Entries from October 2009 ↓

Argentina: Disappearing Farmers, Disappearing Food

by Marie Trigona
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15876

Worldwide, industrial mono-culture farming has displaced traditional food production and farmers, wreaking havoc on food prices and food sovereignty. This is particularly true for the global south, where land has been concentrated for crops destined for biodiesel and animal feed. In response, peasants and small farmers organized actions in more than 53 countries on October 15 for International Food Day as an initiative of Via Campesina, one of the largest independent social movement organizations, representing nearly 150 million people globally.

The National Indigenous Campesino Movement of Argentina joined the protests taking place on around the world by organizing a march in Buenos Aires for International Food Day. Argentina has often been described as South America’s bread basket because it once produced grain and beef for much of the region. But with the transgenetic soy boom the nation has shifted to a mono culture production for export, displacing traditional food production and farmers.

Hundreds of campesinos marked the day with protests against this agricultural model outside of Argentina’s Department of Agriculture. “For the government, the countryside [is made up of] the landholding organizations and the agro-businesses, we practically don’t exist,” says Javier from the campesino movement in Cordoba, an organization that includes more than 1,500 families who have depended on traditional agriculture for generations. “We are also part of the countryside. We are the ones who live on the land and protect the land. We want to continue to live on our land, for future generations.”

Evicted Farmers

According to Argentina’s 2008 agricultural census, more than 60,000 farms shut down between 2002 and 2008, while the average size of farms increased from 421 to 538 hectares. The shift to soy has replaced cultivation of many grains and vegetables and even the country’s beef production. Researcher at the nation’s social research institute CONICET, Tamara Peremulter outlines the affects of monoculture soy on food production. “Soy historically hasn’t been grown in Argentina. Soy was brought in during the 1960’s during the Green Revolution. Transgenetic soy has been brought to lands where before cultivation wouldn’t have been possible. The low production cost of soy helped this process. Soy has replaced other crops, invading areas that were historically for cattle grazing and dairy production. Soy has also invaded indigenous and traditional farming communities. This model also implies deforestation and loss of biodiversity”

Land access and disputes over land titles has become one of the central issues for traditional farmers being replaced by machinery and high tech mono-culture farms. The National Indigenous Campesino Movement of Argentina (MNCI) reports that 82 percent of farmers live off of 13 percent of the nation’s land used for agriculture, while 4 percent of large land holders or “growing pools” financial investors in the agro industry own more than 65 percent. The disparities in land titles have lead to violent evictions.

On October 12, 2009 a day on which indigenous communities commemorate the genocide of their people following Christopher Columbus’s arrival in 1492, an indigenous farmer, Javier Chacoba was murdered during a protest against the forced eviction of indigenous people off of lands. The 68-old farmer died of a gun shot wound to the abdomen by Dario Amín, a landowner. Members of the Chuschagasta community had been camping along a provincial highway bordering the lands to demand land recognition for the Chuschagasta when Amín and two ex-police officers showed up at the protest. “On the day commemorating 519 years of genocide in Latin America, we suffered the loss of our brother (Javeri Chacobar) for simply standing up for his rights, defending his dignity and land that belongs to him,” said Margarita Mamaní, member of the Chuschagasta community.

“They have been evicting farmers and members of the indigenous community from lands. People have been killed in the evictions,” says Ricardo Ortiz is an indigenous representative from The Campesino Movement of Santiago del Estero (MOCASE). More than 9,000 families make up MOCASE, a grassroots movement of traditional farmers and indigenous groups. “Now they killed a farmer in Tucuman, a brother. He was in a march to demand their rights and the man who bought the lands took out a gun and shot the man and injured four more. The government has been blind, deaf and mute; this is why we are worried.”

Police Repression

In 2008 alone more than 35 campesinos were arrested and arrest warrants issued for 95 more, in Mendoza, Formosa and Santiago del Estero, in communities rejecting the agro-industrial model. Santiago del Estero is a province once rich in forest land and untouched by soy. This changed as the boom in soy prices has made these remote areas now profitable for soy growers.

This is a “witch hunt,” as the MNCI has described the situation for campesinos resisting land evictions, and defending traditional cultures. Local police enforce eviction orders and meet any resistance with police force, clubs and many times bullets. “Campesinos resisting are suffering a violent political persecution. We demand that detained farmers are released, that officials, judges and police that violate human rights be investigated and that evictions are stopped,” declared the MNCI.

Agro Industry Creates Joblessness

The shift to mono-culture crops and land concentration has stretched into cultivations traditionally employing small farmers such as vineyards. Argentina’s wine industry has boomed in recent years, with the total value of Argentine wine in the US increasing from 75 million to 146 million dollars between 2006 and 2008. Mendoza is Argentina’s largest wine producing region, with a micro climate perfect for the Malbec grape. Access to water is a major issue for rural and indigenous communities there.

Marcelo Quieroga from the Union of Rural Workers (UST) says that much of the vineyards in Mendoza have been monopolized by French and Swiss investors, who buy land and mechanize wine production. “They are using machinery to replace workers. By producing high quality wines for export the wineries have essentially monopolized the production. Who suffers is the rural worker who can’t find work, and ends up living in a shanty town due to rural unemployment.”

Rural displacement results in poverty and joblessness; the poorest provinces in Argentina have ironically hosted a boom in soy industry, with soy fields replacing forests and even cattle grazing land. The MNCI has reported that the soy model creates only one job post for every 500 hectares cultivated. Meanwhile, traditional agriculture provides 35 job posts for every 100 hectares cultivated, while also guaranteeing food diversity, production or local markets and sustainable use of resources such as land and water.

Food Sovereignty

Industrialization and the globalization of Argentina’s food system has led to spikes in food prices, and increasing rural poverty. This has become a global trend. “A billion people are without food because industrial monocultures robbed them of their livelihoods in agriculture and their food entitlements,” writes Vandana Shiva in the Nation Magazine.

Via Campesina does have an alternative to the agro industry, pushing for governments to promote local, traditional farming which provides communities with real food. “It’s time for all civil society to recognize the gravity of this situation, global capital should not control our food, nor make decisions behind closed doors. The future of our food, the protection of our resources and especially our seeds, are the right of the people,” said Dena Hoff, coordinator of Via Campesina North America.

Food sovereignty as defined by Via Campesina is the peoples’ right to define their agricultural and food policy, and the right of farmers and peasants to produce food. Worldwide communities are seeking an alternative to a model controlled by Cargill, Monsanto, General Foods, Nestle and Kraft foods. Starved by industrialization and concentration, citizens are now hungry for traditional production methods and diversity in the food system.

Marie Trigona is a writer, radio producer and filmmaker based in Argentina. She can be reached at mtri...@msn.com

To President Obama and the House of Representatives:

As veterans of our nation’s wars, we insist you hear our call.

British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin spoke an unassailable truth when he said, “War would end if the dead could return.” If you believe that is true, Mr. President and Members of the House, you must heed our counsel well: we are the closest anyone can come to that truth the dead would speak. Stop the killing!

Because we personally understand what war truly means, we have written, called and demonstrated repeatedly for an end to the killing in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have protested at and have been arrested in House Office Buildings, the House Gallery, the White House and Congressional offices across the nation. We have pleaded, then demanded, that you stop the suffering in these countries. Although promised prior to the election, no combat brigades have returned from Iraq. And now we can smell the mire of escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Nevertheless, we cannot cease to appeal to that spark of humanity in your hearts. We know wealthy, powerful interests such as weapons contractors, lobbyists and right-wing broadcasters daily make a deafening noise, trying to drown out the voice that insists, “Stop the killing.” We also know that no matter how quiet the voice of humanity might become, it can never be silenced.

