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Making Money from Misery? Disaster Capitalism from the Migrant Crisis to Afghanistan and Haiti
When disaster strikes, who profits? That’s the question asked by journalist Antony Loewenstein in his new book, “Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing out of Catastrophe.” Traveling across the globe, Loewenstein examines how companies such as G4S, Serco and Halliburton are cashing in on calamity, and describes how they are deploying for-profit private contractors to war zones and building for-profit private detention facilities to warehouse refugees, prisoners and asylum seekers. Recently, Loewenstein teamed up with filmmaker Thor Neureiter for a documentary by the same name that chronicles how international aid and investment has impacted communities in Haiti, Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea and beyond.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. When disaster strikes, who profits? That’s the question asked by journalist Antony Loewenstein in his new book, Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing out of Catastrophe. Traveling across the globe, Antony examines how companies, such as G4S, Serco, Halliburton, are cashing in on calamity. He describes how they’re deploying for-profit private contractors to war zones and building for-profit private detention facilities to warehouse refugees, prisoners, asylum seekers. Now Loewenstein has teamed up with filmmaker Thor Neureiter for an upcoming documentary by the same name that chronicles how international aid and investment has impacted communities from Haiti to Afghanistan to Papua New Guinea and beyond. This is the trailer.
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: For three years, I’ve investigated what happens after the spotlight fades from disasters in developing countries. What comes when the money and goodwill ends?
UNIDENTIFIED: This country is like a republic of NGOs. And these people, as employees, they are getting paid very fat salaries.
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Often these natural and man-made disasters create an atmosphere reliant on foreign money.
UNIDENTIFIED: They say first we should bring security, then investment. I say first we should invest, then security will come.
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: When aid runs out and most NGOs move on to the next disaster, pro-business policies are created in the name of recovery. This investigation has taken me to the streets of Haiti, the mountains of Afghanistan and the lush forests of Papua New Guinea, where I’ve met the people caught up in a struggle between recovery and the policies that cater to foreign interests.
UNIDENTIFIED: When you talk about disaster capitalism and the capitalists coming in and sweeping up and taking over, they don’t need a conspiracy, because those are the interests that prevail, and they’re going to get their way.
AMY GOODMAN: The trailer for the forthcoming documentary based on Antony Loewenstein’s new book, Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing out of Catastrophe. Well, journalist and author Antony Loewenstein joins us now in studio, also a columnist for The Guardian.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Thanks for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s great to have you with us, Antony. So, explain disaster capitalism.
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: People who make money from misery. So, one of the reasons—I was inspired by Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine, and she coined the term "disaster capitalism" in 2007. For me, it was really about deepening and widening that definition. So I focus particularly on Afghanistan, Haiti, Papua New Guinea, U.S., U.K., Greece and Australia. Immigration is a key part of that. So, the fact that—as you said in your introduction, there are key companies—G4S, Transfield, Serco and others—who are very happy about the massive influx of refugees. Warehousing refugees is huge profit-making business. So I was focusing on that, going to these places and actually seeing the effects of that on both immigrants and also those who work in those centers; looking at, say, in Haiti, the issue of aid and development after the earthquake in 2010, which was a key reason why the U.S. government, as WikiLeaks documents showed, were keen for U.S. contractors to make a fortune; in Papua New Guinea, a country near my own country, Australia, a situation where you have massive mining interests—Rio Tinto and others—again, making a fortune from mining and misery. So, for me, it was about making the connections between various different countries and corporations, and saying—I’m not arguing that Afghanistan is the same as Greece, of course they’re different, but ultimately often the same corporations are at play, and the fact that the corporation has become more powerful than the state, which, to me, is a problem.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about a place some call the Guantánamo Bay of the Pacific. The Manus Island detention center is paid for by the Australian government and run by an Australian contractor, Transfield Services, but located offshore on Papua New Guinea’s soil. The prisoners are not accused of any crimes; they’re asylum seekers from war-ravaged countries who are waiting indefinitely for their refugee status determination. Earlier this year, Democracy Now! spoke to Australian human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson about Manus Island.
JENNIFER ROBINSON: I’ve been to PNG, and I’ve spent times in West Papuan refugee settlement camps, so I can speak with first-hand experience that PNG is not a state that is capable of accepting our asylum seekers and refugees. Ninety percent of these people who come by boat to Australia have been determined to be refugees in the past. The conditions in PNG are terrible. Australia is—it is unlawful for Australia to be continuing to send asylum seekers to conditions the U.N. has found to amount to inhuman, degrading treatment. We are in breach of our international obligations.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Australian human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson. Antony Loewenstein?
