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October 31, 2015 - No. 34 Where Did All the Euphoria Go? G20 Meeting in Turkey • 10th Annual Leaders Summit to Focus on "Global Recovery, Resilience and Sustainability" - Enver Villamizar - Reunion of Anti-War Activists in Vancouver • A Salute to the Heroic People of Vietnam and the Spirit of Resistance to Unjust Wars and Occupation! - Anne Jamieson - Discussion on the Direction of the Economy • Depriving the People of an Alternative at Stelco and Elsewhere - K.C. Adams - • Alberta Government Releases Budget 2015 • Infrastructure Development and the Privatization of Ontario Hydro One Foreign Affairs • Liberal Party's Foreign Policy Platform Developments Related to Syria • What Is ISIS? - Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya - • Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Vienna • Russia Confronts Disinformation About Air Strikes in Syria • U.S. Begins Ground Operations Aftermath of Coup in Honduras • Rights Groups Demand Investigation into Honduras Coup Abuses Historic Result for Cuba at United Nations • Another Resounding Verdict from the World's Peoples: U.S. Must Lift the Blockade Another U.S.-Backed Electoral Coup in Haiti • Violence and Fraud Used to Disenfranchise the People • In Haiti, It's the Obama-Clinton Elections - Samuel Maxime - For Your Information • Role of Private Sector and U.S. Embassy to Rig 2010 Election 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall Where Did All the Euphoria Go?Twenty-six years after the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 the world is truly a different place but not the one we were told it would be. That much is clear. Twenty-six years ago, the event seized the imagination
of the entire world
unleashing a flood of events in rapid succession. Even before the
Berlin Wall
was torn down in November, an agreement was reached in April 1989 in
Poland between the government and Solidarnosc. Later in December, came
the
assassination of President Nicolae Ceauseşcu of Romania. Within two
years, the Soviet Union had collapsed, ending the bi-polar division of
the world. The period of flow of revolution went into a period of
retreat of revolution.  Brandenburg Gate the day after the Berlin Wall was brought down At that time, the imperialist media and governments created a climate of euphoria and victory. Euphoria and more euphoria based on a massive campaign against communism was the order of the day for the ruling classes in the U.S., Canada and the big powers of Old Europe, its scale unprecedented even by Cold War standards. Everything would be set right, they declared. What is there to show for it? First came the war in Bosnia, the Russian invasion of Chechnya, Georgia's claims over Abkhazia, Armenians and Azeris fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, the bombing of Somalia, the NATO war to dismember Yugoslavia, 9/11 and its aftermath of even more anarchy and violence.  Protest against Canadian participation in NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Ottawa, April 4, 1999.
Under the aegis of "making everything right," nothing has been "made right." Crimes against humanity have become the distressing "new normal," whether in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and now Syria and many other countries. Crimes against the peace and killings of civilians are dismissed as collateral damage by the criminal imperialist leaders George W. Bush and Tony Blair and their cabals, and the others of their ilk who have followed.
The most common method has been to launch a known lie such as, "weapons of mass destruction" to justify a response considered merited. Invasion, regime change, responsibility to protect, training of police and military including former and current Nazis in the name of peace missions, coloured revolutions, anti-terror legislation, and the extension of NATO beyond the borders of the north Atlantic to encircle Russia are all justified with false pretexts which are cynical to the extreme. These include "responsibility to protect," “defence of women and religious minorities” and “humanitarian aid for refugees.” This onslaught against the working class, against the communist and workers' movement, and against the broad masses of the peoples the world over has been facilitated by those who failed to deal with the Cold War period and its quest to extinguish the revolutionary flow of the post World War Two period. The Anglo-American imperialists launched the assault to ensure humanity would not march to the drumbeat of democracy, freedom and emancipation following the victorious defeat of Hitler Nazism, Mussolini fascism and Japanese militarism. They imposed a definition of rights, which would not recognize economic, social and cultural rights but only civil rights on an anti-communist basis. The Americans organized a Marshall Plan economically to restore Old Europe to its reactionary might and put it under their control. They entered into a social contract to keep the working people and especially their leadership tied to the outmoded capitalist system in the imperialist heartlands. Last but not least, they imposed and enforced a public political authority to make sure the police power represented by NATO and the secret services of the U.S. and Britain, called the shots.
In Western Europe as a case in point, an Anglo-American imperialist sponsored mafia was put into the seat of power in Italy. The same imperialists imposed on Greece a 40-year rule of dregs of the British-spawned monarchy, fascist generals and directors of concentration camps. So too the instruments of counter-revolution were covertly established in all the people's democracies in Eastern Europe. The same Anglo-American imperialists organized the assassination or imprisonment of communist leaders, the heroes of the anti-fascist resistance and those who were in the van of the world anti-imperialist and anti-colonial movements. Within this bloodbath of imperialist repression, some communist parties fought valiantly, some suffered terrible irreparable losses and some were incorporated into the parliamentary political system driven by the Anglo-American police power.
Ultimately, the failure to defend the revolution in the former Soviet Union and people's democracies, and the success of the Anglo-American so-called social contract to subvert the workers' movement in the imperialist heartlands distorted communism to such an extent the people rebelled against the hopelessness of its fictional representation. This ushered in the current period of retreat of revolution towards the end of the twentieth century, emboldening the U.S. imperialists to launch their bid to fashion through military might and subversion a "unipolar world" under their hegemony.
U.S. hegemony has shown itself to be unsustainable, constantly demanding a change of tactics to deal with new forces and alliances that emerge daily, which are encouraged by one another to hold the U.S. and its aggressive NATO axis in check. Talk turns to the establishment of a new balance of power internationally to preserve the peace, even as others pursue warmongering as a means to achieve the upper hand.
What is all this about? Is the world beginning to come to terms with what happened 26 years ago? What comes next? What role will the Trudeau government play in these developments?
The unfolding events have to be observed, studied, deliberated on and analyzed in the coming period: - the developments in Syria and throughout West Asia and North Africa, and the relevant speeches of the presidents of Russia, Syria, Iran, China and others, as well as the response of the U.S. ruling circles and those of their allies; the upcoming G7 and G20 summits taking place in Turkey; - the Climate Conference taking place in Paris and ongoing related events and unfolding developments are all occasions to undertake study and actions with analysis. Certainly the euphoria which accompanied the destruction of the Berlin Wall 26 years ago has long since evaporated. But has the dust settled? What do we see? We see that the working class and the peoples of the entire world are a decisive part of the equation. They have come to see ever more clearly that the destruction of the power of the imperialist bourgeoisie does not happen merely with a change of government, with regime change or with changing the form in which elections are held. Summing up the experience of how to deprive the imperialist bourgeoisie of its power to deprive the people of their right to solve problems and move society forward is the crux of the matter today.
TML Weekly will do its best to provide information and orientation pertinent to these questions of war and peace, and the need for democratic renewal and an anti-war government, which so profoundly concern humankind.
G20 Meeting in Turkey 10th Annual Leaders Summit to Focus on
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This has gone hand in hand with
free trade mania in all directions under
the control of the most powerful global monopolies, accompanied by
massive
unemployment and the accumulation of poverty at one pole and the
greatest
riches at the other. Humanity is subjected to the worst treatment by
the
monopolies and oligopolies and by the world bourgeoisie, which does not
want
to depart the scene of history and give way to the new.
The U.S. imperialists sang
the refrain "mission accomplished" over and over again to announce
victory but each time the facts on the ground tore the banner to
shreds. The unipolar striving for world domination of the U.S.
imperialists and the collusion and contention of their NATO allies
cannot be consolidated because nobody anywhere agrees to submit, not
even within their own camp, while the consequences of their actions
deepen the crises in which the old world is mired.
The 2015 G20 Leaders Summit will be held in
Antalya, Turkey November
15-16. The Antalya summit will be the tenth annual meeting of the G20
heads
of government. The summit, which culminates the G20 member states'
ministers meetings for the year, is being organized by this year's
presidency,
Turkey. Turkey officially took over the presidency of the G20 from
Australia
on December 1, 2014 and China will preside over the organization in
2016.
Canadians can also expect
media attention and disinformation on Canada's
role in the world and in establishing the G20. The summit will likely
be used
to present the Liberals as re-establishing Canada's place in the world,
as
opposed to the Harper government's isolation and hooligan behaviour.
Specifically it will be recalled that former Liberal Prime Minister
Paul Martin
claims to have, along with U.S. Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton,
Lawrence Summers, initiated the G20 by establishing a G20 Finance
Ministers'
meeting. At that time they claimed that the rules being imposed by the
G8
countries and the brutal prescriptions of the IMF and World Bank of
that
period could not be implemented by less developed countries and that
the big
powers needed to "really understand" what was happening in these
countries'
economies in order to impose their dictate.
To salute the spirit of
resistance to unjust wars and
occupation, and to
mark the day in August 1965 when those youth and students stood up to
oppose U.S. aggression against the people of Vietnam, a reunion of
anti-war
activists and their friends and families was held September 13 in
Vancouver.
The reunion honoured the Vietnamese people who fought so courageously
for
10 years against the invasion and occupation by the U.S. aggressors;
in the
decades before that French colonial occupation; and Japanese
imperialist
forces during the Second World War. The reunion is a reminder that we
cannot rest until the scourge of aggressive wars is ended once and for
all. The
task nowadays for Canadians is to expel the warmongers from power and
work
to establish an anti-war government. This will be a great contribution
to the
cause of world peace, and the best possible homage to those who have
suffered
and struggled against unjust wars of aggression.
