‘W.O.L.A.’ FLOGGING “OLD WASHINGTON MULE” IN ‘LATIN’ AMERICA’  MNN. Dec. 8th, 2007. Late last Wednesday night a call came from Akwesasne, “What’re you doing?” The response was, “Nothing!” The next question was, “Wanna go down to New York City for a meeting?” The answer was, “Sure!” The next morning two Mohawks, one from Kahnawake and another from Kanehsatake, met up with two other Mohawks from Akwesasne in Upstate New York for the long drive in the pick up truck to the big Apple.
The meeting was across from the Empire State Building. WOLA is the “Washington Office on Latin America”. It started in 1973 under the Jimmy Carter administration and was connected to the “Trilateral Commision”. Today they work with the “Council on Foreign Relations” and are funded by Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller and other big-time right wing foundations and corporations. The main honchos were Joy Olson, Vicki Gass, Margaret Crayhan* and Kenneth Paul Erickson [kenneth.erickson@hunter.cuny.edu], all “scholars”. WOLA’s secretary-treasurer and president is Charles Currie, SJ [Society of Jesuits] which governs the “Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities” in Washington DC. http://www.wola.org They were surprised to see us four Mohawks there. No one talked to us or introduced themselves. They couldn’t figure out where we came from, even though they were on Haudenosaunee territory. A 14-page executive summary was handed out called, “A Fresh Approach to U.S. Policy in Latin America”, which is meant for whichever party wins the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Democrats or Republicans, it’s all the same! This looks like hard core evidence of the U.S. President’s plan for our people in South America. “There are about 300 million people in ‘Latin’ America , the majority being Indigenous people. More than half live in poverty, 80 million in extreme poverty”. The oligarchs have greatly escalated their income and wealth since 1990 by deforestation, mining, logging and industry which have contaminated the air, land and water throughout the hemisphere. This rape of the land has caused suffering and devastation to Indigenous people. George Bush’s failed policy was criticized. They’re coming up with a new “partnership” between the U.S. and ‘Latin’ America [and Canada too! It sure looked like they were dictating Canadian policy. Hey, haven’t they heard that feudalism is illegal?] Their main concern is combating the immigration and drug trade that has been coming into the U.S. They cited international criminal cartels, immigration, proliferation of arms into the “wrong hands” and the security of the minority oligarchs who control these countries on behalf of the U.S. and Europe. The long and the short of it is that if any profit is to be made, the U.S. oligarchs want a share. They’ll take our assets but not our liabilities from the damage they’ve caused to the environment. Because of the tremendous disparity between rich and poor, violence is escalating. When the poor don’t even have enough to live on, what have they got to lose? According to WOLA, “42% of all homicides in the world are happening in Latin America which has 6% of the world’s population!” Where are these guns coming from? This sets up the excuse to go in there with more and lethal cops. They forgot to mention all the violence the U.S. is causing worldwide, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan . They need to create a calamity to get control of South America like they engineered in the Middle East? Their idea of a “fresh approach” is for the new U.S. president to visit ‘Latin’ America to tell them about his new fresh approach for them; to strengthen the colonial “democratic” government the U.S. is trying force on everybody all over the world [which is also known as “social restructuring”]; to support the U.N. Millenium Development Goals as set out by the U.S.; to pep up the Mexico-U.S.-Canada partnership to control all trade and commerce on Turtle Island; to reform immigration so that everyone has “documents” or they are left to die; to curtail drug use by stopping the messy spraying program that has been going on since 1981; to close Guantanamo Bay detention facility so detainees can be put somewhere else “out of sight and out of mind”; and to lift the ban on travel to Cuba so the gambling lords can get back in and take over the island and the lucrative tourism trade. The Latin American oligarchs fear the Indigenous people who want a share of their own resources. “Insecurity is a growing concern”, WOLA said. Latin America ’s growing independence is especially a “problem”. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are losing their influence since Hugo Chavez started paying off their loans and debts. You’d think that the WB and IMF would be happy that these people paid off their debts. No way, Jose! It means they have no KONTROL. Oh! oh! Venezuela, Argentina, Paraguay, Ecuador, Brazil and Bolivia just set up their own central bank, to “wean the regions off IMF and WB”. They want to make it easier for the poor to get loans. The U.S. and Europe are losing control and influence fast! ‘Latin’ America was run by deadly military dictatorships that were set up and trained by the U.S. at the “School of the Americas”, formerly in Georgia. Now that democratic institutions through fair elections are taking over, past subversive brutality and oppression promoted by the U.S must change. Colonists are not used to egalitarian sharing of power and resources. In light of this, “Policing, the judiciary [and prison systems] must be upgraded”, WOLA said. USAID in Venezuela recently got $48 million to destabilize President Hugo Chavez in the recent referendum on the constitution. Venezuela has shown it does not need the U.S. and have cut off all ties, which worries the U.S. They referred to the U.S. relationship with Hugo Chavez as “two scorpions in a bottle… no matter who bites first, both will die”. WOLA’s idea of consultation is to speak to the oligarchs. Their main concern is that U.S. credibility is low. [As if this is news!] Anti-Americanism is running high worldwide [Same old, same old. We’re not wondering why!] The oligarchies are U.S. and European puppets of a passé paradigm playing “I’m the king of the castle” on their little dung heaps, when everyone else has gone off to the strawberry festival. Trouble is they are obsessed with turning the whole world into a dung heap. Their long range plan is to set up one world government with one ruler. Dream on. Haven’t they read their history? This has never worked. Nature loves diversity. It even has a place for crazies like them. WOLA’s main idea is the training of modern professional para-military police and other law enforcement and criminal justice officials, with what appears to be oligarchical oversight. They foresee police academy training and indoctrination, human rights [meaning forcing us to be their slaves], due process, leadership development, more effective patrol structures directed at the communities [like curfews?], internal and external controls, and community-oriented policing. [Don’t forget folks, these people want to be the only game in town. If they get their way, we’ll all be forced to play cops and robbers whether we want to or not. They have a lot of private jails to fill and they’re planning more.] Specialized police units with specific policing techniques and equipment [probably taught by the likes of BlackWater!] Develop detective units and a comprehensive “snitching” system to help police gather evidence to increase conviction rates. They’re looking for more ways to criminalize us. The U.S. says their policies “protect civil and human rights, facilitate family linkages across borders and regularize the immigrants’ status in the U.S.”!! They must be deliberately blind! The wall that cuts through the middle of Tohono O’odham territory on the so-called Mexico-U.S. border is leading to deaths from exposure and dehydration. The $40 billion de-foliage spraying program along with the fall of the U.S. dollar have made drugs cheaper. [Are the drug cartels switching to the Euro?] Spraying killed off crops leading to starvation, death and birth defects forcing people to look for somewhere else to go so they can survive. [‘Agent Orange ’ all over again, like in Vietnam!] Heaven help those who try to go to the U.S. which authored the destruction of their homelands. U.S. wants democratic governments where people can vote “until they get it right”. By right they mean “might” – “It’s my way or the highway, not the one that runs across our [imaginary line] border. We don’t want to see you. We just want to tell you what to do.” In other words, the U.S. has become a caricature of the British when they sought their own independence from them. Once again we witnessed people making policy for somebody else. Colonialism! Colonialism! Colonialism! They were very careful about it, like someone trying to make love so there is no pregnancy. Every word was weighed carefully and ‘condomized’ before it was presented, so that we could not see the “banality that hides the evil”. But, Hey! Man! A rape is a rape even if you’re wearing a condom. Do they think that people can’t see when evil is staring them in the face? Some are even forced to go along with a rapist when they see they have no choice. Threats are couched in light language, bubbling altruistic froth over the real purpose – to maintain coercive power and control. WOLA is an expert at “government-speak”. Those hungry for power know what is being said, that they plan to kill the real people of ‘Latin’ America. They said it so nicely. They thought they were so convincing that the ‘Latin’ Americans can’t wait for it to happen! They may be in for a surprise! *Margaret Crayan’s expertise is Latin American history and politics, religion [including the Catholic Church], human rights, truth commissions, women, the military, extensive field work in Latin America including Cuba, “Post Authoritarian Societies” [?], civil society [meaning the police]. She has published 80 papers and is working on “Religion and Politics”. The Council on Foreign Relations published her research on the “City and the World: New York ’s Global Future” in 1997. Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News | 
