Ecuador: Government Announces End of Cooperation with USAID

The Argentina Independent

17 December 2013

by Lucy Adler

Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa (photo by Miguel Ángel Romero/Ecuadorean presidency)

The Ecuadorian government released a statement on Monday announcing that the country would no longer be collaborating with USAID, a US agency for International development.

The Ministry for International Development (SETECI) released a statement explaining the decision to cut ties with USAID. “The last bilateral cooperation programme between Ecuador and the US was signed in 2007 and the projects resulting from this collaboration are now finishing. Given that we have not negotiated a new a agreement, SETECI has informed USAID that they cannot carry out any new projects, nor extend the deadlines of projects currently underway.” The statement added that cooperation would remain suspended “until our governments negotiate and sign a new bilateral cooperation agreement”.

According to the SETECI, since 2007, USAID had invested a yearly average of US$32mn in initiatives in Ecuador, the majority of which were implemented by local and international NGOs. →

WATCH: A Message to Nature Conservancy & African Wildlife Foundation from Evicted Samburu

Samburu video testimonial: Nakuru Lemiruni sends a message to Nature Conservancy and African Wildlife Foundation

Just Conservation

May 21, 2013

Nakuru talks to Jo Woodman about her eviction from her home to make way for conservation. Video editing by Zoe Young.

The Samburu of Kisargei, in Kenya’s Laikipia district, were brutally evicted from the lands they call home after it was sold to the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF). AWF – with funds from The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and a private donor – says it bought the land on the understanding that no-one lived there. When the Samburu protested and took the matter to the courts the land was hurriedly ‘gifted’ to the government. Nakuru Lemiruni’s six children were all born in Kisargei and she says she ‘cannot think of any other land as home’. She wanted to send a message to AWF. This is it.

Police chose a Friday “market day” for their attack, when the men were away and only women, elders and children were in their homes. Fanning out across the 17,000- acre Eland Downs Ranch, police burned the Samburu families’ homes to the ground along with all their possessions. →

President Morales: Bolivia Won’t Tolerate Conspiracy by NGOs

Prensa Latina, La Paz,

Dec 2, 2013

Evo Morales ends 2013 with an approval rating of 60 percent

President Evo Morales said today that as a matter of dignity, his government will not allow any conspiracies by nongovernmental organizations accredited here. “As a matter of dignity of the Bolivian people, we will not allow any NGO to use its funds to plot against democracy and the national government,” said Morales.

Morales told journalists that the Bolivian people have the constitutional right to do politics, but not to plot with foreign capital.

“But some ONGs come here to conspire, funding opponents who come and treat us as if we were uneducated, looking down on us as any master or empire would do, and this is will not be permitted,” he said.

Morales also described as positive the work carried out by some NGOs that contribute and coordinate their efforts with municipal governments and mayors to promote social development. That kind of cooperation is guaranteed by his government, he said.

On Friday, Minister of the Presidency Juan Ramon Quintana announced the expulsion of the Danish NGO Ibis for promoting division within Bolivian social organizations.

“Ibis must leave Bolivia because we were able to prove its political interference and intolerable behaviour aimed at influencing social organizations to divide them and trigger clashes among the people,” Quintana said at a press conference.

Statement of Solidarity with the Mi’kmaq Warriors

Warrior Publications

by Zig Zag

Dec 2, 2013

Since the spring of 2013, the Mi’kmaq, along with Native and non-Native allies, have been resisting exploratory testing by SWN Resources Canada in New Brunswick. SWN, a Houston, Texas-based company, is searching for deposits of natural gas in shale rock formations. If they are successful and find significant deposits, they will then attempt to extract this gas using the process of fracking. →

Owen Jones & Mother Agnes. A Lesson on Conciliatory “Leftists”.

notthemsmdotcom

Nov 17, 2013

by Phil Greaves

Following the news that Mother Agnes Miriam, a nun who heads the Musalaha (reconciliation) initiative in Syria, was due to speak at the Stop The War conference in London, two journalists also due to speak at the event, Jeremy Scahill and Owen Jones, decided to withdraw participation unless Mother Agnes was removed from the speaking list. At the time of writing, neither “journalist” has offered to explain their act of public censure and decision to bolster Zionist-led smear campaigns; aside from a few tweets expressing their “concern” over sharing a platform with an evil Assad-supporting nun. It seems baseless conspiracy theories are more than acceptable in the higher echelons of “professional” journalism, as long as the target of said conspiracy is a supporter of an enemy state of the west and Israel. →

Libya’s Hell, Enabled by Canadian Humanitarians

Why ‘responsibility to protect’ is proving irresponsible.

The Tyee

Nov 25, 2013

By Murray Dobbin

Who will protect Libyans now? One of the darkest and most shameful chapters in Western military intervention continues to play out in spades in Libya. The latest news comes from Benghazi where one of the (literally hundreds) of murderous militias opened fire on peaceful, white-flag-bearing protesters (protesting militias), killing at least 20 and wounding over 130. And they didn’t use just small arms — it was rocket propelled grenades, machine guns and even an anti-aircraft gun. It was, even for a horribly violent context, a disgusting slaughter of innocents.

