Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.
The tag 'Opus Dei' is associated with 42 posts.

FTR#1195 The Narco-Fascism of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, Part 2

The pro­gram begins by review­ing the death threats and intim­i­da­tion that the authors of Gold War­riors received over the pub­li­ca­tion of this and oth­er books.

” . . . .When we pub­lished The Soong Dynasty we were warned by a senior CIA offi­cial that a hit team was being assem­bled in Tai­wan to come mur­der us. He said, ‘I would take this very seri­ous­ly, if I were you.’ We van­ished for a year to an island off the coast of British Colum­bia. While we were gone, a Tai­wan hit team arrived in San Fran­cis­co and shot dead the Chi­nese-Amer­i­can jour­nal­ist Hen­ry Liu. . . .”

Ster­ling’s fears about Opus Dei and his and Peg­gy’s prox­im­i­ty to Spain–the seat of that orga­ni­za­tion’s pow­er  turned out to be pre­scient. On Christ­mas Day of 2011, he nar­row­ly escaped assas­si­na­tion while return­ing home. He felt that the attempt on his life may well have been moti­vat­ed by the pub­li­ca­tion of the Span­ish lan­guage edi­tion of Gold War­riors.

” . . . . A hired thug tried to mur­der me on the ser­pen­tine road lead­ing up to our iso­lat­ed house on the ridge over­look­ing Banyuls-sur-Mer, and near­ly suc­ceed­ed.  (We’ve had sev­er­al seri­ous death threats because of our books.) The road was very nar­row in places, with tar­mac bare­ly the width of my tires. At 10 pm Christ­mas night, in 2011, after vis­it­ing Peg­gy at a clin­ic in Per­pig­nan, as I turned the final hair­pin, I clear­ly saw a guy sit­ting on a cement block path lead­ing up to a shed for the uphill vine­yard. He was obvi­ous­ly wait­ing for me because we were the only peo­ple liv­ing up there on that moun­tain shoul­der.  He jumped up, raised a long pole, and unfurled a black fab­ric that total­ly blocked the nar­row­est turn ahead of me. I tried to swerve to avoid him (not know­ing whether he also had a gun), and my right front dri­ve wheel went off the tar­mac and lost trac­tion in the rub­ble.

The car teetered and then plunged down through a steep vine­yard on my right side, rolling and bounc­ing front and rear, 100 meters into a ravine where it final­ly came to rest against a tree. Thanks to my seat­belt and air bag, I sur­vived. . . .”

One can­not under­stand con­tem­po­rary Chi­na and the polit­i­cal his­to­ry of that coun­try over the last cou­ple of cen­turies with­out a com­pre­hen­sive grasp of the effect of the Opi­um Wars on that nation and its peo­ple.

Indeed, one can­not grasp Chi­nese his­to­ry and pol­i­tics with­out an under­stand­ing of the nar­cotics trade’s cen­tral posi­tion in that country’s pol­i­tics.

A viable under­stand­ing of Chi­na’s past yields under­stand­ing of its present. 

Aware­ness of key dynam­ics of Chi­nese his­to­ry includes:

1.–The deci­sive role of Euro­pean and Amer­i­can mil­i­tary dom­i­na­tion and eco­nom­ic exploita­tion of Chi­na.
2.–The role of the nar­cotics traf­fic in the ero­sion of Chi­nese soci­ety in the 19th cen­tu­ry.
3.–The British-led “Opi­um Wars,” which were the foun­da­tion of the destruc­tion wrought by dope addic­tion in Chi­na.
4.–The Opi­um Wars and their imple­men­ta­tion by “Gun­boat Diplo­ma­cy” of British and Euro­pean ter­ri­to­r­i­al expan­sion in Chi­na.
5.–The piv­otal role of that “Gun­boat Diplo­ma­cy” in the British acqui­si­tion of Hong Kong.
6.–Contemporary Chi­nese con­cern with the mil­i­tary safe­ty of their ports, ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters, adja­cent seas and oceans, ship­ping lanes, mer­chant marine traf­fic. This stems in large mea­sure from China’s expe­ri­ence with “Gun­boat Diplo­ma­cy” and the rav­aging of Chi­na by Impe­r­i­al Japan dur­ing the 1930’s and 1940’s.
7.–The intro­duc­tion of West­ern mis­sion­ar­ies into China–American mis­sion­ar­ies, in par­tic­u­lar.
8.–The fos­ter­ing of the “Mis­sion­ary posi­tion” toward Chi­na on the part of the U.S.
9.–American mis­sion­ar­ies’ use of mor­phine to cure Chi­nese opi­um addicts, a prac­tice so preva­lent that the Chi­nese referred to mor­phine as “Jesus opi­um.”
10.–The enor­mous opi­um trade in Chi­na as the foun­da­tion for the coa­les­cence and ascent of Shang­hai’s Green Gang and Tu Yueh-Shen: “Big Eared Tu.”
11.–The dom­i­nance of the Kuom­intang of Chi­ang Kai-Shek by the Green Gang and Big-Eared Tu.
12.–The fun­da­men­tal reliance of Chi­ang’s gov­ern­ment on the nar­cotics trade.
13.–The dom­i­nant role of Chi­ang Kai-Shek’s regime in the U.S. nar­cotics trade.
14.–The doc­tri­naire fas­cism of Chi­ang Kai-Shek and his oper­a­tional rela­tion­ships with Nazi Ger­many, Mus­solin­i’s Italy and Impe­r­i­al Japan.
15.–The cen­tral role of the Soong fam­i­ly in Chi­ang Kai-Shek’s Kuom­intang; T.V. Soong, his sis­ters Mae-ling (mar­ried to Gen­er­alis­si­mo Chi­ang Kai-Shek), Ai-ling (mar­ried to H.H. Kung, a key finance min­is­ter of the Kuom­intang), and sev­er­al of T. V.‘s broth­ers, who also shared in the slic­ing of the pie under Chi­ang.
16.–The piv­otal role of Amer­i­can pub­lish­ing giant Hen­ry Luce, whose mis­sion­ary back­ground in Chi­na informed and ani­mat­ed his ado­ra­tion of Chi­ang Kai-Shek and Mme. Chi­ang.
17.–The role of the Luce pub­lish­ing empire and the enor­mous finan­cial influ­ence of the con­sum­mate­ly cor­rupt Soong fam­i­ly in spawn­ing “The Chi­na Lob­by.”
18.–The deci­sive role of the Chi­ang Kai-Shek’s refusal to fight the Japan­ese invaders, com­bined with the bru­tal repres­sion and civic inep­ti­tude in dri­ving the Chi­nese peo­ple into the arms of Mao Tse-Tung and the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty.

