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Did Oprah Pick Another Fibber? Truth and Fiction in Elie Wiesel's Night In his special report Alexander Cockburn interviews former Wiesel colleague and Holocaust survivor Eli Pfefferkorn. What Raul Hilberg, the Holocaust's greatest historian, really thinks about Wiesel's "Night". Also in this special issue: Is Hugo Chavez Hitler or Father Christmas? Larry Lack tells the full story of Venezuela's hand-outs to Uncle Sam's Shivering Poor. Plus, Jeffrey St Clair profiles the Endangered Visigoth and traces the rise and possible fall of Rick Pombo, destroyer of nature. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! |
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Today's Stories March 8, 2006 Vijay
Prashad
March 7, 2006 Werther John
Blair Dave
Lindorff Mike
Whitney Warren
Guykema Sen.
Russell Feingold Robert
Jensen Norman
Solomon Bernie
Dwyer Website
of the Day
Ralph
Nader Dave
Zirin Vanessa
Redgrave Walter
A. Davis Joshua
Frank Nate
Mezmer Paul
Craig Roberts Website
of the Day
Alexander
Cockburn Jennifer
Van Bergen Steven
Higgs Winslow
T. Wheeler Ron
Jacobs Rev.
William E. Alberts Colin
Asher Fred
Gardner "Pariah" John
Scagliotti Seth
Sandronsky Joan
Roelofs Arjun
Makhijani Ardeshr
Ommani Diana
Barahona Ben
Tripp St.
Clair / Socialist Worker Staff Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend March 3, 2006 Laura
Carlsen John
V. Whitbeck Chris
Floyd Mohamed
Hakki Pratyush
Chandra John
Scagliotti Website
of the Day
March 2, 2006 Paul
Craig Roberts Dave
Lindorff Ramzy
Baroud Saul
Landau Joe
Allen Steve
Shore Denise
Boggs Norman
Finkelstein Website
of the Day
March 1, 2006 Mairead
Corrigan Maguire Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Faheem
Hussain Antony
Loewenstein Elizabeth
Schulte Mike
Whitney John
Ryan Michael
Donnelly Tom
Reeves Website
of the Day
February 28, 2006 Sen.
Russ Feingold Ralph
Nader Joshua
Frank Aziz
Haniffa Benjamin Dangl Norman Solomon Mike
Ferner Sharon
Smith Website
of the Day
February 27, 2006 Buncombe
/ Cockburn Paul
Craig Roberts Ingmar
Lee Ron
Jacobs Dave
Lindorff Pat
Wolff Lila
Rajiva Website
of the Day
February 25 / 26, 2006 Alexander
Cockburn Lila
Rajiva Lee
Sustar Jennifer
Van Bergen / Madis Senner Justin
E.H. Smith Paul
Craig Roberts Jason
Leopold Gilad
Atzmon Zahid
Shariff Fred
Gardner Dick
J. Reavis David
Stocker John
Bomar Mike
Marqusee Pratyush
Chandra Ben
Tripp Dr.
Susan Block Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
February 24, 2006 Alan
Maass William
S. Lind Dave
Lindorff Pierre
Tristam Meg
Bannerji Robert
Jensen Mark
Engler Jennifer
Loewenstein Website
of the Day
February 23, 2006 Chet
Richards Jonathan
Feldman Joshua
Frank Ron
Jacobs Amira
Hass Samah
Sabawi Norman
Solomon Christopher
Reed Website
of the Day
February 22, 2006 Robert
Pollin Phil
Doe Pirouz
Azadi Saul
Landau Brian
McKinlay Sam
Smith Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Diane
Farsetta Website
of the Day
February 21, 2006 Paul
Craig Roberts Franklin
Spinney Dave
Lindorff Alevtina
Rea Bruce
K. Gagnon Dave
Zirin Bill
Quigley Website
of the Day
February 20, 2006 Jennifer
Van Bergen Rachard
Itani Gideon
Levy Joshua
Frank Newton
Garver Pratyush
Chandra Seth
Sandronsky Cockburn
/ St. Clair Website
of the Day
February 18 / 19, 2006 Werther Uzma
Aslam Khan Joe
DeRaymond Edward
F. Mooney Paul
Craig Roberts Elaine
Cassel P.
Sainath Thomas
P. Healy Brian
Concannon, Jr. Fred
Gardner Rep.
Cynthia McKinney Brian
Tokar Chan
Chee Khoon Andrew
Freedman St.