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: It’s a problem. I mean, one of the things also we should also say is there’s Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, but also Nauru, which is a Pacific island. So, Australia for the last years has been sending thousands of refugees to essentially prison camps in these islands, as you rightly say. They run for profit. It was G4S, it’s now Transfield. In a recent Australian Senate report, it was found, clear evidence, that often refugees are being raped and tortured. This is not an allegation, this is a fact. There was one allegation by a guard that he saw evidence of waterboarding. So, ultimately we have a situation where the Australian government, which increasingly, I might add, is being used by the European Union as inspiration in potentially how to deal with their refugee crisis—the key point about the offshore detention camps, and indeed onshore in Australia, is that they’re privately run. And the key problem—it wouldn’t make a difference if it was publicly run. I mean, it shouldn’t be there in the first place. But Australia wants an unaccountable system. Journalists can’t get there, as Jennifer rightly said. You essentially have a—it’s a black site. The journalists can’t get in there, human rights workers can’t get in there. You can visit Manus Island as a tourist, but you can’t get into the center. Nauru charges $8,000 to apply for a visa. And if you don’t get the visa, which you wouldn’t, you don’t get that money back. So, essentially, many Australians—and sadly, I would argue, only a minority of Australians are outraged by this. But the truth is, like in Europe and like in the U.S., after decades in my country have privatized detention camps, sadly, a lot of people regard those people as a threat who need to be essentially seen as silenced and as a number, that’s all. It’s a massive problem, and I write about that in the book.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to the larger issue of for-profit prisons. Last month, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the Democratic presidential candidate—
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —introduced new legislation aimed at banning government contracts with private prisons. Sanders said banning for-profit incarceration is the first step to ending the system of mass incarceration.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: As a first step, we need to start treating prisoners like human beings. Private companies, private corporations should not be profiteering from their incarceration.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, also a senator.
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: So he’s introduced legislation.
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: So encouraging. I mean, one of the things that is less talked about in the U.S., Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio have taken massive amounts of money from the private prison industry. I’m not saying that their policies are solely based around that, but it’s an important part. In the book, I visit some private detention camps in Georgia, particularly run by CCA, which is the largest American privatized corporation running prisons and detention camps. In these centers, human rights are awful. Healthcare is bad. Food is bad. Mental health is bad. And ultimately, like we see in Australia and the U.K. and elsewhere—
AMY GOODMAN: And CCA is Corrections Corporation of America.
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Indeed, indeed. And ultimately, I think one of the things is, these corporations have no incentive to provide decent care. I mean, that’s the bottom line. Profit, of course, is the most important. So putting aside the rights of refugees and immigrants themselves, what I find also in the book is that the guards who are working in those centers, without proper training, they’re almost by definition going to abuse refugees. That’s part of the problem. I think Bernie Sanders’ call was an important one, but sadly, no other major candidate has come out and agreed. And I think one of the interesting things in the U.S., as we move forward with your presidential campaign, someone like a Donald Trump, who talks, as we know, about potentially getting rid of 11 million undocumented migrants, the private prison industry is very excited about his presidency, and they’re scared of any serious reform in the U.S. One of the things that CCA and GEO Group, the two major companies, talk about in their annual reports are that serious reform—in other words, less people locked up—is bad for business. And they’ve spent over the last 20 years at least $30 million to $40 million. One of the things that comes out in my book, in my investigations, is that this is legalized corruption, that it’s nothing—it’s not illegal for CCA to assist a congressman or woman in their campaign. That’s legal. But the problem is that the result, in state—in state after state in the U.S., is a mass incarceration culture. And sadly, even under President Obama, there’s been no serious look at removing that incentive. I mean, there’s a Congress-approved quota that every single night there are 34,000 refugees locked up in the U.S.—every night.
AMY GOODMAN: "Richard Sullivan"—this is from The Intercept, I believe—"of the lobbying [group] Capitol Counsel, is a bundler for the Clinton campaign, bringing in $44,859 in contributions in a few short months. Sullivan is also a registered lobbyist for the GEO Group, a company that operates a number of jails, including immigrant detention centers, for profit."
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: That’s the nexus, Amy, that I’m talking about in the book, that is—again, this sort of thing is not illegal. It is legal. But the problem is that almost by definition that means that major candidates—Hillary Clinton has said, Jeb Bush, particularly Marco Rubio in his state, as well, has taken massive contributions. And the fact is, without those contributions, the policies would be different, obviously.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to Afghanistan. Wednesday marked the 14th anniversary of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, which began on October 7, 2001. President Obama declared an official end to the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan last year; however, the U.S. has around 9,800 troops there. And according to Foreign Policy magazine, there are three times as many for-profit private contractors in Afghanistan than U.S. troops, not including the contractors supporting the CIA, State Department, USAID or other government agencies. You have traveled to Afghanistan, Antony Loewenstein, and spoke to some of these contractors. What did they tell you?
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: They are worried about the war winding down. For them, they are scared about—I was there in 2012 and also this year in May, in 2015. And one of the things that many of them were saying, both in 2012 and in 2015, is that they realize that the U.S. is winding down its war, but ultimately, as you say, Obama has declared the war finished. It’s been rebranded. The occupation continues. There is now talk about possibly raising troops. The Afghan security forces, which, I might add, were trained by private companies—DynCorp trained the Iraqi security forces and the Afghan security forces, massive failures on both fronts, which has had no impact on DynCorp getting more contracts, I might add. So, ultimately, one of the things in Afghanistan—and the attack on the Kunduz medical center, MSF medical center, goes to the heart of that—there’s a reduction in space for humanitarian actors.
I mean, I was there this year with my film partner, Thor Neureiter. We were looking at what Afghanistan’s likely to look like in the next five or 10 years. And the resource industry is what the Afghan government and the U.S. government talks about. Briefly, there are apparently $4 trillion of resources under the ground in Afghanistan, mostly untapped, including copper. And one of the things we do in our film is go to an area called—in Logar province about an hour from Kabul, which has the largest copper deposit in the world, run by a Chinese company. They are desperate to start mining those resources. And the problem is, in the last years, the U.S. has given hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to support a resource industry there. So the nexus between private security and mining industry in that country is devastating for the local people.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to testimony just yesterday in the House. The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Campbell, is pushing to keep more U.S. troops in Afghanistan than under President Obama’s scheduled drawdown, following the Taliban seizure of Kunduz last week. California Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez pressed General Campbell during his testimony to the House Armed Services Committee Thursday.