Many steelworkers who held stock equity in the former
Stelco during its sojourn in the earlier CCAA fraud of 2004-06 know
this all too well. They lost
almost everything. The CCAA monitor in cahoots with the
debtor-in-possession and a CEO opportunist parachuted in from the U.S.
to direct the sell-out, and
a hedge fund from New York became the new owners of Stelco's assets.
With the connivance of CCAA Judge Farley, the parasites disappeared the
old shares
into a dark pit and seized the assets for themselves. They emerged from
CCAA as the scheming owners of what they called new Stelco shares and presto
flipped them to U.S. Steel for a big score.
In his clumsy way, D'Cruz
recognizes that the political
will of the people, their public right and interest, is in
contradiction with the political will of the
monopolies, their narrow private economic interests. This boils down to
a fight between public right and monopoly right but D'Cruz prefers not
to put it that
way. He sees it more as the necessity to bow down to monopoly right and
certainly not to restrict it. Bowing down to monopoly right is
characterized as being
practical or pragmatic, the bending of principles to meet the demands
of the global investors, their "political desire for economic activity"
without "protecting
workers and pensioners."
The line of pragmatism and
no alternative says that the
people can have their principles and policy objectives but they should
never translate those into
practical politics, into an alternative in the here and now, into a new
direction for the economy because monopoly right controls the political
and economic affairs
of the country. According to this line of constantly capitulating to
the old, to the status quo of class privilege and control of the rich
and their monopolies, the
people must betray their principles with pragmatism and reject any talk
or motion towards an alternative, reject any recognition of the
necessity for change
towards a new pro-social direction for the economy that restricts
monopoly right and its narrow private interests, and upholds public
right and the broad interests
of the people, protects workers and pensioners and deals with the
problems of the broad economy as they present themselves and refuses to
fudge the problems
to fit a preordained dogma and false solutions such as wrecking,
concessions and austerity. Alberta Finance Minister Joe Ceci announces the 2015 budget, October 27, 2015. |
This will be a disappointment to many since this approach is not designed to deal with society's problems and find new sources of revenue within the economy itself such as through public enterprise, establishing a public authority over the wholesale sector, and forcing the federal government to allow provinces to borrow directly from the Bank of Canada, as was customary during the heyday of nation-building. The working people will have to decide whether the measures the budget contains are favourable to them at this time and how to contribute to solving the severe economic problems they face.
The budget includes:
"Prudent management of expense growth at two per cent
each year over
the next four years, as revenue grows by an estimated six per cent each
year
over the same period. A salary freeze for Cabinet ministers, MLAs and
political staff for the entire term of this Legislature. A
comprehensive review
of Alberta's Agencies, Boards and Commissions. Hiring restraint across
the
Alberta Public Service. A new Fiscal
Planning and Transparency Act that
will
limit government debt to 15 per cent of nominal GDP -- half the average
of
Canadian provinces."
In a press release the government says, "Budget 2015 lays the groundwork for a stronger, diversified economy while stabilizing the frontline public services that all Albertans rely on."
"This plan will achieve three key priorities for
Albertans:
- Stabilizing frontline public services, including
health care, education, and
social services;
- Setting out a prudent path to return to balance;
- and Stimulating job creation, economic growth and
diversification."
Regarding the budget, Joe Ceci, the government's President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Finance said, "Albertans told us they want a plan that supports good jobs and a strong economy. They told us they want their families' health care and education to be protected, while ensuring every public dollar is well spent -- and that's exactly what we are going to do."
The press release states, "Budget 2015 includes stable funding for Alberta's hospitals, schools and social services, reversing the previous government's cuts to frontline services."
It goes on to say, "A 15 per cent increase to the capital plan will put $4.5 billion more towards fixing roads, building schools and expanding hospitals in communities across the province. This ambitious infrastructure program will put Albertans back to work and support economic growth."
Ceci added, "This budget lays out a responsible plan that will serve as a shock absorber to our short-term economic challenges, stabilizing programs like heath care and education, while growing the economy over the long term."
Budget 2015 Highlights
"An investment of $34 billion over the next five years to support modern, efficient infrastructure for Alberta families and businesses, bolstering the province's economic recovery.
"This includes:
$3.8 billion for schools,
$4.7 billion for roads and bridges,
$2.2 billion for health facilities and equipment,
$4.4 billion in new projects and programs that will be
considered based on
transparent and accountable criteria."
"Budget 2015 stabilizes Alberta's public health care system with predictable, long-term funding while getting the annual growth of the health budget under control."
"3-Year Funding
2015-16: $19.7 billion
2016-17: $20.4 billion
2017-18: $20.9 billion"
"$120 million over two years (starting in 2016-17) for
new long-term care
spaces.
$90 million over two years (starting in 2016-17) to
expand public
homecare.
$10 million annually to support mental health services."
"Increased support for seniors' health care, including drug, dental, optical and supplemental health benefits."
"Budget 2015 demonstrates a strong commitment to students and families by ensuring children have good schools, enough teachers and every opportunity to succeed. Stable and predictable funding for our schools will fully cover growth in student enrolment."
"3-Year Funding
2015-16: $7.6 billion
2016-17: $7.9 billion
2017-18: $8.1 billion"
The release says this
investment in education will mean,
"Approximately
380 more teachers and 150 more support staff added to the education
system.
More support for students with special needs in the form of educational
assistants and other classroom supports. A new school nutrition program
to
support families and give kids a healthy start. A $45 million annual
investment
to reduce the burden of school fees for families, beginning in 2016."
"Budget 2015 provides stable funding for the post-secondary system, supporting an estimated 250,000 full and part-time students and apprentices."
"3-Year Funding
2015-16: $5.7 billion
2016-17: $5.9 billion
2017-18: $6.0 billion"
This funding supports, "A two-year tuition freeze for post-secondary students to help ensure more Albertans have access to affordable higher education. $228 million for Student Aid programs in 2015-16, to support scholarships for about 47,500 students and grants for about 16,000 students. $579 million in student loans will be disbursed to more than 77,000 students in 2015-16."
The Alberta government says, "Budget 2015 increases support for children and families in most need of help. Highlights include:
"More support for children in care, helping vulnerable families with new funding for the Family and Community Support Services program. New annual funding of $15 million to support women's shelters. Increased support for people with disabilities, child intervention, child care, and homeless and outreach supports. An enhanced Alberta Family Employment Tax Credit (AFETC) to provide lower and middle-income working families with additional support. A new Alberta Child Benefit to help lower and middle income families make ends meet."
On the neo-liberal pressure to pay private enterprise to develop the economy, the release says, "A new two-year Job Creation Incentive Program will provide Alberta employers with grants of up to $5,000 for each new job. It will support up to 27,000 new jobs each year, through to 2017. A new Ministry of Economic Development and Trade to expand Alberta's access to foreign and domestic markets. New measures to improve access to capital for small- and medium-sized businesses."
On the contentious issue of government's source of revenue, the release says, "Budget 2015 introduces new measures to reduce Alberta's reliance on non-renewable resource revenue and protects Alberta's overall tax advantage. Albertans will continue to pay the lowest overall taxes compared to other provinces with no provincial sales tax, no payroll tax, no health care premiums, and the lowest gasoline tax."
"Revenue changes in Budget 2015 include:
"A five dollar per carton increase to the tobacco tax. A five per cent increase to the liquor markup. A four-cent increase to the locomotive fuel tax. A one percentage point increase on insurance premium tax rates.
"Together, with changes already implemented in 2015, this will provide an additional $1.5 billion in 2015-16 and approximately $2.3 billion per year for the next two fiscal years, helping government return to balance while protecting public programs and services. When all changes announced in the budget are fully implemented, Alberta will still maintain an overall tax advantage of at least $8.5 billion."
Other announcements indicate that the government plans to borrow approximately $4 billion over the next two years from private sources for programs and services in addition to $8 billion annually over the next five years for major infrastructure projects.
Responses to the Budget
The Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) said Premier Notley made the best of a bad situation and that the budget will help Alberta get out of the slump. In a press release issued on October 27, it said that "budget cuts in a time of economic downturn would have thrown the province into a deep recession."
"The budget accounts for the growing needs of Albertans. It includes a four per cent increase for Health, two per cent increase for Advanced Education, sufficient increases to Education to fully fund enrollment growth, and $4.3 billion in sustained funding for Human Services, including income supports and programs that serve Albertans who are vulnerable to an economic slowdown," the AFL said.
"The Notley Government continues to implement its platform by budgeting for 2,000 long-term care beds and a robust public homecare plan, a two-year tuition freeze for post-secondary students, and the elimination of school fees. And this budget showcases the government's commitment to Alberta's future growth by providing hardworking families with a new Alberta Child Benefit, to support 235,000 children, and setting out a bold vision for sustained and diverse job growth with new initiatives across the government," the AFL press release added.
The Alberta Teachers' Association (ATA) issued a press release entitled Ghosts of Budgets Past Continue to Haunt Education in Alberta. ATA President Mark Ramsankar says Alberta's new 2015 budget includes treats and a few tricks for Alberta schools, but says real improvement will depend on the government exorcising the ghosts of budgets past. Basic grants for school boards in 2015-16 will fund student population growth and provide the first inflationary increase since 2012, according to Ramsankar, but they will simply maintain the learning conditions in place last year rather than reverse the six-year downward trend in support for students.
"Teaching and learning conditions will be about the same as last year and better than what was proposed by the last government. But Alberta schools continue to be haunted by inadequate support for special needs students, cuts to English language learner programs and class sizes that are simply too large."
