CAQ69

us.On July 6, 1999, Radislav Brdjanin, rectly. Most of the international organiza The plan also provides for American
leader of the People's Party, was kidnaped tions present in Bosnia are dominated and and Turkish training of Federation forces.
from his home in Banja Luka and flown to run by American officials. Local news re The Pentagon has contracted with Military
The Hague, where he was imprisoned. A Professional Resources Incorporated
month and a half later, on August 25, Re- ports are "reshaped," that is, censored, by
American officials, and compliant media (MPRl) to conduct training. MPRI had ear
publika Srpska Chief of Staff General Mo- receive western financing, largely through lier successfully trained the Croatian Army
mir Talic, who had been invited to a con the U.S. Agency for International Develop in preparation for its brutal invasion of
ference in Austria, was arrested there and ment (USAID). A report in the Yugoslav
flown to The Hague. Neither man had Krajina, in which over 200,000 Serbs were
been publicly indicted. The arrest of these press claims that in 1996, approximately
driven from their homes in a matter of
men under "secret indictments" is an effec half a million dollars were funneled to
days. Training sessions include the use of
tive recipe for silencing free speech. In media in both of Bosnia's entities. advanced battle simulation computer soft
ware, as was used in preparation for Desert
evitably people will feel a reluctance to The implementation of the U.S. Storm. Funding was also provided to open
speak out against NATO occupation, lest Train and Equip plan has pumped more arms factories in the Federation. In all,
they make a target of themselves. arms into the region, posing a risk to
eight Federation arms factories operate
Sianislav Galic's mistake was in accept peace. Under the plan, the U.S. has al under NATO supervision, and a Federa
ready supplied Federation forces with tion defense ministry spokesman an
ing an appointment as military adviser to tens of thousands of M-16 assault rifles, nounced that half of these factories pro
Poplasen. While Galic was driving his car more than 100 armored personnel carri duce 122mm howitzers for its army.^'^
on December 20, 1999, several vehicles
ers, several dozen tanks, over 100 155- Officially, American officials assert the
suddenly blocked his path. NATO soldiers mm howitzers, communications equip dubious proposition that Train and Equip
sprang out and smashed Galic's car win
dow, roughly dragged him out and placed ment, helicopters, and myriad other

a hood over his head. Galic was flown to

The Hague, where he was imprisoned.

High Commissioner Carlos Westen-
dorp revealed much about the imperial at
titude as he delivered his last speech before

turning over the reins to his successor,
Wolfgang Petritsch. Westendorp expressed
his "wish to quote from another famous
historical figure, who said not just that

much could be achieved with a kind word,

but a kind word and a gun. This figure was
A1 Capone. Joke! I've been here too

long.... I actually prefer Teddy Roosevelt's
'Walk softly and carry a big stick.' The gun
or stick in this context is the continuing

presence of SFOR [NATO Stabilization
Force] and the International Communi

ty. "^9

Covert Involvement NATO forces displaying military might in Bosnia, April 1998.

AND Military Aid weapons. Arms supplies from other na is necessary to ensure peace. Quietly, they
tions have also been arranged by U.S. know exactly what they are doing. Asked
According to a report in the Los Angeles officials, and one shipment alone, from
Times, "The CIA station in Bosnia is now the United Arab Emirates, consisted of by a Bosnian Muslim journalist about the
reputed to be one of the largest in the re
gion.By early 1996, the total number of 50 French AMX-30 tanks and 41 ar western reaction were the Federation to in
CIA operatives active in the region had
risen to 2,500, almost half of whom were mored vehicles. vade the Republika Srpska, a "high-rank
stationed at the agency's regional head
32. "Daily Criticizes USAID Funding of B-H Inde ing western diplomat" admitted, "We
quarters in Tuzla.3' The DIA is also very pendent Media," Beta (Belgrade), Apr. 29, 1997. would officially condemn, but we would
active in the region, working in close co 33. "New Weapons Shipments for Bosniab US-LEF understand and we would probably not
operation with the CIA. These agencies not Rearmament Programme," Agence France-Presse undertake any efficient steps...This is ex
only engage in intelligence gathering, but (Paris), Oct. 13, 1997; also A. Prlcnda, "Weapons
also shape events, both directly and indi- for Peaee and Stabilization," Oslobodjcnje (Bosnian actly what we expect."^5 "The question no
Muslim), Nov. 22, 1996; also Nick Gowing, "Return
28. "Children Describe Gagovicls 'Brutal Murder'," to War," SuntU^ Telegraph (London), Dee. 1, 1996; 34. James Drake, "Old Gls Fade Away —to Bosni-
Tanjug (Belgrade), Jan. 10, 1999. also "Arms Shipment from Turkey Arrives in Ploce a," Baltimore Sun, Nov. 12, 1997; also Nedim Der-
29. Onicc of the High Representative, "Speech of Port," HINA (Zagreb), July 26, 1997; also Srecko visbegovic, "Bosnian Firms Produce Artillery with
the High Representative Carlos Westendorp at the Latal, "United States Helping Rearm Muslim-Croat U.S. Aid," Reuters, Oct. 17, 1997; also "U.S. Envoy
Stability Pact Dinner," Sarajevo, July 29, 1999. Army: Allies Objeet," AP, May 23, 1996. Visits U.S.-Aided Bosnian Army Factory," Agcncc
30. Tracy Wilkinson, "In Bosnia, U.S. Creeps Deep France-Presse (Paris), Sep. 3, 1997.
er, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 11, 1997. 35. Edina Bccirevic, "if the Refugees Do Not Return
31. "From the Jungle to the Balkans," Politiha Eks-
pres (Belgrade), Jan. 22, 1996.

Number 69 CovertAction Quarterly 51

longer is if the Muslims will attack the Bos be submitted to the Assembly for vote. Ex Assistance is now being provided by the
nian Serbs," warned a European NATO World Bank and USAID to develop new
isting draft laws on property relations and laws similar to those adopted by the
commander, "but when." Alarmed at the privatization, he said, "will be modified ac Federation." Western officials are shaping
extent of the Federation military buildup, cording to regulations the U.S. finance sec
Russian commanders passed NATO satel retary will bring. "38 On July 2,1998, West- privatization in the Republika Srpska, as
lite photos of Muslim training camps to endorp founded a commission to manage they do in the Muslim-Croatian Federa
Bosnian Serb generals. According to infor the privatization process in Bosnia-Herze tion, to favor the interests of western in
mation received by a western diplomat,
"The Bosnian Serb generals were stunned. govina. Each privatization, including prior vestors.
actions, is subject to review and approval
The mood in the room was very black." In The Foreign Investment Law, effective
the event of an attack, a high-ranking by western commission officials.39 on March 1998, and applicable to both en
NATO commander said, "We also expect An earlier law on privatization in the tities, "establishes the policy standards of
most all of the Serbs [in the Republika promoting foreign investment and protect
Republika Srpska had previously been im ing foreign investor's rights," an embassy
Srpska] to be driven into Serbia....The
threat posed by the Train and Equip plan plemented. On December 4, 1997, Robert document declares. "The Entities will
Farrand, of the Office of the High Repre
sentative, issued an "Order on Privatiza amend existing foreign investment laws to
conform to the state-level legislation."
appears to be primarily motivated by its tion," in which he mandated a "delay" of Western officials were thorough in ensuring
the Republika Srpska privatization pro their interests. The law "is progressive in
utility as a means for dictating policy to the terms of its final aim which is to promote
cess, "so that international assistance could
Republika Srpska. be provided to make it a credible process foreign direct investment." It is stated that
However, if Republika Srpska officials the law "protects the rights of foreign in

ever display too much in vestors.... [T]here are no restrictions on

dependence and recalci foreign investment" except armaments and
media, and "the entities are directed to es
trance in response to By early 1996, the total tablish progressive and favorable tax condi
tions that encourage foreign investment."
NATO's demands, then Furthermore, the law "expressly forbids ex
t h e r e i s l i t t l e d o u b t t h a t nn ui mber of CIA operatives
the Muslim-Croatian Fed propriation or nationalization actions
against foreign investments.'"^i
eration would receive theacactitvi\e in the region had risen
And what role is envisioned for the
gToh-aeheTardaifnor aanndinvEasqiounip. plantoto22,5500, almost half of whom
people of Bosnia? The American embassy
can be a two-edged sword, has an answer for that, too. "Foreign in
vestors can utilize low-cost labor (the low
t h o u g h , a n d i n A p r i l ^were stationed...in Tuzla. est in the CEE [Central and Eastern Eu

1999, U.S. envoy Robert rope]) while gaining proximity and access
Gelbard temporarily sus to important markets in the EU [European
Union] and the CEE." Bosnian people will
pended the program for four months in leading to successful transition to a free have the privilege of joining the Third
order to force a reorganization of the Fed market economy." He added that "current World. Because Bosnia-Herzegovina is es
eration Army along lines demanded by RS [Republika Srpska] legislation on priva
sentially landlocked, access to the Adriatic
western officials. tization lacks a sound technical framework Sea is an important prerequisite for ex

RlSHAPIHeTaEEeONOMY and in its current form can lead only to ploiting this "low-cost labor." Despite
strong Bosnian Muslim reservations con
The heart of western policy in the region is large scale fraud....Looking beyond the cerning certain provisions, an agreement
the promotion of western corporate inter vague nature of the complaint, and osten on special relations was signed with neigh
ests. In late 1996, a "peace implementation sible concern about "fraud," what actually
conference" was held in London, during motivated the order suspending the law? boring Croatia, in which the Federation
which much of Bosnia-Herzegovina's fu was given free transit to and use of the
ture was forged. According to a report by Documents from the American Em Croatian port of Ploce. According to a re
the Press Association, the conference "won
bassy in Sarajevo paint a more honest pic port in the Croatian press, agreement from
a commitment from the Bosnian leaders to ture: "The privatization framework is the Bosnian Muslim delegation came "as a
result of pressure from the United
reconstruct the shattered economy along being overhauled and will create more States.'"*^ jn preparation for the expansion
free market economy lines, including sig opportunities for involvement of poten of trade through Ploce, the World Bank has
nificant privatization and close coopera tial foreign investors," adding that a "fun financed a $22 million project for the re
damental flaw" of the previous process construction of the main pier, and Sealand
"was the allocation of 47 percent of com has won a grant from the U.S. Trade and

tion with the World Bank."37 Laws are panies' shares to seven government-man Development Agency to perform "a feasi-
aged funds." Clearly, the "fraud" that con
penned and imposed by western officials. 41. American Embassy, Sarajevo, "The Commercial
Less than one year after the conference, cerned western officials was that western Guide to Bosnia and Herzegovina," June 1998.
Haris Silajdzic, co-chair of the Bosnia- 42. "Croatia, Federation Sign Special Relations
corporations could not dominate the Agreement," HINA (Zagreb), Nov. 22, 1998; also
Herzegovina Council of Ministers, an process and seize the best assets. The em "Bosnia, Croatia Form Special Relations," UPI, Nov.
nounced that "U.S. Finance Secretary Da bassy's documents reassure investors that 22, 1998; also "Croatia Opens Up Key Port to Bos
vid Lipton will come here bringing draft "The new RS government has pledged to nia in Thawing of Relations," Agence France-Presse,
laws on privatization at the state level" to overhaul the privatization framework and
annulled all previous privatization laws. Nov. 22, 1998.
Next Year, the World Will Tolerate That As Well!"
Slobodna Bosna (Sarajevo), Sep. 21, 1997. 38. A. Pilav, "Draft Laws Arriving from the U.S.,"
36. Chris Hedges, "Bosnian Muslims Said to Inten Dnevi Avaz (Sarajevo), Oct. 7, 1997.
sify Efforts to Rearm in Secret," New York Times, 39. Sead Numanovic, "Wcstcndorp Forms a Com
Oct. 3, 1997. mission," Dnevi Avaz (Sarajevo), Jiily 2, 1998.
37. Charles Miller, "Tough Action Agreed to in 40. Office of the High Representative, "Order on
Hunt for Bosnians War Criminals," Press Associa
tion (London), Dec. 5,1996. Privatization," Dec. 4, 1997.

52 CovertAction Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000

"Multi-ethnic" Brcko?

On March 8, the High Commissioner for
Bosnia and Herzegovina, formalized the

establishment of a "multi-ethnic" Dist

rict of Brcko. This event was marked by
a ceremony "blessed" with the presence
of Secretary of Slate Madeleine Albright.
The flags of Republika Srpska were

promptly torn down from public build
ings and the flags of the Muslim-Croat

Federation were raised instead—all in

the name of establishing a so-called
"multi-ethnic" city.

The local garrison of Republika

Srpska soldiers was forced at gunpoint
from their barracks, their weapons were
seized and crushed by U.S. tanks from
the nearby U.S. military base.

bility study on the development of con Weapons of Bosnian Serb units near Brcko being destroyed after that city
was arbitrarily removed from the Republika Srpska.
tainer terminal facilities and the corridor
tention...." The spokesman demanded Brod, Croatia, and NATO is providing
from Ploce to Sarajevo (and eventually the "much more progress on privatization" and funds for Bulgaria to upgrade three mili
Sava River).Following the removal of
Brcko from the Republika Srpska, Brcko foreign investment."*^ tary airfields to "NATO standards," al
NATO is establishing a permanent though these airfields are currently ade
Supervisor Robert Farrand signed an quate for Bulgaria's aircraft.Whose
agreement for the U.S. Trade and Develop presence in the Balkans. NATO's savage planes, then, are these upgrades intended
ment Agency to solicit bids from American bombing of Yugoslavia was motivated for, if not Bulgaria's? A poor Bosnian Serb,
firms to conduct a six-month feasibility solely by the desire to establish a NATO- Radoslav Skrba, wonders, "How is it that
study of the Brcko port on the Sava run colony in Kosovo. The Yugoslav gov
ernment consistently called for return of all these western armies now have bases
River.*^'^ all refugees, greater autonomy in Kosovo,
and an international presence in Kosovo. here? Could it be that it was their strategy
When deemed necessary, western offi The only divisive issue was the nature of all along? During the Communist time we
cials readily have wielded threats in order that presence, with NATO insisting on its
to achieve their goals. A western diplomat control of the province. NATO bases are were warned that the West wanted to
ic source revealed that "in diplomatic talks
behind closed doors, we are, sort of, in being constructed in Zadar and Slavonski come here and now here they are.■

timidating IRepublika Srpska] politicians" 46. Carol Giacomo, "U.S. and Allies May Turn Off 47. Marko Barisic, "Referendum for NATO Bases?"
with the possibility of invasion by Fed Aid Tap," Reuters, Nov. 9, 1998; "U.S. Threatens
eration troops. "The tendency is to stimu Aid Cut," UPl, Nov. 9, 1998; "Contact Group Sig Vjesiiik (Zagreb), Feb. 10, 1998; also Emanuil Ma-
late and open up economically" the Re ncv, "NATO is Promoting its Own Interest," Kttiifi-
nals It Wants to Cut Bosnian Aid," Reuters, Nov. 10, MCMl (Sofia), Oet. 17, 1998.
publika Srpska, he added. "When, in some 48. Mike O'Connor, "Bosnian Serbs, Unhappy in
diplomatic efforts, we try to 'soften' their 1998. Serb Republic, Fear Return to Bosnia," New Yor/j
stances, we always hint at their possible
war defeat. We always use the illustration Times, Sep. 18, 1998.
of Krajina."'^5 Threats against the Fed
eration are less aggressive, if no less effec Subscribers:

tive. On November 10, 1998, the Contact ARE YOU MOVING?

Group, which oversees policy in Bosnia, If you move, you must let us know. CovertAcUon Quarterly
and is chaired by the U.S., issued a state is currently sent bulk rate directly from our printer, and is not for
ment threatening a cutoff of millions of warded or returned by the Post Office. If you do not let us know
you are moving, you will not receive your magazine and we will not
dollars in aid to the Federation. An Amer know you did not receive it. So please help us keep your subscrip
tion current and intact by notifying us before you move. You can
ican spokesman bluntly stated that "the reach us by letter, phone, e-mail, or fax.
time has come and, in fact, is overdue for
the governments of Bosnia to be making
the transition - and Ithey] should be mak

ing it rapidly - to a sustainable market
economy. We are prepared to cut off pro
jects, programs, anything to get their at-

43. Op. cii., n. 41.
44. OHR Press Release, "Brcko Fori Feasibility

Study Agreement Sigtted," June 4, 1999.
45. Op. ril., n. 35.

Number 69 CovertAction Quarterly 53

Izati0n wT

Seattle and Beyond:

The Illegality of the WTO

BY Michel Chossudovsky

L eading up to the Seattle Millennium of the WTO Millennium Round. It was appendices) was either rubber-stamped or
Round of the World Trade Organi- based on a carefully worded consensus of a never formally ratified by national parlia
^zation (WTO), over 1,200 groups ments. The articles of agreement of the
and organizations from more than 85 large number of individual organizations. WTO resulting from this "technical agree
Yet this important document, in de ment" were casually embodied in interna
tional law. In other words, the 1994
countries called for a "Moratorium" on fur manding a "Moratorium" on further liber Marrakesh Agreement bypasses the demo
alization negotiations, failed to question cratic process in each of the member coun
ther liberalization under WTO auspices the very legitimacy of the WTO as an insti tries. It blatantly derogates national laws
and the holding of an "audit" to be under tution. It illustrates a critical dividing line and constitutions while providing exten
taken on the impacts of globalization. sive powers to global banks and multina
Their consensus statement ("Statement in the demands of the tens of thousands of tional corporations (MNCs). These powers

from Members of International Civil Socie protesters who converged on Seattle. have, in fact, become entrenched in the ar
The Marrakesh Agreement of 1994 ticles of agreement of the WTO.
ty Opposing a Millennium Round") said:
So, the process of the WTO's actual
c o n s t i t u t e s a b l a t a n t \ To l a t i o n o f f u n d a creation, following the Final Act of Uru

[We] oppose any further liberaliza mental social, economic and cultural guay Round is blatantly "illegal." Namely a
tion negotiations, especially those rights. The stakes in Seattle were funda- "totalitarian" intergovernmental body has
been casually installed in Geneva, empow
which will bring new
ered under international law with a man
areas under the WTO The only promise of the "free
date to "police" country-level economic
regime, such as invest market" is a world of landless and social policies, derogating the sover
ment, competition pol
icy and government eign rights of national governments.

procurement. We com farmers, shuttered factories, Similarly, the WTO almost neutralizes
mit ourselves to cam "with the stroke of the pen" the authority
and activities of several agencies of the
paign to reject any jobless workers, and gutted United Nations including the U.N. Confer
such proposals. We social programs...under the ence on Trade and Development (UNC-
also oppose the Trade-
Related Aspects of In TAD) and the International Labor Organi

tellectual Property WTO and the IMF. zation (ILO).

Rights (TRIPS) Agree Moreover, the articles of WTO are not

ment. We call for a only in contradiction vtith pre-existing na
tional and international laws, they are also
moratorium on any
at variance with "The Universal Declara
new issues or further negotiations mental and could not be addressed with a
that expand the scope and power tion of Human Rights." Acceptance of the
of the WTO. During this moratori compromise statement tacitly accepting WTO as a legitimate organization is tanta
um there should be a comprehen the legitimacy of the WTO as an institu
sive and in-depth review and as tion. The WTO was put in place following mount to an "indefinite moratorium" or re
sessment of the existing agree the signing of a "technical agreement" ne
ments. Effective steps should then peal of the Universal Declaration of Hu
be taken to change the agreements. gotiated behind closed doors by bureau man Rights.
crats. Even the heads of country-level del
Such a review should address the Apart from the blatant violation of in
egations to Marrakesh, Morocco, in 1994 ternational law, WTO rules also provide le
WTO's impact on marginalized were not informed regarding the statutes of
the WTO which were drafted by tech gitimacy to trade practices which border
on criminality, including "intellectual pira
communities, development, de nocrats in separate closed sessions.
mocracy. environment, health, "The Final Act Embodying the Results cy" by MNCs, the derogation of plant
human rights, labor rights and the breeders' rights, not to mention genetic
rights of women and children. The of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral
Trade Negotiations" was signed by minis manipulation by the biotechnolog)' giants,
review must be conducted with ters in Marrakesh on April 15, 1994, and the patenting of life forms including
instated the WTO as a world body. "The
civil society's full participation." WTO framework ensures a 'single under plants, animals, microorganisms, genetic

The Statement constituted an impor taking approach' to the results of the material, and human life forms under the
tant step in challenging the official agenda Uruguay Round—thus, membership in TRIPS agreement.
the WTO entails accepting all the results of
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the round without exception." In the sphere of financial services, the
the University of Ottawa and author of TJic Glohal-
ization of Poverty, Impacts of IMF and World Bank Re Following the Marrakesh meeting, the provisions of the General Agreement on
forms (London: Zed Books, 1997), available from 550-page agreement (plus its numerous
CovertAciion Quarterly (see p. 64).

54 CovertAction Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000

Trade in Services (GATS) provide legitima

cy to large scale financial and speculative
manipulations directed against developing

countries which are often conducive to the

demise of country-level monetary policy.
And the WTO Dispute Settlement Pro

cedures uphold the legitimacy of these var
ious manipulative procedures.

Economic ano Social Destrdction Abject poverty in the center of Jakarta, Indonesia.

