THE REAL HUMAN, ECONOMIC, POLITICAL and STRUCTURAL CAUSES BEHIND THE FAMINE IN THE HORN OF AFRICA

THE ROOT CAUSES BEHIND THE FAMINE IN THE HORN OF AFRICA: LANDGRAB, AGROFUELS AND THE AFRICAN SO-CALLED “LEADERS” AND GOVERNMENTS AND THEIR COLONIAL MASTERS DISGUISED AS "DEVELOPMENT EXPERTS"

Millions of poor, destitute Africans are yet again facing starvation in several countries in the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, Soudan, Uganda and Kenya.) The official cause attributed to the famine by African governments is drought and the identified culprit is Nature, along with the usual blame-it-on "terrorism/Al Quaida" propaganda...

In a recent article on the causes of famine in Somalia, Michel Chossudovsky writes,

"According to the UN, a situation of famine prevails in southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle, areas in part controlled by Al Shahab, a jihadist militia group affiliated to Al Qaeda. Both the UN and the Obama administration had accused Al Shahab of imposing "a ban on foreign aid agencies in its territories in 2009". What the reports do not mention, however, is that Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (HSM) ("Movement of Striving Youth") is funded by Saudi Arabia and supported covertly by Western intelligence agencies.The backing of Islamic militia by Western intelligence agencies is part of a broader historical pattern of covert support to Al Qaeda affiliated and jihadist organizations in a number of countries, including, more recently, Libya and Syria."

source: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25725

The REAL terrorists however, are the African so-called "leaders", governments and their white colonial masters (UK/US) and their agents disguised as "development experts" and so-called "aid" organizations (UN, WFP, USAID,DFID, Western NGO's, etc.) and their murderous neo-colonial institutions ( IMF - International Monetary Fraud; World Bank(sters) and the WTO - World Terrorist Organization)- who together, are systematically looting the resources of Africa and exploiting, oppressing and starving millions of Africans in the process.

ETHIOPIA BUYS WAR TANKS WORTH $US 100 MILLION AS MILLIONS STARVE

In Ethiopia, while millions of Ethiopians are facing starvation, the criminal US-backed government of Ethiopia has just purchased 200 war tanks worth US$ 100 millions to crush rising opposition among its own starving population ( using so-called "aid" money from Western/UK taxpayers destined for “emergency food aid donation”)

In an article published online, Thomas Mountain writes:

" Ethiopia is on another arms buying spree as millions of Ethiopians starve due to the worst drought in 60 years. According to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi Ethiopia is purchasing 200 battle tanks from Ukraine for over $100 million.

Was it a coincidence that the day before Meles’ announcement, the British foreign aid office announced a $60 million “emergency food aid donation” to Ethiopia?

One of the primary reasons Ethiopia needs 200 tanks is to conduct its counterinsurgency campaigns against the ethnically based armed uprisings slowly engulfing much of the country. From the Ogaden in the south east, to Tigray in the north to Gambella in the west, and now it is reported, even spreading to much of Oromia in the south west, the Ethiopian regime needs to be able to crush its own people and the latest installment of armor is long over due."

link to the article with full references and links:

http://tesfanews.net/archives/2428

As Obang Metho further explains,

“ As Ethiopians are threatening to rise up against the large-scale robbery of land and resources; accompanied by the widespread perpetration of human rights abuses; the Meles regime just has purchased 200 new tanks for $100 million (USD) rather than meet the growing food needs of the 13 to 16 million Ethiopians who must rely on falling levels of food aid from donor countries in the coming months. Who will these tanks be used against if not Ethiopian citizens who are only wanting to survive in their own land?

Tanks work well against lightly armed guerilla fighters and even better when it comes to crushing civilian uprisings, something those in the western and UN “aid” agencies are fully cognizant of. Now that Ethiopia has become a source of “peacekeepers” in Sudan some of these Ethiopian tanks may be used to uphold Pax Americana on the North-South Sudanese border which includes Sudan’s oil fields.

According to several humanitarian organizations including Human Rights Watch, Ethiopia’s military campaigns have triggered a serious humanitarian crisis. Ethopian military crackdown has led to widespread violence in which entire villages have been destroyed. Citizens also suffer from arbitrary arrests, theft, rape and murder by Ethiopian soldiers. “In October 2007, The Independent reported that the situation in Ogaden had begun to mirror the Darfur conflict, with refugees stating that government troops had burned villages and raped and killed civilians.”

In its report, Human Rights Watch claims that;

“civilians have been killed in what appears to be a deliberate effort to mete out collective punishment against a civilian population suspected of sympathizing with the rebels.”

HRW says it has documented dozens of cases of severe abuse by Ethiopian troops in the Ogaden, including gang rapes, burned villages and what it calls “demonstration killings,” like hanging and beheading of populace, meant to terrorize the population.

We Africans have been the target of colonialization, slavery and exploitation in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries and a target of African dictators and their foreign cronies in the 20th century. We have had enough and will not tolerate this new onslaught of exploitation and dehumanization in the 21st century! Many want to keep us Africans poor, disenfranchised and vulnerable only to more easily take advantage of the pillaging of our continent.” Writes Obang Metho.

You can listen to an audio interview by Obang Metho available online at the following link:

http://afrobeatradio.net/2011/07/13/the-great-ethiopia-land-grab/

For more info on the landgrab on human rights violations in Ethiopia, please contact:

Obang Metho, Executive Director of the SMNE
Phone 202 725-1616. Email: Obang@solidaritymovement.org.
Website: www.solidaritymovement.org

NEW SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA: LANDGRAB, GMO's & AGROFUELS

A century after the infamous Berlin Conference, History tragically repeats itself, this time with the criminal complicity of so-called African "leaders" and governments:

Moreover, while millions starve in the horn of Africa (and throughout the continent), the same so-called African “leaders” are selling and/or leasing millions of hectares of fertile agricultural land to foreign countries and to private foreign companies to grow genetically modified (patented and sterile) GMO so-called “food” crops for export and as raw material to produce agrofuels, animal feed and other industrial and pharmaceutical products for export and consumption in affluent countries.

According to a research paper published by the US based Oakland Institute, in 2009 alone, over 60 million hectares of prime fertile land in Africa ( the size of France) has been leased and/or sold to foreign private companies and/or foreign governments/countries to produce food, agrofuels, animal feed and other raw materials for export and consumption in affluent countries - NOT to feed starving Africans.

“In 2009 alone nearly 60 million ha– an area the size of France – was purchased or leased in comparison to an average annual expansion of global agricultural land of less than 4 million ha before 2008.” writes Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute.

