Zeitgeist: Addendum Page #4

privatized and sold to US corporations or other

multinational corporations.

So there is a whole mushrooming thing, and it's

so typical, the way the IMF and the World Bank work.

They put a country in debt, and it's

such a big debt they can't repay it!

And then they offer to refinance that

debt, and pay them more interest

And you demand...

this "quid pro quo" what you call

a conditionality or good governance

which means basically, that they

got to sell off their resources,

including many of their social

services, their utility companies..

their school systems sometimes,

their penal systems,

their insurance systems... to foreign corporations.

So it's a double - triple - quadruple whammie!

The preceptive for a Economic Hitman

really began back in the early 50's

when democratically elected "Mossadegh"

who was elected in Iran...

He was considered to be "The hope for Democracy"

in the middle east or around the world. He

was in Time-Magazine's man of the year. But...

one of the things that he brought on

and end the implement was the idea that

foreign oil companies needed to pay the Iranian people

a lot more for the oil, that they were taking out of Iran

and the Iranian people should benefit

from their own oil. - Strange policy -

we didn't like that of course, but we were afraid to do

what we normally were doing, which was to send in the military

instead we sent in one CIA agent, Kermit

Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelts relative.

And Kermit went in with a few million

dollars, and was very very effective

and efficient and in a short amount of time,

he managed to get Mossadeg overthrown,

and brought in the Shah of Iran to replace

them, who always was favorable to oil,

and it was extremely effective.

Revolt in Iran

Mobs over through Tehran.

Army officers shout that Mossadeg has surrendered

and his regime as virtual dictator of Iran has ended.

Pictures of the Shah are paraded through

the streets as sentiment reverses.

The Shah is welcomed home.

So back here in the United States, in Washington, people

looked around and said "wow, that was easy and cheap".

So this established the whole new way,

of manipulating countries, of creating empire

the only problem with Roosevelt was

that he was a card carrying CIA agent

and if he'd been caught, the ratifications could have been pretty

serious, so very quickly at that point, the decision was made,

to use private consultants to channel the money through

the world bank or the IMF or one of the other such agencies

to bring in people like me, who work for private companies

so that if we got caught, it would

be no govermental ramifications.

when Arbenz became president of Guatemala, the country

was very much under the thumbs of United Fruit company

The big international cooperations and Arbenz ran on this

ticket that said: "We want to give the land back to the people".

And once he took power he was implementing

policies that would do exactly that

give the land rights back to the people.

"United Fruit" didn't like that very much,

and so they hired a public relations firm

watch the huge campaign in the United States

to convince the United States, the people...the citizens

of the United States, the press of the United States

and the congress of the United States,

that Arbenz was a soviet puppet.

And that if we allowed him to stay in power the

Soviets would have a foot hole in this hemisphere.

And at that point in time there was a huge fear on

everybody's mind, of the Red terror, the Communist terror.

And so, to make a long story short,

out of this public relations campaign

came a commitment on the part of the

CIA and the military to take this man out.

And in fact, we did! We sent in planes,

we sent in soldiers, we sent in jackals,

we sent everything in to take him out.

And did take him out

and as soon as he was removed from office,

the new guy, that took over after him basically

reinstated everything to the big international corporations.

Including United Fruit.

Ecuador, for many many years had

been ruled by Pro-US-Dictators

they often relatively brutal. Then it was

decided to have a truely democratic ellection.

Jaime Roldos ran for offence and his

main goal , he said, as president would be...

... to make sure that Ecuador's

resources were used to help the people.

And he won! Overwhelming.

By more votes than anybody had

ever won anything in Ecuador.

And he began to implement these policies.

To make sure that the profits

from Oil whant to help the people.

Well... We didn't like that in the United States.

I was send down as one of several

Economic Hitman to change Roldos.

To corrupt him. To bring him around...

to let him know... you know.

"OK, You can get very rich, if you

and your family play our game."

"But if you continue to try to keep these

policys you promised... ah... You gonna go!"

He wouldn't listen...

He was assassinated.

As soon as the plane crashed,

the whole area was cordoned off.

The only people allowed in were

US military from a nearby base,

and some of the Ecuadorian military.

When an investigation was launched,

two of the key witnesses died in car accidents

before they had a chance to testify.

A lot of very very strange things that went on

around the assassination of Jaime Roldos.

I like most people whove really looked at this case

have absolutely no doubt that it was an assassination.

And of course in my position as an economic hitman

I was obviously expecting something to happen to Jaime,

whether it be a coup or assassination I wasnt sure,

but that he would be taken down

because he was was not being corrupted,

he would not allow himself to be corrupted

the way we wanted to corrupt him.

Omar Torrijos, president of Panama was,

you know, one of my favorite people.

I really, really liked him. He was very charismatic.

He was a guy who really wanted to help his country.

And when I tried to bribe him or corrupt

him he said Look JohnHe called my Juanito.

Look Juanito, I dont need the money.

What I really need is for my country to be treated fairly.

I need for the United States to repay the debts that

you owe my people for all the destruction youve done here.

I need to be in a position where I can help other

Latin American countries win their independence,

and be free of this terrible presence from

the north. You people are exploiting us so badly.

I need to have the Panama canal back

in the hands of the Panamanian people.

Thats what I want. And so,

leave me alone, dont try to bribe me.

It was 1981 and in May,

Jaime Roldos was assassinated.

And Omar was very aware of this.

Torrijos got his family together

and said Im probably next,

but its Okay because Ive

done what I came here to do.

Ive renegotiated the canal.

The canal will now be in our hands.

Hed just finished negotiating the

treaty with Jimmy Carter.

In June of that same year, just a couple of months later,

he also went down in an airplane crash.

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