=By= Colin Toddhunter

[Photo: Which would you want to eat? Natural yellow mustard seed (lt) or GMO fertilizer incorporated seed (rt)?]

“Stockholm syndrome, or capture-bonding, is a psychological phenomenon described in 1973 in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors.” ~ Wikipedia

In political terms, most people might tend to associate the word “occupation” with a (foreign) military presence that controls a region or country. Any such occupation may not necessarily imply troops visibly patrolling the streets. It can be much subtler. Take Britain, for instance. In the U.K., The Guardian journalist Seumas Milne says that the U.S.’s six military bases, dozens of secretive facilities and 10,000 military personnel in Britain effectively tie the country’s foreign policy into the agenda of the U.S. empire and its endless wars.

The vast majority of Brits do not regard this as an occupation. They might feel they are being “protected” by the U.S. with which Britain has a special relationship. Such is the nature of Stockholm syndrome.

The population is caught up in a yarn that the U.S., Britain and the wider NATO project are all forces of good in an unpredictable and dangerous world (despite the reality which suggests the complete opposite). With the U.S. having a strong military presence across the world, that’s certainly a lot of very special relationships.

But occupation can take many forms. It does not necessarily imply a military presence or military domination. For example, in India right now, there is a drive to get genetically modified (GM) mustard sanctioned for commercial cultivation; this would be the first GM food crop to be grown in the country.

Unfortunately, this push for GM is based on a flawed premise and an agenda steeped in fraud and unremitting regulatory delinquency, and any green light to go ahead would open the floodgates for more unnecessary and damaging GM food crops.

The arguments being put forward to justify the entry of GM food crops is that they would enhance productivity, make a positive contribution to farmers’ livelihoods and be better for the environment. All such claims have been shown to be bogus (with the opposite being true in each case) or at the very least are highly questionable.

GM mustard in India is ultimately a Bayer construct, and, given the takeover/merger with St. Louis-based Monsanto, U.S. interests would benefit from its commercialisation. The Bayer-Monsanto marriage would not only be convenient for the U.S. in Europe (providing it with a much improved strategic foothold there, given that Bayer is Swiss based), but it would also (through Bayer’s GM mustard) provide it with the opportunity to further penetrate Indian agriculture.

Monsanto already has a firm strategic presence in India. It has to an extent become the modern-day East India company. The Bayer merger can only serve to further the purposes of those in the U.S. who have always regarded GM biotechnology in more geopolitical terms as a means for securing greater control of global agriculture (via patented GM seeds and proprietary inputs) in much the same way the Green Revolution did.

In broad terms, U.S. geopolitical strategy has seen the exporting of a strident neoliberalism across the globe underpinned by a devastating militarism. For example, aside from Monsanto’s well-documented links to the U.S. military, its seeds conveniently followed hot on the heels into Ukraine on the back of a U.S.-instigated coup and into Iraq after Washington’s invasion.

The reality behind the globalisation agenda (that transnational agribusiness drives and exploits) is an imposed form of capitalism that results in destruction and war for those who attempt to remain independent or structural violence (poverty, inequality, austerity, etc.) via privatization and deregulation for millions in countries that acquiesce.

Part of this structural violence involves the toxic inputs of transnational agribusiness and the imposition of an unsustainable model of Green Revolution farming. The result is huge profits for the agritech/agribusiness cartel and a public burdened with massive environmental, social and health costs.

As if that isn’t bad enough, it must be remembered that the Green Revolution (of which GM represents phase two) is ultimately based on the pilfering of peasants’ seeds that were developed over generations.

Once a country loses control of its seeds and thus its food and agriculture to outside forces, it becomes more deeply integrated into a globalized system of dependency (in some instances, ensuring they become complete basket cases dependent on the U.S.), a process that could be accelerated by trade deals like the the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (U.S.-Europe), the Trans-Pacific Partnership (U.S.-Asia) and the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture (U.S.-India), which would allow Washington to extend and further cement its political and economic influence over entire regions.

India’s apparent willingness to hand over its seeds and thus its food sovereignty to foreign interests is steeped in its acceptance of the West’s neoliberalism. Whether this entails complying with World Bank ‘enabling the business of agriculture‘ criteria, an unremitting faith in “foreign direct investment” (displacing its existing model of production with a destructive model that would benefit foreign corporations) or complying with the criteria for ‘ease of doing business‘, it is ironically being carried out under the auspices of a ruling BJP whose nationalistic rhetoric helped it gain power.

Report after report has indicated that small farmers using low-input, ecologically-friendly methods are key to feeding populations in countries like India. And a series of high-level reports (listed here) in India have advised against adopting the GM route.

Given the hold that the World Bank has on India, the revolving door between the World Bank/International Monetary Fund and India’s institutions and the influence of foreign interests and corporations within the agriculture sector, it all begs the question: are sections of the Indian political elite suffering a severe bout of Stockholm syndrome?

Colin Toddhunter is an extensively published independent writer and former social policy researcher. Originally from the UK, he has spent many years in India. His website is www.colintodhunter.com https://twitter.com/colin_todhunter

Source: Global Research.

Note to Commenters
Due to severe hacking attacks in the recent past that brought our site down for up to 11 days with considerable loss of circulation, we exercise extreme caution in the comments we publish, as the comment box has been one of the main arteries to inject malicious code. Because of that comments may not appear immediately, but rest assured that if you are a legitimate commenter your opinion will be published within 24 hours. If your comment fails to appear, and you wish to reach us directly, send us a mail at: editor@greanvillepost.com

We apologize for this inconvenience.

Nauseated by the
vile corporate media?
Had enough of their lies, escapism,
omissions and relentless manipulation?

Witnesses to History
CALEB MAUPIN

Full size sculpture of Brenda Fassier, a renowned South African anti-apartheid singer. Photo: Axel Bührmann

In covering a recent protest movement unfurling in Zimbabwe, mainstream Western media seem unable to report on country’s president without making references to him as a “dictator” and “authoritarian.”

Yet the case against Robert Mugabe, the 92-year-old president of Zimbabwe and leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), is difficult to justify, especially considering all of Zimbabwe’s recent elections have been monitored by the United Nations, and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the main opposition party, currently divided into two factions, is widely represented in the government.

Further, Zimbabwe’s emergence as a nation struggling against not just the power of colonialism and white supremacists, but also the economic domination of a settler minority, tells an entirely different story.

Opposition parties like the MDC, which receives support from the United States, are allowed to operate freely in Zimbabwe. Newspapers that support the MDC and openly praise the previously existing apartheid regime are widely distributed, coexisting alongside pro-government state media. The idea that Zimbabwe is a totalitarian state that forbids dissent is simply not consistent with reality.

While Western media has few positive things to say about Mugabe, Zimbabwean voters clearly disagree. A 2015 survey by Zimbabwe’s Mass Public Opinion Institute found that Mugabe continues to enjoy popularity among the country’s urban and rural populations.

Even in 2012, a year before the last elections were held, popular support for the MDC was on the decline. In May 2013, The Guardian quoted Raymond Majongwe, secretary general of the 14,000-strong Progressive Teachers’ Union, as saying: “I’m feeling seriously let down by the MDC.”

