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According to a YouGov poll conducted by Germany’s DPA news agency, 42% of Germans support a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops in the country.
After over 70 years, Germans have apparently had enough of the U.S. troop presence in their country, the second largest presence of U.S. troops abroad after Japan.
According to a YouGov poll conducted by Germany’s DPA news agency, 42% of Germans support a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops in the country with 37% of Germany wanting them to stay and 21% undecided. Currently, Germany hosts close to 35,000 U.S. soldiers and between 30 and 40 U.S. military bases.
The poll also found that support for withdrawal came from across the German political spectrum.
For instance, 67% of voters from the left-wing Die Linke party were found to support a U.S. troop withdrawal while 55% of the far-right, nationalist AfD party also expressed support for their removal.
The Green party of Germany also backed withdrawal by 48%. Support was lowest among voters of the CDU party, the political party of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at 35%.
Other findings from the poll show that there is little popular support among Germans for militarism in general, but particularly U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent demand that NATO members such as Germany work to increase their military spending to a new target of 4% of national GDP. Some German political analysts have asserted that Trump’s demand is aimed at increasing European purchases of U.S.-manufactured weapons systems.
On this point, however, the poll found that only 15% of Germans support increasing military spending to just 2% of GDP. Furthermore, 36% of Germans feel that the country already spends too much on military spending. Yet, despite the lack of support for increasing military spending among Germans, Merkel stated on Thursday that, after a “very fundamental” discussion during the recent and “very intense” NATO summit, Germany must spend more on NATO defense.
Even though he has pushed Germany and other NATO countries to push for increased military spending despite a lack of popular support, Trump could still prove an unlikely ally for Germans eager to see at least a reduction in the number of U.S. troops stationed throughout the country.
U.S. Military Personnel Deployments by Country. Source | Visual Capitalist
Indeed, just two weeks ago, Trump was allegedly very surprised to learn the high number of American soldiers stationed in Germany. According to a report in the Washington Post, Trump’s surprise prompted him to ask the Department of Defense to analyze the feasibility of conducting a large-scale withdrawal or transfer of the U.S. troop presence stationed in Germany.
However, U.S. government officials have seemed to have talked Trump out of actually taking action on a withdrawal of troops from Germany. Notably, U.S. military officials, such as retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges who commanded U.S. Army Europe until late last year, have asserted that any reduction in the U.S. military presence in Germany would be a “colossal mistake.”
Hodges further claimed that Russia, particularly Russian President Vladimir Putin, would emerge the “big winner” and that any reduction of the American military presence in Germany would “embolden Russia in terms of its adventurist, intimidating foreign policy.”
In an interview with Stars and Stripes, he also expressed confidence that Trump’s suggestion of a troop withdrawal was just a negotiating tactic and that,
“Pentagon planners would agree to keep troop levels in Germany on the current scale.”
Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.
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Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi is free after eight months in an Israeli prison. While her bravery in confronting occupying Israeli soldiers has been celebrated around the world, Western media outlets have gone to great lengths to portray her as an aggressor. We speak to Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada.
Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, whose latest book is The Battle for Justice in Palestine.
Injuries are reported, but nothing like the murderous assault suffered by the Turkish flagged, Mavi Marmara, engaged in a similar attempt at penetrating Israel's naval blockade in 2010.
And; George Orwell famously described the battle for a remembering of crimes committed by society's overlords as the Memory War. Today, the reality of wars occurring around the planet seem too removed from the consciousness of the World's most powerful and belligerent nations to illicit the universal outrage and action required of their citizens to end them. We have it seems lost the memory war, and perhaps too surrendered our collective conscience.
This week coming offers another chance; it marks the annual remembrance of the 1945 atomic destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Women in Black will hold their annual vigil in remembrance of Hiroshima-Nagasaki this Tuesday, August 7 at high noon below the tourist information office across from the Empress Hotel.
Terry Wolfwood is Director and co-founder of the Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation, and a writer, photographer, and long-time activist who has traveled from the highlands of Mexico to the gates of Gaza and beyond in pursuit of peace, social justice, and women’s rights. Her articles have appeared at Briarpatch, Peace News, and Third World Resurgence among other places, and she's the local coordinator for Victoria’s Women in Black.
Terry Wolfwood and the power of remembering in the second half.
And; Victoria-based activist and CFUV Radio broadcaster at-large, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to get up to in and around our town for the coming week. But first, Jon Elmer and the deadly 2010 taking of the humanitarian relief ship, Mavi Marmara.
Two people from Al Awda (The Return) have been released, but most of the crew and participants are still in unlawful detention at Givon prison in Israel.
We are still gravely concerned for their safety and well-being as we had no contact with most of them as of 14:00 CEST today.
We continue to demand that our boat and the medical supplies on board reach their rightful recipients, Palestinian civil society in Gaza.
Although the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) claim that the capture of our vessel happened ‘without exceptional incident’, eye-witness Zohar Chamberlain Regev reports that at the time of boarding:
“People on board were tasered and hit by masked IOF soldiers. We did not get our passports or belongings before we got off the boat. Do not believe reports of peaceful interception.”
We urgently need to know the details of who was injured and how seriously, and what treatment they are receiving, if any. A military attack on a civilian vessel is a violent act and a violation of international law. Taking 22 people from international waters to a country which is not their destination constitutes an act of kidnapping, which is also unlawful under the international Convention of the Law of Sea.
From the time we lost contact around 13:15 local time on Sunday, we know that the IOF blocked all communication signals, including satellite phones. We are very concerned about this violation of journalists’ right to report freely and we remain gravely concerned about their ability to keep their professional equipment and their storage media. As Australian journalist Chris Graham recently observed,
“Bad things happen when good people stay silent, as history well records. But horrendous things happen when media are prevented from scrutinizing the actions of a state.”
Two of our participants who are Israeli citizens have been charged with attempting to enter Gaza and conspiracy to commit a crime, and were released on bail this morning. One of them, boat leader Zohar Chamberlain Regev, reports seeing blood on the deck of the Al Awda as the last participants were being dragged off the ship.
In comparison with the violence routinely directed at Palestinian civilians, including at fishers from Gaza, and the violent capture of Palestinian fishing boats, yesterday’s seizure and kidnapping may not be the most serious of Israeli crimes. What these violent acts have in common is that there is no accountability demanded by other governments and Israel continues to enjoy total impunity.
We call on national governments, civil society and international organizations to demand that Israeli authorities immediately release our boat so that we can deliver our much-needed medical supplies on Al Awda and the fishing boat itself to the rightful recipients in Gaza.
Detailed specification of our exact cargo on board are available on request.
Israel’s capture of the lead boat in this Gaza-bound flotilla may seem like a predictable outcome to some, but that doesn’t make it any less violent nor any less illegal. Our second boat Freedom will follow Al Awda within a day or two, and the Freedom Flotilla will continue until the blockade ends and Palestinians of Gaza regain their full freedom of movement.