REP. LORETTA SANCHEZ: So, within your own current testimony, let alone the testimony that Mr. Jones brought before you from before, you basically are saying, "I don’t know that there’s a long-term viability for these security forces." We’re paying the majority of that. How much is the majority? How much money does that mean, to have a force that you don’t believe has a long-term viability?
GEN. JOHN CAMPBELL: Ma’am, if I could—
REP. LORETTA SANCHEZ: How much? How much? That’s the question. How much?
GEN. JOHN CAMPBELL: Yes, ma’am. Today, for calendar year ’15, the United States put $4.1 billion to build the Afghan security forces.
REP. LORETTA SANCHEZ: $4.1 billion.
GEN. JOHN CAMPBELL: For ’16, $3.86 billion.
REP. LORETTA SANCHEZ: Thank you. $4.1 billion.
GEN. JOHN CAMPBELL: Every year we continue to reduce that by gaining efficiencies. We’re not providing infrastructure that—
REP. LORETTA SANCHEZ: General, I’ve heard this. I’ve heard this for 14 years.
AMY GOODMAN: This comes as Doctors Without Borders says 24 of its staff members are still missing, following the U.S. airstrike on its hospital in Kunduz Saturday. That’s in addition to at least 22 people who died in the strike, including 12 medical workers, 10 patients, including three children. Antony Loewenstein?
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: I mean, what that testimony shows is that the U.S. has spent over $100 billion since 2001. As you say, it’s the 14-year anniversary now. And even the U.S. government itself, SIGAR, which is the sort of the government arm to investigate where money has gone, has found that the vast majority of that has gone to corruption. It’s disappeared. It’s gone to helping a failing mining industry. It’s gone to pay private security. Afghanistan is one of the great disgraces, in some ways, of our time, because, in many ways, the fact that private companies—U.S. companies, Australian companies, British companies—have been used as a replacement for government. One of the things that’s so often ignored, and I talk about this in the book, is that the U.S. routinely was paying, to transport goods from A to B, Afghan security, private security or foreign security to basically give money to pay off insurgents to not hit them, to not attack them. So, really, the U.S. taxpayer is weirdly either comfortable or doesn’t know about the fact that America is fighting a war against insurgents that they’re also paying off to not attack them. It’s a crazy situation, but that’s what’s been happening for years.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to end with Haiti. This year marks the fifth anniversary of the devastating Haiti earthquake that killed, oh, 300,000 people and left more than one-and-a-half million Haitians homeless in what was already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. In tent camps housing the displaced, Haitian residents said international donors have left them behind.
CLAUTAIRE FENEL: [translated] My message to the international donors is that the money they gave to help the people in Haiti is being put to use for the interest of other people instead. It is used to buy luxury cars, pay for hotels and go to high-priced restaurants paid in U.S. dollars.
EUNICE ELIASSAINT: [translated] I don’t see a future here. I can’t hide anything from you. There is no tomorrow. Last night, the children went to bed without anything to eat.
AMY GOODMAN: Lay out what’s happened in Haiti, Antony.
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Soon after the Haiti earthquake in 2010, the U.S. ambassador at the time—WikiLeaks documents showed this—wrote a cable essentially saying that a gold rush is on, a gold rush meaning for U.S. corporations and others. The U.S. has spent billions of dollars there, mostly for U.S. contractors. Most of the money the U.S. has spent there since the earthquake has remained in America. Haitians are not really being trained. Haitians are not really being supported. The solution that the Obama administration gave for Haiti, pushed by Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton, their daughter, were industrial parks—essentially, places that Haitians can get underpaid and not trained to make cheap clothing for Gap and Wal-Mart that you and I maybe, hopefully, won’t buy in the U.S. That’s the solution that the U.S. sees for Haiti.
AMY GOODMAN: You know—
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: And many Haitians—sorry—actually also argue that they feel occupied by foreign interests, the U.N. and the U.S.
AMY GOODMAN: Democracy Now! went down to Haiti a number of times before and after the earthquake. And I remember one of those times, President Clinton, he was down in Haiti giving a speech, saying there’s two things he cares about in the world. One is his daughter’s wedding. She was just—Chelsea Clinton was about to get married. And the other is restoring Haiti.
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Well, the legacy of the Clinton Foundation—and I examine this deeply in the book—is utterly appalling. There are example after example of the Clinton Foundation funding a number of centers that have been infected by chemicals, which also, I might add, the Clinton Foundation were investing in failed things after Hurricane Katrina, as well, here in the U.S. Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and others—I mean, they’re one example—their solution has primarily been industrial parks. And one of the things that comes out very clearly, the suggestions—and we talk about this in our film, as well—that the solution for Haiti is not to build massive industrial parks to make clothing that you and I can buy in the U.S. The solution is empowering locals. It’s about speaking to locals and saying, "We actually have a solution that empowers you and trains you." And one of the things that comes out also clearly is that so many Haitians feel pretty pissed off with the fact that so often there’s actually little or no encouragement of them. And ultimately, Haiti really has never been an independent country, Amy. I mean, the U.S. has had involvement there for a hundred years. And many Haitians ultimately feel that they actually really need to separate themselves from the U.S., but America doesn’t actually view that as a viable option. And the book goes into detail about why that is the case. Haiti is seen as too economically viable for America to let it go.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, where do you see the hope in this dark history of multinational corporations and the plunder of the most vulnerable?
