Andre Vltchek
Itinerant Philosopher and Journalist

The tropical River Musi bisects the city, a desperately polluted waterway, bordered by slums built on stilts and a few old colonial buildings.
Vessels of all types use the Musi, hauling everything that can be sold abroad or to the rest of Indonesia. The river is jammed with enormous barges filled with coal, oil tankers, makeshift boats carrying palm oil fruit bunches, as well as countless ships carrying timber.

Plunder is done openly; there is no attempt to conceal it.

Ms. Isna Wijayani, a Professor at Bina Darma University in Palembang, laments on the situation.

“There is no primary forest left in a wide area around Palembang,” she says. “However, illegal logging doesn’t get reported in the local media. It is because powerful forces, including police and the army (TNI) are involved or directly behind much of the illegal logging and other profitable commercial activities in South Sumatra.”

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© Andre Vltchek

Bina Darma University invited me to speak on the manipulation of the Indonesian media by the West. I was asked to address some 100 selected students and lecturers from the region. What followed was an hour-long discussion, during which I clearly understood how little is known, even among the local students and teachers, about the dire environmental situation in their part of the world.

“We have no idea about the extent of deforestation around here,” explained Ms. Lina, a student.

Ms. Ayu Lexy, a graduate student, was somewhat more knowledgeable on the subject: “I think Donald Trump is crazy, claiming that there is no global warming. The effects of it are clearly felt here.”

Just as I had done several years ago, I rented a makeshift speedboat and instructed the captain to take me around the delta to Upang, a village more than one hour of literally ‘flying’ over the murky waters from Palembang.

For the first few kilometers, hellish-looking factories lined up along both shores. All of the plants appeared to be forming a grand coalition, serving a single goal: to destroy what remains of the once-pristine tropical paradise.

There was the Pusri plant, producer of fertilizers, one of the largest in Southeast Asia, belching smoke and spewing an unbearable stench into the air. Right across the water, surrounded by slums, a wood-processing plant was emitting yet another very distinct odor. Local children were swimming nearby, clearly oblivious to health hazards.

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© Andre Vltchek

Later, a former top executive of Pusri, Mr. Reza Esfan, confessed to me: “We create pollution, of course, although we try to minimize it. I can’t deny that unsavory odor is emitted… Obviously, Pusri’s mistake was that they didn’t purchase the land surrounding their plants. Now, if we have a leak, then the community sues us… ”

Naturally, not a word about the suffering of the communities…

At Kapitan village, several women were washing their clothes in the filthy river water, and then brushing their teeth in it.

“Why shouldn’t we be washing ourselves and brushing our teeth in clean water,” a village woman said. “We can’t spend our money on such luxuries! Anyway, the river water is free, and it is clean.”

As the woman spoke, a grotesquely swollen carcass of a dog passed slowly by in the water just a few meters away.

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© Andre Vltchek

Disaster in the making

[dropcap]D[/dropcap]eforestation was essential for the construction of all local industries. But how ruthless is deforestation in Indonesia? How bad is its contribution to global climate change? The simple answer is: it is not just bad; it is dreadful.

The Pan-Asian independent news network, Coconuts TV, reported in 2015: “Deforestation is a major contributor to climate change, adding more carbon pollution to the atmosphere than all the world’s cars, trucks, ships, trains and airplanes combined each year. It’s also pushing many animal species to the brink of extinction, including the Sumatran rhinoceros, Sumatran tiger, Sumatran elephant, and the orangutan due to the destruction of their habitats.”

Indonesia has become the global leader in deforestation, and the reason is the world’s thirst for palm oil. Palm oil is the most widely used vegetable oil on the planet. It can be found in over half of all packaged products at the supermarket, including everything from cooking oil to lipstick.”

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© Andre Vltchek

As early as in 2007, Greenpeace Philippines snapped at Indonesia’s unwillingness to deal with the disaster: “Indonesia destroys about 51 square kilometers of forests every day, equivalent to 300 football fields every hour — a figure, which should earn the country a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s fastest destroyer of forests… These figures demonstrate a lack of political will and power by the Indonesian government to stop runaway deforestation rates. A series of natural disasters in recent years, floods, forest fires, landslides, droughts, massive erosion are all linked to the unprecedented destruction of our forests. Forest fires from concessions and plantations have already made Indonesia the world’s third biggest contributor of greenhouse gases,” Mr. Hapsoro (Greenpeace Southeast Asia Forest campaigner) said.”