The investigative reports on the massive landgrab in Africa can be read at the following link:

http://media.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/LandGrab_final_web.pdf

TANZANIA: 500,000 REFUGEES REPATRIATED TO "LEASE" LAND TO US AGRIBUSINESS COMPANY TO PRODUCE AGROFUELS...

In Tanzania, over 500,000 Burundian refugees ( fleeing Genocide and their own criminal and oppressive governments in Burundi) have been forcefully repatriated to Burundi and relocated elsewhere in Tanzania and over 300,000 ha of land from the refugee camps has been "leased" to a US agribusiness company – Agrisol Energy – to produce agrofuels, animal feed /livestock and other raw materials for export and consumption in affluent countries – using local food crops.

The report from the Oakland Institute can be read at the following link:

http://media.oaklandinstitute.org/land-deals-africa/agrisol-energy-llc

ETHIOPIA: COUNTRY LAND FOR SALE AT $US 0,99 CENTS FOR 99 YEARS

Hedge funds buy Ethiopian farms at $1 an acre

In Ethiopia, millions of acres of fertile land has been leased and/or sold over to private companies to produce food, agrofuels and other raw materials for export – NOT to feed Ethiopians - while Ethiopians literally starve to death.

In an article published in the UK Sunday Times on July 24, the author writes:

"As Britain prepares to send £38m ($43m) in emergency aid to Ethiopia to fight famine, the Addis Ababa government is selling millions of acres of prime farmland to foreign investors, including British and
American hedge funds.

More than 7 million acres is to be put up for sale, in addition to nearly 7m
acres already sold. The land, which includes arable land, pasture, forests and wetland, goes for as little as $1 (£0.69) an acre on a 100-year lease. Much of it will be irrigated by a network of canals fed by Gibe III, a controversial dam still under construction on the Omo River.

Foreign acquisition is forcing local communities, many of them semi-nomadic, off their traditional lands and depriving them of access to water sources.

Chinese, Indian and Saudi Arabian agribusinesses have all bought land in Africa to protect against future food shortages at home. According to a report by the Oakland Institute, a California-based environmental think tank, British and American hedge funds are behind many of the biggest land purchases.

The report claims many of the deals are unregulated and opaque, and lead to the rights of local farmers and peasants being violated. "Many of the deals will provide few jobs and force many thousands of people off the land," said Anuradha Mittal, Oakland's director.

Human rights groups say the land sales will do nothing to address Ethiopia's long-term food crisis. "No one should believe that these investors are there to feed starving Africans. These deals lead only to dollars in the pockets of corrupt leaders and foreign investors," said Obang Metho, an Ethiopian rights campaigner in America.

Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia's prime minister, has defended overseas investment as the best way to pull the country out of poverty. "Anything from wheat and other cereals up to tea, coffee, palm oil and rubber can grow in the country and they [investors] will be very much welcomed," he said.

Farmers claim investors' interests and rights are being prioritised at the expense of their communities.

Farming minister Abera Deressa said recently that Ethiopia did not need to be agriculturally self-sufficient because it would "become a middle-income country in the next decade and just buy food from the world market". As many as 3.2m Ethiopians rely on foreign aid, making it the world's largest recipient.

Land sales in the Omo River area have been shrouded in secrecy and locals say they have been threatened with arrest if caught speaking to foreigners about the dam project or the resettlement of local farmers.

"Anyone opposing government development projects will be crushed like a person standing in front of a bulldozer," said a police chief.

Aid workers allege that units from Ethiopian special forces have been arresting young men in areas where the land is being cleared for foreign investors.

In Hana, a small settlement in the southeast, a foreign development worker said scores of locals had been badly beaten by Ethiopian special forces, with at least one left in a coma. "The trials of these people were very quick, often on doubtful charges, and the sentences seemed more severe than usual. They are being told if anyone expresses negative opinions about the plantations they will be arrested," he said.

Felix Horne, a consultant for Human Rights Watch, has seen widespread malnutrition in the Gambella region in western Ethiopia, where farmers have been moved off land and left with nowhere to grow their own food.

"I have never seen people so malnourished in this region. The situation is very bad now and everyone fears it will get worse," he said.

Horne says those who have resisted being moved into government villages have been beaten, arrested and in some cases raped. He was also told by locals that the government had been withholding food aid from relocated families."

Please watch this hearbreaking investigative documentary on the massive "langrab" of land in Ethiopia:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/21/ethiopia-centre-global-farmland-rush?CMP=twt_gu.

KENYA AUTHORIZES IMPORTATION & GROWING OF GMO's and OPENS PANDORA's BOX TO MORE POVERTY, HUNGER AND FAMINE...

In Kenya, the country is facing a huge shortage in local maize – the staple food of millions of Kenyans and Africans - as a direct result of the incompetence and corruption of the Kenyan government and so-called "leaders". In response, the Kenyan government has tragically authorized the importation of GM maize from South Africa, thereby opening Pandora’s box to the inevitable and irreversible widespread genetic contamination of local maize crops both in Kenya and throughout the region (borders are porous and GM maize does not require a visa to cross borders!). This, of course, is the REAL (hidden) agenda and objective of Monsanto and the biotech industry - i.e., to contaminate, sterilise and patent all local maize seeds/crops and to take over total control over the agricultural sector in Kenya and in the entire region. Moreover, God only knows what is inside those GM maize seeds…???

Again, the shortage of local maize in Kenya is attributed to "drought" and blamed on Nature. However, the real culprits are none others than the so-called Kenyan “leaders” and the Kenyan government which, over fifty years after so-called “independence” are not even capable of producing maize/food in sufficient quantity to feed their own populations. They are more skilled at exploiting, oppressing and starving their own population while they systematically loot the resources of the country and their people – in complicity with their white colonial masters.

The resulting widespread poverty, hunger, famine, disease, illiteracy, war, etc. in the region and throughout Africa are the “fruits” of over 50 years of systematic exploitation and oppression of African people and looting of African resources by so-called African “leaders”, governments and the so-called African “elite” themselves – in complicity with their white colonial masters disguised as “development experts…”

Indeed, African so-called “leaders” and the so-called “elite” have mastered – nay, have surpassed the “skills” of their colonial masters in exploiting, oppressing and starving their own people and systematically looting the resources of Africa - which makes them the worst and most dangerous ennemies of Africans!

THE ROOT ECONOMIC, POLITICAL and STRUCTURAL CAUSES BEHIND THE FAMINE IN SOMALIA AND IN THE HORN OF AFRICA:

Michel Chossudovsky further explains and exposes the root causes behind the famine in the horn of Africa:

" Somalia remained self-sufficient in food until the late 1970s despite recurrent droughts. As of the early 1980s, its national economy was destabilized and food agriculture was destroyed. The process of economic dislocation preceded the onset of the civil war in 1991. Economic and social chaos resulting from IMF "economic medicine" had set the stage for the launching of a US sponsored "civil war".