"Today's announcements about additional funding for inclusive education, school nutrition and school fee reductions in the years ahead are positive steps towards ensuring a great school for all. But public education has been chronically underfunded, and if the government needs to raise additional revenue to fix that, then so be it."
The Alberta Teachers' Association is the professional organization of teachers. It says it promotes and advances public education, safeguards standards of professional practice and serves as the advocate for its 36,000 members.
Infrastructure Development and the
Privatization of
Ontario Hydro
One
Public sector workers hold action to keep Hydro One public, October 4, 2015.
Finding a stable source of public revenue is a major issue confronting governments. How governments raise revenue from the socialized economy is a matter of public concern and debate. One considerable revenue source is public enterprise including infrastructure. The truth of public infrastructure as an abundant, reliable and stable source of government revenue is proved in the desire of private investors to seize the produced and realized revenue for their own narrow interests. This is especially evident where the value contained in infrastructure is readily realized such as with Hydro One. The neo-liberal mania of the Ontario Liberal government to privatize Hydro One reflects the desire of private interests to seize the value hydro workers constantly produce.
In capital-centred lexicon, privatization means a "public" offering of shares in the already public enterprise with most going to large "retail" investors representing the richest of the global rich. Private interests will first buy 81.1 million shares of publicly-owned Hydro One at $20.50 and be eligible to buy another 8.15 million. Each share begins to receive an annual dividend of 86 cents plus whatever increase the share may experience on the stock market. Usually the share-price the large retail investors initially pay jumps immediately once it hits the open market. That increase goes to the private owners. Any increase in the share price also increases the annual dividend the privatized Hydro One must pay, which is presently fixed at 4.2 per cent per share.
Recent news agency reports indicate that Ontario Hydro will now be purchased by two unions, the Power Workers Union and the Professional Engineers Union, with partial financing in the form of loans from the Ontario government.
Ontario Financial Accountability Officer Looks at the
Figures
and
Raises the Alarm
 Click to enlarge. |
The public treasury receives $1.83 billion from the initial sale of 15 per cent of Hydro One to private interests minus an undisclosed amount private financial brokers seize for placing the orders. This preliminary privatization will soon increase to 60 per cent of the public enterprise.
Another aspect of this privatization is the transfer, prior to the sale of shares, of certain Hydro One liquid assets and earnings owed to the public treasury. The government says it has received "$1 billion from the company through a cash dividend and payment in lieu of taxes." This large payment indicates just how valuable Hydro One is to the public treasury as a constant source of revenue, how much annual revenue will be lost with privatization, and how much private interests covet ownership and control of this valuable public infrastructure.
According to the current executive managers of Hydro One, the annual dividend per share has been set, at least initially, at a yield of 4.2 per cent for the private purchasers of shares. The people cannot accept the released figures as reliable as the public authority in control of Hydro One and the Liberal government refuse to be accountable to the people. They have denied the release of certain documents relating to the sale, even to their own Accountability Officer, citing investor confidentiality, as if the people and public interest are not affected and damaged by the sale. If the government and its officials at Hydro One were accountable, they would not have agreed to this corrupt privatization in the first place.
The initial annual dividend paid to private owners of shares will amount to around $77 million. This climbs to an annual dividend of $307 million, as privatization reaches 60 per cent. The dividend represents only a portion of the realized added-value from Hydro One revenue that the government will hand over to private interests. Additional lost revenue will go towards constant renewal of the fixed assets, which increases the value of the private ownership; it goes to pay executive managers and Board directors exorbitant amounts, and goes to pay interest to owners of debt.
The Ontario Financial Accountability Officer Stephen LeClair, who has done a detailed analysis of the privatization with the figures that are public knowledge, estimates annual lost revenue to the public treasury at $500 million for as long as Hydro is a going concern.
"By 2019-20 once the full 60 per cent has been sold, the Province would experience an ongoing negative impact on budget balance from forgone net income and payments-in-lieu of taxes from Hydro One," LeClair's report reveals.[1]
In a dramatic press conference on October 29, LeClair said the Ontario Liberal government's planned privatization of Hydro One would cost the government up to $500-million every year in lost revenue, would drive up the province's debt, and worsen the government's fiscal position. LeClair's analysis found that the one-time cash injection to government revenue from the sale of shares to private interests would result in far more lost revenue than the amount received.
"The province's fiscal
position will deteriorate
compared to if they didn't
undertake this sale," Financial Accountability Officer LeClair told
reporters at
Queen's Park. "The sale of Hydro One will have an immediate improvement
to the province's balance sheet, but because of the loss of net income
that
results from the partial sale of Hydro One, there will be subsequent
worsening
of the government's fiscal position relative to, if this sale had not
occurred."
Another damning feature of the privatization of Hydro One stems from the use of the funds received from the sale. The Liberal government says only $4 billion will go towards new infrastructure projects while the rest, estimated to be almost $5 billion, will be used to pay private owners of provincial debt. The squandering of $5 billion to pay private interests who hold provincial debt, an economic practice that should never have started, makes this privatization even more criminal.[2]
The Ontario public treasury will be entitled to only 40 per cent of Hydro One's $750 million annual dividend, instead of taking in the full amount as it does now. This loss does not even account for the corporate taxes that will not be paid until at least 2020 under the terms of the privatization. At present, in addition to the annual Hydro One $750 million dividend, the public enterprise pays $100 million in annual fees to the public treasury in lieu of corporate taxes.
LeClair said he asked the Liberal government for its calculations on the financial effect of selling Hydro One, but it would not give him the numbers. "They responded that the information was cabinet confidence," he said. This secrecy, even when public interest is paramount, reflects the loss of public control and accountability when powerful private interests are involved.
LeClair said that a privatized Hydro One's dividend to the 60 per cent private interests who buy the shares and to the 40 per cent of the enterprise still held by the public would have to more than double to make up for the money the province will lose from giving up 60 per cent of those payments to private investors. This dramatic increase in realized added-value available for dividend payments would require amongst other things, a decrease in the wages and salaries of Hydro One employees, and big increases in the retail price of electricity sold to businesses and individuals.
Notes and Areas of Further Discussion on Infrastructure
1) The use of $5 billion to
pay to private owners of
Ontario debt raises the
issue of the legitimacy of existing public debt held by private
interests. Many
Canadians consider public debt issued to private interests as not
legitimate,
even corrupt and criminal. This debt could easily be held by public
financial
enterprises within the public sector without loss to outside private
interests
located even outside the province and country. The neo-liberal line is
to
prioritize this debt to private interests and use its existence to
attack public
investments in social programs and public services. The pro-social
alternative
is to quarantine the existing debt, stop the issuance of any new public
debt to
private buyers, and immediately begin building a vibrant publicly owned
and
controlled financial sector. A moratorium should be instituted on the
payment
of most interest on the public debt while a fully transparent public
inquiry is
held into who holds the debt, its legitimacy and how much private
interests
have profited from holding public debt. During the quarantine, only
individuals
should be allowed to withdraw their money and receive interest. Many
estimates suggest most of the debt, where the interest is compounded,
has
already been paid in full and more over the years. The debts'
continuing
existence and use by public authorities are obsolete and corrupt.
Private
interests can make direct investments in the socialized economy but
should be
restricted from participating in the financial sector, which, for the
most part,
they have in corrupt practices oozing with parasitism and decay.
Public authorities should be prohibited from borrowing from private interests. In fact, such a practice should be viewed as a form of corruption and a criminal offense. A priority for modern governments is to establish a vibrant public financial system that is not a burden on the people and economy. Such a public financial system could meet all the banking requirements of the people, all borrowing needs of governments and public enterprises, and most borrowing requirements of private enterprises and individuals.
2) An important part of the discussion on infrastructure is the issue of the creation of public engineering enterprises at the national and provincial levels to build and manage all public infrastructure. Such public enterprises would create conditions for ongoing infrastructure building and maintenance to meet the needs of nation-building where the value remains within the public sector to become a great source of public revenue.
3) Another aspect of the discussion on material and social infrastructure is the proper realization of infrastructure value when economic units active in the economy consume the value. Infrastructure in a modern Canada is a necessary feature serving the socialized economy, nation-building and the general interests of society.
Infrastructure is directed at the economy for the use of its economic units, and for the use of all individuals equally. A modern economy cannot function without extensive infrastructure for which the value is transferred into the goods and services the working class produces within the socialized economy at its various units whether public or private. The economic units must pay for the transferred-value they use, the already-produced value within the infrastructure that they consume and transfer into the goods and services their workers produce.
The infrastructure's use by individuals without user
fees forms part of the
rights of the people to live without discrimination and infringement on
their
individual rights. This includes the use of infrastructure and other
public
services equally by all individuals without user fees.
Note
1. Complete report available here.
2. The illegitimate practice of issuing public debt to private buyers.
(With files from the Globe and Mail and Financial Post)
Foreign Affairs
Liberal Party's Foreign Policy Platform
TML Weekly is posting below those parts of the Liberal Party's "Real Change" platform for the 42nd General Election concerning Canada's relations with other countries and the structure and make-up of Canada's military.
Canadian Leadership, Peace and Security, Strategic Priorities
Canada's Leadership in the World
We will restore Canadian leadership in the world.
Canada has a proud tradition of international leadership, from helping to create the United Nations after the Second World War, to the campaign against South African apartheid, to the international treaty to ban landmines.
Unfortunately, under Stephen Harper, our influence and presence on the world stage has steadily diminished. Instead of working with other countries constructively at the United Nations, the Harper Conservatives have turned their backs on the UN and other multilateral institutions, while also weakening Canada's military, our diplomatic service, and our development programs.