As amply documented, humanity in the happening in western Canada which con the audit proposal accepts the legitimacy of
the WTO, it presupposes that there are mis
post-Cold War era is undergoing an eco stitutes one of the world's most resourceful takes and "let's talk and put this system on
nomic and social crisis of unprecedented hold" for a few years "while we re-evaluate."
scale leading to the rapid impoverishment "bread baskets," what will be the fate of
of large sectors of the world population. farmers in other regions of the world? Do we need an audit to ascertain
National economies are collapsing. Unem
China's Accession to the WTO "whether or not" the world is in crisis? And
ployment is rampant; Wall Street banks are
"taking over countries" one after the other; The terms of China's entry into the WTO, by whom will this audit be performed and
regional wars have erupted along strategic for whom? The key "partner NGOs" have
gas-oil pipelines, and often behind the var agreed upon in bilateral negotiations with
ious "insurgencies" are powerful corporate the United States barely a few weeks before already positioned themselves to undertake
interests which coincidentally are also lob the Ministerial Conference in Seattle, spell the relevant commissioned background
havoc in a country of more than one billion studies. And these research contracts per
bying for trade reform. In most countries people. It will devastate China's agriculture; formed "sector by sector" in a "politically
the standard of living has collapsed. it will trigger a deadly wave of bankruptcies correct" fashion according to preestab-
of state enterprises leading to mass unem lished guidelines set by the funding agen
This worldwide crisis of the late twen ployment. The provision of "national treat cies will take several years to complete.
ment" to western banks potentially could
tieth century is more devastating than the precipitate the fracture of the entire struc The conduct of an audit has already
Great Depression of the 1930s. It has far- ture of Chinese state banking. been accepted by the European Union in

reaching geopolitical implications; eco The Chinese authorities, fully aware of its consultations with the NGOs. Former
nomic dislocation has also been accompa the ramifications, have attempted to con
nied by the outbreak of regional conflicts, vince Chinese public opinion that "the European Commissioner Sir Leon Brit-
the fracturing of national societies, and in benefits from the agreement would justify tan, on behalf of the European Union,
the job losses and bankruptcies it will had in fact proposed in 1998, "the com
some cases the destruction of entire coun
cause."^ In the words of China's chief WTO missioning of a study on the impact of
tries. This crisis is by no means limited to the new Round on sustainable develop
the developing countries. In Europe and negotiator. Long Yongtu, "a nation cannot
North America, the welfare state is being develop and become strong without a ment." In other words, the audit was also
dismantled, schools and hospitals are sense of urgency and a sense of crisis."^
being closed down, creating conditions for part of the official agenda of the Seattle
the outright privatization of social services. The New World Order
This is by far the most serious economic In the face of global economic and social Round. In the meantime, while the audit
crisis in modem history.
devastation is an (official) "audit" really re is being conducted, economic, social and
In a large number of developing coun quired as called for in the "Statement From
Members of International Cml Society" to environmental destruction will continue
tries, the services economy and banking ascertain what is happening? Some of the
are already in the hands of foreign capital, NGO critics involved in the dialogue with unabated.
the WTO argue that there are both "posi
peasant economies have been devastated tive" and "negative" impacts of trade liberal "De Factd" Millennium Rdund
as a result of the dumping of European ization. This position is ambiguous: the In many developing countries, many of the
Union and U.S. grain surpluses. Genetical devastating impacts of "globalization" are al
ready known and documented; the NGO clauses projected for the Millennium
ly modified seeds produced among others community has already produced a wealth Round are already a "fait accompli." They
by Cargill and Monsanto (together with of critical analysis and research. Moreover, are part of the "condiiionalities contained
carefully engineered farm inputs produced in ad hoc loan agreements with the IMF
by these same agribusiness conglomerates) 1. Financial Times (London), Nov. 17, 1999.
have been forced upon farmers throughout 2. Quoted in ibid. and the World Bank. Under the structural
the world, often leading to mass poverty
adjustment program as well as in the con
and the fracture of mral economies, not to text of the IMF-sponsored "bailout agree
ments" (e.g. Indonesia, Thailand, South
mention the contamination of the food
Korea, Brazil), developing countries have
chain. already committed themselves to many of
the propositions that were to have been
In turn, international agribusiness is taken up in the Millennium Round.
intent upon driving the family farm into

bankmptcy. This process is by no means
limited to developing countries: Up to 30

percent of grain farmers in western Cana
da are on the verge of bankruptcy specifi
cally as a result of the enforcement by the
Canadian govemment of WTO provisions

concerning farm subsidies. And if this is

Number 69 CovertAction Quarterly 55

Many developing countries have been tegrate their financial operations. The leg In other words, a handful of financial
obliged, in the context of agreements islation has repealed the Glass-Steagall Act
signed with the Bretton Woods institutions, of 1933, a pillar of President Franklin D. conglomerates will gain effective control
to liberalize trade, deregulate capital move Roosevelt's "New Deal" that was put in
place in response to the climate of corrup over the entire U.S. financial services indus
ments, privatize state public utilities, dis tion, financial manipulation and "insider
mantle social programs and provide "na trading" which led to more than 5,000 try. Coincidentally, these same Wall Street fi
tional treatment" to foreign investors in a bank failures in the years following the nancial giants are also the main beneficiaries
of financial services' deregulation which pro
large number of economic activities includ 1929 Wall Street crash.^ vides "national treatment" to Wall Street's gi
ants in banking, insurance, brokerage ser
ing services, banking, procurement, and so 3. See Martin McLaughlin, "Clinton Republicans
forth. These provisions are often coupled Agree to Deregulation of U.S. Banking System," vices, actuarial services, etc. GATS is almost
with a "bankruptcy program" under the su World Socialist web site, Nov. 1, 1999. "tailor-made" to meet the standards set

pervision of the World Bank with a view to under the new U.S. financial services legisla
"triggering" the liquidation of competing tion. The financial giants oversee the real
national enterprises. An "enabling free mar
ket environment" is implanted (without re economy worldwide. They are creditors and
course to WTO clauses pertaining to "effec
More Facts about the WTO
tive access to markets"), national producers
are brutally displaced and destroyed, coun Still smarting from the failure of the WTO prised of seven panelists. All panelists are

tries are casually recolonized. meeting in Seattle, the governing body, secret. The WTO secretariat nominates

Wall Street bankers and the heads of the the General Council of the WTO met in panel members for each dispute from a
Member Roster of WTO Dispute Panelists
world's largest business conglomerates are Geneva in early February. Mike Moore, nominated by Member countries. To date
the organization's director general said,
indelibly behind this process. They interface "The WTO is back in business," Members that roster contains 159 names, of which
regularly with IMI; World Bank, and WTO have been meeting steadily since early 147 are men, (92.5 percent) and 12 are
women (7.5 percent).
officials in closed sessions as well as in nu January to prepare for the General Coun
cil session. They agreed to go ahead with —^Lori Wallach and Michelle Sforza,
merous international venues. Moreover, "Whose Trade Organization?'" Public Cit
negotiations on trade in farm goods izen, Washington, D.C.
participating in these meetings and consul which will probably start in late March
tations are the representatives of powerful and services, which includes insurance, WTO Dimtn Pmbist Unmasked

global business lobbies including the banking and health care, in late February. Kym Anderson served on the WTO panel
International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), —Elizabeth Olson, "After Seattle, for the U.S. challenge to the FU Lome
the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue
Trade Group Scales Back Its Agenda," Treaty preferences for Caribbean bananas.
(TABD) (which brings together in its annu (See Mike Gallagher and Cameron Mc-
al venues the leaders of the largest western New York Times, Feb. 8, 2000. Whirter's expose on Chiquita in the Cin
business conglomerates with politicians and cinnati Enquirer, May 3, 1998.) Anderson
WTO officials), the United kates Council Secret Tbibonus is a trade expert who has published ex
for International Business (USCIB), the Da
The WTO has the strongest enforcement tensively on international trade and de
vos World Economic Forum, and the Insti mechanisms of any international agree velopment issues. His bias against envi
ment now in force. Rulings by a dispute ronmental and labor protection in the
tute of International Finance, representing panel are automatically binding and do
the world's largest banks and financial insti not require unanimous consent of the global economy is shown by the follow
WTO members to be adopted. Nor do ing quotes from articles written by him:
tutions, etc. Other "semi-secret" organiza WTO trade sanctions that may be subse
tions—^which play an important role in "The overuse of trade measures to pur
quently imposed need such approval. sue environmental or labor market objec
shaping the institutions of the New World Once a WTO tribunal has declared a tives has "an important indirect negative
Order—include the Trilateral Commission,
the Bilderberg Society, and the Council on country's law WTO-illegal, the country effect...namely the potential erosion of the
must change its law or face such sanc rules-based multilateral trading system."
Foreign Relations. tions. A ruling by a panel could be
—Kym Anderson, "The Entwining of
FlNIUICIUDlBE8DlfinON stopped from being implemented, only if Trade Pohcy with Environmental and
all WTO members, including the losing
To top it off, with "perfect timing" came Labour Standards," in W Martin and L.A.
the deregulation of the U.S. banking sys country, unanimously agree, which is not
tem which was approved by the U.S. likely to happen. Winters, eds., Implications of the Uruguay
Senate barely six weeks before the Millen Round for Developing Countries, World
nium Round meetings in Seattle. The new All panel activities and documents are
confidential, dispute panels operate in se Bank (1995).
legislation favors an unprecedented con cret, documents are restricted to the
centration of global financial power. In the countries in the dispute, due process and "Environmental and labor concerns
wake of lengthy negotiations which con citizen participation are nonexistent and
cluded in the early hours of October 22, all there is no possibility of outside appeal. can provide a convenient additional ex
WTO disputes are heard by the tribunals cuse for raising trade barriers."
regulatory restraints on Wall Street's pow
erful banking conglomerates were revoked composed of only three panelists (unless —^Seminar Paper 97-04, "Environ
"with a stroke of the pen." Under the new the disputing countries opt for a five- mental and Labor Standards: What Role
rules ratified by the U.S. Senate and ap member panel). Decisions can be ap for the World Trade Organization?," Uni
pealed to a WTO Appellate Body com
proved by President Clinton, commercial versity of Adelaide Centre for Interna
banks, brokerage firms, hedge funds, insti tional Economic Studies, March 1997, p.
tutional investors, pension funds and in
surance companies can freely invest in 13.)
each other's businesses as well as fully in

CovertActlon Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000

menis t,wmcn are noi

binding" documents). All tt
clauses of the IMF's deadly "e(
medicine" were expected to beco

manently established under the

Millennium Round. Countries i

only be "bonded" by external del
will be permanently "enslaved" b
temational body controlled by the

largest business syndicates. Thes

articles were desiened to set the

resort." War physically destroys what has Whht NeedsTO BE Dome "audit" while the world is consumed and
not been dismantled through deregulation,
destroyed? Is it not necessary to act now
privatization and the imposition of "free We must act in relation to the original "in and to question the legitimacy of a system
market" reforms. Outright colonization which ultimately destroys people's lives?
iquity" and "illegality" of the Final Act of
through war and the installation of western the Uruguay Round which creates the This requires challenging politicians
protectorates is tantamount to providing WTO as a "totalitarian" organization. and international officials, unmasking
their insidious links to powerful financial
"national treatment" to interests, and eventually overhauling and
transforming State institutions to remove
western banks and MNCs
them from the clutch of the financial es
in all sectors of a c t i v i t y. <"War is the MAI of last
"Missile diplomacy" repli tablishment. In turn, it requires "democra

cates and emulates the resort." War physically tizing" the economic system and its man
agement structure, challenging the blatant
"gunboat diplomacy" used in HdeeSsltroys concentration of ownership and private
to enforce "free trade" wealth, disarming financial markets, freez
what has not been ing speculative trade, arresting the laun
the 19th Century. The U.S. dering of dirty money, dismantling the sys
tem of offshore banking, redistributing in
G u s h i n g M i s s i o n t o C h i n adios-mantled through dereg come and wealth, restoring the rights of di
rect producers, rebuilding the welfare state
in 1844 (in the wake of as necessary steps to dismantling this un

the Opium Wars) had -uq]lation, privatization and just economic system.
It also means combating the "media
forewarned the Chinese
lies" and "global falsehoods" which uphold
imperial government "that "free market" reforms. the WTO and the powerful business inter
refusal to grant American ests which it supports and the "false con
demands might be regard sensus" of Washington and Wall Street
which ordains the "free market system" as
ed as an invitation to war.'"^ There can be no other alternative but to re the only possible choice on the fated road
to a "global prosperity."
The "Seattle Round" purported to ject the WTO as an international institu
tion, to imprint the WTO as an illegal or To achieve these objectives there must be
"peacefully" recolonize countries through ganization. In other words, the entire pro
the manipulation of market force—i.e., cess must be rejected outright. meaningful freedom of the press. The global
media giants fabricate the news, overtly dis
through the "invisible hand." It nonethe It is vital that citizens' movements
tort the course of world events, and mask the
less constitutes a form of warfare. around the world pressure their govern truth. This precludes a collective under
ments to withdraw without delay and can
War and globalization are not separate cel their WTO membership. Also, legal standing of the workings of an economic sys
issues. There are ongoing and growing tem which destroys people's lives.
proceedings should be initiated in national
dangers of war. Thus, the citizens' cam courts against the governments of member
paign against the WTO needs to be inte
grated with the antiwar movement against countries, underscoring the blatant viola
the bombing of sovereign countries by the
U.S. and its European allies. tion of domestic laws and national consti-

4. Quoted in Michel Chossudovsky, Towards Capi How can we postpone our struggle and
talist Restoration, Chinese Socialism after Mao "wait a few years" in the context of an

(London: Macmillan, 1986), p. 134.

Post-Seattle Thoughts about Globalization

TikeaFoxinaHenhodse" cent of India's estimated 45,000 plant rector, Mike Moore delivered during a pro
test in New Delhi, India, January 11,1999,
"A purely free market economy is like a species and 81,000 animal species are al at a meeting being addressed by Mr. Moore.
ready stored illegally in the United States.
free fox in a free henhouse." No Oehdcraov
—Renault SA Chairman, Louis "[T]he WTO has reached an Agree The key economic structures for global
ment on Agriculture, which is aimed at
Schweitzer, speaking at Davos. policy-making—the IMF, World Bank, G-
marginalizing the 550 million Indian farm 7, G-10, G-22, OECD, WTO—are domi
'WiGKED Trade ODGANiZAnoN" ers and putting the country's food security nated by the rich countries, leaving poor
at an unmanageable risk. For us, the sur countries and poor people with little in
"For several years, the people of India vival of our small and marginal farmers, fluence and little voice. There is little
have been a mute witness to the systemat
forming the backbone of the economy, is transparency in decisions:
ic effort of the rich counties to recolonize as essential as protecting the democratic "Multinational corporations influence

the developing world under the garb of traditions of this great nation.... the lives and welfare of billions of people,
"The WTO is, as a placard carried by
free trade. yet their accountability is limited to their
protestors on the streets of Seattle read: shareholders and their influence on na
"[T]he WTO has legitimized under the Wicked Trade Organization.'.... tional and international policy-making
TRIPS [Trade-Related Aspects of Intellect
ual Property of the WTO Agreement] the "Let this be a warning from the people kept behind the scenes."
steal, grab and plunder of biological of India. We will not allow a global sys —Human Development Report, 1999,
wealth and traditional knowledge from
India. Your patent laws have been de tem, which actually protects and supports United Nations Development Program
the rich and powerful at the cost of the
signed to facilitate biopiracy from the bio lives of millions of poor and hungry." (UNDP).
diversity rich countries...almost 90 per
—^From an Open Letter to the WTO Di

58 CovertAction Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000

Concuvrenily, it requires building the Children In a garbage dump in Cairo, Egypt.
conditions for a lasting world peace. This
means eventually dismantling the military- economic system feeds on social divisive- required which brings together social
industrial and security apparatus which ness between and within countries. Beyond movements in all major regions of the
sustains these financial interests, the aboli
tion of NATO and the phasing out of the Seattle, unity of purpose and worldwide world in a common pursuit and commit
arms industry. coordination among diverse groups and so
cial movements is crucial. A major thrust is ment to the elimination of poverty and to
The only promise of the "free market" the creation of a lasting world peace. ■
is a world of landless farmers, shuttered
factories, jobless workers and gutted social
programs with "bitter economic medicine"
under the WTO and the IMF constituting
the only prescription.

The lessons of Seattle are clear. The

struggle must be broad-based and democ
ratic encompassing all sectors of society at
all levels, in all countries, uniting in a major

thrust workers, farmers, independent pro

ducers, small businesses, professionals,
artists, civil servants, members of the cler
gy, students and intellectuals—united
across sectors. "Single issue" groups should

join hands in a common understanding
about how this economic system destroys
and impoverishes. The "globalization" of
this struggle is fundamental, requiring a de

gree of solidarity and internationalism un
precedented in world history. The global

The WTO, Not China, Threatens U.S. Workers

BY Anuradha Mittal and Peter Rosset

The campaign agiinsi Chinafe entry into the World Trade Oiganization is only by rich countries against the poor ones.Any attempt on the pan of India
a distraction. The AFL-CIO recently announced a major, multiyear campaigi or Nigeria or Brazil to apply trade sanctions against the United Slates, the
on this issue. Yet it is not China but free-trade ageements tliemselves that worlds bi^est emitter of greenhouse ^ses, would not get far.

threaten U.S. workers. The campaign aginst China is a disservice to those in developing coun
tries who are chalenging their own governments to ensure basic human rights
It is not surprising that western labor unions are concerned about the for al. It puts Third World opponents of the WTO in the awkward position
of seeming to promote a U.S. agenda and of working a^inst the interests of
growing number of jobs leaving their countries. But they need to point the fin the poor in their own countries.
ger at U.S. suppon for trade agreements such as the WTO and NAFTA, rather
than at other countries. Leife not foiget that NAFTA has eliminated more than Corporate globalization will never be effectively countered without a
400,000 jobs in the United States, according to reseaich by our institute. The movement that crosses international boundaries. Only when workers and en
vironmentalists work together in every couiury where a company does busi
manufeciuring seaor alone lost 341,000 jobs in 1999, according to a report
put out by the U.S. Department of Commerce this February The WTO and ness will it be possible to place human beings and the environment on par
NAFTAare major causes of unemployment and poor working conditions, and with profits. TheAmerican labor and environmental movements need to ^ve

they will remain so whether China is a member of the WTO or not. up their single-country bashing. Otherwise jxrtential alies around the world
Those cashgwing China and other developing countries need to recognize will wonder if their home country will be the next one singled out, and inter-

that it is hypocritical for the United States to use trade sanctions to punish naiional alliances will be that much harder to build.
countries iliai wolate human ri^ts. They forget the fact that the United States
itself has yet to ratify the Internationa] Covenant for Economic, Social and Cul- Of course, it is appropriate to casig3te China or any other country for ac
luial Rights; the Convention on the Rights of tlie Child; as wel as the Conven
tion on the Elimination of All Fomis of Discrimination against Women. And cepting only those human rights that suit its regjme^ political and economic
interests. However, a campaign against China is not going to be of much ben
yet, we assume moral authoity when it comes to human ri^is. efit to workers in either country Whrle China should have the same ri^t as
The United States has, in many instances, acted like the rogue nations it
any nation to join the WTO, wc should recognize that the WTO is bad for
critidzes. Other WTO members could very well Itc ollended by the terrible people everywhere, whether Chinese,American, Mexican or Indian.
conditions faced by farm workers in parts of the United States, or by prison
labor and sweatshops here.Any member country could say that U.S. law, It^ not China joining the WTO that hurts American workers; it is the
which makes it possible to execute a teenager or a person with mental dis WTO iiself. Let^ keep our focus on the real enemy

ability, is an offense agiinsi humanity Tl»e above analysis is from a longer article by the same name. Anuradha Mittal and
Most Thini Wsrid emiiunmentalists and labor goups have consistently
Peter Rosset an: based at Food Flrst/lnsUtiUc for Food and Development Policy
opposed trade sanctions as a way of enforcing environmental and labor rules
because trade sanctions are inherently an ine^litarian tool. They can be used (httpy/www.foodfirsLoig) in Oakland, Calif. Tl»cy arc the editors of the recently published
bookAtnerim Needs Human Rigfils (Food Fust Books). They can be reached at pmproj®

pro^essKe.org, or by writing to Progressive Media ftoject, 409 East Main St., MadLson, W1

53703.

Number 69 CovertAction Quarterly

Commentaries on the Seattle Battle

DBiHOPweNnioielbvoii cept in a special meeting on the last day... they were so clearly and deeply rooted in
Their anger at the insult of being at the re communities across North America and every
by Martin Khor, Director, Third World other continent. Formerly isolated from each
Network, Penang, Malaysia: ceiving end of such shabby treatment boiled other, advocates for diverse interests—^the en
It was an amazing week. In Seattle the con over...The African Ministers issued a strong vironment and labor rights, for instance—are
tradictions of globalization revved to a climac statement that there was "no transparency" in finding common cause. (ZNet Commentary)
tic conclusion. At the end, the WTO Minister the meeting, that African countries were gener
ial Conference that was supposed to launch a SHNOTOWID!
new round collapsed, suddenly, in almost ally excluded on issues vital to their future, that
total chaos, like a house of cards.... they were concemed over the intention to pro from a Unity Statement by participants
duce a ministerial text at any cost. "[W]e will In the Seattle International People's
The main message of the protesters was not be able to join the consensus required...."
heard loud and clear, that the WTO has gone Assembly:
much too far in setting global rules that "lock Similar statements were issued by the We..."Say no to WTO!"—^firmly united in the
in" the interests of big corporations at the ex Carribean Community Ministers and by task of exposing and opposing the WTO and

pense of developing countries, the poor, the some Latin American countries. advancing the people's resistance to imperial
environment, workers and consumers. The ist globalization....
impact of grassroots protests against global [U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Bar-
ization already evident in the campaigns on shefsky and WTO Director General Mike [Wfhile we struggle for reforms and try to
the multilateral agreement on investment Moore] were faced with the prospect that if a achieve palpable guns on immediate issues, we
(MAI) and against genetic engineering, had its draft Declaration were presented...there
coming-of-age in the street battles of Seattle. would be an explosion of protests and a re make sure that we are not distracted fiom the

Some wiW also pinpoint the inability of jection by developing nations.... overall struggle against the main enemy of the
the U.S. and EU to bridge their differences as In the end it was less embarrassing to de world's people today—imperialism—specifical
the immediate cause of the collapse. This was ly the numter one imperialist power, the USA...
...a significant factor.... cide to let the Seattle meeting collapse vvith-
out attempting even a brief Declaration. "We firm up our resolve to promote and
However, the more basic cause...was the (Third World [email protected])
develop the anti-imperialist and democratic
untransparent and undemocratic nature of DiSHiunumWiO stmggle of the workers and oppressed people
the WTO system, the blatant manipulation of against the inhuman policies and acts of the
that system by the major powers, and the re by Russell Mokhlber and Robert multinational companies, their govemment
fusal of many developing countries to contin Weissman, Focus on the Corporation: and international instruments such as the
ue to be on the receiving end.... WTO critics now face a perilous moment. IMF World Bank, WTO, and military allianc
es. (Seattle International People's Assembly)
The seeds of the North-South battle were They must not be distracted by illusory or cos
metic reform proposals, nor by even more sub GuBn ECONOMYDKmGHROiazHi
sown in Geneva in the weeks before Seattle. stantive proposals for changing the WTO—
should they ever emerge from the institution or by Stratfor, Inc.:
Developing countries voiced their disillusion its powerful rich country members. Instead, The participants [of the WTO meeting] are so
ment that five years after the WTO's creation divided that they could not even develop a
they should unite around an uncompromising formal agenda for the meetings. While every
they had not seen any benefits. Worse, the demand to dismantle the WTO and its corpo one is focused on China's admission, the fact
poor countries face potentially enormous dis rate-created mles. (Focus on the Corporation is that the WTO is moribund.... Its failure is
location... arising from the WTO's many rooted in the fundamental reality of today's
http://lists.essential.org' corp-focus.)
agreements. global economy: de-synchronization of re
Oz-UKElKiBnDiRDiiHnfm gions of roughly equal bulk. Ever since the
The developing countries in general op Asian meltdovm, the world's economic re
from ZNet, Norman Solomon, Fairness
posed these new issues [pushed by the U.S. and Accuracy in Reporting: gions have been completely out of synch...That
and major powers] which they saw would means that the creation of integrated eco
By the time President Clinton arrived in Se nomic policies is impossible. What helps one
open up their markets further to the rich na attle...for the WTO summit, it was clear that region hurts others.... This points to increased
tions' big companies, or would give these rich mere mortals had thrown themselves onto the tension among and within regions. Such de-
nations new protectionist tools to block Third
World products from the North. gears of global trade designed by the rich and synchronization is...a warning of the potential
powerful. The Oz-like curtain shielding the for serious international conflict. (Strat-
[T]he WTO Secretariat was used by the operators of corporate machinery had gone
major powers to engage in untransparent pro up in smoke—^symbolized by the tear gas and for.Com, Nov. 29,1999.)
cedures such as holding informal meetings on pepper spray wafting over the city
crucial issues...to which most developing GunifliizHnaN: Bicosr Chuungi
[The] month began with the acrid smell
countries were not invited. These so-called of illusions turning to ash. For the general from All BadhdadI writing In Free Arab

"Green Room" meetings infuriated the Third public, the WTO will never again be able to Voice:
claim automatic legitimacy And while the
World Members of the WTO.... hotshots running the WTO lose momentum, After the mode of production has gone global,
the parallel activities of global loan sharks like "globalization" has tumed into an inescapable
The plan...was to get the major powers the International Monetary Fund are also slid reality, as the biggest challenge faced by hu
(mainly the U.S. and European Union) to ing into further disrepute. mans...and as a phenomenon with especially
agree among themselves, then apply pressure grave consequences for the peoples of the
The peaceful marchers in dovmtovm
in the Green Rooms on a few influential deve Seattle compelled media attention because

loping countries to go along, and then pull to
gether a Declaration to launch a new Round

which all Members would be coerced to ac

CovertAction Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000

Third World. This era was ushered in by the On Tuesday, at the huge rally., before the the week, and problems in finding child care....
A major reason for not participating...was
collapse of the Soviet Union, the occupation of march, labor leaders from Mexico, the Caribbe
Arab oil wells, the disintegration of Yugosla\Ta, an, South Africa, Mala)^, India... spoke along lack of Imowledge about the WTO....
and the imposition of the American will on The problem of unfamiliarity with the
most of the peoples and rulers of the world.... with every major U.S. union leader (all white).
WTO was aggravated by the fact that Black and
It is.-.a travesty that America which Rank-and-file U.S. workers of color also at
flaunts democracy, defends human rights, Latin communities across the U.S. lack Internet
and calls for religious tolerance, employs all tended...There were young African Americans
in the building trades; Blacks from Local 10 of access compared to many white communi
sorts of immoral and inhuman methods ties.... Limited knowledge meant a failure to see
the ILWU in San Francisco and Latinos from its how the WTO affected the daily lives of U.S.
against any state rejecting the hegemony of
globalization, all the while sponsoring a spe LosAngeles local;Asian-Americans from SEIU, communities of color. "Activists of color felt
cial version of Islam of its own design.... Teamsters of color from eastern Washington
they had more immediate issues," said Rashidi
Globalization forced the government of state, members of the painters' union and the Omari [of Oaklandl "Also, when we retumed,
Guatemala to repeal a law that protected in union of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Em
fants and prohibited the American compa people told me of being worried that family and
ployees (H.E.R.E.). Latino farm workers from peers would say they were neglecting their own
ny..Gerber, from falsely claiming...that its the UFW and PCUN (Pineros and Campesinos communities, if they went to Seattle. They
del Noroeste) of Oregon also attended. At one would be asked: Why are you going? You
food is better and more nutritious for infants should stay here and help your people."
point a miner irom the SouthAfrica labor move
than a mother's milk.... ment cried, "In the words of Karl Marx, \vork- Yet, all those with whom I spoke found the
ets of the world, unite!' The crowd...cheered.
Thailand was forced to annul its produc experience extraordinary They spoke of being
Among community activists of color, the changed forever. "I saw the future." "I saw the
tion of low-cost medications that treat AIDS Indigenous Emironmental Network (lEN) possibility of people working together...."
delegation led by Tom Goldtooth conducted
patients out of fear of U.S. opposition.... an impressive program of events with native They..had seen why, as the chant goes,
One of the consequences of globalization 'Ain't no power like the power of the people,
peoples from all over the U.S. and the world. 'cause power of the people don't stop!"
will be the end of cultural diversity and the A I5-member multi-state delegation repre
There must be effective follow-up and in
triumph of the unipolar culture propagan sented the Southwest Network for Environ creased communication between people of
dized by companies monopolizing the
mental and Economic Justice based in Albu color across the nation....
media...leading to the extinction of ancient
cultures inherited over thousands of years.... querque, U.S. and Mexico; their activities in With mass protest planned for April 16-17
in Washington, D.C., at the World Bank and
Today, the world watches American Seattle were binaiional.... the IMF the opportunity to build on the WTO
movies, listens to American music, speaks
with an American accent, dances to American The predominantly white Direct Action Nfictory shines brightly More than ever, we
Network (DAN)...brought thousands to the need to work on our ignorance about global is
tunes, wears American jeans and perfumes, sues with study groups, youth workshops,
drinlts Coca Cola, Pepsi...and eats American protest. But Jia Ching Chen of the Bay Area's conferences. We need to draw specific links be
junk food, having learned to distinguish, Third Eye Movement was the only young per
through the globalized media, the trademarks son of color involved in DAN's...planning. tween the WTO and our close-to-home strug
of American name brands. (Ali Baghdadi, Free
Arab Voice, January 8, 2000, translated from [Tjhe overall tumoui of color from the gles in communities of color... (Elizabeth [Be-
Arabic by Maha Abu Ghosh, www.fav.net.) U.S., remained around 5 percent...activists tital Martinez, "Where was the Color in Seat-
from the Bay Area and the Southwest gave me
Where Was the Color ih Sehttie? tle?"-ColorIanes: one of the nation^ leading
several reasons for this. Some mentioned con
by Elizabeth (Betita) Martinez magazine on race, culture and organizing, Jan
"1 was at the jail where a lot of protesters were cern about the likelihood of brutal police re uary 2000, httpy/Avwwcolorlines.com.) ■

pression. Other obstacles: lack of funds for the
trip, inability to be absent from work during

being held and a big crowd of people was

chanting, This is what democracy looks like!'