An entire country with a rich history of commerce and economic development, was transformed into a territory. Somalia had been a colony of Italy and Britain. In 1969, a post-colonial government was formed under president Mohamed Siad Barre; major social programs in health and education were implemented, rural and urban infrastructure was developed in the course of the 1970s, significant social progress including a mass literacy program was achieved.

The early 1980s marks a major turning point.The IMF-World Bank structural adjustment program (SAP) was imposed on sub-Saharan Africa. The recurrent famines of the 1980s and 1990s are in large part the consequence of IMF-World Bank "economic medicine".

In Somalia, ten years of IMF economic medicine laid the foundations for the country's transition towards economic dislocation and social chaos. By the late 1980s, following recurrent "austerity measures" imposed by the Washington consensus, wages in the public sector had collapsed to three dollars a month.

While "external" climatic variables play a role in triggering off a famine and heightening the social impact of drought, famines in the age of globalization are man-made. They are not the consequence of a scarcity of food but of a structure of global oversupply which undermines food security and destroys national food agriculture. Tightly regulated and controlled by international agri-business, this oversupply is ultimately conducive to the stagnation of both production and consumption of essential food staples and the impoverishment of farmers throughout the world.

Moreover, in the era of globalization, the IMF-World Bank structural adjustment program bears a direct relationship to the process of famine formation because it systematically undermines all categories of economic activity, whether urban or rural, which do not directly serve the interests of the global market system."

source: Somalia: the Real Causes of Famine (excerpts), by Michel Chossudovsky
First published in 1993, Third World Resurgence and Le Monde diplomatique
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25725

THE ROOT ECONOMIC, POLITICAL AND STRUCTURAL CAUSES OF POVERTY AND HUNGER

Hunger - the worst form of violence - is a direct result of unfair global trading rules and exploitative economic practices and suicidal economic policies imposed on Africa by the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, blindly followed by so-called african "leaders" and governements which result in abject human poverty and hunger.

There is more than sufficient food to feed everyone in Africa and around the world. The problem lies in its inequitable distribution and in the lack of financial resources required to purchase it by the vast majority of the human population.

Thus, simply increasing food production without addressing the root economic, political and structural causes of poverty and without distributional justice will NOT resolve hunger.

As Mahatma Gandhi rightly stated:

"There is enough food in the world to satisfy everyone's needs but not everyone's greed."

There is obviously no human justice (an oxymoron) in this low-world. However, a Higher Justice awaits all those guilty of this Crime Against Africa, Humanity, Nature and God.

May God protect Africa and feed the millions starving...

Hunger is the WORST form of Violence.

With great sadness and anger,

Arya

UPLIFTMENT OF THE WEAKEST vs SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Must Earth Human Beings obey and live according to the cruel Law of Nature which governs the animal kingdom – i.e. Survival of the Fittest - for its own individual and collective survival and upliftment? Or can it rise above it and obey a Higher Law which I define as “Uplifment of the Weakest” ?

Of course, human beings do not eat each other literally as is the case among animals - who are governed by this Law of Nature. But, isn’t socio-economic exploitation and oppression of weaker members of human society by the “fittest” not the same in essence?

Although humans do not “eat” weaker members of their society, they secure their own life and prosper at the expense of weaker human beings through economic exploitation, oppression, injustice, violence, dishonesty, theft, looting, war, etc.

As Gopi Krishna writes:

“ The cruel struggle for existence draws into play those resources of the body and properties of the mind which help one to overcome the other competitors and rivals in the race for survival. The emphasis of this struggle would therefore be on the strength of brain and muscle, on endurance and courage, on cleverness and wit, on strategy and cunning, on deceit and trickery, planning and plotting, falsehood and sham, or on violence and aggression, to achieve the dominating position in the battle.These are the traits that we continually see at work in the animal kingdom everywhere on land, in the ocean or the air.

But the moral virtues that have been highly regarded since the dawn of civilization and are admired even today are the very opposite of these traits. Innocence has a greater appeal to the heart than cleverness, frankness than duplicity, truth than falsehood, simplicity than sophistication, humility than pride, honesty than deception, self denial than indulgence, pacifism than aggression, calmness than violence, artlessness than deceit and trickery and so on. Some of these virtues are in direct opposition to the essential qualifications needed for the ruthless battle for self existence. But the learned have no awareness of the factors that have brought about this change in the instinctive armor necessary for survival.”1

“ The present-day world is a strange compound of opposites, a fantastic blend of anomalies and contrarieties. We establish democratic institutions to raise autocrats to power, and profess faith in God to ignore Him in our actions and elude Him in our thoughts. We profess concern for human beings and yet
devise methods for their total destruction at the same time. And we proclaim love for our nation while bleeding our weaker brethren white for gain.

We applaud fair play in order to have the larger share, and we honor justice in order to outwit the rest. We express brotherly love for our neighbors often just to malign him, and we show our burning desire for peace by secretly preparing for war.

Our science-oriented, glamorous culture has created a peculiar social environment ideally suited for highly sophisticated minds with a strongly marked polarity that makes them talk in one way and act in another.

We have developed minds which, without a single qualm of conscience, can sacrifice all that they profess of religion, faith, God, morals, virtue or lofty ideals, if that helps in our day-to-day pursuit of the objective dear to our heart, be it position, power, pleasure, fame or wealth”.2

Thus, by exploiting and oppressing weaker human beings, the "fittest" members of human society are indeed obeying and living according to the law of the jungle that governs the animal kingdom, namely – Survival of the Fittest.

We can therefore conclude that those who obey and live according to this lower Law of Nature are indeed animals and not Human Beings in the true sense of the word. Indeed this in essence - not our superior intellect - is the determining factor that differentiates a true Human Being from an animal. In fact, our superior intellect combined with our obedience to the law of the jungle makes us the most dangerous and destructive animals on this planet!

It therefore follows from the above that a true Human Being is someone who obeys and lives his life in conformity to a Higher Law which I define as Upliftment of the Weakest - in opposition to Survival of the Fittest.

Imagine the consequences on human society and civilization resulting from obeying and living according to this Higher Law: The fittest members of society helping to uplift the weaker members - instead of exploiting and oppressing them to promote their own selfish interests - as is the case now. Indeed, the entire economic architecture of Earth human beings is based on exploitation and oppression of weaker members of human society.

Surely it would revolutionize human civilization on Earth, uplift human society and put an end to human poverty, hunger, disease, ignorance, war, conflict and unending and ever expanding human misery.