Clair / Walker Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
February 17, 2006 Floyd
Rudmin Gervasio
Rodríguez Gary
Leupp Ramzy
Baroud Amira
Hass Matthew
Koehler Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Debbie
Nathan Website
of the Day
Febrauary 16, 2006 Lila
Rajiva Norman
Solomon Ron
Jacobs Paul
Craig Roberts Website
of the Day
February 15, 2006 Brian
Conacnnon, Jr. Dave
Lindorff Saree
Makdisi Joshua
Frank Amira
Hass CounterPunch
Wire Robert
Bryce Website
of the Day February 14, 2006 John
Sugg Don
Santina William
A. Cook Ray
McGovern John
Ross Website
of the Day
Lila
Rajiva Christopher
Brauchli Dave
Lindorff Ron
Jacobs Mike
Whitney Michael
Neumann Website
of the Day
February 11 / 12, 2006 Alexander
Cockburn Ralph
Nader Paul Craig
Roberts Pat Williams Fred Gardner Saul Landau John Chuckman Roger Burbach Seth Sandronsky Website of
the Weekend
February 10, 2006 Carl
G. Estabrook Sen.
Russell Feingold Roxanne
Dunbar----Ortiz Saree Makdisi Website of
the Day
February 9, 2006 Dave Lindorff Mike Marqusee Paul Craig Roberts Peter Phillips William S. Lind Christine Tomlinson Innocent Targets in the "Long War": False Positives and Bush's Eavesdropping Program Will Youmans Robert Robideau Richard Neville Peter Rost Website of the Day
February 8, 2006 Ron Jacobs Stan Cox Sen. Russ Feingold Robert Jensen Rep. Cynthia McKinney Niranjan Ramakrishnan Don Monkerud David Swanson C.L. Cook Christopher
Fons Jeffrey Ballinger Website of
the Day
February 7, 2006 Edward Lucie-Smith Robert Fisk Paul Craig Roberts Neve Gordon Joshua Frank Peter Montague Jackie Corr Jeffrey St.
Clair Website of the Day
February 6, 2006 Christopher
Brauchli Robert Fisk John Chuckman Jenna Orkin Paul Craig
Roberts
February 4 / 5, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Mike Ferner James Petras Alan Maass Fred Gardner Ralph Nader Bill Glahn Saul Landau Laura Carlsen James Brooks Mike Roselle John Holt Sarah Ferguson William S.
Lind Niranjan Ramakrishnan Seth Sandronsky Derrick O'Keefe Michael Donnelly Ron Jacobs Elisa Salasin St. Clair / Vest Stew Albert Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
February 3, 2006 Toufic Haddad Heather Gray Tim Wise Conn Hallinan Eva Golinger Daniel Ellsberg Dave Zirin Robert Bryce Website of
the Day
February 2, 2006 Winslow T.
Wheeler Stan Cox Rachard Itani Mike Whitney Amira Hass Norman Solomon Michael Simmons Christopher
Reed Website of the Day
February 1, 2006 Sharon Smith Jason Leopold Cindy Sheehan Joseph Grosso Earl Ofari Hutchinson Steven Higgs Robert Robideau R. Siddharth Jim Retherford Rep. Cynthia
McKinney Paul Craig
Roberts Website of
the Day
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March 8, 2006 The Loans of Mass DestructionWolfowitz's Anti-Corruption Hoax at the World BankBy PATRICK BOND A few weeks ago, Colin Powell's former chief of staff in the State Department, Lawrence Wilkerson, revealed to a PBS NOW audience something we all knew anyway about Saddam Hussein's weapons arsenal: 'I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community, and the United Nations Security Council.' A chief planner of that hoax was Paul Wolfowitz. Is he now carrying out another--telling the world that he's ridding the Third World of corruption? 'I would certainly counsel Paul Wolfowitz to put himself in the hands of the professionals who run the World Bank's external-relations department: he needs an extreme makeover,' former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff advised shortly after his appointment last April. He got one. By September, a Los Angeles Times editorial remarked, 'Wolfowitz's most valuable contribution to date may simply be his role as a cheerleader. Amid an agency and a US public that is cynical about the value of foreign aid, Wolfowitz has continually pointed out that things are changing for the better in Africa and that the world's contributions are making a difference.' Commentator Ariana Huffington observed last November, 'Talk about your Extreme Political Makeover. Wolfie has gone from war hawk to the second coming of Mother Teresa--all without having to make any kind of redemptive pit stop in political purgatory or having to apologize for being so wrong about Iraq.' Added Washington Post journalist Dana Milbank in December: 'Being Wolfie means not having to say you're sorry. Since taking the World Bank job six months ago he has found a second act. He has toured sub-Saharan Africa, danced with the natives in a poor Indian village, badgered the United States to make firmer foreign aid commitments and cuddled up to the likes of Bono and George Clooney.' There is no question that Wolfowitz quickly learned to talk 'left' about unfair trade subsidies, meagre US aid and corruption. Whether this was merely superficial rhetoric, veiling the sinister agenda of the petro-military complex, would soon be tested. Last August in Ecuador, the centrist government employed a Keynesian finance minister, Rafael Correa, who renewed Ecuador's long-standing $75 million tax-avoidance complaint against Occidental Petroleum. In addition, a new Ecuadoran law aimed to redirect 20% of an oil fund towards social needs and 10% for national development in science and technology, instead of debt servicing to foreign banks. (The windfall from the oil price rise from $18/barrel when the fund was set up, to $70/barrel in 2005, was being funnelled to Ecuador's creditors.) Correa aimed to rescind Occidental's
