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The BIRCH BARK BBS / 414-242-5070
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THE NEW AMERICAN -- October 31, 1994
Copyright 1994 -- American Opinion Publishing, Incorporated
P.O. Box 8040, Appleton, WI  54913     414-749-3784

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ARTICLE: Insider Report
AUTHOR: Staff

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GATT Update

Both the Senate and the House have postponed action on GATT until
late November. Dealing with the treaty after the election will
offer the lame-duck Congress an opportunity to ratify the unpopular
measure without the prospect of voter retribution.

"Silence the Right" Bill Defeated

While occupation troops were "dealing" with Haiti's "undemocratic"
elements, the Clinton Administration's congressional allies sought
to stifle conservative voices in America's political system. S.
349, the "Lobby Disclosure Act," died in the Senate on October 5th
following an intense outcry from religious and social
conservatives. The measure would have required "public disclosure
of the identity and extent of the efforts of paid lobbyists to
influence Federal officials...." The bill defined lobbying
activities to include "grass roots lobbying communications and
communications with members," including "preparation and planning
activities, research and other background work [intended] for use
in [lobbying] contacts...." A "lobbying contact" was defined as
"any oral or written communication" with federal officials
regarding "the formulation, modification, or adoption of Federal
legislation." "Lobbyists" would have been required to register with
a newly created federal office.

The act was written in a fashion calculated to decimate grassroots
activism on the part of religious and social conservatives and
other opponents of "progressive" legislation by making their
constitutionally protected activities subject to federal scrutiny
and pressure. Writing in the October 7th Wall Street Journal, Rick
Wartzman complained that the "interest groups bent on preserving
the status quo have been handed victory after victory." Wartzman
bewailed the "gridlock" and "unabashed obstructionism" which killed
the socialized medicine proposal, the telecommunications bill,
mining law reform revision, and Superfund reform. Christopher Drew
of the Chicago Tribune wrote that the defeat of the lobbying bill
itself "showed why many lawmakers and other critics have become
suspicious of grass-roots campaigns." Drew blamed the "religious
right" for the defeat of "a law meant to expose some of the most
manipulative lobbying tactics, be it spewing out a fog of
misinformation or orchestrating supposedly 'grass-roots' pressure."
Such "special interest" activity, according to Drew, "has brought
gridlock back to Congress and frustrated several of President
Clinton's most highly publicized initiatives."

It should be remembered that what statists refer to as "gridlock,"
the Founders called "checks and balances." The fact that Levin's
act came so close to passage illustrates the extent to which
America's governing elites have embraced unabashedly fascist
assumptions.

Implementation of "Question 46"

U.S. occupation forces in Haiti are engaged in what amounts to a
foreign trial run for implementation of Question 46 from the Combat
Arms Survey. The October 4th Chicago Tribune reported: "To clear
the way for the confiscation of firearms, all gun licenses in Haiti
will be revoked [today], the U.S. command announced. Sen.
Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) said Haiti's civilian gunmen will be
disarmed 'one way or another.'"

The confiscation order apparently also applies to American-owned
property in Haiti. In a literal application of Question 46, U.S.
military personnel in Haiti raided a 30-acre tropical garden which
belongs to American choreographer Katherine Dunham. Cameron
Brohman, a Canadian who witnessed the raid, said, "They came
battle-ready to take a 30-acre terrorist camp with
they-didn't-know-how-big an arms cache. They had aerial maps. There
were tanks, APCs, Humvees." Micka Normil, the manager of the
property, was handcuffed and taken into custody. The estate's
employees were conscripted by the troops to help search the
property for weapons. The full-force raid began when a Haitian
paramilitary activist known as "Boastful Bob" told occupation
forces that the Dunham estate hosted an arms cache. The troops
simply followed the informant's pointing finger.

General Henry Shelton, Joint Task Force commander in Haiti, told
the October 10th U.S. News & World Report, "The UN is totally
integrated in this effort...." In an echo of Senator Dodd's
threats, General Shelton declared: "There are some [Haitians] who
want the status quo to remain, and it's clear a few of them are
trying to subvert the democratic process. We'll deal with them."