At first it sounded kind of nice. But then I

thought: Is this really what democracy looks
like? Nobody here looks like me." —-Jinee
Kim, Bay Area youth organizer.

[lit is almost impossible to find anyone

wondering why the 40-50,000 demonstra
tors were overwhelmingly Anglo. How can

that be when the WTO's main victims around

the world are people of color? Understanding

the reasons for the low level of color, and
what can be learned from it, is absolutely cru
cial if we are to make Seattle's promise of a

new, international movement against imperi
alist globalization come true.

Among those who did come for line WTO
meeting were some highly informative Third
World panelists who spoke.. .about the effects of

WTO on health care and on the environment.

The>' included activist-experts from Mexico,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Ghana, and Pakistan. WTO protesters in Seattle, December 1,1999.

Number 69 CovertAction Quarterly 61

L a b o r Ta k e s o n t h e W TO

SCAniE:AWAKE-UP GALL Taxi drivers in Seattle also went on strike for settlement of an

"The global market that has been forged in the last decades is outstanding labor dispute, timing it with the opening of the
now being called to account. The recent global financial crisis WTO meeting.
was an economic five-alarm fire. Seattle provided a political
At a giant rally and march organized by the AFL-CIO, tens of
wake-up call....
"Yes, globalization is creating vast new wealth, but financial thousands of workers and activists heard labor leaders from

crises are growing more frequent and severe, and inequality is many U.S. international unions as well as Mexican maquiladora
workers, representatives of the South African, Caribbean and
rising, as the UN reports, both among and within nations. This Canadian unions, decry the WTO's attacks on workers and the
means that the seeds for rejection of globalization are in every
political system, in developed nations as well as developing na environment around the globe.
"What is good for a Ford worker in Detroit must also be good
tions....
for a worker in South Africa," exclaimed a representative of the
"Clearly, we have to do better. If we do not, if the global sys South African labor movement, adding, "It must also be good for
tem continues to generate growing inequality, environmental de a Ford worker in Hermosillo, Mexico."
struction and a race to the bottom for working people then I can
assure you, it will generate an increasingly volatile reaction that As the crowd of more than 50,000 marched through the
vdll make Seattle look tame." —John J. Sweeney, President of the streets, their chants included: "The WTO has got to go, the peo
ple came and stole the show"; and "Whose Streets? Our Streets!'"
AFL-CIO, speaking at the World Economic Forum, Davos. referring to the strategy of closing down the streets to help close
Switzerland, January 28, 2000.
down the WTO session.

At one meeting the Teamsters were playing host to Senator

West Coast Dock Workers Paul Wellstone (Dem.-Minn.) "We are here to shout that we in

tend for this global economy to work for working people,"
Wellstone shouted. Teamsters Vice President Chuck Mackjoined

Close Ports in by saying: This trade is not free; it is free for the transnation
al corporations and the beneficiaries of global capitalism. We will
November 30, the opening day of the Seattle meeting, workers of no longer accept a secret society that affects our lives." —^Teofilo
the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU)
closed the West Coast ports from Alaska to San Diego—some for Reyes, "The Whole Story of The Battle in Seattle,' " Labor Notes,
three hours and several for one day—in an action to protest
January 2000.

WTO's policies. International Laror Solioarity
An ILWU spokesperson, Steve Stallone, speaking at a rally

held in San Francisco, said: "The union went out to send a mes

sage to corporate CEOs that they can't run the global economy Attempts to create a rift between the workers of developed and devel

without the workers." oping countries notwithstanding, the spirit of international solidarity

was strong in the speeches of labor lead

ers of different countries. The head of

the ILWU, [Brian McWilliams] said in
his address at the Seattle rally: "There
will be no business as usual today We
are demonstrating to the corporate
CEOs that the global economy will not

run without the consent of the workers

everywhere.... The interest of the work
ing people transcends international

boundaries."

International solidarity was repeated

by a South African labor leader when

he said: "Freedom is under a new

threat today, the threat of corporate

greed...a new form of terrorism led
by the WTO, a new form of colonial
ism led by globalization. [They are]

attempting to throw a new wedge be
tween workers of the developed and
workers of the developing countries."
More than 50,000 protesters march

ed, shouted slogans, [and] sang

Members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) marching songs.... The "International" was
in the labor demonstration against the WTO in Seattle, December 1999. sung in three languages. —Socialist
Unity Center, India.

62 CovertAction Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000

"Emergency Management" in Seattle

BY Frank Morales

"Procedures for coordinating DOD and 8, Medical.By November 1, the Seattle United States Policy on Counter terrorism,
protest had been updated lo a "security
Department of Justice (DOJ) responses to threat." According to the local FEMA of (classified), "discusses crisis management
law enforcement emergencies arising un fice, the protest was designated a 'National and consequence management," and that
while FEMA is to implement a "conse-
der 10 U.S.C. 331-333 are set forth in the
DOD Civil Disturbance Plan (GARDEN

PLOT), February 15, 1991."
—Federal Emergency Management

Agency, Concept of Operations from the
Basic Plan of the Federal Response Plan,

April 1999.

OnNovember13,1999,hteExecutive Director of the Chicago-based Gun-wielding riot policeman kicks demonstrator in Seattle, one of tens of
Emergency Response and Re thousands protesting the WTO.
search Institute (ERRI) issued a "world
wide terrorism advisory," The advisory Special Security Event' by the National quence management" operation, "the FBI as
stated that ERRI was "monitoring possible Security Council."^ the Federal Lead Agency for crisis manage
threats concerning an upcoming World
Trade Organization (WTO) meeting to be FEMA's Federal Response Plan (FRP), ment," will manage "predominantly a law
held in Seattle, WA at the end of Novem amended Public Law 93-288 (1988),^ pro enforcement response."'"
ber, and the possibility of anticapitalist vides legal authority for the federal govern
street violence...."' Only a few months ear ment to respond to all sorts of "emergen Two weeks before the WTO Confer
lier, the Washington State Military Depart cies," including those that are "man-made."
ment had received a request from Mayor FRP training utilizes "special/extraordinary ence, the FBI issued its own alert regarding
Paul Schell, City of Seattle, "for conse event exercises" simulating "regional events the Seattle protests. It stated that "the
such as large-scale civil disturbances."® The
quence management resources in support FRP is a work in progress and was last up threat of violent or destructive criminal ac
of the World Trade Organization Confer dated in April 1999 in a "Concept of
ence.At that time, the Military Depart Operations" publication.^ Back in 1997, a tivity—to include individual and group
ment's Emergency Management Division "notice of change" was issued by FEMA.
acts of civil disturbance—is considered a
reported that "most resources identified T h e n o t i c e " a d d s a Te r r o r i s m I n c i d e n t distinct possibility.""
are beyond the capability of the State and
will be forwarded to the Federal Emergen Annex to the Federal Response Plan (FRP), The FBI defines terrorism this way:
which will be used to implement Pres
cy Management Agency (FEMA) to be con idential Decision Directive 39 (PDD-39)." "The unlawful use of force or violence
sidered by the federal government."^
According to the Terrorism Annex, PDD-39. against persons or property to intimidate
The Federal Emergency Management or coerce a government, the civilian popu
5. FEMA, Region 10 (AK, ID, OR, WA), HAZMAT lation, or any segment of it, in furtherance
Agency, which is an "independent'"' gov Update, Mike Hammond, Oci. 18, 1999. of political or social objectives."'^ Under
ernment agency set up to deal with "all 6. FENU, Region 10 (AK, ID, OR, WA), I1AZ\UT standably, the FBI definition makes no
Update, Mike Hammond, Nov. 1, 1999.
types of hazards," including "internal dis 7. FEMA, Federal Response Plan (FRP) (current mention of moral force.
turbance (strikes, riots)," trains and fi version), www.fcma.gov/r-n-r/planl.htm. In the crackdown in Seattle, civil dis
nances local "emergency operations" of 8. FEMA, Comprehensive Exercise Program (CEP)
fices around the country. Its Region 10 of (current version), www.fcma.gov/pie/section3.htm. obedience had become a terrorist threat.
9. FEMA, Concept of Operations, April 1999, www.
fice, which covers Washington state, noted fema.gov/r-n-r/frp/frpconc.htm. 10. FEMA, Federal Response Plan - Notice of
in a mid-October publication under the Change, Terrorism Incident Annex to the FRP, www.
fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd39_frp.htm.
heading of "Terrorism," chat while "the 11. Seattle Times, "Police Had WTO Alert," Dec. 11,
World Trade Organization preparation
1999.
meetings are still progressing at this point
in time the security threat at this meeting 12. Emergency Management Division, Washington
in Seattle is considered low," although it Military Department, Training and Planning for Ter
noted that "some resources are being pre- rorist Activities, Dec. 17, 1999.

deployed, especially those relating to ESF

1. Paul Anderson, "Chicago Emergency Instiluie Is
sues World Wide Terrorism Advisory," Emergency-

net News, Nov. 13, 1999.

2. Washington Military Department, Major General

Timothy J. Lowcnbcrg, The Adjutant General, Re
port for Oct. 1999, to Governor Gary Locke, Nov. 1,

1999.
3. Ibid.

4. Federal Emergency Management Agency, "About

FEMA," www.fema.gov.

Number 69 CovertAction Quarterly 63

Police gas and pepper spray protesters, November 30. ken bones. There were children present,
there were families present. They were fir
Reclaiming THE Strehs According to CNN, they were in Seattle ing upon families, mothers, grandmoth

By the time the china began to rattle in Se "largely to provide expertise and assist in ers,"'^
attle on the morning of December 1, hun coordinating a federal response in the
dreds of highly visible Army National event of a terrorist attack during such a During the assault, several local hospi
Guard troops from the 81st Infantry Bri tals "were tracking symptoms of patients"
high profile event. who came to their emergency rooms, "to
gade hit the streets. The 81st, which nor Special Forces "expertise" was passed see if there is a pattern that indicates any
mally trains for combat, "recently requali- sign of bio-terrorism," an effort the hospi
fied in riot-control operations under a on as a "force multiplier" for the police and tals had "been working on with the De
Guard-managed training program, other state and federal forces directly em partment of Defense" for several weeks
prior to the demonstration,
Following Mayor Schell's "Declaration ployed to suppress protest. The Seattle Po
of Civil Emergency," under authority of Se lice Department, working with nearly two Perhaps they were advised of the Joint
attle's Municipal Code Chapter 10.02, and dozen law enforcement agencies, including
Governor Gary Locke's "Proclamation of the FBI, SWAT commandos, the Washing Chiefs' admonition that "non-lethal wea
ton State Patrol and the King County Sher
Emergency" calling out the troops, a full- iff's Department, constituted a sizable pons shall not be required to have a zero
scale "non-lethal" militarized police assault force. With the protesters penned in, the probability of producing fatalities or per
was initiated. Its target: massive nonviolent manent injuries."^' In any case, at a certain
police unleashed their media friendly arse point the police ran out of gas. They met
civil disobedience which had succeeded in nal of "abusable," "non-lethal weapons" up with a few federal agents at 1900 N.
which, among other things, "break down Loop Road, in Casper, Wyoming, the
making its point. The Guard trained ac the delineation between military and po headquarters of Defense Technology Cor
cording to National Guard Regulation 500- poration of America, Once there, "six
50, Civil Disturbance Control Operations. lice."'^ members of the Wyoming Air National
Their "main mission involved patrolling Guard lent a hand by flying 3,300 pounds
sidewalks and forcing demonstrators out "Block by block, officers fired canisters
of a 50-square-block no-protest zone.''^"^ of gas into the crowds with a terrifying of civilian riot control munitions"^^ La^k
boom. Then they shot rubber bullets into to Seattle, And the war continues. ■
In addition to the "unarmed," "civilian- the backs of protesters even as they ran
19. David A. Love, "Ami-War Protesters Win the
soldiers," "more than 160 active duty mili away,"i® A doctor, who was assisting the Battle of Seattle," Dec. 21,1999, Independent Media
tary personnel" were activated, "including protesters, stated that "we had reports of Center; also Blind Spot #3, www.indymedia.org.
a small number of Special Forces many demonstrators winding up with seiz 20. Seattle Times, "Clashes, protests, wrack WTO;
troops,"^5 Joint Special Operations ures the next day." He stated, "I did see Police use tear gas against blockade," Nov. 30, 1999.
Task Force who were present in Seattle are 21. Department of Defen.sc Directive 3000,3, Policy
penetration wounds. I did see people for Non-Lethal Weapons, July 9, 1996.
military "counter-terrorist," "crisis manage bleeding, I did see teeth loss. I did see bro- 22. Op. cit., n, 14.
ment" specialists, designed for rapid de
16. Ibid. The "special operations task force," an The GLOBALISATION of
ployment both here and abroad. The
JSOTF defines terrorism as both a law en outgrowth of recent counter-terrorism Presidential knpsctsof iMFafldVlMdBank Reforms
forcement and national security threat. Decision Directives 39 and 62, is in fact so recent Michel Chos^dovsky

13. Seattle Post-lnteUigettcer, "Guardsmen protect that the Joint Chiefs of Staff Publication 3-05.1, A landmark work on the
WTO delegates and protesters alike," Dec. 2, 1999. JTTP for Joint Special Operations Task Force Oper human costs of IMF and Workl
14. Master Sgi. Bob Haskell, "National Guard helps ations is still on the drawing board and remains un
restore order in Seattle," Army Link News, Dec. 3, Bank "structural adjustment" pro
published, grams around the globe. By re
1999. 17. Steve Wright, "War Without Blood? Hypocrisy
of 'Non-Lethal' Arms," Le Monde Diplomatique (Pa nowned Canadian economist
15. CNN, Seattle - Online, Dec. 8, 1999.
ris), Dec. 1999. Sec also: (httpi/Avw^v.cryptome.org/ Michd Chossudo'vdty, this well-re
stoa-atpc.htm). searched and timely book is of
18. Seafdc Times, "Police Haul Hundreds to Jail,"
fered to CovertAction readers for
Dec. 1, 1999.
only $20.00 (add $10 for airmail
outside the U.S.).

64 CovertAction Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000

■ ■I a l i z a t i o n / H u n g e r

The Politics of Hunger

By Anuradha Mittal

Agricultural Organization estimates, International financial institutions, mul Farmers in India's 'granary' of Northern
tilateral institutions, and CEOs of corpora Punjab stale have been induced to switch
Accodrnigot ercentUN..Foodandevery night an estimated 790 million tions would argue that trade liberalization is from growing wheal and rice to potatoes and
the key to food security They assen that the
people in the developing world go to sleep Famine victims, Sub-Saharan Africa,
hungry This is more than the combined pop way to achieve food security is not by help
ulation of Europe and North America - a ing farmers to grow more food for local mar 1973.
kets but rather by boosting international
"hungry continent" of men, women and chil trade. Their analysis appears to be based on tomatoes for the fast food industry In the
dren who may never reach their physical and two inter-related assumptions, which must neighboring Haryana, which rivals Punjab in
mental potential because they do not have agriculture, industrial houses have bought
be addressed to show the hollowness of the up wheat fields to invest in floriculture with
enough to eat. However, hunger is not limit funds from corporations in the Netherlands
ed to the developing nations. Approximately assertions concerning trade. where pesticides and fertilizers now saturate
8 million people in the industrialized world ground water. The Dutch companies control
Assumption #1: More Trade Equals Higher the flower business while translocating the
and 26 million in the countries in transition National Income and Food Security. environmental catastrophe. Even more auda
ciously, Royal Canine of France has been al
are undernourished.^ While this may sound good in theory a lowed to set up a project to manufacture dog
look at the real-life case of India provides and cat food out of meat and cereals pro
Here in the United States, approximately some insights into this assumption. Trade duced in a country whose people are grossly
36 million people do not have adequate ac
cess to food.2 About 20 percent of all chil liberalization has resulted in an India where malnourished.®
dren under the age of 18—fourteen mil
lion—lived in hungry homes in 1999.^ U.S. the war on poverty did not fail, but rather Assumption #2: Trade Induced Higher Na
has been called off. With the adoption of the tional Income Eventually Trickles Down.
Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said, New Economic Policy in 1990, based on
"During this, the most prosperous economy market reform, India saw its national debt According to an alternative economic
in decades, it should shock most Americans survey conducted in 1994, the unionized
to learn that hunger persists and it is in every growing and was forced to airlift 47 tons of sector in India was estimated at about 17 per
state. The problem of hunger amid America's gold to the Bank of England for safe keeping cent of the total workforce, which basically
to pacify the international creditors.^ constitutes the middle class, estimated to be
plenty cannot be ignored."
No one should go hungry in the United While agricultural exports in India have between 150-200 million. Yet with the in-
increased by more than 70 percent during the 8. Ranjit Raj, "Bartering Away 50 Years of Agricul
Stales—or in the Third World. There is plen last five years of trade liberalization, food tural Gain," inter Press Service, Feb. 11, 2000.
ty of food to go around. The relationship be
tween population growth and hunger has prices have increased by at least 63 percent,
been debated since Thomas Malthus pub putting them beyond the reach of the poor.^ A
lished his 1807 essay on the Principle of survey by the National Institute of Nutrition
shows that the per capita consumption of ce
Population, which stated that while popula reals has dropped by over 14 grams per per
tion grows very fast, food production grows son per day since the late 1980s. The intake of

slowly lentils, the only protein source for many of the
But history has not supported Malthus's poor, dropped even more sharply.^

theory. Over the past 35 years, global per Economic reforms in India have led to
capita food production has outstripped pop
ulation growth by 16 percent. Enough food further concessions to big business, such as
is available in the world to provide 4.3
freezing tax increases in the name of incen
pounds of it to every peison on this Earth tives for investment. Rather the government
every day'^ The real problem is growing eco
nomic and political inequities. The blind has chosen to mobilize resources from the

pursuit of a market economy which puts cor poor in the form of hefty hikes in taxes on es
porate profits before people's lives, the cash
register ahead of compassion. sential commodities in the Public Distribu

Anuradlui Mittal is policy director at Food First/In tion System (PDS). Millions of poor people
stitute for Food and Development Policy (web site have been denied ration cards and family
www.foodHrst.org) in Oakland, Calif. She is the co-
editor of the recently published America Needs Hu quotas have been cut. Large sections of the
man Rights (Food First Books). For more informa population are consequently at the mercy of
tion sec www.foodfirst.org. the skyrocketing prices on the open market.
X. Tlie Stale of the World Insecurity in the World,
Food and Agriculture Organization (Rome), 1999. 3. Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Pover
2. Advanced Report on Household Food Security in the ty; Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reforms (London
Vnited States, 1995-1998, USDA, 1999. and New York: Zed Books, 1998), pp. 125-26
6. V. Shiva, Trading Our Lives Aw<q/: An Ecological
3.1bid. and Gender Analysis of Free Trade and the WTO, Pan
Asia and ihc Pacific, 1995.
4. I-app6, et. al., Worid Hunger; 12 Myths (New York: 7. Touards Beying; A Perspective from the Indian Wo-
Grove Press, 1998). men's Movement, All India Women's Conference,

1995.

Number 69 CovertAction Quarterly 65

dustrial recession in the last decade, plant new farm policy will further relax rural land- rights is just such a framework we can unite
closures, non-payment of wages, temporary holding laws for businesses. The states of
and permanent layoffs have meant that the Kamataka and Maharashtra are already al behind. Those of us who are concemed
lower middle class has not been compensat lowing entrepreneurs to buy large tracts of
ed for inflation. In fact the 200 million-strong about growing hunger are still awaiting the
Indian middle class market is being restruc land.
tured. The lower end is being clipped off, implementation of the 1948 Universal Decla
while at the upper end incomes have in Liberalization of agriculture has resulted ration of Human Rights, which guarantees
creased remarkably The evidence for trickle- in food dumping which has destroyed the
economic base of poor farmers in food im everyone an adequate standard of living, in
down is thus non-existent.9 porting countries. As early as 1965, re cluding the right to be able to feed oneself.
searchers concluded that dumping of food We must legally endow all people with in
According to the Indian government's grains in India in the name of food aid, had alienable rights—^not just to liberty but to
own estimates, in the rush to open up agri driven down the price of domestic wheat and
culture to big business, some two million curtailed native production. The Mexican freedom from want.
small and marginal farmers lose or get alien govemment has put 1.8 million com farmers
ated from their land each year under current out of business over the past few years by It is time to remind policy-makers that
choosing to import heavily subsidized com
policies. Land reform has been removed by the intemational standards of the Univer
from the agenda and we have a sure recipe from the U.S.i^ sal Declaration of Human Rights, govem-
for famine—^putting the nation's food securi ments are committed to providing a standard
What's Needed Now of living adequate for the health and well-
ty in the hands of a few giant agribusi
nesses—^while the poor are landless and un We need to change the way we, as a society, being of every one.
think about poverty and hunger. Human The Declaration was widely supported
employed. This will only get worse, as the
10. Global Food Watch, lATP, Minneapolis, Sept. 50 years ago, but today it seems outrageous
9. Alternative Economic Survty 1993-94, PIRG (New to many. Yet what is more outrageous? A
Delhi), 1994. 1996. broad and sturdy safety net for all people? Or
800 million hungry people on this planet
and 36 million hungry people in the richest
country on earth? ■

Biotech Food

The top ten companies in pesticides, seeds, pharmaceuticals and vet ney); coffee, tmck transport, river/canal shipping (towboats and
barges), molasses, livestock feed (Nutrena) with 60 feed mills in the
erinary medicines, and the biggest companies investing the greatest U.S. and 120 worldwide; hybrid seeds, rice milling, mbber, citms—
sums in biotech research and development (R&D), are the same Brazil, Pakistan, Florida and Japan; chicken—^U.S., U.K., Thailand,
handful of companies that dominate across the spectrum—^DuPont, and elsewhere, fresh fruits and vegetables (Richland Sales: California
and Chile);...and much more.—National Farmers Union, 1999.
Novaris, AstraZeneca, Monsanto, Cargill, Dow and Aventis. They
have the greatest number of key patents in biotech R&D and the Agreement on Biogaeety Protocoi
heaviest investments in genomics or gene sequencing research. They
dominate in pesticides, seeds, human drugs and animal dmgs. It is Genetically modified crops are already widespread. About 70 million
a tightly controlled industry and is becoming more so. acres of genetically engineered plants were cultivated in 1999.

