Waggy's News Items...
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Flash
First Anniversary of Unjust House of Lords' Chagos
decision
simon gould | 24.10.2009 17:41 | Anti-racism | Repression
| World
A demonstration took place on October 22nd to draw public
attention to the House of Lords revocation of the rights
of the Chagos people to return home to their land from
which they were unceremoniously kicked to make way for
the US base of Diego Garcia.
There was a short protest opposite the House of Lords
in Old Palace Yard on October 22nd 2009 from 12.45 to
2pm.
A year ago on October 22nd 2008 the House Of Lords
voted 3-2 to revoke the right of the Chagos people to
return to their homeland from which they had been kicked
out in the late 1960's/early 1970's so that the US could
set up the military base of Diego Garcia there in the
Indian Ocean on a UK colony created for the purpose
(The Chagos Islands had been part of Mauritius due to
get independence in 1968 until the UK turned it into
B.I.O.T. British Indian Ocean Territory in 1965). The
UK burnt their houses killed their livestock, gassed
their dogs, loaded 2000 of them on to boats, dumped
them on the quay of Port Louis ,Mauritius ,and then
lied to the U.N. pretending the island was uninhabited.
Oddly enough this UK abuse of human rights has not
been taken up in the last forty years by Liberty or
Amnesty International or the Equalities and Human Rights
Commission.
The small demonstration today wished to highlight the
House of Lords aspects of this saga of UK shame. In
2000 the Chagossians had won the right of return in
the UK courts, and Robin Cook promised to honour the
court's verdict. Yet in 2004 the UK government tried
to get round the ruling by an archaic procedure known
as Orders In Council by which the Government can enact
measures through the Privy Council without going through
Parliament (incidentally in the House Of lords ruling
one thing they were all agreed on was the need for Parliament
to look at this undemocratic procedure). Perhaps the
Government acted thus because they did not think they
would win in the courts. Indeed the Chagossians appealed
and won back the right of return. Then the Gov took
the case to the House Of Lords and strangely won with
a 3-2 vote.
The judgement is perverse because either it is legally
correct which means that English law defends the indefensible
and protects injustice, or perhaps there was pressure
on the Law Lords to do a certain thing in the interests
of national security and joint intelligence which in
the light of the Binyam Mohammed case seems feasible.
There isn't time and space here to look at all the
rulings but it might be interesting to look at Lord
Hoffmann's ruling which seems to rest on two points:-
1) Executive Fiat. i think if Ive understood
right that Lord Hoffmann argues that the Appeal court
was wrong to suggest that the Chagossians could not
be evicted "for reasons unconnected with their
collective wellbeing". Lord Hoffmann quotes Halsbury's
laws Of England "In a conquered or ceded colony
the Crown ...has full power to establish such executive,
legislative, and judicial arrangements as this Crown
sees fit" which is authorised by a 1774 ruling.
So Lord Hoffmann then says that "The prerogative
power of the crown to legislate for a ceded colony has
never been limited by the requirement that the legislation
should be for the peace, order and good government or
otherwise for the inhabitants of the colony". In
other words English Law promotes injustice and racism.(The
Equalities Commission claim that questions about whether
English Law still has racist bits that need repealing
is beyond its remit)
2) The promise. Whether the Foreign Secretary, Robin
Cook's promise in 2000 of return to the islands "created
a legitimate expectation that the islanders would be
free " of immigration controls. Lord Hoffmann argues
that a promise must be "clear, unambiguous and
devoid of relevant qualifications". He says that
when Robin Cook (in the November 2000 press release)
said that a new ordinance would be made which would
allow "The Ilois to return to the outer islands"
he, Robin Cook, did not say how long that promise would
continue and that therefore it does not constitute a
promise. This really seems to stretch credibility, especially
as it was a well known fact in the public awareness
that Robin Cook was seeking ethical foreign policy.
Additionally Lord Hoffmann seems to take the view that
a right of return in itself is symbolic and that therefore
the promise is dependent on the feasibility of resettlement
study also mentioned by Robin Cook in the press release
.After mentioning the feasibility study Robin Cook says
"Furthermore we will put in place a new immigration
ordinance which will allow the Ilois to return".
The word he uses is "Furthermore" .he does
not say "dependent on the feasibility study".