Since 2007, not much has changed. The country has already lost well over 70 percent of its intact ancient forests, and commercial logging, forest fires and new clearances for palm oil plantations threaten half of what is left. The greed seems to know no boundaries.

According to ScienceDirect: “Between 1970 and the mid-1990s, export-oriented log production and global demand were the primary pressures underlying deforestation. Cultivation of rice and other crops was also found to be associated with a growing population and transmigration policy. Moreover, deregulation of foreign investment in the 1980s appears to have led to the expansion of an export-oriented industry, including commercial crop and log production. Between the mid-1990s and 2015, the imbalance between global demand and production of Indonesian timber and oil palm led to illegal or non-sustainable timber harvest and expansion of permanent agricultural areas…”

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© Andre Vltchek

The result: Sumatra and Kalimantan islands are now choking on their own pollution, although the agony spreads far into neighboring Malaysia and Singapore. Year after year, millions of people get affected, classes are cancelled, airplanes grounded, and regular activities averted. Hundreds of thousands of people are suffering from acute respiratory infections. Hundreds lose their lives.

Some even call the unbridled ‘export of pollution’ a ‘crime against humanity.’ Emotions are running high, and many citizens of Malaysia and Singapore protest by boycotting Indonesian products.

On several occasions, I witnessed thick smog covering the skyscrapers of the leading Malaysian cities, and of Singapore. In 2015, during the ‘big fires’ of Sumatra, life in Kuala Lumpur almost came to a standstill.

This time, landing in Palembang, the haze had been covering almost the entire runway. “Visibility six kilometers,” the captain of Indonesian flagship carrier, Garuda, informed us, not long before the touchdown. In fact, the visibility appeared to be no more than 200 meters. But in Indonesia, many ‘uncomfortable facts’ are denied outright.

Throughout the following days, my eyes became watery and my joints were aching. I kept coughing uncontrollably. When I was asked by the Italian ‘5 Star Movement’ to record my political message (I did it in a local slum), I could hardly speak.

The trouble didn’t just come from the forest fires: everything here seemed to be polluting the environment: the burning of garbage, traffic jams, emissions from unregulated factories, even cigarette smoking in almost all public places.

Along the Musi River, the original forests are gone, replaced by rice fields, palm oil, and rubber plantations.

I spoke to dozens of farmers and fishermen. Most of them have never heard about global warming, others didn’t care. In Indonesia, the struggle for bare survival is what propels most of the people – this, as well as the cynical chase for profit, pursued by the ‘elites’. I described it in detail in my damning book ‘Indonesia: Archipelago of Fear’.

At some point, the captain of my boat became hostile. Angry, frustrated and nationalistic, he began sabotaging my work, constantly rocking his boat in order to prevent me from photographing disaster areas.

Still, I prevailed. I had to. Millions of people were suffering; dozens of species were disappearing, including tigers and rhinos, elephants and orangutans.

Mr. Ahmad, a 55-year-old fisherman from Upang village, is aware of the tragedy: “In the last 20 years, the level of Musi River has risen on average by 50 centimeters. Here we have a badminton court. In the past, during high tides, the water would go up only to our ankles, but now it comes up to our thighs.”

Mr. Ahmad doesn’t understand that it is the destruction of tropical forests that has a direct impact on the rising levels of his river.

Local university students, who are accompanying me, know what’s happening, but they don’t seem to care. As I interview farmers and fishermen, they’re chatting on their phones, clearly indifferent.

“The environmental destruction around Musi River, particularly of the rainforest, is very bad, and it continues. The great fire of 2015 showed how bad the management of the rainforests is in Indonesia, particularly in Sumatra,” Ms. Khalisah Khalid working for WALHI (the Indonesian Forum for the Environment), told me over the phone.

However, for many different reasons, environmental disasters do not seem to be treated as emergencies: by the government, mainstream media, even by local people.

As my boat flew over the water, hitting waves created by monstrous coal barges, practically breaking my back, I realized the mainstream media hardly ever comes here, despite what takes place around Musi has a devastating impact on our entire planet. Abroad, the Sumatran environmental disaster is just one of those ‘abstract stories.’

