The great powers– the leading players in the imperialist system– have always required a source for the energy to drive their economic engines. They needed energy resources to build and empower their military might; they needed energy to grow their national economies and power their vessels of trade and transportation. Indeed, their socio-economic systems would have collapsed without ample and available energy sources.

At the dawn of the capitalist industrial era, that source came mainly from coal. Coal powered the machines that grew the productivity of labor to great new heights. It is reasonable to think that only those countries with easy access to coal could then become great capitalist powers.

At the turn of the last century, oil– an abundant, efficient, and easily stored and transported energy source– became essential for the exercise of economic and military might. As modes of transportation became dependent upon petroleum products, an intense rivalry was stoked for access to oil, often found in more remote areas of the world, far removed from the great urban centers of the great capitalist powers. 

At the same time, the great capitalist powers accelerated their drive to dominate the entire world. Lenin and others saw this as a higher stage of capitalist development impelled by the dominance of monopoly capitalism, finance capital, and capital export. 

Access and control of energy resources played an extremely large role in motivating this development, leading to conflict and colonization over the areas offering abundant oil production. 

It could be said that “oil imperialism” was a critical factor in the course of the Second World War: Japan — a country without adequate oil reserves– needed to secure resources to pursue its imperialist mission; likewise, Germany’s eastward turn was prodded by its thirst for Soviet oil.

As the leading imperialist power after WWII, the US had its own adequate petroleum resources, but sought to guarantee that global oil supplies would remain available to its clients in the crusade against Communism. 

After the end of the Cold War, new technologies unleashed huge reservoirs of oil and natural gas in the US. A once-stable international market was consequently disrupted, allowing US producers to reshape, even dominate, the global distribution of oil and natural gas. 

But in the decades to follow the end of the Cold War, those capitalist countries that were the most trusted anti-Communist allies were relying on long-established, existing sources of energy or had turned to convenient, adjacent, transit modes from the energy giant, the now-capitalist Russia.

Europe, for example, had grown increasingly reliant on Soviet oil and gas even before European socialism’s fall. And OPEC’s distribution network and quasi-planned marketing maintained a persistent global stability of price and availability.

From where would the US, undergoing a technological revolution with fracking, take its oil and gas bonanza?

I began to discuss the US shift toward what I called “US oil and gas imperialism” seven years ago (here, here, here, here and here). I wrote in July of 2019: 

US oil and gas imperialism is another feature of the new economic nationalism. With US oil production matching or exceeding every other global producer, and with natural gas extraction growing dramatically, the economic nationalists foresee the US now competing successfully for markets. The conventional explanation of the US aggression against oil-producing states must now be retired. The US is no longer solely obsessed with commanding and dominating existing oil producers– US intervention is not simply about the oil in the way it has been in the past. That is, it is not simply acquiring oil resources that motivates US aggression, but commanding oil markets as well.

Thus, the US is also out to wreck competing oil and gas producers by sanctions, disruptions, and destruction. The US corporations want the markets in order to peddle their own energy resources. The long trail of wrecked, dysfunctional, and economically strangled global oil producers attests to this new motivation and serves US energy corporations well. 

I have been writing often of this shift of US imperial design for over two years. Nothing demonstrates the intent of the new energy imperialism as does the Department of Energy’s recent renaming of US natural gas as “Freedom Gas” and the product as “molecules of freedom.” This silly branding is part of the campaign to win Europe and other gas-dependent markets from Russia and Iran/Qatar. Even though US liquified “freedom gas” is 20% more expensive than Russian gas, the Trump administration bullied Germany’s Angela Merkel to agree to two new LNG terminals in Germany. Her admission that LNG from the US would not break even for at least a decade demonstrates the aggressive face of the new US energy imperialism.

US gas producers have stoked anti-Russia sentiment to draw Poland and the Baltic states into their LNG market nexus. US LNG annual exports to Portugal and Spain grew from a tiny base to nearly 20 and 30 billion cubic feet, respectively, between 2016 and 2017.

And US crude oil exports soared after the crisis in the Straits of Hormuz. US oil shipping nearly doubled in the aftermath of the mysterious “attacks” in the Persian Gulf. President Trump underscored the attractiveness of foregoing the Straits and buying from the US. Rather than taking the “dangerous journey,” Japan and PRChina should be reminded that “the US has just become (by far) the largest producer of energy in the world.” (my emphasis)

Writing in 2019, I was anticipating geopolitical events geared to shifting the natural gas market dramatically in favor of the US. I foresaw the “anti-Russia” push as targeting the natural gas market in Europe and “crisis” in the Middle East as disrupting shipments from traditional Middle East suppliers. Hostility and conflict would be the thumb-on-the-scales to offset the higher price (lower risk) of US liquified natural gas. 

Unlike the Cold War era, where the US postured as a protective shield for safe, durable, and inexpensive energy channels, the post-Cold War US policy places US immediate economic interests above the supposed alliance obligations; without consultation, the US tossed aside its role among its allies as the guarantor of peace and security and is taking on the role of international energy huckster.

In 2022, the US secured a major victory in oil and gas imperialism with the war in Ukraine. As a result of a concerted campaign to destabilize Ukraine, separate it from Russia, and coax it into NATO’s anti-Putin alliance, the US drew Russia into a long, bloody war. The war proved to be a veritable gift for the US and its energy industry. Anti-Russia hysteria provoked the US’s European allies into breaking economic ties with Russia, including the big prize–cutting off Russia’s supplies of natural gas. Seduced by Cold War-like rhetoric and fear-mongering, European countries outdid each other with belligerence, culminating in refusing cheap Russian energy resources. To seal this self-defeating move on the part of US “allies,” the US organized the destruction of crucial Russian pipelines. Left with no alternative to Russian energy, Europe turned to their US “partner.”

US exports of oil to Europe more than doubled between 2021 and today. Likewise, disrupting natural gas distribution has paid off for the US with liquid natural gas (LNG) exports nearly doubling from 2018 to 2022. Quoting The Wall Street Journal:

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine kicked U.S. [LNG] exports into overdrive. Since March 2022, U.S. developers have signed 57 supply agreements representing about 73 million metric tons of LNG annually… more than four times the number of contracts they signed between 2020 and 2021.

Many of these contracts run for 20 years and underpin the construction of terminals that have yet to be built. LNG exports are expected to more than double [again!] from current levels by the end of this decade…

Thus, thanks to the war in Ukraine, US allies had the privilege of incurring the costs of liquefaction, shipping, and building LNG terminals to show their solidarity with the US-instigated war.

Foolishly, European leaders rushed to show their support for the war, even at tremendous cost to their own economies.

Likewise, the unfolding war in the Middle East plays into the hands of the US oil and natural gas imperialists. As the WSJ concedes:

In the longer term, the Red Sea situation could bring more business for U.S. LNG shippers, which are building out export capacity at Gulf Coast facilities and are vying for big contracts with big buyers in Europe, analysts said.

The percentage of LNG tankers set to pass through the Suez Canal has dropped to its lowest point in at least a decade.

But the LNG will be coming from the West, thanks to the beneficence of the US government anticipating the changing energy market!

Paul Hannon and William Boston put it well: “For the second time in three years, a conflict in Europe’s neighborhood is threatening to weaken a struggling economy, while a more robust U.S. is watching from a safe distance.” 

It is indeed an odd ally that takes advantage of the sacrifices that it imposes upon its friends to make. While US capitalism has enjoyed strong growth, thanks to two wars in other lands, its European friends have endured inflation and stagnation. Germany, led by Social Democrats and Greens, has met the US-led call to war with enthusiasm, militarism, and a belligerence unseen since the Second World War. Germany has materially supported Ukraine second only to the US and matched the US’s shuttering of economic relations. Where the US has shown healthy growth for 2023, Germany has fallen into recession, its industrial sector racked by high energy costs and supply shortages– a steep price to pay for following US leadership. “‘The threat of deindustrialization is real,’ said Max Jankowsky, chief executive of GL Giesserei Lossnitz, a 175- year-old foundry in the eastern German state of Saxony.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s popular satisfaction is the lowest for a chancellor since 1997. Germany– the leading power in the European Union, an industrial giant, the world’s fourth largest economy– has been brought to its knees by US oil and gas imperialism. 

