Como habíamos previamente formulado, las votaciones en el G-7 van en contra de los pusilánimes políticos instalados en el poder, independientemente de sus siglas partidistas (en inglés les llaman incumbent), y quienes son controlados por los banqueros que dominan la desregulada globalización financiera. Este es el verdadero diagnóstico de la multicrisis global que traduce un genuino cambio de paradigma.
El problema cesó de ser la consabida criminalidad de la banca israelí-anglosajona, encabezada por la inimputable Goldman Sachs, que controla de facto al gobierno de Estados Unidos.
Hoy el problema nodal radica en que no existen políticos capacitados para lidiar con el cambio de paradigma del nuevo orden global por edificar. Las reformas civilizatorias y humanistas del nuevo paradigma del siglo XXI las deben realizar los nuevos políticos que no hayan sido infectados letalmente por la pandemia neoliberal (también en extinción).
De allí que ante la furia ciudadana global, los pusilánimes políticos del ancien régime intenten limitar los daños con medidas caducas que tienen como objetivo final preservar en las asíntotas del poder los intereses patrimonialistas de la omnipotente banca israelí-anglosajona.
En la época de Internet, era previsible el despertar de la furia ciudadana como lo había anticipado Zbigniew Brzezinski, ex asesor de seguridad nacional de James Carter e íntimo de Barack Obama.
¿Se preparan los Rotshchild, atávicos esclavistas banqueros (ver Bajo la Lupa, 8/7/09), para la furia ciudadana global?
Gerald Celente with Max Keiser on the Edge PressTV 05/18/2010
A raíz de la furia ciudadana todavía focalizada en las urnas de Gran Bretaña y Estados Unidos, el historiador británico-israelí Simon Schama –muy cercano a la dinastía Rothschild y autor del libro Ciudadanos: una crónica de la Revolución Francesa– diagnostica que el mundo se encuentra al borde de una nueva era de furia, escrito exclusivamente para los lectores neoliberales de The Financial Times (21/5/10): los historiadores advierten que existe seguido un lapso entre la aparición del desastre económico y la acumulación de la furia social.
¿A través de Simon Schama, uno de sus tantos portavoces oficiosos (v. gr. George Soros, Niall Ferguson, Jacques Attali, etcétera), los esclavistas banqueros Rothschild –a nuestro juicio, los patriarcas del sionismo financiero global– advierten el advenimiento de la revolución social planetaria?
Schama compara a los ricos egoístas de la Revolución Francesa con la plutocracia reinante de Wall Steet y la City, y aduce que la catástrofe (sic) financiera, con sus efectos en la economía real, se escenificó en medio de oscuras (sic) transacciones diseñadas para nada, salvo producir ganancias de corto plazo, lo cual agrava el sentimiento de traición social.
En el segundo acto de la furia ciudadana en el esquema de Simon Schama, el control de daños significa colocar en la picota a los perpetradores.
Schama concluye que enfrentamos un momento polvorín (sic): una prueba de la fuerza de las instituciones democráticas en un tiempo de extremo estrés fiscal, cuando se encuentran en juego la supervivencia de la administración Obama en las elecciones de noviembre y la gobernabilidad de Estados Unidos, lo cual exige la profilaxis (sic) de las instituciones.
Obama apenas entró al primer acto del control de daños frente a la furia ciudadana local y global. Después de su histórico triunfo con la reforma en salubridad, ahora intenta sujetar al dragón de Wall Street, encabezado por la inimputable Goldman Sachs, miembro prominente del sionismo financiero global.
No es una batalla menor: Obama confronta al verdadero gobierno paralelo tras el trono y se juega tanto su vida como su presidencia.
Un corredor de la Bolsa de Valores de Nueva York en su sitio de trabajo, mientras al fondo se aprecia en una pantalla de televisión al presidente Barack Obama, el pasado 22 de abril; ese día hizo un enérgico llamado a Wall Street por sus furiosos esfuerzos para eludir una regulación más estrecha, y afirmando que EU se dirige a otra crisis financiera si no se realizan reformas Foto Reuters
Thomas Noyes, de The Guardian (21/5/10), considera que la reforma financiera de Obama coloca a Wall Street en su justo lugar como un servidor de la economía y no como su amo.
La aprobación de la reforma financiera de Obama no fue sencilla, después de mil bloqueos tácticos del Partido Republicano.
El texto de la reforma no es definitivo, ya que todavía sufrirá diluciones semánticas, en las que se especializan los cabilderos de los grupos de interés, tan persuasivos en unciones pecuniarias. Vamos a ver qué queda de los textos originales.
De todas formas, no se puede escatimar el sonoro triunfo de Obama, que por lo menos sujeta, todavía sin domar, al dragón de Wall Street: mucho dependerá de la fortaleza de los amarres, que cuentan con el aplastante apoyo de la furia ciudadana local y global.
Thomas Noyes reconoce que la reforma financiera de Obama cobró vigor después de la revelación del escándalo de Goldman Sachs, cuando urge la supervisión por adultos (sic) de la conducta de Wall Street.
A juicio de Noyes, la más importante disposición de la reforma puede ser la regla Volcker, que restringe la habilidad de los bancos de comerciar con sus propias cuentas, de lo cual Goldman Sachs se volvió el emblema.
Thomas Noyes recuerda que el rescate de Wall Street por el gobierno federal enfureció (sic) a los ciudadanos comunes (sic) quienes sufrieron la recesión creada por la locura (sic) de los bancos, por lo que se lamenta de que la propuesta de mayor alcance para colocar una barrera entre la banca comercial y la banca de inversiones (nota: la doble personalidad esquizofrénica de Goldman Sachs) nunca fue votada. Tal barrera fue erigida por la visionaria enmienda Glass-Steagal de 1933 y eliminada en 1999 por los fundamentalistas neoliberales del Partido Republicano (recordemos un partido mexicanófobo y aliado del PAN, que además financió la campaña presidencial de Calderón) encabezados por el texano Phil Gramm.
La enmienda de Obama no se atreve a desmontar el casino especulativo de los derivados financieros, que acaban siendo mínima y tangencialmente transparentados.
Los senadores de Estados Unidos, en su mayoría ignaros en los asuntos esotéricos de las finanzas posmodernas, nunca entendieron durante las audiencias públicas la necesidad existencial de los derivados, cuyo valor nocional excede varias veces el valor de la economía real.
Sucede que los derivados, verdaderas armas financieras de destrucción masiva de la dupla anglosajona, constituyen el gran negocio para las plazas de Wall Street y la City, quienes despojan así, con el simple teclazo de una supercomputadora, las joyas estratégicas de los valetudinarios países globalizados, como demostramos desde hace mas de 10 años en nuestro libro agotado El lado oscuro de la globalización: post-globalización y balcanización (Editorial Cadmo & Europa, 2000).