So we lift up to you voices much more eloquent than our own, voices of soldiers who survived the worst fighting human beings have ever experienced, World War One. For nearly 100 years, the wisdom and compassion of their poetry has endured. Their words now stand as one of the world’s most powerful witnesses to the madness of war.

You must hear them.

…And you yourself would mutter when
You took the things that once were men,
And sped them through that zone of hate
To where the dripping surgeons wait;
And wonder too if in God’s sight
War ever, ever can be right.
– From “Foreword” by British ambulance driver, Robert Service

And

…If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

– From “Dulce et Decorum est” (It is Sweet and Right to Die for Your Country) by British Army Lt. Wilfred Owen, killed a week before the 1918 Armistice.

More than that we cannot say to you, so we will address our former brothers and sisters in arms who are now our brothers and sisters in peace.

To members of Veterans For Peace:

At one time in our lives we bore the hardships and dangers of military service. We were not strangers to privation, or fear, or acts of courage. Although the America of our childhood history books has been shaken and some would say, shattered by what we learned in the military and since, we can still hear the call to service when it is clear and true.

Nothing could be more clear or true today than the need for us to do everything we humanly can to stop the killing. Not just stop the escalation – stop the killing. Bring all the troops home. Take care of them when they get here. Pay to rebuild what we have destroyed.

It is important for us to rededicate ourselves to the It is important for us to rededicate ourselves to the resolution we adopted at our 2008 convention: Afghanistan is not “the right war.” We must leave as soon as possible.

This is important to repeat because this administration and some in Congress would have us believe that we cannot withdraw immediately from Afghanistan, we must provide some stability and protection from the likes of the Taliban.

So we state without doubt: our occupation of Afghanistan is driving the violent opposition to it. More U.S. troops and more occupation will mean more anger and yet more violent reaction from those whose lands we occupy. We must rededicate ourselves to ending this cycle of violence.

The Taliban recruit from the ranks of the unemployed and the poor. One important way to reduce unemployment, poverty and Taliban recruits is to fund programs that provide work and income. To say that the government of Afghanistan is corrupt and that economic development funds are wasted is to conveniently ignore the real reason we are in Afghanistan.

Throughout Afghanistan, grassroots networks are making a difference at the local and tribal level. This is where we should put our money.

But we are not in Afghanistan to give them democracy, even if that were possible. Neither is our purpose to build up that country’s smaller, more democratic institutions that serve the population. We occupy Afghanistan because America the Empire demands control of its resources and to have a strategic locations from which to project military power. As the Secretary-General of NATO said recently, “We need a stable government in Afghanistan, a government that we can deal with.”

And no one – NO one, but us is going to stop the killing; neither the President nor the Congress. We can beseech them, ask them, demand from them that they stop the killing and bring all the troops home. But until we exert the power of massive resistance to the Empire that only we can exert, it will keep rolling over Afghanis, Iraqis, Pakistanis and whoever else that is in its way.

We must continue writing and calling our representatives and demanding peace. If we’ve done that we must take to the streets. If we’ve done that we must sit down in the streets. If we’ve done that we must sit down in Congressional offices and if we’ve done that we must sit down, clog up, incapacitate, withdraw our consent and generally bring business as usual to a halt wherever we can, with any peaceful means available.

If we do not take every step we can we know what will happen. Combat brigades will stay in Iraq, drone attacks, Special Forces and the CIA will continue to kill and maim in Pakistan, and 40, 60, 80,000 more troops will be sent to Afghanistan where the suffering and death will increase dramatically – for years to come.

Even when we do all of the above we must anticipate that it may not be enough to stay the hand of death. The American Empire is a mighty machine. We will need to make common cause with all those living in the heart of Empire who are also its victims. We know who they are. We see them every day – on the streets, where we work, where we shop, where we pray, where we play.

They and we are the common folk, not possessed of significant wealth. But we are skilled and numerous and creative and tenacious. And we have nothing but time. The Empire may be mighty but it is also as of glass – the next blow against it may well be the one that sends a crack through its entire length, the next blow causing it to shatter. We cannot know when that will happen or whose blow may be the deciding one. Our job is simple: to never quit. To use a military analogy, as long as an army, no matter how tattered, remains in the field, the revolution continues.

That’s all we have to do. But we must do it. Starting now.

###

Ferner is a former Navy hospital corpsman and President of Veterans For Peace mike...@sbcglobal.net

Big Agribusiness is trying to keep the truth from the voters by silencing us. They have pressured the media to pull our message off the air by contacting the radio stations currently running the ads.

We’ve been working hard over the past few weeks to defeat Issue 2 in

Ohio, and your support has really helped. The radio ads many of you have funded are warning Ohio voters that factory farms put the public at risk for food contamination such as E. coli and diseases like swine flu. The risk posed by large confined animal facilities has been documented by a growing body of research – a fact that the Ohioans for Livestock Care PAC is trying to keep from voters.

We’ll continue to run different versions of our ad to get the truth out in Ohio. Election Day is only hours away. We need to run as many radio ads as we can in these last few days so that we can inform voters about the realities of Issue 2 and defeat this measure. Can you help us buy more air time for this final push?

Thank you for your support,

Sarah Alexander, Senior Organizer
Food & Water Watch
good...@fwwatch.org

Devastating “Free Market” Reforms Imposed on Serbia

by Gregory Elich

A dozen years ago, neoliberal political forces took power in Serbia, promising a radical transformation of the economy. Today, deep into that transformation, Serbia is foundering from its effects exacerbated by the worldwide economic downturn. Industrial production has fallen 15 percent compared to the average of last year, (1) while unemployment remains high.

A delegation from the IMF is in Belgrade, negotiating over Serbia’s 2010 national budget and how best to deal with the economic crisis. The two sides are not far apart, in that both parties envision more of the usual neoliberal prescriptions as the way out of an economic crisis brought about in large part by those very same measures.

The probable outcome of the talks is the further enthrallment of Serbia to Western dictate. Already the economy has been essentially placed at the service of U.S. and Western European corporate interests, and the centerpiece of that transformation is the privatization drive. The economy of Serbia was at one time predominantly based on two forms of public enterprises: socially-owned firms that were worker managed, and larger state-owned companies. The last remaining firms in the former category are scheduled to be completely eliminated by the end of this year, while the latter category will take longer to tackle.

The outcome for those who work at enterprises that undergo privatization has been all too predictable. Companies privatized in accordance with the 2001 privatization law have shown a decrease of 45 percent in employment over the first two years of private ownership. Those companies that are privatized based on the 2003 law dropped just 15 percent by the end of the first year, but this apparent difference was only because of the extensive downsizing that these firms must undergo prior to sale, in order to make them more attractive to investors. The textile industry has been particularly hard hit, with steep job losses and falling performance. As the Privatization Agency reveals, “the performance of privatized companies is worse than the performance of the sector as a whole,” an interesting admission. (2)

Inevitably, it is working people who bear the brunt of privatization. Unemployment in Serbia steadily grew since 2000, when neoliberal political forces came to power, quickly reaching 32 percent within four years. (3) After that there was a modest economic recovery, due in part to the short-term influx of cash from the sale of enterprises through privatization. Unemployment dropped to 16 percent by April 2009, but this apparent improvement is illusory, having to do mainly with the recent adoption of the current American model for calculating unemployment. Under this method, workers who are not regularly and actively seeking jobs are counted as “discouraged,” and “out of the job market,” and therefore not belonging to the ranks of the unemployed. If one adds back in the number of workers who are classified as “inactive” but who profess both the ability and the desire to work, then the unemployment rate increases to 25 percent. In real terms, then, there has been no meaningful improvement in the unemployment rate. (4) To put this in perspective, at its peak in 1933, unemployment during the Great Depression in the U.S. reached 25 percent, a figure that was then not calculated to exclude a significant portion of workers. Today Serbian workers are enduring their own Great Depression, but one that has been imposed through adoption of the neoliberal economic model. For those who lose their livelihoods, there is little hope. Nearly two thirds of the non-discouraged unemployed have been without work for a year or longer, sometimes much longer. (5) They are society’s discards.

