out
and buy bread to place on the family dinner table. If one of the staple
conditions for military intervention (but by no means a legal justification for
such) is to leave a society better off, then the history of the last decade,
after the disasters in Kosovo and Afghanistan, provides enough evidence to
conclude that the policy has failed.
The
way forward must surely be development rather than deployment and the nasty
buzz-word which would argue against this is "lobbies". It is they who
call the shots, it is they who decide who the next victim is to be, to sell
weapons, to loan money and practise usury, it is they who feather the nests of
those in the pharmaceutical, banking, energy and arms lobbies.
This
being the case, our world has reached a point in which democracy per se does
not exist. What does exist is a dictatorship imposed by corporatist elitist cliques
representing a tiny minority of humankind which controls our resources and
wealth.
Conclusion:
Karl Marx was right.
Mind
the Gap
It
is important to note several things about the ongoing crisis of capitalism we
are experiencing. Firstly, that a crisis is a normal part of the ordinary
functioning of capitalism. It isn’t down to accident, or policy failures, but
is almost a necessary part of the trial and error method of investment. The
goldfish-like memory of politicians forgets that for every period of growth,
there is a slow-down and a crisis to which we all have to react in panic. They
proclaim a new age of prosperity with every year of economic growth and try to
take the credit for it, and then blame someone else whenever crisis resumes.
Secondly,
crises are not natural phenomena, but are a form of class struggle, as the
owners of property try and protect themselves from losing their investments,
and re-impose scarcity on the markets where they have over-invested (thus
destroying their profitability). The inevitable result of any crisis is a rise
of unemployment, and an attack on the wages and living standards of the working
class as an attempt to restore profitability for the owners. Here Marx’s
observations are pertinent. Average socially-necessary labour-time determines
the exchange value of the produce of capital thus the profits of that capital
depend on the difference between the exchange value of the workers’ skills and
the amount of labour time they add to the product. There is a direct
correlation between lowering wages and improved profitability of capital (in
general).
Thirdly,
aside from the specific crisis for the capitalists that we hear about at the
top of the news headlines, there is the ongoing crisis of the workers, of the
millions trapped in a life-time of poverty and servitude. Millions more will
spend a life on low wages that will never substantially rise. They have to
struggle daily for food and a place to live, with no security, let alone
dignity.
Double
dip in wages
Some
of these themes are made clear by the Global Wage Report 20121/13 report from
the International Labour Organization (ILO) (www.ilo.org/global/research/global-reports/global-wage-report/2012/lang--en/index.htm):
‘In
developed economies, the crisis led to a ‘double dip’ in wages: real average
wages fell in 2008 and again in 2011, and the current outlook suggests that in
many of these countries wages are growing marginally, if at all, in 2012’
(p.5).
Of
course, such trends are never even, and even within the ‘developed economies’
some people will have seen their wages rise at a rate faster than the trend.
This is even truer on a worldwide scale:
‘Real
average wage growth has remained far below pre-crisis levels globally, going
into the red in developed economies, although it has remained significant in
emerging economies. Monthly average wages adjusted for inflation – known as
real average wages – grew globally by 1.2 percent in 2011, down from 2.1
percent in 2010 and 3 percent in 2007. Because of its size and strong economic
performance, China weighs heavily in this global calculation. Omitting China,
global real average wages grew at only 0.2 percent in 2011, down from 1.3
percent in 2010 and 2.3 percent in 2007’ (p. 13).
Longer
term trends
Interestingly,
one of the areas of wage growth, Latin America, has been where the massive
protests of Brazil have recently been witnessed, with the workers demanding a
share in the proceeds of growth. Indeed, Latin America is undergoing a period
of social democratic governments building welfare states, and perhaps it is
unlikely that this doesn’t correlate with the overall economic growth.
Of
course, wages do grow, over time, but not necessarily in a continuous and
linear fashion, as the report notes:
‘Taking
a longer view, the report estimates that real monthly average wages almost
doubled in Asia between 2000 and 2011, and increased by 18 percent in Africa, 15
percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 5 percent in developed
economies. In Eastern Europe and Central Asia wages nearly tripled, but from a
very low base following the economic collapse of the 1990s’ (p. 5).
That
period, though, is the period of growth between crises, but it remains somewhat
heartening that conditions for workers are improving in some of the most
destitute parts of the world.
Declining
share
According
to figures collated by the House of Commons library, ‘average hourly wages have
fallen 5.5 percent since mid-2010, adjusted for inflation’
(www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23655605) in the UK, which compares with a 0.7
percent across the European Union as a whole. In Germany, by way of contrast,
wages rose by 2.7 percent.
