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See in particular seeking of global standards for Internet
regulation, and global means for prevention and sanctions regarding
the the kind of things the NSA has been doing.... parminder<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/latin-america-condemns-us-espionage-at-united-nations-security-council/5346120"
target="_blank">http://www.globalresearch.ca/latin-america-condemns-us-espionage-at-united-nations-security-council/5346120</a><br>
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Global Research August 17, 2013</b><o:p></o:p></p>
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<h2>Latin America Condemns US Espionage at United Nations
Security Council<o:p></o:p></h2>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b>The foreign ministers of
Brazil, Venezuela, Uruguay, Bolivia and Ecuador
fiercely condemned the United States plan for
worldwide espionage, which posed a lethal threat
to the democratically elected governments of
these Latin American nations and jeopardized
their survival.<br>
<br>
By Carla Stea</b><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p><i> “The United States appears to be destined by
Providence to plague America with misery in the name
of liberty.”</i> Simon Bolivar<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Throughout the day, on August 6, President Cristina
Fernandez Kirchner of Argentina chaired a historic
United Nations Security Council meeting that revealed a
seismic shift in geopolitical consciousness and
incipient strength.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>The agenda of Security Council meeting 7015 was: <i>“Cooperation
Between the United Nations and Regional and
Sub-regional Organizations in Maintaining
International Peace and Security.”</i><o:p></o:p></p>
<p>The prelude to this meeting was held, the prior day,
August 5, at a press stakeout given by Elias Jaua
Milano, Foreign Minister of Venezuela, Hector Timerman,
Foreign Minister of Argentina, Antonio de Aguiar
Patriota, Foreign Minister of Brazil, Luis Almagro,
Foreign Minister of Uruguay and David Choquehuanca
Cespedes, Foreign Minister of Bolivia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>They spoke on behalf of Mercosur, the Southern Common
Market, following their meeting with United Nations
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Their remarks focused on
the expression of outrage contained in the “Annex to the
note verbale dated 22 July from the Permanent Mission of
the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the United
Nations addressed to the Secretary-General, which
stated:<o:p></o:p></p>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p>“Decision rejecting the acts of espionage conducted
by the United States in the countries of the region.”
“The President of the Argentine Republic, the
President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the
President of the Federative Republic of Brazil, the
President of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay and the
President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,
having met in Montevideo, Eastern Republic of Uruguay,
on 12 July, 2013, within the framework of the
presidential summit of the Southern Common Market
(MERCOSUR),<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p>Condemning the acts of espionage carried out by
intelligence agencies of the United States of America,
which affect all countries in the region,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Strongly rejecting the interception of
telecommunications and the acts of espionage carried
out in our countries, which constitute a violation of
the human rights, the right to privacy and the right
to information of our citizens, and which also
constitute unacceptable behavior that violates our
sovereignty and is detrimental to the normal conduct
of relations among nations,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Considering the advisability of promoting a
coordinated approach to this issue at the regional
level,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Decide to:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Work together to guarantee the cybersecurity of the
States members to MERCOSUR, which is essential to
defending the sovereignty of our countries,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Demand that those responsible immediately cease these
activities and provide an explanation of the motives
for and consequences of such activities,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Stress that the prevention of crime and the
suppression of transnational crimes, including
terrorism, must be carried out in line with the rule
of law and in strict observance of international law.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Promote the adoption by the relevant multilateral
institutions of standards for the regulation of the
Internet which place a particular emphasis on
cybersecurity issues, with a view to fostering the
adoption of standards that guarantee the adequate
protection of communications, in particular to
safeguard the sovereignty of States and the privacy of
individuals,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Express our full solidarity with all countries,
within and outside our region that have been victims
of such actions,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Promote the joint efforts of the Ministers for