For years, I worked in many parts of this enormous and once stunning island, from Aceh to Lampung. I also worked all over Oceania (‘Oceania’ is the title of my book covering that vast part of the world), the most affected area of the planet, where entire countries are now disappearing due to the climate change.

Global warming has an undeniably devastating impact on the whole world, including the Palembang area itself. In the short term, palm oil and rubber plantations may bring some profits to the companies, even to local people, but tens, maybe hundreds of millions of lives could be disrupted, even broken as a result. The price is too steep, but in Indonesia, there is hardly any discussion on the subject. Too many powerful individuals are involved, and too much money is being made.

Now those who claim that there is no climate change have a powerful ally in the White House. And so the silence reigns. The water is rising. Increasingly, smog is covering, like an endless and deadly duvet, this entire part of the world.

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Photos: Andre Vltchek

Andre Vltchek

Philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist, Andre Vltchek has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are revolutionary novel “Aurora” and two bestselling works of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and  “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. View his other books here. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Al-Mayadeen. After having lived in Latin America, Africa and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.

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

Mateusz Piskorski, Translated from Polish by J. Arnoldski –

January 20, 2017 – Fort Russ – 

 1 + 2)  and held an exclusive interview with him several months before him and his party, ZMIANA (“Change”), became the victims of direct political repression. In his latest correspondence from behind Atlanticist bars, Piskorski addresses his words to US President Donald Trump and expresses hope that a Trump presidency will end the globalist chaos and political repression that the previous US administration incited to a beyond concerning extent. 

Esteemed Mr. President!

I wish to offer you my sincere congratulations on the occasion of being inaugurated 45th President of the United States of America. I wish you, Mr. President, effective realization of your electoral program for freedom and raising the living standards of all Americans as well as ensuring peace and security in the international system. 

I am convinced that the announced changes in the sphere of international policies of which you, Mr. President, are the author, are supremely beneficial not only for the US, but also for our country, Poland. These policy changes could significantly improve the image of the United States and strengthen its potential in the global arena by breaking with the exceptionally harmful conviction that Washington is called to uphold the interests of multinational corporations and financial capital. Your presidency could mean the victory of democracy and respect for citizens’ will over the system which the economist John Perkins correctly defined as corporatocracy. The liberation of the United States from the diktat of corporate globalism could become the long-awaited beginning of the emancipation of other countries of the world, including those developing countries among which Poland figures.

Mr. President! I am writing this letter to you as a Pole, as the leader of the political party ZMIANA, and as a political prisoner of the elites currently ruling my country. Actions inspired by the Central Intelligence Agency, which coordinates the decisions of the world’s countries and intelligence, have led to a bizarre situation in which the political opposition in Poland is imprisoned and repressed. I ended up in jail for professing views and opinions which to a large extent coincided with those that you yourself expressed during your election campaign. In Poland, I have become the victim of a campaign of lies and slander similar to what the Washington establishment has hurled at you. Perhaps this is why your presidency has awakened in me and the members of my party a sincere hope for change in global politics which could begin in the United Stated under your leadership. 

I am convinced that fundamental reform of the international order should be initiated by your country which has to this day been treated and used as a tool against its own interests by supranational financial circles such as the Trilateral Commission, who Senator Barry M. Goldwater wrote “is international and intended to be a means for the multinational consolidation of banking and commercial interests. These processes can be realized through the acquisition of control over the policies of the government of the United States.” 

We in Poland look forward to seeing your decisions in the sphere of several issues that are key for both our countries. Millions of Americans of Polish heritage have made enormous contributions to the construction and development of your country. Yet for years, Poles have been deceived by the Washington elites on the matter of abolishing visas for Polish citizens traveling to the US. Poles by no means pose a threat to the security and public order of the United States. Your statements concerning the liberalization of the visa regime could be smoothly realized to the benefit of the citizens of our countries. 

Great hope is inspired by your declaration of intent to revise multilateral trade agreements which currently pose a direct threat to the consumers and producers party to them. Rejecting the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will guarantee the further development of friendly, bilateral economic cooperation and trade between the US and individual EU member-states. Consistently criticizing unjust, wage-dumping agreements like NAFTA could also make Europe withdrawal from such actions threatening stability and economic order with frantic deregulations and the uncontrolled liberalization of foreign trade. Your presidency is linked to great hope for Poland and the expectation that the TTIP will be cast into the dustbin of history.

