Serving Capital: A short history of Canada in the Caribbean
By David Evans
From Third World Traveler
2006
If all the rhetoric about the new Governor General were true it would appear she is bent on destroying the country. Allegedly a separatist at heart, it has been suggested that she is disloyal to Canada and she sees the country as an imperialist oppressor. Sadly, this is probably not the case, although having been born in the Caribbean one would hardly think it unreasonable for her to be disposed in that way.
While Canada's relationship with the Caribbean is hardly that of an imperial overlord, it has certainly never been that of an agent of kind benevolence. The most significant aspect of Canada's relationship to the Caribbean has been its outstanding service to the working interests of British and U.S. capital.
Halifax, Nova Scotia was often known as the "Warden of the North", the sentinel of the British Empire in the Americas. This was because as a prime naval installation it helped assure the British control of its Caribbean possessions. As a well fitted central supply depot and shipyard for the British Royal Navy and the British Slave trade, Canada's east coast ports were unique and invaluable. The cod fishery of Newfoundland was of central importance as a food supply to the British plantation economies of the Caribbean both during and after the abolition of slavery.
As the nineteenth century developed the uses of Canada became more than merely a safe port to re-supply the massive imperial fleets of the British Empire. Canada started to develop services to both American and British businesses that were exploiting the wealth of the Caribbean. Canada's transportation industry, built on the basis of serving the British Empire, now constitutes a significant portion of our GDP and has been estimated at over $60 billion, 80% of which is external.
How this role developed and expanded into other services to the working interests of capital is a result of Canada's unique role as a sympathetic colony of Great Britain and Great Britain's business interests in the United States. This relationship became important because London's capitalists had extensive financial control over the U.S. after the revolution and well into the nineteenth century. Canada's weak political nature as a servant to London became essential as it acted as a trusted conduit and malleable obedient connecting third party between the interests of U.S. and British capitalists. This servile role is clearly demonstrated in the exploitation of the Caribbean.
Although the relationship with the territory of Canada and the Caribbean is a long relationship going back to the first events of the European conquest, the relationship of Canada as a nation starts with its inception and the first prime minister of Canada, Sir John A. MacDonald. While Prime Minister, MacDonald founded an insurance company through an act of parliament and then made himself its managing director. In doing so, Sir John A. MacDonald tied his financial wealth, in part, to the American and British profits drawn from the plantation economies of the Caribbean.
Paul Martin, the outgoing Prime Minister of Canada, owes his family's wealth to the Caribbean transportation services offered to the interests of British and American capital (Canada Steam Ship Lines) that started in the nineteenth century and continues today.
As the tide of American invasions swept the Caribbean, Canada's business elites followed in their wake. The Bank of Nova Scotia went so far as to set its policy for expansion in the Caribbean in step with the invasion and solidification of control by the American military. Continuing in this tradition, Canadian businesses could count themselves as part of the invasion. Alternately, American businesses became dependent upon the long experience and the connection to British Capital Canadian services provided.
These services can be split into three interrelated areas; finance, transportation and military. All three had one thing in common in that they were developed to facilitate the expropriation of profit from the Caribbean to the absentee owners in the financial centres of London and New York.
The reasons for these connections are partly due to the nature of the laws created immediately after the American Revolution. Wary of the power of financial institutions, the banks in the U.S. were subject to far more control than those in Canada, a situation that continues today, with Canada's financial services abroad currently estimated at over $10 billion annually. Coupled with this, in order to do business in the Caribbean, the U.S. businesses were obliged to trade in British currency, as the British dominated trade throughout the Caribbean. Canadian banks and other financial institutions such as insurance companies not only traded in British currency and U.S. dollars but by comparison had far more power to do as they liked than their American counterparts.
Added to all of this, they possessed another more significant advantage as well: they were located throughout the Caribbean and throughout the US. The experience helping the British to run their slave plantations and support its Caribbean naval supremacy was a great boost in that Canadian businesses had well developed transportation, supply and financial services throughout the Caribbean. The ethics of supporting and gaining profit from imperialism was not a significant issue either in support of the British or the United States.
The result of Canada's sympathetic relationship with British and U.S. control in the Caribbean can be seen in two ways. First, Canada developed its trade within the framework of American and British Capital interests, and the countries of the Caribbean were often forced to develop their industry in an environment where Canadian corporations were significantly powerful if not the dominant business interests in certain areas. Favoured by British and American Capital, Canadian corporations would often dominate the sectors where they were involved. In Cuba, Canadian banking interests operated with the power of a central Bank.
As power has shifted from Britain to the U.S., Canadian services have also shifted from one client to another. Today, Canadian banks can be found throughout the Caribbean and Canadian businesses are deeply synchronized and intertwined with U.S. capital interests in the Caribbean. As Haiti received its first branch of the Royal Bank of Canada in 1917 after the U.S. invasion of the island, so today one can find Canadian transportation and financial services throughout the Caribbean serving the interests of capital.
The interests of the powerful elites of Britain, the U.S., and even their subordinates in the Caribbean, is based upon the low rate of pay in the Caribbean. Their ability to continue their operations and rates of profit is contingent upon mitigating control of labour regulations, trade unions and the power generally of Caribbean people to affect political and economic control of their society. The owners of capital and their servants owe their ability to perpetuate this situation by the use of force. It is in this capacity that Canada has been as dutiful a servant as it has been in other capacities.
The Canadian military was an integrated arm of the British Empire and used throughout the Caribbean. Its role in the interests of U.S. capital has been no less integrated. When the U.S. was dissatisfied with the Haitian government in the early 90s it was a Calgarian, Lynn Garrison, with admitted connections to the CIA, who became known as a major strategist behind the coup. Later, in 2004, it was Canadian troops who facilitated the U.S. expulsion of the democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Throughout the Caribbean, the influence of military force has played a decisive role in shaping political and economic structures that perpetuate the worst poverty in the hemisphere and some of the most brutal human rights crimes in the world. Canada, throughout its history, has been involved in the use of military force throughout the Caribbean.
Often, in situations where some degree of political and economic control is exercised by the peoples of the Caribbean, Canadian businesses have been subject to the criticism that they are both exploitative and destructive. In present day Cuba, there is at least some hint of what a progressive relationship Canada could have with the Caribbean. Approximately 900 million dollars of trade exist between Canada and Cuba annually. The two societies have contributed to each other's development and exchanges of science and the arts have been beneficial for both countries.
It is true, of course, that those Canadian businesses presently form a conduit through which the interests of U.S. capital can and do operate in Cuba. Our relationship, however, is tempered by the larger degree of political and economic control that this Caribbean society has as compared to others. In the Cuban revolution there is at least some hope that Canada's relationship with the Caribbean will not always be that of mere servants of capital and that Canada will not be seen as the oppressors' friend by the peoples of the Caribbean.
Class Warfare: The Assault on Canada's Schools(speech excerpt)
By Maude Barlow
FromThe British Columbia Teachers' Federation.ca
1995
Many myths are gaining cheap currency. Dropout rates are terrible. Johnny can't read. Canada is falling behind internationally. Our schools aren't turning out scientists and mathematicians. That none of these myths is substantiated by fact is lost in the school reform zeal. In the absence of a cogent alternative for what ails our society, schools and educators are the new target. The diagnosis: schools are failing because they are monopolies exempt from competition. The remedy: force schools to act more like businesses and they will turn around.
There is compelling evidence that we are experiencing a systematic, intentional and purposeful effort to restructure schools in precisely the same ways other Canadian institutions not devoted to increasing profit have been transformed and disfigured. The big players are big businesses, mostly transnational corporations, following a global agenda. They are aided by a confluence of interests with the ideological right and Christian fundamentalists. These efforts are well on their way to success; if Canadians do not wake up to what is going on, our debate about the finer points of educational philosophy will be irrelevant.
THE COMPETITIVE ECONOMY
The targeting of public education is part of a larger picture. We are currently living through an unprecedented assault at every level of government in Canada on our public sector, public institutions, and world-class social programs. This assault is leading to the privatization and Americanization of our social services, including education. In the name of 'choice,' governments are openly discussing publicly-funded for-profit schools, allowing unprecedented corporate intrusions in the classroom, and attacking teachers and other frontline educators as adversaries of 'advancement.'
The ideology behind this assault views the nation-state as the cause, rather than the solution to its citizens' problems. Everyone is a consumer; students, parents, and those who will employ the final product - value added children whose future utility in the world of work can and must be measured. Proponents of this ideology insist that liberty and democracy require the unlimited right to consumer choice, even if it will destroy the public systems upon which Canada was built.
Public schools do not preach competition; they do not cut their losses, exploit their advantages, or publicize their strategic plans. Established to meet collective goals of democracy and equality, public schools have little in common with the new theology of individualistic consumerism and competitiveness that characterizes the global economy and has taken deep root in North America. This fact, and the steady erosion of public funding for education, has made our public schools very vulnerable; for today, if you are out of the marketplace, you are out of the loop.