Conclusión. En el esquema de Simon Schama, portavoz oficioso de los atávicos esclavistas banqueros Rothschild, apenas vamos en el primer acto del control de daños en el seno del G-7, en pérdida de su gobernabilidad cuando el pacto social fue resquebrajado a favor de los parasitarios banqueros y en detrimento del bien común ciudadano.
El problema mayúsculo advendrá cuando el segundo acto de la furia ciudadana global se empate con la segunda ola, que habíamos anticipado, de la multicrisis que se exacerbó con la balcanización y vulcanización del euro y que pronto alcanzará a Gran Bretaña (de hecho tocada de muerte) y a Estados Unidos, que acelera su decadencia interna y externa.
Asesinan a otro político
En Zacatecas fue ejecutado Joel Arteaga Vázquez, candidato a regidor del PRI-PVEM-PANAL, en el municipio de Calera / Salía de una fiesta en la que celebró su cumpleaños/ En Chihuahua como ya es costumbre a pesar de la presencia de miles de policías federales fueron asesinadas 12 personas, destacando un quintúple homicidio/ En Sinaloa ultiman y “encobijan” a tres personas / En el Estado de México localizan 4 cadáveres en las inmediaciones de la mina La Guitarra, en Valle de Bravo
MÉXICO, D.F., 21 de mayo (APRO, UNIVERSAL, NOTIMEX y Periódicos).- El narcotráfico cobró hoy la vida de otro político, ahora en el estado de Zacatecas. La víctima fue Joel Arteaga Vázquez, candidato a regidor en el municipio de Calera por la Alianza Primero Zacatecas, que conforman los partidos PRI-PVEM-PANAL, quien apareció muerto dentro de su camioneta, con tres impactos de bala en el cuerpo. El político de 29 años fue visto por última vez al salir de su fiesta de cumpleaños la noche del pasado miércoles 19, y su cadáver fue encontrado por policías municipales, la madrugada de ayer, en el centro de Zacatecas. Es la segunda muerte de un político en el lapso de un mes: El pasado 21 de abril fue ultimado el comunicador Jesús Meza, de 34 años de edad, quien era el coordinador de campaña de José Haro, candidato a diputado del PRI por el octavo distrito, de Fresnillo. El dirigente del PRI en el estado, Joel Guerrero, dio a conocer que Arteaga Vázquez no sólo encabezaba la planilla de regidores con el candidato a la alcaldía de Calera, Rodrigo Saucedo, sino que era un militante que se desempeñaba activamente en la zona, en trabajos de promoción del voto para el candidato a gobernador de la Alianza Primero Zacatecas, Miguel Alonso Reyes. El asesinato de nuestro compañero, dijo, es una muestra de los altos índices de inseguridad en los que vive Zacatecas, “ y pedimos a las autoridades que actúen para evitar que se vea empañado por estas acciones el proceso electoral”. El dirigente priista señaló que su partido no descarta que los candidatos de la Alianza Primero Zacatecas estén siendo perseguidos. “Me parece que el asesinato de Joel Arteaga Vázquez es muy lamentable, se pudiera decir que nuestros candidatos están amenazados, es algo que no podemos descartar y por eso solicitamos a la Procuraduría que el caso se aclare con justicia”, agregó.
Chihuahua La Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado a través de su portavoz Eduardo Esparza confirmó el hallazgo de 5 cadáveres, todos del sexo masculino, en la carretera de Cuauhtémoc a General Trías a la altura de Riva Palacio. En un lugar conocido como Charco Azul fueron ubicados los 5 cuerpos, los cuales estaban atados de las manos, algunos con corbatas plásticas y otros con cinta canela. Un grupo de colaboradores del candidato priista a gobernador, Cesar Duarte Jaquez, fueron atacados por un comando se sicarios, ejecutando a un solo hombre identificado como Jorge Ortega Ortega. Según testigos, los demás jóvenes duartistas, quienes quedaron en shock al presenciar la ejecución. La persona con varios impactos de bala de “cuerno de chivo” quedó tendido enseguida de una pick up Ford Ranger con placas DV-98531 de color gris y de doble cabina. Un comando armado arremetió a balazos en contra de tres individuos que se encontraban en la colonia Benito Juárez, dejando como resultado a dos personas sin vida al instante y otra más cuando recibía atención médica. El acto violento se presentó pasadas las 20:00 horas. Según informaron los vecinos del lugar, los hombres armados salieron a toda velocidad y en su huída en un fraccionamiento más delante atropellaron a dos personas del sexo masculino, uno de ellos a causa de la gravedad fue trasladado a la capital. La persona que perdió la vida en el hospital Regional, fue identificada como Ángel Germán Chávez quien contaba con 42 años de edad, mientras que los otros dos eran Jorge Luis Alarcón García de 55 años y Eric Noé Adame Rey de 25 años. El cuerpo de un joven acribillado de 24 años de edad aproximadamente, fue localizado en la pista de aterrizaje del poblado de Creel, municipio de Bocoyna, informó la Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado (PGJE). A pesar de no haber sido identificado, trascendió que el joven vestía chamarra negra, camisa a cuadros y pantalón de mezclilla azul. Sus asesinos le destrozaron la cabeza de 4 tiros de “cuerno de chivo”. Un hombre fue asesinado esta tarde cuando realizaba reparaciones a un salón de fiestas infantiles que había sido quemado al parecer por extorsionadores. Los hechos ocurrieron en un establecimiento de la calle Simona Barba en el fraccionamiento San Angel, cuando personas armadas llegaron al lugar y dispararon en reiteradas ocasiones contra un hombre de entre 35 y 40 años. n hombre fue herido en la cara por un impacto de bala en la calle Chihuahua cruce con Felipe Ángeles de la colonia Granjas de Chapultepec. Según versiones, la persona resultó lesionada cuando discutía con un vendedor ambulante.
