Che, first revolutionary president of the National Bank of Cuba

By O. Fonticoba Gener

ERNESTO Guevara headed the National Bank of Cuba (BNC) for 456 days. This was possibly the shortest period of time that Che dedicated to a task of such significance and, according to many historians, it is the period least known about his life.

Ernesto Che Guevara

By November 26, 1959, the date on which he assumed the presidency of the BNC, the Cuban bank was in a critical situation. As yet not nationalized and with scant reserves, given that the majority of its assets had been stolen and taken to the United States, the inherited banking system lacked the conditions to promote the newly independent country’s economic and social development.

In this context, the revolutionary government' principal intention was to recover financial control of the banking system and place it in the hands of the state, including the functions of conserving and guarding the monetary funds owned by the National Bank. Naturally, all of this militated against U.S. plans to destabilize the national economy.

The Cuban government’s response to this U.S. proposition was swift. Under Che’s presidency, the flight of hard currency from the country was controlled, the BNC was nationalized, the Organic Bank Law was drafted and the return for counterrevolutionary purposes of capital taken out of the country was avoided.

In this context, the currency exchange operation of 1961 was of particular importance. This financial operation, which took place in just two days and was planned extremely carefully in advance by Che, involved exchanging banknotes in circulation so as to gain control of government cash and prevent monetary resources in the power of counterrevolutionaries who had left Cuba being utilized for conspiring against the country.

Fifty three years after the appointment of the first revolutionary president of the National Bank of Cuba, Che Guevara’s strength of spirit and vision must be acknowledged. As Fidel affirmed at the solemn ceremony mourning his death, "Che constituted the singular case of an extremely rare man, in that he was capable of combining in his personality not only the characteristics of a man of action, but also of a man of thought."

Brazilian megaproject in Mozambique set to displace millions of peasants

The Brazilian government and private sector are collaborating with Japan to push a large-scale agribusiness project in Northern Mozambique. The project, called ProSavana, will make 14 million hectares of land available to Brazilian agribusiness companies for the production of soybeans, maize and other commodity crops that will be exported by Japanese multinationals. This area of Mozambique, known as the Nacala Corridor, is home to millions of farming families who are at risk of losing their lands in the process.
 

Mozambique President Armando Guebuza

The Nacala Corridor stretches along a rail line that runs from the port of Nacala, in Nampula Province, into the two northern districts of Zambézia Province and ends in Lichinga, in Niassa Province. It is the most densely populated region of the country. With its fertile soils and its consistent and generous rainfall, millions of small farmers work these lands to produce food for their families and for local and regional markets.

But now ProSavana proposes to make these same lands available to Japanese and Brazilian companies to establish large industrial farms and produce low cost commodity crops for export. Through ProSavana, they intend to transform the Nacala Corridor into an African version of the Brazilian cerrado, where savannah lands were converted to vast soybean and sugar cane plantations.

Large numbers of Brazilian investors have already been surveying lands in northern Mozambique under the ProSavana project. They are being offered massive areas of land on a long-term lease basis for about US$1/ha per year.

GV Agro, a subsidiary of Brazil's Fundação Getulio Vargas directed by the former minister of agriculture, Roberto Rodriguez, is coordinating the Brazilian investors.

Charles Hefner of GV Agro dismisses the idea that the project will displace Mozambican peasants. He says ProSavana is targeting "abandoned areas" where "there is no agriculture being practiced".

"Mozambique has a tremendous area available for agriculture," says Hefner.  "There is room for mega projects of 30-40,000 ha without major social impacts."

But land surveys by Mozambique's national research institute clearly show that nearly all the agricultural land in the area is being used by local communities.

"It is not true that there is abandoned land in the Nacala Corridor," says Jacinto Mafalacusser, a researcher at the Instituto de Investigação Agrária de Moçambique (IIAM).

Peasants in the area also say there is no room for large-scale farms. On October 11, 2012, local leaders from the National Peasants' Union (UNAC) met in Nampula City to discuss ProSavana. In a declaration from the meeting, the local UNAC leaders say they "are extremely concerned that ProSavana requires millions of hectares of land along the Nacala Corridor, when the local reality shows that such vast areas of land are not available and are currently used by peasants practicing shifting cultivation."

The declaration condemns "any initiative which aims to resettle communities and expropriate the land of peasants to give way to mega farming projects for monocrop production", as well as "the arrival of masses of Brazilian farmers seeking to establish agribusinesses that will transform Mozambican peasant farmers into their employees and rural labourers."

This was the first time the peasant leaders from the areas affected by the ProSavana project had met to discuss it, and for many, it was the first time that they had received any information about what is involved.

"The government invited us to participate in a couple of meetings, but all we were presented was a power point presentation, with no chance to raise questions," says Gregorio A. Abudo, the President of the União Provincial das Cooperativas de Nampula. "We want transparency. We want to know the details."

