Minority Report
In their first year in power, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives managed to undo years of work that came before—rejecting the Kelowna Accord, scrapping the national daycare program and turning their backs on Kyoto. Lest we forget, here are eight reasons to turf the Tories the next chance we get.
By Mitch Moxley
From "This" Magazine
“The West is in,” trumpeted the Calgary Herald after Election Day 2006, when Canadians gave the Harper Conservatives a trial run in government, a slim minority to punish the scandal-plagued Liberals. It was heralded as a new era in Canadian politics. Harper was able to take a party born of western alienation and broaden its appeal to a national audience. The Conservatives ran a disciplined campaign, pitching Canadians a party that was centrist and moderate, led by a man who had softened and evolved. Many Canadians bought it.
Call it a bout of temporary insanity. Over the past year, the puzzle has come together, piece by piece, revealing a party far to the right of the Canadian mainstream. The Conservatives have attacked social programs, enraged supporters of same-sex marriage, abandoned Kyoto, and more. It hasn’t gone unnoticed: polls show chances of a Conservative majority growing slimmer by the day. That’s good news, because a Harper majority is a frightening prospect. “On almost every front you look at, Harper has proceeded with a right-wing agenda,” says Toronto Star columnist and author Linda McQuaig. “And that is with a minority. With a majority government, it would be this on steroids.”
1. THEIR ROOTS ARE SHOWING
Meet Stephen Harper: Canadian neo-con, policy wonk extraordinaire and the most right-wing prime minister this country has seen. A brief history lesson: Harper entered politics in 1984, in his mid-20s, as an aide to Tory MP Jim Hawkes. Before long, young Harper grew disillusioned with the Mulroney Conservatives. He quit in 1987, but was soon recruited as chief policy officer to Preston Manning, founder of the Reform party, a grassroots populist movement out of Alberta that arose from frustration with Brian Mulroney’s attempts to give Quebec “distinct society” status. Taking its cues from Manning’s father’s Social Credit party, Reform’s main goal was to drastically limit the role of government in public life. Harper ran for the House of Commons with Reform in 1988, losing badly to his old mentor, Hawkes, before winning the seat in 1993. He soon grew tired of party politics, frustrated he wasn’t able to freely speak his mind. He resigned his seat in 1997 to lead the National Citizens Coalition, a far-right, anti-government lobby group. In 2002, he returned to the political arena to lead the Canadian Alliance, the party formed by the 2000 merger between Reform and some Progressive Conservatives. Leading up to his election as prime minister, and during his first months in power, Harper was able to successfully present himself as moderate and appeal to middleclass voters. It’s instructive, however, to take a look at Harper’s ideological roots, from which he has never strayed too far.
Harper is a product of the so-called Calgary School, a clique of academics from the University of Calgary. Members include historian David Bercuson, and political scientists Barry Cooper, Rainer Knopff, Ted Morton (also a politician) and one of Harper’s closest advisors, Tom Flanagan—all of whom share an affinity for free markets and small government.
The group’s most famous figure is Flanagan, an American-born professor who was Harper’s national campaign director in the 2004 election. After studying at Notre Dame and Duke, Flanagan accepted a post at the fledgling U of C in 1968, and in the early 1990s became involved with Manning’s Reform movement. No stranger to controversy, he set tempers ablaze with his book First Nations? Second Thoughts, in which he dismissed Canada’s Aboriginals as merely “first immigrants” and argued for their assimilation. Another Flanagan work, an introductory political science textbook he co-authored, was removed from Ontario’s list of approved textbooks because of alleged biases against Jews and women.
The Calgary School has striking similarities to the American neo-conservatives who have the ear of George W. Bush (think World Bank president and Iraq war architect Paul Wolfowitz). Both the Calgary School and U.S. neo-cons have been heavily influenced by Leo Strauss, a one-time political scientist at the University of Chicago who is considered a founding father of the neo-conservative movement. Strauss, who died in 1973 and has gained a weighty posthumous reputation, was deeply suspicious of democracy, arguing that the public is not capable of making intelligent political decisions. Neo-cons, both American and Canadian, use democracy to turn citizens against their own liberties, says Shadia Drury, a Strauss expert and political philosophy professor at the University of Regina. Drury, who worked alongside the Calgary School until 2003, warns that Canadian neo-cons want to remake Canada in the image of the United States. “Their values are not Canadian values,” Drury says of Harper and his pedagogical influences. “Fortunately, Canadian values are still too much on the side of freedom.”
2. WE DON’T CALL THEM “PROGRESSIVE” ANYMORE FOR A REASON
May 31, 2003: In a room at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Toronto, next door to the Tory convention, Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Peter MacKay scribbles a pledge to rival David Orchard on a piece of paper. MacKay’s promise to Orchard, a PC veteran who held the second-most delegates, was that if chosen as leader he would not merge the party with the Stephen Harper-led Canadian Alliance. In return, Orchard promises the support of his delegates, ensuring a MacKay victory. Unfortunately for Orchard, in less than six months, MacKay shakes hands with Harper, and the Conservative party of Canada is born. “It was a remarkable takeover and theft of the Progressive Conservative party,” says Orchard, who went on to fight the merger in court. “Here we have a very narrow, ideologically driven [party] that’s connected to the U.S. religious right on a whole number of different issues. There’s an ideologically driven narrow-mindedness that was not part of the Progressive Conservative party at all.”
It was a defining moment in Canadian politics, and one often forgotten. The formation of the Conservative party of Canada marked the end of a moderate tradition of conservatism in Canada and replaced it with a U.S.-style version. Today’s Conservative party is very much a product of the ones that preceded it—Reform and Canadian Alliance. Some of the more inflammatory voices have been softened, but many policies and faces remain the same. Think of Harper’s obsession with building a new relationship with the provinces, and stripping the federal government of its responsibility for social services, or the party’s social conservative agenda and connection to the religious right. “The Conservative party, historically, always had a full spectrum of centre to far right. It was just that the centre was always fully in charge,” says Allan Gregg, chair of the Strategic Counsel, a national market- and publicopinion research company, and former PC pollster. “Now you have a guy in charge who comes from the more orthodox right wing of the party. This is a guy who leads that party with an iron fist. His way is the dominant way within the Conservative party.”
The Red Tory element of the PC party has all but disappeared. It may be called the Conservative party, but progressive it is not. “The media do them an enormous favour every time they call them ‘Tories,’ ” says Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada. “They are not the Tory party.”
3. THEY’RE PLAYING DRESS-UP
Remember Harper’s summer 2005 makeover campaign? Sometime between the 2004 and 2005 elections, the Tories tried to transform Harper from a scary social conservative accused of harbouring a hidden agenda to a likeable dad and political moderate with broad vision and admirable determination. Suddenly images of Stephen Harper participating in events usually reserved for ordinary people appeared in print and on television across the country. Remember Stephen Harper clumsily throwing a football? Or Harper fingerpainting with children? How about the cross-country BBQ tour, when they dressed him up in cowboy hat and vest and sent him out flipping burgers? Happy times.
Harper’s makeover campaign largely failed. Attempts to make him look likeable were awkward and often ridiculed. During the fingerpainting photo-op with kindergarteners, for example, the old Stephen Harper—stiff and bitter—shone through. A youngster with gooey fingers approached the Opposition leader, eliciting the response, “Don’t touch me.”
Where the Tories did succeed, however, was in controlling the debate. In the 2004 election, the Liberals were able to run a campaign that successfully vilified Harper. In the last campaign, however, Harper turned the table, attacking Liberal corruption while staying strictly on message. This focus on controlling the message is a page out of the U.S. Republican playbook. In fact, the party had Republican help. In May, a group of Canada’s foremost conservatives gathered in Kanata, Ontario, to receive some words of wisdom from Frank Luntz, a GOP pollster and the brains behind the Republicans’ sweep of Congress in 1994. Luntz spoke to 200 members of the Civitas Society, a conservative group whose members include Harper’s chief of staff, Ian Brodie, as well as Tom Flanagan, a founding member.
Luntz, who has previously done work for Preston Manning, is a master of tailoring a conservative message and selling it to moderate voters. His strategy is called “language guidance”—the use of simple messages, which are carefully tested and often repeated. He advocates the use of key words, images, pictures and national symbols to deflect suspicion of unpopular policies. Instead of “tax cuts,” use “tax relief.” Tax code simplification as opposed to tax code reform. Don’t privatize a program, personalize it. And so on. Canadian Conservatives have made Luntz’s strategy their own. Think of the Tories’ “five priorities,” the oft-repeated insults about Paul Martin, and the “made in Canada” solution to global warming.
By staying on message and focusing the attack on the Liberals, Harper was able to deflect attention from his past. And what a past it has been. The Harper of the last election seemed to be an entirely different person than he’s been in the past 20 years—the one who has railed against universal health care, social programs and a strong federal government. No matter what he told us in the last election, Stephen Harper is no national leader.
4. THEIR CITIZENS AREN’T CREATED EQUAL
Considering the Harper Conservatives’ roots, the way they have governed should hardly come as a surprise. Once in office things went smoothly; Harper and his cabinet focused exclusively on its five priorities: the GST cut, daycare credit, health-care wait times, government accountability and crime. But since getting elected, the government has revealed the depths of its true colours, governing like a farright party, beginning with an attack on equality.