Sinaloa La mañana de hoy viernes tres personas fueron encontradas sin vida. Las víctimas estaban embolsadas y encobijadas. Los cuerpos estaban tirados sobre la carretera a Culiacancito en el kilómetro 16 entre el rancho La Esperanza y la sindicatura de La Palma. Los tres bultos estaban cubiertos con bolsa negras, envueltos en cobijas de diferentes colores y amarrados con cuerdas amarillas y cinta color transparente. En Los Mochis, la joven mujer que resultó baleada hoy a las 7:50 horas por sicarios que atentaron en su contra en la colonia Infonavit Macapule, murió en el nosocomio en que era atendida a causa de los impactos de bala recibidos. Se trata de Cristina Valdez Sandoval, de 26 años, con domicilio en la calle Palo Blanco número 1015, de la colonia Infonavit Macapule, quien cayó ensangrentada tras los disparos en la calle Mezquite y Ceiba, de ese asentamiento. La información indica que la joven, quien laboraba como auxiliar de educadora, al ver a los sujetos desplazarse en un auto Jetta color rojo corrió sobre la calle Mezquite hacia la calle Ceiba pero los individuos le dispararon y fue alcanzada por las balas. Los sujetos se dieron a la fuga. En Guasave, a 200 metros del ejido Héroes Mexicanos, fue encontrada una camioneta tipo explorer con el cuerpo de una persona recostada en asiento trasero, el cual fue torturado y asesinado de varios balazos. Los informes recogidos en el lugar de los hechos y versiones dadas a conocer por las autoridades policiacas indican que la persona asesinada hasta el momento no ha sido identificada pero se presume que este es vecino de la sindicatura de Adolfo Ruiz Cortines. La madrugada de hoy viernes fue encontrado el cuerpo sin vida de una persona envuelta en hule negro y amarrado con cinta canela. Agentes de la policía municipal reportaron en hallazgo a la 01:44 hrs por la carretera Maxipista, km 118+700 de la sindicatura de Baila. El occiso se encontraba con las manos encintadas y atadas hacia delante y bocarriba. En Mazatlán, un repartidor de la empresa Gamesa falleció la mañana de ayer en la clínica del Seguro Social tras ser picado por dos sujetos cuando acudía a entregar un pedido. El hecho ocurrió a las 11:40 horas en el exterior del negocio Papelería y Novedades Camacho situado en la Carretera Internacional al sur a la altura de la colonia Urías.
Morelos La Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado identificó el cadáver localizado la noche del jueves, en el municipio de Yautepec, con características de ejecución por sicarios del narcotráfico. El cadáver fue identificado con el nombre de Alejandro Navarrete Arroyo, de 32 años, con domicilio en Cuernavaca. Su cuerpo fue levantado alrededor de las 20:15 en la calle prolongaión Azabache, colonia Progreso, ubicado al oriente del estado.
Estado de México Cuatro personas ejecutadas fueron encontradas hoy en las inmediaciones de la mina “La Guitarra”, en Valle de Bravo, Estado de México. Los cadáveres de las cuatro víctimas presentaban múltiples huellas de tortura y golpes en todo el cuerpo, y de acuerdo con los primeros reportes policíacos, fueron emboscadas en el paraje conocido como La Albarrada. Según primeros reportes, dos de las víctimas eran empleados de la Comisión Nacional Forestal (Conafor) y uno más de Probosque. La cuarta víctima presuntamente era su guía http://www.poresto.net/ver_nota.php?zona=yucatan&idSeccion=15&idTitulo=21076
Hijacked to Capitalism
Unwitting East German Defectors Revisit Decision to Stay or Go
Barbara Galonska is a former citizen of East Germany who was on a plane that got hijacked to West Berlin in 1978. She decided to return home rather than defect.
A group of East Germans were presented with a unique dilemma when the plane they were on got hijacked to West Berlin in 1978: Should they defect to the West or return home? More than three decades later, three of the people who were on the flight review their decisions on that fateful day.
Barbara Galonska doesn't like to talk about the day when she wanted to leave communist East Germany but ended up staying. She is sitting at her dining table and looking out the window of her apartment in Berlin. The story begins somewhere out there, up in the sky. She could have disappeared from her country as quietly as someone slipping out of a movie theater to avoid having to watch a bad film.
It's been 32 years, and yet she still has to explain herself, as a woman who decided not to flee. Why didn't she leave when she could? Why did she let her son, who was only nine at the time, make the decision for her?
The day that still weighs heavily on her mind today was Aug. 30, 1978. That morning, a Tupolev with 50 East German citizens on board took off from Gdansk in Poland and later made an unscheduled landing in West Berlin. That's where the questions began for Galonska and the others. Should they have abandoned everything they held dear, just to live more freely? How quickly can someone make a decision like that? And how easy is it for someone to step out of his or her life?
On that Aug. 30, it didn't take Galonska long to decide what she wanted. The same was true for Ingrid Ruske, a barmaid from East Berlin. Others, like Constanze Schröder, a hospital employee from Dresden, had to give it some thought first.
Fateful Coincidence
In August 1978, none of the women had any idea that the Berlin Wall would come down 11 years later, bringing down their government along with it. None of them believed in the possibility of being allowed to travel freely in the future. There were people who spent months and even years planning their escape from East Germany, people who would never have dreamed of being deposited in the West through a combination of coincidence, fate and luck, the way Barbara Galonska, Ingrid Ruske and Constanze Schröder were. They were three citizens of the German Democratic Republic -- as East Germany was officially called -- who, by coincidence, were sitting in the same aircraft, which was supposed to land in East Berlin.
Barbara Galonska was a petite and sensitive woman, and an art lover. She had flown with her nine-year-old son to Gdansk on the Baltic Sea to enjoy the summer. She was separated from her husband, an actor, and her son was her ally and confidant. They stayed in Gdansk for two weeks, and their return flight, LO 165, was scheduled to depart for Berlin's Schönefeld Airport at 8:40 a.m. on Aug. 30.
Constanze Schröder, as a mother of two children, housewife and nurse, could hardly find a quiet moment for herself, and she was constantly on the move. She had been married for three years, but there was little left to hold the marriage together. It was only because her husband wanted to show his son and daughter to friends in Gdansk that they took one last trip together, driving from Dresden to Gdansk in their Trabant, the ubiquitous East German car. Shortly before reaching their destination, the car went off the road, turned over and crashed. It was totaled. They decided to take a flight back to Berlin.
Ingrid Ruske, a confident woman with short, blonde curls, earned a living as a waitress. She was waiting for her boyfriend in Gdansk, but he never showed up. She reached the airport just in time, traveling with her daughter and a friend from East Berlin. At the security checkpoint, a customs official found a pistol in the young daughter's coat, but she assumed it was a toy and returned it to the girl. Ruske tried to hide her nervousness.
Misplaced Trust
The 393-kilometer (244-mile) flight from Gdansk to Berlin-Schönefeld took an hour and a quarter. Galonska sat across from her son, at a table for four, in row 2 on the right side of the plane. The Schröders, with their two children, sat in rows 12 and 13, also on the right side of the plane. Ruske and her daughter sat in row 6, on the left side of the aisle.
The plane flew across the Oder River, entering East German air space. It was beginning to descend when a man in row 6, on the right side of the plane, stood up and went to the front. His name was Detlev Tiede, and he was an acquaintance of Ruske's from East Berlin.
The Tupolev Tu-134 has room for 72 passengers, who can hear the two Soloviev engines quite clearly during a flight. It is almost impossible to understand what someone a few rows farther up is saying, even if he shouts. The flight was not completely sold out on that day. There were 50 East German citizens on board, 10 Poles, a man from Munich and a woman from West Berlin. The crew consisted of the captain, the co-pilot, an engineer, a female flight attendant, two male flight attendants and a navigator who sat in a glass "nose" at the front of the aircraft. Even though Palestinian terrorists had hijacked a Lufthansa flight, the "Landshut," only 11 months earlier and half the world was now terrified of hijackers, the cockpit door was open. The Polish airline LOT trusted its passengers.
