US Trojan Horses in Venezuela

Nil NIKANDROV | 20.02.2012

Strategic Culture Foundation

Several days ago, representatives of 55 Venezuelan NGOs called the international community to rise to the defense of democracy in the country at a media event in Miami, charging Hugo Chavez with threatening democracy, neglecting human rights, and igniting a civilian conflict in Venezuela. The participants of the event pledged that the campaign built around the demand to put the Venezuelan leader on trial would continue in order to keep Chavez’s regime under permanent pressure, and its coordinator Carlos Fernandez announced that an appeal had been supplied to the Hague Tribunal to make Chavez face justice over nothing less than alleged crimes against humanity. At the moment, the key lines on the Venezuelan opposition’s grievances list are company nationalizations, the looming closure of the anti-Chavez Globovision TV channel, attempts to introduce Marxist instruction in Venezuelan schools, and crackdowns on the opponents of the current Venezuelan regime. Fernandez, who had been on the radical fringe during the 2002 outbreak of anti-government protests in Venezuela, urged the international community to act immediately and warned that failure to do so would result in the entrenchment of a militarist, Castro-communist regime in Venezuela for years. He also confided to the audience that an investigator was dispatched by the Hague Tribunal to Columbia to examine the files on the notebooks which belonged to slain FARC secretariat member and spokesman Raúl Reyes. Chavez would eventually face justice for his FARC connections, claimed Fernandez.

NGOs mushroomed in Venezuela after Chavez’s 1998 electoral triumph, and at the moment their number estimatedly reaches several hundreds. Back in 1998, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) enjoyed unlimited freedom of maneuver in the country and made full use of it to expand the influence of the US intelligence community over the Venezuelan society. The correspondence of the US embassy in Caracas, unveiled by WikiLeaks, left no doubts that the US Department of State, the CIA, the US Defense Intelligence Agency, and DEA had been taking advantage of the situation to make inroads into Venezuela.

Washington had to learn as the 2002 anti-Chavez coup collapsed that the Venezuelan leader was a serious opponent who would not crack under pressure and at all times remained a clever strategist. Chavez managed to handle successfully the recurrent conflicts with the Empire, while staunchly upholding his socialist project domestically and building ever stronger positions internationally. Given Chavez’s record which includes oil sector nationalization and the expulsion of the fifth column from the petroleum industry, the removal of conspiracy-prone officers from the army top command, and nationally oriented socioeconomic reforms, plans for his ouster in a violent putsch obviously stand no chance, and Washington therefore has to place its bet on a color revolution in Venezuela. This type of revolt in the country does not seem altogether impossible as the support for the opposition in Venezuela typically measures around 35% and the Venezuelan middle class, students, and intellectual circles for the most part do not favor Chavez. These are the communities currently comprising the audience of the Venezuelan NGOs and receiving from them perks in the forms of grants, travel support, and costly gadgets.  Color revolution champions are trained in Venezuela based on movies featuring the corresponding episodes from the recent East European history. As in Cuba, the white color is chosen as the hallmark of the Venezuelan protesters. What Venezuela’s NGOs must pretend to be oblivious to are Chavez’s achievements in fighting poverty, strengthening the national economy, and boosting the amounts of welfare for the population.

Naturally, Venezuela’s young are the NGOs’ main target audience. Student attack groups played the central role in the clashes between protesters and police in Venezuela in May, 2007 when the government revoked the license of the RCTV channel (the step was taken in connection with the fact that the RCTV broadcasting contract expired by the time). Chavez described the unrest as an attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan government and called the residents of low-income urban quarters and villages to resist what he termed a fascist offensive. In response, Andrés Bello Catholic University student leader John Goicoechea said that Chavez’ drumming up support among the more radical part of his constituency who were supposed to confront the violence-prone students was an irresponsible policy. Shortly thereafter, Venezuela’s state-run 8th TV channel demonstrated Goicoechea’s phone book with the US embassy phone and that of the US diplomat who worked with students. Goicoechea later stepped out of the spotlight, but there is surely still a place for him as a skilled color revolution activist in the CIA plans and we will see him stage a comeback. The US program of entraining students from affluent Venezuelan families stays on-line, though the tricks with white shorts, white paint on palms, etc. reflect a rather unimaginative attempt to replay past success stories.

NGOs like Provea, Cofavic, Centro de Derechos Humanos (in the Catholic University) Una Ventana a la Libertad, and Sinergia occupy the human rights advocacy niche. According to Chavez and his supporters, the groups, along with the opposition media, deliberately draw a distorted picture of what is happening in Venezuela, hammering just about every aspect of the country’s life, be it the situation within the army, the struggle against crime, the detention conditions, the workers’ employment terms, the environment, the Indian problems, etc. Activists from the above NGOs were spotted a number of times during transactions with CIA operatives who supply to them instructions and funds. The NGOs submit to the CIA lists of candidates for admission to courses teaching “self-defense” under the conditions of “instability”, which evidently means a provoked crisis.

