Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalEx-Salvador Ambassador, Critic of US Foreign Policy, Dies
Source: Associated Press
Ex-Salvador Ambassador, Critic of US Foreign Policy, Dies
MEXICO CITY — Jan 19, 2015, 4:33 PM ET
Associated Press
Robert E. White, a former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and strong critic of U.S. policy in the region during the Central American wars, has died at age 88, according to the Washington-based Center for International Policy where he was a senior fellow. White, who died Tuesday of cancer, spent 25 years in the U.S. Foreign Service and was ambassador to El Salvador from 1980-81. He was known as an outspoken critic of policies the U.S. followed in the fight against communism, writing in 1999:
"In the name of anticommunism, U.S.-supported armies suppressed democracy, free speech, and human rights in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. Torture and assassination of democratic leaders, including presidential candidates, journalists, priests and union officials became commonplace."
Appointed to the El Salvador post by former President Jimmy Carter, White was probably best known for defying the U.S. government on the Salvador killing of three nuns and a fourth lay church worker in 1980, just before President Ronald Reagan took over in Washington.
"I did what I could to oppose policies that supported dictators and closed off democratic alternatives," White wrote in 2013. "In 1981, as the ambassador to El Salvador, I refused a demand by the secretary of state, Alexander M. Haig Jr., that I use official channels to cover up the Salvadoran military's responsibility for the murders of four American churchwomen. I was fired and forced out of the Foreign Service."
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/salvador-ambassador-critic-us-foreign-policy-dies-28328845
590 NGOs Call To Stop Japan’s Whaling Policy in Antarctica
590 NGOs Call To Stop Japan’s Whaling Policy in Antarctica
Tuesday, 20 January 2015, 10:06 am
Press Release: Center for Cetacean Conservation
Center for Cetacean Conservation
19/01/15
Latin American, Caribbean and International NGOs Call Governments to Stop Japan’s Whaling Policy in Antarctica
Nearly fifty non governmental organizations (NGOs) of Latin America, the Caribbean and international made an urgent call on Monday to their regional governments requesting urgent actions against the obvious intentions of the Japanese government to continue using so-called "scientific" whaling programs in Antarctica to cover commercial whaling operations and move towards the elimination of Southern Ocean whale sanctuary.
January 19, 2015 (CCC News) - Forty-seven civil organizations from Latin America, the Caribbean and international called on Monday the Buenos Aires Group – Latin American countries at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) – to conduct urgent actions oriented to publicly reject the intentions of the government of Japan to continue slaughtering whales at a commercial-scale in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary under allegedly “scientific” purposes.
The call of the NGOs follows the presentation last November of a new "scientific" whaling plan in Antarctica by the government of Japan, called NEWREP-A, which includes, among others, the annual catch of over 300 minke whales. The plan is part of the actions conducted by Japan after the landmark ruling of the International Court of Justice, that in March 31, 2014 ruled that the killing of whales of that country in Antarctica under alleged “scientific” research purposes is illegal since it violates the global moratorium on commercial whaling and the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary.
The delivery of the letter to the Buenos Aires Group coincides with the recent departure of the whaling fleet to Antarctica to conduct a "census" of whales by non-lethal methods, a move that forms part of the Japanese government strategy to gain support to its intentions to continue hunting hundreds of whales each year for "scientific" purposes in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary, starting from December 2015.
Among the main concerns expressed by 47 civil society organizations from over 15 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean and international, regarding the newJapanese whaling plan in Antarctic NEWREP-A, the NGOs stress that the self assigned annual quota of 333 antarctic minke whales during the next twelve years is 3,300% higher than the quota suggested by the only scientific expert of Japan at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and exceeds by 32% the number of minke whales killed by Japan during the last season of JARPA II, the “scientific” whaling program that was sentenced as illegal by the ICJ last March.
More:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1501/S00140/590-ngos-call-to-stop-japans-whaling-policy-in-antarctica.htm
Who Will Stand With Venezuela?
January 19, 2015
International Solidarity and Survival
Who Will Stand With Venezuela?
by W.T. WHITNEY Jr.
Who in the world stands with a country when it is under the looming threat of a major U.S. government intervention? When Guatemala (1954), the Dominican Republic (1965), Chile (1973), and Haiti (2004) were in trouble, there was no one. Cuba was different; over the years, at different times, the Soviet Union, Latin American countries, and nations voting in the UN General Assembly all weighed in with support and solidarity. And Cuba’s socialist revolution survives.
Now the U. S. government targets Venezuela, its socialist government and national sovereignty. This time, however, the intended victim is not alone.