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: The hope are hearing local stories. And one of the things I talk about in the book, and we do in the film, is actually say that so many in the media—and I’m obviously part of that, and you are, as well—I know Democracy Now! is an exception to this—but too often don’t report local stories, don’t actually hear local people saying what they want. So when disaster strikes in Haiti, don’t just focus on celebrities like Sean Penn, focus on other people actually there who are doing good work, empower them, pay them, train them. It’s not rocket science how to change this. Ultimately, Haiti’s economic structure, as one example, needs to change, but it’s not going to change with U.S. contractors doing the job.
AMY GOODMAN: Antony Loewenstein’s new book is Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing out of Catastrophe. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, the new U.S. poet laureate. Stay with us.Read More →
Nobel Peace Prize to Tunisian Civil Society Groups for Democratization Efforts After Arab Spring
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to a coalition of civil society organizations known as the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet. The move comes nearly five years after a Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire, sparking the Arab Spring that included the ouster of Tunisia’s longtime, U.S.-backed dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. "The quartet was formed in the summer of 2013 when the democratization process was in danger of collapsing as a result of political assassinations and widespread social unrest. It established an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war," said Kaci Kullmann Five, Norwegian Nobel Committee chair. The Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet is composed of four organizations: the Tunisian General Labour Union; the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts; the Tunisian Human Rights League; and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers. The committee said it hopes its recognition of the quartet’s achievements will "serve as an example that will be followed by other countries." We speak with Sarah Chayes, senior associate of the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She writes about Tunisia in her recent book, "Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show with the announcement that this year’s Nobel Peace Prize goes to a coalition of civil society organizations known as the Tunisia National Dialogue Quartet. The move comes nearly five years after a Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire, sparking the Arab Spring that included the ouster of Tunisia’s longtime U.S.-backed dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Last January, Tunisia ratified a constitution that included provisions guaranteeing freedom of speech, freedom of religion, gender equality and protection of Tunisia’s natural resources. The prize was announced by the committee at 5:00 a.m. Eastern time this morning in Oslo.
KACI KULLMANN FIVE: The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2015 is to be awarded to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011. The quartet was formed in summer of 2013 when the democratization process was in danger of collapsing as a result of political assassinations and widespread social unrest. It established an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war. It was thus instrumental in enabling Tunisia, in the space of a few years, to establish a constitutional system of government guaranteeing fundamental rights for the entire population, irrespective of gender, political conviction or religious belief.
AMY GOODMAN: The Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet is composed of four organizations: the Tunisian General Labour Union; the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts; the Tunisian Human Rights League; and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers. The Nobel Peace Prize committee said it hopes its recognition of the quartet’s achievements will, quote, "serve as an example that will be followed by other countries."
For more, we go to Paris to speak with Sarah Chayes, senior associate of the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, author of Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security.
Sarah, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you talk about the significance? And who is the Tunisian coalition who have just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize?
SARAH CHAYES: Yeah, I’d love to. I’m really delighted to hear of this award. Just one rectification, if I may: For once, the United States was not a primary backer of Ben Ali, of the Ben Ali regime. This is one dictatorship that actually we’re not guilty of. In particular, it was actually France, was the principal international backer of that regime.
But the quartet is really remarkable, first of all, in that—you named the four organizations. These are four organizations with a long history in Tunisia. They are well-established civil society organizations, but not the type that we usually think of when we use the word "civil society." It’s the bar association, in a sense, the lawyers; the employers’ union—I don’t think—it’s sort of like a chamber of commerce; and then a left-leaning labor union and the Human Rights League. And I think the first really interesting element of this is it’s the first time that I can think of that the Nobel Prize has been awarded to a set of organizations or a set of parties that had to make peace internally first before it could then go out and make peace externally. And that’s, in particular, the employers’ union and the labor union. They were in conflict continuously, essentially from Tunisia’s independence until 2013. So I think they led by example in a really important way. So that’s, I think, the significance of who these recipients are.
AMY GOODMAN: Compare what has happened in Tunisia, because Tunisia sparked the—what happened in Egypt, with the Arab Spring across the Middle East.
SARAH CHAYES: I think that’s precisely the second really important element of this award, is the impact on peace is demonstrable, right? You’ve got two countries, Tunisia and Egypt, that were suffering the same ill, which is to say a kleptocratic and autocratic government. Both went through a revolution. In both cases, an Islamist party eventually emerged the victor from a first set of elections. In the case of Egypt, which is practically a neighbor, the very same summer, you had a coup against the Islamist party that was in power, and then you had a massacre. Basically, the army gunned down—or the police, it was—gunned down hundreds of supporters of that Islamist party in the streets of Cairo. And since then, what you’ve had is a restoration of an authoritarian military government, together with a really hot insurgency, that is comparable to the 1990s in Egypt, whereas in Tunisia, largely because of the incredibly—the just significant efforts—I think that’s another really interesting point that I’ll come to maybe next, is how hard the members or the leadership of these four organizations worked together with Tunisian politicians to achieve a different outcome.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to 2011, when I spoke about the Arab Spring with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, about the role the diplomatic cables WikiLeaks released played in the Tunisian uprising.