His statement came after the party entered into a power-sharing agreement with the ZANU-PF following contested elections in 2008, but before that so-called “unity government” ultimately dissolved. He noted, presciently:

“The power-sharing agreement could be the undoing of the MDC leadership. They exposed their own naivety and appetite for opulence and extravagance. In four years the level of wealth these MDC guys have accumulated is shocking. If the MDC wins the election, fine, they can go ahead and loot the country like their predecessors.”

US has long planned to oust Mugabe

U.S. machinations to overthrow the Mugabe-led government in Zimbabwe are nothing new, particularly in terms of Washington’s support to the MDC.

Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the MDC, who served as prime minister from 2009-2013, toured the world in 2009, meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.S. President Barack Obama. After his meeting with Obama, Tsvangirai said he was “grateful to him for his leadership” and that Obama would “continue to provide us with direction.”

In “Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2005-2006,” the State Department reported: “The U.S. human rights strategy in Zimbabwe focused on maintaining pressure on the regime, assisting democratic forces, strengthening independent media, increasing public access to information, promoting accountability for the regime’s crimes, and providing humanitarian aid for Zimbabwe’s suffering people.”

The report further noted U.S. efforts to disseminate information on civil rights and made accusations of fraudulent parliamentary elections.

The State Department’s 2007 Performance Report on Zimbabwe boasted of the United States’ role in propping up the MDC as a viable opponent to Mugabe’s ZANU-PF:

“Following the bloody onslaught of the Mugabe regime against the MDC and civil society during the past year, USG [U.S. government] assistance helped rebuild the party’s battered structure and better position it to participate in the upcoming elections. The USG also assisted the MDC to effectively identify, research, and articulate policy positions and ideas within Zimbabwe, in the region, and beyond. In particular, USG technical assistance was pivotal in supporting MDC\’s formulation and communication of a comprehensive policy platform, which demonstrates the party’s preparedness to take over the reins of government in 2008.”

In a 2008 analysis of the document, Stephen Gowans, a Canadian writer and political analyst, noted:

“The neo-liberal, foreign investor-friendly economic policies Washington favors are central to the policy platform of the Tsvangirai faction of the MDC. The State Department document reveals that the MDC’s policy orientation may be based more on US government direction than its own deliberations.”

It’s also important to consider the role of U.S. aid money and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, in Zimbabwe. The organization, which has a long history of imperialist intervention under the guise of humanitarian aid, has remained active in Zimbabwe despite targeted sanctions imposed by the U.S. In fiscal year 2012, for example, Zimbabwe received $152,534,664 in U.S. economic assistance, including $61,987,763 from USAID and $49,648,024 from the State Department.

‘Rhodesia’ was wiped off the map

To understand why Washington is working to topple Mugabe, the country’s repeatedly elected president, and the ZANU-PF, its internationally-recognized government, one must be familiar with Zimbabwe’s history.

Defenders of the Israeli settler regime will often accuse their critics of being “inflammatory” and “extremist” for wanting to “wipe Israel off the map.” However, there is historical precedent for the erasure of European settler regimes. Zimbabwe became a country after Rhodesia, a country whose 1969 constitution enshrined the rule of whites, was toppled.

Rhodesia was the name given by settlers to the region in southern Africa that the indigenous people called Zimbabwe. It was named after Cecil Rhodes, the famed colonizer and advocate of British imperialism. When Zimbabwe declared its independence from Britain in 1965, the white minority owned almost all of the land, except for the Tribal Trust Lands, where black Africans were forced to live, similar to the “bantustans” of South Africa. During the day, blacks worked as servants and laborers in the estates, plantations, and cities owned by whites, and at night they returned to the designated areas where they were allowed to live and farm.

Roger Riddell, a staff member of the Catholic Institute for International Relations and editor of the institute’s series “From Rhodesia to Zimbabwe,” wrote an article in 1980, titled “Zimbabwe’s Land Problem: The Central Issue.” In the article, Riddell explains that not only did Europeans hold vastly more land than the Africans, they also held more fertile agricultural land:

“The importance of land in Rhodesia does not lie so much in the inequalities per se, but because inequalities in access to land are accompanied by growing overpopulation, landlessness, land deterioration, and increasing poverty in the African areas alongside serious underutilization of land in the European areas.”

The 7 million Africans were not full citizens of Rhodesia, unlike the white minority, which peaked at just under 300,000 in the late 1960s. Ian Smith, the wealthiest white farmer and prime minister of Rhodesia from 1964-1979, said: “The white man is the master of Rhodesia, has built it and intends to keep it.” The country’s 1961 Unilateral Declaration of Independence, which was committed to independence from Britain but not majority rule, reserved 50 national assembly seats for the country’s white settler minority and just 15 for the African majority.

Receiving weapons and support from both China and the Soviet Union, the indigenous African population took up arms against Smith’s white-minority rule in the 1970s. ZANU-PF, currently the ruling party in Zimbabwe, is the result of a merger of several different armed revolutionary organizations that fought against the apartheid government of Rhodesia. Britain deployed troops to fight against the African people, and the U.S. formally recognized and backed the Rhodesian apartheid regime. International media and Western politicians generally referred to the uprisings of impoverished African people as “terrorism” and supported the white settler government in the name of opposing “communism.”

As the white settler government of Rhodesia faced a wider insurgency from African people, it became a favored cause among white supremacists. Neo-Nazis and fascists from all over the world went to fight against the African rebels. James Earl Ray, who was convicted of assassinating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., had worked closely with the “Friends of Rhodesia.” During his 2015 killing spree inside a church in South Carolina, the white supremacist murderer Dylann Roof wore the flag of the long deposed Rhodesian settler government.

Mugabe emerged as the charismatic leader of the armed uprising. With Mugabe as their commander and representative, guerrilla fighters carved out what the white settlers called “no-go areas,” liberated territories which were controlled by the African revolutionaries and served as bases for the uprising. ZANU-PF described itself as a socialist party. Interviewed during the war, Mugabe said:

“It is absolutely wrong to allow a set of individuals to acquire control and ownership of those resources that are God-given. They are not man-made, the land, the water, the forest, the animals, the fish in the river, the minerals. These are given to us by nature, and it is in principle wrong for any one man to claim ownership of such resources that should belong to the people as a whole.”

On Dec. 21, 1979, the prolonged conflict known as the Rhodesian Bush War concluded with the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement. Rhodesia was abolished, and the Republic of Zimbabwe came into existence. The treaty specified that the new government could not seize white-owned land for ten years. At the time of the agreement, the country’s 120,000 white families controlled at least half of the country’s arable farmland, while 7 million Africans lived in extreme poverty.

Eroding white supremacy, changing property relations

Many predicted a “white genocide” following ZANU-PF’s election under the new constitution. However, once ZANU-PF assumed power in the elections following the 1979 treaty, no such thing occurred. Despite leading a “white republic” and ordering his troops to slaughter tens of thousands of civilians, Ian Smith, the leader of the white settler government, was spared any punishment for his documented war crimes. He lived in luxury on his estates until his death of natural causes in 2007.