First, there was the cancellation of the Kelowna Accord, an agreement negotiated under the previous Liberal government to help bridge the gap between Aboriginals and other Canadians by earmarking $5 billion to improve education, housing, economic development, health and water services on reserves. Then, the government voted to reject the draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the UN Human Rights Council. According to Angus Toulouse, Ontario regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations, the Harper Conservatives have sent a message to Canada’s Aboriginal people that they do not care. “It clearly told us this government is going to step on the poorest of the poor, which is the Aboriginal people in Canada,” Toulouse says.
Native people are not the only target of the Harper government’s attack on equality. In September, the government lopped 40 percent off the budget of Status of Women Canada, an agency that promotes gender equality. And same-sex marriage advocates have long been a favourite target of the Conservative party. Harper himself voted against extending hate propaganda legislation to include homosexuality, and in the last election campaign said a Conservative government would hold a free vote on same-sex marriage.
Conservative opposition to same-sex marriage makes sense given the party’s religious base. The evangelical set considers Harper, a self-confessed born-again Christian, to be one of their own. “I want to make it clear that Christians are welcome in politics,” Harper said on the Drew Marshall Show leading up to last year’s election. “And particularly welcome in our party.” Some MPs come straight from the religious right. Stockwell Day once famously declared that Adam and Eve roamed with dinosaurs. David Sweet, MP for Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale, is past head of the Christian group Promise Keepers Canada, which helps “men grow and mature into Godly men,” according to the group’s website. And Harold Albrecht, MP for Kitchener-Conestoga, once wrote a letter to the editor of his local newspaper saying, “These same-sex marriages would succeed in wiping out an entire society in just one generation.” Then there was the news that Justice Minister Vic Toews wants to table a Defence of Religions Act, legislation that would protect critics of homosexuality and same-sex marriage, and ensure the right of officials to refuse to perform gay marriages. Many of the Canadian right’s fiercest opponents of same-sex marriage remain influential within the Conservative party. For example, Harper recently named Darrel Reid chief of staff to Environment Minister Rona Ambrose. Reid is the former president of Focus on the Family Canada, the Canadian branch of the U.S.-based anti-gay-marriage group. Reid has made a career out of fighting against equality for same-sex couples, and once said that the decision to legalize gay marriage made him “ashamed to be called a Canadian.”
“We have to connect the dots,” says Gilles Marchildon, executive director of Egale Canada, an advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transidentified people. “This is not a government that supports equality and justice.”
5. OPACITY IS THE NEW TRANSPARENCY
Among the Conservatives’ original five priorities was an accountability law to make government more transparent—a move Canadians welcomed in the wake of the sponsorship scandal. They tabled the Federal Accountability Act in April, which banned corporate and union donations to federal parties, cracked down on lobbyists, protected whistle-blowers and gave more power to officers of Parliament, such as the ethics commissioner and auditor general.
But Harper’s own administration has been anything but transparent. After taking office, the prime minister wasted little time declaring war on the media. He insisted members of the press gallery sign a list if they wanted to ask questions, he rarely participates in scrums and he often leaves the Parliament Buildings through the freight exit instead of the front door to avoid media attention. “Unfortunately, the press gallery has taken the view they are going to be the opposition to the government,” Harper complained to a London, Ontario, TV station, the same week two dozen reporters walked out of a Harper event after he refused to take their questions.
According to a national press gallery reporter, who spoke anonymously, interview requests with ministers are frequently denied or simply unaddressed. Reporters are also banned from the floor on which ministers hold meetings, and ministers rarely scrum after cabinet meetings, a common practice under the Liberals. “Everybody’s hands are tied from a journalistic point of view. It’s extremely difficult to get answers from this government,” the reporter says. “It’s Harper’s mandate to treat us like this and it’s not going to change. It’s very disheartening.”
Harper has also gone to great lengths to silence his ministers. What happens behind closed doors stays there, and the PMO insists ministers stay on message. An April 2006 scheduled interview between the National Post’s Don Martin and Environment Minister Rona Ambrose, for example, was cancelled because the PM didn’t want his ministers to stray from the Conservatives’ five priorities. In mid-October, Ontario MP Garth Turner was expelled for regularly criticizing his party’s policies on his blog, and Conservative Senator Anne Cools was yanked from three committees in September for asking hostile questions about the Accountability Act, according to a Post article by Martin.
6. IMITATION IS THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY
Stephen “Steve” Harper, Bush’s favourite Canadian, has been busy cozying up to the Americans since taking office last year. Hardly a surprise, since Harper has been advocating for closer ties to the United States for years. He has beefed up Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, committing troops for an additional two years, and has promised a $5.3-billion increase in military spending over the next five years. “Ideologically, the people who are driving the Conservative party—Harper and his entourage—are very much attuned to and aligned with the Bush Republican-style conservatism,” says Bruce Campbell, executive director of Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) in Ottawa.
Harper’s been ending his speeches with “God bless Canada” since last year’s campaign, but his emulation of the United States is more than just symbolic. Paul Martin’s Liberals laid the foundation for deep integration—the harmonization of U.S. and Canadian trade and border policies—and the Harper government has carried this agenda forward. The Canadian Council of Chief Executives, which lobbies government on behalf of big business, is spearheading the movement, arguing that the economies of the two countries are already so closely linked that most individual domestic laws aren’t needed. It may sound like a conspiracy theory, but for several years, task forces, working groups, commissions and cross-border consultations have been taking place on both sides of the border with the goal of harmonizing Canada-U.S. programs and procedures. In September, for example, Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor and Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day attended a top-secret meeting in Banff, Alberta, that discussed North American security and prosperity. The North American Forum was hosted with the help of the Canada West Foundation and the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and drew corporate executives and government officials from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. Reporters were kept in the dark about what, exactly, was discussed and who was in attendance.
Supporters of deep integration say it’s the only way Canada can stay competitive. Critics call it a threat to Canadian sovereignty that will lead to lopsided trade agreements and a loss of control of Canadian resources. Campbell notes that we are already feeling the impact of deep integration. Canada and the U.S. are at work integrating energy markets, and Canada is ramping up production of the Alberta oil patch to meet America’s growing energy needs. The bulk of Alberta oil goes to the United States, Campbell says, while the Maritimes and Quebec import about 90 percent of their oil needs and Ontario imports 50 percent. “It’s all about securing supply to meet U.S. energy needs,” he warns. “Here we are, this great energy superpower, as Stephen Harper likes to call us, and we’re importing 55 percent of our oil needs. That’s not an integrated national energy market.”
Canada has also followed America’s lead on the domestic front. In the area of crime and punishment, Canada has made a marked shift toward an American style of justice, with “serious time for serious crimes.” In October, Justice Minister Vic Toews unveiled his “three strikes and you’re out” legislation, which is based on similar U.S. legislation. The bill puts the onus on the defendant, proposing that anyone convicted of three violent or sexual crimes would have to convince a judge why he should not be classified as a dangerous offender. If he fails to do that, he faces a minimum seven years in prison before being eligible for parole (in contrast to the American law, Canada’s three-strikes legislation focuses on serious third offences only). The U.S. legislation has done little to deter crime south of the border and has cost an enormous amount of money. “A large amount of research in the U.S. has been overwhelmingly consistent in showing that these changes have no effect,” Tony Doob, a criminology professor at the University of Toronto, told The Globe and Mail last October. “Whether you bring in threestrike laws, or jump up and down and say ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ three times, it has the same effect…. The fact is that crime will sometimes go down. It has nothing to do with legislative changes.”
7. WELFARE STATE?
Last September’s $1-billion “trimming the fat” exercise was a subtle but definitive attack on social programs. The Youth Employment Strategy, which helped 50,000 young people find jobs last summer, was cut in half. The Conservatives also chopped $17.7 million off adult literacy programs, ended a $9.7 million program to encourage Canadians to volunteer and did away with the $5.6-million Court Challenges Program, which has funded legal action by human rights advocates.
The cuts don’t mark the end of the Canadian welfare state, but they do show a sign of what may be to come—major cuts, despite a major surplus ($13.2 billion in 2006). McQuaig points to the Conservatives’ withdrawal of $5 billion in child-care spending by the Liberals. “It had taken advocacy groups, women’s groups, decades to finally pressure and pin down government to set up that program,” McQuaig says. “The Tories just scrapped it as soon as they got into office. It’s absolutely, totally irresponsible.”
8. WITHER KYOTO
The Conservative record on the environment has been nothing short of catastrophic. Consider: The axed $1-billion Climate Fund has so far only been replaced by an incentive-based transit tax credit, which saves the average transit user a paltry $12 a month. The EnerGuide program, which helped people retrofit their homes to make them more energy efficient, has been eliminated. The list goes on. The Conservatives have also forced layoffs at Natural Resources Canada and cut the Canadian Climate Impacts and Adaptation Research Network. Their biggest crime, of course, has been to abandon Canada’s Kyoto Protocol targets. They’ve opted instead for the Clean Air Act, an initiative with the laughable target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. (Meanwhile, the federal government continues to send $1.5 billion a year in subsidies to the Alberta oil patch.)