Whether confronting climate change, terrorism and radicalization, or international conflicts, the need for effective Canadian diplomacy has never been greater than it is today.
Our plan will restore Canada as a leader in the world. Not only to provide greater security and economic growth for Canadians, but because Canada can make a real and valuable contribution to a more peaceful and prosperous world.
Promoting International Peace and Security
We will renew Canada's commitment to peacekeeping operations.
Under Stephen Harper, Canada has dramatically scaled back its involvement in peace operations -- a decision that could not come at a worse time. As the number of violent conflicts in the world escalates, demand for international peace operations has never been greater.
Peace operations are
important not only because of the help they provide
to millions of people affected by conflicts, but also because they
serve
Canada's interests. A more peaceful world is a safer and more
prosperous
world for Canada, too.
We will recommit to supporting international peace operations with the United Nations, and will make our specialized capabilities -- from mobile medical teams to engineering support to aircraft that can carry supplies and personnel -- available on a case-by-case basis.
To help the UN respond more quickly to emerging and escalating conflicts, we will provide well-trained personnel that can be quickly deployed, including mission commanders, staff officers, and headquarters units.
We will prioritize assistance for civilian police training operations, particularly Francophone officers, who are in great demand in French-speaking countries with peace operations.
We will lead an international effort to improve and expand the training of military and civilian personnel deployed on peace operations, and will insist that any peacekeepers involved in misconduct be held accountable by their own country and the United Nations.
Finally, to better help those affected by war and violent conflict, we will contribute more to the United Nations' mediation, conflict-prevention, and post-conflict reconstruction efforts.
Central and Eastern Europe
We will remain fully committed to Canada's existing military contributions in Central and Eastern Europe.
This includes Canada's participation in NATO assurance measures in Central and Eastern Europe (Operation REASSURANCE) and the multinational training mission in Ukraine (Operation UNIFIER).
Combat Mission in Iraq
We will end Canada's combat mission in Iraq.
We will refocus Canada's military contribution in the region on the training of local forces, while providing more humanitarian support and immediately welcoming 25,000 more refugees from Syria.
Strategic Priorities
We will immediately begin an open and transparent review process of existing defence capabilities, with the goal of delivering a more effective, better-equipped military.
The Canada First Defence
Strategy, launched by Stephen Harper in 2008,
is underfunded and out of date. We will review current programs and
capabilities, and lay out a realistic plan to strengthen Canada's Armed
Forces.
We will develop the Canadian Armed Forces into an agile, responsive, and well-equipped military force that can effectively defend Canada and North America; provide support during natural disasters, humanitarian support missions, and peace operations; and offer international deterrence and combat capability.
We will continue to work with the United States to defend North America under NORAD, and contribute to regional security within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
We will ensure that equipment is acquired faster, and with vigorous Parliamentary oversight.
We will put a renewed focus on surveillance and control of Canadian territory and approaches, particularly our Arctic regions, and will increase the size of the Canadian Rangers.
Military Issues
Investing in Our Military
We will maintain current National
Defence spending levels, including
current planned increases.
Under Stephen Harper, investments in the Canadian Armed Forces have been erratic, promised increases in funding have been scaled back, and more than $10 billion of approved funding was left unspent.
This mismanagement has left Canada's Armed Forces underfunded and ill-equipped, and the courageous members of the Forces unsupported after years of dedicated service.
We will not let Canada's Armed Forces be shortchanged, and we will not lapse military spending from year to year. We will also reinvest in building a leaner, more agile, better-equipped military, including adequate support systems for military personnel and their families.
F-35
We will not buy the F-35 stealth fighter-bomber.
We will immediately launch an open and transparent competition to replace the CF-18 fighter aircraft. The primary mission of our fighter aircraft should remain the defence of North America, not stealth first-strike capability.
We will reduce the procurement budget for replacing the CF-18s, and will instead purchase one of the many, lower-priced options that better match Canada's defence needs.
Royal Canadian Navy
We will make investing in the Royal Canadian Navy a top priority.
By purchasing more affordable alternatives to the F-35s, we will be able to invest in strengthening our Navy, while also meeting the commitments that were made as part of the National Shipbuilding and Procurement Strategy. Unlike Stephen Harper, we will have the funds that we need to build promised icebreakers, supply ships, arctic and offshore patrol ships, surface combatants, and other resources required by the Navy.
These investments will ensure that the Royal Canadian Navy is able to operate as a true blue-water maritime force, while also growing our economy and creating jobs.[1]
Report on Transformation
We will implement the recommendations made in the Canadian Forces' Report on Transformation.[2]
The Canadian Armed Forces' ability to protect Canada's borders and work with our allies overseas should never be compromised. Threats to its ability to meet future obligations must be addressed head on.
The Report on Transformation made a series of recommendations on how to build a more modern, efficient, and effective military, including reducing the size of administration within government and the Canadian Armed Forces in order to strengthen front-line operations.
Note
1. A blue-water navy is a maritime force with
expeditionary capabilities.
While definitions of what actually constitutes such a force vary, there
is a
requirement for the ability to exercise sea control at wide ranges. The
U.S.
Defense Security Service define a blue-water navy as "a maritime force
capable of sustained operation across the deep waters of open oceans. A
blue-water navy allows a country to project power far from the home
country
and usually includes one or more aircraft carriers. Smaller blue-water
navies
are able to dispatch fewer vessels abroad for shorter periods of time."
2. ("The People vs. The Harper Dictatorship," TML Weekly, October 22, 2011 - No. 1)
Developments Related to Syria
What Is ISIS?
Ahead of a meeting scheduled between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama and their speeches to the United Nations General Assembly in late September, the Russian President branded Washington's support for the insurgent forces in Syria as both illegal and ineffective in an interview with Charlie Rose for the U.S. CBS and PBS television networks. Aside from saying that U.S. support to the insurgents was a "provision of military support to illegal structures" that violates "the principles of modern international law and the United Nations Charter," Putin pointed out that the militants being trained and armed by the U.S. were actually joining the so-called Islamic State.
Washington is fighting a
multi-dimensional global war on several fronts
using proxies. In Europe it is using the Ukrainian government and the
European Union to confront the Russian Federation while in Arabia it is
using
Saudi Arabia and a group of Arab regimes to gain control over Yemen. In
East
Asia the U.S. is using tensions between the People's Republic of China
and
its neighbours to confront Beijing. In this context South Korea is
being used
to confront the North Koreans as a means of ultimately targeting the
Chinese.
The so-called Islamic State or ISIL/ISIS is a creation of the U.S. It has been incubated by Washington as a proxy to wage the very same multi-dimensional war that has been described above. In fact, the U.S. military build-up in Iraq and Syria that the U.S. is leading is a smokescreen for regime change and war operations in Southwest Asia that target Syria, Iran, and their regional allies. The U.S. has been using parallel tracks of engaging these players while it continues to build-up the means for war and regime change. This is why mission creep is setting in and the U.S., along with Canada and France, has been bombing Syria and its infrastructure under the pretext of bombing ISIL/ISIS. The fact that the U.S. and its allies are engaging with Iran or Syria is only a repeat of the scenario of what happened to the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya; while the U.S. engaged with Muammar Qaddafi, it built-up the means for regime change against him. Moreover, it is precisely due to these regime change plans that Russia, Iran, Iraq, and Syria have setup a coordinating cell in Baghdad to fight the ISIL/ISIS and that the Russians are reinvigorating their military presence inside Syria.
The name changes of the
groups fighting in Syria and Iraq should not fool
anyone. In essence they are the same forces; they are "agents of chaos"
being
using to create insecurity against U.S. rivals and any governments or
entities
that are resisting U.S. edicts. With the erosion of Al-Qaeda and the
fading of
Osama bin Laden from the limelight, Washington created new legends or
myths to replace them in the eyes of the public and the world as a
means to
sustain its foreign policy. Soon Jubhat Al-Nusra, ISIL/ISIS, and Abu
Bakr
al-Baghdadi were all conjured up and fostered as new bogeymen and
monsters
to sustain Washington's "long war" and to justify the militarism of the
United
States. These bogymen also have been used to fan the flames of
sedition, drive
out Christians and other minorities, and fuel sectarianism among
Muslims with
the objective of dividing the region and pushing Sunni Muslims and
Shiite
Muslims to kill one another.
This is why the Canadian embassy in Jordan was caught recruiting for the ISIL/ISIS and Canadian diplomats had aided in the formation of the Syrian National Council (SNC) as a face for the death squads in Syria. While the Harperites demonize Arabs and Muslims, in one way or another, at home in Canada, they have been supporting the head chopping ISIS/ISIL in Iraq and Syria. Before this, they supported the same characters in Libya and even allowed Canadian security contractors and drones to assist them.
Charges and reports have been made that Prime Minister Harper's government was recruiting for the same terrorist organization that it told Canadians it was fighting in Iraq and Syria. The Ottawa Citizen had this to say about it: "Canada's embassy in Jordan, which is run by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's handpicked ambassador and former top bodyguard, is being linked in news reports to an unfolding international terrorism and spy scandal." Reuters has also confirmed the Harper government's role in recruiting for the same terrorists it claims to be fighting alongside the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. "A European security source familiar with the case of the three girls said the person in question had a connection with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) spy agency," Reuters reported on March 12, 2015.