The legitimacy of Venezuela’s electoral procedure is being permanently challenged. US puppeteers who used to say that Chavez had employed the national electoral council for ballot-rigging were instrumental in forming the NGO known as Sumate. María Corina Machado, a defeated candidate in the 2002 presidential race, headed Sumate in 2002. Predictably, she called into question the outcomes of essentially all elections and referendums in Venezuela, for example, that of the 2004 referendum in which Chavez smashingly won 60% of the vote. The image of Sumate suffered a heavy blow when it transpired that money – occasionally, tens of millions of US dollars – was fed to the group on a regular basis by NED. Chavez accused Sumate of conspiracy in the wake of the revelations. Machado personally met with US President G. Bush at the peak of her career, but her prestige was irreversibly eroded. In 2005, the Venezuelan office of the general prosecutor charged Sumate with exerting pressure on the authority and receiving funds from an organization controlled by the US Congress, but the case, after a series of re-openings, finally stalled in court.

The activity of NGOs in Venezuela continued completely unchecked over the first decade of Chavez’s rule, while the police and counter-espionage agency were constantly discovering that the confidants of the US and other Western countries in Venezuelan NGOs collected information of military importance across the country or surveyed its regions bordering Columbia, Brazil, and Guyana. It should also be noted that foreign intelligence services are keenly interested in Venezuela’s Amazonia, and environment-protection NGO activists are spying in the parts of the country formerly frequented by US preachers from the New Tribes Mission. Some 30 secret aerodromes in the zone of their activity were used to illegally carry out Venezuelan gold, diamonds, precious metals, and, according to several accounts, uranium. The latter circumstance may be paradoxically related to the concerns voiced by Bush’s and Obama’s Administrations over Venezuela’s allegedly existing secret uranium mines with Iranian workers on staff.

An end was put to the untamed activity of NGOs – the US Trojan Horses in Venezuela – in December, 2010 when the parliament of the country passed a law on the protection of political sovereignty and national self-determination. The legislation was backed by the ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV) and predictably met with resistance mounted by the opposition which actually thrives on foreign donations. By the law, groups are subject to sanctions for drawing money from abroad with the aims of destabilizing Venezuela or undermining the present authority. If caught red-handed, NGO activists would have to pay in fines twice the amount received from other countries or even face the loss of political rights for 5-8 years. Moreover, fines and deportation now await foreign nationals involved in funding subversive NGO activities in Venezuela.

With the financial transparency regulations for NGOs now in place, there is hope that the level of corruption in Venezuela’s politics will visibly go down, but it should be realized that the channels via which NED, USAID and their like pour millions of dollars into the country have not been fully severed. As noted by Eva Golinger, a person extremely knowledgeable about CIA operations against Venezuela, the easiest way to smuggle currency into the country is to have it delivered by diplomatic mail.

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2012/02/20/us-trojan-horses-in-venezuela.html

 

 

How to Start a (Wall Street-backed) Revolution

Documentary Whitewashes Wall Street’s Global Blitzkrieg

by Tony Cartalucci

November 26, 2011 – Gene Sharp of the Albert Einstein Institution penned the book “From Dictatorship to Democracy,” originally designated for the destabilization and recolonization of Myanmar, still called “Burma” throughout much of the West. Sharp’s book would then be utilized by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) throughout Eastern Europe, throughout Asia, and eventually, in 2011, for the US-engineered “Arab Spring.”

According to Sharp’s own Albert Einstein Institution (AEI) 2000-2004 annual report, AEI had been sponsored by the US government’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its funded subsidiary International Republican Institute (IRI) to train activists in Serbia (page 18) Zimbabwe (page 23) and Myanmar (page 26) to help overthrow their respective sovereign governments.

Australia’s Southern Cross University’s “Activating Human Rights & Peace (AHRP)” conference had put out a revealing account of their 2008 proceedings illustrating that all of Gene Sharp’s work, beyond what was even mentioned in his own institution’s annual report, had been fully funded and in support of the US government and its global domineering agenda. Beginning on page 26, Sharp’s affiliations, in particular with the National Endowment for Democracy, which is described as carrying out “a lot of work that was formerly undertaken by the CIA,” as well as the Ford Foundation, and billionaire Wall Street patriarch George Soros’ Open Society Institute are fleshed out in immense detail. →

FLASHBACK: CIA’s NGOs – the ABC of US Foreign Policy

Uploaded by RussiaToday on Jan 23, 2011

Russian opposition leaders and human rights activists pleaded with top US officials to support their plans for political and social change, but the request was apparently given short-shrift by Washington. Russia’s Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, which obtained fresh files from WikiLeaks, reports that the group was consistently critical of the Kremlin and wanted American help for reform.

