Yves Engler

By Yves Engler/Georgia Straight/June 2, 2010

Early Monday (May 31) on the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea, at least nine people were killed and dozens more wounded when Israeli soldiers raided a flotilla of ships carrying 10,000 tonnes of humanitarian supplies and more than 600 activists to the Gaza Strip. The activists were trying to break Israel’s three-year blockade of Gaza, which has reduced food and medicine entering the tiny coastal territory to a fraction of what is needed.

Governments around the world strongly condemned Israel’s actions. Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, called the raid “an act of inhumane state terrorism”.

United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon has said that the deaths aboard the flotilla were the result of Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Quoted by AFP, Ban said, “Had Israelis heeded to my call and to the call of the international community by lifting the blockade of Gaza, this tragic incident would not have happened.”

The Canadian government took a much different approach. Only 10 hours after the raid, Stephen Harper held talks with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Ottawa, and Harper’s office simply said it “deeply regrets” the loss of life and injuries. It added: “We are currently looking for more information in order to shed light on what exactly happened.”

Translation: the Harper government is waiting for Israel to decide how exactly to spin this war crime and contravention of international law, the crime being that Israeli commandos attacked ships in international waters and killed civilians.

Beyond making Canada the world’s most pro-Israel country, the Harper government has strongly backed Israel’s onslaught against the 1.5 million people living in Gaza. Canada has refused to criticize the blockade. For example, Canada was the only country at the UN Human Rights Council to vote against a January 2008 resolution that called for “urgent international action to put an immediate end to the siege of the occupied Gaza Strip”. The motion was adopted with 30 votes in favour and 15 abstentions.

Canada has further legitimized Israel’s siege of Gaza by directly participating in it. In early 2009, Canada joined the Gaza Counter-Arms Smuggling Initiative alongside the Netherlands, France, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Italy, and the U.S. “We look forward to continuing work with our partners on the program of action to coordinate efforts to stop the flow of arms, ammunition and related material into the Gaza Strip,” Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said in a June 2009 statement. “By addressing arms smuggling and the continued threat of terrorism through this initiative, Canada continues to contribute to a sustainable peace in the region, along with its international partners.”

Cannon, of course, was not referring to Israel Defense Forces weaponry, which has killed thousands in Gaza. A March 2008 Israeli incursion into Gaza claimed more than 120 lives. In response, 33 members of the UNHRC voted for a resolution accusing Israel of war crimes. Thirteen countries abstained and only Canada opposed the resolution.

Israel unleashed a much greater assault on Gaza in December 2008. Ottawa wholeheartedly supported Israel’s 22-day campaign, which left 1,400 Palestinians dead.

“Canada’s position has been well known from the very beginning. Hamas is a terrorist group. Israel defended itself,” Minister Cannon proclaimed, even though only 13 Israelis died during the campaign (three of whom were civilians).

Ottawa even justified Israel’s killing of 40 Palestinian civilians at a UN–run school in January 2009. Junior foreign affairs minister Peter Kent said, “We really don’t have complete details yet, other than the fact that we know that Hamas has made a habit of using civilians and civilian infrastructure as shields for their terrorist activities, and that would seem to be the case again today.” Kent added that Hamas “bears the full responsibility for the deepening humanitarian tragedy.…In many ways, Hamas behaves as if they are trying to have more of their people killed to make a terrible terrorist point.”

Presumably the “terrible terrorist point” was that the Israeli army brutally murders Palestinian civilians. It’s not hard to prove.

Compared to Ottawa’s cheerleading, most of the world was hostile to Israel’s actions. Many countries criticized the killing of civilians. In solidarity with Gaza, Venezuela expelled Israel’s ambassador at the start of the bombardment and broke off all diplomatic relations two weeks later. Israel didn’t need to worry, since Ottawa was prepared to help out. The Canadian Embassy in Caracas took over Israel’s diplomatic relations there. Canada officially became Israel, at least in Venezuela.

What can we expect this time, after more and more countries expel their Israeli ambassadors? Will Canada become Israel in Turkey? Jordan? Bolivia?

