Amy Goodman | ukwatch.net

No Bases for Empire

Tim Holmes — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:28:07 +0000

AMY GOODMAN: It sounds like a fast-food franchise—hundreds of locations spanning some 130 countries across the globe—but in fact, it’s perhaps the ultimate face of US hegemony: military bases. There are more than 700 US military bases worldwide, used for launching wars, holding prisoners, testing weapons.

One could be closing down in Ecuador, where lawmakers recently approved a ban on foreign bases. The Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has famously quipped that he’ll let the US military remain if the US agrees to an Ecuadorian military base in Miami.

Well, things are different in Europe, where the Bush administration now appears to have secured plans for its proposed missile system. US missiles would be stationed in Poland along with a radar site in the Czech Republic. Earlier this month, NATO leaders met in Romania and endorsed the missile plans. The Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said a formal accord will likely come next month.

KAREL SCHWARZENBERG: [translated] I met with the US Secretary of State in friendly talks where we discussed the plan to have a radar facility as part of our NATO defense system. Once we are clear about the contents, we will discuss the possibility of signing the agreement. The first week of May looks like a good time to sign.

AMY GOODMAN: Majorities in both Poland and the Czech Republic oppose the missile plan, which is widely seen as a first-strike threat against Iran.

Two activists are in the United States now, speaking as part of a campaign called “No Bases for Empire.” They’re joining me from Washington, D.C. Jan Tamas is from the Czech Republic. He’s the founder of the No Bases Initiative, a coalition against the proposed US missile system in Eastern Europe. I’m also joined by Olivier Bancoult. He has been expelled from his native Diego Garcia when he was four years old. The US has operated a military base there since British forces expelled native islanders in the early ’70s. Olivier is with the Chagos Refugee Group.

I want to begin with Jan Tamas. Talk about the Czech Republic.

JAN TAMAS: Hello. Hello to you, Amy, and to all the listeners. Well, yes, like you said, the majority of Czech people oppose this project. 70 percent of people have been steadily opposing this for the last two years. And the reason why we oppose it is that we really do fear that this will lead to a new arms race, that this may lead to a new Cold War. And in fact some of the statements by the Russian President Putin proved that that’s actually the case. They do feel threatened by this, and they do say that they will need to take measures to respond to this.

You have to keep in mind that no matter how sophisticated a military system the US is going to implement, the enemy is always going to be able to implement other measures that will overcome it. And so, the US will then have to take other measures to overcome the countermeasures of the enemy. And in this way you begin to have this spiral of armament, and so that’s the new Cold War. Or it could even be a hot war, we don’t know. So we believe that the way to achieve peace in Europe and the world is actually by disarming and not creating new military bases, not by arming.

AMY GOODMAN: What is the attitude of people in the Czech Republic right now?

JAN TAMAS: I’m sorry?

AMY GOODMAN: The attitude of people in the Czech Republic to the base?

JAN TAMAS: Well, since the first polls that were conducted back in August 2006, there were 73 percent of Czechs opposed it. It’s steadily around that number. More than two-thirds of people oppose this. But our government continues the negotiations as if nothing has happened. And so, we really see this as a deficit in democracy, because we believe in a truly democratic society the politicians should reflect on the will and the voice of the people; however, that’s not the case in our country.

And I would just like to say one thing. We’ve heard our foreign minister before saying that the deal will be signed sometime during the first week of May. That is the truth. However, that will only be the agreement between the government, and what has to happen in our country is that that deal then has to be passed, it has to be ratified by the Czech Parliament. And the situation is far from clear, because the government has a very small mandate. They don’t even have a majority. They were only able to pass a confidence vote after seven months of negotiations, and thanks to some two members of parliament that didn’t vote against them. So they have a very weak mandate, and it’s far from clear how the vote will go.

That’s why we have now intensified our campaign. We are more than sixty organizations from all kinds of different backgrounds. And we are now, among other things, having an online petition on the website nonviolence.cz, where we would like to have a million signatures within the next few weeks so that we would intensify the pressure on the Czech parliamentarians, so that they would not be willing to raise their hands for this dangers system.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to Olivier Bancoult of the Chagos Refugee Group. You left Diego Garcia when you were four years old. You were expelled. Explain what’s happening on your island.

OLIVIER BANCOULT: Yeah. On our island, it had been decided in 1965 that every people, all the people have to move in order to make place for US military base. All of the removal started on Diego Garcia were—had been used to build a US military base.

But first of all, I have to let people know that before choosing Diego Garcia, the choice was making on an island called Aldabra, where there were a population of giant tortoises. When the expert, American expert and US—UK expert go and visit Aldabra, they found a population of giant tortoises. They decided just to leave these tortoises in peace and just make the second choice—that is, on Diego Garcia, where human beings were having this wonderful life.

When the removal started on Diego Garcia, they just used to kill more than 1,500 dogs, in order to frighten people to leave, because without the dogs, the island will become dangerous. I was age four, and the reason I was forced to go to Mauritius, because my sister was—had been hurt by a wheel cart, and when my mom decided to have treatment for my sister and—in a view to return back in Peros Banhos. But arriving in Mauritius two months after my sister passed away, when we decided to return, we have learned that the island had been given to Americans. And what’s the way? All those who were living on the island had been ordered they have to leave, and there is a communication. All thing had been cut, all the link with Mauritius had been cut. That is in a very shameful way and a forcible way that we have been uprooted from our motherland, the Chagos Archipelago.

AMY GOODMAN: You are awaiting a high court decision in Britain, your case expected to be heard on June 30? What will happen there?

OLIVIER BANCOULT: Yeah. As you know, since 1997, we started a legal procedure against the British government, because we think that what had been done to us is unlawful, because our fundamental rights as a human being had been violated by the UK government, because there is an ordinance in 1971 who say that no native can return back to their homeland, whereas UK and US soldiers can do so. We started, and we have been able to win three cases in our favor, mostly where the judge concludes that what had been done to us is unlawful, and then we are belongers and that what had been done is very repugnant, and the queen have the right to govern, but don’t have the right to remove people—everything.

But now, still now, the UK government is still giving us a very hard time. They just bring it to the House of Lords, but even that, we will not give up our struggle. On the 30th of June this year, we will have an appeal from the British government to our case, and this will be heard in the House of Lords, where we shall be present. Of course, we are very optimistic, because we think that justice must be done again in our case for all variation, for all unhuman that had been to us.

AMY GOODMAN: Jan Tamas, final words, as you are wrapping up your journey around the United States in this No Bases for Empire project?

JAN TAMAS: Yeah. Well, I would say we are understanding that we are fighting a global enemy: the corporations that are going to make huge profits on this. Already more than $100 billion have been spent on the missile defense itself, and it’s not even near to working. These huge profits are being made by global corporations. They cross boundaries as if they don’t exist. And so need we. We also—the global—the peace movement needs to become global. And that’s why I’m here as part of this tour, to intensify the links, to intensify the cooperation across the Atlantic, across the boundaries of countries and across different organizations, so that together we have a stronger chance of winning this nonviolent battle against this armament effort that is underway right now.

AMY GOODMAN: Jan Tamas and Olivier Bancoult, both of the No Bases for Empire project, I want to thank you very much for joining us from Washington, D.C.

BP Bankrolls Biofuels Research

Tim Holmes — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:18:21 +0000

AMY GOODMAN: There is a controversy raging at the University of California, Berkeley, where British Petroleum, where BP -- they’ve called themselves now Beyond Petroleum -- has promised to give $500 million to the university over the next ten years. The deal would fund the development of "sustainable, commercially viable, and environmentally friendly” sources of energy. The newly created Energy Biosciences Institute, or EBI, claims to promote research into biofuels, as well as bacteria that would increase energy production from oil and coal.

Critics at UC Berkeley point to the corporatization of academic research, the ecological dangers of biofuels, and BP's long history of environmental irresponsibility, they say. They call this an act of greenwashing by BP and have been protesting the deal since it was announced in February of this year. But supporters claim that the corporate - academic partnership allows the university to realize its renewable energy research agenda and provides the most effective and economical means of addressing the looming environmental crisis.

To talk about this issue, we’re joined by two professors at UC Berkeley. Miguel Altieri is a professor of entomology. He is a renowned expert in agroecology, or sustainable agriculture. He is opposed to the deal between BP and UC Berkeley. He joins us here at Link TV’s studios in San Francisco. Daniel Kammen is a professor of Energy and Resources, a professor of public policy and nuclear engineering. He directs the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory and is on the executive committee of the Energy Biosciences Institute, which will carry out much of the research under this deal. Kammen is generally supportive of the deal.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with Professor Kammen. Why do you think this $500 million that BP has promised over the next ten years is good for the university?