THE MYTHS
The vulnerability of public education, aided unwittingly by the passive stance of its gatekeepers, has left it open to false and continuous charges of failure so toxic that it reduces the public's faith in its own judgement. In the most recent U.S. Gallup poll, 72% of parents gave their own children's schools an A or B; when asked about the nation's schools overall, positive ratings fell to 22%. Canadians continue to be lied to about the costs and benefits of education, the number of graduates we produce and their quality, their level of literacy, the drop-out rate, our standing in international comparative testing, how students are evaluated, the training and preparation of teachers, the length of the school year...and on and on.
While many, particularly in the media, now repeat these myths innocently enough because they have heard them so many times, others who should know better are using them for personal advantage. The workbook published to accompany Lloyd Axworthy's social security review claims that there are over 7 million adult illiterates in Canada (the same workbook also blames social programs for high unemployment.) Senator Joyce Fairbairn, in kicking off Literacy Week, recently claimed that 38% of us can't cope because of illiteracy. The magazine Western Report, a strong proponent of for-profit schools, claims that a million more illiterate young people will be released into the job market by the year 2000; for this prediction to be true, more than one third of each class in the country would have to be illiterate!
The biblical source of this disinformation is the Economic Council of Canada which misrepresented a Stats Canada Literacy survey and has been repeatedly quoted by business lobbies to "prove" that public education is failing. Not only did this survey never claim that 38% of the population is illiterate, it emphasized that it is those over 55, educated in a different time, and often in a different place, who make up the bulk of those at the lower end of the literacy scale. In fact, only about 6% of Canadians aged 16 to 34 have limited reading skills, and half of this group was not born in Canada.
A recent federal Liberal party fundraiser echoes another so- called "fact" that is repeated like a mantra by the business community and the school reform movement: our drop-out rate is over 30%. In fact, the most recent Stats Canada figures on our drop-out rate are a real compliment to our public educators: 18% in 1991, compared to 48% in 1971, and 60% in 1956. The list goes on: Canada does not spend more than all other countries on education - our spending on elementary and secondary education is the fourth-lowest of the OECD countries; Canada does very well in international testing - scores that are used to prove the opposite compare the majority of Canada's students with a small group of students from countries that test selectively.
THE REALITY
These false accusations help to deflect public debate from the real problems facing Canada's schools, and derail the kind of school reform we really need.
Gerald Caplan, co-chair of the Ontario Royal Commission on Learning, refers repeatedly to the "40% factor" - the estimated 40% of all Ontario students who come to school with one or more problems so severe that ordinary assumptions about their ability to progress make no sense. Eighty-nine% of children under the age of 7 who live with single-parent mothers live in poverty. Says the Globe and Mail's Michael Valpy, "Our schools, in every community, and to an unprecedented degree, are being expected to cope with physically and emotionally unhealthy children, neglected children, children whose parents lack the time and energy to be with them, substance-abusing children, children with minimal social skills, children from a vast range of bruised, stressed and fragile families."
But government economic policies are not only not confronting this reality, they show an increasing callousness toward those who cannot make it in the new society. Repeated Stats Canada reports show that we are developing an entrenched underclass in Canada. During the 1980s, the income gap between high and low-end workers and between generations grew dramatically and the problem will accelerate through the 1990s. The United Nations, while ranking Canada as the best place to live in the world, warns that our country is doing very badly in terms of income distribution. On the "income distribution-adjusted index," Canada fell seven places in the last year.
As a result, Canadians are experiencing a profound demographic and class-based shift in our population. Once shaped like an egg, with a large middle class, our country now resembles a pear, with fewer Canadian families and companies holding the bulk of wealth at the top, and more Canadians falling relentlessly toward the bottom. The rich are getting richer, paying fewer taxes, and are the almost exclusive beneficiaries of the recovery.
Rather than deal with the growing class divisions of our society, many find it easier to trash schools. Blame education for our economic ills, and the social and economic policies that are failing our young can be left intact. Blame the schools for unemployment, and the corporate sector is off the hook. Destabilize the public's faith in education, and then our schools can be molded to reflect the values of the new economy. And there are those very ready to take up the task. Says a former Xerox CEO, "It is time for business to take ownership of the schools."
THE GLOBAL ECONOMY
It is important to understand that Canada is not undergoing these changes alone. As globalization relentlessly proceeds, the monoculture of its values is reflected everywhere.
The world is experiencing a social and economic watershed transformation as great as the agricultural and industrial revolutions - the third great transitional wave of modern history. Nation-state authority is being replaced by transnational corporations operating outside national law and protected by global trade agreements.
Of the world's 100 largest economies, [over 50] are now transnational corporations. That means that about 136 countries are substantially smaller than the giant companies - like Mitsubishi, American Express, Cargill and Northern Telecom.
In every sector, companies are merging to kill competition and only a handful will dominate the large sectors, like airlines, banking, pharmaceutical, and oil companies. Ford's economy is bigger than Saudi Arabia's and Norway's. Philip Morris's annual sales exceed New Zealand's GDP. These companies seek what they call a global level playing field; they want to be free to move across borders with little interference; be governed by the lowest common standards and regulations regarding food safety, the environment, or social security; and they want governments to get out of the way.
Governments everywhere - including ours - are complying. Because they can no longer tax the huge profits from big business, they are left bankrupt and are implementing the kinds of economic "reforms" that will attract corporate investment. They are setting about to divest themselves of the responsibility to set standards, laws, and regulations, turning social and economic decisions over to the free market. This is not ideology, they assure us. Ideology is dead, replaced by pragmatics.
In developing countries, programs called "Structural Adjustment" are imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as condition for debt relief. They force nations to dramatically cut back on public health and education spending, as well as deregulate their public sector, lower protection for workers, and establish corporate-friendly policies for transnational corporations. UNICEF says that at least half a million Third World children have died as a result of this program and the poorest have paid their debt with the health of their young.
Quite simply, the so-called economic "boom" cited to support the world-wide ascendance of market ideology is, in fact, fueled by deep inequities, excessive consumerism by the world's economic elite, and ecological crime. In every nation of the world, a "global south" is appearing, as the majority of citizens are left out of the emerging economy. Mexico, where working wages have dropped 60% in a decade, where one quarter of the population lives in abject, street-level poverty, where almost 50% of the population is un- or -marginally employed, boasts that it has boosted its number of world-class billionaires from 1 to 24 in just 7 years. These 24 people have a combined wealth greater than the poorest 33 million Mexicans. For this economic "miracle," Mexico has been admitted to the OECD, and former president Salinas is the front runner to become the first head of the World Trade Organization that will replace the GATT.
EDUCATION FALLS INTO LINE
The triumph of unfettered capitalism has had a dramatic effect on education everywhere in the world. The substantial progress made to educate the world's young -an effort spanning from the 1950s to the late 1970s - is in retreat. In 1970, universal education was the first priority of publicly-funded social programs in most OECD countries and a fundamental goal in the developing world. Now, however, governments everywhere are shutting schools, slashing teacher salaries, and severely cutting back on funding for public education.
There are 900 million people in the world today who cannot read and write, two-thirds of them women. An estimated 400 million school-age children will never have an education. There has been a steady decline in the growth of public education spending in all OECD countries since 1975. In Canada, as a percentage of the GDP, public education expenditure dropped from 10.2% in 1970 to 6.7% in 1991.
While there are, of course, many reasons for this, the clear trend that emerged in my research was that as countries all over the world shift to a market economy, they lose their commitment to equality and universality in education, and instead, are turning to their schools to produce the workforce for the new global economy. As our societies are becoming more pear-or- pyramid-shaped, they are adapting their education systems to reflect a new class division. Governments are restructuring education in order to ensure that those at the top have access to the best education possible; however, in the name of deficit fighting, they are diverting public funds to the private sector.
Goals and priorities for education in a world that accepts this economic model are different from the goals and priorities for a world seeking equality. As education is becoming a marketable product, it is becoming available only to those who can afford it.
No where is this more evident than in the U.S. The United States of America houses the best and some of the worst public schools in the world. The children attending these schools are subject to what educator Jonathan Kozol calls "savage inequalities" based on race and class. The disparity is greater in 1994 than it was in the 1960s, when the effort to eliminate racial and class inequality began. The startling difference in the quality of education offered to Americans of different ethnic and economic backgrounds mirrors deep class divisions.
In my research, I found public schools that offer fencing, horticulture in designer greenhouses, elective courses in Nobel winners, aeronautics, music suites, computer language courses, and university-bound graduate rates of 90%. I found other public schools with raw sewage and dead rats in the cafeterias, 20 year- old textbooks, classes held in boiler rooms and closets, classes without teachers, no art, music, or physical ed, and drop out rates of over 50%. One school board used a standard text that boasted, "some day, man will walk on the moon."
