Nikolas Kozloff

It’s no secret that John McCain has been a longtime friend of the telecom industry. Indeed, the Arizona Senator has had important historic ties to big corporations like AT&T, MCI and Qualcomm. In return for their financial contributions, McCain, who partly oversees the telecommunication industry in the Senate, has acted to protect and look out for the political and economic interests of the telecoms on Capitol Hill.

Such connections are well known, yet few have paused to consider how Iraq fits into the wider jigsaw puzzle. Prior to the war in Iraq, McCain was one of the biggest boosters of the invasion. While it’s unclear whether the telecoms actually lobbied McCain on this score, they certainly benefited under the subsequent occupation.

To get a sense of the sheer scope of McCain’s incestuous relationship with the telecoms, one need only log on to the Web site of the Center for Responsive Politics. In the 1998 electoral cycle, AT&T gave $34,000 to McCain. In the 2000 cycle, the telecom giant provided $69,000, in 2002 $61,000, in 2004 $39,000, in 2006 $29,000 and in 2008 $187,000. Over the course of his career, AT&T has been McCain’s second largest corporate backer.

What’s more, AT&T has donated handsomely to McCain’s International Republican Institute (IRI), a private/public organization that carries out the far right’s foreign policy agenda in Iraq and elsewhere (for more on McCain and his relationship with the IRI, see my previous column, “Promoting Iraqi Occupation For ‘a Million Years,’ McCain and The International Republican Institute,” June 9, 2008. In 2006, the company gave the IRI $200,000. AT&T spokesman Michael Balmoris declined to elaborate on why the international telecommunications provider wrote a big check. “AT&T contributes to a variety of charitable organizations," he said flippantly.

If all that money was not enough to secure the Arizona Senator’s allegiance, AT&T may also count on an army of lobbyists who are now allied to the McCain campaign. Take for example campaign adviser Charlie Black, whose lobbying firm BKSH has represented AT&T for the past decade. Then there’s Mark Buse, McCain’s Senate Chief of Staff, who worked as a lobbyist for AT&T Wireless from 2002 to 2005.

Other companies such as MCI and Qualcomm have also played a role in the Arizona politician’s Senate career. Take for instance Tom Loeffler, McCain’s campaign co-chairman and former Congressman of Texas. Loeffler, through his lobbying firm Loeffler Group, has represented Qualcomm since 1999. All told, Qualcomm employees, spouses and political action committees have given tens of thousands of dollars to the McCain campaign. Meanwhile Kirck Blalock, a McCain campaign fundraiser, lobbied MCI from 2002 to 2005 through his firm Fierce, Blalock and Isakowitz.

Though McCain routinely derides the influence of "special interest lobbyists," his ties to the telecom lobbyists undermine any such claims. Of the 66 current or former lobbyists working for the Arizona senator or raising money for his presidential campaign, 23 have lobbied for telecommunications companies in the past decade.

McCain is a senior member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the telecom industry and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The Arizona Senator has repeatedly pushed industry-backed legislation. McCain’s efforts to eliminate taxes and regulations on telecommunications services have won him praise from industry executives. In the late 1990s, the Arizona Senator wrote the FCC, urging the agency to give serious consideration to the idea of allowing AT&T and MCI to enter the long-distance market. Four months later, AT&T wrote a check for $25,800 to McCain.

If that was not enough, high-up McCain officials such as Charlie Black secretly lobbied Congress to approve a measure wiping out all private lawsuits against the telecoms for assisting the U.S. intelligence community’s warrantless surveillance programs. McCain himself became an “unqualified” supporter of telecom immunity, claiming in a statement to the National Review that “neither the Administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and the trial lawyers, understand were Constitutional and appropriate.” Needless to say, McCain voted in favor of granting amnesty to AT&T and other telecoms at exactly the time that his close adviser Black was taking money from AT&T to influence Congress on its behalf.

Making a Killing in Iraq

Even as McCain was lobbying hard for the Telecom industry in the late 1990s, the Arizona Senator worked overtime to build up the case for war in the Middle East. McCain served as the “honorary co-chair” of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a group which helped push for official government as well as public support for the invasion of Iraq after the 9/11 terror attacks.

In the aftermath of the invasion, the telecoms scrambled to get a piece of the action as Iraq was opened up for business. Cellular giant Qualcomm managed to exert political influence over the Pentagon which in turn pressured the Coalition Provisional Authority to change an Iraqi police radio contract to favor Qualcomm’s patented cellular technology.

What’s more, the Pentagon hired MCI—the former World Com, which had declared bankruptcy amidst an accounting fraud scandal in July, 2002—to build a small wireless phone network in Iraq. Incensed, Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy urged major federal agencies to stop doing business with bankrupt telecom giant MCI and explain why its record $9 billion accounting fraud should not disqualify the company from receiving lucrative government contracts.

As it turned out Kennedy was right to harbor suspicions about the dodgy company. After the Coalition Provisional Authority issued MCI cell phones to U.S. personnel in Baghdad’s Green Zone, problems arose. Reportedly, cell phone owners received monthly bills as high as $10,000. The individuals had never received bills, leaving the impression that the phone calls, which cost $1.25 a minute, were free. The U.S. State Department subsequently decided to shut the phone calls down.

AT&T, McCain’s second largest corporate backer, also fell into controversy. After the invasion, the telecom giant received an exclusive contract to provide pre-paid calling cards to military personnel stationed in Iraq. But U.S. soldiers quickly complained about the exorbitant prices they had to pay under the arrangement.

According to the Newark Star Ledger, many pre-paid AT&T cards bought in the United States and shipped to soldiers in Iraq allowed only a fraction of the minutes promised on the cards. Even the cards bought in Iraq, which an AT&T spokesman said were a better bargain for the troops, cost between 19 and 21 cents a minute for a call.

House Representative Frank Pallone, Democrat of New Jersey, was disturbed by the price gouging. “AT&T should be required to provide a clear and straightforward system of calling time that will make it easier for our troops to call home,” Pallone said in a statement. “It disturbs me to think that companies are more interested in making a buck on our soldiers in Iraq than providing the quality services they have been paid to provide.”

Since the inception of the oil industry in the early twentieth century, Venezuela has had strong cultural ties to the United States. President Hugo Chávez however has sought to change this by cultivating a sense of cultural nationalism in his country. Perhaps the hallmark of Chávez's new cultural policy is Villa del Cine, a spanking new film studio. Inaugurated in June 2006 amid much fanfare, the $42 million project under the Ministry of Culture aims to produce 19 feature-length films a year, in addition to documentaries and television series.

 

Through this "Bolivarian Cinecittà," Chávez seeks to spur production of films dealing with social empowerment, South American history, and Venezuelan values.  Chávez himself has long favored such movies: two of Chávez's favorite films include El Caracazo, directed by Roman Chalbaud, which depicts popular protests and riots against the corrupt government of Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1989. The second, Amaneció de Golpe (The Coup Awakened) by Carlos Azpúrua, deals with Chávez's attempted military coup against the Pérez regime in 1992.

 

By spurring local film production, Chávez and the staff at Villa del Cine hope to counteract the pervasive influence of Hollywood and to promote Venezuelan history and culture. "They [foreign films] inoculate us with messages that have nothing to do with our traditions," the
Venezuelan leader said during Villa del Cine's inauguration ceremony. Though some foreign films were "enjoyable," Chávez remarked, most Indians and Latin Americans in them were portrayed as people that were "savage and dangerous, who have to be eliminated."

"Hollywood sends a message to the world that tries to sustain the so-called American way of life and imperialism," he added. "It is like a dictatorship." Venezuela is hardly the first government to subsidize cinematic production. In many European nations as well as Latin
American countries like Brazil and Mexico, it's common for authorities to provide state funding for movie making. On the other hand, Villa del Cine has not been immune from criticism. Ironically, some charge that the film studio is promoting Hollywood stars like Danny Glover while neglecting the local Venezuelan film industry. The controversy has put Villa del Cine on the defensive and led to accusations that the facility is playing favorites.

 

Villa del Cine Seeks To Counteract Hollywood

 

While researching my latest book, Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left
(Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008), I traveled to Villa del Cine, located outside of the Venezuelan town of Guarenas. The government had spent lavishly there, and the facility included two film studios, audio and video equipment, warehouses and an administrative building with areas
for post-production, animation, costumes, casting, and food service.