JULIAN ASSANGE: The cables about Tunisia were then spread around online, in other forms, translated by a little Internet group called Tunileaks, and so presented a number of different facets that sort of—that everyone could see, and no one could deny, that the Ben Ali regime was fundamentally corrupt. It’s not that the people there didn’t know it before, but it became undeniable to everyone, including the United States, and that the United States, or at least the State Department, could be read, that if it came down to supporting the army or Ben Ali, they would probably support the army, the military class, rather than the political class. So that gave activists and the army a belief that they could possibly pull it off.
But this wasn’t enough. So, all that was intellectual and was making a difference and was stirring things up in Tunisia. And then you had this action by a 26-year-old computer technician, who set—who self-immolated on December 16 last year.
AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed Bouazizi.
JULIAN ASSANGE: Yeah. And was hospitalized and died on January 4th. And that taking a sort of intellectual frustration and irritation and hunger for change and undeniability to an emotional, physical act on the street is then what changed the equation.
AMY GOODMAN: That was WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, an event we did in London when he was under house arrest, though not yet having gone into the Ecuadorean Embassy, where he has asylum. If, Sarah Chayes, you could respond to the significance of those documents that were released?
SARAH CHAYES: Yeah, what I heard from Tunisians at the time was precisely the way that they pointed to the lack of U.S. support for the dictatorship of Ben Ali was what they found to be particularly striking. So, there were very detailed passages within those documents that showed exactly both what the U.S. knew about how that government was functioning and its distaste for that functioning. And that actually, according to Tunisians I spoke to at the time, really encouraged them to kind of make a move. And I found that really interesting, because at the time, or in previous years, I had been living in Afghanistan, and there was a similar situation, where you had a kleptocratic government, basically, but that really was supported by the U.S. government. And so, I found it quite interesting to hear the hesitation that Tunisians had prior to reading or seeing the WikiLeaks information as to whether the U.S. would come in and back Ben Ali or not. And so, it just goes to show that in a lot of places in the world, people assume that the U.S. is much more actively engaged or involved in what’s going on than the U.S. often actually is.
AMY GOODMAN: Just reading from The Huffington Post, it says, "[A]s the popular uprising against the Ben Ali dictatorship commenced last month"—this was, you know, a few years ago—"Congress weighed in with support of the regime by passing a budget resolution that included $12 million in security assistance to Tunisia, one of only five foreign governments (the others being Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Colombia) provided direct taxpayer-funded military aid." This was to keep it in power as the uprising commenced, to keep Ben Ali in power.
SARAH CHAYES: Yeah, I’m not sure I buy that. I was checking into that stuff at the time, and what I found was that most of the assistance—I found two things. Number one, most of the assistance—that kind of assistance is programmed years in advance. And when I was actually urging, after the revolution had taken place—at the time, I was working in the U.S. government—for there to be a significant support for post-Ben Ali Tunisia, it turns out to be very difficult to move things quickly. So I frankly doubt that that particular program was voted as a result of, you know, in a sort of one-to-two-day, you know, or couple-of-day period, the difficulties Ben Ali was encountering.
And secondly, as Assange suggests in his interview with you, there was a distinction between the military and the Ben Ali regime. In fact, Ben Ali had been starving the military, because he himself came out of the military and had won power in a coup, and so his own base of support was not the military. It was the police and other special services. And so, if anything, the military was against Ben Ali, not in favor of Ben Ali.
AMY GOODMAN: And what will be Nobel Peace Prize mean for Tunisia, Sarah?
SARAH CHAYES: I just think it’s a really important sort of mark of moral authority, you know? I mean, incentive structures in this world are created by reinforcing and rewarding positive actions and by ideally sanctioning negative actions. And so often we’ve seen in the last number of years negative actions receiving positive reward, be it monetary or otherwise. And in this case, I think, you know, really pointing to little Tunisia and the remarkable path that it’s followed—it’s an imperfect path. It has not successfully, I think, addressed some of the political economy problems that led to the revolution in the first place, which is to say massive crony capitalism and corruption. That hasn’t been significantly addressed in the political process that has taken place, but at least you don’t see the kind of limiting of civil liberties and civil rights that you’ve seen in a lot of other places. And so, I think this is meaningful to Tunisia, and I would just say that some of the more material forms of reward would also be helpful, like private sector investment and things like that.
AMY GOODMAN: Although in July Tunisia’s Parliament overwhelmingly passed new terror legislation that allows police to detain suspects without charge for up to 15 days, or without access to a lawyer, also allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty in terror cases. Last 15 seconds, Sarah.
SARAH CHAYES: Yeah, I do think that’s very problematic, and I think it’s part of a sort of elevating of terrorism as the only threat worth addressing, and in addressing it, a lot of damage can be done if it’s addressed wrong.
AMY GOODMAN: Sarah Chayes, thanks so much for being with us, senior associate of the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, author of Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security.
When we come back, we’ll be joined by investigative journalist Antony Loewenstein about his book, Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing out of Catastrophe. Stay with us.Read More →
First Latino U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera on Migrant Farmworkers, the Border and Ayotzinapa
We speak with Juan Felipe Herrera, who has begun his term as the 21st poet laureate of the United States. A son of Mexican migrant farmworkers, Herrera is the first Latino poet laureate of the United States. Written in both English and Spanish, his work has been celebrated over the past four decades for its energy, humor, emotion and ability to capture the consciousness of a cross-section of America. In announcing Herrera’s appointment, Library of Congress Director James H. Billington said, “I see in Herrera’s poems the work of an American original—work that takes the sublimity and largesse of 'Leaves of Grass' and expands upon it. His poems … champion voices and traditions and histories, as well as a cultural perspective, which is a vital part of our larger American identity." Herrera is the author of 28 books, including "187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border" and, mostly recently, "Notes on the Assemblage." He is a past winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the International Latino Book Award. Herrera discusses the role of poets in social movements, and reads his poem "Ayotzinapa," about the disappearance of 43 students in Guerrero, Mexico.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We end today’s show with Juan Felipe Herrera. He recently began his term as the 21st poet laureate of the United States. A son of Mexican migrant workers, Herrera is the first Latino poet laureate of the United States. He writes in both English and Spanish. His work has been celebrated over the past four decades for its energy, humor, emotion and ability to capture the consciousness of a cross-section of America.