Details about detainees still in prison, including their last videos and personal statements, can be found on our website and Facebook pages: www.facebook.com/FreedomFlotillaCoalition/
It is no coincidence that some of the world’s most ardent imperialists are behind the cynical exploitation of one heinous murder — of British MP Jo Cox — to enable global mass-murder as well as human trafficking under the pretext of “ethical” and “humanitarian” intervention.
LONDON – Just over two years ago, the senseless and savage murder of British Labour Party MP Jo Cox stunned Britain and much of the world. After her death, families, friends and colleagues pledged that her memory would live on, thanks in part to the memorial funds posthumously set up in her honor.
Among those memorial funds, the Jo Cox Fund is by far the most notable, having greatly surpassed its £1.5 million ($1.97 million) fundraising goal. That money, according to the fund’s GoFundMe page, was divided among three organizations that had been “close to her [Cox’s] heart:” the Royal Voluntary Service, Hope Not Hate, and the White Helmets of Syria, with funds raised in excess of that goal being used to establish the Jo Cox Foundation.
Though Jo Cox was undeniably a vocal supporter of all three of those causes, the past two years have revealed a concerted effort on the part of powerful interests, including globalist billionaires and prominent figures of the Western political elite, to exploit Cox’s death for the purpose of furthering the long-standing Western agenda of effecting regime change in Syria.
These figures – George Soros, Bill Gates and the Clintons among them – have used their influence and their vast resources of capital in order not only to help enact the “humanitarian” regime change model in Syria, but to shield from criticism their assets in the country, including suspected child traffickers profiting from the misery of Syrian children.
The crux of this effort centers around the controversial “humanitarian” group that fraudulently calls itself the Syrian Civil Defense, better known as the White Helmets, whose ties to both terrorist elements within the Syrian opposition and Western governments pushing for Syrian regime change have been well-documented.
Through their receipt of money raised from the Jo Cox Fund and the group’s well-publicized efforts aimed at commemorating Cox’s death, the murdered MP’s posthumous and saint-like reputation has been instrumental in shielding the group from legitimate criticisms both within the U.K. and beyond, preventing genuinely independent inquiries into the group’s dubious activities in Syria and its documented receipt of over £38.4 million ($50.3 million) in U.K. government funds.
This is Part I of a three-part series on the life and legacy of Jo Cox, focusing on the establishment of the Jo Cox Fund 24 hours after her dreadful murder on June 16, 2016 — a fund that designated among its causes the multi-million-dollar government-financed White Helmets, whose primary purpose has been to escalate unlawful NATO state-proxy and direct military intervention in Syria. We focus on the originators of this fund and the extent to which they influence Western policy on Syria and elsewhere. It is no coincidence that some of the world’s most ardent imperialists are behind the cynical exploitation of one heinous murder to enable global mass-murder as well as human trafficking under the pretext of “ethical” and “humanitarian” intervention.
Who was Jo Cox?
Prior to her untimely and tragic death, Jo Cox was a “tireless advocate” for the Syrian opposition following the 2011 outbreak of the Syrian conflict, even going so far as to promote Western military intervention to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Indeed, Cox consistently called for the U.K. to unilaterally establish a “no fly zone” in Syria with U.S. support and argued that the U.K. military could achieve an “ethical solution” to the Syrian conflict by intervening in the war in order to “compel” the Syrian government to negotiate.
Cox was deeply connected to the Fabian Society, the claimed representative of “modern Labour” in the U.K. This society has certainly furthered U.K. imperialist politics, which included the “patriotic funding of war machines,” according to author Dr. P. Wilkinson, who analyzed the impact of Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour Party leader in 2015 upon the Blairite factions within the party. While the Fabian Society can lay claim to some good work on child poverty, as an example, more recently it has been instrumental in the expansion of Global Britain’s economic and military interests.
In pursuit of U.K./NATO military intervention, Cox vocally denounced Assad and — throughout her short career in Parliament — had maintained that the Syrian president had “helped nurture ISIS [Daesh] and been its main recruiting sergeant.” She had also asserted that the Syrian government had killed seven times more civilians than the infamous terror group and the hundreds of other militant, extremist groups and foreign mercenaries in Syria at the behest of their backers among NATO member states and Gulf States with Israel as their hospital wing, treating armed militants, including Nusra Front in Israeli medical centres.
Cox’s precarious positioning of facts upon a mountain of misleading information has been discredited over time, as the Syrian Arab Army and its allies have waged a successful and authentic “war on terror” inside Syria and on its borders. All such wild accusations and Coxian theories have been eroded with each liberation of occupied Syrian territory and reintegration of armed militants into Syrian society via the Russian-brokered Amnesty and Reconciliation agreements.
Cox failed to pinpoint the U.K. Government’s involvement in the bankrolling of the various extremist and terrorist factions that invaded Syria from 2011 onwards. Armed militants, who have committed all manner of atrocities against the Syrian people, Cox claimed to defend. Cox, like so many regime-change promoters, had never been to Syria. She relied upon the narratives emerging from Syria produced by the U.K. FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office)-manufactured and financed White Helmets and a number of other U.K. state-funded entities on the ground in Syria. The U.K. Government was engineering a shadow state inside the borders of a sovereign nation and Cox supported this blatant violation of international law either deliberately or unwittingly.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, Cox claimed that Syria was not another Iraq. This is a familiar mantra often repeated by those who support the regime change war in Syria and one that is verifiably false. It appears that Cox had never perused the Bush/Blair communications revealed in the Chilcot report that demonstrated the progression from Iraq to Iran and Syria in the U.K./U.S. drive towards hegemony in the region. Syria was in Bush’s crosshairs, as described in a TIME article, as far back as 2006 but this was overlooked by Cox. Tony Blair must have been proud of the efforts made by Cox to expand “Global Britain’s” interests inside Syria:
Above is a presentation slide showing just one of the Bush/Blair communiques as revealed by the Chilcot report. Blair suggests offering Syria and Iran a “chance at a different relationship,” one that would be soured by President Assad’s refusal to comply with the conditions of that “different relationship” — conditions included favoring the Qatar/Turkey oil pipeline preferred by the U.S. coalition. Assad said “no,” and he said “no” to abandoning his allies in the region or reneging on his commitment to the Palestinian cause. In 2002, Blair had even included an honorary knighthood in his early sweeteners to persuade Assad to embrace the “different relationship.” Blair soon changed tack when it was recognized that Syria would not abandon its principles so easily. Plan B, which was regime change, was put into effect.
Cox voted against the proposed bombing of Syria in 2015, not because she thought it was a bad idea but because she wanted David Cameron’s government to go further and send British troops into Syria to save the “moderates.”
In October 2015, Cox co-wrote an article with Andrew Mitchell, former Conservative Secretary of State for International Development (2010-12) and Libya war-hawk. The article was published in The Guardian, whose record on manufacturing consent for U.K. state “humanitarian” intervention is legendary. The title said it all – “British Forces could help achieve an ethical solution in Syria” (emphasis added).