Tebmhutor and Traitor Teghnoiogy On January 29, after difficult negotiations, an intemational

Monsanto decided to withdraw the "terminator" seed last year. "Ter agreement on trade of genetically modified foods and other products
minator" seeds were developed to be sterile—to be unable to gener was arrived at in Montreal. Delegates adopted the Biosafety Protocol
ate new seeds—^so farmers would be compelled to buy new seeds to the U.N. Convention on Biodiversity. Environmentalists and a
from the company each year instead of saving seeds for sowing in number of scientific studies have asserted that genetically modified

subsequent years—a new form of built-in obsolescence. Monsanto organisms could wipe out native species, disrupt natural cycles and
had no choice because they were getting so much criticism and be cause other ecological destmction.
cause they decided it would gamer more profits through trait con
trol seeds than through making "suicide sequence" in seeds. The European Union and developing nations had insisted that
countries should be allowed to refuse imports of genetically modi
Traitor technology involves taking just about any trait in a plant fied products.
and turning it on or off with certain extemal chemical promoters.
This would mean farmers would be dependent on the company for The U.S., on the other hand, opposed such rules saying they
the chemicals to get the desired effect. —Based on an interview with would impede trade and succeeded in including "compromises."
One of these specifies that for two years after the protocol comes into
Pat Money, Executive Director of the Rural Advancement Foundation effect, labels on genetically modified materials must say only that a
Intemational (RAFI), Multinational Monitor, January/February 2000. product may contain such materials, without specifics. During those
two years, negotiations would be held to work out more specific la
Cargill; the largest private company in the U.S., the 11th largest
company, public or private, the largest grain trader in the world, the bels.
largest producer of malting barley in the world (Ladish Malting), the
largest oilseed processor in the world, the third largest beef packer There was also a "compromise on the nature of the relationship
(Excel) and the fourth largest pork slaughterer in the U.S., the fourth to the World Trade Organization about which a treaty would prevail.
largest cattle feeder in the U.S. (Caprock Industries), the sixth largest It was finally decided that the two should be "mutually supportive."
turkey producer in the U.S., the largest beef packer in Canada, the
third largest flour miller in the U.S. (19 mills), the second largest Previous talks in Cartagena, Colombia, February 1999, had
ended in "disarray" when the U.S. and five other countries—Canada,
phosphate producer in the world. Australia, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay—rejected a draft agreement
Cargill is also a major power in: salt (Leslie/Cargill); peanuts
supported by 125 other countries.—Matt Crenson, "Deal Reached
(Stevens Industries); cotton (Hohenberg Bros, Ralli Bros, and Co on Biotech Foods," Associated Press, January 29, 2000.

CovertAction Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000

A Widening Chasm:
The Rich Few and Billions of Poor

Inhuman poverty • The average annual income for the poor The CocaColazation of the world
• Nearly 1.3 billion people live on incomes
of less than $1 a day. The same number of est families is now $12,900, and for the • The single largest export industry for
people are without access to clean water. richest it is $137,480. Nationally there is
an eleven to one ratio between the richest the U.S. is entertainment.
—Human Development Report, fifth and the poorest fifth of U.S. families. —^UNDP Report.
1999, United Nations Development
Program (UNDP Report). —^Study by the Center on Budget Chains of Debt in the Third World
and Policy Priorities and the Economic
• Each day 35,000 children under the age Policy Institute, San Francisco Chronicle, • In 1997, the debt of developing coun
of five die of stamtion or preventable dis January 18, 2000. tries reached almost $2.2 trillion. Among

ease. • Twenty percent of U.S. children live in the hardest hit have been African coun
tries.
—State of the World's Children poverty—the highest rate for any industri
1997, United Nations Childrens alized country. —UNDP Report.
Emergency Fund Report (UNICEF Report).
—UNICEF Report. Foreign Direct Investment
• In 1997, foreign direct investments
• In Australia, Canada, the United • Among African-American children the zoomed to $400 billion, seven times the
rate of poverty is 36.7 percent. (The pover level of the 1970s.
Kingdom, and the U.S., at least half the
single-parent households with children ty line in 1998 was $13,003 for three peo —UNDP Report.
have incomes below the poverty line ple.)
• U.S.-based multinationals account
—UNDP Report. —^U.S. Census Bureau.
for more than a quarter of U.S. GDP—
• The economies of Eastern Europe and • Fifty million people, 19 percent of the $2 trillion of $7.3 trillion. And the
large multinationals are becoming even
the Commonwealth of Independent States population, live in poverty. As of 1997, the larger as takeovers and mergers prolif
(CIS) have had the fastest rise in inequality poverty line was calculated to be $8,122.
erate.
ever. —^UNDP Report.
—UNDP Report.
—UNDP Report.
• General Motors, Ford Motor, Mitsui &
• To buy a computer would cost the aver • Twelve million of the adult residents of Co., Mitsubishi, Itochu, Royal Dutch/
Shell Group, Marubeni, Sumitomo, Ex
age Bangladeshi more than eight years' in the U.S..have been homeless at some point xon, Toyota Motor, Wal Mart Stores,
come, the average American, just one among others, had sales totaling more
month's wage. in their lives. than the GDP of many countries.
—Coalition on Homelessness,
—^UNDP Report. —^UNDP Report.
Fact Sheet #2, Feb. 1999.
Selling off Canada
Obscene wealth • Americans are the lowest paid workers in • The plundering by TNCs is not limited
to countries of the South. From June 30,
• The assets of the top three billionaires are the industrial world. 1985, to September 30, 1999, the total
foreign direct investment in Canada was
more than the combined GNP of all 48 —OCAW Reporter (Oil, just over $270.3 billion. Of this, 5.4 per
Chemical and Atomic Workers).
least developed countries and their 600 cent was for new business investment.
million people. • Between 1980 and 1995, corporate prof
The rest, 94.6 percent, was for the
—^UNDP Report. its rose 145 percent and CEO pay zoomed takeover of 8,337 Canadian companies.
499 percent. But real average wages fell. Of these takeovers, the vast majority, 84
• A yearly contribution of 1 percent of the percent, were by Americans. Today, about
wealth of the 200 richest people could —Ameiica @ Work, May/June 13,000 corporations in Canada are for
provide universal access to primary educa eign-controlled and the number is grow
1997, AFL-CIO. ing at a record pace. Except for
tion for all. Luxembourg, no other developed nation
—UNDP Report. • As of 1996, women earned 71 cents for has an economy so dominated and con
trolled by foreign interests.
each dollar earned by a man. This is
—"Stop Selling Off Canada," by
$420,000 less in pay for women over a life Mel Hurtig, Toronto Globe and Mail, Janu
ary 20, 2000.
Rich get richer, poor get poorer time.
• In the U.S., 70 percent of the nation's
—Census Bureau, 1996.
wealth is in the hands of the richest 10
Global crises
percent of the people. The U.S. has the
widest chasm between rich and poor of • Financial crises have become increasing

all the industrialized countries ly common with the spread and growth of
global capital flows.
—^America @ Work, May/June
—UNDP Report.
1997, publication of the AFL-CIO.

alization/ Water Crisis

Private Blue Planet
BY Jamie Dunn

ihe liile of a 1966 Readers Digest Women fetching water from a village well in Jaisaimar region of India.

ACytiSnMefigniaSeaofMud'wasarticle about the depletion of Mex time. These bags would be pulled behind water crisis and the move to cartelize the
tugboats across oceans, making bulk ship
ico City's ground water, Thirty-three years ments of fresh water less expensive and more world's water, is seen as the oil of the fu
profitable than if shipped by refitted oil
later, the Toronto Star^ revealed that this tankers. Smaller vemions have already been ture. "The wars of the next century will be
city of 20 million people may have to be tested off the coasts of Monterey, California fought over water" according to the often-
evacuated by 2006 due to the exhaustion and Vancouver, British Columbia.^ quoted declaration of Ismail Serageldin,
of its water supplies—a city that in 1519 vice president of the World Bank. King
the Spanish called the Venice of the New Meanwhile, experts like Sandra Postel^ Hussein of Jordan once said the only rea
say that we could make significant reduc son he would go to war with Israel would
World- tions in our use of water without any real
Around the world, the stories are the change in our lifestyles. However, the solu be over water.®
tions that have gained the most momen
same. Nations have either diverted, deplet tum have not been to adopt these tech For more than 10 years, with this
ed or polluted their water resources to
niques, but instead to take water out of the specter looming before us, we have been
such an extent that authorities like the commons—those diminishing parcels of corralled into the belief that the same par
things we should be stewarding together—
United Nations and the World Watch In and divide it up as private property. Water adigm that brought you global free trade
scarcity has not led to a solution. It has fo will solve the water crisis. In other words,
stitute predict that by 2025, two-thirds of cused the world's biggest corporations on a let the market work its magic.
the world's people won't have enough wa growing and very lucrative market.
ter.^ Less than one-half of one percent of Since 1992, the commodification of
available water is fresh. Many point to Wars of the Future
water has been wrapped in some very nice
population growth as the culprit, but the Will Be Over Water packaging. That year the Dublin Accord
truth is that consumption of water is grow called for a holistic approach to water
What Maude Barlow has called "blue
ing at twice the rate of the planet's popula gold"^ in her synthesis of the worldwide management. To raise awareness and to
tion. Human beings use only 10 percent of encourage participation in solving water
the planet's fresh water-65 percent goes to 5 . M a r q d c Vi l l i e r s , Wa t e r ( To r o n t o : S t o d d a r t , problems—particularly by women—it fi
industrial agriculture and the rest goes to 1999), p. 322.
6. Sandra Postel, "Last Oasis, Facing Water Scarci nally called for the recognition of water as
other industrial uses."^ ty," The WorldWatch Environmental Alert Scries, an economic commodity. Section 21 of the
WW. Norton and Co., New York, 1992, pl2. Rio de Janeiro Agreement of the following
Towing Water in Giant Bags 7. Maude Barlow, "Blue Gold," The International year adopted the same position. In 1998, a
Forum On Globalization, San Francisco, 1999. conference sponsored by UNESCO an
New plans for water diversions are being nounced that the only way to guarantee
drawn up and old ones resurrected. The
equitable distribution of water and water
Northern Alliance for Water and Power that
8. Louise Suretlc, "World Water Crisis, Expert
would have used 800 kilometers of the Warns," Othnva Citizen, Apr. 10, 1999.

Rocky Mountain trench as a giant sluice-way

and flood one-fifth to one-tenth of British

Columbia and the Great Recycling and
Northern Development Canal, which would
have diverted James Bay south to the Ameri
can Midwest. These options are once again
being promoted as Mable given the rising
global market value of water.

New technology allows the creation of

giant bags up to 650 meters long and 150
meters wide (thai^ seven football fields by
one-and-a-half football fields), which would

carry 1,75 million cubic meters of water at a

Jamie Dann works with The Council of Canadians,
1. Robert S. Stroiher, A City Sinking in a Sea of Mud,
condensed from The Lyon, July/Aug. 1966,
2. Linda Dicbcl, "Teeming City Dies of Thirst," To
ronto Stor, May 9, 1999.
3. World Resources 1998-99, jointly published by
the World Resources Institute, (he United Nations
Environmental Program, the United Nations Devel

opment Program, and the World Bank (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 188-89.
4. "The Next World War Will Be about Water," an
advertisement by Turning Point Project, New York
Times, Dec. 6, 1999.

68 CovertAction Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000



Impacts of Economic Globalization

ON Global Climate

BY Simon Retallack and Ladan Sobhani

Humanni-ducedmcilaet changesiprobably the most serious prob hundred years.' As a result, if current Economic globalization is accelerating
lem facing humankind. More and trends persist, ever more frequent and this highly dangerous phenomenon by ex
more heat-trapping gases—principally car severe storms, floods, droughts, dust
bon dioxide—are being emitted into the panding industrial activity and universaliz
storms, sea surges, crumbling coast ing the carbon-intensive model of develop
lines, salt water intrusion of groundwa- ment worldwide. The distancing of pro

atmosphere through the ducers from consumers

burning of more and ; and the massive boom in
more oil, coal and other "free" trade has required

fossil fuels and forests a vast increase in green
house gas-emitting trans
that normally absorb
them are being destroy port. Liberalization of
ed. The result is green
house gas overload in trade and investment
the atmosphere—trap
around the world has

also facilitated the global

ping solar heat and expansion of industrial

causing surface temper agriculture and related
food processing indus
atures to rise.

Twelve of the hottest tries, which are highly

years in recorded his- energy intensive and gen
lor)' have occurred since erate vast quantities of
1980. With higher tem
greenhouse gases. It has
peratures, there has also also stimulated greater
been more energy dri
.. consumption of energy-
ving the Earth's climatic intensive products, such
systems. They in turn as cars and electric appli-
have been causing more
« ances, and the construc-

violent weather events, J tion of vast fossil fuel-

such as Hurricane 5 based energy infrastruc-

Mitch, which killed 1 tures. At the same time,

10,000 people and de Rescue helicopter hovers above flood victims in Chibuti n o r t h e r n I
stroyed the infrastruc
governments are prevent

ed from taking adequate

ture and economies of Mozambique, February 29, 2000. mitigating action by three
two Central American countries in 1998. ter, failing crops, dying forests (includ obstacles spawned by economic globaliza

Rising temperatures have also caused polar ing the Amazon rainforest), the inunda tion: the spectacular growth of fossil fuel-
ice sheets to begin to melt and disease-car tion of low-lying land and islands, and related corporations and their consequent

rying mosquitoes to move north—even to the spread of endemic diseases such as leverage over governments; the increase in
New York City. Already, according to the malaria and dengue fever are all in on competitive pressures on domestic indus
Inter-governmental Panel on Climate the cards. Agriculture worldwide could try; and global trade rules policed by the
Change (IPCC)—the official scientific body face severe disruption and economies World Trade Organization. As a result, the
established by the U.N. to investigate cli could collapse. There could also be mil climate is changing with very serious impli
mate change, global average temperatures lions upon millions of environmental cations for us all.

have risen 1.1°F above the pre-industrial refugees—people fleeing from the in Increasing Trade Transport
truding sea or from the deserts they
average. The (current) global economy and the
have left in their wake. Scientists are
And that is only the beginning. Scien

tists expect average world temperatures to advising governments that millions will philosophy that inspired its creation by
rise between 6°F and 25°F over the next die worldwide because of ihe changes definition necessitate trade over long dis

Simon Retallack and Ladan Sobhani have written ex in global climate that have been un tances. The central policy prescription of

tensively on environmental issues. Retallack was edi leashed. neo-liberalism is lhat of free trade based
tor of the special issue ol The Ecologist on "Climate
on international specialization according
Crisis," Vol. 29, No. 2, Mar.-Apr. 1999. Titc Ecologist 1. Robert T. Watson, Marufu C. Zinyowera, and
can be contacted at: Unit 18, Chelsea Wharf, IS Lots, Richard H. Moss, eds., Siintniory for PoUcymahers. to comparative advantage. Accordingly, all
The Regional Impacts of Climate Change: An Assess countries should specialize in and export
London SWIO OQJ, U.K.; e-mail: [email protected].

org. This article is adapted from the International ment o/Vidiicrability, 1997, p. 4; see also Alberto Di- what they do or produce best, and import
Forum on Globalizations forthcoming report on the
Fazio, "Misreading the Models: the Danger of Under everything else. The consequence of the
impact of economic globalization on the environment. estimating Climate Change," The Ecologist. Vol. 29, adoption of that philosophy, principally
For a copy of the report, call 415-771-3394. No. 2, Mar./Apr. 1999, p. 73.

70 CovertAction Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000

by removing barriers to foreign trade, is An Urgent Warning to Humanity
that diverse local economies supplying
their local populations with most of the Following are brief excerpts from an "Ur es are urgent if we are to avoid the
gent Warning to Humanity" which was is collision our present course will
things that they need are supplanted by sued by sixteen hundred Nobel prize win
economies that produce principally for ex bring about....
ning and other scientists from around the
port abroad and import most of what they world in 1992— eight years ago. No more than one or a few
need. The geographic distance between
Human beings and the natural decades remain before the chance
producers and consumers has thus in
creased dramatically and goods are trans world are on a collision course. to avert the threats we now con

ported far greater distances before they Human activities inflict harsh and front wiU be lost and the prospects
for humanity immeasurably dimin
reach consumers.^ often irreversible damage on the
ished....
Similar changes have taken place in the environment and on critical re
We the undersigned senior
process of production. With the liberaliza sources. If not checked, many of
tion of investment and trade policy, corpo our current practices put at serious members of the world's scientific
rations engaged in manufacturing or food
risk the future that we wish for community, hereby warn all hu
processing are able to locate or farm out manity of what lies ahead. A great
the various phases of production at, or to, human society and the plant and change in our stewardship of the
different sites around the world. Compon animal kingdoms, and may so alter earth and the life on it is required,
ents are thus shipped back and forth tens the living world that it will be un
of thousands of miles before the product is if vast miseries are to be avoided
able to sustain life in the marmer
finally assembled or completed. Hence, and our global home on this planet
that we know. Fundamental chang- is not to be irretrievably mutilated.
when Otis Elevator set about to create an
GioBuiaNelNDDSiRin Striking as these figures may be, they
advanced elevator system, it contracted do not include the even larger amounts of
out the design of the motor drives to Ja Agricduore
energy consumed off the farm for manu
pan, the door systems to France, the elec Industrial agriculture has made the pro facturing machines, fertilizers and pesti
tronics to Germany, and small geared com ductivity of farmland almost entirely de cides, and for processing, packaging (al
pendent on massive infusions of energy most 50 percent of all consumer packaging
ponents to Spain. All of these components derived from fossil fuels. It is therefore a in the U.S. is used for food products), and
were then shipped to the United States
where they were finally assembled, before major contributor to climate change. transporting the food after it leaves the
Already widely adopted in much of the in
being exported around the world—travel dustrialized world, with economic global farm.®
ing thousands of miles in the process.^ Si ization, industrial agriculture is spreading
milarly, as a study by the German Wupper- globally, to countries which until recently Industrial agriculture thus produces a
tal Institute on the distance traveled by have practiced far less energy-intensive
various food products revealed, the com systems of farming. Their rapid transition particularly perverse outcome: it is esti
to fossil fuel-intensive models of produc mated that it causes us to expend many
ponents of a 150 gram strawberry yogurt tion will therefore dramatically increase times as much energy to produce food as
traveled a total of 1,005 kilometers before we actually derive from eating it. And al
global greenhouse gas emissions. most all of that energy is derived from
being put together. The strawberries were Of all human created emissions of car
imported from Poland, corn and wheat burning fossil fuels—emitting large quan
flour from the Netherlands, jam from West bon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide— tities of greenhouse gases in the process.
the principal greenhouse gases contribut Industrial agriculture is responsible for
Germany, sugar beet from East Germany even more greenhouse gas emissions when
and the yogurt itself from north Germany. ing to climate change—^industrial agricul we include the consequences of applying
ture is responsible for 25 percent, 60 per 70 million tons of nitrogen fertilizer every
Aluminum used for the cover traveled 300 cent, and 80 percent respectively. ^ Industri
al agriculture replaces the energy inputs of year on crops—which generates at least 10
kilometers."^ humans and animals with huge amounts of percent of total nitrous oxide emissions.^
fossil fuel-derived energy, of which it con In addition, industrial farming methods
The environmental costs of such long sumes more than any other industry. Direct
distance transport remain unaccounted for energy, mostly refined petroleum products, lead to soil erosion, and, in the U.S. alone,
in the final price of products. If they were is used on farms to power machines for the soil erosion is estimated to cause the re
accounted for, such behavior would make purposes of plowing, planting and harvest
ing, fertilizer and pesticide application, and lease of 16 million tons of carbon into the
no sense whatsoever. As more and more transportation, while electricity is used for
irrigation and other purposes.^ atmosphere each year.i® Industrial prac
goods have had to be carried over longer tices also lead to higher methane emissions
and longer distances, trade transportation 6. Peter Bunyard, "Industrial Agriculture-Driving in rice and livestock production. Rice
results in the consumption of over one- Climate Change," The Ecologist, Vol. 26, No. 6, Nov^
fields that are flooded rather than rain fed
eighth of world oil production. 5 As in Dec. 1996.
creasingly more oil is burned and green produce much more methane. Flooding
house gases are emitted, climate change re 7. Mohinder GiU, U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Economic Research Service, Agricultural Resources 8. Ibid.
sults.
and Environmental Indicators, 1997. 9. Cynthia Rosenzweig and Daniel Hillel, Cliwiotc
2. David and Matcia Pimental, Food, Energy and So Otange and the Global Harvest (London: Oxford Uni
ciety (Niwot, Colorado: University Press of Colora versity Press, 1998).
do, 1996), p. 201. 10. USDA-ARS News Service, "Cropland Helps
3. David Korten, When Corporations Rule the World, Control C02 and Ease Greenhouse Effect," Sep. 29,
(London: Earthscan, 1993), p. 123.
4. Tim Lang, "Dietary Impact of the Globalization 1998.
of Food Trade," IFG News, issue 3, Summer 1998.
3. Tim Lang and Colin Hines, The New Protectionism 11. Op. cit., n. 9.
(New York: New Press, 1993).