The
problem is that even a growing real wage might not match the increases in
wealth produced by labour:
‘Between
1999 and 2011 average labour productivity in developed economies increased more
than twice as much as average wages […] In the United States, real hourly labour
productivity in the non-farm business sector increased by about 85 percent
since 1980, while real hourly compensation increased by only around 35 percent.
In Germany, labour productivity surged by almost a quarter over the past two
decades while real monthly wages remained flat’ (p. 14).
This
is the rawest form of class struggle, and the hardest part to grasp, since it
is somewhat like the end of the old British TV quiz show Bullseye, with Jim
Bowen saying ‘let’s take a look at what you could have won’. The wealth created
by increased growth has increased faster than the real take-home pay of the
workers, but the workers have never had the wealth they’ve lost, and although
it affects their lives in so many ways, they don’t feel the loss as directly as
they would, say, an increase in taxes. Likewise, some of that erosion will have
been through inflation, so the difference between nominal wages and real wages
becomes complex to calculate at a personal level.
Setting
worker against worker
An
illustration of the centrality of this process is the furore over pensions.
It’s true that the ‘dependency ratio’ (the number of pensioners compared to
those in work) is due to rise from about 350 per thousand to about 450 by 2050.
So our political masters tell us that we must all accept smaller pensions (that
is, lower deferred wages), yet the rate of increase in the dependency ratio is
less than the trend rate in the growth of productivity, fewer workers will be
needed to do the same amount of work. The question is, therefore, who benefits
from that growth?
As
the ILO notes:
‘In
terms of functional income distribution, which concerns how national income has
been distributed between labour and capital, there is a long run trend towards
a falling share of wages and a rising share of profits in many countries. The
personal distribution of wages has also become more unequal, with a growing gap
between the top 10 percent and the bottom 10 percent of wage earners. These
internal imbalances’ have tended to create or exacerbate external imbalances,
even before the Great Recession, with countries trying to compensate the
adverse effects of lower wage shares on consumption demands through easy credit
or export surpluses.’ (p. 15).
Such
variation harms the capacity to unite the working class, as the few on high
wages struggle to defend their relative advantage, and the owners try to stir
up tension between countries as part of their currency and export competition.
The
report notes the underlying cause of the declining labour share:
‘The
drop in the labour share is due to technological progress, trade globalization,
the expansion of financial markets, and decreasing union density, which have
eroded the bargaining power of labour. Financial globalization, in particular,
may have played a bigger role than previously thought’ (p. 14).
Globalization
and expansion of financial markets are another way of saying that more people
have been drawn into the global labour market (in part thanks to and also
causing the wage growth in developing countries). The ILO, obviously, only
recommends reforms to capitalism, calling for a rebalancing of investment,
ignoring the pure class war being waged by the capitalists themselves. The long
term balance is on the side of the owning class, and even when their crisis
ends, ours will continue, until we organise to abolish its cause: the wages
system itself.
USA happily digs its own and
dollar's grave
The
shutdown in the US - the controlled suspension of most public institutions due
to the inability of the federal authorities to finance them - raised concerns
not only with financial, economic elites and politicians all over the world,
but with mere mortals as well. In Russia, many started talking about the
looming collapse of the US financial system, the collapse of the dollar and the
collapse of the entire global financial system. Some even said that the United
States may switch to the new currency - amero - to get rid of the incredible
national debt, which has exceeded the level of 17 trillion dollars.
All
jokes aside, the world can indeed turn upside down, should the US financial
system fall apart. Is it possible at all?
As
is known, the U.S. currency originates from the Ore Mountains of North-Western
Bohemia, where at the beginning of the XVI century, with the discovery of
silver mines, they began minting coins in one ounce of silver. The coins were
called after the place, where it was born - Joachimsthaler. The coin, made in
the valley of St. Joachim for the needs of the Holy Roman Empire of the German
nation, became a very nimble means of payment. Its (and more expensive) gold
relatives would be thrown into chests, but the silver coin would travel across
countries and continents. The coin would receive hearty welcome everywhere, but
the ponderous German name was transformed to the tastes and rules of different
languages. Most often, people
would get rid of the name of the foreign saint, leaving only
"thaler." Across the ocean, the coin was given a more sonorous name -
"dollar."
About
350 years after the birth of the brisk coin, overseas colonies of the United
Kingdom declared independence. They knew the thaler well and, for obvious
reasons, hated the British pound. As a result, in 1786, the U.S. Congress
declared the birth of a new currency - the dollar, which adopted many features
of its Bohemian ancestor. For quite a long time, the new currency was known in
two forms - silver and gold dollar. Such a system led to problems, as the gold
dollar was not equal to silver in value due to fluctuations in gold and silver
rates. Therefore, in 1900, the gold standard of the dollar was set at 1.50463
grams.