Those demands were voiced on a visit to Moscow by Michael McFaul, Special Assistant to The President for National Security Affairs, who met with opposition leaders at the residence of the American envoy to Russia in Moscow. According to the reports, the opposition said: “Washington should pay more attention to significant incidents related to freedom of assembly in Russia. To solve problems in Russia’s civic society, parties should sit down at the negotiation table — both Russian and US governments, and representatives from NGOs.” The US response was, “It is up to Russian activists to build up their relations with their administration, without relying on America.”

Michel Chossudovsky from the Center for Research on Globalization said it is no surprise that Russian opposition parties come knocking on the door of the US embassy.

http://youtu.be/zJsH_TiIsVs

 

Burmese “Pro-Democracy” Movement – A Creation of Wall Street & London

Celebrated “Humanitarian” Aung San Suu Kyi Fully-Funded by Absolute Worst of Humanity

Friday, November 18, 2011

by Tony Cartalucci

Photo: Soros-funded Mizzima proudly reports Burmese “pro-democracy” leader Aung San Suu Kyi phoning-in to the 2011 “Liberal-Progressive” Clinton Global Initiative confab, fully-funded by big-oil, big-banks, and other elements of the corporate-fascist Wall Street-London combine.

….

November 19, 2011 – No lie told by the corporate-fascist controlled media, no carefully crafted narrative they’ve created comes anywhere close to being as deceitful or as misleading as the one they’ve conjured up for Burma’s celebrated “humanitarian” and “pro-democracy icon” Aung San Suu Kyi. Holding the same meaningless Nobel Peace Prize as warmongering Wall Street puppet President Barack Obama, and featured in some of the most softly lit photography found throughout the Fortune 500 press houses, Suu Kyi has been granted an almost saint-like demeanor. She is portrayed as the softly-spoken leader of Burma’s “pro-democracy” movement, single-handedly standing up against the military-led government of the Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar, also known by its British imperial label of Burma.

Image: The 2006 Burma Campaign UK report, “Failing the People of Burma?” (.pdf) reveals the entire “pro-democracy” movement, including Aung San Suu Kyi herself, is a product of US and British funding and the building of neo-imperial networks designed to overthrow and replace the government of Burma.

….

In reality, no one single-handedly does anything, and the tale of how Suu Kyi’s movement has come into existence, funds itself, and expands its influence throughout Burmese politics is one that surely mismatches the saintly image she is meant to project.

However, none of this should come as a surprise. Why would the corporate-media, who has lied to the world to grant the West the green light to mass-murder over a million Iraqis based on a verified pack of lies, and backing a stable of disingenuous servants of the West, masquerading as “pro-democracy” leaders, all the sudden be backing the real deal? A 2006 36-page document out of the “Burma Campaign UK” explicitly details the enormous amount of money and resources both the US government and its corporate-funded foundations have poured into Suu Kyi’s image and her “movement.” It also details the complicity of then Thai Prime Minster and verified Wall Street-stooge Thaksin Shinwatra’s government in aiding the West in their Burmese agenda.

The most telling information begins on page 14 of 36 of the report’s .pdf. Titled, “Failing the People of Burma?” the report enumerates the vast resources the West has invested in building a “pro-democracy” movement, in tandem with similar disingenuous movements throughout the region, and indeed throughout the world, and insists that even more support be given to initiate a “transition” in Burma. It states:

“The restoration of democracy in Burma is a priority U.S. policy objective in Southeast Asia. To achieve this objective, the United States has consistently supported democracy activists and their efforts both inside and outside Burma…Addressing these needs requires flexibility and creativity. Despite the challenges that have arisen, United States Embassies Rangoon and Bangkok as well as Consulate General Chiang Mai are fully engaged in pro-democracy efforts. The United States also supports organizations, such as the National Endowment for Democracy, the Open Society Institute (nb no support given since 2004) and Internews, working inside and outside the region on a broad range of democracy promotion activities. U.S.-based broadcasters supply news and information to the Burmese people, who lack a free press. U.S. programs also fund scholarships for Burmese who represent the future of Burma.

The United States is committed to working for a democratic Burma and will continue to employ a variety of tools to assist democracy activists.”

The report then continues detailing the specifics of each organization mentioned, including the National Endowment for Democracy:

“The National Endowment for Democracy (NED – see Appendix 1, page 27) has been at the forefront of our program efforts to promote democracy and improved human rights in Burma since 1996. We are providing $2,500,000 in FY 2003 funding from the Burma earmark in the Foreign Operations legislation. The NED will use these funds to support Burmese and ethnic minority democracy-promoting organizations through a sub-grant program. The projects funded are designed to disseminate information inside Burma supportive of Burma’s democratic development, to create democratic infrastructures and institutions, to improve the collection of information on human rights abuses by the Burmese military and to build capacity to support the restoration of democracy when the appropriate political openings occur and the exiles/refugees return.”