We in Poland also hope that you will be the first American leader in many years to not provoke more international conflicts whose origins lie in coups, the fueling of civil wars, and the destabilization of states in the Middle East and North Africa. As President of the United States, you can effectively and in a law-abiding manner bring to justice those from the US political and intelligence circles who have brought the present terrorist threat upon the world. We trust that you, Mr. President, are capable of bringing about final peace in Syria on the basis of recognizing and cooperating with the legal authorities of the country and cooperating with the countries currently waging an uncompromising anti-terrorist campaign, particularly the Russian Federation and Iran. A real fight against terrorism requires broad cooperation of all those interested and affected, as you have repeatedly pointed out. 

Mr. President! You are the first American politician in many years to call things by their names, discarding the veil of deceit and hypocrisy. You have, among other things, accurately diagnosed the crisis in Ukraine which began with the foreign-inspired coup in February 2014. In March 2014, together with several dozen independent experts from EU countries and the US, I had the opportunity to observe events in Crimea. As you have rightly pointed out, the inhabitants of the peninsula, in a free and unfettered manner, decided their future in a referendum. We should all respect their choice. Poland was manipulated by the previous White House administration to fan the flames of the Ukrainian conflict and commit provocative actions against Russia. We express deep hope that you will, without undue delay, hold constructive dialogue with President Vladimir Putin, treating him as a rational partner in the work of stabilizing the international situation. Poland’s security significantly depends on the reactivation of dialogue between Washington and Moscow.

We also wholeheartedly appeal to you, Mr. President, to immediately reverse the deployment of NATO and US forces on the territory of Poland and the Baltic countries. The irresponsible decision of President Barack Obama’s administration on this matter has evidently raised international tensions in Central and Eastern Europe. The requests for American soldiers to be deployed in Poland were and are made by none other than irresponsible Polish politicians who are blinded by hatred for Russia. The United States cannot afford to succumb to the pressure and influence of adventurists and warmongers. The Polish people, like Americans, desire peace and cooperation, not the provocation of political and armed conflicts. Therefore, we ask and urge: not a single US soldier on the so-called Eastern Flank of NATO!

Mr. President! Finally, allow me to ask you to prevent the CIA from exploiting the intelligence and counter-intelligence services of the countries of Central Europe subordinated to it for the purpose of neutralizing people critical of the actions of the Washington elite. As the leader of a political party which stands for Poland leaving NATO, I have been held for many months in prison without any sentence. There are reasons to conclude that American intelligence services transmitted instructions and directives to the Polish Internal Security Agency concerning me. I am convinced that, upon assuming office as President of the United States of America, you will put a roadblock in front of such pathological policies.

Once again, I wish you and Americans a free presidency that will realize the desires of the American people identifying with the slogan “Make America Great Again!” 

Respectfully, 

Dr. Mateusz Piskorski

Chairman of Zmiana, political prisoner

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Dispatches from Deena Stryker

TIMELINE

As anti-Russian sentiment proliferates in Washington, accusations that Moscow interfered in the American presidential election alternate with distorted references to events that took place in Ukraine starting in 2014. TGP took a look at how the US press covered those events at the time.  But unlike those accounts, ours starts on Nov 13, 2013, when  Assistant Secretary of State for East European Affairs Victoria Nuland told the DC Press Club that the US had invested 5 billion dollars since 1991 to ‘build Ukraine independence’. At that time, Ukraine’s President Yanukovich was reconsidering his decision to apply for EU membership, because the EU would not allow his country to also participate in a Moscow-BelaRus-Khazakstan trade agreement.

Our timeline shows how the US press covered this story, which still today is at the forefront of our relations with Moscow.

November 21, 2013:

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych suspends talks with the EU, in the face of opposition from Russia, sparking protests across the country.

Jan 16, 2014:

The Yanukovich government passes an anti-protest law as protests build on Maidan Square in Kiev, and across Ukraine, leaving 98 dead and approximately fifteen thousand injured.

During the first week in February (the Western press admits the date of the phone call is uncertain) Victoria Nuland, previously seen distributing cookies to protesters on Maidan Square, discusses with US Ambassador to Ukraine Jeffrey Pyatt who the US should choose to lead Ukraine in the place of Yanukovich. The recording that ended with Nuland saying ‘Fuck the EU!’ when Pyatt suggested Ukraine’s neighbor’s might not agree with her pick, went viral on YouTube.