Education Professor Emeritus Arthur G. Wirth of Washington University describes the future of education in America: "Well- educated elites will withdraw further into their secure enclaves, living a life with excellent health care, challenging work, effective schools, global travel, and international electronic linkages. The urban and rural poor will live largely out of sight in their decaying communities. The despair and hopelessness of their children will be facts of life. "
BIG BUSINESS TO THE RESCUE
Enter big business. All over the United States and in many other parts of the world, impoverished schools are turning to corporations to supply them with the technology and curriculum they can no longer buy. Children in New Zealand now write exams on corporate letterhead. The European Community has directed that all 300,000 schools, 4 million teachers, and 67 million pupils in the European Community be placed in "partnerships" with transnational corporations within the decade. What does their involvement mean for schools and children?
A grade nine student in a California high school flicks off the light. NBC 'Newshour' music fills the room. Award-winning former NBC anchor Jim Hartz, appears: "We've made hasty conclusions about what is good for the environment," Hartz intones, sitting in what appears to be a newsroom. "We're here to explore the facts." The 'facts' he gives the students are that plastics are ecologically "ideal material" - to produce, recycle, burn or toss in landfills. "The experts all agree that polystyrene plastics [styrofoam] rate well on environmental criteria." "Polystyrene, Plastics and the Environment" is owned, produced, and distributed free of charge to schools by Mobil Corporation, one of the world's largest manufacturers of plastics.
Procter & Gamble provides a full environmental curriculum called "Decision Earth." It teaches that "clear-cutting removes all trees to create new habitats for wildlife. It opens the floor to sunshine, thus stimulating growth and providing food for animals. " Convicted polluter Louisiana Pacific, a giant forest products company now moving into Canada, assures students in another program that clearcutting paves the way for "supertrees." The American Softdrink Association assures kids not to worry so much about sugar in its curriculum program; soft drinks are a part of a balanced diet. Orvill Redenbacher is listed by his popcorn company, along with Louis Pasteur and George Washington Carver, as one of the history's all-time greatest inventors in another school book.
"They're ready to spend and we can reach them!" advertises one company. "Kids spend 40% of each day in the classroom where traditional advertising can't reach them. Now you can enter the classroom through custom-made learning materials created with your specific marketing objectives in mind." 'Consumer Kids,' a two-day workshop in Toronto, offers corporate executives workshops on 'Marketing in the School System' and 'How to Grow Your Customers From Childhood.' A Madison Avenue company promises to help develop brand loyalty even before "a girl becomes a serious shopper. To put your product in her hands, call us." "His first day job is in kindergarten" says another.
Burger King academies - fully accredited quasi-private high schools - are now operating in 14 U.S. cities. At a high school in Boulder, Colorado, McDonald's supplies not only the food, but also the curriculum. Students study McDonald's inventory, payroll, and ordering procedure in math; McDonald's menu plans in home economics; and its marketing practices in business class. McDonald's also sponsors a school program on nutrition in which it claims the Big Mac represents all four food groups, the vegetable component being the exposed lettuce leaf.
These companies are vying with Dunkin' Donuts, Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen, and Taco Bell for the $5 billion U.S. market of the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs. Pizza Hut engineered the exemption of its meat-topped pies from meat- inspection regulations that apply to all U.S. federally funded school lunches.
Entrepreneur Chris Whittle's Channel One televises daily commercial news and advertising called infotainment or edutainment - to more than 12,000 junior and high schools all over America - 40 per cent of the nation's students. Whittle Communications charges $200,000 for each thirty-second commercial spot; advertisers are willing to pay for a captive audience. The contracts state that 90 per cent of the children in a school must watch the program 90 per cent of the time; each program must be watched in its entirety - a show cannot be interrupted - and the teacher does not have the right to turn it off.
What is this all about? What does big business want from our schools? I believe there are three factors.
The ideological allegiance of the young to their values
They want to influence young people on transnational corporate views of the environment, the economy, and the role of the state. Environmental concerns and abuses are covered over. Transnational business values of competition and privatization are openly conveyed in these materials, as are attacks on the "welfare" state, public "dependency" on social programs and the whole notion of co-operation and equality.
In effect, children are being raised not to question the dominant values of a corporate-driven society, one in which government, and therefore, democracy, has a greatly reduced role. They are being taught to be self-reliant, individualistic, competitive and entrepreneurial.
Access to young consumers and the education "industry"
Public education and health are the last remaining areas of public enterprise ripe for the profits of privatization. As it is now, education in Canada is big business -larger than the mining, forestry, food, beverage, rubber, plastics, and clothing industry combined. As future jobs for our children remain scarce, education will increasingly be viewed as an added competitive advantage in the workforce. The growth potential for educational "services" will continue to expand, and parents will be ready to spend private money to give their kids an edge.
The fabled "information highway" is causing the furious merging of cable, retail, television, phone and computer sectors. It will be delivering all sorts of educational materials and these industry giants are already poised to work with schools to bring their products into the classroom. They are also actively lobbying for the deregulation of Canadian content and public accessibility rules.
And then there are the hearts and minds of millions of young consumers. Already children are saturated with ads. Since children's TV was deregulated a decade age, 85% of it is brought to us courtesy of toy companies. The goal is brand identification at a young age. And kids have more purchasing power than ever. In the U. S .,the direct income of children is $9 billion a year, and children aged twelve and under now annually influence $132 billion in purchases.
The commercialization of the classroom and the corporate intrusion into education is producing a generation of children who are, in Ralph Nader's words, "growing up corporate." Bereft of childhood, they are treated as consumers-in-training, pre- workers, future entrepreneurs, the consumers of tomorrow.
A workforce for the new economy
During the federal election, both Jean Chretien and Kim Campbell repeated a common current complaint of big business in Canada and the U.S.: there is a serious mismatch between the skills young people have and job vacancies. Schools have failed to produce the workforce business needs and must be transformed to do so. The subtext here is that educators are responsible for high unemployment. Both politicians cited the oft-quoted figure of 300,000 to describe this skills shortage "crisis" until a sharp- eyed reporter challenged them for the source of the number. It turns out that this was simply the current job vacancy rate and was in no way proof of a skills mismatch.
In fact, closer examination reveals the opposite. Canada is producing a glut of engineers, scientists and mathematicians. UNESCO says we're first in the G7 countries in graduates in these areas per population. While growth in post-secondary education far outstripped general population growth in the last decade, an examination of the so-called "new economy" sectors supposedly crying out for workers found a substantial drop in job openings. The Canadian Council on Social Development recently reported that the number of poor families in which salary earners have a post secondary education has doubled in the last decade. And in a recent survey of 5,000 Canadian manufacturers, less than one-half of 1% said that a shortage of unskilled workers is a problem.
The truth is that job growth in taking place almost exclusively in the contingency workforce jobs that are low paid, part time, with minimal benefits, and no security.
Pharmaceutical corporations accused of Genocide before ICC in The Hague
(excerpt)
From News Media Explorer
2003
Pharmaceutical corporations and individual executives have been accused of genocide and crimes of war before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The charges, which also involve accusations of war crimes against US President George W. Bush, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and other top political figures, are contained in a detailed complaint filed with the ICC by Dr. Mathias Rath.
Pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Amgen and Astra Zeneca are accused of deliberately preventing life-saving natural alternatives to drug based treatments from being applied in prevention and cure. A worldwide disinformation campaign undertaken by these companies is said to have caused the death of millions of people. Their role in getting both Bush and Blair into power and in determining the policies of their respective administrations with respect to the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is cited as evidence for a case made for violation of Human Rights.
Financial interests behind misdirected health policies world wide and behind the drive for war are also named in the complaint, filed by Rath and others during a two-day Conference in The Hague on 14 and 15 June.
IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD
Complaint Against Genocide and Other Crimes Against Humanity
Committed in Connection With The Pharmaceutical 'Business With Disease'
This complaint is submitted to the
International Criminal Court by Matthias Rath MD
and others on behalf of the people of the world
The Hague, June 14, 2003
To the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court,
Senator Louis Moreno-Ocampo,
c/o International Court, Maanweg 174
NL-2516 AB Den Haag/The Hague
SUMMARY
This complaint brings before the International Court of Justice (ICC) the greatest crimes ever committed in the course of human history. The accused are charged with causing injury to and the death of millions of people through the 'business with disease', war crimes and other crimes against humanity. These crimes fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
The accused know that they will be held accountable for these crimes and they have therefore embarked on a global campaign to undermine the authority of the ICC in order to put themselves above international law and continue their crimes to the detriment of all mankind.
Therefore, the current complaint must be considered by the ICC with utmost urgency. Moreover, every natural person and every government is hereby called upon to join this complaint with the goal to once and for all terminate these crimes.
