BBC met propaganda tegen verzet in Guatemala

Het is al weer even terug, maar op 11 december jl. berichtte de BBC World Service na het radionieuws van 1.00 u. (CET) over Guatemala en dan m.n. over de dictatuur in dat land, een dictatuur als eerste onder juntaleider Montt, waarbij in de jaren 80 van de vorige eeuw vreselijke misdaden werden begaan, vooral tegen de oorspronkelijke bevolking, echter ook de bevolking die verder deel uitmaakt van de grote onderlaag, was het doelwit van overheidsterreur……..

Het ‘begon al goed’ met de getuigenis van een man die onderdeel uitmaakt van de oorspronkelijke bevolking, wiens familie voor zijn ogen werd vermoord door een doodseskader met hulp van het leger…… In het dorp waar de man woonde werden 1.700 mensen vermoord, ofwel het overgrote deel van de bevolking……..

Deze doodseskaders bestaan nog steeds en worden voornamelijk gevormd door (ex-) militairen en politieagenten, zoals gezegd gesteund door het militaire apparaat en de politie, eskaders die hun smerige werk ongestoord kunnen doen, daar de regering het wel best vindt, dat mensenrechtenactivisten, echte (dus nadenkende) journalisten, leiders van de oorspronkelijke bevolking, docenten, studenten en vakbondsleiders worden vermoord….* Immers die mensen zijn maar lastig voor een regering die lak heeft aan mensenrechten, de vernieling van het milieu en aan mensen die zich inzetten tegen uitbuiting, willekeur en de onderdrukking van de oorspronkelijke bevolking van Guatemala…….

De BBC had een professor uit de VS aan de lijn over de situatie in Guatemala, jammer genoeg kreeg ik haar naam niet mee en deze kon ik de volgende dag niet terugvinden. Volgens deze ‘dame’ wordt de bevolking geplaagd door de strijd tussen het leger en rebellen……. Hoe is het gggvd mogelijk dat ze dit uit haar strot krijgt, terwijl die rebellen zijn opgestaan vanwege het vreselijke overheidsgeweld tegen de gewone burgers en de oorspronkelijke bevolking van Guatemala……

De presentator vroeg de professor waarom de strijd in Guatemala zo bloedig was (terwijl die strijd in feite nog steeds gaande is, alleen met wat minder bloedvergieten), daarmee aangevend dat de rebellen ook bloed aan de handen hebben en als de doodseskaders, leger en politie aan de verkeerde kant van ‘de beschaving’ staan……. De professor antwoordde dat dit met de situatie in Nicaragua te maken had, de junta wilde koste wat kost voorkomen dat een dergelijke opstand in Guatemala zou plaatsvinden…… Alsof er voor en na de staatsgrepen door ultra rechts in Guatemala geen (massa-) moorden plaatsvonden en plaatsvinden, om over het grote aantal mensenrechtenschendingen nog maar te zwijgen……

Tot slot: vergeet niet dat de VS het prima kan vinden met junta’s die het als in Guatemala zelf in het zadel heeft geholpen, sterker nog lokale groepen die zich inzetten voor mensenrechten en voor de oorspronkelijke bevolking, worden door de VS gezien als terreurorganisaties…….

* Voorts worden drugsbendes, die ook goed zijn voor geweld tegen de gewone bevolking van Guatemala, zo goed als ongemoeid gelaten door de zwaar corrupte Guatemalteekse overheid……

Trump stuurt 800 militairen naar de Mexicaanse grens met de VS om arme vluchtende drommels tegen te houden……

Afgelopen
nacht in het BBC World Service radionieuws van 1.00 u. (CET) aandacht voor Trump die sprak over de karavaan met intussen duizenden
mensen die vanuit Latijns-Amerika op weg zijn naar de VS. Volgens Trump
brengen deze mensen de staatsveiligheid van de VS in gevaar…… ha!
ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Vandaar
ook dat Trump nog eens 800 militairen extra naar die grens stuurt,
gezien zijn woorden is het niet ondenkbaar dat deze militairen straks
zullen schieten op arme, ongewapende mensen, ook al ontkent bijvoorbeeld CNN dat dit zal gebeuren…..

© EPA

Intussen dreigt Trump landen als Honduras Guatemala en El Salvador met het inhouden van hulp, daar zij niets hebben ondernomen tegen deze onafzienbare karavaan met wanhopige mensen… Van Mexico eist Trump dat dit land de karavaan stopt, echter zelfs zijn eigen administratie ziet dondersgoed dat een dergelijke stroom mensen niet anders te stoppen is dan met grof geweld…..

De
mensen in die karavaan zijn op de vlucht voor de uitzichtloze armoede en voor geweld, beiden zaken waar de VS een wel heel dikke
vinger in de pap heeft, al was het alleen al vanwege de enorme
wapenexport van de VS naar Latijns-Amerikaanse landen, wapens die ook grootschalig worden gebruikt door de georganiseerde misdaad……

Hoe dik de VS vinger is, blijkt wel uit het volgende: de karavaan bestaat voor het grootste deel uit Hondurese burgers, daar voor de grote onderlaag van dat land de ellende totaal ondragelijk is geworden, dit is te danken aan de junta, die na een door de VS georganiseerde staatsgreep werd geparachuteerd door NB diezelfde VS……..

© EPA

De VS oorlog tegen drugs treft vooral de gewone Latijns-Amerikaanse
bevolkingen en zoals al zo vaak aangetoond: de VS stimuleert in feite
alleen de productie van drugs in dat deel van de wereld, niet alleen
door die zinloze VS oorlog, maar ook door diensten als de DEA en CIA, die
profiteren van de drugssmokkel en de verkoop van die drugs in de VS…….. 
(o.a. om uiterst illegale acties te bekostigen) Voorts worden hele arealen aan landbouwgrond onbebouwbaar gemaakt in Latijns-Amerika, dit door het sproeien van gif, zodat daar geen zaken als coca of marihuana kunnen worden bebouwd, zoals je begrijpt wordt dit veelal door de VS gedaan……

Trump heeft beloofd deze karavaan te stoppen, letterlijk zei hij: “They will be stopped” en zoals eerder gezegd, te vrezen valt dat dit met grof geweld zal gebeuren, daar deze vluchtelingen niet van zins zijn zich te laten tegenhouden, niet door gebieden die gevaarlijk zijn door bendes, niet door rivieren en niet door Trump!

© EPA

Het is
als met de illegale oorlogen van de VS in het Midden-Oosten: de bevolkingen van landen als Irak, Syrië en Afghanistan (waar de laatste eigenlijk buiten het Midden-Oosten ligt) worden getroffen en een groot deel van hen
probeert te vluchten naar de EU, dezelfde EU die de oorlogen van de
VS steunt, zowel politiek al militair….. Hoewel verantwoordelijk
voor de oorzaak van het vluchten door een enorm aantal mensen, weigeren de VS en de EU deze vluchtelingen op te
nemen…….. (en vergeet niet dat deze vluchtelingenstromen op gang kwamen met behulp van o.a. ons belastinggeld!)

Ongelofelijk
en onverdraaglijk!!!

Vanmorgen vond ik op Anti-Media het volgende artikel, geschreven door Emma Platoff, eerder gepubliceerd op de The Texas Tribune

Trump
Administration to Send at Least 800 Troops to the US-Mexico Border

National Guard troops leave Austin for the U.S.-Mexico border on April 6, 2018.

Photo credit: Callie Richmond

October 25, 2018 at 11:11 am

Written
by 
Texas
Tribune

President
Donald Trump has raised alarm about a caravan of migrants heading for
the border. He tweeted Thursday morning that he is “bringing out
the military for this National Emergency.”

(TT) — The
Trump administration is expected to send 800 or more troops to the
U.S.-Mexico border to support border enforcement already stationed
there at a time the president has called a “national emergency.”

According
to 
multiple reports,
Defense Secretary James Mattis could sign an order to that effect as
early as Thursday. The troops — who are expected to be in place by
next week — would be directed to help border authorities stop a
caravan of thousands of Central American migrants who are making
their way through Mexico toward the United States, 
according
to CNN
.

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

Brandon Judd of the National Border Patrol Council is right when he says on @foxandfriends that the Democrat inspired laws make it tough for us to stop people at the Border. MUST BE CHANDED, but I am bringing out the military for this National Emergency. They will be stopped!

With
the midterm elections approaching, Republicans across the country
have been raising alarm about the threat posed by those migrants. At
rally
in Houston
 on
Monday, Trump suggested the migrants may be funded by Democrats, and
claimed that some of the migrants are Middle Eastern. There is no
evidence for either claim.

And
earlier this week, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, 
said it
may be necessary to staff up the border.

I
think this caravan is a serious threat,” Cruz told reporters in
Houston on Monday. “When you see thousands of people pledging to
come violate U.S. law, to cross into this country illegally, we have
to treat that seriously.”

We
have to stop it,” Cruz added, “whether that means putting Border
Patrol at the border to stop them or whether that means calling up
the National Guard.”

The
delegation is expected to include some active-duty forces, primarily
from the

Army, according
to the Washington Post
.
CNN 
reported that
the troops would not engage in “lethal operations” to stop the
migrants, but would reinforce fencing at spots where migrants might
cross, and also provide tents and medical care for border
authorities. It was not immediately clear Thursday morning where
along the border the reinforcements would be stationed.

The
president also directed 
troops to
the border in April in an effort to deter illegal immigration. The
tide of border crossings has persisted under Trump, and the number of
families crossing 
surged in
September to record levels.

Former
Texas Gov. Rick Perry deployed National Guard troops to the border in
summer 2014, and Gov. Greg Abbott 
kept
them in place
 after
taking office.

Gov.
Greg Abbott’s office did not immediately return a request for
comment.

By Emma
Platoff
 / Republished
with permission / 
Texas
Tribune

============================

Zie ook:

VS gebruikt chemische wapens tegen ongewapende vluchtelingen waaronder kinderen

BBC volkomen krom over de vluchtelingen uit Honduras die wel degelijk door Trump met geweld worden bedreigd

Trump letterlijk: “Barbwire used in the right way can be a beautiful sight” Trump op een verkiezingsbijeenkomst over het ‘probleem van de vluchtelingenkaravaan’ uit de door de VS gecreëerde ellende in Honduras

VS stuurt 5.000 militairen extra naar de grens met Mexico, als wapen tegen de karavaan met armen uit Latijns-Amerika

Door VS gesteunde bewind in Honduras heeft de staat van beleg afgekondigd……..

VS heeft Hondurese speciale eenheden getraind die protesten tegen een waterkrachtcentrale gewelddadig hebben neergeslagen……

Hillary Clinton mede verantwoordelijk voor moord op Berta Cáceres………..

Hondurese activiste ontvoerd en vermoord (alweer…), met instemming van de VS………

Berta Cáceres voorvechter gelijke rechten en milieuactivist vermoord in Honduras

Maya vrouwen die de terreur en genocide in Guatemala overleefden vechten voor gerechtigheid

Guatemalteekse
vrouwen (Maya’s) die de genocide en terreur op en tegen deze oorspronkelijke bewoners,in Guatemala overleefden, vechten
voor gerechtigheid.

In
februari 2016 wonnen Guatemalteekse vrouwen die de voortdurende
genocide tegen de Maya’s overleefden, een rechtszaak tegen twee
militairen die werden beschuldigd van huishoudelijke- en
seksslavernij, dit in een historische rechtszaak genaamd de Sepur
Zarco zaak, een dorp dat onevenredig hard werd getroffen door
staatsterreur.

De
rechter verordende destijds ook een herverdeling van grond t.b.v. de
oorspronkelijke bewoners, de oorzaak voor het steeds oplaaiend geweld
tegen die bewoners. In de geschiedenis van Guatemala kregen de Maya’s niet alleen te maken met het verbeurd verklaren van hun
grond eerst door de Spaanse overheersers, maar ook met een op hen uitgevoerde genocide…. 
(let wel met één van de ‘hoogtepunten’ na WOII, in begin 80er jaren van de vorige eeuw, een genocide die in feite tot de dag van vandaag voortduurt….) In de 20ste eeuw kregen de Maya’s ook te maken met landonteigening t.b.v. buitenlandse investeerders, zoals de United Fruit
Company (UFC) uit de VS…….. 

Door
verbeurd verklaring van grond die toebehoorde aan de United Fruit
Comapny, een knots van een bedrijf uit de VS, greep de CIA in en organiseerde, regisseerde in 1954 een coup* tegen de democratische gekozen regering…… De VS je weet wel, waar de opvolgende
regeringen altijd een grote bek hebben over landen waar geen
democratie bestaat, iets dat ze doen ‘uiteraard’ alleen doen als deze landen anti-VS zijn…..)