Its quite clear that for Robin Cook, as for Sedley in
the Court Of Appeal, the right of return is separate
from the practicalities of return as shown in any feasibility
study. Lord Hoffmann in more than one place in his judgement
seems to suggest that the right of return is meaningless
without some infrastructure being built. But of course
conditions can change. For example European Coral Voyeaurs
(or some other fictional firm) might approach the Chagossians
if they possessed the right of return with a view to
building some B&Bs and a harbour. Finally looking
at the end of Robin Cook's Press Statement "the
Government has not defended what was done ...We make
no attempt to conceal the gravity of what happened.
i am pleased that he (Lord Justice Laws) has commended
the wholly admirable conduct in disclosing material
to the Court and praised the openness of today's Foreign
Office."
Is this the statement of a man who has an underhand
intention in his promise to the Chagossians? i don't
think so and i doubt if anyone on a Clapham bicycle/omnibus
would either.
Had Lord Hoffmann ruled the other way on either the
executive fiat or promise question then it wouldn't
exactly have fitted with section 57 of his ruling where
he says "in addition, as Mr Rammell told the House
Of Commons, the Government had to give weight to security
interests. The United States had expressed concern that
any settlement on the outer islands would compromise
the security of its base on Diego Garcia......in the
current state of uncertainty the Government is entitled
to take the concerns of its ally into account."
This may well be the way governments work, but it's
A MOCKERY OF JUSTICE
simon gould
e-mail: simongouldd@yahoo.co.uk
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News
Article Two
The new stories for Adults on my Grown-ups pages are more
gruesome than my usual, but they do reflect our world
of today which should be enlightening for some of you.
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News
Article Three
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News
Article Four
This excerpt has not been verified by me, but I found
it written elsewhere and decided that its content was
so disconcerting I've put it here for you to give some
thought to. I do feel that this is exactly the way societies
around the world seem to be moving...
Here is the
1974 Congressional Testimony of Yale University Neuropsychiatrist,
Dr Jose Delgado, as it was transcribed in the February
24, 1974 " Statement of the Meetings of the American
Congress " edition, number 26, vol. 118:
"We need a program of
psychosurgery for political control of our society.
The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone
who deviates from the given norm can be surgically mutilated.
The individual may think that the most important reality
is his own existence, but this is only his personal
point of view. This lacks historical perspective. Man
does not have the right to develop his own mind. This
kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must
electrically control the brain. Some day armies and
generals will be controlled by electric stimulation
of the brain." Dr. Jose M.R. Delgado Director of
Neuropsychiatry Yale University Medical School , Author
of "Physical Control of the Mind", 1969.
Well, what
a cheek. Does this person think they are the ONE GOD
who should control the world!!! I'll
just bet he's always thought he he is the most important
existence in his own little world eh! As in Hitlers
case, it only takes one madman to cause untold destruction.
Naturally,
the copyright remains with its originators as do all
copyrights on my web site. If I make any errors in this
regard, it is entirely without meaning to, and would
be immediately rectified if necessary. Waggy.
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News
Article Five
Adam LeBor a British
author and journalist, based in Budapest. has written a book
around the present day state of Europe and the World Economy.
It should be ready for publication in May 2009 with
Reportage Press. It's a fast-paced conspiracy thriller set
in Budapest during the election campaign for the first president
of Europe. The Budapest Protocol, Adam LeBor's thriller
inspired by the Red House Report, is published by Reportage
Press
Revealed:
The secret report that shows how the Nazis planned a Fourth
Reich ...in the EU
By Adam
Lebor
"The
paper is aged and fragile, the typewritten letters slowly
fading. But US Military Intelligence report EW-Pa 128 is as
chilling now as the day it was written in November 1944.
The document,
also known as the Red House Report, is a detailed account
of a secret meeting at the Maison Rouge Hotel in Strasbourg
on August 10, 1944. There, Nazi officials ordered an elite
group of German industrialists to plan for Germany's post-war
recovery, prepare for the Nazis' return to power and work
for a 'strong German empire'. In other words: the Fourth Reich.
Heinrich Himmler with Max Faust, engineer with I. G. Farben
Plotters:
SS chief Heinrich Himmler with Max Faust, engineer with Nazi-backed
company I. G. Farben
The three-page,
closely typed report, marked 'Secret', copied to British officials
and sent by air pouch to Cordell Hull, the US Secretary of
State, detailed how the industrialists were to work with the
Nazi Party to rebuild Germany's economy by sending money through
Switzerland.
They would
set up a network of secret front companies abroad. They would
wait until conditions were right. And then they would take
over Germany again.
The industrialists
included representatives of Volkswagen, Krupp and Messerschmitt.
Officials from the Navy and Ministry of Armaments were also
at the meeting and, with incredible foresight, they decided
together that the Fourth German Reich, unlike its predecessor,
would be an economic rather than a military empire - but not
just German.
The Red
House Report, which was unearthed from US intelligence files,
was the inspiration for my thriller The Budapest Protocol.