When will the Canadian people wake up and demand that Ottawa stand up for international law and justice for the Palestinian people?

By Yves Engler


High-minded rhetoric aside, Canadian foreign policy is largely designed to serve hegemonic Canadian corporate interests abroad. To bring Canada closer to the status of a “peacekeeper” or “honest broker,” here are some specific policies that the peace and social justice movement should pursue.

1. Immediately withdraw Canada from NATO.

If there was ever any justification for this alliance “to combat the Soviet menace,” two decades after the Cold War it no longer exists.

2. Re-evaluate the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).

Ottawa should begin to evaluate whether its numerous military arrangements with Washington, including NORAD, are necessary. As much as possible Canada should de-link itself from a U.S. military apparatus responsible for untold human suffering.

3. Drastically reduce the size of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Let’s start with a 10 per cent reduction in the military budget each year for the next five years. A Rideau Institute study released in 2008 found that 52 per cent of Canadians want a reduction in military expenditures. Of those polled, 27 per cent wanted programs to continue as planned and only 11 per cent believed in greater military spending (10 per cent had no opinion). The truth, unpalatable as it may be to some, is that there is only one nation on earth that could realistically invade Canada and that is the United States. This is not an argument for a military policy that views our neighbour to the south as a threat, but rather a strong reason for Canada to follow an independent, neutral foreign policy path that works for world peace and justice for all. In the unlikely event that our country ever faced a military threat, our best defence would be widespread respect for international law and the support of millions of people around the world who know Canada is not their enemy.

4. Proclaim that the Canadian Armed Forces will only be used abroad under a UN mandate supported by two-thirds of the 192-member General Assembly, not the Security Council.

Numerous surveys show the vast majority of Canadians support real peacekeeping as the primary goal of our military.

5. Support elected governments and truly democratic movements.

Support for democratic structures and movements must be real, not a cover for advancing Canada’s financial and strategic interests abroad. This means strengthening the capacity of other governments to provide the same sorts of things we expect from our own: education, health care and other public services.

In the name of avoiding corruption, much “aid” is delivered through non-governmental organizations. But rather than supporting private charity, Canadian aid should be targeted at strengthening democratic governments’ ability to deliver services. People become disillusioned with democracy when it does not deliver basic and necessary social services. The best antidote to extremism is responsive, democratic governance that meets the needs of the people and demonstrates its legitimacy on a daily basis.

6. Funnel foreign aid to where it’s needed most, not where Canadian investments are thickest.

Aid should not be tied to buying Canadian commodities or be used as a subsidy to Canadian companies and investors. Improving public education, and ensuring it is free for all, is one of the best ways to help break the poverty cycle. Let’s help poor countries build good public education systems.

Canadian prosperity was built on public utilities that provided safe water, sewage, electricity and communication systems. Let’s help poor countries do the same. Public health systems, including free health care for all, were also a key element in Canada’s development. This too should be a prime objective of Canadian aid.

The Golden Rule, versions of which exist in every culture and religion, is also apt in international affairs. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In other words, before we send aid to another country we should ask ourselves: is what we are paying for, and the manner in which we are doing it, something that we would want to see in Canada? We cannot allow ourselves to do things in the international arena that would draw a penalty on our home ice.

This article first appeared in the May/June 2010 of Briarpatch Magazine.