The people, and especially the left, need a constant reminder of the material interests behind global imperialism and the mechanism that powers it. Imperialism is not a consequence of bad leadership from Trump, Biden, Johnson, or Modi or their ilk; it is not the product of neoliberalism or any other ideology; it is not the result of a lust for power. In short, imperialism is not a matter of moral choice or competence. Instead, it is an imperative of capitalism in its modern form. It is an expression of the rivalries generated by capitalist competition for markets, resources, and most tellingly, profits. When that competition reaches its greatest intensity, war ensues. 

Some would like to believe that we can break the link between capitalism, exploitation, inequality, poverty, environmental degradation, and war. They aver that a benign capitalism, regulated by enlightened governments, can escape the imperialist system. History shows no such eventuality. People are awakening to the impossibility of “fixing the system.”

The left overlooks this at its peril.

Greg Godels

zzsblogml@gmail.com

https://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/2024/01/oil-natural-gas-and-capitalism.html

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8HaTgpZOxA

By James Thompson

CINCINNATI, OHIO – The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, nestled between the Bengals’ and Reds’ stadiums in downtown Cincinnati overlooking the Ohio River, is a beacon of hope and progress for working people everywhere. Open since 2004, it is a tribute to those brave people who struggled for freedom and justice against the oppressive system of slavery.

The structure itself is very impressive and the design is symbolic of the winding path to freedom taken by the slaves. It is located at the end of the historic Roebling Suspension Bridge which spans the Ohio River. The Ohio River marked the line separating slavery from freedom during the antebellum period. A beautiful, south-facing glass wall overlooks the Ohio River and Kentucky.

I visited the museum with some pride since I have ancestors who served as conductors on the Underground Railroad in Missouri.

As I entered the exhibition area of the museum after climbing some winding stairs, my attention was seized by two massive textile works. The works are by Aminah Brenda Lynn and illustrate the struggles of the African people on their path to freedom from slavery. The work depicts the struggles against the transatlantic slave trade as well as local struggles in Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio. Cincinnati and Ripley, Ohio were two of the most important locations in the history of slavery in this country. They were the points at which slaves were shipped to the south and the points through which the slaves had to pass on their journey to Canada, where the exploitive capitalist slavery practices were prohibited.

The next compelling work was a huge mural started by Tom Feelings and completed by Tyrone Geter after Feelings death. From the artist’s statement, “The central image depicts the confinement of an individual in the Mason County Slave Pen. The surrounding images depict the arrival into America, slave auction, family separation, forced coffle marches, and slave labor in the forests of Tennessee and cotton fields of Missipppi. The remaining images provide additional details of the interstate slave trade.”

This work leads to a reconstructed slave pen from Maysville, Kentucky. Owned by John W. Anderson in the early 1830s, it provides a look at the horrific conditions that slaves were forced to endure. There were bars on the windows and slaves were frequently left with no choice but to relieve themselves while shackled in place. It is a clear example of how slavery robbed these brave people of their dignity. John Anderson owned a racing stable and lived a luxurious lifestyle as a result of the profits he extracted from these workers’ labor and the sale of human beings.

Throughout the museum are the images of the leaders of the progressive movement including Paul Robeson, W.E.B. DuBois, Pete Seeger, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Harriot Tubman, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison and many more. Inspirational quotations were also prominently displayed from many of these individuals.

The importance of “courage, cooperation, and perseverance” are stressed in the struggle for freedom.

The multicultural and multiethnic nature of the struggle against slavery was a notable theme through the museum’s exhibitions. The contributions of African-Americans, Anglos, Latinos and Native Americans to this struggle were memorialized.

Several movie theaters helped illustrate the struggle against slavery. One film, “Brothers of the Borderland” was introduced by Oprah Winfrey. It was the story of how two leaders of the Underground Railroad in Ripley, Ohio cooperated to help slaves escape across the Ohio River. John Parker was a former slave who was a successful metal worker and inventor. John Rankin was an Anglo religious leader. In the video, the two worked together to help a woman start her journey to Canada after crossing the Ohio River. The film depicts the terrorism which was used against the slaves and their allies. The slave owners made frequent raids across the Ohio River in an effort to recapture escaped slaves which they viewed as their lost property. They were supported by the laws of the land at the time and anyone assisting an escaped slave was viewed as a thief and was subject to prosecution, even in the North.

It is important to remember the progress we have made in this country to reach a point where we can support this remarkable museum. I think it is also important to remember that in spite of the progress, capitalists have still not relinquished their affinity for slavery. Slavery is still a business practice used around the world and a few individuals are reaping fantastic profits from it. Although union-busting and red baiting are terrorist tactics used against working people in this country, more destructive tactics are used in other countries such as Colombia and Guatemala. Violence and executions in those countries are used against trade unionists and labor leaders in an effort to keep workers in virtual slavery with extremely low wages and little, if any, benefits. Some maintain that these slave-like conditions are not far from our border and if we fail to struggle against the profit-centered corporations, slavery and terrorism could be revived here. Of course, low wage workers in this country now, such as undocumented immigrants, may be hard put to find differences between their lives and those of the slaves south of the Ohio River during the antebellum period.

The fuels of progress are unity and struggle and this marvelous museum exemplifies this concept. When in Cincinnati don’t miss the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

For more information, go to http://www.freedomcenter.org/

PHill1917@comcast.net

James Thompson is a psychologist and social justice activist in Houston

Africa/Global: Charting Where They Hide the Money, 1

AfricaFocus Bulletin March 12, 2018 (180312) (Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note “Switzerland, the United States and the Cayman Islands are the world’s biggest contributors to financial secrecy, according to the latest edition of the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index (FSI). … Kenya, which this year set up its own tax haven in the form of the Nairobi International Financial Centre, is an example of how interests of western financial service lobbyists have successfully lured governments into a race to the bottom. Kenya, which has been assessed for the first time in the 2018 FSI, has an extremely high secrecy score of 80/100.” – Tax Justice Network The FSI for 2018, released by the Tax Justice Network on January 31, is far more than a simple index. It is an in-depth survey as well as ranking of the countries most deeply involved in concealing wealth through offshore financial services. Based on a quantitative measure of the share of such cross-border financial services based in each country, and an in-depth qualitative evaluation of national laws and regulations affecting transparency and secrecy, the FSI provides the indispensable context for investigative journalism exposes of specific cases and advocacy by civil society groups at both national and international levels. In striking contrast to Transparency International “Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) (https://www.transparency.org/), which rates countries on the basis of observers’ perceptions of the extent of corruption, the FSI focuses on the mechanisms which permit the fruits of corruption and other hidden assets to be concealed. Ironically, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands are ranked as among the least corrupt on the CPI, but they also lead on the FSI as the best places to hide the fruits of corruption, tax evasion, and other crimes. The system that allows this to happen is in fact global, and its distribution by country, by intention, is hard to track. This two-part AfricaFocus contains substantive excerpts from the Financial Secrecy Index reports. This first part (sent out by email and available on-line at http://www.africafocus.org/docs18/fsi1803a.php) excerpts overview analyses from the authors covering the global picture and the African continent. The second part, not sent out by email but available at http://www.africafocus.org/docs18/fsi1803b.php) , provides excerpts from country reports on the United Kingdom, the United States, Kenya, Liberia, South Africa, and Mauritius. Much more extensive data in narrative, database, and graphic formats, is available at http://www.financialsecrecyindex.com For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on illicit financial flows, tax evasion, and related topics, visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-iff.php ++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Financial Secrecy Index 2018

Introduction

https://www.financialsecrecyindex.com/

The Financial Secrecy Index ranks jurisdictions according to their secrecy and the scale of their offshore financial activities. A politically neutral ranking, it is a tool for understanding global financial secrecy, tax havens or secrecy jurisdictions, and illicit financial flows or capital flight.