Hoewel
we nu 2 jaar verder zijn, is er nog niets gebeurd wat betreft de
herverdeling van land en het ziet er niet naar uit dat dit snel zal
gebeuren……. Onze opvolgende regeringen hebben al helemaal schijt
aan de ellende in Guatemala, waar mensenrechtenschendingen (vooral als het om deze rechten voor de Maya bevolking gaat) aan de orde van de dag zijn, immers de grote heer van onze politici
is nog steeds de VS en die hebben een dikke vinger in de smerige Guatemalteekse pap, ook dat zal nog jaren zo blijven vrees
ik…… Ach ja, Nederlandse regeringen hebben het altijd goed kunnen
vinden met fascisten, met een kleine uitzondering tijdens WOII,
hoewel de foute regering hier ‘goede diensten’ bewees aan het Duitse
nazi-regime, niet voor niets werden hier relatief gezien de meeste
joden afgevoerd naar de dodenkampen, iets waar de Palestijnen tot op de dag van vandaag voor moeten boeten……..

HOW
INDIGENOUS WOMEN WHO SURVIVED GUATEMALA’S CONFLICT ARE FIGHTING FOR
JUSTICE

APRIL
18, 2018
 FRIENDS
OF GREED 3
CIACOLONIZATIONCONVERSATIONGENOCIDEGUATEMALA,INDIGENOUS
WOMEN
MAYARAPESEPUR
ZARCO

Guatemala
(
Conversation) – In
February 2016, Guatemalan women survivors and the alliance of
organisations supporting them 
successfully
prosecuted
 two
former members of the Guatemalan military for domestic and sexual
slavery in the groundbreaking Sepur Zarco trial. The trial
marked the first time a national court has prosecuted members of its
own military for these crimes. It was an 
historic
achievement
 in
the fight to stop violence against women and secure justice for
wartime sexual violence.

And
yet, two years later, the Guatemalan government has not carried out
most of the 
collective
reparations measures
 ordered
by the court. In large part this is because the main cause of the
violence – a 
dispute
over land
 that
historically belonged to the 
Maya
Q’eqchi people
 –
has still not been resolved, even centuries after it began.

Maya
communities were first displaced by Spanish colonisation starting in
the 16th century, and then displaced again in the mid-to-late 19th
and early 20th century. Keen to attract foreign investment, the
Guatemalan government encouraged European settlers to establish
plantations on land expropriated from Maya communities and the
Catholic Church. To this day, many Maya people do not have title to
the land they live on, much of which is dominated by plantations
growing coffee, sugar, bananas and 
palms
for oil
.

But
they have been fighting back. I myself have been following the
struggle centred on the dusty north-eastern village of Sepur Zarco –
a case that pulls together all the threads of what has happened in
Guatemala in the last several decades.

THE
LONG HAUL

Local
indigenous people have been campaigning to settle on and get legal
title to unused land in Sepur Zarco since the early 1950s when the
social democratic government of Jacobo Arbenz passed a law to
redistribute uncultivated land from the largest landowners to
landless peasants. The land concerned included unused land held by
the United Fruit Company, a US banana company with close links to the
Eisenhower administration – the company disputed the compensation
offered to it by the Guatemalan government, and demanded a much
larger sum.

By
USAID U.S. Agency for International Development – Guatemala: Woman
Washing Corn, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

In
the end, the land reform was stymied by a 
CIA-sponsored
military coup
 in
1954. That coup in turn sparked Guatemala’s bloody civil war which
lasted until 1996. A post-war 
UN-led
Truth Commission Report
 concluded
that during the conflict, an estimated 200,000 people were killed or
disappeared, that rape was commonly used as a weapon of war, and that
the Guatemalan state bore responsibility for the majority of the
atrocities. It also concluded that 
agents
of the state committed acts of genocide
,
since 83% of their victims were Maya and most of the conflict’s 626
documented massacres were of Maya communities.

Most
of these massacres were committed in 1982-83 under the 17-month rule
of recently deceased dictator, 
Efrain
Rios Montt
.
Rios Montt took power in a coup, and was then removed by another. He
was eventually prosecuted by the Guatemalan Supreme Court in 2013
and 
found
guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity
.
His trial featured testimonies of 
rape
and sexual violence
 committed
against Maya Ixil women, which were included to show that sexual
violence was part of the genocide.

However,
just ten days after his verdict, the Guatemalan Constitutional
Court 
annulled
the trial on procedural grounds
 after
sustained pressure from 
powerful
sectors of Guatemala’s economy and society
.

At
the time of his death, Rios Montt was 
once
again being prosecuted for genocide
 –
but this time the trial was taking place with special provisions made
to allow for his 
diagnosed
dementia
.
Rios Montt was in office during the time that the crimes committed at
the Sepur Zarco base were committed, but he was not prosecuted for
those crimes in the Sepur Zarco trial.

The
violence committed against Sepur Zarco’s women and their families
seems to have been a response to their attempts to settle on and get
title to the land, particularly in the late 1970s. According to an
expert witness in the the Sepur Zarco trial, 
Juan
Carlos Peláez Villalobos
,
the military was called in and the indigenous peasant farmers were
denounced as “subversives”.

Women
survivors also pointed to the link between the attempt to get land
titles and the violence committed against them and their husbands.
“The landowners gave them [the military commissioners] a list of
names of men to disappear,” said one of them in 
her
video testimony to the court
.
“They said we were troublemakers.

After
kidnapping and disappearing the men and burning down their families’
huts, the military forced their wives to work on the military
detachment built in the Sepur Zarco community, in 1982. The women
were organised into shifts to cook the soldiers’ food and wash
their clothing. While at the base, all of them were systematically
raped.

Some
women fled into the mountains to escape the violence, where they
spent up to six years struggling to survive with little shelter or
food. Many of their young children perished because of these
conditions. The base remained until 1988. Local men suspected of
being “subversive” were also tortured there by the military.

NO
JUSTICE WITHOUT REPARATIONS MR

In
February 2016, the Guatemalan Supreme Court 
ruled that
two former members of the military were guilty of forced
disappearances and crimes against humanity in the forms of domestic
and sexual slavery and the murders of one of the women enslaved on
the base, along with her two young daughters. The court also held
that the Guatemalan state had to provide collective reparations for
the benefits of the village of Sepur Zarco and the surrounding
villages.

By
YoTuT – Flickr: Photo by Steve Richards, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia
Commons

The
measures would provide basic social and economic rights frequently
denied to Guatemala’s indigenous and rural communities. They also
include the construction of the first local high school, a health
clinic and a monument to the women’s husbands – but the state
will not start the building work so long as Sepur Zarco’s people
don’t have legal title to the land.

The ConversationThe
Sepur Zarco case shows how seriously a community can be affected for
decades, even centuries, by multiple overlapping injustices – from
colonial-era crimes to more recent human rights violations. 

Resolving
the resulting problems has proven hugely difficult. But after more
than 30 years, the women and supporting organisations –
the 
National
Union of Guatemalan Women
 (UNGW)
Women
Transforming the World
and
the 
Community
Studies and Psychosocial Action Team
 –
are determined to achieve the restorative justice that they have been
struggling for all this time.

This
report prepared by 
Juliette
Doman
PhD Candidate
in Latin American Studies, 
University
of Liverpool
 for The
Conversation
.

=================================

* Zie: ‘CIA coup (terreur) tegen democratisch gekozen bewind Guatemala 1954……..

Wetenschappers ‘ontdekken’ verborgen onder het oerwoud een oude Mayastad voor 10 miljoen mensen!

Middels een aangepaste techniek hebben wetenschappers in Guatemala een Mayastad ontdekt, waar naar schatting 10 miljoen mensen moeten hebben gewoond! Overigens was deze stad al bekend, men had deze echter veel kleiner ingeschat.

Middels de aangepaste Lidar ‘mapping techniek’ ontdekte men dat de stad onder het oerwoud veel groter was dan eerder verondersteld. De stad moet bewoond zijn geweest van 1.000 jaar voor onze jaartelling tot 900 jaar daarna.

Bij mijn weten was er nergens anders ter wereld een stad zo groot in die tijd en men heeft al ontdekt hoe men een dergelijke bevolking kon voeden en dat was voor die tijd een huzarenstuk.

Niet verder geluld, lees het verhaal over de hoogwaardige cultuur die een dergelijke stad bouwde en haar bewoners goed moet hebben weten te dienen:

Scientists
Discover Ancient Mayan City of 10 Million People Hidden Under Jungle

February
9, 2018 at 8:06 am

Written
by 
Amanda
Froelich

(TMU) —The
Earth is so vast, archaeologists are 
still finding
remnants of lost civilizations. Most recently, researchers discovered
a Mayan city, hidden in the Guatemalan jungle, which is estimated to
have been home to approximately 10 million citizens.

The
Guardian
 reports
that the researchers used a high-tech aerial mapping technique to
find tens of thousands of hidden structures. They include Mayan
houses, buildings, defense works, pyramids, an industrial-sized
agricultural field and irrigation canals. At least four major Mayan
ceremonial centers with plazas were also detected by the mapping
technique.

News
of the lost city, which was hidden in the jungle of Guatemala’s
Peten region, was announced on Thursday by an alliance of US,
European and Guatemalan archaeologists who have been working in
conjunction with Guatemala’s Mayan Heritage and Nature Foundation.

To
supply the 10 million Mayan residents, massive food production would
have been essential. Marcello A Canuto, a professor of anthropology
at Tulane University, commented on this when he said, That
is two to three times more [inhabitants] than people were saying
there were.”

The
mapping technique is called Lidar, which stands for light detection
and ranging. Contours hidden by dense foliage are found as the
technology bounces pulsed laser light off the ground. The resulting
images revealed that the Mayans altered the landscape in a drastic
way. In some areas, 95 percent of the land was cultivated.

Said
Francisco Estrada-Belli, a research assistant professor at Tulane
University, 
Their
agriculture is much more intensive and therefore sustainable than we
thought, and they were cultivating every inch of the
land.”
 Estrada-Belli
added that the ancient Mayas partly drained swampy road that hasn’t
been farmed since.

Researchers
suggest the civilization had a highly organized workforce. They
predicted this based on the extensive defensive fences,
ditch-and-rampart systems, and the constructed irrigation canals.

This
unprocessed image of the jungle reveals the groundworks and buildings
beneath the dense foliage. Credit: Depositphotos

As The
Guardian
 reports,
the mapping — which revealed 810 square miles (or 2,100 square
kilometers) of hidden civilization — expands the area that was
intensively occupied by the Maya. The culture flourished between
roughly 1,000 BC and 900 AD. Many descendants still inhabit the
region.

Thomas
Garrison, assistant professor of anthropology at Ithaca College in
New York, used the Lidar data to look for one of the roads.

I
found it, but if I had not had the Lidar and known that that’s what
it was, I would have walked right over it, because of how dense the
jungle is.”

Tikal.
The ancient ruins are located in the rainforests of Guatemala.
Credit: DepositPhotos

Garrison
noted that the jungle grew over the abandoned Maya field and
structures, rather than destroyed them. This is unlike some other
ancient cities, whose fields, roads and outbuildings have been all
but destroyed by the elements.

The
jungle, which has hindered us in our discovery efforts for so long,
has actually worked as this great preservative tool of the impact the
culture had 
across the
landscape,”
 noted
Garrison. The assistant professor says the finding “can’t be
called anything other than a Maya fortress.”

To
the researchers’ surprise, the structures were hiding in plain
sight. 
As
soon as we saw this we all felt a little sheepish,”
 said
Canuto, 
because
these were things that we had been walking over all the time.” 

What
else might be discovered with the Lidar technology? Only time will
tell!

By Amanda
Froelich
 /
Republished with permission / 
The
Mind Unleashed
 / Report
a typo

Pré-Trump fascistoïde wetgeving in de VS……

Zag toevallig in een film afgelopen weekeinde, dat de PATRIOT Act (wetsvoorstel H.R. 3162), door een meerderheid van het congres aangenomen op 26 oktober 2001, ‘een leuke bepaling’ heeft voor vluchtelingen die zonder papieren illegaal het land binnenkomen.

Deze mensen mogen zonder inmenging van de rechterlijke macht, voor onbepaalde tijd worden vastgezet……… Dat is nog eens wat anders dan illegaliteit strafbaar stellen, zoals ‘Nederland’ heeft besloten, iets dat op zich al te zot is voor woorden!!*

Moet u nagaan, bijna zonder uitzondering is het de VS die enorme vluchtelingenstromen op gang heeft gebracht en brengt, met de door deze grootste terreurentiteit op aarde begonnen illegale oorlogen en met door de VS opgezette, gefinancierde en geregisseerde opstanden en staatsgrepen!!!

Overigens is die PATRIOT Act het gevolg van 911, NB aanslagen, die ook door de VS zijn gefinancierd en geregisseerd, zoveel is intussen meer dan duidelijk!!