In announcing Juan Felipe Herrera’s appointment as poet laureate, the librarian of Congress, Director James Billington, said, quote, "I see in Herrera’s poems the work of an American original—work that takes the sublimity and largesse of 'Leaves of Grass' and expands upon it. His poems engage in a serious sense of play—in language and in image—that I feel gives them enduring power. I see how they champion voices and traditions and histories, as well as a cultural perspective, which is a vital part of our larger American identity."
Juan Felipe Herrera is the author of 28 books, including 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border and, mostly recently, Notes on the Assemblage. He’s a past winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the International Latino Book Award, and joins us now in studio.
Juan Felipe Herrera, congratulations and welcome to Democracy Now!
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA: Well, thank you so much. It’s a great honor to be here, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: What does it mean to become the poet laureate of the United States?
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA: Well, you know, it means a lot. It means my whole life. It means the life of many generations of Latinos in this country and all the writing that we have done for so many years and centuries.
AMY GOODMAN: Tell me about your family, where you come from, where your parents came from.
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA: Well, you know, my family—my father came from Chihuahua back in the late 1800s. He crossed the border when he was 14, probably in 1898. He was born in 1882. He was always a laborer, a farm worker, throughout his whole life, and a great storyteller and a great pioneer. My mother came from Mexico City from the barrio of Tepito, one of the poorest barrios, right after the Mexican revolution, with my grandmother and my aunt and my uncles that came before her to join the Army at Fort Bliss. And she wanted to be a dancer and a poet and a singer, but being that traditional type of world, she was kept back from doing that. So she instilled all that in me, and I always kept her spirit.
AMY GOODMAN: And where were you born?
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA: I was born in Fowler, California. I’m a son of farm workers, like I mentioned. And I was born in—next to Fresno, the San Joaquin Valley of California.
AMY GOODMAN: You have talked about what it’s like to live as an outlaw and brown in America.
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA: I have talked about that, yes. Being an outlaw, for me, means, you know, being on the margin and working with other artists and community members to bring about change, in that manner. And so, that’s what I’ve done with many people. It’s been beautiful, that part of the social changes and cultural movements of the ’60s, ’70s, to the present, and to be active to honor our communities and to work with our communities, and particularly through the word and stories and poetry and inspiration and change.
AMY GOODMAN: You’ve also said growing up in a migrant family is living in literature every day.
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA: Yes, it is. Yes, it is, because it’s all about storytelling. It’s about telling our stories and our songs and our riddles and our sayings and proverbs. And that’s what it is. And it’s rich, very rich.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to a clip from 1973, when you performed at the Festival de Flor y Canto de Aztlan. This is Juan Felipe Herrera’s poem, "Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way."
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA: Let us gather in a flourishing way
with sunluz grains abriendo los cantos
que cargamos cada día
en el young pasto nuestro cuerpo
para regalar y dar feliz perlas pearls
of corn flowing árboles de vida en las cuatro esquinas
let us gather in a flourishing way
contentos llenos de fuerza to vida
giving nacimientos to fragrant ríos
dulces frescos verdes turquoise strong
que sí
let us gather in a flourishing way
carne de nuestros hijos rainbows
en la luz y en la carne of our heart to toil
tranquilos in fields of blossoms
juntos to stretch los brazos
tranquilos with the rain en la mañana
temprana estrella on our forehead
cielo de calor and wisdom to meet us
where we toil siempre
in the garden of our struggle
in the garden of our joy
let us offer our hearts a saludar our águila rising
freedom
a celebrar woven brazos branches ramas
piedras nopales plumas pueblos piercing bursting
ripe mariposa fields and mares claros
of our face
to breathe todos en el camino blessing
the seeds to grow to give maiztlán amerindia
en las manos de nuestro amor
AMY GOODMAN: Juan Felipe Herrera, reading his poetry in 1973. Your hair has grown shorter, but how has your work changed over the decades?
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA: Well, you know, I haven’t really left that spirit and—the bilingual spirit, and poetry for all people and our people and for poetry for our communities. Well, it’s changed because, you know, I’ve had—everything changes. And I have new experiences, and I’ve seen new things happen, and people come to me and tell me their stories. And certain things have become more pronounced through time.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about speaking in English and Spanish, writing in English and Spanish.
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA: Well, it’s a beautiful thing. You know, we have many languages in this nation, and we also have fronteras, living on these things called the borders, on the border. And that’s where poetry gets reinvented and language gets reinvented. And this is part of the Chicano/Latino movement of the late '60s, post-civil rights. And it was about opening our lives and our life, how we live and how we speak and what we see and our experience and our culture. So, that's what that is, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: On September 26, tens of thousands of people marched to mark the first anniversary of the disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa rural teachers’ college in Guerrero, Mexico, to demand answers in the case. The students disappeared after coming under attack by local police. We recently had the mothers of two of the students, Jorge Antonio Tizapa Legideño and César Manuel González Hernández, on the show. The mothers had attempted to meet with Pope Francis during his recent U.S. visit but were unsuccessful. I asked Hilda Hernández Rivera, mother of César, what support she had hoped to receive from the pope.
