Now
Available from
CounterPunch for Only $10.50 (S/H Included)
Today's
Stories
October
14, 2003
Peter
Linebaugh
"Remember
Orr!"
October
11 / 13, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Kay's
Misleading Report; CIA/MI-6 Syrian Plot; Dershowitz Flaps Broken
Wings
Saul Landau
Contradictions: Pumping Empire and Losing Job Muscles
Phillip Cryan
The War on Human Rights in Colombia
Kurt Nimmo
Cuba and the "Necessary Viciousness" of the Bushites
Nelson P. Valdes
Traveling to Cuba: Where There's a Will, There's a Way
Lisa Viscidi
The Guatemalan Elections: Fraud, Intimidation and Indifference
Maria Trigona and Fabian
Pierucci
Allende Lives
Larry
Tuttle
States of Corruption
William A. Cook
Failing America
Brian
Cloughley
US Economic Space and New Zealand
Adrian Zupp
What Would Buddha Do? Why Won't the Dalai Lama Pick a Fight?
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
The Strange and Tragic Case of Sherman Marlin Austin
Ben Tripp
Screw You Right Back: CIA FU!
Lee Ballinger
Grits Ain't Groceries
Mickey Z.
Not All Italians Love Columbus
Bruce
Jackson
On Charles Burnett's "Warming By the Devil's Fire"
William Benzon
The Door is Open: Scorsese's Blues, 2
Adam Engel
The Eyes of Lora Shelley
Walt Brasch
Facing a McBlimp Attack
Poets'
Basement
Mickey Z, Albert, Kearney
October 10, 2003
John Chuckman
Schwarzenegger
and the Lottery Society
Toni Solo
Trashing
Free Software
Chris
Floyd
Body
Blow: Bush Joins the Worldwide War on Women
October
9, 2003
Jennifer
Loewenstein
Bombing
Syria
Ramzi
Kysia
Seeing
the Iraqi People
Fran Shor
Groping the Body Politic
Mark Hand
President Schwarzenegger?
Alexander
Cockburn
Welcome
to Arnold, King for a Day
Website of the Day
The Awful Truth about Wesley Clark
October
8, 2003
David
Lindorff
Schwarzenegger
and the Failure of the Centrist Dems
Ramzy
Baroud
Israel's
WMDs and the West's Double Standard
John Ross
Mexico
Tilts South
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Repub Guru Compares Taxes to the Holocaust
James
Bovard
The
Reagan Roadmap for Antiterrorism Disaster
Michael
Neumann
One
State or Two?
A False Dilemma
October
7, 2003
Uri Avnery
Slow-Motion
Ethnic Cleansing
Stan Goff
Lost in the Translation at Camp Delta
Ron Jacobs
Yom Kippurs, Past and Present
David
Lindorff
Coronado in Iraq
Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
Outing a CIA Operative? Why A Special Prosecutor is Required
Cynthia
McKinney
Who Are "We"?
Elaine Cassel
Shock and Awe in the Moussaoui Case
Walter
Lippman
Thoughts on the Cali Recall
Gary Leupp
Israel's
Attack on Syria: Who's on the Wrong Side of History, Now?
Website
of the Day
Cable News Gets in Touch With It's Inner Bigot
October
6, 2003
Robert
Fisk
US
Gave Israel Green Light for Raid on Syria
Forrest
Hylton
Upheaval
in Bolivia: Crisis and Opportunity
Benjamin Dangl
Divisions Deepen in Third Week of Bolivia's Gas War
Bridget
Gibson
Oh, Pioneers!: Bush's New Deal
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey
Wasserman
The Bush-Rove-Schwarzenegger Nazi Nexus
Nicole
Gamble
Rios Montt's Campaign Threatens Genocide Trials
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The
New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor
Website
of the Day
Guerrilla Funk
October
3 / 5, 2003
Tim Wise
The
Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment
Peter
Linebaugh
Rhymsters
and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW
Gary Leupp
Occupation
as Rape-Marriage
Bruce
Jackson
Addio
Alle Armi
David Krieger
A Nuclear 9/11?