* Al moet ik eerlijk toegeven, dat het in Nederland onofficieel niet heel anders is. Zo kunnen mensen zonder papieren, die ten onrechte zijn uitgeprocedeerd (terwijl ze uit landen komen waar oorlog is, zoals gezegd, veelal door het westen begonnen), keer op keer worden opgepakt en voor een paar maanden worden vastgezet……

‘Leve de beschaving!!’

Klik voor meer berichten n.a.v. het voorgaande, op één van de labels, die u onder dit bericht terug kan vinden.

Mexico: mensenrechten- en milieuactivist Isidro Baldenegro vermoord……..

Mensen het is alweer zover, BBC World Service meldde gisteren in het radionieuws van 1.00 u. (CET) dat er alweer een mensenrechtenactivist, te weten Isidro Baldenegro, werd vermoord in Latijns Amerika…… .Isidro Baldenegro was net terug uit ballingschap, hij moest eerder voor zijn leven Mexico ontvluchten……. Daar hij de strijd tegen onrecht te belangrijk vond en keerde Baldenegro terug naar Mexico, met de meer dan laffe en schandelijke moord op deze gelauwerde activist tot gevolg…….

Afbeeldingsresultaat voor isidro baldenegro

Isidro Baldenegro met de Goldman Environmental Prijs, die hij in 2005 ontving.

Een bijzonder triest begin van het nieuwe jaar……. Vorig jaar werden er in een aantal Latijns-Amerikaanse landen mensenrechten- en/of milieuactivisten (meestal waren de slachtoffers beide) vermoord, zoals in Honduras, Guatemala en Brazilië…….. Alleen in Mexico werden in de periode van 2010 t/m 2015 ‘maar liefst’ 33 van deze activisten vermoord……

In Argentinië pakt men het onder de fascistisch/neoliberale regering anders aan, men klaagt die activisten ‘gewoon’ aan, als ze zich verzetten tegen de grote landeigenaren en de inhumane overheid….. Landeigenaren, vaak behorend tot de vriendenkring van de Zorreguieta’s (dus ook uw pampakoningin), die naar willekeur handelen en de oorspronkelijke bevolking met behulp van politie en bewapende bendes als derderangs burgers behandelen…. En pampakoningin Maxima maar micro-kredieten steunen in ontwikkelingslanden, zodat arme sodemieters zich tot de nek in de schulden steken, niet zelden reden tot suïcide na faillissement….*

‘Fijn ook’, dat deze moorden zo in de belangstelling staan bij PvdA opperknurft Koenders, oh wacht: hij is natuurlijk weer met ‘doodstille diplomatie’ bezig……… Datzelfde, geen aandacht, geldt trouwens ook voor de Nederlandse media, ik kon gisteren over dit onderwerp geen artikel vinden………… Ach eigenlijk wel ‘logisch’, daar in 99 van de 100 gevallen de CIA zich ook met deze zaken bemoeit en zoals u weet: alles wat de VS flikt in het buitenland is heilig voor de westerse politiek en de reguliere media……….

Hier het bericht van Reuters over de zaak:

Murder
of Mexican activist triggers calls for better protection of
campaigners

BOGOTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A prominent environmentalist in Mexico was shot dead over the weekend, highlighting the dangers facing activists in Latin America and prompting calls for better protection of land and indigenous rights campaigners.

Isidro Baldenegro, an environmental rights activist, was killed by gunmen on Sunday in Mexico’s northern state of Chihuahua after having received death threats.

A community leader of Mexico’s indigenous Tarahumara people, Baldenegro was known for his fight against illegal logging in the country’s Sierra Madre mountain region.

Afbeeldingsresultaat voor isidro baldenegro

For years he led non-violent protests against logging projects, including sit-ins and human blockades.

Afbeeldingsresultaat voor isidro baldenegro

“The killing of Isidro Baldenegro Lopez is a tragic illustration of the many dangers faced by those who dedicate their lives to defend human rights in Latin America, one of the most dangerous regions in the work for activists,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International, in a statement on Wednesday.

“It is imperative that Mexico investigates this crime and that all governments across the Americas take more action to promote and protect the very important work human rights activists do with so much courage.”

Baldenegro, one of Mexico’s most prominent environmentalists, was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2005 for his work against deforestation.

He is the second recipient of the prize, given to grassroots environmental activists, to be murdered in less than a year.

Honduran environmental campaigner Berta Caceres, who won the Goldman Prize in 2015 for her battle against construction of a dam that threatened to displace indigenous people, was killed in March 2016.

Campaign group Global Witness also urged Mexico to make sure Baldenegro’s killers are brought to justice.

“This crime must not be met with impunity, like the majority of these killings are,” Ben Leather, a campaigner for Global Witness, said in a statement, also on Wednesday.

“The Mexican authorities must act with conviction, prosecuting those responsible for Isidro’s murder and protecting his family and colleagues.”

At least 33 right defenders were killed in Mexico from 2010 to 2015, according to a 2016 report by Global Witness.

Baldenegro’s murder came at the start of a nine-day mission by United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders Michel Forst to Mexico.

Making his first visit to Mexico, Forst planned to assess the situation facing the country’s human rights defenders and measures Mexican authorities are taking to protect activists.

“I’m deeply outraged by the murder of Isidro Baldenegro,” Forst wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

Mexico’s state prosecutor’s office has started an investigation into Baldenegro’s murder.

One gunman, who reportedly fled the crime scene, has been identified but not detained, according to local media.

(Reporting by Anastasia Moloney @anastasiabogota, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit news.trust.org)


================



* Zie: ‘Argentinië: protesten bij politiek proces tegen welzijnsactivist……

Zie ook: ‘Obama biedt excuses aan voor staatsgreep in Argentinië en stelt dat het VS beleid drastisch is veranderd…….. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

       en:  ‘Argentinië: protesten bij politiek proces tegen welzijnsactivist……

       en: ‘Berta Cáceres voorvechter gelijke rechten en milieuactivist vermoord in Honduras

       en: ‘Hillary Clinton mede verantwoordelijk voor moord op Berta Cáceres………..

       en: ‘Hondurese activiste ontvoerd en vermoord (alweer…), met instemming van de VS………

Klik voor meer berichten n.a.v. het bovenstaande, op één van de labels,die u onder dit bericht terug kan vinden, dit geldt niet voor het label ‘Baldenegro’.

VS vermoordde meer dan 20 miljoen mensen sinds het einde van WOII……..

Kwam gisteren op het blog van Stan van Houcke een lijst met oorlogen tegen, die de VS sinds WOII heeft gevoerd. Voor velen geen nieuws maar het is schokkend om alles nog eens op een rij te zien, een gruwelijk naslagwerk over de daden van de grootste terreur entiteit op aarde: de VS…….

US
Has Killed More Than 20 Million In 37 Nations Since WWII

After
the catastrophic attacks of September 11 2001 monumental sorrow and a
feeling of desperate and understandable anger began to permeate the
American psyche. A few people at that time attempted to promote a
balanced perspective by pointing out that the United States had also
been responsible for causing those same feelings in people in other
nations, but they produced hardly a ripple. Although 

Americans
understand in the abstract the wisdom of people around the world
empathizing with the suffering of one another, such a reminder of
wrongs committed by our nation got little hearing and was soon
overshadowed by an accelerated “war on terrorism.”

But
we must continue our efforts to develop understanding and compassion
in the world. Hopefully, this article will assist in doing that by
addressing the question “How many September 11ths has the United
States caused in other nations since WWII?” This theme is developed
in this report which contains an estimated numbers of such deaths in
37 nations as well as brief explanations of why the U.S. is
considered culpable.

The
causes of wars are complex. In some instances nations other than the
U.S. may have been responsible for more deaths, but if the
involvement of our nation appeared to have been a necessary cause of
a war or conflict it was considered responsible for the deaths in it.
In other words they probably would not have taken place if the U.S.
had not used the heavy hand of its power. The military and economic
power of the United States was crucial.

This
study reveals that U.S. military forces were directly responsible for
about 10 to 15 million deaths during the Korean and Vietnam Wars and
the two Iraq Wars. The Korean War also includes Chinese deaths while
the Vietnam War also includes fatalities in Cambodia and Laos.

The
American public probably is not aware of these numbers and knows even
less about the proxy wars for which the United States is also
responsible. In the latter wars there were between nine and 14
million deaths in Afghanistan, Angola, Democratic Republic of the
Congo, East Timor, Guatemala, Indonesia, Pakistan and Sudan.

But
the victims are not just from big nations or one part of the world.
The remaining deaths were in smaller ones which constitute over half
the total number of nations. Virtually all parts of the world have
been the target of U.S. intervention.

The
overall conclusion reached is that the United States most likely has
been responsible since WWII for the deaths of between 20 and 30
million people in wars and conflicts scattered over the world.

To
the families and friends of these victims it makes little difference
whether the causes were U.S. military action, proxy military forces,
the provision of U.S. military supplies or advisors, or other ways,
such as economic pressures applied by our nation. They had to make
decisions about other things such as finding lost loved ones, whether
to become refugees, and how to survive.

And
the pain and anger is spread even further. Some authorities estimate
that there are as many as 10 wounded for each person who dies in
wars. Their visible, continued suffering is a continuing reminder to
their fellow countrymen.

It
is essential that Americans learn more about this topic so that they
can begin to understand the pain that others feel. Someone once
observed that the Germans during WWII “chose not to know.” We
cannot allow history to say this about our country. The question
posed above was “How many September 11ths has the United States
caused in other nations since WWII?” The answer is: possibly
10,000.

Comments
on Gathering These Numbers


Generally
speaking, the much smaller number of Americans who have died is not
included in this study, not because they are not important, but
because this report focuses on the impact of U.S. actions on its
adversaries.

An
accurate count of the number of deaths is not easy to achieve, and
this collection of data was undertaken with full realization of this
fact. These estimates will probably be revised later either upward or
downward by the reader and the author. But undoubtedly the total will
remain in the millions.

The
difficulty of gathering reliable information is shown by two
estimates in this context. For several years I heard statements on
radio that three million Cambodians had been killed under the rule of
the Khmer Rouge. However, in recent years the figure I heard was one
million. Another example is that the number of persons estimated to
have died in Iraq due to sanctions after the first U.S. Iraq War was
over 1 million, but in more recent years, based on a more recent
study, a lower estimate of around a half a million has emerged.

Often
information about wars is revealed only much later when someone
decides to speak out, when more secret information is revealed due to
persistent efforts of a few, or after special congressional
committees make reports

Both
victorious and defeated nations may have their own reasons for
underreporting the number of deaths. Further, in recent wars
involving the United States it was not uncommon to hear statements
like “we do not do body counts” and references to “collateral
damage” as a euphemism for dead and wounded. Life is cheap for
some, especially those who manipulate people on the battlefield as if
it were a chessboard.

To
say that it is difficult to get exact figures is not to say that we
should not try. Effort was needed to arrive at the figures of 6six
million Jews killed during WWI, but knowledge of that number now is
widespread and it has fueled the determination to prevent future
holocausts. That struggle continues.

The
author can be contacted at 
jlucas511@woh.rr.com

37
VICTIM NATIONS

Afghanistan

The
U.S. is responsible for between 1 and 1.8 million deaths during the
war between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan, by luring the Soviet
Union into invading that nation. (1,2,3,4)

The
Soviet Union had friendly relations its neighbor, Afghanistan, which
had a secular government. The Soviets feared that if that government
became fundamentalist this change could spill over into the Soviet
Union.

In
1998, in an interview with the Parisian publication Le Novel
Observateur, Zbigniew Brzezinski, adviser to President Carter,
admitted that he had been responsible for instigating aid to the
Mujahadeen in Afghanistan which caused the Soviets to invade. In his
own words:

According
to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began
during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded
Afghanistan on 24 December 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded
until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that
President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the
opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I
wrote a note to the President in which I explained to him that in my
opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.”
(5,1,6)

Brzezinski
justified laying this trap, since he said it gave the Soviet Union
its Vietnam and caused the breakup of the Soviet Union. “Regret
what?” he said. “That secret operation was an excellent idea. It
had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you
want me to regret it?” (7)

The
CIA spent 5 to 6 billion dollars on its operation in Afghanistan in
order to bleed the Soviet Union. (1,2,3) When that 10-year war ended
over a million people were dead and Afghan heroin had captured 60% of
the U.S. market. (4)

The
U.S. has been responsible directly for about 12,000 deaths in
Afghanistan many of which resulted from bombing in retaliation for
the attacks on U.S. property on September 11, 2001. Subsequently U.S.
troops invaded that country. (4)

Angola

An
indigenous armed struggle against Portuguese rule in Angola began in
1961. In 1977 an Angolan government was recognized by the U.N.,
although the U.S. was one of the few nations that opposed this
action. In 1986 Uncle Sam approved material assistance to UNITA, a
group that was trying to overthrow the government. Even today this
struggle, which has involved many nations at times, continues.

