Constructing Worlds

U.S. Savage Imperialism

2010-12-25T09:49:00.000-08:00

Article by Noam Chomsky
December 01, 2010
Originally published by Z Communications
Read original at ZNet

(From a talk by Noam Chomsky, June 2010)

It's tempting to go back to the beginning. The beginning goes pretty far back, but it is useful to think about some aspects of American history that bear directly on current U.S. policy in the Middle East. The U.S. is a pretty unusual country in many ways. It's maybe the only country in the world that was founded as an empire. It was an infant empire—as George Washington called it—and the founding fathers had broad aspirations. The most libertarian of them, Thomas Jefferson, thought that this infant empire should spread and become what he called the "nest" from which the entire continent would be colonized. That would get rid of the "Red," the Indians as they'd be driven away or exterminated. The Blacks would be sent back to Africa when we don't need them anymore and the Latins will be eliminated by a superior race.

Conquest of the National Territory

It was a very racist country all the way through its history, not just anti-black. That was Jefferson's image and the others more or less agreed with it. So it's a settler colonialist society. Settler colonialism is far and away the worst kind of imperialism, the most savage kind because it requires eliminating the indigenous population. That's not unrelated, I think, to the kind of reflexive U.S. support for Israel—which is also a settler colonial society. Its policies resonate with a sense of American history. It's kind of reliving it. It goes beyond that because the early settlers in the U.S. were religious fundamentalists who regarded themselves as the children of Israel, following the divine commandment to settle the promised land and slaughter the Amalekites and so on an d so forth. That's right around here, the early settlers in Massachusetts.

All this was done with the utmost benevolence. So, for example, Massachusetts (the Mayflower and all that business) was given its Charter by the King of England in 1629. The Charter commissioned the settlers to save the native population from the misery of paganism. And, in fact, if you look at the great seal of the Bay Colony of Massachusetts, it depicts an Indian holding an arrow pointed down in a sign of peace. And out of his mouth is a scroll on which is written: "Come over and help us." That's one of the first examples of what's called humanitarian intervention today. And it's typical of other cases up to the present. The Indians were pleading with the colonists to come over and help them and the colonists were benevolently following the divine command to come over and help them. It turned out we were helping by exterminating them.

That was considered rather puzzling. Around the 1820s, one Supreme Court justice wrote about it. He says it's kind of strange that, despite all our benevolence and love for the Indians, they are withering and dispersing like the "leaves of autumn." And how could this be? He said, the divine will of providence is "beyond human comprehension." It's just God's will. We can't hope to understand it. This conception—it's called Providentialism—that we are always following God's will goes right up to the present moment. Whatever we're doing, we're following God's will. It's an extremely religious country, off the spectrum in religious belief. A very large percentage of the population—I don't remember the numbers, but it's quite high—believes in t he literal word of the Bible and part of that means supporting everything that Israel does because God promised the promised land to Israel. So we have to support them.

These same people—a substantial core of solid support for anything Israel does—also happen to be the most extreme anti-Semites in the world. They make Hitler look pretty mild. They are looking forward to the near total annihilation of the Jews after Armageddon. There's a whole long story about this, which is believed, literally, in high places—probably people like Reagan, George W. Bush, and others. It ties in with the kind of settler colonial history of Christian Zionism—which long preceded Jewish Zionism and is much stronger. It provides a solid base of reflexive support for whatever Israel happens to be doing.

The conquest of the national territory was a pretty ugly affair. It was recognized by some of the more honest figures like John Quincy Adams who was the great grand strategist of expansionism—the theorist of Manifest Destiny and so on. In his later years, long after his own horrifying crimes were in the past, he did lament what he called the fate of that "hapless race of native Americans, which we are exterminating with such merciless and perfidious cruelty." He said that's one of the sins that the Lord is going to punish us for. Still waiting for that.

His doctrines are highly praised right to the present. There's a major scholarly book by John Lewis Gaddis, a leading American historian, on the roots of the Bush doctrine. Gaddis correctly, plausibly, describes the Bush doctrine as a direct descendent of John Quincy Adams's grand strategy. He says, it's a concept that runs right through American history. He praises it; thinks it's the right conception—that we have to protect our security, that expansion is the path to security and that you can't really have security until you control everything. So we have to expand, not just over the hemisphere, but over the world. That's the Bush doctrine.

By WWII, without going into the details, though the U.S. had long been by far the richest country in the world, it was playing a kind of secondary role in world affairs. The main actor in world affairs was the British—even the French had a more global reach. WWII changed all that. American planners during WWII, Roosevelt's planners, understood very well from the beginning of the war that it was going to end with the U.S. in a position of overwhelming power.

As the war went on and the Russians ground down the Germans and pretty much won the European war, it was understood that the U.S. would be even more dominant. And they laid careful plans for what the post-war world would look like. The United States would have total control over a region that would include the Western Hemisphere, the Far East, the former British Empire, and as much of Eurasia as possible, including, crucially, its commercial and industrial core—Western Europe. That's the minimum. The maximum was the whole world and, of course, we need that for security. Within this region, the U.S. would have unquestioned control and would limit any effort at sovereignty by others.

The U.S. ended the war in a position of dominance and security that had no remote counterpart in history. It had half the world's wealth, it controlled the whole hemisphere, the opposite sides of both oceans. It wasn't total. The Russians were there and some things were still not under control, but it was remarkably expansive. Right at the center of it was the Middle East.

One of President Roosevelt's long-time, high-level advisers, Adolf A. Berle, a leading liberal, pointed out that control of Middle East oil would yield substantial control of the world—and that doctrine remains. It's a doctrine that's operative right at this moment and that remains a leading theme of policy.

After World War II

For a long time during the Cold War years, policies were invariably justified by the threat of the Russians. It was mostly an invented threat. The Russians ran their own smaller empire with a similar pretext, threat of the Americans. These clouds were lifted after the collapse of the Soviet Union. For those who want to understand American foreign policy, an obvious place to look is what happened after the Soviet Union disappeared. That's the natural place to look and it follows almost automatically that nobody looks at it. It's scarcely discussed in the scholarly literature though it's obviously where you'd look to find out what the Cold War was about. In fact, if you actually do look, you get very clear answers. The president at the time was George Bush I. Immediately after the col lapse of the Berlin Wall, there was a new National Security Strategy, a defense budget, and so on. They make very interesting reading. The basic message is: nothing is going to change except pretexts. So we still need, they said, a huge military force, not to defend ourselves against the Russian hordes because they're gone, but because of what they called the "technological sophistication" of third world powers. Now, if you're a well trained, educated person who came from Harvard and so on, you're not supposed to laugh when you hear that. And nobody laughed. In fact, I don't think anybody ever reported it. So, they said, we have to protect ourselves from the technological sophistication of third world powers and we have to maintain what they called the "defense industrial base"—a euphemism for high tech industry, which mostly came out of the state sector (computers, the Internet, and so on), under the pretext of defense.

With regard to the Middle East, they said, we must maintain our intervention forces, most of them aimed at the Middle East. Then comes an interesting phrase. We have to maintain the intervention forces aimed at the Middle East where the major threats to our interests "could not be laid at the Kremlin's door." In other words, sorry folks, we've been lying to you for 50 years, but now that pretext is gone, we'll tell you the truth. The problem in the Middle East is and has been what's called radical nationalism. Radical just means independent. It's a term that means "doesn't follow orders." The radical nationalism can be of any kind. Iran's a good case.

The Threat of Radical Nationalism

So in 1953, the Iranian threat was secular nationalism. After 1978, it's religious nationalism. In 1953, it was taken care of by overthrowing the parliamentary regime and installing a dictator who was highly praised. It wasn't a secret. The New York Times, for example, had an editorial praising the overthrow of the government as an "object lesson" to small countries that "go berserk" with radical nationalism and seek to control their own resources. This will be an object lesson to them: don't try any of that nonsense, certainly not in an area we need for control of the world. That was 1953.

Since the overthrow of the U.S.-imposed tyrant in 1979, Iran has been constantly under U.S. attack—without a stop. First, Carter tried to reverse the overthrow of the Shah immediately by trying to instigate a military coup. That didn't work. The Israelis—in effect the ambassador, as there'd been close relations between Israel and Iran under the Shah, although theoretically no formal relations—advised that if we could find military officers who were willing to shoot down 10,000 people in the streets, we could restore the Shah. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's National Security advisor, had pretty much the same advice. That didn't quite work. Right away, the U.S. turned for support to Saddam Hussein in his invasion of Iran—which was no small affair. Hundreds of th ousands of Iranians were slaughtered. The people who are now running the country are veterans of that war and deep in their consciousness is the understanding that the whole world is against them—the Russians, the Americans were all supporting Saddam Hussein and the effort to overthrow the new Islamic state.

It was no small thing. The U.S. support for Saddam Hussein was extreme. Saddam's crimes—like the Anfal genocide, the massacre of the Kurds—were just denied. The Reagan administration denied them or blamed them on Iran. Iraq was even given a very rare privilege. It's the only country other than Israel which has been granted the privilege of attacking a U.S. naval vessel and getting away with complete impunity. In the Israeli case, it was the Liberty in 1967. In Iraq's case it was the USS Stark in1987—a naval vessel which was part of the U.S. fleet protecting Iraqi shipments from Iran during the war. They attacked the ship using French missiles, killed a few dozen sailors, and got a slight tap on the wrist, but nothing beyond that.< span style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt">

U.S. support was so strong that they basically won the war for Iraq. After the war was over, U.S. support for Iraq continued. In 1989, George Bush I invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the U.S. for advanced training in nuclear weapons development. It's one of those little things that gets hushed up because a couple of months later Saddam became a bad boy. He disobeyed orders. Right after that came harsh sanctions and so on, right up till today.

The Iranian Threat

Coming up to today, in the foreign policy literature and general commentary what you commonly read is that the major policy problem for the U.S. has been and remains the threat of Iran. What exactly is the threat of Iran? Actually, we have an authoritative answer to that. It came out a couple of months ago in submissions to Congress by the DOD and US intelligence. They report to Congress every year on the global security situation. The latest reports, in April, of course have a section on Iran—the major threat. It's important reading. What they say is, whatever the Iranian threat is, it's not a military threat. They say that Iranian military spending is quite low, even by regional standards, and as compared with the U.S., of course, it's invisible—probably less than 2 pe rcent of our military spending. Furthermore, they say that Iranian military doctrine is geared toward defense of the national territory, designed to slow down an invasion sufficiently so it will be possible for diplomacy to begin to operate. That's their military doctrine. They say it's possible that Iran is thinking about nuclear weapons. They don't go beyond that, but they say, if they were to develop nuclear weapons, it would be as part of Iran's deterrence strategy in an effort to prevent an attack, which is not a remote contingency. The most massive military power in history—namely us—which has been extremely hostile to them, is occupying two countries on their borders and is openly threatening them with attack, as is its Israeli client.

That's the military side of the Iranian threat as reported in Military Balance. Nevertheless, they say, Iran's a major threat because it's attempting to expand its influence in neighboring countries. It's called destabilization. They're carrying out destabilization in neighboring countries by trying to expand their influence and that's a problem for the U.S. because the U.S. is trying to bring about stability. When the U.S. invades another country, it's to bring about stability—a technical term in the international relations literature that means obedience to U.S. orders. So when we invade Iraq and Afghanistan, that's to create stability. If the Iranians try to extend their influence, at least to neighboring countries, that's destabilizing. This is built in to scholarly and other doctrine. It's even possible to say without ridicule, as was done by the liberal commentator and former editor of Foreign Affairs, James Chase, that the U.S. had to destabilize Chile under Allende to bring about stability, namely obedience to U.S. orders.

What's Terrorism?

The second threat of Iran is its support for terrorism. What's terrorism? Two examples of Iran's support for terrorism are offered. One is its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon, the other its support for Hamas in Palestine. Whatever you think of Hezbollah and Hamas—maybe you think they're the worst thing in the world—what exactly is considered their terrorism? Well, the "terrorism" of Hezbollah is actually celebrated in Lebanon every year on May 25, Lebanon's national holiday commemorating the expulsion of Israeli invaders from Lebanese territory in 2000. Hezbollah resistance and guerilla warfare finally forced Israel to withdraw from Southern Lebanon, which Israel had been occupying for 22 years in violation of Security Council orders, with plenty of terror and violence and torture.

So Israel finally left and that's Lebanese Liberation Day. That's what's considered the main core of Hezbollah terrorism. It's the way it's described. Actually, in Israel it's even described as aggression. You can read the Israeli press these days where high level figures now argue that it was a mistake to withdraw from South Lebanon because that permits Iran to pursue its "aggression" against Israel, which it had been carrying out until 2000 by supporting the resistance to Israeli occupation. That's considered aggression against Israel. They follow U.S. principles, as we say the same thing. That's Hezbollah. There are other acts you could criticize, but that's the core of Hezbollah terrorism.

Another Hezbollah crime is that the Hezbollah-based coalition handily won the latest parliamentary vote, though because of the sectarian system of assigning seats, they did not receive the majority. That led Thomas Friedman to shed tears of joy, as he explained, over the marvels of free elections, in which U.S. President Obama defeated Iranian President Ahmadinejad in Lebanon. Others joined in this celebration. The actual voting record was never reported, to my knowledge.

What about Hamas? Hamas became a serious threat—a serious terrorist organization—in January 2006 when Palestinians committed a really serious crime. That was the date of the first free election in any country in the Arab world and the Palestinians voted the wrong way. That's unacceptable to the U.S. Immediately, without a blink of an eye, the U.S. and Israel turned very publically towards punishing the Palestinians for that crime. You can read in the New York Times, in parallel columns, right afterwards—one of them talking about our love for democracy and so on and right alongside it, our plans to punish the Palestinians for the way they voted in the January election. No sense of conflict.

There'd been plenty of punishment of the Palestinians before the election, but it escalated afterwards—Israel went so far as to cut off the flow of water to the arid Gaza Strip. By June, Israel had fired about 7,700 rockets at Gaza and all sorts of other things. All of that's called defense against terrorism. Then, the U.S. and Israel, with cooperation from the Palestinian Authority, tried to carry out a military coup to overthrow the elected government. They were beaten back and Hamas took control. After that, Hamas became one of the world's leading terrorist forces. There's plenty of criticisms you can make of them—the way they treat their own population, for example—but Hamas terrorism is a little hard to establish. The current claim is that their terrorism cons ists of rockets from Gaza that hit Israel's border cities. That was the justification given for Operation Cast Lead (the U.S./Israeli invasion of December 2008) and also for the Israeli attack on the flotilla last June in international waters where nine people were murdered.

It's only in a deeply indoctrinated country that you can hear that and not laugh in ridicule. Putting aside the comparison between Qassam rockets and the terrorism that the U.S. and Israel are constantly carrying out, the argument has absolutely no credibility for a simple reason: Israel and the U.S. know exactly how to stop the rockets—by peaceful means. In June 2008, Israel agreed to a ceasefire with Hamas. Israel didn't really live up to it—they were supposed to open the borders and they didn't—but Hamas did live up to it. You can look it up on the official Israeli website or listen to their official spokesperson, Mark Regev, and they agree that during the ceasefire there wasn't a single Hamas rocket fired.

Israel broke the ceasefire in November 2008 when it invaded Gaza and killed half a dozen Hamas activists. Then there was some rocket fire and far greater attacks from Israel. A number of people were killed—all Palestinians. Hamas offered to renew the ceasefire. The Israeli cabinet considered it and rejected it, preferring to use violence. A couple of days later came the U.S./Israel attack on Gaza.

In the U.S. and the West generally, it is taken for granted, even by human rights groups and the Goldstone report, that Israel had the right to force and self-defense. There were criticisms that the attack was disproportionate, but they're a secondary matter as Israel had absolutely no right to use force in the first place. You have no justification for the use of force unless you've exhausted peaceful means. In this case, the U.S. and Israel had not just not exhausted them, they had refused even to try peaceful means, which they had every reason to believe would succeed. The concession that Israel had a right to attack is just an amazing gift.

In any case, according to the DOD and U.S. intelligence, Iran's efforts to extend its influence, as well as its support for Hezbollah and Hamas, are what constitute, for the U.S. and its allies, the Iranian threat.

Z Net
Noam Chomsky is Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus) at MIT and author of dozens of books on U.S. foreign policy.

Links I recommend

2010-08-20T08:04:00.000-07:00

How much does US corn dumping cost Mexican farmers? by Duncan Green at From Poverty to Power brings an account show the violence of NAFTA's free trade over Mexico;

The Great Management Consultancy scam and how it could be coming for your job , Johann Hari's describes how business works;

How many livees will Wikileaks save? a report shows the hypocrisy behind the criticism to the truth about wars;

And finally Cloned meat may already have invaded our food supply, posing alarming health risks about the scary truth behind the clone products feeding the hungry for profits food industry...

Have a Nice World War, article by John Pilger

2010-03-29T04:44:00.000-07:00

By John Pilger
Friday, March 26, 2010
Reproduced from John Pilger's ZSpace Page

Here is news of the Third World War. The United States has invaded Africa. US troops have entered Somalia, extending their war front from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and now the Horn of Africa. In preparation for an attack on Iran, American missiles have been placed in four Persian Gulf states, and "bunker-buster" bombs are said to be arriving at the US base on the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

In Gaza, the sick and abandoned population, mostly children, is being entombed behind underground American-supplied walls in order to reinforce a criminal siege. In Latin America, the Obama administration has secured seven bases in Colombia, from which to wage a war of attrition against the popular democracies in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay. Meanwhile, the secretary of "defense" Robert Gates complains that "the general [European] public and the political class" are so opposed to war they are an "impediment" to peace. Remember this is the month of the March Hare.

According to an American general, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is not so much a real war as a "war of perception". Thus, the recent "liberation of the city of Marja" from the Taliban's "command and control structure" was pure Hollywood. Marja is not a city; there was no Taliban command and control. The heroic liberators killed the usual civilians, poorest of the poor. Otherwise, it was fake. A war of perception is meant to provide fake news for the folks back home, to make a failed colonial adventure seem worthwhile and patriotic, as if The Hurt Locker were real and parades of flag-wrapped coffins through the Wiltshire town of Wooten Basset were not a cynical propaganda exercise.

"War is fun", the helmets in Vietnam used to say with bleakest irony, meaning that if a war is revealed as having no purpose other than to justify voracious power in the cause of lucrative fanaticisms such as the weapons industry, the danger of truth beckons. This danger can be illustrated by the liberal perception of Tony Blair in 1997 as one "who wants to create a world [where] ideology has surrendered entirely to values" (Hugo Young, the Guardian) compared with today's public reckoning of a liar and war criminal.

Western war-states such as the US and Britain are not threatened by the Taliban or any other introverted tribesmen in faraway places, but by the antiwar instincts of their own citizens. Consider the draconian sentences handed down in London to scores of young people who protested Israel's assault on Gaza in January last year. Following demonstrations in which paramilitary police "kettled" (corralled) thousands, first-offenders have received two and a half years in prison for minor offences that would not normally carry custodial sentences. On both sides of the Atlantic, serious dissent exposing illegal war has become a serious crime.

Silence in other high places allows this moral travesty. Across the arts, literature, journalism and the law, liberal elites, having hurried away from the debris of Blair and now Obama, continue to fudge their indifference to the barbarism and aims of western state crimes by promoting retrospectively the evils of their convenient demons, like Saddam Hussein. With Harold Pinter gone, try compiling a list of famous writers, artists and advocates whose principles are not consumed by the "market" or neutered by their celebrity. Who among them have spoken out about the holocaust in Iraq during almost 20 years of lethal blockade and assault? And all of it has been deliberate. On 22 January 1991, the US Defense Intelligence Agency predicted in impressive detail how a blockade would systematically destroy Iraq's clean water system and lead to "increased incidences, if not epidemics of disease". So the US set about eliminating clean water for the Iraqi population: one of the causes, noted Unicef, of the deaths of half a million Iraqi infants under the age of five. But this extremism apparently has no name.

Norman Mailer once said he believed the United States, in its endless pursuit of war and domination, had entered a "pre-fascist era". Mailer seemed tentative, as if trying to warn about something even he could not quite define. "Fascism" is not right, for it invokes lazy historical precedents, conjuring yet again the iconography of German and Italian repression. On the other hand, American authoritarianism, as the cultural critic Henry Giroux pointed out recently, is "more nuance, less theatrical, more cunning, less concerned with repressive modes of control than with manipulative modes of consent."

This is Americanism, the only predatory ideology to deny that it is an ideology. The rise of tentacular corporations that are dictatorships in their own right and of a military that is now a state with the state, set behind the façade of the best democracy 35,000 Washington lobbyists can buy, and a popular culture programmed to divert and stultify, is without precedent. More nuanced perhaps, but the results are both unambiguous and familiar. Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, the senior United Nations officials in Iraq during the American and British-led blockade, are in no doubt they witnessed genocide. They saw no gas chambers. Insidious, undeclared, even presented wittily as enlightenment on the march, the Third World War and its genocide proceeded, human being by human being.

In the coming election campaign in Britain, the candidates will refer to this war only to laud "our boys". The candidates are almost identical political mummies shrouded in the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes. As Blair demonstrated a mite too eagerly, the British elite loves America because America allows it to barrack and bomb the natives and call itself a "partner". We should interrupt their fun.

Read the original text at johnpilger.com

The absurdity of US presidents' peace prizes and their non-democratic drive...

2010-01-06T12:03:00.000-08:00

In a recent article published by In These Times, Noam Chomsky exhibits the absurdity of the Peace Prize given to four US presidents. Chomsky analyze the attitudes of the four prized US presidents in relation not only to their open non democratic drives but also some of their shocking racist and discriminating attitudes.

Presidential 'Peacemaking' in Latin America

Noam Chomsky

In These Times

January 5, 2010
Barack Obama, the fourth U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize, joins the others in the long tradition of peacemaking so long as it serves U.S. interests.

All four presidents left their imprint on "our little region over here that has never bothered anybody," as U.S. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson characterized the hemisphere in 1945.