Foreign Affairs to inform the Secretary-General of the
United Nations of these incidents and request
prevention and sanction mechanisms on the issue at the
multilateral level<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Instruct the delegations of the Member States
participating in the upcoming session of the United
Nations General Assembly to jointly present a formal
proposal to that end,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Request the Argentine Republic to submit this matter
to the Security Council for consideration,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Agree to establish a working group to coordinate
efforts, together with the South American Defence
Council and the South American Infrastructure and
Planning Council, aimed at carrying out activities
that will render our telecommunications more secure
and reduce our dependence on foreign technology.”<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The morning session of the August 6 Security Council
meeting consisted primarily of technical diplomatic
presentations. Following Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon’s statement, Cuban Foreign Minister Rodriguez
Parrella opened the meeting, as President of the
Community of Latin American and Caribbean States
(CELAC):<o:p></o:p></p>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p>“The history of Latin American and the Caribbean has
changed. Two hundred years after our independence,
the ideas of ‘a Nation of Republics,’ and of ‘Our
America’ envisaged by Bolivar and Marti, respectively,
are taking shape. Thus, our Heads of State and
Government decided in the Caracas Declaration that ‘in
accordance with the original mandate of our
liberators, CELAC must move forward in the process of
political, economic, social and cultural integration –
based on a wise equilibrium between the unity and
diversity of our peoples …Upon founding CELAC, our
Heads of State and Government reiterated our
commitment to the building of a more just, equitable
and harmonious international order based on respect
for international law and the Charter of the United
Nations. …They reaffirmed our commitment to the
defense of sovereignty and the right of any state to
establish its own political system, free from threats,
aggression and unilateral coercive measures, and in an
environment of peace, stability, justice, democracy
and respect for human rights. CELAC reiterates that
there can be no lasting peace without development and
the eradication of poverty, hunger and inequality …
CELAC has adopted a unanimous position with regard to
some far-reaching topics on the international agenda,
such as, for example, Argentina’s legitimate claim in
the dispute concerning the sovereignty over the
Malvinas Islands, and – today on the anniversary of
the bombing of Hiroshima – on so-called nuclear
disarmament.”<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The representatives of other regional organizations,
and the members of the Security Council delivered their
statements throughout the morning session of the meeting<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>When the Security Council resumed for the afternoon
session, in a courageous and brilliant tour de force,
the Argentine Presidency of the Security Council availed
itself of the opportunity to publicly denounce espionage
in the service of the resurgence of neo-liberal
capitalist imperialism. In an unusual gesture of
solidarity and support (considering that Heads of State
chairing Security Council meetings seldom remain beyond
a perfunctory appearance at the morning session),
President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner, Foreign Minister
Hector Timerman and Ambassador Maria Cristina Perceval
were present throughout the afternoon, as the succession
of dazzling speeches, delivered by the Latin American
Foreign Ministers of Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia,
Venezuela, Ecuador illuminated the global menace
threatened by the United States National Security Agency
programs of surveillance of phone records, e-mails,
web-browsing, those very programs disclosed by former
NSA contractor Edward Snowden.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>The foreign ministers of Brazil , Venezuela , Uruguay ,
Bolivia and Ecuador fiercely condemned the United States
plan for worldwide espionage, which posed a lethal
threat to the democratically elected governments of
these Latin American nations and jeopardized their
survival.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>It is not surprising that this expression of alarm was
voiced by Latin America, from Argentina through Uruguay,
Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Venezuela – in other words
from the Southernmost tip of the huge southern continent
to the Caribbean, for this continent, viewed
imperialistically as the “backyard” of the United
States, was for many tragic decades, crushed by military
dictatorships inflicting state terror with impunity,
following the blueprint of destabilization and
overthrow, by the CIA and multinational corporate
controlled entities, of their own democratically elected
leaders. The tragic destruction of Latin America’s
democratically elected governments included President
Arbenz in Guatemala, 1954; President Goulart in Brazil,
1964; President Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic,