NED is cited as behind the creation of the New Era Journal, the Irrawaddy, and the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) radio, all posing, just as the recently exposed Thai-US propaganda front, Prachatai, as “independent” media sources despite the fact they are in reality fully-funded by the US government.

The role of US State Department-run Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Voice of America (VOA) is also discussed in detail, including the revelation that US foreign policy specifically supports and actively promotes Aung San Suu Kyi and “her” agenda.

“Both Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) have Burmese services. VOA broadcasts a 30-minute mix of international news and information three times a day. RFA broadcasts news and information about Burma two hours a day. VOA and RFA websites also contain audio and text material in Burmese and English. For example, VOA’s October 10, 2003 editorial, “Release Aung San Suu Kyi” is prominently featured in the Burmese section of VOAnews.com. RFA’s website makes available audio versions of 16 Aung San Suu Kyi’s speeches from May 27 and 29, 2003. U.S. international broadcasting provides crucial information to a population denied the benefits of freedom of information by its government.”

The US also pours vast resources into organizations affiliated with Aung San Suu Kyi, including “Prospect Burma,” a London-based Soros-funded organization:

“The State Department provided $150,000 in FY 2001/02 funds to provide scholarships to young Burmese through Prospect Burma, a partner organization with close ties to Aung San Suu Kyi. With FY 2003/04 funds, we plan to support Prospect Burma’s work given the organization’s proven competence in managing scholarships for individuals denied educational opportunities by the continued repression of the military junta, but committed to a return to democracy in Burma.”

Of course, billionaire-bankster and geopolitical meddler George Soros not only funds and coordinates with the above mentioned “Prospect Burma” organization, but also directly funds activities through his “Open Society Institute” literally training an army of subversion meant to return to Burma and overthrow the government:

“Our assistance to the Open Society Institute (OSI) (until 2004) provides partial support for a program to grant scholarships to Burmese refugee students who have fled Burma and wish to continue their studies at the undergraduate, or post-graduate level. Students typically pursue degrees in social sciences, public health, medicine, anthropology, and political science. Priority is given to students who express a willingness to return to Burma or work in their refugee communities for the democratic and economic reform of the country.”

Throughout the period covered in the “Burma Campaign UK” report, includes a description of then Thaksin Shinawtra’s government and its support of Western activities to subvert the government of neighboring Burma. The Thai Ministry of Public Health, also implicated in grants to the US propaganda front, Prachatai, is mentioned specifically:

“Last year the U.S. government began funding a new program of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to provide basic health services to Burmese migrants outside the official refugee camps in cooperation with the Thai Ministry of Public Health. This project has been supported by the Thai government and has received favorable coverage in the local press. Efforts such as this that endeavor to find positive ways to work with the Thai government in areas of common interest help build support for U.S.-funded programs that support Burmese pro-democracy groups.”

While many may be tempted to claim that such work is humanitarian in nature, it is mentioned several times that the actual goal of dolling out scholarships and other aid is specifically to create a pro-Western bloc meant to overthrow the anti-West regime in Burma. With names like “National Endowment for Democracy” people are meant to believe that a benign, benevolent agenda is being carried out that is in the best interest of all involved. In reality, the National Endowment for Democracy is packed wall-to-wall with corporate-fascist interests, warmongering elitists, and confessed imperialists.

NED & Freedom House are run by Warmongering Imperialists

The National Endowment for Democracy, despite the lofty mission statement articulated on its website, is nothing more than a tool for executing American foreign policy. Just as the military is used under the cover of lies regarding WMD’s and “terrorism,” NED is employed under the cover of bringing “democracy” to “oppressed” people. However, a thorough look at NED’s board of directors, as well as the board of trustees of its subsidiary, Freedom House, definitively lays to rest any doubts that may be lingering over the true nature of these organizations and the causes they support.

Upon NED’s board of directors we first find John Bohn who traded petrochemicals, was an international banker for 13 years with Wells Fargo, and is currently serving as a principal for a global advisory and consulting firm, GlobalNet Partners, which assists foreign businesses by making their “entry into the complex China market easy.” Surely Bohn’s ability to manipulate China’s political landscape through NED’s various activities both inside of China and along its peripheries constitutes an alarming conflict of interest. However, it appears “conflict of interest” is a reoccurring theme throughout both NED and Freedom House.