DANIEL KAMMEN: Well, there’s a couple features. One is that we clearly need to learn more about biofuels, and we need to learn about them in a way that emphasizes the sustainability. The biofuel industry right now is taking off around the world, and it’s unfortunately being based largely on feed stocks that are bad on an energy balance and bad for many communities on a profit balance and bad for many communities in terms of trading off their food needs versus fuel needs. And so, the need to develop a serious research agenda to find out the better ways to do this or, in fact, whether we should do this at all, is in fact the reason why we need to begin these sorts of programs, not just at Berkeley, but hopefully around the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, the issue of BP giving this enormous sum of money, $500 million over the next ten years, is this of concern to you, the issue of the privatization of a public institution?

DANIEL KAMMEN: Well, I think that the size of the grant can be a concern, but not for the reasons that you’re raising. I actually think that this amount of money is relatively small change, both for the oil industries around the world and, in fact, for the amount of money it takes to bring new products to market. New cars and new drugs frequently take that much money -- half a billion dollars -- to bring them to market. And as a research pot of money to start with, I actually don’t regard it as that much money.

The chance, though, that this amount of money would alter what a university does is a concern to me, and the degree to which a university might see grants like this as a reason or as an excuse or as a mechanism to alter what they would work on -- say, move away from some areas and move into others -- is a concern if it was being done in a way that I thought that the company had that driving force.

And so far in the process here, I’ve been quite pleased with the degree to which the intellectual terms of the discussion, in terms of what to study, not the broader politics of biofuels, has been well represented. Whether that continues or not is something that we’re hopefully going to be vigilant to and look at, but I don’t think it’s a guaranteed feature that you will necessarily be able to steer clear of that. It’s going to take a degree of oversight to make sure that we don’t have corporate interests running essentially what US or other universities would do.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Altieri, your concerns?

MIGUEL ALTIERI: Well, my concerns is that, first of all, Professor Kammen is saying, it’s very little money, and eventually it’s little money for BP, but a lot of money for UC Berkeley. And what they’re going to do with this money is basically skim off what 200 years of public investment has done. It would be very expensive for BP to build a university and a research facility. They will come with $500 million. They skim off what the public university has built over years, and then they bring fifty scientists from BP that are going to have access to students, and so therefore what they’re going to do is influence the research agenda of the public university. And it’s already happening.

AMY GOODMAN: How?

MIGUEL ALTIERI: Well, a lot of fields that should be emphasized at Berkeley are dying off, like biological pest control, alternatives to pesticides, agroecologist sustainable agriculture. And they are emphasizing fields of biotechnology and genetic engineering and etc. And basically what the chancellor has done is basically has put in power, in a position of power, people that are chemists, engineers and chemists and genetic engineering, and so on, in charge of an agenda of complex ecological issues, rather than ecologists. Ecologists have been actually -- most of them that are critic -- have been actually taken out of any dealings with this, with this deal.

AMY GOODMAN: Has the deal been signed?

MIGUEL ALTIERI: No. As far as I know, not.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you know, Professor Kammen? It sounds like there’s a lot of speculation, also a lot of concern, about the transparency of this. Have the heads of BP and the heads of the University of California signed on the dotted line?

DANIEL KAMMEN: No, they haven’t. There’s actually still quite a bit of debate still going as to how to structure it, largely around the reasons that Miguel mentioned, because the structure of the proposal that we wrote -- and I was one of the authors of the initial proposal, not of the final legal deal, which is being handled by the legal teams, but of the final -- but of the initial plan that we sent to BP -- was in fact one that I thought addressed many of these issues, and they’re still being debated today, and that was that research done on the University of California side and that of our partners -- and our partners in this deal include the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which is a government lab run by the University of California -- and working out the arrangements so that work done on so-called “our side” of that equation is fully the intellectual property of our team members, not of BP, was a central point in the proposal that we wrote up. And those are the features that are now being discussed, and that’s why it has not been finalized yet, trying to work out that arrangement.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s talk about that, Professor Altieri. How does this work? Do employees of BP -- I said “Beyond Petroleum,” that’s what the commercials say; I don’t think that’s actually their name -- it’s just BP, is that right?

MIGUEL ALTIERI: Yeah, BP.

AMY GOODMAN: The scientists at BP will work at UC Berkeley?

MIGUEL ALTIERI: Yeah, they will be housed at UC Berkeley. Actually, I understand that the state is going to put four to seven million dollars to build a facility for them in the campus. They’re going to have a status of visiting scholars, and they’re going to participate in academic life. Supposedly, they need to be invited to do that, but obviously they’re going to be doing it, and they’re going to be having access to students, having access to research facilities that have been built, but with public money. And they’re going to influence the research agenda. There’s no doubt about that.

And anybody that has protested -- faculty -- have been basically dismissed and disregarded as a colorful -- as part of the colorful character of the campus. You know, we have to have these people that are always protesting.

And what worries me is that, on the one side, they’re promoting the wrong technology: biofuels is the wrong way to go. There’s no discussion, for example, in this proposal about alternative transportation systems, how to curb consumption patterns of petroleum and how to promote other alternatives that are much more viable. And biofuels are going to cause tremendous problems not only in the United States, but in third world countries especially, because if we devoted all the corn that is in this country, 125,000 square miles, we would only satisfy 12% of the gas needs. So obviously what’s going to happen is that it’s going to be grown in the third world, and basically the people in the third world are going to be paying the price for the over-consumption and the old-based style of living of Europe and the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Kammen, your response?

DANIEL KAMMEN: Well, I think there’s a couple really good points in what Miguel just said. The first one is I’m actually, as well, concerned, that I thought that the debate on campus is not one that has been as open as it could be. And you’re right, there has been sort of high-profile protests, but protests and actually having sit-downs between the sides has been somewhat lacking. And I actually really view that as a feature that the campus is responsible for the lack of that, not BP so far, and the campus needs to do a better job in that regard.

In terms of the fuel issues around the world, I actually take quite a different view than that by Miguel. It is true that if we devoted all of our corn to making ethanol in the US, we would only reach about 10% or 12%, so it wouldn’t be a significant effort, and you wouldn’t want to give up all that corn use for ethanol. But an interesting and, I think, a critical feature of the BP proposal is that, in fact, corn ethanol is excluded. Everyone who works on ethanol and biofuels worldwide recognizes that alternate fuels are available that are far better, the so-called cellulosic crops, that even include using garbage and using the waste carbon dioxide that comes out of power plants on just the land sitting next to those power plants. Those are areas for research in this proposal, not corn.

And so, if there was to be an approach that would look at alternatives that did not make the tension between food and fuel worse, it’s a project like this. In fact, in many parts of the developing world, the potential to grow crops that are useful for farmers locally at much higher efficiencies than they draw today -- for food stocks, again, not corn -- is an option that this proposal should be looking at. And the degree to which we do a good job there, I think, is very much due to the sort of things that Miguel said, and that is having this broader discussion and analysis not only of what we should be doing, but also how it goes on.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Altieri?

MIGUEL ALTIERI: I think it’s going to come too late, because right now what’s happening is that corn and soybean and sugar cane are the crops that the corporations -- I mean, the University of California-BP deal is nothing compared to the tremendous alliance between corporations like ADM, the grain merchants -- ADM, Bunge, Cargill -- the corporations of petroleum, the corporations of biotechnology, the car corporations and some environmental groups. And actually, they are promoting already these types of feed stocks that are going to do a huge destruction, deforestation, more gas emissions, because of the industrial nature of the agriculture they’re going to practice, and so on. So the BP-UC deal is going to come too late with the cellulosic alternatives that Professor Kammen is talking about.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor?

DANIEL KAMMEN: Well, [inaudible] jump in there, because, on one hand, you're saying that, well, this is a bad thing, but on the other hand you're saying that, well, this is just an approach that could do it if we did it right. And I actually think that while it’s true that we have come relatively recently to cellulosic fuels in the last few years, to then say we shouldn’t work on them or that we have no chance to make them a big part of the equation is, I think, too early. That might be the case, but it’s not yet. And we do need to explore them.

And, in fact, one of the reasons that California and UC Berkeley was sited for this institute is that the State of California, in work that our lab and others at UC Davis have worked on in detail, is setting standards for our fuels for the future that would in fact be cleaner. And the way that we’re doing this is around something called the low-carbon fuel standard, which effectively means that if we want to use biofuels, corn is not going to be a feedstock. And the reason for that is that we’re rating fuels based on how much greenhouse gases come out.

Now, greenhouse gas is not the only environmental concern I have -- there's also water and erosion and local land use -- but it’s the one that is a direct and a first step to allow us to say a fuel that’s worse than gasoline, in terms of its greenhouse impacts, is going to be disallowed in the state, and we’re going to push toward the cleaner ones. And BP, as well as campus researchers setting up this project, cited that effort and parallel efforts going on in Germany and in UK and in EU system-wide right now as part of that new framework. So you're right, we might not make it. But I do believe we need to do the research to find out if it’s possible.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Altieri, last words. What are you calling for now? What are the organizations on campus and outside -- because groups like Greenpeace, Essential Action, have also weighed in here, concerned about the corporatization of public institutions.