Cox and Mitchell argued that Syria was this generation’s moral test, its “responsibility.” With little regard for the reality on the ground in Syria, Cox and Mitchell merged the threat of international terrorism with the perceived threat from the Syrian government and Syrian Arab Army. The Labour and Tory MPs laser-focused on the refugee “crisis.” No context was provided, only emotional humanitarian flag-waving that ignored the fact that the refugee crisis was actually caused by a far greater percentage of non-Syrian refugees driven from Libya, Central Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq by previous NATO “ethical interventions.” Cox and Mitchell erased the U.K. government’s criminal record under international law with customary virtue-signalling.
“…[T]here is nothing ethical about standing to one side when civilians are being murdered and maimed. There was no excuse in Bosnia, nor Rwanda and there isn’t now.”
Like so many neocons, Cox fundamentally argued that the only pathway to peace was the removal of Assad and victory for the “rebels.” They gave little or no consideration to the reality that this would inevitably lead to the rise of violent sectarianism under an alleged “moderate” Islamist governance, which would plunge Syria into the same terrorist vacuum that Libya has been dealing with since NATO’s “ethical solution” reduced that prosperous sovereign nation down to a failed state.
Even after Cox’s untimely death, her colleagues insisted that her “legacy” should be Britain going to war in Syria. Just prior to her death, Cox had been working on a paper entitled “The Cost of Doing Nothing.” Posthumously this paper was completed by Tory MP Tom Tugendhat, ex-military chair of the Foreign Affairs committee, and Alison McGovern, a Blairite MP who was elected chair of the all-party parliamentary group “Friends of Syria,” founded and previously chaired by Jo Cox.
According to a report by journalist and academic Paul Dixon, “the report was due to be published on the day of the Chilcot inquiry on 6 July 2016, to counter growing British scepticism about foreign military interventions.” Tugendhat, in particular, had argued (in a 2015 paper entitled “Clearing the Fog of Law”) against the human-rights laws that, in his opinion, curtailed and restricted British military action, he argued that “judicial imperialism should urgently be reversed.”
In an article written for the Telegraph, Tugendhat stated that “his friend” Jo Cox would “never want Britain to withdraw from the world — we must be ready to intervene.” A jingoistic argument was deployed by Tugendhat to justify British imperialism:
“We wanted to show that Britain’s history of intervention, military and otherwise, is common to both our political traditions and has been an integral part of our foreign and national security policy for over two hundred years.”
During her life, Cox had been an advocate of war to bring peace in Syria. Furthermore, as this article series will show, her monstrous murder has been weaponized and politicized by the neocon war hawks in British politics in order to further the imperialist ambitions of the U.K. government in Syria and beyond. Significant media coverage, for instance, has been given to Cox’s “compassion,” but little coverage has been given to her pro-interventionist policies — which she often promoted in apparent ignorance of reality and historical context. The use of the “humanitarian” pretext to promote war is hardly a new concept, but the sudden and shocking death of Jo Cox has been exploited in order to elevate it and shield it from honest criticism. Indeed, one could argue that to criticize Jo Cox posthumously is akin to questioning a “Saint.” Who could find fault with her campaign against “genocide,” her pleas for safe havens for refugees, her apolitical stance on the world’s “inhumanity?”
Nevertheless, despite the possibility of being labeled insensitive and cynical, the question that should be asked is who determines the meaning of the terms so liberally used by Cox and her colleagues? What are the implications of this humanitarian hyperbole for U.K. government policy? Indeed, in the past, misplaced or even misleading “compassion” has been used to encourage us not only to betray the principles of international law but also to justify the escalation of armed conflict that has brought only greater inhumanity.
In the case of Syria, such pro-interventionist “humanitarians” have largely promoted policies that have only deepened the suffering for the vast majority of Syrian people. What diplomatic efforts have been deployed? What rational, Syria-centric, political resolution has been proposed for discussion? What respect has there been for the self-determination of the Syrian people?
As an example, both Cox and the White Helmets were committed advocates of a No-Fly Zone over Syria — the White Helmets still are, of course. Despite the very real risk of escalating tensions with Russia, which intervened at the request of the Syrian government in September 2015, Cox argued strongly, in 2015, for a No-Fly Zone, defying even possible UN vetoes:
“This is not about escalating a conflict directly to take on Russia. This is about a deterrence effect to stop the Syrian regime targeting their own civilians.”
A “No-Fly Zone” is recognized by many acclaimed journalists and analysts as nothing less than a “declaration of war.” Even Hillary Clinton, neocon warhawk extraordinaire, conceded the certainty that a No-Fly Zone would kill more Syrian civilians:
“To have a no-fly zone you have to take out all of the air defenses, many of which are located in populated areas. So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we’re not putting our pilots at risk — you’re going to kill a lot of Syrians.”
The precedent of Libya stands as a horrifying example of the death and destruction that is a consequence of such a policy, yet Cox was willing to endorse such wholesale devastation, which would inevitably affect more innocent lives in Syria and further fragment an already destabilized nation. Notably, she did so by promoting “humanitarianism,” despite the clearly inhuman consequences of such a policy.
Furthermore, Cox campaigned tirelessly for refugee rights. However, she did not highlight the British Government’s role in creating the refugee crisis in Syria by financing, promoting and equipping the “moderate” opposition that drove civilians from their homes and into refugee status. Neither did she highlight the British government’s role in NATO-member-state interventions that further exacerbated the refugee crisis in countries like Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Central Africa.
Beyond the conflict itself, Syrians have endured almost eight years of crippling economic sanctions, sanctions that were imposed by the U.K. and its allies in the U.S. regime-change coalition. As history has shown time and again, sanctions never damage a target government but instead wind up punishing the innocent people who resist any kind of foreign meddling in their sovereign affairs.
These particular sanctions have decimated the Syrian state medical sector, by destroying hospitals and reducing the nation’s ability to treat its population for all manner of chronic illness and to counter the trauma of an externally waged war. Why did Jo Cox never argue that these sanctions should be lifted, if she truly cared for the plight of the Syrian people? Indeed, why were the solutions she supported largely policies that — in practice — would deepen and prolong the conflict, and why did she invoke the well-being of the Syrian people to promote them?
Jo Cox and the White Helmets
Beyond her public calls for intervention, Cox also founded and co-chaired the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) “Friends of Syria” from 2015 until her death a year later. She was again partnered in this endeavor by Andrew Mitchell, who was also co-chair of the APPG.
During that time, Cox hosted several events on behalf of the group, many of them promoting pro-regime-change speakers from groups like the European Council on Foreign Relations and the National Coalition for Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces. More recent events hosted by the group have included speakers from the U.S. think-tank Atlantic Council, largely funded by U.S. weapons manufacturers; and the filmmakers of the second Oscar-nominated White Helmets documentary, Last Men in Aleppo, a revisionist project that attempted to erase from public consciousness the existence of Nusra Front and over 50 other extremist groups that occupied East Aleppo for almost five years.