Given the Obama administration's stance toward the elections in Honduras in November, it may be worthwhile to examine the record.

Theodore Roosevelt

In his second term as president, Theodore Roosevelt said, "The expansion of the peoples of white, or European, blood during the past four centuries has been fraught with lasting benefit to most of the peoples already dwelling in the lands over which the expansion took place," despite what Africans, Native Americans, Filipinos and other beneficiaries might mistakenly believe.

It was therefore "inevitable and in the highest degree desirable for the good of humanity at large, that the American people should ultimately crowd out the Mexicans" by conquering half of Mexico and, "It was out of the question to expect (Texans) to submit to the mastery of the weaker race."

Using gunboat diplomacy to steal Panama from Colombia to build the canal was also a gift to humanity.

Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson is the most honored of the presidential laureates and arguably the worst for Latin America.

Wilson's invasion of Haiti in 1915 killed thousands, restored virtual slavery and left much of the country in ruins.

Demonstrating his love of democracy, Wilson ordered his Marines to disband the Haitian parliament at gunpoint for failing to pass "progressive" legislation that allowed U.S. corporations to buy up the country. The problem was remedied when Haitians adopted a U.S.-written constitution, under Marine guns. The achievement would be "beneficial to Haiti," the State Department assured its wards.

Wilson also invaded the Dominican Republic to ensure its welfare. Both countries were left under the rule of vicious national guards. Decades of torture, violence and misery there come down to us as a legacy of "Wilsonian idealism," a leading principle of U.S. foreign policy.

Jimmy Carter

For President Jimmy Carter, human rights were "the soul of our foreign policy."

Robert Pastor, Carter's national security advisor for Latin America, explained some important distinctions between rights and policy: Regretfully, the administration had to support Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza's regime, and when that proved impossible, to maintain the U.S.-trained National Guard even after it had been massacring the population "with a brutality a nation usually reserves for its enemy," killing some 40,000 people.

To Pastor, the reason is elementary: "The United States did not want to control Nicaragua or the other nations of the region, but it also did not want developments to get out of control. It wanted Nicaraguans to act independently, except when doing so would affect U.S. interests adversely."

Barack Obama

President Barack Obama separated the United States from almost all of Latin America and Europe by accepting the military coup that overthrew Honduran democracy last June.

The coup reflected a "yawning political and socioeconomic divide," The New York Times reported. For the "small upper class," Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was becoming a threat to what they call "democracy," namely, the rule of "the most powerful business and political forces in the country."

Zelaya was initiating such dangerous measures as a rise in the minimum wage in a country where 60 percent live in poverty. He had to go.

Virtually alone, the United States recognized the November elections (with Pepe Lobo the victor) held under military rule -- "a great celebration of democracy," according to Hugo Llorens, Obama's ambassador.

The endorsement also preserved the use of Honduras' Palmerola air base, increasingly valuable as the U. S. military is being driven out of most of Latin America.

After the elections, Lewis Anselem, Obama's representative to the Organization of American States, instructed the backward Latin Americans that they should recognize the military coup and join the United States "in the real world, not in the world of magical realism."

Obama broke ground in supporting the military coup. The U.S. government funds the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute, which are supposed to promote democracy.

The IRI regularly supports military coups to overthrow elected governments, most recently in Venezuela in 2002 and Haiti in 2004.

But the NDI has held back. In Honduras, for the first time, Obama's NDI agreed to observe the elections under military rule, unlike the OAS and the United Nations, still wandering in the world of magical realism.

Given the close connections between the Pentagon and the Honduran military, and the enormous U.S. economic leverage in the country, it would have been a simple matter for Obama to join the Latin American/European effort to protect Honduran democracy.

But Obama preferred the traditional policy.

In his history of hemispheric relations, British scholar Gordon Connell-Smith writes, "While paying lip-service to the encouragement of representative democracy in Latin America, the United States has a strong interest in just the reverse," apart from "procedural democracy, especially the holding of elections, which only too often have proved farcical."

Functioning democracy may respond to popular concerns, while "the United States has been concerned with fostering the most favorable conditions for her private overseas investment."

It takes a large dose of what has sometimes been called "intentional ignorance" not to see the facts.

Such blindness must be guarded zealously if state violence is to proceed on course -- always for the good of humanity, as Obama reminded us again in his Nobel Prize address.

Fonte: Chomsky.info

Buy Nothing Day Morphs Into a Wildcat General Strike on the Eve of the Copenhagen Climate Summit

2009-11-24T02:55:00.000-08:00

From Adbusters
Read the original text

Over the last few years – as people grow increasingly anxious about rising sea levels, melting glaciers and the possibility of a catastrophic tipping point on climate change – Buy Nothing Day has exploded into a global movement, inspiring the world’s citizens to live more simply and buy a whole lot less. Designed to coincide with Black Friday in the United States (which falls on November 27 this year) and the unofficial start of the international holiday shopping season (Saturday, November 28), the festival takes many forms – from personal one-day fasts to relaxed family outings and from free, noncommercial street parties to politically charged public protests, credit card cut-ups, mall invasions and pranks and shenanigans of all kinds.

Anyone can take part, provided they spend 24 hours without shopping.
“There’s only one way to avoid the collapse of this human experiment of ours on Planet Earth,” says Kalle Lasn, the co-founder of Adbusters Media Foundation, “we have to consume less... Our culture of excess and meaningless consumption – the glorified spending and borrowing of the past decade – is at the root of the ecological and economic crises we now find ourselves in.”

This year Buy Nothing Day organizers around the world are confronting the issue
of meaningless consumption head on. In addition to the usual personal plunges and
celebrations, we’re calling for a WILDCAT GENERAL STRIKE: a worldwide rejection of the value system that is killing our planet. As global leaders gear up for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen on December 7, we’re asking tens of millions of people around the world to bring the capitalist consumption machine to a grinding – if only momentary – halt.

“We hope to set off a chain reaction of refusal against consumer capitalism,” says
Lasn, “while sending a message to Barack Obama, Wen Jiabao and the other world
leaders that failure in Copenhagen is not an option ... We want legally binding limits on carbon emissions now!”

Brazil´s Biofuels Take Centre Stage in Climate Change Debate

2009-11-10T09:19:00.000-08:00

Hand of a sugar cane farm worker Alagoas illustrates the dehumanizing conditions in the cutting of cane sugar.

02/09/2009

Brazil´s Biofuels Take Centre Stage in Climate Change Debate

In order to increase exports of ethanol from sugarcane and biodiesel, Brazil’s processing companies need to prove to the US and Europe the environmental and social benefits of their production.

By Thaís Brianezi
Read the original article here

According to the Unite Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), the transport industry accounts for about 25% of the world’s carbon dioxide (CO2) release. The information explains why the World Carfree Day, the 22st of September, is included in the calendar of the Global Action Campaign for Climate Protection. It also explains why the São Paulo State Federation of Industries (FIESP) has created a Working Group to follow international negotiations in preparation to the 15th UN Conference on Climate Change (COP-15), to be held in December in Denmark. “If developed countries set higher targets to reduce emissions of greenhouse effect gases, there could be higher international demand for biodiesel and mainly for Brazil’s ethanol from sugarcane”, said Rodrigo Lima, general-manager of the Institute for Studies on International Trade and Negotiations (ICONE), a non-government organization (NGO) created in 2006 by agribusiness associations.

Conquering the foreign market is the core desire of the 65 biodiesel processing companies existing in Brazil, whose current export levels are meaningless. National legislation mandates a 4% mixture of biodiesel into regular diesel, which creates domestic demand of about 1.8 billion litres a year for the former. Processing companies’ installed production capacity is well above that: 3.8 billion litres a year. “The federal government is granting licenses for biodiesel production without considering the current demand for the product,” complained Roberto Engels, executive-director of Biocapital, a company located in Charqueada, in the state of São Paulo.

In the case of fuel made from sugarcane, the domestic market is more promising but also insufficient. Data from Brazil’s National Agency for Petroleum, Natural Gas, and Biofuels (ANP) show that ethanol is already the core fuel within Brazil’s energy matrix for lightweight vehicles. The so-called flex-fuel cars represent 94.2% of total sales in the country: 2,065,313 vehicles using both gasoline and ethanol were registered last year. National ethanol consumption in the first half of 2009 was 10.7 billion litres, 17.7% above the same period last year. Growth in ethanol production during the 2008-2009 harvest over the previous agricultural year, however, was higher: it went from 22.5 billion litres to 27.5 billion litres – a 22% increase. Brazilian ethanol exports are also on the rise (going from 3.6 million litres to 4.7 million litres within the same period), but still account for only 0.017% of total sales. “Our main challenge is to break tariff and non-tariff barriers imposed by developed countries on ethanol,” said Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) president Marcos Jank during the opening of Ethanol Summit 2009 – the main event in the sugar-alcohol industry, held in June in São Paulo.

A war on numbers

In early May, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released studies showing that among the so-called biofuels available in the market, Brazil’s ethanol is the most efficient to reduce greenhouse effect gas emissions (GEEs), so that it is able to compete for advanced fuel quotas provided for in US laws regarding renewable fuels. Compared to emissions by vehicles running on gasoline, sugarcane ethanol would reduce the amount of GEEs launched into the atmosphere by 44% on average. For corn ethanol, in turn, the reduction would be 16%. Those figures took into account gases released along the whole production cycle and the use of that biofuel from plantations to vehicles on the road.
In spite of good results, Brazil’s ethanol producers were not happy with the evaluation. The most controversial point of the math was the inclusion of the so-called indirect use of land: deforesting estimated as a result of migration of farming displaced by plantations for biofuel raw materials. For sugarcane ethanol, indirect emission accounts for 46 of the 73 grams of CO2 per megajoule set by the US government. In corn ethanol, of a total of 99 grams of CO2 per megajoule, only 30 would come from indirect use of land. “EPA delayed until September 18 the public consultation to review the indexes publicised. Therefore, we are establishing, with the Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute (FAPRI), a calculation model that is better for Brazil’s reality”, explained Lima. “We have 200 million hectares in pastures with low productivity. Expansion of sugarcane plantation will not take place over the forest”, he argued.

The differences in methodologies to calculate the so-called carbon cycle were evident in the workshop “Socioeconomic, Environmental and Land Use Impacts”, held in June by FAPESP’s Bioenergy Research Programme (BIOEN) in São Paulo. Three research studies were presented that measured the carbon balance resulting from sugarcane plantations. In the study by the University of Illinois, the balance is negative, that is, the plantation ultimately released GEEs. In the study conducted by the Centre for Nuclear Energy in Agriculture at São Paulo University (CENA/USP), the result was the opposite: plantations retained more carbon than the amount released by soil preparation. EMBRAPA Agrobiology came to a conclusion that is similar to that by CENA/USP, but considered that the accumulation of carbon in soils depends on their level of degradation. “Uncertainty and variability about the figures we work with are clear here”, said Heitor Cantarella, coordinator of BIOEN’S Impact Divisions. “We need standard methodologies; our intention is to create a working group to discuss that reconciliation in no hurry”, underscored Gláucia Souza, the programme’s coordinator.

Lame tripod

Sugar cane in hillsides flout law Environmental Measures in Pernambuco.

Just as ethanol and biodiesel processing companies in Brazil look at the international market, they are themselves the focus of important foreign buyers. In late 2008, for instance, the European Parliament approved the European Directive, a voluntary commitment by the European Union (EU) to reduce 20% of its GEE emissions by 2020 (over 1990 levels). As a strategy to reach that target, the Directive sets the adoption of at least 10% of renewable fuels in transport by 2010 and that they should undergo a certification process to guarantee that previously established social and environmental rules are met.

UE member countries have a July 2010 deadline to define criteria for that certification, but some principles are already agreed upon, such as preserving biodiversity and not using slave or degrading labour. Brazil’s biofuel has serious problems in both areas, besides efforts to improve its image. In São Paulo – the state that accounts for 60% of the country’s ethanol production – 157 processing companies have joined the Agro-environmental Protocol proposed by the State Environmental Department. The key point is the immediate end of sugarcane straw burning in new plantations and the shortening of the deadline for old ones to adjust (state law establishes 2021 as the deadline for mechanisable plantations to stop using fire and 2031 for non-mechanisable ones, and those deadlines have been advanced to 2014 and 2017, respectively). The Protocol, however, says nothing about one of the main bottlenecks for companies in the state: they do not respect the so-called legal reservation, that is, the 20% of vegetation cover in the property that should be preserved in the Atlantic Forest Biome. “You cannot call Programme Green Ethanol a protocol that does not mandate the existence of a legal reservation”, criticised Mário Mantovani, director of environmentalist NGO SOS Mata Atlântica.

Regarding labour-related matters, violations by sugarcane processing companies are yet more scandalous. The industry is first in the shameful national ranking of slave labourers in Brazil: last year, 2,553 people were freed from plantations (49% of the total), according to official data gathered by the Land Pastoral Commission (CPT). This year, by July 22, the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MTE)’s Mobile Inspection Group found other 951 workers in degrading conditions in sugarcane plantations, which is 47% of slave labourers freed during the period. One of them was Florisvaldo Suzart, a 43-year-old farm worker who left the state of Bahia to work in sugarcane plantations in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

On June 25, President Lula – the Brazilian ethanol’s poster boy – launched the National Commitment to Improve Labour Conditions in the Sugarcane Industry. The protocol was the result of a dialogue table established in July 2008, which included government, businesses, and workers’ representatives. It is not legally binding but it has been voluntarily joined by 323 of the 413 processing companies in the country. Three of them are included in the MTE’s dirty list, the federal government’s record of physical and legal persons held accountable in operations of slave labour inspections. At least other 16 have been caught in the act exploiting degrading labour.

Animal fat is the second main raw material used to make biodiesel in Brazil.

While sugarcane farming in Brazil is historically an activity carried out by large landowners, the federal government’s intention was that oleaginous crops used to produce biodiesel would strengthen family farming. The National Program for Production and Use of Biodiesel (PNPB), created in 2004, was aimed at including 200 thousand family farmers into the biodiesel production chain by 2008. The strategy was based on the creation of the Social Fuel Seal, granted to companies that reached a minimum percentage of raw material from family farming (varying from 10% to 30% according to the region of the country), through which they would be able to take part in all biodiesel public auctions and also to receive tax reductions. Data released by the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA) late last year, however, show that the total of small producers benefited by the programme was well behind that: only 37 thousand people have been served. When we look at the raw materials actually used to produce biodiesel in Brazil, the reason is understandable: soybean oil accounted for 81.1% of this year’s total production. Bovine fat, another by-product of agribusiness came in second, with 14.03%.

The castor bean is one of the main challenges of PNPB, but not yet processed into biodiesel.

Ethanol and biodiesel are often called clean energy. Those who invest in them (such as businesspeople and the Brazilian government) believe that the increasing worldwide concern with global climate changes means good business opportunities. Such beliefs are based on sustainability marketing, which leads citizens to believe that they are contributing to make the world a better place by replacing gasoline and diesel with ethanol or biodiesel. However, the sustainability tripod of Brazilian biofuels – environmental, social, and economic – is lame.

If you need more information contact the

Centro de Monitoramento de Agrocombustíveis - Repórter Brasil
Rua Coronel Firmo da Silva, 282, São Paulo-SP, CEP 01255-040
Tel. +55 (11) 2506-6570, 2506-6562, 2506-6576 e 2506-6574 - biobr@reporterbrasil.org.br

Dispersal of Transgenes through Maize Seed Systems in Mexico

2009-07-17T17:18:00.000-07:00

Dispersal of Transgenes through Maize Seed Systems in Mexico

George A. Dyer1*, J. Antonio Serratos-Hernández2, Hugo R. Perales3, Paul Gepts4, Alma Piñeyro-Nelson5, Angeles Chávez6, Noé Salinas-Arreortua7, Antonio Yúnez-Naude6, J. Edward Taylor1,8, Elena R. Alvarez-Buylla5*

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1 Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California Davis, Davis, California, United States of America, 2 Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México, México, Distrito Federal, México, 3 Departamento de Agroecología, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, San Cristobal, Chiapas, México, 4 Department of Plant Sciences, University of California Davis, Davis, California, United States of America, 5 Laboratorio de Genética Molecular, Desarrollo y Evolución de Plantas, Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Distrito Federal, México, 6 El Colegio de México, Distrito Federal, México, 7 Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Distrito Federal, México, 8 Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics, Davis, California, United States of America

Abstract

Objectives
Current models of transgene dispersal focus on gene flow via pollen while neglecting seed, a vital vehicle for gene flow in centers of crop origin and diversity. We analyze the dispersal of maize transgenes via seeds in Mexico, the crop’s cradle.

Methods
We use immunoassays (ELISA) to screen for the activity of recombinant proteins in a nationwide sample of farmer seed stocks. We estimate critical parameters of seed population dynamics using household survey data and combine these estimates with analytical results to examine presumed sources and mechanisms of dispersal.

Results
Recombinant proteins Cry1Ab/Ac and CP4/EPSPS were found in 3.1% and 1.8% of samples, respectively. They are most abundant in southeast Mexico but also present in the west-central region. Diffusion of seed and grain imported from the United States might explain the frequency and distribution of transgenes in west-central Mexico but not in the southeast.

Conclusions
Understanding the potential for transgene survival and dispersal should help design methods to regulate the diffusion of germplasm into local seed stocks. Further research is needed on the interactions between formal and informal seed systems and grain markets in centers of crop origin and diversification.

Citation: Dyer GA, Serratos-Hernández JA, Perales HR, Gepts P, Piñeyro-Nelson A, et al. (2009) Dispersal of Transgenes through Maize Seed Systems in Mexico. PLoS ONE 4(5): e5734. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005734

Editor: Hany A. El-Shemy, Cairo University, Egypt

Received: February 13, 2009; Accepted: May 4, 2009; Published: May 29, 2009

Copyright: © 2009 Dyer et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: The work was supported by grant G38874-D from CONACYT (to AYN), grants from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (to JET) and UCMEXUS-CONACYT (to GAD, HPR, PG), grants 0538/A-1 from Secretaría del Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (SEMARNAT) and Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, México (CONACYT) (to ERAB, ASH, NSA, APN, GAD), IN-221406 from UNAM (to ERAB) and 41848/A-1 from SEP (Secretaría de Educación Pública) – CONACYT (to ERAB), V027 from Conabio (to ERAB), and CN08-187 from UCMEXUS-CONACYT (to ERAB). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

* E-mail: gdyer{at}primal.ucdavis.edu (GAD); eabuylla{at}gmail.com (ERA-B)

Citation: Dispersal of Transgenes through Maize Seed Systems in Mexico
Dyer GA, Serratos-Hernández JA, Perales HR, Gepts P, Piñeyro-Nelson A, et al. 2009 Dispersal of Transgenes through Maize Seed Systems in Mexico. PLoS ONE 4(5): e5734. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005734

Lessons of Zimbabwe

2009-03-30T10:03:00.000-07:00

As I have mentioned before that I totally disagree with sanctions against Zimbabwe established by the governments of the US and EU, and now supported also by US President Obama. I combat the sanctions because they are not effective and it is largely proved that sanctions affect mostly the ordinary people, the poor people.

In an effort to clarify some of issues on Zimbabwe I decided to reproduce an article published by the London Review of Books where political scientist Mahmood Mandani analyze the case of Zimbabwe. It is a great article and I believe everybody should read it and for that reason I reproduce it.

Lessons of Zimbabwe
Mahmood Mamdani
Published by LRB, 4 December 2008

It is hard to think of a figure more reviled in the West than Robert Mugabe. Liberal and conservative commentators alike portray him as a brutal dictator, and blame him for Zimbabwe’s descent into hyperinflation and poverty. The seizure of white-owned farms by his black supporters has been depicted as a form of thuggery, and as a cause of the country’s declining production, as if these lands were doomed by black ownership. Sanctions have been imposed, and opposition groups funded with the explicit aim of unseating him.

There is no denying Mugabe’s authoritarianism, or his willingness to tolerate and even encourage the violent behaviour of his supporters. His policies have helped lay waste the country’s economy, though sanctions have played no small part, while his refusal to share power with the country’s growing opposition movement, much of it based in the trade unions, has led to a bitter impasse. This view of Zimbabwe’s crisis can be found everywhere, from the Economist and the Financial Times to the Guardian and the New Statesman, but it gives us little sense of how Mugabe has managed to survive. For he has ruled not only by coercion but by consent, and his land reform measures, however harsh, have won him considerable popularity, not just in Zimbabwe but throughout southern Africa. In any case, the preoccupation with his character does little to illuminate the socio-historical issues involved.

Many have compared Mugabe to Idi Amin and the land expropriation in Zimbabwe to the Asian expulsion in Uganda. The comparison isn’t entirely off the mark. I was one of the 70,000 people of South Asian descent booted out by Idi Amin in 1972; I returned to Uganda in 1979. My abiding recollection of my first few months back is that no one I met opposed Amin’s expulsion of ‘Asians’. Most merely said: ‘It was bad the way he did it.’ The same is likely to be said of the land transfers in Zimbabwe.

What distinguishes Mugabe and Amin from other authoritarian rulers is not their demagoguery but the fact that they projected themselves as champions of mass justice and successfully rallied those to whom justice had been denied by the colonial system. Not surprisingly, the justice dispensed by these demagogues mirrored the racialised injustice of the colonial system. In 1979 I began to realise that whatever they made of Amin’s brutality, the Ugandan people experienced the Asian expulsion of 1972 – and not the formal handover in 1962 – as the dawn of true independence. The people of Zimbabwe are likely to remember 2000-3 as the end of the settler colonial era. Any assessment of contemporary Zimbabwe needs to begin with this sobering fact.

Though widespread grievance over the theft of land – a process begun in 1889 and completed in the 1950s – fuelled the guerrilla struggle against the regime of Ian Smith, whose Rhodesian Front opposed black majority rule, the matter was never properly addressed when Britain came back into the picture to effect a constitutional transition to independence under majority rule. Southern Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in 1980, but the social realities of the newly independent state remained embedded in an earlier historical period: some six thousand white farmers owned 15.5 million hectares of prime land, 39 per cent of the land in the country, while about 4.5 million farmers (a million households) in ‘communal areas’ were left to subsist on 16.4 million hectares of the most arid land, to which they’d been removed or confined by a century of colonial rule. In the middle were 8500 small-scale black farmers on about 1.4 million hectares of land.

