Findcate

Jupiter in Capricorn expands everything he touches, and today, shaking hands with the Taurus sun, our sense of well-being grows to the degree that we’re aligned with what it is we’re aiming toward. Sometimes meaningful accomplishment is a matter of goal-setting, but today it’s about asking for more. So where can you ask for more?

ARIES (March 21-April 19). There are those who love to provoke you — they can’t help themselves. You’re so much fun when you’re bothered. Decide not to take offense or get ruffled and they’ll stop. All they want is your attention anyhow.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20). The best help you can get comes from someone whose own interests coincide with your perfectly. Find the one who, by helping you out, is actually helping himself immensely.

GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Keeping the peace is easy when you understand the needs, wants, limits and talents of those around you. So getting along is mostly a matter of paying attention, and being curious about others — easy for you!

CANCER (June 22-July 22). If you are in a position where you need to move quickly to obtain or change something, you’ll wind up paying too much. The most patient person holds all of the power.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). Part of you is thinking about the future of a relationship as you make decisions. You’re generous because it feels right to you, but also because you want the other person to be as loyal as you are.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY (MAY 12). Relationships grow closer this year. The enduring love of your supporters will be highlighted as you adventure on together. You’ll also have fun with new characters who are introduced to your inner circle. A business risk or a daring move on the job results in more money by June. Travel sparks your imagination in October. Cancer and Scorpio adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 4, 2, 1, 44 and 17.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Work is demanding. The prize goes to the person who cares the most, or at least pretends to care the most. Higher-ups need validation and respect. They’ll look for it in your eyes.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). Some of your core needs are not being met. It’s time to find new resources. When those close see that you’re serious about making a change, they just might step up with a new energy and eagerness.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). You’re a private person, especially when it comes to your creativity. However, this is no time to hide out. Show and share what you can do.

A life lived on purpose is a magnet for love. This is especially true for Capricorns who are deeply fulfilled by identifying their calling, then pursuing that to the ends of the earth. He is doing this — fabulous! My concern is, Capricorns can approach finding a mate with ambition equal to climbing a K2, which can be problematic (and disappointing). Love flourishes in an atmosphere of lighthearted play.

However, he does have innate skills useful in a soul mate strategy. Just as every ambitious Capricorn envisions a picture of what success looks like before they achieve it, intentionality precedes manifestation. So just as your son masterfully intends his life achievements into being, I’d suggest he picture his life partner, write it down, followed by the other thing Capricorn does best — hold out for the best. And don’t forget to trust that love is in the stars.

Tags: 22 july, accomplishment, ambition, business risk, cancer and scorpio, capricorn, daring move, enduring love, goal setting, inner circle, job, june 21, jupiter, keeping the peace, lucky numbers, march 21, patient person, paying attention, shaking hands, taurus, ups, validation

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by André–Ÿ Cala

(Consortium News)[Editor's Note: On March 1,

Colombian armed forces crossed into Ecuador to kill 24 leftist

Colombian guerrillas, including a senior commander, Raul Reyes. The

attack touched off a confrontation pitting Colombia against Ecuador and

Venezuela, which condemned the violation of Ecuador's sovereignty and

noted that Reyes was a key figure in negotiations over prisoner

releases and a possible reduction in political tensions.

The

Bush administration defended Colombia's right to attack terrorists

even if that requires crossing a border, a position echoed by this

year's presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton and Barack

Obama. Indeed, from the opinion circles of Washington, there was almost

no criticism of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe although his inner

circle has long been linked to both right-wing terrorism and cocaine

trafficking.

Last

August, journalist Andres Cala examined the new evidence about Uribe's

ties to this dark underworld of Latin American violence. We are

republishing that special report below:]

George

W. Bush strategy of countering Venezuela leftist president Hugo

Ch醰ez by strengthening ties to Colombia rightist government has been

undercut by fresh evidence of high-level drug corruption and human

rights violations implicating President Alvaro Uribe inner circle. These new allegations about Colombia

narco-politics have tarnished Uribe reputation just as Bush has been

showcasing the Harvard- and Oxford-educated politician as a paragon of

democratic values and an alternative to the firebrand Ch醰ez, who has

used Venezuela oil wealth to finance social programs for the poor

across the region.

Despite the corruption disclosures ?and Uribe failure to stem

Colombian cocaine smuggling to the United States ?the Bush

administration continues to shower Uribe government with trade

incentives and billions of dollars in military and development aid.

With other regional leaders unwilling to side with the United States

against Ch醰ez, Bush may see little alternative but to stay the course

with the 55-year-old Uribe and hope Colombia corruption doesn draw

too much attention in the United States or across South America.

Ironically, the latest evidence against Uribe government emerged from

a U.S.-backed peace process that offered leniency to right-wing

paramilitary death squads and their financial backers in exchange for

giving up their guns and disclosing past crimes.

The right-wing paramilitaries and their cocaine-trafficking benefactors

testified that elements of the Colombian government collaborated in a

decade-long scorched-earth campaign that killed almost 10,000 civilians

while seeking to dislodge a leftist guerrilla army known as the

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

The confessions include blood-soaked tales of political murders,

cocaine smuggling and staggering government corruption. As a result,

dozens of former and current congressmen, governors, government

ministers, military officers, prominent business leaders and

multinational corporations are being investigated or have been arrested.

This so-called ara-scandal?revealed that a counterinsurgency force,

known as the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, or AUC,

collaborated with drug lords to control the cocaine trade and

simultaneously worked with Colombia elites, including Uribe family,

to fend off the guerrilla threat.

Another troubling offshoot of the peace process was the creation of a

safe haven for drug lords, who flocked to a 370-square-kilometer

sanctuary set up for the AUC.

Colombian mafia boss Fabio Enrique Ochoa Vasco, 47, who was indicted in

Florida in September 2004 for drug trafficking and money laundering,

claimed he was one of 10 U.S.-wanted traffickers who found protection

in the Santa Fe Ralito sanctuary.

AUC leaders romised to include their financial backers in the

negotiation?as a way to shield alleged cocaine traffickers from

extradition to the United States, Ochoa Vasco told a Colombian magazine

in June.

It was all

prearranged in 2001, according to paramilitary and drug lord accounts.

If Uribe won the presidency, paramilitary leaders would be offered

generous sentence reductions and be allowed to serve their time outside

prison walls if they demobilized and confessed.

Ochoa Vasco, who allegedly ships eight tons of cocaine monthly to the

United States, was told that he and other AUC allies would be sentenced

in Colombia to a maximum of 12 years, rather than face possible life

sentences in U.S. prisons.

Uribe History

The new disclosures also have brought back to public attention the

Uribe family long history of ties to drug lords and paramilitary

militias. Colombia Supreme Court announced in July that it was

investigating Senator Mario Uribe, the president cousin and his point

man in the Colombian Congress, for alleged links to the AUC.

Several paramilitary leaders have said Mario Uribe was one of their

allies and an intermediary with the government. He has denied any

wrongdoing.

But the family

link to purported drug lords dates back several decades. As a young man

and an aspiring politician, ç¾–varo Uribe lost his position as mayor of

Medell韓 ?after only five months on the job ?because the country

president ousted him over his family suspected connections to

traffickers, according to media reports at the time.

His father Alberto Uribe, a wealthy landowner, reputedly had been a

close associate of the Medell韓 cartel and its kingpins, such as Pablo

Escobar and the Ochoa brothers, who were personal friends.

In 1983, Alberto Uribe was reportedly wanted by the U.S. government for

drug trafficking when he was killed in a kidnapping attempt by the

FARC. According to media accounts, his body was airlifted back to his

family by one of Escobar helicopters.

In the early 1990s, ç¾–varo Uribe brother, Santiago, was investigated

for allegedly organizing and leading a paramilitary militia that was

headquartered at the Uribe family hacienda. He was never charged and

the case was dismissed for lack of evidence. But Santiago was

photographed alongside Fabio Ochoa at a party even after the government

had declared Ochoa one of the most notorious Medell韓 cartel kingpins.

The incident with Santiago Uribe coincided with ç¾–varo Uribe eight

years in the Senate, where he opposed extradition of drug suspects. His

critics accused him of working for the Medell韓 cartel.

But the relationship between right-wing narco-financed paramilitaries

and the Colombian government has been a long and complex one, with

shifting alliances based on the self-interest of the moment.

In 1992, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the CIA and the U.S.

military, along with Colombian intelligence services, joined forces

with the Cali cartel to train, equip and coordinate an undercover group

of mercenaries known as the Pepes, an acronym for Persecuted by Pablo

Escobar. Among its leaders was Carlos Casta駉, who would later run the

AUC.

Systematically, the

Pepes assassinated Escobar top henchmen and their families, finally

killing Escobar himself in 1993. The Pepes then split up. Some went on

to create their own drug empires, while Casta駉 built a paramilitary

army financed by rich landowners and drug dealers.

Since the war on Escobar organization, Casta駉 and the Cali cartel ?
as well as Colombian military officers ?have claimed that they work

side by side with U.S. agencies, but U.S. authorities have denied such

an alliance.

The alienation

from Washington widened in 1994 when President Ernesto Samper came to

power amid disclosures that his campaign had received generous

donations from drug cartels. President Bill Clinton cut most aid and

severed some military support to Colombia because of Samper ties to

drug traffickers.