Watch | Channel 4 tribute to Jo Cox, honoring the White Helmets as “impartial, neutral rescuers”
In promoting the White Helmets, the “Friends of Syria” group was following Cox’s lead, as Cox herself was a vocal supporter of the group and was instrumental in getting the group nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016. Indeed, a few months before her death, Cox had written a “heartfelt” letter to the Nobel Prize committee, asserting that “in the most dangerous place on earth these unarmed volunteers [of the White Helmets] risk their lives to help anyone in need regardless of religion or politics.”
Cox’s promotion of the White Helmets to win the Nobel Peace Prize gained the support of several notable celebrities – George Clooney and Daniel Craig, among others – as well as 20 other British MPs. The group was eventually nominated for the prize as a result, but failed to muster enough support to win the award, which instead went to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for the FARC peace deal.
Thus, the inclusion of the White Helmets as beneficiaries of the Jo Cox Fund is certainly in keeping with the Syria policy and narratives that Cox had promoted during her time as a public figure. However, what stands out is not only the extent to which the Jo Cox Fund has been posthumously exploited to continue funding the White Helmets. What is perhaps more striking is the history of the fund’s originators and their deep connections to some of the world’s most powerful individuals and influential “philanthropic” organizations.
Instant exploitation
Within five days of Cox’s murder, the White Helmets PR agency, Syria Campaign, had produced another in a long line of slick marketing campaigns. This time they announced “8 Reasons why Syrians will never forget Jo Cox.” Those eight reasons tied in perfectly with the U.K./U.S. Coalition “regime change” agenda. They included calls for “real action” to protect the Syrian “people;” not seeing Syria as Iraq; the root cause of killing and extremism in Syria is…. Assad; breaking the ubiquitous sieges (those allegedly created by Assad, not by the extremist factions, naturally); welcoming refugees; lobbying the UN to support unlawful intervention; and ensuring that U.K. foreign policy objectives of toppling the elected Syrian government are not allowed to fall from the parliamentary agenda.
What a perfect example of exploitation of a dramatic and shocking event by an organization established by a Syrian-in-exile oil baron, Ayman Asfari who has also provided financial backing to the Conservative Party in the U.K. Almost £ 700,000 since 2009. Asfari is a member of the Leaders Group, an “elite circle of donors” who are regularly invited to lunch with Tory Party influencers in return for £50,000 per year. Asfari is under investigation by the Serious Fraud Squad (SFO) in the UK on allegations of extensive bribery and corruption in the oil and gas industry for the last three years, according to the Electoral Commission.
British MP Wafic Saïd left, former Prime Minister David Cameron,
center, and Ayman Asfari, right. Photo | Saïd Foundation
Asfari is another elite mover and shaker whose influence over the view of the Syria conflict landscape packaged and presented in the West is considerable, particularly within sectors that will influence UK Government policy or support it.
Andrew Mitchell, perhaps best known in the U.K. for the “plebgate” saga, has systematically used Cox’s untouchable status to counter public concern over the true role of the White Helmets in Syria and their status as a “complete propaganda construct,” as described by eminent journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger.
The ever-increasing evidence of the White Helmets’ allegiance to Nusra Front (Al Qaeda in Syria) and a plethora of other equally brutal extremist groups; their participation in sectarian, extra-judicial executions by the “moderate” armed groups; and their lobbying for war in Congress, the UN and in Parliament are dismissed with the broad brush of Jo Cox’s living endorsement of this very British organization. Cox’s death has been exploited to render any investigation into the White Helmets an inhumane practice. In life and apparently even in death, Cox was and is an integral part of the White Helmet protection cartel.
The seamless transition from Jo Cox to a number of her acolytes and colleagues who have carried her interventionist baton forward has been remarkable. Following glowing tributes from global luminaries — such as former U.S. President, and drone warfare advocate, Barack Obama — significant others have moved into pole position to ensure the longevity of Cox’s policies.
Sara Brown, wife of former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, stepped up to praise the “female” White Helmets who appeared miraculously, shortly after criticism that the group was a sectarian, extremist and fundamental organization that would do nothing to further women’s rights in Syria. At the same time as Brendan Cox (Jo’s husband) was special advisor to Gordon Brown (2009-11), Jo Cox had helped Sara Brown to establish the Maternal Mortality Campaign, which aimed to raise awareness of babies dying needlessly in pregnancy and childbirth.
Move forward to 2017 and the creation of the Jo Cox-inspired centrist campaign group “More United,” which crowdfunds to support “progressive” election candidates across all parties in the U.K. According to Bess Mayhew, chief executive of More United:
“We are doing something unheard of in British politics: we want people across the political spectrum to agree and unite around the values we share. We have supporters, we have money, we have a long-term plan, and we’re mobilising a digital disruption of the politics of the status quo.”
Crowdfunding for “ethical” intervention-approved candidates who will ensure the protection of Global Britain’s imperialist road map and all its associated constructs, including the White Helmets.
With the Jo Cox Fund, public sentiment has been harnessed and monetized for the benefit of establishment elite “charity” schemes that effectively fund the assets who are enabling a violent regime-change war that has been waged for almost eight years inside Syria.
The billionaires behind the Jo Cox Fund
The Jo Cox Fund was set up, only 24 hours after the MP’s death, by four of Cox’s “friends” in London , who said they had set up the fundraiser in “close collaboration” with Cox’s husband, Brendan Cox. Cox’s “friends” that co-founded the fund are as follows, along with the organizational affiliations they freely provided on the fund’s page: Nick Grono (CEO, The Freedom Fund), Tim Dixon (MD, Purpose), Mabel van Oranje (Chair, Girls Not Brides), and Gemma Mortensen (Chief Global Officer, Change.org). Two of those four, Nick Grono and Mabel van Oranje, would go on to serve on the board of the Jo Cox Foundation.
However, these four figures — upon closer examination — are clearly much more than just four grieving friends of the late MP who just happen to also serve prominent roles on well-known non-governmental organizations and charities. In reality, all four are deeply connected to some of the most powerful interests in the world, many with nefarious agendas, that have long sought to hijack NGOs and other humanitarian organizations and weaponize them in the service of major political goals, including regime change targeting “rogue states.”
Of the four founders of the Jo Cox Fund, there is perhaps no one that epitomizes these types of connections more than Mabel van Oranje, nee Wisse Smit. Though often touted as a human-rights advocate for her role in organizations like Girls Not Brides and War Child Netherlands, a closer examination of van Oranje’s history reveals not only deep connections to some of the world’s most powerful people but also past connections to previous Western-backed regime-change operations.