This was not a sustainable arrangement in a country whose independence had been secured at the end of a long armed struggle supported by a land-hungry population. But the agreement that Britain drafted at Lancaster House in 1979 – and that the settlers eagerly backed – didn’t seem to take into account the kind of transition that would be necessary to secure a stable social order. Two of its provisions, one economic and the other political, reflected this short-termism: one called for land transfers on a ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ basis, with the British funding the scheme; the other reserved 20 per cent of seats in the House of Assembly for whites – 3 per cent of the population – giving the settler community an effective veto over any amendment to the Lancaster House terms. This was qualified majority rule at best. Both provisions had a time limit: 1990 for land transfers based on the market principle, and 1987 for the settler minority to set limits on majority rule. The deal sustained illusions among the settlers that what they had failed to achieve by UDI – Smith’s 1965 declaration of independence from the UK – and force of arms, they could now achieve through support from a government of ‘kith and kin’ (as Smith called it) in Britain. In reality, however, the agreement drew a line under settler privilege.

The inadequacy of the Lancaster House provisions for the decolonisation of land ensured that it remained the focus of politics in independent Zimbabwe. The course of land relations and land reform in Zimbabwe has over the years been meticulously documented by Sam Moyo, a professor who directs the African Institute of Agrarian Studies in Harare. Transfers during the first decade of independence were so minimal that they increased rather than appeased land hunger. The new regime in Harare, installed in 1980 and led by Mugabe and his party, Zanu, called for the purchase of eight million hectares to resettle 162,000 land-poor farming households from communal areas. But the ban on compulsory purchase drove up land prices and encouraged white farmers to sell only the worst land. As the decade drew to a close, only 58,000 families had been resettled on three million hectares of land. No more than 19 per cent of the land acquired between 1980 and 1992 was of prime agricultural value.

As the 1980s wore on, land transfers actually declined, dropping from 430,000 hectares per annum during the first half of the decade to 75,000 hectares during the second. The greater land hunger became, the more often invasions were mounted; in response, Mugabe created local ‘squatter control’ units in 1985, and they were soon evicting squatters in droves. At this point Zimbabwean law still defined a squatter in racial terms, as ‘an African whose house happens to be situated in an area which has been declared European or is set apart for some other reason’. By 1990, 40 per cent of the rural population was said to be landless or affected by the landlessness of dependent relations.

When the Lancaster House Agreement’s rules on land transfer expired in 1990, the pressure to take direct action was intensified by two very different developments: an IMF Structural Adjustment Programme and recurrent drought. Peasant production, which had been a meagre 8 per cent of marketed output at independence in 1980, and had shot up to 45 per cent by 1985, declined as a result of the programme. Trade-union analysts pointed out that employment growth also fell from 2.4 per cent in the late 1980s to 1.55 per cent in the period 1991-97. The percentage of households living in poverty throughout the country increased by 14 per cent in five years. There was now widespread squatting on all types of land, from communal areas to state land, commercial farms (mainly growing tobacco), resettlement areas and urban sites.

The demand for land reform came from two powerful groups at extreme ends of the social spectrum yet both firmly in Mugabe’s camp: the veterans of the liberation war and the small but growing number of indigenous businesses, hitherto the main beneficiaries of independence under majority rule. At the end of the liberation war in 1980, 20,000 guerrillas had been incorporated into the national army and other state organisations, and the rest – about 45,000 – had had to fend for themselves. They found it difficult to survive without land or a job, which is why land occupations began in the countryside soon after independence.

Mugabe and the Zanu leaders tended at first to dismiss complaints from veterans as expressions of resentment on the part of the rival liberation movement, Joshua Nkomo’s Zapu, which had been marginalised in 1980. But after Zanu and Zapu signed a unity accord in 1987, former fighters from both groups became involved in land agitation. Their most significant joint initiative was to form a welfare organisation, the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) in 1988, which called for pensions to be paid and land redistributed. It soon gained a large membership drawn from most sections of Zimbabwean society and from the two ethnic groups – the Shona majority and the Ndebele – which had defined Zanu and Zapu respectively. Its members, about 200,000 of them, came from a variety of classes, employed and unemployed, urban and rural, with positions in different branches of the state and party and the private sector. Although their strength lay in the countryside, the war vets formed the only alliance that was both independent of Mugabe and Zanu-PF, and could claim to have national support, giving them a decisive advantage over the better organised but urban-based trade-union federation in the power struggle that would shortly tear the country apart.

War vets were among the first targets of Structural Adjustment, when its effects began to be felt in 1991. Entire departments and ministries that had been heavily staffed by ex-combatants were disbanded and the stage set for a series of high-profile confrontations between veterans and government. Mugabe accused the vets of being ‘armchair critics’ at the inaugural conference of the ZNLWVA in April 1992; they went on to organise street demonstrations, lock top government and party officials in their offices, interrupt Mugabe’s Heroes’ Day speech in 1997, intervene in court sessions and besiege the State House.

After the Lancaster House Agreement had expired, the government tried to occupy the middle ground by shifting from the ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ formula with a new law, the Land Acquisition Act of 1992, which gave the state powers of compulsory purchase, though landowners retained the right to challenge the price set and to receive prompt compensation. By the late 1990s, market-led land transfers had dwindled to a trickle. So had British contributions to the fund set up to pay landowners, with a mere £44 million paid out between 1980 and 1992, much less than anticipated at Lancaster House. When New Labour took over in 1997, Clare Short, the minister for international development, claimed that since neither she nor her colleagues came from the landed class in Britain – ‘my own origins are Irish and as you know we were colonised not colonisers,’ she wrote to the Zimbabwean minister of agriculture and land – they could not be held responsible for what Britain had done in colonial Rhodesia.

This effective default coincided with a rise inside Zimbabwe of demands for compulsory acquisition. Veterans led land occupations at Svosve and Goromonzi in 1997, clashing with Mugabe and Zanu-PF. They were joined by local chiefs and party leaders, peasants and spirit mediums (who had played a key role in the liberation war against Ian Smith). The next year, a wave of co-ordinated land occupations swept across the country, with veterans receiving critical support from the Indigenous Business Development Centre (IBDC), an affirmative action lobby set up in 1988 by members of the new black bourgeoisie. From now on, two very different elements huddled under the war vets’ banner: the landless victims of settler colonialism and the elite beneficiaries of the end of settler rule.

It was largely for his own purposes, but also as a response to pressure from squatters, occupiers and their local leaders, as well as from sections of the new black elite, that in 1999 Mugabe decided to revise the constitution drafted at Lancaster House. Two major changes were envisaged: one would allow him to stay in power for two more terms and would ensure immunity from prosecution for political and military leaders accused of committing crimes while in office; the other would empower the government to seize land from white farmers without compensation, which was held to be the responsibility of Britain. The proposals were put to a referendum in February 2000 and defeated: 45.3 per cent of voters were in favour. But only a little more than 20 per cent of the electorate had cast a vote. The urban centres of Harare and Bulawayo were three to one against adoption; voting in the countryside was marked by large-scale abstentions. Post-colonial Zimbabwe had reached a turning point.

Very early on, the colonial bureaucracy had translated the ethnic mosaic of the country into an administrative map in such a way as to allow minimum co-operation and maximum competition between different ethnic groups and areas, ensuring among other things that labour for mining, manufacture and service was not recruited from areas where peasants were needed on large farms or plantations. These areas, as it happened, were mainly Shona and so, unsurprisingly, when the trade-union movement developed in Rhodesia, its leaders were mostly Ndebele, and had few links with the Shona leadership of the peasant-based liberation movement (Mugabe belongs to the Shona majority). I remember listening to the minister of labour in Harare in 1981 complain that workers had failed to support the nationalist movement. When I suggested that it might be useful to turn the proposition around and ask why the nationalist movement had failed to organise support among workers, there was silence.

The Shona-Ndebele divide so conspicuous in the two guerrilla movements produced great tension after independence between the mainly Shona government and the mainly Ndebele labour movement, with Mugabe’s ferocious repression in Ndebele areas in 1986 remaining the bloodiest phase in post-independence Zimbabwean history. The slaughter in Matabeleland was followed by a ‘reconciliation’ that paved the way for a unity government in 1987, but Zanu-PF leaders thereafter suspected all protest – from whatever source – of concealing an Ndebele agenda.

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, formed in 1981 with the blessing of the government, had by the end of the decade distanced itself from its Zanu patrons, purged internal corruption and elected an independent leadership. In the 1990s it spearheaded the national agitation against Structural Adjustment and the one-party state that acquiesced in it. Yet its organisation in the countryside was confined to workers on commercial farms. The ZCTU had at first been an umbrella body for private sector unions. The spectacular growth of ZCTU, its organisation of public sector workers, has been written about by two Zimbabwean social historians, Brian Raftapolous and Ian Phimister. After independence, workers in the rapidly Africanised public sector had retained close links to the government. But this began to change when the Structural Adjustment Programme led to public sector job losses and many African workers – especially veterans – were dismissed. When government workers came out on strike in 1996, the ZCTU was able to establish a base in the public sector. A general strike in 1997 and mass stay-aways the following year set the trade unions against the government. Civil servants – including teachers and health workers – who had declared allegiance to the ruling party and the state now began to affiliate to the ZCTU. In 1998, it organised a National Constituent Assembly, with the participation of civic, NGO and church groups.

By the time Mugabe put forward amendments to the Lancaster House constitution, an impressive alliance of forces – not only trade unions, churches, civic and NGO groups, but white farmers and Western governments – was arrayed for battle. The Movement for Democratic Change was formed a few months before the 2000 referendum, to campaign for a ‘no’ vote. The coalition was diverse, containing, on the one hand, public sector workers trying to roll back the tide of Structural Adjustment; on the other, uncompromising free-marketeers such as Eddie Cross, the MDC secretary of economic affairs and a senior figure in the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, who was intent on privatising almost everything, including education.

The veterans reacted to the defeat of the constitutional proposals by launching land occupations in Masvingo province. This prompted a split in the ruling party. With Mugabe out of the country, the acting president, Joseph Msika, told the police to torch the new squatter shacks. This was consistent with Zanu-PF policy: in the early days, Mugabe had been praised as a ‘conciliator’ by the international community for ensuring the security and property of those whites who remained in Zimbabwe, and evicting black squatters. Two decades later the position had changed: the support of the whites was no longer so important to Mugabe, and he was under enormous pressure from the veterans. With much to gain from casting his lot in with the rural insurgency, he returned from his trip and announced that there would be no government evictions. As land occupations spread to every province – 800 farms were occupied at the height of the protests – the split in the government and party hierarchy deepened. Inevitable tension between the executive and the judiciary undermined the rule of law; the executive sacked a number of judges, replacing them with others more sympathetic to land reform, and enacted pro-squatter legislation.

‘Fast-track’ land reform was now underway. The types of land that would be acquired compulsorily were specified by the government: unused or underutilised land, land owned by absentees or people with several farms; land above a certain area (determined by region) and land contiguous with communal areas. The white owners of around 2900 commercial farms listed for compulsory acquisition and redistribution were given 90 days to move out. Government directives specified that ‘owners of farms marked for redistribution will be compensated for improvements made on the land, but not for the land itself, as this land was stolen from the original owners in the colonial era.’

The closing date for ‘fast-track’ land acquisition – August 2002 – came and went, but occupations continued unimpeded until mid-2003, and on a diminished scale for a year or so after that. Chiefs fought for land for their constituents and for themselves, and so did their counterparts in the state bureaucracy and the private sector. In Matabeleland, a minority of pro-MDC chiefs were sceptical of land reform, but later submitted claims. The black elite made a brazen land grab in direct contravention of the ‘one person, one farm’ policy, provoking a hue and cry in society at large and within the ruling party; the government set up a presidential commission to determine the facts. Crucially, in 2005 the government passed an amendment declaring all agricultural land to be state land. Land was seized from nearly 4000 white farmers and redistributed: 72,000 large farmers received 2.19 million hectares and 127,000 smallholders received 4.23 million hectares.

What land reform has meant or may come to mean for Zimbabwe’s economy is still hotly disputed. Recently there have been signs that scholarly opinion is shifting. A study by Ian Scoones of Sussex University’s Institute of Development Studies – in collaboration with the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape – challenges some of the conventional wisdom in media and academic circles within and beyond Zimbabwe. The problem with this wisdom is that certain highly destructive aspects of reform – coercion; corruption and incompetence; cronyism in the redistribution of land; lack of funds and an absence of agricultural activity – have come to stand for the whole process. In particular, Scoones identifies five myths: that land reform has been a total failure; that its beneficiaries have been largely political cronies; that there is no new investment in the new settlements; that agriculture is in ruins; and that the rural economy has collapsed. Researchers at PLAAS have been quick to point out that over the past eight years small-scale farmers ‘have been particularly robust in weathering Zimbabwe’s political and economic turmoil, as well as drought’. Ben Cousins, the director of PLAAS and one of the most astute South African analysts of agrarian change – who had previously argued that the land reform would destroy agricultural production – now says that the future of Zimbabwe lies in providing small farmers with subsidies so that food security can be achieved. According to researchers at the African Institute for Agrarian Studies in Harare, new farms need to receive subsidised maize seed and fertiliser for a few seasons before achieving full production. Some might give up during this period, but not many – partly because the land tenure system doesn’t allow land sales; only land permits or leases can be acquired.

Zimbabwe has seen the greatest transfer of property in southern Africa since colonisation and it has all happened extremely rapidly. Eighty per cent of the 4000 white farmers were expropriated; most of them stayed in Zimbabwe. Redistribution revolutionised property-holding, adding more than a hundred thousand small owners to the base of the property pyramid. In social and economic – if not political – terms, this was a democratic revolution. But there was a heavy price to pay.

The first casualty was the rule of law, already tenuous by 1986. When international donors pressured the regime in the run-up to the parliamentary elections of 2000 by suspending aid and loans – a boycott favoured by the MDC and the unions – the government simply fixed the result in its favour. In the violence that followed, more than a hundred people died, including six white farmers and 11 black farm labourers. Some of the violence was government-sponsored and most of it state-sanctioned. The judiciary was reshaped, local institutions in rural areas narrowly politicised, and laws were passed which granted local agencies the powers necessary to crush opponents of land reform. Denouncing his adversaries in the trade unions and NGOs as servants of the old white ruling class, Mugabe authorised the militias and state security agencies to hound down opposition, as repression and reform went hand in hand. In 2003, the leading independent newspaper, the Daily News, was shut down. While jubilant government supporters applauded the sweep of the revolution in agrarian areas, the opposition denounced the repression that accompanied it. Land reform had been ruthless, but in 2004, the violence began to abate. There was noticeably less violence surrounding the parliamentary elections of 2005.

In retrospect, it is striking how little turmoil accompanied this massive social change. The explanation lies in the participation of key rural figures in ad hoc but officially sanctioned land committees. When first introduced in 1996, these committees had mixed fortunes, some not functioning at all, others becoming instruments of this or that group of squatters. But a radical change occurred in 2000, when the committees were expanded to include centrally appointed security officials, ruling party representatives and local government personnel, as well as local veterans and traditional leaders. Charged with implementing fast-track land reform, these committees sidelined the old local administrative structures. They also had a national impact, since they reported to similarly constituted provincial committees, which in turn reported to the Ministry of Local Government. It was the infusion of veterans that gave the new semi-bureaucratic committees the edge over their wholly bureaucratic counterparts. Local committees usually comprised between 15 and 30 members. The veterans formed ‘base camps’ represented by ‘committees of seven’ which took the lead in identifying land for acquisition as well as finding prospective beneficiaries (mostly from veterans’ waiting lists and rosters in former ‘communal areas’). They also judged disputes, punished petty criminals and allocated farm equipment, seeds and so on. In a word, the committees co-ordinated everything, thus constituting new centres of power.

The second casualty of the reform was farm labourers. There were about 300,000 in all, around half of them part-time. Fast-track reform resulted in a massive displacement of these workers, who were traditionally drawn from migrant labour. Nearly a fifth came from neighbouring states and were regarded with suspicion by peasants in communal areas; even if they’d been born locally, they were often seen as foreigners and denied citizenship rights. Migrants and women (many employed as casual labour) were the weakest links in the rural mobilisation for land reform. Many were thought to have been encouraged by landowners to vote against the government’s constitutional proposals, and the anti-land-reform lobby certainly tried to organise farm workers, ostensibly to protect their jobs, but really to protect the white ownership of farms. When the workers rallied by the MDC, civil society activists and white farmers clashed with veteran-led occupiers, they came off badly. Occupiers held meetings to explain to workers what was at stake and eventually came themselves to distinguish between white farms, not only on the basis of size, proximity to communal areas, and the amount of unused land, but also on the basis of the farmer’s attitudes, particularly on race and towards his workers, and whether he had participated in the counter-insurgency during the independence struggle.

Some of the 150,000 full-time farm workers threw in their lot with the occupiers, though usually not on the farms where they had been employed. About 90,000 kept their jobs on sugar and tea estates, and on new or already established tobacco and horticulture farms. About 8000 were granted land, but most were denied it on the grounds that they or their elders had come from foreign countries, though some were given citizenship. Many went from steady employment to contract or casual work; many others were forced to supplement their meagre incomes through fishing, petty trading, theft and prostitution.

The best publicized casualties of the land reform movement were the urban poor who hoped to benefit from extending land invasions to urban areas. The veterans spearheaded occupations of urban residential land in 2000-1. Housing co-operatives and other associations followed their lead and set up ‘illegal’ residential or business sites. But the state feared that it would lose control over towns to the MDC if the land reform movement was allowed to spread and met these occupations with stiff repression, including Operation Restore Order/ Murambatsvina, a surprise military-style intervention in 2005 in which tens of thousands of families were evicted. Not surprisingly, those who opposed land reform in rural areas were the strongest critics of government efforts to stifle occupations in urban areas.

The final casualty was food production: Zimbabwe, once a food surplus country, is today deficient in both foreign exchange and food. In 2002-3, half the population depended on food aid: this was a drought year and the figures improved in 2004-5. The UN now estimates that nearly half the country’s 13.3 million inhabitants will once again be dependent on food aid in 2009, after another drought year. A million of these are poor, urban residents who can’t afford imported food. The rest are peasants, most of them hit by drought. Climate change is clearly a factor here, its role most obvious in marginal land: the communal areas worked by millions of small farmers. A 2002 World Food Programme study noted that there had been three droughts in Zimbabwe since 1982 and that the 2002 drought, which also affected several neighbouring countries in Southern Africa, was the worst in 20 years. The WFP estimated that 12.8 million people in the region would require assistance as a result of that drought and that in Zimbabwe alone, overall production would decline by 25 per cent, with cereal production down 57 per cent and maize, the staple in the diet of ordinary Zimbabweans, down by a devastating two-thirds.

To separate out the effect of drought and that of reform – and thus to understand how land reform has hit production – one needs first to distinguish between three groups of agricultural producer: local white farmers, who were the target of the land reform; peasants with farms in communal areas; and foreign corporations, whose large farms (except for small tracts of unused land) remain intact. Harry Oppenheimer, for example, lost most of his private land, but his firm, Anglo American, kept its sugar estates, which it then sold to Tongaat Hulett, a South African firm with 15,000 hectares in Zimbabwe. In a nutshell, white commercial farmers focused on export crops, whereas communal farmers were the major source of food security. The production of tobacco, hitherto the main source of foreign exchange, is concentrated in large-scale commercial farms; it has seen the most severe decline, almost entirely as a result of land reform. Maize and cotton are peasant crops and have not really been directly affected by land reform, but have suffered badly from prolonged drought – maize production was down by 90 per cent between 2000 and 2003. In contrast, the production of crops – sugar, tea, coffee – grown mainly by the large corporate plantations has remained steady.

Besides drought and reform, there is a third cause of declining production: the targeted donor boycott. Zimbabwe has been the target of Western sanctions twice in the last 50 years: once after UDI in 1965 (very ‘soft’ sanctions, which did not stop the country becoming the second most industrialised in sub-Saharan Africa by the mid-1970s) and again after Zimbabwe’s entry into the Congo war in August 1998. Zimbabwe’s involvement in the war was not well received in the West. Participants in the donor conference for Zimbabwe that year were decidedly lukewarm about committing funds. Britain announced a review of arms sales to Zimbabwe and, after the conference, again disclaimed any responsibility for funding land reform. The following year the IMF suspended lending to Zimbabwe, while the US and the UK decided to fund the labour movement, led by the ZCTU, first to oppose constitutional change and then to launch the MDC as a full-fledged opposition party. Its enemies have claimed that, by the late 1990s, the ZCTU was dependent on foreign sources for two-thirds of its income. Once ‘fast-track’ land reform began in 2000, the Western donor community shut the door on Zimbabwe.

The sanctions regime, led by the US and Britain, was elaborate, tested during the first Iraq war and then against Iran. In 2001 Jesse Helms, previously a supporter of UDI, sponsored the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery bill (another sponsor was Hillary Clinton) and it became law in December that year. Part of the act was a formal injunction on US officials in international financial institutions to ‘oppose and vote against any extension by the respective institution of any loan, credit or guarantee to the government of Zimbabwe’. In autumn 2001 the IMF had declared Zimbabwe ‘ineligible to use the general resources of the IMF’ and removed it from the list of countries that could borrow from its Poverty and Growth Facility. In 2002, it issued a formal declaration of non-co-operation with Zimbabwe and suspended all technical assistance. The US legislation also authorised Bush to fund ‘an independent and free press and electronic media in Zimbabwe’ and to allocate six million dollars for ‘democracy and governance programmes’. This was fighting talk, Cold War vintage. The normative language of sanctions focuses less on the issues that prompted them in the first place – Zimbabwe’s intervention in the Congo war and the introduction of fast-track reform – than on the need for ‘good governance’. In citing the absence of this as a reason for its imposition of sanctions in 2002, the EU violated Article 98 of the Cotonou Agreement, which requires that disputes between African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and the EU be resolved by the joint EU-ACP Council of Ministers.