Despite the widely held belief that Canada is a benevolent international actor, Ottawa usually works to advance this country’s corporate and imperial interests. Torture in Afghanistan, saber rattling on Iran, Israel ‘right or wrong’ and opposition to climate negotiations, are high-profile recent examples that have challenged many people’s assumptions about Canada’s role in the world.
There are many more, less publicized, recent examples of Canadian malfeasance. Over the past 125 years few countries have been more brutally exploited than the Congo. This history, however, does not trouble Ottawa. In mid November Canada opposed the country’s move to gain a greater share of its vast mineral wealth by obstructing international efforts to reschedule the country’s foreign debt, which was mostly accrued during more than three decades of Joseph Mobuto’s dictatorship and the subsequent war.
Canadian officials “have a problem with what’s happened with a Canadian company,” Congolese Information Minister Lambert Mende said referring to the government’s move to revoke a mining concession given to Vancouver-based First Quantum during the 1998-2003 war. “The Canadian government wants to use the Paris Club [of debtor nations] in order to resolve a particular problem. This is unacceptable.”
Ottawa refused to respond directly to allegations that it used the Congo’s indebtedness to gain political concessions for Canadian mining companies. But, Canadian official Me’shel Gulliver Belanger told Reuters, “some Canadian firms have been having significant issues in a challenging investment environment.” After winning concessions that pleased Canada’s many miners in the Congo, Ottawa relented on the debt rescheduling.
Home to Canada’s second most important foreign policy endeavor, Haiti is another country that has borne the brunt of Western, U.S.-led, imperialism over the past century. And Ottawa’s reaction to the terrible earthquake suggests we can expect more of the same. Initial search and rescue focused on places frequented by foreigners and the Haitian elite such as the UN compound and Hotel Montana. At the same time, rescue workers were dissuaded from entering the ‘dangerous’ slum neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince.
Ottawa also militarized its aid effort. Two thousand Canadian troops were deployed while several Heavy Urban Search Rescue Teams were readied but never sent. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon explained that the teams were not needed because “the government had opted to send Canadian Armed Forces instead.”
Overthrown in 2004 by the U.S./France/Canada, Haiti’s most popular political party, Fanmi Lavalas, was barred from participating in parliamentary elections scheduled for February 28 (they were canceled after the earthquake). Excluding the party supported by the country’s poor majority was deemed good for business, which is why Ottawa failed to mention the issue. (Montreal-based Gildan, the world’s largest blank t-shirt maker, is the second largest employer in the country while a number of Canadian mining companies are active there, including Eurasian Minerals which acquired prospecting licenses that cover approximately ten percent of Haiti’s land mass.) Instead of opposing Fanmi Lavalas’ exclusion, Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Catherine Loubier congratulated Haiti’s government for bringing “a period of stabilisation” good for “investment and trade.” Ottawa backed up its words with deeds, adding $15 million to a Haitian prison and police system that has been massively expanded and militarized since the February 2004 U.S./France/Canada coup.
Haiti, the Congo and most other countries in the Global South have long complained about the power of international finance. As a means to regulate speculation in financial markets, in mid November U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown proposed a tiny (ranging from .005% to 1%) tax on international financial transactions. Worried about the plight of investment bankers Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty immediately dismissed the idea of a global ‘Tobin Tax’. “That’s not something that we would want to do. We’re not in the business of raising taxes,” said Flaherty.
The mining industry increasingly represents Canada abroad. Canadian miners operate more than 3000 projects outside this country and many of these mines have displaced communities, destroyed ecosystems and engendered violence. To reduce this damage Liberal MP John McKay introduced An Act Respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas Corporations in Developing Countries (bill C300). A November 23 foreign affairs committee meeting to discuss bill C300, which would reduce Ottawa’s support for the worst corporate offenders, heard testimony from a former Argentine environment minister. Romina Picolotti said her staff were “physically threatened” after pursuing environmental concerns about a project run by the world’s largest gold producer, Toronto-based Barrick. “My children were threatened. My offices were wiretapped. My staff was bought and the public officials that once controlled Barrick for me became paid employees of Barrick Gold.”
At least Picolotti wasn’t murdered. On December 21 and 26 two activists opposed to a Vancouver-based Pacific Rim Mining project in El Salvador were killed (a third anti- mining organizer was murdered in June 2009). Instead of taking any responsibility for this violence, Pacific Rim went on the offensive. The company sued El Salvador for refusing to approve the mine’s permits.
A month earlier three current and former employees of Calgary-based Blackfire Exploration allegedly murdered Mariano Abarca Roblero, who led opposition to the company’s mine in Chicomuselo, a small community in the Mexican state of Chiapas. In response 250 demonstrated in front of the Canadian embassy in Mexico City and 2500 marched in Chicomuselo. On a pre-planned visit to Chiapas Governor-General, Michaëlle Jean, and Minister for Latin America, Peter Kent, were greeted with chants of “Canada get out.”
This hostility may shock Canadians lulled into ignorance by this country’s dominant political culture, but it should not surprise government officials. Mexico’s second biggest paper La Jornada regularly covers the destruction rot by Canadian miners and in July the Canadian Press unearthed an internal government memorandum explaining: “Given the sheer number of Canadian mining companies operating in Mexico . . . it is highly likely that the embassy will be increasingly implicated in disputes between mine activists and Canadian mining companies operating in Mexico.’’
If decision makers cared about the social/ecological fallout caused by Canadian miners they would work to reign in these companies, rather than diligently defending their interests. Unfortunately social justice, humanism and morality rarely motivate Canadian foreign policy. Instead, corporate and imperial interests dominate this country’s role in the world. It’s time to acknowledge this, which is the first step to changing it.