Number 69 CavertAction Quarterly 71

cuts off the oxygen supply to soil, leading Furthermore, the reorientation of eco portation. General Motors (CM) recently
nomic activity toward production for ex signed a $1 billion contract to produce
organic matter to decompose into meth 100,000 mid-sized cars annually, CM
ane. In livestock production, meanwhile, ports that takes place when a country be has also set up production in Russia, where
when large numbers of animals are con comes part of the global economy, often it hopes to profit not only by producing
fined in one area, manure is usually stored
in huge piles, releasing methane as it de following the adoption of an IMF/World cheap cars for export but by gaining a larg
Bank structural adjustment program, leads
composes. It is estimated that livestock to a vast increase in the production of ex er share of the domestic market. The com
production is responsible for 15 percent of
global methane emissions, portable cash crops—such as coffee, sugar pany is not the only one expanding in this
cane and cocoa—grown in monocultures, new market—in 1995, over 1 million for
Industrialized agriculture has clearly which require far more high-energy inputs
than other varieties. Increased production eign cars and trucks were sold in Russia
proven to be a highly energy-intensive and of cash crops also results from investment
unsustainable model. To export it to the liberalization and privatization, which and the Ukraine.
rest of the world is a recipe for worsening
climatic dislocation, yet, because of eco open up national economies to foreign ag- The climatic consequences of the glob
nomic globalization, that is precisely what rochemical companies which are able to al proliferation of the car through econom
is taking place. ic globalization are disastrous. And the car
buy up farming companies and vast tracts is but one of a vast array of modern home
With fewer barriers to trade in food— and office products and appliances, such
of fertile land around the world for that as washing machines, clothes dryers, TVs,
as a result of regional and international VCRs, computers, and photocopiers, that
trade agreements, such as NAFTA and the purpose. require large inputs of climate-changing
World Trade Organization's Agreement on fossil fuels, and that are now being export
The resulting global expansion of in
Agriculture—cheap, subsidized, large- dustrial agriculture is the cause of growing ed, and produced, around the world.
scale industrially-produced food has flood
ed world markets, making it very difficult energy use in the agricultural sector of WoRui Bank AND Energy
for farmers employing traditional, small- most countries throughout the world, gen
scale, less energy-intensive and less subsi Infrasirugtdre
dized systems of agriculture to compete. erating a consequent increase in green
As a result, the latter are forced to adopt house gas emissions, with devastating con International financial institutions—
industrial methods or go bust, as millions
have done—in which case, if they do not sequences for global climate. linchpins of the global economy—have
directly promoted and financed fossil fuel-
starve, they are often reduced to buying Fossil Fur Teghnoiogy intensive projects throughout the develop
imported industrial food and selling their
With trade and investment liberalization, ing world. According to the Institute for
land to wealthier farmers who use it to ex Policy Studies, the World Bank has fi
environmentally destructive technologies nanced $13.6 billion worth of energy pro
pand industrial production. such as the automobile and other energy-
Governments are increasingly power intensive appliances, spread to cultures jects since the Rio Summit in 1992, in
not yet dependent on such goods. Since cluding 51 coal, oil and gas-fired power
less to protect small farmers from such a the opening of markets to foreign imports, plants and 26 coal mines. These projects
fate as recent trade agreements, such as the South Korea and Thailand, for example,
WTO's Agreement on Agriculture, have re witnessed annual car growth rates of 25 will emit 38 billion tons of carbon dioxide
moved their ability to control domestic and 40 percent respectively in the early
1990s. Similarly, the number of cars in over their lifetimes, nearly double what
agricultural policies. Tools which were Mexico City grew a massive 60 percent be was emitted in 1996 by all countries com
once used to secure stable prices for do tween just 1990 and 1993.1® Such prolif
mestic farmers are no longer allowed eration is significantly increasing the threat bined,
under WTO rules. Import controls to pre of global climate change, as autos are re
vent the flooding of domestic markets; Meanwhile, less than three percent of
farmer marketing boards to give producers sponsible for a large share of world carbon the World Bank's energy budget is devoted
the ability to negotiate collective prices dioxide emissions. These are only set to in to renewable energy.^o Between 1992 and
with domestic and foreign buyers; and crease, as transnational auto companies in
family farm support programs—are all ei crease sales to countries that are rapidly 1998, the Bank spent 25 times more on
ther forbidden or restricted under WTO fossil fuel projects than on renewable en
rules. Thus, the world's remaining small, liberalizing their markets, such as the
states of the former U.S.S.R. that currently ergy. Moreover, the immediate beneficia
low-energy-consuming agricultural pro have only 1 car per 21 people; India that ries of those projects are C-7-based corpo
ducers are rapidly being replaced with has one car per 455 people; and China, rations, which have been granted 95 per
with one car per over 1,000 people. Al cent of the contracts (explaining why, for
large agribusinesses using industrial prac
ready, as a result of investment liberaliza every dollar the U.S. pays the World Bank,
tices. tion in China, where people have relied $1.30 of investments returns to U.S. trans-
nationals), and are the primary consumers
Transnational agribusinesses which primarily on bicycles, public transporta of the energy these projects produce.^i
tion, and other low-input means of trans-
produce on an industrial scale, such as 17. Cable News Network, "GM to Sign China Con
Cargill and Pepsico, now control seventy the Globalization of Food Trade," IFG News, Issue
percent of world food trade. Cargill alone Three, Summer 1998. tract," Mar. 10, 1997.
controls 60 percent of the world trade in 15. D. Mathews and A. Rowell, The Environmental 18. Cable News Network, "GM Sets up Shop in
Impact of the Car (Washington, D.C.; Greenpeace,
cereals. Russia, " Nov. 29, 1996.
1992). 19. Daphne Wysham, "The World Bank; Funding
12. IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas 16. A. Calvillo Unna, L<i Contribucidn del Trans- Climate Chaos," The Ecologist, Vol. 29, No. 2.
Inventories Reference Manual, 1996. 20. Institute for Policy Studies, "The World Bank
13. Op. cit., n. 9. porte a la Contaminacion AtmosfMca, in El Trans- and the G-7: Changing the Earth's Climate for Bus
portey la Conlaminacidn, Proceedings of the Atmo iness," Version 1.1, Aug. 1997; and Daphne
14. United Nations Center on Transnational Cor sphere and Energy Campaign Seminar, Mexico City, Wysham, "The World Bank: Funding Climate
porations, cited by Tim Lane in "Dietary Impact of Chaos." The Ecologist, Vol. 29, No. 2.
Greenneace Mexico. 1993. 21. Institute for Policy Studies, "The World Bank
and the G-7: Changing the Earths Climate for Bus

iness," Version 1.0, May 15, 1998.

72 CovertAction Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000

The Overseas Private Investment Cor A family crossing through flood water in Mozambique, February 2000.
Flooding left much of their country submerged in muddy water.
poration (OPIC) and the Export-Import
Bank (Ex-Im)—U.S. export-credit agencies opening new markets around the world to duce those emissions—such as the United
funded by taxpayers which subsidize U.S. foreign trade and investment, economic
commercial interests in developing na globalization has greatly increased the op States and Australia—are also home to cor
portunities for corporations to grow, in
tions—have also devoted billions of dol crease their profits, and eliminate or ab porations that have spent a fortune fund
sorb competitors, often through mergers. ing front groups, think tanks, lobbyists,
lars to huge energy projects. According to scientists, economists and above all politi
OPICs own press release, in 1996, over $1 The fossil fuel sector and related industries cians, to obstruct political attempts to pre
billion was approved for nine American vent climate change.
ventures abroad, including four power have been no exception to this trend. The
In the U.S., for example, oil, gas, coal,
plants.22 European citizens fund a similar merger of the two oil giants Exxon and
"corporate welfare" program through the Mobil in 1998, for example, valued at utility, automobile and other fossil fuel-in-
European Bank for Reconstruction and De $250 billion, has created the world's third tensive corporations contributed $63.4
velopment (EBRD). Shell, Amoco, Mitsu largest corporation and the largest oil com million to both main U.S. political parties
bishi, and Texaco are among the corpora pany by far.2'^ Among many others include between 1992 and 1998;26 spent $30 mil
the recent merger of BP with Amoco, and lion lobbying politicians and government
tions whose overseas investments in ener Total with Fetrofina and Elf Aquitaine.
These mergers have been mirrored by agencies in 1998 alone;27 and spent $13
gy resources have been subsidized by the countless more in the auto, aircraft and million more on television, radio and

EBRD.23 utility industries. newspaper advertising in the three months
The result of this corporate consolida leading up to the Kyoto conference to pro
The World Bank's actions with regard mote political and public opposition to the
to climate change are perhaps unsurprising tion has been an unprecedented concen
tration of financial power in the hands of treaty.28 Millions more have been spent
given the assumptions they are based on. industries thai profit from fossil fuels, to funding corporate front groups, or so-
The Bank's charts projecting the world's fu the point where many are now more eco called "Astroturf coalitions," such as the
ture energy needs show a trajectory line nomically powerful than a large number of
that shoots off the graph, indicating ex nation states. The combined revenues, for Coalition for Vehicle Choice and the Glo
example, of just General Motors and Ford
pected energy demand for developing —the two largest automobile corporations bal Climate Coalition; think tanks, such as
the Competitive Enterprise Institute and
countries. Bank officials like to use these in the world—exceed the GDP of all Sub- the Heritage Foundation; and scientists,

charts to shock audiences into believing Saharan Africa.25 This wealth has been such as Robert Balling—the recipient of
how badly and rapidly the world needs to $700,000 from the fossil fuel industry over
used to great effect by fossil fuel-related the past five years.
exploit all of its available fossil fuel re
sources. These projections, however, are companies to influence government policy The explicit goal of such funding—the
based on the premise that countries will in ways that have resulted in the defeat or extent of which citizens' groups could not
continue along the same course of export-
based, energy-intensive development that watering dovm of many efforts to mitigate possibly match—has been to discredit the
the Bank has been pushing for decades. climate change. It is no accident that the science of climate change and prevent the
Accordingly, estimates inflate the expecta countries with the highest per capita
tion for energy needs and ignore localized changes necessary to prevent its worst ef
greenhouse gas emissions and which are fects. After years of effectively stalling glob
systems of production and consumption the most recalcitrant in taking action to re- al recognition of the problem, industry
that would significantly reduce overall en
24. Paul Farrelly, "Oil Sisters Troop to Alter as groups have successfully fought to limit
ergy consumption. Energy use, therefore, Price Sinks," Observer (London), June 12, 1998.
is over-projected because of the energy-in- 25. All three statistics cited by J. Karliner in The countless measures to reduce emissions.
tensive needs of economic globalization Corporate Planet: Ecology and Politics in the Age of
and the development model it promotes. Globalization (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, For example, in the U.S.—responsible for
1997), p. 5.
By building infrastructures to cater for that 26. Center for Responsive Politics, web site: http://
expected demand, however, the World
Bank and the other multilateral develop www.crp.org.
ment agencies are playing a leading role in 27. Ibid.

fueling climate change. 28. Sharon Beder, "Corporate Hijacking of the
Greenhouse Debate," The Ecolo^t, Vol. 29, No. 2.
Obstruction BY TNCs
Mar/Apr. J 999.
Despite the growing threat posed by cli
mate change, governments are being pre
vented from taking adequate mitigating ac
tion by a number of obstacles spawned by
economic globalization, including the in
creased power of large corporations—par

ticularly those in the fossil fuel industry. By

22. Overseas Private Investment Corporation
(Washington, D.C.), "OPICs Board of Directors Ap
proves More than SI Billion for Nine American Ven
tures World Wide," press release, June 1996.
23. Institute for Policy Studies and the
International Trade Information Service, "The
European Bank for Reconstruction and Develop
ment: Fueling Climate Change," Version I, Nov.

1997.

Number 69 CovertAction Quarterly 73

Air pollution smokestacks- Masonite Corporation, Mendocino County, vestment or to prevent the flight of indus
tries already based in their countries. In a
California.
globalized economy, even the threat of re
a quarter of global greenhouse gas emis Such political beha\ior defies all estab location is powerful enough to send poli
lished scientific knowledge and the public
sions—Congress voted against requiring cy-makers on a deregulatory frenzy or a
interest, and can only have been taken to policy freeze, and attempts to raise taxa
car-makers to build more efficient vehicles satisfy the short-term interests of corpora
tions engaged in activities that are causing tion or environmental standards become
by increasing automobile fuel economy the climate to change. To varying degrees
standards, as a result of corporate influ of success, the political power of fossil almost impossible. The European Union's
ence. Indeed, Congress has tried to destroy fuel-related corporations is being exercised failed attempt at introducing a carbon tax
what little fuel economy standards are in in similar ways all over the world, includ in 1992 to reduce carbon emissions pro
existence in the U.S. by successfully insert vides a clear example. Opponents of the
ing at regional levels such as the EU, and at tax argued that it would undermine the
ing an exemption for giant sport utility ve all the international negotiations on cli
mate change. Economic globalization has competitiveness of European companies
hicles which now account for one out of abroad, because the tax would not apply to
given these corporations the financial and their competitors, who would therefore
every two cars being purchased and which political clout to have such influence, with
get as little as 14 miles to the gallon. devastating effects. gain a commercial advantage over them.^^
In refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol,
Congress has also prevented the in Dereguiation Pressures
crease of the BTU or energy tax, as well as the U.S. Senate has cited similar reasons.
an increase in the 1999 budget for the de Another obstacle spawned by economic
The co-authors of the Senate resolution
velopment of renewable energy and ener globalization that governments face in
gy efficient technology to $3.6 billion, seeking to take action to mitigate climate that has effectively blocked the ratification
which the White House requested. It has change, is the huge increase in competitive of this treaty. Senators Byrd and Hagel ar
even rejected the President's policy that pressures on domestic industry. As oppor
fossil fuels produced on public land tunities for foreign investment increase gued that taking measures to reduce green
should be subject to market-based royalty and moving manufacturing overseas be house gas emissions would damage the
comes easier with economic globalization, U.S. economy, causing an exodus of man
rates rather than the subidized rate cur
corporations can pick and choose the reg ufacturing plants to developing countries
rently in existence. The most significant ulatory conditions under which they in
act of congressional subversion is the vest. Companies complain that strict local, which are not mandated to reduce emis
national or regional environmental regula
Byrd-Hagel Resolution, passed unani tions place extra costs on them that make sions under Kyoto.What opponents of
mously by the Senate, 95 votes to 0, in them uncompetitive in the global econo the Kyoto Protocol fail to mention is that
June 1997, which effectively prevents the industrial relocation would not be possible
ratification of the Kyoto Protocol that my. Countries attempting to take serious were it not for the enhanced mobility cor
mandates the U.S. to reduce its green measures to protect the environment are
house gas emissions by 7 percent below thus no longer deemed competitive loca porations enjoy as a result of agreements
1990 levels by 2012. If that were not which they ratified and that have reduced
tions for investment. or eliminated barriers to trade and foreign
enough, as the result of legislative efforts investment. Furthermore, given the envi
by the rightwing Republican Joe Knollen- In such a climate, governments com ronmental threats that we face today, the
berg—whose constituency includes De solution to any loss of competitiveness
troit, the capital of the U.S. car industry— pete with each other to lower or freeze en cannot be the freezing, reduction or elimi
and others, new programs designed espe vironmental standards to attract foreign in nation of environmental protections. If the
current global system of free trade and in
cially to fulfill the U.S.'s Kyoto commit vestment is impeding governments' abili
ties to set and enforce environmental pro
ments are now outlawed.
tections, then the system itself, flawed as it
is, needs to be changed.

Trade Rule Threats and the WTO

Global trade rules policed by the World
Trade Organization also pose a significant

threat to national and international efforts

to address climate change. WTO rules, for

example, could be used to challenge the
Kyoto Protocol on a number of grounds.

Under the terms of the Protocol, par
ties are encouraged to implement policies

and measures aimed at "enhancement of

energy efficiency in relevant sectors of the
economy"—a key goal of climate change
mitigation. An important way in which
that may be achieved is by setting energy
efficiency standards for consumer products

—such as motor vehicles. When that has

29. Op. at., n. 4.
30. Simon Retallack, "How U.S. Politics Is Letting
the World Down," The Ecologist, Vol. 29, No 2,

Mar./Apr. 1999.

74 CovertAction Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000

been attempted by the European Union, Designed to increase ener^

Japan and the United States, however, efficiency, the CAFE stan
global trade rules have been used to chal dards were challenged by the
lenge their initiatives, and serious disputes EU for discriminating in ef
fect against EU automakers,
have followed.
citing almost identical argu
In January 1999, Japan announced its ments as the opponents of
intention to introduce legally binding stan
dards for energy efficiency for nine cate Japanese and European ener
gy efficiency standards today,
gories of cars on the basis of vehicle even though the U.S. average
weight, in order to meet its commitment
under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce its fuel economy standards were

greenhouse gas emissions by 6 percent be identical for domestic and

low 1990 levels. The standards are set foreign fleets. A GAIT panel,
however, agreed with the EU,
based on the most energy efficient vehicle and, in 1994, overturned the

currently commercially available within U.S. standards.^2
each weight category—"the top runner"—
which in each weight category happens to The application of car
be a Japanese car. The EU, meanwhile, to bon taxes—another impor
meet its Kyoto commitment of reducing tant strand of any serious

greenhouse gases by 8 percent below 1990 strategy for meeting national
levels, has forged a voluntary agreement to
increase energy efficiency with the Europe commitments under the

an Automobile Manufacturers Association Kyoto Protocol—could also
fall foul of WTO rules. By in
(ACEA). Under that agreement, the manu
facturers agreed to reduce carbon dioxide ternalizing the climate-relat
emissions in new cars by 25 percent by ed costs of using fossil fuels,

2008, on the basis of fleet averaging, rather carbon taxes create an incen
than specific efficiency requirements on
vehicles by category. tive to use less fuel and to

The EU and Japan have challenged develop more fuel efficient
each other's energy efficiency requirements
production processes. As we a
arguing that they discriminate against im have seen, however, taxing 1
ported vehicles—which is forbidden un
der world trade rules. Because European commercial goods at a na- 5

exports to Japan tend to be in the range of tional level on the basis of 2
medium and luxury vehicles, they fall into
the middle and heavier weight categories how much those goods con- ?
which are subject to the greatest percent
tribute to greenhouse gas %
age of improvements for fuel efficiency.
emissions, can place domes Climate change wreaks havoc: Homes in Tarboro,
The EU therefore claims that the effect will tic industries at a competitive North Carolina, surrounded by flood waters, left

be to discriminate against their cars (a disadvantage in the global by Hurricane Floyd In September 1999, some of
economy—because the tax
claim the U.S. on behalf of its auto manu does not apply to foreign the worst flooding ever in the area.

facturers has now repeated) in violation of competitors. One way were produced or where they came from,
the WTO's Agreement on Technical Bar around that problem would the Kyoto Protocol and all three of its flex
riers to Trade, which prohibits standards be to tax imports based on the energy
that are discriminatory and more trade re used to produce them. But under GATT/ ible mechanisms mandate discrimination
strictive than necessary^'^ Japan, mean WTO rules governing "like products," that
would be illegal. Those rules prohibit in between different manufacturing technolo
while, claims that EU standards based on ternal taxes on imported products that are
fleet averaging discriminate against their "in excess of those...applied to like do gies and processes, between signatories
vehicle exports, which are primarily high mestic products," (GATT Article III).^^ and non-signatories, and between higher-
Any trade discrimination based on the
er end vehicles that would need substantial way a product is produced—exactly what emitting developed countries and lower-
carbon taxes are designed to influence—is emitting developing countries. Ultimately,
improvements in energy efficiency to meet
thus forbidden. without discrimination, the reduction of
EU standards.
That represents a fundamental conflict greenhouse gas emissions is all but impos
It remains to be seen if the EU, the between the WTO and the Kyoto Protocol. sible, as climate-changing technologies
For while under WTO rules, "like prod need to be discouraged.
U.S., or Japan will mount formal chal ucts" cannot be distinguished or discrimi
lenges at the WTO, but if they do, the nated against on the basis of how they Given these findings, and given the
chances of their respective energy efficien monumental threat that climate change
32. Ibid.
cy standards' survival are not good, espe 33. W.B. Chambers, ci. al. Clobal Climate Govern poses, the re-subordination of global trade
cially given the fate of the U.S. Corporate rules to environmental imperatives and the
Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. ance: Scenarios and Options on the Imerlinkages be
tween the Kyoto Protocol and other Multilateral Re re-localization of trade must be considered
31. Lori Wallach and Michelle Sforza, WJiosc Trade gimes, United Nations University/Institute for Ad
vanced Studies, Global Environmental Information important strategies for reducing overall
Organization: Corporate Globalizotiou and the Ero energy demand and greenhouse gas emis
sion of Democracy (Washington, D.C.: Public Citizen, Center, 1999. sions. The energy-intensive model of eco
nomic globalization must be challenged if
1999). we are to stand a chance of preventing se
vere climate change. ®

Number 69 CovertAction Quarterly 75

Repression / U.S.

Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex:
Class Warfare from Above

BY Christian Parenti

Whatdvriesnicarceraoitnandthe massive build-up inAmeri convicts. But we need to re-calibrate our cor wire sold to the military failed at near
can criminal justice? Are specif
ic corporate interests taking control of understanding of what's going on and look ly twice the rate of the military's next worst
criminal justice policy, as is often the case closely at the facts. Nationwide only 2,600 supplier.
with military policy? Has the Military- prisoners work for private firms.^ Why is
this? Because capitalists don't like the inva "The stuff was poor quality," said Derek
Industrial Complex, with the end of die sive, slow, overbearing environment of Vander Schaaf, the Pentagon's Deputy In
prisons. Guards may approve of "making
Cold War, transmogrified into the Prison convicts pay" but in practice they regular spector General, adding: "If you can't com
Industrial Complex (PIC)? ly interrupt production to strip-search, pete at 50 cents an hour for labor, guys,
count, and lock away the convict employ
This "prison as pentagon" argument ees. Nor are many big firms willing to risk come on.'"^
the bad press associated with exploiting
has assumed the mantle of common sense Most state owned prison industry au
prisoners. For example, Montgomery thorities (PIAs) are just as bad: twenty-five
among many left pundits and activists. The Ward's charter pledges that the company
PIC explanation generally cites three ways will not use child, slave, or convict labor. percent of them reported net losses in
in which incarceration directly bolsters 1994. But even this unflattering number is
Finally, why hire convicts at minimum
capitalism. They are: the privatization of wage—corporations have to pay prisons optimistically distorted, because many
prisons and prison-related services, the ex minimum wage even if the inmate employ PIAs that boast profits in their annual re
ploitation of prison labor by private firms, ees only receive pennies per hour—when
and the broad Keynesian stimulus (i.e., job there is an overabundance of desperate, ports fail to disclose the massive subsidies
creation) of criminal justice spending, often militarily disciplined, workers in the they receive. For example, California's PIA
claims to be in the black, but state auditors
All of these features are important, but free world. tell a different story: In 1998 the PIA em
none of them—alone or together—ex
But that's just the private sector, what ployed 7,000 of the slate's 155,000 prison
plains why we are headed for what Jerome about the Slate? After all, most convict la ers in everything from dairy farming to
Miller calls a "gulag state.''^ Perhaps a more borers are employed by state-owned
useful analysis of the cops-courts-and-big computer refurbishing, and operated with
house buildup requires a broader, more "prison industries" such as the California the usual pampering of guaranteed mar
Department of Corrections Prison Indus kets and obscenely low wages. But, like
historically rooted class analysis that looks tries Authority (PIA) or the Federal Gov
not just at bad corporations but at the ernment's Unicor, which employs about Unicor, the PIA was unable even to meet
structure of American capitalism more
20,000 inmates. Impressive numbers, and its costs. Despite posting a "profit" the PIA
generally. one would be excused for thinking that is on life support, receiving "operating
someone must be making money hand subsidies" and capital outlay funding from
Prison Labor over fist. However Unicor—like the many
the state worth more than $90 million.^
Critics of the Prison Industrial Complex parallel ventures owned by the states—is
focus much of their attention on prison The same story can be found in state
an economic basket case that would short after state. Why the inefficiency? In part
labor: We hear that incarceration is increas because convicts resent being used as vir
ly collapse if ever forced to compete with tual slaves and thus drag their feet, steal
ingly driven by profit hungry firms looking the private sector.^ supplies, and commit sabotage nonstop.
for cheap labor. In making this point
Unicor products provided to the De One former federal inmate told me that his
speakers or writers will reel off a sinner's
list of familiar implicated corporate names: partment of Defense, on average, cost 13 "cellie" ended each workday at a Unicor
Microsoft, Starbucks, Victoria's Secret and percent more than the same goods sup
TWA. The phenomenon looks to be a mile plied by private firms. U.S. Navy officials shop with a celebratory calculation of how
wide, but in reality it's only an inch deep. say that, compared to the open market, much equipment and material he had de
Unicor's "product is inferior, costs more
Most of the typically named culprits and takes longer to procure." The federal stroyed, thrown or stolen. As the former
have engaged prison labor only via sub prison monopoly delivers 42 percent of its prisoner put it, "It was all waste, all the
contractors who, in turn, often have only orders late, compared to an industry-wide
time."
sporadic contracts with prisons. The moral average delinquency rate of only 6 percent.
stain remains: Leasing convicts is leasing A 1993 government report found that Uni- Private Prisons

Christian Parent! is the author of Lockdowt 2. Correction Industries Association, First Quarter Another player in the matrix of interests
America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis referred to as the prison industrial com
(London; Verso, 1999), from which this article was ly Report, 1998. plex is the fast-growing and powerful pri-
adapted. 3. Testimony of David A. Smith, Director Public Po
1. Miller has made such comments in interviews, 4. Jeff Erlich, "Competing with Convicts," Govern
but for his full analysis, sec Jerome Miller, Search licy Department, AFL-CIO on Prison Industry Pro ment ExecHtive, June 1, 1997; for more on Unicor, see
and Destroy: African American Males in the Criminal grams, before the House Committee on Education Vince Beiser, "Look For the Prison Label: America
Justice System (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univer and the Workforce Subcommittee on Oversight and Puts its Inmates to Work," Village Voice, May 21,
sity Press, 1996).
Investigations, Aug. 5, 1998. 1996.