Clearly, the old paradigm of sanctions – isolation – has given way to a more interventionist model, which combines punishment of the regime with subsidies for the opposition. So-called ‘smart’ sanctions are intended to target the government and its key supporters. In 2002, the US, Britain and the EU began freezing the assets of state officials and imposing travel bans. Only four days after the EU imposed sanctions, the US expanded the list of targeted individuals to include prominent businessmen and even church leaders, such as the pro-regime Anglican bishop, Nolbert Kunonga.

Nonetheless, sanctions mainly affect the lives of ordinary people. Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, wrote recently that the country’s foreign exchange reserves had declined from $830 million, representing three months’ import cover in 1996, to less than one month’s cover by 2006. Total foreign payments arrears increased from $109 million at the end of 1999 to $2.5 billion at the end of 2006. Foreign direct investment had shrunk from $444.3 million in 1998 to $50 million in 2006. Donor support, even to sectors vital to popular welfare, such as health and education, was at an all-time low. Danish support for the health sector, $29.7 million in 2000, was suspended. Swedish support for education was also suspended. The US issued travel warnings, blocked food aid during the heyday of land reform and opposed Zimbabwe’s application to the Global Fund to Fight Aids – the country has the fourth highest infection rate in the world. Though it was renewed in 2005, the Zimbabwe grant is meagre. Agriculture has been affected too: scale matters, but no one disputes that subsidies are vital for agriculture to be sustainable, and sanctions have made it more difficult to put a proper credit regime in place.

Despite the EU’s imposition of sanctions in the run-up to the parliamentary elections of 2002, Mugabe polled 56.2 per cent of the vote against Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC’s 42 per cent. There were widespread allegations of Zanu-PF violence and last-minute gerrymandering, with polling stations in urban areas – Tsvangirai’s electoral base – closing early and extra stations being set up in rural areas, where Mugabe’s support was assured. Nonetheless, it was clear that support for Zanu-PF was higher than in the pre-fast-track elections of 2000. Bush and Blair refused to recognise the outcome, but Namibia, Nigeria and the South African observer team, which had monitored the elections, concluded that the result was legitimate. Whatever the truth of the matter, the Africans could do little in the face of mounting Western pressure, from Britain especially: a three-member panel of Commonwealth countries – Australia, Nigeria and South Africa – was convened to consider the question of Zimbabwe. There were reports of intense pressure from Tony Blair on Thabo Mbeki. The panel suspended Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth for a year. Zimbabwe withdrew from the organisation.

The experience of land reform in Zimbabwe has set alarm bells ringing in South Africa and all the former settler colonies where land shortage is still an issue. In South Africa especially, the upheaval and bitterness felt in Zimbabwe seems to suggest that the ‘Malaysian path’ to peaceful redistribution and development is not inevitable. An anxious South Africa and less powerful members of the Southern Africa Development Community tend to feel that sanctions, along with other destabilising policies pursued by the West against Zimbabwe, have only made matters worse. SADC states have long tried to reconcile the need to resist Western influence with the fact that they serve as a bridge between Africa and the wealthy Western economies, but South Africa’s non-confrontational policy vis-à-vis Mugabe – which Mbeki pursued despite mounting criticism from the ANC and the unions in South Africa – along with its provision of fuel and electricity to its northern neighbour, set it at odds with Western governments. South Africa and the SADC states describe their approach as one of ‘non- interference’, ‘stabilisation’ and ‘quiet diplomacy’, but the West sees it as a deliberate effort to undermine sanctions, and critics in South Africa – most recently Mandela – have found the Mbeki line much too conciliatory.

In 2007, SADC called for an end to sanctions against Zimbabwe and international support for a post-land-reform recovery programme, but earlier this year Western countries brought their influence to bear on key SADC members – Botswana and Zambia – to split the organisation. Ian Khama, the president of Botswana, went so far as to announce publicly that he would not recognise the results of the 2008 elections. The pressure on SADC came not only from Western countries, but from trade-union movements in the region, in particular Cosatu of South Africa, which has strong links with the ZCTU. Here is another striking aspect of the current Zimbabwe crisis: it is not just Western and pro- Western governments that have joined the sanctions regime, but many activists and intellectuals, for the most part progressives, have aligned themselves with distant or long-standing enemies in an effort to dislodge an authoritarian government clinging to power on the basis of historic grievances about the colonial theft of land. Symbolic of this was the refusal by Cosatu-affiliated unions to unload a cargo of Chinese arms destined for Zimbabwe when the An Yue Jiang sailed into Durban in April.

The arguments, which are not new, turn on questions of nationalism and democracy, pitting champions of national sovereignty and state nationalism against advocates of civil society and internationalism. One group accuses the other of authoritarianism and self-righteous intolerance; it replies that its critics are wallowing in donor largesse. Nationalists speak of a historical racism that has merely migrated from government to civil society with the end of colonial rule, while civil society activists speak of an ‘exhausted’ nationalism, determined to feed on old injustices. This fierce disagreement is symptomatic of the deep divide between urban and rural Zimbabwe. Nationalists have been able to withstand civil society-based opposition, reinforced by Western sanctions, because they are supported by large numbers of peasants. The tussle between these groups has even greater poignancy in former settler colonies than it had a generation earlier in former colonies north of the Limpopo, for the simple reason that the central legacy of settler colonialism – the land question – remained unresolved and explosive after independence. Southern African leaders have tried, with some success, to put out the fires in Zimbabwe before they spread beyond its borders. It is worth noting that the agreement between Zanu-PF and the MDC signed in September and brokered by Mbeki accepts land redistribution as irreversible and registers disagreement only over how it was carried out; it also holds Britain responsible for compensating white farmers. In the wake of Mbeki’s resignation as president of South Africa it is vital that this agreement remains in place. Few doubt that this is the hour of reckoning for former settler colonies. The increasing number of land invasions in KwaZulu Natal, and the violence that has accompanied them, indicate that the clock is ticking.
Bibliographical Note

Moyo, Sam & Paris Yeros (2005b), ‘Land Occupations and Land Reform in Zimbabwe: Towards the National Democratic Revolution’, in Reclaiming the Land, edited by Sam Moyo and Paris Yeros, London: Zed Books; Moyo, Sam and Paris Yeros (2007), ‘The Radicalised State: Zimbabwe’s Interrupted Revolution’, Review of African Political Economy, 111; Moyo, Sam & Paris Yeros (forthcoming), ‘After Zimbabwe: State, Nation and Region in Africa’, in S. Moyo, P. Yeros & J. Vadell (eds.), The National Question Today: The Crisis of Sovereignty in Africa, Asia and Latin America; Chambati, W. and S. Moyo, Fast Track Land Reform and the Political Economy of Farm Workers in Zimbabwe, Harare: AIAS Monograph Series, forthcoming For a critical point of view, see, Lloyd Sachikonye, “The Land is the Economy: Revisiting the Land Question,” African Security Review 14(3), 2005; and, Raftopoulos, Brian & Ian Phimister (2004), ‘Zimbabwe Now: The Political Economy of Crisis and Coercion’, Historical Materialism, 12: 4; Patrick Bond and Masimba Manyanya, Zimbabwe's Plunge - Exhausted Nationalism, Neoliberalism and the Search for Social Justice, Merlin Press, 2002; Henry Bernstein, ‘Land reform in Southern Africa in World Historical Perspective,’ ROAPE 96, 2003

On the non-Zimbabwean debate on the land reform, see, http://www.lalr.org.za/news/a-new-start-for-zimbabwe-by-ian-scoones.html (accessed on 27 September, 2008); IRIN, “Small Scale Farming Seen As the Only Alternative to Food Insecurity,” 22 September 2008. For a contrary point of view, see, Henry Bernstein, ‘Land reform in Southern Africa in World Historical Perspective,’ Review of African Political Economy 96, 2003

On war veterans, see, Sadomba, W (2006) War veterans and the land occupation movement in Zimbabwe, forthcoming, Harare;

On climate change and the impact of drought, see, C.H. Matarira, J.M. Makadho, F.C. Mwamuka, "Zimbabwe: Climate Change Impacts on Maize Production and Adaptive Measures for the Agricultural Sector," Interim Report on Climate Change Country Studies, 1995, www.gcrio.org

On sanctions, see, Gregory Elich, ‘Zimbabwe Under Siege,’ Swans Commentary Zimbabwe Under Seige, http://www.swans.com/library/art8/elich004.html; Dr. Gideon Gono: How sanctions are ruining Zimbabwe, opinion piece, African Business, 2007.

On the debate among progressive intellectuals in Zimbabwe, see, Sam Moyo and Paris Yeros, ‘The Zimbabwe Question and the Two Lefts.’ Forthcoming in Historical Materialism, vol. 14, no. 4, 2007

From the LRB letters page: [ 18 December 2008 ] R.W. Johnson, Terence Ranger, Matthias Tomczak, Mahmood Mamdani [ 1 January 2009 ] Timothy Scarnecchia, Jocelyn Alexander and 33 others, Gavin Kitching, Mahmood Mamdani.

Mahmood Mamdani is Herbert Lehman Professor of Government in the Departments of Anthropology, Political Science and International Affairs at Columbia University. He is from Uganda.

The world the way it is

2009-01-06T17:39:00.000-08:00

Chomsky has published in his web site his analysis about the election of Barack Obama and brought together a lot of other fundamental issues just like he always does. Nothing is simple even what looks simple from the outside. How much I wish I could write something close to this article. Chomsky has put it all here, it is brilliant and I dare to reproduce his article here.

The Election, Economy, War, and Peace
by Noam Chomsky
From Chomsky Info
Originally posted by ZNet

November 25, 2008

The Election

The word that immediately rolled off of every tongue after the presidential election was "historic." And rightly so. A Black family in the White House is truly a momentous event.

There were some surprises. One was that the election was not over after the Democratic convention. By usual indicators, the opposition party should have had a landslide victory during a severe economic crisis, after eight years of disastrous policies on all fronts including the worst record on job growth of any post-war president and a rare decline in median wealth, an incumbent so unpopular that his own party had to disavow him, and a dramatic collapse in US standing in world opinion. The Democrats did win, barely. If the financial crisis had been slightly delayed, they might not have.

A good question is why the margin of victory for the opposition party was so small, given the circumstances. One possibility is that neither party reflected public opinion at a time when 80% think the country is going in the wrong direction and that the government is run by "a few big interests looking out for themselves," not for the people, and a stunning 94% object that government does not attend to public opinion. As many studies show, both parties are well to the right of the population on many major issues, domestic and international.

It could be argued that no party speaking for the public would be viable in a society that is business-run to an unusual extent. Evidence for that is substantial. At a very general level, evidence is provided by the predictive success of political economist Thomas Ferguson's "investment theory" of politics, which holds that policies tend to reflect the wishes of the powerful blocs that invest every four years to control the state. More specific illustrations are numerous. To mention just one, for 60 years the US has failed to ratify the core principle of international labor law, which guarantees freedom of association. Legal analysts call it "the untouchable treaty in American politics," and observe that there has never even been any debate about the matter. And many have noted Washington's dismissal of conventions of the International Labor Organization as contrasted with the intense dedication to enforcement of monopoly pricing rights for corporations ("intellectual property rights"). There is much to explore here, but this is not the place.

The two candidates in the Democratic primary were a woman and an African-American. That too was historic. It would have been unimaginable forty years ago. The fact that the country has become civilized enough to accept this outcome is a considerable tribute to the activism of the 1960s and its aftermath.

In some ways the election followed familiar patterns. The McCain campaign was honest enough to announce clearly that the election wouldn't be about issues. Sarah Palin's hairdresser received twice the salary of McCain's foreign policy adviser, the Financial Times reported, probably an accurate reflection of significance for the campaign. Obama's message of "hope" and "change" offered a blank slate on which supporters could write their wishes. One could search websites for position papers, but correlation of these to policies is hardly spectacular, and in any event, what enters into voters' choices is what the campaign places front and center, as party managers know well.

The Obama campaign greatly impressed the public relations industry, which named Obama "Advertising Age's marketer of the year for 2008," easily beating out Apple. The industry's prime task is to ensure that uninformed consumers make irrational choices, thus undermining market theories. And it recognizes the benefits of undermining democracy the same way.

The Center for Responsive Politics reports that once again elections were bought: "The best-funded candidates won nine out of 10 contests, and all but a few members of Congress will be returning to Washington." Before the conventions, the viable candidates with most funding from financial institutions were Obama and McCain, with 36% each. Preliminary results indicate that by the end, Obama's campaign contributions, by industry, were concentrated among Law Firms (including lobbyists) and financial institutions. The investment theory of politics suggests some conclusions about the guiding policies of the new administration.

The power of financial institutions reflects the increasing shift of the economy from production to finance since the liberalization of finance in the 1970s, a root cause of the current economic malaise: the financial crisis, recession in the real economy, and the miserable performance of the economy for the large majority, whose real wages stagnated for 30 years, while benefits declined. The steward of this impressive record, Alan Greenspan, attributed his success to "growing worker insecurity," which led to "atypical restraint on compensation increases" - and corresponding increases into the pockets of those who matter. His failure even to perceive the dramatic housing bubble, following the collapse of the earlier tech bubble that he oversaw, was the immediate cause of the current financial crisis, as he ruefully conceded.

Reactions to the election from across the spectrum commonly adopted the "soaring rhetoric" that was the hallmark of the Obama campaign. Veteran correspondent John Hughes wrote that "America has just shown the world an extraordinary example of democracy at work," while to British historian-journalist Tristram Hunt, the election showed that America is a land "where miracles happen," such as "the glorious epic of Barack Obama" (leftist French journalist Jean Daniel). "In no other country in the world is such an election possible," said Catherine Durandin of the Institute for International and Strategic Relations in Paris. Many others were no less rapturous.

The rhetoric has some justification if we keep to the West, but elsewhere matters are different. Consider the world's largest democracy, India. The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, which is larger than all but a few countries of the world and is notorious for horrifying treatment of women, is not only a woman, but a Dalit ("untouchable"), at the lowest rung of India's disgraceful caste system.

Turning to the Western hemisphere, consider its two poorest countries: Haiti and Bolivia. In Haiti's first democratic election in 1990, grass-roots movements organized in the slums and hills, and though without resources, elected their own candidate, the populist priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The results astonished observers who expected an easy victory for the candidate of the elite and the US, a former World Bank official.

True, the victory for democracy was soon overturned by a military coup, followed by years of terror and suffering to the present, with crucial participation of the two traditional torturers of Haiti, France and the US (contrary to self-serving illusions). But the victory itself was a far more "extraordinary example of democracy at work" than the miracle of 2008.

The same is true of the 2005 election in Bolivia. The indigenous majority, the most oppressed population in the hemisphere (those who survived), elected a candidate from their own ranks, a poor peasant, Evo Morales. The electoral victory was not based on soaring rhetoric about hope and change, or body language and fluttering of eyelashes, but on crucial issues, very well known to the voters: control over resources, cultural rights, and so on. Furthermore, the election went far beyond pushing a lever or even efforts to get out the vote. It was a stage in long and intense popular struggles in the face of severe repression, which had won major victories, such as defeating the efforts to deprive poor people of water through privatization.

These popular movements did not simply take instructions from party leaders. Rather, they formulated the policies that their candidates were chosen to implement. That is quite different from the Western model of democracy, as we see clearly in the reactions to Obama's victory.

In the liberal Boston Globe, the headline of the lead story observed that Obama's "grass-roots strategy leaves few debts to interest groups": labor unions, women, minorities, or other "traditional Democratic constituencies." That is only partially right, because massive funding by concentrated sectors of capital is ignored. But leaving that detail aside, the report is correct in saying that Obama's hands are not tied, because his only debt is to "a grass-roots army of millions" - who took instructions, but contributed essentially nothing to formulating his program.

At the other end of the doctrinal spectrum, a headline in the Wall Street Journal reads "Grass-Roots Army Is Still at the Ready" - namely, ready to follow instructions to "push his agenda," whatever it may be.

Obama's organizers regard the network they constructed "as a mass movement with unprecedented potential to influence voters," the Los Angeles Times reported. The movement, organized around the "Obama brand" can pressure Congress to "hew to the Obama agenda." But they are not to develop ideas and programs and call on their representatives to implement them. These would be among the "old ways of doing politics" from which the new "idealists" are "breaking free."

It is instructive to compare this picture to the workings of a functioning democracy such as Bolivia. The popular movements of the third world do not conform to the favored Western doctrine that the "function" of the "ignorant and meddlesome outsiders" - the population -- is to be "spectators of action" but not "participants" (Walter Lippmann, articulating a standard progressive view).

Perhaps there might even be some substance to fashionable slogans about "clash of civilizations."

In earlier periods of American history, the public refused to keep to its assigned "function." Popular activism has repeatedly been the force that led to substantial gains for freedom and justice. The authentic hope of the Obama campaign is that the "grass roots army" organized to take instructions from the leader might "break free" and return to "old ways of doing politics," by direct participation in action.

Latin America

In Bolivia, as in Haiti, efforts to promote democracy, social justice, and cultural rights, and to bring about desperately needed structural and institutional changes are, naturally, bitterly opposed by the traditional rulers, the Europeanized mostly white elite in the Eastern provinces, the site of most of the natural resources currently desired by the West. Also naturally, their quasi-secessionist movement is supported by Washington, which once again scarcely conceals its distaste for democracy when it does not conform to strategic and economic interests. The generalization is a staple of serious scholarship, but does not make its way to commentary about the revered "freedom agenda."

To punish Bolivians for showing "the world an extraordinary example of democracy at work," the Bush administration cancelled trade preferences, threatening tens of thousands of jobs, on the pretext that Bolivia was not cooperating with US counter-narcotic efforts. In the real world, the UN estimates that Bolivia's coca crop increased 5 percent in 2007, as compared with a 26 percent increase in Colombia, the terror state that is Washington's closest regional ally and the recipient of enormous military aid. AP reports that "Cocaine seizures by Bolivian police working with DEA agents had also increased dramatically during the Morales administration."

"Drug wars" have regularly been used as a pretext for repression, violence, and state crimes, at home as well.

After Morales's victory in a recall referendum in August 2008, with a sharp increase in support over his 2005 success, rightist opposition turned violent, leading to assassination of many peasants supporting the government. After the massacre, a summit meeting of UNASUR, the newly-formed Union of South American Republics, was convened in Santiago Chile. The summit issued a strong statement of support for the elected Morales government, read by Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. The statement declared "their full and firm support for the constitutional government of President Evo Morales, whose mandate was ratified by a big majority" -- referring to his overwhelming victory in the referendum a month earlier. Morales thanked UNASUR for its support, observing that "For the first time in South America's history, the countries of our region are deciding how to resolve our problems, without the presence of the United States."

A matter of no slight significance, not reported in the US.

The Administration

Turning to the future, what can we realistically expect of an Obama administration? We have two sources of information: actions and rhetoric.

The most important actions to date are selection of staff. The first selection was for vice-President: Joe Biden, one of the strongest supporters of the Iraq invasion among Senate Democrats, a long-time Washington insider, who consistently votes with his fellow Democrats but not always, as when he supported a measure to make it harder for individuals to erase debt by declaring bankruptcy.

The first post-election appointment was for the crucial position of chief of staff: Rahm Emanuel, one of the strongest supporters of the Iraq invasion among House Democrats and like Biden, a long-term Washington insider. Emanuel is also one of the biggest recipients of Wall Street campaign contributions, the Center for Responsive Politics reports. He "was the top House recipient in the 2008 election cycle of contributions from hedge funds, private equity firms and the larger securities/investment industry." Since being elected to Congress in 2002, he "has received more money from individuals and PACs in the securities and investment business than any other industry"; these are also among Obama's top donors. His task is to oversee Obama's approach to the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, for which his and Obama's funders share ample responsibility.

In an interview with an editor of the Wall Street Journal, Emanuel was asked what the Obama administration would do about "the Democratic congressional leadership, which is brimming with left-wing barons who have their own agenda," such as slashing defense spending (in accord with the will of the majority of the population) and "angling for steep energy taxes to combat global warming," not to speak of the outright lunatics in Congress who toy with slavery reparations and even sympathize with Europeans who want to indict Bush administration war criminals for war crimes. "Barack Obama can stand up to them," Emanuel assured the editor. The administration will be "pragmatic," fending off left extremists.

Obama's transition team is headed by John Podesta, Clinton's chief of staff. The leading figures in his economic team are Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, both enthusiasts for the deregulation that was a major factor in the current financial crisis. As Treasury Secretary, Rubin worked hard to abolish the Glass-Steagall act, which had separated commercial banks from financial institutions that incur high risks. Economist Tim Canova comments that Rubin had "a personal interest in the demise of Glass-Steagall." Soon after leaving his position as Treasury Secretary, he became "chair of Citigroup, a financial-services conglomerate that was facing the possibility of having to sell off its insurance underwriting subsidiary... the Clinton administration never brought charges against him for his obvious violations of the Ethics in Government Act."

Rubin was replaced as Treasury Secretary by Summers, who presided over legislation barring federal regulation of derivatives, the "weapons of mass destruction" (Warren Buffett) that helped plunge financial markets to disaster. He ranks as "one of the main villains in the current economic crisis," according to Dean Baker, one of the few economists to have warned accurately of the impending crisis. Placing financial policy in the hands of Rubin and Summers is "a bit like turning to Osama Bin Laden for aid in the war on terrorism," Baker adds.

The business press reviewed the records of Obama's Transition Economic Advisory Board, which met on November 7 to determine how to deal with the financial crisis. In Bloomberg News, Jonathan Weil concluded that "Many of them should be getting subpoenas as material witnesses right about now, not places in Obama's inner circle." About half "have held fiduciary positions at companies that, to one degree or another, either fried their financial statements, helped send the world into an economic tailspin, or both." Is it really plausible that "they won't mistake the nation's needs for their own corporate interests?" He also pointed out that chief of staff Emanuel "was a director at Freddie Mac in 2000 and 2001 while it was committing accounting fraud."