“Pay is often barely enough for basic needs including food and bills,” points out Dejan Bizinger on his blog. “There is absolutely no way for them to get a mortgage from a bank to buy a car, let alone affording a flat.” At an unemployment center, a woman remarks, “Of course I could not get employment.” Seeing little hope, she was applying for a reduced early pension. “I am a 50-year -old engineer holding a university degree and the only place I can find a job is at a fast-food restaurant. Think how humiliated I would feel after 30 years of work at the office to start flipping burgers at some local shop.” A British resident of Belgrade relates that the “Serbian people are crying out to be able to get mortgages and loans that will allow them to move out of their parents’ houses before they turn 40, and by that same token they are crying out for the kind of financial responsibility that will see them become voluntary slaves to their companies; living in fear of losing their jobs.” (6) The free market has come to Serbia, with all that it entails.

But things are not universally dire. For those who are well-positioned, there is money to be made, and it is that class that the Serbian government is keen to serve. In particular, it is Western corporate interests that are being wooed. As the Serbian Chamber of Commerce reports, “the key objective” of the privatization process “is to attract foreign investment.” (7)

To further that objective, the Law on Foreign Investments offers a broad host of incentives. The corporate tax rate is quite low, just 10 percent. But companies are totally exempt from any taxes whatsoever for a period of ten years from the first year in which they make a profit, as long as they invest a minimum of $11 million and employ at least 100 people. This is an easy hurdle to clear for any investor purchasing a medium-to-large sized firm. Yet even companies unable to meet those conditions are offered a variety of other tax incentives, so that in real terms the corporate tax rate tends to be well below 10 percent. The Law on Foreign Investments also offers guarantees against nationalization, removes restrictions on foreign investment and provides custom duty waivers. (8) In addition, a company that hires a new employee is permitted to take a tax reduction of 100 percent of that person’s salary for a period of two years.

To meet the demands of Western corporate investors, Serbia has also launched a program entitled the “guillotine of regulations,” which aims to quickly eliminate one third of Serbia’s regulations governing business operations. (9) It is probable that many of the regulations that will be axed serve some protective function for the populace. At the inception of the “guillotine” project, the Ministry of Economy invited foreign investors to offer their recommendations on what they wanted to see it accomplish. (10) No clearer signal could have been given as to the project’s objectives.

U.S. corporate circles are not shy about ensuring that their needs get met. Their presence is woven throughout the Serbian economic and political system, running much deeper than such visible manifestations as the spread of Western companies and chain stores and the blight of billboards.

Representing the views of the U.S. corporate world, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has implemented a number of programs in Serbia designed to promote those interests. Among other things, USAID says, its efforts are intended to “help deepen structural reforms.” One of its programs that is designed to advance that objective is the Bankruptcy and Enforcement Strengthening (BES), which helps the Serbian Privatization Agency Bankruptcy Unit “privatize state and socially-owned enterprises through bankruptcy, reorganization and/or liquidation in a more efficient and effective manner.” (11) Not to mention making those enterprises cheaper to purchase for the Western investor. The BES program is managed by a private contractor, Booz Allen and Hamilton, which reports that it is also “attracting global IT companies to outsource in Serbia.” (12)

One of the pillars of USAID’s efforts is the Serbia Economic Growth Activity (SEGA), in which the agency “advises” the government of Serbia “on the formulation and implementation of laws, policies and procedures relating to financial, fiscal and macroeconomic development.” (13) It is SEGA that played a major role in the establishment in Serbia of the Value Added Tax, the most regressive form of taxation there is. (14) The Value Added Tax currently stands at a whopping 18 percent, but the IMF is pushing for it to be raised still higher. Among SEGA’s “key results” achieved so far has been its involvement in the introduction of private pension funds, which are envisioned as an eventual replacement for Serbia’s public pension program. (15) The organization is currently actively “facilitating the next stages of pension reform.” Having helped establish voluntary private pension funds, SEGA is currently “analyzing the feasibility of introducing mandatory private pension funds.” (16) The outcome of that analysis is entirely predictable: the abolishment of the public pension fund and the abandonment of retirees to the tender mercies of the market.

Another component of the agency’s efforts in Serbia is the Municipal Economic Growth Activity (MEGA), which sees its role as “facilitating private sector growth” through a variety of means, including advocating policies and supporting legislative action. (17) That “support” goes so far as to include direct participation in the drafting of Serbian legislation.(18)

MEGA’s most important accomplishment has been the establishment of the National Alliance for Local Economic Development (NALED), “through which leaders from both business and local governments gather together around issues of common interest.” (19) Interests, it probably goes without saying, that are inimical to those of the working population. NALED has initiated what it terms the Business Friendly Certification, which is awarded to those local governments which prove themselves sufficiently subservient to USAID’s demands.

NALED organizes “business encounters” once a month to promote “open dialogue between businesses and government,” thereby furthering the influence of the business world on government policy. (20)

In July, 2009, NALED signed a memorandum of understanding certifying Belgrade as a “business friendly environment.” In line with that agreement, USAID’s MEGA program will train all of the employees in the city and municipal governments “on how to provide relevant information on development opportunities to prospective investors.” MEGA will also work with the city on drafting an action plan and defining priorities and projects. It is MEGA that will play the primary role in those endeavors. Belgrade is to be oriented firmly towards the business investor. (21)

Igor Pavlichich, mayor of Novi Sad, Serbia’s second largest city, observes, “Since we joined USAID’s Municipal Economic Growth Activity program, many expert analyses have been developed on how to rationalize the city’s budget expenditures. Program experts have advised us on how to use the budget funds for the capital investments in infrastructure. From now on, public utilities will have to take care of their budgets and to move on to a more market oriented approach.”(22) Such statements make one wonder: who is running the affairs of this city, the mayor or USAID? Looking to the future, the city has also developed a strategy of economic development, with the heavy involvement of USAID.(23)

In Nish, the city assembly passed a decision to offer land for industrial construction. Employees of MEGA actually wrote the draft legislation, which the city dutifully passed with the backing of the mayor, who reported that the city would be “offering a number of incentives to new investors.” (24) The project is being run by MEGA, and the project leader is an employee of that organization. “The city leadership showed great flexibility in negotiations with potential investors,” comments the project leader. (25)

Earlier this year, representatives from the towns of Loznica, Zrenjanin and Kragujevac set up presentations at the Hanover Industry and Technology Fair. “Our appearance at this fair was actually a prize won at the Invest in Serbia competition,” pointed out a member of the Loznica group. “All costs of the travel were covered by USAID through its MEGA program.” The group’s display was also supported by USAID consultants who gave the town’s delegation “directions on how to promote themselves,” which smacks of treating the town’s municipal employees as children in need of guidance. But they learned their lessons well. As one member of the delegation remarked, “Our competitors are India, China and Pakistan, for the cheap labor and wider market potentials.” (26)

Since USAID’s goals run directly counter to those of any rational working person, propaganda is an essential component of its efforts. The agency can help there too, providing “funding and technical assistance to NGOs across Serbia so that they can mobilize citizens to understand and support necessary reforms.” (27) These reforms are considered “necessary,” but for whom? Only for the class that stands to gain from them.