An estimated $21 to $32 trillion of private financial wealth is located, untaxed or lightly taxed, in secrecy jurisdictions around the world. Secrecy jurisdictions – a term we often use as an alternative to the more widely used term tax havens – use secrecy to attract illicit and illegitimate or abusive financial flows.

Illicit cross-border financial flows have been estimated at $1-1.6 trillion per year: dwarfing the US$135 billion or so in global foreign aid. Since the 1970s African countries alone have lost over $1 trillion in capital flight, while combined external debts are less than $200 billion. So Africa is a major net creditor to the world Рbut its assets are in the hands of a wealthy ̩lite, protected by offshore secrecy; while the debts are shouldered by broad African populations.

Yet all rich countries suffer too. For example, European countries like Greece, Italy and Portugal have been brought to their knees partly by decades of tax evasion and state looting via offshore secrecy.

A global industry has developed involving the world’s biggest banks, law practices, accounting firms and specialist providers who design and market secretive offshore structures for their tax- and law-dodging clients. ‘Competition’ between jurisdictions to provide secrecy facilities has, particularly since the era of financial globalisation really took off in the 1980s, become a central feature of global financial markets.

The problems go far beyond tax. In providing secrecy, the offshore world corrupts and distorts markets and investments, shaping them in ways that have nothing to do with efficiency. The secrecy world creates a criminogenic hothouse for multiple evils including fraud, tax cheating, escape from financial regulations, embezzlement, insider dealing, bribery, money laundering, and plenty more. It provides multiple ways for insiders to extract wealth at the expense of societies, creating political impunity and undermining the healthy ‘no taxation without representation’ bargain that has underpinned the growth of accountable modern nation states. Many poorer countries, deprived of tax and haemorrhaging capital into secrecy jurisdictions, rely on foreign aid handouts.

This hurts citizens of rich and poor countries alike.

Switzerland, USA and Cayman top the 2018 Financial Secrecy Index

by George Turner

Tax Justice Network, January 30, 2018

https://www.taxjustice.net/2018/01/30/2018fsi/

Switzerland, the United States and the Cayman Islands are the world’s biggest contributors to financial secrecy, according to the latest edition of the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index (FSI).

The full financial secrecy index can be found online at http://www.financialsecrecyindex.com. There you can find interactive tables and maps of the FSI, as well as download reports on specific countries. A direct link to the table of rankings by country is at http://tinyurl.com/yblxx27e.

Financial secrecy is a key facilitator of financial crime, and illicit financial flows including money laundering, corruption and tax evasion. Jurisdictions who fail to contain it deny citizens elsewhere their human rights and exacerbate global inequality.

The table below shows the top-ranked 54 countries on the FSI. The full interactive table is available here.

Switzerland, the global capital of bank secrecy, retains the worst ranking, and the US has moved up to second. With Bahrain and Lebanon dropping out of the top ten, Guernsey and a new entry in Taiwan has replaced them.

The US’ rise in the FSI 2018 rankings is part of a worrying trend. This is the second time in succession that the USA has risen up the Financial Secrecy Index. In 2013 the States was in 6th place, and in 2015 it took 3rd. In 2015 the country was one of the few to increase its secrecy score. This time the increase in ranking is driven by a huge rise in their share of the market in offshore financial services that wasn’t neutralised by a significant reduction in their secrecy. In total, the share of global offshore financial services taken by the United States rose by 14% between the 2015 and 2018 index from 19.6% to 22.3%.

The United States remains a secrecy jurisdiction as it refuses to take part in international initiatives to share tax information with other countries, and has failed to end anonymous companies and trusts aggressively marketed by some US states. There is now real concern about the damage this promotion of illicit financial flows is doing to the global economy.

Slow progress in the global fight against financial secrecy

The 2015 Index noted several improvements towards global financial transparency following the 2008 financial crisis and the huge budget deficits that it created, where governments around the world sought to reign in tax abuse by its citizens, and by multinational corporations.

Some of those efforts are now starting to bear fruit. Most importantly, countries have now started to exchange information on bank accounts held by foreign citizens in their jurisdictions on an automatic basis.

But this Financial Secrecy Index demonstrates how ten years on from the financial crisis all countries still have a long road ahead of them to improve their performance on financial secrecy. The most transparent country – Slovenia – has a secrecy score of 41.8, out of a total possible score of 100. A score of 0 would represent ideal, competition and market friendly transparency. In other words, if the Financial Secrecy Index were a school exam, Slovenia (the best student) would have barely passed, with less than 60% of the correct “transparency” answers. The worst countries only got close to 10% of the “transparency” questions right (a secrecy score close to 90). Following this analogy, practically all countries would have to repeat the school year.

The top two countries in this year’s FSI are the two that have been most resistant to the key policy of automatic information exchange between tax authorities. The US refuses to take part altogether. Instead, it has set up its own parallel system (FATCA) which seeks information on US citizens abroad, but provides little, if any, data to foreign countries.

The global capital of banking secrecy, Switzerland has delayed the implementation of automatic information exchange, and in 2017 lawmakers attempted to stop it altogether with countries they deemed ‘corrupt’. As the FSI demonstrates, countries like Switzerland are fundamental to the flow of illicit financial funds, such as the proceeds of corruption. Switzerland’s attempts to stop transparency for funds they receive from countries with perceived high levels of corruption will simply make tackling corruption in those countries harder.

After the financial crash further scandals have led to a greater push for more transparency, such as the demand for public registers of company owners. Yet this progress has been difficult, as powerful vested interests working with friendly governments seek to frustrate change. The UK government for example continues to insist on the right of its satellite tax havens to maintain the secrecy of company ownership, and the German government, with others, have sought to impede attempts to make progress on the beneficial ownership issue within the European Union.

Financial secrecy’s impact on human rights

Six out of the Top 10 FSI 2018 countries are either members of the OECD or their dependencies. Another three are Asian tax havens, demonstrating how major economies are driving the market for financial secrecy.

Secrecy jurisdictions are found all over the world. On this map the top ten are shown in blue. An interactive version of the map is available here.

Kenya, which this year set up its own tax haven in the form of the Nairobi International Financial Centre, is an example of how interests of western financial service lobbyists have successfully lured governments into a race to the bottom. Kenya, which has been assessed for the first time in the 2018 FSI, has an extremely high secrecy score of 80/100.

By harboring the ill-gotten gains of kleptocrats and tax evaders, secrecy jurisdictions deprive governments of the resources needed to provide basic social protection, and encourage the looting of natural resources.

This impact of financial secrecy on the abuse of human rights is increasingly recognised globally. Switzerland has been sharply criticised by the United Nations for the damage that its financial secrecy causes to human rights around the world, while a recent statement by the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, highlighted the poverty and inequality suffered by citizens of the United States, in part driven by their government’s desire to become a tax haven. This statement comes at a time when our index shows the country undermining rights elsewhere through its promotion of financial secrecy.

How we created the world’s leading study of financial secrecy

The Financial Secrecy Index is the world’s most comprehensive assessment of the secrecy of financial centres and the impact of that secrecy on global financial flows. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre provided methodological support for the construction of the index. The study is published every two years and is founded on published, independently verifiable data. In contrast to some so called ‘blacklists’ of tax havens, inclusion in the FSI is not based on political decision making.

Countries are assessed against criteria which include whether companies, trusts and foundations are required to reveal their true owners, whether annual accounts are made available online in open data format, or the extent to which jurisdictions’ rules comply with anti-money laundering standards (FATF’s 40 recommendations).

This year several new indicators have been added to the FSI and existing indicators have been substantially revised to drill deeper into questions around ownership registration and disclosure. A total of 20 Key Financial Secrecy Indicators (KFSI) is used for the measurement of the secrecy score.

In order to create the index, a secrecy score is combined with a figure representing the size of the offshore financial services industry in each country. This is expressed as a percentage of global exports of financial services. The bigger player you are, the more responsibility you have to be transparent.

Beyond of what has been achieved so far by academic or regulatory institutions, the new FSI is the most comprehensive and rigorous assessment of financial secrecy worldwide.