Key points of analy­sis and dis­cus­sion of the Opi­um Wars include:

1.–The eco­nom­ic imper­a­tive for the con­flicts were the trade imbal­ance between Chi­na and Britain: “ . . . . In the 18th cen­tu­ry the demand for Chi­nese lux­u­ry goods (par­tic­u­lar­ly silk, porce­lain, and tea) cre­at­ed a trade imbal­ance between Chi­na and Britain. Euro­pean sil­ver flowed into Chi­nathrough the Can­ton Sys­tem, which con­fined incom­ing for­eign trade to the south­ern port city of Can­ton. . . .”
2.–To alter that dynam­ic, the British East India Com­pa­ny turned to the opi­um trade: “ . . . . To counter this imbal­ance, the British East India Com­pa­ny began to grow opi­um in Ben­gal and allowed pri­vate British mer­chants to sell opi­um to Chi­nese smug­glers for ille­gal sale in Chi­na. The influx of nar­cotics reversed the Chi­nese trade sur­plus, drained the econ­o­my of sil­ver, and increased the num­bers of opi­um addicts inside the coun­try, out­comes that seri­ous­ly wor­ried Chi­nese offi­cials. . . .”
3.–The Chi­nese attempt at inter­dict­ing the opi­um trade was coun­tered with force of arms: “ . . . . In 1839, the Daoguang Emper­or, reject­ing pro­pos­als to legal­ize and tax opi­um, appoint­ed ViceroyLin Zexu to go to Can­ton to halt the opi­um trade completely.[8] Lin wrote an open let­ter to Queen Vic­to­ria, which she nev­er saw, appeal­ing to her moral respon­si­bil­i­ty to stop the opi­um trade.[9] Lin then resort­ed to using force in the west­ern mer­chants’ enclave. He con­fis­cat­ed all sup­plies and ordered a block­ade of for­eign ships on the Pearl Riv­er. Lin also con­fis­cat­ed and destroyed a sig­nif­i­cant quan­ti­ty of Euro­pean opium.[10] The British gov­ern­ment respond­ed by dis­patch­ing a mil­i­tary force to Chi­na and in the ensu­ing con­flict, the Roy­al Navy used its naval and gun­nery pow­er to inflict a series of deci­sive defeats on the Chi­nese Empire,[11] a tac­tic lat­er referred to as gun­boat diplo­ma­cy.  . . .”
4.–Forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking, Chi­na expe­ri­enced: “ . . . . In 1842, the Qing dynasty was forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking—the first of what the Chi­nese lat­er called the unequal treaties—which grant­ed an indem­ni­ty  and extrater­ri­to­ri­al­i­ty to British sub­jects in Chi­na . . . . The 1842 Treaty of Nanking not only opened the way for fur­ther opi­um trade, but ced­ed the ter­ri­to­ry of Hong Kong . . . . ”
5.–The trade imbal­ance between Chi­na and Britain wors­ened, and the expense of main­tain new colo­nial territories—including Hong Kong (appro­pri­at­ed through the first Opi­um War)—led to the sec­ond Opi­um War. Note that the “extrater­ri­to­ri­al­i­ty” grant­ed to British sub­jects exempt­ed them from Chi­nese law, includ­ing the offi­cial pro­hi­bi­tion against opi­um traf­fick­ing: “ . . . . Despite the new ports avail­able for trade under the Treaty of Nanking, by 1854 Britain’s imports from Chi­na had reached nine times their exports to the coun­try. At the same time British impe­r­i­al finances came under fur­ther pres­sure from the expense of admin­is­ter­ing the bur­geon­ing colonies of Hong Kong and Sin­ga­pore in addi­tion to India. Only the lat­ter’s opi­um could bal­ance the deficit. [30]Along with var­i­ous com­plaints about the treat­ment of British mer­chants in Chi­nese ports and the Qing gov­ern­men­t’s refusal to accept fur­ther for­eign ambas­sadors, the rel­a­tive­ly minor ‘Arrow Inci­dent’ pro­vid­ed the pre­text the British need­ed to once more resort to mil­i­tary force to ensure the opi­um kept flow­ing. . . . Mat­ters quick­ly esca­lat­ed and led to the Sec­ond Opi­um War . . . .”
6.–As a result of the Sec­ond Opi­um War, Chi­na was oblig­ed to Cede No.1 Dis­trict of Kowloon (south of present-day Bound­ary Street) to Britain; grant “free­dom of reli­gion,” which led to an influx of West­ern Mis­sion­ar­ies, U.S. in par­tic­u­lar; British ships were allowed to car­ry inden­tured Chi­nese to the Amer­i­c­as; legal­iza­tion of the opi­um trade.”
7.–Fierce, elo­quent con­dem­na­tion of the Opi­um Wars was voiced by British Prime Min­is­ter Glad­stone: “ . . . . The opi­um trade incurred intense enmi­ty from the lat­er British Prime Min­is­ter William Ewart Gladstone.[34] As a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, Glad­stone called it ‘most infa­mous and atro­cious’, refer­ring to the opi­um trade between Chi­na and British India in particular.[35] Glad­stone was fierce­ly against both of the Opi­um Wars, was ardent­ly opposed to the British trade in opi­um to Chi­na, and denounced British vio­lence against Chinese.[36] Glad­stone lam­bast­ed it as ‘Palmer­ston’s Opi­um War’ and said that he felt ‘in dread of the judg­ments of God upon Eng­land for our nation­al iniq­ui­ty towards Chi­na’ in May 1840.[37] A famous speech was made by Glad­stone in Par­lia­ment against the First Opi­um War.[38][39] Glad­stone crit­i­cized it as ‘a war more unjust in its ori­gin, a war more cal­cu­lat­ed in its progress to cov­er this coun­try with per­ma­nent dis­grace’. . . .”

