The Strange Death of Allan Chappelow

[John Simkin]

Report in the Guardian of how MI6 insisted that parts of the trial were held in secret:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/apr/01/ukcrime.china

A jury was today discharged after failing to reach a verdict in the trial of a financial adviser accused of murdering the reclusive 84-year-old writer Allan Chappelow.

Wang Yam, 46, who claimed to be one of the leaders of the 1989 pro-democracy protests in China that led to the Tiananmen Square massacre, was accused of killing Chappelow at the author's dilapidated £2.5m home in Hampstead, north-west London, in May 2006.

Parts of the two-month trial at the Old Bailey were held in secret for national security reasons, allegedly at the request of MI6, although no further explanation for such sensitivity of the trial was given.

Chappelow, a biographer of the playwright George Bernard Shaw, was found dead, with severe head injuries, beneath a metre-high pile of his own page proofs from Yale University Press, in June 2006.

His face and head had been smashed with a heavy implement. Blood was spattered a metre and a half up the walls and his clothed torso was covered in wax and burns.

For about a month before Chappelow's body was discovered someone had been stealing his post and using information from it to gain access to his bank and credit card accounts.

Yesterday Yam was found guilty, by an 11-1 majority, of obtaining a £20,000 money transfer by deception and of stealing £20 from a bank machine.

Today a jury also convicted him of handling stolen goods in relation to a mobile phone, four blank cheques and cash.

But they were unable to reach verdicts in relation to charges of murder and burglary, as well as a count of stealing mail, and were discharged by the trial judge, Mr Justice Ouseley.

Yam, a British citizen born in China, who was extradited from Switzerland to face trial, is expected to face a retrial at a later date.

The prosecution alleged that Yam killed Chappelow to steal his identity and defraud him of his wealth.

But the defence claimed a criminal gang murdered the author and Yam, who lived a few streets away from Chappelow in Hampstead, denied knowing the writer or ever having been to his home.

Both sides said that there was no forensic evidence linking Yam to the murder.

[Paul Rigby]

Report in the Guardian of how MI6 insisted that parts of the trial were held in secret:

...Parts of the two-month trial at the Old Bailey were held in secret for national security reasons, allegedly at the request of MI6, although no further explanation for such sensitivity of the trial was given.

No great mystery. At one time - circa 1989 - the accused appears to have worked for CIA-MI6; and at a time when so much CIA-MI6 effort is going into the Tibetan project, we really couldn't have an open trial which, potentially at least, threatened to expose the extent of CIA-MI6 support for protests and terrrorism in China:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/feb/06/ukcrime.uknews4

Murder accused 'had fled China witch-hunt'

By Robert Booth

The Guardian, Wednesday, 6 February 2008, p.10

The man on trial for the murder of a reclusive 84-year-old writer was among the leaders of the 1989 pro-democracy protests in China that resulted in the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.

Wang Yam, 46, is accused of bludgeoning Allan Chappelow with a blunt instrument at his north London home in May 2006, stealing his identity and defrauding his bank accounts.

George Robertson QC, for the defence, said Yam came to Britain, via Hong Kong, after he was forced to flee China in the wake of the massacre in 1989 in which 2,000 students were killed.

His grandfather had been one of Mao's "closest comrades" on the Long March and his father was an officer in the Chinese army, Robertson said.

"He studied physics at university successfully because by the age of 27 he had a position teaching at Beijing university and had a masters degree in electrical engineering. He became vice-president of the student body in 1989 ... He became an organiser of the movement for democracy."

"Afterwards there was a witch-hunt. A year or so later ... it was indicated he would have to go to a re-education camp, a coal mine ... He decided to flee as a refugee to Hong Kong. He was accepted in 1992 as an asylum seeker and was naturalised as a British citizen in 1998." For two hours yesterday, the trial was held in private. The judge gave no explanation.

Yam denies murder, breaking into the writer's home, stealing four blank cheques and £20, and the handling of the stolen cheques, a mobile phone and a quantity of mail. He also denies obtaining £20,000 by deception. The trial continues.

Further stories on the case:

http://browse.guardian.co.uk/search?search...;fr=cb-guardian

[Paul Rigby]

No great mystery. At one time - circa 1989 - the accused appears to have worked for CIA-MI6; and at a time when so much CIA-MI6 effort is going into the Tibetan project, we really couldn't have an open trial which, potentially at least, threatened to expose the extent of CIA-MI6 support for protests and terrrorism in China...

Two excellent recent pieces from Global Research contributors on the CIA and Tibet. China, it would appear, is to be "Balkanized," just like Yugoslavia was; and the desire for energy is the primary motive:

Tibet, the 'great game' and the CIA

by Richard M Bennett

Global Research, March 25, 2008

Asia Times

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8442

Given the historical context of the unrest in Tibet, there is reason to believe Beijing was caught on the hop with the recent demonstrations for the simple reason that their planning took place outside of Tibet and that the direction of the protesters is similarly in the hands of anti-Chinese organizers safely out of reach in Nepal and northern India.

Similarly, the funding and overall control of the unrest has also been linked to Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, and by inference to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) because of his close cooperation with US intelligence for over 50 years.

Indeed, with the CIA's deep involvement with the Free Tibet Movement and its funding of the suspiciously well-informed Radio Free Asia, it would seem somewhat unlikely that any revolt could have been planned or occurred without the prior knowledge, and even perhaps the agreement, of the National Clandestine Service (formerly known as the Directorate of Operations) at CIA headquarters in Langley.

Respected columnist and former senior Indian Intelligence officer, B Raman, commented on March 21 that "on the basis of available evidence, it was possible to assess with a reasonable measure of conviction" that the initial uprising in Lhasa on March 14 "had been pre-planned and well orchestrated".

Could there be a factual basis to the suggestion that the main beneficiaries to the death and destruction sweeping Tibet are in Washington? History would suggest that this is a distinct possibility.

The CIA conducted a large scale covert action campaign against the communist Chinese in Tibet starting in 1956. This led to a disastrous bloody uprising in 1959, leaving tens of thousands of Tibetans dead, while the Dalai Lama and about 100,000 followers were forced to flee across the treacherous Himalayan passes to India and Nepal.

The CIA established a secret military training camp for the Dalai Lama's resistance fighters at Camp Hale near Leadville, Colorado, in the US. The Tibetan guerrillas were trained and equipped by the CIA for guerrilla warfare and sabotage operations against the communist Chinese.

The US-trained guerrillas regularly carried out raids into Tibet, on occasions led by CIA-contract mercenaries and supported by CIA planes. The initial training program ended in December 1961, though the camp in Colorado appears to have remained open until at least 1966.