Many whites left Zimbabwe, relocating to South Africa or Europe, but aside from a few incidents, no reports of widespread revenge killings took place. In accordance with the Lancaster House Agreement, whites who were owed pensions by the oppressive Rhodesian apartheid government continued to received payments from the new government until 1990.

The government led by ZANU-PF vastly expanded access to education, and Zimbabwe leads Africa in adult literacy. During the 1990s, the economy of Zimbabwe, presided over and tightly regulated by the ZANU-PF, was described by the Washington Post as being “among the strongest on the continent.”

The ZANU-PF government stayed true to its promise not to forcibly redistribute property until 1997, long after the ten year period agreed to in the treaty. Prior to 1997, many white farmers left Zimbabwe, voluntarily selling their property to the state for negotiated compensation. Britain welcomed white farmers with open arms, and has even established Zane, a charity that supports whites who wish to migrate from Zimbabwe.

Beginning in 1997, land belonging to the white minority has been gradually, forcibly redistributed to Africans. Veterans of Zimbabwe’s revolutionary army were the first to receive land, and by 2011, over 237,000 African families had acquired their own land, while 300 white farms remained intact.

When the land seizures began, Western press reports alleged the land reform was corrupt and giving land only to government bureaucrats. However, The Zimbabwean published the results of a 10-year study of the program, which found that less than 17 percent of the land went to civil servants, and the overwhelming majority went to rural peasants, unemployed Africans, and others who were not deeply connected to government officials.

No one debates that the majority of those who have received land hold a favorable view of the ZANU-PF government. Following the land redistribution campaign, violence erupted on more than a few occasions when white farmers refused to give up land and held violent standoffs with government officials and locals.

‘We want to be left alone’

As the reforms began, Mugabe was subject to demonization in Western media. In 2000, ZANU-PF suffered its first major defeats at the polls and began sharing power with the MDC, which has received funding from the State Department and whose leader has openly admitted to taking “direction” from President Obama.

The redistribution process slowed agricultural production in Zimbabwe. The process of transitioning farms from the large plantations owned by white settlers, to small individual plots owned by African families, was difficult on its own. But it was also compounded by the fact that Africans who had never owned their own farms did not have easy, immediate access to many types of modern agricultural technology previously employed by white farmers. The U.S. made the economic situation far worse by imposing economic sanctions on Zimbabwe starting in 2001, heavily restricting its ability to export agricultural goods. The sanctions alsolimited Zimbabwe’s access to key agricultural imports needed to make fertilizer.

Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly in 2008, Mugabe said, “We want to be left alone.” He urged Western forces to stop meddling in his country’s internal affairs, and to allow Zimbabwe to alter its economic system toward one featuring a more equitable distribution of wealth.

Despite continued demonization in Western media, Zimbabwe continues to make economic changes. In December, Zimbabwe announced that it was adopting the Chinese yuan as legal tender. In exchange, the People’s Republic of China cancelled Zimbabwe’s $40 million debt to Chinese banks.

In March, Mugabe announced that the country’s diamond mines will be nationalized.

“Companies that have been mining diamonds have robbed us of our wealth,” Mugabe said. “That is why the state must have a monopoly.”

When making the announcement, Mugabe also pointed out that a recent drop in diamond prices has increased the frequency of swindling and corruption surrounding the already crime-stricken industry. Zimbabwe supplied about 13 percent of the world’s diamonds in 2013, but experts quoted by Reuters warned that the country is expected to account for less than 3 percent of the global supply this year.

The president criticized not only Western-owned mining corporations, but also those based in China, and argued that nationalizing the mines will ensure that the people of Zimbabwe get a fair share of the wealth created by their natural resources.

For those who follow U.S. foreign policy, it should be clear why Washington seeks an end to the rule of Mugabe and the ZANU-PF: Zimbabwe’s government is seizing control of the country’s natural resources, redistributing land, and cutting into the profits of Western corporations. Furthermore, Zimbabwe has aligned itself with China, an emerging economic rival of Wall Street.

Western intervention is never the answer

Western media and the CIA have learned to manipulate humanity’s basic feelings of compassion and solidarity for the purpose of conducting “regime change.” Media campaigns routinely highlight atrocities — both real and invented — and build up public opinion for “humanitarian intervention.”

This is the case in Zimbabwe, where Western media selectively report on corruption, violence and suffering in line with biases for regime change held by Washington and its Western allies.

It also happened in Libya, where NATO bombing and a coordinated campaign to topple the government of Moammar Gadhafi were carried out with the stated objective of saving the lives of innocent people. However, the result has been widespread chaos and poverty in what was once Africa’s most prosperous country. The previously stable country stands divided today, as rival factions battle for power, while militant groups likeDaesh (an Arabic acronym for the terrorist group known in the West as ISIS or ISIL) have set up shop.

Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria have all suffered the effects of U.S.-backed regime change waged in the name of human rights. The populations that were championed as oppressed victims in the Western media broadcasts that built the case for intervention, are far worse off than before.

American media’s talk about human rights is selective. Governments that reject economic domination by American-based banks and corporations, and those which compete with them on the global market, become targets of demonization. Meanwhile, atrocities perpetrated by repressive regimes that cooperate with the U.S. are generally overlooked, or, as in the case of Saudi Arabia, supported.

A movement like the one unfolding in Zimbabwe right now — a movement championed in Western media and led by someone who has since fled to the U.S. — is unlikely to improve the situation of Zimbabwe’s people. U.S. efforts to cripple Zimbabwe’s current leader and party by funding the opposition isn’t evidence of U.S. concern for human rights; it’s evidence that Mugabe and the ZANU-PF aren’t adhering to the rules of U.S. hegemony and Western dominance.

While Zimbabwe certainly faces social and economic challenges, the Pentagon will not solve them. Western destabilization and intervention will make matters worse. Only the African people — people who have defeated an oppressive regime and rolled back the horrors of white minority rule — only they can lead the country forward.

Caleb Maupin

Is an American journalist and political analyst. Tasnim News Agency described him as "a native of Ohio who has campaigned against war and the U.S. financial system." His political activism began while attending Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio. In 2010, he video recorded a confrontation between Collinwood High School students who walked out to protest teacher layoffs and the police. His video footage resulted in one of the students being acquitted in juvenile court. He was a figure within the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City. Maupin writes on American foreign policy and other social issues. Maupin is featured as a Distinguished Collaborator with The Greanville Post.  READ MORE ABOUT CALEB MAUPIN HERE.

 [huge_it_share]

Note to Commenters
Due to severe hacking attacks in the recent past that brought our site down for up to 11 days with considerable loss of circulation, we exercise extreme caution in the comments we publish, as the comment box has been one of the main arteries to inject malicious code. Because of that comments may not appear immediately, but rest assured that if you are a legitimate commenter your opinion will be published within 24 hours. If your comment fails to appear, and you wish to reach us directly, send us a mail at: editor@greanvillepost.com

We apologize for this inconvenience. 