Ray McGovern
L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's
War on Whistleblowers
Col. Dan Smith
Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean
Mickey
Z.
In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest
Roger Burbach
Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq
John Chuckman
Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus
William S. Lind
Versailles on the Potomac
Glen T.
Martin
The Corruptions of Patriotism
Anat Yisraeli
Bereavement as Israeli Ethos
Wayne
Madsen
Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can
M. Junaid Alam
The Racism Barrier
William
Benzon
Scorsese's Blues
Adam Engel
The Great American Writing Contest
Poets'
Basement
McNeill, Albert, Guthrie
October
2, 2003
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
What's
So Great About Gandhi, Anyway?
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
The
Ashcroft-Rove Connection
Doug Giebel
Kiss and Smear: Novak and the Valerie Plame Affair
Hamid
Dabashi
The Moment of Myth: Edward Said (1935-2003)
Elaine Cassel
Chicago Condemns Patriot Act
Saul Landau
Who
Got Us Into This Mess?
Website of the Day
Last Day to Save Beit Arabiya!
October 1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Married
with Children: the Supremes and Gay Families
Robert
Fisk
Oil,
War and Panic
Ron Jacobs
Xenophobia
as State Policy
Elaine
Cassel
The
Lamo Case: Secret Subpoenas and the Patriot Act
Shyam
Oberoi
Shooting
a Tiger
Toni Solo
Plan Condor, the Sequel?
Sean Donahue
Wesley
Clark and the "No Fly" List
Website of the Day
Downloader Legal Defense Fund
September
30, 2003
After
Dark
Arnold's
1977 Photo Shoot
Dave Lindorff
The
Poll of the Shirt: Bush Isn't Wearing Well
Tom Crumpacker
The
Cuba Fixation: Shaking Down American Travelers
Robert
Fisk
A
Lesson in Obfuscation
Charles
Sullivan
A
Message to Conservatives
Suren Pillay
Edward Said: a South African Perspective
Naeem
Mohaiemen
Said at Oberlin: Hysteria in the Face of Truth
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
Does
a Felon Rove the White House?
Website
of the Day
The Edward Said Page
September 29, 2003
Robert
Fisk
The
Myths of Western Intelligence Agencies
Iain A. Boal
Turn It Up: Pardon Mzwakhe Mbuli!
Lee Sustar
Paul
Krugman: the Last Liberal?
Wayne Madsen
General Envy? Think Shinseki, Not Clark
Benjamin
Dangl
Bolivia's Gas War
Uri Avnery
The
Magnificent 27
Pledge
Drive of the Day
Antiwar.com
September
26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Alan
Dershowitz, Plagiarist
David Price
Teaching Suspicions
Saul Landau
Before the Era of Insecurity
Ron Jacobs
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and
the Patriot Act
Brian
Cloughley
The Strangeloves Win Again
Norman Solomon
Wesley and Me: a Real-Life Docudrama
Robert
Fisk
Bomb Shatters Media Illusions
M. Shahid Alam
A Muslim Sage Visits the USA
John Chuckman
American Psycho: Bush at the UN
Mark Schneider
International Direct Action
The Spanish Revolution to the Palestiniana Intifada
William
S. Lind
How $87 Billion Could Buy Some Real Security
Douglas Valentine
Gold Warriors: the Plundering of Asia
Chris
Floyd
Vanishing Act
Elaine Cassel
Play Cat and Moussaoui
Richard
Manning
A Conservatism that Once Conserved
George Naggiar
The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said
Omar Barghouti
Edward Said: a Corporeal Dream Not Yet Realized
Lenni Brenner
Palestine's Loss is America's Loss
Mickey
Z.
Edward Said: a Well-Reasoned Voice
Tanweer Akram
The Legacy of Edward Said
Adam Engel
War in the Smoking Room
Poets' Basement
Katz, Ford, Albert & Guthrie
Website
of the Weekend
Who the Hell is Stew Albert?