The CIA Tibetan Task Force created by Roger E McCarthy, alongside the Tibetan guerrilla army, continued the operation codenamed "ST CIRCUS" to harass the Chinese occupation forces for another 15 years until 1974, when officially sanctioned involvement ceased.

McCarthy, who also served as head of the Tibet Task Force at the height of its activities from 1959 until 1961, later went on to run similar operations in Vietnam and Laos.

By the mid-1960s, the CIA had switched its strategy from parachuting guerrilla fighters and intelligence agents into Tibet to establishing the Chusi Gangdruk, a guerrilla army of some 2,000 ethnic Khamba fighters at bases such as Mustang in Nepal.

This base was only closed down in 1974 by the Nepalese government after being put under tremendous pressure by Beijing.

After the Indo-China War of 1962, the CIA developed a close relationship with the Indian intelligence services in both training and supplying agents in Tibet.

Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison in their book The CIA's Secret War in Tibet disclose that the CIA and the Indian intelligence services cooperated in the training and equipping of Tibetan agents and special forces troops and in forming joint aerial and intelligence units such as the Aviation Research Center and Special Center.

This collaboration continued well into the 1970s and some of the programs that it sponsored, especially the special forces unit of Tibetan refugees which would become an important part of the Indian Special Frontier Force, continue into the present.

Only the deterioration in relations with India which coincided with improvements in those with Beijing brought most of the joint CIA-Indian operations to an end.

Though Washington had been scaling back support for the Tibetan guerrillas since 1968, it is thought that the end of official US backing for the resistance only came during meetings between president Richard Nixon and the Chinese communist leadership in Beijing in February 1972.

Victor Marchetti, a former CIA officer has described the outrage many field agents felt when Washington finally pulled the plug, adding that a number even "[turned] for solace to the Tibetan prayers which they had learned during their years with the Dalai Lama".

The former CIA Tibetan Task Force chief from 1958 to 1965, John Kenneth Knaus, has been quoted as saying, "This was not some CIA black-bag operation." He added, "The initiative was coming from ... the entire US government."

In his book Orphans of the Cold War, Knaus writes of the obligation Americans feel toward the cause of Tibetan independence from China. Significantly, he adds that its realization "would validate the more worthy motives of we who tried to help them achieve this goal over 40 years ago. It would also alleviate the guilt some of us feel over our participation in these efforts, which cost others their lives, but which were the prime adventure of our own."

Despite the lack of official support it is still widely rumored that the CIA were involved, if only by proxy, in another failed revolt in October 1987, the unrest that followed and the consequent Chinese repression continuing till May 1993.

The timing for another serious attempt to destabilize Chinese rule in Tibet would appear to be right for the CIA and Langley will undoubtedly keep all its options open.

China is faced with significant problems, with the Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province; the activities of the Falun Gong among many other dissident groups and of course growing concern over the security of the Summer Olympic Games in August.

China is viewed by Washington as a major threat, both economic and military, not just in Asia, but in Africa and Latin America as well.

The CIA also views China as being "unhelpful" in the "war on terror", with little or no cooperation being offered and nothing positive being done to stop the flow of arms and men from Muslim areas of western China to support Islamic extremist movements in Afghanistan and Central Asian states.

To many in Washington, this may seem the ideal opportunity to knock the Beijing government off balance as Tibet is still seen as China's potential weak spot.

The CIA will undoubtedly ensure that its fingerprints are not discovered all over this growing revolt. Cut-outs and proxies will be used among the Tibetan exiles in Nepal and India's northern border areas.

Indeed, the CIA can expect a significant level of support from a number of security organizations in both India and Nepal and will have no trouble in providing the resistance movement with advice, money and above all, publicity.

However, not until the unrest shows any genuine signs of becoming an open revolt by the great mass of ethnic Tibetans against the Han Chinese and Hui Muslims will any weapons be allowed to appear.

Large quantities of former Eastern bloc small arms and explosives have been reportedly smuggled into Tibet over the past 30 years, but these are likely to remain safely hidden until the right opportunity presents itself.

The weapons have been acquired on the world markets or from stocks captured by US or Israeli forces. They have been sanitized and are deniable, untraceable back to the CIA.

Weapons of this nature also have the advantage of being interchangeable with those used by the Chinese armed forces and of course use the same ammunition, easing the problem of resupply during any future conflict.

Though official support for the Tibetan resistance ended 30 years ago, the CIA has kept open its lines of communications and still funds much of the Tibetan Freedom movement.

So is the CIA once again playing the "great game" in Tibet?

It certainly has the capability, with a significant intelligence and paramilitary presence in the region. Major bases exist in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and several Central Asian states.

It cannot be doubted that it has an interest in undermining China, as well as the more obvious target of Iran.

So the probable answer is yes, and indeed it would be rather surprising if the CIA was not taking more than just a passing interest in Tibet. That is after all what it is paid to do.

Since September 11, 2001, there has been a sea-change in US Intelligence attitudes, requirements and capabilities. Old operational plans have been dusted off and updated. Previous assets re-activated. Tibet and the perceived weakness of China's position there will probably have been fully reassessed.

For Washington and the CIA, this may seem a heaven-sent opportunity to create a significant lever against Beijing, with little risk to American interests; simply a win-win situation.

The Chinese government would be on the receiving end of worldwide condemnation for its continuing repression and violation of human rights and it will be young Tibetans dying on the streets of Lhasa rather than yet more uniformed American kids.

The consequences of any open revolt against Beijing, however, are that once again the fear of arrest, torture and even execution will pervade every corner of both Tibet and those neighboring provinces where large Tibetan populations exist, such as Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan.

And the Tibetan Freedom movement still has little likelihood of achieving any significant improvement in central Chinese policy in the long run and no chance whatever of removing its control of Lhasa and their homeland.

Once again it would appear that the Tibetan people will find themselves trapped between an oppressive Beijing and a manipulative Washington.

Beijing sends in the heavies The fear that the United States, Britain and other Western states may try to portray Tibet as another Kosovo may be part of the reason why the Chinese authorities reacted as if faced with a genuine mass revolt rather than their official portrayal of a short-lived outbreak of unrest by malcontents supporting the Dalai Lama.

Indeed, so seriously did Beijing view the situation that a special security coordination unit, the 110 Command Center, has been established in Lhasa with the primary objective of suppressing the disturbances and restoring full central government control.

The center appears to be under the direct control of Zhang Qingli, first secretary of the Tibet Party and a President Hu Jintao loyalist. Zhang is also the former Xinjiang deputy party secretary with considerable experience in counter-terrorism operations in that region.

Others holding important positions in Lhasa are Zhang Xinfeng, vice minister of the Central Public Security Ministry and Zhen Yi, deputy commander of the People's Armed Police Headquarters in Beijing.

