16 / 06 / 2009
by Heather Cottin, December 9, 2003: The tactic of creating political hysteria was necessary for the United States to carry out its Balkan policy. It was repeated in 1999 when HRW functioned as the shock troops of indoctrination for the NATO attack on Yugoslavia. The institutions of George Soros stood behind it.
Soros: Philanthropist? Spook? or Philanthropist spook?
FRAMING THE ISSUES
His pose as a philanthropist gives Soros the power to shape international public opinion when social conflict raises the question of who are the victims and who are the malefactors. Like other NGOs, Human Rights Watch, Soros’ mouthpiece on human rights, avoids or ignores most organized and independent working class struggles.
In Colombia, labor leaders are routinely killed by paramilitaries working in concert with the U.S.-sponsored government. Because those unions oppose neoliberal economics, HRW is relatively silent. In April of this year, HRW’s Jose Vivanco testified before the U.S. Senate in favor of Plan Colombia: 55
“Colombians remain committed to human rights and democracy They need help. Human Rights Watch has no fundamental problem with the United States providing that help.” 56
HRW equates the actions of the Colombian guerrilla fighters struggling to free themselves from the oppression of state terror, poverty and exploitation with the repression of the U.S-sponsored armed forces and paramilitary death squads, the AUC (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia). HRW validated the Pastrana government and its military, whose role was to protect property rights and maintain the economic and political status quo. According to HRW, 50% of civilian deaths are the work of the government-tolerated death squads. 57 The correct number is 80%. 58
HRW essentially certified the election and ascendancy of the Uribe government in 2002 as well. Uribe is a throwback to the Latin American dictators the U.S. supported in the past, although he was “elected.” HRW had no comment about the fact that the majority boycotted the election. 59
In the Caribbean Basin, Cuba is another opponent of neoliberalism that has been demonized by Human Rights Watch. In nearby Haiti, Soros-funded activities have worked to defeat popular aspirations following the end of the Duvalier dictatorship by undermining Haiti’s first democratically elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. HRW’s Ken Roth helpfully chimed in with U.S. denunciations of Aristide as “undemocratic.” To demonstrate his idea of “democracy,” Soros foundations were commencing operations in Haiti complimentary to such unseemly U.S. activities as USAID’s promotion of persons associated with FRAPH, the notorious CIA-sponsored death squads which have terrorized the country since the fall of ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier. 60
On HRW’s web site, Director Roth criticized the U.S. for not opposing China more vigorously. Roth’s activities include the creation of the Tibetan Freedom Concert, a traveling propaganda project that toured the U.S. with major rock musicians, urging young people to support Tibet against China. 61 Tibet has been a pet project of the CIA for many years. 62
Roth has recently pressed for opposition to Chinese control over its oil-rich western province of Xinjiang. With the colonialist “divide and conquer” approach, Roth has tried to convince some of the Uighur religious minority in Xinjiang that the U.S/NATO intervention in Kosovo holds promise as a model for them. As late as August 2002, the U.S. government has given some support in this endeavor as well.
U.S. designs on this region were signaled clearly when a New York Times article on Xinjiang Province in western China described the Uighurs as a “Muslim majority, [which] lives restively under Chinese rule.” They “are well versed in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia last year which some celebrate for liberating the Muslims in Kosovo; they fantasize about a similar rescue’ here.” 63 The New York Times Magazine noted “Recent discoveries of oil have made Xinjiang extremely attractive to international trade,” while comparing the conditions for its indigenous population to those in Tibet. 64
INNUMERACY
When Sorosian organizations count, they seem to lose track of the truth. Human Rights Watch asserted that 500 people, not over 2,000, were killed by NATO bombers in the 1999 war in Yugoslavia. 65 They said only 350, not over 4,000, died as a result of U.S. attacks on Afghanistan. 66 When the U.S. bombed Panama in 1989, HRW prefaced its report by saying that the “ouster of Manuel Noriega.. and installation of the democratically-elected government of President Guillermo Endara brought high hopes in Panama…” The report neglected to mention the number of casualties.
Human Rights Watch prepared the groundwork for the NATO attack on Bosnia in 1993 by the false rape-of-thousands and “genocide” stories. 67 This tactic of creating political hysteria was necessary for the United States to carry out its Balkan policy. It was repeated in 1999 when HRW functioned as the shock troops of indoctrination for the NATO attack on Yugoslavia. All of Soros’ blather about the rule of law was forgotten. The U.S. and NATO made their own law, and the institutions of George Soros stood behind it.
