Steve & Dimitri - Canadian potty

Yesterday in Colombia, Harper attacked the critics of his Canada-Colombia free trade investment agreement who object to the deaths of a couple hundred unionists and the displacement of 4.9 million people in the struggle for control over land for the development of resources that over 70 Canadian extraction companies are heavily involved in. Steve  :

"We can’t block the progress of a country like this for protectionist reasons, and (they’re) trying to use human rights as a front for doing that."

If that line sounds familiar, yes, it's the same "human rights as a phony front" argument he uses to defend Israel's atrocities in Gaza.

Tomorrow it's on to Honduras where the Harper government was the first to sanction the right wing coup in 2009 that replaced leftist president Zelaya who coincidentally had put a moratorium on further foreign mining concessions.
Honduras is getting its own Canadian free investment agreement soon as well.
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Update : DAMMIT JANET gets confirmation on Steve's toiletbunker incident
The Regina Mom launches a potty flashmail!
Biff Loman's toon looks ahead to the next FTA
Boris notes a more recent source for Steve's 'phony human rights' shtick
Dr. Dawg and Kev have updates on the moral bankruptcy of the Canada-Colombia Free Investment Agreement
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Gates touts his support for torture school

Photo snagged from Pacific Free Press

Gates touts support for WHINSEC in Halifax

Every November, thousands gather at Fort Benning, Georgia, to demand closure of the School of the Americas, renamed "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation" in 2001, for the disappearances, torture and the murder of hundreds of thousands of peasants, community and union organizers, clerics, missionaries, educators, and health workers in Latin America. This year's vigil marked the 20th anniversary of the 1989 SOA graduate-led Jesuit massacre in San Salvador and focuses on the current SOA graduate-led coup in Honduras.
The protestors are hopeful. During his election campaign, Obama made sympathetic noises about closing down the school and last year Congress came within 6 votes of cutting off its Dept. of Defense funding.

So I was somewhat surprised to read that on the same weekend as the SOA/WHINSEC vigil, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was up in Canada touting his support for WHINSEC. Prior to giving the keynote address to the Halifax International Security Forum - a closed shop affair for top brass from NATO countries to speak freely on matters of mutual concern - Gates gave one public presser with Defensive Minister Peter MacKay that I only just now got around to reading, courtesy of the US Defense Dept.

Gates, Deputy Director of the CIA to Ronald Reagan during Iran-Contra, Director of the CIA to GHW Bush, and Secretary of Defense to both George Bush and currently Barack Obama :

"The United States has made it a point to integrate human rights instruction into our joint training and education in programs such as the Western Hemispheric (sic) Institute for Security Cooperation."

Really? After all the coups, the disappearances, the brutal dictators, the now recalled torture manuals, isn't that rather like teaching a pig to sing?

Apologists for WHINSEC, which does indeed have mandatory human rights classes now, say it is not fair to judge the school on the basis of its graduates, that some pretty nasty characters likely came out of schools like Yale also and we don't lobby to have Yale shut down. I disagree. If a large proportion of nasty events featured Yale grads and if the Pentagon subsequently also had all their names classified, then yes, I think it's likely you could move Congress to within 6 votes of shutting it down.

For more of Gates' ideas on militarized solutions to climate change and to hear Airshow MacKay call him Bob, the presser transcript is here.

Irony note : Much of the groundwork for tracking SOA/WHINSEC over three decades has been done by Father Roy Bourgeois, a Viet Nam vet with a Purple Heart who founded SOA Watch after experiencing atrocities in Latin America. Since then, he has spent over four years in US federal prisons for nonviolent protests against the training of Latin American soldiers at Ft. Benning, Georgia.

This year he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
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Canada's "shock doctrine" in Honduras

On June 28th, 200 soldiers of the Honduran military kidnapped the president, Manuel “Mel” Zelaya, and flew him to Costa Rica. His attempted return 4 days ago was unsuccessful.
The coup d'eat was roundly condemned by the UN, the EU, the Organization of American States, and rather more tepidly by the USA; the EU pulled its diplomats; the World Bank suspended aid; and all called for the return and reinstatement of Zelaya.

Amidst this near-universal condemnation, on Saturday Canada's Minister for the Americas, Peter Kent, recommended that ousted President Manuel Zelaya delay his planned return to the country, saying the "time is not right". When 2 of 100,000 Zelaya supporters waiting for his plane to land at the airport were shot by the military, Kent went on national tv to blame Zelaya for their deaths.

What is he on about?
Corporate interests and the fear of united social reform in Latin America.
After a devastating hurricane destroyed most of Honduras' crops and infrastructure in 1998, Canada offered millions in aid in return for opening up the country to Canadian mining interests.
Canada and the US also took advantage of this disaster/opportunity, as they did in Colombia, to rewrite Honduras mining laws, granting Canadian corporations tax breaks and land rights to mineral extraction over the rights of local communities. Canada is now the second largest "foreign investor" in the country.

Ashley Holly at The Tyee : Shame on Canada :

"Currently, Canadian companies own 33 per cent of mineral investments in Latin America, accumulating to the ownership of over 100 properties. Export Development Canada contributes 50 per cent of Canadian Pension Plan money to mining companies, which offered upwards of $50 billion in 2003. Goldcorp alone has received nearly one billion dollars from CPP subsidies.

Although EDC is responsible for regulating Canadian industry abroad, it has been accused of failing to apply regulatory standards to 24 of 26 mining projects that it has funded.

In February 2003, nearly five hundred gallons of cyanide spilled into the Rio Lara, killing 18,000 fish. The mine in San Andres uses more water in one hour than an average Honduran family uses in one year. In that same year, mining companies earned $44.4 million, while the average income per capita in Honduras in 2004 was just $1,126USD."

Zelaya has been moving steadily left ever since his election : doubling minimum wage from $132 per month to $290 ; proposing nationalization of energy production and reforms to make government more transparent and accessible; joining Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Nicaragua and Venezuela in the left-leaning ALBA, formed to counter imperialism in the region; and - oh yeah - banning new mining concessions.

Canada's training of Honduran military personnel through its Military Training Assistance Programme is really paying off for Canadian mining corporations here. According to the MTAP Directorate, officials from DFAIT, DND, and CIDA combine to "promote Canadian foreign and defence policy interests," using "the mechanism of military training assistance to develop and enhance bilateral and defence relationships with countries of strategic interest to Canada."

As this Guatemalan newspaper asks : Will President Colom of Guatemala, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, or President Funes in El Salvador be next?

Zelaya discusses the coup with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now today.
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