Nauseated by the
vile corporate media?
Had enough of their lies, escapism,
omissions and relentless manipulation?

=SUBSCRIBE TODAY! NOTHING TO LOSE, EVERYTHING TO GAIN.=
free • safe • invaluable

=By= Andrew Korybko

U.S. Military installations in Africa 2013, Very likely there are even more now with AFRICOM well established. Source: Mother Jones.

The Hybrid War In Practice

Connecting The Three Pieces:

Each of the three forces described above have their own specific uses in the US’ destabilization template against Zimbabwe, but on their own, they’re insufficient to produce the desired result. Therefore, the US has consolidated them together via the Color Revolution coordination mechanism and is indirectly multi-managing their activities for maximum effect. Mawarire is the media-friendly face of the Color Revolution and the ‘bait’ for attracting faith-based individuals out into the street. His predictable arrest means that he’ll become a global “democracy” icon in the coming weeks and be exploited by hostile Western governments as part of their information warfare operations against Mugabe. The more successful that Mawarire’s ‘martyrdom’ and the corresponding Western media aggression around it are, the more probable it is that masses of people will flood into the streets and join his Color Revolution, thus intensifying the economic civil war by grinding the capital’s commerce to a halt.

In response to expected provocations on the side of the “opposition”, the military and related security forces will probably be ordered to disband the anti-government manifestations, but they might be hesitant to do so if this means that they must clash with the respected ZNLWVA veterans. Even if they faithfully carry out their duties, the Western media-manipulated and decontextualized image of young soldiers/police arresting independence-era veterans or forcible defending themselves from their attacks (“an unprovoked assault on democratic protesters”, in Western parlance) could be enough to push segments of society over the edge and into violent insurgency against the government. Some servicemen might join them out of ‘solidarity’ with their ‘fellow soldiers’, which could damage the military’s unity and significantly increase the capacities of the anti-government guerrillas in any forthcoming Unconventional War, whether waged in the urban areas, the rural ones, or both.

Tsvangirai The Placeholder:

Even though it seems like Color Revolution veteran and “opposition” leader Tsvangirai is the man who the US intends to replace Mugabe, chances are that his only real purpose would be to serve as a temporary placeholder until someone more suitable is chosen, whether out of the ‘opposition’ ranks or as a co-opted politician from the ruling party. This forecast isn’t just speculation, though, because it’s already been confirmed by the politician himself that he’s suffering from colon cancer, which caused his intra-party rivals to right away demand that he resign due to his health concerns. He probably won’t do that until the Color Revolution ends, whether with him sitting in power or in a jail cell, because the US understands that the misled portions of the Zimbabwean citizenry which are actively supporting him need a familiar and “trusted” face to rely on during this time. Mawarire the pastor is only useful for being a symbol of resistance and for his potentially magnetic pull among the religious community, whereas it’s Tsvangirai whom the agitated masses and their ZNLWVA allies expect to lead them after Mugabe’s possible fall.

There’s of course a chance that this politician would remain in office if he and his covert American backers are successful in overthrowing the Zimbabwe’s President, but the cloak-and-dagger nature of the country’s politics (whether among the ruling party or the ‘opposition’) means that it can’t fully be discounted that he’ll be pushed out by his own allies with time. The fact that intra-organizational pressure was already building on the cusp of the Color Revolution’s commencement proves just how disunited the US’ main proxy network in the country really is, but if Tsvangirai finds a way to fend them off or reach some sort of secret agreement for a future power transfer once he’s in office, they might end up rallying behind him with increased passion and effectiveness. For now, though, one shouldn’t dismiss the theory that Tsvangirai is just a placeholder for an unnamed (and possibly yet-to-be-designated) politician who could end up replacing him (whether voluntarily, through intra-party manipulation, or by force) shortly after he seizes power.

Unzipping Zimbabwe’s Unity:

Zimbabwe might come off as a unified country with a strong sense of patriotism, but beneath the surface hangs the disturbing prospect of ethnic tensions exploding between its two largest identity groups, the Shona and the Ndebele. The Shona represent the vast bulk of Zimbabwe’s population at around 80%, while the Ndebele constitute most of the remaining 20%. Mugabe is a Shona, and his pro-Soviet Zimbabwean African National Union (ZANU) was composed mostly of his fellow tribesmen who largely operated out of their northern homeland during the Independence War, while his rival revolutionaries, the pro-Chinese Zimbabwean African People’s Union (ZAPU) led by Joshua Nkomo, had a large Ndebele component and were mostly active in their own western homeland.

After the end of white minority rule and Mugabe’s election in 1980, ZANU cracked down on their ZAPU competitors, accusing them of orchestrating a counter-revolution and behaving as subversive elements. The campaign that followed was termed “Gukurahundi” and it inevitably heavy with the ethnic overtones of the Shona-led ZANU government militarily responding to members of the Ndebele ZAPU opposition. The two sides reconciled in 1987 after ZAPU agreed to disarm and integrate into ZANU, thus forming the Zimbabwean African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) that has gone on to rule to this day.

Red: Bulawayo and the provinces of Matabeleland North and South (Ndebele)
Blue: Harare and the provinces of Mashonaland North, East, and Central (Shona)

The possible scenario of a united Zimbabwe torn apart by Hybrid War dates back to these identity divisions, and there’s a chance that they could return to the fore of the national dialogue, whether this occurs ‘organically’ or through external guidance (potentially with the US utilizing friendly information outlets and/or NGOs). Increasing the attractiveness that foreign actors might have in promoting this plan of civil conflict is the fact that there’s a clear-cut geographical distinction between the two groups. Even though the Ndebele are only about 20% of the population, their traditional homeland of Matabeleland and common area of present habitation accounts for about 33% of the country’s total territory in the western regions. Likewise, the Shona, who are estimated to be nearly 80% of the population, have a traditional homeland of Mashonaland that takes up around 30% of the northern corner of Zimbabwe (though many also live outside of it).

Even though there’s an intermingling of these two populations all across the country, the political-administrative divisions expressed above are typically taken as expressing each group’s respective home territory. The most sparsely and least settled parts of Zimbabwe are in Matabeleland, with the bulk of the country’s citizens living in the central, northern, and eastern reaches of the state. Still, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city of Bulawayo is located in the historically Ndebele-inhabited area of the country, thus proving that this region is certainly relevant to the state’s social framework despite its comparatively smaller total population.

Taking into consideration these geo-demographic factors, it’s not unforeseeable that a militant autonomy or secessionist movement might take root in Matabeleland amidst any chaotic circumstances that arise from a Zimbabwean Color Revolution. The outbreak of Hybrid War in the country could unleash the same sort of ethnic tensions between the Shona and Ndebele as the civil war in South Sudan did with the Dinka and Nuer, all to the benefit of an external actor that either prods this scenario on in the first place or craftily exploits it to its own geostrategic advantage. The promulgation of Identity Federalism in Zimbabwe as a “solution” to this scenario would make the erstwhile unified whole much more easier to control, while an independent Matabeleland could become a pro-American regional base, bearing in mind how the US’ often uses minority populations and newly created weak separatist states as its geostrategic proxies.