U.S.
intervention was justified to the U.S. public as a reaction to the
intervention of 50,000 Cuban troops in Angola. However, according to
Piero Gleijeses, a history professor at Johns Hopkins University the
reverse was true. The Cuban intervention came as a result of a CIA –
financed covert invasion via neighboring Zaire and a drive on the
Angolan capital by the U.S. ally, South Africa1,2,3). (Three
estimates of deaths range from 300,000 to 750,000 (4,5,6)

Argentina:
See South America: Operation Condor

Bangladesh:
See Pakistan

Bolivia

Hugo
Banzer was the leader of a repressive regime in Bolivia in the 1970s.
The U.S. had been disturbed when a previous leader nationalized the
tin mines and distributed land to Indian peasants. Later that action
to benefit the poor was reversed.

Banzer,
who was trained at the U.S.-operated School of the Americas in Panama
and later at Fort Hood, Texas, came back from exile frequently to
confer with U.S. Air Force Major Robert Lundin. In 1971 he staged a
successful coup with the help of the U.S. Air Force radio system. In
the first years of his dictatorship he received twice as military
assistance from the U.S. as in the previous dozen years together.

A
few years later the Catholic Church denounced an army massacre of
striking tin workers in 1975, Banzer, assisted by information
provided by the CIA, was able to target and locate leftist priests
and nuns. His anti-clergy strategy, known as the Banzer Plan, was
adopted by nine other Latin American dictatorships in 1977. (2) He
has been accused of being responsible for 400 deaths during his
tenure. (1)

Also
see: See South America: Operation Condor

Brazil:
See South America: Operation Condor

Cambodia

U.S.
bombing of Cambodia had already been underway for several years in
secret under the Johnson and Nixon administrations, but when
President Nixon openly began bombing in preparation for a land
assault on Cambodia it caused major protests in the U.S. against the
Vietnam War.

There
is little awareness today of the scope of these bombings and the
human suffering involved.

Immense
damage was done to the villages and cities of Cambodia, causing
refugees and internal displacement of the population. This unstable
situation enabled the Khmer Rouge, a small political party led by Pol
Pot, to assume power. Over the years we have repeatedly heard about
the Khmer Rouge’s role in the deaths of millions in Cambodia
without any acknowledgement being made this mass killing was made
possible by the the U.S. bombing of that nation which destabilized it
by death , injuries, hunger and dislocation of its people.

So
the U.S. bears responsibility not only for the deaths from the
bombings but also for those resulting from the activities of the
Khmer Rouge – a total of about 2.5 million people. Even when
Vietnam latrer invaded Cambodia in 1979 the CIA was still supporting
the Khmer Rouge. (1,2,3)

Also
see Vietnam

Chad

An
estimated 40,000 people in Chad were killed and as many as 200,000
tortured by a government, headed by Hissen Habre who was brought to
power in June, 1982 with the help of CIA money and arms. He remained
in power for eight years. (1,2)

Human
Rights Watch claimed that Habre was responsible for thousands of
killings. In 2001, while living in Senegal, he was almost tried for
crimes committed by him in Chad. However, a court there blocked these
proceedings. Then human rights people decided to pursue the case in
Belgium, because some of 

Habre’s torture victims lived there. The
U.S., in June 2003, told Belgium that it risked losing its status as
host to NATO’s headquarters if it allowed such a legal proceeding
to happen. So the result was that the law that allowed victims to
file complaints in Belgium for atrocities committed abroad was
repealed. 

However, two months later a new law was passed which made
special provision for the continuation of the case against Habre.

Chile

The
CIA intervened in Chile’s 1958 and 1964 elections. In 1970 a
socialist candidate, Salvador Allende, was elected president. The CIA
wanted to incite a military coup to prevent his inauguration, but the
Chilean army’s chief of staff, General Rene Schneider, opposed this
action. The CIA then planned, along with some people in the Chilean
military, to assassinate Schneider. This plot failed and Allende took
office. President Nixon was not to be dissuaded and he ordered the
CIA to create a coup climate: “Make the economy scream,” he
said.

What followed were guerilla warfare, arson, bombing,
sabotage and terror. ITT and other U.S. corporations with Chilean
holdings sponsored demonstrations and strikes. Finally, on September
11, 1973 Allende died either by suicide or by assassination. At that
time Henry Kissinger, U.S. Secretary of State, said the following
regarding Chile: “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a
country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own
people.” (1)

During
17 years of terror under Allende’s successor, General Augusto
Pinochet, an estimated 3,000 Chileans were killed and many others
were tortured or “disappeared.” (2,3,4,5)

Also
see South America: Operation Condor

China
An estimated 900,000 Chinese died during the Korean War. For more
information, See: Korea.

Colombia

One
estimate is that 67,000 deaths have occurred from the 1960s to recent
years due to support by the U.S. of Colombian state terrorism. (1)

According
to a 1994 Amnesty International report, more than 20,000 people were
killed for political reasons in Colombia since 1986, mainly by the
military and its paramilitary allies. Amnesty alleged that “U.S.-
supplied military equipment, ostensibly delivered for use against
narcotics traffickers, was being used by the Colombian military to
commit abuses in the name of “counter-insurgency.” (2) In 2002
another estimate was made that 3,500 people die each year in a U.S.
funded civilian war in Colombia. (3)

In
1996 Human Rights Watch issued a report “Assassination Squads in
Colombia” which revealed that 

CIA agents went to Colombia in 1991
to help the military to train undercover agents in anti-subversive
activity. (4,5)

In
recent years the U.S. government has provided assistance under Plan
Colombia. The Colombian government has been charged with using most
of the funds for destruction of crops and support of the paramilitary
group.

Cuba

In
the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba on April 18, 1961 which ended after
3 days, 114 of the invading force were killed, 1,189 were taken
prisoners and a few escaped to waiting U.S. ships. (1) The captured
exiles were quickly tried, a few executed and the rest sentenced to
thirty years in prison for treason. These exiles were released after
20 months in exchange for $53 million in food and medicine.

Some
people estimate that the number of Cuban forces killed range from
2,000, to 4,000. Another estimate is that 1,800 Cuban forces were
killed on an open highway by napalm. This appears to have been a
precursor of the Highway of Death in Iraq in 1991 when U.S. forces
mercilessly annihilated large numbers of Iraqis on a highway. (2)

Democratic
Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire)

The
beginning of massive violence was instigated in this country in 1879
by its colonizer King Leopold of Belgium. The Congo’s population
was reduced by 10 million people over a period of 20 years which some
have referred to as “Leopold’s Genocide.” (1) The U.S. has been
responsible for about a third of t

hat many deaths in that nation in
the more recent past. (2)

In
1960 the Congo became an independent state with Patrice Lumumba being
its first prime minister. He was assassinated with the CIA being
implicated, although some say that his murder was actually the
responsibility of Belgium. (3) But nevertheless, the CIA was planning
to kill him. (4) Before his assassination the CIA sent one of its
scientists, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, to the Congo carrying “lethal
biological material” intended for use in Lumumba’s assassination.
This virus would have been able to produce a fatal disease indigenous
to the Congo area of Africa and was transported in a diplomatic
pouch.

Much
of the time in recent years there has been a civil war within the
Democratic Republic of Congo, fomented often by the U.S. and other
nations, including neighboring nations. (5)

In
April 1977, Newsday reported that the CIA was secretly supporting
efforts to recruit several hundred mercenaries in the U.S. and Great
Britain to serve alongside Zaire’s army. In that same year the U.S.
provided $15 million of military supplies to the Zairian President
Mobutu to fend off an invasion by a rival group operating in Angola.
(6)

In
May 1979, the U.S. sent several million dollars of aid to Mobutu who
had been condemned 3 months earlier by the U.S. State Department for
human rights violations. (7) During the Cold War the U.S. funneled
over 300 million dollars in weapons into Zaire (8,9) $100 million in
military training was provided to him. (2) In 2001 it was reported to
a U.S. congressional committee that American companies, including one
linked to former President George Bush Sr., were stoking the Congo
for monetary gains. There is an international battle over resources
in that country with over 125 companies and individuals being
implicated. One of these substances is coltan, which is used in the
manufacture of cell phones. (2)


Dominican
Republic

In
1962, Juan Bosch became president of the Dominican Republic. He
advocated such programs as land reform and public works programs.
This did not bode well for his future relationship with the U.S., and
after only 7 months in office, he was deposed by a CIA coup. In 1965
when a group was trying to reinstall him to his office President
Johnson said, “This Bosch is no good.” Assistant Secretary of
State Thomas Mann replied “He’s no good at all. If we don’t get
a decent government in there, Mr. President, we get another Bosch.
It’s just going to be another sinkhole.” Two days later a U.S.
invasion started and 22,000 soldiers and marines entered the
Dominican Republic and about 3,000 Dominicans died during the
fighting. The cover excuse for doing this was that this was done to
protect foreigners there. (1,2,3,4)

East
Timor

In
December 1975, Indonesia invaded East Timor. This incursion was
launched the day after U.S. President Gerald Ford and Secretary of
State Henry Kissinger had left Indonesia where they had given
President Suharto permission to use American arms, which under U.S.
law, could not be used for aggression. Daniel Moynihan, U.S.
ambassador to the UN. said that the U.S. wanted “things to turn out
as they did.” (1,2) The result was an estimated 200,000 dead out of
a population of 700,000. (1,2)

Sixteen
years later, on November 12, 1991, two hundred and seventeen East
Timorese protesters in Dili, many of them children, marching from a
memorial service, were gunned down by Indonesian Kopassus shock
troops who were headed by U.S.- trained commanders Prabowo Subianto
(son in law of General Suharto) and Kiki Syahnakri. Trucks were seen
dumping bodies into the sea. (5)

El
Salvador

The
civil war from 1981 to1992 in El Salvador was financed by $6 billion
in U.S. aid given to support the government in its efforts to crush a
movement to bring social justice to the people in that nation of
about 8 million people. (1)

During that time U.S. military
advisers demonstrated methods of torture on teenage prisoners,
according to an interview with a deserter from the Salvadoran army
published in the New York Times. This former member of the Salvadoran
National Guard testified that he was a member of a squad of twelve
who found people who they were told were guerillas and tortured them.
Part of the training he received was in torture at a U.S. location
somewhere in Panama. (2)

About
900 villagers were massacred in the village of El Mozote in 1981. Ten
of the twelve El Salvadoran government soldiers cited as
participating in this act were graduates of the School of the
Americas operated by the U.S. (2) They were only a small part of
about 75,000 people killed during that civil war. (1)

According
to a 1993 United Nations’ Truth Commission report, over 96 % of the
human rights violations carried out during the war were committed by
the Salvadoran army or the paramilitary deaths squads associated with
the Salvadoran army. (3)

That
commission linked graduates of the School of the Americas to many
notorious killings. The New York Times and the Washington Post
followed with scathing articles. In 1996, the White House Oversight
Board issued a report that supported many of the charges against that
school made by Rev. Roy Bourgeois, head of the School of the Americas
Watch. That same year the Pentagon released formerly classified
reports indicating that graduates were trained in killing, extortion,
and physical abuse for interrogations, false imprisonment and other
methods of control. (4)

Grenada

The
CIA began to destabilize Grenada in 1979 after Maurice Bishop became
president, partially because he refused to join the quarantine of
Cuba. The campaign against him resulted in his overthrow and the
invasion by the U.S. of Grenada on October 25, 1983, with about 277
people dying. (1,2) It was fallaciously charged that an airport was
being built in Grenada that could be used to attack the U.S. and it
was also erroneously claimed that the lives of American medical
students on that island were in danger.

Guatemala

In
1951 Jacobo Arbenz was elected president of Guatemala. He
appropriated some unused land operated by the United Fruit Company
and compensated the company. (1,2) That company then started a
campaign to paint Arbenz as a tool of an international conspiracy and
hired about 300 mercenaries who sabotaged oil supplies and trains.
(3) In 1954 a CIA-orchestrated coup put him out of office and he left
the country. During the next 40 years various regimes killed
thousands of people.

In
1999 the Washington Post reported that an Historical Clarification
Commission concluded that over 200,000 people had been killed during
the civil war and that there had been 42,000 individual human rights
violations, 29,000 of them fatal, 92% of which were committed by the
army. The commission further reported that the U.S. government and
the CIA had pressured the Guatemalan government into suppressing the
guerilla movement by ruthless means. (4,5)

According
to the Commission between 1981 and 1983 the military government of
Guatemala – financed and supported by the U.S. government –
destroyed some four hundred Mayan villages in a campaign of genocide.
(4)

One of the documents made available to the commission was a
1966 memo from a U.S. State Department official, which described how
a “safe house” was set up in the palace for use by Guatemalan
security agents and their U.S. contacts. This was the headquarters
for the Guatemalan “dirty war” against leftist insurgents and
suspected allies. (2)

Haiti

From
1957 to 1986 Haiti was ruled by Papa Doc Duvalier and later by his
son. During that time their private terrorist force killed between
30,000 and 100,000 people. (1) Millions of dollars in CIA subsidies
flowed into Haiti during that time, mainly to suppress popular
movements, (2) although most American military aid to the country,
according to William Blum, was covertly channeled through Israel.