The governments of Mozambique, Brazil and Japan are now ploughing ahead behind closed doors with a Master Plan for the ProSavana project that they intend to finalise by July 2013. Japan will be funding the construction of infrastructure in the  Nacala Corridor while a representative of the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC) says that GV Agro has secured "lots and lots of money" for a fund that it is managing that will invest in large-scale farms in the area. The ABC representative also says there is a second fund of similar size being managed by others who he would not name. Brazil's national research institute, Embrapa, is building up the capacities of the national research stations in Nampula and Lichinga and bringing in varieties of soybeans, maize and cotton from Brazil to test their adaptability to conditions in the Nacala Corridor.

UNAC says ProSavana is the result of a top-down policy that does not take into consideration the demands, dreams and basic concerns of peasants. UNAC warns that the project will generate landlessness, social upheaval, poverty, corruption and environmental destruction.

For UNAC, if there is to be investment in the Nacala Corridor, or in Mozambique in general, it must be made in developing peasant farming and the peasant economy. This is the only kind of farming capable of creating dignified and lasting livelihoods, of stemming rural exodus, and of producing high-quality foods in sufficient quantities for the entire Mozambican nation.

Stevie Wonder cancels Israeli show

Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder cancelled a performance at a fundraising concert for Israeli soldiers and their families last week.

The music icon, who serves as a United Nations Messenger of Peace, had been due to perform at the Friends of the Israel Defence Forces (Fidf) gala in Los Angeles on December 6.

However, Wonder has now pulled out of the show because of ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the brutal assault and murder of Palestinian women and children by Israel.

He has decided instead to make a donation to charities which help both Israeli and Palestinian children cope with disabilities.

A statement released by Wonder reads, "Given the current and very delicate situation in the Middle East, and with a heart that has always cried out for world unity, I will not be performing at the Fidf Gala on December 6th.

"I am respectfully withdrawing my participation from this year's event to avoid the appearance of partiality. As a Messenger of Peace, I am and have always been against war, any war, anywhere."

In consistently keeping with my spirit of giving, I will make a personal contribution to organizations that support Palestinian and Israeli children with disabilities. Hoping for one world, one people, one day, Stevie Wonder."

Bust of Yasser Arafat unveiled in Havana

By Aliana Nieves Quesada
THE ambassador of the State of Palestine, Akram Samhan, stated on November 21 that his people are living in an exceptional situation due to Israeli acts of aggression, while assuring that "the force of right will prevail over the right of force."

Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat

Speaking during the unveiling in Havana of a bust of Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Revolution, sculpted by Cuban artist Andrés González, the diplomat accused Israeli leaders of trying to prevent Palestine from requesting recognition as an observer state at the UN General Assembly on November 29.

Rodrigo Alvarez Cambras, president of the Cuban-Arab Friendship Association, read a joint statement with the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), condemning the acts of genocide perpetrated against Palestinian territories occupied by Israel.

Alvarez Cambras called on the international solidarity movement with Cuba and Palestine to make full use of the alternative media to denounce these crimes.

During the event, led by José Ramón Balaguer, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party Secretariat and head of its International Relations Department, Kenia Serrano, president of ICAP, noted that despite the brutality with which the Israelis attacked the Mukata (presidential palace) in Ramallah, they were unable to assassinate Arafat, and the media campaign which attempted to discredit him in his people’s eyes only served to increase his status as a man who had become a martyr.

US and hidden Israeli nuke facilities

By Gordon Duff

The project is one of several, moving Israel underground, safe from prying eyes of what is now clearly deep suspicion by “old friends” and genuine outrage by most of the world. We saw this clearly in the aftermath of the Gaza attacks and Israel and America’s staggering defeat at the UN.

Massive construction projects have been discovered that involve nuclear storage facilities, bioweapons labs and silos for nuclear missiles, some supplied by India, with range sufficient to reach key population centers in the United States.

The story was initially broken by Walter Pincus for the Washington Post. Pincus describes in detail the projects paid for by the American taxpayer and contracted out by the Army Corps of Engineers, the organization responsible for construction of the concentration camp known as “Gaza.”

The design is based on NORAD headquarters at Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, built to withstand direct hits of up to 30-megaton thermonuclear warheads. The cost, listed as 100 million dollars for each of what is minimally three such “Fuhrer Bunkers,” will, in actuality, be closer to 20 billion dollars each.

From the Washington Post:

“U.S. overseeing mysterious construction project in Israel

“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to supervise construction of a five-story underground facility for an Israel Defense Forces complex, oddly named “Site 911,” at an Israeli Air Force base near Tel Aviv.

“…the facility is to have… a laboratory, shock-resistant doors, protection from nonionizing radiation and very tight security.