Another organization actively involved in the affairs of state in Serbia is the American Chamber of Commerce, as it seeks to promote U.S. business interests. Its “support” of the reform process goes so far as to actually help write Serbian legislation and to have legislation submitted to it for its approval. In a recent example, representatives of the American Chamber of Commerce met with Natasha Kovachevich, Assistant Minister of the Fiscal System Department in the Ministry of Finance. The meeting took place in response to a list of recommendations for so-called “improvements” to the Corporate Tax Law that the American Chamber of Commerce had submitted to the agency. Kovachevich informed the visiting committee that “most of the AmCham recommendations would be incorporated in the New Draft Law,” planned to be adopted in tandem with the 2010 budget. Kovachevich then “invited AmCham representatives to a follow-up meeting as soon as the new Draft Law is completed, but before it is sent to Government,” so that the American Chamber of Commerce “can talk over any further amendments.” (28)

The Foreign Investors Council (FIC) represents the interests of Western corporations in Serbia. Its purpose “is to assist Serbia in fully accepting and nurturing market economy and introducing a system of European values and standards.” In order to “improve the investment and business development climate in Serbia,” the Foreign Investors Council makes “concrete reform proposals.” (29) In other words, it meddles in the Serbian regulatory and legislative process just as the American Chamber of Commerce does.

Each year the Foreign Investors Council produces a White Book, which includes “proposals for improvement of the business environment in Serbia.” The aim of the White Book is to “point out the desired changes so as to improve conditions for doing business, and to provide concrete suggestions [to the Serbian government] on how to improve them.” As the FIC notes, the organization “has always worked in close partnership with the relevant government authorities.”

None of the FIC’s “helpful” suggestions are surprising. It calls for more privatization and more “market competition,” that is, additional advantages for Western investors. The FIC suggests that “additional decreases in labor expenses are necessary.” Apparently, Serbia’s already low salaries are considered still too high to suit all investors. There should be “further reductions of the income tax rate and the income amount exempt from taxation, or by a reduction in social security contributions.” At over 70 pages, the recommendations are far too numerous to enumerate here, but suffice to say that no stone is left unturned in this wish list. (30)

Not to be left out, the World Bank has its own set of prescriptions it is furnishing to the Serbian government in addressing its fiscal crisis. The Ministry of Finance asked the World Bank to provide advice on constraining expenses, a request the bank was all too happy to comply with, stating that the Serbian “public sector is already oversized.”

The World Bank, while acknowledging the cuts that Serbia has already made in public services, feels that more can be done. Current pension benefits are frozen for a period of two years, an action that the bank deems “highly desirable,” yet the government of Serbia “should also consider other methods for reducing benefits on a permanent basis.” Pension benefits are “too high,” the bank complains, explaining that “the pension due to a new retiree in Serbia is equal to nearly 60 percent of the net average wage.” Something has to be done about such a state of affairs. After all, a person might survive on such a sum. The solution? “Freeze pensions, then index to inflation.” But one has to be careful not to overdo it, lest it cause a popular backlash. “Over the longer term, however, indexation based solely on inflation will reduce pension levels to socially unacceptable levels. Employees would be asked to contribute 22 percent of wage over a lifetime of employment to support a pension equal to 9 percent.” What to do, then? Serbia should move to a mixed inflation and wage based system in which benefits would drop substantially but not catastrophically. Another desirable reform would be to reduce pension benefits for early retirees “even if they meet the years of contribution criteria.” Raising the retirement age for women would be another improvement, from the bank’s standpoint. The goal of pension reform, the World Bank states, is to turn the pension system “into a surplus-generating system which pays very low benefits.” What is the point of such a pension system? Simply, to vanish. And in its place? “The Government will also need to further develop the private pension sector.” (31)

The health system is another arena ripe for reform. The World Bank suggests that “efforts to right-size [translation: down-size] facilities and staffing at hospitals and [community health centers] should continue.”The number of beds at facilities can be reduced. The Health Insurance Fund “now has a considerable number of occupational therapists on its payroll.” This sector should be “assumed by the private sector.” Community health centers “could reduce staffing levels without reducing the number of consultations they provide.” That is, existing staff should be made to work harder and longer hours and reduce the amount of time spent with each patient. (32)

Education, the World Bank suggests, would benefit from the “rationalization of the school network, particularly at the primary level.” The problem, according to the bank, is that “Serbia has too many teachers… As a result, many classes are inefficiently small.” The average class size in primary school is 19 students, and in secondary school it is 26. The recommendation for rationalization of the educational system would result in the widespread closing of schools, bussing over long distances of students who reside in sparsely populated areas, and a “considerable reduction in staff.” Those teachers who survive mass layoffs would be made to face the prospect of a lowered standard of living. “In principle,” the World Bank helpfully suggests, “wage restraint could be a source of future savings,” and there is “no evidence” contrary to the proposal that wages could be lowered without generating recruitment and retention problems.” With a newly formed large pool of laid off educational staff, there would be an inevitable reluctance among employees who might otherwise clamor over the reduction in their wages. Current regulations in Serbia set the maximum class size at 30. The World Bank proposes changing the regulations so that this number would instead become the minimum class size. To counter claims that smaller class sizes are more conducive to learning, the World Bank points out that Serbian students score lower on achievement tests than their counterparts in some of the other nations of the region. The implication is that packing more students into a classroom will not matter, yet it is difficult to imagine room for improvement under such a scenario. Regardless, that program is underway. The Ministry of Education has already initiated a three-year plan to carry out some of these measures, including the closing of schools and mass layoffs. (33)

To appeal to the IMF and in order to meet loan conditions, Serbia sent a letter of intent to that organization in April 2009, in which a number of promises were made. Serbia committed to freezing pension and public employee salaries for a period of two years and cutting discretionary budgets in all ministries by 26 percent. More importantly from the IMF’s standpoint, Serbia indicated that state ownership in banks “will be phased out as soon as market conditions permit,” and that it would “continue to restructure state-owned enterprises, increase private sector participation, and improve the investment climate.” (34)

The IMF Mission that visited Belgrade in September 2009 noted with approval that the government of Serbia, “in consultation with the World Bank, will proceed with health, education and non-pension social benefit reforms.” But the IMF wanted to see a speed up in reforms. “It is now time to shift from immediate crisis-fighting mode to putting in place more medium-term oriented policies,” including yet more privatization. (35) As an earlier IMF Mission to Belgrade reported, “We welcome the renewed efforts to accelerate privatization or bankruptcy of socially owned enterprises,” but “we urge completion of the process as soon as possible.” Many of the previously privatized firms have been sold for peanuts, closed down and then stripped of their assets, leaving the former workers without any livelihood. More of this would be a desirable thing, as the IMF suggests the nuclear option: privatize as fast as possible, and where a firm cannot be sold in a timely manner, close it down and sell off its assets. “The bankruptcy process should be strengthened, and government and public authorities should initiate bankruptcies without delay. Unviable companies that cannot be sold rapidly should be liquidated to free up productive assets.” (36) This is a recipe for sparking a huge leap in unemployment and mass immiseration.

For the IMF, the economic crisis is seen as fortuitous. “The current difficulties present an opportunity to tackle long-delayed structural reforms. While the global financial crisis may not be particularly conducive to pushing ahead with the still extensive privatization agenda, this should not deter the authorities from bold structural reforms. With vested interests likely off balance, this may indeed be an opportune time to tackle long-standing – politically difficult – issues.” (37)

That the Serbian government not only listens to such proposals, but enacts them is an embarrassment. The government of Serbia flaunts its disregard for its own citizens. The bourgeois parties in power represent only the narrow interests of their own class and the system’s Western beneficiaries.