1965; President Torres in Bolivia, 1971; President
Allende in Chile, 1973, and more recently the
destabilizations of the democratically elected
governments of Honduras and Paraguay (this is not a
complete list)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>This more than half-century violation of the will of
the people of Latin America, engineered by agencies of
“the Colossus of the North” was a shattering trauma
seared deeply into the consciousness of these leaders,
whose recent triumph over fascist military dictatorships
which were installed and supported by the United States,
is a testament to their moral and intellectual strength
and their passion for dignity and control over their own
destinies. The Latin American governments speaking at
the August 6 Security Council are like the canary in the
coal mine: intensely alert and sensitive to imminent or
potential threats of repetition of that horrific period
they had endured and so recently overcome, these
governments denounced widespread evidence of perilous
subversive activity, the lethal consequences of which
are predictable and terrifying.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>The August 6, 2013 afternoon session of the UN Security
Council began with Mr. Antonio de Aguiar Patriota,
Foreign Minister of Brazil, who stated, in English:<o:p></o:p></p>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p>“You, Madam President made my task easier by
referring to the interception of communications and
acts of espionage. Such practices violate
sovereignty, harm relations between nations and
constitute a violation of human rights, in particular
the right to privacy and the right of our citizens to
information. In that respect, you have complied with
the decision of the States parties of the Common
Market of the South (MERCOSUR) who met in Montevideo
last month. Yesterday, the Foreign Minister of
MERCOSUR conveyed to the Secretary-General the
position of Argentina , Bolivia , Brazil , Uruguay and
Venezuela with respect to and in compliance with, that
decision. The matter will also be placed before
various United Nations bodies, in accordance with the
decision and the document circulated under the symbol
A/67/946. This is a very serious issue with a
profound impact on the international system. Brazil is
coordinating with countries that share similar
concerns for the benefit of an international order
that respects human rights and the sovereignty of
states.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>I welcome the timely statement made on 12 July by the
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Navi
Pillay: ‘surveillance programmes without adequate
safeguards to protect the right to privacy actually
risk impacting negatively on the enjoyment of human
rights and fundamental freedoms.’ Pillay also
mentioned Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and Articles 17 and 18 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
which established, respectively, that ‘No one shall be
subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy,
family, home or correspondence,’ and that ‘Everyone
has the right to protection of the law against such
interference or attacks.’<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Brazil also associates itself with the repeated
appeals by Ms. Pillay in various forums that efforts
to combat terrorism must necessarily respect human
rights and humanitarian law. Her position was
incorporated into the decision of the Heads of State
of MERCOSUR as well as the Presidential Statement
(S/PRST/2013/12) adopted by the Council this morning…
Mention should be made of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO)… .a defense alliance that does not
seem to frame its activities clearly under Chapter
VIII of the Charter of the United Nations and has made
use of concepts and strategies that raise problematic
and sensitive issues in terms of the articulation
between the regional level and the United Nations
system. We are concerned that, historically, leaders
of NATO and member countries have considered that the
organization does not necessarily require explicit
authorization from the Security Council to resort to
coercion.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>We are also concerned that NATO has loosely
interpreted mandates for action aimed at promoting
international peace and security authorized by the
Security Council. As Brazil has maintained, including
through the Brazilian concept of ‘responsibility while
protecting,’ (S/2011/701, annex), the Security Council
should avail itself of the institutional means of
monitoring the adequate fulfillment of its mandates.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>We are concerned, as well that NATO has been
searching to establish partnerships out of its area,
far beyond the North Atlantic, including in regions of
peace, democracy and social inclusion, and that rule
out the presence of weapons of mass destruction in
their territories. It would be extremely grave for
the future of the articulation between regional and
global efforts at promoting peace, as prescribed by
the United Nations, if groups of countries started to
unilaterally define their sphere of action beyond the
territory of their own members.”<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Next, Mr. David Choquehuanca Cespedes, Minister of