With less

U.S. aid, the Colombian army was unable to contain the FARC and coca

acreage soared. Colombia rulers responded with the creation of

paramilitary militias that used terror to reduce popular support for

the guerrillas.

The Samper

government pushed what was known as the Convivir project. It armed,

trained and organized local defence cooperatives to provide pecial

private security and vigilance services?alongside the armed forces,

creating another cover for right-wing paramilitary forces.

Rise of Uribe

Alvaro Uribe political rise was tied to the success of Convivir. In

1995, Uribe became the governor of Antioquia, a north-western district

with Medell韓 as the capital.

Uribe was the country most vocal supporter of the defence

cooperatives, authorizing dozens of them with almost 20 of these

Uribe-backed cooperatives run by paramilitary leaders, including the

AUC current top commander, Salvatore Mancuso. [Casta駉, who operated

in a different state, wasn one of them.]

Casta駉 is quoted in a biography as saying Uribe was the presidential candidate of the AUC social support base.

揇eep

down, he the closest man to our philosophy,?Casta駉 said, adding

that Uribe support for the Convivir was grounded on the same

principle that gave rise to paramilitarism in Colombia, the right to

self-defence against guerrillas.

When confronted with accusations of complicity between Convivir and

drug-connected paramilitaries, Uribe said that at the time nobody knew

who the right-wing leaders and the cocaine traffickers were.

After an international outcry, however, the government slowly phased

out Convivir. By the time it was outlawed in 1998, however, over 200

defence cooperatives, counting thousands of men, defied the order to

demobilize and joined Casta駉 new paramilitary alliance, the AUC.

The Convivir project had other long-term consequences. Beyond

establishing and arming paramilitary militias, the project created a

web of cooperation between Colombia military and right-wing death

squads. Some paramilitary leaders, such as Casta駉, claimed the CIA and

DEA also gave the AUC discreet support.

At least two top paramilitary commanders have claimed that the

Colombian military coordinated counterinsurgency operations with the

AUC.

揑 am living proof of state-sponsored paramilitarism in Colombia,?said the AUC Mancuso in his deposition earlier this year.

The AUC leaders have named several high-ranking Colombian officers as

collaborating with the paramilitaries, including former General Rito

Alejo del Rio, Antioquia commanding officer during Uribe

governorship.

While running

for the presidency in 2002, Uribe cited the perceived success of the

Convivir program in damaging the FARC infrastructure in Antioquia as

a key reason why Colombians should vote for him.

Despite the drug suspicions ?and the links to paramilitary death

squads ?Uribe benefited from public disenchantment with a sputtering

peace process that had failed to end the civil war. Uribe emerged as

the winner with 53 percent of the vote.

After Uribe election, several drug barons claimed they had financed

his campaign. Indicted drug trafficker Ochoa Vasco said he contributed

$150,000 of his own money at the AUC request.

Ochoa Vasco also said he witnessed a conversation between the AUC

leaders and supposed representatives of Uribe campaign before the

election.

hey talked about

the peace process,?Ochoa Vasco said. hey said anyone with problems

with the U.S. could get involved. And in another meeting, there were

businessmen, landowners and drug traffickers who [the AUC] thought they

could also include, so they told them to get ready for the peace

process.?/p>

All the

paramilitary leaders who negotiated the peace agreement 搆now the

truth. They know that to be there, they invested more than 10 million

dollars,?Ochoa Vasco said.

Government negotiations with the AUC began four months after Uribe took

office. Casta駉 repositioned himself as an opponent of the drug

corruption that, by then, clearly pervaded the AUC. He resigned as AUC

military leader.

In April

2004, Casta駉 was ambushed by 20 elite paramilitaries following orders

from the AUC top leaders. He was shot almost two dozen times in the

face, chopped into pieces, and burned.

Surviving AUC leaders and drug traffickers said Casta駉 was killed

because he was negotiating his surrender to the DEA along with all

trafficking information about the AUC and its government and military

allies. U.S. authorities have denied any negotiation.

Uribe-Bush Alliance

Meanwhile, Uribe lined up solidly behind President George W. Bush by

becoming the only South American leader to endorse Bush invasion of

Iraq. Uribe also sought more U.S. military aid as he defined the civil

war against the leftist FARC as part of the 揼lobal war on terror.?

The backbone of U.S. policy in Colombia is Plan Colombia, a mostly

military aid program to fight both drug production and irregular

armies, most notably the FARC and the AUC. Since 2001, Washington has

sent over $5 billion to Bogot?

Nonetheless, Plan Colombia put little dent in cocaine production. The

coca acreage in 2006 was slightly more than in 2001, when Plan Colombia

was implemented. Acreage was reduced in 2003 and 2004 but shot up again

in 2005 and 2006.

But

Uribe success in curbing political violence boosted his popularity in

Colombia. He vigorously pressed the war against the FARC, forcing the

leftist guerrillas into a tactical retreat. Overall, Uribe reduced the

number of murders, kidnappings and massacres by about one-third.

The Uribe-controlled Congress also passed the Justice and Peace Law,

which launched a peace process with the right-wing paramilitaries that

demobilized 30,000 men and women. The law was written by Sen. Mario

Uribe, the cousin now being investigated for his AUC ties. Even the

Bush administration criticized the law terms as overly lenient.

With Uribe popularity soaring, he got his congressional allies to

change the Constitution to permit a second presidential term. Uribe

then swept to reelection in 2006, winning 62 percent of the vote.

Still, accusations of corruption and unpunished human rights violations dogged him.

Several investigations, especially those led by Colombia Supreme

Court, slowly amassed evidence against former and current government

officials and prominent figures among the country elite.

Those implicated included dozens of current and former members of the

Congress; high-ranking military officers, including the current chief

of staff; entire army battalions allegedly working for drug cartels;

prominent businessmen; and some of Uribe closest allies, including

the father and brother of Colombia former foreign minister Mar韆

Consuelo Ara鷍o.

In March

2006, a laptop belonging to a top paramilitary leader was seized in a

raid. The computer was found to contain detailed information on

drug-trafficking operations, killings committed during the peace

process, potential hit lists of other victims, the AUC plan for

influencing the government, and a list of contributors and political

allies.

One of the hit

lists was linked to Colombia intelligence service and to its

director, Jorge Noguera, a close Uribe ally who the president named

consul in Milan after the initial investigation was opened.

Noguera was later arrested for his ties to the AUC and drug

traffickers, for filtering information to the AUC, for erasing

incriminating evidence of several drug traffickers and paramilitary

leaders, for complicity in the assassinations of several union leaders,

and for obstructing operations to capture his allies.

Other Colombian intelligence officials also were arrested, including

one high-level official, Rafael Garc韆, who testified that he erased

evidence at the request of Noguera. Garc韆 also accused Noguera of

plotting to assassinate Venezuela president Ch醰ez in coordination

with high-level officials in Uribe administration, though Garc韆

didn give their names.

Paramilitary leader Mancuso also accused Uribe Defence Minister Juan

Manuel Santos in his deposition of plotting with the AUC to kill

Venezuela Ch醰ez, although it not clear whether Santos was one of

the men whom intelligence officer Garc韆 was referring to. Santos

denied the accusation.

Then,

in December 2006, embarrassed by the ongoing criminality in the AUC

Santa Fe Ralito safe haven, the government put some paramilitary

leaders in prison. But even there, they continued to live the high life

and kept on top of their criminal operations.

The local press published in May transcripts of police wiretaps

revealing AUC leaders continuing to order killings and to direct drug

trafficking from prison, while also enjoying dance parties, sexual

orgies and alcohol. They hosted 揗exican friends?and had unrestricted

access to cell phones and the Internet.

In one conversation, the frustrated former prison warden complained to

a colleague that her orders were constantly overruled by her superiors

when paramilitary leaders called to complain to the peace commissioner,

government ministers and even the president. The warden soon requested

to be relocated.

Infuriated by the wiretap disclosures, Uribe ordered the firing of the

top 12 generals in the police, but he said little about the evidence of

AUC criminality beyond promising another investigation.

AUC leaders also threatened to break off the peace process, accusing

the government of changing the terms. They felt betrayed, they said,

and threatened to incriminate all their elite allies, including

politicians, businessmen, and multinationals.

Regional Trouble

The Organization of American States, which has overseen the peace

process with the AUC, has been critical of the results. The OAS warned

that the paramilitaries are rearming and reorganizing under different

names, with stronger ties to drug traffickers, and are being led by

some of the same leaders who supposedly had surrendered.

OAS Assistant Secretary General Albert Ramdin said this year that the

AUC demobilization process might well fail to solve Colombia problem

with drug-financed paramilitary groups.

Colombia approach 揷ould trigger a truth and justice process that

would put an end to paramilitary groups in the regions, and lead to

reconstruction of the State,?Ramdin said. 揙r, on the other hand, it

could accentuate the influence of paramilitary groups linked to drug

trafficking.?

Despite

Colombia problems ?the corruption, the shaky peace process and the

shortcomings of its anti-drug program ?Bush has continued to show

unstinting support for Uribe. Calling Uribe a true democrat and a

strong leader, Bush has visited Colombia twice, including earlier this

year, and met with Uribe several times in Washington.