September
25, 2003
Edward
Said
Dignity,
Solidarity and the Penal Colony
Robert
Fisk
Fanning
the Flames of Hatred
Sarah
Ferguson
Wolfowitz at the New School
David
Krieger
The
Second Nuclear Age
Bill Glahn
RIAA Doublespeak
Al Krebs
ADM and the New York Times: Covering Up Corporate Crime
Michael
S. Ladah
The Obvious Solution: Give Iraq Back to the Arabs
Fran Shor
Arnold and Wesley
Mustafa
Barghouthi
Edward Said: a Monument to Justice and Human Rights
Alexander Cockburn
Edward Said: a Mighty and Passionate
Heart
Website
of the Day
Edward Said: a Lecture on the Tragedy of Palestine
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 24, 2003
Stan Goff
Generational
Casualties: the Toxic Legacy of the Iraq War
William
Blum
Grand Illusions About Wesley Clark
David
Vest
Politics
for Bookies
Jon Brown
Stealing Home: The Real Looting is About to Begin
Robert Fisk
Occupation and Censorship
Latino
Military Families
Bring Our Children Home Now!
Neve Gordon
Sharon's
Preemptive Zeal
Website
of the Day
Bands Against Bush
September
23, 2003
Bernardo
Issel
Dancing
with the Diva: Arianna and Streisand
Gary Leupp
To
Kill a Cat: the Unfortunate Incident at the Baghdad Zoo
Gregory
Wilpert
An
Interview with Hugo Chavez on the CIA in Venezuela
Steven
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause--Part 2: Charity Ryerson, Young and
Radical
Stan Cox
The Cheney Tapes: Can You Handle the Truth?
Robert
Fisk
Another Bloody Day in the Death of Iraq
William S. Lind
Learning from Uncle Abe: Sacking the Incompetent
Elaine
Cassel
First They Come for the Lawyers, Then the Ministers
Yigal
Bronner
The
Truth About the Wall
Website
of the Day
The
Baghdad Death Count
September
20 / 22, 2003
Uri Avnery
The
Silliest Show in Town
Alexander
Cockburn
Lighten
Up, America!
Peter Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Execution of Robert Emmet
Anne Brodsky
Return
to Afghanistan
Saul Landau
Guillermo and Me
Phan Nguyen
Mother Jones Smears Rachel Corrie
Gila Svirsky
Sharon, With Eyes Wide Open
Gary Leupp
On Apache Terrorism
Kurt Nimmo
Colin
Powell: Exploiting the Dead of Halabja
Brian
Cloughley
Colin Powell's Shame
Carol Norris
The Moral Development of George W. Bush
Bill Glahn
The Real Story Behind RIAA Propaganda
Adam Engel
An Interview with Danny Scechter, the News Dissector
Dave Lindorff
Good Morning, Vietnam!
Mark Scaramella
Contracts and Politics in Iraq
John Ross
WTO
Collapses in Cancun: Autopsy of a Fiasco Foretold
Justin Podur
Uribe's Desperate Squeals
Toni Solo
The Colombia Three: an Interview with Caitriona Ruane
Steven Sherman
Workers and Globalization
David
Vest
Masked and Anonymous: Dylan's Elegy for a Lost America
Ron Jacobs
Politics of the Hip-Hop Pimps
Poets
Basement
Krieger, Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Ted Honderich:
Terrorism for Humanity?
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
October
14, 2003
CAFTA Thumbscrews
The
Nuts and Bolts of "Free Trade" Extortion
By
TONI SOLO
With the Cancun trade talks buried, the United
States and the European Union are busy working out preferential
bilateral and regional trade deals. These deals will pre-empt
moves by developing countries to get some justice out of the
World Trade Organization and its fellow enforcers of global "free
trade" pillage, the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund. Central America is among the first to savour the bitter
taste of the post-Cancun ground rules as the United States hastens
to close its grip even tighter on the strategic prize of the
isthmus.
The Central American Free Trade Agreement
(CAFTA) is inseparable from Plan Puebla Panama1in the US hemispheric
strategy to consolidate regional political and economic dominance.
Large scale investment envisaged under Plan Puebla Panama involves
linking Mexico to Panama through Central America. CAFTA is also
a necessary step towards creating a Free Trade Area of the Americas.