Foreign Affairs of Bolivia spoke:<o:p></o:p></p>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p>“Preserving peace is not and will not be the result
of the existence of international policemen, but
rather as a result of the promotion of social justice,
equity, complementarity, solidarity and respect
between states……I should like to express our rejection
and condemnation of the practice of espionage on the
part of the United States. I should also like to
express the grief and indignation of my people and my
Government over the act of aggression experienced by
President Evo Morales Ayma, which has been described
by the international community as offensive,
humiliating, discriminatory, colonialistic, unfriendly
and a violation of human rights and international
standards. Given the grave nature of these facts, we
ask the United Nations to clarify these events and to
take measures to guarantee human rights and
international law so that no one will have to suffer
such violations again.”<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Next, His Excellency, Mr. Elias Jaua Milano, Minister
of the People’s Power for Foreign Affairs of the
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and Pro-Tempore
President of the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR)
stated:<o:p></o:p></p>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p>“Today we join in the pleasure of the Bolivian people
on its national holiday, and recall the commemoration
of the 200 years of the triumphant entry of the
liberator Simon Bolivar after having carried out a
successful campaign that began in December of 1812 in
New Grenada. We must always remember that, when
united, we South Americans will achieve independence,
equality and democracy for our peoples….Peace cannot
be achieved in the world without social justice and
without eradicating once and for all hunger, poverty,
illiteracy, malnutrition and the wide technological
divides, in other words, without guaranteeing to all
the resources necessary for their full development in
equal conditions….The instruments, declarations,
decisions and resolutions of MERCOSUR have sought
democracy and peace in the region, including by
preventing coups and other attempts to frustrate the
democratic will of our peoples, promoted by fascistic
movements represented by political and economic
leaders that are found particularly in media
corporations. These movements attack democratic
governments and peoples that have chosen the path of
independence, social inclusion and the grass-roots
democratization of our societies…..<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>The timely and firm action of MERCOSUR along with
other regional and subregional organizations, managed
to stop attempted coups in Paraguay in 1996 and 1999,
thereby guaranteeing democratic order. Similarly, in
2006 and 2007 MERCOSUR condemned and took action to
prevent attempts to divide Bolivia as a way of
weakening the democratic government of President Evo
Morales. Likewise, the Foreign Ministers of the
countries members of MERCOSUR condemned the attempted
coup against President Rafael Correa in Ecuador on 30
September 2010, joining with other regional blocs to
issue a joint warning to the world and prevent that
crime from taking place. Although it could not be
prevented, MERCOSUR acted decisively in the
parliamentary coup against President Fernando Lugo of
Paraguay in June, 2012. On that occasion the foreign
ministers of MERCOSUR and UNASUR traveled to Asuncion
with the intention of starting a dialogue and
preventing the interruption of the constitutional
order. That was not achieved, and the bloc had to
temporarily suspend the Republic of Paraguay until its
political, institutional and democratic situation was
normalized through the holding of elections. More
recently, MERCOSUR has been able to circumvent those
situations with peaceful and democratic mechanisms,
without economic blocades, military intervention,
indiscriminate bombing or armed intervention of any
kind. We believe that the only way to defeat violence
is with greater democracy and peaceful means.
Mercosur has also participated in issues that affect
international peace and security, such as the coup in
Honduras against President Zelaya…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Unfortunately in recent times we have been concerned
to see that some countries have continued to assert
their political, military and economic power and
distorted the very essence of cooperation between the
United Nations and regional and subregional
organizations. They have gone so far as to use the
Security Council as a platform to encourage armed
interventions against sovereign states and peoples
with a view to promoting the poorly named regime
change, in contravention of all principles of
International Law… as Foreign Minister of the
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and as Pro-Tempore
President of MERCOSUR I take this opportunity to
reiterate our firm condemnation of the insult to the
office of the President of the Plurinational State of
Bolivia, President Evo Morales, when some European
Governments did not permit the overflight or landing
of the aircraft transporting him. That was not only a
hostile, unfounded, discriminatory and arbitrary
action, but also a flagrant violation of the precepts
of international law.”<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p> “Similarly, we reject the actions of global