“The 1998 Wye River Memorandum between Israel and the Palestinian Authority has led to about $500 million in U.S. construction of military facilities for the Israelis, most of them initially in an undeveloped part of the Negev Desert.

“…three bases were built to support 20,000 troops, and eventually the Israeli air force moved into the same area, creating Nevatim air base. A new runway, 2.5 miles long, was built there by the Corps along with about 100 new buildings and 10 miles of roads.

“…the Corps has built underground hangers for Israeli fighter-bombers, facilities for handling nuclear weapons (though Israel does not admit having such weapons), command centers, training bases, intelligence facilities and simulators, according to Corps publications.

“…according to the Corps notice, “The employment of Palestinians is also forbidden.”

Army Corps of Engineers, Racist, Political and Religious Crusaders

The Army Corps of Engineers has a long history of unaccountable behavior bordering on “rogue.” They are, within all aspects of American military and government, long “above the law,” seizing land anywhere they choose; unaccountable for expenditures and known to build massive projects that later prove not only useless, but also damaging and even ridiculous.

The massive projects in Israel, funded by “black budget billions,” money previously believed “missing” during Department of Defense Audits, a slush fund of nearly three trillion dollars, are in support of activities never approved and most probably violations of, not just international conventions, but make America complicit in war crimes as well.

We must remember it was the Corps of Engineers that built the wall around Gaza and the guard towers where Israeli snipers fire into what the world now officially recognizes as the free Palestinian State.

Legally, the law, based on the disputed Oslo Accords, which expired in 2000, would require the dismantling of the “Gaza Wall,” a project no different than the Warsaw Ghetto, the Berlin Wall or Buchenwald.

Not only is America restricting employment in what is really a multi-billion dollar project to “slave labor” workers brought in through illegal human trafficking, but the entire project, supervised by the Israeli architectural firm, Ada Karmi Melamende, is under Rabbinical supervision.

From the Army Corps of Engineers description of the mezuzah requirements, the Torahanical parchments that American taxpayers are paying for:

“for each door or opening exclusive of toilets or shower rooms… shall be written in inerasable ink, on… uncoated leather parchment” (done by scribes) “holding a written authorization according to Jewish law.” (written in) Ashkenazik or Sepharadik… not a mixture… (and) …must be uniform

…The Mezuzahs shall be proof-read by a computer at an authorized institution for Mezuzah inspection, as well as manually proof-read for the form of the letters by a proof-reader authorized by the Chief Rabbinate. All Mezuzahs for the facility shall be affixed by the Base’s Rabbi or his appointed representative and not by the contractor staff.”

Nuclear Silos Secure Missiles Aimed at Europe and America?

Along with the multiple bunkers, reminiscent in some ways of those constructed under the Reich Chancellery in Berlin during World War II, believed by most to be the last refuge of Adolf Hitler, the Corps of Engineers, without approval, has built Israel’s missile silos.

However, now that the “sham” of America’s denial of Israel’s nuclear capability is “in the dust,” a question top American journalist Helen Thomas had queried of every American president, the US must not acknowledge full complicity in, not just Israel’s nuclear proliferation violations but advancement of their program from its infancy to a threat to, not just the Middle East but all of Europe and America as well.

Two years ago, it was revealed through multiple official intelligence sources that India’s AGNI 6 ballistic missile system had been pushed forward and had entered the production stage due to the illegal transfer of American technology through Israeli intelligence.

This missile, with a range of over 6,000 miles, carrying ten nuclear MIRV warheads, has been tested and deployed in India and, in accordance with a secret protocol between India and Israel; three units were delivered to Israel.

Along with this, a submarine launched version capable of carrying five nuclear warheads with a range of 4,000 miles has been deployed by both India and Israel and was adapted for the six German built Dolphin submarines Israel was essentially “given.”

The nuclear upgrades were done at the personal orders of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Today Gaza, Tomorrow the World

A statement made by Martin Van Cleveld, taken from Wikipedia and confirmed through the Guardian affirms his assessment on Israeli intentions:

“In a September 2003 interview in Elsevier, a Dutch weekly, on Israel and the dangers it faces from Iran, the Palestinians and world opinion van Cleveld stated:

‘We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force… We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.’”

Cleveld, an internationally respected scholar and professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem is an expert on Middle Eastern affairs and issues of “nuclear blackmail.”

Netanyahu, the Real “Dr. Strangelove”

What is now clear is that Israel is preparing for a nuclear apocalypse, not just for survival, but one they are preparing to start.

What is also clear, more than clear, is that America’s role, building underground labs for biological and chemical warfare and also facilities for “handling nuclear weapons,” as stated by the Washington Post, is one of an active belligerent, a plotter, a full participant in preparations for wars of aggression, wars of Apocalypse.