5. Reforming the Prison Industry Authority," Cali
fornia Legislative Analyst's Office, Apr. 30, 1996, p.
9; PIA officials cook their books and brag elHciency
to the press. Journalists on both the left and right
often repeal such claims without checking for verifi

cation, such as outside audits.

76 CovertAction Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000

vate prison industry which now controls Other private lockup firms are facing the Pentagon's budget, not counting the bil
around 10 percent of all U.S. prison beds. the same crisis. Recently the number two lions in military spending that are hidden
within the Department of Energy. So there
Though private jailers are generally prof private jailer, Wackenhut Corporation, saw is definitely a broad Keynesian stimulus ef
itable, they don't lower the costs of incar several of its facilities rocked by riots. In fect from the crackdown; the criminal jus
ceration for state governments. What sav mid-November last year, at the Taft Feder tice system is host to a raft of parasitic job

ings are achieved through corner cutting— al Correctional Institution, hundreds of in categories that range from stenographer
that is: removing all amenities and services and janitor, to judge and executioner. But
and hiring unqualified guards —is usually mates, angry about lousy food, smashed
absorbed by the company as profit. Al vhndows, televisions, and tables in the fed other than prosecutors nationwide and
eral system's only full-sized private prison.
ready this modus operandi of the bottom
line is showing itself to be detrimental for Thirty minutes of tear gas,
the long-term profitability of some big pri
vate jailers, as we will see below. rubber bullets and flash

Through assiduous cultivation of state bang grenades ended the
officials, the private jailers are increasingly uprising.^ More serious was
active in shaping criminal justice policy, the August rioting in two of
but their partnerships with state govern
ments also face problems. Recent events Wackenhut's New Mexico
have unveiled private jailers as cheats, liars
and major political liabilities. penitentiaries. In one of
those clashes a guard was
The biggest of the most recent blem shanked to death by ten in
ishes on the private gulag's image was the mates.'® On top of all that
mass escape at Corrections Corporation of
America's Youngstown, Ohio, prison. That 12 former Wackenhut em

joint—supposed to be a medium security ployees are under indict
lockup—was a hyper-violent overcrowded ment in Austin, Texas. And
facility illegally packed with maximum se
curity inmates from D.C. much like CCA, the compa

CCA's invincibility crumbled with the ny ended the year with its
news that six very angry young men from stock heading south—down
60 percent from the previ
Washington, D.C., had cut open the
prison's chain-link fence, crossed an elec ous season."
trified barrier, plowed through yards of
razor wire and were now at large among So private prison has
the good people of Youngstown.^
grown fast but its boom Assistant Warden Karl Frawner at Marion County
For almost a week, regular police, tactical days may be over as politi Jail, a Corrections Corporation of America facility.
cians—even Republicans—
squads, canine teams, and helicopters
combed an ever widening circle around the are turning against for-profit lockups. prison guards in California, few of these in
Thus it would seem that private prisons terest groups are very organized or do
pnson in search of the runaways. One by one
the cops busted the desperate, exhausted es are not pushing criminal justice policy in much to create new law and order politics.
What about economically cast-off re
capees, some of whom had been badly the way that arms manufacturers do with
wounded by the razor wire. The last runaway
inmate, Vincent Smith, was finally taken defense policy. gions, places that once subsisted thanks to
down in the backyard of Susie Ford's house.
A 54-year-old grandmother of three living on Working THE Crackdown military bases or now dead smokestack in
the outskirts of Youngstown, Ms. Ford got dustries? We hear that many such regions are

the news live—^when her frenetic sister tele There is one way in which criminal justice resurrected, phoenix-like, by the prosperity
as a whole is coming to resemble the mili of prison spending. A closer look at the new
phoned advising her to turn on the televi
sion. "That's our building! That's our build tary-industrial complex. While the estimat prison towns complicates that picture.
ed spending on prisons overall is $30 bil That this has proven to be an illusion is
ing!" Indeed it was. And the Ford sisters lion annually, the overall tab on police,
no better illustrated than in California's
watched their screens in amazement as po courts, prosecutors, probation, parole, bail
lice swarmed through the shrubs out back.'^ bonds, bounty hunting, drug treatment Central Valley. In the last 15 years, Califor
and prison is estimated to be as high as nia spent $4.2 billion building 23 new pri
This and a slew of other "problems"
have finally undermined the once unstop sons. A recent analysis of the economic im

pable CCA. A former Wall Street darling, $150 billion annually.'^ That's roughly half pact of the eight prisons surrounding Fres
no reveals a junkyard of broken promises
and dubbed "a theme stock for the
son realty shares hit record low amid shakcup," The and falsely optimistic economic projec
nineties," CCA's stock price has tumbled to tions. First and foremost, the vast majority
half its peak value.® Tciinesseaii, Dec. 28, 1999; Ray A. Smith, "REIT in of the 8,000 new prison-related jobs
terest: Investors Carry Out Sentence on Prison Real haven't gone to residents in the economi
6. Elccna de Lisser, "Prisonts Woes Spur Sell-OfT In
CCA Shares," Wall Strcci Jounial Europe, July 29, ty," Wall Street Joamal, July 21, 1999. cally depressed little prison towns. Nor has
9. "SoCal Briefs," Associated Press, Nov. 18, 1999. the $2 billion spent on prison construction
1998. 10. S.U. Mahesh, "Suspects in Guard's Slaying in California over the last 15 years, or the

7. Cheryl W. Thompson, "Ohio Sours on Prison Named," Aibuquenpie Joiinml, Oct. 8, 1999; "Dis
turbance erupts at Santa Rosa prison," AP, Aug. 31,
Managed by Private Firm; D.C. Inmates Live in
Troubled Facility," Wosliingtoii Post, Oct. 19, 1998. 1999. half-billion dollars annually shelled out to
meet prison payrolls, translated into a
8. Getahn Ward, "Back to the future for CCA, pri- 11. John Plctz, "Private prison operators take a hit
on Wail Street/Wackenhut Corp., others arc facing wave of new houses, restaurants or stores

hard times as stocks plunge," Austin American- in the states' impoverished lock-up regions.

Statesman, Dec. 16, 1999. In Corcoran—where more than half of
12. For numerous examples of Republican politi
cians who oppose private prisons, see Suzanne the town's population is incarcerated in a
massive complex of two penitentiaries,
Smalley, "A Stir Over Private Pens," National Journal which may add a third one soon—800
(Washington, D.C.), May 1, 1999.
13. Statistics from David Ladipo, "Regulating the job-seekers took civil-service placement
American Labour Market" Sew Left Review

(London), forthcoming.

Number 69 CovertAction Quarterly 77

despite recession in the early seventies, the
ratio of quits to layoffs was rising,

In short, workers were losing their fear
of unemployment and bosses because the
nation's incipient social welfare system was
taking up the slack and supporting them:
the War on Poverty was subsidizing the
war against capital.

Reagan put an end to all that with: severe
^ recession in the early eighties engineered to
2 put labor back in its place; conservative

f courts, and a mass assault on all forms of

2 government subsidies to poor and working

g people (from low-income housing programs,
5;§titpo tjhoeb strcaainleinsgbtaocwkeinlfacraep).itAall'lsthfaisvohre.^lp^eNdotwo

^ profits are in recovery while the people, par

Inmates at $34-mtllion Newton Correctional Facility, Newton, Iowa, being ticularly people of color, bleed.
But how to control the new surplus

taken to their cells, July 1997. gerous classes, even rebel, demanding jus populations?
tice, burning down the ghetto, or worse In retrospect the ever evolving answer
tests for just two prison staff positions. The yet, organizing themselves into coherent
town's unemployment rate is still 15 per coalitions that can leverage the state for is clear: Racialize poverty via the code of
cent just as it was a year before the first economic redistribution and racial equali
crime, and then hound the victims with
prison opened in 1988. According to esti ty
mates from the state and the prison guards' police narc squads, SWAT teams, and qual
union, only 7 to 9 percent of the prison ity of life enforcement; send the INS to raid
their homes; and lock up as many as pos
sible for as long as possible.

jobs in the Central Valley go to people liv From the New Deal in the 1930s Thus criminal justice regulates, ab

ing in prison towns. through the culmination of the War on sorbs, terrorizes, and disorganizes the poor.
Thanks to the massive freeways and Ca Poverty in the 1970s (that's right—it all re It also bolsters white supremacy by de-
ally came to fruition under Nixon), an ever monizing, disenfranchising and marginaliz
lifornia's all-powerful car culture, most staff larger portion of America's cast-off popula ing ever larger numbers of brovm people.
and guards commute from the region's ma tions were absorbed through ameliorative But unlike social democratic/welfare co-op
and co-optive social reforms. Spending on tion—that other way of managing pover
jor cities; Fresno, Visalia, and Bakersfield.^'^ health care, education, urban development
and welfare were all expanded. At the same ty—anti-crime repression doesn't have the
In short, prison cannot replace industry.
time corporate America came under in deleterious side effect of economically em
Class War FROM Above creased regulation in the areas of health
powering or at least cushioning the poor
While all of the specific interests men and safety, labor arbitration and environ and subsidizing their struggles. Nor does
tioned above help explain part of the mental pollution. the new model of control let loose dan
crackdown, they don't go far enough. Be
yond the interlocking corporate interests People of color, particularly in agricul gerous notions of racial equality and social
and the question of job creation and re tural regions, were largely excluded from inclusion, as did the rhetoric surrounding
the New Deal War and the War on Poverty
gional economic development there lies many of these reforms and managed the
the broader and historically deeper ques old fashioned way—via brute force. None Finally one last caveat: The politicians
who produce these laws and other policies
tion of class and racial control. theless, by the late sixties America's bur do not necessarily do so for the structural

In many ways the criminal justice

build-up is an organically evolving means geoning social democracy had begun to ly beneficial impacts they will have. Rather,
of managing the class and racial polariza cause trouble for the owning classes. By the average get-tough pol is simply looking
tion of a restructured American economy. the early seventies profits began to shrink for a compelling issue that speafe to voters'
and unemployment began to rise but wage anxieties without actually saying anything
At the heart of the matter lies a basic con
demand still increased. In fact labor was in revealing or dangerous about class power
tradiction: Capitalism needs and creates and privilege. On such a journey there
a more militant mood than ever. By the
poverty, intentionally through policy and

organically through crisis. Yet, capitalism is early seventies wildcat strikes had shut the seems to be no better horse to ride than the
also always threatened by the poor. These nation's postal system, coal fields, truck in
trusty stead of crime coded racism. But the
surplus populations help scare working dustry and railways. inevitable outcome of such electioneering
people into obedience and keep wages low. From capital's point of view government is legislation that is also useful in bolstering
But at the same time the poor (who in a and reproducing an unequal society. ■
white supremacist system are dispropor anti-poverty programs were, shall we say,
spoiling the working classes. During one na
tionately people of color) scare the upper
middle classes (who are mostly white). At tionwide strike in which 12 unions beat ry Bluestotic and Bennett Harrison, The Great LI-
Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarization of
General Electric it was figured that strikers

times the impoverished classes, the dan- had collected $25 million in welfare.'5 And, America (New York: Basic Books, 1988); Philip Arm

14. Mike Lewis, "Economic lockdovm with unem 15. For a dear economic history of the crisis and strong, Andrew Glyn and John Harrison, Capitalism
ployment largely unalTected and jobs going to resi ensiling economic restructuring, sec Michael Perel- Since 1945 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991); on the
dents of larger cities, the valley^ prison population tnan, TTie Pathology of the U.S., Economy: the Costs of logic of gutting social spending, see: Richard Clow-
boom hasn't been the economic boon advertised," a Low-Wage System (London: Macmillan, 1993); Bar- ard and Frances Fox-Piven, "A Class Analysis of
Fresno Bee, Jan. 9, 2000.
Welfare," Monthly Review, v. 44, n. 9, Feb. 1993.

16. Ibid.

78 CovertAction Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000

City Financing a "School of the Americas"

IN THE Bronx

BY Frank Morales

^ he Amadou Diallo verdict seeks to legalize an expanded nological revolution in law enforcement of such immense di
mensions that 1 don't think anyone knows really where it will
T "rules of engagement," to justify "excess force," and to go." Sound "reasonable"?
cover these murders in a defense based on the notion that
"they did what they were trained to do," In this sense, the de Finally, just two days before the (good cop) Times report, the
fense strategy goes beyond the acquittal of the four officers. The (bad cop) New York Post offered another lake on how to "avoid

entire affair, the entire injustice is itself but one link in an evolv another tragedy like the Amadou Diallo shooting" in a story en

ing (counter) revolution in police practice in America, in which titled, "City paving the way to give cops 'street smarts.' "2 The so
the dominant trend in policing is toward increasing reliance lution: a "$10 million replica of a New York City street," on the

upon and acquisition of technology developed by the military for grounds of the police firing range which will provide to the offi
cers state of the art police/military training technology. According
use in domestic law enforcement. On the heels of the obscene to the Post promotion, the new training center "will revolution
ize how city cops are trained in the use of deadly force." It will
"verdict," the New York Times, wondered, "What if New York City feature the simulation of "every kind of stressful situation so that

police officers were routinely equipped with hand-held weapon when they (cops) get out on the
detectors that could tell them from a distance whether a suspect streets they do exactly as they are

was armed?"^ How quickly and un trained to do." Haven't we heard that

abashedly the establishment seizes " ^ D A I LY
the opportunity (of an innocent

man's murder) to enhance the very before? The site, located in the Bronx

police methods that are being criti (of course), will enable the police "to
cized, utilizing "the Diallo case" in learn new tactics," including "ad

order to indoctrinate and accustom vanced classes in crowd control."

the public to allegedly benign ("non- Most of the financing for the con
struction project "comes from cash
lethal") "tools to fight crime." and property seized from drug deal

The Times article described New

York City's Citizens Crime Commis ers." Extortion benefitting repres

sion's recent showcasing of new po sion.
lice technology. According to the
Times, the "breakfast symposium" The official name of the program,

the "Joint Regional Tactical Village," a

promoted an assortment of "gee-whiz "gritty, realistic urban scenario," is
police gadgets." which "might be code-named "Judgment Town," and
ready in just a few years," including is to be completed by April 2001. Ac
"facial recognition" surveillance
cording to the Post report, "plans for

equipment (currently in use in parts Judgment Town date back to 1998,
of London), pepper spray guns (re
when the NYPD contacted the U.S

cently in use in Seattle), and hand Army Corps of Engineers about the
2 project. The corps now has a crew of
held street scanners to be used for

weapons detection. The weapons de Hundreds protest the shooting of Amadou g servicemen at Rodman's Neck build-
tection device, put forth in the 1995 Diallo, an unarmed West African killed by 2 ing the tenements." In addition to the
four policemen firing 41 shots.
NIJ "technology transfer" effort men J NYPD, "agents from the FBI, the U.S.
tioned earlier, is currently being ■g Marshals Service and other federal
5 law enforcement organizations will
championed by Hillary Clinton who
dutifully "called for increased federal also train there too, officials said."
spending on research to improve po The U.S. military currently operates a
lice technology, including gun detec number of "military operations in
tors." The NYPD, according to the urban terrain" or MOUT training
Times report, "plays an important role sites around the country. Law en
in the field, largely because it is often forcement "joint" training centers,
the entiy point for technological in given the convergence of the military

novations." Craig Beery, sales director for "PepperBail" stated and law enforcement, is, from the point of view of counterinsur-

that, "there is no agency like the NYPD." That's for sure. The gency and social control, the next step. Here in New York, the test
company's product, a "launcher that uses compressed air to shoot bed for militarist innovation, "the city expects to kick in about
small projectiles filled with a disabling powder similar to pepper $800,000" toward the creation of the training center which will,

spray" is technolog)' meant, among other things, to suppress civil according to NYPD's chief, Howard Safir, "train our people better
disobedience and protest. Thomas A. Reppetto, president of the and give them more experience in confrontational situations." So,
"non-profit city organization" which sponsored the gathering of while "crime" is going down, "confrontation," imprisonment and
fered some comforting words: "We are beginning to see a tech-
shootings will inevitably go up. ®

1. New Yorfe Times, Mar. 7, 2000. 2. New Yorit Posi," Mar. 5, 2000.

Number 69 CovertAetion Quarterly 79

U.S. Military Civil Disturbance Planning
The War at Home

Part One

BY Frank Morales

"T T nder the heading of "cml distur- social justice movements, embodying the these projects "are the most classified se
crets in the Pentagon."! Could it be that the
I bance planning," the U.S. military concept that within the civilian body
politic lurks an enemy that one day the current U.S. Air Force Civil Disturbance
is training troops and police to military might be ordered to fight.
Plan 55-2, GARDEN PLOT, is one such
suppress democratic opposition in Ameri Equipped with flexible "military oper
ca. The master plan, Department of De ations in urban terrain" and "operations program financed from this secret budget?
fense Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, is code- We have a right to know. And following
named, "Operation Garden Plot." Originat other than war" doctrine, lethal and "less-
ed in 1968, the "operational plan" has Seattle, we have the need to know.
been updated over the last three decades, than-lethal" high-tech weaponry, U.S.
most recently in 1991, was activated dur "armed forces" and "elite" militarized po U.S. militar}' training in civil distur
bance "suppression" is in full operation to
ing the Los Angeles "riots" of 1992, and lice units are being trained to eradicate day. The formulation of legitimizing doc
more than likely during the recent anti- trine, the training in the "tactics and tech
"disorder," "disturbance" and "civil disobe niques" of "ci\il disturbance suppression,"
WTO "battle in Seattle." and the use of "non-lethal" weaponry, are
dience" in America. Further, it may very
Current U.S. military preparations for well be that police/military "civil distur ongoing, financed by tax dollars. The over
bance" planning is the animating force and all operation is called Garden Plot. And ac
suppressing domestic civil disturbance, in cording to the bosses at the Pentagon,
cluding the training of National Guard the overarching logic behind the incredible
troops and local police, are actually part of nationwide growth of police paramilitary I. New Ibrfc Times, "Pentagon Misused Million.s in
a long history of American "internal secu units, a growth which coincidcnially mir Funds, House Panel Says," July 22, 1999, p. Al. Sec
rors rising levels of police violence direct also, on the subject of "unacknowledged Spceial Ac
rity" measures dating back to the first ed at the American people, particularly cess Programs" wherein "the USAF's S7.4 billion
American Revolution. Generally, these "nonwhite" poor and working people. budget for classified procurement is more titan a
measures have sought to thwart the aims of third of the servicers total budget," bill Swcetman,
Recently, Pentagon spokesman Ken "In search of the Pentagon^ billion dollar hidden
Frank Morales is an Episcopal priest and indepen neth H. Bacon "acknowledged that the Air budgets: how the US keeps its R&D spending under
dent researcher and pamphleteer who is active on Force wrongfully started and financed a wraps," Uitenittlional Defense Review, Jane's Defense
Manhattanls Lower East Side. An expanded version Weekly, Jan. 2000, www.Jancs.com/defencc/cditors/
of this rticle can be found on GrvertAcfion Quarter highly classified, still-secret project, known pcntagon.html.
ly's web site. Part Two will be published in the next as a black program without informing

issue. Congress last year." The costs and nature of

80 CovertAction Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000

"U.S. forces deployed to assist federal and "More than 160 disorders occurred in through police and military action than to
local authorities during times of civil dis pay for effective programs against remain
turbance... will follow use-of-force policy some 128 American cities in the first nine ing poverty."® As for the military, twelve
found in Department of Defense Civil Dis generals, representing various branches of
turbance Plan-GARDEN PLOT." Qoint months of 1967."^ the armed services appeared before the
Chiefs of Staff, "Standing Rules of Engage
ment, Appendix A," 1 October 1994.) The executive order establishing the commission or served as contractors. The
commission called for an investigation of
Origins OF Garoeh Put "the origins of the recent major civil disor commission's "Director of Investigations,"
ders and the influence, if any, of organiza Milan C. Miskovsky, was "on leave as assis
"Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a tant general counsel of the treasury, and
slave." —^Frederick Douglass tions or individuals dedicated to the incite
formerly connected to the Central Intelli
Rochester, New York, is the former home of ment or encouragement of violence.'"^ The gence Agency.
Frederick Douglass's North Star newspaper. work of the commission was funded from
In 1964, it erupted in one of the first large- President Johnson's "Emergency Fund." The Kemer Commission's "study" of
The executive order sought recommenda "civil disorder" led directly to (civilian) re
scale urban outbursts of the decade. Pre tions in three general areas: "short term commendations regarding the role of the
measures to prevent riots, better measures
cipitated by white police violence against to contain riots once they begin, and long military in domestic affairs. The report
the black community, the July uprising last term measures to eliminate riots in the fu "commends the Army for the advanced
ed several days, subsiding only after the ar status of its training." Further, it states that
rival of 1,500 National Guardsmen. In "the ture. "5 Their two immediate aims were "to "the Department of the Army should par
fall of 1964, the FBI, at the direction of
President Johnson, began to make riot con control and repress black rioters using al ticipate fully in efforts to develop nonlethal
trol training available to local police de most any available means,"^ and to assure weapons and personal protective equip
partments, and by mid-1967 such training white America that everything was in ment appropriate for use in civil disor
ders." In addition, "the Army should in
assistance had been extended to more than hand. Commission members included
vestigate the possibility of utilizing psy
70,000 officials and civilians."^ Charles B. Thorton, Chairman and CEO, chological techniques to ventilate hostility
On July 29, 1967, President Johnson Litton Industries, member of the Defense and lessen tension in riot control, and in

issued Executive Order 11365, establish Industry Advisory Council to the DoD and corporate feasible techniques in training
the National Security Industrial Associa the Army and National Guard units."
ing the National Advisory Commission on tion, John L. Atwood, President and CEO,
Civil Disorders. It is more commonly North American Rockwell Corporation Under the heading, "Army Response to
known as the Kemer Commission, named Civil Disorders," the commission report
for its chair, former Major General, and ("Commission Advisor on Private Enter
then Governor of Illinois, Otto Kemer. The states that "the commitment of federal
prise"), and Herbert Jenkins, Atlanta Chief
creation of the commission came hot on troops to aid state and local forces in con
the heels of the violence in Detroit, a con of Police and President of the International trolling a disorder is an extraordinary
flict which left 43 dead, several hundred act.... An Army staff task group has recent
Association of Chiefs of Police.
wounded, and more than 5,000 people ly examined and reviewed a wide range of
homeless. Johnson sent troubleshooter During the early stages of staff recruit topics relating to military operations to

Cyrus Vance, later Secretary of Defense, as ment, commission Deputy Executive Di control urban disorders: command and
his personal observer to Detroit. The com rector Victor H. Palmieri "described the
mission issued its final report, completed control, logistics, training, planning, doc
in less than a year, on March 1, 1968. process as a war strategy"^ and so he trine, personnel, public information, intel
might, given the overwhelming presence ligence, and legal aspects." The results of
Although the Kemer Commission has the Army brass's study was subsequently,
over the years become associated with a within the commission and its consultants
somewhat benign, if not benevolent char "made known to the National Guard and
acter, codifying the obvious, "we live in of military and police officials. One quarter
two increasingly separate Americas," etc., of more than 200 consultants listed were to top state and local civil and law enforce

the fact is that the commission itself was big-city police chiefs, like Daryl F Gates, ment officers in order to stimulate review
but one manifestation of a massive mili the former Los Angeles police chief. Num
erous police organizations, including the at the state and local level."!®
tary/police counterinsurgency effort direct
ed against U.S. citizens, hatched in an era heavily funded Law Enforcement Assist The Army Task Force which assisted
of emergent post-Vietnam "syndrome" ance Administration (financiers of SWAT),
coupled with elite fears of domestic insur the Kemer Commission issued its own re
guided the commission's deliberations. No
rection. While the movement chanted for less than 30 police departments were rep port in early 1968. In it, the Pentagon took
resented on or before the commission by a multi-pronged approach to solving the
peace and revolution, rebellious, angry their chiefs or deputy chiefs. civil disturbance problem. "Expanding the
and destructive urban uprisings were oc
A key player wnthin the commission, suggestion of Cyms Vance, Military Intelli
curring with alarming frequency, often the "consultant" Anthony Downs, stated at the gence—^working wnth the FBI, local, coun-
result of the usual spark, police bmtality, time that, "it would be far cheaper to re
8. Anthony Downs, Opening Up the Suburbs: An Ur
white on black crime. The so-called urban press future large-scale urban violence ban Strategy for America (New Haven: Yale Universi
ty Press, 1973), p. 176. Downs, a leading "housing
riots of 1967-1968 were the zenith, during 3. Ibid., p.l21. Also see Cyrus R. Vance, Final Re expert," believed that the key to effective urban
this period, of social and class conflict. port of Cyrus R. Vance, Special Assistant to the Secre based counterinsurgency was the notion of "spatial
tary of Defense, Concerning the Detroit Riots, July 23 deconcentration," or the "adequate outmigration of
2. James W. Button, Black Violence; The Political the poor" ffom the cities. Downs wrote Chapters 16
Impact of the 1960i Riots, (Princeton: University t4h.roMuigchhaAeulgLuispts2^,a1n9d67D. avid J. Olson, Commission and 17 of the Kemer Report which deal with "hous
Press, 1978), p. 116. ing." He is the leading exponent of "deliberate dis
Politics; The Processing of Racial Crisis in America persal policies" designed to "disperse the urban
(New York: Transaction Books, 1971), p. 161. The poor more effectively." The origins of "homeless-
Executive Order is reprinted in U.5. Riot Com ness" (state repression) lie here.
mission Report (New York: Bantam Books, 1968), 9. Lipsky and Olson, op. at., n. 4, p. 168.
10. Report of the Notional Advisory Commission on
pp. 34-35. Civil Disorders, Washington, D.C., March 1, 1968,
3. Lipsky and Olson, op cit., n. 4., p. 163, citing a
transcription of Lyndon B. Johnson, "Statement by pp. 279-81.
the President," July 29,1967.
6. pp. cit., n. 2, p. 107.
7. Lipsky and Olson, op. cit., n. 4, p. 163.