Shaking Up Southern Africa

Zimbabwe’s descent into a bloody Hybrid War, complete with anti-government insurgency and ethnic killings, would have serious implications for stability all across the Southern African region. All four of the country’s neighbors would be directly affected by the Weapons of Mass Migration that would be unleashed in the aftermath, as well as by the presence of a failed state adjacent to their borders.

Zambia:

This historically anti-colonial Southern African state is at risk of experiencing its own Hybrid War even without the destabilizing push that a state collapse in Zimbabwe could give it. A general election will be held on 11 August, and incumbent President Lungu is already facing Color Revolution pressure. Recent clashes and the death of an opposition supporter prompted him to suspend the country’s election campaigning for 10 days, and the violence that broke out coincidentally came on the heels of sharp American criticism against his government. The authorities shut down “The Post”, the largest opposition newspaper, late last month on charges that it had run up $6 million in unpaid taxes. The US saw this as an ‘attack on free speech’ and harshly condemned Lungu for ‘silencing the opposition’, demanding that he allow the tax-evading outlet to reopen as soon as possible. Not only did he refuse to do so, but he even cancelled a meeting with the US Assistant Secretary for African affairs. This ‘audacious’ act of independence couldn’t have gone unpunished for long, and it was only just a week later that the ‘opposition’ stoked pre-election violence all across the country in their desperate bid to stir up anti-government unrest.

Lungu isn’t being targeted solely because of his refusal to bow down before the US’ unipolar dictates, though that’s certainly a large part of why Washington is so angry at him. His country, Zambia, is a decades-long mineral-rich partner of China, and Beijing actually built the TAZARA railway through neighboringTanzania in the 1970s as a means of linking together the three partnered states. This close strategic relationship continued in the post-Cold War era, and one could even make the case that the success of TAZARA laid the foundation for China’s future One Belt One Road worldwide policy of infrastructure connectivity, seeing as how it was the first prominent such project that Beijing ever commenced. Nowadays, the Zambian portion of TAZARA is an irreplaceably valuable investment in completing China’s African Silk Road vision of bridging the continent’s Indian and Atlantic coasts. TAZARA is planned to be expanded westward through the North West Railway project that will bring it to the Angolan border, from where it will join up with the recently Chinese-refurbished Benguela Railway and eventually reach the Atlantic Ocean.

In this manner, the Tanzanian Indian Ocean Coast and the Angolan Atlantic one would be connected via their commonly adjacent landlocked Zambian neighbor. Even though there’s a chance of an alternative route going through Zambia to the southern Democratic Republic of the Congo’s region of Katanga, the trilateral Tanzania-Zambia-Angola path seems to be much more reliable due to the serious Hybrid War pressures afflicting Africa’s second-largest country, which was also the scene of the continent’s deadliest war that claimed at least 5 million lives in the 1990s and which still hasn’t been internally resolved in full. Even so, the Zambian route isn’t exactly problem-free either, with the western part of the country being the scene of “Barotseland” disturbances. This scarcely populated territory through which the North West Railway must pass en route to Angola has a complex history with the state, but the general idea is that it was promised some sort of federal-autonomous arrangement around the time of Zambia’s independence, but which was shortly thereafter controversially revoked by Lusaka.

“Barotseland” protesters have pulled off their mission to once more make this issue a nationwide topic of discussion, and some are even trying to pair it with the government’s 2013 decentralization policy in order to suggest a federalized “solution” to this re-emerging problem. Just like with Zimbabwe or any other country that implements any form of Identity Federalism, Zambia’s federal future would be rife with internal discord driven by external manipulation. In accordance with the Law Of Hybrid War, the end goal of this would be to disrupt, influence, or control China’s multipolar transnational connective infrastructure project of the Southern Transcontinental African Route (TAZARA + North West Railway + Benguela) by making its essential middle component hostage to the developing American-influenced political situation in the country. Whether it’s a Color Revolution in the capital, an Unconventional War in “Barotseland”, or a composite Hybrid War throughout all of the country, Zambia is certainly vulnerable to a range of destabilizations, and it might just take the US-orchestrated collapse of Zimbabwe and the resultant inflow of Weapons of Mass Migration to push the country over the edge and catalyze these dark scenarios.

Botswana and Mozambique:

These two neighboring countries are expected to be less directly impacted by any successful Hybrid War in Zimbabwe, though they’ll nevertheless still have their domestic stabilities offset to a certain degree. It’s unclear at this point just how much Botswana would be affected, but it’s a fair to say that it would be compelled to set up emergency refugee facilities along its extended eastern border with its neighbor. It should be reminded that Botswana only has slightly over 2 million people, a quarter of which are estimated to be concentrated around the capital of Gaborone in the southeast. Around 150,000 people also live in the Zimbabwean-bordering town and second-largest settlement of Francistown, so because of its proximity to the area of projected conflict, it’s expected that this city would become the country’s frontline defense in guarding against and responding to Weapons of Mass Migration. Depending on the scale of inflow, Botswana might not be able to fully control its borders, in which case anti-government insurgents might capitalize off of the situation in order to infiltrate the country and set up a network of safe havens. Even though this possibility presently seems remote, in analyzing the residual effects of a Zimbabwean Hybrid War on the region, it can’t responsibly be discounted by any strategist. On a related note, if this happens, then it could be used to ‘justify’ the US’ reported plans to open up an AFRICOM airbase in the southern part of the country, and these prospective regional crises might even be engineered partially on the motive of doing so.

Mozambique stands to be even more drastically impacted than Botswana, mostly because of the simmering conflict that’s re-emerged in that country ever since it discovered some of the world’s largest LNG deposits a few years ago. RENAMO, the Cold War-era rebel group that the US supported in the post-independence Mozambican Civil War, returned to low-scale militancy in 2013. Referred to as the country’s “invisible civil war” ever since, the conflict has persistently remained a challenge that just won’t abate. While there’s no direct evidence to prove it yet, if one understands the US’ global energy imperatives of controlling or denying various resources to others, as well as the CIA’s decades-long documented connection with RENAMO, it’s not at all unreasonable to suggest that the latest violence is being provoked by Washington as a means of interfering with Maputo’s LNG future. It’s predictable that this conflict will eventually intensify the closer that Mozambique comes to exporting its LNG on the global market, but in the meantime, any Weapons of Mass Migration streaming in from a Hybrid War-afflicted Zimbabwe (whether refugees or insurgents) could create a serious domestic crisis in RENAMO’s traditional western borderland area of operations. The government’s response to this prospective set of problems could either ‘naturally’ aggravate the conflict with RENAMO or be manipulated in such a way by self-interested internal actors and/or their external handlers for this end.