The book
opens in 1944 as the Red Army advances on the besieged city,
then jumps to the present day, during the election campaign
for the first president of Europe. The European Union superstate
is revealed as a front for a sinister conspiracy, one rooted
in the last days of the Second World War.
But as
I researched and wrote the novel, I realised that some of
the Red House Report had become fact.
Nazi Germany
did export massive amounts of capital through neutral countries.
German businesses did set up a network of front companies
abroad. The German economy did soon recover after 1945.
The Third
Reich was defeated militarily, but powerful Nazi-era bankers,
industrialists and civil servants, reborn as democrats, soon
prospered in the new West Germany. There they worked for a
new cause: European economic and political integration.
Is it
possible that the Fourth Reich those Nazi industrialists foresaw
has, in some part at least, come to pass?
The Red
House Report was written by a French spy who was at the meeting
in Strasbourg in 1944 - and it paints an extraordinary picture.
The industrialists
gathered at the Maison Rouge Hotel waited expectantly as SS
Obergruppenfuhrer Dr Scheid began the meeting. Scheid held
one of the highest ranks in the SS, equivalent to Lieutenant
General. He cut an imposing figure in his tailored grey-green
uniform and high, peaked cap with silver braiding. Guards
were posted outside and the room had been searched for microphones.
Auschwitz
Death
camp: Auschwitz, where tens of thousands of slave labourers
died working in a factory run by German firm I. G. Farben
There
was a sharp intake of breath as he began to speak. German
industry must realise that the war cannot be won, he declared.
'It must take steps in preparation for a post-war commercial
campaign.' Such defeatist talk was treasonous - enough to
earn a visit to the Gestapo's cellars, followed by a one-way
trip to a concentration camp.
But Scheid
had been given special licence to speak the truth the
future of the Reich was at stake. He ordered the industrialists
to 'make contacts and alliances with foreign firms, but this
must be done individually and without attracting any suspicion'.
The industrialists
were to borrow substantial sums from foreign countries after
the war.
They were
especially to exploit the finances of those German firms that
had already been used as fronts for economic penetration abroad,
said Scheid, citing the American partners of the steel giant
Krupp as well as Zeiss, Leica and the Hamburg-America Line
shipping company.
But as
most of the industrialists left the meeting, a handful were
beckoned into another smaller gathering, presided over by
Dr Bosse of the Armaments Ministry. There were secrets to
be shared with the elite of the elite.
Bosse
explained how, even though the Nazi Party had informed the
industrialists that the war was lost, resistance against the
Allies would continue until a guarantee of German unity could
be obtained. He then laid out the secret three-stage strategy
for the Fourth Reich.
In stage
one, the industrialists were to 'prepare themselves to finance
the Nazi Party, which would be forced to go underground as
a Maquis', using the term for the French resistance.
Stage
two would see the government allocating large sums to German
industrialists to establish a 'secure post-war foundation
in foreign countries', while 'existing financial reserves
must be placed at the disposal of the party so that a strong
German empire can be created after the defeat'.
In stage
three, German businesses would set up a 'sleeper' network
of agents abroad through front companies, which were to be
covers for military research and intelligence, until the Nazis
returned to power.
'The existence
of these is to be known only by very few people in each industry
and by chiefs of the Nazi Party,' Bosse announced.
'Each
office will have a liaison agent with the party. As soon as
the party becomes strong enough to re-establish its control
over Germany, the industrialists will be paid for their effort
and co-operation by concessions and orders.'
Enlarge The 1944 Red House Report
Extraordinary
revelations: The 1944 Red House Report, detailing 'plans of
German industrialists to engage in underground activity'
The exported
funds were to be channelled through two banks in Zurich, or
via agencies in Switzerland which bought property in Switzerland
for German concerns, for a five per cent commission.
The Nazis
had been covertly sending funds through neutral countries
for years.
Swiss
banks, in particular the Swiss National Bank, accepted gold
looted from the treasuries of Nazi-occupied countries. They
accepted assets and property titles taken from Jewish businessmen
in Germany and occupied countries, and supplied the foreign
currency that the Nazis needed to buy vital war materials.
Swiss
economic collaboration with the Nazis had been closely monitored
by Allied intelligence.
The Red
House Report's author notes: 'Previously, exports of capital
by German industrialists to neutral countries had to be accomplished
rather surreptitiously and by means of special influence.
'Now the
Nazi Party stands behind the industrialists and urges them
to save themselves by getting funds outside Germany and at
the same time advance the party's plans for its post-war operations.'
The order
to export foreign capital was technically illegal in Nazi
Germany, but by the summer of 1944 the law did not matter.