New criteria include checking if a jurisdiction provides for

• A public register of ownership and annual accounts of limited partnerships (KFSI 5);
• A public register of ownership of real estate and a central register of users of freeports for the storage of high value assets (KFSI 4);
• Banking secrecy rules protected by criminal law (risk of prison terms for banking whistleblowers; KFSI 1);
• Public access to tax court verdicts and proceedings, both in criminal and civil tax matters (KFSI 14);
• Mandatory Legal Entity Identifiers for companies created in its territory (KFSI 10);
• Harmful tax residency and citizenship rules (KFSI 12);
• Public access to unilateral tax rulings and robust local filing requirements for Country-By-Country Reports (KFSI 9);
• Unregistered bearer shares for companies & large banknotes (KFSI 15);
• Public statistics on its cross-border financial and economic activities (KFSI 16);
• Mandatory reporting obligations of tax avoidance schemes (KFSI 11).

Africa’s battle against financial secrecy: Financial Secrecy Index

by Rachel Etter-Phoya

Tax Justice Network, February 14, 2018

https://www.taxjustice.net/ – direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/yb7s2txa

How are Switzerland, the United States, and the Caymans working against African efforts to stem the tide of illicit financial flows? They’re among the worst offenders in the Tax Justice Network’s 2018 Financial Secrecy Index.

The index was launched at the end of January 2018 and weights a country’s secrecy score against its global share of financial services. This means that countries that top the rankings have a far higher risk for illicit financial flows running through their systems than countries that may have a higher level of secrecy, but have much smaller-scale financial services. 20 key indicators are used to assess secrecy levels, including banking and tax court secrecy, country-by-country reporting compliance, ownership disclosure rules, and tax administration capacity.

The problem for Africa

Africa remains a net creditor to the world because of illicit financial flows. These flows include money from criminal activity and corruption, tax evasion, avoidance and planning, as well as hidden wealth. So-called foreign aid is dwarfed by the amounts that are leaving the continent. Sub-Saharan African countries lost over USD 1 trillion in capital flight between the 1970s and 2010; external debt was less than one-fifth of this. Financial secrecy is the enabler.

The Paradise Papers was a disturbing reminder of the scale of the problem. 13.4 million documents were leaked from Appleby, a leading British offshore law firm, and Asiaciti, a family-owned trust company, which were investigated by over 90 media partners with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

We learned that Namibians lost potential tax revenues from its fishery resources through a complex corporate arrangement that exploited a double tax treaty signed with Mauritius. Angolans’ sovereign wealth fund was tapped into by a financier who incorporated companies in secrecy jurisdictions for investment projects in which he had a stake. And mining giant Glencore’s nefarious practices in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Burkina Faso have also likely reduced the revenue these governments have to spend on vital public services.

South Africa has also had its fair share of challenges with secrecy jurisdictions. The notorious Gupta family along with their politically-exposed associates have been able to hide behind opaque companies to gain questionable access to government contracts. For example, the family is reported to have used shell companies in the United Arab Emirates to move ‘the dubious proceeds of state tenders in South Africa to their collection of shell companies in and around Dubai’. The United Arab Emirates is ranked number nine in the Financial Secrecy Index 2018, with an ‘”ask-noquestions, see-no-evil” approach to commercial transactions, financial regulation and crimes’.

African secrecy jurisdictions on the rise

Financial secrecy has also reared its ugly head on the continent itself. Nine African countries are included in this year’s Financial Secrecy Index:

Kenya found itself in the top 30 countries worldwide with a very high secrecy score (80 out of 100). This may not come as a surprise. The country’s Vision 2030 includes the establishment of the Nairobi International Financial Centre as one of its commitments. Legislation entered into force in September last year to encourage foreign direct investment to be channelled through the East African nation to other countries in the region. Kenya has adopted a model similar to the City of London (the UK having experienced the Finance Curse phenomenon as a result) and continues to increase its network of double tax agreements.

Double tax agreements aim to prevent income being taxed twice. Yet a number of associated risks undermine the collection of tax. The treaties restrict the rights of states to tax foreign investors and owned companies and often do not include adequate automatic exchange of information provisions. Multinationals and sometimes domestic companies may set up an entity in an intermediary country, even when they have no substantive economic activities, to exploit tax treaties in place. This ‘treaty shopping’ enables companies and individuals to pay lower taxes in conduit countries and avoid taxes all together in the countries where activities are taking place.

However, with just 15 tax treaties in force, Kenya has some way to go if it is to compete with one of Africa’s oldest secrecy jurisdictions, Mauritius. In a bid to reduce its reliance on sugar back in the 1970s, this island nation started offering preferential tax terms and exemptions to foreign investors, and similar ones exist today. The country has entered double tax agreements with 43 nations, 16 of which are with African states. Zero-percent capital gains tax has lured many companies to set up shop – with no genuine economic activity – on the island, significantly reducing their tax burden at the expense of other countries, often not paying capital gains tax anywhere. South Africa and India have successfully renegotiated their agreements with Mauritius to be able to collect capital gains and withholding tax. Other African nations, including Lesotho and Zambia, are following suit and renegotiating treaties.

Ghana toyed with setting up an International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) and went as far as granting Barclays Bank Ghana Limited an offshore banking licence in the early 2000s although President John Atta Mills revoked the licence in 2011 to avoid OECD blacklisting. Worringly, it appears the country has plans to revive the IFSC.

Much more can be said about secrecy on the continent. We have prepared narrative reports for eight of the nine African countries included in the Index. Take a look here. Our partner Tax Justice Network Africa also has a blog series on financial secrecy. Part 1 is available here.

Global solutions

Some changes have been made to the global infrastructure to tackle secrecy since TJN launched the first Index in 2009. For example, the OECD is mandated by the G20 to roll out the automatic exchange of information on taxation, but coverage is patchy and some countries, particularly African ones, are missing from the arrangement.

Reform is needed now. Besides individual countries addressing laws and regulations to improve transparency, TJN has identified three major policy responses considering the latest Financial Secrecy Index:

1. Take counter-measures against tax haven USA: the USA ranks second in the Index this year because it has not improved transparency while other countries have acted. The global scale of its financial services has also increased. The USA needs to make it illegal to establish anonymous companies within its borders and it must comply with the standard for automatic exchange of tax information. We have a policy proposal for how to incentive the USA, here.
2. Adopt the Tax Justice Network’s ABCs of tax transparency: all countries must be included in the Automatic exchange of information and aggregate statistics published, all entities must disclose their Beneficial owners and data should be online, free and in open data format for companies, trusts and foundations, and all multinational companies must comply with public Country-by-country reporting.
3. Introduce a UN global convention on tax transparency: ambitious standards should be set, with the ABCs of tax transparency at a minimum, through a global, inclusive process that outlines meaningful sanctions for non-cooperation.

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Without the success of the October Revolution of 1917, a century ago this week, there would have been no USSR to provide sanctuary, training, and arms to anticolonial activists, liberation movements and postcolonial African governments. The dismantling of apartheid would have been far costlier and bloodier.
Africa and the world owe an historic debt to the USSR and the emancipatory dream upon which it was founded, the first national government founded on such vision since the Haitian revolution a century earlier.

Scandalize my Name

– from Greg Godels is available at:
http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/

For the owners, publishers, and editors of the The New York Review of Books anti-Communism is still alive. The periodical occupies a unique, indispensable role in fostering and sustaining Cold War myths and legends.

The New York Review of Books has embraced rabid anti-Communism since its opportunistic birth in the midst of a newspaper strike. Founded by a cabal of virulent anti-Communists with identifiable links to the CIA through The Paris Review and the American Committee for Cultural Freedom, NYRB maintains the posture of the popular intellectual journal for academics, high-brow book clubbers, and coffee shop leftists for over half a century. Seldom would an issue go by without an earnest petition signed by intellectual celebrities pointing to human rights concerns in some far-off land that was coincidentally (perhaps?) also in the crosshairs of the US State Department. To be sure, the NYRB would muster a measure of indignation over the most egregious US adventures, particularly when they threatened to blemish the US image as the New Jerusalem.