Van Oranje and Cox were both “recognized” by the World Economic Forum (WEF). Cox was honored posthumously as a WEF Young Global Leader while van Oranje was named a WEF Global Leader for Tomorrow in 2003 and listed among its Young Global Leaders in 2005. The overlap of mutual award ceremonies among the organizations and individual players who form the ever-expanding imperialist network are brought into sharp relief by this examination of the Jo Cox Fund and those who breathed life into it. Certainly, there are very few globalist entities that epitomize the well-heeled financial, economic and corporate mafia sectors more than the WEF.
However, van Oranje is much more notable among the soft-power complex elite — not for her role at Girls Not Brides nor other NGOs — but for co-founding the European Council on Foreign Relations, a globalist pan-European think-tank whose members are a mix of EU politicians and top figures in the European media. However, the ECFR is more than just a think-tank, given that it is essentially an extension of one powerful and controversial billionaire, George Soros, whose Open Society Foundation was largely responsible for providing the ECFR’s initial funding.
The Soros connection only deepens as one examines van Oranje’s past. Indeed, van Oranje was the director of EU Affairs of Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI) beginning in 1997 until 2002, when she became International Advocacy Director for the Open Society Institute’s branch in London. Notably, George Soros is one of the chief funders behind the most prominent NGOs and other “humanitarian” organizations that have consistently promoted Western military intervention in the Syrian conflict.
Furthermore, van Oranje’s private life makes her connections to some of the world’s leading globalists even more clear. In 2004, while working for the OSI, Mabel Martine Wisse Smit (maiden name) married the late Prince Fiso of the Netherlands, son of Queen Beatrix — a regular Bilderberg attendee — and the grandson of Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands – the German-born Dutch royal who co-founded the Bilderberg Group in 1954.
Yet, of van Oranje’s innumerable connections to powerful billionaires and the global elite, her most striking connection — in the context of Syria at least — was perhaps one of her first. In 1993, van Oranje — at the age of 25 and just out of university — founded the European Action Council for Peace in the Balkans and served as its CEO until 1997, when she left to join Soro’s OSI.
Despite its name appearing to advocate for “peace” in the Balkans, the group van Oranje founded was instead stocked with powerful U.S. political figures who advocated for anything but peace in the Balkan states. For instance, some of the members of the group’s executive council included Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor under former U.S. President Jimmy Carter; Frank Carlucci, Deputy CIA Director under Carter and National Security Advisor and Deputy Secretary of Defense under former U.S. President Ronald Reagan; Max Kampleman, head of Reagan’s nuclear weapons team; and Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Reagan’s ambassador to the United Nations.
Other key members and influencers working within the upper echelons of van Oranje’s council include Morton Abramowitz, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and board member of Human Rights Watch, and Aryeh Neier, co-founder of Human Rights Watch (HRW) in 1978 and long-time president of Soros’ OSI. Human Rights Watch is a prominent NGO that uses its “humanitarian” exterior to push pro-intervention agendas that are promoted by the governments and billionaires who fund and support it. For instance, HRW was awarded $100m to expand its global presence over a 10 year period by Soros and his associated organizations in 2010, and has formed a critical part of the “humanitarian” pro-military intervention lobby since the 1990s. HRW also has close ties to U.S. intelligence and is one of the many CIA outreach agents designed to provide, yet again, cover for the Pentagon’s military fist inside the velvet glove of “humanitarian” concerns.
peace activist and author of The Dirty War on Syria.
How van Oranje was able to furnish her newly founded action council with such powerful figures, particularly just after finishing her senior year of college only months prior, is a testament to the strength of her connections, even before she began work for Soros’ elite power-protectionist group or became a member of the Dutch royal family.
Unsurprisingly, the European Action Council for Peace in the Balkans issued a call in 1995, under van Oranje’s leadership, for “an end to the arms embargo against Bosnia, the withdrawal of the UN forces from Bosnia and an effective NATO air campaign.”
Despite being an alleged “council for peace,” the van Oranje-led group demanded that any “air campaign” be both “strategic and sustained,” not “pinprick strikes.” In other words, this group called for an intense, brutal and long-lasting bombing campaign of the country, much like the type of bombing campaign promoted for use in Syria by groups like Crisis Action — with members such as van Oranje and Mortensen of the Jo Cox Fund, as well as Jo Cox herself before her death. At the time, the van Oranje-chaired group on the Balkan conflict had also asserted that “a failure to act will be disastrous for the people of Bosnia, for the U.S., and for our vital interests in Europe” — the familiar clarion call to war in the interests of a “national security” under no threat from the country in the crosshairs.
Nick Grono and the Clintons
Van Oranje is hardly the only Jo Cox Fund co-founder with a well-heeled foothold in the elite camp. Nick Grono, another co-founder of the fund, had worked with Jo Cox at an anti-slavery NGO, the Freedom Fund. Grono, who was appointed the group’s CEO in January of 2014, had also previously served in key posts at the NGO Walk Free, also aimed at ending modern-day slavery. Grono had also been Deputy President and Chief Operating Officer at the cutting edge “conflict resolution and prevention” cartel commonly known as the International Crisis Group (ICG).
Nick Grono greets Pope Francis in 2013. Photo | Freedom Fund
The ICG board is comprised of a cadre of well-known elites such as Frank Giustra, longtime philanthropic partner of Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation; Carl Bildt; Emma Bonino; former NATO Chief Wesley Clark; George Soros; Alexander Soros — the list is extensive of those who are immensely influential in the globalist circles. Furthermore, the funding for ICG is paid by the United States government through the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and grants made on behalf of the U.S. Congress to foreign political organizations. Other Western countries, like the Netherlands, also contribute. Notably, Mabel van Oranje is also a past member of ICG. Once encased in such a gilded cage, it is easy to build upon such connections and to expand, as a philanthrocapitalist, into the most lucrative areas of humanitarian need.
The Freedom Fund was first announced by former U.S. President Bill Clinton at the 2013 annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York. It was founded with $30 million provided by three “philanthropic” foundations of powerful billionaires and financial interests: Humanity United, a foundation funded by Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pamela; the Legatum Foundation, the development arm of the Legatum group, a global private investment firm connected to mega-banks JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs; and the Minderoo Foundation, the foundation of Australian mining oligarch and the country’s richest man Andrew Forrest and his wife Nicola.
The Freedom Fund was described as an “ambitious seven-year effort to raise and deploy $100 million or more to combat modern-day slavery.” It was Bill Clinton who announced the fund’s creation, stating that,
“This is a huge deal and we should all support this.”
Nick Grono was given the helm early on in the fund’s voyage, serving as its inaugural CEO. It is worth mentioning that the sincerity of Clinton’s enthusiasm for combating slavery and human trafficking is suspect, given that he was a regular visitor on pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet and has intervened on at least one occasion to protect known child traffickers.