To "deal with" the "undemocratic" elements in Haiti, occupation
troops have collaborated with Lavalas mobs to disarm civil and
police authorities. The September 26th Chicago Tribune reported
that a few hours after the occupation forces killed ten Haitian
police in a shootout, "Hundreds of Haitians surged into police
offices and emerged with armloads of weapons.... They piled them
into the street and asked the Marines to take them away."

"Land mine Crisis" and Global Gun Control

In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, the Journal of the Council
on Foreign Relations, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali
declares, "There is today a global land mine crisis" the solution
for which will require (of course) a "concerted global effort."
Boutros-Ghali wants to see land mines classified "in the same legal
and ethical category as chemical and biological weapons."
Significantly, Bill Clinton took up this theme during his September
26th speech at the UN, promising to support an international
protocol which would rid the world of land mines.

There is a sense in which the global "land mine crisis" is a
prelude to global gun registration and confiscation. The UN is
presently seeking to expand the disarmament campaign from "weapons
of mass destruction" (nuclear, chemical, and biological) to other
weapons responsible for "societal destruction." All of this was
prefigured in Clark and Sohn's World Peace Through World Law 36
years ago, which called for comprehensive disarmament, except for
those arms which would remain in possession of the UN "Peace
Force."

The current Foreign Affairs also contains the essay, "Arming
Genocide in Rwanda," by Stephen D. Goose and Frank Smyth. Goose and
Smyth urge immediate global controls on "small arms and light
weapons," which they insist "are used more often than major weapons
systems in human rights abuses and other violations of
international law." Goose and Smyth make a point of condemning "a
particularly egregious light weapon -- the antipersonnel mine."
According to the authors, "Small arms and light weapons ... have
helped undermine peacekeeping efforts and allowed heavily armed
militias to challenge UN and U.S. troops" (emphasis added). This is
an echo of the rhetoric used during the "assault weapons" debate.

According to the authors, "It is increasingly clear that the
proliferation of light weapons is a destabilizing force throughout
the world. Pistols, rifles, machine guns, grenades, light mortars,
and light artillery are the weapons used most often in repressing
civilian populations.... Small arms raise the cost of international
peacekeeping and peacemaking operations. Thus, they endanger not
only internal, but also regional and international stability."

Regarding the "problems of control," the authors state, "Disclosure
of arms transfers is in the interest of the United States and the
international community. Therefore, the first and essential element
of any control mechanism should be to compel as many states as
possible to make their transfers public." Specifically, they
recommend the invigoration of the United Nations Register on
Conventional Arms, which until now has been used "not as a control
measure but as a confidence-building procedure." They suggest, "The
first step should be expanding the register to include light
weapons and small arms." The register presently includes armored
combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery, combat aircraft, attack
helicopters, warships, and missiles; soon it will include rifles
and pistols as well.

In order to achieve "transparency" in arms production and commerce,
Moose and Smyth recommend, "Whatever control mechanism is used, to
be effective it must seek to compel rather than merely request
disclosure.... A nation's willingness to cooperate should be a
prerequisite for its acceptance by the international community."

Talbott's Muted Talks

Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott (CFR) has written
glowingly of world government, but found it expedient to deny
comments attributed to him by officials of the United Nations.
Talbott was caught earlier this year being too candid in meetings
with UN officials about the Clinton Administration's Haiti policy;
these talks included the UN's representative on Haiti, Dante
Caputo, as well as Canada's foreign minister, Andre Ouellet.
(Caputo, by the way, resigned his UN post when U.S. troops went
into Haiti in September. This spring, foreseeing problems, Caputo
remarked: "With Aristide as president during two or three years, it
will be hell!")

Talbott, according to UN minutes and memos, was describing U.S.
policy; Caputo in turn discussed "the United States policy, such as
laid out by Strobe Talbott." The UN rapporteur's notes revealed
that Caputo said that "Haiti represents a test case for which the
United States has to have found a solution before November." In
another memo to UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali, Caputo
reported: "The Americans see in this type of action a chance to
show, after the strong media criticism of the administration, the
President's decision-making capability and firmness of leadership
in international matters"; Americans believe intervention by arms
to be "politically desirable." U.S. officials, said a confidential
memo, believe "the current opposition of public opinion will change
radically once it has taken place."