For the nearly 15 years of Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution, the U.S government has lavished funds on forces opposing governments headed by President Hugo Chavez and his successor Nicolas Maduro. The U.S. media have uniformly condemned both administrations on grounds of repression. The two embassies have gone without ambassadors since 2010.
The U.S. government enacted sanctions against Venezuela in late December, 2014. Sponsors of the legislation alleged government resort to violence in its response to street protests earlier in the year. Yet U.S. and European media said nothing about the demonstrations having taken place mostly in well-to-do, urban neighborhoods, nothing about protesters themselves having been responsible for almost all the killings carried out during the turmoil.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/19/who-will-stand-with-venezuela/
Cuban scholars: “US-style democracy not only option”
Cuban scholars: “US-style democracy not only option”
by Avi Chomsky on January 17, 2015
The opening of US-Cuban relations has been much debated. Here, Avi Chomsky translates the voices of Cuban intellectuals, excluded from Western media.
Photo by Nick Kenrick via Flickr.
On December 17, 2014, President Obama announced that he was ordering “the most significant changes to our policy in more than fifty years” and that the United States was “changing its relationship with the people of Cuba.” While only Congress can lift the embargo, the changes Obama announced were indeed significant: re-establishing diplomatic relations, opening a review of Cuba’s designation as a sponsor of state terrorism, and further easing travel, trade, and aid restrictions.
The speech came on the heels of a series of embarrassments for the United States, as clumsy covert programs aimed at promoting ‘civil society’ in Cuba were revealed and WikiLeaks cables acknowledged that US-supported ‘dissidents’ had little importance to Cuban society. Obama reiterated the US goal to change Cuba’s domestic and foreign policies, but explained that 50 years of hostility had not achieved the goal, and it was time for a new approach. Nevertheless, “we will continue to support civil society there,” he reassured doubters. “I respect your passion and share your commitment to liberty and democracy.”
The US media sought reactions on the streets in Miami and Havana, and among a few chosen “dissidents” in Cuba. It generally ignored Cuban scholars and academics who have been laying the groundwork for better relations over several decades, visiting the United States (when the State Department has agreed to let them), collaborating with US counterparts in research, presentations, and publishing, while also opposing US policies and insisting on Cuba’s right to change in its own way and at its own pace, not as mandated by its northern neighbor.
The progressive Cuban journal Temas has brought together critical Cuban intellectuals since the early 1990s. These are not the “dissidents” supported and promoted by the U.S. State Department to bring about regime change. They are progressive Cubans who are engaged nationally and internationally in debating the changes, forced and desired, that have been unfolding in Cuba since the fall of the Soviet bloc.
Temas responded to Obama’s announcement by asking researchers in both countries to comment on a series of questions, and published the responses in the journal’s blog, Catalejo. Those on the US side included well-known academics like political scientists Jorge Domínguez (Harvard University) and William LeoGrande (American University), and historian Margaret Crahan (Columbia). But while Cuban readers had access to these voices, American readers had little access to their Cuban counterparts.
More:
http://roarmag.org/2015/01/cuban-intellectuals-us-relations/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+roarmag+%28ROAR+Magazine%29
Robert E. White, who criticized policy on El Salvador as U.S. ambassador, dies at 88
Robert E. White, who criticized policy on El Salvador as U.S. ambassador, dies at 88
By Pamela Constable January 15
In 1980, when El Salvador was erupting in guerrilla war and military violence, the Carter administration sent a little-known Foreign Service officer into the maelstrom as its new ambassador, hoping he could help the U.S.-backed government there find a reformist middle ground and prevent a full-scale revolution.
Instead, Robert E. White became a controversial and outspoken critic of assassinations and massacres being carried out by American-trained military units and private right-wing death squads. His views cost him his diplomatic career but earned him the respect of many Salvadorans and, ultimately, the vindication of history.
Mr. White, who had previously served as U.S. ambassador to Paraguay, died Jan. 14 at a hospice in Arlington, Va. He was 88. The cause was bladder and prostate cancer, said a daughter, Claire White.
His brief tenure in San Salvador was marked by atrocities that became synonymous with right-wing violence during an era of ideological conflicts in Central America: the assassination of Catholic Archbishop Óscar Romero in March 1980 while he was saying Mass in the national cathedral, and the abduction and killing that December of four American women who were Maryknoll church workers.