The pro­gram con­cludes with two key excerpts from The Soong Dynasty.

After detail­ing Tu Yueh-Sheng’s ascent to the pin­na­cle of Chi­nese pow­er through his reor­ga­ni­za­tion of Chi­na’s opi­um trade into a car­tel, the pro­gram sets forth Chi­ang Kai-shek and the Green Gang’s con­trol of the Wham­poa Mil­i­tary Acad­e­my, which spawned con­trol of the Kuom­intang Army by the Green Gang.


FTR #1106 Reflections on the Passing of Peggy and Sterling Seagrave

This broad­cast com­mem­o­rates the lives and pass­ing of Peg­gy and Ster­ling Sea­grave, inves­ti­ga­tors, jour­nal­ists, authors and heroes.

A periph­er­al inter­net search con­duct­ed while re-read­ing Gold War­riors yield­ed the sad news that both Peg­gy and Ster­ling Sea­grave had passed. Peg­gy passed away in 2016 and Ster­ling in the spring of 2017.

Authors of a num­ber of ground-break­ing and over­lap­ping historical/political expos­es, they cul­mi­nat­ed their remark­able careers with Gold War­riors, which Mr. Emory feels is as impor­tant a book as has ever been writ­ten and is a MUST read for any­one gen­uine­ly con­cerned with the state of world affairs, past, present and future.

More admirable than even their con­sum­mate inves­tiga­tive and lit­er­ary skills is the fact that they con­tin­ued their research and report­ing in the face of seri­ous death threats and attempts, as well as lethal con­se­quences vis­it­ed on some of the par­tic­i­pants in the “Black Gold” trans­ac­tions and, appar­ent­ly, on some of those inves­ti­gat­ing the machi­na­tions of the nations, com­mer­cial insti­tu­tions and indi­vid­u­als involved with the oper­a­tions.

(FTR #‘s 427, 428, 446, 451, 501, 509, 688, 689 deal with the sub­ject of the Gold­en Lily pro­gram suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ed by the Japan­ese to loot Asia. That loot was merged with Nazi gold, became the Black Eagle Trust, which not only financed Cold War covert oper­a­tions but under­wrote much of the post-war glob­al econ­o­my.)

In FTR #‘s 446 and 509, we high­light­ed and reviewed the death threats and hands-on inter­fer­ence expe­ri­enced by the Sea­graves in response to their inves­ti­ga­tions. In 509, we also not­ed the sus­pi­cious cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the death of the hero­ic Iris Chang, who aid­ed the Sea­graves in their Gold War­riors project. Hav­ing authored a book on the Rape of Nanking and work­ing on anoth­er about the Bataan Death March, Ms. Chang had crossed the very pow­er struc­ture delin­eat­ed at length, depth and detail in the Sea­graves vol­ume.

In our last vis­it with the Sea­graves, a 2009 inter­view that was the focus of FTR #689, Ster­ling expressed anx­i­ety about the prox­im­i­ty of their res­i­dence in South­ern France to the Span­ish bor­der and the for­mi­da­ble pres­ence of Opus Dei in Fran­co’s for­mer domain.

(The Vat­i­can’s rela­tion­ship to fas­cism, includ­ing Opus Dei and the Ustachi in Croa­t­ia, is high­light­ed in, among oth­er pro­grams AFA #17.)

The remark­able Sev­eri­no San­ta Romana, prime mover in the Black Eagle Trust oper­a­tions in the Philip­pines and the gold recov­er­ies in those islands was, in addi­tion to his work for U.S. intel­li­gence, an oper­a­tive of the pow­er­ful Vat­i­can order Opus Dei. It appears that Opus Dei was San­ta Romana’s pri­ma­ry affil­i­a­tion and his U.S. intel­li­gence con­nec­tions were deriv­a­tive.