The Cartel
The charges presented in this complaint relate to two main fields of crime:
* Genocide and other crimes against humanity committed in connection with the pharmaceutical business with disease.
* Crimes of war and aggression and other crimes against humanity committed in connection with the recent war against Iraq and the international escalation towards a world war.
These two fields of crime are directly related and connected by one factor: They are committed in the name and interest of the same corporate investment groups and their political stakeholders. In order to establish the evidence and show the common motives of the accused a short historical review is imperative.
Throughout the 20th century, the pharmaceutical industry was built and organized with the goal of controlling healthcare systems around the world by systematically replacing natural, non-patentable therapies with patentable and therefore profitable synthetic drugs. This industry did not evolve naturally. To the contrary, it was an investment decision taken by a handful of wealthy and unscrupulous entrepreneurs. They deliberately defined the human body as their market place in order to generate further wealth.
The driving force of this investment industry was the Rockefeller Group. They already controlled more than 90% of the petrochemical business in the United States at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century and they were looking for new global investment opportunities. Another investment group active in this field was formed around the Rothschild financial group.
The Cartel and the Second World War
After Rockefeller's Standard Oil (today EXXON), the second largest pharmaceutical/petrochemical corporate conglomerate during the first half of the 20th century, was the IG Farben conglomerate headquartered in Germany. This corporate conglomerate was the single most important factor for the political rise to power of Hitler and their joint conquest of Europe and the world. In fact, the Second World War was a war of aggression planned, started and conducted on the planning boards of IG Farben. IG Farben was the parent company of IG Auschwitz, the largest Industrial plant of this chemical cartel outside Germany. Much of the wealth of this cartel was built upon the blood and suffering of slave laborers, including those from the Auschwitz concentration camp. IG Farben promoted and used the unscrupulous political rulers of Germany as their willing tools to seek economic dominance over Europe and the rest of the world.
IG Farben was the largest shareholder in Rockefeller's Standard Oil and vice versa. The victory of the Allied Forces over Nazi-Germany at that time terminated the plans of IG Farben to become the leading pharmaceutical and petrochemical conglomerate in the world. At the same time, Standard Oil and the other pharmaceutical/petrochemical corporations of the Rockefeller consortium became the controlling financial group of this industry and remained so ever since.
In the Nuremberg War Tribunal of 1947 against the managers of the IG Farben Cartel several of them were found guilty and convicted for committing crimes against humanity including mass murder, plundering and other crimes. The Nuremberg War Tribunal also dismantled the IG Farben Cartel into the daughter companies Hoechst, Bayer and BASF. Today, each of these companies is larger than the parent company IG Farben was at that time.
Today the United States of America and Great Britain are the leading export nations of pharmaceutical products in the world. In fact, two out of three pharmaceutical drugs currently marketed globally derive from corporations in these two countries.
Fundamentals of the Pharmaceutical Business
The accused are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people who continue to die from cardiovascular disease, cancer and other diseases that could have been prevented and largely eliminated long ago.
This premature death of millions of people is neither the result of coincidence nor negligence. It has been willfully and systematically organized on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry and its investors with the sole purpose to expand a global drug market worth trillions of dollars.
The market place of the pharmaceutical industry is the human body and its return on investment depends on the continuation and expansion of diseases. Its profits depend on the patentability of drugs rendering this industry the most profitable industry on planet Earth.
In contrast, the prevention and eradication of any disease significantly reduces or totally eliminates the markets for pharmaceutical drugs. Therefore, the pharmaceutical corporations have been systematically obstructing the prevention and the eradication of diseases.
To commit these crimes, the pharmaceutical corporations use a maze of executors and accomplices in science, medicine, the mass media and in politics. The governments of entire nations are manipulated or even run by lobbyists and former executives of the pharmaceutical industry. For decades, the legislation of entire nations has been corrupted and abused to promote this multi-trillion-dollar "business with disease" thereby risking the health and lives of hundreds of millions of innocent patients and people.
A precondition for the rise of the pharmaceutical industry as a successful investment business was the elimination of competition from safe and natural therapies because they are not patentable and their profit margins are small. In addition, these natural therapies can effectively help prevent and eliminate diseases because of their essential roles in cellular metabolism.
As the result of the systematic elimination of natural health therapies and the takeover of the healthcare systems in most countries of the world, the pharmaceutical industry has brought millions of people and almost all nations into dependency upon its investment business.
Pharmaceutical Industry as an Organized Fraud Business
The pharmaceutical industry offers "health" to millions of patients - but does not deliver the goods. Instead it delivers products that merely alleviate symptoms while promoting the underlying disease as a precondition for its future business. To cover the fraud, this industry spends twice the amount of money in covering it up than it spends on research on future therapies.
This organized deception is the reason why this investment business could continue for almost a century behind a strategically designed smoke screen as 'benefactors' to humanity. The lives of 6 billion people and the economies of most countries in the world are held hostage by the criminal practices of this industry.
Exposing the Pharmaceutical 'Business with Disease'
Over the past decade, I have led the effort to unmask the organized fraud of this largest investment industry on earth. I have been instrumental in pointing out that the biggest obstacle for improving the health of the people of our planet is the pharmaceutical industry itself - and its nature as an investment industry driven by the expansion of diseases.
As a scientist, I was privileged to discover the true cause of cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases. Together with my colleagues and others I have also been instrumental in documenting the effective, natural and non-patentable alternatives to the pharmaceutical 'business with disease.' The identification of the natural molecules that optimize cellular metabolism enables mankind to prevent and largely eliminate most of today's most common diseases including cardiovascular disease, cancer and many others.
Background of the Current International Crisis and the War of Aggression Against Iraq
Four main factors are currently threatening the survival of the pharmaceutical industry and thereby the very basis of a long-term investment industry worth hundreds of trillions of dollars:
1. Unsolvable legal conflicts, resulting in an avalanche of class action lawsuits against many pharmaceutical corporations for product liability
2. Unsolvable scientific conflicts due to the breakthroughs in natural, non-patentable therapies that effectively and largely eradicate diseases as a market place.
3. Unsolvable ethical conflicts, resulting in the loss of credibility for the entire pharmaceutical business due to the fact that their exorbitant patent fees limit access to medicines for the majority of people and risk premature death for millions.
4. Unsolvable corporate conflicts. The unmasking of the pharmaceutical business model as an organized fraud.
For decades, the Pharma-Cartel has made every effort to protect its global business with patented drugs and to ban the dissemination of competing non-patentable health alternatives. This effort is conducted at the international level, by infiltration of the European Parliament and the abuse of the World Health Organization and other United Nations Organizations.
Now, with the largest investment industry on planet Earth being exposed as an organized fraud business - haunted by tens of thousands of liability lawsuits - immediate and global industry protection laws have become an urgent measure to cover up these crimes and to cement the continued control of the investment "business with disease" over human health worldwide.
These far-reaching protection laws for an organized fraud-business implied the curtailing of civil rights and other drastic measures that could not be implemented during peacetime. The implementation of these measures required the escalation of an international crisis, a series of military conflicts that deliberately factors in the use of weapons of mass destruction and the triggering of a World War. Only then would there exist a global psychological situation that would allow abandonment of civil rights, passing of martial laws and the global implementation of protection laws allowing the accused to continue their 'business with disease' and other crimes.
In this situation, the pharmaceutical industry became the single largest corporate donor to the election of George Bush in order to exert direct influence over the most powerful political and military center in the world. With the election of George Bush, the Rockefeller investment group had direct access to the White House, the Pentagon and the political decisions taken there. A similar influence was exerted by the Rothschild group on the government of Tony Blair in Great Britain.
Thus, it was no surprise that the two largest export nations of pharmaceutical products, the United States of America and Great Britain, spearheaded the current international crisis and instigated the war against Iraq. The alleged necessity for this war was presented to the people in America, Great Britain and the world under the false pretence of a global fight against 'terrorism', elimination of rogue governments and the crusade against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Thus, the same corporate interest groups and the same political stakeholders responsible for millions of deaths from the continued business with disease are now also responsible for risking the unnecessary death of tens of thousands of innocent people in Iraq and for the death of young soldiers in America, Great Britain and other countries. They are responsible for starting and conducting a war of aggression against Iraq without any international mandate. They are responsible for the enslavement, plunder and other crimes currently being conducted in occupied Iraq.
If these interest groups and their political stakeholders are not held accountable for these crimes immediately, they are likely to continue the escalation of the international crisis with the ultimate risk of a war with weapons of mass destruction.
In this critical and historical situation I am bringing these crimes against humanity, these war crimes and crimes of aggression and of genocide to the attention of the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court and urge him to take immediate action to prevent further crimes and the ultimate disaster, a world war.
Every individual person, government, corporation or organization from anywhere in the world who has suffered from these crimes or wishes to terminate these crimes is called upon to join this complaint.