Perhaps most alarming is the Conservatives’ ho-hum attitude toward the climate crisis. Many environmental experts interviewed for this article say Harper and his advisors may not even believe in climate change, despite overwhelming evidence and the endorsements of a plethora of leading scientific organizations. For example, the scientific consensus on climate change is clearly expressed in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for policy decisions. The panel concluded that the scientific consensus is that the Earth’s climate is being affected by human activities. Another recent study, conducted by researchers at NASA, Columbia University and the University of California at Santa Barbara, found the world is the warmest it’s been in 12,000 years—and humans are largely to blame.
But the Conservatives aren’t buying it. In November, the government appointed University of Western Ontario physics professor Christopher Essex, a climate change skeptic and Kyoto critic, to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, which controls $900 million a year in funding. Essex was one of 20 Canadian academics who signed an open letter to the prime minister in April that urged the government to scrap Kyoto, calling it an “irrational” squandering of billions of dollars. “There will always be people who say climate change isn’t happening,” says Dale Marshall, climate-change policy analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation. “But the question is, what is the body of evidence telling us? Overwhelmingly the science is saying climate change is happening. There’s no real dispute in the scientific community.”
“There is greater reason to feel comfortable with Mr. Harper today,” a Globe and Mail editorial declared last January. “He has shown himself to be an intelligent man and one, in this last campaign at least, who has learned to master his emotions. He has gained control of a party inclined to fly off in all directions, moved it to the centre and proposed a reasonable if imperfect governing platform.”
Forgive us if we’re skeptical. “This is a guy who will never change,” says Murray Dobbin, Vancouver-based journalist and author of Paul Martin: CEO for Canada? “The notion that Stephen Harper would change his fundamental values is just delusional. He is still viscerally contemptuous of his own country, and I think that puts him in a unique position of any prime minister in the history of the country. I can’t think of any other prime minister who actually hated his own country.” After all, Stephen Harper is the same man who, only a decade before, was head of the National Citizens Coalition, perhaps the most virulently right-wing organization in Canada, a group that was founded to oppose publicly funded, universal health care. He’s the same man who has advocated a firewall around Alberta to protect itself from a hostile federal government. The same man who has mocked Canadians’ understanding of their own country and who has called America’s conservative movement an inspiration. This is the same man who has made a career out of consistently and ardently criticizing Canada and its values. “Canada is a northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it,” Harper told the Council for National Policy, a right-leaning American think tank, at a June 1997 meeting in Montreal.
There is reason for optimism, however. Canadians’ dissatisfaction with the Conservative government is showing in recent polls. In a November CBC News and Environics Research Group poll, 29 percent of respondents said they would vote for the Conservatives if an election were held today, compared to 28 percent who would vote for the Liberal party—which did not have a leader at the time. Perhaps more tellingly, respondents said health care, the environment and the war in Afghanistan were the most important issues facing the country, while conservative pet topics— same-sex marriage, Canada-U.S. relations and government corruption—ranked near the bottom. That does not bode well for Conservatives. “Unless the Liberals are extremely incompetent after they choose their leader,” Dobbin says, “this will be the end of Harper.”
Here’s hoping.
Mitch Moxley is a freelance journalist based in Toronto, by way of Saskatchewan. His work has appeared in Maisonneuve, Toro, Geist, the Kyoto Journal and elsewhere.
A Home Away from Home
By Gregory Scarborough
From Cultural Survival Quarterly
2006
Maintaining cultural identity is hard enough for indigenous peoples in countries that are politically stable, but the problems are vastly more difficult when war and persecution push indigenous people into refugee camps across a border. Few indigenous people have had as much experience with those challenges as the Karen.
Riding north along the Thailand-Burma border en route from the town of Mae Sot to Mae La refugee camp, I held on tightly to my friend and translator Htsa Klo as he maneuvered our motorbike down the jungle road in the pouring rain. We shared the road with the cars of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) and other relief agencies, which zipped past us with their windows tinted and their occupants dry inside.
They reminded me of my conversations a few weeks earlier with the director of policy and research for one of the largest NGOs working with the refugees along the Thai-Burma border. Looking to gather interest and support for my research, I had hoped that the NGO would recognize the importance of understanding the cultural concerns of the Karen refugees in Mae La camp, many of whom have been displaced for decades and have been forced to weave a new socio-cultural fabric in a temporary home. She kindly let me know that looking at protection issues related to cultural heritage and cultural rights was “not related enough to the organization’s needs at this time.”
UNHCR, like other aid agencies, is more concerned with physical survival than cultural survival. They are now in the process of registering the refugees in the camp, preparing them to cross new international borders and resettle in third countries such as the United States, Australia, or Canada. As part of this process, the Thai authorities have increased their presence inside and around the camp, making passage into and out of the camp very difficult for anyone without an official ‘camp pass,’ which is given primarily to those working for NGOs. The refugees’ ability to trade with local communities was restricted by the increase in security, as was their access to education, because foreign volunteer English teachers, some having worked in the camps for years, were being told to leave. Without the support of international NGOs and official status, I was concerned about how Htsa Klo and I would cross into the camp and where we would sleep.
Refugees fleeing across international borders, like the Karen living in the Mae La camp in Thailand, face significant threats to the continuity of their traditions. Conflict affects not only refugees’ physical bodies but also the core of their identities. Peoples’ ancestral lands are burned, their houses are looted, prohibitions are often placed on education in native languages, and attacks specifically target those expressing their cultural identity through dress, music, and religious practices. As communities are forcefully disempowered and divided by those seeking political and economic power, their social networks and civil society are destroyed. In the process, they lose the context necessary for transmitting cultural practices and beliefs from one generation to another.
In the camps, people are intimidated or prohibited from practicing certain forms of cultural expression by overcrowding, rules regarding community space and noise, and the convergence of diverse communities in a common space. The lack of freedom to move, trade, and harvest plants makes it hard for people to get the materials they need to produce traditional clothes, crafts, instruments, ritual objects, and medicines. And then there’s the fact that many forms of cultural heritage are intimately tied to specific lands and livelihoods. Children have little opportunity to internalize beliefs and practices out of their original context and indeed may find no utility in many traditional practices so important to elders.
Under these conditions, protecting the treasury of histories, knowledge, practices, and beliefs—what UNESCO terms ‘intangible cultural heritage’—becomes especially important. Unfortunately, this need tends to fall through the cracks in the mandates of institutions set up to provide assistance. Humanitarian and development organizations have unique access to refugee populations and the responsibility to uphold refugees’ rights, including cultural rights. However, either due to unwillingness or lack of resources, their policies don’t consider the cultural concerns of those forced to flee violence and persecution. Organizations such as UNESCO, which are dedicated specifically to protecting cultural heritage, may embrace these issues in theory, but they often are not operational on the ground. Unfortunately, the intergovernmental systems through which cultural concerns might be addressed often leave refugees out of the discussion and formulation of protection policies.
The inspiration for this journey to Mae La camp began with the countless individuals I met in the Balkans, Turkey, and on the Philippine island of Mindanao, who, even after being uprooted from their homes, witnessing the atrocities of war, and, in many cases, being attacked as a direct result of their cultural identity, expressed deep concerns about the preservation of their culture. I wanted to listen to the Karen refugees’ concerns, and find out how the people themselves were addressing these issues.
Two hours after leaving Mae Sot we arrived at Mae La, a community of more than 40,000 refugees, their houses squeezed tightly together along the roadside and spreading into the distance, huddled up against the jungle cliffs. Though maps circulated by UNHCR label the camp as “Karen,” Mae La is in fact an incredibly diverse community. While Sgaw- and Pwo-speaking Karen are the majority, there are many linguistic, religious, and ethnic minorities in the camp, even within the Karen themselves—minorities whose unique identities and cultural needs are not captured by most humanitarian agencies’ demographic analyses. Their commonality lies in their forced flight from their homes in Burma due to the human rights abuses they have faced and the ongoing civil wars between the state and numerous ethnic insurgency groups pushing for recognition and independence. The refugees living in Mae La began pouring into Thailand in large numbers the mid-1980s, when the 55-year-old struggle by the Karen National Union to gain independence intensified dramatically. While families have arrived at different times, many have been displaced over a decade, if not two. In addition to the refugees living in Mae La and other refugee camps in Thailand, hundreds of thousands of Karen remain internally displaced within Burma. And those numbers are swelling as Karen villagers continue to be raped, subjected to forced labor, and even used as human mine-sweepers. Elders in the displaced communities miss their lands and fear dying in exile. Many children born in the camp have never known the homeland of Kawthoolei of which their families dream.
Htsa Kloo stopped our motorbike at the far end of the camp and took a sharp left down a dirt path. He told me he knew a secret way to enter the camp, through a gate at the end of Zone C that is used for the Karen Kawthoolei Baptist Bible School and College (KKBBSC) and its visitors. Nervously walking through the gate and past the Thai army outpost, we found our way to the Bible school. While most of the camp is cramped for space, KKBBSC sprawls across a broad complex, which includes a large library, classrooms, and gardens. There are also dormitories to host students whose families are still in Burma, as well as youngsters from neighboring Thai-Karen villages and even the occasional student from Bangkok. We announced our arrival to the director, Reverend Simon, who welcomed us with a tour and a room for the night. He was careful to ask us about our purpose in the camp and how long we would be staying, while mentioning the many camp visitors—the Koreans who just left and the Europeans who would arrive in a few days. I was both thankful (for my own luck) and amazed at how easy it was for the minister to host groups of missionaries, considering the increased security and the general prohibition against foreigners staying overnight. A student later told me that Reverend Simon has an agreement with the Thai Authorities, who make exceptions for the visitors who come to give Bible lessons and English classes at the school.