Reportedly,
governments after the second Duvalier reign were responsible for an
even larger number of fatalities, and the influence on Haiti by the
U.S., particularly through the CIA, has continued. The U.S. later
forced out of the presidential office a black Catholic priest, Jean
Bertrand Aristide, even though he was elected with 67% of the vote in
the early 1990s. The wealthy white class in Haiti opposed him in this
predominantly black nation, because of his social programs designed
to help the poor and end corruption. (3) Later he returned to office,
but that did not last long. He was forced by the U.S. to leave office
and now lives in South Africa.


Honduras

In
the 1980s the CIA supported Battalion 316 in Honduras, which
kidnapped, tortured and killed hundreds of its citizens. Torture
equipment and manuals were provided by CIA Argentinean personnel who
worked with U.S. agents in the training of the Hondurans.
Approximately 400 people lost their lives. (1,2) This is another
instance of torture in the world sponsored by the U.S. (3)

Battalion
316 used shock and suffocation devices in interrogations in the
1980s. Prisoners often were kept naked and, when no longer useful,
killed and buried in unmarked graves. Declassified documents and
other sources show that the CIA and the U.S. Embassy knew of numerous
crimes, including murder and torture, yet continued to support
Battalion 316 and collaborate with its leaders.” (4)

Honduras
was a staging ground in the early 1980s for the Contras who were
trying to overthrow the socialist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
John D. Negroponte, currently Deputy Secretary of State, was our
embassador when our military aid to Honduras rose from $4 million to
$77.4 million per year. Negroponte denies having had any knowledge of
these atrocities during his tenure. However, his predecessor in that
position, Jack R. Binns, had reported in 1981 that he was deeply
concerned at increasing evidence of officially sponsored/sanctioned
assassinations. (5)

Hungary

In
1956 Hungary, a Soviet satellite nation, revolted against the Soviet
Union. During the uprising broadcasts by the U.S. Radio Free Europe
into Hungary sometimes took on an aggressive tone, encouraging the
rebels to believe that Western support was imminent, and even giving
tactical advice on how to fight the Soviets. Their hopes were raised
then dashed by these broadcasts which cast an even darker shadow over
the Hungarian tragedy.“ (1) The Hungarian and Soviet death toll was
about 3,000 and the revolution was crushed. (2)

Indonesia

In
1965, in Indonesia, a coup replaced General Sukarno with General
Suharto as leader. The U.S. played a role in that change of
government. Robert Martens,a former officer in the U.S. embassy in
Indonesia, described how U.S. diplomats and CIA officers provided up
to 5,000 names to Indonesian Army death squads in 1965 and checked
them off as they were killed or captured. Martens admitted that “I
probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but that’s not all bad.
There’s a time when you have to strike hard at a decisive moment.”
(1,2,3) Estimates of the number of deaths range from 500,000 to 3
million. (4,5,6)

From 1993 to 1997 the U.S. provided Jakarta with
almost $400 million in economic aid and sold tens of million of
dollars of weaponry to that nation. U.S. Green Berets provided
training for the Indonesia’s elite force which was responsible for
many of atrocities in East Timor. (3)

Iran

Iran
lost about 262,000 people in the war against Iraq from 1980 to 1988.
(1) See Iraq for more information about that war.

On
July 3, 1988 the U.S. Navy ship, the Vincennes, was operating withing
Iranian waters providing military support for Iraq during the
Iran-Iraq war. During a battle against Iranian gunboats it fired two
missiles at an Iranian Airbus, which was on a routine civilian
flight. All 290 civilian on board were killed. (2,3)

Iraq

A.
The Iraq-Iran War lasted from 1980 to 1988 and during that time there
were about 105,000 Iraqi deaths according to the Washington Post.
(1,2)

According
to Howard Teicher, a former National Security Council official, the
U.S. provided the Iraqis with billions of dollars in credits and
helped Iraq in other ways such as making sure that Iraq had military
equipment including biological agents This surge of help for Iraq
came as Iran seemed to be winning the war and was close to Basra. (1)
The U.S. was not adverse to both countries weakening themselves as a
result of the war, but it did not appear to want either side to win.

B:
The U.S.-Iraq War and the Sanctions Against Iraq extended from 1990
to 2003.

Iraq
invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990 and the U.S. responded by demanding
that Iraq withdraw, and four days later the U.N. levied international
sanctions.

Iraq
had reason to believe that the U.S. would not object to its invasion
of Kuwait, since U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, had told
Saddam Hussein that the U.S. had no position on the dispute that his
country had with Kuwait. So the green light was given, but it seemed
to be more of a trap.

As
a part of the public relations strategy to energize the American
public into supporting an attack against Iraq the daughter of the
Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S. falsely testified before Congress that
Iraqi troops were pulling the plugs on incubators in Iraqi hospitals.
(1) This contributed to a war frenzy in the U.S.

The
U.S. air assault started on January 17, 1991 and it lasted for 42
days. On February 23 President H.W. Bush ordered the U.S. ground
assault to begin. The invasion took place with much needless killing
of Iraqi military personnel. Only about 150 American military
personnel died compared to about 200,000 Iraqis. Some of the Iraqis
were mercilessly killed on the Highway of Death and about 400 tons of
depleted uranium were left in that nation by the U.S. (2,3)

Other
deaths later were from delayed deaths due to wounds, civilians
killed, those killed by effects of damage of the Iraqi water
treatment facilities and other aspects of its damaged infrastructure
and by the sanctions.

In
1995 the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. reported that
U.N sanctions against on Iraq had been responsible for the deaths of
more than 560,000 children since 1990. (5)

Leslie
Stahl on the TV Program 60 Minutes in 1996 mentioned to Madeleine
Albright, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. “We have heard that a half
million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died
in Hiroshima. And – and you know, is the price worth it?”
Albright replied “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price
– we think is worth it.” (4)

In
1999 UNICEF reported that 5,000 children died each month as a result
of the sanction and the War with the U.S. (6)

Richard
Garfield later estimated that the more likely number of excess deaths
among children under five years of age from 1990 through March 1998
to be 227,000 – double those of the previous decade. Garfield
estimated that the numbers to be 350,000 through 2000 (based in part
on result of another study). (7)

However,
there are limitations to his study. His figures were not updated for
the remaining three years of the sanctions. Also, two other somewhat
vulnerable age groups were not studied: young children above the age
of five and the elderly.

All
of these reports were considerable indicators of massive numbers of
deaths which the U.S. was aware of and which was a part of its
strategy to cause enough pain and terror among Iraqis to cause them
to revolt against their government.

C:
Iraq-U.S. War started in 2003 and has not been concluded


Just
as the end of the Cold War emboldened the U.S. to attack Iraq in 1991
so the attacks of September 11, 2001 laid the groundwork for the U.S.
to launch the current war against Iraq. While in some other wars we
learned much later about the lies that were used to deceive us, some
of the deceptions that were used to get us into this war became known
almost as soon as they were uttered. There were no weapons of mass
destruction, we were not trying to promote democracy, we were not
trying to save the Iraqi people from a dictator.

The
total number of Iraqi deaths that are a result of our current Iraq
against Iraq War is 654,000, of which 600,000 are attributed to acts
of violence, according to Johns Hopkins researchers. (1,2)

Since
these deaths are a result of the U.S. invasion, our leaders must
accept responsibility for them.

Israeli-Palestinian
War

About
100,000 to 200,000 Israelis and Palestinians, but mostly the latter,
have been killed in the struggle between those two groups. The U.S.
has been a strong supporter of Israel, providing billions of dollars
in aid and supporting its possession of nuclear weapons. (1,2)


Korea,
North and South


The
Korean War started in 1950 when, according to the Truman
administration, North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25th.
However, since then another explanation has emerged which maintains
that the attack by North Korea came during a time of many border
incursions by both sides. South Korea initiated most of the border
clashes with North Korea beginning in 1948. The North Korea
government claimed that by 1949 the South Korean army committed 2,617
armed incursions. It was a myth that the Soviet Union ordered North
Korea to attack South Korea. (1,2)


The
U.S. started its attack before a U.N. resolution was passed
supporting our nation’s intervention, and our military forces added
to the mayhem in the war by introducing the use of napalm. (1)

During
the war the bulk of the deaths were South Koreans, North Koreans and
Chinese. Four sources give deaths counts ranging from 1.8 to 4.5
million. (3,4,5,6) Another source gives a total of 4 million but does
not identify to which nation they belonged. (7)


John
H. Kim, a U.S. Army veteran and the Chair of the Korea Committee of
Veterans for Peace, stated in an article that during the Korean War
“the U.S. Army, Air Force and Navy were directly involved in the
killing of about three million civilians – both South and North
Koreans – at many locations throughout Korea…It is reported that
the U.S. dropped some 650,000 tons of bombs, including 43,000 tons of
napalm bombs, during the Korean War.” It is presumed that this
total does not include Chinese casualties.

Another
source states a total of about 500,000 who were Koreans and
presumably only military. (8,9)


Laos


From
1965 to 1973 during the Vietnam War the U.S. dropped over two million
tons of bombs on Laos – more than was dropped in WWII by both
sides. Over a quarter of the population became refugees. This was
later called a “secret war,” since it occurred at the same time
as the Vietnam War, but got little press. Hundreds of thousands were
killed. Branfman make the only estimate that I am aware of , stating
that hundreds of thousands died. This can be interpeted to mean that
at least 200,000 died. (1,2,3)


U.S.
military intervention in Laos actually began much earlier. A civil
war started in the 1950s when the U.S. recruited a force of 40,000
Laotians to oppose the Pathet Lao, a leftist political party that
ultimately took power in 1975.

Also
See Vietnam

Nepal


Between
8,000 and 12,000 Nepalese have died since a civil war broke out in
1996. The death rate, according to Foreign Policy in Focus, sharply
increased with the arrival of almost 8,400 American M-16 submachine
guns (950 rpm) and U.S. advisers. Nepal is 85 percent rural and badly
in need of land reform. Not surprisingly 42 % of its people live
below the poverty level. (1,2)

In
2002, after another civil war erupted, President George W. Bush
pushed a bill through Congress authorizing $20 million in military
aid to the Nepalese government. (3)


Nicaragua


In
1981 the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza government in Nicaragua,
(1) and until 1990 about 25,000 Nicaraguans were killed in an armed
struggle between the Sandinista government and Contra rebels who were
formed from the remnants of Somoza’s national government. The use
of assassination manuals by the Contras surfaced in 1984. (2,3)


The
U.S. supported the victorious government regime by providing covert
military aid to the Contras (anti-communist guerillas) starting in
November, 1981. But when Congress discovered that the CIA had
supervised acts of sabotage in Nicaragua without notifying Congress,
it passed the Boland Amendment in 1983 which prohibited the CIA,
Defense Department and any other government agency from providing any
further covert military assistance. (4)


But
ways were found to get around this prohibition. The National Security
Council, which was not explicitly covered by the law, raised private
and foreign funds for the Contras. In addition, arms were sold to
Iran and the proceeds were diverted from those sales to the Contras
engaged in the insurgency against the Sandinista government. (5)
Finally, the Sandinistas were voted out of office in 1990 by voters
who thought that a change in leadership would placate the U.S., which
was causing misery to Nicaragua’s citizenry by it support of the
Contras.


Pakistan


In
1971 West Pakistan, an authoritarian state supported by the U.S.,
brutally invaded East Pakistan. The war ended after India, whose
economy was staggering after admitting about 10 million refugees,
invaded East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and defeated the West
Pakistani forces. (1)

Millions
of people died during that brutal struggle, referred to by some as
genocide committed by West Pakistan. That country had long been an
ally of the U.S., starting with $411 million provided to establish
its armed forces which spent 80% of its budget on its military. $15
million in arms flowed into W. Pakistan during the war. (2,3,4)

Three
sources estimate that 3 million people died and (5,2,6) one source
estimates 1.5 million. (3)


Panama


In
December, 1989 U.S. troops invaded Panama, ostensibly to arrest
Manuel Noriega, that nation’s president. This was an example of the
U.S. view that it is the master of the world and can arrest anyone it
wants to. For a number of years before that he had worked for the
CIA, but fell out of favor partially because he was not an opponent
of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. (1) It has been estimated that
between 500 and 4,000 people died. (2,3,4)


Paraguay:
See South America: Operation Condor


Philippines


The
Philippines were under the control of the U.S. for over a hundred
years. In about the last 50 to 60 years the U.S. has funded and
otherwise helped various Philippine governments which sought to
suppress the activities of groups working for the welfare of its
people. In 1969 the Symington Committee in the U.S. Congress revealed
how war material was sent there for a counter-insurgency campaign.
U.S. Special Forces and Marines were active in some combat
operations. The estimated number of persons that were executed and
disappeared under President Fernando Marcos was over 100,000. (1,2)


South
America: Operation Condor


This
was a joint operation of 6 despotic South American governments
(Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay) to share
information about their political opponents. An estimated 13,000
people were killed under this plan. (1)


It
was established on November 25, 1975 in Chile by an act of the
Interamerican Reunion on Military Intelligence. According to U.S.
embassy political officer, John Tipton, the CIA and the Chilean
Secret Police were working together, although the CIA did not set up
the operation to make this collaboration work. Reportedly, it ended
in 1983. (2)


On
March 6, 2001 the New York Times reported the existence of a recently
declassified State Department document revealing that the United
States facilitated communications for Operation Condor. (3)


Sudan


Since
1955, when it gained its independence, Sudan has been involved most
of the time in a civil war. Until about 2003 approximately 2 million
people had been killed. It not known if the death toll in Darfur is
part of that total.