Tiede walked down the center aisle. When he passed Galonska, she saw that he was pressing his hands against his stomach, which led her to believe that he wasn't feeling well and was headed for the toilet.
Part 2: Well-Rehearsed Plan Goes Wrong
Barbara Galonska, sitting in row 2, worked as a clinical beautician at the Charité Hospital in Berlin, where she administered acne treatments and helped patients conceal scars with makeup. She would sometimes imagine the countries she would travel to if the Wall ever came down.
Constanze Schröder, in row 12, worked as a pediatric nurse in Dresden. She was forced to leave high school at the age of 16, when officials accused her of being insufficiently loyal to the communist system. Her father was a pastor, and although this was disadvantageous for her, she had no interest in leaving. Her husband, on the other hand, was eager to get out of East Germany, claiming that he would even swim across the Danube River to escape.
Ingrid Ruske, in row 6, wanted to escape to West Berlin to be with a man who loved her, had money and had a West German passport. His apartment was big enough for two people and Ruske's miniature poodle. But her petition to be allowed to leave the country was turned down.
She and her lover had planned her secret disappearance. A second man, Tiede, was supposed to help her. Ruske had had an affair with Tiede, and they had remained friends. Tiede, for his part, wanted to escape to the West because of a woman and because of his son.
Tipped Off
They had rehearsed the plan many times. Tiede was to travel to Gdansk by train, and Ruske and her daughter would follow by air. Ruske's lover would obtain forged passports in the West and meet them at the train station in Gdansk, where they would all take the ferry to the Baltic Sea resort town of Travemünde in West Germany. The plan sounded simple enough, but the lover from the West -- and the passports -- never arrived in Gdansk.
The East German secret police, the Stasi, had been tipped off -- a friend had betrayed Ruske. The Stasi launched Operation "Ferry" to prevent the group from leaving the republic illegally. Customs officials searched Ruske's lover when the train he was taking to Gdansk crossed the Polish border, and they found the forged documents. He had hidden fake Polish customs stamps in the heels of his shoes.
Ruske became nervous when her lover failed to appear and didn't answer the phone in his Berlin apartment. Had their plan been uncovered? What did the Stasi know? They knew that they couldn't board the ferry to Travemünde without the forged passports, and they also couldn't return to East Berlin, where the Stasi was presumably waiting for them. Where else could they go? They needed an alternative plan, a way to escape to the West.
Ruske already had a return ticket to East Berlin for Aug. 30, and Tiede managed to get a seat on the same flight. He bought a Mondial starter pistol at a flea market. It was about 80 years old, and it made a loud noise when caps were fired. On the evening before the flight, Ruske knelt down in a pew in a church in Gdansk and prayed to God for support.
Gun against Her Head
On the flight the next day, at about 9:30 a.m., Tiede grabbed the female flight attendant by the hair and pressed the barrel of the pistol against her head. Shouting loudly, and speaking in German, Polish and English, he ordered the pilot to land the plane at Tempelhof Airport in West Berlin instead of in East Berlin. The captain, who could see Tiede through the cockpit door, shouted into his radio that a terrorist was on board and that he didn't want to jeopardize the life of the flight attendant. No one noticed that the gun Tiede was waving around was just an ancient starter pistol.
The Tupolev landed at Tempelhof at 10:04 a.m. Tiede, Ruske and her daughter had reached their intended destination. They and 47 other East German citizens had landed on West German soil.
The incident was a source of great embarrassment for the Stasi, which spent the next few hours asking itself how on earth someone who was being shadowed could hijack an aircraft. Where were the people from Polish intelligence? Couldn't the crew have overpowered the hijacker? It wasn't until days later that Department X at the Ministry for State Security, as the Stasi was officially known, discovered that the Poles had terminated their observation as soon as Ruske and Tiede were on the plane. They hadn't expected a hijacking.
After the plane landed, Tiede tossed the pistol out of the aircraft door. American soldiers greeted him with the words: "Welcome to free West Berlin." For them, he was a hero. He shouted into the cabin that anyone who wanted to get off could leave. Then he left the plane, together with Ruske and her daughter. An East German woman sitting in row 15, a radiology assistant from Erfurt, quickly made up her mind and went after them.
Part 3: A Choice between West and East
Some 46 East German citizens stayed behind. In row 12, Schröder's husband whispered that they should get off the plane. He would no longer have to swim across rivers to reach the West. All he had to do was walk through a door.
His wife hesitated. She thought to herself: If I get off now, I'll never see my parents again. She wanted to divorce her husband. Would she still have the courage to do so in the West, where she knew no one? What would she do there? But, then again, she thought: Isn't all of this just a big test, the opportunity of a lifetime? She reflected for a few minutes. Then she jumped up and hurried to the exit with her husband and the children.
Galonska remained seated, just like the other passengers. Later on, the American soldiers took them to a waiting hall in the airport building. Any of them could stay in the West, the Americans said, and the West German police officers and the diplomats said the same thing. For them, the hijacking served as proof that no one liked living in a socialist country. Besides, it was the perfect opportunity to provoke their eastern enemy. Back then, the Americans were convinced that someone who was given a choice between the West and the East, between freedom and captivity, wouldn't have to spend much time thinking about it.
A US officer announced that those who wanted to return home would be taken to East Berlin on a bus. The passengers didn't have much time left. In less than an afternoon, they were being asked to leave everything behind: parents, grandparents, siblings and friends. A decision they would make in only a few hours could mean rejecting an entire life.
Feeling Homesick
Fate had provided her with a challenge, Galonska thought. She went to the ladies' room with her son, placed him on the toilet seat and kneeled in front of him.
We're going to stay here, she said, and soon we'll be able to fly wherever we want to go.
Her son Sasha was nine. He liked airplanes, and he very much liked traveling with his mother. But he also liked their apartment in Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood. He was looking forward to going home, to his room, his books, his toys and his grandparents. He was also excited to see his friends in the building, twin children who were his age and in whose apartment he often spent the night.
Sasha said he wanted to go home.
His mother tried to persuade him, and she even slapped him. He became defiant, defensive and whiny. His mother wanted to leave their home, but he wanted to stay. She had the power, and she could decide that he would go with her. She didn't need to ask him, a nine-year-old boy, what he wanted to do, and she certainly didn't need to do what he demanded.
Six-Hour Interrogation
Six days after the hijacking, Galonska, still a citizen of East Germany and still yearning to leave the country, was interrogated by officials in the investigation division at the Ministry for State Security. What happened while the aircraft was at Tempelhof Airport? What happened during her stay in West Berlin? She answered their questions for six hours and 15 minutes, and told them about the hijacker, the family that got off and didn't come back, and how they were questioned by Western officials inside the airport. She said nothing about her longing, her wanderlust and her doubts.