Utopian dream…?

Why can Earth humans not make this utopian dream a reality?

What is so utopian about it…?

"Alas!" said Zee, her grand face softening into an angel-like compassion, "this predominance of the few over the many is the surest and most fatal sign of a race incorrigibly savage. See you not that the primary condition of mortal happiness consists in the extinction of that strife and competition between individuals, which, no matter what forms of government they adopt, render the many subordinate to the few, destroy real liberty to the individual, whatever may be the nominal liberty of the state, and annul that calm of existence, without which, felicity, mental, or bodily, cannot be attained?

Our notion is, that the more we can assimilate life to the existence which our noblest ideas can conceive to be that of spirits on the other side of the grave, why, the more we approximate to a divine happiness here, and the more easily we glide into the conditions of being hereafter.

For, surely, all we can imagine of the life of gods, or of blessed immortals, supposes the absence of self-made cares and contentious passions, such as avarice and ambition. It seems to us that it must be a life of serene tranquillity, not indeed without active occupations to the intellectual or spiritual powers, but occupations, of whatsoever nature they be, congenial to the idiosyncrasies of each, not forced and repugnant--a life gladdened by the untrammelled interchange of gentle affections, in which the moral atmosphere utterly kills hate and vengeance, and strife and rivalry. Such is the political state to which all the tribes and families of the Vril-ya seek to attain, and towards that goal all our theories of government are shaped.

You see how utterly opposed is such a progress to that of the uncivilised nations from which you come, and which aim at a systematic perpetuity of troubles, and cares, and warring passions, aggravated more and more as their progress storms its way onward.

The most powerful of all the races in our world, beyond the pale of the Vril-ya, esteems itself the best governed of all political societies, and to have reached in that respect the extreme end at which political wisdom can arrive, so that the other nations should tend more or less to copy it. It has established, on its broadest base, the Koom-Posh--viz., the government of the ignorant upon the principle of being the most numerous. It has placed the supreme bliss in the vying with each other in all things, so that the evil passions are never in repose--vying for power, for wealth, for eminence of some kind; and in this rivalry it is horrible to hear the vituperation, the slanders, and calumnies which even the best and mildest among them heap on each other without remorse or shame."

"Some years ago," said Aph-Lin, "I visited this people, and their misery and degradation were the more appalling because they were always boasting of their felicity and grandeur as compared with the rest of their species. And there is no hope that this people, which evidently resembles your own, can improve, because all their notions tend to further deterioration.

They desire to enlarge their dominion more and more, in direct antagonism to the truth that, beyond a very limited range, it is impossible to secure to a community the happiness which belongs to a well-ordered family; and the more they mature a system by which a few individuals are heated and swollen to a size above the standard slenderness of the millions, the more they chuckle and exact, and cry out, `See by what great exceptions to the common littleness of our race we prove the magnificent results of our system!'"

"In fact," resumed Zee, "if the wisdom of human life be to approximate to the serene equality of immortals, there can be no more direct flying off into the opposite direction than a system which aims at carrying to the utmost the inequalities and turbulences of mortals. Nor do I see how, by any forms of religious belief, mortals, so acting, could fit themselves even to appreciate the joys of immortals to which they still expect to be transferred by the mere act of dying. On the contrary, minds accustomed to place happiness in things so much the reverse of godlike, would find the happiness of gods exceedingly dull, and would long to get back to a world in which they could quarrel with each other."3

1. Gopi Krishna: http://www.kundaliniresearch.org/pubs/moral_sense_and_present_crisis/

2. Kundalini - Gopi Interview with Claes Nobel 1970

3. Excerpts from VRIL: THE DAWN OF THE COMING RACE By Lord Bulwer Lytton (1871)

INDIA: STOP "LANDGRABBING" COLONIAL, EXPLOITATIVE and OPPRESSIVE PRACTICES IN AFRICA!

“If it is unacceptable for Ethiopians to go to India, China or Saudi Arabia and clear their land without consulting the people, it is unacceptable here. We are human too and we care about the future of our children like everyone else...my message to the foreign investors is, listen to the owners of the land!” (An Anuak man from the Gambella region of southwestern Ethiopia)

An Open Letter to the People of India: a Day Light Robbery in Ethiopia

Dear People of India:

I greet you in peace and hope that the good people of India, who have yourselves thrown off the shackles of colonialism only 63 years ago, will join with Ethiopians and other Africans in confronting the hundreds of Indian companies who are now at the forefront of colluding with African dictators in robbing the people of their land, resources, lives and future! As either prospective buyers or simply as justice-loving Indians, you deserve to have full disclosure regarding the nature of these Ethiopian “business deals,” the impact it is having on “real people” on the ground, and the risks of “doing business” in Ethiopia with the current dictator of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi.

On June 8, 2011, Oakland Institute (OI) http://www.oaklandinstitute.org and the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) www.solidaritymovement.org released a joint investigative report on Ethiopia, Understanding Land Investments in Ethiopia, http://www.solidaritymovement.org/downloads/110608UnderstandingLandDealsInAfrica.pdf, part of a larger study of nine African countries affected by the new phenomenon called land-grabs. In Ethiopia, these “land-grabs” are being carried out as foreign investors make deals to lease some of the most fertile agricultural land for up to 99 years at negligible prices. Because private land ownership is prohibited in Ethiopia, “land deals” are being negotiated in secret agreements between these foreign investors and the Ethiopian government; without any consultation with the people.

My name is Obang Metho and I am writing this to you on behalf of the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE), a non-violent, grassroots social justice movement of diverse Ethiopians committed to bringing truth, justice, freedom, equality and the respect for human and civil rights to the people of Ethiopia and beyond. Our guiding principles are based on putting “humanity before ethnicity,” or any other distinctive that dehumanizes other human beings; and secondly, that “no one is truly free until all are free,” meaning that ignoring or contributing to the injustice, exploitation and oppression of our neighbors, near or far, creates greater insecurity and disharmony for all of us in this global world.

I come to you first and foremost as a fellow human as I call you to join our effort to stop the plundering of Ethiopia and Africa by African dictators, their cronies and their foreign partners—some of whom are Indian—who are hungry for our resources but care little for our people. An indigenous Ethiopian man described it this way: “This regime is one of the most hated regimes in Ethiopian history… they kill the people like they are nothing and with no remorse.” In light of this, I must warn you that those who are “doing business” in Ethiopia, are partnering with an illegitimately elected dictator and his authoritarian regime built on the brutal suppression of the rights of its citizens. The intent of my open letter is to expose the dark underside of these “deals” with the hope of joining forces with those in India who demand justice and human rights for all.