 

I sat down to speak with Lorena Almarza, Villa del Cine's idealistic director. A former student of social and political psychology, Almarza became particularly interested in culture as a means of encouraging community organization. Growing up in the western city of Barquisimeto, she familiarized herself with the writings of such theorists as Antonio Gramsci and Paulo Freyre. Meanwhile, she frequented local film clubs and became interested in cinema. "Later I went to Caracas to study psychology in the Central University," she remarked. "I started to work as an usher. After that I began to organize film festivals."

 

Once Chávez came to power, Almarza worked with the state-run Bolivarian schools, helping to bring movies to children and provide manuals explaining how students might interpret images and psychological profiles of different characters.  When I asked Almarza to talk about her work at Villa del Cine, she explained enthusiastically that she was proud to be part of an
"experimental" state project. Historically, the Venezuelan authorities had provided minimal resources towards cultural promotion. But the Chávez government established a distributor, Amazonia Films, as an alternative to commercial networks.

 

Since opening in 2006, Amazonia has acquired films from Latin America, Europe and Asia. Amazonia officials have also started to provide support to independent film producers with cost reductions of up to 35 percent. Instead of merely providing minor funding towards
incipient film production, the state has now created incentives so as to increase film production and to enable moviemakers to acquire their own equipment.

 

The new Minister of Culture, Francisco Sesto, began to encourage the creation of audio-visual cooperatives. The idea was that filmmakers would bring their proposals to the table and Villa del Cine would decide if the government was interested in promoting the project. "It's
all about the transformation of the state," she says, "and how people might become participants in the development of film through their own art." So far, Villa del Cine has shot on location in all twenty-four Venezuelan states and in 2005-2006 the studio filmed 357 productions.

 

Almarza has overseen the production of TV series documenting educational developments under Chávez's Bolivarian Revolution. But Villa del Cine has also shot films about Indians and music, and in 2007 the studio planned to commence work on some fictional films. The authorities also hope to spur the creation of a network of community movie theaters. In 2006, 80 new theaters were created and authorities seek to build yet more that could show films produced at Villa del Cine.

 

Ultimately, Almarza and her staff hope that films made at Villa del Cine will be shown at most any Venezuelan shopping mall along with the usual Hollywood fare. Venezuela cannot compete economically with Hollywood, but Villa del Cine seeks to provide alternatives to
globalized homogeneity. As Almarza explained to me, film serves as useful tool in the "battle of ideas."

 

Enter Danny Glover

 

As I sit with Almarza at Villa del Cine, I turn the discussion towards African-American actor Danny Glover, co-star of the Lethal Weapon and Dreamgirls movies. A long-time civil rights activist and critic of the Bush administration, the actor is chairman of the TransAfrica Forum, an advocacy group for African Americans and other members of Africa's diaspora.

 

The Hollywood celebrity, who considers Chávez "remarkable," has been a frequent visitor to Venezuela. In January 2004, TransAfrica Forum sent a delegation of influential artists, actors, activists and scholars to Caracas to meet with government officials. Glover, who accompanied the delegation, expressed his excitement at the social changes taking place in Venezuela. The actor remarked that the U.S. media's portrayal of Venezuela had "nothing to do with reality."

Glover added that he was in Venezuela "to listen and learn, not only from government and opposition politicians, but to share with the people, those who are promoting the changes in this country and we want to be in contact with those who benefit from those changes."

Glover and others later presided over the inauguration of a new "Martin Luther King, Jr." school in the coastal town of Naiguata. The area is home to large numbers of Afro-Venezuelans. The school inauguration was the first official Venezuelan recognition of the
importance of the slain civil rights leader. What's more, the government launched a photo exposition to honor Dr. King.

 

Speaking at the event, Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States Bernardo Álvarez declared, "The visit by members of the TransAfrica Forum represents a struggle that goes beyond the figure of Martin Luther King; his struggle, his ideas and the African-American social movements inspired by him. This is a struggle aimed at defending people's rights, not only in the United States, but in the hemisphere and the world."

 

Glover, clearly touched by the occasion, commented, "This isn't Danny Glover the artist. I'm here as a citizen, not only of the U.S., but a citizen of the world. We understand fully the importance of this historical moment." Chávez later honored the late Dr. King during his radio and TV show Aló, Presidente!. Glover and others were invited on air to participate.

 

Glover's support for the Bolivarian Revolution continued into 2005. In July of that year, the Hollywood entertainer returned to Venezuela, this time accompanied by singer Harry Belafonte. Once in Caracas, Glover attended the ceremonial launching of a new TV news station called Telesur, a network that has received key financial support from Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina and Uruguay.

 

Glover was impressed with the new media initiative but criticized the station for not having any people of African or indigenous descent on its advisory board. Chávez himself called in to the inauguration shortly after and said to Glover, in English, "Danny, I am with you."

 

A few months later, Chávez traveled to New York to address the United Nations. During his visit, the Venezuelan leader made an appearance at the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew in Manhattan's Upper West Side where he praised U.S. icons such as Martin Luther King. The forum for Chávez's speech was called, "Social Forum on Poverty andJustice in a Globalized World," and was attended by Rev. Jesse Jackson and Danny Glover.

 

Glover's Venezuela Ties

 

Recently, other progressive Hollywood celebrities have paid visits to Venezuela. Just last month, actor and writer Tim Robbins toured Villa del Cine; the actor is reportedly contemplating the idea of initiating some type of film project in Venezuela. Robbins, who is
known for his political activism and opposition to the Bush White House, praised Chávez's film installation for its support of novel film directors. Robbins has been joined by Kevin Spacey and Sean Penn, two other Hollywood stars who have paid recent visits to Villa del Cine.

 

Glover however has gone farther than the likes of Robbins, Spacey or Penn in declaring his support for the political changes occuring in Venezuela under Hugo Chávez. Indeed, the veteran civil rights activist has even signed on to Telesur as a member of the TV station's advisory board.

 

In May 2007, Glover attended an International Communication Conference in Caracas with noted journalists, media executives, and intellectuals. The two-day event, which was open to the public, held interesting roundtable debates. Some of the topics included were: "Impunity and power of major media outlets," "The responsibility of national governments," "The use of radio and TV airspace as a public asset," and "Social ownership of the media."

 

Glover remarked that in the U.S., the issue of media control and citizen participation in the media was off the table. "People (in the United States) don't participate in a dialogue that allows them to see that they have the power of information," he said. "We see the positions that the media take, and people should take that power back and make themselves the architects of the media."

 

At the end of the conference, participants agreed to promote the creation of independent, community-based alternative media outlets as a counterbalance against the corporate media. In a manifesto approved by Telesur's advisory council, participants declared that radio and
television were an "asset for humanity," and should be administered by national governments, not by corporations. Furthermore, national governments should use their authority to revoke, concede, or renew licenses in accordance with their various constitutions. The participants applauded recent decisions taken by Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay to reclaim public air space.

 

The Myth of Toussaint

 

Glover's relationship with the Chávez government goes deeper than Telesur, however. During my interview with Almarza, the Villa del Cine Director, she remarked, "We have a very fraternal relationship with Glover. He came here to Villa del Cine in 2006. He's interested in
developing some film productions."

 

Since that interview, Glover's ties to Villa del Cine have taken off. Chávez's film studio has funded Glover's new epic film, Toussaint, about Francois Dominique Toussaint Louverture (1746-1803), one of the fathers of Haiti's independence from France. The film represents Glover's directorial debut; the star will also co-produce the movie.

 

Together with Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Toussaint L'Ouverture was one of the principal leaders of the Haitian rebellion at the end of the eighteenth century that struggled against the revolutionary French as well as Spanish, British, and Napoleonic forces. Toussaint liberated
black slaves not only in Haiti but all across the island of Hispaniola (today, the island is divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic).

 

When Toussaint concluded a ceasefire with Napoleonic forces, which were determined to reestablish colonial rule and reimpose slavery, the Haitian revolutionary was betrayed, apprehended and deported. He died in France in 1803. Toussaint's lieutenant Dessalines, an ex-slave just like Toussaint, continued the rebellion. Haiti finally declared its independence from France in January 1804. The impoverished Caribbean colony was the first black nation to throw off imperial rule and become a republic.