control of the oilfields, as the original contract allowed for
under conditions of non-performance. But next door to Ecuador,
in Colombia, Wolfowitz had helped Occidental defend one of the
most productive oil fields in the world, Cano Limon, whose pipeline
runs through jungle adjacent to guerrilla controlled A senior financier explained in MRzine: 'Wolfowitz's decision provoked a crisis in the government of president Alfredo Palacio who, especially with a weak government, has indicated his reluctance to confront the United States. After discussions with the president, finance minister Correa was obliged to resign and the head of the national petroleum company has been sacked. The new head of the petroleum company, Luis Roman, held the same post in the 1990s and helped Occidental into its current position. In fact, he is a supporter of further privatizing the oil fields.' A few months later, a seemingly opposite case arose in Africa, namely a redirection of the controversial Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline's funds away from social programmes into the military. As leader of the country tied with Bangladesh for most corrupt in the world (according to Transparency International), Chad's authoritarian president Edriss Déby and the country's parliament amended a 1999 petroleum revenue management law last December in spite of warnings by Wolfowitz. Bank cofinancing of the $3.7 billion pipeline was the target of a long-running international campaign by community, human rights and environmental groups on grounds it would simply empower the Déby regime, not the people. In 1999, the Bank had responded with revenue legislation to mitigate these concerns. Hence Déby's 2005 amendment triggered Wolfowitz to withhold any new loans and grants and halt disbursement of $124 million in International Development Association monies. A local group, the Chadian Association for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights, endorsed Bank sanctions because 'new money would mainly be used for military purposes and increasing repression of the Chadian people. But we regret that the Bank did not listen to the warnings of civil society organisations earlier.' Indeed, as the Bretton Woods Project records, 'Local authorities and the military are known to extort money from villagers when they receive cash compensation from the oil companies. Chadian human rights organisations report that human rights activists trying to defend local peoples' rights often receive death threats and have to flee the region. Pollution is taking a toll on the health and crops of some of the poorest people on earth, but none of the project sponsors are even studying it, let alone resolving the problems.' Surprisingly perhaps, this case of petro-military alignment was resolved--temporarily--against the World Bank's allies in a repressive regime and multinational oil corporations. Wolfowitz apparently required a dose of public credibility in what was Africa's highest-profile financing dispute. Cynics might add, on the other hand, that the other crucial function of the clampdown was to impose Bank discipline on an errant country, in the process sending a tough lesson to others, that they must obey Washington's orders. Likewise, the same conflict of objectives arose in Ethiopia and Kenya late last year. In the former, Africa's second most populous country and the world's seventh-poorest, donors announced the suspension of $375 million budget support following severe state repression including a massacre of opposition political protesters and mass arrests. Although this threatened to wipe out fully a third of the country's budget, and although president Meles Zenawi--an ex-Marxist ex-guerrilla--was a favourite of the neoliberals, the Bank complied. In Kenya, a corruption scandal debilitated Mwai Kibaki's government, and by January Wolfowitz again suspended financing, in this case $261 million, over half of which had been approved by the Bank's board just a few days earlier. The motive here, transparently, was the need to urgently save face, given that the main Kenyan corruption investigator, John Githongo, had fled to Oxford to release his investigative report from the safety of distance. Former British ambassador to Kenya Edward Clay accused Wolfowitz of 'blind and offensive blundering' for initially providing the loan to Nairobi, a solid ally of Washington/London against Islam. So the temporary retraction of Bank funds earmarked for Kenya probably reflects the lender's embarrassment, at the very time Wolfowitz was trying to shake out the Bank of officials implicated in various other scandals. For example, India saw $800 million in health-related loans delayed due to corruption, and Argentina was also penalised recently. And in the Republic of Congo-Brazzaville, revelations emerged in early February that president Denis Sassou-Nguesso and an entourage of 50 people spent $300,000 