sf.indymedia.org by Stephen J. Sniegoski Saturday February 15, 2003 at 03:04 PM
Neoconservatives had for some time prior to September 11, 2001 publicly advocated an American war on Iraq. The 9/11 atrocities essentially provided the pretext for carrying out such an activity.
15 Feb 2003, 11:42 PM www.currentconcerns.ch
by Karmen Selis - Andes Libre News Service Fri, Feb 14 2003, 8:08am address: www.aporrea.org; www.bluegreenearth.com phone: web,master@andeslibre.zzn.com eco@andeslibre.zzn.com
US Addicitons Haunt the World US addictions haunt and terrorize the world: OIL, WEAPONS, DRUGS. US BAD BOYS and their friends in Latin America have held power for decades. Now they are being run out of town by Hugo Chavez, the people of Bolivia and New Ideas. Guns and Money aren’t enough anymore – Hope lives – Struggle Consumes
People of Latin America vs. the Bad Boys of the US Empire
BY KARMEN SELIS at eco@andeslibre.zzn.com
www.vanguardngr.com MOHAMMED NASIRU Sunday, February 16, 2003
PERCEPTIVE watchers of public life and commentators on public affairs in Nigeria must be puzzled at the deepening controversy between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, led by Dr. Jackson Gaius-Obaseki, and the Revenue Mobilization and Fiscal Allocation Commission, headed by Engr. Hamman Tukur, on the management of the nation’s petroleum resource. The NNPC was formed in 1977, to profitably operate in all sectors of the oil industry, while the Revenue Commission was set up to appropriate all revenues accruable to the nation, and allocate same to all tiers of government. Ordinarily, therefore, these two agencies should work together, in generating the revenue, while the other disburses same, for the good of all concerned. In the past few weeks, however, the public has been inundated in the public fora and in the media, by the commission, on how NNPC’s acts of commission and omission may have led to loss of revenue for government. NNPC, on its part, has continued to stridently defend its position, and the confused members of the public, now, really need to be navigated through the issues, so that they can come to judgement as to whether Engr. Tukur’s Commission is doing a honest or hatchet man’s job.
The issues
The issues are two fold. First, Engr. Hamman Tukur’s Commission claims that in 2002, the princely sum of N300 billion got missing from NNPC’s accounts. It arrived at this alarming figure using the following arithmetic: • 60 per cent (presumed government share of crude oil), multiplied by 1.8 million barrels per day (presumed OPEC quota for Nigeria), multiplied by the prevailing international crude oil price, multiplied by the Commission’s designed exchange rate and then compared with NNPC’s declared revenue for same period, yielded, according to it, a shortfall of 200 billion naira. • 445,000 barrels per day of crude oil allocated for domestic consumption, multiplied by prevailing market price, multiplied by the Commission’s articulated exchange rate and then compared with NNPC’s returns on the 445,000 bpd for the same period, yielded also, according to the commission, another shortfall of Nl00 billion, and a + b above, amounted to N300 billion. A cursorily look at this arithmetic by any one remotely familiar with the industry, will reveal the fallacy behind these figures. First, during the period, Nigeria’s OPEC quota was 1.7 million barrels per day, and not 1.8 million barrels. The Commission erroneously or deliberately added 100,000 bpd to Nigeria’s quota to confuse the uninformed. Secondly, (through the NNPC) the Federal government’s share is 53 per cent of Nigeria’s OPEC quota and not 60 per cent. The remaining seven per cent is for indigenous producers whose production also forms part of the OPEC quota. The indigenous producers pay Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT), royalties and other charges from that seven per cent and the balance goes to them as revenue.
Any individual remotely connected with the oil industry will understand these. The Revenue Commission is headed by an Engineer and former Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources. The Commission, therefore, should know, but would seem to have chosen not to know. The Commission also goofed on the 445,000 barrels per day allocation which it assumes as independent of Nigeria’s OPEC quota. But it is not only part of OPEC quota (and therefore has to be subtracted from the 1.7 million barrels per day); some quantities are refined locally and it is only the balance that is sold abroad. Proceeds from these sales go to a special account managed by the CBN, for the sole purpose of funding imports of petroleum products. Now, to the second issue. The Commission says that NNPC’s account with the CBN is both illegal and unconstitutional.