With strong con­nec­tions in Spain, dat­ing to the Fran­co fas­cist regime (which main­tains pow­er­ful pres­ence in con­tem­po­rary Spain), Opus Dei is a major fac­tor in the con­tem­po­rary polit­i­cal scene. Ster­ling opined in FTR #689 that his and Peg­gy’s prox­im­i­ty to the Span­ish bor­der might expose them to vio­lence.

His fear turned out to be pre­scient. On Christ­mas Day of 2011, he nar­row­ly escaped assas­si­na­tion while return­ing home. He felt that the attempt on his life may well have been moti­vat­ed by the pub­li­ca­tion of the Span­ish lan­guage edi­tion of Gold War­riors.

After detail­ing the attempt on his life, we set forth San­ta Romana’s rela­tion­ship with Opus Dei. San­ta Romana’s Opus Dei oper­a­tions were essen­tial for the fis­cal rein­force­ment of the Vat­i­can’s finan­cial insti­tu­tions, which ben­e­fit­ted from the Gold­en Lily-derived trea­sure from the Philip­pines.

We have dis­cussed the Vat­i­can bank in, among oth­er pro­grams, AFA #18.


Rest In Peace, Heartfelt Thanks and Admiration: Peggy and Sterling Seagrave

In FTR #446, we high­light­ed the seri­ous death threats, harass­ment, and covert dis­rup­tion expe­ri­enced by Peg­gy and Ster­ling Sea­grave in con­nec­tion with their writ­ing. In 509, we also not­ed the sus­pi­cious cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the death of the hero­ic Iris Chang, who aid­ed the Sea­graves in their “Gold War­riors” project. Hav­ing authored a book on the Rape of Nanking and work­ing on anoth­er about the Bataan Death March, Ms. Chang had crossed the very pow­er struc­ture delin­eat­ed at length, depth and detail in the Sea­graves’ vol­ume. In our last vis­it with the Sea­graves, a 2009 inter­view that was the focus of FTR #689, Ster­ling expressed anx­i­ety about the prox­im­i­ty of their res­i­dence in South­ern France to the Span­ish bor­der and the for­mi­da­ble pres­ence of Opus Dei in Fran­co’s for­mer domain. His fear turned out to be pre­scient. On Christ­mas Day of 2011, he nar­row­ly escaped assas­si­na­tion while return­ing home. He felt that the attempt on his life may well have been moti­vat­ed by the pub­li­ca­tion of the Span­ish lan­guage edi­tion of “Gold War­riors.” Peg­gy passed in 2016 and Ster­ling in the spring of 2017. Listeners/readers may hon­or these heroes by read­ing their con­sum­mate­ly impor­tant books.


FTR #1104 Fascism, 2019 World Tour, Part 14: Lithium Coup in Bolivia, Part 1 and FTR #1105 Fascism, 2019 World Tour, Part 15: Lithium Coup in Bolivia, Part 2

These pro­grams high­light fea­tures of an appar­ent coup d’e­tat in Bolivia, empha­siz­ing the indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions fig­ur­ing in the coup itself, as well as the under­ly­ing dynam­ic of the devel­op­ment of Bolivi­a’s enor­mous lithi­um reserves. Cen­tral to the dis­cus­sion is the fact that lithi­um is essen­tial for the devel­op­ment of elec­tric car bat­ter­ies and that tech­nol­o­gy is impor­tant to any suc­cess­ful “Green­ing” of the glob­al econ­o­my.

Fas­cists from Latin Amer­i­ca and Europe net­worked with transna­tion­al cor­po­rate ele­ments and some U.S. intel­li­gence cut-outs to oust Evo Morales and his gov­ern­ment.

Although Morales had vio­lat­ed con­sti­tu­tion­al norms on term lim­its in order to extend his gov­er­nance, his polit­i­cal agen­da had great­ly ben­e­fit­ed Bolivi­a’s poor and its his­tor­i­cal­ly oppressed indige­nous pop­u­la­tion, in par­tic­u­lar. The coun­try’s min­er­al wealth has been exploit­ed by for­eign com­pa­nies and select mem­bers of the Boli­vian elite to the detri­ment of much of the pop­u­la­tion. Even the con­ser­v­a­tive “Finan­cial Times” has not­ed that Morales restruc­tur­ing of the Boli­vian economy–mineral extrac­tion, in particular–has sig­nif­i­cant­ly improved the coun­try’s econ­o­my and reduced pover­ty.

This ele­ment of dis­cus­sion involves many sub­jects cov­ered at length over the decades and fea­tured in the archives:

1.–Material about Klaus Bar­bie and the Euro­pean fas­cists in his “Fiances of Death” (or “Bride­grooms of Death”) mer­ce­nar­ies can be found in, among oth­er pro­grams, AFA #‘s 19 and 27.
2.–The Vat­i­can’s rela­tion­ship to fas­cism, includ­ing Opus Dei and the Ustachi in Croa­t­ia, is high­light­ed in, among oth­er pro­grams AFA #17.
3.–Information about the re-emer­gence of the Ustachi can be found in, among oth­er pro­grams, FTR #‘s 49, 154, 766, 901.