MIGUEL ALTIERI: I think what we need is, first of all, is to call again for an open debate, which has been suppressed, because basically the people that were questioning this have been accused of attempting against academic freedom. And basically what academic freedom now means in Berkeley is just that you cannot question the financial associations of faculty.

I mean, we need to look at the record of BP. We cannot associate with BP. It has a horrible record in terms of environment, in terms of human rights, and so on. And they have been, you know, destroying the environment for many years, and now they come as the doves of ecology.

We need to also put in place people that are going to be looking critically at the social, ecological impacts. We cannot leave in charge climate change and ecological questions to a bunch of engineers and chemists and genetic engineering people. We need to bring ecologists, social scientists, but also that are critical and are independent, that are not associated with this proposal and therefore open to debate, and also bring the public of California to question their public university that is being funded by them. They need to reclaim their university, their public university.

AMY GOODMAN: And do you see any of this happening in the discussion?

MIGUEL ALTIERI: No, I don’t see that. Everything is secret. I don’t know anything. None of the faculty that are not associated with this know anything about the negotiation. Professor Kammen seems to be updated, but, you know, the rest of the faculty are not aware of what’s going on.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we will leave it there, but follow the discussion further. I want to thank Professors Altieri and Kammen for joining us from the University of California, Berkeley.

Anita Roddick Remembered

Tim Holmes — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 09:28:12 +0000

AMY GOODMAN: Anita Roddick, the founder of the cosmetics firm The Body Shop, would have turned sixty-five years old tomorrow. She died last month of a brain hemorrhage. Roddick was a well-known environmental campaigner, a pioneer of cruelty-free beauty products. Her husband Gordon Roddick is holding a memorial service tomorrow in London with the theme "I am an activist."

Anita Roddick founded The Body Shop in 1976. The company gained enormous success and grew to 2,000 stores spanning fifty countries. All the while, Roddick remained a committed and outspoken activist. She was involved in a range of movements, from opposing animal testing, corporate globalization and war, to supporting indigenous rights and political prisoners. The daughter of Italian immigrants in Britain, she pioneered notions of social and environmental responsibility in the business world and was knighted Dame Anita Roddick by the Queen of England in 2003. Ralph Nader described her as "a glorious combination of character and personality who had her priorities high and wide enough to ask the most fundamental questions of big business and answer them by her deeds and her words."

In October of 2001, filmmaker Mark Achbar interviewed Anita Roddick in Seattle, Washington. Parts of this interview were used in Achbar’s 2003 documentary film called The Corporation. I want to now play excerpts from the interview, beginning with Anita Roddick speaking about her company, The Body Shop.

bq. ANITA RODDICK: The company is still one of the most progressive companies that I know on this planet, but is it radical enough? And I don’t think it is. Now, I’ve always reflected the company as to my behavior. It’s always been my alter ego. And now, let me tell you, as I’m getting older, I’m getting more radical, and the company, shaped by the CEO, the new CEO, shaped by the board, a little bit more timid, you know, maybe not timid by the company standards, but a little bit timid for my standards. So it’s fine, but it’s, you know, not as brave as I would like it to be. And this isn’t on products, this isn’t on business analysis, this is on the issues.

bq. We are a company who has dedicated our entire being to social and environmental change. This is our legal entity and in our articles of association and memoranda and for the advocacy of human rights work. So, you know, to have to take 60% or 70% of all our investors that come together and vote that out, so we’re pretty brave anyway. But we're not brave enough for me.

bq. There is sacred territory in businesses, things that you never do. And what you never do is challenge another company. Really, this is not de rigeur at all. And I don’t know where this notion of protection of other companies' behavior, that it’s not on my patch, not on my ground, you can’t make any comment -- we never followed that. Body Shop, as under my, you know, tutelage, has always championed the causes and actually pointed the fingers at other companies.

bq. And the two that we have been particularly strong and open about - oh, it’s like David and Goliath - one was Shell. For five years, we were campaigning against Shell and their business practices in Nigeria with effect on the Ogoni people. I mean, really, and it was not just campaigning, opening up the shops and corralling, writing letters to the media; it was dialoguing, going behind the scenes and talking to the CEO of Shell. And I so passionately believe in dialoguing. So this notion of confrontation, which is very sexy in the media, but which actually doesn’t work in many cases; you just have to find more - the Socratean dialogue. You’ve got to - that’s my belief.

bq. So, Shell, because of its business practices in Nigeria, and especially, I think, its support with the judicious execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa. And very recently, with Esso in England, a sort of subsidiary of ExxonMobil. And the reason why is because they are probably -- in fact, the only corporation, one of the biggest, most powerful corporations on this planet that absolutely says there is no connection between fossil fuel and global warming. And more so than that, they’re the one company that puts so much money into Bush's campaign finances and also, in a disingenuous, dishonest way, you know, create these phony think tanks that say there is no connection, the so-called intellectual academic think tanks, which have no credence whatsoever. So that’s the reason why.

bq. And the collection of corporate crimes that ExxonMobil has within its history is legend. The dilemma was that nobody wants to print them, except some amazing brave journalist in Sydney in the Sydney Morning Herald that will print this up. The rest are just -- no media wants to touch it. So, that’s the reason why.

bq. MARK ACHBAR: Is there anything that will compel ExxonMobil to become more like Body Shop?

bq. ANITA RODDICK: I don’t think any company will become more like Body Shop, because it’s a - you know, I mean, we are - we act like a not-for-profit organization, and we act more like a - I don’t know, we act more like a, you know, NGO in many ways.

bq. I think what will change them will not be the green washing from the press, you know, from the PR agencies and the wonderful ads they can do; it’s about the consumer revolt. A Shell official said to me in the protest in Seattle, he said to me, he said, “We don’t fear regulations any more. We control all regulations. What we fear is consumer revolt.” And customers are now saying not only do we want to feel sympathy with the product, we want to feel sympathy with the company who makes the product. So the behavior of a company is now what’s singly being looked at. So direct action specialists, people who are -- you know, who are just ethical watchdogs, are pointing their finger, I think, rightfully at the actions of business and will be using business as a target for protest now.

bq. MARK ACHBAR: Do you think -- I mean, as you said, you’ve gone after Shell. Now, the public persona of Exxon and Shell are quite different. Shell actually portrays itself as part of the social responsibility movement, and Exxon generally doesn’t. As two big oil corporations, is there a qualitative difference between them, or do you feel that Shell's social responsibility image is just a marketing tool, because they’re on into -- I mean, they’ve moved on from Nigeria, as I understand, to Peru and the Amazon Basin?

bq. ANITA RODDICK: Yeah. It’s really hard. You know, people say, “Well, what do I choose? You know, who do I choose to fill up my tank?” At the moment, you know, for me, ExxonMobil, because they're the only oil company that doesn’t make that connection between fossil fuels and climate change. You know, I just think, well, at least the others are saying, yes, there is a major connection, and we have to look for more creative ways of providing energy that maybe has to be sustainable or green energy.

bq. Every one of these oil companies has an army, I’m hearing -- and that would be well to check -- to protect their interests. So the greatest increase in services now are small-scale armies. So in Nigeria -- I’ve just recently come back -- I’m still seeing hospitals where there’s no anesthetic; women are still having cesareans without any anesthetic; I’m seeing schools that haven’t been built; thousands of billions of dollars extracted from the oil owned by the Ogoni, I’m not seeing one penny going back into the Ogoni community. I just want to make my choices, and the least horrendous oil company, for me, are Venezuelan ones. So trying to find a Venezuelan oil company is not easy, but it’s there.

bq. You know, when I look at these pharmaceutical industries and this oil industry, they have such a chance, they have such a chance of being so brilliant. You know, the money that they make could have gone into -- could still go into really great research into alternative energy, green energy, solar energy, wind energy, wave energy. It’s so visionary for them to have done that. They so can clear up their own mess. They so can give back to the community. It’s all about this need to maximize profits, and that’s the nub. If you can just not maximize it and just make profits that are, you know, healthy and give back, then you wouldn’t have this vicious differential between the poor and the rich. You wouldn’t have this revolting behavior that makes people revolt against you. You wouldn’t have this terrorism, this exacerbation of poverty. And that’s the bit that they don’t get.

bq. The question is, how do you change? How do you get the system changed? How do you get people who have been brought up to believe that business, way of life, has to follow what they’ve been told has to follow, and usually, as I said, through the business school? There's only one way you can change that. You’re either forced to change by public outrage, or the second is by experiences. Your values change when your experiences change. Experiences change your values. If you could take two or three good men, and true, to visit what you have seen -- the children dying in the toxic waste dumps, the children born with no genitalia because of the pesticides in the tobacco fields -- if you could show them that, if you could show the financial institutions that, because CEOs actually are employed and they could be fired -- so really, it’s not the changing of a CEO; it’s the system that has to be changed. And until you get this change that money matters beyond everything else, and our only cultural value in our society now is economics, ’til that gets changed, I think you'll have a hard time changing.