CovertActloii Quarterly

Illinois National Guard troops practicing "patrolling techniques." ed key officials from all law enforcement

ty and state police forces—undertook a Even chough the full extent of U.S. mil agencies in the nation, as well as the Na
massive domestic intelligence gathering op tional Guard, the military, and representa
itary intelligence activities during this peri tives of the intelligence community... Ac
eration... the Senior Officers Civil Disturb od is far from generally known, "by 1968,
cording to the plan, joint teams would
ance Course was instituted at the Military many Justice Department personnel knew react to a variety of scenarios based on in
Police Academy in Georgia.... Security that the military was preparing to move in formation gathered through political espi
forces ranging from Army troops to local onage and informants. The object was to
massively if needed to quash urban riots, quell urban unrest...."^®
police were trained to implement their con and some officials feared the development
tingency plans.... Contingency plans, called of a large national military riot force. It was Unrest of a different sort took place on
planning packets, were prepared for every well known among top officials that the the evening of February 27, 1973. At that
city in the country that had a potential for
student, minority or labor unrest."'^ Department of Defense was spending far time, a group of Native Americans occu
more funds than the Justice Department pied a trading post in the village of
In addition, "the Army Task Force that on civil disorder preparations...indicative Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reserva
had designed this program took on a new of the growing trend at the federal level to tion in South Dakota. By March 2, the
ward repression and control of the urban takeover had "triggered the army contin
name, the Directorate of Civil Disturbance
black rioters."^^ gency plan for domestic disturbances.
Planning and Operations. The Army Task Emergency Plans White—now coded as
By 1971, Senator Sam Ervin, later of Garden Plot—brought the Army into
Force transformation into the Directorate Watergate renown, had convened his Sub South Dakota.... Three army colonels, dis
committee on Constitutional Rights which
occurred during the massive rioting that "revealed that Militar)' Intelligence had es guised as civilians, and reconnaissance
broke out in black ghettos of 19 cities after planes assisted," while "the Justice Depart
the assassination of Martin Luther King in tablished an intricate surveillance system ment used the army to conduct intelli
April 1968."^2 that time "seven army in
fantry brigades, totaling 21,000 troops were covering hundreds of thousands of Ameri gence for civilian law enforcement around
available for riot duty. And a huge, so
can citizens. Committee staff members had Wounded Knee.''^^ Information on other
phisticated computer center kept track of all
public outbursts of political dissent, thereby seen a master plan—Garden Plot-that gave instances in which Garden Plot was "trig
furnishing the first of the Army Task Force's an eagle eye view of the Army-National
prescribed remedies: intelligence. Guard police strategy."!^ gered" over the intervening years is
den Plot exercises focused primarily on presently locked in Pentagon vaults.
By June of 1968, the Directorate had racial conflict. But beginning in 1970, the
become the Directorate of Military Sup scenarios took a different twist. The Joint In essence, the contemporary roots of
teams, made up of cops, soldiers and spies, militarized efforts to suppress domestic re
port, setting up shop in the basement of began practicing battle with large groups bellion lie in the U.S. Army's master plan,
the Pentagon. "Better known as the do of protesters. California, under the leader
ship of Ronald Reagan, was among the "Department of Defense Civil Disturbance
mestic war room, the Directorate had 150 most enthusiastic participants in Garden Plan 55-2, GARDEN PLOT." Since at least
Plot war games. 1968, the military has expended millions of
officials to carry out around-the-clock dollars in this effon. The plan is operative
As time went on, "Garden Plot evolved right now, most recently during and after the
monitoring of civil disorders, as well as to Los Angeles uprising of 1992. A view into
oversee federal troop deployments when into a series of annual training exercises details of this plan is possible by way of an
based on contingency plans to undercut
necessary. At the cost of $2.7 million, this riots and demonstrations, ultimately devel examination of "United States Air Force Civil
massive directorate also developed policy
advice for the secretary of the Army on all oped for every major city in the United Disturbance Plan 55-2, GARDEN PLOT,"
disturbances and maintained intelligence States. Participants in the exercises includ- which is the "implementing" and "support
packets on all major U.S. cities-''^"^ ing plan for the Department of the Army
15. Ibid.
11. Ron Ridenhour and Arthur Lubow, "Bringing (DA) Civil Disturbance Plan—GARDEN
the War Home," New Times Magazine, 1973, p. 20. 16. Op. cit., n. 11, p. 18.
17. Donald Goldberg and Indy Badhwar, "Blueprint PLOT—dated 1 March 1984 [which] pro
12. Ibid. for Tyranny," Penthouse Magazine, Aug. 1983, p. 72. vides for the employment of USAF forces in
civil disturbances." It is specifically drawn
13. Ibid.
14. Op. cit., n. 2, p. 133. up "to support the Secretary of the Army, as
DOD Executive Agent for civil disturbance
control operations (nicknamed GARDEN

PLOT), with airlift and logistical support, in

assisting civil authorities in the restoration of

law and order through appropriate military

commanders in the 50 States, District of Co

lumbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico

and U.S. possessions and territories, or any
political subdivision thereof." The plan "is
effective for planning on receipt and for exe

cution on order.''^*^

18. Ibid.
19. Joan M. Jensen, Anny SurveiUance in America,

I775-I980 (New Haven; Yale University Press,

1991), pp. 237-38. This e.\ccllent historical aecount
actually does what it says, tracing American "inter
nal security measures" right back to the "founders."
20. United States Air Force Civil Disturbance Plan

82 CovertAction Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000

U.S. Air Force l a w o r h i n d e r e n f o r c e m e n t o f t h e l a w. " Garden Plot, from April 30 through May 4,

55-2—Garden Plot Consequently, the plan's "operations orders 1970, 9th Air Force airlift units transport
and operating procedures must be de ed civil disturbance control forces from Ft.
"The long tide of the plan is United States
Air Force Civil Disturbance Flan 55-2, Em signed to provide the highest degree of se Bragg to various locations throughout the
curity possible." Therefore "the entire staff eastern U.S.''^^ In fact, two years earlier,
ployment of USAF Forces in Civil Disturb should identify known or suspected oppo
sition awareness of previous operations "Air Force Reserve C-119 and C-124 units
ances. The short title...is USAF Civil and operations plans," while "procedures
should be designed to eliminate the sus participated in Garden Plot operations set
Disturbance Plan 55-2. The nickname as up to quell domestic strife that followed
the assassination of Martin Luther King."^^
signed by Department of the Army is GAR
pect sources to the degree possible." And 21. Federation of American Scientists, Military
D E N P L O T. " "in the event of organized opposition...
some sort of advisory intelligence gather Analysis Network, "Garden Plot," Nov. 1998.
The plan opens with some basic "as 22. U.S. Air Force News Service, Kelly Air Force
ing capability should be assumed." Base, Texas, "Air Force 50th Anniversary: April His
sumptions," namely that "civil distur The Air Force document warns, under
bances requiring intervention with military tory," March 25, 1997, p. 2. In fact. Garden Plot
forces may occur simultaneously in any of the heading of "Open Literature Threat," may have been operative prior and during the as
the 50 States, District of Columbia, Com sassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. William F.
monwealth of Puerto Rico, U.S. posses presaging current military discourse on
"info-war," that "any information/docu Pepper, attorney for the late James Earl Ray, as well
sions and territories." And like the current as the King family in their current attempts to get to
ment, though seemingly unclassified, the bottom of the murder, claims, in Orders To Kill
situation in Vieques, Puerto Rico, "civil which reveals information concerning this
disturbances will normally develop over a Plan is a threat to OPSEC (operational se (Secaucus, N.J.: Carroll and Graf, 1995), p. 424,
that the orders to kill King, which were delivered to
period of time." In the event it evolves into curity)" This is especially true given the na
ture of the "Human Intelligence (HUM- Special Forces operatives in Memphis were tied to
a confrontational situation, under Garden Garden Plot. Pepper states that the orders to kill
INT) Threat." Recognizing that, "prior to
Plot, it is a "presidential executive order" and during sustained military operations King "appeared to come from the office of the Joint

that "will authorize and direct the Secre in Support of the Plan, the potential HUM- Chiefs of Staff and were issued under the umbrella
INT threat could be considerable," the of the anti-black terrorist operation Garden Plot
tary of Defense to use the Armed Forces of
which was a part of the overall U.S. Command an-
the United States to restore law and order." tiriot operation which was activated with the out

According to the Air Force plan, the break of any major riot."
military will attempt "to suppress rebellion
plan recommends that Eh Vif*t PjiCiW* Jeeft
whenever the President considers that un "every effort should be
Etdi ^34
lawful obstructions, combinations, or as made to reduce vulnera
' ike HcM
semblages, or rebellion against the author bility to this threat by
ity of the United States, make it impracti adhering to OPSEC pro hgg//■*»*» eav«*aeaQfvot9/<Wa>l69Mw ^6o
cedures and safeguard
cal to enforce the laws of the United States
ing Essential Elements of CovertAction Quarterly
in any state or territory by the ordinary Friendly Information
course of judicial proceedings...(10 USC F u l l Te x t A r t l d 9 s
332)." Applying its own version of equal (EEFI)." Spnng-Summer 2000 * 69
protection under the law, the military can
intervene "when insurrection, domestic vi Under "Operations U.S. miarv aid Coniordle RetiHorttallon of the Conao
by Ellen R«y | The Omied States' involvement m Congo
olence, unlawful combinations, or con to be Conducted: De Stfice before independence frcrri Belgium in June 1960
spiracies in a state so hinder or obstruct hes been eteedy^ snster, and penetrating. Most notable
the execution of the laws as to deprive in ployment," the Air Force was the CIA's rote m the overthrow (September 1960)
dividuals of their constitutional rights, plan states that "a civil and later assassination (January 1961) Of Congo's first
Pnme Mnster, the chansmatic (and socialist) Patnce
privileges, and immunities or when the in disturbance condition Lumumba, ffiasu.
surrection impedes the due course of jus
(CIDCON) system has Seattle ami Bevonri: The Ifcyuaitviif
tice, and only when the constituted au been established to pro by Michel Chossudovsky ] Leacing up to the Seattle
thorities of the state are unable, fail or vide an orderly and Mittennum Pound of the World Trade Organization
refuse to protect that right, privilege, im (WTO), over 1,200 groups and orgaruiations fi^m more
timely increase in pre than 66 countnes c^ed for a "Moratonum" on further
munity, or to give that protection (10 USC paredness for designated Iberaiization ^a'lder WTO auspices and the holding of an
333)." In other words, the Army makes an forces to deploy for civil **audit* to be undertaken on the impacts of
offer of "protection" that the citizenry can't disturbances control op globa^tation. «norw..,

refuse. erations, will be on an as by Karen Talbot | Media analysts and U.S. officials
have been nervously trying to assess the *bewildenng*
According to the Air Force plan's pokcms of Russia's president* elect, Vladirmr Putm,
"Classification Guidance," the roughly 200 especialty Ivs actions m Chechnya. Putm is increasD*igfy
being dubbed a nationalist, even though he claims to be
page document "is UNCLASSIFIED and defending the terntonaf miegnty and economic base of
does not come within the scope of direc Russia in the face of escalating incursions on the part of
tion governing the protection of informa the U.S. and other
tion affecting national security. Although it
required basis for USAF kUiaWJWM-lJJLU.l.U. J T. n - i M s m i e
is UNCLASSIFIED, it is FOR OFFICIAL resources for such opera
tions as aerial resupply,
USE ONLY as directed by AFR 12-30. This
aerial reconnaisance, air Now with our secure-server e-
plan contains information that is of inter
nal use to DOD and, through disclosure, borne psychological op commerce technology for secure
would tend to allow persons to violate the
erations, command and
53-2, Garden Plot, Headquarters, United Stales Air control communications
Force, June 1, 1984 (roughly 200 pages, not pagi
nated). systems, aeromedical credit card transactions, you can
evacuation, helicopter subscribe to CovertActSon
and weather support."
Quarterly and order excellent ar
The Air Force does have ticles and books online, right

some experience in this
area. "In response to the

U.S. invasion of Cambo

dia, student unrest broke now!
out. Under Operation

Number 69 CovertAction Quarterly 83

Although the section on "Counterin Concerning "Force Requirements," the secure "loans" to cover the costs "attribut
telligence Targets and Requirements" is plan states that, "US Army and Marine
"omitted," the plan does specify its targets, Corps units designated for civil distur able to GARDEN PLOT." Ominously, un
namely, those "disruptive elements, ex bance operations will be trained, equipped der "Resources Employed Without Presi
tremists or dissidents perpetrating civil dis and maintained in readiness for rapid de
dential Directive," the document states that
order." A "civil disturbance" is defined as a ployment, (with) ten brigades, prepared when the "immediate employment of mili
for rapid deployment anywhere in
"riot, acts of violence, insurrections, unlaw CONUS. A Quick Reaction Force (QRF) tary resources is required in cases of sud
ful obstructions or assemblages, or other den and unexpected civil disturbances or
disorders prejudicial to public law and will be considered to be on a 24-hour alert other emergencies endangering life or fed
eral property, or disrupting the normal
order. The term civil disturbance includes status and capable of attaining a CIDCON
4 status in 12 hours...." Upon receipt of or processes of Government, expenses in
all domestic conditions requiring the use of
federal armed forces pursuant to the provi ders, "the Task Force Commander assumes curred will be financed as a mission re
sions of Chapter 15, Title 10, United States
Code." Conditions precipitating Garden operational control of the military ground sponsibility of the DOD component em
forces assigned for employment in the ob ploying the military resources."
Plot activation are "those that threaten to
jective area," including "special operations PENineoN Dibectihes
reach or have reached such proportions
assets." "Department of Defense Directive
that civil authorities cannot or will not 3025.12, Military Assistance for Civil Dis
The "Summary of the Counterintelli turbances (MACDIS)" became effective on
maintain public order." As for legal author
gence and Security Situation" states that February 4, 1994, when signed by then
ity, "the Constitution of the United States "spontaneous civil disturbances which in Defense Secretary William Perry. It states
and numerous statutes provide the Presi volve large numbers of persons and/or that, "the President is authorized by the
dent with the authority to commit Federal which continue for a considerable period
of time, may exceed the capacity of local Constitution and laws of the United States
military forces within the United States... civil law enforcement agencies to suppress.
DOD Directive 3025.12 provides guidance to suppress insurrections, rebellions, and
in committing Federal armed forces." Although this type of activity can arise domestic violence under various condi
without warning as a result of sudden, tions and circumstances. Planning and
The "application of forces should be in
the following order: local and state police. unanticipated popular unrest (past riots in preparedness by the Federal Government
and the Department of Defense for civil
Army and (in support role) Air National such cities as Miami, Detroit and Los An disturbances are important, due to the po
Guard under State control. Federal civil tential severity of the consequences of such
law enforcement officials, federal military geles serve as examples), it may also result events for the Nation and the population."
forces to include Army and (in support from more prolonged dissidence." USAF
role) Air National Guard." According to the Garden Plot advises that "if military forces Further, "the Secretary of the Army, as DoD
plan, "State Adjutants General prepare civil are called upon to restore order, they must Executive Agent, shall provide guidance to
disturbance plans for the employment of the other DoD Components, through DoD
expect to have only limited information
National Guard units under state control." available regarding the perpetrators, their 3025.12-R, the DoD Civil Disturbance
Plan (GARDEN PLOT), or both, in accor
Specifically, "as a general rule for planning motives, capabilities, and intentions. On
purposes, the minimum forces to be sup the other hand, such events which occur dance with this Directive."
ported in any single objective area is as part of a prolonged series of dissident
5,000. The maximum to be supported is acts will usually permit the advance collec DoDD 3025.12 makes it clear that
12,000 for any objective area other than tion of that type of information..."
Washington, D.C., and 18,000 for Wash "MACDIS operations are unprogrammed
ington, D.C." The "objective areas" are The United States Army Training and
"those specified by the Presidential Pro Doctrine Command (TRADOC), "provides emergency requirements for the Depart
ment of Defense," and that in order to "en
clamation and Executive Order in which training programs and doctrine for civil sure essential control and sound manage
disturbance operations to military ser ment of all military forces employed in
the Secretary of Defense has been directed vices." The U.S. Army Force Command MACDIS operations, centralized direction
to restore law and order," and as "further (FORSCOM) "organizes, trains, and main from the DoD Executive Agent (the Army)
defined by the Letter of Instruction issued tains in readiness Army forces for civil dis shall guide planning by the DoD compo
to Task Force Commanders by the Chief of turbance operations," while the Director of nent." Thus, "MACDIS missions shall he
Staff, US Army." decentralized through the DoD Planning
Military Support (DOMS) "conducts, on a
In order to avoid the unseemly impli no-notice basis, exercises which direct Agents or other Joint Task Force Com
cations of "martial law," "requirements for manders only when specifically directed
the commitment of Federal military forces headquarters of uniformed services, ap
by the DoD Executive Agent."
will not result in the declaration of a Na propriate CONUS command, and other According to the directive, the "Army
DOD components, having GARDEN PLOT
tional Emergency." In this regard, the and Air National Guard forces have prima
"Public Affairs Objectives" include the de responsibilities to assume a simulated in
creased preparedness for specified forces." ry responsibility for providing military as
velopment of "procedures for the public In addition, the DOMS "maintains an sistance to state and local governments in
release of appropriate information regard civil disturbances." Accordingly, "the Army
ing...civil disturbance control operations." around-the-clock civil disturbance com
Media and other queries "concerning em National Guard State Area Commands
mand center to monitor incipient and on
ployment of control forces...may be local (STARCs) shall plan for contingency use of
ly answered by an interim statement that going disturbances."
the Department of Defense policy is not to The document, the United States Air non-Federalized National Guard forces for
comment on plans concerning the possible civil disturbance operations." The directive
Force's "implementing plan" for the U.S.
employment of military units and re further outlines policy, guidelines, and legal
sources to carry out assigned missions." Army's Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, GAR justification for "military assistance for civil
DEN PLOT, goes on to detail every aspect disturbances," including policy regarding
of military "suppression" of "rebellion domestic law enforcement, designating the
Army as "the principal point of contact be-
against the authority of the United States,"
including who pays, who bills and how to

CovertAction Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000

tween the Department of Defense (DoD) Civil Disturbance Training: National Guard troops "detain a rioter."
and the Department of Justice (DoJ) for
"United Slates Army Field Manual 19- disturbances may arise because "economi
planning and executing MACDIS."^^
15, Civil Disturbances," dated November cally deprived inner-city residents may per
The militarization of domestic "law en 1985, is designed to provide hands-on ceive themselves treated unjustly or ig
nored by the people in power,"
forcement" is founded, in part, upon "De "guidance for the commander and his staff
in preparing for and providing assistance Utilizing Garden Plot language, the
partment of Defense Directive 5525.5, manual states that "the president can em
DoD Cooperation with Civilian Law En to civil authorities in civil disturbance con
forcement Officials," dated January 15, ploy armed federal troops to suppress in
1986, five years after congressional "drug trol operations." The Army manual opens surrection, domestic violence, unlawful as
warriors" passed the Military Cooperation
with Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies by noting that, "the DA Civil Disturbance semblies, and conspiracy if such acts de
Act. Referencing the 1971 version of Plan, known as Garden Plot, provides gui prive the people of their constitutional
DODD 3025.12 (above), the directive dance to all DOD components in planning rights and a state's civil authorities cannot
states that, "it is DoD policy to cooperate or will not provide adequate protection."
civil disturbance missions." Its thirteen Never mind the Congress or Constitution,
with civilian law enforcement officials to
chapters cover, in depth, every aspect of "federal intervention in civil disturbances
the extent practical ..consistent with the military "tasks and techniques employed
needs of national security and military pre begins with the issuance of a presidential
to control chil disturbances and neutralize proclamation to the citizens engaged in the
paredness." In addition, "the Military De
partments and Defense Agencies may pro special threats." Subjects include the na disturbance." In other words, the President
vide training to Federal, State, and local ture of civil disturbances, participants
reads "the riot act" and "a control force" is
civilian law enforcement officials." ("the crowd"), federal inten'ention, infor
mation planning ("intelligence"), control sent in to "isolate the disturbance area."
Apparently, military Judge Advocates force operations, crowd control opera
(lawyers) have no problem with the 1878 tions, threat analysis ("criminal activists"), The goal is to "isolate the people creating
Posse Comitatus Act (18 USC 1385), about which "law enforcement sources can
which states: "Whoever, except in cases the disturbance from those who have not
and under circumstances expressly autho provide useful information," riot control
rized by the Constitution or Act of Con agents, extreme force options, apprehen yet become actively involved."
sion, detention, and training. According to FM 19-15, the Army can
gress, willfully uses any part of the Army
or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or According to the Army manual, "civil gather intelligence on civilians if their "ac
disturbances in any form are prejudicial to tivities can be linked directly to a distinct
otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined public law and order." They "arise from acts threat of a civil disturbance that may in
volve federal forces." This is especially im
not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not of civil disobedience." and "occur most
more than two years or both." Nor is there portant, given that "during civil distur
often when participants in mass acts of civil bances many people engage in unlawful
much concern shown for "the historic tra disobedience become antagonistic toward behavior," Therefore, "when at all possible,
civil law enforcement agents are integrated
dition of limiting direct military involve authority, and authorities must struggle to with the military control force team mak
wrest the initiative from an unruly crowd."
ment in civilian law enforcement activi ing apprehensions," and "if police are not
They are caused by "political grievances" available, military personnel may search
ties." Even though the Act is cited within and "urban economic conflicts," or maybe people incident to an apprehension." Use
the directive as "the primary restriction on even by "agents of foreign nations," but ful measures for "isolating an area include
barriers, patrols, pass and ID systems, and
military participation in civilian law en mostly, "urban conflicts and community control of public utilities." Also, "imposing
forcement activities," it is rendered null unrest arise from highly emotional social a curfew is a highly effective control mea
sure in many civil disturbances." Army
and void in deference to "actions that are and economic issues." And in a statement

taken for the primary purpose of further that resonates with the "benign neglect" of
some years ago, the manual points out that
ing a military or foreign affairs function."
In fact, "under guidance established by the
Secretaries of the Military Departments
and the Directors of the Defense Agencies
concerned, the planning and execution of

compatible military training and opera
tions may take into account the needs of

civilian law enforcement officials for infor

mation when the collection of the informa

tion is an incidental aspect of training per
formed for a military purpose.