Even with the Cold War behind us, the NYRB maintains an active stable of virulent anti-Soviet writers, partly to hustle its back list of Cold War classics and obscure dissident scribblers, partly to pre-empt any serious anti-capitalist thought that might emerge shorn of Red-dread.

In a recent essay/book review (The Emperor Robeson, 2-08-18), the NYRB brought its Red-chopping hatchet to the legacy of Paul Robeson in a piece transparently ill-motivated and poisonous.

Paul Robeson was nothing if not an exceptional, courageous political figure who galvanized US racial and political affairs in mid-century. Yet NYRB assigned Simon Callow, a UK theater personality, to the writing task despite the fact that he reveals in an interview cited in Wikipedia that I’m not really an activist, although I am aware that there are some political acts one can do that actually make a difference. And his essay bears out this confession along with his embarrassing ignorance of US history and the dynamics of US politics.

Callow begins his essay seemingly determined to prove his inadequacy to the task: When I was growing up in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, Paul Robeson was much in evidence. His name was haloed with the sort of respect accorded to few performers. He then goes on at some length, heaping praise on Robeson. Then suddenly at some point in the 1960s, he faded from our view.

Whether Callow’s impressions are reflective of the UK experience is irrelevant. Surely, the important truth, the relevant fact, is that in Robeson’s country– the US– he was, throughout that time, a veritable non-person, the victim of a merciless witch hunt. To fail to acknowledge the fact that Robeson and his work were virtually unknown, were erased by the thought police, underscores Callow’s unfitness to discuss Robeson’s career. Indeed, members of the crowd that sought, at that time, to put lipstick on the ugly pig of racism and anti-Communism were soon to found the NYRB.

To say, as Callow does, that before the Cold War Robeson was …lionized on both sides of the Atlantic… is to display an unbelievable ignorance of the racial divide in the US. Robeson’s unequalled command of and success at multiple disciplines failed to spare him the indignities and inequalities that befell all African Americans in that era of US apartheid.

As for the post-World War II Red-scare, Callow simply ignores it as if it never occurred. Never mind the harassment, the surveillance, the denied careers, the confiscated passports, and the HUAC subpoenas that Robeson, like thousands of others, suffered from a hysterical, vicious anti-Communist witch hunt. For Callow, Robeson’s problems spring from a meeting granted by then President Truman in which Robeson had the audacity to make demands on his government. From that moment on Callow tells us, …the government moved to discredit Robeson at every turn.

What a deft, nimble way to skirt the suffocating, life-denying effects of an entire era of unbridled racism and anti-Communism.

And, from Callow’s myopic perspective, Robeson’s campaign for peace and Cold War sanity resulted in …universal approbation turned overnight into nearly universal condemnation. For Callow, standing for peace against the tide of mindless conformity and mass panic is not the mark of courage and integrity, but a tragic career move.

In contrast to Paul Robeson’s life-long defiance of unjust power, Callow attributes a different approach to Robeson’s father, William: But the lesson was clear: the only way out of poverty and humiliation was hard, hard work– working harder than any white man would have to, to achieve a comparable result. One waits futilely to read that this reality is precisely what son, Paul, was trying to correct.

Like so many of today’s belated, measured admirers of Paul Robeson, Callow cannot resist delving into Robeson’s sexual proclivities, an interest which bears relevance that frankly escapes me. Similarly, Callow raises the matter of Robeson’s mental health and his withdrawal from public life.

Rather than considering the toll that decades of selfless struggle and tenacious resistance might have taken on Robeson’s body and mind, as it did countless other victims of the Red Scare, Callow contrives different explanations. Robeson, it is clear, knew that his dream was just that: that the reality was otherwise. But he had to maintain his faith, otherwise what else was there? So, for Callow, Robeson’s bad faith was responsible for mental issues and ill health. It was not a medical condition, the emotional stress of racism, or the repression of his political views that explain his decline. Instead, it was the consequences of bad politics.

Paraphrasing the author of a book on Robeson that Callow favors, he speculates that Robeson’s physical and mental decline may have directly stemmed from the desperate requests from Robeson’s Russian friends to help them get out of the nightmarish world they found themselves in. We are asked to believe that a man who resisted every temptation of success, defied the racial insults of his time, and steadfastly defended his commitment to socialism was brought to his knees by anti-Soviet media rumors? Certainly, there is no evidence for this outlandish claim.

Again, using author Jeff Sparrow (No Way But This: In Search of Paul Robeson) as his mouthpiece, Callow reveals his problem with Robeson: …Robeson’s endorsement of Stalin and Stalin’s successors, his refusal to acknowledge what had been done in Stalin’s name, is the tragedy of his life. In other words, like Budd Schulberg’s fictional snitch in On the Waterfront, if Robeson had only denounced his class, ratted on his friends, and bent to authority, he could have been a contender for the respect of liberals and the blessings of bourgeois success. But since he didn’t, his life was a pitiful spectacle.

Thankfully, there are still many who draw inspiration from the pitiful spectacle of Paul Robeson’s extraordinary life.

As if misunderstanding Robeson were not enough, Callow attacks a prominent scholar who does understand Robeson’s legacy. In contrast with his fawning review of the Sparrow book (as different as chalk and cheese), Callow demeans the contribution of one of the most gifted and thorough chroniclers of the page in history that included the life of Robeson. As a historian, Gerald Horn’s prodigious work stretches across books on such politically engaged Robeson contemporaries as WEB DuBois, Ben Davis, Ferdinand Smith, William Patterson, Shirley Graham DuBois, and John Howard Lawson. His writings explore the blacklist and The Civil Rights Congress, both keys to understanding Robeson and his time. In most cases, they represent the definitive histories of the subject.

But Callow prefers the shallow Sparrow account that substitutes the overused literary devices of in search of../searching for… to mask its limited scholarly ambition.

Callow is baffled by Horne’s Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary. Horne’s insistence that Robeson was a ˜revolutionary makes Callow apoplectic (…page after page). But if Robeson was not an authentic, modern US revolutionary, then who was?

Callow cannot find a “clear picture of Robeson’s personality in the Horne account, a conclusion that probably should not trouble Horne who seems more interested in history rather than psychology.

Callow’s sensibilities are especially offended by Horne’s depiction of the odious Winston Churchill, the man many believe to share responsibility for the WWI blood bath at Gallipoli and the two million deaths in the Bengal famine of 1943. It seems that Horne’s words for the short, chubby, Champagne and Cognac-loving prima donna– ‘pudgy, cigar-chomping, alcohol-guzzling Tory — struck Callow’s ears as vulgar.

But Callow spews his own venomous insults: Horne’s book lacks …articulate analysis, his account is numbing and bewildering in equal measure, like being addressed from a dysfunctional megaphone.

Horne’s concluding endorsement of the relevance of Marx and Engels famous slogan– Workers of the World, Unite! –really brings Callow’s rancor to a boil: I’m sorry to break it to Mr. Horne, but he doesn’t. And it isn’t.

We surely know which side of the barricades Simon Callow has chosen.

The legacy of Paul Robeson has been maintained for the four decades since his death by his comrades and allies of the left, principally the Communist left. Most of those who worked and fought alongside of him have also passed away. Yet a small, but dedicated group of a few academics and more political activists have continued to tell his story and defend his values against a torrent of hostility or a wall of silence. Through the decades, he has been forced out of the mainstream– the history books and popular culture.

Of course, he was not alone in suffering anonymity for his Communist politics. Another giant who was brought down by Cold War Lilliputians, denigrated by hollow mediocrities, was African American Communist, Claudia Jones. Until recently, her powerful thinking on race, women’s rights, and socialism could only be found by those willing to search dusty corners of used book stores.

Perhaps no one promised to live and further Robeson’s legacy than the young writer Lorraine Hansberry, celebrated before her tragic death for her popular play, A Raisin in the Sun. Her work with Robeson and WEB DuBois on the paper, Freedom, brought her politics further in line with theirs: militant anti-racist, anti-imperialist, pro-socialist, Communist.