Criminal Charges
The charges in this complaint relate to crimes in two main fields:
* Crimes perpetrated by the pharmaceutical "business with disease" including the crime of genocide and other crimes against humanity.
* Crimes related to the 2003 war against Iraq and the international escalation towards a world war including crimes of war and aggression as well as other crimes against humanity.
These two fields of crime are directly connected because they are committed in the name and interest of the same corporate investment groups and their political stakeholders. The accused are charged with the most serious crimes committed against all mankind and are therefore subject to the principle of international prosecution.
1. Crimes Committed In Connection With The Pharmaceutical 'Business With Disease'
1.1. The Crime of Genocide
The accused are guilty of the crime of genocide for which they are liable to prosecution under Article 6 of the ICC Statute. This includes but is not limited to the following specific crimes:
1.1.1. Genocide by Killing (Article 6a)
1.1.2. Genocide by causing serious bodily or mental harm (Article 6b)
1.2.3. Genocide by deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction (Article 6c)
1.2. Crimes Against Humanity
The accused are guilty of the crime of genocide for which they are liable to prosecution under Article 7 of the ICC Statute. This includes but is not limited to the following specific crimes:
1.2.1. Crime Against Humanity of Murder (Article 7a)
1.2.2. Crime Against Humanity of Extermination (Article 7b)
1.2.3. Crime Against Humanity of Enslavement (Article 7c)
1.2.4. Crime Against Humanity of Severe Deprivation
of Physical Liberty (Article 7e)
1.2.5. Crime Against Humanity of Other Inhumane Acts (Article 7k)
Summary Of The Substantiation Of The Charges In Relation To The Crimes Connected With The Pharmaceutical 'Business With Disease' (Charges 1.1. - 1.2.)
1. The accused willfully and systematically maintain cardiovascular diseases, including high blood pressure, heart failure, diabetic complications and other diseases, cancer, infectious diseases including AIDS, osteoporosis and many other of today's most common diseases that are recognized to be largely preventable by natural means. The accused have deliberately caused the unnecessary suffering and premature death of hundreds of millions of people.
2. The accused systematically and deliberately prevent the eradication of cardiovascular disease, cancer and other diseases by obstructing and blocking the dissemination of life-saving information on the health benefits of natural non-patentable therapies. Thereby, the accused have deliberately caused further unnecessary suffering and the premature death of hundreds of millions of people.
3. The accused deliberately and systematically expand existing diseases and creating new diseases by manufacturing and marketing pharmaceutical drugs with short-term symptomatic relief but with known and detrimental long-term side-effects. Thereby the accused have deliberately caused further unnecessary suffering and premature death of hundreds of millions of people.
Details are provided in the evidence section.
2. Specific Crimes Committed In Connection With The War Against Iraq And The Current International Crisis
2.1. The Crime of Genocide
The accused are guilty of the crime of genocide for which they are liable to prosecution under Article 6 of the ICC Statute. Under the terms of this statute genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. This includes but is not limited to the following specific criminal charges:
2.1.1. Genocide by killing (Article 6a)
2.1.2. Genocide by causing serious physical or mental harm (Article 6b)
2.1.3. Genocide by deliberately inflicting living conditions calculated to bring about physical destruction (Article 6c)
2.2. Crimes Against Humanity
Under the terms of Article 7 of the Rome Statute, crimes against humanity mean any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack. This includes but is not limited to the following specific criminal charges:
2.2.1. Crimes against humanity of murder (Article 7a)
2.2.2. Crimes against humanity of extermination (Article 7b)
2.2.3. Crimes against humanity of enslavement (Article 7c)
2.2.4. Crimes against humanity of deportation or forcible transfer of population (Article 7d)
2.2.5. Crimes against humanity of imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty (Article 7e)
2.2.6. Crimes against humanity of other inhumane acts of a similar nature intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to the body or to mental or physical health. (Article 7k)
2.3. War Crimes
Under the terms of Article 8 of the Rome Statute, war crimes mean grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12th August 1949 (Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva Convention for the Protection of Civilian Persons in Times of War).
1. The accused deliberately started a war of aggression against Iraq without any mandate by international law.
2. The accused deliberately escalate an international crisis situation including psychological warfare and actual military warfare. The goal of this escalation strategy is to create a global emergency state that allows the abandonment of civil rights on global scale - including establishment of far reaching protectionist laws. The war of aggression against Iraq on the false pretence of a global fight against "terrorism" and the crusade proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is part of this strategy.
3. The accused deliberately committed the crimes of genocide, murder, mutilation and other serious bodily and mental harm during their war of aggression against the people of Iraq.
4. The accused deliberately committed the crime of destroying and seizing public and private property during and after the war of aggression. Iraq has the second largest oil resources in the world and these resources are being plundered on behalf of the accused for private gain.
Details are documented in the section "Evidence"
Historic Precedent For This Complaint
The Nuremberg War Tribunal against executives of the pharmaceutical/petrochemical cartel IG- Farben
More than half a century ago, the Nuremberg War Tribunal took place against the executives of the IG Farben Corporation, the largest pharmaceutical-petrochemical cartel in pre-world-war Europe. The Nuremberg War Tribunal brought to justice those responsible for the Second World War and set the precedent for international prosecution of war crimes and ultimately the International Court in The Hague.
Unbeknownst to most people today, the Nuremberg War Tribunal did not only sentence the political and military leaders, but also the corporate executives who brought Hitler to power. 24 executives and managers of IG Farben were indicted in this War Tribunal. US chief prosecutor Telford Taylor stated in his opening statement: "The indictment accuses these men of mature responsibility for visiting upon mankind the most devastating and catastrophic war in human history. It accuses them of wholesale enslavement, plunder and murder. These are terrible charges."
And he continued, "These accused corporate executives, not the Nazi lunatics are the principal war criminals. If their crimes are not brought to the daylight and they are not punished, they will commit even larger crimes in the future than Hitler could ever have committed."
In 1947, the main charges against the IG Farben managers were:
* Charge 1: the planning and conduction of a war of aggression and the conquest of other countries with the result of unprecedented destruction in the entire world, the death of millions of people and the continued sufferings of millions more.
* Charge 2: deportation, plundering and spoliation of public and private property in the occupied countries with the purpose of permanently exerting economic control in these countries and other severe crimes.
* Charge 3: slavery, mistreatment, terrorizing, torture and murdering of millions of people.
Now, half a century later, the charges in this complaint, are strikingly similar:
* Planning and conduct of a war of aggression against Iraq under the pretence of fighting international terror and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction with the result that vast areas of the country are devastated, thousands of people have died and hundreds of thousands were injured.
* Plundering and spoliation of public and private property in the pursuit of economic power and control in entire regions of the world by escalating an international crisis. Against this war of aggression the accused were deliberately factoring in the use of weapons of mass destruction including nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
* Genocide by killing, by causing serious bodily harm and by inflicting conditions of life to bring about physical destruction and crimes against humanity of murder and of other inhumane acts.
Evidence For The Crimes Committed
The evidence for the charges brought in this complaint also relate to two main fields of crimes
* Evidence of genocide and other crimes against humanity committed in connection with the pharmaceutical business with disease.
* Evidence for crimes of war and aggression and other crimes against humanity committed in connection with the war against Iraq and the escalation of the international crisis to a world war.
1. Evidence Of Genocide And Other Crimes Against Humanity Committed In Connection With The Pharmaceutical 'Business With Disease'
Specific evidence is presented that the accused are responsible for deliberately maintaining and expanding diseases, purposefully causing new diseases as well as expanding the use of drugs once registered for one disease to as many other diseases as possible.
To accomplish those goals, the accused have strategically designed, implemented, conducted and organized a business fraud scheme on a global scale that by its economic magnitude is unmatched in human history.
1.1. The Deliberate Expansion of Disease
The following specific evidence is presented that today's most common diseases are deliberately maintained and expanded by the accused, despite the fact that these diseases could have been effectively prevented and largely eradicated saving millions of lives.
1.1.1. Coronary heart disease
The primary cause of coronary artery disease and heart attacks is a structural weakening and impaired function of the artery wall, which - similar to scurvy - develops as the result of long-term deficiencies of vitamins and other essential nutrients.
In contrast, pharmaceutical approaches to the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease deliberately ignore this cause and focus rather on the treatment of symptoms, such as the reduction of cholesterol levels in the blood.
Whilst deliberately avoiding curing the disease for which they are marketed, the detrimental side effects of these pharmaceutical drugs cause new diseases. The worldwide death toll from cardiovascular disease as a result of these deliberate crimes of the accused is in excess of 12 million lives every year.