The seriousness with which Beijing is treating the present unrest is further illustrated by the deployment of a large number of important army units from the Chengdu Military Region, including brigades from the 149th Mechanized Infantry Division, which acts as the region's rapid reaction force.

According to a United Press International report, elite ground force units of the People's Liberation Army were involved in Lhasa, and the new T-90 armored personnel carrier and T-92 wheeled armored vehicles were deployed. According to the report, China has denied the participation of the army in the crackdown, saying it was carried out by units of the armed police. "Such equipment as mentioned above has never been deployed by China's armed police, however."

Air support is provided by the 2nd Army Aviation Regiment, based at Fenghuangshan, Chengdu, in Sichuan province. It operates a mix of helicopters and STOL transports from a frontline base near Lhasa. Combat air support could be quickly made available from fighter ground attack squadrons based within the Chengdu region.

The Xizang Military District forms the Tibet garrison, which has two mountain infantry units; the 52nd Brigade based at Linzhi and the 53rd Brigade at Yaoxian Shannxi. These are supported by the 8th Motorized Infantry Division and an artillery brigade at Shawan, Xinjiang.

Tibet is also no longer quite as remote or difficult to resupply for the Chinese army. The construction of the first railway between 2001 and 2007 has significantly eased the problems of the movement of large numbers of troops and equipment from Qinghai onto the rugged Tibetan plateau.

Other precautions against a resumption of the long-term Tibetan revolts of previous years has led to a considerable degree of self-sufficiency in logistics and vehicle repair by the Tibetan garrison and an increasing number of small airfields have been built to allow rapid-reaction units to gain access to even the most remote areas.

The Chinese Security Ministry and intelligence services had been thought to have a suffocating presence in the province and indeed the ability to detect any serious protest movement and suppress resistance.

Richard M Bennett is an intelligence and security consultant, AFI Research.

The Tibet Card

by Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

Global Research, March 27, 2008

middle-east-online.com

It seems that the US government excels at propaganda for it continues to win over the very people it has betrayed and caused to be killed; buying their trust, it offers a friendship that is only self-serving. Oblivious to the past havoc wreaked by the CIA in Tibet, the innocent gather around the storm, stare into the eye, ready to be sucked into it, says Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich.

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8462

During the Vietnam era, the United States eagerly supported the brutal regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, a man who brutally oppressed the Buddhists; yet today our government has risen in defense of the Dalai Lama and Tibet. Has our sordid history finally led to compassion for the people of Tibet? One must wonder which people we want to protect for there are 41 races in Tibet, including Tibetan, Menpa, Luopa, Han Chinese, Hui, Sherpa, Deng, and so on; although by far, the majority are Tibetans. Perhaps the US is reaching out to the Dalai Lama - again?

It seems that the US government excels at propaganda for it continues to win over the very people it has betrayed and caused to be killed; buying their trust, it offers a friendship that is only self-serving. Oblivious to the past havoc wreaked by the CIA in Tibet, the innocent gather around the storm, stare into the eye, ready to be sucked into it. Not too long ago, the Truman administration attempted to use the young Dalai Lama against China's new Communist regime. The CIA offered to provide him financial support as part of the deal. Its subsidies to the Dalai Lama lasted, at an unspecified level, until 1974. However, the CIA officials seem to have misled the Tibetans into thinking they had American support for the establishment of an independent Tibet. They did not.

Once again, the Tibetans are thinking they have the support of the United States. It should be mentioned that such names as Tom Lantos (a Holocaust survivor) endorsed the promotion of a free Tibet. He also promoted the International Campaign for Tibet, a campaign which receives grants from the National Endowment for Democracy – a State Department operation which engages non-suspecting NGOs to openly do what the CIA did/does. Neoconservative queen, Jean Kilpatrick was pushing The Committee of 100 for Tibet with artists such as Richard Gere as unsuspecting fronts[ii]

What is the reason behind America’s sudden interest in Tibet, the Buddhist ideology of 1649 Dalai Lama preserving animal and nature (we certainly could be preserving nature at home) or is it what is under nature? Tibet has the world’s largest reserve of uranium, and in addition to gold and copper, large quantities of oil and gas were discovered in Qiangtang Basin in western China's remote Tibet area[iii]. A friendly Dalai Lama would help reimburse the CIA subsidies, and much more.

There are other more important factors. Israel’s interest is undeniable. In fact, they have been helping this ancient green land with ‘agriculture techniques’ in recent years[iv]. Elie Wiesel, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor, is recruiting fellow Nobel winners to press China on Tibet. Other notables such as Spielberg have already cooperated, and Sarkozy is considering boycotting the Olympics. One has to ask why these humanitarians are not concerned with the well-being of 1.4 million Palestinians described by the UN and the ICRC as being subjected to worst possible human disaster witnessed.

China has always shown reluctance to impose sanctions on Iran. From an Israeli and American perspective, China became a veritable short-term liability (versus a long term power challenging the US) when Iran and China engaged in talks to allow for a military base for China in one of Iran’s Persian Gulf ports. This was in response to Sarkozy making an announcement that France and the UAE were negotiating a deal in which France would have a small base in that region. Such a cooperation between Iran and China would make Iran less vulnerable to an attack by Israel and/or the United States.

China has far surpassed the United States in Public Diplomacy. During the G.W. Bush presidency, while the world watched in dismay an do-it-alone America that made a blunder at every turn, China, in spite of human rights issues that remain to be resolved, has won ‘hearts and minds’ in South America, Middle East, and Africa. It is attempting to win over its regional neighbors by developing economic, political, and diplomatic relations, and exercising skillful diplomacy.

Engaging China in a Tibet uprising, threatening the public image it has worked so hard to build around the world would distract or dissuade it from building alliances with Iran. Iran must be kept isolated at all costs.

Tel-Aviv hopes that Cheney will push Bush to launch a military attack on Iran, just as he persuaded Bush to attack Iraq. Given that the Iraq tactics are old, new ones have to be sought. As such, many experts suspect that a false flag operation would be required to launch an all out war. In October 2006, when Anti-terrorism officials conducted a helicopter survey of New York City's radiation sources in preparation for a so-called "dirty bomb" attack, they came across an unexpected radiation hot spot which has been kept out of the media as it is a political hot spot – A strong radiation spike from the area of the Israeli Embassy. Officials would not comment on why they thought that particular area showed such a stunning peak in radiation[v].

Can America afford another war? Will the world withstand another assault on humanity?

In 1787, George Washington said: “The power under the Constitution will always be in the people. It is entrusted for certain defined purposes, and for a certain limited period, to representatives of their own choosing; and whenever it is executed contrary to their interest, or not agreeable to their wishes, their servants can, and undoubtedly will, be recalled.”