But we hear nothing from the international choir, led here by Lloyd Axworthy, which sang the “responsibility to protect” (R2P) hymn at the top of their lungs two years ago. The R2P, established by the UN in 2005, has lofty principles but in practice has been used as an excuse for any brutal assault on sovereign nations that serves the capitalist interests of the first world. Responsibility to protect states that sovereignty is not a right, but rests on the responsibility of governments to protect their populations. It is triggered by evidence of any one of four “mass atrocity” crimes: war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

None of these, of course, prevailed at the time of the Security Council’s vote in favour of establishing a “no fly” zone to protect civilians from Gadhafi’s fighter jets. But China and Russia abstained because of Western promises of going no further. That, of course, was a Big Lie as the real purpose soon revealed itself and regime change became the end game. When the country could have managed a ceasefire, NATO and Canada declared that could only happen if Gadhafi was gone in complete violation of Resolution 1973. And Canada happened to choose this particular conflict to invest heavily in — both morally and in material support. Stephen Harper made a huge show of our bombing efforts (over 1000 sorties) and boasted that Canada was “punching above its weight.”

Reckless and cynical

What is so infuriating in the history of this hideous “mission” is the complete lack of remorse or shame at what has been “accomplished.” Just like Iraq and Afghanistan, there are no regrets: Imperialism — especially “humanitarian imperialism” — will never admit to its crimes. But it can’t deny the facts, and for citizens attracted to the notion of “responsibility to protect,” the facts are important so that the next time this convenient principle is trotted out there will be more skepticism.

The key facts? There was no “mass rape” ordered by Gadhafi, a claim repeated many times by Hillary Clinton (and eventually refuted by Amnesty International, the UN and even the U.S. Army). There was no bombing of protesters (a fact admitted to by the CIA’s Robert Gates). There was no plan for a “massacre” in Benghazi. Gadhafi offered amnesty to any insurgents who laid down their arms — in contrast the “no mercy” theme played by the Western powers. All of these facts are to be found in Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO’s War on Libya and Africa by Maximilian Forte. →

New Publication [Free Download]: Capitalism Must Die!

Ashort book of very simple, basic, accessible revolutionary theory with text, illustrations & comics: how capitalism works, why it’s evil, how to crush it. — Comic – Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States

A message from author/illustrator Stephanie McMillan:

 A couple days ago, after 3 years of working on it, and 8 months after the Indiegogo campaign, I finally finished the ebook version of “Capitalism Must Die!”

 

Here it is: https://gumroad.com/l/hOGG

 

Please share it freely — I want it to be widely distributed and contribute to the fight against capitalism, so I’ve made it “pay anything or nothing” and used a Creative Commons license. I hope it is useful as an organizing tool. We really need to bring the system down, or all could soon be lost.

 
Thanks to your generous support, the print version should be available by the end of the year or so. I really appreciate that you helped me get this out into the world — thank you!

 

http://youtu.be/rMq8cAtdSyE

[Stephanie McMillan creates the award-winning editorial cartoon Code Green and the syndicated comic strip Minimum Security. Her cartoons have appeared in hundreds of publications worldwide including the Los Angeles Times, Daily Beast, Yes! Magazine, Z Magazine, Funny Times, San Francisco Bay Guardian, and The Occupied Wall Street Journal.]

Economic Lessons From the Most Unlikely Country – Eritrea

“Very rational and analytic article. But I doubt if you are going to be heard by fellow African heads. Because, the majority of African leaders are too busy doing their homework (prescribed to them by Westerners and their stooges in Addis Ababa) to demonize the “bad good example”, the sister country of Eritrea.” – Sophia Testamariamm, analyst, writer

OWACHGIUD

October 26, 2013

Image: http://www.raimoq.com/eritrean-independence-day-is-african-liberation-day/

The recent drought and resultant famine that hit the horn of African countries has brought back Eritrea to the spotlight, with analysts saying Eritrea too is suffering silently, though Eritrea’s former Marxist rebel leader and current president Isaias Afwerki still maintains he is not ready to lead another “spoon fed” African country that relies on foreign aid as remedies to internal shortages. Eritrea is doing something unheard of in Africa – it is turning away millions of dollars in aid, including food donations from the World Food Programme. The poor country turned down offers of more than $200 million in aid from ‘hypocrite western donors’ last year alone. →

On Anger, “Love Voices”, and “Divisiveness” In Their Environmental Movement

greencircleas

October 27, 2013

by Kat Stevens

Notes:

I do not speak for every non-white person, nor am I attempting to. I speak from my experiences, the experiences of my loved ones, and through personal analysis of white supremacy, systemic racism, and intersectionality.

I do not equate being an indigenous person of this continent with being a person of color who is present in “America” for other reasons, even those whose ancestors have been forcibly brought here. Being a person of color or even an indigenous person from another continent does not negate the fact that we (now I speak as a POC settler myself) are living, breathing, and struggling on stolen and occupied native lands. I don’t know the best language to use. When I say “POC/indigenous,” I mean racialized peoples, including people of multiple ethnic and racial identities which may include white. I explicitly encourage us to begin to create our own understandings and language around these concepts.    →

Reflections On Power Shift 2013: An Impromptu Interview

Groundwork for Praxis

October 27, 2013

See Also: “Are Mainstream Environmental Groups Keeping Racism Alive?” By Kat Stevens.

*Notes Via Kat Stevens: “This piece originally appeared as part of a series called, “Millenials Take On Climate Change” on the website, Policy Mic. The title I had wanted to go with for this piece was, “How  Big Green NGOs Are Harming the Environmental Movement”. Only 800 words were allowed. Policy Mic asked me to become a regular contributor after this piece but I declined once they repeatedly told me that a piece featuring an interview with a frontline indigenous organizer fighting tar sands pipelines wasn’t relevant for their readers.”