Human
rights groups have complained that U.S. policies have helped to
prolong the Sudanese civil war by supporting efforts to overthrow the
central government in Khartoum. In 1999 U.S. Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright met with the leader of the Sudan People’s
Liberation Army (SPLA) who said that she offered him food supplies if
he would reject a peace plan sponsored by Egypt and Libya.

In
1978 the vastness of Sudan’s oil reservers was discovered and
within two years it became the sixth largest recipient of U.S,
military aid. It’s reasonable to assume that if the U.S. aid a
government to come to power it will feel obligated to give the U.S.
part of the oil pie.


A
British group, Christian Aid, has accused foreign oil companies of
complicity in the depopulation of villages. These companies – not
American – receive government protection and in turn allow the
government use of its airstrips and roads.


In
August 1998 the U.S. bombed Khartoum, Sudan with 75 cruise míssiles.
Our government said that the target was a chemical weapons factory
owned by Osama bin Laden. Actually, bin Laden was no longer the
owner, and the plant had been the sole supplier of pharmaceutical
supplies for that poor nation. As a result of the bombing tens of
thousands may have died because of the lack of medicines to treat
malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases. The U.S. settled a lawsuit
filed by the factory’s owner. (1,2)


Uruguay:
See South America: Operation Condor

Vietnam

In
Vietnam, under an agreement several decades ago, there was supposed
to be an election for a unified North and South Vietnam. The U.S.
opposed this and supported the Diem government in South Vietnam. In
August, 1964 the CIA and others helped fabricate a phony Vietnamese
attack on a U.S. ship in the Gulf of Tonkin and this was used as a
pretext for greater U.S. involvement in Vietnam. (1)


During
that war an American assassination operation,called Operation
Phoenix, terrorized the South 

Vietnamese people, and during the war
American troops were responsible in 1968 for the mass slaughter of
the people in the village of My Lai.


According
to a Vietnamese government statement in 1995 the number of deaths of
civilians and military personnel during the Vietnam War was 5.1
million. (2)


Since
deaths in Cambodia and Laos were about 2.7 million (See Cambodia and
Laos) the estimated total for the Vietnam War is 7.8 million.


The
Virtual Truth Commission provides a total for the war of 5 million,
(3) and Robert McNamara, former Secretary Defense, according to the
New York Times Magazine says that the number of Vietnamese dead is
3.4 million. (4,5)


Yugoslavia


Yugoslavia
was a socialist federation of several republics. Since it refused to
be closely tied to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, it gained
some suport from the U.S. But when the Soviet Union dissolved,
Yugoslavia’s usefulness to the U.S. ended, and the U.S and Germany
worked to convert its socialist economy to a capitalist one by a
process primarily of dividing and conquering. There were ethnic and
religious differences between various parts of Yugoslavia which were
manipulated by the U.S. to cause several wars which resulted in the
dissolution of that country.


From
the early 1990s until now Yugoslavia split into several independent
nations whose lowered income, along with CIA connivance, has made it
a pawn in the hands of capitalist countries. (1) The dissolution of
Yugoslavia was caused primarily by the U.S. (2)


Here
are estimates of some, if not all, of the internal wars in
Yugoslavia. All wars: 107,000; (3,4)

Bosnia
and Krajina: 250,000; (5) Bosnia: 20,000 to 30,000; (5) Croatia:
15,000; (6) and

Kosovo:
500 to 5,000. (7)


NOTES


Afghanistan

1.Mark
Zepezauer, Boomerang (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2003),
p.135.

2.Chronology
of American State
Terrorism
http://www.intellnet.org/resources/american_
terrorism/ChronologyofTerror.html

3.Soviet
War in
Afghanistan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan

4.Mark
Zepezauer, The CIA’S Greatest Hits (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage
Press, 1994), p.76

5.U.S
Involvement in Afghanistan,
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in
Afghanistan)

6.The
CIA’s Intervention in Afghanistan, Interview with Zbigniew
Brzezinski, Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998, Posted
at globalresearch.ca 15 October
2001, 
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html

7.William
Blum, Rogue State (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2000), p.5

8.Unknown
News, 
http://www.unknownnews.net/casualtiesw.html

Angola

1.Howard
W. French “From Old Files, a New Story of the U.S. Role in the
Angolan War” New York Times 3/31/02

2.Angolan
Update, American Friends Service Committee FS, 11/1/99 flyer.

3.Norman
Solomon, War Made Easy, (John Wiley & Sons, 2005) p. 82-83.

4.Lance
Selfa, U.S. Imperialism, A Century of Slaughter, International
Socialist Review Issue 7, Spring 1999 (as appears in Third world
Traveler www.
thirdworldtraveler.com/American_Empire/Century_Imperialism.html)

5.
Jeffress Ramsay, Africa , (Dushkin/McGraw Hill Guilford Connecticut),
1997, p. 144-145.

6.Mark
Zepezauer, The CIA’S Greatest Hits (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage
Press, 1994), p.54.

Argentina
: See South America: Operation Condor

Bolivia

1.
Phil Gunson, Guardian, 5/6/02,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/archive
/article/0,4273,41-07884,00.html

2.Jerry
Meldon, Return of Bolilvia’s Drug – Stained Dictator,
Consortium,
www.consortiumnews.com/archives/story40.html.

Brazil
See South America: Operation Condor

Cambodia

1.Virtual
Truth Commissiion 
http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/ .

2.David
Model, President Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and the Bombing of
Cambodia excerpted from the book Lying for Empire How to Commit War
Crimes With A Straight Face, Common Courage Press, 2005,
paper
http://thirdworldtraveler.com/American_Empire/Nixon_Cambodia_LFE.html.

3.Noam
Chomsky, Chomsky on Cambodia under Pol Pot,
etc.,
http//zmag.org/forums/chomcambodforum.htm.

Chad

1.William
Blum, Rogue State (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2000), p.
151-152 .

2.Richard
Keeble, Crimes Against Humanity in Chad, Znet/Activism
12/4/06
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=11560&sectionID=1).

Chile

1.Parenti,
Michael, The Sword and the Dollar (New York, St. Martin’s Press,
1989) p. 56.

2.William
Blum, Rogue State (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2000), p.
142-143.

3.Moreorless:
Heroes and Killers of the 20th Century, Augusto Pinochet Ugarte,

http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/pinochet.html

4.Associated
Press,Pincohet on 91st Birthday, Takes Responsibility for Regimes’s
Abuses, Dayton Daily News 11/26/06

5.Chalmers
Johnson, Blowback, The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (New
York: Henry Holt and Company, 2000), p. 18.

China:
See Korea

Colombia

1.Chronology
of American State Terrorism, p.2

http://www.intellnet.org/resources/american_terrorism/ChronologyofTerror.html).

2.William
Blum, Rogue State (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2000), p.
163.

3.Millions
Killed by Imperialism Washington Post May 6,
2002)
http://www.etext.org./Politics/MIM/rail/impkills.html

4.Gabriella
Gamini, CIA Set Up Death Squads in Colombia Times Newspapers Limited,
Dec. 5,
1996,
www.edu/CommunicationsStudies/ben/news/cia/961205.death.html).

5.Virtual
Truth Commission, 1991

Human
Rights Watch Report: Colombia’s Killer Networks–The
Military-Paramilitary Partnership).

Cuba

1.St.
James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture – on Bay of Pigs
Invasion
http://bookrags.com/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion.

2.Wikipedia http://bookrags.com/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion#Casualties.

Democratic
Republic of Congo (Formerly Zaire)

1.F.
Jeffress Ramsey, Africa (Guilford Connecticut, 1997), p. 85

2.
Anup Shaw The Democratic Republic of Congo,
10/31/2003)
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/Africa/DRC.asp)

3.Kevin
Whitelaw, A Killing in Congo, U. S. News and World
Report
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/doubleissue/mysteries/patrice.htm

4.William
Blum, Killing Hope (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995), p
158-159.

5.Ibid.,p.
260

6.Ibid.,p.
259

7.Ibid.,p.262

8.David
Pickering, “World War in Africa,
6/26/02,
www.9-11peace.org/bulletin.php3

9.William
D. Hartung and Bridget Moix, Deadly Legacy; U.S. Arms to Africa and
the Congo War, Arms Trade Resource Center, January ,
2000
www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/congo.htm


Dominican
Republic

1.Norman
Solomon, (untitled) Baltimore Sun April 26,
2005
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/history/2005/0426spincycle.htm
Intervention
Spin Cycle

2.Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Power_Pack

3.William
Blum, Killing Hope (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995), p.
175.

4.Mark
Zepezauer, The CIA’S Greatest Hits (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage
Press, 1994), p.26-27.


East
Timor

1.Virtual
Truth Commission,
 http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/date4.htm

2.Matthew
Jardine, Unraveling Indonesia, Nonviolent Activist, 1997)

3.Chronology
of American State
Terrorism
http://www.intellnet.org/resources/american_terrorism/ChronologyofTerror.html

4.William
Blum, Killing Hope (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995), p.
197.

5.US
trained butchers of Timor, The Guardian, London. Cited by The Drudge
Report, September 19,
1999. 
http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/indon.htm


El
Salvador

1.Robert
T. Buckman, Latin America 2003, (Stryker-Post Publications Baltimore
2003) p. 152-153.

2.William
Blum, Rogue State (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2000), p.
54-55.

3.El
Salvador,
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Salvador#The_20th_century_and_beyond)

4.Virtual
Truth Commissiion 
http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/.


Grenada

1.Mark
Zepezauer, The CIA’S Greatest Hits (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage
Press, 1994), p. 66-67.

2.Stephen
Zunes, The U.S. Invasion of
Grenada,
http://wwwfpif.org/papers/grenada2003.html .


Guatemala

1.Virtual
Truth Commissiion 
http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/

2.Ibid.

3.Mark
Zepezauer, The CIA’S Greatest Hits (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage
Press, 1994), p.2-13.

4.Robert
T. Buckman, Latin America 2003 (Stryker-Post Publications Baltimore
2003) p. 162.

5.Douglas
Farah, Papers Show U.S. Role in Guatemalan Abuses, Washington Post
Foreign Service, March 11, 1999, A 26


Haiti

1.Francois
Duvalier,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Duvalier#Reign_of_terror).

2.Mark
Zepezauer, The CIA’S Greatest Hits (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage
Press, 1994), p 87.

3.William
Blum, Haiti 1986-1994: Who Will Rid Me of This Turbulent
Priest,
http://www.doublestandards.org/blum8.html


Honduras

1.William
Blum, Rogue State (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2000), p. 55.

2.Reports
by Country: Honduras, Virtual Truth
Commission
http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/honduras.htm

3.James
A. Lucas, Torture Gets The Silence Treatment, Countercurrents, July
26, 2004.

4.Gary
Cohn and Ginger Thompson, Unearthed: Fatal Secrets, Baltimore Sun,
reprint of a series that appeared June 11-18, 1995 in Jack
Nelson-Pallmeyer, School of Assassins, p. 46 Orbis Books 2001.

5.Michael
Dobbs, Negroponte’s Time in Honduras at Issue, Washington Post,
March 21, 2005


Hungary

1.Edited
by Malcolm Byrne, The 1956 Hungarian Revoluiton: A history in
Documents November 4,
2002
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB76/index2.htm

2.Wikipedia
The Free
Encyclopedia,
http://www.answers.com/topic/hungarian-revolution-of-1956


Indonesia

1.Virtual
Truth Commission 
http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/.

2.Editorial,
Indonesia’s Killers, The Nation, March 30, 1998.

3.Matthew
Jardine, Indonesia Unraveling, Non Violent Activist Sept–Oct, 1997
(Amnesty) 2/7/07.