Canadian Public Safety Minister
Steven Blaney refused to comment on
the reports that Canada is recruiting for ISIL/ISIS, saying it was an
issue of
operational security whereas Ray Boisvert, a former CSIS director, said
that
the story is plausible. This is while Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut
Cavusoglu has said that the situation is very complicated, but that the
ISIL/ISIS recruiter is a Syrian national working for one of the
countries inside
Washington's anti-ISIL coalition. Although the man -- reported to be
called
Mohammed Al-Rashed -- is not a Canadian citizen, he had Canadian
government-issued equipment and was known to have visited the Canadian
Embassy in Amman frequently.
Despite the fact that it was ravaging Iraq and Syria for years, it is no coincidence that the ISIL/ISIS gained major world attention only in 2014 when the U.S. executed a new strategy in its war on Syria and its partners and needed a pretext to concentrate its military assets into Southwest Asia again. Nor is it a coincidence that the U.S. failed to notify the federal government in Baghdad about the attack on Mosul or that Iraqi officials reported that Israeli forces were also involved in the operations or that the corrupt Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Northern Iraq appeared to move in coordination with the insurgents from Syria in partitioning Iraq.
While Mosul was being taken over by the insurgents from Syria, Peshmerga troops were mobilized by the KRG to quickly takeover the energy-rich city of Kirkuk on June 12, 2014. KRG President Massoud Barzani began talking about dividing Iraq, saying the time had come for Iraqi Kurdistan to break away as a separate country, not long after the KRG takeover of Kirkuk and other federally administered Iraqi territory. This push for dividing Iraq was also endorsed by Israel when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a speech that echoed Massoud Barazani's calls. Canada and the anti-ISIL coalition have endorsed this too by sending arms to the KRG, circumventing the Iraqi federal government and military.
According to various high-level sources, the ISIL/ISIS has been nurtured by Washington as a smokescreen. The ISIL's leadership is controlled by the U.S., according to Nikolai Pushkaryov, a retired Russian lieutenant-general that worked in the Central Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff. Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier-General Massoud Jazayeri has corroborated this. Jazayeri has even testified that Iran knows that the U.S. and its allies have provided the ISIL with supplies to fight. This is why the U.S. and Turkey have been caught helping the ISIL/ISIS against the Kurds in Kobani and the rest of Syria. Moreover, Russia's Ramzan Kadyrov has claimed that Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was originally recruited inside Iraq to work for the U.S. by the disgraced General David Petraeus before he became the head of the ISIL. There are even photographs that appear to include Al-Baghdadi in meetings between Salim Idriss, the so-called Free Syrian Army's commander, and the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee's Senator John McCain in May 2013 when McCain illegally entered Syria from Turkey to discuss regime change in Damascus.
It says a lot when ISIL/ISIS forces have begun working privately for different Ukrainian oligarchs and actively fight in Ukraine through such formations as the Sheikh Mansour Battalion, alongside Ukrainian ultra-nationalist forces glorifying Nazism. This illustrates the fact that the ISIL/ISIS is a tool of Washington.
(October 5, 2015)
Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Vienna
Vienna, Austria, October 30, 2015
An expanded meeting of 19 key foreign ministers from the big powers and countries in the region took place in Vienna on October 30 with the aim of discussing a political solution to the conflict in Syria. China, Egypt, the European Union, France, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United Nations and the United States "came together to discuss the grave situation in Syria and how to bring about an end to the violence as soon as possible," a UN communique reported.
The day before, a quartet meeting in Vienna brought together the foreign ministers of Russia, the U.S., Turkey and Saudi Arabia, a week after a similar meeting took place.
In a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Special Envoy on Syria Steffan de Mistura on October 30 following the talks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that agreement was reached on several points during the talks. Lavrov said these included the need to preserve the unity and secular nature of Syria and its state institutions, protect the rights of Syrians of all ethnicities and religious groups, provide humanitarian aid, and continue providing aid to refugees and displaced people.
Lavrov stated, "We don't want terrorists to assume power in Syria," adding that the parties attending the talks agreed on the need to fight terrorism and on placing more groups active in Syria on their countries' respective lists of organizations deemed to be terrorist.
In a reference to the aim of regime change pushed
by the U.S. imperialists and others, Lavrov stressed that
the "future
of President al-Assad is decided upon by the Syrian people as a result
of the
political process." Participants in the meeting agreed
that this
process must be purely Syrian and belong to the Syrians who will decide
their
country's future on their own, he said.
Lavrov said that Russia supports the process of fighting terrorism and that this must be based on international laws and accords and conducted with the approval of the governments involved or via a Security Council resolution.
He said that the participants in the Vienna talks discussed the idea of announcing a ceasefire in parallel with a political process, and that they agreed to continue discussions on Syria with the participation of the UN. They also took into account that even if a ceasefire agreement is reached, the terrorist organizations will not be part of it.
While an agreement on a ceasefire has yet to be reached, an agreement was reached by all sides to have the UN bring the Syrian government and opposition groups together to initiate dialogue. They also agreed that the elections should be observed actively by the UN and must include all Syrians, including refugees in neighbouring countries, regardless of their affiliations.
Lavrov expressed confidence that the principles formulated at the Vienna meeting will lead to serious efforts to initiate the political process. He said that all participants were open to finding "middle-ground solutions," and that he hoped such openness would be found in upcoming meetings to be held two weeks from now.
Lavrov said that Russia has proposed joint coordination
for counter-terrorism operations in Syria to the United States, but
that the U.S. was determined to limit coordination to mechanisms to
prevent accidents in Syrian airspace. "We're confident that we can do
more than that and work more effectively against the terrorists," he
added.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the participants in the meeting agreed that the unity, independence, border integrity, and secular nature of Syria are essential issues. He also stated that Syrian state institutions must remain in place. Kerry also agreed on the need to speed up diplomatic efforts to end the war, and to fight ISIS and other terrorist organizations. He added that all parties agree that ISIS and other terrorist organizations must not be allowed to unite and control Syria.
Kerry reiterated the U.S.
call for interference in Syrians' decisions about their government
while at the same time claiming that the Syrians themselves will decide
their country's future. He stressed that disputes among the sides
attending the Vienna meeting must not hinder diplomatic efforts to
resolve the crisis in Syria, acknowledging that the political process
via UN-sponsored dialogue between the Syrian government and the
opposition is the only way to resolve the crisis.
For his part, UN Special Envoy de Mistura said that another meeting of
the same group, which he called the "special contact group on Syria,"
will be held in two weeks, and if it succeeds, there will be a meeting
at the negotiating table to bring together the Syrian government and
the opposition.
The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and
Security Policy Federica Mogherini said in a press conference that the
points of agreement reached during the Vienna meeting are "historic."
Mogherini noted that there are still problems and that the meeting was
not easy. Nonetheless, points of agreement were reached, and further
international dialogue regarding Syria will be conducted under UN
supervision, he said.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, who attended the talks, said
in a statement following the meeting that the essential principles for
resolving the crisis in Syria revolve around the word "unity" on three
levels: the unity of Syrian territory, the unity of the Syrian people
and the unity of the international community in working to resolve the
crisis and fighting terrorism.
Bassil also called for the inclusion of the rebuilding of Syria as part
of the political solution, because this would encourage all Syrians to
get involved.
(SANA, UN)
Russia Confronts Disinformation
About Air Strikes in Syria
The Russian Defense Ministry has urged NATO and Saudi Arabia to explain accusations that Russian airstrikes allegedly targeted hospitals in Syria, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said on October 27.
 Sputnik News infographic about Russian air strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria -- click to enlarge. |
"We have summoned the U.S., UK, French, German, Italian, Saudi Arabian, Turkish and NATO military attaches today asked to give a formal explanation of these statements or to refute them. This especially concerns a number of outrageous allegations in the English-speaking media about alleged airstrikes on hospitals," Antonov said.
According to Antonov, information attacks on the Russian Aerospace Forces' actions in Syria have intensified in a number of Western media outlets.
"We are being accused not only of launching airstrikes on 'moderate opposition', but also on civilian targets like hospitals, as well as mosques and schools. As a result, civilians are allegedly killed, according to Western media reports," Antonov said.
Citing statements made by U.S. State Secretary John Kerry, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon and French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian as examples, Antonov expressed regret that "some officials and politicians of a number of foreign states make similar statements [on civilian deaths in Russian airstrikes in Syria]." The Russian Defense Ministry is "closely monitoring and analyzing these statements," he said. Russia is bringing Russian and international communities to the notice about the Russian aviation's actions in Syria on a daily basis, he added.
"If our partners have some additional information, we have long called on them to share it with us."
He added that if no evidence on civilian deaths in Russian airstrikes in Syria was provided in a few days, Moscow would come to a conclusion that the claims were part of the information warfare against Russia.
"But if there is no evidence [of civilian casualties in Syria] or official refutal, we will consider that these anti-Russian media hoaxes are part of the information war against Russia."
"In every case when the information is confirmed about destroyed hospitals, mosques and schools, as well as the deaths of civilians as a result of the Russian Air Force's actions we will conduct a thorough investigation, of which Western media will be informed.
(Sputnik)
U.S. Begins Ground Operations
On October 30, the Wall Street Journal reported the U.S. is sending up to 50 special-operations troops to northeastern Syria to assist "rebel units spearheading what the Pentagon says would be a new military offensive against the militant group [ISIL], marking a sharp escalation in the level of direct U.S. involvement on the ground inside Syria."
Earlier in the week, speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee on October 27, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter indicated that not only would U.S. forces be deployed in Iraq to fight ISIL, but also in Syria.
"We won't hold back from
supporting capable partners in
opportunistic
attacks against ISIL, or conducting such missions directly whether by
strikes
from the air or direct action on the ground," he said.