Let us recall our servants who do not represent us, who do not serve our interest, and who are killing in our name.

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is an Iranian-American studying at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She is a member of World Association of International Studies society, Stanford. Her research focus is US foreign policy towards Iran, Iran’s nuclear program, and influence of lobby groups. She is a peace activist, essayist, radio commentator and public speaker.

Notes:

Jim Mann, Los Angeles Times: Jun 16, 1999. p. 5).

[ii] http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/lib...crs/RL30983.pdf

[iii] http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/nts44532.htm ).

[iv] (http://www.tew.org/archived/agri.israeli.html

[v] http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2006/10/22798.php

[Paul Rigby]

No great mystery. At one time - circa 1989 - the accused appears to have worked for CIA-MI6; and at a time when so much CIA-MI6 effort is going into the Tibetan project, we really couldn't have an open trial which, potentially at least, threatened to expose the extent of CIA-MI6 support for protests and terrrorism in China...

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8656

Is the CIA behind the China-bashing Olympics protests?

By Larry Chin

Global Research, April 11, 2008

Around the world, Beijing’s hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games has become the target of unprecedented, well-orchestrated and extremely hostile mass protests.

Meanwhile, geostrategic realities, and historical and current parapolitical fact, suggest that the protesters and passionate activists (in time-honored form) have once again become the willing dupes, propaganda shills, and street bullies for “causes” created, fronted, and pushed by Anglo-American intelligence agencies (CIA, British intelligence, etc.) that continue to target a government (this time Beijing), in a host of long-term subversion and sabotage plans.

Tibet: imperial pawn

Behind the powerful din created by the popular and celebrity-embraced “Save Tibet,” campaign is the fact that the CIA is behind the Tibet independence movement.

According to many reports, the Dalai Lama himself may be a long-time CIA asset. See The Role of the CIA behind the Dalai Lama's holy cloak and The Tibet Card.

In addition to being geostrategically situated, Tibet is also rich with oil and gas, and minerals -- and this is just part of the larger superpower warfare between the US and China. See Tibet, the "great game", and the CIA.

The legions of pro-Tibet activists also seem largely unaware of the historical fact that the “holy land of compassion” has been a CIA pawn since the end of World War II. The infamous Tolstoi Mission sent CIA operatives into Tibet, with plans to establish it as a US military base, from which the US could control the entire Asian region. This activity flourished under the US-supported, opium-banked Nationalist Kuomintang regime of Chiang Kai-Shek.

When the Communists rose to power, the CIA trained Tibetans in guerrilla tactics to use against the regime in Peking, and thousands of Tibetans lost their lives in these battles. Who benefited? Who really gave the orders then -- and who is driving the agenda now?

There is little doubt that Anglo-American interests continue to use Tibet, exploit the image of Tibet as a holy place under siege, and bamboozle naïve (and well-heeled) outside activists with slick marketing, in order to undermine Beijing.

Denunciations of Beijing’s brutal crackdowns do not take into account the covert operations and outside infiltrations that triggered the crackdowns in the first place.

Outside forces behind Falun Gong

On the surface, and to uncritical eyes, practitioners of the practice of Falun Gong, a school of Chinese qi gong, are the innocent victims of horrific suppression by Beijing. In a situation parallel to the crackdowns in Tibet, it is also a fact that Falun Gong has been the recipient of years of vicious crackdowns and human rights atrocities across China.

But just as is the case with Tibet, there is more to the Falun Gong case than simple persecution. Outside political forces and corporate interests can be found pushing Falun Gong into increasingly political activities, including well-funded, well-organized, and ubiquitous worldwide protests against the Chinese Communist Party.

Among the foreign (predominantly Western) Friends of Falun Gong, we find the likes of Mark Palmer of Freedom House. Freedom House is a quasi-intelligence front created by the CIA-connected Open Society Institute of elite George Soros. In addition to Palmer, Freedom House has counted among its top management the former CIA Director James Woolsey, neocons Bernie Aronson and Diana Negroponte, super elite Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Clinton National Security Advisor Anthony Lake, Clinton Commerce Secretary Stuart Eizenstat, and the late Congressman Tom Lantos and his wife.

Freedom House is backed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which former CIA agent Philip Agee, and many others have amply documented, is a US intelligence apparatus that has been a driving force behind opposition forces (“democracy revolutions”) in many countries.

As pointed out by William Blum in his book, Rogue State, the CIA has created a host of “Trojan horses” such as the NED specifically to subvert foreign countries, under the guise of humanitarianism:

“The NED was set up in the early 1980s under President Reagan in the wake of the negative revelations about the CIA, in the second half of the 1970s . . . The idea was that the NED would do somewhat overtly what the CIA had been doing covertly for decades, and thus, hopefully, eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities.

“It was a masterpiece. Of politics, of public relations and of cynicism.

“The National Endowment for Democracy was set up to 'support democratic institutions throughout the world through private, nongovernmental efforts' . . . In actuality, every penny of its funding comes from the federal government . . . NED likes to refer to itself as an NGO (non-governmental organization). The NED is a 'GO.'

“In a multitude of ways, the NED meddles in the internal affairs of foreign countries . . . In short, NED’s programs are in sync with the basic needs and objectives of the New World Order’s economic globalization, just as the programs have for years been on the same wavelength as US foreign policy.

“The NED, like the CIA before it, calls what it does supporting democracy. The governments and movements whom the NED targets call it destabilization.”

An analysis conducted in 1999 (during the Clinton administration) offers a glimpse of the NED’s role behind a long list of “democracy” fronts -- including Tibet independence and Falun Gong. Just imagine what this list looks like today, in a time of war, spearheaded by the Bush-Cheney milieu.

For legitimate reasons, Beijing clearly suspects US and CIA involvement behind Falun Gong. Denunciations of human rights offenses committed against Falun Gong, however legitimate, are one-sided if they do not also take into account the funding and co-opting of the group by outside political forces.

Manipulation behind Darfur

Similar to the “Save Tibet” movement, the “Save Darfur”/“Stop Darfur Genocide” movement has become a worldwide cause celebre, embraced and trumpeted by a host of Hollywood celebrities and headline-loving political bigwigs, and aggressive activists. While this cause is continuously promoted by propaganda, and one-sided “Hotel Rwanda” type fare, the real geostrategic game being played in Africa is being largely ignored.

China and the US are just one of many nations whose political and corporate interests are battling over which controls the energy spoils in Darfur, and the entire horn of Africa.

It is not just China doing business there. In fact, the Western oil companies have engaged in far more aggressive activities, for many years more.

Darfur is brimming with covert operations, and Anglo-American military-intelligence involvement behind tribal warfare, elections, cross-border military skirmishes, and massacres is undeniable.