bq. So, I just want to hold people's hands and say, “Come and let me show you this stuff. Let me show you what’s worked.” How do you keep communities vital? You keep economic considerations, just [inaudible] of little initiatives within the community. And that’s what keeps it going, I believe. And it’s a hard one, because it’s time, it’s more thoughtful that way.

bq. MARK ACHBAR: It gets so complicated. It sounds like you’ve given up on government.

bq. ANITA RODDICK: Oh, I have absolutely given up on government. Government is economic government. Government isn’t - it isn’t as I remembered it to be or, as a history teacher, how I taught it should be. It was - when I was a kid, you know, government came in, they were elected because of education, because of safety, because of health. I think sort of budgets were sort of like on the last chapter of any discussion. Now it’s measured by the economic budgets, and we don’t measure - we don’t care about the weak anymore. We don’t think that governments - government, it’s got to go now.

bq. It’s now, let’s bring business in to control everything, our education. You come to this country in America, and the corporatization of your educational system leaves me aghast. I mean, this - businesses control educational thinking. And this is happening in England. Our tourism industry will be controlled at - I mean, Coca-Cola owns the Library of Congress here. So, it’s a worry. And until we know, the public know, really what’s going on, it’ll happen, and it’ll wash over us, and nobody knows the truth behind anything.

bq. So I don’t think government’s role - I think it’s moribund. We’ve got a two-party system in England; you’ve got a two-party system here. We need a four-party system. We need more than 30% of people to get out and vote. So I think it’s not a system that works, and, anyway, it’s being shaped by too much money.

bq. The dilemma with the corporations is they’re not regulated, and they're not penalized, and they’re not -- they're not -- they’re just not ever taken to court. Millions and millions of people died in Bhopal. Union Carbide still hasn’t given a penny in compensation. Thousands of miles of coastline was despoiled by the ExxonMobil -- the Exxon Valdez. Compensation amounts to nothing, compared to the amount of money that companies -- so we don’t criminally prosecute companies. And I think that if we could start criminally prosecuting companies, maybe their behavior would be a bit more controlled.

bq. MARK ACHBAR: OK, I hear a bit of what I think is rhetoric, because you can’t say they’re simply not regulated. There are regulations, there are fines. I mean, Robert Weissman listed off for us the top hundred corporate fines. I mean, it’s limited. I would say they’re - perhaps what we’re saying is that there isn’t sufficient regulations, or the fines aren’t enough, or it’s not adequate.

bq. ANITA RODDICK: Well, I wouldn’t call a few million pounds worth or dollars worth of fines a regulation. I would ban them. You know, if they are a public-listed company, and they are conducting themselves in a heinous way, they should be thrown off the stock market. They should be - what we don’t have is any regulations with teeth. They should - that’s how they should be regulated. And, you know, I don’t understand, I really don’t understand, why that is too difficult to do.

bq. You know, I think when you look at this country, it should be banned, any product coming to any country that has child labor or sweatshop labor. It just should be banned. End of story. I mean, if you can ban a woman for having two husbands, and if you can ban somebody from driving on another side of the road, you can do this. It’s the political will to do it. But mostly what is missing - when you ask consistently, well, what is missing, what can we need to - we need a spiritual regeneration. And I don’t mean hugging ourselves and sitting on a mounting and praying to a god or gods, or both. We need to polish that sense of outrage to say this is no longer allowed. That’s what we need to change.

bq. MARK ACHBAR: There is this kind of compartmentalization - I guess the word might be - that seems to go on in the minds of people - or working within the corporate environment somehow gives - some people seem to think that they’ve got license to leave those values at home, because that’s - because I don’t think those people are monsters at home. And you told a very compelling story about when you described some of the horrific harms to people that you observed as a result of toxic waste and the pesticides, and you -- this was the story that you related to the International Chamber of Commerce in Cancun. And I wonder if you could tell that story and try to give me a sense of the mindset of your audience.

bq. ANITA RODDICK: I remember being invited to the International Chamber of Commerce some years back to do a talk, and I’m always invited, because, you know, I’m supposed to be a founder of a very interesting organization, top brand in the world and no advertising. You know, the question is, “What can she tell us? You know, she didn’t go to business school. I mean, she must have tripped, and this must've been a series of brilliant accidents. Well, let's see what we can learn. It’s going to be really cheap bringing her over.”

bq. And I remember always going into these conferences and never telling people what I am going to say, because I usually travel. Before I go onto a conference, I spend time in the area. And I traveled with the Huichol Indians, and I saw the pesticides that are produced, that are scattered in those tobacco fields, and all the babies that were born with no genitalia as a result. And within the audience were a lot of the heads of tobacco companies in this particular International Chamber of Commerce. And I was showing the slides and telling the story.

bq. And the most painful thing was their reaction. It was almost a coldless sense - a bloodless sense of good manners. They clapped, they - no reaction, no embarrassment, no shifting around in the chair, no - you know, none of this. It was an acceptance: “Well, this is business. Hang on, you know, this is business. We’ve got business here. Now, come on, grow up. Now, you know, we’re business people. We have to be strong about this.” And it reminded me what Mahatma Gandhi said when he called this source of indifference is timid kindness, where you intellectually know that this is wrong, but that knowledge cannot move you to action, does not polish your human spirit to such outrage that you promise yourself you would never do these things, never be part of this.

bq. And so, the question, which is a big conundrum for many of us, is, why do people who are good and true - care for their kids, are good in the community - why are they so careless? Is it racism? Is it easiest to say - is that, you know, well, we don’t care that, because it’s not part of our local community; this is not a local problem; this is so far away that we can’t relate - is it that? Is it because we have a language which approves of this? You know, we approve of this. This is a language of business. Is it maybe the clothes we wear? The minute we’re going into the office, we’re wearing these suits and these ties, this new coat of appearance that separate us from who we are as fathers and husbands?

bq. Whatever it is, it is fashioning a schizophrenia in many of us, or many business people, that allow this to happen. I’ve never understood how people can go to church and pray and ask forgiveness, but never ask forgiveness about their behavior. I can’t get it. I don’t know what happens or what -- maybe there’s something in -- maybe it’s something in the breakfast cereal that stops people having a sense of empathy with the human condition or stops them being imaginative to know the responses of their actions. I am utterly, utterly confounded. I do not know why.

AMY GOODMAN: Anita Roddick, interviewed by filmmaker Mark Achbar for his documentary The Corporation. The interview was done in Seattle in 2001. Anita Roddick died last month. She would have been sixty-five tomorrow. Her husband is holding a rally in her honor in Britain tomorrow.

One issue particularly close to Anita Roddick's heart was the case of the prisoners known as the Angola 3. This is the case of three Black Panther Party activists held in solitary confinement for over three decades in Angola, Louisiana's state prison built on the site of a former slave plantation. Gordon Roddick told reporters last week he plans to continue his wife's work and hopes to help free two of the still-imprisoned Angola 3: Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox.

Herman Wallace paid tribute to Anita Roddick in a conversation with independent filmmaker Angad Bhalla last Saturday.

HERMAN WALLACE: As a result of Anita Roddick's hard work - and I can’t say enough about Anita. She was more than a proponent for me; she was family. I mean, when she was doing her work and even making [inaudible]. She was here visiting with me and Albert, with Albert and I. And this reporter [inaudible] was looking all over for her and didn’t know where she was. But she was in such of a hurry, you know, in order to take and raise the consciousness of the people, you know, around the interests that’s happening with the Angola 3. And right now, I think the Angola 3 is in a much better position than what we were prior to Anita's involvement, you know? Even Amnesty International, you know, has gotten deeply involved here as a result of her Anita’s insight.

AMY GOODMAN: Herman Wallace has spent thirty-five years in solitary confinement in Angola. Over the past six years, he has been exchanging letters with a young architect, Jackie Sumell, who has designed his dream house, based on his letters. The project is on display at the Artist's Space in New York and is dedicated to Anita Roddick. The actual house is expected to be built in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, where Wallace's sister's home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

This is how Herman Wallace explained the significance of this house and Anita Roddick's work.

bq. HERMAN WALLACE: What’s so important about this particular house is that it represents Albert, King and all the sisters and brothers who have suffered and continue to suffer at the hands of a racist system of injustice whose primary objective is to maintain us as a voiceless class. You know, so that’s what this house represents. That’s what it means to me. And I don’t look at it as a [inaudible], you know, just for Herman Wallace, but it speaks out for so many other political prisoners, you know, that are locked up - Mumia, you know, and all of these brothers and sisters, man, that are - and particularly those that are innocent in the prisons. So - and we're going to reach out to them.

bq. And that’s what Anita was trying to do. That’s why she was in such of a hurry, you know? She was not just a supporter of Albert and my freedom, you know? We became family [inaudible], you know? She knew her time among us was short, and in spite of her wealth, she suffered emotionally, you know, believing that she was not doing enough in raising the consciousness of the injustice, you know, being done to Albert and I. Every country she stepped foot on, you know, she spoke of the persecution and torture Albert and I continue to endure, not only within the state -- this state’s only maximum-security penitentiary, but within a solitary cage inside of this penitentiary. Man, this woman was in a hurry. You hear me? I love her so much, you know?