Of all the East German citizens on board that Tupolev, nine remained in the West: Ingrid Ruske, her daughter and Detlev Tiede; Constanze Schröder, her husband and their two children; and a couple from Leipzig. Nine people out of 50. The radiology assistant from Erfurt was standing in front of East German border guards at the Berlin-Friedrichstrasse border crossing the next day, waiting to cross back to the east.
Part 4: Regrets about Moving to the West
Some 32 years later, Ruske, who now uses her married name Maron, is sitting in a pub in the western part of Berlin. After the hijacking, she was charged with disrupting air traffic, but then the charges were dropped. Her lover, who had been captured by the Stasi, was sentenced to eight years in an East German prison for engaging in organized crime and for forgery of personal and border crossing documents. It wasn't until years later that he decided to marry Ruske. They separated after 11 years, and he died in 2006.
Today Ruske says: "I had no expectations of the West, and it didn't even live up to those." She had had a happier life in East Berlin. Once she was in West Berlin, she trained to become a practitioner of alternative medicine and now provides acupuncture massage and hypnosis in her West Berlin apartment.
Waiting for Her Divorce
When Tiede was released from prison after a few months, he refused to talk about the hijacking unless he was paid to do so. His account eventually led to two novels, a film and a play about Aug. 30 and the period after that. Tiede has made a living from his story, which is the subject of a TV movie to be broadcast on the German broadcaster RTL this year.
Schröder and her husband and children were initially placed in the Marienfelde transit camp for refugees from East Germany. Two days after the hijacking, the Stasi launched Operation "Return." The state reached out to the Schröder family and the couple from Leipzig in a bid to get them to return to their socialist home. The Stasi wanted to know why the two families had fled the system. The East Germans even sent Schröder's father to convince his daughter to return -- but his efforts were in vain.
Constanze Schröder moved to the southwestern city of Mannheim. Her marriage lasted longer than expected. She felt dependent on her husband, she says today, and insists that she would have quickly obtained a divorce if she had stayed in Dresden. She finally filed her divorce papers 11 years ago. Her ex-husband lives on the same street as her in Mannheim. Sometimes, she says, she sees him driving past her living-room window.
Global Lifestyle
For a long time, Galonska thought that her son had forgotten the hijacking. In the late 1980s, the authorities allowed her to visit an uncle in Hamburg, and when she returned home after a week, her son was astonished to see her. "Mommy, you're back?" he asked. He was surprised that his mother hadn't taken advantage of her second opportunity to flee.
After German reunification, she found a job with the agency responsible for maintaining and processing the mountains of files left behind by the Stasi, where she looked into teachers' past connections to the secret police. She began to satisfy her wanderlust, traveling to Florence and Rome, Mexico, Andalusia, Thailand, Cuba, Bali, Ecuador and Indonesia. Today her partner is a musician from Ghana. Galonska is finally leading the global lifestyle she had always dreamed about in East Germany.
Galonska also examined her own Stasi file, which the secret police had opened because of her contacts to artists. The file ended on Aug. 30, 1978, the day of the hijacking. The state no longer felt that it was necessary to observe her.
Let's face it: Hillary Clinton is one hell of a dominatrix.
At first the United States Secretary of State said the Brazil-Turkey mediation to get Iran to accept a nuclear fuel swap was destined to fail. Then the US State Department said it was the "last chance" for an agreement without sanctions. And finally, less than 24 hours after a successful agreement in Tehran, Hillary whips the UN Security Council into submission and triumphantly proclaims to the world a draft resolution for a fourth UN round of sanctions against Iran has been reached.
She framed the drive towards sanctions as "an answer to the efforts undertaken in Tehran over the last few days". Wait a minute. Immediately after a genuine - and fruitful - mediation on a very sensitive dossier by two emerging powers - and honest brokers - in the multipolar world, Brazil and Turkey, Washington and its two European Union allies at the Security Council, France and Britain, torpedo it. Is this what passes for global "diplomacy"? No wonder key US allies Brazil and Turkey, both non-permanent members of the Security Council, and both key regional powers, were fuming after such a public slapping. Brazil at first said it would not even discuss sanctions at the UN. Then Brazil and Turkey sent a formal letter to the UN, asking to be part of the negotiations of the "Iran Six" about the sanctions "to prevent the adoption of measures going against a peaceful solution".
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva - who had personally told Clinton earlier this year that it was "not prudent to push Iran against a wall" - could not help but blast the outdated Security Council, stressing it was not predisposed to negotiations after all. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned the new sanctions package would "spoil the atmosphere".
And Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stressed the move seriously damaged the credibility of the Security Council - not failing to wryly remind everyone of the absurd notion of five nuclear-armed permanent Security Council members seeking to dismantle the legal civilian nuclear program of a developing country.
As for "US credibility", it's biting the dust once again not only as far as Lula and Erdogan are concerned, but across the developing world - the real, flesh and blood "international community" following this interminable charade.
Whipping enrichment to a frenzy Over the past few months, dominatrix Clinton relentlessly accused Iran of rejecting a similar fuel swap agreement proposed by the US last October. That's part of the usual Washington script - to behave with textbook deviousness, insisting sanctions "have nothing to do" with enrichment when only a few weeks ago it was the lack of an enrichment deal that was the key reason for more sanctions.
And it gets worse. As Gareth Porter has revealed (Washington burns its bridges with Iran Asia Times Online, May21, 2010) Washington only proposed a fuel swap last October because it wanted from the start to force Iran to agree to suspend all its uranium enrichment (to which it has a right as per the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But this was never announced publicly.
Iran anyway will continue to produce 20%-enriched uranium (it has a right to it, according to the NPT), and will start the construction of a new enrichment plant about the same size as Natanz's. This is part of a plan to build 10 new plants, announced last year by the Mahmud Ahmadinejad government. Moreover, the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant is under final testing and will be inaugurated this summer. These are irreversible facts on the ground.
Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili, the de facto top Iranian nuclear negotiator, may soon meet with the European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in Turkey. Ashton, the "international community's" designated negotiator, is as representative of global public opinion as a BP press release on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Specially because the EU is bound to issue its own unilateral sanctions against Iran. Same for the US Congress, as Senator Chris Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, has confirmed this week. So apart from the Security Council, Iran will also have to face extra sanctions from the US-led coalition of the willing right-wing, mired-in-decay European poodles.
China and Russia pull a Sun Tzu Ancient Chinese military general, strategist, philosopher and author of The Art of War, Sun Tzu said, "Allow your enemy to make his own mistakes, and don't correct them." China and Russia, both master strategists, are applying this maxim with panache regarding the US.
The current 10-page UN draft sanctions resolution was already diluted to death by permanent members Russia and China - and whatever bellicose language remains will be further shot down at the Security Council by non-permanent members Brazil, Turkey and Lebanon (without unanimity at the Security Council new sanctions are for all practical purposes dead). There's no way Washington can coerce the rest of the Security Council to sign up for a new sanctions round when Iran is actually engaged in cooperation.