More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/robert-e-white-who-criticized-policy-on-el-salvador-as-us-ambassador-dies-at-88/2015/01/15/0c504738-9c29-11e4-96cc-e858eba91ced_story.html
The app of the Aztecs: Historic Mexican codex brought into the digital age
The app of the Aztecs: Historic Mexican codex brought into the digital age
Published January 16, 2015/
Fox News Latino
[font size=1]
This image made from the screen of a mobile device on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015 shows the The Codex Mendoza app with a page
from the 16th century document that is considered one of the most important primary sources on the Aztecs of pre-Columbian
Mexico. The interactive document, released on Thursday by Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology (INAH), lets users
mouse-over the old Spanish text for translations into English or modern Spanish, and click on images for richer explanations and
explore maps of the area. The original was compiled by Aztec and Spanish artisans to inform the king of Spain about conditions
in the viceroyalty. (AP Photo)[/font]
MEXICO CITY (AP) – A 16th century document considered one of the most important primary sources on the Aztecs of pre-Columbian Mexico went digital Thursday with a new app that aims to spur research and discussion. The Codex Mendoza is a 1542 illustrated report ordered by Spanish viceroy Antonio de Mendoza that details sources of riches, Aztec expansion and territorial tributes, and chronicles daily life and social dynamics.
The new interactive codex lets users page through the virtual document, mouse-over the old Spanish text for translations into English or modern Spanish, click on images for richer explanations and explore maps of the area. Presented by Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, the digital codex is available free both on the Internet and through Apple's App Store as a 1.02-gigabyte app.
"Never before had these tools been used to amplify understanding of a document of these characteristics," said Ernesto Miranda, the institute's director of academic innovation.
The original Codex Mendoza was compiled by Aztec and Spanish artisans to inform the king of Spain about conditions in the viceroyalty. But the boat carrying it to Spain was attacked by French buccaneers and it never reached its destination.
More:
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2015/01/16/app-aztecs-historic-mexican-codex-brought-into-digital-age/
1975 Video: CIA Admits to Congress the Agency Uses Mainstream Media to Distribute Disinfo
1975 Video: CIA Admits to Congress the Agency Uses Mainstream Media to Distribute Disinfo
Posted on January 14, 2015 by Melissa Melton
(Truthstream Media) It has been verified by a source who claims she was there that then-CIA Director William Casey did in fact say the controversial and often-disputed line “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false,” reportedly in 1981.
Despite Casey being under investigation by Congress for being involved in a major disinformation plot involving the overthrow of Libya’s Qaddafi in 1981, and despite Casey arguing on the record that the CIA should have a legal right to spread disinformation via the mainstream news that same year, this quote continues to be argued by people who weren’t there and apparently cannot believe a CIA Director would ever say such a thing.
But spreading disinfo is precisely what the CIA would — and did — do.
This 1975 clip of testimony given during a House Intelligence Committee hearing has the agency admitting on record that the CIA creates and uses disinformation against the American people.
More:
http://truthstreammedia.com/1975-video-cia-admits-to-congress-the-agency-uses-mainstream-media-to-distribute-disinfo/
New Cuba Travel, Trade Rules Will Start Friday: U.S. Government
Source: NBC News
New Cuba Travel, Trade Rules Will Start Friday: U.S. Government
First published January 15th 2015, 8:34 am
Decades of U.S. trade and travel restrictions on Cuba will come to an end on Friday, the government announced in the first tangible step towards restoring diplomatic ties between Washington and Havana.
New rules will allow Americans to travel to the country without a license, as long as they go for approved reasons, the U.S. Departments of Commerce and Treasury said in a statement.
Travel agents and airlines will be authorized to provide services without needing a specific permit.
Cubans living in the U.S. will also have their quarterly remittances increased from $500 to $2,000 per quarter, allowing them to send home more money.
Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/new-cuba-travel-trade-rules-will-start-friday-u-s-n286721
(Short article, no more at link.)
Understanding Colombia’s armed conflict: International actors
Understanding Colombia’s armed conflict: International actors
Jan 15, 2015 posted by Joel Gillin
Compared with much of the world, Latin America was relatively free inter-state wars during the 20th century, and Colombia is no exception. While tension with neighboring countries, particularly Ecuador and Venezuela, increased during the hardline administration of Alvaro Uribe, much of the violence experienced in Colombian society comes from domestic actors.
These domestic groups responsible for violence have, however, arisen in a context in which international forces have played a significant role in augmenting their the strength and objectives. The two of the most important forces that have contributed to the Colombian conflict are multinational companies and the United States.
As with drugs, rather than call these actors a “cause” of the conflict, it is more accurate to view them as contributors. Structural factors, such as political exclusion, inequality, and a weak state presence can be seen as fundamentally creating the context in which international forces would become involved.
The banana massacre of 1928
Famously fictionalized in the Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s iconic novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, the banana massacre of 1928 was an all-too-real historical event that demonstrates well the role international corporations have played in Colombia.