Those are the actions, at the time of writing. The rhetoric is "change" and "hope."

Health Care

The primary concern for the administration will be to arrest the financial crisis and the simultaneous recession in the real economy. But there is also a monster in the closet: the notoriously inefficient privatized health care system, which threatens to overwhelm the federal budget if current tendencies persist. A majority of the public has long favored a national health care system, which should be far less expensive and more effective, comparative evidence indicates (along with many studies). As recently as 2004, any government intervention in the health care system was described in the press as "politically impossible" and "lacking political support" - meaning: opposed by the insurance industry, pharmaceutical corporations, and others who count. In 2008, however, first Edwards, then Obama and Clinton, advanced proposals that approach what the public has long preferred. These ideas now have "political support." What has changed? Not public opinion, which remains much as before. But by 2008, major sectors of power, primarily manufacturing industry, had come to recognize that they are being severely damaged by the privatized health care system. Hence the public will is coming to have "political support." There is a long way to go, but the shift tells us something about dysfunctional democracy.

International Relations

Internationally, there is not much of substance on the largely blank slate. What there is gives little reason to expect much a change from Bush's second term, which stepped back from the radical ultranationalism and aggressive posture of the first term, also discarding some of the extreme hawks and opponents of democracy (in action, that is, not soothing words), like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.

Israel-Palestine

The immediate issues have to do mostly with the Middle East. On Israel-Palestine, rumors are circulating that Obama might depart from the US rejectionism that has blocked a political settlement for over 30 years, with rare exceptions, notably for a few days in January 2001 before promising negotiations were called off prematurely by Israel. The record, however, provides no basis for taking the rumors seriously. I have reviewed Obama's formal positions elsewhere (Perilous Power), and will put the matter aside here.

After the election, Israeli president Shimon Peres informed the press that on his July trip to Israel, Obama had told him that he was "very impressed" with the Arab League peace proposal, calling for full normalization of relations with Israel along with Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories - basically, the long-standing international consensus that the US-Israel have unilaterally blocked (and that Peres has never accepted - in fact, in his last days as Prime Minister in 1996 he held that a Palestinian state can never come into existence). That might suggest a significant change of heart, except that the right-wing Israeli leader Binyamin Netanyahu said that on the same trip, Obama had told him that he was "very impressed" with Netanyahu's plan, which calls for indefinite Israeli control of the occupied territories.

The paradox is plausibly resolved by Israeli political analyst Aluf Ben, who points out that Obama's "main goal was not to screw up or ire anyone. Presumably he was polite, and told his hosts their proposals were `very interesting' - they leave satisfied and he hasn't promised a thing." Understandable, but it leaves us with nothing except his fervent professions of love for Israel and dismissal of Palestinian concerns.

Iraq

On Iraq, Obama has frequently been praised for his "principled opposition" to the war. In reality, as he has made clear, his opposition has been entirely unprincipled throughout. The war, he said, is a "strategic blunder." When Kremlin critics of the invasion of Afghanistan called it a strategic blunder, we did not say that they were taking a principled stand.

By the time of writing, the government of Iraq seems close to accepting a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Washington on the US military presence in Iraq - with reservations, according to Prime Minister Maliki, who said that this is the best Iraq could get and it was at least "a strong beginning." The talks dragged on, the Washington Post reports, because Iraq insisted on "some major concessions, including the establishment of the 2011 withdrawal date instead of vaguer language favored by the Bush administration [and] also rejected long-term U.S. military bases on its soil." Iraqi leaders "consider the firm deadline for withdrawal to be a negotiating victory," Reuters reports: Washington "long opposed setting any timetable for its troops to withdraw, but relented in recent months," unable to overcome Iraqi resistance.

Throughout the negotiations, the press regularly dismissed the obstinate stance of the Maliki government as regrettable pandering to public opinion. US-run polls continue to report that a large majority of Iraqis oppose any US military presence, and believe that US forces make the situation worse, including the "surge." That judgment is supported, among others, by Middle East specialist and security analyst Steven Simon, who writes in Foreign Affairs that the Petraeus counterinsurgency strategy is "stoking the three forces that have traditionally threatened the stability of Middle Eastern states: tribalism, warlordism, and sectarianism. States that have failed to control these forces have ultimately become ungovernable, and this is the fate for which the surge is preparing Iraq. A strategy intended to reduce casualties in the short term will ineluctably weaken the prospects for Iraq's cohesion over the long run." It may lead to "a strong, centralized state ruled by a military junta that would resemble the Baathist regime Washington overthrew in 2003," or "something very much like the imperial protectorates in the Middle East of the first half of the twentieth century" in which the "club of patrons" in the capital would Ôdole out goods to tribes through favored conduits." In the Petraeus system, "the U.S. military is performing the role of the patrons -- creating an unhealthy dependency and driving a dangerous wedge between the tribes and the state," undermining prospects for a "stable, unitary Iraq."

The latest Iraqi success culminates a long process of resistance to demands of the US invaders. Washington fought tooth and nail to prevent elections, but was finally forced to back down in the face of popular demands for democracy, symbolized by the Ayatollah Sistani. The Bush administration then managed to install their own choice as Prime Minister, and sought to control the government in various ways, meanwhile also building huge military bases around the country and an "embassy" that is a virtual city within Baghdad - all funded by congressional Democrats. If the invaders do live up to the SOFA that they have been compelled to accept, it would constitute a significant triumph of nonviolent resistance. Insurgents can be killed, but mass nonviolent resistance is much harder to quell.

Within the political class and the media it is reflexively assumed that Washington has the right to demand terms for the SOFA. No such right was accorded to Russian invaders of Afghanistan, or indeed to anyone except the US and its clients. For others, we rightly adopt the principle that invaders have no rights, only responsibilities, including the responsibility to attend to the will of the victims, and to pay massive reparations for their crimes. In this case, the crimes include strong support for Saddam Hussein through his worst atrocities on Reagan's watch, then on to Saddam's massacre of Shiites under the eyes of the US military after the first Gulf War; the Clinton sanctions that were termed "genocidal" by the distinguished international diplomats who administered them and resigned in protest, and that also helped Saddam escape the fate of other gangsters whom the US and Britain supported to the very end of their bloody rule; and the war and its hideous aftermath. No such thoughts can be voiced in polite society.

The Iraqi government spokesman said that the tentative SOFA "matches the vision of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama." Obama's vision was in fact left somewhat vague, but presumably he would go along in some fashion with the demands of the Iraqi government. If so, that would require modification of US plans to ensure control over Iraq's enormous oil resources while reinforcing its dominance over the world's major energy producing region.

Afghanistan, Pakistan...

Obama's announced "vision" was to shift forces from Iraq to Afghanistan. That stand evoked a lesson from the editors of the Washington Post: "While the United States has an interest in preventing the resurgence of the Afghan Taliban, the country's strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq, which lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world's largest oil reserves." Increasingly, as Washington has been compelled to accede to Iraqi demands, tales about "democracy promotion" and other self-congratulatory fables have been shelved in favor of recognition of what had been obvious throughout to all but the most doctrinaire ideologists: that the US would not have invaded if Iraq's exports were asparagus and tomatoes and the world's major energy resources were in the South Pacific.

The NATO command is also coming to recognize reality publicly. In June 2007, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer informed a meeting of NATO members that "NATO troops have to guard pipelines that transport oil and gas that is directed for the West," and more generally to protect sea routes used by tankers and other "crucial infrastructure" of the energy system. That is the true meaning of the fabled "responsibility to protect." Presumably the task includes the projected $7.6-billion TAPI pipeline that would deliver natural gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India, running through Afghan's Kandahar province, where Canadian troops are deployed. The goal is "to block a competing pipeline that would bring gas to Pakistan and India from Iran" and to "diminish Russia's dominance of Central Asian energy exports," the Toronto Globe and Mail reported, plausibly outlining some of the contours of the new "Great Game."

Obama strongly endorsed the then-secret Bush administration policy of attacking suspected al-Qaeda leaders in countries that Washington has not (yet) invaded, disclosed by the New York Times shortly after the election. The doctrine was illustrated again on October 26, when US forces based in Iraq raided Syria, killing 8 civilians, allegedly to capture an al-Qaeda leader. Washington did not notify Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki or President Talabani, both of whom have relatively amicable relations with Syria, which has accepted 1.5 million Iraqi refugees and is bitterly opposed to al-Qaeda. Syria protested, claiming, credibly, that if notified they would have eagerly apprehended this enemy. According to Asia Times, Iraqi leaders were furious, and hardened their stance in the SOFA negotiations, insisting on provisions to bar the use of Iraqi territory to attack neighbors.

The Syria raid elicited a harsh reaction in the Arab world. In pro-government newspapers, the Bush administration was denounced for lengthening its "loathsome legacy" (Lebanon), while Syria was urged to "march forward in your reconciliatory path" and America to "keep going backwards with your language of hatred, arrogance and the murder of innocents" (Kuwait). For the region generally, it was another illustration of what the government-controlled Saudi press condemned as "not diplomacy in search of peace, but madness in search of war."

Obama was silent. So were other Democrats. Political scientist Stephen Zunes contacted the offices of every Democrat on the House and Senate Foreign Relations Committees, but was unable to find any critical word on the US raid on Syria from occupied Iraq.

Presumably, Obama also accepts the more expansive Bush doctrine that the US not only has the right to invade countries as it chooses (unless it is a "blunder," too costly to us), but also to attack others that Washington claims are supporting resistance to its aggression. In particular, Obama has, it seems, not criticized the raids by Predator drones that have killed many civilians in Pakistan.

These raids of course have consequences: people have the odd characteristic of objecting to slaughter of family members and friends. Right now there is a vicious mini-war being waged in the tribal area of Bajaur in Pakistan, adjacent to Afghanistan. BBC describes widespread destruction from intense combat, reporting further that "Many in Bajaur trace the roots of the uprising to a suspected US missile strike on an Islamic seminary, or madrassa, in November 2006, which killed around 80 people." The attack on the school, killing 80-85 people, was reported in the mainstream Pakistani press by the highly respected dissident physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy, but ignored in the US as insignificant. Events often look different at the other end of the club.

Hoodbhoy observed that the usual outcome of such attacks "has been flattened houses, dead and maimed children, and a growing local population that seeks revenge against Pakistan and the US." Bajaur today may be an illustration of the familiar pattern.

On November 3, General Petraeus, the newly appointed head of the US Central Command that covers the Middle East region, had his first meeting with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and other high officials. Their primary concern was US missile attacks on Pakistani territory, which had increased sharply in previous weeks. "Continuing drone attacks on our territory, which result in loss of precious lives and property, are counterproductive and difficult to explain by a democratically elected government," Zardari informed Petraeus. His government, he said, is "under pressure to react more aggressively" to the strikes. These could lead to "a backlash against the US," which is already deeply unpopular in Pakistan.

Petraeus said that he had heard the message, and "we would have to take [Pakistani opinions] on board" when attacking the country. A practical necessity, no doubt, when over 80% of the supplies for the US-NATO war in Afghanistan pass through Pakistan.

Pakistan developed nuclear weapons, outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), thanks in no small measure to Ronald Reagan, who pretended not to see what his ally was doing. This was one element of Reagan's "unstinting support" for the "ruthless and vindictive" dictator Zia ul-Haq, whose rule had "the most long-lasting and damaging effect on Pakistani society, one still prevalent today," the highly respected analyst Ahmed Rashid observes. With Reagan's firm backing, Zia moved to impose "an ideological Islamic state upon the population." These are the immediate roots of many of "today's problems - the militancy of the religious parties, the mushrooming of madrassas and extremist groups, the spread of drug and Kalashnikov culture, and the increase in sectarian violence."

The Reaganites also "built up the [Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, ISI] into a formidable intelligence agency that ran the political process inside Pakistan while promoting Islamic insurgencies in Kashmir and Central Asia," Rashid continues. "This global jihad launched by Zia and Reagan was to sow the seeds of al Qaeda and turn Pakistan into the world center of jihadism for the next two decades." Meanwhile Reagan's immediate successors left Afghanistan in the hands of the most vicious jihadis, later abandoning it to warlord rule under Rumsfeld's direction. The fearsome ISI continues to play both sides of the street, supporting the resurgent Taliban and simultaneously acceding to some US demands.

The US and Pakistan are reported to have reached "tacit agreement in September [2008] on a don't-ask-don't-tell policy that allows unmanned Predator aircraft to attack suspected terrorist targets" in Pakistan, according to unidentified senior officials in both countries. "The officials described the deal as one in which the U.S. government refuses to publicly acknowledge the attacks while Pakistan's government continues to complain noisily about the politically sensitive strikes."

Once again problems are caused by the "ignorant and meddlesome outsiders" who dislike being bombed by an increasingly hated enemy from the other side of the world.

The day before this report on the "tacit agreement" appeared, a suicide bombing in the conflicted tribal areas killed eight Pakistani soldiers, retaliation for an attack by a US Predator drone that killed 20 people, including two Taliban leaders. The Pakistani parliament called for dialogue with the Taliban. Echoing the resolution, Pakistani foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said "There is an increasing realization that the use of force alone cannot yield the desired results."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's first message to president-elect Obama was much like that delivered to General Petraeus by Pakistani leaders: "end US airstrikes that risk civilian casualties." His message was sent shortly after coalition troops bombed a wedding party in Kandahar province, reportedly killing 40 people. There is no indication that his opinion was "taken on board."

The British command has warned that there is no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan and that there will have to be negotiations with the Taliban, risking a rift with the US, the Financial Times reports. Correspondent Jason Burke, who has long experience in the region, reports that "the Taliban have been engaged in secret talks about ending the conflict in Afghanistan in a wide-ranging 'peace process' sponsored by Saudi Arabia and supported by Britain."

Some Afghan peace activists have reservations about this approach, preferring a solution without foreign interference. A growing network of activists is calling for negotiations and reconciliation with the Taliban in a National Peace Jirga, a grand assembly of Afghans, formed in May 2008. At a meeting in support of the Jirga, 3,000 Afghan political and intellectuals, mainly Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group, criticized "the international military campaign against Islamic militants in Afghanistan and called for dialogue to end the fighting," AFP reported.

The interim chairman of the National Peace Jirga, Bakhtar Aminzai, "told the opening gathering that the current conflict could not be resolved by military means and that only talks could bring a solution. He called on the government to step up its negotiations with the Taliban and Hizb-i-Islami groups." The latter is the party of the extremist radical Islamist warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a Reagan favorite responsible for many terrible atrocities, now reported to provide core parliamentary support for the Karzai government and to be pressing it towards a form of re-Talibanization.

Aminzai said further that "We need to pressure the Afghan government and the international community to find a solution without using guns." A spokeswoman added that "We are against Western policy in Afghanistan. They should bury their guns in a grave and focus on diplomacy and economic development." A leader of Awakened Youth of Afghanistan, a prominent antiwar group, says that we must end "Afghanicide -- the killing of Afghanistan." In a joint declaration with German peace organizations, the National Peace Jirga claimed to represent "a wide majority of Afghan people who are tired of war," calling for an end to escalation and initiation of a peace process.

The deputy director of the umbrella organization of NGOs in the country says that of roughly 1,400 registered NGOs, nearly 1,100 are purely Afghan operations: women's groups, youth groups and others, many of them advocates of the Peace Jirga.

Though polling in war-torn Afghanistan is a difficult process, there are some suggestive results. A Canadian-run poll found that Afghans favor the presence of Canadian and other foreign troops, the result that made the headlines in Canada. Other findings suggest some qualifications. Only 20% "think the Taliban will prevail once foreign troops leave." Three-fourths support negotiations between the Karzai government and the Taliban, and more than half favor a coalition government. The great majority therefore strongly disagree with the US-NATO focus on further militarization of the conflict, and appear to believe that peace is possible with a turn towards peaceful means. Though the question was not asked, it is reasonable to surmise that the foreign presence is favored for aid and reconstruction.

A study of Taliban foot soldiers carried out by the Toronto Globe & Mail, though not a scientific survey as they point out, nevertheless yields considerable insight. All were Afghan Pashtuns, from the Kandahar area. They described themselves as Mujahadeen, following the ancient tradition of driving out foreign invaders. Almost a third reported that at least one family member had died in aerial bombings in recent years. Many said that they were fighting to defend Afghan villagers from air strikes by foreign troops. Few claimed to be fighting a global Jihad, or had allegiance to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Most saw themselves as fighting for principles - an Islamic government -- not a leader. Again, the results suggest possibilities for a negotiated peaceful settlement, without foreign interference.

A valuable perspective on such prospects is provided by Sir Rodric Braithwaite, a specialist on Afghanistan who was UK ambassador to Moscow during the crucial 1988-92 period when the Russians withdrew (and the USSR collapsed), then becoming chair of the British Joint Intelligence Committee. On a recent visit, Braithwaite spoke to Afghan journalists, former Mujahideen, professionals, people working for the US-based "coalition" - in general, to "natural supporters for its claims to bring peace and reconstruction." In the Financial Times, he reports that they were "contemptuous of President Hamid Karzai," regarding him as another one of the puppets installed by foreign force. Their favorite was "Mohammad Najibullah, the last communist president, who attempted to reconcile the nation within an Islamic state, and was butchered by the Taliban in 1996: DVDs of his speeches are being sold on the streets. Things were, they said, better under the Soviets. Kabul was secure, women were employed, the Soviets built factories, roads, schools and hospitals, Russian children played safely in the streets. The Russian soldiers fought bravely on the ground like real warriors, instead of killing women and children from the air. Even the Taliban were not so bad: they were good Muslims, kept order, and respected women in their own way. These myths may not reflect historical reality, but they do measure a deep disillusionment with the `coalition' and its policies."

Specialists on the region urge that US strategy should shift from more troops and attacks in Pakistan to a "diplomatic grand bargain -- forging compromise with insurgents while addressing an array of regional rivalries and insecurities" (Barnett Rubin and Ahmed Rashid in Foreign Affairs, Nov.-Dec. 2008). They warn that the current military focus "and the attendant terrorism" might lead to the collapse of nuclear-armed Pakistan, with grim consequences. They urge the incoming US administration "to put an end to the increasingly destructive dynamics of the Great Game in the region" through negotiations that recognize the interests of the concerned parties within Afghanistan as well as Pakistan and Iran, but also India, China and Russia, who "have reservations about a NATO base within their spheres of influence" and concerns about the threats "posed by the United States and NATO" as well as by al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The immediate goal should be "Lowering the level of violence in the region and moving the global community toward genuine agreement on the long-term goals," thus allowing Afghans to confront their internal problems peacefully. The incoming US president must put an end to "Washington's keenness for `victory' as the solution to all problems, and the United States' reluctance to involve competitors, opponents, or enemies in diplomacy."

It appears that there are feasible alternatives to escalation of the cycle of violence, but there is little hint of it in the electoral campaign or political commentary. Afghanistan and Pakistan do not appear among foreign policy issues on the Obama campaign's website.

Iran

Iran, in contrast, figures prominently -- though not of course as compared with effusive support for Israel; Palestinians remain unmentioned, apart from a vague reference to a two-state settlement of some unspecified kind. For Iran, Obama supports tough direct diplomacy "without preconditions" in order "to pressure Iran directly to change their troubling behavior," namely pursuing a nuclear program and supporting terrorism (presumably referring to support for Hamas and Hezbollah). If Iran abandons its troubling behavior, the US might move towards normal diplomatic and economic relations. "If Iran continues its troubling behavior, we will step up our economic pressure and political isolation." And as Obama informed the Israeli Lobby (AIPAC), "I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon" - up to nuclear war, if he meant what he said.

Furthermore Obama will strengthen the NPT "so that countries like North Korea and Iran that break the rules will automatically face strong international sanctions." There is no mention of the conclusion of US intelligence with "high confidence" that Iran has not had a weapons program for 5 years, unlike US allies Israel, Pakistan, India, which maintain extensive nuclear weapons programs in violation of the NPT with direct US support, all unmentioned here as well.

The final mention of Iran is in the context of Obama's strong support for Israel's "Right to Self Defense" and its "right to protect its citizens." This commitment is demonstrated by Obama's co-sponsorship of "a Senate resolution against Iran and Syria's involvement in the war, and insisting that Israel should not be pressured into a ceasefire that did not deal with the threat of Hezbollah missiles." The reference is to Israel's US-backed invasion of Lebanon in 2006, with pretexts that are hardly credible in light of Israel's regular practices. This invasion, Israel's fifth, killed over 1000 Lebanese and once again destroyed much of southern Lebanon as well as parts of Beirut.

This is the sole mention of Lebanon among foreign policy issues on Obama's website. Evidently, Lebanon has no right of self defense. In fact who could possibly have a right of self defense against the US or its clients?

Nor does Iran have such rights. Among specialists, even rational hawks, it is well understood that if Iran is pursuing a weapons program, it is for deterrence. In the conservative National Interest, former CIA weapons inspector David Kay speculates that Iran might be moving towards "nuclear weapons capability," with the "strategic goal" of countering a US threat that "is real in Teheran's eyes," for good reasons that he reviews. He notes further that "Perhaps the biggest agitator of all in this is the United States, with its abbreviated historical memory and diplomatic ADD." Wayne White, formerly deputy director for the Near East and South Asia in State Department intelligence, dismisses the possibility that Supreme Leader Khamenei and the clerical elite, who hold power in Iran, would throw away the "vast amounts of money" and "huge economic empires" they have created for themselves "in some quixotic attack against Israel with a nuclear weapon," if they had one. The probability of that is virtually undetectable, he points out.