This article first appeared in the May issue of Canadian Dimension magazine.

By Bianca Mugyenyi and Yves Engler

Did you know GM sells more cars in China than the U.S.?

In March, GM sold 230,048 vehicles in China and 188,011 in the U.S. The U.S. auto giant is on pace to sell more than 2 million vehicles in China this year and 3 million by 2015.

“Overall auto sales in China rose 56% in March from a year earlier to a monthly record of 1.74 million units,” reported the Wall Street Journal last week. Total Chinese vehicle sales may hit 17 million this year, more than the biggest year ever in the U.S.. (China surpassed the U.S. in auto sales last year but it was largely because of a massive downturn in the American market.)

Today a Beijing tourist is more likely to encounter a traffic jam than see the Forbidden City. In 2009 auto companies sold 13.6 million vehicles in China, thirteen times the total number of cars in circulation in 1990.

Thirty years ago the Chinese Communist Party began to reform the country’s state dominated economy. State assets were sold, social entitlements cut, and consumerism unleashed. Capitalism was the new ideology. A decade on the government discovered that this required an automotive sector centered around the personal car.

The Chinese government understands, in the words of the Economist, that “the car industry more or less invented modern industrial capitalism.” Which is why, according to the Financial Times; “China’s car-centred model of development has been a mainstay of economic growth in recent years…the spin-off benefits from burgeoning car sales have been enormous. Each car requires several thousand parts, hundreds – if not thousands – of suppliers, roads, car parks, driving schools, petrol stations and other service industries.”

For the past 75 years the automobile has been the number one source of capitalist profit. An industry with a voracious and varied appetite, automakers are among the leading consumers of copper, aluminum, plastics, iron, lead, rubber, textiles, vinyl, computer chips and steel. 9 of the world’s 10 biggest corporations in 2007 were car and oil companies (Walmart, the largest, is highly dependent on the private automobile).

The Communist Party has worked vigorously for China to join this capitalist heaven.
In 1994, the auto industry was named one of five “pillar industries” by the government. “The Chinese government wants to emulate America’s rise to industrial glory by making the car industry a pillar of economic growth,” noted the Economist.

To prop up this pillar, state banks have invested billions of dollars in car manufacturing. There are now automotive factories in almost all of China’s 31 provinces and last September, Wang Chuanfu, a “carmaker” became China’s richest man.

An indirect subsidy to the auto industry, 100s of billions of dollars in public money has been pumped into road construction. “Since the 1990s,” reported the Economist, “China has built an expressway network crisscrossing the country that is second only to America’s interstate highway system in length.” Between 1998 and 2008 30,000 miles of expressway were built.

Cars are literally shaping the physical lansdscape. Historic neighbourhoods have been torn to the ground to build new roads. A forest of roadside billboards have sprung up and the sprawling outskirts of major cities have undergone complete makeovers as big box retailers such as Wal-Mart move in.

By 2018 5 million people are expected to move to Shanghai’s suburbs. A source of inspiration for this suburban shift is one of the world’s most sprawling cities. In early 2008 a delegation of Chinese government officials, architects and bankers toured the outskirts of Phoenix. USA Today reported, “Members of the group studied the streetscape, the golf course, the spa, the cyber cafe, the healthcare amenities and the design of the single family homes at Sun City Festival, a 3000 acre, planned community for people over 55.”