HILDA HERNÁNDEZ RIVERA: [translated] I know that there are a lot of people who have a lot of need and are requesting his support. But we are looking for our sons alive. We’re looking for live people. We’re not asking for any sort of material support. Imagine as a parent the sort of anguish that we feel, wondering what’s happening to our sons, whether they’ve eaten, whether they’re sick. You know your children. Well, unfortunately, we couldn’t meet with the pope, but we know that God sees all. And God knows we’re looking for our sons, and we hope that there will be a miracle and that soon we will have them home.
AMY GOODMAN: Juan Felipe Herrera, you wrote a poem about Ayotzinapa, about the missing 43 young men, and it’s in your latest book.
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA: Yes. Yes, I did. When I heard about this news and felt it and I saw the students mobilizing in Mexico City and throughout Mexico, I was very inspired to write. And I felt. I felt so much that I had to pour it out on this—in this poem.
"Ayotzinapa"
for the students, for Mexico, for the world
From Ayotzinapa we were headed toward Iguala to say to the
mayor that we wanted funds for our rural school for teachers
it was a protest for our school that is all rural teachers nothing
more nothing less we were protesting for funds that is all we were
surrounded by police and their cronies they fired their guns they
burned us they dismembered us in trash bags they threw us into the
river yet we continue yet we march from here from the bowels of
Mexico this river that floods all the schools and all the universities
and all the floors of the emperors’ palaces we continue at twenty-
four years of age we make way through the massacre here from
where we were born and from where we died toward all the cities
in the world toward all the students and teachers in the world
demonstrating on all the streets sprung open
incandescent
no one knew it no one saw it
we are leaving this number 43 for you
because there were 43 of us
we are
not disposable
AMY GOODMAN: "Ayotzinapa."
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA: "Ayotzinapa."
AMY GOODMAN: From Notes on the Assemblage. Explain this book.
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA: This book?
AMY GOODMAN: That you put together.
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA: Well, you know, I had put together another book that, after a year of writing it, it just fell apart. It just didn’t have what I really wanted in it. It was really—it wasn’t speaking. I had words on paper. This one came about because I did put together, it is an assemblage. I had written about things that were taking place that were violent, that were terrible, that happened during the last two years. And I had to write and respond to those things and the people, and hopefully send them these materials.
AMY GOODMAN: What does it mean to be poet laureate? What will you do?
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA: It means I have a national scope and international scope. And what I want to do is invite everybody—everybody—to speak, to say, to express themselves, whatever they want to say, whatever is deep and meaningful to them, and to enter it into Casa de Colores, House of Colors, which is on the website of the Library of Congress, so I can put out those words for everyone to see. So it’s writing, speaking, and then taking it out once again into the public’s eye.
AMY GOODMAN: Your comments on presidential candidate Donald Trump saying that all 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country should be deported?
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA: Well, you know, it’s not a good thing. It’s not a good thing to—and this is just in general, for sure. It’s not a good thing to bring about more division. You know, from my experience, from my family’s experience, from the experience of the communities that I know and visit throughout the United States, we work very hard, and we live and die in those fields. And we need support, resources, education, more educational resources, and not those kind of comments.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much. Juan Felipe Herrera recently became the first Latino U.S. poet laureate.Read More →
Headlines:
Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Tunisian Civil Society Organizations
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to a coalition of civil society organizations known as the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet. The Norwegian Nobel Committee says the prize seeks to honor the organizations’ contributions to building a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the 2011 Tunisian revolution, which toppled the country’s longtime U.S.-backed dictator.
Kaci Kullmann Five: "The quartet was formed in summer of 2013 when the democratization process was in danger of collapsing as a result of political assassinations and widespread social unrest. It established an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war."
We’ll have more on the Nobel Peace Prize after headlines.
McCarthy Withdraws from House Speaker Race; Congress in Disarray
House Republicans are meeting this morning after California Congressmember Kevin McCarthy abruptly withdrew from the race for House speaker, throwing Congress into disarray. McCarthy’s withdrawal came as he faced increasing pressure from the right-wing faction of his party. He has also come under fire after suggesting the Benghazi oversight House committee had been set up to discredit former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
He announced his decision Thursday.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy: "I think there’s something to be said, for us to unite, we probably need a fresh face. I’ll stay on as majority leader. But the one thing I’ve found in talking to everybody: If we are going to unite and be strong, we need a new face to help do that."
Two right-wing members of the Republican Party, Utah Congressmember Jason Chaffetz and Florida Congressmember Daniel Webster, are seeking the position of House speaker.
U.S. General Pushes to Keep U.S. Troops in Afghanistan
The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Campbell, is pushing to keep more U.S. troops in the country than planned under President Obama’s scheduled drawdown, following the Taliban’s seizure of Kunduz last week. California Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez pressed General Campbell during his testimony to the House Armed Services Committee Thursday.
Rep. Loretta Sanchez: "So, within your own current testimony, let alone the testimony that Mr. Jones brought before you from before, you basically are saying, 'I don't know that there’s a long-term viability for these security forces.’ We’re paying the majority of that. How much is the majority? How much money does that mean, to have a force that you don’t believe has a long-term viability?"