 

Political Controversy Swirling Around Toussaint

 

Unfortunately, for Glover, controversy has recently swirled around Toussaint, which will be filmed entirely in Venezuela (and not in Haiti, for security reasons). Connie Mack, a U.S. Republican congressmember from Florida, blasted Glover for cutting "a sweetheart movie deal" with Chávez. Such complaints are practically pro forma for Mack, who has been a vocal critic of Chávez's Telesur. However, Mack has been joined by various Venezuelan filmmakers, who have raised a number of objections to the Glover film.

 

In 2007 the National Association of Film Makers and the Venezuelan Chamber of Film Producers criticized Glover for using political contacts to secure the funding package without a bidding process. The filmmakers called such methods "demoralising and detrimental to future
generations of Venezuelan movie-makers." Claudia Nazoa, president of the Venezuelan Chamber of Feature Film Producers (known by its Spanish acronym Caveprol), said, "What worries us is this trend for neo-colonisation by international figures who come to talk of their
support for Chávez's government—and leave with money for their projects."

 

In 2007, Venezuela provided $18 million to fund Toussaint, and this year the authorities kicked in an extra $9 million. Venezuelan directors complain that the budget for Glover's film matches the entire state budget for domestic films from 2003 to 2008—a sum they say could
"finance 36 Venezuelan films." Culture Minister Sesto called it "naive" to think the movie industry would be out $18 million, since the money did not come from Villa del Cine's operating funds but were part of an "additional credit." He added, "The funds earmarked for this movie will be invested exclusively in Venezuela ... creating jobs and providing
excellent experience for our national film industry."

 

Thaelman Urgelles, a Venezuelan director, remarked to Inter Press Service that "we don't have anything personal against Glover and it even seems good to expand our relations with the movie industry, but the quantity of money is excessive [and] it fails to consider the efforts of Venezuelan moviemakers who can't even get $450,000 to make a film." Urguelles added that normally filmmakers only obtained funding after competing in competitive bids and sometimes had to dig into their own pockets.

 

Even Diego Rísquez, the director of Villa del Cine's Francisco de Miranda (see below), has remarked that funding Glover's film was "an error, a lack of reflection, it puts all the eggs in one basket." The director added that Spanish, French and Italian directors had come to Venezuela to film, and even Steven Spielberg had made part of Aracnophobia in the Andean nation. Unlike Glover however, those directors had brought international capital into Venezuela.

 

Iván Zambrano, President of Venezuela's National Association of Cinematic Authors or ANAC, said he had questions about how government money invested in Glover's film would be spent. "They say that the artists will be 30 per cent Venezuelan and 70 per cent foreign," he
said. "We want to know how this co-production will work and whether [the money that the government is investing] will include paying the artists. If you have Hollywood actors charging Hollywood salaries, then the budget will go on just two or three actors."

 

Chávez has said that he would like to break Hollywood's tight stranglehold over the film industry by creating Villa del Cine. Yet ironically, though the film shall include African and Haitian actors, high profile Hollywood stars have also been billed for Toussaint. The film will star Don Cheadle, Angela Bassett, and Wesley Snipes.

 

"In a country with rampant poverty, a catastrophic health crisis and 14,000 violent deaths a year, President Hugo Chávez gives away our money for his friends to play with," said L.A.-based Venezuelan director Jonathan Jakubowicz. The Venezuelan filmmaker's 2005 kidnap
drama Secuestro Express was a local hit but also angered Chávez's government for its hard-hitting portrayal of sociopolitical malaise in Venezuela.

 

Villa del Cine Defends the Project

 

Representatives of the government wasted no time in hitting back at the Venezuelan filmmakers. Sesto declared that the Ministry of Culture would no longer recognize Caveprol and ANAC. According to Sesto, the filmmakers at these organizations were not "legitimate representatives of universal cinematography. They represent themselves; they are small groups with a monetary vision." Sesto added that by funding Toussaint, Venezuela had the opportunity of joining the "major leagues" of cinema.

 

Some Venezuelan filmmakers complain that Villa del Cine will only produce films that fall in line with Chávez's socialist ideals, an accusation which Glover denies. The veteran actor has remarked that Toussaint won't be left-wing revisionism but rather a critical movie dealing with
a part of the hemisphere's past that has been "essentially wiped out of our historic memory."

 

Villa del Cine adminstrators claim that political pressure doesn't figure into their decisions. "We are looking to make good films, no matter what the script. We really want writers and directors to come to us with their ideas. If they're good, we'll support them," Villa del Cine executive director Marco Mondarain told the BBC.

 

During my interview with Almarza from Villa del Cine, she said that Chávez had never intervened in the studio's affairs. Almarza had never spoken personally to the Venezuelan president, though she and her colleagues at the Ministry of Culture had met with Chávez as a group. In 2007, says Oscar Murat, a project co-ordinator at La Villa del Cine, the studio "received various different proposals and of the ones which won commissions, none was linked with politics."

 

Chávez, Miranda and Haiti

 

Despite the denials, it's clear that a movie dealing with Caribbean slave revolt dovetails with Chávez's frankly anti-imperialist political outlook. "This film [Toussaint] will form part of our
ideological canon against Metro Goldwyn Mayer [MGM]," said Venezuelan congressman Simón Escalona. Outside of Venezuela, high-profile figures are pleased with Glover's project. Haitian President René Preval told the New York Daily News that "we had the first successful anti-slave rebellion in this hemisphere. It's our contribution to humanity. If Glover can take this story to the big screen, we will be happy."

 

For Chávez, the Haitian independence struggle has key symbolic meaning. In March 2007, the Venezuelan leader traveled to the Caribbean island nation. Chávez timed his arrival in Haiti for maximum political and historic effect. "We know that March 12, 1806 [two years after Haiti became a republic] exactly two centuries ago and a year … a very great Venezuelan cried out for independence," he said. "And it is here in a revolutionary boat with a revolutionary crew that the Venezuelan flag was hoisted for the first time. Francisco de Miranda, as you know, was that great Venezuela, and the reason for our visit is linked to what he did way back then."

 

Francisco de Miranda (1750-1816), considered by some to be a forerunner of later South American independence figures such as Simón Bolívar (1783-1830), was a soldier who fought in the American and French revolutions. In addition, he played a key part in events leading
to Venezuela's declaration of independence from Spain in 1811. The revolutionary was captured by Spanish colonial forces and spent the last days of his life as a prisoner. He died in a military fortress in Cádiz.

 

Within the National Pantheon of Caracas, where Bolívar lies in state, there's an empty tomb awaiting Miranda's body. A group of Spanish scientists has tried to determine whether certain remains in the fortress indeed belong to Miranda. The scientists have extracted DNA from bones in the fortress and will compare the genetic material to Miranda's descendants in order to reach a final determination.

 

Not surprisingly, Chávez has expressed personal interest in the investigation. Though obscure, Miranda is one of Chávez's favorite historical personalities. In the run-up to the December 2006 presidential election Chávez hailed his followers, nicknamed Miranda's electoral "battalions."

 

In 2006, Villa del Cine celebrated the two hundredth anniversary of Miranda's return voyage to Venezuela by producing a film about the exploits of the late eighteenth-century hero. The film, Francisco de Miranda, glorifies the struggle of the intrepid revolutionary and draws
attention to his dream of a united South America. After opening in 35 of Venezuela's 400 movie theaters, the film did quite well at the box office and surpassed Hollywood blockbuster Superman Returns during the summer 2006 season.

 

Historical Symbolism of Venezuelan-Haitian Solidarity

 

Chávez has long emphasized historical symbolism in his political rhetoric, and his speech in Haiti proved no exception. Addressing the Haitian public in 2007, the Venezuelan leader remarked, "We are very conscious of what the Haitian people are—a people who were able to
defeat empires and free their country well before the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean—a heroic people and also a ravaged people over the past two centuries. You must also know that Bolívar passed through here … in 1816 when in Venezuela … all appeared lost in the battle against Spain."

 

The Venezuelan leader went on to discuss the important political connections between the Haitian Revolution and the Venezuelan independence struggle. Bolívar arrived in Haiti on Christmas Eve, 1815 after being expelled from Venezuela. Fortunately Haitian President
Alexandre Pétion (1770-1818) welcomed Bolívar and his freedom fighters and provided them with shelter, guns, ammunition and a printing press.

 

Four months later, as he was about to depart from Haiti en route to Venezuela, Bolívar asked his benefactor how he might repay Haiti's generosity. Pétion replied that the best thanks Haiti could receive would be the liberation of all slaves residing in the Spanish colonies.