Normally, higher education in the camp is forbidden by the Thai authorities, and such activities are often conducted under the guise of religious education in Bible schools. With education and access to the outside world being two of the most prized resources in the camp, the minister’s agreement with Thai security forces and his relationships with foreign religious organizations provide a great asset to the Christian Karen who are able to study at the college. The school’s permanent teachers from India and the steady stream of visitors from Europe, Canada, the United States, and Asia give the students a chance to practice their English—an extremely valuable resource for those hoping to further their education and develop links beyond the camp—and allow them to transcend, even if minimally, their isolation from the outside world. My translator Hsta Klo had achieved his own English skills through religious studies at a mission school not far from the refugee camp.
Seeing the opportunities available in the Bible school, I wondered whether the education policies of the Thai authorities and the obvious support of foreign missionaries might encourage others in the camp to convert to Christianity and leave behind their own cultural practices. In Mae La camp, the Christian Karen community is especially well organized, and their political power within the Karen National Union has enabled them to infuse their ideology into Karen institutions responsible for education and camp affairs. Tun Tun, a local teacher who also organizes a summer course in Pwo Karen language and culture, told me about the many economic, social, and political barriers for non-Christians to establish Buddhist schools or improve literacy in languages other than the Sgaw Karen dialect, which most Christians speak. Not only is it more difficult for Buddhists and linguistic minorities to find funding for their schools, but powerful lobbies within the Christian Karen community have actively tried to block such schools from being formed in the first place. Clearly, NGOs working with indigenous refugees need to be ethnographically informed so they don’t contribute to conditions in which people have to abandon their cultural identity to gain access to scarce resources.
After a nap, we left the Bible school to walk around the camp and meet with community elders, teachers, and young people working on cultural issues. With most of this community having been displaced for years, they have done everything possible to make the camp look and feel more like home. Except for the numerous Thai army checkpoints and the barbed wire fence that forbids entrance, the settlement might appear from the road as a massive, overpopulated, hill-tribe village. The muddy paths are landscaped with jungle plants and flowers, the bamboo houses are not unlike those found in neighboring villages, and they have set aside a large area as a football field and reserved spaces for churches, mosques, temples, and monasteries. Then there is the music, which one hears everywhere: teens playing the guitar and singing songs about love, God, and revolution; church choirs waking the guests of the Baptist Bible School with their early morning praises; Buddhist monks chanting prayers in monasteries; and every so often the calming melodies of the Karen harp, t’nah, wrapping its voice around the sound of falling rain. Underneath the leaf-thatched roofs of their homes, women and their daughters weave the brightly colored bags that are carried by almost everyone in the camp, while elder men and women with red and black stained teeth sit nearby, chewing betel nut in the corner.
On our way to meet a respected elder in the camp’s Buddhist community, we crossed a small bridge, dodging young children running home in their traditional Karen shirts—the required school uniform on Wednesdays—and passed through a large market run primarily by the camp’s Muslim community. It is so well supplied that many Thai-Karen come from nearby villages to do their shopping in the camp. A short distance from the market we arrived at the house of Sein Tin Aye, the Buddhist leader. As we climbed the steps of his home and kicked off our muddy flip-flops at the door, he greeted us wearing a long fluorescent-pink sarong and white button-down shirt. His home was constructed as a temple, marked by a 20-foot-long altar decorated with colorful plastic tassels, Buddhist symbols, posters of monks, and vases of jungle plants and flowers.
Sein Tin Aye originally left his home in the Pa’an district of Burma for the border region in the early 1980s, in order to serve the Karen revolution using his medical skills. He is not your typical doctor, but rather a traditional healer who used his knowledge and spiritual power to help the soldiers suffering from snakebites, malaria, and other injuries and ailments faced by those fighting in the dense jungle. In an interview with the Burmese Border Consortium he laid down his philosophy as a healer: “You must be disciplined and clean in every part of living, in your mind and your body. You can never allow bad thoughts; you must always control your character and be clean.” After the Burmese army became aware of his work on the border, he was forced to come to Thailand, where he has lived for more than 16 years as a refugee, passing on his spiritual knowledge.
In addition to his role as a spiritual elder, Sain Tin Aye trains young people to play traditional Karen music, both independently and with his ensemble, the Golden Pestle. Recently he has also been working as a teacher for a traditional music project initiated by the Shanti Volunteer Organization, a Japanese NGO.
Treating us to sweet instant coffee and strong Karen cigars (cheroots), our host shared his story and his insights into the way his culture is influenced by the conflict and displacement. He brought out a book published inside Burma by the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), a Karen political and military movement that split from the main Karen National Union and now cooperates with the Burmese military in exchange for self-governance in the areas they control. The book was an effort to create a new writing script that would be mutually intelligible by both Sgaw- and Pwo-speaking Karen. But neither Sain Tin Aye nor my translator could understand the new writing, though they were literate in the Pwo, Sgaw, and Leit San Weit scripts.
Sein Tin Aye recognized the original aim of the endeavor as a way to unite Sgaw and Pwo Karen in a time of conflict and disunity, but he felt that the actual effect would be further divisions between Karen peoples. While people who live in DKBA-controlled territory inside Burma might learn this new script, those in refugee camps and educated in the Karen Education Department’s camp schools (supported by the primarily Christian Karen National Union) would learn only the older Burmese-adapted script for the Sgaw dialect. He feared that if the DKBA project succeeded, over time the two Karen communities might no longer be able to communicate with each other in writing. It is one of many ways in which language, history, and other forms of cultural heritage are co-opted in political crisis as groups try to define their national ethnic identity or assert a political movement’s legitimacy.
Refugees themselves also construct various accounts of the histories and origins of the Karen people as they seek to know where they are from and strengthen claims to the land from which they have been displaced. A week earlier in another refugee camp, Umphiem Mai, I met with Moo Thaw Khee, a member of the Karen Cultural Committee, who is working to create a museum of Karen culture and history inside the Umphiem camp. He spread out his map of the world to teach me about the “Origins of the Karen People,” a version he discovered during his time in the camps, surely under the influence of missionaries. After making some simple calculations, he explained that the Karen people had first lived in the Himalaya Mountains, then left for Mt. Ararat in Turkey during the Great Flood before settling in Babylon for many years. Later, they returned to the Gobi Desert and eventually followed the Salween River to their present lands in Burma and Thailand. Neither of the two Buddhist Karen translators I was with had heard this version of their history and I was not so sure they believed it. While this story of the Karen’s origins may not have anything to do with reality in a factual sense, it demonstrates the needs of displaced people to search for their roots.
Later in the afternoon, Sein Tin Aye’s students and members of his music ensemble, the Golden Pestle, arrived: Two young girls, Eh Khee and Paw Klay, who sing and play the traditional Karen harp (t’nah); Eh Thoo, with his Karen violin (thaw tu); and Thai Thaw Khee, a young man who plays a modern mandolin as well as the t’nah. Following Sein Tin Aye’s direction, they picked up their instruments one by one to demonstrate their skills. The group played both traditional love songs and some of their teacher’s original compositions, which the group planned to present during an upcoming performance competition at the yearly wrist-tying festival, Lah Khu (see the accompanying photo essay). The songs performed by Sain Tin Aye and his group, while using traditional Karen melodies and instrumentation, are heavily influenced by the context of displacement. New songs speak directly about the issues and emotions of refugee life, and older folk stories are re-interpreted to find continuity and meaning in the current crisis. Many of Sein Tin Aye’s compositions speak to the Karen community about the importance of unity and keeping their traditions alive.
While singing, they each held a similar posture: With their spines straight and their spirits internally composed, they stared with a subtle passion, humble and hopeful, upwards and out into the distance.
After all his students had their turn, Sein Tin Aye picked up his k’nat (Karen mandolin) and plucked, slowly and softly, a tune about separation and loss that reminded me of the sweet sadness of an old bluegrass love song. As the evening set in, Htsa Klo and I left Sein Tin Aye’s home after agreeing to return the next day to record a CD for the Golden Pestle that they could give to other foreign visitors and the camp radio station. Passing back over the bridge, where women were washing clothes and bathing their children in the river below, we approached the Bible school and shared our day with the students and our host. We were surprised when Reverend Simon said that due to security we were not allowed to cross the bridge and visit other people and places in the camp. He added, however, that we were more than welcome to spend some days with the students at the Bible school. Not wanting to break our promise to the Golden Pestle nor disobey the reverend, we decided to leave the school that evening and sleep at the home of Sein Tin Aye’s neighbor.
As I fell asleep that night thinking about the next morning’s recording session, I heard Sein Tin Aye’s poignant song again in my mind, a song that seemed to capture perfectly the Karen’s longing for home:
At the end of the road everything is gone.
Many trees and many branches, it is not the same country.
Many new things appear, black and red.
In the foreign lands, by the riverside in the bush,
We sit down together, I hold your hand,
I hold it tight, friendly and tempted.
We must part to foreign lands.