The Obama administration's plan to train and equip so-called "moderate" rebels fell apart after the CIA was only able to identify a handful of "moderates." Of those, most surrendered to the Islamic State soon after being sent into the field, Sputnik reports.
In response to Carter's announcement, Russian President Vladimir Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, stressed that the Kremlin is waiting for more details on U.S. plans.
"It's not an announcement, no," he told reporters. "Not until we know, until we clarify the details, what [the Pentagon] has in mind. For now it's not clear."
The U.S. continues to push its unprincipled aim of regime change, insisting that the only way to insure peace in the region is to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power.
For its part, Russia points out that the fall of the country's legitimate government would only lead to more conflict, and that no one but the Syrian people have the authority to decide who is in power.
(Sputnik, Wall Street Journal)
Aftermath of Coup in Honduras
Rights Groups Demand Investigation
into Coup
Abuses
Hondurans mark sixth anniversary of the coup, June 28, 2015.
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) issued a statement on October 29 deploring the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to drop its investigation into human rights abuses following the 2009 coup in Honduras. FIDH reiterated its call for national and international investigation into the crimes regardless of the stand of the ICC.
The democratically-elected Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was ousted by a U.S.-backed military coup on June 28, 2009, kidnapped from his home and taken to exile in Costa Rica. The ruling elite in Honduras opposed Zelaya's plan to hold a non-binding poll on whether to hold a referendum in the upcoming election on convening a constituent assembly to rewrite the Honduran constitution.
The human rights situation in Honduras has deteriorated drastically since the coup. FIDH notes that "crime rates in Honduras... spiraled out of control in the wake of the coup... By 2012, Honduras had become the murder capital of the world with 90.4 homicides per 100,000 people."
In the northern Aguan Valley region alone, close to 150 campesino activists have been killed since 2010. FIDH and its affiliates raised particular concern about these human rights violations in the Aguan Valley. Militarization in the wake of the coup, along with an embedded cultrue of impunity has led to increases in the repression and criminalization of campesinos and human rights defenders, FIDH points out.
"Crimes of political persecution, assassination, forced disappearances, sexual and gender-based crimes, and forced displacement were committed in a systematic way as a result of the 2009 coup d'etat," said FIDH. "The coup destroyed the rule of law in Honduras."
The ICC stated that while
its prosecutors do not want to "minimize" the rights violations
committed in Honduras, these abuses do not constitute crimes against
humanity.
FIDH and its affiliated Honduran human rights organizations COFADEH and
CIPRODEH stated, "It is unacceptable to leave the victims of the
mentioned crimes without access to justice and reparation."
The organizations echoed the calls of social movements for the
establishment of an independent international body to lead
investigations with the backing of the UN. People's movements have
proposed a International Commission Against Impunity in Honduras or
CICIH to investigate corruption. FIDH said such a body could lead a
probe into coup-related abuses in the absence of the Honduran
government or ICC launching such investigations.
(TeleSUR, FIDH)
Historic Result for Cuba at United Nations
Another Resounding Verdict from the World's Peoples: U.S. Must Lift the Blockade
The General Assembly of the
United Nations has voted for the 24th consecutive year to support
Cuba's resolution calling for the U.S. blockade to be lifted
immediately. The October 27 vote was historic and unprecedented, with
191 countries voting in favour of the resolution, while only two, the
U.S. and Israel, opposed it.
For the first time, there were no abstentions. Last year the vote was
188 in favour of lifting the blockade: the U.S. and Israel opposed the
resolution and three small U.S. protectorates -- the Marshall Islands,
Federated States of Micronesia and Palau -- abstained. The U.S.
blockade has an extra-territorial character that inflicts severe
penalties on entities conducting business with Cuba, and is recognized
as a flagrant violation of the UN Charter and customary international
law.
TML Weekly salutes
the Cuban people and their leadership whose steadfast defence of their
homeland and their way of life has once again been vindicated on the
world stage.
Speech to UN General Assembly by Cuban Foreign Minister
Speaking to the UN General Assembly before the vote, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parilla reiterated that despite recent efforts to realize improved Cuba-U.S. relations, including U.S. measures ostensibly aimed at mitigating the blockade, the blockade effectively remains in place.
He pointed out many of these measures "could not be implemented unless others are adopted that would finally allow Cuba to freely export and import products and services to and from the United States; use American dollars in its international financial transactions and operate accounts in that currency in third countries' banks and have access to credits and financing from private entities and international financial institutions.
"The problem is not that
Cuba's political system hampers
the
implementation of these measures and therefore it needs to be modified
in
order to facilitate this process, as has been stated by some U.S.
officials. The
problem is the implacable and systematic existence of the blockade.
"We should not mix up reality with wishful thinking or expressions of good-will. In these circumstances, one can only judge the facts.
"And the facts show, crystal-clear, that the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed against Cuba is being fully and completely implemented.
"Ten months after the announcements made on December 17, no tangible, substantial modification has been introduced in the implementation of the blockade."
To underscore this point, Rodriguez provided numerous examples from recent weeks in which Cuba's attempts to carry out normal activities such as the purchase of medicine, foods and industrial goods have been blocked, while financial institutions through which it conducts transactions have been subjected to exorbitant fines.
He emphasized that the blockade "is a flagrant, massive and systematic violation of the human rights of all Cubans; it is contrary to International Law; it has been described as a crime of genocide by the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 and is the main obstacle to the economic and social development of our people.
He pointed out that 77 per cent of Cubans have been born under the blockade. In terms of quantifying the scale of damage and hardship the blockade has inflicted, Rodriguez informed:
"According to rigorous and conservative calculations, the economic damage it has caused after more than half a century amounts to $833.755 billion, based on the price of gold. At current prices, it amounts to $121.192 billion, a figure of enormous proportions for a small economy like ours."
Rodriguez called on U.S. President Barack Obama to use his executive powers to substantially mitigate the blockade and for Congress to also do its part to fully lift the blockade. To do so would be in keeping with the will of U.S. citizens, he pointed out.
While Cuba is very much interested in improving and normalizing relations with the U.S., the Foreign Minister unequivocally qualified that Cuba "will never negotiate its socialist system or [permit interference in] its internal affairs, nor will it allow any blemish on its independence, which was won at the cost of the blood of its best sons and daughters and after the huge sacrifices made by many generations since the beginning of our independence wars in 1868.
 Record of votes at the UN on Cuba's resolution against the U.S. blockade, 2004-2013. Click to Enlarge. |
"As has been reiterated by President Raúl Castro Ruz, both governments must find a way to coexist in a civilized manner, despite their profound differences, and advance as much as possible for the benefit of the peoples of the United States and Cuba, through dialogue and cooperation based on mutual respect and sovereign equality.
"There is no enmity between the peoples of the United States and Cuba. The Cuban people expressed their solidarity at the time of the terrible terrorist actions of September 11, 2001, and the devastating impact of hurricane Katrina.
"We appreciate and recognize the progress achieved recently with the re-opening of embassies, the visits paid by the Secretaries of State and Commerce and the exchange of delegations; the functioning of a Steering Committee; the expansion of the areas of dialogue and cooperation, particularly in the field of air and aviation safety; the combat of drug-trafficking, illegal migration and human trafficking; law enforcement, environmental protection and health, among others.
"We are really interested in developing fruitful relations; offering our hospitality to the U.S. citizens who enjoy the freedom of traveling to Cuba; expanding and enriching cultural, sports, scientific and academic exchanges; promoting multifaceted cooperation in areas of common interest, trade and investments.
"We have initiated a human rights dialogue with a strict reciprocal character and despite our huge differences.
"For all that we have been guided by the principles contained in the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, signed by the Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States in January of 2014 in Havana, as well as the principles and purposes enshrined in the UN Charter."
Rodriguez concluded by extending Cuba's warm appreciation for defence of principle and international law at the General Assembly and acknowledged the grand collective effort required for each year's vote:
"Twenty three years after this resolution was first adopted, we have achieved remarkable progress in 2015.
"It has been a reward for the indefatigable resistance, selfless efforts, the firm convictions of our people and the leadership of the historical generation of the Revolution headed by Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro and President Raúl Castro.
"We are deeply grateful to all the governments and peoples, parliaments, political forces and social movements, representatives of the civil society, international and regional organizations that, particularly in this United Nations General Assembly, have contributed their voice and vote, year after year, to support the fairness and urgency of the elimination of the blockade.
"We have made it all the way here thanks also to the majority and ever-growing support given by the U.S. people to this lofty purpose, to whom we also convey our gratitude.
"We know that the way ahead is long and difficult. We will continue to present this draft resolution for as long as the blockade persists in this General Assembly.
"The Cuban people will never renounce their sovereignty
nor the path that
they have freely chosen to build a more just, efficient, prosperous and
sustainable socialism. Neither will they give up in their quest for a
more
equitable and democratic international order."
Foreign Minister Rodriguez receives warm congratulations on behalf of Cuba
following the vote at the UN General Assembly, October 27, 2015.
(Quotations taken from Granma International, slightly edited for grammar by TML. Photos and graphics: Xinhua, CubaDebate)
Another U.S.-Backed Electoral Coup in Haiti
Violence and Fraud Used to Disenfranchise the People
Port-au-Prince, October 25, 2015
First-round presidential elections as well as the second round of legislative elections were held in Haiti on October 25. The first round of municipal elections were also held on October 25. According to widespread reports from individuals, organizations and publications that defend Haiti's interests, low voter turnout and massive voter fraud were the hallmarks of the October 25 election. Violence fomented by paid agents of the ruling elites, which was prevalent during the first round of legislative elections on August 9, was reported to be significantly lower. Nonetheless, both rounds of the elections indicate that great efforts are being made to once again disenfranchise the Haitian people, as they were in 2010 when the corrupt U.S.-puppet government of Michel Martelly was brought to power.