Commission's public posturing
Again, we must examine this, and put the Commission’s public posturing on the balance. Hitherto, government, as sole shareholder, was funding NNPC from first line charge, i.e., from the Federation Account before disbursing revenue to the three tiers of government. But the Supreme Court judgment of April 2002 declared this inappropriate. So, NNPC now went back to the act setting it up as a commercial, profit- oriented enterprise determined to earn profit on the seed money invested by government; and opened an account with the CBN. For, in any normal business, it is impossible to talk of profit, without accounting for the cost of that business; in this case, cash calls to Joint Venture partners for exploitation and production activities. The Commission says the operating cost account is illegal, and, to buttress this, regularly compares NNPC’s operations with agencies like Customs and Immigration Services which collect revenue and pay it to government. But it deliberately fails to realize that these agencies do not generate revenue. They only collect revenue; unlike the NNPC, which engages in international business with joint ventures, and must pay cash calls to partners before it can lay claim to its share of the crude oil. The analogy is rather simple. If Engr. Tukur and Dr. Jackson Gaius-Obaseki for instance, form a joint venture to sink a borehole and sell the water from it to the public, Engr. Tukur cannot legally lay claim to the proceeds from the sale of water, if he refuses to contribute to the drilling of the water well or servicing of the equipment used in pumping out the water.
Efforts: As a detached observer, one would probably have ignored the Commission’s antics as arising from lack of adequate information on the workings of the industry, were it not for some rather curious co-incidences and hard headed rejection of efforts by agencies, of government to reconcile differences between the Commission and the NNPC. The issues of account with CBN and ‘missing’ 300 billion naira broke, shortly after the NNPC said it had no budget to meet the demands of the Commission for sponsorship to Qatar, Indonesia, Malaysia and Venezuela on first class tickets and two months estacode, to go and study the management of oil operations. But even at that, the NNPC, in furtherance of the openness in its business dealings, (I have gained a lot from it’s transparent quarterly publishing of it’s operations account for public consumption), made detailed replies to the Commission’s requests for information on both the crude oil sales and the opening of the account.
The Attorney General of the Federation, Mr Kanu Agabi also wrote to Engr. Tukur’s Commission, saying NNPC’s account with the CBN was both legal and constitutional, but the Commission would not accept, electing in the process, to establish and follow its own laws. The Group Managing Director of NNPC, ever so concerned with the right of public institutions to know, led a powerful delegation to the Commission and for almost a whole day, briefed all members on the Corporation’s activities. Most of the members were convinced, and accepted NNPC’s explanations, but not Engr. Hamman Tukur. The Secretary to the Government of the Federation Chief Ufot Ekaette, led a powerful Federal delegation, made up of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, the Minister of Solid Minerals, the Minister of the FCT and the Group Managing Director of NNPC, to convince the Commission that NNPC is on the right path, yet Engr. Tukur, as an individual, has taken up his anti NNPC stand as a crusade.
In his new posturing, Engr. Tukur pretends to be on the side of the people, by recommending that NNPC should go on massive campaign to lobby all levels and all tiers of government so that they could give part of their allocation back to NNPC as cash call after they collect the allocation from the Federation Account. But, even Engr. Tukur knows that this suggestion is pedestrian as is unworkable. Pray, which local government chairman, State Governor or Ministry will release money to NNPC for its operations after collecting same from the Federation? Is this not such policy that was pursued in the past (during Engr. Tukur’s tenure) which led to over one billion US Dollars in area of cash calls, which the present NNPC Management has cleared, is with interest of over 30 billion naira? Also, since NNPC’s cash call budget is diligently scrutinized by the National Assembly before being passed, what is the fear about NNPC being enabled to pay its cash call commitments through the new account.