Bohn is joined by Rita DiMartino who worked for Council on Foreign Relations corporate member AT&T as “Vice President of Congressional Relations” as well as a member of the CFR herself. Also representing the Fortune 500 is Kenneth Duberstein, a board member of the war profiteering Boeing Company, big oil’s ConocoPhillips, and the Mack-Cali Realty Corporation. Duberstein also served as a director of Fannie Mae until 2007. He too is a CFR member as are two of the companies he chairs, Boeing and ConocoPhillips.

We then consider several of the certified warmongers serving upon NED’s board of directors including Francis Fukuyama, Zalmay Khalilzad, Will Marshall, and Vin Weber, all signatories of the pro-war, pro-corporate Project for a New American Century. Within the pages of documents produced by this “think tank” are pleas to various US presidents to pursue war against sovereign nations, the increase of troops in nations already occupied by US forces, and what equates to a call for American global hegemony in a Hitlerian 90 page document titled “Rebuilding Americas Defenses.” As we will see, this warmongering think tank serves as a nexus around which fellow disingenuous rights advocate Freedom House also gravitates.

The “Statement of Principles,” signed off by NED chairmen Francis Fukuyama, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Vin Weber, states, “we need to accept responsibility for America’s unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.” Of course by “international order” they mean meddling beyond the sovereign borders of the United States and is merely used as a euphemism for global imperialism. Other Neo-Con that signed their name to this statement include Freedom House’s Paula Dobriansky, Dan Quayle (formally), and Donald Rumsfeld (formally), along with Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Eliot Cohen, and Elliot Abrams.

A PNAC “Statment on Post-War Iraq” regarding a wholehearted endorsement of nation-building features the signatures of NED chairman Will Marshall, Freedom House’s Frank Carlucci (2002), and James Woolsey (formally), along with Martin Indyk (Lowy Institute board member, co-author of the conspiring “Which Path to Persia?” report), and William Kristol and Robert Kagan both of the warmongering Foreign Policy Initiative. It should be noted that the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) is, for all intents and purposes, PNAC’s latest incarnation and just recently featured an open letter to House Republicans calling on them to disregard the will of the American people and continue pursuing the war in Libya. The FPI letter even suggests that the UN resolution authorizing the war in the first place, was holding America “hostage” and that it should be exceeded in order to do more to “help the Libyan opposition.”

An untitled PNAC letter addressed to then US President George Bush regarding a general call for global warmongering received the seal of approval from Freedom Houses’ Ellen Bork (2007), Ken Adelman (also former lobbyist for Thailand’s Thaksin Shinawatra via Edelman), and James Woolsey (formally), along with Neo-Con degenerates Richard Perle, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and the always disingenuous demagogue Daniel Pipes.

It is safe to say that neither NED nor Freedom House garners within its ranks characters appropriate for their alleged cause of “supporting freedom around the world.” It is also safe to say that the principles of “democracy,” “freedom,” and “human rights” they allegedly champion for, are merely being leveraged to co-opt well meaning people across the world to carry out their own self-serving agenda.

The “Aung San Suu Kyi Deception”

Aung San Suu Kyi has been leading the Burmese “pro-democracy” opposition for over a decade and has garnered support from every globalist cadre, think-tank, and organization imaginable. In addition to the now fully discredited Nobel Peace Prize, she was also a finalist in the Chatham House Prize 2011, and not surprisingly a benefactor of corporate-funded, duplicitous “pro-bono” legal service Freedom Now. Aung San Suu Kyi herself, was born into an immensely wealthy and politically well connected family. She studied abroad, worked for the UN in New York City, and received a Ph.D from the University of London before returning to Burma to lead the “pro-democracy” movement. Whatever her convictions may really be, the West has fully hijacked her movement as a means of removing the current military junta and replacing it with one more conducive to their corporate agenda, which most assuredly has nothing to do with “democracy for the people.”

Knowingly or unknowingly serving the globalist agenda since 1972, Aung San Suu Kyi now leads the Western- backed opposition bidding to oust Myanmar’s ruling regime.

….

In 2007 there was the so-called “Saffron Revolution,” made a spectacle by the corporate-owned media, but gained little ground. Similar “uprisings” have been attempted, and more are on the way. The army of subversive “scholars” the US and its corporate-funded foundations is raising will continue to grow until it reaches the critical mass necessary to destabilize and overthrow the government in Burma.

Quite obviously, Suu Kyi is well aware of her organization and movement’s finances and that she owes her entire existence to the United States, the United Kingdom, and ultimately the corporate-fascist financiers of Wall Street and London. Just as deposed autocrat and Wall Street stooge Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand attempts to portray himself as an icon of regional democracy and progress, so too does Suu Kyi, albeit many times more convincingly.