No mention was made in that conversation of the fact that the opposition was relying on nationalists wielding chains and hammers to impose its will.

According to the NY Times: “On February 21, 2014, Yanukovich signed an agreement brokered by France, Germany, the US and Russia for an orderly transfer of power and political reform in Ukraine.  However, Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of Right Sector, the main nationalist coalition, reacted defiantly:

“The agreements that were reached do not correspond to our aspirations,” he said. “Right Sector will not lay down arms. Right Sector will not lift the blockade of a single administrative building until our main demand is met — the resignation of Yanukovych.”

Here, a crucial bit of history is necessary: Anyone doubting it can Google ‘Nazi insignia’ and Right Sektor:

Right Sektor, as well as its twin Svoboda (‘freedom’ sic) are organizations that continue the traditions established during World War II by Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian uber nationalist who organized the OUN to fight for Ukrainian independence.  He chose Hitler as his ally, his men killing many Jews, Poles and Russians, only to be betrayed.  In an interview with Time magazine on February 4, 2014 Exclusive: Leader of Far-Right Ukrainian Militant Group Talks Revolution With TIME he boasted that his men had been training to bring Yanukovich down violently for months in Western Ukraine.  This lengthy interview is literally the key to understanding what has transpired in Ukraine in the last three years.  Wielding chains and hammers, the nationalist units were the only organized military force on Maidan Square. It was they who brought down the legally elected government, and they have played a decisive role in the US-backed coup government.  (Yaros was first head of National Security…..)

Aside from not reporting the true nature of the nationalist militias, the Western Press failed in most reports to mention the crucial event that took place on February 21, 2014: President Yanukovich signed an agreement brokered by Russia, France, Germany and Poland, to wind down the protests, hold early presidential elections by December, a swift return to a 2004 Constitution that sharply limited the president’s powers and the establishment within 10 days of a “government of national trust.”

Here is the CNN version of the Ukraine story:

November 21, 2013

After a year of insisting he would sign a landmark political and trade deal with the European Union, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych suspends talks in the face of opposition from Russia, which has long opposed Ukraine forming closer ties with the EU. Tens of thousands of protesters hit the streets in the following days, highlighting the deep divide between the pro-European west and Yanukovych’s power base in the pro-Russian east of Ukraine.”

First aid medics fired on in Ukraine 03:19

February 20, 2014: Violence that has been simmering for weeks bubbles over when a gunfight erupts between protesters and police in Maidan (Independence) Square in central Kiev, leaving dozens of people dead. Protesters say government snipers opened fire on them; Yanukovych’s government blames opposition leaders for provoking the violence.

Inside Yanukovych’s palace 02:23

Interior of Yanukovych’s residential compound: Much was made by the Western media by the lavish splendor of Yanukovych’s home, which resonated doubly in a nation wracked by economic insecurity.

CNN does not mention the agreement signed on February 21, but goes straight from February 20, to:

February 22, 2014

Yanukovych flees Kiev as his guards abandon the presidential compound. Thousands storm the grounds, marveling at the lavish estate he left behind. Former Prime Minister (and Yanukovych adversary) Yulia Tymoshenko — jailed in 2011 for “abuse of office” and many charges of blatant corruption after a trial that was widely seen in the West and by the opposition as politically motivated — is released from prison and addresses pro-Western protesters in Maidan Square.

In a similar vein, a year later, the March/April 2015 World Affairs’ The Ukraine Invasion: One Year Later, is a diatribe against Putin that also skips the signing of the February 21 Agreement , going straight to: “After President Viktor Yanukovych fled Ukraine on February 22, 2014, Putin apparently panicked, fearing that what happened in Ukraine could spread to other countries, including his own.”

The NYTimes did report the deal on February 21st:

KIEV, Ukraine — A deal aimed at ending a lethal spiral of violence in Ukraine began to show serious strains late Friday just hours after it had been signed, with angry protesters shouting down opposition members of Parliament who negotiated the accord and a militant leader (ed note: Yaros) threatening armed attacks if President Viktor F. Yanukovych did not step down by morning.