With mounting radicalization, workers are increasingly responding to the abuses of the system with strikes and protests. Despite strong motivation among the workers, these actions tend to lack much in the way of success, given spotty support from the unions. Indeed, the unions recently signed an agreement with the government on mass layoffs of government employees. (38)

Unfortunately no measure is likely to dislodge the grasp of Western power in Serbia in the foreseeable future. The powers arrayed against workers are at the present time too powerful, and Serbia occupies too important a geographical position in the Balkans, one that Western corporations are not likely to readily relinquish. Centrally located, and along the Danube, the country has the region’s major road, rail and river navigation routes. The nation’s location is crucial for integrating the entire Balkans under the neoliberal model and the shipment of goods from this low-wage region to the West. It is also an important trading linkage between Europe and the Middle East. The Corridor X project is planned to expand Serbia’s transportation capabilities, which as the World Bank reports, ” will enable Serbia to capitalize on its geographical position as a key transit country in the Pan-European network.” (39) It will be a long and daunting task for the Serbian working class to reverse its losses.

Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and on the Advisory Board of the Korea Truth Commission. He is the author of the book Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit.

Notes

(1) “Industrial Production in August 2009,” Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, September 30, 2009.
(2) “Impact Assessment of Privatisation in Serbia,” Privatization Agency, Republic of Serbia, October 27, 2005.
(3) “Unemployment in Serbia and Montenegro,” www.worldwide-tax.com.
(4) “Labor Force Survey,” Statistical Office, Republic of Serbia, April 2009.
(5) “Labor Force Survey,” Statistical Office, Republic of Serbia, April 2009.
(6) Ljubisa Bojic, “Serbia: Unemployment and Low Salaries,” Global Voices, August 30, 2009.
(7) “Business in Serbia: Privatization,” Serbian Chamber of Commerce, October 11, 2009.
(8) “Serbia Investment Climate,” U.S. Commercial Service Serbia.
(9) “2009 Investment Climate Statement – Serbia,” U.S. Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs, February 2009.
(10) “Willing to Help,” Foreign Investors Council.
“AmCham Business Advocacy Activities,” AmCham in Serbia.
(11) “Building a Strong Investment Climate,” USAID Serbia.
(12) “Emerging Economies,” Booz Allen and Hamilton.
(13) “Building a Strong Investment Climate,” USAID Serbia.
(14) “Serbia Economic Growth Activity (SEGA),” US AID Serbia.
(15) “Serbia Economic Growth Activity (SEGA),” US AID Serbia.
(16) “Serbia Economic Growth Activity: About Us,” USAID Serbia.
(17) “Municipal Economic Growth Activity (MEGA),” USAID Serbia.
(18) “Municipal Economic Growth Activity: Program Components,” US AID Serbia.
(19) “Municipal Economic Growth Activity (MEGA),” USAID Serbia.
(20) “NALED Portfolio,” NALED.
(21) “Belgrade Signs MoU with USAID and NALED,” Radio Television Serbia, Belgrade, July 8, 2009.
“Creation of the Investor Friendly Climate,” Danas, Belgrade, July 9, 2009.
(22) “Interview with the Mayor of Novi Sad Igor Pavlicic,” Radio Television Vojvodina 1, June 2, 2009.
(23) “Novi Sad Develops Strategic Plan,” Vecernje Novosti, Belgrade, June 16, 2009.
(24) “Nis Offers 10 Hectares of Land for Industrial Construction,” NTV, Nis, April 28, 2009.
(25) “Modernization of the Urban Land Management,” Narodne Novine, Nis, February 25, 2009.
(26) “Hanover Fair: Let the World Know That We Exist,” LoznickeNovine, Loznica, May 2009.
(27) “Strengthening Democracy and Governance,” USAID Serbia.
(28) “Meeting at the Ministry of Finance,” AmCham Serbia, Belgrade, September 3, 2009.
(29) “About Us,” Foreign Investors Council in Serbia.
(30) “White Book 2008,” Foreign Investors Council, Belgrade, 2008.
(31) “Serbia: Doing More with Less,” The World Bank, June 16, 2009.
(32) “Serbia: Doing More with Less,” The World Bank, June 16, 2009.
(33) “Serbia: Doing More with Less,” The World Bank, June 16, 2009.
(34) “Letter of Intent, Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies, and Technical Memorandum of Understanding,” Republic of Serbia, April 30, 2009.
(35) “Republic of Serbia : Stand-by Arrangement – Second Review Mission, Aide Memoire,” IMF, September 1, 2009.
(36) “Serbia – 2007 Article IV Consultation Concluding Statement of the Mission,” IMF, November 6, 2007.
(37) “Republic of Serbia: First Review Under the Stand-by Arrangement and Requests for Augmentation, Extension of the Arrangement, Rephasing of Purchases, Waiver of Applicability of End-March Performance Criterion and Modification of End-June Performance Criteria, and Financing Assurance Review,” IMF, April 30, 2009.
(38) “Govt., Unions in Job Cuts Compromise,” B92, Belgrade, October 9, 2009.
(39) “Serbia: Doing More with Less,” The World Bank, June 16, 2009.

“McChrystal argues that only a massive infusion of U.S. troops, and a corresponding “surge” of American civilians, can achieve the stability necessary to transform Afghanistan from the failed state it is today. A viable nation capable of self-government….”

If this is what the DC warlords want to achieve (above), hand out the congrats cards and backslaps. It’s done.  Afghanistan is, “A viable nation capable of self-government….”, right now.  Smart imperialists should say what they mean, keep their yaps shut or at least tell better lies.  What the raving crazies really mean is, “transform Afghanistan from the not-submissive, independent state it is today, into a viable nation capable of being managed for profit by the U.S. government….”.

All who want to accuse me of being willing to leave a sick bunch of adolescents like to Taliban in place to brutalize women – ease your little cheeks. I just want our government to stop doing what it’s doing to people. Who wants the Imperial armies of some other whacked out nation coming to pound the people of the U.S., because we have our own adolescent government?  Besides, it’s making the sane citizens in the U.S. look bad.  It also puts us in real danger – I imagine at some point someone will get fed up with it and really retaliate.  I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet.  But we do see the world starting to take sides and set up lines to stop U.S. advances.  What I find most unnerving about the current administration is it’s desire to militarize the public.  Rahm Emanuel is probably the most dangerous person who has ever been in the white house.  Cheney was just a greedy pig, Bush was just fulfilling his contract, but Rahm is a zealot, like Ashcroft.  So here is the story from Scott (someone I always listen to…)

McChrystal Doesn’t Get It—Does Obama?
By Scott Ritter

There is a curious phenomenon taking place in the American media at the moment: the lionization of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the American military commander in Afghanistan. Although he has taken a few lumps for playing politics with the White House, McChrystal has generally been sold to the American public as a “Zen warrior,” a counterinsurgency genius who, if simply left to his own devices, will be able to radically transform the ongoing debacle that is Afghanistan into a noble victory that will rank as one of the greatest political and military triumphs of modern history. McChrystal’s resume and persona (a former commander of America’s special operations forces, a tireless athlete and a scholar) have been breathlessly celebrated in several interviews and articles. Reporters depict him as an ascetic soldier who spouts words of wisdom to rival Confucius, Jesus and Muhammad.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent Gen. McChrystal to “fix” the war in Afghanistan in the way that his boss, that earlier military prophet Gen. David Petraeus, “fixed” Iraq. Whether by accident or design, McChrystal’s mission became a cause célèbre of sorts for an American media starved for good news, even if entirely fabricated, coming out of Afghanistan. One must remember that the general has accomplished little of note during his short tenure to date as the military commander in Afghanistan. His entire reputation is built around the potential to turn things around in Afghanistan. And to do this, McChrystal has said he needs time, and 40,000-plus additional American troops. There are currently around 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. McChrystal’s request would raise that number to around 110,000 troops – the same number as the Soviets had deployed in Afghanistan at the height of their failed military adventure some 20 years ago.