More than
two months after D-Day, the Nazis were being squeezed by the
Allies from the west and the Soviets from the east. Hitler
had been badly wounded in an assassination attempt. The Nazi
leadership was nervous, fractious and quarrelling.
During
the war years the SS had built up a gigantic economic empire,
based on plunder and murder, and they planned to keep it.
A meeting
such as that at the Maison Rouge would need the protection
of the SS, according to Dr Adam Tooze of Cambridge University,
author of Wages of Destruction: The Making And Breaking Of
The Nazi Economy.
He says:
'By 1944 any discussion of post-war planning was banned. It
was extremely dangerous to do that in public. But the SS was
thinking in the long-term. If you are trying to establish
a workable coalition after the war, the only safe place to
do it is under the auspices of the apparatus of terror.'
Shrewd
SS leaders such as Otto Ohlendorf were already thinking ahead.
As commander
of Einsatzgruppe D, which operated on the Eastern Front between
1941 and 1942, Ohlendorf was responsible for the murder of
90,000 men, women and children.
A highly
educated, intelligent lawyer and economist, Ohlendorf showed
great concern for the psychological welfare of his extermination
squad's gunmen: he ordered that several of them should fire
simultaneously at their victims, so as to avoid any feelings
of personal responsibility.
By the
winter of 1943 he was transferred to the Ministry of Economics.
Ohlendorf's ostensible job was focusing on export trade, but
his real priority was preserving the SS's massive pan-European
economic empire after Germany's defeat.
Ohlendorf,
who was later hanged at Nuremberg, took particular interest
in the work of a German economist called Ludwig Erhard. Erhard
had written a lengthy manuscript on the transition to a post-war
economy after Germany's defeat. This was dangerous, especially
as his name had been mentioned in connection with resistance
groups.
But Ohlendorf,
who was also chief of the SD, the Nazi domestic security service,
protected Erhard as he agreed with his views on stabilising
the post-war German economy. Ohlendorf himself was protected
by Heinrich Himmler, the chief of the SS.
Ohlendorf
and Erhard feared a bout of hyper-inflation, such as the one
that had destroyed the German economy in the Twenties. Such
a catastrophe would render the SS's economic empire almost
worthless.
The two
men agreed that the post-war priority was rapid monetary stabilisation
through a stable currency unit, but they realised this would
have to be enforced by a friendly occupying power, as no post-war
German state would have enough legitimacy to introduce a currency
that would have any value.
That unit
would become the Deutschmark, which was introduced in 1948.
It was an astonishing success and it kick-started the German
economy. With a stable currency, Germany was once again an
attractive trading partner.
The German
industrial conglomerates could rapidly rebuild their economic
empires across Europe.
War had
been extraordinarily profitable for the German economy. By
1948 - despite six years of conflict, Allied bombing and post-war
reparations payments - the capital stock of assets such as
equipment and buildings was larger than in 1936, thanks mainly
to the armaments boom.
Erhard
pondered how German industry could expand its reach across
the shattered European continent. The answer was through supranationalism
- the voluntary surrender of national sovereignty to an international
body.
Germany
and France were the drivers behind the European Coal and Steel
Community (ECSC), the precursor to the European Union. The
ECSC was the first supranational organisation, established
in April 1951 by six European states. It created a common
market for coal and steel which it regulated. This set a vital
precedent for the steady erosion of national sovereignty,
a process that continues today.
But before
the common market could be set up, the Nazi industrialists
had to be pardoned, and Nazi bankers and officials reintegrated.
In 1957, John J. McCloy, the American High Commissioner for
Germany, issued an amnesty for industrialists convicted of
war crimes.
The two
most powerful Nazi industrialists, Alfried Krupp of Krupp
Industries and Friedrich Flick, whose Flick Group eventually
owned a 40 per cent stake in Daimler-Benz, were released from
prison after serving barely three years.
Krupp
and Flick had been central figures in the Nazi economy. Their
companies used slave labourers like cattle, to be worked to
death.
The Krupp
company soon became one of Europe's leading industrial combines.
The Flick
Group also quickly built up a new pan-European business empire.
Friedrich Flick remained unrepentant about his wartime record
and refused to pay a single Deutschmark in compensation until
his death in July 1972 at the age of 90, when he left a fortune
of more than $1billion, the equivalent of £400million
at the time.
'For many
leading industrial figures close to the Nazi regime, Europe
became a cover for pursuing German national interests after
the defeat of Hitler,' says historian Dr Michael Pinto-Duschinsky,
an adviser to Jewish former slave labourers.