Grono is also on the board of van Oranje-chaired group Girls Not Brides and was the inaugural CEO of the anti-slavery NGO Walk Free, which conveniently interlocks with the anti-slavery movement contained within Freedom Fund. Notably, Tim Dixon, another Jo Cox Fund founder, is co-founder of Purpose Europe, a branch of the Avaaz-fostered behavioral-change experts that market themselves as a “non-profit” while accepting donor contributions from some of the most influential foundations and political “change” drivers, such as Google. According to Cory Morningstar, a pioneer researcher into the NPIC (Not for Profit Industrial Complex):
“Where, under the organization Avaaz, the public hasn’t acquiesced to an airstrike on Syria, the New York public relations firm Purpose Inc. has stepped in.”
Tim Dixon, pictured left, co-founded Purpose Europe.
Dixon’s connections will be covered in greater depth in Part 2, but it is worth noting here that Dixon also connects into the van Oranje network. Under Dixon’s tutelage and according to his LinkedIn profile, Purpose “incubated” van Oranje’s Walk Free Foundation that is now listed among the high-profile “partners” on the Purpose website.
The flotilla of anti-slavery activists and sponsors who floated Freedom Fund were Humanity Utd, Minderoo, Legatum Foundation who were then joined by the Stardust Fund, the C & A Foundation, and Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), which granted $10 million to the Freedom Fund over five years “to scale its anti-slavery work, with a particular focus on tackling the exploitation of children.”
These groups continue to back Freedom Fund, which also receives significant funding from the U.K. government and UBS, the multinational Switzerland-based investment bank.
A seminal paper written by Janie A. Chuang, an American professor of law, highlighted the pitfalls and risks involved in this particular area of philanthrocapitalism, a term Chuang invented in her essay. Chuang argues that “deep financial resources and access to powerful networks” give the philanthrocapitalists tremendous power to “shape the future trajectory of the anti-trafficking movement.” However, Chuang warns that this also gives these soft power moguls the ability to reconfigure and distort the landscape of global anti-trafficking policy-making and to contain it within a very limited power base that will monopolize the “market” and control the outcome.
The more sinister aspect of this overlap is that these capitalist NGO chains depend upon their ability to generate a revenue stream that sustains their positioning at the top of the fundraising pyramid. To what extent is the control they have over sectors of human suffering influenced by their need to meet the pay grade of their directors and board members? To what extent will these foundation-controlled NGOs sacrifice the agendas of their wealthy and powerful sponsors in favor of integrity and genuinely humanitarian objectives? In a nutshell, these anti-trafficking organizations depend upon human trafficking for their success, status and impact in an oversubscribed market.
In the next installment of this series, the role of these NGOs, and the Jo Cox Fund in particular, will be examined as it relates to the Syrian conflict. As described above, many of the very players involved with the Jo Cox Fund and associated NGOs are much involved with the public-relations campaign to elevate and protect groups like the White Helmets and other dubious elements of the Syrian opposition, an effort that has its origin in the NATO intervention in the Balkan states in the 1990s. As will be explored, the current efforts of those groups and individuals within Syria not only act as a cover for Western intervention but also cover the dark side of these “humanitarian” NGOs, particularly their possible involvement in the trafficking of Syrian children.
Vanessa Beeley is an independent journalist, peace activist, photographer and associate editor at 21st Century Wire. Vanessa was a finalist for one of the most prestigious journalism awards – the 2017 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism – whose winners have included the likes of Robert Parry in 2017, Patrick Cockburn, Robert Fisk, Nick Davies and the Bureau for Investigative Journalism team. Support Vanessa via Patreon.
Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.
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The fastest-growing oil region in the U.S. is fueling not only the second American shale revolution, it's fueling a subculture of drug and alcohol abuse among oil field workers.
The Permian shale play in West Texas is once again booming with drilling and is full of oil field workers, some of which are abusing drugs and alcohol to help them get through long shifts, harsh working conditions, and loneliness and isolation.
Drugs are easily accessible in the Permian, which is close to highways and to Mexico. For oil field workers making six-figure salaries, money is not a problem to buy all kinds of illegal substances to shoot, snort and swallow to get through 24-hour-plus shifts. The physically exhaustive work also sometimes causes aches for workers, making them susceptible to getting hooked on prescription painkillers.
The drug and alcohol abuse subculture in the Permian is a known, yet rarely reported or discussed, issue in the most prolific U.S. shale play, where oil production is booming, and relentless drilling attracts oil field workers from all over Texas and all parts of the United States.
In Midland, in the very heart of the Permian oil boom, The Springboard Center, a drug and alcohol addiction treatment facility, has many clients from the oil fields, Christopher Pierce, director of marketing for center, tells Rigzone's Valerie Jones in an interview.
"We get a lot of clients who work in the oilfield because of where we're located," says Pierce, 35, a former oil field worker, and a former addict.
Pierce and The Springboard Center in Midland are now working on building a gated living camp community free of drugs or alcohol for people who want to be in a safe place.
Oil workers are not speaking up at work about their addiction for fear of getting fired, Pierce said, adding that he doesn't have anything negative to say about the oil industry, which is the backbone of the economic growth in the Permian.
Some oil field workers and contractors use drug cocktails or various substances depending on the condition they seek to achieve during their 24-hour-plus shifts. At the beginning of a long or overnight shift, they would use 'uppers' like cocaine and methamphetamines, and finish the shift with 'downers' such as prescription medication or alcohol, Kayla Fishbeck, regional evaluator for Prevention Resource Center Region 9, a data repository for 30 counties in West Texas, told Rigzone.
"In Region 9, the most screened drug last year was amphetamines and that was largely in the oilfield," she said.
Thanks to the oil boom, the unemployment rate in Midland is at a record low 2.1 percent, and the unemployment rate in Odessa is also a historically low of 2.8 percent.
According to Fishbeck, Midland and Odessa are the top two Texas cities for drunken-driving fatalities.
"We hear stories of guys getting off their shift, getting a six-pack or 12-pack on their way home and start drinking in their truck," Fishbeck told Rigzone.
The Permian's drug of choice is crystal meth, a stimulant increasingly supplied by Mexican drug cartels, according to law enforcement officials who spoke to the Houston Chronicle in May.
There is a strong correlation between the rise of drilling activity and the number of crystal meth seizures by authorities in the Permian area, Houston Chronicle's cross-analysis of data from the Texas Department of Public Safety and the rig count shows.
Eddy Lozoya, a former oil field trucker and a recovering addict at 23, has recently found a job at a local department store selling shoes. At least for the next few months, he doesn't plan to return to the oil field.
"I don't see myself being able to work 100 hours a week sober," he told the Houston Chronicle. "The oil field is tough."
Prof. Leo Panitch and Paul Jay discuss Obama’s Mandela lecture; Obama wants the impossible – a world where the super-rich give up “a little” and there is no massive inequality.
Professor Leo Panitch is Professor Emeritus of York University and co-author of The Making of Global Capitalism, The Political Economy of American Empire, and editor of The Socialist Register. The next issue is titled “A World Turned Upside Down.”
