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The Acts of the Democracies
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Year : 1975
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[Search Acts of the Democracies]
[Why The USA?]
[The UK, USA and Iran] [Readers' Feedback (Democracy)]
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The Acts of the Democracies
Search Results
Year : 1975
13 Items Selected |
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During the various USA bombing campaigns in Vietnam (as well as Cambodia and Laos), over 3,000,000 civilians have died. Over 300,000 soldiers are "missing in action" (MIA).
58,022 Americans were killed in Vietnam.
USA movies tend to show the conflict as an American tragedy with the local people as background. The Vietnamese are referred to as gooks, dinks, and slopes. Soldiers of the National Liberation Front which defeated the world's mightiest superpower are given the name Vietcong or called Indians.
Media articles describe the USA invasion of Vietnam as involvement.
In 1973, USA president, Richard Nixon had signed a secret cease fire agreement with Pham Van Dong, the Prime Minister of the Vietnam government in Hanoi. In this agreement, the USA had agreed to pay $3,250 million in reparations at the end of the war. The money would be used to rebuild Vietnam after 30 years of war against Japan (1940 to 1945), the UK (1945), France (1945 to 1954) and the USA (1954 to 1975).
None of this money has ever been paid. Instead the USA freezes Vietnamese assets of $70 million and later sets up a blockade against the country. Under USA pressure, the World Bank suspends a grant for irrigation that would have increased food capacity.
The USA had used chemical warfare on Vietnam by spraying Agent Orange over large areas. This defoliant contains dioxin which produces cancers and birth defects. Over 50,000 children had been affected. The USA has never paid compensation for health problems produced.
Instead, in 1997, Vietnam would begin to pay the USA $145,000,000 of debts incurred by the USA backed government of South Vietnam after pressure from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The anarchistic regime is responsible for killing up to 2,500,000 people between 1975 and 1979. Cities are emptied and the population relocated to the countryside. Most of the educated people are exiled or killed. Thailand and the Western governments give diplomatic and practical support to this regime because they are opposed to USSR backed Vietnam.
The USA made film, The Killing Fields is based on these events.
A few months later, Indonesia invades and occupies the tiny state, committing many atrocities. The Western countries remain silent during the invasion.
The USA president and Henry Kissinger (USA Secretary of State) visit Indonesia a few days before the invasion. The CIA reports that Indonesia is attempting to "provoke incidents that would provide [them] with an excuse to invade."
Over the next few years, up to 200,000 people are killed, a third of the population. Many villages are wiped off the map. Churches are destroyed or desicrated. The USA, Australia and the UK support the annexation.
The UK ambassador informs his government that "the peoples of Portuguese Timor are in no condition to exercise the right to self-determination."
Henry Kissinger affirms that "the United States understands Indonesia's position on the question [of East Timor]".
The Australian Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, agrees that "the best and most realistic future for Timor was association with Indonesia".
The West continues to sell arms to Indonesia. Western companies, Woodside-Burmah, RTZ, BP, Britsh Gas and Britoil benefit from what they describe as a "favourable political climate".
After being tipped off about the invasion, Richard Woolcott, the Australian ambassador to Indonesia, decides that Australia should "leave events to take their course... and act in a way which would be designed to minimise the public impact in Australia and show private understanding to Indonesia and their problems..."
A radio transmission picked up in Darwin (Australia) describes the invasion:
"The Indonesian soldiers are killing indiscriminately. Women and children are being shot in the streets. We are all going to be killed... This is an appeal for international help. This is an SOS. We appeal to the Australian people... and to all the people of the world. Please help us..."
Philip Liechty, a retired desk officer of the USA's CIA in Indoinesia's capital, Jakarta, describes the events to Australian journalist, John Pilger:
"I saw intelligence that came from hard, firm sources in East Timor. There were people being herded into school buildings and the buildings set on fire. There were people herded into fields and machine gunned, and hunted in the mountains simply because they were there. We knew the place was a free fire zone and that Suharto was given the green light by the United States to do what he did. We sent the Indonesian generals everything that you need to fight a major war against somebody who doesn't have any guns. We sent them rifles, ammunition, mortars, grenades, food, helicopters. You name it, they got it. And they got it direct. Without continued, heavy US logistical military support, the Indonesians might not have been able to pull it off. None of that got out in the media. No one cared. No one gave a damn. It is something that I will be forever ashamed of."
After the invasion, Australia and Indonesia sign the Timor Gap Treaty splitting up East Timor's estimated 7,000 million barells of oil between them.
In the buildup to the invasion, five journalists and cameramen, are killed by Indonesian forces in Balibo. They are Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart (both Australian), Malcolm Renee and Brian Peters (UK), and Gary Cunningham (New Zealand). Another journalist, Roger East, is killed while investigating the murders. The Australian and UK governments issue no formal protest to Indonesia and there is no enquiry into the deaths until 1996.
Many whites (descendents of migrants to the country from Europe) dislike sharing facilities with the blacks (descendents of slaves from Africa). The original inhabitants of the continent are marginalised and have little say in the running of the country.
When Iran reaches an agreement with Iraq and seals the border; the Iraqis kill many Kurds while the USA denies them refuge and ignores their pleas for help. In the Pike Committee hearings, Henry Kissinger explains that "covert action should not be confused with missionary work". At the same hearings the CIA admit that "even in the context of covert action, ours was a cynical enterprise".
"I read the briefing paper for this meeting and it was nothing but human rights. The State Department is made up of people who have a vocation for the ministry. Because there were not enough churches for them, they went into the Department of State!"
During the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, Franco was supported and helped by Adolf Hitler (Nazi Germany), Benito Mussolini (Fascist Italy) and several USA companies (Ford, General Motors and Studebaker) who supplied 12,000 trucks.
Under Franco, all political parties and trade (labour) unions were banned, books were burned, and dissenters were tortured and executed. Between 1939 and 1975, the regime executed 192,684 people.
The USA had supported the country financially.
The Moroccan ruler, King Hassan ll, lives in extreme luxury with 7 palaces, 260 horses, camels, ostriches, zebras, 1000 head of cattle, a 1500 acre dairy farm, and 2 harems. In contrast, 95% of the population lives in abject poverty. Members of the opposition are arrested and tortured.
The government is removed by an executive order from the UK appointed and unelected Governor-General, John Kerr. This follows a vendetta against the Prime Minister by the Rupert Murdoch owned newspaper, The Australian as well as agitation by the USA, UK and the Australian opposition.