The aura of saintliness built up around Suu Kyi has made it almost sacrilege to speak anything disparaging of her, even if it is backed up by a 36-page document spelling out her extensive ties to the most degenerate mass-murdering megalomaniacs ever to walk the planet. Despite many of her defenders being proponents of “free speech,” they quickly abandon their moral convictions when their leader is criticized. It is indeed possible that many of these people actually do believe that Wall Street and London can fund her millions of dollars and built entire networks for her with the expressed goal of subverting a sovereign nation’s government, and her intentions to still be pure and progressive. It is also likely that people truly believe, despite being habitually lied to by the corporate media, that this time they are finally telling the truth about a woman standing up against all the corporate-media represents and promotes.

In reality, Suu Kyi is the centerpiece of an expensive, long-running propaganda campaign, that if exposed and derailed would knock out the teeth of Wall Street and London’s Southeast Asian designs and undermine their agenda globally. With the above information in mind, stories coming out of Burma may make more sense to those seeking the truth, even if it means having to come to terms over the reality of an endearing public figure. One must ask themselves, what is more important – continuing to believe in the discredited Suu Kyi, or finding someone, or even becoming someone who truly stands for all that she disingenuously pretends to promote?

Update: November 20, 2011 – As previously reported, the current Thai government “led” by PM Yingluck Shinawatra (Thaksin Shinawatra’s sister) has recently received a very public seal of approval from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This support has now been fully reciprocated, as Yingluck and Thai Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul (Thaksin’s cousin through marriage) pledged full support for the US agenda throughout Asia including a nuclear non-proliferation act opposed by China and the sovereignty-crushing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) economic integration.

Yingluck has also pledged support for US designs toward Burma, ahead of Secretary Clinton’s visit with the above mentioned US-funded “humanitarian icon” Aung San Suu Kyi. Previously, during Thaksin’s regime, Thailand, and in particular, the northern city of Chiang Mai, played a pivotal role hosting US corporate-funded “NGOs” working to foment sedition, unrest, and attempted regime change in neighboring Burma.

The Nation reports:

“Beside bilateral affairs, Yingluck and Obama discussed political developments in neighboring Burma, as the US wants to see Thailand play the role of a coordinator to help Burma carry out reforms towards democracy and national reconciliation.

Thailand was ready to do the job and ensured the US that the country would continue providing shelter for refugees from Burma on a humanitarian basis and would prepare them to be ready if they wanted to return to their homeland some day, Surapong said.”

This confirms that just as it was when the “Burma Campaign UK” wrote their 2006 report, which cited Thaksin’s government’s full support for regime change in Burma, Thailand under the “leadership” of Thaksin’s sister Yingluck is once again ready to participate in regional meddling and with fomenting sedition not only in Thailand against nationalist elements but in neighboring nations as well.

Please also see Nile Bowie’s Myanmar: Fertile Ground for Washington Sponsored Revolution

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2011/11/burmese-pro-democracy-movement-creation.html

Occupy Wall Street and “The American Autumn”: Is It a “Colored Revolution”?

Part I

by Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, October 13, 2011

There is a grassroots protest movement unfolding across America, which includes people from all walks of life, from all age groups, conscious of the need for social change and committed to reversing the tide.

The grassroots of this movement constitutes a response to the "Wall Street agenda" of financial fraud and manipulation which has served to trigger unemployment and poverty across the land.

Does this movement constitute in its present form an instrument of meaningful reform and social change in America?

What is the organizational structure of the movement? Who are its main architects?

Has the movement or segments within this movement been co-opted?

This is an important question, which must be addressed by those who are part of the Occupy Wall Street Movement as well as those who, across America, support real democracy.

Introduction

Historically, progressive social movements have been infiltrated, their leaders co-opted and manipulated, through the corporate funding of non-governmental organizations, trade unions and political parties. The ultimate purpose of "funding dissent" is to prevent the protest movement from challenging the legitimacy of the economic elites:

"In a bitter irony, part of the fraudulent financial gains on Wall Street in recent years have been recycled to the elites’ tax exempt foundations and charities. These windfall financial gains have not only been used to buy out politicians, they have also been channelled to NGOs, research institutes, community centres, church groups, environmentalists, alternative media, human rights groups, etc.

The inner objective is to "manufacture dissent" and establish the boundaries of a "politically correct" opposition. In turn, many NGOs are infiltrated by informants often acting on behalf of western intelligence agencies. Moreover, an increasingly large segment of the progressive alternative news media on the internet has become dependent on funding from corporate foundations and charities.

The objective of the corporate elites has been to fragment the people’s movement into a vast "do it yourself" mosaic." (See Michel Chossudovsky, Manufacturing Dissent: the Anti-globalization Movement is Funded by the Corporate Elites, Global Research, September 20, 2010)

"Manufacturing Dissent"

At the same time, "manufactured dissent" is intent upon promoting political and social divisions (e.g. within and between political parties and social movements). In turn, it encourages the creation of factions within each and every organization.