Gen. John Campbell: "Ma’am, if I could—"
Rep. Sanchez: "How much? How much? That’s the question. How much?"
Gen. Campbell: "Yes, ma’am. Today, for calendar year ’15, the United States put $4.1 billion to build the Afghan security forces."
Rep. Sanchez: "$4.1 billion."
Gen. Campbell: "For ’16, $3.86 billion."
Rep. Sanchez: "Thank you. $4.1 billion."
Gen. Campbell: "Every year we continue to reduce that by gaining efficiencies. We’re not providing infrastructure that—"
Rep. Sanchez: "General, I’ve heard this. I’ve heard this for 14 years."
Doctors Without Borders: 24 Staffers Still Missing After U.S. Strike
This comes as Doctors without Borders says 24 of its staff members are still missing following the U.S. airstrike on its hospital in Kunduz on Saturday. That’s in addition to at least 22 people who have died in the strike, including 12 medical workers and 10 patients.
Obama Ends $500 Million Program to Train and Arm Syrian Rebels
The Obama administration is abandoning the $500 million program to train and arm so-called moderate rebels in Syria. The move is an acknowledgment that the program had failed to create a ground combat force capable of challenging ISIL. The Pentagon is expected to officially announce the end of the program today.
Syria: Iranian General Advising Assad Killed by ISIL
An Iranian general has reportedly been killed by ISIL in Syria. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards say General Hossein Hamedani had been advising Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops. This comes amid an escalation of the conflict in Syria, with the Syrian government launching a ground offensive against rebel groups and Russia’s launch of cruise missiles into the country earlier this week.
Documents: Chilean Dictator Pinochet Ordered 1976 Murder on U.S. Soil
New declassified documents show former Chilean General Augusto Pinochet directly ordered the 1976 assassination of a Chilean diplomat on U.S. soil. Diplomat Orlando Letelier had served as a foreign minister under President Salvador Allende, who was overthrown in a U.S.-backed coup in 1973. Letelier fled to the United States after being tortured and incarcerated under Pinochet’s dictatorship. He was killed in a car bomb in Washington, D.C., only a mile from the White House. The declassified documents also show Pinochet was so concerned about covering up his role in ordering Letelier’s assassination that he also planned to assassinate his head of intelligence.
Report: "Systemic" Overpolluting by Car Manufacturers
The Guardian has obtained data showing diesel cars from four major car manufacturers are emitting significantly more pollution on the road than in their regulatory tests. Tests conducted by the company Emissions Analytics show that models of Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Mazda and Mitsubishi all emit far more toxic pollution than previously thought. This comes as Volkswagen CEO Michael Horn apologized for the emissions cheating scandal in his testimony to Congress Thursday.
Michael Horn: "On behalf of our company and my colleagues in Germany, and me personally, I would like to offer a sincere apology—sincere apology—for Volkswagen’s use of a software program that served to defeat the regular emissions testing regime."
The Guardian reported similar revelations about higher pollution emissions from cars made by Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, Citroën, Fiat, Volvo and Jeep last week. Nick Molden, whose company has tested the cars, said: "The issue is a systemic one."
Japan: Kids Near Fukushima 20-50 Times Higher Rates of Thyroid Cancer
In news from Japan, a new study says children living near the Fukushima nuclear plant during the 2011 meltdown have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer at a rate between 20 and 50 times higher than children on average. The report will appear in the November issue of Epidemiology. Thyroid cancer in children is the one illness the medical world has definitively linked to radiation, based on studies following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
ACLU: Benton County, WA, Operating "Modern-Day Debtors’ Prison"
The American Civil Liberties Union is suing Benton County, Washington, for operating a "modern-day debtors’ prison." The suit says Benton County routinely fines people more than $1,000 as part of criminal proceedings. If they can’t pay, they are sent to jail or forced to work manual labor. ACLU attorney Vanessa Hernandez says: "On any given day, scores of indigent persons sit in jail or do manual labor for the county simply because they are too poor to pay the government."
South Carolina: Walter Scott’s Family Settles for $6.5 Million
In South Carolina, the family of unarmed African American Walter Scott, who was shot in the back by white police officer Michael Slager in April, has settled with the city of North Charleston for $6.5 million. Officer Slager was charged with murder after video showed he shot Scott in the back as Scott ran away. Officer Slager remains in jail after he was denied bail by Circuit Judge Clifton Newman, who concluded releasing Officer Slager would "constitute an unreasonable danger to the community."
Ben Carson: Holocaust Might Have Been Avoided If Jews Had Guns
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson has sparked a new round of outrage over comments that the Holocaust might have been avoided if European Jews had carried more guns. Carson told CNN Thursday: "The likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed." This comes after Carson sparked controversy when he told Fox News that he would have fought off the shooter who killed nine people at an Oregon community college one week ago.
Michigan: Flint to Return to Detroit Water amid Contamination Scandal
And in Michigan, Governor Rick Snyder has announced that the city of Flint will reconnect to Detroit’s water system amid a public health emergency over contaminated water. This follows more than a year of protests by residents who began experiencing health issues after the city’s unelected emergency manager decided to begin drawing water directly from the polluted Flint River in order to save money. Resident and community organizer LeeAnne Walters spoke about the contaminated water in a video produced by local journalists Kate Levy and Curt Guyette.
LeeAnne Walters: "In April, beginning of April, we found out my child had lead poisoning, and that’s when the city came out and shut my water off. On Detroit, we didn’t have these issues."
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