As it stands, the current sanctions package punishes Iran's import of conventional arms; curbs imports related to ballistic missiles; freezes assets of key members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps; and sets up cargo inspections in seaports and on international waters. Most of these sanctions are voluntary - or non-binding – and will have zero interference on Iran's global trade of oil and gas.
Beijing and Moscow are not exactly licking Clinton's whip. Immediately after her bombastic announcement, the Chinese ambassador at the UN, Li Badong, said the draft resolution "did not close the doors on diplomacy", once again emphasizing "dialogue, diplomacy and negotiations".
And Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made sure to talk to Clinton over the phone arguing for a deeper analysis of the fuel swap deal mediated by Brazil-Turkey. Lavrov also stressed Russia didn't like one bit the extra US and EU unilateral sanctions. The Russian Foreign Ministry said the unilateral sanctions would include measures "of an extraterritorial nature, beyond the agreed decisions of the international community and contradicting the principle of the rule of the international law, enshrined in the UN charter".
So we have come to a situation whereby a real, Iran-approved nuclear fuel swap is on the table at the International Atomic Energy Agency while an offensive towards sanctions on Iran is ongoing at the UN. Who is the real "international community" going to trust? Erdogan could not have put it better; "This is the time to discuss whether we believe in the supremacy of law or the law of the supremes and superiors ..."
Most of all, what the developing world sees is the past - US, France, Britain, Germany - fighting against the advance of the future - China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia. The global security architecture - policed by a bunch of fearful, self-appointed Western guardians - is in a coma. The "Atlanticist" West is sinking Titanic-style.
We want war and we want it now Only the powerful pro-infinite war lobby in the US is capable of framing a first step towards a full nuclear agreement with Iran as a disaster. That includes the largely discredited pro-Iraq war New York Times (the Brazil-Turkey mediation is "complicating sanctions talk") and Washington Post (Iran "creates illusion of progress in nuclear negotiations").
For the pro-war lobby the Brazil-Turkey-mediated fuel swap is a "threat" because it is on a direct collision course with an attack on Iran (initiated by Israel, then dragging the US) and "regime change" - the never-reneged Washington desire.
At a recent Council on Foreign Relations speech in Montreal, luminary Dr Zbigniew "let's conquer Eurasia" Brzezinski warned that a "global political awakening", along with infighting among the global elite, was something to be deeply feared. The former US national security adviser remarked that "for the first time in all of human history mankind is politically awakened - that's a total new reality - it has not been so for most of human history".
Who do these politically awakened upstarts such as Brazil and Turkey think they are - daring to disturb "our" rule of the world? And then uninformed Americans keep asking themselves "Why do they hate us?" Because, among other reasons, unilateral to the core, Washington does not hesitate to lift its middle finger even to its closest friends.
Periódico La Jornada Domingo 23 de mayo de 2010, p. 32
Si en la cumbre sobre cambio climático que se realizará en Cancún, Quintana Roo, en diciembre próximo las naciones desarrolladas no se comprometen a reducir sus emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero (GEI) en 50 por ciento, el desequilibrio en el medio ambiente podría ser irreparable e irreversible, aseguró Pablo Solón, embajador de Bolivia ante la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU).
Solón agregó que únicamente la presión de movimientos sociales y naciones pobres podrá orillar a los países ricos a tomar conciencia de la situación, y llamó a formar un movimiento en ese sentido.
Jorge Mansilla, Pablo Solón, Alberto Gómez y Kelly Blynn, durante su participación en el foro organizado por La Jornada y Casa Lamm Foto Roberto García Ortiz
La acumulación de GEI en la atmósfera, añadió, tendrá efectos devastadores en la agricultura, el clima y la disponibilidad de agua. Además reducirá la provisión de alimentos y aumentará el número de personas que emigrarán por razones climáticas, a grado tal que la cifra podría superar mil millones. Habrá más sequías e inundaciones, debido al incremento en la temperatura.
En el foro organizado por La Jornada y Casa Lamm, en el que se analizó lo ocurrido en abril pasado en la Cumbre de los pueblos del mundo sobre el cambio climático y los derechos de la madre tierra, realizada en Cochabamba, Bolivia, el diplomático advirtió que, pese a que 80 por ciento de los GEI son emitidos por los países industrializados, las consecuencias las pagaremos todos. En primera instancia, con mayor intensidad, las enfrentarán las naciones pobres, resaltó.
Ante ese panorama dijo que el problema no se puede enfrentar con paliativos y maquillajes, sino que hay que desplegar un nuevo patrón tecnológico y de consumo, lo cual obliga a cambiar el modelo, virar hacia una política que deje de ver la naturaleza como simple proveedor de insumos. Hay que dejar de tratarla como cosa y reconocer que tiene derechos. Si la seguimos tratando como objeto, esto se va a profundizar. También hay que entender que no nos pertenece. Es nuestro hogar, pero sólo somos parte del sistema, no sus dueños. No hay más opción que preservarla.
Alberto Gómez, de Vía Campesina, advirtió que con las sequías, inundaciones e incendios habrá cada vez más hectáreas perdidas para la agricultura, lo que profundizará el acaparamiento de tierras y alzas en los precios de los principales cereales, entre ellos trigo, maíz y arroz.
Expresó que actualmente la agricultura y la ganadería industriales, así como el sistema empresarial de alimentos, generan entre 45 y 57 por ciento de las emisiones globales de GEI. Destacó que Estados Unidos, una de las naciones que se ha negado a ratificar el Protocolo de Kyoto, emite 20.2 por ciento de los GEI.
La ambientalista Kelly Blynn manifestó que antes de la revolución industrial había en la atmósfera 280 partes por millón de bióxido de carbono, y ahora, dos siglos y medio después, está en 390 partes por millón. Advirtió que de no hacerse algo al respecto, la temperatura se incrementará más de los dos grados centígrados previstos durante la tercera década de este siglo.
Jorge Mansilla, embajador de Bolivia en México, criticó que lo acordado en la cumbre de Cochabamba sea denostado y minimizado por los países ricos. Además, que no sea tomado en cuenta para las discusiones de Cancún.
Lamentó que en ese contexto la noticia destacada sobre lo ocurrido en el encuentro en Cochabamba haya sido un comentario del presidente Evo Morales respecto de los supuestos efectos por comer productos (pollos) cargados de hormonas y transgénicos y su relación con desviaciones y calvicie.
Fue un comentario desafortunado y ofreció disculpas, pero nunca dijo que generara homosexualidad. Lo importante era el tema del cambio climático. El presidente puede pedir perdón a los calvos, a los homosexuales e incluso a los pollos, pero nunca al capitalismo, resaltó.