Greg Scarborough is the director of Cultural Cornerstones and is currently a visiting scholar at the Feinstein International Famine Center at Tufts University in Boston. He can be reached at gregoryscarborough@gmail.com. The music of Sein Tin Aye’s group, the Golden Pestle, can be heard at www.culturalcornerstones.org
Venezuela's Chávez Announces World Bank Debt Has Been Paid Off
By: TeleSur/Prensa Web RNV
From venezuelanalysis.com
2007
"With this last payment (to the World Bank), paying off the debt that was almost 3 billion dollars in 1998, I can say to them today that we don't owe a cent of debt either to the International Monetary Fund or to the World Bank," he exclaimed.
President Hugo Chávez Frías, announced this Friday that Venezuela paid off the debt that it owed to the World Bank. "Yesterday (on Thursday) we paid the last installment of the debt (. . .) to the World Bank." Thus he highlighted it during a ceremony that was held around the Palace of Miraflores, right at the heart of Caracas, to commemorate the 13th of April of 2002, the day when a civic-military rebellion restored the constitutional order in Venezuela.
"With this last payment (to the World Bank), paying off the debt that was almost 3 billion dollars in 1998, I can say to them today that we don't owe a cent of debt either to the International Monetary Fund or to the World Bank," he exclaimed. The Venezuelan head of state declared that he felt "happy" about the end of this obligation, after reminding the audience that Venezuela helped the "sister Republic of Argentina pay its debt to the International Monetary Fund."
"I feel very happy that Venezuela has helped Argentina free itself from the International Monetary Fund. Argentina no longer owes anything to the IMF, among other things, thanks to the support of Venezuela," he said.
"We have then transformed Venezuela, from an indebted and bound country that we were, . . . to a modest but important country and financial center that supports other countries and peoples," he added.
This Friday, on the 13th of April, Venezuela was a scene of popular and military ceremonies presided over by President Hugo Chávez, to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the civic-military response that "squashed" the coup d'état of April 2002, which had interrupted for 47 hours the mandate of the Venezuelan president.
The commemoration is made under the motto "Every 11th Gets Its 13th," to remember that the coup of the 11th of April of 2002 got its response on the 13th of the same month, when loyal forces and thousands of followers of the revolutionary process that is alive in Venezuela made the triumphant return of the president possible.
Ecuador Pays Off IMF Debt, Says Will Sever Ties with Institution
From The Hearld Tribune
Ecuador's leftist president said Sunday the country has paid off its debt to the International Monetary Fund and will sever ties with the financial institution.
In a news conference in the port city Guayaquil, Rafael Correa said it was a "happy coincidence" that Ecuador made the US$9 million (€6.7 million) payment to the "international bureaucracy" the same week fellow leftist country Venezuela said it had paid off its remaining debt with the IMF and World Bank.
"We don't want to hear anything more from that international bureaucracy," Correa said, brushing off suspicions that "we are imitating brother nation Venezuela."
When he took office three months ago, Correa, a U.S.-trained economist, vowed to renegotiate the country's US$16.4 billion (€12.1 billion) foreign debt and direct resources to programs to help the poor.
Correa, a staunch ally of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, has frequently criticized the "unacceptable conditions" of IMF loans, and said Sunday that the institution has "been harmful for the country."
Argentina to Pay Off Debt Early
By Daniel Schweimler
From BBC News
Argentina has said it will pay its $10bn debt to the International Monetary Fund three years early. President Nestor Kirchner said Argentina needed control of the tools to build its independence.
His announcement came two days after Brazil, in a similar move, said it would pay off its $15bn debt.
Argentine relations with the IMF have been difficult since the country's government defaulted on a debt of over $100bn four years ago.
Millions of dollars were taken out of the country and many of Argentina's large middle class found themselves knocking on the ramshackle doors of the country's growing shanty towns.
Tens of thousands of others left to start new lives abroad.
But, against the odds, Mr Kirchner has turned things around.
Long wait
Earlier this year his government renegotiated more than $100bn of debt with private creditors and now he has said that the IMF will get the $10bn dollars it is owed by the end of the year - three years early.
The money will come from Argentina's foreign reserves and by paying off the debt they will save $1bn in interest.
The economy is growing at an impressive rate and, speaking after the president, new Economy Minister Felisa Miceli said exports were at a record high.
The head of the IMF, Rodrigo Rato, said he was sure that paying off the debt would bring positive results for Argentina.
The economic future certainly looks brighter than it did just a few years ago but it will still be some time before the benefits of this move filter down to the many Argentines living below the poverty line and to those still reeling from the crisis four years ago.
Argentina, Brazil Pay Off Debt to IMF; Bankers Nervous
By Cynthia R. Rush
From Executive Intelligence Review
2005
During the week of Dec. 11-17, the governments of Brazil and Argentina unexpectedly announced that they would pay off the balances owed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) before the end of this year. On Dec. 13, Brazilian Finance Minister Antonio Palocci told reporters that the Lula da Silva government would dip into its sizable $63 billion in reserves to pay the $15.56 billion it owed, noting this would save $900 million in interest payments. Two days later, Argentine President Néstor Kirchner announced that he would also use Central Bank reserves to pay an outstanding balance of $9.8 billion, saving $1 billion in interest payments.
While IMF Managing Director Rodrigo Rato nominally "welcomed" both actions, he was decidedly unenthusiastic about Argentina's decision. President Kirchner's Dec. 15 speech at the Presidential palace was a strong nationalist attack on IMF policies for plunging Argentina into poverty and indigence. His denunciation of the Fund, and assertion that by paying off the $9.8 billion, "we are burying a good portion of the ominous past of infinite indebtedness and eternal adjustment," brought the audience of business leaders, provincial governors, legislators, trade unionists, and human rights activists to their feet in an ovation.
Two members of the LaRouche Youth Movement were also present and were able to hand out copies of EIR and several of Lyndon LaRouche's strategic writings to Cabinet members and other attendees.
Rato said on Dec. 16 that he was pleased with Argentina's repayment plan, but that the country faces "important challenges and opportunities," and that the Fund stands ready to come to its assistance in meeting those challenges. In his year-end press conference a few days later, he made a point of saying that Argentina still has many "pending reforms" to be carried out, and that it would do well to follow Brazil's example of a "prudent" and "coherent" fiscal and monetary policy.
In contrast, Rato exuberantly declared that Brazil's announcement reflected the "growing strength of its external position" and "excellent track record of policy management by Brazilian authorities." The Fund, he said, "looks forward to continuing a close and constructive relationship with the Brazilian authorities."
What's the Difference?
There is no big mystery behind Rato's quite different responses to what were, on the surface, similar decisions by the two governments. As soon as he took office on Jan. 1, 2002, President Lula abandoned the anti-IMF pledges of his campaign, and with typically Brazilian pragmatism, accepted the IMF's policy dictates.
In his Dec. 13 announcement, Wall Street agent Palocci, along with fellow financial predator Henrique Meirelles, president of Brazil's Central Bank, attributed the government's ability to make this prepayment to the success of the orthodox IMF policies they have enforced for the last three years.
Not so with Kirchner. The debt owed the IMF "has been a constant vehicle for interference, because it is subject to periodic review and is a source of demands and more demands," he said. "The International Monetary Fund has acted toward our country as a promotor of, and vehicle for, policies which provoked poverty and pain among the Argentine people, at the hand of governments that were lauded as exemplary students of permanent adjustment. Our people can corroborate that."
The experience of Argentina's Dec. 23, 2001 default on $88 billion in public debt, and the devastating crisis that ensued, is sufficient proof, he noted, "that that international agency first backed real political failures"—the currency board policies of the 1990s—and then "wouldn't give one penny of aid to [help us] overcome the crisis or to restructure the debt."
For a long time, Kirchner explained, "we have been instructed in impotence and told that we can't do anything.... They wanted to instill in our soul the certainty that reality is untouchable.... They wanted to make us believe that not to do anything new is the only realistic option." But now, he warned, the Argentine President will use his "popular mandate" to act as a protagonist, in the best interests of Argentina's people.
It's the Global System
Despite their economic policy differences, the process involving Argentina and Brazil is complex, precisely because of the existing conditions of global financial meltdown, combined with the political upheaval taking place in Washington, D.C.
Lyndon LaRouche remarked on Dec. 16 that Ibero-American governments all know that the Bush Administration is not in the greatest shape, and they are taking steps to free themselves of as many sources of threat as possible, and get some degree of management over their own affairs. While prepayment to the IMF may take the form of a concession, he said, these are concessions to end concessions. "They are saying, 'We did this nice thing by paying you. You demanded it; now why don't you be reasonable?' "
Moreover, LaRouche explained, the very interesting aspect to this is that the IMF is no longer the creditor. There is a fiduciary relationship between the IMF and these countries, but no such relationship exists between debtors and private interests, many of whose alleged debts are of very dubious character. So, the ability to impose regulation on these countries' internal balances is ended, LaRouche underscored. "None of these creditors has the power to demand—that is, with the force of regulatory authority—that the debtors obey." They have no judicial authority.
This makes synarchist financier interests very nervous. They don't like the reports that the Brazilian and Argentine Presidents discussed their actions beforehand, first at their bilateral meeting Nov. 30 in Puerto Iguazú, Brazil, and then with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez during the Dec. 8-9 Mercosur (Southern Cone Common Market) summit in Uruguay. Chávez's role in this decision was to agree to substantially increase his purchase of Argentina's public debt bonds, for which Kirchner thanked him in his Dec. 15 speech.
Reflecting the concerns of the synarchists, London's Financial Times fretted in its Dec. 16 edition that repayment by "two large borrowers" like Brazil and Argentina "raises fresh questions about how the Fund will pay for its operations at a time of low demand for its loans."