Questioned by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) in hearings before
the House Foreign Affairs Committee in late September, Talbott
found his recollections quite different from the record. Talbott
said he never used the word "November" with Caputo or anyone else,
and denied that any domestic political considerations were
involved. "I simply cannot fathom exactly what was in those
memoranda or explain to you everything that allegedly was there,"
Talbott claimed. "I've not seen the memorandum myself." Talbott
insisted that he and Caputo just talked about "the dynamics of the
situation itself ... the deteriorating human rights and
humanitarian situation in Haiti."

Was the UN bureaucracy and Canadian foreign ministry really
conspiring to make Talbott look bad? Or should one believe
Talbott's denials? It certainly seems that the Administration
thought, at least this spring, that there might be a popularity
hike with a military move into Haiti.

Owens on Haiti and NWO

Representative Major Owens (D-NY), who has written a proposal
calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment and who believes
there would be celebration in the streets if guns were confiscated
throughout America, was sent into rapture by the Haiti invasion. In
a congressional special order delivered on September 21st, Owens
declared that "what has happened in Haiti is a magnificent landmark
event which sets a higher moral precedent for the new world
order.... In the new world order, the greatness of the
industrialized nations will be measured not so much by the way they
pursue their own obvious self-interest but by their assistance to
the least of the nations among us. In the new world order, the
moral nations who uphold democratic principles will also gain the
greatest amount of influence over the people and markets of the
world."

Owens regards Aristide as a moral exemplar easily comparable with
George Washington -- and then some: "It is very fortunate that
Haiti has Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Aristide has not a single
dishonest bone in his body. Nobody can accuse him ever of
corruption, of wasting the resources of his people. They are quite
fortunate Aristide is a great man. I place him on the same level as
I do Nelson Mandela."

UN Investigating American Indian Tribes

Cuban activist Miguel Alfonso Martinez told a group of American
Indians in Albuquerque, New Mexico on September 17th, "Everywhere,
the practice of nation-states has been to reduce the sovereignty of
indigenous peoples." Martinez is a representative of the United
Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations and is working on
a paper about the oppressive treatment American Indians have been
accorded in the Western Hemisphere.

According to the Albuquerque Journal, Martinez boasted to the
Indian gathering, "It will be my duty to impress on the
nonindigenous people of the world how you see the situation." The
paper will be formally presented before the UN in 1995. Look for
the UN to use the Indian issue -- possibly combined with the
provisions of the Genocide convention -- as reason to begin
interfering in the United States as early as 1997 or 1998.

International Criminal Court

The Congressional Research Service has published a revised version
of the 1990 report, "An International Criminal Court?" Although
neutral in its presentation, the study clearly shows that the
United Nations is gradually pushing toward a standing criminal
court. Noting the February 1993 decision by the UN Security Council
to establish a Yugoslavian War Crimes Tribunal, author Daniel Hill
Zafren states that "before any agreement could be reached on
bringing such a concept to fruition [a standing global court],
nations must garner a sufficient political will not only to accept
any limitation to their sovereignty that such a tribunal might
represent, but also display a willingness to contribute to the
effectiveness of whatever mechanisms that may be established to
further solve international criminal problems."

In this connection it is significant that The New American has
received a copy of a pamphlet which outlines standards for Military
Police. The booklet was sent by a Marine sergeant who wrote, "My
hair stood on end when I received this pamphlet." The document's
cover is pale UN Blue. The cover presents the familiar Marine
Insignia and the title, Peace-Keeping Criminal Justice Standards
for Military Police, U.S. Marine Corps. However, the inside page of
the front cover contains the UN insignia and the title, United
Nations Criminal Justice Standards for Peace-Keeping Police and
explains that the handbook was prepared by the Crime Prevention and
Criminal Justice Branch of the United Nations Office at Vienna.

END OF ARTICLE

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THE NEW AMERICAN -- October 31, 1994
Copyright 1994 -- American Opinion Publishing, Incorporated
P.O. Box 8040, Appleton, WI  54913

SUBSCRIPTIONS: $39.00/year (26 issues)

ATTENTION SYSOPS: Permission to repost articles from The New
American may be obtained from the above address.

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The BIRCH BARK BBS / 414-242-5070
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