- Today, The Washington Post ran the fifth
segment in its series on what transpired within the Bush Cabinet in the
aftermath of September 11. Of particular interest is what CIA Director
George Tenent brought to the table at Camp David last September 15. According
to the article by Bob Woodward and Dan Balz, when Tenent produced a Top
Secret "Worldwide Attack Matrix" that specified targets in 80
countries around the world, he sought unprecedented authority to simply
assassinate foreign terrorists directly or though allied intelligence services.
The CIA even prepared a "Memorandum of Notification" which would
allow the agency to have virtual carte blanche to conduct political assasinations
abroad.
-
- This Memorandum trumped previous mechanisms
by which the President would authorize intelligence actions (but not assassinations)
through individual Presidential Findings. The fail safe mechanisms established
under the administrations of Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I,
and Clinton were simply erased at the urging of Tenent. In light of these
revelations, what was authorized by the President may have led to the assassinations
of a umber of human rights and ethnic leaders not connected in any way
with Al Qaeda but did represent bothersome roadblocks to a number of U.S.
military and corporate interests.
-
- It now seems likely, given the unprecedented
"license to kill" President Bush granted to the CIA, there was
U.S. complicity in the murders of the following individuals. Human rights
commissions and war crime tribunals in Belgium and France should take a
close look at these likely criminal misadventures:
-
- 1. Theys Eluay. Today, the Indonesian
army chief, General Endriartono Sutarto, confirmed in Jakarta that West
Papuan independence leader Theys Eluay was assassinated by Indonesian Army
units after he was kidnapped last November 11. The assassins were members
of KOPASSUS, a special operations unit trained by U.S. Special Forces and
CIA personnel and was involved in massacres in East Timor during the Indonesian
occupation of that country. In 1969, West Papua was formally handed over
to Indonesia by the United Nations after a referendum, now widely recognized
as rigged, determined that the non-Indonesian population wanted to be Indonesian.
Eluay was a thorn in the side of Freeport McMoran, a Louisiana-based mining
company that has pillaged West Papua's natural resources and has been accused
by local activists of propping up local Indonesian army and KOPASSUS officers
with bribes and favors. Henry Kissinger serves as a Director Emeritus on
the board of directors of Freeport and former Louisiana Senator J. Bennett
Johnston, recently identified as a lobbyist for Enron, serves as a full
member of the board.
-
- 2. Abdullah Syafii. On January 22, 2002,
Indonesian army troops assassinated the military commander of the Free
Aceh Movement, Abdullah Syafii. The Free Aceh Movement demands independence
for Aceh, a region in northwest Sumatra, and is a member of the non-violent
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), an international
organization headquartered in the Netherlands. It has also been at loggerheads
with ExxonMobil, which has extensive drilling and refining operations in
the territory. Aceh's Governor Abdullah Puteh, who is claimed by local
activists to be on the payroll of ExxonMobil, had written a letter to Syafii
inviting him to attend peace talks with the government. Syafii's lieutenants
claim that the letter contained a small microchip that permitted Indonesian
KOPASSUS troops to track him down and ambush him. The operation has all
the earmarks of the CIA, which can rely on National Security Agency (NSA)
satellites to track such microchip transponders.
-
- 3. Elie Hobeika. Elie Hobeika was the
head of the Lebanese Forces militia, a right-wing Christian army that was
allied with Israel during its 1982 occupation of Beirut. Although Hobeika
was in charge of the Christian forces that massacred hundreds of Palestinian
men, women, and children at the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps that year,
he had irrefutable evidence that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had
authorized the mass murder in his role as Israeli Defense Minister. An
official Israeli commission of inquiry found Sharon indirectly responsible
for the massacres. Hobeika was going to testify against Sharon at an upcoming
Belgian war crimes tribunal which has already indicted Sharon for the war
crimes. It was that testimony that resulted in Hobeika being silenced by
a Mossad car bomb that exploded near his SUV near Beirut. The bomb killed
Hobeika and his bodyguards. The CIA, now closely allied with Mossad, is
said to have given its approval for the action.
-
- 4. Chief Bola Ige. On December 23, 2001,
Chief Bola Ige, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Nigeria,
was assassinated in the bedroom of his home in Ibadan by unknown gunmen.
Ige was a leader of the Yorubas, a largely Christian ethnic group that
has championed the cause of southern Nigerian Christian tribes like the
Igbo, Ogoni, and Yoruba that maintain grievances against exploitative Western
oil companies that have spoiled their lands with pollution and pocketed
most of the oil revenues for themselves and corrupt Nigerian politicians.
Ige was the presidential candidate of the pan-Yoruba Alliance for Democracy
but lost to the current President Olusegum Obasanjo, a former general who
is thought by many Nigerians to be in the hip pocket of western oil companies,
including Chevron and ExxonMobil. A lucrative CIA and Pentagon front operation,
the private military contractor MPRI, has been training special units of
the Nigerian armed forces. These forces have been active in putting down
anti-oil industry protests by Igbo, Ogoni, and Yoruba tribal peoples along
the Nigerian coast. Michael J. Boskin, the Chairman of the Council of Economic
Advisers under President Bush I is a member of the Exxon Mobil board, while
current National Security Adviser Condolleezza Rice served on the board
of Chevron. Currently serving on Chevron's Board is Bush I trade representative
Carla Hills and former Louisiana Senator Johnston, who also serves on the
board of Freeport McMoran.
-
- In all likelihood all of these assassinations
were likely known to the CIA and allowed to take place unhindered. The
killings all directly benefitted the interests of the US military-industrial
complex that President Eisenhower so poignantly warned us about some 40
years ago.
-
- ****
-
- I more or less predicted the Indonesian
murders a few months ago (just after Tenent received authorization to conduct
assassinations of "terrorists") during an interview with Radio
Singapore International. The transcript of that broadcast follows:
-
- CIA assassination missions - a look into
the implications of this US Foreign policy
-
- Source: Augustine Anthuvan, Newsline,
Radio Singapore International Broadcast date: 30 October 2001
-
- Wayne Madsen, a former Intelligence Officer
at the National Security Agency in Washington with this comment.
-
- When Senator Frank Church had a committee
in the Senate that found out that the CIA was conducting assassination
missions against foreign leaders and they passed very stringent laws against
the CIA to prevent any abuses. And now what we're hearing is that the late
Senator Church went too far. Well Senator Church was responding to some
very severe abuses of authority by the CIA. And now we're hearing basically
history is being changed on us here and we're hearing that Senator Church
went too far in what he did.
-
- And I think its very important now to
understand that these things are all in context and what people like Senator
Frank Church did in the 1970s really still applies today."
-
- If CIA assassination missions are taken
beyond the present operations in Afghanistan to other countries where terrorists
are known to be operating, what sort of repercussions will this present
for country to country relations? A concern I posed to Wayne Madsen.
-
- "Especially in countries in South
East Asia, we have a President who is very much in it with the US multi-national
companies. What if they decide that West Papua independence movement in
Irian Jaya - West Papua - could be a terrorist organization. And they could
decide well we're going to target their leadership for assassination because
they happen to be against the interests of Freeport McMoran - one of the
biggest mining companies in West Papua. Or what if they decide that the
Aceh movement in Northern Sumatra happens to be ÖÖ. to the interests
of Exxon Mobil corporation, and they decide to target their leadership
for assassination. I think this is the problem with this type of wide sweeping
authorization to assassinate foreign leaders. We may find ourselves assassinating
people because they just so happen to be against US interests. "
-
- http://cryptome.org/bush-kills.htm
|