Russia introduced a further element of uncertainty by declining to sign the accord, which reduces the power of Mr. Yanukovych, an ally of Moscow. This stirred fears that Moscow might now work to undo the deal through economic and other pressures, as it did last year to subvert a proposed trade deal between Ukraine and the European Union. But American officials said Mr. Putin told Mr. Obama in a telephone call on Friday that he would work toward resolving the crisis.

In a series of votes that followed the accord and reflected Parliament’s determination to make the settlement work, lawmakers moved to free Mr. Yanukovych’s imprisoned rival, former Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko; grant blanket amnesty to all antigovernment protesters; and provide financial aid to the hundreds of wounded and families of the dead.

Except for a series of loud explosions on Friday night and angry chants in the protest encampment, Kiev was generally quiet. And the authorities, although previously divided about how to handle the crisis, seemed eager to avoid more confrontations. By late in the afternoon, all police officers had vacated the government district of the capital, leaving behind burned military trucks, mattresses and heaps of garbage at the positions they had occupied for months.

In Independence Square (Maidan), the focal point of the protest movement, however, the mood was one of deep anger and determination, not triumph. “Get out criminal! Death to the criminal!” the crowd chanted, reaffirming what, after a week of bloody violence, has become a nonnegotiable demand for many protesters: the immediate departure of Mr. Yanukovych.

When Vitali Klitschko, one of the three opposition leaders who signed the deal, spoke in its defense, people screamed “shame!” A coffin was then hauled on a stage in the square to remind Mr. Klitschko of the more than 70 people who died during violence on Thursday, the most lethal day of political mayhem in Ukraine since independence from the Soviet Union more than 22 years ago.

….

Vividly clear was the wide gulf that had opened up between the opposition’s political leadership and a street movement that has radicalized and slipped far from the already tenuous control of politicians. Mr. Klitschko was interrupted by an angry radical who did not give his name but said he was the leader of a group of fighters, known as a hundred:

“We gave chances to politicians to become future ministers, presidents, but they don’t want to fulfill one condition — that the criminal go away!” he said, vowing to lead an armed attack if Mr. Yanukovych did not announce his resignation by 10 a.m. on Saturday. The crowd shouted: “Yes! Yes!” Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of Right Sector, a coalition of hard-line nationalist groups, reacted defiantly to news of the settlement, drawing more cheers from the crowd.

It is the overbearing presence of the Right Sektor and Svoboda, two ultra right-wing nationalist parties, in the new Kiev government that sets off alarm bells in Eastern Ukraine, whose mainly Russian inhabitants remember the crimes of the groups’ hero, Stepan Bandera, who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II to kill mainly Russians and Jews.”

On now to what happened in Eastern Ukraine, as a result of the US-led coup in the country’ capital, Kiev:

March 1, 2014

The Luhansk region demands that Russian be Ukraine’s second official language, that the government disarm Maidan self-defense units and ban far right political organizations like Right Sektor and Svoboda, warning it reserved the right “to ask for help from the brotherly people of the Russian Federation“.

Protesters in Donetsk raised the Russian tricolor over the Donetsk Oblast Regional Administration building and elected a pro-Russian governor. Demonstrators in Mariupol protested waving Russian flags. Between 5,000 and 20,000 participated in a pro-Russian demonstration in Odessa, and Russian flags were raised across the southeast^. 

The SBU arrested new Donetsk governor Pavel Gubarev and dozens of his supporters, charging “encroachment on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine” as well as “actions aimed at the forcible change or overthrow of the constitutional order, or the seizure of state power”. About 70 supporters of Gubarev were also arrested.

March 10 – Russia protests chaos

March 13

The Russian Armed Forces announced military exercises in the border regions of Rostov, Belgorod, and Kursk on 13 March, involving “artillery batteries, assault helicopters, and at least 10,000 soldiers”. Amateur footage has shown columns of trucks and armored vehicles amassing  just 30 miles outside of Kharkiv.The United States Department of State said that the Russian military exercises have “certainly created an environment of intimidation [in Ukraine]”.

14 March

The Governor of Luhansk Oblast and the Mayor of Kharkiv are placed under house arrest. Four participants in yesterdays clashes in Donetsk were arrested. Clashes in Kharkiv between pro-Russian nationalists and an unknown group killed two.

On 7 April 2014, Donetsk People’s Republic is proclaimed, followed by Luhansk People’s Republic on 27 April 2014.