揑抦

proud to call [Uribe] a friend and strategic ally,?Bush said during

one of Uribe visits. In Bogot? the U.S. president said: 揑

appreciate the [Colombian] president determination to bring human

rights violators to justice. ?I believe that, given a fair chance,

President Uribe can make the case.?

Bush asked the U.S. Congress to increase financial support for Plan

Colombia, but Democrats cut military aid from 80 percent to 65 percent

of the total allocation, while increasing economic and humanitarian

aid. Moreover, the Democrats attached strict conditions on the total

$530 million.

Democrats

also have conditioned their ratification of a free-trade agreement with

Colombia on Uribe improving the country human rights record and

prosecuting paramilitary leaders.

In South America, Uribe has slowly backed himself into a corner by

siding with Bush. While most South American countries have grown more

critical of U.S. foreign policy and its Free Trade Agreement of the

Americas, Colombia has staunchly supported Bush policies, distancing

itself from its neighbors.

Brazil and Ecuador have closer relations with Venezuela, as do most

countries in the region, in stark contrast to a decade ago. Colombia

has been kept out of South America Mercosur regional trade union,

while Venezuela is expected to join sometime this year.

Uribe also has lost some regional backing in his fight against the

FARC. Ecuador has resisted labelling the FARC a terrorist organization,

but did criticize Plan Colombia and sought reparations for collateral

damage inflicted by Colombian forces on Ecuador border population.

Meanwhile, the drug and corruption scandal keeps growing. Though Uribe

has denied most of the accusations, drug lord Ochoa Vasco has said he

is willing to negotiate his surrender to the DEA along with proof to

support his charges.

Ochoa

Vasco said some AUC leaders and drug traffickers now are willing to

negotiate their surrender to U.S. law-enforcement agencies to avoid

being murdered in Colombia, as powerful forces seek desperately to

silence them and end the ara-scandal.?/p>

In July, Henao G髆ez Bustamante ?the biggest reputed drug lord since

Pablo Escobar ?was extradited to face trafficking charges in the U.S.

He is believed to have been a key player in right-wing politics and one

of the main financers of the AUC.

The target of at least half a dozen assassination attempts while he was

in prison, G髆ez Bustamante told a magazine that he preferred being

extradited to being murdered. He also said he will disclose all the

information about drug corruption in Colombia, AUC infiltration, and

Mexican cartels, in exchange for a more lenient sentence.

Whatever is ultimately proven, however, the spilling out of evidence

linking Uribe to Colombia vast cocaine industry and to the country

history of political murders is bad news for President Bush as he

counts on Uribe to serve as the model for South America future and as

a bulwark against Hugo Ch醰ez.

–Madrid-based

André–Ÿ Cala has written about Colombia civil conflict since 1998. An

award-winning journalist, he worked in six countries for several

outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, and

the Associated Press. Cala’s e-mail is:

Tags: boss, brother, bush administration, cate, decades, endor, ford, helicopter, hugo, inner circle, job, journalist, rbi, stint, target, ups

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We didn’t need calculators to do the percentages. We had enough
fingers to do the maths. There was Cate and there were nine men, 10
if Glyn Davis, the chairman of the Prime Minister’s 2020 summit,
was counted.
For a moment Kevin Rudd’s lofty ambitions for a national
conversation on the nation’s future descended into a debate about
numbers - numbers and gender. There are to be 10 co-chairs at the
April talkfest, and all the faces staring up from the morning
newspaper were of high-profile men, except for Cate Blanchett.
Numbers, numbers, numbers. We should be beyond counting. It’s so
boring. It’s soooo 1970s. We should have no need to calculate
gender imbalance in 2008. We should be able to put our minds to the
high-minded topics the Government wants us to address - the future
of the environment, social inclusion, the cities, the economy
%26#133; instead of acting like a bunch of accountants.
But unfortunately someone has to do the counting. And it is
always the minority. Every time women stop adding up, someone
subtracts them. Every time women plead feminist fatigue and put
their calculators away, the rate of increase slows down.
Funny how the gender once considered hopeless at maths is fated
to do the sums. Every woman I know wants to dispense with the
number crunching. For decades we have kept tabs on pay equity, the
numbers of women on boards, in cabinet, in Parliament, in local
government, in the trades %26#133;
But if women don’t keep a tally, no one will. I bet that photo
spread of Rudd’s hand-picked summit leaders seemed perfectly normal
to the men who read the morning paper: David Morgan, ex-Westpac;
Tim Fischer, ex-National Party; John Hartigan, News Ltd; Warwick
Smith, ex-Macquarie Bank and ex-Liberal MP; Roger Beale, ex-public
service chief ; Tim Costello, World Vision Australia; indigenous
surgeon Kelvin Kong; and a couple of distinguished academics,
Michael Good and Michael Wesley. They were the sort of blokes you
would expect in such a line-up. Throw in the beautiful, smart and
well-liked Cate, who is, nevertheless, untested in any field but
acting, and all would seem right with the world.
I bet it was only women who thought something was wrong. It is
the outsiders who notice exclusion, not those in the inner circle.
Men don’t see gender imbalance unless it is pointed out. Most think
harping about numbers is trite and a distraction from the important
stuff. “We need the best brains, what does gender matter?” I could
hear men, even progressive men, argue: “We’re over that.”
But merit was not the sole criterion for making the PM’s cut.
Clearly someone was doing the numbers - only it was not gender that
was a consideration. A good deal of calculation went into ensuring
political conservatives were well represented to allay howls from
the right. And probably someone mentioned the states to ensure not
everyone came from NSW and Victoria. No one would be so foolish as
to omit an Aborigine.
But that is where the diversity ended, as if the old concerns of
party politics and geography are the main game, and the 35-year
struggle for women’s representation an irrelevancy.
In this post-feminist era, it is sometimes argued that women
don’t need special attention. Indeed, it is insulting to women to
consider gender. Today it is only talent that is supposed to count.
And women can rise on merit, they say. But even if the strict merit
principle had applied in this case, Australia has many talented men
and women, all capable of co-chairing a discussion. The business
leader Heather Ridout, the medical specialist Fiona Stanley, the
banker Gail Kelly, for a start, would all have performed
capably.
Unless those in charge make a conscious effort to add women, it
will not happen. Unless women in the community keep vigilant, the
count can go backwards. It is not so many weeks since people were
applauding the Rudd Government for the inclusion of a record seven
women in the ministry. But that should not be the end of the
matter. Labor has an opportunity to raise the profile of women by
counting them in wherever it has the power to do so.
Women will not be better than men, nor even act differently. It
is simply that women have a right to play a role in public life
unfettered by conscious or unconscious discrimination. Young women,
outsmarting boys at school and out-graduating them at university,
need to know equal opportunity is real. If they decide to go for
it, their gender should not count against them.
The maths is not yet right. Business in particular is dragging
the chain. In 2006 women comprised only 8.7 per cent of board
directors in the top 200 companies. This is virtually unchanged
since 2002 despite a now-sizable pool of women with board
experience. As well, only six of the top 200 companies had a female
chief executive.
Another reason for vigilance is women’s pay. Relative to men’s
it has gone slightly backwards in the past seven years. The current
pay gap is 15.8 per cent (based on full-time adult ordinary time
earnings).
While this is the story, someone has to keep counting. Those in
power can’t be trusted to get the equation right.

