Enron-Bush Axis
Ivo Skoric
ivo at reporters.net
Mon Feb 4 22:39:49 CET 2002
When, at the beginning of December last year, I taught how to
snowboard an athletic British gentleman, I knew the war in Afghanistan
was close to being over. He was a navy pilot, flying the re-fueling
tankers over Afghanistan just a week before he came on vacation with
his children to the U.S. Then the Red R e-mails started pouring into my
wife’s mailbox - humanitarian workers were needed in Afghanistan
immediately. And, finally, Financial Times on December 18 printed that
Kabul real estate agencies re-opened - anticipating the horde of
international relief workers about to come.
In the past two months there was tremendous progress in Afghanistan:
bicycles are back on streets, music can be heard, movie theaters re-
opened, stadiums reverted to their prior use for sport activities, birds can
be seen in their cages, women are considered human beings again and
even allowed to attend university. Old imperial masters are back: Brits
after 80 years officially under the UN cloak, and Russians after 20 years,
unofficially, as the backers of certain elements in the interim government.
The old rivalries, also, are back again: the ethnic, tribal and political
factions that mired Afghanistan in a decade of civil war, are puling the
fragile interim administration apart, doing the bidding of their various
foreign supporters (Iran, Russia, Pakistan, US, India, etc.). Of course,
since they have no real power at the moment, they are just a bunch of
noisy locals - like Kosovars in Kosovo and Bosnians in Bosnia. Each of
them is trying to consolidate its power base. Karzai’s government lacks
resources. Because resources are with the warlord factions that compete
for Karzai’s position. 6 (or 7, depending on various sources) containers
with Afghan currency printed in Germany and delivered through Russia,
aimed at the Karzai’s government, mysteriously disappeared. As did
Osama Bin Laden.
Karzai was invited to US Congress to listen to GWB State of the Union
address. So, he could hear about the ‘unprecedented threats to
civilization.’ A French Muslim trying to blow up his sneakers on a US
plane, a US teenager flying a Cessna into a bank high-rise in Tampa, FL,
the never identified perpetrator of the US military grade anthrax attacks
that briefly closed the US Congress, Qalaye-Niazi village incident where
US air force killed over 100 Afghan civilians responding to the local
warlord’s desire to wipe out his political opponents (Zadra deceived US
in thinking they were bombing Al Qaeda), the whole scale Israeli military
attack against Palestinian population, the cutting off railroad links, mail
delivery and cable TV between two nuclear weapons carrying countries
with combined population 3 times the size of U.S., the colossal collapse
of the largest Bush’s campaign supporter, the energy corporation that
built its business on trading its political influence for contracts allowing
it to sell energy at above market rates. Yet the US president, identified
that ‘threats’ in one simple phrase: the ‘axis of evil’ that comprises of
Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
Axis would usually hint on an alliance - but despite the individual sins of
Iraq, Iran and North Korea in terms of human rights abuses, weapons of
mass destruction production, weapons proliferation and support to
terrorist organizations, there is no link, much less an alliance between
them. Iran and Iraq are bitter enemies, that spent a decade fighting each
other. North Korea is an isolated country ruled by an isolationist regime,
that does sell its weapons to the highest bidder. In that scenario,
Switzerland could also be included in the ‘axis.’ Bush sounds more and
more like an aging Soviet leader that tries to cover-up for his regime’s
mishandling of resources by concocting far-reaching improbable evil
conspiracies against our way of life: we used to hear Milosevic’s cronies
talking about the US-Iran-Albanian-Vatican axis against Serbia, for
example. Curiously, on the other hand, we don’t hear much from W. or in
the US mainstream media about the trial in Belgium against absentee
Ariel Sharon for the Sabra & Chatila massacres.
Meanwhile, US did withdraw its support from the London based, Saddam
Hussein opposing Iraqi National Congress. Why? How does that fit in
the picture of fighting the ‘axis of evil’? Refugees come back in
Afghanistan, and flee again, fearing the return of civil war and abject
starvation. Oman buys US fighter jets. Pakistan, destabilized by the
Afghan refugee crisis, weakened by the popular support for Osama Bin
Laden, and bracing for the fight with its much larger neighbor, India,
buys US fighter jets, too. Israel buys more US fighter jets, to fight
Palestinian suicide bombers, I guess. India buys radar system (from
Israel). Palestine tries to buy weapons from Iran (and gets busted). Iraq
manages to smuggle in the Stealth-aircraft-seeing Czech radar system
Tamara. None of this moves targets the peace and reconciliation process
- they all aim to prolong war and suffering of local population. And the
US is playing a willing, active role in some of them. Instead of rising
above the fray, and trying to bring peace, it just plays along to prolong
the war for the benefit of its defense contractors.