I saw a wonderful cartoon this week, which had two kids (one of whom is holding a needle close to a balloon) approaching a balding middle-aged man reading one of the financial newspapers, with the caption "Watch him jump". Replace the adolescents with today's politicians (actually scratch that, most politicians are still adolescent at least as far as their mental growth is concerned) and the balloon as burst; you have the perfect picture of what happened in the markets.
Anyone looking for the "new normal" doesn't have to look too far from the events that drove this week's trading so far. In summary, academics and economists (reportedly there is a difference between the two) have been searching for a "new normal" for the world economy as it attempts to recover from the crisis of 2007.
What they are missing is that the "new normal" isn't going to be defined by the relative economic growth of various countries or the dynamics of inflation; what will define it (as is increasingly becoming clear) is the return of absolute, gut-wrenching volatility that makes investing a permanent state of siege. In that environment, investor behavior is reactive rather than proactive and surprises abound on both the up and down directions.
Welcome to a new world where the definition of order is a state of continued chaos.
What caused this meltdown?
The primary policy response globally since October 2008 has been Keynesian, that is, to throw good money after bad in the fervent hope that any resulting inflation would help to reduce the present value of debts while creating new asset bubbles that could encourage consumers to return to their big spending ways. For a while, the strategy seemed to have worked, what with all manner of risk assets rising over the course of 2009. The indicator that the financial media are most obsessed with is the stock market; and unfortunately for the headline-writers and other cheerleaders for the global economic "V-shaped-recovery" malarkey, that isn't looking in good health now.
As things stand today (May 20), European stocks (Euro Stoxx) are down 13.35% on average for the year (25% down in US dollar terms) within which there is a significant variance across the various countries - Germany's DAX index is only down 1.5% (15% in US dollar terms) while Greece (-27%) and Madrid (22%) have done horribly. In Asia, the Nikkei is barely flat for the year in US dollar terms while being down 5% or so in the local currency; for the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong the decline is 10.6% for the year. The US stock markets, which led the rally last year, were basically flat for the year on Wednesday; declines on Thursday pushed the S&P index down about 2% for the year.
The first polemic: Buyers of risk have the power in the markets today precisely because governments have abrogated fiscal responsibility. In that context, when you are in charge of a government that needs to borrow tens of billions of dollars from the markets every day, it may be a good idea neither to startle people nor indeed to lecture them. It doesn't look to me that German Chancellor Angela Merkel or President Barack Obama have got this particular memo, for they have done precisely the opposite thing.
The second polemic: Governments around the world and particularly in Europe can pretend that this bout of crisis is all about the evils of hedge funds, speculators, short-sellers and whatever have you; the truth is closer to home. Over-leveraged institutions and indeed instruments are prone to rapid bouts of volatility. Any solutions that fail to address excessive leverage would likely buy time and do nothing else. Governments cannot get away with this bluster much as they try to paint new villains into their own ghastly policy responses.
The third polemic: This relates to the political classes - no offense but do shut up. Buyers of risk (see polemic number one) have no appetite for lectures and have been forced to do more work on ensuring that whatever they buy is worth the trouble from a risk perspective. Add a whole bunch of unrelated political noise to these complex equations - and that means your speeches, my dear politicians - and what you have is the makings of a buyer's strike. And if that happens ... oh well, let's not consider that, okay?
Recent developments This week would certainly never be categorized as "slow news" by any stretch of the imagination. Financial markets were abuzz with developments most of which proved extremely expensive for investors who owned risk (or "long" in the market parlance).
To be sure, there were enough other events that were non-financial: the continued oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the tragic events in Thailand, the escalation of rhetoric between North and South Korea over the torpedo incident and the new nuclear deal signed by Iran to defuse tensions. Unfortunately for investors, all of these events were considered strictly with the jaundiced eyes of those who panic; in other words, all of the above compounded the negative tone of the markets (admittedly most of the above is actually bad news).
A look here at the main developments from a financial perspective: German short-selling ban The biggest mover of the markets was the announcement by Germany on Tuesday to disallow short sales of European government bonds, "naked" credit default swaps (CDS) and the short positions in the stocks of Germany's 10 biggest financial institutions.
Market reaction ranged from the incredulous to the irreverent (example - a popular e-mail carried a fake headline as its subject "Germany bans goals against its team in the World Cup"). There were a lot of details left to be ironed out by the announcement made by the BaFin agency; not the least of which was how the new rules were going to be enforced and its geographical scope. The confusion only deepened when other European countries, including France and the United Kingdom, denied that the rules were applicable across the region.
As things stand, the rules, if adopted across Europe, would carry significant but unintended consequences. Bear with me for a moment here, but the complexity below is necessary to drive home the point about how clueless today's government officials are with respect to the market.
Take the ban on "naked" CDS; under the rules, no one may purchase protection on a European government without owning underlying bonds. Assuming that everyone complies, there is still a very big problem, that is, that while bonds carry pretty much any maturity date, most CDS contracts are set to mature in quarterly intervals (20th of March, June, September and December).
So if you owned a bond that matured on say February 10, 2015, you would want to buy protection close enough to that date; hence to March 20, 2015 - technically, the rules would disallow this CDS because your contract has a "naked short" exposure on the European government for a month longer than its maturity. Well, why couldn't you get a CDS to mature on February 10, 2015 - because the dealers would consider it illiquid and prefer not to trade with you for the date. Your other alternative would be to purchase protection until December 20, 2014; however, in that event, you as the investor would be left with a "naked long" position for 40 days (which, given this year's meltdown in European government debt, would be unacceptable).
The solution then would be for you to purchase a bond that matured exactly on the CDS rollover dates. This would in turn force governments around Europe to issue bonds that only matured on the appropriate CDS contract dates. Imagine a government having maturities of say 50 billion euros in a given year; that would mean going to the markets on just four days of the year with 12.5 billion euros each time (and remember that all other European governments would also be approaching the market for funding on those same days). The net result is that volatility in the bond markets would increase, not decrease due to such maturity concentrations.
(Yes, I am aware that there are many other solutions, but the point here is to highlight linear interpretations of ill-considered laws).
Other regulatory risks Just to make things interesting, regulatory risk has increased manifold over the past week:
The European Union is proposing a comprehensive hedge fund regulation that would target the operations of hedge funds across the continent and also limit the ability of European citizens to invest in hedge funds alongside. This is part of the political noise from Europe in recent days but is thought to have significant (adverse) consequences for market liquidity if it is adopted across Europe and particularly by the UK.
There is the much-discussed financial reform bill in the US that is making its way through the process with more than its share of headlines; it was finally approved in the senate on Thursday and must now be merged with a House of Representatives version. It is expected to be signed off by early July. Among other things, the bill calls for new ways to watch for risks in the financial system and writes new rules for complex securities. It would also impose restraints on the large, interconnected banks and call for proof that borrowers could pay for the simplest of mortgages.