espionage carried out by the government of the United
States , which undermine the sovereignty of States and
which we have become familiar with through the
revelations of the former security contractor, Edward
Snowden. Given the seriousness of these reports of
computer espionage on a global scale, recognized by
the Secretary-General of the International
Telecommunication Union himself, the United Nations
must initiate a broad multilateral discussion that
would make it possible to design agreements to
safeguard the sovereignty and security of States in
the light of such illegal practices. MERCOSUR has
begun action to promote a discussion on this matter so
that we can open an appropriate investigation within
the United Nations and punish and condemn this
violation of international law.”<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p>“We reiterate our condemnation of actions that could
undermine the power of States to fully implement the
right of humanitarian asylum. In this respect, we
reject any attempt to pressure, harass or criminalize
a state or third party over the sovereign decision of
any nation to grant asylum, which is enshrined in all
international conventions. Likewise, we express our
solidarity with the Governments of Bolivia and
Nicaragua , which, like Venezuela , have offered
asylum to Mr. Snowden, as expressed by the Heads of
State of MERCOSUR in the decision concerning the
universal recognition of the right of political
asylum, issued in Montevideo on 12 July. These three
matters were discussed yesterday with the
Secretary-General of the United Nations”<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<p>In her remarkable work, entitled “The Shock Doctrine,
The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” (published in 2007)
journalist Naomi Klein states, page 573:<o:p></o:p></p>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p>“Though clearly drawing on a long militant history,
Latin America ’s contemporary movements are not direct
replicas of their predecessors. Of all the
differences, the most striking is an acute awareness
of the need for protection from the shocks of the past
– the coups, the foreign shock therapists, the U.S.
trained torturers, as well as the debt shocks and
currency collapses of the eighties and nineties.
Latin America ’s mass movements, which have powered
the wave of election victories for left-wing
candidates, are learning how to build shock absorbers
into their organizing models. …<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Latin America’s new leaders are also taking bold
measures to block any future U.S. backed coups that
could attempt to undermine their democratic
victories. The governments of Venezuela, Costa Rica,
Argentina and Uruguay have all announced they will no
longer send students to the School of Americas, the
infamous police and military training center in Fort
Benning, Georgia, where so many of the continent’s
notorious killers learned the latest I
“counterterrorism” (torture) techniques, then promptly
directed them against farmers in El Salvador and auto
workers in Argentina….If the U.S. military does not
have bases or training programs, its power to inflict
shocks will be greatly eroded…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Latin America’s most significant protection from
future shocks (and therefore the shock doctrine) flows
from the continent’s emerging independence from
Washington’s financial institutions, the result of
greater integration among regional governments. The
Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) is the
continent’s retort to the Free Trade Area of the
Americas , the now buried corporatist dream of a
free-trade zone from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego….<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Thanks to high oil prices, Venezuela has emerged as a
major lender to other developing countries, allowing
them to do an end run around Washington, and even
Argentina, Washington’s former ‘model pupil’ has been
part of the trend. In his 2007 State of the Union
Address (the late) President Nestor Kirchner said that
the country’s foreign creditors had told him, ‘You
must have an agreement with the International Fund to
be able to pay the debt. We say to them, ‘Sirs, we
are sovereign. We want to pay the debt, but no way in
hell are we going to make an agreement again with the
IMF.’ As a result the IMF, supremely powerful in the
eighties, is no longer a force on the continent. In
2005 Latin America made up 80 percent of the IMF’s
total lending portfolio, in 2007 the continent
represented just 1 percent – a sea change in only two
years. ‘There is life after the IMF,’ Kirchner
declared, ‘and it is a good life.’”<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Having resisted foreign (and domestic) military
control, and foreign (and neoliberal) economic control,
the new peril confronting Latin America’s independent
governments emanates from the United States’ National
Security Agency’s electronic surveillance programs, an
insidious new cyber-age method of total social control
of the most private and intimate spaces of their lives –
and identities, their minds, destroying their capacity
to forge networks of solidarity and obtain the
information crucial to their understanding and critical
thinking, without which they are vulnerable to being
reduced to the condition of the “zombies” (so popular in