My world view changed forever when, after 20 years in the Foreign Office, I saw colleagues I knew and liked go along with Britain’s complicity in the most terrible tortures, as detailed stunningly in the recent Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee Report.
They also went along with keeping the policy secret, deliberately disregarding all normal record taking procedures, to the extent that the Committee noted:
131. We note that we have not seen the minutes of these meetings either: this causes us great concern. Policy discussions on such an important issue should have been minuted. We support Mr Murray’s own conclusion that were it not for his actions these matters may never have come to light.
The people doing these things were not ordinarily bad people; they were just trying to keep their jobs, comforting themselves with the thought that they were only civil servants obeying orders. Many were also actuated by the nasty “patriotism” that grips in time of war, as we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost nobody in the FCO stood up against the torture or against the illegal war – Elizabeth Wilmshurst, Carne Ross and I were the only ones to leave over it.
I then had the still more mortifying experience of the Foreign Office seeking to punish my dissent by bringing a series of accusations of gross misconduct – some of them criminal – against me. The people bringing the accusations knew full well they were false. The people investigating them knew they were false from about day 2. But I was put through a hellish six months of trial by media before being acquitted on all the original counts (found guilty of revealing the charges, whose existence was an official secret!). The people who did this to me were people I knew.
I had served as First Secretary in the British Embassy in Poland, and bumped up startlingly against the history of the Holocaust in that time, including through involvement with organising the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. What had struck me most forcibly was the sheer scale of the Holocaust operation, the tens of thousands of people who had been complicit in administering it. I could never understand how that could happen – until I saw ordinary, decent people in the FCO facilitate extraordinary rendition and torture. Then I understood, for the first time, the banality of evil or, perhaps more precisely, the ubiquity of evil. Of course, I am not comparing the scale of what happened to the Holocaust – but evil can operate on different scales.
I believe I see it again today. I do not believe that the majority of journalists in the BBC, who pump out a continual stream of “Corbyn is an anti-semite” propaganda, believe in their hearts that Corbyn is a racist at all. They are just doing their job, which is to help the BBC avert the prospect of a radical government in the UK threatening the massive wealth share of the global elite. They would argue that they are just reporting what others say; but it is of course the selection of what they report and how they report it which reflect their agenda.
The truth, of which I am certain, is this. If there genuinely was the claimed existential threat to Jews in Britain, of the type which engulfed Europe’s Jews in the 1930’s, Jeremy Corbyn, Billy Bragg, Roger Waters and I may humbly add myself would be among the few who would die alongside them on the barricades, resisting. Yet these are today loudly called “anti-semites” for supporting the right to oppose the oppression of the Palestinians. The journalists currently promoting those accusations, if it came to the crunch, would be polishing state propaganda and the civil servants writing railway dockets. That is how it works. I have seen it. Close up.
Presidential Decree No. 03-2018, "On Amendments to Decree No. 975 General Regulation of the Social Security Law" issued on April 18th, was the perfect pretext for the Opposition to initiate a series of protests that began to escalate.
Four days later, in the face of acts of violence and an estimated 23 deaths, President Daniel Ortega decided, on April 22nd, to repeal the Presidential Decree that had served as a catalyst for what looked like an explosion of social unrest.
In that same announcement he called for a National Dialogue as an instrument to restore the security, stability and peace of Nicaraguan families, address the situation of the Social Security system and the possible inclusion of tax reforms for discussion. He also invited Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes to participate in the National Dialogue with a delegation from the Episcopal Conference so that it would serve as guarantor and witness. However, despite the repeal of the decree that triggered the protests and despite the willingness of the Government to seek a solution through the National Dialogue, the protests continued.
The Human Rights organizations began their work of compiling the names of the deceased citizens within the context of the protests. Three organizations stand out: The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH), the first body to pronounce itself; the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH), whose participation was requested by the government of Nicaragua on May 13th; and the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights (ANPDH), the body that has been most active in relation to the death list.
The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH - founded in 1990 and of which Mrs. Vilma Núñez de Escorcia is president) has issued three reports corresponding to different time periods in the context of the protests.
The First Report issued on May 4, covers April 19th to May 4th; The Second Report issued on May 17th, covers May 1st to May 15th; and the Third Report issued on June 18th, covers May 16th to June 18th. The CENIDH list is not presented as a chart or a table, but as a section within each report which is titled "Killed and wounded as a result of government repression and violence." Note that this title irresponsibly and arbitrarily asserts that the deaths are a direct consequence of the violence on the part of the Government. In the third and last report issued, it is indicated that the total of deaths is 178 citizens, however the First Report includes the names of 45 dead citizens, the Second Report 12 citizens and the Third Report 110, so that the total of the three reports is one hundred and sixty-seven (167) dead on June 18th and not 178.
On May 21st, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH – an autonomous body of the Organization of American States) presented Preliminary Observations on its working visit to Nicaragua from May 17th to 21st and in the context of the protests beginning on April 18th.
Those observations did not include a list of citizens who had died in at the scene of the protests. It was not until June 22nd that the CIDH presented its Final Report on its visit to Nicaragua before the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS), a report in which the list of decedents was attached, accounting for a total of Two Hundred Twelve (212). This appendix is entitled: "List of deceased persons in Nicaragua since the beginning of the protests (April 19 - June 19, 2018)". Note the cynical euphemism of "deceased in Nicaragua since the beginning of the protests", that is, every person who died from April 19th to June 19th, promoting the decontextualization of the same, regardless of the causes and circumstances of the death of each of them and as we will indicate later.
Note that the title shares the same editorial line of the CENIDH, affirming irresponsibly and arbitrarily that all the deaths occurred in the context of "Civic Protest" and likewise attributes their deaths to "Executions by Armed Groups (Paramilitaries or Shock Forces) ". The preliminary report of the ANPDH counted a death toll of 285.
It should be noted that these reports have inconsistencies and omissions in terms of names with incomplete data, inaccurate names or boxes with the indication "No Information" or "Under Investigation". This denotes the lack of disposition and a lack of ability in actual case-by-case investigation, with results limited to information gathered from journalistic sources and those accepted in complaints without no willingness to corroborate the data.
Deaths Decontextualized
A recurrent feature in the lists is the removal from context each one of the dead and adjudging them as victims of the "repression" on the part of the government. In fact, the lists include victims of traffic accidents, altercations between gangs, murders by robbery, those killed by accidental firing of a firearm and even more absurdly, a suicide. This is evidence of a campaign that, in the absence of a just cause, uses the death of every citizen as a motive to manipulate the emotions of the population in order to counterpose “the people” against “the people.”
It is necessary to know the set of circumstances surrounding the death of each citizen to understand whether that death has any direct or indirect relationship to the protests.
For the purposes of this article, we define "Death Not Directly Related to Protests" as those deaths that occurred outside the scenario of a demonstration, a confrontation involving protesters, the attack or destruction of institutional targets (or FSLN supporters), or the looting of shops.