1.1.2. High Blood Pressure
The primary cause of high blood pressure is an increased tension of the artery wall due to a deficiency of essential nutrients in the arterial smooth muscle cells, leading to narrowing of the artery diameter and a rise in blood pressure. A multitude of clinical studies is available documenting the benefits of non-patentable micronutrients, in particular the amino acid arginine and magnesium. They correct the underlying deficiency in millions of vascular wall cells thereby relaxing the blood vessel walls, increasing blood vessel diameter and helping to normalize high blood pressure,
Pharmaceutical drugs sold for the treatment of high blood pressure purposely focus on the treatment of symptoms. For example, beta-blockers reduce the heart rate and diuretics reduce the blood volume. These pharmaceutical drugs deliberately avoid correcting the 'spasms' of the blood vessel walls as the primary cause of high blood pressure. Thus, whilst deliberately avoiding curing the disease, these pharmaceutical drugs have long-term detrimental side effects potentially causing a multitude of new diseases - and thereby new drug markets.
Worldwide several hundred million high blood pressure patients remain uncured as a direct result of these actions by the accused and their death toll is rising daily.
1.1.3. Heart Failure
The primary cause of heart failure is lack of cellular biocatalysts, certain vitamins, minerals, carnitine, coenzyme Q10 and other bioenergy carriers in millions of heart muscle cells. This results in impaired heart pumping function and accumulation of water in the body.
In contrast, pharmaceutical approaches for the treatment of heart failure deliberately ignore this fact and focus on symptoms. Diuretics marketed for the treatment of heart failure not only eliminate water accumulated in the body but also wash out vitamins, minerals and other water-soluble bioenergy carriers. Thus, the pharmaceutical drugs marketed for heart failure actually worsen the disease and they are responsible for the short life expectancy of heart failure patients once diuretic medication sets in.
Whilst deliberately avoiding curing the disease, these pharmaceutical drugs flush out essential nutrients from the body, thereby aggravating the underlying cause of the disease. Worldwide over one hundred million heart failure patients remain uncured and eventually die prematurely as a direct result of the actions by the accused.
1.1.4. Irregular heartbeat
The primary cause of irregular heartbeat is lack of micronutrients, vitamins, minerals, ubiquinone and other bioenergy carriers, in millions of electrical heart muscle cells. This results in impaired generation or conduction of the electrical impulses required for normal heartbeat. A recent double blind placebo-controlled study has unequivocally documented that the therapeutic use of micronutrients is an effective safe and affordable way to correct the health condition underlying irregular heart beat.
In contrast, pharmaceutical approaches for the treatment of irregular heartbeat deliberately ignore this fact and focus instead on symptoms. Anti-arrhythmic drugs marketed to treat arrhythmia frequently worsen the irregular heartbeat and cause cardiac arrest and the premature death of patients.
A decade ago the author Thomas Moore documented in his book "Deadly Medicine" that one new class of anti-arrhythmic drugs in the USA alone had caused more deaths than the number of US casualties in the Vietnam War. Worldwide over one hundred million patients with irregular heartbeat remain uncured as a direct result of these actions by the accused and their death toll is rising daily.
1.1.5. Cancer
Until recently cancer has been considered a death verdict. Recent advances in natural health and cellular medicine have fundamentally changed that. For this disease too, it is now obvious that medical research with non-patentable therapies has been deliberately neglected and excluded by the accused in favor of ineffective drugs that allow the continuation of the cancer epidemic as one of their most profitable markets. Because of the extraordinary significance of the crimes committed by the accused in connection with the cancer epidemic it is presented here in more detail.
It is a scientific fact that all cancers spread by the same mechanism, the use of collagen digesting enzymes (collagenases, metalloproteinases). The therapeutic use of the natural amino acid lysine - especially together with other non-patentable micronutrients - can block these enzymes and thereby inhibit the spread of cancer cells. All types of cancer studied thus far respond to this therapeutic approach including breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, skin cancer, fibroblastoma, synovial cancer and any other forms of cancer.
The only reason why this breakthrough in medicine has not been investigated further and applied in the treatment of cancer patients worldwide is the fact that these substances are not patentable and therefore have low profit margins. More importantly, any effective treatment of any disease ultimately leads to its eradication and to the destruction of a multi-trillion-dollar market of pharmaceutical drugs.
The pharmaceutical drug marketing for cancer patients has been particularly fraudulent and malicious. Under the pretence of treating cancer using the cover-term 'chemo-therapy' toxic substances, including derivatives of mustard gas, are applied to patients. The fact that these toxic agents also destroy millions of healthy cells in the body is deliberately factored in.
Knowing this fact, the following consequences were deliberately taken into account: First, cancer would continue as a global epidemic, providing the economic basis for a multi-trillion-dollar continued business with this disease. Secondly, the systematic application of toxic agents in the form of chemotherapy causes an epidemic of new diseases in cancer patients receiving these toxic substances.
As a result of this strategy, the pharmaceutical drug market from treating the dangerous side effects of these drugs - including infections, inflammation, bleeding, organ failure etc. - is even bigger than the market of the chemotherapy drugs itself. Thus, the accused also applied their organized deception scheme to the detriment of hundreds of millions of cancer patients with one purpose only: their financial enrichment.
1.1.6. AIDS and other Infectious Diseases
Similar deliberate deception schemes were applied for the treatment of one of the most deadly epidemics in human history, AIDS. Already 10 years ago scientific studies have shown that vitamin C is able to reduce the replication of the HIV-Virus by more than 99%. This fact has been known to the accused for more than a decade.
Deliberately ignoring and bypassing this safe and affordable non-patentable treatment, the accused developed patentable drugs against AIDS, with severe side-effects and - due to their exorbitant patent royalties - unaffordable to the great majority of the people on this planet. Thus, by applying their criminal business scheme, the accused are guilty of risking the lives and causing the deaths of hundreds of millions of people in Africa, South America, Asia and all the other regions of the world.
In a similar way, they have boycotted the information that the single most important measure to enhance immunity against infectious diseases is an optimum intake of vitamins B6, B12, Folic Acid and certain other essential nutrients. It is a scientific fact that these biocatalysts of cellular metabolism increase the production of leucocytes, the body's main weapon against any infection. By systematically withholding this information, particularly from hundreds of millions of children and adults in the developing world, the pharmaceutical industry deliberately risks the lives of hundreds of millions of people in these areas of the world. All the accused know that hardly anyone in these areas of the world can afford pharmaceutical treatments and they will consequently die.
Withholding this lifesaving information about natural, non-patentable alternatives to prevent and fight infectious diseases, not only leads to the death of millions of people, but also to the ruin of the economies of many developing countries. As a direct result the already existing imbalance in the current world economy is dramatically aggravated. These countries are deliberately placed in a conflict where they can only lose.
1.1.7. Other diseases
In a similar way, other degenerative, inflammatory, infectious diseases and many other of today's most common diseases only continue to exist as health problems because the accused have defined them and protect them as the markets for their criminal 'business with disease.'
1.2. EVIDENCE ABOUT THE CRIMINAL MARKETING SCHEMES OF THE ACCUSED
1.2.1 Deliberately Expanding Diseases and Causing New Diseases in Patients to Expand Pharmaceutical Drug Markets
To expand their markets the following groups of drugs are manufactured and marketed by the accused deliberately, in spite of their known detrimental side effects. In a criminal manner, the accused are deliberately causing new diseases under the pretense of fighting existing ones. The fact that these new diseases caused by the side effects of these drugs surface many years later is used as an additional cover for this deceptive scheme:
Cholesterol-lowering drugs, particularly statins and fibrates are mass-marketed under the pretense of preventing cardiovascular disease. These drugs are known to induce cancer at doses currently administered to millions of patients worldwide.
Chemotherapy drugs are marketed to allegedly treat cancer. In fact, they cause a series of severe side effects the most frequent of which is setting off new cancers. The entire criminal marketing scheme around chemotherapy can only work because the accused have rendered cancer a death verdict - and even a few month's survival of a patient on chemotherapy is being marketed by the accused as a success story.
Aspirin is mass-marketed under the false pretense of preventing heart attacks and strokes, whilst long-term use of this drug is known to cause destruction of collagen and therefore to gradually increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes as well as other diseases such as stomach ulcers and gastrointestinal bleeding.
Anti-inflammatory drugs are used to treat pain and inflammation, e.g. in arthritis. However, many of these drugs destroy connective tissue, e.g. the joints. With their long-term use these drugs aggravate the health problems rather than healing them.
Calcium antagonists are mass-marketed under the false pretense of treating high blood pressure and preventing heart attacks, whilst long-term use of these drugs is known to cause an increase in heart attacks, strokes and other diseases.
Estrogen and other hormone drugs are mass-marketed under the false pretense of preventing osteoporosis and heart disease, whilst long-term use of these drugs is known to cause cancer in more than 30% of the women taking them. Particularly frequent forms of cancer caused by these drugs are hormone dependent cancers such as cancer of the breast and uterus.