'Harmonization of Interests'
In the current global context, financiers are fearful that the "heterodox" policy path that President Kirchner has outlined, especially in the wake of his solid victory in the Oct. 23 midterm elections, could affect developments in Brazil, where there is a raging brawl taking place over IMF policy. Members of Lula's own Cabinet—Vice President José Alencar, Chief of Staff Dilma Rouseff, and Industry and Trade Minister Luiz Furlan, among others—have publicly attacked the Palocci/Meirelles duo for savaging real production and living standards, with their lunatic policies of 18.75% interest rates and a primary budget surplus equivalent to 4.25% of Gross Domestic Product.
When the Argentine President fired Finance Minister Roberto Lavagna on Nov. 28 and replaced him with economist Felisa Miceli, president since 2003 of the state-run Banco de la Nación, it set off alarm bells at the IMF and among allied banking circles. Miceli had experience in devising state financing programs for public development projects, and unlike Lavagna, didn't buy the idea that orthodox austerity measures were the only way to combat Argentina's increasing inflation.
The Cabinet change was scrutinized carefully in Brazil. According to the Dec. 3 Brazilian daily O Globo, when IMF Deputy Managing Director Anne Krueger visited Brasilia on Dec. 1, she worriedly asked everyone she met, "Do you know anything about Felisa Miceli? Where she came from, and where she's going?" O Globo's columnist asked whether Miceli would become "the Dilma Roussef of the land of Kirchner," alluding to the firestorm that Lula's Chief of Staff set off on Nov. 9, with her barrage against her government's economic policy.
Argentina's state press agency Télam published on its website this author's article from EIR of Dec. 9, which includes LaRouche's analysis of, and support for, Kirchner's dumping of Lavagna.
To the horror of foreign bankers and free-marketeers, Kirchner and Miceli have not only become "interventionist," but have echoed the "harmony of interests" concept most identified with the great 19th-Century American System economist Henry C. Carey. Miceli used the term "harmonization of interests" on Dec. 2 in discussing price-reduction agreements reached with representatives of different economic sectors.
On Dec. 7, Kirchner told business leaders that he would fight growing inflation, not by imposing the IMF's recommended austerity measures, but by issuing a $1.5 billion credit line through the Banco de la Nación, for productive investment in purchase of capital goods for industry and agriculture. The ten-year loans carry subsidized interest rates.
But he also told the businessmen that they had a great "social responsibility" to ensure that their profit levels are balanced with protecting the General Welfare. "There are methodologies," he said, "that will allow us to reconcile interests, such that those who stay at home, those who work hard, will absolutely be protected by a responsible State," and by business, "with the responsible support" of workers and their organizations.
CIA, Drugs, and Wall Street (Excerpt)
By Michael C. Ruppert
From From the Wilderness.com
1999
I have been saying for years that you could show a video of George Bush ordering drug runs, CIA agents laundering money and flying airplanes full of drugs and no one in power would do anything about it. They would not be able to. In this issue I will tell you, and the House, about something almost as damning - a partially authenticated letter, written on CIA letterhead and stamped "Top Secret", ostensibly written and signed by CIA Director William J. Casey in late 1986, that admits to direct participation in the drug trade.
I have been aware of the existence of this letter for approximately five months. I have had it read to me in its entirety. It was not until I was given this last chance by HPSCI to present "all of the information of which you are aware on the allegations" that I was able to obtain an "On the Record" statement about the letter from Attorney Ray Kohlman. The letter will be admitted into evidence in a new trial motion for former Green Beret William Tyree in the near future. When that happens, From The Wilderness will publish the letter, both on the Internet and in the newsletter.
Now that the House has indicated its intent to close the matter for good and all it is time to bring the letter forward - for good and all. I will also see to it that the letter is widely distributed enough so that any of the major news organizations will be able to follow up on it. The information in this issue is enough for the House Intelligence Committee to go to the CIA and compel it to confirm or deny the letter's authenticity. If nothing happens with further hearings, or with the letter, I will tell you in advance exactly why.
Reading The Right Map
Contributing Editor Catherine Austin Fitts, who was a Managing Director at Dillon Read before becoming Assistant Secretary of Housing under George Bush and who holds an MBA from Wharton makes things very simple. She points out that the four largest states for the importation of drugs are New York, Florida, Texas and California. She then points out that the top four money laundering states in the U.S. (good for between 100 and 260 billion per year) are New York, Florida, Texas and California. No surprise there. Then she rips the breath from your lungs by pointing out that 80 per cent of all Presidential campaign funds come from - New York, Florida, Texas and California.
Civics test: Who are the current governors of Texas and Florida?
From The Wilderness has been working on a story for an upcoming issue that will show conclusively, using testimony of law enforcement officers and U.S. Government records, that Dominican drug gangs, who dominate the trade in the northeast United States - especially New York and Pennsylvania - have been making regular campaign donations to the Clinton-Gore-Democratic camp since the early 90s. California drug sales are currently split between Democratically allied crime factions and entrenched hard core Republican strongholds from the Reagan era. People who shudder at the thought of the Chinese buying into presidential politics would choke if they knew how much drug money was involved.
Why? Again, the answer is simpler than you might think. While the Department of Justice estimates that $100 billion in drug funds are laundered in the U.S. each year, other research, including research material from the Andean Commission of Jurists cited by author Dan Russell in his soon to be published book Drug War place the figure at around $250 billion per year. Catherine Austin Fitts places the figure at $250 to $300 billion. Given the fact that the UN estimated that in the early 1990s world retail volume in the illegal drugs was $440 billion, $250 billion seems about right. Fitts, using her Wall Street experience as an investment banker is then quick to point out that the multiplier effect (x6) of $250 billion laundered would result in $1.5 trillion dollars per year in U.S. cash transactions resulting from the drug trade. How many jobs does $1.5 trillion represent? Why do President's get re-elected? As Bill Clinton's staff recognized in 1992, "It's the economy -Stupid!"
During the Contra years, when the CIA and Bill Clinton were swimming in cocaine, and Arkansas became the only state in the Union to ever issue bearer bonds (laundry certificates), employment in Arkansas rose to an all time high because there was so much money floating around. So what if they donÕt count all the dead bodies like two young boys Kevin Ives and Don Henry, shot, bludgeoned and dismembered on a railroad track after witnessing CIA drug drops. "It's the economy - Stupid!"
The Pop
Corporations trading on Wall Street, including many implicated in money laundering schemes where products are sold with questionable bookkeeping throughout drug producing regions, all have stock values that are based upon annual net profits. Known as "price to earnings" or "The Pop" the multiplier effect in stock values is sometimes as much as a factor of thirty.
Thus, for a firm like GE or Piper Aircraft to have an additional $10 million in net profits based upon the drug trade, the net increase in these companies' stock value could be as much as $300,000,000. Did GE make a $10 million net profit on consumer products in Latin America last year? Easily. And since GE owns NBC is there a chance that accurate reporting on the drug trade and CIA's involvement therein might hurt their stock?
Disney owns ABC and has a huge retail, resort and entertainment empire that benefits from the "drug multiplier." Would ABC consider hurting its parent's stock value? Ronald Reagan's CIA Director, William Casey had been Chief Counsel to Cap Cities Broadcasting until 1981. His old law firm represented Cap Cities when it bought the ABC network in 1985. ABC's Peter Jennings, by the way, had been doing a series of investigative reports on the CIA drug bank (and successor to the Nugan Hand bank) Bishop, Baldwin, Rewald, Dillingham and Wong when the buyout was initiated. Cap Cities (not surprisingly) secured SEC approval in record time and effectively and immediately silenced Peter Jennings who had previously refused to back down from Casey's threats. Thereafter ABC was referred to as "The CIA network."
I have no doubt that the ABC "object lesson" was front and center for CNN founder Ted Turner and Time-Warner when Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell and (CIA vet) John Singlaub put the pressure on in the wake of April Oliver's 1998 "dead bang accurate" Sarin gas stories connecting CIA to the killing of American defectors.
Every major media corporation in the country trades on Wall Street. There are no "independents" left and the American people are left with the increasing cognitive dissonance of recognizing that they are being fed useless bullshit. I wonder how they would respond to real a news corporation if they saw or heard one.
It's Legal to be Bad
It is also perfectly legal for a Wall Street brokerage or investment bank to go "offshore" and borrow once laundered drug money to finance a corporate merger or leveraged buyout (LBO). Why do this? If you were a major multi-national corporation in a cutthroat competition to buy a company with a hundred million in sales (which might boost your stock value $3 billion) you would be willing to pay a seemingly outrageous price. [How much would you be willing to spend to make $3 billion? - 2.9?]. All an LBO is is an acquisition financed on borrowed money. If you are Goldman-Sachs, arranging the deal, and you can borrow laundered drug money at five per cent or a bank's money at ten per cent where are you going to go? Remember that since the cost of capital is lower using laundered drug money you are now able to outbid all the other competitors because your total payback stays the same. Does this actually happen? In 1998 the Russians asked for only $18 billion to save their entire economy. With $440 billion a year moving around how could it not happen?