The United Fruit Company was created in 1899 and had a virtual monopoly on the banana trade in a number of Central American countries. These small nations, such a Guatemala and Honduras, were to be called “banana republics” due to the power wielded by the company over their economy and politics. A number of high-ranking US officials had direct ties to the company. John Foster and Allen Dulles, who would go on to head up the State Department and the CIA for Eisenhower in the 1950s, were both on the company’s payroll for more than three decades.
By 1928, the company employed some 30,000 Colombians on the Caribbean coast, according to historian and Razon Publica editor Nicolas Pernett. Most of these workers, however, were hired via contractors and only a few hundred were legally contracted by the company. To formalize their labor relations with United Fruit, and to demand better work conditions and increased pay, the workers went on strike.
Cables sent by then-US Ambassador Jeffrey Caffery show the the strike was seen as a threat to “American interests” and as “subversive.” He was in regular contact the United Fruit Company’s representative and even requested that Washing send an American warship to be put on alert should the company’s property or the 20 Americans then in the vicinity be threatened.
The company refused to negotiate with the workers and the Colombian government, then ruled by the Conservative Party, viewed the strike a violation of public order, sending in the national army to quell the unrest. When strikers, viewed as “bands of Communists” by the Colombian government and US ambassador, failed to disperse, the troops opened fire. It is unclear how many died. The Colombian army said the figure was only nine, but a US cable shows that United Fruit believed it to be more than 1000. A month after the massacre, Caffery told Washington: “I have to honor to report that the Bogota representative of the United Fruit Company told me yesterday that the total number of strikers killed by the Colombians military exceed one thousand.”
More:
http://colombiareports.co/causes-colombia-conflict-international-actors/
The US Covert War on Venezuela in 2015
The US Covert War on Venezuela in 2015
By Arturo Rosales and Les Blough in Venezuela
Wednesday, Jan 14, 2015
2014 was a year filled with the goodness and beauty that has made Venezuela one of the most livable countries on earth for the last 15 years. The music, art, climate, food and the spectacular beaches, stunning mountains and views and expansive plains are part of the charm. But it's the people themselves, their racial & ethnic plurality, sense of community, warm spirit, patience and the inevitable smile one receives immediately upon eye contact that brings joy to daily life here, even in the midst of adversity.
2014 was also a year here in Venezuela that was scarred by actions of the political opposition, funded by Washington and supported by the Western media. Bereft of support by the majority of Venezuelans and unable to gain power through a peaceful electoral process, the opposition resorted to: sabotage of the infrastructure (e.g. attacks on the electrical grid); hoarding and dumping food and daily household products to keep them off the retail markets; manipulating food distribution to create the appearance of “shortages;’ smuggling subsidized products across the border into Colombia for huge profits; attacks on the economy with speculation and an illegal black-market dollar system, driving up a manipulated rate of inflation with spiraling prices in retail markets; causing capital flight by abusing the government’s system of making dollars available for imports and leisure traveling and the violence we saw for 3 months from February to April in the guarimbas in which more than 40 people were killed under the pretext of “student protests.” The greater violence in 2014 ended with the assassination of the foremost leader of Venezuelan youth, youngest member of congress, Robert Serra along with his spouse in their home on October 1, 2014.
The attacks on the Venezuelan economy are manifold. The attempt to destroy the national currency, the bolivar, began in earnest in October 2012 after the re-election of former President Hugo Chávez Frías. At that time, the bolivar was trading at 13.4 bolivars to the dollar. By means of speculation and the illegal black-market dollar, the official exchange rate for most items was forced to soar to 50:1 and the black market dollar rate is currently at about 200:1 and increasing from week to week. By all these means, high prices, making food and products unavailable, standing in long lines waiting to purchase anything from laundry detergent to corn meal, electrical outages, etc, Washington is bent on making life as miserable as possible for the people to turn them against the government. Moreover, the violence is meant to cause fear and a climate of insecurity among the people – in a word, terrorism, laying blame on the government and to portray Venezuela in the media as one of the most dangerous countries on earth.
2015 promises to bring the same music, culture, climate, and smiling faces in the cities, towns, beaches, mountains and plains as all other years. The people are extremely patient and know the root causes of many problems. But given the US continuing focus to overthrow Venezuela’s socialist government and its unrelenting march for global dominance on other continents, it’s reasonable to expect that their attacks in 2015 will increase.
2015 will be an important nationwide election year for members of the National Assembly (parliament) and the assault on Venezuela this year will focus on turning the people against the government to gain control of the government through the National Assembly in the December elections.
More:
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_69015.shtml
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