McChrystal, or more accurately, his staff, has authored a not-so-secret report that outlines the reasoning behind this massive increase in American military involvement in Afghanistan. Rightly noting that the American-led effort is currently failing, McChrystal argues that only a massive infusion of U.S. troops, and a corresponding “surge” of American civilians, can achieve the stability necessary to transform Afghanistan from the failed state it is today. A viable nation capable of self-government, the new Afghanistan could maintain internal security so that terrorist organizations like al-Qaida will not be able to take root, flourish and once again threaten American security from the sanctuary of a lawless land. This concept certainly looks good on paper and plays well in the editorial section. And why shouldn’t it? It touches on all the romantic notions of America as liberator and defender of the oppressed. The problem is that the assumptions made in the McChrystal report are so far removed from reality as to be ludicrous.

McChrystal operates under the illusion that American military power can provide a shield from behind which Afghanistan can remake itself into a viable modern society. He has deluded himself and others into believing that the people of Afghanistan want to be part of such a grand social experiment, and furthermore that they will tolerate the United States being in charge. The reality of Afghan history, culture and society argue otherwise. The Taliban, once a defeated entity in the months following the initial American military incursion into Afghanistan, are resurgent and growing stronger every day. The principle source of the Taliban’s popularity is the resentment of the Afghan people toward the American occupation and the corrupt proxy government of Hamid Karzai. There is nothing an additional 40,000 American troops will be able to do to change that basic equation. The Soviets tried and failed. They deployed 110,000 troops, operating on less restrictive lines of communication and logistical supply than the United States. They built an Afghan army of some 45,000 troops. They operated without the constraints of American rules of engagement. They slaughtered around a million Afghans. And they lost, for the simple reason that the people of Afghanistan did not want them, or their Afghan proxies.

Some pundits and observers make note of the fact that the Afghan people were able to prevail over the Soviets only because of billions of dollars of U.S. aid, which together with similar funding from Saudi Arabia and the logistical support of Pakistan, allowed the Afghan resistance to coalesce, grow and ultimately defeat the Soviets and their Afghan allies. They note that there is no equivalent source of empowerment for the Taliban in Afghanistan today. But they are wrong. The Taliban receive millions of dollars from sympathetic sources in the Middle East, in particular from Saudi Arabia, and they operate not only from within Afghanistan, but also out of safe havens inside Pakistan.

Indeed, one of the unique aspects of the Afghan conflict is the degree to which it has expanded into Pakistan, making any military solution in one theater contingent on military victory in the other. But the reality is that the more one employs military force in either Afghanistan or Pakistan, the more one strengthens the cause and resources of the Islamic insurgents in both places. Pashtunistan, once a fanciful notion built around the concept of a united Pashtun people (the population in eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan are primarily drawn from Pashtun tribes), has become a de facto reality. The decision by the British in 1897 to separate the Pashtun through the artificial device of the so-called Durand Line (which today constitutes the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan) has been exposed today as a futile effort to undermine tribal links. No amount of military force can reverse this.

More from Scott Ritter

“It sounds to me like a few members of the choir are beginning to wake up….DgsWilson”

Article from organic consumers.org

Who’s in the Obama Administration? It’s sort of a “one for you, two for me” kind of arrangement.

President Obama and the biotech industry gets the Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack. While Iowa Governor, he was a leading advocate for Monsanto, genetic engineering, and factory farming. He was recently caught in the act of trying to promote biotechnology as the answer to world hunger.

The First Lady and the sustainable agriculture movement get the Deputy Secretary. Kathleen Merrigan is a stellar organic advocate who is working hard to facilitate local food systems through the Know Your Farmer program. But, as the political director of the Organic Consumers Association, I have to admit, it doesn’t look like Bush Administration policies that weakened organic are unlikely to be overturned quickly. Concentration is increasing in the organic dairy industry, with bad-actor brands like Horizon expanding factory farm-style feedlots, but Merrigan doesn’t want to admit there’s any such thing as a “factory farm.” She also says she has no plans to address blatant fraud in the organic cosmetics industry where brands like “Jason: Pure, Natural & Organic” advertise themselves as “organic” without being USDA certified.

Of the Under Secretaries named so far, Rajiv Shah, Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics and Chief Scientist, Kevin Concanon, Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, Jim Miller, Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agriculture Services, Dallas Tonsager, Under Secretary of Agriculture for Rural Development, and Edward M. Avalos , Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, none are champions of organic agriculture, and only Shah is a outright biotechnology advocate. (Under Secretaries for Food Safety or Natural Resources and Environment have yet to be appointed.)

Rajiv Shah, Research, Education and Economics and Chief Scientist
Agricultural policy experts initially that Shah, Director of Agricultural Development Programs at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, lacked real experience in agriculture. Shah was the founding director of the Gates Foundation’s agriculture program, which has donated $37 million to GM research.

Directly under Shah is Roger Beachy who is steering the direction of US agricultural research at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Beachy is a long time Monsanto collaborator who directed an institute established by Monsanto and academic partners with a $70-million pledge from the corporation. It’s effectively a Monsanto front.

Shah’s senior adviser for energy and climate is Maura O’Neill. O’Neill ran a public-private life sciences venture called Explore Life, dedicated to drawing biotech companies to the Seattle area where the Gates Foundation is based.

Shah has brought in Rachael Goldfarb to work for him as counselor. At the Gates Foundation, Goldfarb was special assistant to Tachi Yamada, president of the foundation’s global health program.

Shah’s team has already awarded $11 million in Coordinated Agricultural Project grants to four research universities to study “plant genomics and ways to improve the nutrition and health values of important crops.” Expect more GMO tomatoes, potatoes, barley, soybean, and trees. And be on the lookout for new, GMO legumes embedded with cholesterol and diabetes drugs.

According to a USDA press release on the awards, “Because humans consume more legumes than any other crop, this research has the potential to reduce cholesterol and sugar levels, which in turn can prevent or alleviate certain types of cancer, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.”

The irony is that there’s a GMO legume already on the market, soy, that has found its way into just about all processed and fried foods in the form of partially hydrogenated soybean oil (a.k.a. trans fat). Will the result of this research be a new GMO trans fat that treats diet-related diseases caused by other GMO trans fats? It would certainly be a first for the field of genetic engineering. In fact, any new GMO crop that actually improved the nutrition and health value of an important crop would be a first. Contrary to popular belief, to date, there is not one health or nutritional benefit associated with any GMO crop. They’re all genetically modified to either withstand or produce pesticides (usually manufactured by the chemical company that genetically engineered the crop).

Jim Miller, Farm and Foreign Agriculture Services
Jim Miller was the President of the National Association of Wheat Growers, which has taken a pro-biotech position, but his term was in the 80s, before GMOs were an issue. In 2002, while Miller was the National Farmers Union’s chief economist, NFU asked the government for a moratorium that would temporarily discontinue granting patents on GMOs. The organization wanted to prevent large companies from gaining control of genetically modified products. So, Jim Miller can’t be characterized as a biotech booster, but one of the divisions he oversees, the Foreign Agriculture Service (FAS), always has been and that doesn’t seem to have changed with new appointments.

