Several places in the Amazon illegal miners and loggers clash with indigenous tribes in conflict over access to and use of land. "Use of" as in clear cutting, strip mining or chemically polluting. This particular report is a tad more gruesome than most of them. Only three hunters who were away when the village was bombed and sniped from a helicopter survived.
"This is another appalling tragedy for the Yanomami – heaping crime upon crime. All Amazonian governments must stop the rampant illegal mining, logging and settlement in indigenous territories. It inevitably leads to massacres of Indian men, women and children. The Venezuelan authorities must now bring the killers to swift justice, and send a signal throughout the region that Indians can no longer be killed with impunity. The mining and logging must be stopped."
- Stephen Corry, Director of Survival International
"When we heard the first accounts we flew into Parima-B [the closest town] by helicopter with a contingent of military. In Parima we spoke to Yanomami who had walked six days to get to Parima-B to talk to us. In places this remote that is how people communicate."
- anonymous
"This happened in July but because it takes close to seven days to get there we don't really know what happened. The shaponos – the collective community dwellings – house more than 100 people, so it could be 70 [casualties] or it could be more or less."
- Livorio Guarulla, Venezuelan governor
"Reports of garimpeiros attacking different communities are becoming more and more frequent, and now we also hear of rivers being poisoned with mercury. We've reported to the authorities but we are so far away that is it all easily forgotten. [...mining activities are on the rise and] have also become more sophisticated. They used to fly in and land in clandestine strips, now they come in helicopters and use huge extracting machinery that is decimating the jungle."
- Luis Bello, lawyer
News about the oil business, campaigns against it's foul play, news about pollution incidents, academic studies dealing with the many implications of the importance of oil and similar reports are not infrequent. Quite a few entries at this present blog deals with oil. But how about a first hand account of visits to the oil business hotspots of the world? From an acknowledged journalist with a critical approach and an open mind. About 220 pages telling the stories of the people living from or in the shadow of oil extraction... that's Crude World.
Chances are you'll gobble it up like a SUV does gasoline but there's plenty in its ten creatively titled chapters to digest more thoroughly. Scarcity, introducing with the stories of a poster-boy whistleblower from inside the number one consuming nation, USA; Plunder, about the disturbingly overlooked textbook case of Equatorial Guinea; Rot, taking us down the polluted rivers of the Niger Delta; Contamination, continues with stories from the misery of the Ecuadorean jungle; Fear, dives into the psychology of the oil business and the ignorance and innocence of its workers; Greed, is composed of a handful of stories about the callousness of the oil business even when operating inside the West; Desire, is a bit of the impossible to ignore story of the Gulf Wars; Alienation, has the perhaps most scary story of the ghost country called Saudi Arabia; Empire, is a peek below the surface of the apparently feel-good story of Russia; and Mirage ends off the book with a similarly critical look at the naive story of the Boliviarians in Venezuela.
Around the world indeed. Plenty of facts but served in dishes of true stories. Warmly recommended.
Can't help quoting a few good quotes about the US relation to the Middle East:
“Let our position be absolutely clear. An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”
- US President Jimmy Carter, 1980
“Access to Persian Gulf oil and the security of key friendly states in the area are vital to US national security. The United States remains committed to defending its vital interests in the region, if necessary through the use of military force, against any power with interests inimical to our own.”
- US President George Bush in “National Security Directive 54”
“Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop ten percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail.”
- Dick Cheney, August 2002
Democracy Now! interviewed Peter Maass during the BP oil "spill" in the Mexican Gulf:
Also, he's talking for hours on YouTube! About the book in general...
It starts out criticizing elements of the economic system - boring to many by definition but perhaps a little more interesting here in the financial crisis? - and moves on (about 21 minutes into the movie) to discuss examples of how financial tools are preferred by the West (the US) before using the military to gain cheap access to 3rd world natural resources. It's essentially John Perkins, former NSA associate, talking about the topics of his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man [Official site | Wikipedia | Google Books].
This video is the 10 last minutes of John Perkins talking:
What he says about Iraq:
"Iraq, actually, is a perfect example of the way the whole system works. We economic hitmen are the first line of defense: We go in, we try to corrupt the government and get them to accept these huge loans which we then use as leverage to basically own them. If we fail [...] then the second line of defense is we send in the jackals. The jackals either overthrow governments or they assassinate. And once that happens then a new government comes in and they'll toe the line because the new president will know what will happen if he doesn't. In the case of Iraq both of those things failed [...] so, in '91 we send in the troops and we take out the Iraqi military [...assuming] Saddam is gonna come around. [...] So the economic hitmen go back in in the 90ies... without success. If they'd had success he'd still be running the country, we'd be selling him all the fighter jets he'd want [...] the jackals couldn't take him out again [either] so we sent in the military once again and this time they did the complete job [...] in the process creating for ourselves some very, very lucrative reconstruction deals."