Central America will be crossed by north-south road and maritime
links to move goods more quickly east-west across the isthmus
via road and rail corridors.
The energy imperative
As usual energy is the key. In 2002,
around 600,000 barrels a day of crude oil and petroleum products
passed through the Panama Canal. Of that around 63% was moving
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Crude oil made up about 44%
of the oil moving from the Pacific to the Atlantic. As energy
needs increase and oil reserves elsewhere diminish, the influence
of energy transnationals is increasingly driving US and European
policy in Latin America.
The first stage of Plan Puebla Panama
is the Central American Electrical Interconnection System (SIEPAC).
Due for completion in 2006, SIEPAC will install power lines connecting
37 million consumers in Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua,
El Salvador, and Guatemala. The cost is an estimated $320 million.
Subsequent stages will develop power links between Guatemala
and Mexico and also integrate Belize into the system. A long
term objective is to provide a market for gas and oil exploited
by multinational energy companies in Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela
and Mexico.
The wider effects of Plan Puebla Panama
will damage local fisheries and agriculture, destroy the already
fragile biodiverse environment and multiply maquila sweatshop
"free trade" light industrial zones. Political implications
of the strategy are profoundly anti-democratic. The constantly
encroaching demands of multinational business will mean persistent
denial of local people's rights and interests.
Already devastated, the region's remaining
precious forestry reserves like the Bosawas reserve in Nicaragua
will virtually disappear. Water resources will be ruthlessly
exploited by the multinational corporations that take them over.
Weak central governments will be unable to control pollution
as oil and gas exploration and exploitation increase.
The US and the old
colonials
European and US corporate investment
buzzards have already landed. They include among many others,
International Paper, Monsanto, Coastal Power, Enron, Teco Energy,
Duke Energy, Harken Energy through its links with MKJ Exploration
and Global Energy Development, Applied Energy Services, Spain's
ENDESA, Union Fenosa and Iberdrola, Portugal's Eletricidade de
Portugal, the SIT Global dry canal consortium, Bell South, European
exploration firm Perenco, Scudder Latin American Power Fund,
Sweden's Telia Swedcom and the Dutch ING Bank. Their operations
in the region are accompanied and facilitated strategically by
the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank through
straitjacket conditional loans to governments, further increasing
the region's external debt.
So people in Central America continue
to lose the benefits of their natural resources and infrastructure
to multinationals from Europe and the United States. Their governments
are coaxed or coerced into taking loans from the World Bank,
the Inter-American Development Bank and the IMF to subsidise
processes and infrastructure needed to facilitate the multinational
jamboree. The multinationals pick up cut-price concessions and
preferential investment deals so as to cream off exorbitant profits.
The Central American peoples pick up the tab in higher utility
bills, public service cutbacks and escalating debt repayment,
decade after decade.
CAFTA: the Nicaraguan
experience 2
CAFTA itself involves a tiny proportion
of US trade in Latin America and only 0.8% of overall US trade.
But it is a vital precedent for the US to carry into future deals
with larger blocs like Mercosur, made up of Brazil, Uruguay,
Paraguay and Argentina. As ever, by virtue of its position, Nicaragua
is a prime target. Its experience is emblematic for the region
as a whole.
It may cost Nicaragua as much as US$1
billion to implement all the provisions of the final CAFTA package.
That money will come from loans that will add to the country's
already crippling debt. One simple example of this is the introduction
of new requirements for farm produce under the US Anti Bio-Terrorism
law. Central American produce will have to satisfy stringent
inspection, registration and certification requirements before
being allowed into the US. That administrative burden will be
borne by the region's governments and passed on to producers,
cutting their margins even more. Nicaragua's experience of the
US CAFTA approach is a touchstone for any country facing US trade
negotiators.
US strategy in the CAFTA talks with Nicaragua
has been to press for haste and then paradoxically postpone vital
issues until the latest moment possible. This maximises the pressure
on Nicaraguan negotiators to agree to the deal on offer from
the US in order to make the agreed deadline for the whole package.