In other words, there is a “great game” being played in Africa, just as there is one being played around Tibet. Through propaganda, China is being made into the single arch-villain.

Off-target passions, easily manipulated

Virtually every government on the planet is guilty of human rights abuses, and these abuses deserve to be exposed and protested. But to simplemindedly (and, with more than a little racism thrown in) protest China, based on human rights “causes” created, manipulated, and co-opted by Anglo-American intelligence propaganda is to fall directly into the hands of the exponentially greater violators of human rights all over the world: the United States and its allies.

Indeed, activists and protesters all over the world must ask themselves whose side they are really on, and to whose orders are they marching? The vast majority of both pro- and anti-Chinese protesters fail to acknowledge the complexities underlying their pet causes, or the corruption poisoning the situation from every side.

Far from actually alleviating any suffering in Darfur, Tibet or within China itself, activists are being guided into deepening the suffering; assisting the Anglo-American empire’s own plans to destabilize and conquer (energy-rich and strategically situated) Africa and (energy-rich and strategically situated) Tibet, and politically hamper Beijing.

China is the target of long-term US military and political aggression. A full-blown superpower conflict is underway. China is being simultaneously used as the labor engine for the world’s capitalist economy, while being geostrategically and militarily encircled. China is also in the process of being financially seized and gutted by the World Trade Organization. Every move made by the Beijing government, particularly for its own stakes in oil and gas, have been violently contested by the Western powers.

China’s attempted rise to the world stage, out of decades of isolation, is headed off by rapacious US-led machinations. Today’s anti-Chinese Olympics protests are simply the latest manifestation.

It is no surprise that US presidential aspirants Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have jumped on the anti-Chinese Olympic boycott bandwagon, joining the worldwide anti-China propaganda noise. It is now politically expedient for all of the presidential nominees, as well as the Bush-Cheney administration, to hammer at Beijing, without bothering to mention the true complexities of US-China politics.

It is tragically ironic that the predominantly Western/developed market-based “Save Tibet” and “Save Darfur” activists and anti-China protesters have done relatively little, if anything to “save themselves.”

Compared to the militant zeal expended against China, relatively little passion or outrage has been aimed at the Bush-Cheney administration. These “activists” would rather focus on “saving those poor Tibetans and Africans,” even as their own human rights, liberties, material assets and well being have been systematically ripped away, by an openly criminal administration that (with the help of a corrupt Supreme Court, Congress, Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, etc.) enjoys absolute unchecked power.

The “Save Tibet,” “Save Darfur,” and “Help Falun Gong” movements are as deceptive as the “war on terrorism.” The “causes” are controlled by Anglo-American intelligence apparatuses and/or co-opted by them, in order to provide the masses with the propaganda justification for wars and intervention, and resource conquest.

The CIA’s “mighty Wurlitzer” has never been more deafening, and the masses are dancing to its tune.

[Mark Stapleton]

I think you might be onto something, Paul. The sudden tsunami of anti-China, pro-Tibet sentiment has the familiar ring of insincerity and opportunism, imo.

Aussie PM Kevin Rudd recently gave China a blunt message regarding human rights in Tibet--in Mandarin, no less:

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,2...546-661,00.html

Alas, if our fearless, recently elected PM was really concerned about human rights, he would surely send an equally blunt message to the Israelis about their treatment of the Palestinians.

He won't, of course.

Edited April 14, 2008 by Mark Stapleton

[Len Colby]

No great mystery. At one time - circa 1989 - the accused appears to have worked for CIA-MI6

So Paul, do you actually have any evidence for that?

Funny if he were part of some 'spooky' plot that wouldn't have managed to get away

[Mark Stapleton]

No great mystery. At one time - circa 1989 - the accused appears to have worked for CIA-MI6

So Paul, do you actually have any evidence for that?

Funny if he were part of some 'spooky' plot that wouldn't have managed to get away

Provocation contrived to alter the tone and content of this thread.

Edited April 14, 2008 by Mark Stapleton

[Paul Rigby]

No great mystery. At one time - circa 1989 - the accused appears to have worked for CIA-MI6; and at a time when so much CIA-MI6 effort is going into the Tibetan project, we really couldn't have an open trial which, potentially at least, threatened to expose the extent of CIA-MI6 support for protests and terrrorism in China...

The text below is buttressed by a number of photos, maps, and links that considerably enhance the piece and reward a visit. Click on the link to see them:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8673

China and America: The Tibet Human Rights PsyOp

By Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, April 13, 2008

The human rights issue has become the centerfold of media disinformation.

China is no model of human rights but neither are the US and its indefectible British ally, responsible for extensive war crimes and human rights violations in Iraq and around the World. The US and its allies, which uphold the practice of torture, political assassinations and the establishment of secret detention camps, continue to be presented to public opinion as a model of Western democracy to be emulated by developing countries, in contrast to Russia, Iran, North Korea and the People's Republic of China.

Human Rights "Double Standards"

While China's alleged human rights violations in relation to Tibet are highlighted, the recent wave of killings in Iraq and Palestine are not mentioned. The Western media has barely acknowledged the Fifth "anniversary" of Iraq's "Liberation" and the balance sheet of the US sponsored killings and atrocities perpetrated against an entire population, in the name of a "global war on terrorism".

There are more than 1.2 million Iraqi civilian deaths, 3 million wounded. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) indicates a figure of 2.2 million Iraqi refugees who have fled their country and 2.4 million "internally displaced persons":

"Iraq’s population at the time of the US invasion in March 2003 was roughly 27 million, and today it is approximately 23 million. Elementary arithmetic indicates that currently over half the population of Iraq are either refugees, in need of emergency aid, wounded, or dead." (Dahr Jamail, Global Research, December 2007)

The Geopolitical Chessboard

There are deep-seated geopolitical objectives behind the campaign against the Chinese leadership.

US-NATO-Israeli war plans in relation to Iran are at an advanced state of readiness. China has economic ties as well as a far-reaching bilateral military cooperation agreement with Iran. Moreover, China is also an ally of Russia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in the context of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Since 2005, Iran has an observer member status within the SCO.

In turn, the SCO has ties to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), an overlapping military cooperation agreement between Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan.

In October of last year the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) signed a Memorandum of Understanding, laying the foundations for military cooperation between the two organizations. This SCO-CSTO agreement, barely mentioned by the Western media, involves the creation of a full-fledged military alliance between China, Russia and the member states of SCO/CSTO. It is worth noting that the SCTO and the SCO held joint military exercises in 2006, which coincided with those conducted by Iran. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Russia and Central Asian Allies Conduct War Games in Response to US Threats, Global Research, August 2006)

In the context of US war plans directed against Iran, the US is also intent upon weakening Iran's allies, namely Russia and China. In the case of China, Washington is seaking to disrupt Beijing's bilateral ties with Tehran as well as Iran's rapprochement with the SCO, which has its headquarters in Beijing.