Key indi­vid­ual and insti­tu­tion­al play­ers in the devel­op­ment of, pre­lude to, and exe­cu­tion of the Boli­vian coup include:

1.–Luis Fer­nan­do Cama­cho, a wealthy Boli­vian described in the Pana­ma Papers, Cama­cho is: ” . . . . an ultra-con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian fun­da­men­tal­ist groomed by a fas­cist para­mil­i­tary noto­ri­ous for its racist vio­lence, with a base in Bolivia’s wealthy sep­a­ratist region of San­ta Cruz. . . .”
2.–He is heir to a tra­di­tion of wealth, the nation’s nat­ur­al gas busi­ness, in par­tic­u­lar: : ” . . . . Cama­cho also hails from a fam­i­ly of cor­po­rate elites who have long prof­it­ed from Bolivia’s plen­ti­ful nat­ur­al gas reserves. And his fam­i­ly lost part of its wealth when Morales nation­al­ized the nation’s resources, in order to fund his vast social pro­grams — which cut pover­ty by 42 per­cent and extreme pover­ty by 60 per­cent. . . .”
3.–Prior to the coup, Cama­cho: ” . . . . met with lead­ers from right-wing gov­ern­ments in the region to dis­cuss their plans to desta­bi­lize Morales. Two months before the putsch, he tweet­ed grat­i­tude: ‘Thank you Colom­bia! Thank you Venezuela!’ he exclaimed, tip­ping his hat to Juan Guaido’s coup oper­a­tion. He also rec­og­nized the far-right gov­ern­ment of Jair Bol­sonaro, declar­ing, “Thank you Brazil!’ . . .”
4.–A mar­gin­al fig­ure with lit­tle pub­lic grav­i­tas, includ­ing on social media, Cama­cho was mov­ing to neu­tral­ize the Morales gov­ern­ment before the coup itself. His polit­i­cal pres­ence and base of sup­port is a Chris­t­ian fas­cist orga­ni­za­tion: ” . . . . Luis Fer­nan­do Cama­cho was groomed by the Unión Juve­nil Cruceñista, or San­ta Cruz Youth Union (UJC), a fas­cist para­mil­i­tary orga­ni­za­tion that has been linked to assas­si­na­tion plots against Morales. The group is noto­ri­ous for assault­ing left­ists, Indige­nous peas­ants, and jour­nal­ists, all while espous­ing a deeply racist, homo­pho­bic ide­ol­o­gy. . . .”
5.–The UJC: ” . . . . The UJC is the Boli­vian equiv­a­lent of Spain’s Falange, India’s Hin­du suprema­cist RSS, and Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov bat­tal­ion. Its sym­bol is a green cross that bears strong sim­i­lar­i­ties to logos of fas­cist move­ments across the West. And its mem­bers are known to launch into Nazi-style sieg heil salutes. . . . Even the US embassy in Bolivia has described UJC mem­bers as ‘racist’ and ‘mil­i­tant,’ not­ing that they ‘have fre­quent­ly attacked pro-MAS/­gov­ern­ment peo­ple and instal­la­tions.’ . . .”
6.–Camacho was allied with a wealthy Croa­t­ian named Branko Marinkovic: ” . . . . Cama­cho was elect­ed as vice pres­i­dent of the UJC in 2002, when he was just 23 years old. He left the orga­ni­za­tion two years lat­er to build his family’s busi­ness empire and rise through the ranks of the Pro-San­ta Cruz Com­mit­tee. It was in that orga­ni­za­tion that he was tak­en under the wing of one of the sep­a­ratist movement’s most pow­er­ful fig­ures, a Boli­vian-Croa­t­ian oli­garch named Branko Marinkovic. . . .”
7.–Marinkovic is one of the prime movers of a seces­sion­ist move­ment for the San­ta Cruz area: ” . . . . Camacho’s Croa­t­ian god­fa­ther and sep­a­ratist pow­er bro­ker Branko Marinkovic is a major landown­er who ramped up his sup­port for the right-wing oppo­si­tion after some of his land was nation­al­ized by the Evo Morales gov­ern­ment. As chair­man of the Pro-San­ta Cruz Com­mit­tee, he over­saw the oper­a­tions of the main engine of sep­a­ratism in Bolivia. In a 2008 let­ter to Marinkovic, the Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion for Human Rights denounced the com­mit­tee as an ‘actor and pro­mot­er of racism and vio­lence in Bolivia.’ The human rights group added that it ‘condemn[ed] the atti­tude and seces­sion­ist, union­ist and racist dis­cours­es as well as the calls for mil­i­tary dis­obe­di­ence of which the Pro-San­ta Cruz Civic Com­mit­tee for is one of the main pro­mot­ers.’ In 2013, jour­nal­ist Matt Ken­nard report­ed that the US gov­ern­ment was work­ing close­ly with the Pro-San­ta Cruz Com­mit­tee to encour­age the balka­niza­tion of Bolivia and to under­mine Morales. . . .”
8.–There has been spec­u­la­tion that Marinkovich may be descend­ed from Croa­t­ian Ustachis fas­cists: ” . . . . But even some of his sym­pa­thiz­ers are skep­ti­cal. A Balkan ana­lyst from the pri­vate intel­li­gence firm Strat­for, which works close­ly with the US gov­ern­ment and is pop­u­lar­ly known as the ‘shad­ow CIA,’ pro­duced a rough back­ground pro­file on Marinkovic, spec­u­lat­ing, ‘Still don’t know his full sto­ry, but I would bet a lot of $$$ that this dude’s par­ents are 1st gen (his name is too Slav­ic) and that they were Ustashe (read: Nazi) sym­pa­thiz­ers flee­ing Tito’s Com­mu­nists after WWII.’ . . . .”