4.Sison,
Jose Maria, Reflections on the 1965 Massacre in Indonesia, p.
5.
http://qc.indymedia.org/mail.php?id=5602;

5.Annie
Pohlman, Women and the Indonesian Killings of 1965-1966: Gender
Variables and Possible Direction for Research,
p.4,
http://coombs.anu.edu.au/SpecialProj/ASAA/biennial-conference/2004/Pohlman-A-ASAA.pdf

6.Peter
Dale Scott, The United States and the Overthrow of Sukarno,
1965-1967, Pacific Affairs, 58, Summer 1985, pages
239-264.
http://www.namebase.org/scott.

7.Mark
Zepezauer, The CIA’S Greatest Hits (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage
Press, 1994), p.30.


Iran

1.Geoff
Simons, Iraq from Sumer to Saddam, 1996, St. Martins Press, NY p.
317.

2.Chronology
of American State
Terrorism
http://www.intellnet.org/resources/american_terrorism/ChronologyofTerror.html.

3.BBC
1988: US Warship Shoots Down Iranian
Airliner
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/default.stm )


Iraq

Iran-Iraq
War

1.Michael
Dobbs, U.S. Had Key role in Iraq Buildup, Washington Post December
30, 2002, p
A01 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52241-2002Dec29?language=printer

2.Global
Security.Org , Iran Iraq War
(1980-1980)
globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/iran-iraq.htm.


U.S.
Iraq War and Sanctions

1.Ramsey
Clark, The Fire This Time (New York, Thunder’s Mouth), 1994,
p.31-32

2.Ibid.,
p. 52-54

3.Ibid.,
p. 43

4.Anthony
Arnove, Iraq Under Siege, (South End Press Cambridge MA 2000). p.
175.

5.Food
and Agricultural Organizaiton, The Children are Dying, 1995 World
View Forum, Internationa Action Center, International Relief
Association, p. 78

6.Anthony
Arnove, Iraq Under Siege, South End Press Cambridge MA 2000. p. 61.

7.David
Cortright, A Hard Look at Iraq Sanctions December 3, 2001, The
Nation.


U.S-Iraq
War 2003-?

1.Jonathan
Bor 654,000 Deaths Tied to Iraq War Baltimore Sun , October 11,2006

2.News http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html


Israeli-Palestinian
War

1.Post-1967
Palestinian & Israeli Deaths from Occupation & Violence May
16,
2006 
http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/2006/05/post-1967-palestinian-israeli-deaths.html)

2.Chronology
of American State Terrorism

http://www.intellnet.org/resources/american_terrorism/ChronologyofTerror.html


Korea

1.James
I. Matray Revisiting Korea: Exposing Myths of the Forgotten War,
Korean War Teachers Conference: The Korean War, February 9,
2001
http://www.truman/library.org/Korea/matray1.htm

2.William
Blum, Killing Hope (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995), p. 46

3.Kanako
Tokuno, Chinese Winter Offensive in Korean War – the Debacle of
American Strategy, ICE Case Studies Number 186, May,
2006
http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/chosin.htm.

4.John
G. Stroessinger, Why Nations go to War, (New York; St. Martin’s
Press), p. 99)

5.Britannica
Concise Encyclopedia, as reported in
Answers.com
http://www.answers.com/topic/Korean-war

6.Exploring
the Environment: Korean
Enigma
www.cet.edu/ete/modules/korea/kwar.html)

7.S.
Brian Wilson, Who are the Real Terrorists? Virtual Truth
Commisson
http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/

8.Korean
War Casualty Statistics 
www.century
china.com/history/krwarcost.html
)

9.S.
Brian Wilson, Documenting U.S. War Crimes in North Korea (Veterans
for Peace Newsletter) Spring, 2002) 
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/


Laos

1.William
Blum Rogue State (Maine, Common Cause Press) p. 136

2.Chronology
of American State
Terrorism
http://www.intellnet.org/resources/american_terrorism/ChronologyofTerror.html

3.Fred
Branfman, War Crimes in Indochina and our Troubled National Soul

www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2004/08/00_branfman_us-warcrimes-indochina.htm).


Nepal

1.Conn
Hallinan, Nepal & the Bush Administration: Into Thin Air,
February 3, 2004

fpif.org/commentary/2004/0402nepal.html.

2.Human
Rights Watch, Nepal’s Civil War: the Conflict Resumes, March 2006 )

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/03/28/nepal13078.htm.

3.Wayne
Madsen, Possible CIA Hand in the Murder of the Nepal Royal Family,
India Independent Media Center, September 25,
2001
http://india.indymedia.org/en/2002/09/2190.shtml.


Nicaragua

1.Virtual
Truth Commission
http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/.

2.Timeline
Nicaragua
www.stanford.edu/group/arts/nicaragua/discovery_eng/timeline/).

3.Chronology
of American State
Terrorism,
http://www.intellnet.org/resources/american_terrorism/ChronologyofTerror.html.

4.William
Blum, Nicaragua 1981-1990 Destabilization in Slow Motion

www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/Nicaragua_KH.html.

5.Wikipedia,
the Free
Encyclopedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_Affair.


Pakistan

1.John
G. Stoessinger, Why Nations Go to War, (New York: St. Martin’s
Press), 1974 pp 157-172.

2.Asad
Ismi, A U.S. – Financed Military Dictatorship, The CCPA Monitor,
June 2002, Canadian Centre for Policy
Alternatives 
http://www.policyaltematives.ca)www.ckln.fm/~asadismi/pakistan.html

3.Mark
Zepezauer, Boomerang (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2003),
p.123, 124.

4.Arjum
Niaz ,When America Look the Other Way by,

www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=2821&sectionID=1

5.Leo
Kuper, Genocide (Yale University Press, 1981), p. 79.

6.Bangladesh
Liberation War , Wikipedia, the Free
Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_Liberation_War#USA_and_USSR)


Panama

1.Mark
Zepezauer, The CIA’s Greatest Hits, (Odonian Press 1998) p. 83.

2.William
Blum, Rogue State (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2000), p.154.

3.U.S.
Military Charged with Mass Murder, The Winds
9/96,
www.apfn.org/thewinds/archive/war/a102896b.html

4.Mark
Zepezauer, CIA’S Greatest Hits (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage
Press, 1994), p.83.

Paraguay
See South America: Operation Condor


Philippines

1.Romeo
T. Capulong, A Century of Crimes Against the Filipino People,
Presentation, Public Interest Law Center, World Tribunal for Iraq
Trial in New York City on August
25,2004.
http://www.peoplejudgebush.org/files/RomeoCapulong.pdf).

2.Roland
B. Simbulan The CIA in Manila – Covert Operations and the CIA’s
Hidden Hisotry in the Philippines Equipo Nizkor Information –
Derechos, derechos.org/nizkor/filipinas/doc/cia.


South
America: Operation Condor

1.John
Dinges, Pulling Back the Veil on Condor, The Nation, July 24, 2000.

2.Virtual
Truth Commission, Telling the Truth for a Better
America
www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/condor.htm)

3.Operation
Condor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor#US_involvement).


Sudan

1.Mark
Zepezauer, Boomerang, (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2003), p.
30, 32,34,36.

2.The
Black Commentator, Africa Action The Tale of Two Genocides: The
Failed US Response to Rwanda and Darfur, 11 August
2006
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091706X.shtml.


Uruguay
See South America: Operation Condor


Vietnam

1.Mark
Zepezauer, The CIA’S Greatest Hits (Monroe, Maine:Common Courage
Press,1994), p 24

2.Casualties
– US vs NVA/VC,
http://www.rjsmith.com/kia_tbl.html.

3.Brian
Wilson, Virtual Truth
Commission
http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/

4.Fred
Branfman, U.S. War Crimes in Indochiona and our Duty to Truth August
26, 2004

www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=6105&sectionID=1

5.David
K Shipler, Robert McNamara and the Ghosts of
Vietnam
nytimes.com/library/world/asia/081097vietnam-mcnamara.html


Yugoslavia

1.Sara
Flounders, Bosnia Tragedy:The Unknown Role of the Pentagon in NATO in
the Balkans (New York: International Action Center) p. 47-75

2.James
A. Lucas, Media Disinformation on the War in Yugoslavia: The Dayton
Peace Accords Revisited, Global Research, September 7, 2005
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=
viewArticle&code=LUC20050907&articleId=899

3.Yugoslav
Wars in 1990s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_wars.

4.George
Kenney, The Bosnia Calculation: How Many Have Died? Not nearly as
many as some would have you think., NY Times Magazine, April 23, 1995

http://www.balkan-archive.org.yu/politics/
war_crimes/srebrenica/bosnia_numbers.html
)

5.Chronology
of American State Terrorism

http://www.intellnet.org/resources/american_terrorism/
ChronologyofTerror.html.

6.Croatian
War of Independence,
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_War_of_Independence

7.Human
Rights Watch, New Figures on Civilian Deaths in Kosovo War, (February
7, 2000) 
http://www.hrw.org/press/2000/02/nato207.htm.

Related Posts:

https://www.popularresistance.org/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-in-37-nations-since-wwii/

Jammer dat Oekraïne en Syrie niet werden genoemd in de lijst, bovendien is er nog een groot aantal landen waar de VS tekeer is gegaan, o.a. middels illegale geheime operaties van speciale VS moordcommando’s…….

Zie ook:

VS buitenlandbeleid sinds WOII: een lange lijst van staatsgrepen en oorlogen……….

List of wars involving the United States

VS: openlijke militaire oefening met terreurgroep in Syrië……

Bang voor Amerika

NAVO gaat VS helpen in Zuid-Amerika terreur uit te oefenen: Colombia lid van de NAVO………

VS commando’s vechten o.a. in Midden- en Zuid-Amerika, aldus het VS ministerie van oorlog………

VS heeft Rusland al 3 keer met oorlog gedreigd, de laatste 2 keer in de afgelopen 1,5 week……‘ (bericht van 5 oktober 2018)

Voor meer berichten n.a.v. het bovenstaande, klik op één van de labels, die u onder dit bericht aantreft. Helaas kan ik daar maar 140 tekens kwijt en kan dus niet eens alle landen opnemen, die hier werden genoemd (het label illegale oorlog’ duidt op de illegale oorlog tegen Irak).

Na kritiek de tekst in de kop aangepast op 24 november 2016. (toegevoegd: sinds ‘het einde van‘ WOII……..)

CIA coup (terreur) tegen democratisch gekozen bewind Guatemala 1954……..

BBC World Service bracht afgelopen week in het programma ‘Witness’, o.a. de CIA coup tegen het democratisch gekozen bewind van Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala. In het programma was de zoon van deze president te horen, die vertelde onder welke hachelijke situaties het gezin kon ontkomen aan de fascistische dictatuur o.l.v. Carlos Castillo Armas, die de VS installeerde in dit land……. Een coup die een vreselijke wissel heeft getrokken op het gezin van Árbenz……

 Armas was volgens BBC W.S. de eerste, in een lange rij door de VS gesteunde dictators in Guatemala, daarover zo meer. Overigens werd Guatemala tot 1944 ook geregeerd door de VS gunstig gestemde dictators. Een revolutie maakte een einde aan die dictatuur, waarna Juan José Arévalo de eerste democratisch gekozen president werd in Guatemala.

In 1950 werd Árbenz gekozen tot president en hij zette het liberaal-kapitalistische beleid voort, dat zijn voorganger Arévalo had ingezet. Árbenz voerde (bijna) algeheel kiesrecht in en onteigende veel land van grootgrondbezitters en bedrijven als de United Fruit Company (UFC). Voorts voerde hij het minimumloon in en gaf de grote arme onderlaag echt onderwijs, door de budgetten, die volkomen ontoereikend waren, aanzienlijk te vergroten………

President Truman gaf al toestemming voor de coup tegen het democratisch gekozen bewind van Árbenz en Trumans opvolger Eisenhower, die in 1952 werd gekozen, beloofde het ‘communisme’ wereldwijd nog harder aan te pakken…. ‘Uiteraard’ werd het bewind van Árbenz als communistisch afgeschilderd in de VS (waar velen dit nog steeds doen, zelfs in sommige geschiedenislesboeken………) en iets langer dan 1,5 jaar later (juni 1954) vond de coup plaats, middels staatsterreur van de VS……

Zoals gezegd: in het commentaar van de BBC bij dit programma werd gemeld, dat dit de eerste VS coup was in Latijns Amerika……. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! Was dat maar waar, dat had zo’n tweehonderdduizend burgerslachtoffers het leven bespaard……..

Voor meer berichten, n.a.v. het bovenstaande, klik op één van de labels, die u onder dit bericht terug kan vinden, dit geldt niet voor de labels: Eisenhower, Jacobo Árbenz, Armas, Juan José Arévalo, Truman en UFC,

VS steun voor IS, steun met een verleden van 10 geheime terreurgroepen opgezet door de CIA

Gisteren op Information Clearing House, een artikel over de ‘traditie’ van de CIA, geheime terreurgroepen* op te zetten, om zo de belangen van de VS veilig te stellen middels oorlog (de zwaarste vorm van terreur). Zelfs bananen (Guatemala) waren reden voor de CIA een illegale oorlog te beginnen, met een door hen opgezet en getrainde terreurgroep. Dit is nog buiten de illegale oorlogen die de VS (begon,) voerde en voert tegen Irak, Libië en Syrië.