Tranquilizers and anti-depressants. Another mechanism by which the accused systematically expand their markets is to deliberately cause addiction in order to increase drug sales. Many tranquillizers and anti-depressants, including widespread diazepam ('Valium') are known to cause dependency and addiction. In order to expand their global sales of these addictive drugs, the accused even praise them through full-page adverts directly to the public.
Other drugs. Since patentability is a precondition for the pharmaceutical investment business typical pharmaceutical drugs are synthetic molecules and therefore toxic to the human body. For almost all drugs the same fraudulent business principle is valid - alleviate symptoms short term whilst, at the same time causing damage and gradually generating new diseases as the basis for new drug markets.
1.3. Expanding their drug markets to new diseases
In executing their crimes, the accused deliberately extend their existing pharmaceutical drug market by inventing new health conditions for which they recommend the drugs that had previously been recommended for other diseases. As first evidence the following examples are presented here:
Headache pills allegedly prevent heart disease. Aspirin was developed as a headache and pain relief pill and is now being mass-marketed and recommended by the accused for long-term use, even by healthy individuals for the alleged prevention and treatment of heart disease and other severe health conditions.
Antibiotics allegedly fight coronary heart disease. In order to extend the global market for their antibiotic drugs, the accused fabricated and spread the so-called "bacteria-theory" of heart attacks on a worldwide scale. Without any clinical evidence that chlamydia or other bacteria actually cause atherosclerosis or heart attacks the accused criminally promoted the general use of antibiotics even for healthy individuals with the false pretense of preventing heart attacks.
These are just a few examples of the practices by the accused to systematically expand the use of their drugs to other diseases. In fact this marketing scheme is not the exception, but the rule. The list of crimes committed in this context should be amended and completed during further investigation.
1.4. Crimes Connected With The Systematic Infiltration Of Various Sectors Of Society With The Purpose To Facilitate Committing These Crimes
The accused have systematically and deliberately infiltrated medicine and the health sectors of most countries in the world to create financial and other dependencies in order to conduct their 'business with disease' and commit other crimes. Medical research is not performed with the primary object to find the most effective, safest and most affordable treatment against a disease, but with the goal to identify the largest disease markets and to achieve the highest gains in that market for the drug manufacturer. As part of this strategy over recent decades, the accused systematically removed from the training programs at medical schools the knowledge about effective, but non-patentable natural therapies. They are purposely producing generations of doctors with little or no knowledge about the life-saving health benefits of these natural therapies. Simultaneously, therapeutic education at medical schools was taken over by the newly created departments named pharmacology. Thus, over decades generations of doctors have been leaving medical schools practically as a trained sales force for the pharmaceutical 'business with disease'. In order to hide this strategy, patented drugs were portraid as 'scientific' and even baptized 'ethical drugs' whereas non-patentable natural therapies were discredited as 'unscientific.'
In a similar way the accused have systematically and deliberately infiltrated the mass media around the world, creating financial and other dependencies, disseminating deceptive and false information in order to conceal their criminal practices, promote their 'business with disease' and commit other crimes.
The accused have deliberately and systematically abused the legislative and political system of most nations to pass laws, establish regulations and promote other measures with the purpose to expand their sales of ineffective, unsafe but lucrative pharmaceutical drugs. The accused abused their political influence to coerce legislation that would allow them to appropriate trillions of dollars under the cover of 'health insurance' and other public and private health funds. By promoting their fraudulent 'business with disease' they have taken this money from individuals, corporations and governments around the world by requesting payment for ineffective and harmful therapies. Thereby, the accused secure exorbitant gains for the pharmaceutical industry and causing unnecessary suffering and premature death of hundreds of millions of people.
The accused have purposely and systematically infiltrated and abused the European Parliament and other regional and international bodies including the United Nations Organizations, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and other national and international political bodies to commit their crimes against humanity.
1.5. Crimes Connected With The Systematic Obstruction Of Effective, Non-Patentable Health Measures
To protect their artificial investment business with disease, the accused tried to strategically eliminate access of the people of the world to non-patentable natural therapies. To accomplish this goal the accused used several strategic measures:
1. Withholding life saving information about non-patentable natural therapies. The accused have deliberately and systematically withheld and blocked the basic health information from millions of people that the human body does not produce its own vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Because of the lack of this knowledge almost all humans suffer from vitamin C deficiency and are susceptible to cardiovascular and other diseases. In a similar way, the accused have systematically and purposefully withheld and blocked the basic health information from millions of people that the human body does not produce the natural amino acid lysine. Because of the lack of this knowledge almost all humans suffer from lysine deficiency and are susceptible to cancer and other diseases. Thereby, the accused deliberately cause further unnecessary suffering and the premature death of hundreds of millions of people.
2. Publicly discrediting non-patentable natural therapies. The accused have willfully and systematically deceived the public by disseminating false, misleading and fabricated information discrediting non-patentable health therapies with the goal to protect and expand their 'business with disease' based on patented drugs and to commit other crimes. Thereby, the accused deliberately cause further unnecessary suffering and the premature death of hundreds of millions of people.
3. Outlawing the dissemination of health information related to non-patentable natural therapies. The accused have deliberately abused their political influence trying to implement legislation at the national as well as the international level that would essentially outlaw the dissemination of preventive and therapeutic health information related to non-patentable natural therapies. At the same time, this legislation seeks to establish arbitrarily low 'upper limits' for the amounts of these natural and safe therapies, a step intended to prohibit their use as natural therapeutic agents. By abusing the United Nation's 'Codex Alimentarius Commission', the accused have even been trying to establish such laws for all member countries of the UN - that is worldwide.
1.5.5. Now that all peaceful efforts to protect the pharmaceutical 'business with disease' have failed, the accused adopt another strategy. They are deliberately escalating an international crisis, including wars, in order to create the psychological and legal precondition that would allow an immediate and global implementation of protectionist laws and cement the continuation of their 'business with disease' and the other crimes of which they are accused.
2. Evidence Of Genocide, Crimes Of War And Other Crimes Against Humanity Committed In Connection With The War Of Aggression Against Iraq
The accused are committing the crime of deliberately escalating an international crisis including wars of aggression towards a war that includes weapons of mass destruction.
The accused have been consistently abusing the tragedy of September 11th for the purpose of building up an international crisis scenario, which they ultimately used as a justification for their war of aggression.
Whilst the accused maximized the psychological factor of this tragedy they have blocked an official investigation into the actual events and the background of September 11th. It was The White House itself that blocked the institution of an independent commission for over a year.
Thus whilst the facts about this tragedy are not fully disclosed to the public the events of September 11th have been abused as the justification for the international crisis situation ever since.
Whilst failing to disclose any convincing evidence about September 11th they abused this tragedy to conquer the country of Afghanistan. The military conquest of Afghanistan was followed by the plundering of its natural resources, by the accused, for their financial gain.
In a similar way the accused used this pretense to conquer the next country, Iraq. Under cover of fighting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the accused were trying to coerce the world community into a war of aggression against Iraq.
Despite the fact that the great majority of the UN Security Council, the vast majority of the member states of the UN and overwhelming world opinion opposed this war, the accused still launched their attack.
The war planned, started and conducted by the accused was a war without any international mandate and therefore constituted a war of aggression and a crime against humanity. If the accused are not brought to justice for this crime, the entire system of international law as designed after the Second World War to protect mankind from destruction, will collapse.
In the absence of any international mandate the only justification left for the accused to commit this criminal act, was to fabricate a pretense - their alleged search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Today the entire world knows that this too was a deception.
During their war of aggression against Iraq, tens of thousands of Iraqi people - soldiers and civilians alike - were killed. Killing of that magnitude during a war without any international mandate constitutes the crime of genocide.
In addition, hundreds of thousands of innocent people - many of them children - were injured, mutilated, or suffered physical or mental harm caused by the criminal acts of the accused.
Moreover, the accused purposefully and systematically seized the oil fields and other natural resources of Iraq with the purpose to exploit them to enrich themselves. To cover up their crimes the accused disseminate the false justification that their seizure of the oil resources would be in the interests of and to the benefit of the Iraqi people.
With the occupation of Iraq and the appropriation of its resources in a war of aggression, the accused also committed the crime of plundering and seizing the enemy's property.
The accused systematically promoted this crisis escalation to further curtail civil rights through so-called 'anti-terror' laws. To deceive the people while committing their crimes these laws were deliberately given deceptive names, e.g. 'Homeland Security Act', or 'Patriot-Act', thereby coercing political support for the abandonment of civil rights.
Whilst systematically organizing this escalation the accused also deliberately abused the media distraction and made their first moves trying to implement protectionist laws on behalf of the pharmaceutical cartel. Largely unbeknown to the US Congress at that time, a provision was inserted into the Homeland Security Act granting immunity to drug makers from product liability law suits.