Tags: ambition, cate, cate blanchett, decades, inner circle

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We didn’t need calculators to do the percentages. We had enough
fingers to do the maths. There was Cate and there were nine men, 10
if Glyn Davis, the chairman of the Prime Minister’s 2020 summit,
was counted.
For a moment Kevin Rudd’s lofty ambitions for a national
conversation on the nation’s future descended into a debate about
numbers - numbers and gender. There are to be 10 co-chairs at the
April talkfest, and all the faces staring up from the morning
newspaper were of high-profile men, except for Cate Blanchett.
Numbers, numbers, numbers. We should be beyond counting. It’s so
boring. It’s soooo 1970s. We should have no need to calculate
gender imbalance in 2008. We should be able to put our minds to the
high-minded topics the Government wants us to address - the future
of the environment, social inclusion, the cities, the economy
%26#133; instead of acting like a bunch of accountants.
But unfortunately someone has to do the counting. And it is
always the minority. Every time women stop adding up, someone
subtracts them. Every time women plead feminist fatigue and put
their calculators away, the rate of increase slows down.
Funny how the gender once considered hopeless at maths is fated
to do the sums. Every woman I know wants to dispense with the
number crunching. For decades we have kept tabs on pay equity, the
numbers of women on boards, in cabinet, in Parliament, in local
government, in the trades %26#133;
But if women don’t keep a tally, no one will. I bet that photo
spread of Rudd’s hand-picked summit leaders seemed perfectly normal
to the men who read the morning paper: David Morgan, ex-Westpac;
Tim Fischer, ex-National Party; John Hartigan, News Ltd; Warwick
Smith, ex-Macquarie Bank and ex-Liberal MP; Roger Beale, ex-public
service chief ; Tim Costello, World Vision Australia; indigenous
surgeon Kelvin Kong; and a couple of distinguished academics,
Michael Good and Michael Wesley. They were the sort of blokes you
would expect in such a line-up. Throw in the beautiful, smart and
well-liked Cate, who is, nevertheless, untested in any field but
acting, and all would seem right with the world.
I bet it was only women who thought something was wrong. It is
the outsiders who notice exclusion, not those in the inner circle.
Men don’t see gender imbalance unless it is pointed out. Most think
harping about numbers is trite and a distraction from the important
stuff. “We need the best brains, what does gender matter?” I could
hear men, even progressive men, argue: “We’re over that.”
But merit was not the sole criterion for making the PM’s cut.
Clearly someone was doing the numbers - only it was not gender that
was a consideration. A good deal of calculation went into ensuring
political conservatives were well represented to allay howls from
the right. And probably someone mentioned the states to ensure not
everyone came from NSW and Victoria. No one would be so foolish as
to omit an Aborigine.
But that is where the diversity ended, as if the old concerns of
party politics and geography are the main game, and the 35-year
struggle for women’s representation an irrelevancy.
In this post-feminist era, it is sometimes argued that women
don’t need special attention. Indeed, it is insulting to women to
consider gender. Today it is only talent that is supposed to count.
And women can rise on merit, they say. But even if the strict merit
principle had applied in this case, Australia has many talented men
and women, all capable of co-chairing a discussion. The business
leader Heather Ridout, the medical specialist Fiona Stanley, the
banker Gail Kelly, for a start, would all have performed
capably.
Unless those in charge make a conscious effort to add women, it
will not happen. Unless women in the community keep vigilant, the
count can go backwards. It is not so many weeks since people were
applauding the Rudd Government for the inclusion of a record seven
women in the ministry. But that should not be the end of the
matter. Labor has an opportunity to raise the profile of women by
counting them in wherever it has the power to do so.
Women will not be better than men, nor even act differently. It
is simply that women have a right to play a role in public life
unfettered by conscious or unconscious discrimination. Young women,
outsmarting boys at school and out-graduating them at university,
need to know equal opportunity is real. If they decide to go for
it, their gender should not count against them.
The maths is not yet right. Business in particular is dragging
the chain. In 2006 women comprised only 8.7 per cent of board
directors in the top 200 companies. This is virtually unchanged
since 2002 despite a now-sizable pool of women with board
experience. As well, only six of the top 200 companies had a female
chief executive.
Another reason for vigilance is women’s pay. Relative to men’s
it has gone slightly backwards in the past seven years. The current
pay gap is 15.8 per cent (based on full-time adult ordinary time
earnings).
While this is the story, someone has to keep counting. Those in
power can’t be trusted to get the equation right.

Tags: ambition, cate, cate blanchett, decades, inner circle

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We didn’t need calculators to do the percentages. We had enough
fingers to do the maths. There was Cate and there were nine men, 10
if Glyn Davis, the chairman of the Prime Minister’s 2020 summit,
was counted.
For a moment Kevin Rudd’s lofty ambitions for a national
conversation on the nation’s future descended into a debate about
numbers - numbers and gender. There are to be 10 co-chairs at the
April talkfest, and all the faces staring up from the morning
newspaper were of high-profile men, except for Cate Blanchett.
Numbers, numbers, numbers. We should be beyond counting. It’s so
boring. It’s soooo 1970s. We should have no need to calculate
gender imbalance in 2008. We should be able to put our minds to the
high-minded topics the Government wants us to address - the future
of the environment, social inclusion, the cities, the economy
%26#133; instead of acting like a bunch of accountants.
But unfortunately someone has to do the counting. And it is
always the minority. Every time women stop adding up, someone
subtracts them. Every time women plead feminist fatigue and put
their calculators away, the rate of increase slows down.
Funny how the gender once considered hopeless at maths is fated
to do the sums. Every woman I know wants to dispense with the
number crunching. For decades we have kept tabs on pay equity, the
numbers of women on boards, in cabinet, in Parliament, in local
government, in the trades %26#133;
But if women don’t keep a tally, no one will. I bet that photo
spread of Rudd’s hand-picked summit leaders seemed perfectly normal
to the men who read the morning paper: David Morgan, ex-Westpac;
Tim Fischer, ex-National Party; John Hartigan, News Ltd; Warwick
Smith, ex-Macquarie Bank and ex-Liberal MP; Roger Beale, ex-public
service chief ; Tim Costello, World Vision Australia; indigenous
surgeon Kelvin Kong; and a couple of distinguished academics,
Michael Good and Michael Wesley. They were the sort of blokes you
would expect in such a line-up. Throw in the beautiful, smart and
well-liked Cate, who is, nevertheless, untested in any field but
acting, and all would seem right with the world.
I bet it was only women who thought something was wrong. It is
the outsiders who notice exclusion, not those in the inner circle.
Men don’t see gender imbalance unless it is pointed out. Most think
harping about numbers is trite and a distraction from the important
stuff. “We need the best brains, what does gender matter?” I could
hear men, even progressive men, argue: “We’re over that.”
But merit was not the sole criterion for making the PM’s cut.
Clearly someone was doing the numbers - only it was not gender that
was a consideration. A good deal of calculation went into ensuring
political conservatives were well represented to allay howls from
the right. And probably someone mentioned the states to ensure not
everyone came from NSW and Victoria. No one would be so foolish as
to omit an Aborigine.
But that is where the diversity ended, as if the old concerns of
party politics and geography are the main game, and the 35-year
struggle for women’s representation an irrelevancy.
In this post-feminist era, it is sometimes argued that women
don’t need special attention. Indeed, it is insulting to women to
consider gender. Today it is only talent that is supposed to count.
And women can rise on merit, they say. But even if the strict merit
principle had applied in this case, Australia has many talented men
and women, all capable of co-chairing a discussion. The business
leader Heather Ridout, the medical specialist Fiona Stanley, the
banker Gail Kelly, for a start, would all have performed
capably.
Unless those in charge make a conscious effort to add women, it
will not happen. Unless women in the community keep vigilant, the
count can go backwards. It is not so many weeks since people were
applauding the Rudd Government for the inclusion of a record seven
women in the ministry. But that should not be the end of the
matter. Labor has an opportunity to raise the profile of women by
counting them in wherever it has the power to do so.
Women will not be better than men, nor even act differently. It
is simply that women have a right to play a role in public life
unfettered by conscious or unconscious discrimination. Young women,
outsmarting boys at school and out-graduating them at university,
need to know equal opportunity is real. If they decide to go for
it, their gender should not count against them.
The maths is not yet right. Business in particular is dragging
the chain. In 2006 women comprised only 8.7 per cent of board
directors in the top 200 companies. This is virtually unchanged
since 2002 despite a now-sizable pool of women with board
experience. As well, only six of the top 200 companies had a female
chief executive.
Another reason for vigilance is women’s pay. Relative to men’s
it has gone slightly backwards in the past seven years. The current
pay gap is 15.8 per cent (based on full-time adult ordinary time
earnings).
While this is the story, someone has to keep counting. Those in
power can’t be trusted to get the equation right.

Tags: ambition, cate, cate blanchett, decades, inner circle

Related posts

• Sorry, wrong number: get with the times and try again
• Sorry, wrong number: get with the times and try again
• Much ado about NIDA’s direction
• Much ado about NIDA’s direction
• Much ado about NIDA’s direction
• Much ado about NIDA’s direction
• Much ado about NIDA’s direction
• Well-known figures continue to mystify
• Well-known figures continue to mystify
• Well-known figures continue to mystify

McCain hopes Castro to ‘meet Marx soon’

From enforcer to reformer, Raul Castro takes over

Raul Castro takes helm in Cuba

Raul Castro, 76, a former hardliner feared for his ruthlessness against his brother%26#39;s enemies but who has adopted a softer tone in recent years, nodded and smiled as legislators applauded his election by the rubber-stamp National Assembly.
He is expected to bring some economic reforms and he said he might revalue the peso currency, but in a sign that change is unlikely to be deep or abrupt, Communist Party ideologue Jose Ramon Machado Ventura was named first vice president, or Cuba%26#39;s No 2.
In his first speech as leader, Raul Castro said he would continue to consult Fidel Castro, who stepped down on Tuesday because of poor health, on important decisions of state.
%26quot;The mandate of this legislature is clear … to continue strengthening the revolution at a historic moment,%26quot; he said.
He added that he was accepting the job on the condition that Fidel Castro continued to be the %26quot;commander in chief of the revolution%26quot; - a title created for him during his guerrilla uprising before the 1959 revolution.
%26quot;Fidel is Fidel. Fidel is irreplaceable and the people will continue his work when he is no longer physically around.%26quot;
Raul Castro lacks the oratorical flair of his brother, whom he converted to communism, but he has encouraged ordinary Cubans in the last 19 months to air their concerns over shortages and inefficiencies in the economy.
The appointment of Machado Ventura, a member of Raul Castro%26#39;s inner circle, suggested change would be subtle.
%26quot;This is about signalling continuity externally and internally,%26quot; said Julia Sweig, an expert on Cuba at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in Washington, although she said Cuba%26#39;s leaders are well aware they need to address food shortages and other problems.
%26quot;Raul is really a pragmatist and for all of them the clock on bread and butter issues starts ticking now. It%26#39;s a mistake to think there%26#39;s an enormous amount of light between any of these people. They%26#39;re all basically headed in the same direction, with some nuances,%26quot; she said.
Cuban exiles in Miami, the heartland of opposition to the Castro brothers, were disappointed but not surprised at the appointment of Raul Castro as president and the elevation of a communist hardliner to the No 2 position.
%26quot;Nothing new, more of the same. It%26#39;s continuity. It%26#39;s once more depriving the Cuban people of choosing their destiny … I guess it shouldn%26#39;t surprise anybody,%26quot; said Ninoska Perez of the Cuban Liberty Council, aa hardline anti-Castro group.
Raul Castro has led the West%26#39;s last communist state since July 2006 when his brother temporarily handed over power after undergoing intestinal surgery. Fidel Castro officially retired on Tuesday.
The US administration has dubbed him %26quot;Fidel Lite%26quot; and criticised the leadership transition as the handing of power from one dictator to another.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday that Cuba needs to move toward democracy.
%26quot;We urge the Cuban government to begin a process of peaceful, democratic change by releasing all political prisoners, respecting human rights, and creating a clear pathway towards free and fair elections,%26quot; she said in a statement before Raul Castro was confirmed as president.
A leftist icon in his army fatigues, cap and beard but oppressor of his people to his foes, Fidel Castro overthrew US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
He then survived assassination attempts, a CIA-backed invasion, the Soviet Union%26#39;s collapse and a US economic embargo to rule for almost half a century.
Since his operation, the charismatic 81-year-old leader has not been seen in public and television footage shows him to have grown frail and shuffling, posing in a Cuban athletic team tracksuit instead of his trademark fatigues.
He will continue to wield influence as the head of the Communist Party and by writing articles on world affairs in what he calls %26quot;the battle of ideas%26quot;.