9.–Marinkovich’s activism in the San­ta Cruz area is part of a fas­cist polit­i­cal land­scape in that area that dove­tails with Klaus Bar­bie (of whom we spoke in–among oth­er programs–AFA #19): ” . . . . In a 2008 pro­file on Marinkovic, “The New York Times” acknowl­edged the extrem­ist under­cur­rents of the San­ta Cruz sep­a­ratist move­ment the oli­garch presided over. It described the area as ‘a bas­tion of open­ly xeno­pho­bic groups like the Boli­vian Social­ist Falange, whose hand-in-air salute draws inspi­ra­tion from the fas­cist Falange of the for­mer Span­ish dic­ta­tor Fran­co.” The Boli­vian Social­ist Falange was a fas­cist group that pro­vid­ed safe haven to Nazi war crim­i­nal Klaus Bar­bie dur­ing the Cold War. A for­mer Gestapo tor­ture expert, Bar­bie was repur­posed by the CIA through its Oper­a­tion Con­dor pro­gram to help exter­mi­nate com­mu­nism across the con­ti­nent. . . .”
10.–The coup fol­lows by some years an attempt by a group of inter­na­tion­al fas­cists to mur­der Morales: ” . . . . In April 2009, a spe­cial unit of the Boli­vian secu­ri­ty ser­vices barged into a lux­u­ry hotel room and cut down three men who were said to be involved in a plot to kill Evo Morales. Two oth­ers remained on the loose. Four of the alleged con­spir­a­tors had Hun­gar­i­an or Croa­t­ian roots and ties to right­ist pol­i­tics in east­ern Europe, while anoth­er was a right-wing Irish­man, Michael Dwyer, who had only arrived in San­ta Cruz six months before. The ring­leader of the group was said to be a for­mer left­ist jour­nal­ist named Eduar­do Rosza-Flo­res who had turned to fas­cism and belonged to Opus Dei, the tra­di­tion­al­ist Catholic cult that emerged under the dic­ta­tor­ship of Spain’s Fran­cis­co Fran­co. . . .”
11.–Eduardo Rosza-Flo­res had fought in the for­mer Yugoslavia on behalf of the neo-Ustachi regime that ulti­mate­ly came to pow­er: ” . . . . Dur­ing the 1990s, Rosza fought on behalf of the Croa­t­ian First Inter­na­tion­al Pla­toon, or the PIV, in the war to sep­a­rate from Yugoslavia. A Croa­t­ian jour­nal­ist told Time that the ‘PIV was a noto­ri­ous group: 95% of them had crim­i­nal his­to­ries, many were part of Nazi and fas­cist groups, from Ger­many to Ire­land.’ By 2009, Rosza returned home to Bolivia to cru­sade on behalf of anoth­er sep­a­ratist move­ment in San­ta Cruz. . . .”
12.–Rosza-Flores had no mon­ey, yet his group of would-be fas­cist assas­sins were well fund­ed. Marinkovic appears to have been among the fund­ing sources: ” . . . . Marinkovic was sub­se­quent­ly charged with pro­vid­ing $200,000 to the plot­ters. The Boli­vian-Croa­t­ian oli­garch ini­tial­ly fled to the Unit­ed States, where he was giv­en asy­lum, then relo­cat­ed to Brazil, where he lives today. He denied any involve­ment in the plan to kill Morales. As jour­nal­ist Matt Ken­nard report­ed, there was anoth­er thread that tied the plot to the US: the alleged par­tic­i­pa­tion of an NGO leader named Hugo Achá Mel­gar. . . .”
13.–Hugo Acha Mel­gar was net­worked with the Human Rights Foun­da­tion, a right-wing orga­ni­za­tion with strong links to U.S. intel­li­gence and financed in part by Peter Thiel. The Human Rights Foun­da­tion is involved in the Hong Kong tur­moil. ” . . . . Achá was not just the head of any run-of-the-mill NGO. He had found­ed the Boli­vian sub­sidiary of the Human Rights Foun­da­tion (HRF), an inter­na­tion­al right-wing out­fit that is known for host­ing a “school for rev­o­lu­tion” for activists seek­ing regime change in states tar­get­ed by the US gov­ern­ment. HRF is run by Thor Halvorssen Jr., the son of the late Venezue­lan oli­garch and CIA asset Thor Halvorssen Hel­lum.  . . . . He launched the HRF with grants from right-wing bil­lion­aires like Peter Thiel, con­ser­v­a­tive foun­da­tions, and NGOs includ­ing Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al. The group has since been at the fore­front of train­ing activists for insur­rec­tionary activ­i­ty from Hong Kong to the Mid­dle East to Latin Amer­i­ca. . . .”
14.–Proxy pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Car­los Mesa is heav­i­ly net­worked with the Inter-Amer­i­can Dia­logue, financed in con­sid­er­able mea­sure by the AID: ” . . . . Today, Mesa serves as an in-house “expert” at the Inter-Amer­i­can Dia­logue, a neolib­er­al Wash­ing­ton-based think tank focused on Latin Amer­i­ca. One of the Dialogue’s top donors is the US Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment (USAID) . . . .”