Justin King schreef dit artikel naar aanleiding van het meer en meer duidelijk worden, dat de VS steun verleent aan IS (en zelfs meehielp bij het opzetten van IS)……. Het doel daarvan: de democratisch gekozen Assad en zijn regering wegwerken, puur uit eigenbelang van de VS (machtsuitbreiding in Midden-Oosten) en een aantal bondgenoten van deze terreurnatie, zoals het reli-fascistische Saoedi-Arabië………

Een zeer verhelderen artikel, dat een aantal duivelse en uiterst misdadige handelingen van de VS op een rij zet. Voor vertaling kan u onder dit artikel (op Dutch) klikken, dat neemt wel wat tijd in beslag.

10
Secret Armies of the Central Intelligence Agency
By
Justin King 


February
18, 2016 “
Information
Clearing House

– “
TFC
– 
 Langley,
Virginia –
 As
more and more evidence mounts that the US government was secretly
assisting the Islamic State, it might be time to point out a few
instances when the Central Intelligence Agency created secret armies.
The current theory suggests the
US secretly supported the Islamic State so the Islamists would
destabilize the government of Syrian President Assad. If that seems
out of the question, remember the CIA once started a war over
bananas… literal bananas.

Cuba: Probably
the best known secret army. Castro nationalized the assets of western
companies after his government took power,  so the US
decided to overthrow the government of Cuba and install a puppet
regime. As with most of the armies backed by the US intelligence
establishment, it failed. Miserably. The Bay of Pigs invasion
saw 1400
US-trained Cubans
 surrender to Castro’s forces within 24
hours.

El
Salvador
:
 The
US-supported Salvadoran government faced opposition from communist
rebels. US intelligence saw an obvious and simple answer:
establish death
squads
. US intelligence trained and advised pro-government forces
as they massacred villages and led the way to the displacement of
over a million people. Immediately after the ceasefire, there was a
general amnesty for people implicated in war crimes. This amnesty was
ruled to be illegal, but remains in effect anyway. Those seeking
justice are often burglarized and the evidence
of CIA involvement
is stolen.

Afghanistan: The
US armed and trained the Mujaheddin fighters through Operation
Cyclone
. Later, many of these fighters would form the core of the
fundamentalist Islamic terrorist groups we are fighting (or possibly
supporting) today. Yes, Osama bin Laden was one
of the fighters
trained by the CIA in Afghanistan. The whole
operation was carried out to stop the Soviet invasion.

Guatemala: This
little CIA caper is the origin of the term “Banana Republic.” The
democratically elected President of Guatemala  decided
to punish the United Fruit Company for decades of
consorting with the country’s dictators. He began to propose
legislation to end the US multinational’s monopoly on almost
everything in the country. So what else could the CIA do? The
agency overthrew the
legal government and triggered a war… over bananas.

Congo: In
the 1960s, Belgium was ending its colonial rule over Congo. Rather
than allow self-determination,
the CIA staged
assassinations
, armed rebel forces, brought in European
mercenaries, and even backed them up with a secret air
force
.

Nicaragua
(the second time):
 In
the 1980s, the leftist Sandinistas took power. The CIA backed
the Contra militia
that opposed them. The agency funneled them arms, ran
cocaine
 for them, and trained the organization that
become well known for child soldiers, massacres at literacy
centers, and war crimes of just about every imaginable kind.

Angola: The
CIA hired French
and South African mercenaries to assist right-wing groups in their
fight against the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola.
The group was competing with several other paramilitary
organizations in a fight to take over the country after the
Portuguese decolonized. The CIA’s mercenary army predictably
lost.

Ukraine
(the first time):
 During
the second World War, the Nazis set up a partisan group in Ukraine
to harass and slow the advancing Soviet forces. At the end of
World War II, US intelligence began funding and assisting the
partisan group. The Soviets wiped the partisans out in 1952.

Venezuela: In
2002, a group within Venezuela attempted to oust the government.
The US flatly denied involvement. Of course, there is more than
enough evidence
to tie
 the Bush Administration to the plot. There is even
circumstantial evidence a more recent second
attempt
.

Ukraine
(the second time):
 The
most recent revolution in Ukraine may have started organically,
however, it was seized upon by US intelligence. The revolution
became just another method of installing a US
puppet regime
. The US chose to install literal Nazis.
 These facts are largely ignored by
US media.

Would
US intelligence secretly back a brutal, murderous paramilitary
group to destabilize a country on the US hit list? Of course. The
US intelligence apparatus has been doing it for about 60 years.

Click
for
 SpanishGermanDutchDanishFrench,
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may take a moment to load.



See more at:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44257.htm#sthash.ieNH40bo.dpuf

* Deze terreurgroepen waren vaak wel bekend, maar niet het feit, dat ze waren opgezet door de CIA…. Deze feiten werden vaak weggehouden uit de reguliere westerse pers.

Voor meer berichten n.a.v. het voorgaande, klik op één van de labels, die u onder dit bericht terugvindt.

Journalistiek steeds minder onafhankelijk, of wat de media u liever niet voorschotelen………

Hier een belangrijk bericht , dat ik van de site van Stan van Houcke heb gehaald. Het artikel bericht over de media in de VS, die via zelfcensuur, geen artikelen plaatst, waaruit blijkt hoe zwaar misdadig, om niet te zeggen terroristisch en staatsondermijnend, het handelen van de VS in hun (en ons) buitenland is.

Het artikel is in het Engels (helaas voor diegenen, die het Engels niet beheersen), maar goed te volgen en te lezen. Ook van belang voor Nederland, daar meer en meer ‘journalisten’ hardop durven te zeggen, dat je sommige zaken niet met het publiek moet delen, of ‘journalisten’ die met grote graagte de mening van de regering, of die van de VS overheid*, ventileren als onafhankelijke journalistiek…..

*Zoals Max van Weezel nog niet zo lang geleden deed.

Hier het artikel, (overigens onderaan deze pagina, vindt u een link naar Stan van Houcke’s site):

WOENSDAG 7 AUGUSTUS 2013

Western Mass Media

MASS MEDIA HELPS KEEP AMERICANS IN THE DARK ABOUT US FOREIGN POLICY

Tuesday, 06 August 2013 13:24

By Mark Weisbrot, The Guardian | Op-Ed

Juana Brito prays over the bodies of her father and an unidentified youth, both killed by Guatemalan soldiers in the civil war 30 years ago, as a team from the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation exhumes their remains in the El Quiche Department of Guatemala, Feb. 13, 2013. (Photo: Victor J. Blue / The New York Times)

Juana Brito prays over the bodies of her father and an unidentified youth, both killed by Guatemalan soldiers in the civil war 30 years ago, as a team from the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation exhumes their remains in the El Quiche Department of Guatemala, Feb. 13, 2013. (Photo: Victor J. Blue / The New York Times)

The United States still has military spending that is higher in real, inflation-adjusted terms than it was during the peak of the Reagan Cold War build-up, the Vietnam War, and the Korean War.  We seem to be in a state of permanent warfare, and – we have recently learned —  massive government spying and surveillance of our own citizens.  This is despite an ever-receding threat to the actual physical security of Americans.  Only 19 people have been killed acts of terrorism in the United States since September 11, 2001; and none or almost none of these were connected to foreign terrorists.  And there are no “enemy states” that pose a significant military threat to the United States – if any governments can be called “enemy states” at all.

One of the reasons for this disconnect is that most of the mass media provide a grossly distorted view of U.S. foreign policy. It presents an American foreign policy that is far more benign and justifiable than the reality of empire that most of the world knows.  In a well-researched and thoroughly documented article published by the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), Keane Bhatt provides an excellent case study of how this happens.

Bhatt focuses on a very popular and interesting National Public Radio (NPR) show, “This American Life,” and most importantly an episode that won the Peabody Award.  The Peabody Award , for distinguished achievement in electronic journalism, is a prestigious prize; so this makes the example even more relevant.

The episode was about the 1982 massacre in Guatemala. The story gives compelling eyewitness accounts of a horrendous slaughter of almost the entire village of Dos Erres, more than 200 people. The women and girls are raped and then killed, the men are shot or bludgeoned with sledgehammers, and many, including children, are dumped into a dry well – some while still alive – that would become their mass grave.  The broadcast walks the listener through a heroic investigation of the crime – the first ever to win punishment for such murders.  And finally, it provides a moving account of one survivor who was three years old at the time.  Three decades later, while living in Massachusetts, he discovers his roots and his biological father as a result of the investigation. The father lost his wife and his eight other children but survived because he happened to be out of town on the day of the massacre.

The story makes it clear that this bloodbath was one of many:

“This happened in over 600 villages, tens of thousands of people. A truth commission found that the number of Guatemalans killed or disappeared by their own government was over 180,000.”

But there is one striking omission – the U.S. role in what the UN Truth commission in 1999 later determined to be genocide.  The UN specifically noted Washington’s role and President Clinton publicly apologized for it – the first and to my knowledge the only apology from an American president for U.S. involvement in genocide.  The U.S. role in providing arms, training, ammunition, diplomatic cover, political and other support to the mass murderers is well-documented and has gotten some more documentation and attention as a result of the recent trial of former military dictator General Efraín Ríos Montt, who ruled from 1982-83.  (As Bhatt notes, the program states that the U.S. embassy had heard reports of massacres during this time but “dismissed” them; but this is very misleading at best — there are cables showing that the embassy clearly knew what was going on).

In fact, one of the soldiers who participated in the Dos Erres massacre, Pedro Pimentel, who later was sentenced to 6,060 years in prison, was airlifted the day after the mass murder to the School of the Americas, the U.S. military facility known for training some of the region’s worst dictators and human rights violators.

It is astonishing that one of the worst genocides of the post-World War II era was allowed to reach its peak, just a couple of hours of flying time from the U.S. mainland, with almost no media reporting on it. Here you can find investigative journalist Allan Nairn interviewing a Guatemalan soldier in 1982, who describes how he and his comrades murdered whole villages, as in Dos Erres. And yet the major media ignored it, allowing Ronald Reagan to promote Rios Montt as “a man of great personal integrity and commitment.”  So the omissions of This American Life are ironic in this historical context as well.

It is clear from the piece that Ira Glass, the show’s host, was well aware of the U.S. role in the Guatemalan genocide.  In the 1980s, it appears, he travelled to Central America and was active against the U.S. –funded wars and war crimes in the region.  In an email correspondence with Bhatt, he acknowledges that “maybe we made the wrong call” in leaving out the U.S. role.

That is an understatement, but a vitally important one.  For a program broadcast in English throughout the United States, this is arguably the most important thing that Americans need to know about the genocide.

I’m not faulting Glass. He may well have guessed that if he had made a point out of the U.S. role, and maybe questioned some of the U.S. officials who were responsible for it, the story would have run into trouble at NPR. It certainly wouldn’t have gotten a Peabody award.

That’s what makes this such a compelling illustration of how censorship and self-censorship operate in the U.S. media.  It demonstrates, at the micro level, something that I have seen countless times in the past 15 years of talking with journalists about these issues.  They have a good idea what the boundaries are and how much truth they can get away with.  I have met many good journalists who try to cross these boundaries, and some succeed — but they often don’t last very long.

Scott Wilson, who was a foreign editor at the Washington Post and covered Venezuela during the short-lived coup against the democratically elected government of Venezuela in 2002, stated in an interview that “there was U.S. involvement” in the coup.  Yet this important fact never appeared anywhere in the Post, nor was it reported by any of the major U.S. media, despite considerable evidence from U.S. government documents that it was true.  Again, this is arguably the most important part of the story for a U.S. audience – especially since it played a major role in poisoning relations between Washington and Caracas over the past decade, and probably had a significant impact on relations with the whole continent of South America.  But, as in the Dos Erres story, the U.S. role in the crime is considered unmentionable.

The same is true for the U.S. role in the coup that destroyed Honduran democracy in 2009. The Obama administration’s considerable efforts to support and legitimize the coup government were not considered to be newsworthy by U.S. journalists.  (A program on Honduras was Bhatt’s other shot at “This American Life,” where they left the U.S.-supported coup out of a picture in which it should have had a prominent place). But this too, is off limits for the U.S. media.

What would U.S. foreign, military, and so-called “national security” policy look like if the media reported the most important facts about it?  There would be a lot fewer corpses abroad and returning home.  And we wouldn’t be cutting “meals on wheels” or other nutrition programs for the poor or elderly in order to sustain the world’s most fantastically bloated military budget.

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

MARK WEISBROT

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, DC. He is also president of Just Foreign Policy.

Zie ook: ‘VS steunt rechtse coalitie (MUD) in Venezuela………