Now comes an event that dwarfs all others in this drama and illustrates better than any comment, the fundamental cleavage between ordinary participants in a civil war and those involved in the Ukraine crisis.  We are dealing here with two opposing concepts of strife:

“On May 2, as unrest continued, 200 anti-Maidan protesters were killed when clashes drove them into a trade union building and the building was torched.  This incident hardened the resolve of Ukraine’s Russian population against the Kiev regime.

While Ukraine’s Russian population looked on in horror at this event, the nationalists took up the chant of ‘burn the cockroaches, burn the Moscovites’.

December 12, 2014

Nazi symps Ukie Banderistas with some of the the tools of their trade. Thank you, Mr Obama. Thank you, Victoria. This pestilence is what the “separatist republics” chose to reject.

The two republics issue “a declaration of sovereignty under the name Novorossiya.”

Russia’s role in these events has been hotly disputed by both sides.  It seems certain that the anti-Maidan republics received military support from Russia.  However, the difference between providing military support to Russian-speaking populations in Eastern Ukraine and ‘invading’ the country is that had the latter taken place, Russian troops would have been in Kiev in one day.  The fact that the situation has remained stalemated for three years is ample proof that there was never a “Russian invasion”.

At present, the stalemate continues, with anti-fascist populations determined  to defend themselves, and the Kiev government, notwithstanding American support (as well as admonitions against corruption), presenting a dismal spectacle.  Periodically, American politicians such as Vice-President Joe Biden and Senator John McCain, visit the country they birthed to try to instill “democratic” memes in a country whose majority is fixated on revenge.

The rise of far-right nationalist parties across Europe was undoubtedly influenced by the success of the fascist militias in Ukraine, who have held this vast territory for the last three years.

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What will it take to bring America to live according to its own propaganda?

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 By Terje Maloy

Dateline: 13 January 2017

Norway is intensifying its plans to join the US-NATO missile defence system and serve as a strategically located military outpost of NATO on Russia’s northwestern border.

A joint analysis group from the Norwegian Defence Forces and the US Missile Defence Agency is expected to finalize its advice to the Norwegian government by the end of this year. The group will make recommends on joining the NATO ballistic missile defence system. The main components are expected to be the Globus II/III radar, on the Russian border just a few kilometres from the home base of Russia’s strategic submarines, and sea-based AEGIS systems on five Norwegian frigates.

The Maritime Theater Missile Defense Forum (MDMDF), which has existed for 17 years, was founded by the United States, the Netherlands and Germany. Several other countries joined later, including Norway in 2014. Now, three years later, the recommendations will be made.

Norway’s PM Solberg is one of those abject vassal politicians collaborating with Washington mad schemes against Russia and driving the world—starting with Europe—that much closer to a nuclear Armageddon.

Norway’s right-wing prime minister, Erna Solberg, already said in a 2015 statement to NTB, “It is necessary for us to participate in this. As a committed NATO member, we should also be committed to that part of the strategy,” i.e., the missile defense system.

This marks a significant shift from Norway’s stance 15 years ago. In 2003, when US President George W. Bush scrapped the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, supposedly to counter threats from Iran, the move was universally condemned across the Norwegian political spectrum. Jens Stoltenberg, the current NATO general secretary who was then then prime minister for Labour, claimed he was skeptical about the system at a summit in Moscow in 2007.

Since then, Norway—where defence and security policy traditionally is formulated by consensus between the main parties, which are all strongly pro-NATO—has moved towards a stance more favourable to missile defence.

The Klassekampen newspaper writes, “Cables from the US embassy, leaked by WikiLeaks, show that the US government started an intense diplomatic offensive after Stoltenberg’s statement. Ambassador Ben Whitley wrote: ‘Due to this pressure, Norway will continue to criticise the missile shield in public, while secretly working for missile defence within NATO.’”

When Stoltenberg became Secretary General of NATO, it became clear that he had had a change of heart. On May 13, 2016, he personally broke the ground for the construction of the US-led missile defence site in Redzikowo, Poland. The day before that, he and other US and NATO officials gathered in Romania to launch another anti-missile site.

The Defence Ministry claimed that “the NATO ballistic missile defence is a purely defensive capability,” a position that has repeatedly been criticized as dishonest by Russia.