The adverb "directly” is used to distinguish these deaths from those caused indirectly. As the product of the political and social destabilization imposed on the country, crime has been empowered, taking ground, directly affecting Nicaraguan society and causing deaths, which although not connected to the protests are an indirect consequence of them.
Therefore, efforts will be made to identify the quantities corresponding to the following variables from the death lists of the three organizations:
Repeated Names
Deaths Not Directly Related to Protests
People murdered by the Opposition
Protesters (protesters, opponents, opposition activists operating roadblocks...)
Bystanders (uninvolved in the protests)
Names with insufficient data to determine the context of the death
Deaths omitted from each list
Sources for the Verification of the Lists
The list of each report was verified name by name with information gathered from newspaper articles and press releases from the National Police. The biggest weakness is that many media outlets are diverting, omitting or manipulating information for political purposes.
The following web pages correspond to most of the sources used to cross-check the lists:
To verify the context in which the citizens cited in each list died, a matrix was drawn up that sought to identify the full name, photo, age, profession, place of death, reason for death, context, observations and the sources for each case.
CENIDH has issued three reports whose lists are not included in full in its third and most recent report, because each report refers to a specific period of time. Thus, the Third Report, covering the period from May 16th to June 18th, does not include in its list the deaths that occurred before May 16th. The information corresponding to the previous date is included in the two previous reports.
As for its list, from its three reports, it is possible to identify one hundred and sixty-seven (167) dead as of June 18th. The CENIDH seems to be the most prudent organization in terms of attributing to the Government responsibility for the death of these citizens because upon verification the lists were found to have few duplicated names; the reports try to provide sound information on the context of the death of each of the citizens; and few cases lack incomplete data.
The CENIDH list is not presented as a chart or table but as a section within each report, section entitled: "Killed and wounded as a result of government repression and violence". The names are grouped in chronological order, without reference numbers, and describe at least the full name, age, description of the context of the death and where it took place. For example:
“May 16th
Noel Calderón Lagos, 19 years old, wounded by a bullet due to the repression at the UPOLI at dawn on May 16th. From Department of Managua.”
Regarding the repeated names, 4 citizens were duplicated in the reports. On two occasions, the same name was mentioned in two different reports. In one case the name was incorrectly identified; and in another, a pseudonym of a citizen who had already been mentioned was added.
#FreedomFlotilla boat carrying medical supplies for #Gaza hijacked by Israeli forces.
PLEASE contact your governments to demand they call for safe passage for all on board #AlAwda (The Return) and speedy delivery of our solidarity gifts to the Palestinians of Gaza:
I went to Napoli Italy and joined to support the freedom flotilla (https://jfp.freedomflotilla.org/) to Gaza. In Napoli, there was a series of events in build-up of people support for the boats. There are four boats, three sail boats and one (fairly large) engine boat. This latter is the one I was to be on.
I did not book a Bed & Breakfast room and chose to stay with the group which was split between those that stayed at the boat or in an "occupied building" downtown. The abandoned building used to be a sports facility that is not maintained and is one of several abandoned facilities that were taken over by students and activists to use.
It was at a main street and was noisy but is OK. The boat cabins themselves are very hot (Not to mention mosquitoes at the port area). In any case the conversations, activities, and work left little time for sleep. On the second evening in Napoli, my mobile phone was stolen on the boat (not by someone interested in its economic value but by Zionist infiltrator/s). I had to spend some time to deal with this problem privately with help of colleagues back home in Palestine. Napoli people (including the mayor) were very welcoming.
While in Napoli I also managed to squeeze some time to visit the oldest Rotary club here (founded 1924) and visit the natural history museum (actually it is a series of separate museums: geology, paleontology, ethnology, biology). Making connections and networking with new people everyday. On Sunday, we left Napoli in an emotional farewell.
Some members went by ferry or even airplane to Palermo. I and 15 others (six crew members, two journalists) were on Al-Awda ship. We ran it rather slow so that we arrive to Palermo 24 hours later together with the slower sailing boats. The 24 hours on the Mediterranean were hard on our bodies (little sleep, constant roll and tug of waves and movement) but were really uplifting to spirits. Beautiful blue waters, beautiful skies, and great people to talk to and learn about their lives and what makes them tick etc.
At one point we were visited by a group of some 40 dolphins who decided to greet us and give us a show. People and dolphins really seemed so happy to see and greet each other.
Arriving near Palermo, the sail boats were there to circle our boat and then the four boats with us leading approached the harbor. From the distance I could see how excited the crowds were to welcome us. Flag of the city, honor guard of the city, flags of Palestine, flags of some hosting groups, and most of all good people (including our own ground team) were there cheering, waving, dancing as our ship crew docked and tied the ship.
After some brief speeches from the Mayor of Palermo and some of us, the whole group of some 100 people marched to join a large (400 people) demonstration that was already taking place about 2 km away. The latter was a demonstration in support pf immigrant rights (Palermo is a welcoming city for immigrants). As we approached the larger demonstration chanting Palestine Libere and free, free Palestine, the larger demonstration was so happy to see us and broke out in a great wave of cheers.
Here in Palermo I split my time between a B&B (where I could take a shower) and the boat. I also spoke to participants and locals. I visited with Rotary Clubs and with the botanical garden. I met great people and reconnected with old friends.
I had long private conversations that sometimes lasted for two hours or more with people like Dr. Ang Swee Chai and Dr. May Kayyali. The former is an orthopedic surgeon who already worked treating Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila in 1982 and in Gaza and other places and I was glad to connect her and that she immediately agreed to be on the boat (a far stronger candidate than I am). Dr. Kayyali whom I knew for some 15 year is one of the best Palestinian ambassadors in the world. She hosted the participants for Maqlouba and served it herself! I met so many other good people who are now on the boats hijacked by Israeli apartheid racist forces. Great people.
I am heartbroken that I could not join the boats on the last leg to Gaza (for many reasons that I will not bore you with) but being with them for 10 days was one of the best investments in my time and money. Having met these hundreds of people and seen the determination and love we share adds to my confidence that Palestine will be free (from the river to the sea!).
So my friends are now in Zionist small jails and I remain in a Zionist big jail (apartheid ghetto reserved for Palestinians).
On Friday Israel killed and injured Palestinian children who were protesting the killing and injuring of Palestinian children.
Today (Sunday, contemporaneous with hijacking our boats), Israeli apartheid released Ahed and Nariman Tami. Life, death, suffering, pain, giving goes on. Libre Palestina- Free free Palestine ...
VivaPalestina!
Following the freedom flotilla: Facebook – FreedomFlotillaCoalition Twitter - @GazaFFlotilla Instagram - @gazafreedomflotilla And encouraging others to spread the word using hashtags #ShiptoGaza #FreedomFlotilla #CountdownToGaza. You can also share videos and pictures there are many on our facebook/freedomflotilla page, using those same tags and if a new post - @freedomflotillacoalition
My body is in Bethlehem --- my heart is on Al-Awda ship.
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