The more one ponders on the commission’s position, the more incredible it becomes, that a campaign can be engineered and continued, so effortlessly, and without scruples, against the NNPC, an institution that is a trail blazer and a dividend of our new democracy. Is this campaign against NNPC really for altruistic reasons? The facts on ground certainly do not support this thought. Or is it driven by a personal hidden agenda? Maybe. For, word has it that Engr. Tukur has a 2007 presidential ambition and that rubbishing NNPC, which is the flagship of this administration, will work against a perceived contender for the presidency in 2007 who is a powerful member of this administration. If this theory is true, it is sure to fall flat; for you can never build castles on lies.
•Mallam Nassiru, a Petroleum Economist, resides in 32A, Sofolahan Street, Palm Grove, Lagos.
www.narconews.com Journalists Speak from the Front Lines By Dan Malakoff Narco News Authentic Journalism Scholar February 15, 2003
As the third day of the "Out from the Shadows" drug legalization conference drew to a close, a panel met to discuss one of the most important aspects of the war on drugs: the media.
From left to right, Luis Gómez, Renato Rovai, Gary Webb, Carola Mittrany, Blanca Eekhout, Annie Harrison, and Al Giordano Photo D.R. Jeremy Bigwood 2003
Al Giordano, facilitator of the panel and publisher of Narco News, an online newspaper that covers the drug war from Latin America, opened by saying, "As journalists, we're under threat right now, and just as anyone has to defend themselves from threats, so do journalists. True press freedom is not possible under a system of drug prohibition."
As the conversation evolved between the six panelists, speaking to an audience of about 50, the picture that emerged was of a threat far greater than that posed only by the drug war. The threat of governments and a commercial press emerged as tyrannical in dimension.
Brazilian reporter and film documenter, Carola Mittrany, was the first panelist to speak. She spoke to the inaccessibility of U.S. Embassy officials while co-producing a documentary dealing with the travails of coca growers in Bolivia. Her point: When a government controls the information, fairness in reporting becomes difficult. Her film, "El Tiempo de una Protesta" ("The Time of Protest"), aired before the panel got underway.
Brazilian Renato Rovai, editor of Forum magazine, stood out in his bright red "100% Lula" T-shirt. He picked up where Mittrany left off. "In Brazil," he began, "there is not such a thing as a reporter just in the line of drugs. What there are are reporters who specialize in the use and sale of drugs in the low-income areas."
Renato hit on a theme that echoed throughout: news coverage that characterizes the poor as drug users while ignoring drug use and trafficking among the upper-class.
The next speaker, freelancer Annie Harrison, spoke to her work covering U.S. government operations against California's medical marijuana community. She assailed the mainstream press for poor coverage of the drug war. Stories of people like Ed Rosenthal, who grew medicinal cannabis at the behest of the Oakland City government only to wind up in jail, were not sensational enough on their own to attract reporters, she asserted.
Harrison pointed out that commercial news outlets routinely perform drug tests on journalists applying for work with the perverse effect that "the people who have the most experience with drugs are considered unfit to work in journalism." She added, "I have refused to take the drug tests and it has shaped my career."
The fourth panelist, Gary Webb, has a background that illustrates the courage of journalists who tackle the controversial. In 1996, the Pulitzer-winning journalist published a series of articles that linked the CIA with drug trafficking in South Central, Los Angeles. Pressure built on his editors at the San Jose Mercury Press as much of the mainstream press and the government attacked Webb. His editors retracted Webb's assertions and Webb resigned. After the panel, he said that the convergence of "crack, black neighborhoods, and the government" was too hot for the commercial press to handle.
When it came to Luis Gómez, the Narco News Andean Bureau Chief, the conversation changed to how reporters can combat censorship. His advice was simple: Don't necessarily believe the newspapers or certainly not governments. "You have to go to where the news is happening and interview witnesses," he said.