The US team has deployed sharp tactical moves within that general
strategy, for example switching negotiating personnel without
notice so as to disorientate their Nicaraguan counterparts--a
kind of good cop-bad cop psychological warfare.
Another favorite has been to present
new undiscussed proposals long prepared by the US team but completely
new to the under-resourced Nicaraguans. The Nicaraguans then
have to patch up a position in short order with no time to work
out in detail the consequences of what they end up agreeing.
Ecological issues are almost entirely absent from the substance
of the talks. This frees up the option for multinationals to
sue Nicaragua for indemnity should it subsequently attempt to
cancel CAFTA provisions so as to protect the country's already
ravaged natural environment.
In the background lies the anxiety of
the Nicaraguan government to qualify for the Highly Indebted
Poor Countries (HIPC) debt relief initiative. To do so they have
to meet conditions imposed by the World Bank and the IMF. As
usual the requirements include privatization and interference
in the country's domestic legislation. In this case the privatization
bazaar includes completion of sale of the public telephone utility
ENITEL 3 and the public energy company Hidrogesa. A favorable
report from the US CAFTA trade representatives will help Nicaragua's
case with the IMF and World Bank HIPC pawnbrokers.
"Free market"
intervention
These pressures are compounded by bullying
from individual US companies. The intervention of Bell South
in Nicaraguan telecommunications policies is a typical example
of a multinational pressuring a weak national government. The
Nicaraguan communications regulator Telcor had accepted market
proposals from former state owned phone utility Enitel, still
not entirely privatized. Bell South disliked the deal and went
crying to US Trade Representatives Robert Zoellick and Gloria
Blue asking the US government to refuse further concessionary
trade deals with Nicaragua until Bell South's interests were
satisfied.
Nicaragua is ill-placed to resist these
strongarm tactics. It loses out across the board. In terms of
public health, environmental pollution, agriculture, CAFTA is
the worst of all worlds. But Nicaragua is in deep economic crisis
and has few options. The Ministry of Labour announced in September
this year that umemployment and underemployment is now at 45%
with over 50% of economically active people working in the informal
sector. These official statistics certainly understate the reality.
Against that background, pro-business
negotiators gush positive about CAFTA's ability to attract investors.
Trade officials enthuse that at least four textile companies
are interested in moving to Nicaragua as well as a US company
considering whether to base its prefabricated housing production
in the country. Chiquita (United Brands) has said it is interested
in moving its pineapple production to Nicaragua. These are the
pathetic employment incentives on offer to justify the CAFTA
package.
That kind of investment can only bode
ill for Nicaraguan workers. Even now, lock outs and arbitrary
dismissals of unionised workers are common in Nicaragua's free
trade zones. CAFTA will make things worse. Trade negotiators
have referred ominously to US concerns about the Nicaraguan labor
code pointing out that CAFTA has made available over US$6 million
for regional "improvements" to local employment law.
Public interest and
economic policy--a seamless web
In health policy CAFTA will make it harder
for Nicaragua to produce or import generic medicines to meet
its health needs. The US wants to increase the life of patent
controls from 20 to 25 years. No concession is being made to
exempt medicines for epidemic illnesses like AIDS, tuberculosis,
malaria or other worldwide diseases. Like so much else vital
to ordinary people in Nicaragua, the CAFTA talks assign a low
priority to public health and the implications for it of economic
policy.
Mountain leprosy (leishmaniasis) has
now become endemic in Nicaragua in the so called "mining
triangle" between the towns of Jinotega and Matagalpa and
the northern Atlantic Coast. But cases are also appearing in
the west of the country. 2200 cases were reported in 2002. Medical
observers believe the increase is due to increased migration
of rural families to mountain areas in search of land. Rural
migration patterns have changed over the last year. Rather than
move to the capital Managua as in the past, rural families are
moving to local urban centres and settling humid inland areas
of the Atlantic Coast.