This is but a short synopsis of the crimes of war and crimes against humanity committed by the accused and of their strategy to abuse these war crimes to continue crimes of even larger magnitude, such as cementing their global 'business with disease'.
In the course of the further investigation of these war crimes, all available resources must be used to bring the accused to justice. This includes particularly all information available through the United Nations organizations, the UN weapons inspectors, documentation of war crimes from Iraqi and international sources and all other available sources.
The people of the world will demand to be part of this process and contribute documentation about these war crimes in order to accelerate the process of justice.
The Accused
The accused are the following persons from the corporate, military and political sectors of different nationalities:
1. George Walker Bush, U.S. President. He is the main political executor of the interests of the pharmaceutical/petrochemical cartel. He is the main political executor of the war crimes against Iraq and the other crimes of this complaint.
2. Anthony Charles Lynton ("Tony") Blair, Prime Minister of the U.K. He is the political head and executor for himself as well as an accomplice of George Bush in committing the crimes listed in this complaint.
3. Richard Bruce ("Dick") Cheney, U.S. Vice President. Cheney was the chief executive officer of the oil service provider Haliburton & Company from Dallas, Texas. After the conquest of Iraq, Haliburton became the key company for the economic plundering of Iraq under the pretence of reconstruction.
4. Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense. Rumsfeld was Chief Executive Officer of several biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, among others the pharma-concern G. D. Searle, today part of Pharmacia. For several decades, he had the role of strategic organizer of the pharmaceutical "business with disease". He received several awards of the pharmaceutical industry. Beside George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld was one of the main instigators of the war of aggression against Iraq.
5. John Ashcroft, U.S. Attorney General. He is one of the strategists of the so-called Homeland Security Act, one of the organizational instruments by which the accused are systematically curtailing civil rights in the U.S. He is responsible for protectionist legislation that would essentially grant immunity to the pharmaceutical industry from being held responsible for their crimes in the U.S.
6. Tom Ridge, Secretary of Homeland Security, an accomplice of John Ashcroft in cementing the political and economic control of the accused with the purpose to continue their unscrupulous business with disease and other crimes by systematically curtailing civil rights in the U.S.
7. Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Security Advisor. She is a former director of the petrochemical concern Chevron and was instrumental in promoting the war of aggression of the accused.
In the pharmaceutical sector, the following companies are accused:
1. Pfizer Inc., the Chief Executive Officer Henry A. McKinnell, Ph.D., the other Executives and the Board of Directors.
2. Merck & Co., Inc., the Chief Executive Officer Raymond V. Gilmartin, the other Executives and the Board of Directors.
3. GlaxoSmithKline PLC, the Chief Executive Officer Dr Jean-Pierre Garnier, the other Executives and the Board of Directors.
4. Novartis AG, the Chief Executive Officer Dr Daniel Vasella, the other Executives and the Board of Directors.
5. Amgen Inc., the Chief Executive Officer Kevin Sharer, the other Executives and the Board of Directors.
6. Astra Zeneca, the Chief Executive Officer Sir Tom McKillop, the other Executives and the Board of Directors.
7. Eli Lilly and Company, the Chief Executive Officer Sidney Taurel, the other Executives and the Board of Directors.
8. Abbott Laboratories, the Chief Executive Officer Miles D. White, the other Executives and the Board of Directors.
9. Other pharmaceutical companies, their Executive Officers and Boards of Directors that maintain and promote the investment "business with disease" and other crimes.
In the petrochemical sector, the following corporations and their executives are accused:
1. ExxonMobil Corporation, its Chief Executive Officer Lee R. Raymond, the other Executives and its Board of Directors.
2. British Petroleum (BP), its Chief Executive Officer The Lord Browne of Madingley, FREng, the other Executives and its Board of Directors.
3. Chevron Texaco Corp., its Chief Executive Officer David O'Reilly, the other Executives and its Board of Directors.
4. Other petrochemical companies that benefit from the plunder and spoliation of the war of aggression against Iraq.
The financial groups behind these corporate multinationals:
1. The Rockefeller Financial Group and the members of the Rockefeller Family in benefiting from the crimes committed.
2. The Rothschild Group and all its members financially benefiting from these crimes.
3. The JP Morgan Group and all its members financially benefiting from these crimes.
4. The Trilateral Commission and its members, a body founded by David Rockefeller to coordinate the interests of this investment group in the three areas of the world, U.S.A., Europe and Japan - hence, the name "trilateral" - including all members of this commission individually who are found guilty of participating in these crimes or benefiting from them financially.
5. The members of other corporate lobby and interest groups who in the course of further investigation will be found to have participated in committing these crimes or financially benefited from them.
6. J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, its Chief Executive Officer William B. Harrison Jr., the other Executives and its Board of Directors.
7. Other financial institutions their Executive Officers, Boards of Directors and shareholders and others who in the course of further investigation will be found to have participated in committing these crimes or financially benefited from them.
8. Politicians as well as national and international political bodies who in the course of further investigation will be found to have participated in committing these crimes or financially benefited from them.
9. Members of the military who participated, or in the course of further investigation will be found to have participated in committing these crimes or financially benefited from them.
10. Pharmaceutical health executives who in the course of further investigation will be found to have deliberately and systematically participated in committing these crimes or financially benefited from them.
11. Members of the media and others who in the course of further investigation will be found to have participated in committing these crimes or financially benefited from them.
12. Any other individual person, organization or body that in the course of further investigation will be found to have participated in committing these crimes or financially benefited from them.
International Treaties Applicable For This Complaint
Beside the Rome Statutes for the International Court of Justice the following international treaties and declarations are applicable for the severe charges of this complaint:
1. The United Nations Charter
2. The Declaration of Human Rights of December 8, 1948
3. The Geneva Convention on Human Rights of August 12, 1949
4. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of January 12, 1951
5. The Convention on Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity of 1968
6. The Principles of International Co-Operation in the Detection, Arrest, Extradition and Punishment of Persons Guilty of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity of 1973
The Jurisdiction Of The International Criminal Court Over The Accused
The accused committed the crimes outlined above, knowingly and deliberately and in full knowledge of all the circumstances surrounding their actions.
The crimes reported here have been committed against all mankind. The ICC in The Hague is the court governed by international law addressing these urgent issues.
Moreover, the ICC was established after WWII and the Nuremberg Tribunal, with the goal to prevent another tragedy from happening - possibly a world war.
1. Liability to prosecution of those bearing office
The accused can be both sentenced and punished by the International Criminal Court.
The Statute applies equally to all persons without any distinction based on official capacity. In particular, official capacity as a Head of State or Government, a member of a Government or parliament, an elected representative or a government official shall in no case exempt a person from criminal responsibility under the Statute of the ICC, nor shall it, in and of itself, constitute a ground for reduction of sentence (Article 27, Paragraph 1 of the Statute).
Immunities or special procedural rules which may attach to the official capacity of a person, whether under national or international law, shall also not bar the Court from exercising its jurisdiction over such a person (Article 27, Paragraph 2 of the Statute).
2. Exclusion of criminal responsibility
None of the accused may invoke any of the grounds specified under Article 31 of the Statute for excluding criminal responsibility.
The accused were acting in full knowledge about the illegitimacy of their actions. Thus, any claims to the contrary are null and void.
Equally null and void are all efforts by the accused to retroactively justify their crimes by forming 'coalitions' of opinions with other nations.
3. Power to inflict punishment over members of the US Government and citizens of the USA
Even those of the accused, who hold citizenship of the United States of America, cannot claim immunity from criminal prosecution before the International Criminal Court, just because the United States of America in contrast to 90 other countries around the world (i.e. almost half of the members of the United Nations) is not amongst the signatory states to the Rome Statute.
The accused have long been devising plans to try and evade the power to inflict punishment of the International Criminal Court. This, however, does not exempt the accused from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, because the mere performance of the crimes involved in the acts to be judged before the ICC constitutes liability to punishment under the terms of the Statute.
It does not matter if you belong to a specific Member State, because the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over natural persons and not over States and establishes individual responsibility and liability for punishment (Article 25 Paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Statute).
The ICC Statutes render attempts by the US Administration to coerce smaller nations into bilateral 'immunity pacts' redundant.
In addition, the UN Security Council did rule that the US Government and therefore also the majority of the accused could not and should not decide themselves whether the International Criminal Court could take action against them or not.
This decision was taken for good reason: One can only imagine what would have happened if the main figures accused in the Nuremberg Trials had been allowed to choose whether they had to stand trial before the Nuremberg Tribunal.
For these reasons the accused, even if they are citizens of the United States of America, are still subject to the power to inflict punishment of the International Criminal Court.
Final Appeal
The individuals named should be indicted before the International Criminal Court on the basis of the valid grounds specified in this complaint.
The investigations into the individual responsibilities of the accused are to be taken up and continued by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
These investigations will also be continued and intensified on our side, the side of the people of the world.