23. Dcpartmcnl of Defense Directive 3025.12, "Mi
litary Assistance for Civil Disturbances (MACDIS),
Feb. 4, 1994" (web7.whs.osd.mil/text/ d302512p.
txt). Note: DoDD 3023.12 is one of 4 correlated di-
rcetivcs that deal with civil disturbance. The others
include DoDD 3023.1, "Military Support to Civil
Aiilliorilics (Jan. 1993)," DoDD 3025.15, "Military
Assistance for Civil Authorities (Feb. 1997)," and
DoDD 3023.1-M, "Manual for Civil Emergencies
(June 1994)."
24. Department of Defense Directive 3323.3, "DoD
Cooperation With Civilian Law Enforcement Ottici-
als," Jan. 15, 1986 (http://www.ngb.dtjc.mil/rerer-
enc/bticfngs/wmd/DODD5525.5DoD Cooperation
with Civilian Law Enforcement OfQcials.htm).

Number 69 CovertAction Quarterly 85

"saturation patrols," "integrated with civil porary facilities are set up on the nearest ABU-JAMAL
militaiy installation or on suitable property
police patrols," blanket the area, creating under federal control." These "temporary You inviteci to [bin ossie Davis
"the psychological impression of the con facilities" are "super\ised and controlled by
trol force being everywhere at once." MP officers and NCOs trained and experi Susan Sarandon •> Hon. David Dinkins
enced in Army correctional operations.
The Army field manual points out that Guards and support personnel under direct Rage Against the Machine Edward Asner
Gloria Steinem->DickGregory^•• Angela Davis
when "control forces" resort to "forceful supervision and control of MP officers and Leslie Feinberg •> Mike Farrell-'- Alice Walker
NCOs need not be trained or experienced Tom Duane, State Rep.^'-Johnnie Cochran, Esq.
measures," they can turn to a host of in Army correctional operations. But they Rev AI Sharpton •> Hon. John Conyers
weaponry, including "the M234, which is a must be specifically instructed and closely Ramsey Clark, Esq.-> Indigo Girls Pam Afric
nondeadly force measure, to the machine Leonard Weinglass, Esq •> Bishop Thomas
gun, which is the most deadly force mea supervised in the proper use of force...." Gumbleton & thousands of people from
According to the Army, the detention fa across the country
sure." The manual states that "machine
cilities are situated near to the "disturbance Admission $ 15 Group rates available
guns, 7.62 millimeter and below, may ac
company units on civil disturbance mis area," but far enough away "not to be en For tickets wwwJeifhooks.com
sions." In addition, the "control forces" can dangered by riotous acts." Given the large
numbers of potential detainees, the logistics May 7 Day for Mumia Mobilization
utilize the M234 launcher, which is "a riot 39 W l4St.. # 206, NY. NY lOOII
(holding, searching, processing areas) of
control weapon" mounted on an M16 rifle such an undertaking, new construction of VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
which "fires a projectile that causes pain such facilities "may be needed to provide
on impact." In addition, "the riot shotgun the segregation for ensuring effective con Information: www.mumia2000.org
is an extremely versatile weapon. Its ap
trol and administration." It must be de WWW.iacenter.org email: [email protected]
pearance and capability have a strong psy FAX2I2.633.2889 211 633-6646
chological effect on rioters." signed and "organized for a smooth flow of Endorse/3 include: Int'l Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia
Abu-jamal; Academics for Mumia; Christoph Arnold-
The concept of martial rule, as distinct traffic," while a medical "treatment area" Brudertiof; Campaign to End the Death Penalty; Jericho
from martial law, is not written, and there
fore is an eminently more workable would be utilized as a "separate holding Amnesty Movement; Millions for Mumia/lntemational Action
area for injured detainees." After a "detainee Center; Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal; National
arrangement for "law enforcement forces." is logged in and searched," "a file is initiat
That is because, as FM 19-15 points out, ed," and a "case number" identifies the pris Peoples' Campaign;NYFreeMumiaCoaliton;f4oples'Videc
"martial rule is based on public necessity. oner. In addition, "facility personnel also
Public necessity in this sense means public Network; Refuse & ResistI
may use hospital ID tags. Using indelible
safety." According to the manual, U.S. slate ink, they write the case number and attach Spring-Summer 2000
authorities "may take such action within the tag to the detainee's wrist. Different col
their own jurisdictions." And yet, "whether ors may be used to identify different offend
or not martial rule has been proclaimed, er classifications...." Finally, if and when it
commanders must weigh each proposed ac should occur, "release procedures must be
tion against the threat to public order and coordinated with ci\il authorities and ap

safely. If the need for martial rule arises, the propriate legal counsel." If the "detainee"
military commander at the scene must so should produce a writ of habeas corpus is
inform the Army Chief of Staff and await in sued by a state court, thereby demanding
structions. If martial rule is imposed, the ones' day in court, the Army will "respect
civilian population must be informed of the fully reply that the prisoner is being held by
authority of the United States."
restrictions and rules of conduct that the
Finally, apparently the new millennium
military can enforce." Realizing the power has brought with it a renewed desire on the
of free speech, the manual suggests that
pan of the military to circulate the particu
"during a civil disturbance, it may be advis lars of the Garden Plot plan among the
able to prevent people from assembling,
Cml law can make it unlawful for people to troops. This past January 28, the Army's
meet to plan an act of violence, rioting, or Center for Lessons Learned published vari
civil disturbance. Prohibitions on assembly ous sections of the most recent, February
15, 1991 version of the plan on its web
may forbid gatherings at any place and site.^5 7he timing is indeed interesting.
time." And don't forget, "making hostile or
Some of the online sections include "Annex
inflammatory speeches advocating the over
throw of the lawful government and threats A: Task Organization, Forces, and Reaction
Times to Department of Defense Civil Dis
against public ofTicials, if it endangered turbance Plan," "Annex D: Logistics...Intelli
public safety, could violate such law."
gence and the Basic Plan" and the "Alert
During civil disturbance operations,
"authorities must be prepared to detain Order," "Annex G: Communications and In

large numbers of people," forcing them formation Management." Only the material
into existing, though expanded "detention is restricted to militar)' personnel, for now. ■
facilities." Cautioning that "if there are
23. See for example. Headquarters, Department of
more detainees than civil detention facili the Army, Washington, D.C., 20310-0440, "DOD
Civil Disturbance Plan," Feb. 15, 1991. Site posted
ties can handle, civil authorities may ask Jan. 28. 2000. at htlpy/frcddie.forsccom.army.mil/
the control forces to set up and operate maca/GARDENPLOT/prefacc.doc.

temporary facilities." Pending the approval
of the Army Chief of Staff, the military can
detain and jail citizens en masse. "The tem

8 6 CovertActton Quarterly

k Review
Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the
World of Arts and Letters (New York: New Press, 1999).

BY Gerald Horne

ered in researching this arresting Central Intelligence Agency owned "airlines, one of the CIA's early successes in this realm.
radio stations, newspapers, insurance com This work was "as much a product of intelli
AsFarncesSolnorSaundesrdsicovwork, application of the Freedom of
panies, and real estate" (p. 33). So much gence as it was a work of the intelligentsia"
Information Act, "as far as the CIA is con money was lavished on their ignominious (p. 65). In page after tormented page writers
cerned, is lamentable" (p. viii). Many writers pursuits that CIA agent Gilbert Greenway re like Ignazio Silone, Andre Gide, Arthur
analyzing some aspect of the history of U.S. called, "we couldn't spend it all.... There were Koestler, Stephen Spender, el al., decried the
Soviet relations have relied unduly, some no limits, and nobody had to account for it.
times solely, on "revelations" from Moscow, It was amazing" (p. 105). alleged perfidy of Communist parties and re
on the real or imagined archives of the KGB. pented for their supposed sins in being in
Yet, how can one tell the complete story, or Much—but not all—of this was taxpay
ers' money. Foundations, particularly Ford volved in same. The book was "distributed
any aspect of it, if one of the richest docu and Rockefeller, became conduits for various
mentary archives is off-limits? It is like trying CIA schemes. Incorporated in 1936, by the by U.S. government agencies all over Europe.
to figure out who won a 15-round boxing In Germany, in particular, it was rigorously
match by watching only one fighter; such an late 1950s the Ford Foundation had assets to
promoted" (p. 66). This was part of what
approach could easily lead to the conclusion taling a hefty $3 billion—a sum so immense Sidney Hook called "the informational re-ed
that Dwighi Macdonald described it memo ucation of the French public..." (p. 70).
that there is no difference between shadow-
rably as "a large body of money completely It was also part of an extraordinary foray
boxing and an actual fight—which is precise surrounded by people who want some" (p. into subsidized publishing, rather ironic
ly the position in which too many writers re 139). These foundations were not minor play since the CIA and the government it repre
lying on "KGB insiders" have found them ers. One of the most controversial CIA forays
selves. The research community—particular into mind-control, the "MK-ULTRA (or 'Man- sented was simultaneously denouncing
ly professional organizations of historians— churian Candidate') program" of the 1950s Communist-ruled nations for allowing the
need to do a better job of pressuring Wash was assisted by grants from the Rockefeller state to become involved in publishing. Two
Foundation (p. 144). of the key journals in this regard were the
ington to release more of the files.
Still, the indefatigable Saunders recog A particular target of this demented Partisan Review and the New Leader, both ex

nized early on during her research that there largesse—at home and abroad—was what emplars of the "Non-Communist Left," with
was a "wealth of documentation existing in their mastheads sprinkled liberally (no pun
private collections" (p. viii). She relies heavi was called the "Non-Communist Left." "In intended) with the names of ex-Trotskyites
ly on these in telling the disturbing story of
how the CIA established a veritable Ministry deed," writes Saunders, "for the CIA the and former Communists. The substantial

of Culture and Information that stretched strategy of promoting the Non-Communist subsidies to these journals were "in breach of
[the CIA's] own legislative charter, which
across the oceans, warping intellectual life Left was to become 'the theoretical founda
prohibited support of domestic organiza
around the world. tion of the Agency's political operations tions" (p. 164). Moreover, for supposed
devotees of "free enterprise," these subven
What Is To Be DqneP against Communism over the next two tions were profoundly distorting of "the mar
decades'" (p. 63). Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., the ket" and, no doubt, drove potential readers—
At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union court historian, presented the rationale for and profits—away from publications that
this approach in his book The Vital Center. As
seamlessly replaced the Third Reich as the he recalled later, "we all felt that democratic were not so blessed.
Enemy in the eyes of the rulers of the United
States and its western allies. Washington was socialism was the most effective bulwark Encounter, edited by Irving Kristol—later
worried—with good reason—that peoples
devastated by a conflict largely initiated by against Icommunism). This became an un a foUntainhead of "neo-conservatism"—was
the forces of capitalism, and won in no small
part because of the sacrifices of the Soviet dercurrent—or even undercover—theme in another CIA journal of this era. Stephen
Union, might as a consequence turn sharply
to the left. They were particularly concerned American foreign policy during the period" Spender also assisted with the publication
that opinion-molders—artists, and intellec that one London writer called "the police re
tuals—would be in the vanguard of this (p. 63). view of American-occupied countries" (p.
movement. Like latter-day Lenins, bureau An initial foray into the limelight by
crats and businessmen alike contemplated, 188). Kristol and company did yeoman ser
these ideological siormtroopers took place in vice for the CIA as the date for the execution
"What is to be done?" 1949 at a major conference on world peace at of the Rosenbergs approached. In league with
the "Psychological Strategy Board"—an enti
What was done, inter aha, was a massive the Waldorf-Astoria. T.S. Eliot, Andre Mal-
ty that merits more attention—they sought to
effort to manipulate the consciousness of a raux, Berirand Russell, and Igor Stravinsky convince Europeans particularly that there
were among those who sought to disrupt this
generation. In pursuit of this ignoble aim, the was no anti-Semitism involved in this case
noble effort to ban the bomb and curb the
Gerald Home is professor of history and director of and that U.S. courts were reliable and just.
rush toward nuclear war. Sidney Hook was
the Institute of African-American Research Center at Movie Moguls
the University of North Carolina. The book was the leader of those who. "armed with um
The CIA also played a role in promoting the
originally published as Who Paid the Piper (London: brellas," pounded the floor and sought to "tie anticommunist fantasies of George Orwell.
Crania, 1999). themselves to their chairs" and do everything Howard Hunt—he of Watergate fame—ac
in their might to lubricate the path for Wash
knowledged that the Agency "financed and
ington's aggression (p-. 48-9).
The conference was not effectively dis distributed" the animated version of Orwell's

rupted, which may have pushed the agency Animal Farm "throughout the world." It was
into other arenas. Helping to organize and

promote the book The God That Failed was

Number 69 CovertAction Quarterly 87

the "most ambitious animation film of its Alsop's labor was part of a larger effort by Yes, the CIA manipulated minds, though,
the agency to deflect attention from the to be sure, not all minds required adroit ma
time," putting Walt Disney to shame; there U.S.'s horrible record on race, a key to por
were "eighty cartoonists, 750 scenes, traying itself as a paragon of human rights nipulation. As one analyst put it, "'the most
300,000 drawings in color." Of course, given virtue. This record, understandably, "left effective kind of propaganda' was defined as
such an investment, there was a compulsion the kind where 'the subject moves in the di
to arrange the plot to fit CIA predilections. many Europeans uneasy about America's rection you desire for reasons which he be
"In the original text, Communist pigs and ability to practice the democracy she now lieves to be his own' " (p. 4). Certainly it was
claimed to be offering the world. It was easier to swim with the tide than against it.
Capitalist man are indistinguishable, merging therefore reasoned that the exporting of
into a common pool of rottenness. In the African-Americans to perform in Europe The problem, of course, was that the CIA was
would dispel such damaging perceptions."
film, such congruity was carefully elided... This became an "urgent priority" for the CIA. helping to push currents in certain direc
and, in the ending, simply eliminated...the As a result, "Leontyne Price, Dizzy Gillespie, tions, thereby foiling alternative routes. Still,
conflation of Communist corruption with Marian Anderson, William Warfield," and as Carol Brightman has observed, the height
of the Cold War "was perhaps the first time
capitalist decadence was reversed" (p. 295). others, all received gigs abroad, mostly un since the French Revolution when significant
Something similar happened with the cel wittingly, thanks to the CIA^ efforts as book
ing agent (pp. 20-21, 291). components of an intellectual community
luloid version of Orwell's dystopian novel, decided that it was no longer de rigueur to be
The PosiwarAbt Scene
1984, which the Agency also had a hand in adversarial...." This was a time when en
producing. "The film actually concluded with One of the agency's most notable roles was in
two different endings, one for American audi masse U.S. intellectuals "lost their taste for
ences and one for British," in an effort to cater shaping the postwar scene in painting. Nelson
to the presumed varying political sensibilities Rockefeller, a "keen supporter" of this form, the class struggle" (p. 161).
of the two audiences. Of course, Orwell him termed it "free enterprise painting," in that it
Nevertheless, there was an ongoing battle
self was no innocent. Isaac Deutscher has supposedly represented the "freedom" that cap within the Agency about the feasibility of some
italism was thought to bring to the artist (p. of these efforts, with many on the extreme right
charged that this former colonial official "bor 258). Decades ago, the progressive artist, Eva discomfited by the alliance with the "Non-
rowed the idea of 1984, the plot, the chief Cockrofi connected the promotion of this form Communist Left" (NCL), co-opting Negroes
of support to "cultural cold war politics" (p.
characters, the symbols and the whole climate 263). Serge Guilbaut wrote an entire book de (they felt they should have been put in their
of his story from Evgeny Zamyatin's We." tailing this curious relationship between artists place instead), and all the rest. Ramparts, the
Orwell was not above informing either, alert who allegedly represented "freedom," but were sadly departed muck-raking California journal,

ing British intelligence to the alleged fact that promoted vigorously by the CLA and their min exposed the lineaments of this "cultural cold
Paul Robeson was "very anti-white." Tom war" in the 1960s. For this they were pursued
ions. MOMA, which was essential in this and harassed relentlessly. Yet, what truly
Driberg was of the variety Orwell loved to fear: wounded this effort was an expose by former
He was supposedly "homosexual" and an process, had among its trustees William Paley CIA agent and Rockefeller toady, Tom Braden,
(who allowed CBS "to provide cover for CIA in the Saturday Evening Post, entitled "I'm Glad
"English Jew." Not surprisingly, given his pre
vious role as a flunky for the British Empire in employees") and Henry Luce of Time-Life, who the CIA Is 'Immoral.'" One insider concluded
provided the same service to the Agency (p.
Burma, Orwell "had confused the role of the 262). One CIA front—the American Congress that Braden's handiwork was "'part of a coordi
for Cultural Freedom (ACCF)—^was instru
intellectual with that of the policeman"—a de mental in supporting "abstract painting over nated, authorized operation to end the CL% al
liance with the NCL" (p. 399).
scription that could fit many in the embrace of representational or realist aesthetics" (p. 272).
the CIA during this period (pp. 298-300). The leading lights of abstract painting—Robert Though these particular initiatives may
have been terminated, it is a great mistake to
This conflation of roles was not uncom Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, and others— conclude—as the author suggests—that the
mon for the CIA, which as the Orwell exam were part of the ACCF; the progressive artist,
Ben Shahn, "refused to join, referring to it as the "cultural" initiatives of the CIA have ended.
ple illustrates, also saw itself as a movie 'ACCFuck.'" Painters like Mark Rothko and
mogul—though, once again simultaneously Along with a touch of an anti-communism—
castigating Communist-ruled nations for al Adolph Gottlieb "led these efforts to destroy which, after all, was the rationale for the
lowing the state to become involved in cine Communist presence in the art world" (p. 278). CIA's depredations that the author so elo
ma. CIA agent Carleton Alsop worked "un This was yet another contradiction in an era re
quently deplores—this is a weakness in an
dercover at Paramount Studios" and "had plete with them: "a movement which so delib otherwise estimable book.
erately declared itself to be apolitical" was "in
been a producer and agent, working on the tensely politicized" (p. 275). The author's bibliography is priceless:
MGM lot in the mid-l930s." By the 1950s, he Future researchers must not ignore her cita
was writing "regular 'movie reports' for the The illogic of the Cold War twisted artists tions to the C.D. Jackson Papers at the Eis
CIA and the Psychological Strategy Board." and propagandists alike into pretzel-like con
For the long time the Agency had seen loca tortions. It was argued that art should be "au enhower Library in Abilene, nor the Con
tion shooting by studios in far-away climes— tonomous" and above politics on the one
a legitimate reason to brandish cameras gress for Cultural Freedom Papers at the
hand, yet "pressed into political service" University of Chicago. And, although the
promiscuously—as an excellent opportunity when necessary on the other (p. 251). In CIA has kept a padlock on most of its files, it
to gather intelligence. Alsop helped further order to promote an art form deemed to be is easy to discern the continuing influence of
this tradition. His actual job was to hound the essence of democracy, the democratic their nefarious activities: The viruses they let
Reds out of Hollywood and introduce "specif loose in the 1950s are continuing to infect in
ic themes into...films." In 1953, Alsop "se process itself had to be subverted, as the CIA
cured the agreement of several casting direc exceeded its charter. Artists like Rothko were tellectuals—particularly on the west bank of
tors to plant 'well dressed Negroes as a part of the Atlantic Ocean. The malady can be de
the American scene, without appearing too "showered with material rewards for works tected in those who steadily maintain an al

conspicuous or deliberate.'" For another film which 'howled their opposition to bourgeois lergy toward class struggle, display a pen
"a little tinkering on his part ensured that materialism.'" In the ultimate version of drip chant for discourses that defy objective
most of the oifending scenes (the shipment of
a whole tribe of Apaches by the army against art, he "slashed his veins and bled to death meaning, and confuse the roles of intellectu
their wishes to Florida, and the tagging of on his studio floor" (p. 278). al and cop. Frances Stonor Saunders has per
formed a service by reminding readers that,
them like animals) had been removed or 'their while some of us may have forgotten about
the existence of a cultural cold war, this rag
impact significantly diluted'" (pp. 290-91). ing conflict has not forgotten about us. ■

88 CovertAction Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000



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90 CovertAction Quarterly Spring-Summer 2000



Central and
Southern Aerica:

This map highlights the

nations involved in what
has been called Africa's
First World War; The

Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC), its allies
Angola, Zimbabwe, and
Namibia, and its invaders,
Uganda, Rwanda, and Bu
rundi. U.S.-trained troops

from these invasion forces

and iheir surrogate rebels,
some posing as Congolese
nationals, now occupy half the vast territory of the DRC (see
detail map). Zambia, allegedly neutral, hosted the Lusaka
cease-fire negotiations where—with intense U.S. pressure—all
parties in effect formalized Congo's partition. And Zambia al
lows UNITA rebels to regroup, resupply, and finance its 25-
year war against Angola by routing contraband diamonds
through its territory. Having lost the Angolan national elec
tions, UNITA broke the cease-fire and resumed its war, not
only against Luanda, but also against Namibia and (with
Rwanda and Burundi) Congo as well. South Africa, while presenting itself as a peace-maker, has urged the introduction of U.S.
troops to support a proposed U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo. UNlTA-supported businesses operate in South Africa with rel
ative impunity.

Detail of War Zones

National armies and rebel surrogates under the aegis
of Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi, liny countries in
the Great Lakes region, with few natural resources,
have occupied vast portions of eastern Congo under
the guise of defending their borders. The MLC in the

north and the RCD-ML in the northeast are backed

by Uganda. The RCD-Goma in the east and southeast
is backed by Rwanda. There has been a de facto par
tition of the Congo, with great plunder from the oc
cupied areas financing the war by the diversion of
eastern Congo's largely unexploited wealth of natural
resources—diamonds, rare metals, coffee, and tim
ber—through their sponsors' territory. All this has
been accomplished with U.S. military training,
weapons, and mercenaries. Western companies doing
business in the rebel-held sections actively cooperate
by paying taxes to the invaders. Major clashes have
occurred in diamond-producing areas like Mbuji-
Mayi, which the army of the DRC still holds. Many
thousands of Hutu refugees from Rwanda have been "disappeared," like the 50,000 to 60,000 at the Kasese camp, and the hun
dreds of thousands near Coma, who were slaughtered or driven back to Rwanda. More than 100,000 Hutus have languished in
prison there for years, without trial and under unspeakable conditions. Mini-tribal wars, like those involving the Congolese He-
ma and Lentu and other wars against the Mayi-Mayi have been fostered by the rebel groups.

The

Eurasian
Crescent:

In this volatile region, nu

merous wars, sometimes

in the name of democracy
and human rights, some
times in the cause of sepa
ratism based on religious
or ethnic differences, are
taking place. Rightwing

fundamentalist forces are

often the catalysts, using
terrorism and drug traf
ficking in order to estab

lish fundamentalist states.

Western forces, NATO and the U.S., have been involved directly with military attacks and bombings and the imposition of sanc
tions, as in Yugoslavia, Bosnia, and Iraq, and elsewhere with covert financial and logistical support to separatists.

The strategic location of the Caucasus—between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea—and the vast oil and natural gas reserves
of the latter underlie many of the confrontations. Jurisdiction over pipelines, current and proposed, is embroiling Turkey, Iran,
Russia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan, as well as the Balkans. In NATO's march eastward, an important pipeline
crosses through the Russian Republic of Chechnya, where a major war between foreign and local Islamic fundamentalist guer
rillas and Russian forces rages. It has dragged in the neighboring Russian Republic of Dagestan, as well as other countries of the
former U.S.S.R. where the guerrillas operate to destabilize the regimes.

Wars also smolder and ignite in Afghanistan and Kashmir, with religious and ethnic fundamentalism again prime factors. And
the U.S. continues its intensive campaign of bombing and sanctions against Iraq.

The Balkans:

Yugoslavia, including Kosovo, has been historically the crossroads for trade between Europe and the Middle East. This, and
Yugoslavia's vast mining resources, are behind the West's enforced partitions of the country. Croatia, Slovenia, and Macedonia
were split off first. Then Bosnia-Herzegovina became the target, including NATO bombings in 1995, leading to its division into

the Serb Republic (Republika
Srpska) and the Croat-Muslim
Federation of Bosnia. Yugoslavia
now contains only two republics,
Montenegro and Serbia, the latter
with two provinces, Vojvodina and
Kosovo. NATO bombed Yugoslavia
in March 1999. Western powers

make no secret of their desire to

take Montenegro and Vojvodina
while Albania, with the help of the
narco-terrorists running that coun
try, has already effectively annexed

Kosovo.

Oil pipelines, too, motivate region
al politics here. A critical pipeline
is emisioned across the Black Sea,
through Bulgaria, Macedonia, and

Albania.