Cen­tral to the mul­ti-nation­al dis­sat­is­fac­tion with Evo Morales is his nation­al­iza­tion of some of Bolivi­a’s min­er­al resource indus­try. And cen­tral to the Boli­vian min­er­al resource inven­to­ry is lithi­um, essen­tial for the man­u­fac­ture of elec­tric car bat­ter­ies: ” . . . . The main tar­get is its mas­sive deposits of lithi­um, cru­cial for the elec­tric car. . . .”

Bolivia has been report­ed to hold up to 70 per­cent of the world’s lithi­um, and the Morales gov­ern­men­t’s piv­ot toward devel­op­ing those reserves in tan­dem with Chi­nese firms, rather than West­ern transna­tion­als, may well have been the cen­tral dynam­ic in his ouster. ” . . . . Over the course of the past few years, Bolivia has strug­gled to raise invest­ment to devel­op the lithi­um reserves in a way that brings the wealth back into the coun­try for its peo­ple. Morales’ Vice Pres­i­dent Álvaro Gar­cía Lin­era had said that lithi­um is the ‘fuel that will feed the world.’ Bolivia was unable to make deals with West­ern transna­tion­al firms; it decid­ed to part­ner with Chi­nese firms. This made the Morales gov­ern­ment vul­ner­a­ble. It had walked into the new Cold War between the West and Chi­na. The coup against Morales can­not be under­stood with­out a glance at this clash. . . .”

The com­plex­i­ties of the Salar de Uyu­ni salt flats–location of much of Bolivi­a’s lithi­um reserves–mandate the tech­no­log­i­cal involve­ment of for­eign firms. A deal reached with Ger­man ACI Sys­tems (heav­i­ly sub­si­dized by the Ger­man gov­ern­ment) was negat­ed by protests on the part of local res­i­dents in the Salar de Uyu­ni area. Chi­nese firms were poised to fill that vac­u­um, offer­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a more equi­table devel­op­ment of the min­er­al. ” . . . . Last year, Germany’s ACI Sys­tems agreed to a deal with Bolivia. After protests from res­i­dents in the Salar de Uyu­ni region, Morales can­celed that deal on Novem­ber 4, 2019. Chi­nese firms—such as TBEA Group and Chi­na Machin­ery Engineering—made a deal with YLB. It was being said that China’s Tian­qi Lithi­um Group, which oper­ates in Argenti­na, was going to make a deal with YLB. Both Chi­nese invest­ment and the Boli­vian lithi­um com­pa­ny were exper­i­ment­ing with new ways to both mine the lithi­um and to share the prof­its of the lithi­um. The idea that there might be a new social com­pact for the lithi­um was unac­cept­able to the main transna­tion­al min­ing com­pa­nies. . . .”

After the ouster of Morales, the val­ue of Tes­la’s stock increased dra­mat­i­cal­ly.

The ACI/Bolivia deal had heavy back­ing by the Ger­man gov­ern­ment and fea­tured the planned export of lithi­um to Ger­many and else­where in Europe. ” . . . . With the joint ven­ture, Boli­vian state com­pa­ny YLB is team­ing up with Germany’s pri­vate­ly-owned ACI Sys­tems to devel­op its mas­sive Uyu­ni salt flat and build a lithi­um hydrox­ide plant as well as a fac­to­ry for elec­tric vehi­cle bat­ter­ies in Bolivia. ACI Sys­tems is also in talks to sup­ply com­pa­nies based in Ger­many and else­where in Europe with lithi­um from Bolivia. . . . Wolf­gang Schmutz, CEO of ACI Group, the par­ent com­pa­ny of ACI Sys­tems, said more than 80 per­cent of the lithi­um would be export­ed to Ger­many. . . .”

Of par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance for the dis­cus­sion to fol­low is ” . . . . Chi­na’s dom­i­nance in the glob­al lithi­um sup­ply chain and its strong ties with La Paz. . . .”

Short­ly after the ouster of Morales, Tes­la announced that Tes­la would locate a new car and elec­tric bat­tery fac­to­ry near Berlin. If the ACI lithi­um devel­op­ment project in Bolivia is resus­ci­tat­ed, the Tes­la move will give the firm access to the Boli­vian lithi­um.

Might that have been the rea­son for the rise in Tes­la’s stock? Might there have been some insid­er trad­ing?

The pro­grams con­clude with review of the rebirth of Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca as a syn­the­sis with British “psy-op” devel­op­ment firm SCL. A key direc­tor of Emerdata–the new firm–is a Hong Kong financier and busi­ness part­ner of Black­wa­ter chief Erik Prince, the broth­er of Trump Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion Bet­sy de Vos. Not­ing the firm for­mer­ly known as Black­wa­ter’s deep involve­ment in the world of covert oper­a­tions and for­mer Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca lynch­pin Steve Ban­non’s piv­otal role in the anti-Chi­na move­ment, it is not unrea­son­able to ask if Emer­da­ta may be involved in the Hong Kong tur­moil.

We also review Chi­na’s lead­er­ship in the devel­op­ment of Green tech­nolo­gies.


FTR #845 Interview (#8) with Peter Levenda about “The Hitler Legacy”