In that light, the speeches of O’Neil and Powell delivered at the World
Economic Forum, seem rather bold. O’Neil not only defended the US
decision to withdraw support from Argentina, based on the fact that they
‘did not reform’ - which then pushed that country into the bankruptcy -
but also said that US would muscle other countries into reforming their
economies to fit US economic interests, too. Powell added to that, that if
any of such countries then become desperate enough to harbor
terrorists, they will have the benefit of experiencing the full strength of
the US military might. The US delivered the ultimatum to the world: you
either follow our ways, or you shall be treated as an enemy. Small, poor,
politically unstable countries that are outside of some large alliances (like
EU or OPEC) are at particularly high risk to become victims of the Bush’s
administration strong-arm US foreign policy.
Green Action-Friends of the Earth Croatia, Friends of the Earth
International and ANPED have denounced the US bullying of the
Croatian Government against its plan to introduce a draft GMO
(genetically modified food) law which would ban GMOs. Green Action-
FoE Croatia has received a leaked document sent by the US Embassy in
Croatia to the Croatian Environmental Minister. In this document Croatia
is threatened with WTO sanctions if they adopt a Law to ban GMOs.
U.S. biotech corporations impose genetically modified organisms
worldwide under WTO threats U.S. and Argentina use WTO threats to
stop GMO bans in Bolivia, Sri Lanka and Croatia. Leaked documents
show small countries face overwhelming pressure when trying to
implement strict regulations on GMOs. Unlike Slovenia, Hungary and
Poland - which closed their countries to the IMF - Croatia since its
inception in 1991 was a ‘good boy’ co-operating with all the IMF
requirements and adopting all U.S. required economic measures, policies
and contracts - hoping that this would help their quicker accession to
NATO and EU.
Late Croatian president Franjo Tudjman negotiated a controversial
memorandum of understanding with Enron before his death in Dec. 1999.
It would give Enron rights to build a power station in Croatia and run it
for 20 years, selling power to the state electric company at dramatically
above-market rates. The final deal was less favorable, but still fixed prices
above market rate. The contract expires this summer, and details are
unclear due to confidentiality agreements. Enron's power deliveries to
Croatia ended on Nov. 30 when other European operations ceased, and
the power station was not built. Questions about the deal intensified
after the election of a democratic government in Jan. 2000. Tapes of
conversations show Tudjman hoped giving Enron the contract would
secure political favors. In the weekly Globus, President Tudjman boasted
that if he signed the deal he would be rewarded with a visit to
Washington and Croatian entry into the World Trade Organisation and
NATO. He also linked the deal to avoiding his own arrest and that of
other senior figures by the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal.
In one meeting, Tudjman, aware of the Enron-Bush connection,
reportedly asked Enron international operations chief Joseph Sutton how
much influence his company had with the US State Department and
whether it could arrange WTO entry. "Mr Sutton said he could not
promise WTO membership, but guaranteed that Enron and the US would
lobby for Croatia's entry into the WTO, Partnership for Peace and
NATO." (Financial Times, Jan. 31)
Today, Croatia’s foreign debt reaches $12bn - on a population of 5
million people. Former Yugoslavia’s foreign debt - before the collapse -
was $22bn - on 22 million people. The unemployment (300,000 people) is
one of the largest in Europe. GDP per capita is $4000, while the debt per
capita is $2500. The annual debt servicing is 3.5% of GDP - equal to the
government’s plan for the GDP growth. That growth is hardly attainable
with most of the fundamental assets (power, communications, shipping)
sold to foreign corporations, and a trade deficit of $3.7bn. So, in other
words, Croatia is economically in the worse shape than Yugoslavia was
before the war. And it was brought there mostly by its sheepish
obedience to the US, IMF and WTO dictates. Of course, certain people
got very rich: those who signed the contracts disastrous for their
country, were paid handsomely for their services by the benefitting
foreign corporations. Zdenka Gast, who secured the ill-conceived
memorandum of understanding with Enron, earned $500,000 - $200,000
more than Enron contributed to George W.’s presidential campaign, for
example.
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