Blanca Eekhout, the sixth and final panelist, hails from Venezuela's community media. As she told the audience of the three days last April that brought down and then returned Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez to power, the audience was moved to applause. The story of commercial media in Venezuela is that of an elite, profit-driven enterprise, threatened by Chavez's reforms in both Venezuela's media and economic system. After all, Chavez legitimized the community media, its competitor. "Those who give out information to the rest of the world already have this coup d'etat position in their mind." "The interests of the commercial media are different than the people in the poor neighborhoods," she said.
Eekhout, a producer for the community station Catia TV, described the detention and torture of State- and community-press journalists during those three days and how the crisis moved the populace to grab the reigns of communication. "The essential thing was that every man and woman knew they were a communicator. Everyone knew it was his or her duty."
While Giordano concluded the panel, in the opinion of this writer, a consensus had emerged that the real threat to press freedom was not from drug prohibition per se but from governments and commercial media. The solution, Giordano asserted--for anti-prohibitionists and journalists alike--was to put "timidity" and the "inclination for approval" aside in order to create their own media. "Don't be a victim," he said. "Hit back."
Full Disclosure: The author wishes to acknowledge the material assistance, encouragement, and guidance, of The Narco News Bulletin, The Narco News School of Authentic Journalism, publisher Al Giordano and the rest of the faculty, and of the Tides Foundation. Narco News is a co-sponsor and funder of the international drug legalization summit, "OUT FROM THE SHADOWS: Ending Prohibition in the 21st Century," in Mérida, Yucatán, and is wholly responsible for the School of Authentic Journalism whose philosophy and methodology were employed in the creation of this report. The writing, the opinions expressed, and the conclusions reached, if any, are solely those of the author.
Apertura total: El autor desea reconocer la asistencia material, el ánimo y la guía de The Narco News Bulletin, La Escuela de Narco News de Periodismo Auténtico, su Director General Al Giordano y el resto del profesorado, y de la Fundación Tides. Narco News es copatrocinador y financiador del encuentro internacional sobre legalización de las drogas “Saliendo de las sombras: terminando con la prohibición a las drogas en el siglo XXI” en Mérida, Yucatán, y es completamente responsable por la Escuela de Periodismo Auténtico, cuya filosofía y metodología fueron empleadas en la elaboración de esta nota. La escritura, las opiniones expresadas y las conclusiones alcanzadas, si las hay, son de exclusiva responsabilidad del autor
Abertura Total: O autor deseja reconhecer o material de apoio, o propósito e o guia do Boletim Narco News. a Escola de Jornalismo Autêntico, o editor Al Giordano, o restante de professores e a Fundaçáo Tides. Narco News é co-patrocinador e financiador do encontro sobre a legalizaçao das drogas Saindo das Sombras: terminando com a proibiçao das drogas no século XXI em Mérida, Yucatan, e é completamente responsável pela Escola de Jornalismo Autêntico, cuja filosofia e metodologia foram implantadas na elaboraçao desta reportagem. O texto, as opinioes expressadas e as conclusoes alcançadas, se houver, sao de responsabilidade do autor.