Hollywood’s movie narrative), rendering them confused,
docile, easily herded, subjugated, ultimately exploited
and enslaved. This surveillance is tantamount to
imposing total individual and societal control, which is
a stealthy form of isolation, a form of psychological
and intellectual solitary confinement, one of the
cruelest forms of torture, which ultimately leads to the
disintegration of the human personality, within an
invisible prison.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>This condition is described by the American Civil
Liberties Union, and quoted in Charles Savage’s August 8
report to The New York Times:<o:p></o:p></p>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p>“Hints of the surveillance appeared in a set of
rules, leaked by Mr. Snowden, for how the NSA may
carry out the 2008 FISA law. One paragraph mentions
that the agency ‘seeks to acquire communications about
the target that are not to or from the target.’ The
pages were posted online by the newspaper The Guardian
on June 20, but the telltale paragraph, the only rule
marked ‘Top Secret’ amid 18 pages of restrictions,
went largely overlooked amid other disclosures….While
the paragraph hinting at the surveillance has
attracted little attention, the American Civil
Liberties Union did take note of the ‘about the
target’ language in a June 21 post analyzing the
larger set of rules, arguing that the language could
be interpreted as allowing ‘bulk collection of
international communications, including those of
Americans’….Jameel Jaffer, a senior lawyer at the ACLU
said Wednesday that such ‘dragnet surveillance will be
poisonous to the freedoms of inquiry and association’
because people who know that their communications will
be searched will change their behavior. ‘They’ll
hesitate before visiting controversial web sites,
discussing controversial topics or investigating
politically sensitive questions. Individually, these
hesitations might appear to be inconsequential, but
the accumulation of them over time will change
citizens’ relationship to one another and to the
government.’”<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The infrastructure for de facto fascist police state
and military control is being established under the
guise of counterterrorism, (as, earlier, similar fascist
states were established under the guise of fighting
communism) a phenomena Latin America recognizes and
knows from horrific historic experience. And their
historic memory of this has not yet been expunged:
indeed, many of the leaders of Latin America today were
earlier imprisoned and tortured only a few decades ago
under such fascist police and military states
(established ostensibly in the name of anti-communism),
including Chile’s former, and possibly future President
Michelle Bachelet, Brazil’s President Dilma Roussef,
Argentina’s late President Nestor Kirchner, and the
world famous father of Argentina’s Foreign Minister
Hector Timerman, the late Jacobo Timerman, imprisoned
and tortured for two years during the Argentine military
dictatorship’s “dirty war.” No doubt, Uruguay ’s
President Jose Mujica well remembers those horrors, and
Chile ’s former President Ricardo Lago spent
considerable time in prison during the Pinochet
dictatorship.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Patino Aroca, Foreign Minister of Ecuador, next
delivered, at the August 6 Security Council meeting, one
of the great speeches in United Nations history.<o:p></o:p></p>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p> “During the recent summit of the Common Market of
the South (MERCOSUR) that took place on 12 July in
Montevideo, the States convened resolved to ‘request
Argentina to submit the matter of the massive
espionage case uncovered by Edward Snowden for
consideration by the Security Council.’ They also
resolved to ‘demand that those responsible for those
actions immediately cease therefrom and provide
explanations of their motivations and their
consequences.’ In similar terms, the Bolivarian
Alliance for the Peoples of Our America spoke at the
last Guayaquil summit which was held just five days
ago, when it was decided to ‘warn the international
community about the seriousness of these actions,
which imply a threat to the security and peaceful
coexistence among our States”…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>“Just a few weeks ago the world saw a sequence of
events more akin to a Cold War spy novel than to
modern times. On 5 June, leaks began to appear in
publications in major global media outlets, leaks that
were mixed with almost deathly intent and unspooled as
a reality show before global public opinion. The
leaks came from a former 29-year-old American analyst
who sought to escape deportation to his country, where
he would be tried for those leaks. After a journey
that began in Hong Kong and was supposed to end in
Latin America, today, it seems to have stopped, but it
may not have completely run its course, despite the
granting of asylum by Russia .”<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p>“During those few days in June we saw the size and
the discretional nature of a massive surveillance
apparatus that suddenly brought all the inhabitants of
the planet closer than ever to an Orwellian
nightmare. Although at first it appeared to be a
simple matter of wiretapping, it was later discovered
that there was discretionary monitoring of e-mails.