China is an ally of Iran. Washington's intention is to use Beijing's alleged human rights violations as a pretext to target China, an ally of Iran.

In this regard, a military operation directed against Iran can only succeed if the structure of military alliances which link Iran to China and Russia is disrupted. This is something which German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck understood in relation to the structure of competing military alliances prevalent prior to World War I. The Triple Alliance was an agreement between Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Italy formed in 1882. The Triple Alliance ultimately came to an end in 1914, when Italy withdrew from the Triple Alliance and declared its neutrality, leading to the outbreak of World War I.

Encircling China

With the exception of its Northern frontier which borders on the Russian Federation, Mongolia and Kazakhstan, China is surrounded by US military bases.

The Eurasian Corridor

Since the 2001 invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the US has a military presence on China's Western frontier, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S. is intent upon establishing permanent military bases in Afghanistan, which occupies a strategic position bordering on the former Soviet republics, China and Iran.

Moreover, the US and NATO have also established since 1996, military ties with several former Soviet republics under GUUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Moldava). In the post 9/11 era, Washington has used the pretext of the "global war against terrorism" to further develop a U.S. military presence in GUUAM countries. Uzbekistan withdrew from GUUAM in 2002.(The organization is now referred to as GUAM).

China has oil interests in Eurasia as well as in sub-Saharan Africa, which encroach upon Anglo-American oil interests.

What is at stake is the geopolitical control over the Eurasian corridor.

In March 1999, the U.S. Congress adopted the Silk Road Strategy Act, which defined America’s broad economic and strategic interests in a region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia. The Silk Road Strategy (SRS) outlines a framework for the development of America’s business empire along an extensive geographical corridor.

The successful implementation of the SRS requires the concurrent "militarization" of the entire Eurasian corridor as a means to securing control over extensive oil and gas reserves, as well as "protecting" pipeline routes and trading corridors. This militarization is largely directed against China, Russia and Iran.

The militarization of the South China Sea and of the Taiwan Straits is also an integral part of this strategy which, in the post 9/11 era, consists in deploying "on several fronts".

Moreover, China remains in the post-Cold War era a target for a first strike nuclear attack by the US.

In the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), China and Russia are identified along with a list of "rogue States" as potential targets for a pre-emptive nuclear attack by the US. China is listed in the NPR as "a country that could be involved in an immediate or potential contingency". Specifically, the Nuclear Posture Review lists a military confrontation over the status of Taiwan as one of the scenarios that could lead Washington to use nuclear weapons against China.

China has been encircled: The U.S. military is present in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straights, in the Korean Peninsula and the Sea of Japan, as well as in the heartland of Central Asia and on the Western border of China’s Xinjiang-Uigur autonomous region. Moreover, as part of the encirclement of China, "Japan has gradually been amalgamating and harmonizing its military policies with those of the U.S. and NATO." (See Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global Military Alliance: Encircling Russia and China, Global Research, 10 May 2007)

Weakening China from within: Covert Support to Secessionist Movements

Consistent with its policy of weakening and ultimately fracturing the People's Republic of China, Washington supports secessionist movements both in Tibet as wall as in the Xinjiang-Uigur autonomous region which borders onto North Eastern Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In Xinjiang-Uigur, Pakistani intelligence (ISI), acting in liaison with the CIA, supports several Islamist organizations. The latter include the Islamic Reformist Party, the East Turkestan National Unity Alliance, the Uigur Liberation Organization and the Central Asian Uigur Jihad Party. Several of these Islamic organizations have received support and training from Al Qaeda, which is a US sponsored intelligence asset. The declared objective of these Chinese-based Islamic organizations is the "establishment of an Islamic caliphate in the region" (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, America's War on Terrorism, Global Research, Montreal, 2005, Chapter 2).

The caliphate would integrate Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan (West Turkestan) and the Uigur autonomous region of China (East Turkestan) into a single political entity.

The "caliphate project" encroaches upon Chinese territorial sovereignty. Supported by various Wahabi "foundations" from the Gulf States, secessionism on China’s Western frontier is, once again, consistent with U.S. strategic interests in Central Asia. Meanwhile, a powerful U.S.-based lobby is channeling support to separatist forces in Tibet.

By tacitly promoting the secession of the Xinjiang-Uigur region (using Pakistan’s ISI as a "go-between"), Washington is attempting to trigger a broader process of political destabilization and fracturing of the People’s Republic of China. In addition to these various covert operations, the U.S. has established military bases in Afghanistan and in several of the former Soviet republics, directly on China’s Western border.

The militarization of the South China Sea and of the Taiwan Straits is also an integral part of this strategy.(Ibid)

The Lhasa Riots

The violent riots in Tibet's capital in mid-March were a carefully staged event. In their immediate aftermath, a media disinformation campaign supported by political by Western leaders directed against China was launched.

There are indications that US intelligence played a behind the scenes role in what several observers have described as a carefully premeditated operation.(See our analysis below).

The Lhasa event in mid-March was not a spontaneous "peaceful" protest movement as described by the Western media The riots involving a gang of mobsters were premeditated. They had been carefully planned. Tibetan activists in India associated with the Dalai Lama's government in exile "hinted they were indeed expecting the disturbances. But they refuse to elaborate how they knew or who their collaborators were" (Guerilla News)

The images do not suggest a mass protest rally but rather a rampage led by a few hundred individuals. Buddhist monks were involved in the rampage. According to China Daily (March 31, 2008), the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) based in India, considered by China as a "hard-line organization" affiliated to the Dalai Lama, was also behind the violence. The TYC's training camps are funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). (See the text of the Congressional Hearings regarding NED support to the TYC)

CLICK TO VIEW VIDEO OF LHASA RIOTS

Video footage confirms that civilians were stoned, beaten and in some cases killed. Most of the victims were Han Chinese. At least ten people were burned to death as a result of acts of arson, according to statements of the Tibet government. These statements were confirmed by several eyewitness reports. According to a China Daily report:

"five shop assistants at a clothing store were burnt to death before they had any chance to escape. A 1.7-meter-tall man named Zuo Yuancun was torched down to chunks of horrid flesh and skeletons. A migrant worker had his liver stabbed and bled by mobsters. A woman was beaten hard by the attackers and had her ear sliced off." (People's Daily, March 22, 2008)

Meanwhile, the Western media casually described the looting and arson as a "peaceful demonstration" which the Chinese authorities suppressed with the use of force. There are no accurate reports (from Chinese and Western news sources) on the nature of the Chinese police operation launched to repress the riots. Western press reports point to the deployment of more than 1000 soldiers and police in the Tibetan capital.