This migration is closely linked to the
crisis in production of maize, rice and beans and the climate
change that has made subsistence farming on the increasingly
dry Pacific Coast untenable for thousands of smallholders. Finance
available nationally for basic grain production is less than
US$1 per manzana (1.4 acres). At a time when Nicaragua needs
to double its basic grain production to be self sufficient in
those foods, commercial banks no longer offer finance to basic
grain producers. What finance exists comes almost entirely from
non-governmental organizations. While basic grain production
is left to wither away, Nicaraguan trade negotiators argue for
even more development of resource-wasteful cattle farming.
The encroaching desertification of north
east and north central Nicaragua, (and the bordering regions
in neighbouring El Salvador and Honduras) makes water policy
for the area of crucial importance. With water next up for privatization,
consumer organizations and environmental groups in Nicaragua
are pressing for an independent water authority to protect the
public interest. But despite their calls being backed by the
Natural Resources Ministry, the draft legislation promoted by
the Ministry of Trade and Commerce contemplates handing Nicaragua's
water resources wholesale to private companies with only notional
regulation.
The argument offered against an independent
water authority is that financing it would be too costly. That
may well be the case on current trends. In September this year
the Natural Resources Ministry declared it could not do its job
for lack of funds. The budget assigned to the Ministry makes
it impossible to carry out the environmental impact studies necessary
to control industrial polluters.
"Disappeared"
states unable to protect their peoples
The fundamental weakness of Nicaragua's
government after over a decade of abject loyalty to neo-liberal
economic recipes is evident from the budgetary cuts planned for
2004. Average cuts across all Ministries will be around 10% on
the already meagre and inadequate allocations through 2003. Plans
to cut spending on health, education and social services have
already been announced. All the Central American countries except
Costa Rica face the same dilemma with CAFTA.
Under-resourced, weak central governments
of countries debilitated by decades of war and regional economic
crisis find themselves negotiating against the clock facing a
ruthless, well-prepared US team who have all the resources they
need. The outcome will be a debacle for people in Central America
on every front. It may well be true that CAFTA will create wealth
for a small elite and for foreign businesses. But even that wealth
will be spirited out of the region leaving governments weaker
than ever and even more unable to meet the basic needs of their
peoples.
CAFTA--a portcullis
for "Fortress Western Hemisphere"?
One good way to understand the vision
driving US policy in Latin America is to visit the web site of
Global Energy Development Plc. 4 This company, quoted on the
London Stock Exchange, is a subsidiary of Harken Energy, the
vehicle George W. Bush used to dodge and deal his way into big
business before the first Gulf War. Global Energy Development
shares the same address as Harken Energy in Houston, Texas and
all but one of its directors, all long time cronies of George
W. Bush. President Bush has still to shake off suggestions of
insider dealing while a Harken director back in 1990.
The site uses an interesting graphic
to explain its strategic vision. Entitled "Fortress Western
Hemisphere" the graphic is a map of the Americas from Alaska
to Tierra del Fuego. One arrow curls around from north to south
somewhere in the Atlantic. Another curls up south to north somewhere
in the Pacific. The label explaining these arrows says succinctly,
"Latin American resources will supply North American demand".
The language is self-explanatory.
They mean what they say.
Global Energy Development Plc operates
mainly in Colombia5 and Panama but has interests in Peru and
Costa Rica. Right now, Harken Energy's long time partner MKJ
6 exploration is about to sign a deal for exploration rights
in the most promising area of Nicaragua, 8000 square kilometres
off the country's Atlantic Coast. Harken and MKJ are moving into
Nicaragua after having their hopes dashed on developing a similar
field in Costa Rica.
The Costa Rican government cancelled
development of the field following a negative environmental impact
report. Harken initially sued Costa Rica under the rules of the
International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes,
a Washington based institution associated with the World Bank.
Harken sought an astonishing US$57 billion indemnity (4 times
Costa Rica's GDP) to compensate an investment of scarcely US$15
million.
Then, at the start of October this year
Harken dropped its claim pending further action in the Costa
Rican courts and more negotiations with the Costa Rican government.
It is a fair surmise that Harken dropped its high profile case
against the Costa Rican government so as to mollify opposition
in Nicaragua to its presence there. Once countries like Nicaragua
sign up to the CAFTA agreement, Munchausen-syndrome claims like
those from George W. Bush's business associates in Harken Energy
will be yet another weapon to intimidate impoverished national
governments into giving multinationals what they want, backed
up with the political, economic and military might of the United
States.