Tags: appointment, brother, Food, inner circle, job, smile

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by Keith Harmon Snow

(Global Research)The International Rescue Committee in late

January 2008 released a new report on the mortality in the war-torn

Democratic Republic of Congo. The report caught the eye of some news

agencies, who quickly whipped up trite little articles as supposed

expressions of horror. Over and over it has been declared he world

forgotten crises.?There are reasons why Darfur is in the crises of the

day, the poster crises, and why Congo is hardly mentioned.1

However, the story of war and plunder in Congo is

not unreported. It is a story that has been censored, manipulated, and

covered up even while it is ostensibly being told. Plenty of

information has been published about the war in the Democratic Republic

of Congo, and plenty of this is flak, designed to whiteout the truth,

and help keep the real story buried, and that includes the truly honest

representations of war and suffering in Congo that have been published.

Just because the mainstream doesn cover it, doesn mean it didn

happen. This is the falsification of consciousness.

While the true death toll in Congo over the past

series of wars梖or the Congolese it is one long contiguous war梬ill

never be known, it is far higher than the IRC figures. In the IRC

tidy statistical equations there is no recounting the ordeal of the

millions of people who have disappeared into the swamps, the tropical

forests, the mass graves, torture chambers and death camps, or after

crossing borders. The entire exercise in counting the dead is another

way to do little to stop it. The IRC is about profits, but that is not

all.

The International Rescue Committee has been

described in the past as the ideal instrument of psychological warfare,

and it is. This is exactly what is going on with the IRC today, and

more, when the IRCeavily subsidized by the very same profiteers梥ends

its body counters into Congo. But the IRC is not only the ideal

instrument of psychological warfare, it is also the ideal instrument of

intelligence gathering. The IRC capitalizes on their access to refugee

populations, conflict areas and individual refugee encounters and

interviews to gather intelligence on armed groups, leadership,

resources, weapons and geographical conflicts, information that is

selectively used to serve the greater interests of the IRC and its

partners.

America Secret Warriors

Amongst the trustees or overseers of the

International Rescue Committee is Henry Kissinger, a man whose

interests run very deep in Congo. Henry Kissinger is tied to Freeport

McMoRan (FXC) and FCX is all over the copper and cobalt show in

Katanga. FCX director J. Stapleton Roy was Assistant Secretary of State

for Intelligence and Research under Madeleine Albright, 1999-2000,

during the Clinton administration invasions of Rwanda (1994) and then

Congo/Zaire (1996); Roy retired to join Kissinger Associates.2

Another Kissinger Associates principal is Lawrence

Eagleburger, who has past affiliations with the defense and

intelligence insider Scowcroft Group, and has been a director of

Halliburton Corporation since 1998. Scowcroft Group founder Brent

Scowcroft served as the National Security Advisor to Presidents Gerald

Ford and George H.W. Bush and, 1982-1989, he was Vice-Chairman of

Kissinger Associates.

Walter Kansteiner, a National Security insider for

the Clinton and G.W. Bush administrations and a rincipal member?of

the Scowcroft Group today, is a director of Moto Gold (operating in

blood-drenched Ituri, Congo) and of the military-based 揷onservation?
organization, the Africa Wildlife Foundation (Washington D.C.), that is

backing mercenary activities in the Congo Virungas Mountains region

under the cover of gorilla protection.

Another Kissinger Associates director is Belgium

Viscount Etienne Davignon, one of the Congo most lasting and current

enemies. Davignon was directly involved, 1964-1965, in the code-named

揇ragon?operations that installed the 搆leptocrat?Mobutu and seeded

the beginning of the end for millions of Congolese people.3,4 Davignon is also a close associate of Donald Rumsfeld through the bio-warfare production company Gilead Sciences.

The IRC board includes Samantha Power, the Founder

of the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard and Pulitzer-prize

winning author of A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide,

the book that peddles genocide inflation on the one hand (regarding

Rwanda, Yugoslavia and Sudan), and genocide denial on the other

(regarding Congo, Uganda and Rwanda).5

The IRC 揊reedom Award?for 揺xtraordinary

contributions to the cause of refugees and human freedom?has been

given to some of the genocide inflators and deniers. In 1987 it went to

John C. Whitehead and in 1992 to Cyrus Vance, two men with historical

ties to covert operations in Congo, for example, through their National

Security Agency and CIA insider status, and two men tied to the Maurice

Templesman empire behind the plunder of Congo/Zaire for decades.

U.S. Congressman Donald Payne is one of those

揻riends of Africa?who hangs in the Andrew Young and Maurice

Templesman crowd. His role as Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee

on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations in the Bush

administration is one of his more stellar performances, a sad

disappointment and complete betrayal to Africans and African-Americans.

In 1993 the 揊reedom Award?went to Dwayne O.

Andreas, the Archers Daniels Midland executive and top U.S.

congressional campaign funder whose company makes sure there are

starving refugees. ADM is deeply tied to Robert Dole and Andrew Young,

the latter counting ADM as his many top clients at PR firm Goodworks

International. Young is also deeply connected to the client regimes in

Rwanda and Ugandahe chief protagonists in the Congo wars.

In 1995 the IRC 揊reedom Award?went to Richard

Holbrooke; in 1996 to Madeleine Albright; and in 2004 to General Romeo

Dallaire. All three people were pivotal to the U.S. covert operations

and the subsequent massive refugee displacements and mortality in

Central Africa. Holbrooke and Albright are also culpable in crimes

against humanity in former Yugoslavia, Haiti, Sudan and Iraq.

Finally, the 揊reedom?award was shared in 2005 by

William J. Clinton and G.H.W. Bush; Clinton launched the wars in Rwanda

and Congo with the background support of his predecessor; Bush

umanitarianism?includes massive state destabilization, terror

networks, torture, coups d抏tat and war on sovereign nations.

The International Rescue Committee is not a neutral

or purely umanitarian?organization. The IRC has a deep history of

nefarious activities going far beyond relief operations. The IRC is

also a huge financial operation providing scads of executives and

business people with scads of income in ways that do not help to

alleviate the war or suffering, but rather exacerbate it. While the IRC

claims 90% of its funds re spent on refugee programs and services,?
much of this money never hits the ground in Africa, what does often

barely touches the life of a refugee. Amongst the IRC biggest funders

are HSBC bank, GE, and Goldman Sachs, all involved in Congo blood

diamonds plunder, and Pfizer and Gilead Sciences (the Davignon-Rumsfeld

company). The IRC involvement in Congo mortality studynvolves

deeply political but generally hidden motives. Why doesn the IRC

focus on feeding the living instead of counting the dead?

The Horror, The Horror

Beyond the simple calculus of the IRC highly

political bias and interests, and cloaked in a smokescreen of

neutrality, the mortality assessment is flawed. The IRC considers only

the period of 1998 to 2007, excluding the first phase of the war, the

U.S.-backed overthrow of Zaire and coup d抏tat against Mobutu

Sese Seko, 1996-1998. The IRC excludes this period for multiple

reasons. (Requests to the IRC for comment were not answered.)

One of the obvious reasons is that the Pentagon was

directly involved, 1996-1998, along with the private U.S. military

companies Military Professional Resources Incorporated, and Kellogg,

Brown and Root (Halliburton). Just as happened with the massive

bloodletting in Rwanda, and premised of course from the start on the

examples of selective justice at the Nazi Nuremburg trials, the

international system manipulates statistics, dates, and timeframes

partly to shield those agents who might otherwise be subject to some

kind of future reckoning, and partly to serve the falsification of

history and fabricate a false consciousness.

The IRC excludes the period 1996-1997 to shield the

governments of now military President Paul Kagame, in Rwanda, and

Yoweri Museveni, in Uganda, and their inner circles and extended

networks of syndicated, organized crime.