South Africa:

Washington ideally hoped that South African President Zuma would have already been deposed by a ‘constitutional coup’ by now and that his country could be the ‘Lead From Behind’ springboard for guaranteeing that the anti-Mugabe mission succeeded, but since he defied the odds and survived the plot earlier this year (unlike his BRICS counterpart Dilma Rousseff), it’s likely that the US intends to target him once again almost immediately after toppling Mugabe. In fact, South Africa has always been the regional crown jewel for American regime change planners, and it’s not unlikely that everything that’s going on in Zimbabwe right now is purposely aimed at eventually destabilizing its southern BRICS neighbor. For the moment at least, South Africa is still in a position to render supportive assistance to its anti-apartheid ally (however limited and/or symbolic it may be), but this could abruptly stop if the liberal Soros-funded “Democratic Alliance” ‘opposition’ pulls off an impressive showing during the 3 August nationwide local elections and expands their power over the rest of the remaining major cities that are still outside of their control, which is what some observers are expecting.

A ruling ANC party spokesman accused the US of fomenting regime change earlier this year, and even though Zuma ‘dodged a bullet’ with his impeachment case, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a ‘Plan B’ for the US to fall back on and that a Zimbabwean Hybrid War concurrent with the upcoming local elections isn’t part of it. The political future of the President and his ANC party are in doubt because of some serious economic and domestic mishandlings, so it’s entirely possible that the pro-American ‘opposition’ will gain some extra support in the next electoral round and gradually strengthen their influence in the country, much to Zuma and his multipolar BRICS partners’ expected expense. With the ‘opposition’ gaining ground and working hand-in-hand with the US’ allied information outlets to craft the perception that they’re on the inevitable ascent to full power, the “Democratic Alliance” can be in a much better position to popularize the concept of Identity Federalism if an out-of-control Zimbabwean Hybrid War destructively spills across the border and produces the conditions for its advancement.

People hold up signs during a large anti-xenophobia rally in Johannesburg which was attended by thousands who marched through the city demanding an end to the violence against foreigners in South Africa.

BRICS stalwart of South Africa is existentially threatened by the danger that Weapons of Mass Migration could spark the unitary republic’s dissolution into a collection of quasi-independent tribal/ethnic-based federal statelets. Not only are visible segments of South African society violently xenophobic against the influx of African migrant workers that have flooded into the economically promising state over the past two decades, but there are even deep undercurrents of extremely polarized tension among its native peoples. Zulu nationalism was blamed for the xenophobic riots of early 2015, and the failure of South Africa to transcend identity-centric politics poses a very real threat to all other ethnicities within the country such as the Xhosa and Basotho, for example, whether they’re killing one another or fighting within their own groups.

Without the shared enemy of apartheid to unite the country’s disparate range of ethnic-tribal identities, it regretfully looks like some of these groups are at a serious risk of “self-segregating” and dividing the country along their identity lines. Tribalism has always been a civilizational vulnerability for the sub-Saharan African peoples just as sectarianism has been for the Muslim ones, and the rich spectrum of South Africa’s countless diverse identities could be violently divided against one another by external manipulation even easier than the binary Sunni-Shia split was savagely masterminded over recent years. All that it might take to produce this American-anticipated reaction is the large-scale introduction of Weapons of Mass Migration to set off an uncontrollable spate of deadly xenophobic purges that quickly spiral to the point of all-out civil war between the native ethnicities, eventually resulting in the de-facto re-institutionalization of “Bantustans” via the ‘politically correct’ and ‘domestically asked-for’ ‘black-led’ ‘solution’ of Identity Federalism.

Concluding Thoughts

Zimbabwe is at its most vulnerable and weakest point since independence, having been financially ravaged into economic destitution by the US and now on the cusp of descending into a dangerous spiral of Hybrid War violence. The government still has the chance to restore order and prevent the regime change riots from spreading, but it persuasively looks as though it’s at its closest that it’s ever been to state failure. The economy is in doldrums, unemployment is rampant, and people are upset at the authorities for a host of reasons, many of which are actually legitimate and in one way or another directly attributable to the actions of the ruling ZANU-PF party. Nevertheless, the timing of the most recent disturbances coincides with a rumored successionist struggle and the political technologies involved in the ‘protests’ almost exactly replicate those of previous Color Revolutions, so it’s a fair to analytically conclude that the US is launching yet another regime change plot against President Mugabe in order to unbalance Zimbabwe at its most uncertain moment and capitalize off of the strategic run-up to its leader’s inevitable passing. If the US even moderately succeeds in the latest iteration of its Hybrid War campaign, then it could have disastrous consequences for the rest of the Southern African region, spewing Weapons of Mass Migration and other destabilizations at all its fragile neighbors and possibly returning this part of the continent back to its Cold War-ear roots as a frontline geopolitical battlefield.

Andrew Korybko is the American political commentator currently working for the Sputnik agency. He is the post-graduate of the MGIMO University and author of the monograph “Hybrid Wars: The Indirect Adaptive Approach To Regime Change” (2015). This text will be included into his forthcoming book on the theory of Hybrid Warfare.

Note to Commenters
Due to severe hacking attacks in the recent past that brought our site down for up to 11 days with considerable loss of circulation, we exercise extreme caution in the comments we publish, as the comment box has been one of the main arteries to inject malicious code. Because of that comments may not appear immediately, but rest assured that if you are a legitimate commenter your opinion will be published within 24 hours. If your comment fails to appear, and you wish to reach us directly, send us a mail at: editor@greanvillepost.com

We apologize for this inconvenience.

Nauseated by the
vile corporate media?
Had enough of their lies, escapism,
omissions and relentless manipulation?

=By= Andrew Korybko

Tribal and linguistic map of Zambia – click to enlarge or go to click here.

Commonly thought of as a bastion of peace and stability in the continent ever since the turn of the century, the southern part of Africa is once more returning to the spotlight of global attention. Zimbabwean officials have alleged that the American and French embassies are behind the latest Color Revolution commotion in the country, stating that their ambassadors even met with the movement’s newest leader, Pastor Evan Mawarire, before he began his campaign. This accusation is echoed by regional leader South Africa, which described the latest tumult as “sponsored elements seeking regime change”. If the US succeeds in its latest Color Revolution plot, then the collapse of Resistant & Defiant Zimbabwe could be the tripwire for automatically setting into motion a preplanned sequence of other destabilizations that might rapidly spread throughout the neighboring countries, thereby returning Southern Africa back to its Cold War-era of conflict and unexpectedly turning it into the New Cold War’s latest battleground.

An Irresistible Target

Harare has always been very close to Moscow and especially Beijing, and this trilateral relationship has only intensified in the past couple of years. China openly stated that Africa is a priority area of its foreign policy and that its relationship with the continent is integral to the country’s sustainable 21^st-century economic growth. The $4 billion that President Xi promised Zimbabwe during his December 2015 visit there is expected to form the cornerstone of their future relations and yield tangible market benefits for China, all in accordance with its African grand strategy. Russia, just like China, also has many investments in the centrally positioned Southern African state, though they focus more on minerals and military equipment than on the real-sector economy. Still, when taken together in the complementary context of the Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership, Moscow and Beijing’s combined interests in Zimbabwe have made it an irresistible target for Washington’s covert campaign.