AMY GOODMAN: Herman Wallace, speaking from behind bars in Angola, Louisiana, about the late Anita Roddick, who was fighting for his freedom.

250 Killed in Clashes Near Afghan Border

Tim Holmes — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:41:23 +0000

AMY GOODMAN: The Pakistani military continues to bomb villages along the Afghan border, bringing the death toll to 250 after four days of clashes. The villages lie within Pakistan’s federally administered tribal areas, which the White House described as a “safe haven” for al-Qaeda in its National Strategy for Homeland Security released Tuesday.

Pakistan’s military ruler, key US ally, Pervez Musharraf, swept most of the votes in Saturday’s presidential election, which was boycotted by the opposition. Eight years after seizing power in a coup, General Musharraf might have won the votes, but his victory is not yet complete. He has to wait until the Supreme Court confirms the legality of his re-election bid, given that he’s still the army chief.

In his election, if it’s confirmed, General Musharraf has promised to shed his military uniform, transition to civilian rule, and, in a US-brokered deal, share power with the exiled former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. But General Musharraf and his policies have generated a maelstrom of opposition from a broad spectrum of the Pakistani population. He acknowledged his precarious base of support in a speech after Saturday’s election.
bq. GEN. PERVEZ MUSHARRAF: And in the end, I have appealed to the nation towards a conciliatory approach, and I have appealed to the — first of all, the nation, the people of Pakistan, not to join or reject any calls for strikes and agitational activity. I have appealed to the lawyers to have — let sanity prevail. They are all educated people, and I hope, in the — for justice and for peace, they adopt an approach of Pakistan comes first. On the media, I have asked the media to give the positives, to adopt a balanced approach. I’m the greatest supporter of their independence and give a confidence — a feeling of confidence, a feeling of feeling good attitude to be developed, mindset to be developed, within the people of Pakistan. And I’ve also extended a conciliatory approach to all the opposition parties. This is what I’ve done. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Pervez Musharraf. Prominent journalist from Aaj TV, Talat Hussain, was skeptical of the election. The Aaj TV station in Karachi was brutally attacked by pro-Musharraf forces in May after they broadcast footage of violence against Musharraf’s critics.

TALAT HUSSAIN: Well, clearly, President Musharraf has done the trick. He has been able to fool everybody, particularly the opposition, and has been able to get his candidature approves. His only hurdle now seems to be that of the Supreme Court hearing that will start from the 17th. Other than that, he has had a very smooth sailing, and all the opposition claims that they will be able to counter him and scuttle him have fallen on stony ground.

AMY GOODMAN: A few days before the election, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Supreme Court lawyer for the opposition Hamid Khan expressed their deep reservations about General Musharraf’s standing for re-election while still army chief. The clip begins with the former Prime Minister Bhutto speaking as the leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, or the PPP.

BENAZIR BHUTTO: As far as we in the PPP are concerned, we believe that if we had voted for a uniformed president, we would be legitimizing it. But, as I said, we are unable to vote for General Musharraf, and he understands this, because PPP stands for democracy, and democracy means a distinction between civilian and military. And since General Musharraf continues to be chief of army staff, we will not be voting for him, but we will also not be resigning.

HAMID KHAN: And we have taken the position that he is disqualified under Article 63 of the Constitution, because he is holding two offices at the same time. We have also said that he’s not qualified for the reason that he is not honest, he is not a person who can be relied upon, because he has gone back on his word previously when he made a statement and a solemn promise to the nation that he will take his uniform by 31st of December, 2004, and he went back on it.

AMY GOODMAN: Tariq Ali is an acclaimed British-Pakistani historian, novelist, political campaigner and commentator, one of the editors of the New Left Review and the author of a dozen books on South Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Islamic history, empire and resistance. His book on the 1979 military coup in Pakistan has been adapted for the stage and opens in New York next week. It’s called The Leopard and the Fox: A Pakistani Tragedy. Tariq Ali was in Pakistan this summer, joins us from our firehouse studios. Welcome to Democracy Now!

TARIQ ALI: Hi, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about the situation right now, this bombing along the border, the villages bordering Afghanistan.

TARIQ ALI: Well, the situation is very critical. Musharraf is incredibly unpopular at home now. Benazir is being savagely attacked by some of her own supporters for doing a deal with him under State Department pressure. And General Naseerullah Babar, who was her Interior Minister, has just publicly resigned from the party against the deal. So the situation politically is very volatile.

On the western borders of Pakistan, there’s a continuing war being waged, and Musharraf has antagonized the local population by being over-keen to carry out these bombing raids. These bombing raids are tied to the situation in Afghanistan. And what is going on in Afghanistan is that the actions of NATO and especially US bombing raids, which have killed lots and lots of innocent civilians, have now sent people in the direction of the Taliban, which is increasingly becoming an umbrella for the resistance to the NATO occupation and is being revived as a major political force. This then spills over into Pakistan, because it’s a very long porous border. There is no way anyone can control it. You can’t have barbed wire, you can’t build a wall.

And so, the solution to the situation in Waziristan lies in Afghanistan, and we need a peace settlement there as soon as possible and the withdrawal of foreign troops.

AMY GOODMAN: What about Taliban in Afghanistan?

TARIQ ALI: The Taliban in Afghanistan have cleaned up their act a bit. They appear publicly. They talk on television. And the situation has got so bad for the Karzai government in Afghanistan that they have openly sent peace feelers to the Taliban. Secret negotiations have taken place, and the Taliban have said they are prepared to join Karzai and the US-led government in Kabul, provided all foreign troops are withdrawn .

Well, Karzai refuses to do that, because without foreign troops his rule wouldn’t last more than forty-eight hours. But the fact that they are negotiating with the Taliban is in itself interesting and shows that basically they have not been able to defeat the Taliban, far from it, and that they’ve — the situation in Afghanistan is now completely out of control.

AMY GOODMAN: Where does bin Laden fit into this picture?

TARIQ ALI: Well, bin Laden clearly is not going to support any deal with the Taliban, but he doesn’t control the Taliban. The tiny faction of the Taliban which supported him is largely being marginalized and works independently. But the Taliban, as an organization, is now negotiating, talking to the Pakistan government, talking to Karzai, clearly with Western approval. So we now have the ironical situation that because the United States is very keen to isolate Iran, and Iran is a central player in Afghanistan, they’re prepared to do deals with almost anyone.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the whole issue of how Pervez Musharraf came to power? I mean, he has been seen extremely favorably by the US media for a long time.

TARIQ ALI: Well, I mean, Amy, we’ve had in Pakistan now, increasingly over the last sixty years — Pakistan was sixty this year — you have a cycle of civilian rule, attempts at democracy, military takeover, civilian rule, military takeover, and the military has now ruled Pakistan for most of its life. Most military dictators in Pakistan have a life cycle, a political life cycle, of ten to eleven years. Musharraf is reaching his ninth year. His popularity is completely gone. When you watch him, as even we saw in the clips you showed, this is a guy — you see power draining away from him. He doesn’t speak with the same confidence that he used to when he first came to power in 1999.

And he promised then a whole reform program to transform and modernize the country; nothing has been done. He promised that corrupt politicians would be tried in court. Benazir, of course, wasn’t in the country and didn’t come back, because the charges of corruption against her were very strong. Nawaz Sharif was allowed to leave Pakistan under a deal. And Musharraf then did a deal with another group of extremely corrupt politicians who are his main cronies today. So the regime is discredited.

Then he decides to take on the chief justice of the Supreme Court and sacks him. That triggers off one of the most remarkable civil society movements we’ve seen in the country, nothing to do with religion, nothing to do with money, a constitutional demand for the separation of powers and an independent judiciary, a movement which becomes so strong that Musharraf has to move back and the chief justice is reinstated.

At the same time, you have the jihadi elements inside Pakistan holed up in a mosque from January this year. An action is taken finally in July. And the question people are asking is, the military intelligence saw this mosque being transformed into an arsenal; why didn’t they act earlier?

So Musharraf has basically failed to achieve any of the things he said he was going to achieve in Pakistan, and you have an awful situation where you have a corrupt and callous elite, which doesn’t care about the conditions of ordinary people. If you go into any part of Pakistan — and I spent six weeks there traveling – and ask them, “What are your main needs?” most poor people will tell you, “We want clean water. We want electricity in our villages. We want education for our kids. We want doctors to be able to see us” – elementary basic social needs which people have.