for an eight-day stay at the New York Crowne Plaza last September, including $8,500/night for a luxury three-storey hotel suite. After an intervention by an NGO, Global Witness, following a vulture fund's whistle-blowing on these expenditures, Wolfowitz cut debt relief to Sassou-Nguesso. (The vulture fund had bought Congo debt cheap and wanted the funds directed to its own hedonistic New York expenditures instead.) One such incident appears just too challenging for Wolfowitz. The Bank's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency made a $13.3 million political risk insurance investment in the DRC's Katanga province just before an October 2004 massacre. The lucrative Dikulushi Copper-Silver Mining Project, run by the Australian firm Anvil Mining, was given Bank support in spite of intense social unrest in the country. Indeed, DRC armed forces killed 100 people during the suppression of a rebellion by the Mayi-Mayi militia in Kilwa, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that the firm's trucks moved troops to the site of the killings and then moved corpses out. Although company headquarters denied knowledge of an Anvil role in the massacre, critics in the DRC and watchdog agencies assume that a subsequent Bank investigation would reveal corporate connivance. With Wolfowitz still reluctant to disclose the facts five months after receiving the document, Nikki Reisch of the Bank Information Centre remarked: 'Stalling the release of the report only gives the impression that the Bank Group has something to hide. It seems strange that an audit of such a high-profile and controversial project would be kept secret.' Meanwhile in a country Wolfowitz knows far better, Iraq, the Bank and IMF argued to the new government in late 2004 that the world's second-largest oil reserves be exploited by multinational companies through a very unusual arrangement, production sharing agreements, which amounted to a privatisation process. Other IMF conditionality began to bite last December, as a $685 million stand-by credit was advanced to Baghdad on four conditions: cutting public subsidies especially on fuel (the cheapest in the world); restructuring Iraq's external debt; strengthening administrative capacity, including statistical reporting; and restructuring Iraq's two state-owned banks. When Baghdad raised petrol and diesel prices by up to 200%, riots ensued and the oil minister was compelled to resign in protest. With these diverse examples, what can we conclude about the dire state of international financial governance? Wolfowitz cannot be trusted, and although his minor anti-corruption sweep is causing staff anxiety, there is no indication that deeper-rooted problems at the Bank will surface, through, for example, whistleblower protection that is now being widely called for by watchdog groups. As Charles Abugre of Christian Aid wrote in Pambazuka recently, 'To monitor compliance often requires even greater involvement and power of donors in domestic governance. It is like saying that new forms of colonisation are acceptable on human rights grounds. This is dangerous. Yet, there are cases where human rights abuses, dictatorship and corruption are at such a level that the impact of debt relief and aid will be to strengthen repression and enrich a few than promote development.' Under present circumstances, many will not agree with Abugre's proposed solution: a trust fund for debt relief grants to be run by the African Union (which this year is chaired by none other than the despot Sassou-Nguesso). Dennis Brutus from Jubilee South Africa is in town to launch his fantastic new book, Poetry and Protest (Haymarket Books and UKZN Press). As I talk this dilemma over with him, he offers a very simple proposition: 'It seems to me that both the IMF and Bank are inherently corrupt institutions, because they systematically transfer the wealth of poor countries to the North. While they are asking their clients--dictators and other ruling elites--to clean up their act, our job is still is to demand the abolition of this much more broadly corrupt system.' This is not theory, Brutus reminds: 'The World Bank Bonds Boycott is still going strong) But what do you do if you're in Nairobi or Brazzaville or Harare, then? Would it help to have Kibaki or Sassou-Nguesso or Robert Mugabe--who just caused a massive inflation spurt by repaying the IMF long-overdue debt--even more under Washington's thumb? Brutus replies: 'Each case is different. Ask the progressive movements in those countries, and take the lead from them! Unless you have the mass of the citizens participating in the debate over resource inflows and outflows, you will just see elites being legitimised and empowered. We had this enormously instructive participatory-budgeting example from the Porto Alegre municipality. Limited and truncated as it was, it nevertheless gave a sense of the way we will want to control resources and stop corruption in the future, in Africa and everywhere else.' Patrick Bond's forthcoming title from Zed Books and
UKZN Press is Looting
Africa: The Economics of Exploitation.
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org. |