 

Bolívar later honored his debt to Pétion by freeing the 1,500 slaves his family owned in Caracas. He also printed a proclamation, on Pétion's very own printing press, abolishing slavery in Venezuela. The proclamation, however, only applied to black slaves who enlisted in
Bolívar's army. It wasn't until 1854 that slavery was finally abolished in the country.

 

"All of this [history] has to do with why I am here today," Chávez said while addressing the Haitian people. "Today I feel I am paying part of our historic debt to Haiti. And I say this, after more than 8 years in government, this is the first time I visit Haiti. I should have come here earlier." Chávez's choice of words couldn't have been more symbolic: to this day, Venezuelan children are taught in school that their country owes a "historic debt" to Haiti for helping Bolívar.

 

Bolívar's Political Significance

 

It's no accident that Chávez would go out of his way to bring up Bolívar while visiting Haiti. In Venezuela, it is almost mandatory for political leaders to make historic allusions to Bolívar, the "Great Liberator" against Spanish rule. Bolívar, Chávez has said, was a socialist like himself, was stridently opposed to the United States, and was also determined to build a classless society. What's more, the Venezuelan leader has argued, Bolívar's dream of uniting Latin America represented a threat to oligarchs and imperialists, thus awakening the ire of the United States.

 

Chávez has no doubt taken some historical liberties and embellished his causal intellectual ties to Bolívar. The Liberator never talked about class struggle per se, though he did pursue progressive social legislation by issuing decrees for the establishment of schools for boys as well as girls. Bolívar also deplored the misery of indigenous peoples and ordered the conservation of forest resources.

 

But Bolívar was perhaps most forward looking when he spoke of the necessity of integrating Latin America. It was Bolívar, early on, who understood that the region had no future unless it confronted both Europe and the United States as a unified bloc. The United States, Bolívar once famously declared, seemed "destined by providence to plague America with misery on behalf of freedom."

 

Chávez has said that he will not rest until Venezuela is liberated from the "imperialist and anti-Boliviaran threat." He frequently draws comparisons between Bolívar's struggle against the Spanish Empire and his own political confrontation with the United States, which Chávez
habitually refers to as "The Empire."

 

In Venezuela, Bolívar is revered as a God-like figure and his popularity continues to soar. Indeed, a popular religion based on the fertility goddess of María Lionza has appropriated Bolívar as one of its central ritual figures. The faith is based on indigenous, black,
African, and Catholic roots, and priests hold ceremonies in which the spirit of the Liberator is channeled through a medium who coughs when Bolívar is present since Venezuela's most distinguished native son had a debilitating case of tuberculosis. Meanwhile, religious altars of the faithful generally feature a portrait of Bolívar.

 

In addition, Venezuela's currency, main squares, and universities bear the Liberator's name. His sayings are taught in schools, broadcast on the radio and emblazoned on government buildings. Chávez almost reverentially has referred to his political movement as a "Bolivarian
Revolution." Chávez has renamed his country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and has reportedly left a chair empty at meetings to honor the Liberator. Chávez supporters, or chavistas, have dubbed the areas they politically control as "liberated zones of the Bolivarian Republic" and adorn offices and homes with portraits of the Liberator. Chávez has promoted so-called Bolivarian Circles, local grassroots groups at the local or barrio level, which lobby the government for important grassroots resources.

 

Furthermore, Chávez champions Bolívar's idea of a unified South America and echoes the Liberator's words during his televised speeches. Chávez also likes to appear on television with a portrait of Bolívar near at hand. Riding along Caracas highways, one may see repeated instances of murals juxtaposing portraits of Chávez and Bolívar. In Caracas, a key historic landmark is Bolívar's native house. Located along downtown streets crowded with informal vendors, the house is often full of visiting school children.

 

Taking his picturesque concept of history to yet greater political heights, Chávez is now intent on proving that Bolívar was poisoned by corrupt oligarchs and did not succumb to tuberculosis. The Venezuelan leader asserts that in Bolívar's day, tuberculosis was not lethal
enough to cause death in a few scant weeks. As evidence to support his claim, Chávez points to one of Bolívar's letters in which the Liberator discusses his future plans. Bolívar wrote the letter shortly before his own death in the coastal Colombian town of Santa Marta.

 

"Some say he [Bolívar] was very ill and knew he was going to die, and he wanted to die by the side of the sea and he died happy, and Colombia was happy and Venezuela was happy," Chávez said in a long speech. "How the oligarchs fooled us, the ones here, the ones there.
How the historians who falsified history fooled us."

 

The Venezuelan leader recently convened a high commission, led by his Vice President and composed of nine cabinet ministers and the Attorney General. Their mission: exhume Bolívar's remains, which lie in a sarcophagus at the National Pantheon in downtown Caracas, and conduct scientific tests to confirm Chávez's contention—that diabolical assassins murdered Bolívar. "This commission has been created because the executive considers it to be of great historical and cultural value to clarify important doubts regarding the death of the Liberator," Venezuela's Official Gazette said.

 

But even Chávez's most stalwart supporters say their leader may have gone too far this time. "This doesn't make any sense," said Alberto Mueller Rojas, a retired general who works as a presidential adviser on international affairs and military matters. "Why should I care? Bolívar
died. If they killed him, they killed him. If he died of tuberculosis, he died of tuberculosis. In this day and age, this doesn't have any significance."

 

Perhaps not surprisingly given the political importance that Chávez has attached to Bolívar, Villa del Cine is reportedly planning to produce a film about the Great Liberator. The movie will be adapted from the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez's historical novel
about Bolívar entitled The General in His Labyrinth.

 

The book, which was originally released in 1989, tells the story of the last days of the Great Liberator as he departs the Colombian city of Bogotá for Santa Marta on the coast. Venezuelan authorities have paid out a handsome $2 million for the rights to the Márquez book, which is reportedly Hugo Chávez's favorite novel. Almarza, as director of Villa del Cine, is clearly enthusiastic about taking on the project.

"Bolívar is a world figure and belongs to all Venezuela," she remarked.  In addition to The General in His Labryinth, Villa del Cine has also produced Libertador Morales. The film centers on a Simón Bolívar-quoting motorcycle-taxi driver seeking social justice.

 

Honoring Venezuela's "Historic Debt' to Haiti

 

Chávez's recent trip to Haiti and his emphasis on vital historic symbols is taking place against a volatile political backdrop. In 2004, observers say that Haiti's democratically elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide was kidnapped with the connivance of Washington. When
a new government took power in Port-au-Prince under Gérard Latortue, Chávez snubbed the Bush administration by refusing to recognize the regime, which the United States, Canada, France and the European Union all recognized as the new government.

 

In Venezuela, Chávez decried the participation of Latin American troops in the United Nations' "stabilization mission" sent to Haiti and even offered refuge in Venezuela to exiled President Aristide. The former Haitian President, who blames the U.S. government for his downfall, likens his own story to that of Toussaint who was betrayed and brought to France. Aristide currently resides in South Africa.

 

In 2006 Haiti elected René Préval, who had served as Prime Minister in Aristide's first administration and as President from 1996 to 2001.  Though Préval hinted that Aristide might return to Haiti, he has not provided a time frame for the exiled leader to come back. Speaking in South Africa Aristide criticized the 2006 election, calling it a "selection" in which "the knife of treason was planted" in the back of the Haitian people.

 

Some Haitians hope that Chávez might help to ease the way for Aristide to return some day. When the Venezuelan leader visited Haiti in 2007, cries of "Chávez" could be heard throughout the streets of the capital. At the Port-au-Prince airport, Haitians arrived minute after minute and chanted "Chávez, Chávez, it is you whom we seek ... President Préval needs your help to return Aristide." Meanwhile, the demonstrators denounced UN peacekeepers for using overwhelming military force to suppress violent gangs.

 

In an effort to strengthen the historic bond between Haiti and Venezuela, Chávez has created a $20 million fund for Haiti to provide humanitarian aid and to develop joint cooperation projects. The money will pay for health care, education, housing and other basic necessities sorely lacking in the Caribbean nation of 8 million. Haiti will also benefit from Chávez's Petrocaribe initiative, which provides petroleum products and other aid to needy Caribbean countries to help them counter rising energy prices. Recipients are offered deferred
payment and long-term financing for fuel shipments.