It’s not the case that Pakistan is sort of, you know, frothing with religion. This is limited to the Pakistan-Afghan border region. And the image Western media often present is bearded guys skulking in the Hindu Kush Mountains, waiting to take over, and all that stands between a jihadi finger on the nuclear trigger is General Musharraf and now Benazir Bhutto perched on his shoulder. This is not going to do the trick.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Tariq Ali, acclaimed British-Pakistani historian, novelist, political commentator. We’ll be back with him in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest, Tariq Ali, acclaimed British-Pakistani historian, novelist, political campaigner and commentator, one of the editors of New Left Review in Britain, wrote a book that’s being adapted for stage here in New York called The Leopard and the Fox: A Pakistani Tragedy. Explain what that is about.

TARIQ ALI: Well, that is an account of the previous military dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq, which was a hardcore Islamist military dictatorship during the war against the Russians in Afghanistan. And soon after General Zia took over, the elected prime minister of the country, Benazir’s father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was arrested, charged with a completely bogus offense of murder. A trial was rigged. A Supreme Court was pressured. And the US gave the green light for him to be hanged.

And this story was — the BBC commissioned me to write a series of three plays based on it. And when the plays were written, they approved them and had started casting the plays. This is – this would be now in the early ’80s. And finally, there was pressure from the top, and the BBC said, “Could you take out all links?” They said informally – they sent an emissary to me, Mark Tully, the head in South Asia, and they sent an emissary to me to say, “If you took out all reference to the US being involved in the coup, we would put these plays on.” And I said, “No, I’m not going to take out any references to this at all.” So they said, “You’d rather the plays weren’t done?” I said, “I’m not going to accept censorship.” So the plays were never done.

And it’s just – they’ve just been published as a book with the account of how the BBC operated and the BBC lawyer’s letters. I mean, the BBC lawyer finally said to me, “This is not political censorship. General Zia could sue us.” So I said, “The number of plays you do by the Soviet Polit Bureau or the Eastern Europeans.” And the lawyer said, “Do you think a British court would award damages to a Soviet Polit Bureau?” And I said, “Do you think a British court would award damages to a squalid third-world military dictator?” at which point the discussion ended, and the plays weren’t done.

And I think, you know, a group of young people in New York, a theater group, have decided to do a – I think they’ve been inspired by the book — it isn’t a real adaptation – to do a version of it now at this date.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain who Benazir Bhutto’s father was.

TARIQ ALI: Benazir Bhutto’s father was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the founder of the Pakistan People’s Party, a party which was originally founded because in the late ’60s, in November ’68, you had a giant movement against the military, a insurrection, which carried on for three whole months, uniting workers and students and peasants. Many of the students were killed. But, finally, the movement was triumphant, and the dictator was overthrown, and the country had to have its first general election.

And the politician who won in what is now Pakistan was Benazir’s dad, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who pledged — his big slogan was food, clothing and shelter for the poor, massive social reforms, massive land reforms. He could have changed the face of Pakistan, had he so wanted, because the military was completely weak by then. But, in fact, he pledged all these things and did nothing. And so, when the military captured him, Henry Kissinger said to him, “Unless you desist on the nuclear question, we’re going to make a horrible example out of you.” And he didn’t, and so they made a horrible example out of him. He was executed.

AMY GOODMAN: And how did Benazir Bhutto, his daughter, rise to power?

TARIQ ALI: Benazir Bhutto was, in those days, not very political, but her father’s martyrdom, so to speak, brought her into politics. I remember talking to her when her father was prime minister of Pakistan, and she would say to me, “Oh, you know, he’s putting me under pressure to come into politics. I don’t want to be a politician. I want to be a diplomat. I want to be in the foreign office.” But once her father was killed by the army, she and her mother were very courageous. They took the military on. They were locked up. They were in and out of prison. So her role at that time was very honorable.

The big problems began when she — after General Zia was blown up in a plane with the US ambassador, there were elections again, and Benazir won. But she was unable to do anything the first time. And the second time she came to power, her government was incredibly corrupt, and the military then, when Musharraf came to power, charged her with corruption. The evidence is there; it’s irrefutable. And as part of the deal now, this corruption is being ignored, which is making people incredibly cynical.

AMY GOODMAN: Tariq Ali, I wanted to play a clip of the Democratic presidential hopeful, Senator Barack Obama, saying two months ago that he would attack areas in Pakistan with or without approval of the Pakistani government.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges, but let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets, and President Musharraf will not act, we will.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Barack Obama. Tariq Ali?

TARIQ ALI: Well, I mean, what is quite staggering is that Barack Obama, whose ignorance on world politics is well known, using this issue in Pakistan to try and strike a military pose, I mean, it’s utterly grotesque and pathetic. Were the United States to start bombing raids inside Pakistan, there would be a massive increase of support for the jihadi fundamentalist groups in that country, and it would weaken not just secular political groups, it would weaken even the moderate religious parties who are not associated with that. So this sort of rhetoric coming from Obama is incredibly provocative.

I remember once when I was in the United States just before Bush got reelected and watching — I was in Illinois watching Barack Obama say on television that were Bush to decide to take out the Iranian nuclear reactor, he would be in total support of it. So if this is what Democratic candidates are talking like, Amy, it is quite a depressing situation.

AMY GOODMAN: Right now, the situation in Pakistan, where does Bush’s allegiance lie, and what could you see happening?

TARIQ ALI: Well, I think Bush’s allegiance lies to the military ruler of Pakistan. They’ve made that very clear. They’ve given him $10 billion. Every time the Pakistani military goes in and carries out actions on the Afghan border, they send an invoice directly to Centcom in Florida, which pays them directly. So all these actions are being paid for by the United States, which is well known in Pakistan and is well known here, as well. So the United States is totally tied into the military leader. And the cosmetic changes they’re proposing by this arranged marriage, a marriage arranged by the State Department between Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto, a political marriage, I don’t think is going to work. It is creating mayhem within her own party. And there’s nothing she can do, because she’s quite a discredited politician.

AMY GOODMAN: In what way?

TARIQ ALI: In the way that she’s — everyone knows that she and her husband went in power incredibly corrupt. The evidence is there. And in a country where the ordinary people are already alienated from the political process, to inflict this on them isn’t going to improve matters.

AMY GOODMAN: On this sixth anniversary of the bombing of Afghanistan, I want to go back to that country. Afghan President Hamid Karzai described the limited powers of the Taliban against his government at a White House press conference this August.

PRESIDENT HAMID KARZAI: The Taliban do pose dangers to our innocent people, to children going to school, to our clergy, to our teachers, to our engineers, to international aid workers. They’re not posing any threat to the government of Afghanistan. They’re not posing any threat to the institutions of Afghanistan or to the build-up of institutions of Afghanistan. It’s a force that’s defeated. It’s a force that is frustrated.

AMY GOODMAN: President Karzai. Tariq Ali?

TARIQ ALI: Well, I mean, the same president who is talking like this is now engaged in negotiations with the Taliban, because his own power doesn’t extend beyond Kabul. And that’s during the daytime. And everyone knows that Afghanistan is in a very unstable situation. And, Amy, one reason for this, one big reason for this, is that when the Taliban were toppled after 9/11, within Afghanistan — one has to be clear about this — there were large numbers of Afghans who were very happy, because they didn’t like them, but they were hoping that change would come and there would be a social infrastructure in their country and they would be able to breathe. This never happened. No money was spent on creating institutions for the ordinary Afghan people. Instead, Karzai and his cronies built themselves gigantic villas in the heart of Kabul, just taking land which belonged to anyone else. And while these large villas were being constructed, NATO troops were guarding them. You know, it costs $5,000 — that’s all — to build a home for a poor family of four or five people. Very few of these homes were ever built. And so, people began to get completely alienated.

Karzai’s brother, his younger brother, Wali Ahmed Karzai, is well known in Afghanistan and Pakistan as one of the largest traders in heroin and gunrunning. It’s very, very well-known. And this is a guy who can’t control his own brother, and then he has the nerve to come and talk like this in the White House.

AMY GOODMAN: Afghanistan has become the largest poppy provider in the world, base of heroin.

TARIQ ALI: Since the occupation, the DEA figures which have come out show this very clearly, that more heroin, more poppies are now being cultivated in Afghanistan than under the Taliban regime. So this trade is rife, and it’s going to wreck that region.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, you spent six weeks in Pakistan, but you live in Britain. I wanted to turn to your new prime minister, Gordon Brown, who has vowed to remove half of Britain’s troops in Iraq by next spring. This is part of his announcement in the British Parliament on Monday.

PRIME MINISTER GORDON BROWN: With the Iraqis already assuming security responsibility, we expect to establish provincial Iraqi corps in Basra province in the next two months, as already announced by the prime minister of Iraq, move to the first stage of overwatch, reduce numbers in southern Iraq from, at the start of September, five-and-a-half thousand to four-and-a-half thousand, immediately after provincial Iraqi control, and then to 4,000. And then in the second stage of overwatch in the spring, and guided as always by advice of military commanders, reduce to around two-and-a-half thousand troops, with a further decision about the next phase made then.