While it seemed initially that the apparatus was being
used in operations against organized crime, later we
learned that it was also being used to gain advantage
in trade negotiations with other countries. If we
once thought that they were simply looking at
unaffected States, we now know that everyone —
absolutely everyone, debtors and creditors, friends
and enemies, South and North – is considered a usual
suspect by the authorities of the United States of
America . Now we know that our communications are
permanently monitored by them.”<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p>“No one knows yet if Mr. Snowden will once again
manage to leak information that he claims to possess.
Of course, it seems that he will not do it when he is
in Russia . In any case, the wounds opened by those
events should be assessed within the main multilateral
forums. They deserve to be so because not only do
they reflect an unacceptable imbalance in the global
governance system, which in no case would help to
build a climate of trust and cooperation between
countries, and, in the final analysis, a climate of
peace among nations. They deserve to be assessed
because we have also moved dangerously close to the
limits set out by the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.”<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p>“The imbalances to which I refer are clear – the
United States, like any other countries, has the need
to deal with demands related to its national security,
it goes without saying, but those legitimate demands
must be dealt with in a way that does not affect the
rights of individuals or indeed the sovereignty of
other nations. That is to say, limits must be set.
However, we are now faced with the fact that any
limits there may have been have vanished. The
national security of the United States has been placed
above all universal moral values.”<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p>“Such a drive has meant that the principles of
equality and non-interference in the affairs of
States, established in the Westphalia peace agreement,
have now vanished into thin air. The 1948 Universal
Declaration of Human Rights has been violated. The
rights to the privacy of correspondence – article 12 –
and to freedom of expression and opinion – article 19
– the rights of all citizens of the world, including
United States citizens, have been trampled in the name
of a greater goal, that is, national security – or
rather, for the sake of the profits of the national
security industry.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>“What are the limits, really? Has the time not come
for the Council to take up this question again and
discuss it? In the end, does this not pose a threat
to global peace? What mutual trust could possibly
exist among nations under such circumstances? We
believe that the time has come for the United Nations
to face up to this matter responsibly.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>“As we have seen with the disappearance of such
limits, this situation threatens to build walls
between our countries. If it has not done so already,
it could also affect international cooperation against
organized crime; strangely enough, there is even the
possibility that trade negotiations could be
disrupted. Paradoxically, even the very national
security of the United States will suffer from the
increase in global mistrust generated by massive
espionage.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>“The events to which I have referred have also
revealed other very disturbing realities. To start
off with, it has re-ignited the debate on the right of
asylum, which all human beings have, as enshrined in
international law, as well as the ability of any
sovereign state to grant it. This is a right that is
granted to avoid fear of political persecution; its
legitimacy can only be determined by the country
granting it. Let us also remember its peaceful and
humanitarian nature, which cannot in any case be
described as unfriendly towards any other State, as
established in General Assembly resolution 2312 (XXII)
on territorial asylum. I should also quote Ms. Navi
Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights, on the case at hand: ‘Snowden’s case has
shown the need to protect persons disclosing
information on matters that have implications for
human rights, as well as the importance of ensuring
respect for the right to privacy.’”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>“Leaders who should be giving explanations and facing
up to the debate on the limits of what we are
discussing, have instead launched a crusade against
the right to asylum – a full-on diplomatic offensive
against countries that have taken to the global stage
to show interest in such an important case. States in
the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America
(ALBA) have been under pressure, simply because they
are considering a request for asylum. All those
countries have signed the 1954 Caracas Convention on
Territorial Asylum, which is perhaps one of the most
important instruments of the Inter-American human
rights system.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>“The day the United States signs that treaty – even
the day it ratifies the San Jose pact, one of the
foundations of the Inter-American system of human
rights – we will be closer to seeing that country
adhere to the Vienna Convention of the Law of
Treaties, and it will become a part of a group of
equal nations, committed to complying with
international law.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>“Instead of joining this group, we find ourselves
with a country that prefers to lunge forwards and
blame the messenger in order to cloud the message.