In a country that has two hundred million bicycles, cities such as Shanghai have banned them from many streets. The Washington Post explained in December: “Major streets boasted wide bike lanes, sidewalks carried ample parking space for bikes and bikes usually had the right of way at intersections [in China]. But lately, public space for bicycles has been shrinking under the tyranny of the car.”

Cars need a highly controlled environment where everyone follows their rules. To enforce these rules, especially when the car is new, it takes repression. “Traffic police,” reported Shanghai Daily, “want to publicly shame jaywalkers and cyclists who violate traffic rules by displaying photographs and videos of their offences in newspapers and on TV.” (Early in U.S. automotive history 6 and 7 year olds were arrested for continuing to play on New York’s streets.)

Those lucky enough to escape public shame may not be so lucky when riding their bikes, walking or taking public transit – still the most popular modes of transportation. China has the highest number of crash deaths of any country, with 100,000 people dying annually in recent years. And the victims are often non-car users, which has stoked rising bitterness over the growing class divide in Chinese society where a minority of the population has accrued the benefits from the shift towards capitalism. A manifestation of this class divide is the rising dominance of the car at the expense of other transportation methods. For non-car drivers –the 500 million who get by with less than two dollars a day, among others – transportation is becoming more dangerous and as cars congest routes, more time consuming.

Cars have not only affected the domestic landscape they are changing China’s role in the world. Increased resource requirements have led Chinese companies to scour the globe for commodities, no matter the ecological costs. Two weeks ago, for instance, a Chinese company bought a $4.6 billion stake in Alberta’s Tar Sands, which is among the world’s dirtiest sources of oil.

Until the mid-1990s China was oil self-sufficient, a position that has changed dramatically. China is now the number two consumer of oil worldwide and the country has been responsible for a great deal of the world’s total oil growth in recent years. With less than two percent of the world’s oil reserves, most of its growing needs will be imported.

The Communist Party is increasingly concerned over the security of the country’s oil supply, as demonstrated by this week’s $20 billion oil agreement with Venezuela and the launch of the National Strategic Oil Reserves Office. China is in fact correct to be worried about its oil supply. Some say the invasion of Iraq was meant to enhance U.S control over the Middle East’s black gold in light of a rapidly expanding Chinese appetite. Elsewhere, reports the Washington Post, “The United States is building a network of military bases and diplomatic missions whose main goal is to protect American access to oil fields in volatile places such as Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and tiny Sao Tome and, as important, to deny that access to China.”

Fifteen years ago automobiles in China guzzled about 10 percent of the country’s much smaller total oil usage. Today cars and light trucks consume about forty percent of all China’s oil. So long as the country continues along the North American ‘development’ path, there’s no reason to believe that cars won’t someday consume half of the country’s oil. The ecological consequences will become increasingly severe.

The further into the future we peer, the more frightening the implications become. North America has already proved that a car culture severely damages the environment. Cars leak lead battery acid, brake fuel and anti-freeze, all of which seep into the earth. Brake pads house asbestos and air conditioners exhale ozone-depleting coolants. The rubber from tires takes centuries to decompose and entire eco-systems have been exterminated
by expanding auto infrastructure. Cars also emit large amounts of CO2. As Jane Kay Holtz put it so aptly in Asphalt Nation, “the automobile’s abuse overruns our capacity to record it.”

It is crucial to consider the direction of the recent surge in automobility. Currently, China has some 40 vehicles per thousand residents, while Western Europe has about 590, and the US 950. With a population of roughly a billion more people than that of the U.S., China clearly has the potential to absorb many more cars.

Chinese environmentalist Liang Congjie does the math and describes the threat to human survival that the car now poses; “If each Chinese family has two cars like U.S. families, then the cars needed by China, something like 600 million vehicles, will exceed all the cars in the world combined. That would be the greatest disaster for mankind.” Simply put, the day their future looks like our present, we’re done for.

If China is following our lead, perhaps its time we get off this road to environmental ruin.