In 1995 and 1996, the Rwandan Patriotic Army/Front

(RPA/F) and their partners and backers, the Ugandan People Defense

Forces (UPDF), the Pentagon, MPRI and assorted other mercenaries, laid

the groundwork for their imminent war by engaging Zairian territory

through significant cross-border covert and terror operations from

Uganda and Rwanda. In October 1996 there were at least 1.5 million

Rwandan and Burundian refugees in eastern Zaire, according to most

refugee agencies. The full-scale invasion began more formally when the

RPA/UPDF proxy forces shelled the refugee camps. This was in violation

of international humanitarian law, and it was a pivotal event to

understand, because it was a replay of the events of October 1990,

whereby the RPA invaded the territory of a sovereign government:

Rwanda. Only this time it was eastern Zaire, and it involved the

shelling of Hutu refugee camps.6 These are egregious crimes of international law.

France reported at the time that there were 1.2

million refugees and the United States insisted there were only

700,000, and the U.S. took the disingenuous line that all the refugees

went back to Rwanda. They did not.

Hundreds of thousands of unarmed and innocent men,

women and children were driven west, north, and south, running in fear

for their lives from the allied invading forces who they knew from

experience over the previous six years to be bloodthirsty killers. Many

also were forced back to Rwanda where the RPA was targeting them. The

RPA/UPDF forces hunted down and killed hundreds of thousands in a clear

case of genocide. The names of the U.S. officials, the RPA and UPDF

commanders and Congolese collaborators are all very well known to those

who were on the ground or involved at the time.

One of these is long-time UNICEF executive Nigel

Fisher, who is today also a member of the Advisory Council of the

Diamond Development Initiative, a program run by and for the diamond

industry but meant to put a reformative face on corporations and

syndicated crime networks that for decades have plundered the Congo.

Fisher was the UNICEF Special Representative for Rwanda in 1994, and he

led that agency post-genocide [sic] recovery operations [sic] in the

Great Lakes region of Africa (Rwanda, eastern Zaire, western Tanzania

and southern Uganda) in 1994-1995. This places him squarely in the know

about the massive genocidal killings and other crimes against humanity

that occurred as the Rwandan military (then the Rwandan Patriotic Army)

under current President Paul Kagame and the Ugandan military under

President-for-life Yoweri Museveni first shelled the refugee camps and

then marched across Zaire committing genocide.

So right off the bat we can add between 200,000 and

800,000 deaths to the new IRC mortality figures (and the 200,000 would

be a very conservative figure).

Finally, the IRC is known for its long history of

involvement in CIA and NSA activities, including shipping or

transporting weapons.7

According to a top United Nations investigator, the IRC moved into

bases in eastern Zaire in 1996 and started shelling the refugee camps

with heavy weapons. Here is the direct quote: he IRC took over some

bases near the refugee camps and started shelling the camps with heavy

weapons.?(Name withheld for confidentiality.)

The IRC has spent millions of dollars analyzing the

搃mpact of conflict?in the Democratic Republic of Congo but they have

said nothing of substance about the parallel economy of plunder that is

enriching some of the same organizations that support their

umanitarian?programs. Their recent report is a glossy brochure

offering a pornography of violence.

How stupid and blind do they think people are? How stupid and blind are we?

At the same time, the IRC has received massive

oans敆in the millions of dollars梠ver recent years from the U.S.

taxpayer-funded Overseas Private Investment Corporation. What happens

to all these OPIC funds?

In the new IRC report about mortality in Congo there

is not a word about the causes of the ongoing strife or the structural

factors which have made this holocaust possible, and perpetuate it.

Things Go Better with Blood

Offering their only real reason for the high mortality rates, the IRC states:

揜ecovery from conflict is a slow and protracted

process. The persistent elevation of mortality more than four years

after the official end of the 1998?002 war provides further evidence

that recovery from conflict can take many years, especially when

superimposed on decades of political and socioeconomic decline.?/p>

This is nonsense. When hurricane Katrina hit, it

was, after a brief delay, a rapid intervention process that established

a chain of U.S. military command posts across the gulf coast. Troops,

helicopters, tanks, and private military armies were quickly sent in,

not to rescue people, but to secure the facilities of the US military

and defense contractors, shipyards, banks and the high-end economic

zone. It was all very efficient, hundreds of millions of dollars of

U.S. taxpayer money was squandered on professional killers who, fresh

from Iraq and Afghanistan, did the only thing they seem to know how to

do, they killed people. But the point is that the U.S. government moves

mountains when it wants to, and quickly.

Recovery from conflict 搃s a slow and protracted

process?because there is an ongoing policy of intentional depopulation

in Africa. The United Nations Observers Mission in Congo (MONUC) spends

about 40-45% of its billion dollar budget on airplane contracts flying

around central Africa, and this goes to big business. There is never

any problem shipping in weapons, and梠ffering a rather stark and

poignant and undeniable example of the way things work and donæ¡Ÿoca

Cola trucks ship coke all over the place, even in rural areas. Full

stop.

Think about it.

There are no books and no bookstores in Congo for a reason. Starvation is widespread and there are food and grain shortages because of, and not in spite of,

the United Nations and the IRC and the World Food Program and its ties

to Robert Dole, Archers Daniels Midland, ConAgra and Henry Kissinger

linkæ¡Ÿontinental Grain. There are shortages of health supplies and high

rates of disease for a reason, and it is not because this is the eart

of darkness?or any other racist foolishness.

Coca Cola is not a healthy beverage for malnourished

and starving children with no access to dental facilities. More

importantly, Coke directorDonald F. McHenry is a President of the IRC

Group, a Washington DC consulting firm whose connections to the

International Rescue Committee are difficult to ascertain. Former

Ambassador Andrew Young, Madeleine Albright, George Soros, Lawrence

Eagleburger, Frank Ferrari, Donald Easum, Donald F. McHenry and Frank

Carlucci all frequently surface like tentacles of the Templesman

octopus and most of these are tight with the intelligence apparatus,

and all have ties to the flak producing CIA ciphers the Africa-America

Institute and the Corporate Council on Africa.

IRC President and Director George Rupp is also a

director of the secretive and euphemistically named Partnership to Cut

Hunger and Poverty in Africa, a right-wing Judeo-Christian front

organization. Other PCHPA directors include Ugandan President Yoweri

Museveni, Robert Dole and David Beckman from the equally fundamentalist

Christian front group Bread for the World. The Museveni government has

forced 1.3 million Acholi people onto death camps in northern Uganda and denied them humanitarian relief.

Starvation happens not because this is Africa, or

the Congo, it is because we are witnessing the most devastating example

of predatory capitalism and heartless, absolute greed, combined with a

spiritual crisesn the 揻irst?world梠f unprecedented proportions. The

long term control of Congo resources is best served by eliminating as

many black people as possible. The capacity to control Congo

resources is enhanced by spreading terror, uprooting people, destroying

families, sowing distrust and hatred. It is called divide and conquer

and it is the oldest trick in the book of European conquest. The word

that best describes the portfolio of psychological, emotional,

physical, social, cultural and political effects of such campaigns of

destabilization and terror is DERACINATION.

And all the while the humanitarian isery?industry

is raking in billions of dollars on programs to elp?the Congolese

people, and universities create new programs and departments to train

the privileged evelopment?work force, all to create and

institutionalize dependency. This is structural violence, and it is

part of a cycle of perpetuated wealth and privilege. It is managed

inequality.

This is the U.S. foreign policy in action. The IRC

merely institutionalizes the false framework of thinking that supports

war and plunder and the entrenchment, rather than alleviation, of

structural violence. Behind the psychological warfare the picture in

Congo is very different, and the responsible forces are easily

identified.

The Falsification of Consciousness

Here how the system projectsnd inculcateshe falsified consciousness about Africa that people in the West are blinded by.

One of the long term dictator Mobutu Sese Seko

right-hand men was Albert-Henri Buisine, a French mercenary-pirate who

worked on the Kamanyola, the luxury yacht where Mobutu arrived

by helicopter to receive foreign backers and 揤IP?cronies. While

Mobutu frequently visited the White House, Brussels, Paris, Tokyo,

Geneva, Londonnd sometimes Tel Avive regularly received his cronies

and patrons on his yacht in Zaire.8

Protected by Albert-Henri Buisine and Israeli

mercenary Meir Meyouhasnd a slew of crack black intelligence

operatives桵obutu received his guests. Hundreds of people came and went

from Zaire over the years, and these included Secretary of State Henry

Kissinger; Vice-President George H.W. Bush; Ambassadors Andrew Young

and Jean Kirkpatrick; and mercenary Frank Carlucci. Diamond tycoon

Maurice Templesman dined often with Mobutu on the Kamanyola,

sometimes with his lover, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, often with his

Zaire-based diamond agents like Jerry Funk or James Barnes, and with De

Beers agents like Nicky Oppenheimer or Nick Davenport.9

The Templesman and De Beers empires exist today in

Congo in their modern forms, and many of the same agents of the Mobutu

period are connected to policies or actions that perpetuate suffering

and violence in Congo and Angola and South Africa today. It is

important to note, also, that the Templesman blood minerals machine has

heavily subsidized the campaigns of the democrats, including recent

fascist manifestations, Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton. In the final

counting, Hillary Clinton has done more damage to Africa than Obama

(but there is still time).

On May 11 and 12, 1990, Mobutu shock troopsncluding the Israeli-trained Special Presidential Division

(DSP), SARM and National Gendarmeriettacked the campus at the

University of Lumumbashi, and they killed hundreds of students, at

least, while countless more were tortured and brutalized. The U.S.