The final result was that a group of countries decided
to endanger the life of the President of the
Plurinational State of Bolivia , forcing him and his
entourage to make an emergency landing in violation of
international norms governing respectful relations
among nations.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>“It is not the revelation of the offence that
threatens the climate of understanding among nations,
it is the offence itself. In a fragile world where
armed conflicts are barely affected by international
pressure, such actions do not help generate trust but
tension.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>“I would like to conclude with two comments.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>“First, the Government of Ecuador fully supports the
request of the Bolivian Government that the Office of
the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
conduct an exhaustive investigation into the
unjustifiable treatment suffered by President Evo
Morales Ayma during his trip from Moscow to La Paz.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>“Secondly, massive global, discretionary and
unlimited surveillance must stop. It is for the
Security Council to urgently make that demand of one
of its permanent members, since, theoretically, it is
up to this body to maintain peace on our planet.
That, too, is the demand of Latin America , a zone of
peace that, through organizations such as MERCOSUR and
ALBA, has demanded an end to those practices. It is
also required by the spirit of coexistence, which
inspired the drafting of the Charter of the United
Nations. It is also the appeal of billions of people
in the world who understand that any action that aims
to ensure the security of a country has its limits,
which are the human rights of everyone on the planet.”<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<p> The representative of the United States, Mr.
DeLaurentis replied:<o:p></o:p></p>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p>“Let me address an issue unrelated to our debate that
was raised earlier today, namely, the United States
efforts to prevent terrorism and the recent disclosure
of classified information about techniques we use to
do that. All Governments do things that are secret:
it is a fact of modern governing and a necessity in
the light of the threats all our citizens face. Our
counter-Terrorism policy is ultimately about saving
people’s lives, which is why the United States works
with other countries to protect our citizens and those
of other nations from many threats. All nations
should be concerned about the damage these disclosures
can cause to our ability to collectively defend
against those threats.”<o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Contradicting this assertion, a senior United States
intelligence official said, regarding the ‘about the
target’ surveillance that it “was difficult to point to
any particular terrorist plot that would have been
carried out if the surveillance had not taken place.”
He said it was one tool among many used to assemble a
‘mosaic’ of information in such investigations. “The
surveillance was used for other types of
foreign-intelligence collection, not just terrorism
investigations,” the official said. This admission that
this surveillance is not limited to preventing terrorism
is the most damning indictment of the secrecy of the
program.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>The American people, whose taxes pay for these
programs, have an inalienable right to know what are the
“other” uses to which these surveillance programs are
being put, in their name. Powerfully refuting any
contention that these surveillance activities are for
the purpose of preventing terrorism is the testimony of
United States Senator, Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont,
Chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, who
said he had been shown a classified list of “terrorist
events” detected through surveillance, and it did not
show that ‘dozens or even several terrorist plots’ had
been thwarted by the domestic program. “If this program
if not effective, it has to end. So far I’m not
convinced by what I’ve seen,” Senator Leahy said,
denouncing ‘ the massive privacy implications’ of
keeping records of every American’s domestic calls.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>What really is the purpose of this NSA program of
global surveillance? Failing to significantly thwart
terrorist activity, it must have an ultimate purpose.
The possibilities are terrifying. The hysterical,
desperate and deadly determination to arrest Snowden
suggests that he may have uncovered something further,
something so illegal that the authors of such crimes
will not hesitate to endanger the very lives they claim
to be protecting, in order to prevent exposure. The
frantic orchestration of the actions endangering the
life of the President of Bolivia makes this conclusion
unavoidable.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>The August 6 Security Council meeting under the
Presidency of Argentina re-enforced the credibility of
the United Nations. The Government of Argentina and her
courageous sister nations of Latin America have thrown
down the gauntlet on behalf of the majority of the
citizens of this planet.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><b><i>Carla Stea i</i></b><i>s Global Research’s
accredited correspondent at the United Nations
headquarters, New York.</i><o:p></o:p></p>
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