Michael Michener, a former lead Iraq policy officer at the State Department who was a foreign policy adviser to Vilsack during his brief presidential campaign, now heads the FAS. On May 26, 2009, the FAS posted a pro-GMO report titled, “The Unexplored Potential of Organic-Biotech Production.” After thousands of angry letters from Organic Consumer Association activists, the agency was forced to pull the report and print a retraction explaining, “[T]he report does not represent the policy of the United States Government.” Nevertheless, the USDA, along with 3 of the world’s top 5 seed companies (Monsanto, Syngenta, Land O’ Lakes) and a host of other multinational agribusinesses, sponsored the 2009 Borlaug Dialogue. On the agenda was “Harmonizing Organic and Sustainable Agricultural Practices with Modern Technology and Genetics.”

Dallas Tonsager, Rural Development
Tonsager’s top priorities for USDA’s Rural Development include expanding economic opportunity from bioenergy, including biofuel, biomass and cellulose. This is likely to result in short-term economic gain for many farmers and rural communities. Unlike other parts of his plan, including capitalizing on the economic benefits of local food systems and increasing broadband access, bioenergy can have hidden long-term costs for the economies and ecology of rural communities. On one hand, there are small farmers who produce biofuels responsibly and local biodiesel collectives that recycle spent cooking oil. (What’s not to like? I’m the proud driver of a veggie diesel car, myself!) But, that’s not where the majority of government subsidies go. According to the Rainforest Action Network:

Agribusiness, oil, energy and auto companies are rapidly consolidating control over the entire agrofuel sector. The power of these corporations is staggering: Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) lobbied the U.S. government for three decades to promote adding ethanol to gasoline, resulting in $2 billion of government subsidies—most of which has gone directly to ADM. Automakers exploit a biofuels loophole in fuel economy regulations to avoid reducing vehicle oil consumption and tailpipe greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

That $2 billion makes the $13 million in loans and grants the USDA recently awarded to 233 renewable energy projects under the Rural Energy for America Program look pretty puny. Between 2003 and 2008, the Department of Agriculture awarded $140 million in grants and $197 million in loan guarantees to more than 2,000 projects in all 50 states, including wind farms, anaerobic digesters, biofuel production, solar electric systems, and efficiency upgrades. $99.3 million has been appropriated for REAP in 2010.

Edward Avalos, Marketing and Regulatory Programs
Edward Avalos is the USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, which includes the National Organic Program. This uncontroversial figure worked for 29 years at the NM Department of Agriculture. In 2008, he named Sunland Peanut, the largest producer of organic peanut butter in the country, the New Mexico Agricultural Marketer of the Year.

Kevin Concannon, Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services
Concannon, another uncontroversial state administrator, has been director of health and human service agencies in Iowa (under Governor Tom Vilsack), Maine, and Oregon. He’s taking on food assistance at a time when nearly half of U.S. newborns are eligible for the federal Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program. WIC is available to families with incomes up to $33,874 for a household of three — 185% of the federal poverty level. He recently presided over a change at WIC that, while not increasing benefits, will allow WIC vouchers to be used, for the first time, for fruits, vegetables and whole grains, in addition to milk, cheese, juice and eggs. Currently, there is a de facto ban on organic in WIC, but big conventional food processors like Sara Lee are already cashing in on the new market that’s been created for them.

Concannon’s Deputy is Janey Thornton. She’s a school nutrition director who played a leadership roles in both the School Nutrition Association and the School Nutrition Foundation. Grist.org food editor Tom Philpott was the first to look into SNA’s industry ties:

The SNA’s list of “industry members” is password-protected, but it does name its “industry member advisory board,” which includes execs from high-fructose-corn syrup giant Archer Daniels Midland and Conagra. And its “current industry patron list” makes bracing reading for anyone who would like to see school-lunch reform. It includes ADM, Campbell Soup Company, Cargill Kitchen Solutions, PepsiCo Foodservice, Sara Lee Foods Foodservice, Coca Cola, Tyson Foods, Chicken of the Sea International—a kind of roster of our nation’s most powerful food processors.

The Grist.org piece, “Obama’s school-lunch chief not much of a reformer,” reviews Thornton’s resume of cafeteria menus:

When we think of the sugar, fat and salt children are consuming, we cringe. When we think about the multi-national agribusiness companies this type of school food service system supports, we cringe. And when we think about the negative overall effect that this system has on People, Planet and Sustainable Profit, all sense of optimism just drains away.

If the state of affairs at USDA weren’t depressing enough, many biotech and pesticide promoters have been appointed to other agencies dealing with food and farming, as well, notably:

Michael Taylor, FDA
The senior adviser to the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner on food safety is Michael Taylor. The Vice President for Public Policy at Monsanto Corp. from 1998 until 2001, Taylor exemplifies the revolving door between the food industry and the government agencies that regulate it.

Islam Siddiqui, USTR
Islam Siddiqui has been nominated as the Chief Agricultural Negotiator for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. If Congress confirms him, he will use the post to continue the lobbying he has done for CropLife (a front group for chemical agriculture), promoting chemical-intensive, genetically modified products that undermine local food security in developing countries.

Croplife America’s regional partner, Mid America CropLife Association, notoriously “shuddered” at Michelle Obama’s organic garden and launched a letter writing campaign in protest.
Another Washington insider using the revolving door between employment in government and big business, Siddiqui worked for Clinton’s USDA. Siddiqui led the first phase of development for national organic food standards in the United States. The Organic Consumers Association was formed in 1998 due to the massive backlash consumers had against Siddiqui’s proposed regulations for organic food that would have outrageously allowed for toxic sludge, irradiated foods and genetically modified organisms to be labeled “organic.” Only after an unprecedented 230,000 consumers wrote USDA to protest Siddiqui’s rules were they strengthened.

Jill Long Thompson, Farm Credit Administration Board
Jill Long Thompson has been nominated for a seat on the Farm Credit Administration Board. After a political career, she became CEO of the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy, a non-profit founded to research biotechnology, pesticides, U.S. farm and food policy and international trade and development. The National Center produces a yearly “Update On Impacts On US Agriculture Of Biotechnology Der… that attempts to make the case that biotechnology-derived crops increase yields, reduce the use of chemicals and improve economic conditions for farmers. National Center trustees include university administrators, a former cabinet secretary, and representatives of agribusinesses including Altria, Blythe Cotton and ConAgra.

Aneesh Chopra, United States Chief Technology Officer
According to a press release for the “Emerging Technologies/Emerging Economies: (Nano)technology for Equitable Development” conference, to be held from November 4-6, 2009, in Washington, D.C., Chopra will address the conference to ” discuss using technology to solve environmental, energy, water, food security and health problems in developing nations.”

U.N. Can’t Account for Millions Sent to Afghan Election Board

by T. Christian Miller and Dafna Linzer
For – ProPublica – October 29
http://www.propublica.org/article/un-cant-account-for-millions-sent-to-afghan-election-board-1029

nincompoop www.etymonline.com

The United Nations cannot account for tens of millions of dollars provided to the troubled Afghan election commission, according to two confidential U.N. audits and interviews with current and former senior diplomats. (Read both audits.)

As Afghanistan prepares for a second round of national voting, the documents and interviews paint the fullest picture to date of the finances of the election commission, which has been accused of facilitating election fraud and operating ghost polling places. The new disclosures also deepen the questions about the U.N.’s oversight of money provided by the United States and other nations to ensure a fair election in Afghanistan.