Central Intelligence Agency station in Lumumbashi supported the

atrocities and cover-up. It sounds like a long time ago, but the

players are still around. Some, like James Barnes, Maurice and Leon

Templesman, and Nicky Oppenheimer, are still running big operations in

Africa.

What was Albert-Henri Buisine role in protecting

the Mobutu dictatorship and perpetuating such atrocities and where is

Mobutu old mercenary bodyguard today?

Well, Mobutu French mercenary bodyguard Albert-Henri Buisine surfaced in October, 2007, in a Harper magazine article by Bryan Mealer, a journalist who formerly freelanced with the Associated Press and The Independent

(London). Buisine is no longer a private military agent serving the

terror apparatus of a Cold War dictator; he is the loquacious captain

of a barge pressing 2600 tons of cargo up the Congo River (for his

private shipping company and substantial personal profit). One hundred

years after Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness we have a white American AP journalist retelling his unfathomable voyage up the Congo.

And there the nostalgic Captain, a reluctant

French mercenary-terrorist-turned-pilot-profiteer, who for 16 years,

against his will, Mealer tells us, served Mobutu reluctantly. 揌e was

chained to Mobutu’s shadow at all times, even living four straight

years aboard the lavish presidential yacht, the Kamanyola, as it drifted aimlessly down the Congo River.?

Drifted aimlessly? Chained to Mobutu shadow?

Hardly. This is fiction. There are deep cultural stereotypes and

subliminal fault lines at work here that have been inculcated through

decades of propaganda about Congo/Zaire. There is nothing but dross in

Mealer account, no mention of the brutalities suffered by Congolese

people, the strike-breaking and student massacres, or the rented crowds

chanting 揗obutu! Mobutu?and the empty slogans of Mobutu Movement Populaire de la Revolution party. There is no mention of the hated Special Presidential Division

terror apparatus, the illegal arrests and detention without trial, the

tortures at underground dungeons like the 揙AU-2?or the 揷orridor of

death?in Kinshasa. It is all rendered nostalgic, and the plunderers of

the past are painted as unwitting victims who missed their lot in life.

The story casts the standard dispersions of pathos on the white

exploiters, and this works to displace the attention from their past

and often current criminality.

揃uisine now led the simple life of a river rat,?
Mealer tells us, aking his run six or seven times a year,?pointing

out hirlpools roiling in the deep spots, crocodiles camouflaged in

the mud, or, along a wooded island, a tree whose leaves cured

hemorrhoids.?10

Harper never mentions the agents of

repression in such places, because the American public is all too happy

with the vainglorious version of the beleaguered white hero challenging

the savagery in the heart of darkness. How many stories about Congo

involve a River and a Great White Hero challenging the savagery and

darkness of the forest? Harper tells us nothing about Congo:

it is the usual racist nonsense meant to displace the truth. The story

is 揼ood?reading, but it is fiction, a mirror reflecting our whiteness

back to us. The author even claims that the natives communicate by

drums so that villages along the river know the boat is coming before

Buisine and the heroic white journalist arrive upstream. This is the

falsification of American consciousness.

To cap the Harper silly whitewash, the

photographer that traveled up river with Mealer is based in Kigali,

Rwanda, and everyone in the region knows that you cannot work in and

out of Rwanda today and still be telling the truth. Finally, Harper publisher John R. MacArthur is described by his magazine company as a ireless advocate for human rights.?

And that is why we have more than 10 million dead in

Congo since 1996, and millions more in Uganda and Rwanda. These

nightmare numbers are the products of the Bush-Clinton-Bush

administrations, a contiguous unfolding of fascism in America.

I traveled on this river more than once: in 2007 I

also swam two-thirds of the way across it (at Lukutu, where I hit an

island and turned back); I also swam across the tributary Lomami (2007)

and Lopori (2006) rivers. The Harper production mirrors the

obliviousness of white men in Congo and the even greater obliviousness

of white editors, and it is all to satisfy the voracious obliviousness

of increasingly stupefied readers.

Been there, done that. Now it is time for us all to grow up.

Plantation Slavery in the Heartland

At the height of the supposed disintegration of

Zaireid-1980 through the mid-1990he Blattner family was rapidly

expanding their operations and consolidating power. The previous and

already vast empire in Zaire was established by James Blattner as the

Group Agro Pastoral (GAP), and this was later divided up amongst sons

David and Elwyn (Daniel role in Congo is uncertain), who scooped up

plantation after plantation, concession after concession, becoming

involved in transportation, shipping, aviation, telecommunications,

agriculture, logging and construction. Elwyn Blattner father-in-law,

Shimon Razin, also runs a company, Safgaz, in Congo, when he is not in

Tel Aviv, and the Blattners send their children to elite colleges in

Europe. In 2003, Elwyn Blattner was President of the Communaute Israelite de Kinshasa.11

The Blattner empire today is perpetuating massive

suffering in the interior, with slavery and all the abominations of

paramilitary fiefdoms occurring on the Blattner plantations.12

None of this has been reported, but for those who wonder how the

mortality rate in the interior of the Congo could be so high sudden

flash of awakening with the release of the January 2008 International

Rescue Committee statisticshe answer lies in the capitalist

enterprises of the Elwyn Blattners, the Maurice Templesmans, the

Etienne Davignons and Nicky Oppenheimers, and the IRC itself. The

Blattners frequently travel back and forth from Congo to the United

States, Belgium, Tel Aviv and South Africa. On August 2, 2007, for

example, David Blattner and family attended a lavish Bar Mitzvah of

friends in Israel held at the Sheraton Hotel in Tel Aviv. On the same

day, the second of August, 2007, at least 1500 people died in the Congo.

What is the IRC relationship to the plantation

slave-drivers and how did the IRC statistically figure the higher

mortality rates on plantations run by the Blattner or George Forrest

Groups in rural Congo?

It Takes a Village

By the late 1990s, the guarding of the diamond

concessions in Zaire had ceased to operate under a single chain of

command and had become increasingly militarized by thugs of all

stripes. Atrocities mounted during the heaviest war years, but violence

continues in these areas today.

Katanga has repeatedly been described as the

province of 揻orgotten strife.?In the past decade alone, millions of

people have been dispossessed of their livelihoods, their land, their

futures and their lives, and the mining in Katanga and Mbuji-Mayi has

been going on since the end of the Leopold era.

Entire villages have been sacked and burned by

militias and in some almost every woman has been raped during military

campaigns of the past few years.13

More than 5000 children have lived on the streets in the center of

Mbuji-Mayi town in the past few years梱et another generation of

Congolese leaders lostnd recent systematic massacres of street

children have occurred at the hands of militias, political groups and

security forces.14

How does the IRC mortality study factor in the deaths of street children murdered in Mbuji Mayi?

After a century of exploitation and slavery, we find

the DRC huge state diamond firm, MIBA, consistently withholding

payment of salaries to starving Congolese laborers and middle managers

for months at a time. April and May 2007 saw strikes and protests

leading to the Kabila government arbitrary arrest, detention and

torture of trade union organizers like Leon Ngoy Bululu; police have

also shot protestors.15

So-called 慽llegal?diamond workers梔isenfranchised local Congolese

people forced into 揷riminal?activities to survive梬ere summarily

executed on MIBA concessions in Mbuji-Mayi. The BBC, in August 2006 reported that MIBA security guards were sniping unemployed diamond miners.16 Of course, the BBC

never gives us the deeper story, it is only for expedience and some

interest somewhere that they are saying anything revealing at all.

Katanga is the Democratic Republic of Congo

southernmost province, and it is the world richest mining metropolis,

with the poorest people in the world. Part of the vast copper belt that

stretches across northern Zambia and southern Congo, Katanga is home to

unprecedented human misery. The Zambian copperbelt concessions over the

border involve many of the same companies and interests mentioned above.17

But hundreds of billions of dollars are involved in these mining

projects and they have no problems moving heavy equipment into the most

rural areas, building runways, and shipping the product out.

IMMEDIATE AND RADICALæ¡®OING TO THE ROOT OF THE

PROBLEMæ¡°NTERVENTIONS TO AID THE PEOPLE AND MITIGATE SUFFERING IN THESE

AREAS COULD BE ACHIEVED IF THE CORPORATIONS WORKING THERE WERE HELD TO

ACCOUNT.

But as long as people in the West gobble up the corporate do-nothing nonsense peddled by the IRC, CARE, Save the Children, Newsweek, the New York Times, the BBC and the International Crises Group, it is, indeed, hopeless.

Workers and communities in and around these mines

suffer due to state orchestrated repression, chemical mining processes

and toxic runoff, tuberculosis, immune disorders, racial discrimination

and slavery. There are all the standard treatable maladies (typhoid,

malaria, tetanus, polio, malnutrition) as well. However, such stories

are off the agenda for the North American, European, Japanese,

Australian and Israeli media corporations providing the mainstay of

English language indoctrination meant to instill racial superiority and

a vast ignorance and obliviousness that leaves westerns populations

shaking their heads and wringing their hands and clicking their

tongues, while all the while wondering hat is to be done??It does

not cross people minds that their own hands are dirty, that their own

consciousness has been falsified, that change is possible.