Ethiopia is controlled by a repressive regime, posing as a democracy, which maintains its power not by the ballot, but by the bullet; clearly shown by its99.6% claim to victory in the 2010 election and complete closing off of any political space. All sectors of society are tightly controlled by a one-party minority regime (TPLF), which politicizes all benefits—including business opportunities, education, jobs, agricultural supports and even food aid (see recent Human Rights Watch report http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/10/18/ethiopia-donor-aid-supports-repression )—and punishes any dissent; creating a silenced Ethiopian society.

Ethiopians are pro-business and pro-investment; particularly as Ethiopia is reported to be the second poorest country in the world with 90% of the people living under the poverty level. What we oppose is the daylight robbery of Ethiopia by modern day bandits who are willing to make secret deals with a corrupt government that would be illegal in India and other more developed countries. Abundant resources; combined with a disenfranchised public, few protective regulatory mechanisms, a lack of transparency, duty-free deals and regime promises of cheap labor have brought opportunists from all over the world—from India, China, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Turkey and beyond—all hungry to eat off the weakened carcass of the future hopes of the Ethiopian people.

Into this environment, have come over 500 Indian companies—more than from any other country in the world—to capitalize on this “goldmine of opportunity.” One Ethiopian from the Oromia region protested: “Our land is being given to the Indian companies and anyone who speaks out against it is labeled as a terrorist who is not supposed to have any rights or question any actions by the government.”

Why would any Indians be part of this? Any who resent the colonial past of your own country, should know that it began through the British East India Trading Company; where some of the more unscrupulous often colluded with corrupt indigenous government officials. What would Gandhi say today were he to know that Indians, who were only freed from the shackles of colonialism in recent history, were now at the forefront of this “land-grabbing” as part of the race for foreign control over African land and resources; currently being called the Neo-Colonialism of Africa?

Karuturi Global Ltd, (KGL), the largest investor, has now leased 300,000 hectares in Gambella for 99 years; allegedly paying only $1.19 US per hectare; starting six years from now. This is the equivalent of 55 rupees per hectare! The local people have not been consulted nor compensated and are now being forced from ancestral land and told to build their own homes in resettlement villages.The Karuturi contract, as well as others that have been seen, show no benefits to the local people despite what was said publically. Instead, the regime promises foreign investors that the land will be handed over to them as “vacant” land, free of any impediments. Because villages of people have been living on this newly leased land for centuries, their resettlement elsewhere is being assured in these contracts. Anticipating resistance from the displaced, the regime also promises to provide “security” to these companies.

No one is representing the people or refuting government claims. One indigenous Anuak man in the highly fertile Gambella region complained, “This land is not just “nobody’s land” as the government claims; it is our life! Without it, we could have never existed as a people. I don’t think we will accept our land being given away to foreigners without resisting.” Many Anuak have already been displaced and many more have been warned to leave their homes so Karuturi Global Ltd, can take possession of their land but the people have refused. Please watch the following 12 minutes video of the families who have been forced from their ancestral land. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/21/ethiopia-centre-global-farmland-rush?CMP=twt_gu. In response, Ethiopian troops have arrived in Gambella; arresting increasing numbers of Anuak. Some have disappeared; others have been killed. Whenever the troops come, human rights violations increase. This is not new.

In 2003, 424 Anuak leaders who were opposed to the exploration of oil—due to lack of input from the people and adequate measures to prevent environmental destruction—were brutally massacred in three days. Extra-judicial killings, arrests, rape and destruction of property continued for two years. See Human Rights Watch report: Targeting the Anuak: Human Rights Violations and Crimes against Humanity in Ethiopia's Gambella Region http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2005/03/23/ethiopia-crimes-against-humanity-gambella-region. Investigations by Genocide Watch called these acts of genocide and crimes against humanity; linking culpability to top Ethiopian leadership. The case is now referred to the International Criminal Court.

As Ethiopians are threatening to rise up against the large-scale robbery of land and resources; accompanied by the widespread perpetration of human rights abuses; the Meles regime just has purchased 200 new tanks for $100 million (USD) rather than meet the growing food needs of the 13 to 16 million Ethiopians who must rely on falling levels of food aid from donor countries in the coming months. Who will these tanks be used against if not Ethiopian citizens who are only wanting to survive in their own land?

Companies like Karuturi, Ruchi Soya Industries Limited, Enami Biotech, Supra Floritech, Sharpoorji Pallonji and Co, Praj Industries and others doing business in Ethiopia, should be warned of the risks of complicity in human rights violations or corrupt practices—including bribes and kickbacks—when partnering with a regime known for both; particularly as the government attempts to evict citizens from their land.

Additionally, once this TPLF/EPRDF regime ends—something inevitable considering the rising outrage surrounding these deals—a whole new set of laws will be put in place and any prior agreements will not be binding. Instead, companies seeking to do long-term business in Ethiopia should put pressure on this regime to ensure that no unethical business practices were followed and that the civil and human rights of the people were upheld. As Gandhi warned, “There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it—always.”

My fellow people of India, from far away, you may not hear the cries of the Ethiopian mothers, see the tears flowing on the cheeks of the children, feel the pain in the hearts of the elders or know the desperation of the fathers as they lose hope in providing for their families. You may not see the increasing numbers of Ethiopian children with swollen bellies, the emaciated people dying in the streets or the homeless children searching for food, for Ethiopia is already widely known for these images of suffering; however, to Ethiopians, the level and depth of poverty has tragically deepened despite claims of double digit economic growth—the profits of which all must be ending up in the pockets of those in power who have sold out on the people. Only good leadership, accompanied by good governance, will change the image of Ethiopia. As the people of Ethiopia engage in a fervent struggle for such change, will the people of India support or hinder them?

What would you do if an Ethiopian company came to India and evicted citizens from millions of hectares of their own land in order to grow food for export; affecting food security for generations? Would you stand for it? As Indians anticipate the vote on the National Right to Food, does that same right apply to Ethiopians?

In 1947, the Brits did not offer independence to the Indian people, but liberation only came when the Indian people rose up to peaceably demand their God-given rights—something that has made India a shining example to the world. Will you deny us the same?Ghandi’s fight for Indian independence was undergirded with a deep belief in the worth and dignity of every human being. It inspired the greatest movements for freedom and rights in the 20th century; including the Civil Rights Movement of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We Africans have been the target of colonialization, slavery and exploitation in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries and a target of African dictators and their foreign cronies in the 20th century. We have had enough and will not tolerate this new onslaught of exploitation and dehumanization in the 21st century! Many want to keep us Africans poor, disenfranchised and vulnerable only to more easily take advantage of the pillaging of our continent.