This article first appear in CounterPunch.org

“Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism on the road to Economic, Social and Environmental Decay” by Bianca Mugyenyi and Yves Engler will be published in early 2011. Anyone interested in organizing a talk as part of a book tour please e-mail: kabibi@riseup.net

NEWS FLASH! We are not the most popular girl in high school. There are some parties where Canadians are not invited. There are some places where it’s not a good idea to show up with a Canadian flag sewn on to your backpack. There are some people who don’t like us because of the things we do and the company we keep.

Barely mentioned in the Canadian media, leaders from 32 Latin American and Caribbean nations met in Mexico last Monday and Tuesday to launch a new organization to advance regional economic and political integration. Unlike meetings of the Organization of American States, Cuba was invited to this summit. But, the United States and Canada were not.

So, why wasn’t Canada invited? Canadians presume we are popular everywhere. According to surveys, a higher percentage of us think Canada has a good reputation around the world than citizens of any other country. It’s our southern cousins, the Americans, the neighborhood bully, who many in the world don’t like.

But, the truth is Ottawa’s relationship to the rest of the Americas is more like Washington’s than Managua’s, Montevideo’s or even Brasilia’s. Canada’s relationship to the hemisphere is defined by support for Washington’s bullying, not as a country bullied by Washington.

Canadian corporations have long been major players across Latin America and the Caribbean. Much to the chagrin of Caribbean nationalists, for instance, Canadian corporations dominated banking in the English Caribbean for a hundred years, as well as in Cuba from 1902 to 1940s, in the Dominican Republic from the 1920s to the 1960s and in Haiti during the 1960s and 1970s.

During the first half of the 20th century, Toronto-based Brazilian Traction (or Brascan) dominated the Brazilian economy. Possibly the biggest firm in Latin America by the end of the 1950s, Brascan was commonly known as the “the Canadian octopus” since its tentacles reached into so many areas of Brazil’s economy. The company was also notorious for undermining Brazilian business initiatives, spying on its workers and leftist politicians and assisting the 1964 coup against President Joao Goulart.

Today, Canadian corporations are among the leading investors throughout the USA’s backyard with $107 billion invested as of 2006. And Canadian mining companies, which dominate the industry from Mexico to Argentina, operate many unpopular projects in the hemisphere.

To defend these interests, Ottawa has worked to halt the leftist shift transforming the region. Alongside the U.S. and France, Canada actively participated in the February 2004 coup against populist Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. When the Honduran military forcibly removed elected president Manuel Zelaya this past summer Canada, along with the U.S., tried to block Zelaya’s return to power. The Harper government opposed Zelaya’s social reforms and his gravitation toward a more united Latin America.

Threatened by its moves to break from neoliberalism and Washington-led diplomacy, Canada has supported the U.S. campaign to replace the government of Venezuela. While most Latin American leaders condemned the April 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez, Canadian diplomats were silent. Then, when Chavez won a resounding reelection in December 2006 Ottawa was the only OAS nation to join Washington in opposing a message of congratulations. Seven months later, Prime Minister Stephen Harper toured South America “to show [the region] that Canada functions and that it can be a better model than Venezuela,” in the words of a high-level foreign affairs official.

The most recent example of Ottawa undermining Venezuela’s government took place at the end of January. After meeting only with opposition figures during a trip to Venezuela Peter Kent, minister of state for the Americas, said: “Democratic space within Venezuela has been shrinking and in this election year, Canada is very concerned about the rights of all Venezuelans to participate in the democratic process.”

(Venezuela’s ambassador to the OAS, Roy Chaderton Matos, responded: “I am talking of a Canada governed by an ultra right that closed its Parliament for various months to (evade) an investigation over the violation of human rights – I am talking about torture and assassinations – by its soldiers in Afghanistan.”)

And what does Ottawa want in Latin America? Above all else, a Latin America open to foreign business, particularly to Canadian corporations. And what’s the simplest way to keep the region open to foreign investment? Canada works hand-in-hand with the bully to maintain U.S. dominance over the region.

No wonder we were not invited to the party.