New World Ordure
by
George Szamuely
New York Press

1/30/01

Imagine our reaction if one of Dubya’s advisers were arrested in Moscow en route to attend President Putin’s inauguration. The media would be churning out lurid tales of Russian depredations with even greater frenzy than they do already. Imagine, furthermore, that the man was being held without bail, on the basis of an arrest warrant issued in Switzerland referring to crimes allegedly committed in the United States. The White House would announce the resumption of the Cold War and a tripling of the Pentagon budget. We, on the other hand, expect the Russians to keep their mouths shut and endure every indignity we heap on them.

Pavel Borodin was arrested at JFK Airport on his way to George W. Bush’s inauguration. He was a guest of Vincent Zenga, a Florida telecommunications executive who had contributed hefty sums to the Republican Party. Borodin is accused of accepting bribes from two Swiss companies in return for awarding them contracts to renovate the Kremlin. One would have thought the Swiss had other things to worry about than kickbacks in Moscow. Doubtless companies in Moscow pay off whoever needs to be paid off to win contracts. In the United States this strange practice is known as campaign contributions.

The Russians recently dropped the investigation, claiming there was no evidence of corruption. So why this unusual Swiss zeal to get to the bottom of nefarious dealings?

Borodin happens to be Secretary of the Belarussian-Russian Union, the organization in charge of planning the merger of Belarus and Russia. Clinton Administration officials denounced Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko with hysteria bordering on the Milosevic level. His sin cannot be that he is no democrat. U.S. officials have nothing but nice things to say about the assorted dictators of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Their Communist pedigrees are more than outweighed by their eagerness to cooperate with NATO as well as U.S. oil giants building pipelines. "Public opinion" only matters when it comes to Belarus – a country that has resolutely refused to swallow its bitter dose of IMF medicine. No one seriously doubts that the Belarussians want nothing more than to be part of Russia. The United States declared that it would never accept such a merger. Americans know what Belarussians want better than they do themselves.

It is hard to believe the Clinton Administration did not orchestrate Borodin’s arrest. As Borodin’s attorney, Alexander Fishkin, put it: "The arrest warrant is issued on Jan. 10, he receives an invitation to the inauguration on Jan. 13 and a complaint is filed in New York for his arrest on Jan. 17… It could be a coincidence, yes, but it looks too strange to be a coincidence." The U.S. government does not usually move so swiftly just to keep the Swiss happy. Moreover, Bush must have been in on the scheme as well, since the trap made use of a Republican contributor.

This bipartisan U.S. contempt for international norms and constitutional procedures was also on display in the Philippines. A democratically elected leader was overthrown by a military in alliance with a street mob, to secure the interests of business elites, both local and international. Philippines President Joseph Estrada enjoyed considerable popular support. He won the 1998 election with the largest vote total in Philippine history. As an article in the International Herald Tribune put it: "Right up until the overthrow, the polls showed that the majority of Filipinos opposed Mr. Estrada’s impeachment trial for corruption and abuse of power." Congress impeached Estrada and the Senate tried him. By a narrow majority, the senators voted to bar Estrada’s bank records from being used at the trial. We are hardly unfamiliar with such maneuvering. During the Clinton impeachment drama the President’s Democratic supporters tried all manner of things to bring the proceedings to an end.

The military overturned an election result and handed the Presidency to Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo – a bitter political rival of Estrada’s. Business leaders and foreign investors are well-satisfied. Mrs. Arroyo is a leading member of the country’s elite. Her father had once been President. She was a classmate of Bill Clinton’s at Georgetown. "Financial markets rejoiced," according to an AFP story. "Cheers and clapping erupted after the opening bell sounded at the Philippine Stock Exchange trading floor in the Makati financial district – a bastion of the anti-Estrada movement – and buying began in earnest." The United States government, which foams at the mouth about Lukashenko, announced its delight that the crisis in Manila was settled "in accordance with democratic and constitutional procedures."

The coup took place in the waning days of the Clinton era. Yet Bush telephoned Arroyo to congratulate her. She invited him to come to Manila later this year. He said it was a "very good idea." No pressure on her evidently to hold an early election. The IMF, needless to say, also extended its congratulations to Mrs. Arroyo.

We do not as yet know who was behind the murder of Laurent Kabila. The New York Times story announcing his death opened like this: "President Laurent Kabila of Congo, who deposed one of Africa’s great dictators but then brought his country into even worse disarray, was shot and killed today." Kabila never deposed anyone. He was hoisted into power by invading armies from Rwanda and Uganda, both of which were heavily supported and financed by the United States. Clinton had hailed Ugandan leader Yoweri Museveni and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame as a new generation of African leaders. What he meant was that they claimed to believe the free market-free trade pap peddled by Washington and the IMF. The Clinton administration thought Kabila would join the merry band. He didn’t. He wanted the Ugandans and Rwandans to leave Congo. They had no intention of doing so, preferring to plunder diamond mines and massacring the locals. With U.S. encouragement they set out to topple Kabila. Thus the "even worse disarray" referred to by the Times. It is the New World Order. Those who don’t play by its rules end up in prison, overthrown or dead.

Read George Szamuely's Antiwar.com Exclusive Column

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He Dared To Differ
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Closed Ballots
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Whore on Drugs
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Rupert's Hillary
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The Veep's No VIP
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Death of Innocents
6/27/00

NATO's Home Free
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Poll Attacks
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Israel's Powerful Friends
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Defense Against What?
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Long, Hillary Summer
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Communicating Power
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Law as Ordered
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Peculiar Yet Brave
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Arrogance of Power
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Prison Love
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Al the Coward
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All articles reprinted with permission from the New York Press

 

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