Very much not surprising. But nice to hear from an insider. His conclusion makes me think of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire. Regarding Iraq specifically, we've had some hard-to-believe right wing postulates that the war-for-oil theory is left wing propaganda pointing at non-US (yet Western) companies getting many contracts. First of all, it really doesn't matter as long as these companies supply for the (so called "free") world market. Second, recently U.S. Companies Join Race on Iraqi Oil Bonanza.
Towards the end the movie sums up in some more philosophical discussions (including some hippie stuff). Some of it is undeniable Ecowar cornerstones.
"The most important issue at hand is the intelligent management of the earth's resources. [...] Our true problems in life are technical, not political. [...] Society today is backwards. With politicians constantly talking about protection and security rather than creation, unity and progress. The US alone now spends about 500,000,000,000 dollars annually on defense. That is enough to send every high school senior in America to a four year college. In the 1940ies the Manhattan Project produced the first true weapon of mass destruction. This programme employed 130,000 people at an extreme financial cost. Imagine what our life would be like today if that group of scientists, in stead of working on a way of killing people, worked on a way to create a self-sustaining, abundant world. [...] It is time to unleash something much more powerful: weapons of mass creation."
Of course, just like America is addicted to oil (George W. Bush's own words) it's also addicted to war. At least, shutting down the military would be a mega-shock to the financial system. That is why I enjoyed it very much when in Kim Stanley Robinson's Science in the Capital series the US military is literally battling climate change. Also a topic discussed in the new copy of Ode Magazine: Jim Channon: Mobilizing the military to clean up the earth.
The true battle in the future is not between nations; it’s about repairing the damage we’re doing to our planet. [...] the army must set about reforesting the Earth, planting billions of trees and cleaning up the fresh water reserves. [...] The Marines will protect and restore the dying coral reefs and coastal wetlands while the Air Force monitors carbon emissions, ozone depletion and air pollution. [...] The Navy, Channon says, should be tasked with measuring rising ocean temperatures and melting polar ice as well as policing illegal dumping and overfishing of the seas. [...] siphon excess water from the oceans and channel it into the desert basins of the planet to create enormous salt water lakes [...] transport thousands of refugees from the Pacific Islands to these areas, where they may tend giant new fishponds
These quotes are the visions of retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Jim Channon - who's portrayed by Jeff Bridges in The Men Who Stare at Goats which appears to be a lot more fun than Zeitgeist Addendum.
Human Rights Watch said Friday that Zimbabwe's armed forces have taken over diamond fields in the east and killed more than 200 people, forcing children to search for the gems and beating villagers who get in the way.
"I first heard the sound and then saw three helicopters above us in the field. I was not worried, I just assumed it was a team of buyers who had come for business in helicopters as they sometimes did. However, soldiers in the helicopters started firing live ammunition and tear gas at us. We all stopped digging and began to run towards the hills to hide."
Quote an anonymous survivor.
Army units are given turns overseeing the mine in an effort to keep troop morale from disintegrating along with the rest of the country.
Blood spilled over diamonds is far from a new thing. In fact, it was the theme of a 2006 Hollywood movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly.
Although, for my taste, it has a bit too much of Leonardo running right ahead of mortar explosions and mad gunfire it is a good movie in itself on top of highlighting an important issue. Good acting by Leonardo, Jennifer and not least by Djimon Hounsou who is playing the fisherman / mine slave. Theatrical, yes, but first of all gruesomely blunt in its violence.
From the final scrolling titles though we are given relief:
In January 2003, forty nations signed "The Kimberley Process" [...] It is up to the consumer to insist that a diamond is conflict-free.
2009: The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme collapsing
It might have worked for some years but now it's under serious pressure. Some in the industry argues Zimbabwean diamonds aren't blood diamonds as they fund a government. And 100% of Venezuela's diamonds are being smuggled, Guinea has reported an impossible 500% increase in diamond production year on year, in Angola thousands of small-scale Congolese miners were beaten and expelled and Lebanon is exporting more rough diamonds than it imports despite having no mines. No action has been taken against any of these countries still operating with Kimberley certification.
If the Kimberley Process collapses entirely?
The diamond trade would go back to its criminal past and rebel armies would have no problem finding buyers for their blood diamonds. The potential for diamonds fuelling conflict would be back.
Quote Ian Smillie, Kimberley Process initiative person - who left in anger
Throughout the history about Africa: whenever a substance a value is found, the locals died in great number, in misery. And this was truth of ivory, rubber, gold, and oils and is now true of diamond. According to a devastating report by Global Witness the stones are being used to process arm and finance civil war. We must act to prohibit the direct or indirect import of all of diamonds from conflict Zones