AMY GOODMAN: Gordon Brown, your prime minister.

TARIQ ALI: Well, Gordon Brown is basically doing what had been planned for several months, you know, even when Tony Blair was in power, that the British military, senior figures in the British military have not been happy with this engagement in Iraq at all and have said more or less publicly that if in the local area they became more and more isolated, there are more and more attacks on them, they were not going to go to the wall on this one. So this doesn’t surprise me at all, Amy. The fact is that Brown should have done what the Spanish government did, which is to withdraw all troops immediately. This is, you know, an attempt to appease the antiwar movement at home, because 70% of Britons are now opposed to the war, like in the United States. But I think these measures are part and parcel of him trying to show that he’s different from Blair, whereas in every other way he is carrying on the policies of Blair and is committed as firmly to the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, where is Blair now?

TARIQ ALI: No one knows. Blair has more or less become an un-person in Britain. Someone who was so dominant is barely talked about. He’s disappeared. He’s gone. I think the US has given him a job in Jerusalem, pretending to search for peace. But no one talks about him. No one thinks about him. He was in a sort of ephemeral Teflon-type politician. And he has now disappeared. And instead, we’ve got his old chum in power, who’s more or less doing the same things, and is now — his popularity ratings, Brown’s popularity ratings, are right down.

AMY GOODMAN: Tariq Ali, I want to thank you for being with us. Welcome back to the United States, acclaimed British-Pakistani historian, novelist, political commentator, one of the editors of the New Left Review in Britain.

East London Raid

Tim Holmes — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 20:27:59 +0000

Twelve days ago, two hundred fifty British police officers - some dressed in biochemical suits -- raided an East London home at four in the morning. Two brothers of Bangladeshi origin were arrested. Police shot one of them in chest. The men were jailed for over a week, accused of being involved in a biological terror plot. Then they were released without charge. And now Scotland Yard and the London police are apologizing for what happened.

On Tuesday, the brothers -- twenty-three-year-old Mohammed Abdul Kahar and twenty-year-old Abul Koyair -- spoke about the raid for the first time.

Mohammed said that on the morning of the raid he was awoken by the screams of his brother. At first he thought it was a robbery. Moments later he was shot in the chest. Mohammed Abdul Kahar and Abul Koyair spoke at a press conference on Tuesday.

Hours later a London Metropolitan police official said, "I apologize for the hurt that we may have caused."

To talk about this ordeal, we speak with Gareth Peirce, one of Britain's best-known human rights attorneys. She is representing the family.

*AMY GOODMAN:* This is Mohammed Abdul Kahar speaking at a news conference on Tuesday.

*MOHAMMED ABDUL KAHAR:* Me and my brother screaming No. And by that time, I could see the shot wound in my chest. And I was begging him, please, please, I can't breathe, and he just kicked me in my face. He kept on saying, saying shut the [censored] up. I said please, I cant breathe. And he just -- one of the officers slapped me on the face and hes saying just shut the [censored] up, stay there, stay there. And at that moment I thought that they're going to either shoot me again, or theyre going to start shooting my brother. So I just laid there on the staircase for about a minute or something. And then Im just hearing them shouting "secure the room, secure the room." And at that moment, I still didn't know it was the police. Because they never said a word about police. All they said was secure the room, secure the room.

*AMY GOODMAN:* Mohammed Abduls brother, Abdul Koyair, said police threatened to shoot him as well.

*ABUL KOYAIR:* They grabbed me away from my brother, they dragged me down the stairs, and they were hitting me. And they were telling me to shut the [censored] up. And they took me outside, handcuffed me, and put me on my knees. And told me to face the ground. At that time, there was about three officers with guns surrounding me. They were pointing at me. And at that time, I kept on saying to the officer, please, tell me, is my brother ok? Is my family ok? And they told me to just shut up.

*AMY GOODMAN:* Mohammed Abdul Kahar also criticized the police for not apologizing for shooting and detaining an innocent man.

*MOHAMMED ABDUL KAHAR:* I work very hard, I work over 50, 60 hours a week. And to come and just -- into my house like that and accusing me of this, shooting me in my chest and kept on saying that Im a terrorist. That, it hurt. I want, I want them the least for them to do is apologize. I've never heard from no one. No one even had the decency to even phone us to say that we apologize that this happened. Even when I was getting discharged or getting released from the police station. Not even a word of sorry from the head officer or anyone that was dealing with the case.

*AMY GOODMAN:* Hours later, a London metropolitan police official said, quote, I apologize for the hurt that we may have caused. To talk about the ordeal of these two British men, we're joined on the phone by Gareth PEIRCE, one of Britains best-known human rights attorneys. Shes representing the family. We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Gareth Peirce.

*GARETH PEIRCE:* Hello.

*AMY GOODMAN:* It's good to have you with us. What are you doing now about this situation?

*GARETH PEIRCE:* In a way, I think that the two brothers did the most substantial thing that could be done, far more than lawyers could ever do. They extremely courageously faced the press yesterday. Hundreds of press there, daunting for anyone to do. What shone through is their decency and honesty and integrity and innocence. And there they were, two clearly devout young Muslim men. British to the bone, interested in all of the things that all other British lads their age are interested in. A very British family in a way that might strike a chord with middle England. The cap was missing after the police had taken over the house for a week. The runner beans and the sweet peas in the garden had all been dug up by the police, and the house vandalized.

And Kahar, the older brother who was shot, works for the Royal Mail, as a postman. His brother works for a supermarket and had applied to become a policeman. The application form had been taken away by the police with all the other family's documents and is still missing, like the cat. So, better than anyone else could ever have done, it says, here we are, the supect community, we are innocent. We are deserving of total respect and of lawfulness, not lawlessness on the part of the police.

And they were asked a number of provocative questions intended, I think, to be not necessarily pleasant. And they dealt with everything in an extraordinarily reasonable, tolerant, and forgiving way. Which I think the rest of us could never have managed to do were we in their place. So, in terms of an important statement that this made at a very difficult moment of political history in this country, I think those two young men made something that was more than substantial in the way of a contribution.

*AMY GOODMAN:* We're talking to Gareth Peirce in London, a news conference this week held by the brothers after the raid on their home, one of the brothers shot. What is the response in Britain now to what has come out? The fact that they were charged -- the police said they were going to be involved in some kind of biological terror attack, and yet, never charged them, and released them.

*GARETH PEIRCE:* It's a very odd thing, the whole enormity of a massive armed raid and immediate publicity put out by the police, that this was suspected chemical warfare, a suicide operation about to be mounted on specific intelligence. But then, almost uniquely, the police account appeared to be faltering from the moment it began, maybe because of a turf war between police and security agencies. I dont know, but it began to be shown quickly in the newspapers, this raid was based upon information given by a single informant which was thought to be credible. I have never heard before, discussion of an informant as a person. Usually its said there was intelligence. But it was as if already there was certain concern that all was not well and as the week went on, then the uncertainty grew.

However, within the police station, a man who had been shot through the chest was discharged from the hospital, wholly prematurely, and the hospital bed taken to a cell in Paddington Green police station. It was grotesque, a grotesque experience, in which the police never once asked either of the brothers about chemical weapons, about suicide attempts, about anything that they might have been suspected of having. The police were begged, for heaven sake, tell us why we were in the police station? Why did you arrest us? Who was it who said this? And an answer came there none. They were just suddenly released.

*AMY GOODMAN:* Gareth Peirce, before we leave, I wanted to ask you about the suicides at Guantanamo on Saturday. You've represented a number of prisoners at Guantanamo -- Moazzam Begg, also you're involved with the Tipton three, who have been speaking out. The U.S. military said that their deaths, the suicides, were a case of asymmetric warfare and a publicity stunt. Your response?

*GARETH PEIRCE:* It's a grotesque, a grotesque comment to have made. Chilling in its inappropriateness. We do still represent British residents there, not British nationals, but long-term British residents, who we're fighting in the courts to get our government to do something to bring them back and when I heard three had committed suicide, I was, of course, horrified to think, was it the three men I represent? I spoke to one of the three Tipton lads who were released, and he said, they have to open the doors to Guantanamo, they have to let in the human rights organizations, and if they open the doors, that means they will have to let everybody out.

*AMY GOODMAN:* Are you concerned, if Guantanamo closes, what will happen to people at unknown prisons that are being run by the U.S. around the world, at the so-called black sites?

*GARETH PEIRCE:* Of course, there are dozens of secret detentions, and those are probably the most grotesquely torturous of all. People have disappeared. It is a terrifying black hole that we've fallen into, and international laws have fallen into.

*AMY GOODMAN:* Gareth Peirce, I want to thank you very much for being with us.

*GARETH PEIRCE:* Thank you, thank you for asking me.

*AMY GOODMAN:* Gareth Peirce, well-known human rights attorney in Britain and on whom the movie __In the Name of the Father__ was based.