Massaging of numbers to provoke a response was a major part of a Council on Foreign Relations campaign after September 11,2001. This time it was the 2,801 killed in the World Trade Center. The CFR met on November 6, 2001, to plan a “major public diplomacy campaign.” CFR created an “Independent Task Force on America’s Response to Terrorism.” Soros joined Richard C. Holbrooke, Newton L. Gingrich, John M. Shalikashvili (former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), and other powerful individuals on a campaign to make the Trade Center dead into tools for U.S. foreign policy. The CFR report set out to make the case for a war on terrorism. George Soros’ fingerprints were all over the campaign:
“Have senior-level U.S. officials press friendly Arab and other Muslim governments not only to publicly condemn the 9/11 attacks, but also to back the rationale and goals of the U.S. anti-terror campaign. We are never going to convince the publics in the Middle East and South Asia of the nghteousness of our cause if their governments remain silent. We need to help them to deflect any blow-hack from such statements, but we must have them vocally on board…. Encourage Bosnian, Albanian, and Turkish Muslims to educate foreign audiences regarding the U.S. role in saving the Muslims of Bosnia and Kosovo in 1995-99, and our long-standing, close ties to Muslims around the world. Engage regional intellectuals and journalists across the board, regardless of their views. Routinely monitor the regional press in real time to enable prompt responses… Stress references to the victims (and ideally named victims to personalize them) whenever we discuss our cause and goals.” 68
Sorosian innumeracy: counting to bolster and defend U.S. foreign policy.
Soros is very worried about the decline in the world capitalist system and he wants to do something about it, now. He recently said: “I can already discern the makings of the final crisis…. Indigenous political movements are likely to arise that will seek to expropriate the multinational corporations and recapture the ‘national’ wealth.” 69
Soros is seriously suggesting a plan to circumvent the United Nations. He proposes that the “democracies of the world ought to take the lead and forge a global network of alliances that could work with or without the United Nations.” If he were psychotic, one might think he was having an episode. But the fact is, Soros’ assertion that “The United Nations is constitutionally incapable of fulfilling the promises contained in the preamble of its charter,” reflects the thinking of such reactionary institutions as the American Enterprise Institute. 70 Though many conservatives refer to the Soros network as left-wing, on the question of U.S. affiliation with the United Nations Soros is on the same page as the likes of John R. Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, who, with “[M]any Republicans in Congress-believe that nothing more should be paid to the UN system.” 71 There has been a decades-long rightwing campaign against the UN. Now Soros is leading it. On various Soros web sites one may read criticism of the United Nations as too rich, unwilling to share information, or flawed in ways that make it unfit for the way the world should run according to George Soros.
Even writers at The Nation, writers who clearly ought to know better, have been influenced by Soros’ ideas. William Greider, for instance, recently found some validity in Soros’ criticism that the United Nations should not be a venue for “tin-pot dictators and totalitarians. . treated as equal partners.” 72 This kind of Eurocentric racism is at the heart of Soros’ hubris. His assumption that the United States can and should run the world is a prescription for fascism on a global scale. For much too long, Western “progressives” have been giving Soros a pass. Probably Greider and others will find the reference to fascism excessive, unjustified, even outrageous.
But just listen closely to what Soros himself has to say: “In old Rome, the Romans only voted. In the modern global capitalism, the Americans only vote. The Brazilians do not vote.” 73
NOTES
1. Dan Seligman, “Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire,” commentary, April 2002.
2. “Sir Karl Popper in Prague, Summary of Relevant Facts Without Comment,”
http://www.lf3.cuni.cz/aff/p1_e.html.
3. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Transcaucasia/Central Asia, www.rferl.org.
4. Seligman.
5. Lee Penn, “1999, A Year of Growth for the United Religions Initiative.” http://ad.doubleclick.net/adi/N1684.TMP3/B103O723.3;sz=720×300;ord=6249?.
6. George Soros, Soros on Soros, Staying Ahead of the Curve (New York: John Wiley, 1995), p. 26.
7. “Hedge Funds Get Trimmed,” Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2000.
8. Theodore Spencer, “Investors of the Century,” Fortune, December 1999.
9. Jim Freer, “Most International Trader George Soros,” Latin Tradecom, October 1998, http://www.latintrade.com/newsite/content/archives.cfm?StoryID=473.