Moscow fears that the missile shield will alter the strategic balance—giving Washington and NATO the ability to launch a first nuclear strike on Russia and prevent Russia from launching a counter-strike. This would effectively allow NATO not only to threaten and dictate terms to Russia, but also to destroy it in a nuclear war.

In line with the rearmament and military escalation aimed at Russia taking place across Europe, Norway is executing a drastic change in its military policy, towards a far more aggressive posture. Three hundred US Marines will be deployed in the central areas of Norway, officially on a “rotating” basis. The US forward storage areas in the country—huge caves with equipment for, amongst others, 16,000 Marines—have been upgraded to store state-of-the-art military equipment.

Moscow [justifiably] fears that the missile shield will alter the strategic balance—giving Washington and NATO the ability to launch a first nuclear strike on Russia and prevent Russia from launching a counter-strike. This would effectively allow NATO not only to threaten and dictate terms to Russia, but also to destroy it in a nuclear war.

Norwegian forces are increasingly integrated with other NATO forces. Though Norway spends $7.3 billion annually on the military—more than Sweden ($5.7 billion), a country whose population is twice as large—former Norwegian Chief of the Defence Force Sverre Diesen said: “Norway and other small states are probably too small to maintain their own national defence.” He envisages a closer cooperation and shared capabilities with other NATO allies or the non-NATO states of Finland and Sweden.

Labour and Norway’s two main right-wing parties want an increased focus on “strategic assets” like the F-35 fighter, submarines and surveillance capabilities. Ground forces are to get less priority, except for an elite expeditionary force that can be used at the request of other allies. In case of a war, Norway’s 52 F-35 fighter-bombers are supposed to execute deep strikes in Russian territory against ships, naval bases and air bases.

Such preparations underscore the fact that Norway would rapidly be drawn into any war that NATO launched against Russia—a fact that has prompted comment in academic circles.

In a May 2016 interview with NRK, MIT Professor Theodore Postol warned that Norway “would be dragged into a conflict between the great powers. … The radar in Vardø is of the type GBR-P, formerly deployed on the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific. It was formerly intended to be the most important radar in the US missile shield, to be deployed in the Czech Republic.”

The Norwegian Department of Defence denied Postol’s claims, in line with its routine denials of all information in this sensitive area, declaring: “The radar has the same mission as the one it replaces. DoD is therefore of the opinion that there is no reason for reactions towards Norway.”

The Norwegian military’s denials notwithstanding, their plans unquestionably make Norway a target for Russian military action. When Denmark decided to join the missile defence system in 2015 with several frigates, Russia’s ambassador to Denmark, Mikhail Vanin, wrote in an open letter that the country will be a nuclear target if the government joins NATO’s missile defence system.

“I don’t think that Danes fully understand the consequence if Denmark joins the American-led missile defence shield,” wrote Vanin. Similar Russian responses came after NATO bases in Poland and Romania were announced.

Norway’s important military infrastructure, despite its population of only five million people, means it would also play a substantial role in the event of any conflict and therefore would be a target in a war. It has the sixth biggest military budget per capita—after the United States, Israel and some Persian Gulf oil sheikdoms—and joined the NATO wars of aggression in Yugoslavia and Libya.

Norway participated in a 2015 exercise where the goal was to discover and intercept enemy missiles. A Norwegian frigate participated with radar sensors. Though official reports released for public consumption only mentioned sensors and tracking, these ships are equipped with missiles that are able to shoot down enemy missiles.

According to the book The Satellite War by Bård Wormdal, a Norwegian journalist who has written several books about Norway’s secret military cooperation with USA, Norway has three important radar stations across the globe. One of them is in Vardø, as close to Russia as you can get, and the other two are placed in [the arctic] Svalbard-archipelago and in Antarctica.

The radar in Vardø and presumably the one in Svalbard are of high value in American nuclear strategy. They are vital to discover and intercept Russian missiles over the North Pole headed towards the continental US. In the past few years, a steady stream of senior US politicians has inspected these radars, including Secretary of Defence Ash Carter and Senator John McCain.

Since Svalbard was demilitarized by a 1925 treaty, the radar installation there is probably in breach of that treaty. Therefore, the official purpose of John Kerry’s visit to Svalbard in July 2016 was to “view the effects of climate change.”

Similarly, when McCain visited Ny-Aalesund on Svalbard in August 2015, it was declared that the purpose was “to highlight the plight of polar bears.”

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