Ezili Danto of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network points out the significance of the election for the U.S. ruling elite: "The October 25th and Dec. 27th elections [final rounds of the presidential election] are critical for the International Community to legitimize the Bill Clinton Interim Haiti Recovery Commission reconstruction laws, its foreign landgrabs and the World Bank mining amendments to [Haiti's] Constitution that were never passed by a fully seated Haiti Legislature.
 Click to enlarge. (E. Danto) |
"No matter what the actual vote count is, the U.S. will select [from] among the top four popular candidates -- Jude Celestin, Moise Jean Charles, Jovenel Moise (Michel Martelly's candidate) and Maryse Narcisse (Jean Bertrand Aristide's candidate) -- the one who promises to approve Martelly's shady deals with the Clintons and the mining companies and the Washington military industrial complex. Martelly's team will do whatever's necessary to push through his hand-picked presidential candidate to office or any one of the popular candidates who promise not to prosecute him or his family for their abuse of power. The people of Haiti are left to survive the U.S. occupation and to keep what the Ancestors fought for, on their own."
Other reports inform that former U.S. ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Merten was appointed as the U.S. Special Coordinator for Haiti this past August. It was during Merten's tenure as ambassador that Martelly was brought to power.
The results of the October 25 round of elections will not be known until at least 10 days after the election, the Associated Press reports.
Massive Voter Fraud
The Haiti Sentinel, citing a French-language report by Le Nouvelliste, informed on October 29 that there was massive voter fraud during the October 25 elections in Haiti. Le Nouvelliste suggests that more than half of the electorate were not ordinary citizens but paid agents of political parties.
The Haiti Sentinel reports that the Provisional Electoral Council distributed to political parties 915,675 party observer accreditation cards, called mandates (mandats). Mandates allow an agent of a political party to be inside a polling centre and be able to vote. The Haiti Sentinel points out, "Every political party did not participate in every race, furthermore, many did not have the resources to pay an agent to attend the entire day's vote and verbal process, which takes place immediately thereafter.
"Journalist Robenson Geffrard, using the highly-generous voter turnout estimation given by the Citizen Observatory for the Institutionalization of Democracy (OCID) of 30%, wrote this would mean more than half of the votes taken, were of manadateurs, party agents with mandates." Others reported voter turnout to be even lower.
The Haiti Sentinel continues:
"Not every political party had a need nor the capacity to manage the 13,700 mandates given to it by the CEP [Provisional Electoral Council]. For this reason, many are finding the electoral council complicit, if not grossly negligent, in the fraud.
"A market was ready to purchase unused mandates and according to numerous witnesses, the ruling party, Parti Haitien Tet Kale (PHTK) and its ally parties, Bouclier, Ayiti An Aksyon (AAA), the United Democratic Convention (KID), purchased all, if not, the lion's share.
"Mandates were purchased at a price of 500, 600 or 1,000 HTG ($10, $12 or $20) according to the coalition of local observers not paid by the international community and Haitian journalists.
"The mandates were given to individuals who voted
multiple times,
sometimes with different electoral cards and at different voting
centers."
Voter Suppression and Low Turnout
Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) has yet to release figures for voter turnout on October 25. Independent election observers not paid by the international community and comprised of members of Haitian rights organizations say the participation rate was about 25 per cent and that this figure is inflated by multiple voting.
Kim Ives and Yves Pierre-Louis, writing for Haïti Liberté, elaborate on the low turnout and disenfranchisement of Haitians by foreign interests, especially U.S. imperialist interests. They write:
"[T]here appears to have been less violence than occurred during the Aug. 9 first round of legislative contests, which were marred by mayhem, blatant intimidation, and fraud. But the level of violence during a vote cannot be the sole or even principal criteria for its success. Participation, calm, order, and transparency are equally important, and these were all lacking.
"Haiti's highly contested [CEP] says that the Aug. 9 election had only an 18% turnout, with only 6% in Port-au-Prince. Some observers say the true national turnout was much lower, closer to 5%.
"The Oct. 25 election consisted of the legislative run-off, plus the first round for 54 presidential candidates and some 41,000 municipal races, mainly for 142 mayoral seats. Therefore, with the stakes much higher, why did turnout remain relatively low?
"After the violence of Aug. 9 and during the days leading up to Oct. 25 (such as the killing of over 20 people in Cité Soleil the weekend before), many voters were afraid to venture out and vote.
"Furthermore, many sectors of Haitian society, like the party Dessalines Coordination (KOD), boycotted the elections because they feel they are rigged and cannot be free, fair, and sovereign ... with President Michel Martelly in power and Haiti under military occupation by 5,000 troops of the UN Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH).
"'There is the question of moral violence,' said Oxygène David of the popular organization Movement for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity Among Haitians (MOLEGHAF). 'The Haitian people's democracy and sovereignty are being trampled by foreign imperialists who have taken over our electoral process, putting in whomever they please. This is maybe less visible to some than the killing which involves blood, but it is just as terrible.'
"Long-time Haitian democracy activist Patrick Elie also did not vote, calling the elections 'a comedy.'
"'The elections in Haiti are becoming just like those in the U.S.,' he told Haïti Liberté. 'It is money that decides the election, not the people.'
"But perhaps the largest factor in voter disenfranchisement [is] the U.S.-inspired restrictions on how Haitians can vote. In the U.S., tens of thousands of poor and working-class voters, many of them black and Latino, are barred from voting rolls by restrictions against felons. Something similar is done in Haiti.
"Haiti's working poor are mobile, constantly on the move looking for work from town to town. Many are also small merchants and hawkers, who must travel great distances to sell their wares....
"'Voting was much easier and logical in the historic 1990 election which brought Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power for the first time,' explained KOD leader Henriot Dorcent. 'In that election, which was organized by Haitians without international direction like today, one registered to vote a month or two before the election, and then you went to the same place to vote. There was huge participation. Now you can only vote in the town where you got your electoral card. Then you go to these confusing, crowded voting centers with dozens of voting bureaus. Many people cannot get home to vote, many cannot travel the distance or navigate their way to the correct voting center, and many cannot find their names on the huge lists outside the voting centers.'
"Despite their supposed success, the Oct. 25 elections had many confrontations and irregularities. So far, two days after the polling, the police have reported making 234 arrests, and voting centers and election materials were destroyed."
In Haiti, It's the Obama-Clinton Elections
In Haiti, the electoral council is the Barack Obama administration's. So are the elections and their results. To prove it, for months the people of Haiti have been rejecting an exclusive, unfair and corrupt electoral process. Obama pushed forward with it.
The Haitian people have rejected the August 9, 2015 elections that resulted from said process. Candidates have been jailed and protesters have been shot over it. Even the U.S. Embassy in Haiti has recognized that "many" Haitians are calling for the resignation of the electoral council. But their voices will not be heard. Because although it is "Haiti's elections", it is not what the Haitian people want that counts.
The Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton foreign policy has been an immense failure globally but in Haiti it gets immoral, if not criminal. Their actions in this hemisphere, towards this small neighboring and destitute island, affect the U.S. moral right and credibility to lead in resolving issues around the world as Russian President Vladimir Putin will look to make the case for his country's leadership in Syria and the Middle East.
A Long Time and Still Waiting
This is Haiti's first election in five years and all Haitians want fair, inclusive and credible elections. Tens of thousands protested in the streets of Haiti, sometimes for days on end, throughout the past five years for elections. Today, the Obama administration wants the world to believe that these people, who come from a people who, not too long ago, gave their blood and lives for democracy would register a voter turnout of an abysmal 18%. Local and international observers, independent of the Obama-Clinton electoral council, estimate the turnout to really have been 4-5%. This is what the Obama administration calls "acceptable."
The low turnout was simply due to thugs, the same ones then-Senator John Kerry criticized in a 1994 New York Times op-ed. The thugs are in and out of power in Haiti and are brash, self-proclaimed, "bandi legal", which means legal bandits. They ran a campaign of intimidation, vandalism and ballot stuffing to destroy the vote in at least 45% of voting centers across the country according to local human rights and observation organization data.
Haiti Elections and Aftermath
The organizers of Mouvement Tet Kale (MTK), who were paid $100,000 by USAID for the 2010 elections riots, would later, in 2012, face aggression from their workers who were promised compensation for these riots.
These are the same groups, Mouvement Tet Kale (MTK), that the Obama administration gave $100,000 to, via the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), to organize the December 7, 2010 riots that hit major cities in the country. This year, [through] the same groups, with violence and [the] complicity from institutions under the control of a totalitarian government, all voters in the most populous and most disenfranchised communes, such as Cite Soleil, were eliminated from participating in the vote.
Obama Is Feeding Corruption with Taxpayer Money
The cost to the American taxpayer for the Obama-Clinton elections in Haiti is $38 million. According to the former U.S. Ambassador Pamela White, $25 million of it was in cash. Notwithstanding the fact that Haiti could pay for its own elections, is [the fact] that the cost of Haiti's elections for the American taxpayer is more than four times the price of better and more credible elections in Africa. Rwanda, for example, which has a population slightly greater than Haiti's paid $8 million for a much better process.
 Americans paid $38 million, more than four times the cost for elections of better quality in other countries. Where did the money go? |
Where did the money go? In the price of corruption. The President of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), Pierre Louis Opont, made an admission on July 3, 2015, saying that as Director General of the 2010 CEP, Hillary Clinton's chief of staff at the State Department, Cheryl Mills, changed election results that ultimately put the current president, a raunchy musician and admitted crack user, Michel Martelly, into power. Opont, and the electoral council are on the hot seat and their services do not come cheap.