www.intelligencer.ca By Henry Bury The Intelligencer Saturday, February 15, 2003 - 10:00
Local News - What started off as another holiday in a Central American country ended up as a living nightmare for a Consecon couple. A string of calamities befell Gudrun and Fred Schwarze — including a serious illness for Fred and many of the other guests, largely on the trip and hailing from Ontario and Quebec — during their trip last month to a resort in Honduras. The illness outbreak forced the couple and others to fly home after only completing one of their two holiday weeks. The couple is now waiting to be reimbursed for their ordeal. “The holiday surely wasn’t what we expected,” Fred Schwarze told The Intelligencer. “We have been in Third World Countries on holidays and we had an idea of what to expect. But this was way out of proportion.” He suffered severe abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting and fever for almost three days; his wife was more fortunate, but she still felt nauseous for almost the entire time there. Many of the other guests fell sick as well to a mysterious illness and were flown home early. The Schwarzes booked their two-week holiday in early December through Sears Travel at the Quinte Mall. Over the past several winters, they had vacationed in such countries as Venezuela, Cuba, Costa Rica and Mexico, as well as Europe and never experienced any problems. So when they read a travel writeup on a holiday in Honduras, they decided to give it a try. “We prefer vacationing away from the hustle and bustle of large resorts with thousands of people,” Fred Schwarze said. They spent $3,800 for a two-week holiday offered by World of Vacations at the new four-star resort, Barcello Palma Real, on the Caribbean Sea in Honduras. Their trip was for Jan. 27 to Feb. 10. Reading the brochures, the Schwarzes knew the 161-room resort was a 90-minute bus trip from the San Pedro Sula airport. But, two days prior to their departure, they received a phone call informing them that the bus trip from the airport to their resort was more than three hours. “If we had known it was a three-hour-plus ride to the resort, we wouldn’t have gone,” he said. “But it was just too late to cancel the trip.” Things got much worse after they arrived at the resort. They had requested a room with a garden view — instead they faced a large parking lot. They said the stench of runoff water from the kitchen at the resort was so bad that it made walking on the narrow beach quite unpleasant. “The hotel itself was nice but the surrounding area was still being developed, including the water park,” he noted. Three days into their holidays, Fred Schwarze became violently ill. He suffered severe cramps and abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting and fever. The Schwarzes estimate that 75 to 80 per cent of the guests at the resort fell ill as well. It got so bad, they said, that World of Vacations, brought a doctor in every day to dispense medication to the guests. “What bothers me,” Fred Schwarze said, “is that the resort had similar problems with people being sick back in December. That was admitted to us by World of Vacations while we were there and they said they thought they had the problem solved. But, unfortunately, it wasn’t.” If they had known about the December illness affecting many vacationers at the resort, “then we would have never gone there,” he said. A Toronto newspaper quoted Brenda McInerney, Ontario general manager for World of Vacations, earlier this month as saying that her organization was cancelling vacations for about 1,700 people who had planned trips to Honduras and was arranging to bring hundreds of holidaymakers home early. She said the cut-off was due to unseasonably wet weather in the Central American country, and that the company was still looking into reports of illnesses. By Friday, Jan. 31, World of Vacations decided to move all the vacationers, including the Schwarzes, to San Pedro Sula and put them up in hotels there. They were told a plane would pick them up Saturday morning. The plane never arrived until Sunday afternoon and took vacationers to Cancun, Mexico. World of Vacations offered the travellers who were on two-week holidays a chance to stay in Cancun for their second week at no additional charge. The Schwarzes declined the offer and were eager to return home. Their plane landed in Montreal to drop off the Quebec travellers and then flew on to Toronto. They arrived Feb. 1 around midnight and began their two-hour drive home. Fred Schwarze said while they were still in Honduras, World of Vacations gave them a written agreement to give travellers who had booked a two-week holiday a full refund. “Sears Travel is still working on getting us the refund,” he said. Gudrun Schwarze did not lay the blame entirely on World of Vacations. “They did their utmost to make us comfortable,” she said. “They did their best to remedy a bad situation.” They brought in doctors to the resort to help the ill, she noted. Her husband took medication to ease his symptoms. “They even offered us a free trip to the Capan Ruins because our plane was a day late coming there,” she said. They took the trip, valued at $165 U.S. each. But Gudrun said she’s not eager to return to Honduras. “It was an eye-opener to see how people exist and have to survive...we are blessed to live in Canada.” Fred Schwarze agreed and added the couple will think twice about where they go on holiday next. “It’s just a bad memory now,” he said. Louise Crandall, communications director for the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies, said in an earlier interview that Honduras is a new vacation destination and there will be problems “and growing pains” as there were for the first vacationers in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. She encouraged consumers to make detailed checks, through their agent, on every aspect of a new destination trip, including the prevailing weather patterns, state of construction of new hotels and all related facilities. They can also contact the Travel Industry Council of Ontario with their concerns.