 

Never one to neglect rich historic symbolism, Chávez remarked during his visit that it was time to encourage the "union of our republics. It is an old project of Miranda's and Bolívar's … of Pétion's and of Louverture's—all those who dreamed of a great nation, of a free nation…The President of the United States is the representative of the cruelest empire," Chávez added, "the most cynical, criminal and murderous which has ever existed. He represents the project of colonial domination. Whereas we, I say this humbly but with dignity, represent
the Bolivarian project to liberate our nations."

 

Following their historic meeting, Chávez and Préval commemorated the occasion by placing flowers at Port-au-Prince's monuments to Pétion and Bolívar.

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When you consider John McCain’s ties to Big Oil, the GOP candidate’s claim to be a political maverick confronting special interests is nothing short of absurd.

Just last week the Arizona Senator took valuable time out of his presidential campaign to travel personally to Colombia. Catching a fast ride on a Colombian drug interdiction boat in the Bay of Cartagena, McCain praised the government for prosecuting the drug war and making “substantial and positive” progress on human rights. Contrasting himself to his presidential opponent Barack Obama, McCain expressed support for a pending free trade deal with the South American country.

But as the Huffington Post has noted, “his [McCain’s] position as an independent arbitrator on Colombia – a country often criticized for its labor and human rights practices – is undermined by a bevy of advisers who have earned large amounts either lobbying for the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, or representing corporations that do business with that country.”

To get a sense of the scope of McCain’s conflict of interest on Colombia one need look no farther than Charlie Black, a Senior Adviser to the Arizona Senator. A successful 60-year-old Washington lobbyist, Black is a notorious figure within the GOP. Over the course of his career he has gained a reputation as a ruthless operator possessed of a merciless instinct for exposing an opponent’s flaws.

Black’s Washington, D.C. public relations firm BKSH has developed a reputation for taking on foreign clients who display scant regard for human rights. In 1998, Black agreed to represent Occidental Petroleum (or OXY), an energy company based in Bakersfield, California. At the time, the GOP spin master was surely aware of Occidental’s sordid past. In Colombia, the company had already acquired a reputation for its brutal policies undermining human rights.

While the liberal blogosphere was sent into a tizzy about McCain’s conflict of interest in Colombia and ties to Big Oil, it’s not the first time that Washington policymakers have been caught up in the nefarious Occidental web. Indeed, both Democrats and Republicans have been equally corrupted by their ties to the California energy company and have gone to great lengths to preserve Colombia’s investment climate, even if this means promoting unrelenting militarization in the Andes.

Gore Sr. and Al Jr.: Drinking at the Occidental Trough

Traditionally a Republican firm, Occidental was linked to the Democrats for many years primarily through Gore’s father, Senator Al Gore Sr. of Tennessee. The elder Gore was such a loyal political ally that Occidental’s founder and longtime chief executive, Armand Hammer, liked to brag that he had Gore "in my back pocket."

In public, Hammer long cultivated an image of being a generous patron of the arts and a champion of peace during the Cold War. But Hammer was also a consummate Washington insider and, according to the Wall Street Journal, “an influence peddler of the highest magnitude, [who] trafficked in politicians of all parties and stripes.”

When Gore Sr. finally left the Senate in 1970, Hammer rewarded the former Tennessee Senator for his political loyalty by providing him with a $500,000-a-year job at an Occidental subsidiary and a seat on the company’s board of directors. But Hammer, always the equal opportunity influence peddler, had one of his operatives try to buy off the Republicans as well. In 1972, Occidental gave $54,000 in illegal donations towards Nixon’s reelection campaign.

In exchange for Occidental’s financial largesse, Gore Sr. helped Hammer fend off the FBI for a time. Ultimately however Hammer was hauled before a Senate committee where he lied about the money. Unfortunately for Occidental, Hammer’s underlings crumbled under questioning. In 1975, Hammer pleaded guilty to three counts of making illegal campaign contributions. The oilman spent the rest of his life campaigning for a pardon, which Bush Sr. granted in 1989.

When he died in 1998, Gore Sr.’s estate included hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of Occidental stock. Gore Jr. later became the executor of the estate, which included stock valued at between $500,000 and $1 million. Neil Lyndon, who worked on Hammer’s personal staff and ghosted his memoirs, Witness to History, has remarked that his boss was as cozy with Gore Jr. as he was with Gore Sr. When he traveled to Washington, Hammer regularly met Gore for lunch or dinner. "They would often eat together in the company of Occidental’s Washington lobbyists and fixers who, on Hammer’s behest, hosed tens of millions of dollars in bribes and favors into the political world," Lyndon wrote. The former Hammer aide added that Gore and his wife Tipper attended Hammer’s lavish parties. "Separately and together, the Gores sometimes used Hammer’s luxurious private Boeing 727 for journeys and jaunts," he noted.

Up to the very end of his life in December, 1990 Hammer was generous towards the younger Gore. Former Senator Paul Simon of Illinois wrote in a 1989 book that Hammer promised him ”any cabinet spot I wanted” to withdraw from the 1988 Democratic presidential primary race and support Gore’s presidential candidacy. Gore failed to attain the White House, but two years later Occidental was one of the largest contributors to the Tennessean’s successful bid for Senate re-election.

Even after Hammer vanished from the scene, the back-scratching between Occidental and Gore continued. Overseeing Occidental operations after Hammer’s death was Ray Irani, in many ways as cynical and Machiavellian an operator as his predecessor. One of the campaign contributors who slept in Bill Clinton’s infamous Lincoln bedroom, Irani later greased the Vice President’s palm. In response to an illegal call made by Gore from the White House itself, the oil man gave $50,000 in soft money to the Democrats [in total, Occidental donated nearly half a million dollars in soft money to Democratic committees and causes between 1992 and 2000].

Gore Goes to Bat for Occidental

Just like his Dad, Gore Jr. saw fit to serve and promote his corporate benefactors. In late 1997 the Vice President supported the federal government’s three and a half billion dollar sale of the Elk Hills oil field in Bakersfield, California to Occidental Petroleum. The area was known as an ancestral land for the Kitanemuk people (better known by the name the Spanish gave them, the Tejon). The Indians had been forced off Elk Hills by treaties signed with the federal government in 1851 during the midst of the gold rush and since then had lived on nearby Fort Tejon reservation or "Tejon Ranch."

The sale of Elk Hills was the largest privatization of federal property in U.S. history. Though the government had long sought to sell the property, such efforts had come to nothing: two prior Republican presidents, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, had attempted to put Elk Hills on the auction block but were forced to back down in the face of fierce opposition.

Records show that federal agencies had concerns about the sale. The Environmental Protection Agency complained to the Energy Department that the E.P.A. had insufficient information to evaluate the impact of the sale. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service questioned the impact of developing the oil field on several endangered species within the 47,000 acre property.

Nevertheless, the Elk Hills sale was quickly approved. "I can’t say that I’ve ever seen an environmental assessment prepared so quickly," said Peter Eisner, Director of the Washington-D.C. public advocacy group Center for Public Integrity. After the sale, Eisner and his associates raised questions about the extent of Gore’s role in the transaction.

“What did Vice President Al Gore — who has deep personal and financial ties to Occidental Petroleum — know and when did he know it about the sale of the Elk Hills oil reserve to that company?” the Center asked just before the 2000 presidential election. “Gore has never been willing to talk to us— or, apparently, anyone else — about it. The Freedom of Information Act does not apply to the White House, so his appointment calendar, phone logs and private memoranda are all unavailable. And for nearly a year, the Department of Energy has stonewalled our requests for information on the Elk Hills bidding process. Since when is the bidding process for the unprecedented, multibillion-dollar sale of public land secret? That is, simply stated, outrageous and unacceptable.”

At long last Energy Department officials provided some records but declined to release the bid documents. Such information, officials claimed, had to remain confidential. Meanwhile, Elk Hills represented a huge boon to Occidental, with the oil company’s U.S. oil reserves tripling as a result of the purchase.

Occidental Heads South

But Occidental had already set its sights on other lucrative deals. Having secured the valuable California property on Native American land, the oil company headed to South America. Under an agreement with the Colombian government, Oxy acquired the right to explore for oil in the Andean country’s northeast.

Unfortunately, in granting Oxy its exploration permit, the government ignored a constitutional requirement that native peoples within the area be consulted first. Oxy quickly became embroiled in conflict with the U’wa Indians, whose territory was nestled in the misty forests of northeast Colombia near the border with Venezuela.