Forgotten by those who wish to portray her as a mere cultural critic, she famously called out Robert Kennedy’s elitist, patronizing posture in a meeting with Black civil rights leaders as enthusiastically recalled by James Baldwin.

Ignored by those who would like to see her as simply another civil rights reformer, her speech at a Monthly Review fundraiser, shortly before her death, resounds with revolutionary fervor:

Today, there is a renewed interest in Robeson, Claudia Jones, and Lorraine Hansberry. Articles, books, and documentaries are appearing or are in the works. Some are offering new perspectives on the lives of these extraordinary people, exploring aspects of their lives that show that their humanity perhaps reached further than previously thought. Yes, they were Communists, but they were not just Communists. Indeed, they belong to the world.

However, it would be a great tragedy if they were denied their conviction that capitalism– the present organization of American society, in Hansberry’s words– represented the foundation of other oppressions. It would be criminally dishonest if there were no acknowledgement that they were made enemies of the state precisely because they embraced socialism. For an African American, in racist, Cold War mid-century USA, the decision to embrace Communism was not taken lightly or frivolously. Robeson, Jones, and Hansberry knew exactly what that commitment meant to the forces of repression. And they risked it. They should be looked upon as people’s champions for their courage.

New researchers are welcome to explore other dimensions of the lives of these unbending fighters for social justice. But their authentic legacies are needed now more than ever.

Africa/Global: Humanitarian Attention Deficits

AfricaFocus Bulletin January 29, 2018 (180129) (Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note The international system of response to humanitarian crises is flawed. And the often-repeated call to focus on addressing causes of crises and structural flaws in the system, instead of only providing short-term relief, is undeniably justified. But current trends, paralleling austerity programs and cuts in services at domestic levels in the United States and around the world, are not moving in the direction of fundamental reform. Instead, they are further diminishing the already inadequate resources devoted to saving lives. These cutbacks, as is often noted, have disproportionate effects on the most vulnerable regions of the world, notably Africa. This effect is multiplied not only by racial and other stereotypes but by the structural flaw that funding depends not on reliably budgeted funds for timely responses, but on after-the-fact fundraising, itself reliant on media attention, with all its built-in biases and focus on sensational images. Despite this reality, notes one of the foremost investigators of famine, Alex de Waal, the international humanitarian system developed in recent decades has in fact led to hundreds of thousands lives saved, in comparison with the record of the 20th century. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (http://www.unocha.org/) is the lead inter-governmental agency coordinating such efforts. And the news agency IRIN News (https://www.irinnews.org/content/about-us), recently spun off from the United Nations as an independent non-governmental organization, provides regular first-hand coverage and analysis with priorities that prioritize understanding complex realities. This and other sources on-line mean that those who wish to do so do not have to rely only on the most visible “mainstream media” outlets for their news. Despite such advances, the threat from U.S. attacks on multilateral institutions (though not only) leads de Waal to warn that the limited progress is both fragile and reversible. This AfricaFocus contains several different sections related to this overaraching theme: (1) a set of key reliable links for updates on humanitarian crises and international responses, (2) brief excerpts from and links to reflections that go beyond noting the obvious racism in President Trump’s “shithole” remarks, (3) excerpts from an interview with Alex de Waal, author of the new book “Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine,” and (4) excerpts from IRIN’s look ahead to 10 humanitarian crises in 2018, including 5 in Africa. For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on humanitarian assistance and related topics, visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-peace.php and http://www.africafocus.org/aidexp.php ++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Key Links

UNOCHA, Global Humanitarian Overview. 2018. http://interactive.unocha.org/publication/globalhumanitarianoverview/

Includes humanitarian response plans for the following 21 countries, of which 13 are in Africa: * Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq, Myanmar, oPt, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen * Burundi, Cameroon, CAR, Chad, DRC, Ethiopia, Libya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan

This report also had a revealing chart of the proportion of funding raised for humanitarian appeals in 2017. http://www.africafocus.org/images/funding-2017.pdf At the end of November, only 52% of the $24.0 billion needed for the year 2017 had been committed.

https://www.irinnews.org/africa – IRIN Africa page – formerly UN, now independent non-profit news service. Coverage that goes beyond stereotypes from on-the-spot reporting and careful analysis.

https://reliefweb.int/ – Detailed reports collated by OCHA https://www.unocha.org/ UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Racism Beyond Trump: Not Just Attitudes but Also Structures

The links below include several recent short commentaries in direct response to Trump’s remarks, but also two longer essays written more than a decade ago, one on the legal case for reparations for Africa as well as those of African descent, and the other on the structural persistence of race in the global world order as well as within nations. A common theme is the relevance of historical perspective and deeper analysis as well as acknowledging the racism in Trump’s attitudes and policies.

Paul Tinyambe Zeleza, “On Trump’s ‘Shithole’ Africa – the Homogenization and Dehumanization of a Continent,” Nyasa Times, January 15, 2017 http://allafrica.com/stories/201801150449.html

Trump’s derogatory dismissal of shithole Haiti and Africa reflects enduring tendencies in the American social imaginary about Africa and its Diasporas. This is to suggest, as outraged as we might be about Trump’s provocative and pusillanimous pronouncements, the Trump phenomenon transcends Trump. The specter of racism, whose pernicious and persistent potency Trump has brazenly exposed to the world, has haunted America from its inception with the original sin of slavery, through a century of Jim Crow segregation, and the past half century of post-civil rights redress and backlash.

The disdain expressed for Haiti and Africa in the President’s latest vicious verbal assault is a projection of an angry racist project to rollback the limited gains of the civil rights struggle and settlement of the 1960s that has animated the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy and politics ever since. … The intersection of domestic and foreign affairs tend to reflect, reproduce, and reinforce national and global racial hierarchies.   more

Letter to President Trump from Former U.S. Ambassadors to Africa http://allafrica.com/stories/201801170032.html From 78 ambassadors who served in 48 African countries

As former U.S. Ambassadors to 48 African countries, we write to express our deep concern regarding reports of your recent remarks about African countries and to attest to the importance of our partnerships with most of the fifty-four African nations. Africa is a continent of great human talent and rich diversity, as well as extraordinary beauty and almost unparalleled natural resources. It is also a continent with deep historical ties with the United States.

…

We hope that you will reassess your views on Africa and its citizens, and recognize the important contributions Africans and African Americans have made and continue to make to our country, our history, and the enduring bonds that will always link Africa and the United States.   more

Howard W. French, “Trump’s profane description disregards Africa’s crucial role in making America a world power,” Washington Post, January 14, 2018 http://tinyurl.com/y9pakctu

President Trump’s comments disparaging immigrants from Haiti and the African continent have stunned many in the United States and other parts of the world. I see this as an opportunity to challenge the American public to confront this reality: More than any other factor, it is the wealth derived from Africa, especially the labor of people taken in chains from that continent, that accounts for the rise of the West and its centuries of predominance in world affairs.

The facts of this history hide in plain sight, and yet Americans and others in the West have averted their eyes for 500 years. The West’s ascension over other parts of the world has been attributed, instead, to innate Western qualities, including rationality and a talent for invention and innovation, or Western institutions. It is this distortion of reality — a delusion, really — that fuels attitudes of white superiority, whether subtle and pervasive, or as crude as those exhibited by someone like Trump.   more

M Neelika Jayawardane,” The very American myth of ‘exceptional immigrants,'” Al Jazeera, 20 Jan 2018 http://tinyurl.com/yafxzqke

… Part of why Americans are susceptible to this violent, xenophobic, and nativist rhetoric is not because they are exceptionally thick, but because of how the national mythology of the US – one constructed on Puritan ideals of egalitarianism, “hard work” and perseverance against adversity – is constructed.

Americans are told, since childhood, that hard work and perseverance not only build character, but allow them to overcome obstacles, and achieve their goals and dreams. Because this powerful myth is repetitively drummed into their heads – be it through apocryphal narratives of kids who came from impoverished backgrounds who went on to become multimillion-dollar earning athletes, or women who beat the odds and attained positions of leadership in fields dominated by men – they learn to believe that their country is a meritocracy.