'The continuity
of the economy of Germany and the economies of post-war Europe
is striking. Some of the leading figures in the Nazi economy
became leading builders of the European Union.'
Numerous
household names had exploited slave and forced labourers including
BMW, Siemens and Volkswagen, which produced munitions and
the V1 rocket.
Slave
labour was an integral part of the Nazi war machine. Many
concentration camps were attached to dedicated factories where
company officials worked hand-in-hand with the SS officers
overseeing the camps.
Like Krupp
and Flick, Hermann Abs, post-war Germany's most powerful banker,
had prospered in the Third Reich. Dapper, elegant and diplomatic,
Abs joined the board of Deutsche Bank, Germany's biggest bank,
in 1937. As the Nazi empire expanded, Deutsche Bank enthusiastically
'Aryanised' Austrian and Czechoslovak banks that were owned
by Jews.
By 1942,
Abs held 40 directorships, a quarter of which were in countries
occupied by the Nazis. Many of these Aryanised companies used
slave labour and by 1943 Deutsche Bank's wealth had quadrupled.
Abs also
sat on the supervisory board of I.G. Farben, as Deutsche Bank's
representative. I.G. Farben was one of Nazi Germany's most
powerful companies, formed out of a union of BASF, Bayer,
Hoechst and subsidiaries in the Twenties.
It was
so deeply entwined with the SS and the Nazis that it ran its
own slave labour camp at Auschwitz, known as Auschwitz III,
where tens of thousands of Jews and other prisoners died producing
artificial rubber.
When they
could work no longer, or were verbraucht (used up) in the
Nazis' chilling term, they were moved to Birkenau. There they
were gassed using Zyklon B, the patent for which was owned
by I.G. Farben.
But like
all good businessmen, I.G. Farben's bosses hedged their bets.
During
the war the company had financed Ludwig Erhard's research.
After the war, 24 I.G. Farben executives were indicted for
war crimes over Auschwitz III - but only twelve of the 24
were found guilty and sentenced to prison terms ranging from
one-and-a-half to eight years. I.G. Farben got away with mass
murder.
Abs was
one of the most important figures in Germany's post-war reconstruction.
It was largely thanks to him that, just as the Red House Report
exhorted, a 'strong German empire' was indeed rebuilt, one
which formed the basis of today's European Union.
Abs was
put in charge of allocating Marshall Aid - reconstruction
funds - to German industry. By 1948 he was effectively managing
Germany's economic recovery.
Crucially,
Abs was also a member of the European League for Economic
Co-operation, an elite intellectual pressure group set up
in 1946. The league was dedicated to the establishment of
a common market, the precursor of the European Union.
Its members
included industrialists and financiers and it developed policies
that are strikingly familiar today - on monetary integration
and common transport, energy and welfare systems.
When Konrad
Adenauer, the first Chancellor of West Germany, took power
in 1949, Abs was his most important financial adviser.
Behind
the scenes Abs was working hard for Deutsche Bank to be allowed
to reconstitute itself after decentralisation. In 1957 he
succeeded and he returned to his former employer.
That same
year the six members of the ECSC signed the Treaty of Rome,
which set up the European Economic Community. The treaty further
liberalised trade and established increasingly powerful supranational
institutions including the European Parliament and European
Commission.
Like Abs,
Ludwig Erhard flourished in post-war Germany. Adenauer made
Erhard Germany's first post-war economics minister. In 1963
Erhard succeeded Adenauer as Chancellor for three years.
But the
German economic miracle so vital to the idea of a new
Europe - was built on mass murder. The number of slave and
forced labourers who died while employed by German companies
in the Nazi era was 2,700,000.
Some sporadic
compensation payments were made but German industry agreed
a conclusive, global settlement only in 2000, with a £3billion
compensation fund. There was no admission of legal liability
and the individual compensation was paltry.
A slave
labourer would receive 15,000 Deutschmarks (about £5,000),
a forced labourer 5,000 (about £1,600). Any claimant
accepting the deal had to undertake not to launch any further
legal action.
To put
this sum of money into perspective, in 2001 Volkswagen alone
made profits of £1.8billion.
Next month,
27 European Union member states vote in the biggest transnational
election in history. Europe now enjoys peace and stability.
Germany is a democracy, once again home to a substantial Jewish
community. The Holocaust is seared into national memory.
But the
Red House Report is a bridge from a sunny present to a dark
past. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda chief, once said:
'In 50 years' time nobody will think of nation states.'
For now,
the nation state endures. But these three typewritten pages
are a reminder that today's drive towards a European federal
state is inexorably tangled up with the plans of the SS and
German industrialists for a Fourth Reich - an economic rather
than military imperium.".
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