With regard to the anti-globalization movement, this process of division and fragmentation dates back to the early days of the World Social Forum. (See Michel Chossudovsky, Manufacturing Dissent: The Anti-globalization Movement is Funded by the Corporate Elites, Global Research, September 20, 2010)

Most of the progressive organizations of the post-World War II period, including the European "Left" have, in the course of the last thirty years, been transformed and remoulded. The "Free Market" system (Neoliberalism) is the consensus of the "Left". This applies, among others, to the Socialist Party in France, the Labour Party in Britain, the Social Democrats in Germany, not to mention the Green Party in France and Germany.

In the US, bi-partisanship is not the result of the interplay of Congressional party politics. A handful of powerful corporate lobby groups control both the Republicans and the Democrats. The "bi-partisan consensus" is established by the elites who operate behind the scenes. It is enforced by the main corporate lobby groups, which exert a stranglehold over both major political parties.

In turn, the leaders of the AFL-CIO have also been co-opted by the corporate establishment against the grassroots of the US labor movement.

The leaders of organized labor attend the annual meetings of the Davos World Economic Forum (WEF). They collaborate with the Business Roundtable. But at the same time, the grassroots of the US labor movement has sought to to carry out organizational changes which contribute to democratizing the leadership of individual trade unions.

The elites will promote a "ritual of dissent" with a high media profile, with the support of network TV, the corporate news as well as the internet.

The economic elites — which control major foundations — also oversee the funding of numerous civil society organizations, which historically have been involved in the protest movement against the established economic and social order. The programs of many NGOs (including those involved in the Occupy Wall Street Movement) rely heavily on funding from private foundations including the Ford, Rockefeller, MacArthur, Tides foundations, among others.

Historically, the anti-globalization movement which emerged in the 1990s has opposed Wall Street and the Texas oil giants controlled by Rockefeller, et al. Yet the foundations and charities of Rockefeller, Ford et al have, over the years, generously funded progressive anti-capitalist networks as well as environmentalists (opposed to Big Oil) with a view to ultimately overseeing and shaping their various activities.

"Colored Revolutions"

In the course of the last decade, "colored revolutions" have emerged in several countries. The "colored revolutions" are US intelligence ops which consist in covertly supporting protest movements with a view to triggering "regime change" under the banner of a pro-democracy movement.

"Colored revolutions" are supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, the International Republican Institute and Freedom House, among others. The objective of a "colored revolution" is to foment social unrest and use the protest movement to topple the existing government. The ultimate foreign policy goal is to instate a compliant pro-US government (or "puppet regime").

"The Arab Spring"

In Egypt’s "Arab Spring", the main civil society organizations including Kifaya (Enough) and The April 6 Youth Movement were not only supported by US based foundations, they also had the endorsement of the US State Department. (For details see Michel Chossudovsky, The Protest Movement in Egypt: "Dictators" do not Dictate, They Obey Orders, Global Research, January 29, 2011)

Egyptian dissidents, Fellows of Freedom House in Washington DC (2008)

"In a bitter irony, Washington supported the Mubarak dictatorship, including its atrocities, while also backing and financing its detractors,… Under the auspices of Freedom House, Egyptian dissidents and opponents of Hosni Mubarak (see above) were received in May 2008 by Condoleezza Rice … and White House National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley." (See Michel Chossudovsky, The Protest Movement in Egypt: "Dictators" do not Dictate, They Obey Orders, Global Research, January 29, 2011)

The following year (May 2009), a delegation of Egyptian dissidents was received by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (See below)

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks with "Egyptian activists promoting freedom and democracy", prior to meetings at the State Department in Washington, DC, May 28, 2009.
Compare the two pictures. Part of the 2008 delegation meeting Condoleeza Rice is part of the 2009 delegation meeting Hillary Clinton

OTPOR and the Centre for Applied Non Violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS)

Dissidents of Egypt’s April 6 Youth Movement, which, for several years, was in permanent liaison with the US Embassy in Cairo, were trained by Serbia’s Centre for Applied Non Violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), a consulting and training firm specializing in "Revolution" supported by FH and the NED.

CANVAS was established in 2003 by OTPOR, a CIA supported Serbian organization which played a central role in the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic in the wake of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.

Barely two months after the end of the 1999 bombings of Yugoslavia, OTPOR was spearheaded into playing a central role in the installation of a US-NATO sponsored "caretaker" government in Serbia. These developments also paved the way towards the secession of Montenegro from Yugoslavia, the establishment of the US Bondsteel military base and the eventual formation a Mafia State in Kosovo.

In August 1999, the CIA is reported to have set up a training program for OTPOR in Bulgaria’s capital Sofia:

"In the summer of 1999, the head of the CIA, George Tenet, set up shop in Sofia, Bulgaria to “educate” the Serb opposition. Last August. 28 [2000], the BBC confirmed that a special 10-day class had been given to the Otpor militants, also in Sofia.