More broadly speaking, the region of Southern Africa is internationally known for having the most developed infrastructure networks – a key component of China’s One Belt One Road global vision of connectivity – and a relatively skilled labor force in comparison to the rest of Africa, thus also explaining why many companies rely on this part of the continent as their access point to the rest of it. The high level of physical connectivity between the Southern African states means that people and products can move throughout the lower half of the Southern African Development Community with ease, and while this might be a boon for business, it also inherently carries with it very serious security risks if something goes dangerously wrong in one of these states and insurgent and weapons start moving cross-border instead. Because of the economic importance that many global players attach to Southern Africa – China first and foremost among them – and the real risk that they could all be adversely impacted by the American-directed regime change operation in Zimbabwe, it’s relevant to analyze the situation in depth and prognosticate some of its most likely consequences.

New Year, Same Strategy

Zimbabwe’s economic and political woes aren’t anything new, and their present manifestation is actually the evolution of a years-long policy of hostility that the US has been practicing against it. From the implementation of sanctions in the early 2000s to the first Color Revolution attempt in 2008, the US has been persistently trying to undermine President Mugabe for both for the sake of unseating a multipolar leader and because of the regional contagion effect of instability that the Zimbabwean state’s collapse could trigger. Economic warfare against the country was responsible for historic hyperinflation rates of 231 million percent in late-2008, the timing of which was by no means a coincidence. Inflation had been exponentially multiplying in the run-up to the general election in March of that year and the second round that was eventually held in June, and the economic difficulties that Zimbabweans were forced to experience were manufactured by the US in a bid to break the population’s support for the government.

“Opposition” rival Morgan Tsvangirai was ultimately unsuccessful in toppling the government, though Mugabe eventually had to concede to a form of ‘Regime Tweaking’ in appointing him as his Prime Minister. This post was specifically created in order to deal with the Color Revolution crisis and was abolished immediately after the American proxy’s term was up, but during that four-year time, the US hoped to use Tsvangirai to weaken the government from within and subvert its sovereignty-exercising plans to integrate Zimbabwe within the emerging multipolar world order.  It’s clear that the US has been waging asymmetrical warfare on Zimbabwe for years already, and in fact, many of the lessons that it learned throughout this drawn-out operation have presently been applied to Venezuela as well. Furthermore, the riotous disturbances that are rocking the South American country right now have correspondingly proved to be invaluable lessons for the Color Revolutionaries in Zimbabwe, further demonstrating yet another example of interlinked continuity in the US’ indirect adaptive approach to regime change, or Hybrid War.

Perfecting Timing

The latest outbreak of Color Revolution violence was obviously being prepared for a while, but the dual events that prompted its commencement are the signs of an internal power struggle within the ruling ZANU-PF party and Mugabe’s elderly age, with the latter inevitably leading to the former. The President himself has had to address these rumors several times over the past year, chiding his supposed ‘allies’ for already conniving about what they will do once he eventually dies. The popular chatter is that his wife Grace will pick up the reins and carry on her husband’s legacy, but Tsvangirai has already come out against her possible candidacy and is rallying his supporters to oppose her if she chooses to run. With so much political uncertainty in the air, and the economy still in dire straits, the US saw the perfect structural opportunity for asymmetrically striking against the Zimbabwean state and thus revved up its Color Revolutionaries for the coming battle.

Coordinating The Color Revolution

Religion:

As it has been wont to do over the past couple of years in undermining targeted governments, the US is employing a syncretic approach in assembling as diverse of a crowd as possible to partake in the Zimbabwean Color Revolution. The figurehead who the US has designed to publicly lead this campaign is Pastor Evan Mawarire, and they purposely chose a religious representative in order to capitalize off of the piousness that pervades the country’s population. Mawarire was just arrested by the authorities for inciting violence, but the US likely foresaw this event and has plenty of backup plans to exploit its proxy’s ‘official’ ‘religious’ position in order to turn him into a Color Revolution  martyr behind whom the anti-government crowds and their Western government backers can rally.

Economy:

Supporters of the Zimbabwe African National Union’s Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) march in the streets of Harare February 24, 2010, to protest against the decision by the European Union to extend economic sanctions on Zimbabwe for another year. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo

Relatedly, most of the people who are organizing against the government aren’t doing so for explicitly regime change purposes, but rather to allegedly protest against the country’s deteriorating economic conditions and alleged police violence. Truth be told, they’re likely well aware of how their participation feeds into this scenario, but because they’re not publicly announcing it, they’re able to hide behind a thin veneer of ‘plausible deniability’ when they’re accused of being the US’ “useful idiots’. Admittedly, the government itself is responsible for mismanaging part of the country’s economy in response to the US’ disruptive aggression against it, and Mugabe made a major mistake in his 2000 “land reform” package that ultimately ended up destroying Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector, but these incidents in and of themselves should not normally be grounds for launching a violent ‘protest’ movement years after they first occurred.

What’s plausibly occurring then isn’t that some Zimbabweans had a years-long delayed reaction to what has happened to their country, but that these ‘protests’ are engineered by the US as the final form of economic warfare against the country designed to push the fragile system past the tipping point and into a tailspin of collapse. “Stay-away day”, as the first themed protest was called at the beginning of the campaign, was more of a nationwide strike than a protest, and it was meant to instantly exacerbate the country’s economic turmoil and grind society to a halt, which would thereby – as the reasoning suggests – attract more dissatisfied people to the street in joining the burgeoning anti-government movement that the Western media would allege had ‘organically’ sprung up in response. Additionally, this sly form of externally triggered economic civil war (the US’ strategic organization of foreign labor strikers against their own targeted economy) also had the unstated ulterior motive of provoking the authorities into a physical response that could then be used to generate intentionally misleading media reports that in turn induceeven more anti-government hostility among the masses and feed the Color Revolution movement.

Military:

The icing on the cake and the real power multiplier in this entire operation isn’t the Color Revolution figurehead’s religious affiliation or the economic civil war that the US has tried to provoke, but the fact that some respected war veterans from the country’s independence struggle have withdrawn their support for Mugabe and are actively campaigning for his overthrow. They began signaling their discontent earlier this year during a series of government meetings and public statements, but in timed coordination with the Color Revolution that has now broken out, Secretary General of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) Victor Matemadanda proclaimed that “Tsvangirai can be a better enemy because a defined enemy is an enemy you know, but a pretender is much serious, dangerous and can destroy anyone.” He was speaking about the influential G40 faction within the ruling ZANU-PF party that some commentators believe will ascend to power in the wake of Mugabe’s passing, but the salience of his statement is that he is openly plotting to work together with the pro-American ‘opposition’ agent in maneuvering his forces in a post-Mugabe reality. This was preceded by an organizational spokesman voicing support for the Color Revolution, and earlier this year, it’s notable that the veterans were very loud in their opposition to Grace Mugabe and her political allies, obviously positioning themselves as some form of incipient ‘nationalist opposition’ to the government and its leader’s assumed successor.