…

It is obvious that (white) Americans need to be disabused of the notion that the US’s white population is special, and deserving, somehow, of privilege; it is time to get over the belief that they only received their privileges from having worked for it.

But just as importantly, those immigrants of more privileged backgrounds – those who are currently touting the percentage of people from their national group who have college and post-graduate degrees, as if waving these statistics and their material possessions are ways of proving that they are not, in fact, deserving of Trump’s racism – also need an antidote for their misplaced smugness.   more

Lord Anthony Gifford, “The Legal Basis of the Case for Reparations: A paper Presented to the First Pan-African Congress on Reparations, Abuja, Federal Republic of Nigeria, April 27-29, 1993” http://www.shaka.mistral.co.uk/legalbasis.htm

Once you accept, as I do, the truth of three propositions a. That the mass kidnap and enslavement of Africans was the most wicked criminal enterprise in recorded human history, b. that no compensation was ever paid by any of the perpetrators to any of the sufferers, and c. that the consequences of the crime continue to be massive, both in terms of the enrichment of the descendants of the perpetrators, and in terms of the impoverishment of Africa and the descendants of Africans, then the justice of the claim for Reparations is proved beyond reasonable doubt.

To those who may say that that is all very true in theory, but that in practice there is no mechanism to enforce the claim, or no willingness of the white world to recognise it, I would answer with a Latin legal maxim: ubi jus, ibi remedium: where there is a right, there must be a remedy.   more

William Minter, “Invisible Hierarchies: Africa, Race, and Continuities in the World Order,” Science & Society, July 2005 http://www.africafocus.org/editor/africa-race-world-2005.pdf

21st Century Color Lines

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (2003) and other analysts, focusing on the current U. S. racial order, have posited an ideology of “color-blind racism,” which allows for continuation of racial inequality while firmly rejecting overt racial distinctions or discrimination. One of the key components of this ideology is to deny the link between past and present, so that people regardless of their background are seen as starting on a level playing field. This assumption fits well with the companion ideology stressing the virtues of the neutral market, which all are presumed to approach with similar possibilities of success.

Such an ideology gains credibility from the visible success of individuals from the subordinate group, which does in the case of race mark a break with earlier ideologies of rigid discrimination. With successful individuals in the foreground, and even celebrated as illustrating diversity, it becomes easier to view continuing structural inequality as relatively unimportant, or even to dismiss it altogether. Persistent poverty or other disadvantages can conveniently be attributed entirely to individual defects, and seen as unrelated to past or present discrimination. The dominant ideology thus diverts attention from the structural bases of persistent and rising inequality.   more

Mass starvation as a political weapon

http://phys.org, January 19, 2018

by Heather Stephenson, Tufts University

http://tinyurl.com/yd38bo84

Mass starvation killed more than three million people in Stalin-era Ukraine in the 1930s and more than 18 million in China during Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Yet by the start of this century, famines like those were all but eliminated, Alex de Waal says in his new book, Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine (http://amzn.to/2DuxUW4). The number of people dying in famines around the world has dropped precipitously, particularly over the last thirty to fifty years.

Those gains, though, are fragile, and could be starting to be reversed, says de Waal, who is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation and a research professor at the Fletcher School. For his book, he compiled the best available estimates of global famine deaths from 1870 to 2010, and used that data to analyze trends. Tufts Now sat down with him recently to find out what he learned.

Tufts Now: In the popular imagination, famine is often connected with too many people and too little food–that is, with overpopulation and low agricultural production due to natural disasters such as drought. How does that line up with reality?

Alex de Waal: That is nonsense. Famine is a very specific political product of the way in which societies are run, wars are fought, governments are managed. The single overwhelming element in causation–in three-quarters of the famines and threequarters of the famine deaths–is political agency. Yet we still tend to be gripped by this idea that famine is a natural calamity.

You can actually show that the population theory of famine is wrong. Not just wrong at a global scale–because famine mortality has gone down precipitously while world population has gone up–but also at a country level. In the countries that have historically been very prone to famine, like Ethiopia or India, famine mortality has gone down and continues to do so even while population goes up. This is not to say that there isn’t a problem of resource consumption in the world. It’s just to say famine is not part of that.

Tufts Now: You say that mass starvation was almost eliminated, with famines becoming less frequent and less lethal. How did that happen?

de Waal: There are multiple reasons: the background economics, the improvements in transport systems, information systems, massive improvements in public health. The big historic killers in famines used to be infectious diseases. Those are now much less likely to kill large numbers of people.

One big factor is the international humanitarian industry. The humanitarians are much better at addressing the symptoms than the causes. But nonetheless if you can reduce the lethality of famines to a small fraction of what they used to be twenty, thirty, fifty years ago, even if you’re not addressing the causes, you’re still doing something substantially positive.

The last reason for the decline in famines is undoubtedly the decline in wars, the decline in totalitarian rule, and the spread of democracy and liberal values. There’s something very tangibly precious to be held onto about democracy, liberalism, and humanitarianism. You can demonstrate that this has saved tens of millions of lives. It shouldn’t be treated lightly.

Tufts Now: In addition to sending humanitarian aid, outsiders have sometimes argued for intervening with military force to protect civilians who are suffering during famines in conflict zones. What do you think of that?

de Waal: I think it’s a terribly bad idea–it’s very likely to go wrong. Twenty-five years ago, when President Bush the elder sent his troops to Somalia, I resigned from Human Rights Watch over it. I was asked to support it, and I refused. I still think it’s a bad idea. Almost every instance where you see troops sent in, it has not worked out well. These are not problems that can be solved by the military.

Tufts Now: You say that the success in combating famine is now stalling and that world leaders should help by making the act of starving people a war crime or a crime against humanity. Isn’t it already against international law?

de Waal: Lawyers will argue about this. Some will say there is no law that outlaws faminogenic acts–acts that create famines–and there are so many loopholes in international law that you can fly fighter jets through it, as the Saudis are doing now in Yemen. Others will say the law is there if interpreted correctly.

What can’t be denied is that it’s an issue that we collectively don’t care enough about to make the criminalization work.

Let me give a parallel, which is sexual and gender crimes. Rape has always been unlawful, but it was only relatively recently that the international community– global public opinion–cared enough about criminalizing rape to actually make it into an issue that could be stopped. In the same way, I think we need to care enough about starvation, in places like Yemen, Syria, Nigeria, and South Sudan, to make it an issue that is so toxic that it is stopped.

Tufts Now: You mention Yemen, where an ongoing armed conflict and blockade imposed by a Saudi-led coalition have left millions in need of humanitarian assistance. What should be done about the people starving there?

de Waal: Yemen is the greatest famine atrocity of our lifetimes. The Saudis are deliberately destroying the country’s food-producing infrastructure.

The United States and the European countries, if they cared about it enough, have enough leverage to get the Saudis and the Emeratis to stop bombing agricultural, health, and market infrastructure, open the ports, and have a much less restrictive definition about what food is allowed in. They also need to start a peace process. This is not a war that is going to be won in any meaningful sense. It’s a political, created famine and it will have to be solved by political, created means. One can ameliorate the impact by enabling a humanitarian response, which would save many lives, and allowing the economy to regenerate a bit, but a proper solution has to be a political one.

Tufts Now: How hopeful are you about the possibility of ending famine?

de Waal: At any time up to a couple of years ago, I would have been extremely hopeful. The default mode of the national and global governance systems was in favor of humanitarian systems and against faminogenic actions. That was the way history was going. That was the direction of global politics.

Now I’m much less certain about that, as we are seeing some of this introverted, xenophobic, transactional, zero-sum politics. It’s not just here in the U.S. You also see it in Europe, with Britain as a particularly sad example.

Humanitarianism cannot cope with the political causes of famine. Humanitarians know that. But there’s still an assumption by political leaders, who are somewhat culpable, that if we put the humanitarians on the case, we don’t need to deal with the politics. That is wrong.