Finding focus on the
wider picture
Harken Energy and Global Energy Development
merit careful monitoring. Earlier this year cash-strapped Harken
nearly lost its AMEX stock exchange rating as a redemption deadline
loomed for a term note.7 Another shady Bush associate, Alan Quasha,
also a former director of Harken, mobilised his family's Virgin
Island based Lyford Investments to save Harken's skin.
After suspiciously complicated buy-back
manoeuvres, Lyford now owns 62% of Harken. Quasha's intervention
saved the day. Now with the deal in Nicaragua, signs of a possible
settlement between Harken and Costa Rica, and reasonable exploitation
news from Colombia and Panama, Harken's share price is edging
up. Various factors will affect the market prices of Harken Energy
and Global Energy Development.
Ratification of the CAFTA deal whose
final details will be worked out in December this year is vital
for US multinationals to be able to compete on preferential terms
against their European rivals. Increased US support for Colombian
President Uribe's neutering of state-owned petroleum company
ECOPETROL and the terror campaign against rural families and
trades unionists in oil and gas development areas will be seen
as protecting foreign oil investments.
Markets will also view positively continued
efforts by State Department regional policy hitmen, Otto Reich,
John Maisto and Roger Noriega, 8 to overthrow Hugo Chavez's democratically
elected government in Venezuela. In Ecuador and Bolivia, the
success of popular resistance to government attempts to sell
off national resources hangs in the balance. CAFTA is an integral
part of these wider events. Harken's and Global Energy Deveopment's
share prices make an excellent barometer to see how well the
Bush regime think they are progressing towards "Fortress
Western Hemisphere".
Toni Solo
is an activist based in Centrral America. Contact: tonisolo52@yahoo.com
NOTES
1 Plan
Puebla Panama; (US Government's Energy
Information Administration)
2 Information on CAFTA and Nicaragua
is drawn from reports through 2003 in the Nicaraguan dailies
:
- El
Nuevo Diario
- La
Prensa
with supplementary material on CAFTA
from the NicaNet newsletter.
3. Honduran power company Emce and Swedish
telecommunications company Telia Swedtel, bid US$33mn to win
the first 40% of the privatization. Enitel employees hold the
remaining 11%.
4. Information on Global Energy Development
Plc is from their
web site:
5. For Harken Energy in Colombia see:
http://www.soberania.info/
- Sean Donahue: The
Other Harken Energy Scandal
6. Information on Harken Energy and MKJ
exploration dealings in Nicaragua from El Nuevo Diario, La Prensa,
and in Costa Rica in:-
- Tico
Times
- Costa
Rica AM news
7. For Harken Energy and Global Energy
Development stock and share information and analysis try the
following:-
- www.stockgroup.com;
- www.stockselector.com;
- http://finance.yahoo.com;
- http://cnbc.multexinvestor.com;
- http://www.bizjournals.com;
- http://www.theaxcess.com:
8. John Maisto is US representative to
the Organization of American States. Roger Noriega is Assistant
Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. Otto Reich
is US Special Envoy for Western Hemisphere Initiatives.
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 26 / 28, 2003
Tim Wise
The
Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment
Peter
Linebaugh
Rhymsters
and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW
Gary Leupp
Occupation
as Rape-Marriage
Bruce
Jackson
Addio
Alle Armi
David Krieger
A Nuclear 9/11?
Ray McGovern
L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's
War on Whistleblowers
Col. Dan Smith
Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean
Mickey
Z.
In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest
Roger Burbach
Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq
John Chuckman
Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus
William S. Lind
Versailles on the Potomac
Glen T.
Martin
The Corruptions of Patriotism
Anat Yisraeli
Bereavement as Israeli Ethos
Wayne
Madsen
Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can
M. Junaid Alam
The Racism Barrier
William
Benzon
Scorsese's Blues
Adam Engel
The Great American Writing Contest
Poets'
Basement
McNeill, Albert, Guthrie
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|