The involvement of the ZNLWVA is very important and shouldn’t be overlooked by any observers. This constituency, however patriotic it may be, essentially represents an informal ally of the US in weakening popular support for the Mugabe Administration. There’s no objection being raised to the organic development of a patriotic opposition to the government, but it’s just that the ZNLWVA appears to be inadvertently furthering the exact same objective as the US at this moment, which is the diminishment of civil trust in the government and the promotion of a regime change agenda. There’s likely no contact between American intelligence agencies and this group, and they’d probably immediately reject any outreaches that could be or might have already been made, but the case of ZNLWVA proves that even presumably well intentioned patriotic organizations could unwittingly function as “useful idiots” in lending ‘legitimacy’ to the US’ preplanned scheme, mostly in the pursuit of their own narrow self-interests but possibly also out of the conspiratorial actions of some of its co-opted members. ZNLWVA’s partisanship on the side of the Color Revolutionaries is also meant to exert influence on the military and security forces who might understandably be reluctant to forcibly respond to “their own” if the government orders them to disband the riotous disturbances. The underlying purpose of the veterans’ group is to form the core of a “patriotic-nationalist” opposition against Mugabe that could attract current servicemen and trigger defections, thus weakening the make-or-break powerbrokers that could hold the most control during the uncertain post-Mugabe transitional period (whether he dies or is overthrown).

Continued in Part II.

Andrew Korybko is the American political commentator currently working for the Sputnik agency. He is the post-graduate of the MGIMO University and author of the monograph “Hybrid Wars: The Indirect Adaptive Approach To Regime Change” (2015). This text will be included into his forthcoming book on the theory of Hybrid Warfare.

Note to Commenters
Due to severe hacking attacks in the recent past that brought our site down for up to 11 days with considerable loss of circulation, we exercise extreme caution in the comments we publish, as the comment box has been one of the main arteries to inject malicious code. Because of that comments may not appear immediately, but rest assured that if you are a legitimate commenter your opinion will be published within 24 hours. If your comment fails to appear, and you wish to reach us directly, send us a mail at: editor@greanvillepost.com

We apologize for this inconvenience.

Nauseated by the
vile corporate media?
Had enough of their lies, escapism,
omissions and relentless manipulation?

=By= Andrea Germanos

Source : rightsidenews.com

This is so wrong and so abusive. Puerto Rico is being treated as somehow outside the Constitutional boundaries of the United States. However, it is US territory. Puerto Rico exists in a no-mans land to some extent where it can be exploited in a variety of ways by the US, but does not have a true voice within the US. Puerto Rico is in its current situation because of this exploitation of its status and its “workforce.” Now it is being treated essentially as an acquired colony of old to be doubly exploited economically. This is so wrong that it smells from Washington to Puerto Rico and beyond. -rw

Puerto Rico’s finances are poised to be controlled by what critics dub “a colonial control board” after the U.S. Senate on Wednesday advanced the so-called PROMESA (Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act) legislation.

The motion for cloture passed 68-32, which “makes final passage of the legislation a virtual certainty,” The Hill reports.

It’s “identical to the plan passed by the House of Representatives this month,” as Reuters reports, and comes just two days ahead of the deadline for the territory to make $2 billion of bond payments.

The White House has also indicated President Barack Obama would sign the measure.

Puerto Rico owes $72 billion in debt, but as a U.S. territory is ineligible for federal bankruptcy protection. According to geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser,

Puerto Rico has been the victim of a predatory capitalist campaign waged by major Wall Street banks, as well as hedge funds and private speculators, who have become heavily overleveraged in Puerto Rican debt through reckless bond purchases while Wall Street has fattened itself playing the role of middleman.

Religious development coalition Jubilee USA has urged the Senate to vote for final passage on the measure, with Eric LeCompte, its executive director, saying Monday, “If legislation doesn’t pass before July 1st, we are opening the door for vulture funds to exploit Puerto Rico.”

Democracy Now! host Juan Gonzalez, meanwhile, said that while the bill “would establish a means for Puerto Rico to restructure its $72 billion in debt,” it would also impose “a colonial control board.”

The “rescue package” would also allow for the minimum wage to be slashed for some workers.

Gonzalez said Wednesday, “it’s astonishing to me how so many liberals in this country, who rail about American aggression abroad, are being so silent over this absolute imposition of colonial control by the United States government over the affairs of Puerto Rico. And Jack Lew, the secretary of treasury, spent almost all day yesterday basically meeting with Democratic senators to convince them, to pressure them to support this bill.”

He added that Senate approval of the bill would mean “a really dark day for the people of Puerto Rico, who are completely opposed to this bill.”

PROMESA has critics within the Senate as well, such as Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who took to the chamber’s floor for hours Tuesday arguing that the bill needed improvements. Politico reports:

Menendez says he’s dissatisfied and will try to add measures to the House bill to create what he says is a “clearer pathway to restructuring.” He will propose that the island’s government and agencies be able to restructure their debt without a supermajority vote of approval by a federally appointed oversight board that the legislation will set up. He also wants to add two seats to the board to be nominated and approved by Puerto Rico’s governor and senate. And he or another Democrat will propose eliminating overtime and minimum wage provisions.

Bernie Sanders is also opposed to the legislation, and spoke against the measure on the Senate floor on Tuesday, saying that it would favor “vulture capitalists.”

He also argued last month that it “would make a terrible situation even worse.” The majority of the outside control board members would be handpicked by Majority Leader McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan “while the people of Puerto Rico would be in charge of choosing none,” he stated.  “That may make sense to the Tea Party and one of the largest trade groups representing Wall Street—groups that endorsed this legislation—but it makes absolutely no sense to me.”

Alejandro García-Padilla, the governor of Puerto Rico, writes at CNBC Wednesday that Puerto Rico has no choice other than to default on more than $1 billion, and that it “cannot endure any more austerity.” As for PROMESA, he says it’s “a mixed bag.”

On the one hand, it provides the tools needed to protect the people of Puerto Rico from disorderly actions taken by the creditors. The immediate stay granted by the bill on all litigation is of the utmost importance in this moment. Most importantly, the authority to adjust our debt stock provides the legal tools to complete a broad restructuring and route Puerto Rico’s revitalization.

On the other hand, PROMESA has its downsides. It creates an oversight board that unnecessarily undercuts the democratic institution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. But facing the upsides and downsides of the bill, it gives Puerto Rico no true choice at this point in time.

A final vote will come on Wednesday, the Associated Press reports.

This report by Laura Flanders is worth taking 1 minute 40 to watch. It is the down and dirty detail of the financial crisis in Puerto Rico. People should pay heed as finance and corporations want this type of latitude everywhere.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Note to Commenters
Due to severe hacking attacks in the recent past that brought our site down for up to 11 days with considerable loss of circulation, we exercise extreme caution in the comments we publish, as the comment box has been one of the main arteries to inject malicious code. Because of that comments may not appear immediately, but rest assured that if you are a legitimate commenter your opinion will be published within 24 hours. If your comment fails to appear, and you wish to reach us directly, send us a mail at: editor@greanvillepost.com

We apologize for this inconvenience.

Nauseated by the
vile corporate media?
Had enough of their lies, escapism,
omissions and relentless manipulation?