And a major drug dealer, like a Carlos Lehder, a Pablo Escobar, an Amado Fuentes, a Matta Ballesteros or a Hank Rohn, sitting around with ten billion dollars of useless illegal money, is more than happy to loan it at five percent because his money is now legal and liquid. And, if one goes to prison or dies, there is always another dealer to fill the void so that the supply is not interrupted. The drug trade now has power because it is underwriting the investments of the largest corporations in the world. It underwrites politicians. It has hooked the gringos on Wall Street whose own children sometimes die from its drugs. Wall Street cannot afford to let the drug barons fall. Congress cannot afford to let the drug barons fall. Presidents and their campaign finances cannot afford to let the drug barons fall. Why? Because our top down economy, controlled by one per cent, cannot take the risk of letting competition (business or political) have the edge of using drug money. The third world has its revenge for European colonialism but Wall Street still calls the shots. And for every million dollars of increased sales or increased revenues from a buyout, the stock equity of the one per cent who control Wall Street, increases twenty to thirty times.
Remember - The National Security Act of 1947, which created the CIA, was written by Wall Street lawyer and banker Clark Clifford. Clark Clifford is the man who brought the CIA backed drug bank BCCI into the United States. Allen Dulles who virtually designed the CIA and served as its Director, and his brother John Foster who was Eisenhower's Secretary of State, were Wall Street lawyers from the firm Sullivan and Cromwell. Dwight Eisenhower's personal liaison with the CIA was none other than Nelson Rockefeller. William Casey was Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission under Richard Nixon. Former CIA Directors from William Raborn to William Webster to Robert Gates to James Woolsey to John Deutch all sit or have sat on the Boards of the largest, richest and most powerful companies in America.
As we near the millenium one thing is clear to anyone who sees the economic system clearly. The system is on the verge of implosion. Privately owned and operated prison companies trade on Wall Street. One of those, Wackenhut, is a virtual CIA proprietary. We have entered, at the end of the industrial age, a phase of growth where we must incarcerate an ever expanding number of people to sustain the growth of all the companies profiting from law enforcement, crime, imprisonment and war. And the overheated stock market must grow or collapse. The reason this nation spends five dollars on prisons for every one dollar on higher education - even after seven straight years of falling crime rates - is because there is more profit in it in the current economic model. Hell, we have turned police departments into profit making entities through asset forfeiture. This is insane!
This economic model is patently no more sustainable than a snake eating its own tail can be considered nourishment. Organized crime has become the government and it seeks to make all citizens become subliminally guilty participants, fearing for their own livelihoods, believing that the system will collapse if someone really tackles the issues facing us - as surely as the iceberg faced the Titanic.
The system will collapse anyway - unless the economic model is turned upside down - unless a way is found or offered which will make it more profitable than all other ways - to do the right thing. The only thing that will sustain the current economic system, and its dependence on drug capital, is a police state. New enforcement programs involving HUD and the Department of Justice such as Project "Safe Streets" and "Weed and Seed" - along with their corresponding butchery of the Constitution - show an emerging police state already. The conduct of Congress and the White House in the CIA drug investigations further demonstrate the arrogance, the fear and the ever-increasing sloppiness of a system out of control.
The veneer, the illusion that we live under the rule of law cracks before our eyes, grows thinner and ever more difficult to sell with each passing minute. All at once the fears of the right of a New World Order and the fears of the left, of new concentration camps and genocide suddenly become one and the same thing. Dogma matters little to the oppressed. Pain tastes the same whether you call it Fascism or Communism. Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas, co-founder of the Medellin Cartel, who was given a life sentence in 1990, now enjoys the sunshine at his home in the Bahamas. He frolics regularly with gaming magnate and owner of the Atlantis Hotel Sol Kerzner. His guests at parties include Kevin Costner who played (I am sorry to say) both Elliot Ness and Jim Garrison. Manuel Noriega will probably be out of prison before Bill Clinton leaves office. The Kosovo Liberation Army has been funded with drug money and has trained with Islamic terrorist Osama bin Laden. The son of a documented drug trafficker, who very few people in this country even know anything about, is "scheduled" to become our next President, simply because he has the most money and he and his backers control most of "The Pop."
How much time can this government have? How much time does it deserve? Bill Clinton's Farewell Address should probably be, "Apres moi, le deluge."
If you want to know MORE about this subject,
may we recommend the following:
- Extracts and Commentary from Vol. II of the CIA Inspector General's Report.
- CIA Drugs and the Impeachment (video)
- The Salon at Fraser Court (5/99)
Self-Publishing: A Proud Tradition, A Promising Future
By Brent Erickson
From Plus Ultra
In 1989, James (then 39) quit his job as a therapist to work on his book full-time. Drawing on his interest in Psychology, Eastern Philosophy, Ecology, and History, he completed what he believed to be a fine first novel.
James began sending his manuscript to publishers in 1992. He received a few cautious offers, but they did not feel right to the aspiring novelist, so he decided to self-publish the book. With the help of his wife Salle, James sold his novel out of the trunk of their car. “Of the first 3,000 copies we printed, we mailed or personally gave away 1,500 to small book shops and individuals…” recalls James, “Word of mouth recommendations took care of everything else.”
Thanks to grassroots enthusiasm for his novel James's book was soon picked up by a major publisher. The Celestine Prophecy was published in hard cover in 1994, As of 2005, it had sold over 20 million copies worldwide and had been translated into 34 languages, making James Redfield a household name.
Though the story of James Redfield and The Celestine Prophecy is an extreme success story, a surprising number of authors got their start as self-publishers. The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. was originally self-published for his classes at Cornell University. Twelve Golden Threads by Aliske Webb was rejected by 150 publishers, but after self-publishing and selling 25,000 copies, Webb signed a four-book contract with HarperCollins. A Time to Kill by John Grisham was self-published, and like James Redfield, Grisham sold his first novel from the trunk of his car.
The List of authors who began as self-publishers reads like a who’s who of classic writers, giving historical context to a practice often looked down upon by the mainstream literary world. Virginia Wolff, E.E. Cummings, William Blake, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Irma Rombauer, Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman, Mary Baker Eddy, William E.B. Dubois, Mark Twain, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Ezra Pound, George Bernard Shaw, and Anais Nin all had to prove themselves with self-publishing before being picked up by the major publishers.
Today, thanks to modern technology aspiring authors have more tools available to them then their predecessors could ever have dreamed of. Three of the most promising developments for self-publishing in modern times are, Desktop Publishing programs, Print on Demand method of publishing, and the Blogging revolution.
With a personal computer, printer and affordable desktop publishing software, writers can create high quality publications complete with visual elements all from the comfort of their homes.
Print on demand or POD is a methodology in which a copy of the book is not created until after an order is received. This style of publishing was impossible in the past due to the costs involved, but now because of low printing costs it is a fast growing way to sell the works of young writers.
The term blog is derived from the words Web-log but blogging is more than,what has come to be called, “Vanity publishing”. With millions of people surfing the net everyday a blog is a method of self-publishing that holds a lot of potential for young writers.
Free web space, affordable programs, print on demand method, all that is missing now is the next James Redfield. Start making room in the trunk!
Risky Business
Climate change “quick-fixes” are good for business, but may prove disastrous for the environment.
By Hillary Bain Lindsay
FromThe Dominion
"With the impacts of climate change becoming more evident every day and the need for action more urgent, it's likely that rich, panicky governments will gamble on quick-fixes rather than risk inconveniencing their electorate and/or offending industry." This is the warning expressed in a recent report from the Ottawa-based Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC Group).
"Every crazy idea is being brought out and dusted off to try out on policy makers," says Pat Mooney, co-author of the report and executive director of the ETC Group.
The focus of the report, entitled Gambling with Gaia, is geoengineering. Geoengineering is the intentional, large-scale manipulation of the environment by humans to bring about environmental change, particularly to counteract the undesired side-effects of other human activities.
Among the scientists covered in the report is Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen, whose controversial geoengineering essay proposes to blast particles of sulphur into the stratosphere – increasing particulate pollution – to shield the Earth from the sun's rays. Crutzen presented his findings at the UN conference on climate change in Nairobi in November 2006. An Associated Press report notes that Crutzen said he was "not enthusiastic" about the proposal, but made it to startle policymakers into realizing that "if they don't take action [on climate change] much more strongly than they have in the past, then in the end we have to do experiments like this."
Despite his intent, the Nobel Laureate noted that the reception to his idea was "more positive" than expected. The article notes that during the same week as the UN convention, NASA's Ames Research Center was hosting a closed-door, high-level workshop on Crutzen's proposal and other geoengineering ideas for fending off climate change.
Geoengineering isn't only being discussed behind closed doors. Experiments have also begun on the open ocean, reports the ETC Group. Since 1993, there have been at least 10 experiments to seed sections of the ocean's surface (from 50 to 150 square kilometres) with iron filings. The European Union and at least nine national governments – including Canada's – have supported these "iron fertilization" projects. The experiments are based on the argument that iron nurtures plankton growth -- and plankton absorbs carbon dioxide through photosynthesis.
It's not clear whether carbon dioxide absorbed by plankton will remain permanently sequestered, however. "You can't get two scientists to agree on the results," says Mooney. "Some say they see great potential in the field. Others say that the carbon dioxide may be captured temporarily, but might pop up again in a few weeks." The consensus that does exist, continues Mooney, is that this is "risky business."