10. Busaba Sivasomboon, “Soros Speech in Thailand Canceled,” AP wire, January 28, 2001.
11. Sivasomboon.
12. George Soros, The Asia Society Hong Kong Center Speech, www.asiasociety.org/speeches/soros.
13. Soros on Soros, pill.
14. George Soros, Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism (New York: Public Affairs, 2000).
15. David Corn, “Bush and the Billionaire, How Insider Capitalism Benefited
W,” The Nation, July 17, 2002.
16. Soros on Soros, pp. 122-25.
17. Agence France-Presse, October 8,1993.
18. Marianne Yen, “Fund’s Representatives Arrested in China,” Washington Post, August 8, 1989, p. A4.
19. Los Angeles Times, November 24, 1994, p. ASS.
20. Chrystia Freeland, “Moscow Suspicion Grows: Kremlin Factions Are at Odds Over Policy,” Financial Times (London), January 19, 1995.
21. Interfax Russian News, November 6,1999.
22. Irma Dezhina, “U.S. Non-profit Foundations in Russia, Impact on Research and Education” www.jhu.edu/~istr/conferences/dublin/workingpapers/dezhina.pdf.
23. “FSK Suspects Financing of Espionage on Russia’s Territory,” AP wire, January 18, 1995.
24. David Hoffman, “Proliferation of Parties Gives Russia a Fractured Democratic System,” Washington Post, October 1, 1995, p. A27; Margaret Shapiro, “Russian Agency Said to Accuse Americans of Spying,” Washington Post, January 14, 1995, p. A17.
25. Allan Turner, “Looking For Trouble,” Houston chronicle, May 28, 1995, p. E1; Kim Masters, “Where Is Fred Cuny,” Washington Post, June 19, 1995, p. D1; Patrick Anderson, “The Disaster Expert Who Met His Match,” Washington Post, September 6, 1999, p. C9; Scott Anderson, “What Happened to Fred Cuny?” New York Times Magazine, February 25, 1996, p. 44.
26. Scott Anderson, “The Man Who Tried to Save the World: the Dangerous Life and Disappearance of Fred Cuny,” Philanthropy Roundtable, March/April 2002, www.philanthropyroundtable.org/magazines/2000-01/hedges.
27. “U.S. Blocks $500M Aid Deal for Russians” Wall Street Journal, December 22, 1999.
28. Bob Djurdjevic, “Letters to the Editor,” Wall Street Journal, December 22, 1999.
29. “Open Society Institute,” www.soros.org/osi/newyork.
30. Connie Bruck, “The World According to Soros,” New Yorker, January 23, 1995.
31. Olga M. Lazin, “The Rise of the U.S. Decentralized Model for Philanthropy, George Soros’ Open Society and National Foundations in Europe,” http://www.isop.ucla.edu/profmex/volume6/1winter01/01lazin1.htm.
32. David Ignatius, “Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups,” Washington Post, September 22, 1991, p. C1.
33. Patrick McCartney, “Study Suggests Drug Laws Resemble Notorious Passbook Laws,” www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n861/a06.
34. McCartney.
35. See Sean Gervasi, “Western Intervention in the USSR,” CovertAction Information Bulletin, no. 39, Winter 1991-92.
36. “The Cenasia Discussion List,” http://www.eurasianet.org/resource/cenasia/hypermail/200102/0052.html.
37. Bogdan Denitch, “The Case Against Inaction,” The Nation, April 26, 1999.
38. “Biographies, 2002 Socialist Scholars Conference,” www.socialistscholar.org/biographies.
39. “Grants,” www.soros.org/repro/grants.
40. “East and Central Europe Program,” www.newschool.edu/centers/ecep.
41. Oxana Popovitch, “IREX Belarus Opens a New IATP Site in Molodechno.” www.iatp.net/archive/belarus.
42. lan Traynor, “Belarussian Foils Dictator-buster…For Now,” Guardian, September 14, 2001, www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,551533,00.html
43. Steven Erlanger, “Kostunica Says Some Backers ‘Unconsciously Work for American Imperial Goals,”‘ New York Times, September 20, 2000; and “Bringing Down a Dictator, Serbia Calling.” PBS, http://www.pbs.org/weta/dictator/rock/serbiacalling.html
44. Milosevic in the Hague, Focus on Human Rights, “In-Depth Report Documents Milosevic Crimes,” April 2001, http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/10/milocroat1029.htm.
45. “About ICG,” May 2002, http://www.intl-crisis-group.org/annual/2002/ICG2002.pdf.