Pick­ing up where FTR #844 left off, this pro­gram exam­ines devel­op­ments in Indone­sia after the 1965 CIA coup that deposed Sukarno. An appar­ent par­tic­i­pant in an unsuc­cess­ful 1958 attempt against Sukarno was Lee Har­vey Oswald. Before tack­ling the bulk of the Indone­sia mate­r­i­al, Peter notes that the sup­posed “Com­mu­nist” Oswald actu­al­ly had con­nec­tions to Nazi ele­ments. After an encap­su­la­tion of the Japan­ese Gold­en Lily pro­gram that loot­ed much of Asia, the pro­gram sets forth some of the mys­ter­ies that unfold in con­nec­tion with the dis­po­si­tion of Sukarno’s “Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Fund.” Appar­ent­ly com­prised of both Gold­en Lily trea­sure and war loot trans­port­ed to the Asia by the Third Reich, the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Fund has defied efforts by Sukarno fam­i­ly mem­bers and asso­ciates to obtain some of the wealth. Among the cast of char­ac­ters wind­ing through the mys­te­ri­ous cor­ri­dors of the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Fund inves­tiga­tive maze are: a mys­te­ri­ous Dr. Poch, alleged in an Indone­sian best sell­er by Dr. Sus­ro Huso­do to have been Adolf Hitler; the pro­fes­sion­al frus­tra­tion and mys­te­ri­ous demise of Dr. Edi­son Damanik, who attempt­ed to obtain some of the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Fund loot; arms deal­er Soeryo Goer­it­no, who suf­fered a dis­abling stroke or seizure when he attempt­ed to nav­i­gate the per­ilous waters of the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Fund and its trib­u­taries.


FTR #825 Generalissimo Francisco Franco May NOT Be So Dead, After All

Fas­cist dic­ta­tor Fran­cis­co Fran­co passed away decades ago, yet his polit­i­cal lega­cy lives on. Through­out Spain, memo­ri­al­iza­tion of Fran­co and his sol­diers con­tin­ues. The per­pet­u­a­tion of that lega­cy is evi­dent in the polit­i­cal resume of Mar­i­ano Rajoy, the son of a Fran­co judge. Rajoy’s Pop­u­lar Par­ty is a “kindler, gen­tler” edi­tion of Fran­co’s Falange. In addi­tion to jin­go­is­tic saber rat­tling at the British ter­ri­to­ry of Gibral­tar, Rajoy is join­ing with Argenti­na to pres­sure the UK over the Fal­ka­lnd Islands. By danc­ing in tan­dem with Argenti­na, Rajoy is embrac­ing the geo-polit­i­cal lega­cy of Hitler, who select­ed Spain as his first tar­get for con­trol because of its influ­ence in Latin America–Argentina in par­tic­u­lar.


The GOP Pulled Off the Medicaid Bandaid. Next Up? Medicare Amputations.

When “God’s Sen­a­tor”, Sam Brown­back, became “God’s Gov­er­nor” of Kansas back in 2010 it was clear some pret­ty big changes were on the way for Kansas. After all, when a GOP mem­ber of Opus Dei is your new gov­er­nor, some form of aus­ter­i­ty for the mass­es is prob­a­bly in the cards. And fol­low­ing the 2012 intra-GOP “mod­er­ate” purge, aus­ter­i­ty for Kansas has arrived in full force. As once might expect, this includes the aus­ter­i­ty that comes with refus­ing to accept the Oba­macare Med­ic­aid expan­sion. Utter­ly point­less, yet still painful, self-fla­gel­la­tion. And that’s just the begin­ning...


FTR #775 Ratzinger Leaves the Ship–The Resignation of Pope Benedict XVI

The star­tling res­ig­na­tion of Pope Bene­dict XVI (nee Joseph Ratzinger) brings to mind a num­ber of con­sid­er­a­tions. Ratzinger was some­thing of a care­tak­er, charged with sus­tain­ing the Opus-Dei style reac­tion grip­ping the Vat­i­can and keep­ing the lid on poten­tially dam­ag­ing inquiries.. He took office with the Holy See engulfed in scan­dal and inquiry, includ­ing the bur­geon­ing priest molesta­tion inves­ti­ga­tions, renewed inquiries into mon­ey laun­der­ing by the Vat­i­can Bank and inquiries con­cern­ing the Vatican’s behav­ior dur­ing and after World War II. Might some of those issues over­whelmed his papa­cy, forc­ing the first Papal res­ig­na­tion in his­to­ry?


The Newtown Massacre, Pedophile Priests and the Pope’s Resignation: A Conspiracy Theory Within a Conspiracy Theory

Red Alert: this is one hel­lu­va con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry. In fact, it is–as the title indicates–a con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry with­in a con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry. New­town shoot­er Adam Lan­za exist­ed in an envi­ron­ment inhab­it­ed by pedophile priests, appar­ent­ly enjoy­ing tac­it sup­port from the Church hier­ar­chy in the area, some­thing that has been large­ly eclipsed by oth­er points of debate. Neil Allen has chron­i­cled the pres­ence of ser­i­al pedophile priests in the church and Catholic school Lan­za attend­ed. IF Adam Lan­za was molest­ed by Castal­do and/or oth­ers as Neil Allen has hypoth­e­sized, we won­der if that may have helped to pre­cip­i­tate the res­ig­na­tion of Pope Bene­dict XVI in Feb­ru­ary of 2013. Lan­za was appar­ent­ly pre­oc­cu­pied with pedophil­ia.


“It’s Easier to Develop a Child than to Rehabilitate an Adult,” Part 2

The Jer­ry Sandusky/Penn State child molesta­tion case appears to have polit­i­cal impli­ca­tions beyond what has come to light so far. Endorsed by the elder George Bush, the Sec­ond Mile Foun­da­tion served as the vehi­cle for sys­tem­at­ic molesta­tion of young boys. The late Joe Pater­no’s choice of coun­sel is sig­nif­i­cant. He chose J. Sedg­wick Sollers, who once rep­re­sent­ed George H.W. Bush in the Iran-Con­tra affair. A cov­er-up may involve mur­der. After inves­ti­gat­ing San­dusky et al, the late Ray Gricar dis­ap­peared from the face of the earth–his body has nev­er been found.