After one expedition in 2002, in which three tonnes of iron particles were dumped into the ocean, the project's chief scientist, Dr. Kenneth Coale, told Popular Science: "What is still a mystery is the ripple effect on the rest of the ocean and the food chain." One fear, notes Popular Science, is that huge plankton blooms, in addition to gorging on CO2, will devour other nutrients. "A fertilization event to take care of atmospheric CO2 could have the unintended consequence of turning the oceans sterile," said Coale.
Despite the uncertainty within the science community regarding whether iron fertilization works, or if it has unintended consequences (like the sterilization of parts of the ocean), the business community is moving forward.
Planktos Inc. is a self-described "for-profit ecorestoration company" based in San Francisco with offices in Europe and British Columbia.
In 2007, Planktos will begin what its website terms: "plankton restoration, by replenishing forest-sized areas of ocean with natural iron-rich dust, just as Mother Nature does." This will provide the company with "saleable carbon credits for emerging environmental markets."
By purchasing carbon credits, companies or individuals can "buy the right to pollute" according to ETC's report, "by investing in projects that are deemed by 'experts' to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide." For example, Plaktos will "negate" your SUV's annual carbon footprint for the bargain basement price of fifty bucks. The problem, says Mooney, is that there's no scientific proof that carbon dioxide absorbed by the plankton won't be re-released. "But companies serving the carbon market need only keep carbon dioxide out of sight for long enough to cash their cheques," says ETC's report. "If the carbon dioxide pops back up to the surface in a year or five, proving its source could be extremely difficult."
In Weyburn, Saskatchewan, home of the world's largest carbon-sequestering operation, another geoengineering experiment is already well underway – and is proving highly profitable. Oil giant Encana is compressing carbon dioxide and pumping it 1500 metres underground.
According to a February 10 article in the Globe and Mail, this system of sequestering carbon dioxide prevents the greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere and "wreaking havoc with the environment," and "is seen by some experts as the ultimate solution to global warming." Encana, however, has other reasons to pump carbon dioxide underground. Its ultimate function is to force more crude oil to the surface; the company's output has jumped from 10,000 to 30,000 barrels a day since beginning the practice.
For projects that won't profit from carbon capture and sequestration (those that won't see an increase in output), companies like Shell and Suncor are looking for Canadian government support to develop the technology. This is not where the government should be spending climate change funds, says Lindsay Telfer, director of the Sierra Club's Prairie Chapter. "We're talking about some of the wealthiest corporations in the world, there's no reason why government needs to be subsidizing this development."
Much like carbon sequestration in the oceans, it's not yet clear if carbon sequestered underground would actually stay there. Even if carbon dioxide does stay underground, "carbon capture and sequestration is a Band-Aid solution," says Telfer. "We need to be transitioning away from fossil fuels towards more renewable energy sources."
Both Telfer and Mooney recognize the value of geoengineering research and the important role technology can play in addressing climate change – they have no illusions about the immediate need for dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions – their concern, however, is that government and industry will be seduced by quick-fix technological 'solutions' that don't address root problems – and that might not even combat climate change.
"We need to look at the root problem that's driving climate change. We know it's burning of fossil fuels, but what is the system that that's happening in?" asks Telfer. "Part of that root cause is that we have a toxic economy." Our economic system promotes the idea of "infinite growth," a concept, she says, that is fundamentally unsustainable. Humanity (primarily in the West) consumed more resources after the Second World War than all of human history before that, says Mooney. And global energy demands are expected to jump 60 per cent between 2002 and 2030. Not only is this environmentally unsustainable, he says, but a fundamental injustice.
Benefits and impacts of 'development' and technology are not equally felt, says Mooney. Right now, between 300,000 and 500,000 people die in developing countries each year due to the impacts of climate change, he says. He's concerned that geoengineering 'solutions' will also hurt those with the least money and power on the planet. "Who gets to adjust the mirrors in the stratosphere?" asks Mooney, referring to another geoengineering scheme that would place trillions of sun deflectors in the stratosphere. "And if you stop crops from burning up in the US, do you burn up the crops in Africa instead?"
Geoengineering "doesn't at all address the inequities in impacts," says Telfer. She notes that if we do manage to fend off climate change without addressing root environmental and social problems, we'll simply face a new crisis. "Next, it will be water."
"Are there root issues here that we're going to have to deal with if we're going to address climate change in an effective way?" asks Telfer. "Are we willing and ready to go there?”
“I think we need to be talking about it."
Seattle to Clear Arrest Records, Pay $1 Million to WTO Protesters Wrongfully Arrested in 1999
Settlement Requires Overhaul of Police Training
From Trial Lawyers for Public Justice.org
The City of Seattle has agreed to pay $1 Million and clear the arrest records of WTO Protesters who were wrongfully arrested in 1999.
In a landmark settlement reached by Public Justice on behalf of scores of people arrested in 1999 while peacefully protesting the World Trade Organization, the City of Seattle has agreed to seal and expunge the records of what a jury earlier determined to be their unconstitutional arrests by Seattle police.
In addition, the settlement mandates that the City improve police training in order to prevent unconstitutional mass arrests in the future. Finally, the City will pay $1 million to compensate the protesters for the violation of their constitutional rights and the costs of bringing the lawsuit.
Following an 11-day trial in January, a civil court jury found the City liable for violating the protesters’ Fourth Amendment rights. The verdict in Hankin v. City of Seattle and settlement followed seven years of litigation and determined work by the Public Justice legal team.
“It’s a shame when justice is delayed any length of time, especially seven years,” said lead plaintiff Kenneth Hankin, a Boeing fuel systems engineer. “The verdict and this settlement not only vindicate the rights of the people who peacefully and lawfully protested in 1999, but will help ensure that future dissent is treated as intended in a free society.”
The class action lawsuit, filed in 2000, arose from the events of December 1, 1999, when police corralled and arrested approximately 175 people who were peacefully protesting the WTO in downtown Seattle’s Westlake Park. The City had invited and encouraged the WTO to hold its ministerial conference in Seattle. By the time the conference began in late November, tens of thousands of individuals and organizations with a range of concerns from globalization and labor to endangered species and human rights converged on the city to protest WTO policies.
After one day of widespread but largely peaceful protest, Seattle’s mayor declared a swath of the downtown business core off-limits to all but certain citizens in what many observers saw as an exaggerated response to isolated disturbances by some individuals. Although the order did not specifically prohibit protests within the area, city officials and Seattle police called it a “no protest zone.” Hundreds of peaceful protesters were then arrested.
All charges against those arrested in the “zone” were later dropped, but not before many of the demonstrators were held in jail for up to four days — until the WTO conference had ended. No police officers were ever reprimanded or disciplined by the City.
Based largely on testimony by Seattle Police Department leaders, Public Justice co-lead trial counsel Michael Withey argued that the arrests adhered to City policy or, at minimum, had been approved by policymakers within the department. The jury agreed, finding that the City was responsible for the unconstitutional arrests. In addition to Withey, the plaintiffs were represented at trial by Public Justice co-lead trial counsel Tyler Weaver of Seattle; Seattle attorney Fred Diamondstone; and attorney Leslie Bailey, the Brayton-Baron Fellow at Public Justice.
After the jury verdict, Seattle faced further litigation on the damages owed to the peaceful protesters it unconstitutionally arrested. To avoid the trials, the City agreed to settle the case.
“This settlement brings to a close an important chapter in the history of this City,” said Withey. “The lesson to draw is that the full constitutional rights of citizens can be guaranteed at the same time public safety is secured. The court, the jury and now the City of Seattle have validated this vital principle. We are proud to hold the city accountable and to contribute to this important victory.”
Weaver said he was pleased that the Westlake Park demonstrators would be compensated, but that the full outcome of the case has a much more significant meaning.
“Most importantly, the jury’s verdict in this case is a sign that our Constitution is alive and well,”Weaver said. “I am hopeful that this case will send a message not only to the City of Seattle but to cities around the country that mass arrests of peaceful, law-abiding protesters will not and cannot be tolerated.”
Diamondstone noted that the settlement serves “an important lesson for police departments around the country that have looked to Seattle’s WTO experience” when large numbers of protesters gather in other large cities. “The proper lesson is to avoid repetition of the fiasco in Seattle by allowing peaceful protesters to gather, as guaranteed by the Constitution,” Diamondstone said.
Pursuant to the settlement agreement, which is subject to court approval, the City of Seattle has agreed not only to seal its own records of the arrests, but also to formally request that other agencies expunge any records they may have received or maintained regarding the December 1, 1999 arrests. The City will also notify the agencies that the Westlake class members were never tried or convicted of any offense. The sealing and expungement of arrest records is of particular importance to members of the class, who were concerned about the potential effect on their reputations and good standing in the eyes of law enforcement.
Perhaps most significantly, the City has agreed to incorporate key court rulings from the Hankin case into police training. Those rulings make clear that police lacked probable cause to arrest both the peaceful protesters at Westlake and others arrested outside the “no protest zone.” Improved training will help ensure that police officers will protect individuals’ constitutional rights against unlawful search and seizure in the future.
The monetary settlement negotiated by Public Justice will secure a financial recovery for each protester in the range of $3,000 to $10,000, depending on the number of class members who file claims. The settlement fund will be paid with insurance proceeds, rather than by City taxpayers.
In addition to the trial team, the plaintiffs were represented by Public Justice Staff Attorney Victoria Ni and Public Justice Executive Director Arthur Bryant.