Will you help work within India to bring greater transparency and compliance with whatever protective laws and safeguards are in place in India? Will Indian individuals, social justice groups, the media, policy making groups, religious groups and all other stakeholders join us in our struggle for freedom from a dictatorial regime robbing us of our future?

Ethiopians are ready for their liberation and they will slowly, but surely claim it, but we ask you not to be a roadblock. Africans know that when two elephants fight, the grass in the middle is trampled. Right now, the people of Ethiopia and Africa are in the middle of a giant struggle for African resources. Many who are profiting want Africans to stay just as they are—struggling for survival so they “do not get in their way.” Yet, behind the scenes of these business deals, real people are suffering.

Gandhi said, “Non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty.”What does this mean today?As investors, companies and nations seek opportunity; let none of us forget the shared humanity of our brothers and sisters both near and far and our God-given responsibility to live “humanely” among each other. Only then will we have reason to hope for greater peace, harmony and cooperation among peoples and nations, for “no one will be free until all are free!

Your African brother,


Obang Metho, Executive Director of the SMNE
Phone 202 725-1616. Email: Obang@solidaritymovement.org. Website: www.solidaritymovement.org

You can find more about The Oakland Institute (OI) through its website at http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/

source: http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/18812

MONSANTO, THE INDIAN RULING CLASS and THE MASS GENOCIDE OF INDIAN FARMERS

" More than a quarter of a million Indian farmers have committed suicide in the last 16 years—the largest wave of recorded suicides in human history."

A study (yet another) recently published by The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at New York University School of Law, found that:

" It is estimated that more than a quarter of a million Indian farmers have committed suicide in the last 16 years—the largest wave of recorded suicides in human history. A great number of those affected are cash crop farmers, and cotton farmers in particular. In 2009 alone, the most recent year for which official figures are available, 17,638 farmers committed suicide—that’s one farmer every 30 minutes."

The entire study can be downloaded/read at the following link:

http://www.chrgj.org/publications/docs/every30min.pdf

Furthermore, as the world-famous and respected activist Vandana Shiva clearly states:

"Every suicide can be linked to Monsanto. Monsanto’s GMOs do not improve farmers’ lives. They have pushed farmers to suicide. Over 200,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide in the last decade. 84% of the suicides in Vidharbha, the region with highest suicides are linked to debt created by Bt–cotton. This is neither ecological nor economic or social sustainability. It is ecocide and genocide."

source: http://www.goal-2025.com/2011/02/26/climate-change-and-agriculture-by-dr-vandana-shiva/

The root economic and political causes of farmers' suicide

Farmers' suicide in India are a result and a combination of Bt cotton/GMO's, corporate-sponsored flawed agricultural policies and suicidal economic policies imposed by the IMF/World Bank (i.e. market liberalization, privatizations, removal of subsidies to local farmers, etc.), blindly followed and implemented by corrupt and incompetent officials within the Indian government.

Some personal reflections addressed to the so-called Indian « elite » and ruling class :

From the British Empire & Mahatma Gandhi to the US Empire and Monsanto…

History tragically repeats itself…

Is it not a tragic irony of History that over fifty years after Mahatma Gandhi’s lifelong struggle to liberate Indians from the socio-economic exploitation and political oppression of the British Empire, - by ingeniously using the cotton sector and the Charka (spinning wheel) as a “weapon” for achieving Swadeshi ( i.e. economic & thus political independence)- the new “Empire” (US) and Monsanto are recolonizing the Indian cotton and agricultural sector and committing mass Genocide of Indian farmers in the process, with the political support and criminal complicity of the so-called Indian "ruling class" and "elite"...

Mahatma Gandhi is surely weeping tears from his Soul looking down at the deeply Violent, oppressive, exploitative, unjust, immoral, anti-spiritual and hellish society YOU the morally bankrupt so-called Indian “elite” and the corrupt Indian ruling class have built in India over the last + 50 years…

History tragically repeats itself, this time with the political support of high officials within the Indian government, the Indian ruling class and the so-called Indian “elite”, etc., all of whom have chosen to ignore the spiritual and moral lessons imparted by Mahatma Gandhi, and instead have skillfully mastered the deceitful, exploitative, oppressive and murderous “skills” of their previous and current colonial masters (US)…

NO, you the Indian ruling class and the so-called Indian “elite” have indeed surpassed the Immorality, Greed, Injustice, Exploitation and Oppression of both your previous and current colonial masters. Indeed, even your former British colonial masters never committed the Genocide that you have allowed your current colonial masters (US) to commit through your political support and criminal complicity, which has lead to the Genocide of +250,000 helpless Indian farmers and their families over the last 16 years!

You are all guilty of GENOCIDE and Crimes Against Humanity, Nature and God.

There is obviously no Justice in this low world. However, a Higher Justice awaits each one of you wretched souls.

You have wilfully chosen to disregard the moral and spiritual teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.

However, you cannot ignore or escape the immutable Universal Law of Justice or the Law of Karma.

Indeed you will inevitably "reap what you have sowed"...

And the worthless fiat paper money ($US) paid for your loyal “services” to your colonial masters will be of no use to you in the Higher Court of Universal Justice.

Wait & See…

Some spiritual reflections and warnings from the Other Side…

What vanity or lack of wisdom drives
The guiding spirits of this age to doubt
The fact that laws celestial rule the lives
Of men and cannot be infringed without
Incurring penalties that must be paid
For individual or collective breach,
In strict accordance with the canons laid
For our collective crimes or sins of each?

Undoubtedly impartial jurists sift
The actions which debase us or uplift,
And after judging the ancestral pool
Decree a just reward, delayed or swift.

When deathless laws, we clearly understand,
Rule mighty suns and planets, sea and land,
Could not the wise Creator find one which
Would keep this moving lump of clay in hand?

Nor learned skepticism nor other trash,
Now ranked as wisdom, shall survive the crash,
Which soon will come to teach our wiseacres
That godless reason can become a curse,
And breed Satanic minds, if left alone,
With matchless intellect but hearts of stone:
A crop which is inevitable if
The attitude of scholars, hard and stiff
Towards sublime belief and faith, does not
To Revelation its true place allot.

Can we determine, when we ponder deep
On it that heaven has framed no laws to keep
Mankind upon the Path to reach the goal
It has appointed for the human soul;
And men are free to act as they decide,
To wallow in sin or to drown in pride,
And there is no Almighty Power to deal
With them, the fever of the mind to heal?

Behold the time has come when once again
The auguries of prophets shall come true,
And man, a rebel grown too proud and vain,
With tears for heaven's clemency shall sue.