Businesses, schools were attacked, cars were set on fire. According to Chinese reports, there are 22 dead and 623 injured. "Rioters set fire at more than 300 locations, mostly private houses, stores and schools, and smashed vehicles and damaged public facilities."

The planning of the riots was coordinated with the media disinformation campaign, which accused the Chinese authorities of having instigated the looting and arson. The Dalai Lama accused Beijing of "disguising its troops as monks" to give the impression that Buddhist monks were behind the riots. The claims were based on a four year old photograph of soldiers dressing up as monks in a theatrical stage performance (See South China Morning Post, 4 April 2008).

The mainland newspaper {People's Daily] said the security forces quelling riots in Lhasa could not possibly have been wearing the uniforms shown in the photograph because they were summer uniforms, unsuitable for the cold March weather.

It also said the PAP had changed to new uniforms in 2005, which feature shoulder emblems. The armed officers shown in the photograph were in old-style uniforms which had been phased out after 2005. ... Xinhua said the photograph was taken during a performance years ago, when soldiers borrowed robes from monks before performing on stage. (Ibid)

The Dalai Lama's claim that the Chinese authorities had instigated the riots, quoted in the Western media, is supported by a statement of a former Communist Party official Mr. Ruan Ming who "claims the CCP carefully staged the incidents in Tibet in order to force the Dalai Lama to resign and to justify future repression of the Tibetans. Mr. Ruan Ming was a speechwriter for former CCP General Secretary Hu Yaobang." (quoted in The Epoch Times)

2003 photograph used by the media to accuse China of having deliberately instigated the riots.

"This [2003] photo was apparently made when soldiers were ordered to put on

robes to play as actors in a movie."

See http://buddhism.kalachakranet.org/chinese-...riots-tibet.htm

The Role of US Intelligence

The organization of the Lhasa riots are part of a consistent pattern. They constitute an attempt to trigger ethnic conflict in China. They serve US foreign policy interests.

To what extent has US intelligence played an undercover role in the current wave of protests regarding Tibet?

Given the covert nature of intelligence operations, there is no tangible evidence of direct CIA involvement. However, there are various Tibetan organizations linked to the Tibet "government in exile" which are known to be supported by the CIA and/or by the CIA's civilian front organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

The CIA's involvement in channeling covert support to the Tibetan secessionist movement goes back to the mid-1950s. The Dalai Lama was on the CIA's payroll from the late 1950s until 1974:

The CIA conducted a large scale covert action campaign against the communist Chinese in Tibet starting in 1956. This led to a disastrous bloody uprising in 1959, leaving tens of thousands of Tibetans dead, while the Dalai Lama and about 100,000 followers were forced to flee across the treacherous Himalayan passes to India and Nepal.

The CIA established a secret military training camp for the Dalai Lama's resistance fighters at Camp Hale near Leadville, Colorado, in the US. The Tibetan guerrillas were trained and equipped by the CIA for guerrilla warfare and sabotage operations against the communist Chinese.

The US-trained guerrillas regularly carried out raids into Tibet, on occasions led by CIA-contract mercenaries and supported by CIA planes. The initial training program ended in December 1961, though the camp in Colorado appears to have remained open until at least 1966.

The CIA Tibetan Task Force created by Roger E McCarthy, alongside the Tibetan guerrilla army, continued the operation codenamed "ST CIRCUS" to harass the Chinese occupation forces for another 15 years until 1974, when officially sanctioned involvement ceased.

McCarthy, who also served as head of the Tibet Task Force at the height of its activities from 1959 until 1961, later went on to run similar operations in Vietnam and Laos.

By the mid-1960s, the CIA had switched its strategy from parachuting guerrilla fighters and intelligence agents into Tibet to establishing the Chusi Gangdruk, a guerrilla army of some 2,000 ethnic Khamba fighters at bases such as Mustang in Nepal.

This base was only closed down in 1974 by the Nepalese government after being put under tremendous pressure by Beijing.

After the Indo-China War of 1962, the CIA developed a close relationship with the Indian intelligence services in both training and supplying agents in Tibet." (Richard Bennett, Tibet, the 'great game' and the CIA, Global Research, March 2008)

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED)

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which channels financial support to pro-US opposition groups around the World has played a significant role in triggering "velvet revolutions" which serve Washington's geopolitical and economic interests.

The NED, although not formally part of the CIA, performs an important intelligence function within the arena of civilian political parties and NGOs. It was created in 1983, when the CIA was being accused of covertly bribing politicians and setting up phony civil society front organizations. According to Allen Weinstein, who was responsible for setting up the NED during the Reagan Administration: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." ('Washington Post', Sept. 21, 1991).

The NED provided funds to the "civil society" organizations in Venezuela, which initiated an attempted coup against President Hugo Chavez. In Haiti, the NED supported the opposition groups behind the armed insurrection which contributed to unseating President Bertrand Aristide in February 2004. The coup d' Etat in Haiti was the result of a carefully staged military-intelligence operation. (See Michel Chossudovsky, The Destabilization of Haiti, Global Research, February 2004)

The NED funds a number of Tibet organizations both within China and abroad. The most prominent pro-Dalai Lama Tibet independence organization funded by the NED is the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), founded in Washington in 1988. The ICT has offices in Washington, Amsterdam, Berlin and Brussels. Distinct from other NED funded Tibet organizations, the ICT has a close cozy and " overlapping" relationship with the NED and the US State Department::

Some of ICT’s directors are also integral members of the ‘democracy promoting’ establishment, and include Bette Bao Lord (who is the chair of Freedom House, and a director of Freedom Forum), Gare A. Smith (who has previously served as principal deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor), Julia Taft (who is a former director of the NED, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, has worked for USAID, and has also served as the President and CEO of InterAction), and finally, Mark Handelman (who is also a director of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights, an organization whose work is ideologically linked to the NED’s longstanding interventions in Haiti).

The ICT’s board of advisors also presents two individuals who are closely linked to the NED, Harry Wu, and Qiang Xiao (who is the former executive director of the NED-funded Human Rights in China).

Like their board of directors, ICT’s international council of advisors includes many ‘democratic’ notables like Vaclav Havel, Fang Lizhi (who in 1995 – at least – was a board member of Human Rights in China), Jose Ramos-Horta (who serves on the international advisory board for the Democracy Coalition Project), Kerry Kennedy (who is a director of the NED-funded China Information Center), Vytautas Landsbergis (who is an international patron of the British-based neoconservative Henry Jackson Society – see Clark, 2005), and until her recent death, the “mid-wife of the neocons” Jeane J. Kirkpatrick (who was also linked to ‘democratic’ groups like Freedom House and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies). (Michael Barker, "Democratic Imperialism": Tibet, China, and the National Endowment for Democracy Global Research, August 13, 2007)

Other NED funded Tibet organizations include the Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) referred to earlier. The SFT was founded in 1994 in New York City "as a project of US Tibet Committee and the NED-financed International Campaign for Tibet (ICT). The SFT is most known for unfurling a 450 foot banner atop the Great Wall in China; calling for a free Tibet." (F. William Engdahl, Risky Geopolitical Game: Washington Plays ‘Tibet Roulette’ with China, Global Research, April 2008).