McLibel Victory

Alex Doherty — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:46:33 +0000

For background to this interview, see "A Proper Grilling":http://www.ukwatch.net/article/68 on UKWatch.

AMY GOODMAN: David Morris spoke outside a McDonalds in Britain, moments after the ruling.

DAVID MORRIS: Right. This is a victory, not only did we score some amazing victories in the court in the UK, because the judge ruled that McDonalds exploits children with their advertising, that they deceptively promote their food as nutritious, that they

HELEN STEEL: Pay low wages.

DAVID MORRIS: Pay low wages. Lowest wages in the industry, and they are responsible for cruelty to animals. On top of that, we won further at the court of appeals. This is our third major court hearing, and we won hands down both our points, that the libel laws in this country are oppressive and theyre unfair.

AMY GOODMAN: That was former postman David Morris. The other person in the case was Helen Steel. She also spoke after the ruling.

HELEN STEEL: It was a nightmare fighting the case, but at the same time it's a unique opportunity to examine the inner workings of a multinational company and expose the reality, get it out in the open, because normally that's kept under wraps.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Helen Steel, David Morris, as they join us on the phone now from Britain. David Morris, can you talk about this case, which has two aspects -- first, what you said about McDonalds, and their suit against you and finally the significance of this court case, which goes to British libel law. You might change British libel law forever.

DAVID MORRIS: Well, it's a very long case to sum up, really. 15 years of legal argument and legal action. But basically, McDonalds brought the case to try to silence public criticism that was being made, particularly by London Greenpeace but it has also sued dozens of other organizations before they sued us. Everybody backed down because the laws are well known to be stacked in favor of the rich and powerful in the UK. So, the climate of fear is being created where no one was prepared to speak out about the company. But we decided that we had to fight the case, because on principle, to defend freedom of speech. And so, it went on from there, really, we didn't know what we were doing at the beginning, but by the time it got to trial, you know, we were getting more and more experienced, getting victories, we were getting documents, the company was forced to disclose documents that would otherwise have remained hidden, and so on and so forth. And really, it became the longest trial in English history and we had some devastating verdicts against McDonalds as you heard, at the end of that case, but, amazingly, no legal sanctions were ordered against McDonalds, for what they had lost. And yet we were expected to pay the company, this huge corporation, 40,000 pounds. That's what forced us, really, to go to the European courts to say that the laws are ridiculous in the UK.

AMY GOODMAN: Helen Steel, what was your reaction to the ruling?

HELEN STEEL: Well, obviously, you know, we're very pleased that the court -- the European court in Strasbourg has finally recognized what we have been saying for the last 15 years, which is that UK libel laws are oppressive and unfair and act as a barrier to freedom speech for ordinary people, but at the same time we also think, you know, it should be recognized just how much we won, despite all of those odds stacked against us, you know. So, yes it's just -- well, it's like one victory on top of another, it's great.

AMY GOODMAN: Helen, there were actually five of you that McDonalds sued but only two of you remained in this. Why, and what happened to the other three?

HELEN STEEL: Well, when we got -- when McDonalds served the writs on us, we were actually told that because there's no legal aid for libel, and because the UK libel laws are so complicated and oppressive, that we didn't really stand a chance of being able to work our way through all of the complex procedures and so on. And under those circumstances, the other three people reluctantly felt they had -- that they were forced into apologizing, and they have actually retracted that apology, and said that basically, it was made under duress, but when it came to my turn to sort of say, well, okay, you know, we'll run and hide into nothing, it stuck in my throat to apologize to McDonalds. I felt like, well, it's actually McDonalds who should be apologizing to society for the damage they do to society and the environment. And I just decided that really, come what may, I was going to fight it, just because I thought it was bad to give in to bullying and intimidation.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Helen Steel and David Morris. We're going to break and then when we come back, we'll talk about the actual charges they made against McDonalds and their pamphlets that they gave to people outside of McDonalds, and then we're going to look at a case in the United States where McDonalds has just settled a major lawsuit that was brought by a website called ban trans fats -- bantransfat.com, about a very dangerous oil that is used in their food that most people thought they were no longer using. This is Democracy Now!. Our guests are Helen Steel and David Morris. We'll be back with them in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: As we look at McDonalds in Britain and the United States, major lawsuit against activists, a former postman, a former farmer in Britain and then well look at the case of the use of trans fats by McDonalds in the United States. We'll be speaking with people who sued them here. We're going to go back to our guests in Britain right now. Again, who won a major legal victory. Can you talk about what was in the pamphlet you gave out to people who were going to McDonalds?

HELEN STEEL: Well, basically, the leaflet criticizes McDonalds for promoting unhealthy food, exploiting their workers through low pay and through the fact that they're hostile to trade unions. The damage to the environment through masses of unnecessary packaging, cruelty to the animals reared for the meat products, and it criticized their massive advertising budget and the targeting of children through the advertising. I mean, they're all basically common sense criticisms that are actually made quite widely now. You know, London Greenpeace wasn't actually the first to make those criticisms in any event. It just kind of brought all of the different criticisms together to take a kind of overall look at the effects of multinational corporations on society.

DAVID MORRIS: I think also, it's fair to say that it wasn't just McDonalds that was under the spotlight, it was basically McDonalds as a symbol of what the whole fast food industry and multinationals together, the whole economic system is doing in terms of its domination over our lives and our environment.

AMY GOODMAN: And so then, explain exactly what happened. You're giving out pamphlets. How many days did you do it and what happened? How did McDonalds approach you when they sued you?

DAVID MORRIS: Well, London Greenpeace had started a campaign against McDonalds and the whole fast food industry and the leaflets that were being given out were fantastically well received by the public, because McDonalds spends $2 billion every year through their advertising, in practically forcing their views on the public, and people were crying out for an alternative point of view. So, the group was quite enthusiastic about the way things were being received, but of course, McDonalds had a different idea about it, and the first contact that members of the group had with McDonalds were the writs, which were served saying there's going to be a court case.

AMY GOODMAN: And so at the point where you lost the case, on what grounds or you won on some points, lost on others? What grounds did you win on and then lose on?

HELEN STEEL: Well it, was a mixed verdict. You know, remarkably, the judge managed to find that they weren't responsible for litter or environmental damage, but he actually found that they were -- that their food is pretended to have positive nutritional benefit -- sorry the advertising had pretended to a positive nutritional benefit, which their food didn't match, and that they exploit children with their advertising strategy, that they were responsible for animal cruelty, that they paid low wages, helping to depress wages in the catering trade, and then we also won further points on appeal about basically that if you ate enough of McDonalds food, your diet might well become high in fat with a very real risk of heart disease and also further points about employment conditions.

DAVID MORRIS: So pretty much their core business practices were found to be, you know, strongly lacking. These were devastating -- probably the worst judgments ever made against a multinational corporation. We didn't win on all points. We didn't win on concerns over food safety issues. We didn't win over the McDonalds direct involvement in destruction of rain forests even though the beef industry as a whole has been very strongly responsible for some of the devastation of Amazonian forests. So, you know, it was our continuing arguments, and we went to appeal and then we took it to the European court.

AMY GOODMAN: And so now, what happens? Do you get paid back for your -- what is this -- 15 years of legal struggle?

DAVID MORRIS: Well, really it's not about money, is it? It's about matters of principle. We really felt actually we had already won, we had beaten McDonalds in the actual trial. But most importantly, not just inside the courtroom, but outside the courtroom, leaflets are now being given out to millions all over the world, criticizing the company, but more important than that, there's a vibrant public debate, and increasing concern to challenge the promotion of unhealthy food, to look at what multinationals are doing to our lives, as a whole anti-capitalist movement that's grown up in the last ten years, which I think the McLibel campaign helped to stimulate. And I think people are looking for a real alternative. Obviously, there's still a lot of work to do. Multinationals and governments still dominate our lives for their own interests. We're part of, you know, a number of different groups and campaigns that are trying to change things for the better. Mostly in the area where we live, which is in North London.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both for being with us, David Morris, and Helen Steel. Who were sued by McDonalds, and -- report McDonalds has said -- the McDonalds U.K. Office, that the case related to a claim made against the British government, it was therefore inappropriate for the company to comment on this case, or its outcome. The company said it's impossible to note the allegations related to practices in the 1980's. The world has moved on since then, and so has McDonalds. David Morris, I'll give you the final world.

DAVID MORRIS: I don't think theyve moved on at all. I think that it's more of the same. Nothing has changed. I don't think that multinational corporations, in fact, can change, because theyre only interested in one thing, which is making profits for their shareholders. And really, things are going to change. It will be because people, wherever they live, wherever they work, get organized and stand up for their rights and speak out, and really try to create a different kind of society, based on people's needs rather than, you know, the power of multinationals and governments.

AMY GOODMAN: David Morris, Helen Steel, thanks for joining us from Britain.

_You can listen to the interview at_ www.democracynow.org