White agrees that Iran might seek weapons capability (which is not the same as weapons) for deterrence. He goes on to suggest Iran might also recall that Saddam Hussein had no nuclear weapons program when Israel bombed its Osiraq reactor in 1981, and that the attack led him to initiate a program using nuclear materials it had on hand as a result of the bombing. At the time, White was Iraq analyst for State Department intelligence, with access to a rich body of evidence. His testimony adds internal US intelligence confirmation to the very credible evidence available at once, later strengthened by reports of Iraqi defectors, that the Israeli bombing did not terminate, but rather initiated, Saddam's pursuit of nuclear weapons. US or Israeli bombing of Iranian facilities, White and other specialists observe, might have the same effect. Violence consistently elicits more violence in response.

These matters are well understood by informed hardliners. The leading neoconservative expert on Iran, Reuel Marc Gerecht, formerly in the CIA Middle East division, wrote in 2000 that:

Tehran certainly wants nuclear weapons; and its reasoning is not illogical. Iran was gassed into surrender in the first Persian Gulf War; Pakistan, Iran's ever more radicalized Sunni neighbor to the southeast, has nuclear weapons; Saddam Hussein, with his Scuds and his weapons-of-mass-destruction ambitions, is next door; Saudi Arabia, Iran's most ardent and reviled religious rival, has long-range missiles; Russia, historically one of Iran's most feared neighbors, is once again trying to reassert its dominion in the neighboring Caucasus; and Israel could, of course blow the Islamic Republic to bits. Having been vanquished by a technologically superior Iraq at a cost of at least a half-million men, Iran knows very well the consequences of having insufficient deterrence. And the Iranians possess the essential factor to make deterrence work: sanity. Tehran or Isfahan in ashes would destroy the Persian soul, about which even the most hard-line cleric cares deeply. As long as the Iranians believe that either the U.S. or Israel or somebody else in the region might retaliate with nuclear weapons, they won't do something stupid.

Gerecht also understands very well the real "security problem" posed by Iranian nuclear weapons, should it acquire them:

A nuclear-armed Islamic Republic would of course check, if not checkmate, the United States' maneuvering room in the Persian Gulf. We would no doubt think several times about responding to Iranian terrorism or military action if Tehran had the bomb and a missile to deliver it. During the lead-up to the second Gulf War, ruling clerical circles in Tehran and Qom were abuzz with the debate about nuclear weapons. The mullahs...agreed: if Saddam Hussein had had nuclear weapons, the Americans would not have challenged him. For the "left" and the "right," this weaponry is the ultimate guarantee of Iran's defense, its revolution, and its independence as a regional great power.

With appropriate translations for the doctrinal term "Iranian terrorism," Gerecht's concerns capture realistically the threat posed by an Iran with a deterrent capacity (Iranian military action is quite a remote contingency).

While as usual ignored as irrelevant to policy formation, American public opinion is close to that of serious analysts and also to world opinion. Large majorities oppose threats against Iran, thus rejecting the Bush-Obama position that the US must be an outlaw state, violating the UN Charter, which bars the threat of force. The public also joins the majority of the world's states in endorsing Iran's right, as a signer of the NPT, to enrich uranium for nuclear energy (the position endorsed also by Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Kissinger and others when Iran was ruled by the tyrant imposed by US-UK subversion). Most important, the public favors establishment of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East, which would mitigate and perhaps eliminate this highly threatening issue.

Popular Influence

These observations suggest an interesting thought experiment. What would be the content of the "Obama brand" if the public were to become "participants" rather than mere "spectators in action"? It is an experiment well worth undertaking, and there is good reason to suppose that the results might point the way to a saner and more decent world.

Meeting the boys...

2008-12-18T15:23:00.000-08:00

This week they met somewhere in Sauípe, Bahia State, Brazil. They met and they have planned. Here we hope they are up for some action after these meetings. It is more than time for some action, right boys?

A Minsky moment by Paulo Gala

2008-12-05T18:52:00.000-08:00

The recent evolution of the exchange rate in Brazil: a Minsky moment
by Paulo Gala from the blog Rethinking Development Economics

(Reproduction authorized with the author's name)

The current crisis has quite clearly shown the so-called dual nature of the exchange rate: on the one hand, the relative price between tradables and non-tradables, and, on the other hand, the price of a financial asset. It also becomes increasingly clear that the determination of the exchange rate has essentially a financial dynamics, especially in a context of open capital accounts. From the perspective of prices of tradables and non-tradables, the country was getting into a problematic situation, as the real exchange rate appreciation was making it increasingly difficult to insert domestic production in the world economy. Brazilian prices, once converted to dollars, reached surprisingly high levels, thus eliminating the competitiveness of our industries, even the most efficient ones. This can be observed in the reversal of the manufacturing trade balance, with an explosion of imports and a stagnation of exports. Our trade surplus was more and more dependent on high commodity prices, in a bubble that now seems to have burst. The recent path of the current account showed clearly that the Brazilian currency was becoming misaligned towards overvaluation.

The explosive increase in the dollar price of Brazilian nontradables certainly did not result from an increase in productivity and wages, as we would like it to be. Numerous papers showed that the Brazilian currency was relatively overvalued, whether in terms of measures of PPP (Purchasing power parity) deviations, or in measures such as BEER (Behavioural Equilibrium Exchange Rates). How then to explain the appreciation path that put the exchange rate increasingly “out of place”?

Now comes the financial nature of the exchange rate. As the country received the investment grade and investors showed a strong appetite for investments in emerging countries, there was a flood of capital to Brazil. Last year only the capital account accumulated a surplus in excess of US$90 billion. Investments in the stock market, securities, and derivatives caused an increasing appreciation of the Brazilian currency, which seemed more and more undervalued in the eyes of financial market. The period of relative stillness in the world markets during the last few years stimulated the "Minskyan" spirits of the financial agents that were increasingly betting on uncertain positions in emerging markets. In Brazil, the exchange rate continued to appreciate as long as these operations were highly profitable. Domestic companies betting on derivatives related to the appreciation of the Brazilian real, as well as capital flows to the stock market and securities, caused one of the highest exchange rate appreciations in the emerging world in the last years.

And now the “Minsky moment” comes, in which deleveraging and deflation of assets predominate. The appreciation movement built during 2 years is undone in 2 weeks. In a troubled way, to say the least, the exchange rate returns to a more reasonable position in terms of prices of tradables and non-tradables. For those who have been studying Keynes and Minsky, there is nothing new in this type of financial dynamics.

It is worth mentioning, however, the negative consequences of the type of arrangement we are living in today. As the relative price between tradables and non-tradables, the exchange rate strongly affects the country's technological dynamics, as long as it impacts decisions regarding investment, production, and innovation. The level of the real exchange rate plays a fundamental role in macroeconomic dynamics from a long-term perspective. By influencing the determination of sector specialization, particularly regarding incentives to industry, the impact of the exchange rate level on the dynamics of productivity is high. Exchange rate overvaluations are particularly harmful to processes of economic development, since they substantially reduce the profitability of production and investment in manufacturing tradable sectors. By reallocating resources to non-manufacturing sectors, especially to the production of commodities (with decreasing returns to scale), and to non-tradable sectors, exchange rate overvaluations eventually affect the economy's whole technological dynamics.

To conclude, it is worth mentioning the impacts of exchange rate volatility in the economy's performance. In an open capital account setting, the exchange rate is financially determined and depends on the traditional Minskyan “boom” and “bust” dynamics. The relative price between tradables and non-tradables is now determined in the financial market, with very complex dynamics. That is to say, the profitability of manufacturing production, which it is essential to long-term economic development, begins to depend on the whims of financial markets.
Postado por Paulo Gala em Rethinking Development Economics

What about trade justice: market access

2008-11-26T06:15:00.000-08:00

(Photo: Oxfam International)

Why do I fight trade to combat hunger and poverty? Because trade rules the way they are protect the interests of the developed countries only and make the poor countries poorer. Trade harms the poor more than any other international activity, it also causes wars and famines. The problem of the poverty and hunger in the poor countries is not restricted to poor governance as the rich countries want everybody to believe, and the solution to poverty and hunger is not in sending food to feed the poor.

Today the world must interfere, save lives and support WFP (World Food Program) to send food and feed the people. However, in the long run the solution is more in buying the food produced by the poor, allow other countries to make money with trade and allow the poor people of the less developed countries a decent existence.

According to Oxfam, the old and respected UK based NGO, if Africa, East and South Asia, and Latin America each increased their share of world exports by just one per cent, the resulting gains could lift 128 million people out of poverty. This information is astonishing and show the amount of protectionism dominant in the world today.

'Rich countries limit and control poor countries' share of the world market by charging high taxes on imported goods. As a result, many poor countries can only afford to export raw materials, which give far lower returns than finished products.

For example, the rich world buys cheap cotton and cocoa and turns them into expensive clothes and chocolate - reaping all of the profit. At the same time, poor countries are threatened with having loans withheld unless they open their markets to rich countries' exports' (Oxfam International).

So think twice before you choose to buy locally produced and heavily subsidized products only, you might be contributing to a very, very unfair trade. Watch the animated diagram about market access at Oxfam international here

What about trade justice?

2008-11-10T13:14:00.000-08:00

(In the fruit-picking sector the workers, mostly women, have to work more than 60 hours a week in season on temporary contracts.)

It is pretty difficult to change some of the trade policies in the rich countries i.e. European Union, USA and Canada. The situation experienced by the developing countries is getting worse everyday since the cruelty of the developed countries persists. Here I publish an article from Oxfam's campaign for trade justice and above a clarification of the false concept of 'free trade'. This is the first of a series of articles on trade justice that I will bring here. You can find more on Oxfam trade justice campaigns here

Chile is proud of its status as one of the most open countries in the world. It has signed 47 free trade agreements, including one with the US. Chile has seen an overall growth in its economy but behind this success story, there are some heavy costs.

The additional money does not reach the poorest people – in fact, the agreements have thrown them further into poverty. Although there are more temporary jobs, the quality of these jobs is not high.

In the agricultural industry, Chile exports products such as grapes (for wine), fruit, and salmon. The profit from this business ends up in the pockets of transnational companies while the women who work the fields get paid below minimum wage and are denied their labour rights. The trade created in Chile has lined the pockets of big business and increased insecurity for millions of women workers.

Rosa Palleres works for a group of temporary women agricultural workers in Andacollo, Chile: She tells their story…

“Imagine it: a container of grapes sells for $200m, but where is the dollar for the worker here? We are paid miserably. There is a minimum wage but they don’t pay it for agricultural workers. If people in Europe knew what happened to the workers here… would (they) want our products? Supposedly the free trade agreements demand that the workers are ok, that they have rights. But we find that the Free Trade Agreements in Chile have not strengthened our rights at all. We are still getting poorer. The businessmen are richer, and the workers are poorer, in every sense of the word: economically, spiritually, morally; we are degraded in every way.”

In the fruit-picking sector, 75% of women work more than 60 hours a week in season, on temporary contracts, and a third of them do not earn even the minimum wage. Half these women have no contract, and therefore there is no welfare system to support them if they fall sick.

“An agricultural worker doesn’t take holidays, because she would be fired immediately, and would have to go elsewhere, and would have no way of buying food to eat. The situation is very difficult. One sees lots of injustice, all over the country…I feel like I have lost out…

We are all losing out, we don’t have transparency from the government. If things don’t change, all that remains for us workers is to be exploited while others skim off the cream.

Obama

2008-11-05T12:06:00.000-08:00

So this is it, Obama is the man. He got it and I can not stop being proud of the people of the United States. They have left the ghosts of history behind and elected a black man, son of a Kenyan and a white atheist girl from Kansas. Difficult to believe if someone had told me it one year ago. The unexpected remains as the best thing in life.

Congratulations and good luck Obama. I sincerely wish you are able to deliver it all.

Buy Nothing Day

2008-10-23T12:07:00.000-07:00

European leaders have failed poor people

2008-10-23T10:32:00.000-07:00

European leaders have failed poor people
Paper released in February, 2008)

We are extremely disappointed by the extent of the anti-development content of interim Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), particularly since their principle objective was to deliver for development. We are also dismayed by the European Commission's conduct in the process of negotiations.

In 2007 35 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries bilaterally or sub-regionally initialled an interim EPA with the EU that came into force on January 1 2008. However, it is only the Caribbean region that has signed a full EPA which includes agreements on issues such as investment and trade in services.

The agreements require fast and far reaching trade liberalisation by ACP countries, and other damaging reforms, in return for continued entry for ACP goods into EU markets. European member states, including the UK, have largely stood by while the European Commission, led by Commissioner Peter Mandelson, has driven forward its agenda with scant regard for ACP development objectives and regional integration plans.

In the months leading up to the signing of these agreements, negotiators and governments in ACP countries have been put under immense pressure from the Commission, which had variously threatened non-LDC countries (Least Developed Countries) with reduced access for their goods into the European market and diminishing levels of aid if they did not sign an EPA. This bullish approach has resulted in rushed deals, removing the opportunity for appropriate expert or public scrutiny as well as debate of the content either in ACP countries or Europe.

The deals agreed could pose a major threat to development in the countries concerned. Many ACP governments were put in the impossible position of having to choose between supporting existing livelihoods and industries now or retaining policy space to support industries that may emerge in the future – a policy choice that Europe itself made during its development. The EU’s chief objective that EPAs would lead to increased regional integration in ACP countries is in tatters as the Commission has sought to strike deals with individual governments or handfuls of countries – a strategy that can only wreck existing indigenous regional integration processes.

The UK Government, thanks to the pressure from campaigners, has found its actions and positions under intense scrutiny and at times has adopted a more progressive agenda. However, its call to the EC, along with the Netherlands, Ireland and Denmark, to show flexibility and not penalise countries unable to sign, while welcome, came as too little too late. By December 10, when the statement of the four member states was made, many non-LDC countries had already agreed deals, given the threats and pressure from the Commission,

Insufficient pressure and leadership early enough in the process across the EU member states, including the UK, has meant that negotiations have hurtled towards a conclusion which does not sit comfortably with the stated aims of the agreements, or UK policy. The UK has at times been active in its support for agreements in which we believe there are direct contradictions with its 2005 position paper on EPAs.

The ACP Council of Ministers meeting in Brussels from 10-13 December have called for the contentious clauses in the initialled EPAs to be ‘opened up for negotiation’ and have ‘stressed the need for revisiting the provisions which might be incompatible with their development goals and inconsistent with the binding provisions of the Cotonou Agreement’ (ACP Council of Ministers Declaration, 86th Session, 10-13 December).

In the small window of opportunity that remains in 2008 to bring back the focus to ‘development’ and ‘partnership’ in these seriously flawed trade negotiations, we call on the UK Government to do all it can to help deliver on its March 2005 position and support calls from the ACP for key elements of the initialled deals to be revised. Specifically, we call on the UK Government to:

*

Ensure that the interim EPA texts are opened up for renegotiation, given the haste in which they were concluded and their potential to undermine development and regional integration.
*

Publicly call for the European Commission to refrain from pushing for the liberalisation of services, investment, competition, government procurement and intellectual property in EPAs. Given the lack of any legal requirement to include them in EPAs and the controversy surrounding the impacts on development of traditional rules-based deals, the EC must let the ACP development concerns drive negotiations – this means letting ACP negotiators take the lead, adopting a more open-minded approach to any eventual cooperation on these topics, and making publicly available external, objective assessments of proposals and positions.
*

Push for a strong and effective monitoring and review mechanism within the EPAs that enables ACP countries and regions to assess whether EPAs are contributing to their economic development and regional integration and which builds in the legally enforceable right for commitments to be revised in light of the findings.
*

Seek to ensure pro-development alternatives for those countries that have not signed an EPA.

» Take action now: www.tjm.org.uk

Copyright © Trade Justice Movement

Where now for capitalism?

2008-10-06T14:56:00.000-07:00

You all know how much I admire the work of Noam Chomsky. His courage to criticize his country is something admirable. I see him as the most admirable intellectual in the world for his courage to criticize the oppression of the US. It is not easy for an American to be critical, even in face of the most cruel wars of all times, such as the war in Iraq. Non-critical thought is the rule imposed by the American democracy. When an American chooses to go 'radical', critical and sensitive he pays a high price. Noam Chomsky has been paying this price his entire life. Recently he wrote a very short article about the actual financial market crisis. It is so fantastic that I have decided to reproduce it here. His simple analyzes of the reality created by the US demonstrate why I would fear a victory of Barack Obama, more than celebrate.

Where now for capitalism?
Noam Chomsky
BBC News, September 19, 2008

Markets have inherent and well-known inefficiencies. One factor is failure to calculate the costs to those who do not participate in transactions. These "externalities" can be huge. That is particularly true for financial institutions.

Their task is to take risks, calculating potential costs for themselves. But they do not take into account the consequences of their losses for the economy as a whole.

Hence the financial market "underprices risk" and is "systematically inefficient," as John Eatwell and Lance Taylor wrote a decade ago, warning of the extreme dangers of financial liberalization and reviewing the substantial costs already incurred - and also proposing solutions, which have been ignored.

The threat became more severe when the Clinton administration repealed the Glass-Steagall act of 1933, thus freeing financial institutions "to innovate in the new economy," in Clinton's words -- and also "to self-destruct, taking down with them the general economy and international confidence in the US banking system," financial analyst Nomi Prins adds.

The unprecedented intervention of the Fed may be justified or not in narrow terms, but it reveals, once again, the profoundly undemocratic character of state capitalist institutions, designed in large measure to socialise cost and risk and privatize profit, without a public voice.

That is, of course, not limited to financial markets. The advanced economy as a whole relies heavily on the dynamic state sector, with much the same consequences with regard to risk, cost, profit, and decisions, crucial features of the economy and political system.

Gabeira for Rio

2008-10-05T07:21:00.000-07:00

Those who know me know exactly how much I don't care about other people's, other countries' and other planet's opinions. My positions change, of course, but they are very seldom influenced by what the world's think and very often I am isolated in my point of view.

Anyway, sometimes is good to find others with the same opinion, going in the same direction as me. So here it is, an article of the Huntington Post where Gabeira is the best solution for Rio de Janeiro. As Gabeira position in the polls rise I feel that Rio de Janeiro and I are still pulsing together.

Voilá!

Green Party's Gabeira May Be a Troubled Rio de Janeiro's Best Hope

Chris McGowan
The Huntington Post

Brazilian iconoclast Fernando Gabeira, who is running for mayor of Rio de Janeiro in the Sunday, October 5th election, may be the best hope for turning things around in the troubled city. The federal congressman, a revolutionary during Brazil's military dictatorship, is a member of the Green Party (Partido Verde or PV). He is full of pragmatic ideas about making Rio a more sustainable city, and is a staunch supporter of human rights. Gabeira has a reputation of being one of the country's few honest politicians, and has been outspoken in challenging corruption in Brasília.

A long shot in the race, partly because of a severe lack of funding in his campaign, Gabeira has come on strong in the last few days to contend for second place in the polls with Marcelo Crivella, a bishop in the powerful evangelical church Igreja Universal. Whoever places second will probably enter an Oct. 26th runoff election against current leader Eduardo Paes, who is not expected to gain a majority in the first round.

The contest is especially dramatic because of ongoing interference by drug lords and urban militias in the electoral process. An estimated 20% of Rio's six million people live in some 700 favelas (hillside slums), which are largely controlled by drug traffickers or mafia-like militias, the latter formed mostly of former policemen. The militias are especially well-organized and force residents to vote for certain candidates, which has resulted in the election of city councilmen and state lawmakers who have left the militias to operate freely. Recently, they have compelled favela residents to photograph their votes with cell phones, as proof of loyalty. In addition, both militias and traffickers have made it difficult or dangerous for non-favored candidates to campaign in their domains.

As a result of all this, the TRE (Regional Electoral Tribunal) has banned cell phones from all voting booths. And, in an unprecedented move, the federal government has mobilized 5,600 Army and Navy troops, and stationed them in 27 large favelas to provide security for candidates and TRE officials, and to protect voters during the election.

If Gabeira makes the runoff and defeats Paes on Oct. 26th, he will face a daunting challenge in dealing with Rio's urban blight and lawlessness. "I had been concentrating my work on national and international issues. But I recognized that the city is not doing well, and is in a crisis that we must overcome," he told me in his campaign office on Avenida Rio Branco in downtown Rio de Janeiro.

Rio de Janeiro, the once "Marvelous City," is coming apart at the seams under the strain of corruption, crime and urban woes. Along with being terrorized by militias and drug gangs, favela residents have almost no basic services and receive zero police protection. The murder rate in favelas resembles that of a war zone, and crime throughout Rio is astronomic. The city police are inefficient and often corrupt. The public health system is falling apart, and failed utterly in dealing with the recent dengue outbreak. And government funds that should shore up the crumbling infrastructure of the city as a whole are largely diverted by corruption, a plague throughout the nation. Most cariocas (residents of Rio) I've talked to feel that the current mayor, Cesar Maia, has slept through his third term in office, communicating mostly through email and coming alive only when city projects involved large numbers of tourists (such as the Pan American Games in 2007).

If he becomes mayor, Gabeira promises to put his progressive ideas into action, including those drawn from his years of research into urban environmental issues (he has a website, Cidade Sustentável (Sustainable City) at cidadesustentavel.gabeira.com). He will put an emphasis on recycling waste, improving mass transit, and the reforestation of green areas in and around the city. For Rio's health-care system, he would use the internet to coordinate hospitals and centralize purchasing for greater efficiency, and work together with seventy nearby cities to upgrade local health care throughout the region, so that Rio's hospitals aren't deluged with patients coming from throughout the state. He sees the internet as important on many levels, and hopes to provide wireless access throughout Rio de Janeiro.

Regarding the favelas, Gabeira promises to treat their residents as full citizens, with rights and respect not given to them in the past (most maps of Rio have blank spots where favelas are located, as if their communities didn't even exist). He says, "The best thing to do is to liberate those areas from this armed occupation. It depends on the political will of the state government and president of the republic and they don't seem very oriented towards this solution. They deal with the problem, but not in [a way] to solve the problem. You can not do that without reforming the police, and the police are very dangerous when you try to change things.

"You need money and a territorial policy. It's a bad thing if you go up and exchange some bullets with drug traffickers and you come down again. Even if you kill five or six, then tomorrow six, seven, eight will appear. In order to break the whole thing, you have to stay there and give them some services. You must think in the long-term. The biggest problem is how to begin. I think we have to do many things for them in order to gain their confidence."