The impetus towards a global bank tax has gathered momentum, with both Germany and the UK proposing different variations of the idea. This is a straightforward negative for the share prices of banks but as it highlights the notion of governments scrambling to impose retrospective taxes obviously to improve their fiscal positions the markets are looking at other sectors, including metals, mining, energy et al.
Poor economic data Forget all the market noise; one can always depend on fundamentals, right? Oh well, not this week. Even as the US produced a surprise deflation print that suggested that sales were only happening at the expense of margins (thereby rendering questionable the market expectations of profits), there was worse news from employment, when claims increased a surprising amount for the week. Elsewhere, the UK produced a surprisingly aggressive inflation print that suggested the counter-effects of the marked decline in the pound sterling for the past few months as the country effectively imported its inflation; this has negative consequences for Europe, where much the same combination of fiscal/quantitative expansion and currency devaluation is happening now.
Commodities, Australia, miners and metals Following from an Australian government's initiative to tax commodity exports in order to buttress its finances, prices have become more volatile both for companies operating in the business and for the actual commodities as financial markets grapple with the potential consequences. There is now elevated risk that other major exporting countries such as Chile, Brazil and Canada may follow suit, in turn making commodity prices more volatile.
The volatility itself is being fed by the decline in stock markets that has created a negative spiral of wealth for individuals, a postponement of large initial public offerings and share placements, including potentially the $25 billion deal mooted by Petrobras; and a general re-rating towards a negative view.
In credit markets, this has translated into significant bouts of panic. A number of large commodity-based companies have large outstanding lines of credit from global banks under which they would be able to draw down billions in funding whenever required. Given that banks are now paying much more for their funding - particularly if they are based in Europe - and the commodity companies have less illustrious future earnings (apparently), the urge to hedge has vastly increased, thereby driving CDS levels sharply wider.
Zero-sum game exposed One of the factors keeping the US and emerging markets ticking away in the beginning of the European sovereign crisis was the notion that market flows represented a zero-sum game, ie that outflows from Europe would help market performance elsewhere.
This has now been exposed as a lie as markets have become more cognizant of two constraining factors - firstly, the economic effect of fiscal tightening being imposed across the continent, which would reduce aggregate demand for exports from the US and emerging markets; and secondly, the collapse of the euro, which dramatically escalates the competitive position of exports from the continent (at the expense of the US and emerging markets).
Thus, rather than a zero-sum game, the decline of Europe simply transmits itself to the rest of the markets as a negative.
The way forward Much as this may seem counter-intuitive, the lesson for governments globally is to do as Germany did, not as they say. If one considers the experience of the country embracing real wage deflation from 2000 to improve its competitiveness and eschewing leverage in favor of a gradual build-up of productivity, it appears almost logical for a number of other countries that have similar demographic situations (much of Europe, the US and others) to follow.
The trick is to avoid listening to the German government as it stands today; where meaningful reforms are being sacrificed at the altar of political expediency in favor of some neighboring countries, such as France. With Germans voting against the current political equations, the rhetoric has become shriller as the attacks on hedge funds and naked shorts make clear.
Markets have woken up to the risks of the excessive debt build-up by governments globally. This will have credit consequences (ie some countries will have to restructure their debts) that then flow to interest rates (as bond yields become steeper or rise) and from there to the rest of the economy (savings will be forced higher, consumption down). These are precisely the objectives that policy responses should have focused on since the beginning of the crisis - it just so happens that when governments avoid tough action, markets go in and do it for them.
The larger lesson is that thanks to the counter-intuitive and eventually counter-productive actions of the Keynesians running global governments today, chaos is the new order; a constant state of crisis is the new normal.
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Autoridades no han realizado pesquisas en San Juan Copala
Sugiere la CCIODH denunciar abusos ante instancias mundiales
La escalada de violencia en San Juan Copala puede aumentar en el periodo electoral, a pesar de lo cual el Estado mantiene su postura de que en el país no hay paramilitares y que los problemas en lugares como la región triqui de Oaxaca se deben a conflictos intracomunitarios. Ante ello, la Comisión Civil Internacional de Observación por los Derechos Humanos (CCIODH) advirtió que dada la desconfianza hacia la justicia mexicana y las instituciones del Estado, el siguiente paso de la sociedad civil es acudir ante organismos como la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos.
Por lo pronto, desde Barcelona, la CCIODH señaló que de no actuar para garantizar la integridad física de los integrantes de la caravana que llegará a San Juan Copala el 8 de junio, los gobiernos estatal y federal serán los responsables de posibles agresiones y ataques que puedan darse.
Triquis en una asamblea en el municipio autónomo de San Juan Copala Foto Marco Peláez/archivo
De hecho, denunció que pese a las declaraciones del presidente Felipe Calderón durante su gira por España, de que se investigaría la agresión a una caravana de observadores de derechos humanos el pasado 27 de abril, de la que resultaron dos personas muertas, la CCIODH advirtió que hasta el día de hoy prevalece una ausencia total de voluntad para castigar esos crímenes con apego a la ley.
En el mismo sentido se expresó Jorge Albino, integrante de la Comisión de Derechos Humanos de San Juan Copala, quien aseguró que ninguna autoridad estatal o federal ha acudido al municipio para realizar indagatoria alguna.
Insistió en que la voluntad de los triquis es mantener el proyecto de autonomía de su municipio, y por eso no se permitirá la instalación de casillas durante las elecciones del próximo 4 de julio.
Dijo que la intromisión de los partidos es la causa de la división en las comunidades. En cualquier caso, como ha ocurrido en ocasiones anteriores, quienes deseen emitir su voto lo podrán hacer en casillas especiales que se instalarán en las comunidades vecinas.
A su vez, la CCIODH recordó que las denuncias sobre violaciones a derechos humanos en la región triqui existen desde hace al menos cuatro años. La propia comisión documentó dichas situaciones en sus recientes dos visitas en 2006-2007 y 2008.
Luego de la emboscada de que fueron víctimas organizaciones civiles nacionales y extranjeras, así como periodistas, y el asesinato del dirigente Timoteo Alejandro Ramírez y su esposa, la comisión advirtió que ante la impunidad que ha prevalecido en la entidad desde 2006, cuando se registraron al menos 26 muertes violentas, existe el riesgo de un incremento en la actividad paramilitar como forma de división, agresión y contención de las causas justas y legítimas de las organizaciones sociales y comunidades indígenas. Lamentablemente, apuntó la CCIODH, no hay indicios de lo contrario.
En estas condiciones, la confianza sólo puede depositarse en la sociedad civil, como la que participará en la caravana humanitaria de observación y solidaridad con el municipio autónomo, a pesar del riesgo que ello supone. La comisión se comprometió a seguir de cerca los acontecimientos y, en su caso, a sumar esfuerzos para lograr una solución justa y duradera al conflicto en la zona triqui.