The Clinton plan was to withhold elections, force the end of mandates of the legislature, all local government seats, and eventually gain control of the judiciary. They have succeeded in that. Haiti went from a democracy of 5,000 elected officials nation wide to a totalitarian regime ruled by one drug-abusing man.
It is by these means that the Clintons, former President
Bill Clinton and
the Clinton Foundation were able to siphon off more than $10 billion in
earthquake donations for their friends, their foundation donors and
campaign/PAC supporters. It is by the collapse of the Haitian State
that
mining contracts and land acquisition from Port-au-Prince to the rural
zones
could be made by Clinton cronies, including Hillary's brother, who got
a
sweetheart deal on the country's first mining contract in decades.
Scenes from voting centers in Haiti, August 9, 2015. The politicized Haitian National Police
and UN Peacekeeping force were lax in maintaining order and securing democracy
in Haiti, as their mission claims.
There is an electoral process taking place that the Haitian people reject and will continue to reject. The Obama administration seems unable or unwilling to unravel the Clinton money-siphoning machine that is established there. So therefore they are not only funding but controlling and supporting to the end an election that will seat what is overwhelmingly being called the most corrupt legislature in Haitian history. The 50th Legislature.
(Haiti Sentinel, September 29, 2015)
For Your Information
Role of Private Sector and U.S. Embassy to
Rig 2010
Election
Protest denounces U.S. interference in Haitian elections during the visit of then-U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Port-au-Prince Jan. 30, 2011.
Reports are coming to light about e-mails released from Hillary Clinton's private server dating back to her tenure as U.S. Secretary of State that concern U.S. interference in Haiti. The e-mails reveal new details of how U.S. officials worked closely with the Haitian private sector as they forced Haitian authorities to change the results of the first round presidential elections in late 2010. A report by Jake Johnston, a research associate with the Centre for Economic and Policy Research follows. Johnston discusses the Clinton e-mails and how the U.S. and business elites in Haiti rigged the 2010 election and how all those involved in the corruption continue their interference up to the 2015 elections.
***
Preliminary results from the deeply flawed 2010 presidential and legislative elections were announced on Dec. 7, 2010, showing René Préval's hand-picked successor Jude Célestin and university professor Mirlande Manigat advancing to a second-round runoff. The same day, the U.S. Embassy in Haiti released a statement questioning the legitimacy of the announced results.
Behind the scenes, key actors were already pushing for Célestin to withdraw from the race, according to the e-mails. Just a day after preliminary results were announced, U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Merten wrote to Cheryl Mills, Tom Adams, and Daniel Restrepo, all key State Department Haiti staff. "Boulos + private sector have told RP [René Préval] that Célestin should withdraw + they would support RP staying til 7 Feb."
"This is big," the ambassador added.
"Boulos" here refers to Reginald Boulos, one of the largest industrialists in Haiti and a member of the Private Sector Economic Forum. Importantly, Boulos also suggested they would support Préval staying in office through Feb. 7, but with the election delayed due to the earthquake, a new president would not be able to take office by then. Many had advocated for Préval's early departure, and during a meeting of international officials on election day, Préval was even threatened with being forced out of the country. [...]
The e-mail also shows that Merten was in close contact with Michel Martelly's campaign. Protests had already broken out across Port-au-Prince and in other cities throughout Haiti, with protesters alleging that their preferred candidate, Michel Martelly, should be in the runoff. Merten writes that he had personally contacted Martelly's "camp" and told them that he needs to "get on radio telling people to not pillage. Peaceful demo OK: pillage is not." Documents obtained through a separate Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request have shown that a key group behind the protests later received support from USAID and went on to play a role in the formation of Martelly's political party, Parti Haïtien Tèt Kale.
The following day, as per Merten's suggestion in the e-mail, the U.S. Embassy released another statement calling for calm and urging political actors to "work through Haiti's electoral contestation process to address any electoral concerns." As the e-mail reveals, however, efforts were underway to remove Célestin from the race before any contestation process could even begin.
Cheryl Mills' response to Merten's email is redacted, as is Merten's response to that, save for one word: "Understand."
The Haitian government eventually requested that a mission from the Organization of American States (OAS) come to Haiti to analyze the results. The mission, despite not conducting a recount or any statistical test, recommended replacing Célestin in the runoff with Michel Martelly. Pressure began building on the Haitian government to accept the recommendations. Government officials had their U.S. visas revoked, and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice even went so far as to threaten to cut aid, even though the country was still recovering from the devastating earthquake earlier in the year. Mills forwarded to Rice an AFP article on the threat with a comment: "I want to make sure we are synched up over the next several sensitive days on Haiti."
Eventually, Hillary Clinton traveled to Haiti in late January 2011 to apply further pressure on the government. The day before the trip, there was an ongoing discussion among State Department staff about potential backlash against the international community and the U.S. Mills forwarded Clinton an e-mail from Laura (the last name has been redacted, but it is likely Laura Graham, an official with the Clinton Foundation) with the message: "Let's discuss this on plane."
"Laura," in a long, typo-filled note, warns that the international community and U.S. are "taking hits and looking like villan [sic]." "I think you need to consider a message and outreach strategy to ensure that different elements of haitian [sic] society (church leaders, business, etc) buy into the mms [Michel Martelly] solution and are out their [sic] on radio messaging why its [sic] good," Laura adds. Clinton responds to Mills: "Bill talked to me about this and is quite worried about what I do and say tomorrow."
"As we all are," Mills responds, passing along talking points for the following day's Haiti trip:
"We are also here with a simple message with respect to the elections: the voices of the people of Haiti must be heard. The votes of the people of Haiti must be counted fairly. And the outcome of this process must reflect the true will of the Haitian people. That is the only interest of the United States. We will stand in solidarity with all those pursuing these goals, and we will stand against those who seek to undermine them."
 People in Haiti and the Haitian diaspora are demanding to know what the Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton did with the $10 billion it was tasked with using to assist in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake. Much of the money has not been accounted for and the so-called aid projects that have been set-up are rife with corruption. (D. Andre) |
Regardless of concerns over a backlash, Clinton was successful in getting Célestin to withdraw from the race. "We tried to resist and did, until the visit of Hillary Clinton. That was when Préval understood he had no way out and accepted" it, the prime minister at the time, Jean-Max Bellerive, told me in an interview earlier this year. After a second-round contest with exceptionally low turnout, Martelly was named the winner over Manigat.
Boulos was quick to follow up after Clinton's visit. In a long e-mail to Mills one day after the visit, Boulos asked that his thanks be passed on to the then secretary of state.
Boulos cites the private sector's "behind the doors actions" as having "played a major role" in getting the elections "back on track" by getting Préval to "request the OAS mission, by publicly denouncing the results of the 1st round, and as late as yesterday morning (3 hours meeting with Preval) by convincing him to drop the idea of annulment of the elections." Boulos boasted: "Everyone in the diplomatic circles and among the Haitian political leaders will confirm the role played by the Private Sector Economic Forum over the past 6 months."
Boulos also requested that the U.S. continue its support for him and for other Haitian business elites. [...]
Fast forward nearly five years and Haiti once again finds itself embroiled in an electoral controversy, with the U.S., Boulos, and the Private Sector Economic Forum again playing leading roles. After violence and fraud-marred first-round legislative races were held in August, the electoral council (CEP) and Haitian government have come under increasing scrutiny. Once again, protests have taken place, calling for the resignation of the CEP and in some cases the outright annulment of the elections.
Rather than cast doubt on the results, the U.S. has supported the process. Outgoing U.S. Ambassador Pamela White called the elections, "not perfect, but acceptable."
"It's 2010 all over again, but instead of against Preval, it's for Martelly," a leader of the Vérité political platform, Préval's new party, told me in August. On Oct. 6, Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Haiti to discuss the elections with Martelly. He was joined by the State Department's new Haiti Special Coordinator, Kenneth Merten, who assumed the post on Aug. 17.
For their part, the Private Sector Economic Forum and Reginald Boulos have also provided support to the process. Boulos was part of a presidential advisory commission in late 2014 that recommended jettisoning Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe and forming a consensus government to take Haiti forward to the current elections. As part of the agreement to form a new government, the Private Sector Economic Forum was also made responsible for nominating one of the nine members to the electoral council. Pierre Louis Opont was put forward as its representative. Opont was the director general of the CEP in 2010 and acknowledged in an interview earlier this year that the U.S. State Department and OAS observers manipulated the results of that election. He is the president of the current CEP.
In February, Prime Minister Evans Paul (himself part of the presidential advisory commission) met with the Private Sector Economic Forum in order to establish a public-private partnership to create a "climate conducive to free, fair, and democratic elections."
While trust in the electoral process and the institution responsible for guiding it has eroded since the Aug. 9 vote, Boulos and the Private Sector Economic Forum have come out publicly in support of the CEP. In an interview with Le Nouvelliste, Boulos stated that it was "one of the best CEPs we have had."
"The CEP is not perfect but it is a CEP that has done its best, perhaps, that has made many mistakes and has acknowledged its mistakes," Boulos told the paper. "I heard the president of the CEP say that the Council will make corrections. We should trust that he will make corrections."
"The process is advancing, the presidential campaign is on the right track," declared Gregory Brandt, the president of the business grouping, in the same article. Brandt told the paper that he had a meeting with Opont "next week."
[...]
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