Even worse, as company geologists and engineers moved in to build roads through the Indians’ reservation, so too did the Colombian army, which installed two military bases in the vicinity. It wasn’t long before the military began to harass local residents. Known as a proud, strongly rooted people, the U’wa repeatedly denounced Occidental’s oil operation. The Indians argued that oil exploration would threaten their tribe, damage the land, fill their territory with alien workers and destroy the world they knew. At one point the approximately 5,000 U’wa even threatened to commit collective suicide by leaping from a cliff unless the oil company stopped operations on their territory.

In 1998, the year that future McCain adviser Charlie Black took on Occidental, the oil company was embroiled in controversy when the Colombian Air Force dropped cluster bombs on Santo Domingo, a village located near an Oxy pipeline. The attack killed 18 people. Human rights groups and Colombian government officials said the bombing was a mistake that occurred because three employees of a Florida-based aerial security company employed by Occidental to monitor guerrilla movements had provided incorrect coordinates to Colombian military pilots.

The American employees of the security company dropped out of sight and Colombian government efforts to have them handed over for questioning and perhaps trial proved fruitless. Frustrated by the security company’s stonewalling, human rights groups filed suit in California in 2003 and 2004 against Occidental. To this day, Occidental denies any responsibility for the bombing of Santo Domingo, and has claimed that it “has not and does not provide lethal aid to Colombia’s armed forces.”

Clinton-Gore Team Escalates in Colombia

Occidental, which hoped to protect its investments in Colombia, was aided by the Clinton-Gore White House which backed Plan Colombia, a militaristic, multi-billion dollar effort designed to ostensibly fight drug trafficking. Team Clinton was intent on backing the plan, despite evidence that the Colombian military was working closely with right wing paramilitaries to wage a dirty war against the civilian population. Six months before Plan Colombia was implemented, an investigative piece published by one of Colombia’s leading daily newspapers described how the Colombian army had aided the paramilitaries in the massacre of 49 peasants in the southeastern village of Mapiripán.

Even the U.S. State Department, in its annual human rights report for 1999, the year Plan Colombia was conceived, pointed out that Colombia’s “security forces collaborated with paramilitary groups that committed abuses; in some instances, individual members of the security forces actively collaborated with members of paramilitary groups by passing them through roadblocks, sharing intelligence, and providing them with ammunition. Paramilitary forces find a ready support base within the military and police, as well as local civilian elites in many areas.”

At the time, as Gary Leech pointed out in an article published for the online Colombia Journal, “There wasn’t a peep out of Vice-President Gore…regarding Colombia’s human rights situation…Gore owned almost $500,000 worth of stock in Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum, which was one of the most ardent lobbyists for Plan Colombia and one of the U.S. companies that stood to benefit from an escalated U.S. military role in the South American nation….At that time, Gore repeatedly refused to respond to questions from reporters about his links to Occidental Petroleum. He also failed to make mention of any human rights concerns regarding the U.S. funding of a military closely linked to paramilitary death squads.”

The Colombian Oil Connection

Dire reports of human rights violations were of apparently little concern to Charlie Black. The PR man lobbied Congress, the State Department and the White House on Occidental’s behalf regarding “general energy issues” and “general trade issues” involving Colombia. McCain’s future campaign strategist also fought to win foreign assistance to Colombia and to block an economic embargo against the South American country.

Even as tensions escalated within the U’wa reserve, Black was unperturbed. According to Atossa Soltani, Executive Director of Amazon Watch, a human rights group that works on behalf of Colombian Indian tribes opposed to oil drilling, Black was “very active” while Congress was debating the $1.3 billion military assistance package to Colombia that became law in 2000. “We’d be making the rounds in Congress,” Soltani said, “and Oxy would be there making the rounds, too.” In all, Oxy spent nearly $4 million lobbying Congress in Washington to expand military funding to Colombia.

Why would Black also be interested in trying to secure military funding for Colombia? As Oxy’s oil operations expanded, acquiring military support proved increasingly vital for the company. Oxy was part owner of the Caño Limon-Coveñas oil pipeline which led from Arauca to the Caribbean coast and which crossed the northeastern boundary of the U’wa reserve. Not surprisingly, Oxy’s activities quickly attracted the attention of left wing guerrillas who repeatedly detonated the pipeline. The attacks caused more than $500 million in losses to the company between December 1999 and December 2000.

Oxy had little to fear from the Clinton White House which bent over backwards to appease Big Oil. In 1998 Oxy CEO Ray Irani was personally invited to a state dinner at the White House to honor Colombian President Andrés Pastrana. The following year, U.S. Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson visited the Colombian city of Cartagena to address U.S. economic interests in the South American nation. During his visit, Richardson announced, “The United States and its allies will invest millions of dollars in two areas of the Colombian economy, in the areas of mining and energy, and to secure these investments we are tripling military aid to Colombia.”

According to The Nation magazine, Richardson was already compromised by his ties to Occidental. The future presidential candidate had in fact hired a longtime Occidental lobbyist, Theresa Fariello, to serve as his Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Energy Policy, Trade and Investment. While working for Occidental, Fariello lobbied the Energy Department on the company’s interests in Colombia.

Meanwhile Lawrence Meriage, Oxy’s Vice President for Communication and Public Affairs, urged the United States to expand its military operations in Colombia — largely focused on coca eradication efforts in the south of the country — into Colombia’s northeast, where the U’wa stood in the way of Oxy’s drilling operations. The investment paid off when the U.S. government agreed to provide military aid, equipment and training to the 18th Brigade in Arauca, a unit which had been involved in grave human rights violations including attacks against trade unions and other members of civil society.

Doing Business in Colombia

The Santo Domingo massacre was certainly a black mark on Occidental’s record. However, there were yet more controversies in store for the company. Tensions were ratcheted up when, in February 2000, Oxy began construction on its Gibraltar 1 drill site. Some 2,700 U’wa Indians, local farmers, students and union members immediately attempted to stop Oxy’s construction. When indigenous peoples sought to prevent trucks from reaching the construction site, riot police used tear gas to break up a road blockade. Three U’wa children were drowned in a fast-flowing river as the U’wa fled the attack.

Two months later, when Oxy began to move heavy equipment and materials into the area, the U’wa again blocked local roads. While the Indians permitted other traffic to pass, they lay their bodies in front of Occidental trucks. In June, the government sent in riot police and soldiers; 28 demonstrators were subsequently injured and 33 arrested. Believing that the area might contain up to 1.5 billion barrels of oil, Occidental shortly thereafter began test drilling on U’wa ancestral lands.

As if things could get no worse, Colombia’s wider civil conflict began to spill over into U’wa traditional territory. In March, 1999 three U’wa supporters from the U.S., Terence Freitas of Brooklyn, N.Y., Ingrid Washinawotok, and Laheehae Gay were kidnapped and killed by FARC guerrillas while working with the Indians in the department of Arauca.

While it’s unclear whether Oxy had any direct involvement in the killings, the company is known to have had links to the guerrillas. In testimony given before a Congressional subcommittee, Meriage acknowledged that Occidental personnel regularly paid off guerrillas in exchange for being left alone.

Gore and the U’wa in Election 2000

As the 2000 presidential election neared, environmental activists targeted Gore for his ties to Occidental. Abby Reyes, Freites’ girlfriend, personally wrote a strongly worded letter to Gore about the situation in Colombia:

February 3, 2000

Dear Vice President Gore,

I write to you as the girlfriend of Terence Freitas, one of three human rights workers kidnapped and assassinated last March while assisting the U’wa indigenous community of oil-rich northeastern Colombia…One year ago this week, as I unpacked moving boxes into the apartment Terence and I would have shared in Brooklyn, I found myself shelving two copies of Earth in the Balance [Gore’s famous book dealing with global environmental problems]: my own, and that of Terence. I sat down with the book again, rereading with marvel the poignant message you asserted in 1993. You insisted that policy makers and the general citizenry alike must take into account environmental and social costs of our coveted northern affluence…

While I reread Earth in the Balance last February, Terence was in the U’wa cloudforest with Native American leaders Ingrid Washinawatok and Lahe’ena’e Gay on a cultural exchange. On February 18, Terence called from Cubara, Colombia. I told him about the two copies of Earth in the Balance. We discussed whether you could be tapped as a more vocal U’wa ally in the campaign against the pending ecological, cultural, and economic havoc oil exploitation would spell for the U’wa and Colombia. We were hopeful about your potential leadership on this pressing environmental case. That phone call was the last time I talked to Terence.