Gopi Krishna – The Shape of Events to Come

www.gopikrishna.net

2012 or COLLECTIVE KARMA ?

Some spiritual reflections on natural disasters and other coming chaotic world events.

What vanity or lack of wisdom drives
The guiding spirits of this age to doubt
The fact that laws celestial rule the lives
Of men and cannot be infringed without
Incurring penalties that must be paid
For individual or collective breach,
In strict accordance with the canons laid
For our collective crimes or sins of each?

Undoubtedly impartial jurists sift
The actions which debase us or uplift,
And after judging the ancestral pool
Decree a just reward, delayed or swift.

When deathless laws, we clearly understand,
Rule mighty suns and planets, sea and land,
Could not the wise Creator find one which
Would keep this moving lump of clay in hand?

Nor learned skepticism nor other trash,
Now ranked as wisdom, shall survive the crash,
Which soon will come to teach our wiseacres
That godless reason can become a curse,
And breed Satanic minds, if left alone,
With matchless intellect but hearts of stone:
A crop which is inevitable if
The attitude of scholars, hard and stiff
Towards sublime belief and faith, does not
To Revelation its true place allot.

Can we determine, when we ponder deep
On it that heaven has framed no laws to keep
Mankind upon the Path to reach the goal
It has appointed for the human soul;
And men are free to act as they decide,
To wallow in sin or to drown in pride,
And there is no Almighty Power to deal
With them, the fever of the mind to heal?

Hence, I do not predict but just inform
The world about a mighty Cosmic Law,
Which soon may raise a hideous global storm,
Out of the present groove mankind to draw.

Existence of this Force may soon be felt
When steel and cement walls like wax will melt,
And fuse to rise in clouds of fiery dust;
The Wrath of Heav'n on man's unbridled lust,
Against which every prophet raised his voice,
But often failed to sway the fatal choice.

Those who treat nature as a lifeless rock,
Insensible to virtue, vice and crime,
And fancy that its motion, like a clock,
They can adjust at will from time to time,
One awful day must see it come to life
Confronting them with fierce, aggressive swarms,
And then with loss, distress and slaughter rife
The whole of nature will seem up in arms.

Hence when disastrous situations rise,
Producing consternation and dismay,
A wise man can with confidence surmise:
The Law has been infringed in some way.
Destructive wars that cause the world concern
Present no riddle to the enlightened mind,
Which in the raging tempest can discern
The attempt of nature safety-vents to find.

Behold the time has come when once again
The auguries of prophets shall come true,
And man, a rebel grown too proud and vain,
With tears for heaven's clemency shall sue.

Gopi Krishna – The Shape of Events to Come
www.gopikrishna.net

THE MADNESS OF NUCLEAR ENERGY

The legacy of Tchernobyl: The cost of “cheap” and “safe” nuclear energy…

After Chernobyl, Fukushima…

And after Fukushima…?

The incurably wounded, burnt or maimed
Present a sight that should make us ashamed;
So dreadfully battered, mangled, filled with scars,
As if crushed to a pulp with iron bars,
Unfit to attend to any vital need,
To rise unaided, ease themselves or feed;
Acutely conscious minds in fleshy tombs,
Or monstrous freaks born of inhuman wombs;
Their life one long-drawn night of agony,
Allowed to feel but not to hear or see,
The face a shapeless lump devoid of eyes,
And mouth a hole through which the spirit cries;
The types of human wretches who alive
Although dead to the world, in pain, survive
Out of the victims of a modern war,
Maintained in strict seclusion from us far.

This is the mockery to which, with thought
And care, civilization has been brought,
Setting for many years a hell ablaze
On earth to live in, shudder at, and gaze
On ghastly suffering and appalling wrecks,
As if a vampirish seductress becks
The gaudy caravan by devious means,
To taste the horror of infernal scenes.

Gopi Krishna –The Shape of Events to Come

www.gopikrishna.net

Please see the following slide pictures below and think about the "cheap" and "safe" nuclear energy next time you switch on the lights in your home...

http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/chernobyl

THE MADNESS OF NUCLEAR ENERGY, WEAPONS & WAR

Pictures of babies & children from Chernobyl, Iraq and Afghanistan, innocent victims of nuclear contamination and nuclear warfare (and human insanity). A Higher Justice awaits all those responsible for this Crime Against Humanity and Life.

AFTER TCHERNOBYL, AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ and FUKUSHIMA, WHO WILL BE THE NEXT VICTIMS...?

Prophetic Warning on the madness of nuclear energy, weapons and war...

In all the stormy epochs left behind
Had e'er man such a morbid state of mind
As now, when he has built to win in war
Atrocious weapons that can end his kind?

The world condition has come to a pass
Where greatest danger to the human mass
Comes not from natural causes or disease,
But from the leading men who hold the keys
Of power in their weak but ambitious hands,
And can employ the might of powerful lands
To cause death and destruction on a scale
Before which all the powers of language fail.

One of the ways to meet this deadly threat
To safety is for masses not to abet
The men in power in their ambitious aims,
Which would be hard since they propose their names.

Moreover the rulers do not act alone
For many a wealthy and ambitious drone,
Surrounding them, like kites, plans and conspires
To plunge a nation in the awful fires
Of war, which in this era has become
Pure homicidal mass-delirium.

Now watching helplessly, with deep alarm,
The growing stockpile of the nuclear arm,
Some try in vain to stem the rising flood
Their own imprudence o'er the planet spread,
Which gave unbridled license to the strong,
With full impunity to do a wrong,
Mistaught there is no God to judge their deeds,
And no Celestial Court to award the meeds.

No other single factor ever did
Such harm to mankind as was done, amid
The glamorous progress of the present age,
By scholars who condemned the illumined sage,
Deceived by reason, like an impish wraith,
Who cut unwisely at the roots of faith.

It is not reason but a second sight,
A higher faculty that can throw light
On this recondite subject, at this time
Of such a moment and importance prime,
That every other major problem fades
Into unimportance, as if lost in shades,
For at this critical juncture human life
Is balanced on the thin edge of a knife,
Is in the gravest jeopardy because
We lack in knowledge of Celestial Laws.

Nuclear Weapons: A Symptom of Abnormality

Let us sincerely for a moment ask
Ourselves, when resting from the daily task,
Does not existence at this or that place
Of nuclear engines jeopardize the race?

Is not the threat so imminent and grave
That we may one day find it hard to save
Not just ourselves and all we love and own,
But all the art and culture that has grown
With man's unceasing, patient labor done
By countless generations one by one?