The CIA program is a program in successive phases. Early on, they flatter the Serbs’ patriotism and spirit of independence, acting as if they respect these qualities. But after having sown confusion and broken the unity of the country, the CIA and NATO would go much further."

(Gerard Mugemangano and Michel Collon, "To be partly controlled by the CIA ? That doesn’t bother me much.", Interview with two activists of the Otpor student movement, International Action Center (IAC), To be partly controlled by the CIA ? October 6, 2000. See also "CIA is tutoring Serbian group, Otpor", The Monitor, Sofia, translated by Blagovesta Doncheva, Emperors Clothes, September 8, 2000 )

"The Revolution Business"

OTPOR’s Centre for Applied Non Violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) describes itself as "an International network of trainers and consultants" involved in the "Revolution Business". Funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), it constitutes a consulting outfit, advising and training US sponsored opposition groups in more than 40 countries.

OTPOR played a key role in Egypt.

Egypt Tahir Square: What appeared to be a spontaneous democratization process was a carefully planned intelligence operation. View video below.

Egypt. The Logo of the April 6 Movement

Egypt’s “April 6 Youth Movement,” the same fist logo, Source Infowars

Both the April 6 Movement and Kifaya (Enough!) received prior training from CANVAS in Belgrade "in the strategies of non-violent revolution". "According to Stratfor, The tactics used by the April 6 Movement and Kifaya "were straight out of CANVAS’s training curriculum." (Quoted in Tina Rosenberg, Revolution U, Foreign Policy, February 16, 2011 )

It is worth noting the similarity of the logos as well as the names involved in CANVAS-OTPOR sponsored "Colored Revolutions" The April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt used the clenched fist as its logo, Kifaya ("Enough!") has the same name as the Youth Protest movement supported by OTPOR in Georgia which was named Kmara! ("Enough!"). Both groups were trained by CANVAS.

Georgia’s Kmara ("Enough!")

The Role of CANVAS-OTPOR in the Occupy Wall Street Movement

CANVAS-OPTOR is currently involved in the Occupy Wall Street Movement (#OWS).

Several key organizations currently involved in The Occupy Wall Street (#OWS) movement played a significant role in "The Arab Spring". Of significance, "Anonymous", the social media "hacktivist" group, was involved in waging cyber-attacks on Egyptian government websites at the height of "The Arab Spring".(http://anonops.blogspot.com, see also http://anonnews.org/)

In May 2011, "Anonymous" waged cyberattacks on Iran and last August, it waged similar cyber-attacks directed against the Syrian Ministry Defense. These cyber-attacks were waged in support of the Syrian "opposition" in exile, which is largely integrated by Islamists. (See Syrian Ministry Of Defense Website Hacked By ‘Anonymous’, Huffington Post, August 8, 2011).

The actions of "Anonymous" in Syria and Iran are consistent with the framework of the "Colored Revolutions". They seek to demonize the political regime and create political instability. (For analysis on Syria’s Opposition, see Michel Chossudovsky, SYRIA: Who is Behind The Protest Movement? Fabricating a Pretext for a US-NATO "Humanitarian Intervention" Global Research, May 3, 2011)

Both CANVAS and Anonymous are now actively involved in the Occupy Wall Street Movement.

The precise role of CANVAS in the Occupy Wall Street Movement remains to be assessed.

Ivan Marovic, a leader of CANVAS recently addressed the Occupy Wall Street protest movement in New York City. Listen carefully to his speech. (Bear in mind that his organization CANVAS is supported by NED).

Click link below to listen to Ivan Marovic’s address to Occupy Wall Street in New York City

Ivan Marovic addresses Occupy Wall Street

Marovic acknowledged in an earlier statement that there is nothing spontaneous in the planning of a "revolutionary event":

"It looks like people just went into the street. But it’s the result of months or years of preparation. It is very boring until you reach a certain point, where you can organize mass demonstrations or strikes. If it is carefully planned, by the time they start, everything is over in a matter of weeks." (Quoted in Tina Rosenberg, Revolution U, Foreign Policy, February 16, 2011)

This statement by OTPOR’s spokesperson Ivan Marovic would suggest that the protest movements in the Arab World did not spread spontaneously from one country to another, as portrayed by the Western media. The national protest movements were planned well in advance. The chronology and sequencing of these national protest movements were also planned.

Similarly, Maravic’s statement also suggests that The Occupy Wall Street movement was also the object of careful advanced planning by a number of key organizations on tactics and strategy.

It is worth noting that one of OTPOR’s tactics is "not try to avoid arrests", but rather to "provoke them and use them to the movement’s advantage." as a PR strategy. (Ibid)

Occupy Wall Street Clenched Fist on http://occupywallst.org