One week later, on the day he was to return to New York, he and his companions were kidnapped by guerrillas who are allegedly on friendly terms with Occidental. One week after that, the bound bodies of these three human rights workers were found splayed and disfigured by rounds of bullets just across the Venezuelan border…

Seven months later, I read the Wall Street Journal’s account of your family’s lucrative inheritance from your father of Occidental Petroleum and Occidental subsidiary stock and your long-standing personal relationship with Occidental directors. By then I had experienced several such smacks of political double speak from most actors in the Colombian debate…In Los Angeles, on April 30, 1999, at Occidental Petroleum headquarters, Public Relations Officer Larry Meriage held Terence’s mother’s hand, calling the guerrilla murderers atrocious, despite the fact that his company’s incipient oil operations in U’wa land are directly responsible for the intensification of violent conflict in the previously peaceful region.

Even given this prevalent political milieu, in which action wildly contradicts expressed values, I am appalled and disheartened to see you, America’s lead environmental champion, living the antithesis of your espoused values by continuing to personally profit from Occidental Petroleum’s exploits.

I am the same age as your daughter. Terence was one year our junior. Like your daughter, Terence and I looked forward to joining the legal profession together. We were eager to apply the conflict resolution and community organizing skills we have gained abroad to help address the wealth of environmental justice conflicts brewing domestically….With unbearable anguish, his family and friends buried him on his twenty-fifth birthday last spring. Think how much brighter your family’s prospects, as you enter the candidacy, if you removed the shadow cast by your family’s complicity in the unspeakable horrors faced by our family and those of the U’wa because of Occidental Petroleum.

I implore you to divest your family from Occidental Petroleum and answer the requests from the U’wa Defense Working Group, a coalition of US-based environmental and human rights organizations, to explain your position on that company’s actions in the U’wa territory of Colombia.

Sincerely,

Abby Reyes

Despite such poignant appeals, Gore had no time for the activists. Speaking in Nashville, he said there had been nothing improper about his family’s relationship with Occidental. Meanwhile, Gore adamantly refused to meet with an U’wa representative who had personally traveled to Washington to see him, despite the entreaties of a Democratic member of Congress.

But Stephen Kretzmann of Amazon Watch said Gore did meet with him and several other environmentalists. At that meeting, Gore explained that he could not interfere in a Colombian internal issue or Occidental’s practices.

Environmentalists however gave little credence to such arguments.

"It’s ludicrous to say, ‘We can’t interfere,’" Soltani remarked.

Indeed, Gore’s deferrals and denials contradicted the politician’s previous actions. As a Senator, Gore had presented himself as both a committed environmentalist and an internationalist. He had for example introduced two senate resolutions calling upon the Japanese government to look into the havoc lumber companies were wreaking in Malaysia and Papua, New Guinea. Additionally, one of Gore’s last actions as a Senator, in April 1992, was almost directly comparable: he spoke out in support of the Penan Indians in Malaysia, whose lands were being threatened by loggers.

Perhaps, Gore was concerned about offending Big Oil, which had contributed mightily to his presidential campaign. Indeed, the Tennessean raised $92,000 from the oil and gas industry. Occidental was the number-two donor in that category, with company executives and their wives donating $10,000 to fuel Gore’s campaign. Gore went on to express support for Plan Colombia during the 2000 campaign before going on to defeat at the hands of George W. Bush.

In May 2002, following a massive outcry by environmental groups, Oxy finally announced that it would return its controversial oil block to the Colombian government. Nevertheless, the company continued to operate in Colombia. Currently, the oil firm occupies the Caño Limón oil field located in the Llanos Basin in the northeastern part of the country. The company also holds a 35% working interest in the Caricare field and has signed a production agreement with Ecopetrol to operate the La Cira-Infantas field, located in central Colombia. Though Oxy’s Caño-Limón field has yielded hundreds of million dollars annually in profits, the pipeline has been an ongoing target for guerrilla forces. In 2007, Occidental again found itself in the midst of a human-rights mess. This time, the company was accused in congressional testimony of being "complicit" – with several other major corporations – in the murder of three labor leaders.

In recent years, Gore has tried to refashion himself as a champion of human rights in Colombia. In April, 2007 he cancelled a scheduled appearance as the keynote speaker at a conference on the environment because Colombia’s President Álvaro Uribe was also on the program. The problem, according to a statement issued by Gore, was that he found accusations that Uribe was linked to right-wing paramilitary death squads “deeply troubling” and didn’t want to appear with the Colombian president until “this very serious chapter in history is brought to a close.”

Writing in Colombia Journal, journalist Gary Leech remarked “Former Vice-President Al Gore has again exhibited a degree of political hypocrisy that is simply astounding…Where were Gore’s noble proclamations in defense of human rights when he was vice-president in the administration that made Colombia the world’s third-largest recipient of US military aid?”

From Hillary to McCain: Same Old Oxy PR Men

Undeterred by Gore’s defeat in 2000, Occidental has continued to cultivate ties to Team Clinton. In Washington, when it comes to Colombia lobbying it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish between the Democrats and Republicans.

In fact, Charlie Black’s firm BKSH merged with another PR firm, Burson-Marsteller, in 1990. During the presidential primaries, Hillary Clinton was caught up in a scandal when it was disclosed that her campaign strategist Mark Penn, a CEO at Burson-Marsteller, was lobbying Congress on behalf of the Colombian government. Penn’s firm had also represented Occidental. Penn was employed by the Uribe government in Bogotá to help win passage of a free trade agreement in Congress. News of Penn’s ties to the Colombian government proved acutely embarrassing to Clinton, who had gone on record as opposing the trade agreement.

BKSH’s work on behalf of Occidental has proved enormously lucrative: between 2001 and 2007 the PR firm netted $1.6 million in fees. Occidental was surely pleased with Black’s work: in 2003, Congress approved a special appropriation of nearly $100 million for the protection of oil pipelines in Colombia.

McCain’s aides have repeatedly argued that the Senator’s presidential campaign does not have direct connections to companies represented by such advisers as Black. The Arizona Senator’s handlers assert that McCain should not be held accountable for any company misdeeds nor should the public presume that McCain is unduly influenced by corporate interests.

Granted, McCain may claim that there is a degree of separation between Charlie Black and himself. There are several problems with this argument however. To begin with McCain appointed Black to his position, which speaks volumes about the Arizona Senator’s political priorities. In the second place, McCain has a personal connection to Oxy through Ray Irani. In 2008, the Oxy CEO doled out $2,800 to McCain’s presidential campaign and a full $25,000 to the Republican National Committee. Irani could easily afford the donation: in 2007 he was the tenth highest paid CEO in the United States, raking in a whopping $34.2 million from Occidental.

In contrast to Team Clinton and McCain, Obama has shown some spine when dealing with Colombia. The Illinois Senator has questioned President Bush’s close alliance with Bogotá and has said that he is concerned about the links between the Colombian government and paramilitaries. The Colombian government, he has argued, should undertake measures such as investigating and sanctioning paramilitaries’ financial backers and accomplices in both the government and the military, regardless of their rank. If the Uribe regime did not take more effective action, Obama warned, then "maintaining current levels of assistance will be difficult to justify."

On the pending Colombia free trade measure, Obama should be lauded for his position. He emphatically opposes the pending free trade deal, remarking "I’m concerned frankly about the reports there of the involvement of the administration with human rights violations and the suppression of workers."

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe recognizes the potential threat posed by an Obama administration and even chastised Obama for not being aware of Colombia’s "efforts" on trade. Obama retorted hotly, "I think the president is absolutely wrong on this. You’ve got a government that is under a cloud of potentially having supported violence against unions, against labor, against opposition…That’s not the kind of behavior that we want to reward. I think until we get that straightened out its inappropriate for us to move forward."

There’s a slight chance that we might get a serious rethinking of Colombia policy under an Obama administration. The Illinois Senator will have to seriously clean house however so as to make sure Big Oil loses its political influence in the White House. Oxy has a way of maintaining its pull over Democratic and Republican politicians alike. From Armand Hammer to Ray Irani, the company never seems to give up.

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Here comes Charlie Black, John McCain’s campaign adviser, who recently remarked to Fortune magazine that another terrorist attack on U.S. soil would be a "big advantage" for the Republican presidential candidate. The comments drew a strong rebuke from the Obama campaign and embarrassed McCain while on the campaign trail. Questioned about Black’s comments during a news conference, the Arizona Senator said, "I cannot imagine why he would say it. It’s not true. I’ve worked tirelessly since 9/11 to prevent another attack on the United States of America. My record is very clear."