It is undeniable that the dollar gained a lot from the
historical and geographical conditions of the United States, congenital
adventurism, entrepreneurship and commitment to progress of its people. One way
or another, but - this is not a secret - at the end of the Second World War,
there was no other more powerful country in the world, just like there was no
stronger currency either. This, in turn, led to the emergence of the notorious
Bretton Woods system, under which the dollar became the basic reserve currency,
having replaced gold.
For a while it worked. The dollar did a god job in the
war-ravaged Europe. But in the sixties, problems began. The chronic deficit in
the balance of payment of the U.S. led to more intense work for the
printing press. In the 1960s, the amount of dollars transferred to
creditor countries exceeded the gold reserves of the Federal Reserve System. In
1971, Richard Nixon announced the end of the gold-secure dollar.
The world did not collapse back then. In 1976, at a
conference of the International Monetary Fund in Kingston (Jamaica) member
countries agreed to give up the rigid dollar peg for their exchange rates. It
was decided to set the rates on the base of market principles, that is,
depending on supplies and demand. However, this solution did not affect the
authority and weight of the dollar as a widely recognized means of payment and
reserve currency.
The fact is that the reputation and reliability of currency
also stands on economic and political stability of its issuing country. It
depends on the ability of this country to repay its obligations without any
problems. During several decades after WWII, the United States was showing
unattainable skills at this point.
"America stands as a country that provides the most
reliable and universally recognized way to store surplus financial resources.
There is no other alternative now either to the dollar or to the U.S. as the
least risky place of storing available funds," deputy director of the Institute
of the USA and Canada, Viktor Supyan told Pravda.Ru. "Even in the crisis
of 2008-2009, most countries tried to convert their available financial
resources in the dollar, although the crisis began in the USA. Everyone knew
and understood that - but there were no other reliable financial instruments
either then or now."
In other words, the U.S. political system still ensures the
credibility of the dollar as the most stable currency. It is for this reason
that frequent disagreement within the political elite in the U.S. causes
concerns among financiers and economists. The Republicans' dissatisfaction
with, in their opinion, socially -oriented policies of Democrats, led by
President Obama, led to the failure to adopt the proposed budget. If the
situation does not change, in mid- October, the country will not be able to
make current payments on external debt, which will mean default.
Moreover, the stubbornness of Republicans questions the move
to raise the "ceiling" of the national debt, which already exceeds
the previously adopted ceiling of 16.5 trillion dollars. Freezing the national
debt at the current level is impossible. It will take the country to
bankruptcy.
Most experts say that nothing terrible happens. However,
politicians from across the globe urge their American counterparts to leave
their differences behind and deal with economic problems. Central banks of
Japan and China announced their concerns with the current state of affairs in
America for these countries own most of the debt portfolio of the USA. The bank
of South Korea announced that it was preparing "aggressive measures"
to support the financial market of the country in the event of the darkest
outcome.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg analysts said that the U.S. default
threatens to destabilize stock markets. In fact, stock indexes in the United
States plummeted after shutdown was declared. The analysts also said that the
world financial system may plunge into recession and depression. Officials with
the U.S. Treasury Department said that "the consequences of default would
lead to a disaster more terrible than the Great Depression."
In general, there is a lot of intimidation. Veteran investor
Warren Buffett said an interview with CNBC that Washington would get close to
the point of extreme stupidity, but would not cross that line." In a
similar situation, on August 2, 2011, senators voted to increase the debt
ceiling only 12 hours before the deadline.
"Default, as it is commonly understood, is hardly
possible in any case," Yuri Rogulev, the Director of the Franklin
Roosevelt US Policy Studies Center at Moscow State University, told Pravda.Ru.
"Even if Republicans and Democrats can not quickly come to an agreement on
the budget and debt, there are various state mechanisms to avoid the crisis.
Specifically, the President has the right to trigger certain government
mechanisms that compensate for the absence of the consent of the Senate."
"For the time being, there is every reason to believe
that the dollar will remain a protective asset no matter what turn the
situation may turn," analyst of Finam investment holding, Anton Soroko
said. "Any decision made in the U.S. will reduce the country risk and
strengthen the dollar. For example, for Russia and its citizens, U.S. default
(if it ever occurs) will mean reduction in the cost of oil and the rise of the
dollar against the ruble."
However, as we remember, the reliability of the dollar also
depends on the economic wellbeing of the United States, which is actually a
problem. It would not sound paradoxical, but external borrowings, which
international investors are so interested in, put pressure on the U.S. economy,
which already lies under a weight problems. The situation when one economy and
one currency dominates the world, is not normal, and many experts acknowledge
that. Mikhail Khazin, who visited the Rhodes Forum "Dialogue of
Civilizations" in October, wrote : "Those who are professionally
engaged in economic matters, in one voice say that there are not years, but
months or even weeks left before the collapse."