46. Macedonia Crimes Against Civilians: Abuses by Macedonian Forces in Lluboten, August 10-12, 2001, 47. Andrew Leonard. “The Man Who Bought the World,” February 28, 2002, Salon.com. http://archive.salon.com/tech/books/2002/02/28/soros/
48. James Petras, “Imperialism and NGOs in Latin America,” Monthly Review, vol. 49, no. 7, December 1997.
49. International Security Studies, “Herbert Okun,” www.yale.edu/iss/peopleadvisoryboard1.
50. Leonard.
51. Edward W. Miller, “Brigandage,” Coastal Post Monthly, Mann County, CA, September 2000.
52. Mirjan Nadrljanski, “Eco-Disaster in Pancevo: Consequences on the Health of the Population,” July 19, 1999, www.gci.ch/GreenCrossPrograms/legacy/yugoslavia/Nadrljanski.html
53. “Soros Fund Launches $150 MIn U.S.Backed Balkans Investment,” Bloomberg Business News, July 26, 2000; Chris Hedges, “Below It All in Kosovo,” New York limes, July 8,1998, p. A4.
54. Galina Sabeva, “Soros’ Sofia IT Firm Gets $9 Million Equity Investment,” Reuters, January 23, 2001.
55. On Plan Colombia see: Manuel Salgado Tamayo, “The Geostrategy of Plan Colombia CovertAction Quarterly no. 71, Winter 2001.
56. “Colombia: Human Rights Watch Testifies Before the Senate,” Human Rights Watch Backgrounder, April 24, 2002, http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/americas/colombia-testimony0424.htm.
57. “Colombia: Bush/Pastrana Meeting, HRW World Report 2001, Human Rights News” (New York, November 6, 2001).
58. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Action Alert,” New York limes Covering for Colombian Death Squads,” February 9, 2001.
59. Doug Stokes “Colombia Primer Q&A on the Conflict and U.S. Role,” April 16, 2002. Znet, http://www.zmag.org/content/Colombia/stokes_col-primer.cfm.
60. Interpress Service, January 18, 1995. For additional background see Jane Regan, “AIDing U.S. Interests In Haiti,” CovertAction Quarterly no. 51, Winter 1994-95; and Noam Chomsky, “Haiti, The Uncivil Society,” CovertAction Quarterly no. 57, Summer 1996.
61. Sam Tucker, Human Rights Watch, www.webactive.com/webactive/sotw/hrw.
62. John Kenneth Knaus, Orphans of the Cold War (New York, BBS Public Affairs 1999), p. 236.
63. Elisabeth Rosenthal, “Defiant Chinese Muslims Keep Their Own Time,” New York limes, November 19, 2000, p. 3.
64. Jonathan Reynolds (pseudonym), “The Clandestine Chef,” New York Times Magazine, December 3, 2000.
65. “Lessons of War,” Le Monde Diplomatique, March 2000; Peter Phillips, “Untold Stories of U.S./NATO’s War and Media Complacency,” http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/suntold.htm
66. Marc W. Herold, “A Dossier on Civilian Victims of United States’ Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan: A Comprehensive Accounting,” www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/civiDeaths.html
67. “Rape as a crime against humanity,” www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/rape.html
68. “Improving the Public Diplomacy Campaign in the War Against Terrorism,” Independent Task Force on America’s Response to Terrorism, Council on Foreign Relations, November 6, 2001.
69. William Greider, “Curious George Talks the Market, The Nation, February 15, 1999.
70. “Oppose John Bolton’s Nomination as State Department’s Arms Control Leader,” Council for a Livable World , April 11, 2001, http://www.clw.org/bush/opposebolton.html
71. Ibid.
72. Greider.
73. “The Dictatorship of Financial Capital,” Federation of Social and Educational Assistance (FASE), Brazil, 2002, www.fase.org.br
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Heather Cottin is a writer, lifelong political activist, and recently retired high school history teacher She lives in Free port, NY and was for many years married to the late scholar and activist Sean Gervasi.
HellenesOnline | 16 / 06 / 2009 | PROFILES | Tags: Europe, New World Order, Open Society Institute, SOROS, UNITED NATIONS, Yugoslavia | Comments (2)
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Comments
2 Responses to “Soros: Philanthropist? Spook? or Philanthropist spook?”
My name is spelled: Heather Cottin. I am sorry you left out the opening line where George Soros says, “I do have a foreign policy.” also that you left out the footnotes. And I am presently a teacher of US History at La Guardia Community College in New York City.
Thank you, it was not intentional and it has been corrected. Please accept our apologies. Your articles are well appreciated. Thank you again
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