Speaking to reporters, Black read from handwritten notes. "I deeply regret the comments. They were inappropriate,” he said. “I recognize that John McCain has devoted his entire adult life to protecting his country and placing its security before every other consideration.”

Such pro forma expressions of penitence notwithstanding, Black has repeatedly argued that McCain benefits any time national security matters are the news of the day. A veteran political operator, Black knows that the GOP wins elections by painting the Democrats as weak on terrorism and defense. It’s a truth that’s long been evident to Black, who has carved out a political career by taking advantage of war hysteria and the public’s fear of a terrorist strike.

Black, a 60-year-old successful Washington lobbyist, is a notorious figure within the GOP. Over the course of his career he has gained a reputation as a ruthless operator possessed of a merciless instinct for exposing an opponent’s flaws. A native of North Carolina, Black is the son of Southern Democrats who switched party affiliation in 1964 to vote for Barry Goldwater.

In 1972, he helped run the Senate campaign of Jesse Helms. Black was one of the designers of a strategy that labeled Helms’ Democratic opponent as too liberal for North Carolina, driving the point home with a slogan that declared Helms to be "One of Us." Helms went on to victory, becoming the first North Carolina Republican to be elected to the Senate during the twentieth century.

Three years later Black founded the National Conservative Political Action Committee, an organization which set a new standard for negative advertising. The group campaigned against six liberal senators in 1980, portraying them as soft on national defense amongst other charges. Black’s first hire at the 1980 Reagan campaign was the infamous Lee Atwater, an operative who later became well known for his slashing brand of politics. Black himself proudly hangs a personally signed photo of the Great Communicator on his office wall. On the photo, Reagan wrote that Black was "a man of ideas."

Black’s brain child was Black, Manafort and Stone, a lobbying firm which the GOP operator founded in 1980. The company, which soon expanded to include the slash and burn Lee Atwater, soon became one of the most aggressive and well-connected Republican lobbying shops in Washington. In 1996 the firm merged with Gold & Liebengood to form BKSH & Associates Worldwide.

Black, who enjoyed stints as campaign operator for George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, got to know John McCain in the late 1970s when McCain worked as the Navy’s liaison to the Senate. In 1996, the pair became close while working on Senator Phil Gramm’s failed presidential bid. One of five senior advisers to McCain, Black is a frequent campaign surrogate on television. On the trail, he sits in a big swivel chair at the front of the Straight Talk Express, joining in McCain’s rolling news conferences.

McCain and BKSH: Boosters for Invasion

In a sense, it is not too surprising that Black and McCain would wind up working together in the 2008 presidential race: both have been huge boosters of the Iraq War.

McCain was a longtime friend of Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi exile who drummed up claims that Saddam Hussein had WMD. An international con artist found guilty in absentia in Jordan for bank scams, Chalabi is most widely known for being one of the key pre-Iraq war intelligence propagandists who provided skewed information to support the Pentagon’s ultra-secretive Office of Special Plans. He was also a source for the now-discredited pre-war reporting of New York Times journalist Judith Miller. After the 2003 attack, Chalabi’s star dimmed when he was accused of leaking sensitive material to Teheran. He is still an influential figure in Baghdad.

According to a 2006 article appearing in the New Republic, McCain welcomed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), to Washington. On Capitol Hill, McCain pressured the Clinton administration to provide the Iraqi exile with money. The Arizona Senator even went so far as to call Chalabi “a patriot who has the best interests of his country at heart.” In 1997, McCain successfully pressured the White House into setting up an Iraqi government in exile. Despite opposition from the Pentagon and the State Department, McCain co-sponsored the Iraq Liberation Act, committing the United States to overthrowing Saddam and funding opposition groups. When General Anthony Zinni expressed some doubt about the effectiveness of the Iraqi opposition, McCain rebuked the military man at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Even as McCain was busy on Capitol Hill drumming up support for Chalabi, Black was doing his part at BKSH to hasten the onset of war in Iraq. The lobbying firm in fact had developed ties to Chalabi as early as 1999 and soon provided its political expertise to the INC. In an interview, Black remarked that his firm received $200,000 to $300,000 per year from the U.S. government to promote the INC. BKSH helped sell the disastrous Iraq war to the American public by promoting the supposed danger posed by Saddam’s regime and WMD.

Blandly unrepentant, Black has remarked that his firm did "standard kinds of public relations and public affairs, setting up seminars, helping them get speeches covered by the press, press conferences." Black proved highly useful to Chalabi, providing the Iraqi exile with access to high-powered officials in Washington. Chalabi even scored a seat at First Lady Laura Bush’s VIP box at the 2004 State of the Union address.

McCain: Working to Ensure the Occupation Lasts a Million Years

If you thought Bush and Rove was a Machiavellian pair, consider the relationship between McCain and Black. Both figures are at the nexus of the military-industrial complex and would like the occupation of Iraq to continue indefinitely. Already the Arizona Senator has declared his intention to stay in Iraq “for a thousand years or a million years” if necessary and there’s little reason to doubt the Senator’s word.

Though McCain seldom talks about it, he has gotten much of his foreign policy experience working with a cloak and dagger operation called the International Republican Institute (IRI). Since 1993, he has served as chair of the outfit, which is funded by the U.S. government and private money. The group, which receives tens of millions of taxpayer dollars each year, claims to promote democracy world-wide. The hottest country in which IRI currently operates is Iraq. According to the IRI’s own web site, since the summer of 2003 the organization “has conducted a multi-faceted program aimed at promoting the development of democracy in Iraq. Toward this end, IRI works with political parties, indigenous civil society groups, and elected and other government officials. In support of these efforts, IRI also conducts numerous public opinion research projects and assists its Iraqi partners in the production of radio and television ads and programs.”

A who’s who of corporate America chips in to IRI including Blackwater Training Center, part of Blackwater USA. In 2005-6 the mercenary security company which operates in Iraq donated $30,000 to IRI. Though Blackwater has fallen under scrutiny as a result of the company’s shooting of 17 Iraqis including women and children, the State Department recently decided to renew the firm’s contract. As if these corporate ties were not enough, IRI has also accepted money from Lockheed Martin, the world’s #1 military contractor. The firm has been a big McCain donor, giving more than $13,000 through its PAC to the Arizona Senator in 2006. Early on, Lockheed Martin worked to promote the war in Iraq. The company’s former vice president, Bruce Jackson, even chaired the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. There, Jackson made common cause with McCain, the group’s “honorary co-chair.” During the start of the Iraq invasion, Lockheed Martin’s F-117 stealth attack fighters were used to “shock and awe” the population. Jackson is now working on McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, serving on the Senator’s foreign policy advisory team.

Like McCain, Black has a lot of connections to the Iraq occupation. In 2003 he remarked that his political ties to Chalabi helped BKSH acquire valuable work in Iraq. “Due to our past representation of the INC,” he said, “we know and have worked with a lot of people who will be in the provisional government. We have a number of clients who are interested in doing business in Iraq.” Two years after the invasion Black cashed in on his insider influence when the Lincoln Group, a Washington, D.C.-based intelligence company assigned by the Pentagon with the task of providing pro-U.S. stories to the Iraqi media, subcontracted its work to BKSH. Lincoln’s job was to publish stories written by American troops so as to improve the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq. At the time, Black’s lobbying firm was well positioned to get the contract: BKSH was already representing the government of Iraq as its U.S. lobbyist.

Like McCain, BKSH also has ties to Lockheed Martin. Indeed, Black’s firm has lobbied on behalf of the defense contractor. What’s more, like the Arizona Senator BKSH has dealings with Blackwater and represents the mercenary outfit on Capitol Hill. Black’s firm even reportedly coached Blackwater CEO Eric Prince prior to a Congressional hearing. Aside from his historic ties to Lockheed Martin and Blackwater, Black also developed a tight-knit relationship with Civitas Group, a homeland security-focused consulting firm. Black serves as a member of the company’s managing board.

Having supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq through BKSH, Charlie Black may now hope that his candidate, John McCain, will benefit in the event of another terrorist incident. With the Arizona Senator safely in the White House, Black’s old pals at BKSH will be free to reap maximum benefit from McCain’s future wars.

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