Lies, Lies, Those Slippery (Petroleum) Lies

German diplomat Albrecht Conze is the deputy

political director of the United Nations Observers Mission in Congo

(MONUC). In an article in the German magazine Der Spiegel,

after the first round of elections in August 2006, Conze redicted?
the inevitable return of white patronage in Congo. 揑t is like being

the Congo foster parents,?Conze said, suggesting that such patronage

is a blessing, rather than the curse that it is to the people of Congo.

Conze continued to misrepresent the Western plunder in Congo by saying,

for example, that the U.S. government’s interest in rebuilding Congo is

limited. After all, he said, the deeply Catholic country 揷ontains

neither oil nor terrorists.?18

The above statement is consistent with the perpetual

lies by powerful interests who benefit by always downplaying or hiding

Congo (Africa) wealth.

The first petroleum refinery in the Congo梠wned by Societe Congolaise Italienne de Raffinage (SOCIR), a joint venture between the Congolese government and Ente Nazioale Idrocarburi,

Italy state-owned petroleum company梒ommenced production near the

mouth of the Congo River in 1967. Under a five year contract signed in

1967, the crude for the refinery was supplied by Shell, Mobil,

Petrofina and Texaco.19

Petroleum exploration occurred heavily off the Atlantic coast after

1968; production began in 1976 involving Chevron, Mobil, Unocal,

Royal/Dutch Shell, Agip, TotalFinaElf, Teikoku Oil and the Japan

National Oil Company. Recent onshore exploitation near the refinery

involves Total, Pan Ocean Energy (UK) and Addax Petroleum (Canada).

The heartland of the Congo also has petroleum, and

this is part of the reason for the unfathomable terrorism involving

Western enterprises and agents and the concomitant rates of mortality

in the interior. Petroleum reserves were discovered (but left dormant)

by Chevron in the Equateur rainforest in the late 1970.20 By 1997 this vast concession梜nown as Cuvette Centrale for the former petit province梬as held by Trillion Resources Ltd., established in Vancouver in 1987.21

The company is involved in exploration throughout Africa in association

with Canadian mining companies such as Nickelodeon Minerals Inc.,

Oliver Gold Corporation and Skeena Resources Ltd. In DRC its activities

have also involved mining in Katanga with DRC parastatal Gecamines. There is no doubt that Trillion and Chevron interests supported certain factions in Congo wars.

In Eastern DRC, petroleum under Lake Albert is being

tapped on the Ugandan side by Canada Heritage Oil %26amp; Gas, Tullow

Oil and Hardman Resources, supported by the organized crime syndicates

involved with the Uganda 揼overnment,?which is itself another

syndicated crime ring run by the Ugandan military, General James

Kazini, and Museveni half-brother Salim Saleh. Further south near

Goma and Bukavu, Lake Kivu is targeted by U.S. companies, working

through the current dictatorship in Rwanda, for its massive methane

reserves.

his is an oil country,?the new Congo newly created Oil Minister Lambert Mende was quoted by Reuters

to say, 搉ot because of our current small production, but because there

is major potential?Quite modestly, we expect nothing less than three

billion barrels of reserves, and it’s certainly more than that.?Reuters

in July 2007 confirmed that onshore reserves remain untapped and

largely unexplored in Equateur province in the north as well as under

Lake Albert and Lake Tanganyika along the eastern border.22

As always, the exploiters try to minimize the

awareness of the resources they are targeting. Contrary to the

statement by MONUC German diplomat Albrecht Conzes the Congolese,

Rwandan and Ugandan people know all too wellhe errorists?are all

over Central Africa, even if some of them have never visited the

country.

Conze behavior epitomizes white supremacy masked

by umanitarianism?and eacekeeping?in Africa. The eacekeeping?
operations of MONUC, like the umanitarian?or misery industry, are

merely well-cloaked disguises for more predatory capitalism with the

added insidiousness of a supposed and self-righteous igher moral

purpose?that allows the exploiters in the West to celebrate our

揼oodness?and our umanity?and to claim that our hands are clean

and, of course, that we care. But this is big business and nothing

else. To question such things are themselves written off as complete

heresy, and that is why MONUC does not take any notice of such writings

as this one: good journalists produce tripe for Harper, they

don point the finger at modern day conquistadors and attach blame to

the names of U.N. officials, corporate executives, or high society

philanthropists and diamond tycoons.

MONUC officials say nothing of substance about

mining in Congo, which proceeds in parallel with the bloodletting, arms

trading and extortion. For example, Anvil Mining has been involved in

massacres in DRC.23

Anvil directors include former U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Brown, who

served at U.S. embassies in Brussels, Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville and

South Africa. Brown was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa

(1987-1989) under George Schultz and George H.W. Bush and then Director

of Central African Affairs (1980-1981). Meanwhile, the former top

internal intelligence and security chief of the United Nations

Observer Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) has been

worked for Anvil mining in Katanga since 2006.24

With top MONUC security officials taking high paying

jobs with companies involved in the atrocities, one begins to see the

nature of an organized, armed, free-for-all for Congo resources.

This journalist reported in July 2007 that MONUC

officials were accepting kickbacks from warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba, and

there is evidence of MONUC collusion with other individuals

capitalizing on war and plunder in Congo.25

In December 2007, it was reported that a special task force for the

United Nations 搖ncovered a pervasive pattern of corruption and

mismanagement involving hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts

for fuel, food, construction and other materials used by U.N.

peacekeeping operations.?26

But this is the tip of the iceberg and the United

Nations actions are weak and, often enough, meaningless. Finally, the

MONUC mission in Congo institutionalizes the inequality and suffering

endured by Congolese people by maintaining double standards about labor

and employment packages provided to MONUC employees who live in the

host country: In August 2007 a major top work?strike was undertaken

by Congolese nationals in the MONUC system due to the entrenched and

continued injustices served on Congolese people working for the

mission, in comparison with the more comprehensive employment packages

provided to expatriate foreigners. The strike was almost entirely

unreported by the MONUC public information offices. The international

pressn keeping with their role as gatekeepers of suffering in

Congonvestigated nothing and, in the end, they only parroted the

official line.27

Unmanned Aerospace Vehicles

The United Nations and European Union Forces (EUFOR)

involved in Congo are there to secure corporate resources and insure

profits through military domination. Yet the cover story is hammered

into the Western 搉ews?consuming consciousness as a umanitarian?or

a eacekeeping?mission.

Advanced technologies like Israel Aircraft

Industries/Belgian Hunter UAVs (Unmanned Aerospace Vehicles)

intelligence platforms are now used by Belgian defense forces in flying

operations over Congo.28

Two UAVs have crashed in Kinshasa, killing one Congolese person and

wounding 10 others, and the Israeli-Belgian fleet has depl
oyed three

more UAVs. Belgian Defense command indicates that the UAVs are to

揷ollect information on road traffic and crowd activities.?sup> 29

But the statement is a euphemism for maintaining the status quo of

suffering, starvation, torture and dispossession in Congo, while

further enhancing foreign military domination and expansion.

Three cheers for the rogue Congolese soldier with

the battered Kalashnikov AK-47 whose single shot at one of the EUFOR

robotic UAVs flying overhead (at 1200 feet) penetrated the wing joint,

pierced a structural weak point and caused the wing to crumble and the

UAV to crash. Of course, the poor man has disappeared into the dungeons

of hell in Kinshasa, and he will go down in history as a criminal,

rather than a hero whose expression of frustration and misery

manifested in shooting down a $10 million dollar Israeli weapon with a

pop gun.

The Belgian military described the man as a one gunmen with a known criminal record.?a href=”http://us.f537.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?box=Inbox%26amp;MsgId=4363_42740801_21733_2445_63963_0_563184_160785_2623389387%26amp;bodyPart=2%26amp;tnef=%26amp;YY=81843%26amp;y5beta=yes%26amp;y5beta=yes%26amp;order=down%26amp;sort=date%26amp;pos=0%26amp;ViewAttach=1%26amp;Idx=34#0200001E” rel=”nofollow”>30

But the hubris of this statement defies articulation when we remember

the known criminal records of the white men involved in devastating

Congo, then Zaire, and now Congo, since the arrival of Henry Morton

Stanley and his blood-rubber and hand-chopping-off enterprises in the

1870.

Where is the international rescue committee?

As of January 2008 there are consistent reports of

starvation in Kinshasa, and reports of arbitrary arrest and illegal

detention of men, women and children at security facilities, including

underground torture centers, and this is certainly true all over the

country. As of December 2007, those arrested as a ecurity threat?and

held incommunicado in these Kinshasa dungeons include: Mimi Mboyo (19)

and child (jailed %26gt;18 months); Angele (17) and child (jailed %26gt;24

months); Mianda Kadogo (19) and child (jailed %26gt;11 months); Nicolette

Mukungu (20) and child (jailed %26gt;20 months); Bokungu (21); Olga (20)

and child (jailed %26gt;13 months); Edjoka (29). The main security

facilities in Kinshasa are Camp Tshiatshi, the Central Prison at

Makala, Camp Kokolo, and the underground dungeon known as 揷orridor of

death.?31 See Notes: Click here.

Tags: appointment, brother, bush administration, cate, decades, dirt, disappointment, europe, Food, ford, franchise, helicopter, hero, inner circle, job, journalist, pace, premise, rbi, target, ups, whip

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