Ironically, if Gabeira does win the mayoral election and manages to improve Rio's situation, he may be hailed as a hero at home but a terrorist or enemy combatant on American soil. That is due to a notorious episode nearly thirty years ago during the dictatorship that made him famous in the first place. I blogged about it here: Rio's Next Mayor Could Be Gabeira, Who Kidnapped U.S. Ambassador in '69. I will post more about the election results.

Note: I will print my full interview with Gabeira at a later date. Those who read Portuguese can visit his website at www.gabeira.com.br.

And the New President of the World is......

2008-08-28T14:05:00.000-07:00

Obama is the democratic candidate for the presidency of the USA. Today he officially accepted to be the candidate of the Democratic Party to run against republican John Mc Cain.

I can not say that I am optimist about Obama, but I am satisfied in a strange way. It is very complicated since the democrats tend to make things more complicated. This meaning that I don't really believe that things will change very much if he wins the elections. The relationship of the future US president with us, developing world nations, are not very promising (according to me!).

The reason why I can not get optimist about Obama, even if he seems to be nice guy and he is black (what is a very positive aspect), is due to the fact that during democrat governments (such as Kennedy, Carter, Clinton for example) the US performs its stronger damage in the world in name of its own interests. I am not denying the vocation for disaster of Bush I and II, Reagan, Nixon and other republicans, but it seems that the world tend to be more critical with the republicans naturally. So, the hypocrisy of the democrats tend to cause more damage.

If he wins, Obama will be the president of the US and be the president of all the disgusting things which characterize the American way of making foreign affairs. In his speech he mentioned that he was inspired by John Kennedy, the hero president of the democrats, what clearly demonstrate his indifference to all the crimes committed by the government of this president. Obama is sure to follow the line of the democrats presidents what represents more a problem to me.

If Obama wins, what will it mean for the rest of the world? Not much, isn't it? However, Obama does represent some extreme changes in the US reality, the first amazing changes is the fact that he is the son of an African immigrant, he is an authentic African-American. It is almost unbelievable. However, does it mean anything good for Africa? Probably not.

On the other side we can also see how difficult it is for the US to elected a woman. They somehow have manage to select a black man ( what according to Michael Moore represents the greatest fear of the white American ) but how long it will take before they elect a woman.

Let the future come...

Monaco X Rocinha

2008-08-24T14:28:00.000-07:00

Quem conhece o Rio, e São Conrado sabe a cara que a Rocinha tem. Então, não é a cara do Pricipado de Mônaco? Adoro saber o que pode ser o futuro da Rocinha....

Piscininha china

2008-07-29T04:23:00.000-07:00

Chapei na foto da piscina chinesa que saiu em todos os veículos worldwide. Primeiro a imagem mais parece uma estamparia com todas aquelas bóias coloridas formando uma imagem abstrata onde não se vê nada além de cabeças, muitas cabeças. Não dá para ver água. Imediatamente depois, como mãe, pensei no horror que deve ser perder uma criança naquele lugar.

Ainda me provocou saudades dos longos finais de semana de plantão na Agência Folha quando eu me surpreendia com a loucura que era a piscina do Sesc Itaquera nos dias de domingo. O parque aquático do Sesc Itaquera é o máximo, cheio de água e de gente, mas super vazio se comparado com a piscina 'china'.

Bar Silveira

2008-06-07T02:33:00.000-07:00

Adoro este bar, Bar Silveira, a essência do Ceará está ali.

Novo Mundo / New World

2008-06-05T06:50:00.000-07:00

A arte soviética era incrível. Eu me lembro com emocão daquela exposição de arte Russa na OCA, em São Paulo, há uns anos atrás. Quando a gente descia a escada em direção ao piso subsolo já ficava emocionado e surpreendido com o gigantismo e a beleza da arte Russa durante o período Soviético. Tem gente pacas que vai discordar, claro. Mas os efeitos da doutrina comunista produziram obras fantásticas. Eu amo e defendo os posters e tenho argumentos longos para fazer isto. Talvez apresente-os em outra postagem.

De qualquer forma, eles chegaram perto de construir uma sociedade linda. Foram forçados a inverter algumas prioridades principalmente em função da intensa azaração dos urubus do Oeste. E chegou a dar errado no final.

Para nossa alegria a arte fica, a arte política, doutrinária, se superou e sobrevive. A arte sempre fica, como resultado da sua força.

Oposição a passividade do MMA

2008-05-18T00:58:00.000-07:00

Puxa, ficou parecendo que eu sou contra o MMA. Que sou contra a existência do Ministério do Meio Ambiente. Nada disso. Eu não sou contra o MMA. Eu sou apenas uma opositora ferrenha da forma passiva do MMA em relação ao crimes ambientais que se cometem hoje no Brasil em nome do desenvolvimento.

Eu fico tão passada que me confundi e posso ter confundido mais alguém. O que eu desejo é mais ação, mais barulho e de certa forma mais confronto. Não dá para ficar conformada. E a Marina era, me parecia, uma conformada.

Eu quero ver mais ação no MMA e espero que o Minc, o Carlos Minc, em quem eu já votei para deputado estadual, se revele. O cenário está confuso. Os senhores de terra deste país em polvorosa. Vamos aguardar e ver. Um voto de confiança ele merece.

Para o bem e para o mal...

2008-05-17T17:33:00.000-07:00

Dona Marina Silva saiu do governo. Foi-se desta para a oposição. Como este blog é um opositor ferrenho do MMA, e continuará sendo, ela se livrou de nossa oposição raivosa.

Enfim, a moça se tocou que não valia nada ser cumplice das sem-vergonhices do atual governo. Não que ela não tenha culpa. Ela cruzou os dois governos Lula e nunca se rebelou abertamente. Fez o que deu para fazer sem se comprometer com o presidente, sem perder o cargo. Agora que o barbudo está mais ambicioso a coisa ficou preta para ela. Ela se foi.

Mas as coisas estavam claras desde o começo. Ela era pura decoração e não fazia o menor efeito no governo. As coisas todas passaram por ela. Querendo ou não. Ela demorou e se queimou. Mas vai tentar recuperar. Espero que não tenha pudores de mostrar as poucas vergonhas que passaram por ela agora.

Fico pensando na imagem que estão vendendo do Minc como o substituto que negociar com o desenvolvimento. Triste imagem esta. Espero que estejamos todos enganados.

Boa sorte ambientalistas. Um mundo do novidades nos aguarda!

Na maior cara de pau eu reproduzo neste post uma foto do meu amigo Ormuzd Alves sem avisar. Esta foto que ele chama de Missa do Vaqueiro é muito linda. Cinematográfica. Dá para ficar contando os detalhes de cada vaqueiro da foto. Amei, Ormuzd! Poética. Perdão pela reproduzção desautorizada!

O Sucateamento do Brasil

2008-04-21T15:48:00.000-07:00

Reproduzo aqui, em estado de tristeza e raiva, o artigo de Ana Echevenguá sobre o sucateamento das lei ambiental brasileira e do país por consequência. Ana demonstra com muita clareza os trejeitos usados para sucatear a lei ambiental e os recursos naturais do país ao mais vil dos interesses econômicos. A grande sacanagem por trás da miserável ministra.

Segue o artigo da Ana para sua revolta. Basta de entreguismo!!!

PRA QUÊ SISNAMA, CONAMA, IBAMA...???

Quarta-feira, 16 de Abril de 2008
Fonte: Ana Echevenguá(*)

No Brasil, urge a necessidade de promoção do diálogo social e político para reduzir o total desconhecimento que impera na sociedade brasileira sobre os direitos e deveres de cada um, em especial, sobre o acesso e o uso dos nossos recursos naturais.

Em 1981, para tratar da Política Nacional do Meio Ambiente, foi editada a Lei 6.938. Com esta, veio o SISNAMA - Sistema Nacional do Meio Ambiente. Após adaptações da Lei 7.804/1989, surgiram o Cadastro de Defesa Ambiental e o Cadastro de Atividades Potencialmente Poluidoras ou Utilizadoras de Recursos Ambientais, para registro das pessoas que exercem atividades potencialmente poluidoras e perigosas ao meio ambiente.

Perceberam que, nessa época, nossos representantes governamentais estavam preocupados com o meio ambiente? Os objetivos da Lei 6.938 deixam isso bem claro: "preservação, melhoria e recuperação da qualidade ambiental propícia à vida, visando assegurar, no País, condições ao desenvolvimento sócio-econômico, aos interesses da segurança nacional e à proteção da dignidade da vida humana".

Olhem só o que 6.938 diz: a qualidade ambiental propícia à vida está diretamente relacionada à segurança nacional!!!

A referida Lei, ao regrar princípios para atingir seus objetivos, exige ação governamental na manutenção do equilíbrio ecológico; e que o meio ambiente - que ela trata como patrimônio público - deve ser "necessariamente assegurado e protegido, tendo em vista o uso coletivo". Fala até em "acompanhamento do estado da qualidade ambiental".

Gente, a Lei é tão boa que impôs ao poluidor e ao predador, a "obrigação de recuperar e/ou indenizar os danos causados e, ao usuário, a contribuição pela utilização de recursos ambientais com fins econômicos". E impôs ao SISNAMA a responsabilidade pela proteção e melhoria da
qualidade ambiental. Mais, previu o CONAMA - Conselho Nacional do Meio Ambiente -, um órgão consultivo e deliberativo para cuidar das "diretrizes de políticas governamentais para o meio ambiente e os recursos naturais"; e "deliberar (...) sobre normas e padrões compatíveis com o meio ambiente ecologicamente equilibrado e essencial à sadia qualidade de vida".

CONAMA

Devido à sua importância, o CONAMA ganhou capítulo especial na Lei 6.938. E adquiriu o direito de criar normas e padrões nacionais de controle da poluição e de manutenção da qualidade do meio ambiente; devendo agir sempre de olho no uso racional dos recursos ambientais.

Com o advento da Lei 8.028/1990, o CONAMA passou a integrar a Secretaria do Meio Ambiente, criada para "planejar, coordenar, supervisionar e controlar as atividades relativas à Política Nacional do Meio Ambiente e à preservação, conservação e uso racional dos recursos naturais renováveis".

Quase esqueci: o CONAMA "é um colegiado representativo de cinco setores, a saber: órgãos federais, estaduais e municipais, setor empresarial e sociedade civil" - http://www.mma.gov.br/port/CONAMA/estr.cfm. Ou seja, é obrigatória a participação de uma parcela (ínfima) da sociedade civil. Com direito à voz e voto. Embora seja voto vencido sempre, à sociedade é garantido o direito de votar. Esta benesse, no Brasil de hoje, é sinônimo clássico de democracia, de participação popular no processo democrático de defesa e proteção socioambiental.

Puxa, lendo todas essas regras, é crível que o Brasil tenha a melhor legislação ambiental do mundo. Acautelem-se, no entanto! Essa legislação não atinge aqueles objetivos da política nacional de meio ambiente.

Hoje, o CONAMA não passa de um balcão de negócios que viabiliza a flexibilização das regras ambientais. Melhor dizendo, ele é uma ferramenta para legalizar crimes ambientais.

Viram como o verbo flexibilizar está em voga? Foi eleito - pelos intelectuais de plantão no governo - porque não remete nosso pensamento à verdadeira ação que nele está embutida.

Como isso é possível?

Simples. O CONAMA cria regras inconstitucionais e ilegais ao bel-prazer do 'setor empresarial', com a conivência dos 'órgãos federais, estaduais e municipais' que integram o atual Governo. Atualmente, a regra do jogo é essa: "vamos legalizar tal postura reiterada para acabar com o transtorno dos atores deste setor". E qual a forma melhor? Através das deliberações dos integrantes do SISNAMA, dos Conselhos, dos Colegiados, do CONAMA...

Mas como o CONAMA, cujo compromisso institucional é praticizar a política nacional do meio ambiente, pode flexibilizar (destruir) a legislação ambiental? Ora, através de um ato administrativo chamado de Resolução, editada para "tratar de deliberação vinculada a diretrizes e normas técnicas, critérios e padrões relativos à proteção ambiental e ao uso
sustentável dos recursos ambientais" -

http://www.mma.gov.br/port/CONAMA/estr.cfm.

O que é isso exatamente? Vulgarmente falando, é uma "lei" feita pelo CONAMA.

Alguém deve esta pensando: 'não é assim, Ana!'. Eu digo: claro que é! Querem uma prova? Leiam as "Resoluções dos pets". A CONAMA 384/2006, que "estabelece a concessão de depósito doméstico de animais silvestres apreendidos". E a Resolução CONAMA 394/2007, que trata dos critérios de criação e comercialização das espécies silvestres. Trocando em miúdos, elas permitem a compra e venda de animais silvestres como se eles fossem pets, bichinhos de estimação...

Não precisa ser doutor em Direito para entender que são Resoluções inconstitucionais e ilegais. Mas foram aprovadas e fazem parte do mundo jurídico. Graças ao sempre voto vencido da 'sociedade civil' que legitima as inconstitucionalidades e/ou ilegalidades reiteradas dos Colegiados.

Visando à "democracia brasileira", o IBAMA, dando continuidade à implantação das "Resoluções dos pets", ouviu a sociedade civil sobre a lista das espécies silvestres comercializáveis, através de uma tal de "consulta popular". Segundo Carlos Bocuhy, do PROAM, nesta lista consta inclusive espécie de ave que está sob risco de extinção, a Guarouba
guarouba (Ararajuba).

Resumindo:

No caso específico da "Resolução dos pets", este processo espúrio, pseudo-democrático - que vai da confecção de uma lei à oitiva da sociedade para aperfeiçoar esta lei -, autoriza a legalização do tráfico e comércio de animais silvestres. Negócio altamente lucrativo. Este crime ambiental - é a terceira atividade ilícita mais rentável do mundo. Em 2005, apuraram que o tráfico mundial de fauna e flora movimenta, por ano, cerca de R$ 90 bilhões no mundo (no Brasil, o tráfico de animais perde apenas para o tráfico de drogas e o de armas). E que a negociata ilegal dos produtos brasileiros rende mais de R$ 27 bilhões ao ano. Tais números devem ser maiores em 2008.

E, agora? Alguém consegue afirmar que o CONAMA cumpre a sua função institucional? Eu acho que não. Aquilo lá é um circo. E um circo que é custeado com o dinheiro do nosso bolso. Alguém já parou pra pensar qual a despesa mensal do CONAMA? Quantos cabides de emprego há ali? Quanto se gasta em cada reunião (com pessoal, papel, energia, transporte e alimentação dos representantes,...)? E, principalmente, qual a finalidade primordial de tudo isso? A primeira que eu vejo é: destruir a legislação ambiental vigente.

Por isso, na minha opinião, esses malditos Colegiados - pseudo-democráticos e declaradamente ilegais - devem ser extintos. Precisamos repensar a necessidade da existência deles. Enxergar o que fazem; e dar a maior publicidade internacional possível à ilegalidade dos seus atos.

Caso contrário, como disse o grande ambientalista Álvaro De Angelis, "a coisa vai ser liberada. A política do meio ambiente já foi entregue nas mãos dos piores interesses. E creio que sem volta, se depender da sensibilização do governo".

Esta Política do Entreguismo, da qual falou o meu amigo Álvaro, é ratificada pelo historiador Marco Antonio Villa, professor da Universidade Federal de São Carlos. Conhecido por gerar polêmicas e dezenas de inimigos, ele disse à Revista Veja que o Brasil "se esquiva de defender os interesses nacionais na América Latina. Teima sempre em chegar a um acordo e, como não consegue, acaba cedendo aos vizinhos". E que, se "Lula tivesse sido presidente na República Velha, o Acre seria hoje dos bolivianos e Santa Catarina, dos argentinos" -

http://veja.abril.com.br/160408/entrevista.shtml.

(*) Ana Echevenguá, advogada ambientalista, coordenadora do programa
Eco&Ação, e-mail: ana@ecoeacao.com.br.

Projetos defuntos da turma da Marina

2008-04-13T12:31:00.000-07:00

(foto de Curralinho, distrito de Poço Redondo na margem do rio São Francisco em Sergipe)

Pois é,

Mais um momento de protesto deste blog, agora contra a decisão do Ibama que aprovou projeto para a construção de hidrelétrica no até então Vale do Ribeira em SP, para agradar a CBA do Antonio Ermirio de Moraes. Absurdos da turma da tal Ministra Marina morena dos capitalistas. Horror as escolhas feitas por este governo, ressuscitaram todos os projetos defuntos do país criando o mais zumbi e ultrapassado modelo de desenvolvimento para o país. Que falta de criatividade.

Abaixo reproduzo artigo de Nilto Tatto do ISA.

Tijuco Alto, a hidrelétrica que ameaça o Vale do Ribeira

http://www.ibase.br/modules.php?name=Conteudo&pid=2281;pid=2256
Publicado em 4/4/2008.

Nilto Tatto*

Há países que avançam no processo de revisão estratégica de seu campo hidroenergético, refazendo as contas do custo benefício das hidroelétricas já implantadas, com a finalidade, até mesmo, de implodir usinas que historicamente causam prejuízos severos ao patrimônio ambiental. O Brasil, na contramão deste movimento mundial, retoma projetos antigos e ultrapassados, ressuscitando a ganância do poderio econômico e o pesadelo das pequenas comunidades, sempre as mais afetadas.

Neste contexto, está a proposta de construção da hidrelétrica privada de Tijuco Alto. Prevista para ser implantada no alto Vale do Ribeira, em São Paulo, com o objetivo de ampliar o poderio energético da Companhia Brasileira de Alumínio (CBA), pertencente ao Grupo Votorantim, a usina tem como única finalidade aumentar a capacidade de produção de alumínio da empresa. O processo caminha a passos largos sem as devidas precauções por parte dos órgãos públicos responsáveis pelas análises dos impactos socioambientais.

No último dia 26 de fevereiro, o Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis (Ibama) emitiu parecer técnico concluindo a viabilidade ambiental da hidrelétrica de Tijuco Alto, pleiteada há 20 anos pela CBA. Com o parecer, abre-se o caminho para a emissão da Licença Prévia, primeiro passo para que a obra possa ser implantada.

O órgão federal, ao emitir seu parecer, desconsiderou muitas questões. O resultado das audiências públicas, por exemplo, realizadas seis meses antes, em 2007, em cinco cidades do Vale do Ribeira, nas quais a população presente se manifestou majoritariamente contrária à construção da usina. Desconsiderou ainda grande quantidade de pareceres técnicos, inclusive do Ministério Público e dos órgãos estaduais de meio ambiente de São Paulo e Paraná, que apontam as inconsistências e falhas nos estudos ambientais e recomendam a não-emissão da licença diante das incertezas e dos riscos envolvidos. O mais grave, porém, é que o parecer do Ibama desconsidera completamente todos os planos de desenvolvimento alternativos para a região, incompatíveis com a construção do empreendimento.

A luta travada há vinte anos pelos agricultores familiares, as populações quilombolas, as famílias caiçaras, as comunidades indígenas e todos os movimentos sociais envolvidos com o desenvolvimento sustentável do Vale do Ribeira, maior remanescente contínuo de Mata Atlântica em todo o país, não foi levada em conta.

As inúmeras passeatas, manifestações públicas, abaixo-assinados e ofícios encaminhados por eles aos órgãos ambientais competentes, manifestando o repúdio da população local à construção de hidrelétricas no Rio Ribeira de Iguape, parecem não ter sensibilizado as autoridades. Nem por isso eles desistiram. Na manhã de 12 de março, cerca de 400 habitantes do Vale do Ribeira protestaram na sede do Ibama, em São Paulo. Onze horas depois, com a assinatura de um acordo, retornaram ao Vale do Ribeira.

A diretoria do Ibama, em Brasília, comprometeu-se a analisar, responder e levar em consideração todos os questionamentos sobre aspectos técnicos e sociais do empreendimento. Em reunião realizada em 13 de março, em Brasília, estabeleceu prazo para recebê-los: 17 de abril, em endereço eletrônico específico no site do Ibama. Entretanto, quem entra no site do Ibama não consegue encontrar o endereço específico. Ao final, ficou decidido que o Ibama vai elaborar novo documento, no qual as questões que foram omitidas no parecer técnico de 26 de fevereiro sejam colocadas. Também ficou de analisar a possibilidade de realizar reunião pública no Vale do Ribeira, mas até agora não resolveu se e quando fará.

Na Carta Aberta ao Povo Brasileiro, divulgada em 10 de março, a coordenação do movimento contra barragens no Vale do Ribeira lembra a certa altura:

Questões fundamentais como a segurança da barragem, a quantidade e extensão de cavidades subterrâneas afetadas, a qualidade de água do futuro reservatório, a magnitude e extensão dos danos causados à população afetada pelos impactos indiretos (redução de áreas agricultáveis, alteração na população de peixes, aumento de concentração de poluentes no rio, encharcamento de áreas pela elevação do lençol freático), o impacto da construção dessa barragem sobre a ecologia da região estuarina de Cananéia-Iguape e o destino das centenas de famílias de agricultores familiares diretamente afetadas pela formação do reservatório, não foram definitivamente respondidas, não foram objeto de pareceres independentes mesmo havendo dúvidas quanto às conclusões dos estudos contratados pela CBA.

Se Tijuco Alto for construída, é bem provável que venham atrás mais três usinas previstas nos inventários hidrelétricos do Rio Ribeira: Funil, Itaoca e Batatal. Se construídas, as barragens inundariam permanentemente uma área de aproximadamente 11 mil hectares no médio e alto curso do rio. Implicará a perda de terras agriculturáveis principalmente nas terras de agricultores familiares e quilombolas, a destruição de áreas ambientalmente protegidas, a inundação de cavidades subterrâneas. Provocará alteração no regime hídrico do Ribeira de Iguape, com prejuízos que se estenderão até sua foz, onde residem diversas colônias de pescadores artesanais que dependem da manutenção do equilíbrio ecológico do complexo estuarino para sobreviver.