“Everybody kept sending money” to the elections commission, said Peter Galbraith, the former deputy chief of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan. “Nobody put the brakes on. U.S. taxpayers spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a fraudulent election.” Galbraith, a deputy to the senior U.N. official in Afghanistan, was fired last month after protesting fraud in the elections.

The audits come as President Barack Obama is struggling to craft a war policy for Afghanistan that would establish a stable government in a country with few democratic traditions. Senior aides have made clear that Obama will not commit to sending additional troops until there is a legitimately elected government in Kabul. On Wednesday, insurgents stormed a housing compound primarily occupied by U.N. election officials, killing eight people, including two election workers.

Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission initially reported that President Hamid Karzai had won the majority of votes in the August election. A recount was ordered after another U.N.-backed panel uncovered evidence of widespread fraud. After weeks of prodding from the Obama administration, Karzai agreed last week to a runoff.

The U.N. audit reports, which are near completion but still in draft form, are likely to fuel debate over the Afghanistan election commission’s ability to carry out the new round of voting. Karzai’s challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, has suggested he may boycott the elections unless Karzai dismisses the chairman and two other commissioners.

In interviews, senior U.S. and U.N. officials said that U.N. leaders had ignored warnings as far back as 2007 that the election commission was a pro-Karzai body with few internal controls.

Another top official in the U.N.’s Afghanistan mission, Robert Watkins, acknowledged in an interview that some commission employees had contributed to the fraud in the first round of voting.

“It’s clear that some of the people” working for the commission at the polling centers “were complicit in fraud,” Watkins said. “Some of the staff hired were not working in the best interests of impartial elections.”

But Watkins said the United Nations is working to improve the commission’s performance in the runoff. He said the U.N. planned to slash the number of poll workers and blackball any that may have been implicated in fraud in the August elections.

As of April 2009, the U.N. had spent $72.4 million supporting the commission, with $56.7 million of that coming from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the audit said. Total election costs are now estimated at greater than $300 million, with the U.S. providing a third to half the total funding, according to one senior U.N. official familiar with the elections process.

The draft audit reports indicate that as many as one-third of payroll requests from the Afghan commission to the United Nations included “discrepancies,” such as incorrect names or amounts.

In another instance, the U.N. Development Program paid $6.8 million for transportation services in areas where no U.N. officials were present. Auditors found that the development agency had “inadequate controls” over U.S. taxpayer money used to fund the commission.

A UNDP spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said he could not comment on specific findings in the audits, since they were still in draft form. However, he said the agency strived to rigorously account for spending despite operating in a war zone.

“The insecurity, the lack of infrastructure, the pervasive corruption and harshness of the terrain make the implementation of any project extremely difficult,” Dujarric said. “That being said, those challenges in no way absolve us of constantly doing our utmost to ensure that monies given to us by donors are properly spent and accounted for.”

Watkins acknowledged that the U.N. had concerns about the commission as elections approached. The development agency works closely with the commission, paying salaries, buying supplies and handling logistical questions.

However, he said no evidence had surfaced that money flowing to the commission had been used to buy votes or bribe officials. “The indications were that (the commission) did not have sufficient controls in place. I can’t jump to the conclusion that the money was misappropriated.”

Watkins said he was “much more confident” about the commission’s spending practices after the U.N. tightened controls this summer. “I think we have a good partner” in the commission, Watkins said.

The U.N., he said, had suggested cutting the number of polling workers from 160,000 to 60,000 for the runoff election, in part to ensure better-trained workers. The smaller work force also reflects an effort by the U.N. to have fewer polling stations and fewer workers per station. He also said the U.N. would blackball at least 200 workers who had been linked to voting centers where fraud was alleged.

In public statements, commission officials have not yet committed to reducing staff or polling stations. A commission spokesman did not return a request for comment.

The confidential reports are being written by two U.N. audit agencies to examine charges that the U.N. had failed to safeguard $263 million in money from the U.S. Agency for International Development that was channeled through the development agency to fund the elections and rebuilding projects. USAID money accounted for about 40 percent of U.N. spending in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2009, the audits said.

Overall, the audits found that U.N. monitoring of U.S. taxpayer funds was “seriously inadequate.” Auditors could not find receipts, work plans or documentation to back up costs for projects such as roads and bridges. U.N. officials did not conduct site visits to confirm work and did not prepare financial reports for donor countries like the U.S., the audits found.

The main focus for criticism, however, was U.N. support of the election commission, a seven-member board whose members were appointed by Karzai. Using U.S. money, the U.N. development agency paid for commission salaries, helped contract out services and was supposed to train the commission to carry out its election responsibilities independently.

But the audit found that the development agency project was “not well managed” and contained several “weaknesses.”

Auditors found that the U.N. development agency had sent more than $7 million to the elections commission — including cash payments to temporary staff — without proof of expenditures.

The commission also failed to send any financial reports to the U.N. between September 2008 and June 2009, despite a requirement for monthly statements. The U.N. sent $9 million in total to the commission without ever receiving a financial report, the audit said.

The auditors made no findings as to whether the money that flowed to the commission was implicated in the fraudulent vote counting. Auditors said that they had hired an outside audit firm to conduct a more detailed review.

Harry Edwards, a spokesman for USAID, said the agency had not seen the audits and could not comment.

Galbraith cautioned against drawing conclusions as to whether U.N. oversight of financial issues played a significant role in the voting fraud. He blamed Kai Eide, the Norwegian diplomat who is the senior U.N. official in Afghanistan and his former boss, as well as himself, for not flagging problems with the commission earlier. Eide has denied any effort to cover up evidence of fraud in the elections process.

“The flaw was not a management flaw,” Galbraith said. “It was a political flaw to put all this money into an institution that was not as advertised. It was a political judgment not to say, ‘if you want us to pay for these elections, then we insist you do them in this way.’”

One former U.N. official with knowledge of the elections process said that the allegations of financial mismanagement were not surprising. The official, who did not want to be named because of the sensitivity of the topic, said that neither the U.N. nor the elections commission had a well-developed accounting program.

The commission “had no control over their financial management side,” the U.N. official said. “It was chaotic. There was no outside oversight.”

Instead, this official said that senior U.N. and U.S. diplomats pushed for the U.N. development agency to “deliver” the election by working with the elections commission — despite warnings that the commission was not truly independent.

“Nobody was paying attention. Nobody wanted to do anything about” the problems at the election commission, the official said.

The draft audits are the latest sign of problems with U.N. oversight of U.S. money in Afghanistan. Last year, the USAID inspector general issued a report charging that the U.N. had failed to complete U.S.-funded rebuilding projects and stonewalled an investigation into the $25.6 million program. USAID’s inspector general continues to investigate Gary K. Helseth, who headed the U.N. Office for Project Services between 2003 and 2006, in connection with the rebuilding program, a spokeswoman said. Helseth’s attorney did not return a request for comment.

The U.N. audits, however, also criticized the work of USAID’s inspector general. The USAID report, for instance, contained allegations that Mark Oviatt, the senior UNOPS official who replaced Helseth, had used USAID money to renovate a guest house for himself. Instead, the audit found that the U.N. had paid $35,000 out of its own pocket to conduct the renovation. Oviatt declined comment.

The U.N. audits also chastised the inspector general’s report for attempting to shirk USAID’s responsibility for problems with the development projects.

Donna Dinkler, a spokeswoman for USAID’s inspector general, said, “They can say what they want, but we stand by our findings.”

Afghanistan
Elections
Hamid Karzai
Independent Elections Commission
Peter Galbraith
United Nations
United Nations Development Program
USAID