The SFT together with five other Tibet organizations proclaimed last January "the start of a 'Tibetan people's uprising" ... and co-founded a temporary office in charge of coordination and financing." ( Ibid)

"The NED also funds the Tibet Multimedia Center for “information dissemination that addresses the struggle for human rights and democracy in Tibet,” also based in Dharamsala. And the NED finances the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy.(Ibid)

There is a division of tasks between the CIA and the NED. While the CIA provides covert support to armed paramilitary rebel groups and terrorist organizations, the NED finances "civilian" political parties and non governmental organizations with a view to instating American "democracy" around the World.

The NED constitutes, so to speak, the CIA's "civilian arm". CIA-NED interventions in different part of the World are characterized by a consistent pattern, which is applied in numerous countries.

PsyOp: Discrediting the Chinese Leadership

The short-term objective is to discredit the Chinese leadership in the months leading up to the Beijing Olympic games, while also using the Tibet campaign to divert public opinion from Middle East war and the war crimes committed by the US, NATO and Israel.

China's alleged human rights violations are highlighted as a distraction, to provide a human face to the US led war in the Middle East. Moreover, US sponsored war plans directed against Iran are barely acknowledged by the Western media. Moreover, with Tibet making the headlines, the real humanitarian crisis in the Middle East is not front page news.

More generally, the issue of human rights is distorted: realities are turned upside down, the extensive crimes committed by the US and its coalition partners are either concealed or justified as a means to protecting society against terrorists.

A "double standards" in the assessment of human rights violations has been instated. In the Middle East, the killing of civilians is categorized as collateral damage. It is justified as part of the "global war on terrorism". The victims are said to be responsible for their own deaths.

The Olympic Torch

Carefully timed demonstrations on China's human rights violations in Western capitals have been set in motion.

A partial boycott of the Olympic games seems to be underway. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (a strong protagonist of US interests who has a relationship to the Bilderbergs), has called for a boycott of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Kouchner said the idea should be discussed at a meeting of EU foreign ministers

The Olympic torch was lit at a ceremony in Greece, which was disrupted by "pro-Tibet activists". The event was sponsored by "Reporters Without Borders", an organization known to have links to US intelligence. (See, Diana Barahona, Reporters Without Borders Unmasked, May 2005). "Reporters Without Borders" also receives support for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

The Olympic Torch is symbolic. The Psychological operation (PsyOp) consists in targeting the Olympic torch in the months leading up the Beijing Olympic games.

At each phase of this process, the Chinese leadership is denigrated by the Western media.

Global Economic Implications

The Tibet campaign directed against the Chinese leadership could backlash.

We are at the crossroads of the most serious economic and financial crisis of modern history. The unfolding economic crisis bears a direct relationship to the US sponsored military adventure in the Middle East and Central Asia.

China play a strategic role with regard to US military expansionism. So far it has not exercised it Veto power in the United Nations Security Council in relation to the several US sponsored UNSC resolutions directed Iran.

China also plays a central role in the global economy and financial system.

Resulting from an accumulated trade surplus with the US, China's now holds 1.5 trillion dollars worth of US debt instruments (including US Treasury bills). It has the ability to significantly disrupt international currency markets. The US dollar would plunge to even lower levels, were China to sell off its dollar denominated debt holdings.(For further details see: F. William Engdahl, op cit)

Moreover, China is the largest producer of a wide range of manufactured goods which constitute, for the West, a significant share of monthly household consumption. Western retail giants rely on the continued and uninterrupted flow of cheap labor industrial commodities from China.

For the Western countries, China's insertion into the structures of global trade, investment, finance and intellectual property rights under the World Trade Organization (WTO) is absolutely crucial. Were Beijing to decide to curtail its "Made in China" manufacturing exports to the US, America's fragile and declining manufacturing base would not be able to fill the gap, at least in the short run.

Moreover, the US and its coalition partners including the UK, Germany, France and Japan have important investment interests in China. In 2001, the US and China signed a bilateral trading agreement prior to the accession of China to the WTO. This agreement allows US investors, including the major Wall Street financial institutions, to position themselves in Shanghai's financial and trading system as well as in China's domestic banking market.

While China is, in some regards, the West's "cheap labor industrial colony", China's relationship to the global trading system is by no means cast in steel.

China's relationship to global capitalism has its roots in the "Open Door Policy" initially formulated in 1979. (Michel Chossudovsky, Towards Capitalist Restoration. Chinese Socialism after Mao, Macmillian, London, 1986, chapters 7 and 8)

Since the 1980s, China has become the main supplier of industrial goods to Western markets. Any threat against China and/or military venture directed against China's Eurasian allies including Iran could potentially disrupt China's extensive trade in manufactured goods. China's export oriented industrial base is the source of tremendous wealth formation in the advanced capitalist economies. Where does the wealth of the Walton family, owners of WalMart, originate? WalMart does produce anything. It imports cheap labor commodities "Made in China" and resells them in the US retail market at up to ten times their factory price.

This process of "import led development" has allowed the Western "industrialised" countries to close down a large part of their manufacturing outlets. In turn, China's industrial sweat shops serve to generate multibillion dollar profits for Western corporations, including the retail giants, which purchase and/or outsource their production to China.

Any threat of a military nature directed against China could have devastating economic consequences, far beyond the familiar upward spiral in the price of crude oil.

[Len Colby]

No great mystery. At one time - circa 1989 - the accused appears to have worked for CIA-MI6

So Paul, do you actually have any evidence for that?

Funny if he were part of some 'spooky' plot that wouldn't have managed to get away

Provocation contrived to alter the tone and content of this thread.

So if I ask Paul to document a claim that he provided no evidence for it’s “provocation”? And when I ask a question directly related to the topic of the thread I’m hijacking it? I can’t figure out if your “logic” is more reminiscent of Orwell, Kafka or Lewis Carroll.

[Paul Rigby]

So if I ask Paul to document a claim that he provided no evidence for it’s “provocation”?

Len,

I've emailed Langley and if you'll just be a little pat...

No need.

According to the email that's just arrived, CIA and its porter service at Vauxhall Cross applied for the gagging order to protect an on-going operation involving...

George Bernard Shaw and the Fabians.

Well, that settles it.

Paul