A Carta termina com um pedido contundente:

Queremos que seja negada a licença ambiental para a UHE Tijuco Alto. Queremos que seja revisto o estudo que prevê a construção das quatro barragens no rio Ribeira de Iguape. Queremos que ele continue correndo livre e alimentando o povo da região. Como já dissemos anteriormente ao Governo Federal, não precisamos de grandes obras, mas de oportunidades para todos. Queremos outro tipo de desenvolvimento: um desenvolvimento que realmente dê oportunidades de melhoria e qualidade de vida para toda população. Tijuco Alto representa a morte e nós queremos vida.

Dessa forma, os movimentos sociais e ambientais, junto com os agricultores familiares, os quilombolas, indígenas e caiçaras, pretendem resistir e insistir para que o interesse público prevaleça sobre o interesse privado, porque, afinal, se construída, Tijuco Alto irá gerar energia exclusivamente para a produção de alumínio da CBA.

Mais informações podem ser encontradas no site da campanha contra as barragens no rio Ribeira de Iguape:
http://www.socioambiental.org/inst/camp/Ribeira/

*Nilto Tatto é coordenador do Programa Vale do Ribeira, do Instituto
Socioambiental (ISA)

Ontem e o Livro da ANA

2008-03-21T04:17:00.001-07:00

Ontem eu escrevi em inglês e publiquei uma imagem do Rio de Janeiro de autor desconhecido reproduzida do livro da Agencia Nacional de Aguas (ANA) A Historia do Uso da Agua no Brasil. Depois voltei para mostrar umas novas imagens tiradas do mesmo livro que são maravilhosas. O livro é lindo mas perde-se um pouco pois as páginas cortam ao meio pinturas que parecem pequenos quadros.

Se as imagens do livro são lindas, mas o conteúdo ainda não mostrou para o que serve. Muito vago, superficial e incompleto. As imagens reproduzidas aqui tem o crédito impresso e para ver o nome do autor, alguns são desconhecidos, e onde o original da pintura está localizado você precisa clicar na foto que uma vez aumentado permite ler o crédito da imagem.

Esta é uma pintura de Franz Post reproduz o Rio Grande do Norte chamado então, ano de 1639, de Fluvius Grande. Amei esta forma de chamar! Será que o Rio Grande do Sul era Fluvius Grande do Sul? Piadinha! Esta pintura é continuação da imagem superior. O crédito pode ser lido em detalhes uma vez ampliada a foto. Só clicar.

Esta imagem mostra o Rio São Francisco na região de Penedo, Alagoas. Exatamente a paisagem da foz do São Francisco que hoje agoniza com as baixas vazões, como mostrado aqui anteriormente. Credito: basta clicar a foto!

Mas enfim, para mim o livro não cumpre o que promete e foi mal delineado (projetado). Poderia ser muito interessante, mas não é. Mas as imagens são lindas, reproduções de pinturas maravilhosas que mostram a vida e as águas (principalmente o mar) do Brasil dos séculos 16 a 20. Lindo de se ver e botar em cima de uma mesa de centro. Coisa para servir de presente de Natal entre executivos e burocratas públicos e privados. Mas quem vive disso? De livro para mostrar só as fotos. Eu já cansei.

Imagens Livro Agencia Nacional de Aguas

2008-03-20T11:25:00.000-07:00

It's March, I am Sick, Lazy and Busy

2008-03-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

This month has succeeded in bad things and is so far the worst for me in the year. I started the year very sick and by the end of January I found out that I have Graves Disease. If this is the way it must be, let me move on and take care of the thyroid. Never expected that everything would get worse after the start of the treatment...
The worst happens and here I am trying to survive the treatment and get back to life again. There are so many things to be done. Mum is coming, next week is time for my first Norwegian Geographical Society conference and of course, there is the thesis waiting to be finish. I am late and lazy. Energy is not back and I do things the way I can....

This blog is a risk, a try, an experience, makes me relax. I like to experiment. It helps. I will try to come back more. Let's see what will be made of my in April.

The picture above is a reproduction from the book by Agencia Nacional de Aguas 'Historia dos Usos da Agua no Brasil' available at www.ana.gov.br

Baixo Rio São Francisco clama por água

2008-03-06T04:02:00.000-08:00

Documento da reunião ampliada extraordinária da Câmara Consultiva do Baixo São Francisco, sobre o quadro crítico de baixas vazões no submédio e baixo São Francisco

http://www.ecodebate.com.br

REUNIAO AMPLIADA EXTRAORDINARIACAMARA CONSULTIVA REGIONAL DO BAIXO SÃO FRANCISCO COMITÊ DA BACIA HIDROGRÁFICA DO RIO SÃO FRANCISCO ARTICULAÇÃO POPULAR DO BAIXO SÃO FRANCISCO

Propriá, Sergipe - 15.02.08

DOCUMENTO A SER ENCAMINHADO À DIRETORIA DO CBHSF, MINISTERIO PUBLICO
FEDERAL, COORDENAÇÃO DAS PROMOTORIAS PUBLICAS ESTADUAIS DA BACIA, ANA,
IBAMA, CHESF, ANEEL, ONS, REDE DE PESQUISA DE ECOVAZÕES.

O atual quadro crítico de baixas vazões no submédio e baixo São Francisco, em pleno período úmido, época das cheias anuais naturais, é extremamente preocupante e demonstra, mais uma vez, as incertezas e conflitos que cercam os usos múltiplos das águas do rio São Francisco.

Desde o inicio do ano as vazões liberadas pelo reservatório de Sobradinho vem diminuindo, situando-se inicialmente na faixa de 1.300 m3/s, valor mínimo estabelecida pelo Comitê da Bacia, no seu Plano de Recursos Hídricos e pelo IBAMA para situações de baixo estoque nos reservatórios. Ocorre que desde o inicio de fevereiro as vazões foram diminuídas para aproximadamente 1.100 m3/s, valor, portanto, abaixo do mínimo estabelecido.

A Agência Nacional de Águas autorizou a pratica destas vazões, até abril 2008, em uma explicita violação ao Plano de Recursos Hídricos da Bacia e com expressa discordância do CBHSF, em reunião realizada em Brasília, por entender que tal situação afeta os usos múltiplos das águas no submédio e baixo São Francisco, privilegiando o setor usuário hidroeletricidade em detrimento dos demais.

A pratica destas baixas vazões durante um período tão prolongado gera também vários impactos sobre o ecossistema aquático. Por ocorrer em pleno período da piracema, quando as fortes correntezas estimulavam a desova dos peixes e no período em que as lagoas marginais, parte importante do ciclo reprodutivo dos peixes, deveriam estar sendo inundadas durante as cheias anuais, causam profundos impactos sobre a reprodução dos peixes. As conseqüências deverão ser sentidas ao longo do ano, com menor quantidade de peixes para a pesca.

O atual episódio de vazões baixas durante tantos dias, constitui uma situação inédita, não vivenciada nesta época do ano desde o inicio de operação das grandes barragens no rio São Francisco. Portanto, desde que o rio passou a ser regularizado, com as vazões defluentes das barragens sendo fruto das decisões sobre a regra de operações definidas pelo setor elétrico. Este fato demonstra o agravamento do quadro de conflitos que se instalou no segmento do rio abaixo das grandes usinas hidrelétricas.

O quadro critico atual, no qual o rio mostra suas entranhas e pede socorro, poderá se repetir nos próximos anos? É uma antevisão do futuro? Será um alerta para o destino que está reservado para o São Francisco diante das ameaças que cercam o seu futuro? Será que os grandes e poderosos interesses políticos e econômicos externos a bacia é que continuarão ditanto o seu futuro, contando para isso com a omissão e submissão de todos os órgãos públicos responsável pela gestão de suas águas?

Diante de tudo isso é que existe uma verdadeira comoção social em Sergipe e Alagoas com as visões de um rio assoreado e reduzido a 1/3 da sua largura normal em vários pontos. O tema tem ocupado significativo espaço na imprensa regional e tem sido motivo de preocupação na sociedade de Sergipe e Alagoas, além de afetar diretamente os usuários das águas do rio
São Francisco e o ecossistema.

Diante do exposto, a CCR do Baixo São Francisco, reuniu-se em Propriá (SE) em 15 de fevereiro de 2008 para analisar a situação e decidiu pelo encaminhamento deste documento no qual consta a sua avaliação e pleitos aos órgãos competentes.

1. A região do Baixo São Francisco, que delimita a fronteira entre os Estados de Alagoas e Sergipe, tem sido, historicamente, a principal prejudicada com a diminuição drástica das vazões do rio;

2. Infelizmente a sua população não tem sido compensada na razão direta dos prejuízos provocados por essas vazões diminuídas, sobretudo porque os cálculos das compensações não são feitos levando em consideração a moderna ferramenta da contabilidade
socioambiental;

3. Por decisão dos órgãos do Governo Federal, notadamente da Agência Nacional de Águas e do Operador Nacional de Energia (ONS), até abril deste ano de 2008 a vazão de restrição -notadamente no trecho do Baixo São Francisco – seguirá nos reduzidos valores de
1.100m³/s (mil e cem metros cúbicos por segundo),vazão esta que impõe enormes sacrifícios às populações, ao meio ambiente e à economia dos dois estados referidos.

4. Tendo em vista que, no momento da reunião da Câmara Consultiva, os níveis da Barragem de Sobradinho já haviam se elevado a 30% de sua capacidade útil, é urgente que seja imediatamente reavaliada a necessidade de aumento gradual da vazão de restrição na Foz do São Francisco.

5. Na batalha pela revisão imediata dos valores da vazões fixadas pelo ONS, é essencial que haja maior transferência de energia do sistema nacional para o Sistema CHESF (Companhia Hidrelétrica do São Francisco).

6. A grave crise ambiental provocada pela diminuição das vazões do São Francisco, remete-nos, mais uma vez, à necessidade de exigir do Congresso Nacional a imediata revisão da legislação atual, de forma a possibilitar que a operação das barragens hidrelétricas passe a se fazer com a máxima transparência e rígido controle social, controle este a ser implementado com a participação dos comitês de bacias hidrográficas e de outras instituições representativas da sociedade civil e do Poder Público.

7. Em relação ao item anterior, sugerimos que a ANA (AgênciaNacional de Águas), a CHESF e o ONS promovam, imediatamente, audiências públicas nas cidades pólo do Baixo São Francisco para ouvir a população e avaliar diretamente os prejuízos causados pela diminuição das vazões.

8. No caso da futura fixação de vazões que porventura estejam abaixo dos valores da vazão mínima de restrição, deverão ser levados em conta aspectos ambientais e sociais dos impactos decorrentes, a serem analisados previamente pelo CBHSF e pelos órgãos encarregados do licenciamento ambiental.

9. A Câmara Consultiva, através da unanimidade dos seus membros, renova a sua mais veemente condenação ao Projeto de Transposição do Rio São Francisco, cuja consecução tornará ainda mais dramáticas as crises deescassez hídrica na região; condena também
os planos de construção da Barragem de Pão de Açúcar e, finalmente, exige do Governo Federal que tire imediatamente do papel o projeto de revitalização da bacia.

Própria, 15 de fevereiro de 2008

CÂMARA CONSULTIVA DO BAIXO SÃO FRANCISCO

A foto do São Francisco brasileiro, o Dom Cappio, é emprestada do blog Articulação Popular

O Drama do Rio São Francisco

2008-03-06T03:14:00.000-08:00

Nada tira mais o meu humor e a minha esperança no Brasil do que o decaso do atual governo federal com o meio ambiente. É de uma tristeza de dar vontade de cometer um ato extremo. Enfim, tento manter a minha paciência.

Por isso hoje é dia de comentário em português, de comentário irado contra a mais ausente e inoperante ministra do meio ambiente que o Brasil já teve.

Este comentário vai contra o MMA e a cara de pau da ministra Marina Silva. Ela não sente, não pensa, não age. Mulher fria. Assustadora. O que será que ela faz ali naquele ministério que não conseguiu proteger nada, nadinha, nem a bacia do Ribeira, da ganância do poder econômico?

Nunca imaginei. Quem imaginaria? Que uma ministra que era senadora do Acre, 'amiga' dos seringueiros, seria a ministra dos transgênicos. Que seria ela quem iria deixar os transgênicos de vários tipos circularem livremente pelo território nacional. Logo ela, a tão aclamada líder popular, a ministra Marina, virou a ministra da transposição do rio São Francisco, a ministra do maior desmatamento da história da Amazônia. Ela também virou a ministra das hidrelétricas desde as do rio Madeira na Bacia Amazônica até a do Tijuco Alto no vale do Ribeira em SP.

No vale do Ribeira a ministra deixou de lado os apelos da população que expressou sua vontade de deixar o rio Ribeira livre de barragens, para dar uma forcinha ao grande desprotegido que é o empresário Antonio Emirio da Votarantim e da CBA. Ele precisava de apoio para ficar mais rico, gente. Ela tinha que colaborar!

Enfim, esta mulher ao menos teve o mérito de me tirar da inércia causada pela minha (espero momentânea) falta de saúde. O ódio que eu sinto dela me move, vai mover montanhas. Que eu não cruze com ela nos salões deste nosso pequeno planeta terra pois eu não vou perder a oportunidade de expressar a minha ira ambientalista. E se ela voltar a dar com a cara aqui na Noruega, para pedir dinheiro para os nada ambientalistas projetos dela, eu vou armar uma manifestação bem armada. Com imprensa, barulho e tudo o mais.

Vamos mostrar que não são todos os brasileiros que aceitam as sem-vergonhices dos ministros do Brasil calados.

As fotos da foz seca do rio São Francisco ilustram esta matéria são de Alzení Tomaz do blog http://baixosaofrancisco.blogspot.com/ e mostra a condição de sofrimento do Rio na região da foz, na divisa entre os Estados de Sergipe e Alagoas. Todo assoreado e sem vazão nem para garantir a reprodução dos peixes.

Não vou sentar e chorar.

Things that I love 2 ( Food again)

2008-03-05T17:12:00.000-08:00

I really love French brioches and I have just found a place in Trondheim that sells them. Lovely brioches but they don't have it everyday, just on Fridays...

Since I am eating without getting fat (because my metabolism have freaked out because of the attacks of my immune system which has also freaked out) I've been eating French brioche everyday with loads of butter and a huge French bowl of coffee and milk.

I have never tried making brioches but I have just considered since I am not so sure I will be able to keep with driving to Heimdal just to buy brioche. It is on the other side of the town.

These inviting pictures are from the a site that shows that brioches are fun. I will check the recipes out!

http://www.justhungry.com/2006/06/fun_with_brioch.html

See ya!

My sick mood

2008-03-05T17:01:00.000-08:00

Well, I have been writing to tell that I was, that I am sick, that I will be sick.

I am not incredible sick anymore but I am sick forever since I have an auto-immune disease. Last week, after 2 months my doctor told me that my treatment will last at least 18 months. Bloody hell.

I have a thesis to conclude, a lot of other plan and this Graves Bitch came to ruin my plans, ruining my energy all of sudden.

I am not the type that worry about things very much. I am not exactly an example of cool lady, but I am a relaxed one. Not the most relaxed mother, I must say. I worry too much about her, learning to respect Estela's decisions more and more and somehow on my way to improve as a mum too... We had a day together today, she is so good company. I love to be with her all day long.

So, the sick mood made me silent. Zero enthusiasm. Can't look at myself in the mirror lately. Hope it will change. I had a PhD interview on Monday. It was the first time in months that wanted to look good.

Mum is coming to Norway soon, I am sure it will help cheer my mood!

I notice I got some comments. Uauuuu. Never thought I could inspire anyone. It was really nice.

See ya.

Things that I love 1

2008-02-11T10:52:00.000-08:00

Things I love section will start today and my #1 is Bolinhos de Bacalhau (Bacalhau Cakes) which is a Brazilian with strong Portuguese influence with a Norwegian fish dish. Bacalhau Cakes are a must in every good eating place in Brazil. Actually it is a must in every bad eating place too.

It is definitely the must of the must. Living in Norway allows me little 'Brazilianities' but it sure does allow Bolinhos de Bacalhau.

Today, segundona, it was Bacalhau cakes day! Estela caiu de boca!

Enjoy the look!

Bolinhos de bacalhau na Noruega. And the Norwegians have never tried any....

Estelita feliz com seus bolinhos....
And the view from the kitchen window. Hommelvik bay inside Trondheim fjord.

Novas da Frente

2008-02-11T02:54:00.000-08:00

O Carnaval passou, a dor da distância diminui mas o metabolismo continua zozó e funcionando sem controle. Me dá umas dores no peito e fico suspirando para lá e para cá o tempo todo. Vai passar, qualquer hora me recupero. O triste de ficar doente é que não estou podendo nadar e isto piora a minha condição física terrivelmente. Sinto ainda mais o peso da idade que tarda mas não falha.

Enfim, saudades de escrever bobaginhas aqui. Nada de especial. Hoje faz sol, a luz está linda mas a temperatura ainda está triste, -1C. A neve está pouca já que durante a semana a temperatura chegou a +6C e derreteu quase tudo no jardim aqui de casa. A cena pós- neve é de devastação. Um horror. As plantas parecem que nunca vão se recuperar e o tom do mundo é cinza esverdeado.

Um foto prá alegrar! (Cada vez que eu escrevo 'prá alegrar' eu lembro do Chicó de Selton Mello no filme O Auto da Compadecida)

Esta foto é do meu velho amigo Felippe Llerena acho que foi feita de uma das Ilhas Cagarras no Rio de Janeiro. Eu já publiquei esta foto antes mas esqueci o crédito.

My Babes

2008-02-03T09:51:00.000-08:00

Eles foram passear na neve hoje, enquanto eu fiquei em casa na maior rebordosa. Esquiaram, patinaram, escorregaram e comeram cachorro-quente... Aren't they beautiful?

Juntas

2008-02-03T05:20:00.001-08:00

Eu e minha menina brincando com a camera embutida do meu Mac Book novo. As delícias de um computador novo.

Doente de Carnaval

2008-02-03T05:07:00.000-08:00

Uma tristeza ficar doente mas um certo hormônio detonou meu metabolismo e acabou com a minha esperança de mudar o mundo.
Enfim, triste. E ainda por cima é Carnaval e o meu Rio de Janeiro está explodindo corações mas eu tô aqui nesta cama, neste clima horrorosa, nesta tristeza. Abuso da internet para acompanhar os blocos do Rio e me alegrar um pouco.

Hoje é dia Monobloco, não nas ruas do Rio, mas aqui em casa nesta Noruega gelada. Um pouco de Monobloco levando Benjor para alegrar aqueles que sabem o que é realmente importante nesta vida... Se der um publico um videozinho aqui mas ainda não sei como fazer...

Bom Carnaval!

Meus Blogs Favoritos 1

2008-01-15T08:48:00.000-08:00

Resolvi escrever este em português para aliviar um pouquinho a mente. Enfim, meus blogs favoritos. Leios sempre que posso e aprendo demais com eles. Mas a idéia de ser bom não é baseada no fato deles me ensinarem coisas. São bons pois são bons. As pessoas que os fazem são especiais para mim.

Este é o caso de Seqüências Parisienses blog do incrível historiador brasileiro Luiz Felipe de Alencastro. Sim, o título é escrito com tremas uma coisa rara de se ver nos dias de hoje, mas Luiz Felipe de Alencastro é um brasileiro que preza a língua portuguesa assim como todas as coisas que devem ser prezadas e cuidadas no Brasil.

O endereço do Blog do Luiz Felipe Alencastro, Seqüências Parisienses é:
http://www.sequenciasparisienses.blogspot.com/

Este é o meu número 1. A foto da capivara foi desautorizadamente reproduzida do site Seqüências Parisienses .

Até.

Fast Days

2008-01-15T03:13:00.000-08:00

I am really suffering to keep on with all my responsibilities. I am going to be crazy one day. I am afraid this blog will be another challenge to my timetable. Since I talk to myself here there is no need to worry. But I am fine. I dream about Rio....

Princess Birthday

2008-01-11T16:30:00.000-08:00

Today was Estela's birthday party. She was amazing, polite and super happy. I worked hard for the party but I am super happy too. A little bit tired also. This picture is one of my favourites. She loves to make faces. In the picture she was 6 but now she is a 8 years old girl.

I am very proud of my babe!

Um amor um lugar, Ceará...

2008-01-09T10:40:00.000-08:00

Capelinha, Vila do Préa, Jijoca de Jericoacoara, Ceará, Brasil

Parque Nacional de Jericoacoara

Igreeja de Santo Antonio, em Quixeramobim

My type of places

2008-01-09T07:10:00.000-08:00

I love Ceará, one of the Northeastern states of Brazil. I was born very far away but Ceará became one of those places where I belong to. Pictures from two magical spots in Ceará: Quixada e Jericoacoara.

Love.

C.

View from the limits of Jericoacoara National Park, a park surrounded by the warm southern waters of Atlantic Ocean and the magical dunes of Ceara.

Constructing Me

2008-01-08T14:04:00.000-08:00

I am a creation of this city. More than ever I feel our strong connection. Rio de Janeiro, the city where I was born and lived long and intense wonderful years is the strongest part in me. The person I am now would not be this in another place. Rio, and the Brazilian Rio, is my base, my structure, my deepest me. But I left Rio in 1992, quite a long time ago.

I would find pieces of myself around other blocks of the planet. I hope I can talk about all of them here. The role of places in my life, my own geographies. My own historical geographies.

Before, I want to show another place. A new belonging.

A new beginning

2008-01-07T15:42:00.000-08:00

It is quite exciting to start a blog even if it is mostly written to myself. I am not sure I will be able to write as much as I which but I will try. I read some blogs and actually I got addicted to some of them. Mostly I admire the people that has time to live a life and write a blog and fill others with enthusiasm. I admire so much that I will try. I have tried before. O Mundo Construído but it did not go after the first article.

I think one of the thing I will do to start is to write about the blogs that I like.

Come back soon. I promise!