Ten humanitarian crises to look out for in 2018

IRIN’s editors sketch out the gloomy-looking horizon for next year

Geneva, 31 December 2017

http://www.irinnews.org – direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/y8vem7ps

From the Rohingya to South Sudan, hurricanes to famine, 2017 was full of disasters and crises. But 2018 is shaping up to be even worse. Here’s why.

The UN has appealed for record levels of funding to help those whose lives have been torn apart, but the gap between the funding needs and the funding available continues to grow.

And what makes the outlook especially bad for 2018 is that the political will needed to resolve conflicts, welcome refugees, and address climate change also appears to be waning. What a difference a year, a new US president, and a German election make.

Here’s our insider take on 10 crises that will shape the humanitarian agenda in 2018 (See 2017’s list here):

Syria’s sieges and displacement

As Syria heads towards seven years of war and Western governments quietly drop their demands for political transition, it has become increasingly clear that President Bashar al-Assad will stay in power, at least in some capacity.

more in original article

Congo unravels

Democratic Republic of Congo. Sylvain Liechti/UN Photo.

You know the situation is bad when people start fleeing their homes, and it doesn’t get much worse than the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Here, violence in its eastern provinces has triggered the world’s worst displacement crisis – for a second year in a row. More than 1.7 million people abandoned their farms and villages this year, on top of 922,000 in 2016. The provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu, Kasai, and Tanganyika are the worst affected and the epicentres of unrest in the country.

New alliances of armed groups have emerged to take on a demoralised government army and challenge President Joseph Kabila in distant Kinshasa. He refused to step down and hold elections in 2016 when his constitutionally mandated two-term limit expired – and the political ambition of some of these groups is to topple him. These rebellions are a new addition to the regular lawlessness of armed groups and conflict entrepreneurs that have stalked the region for years. It is a confusing cast of characters, in which the army also plays a freelance role and, as IRIN reported this month, as an instigator of some of the rights abuses that are forcing civilians to flee.

As we enter 2018, more than 13 million people require humanitarian assistance and protection – that’s close to six million more people than at the start of 2017. Over three million people are severely food insecure in the Kasai region alone, their villages and fields looted. Aid is only slowly trickling in. The $812 million appeal for Congo is less than 50 percent funded. That lack of international commitment represents the single largest impediment to the humanitarian response.

Yemen slips further towards famine

If we repeat the words “world’s worst humanitarian crisis” so often that they starting to lose gravity, here are a few numbers that might help hammer home just how grim life has become after more than two and a half years of war in Yemen, a country of more than 29 million: 8.4 million people are on the verge of starvation; 400,000 children have severe acute malnutrition (that’s as bad as it gets), and more than 5,500 civilians have been killed.

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South Sudan – it could get even worse

South Sudan. Diana Diaz/UNHCR.

A much-anticipated ceasefire in South Sudan didn’t last long.

It came into effect at midnight on Christmas Eve, and a few hours later government and rebel forces were fighting around the northern town of Koch in Unity State. The violence hasn’t derailed the peace talks underway in Addis Ababa, but it does point to how difficult it will be for the internationally-backed diplomatic process to shape events on the ground.

The ceasefire is between President Salva Kiir and several rebel groups, but confidence is low that negotiations can bring a quick and decisive end to a war entering its fifth year.

South Sudan has fragmented, with a host of ethnic militias emerging with shifting loyalties. The various members of this so- called “gun class” all want a seat at the table, in the belief that any future agreement will be based on a power-sharing deal and a division of the country’s resources along the lines of the last failed settlement.

The international community lacks leverage and neighbouring countries don’t have the unity of purpose necessary to achieve a broad-based and sustainable peace agreement.

What that means is that more refugees – on top of an existing two million – will continue to pour across the country’s borders as the fighting season resumes.

It also means some seven million people inside the country – almost two thirds of the remaining population – will still need humanitarian assistance; hunger will also continue to threaten millions as a result of the war, displacement, and collapse of the rural economy. And yes, there will be the threat of renewed famine.

One final ingredient in the brew of despair is that the humanitarian community’s access to those in need will be constrained by both the prevailing insecurity and the government’s cynical taxation of aid operations.

CAR – where humanitarians fear to tread

Central African Republic. Philip Kleinfeld/IRIN.

There are many reasons why Central African Republic was officially the unhappiest country in the world in 2017.

You can start with the 50 percent increase in the number of displaced, bringing the total to 633,000 people. Then there are the more than two million hungry people, and the half a million who have figured it’s just too hard to stay and have left for neighbouring countries.

It’s not much fun being an aid worker either. In November another humanitarian worker was killed in the north of the country, bringing to 14 the number to have died this year. The level of violence has forced aid agencies to repeatedly suspend operations as their personnel, convoys, and bases are deliberately targeted.

Behind the insecurity is a four-year conflict between competing armed groups that neither a weak government nor an under-staffed UN peacekeeping mission can contain. It pits mainly Muslim ex-Séléka rebels against Christian anti-Balaka, but some of the worst fighting has its roots in the splintering of the Séléka coalition and a feud between former allies.

The violence across the country boils down to the lucrative control of natural resources and the taxes the groups raise from checkpoints. Such is the insecurity that the government’s writ doesn’t even cover all of the capital, Bangui.

Rohingya refugees in limbo; forgotten conflicts simmer elsewhere in Myanmar

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Afghans return to flaring conflict

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Venezuelan exodus to strain neighbours

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Libya: Africa’s giant holding cell

Libya. Alessio Romenzi/UNICEF.

An AU-EU summit at the end of 2017 seemed to offer a glimmer of hope for the 700,000 to one million migrants stuck in the nightmare that is Libya.

It produced a plan to repatriate those who want it, and to move others from squalid detention centres into better conditions.

Some flights home did subsequently take off, and a first group (of 162 refugees and migrants from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Yemen) was even evacuated by the UN on 22 December from Libya to Italy. But we’ve yet to see how this scheme will play out, and there are some serious obstacles. Many migrants have nowhere safe to return to, and it’s not clear how a UN-backed government that controls little in the way of territory or popular support will manage to move and protect migrants in a country with multiple governments, militias, and tribes.

That the meeting even got press (in large part thanks to a CNN film of what appeared to be a slave auctions) in an oft-ignored country is a sign of how little the world cares about the mostly sub-Saharan African migrants in Libya, for whom kidnapping, extortion, and rape have become the norm.

European policy has largely focused on keeping migrants from boarding boats in the Mediterranean or reaching their shores – creating a situation that is bad enough for Libyans and shockingly worse for Africans. At the summit, French President Emmanuel Macron mooted a military and police initiative inside Libya, plus UN sanctions for people-smugglers. How this could actually work is anyone’s guess, and it seems unlikely to get at the source of many migrants’ woes: the lack of legal avenues to get out of the desperate situations that brought them to Libya’s hell in the first place.

A year of turmoil in Cameroon

It’s taken just over a year for political agitation in Cameroon’s anglophone region to turn into armed opposition against the government of President Paul Biya.

Separatism was only a fringe idea until the government cracked down hard on protesters demanding greater representation for the neglected minority region. Now, government soldiers are being killed, Biya is promising all-out war, and thousands of refugees are fleeing into neighbouring Nigeria.

Anglophone Cameroon is becoming radicalised. Refugees recounting experiences of killings by the security forces talk of revenge, and commentators worry that the opportunity for negotiations with more moderate anglophone leaders – those pursuing a policy of civil disobedience and diplomatic pressure on Yaoundé – may be rapidly shrinking.

If the government believes there is a military solution to the activists’ demands for an independent “Ambazonia”, made up of the two anglophone regions of western Cameroon, they may well be mistaken. Where the separatists’ training camps are being established, next to the Nigerian border, is a remote and heavily forested zone – ideal for guerrilla warfare.

Biya, 85 in February and in power for the past 35 years, is standing in elections once again in 2018. The “anglophone crisis” and the potential of an even larger refugee exodus will not only leave him politically damaged but could be regionally destabalising, especially as Nigeria faces its own separatist challenge.

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