Is not the danger, from what we are told
By scores of experts, many hundredfold
More than that posed by all the plagues combined?
For it can cause extinction of mankind;
Or, at the least, kill millions or distort
In such a ghastly way that nothing short
Of death can end their frightful suffering more
Intense than that of any cancer sore.

What stupor then prevents from crying out,
The myriads doomed without a shade of doubt,
Millions condemned to lifelong agony
So terrible one cannot bear to see?

What destiny creates this nonchalance
Towards a fast approaching Kali's* dance;
Which, if not warded off, will leave behind
Millions dead, millions wounded, millions blind,
Millions disfigured, millions maimed and crazed;
Their assets blown up or to the ground razed?

No one to ease their pain or mourn the loss,
For all the dazed survivors too will cross
Into a horrid world e'en worse than hell,
To face grim famines and diseases fell.

Why are our scholars loath to use their pen
To tell the naked truth to common men?
Do they believe the danger is not so
Immediate or so serious as I show?

Do they suppose the piles of nuclear arms
Will vanish as does snow when sunshine warms
Or that a thousand billion worth of stocks
Will lie unused like subterranean rocks
Or that the havoc of a nuclear war
Will not be so great or extend so far
As I depict, and mankind might survive
The blow, without much loss, to live and thrive?

Our failure to respond to such a threat
Reveals a symptom for the first time met
In human history, for at no time
Have masses acted such a pantomime;
Remained so passive with no word or sign
To show they are not dumb and stupid kine,
But have the common sense at once to grasp
That they are threatened by a deadly asp,
About to bury deep its deadly fangs
In them, and that their life by a thread hangs.

What widely met oblivion tightly holds
The rich and poor in its confining folds?
Or what hypnotic influence sends to sleep
Distinguished scholars that, like docile sheep,
They nimbly trot towards a slaughter house
Obediently, as quiet as a mouse?

The strange indifference which we now display
Towards the greatest problem of our day,
Towards an issue that now holds the scales
Between our life and death, and grief entails,
Call it inertia or, whate'er it be,
A keen observer cannot fail to see
And think it foolish of us, if not worse,
That we should grow so mentally perverse
As ev'n grim prospects of extinction stir
No feeling in us that may be we err,
And ought to ponder on this point to find
The reason for this numbness in our mind?

For probing this point, as well as we can,
We cannot but mark that in modern man
A strange departure from a healthy mode
Of thought has come about, as if a load
Sits heavy on his brain, that he has grown
Indifferent to his death e'en when foreknown.

Were there not something in our actions wrong,
The Evil Forces could not grow so strong,
Could not create in us the fatal trends
To slaughter millions for our selfish ends,
Could not have brought the masses down so low
To be the dumb spectators of a show,
Which now keeps mankind in a state of dread
With clouds of mass destruction o'er her head.

Perhaps, our attitude is partly due
To this, that we have not a picture true
Of what will happen in a nuclear bout,
And, may be, some of us regard with doubt
The claims made for the hideous nuclear blast,
And think the damage cannot be so vast,
Or that the neutral countries will remain
Unharmed and suffer no distress or pain.

But such a stand is yet again a sign
That we are acting like unthinking kine,
For e'en young children know well what befell
When two small nuclear bombs created hell
In Japan, forcing that brave land to sue
For peace, to avoid more such bolts from the blue.

What havoc would result when nuclear darts
A thousand times more powerful, strike the hearts
Of densely peopled towns and countrysides
To spread a vapor in which death resides,
To emit a radiation that can kill
At scores of miles or burn to ash or grill?

What would befall when dozens, if not more,
Of latest nuclear shafts bombard a shore?
And what would happen when to win in war,
The two belligerents, from each other far,
In hundreds use their most destructive darts,
All aimed at densely populated parts
Of hostile lands to spread, where'er they fall,
For many hundred miles a lethal pall
Of deadly fallout long to hang on earth,
Causing outrageous weather, famine, dearth,
And forming soon into a biting cloud
Enwrap mankind in a corrosive shroud.

We should remember that a missile war,
Whether the combatants are near or far,
Will not be fought out on a foreign shore,
But in our country, at our very door,
And to our chambers will be wafted fast
The flesh-consuming poison of the blast,
Creating dreadful havoc far and near,
Such scenes of devastation, death and fear
That can the dazed survivors rob of will,
Their minds unhinge or with sheer horror kill.
Too soon the whole disrupted human world
Into the depths of chaos will be hurled,
The scene of panic-stricken, frantic crowds,
Unnerved completely by the mushroom clouds,
And stunned, when they entirely shattered find
The interlinked economy of mankind,
Their bank, industrial center, shopping site
Looking like silent graveyards during night,
Of all the glitter, pomp and show bereft,
With not a single living creature left.

The earth enveloped in despair and gloom
For ev'n a moment's joy will have no room.
Like shipwrecked sailors on an island cast
To live in utter want and often fast,
Millions will wilderness make their abode
To live in travail with a crushing load
Of sorrow, suffering and remitless toil
To build the world anew right from the soil.

I am not writing this to fling a scare,
But if it be an error to lay bare
Alarming truths of vital moment for
The whole of mankind at this crucial hour,
Of such importance on them does depend
Whether the race will live or come to end,
I must plead guilty now, and press the plea
That judgment should rest with the progeny,
Which will be better able to decide
How exigent it was to stop the tide,
That sweeping o'er the earth had washed away
Resistance to this Evil of the day.

If after all the experience gained by us,
And all our knowledge we do not discuss,
And take more seriously the aftermath
Of such a pitfall, looming in our path,
Which shall not only shatter all our bones,
But turn our homesteads into sand and stones,
It means that either we are gripped by sloth,
And would burn rather than turn, like a moth,
From bright ambitious dreams that hold us fast
And draw us headfirst to a holocaust;
Or, like birds fascinated by a snake,
We lie immobile leaving things to take
Their course, until the Bomb makes us its prey,
While we wait hypnotized the fatal day.

Or we are not convinced that such war can
Come to destroy the whole dream world of man,
And hope that luck or prudence will prevail
To bar the use of this infernal hail,
Or that no one is of sense so bereft
To fight a war in which no one is left.

But who can say what irreparable harm
Will follow when this foul, Satanic arm,
Like hundreds of volcanoes, bursts to pour
A vitriolic ash on every shore,
Causing climatic rigors never met,
The harmony of nature to upset.

The havoc caused is sure to take a shape
As awful as the door of hell agape,
Would show to horror-stricken mortal sight,
To freeze the marrow with benumbing fright,
As shrieking, groaning wretches twist and writhe
In dreadful postures, and in thick gasps breathe
Corrosive fumes, laid on a scorching bed,
Under a ceiling of fire overhead,
With cold sweat streaming down the anguished face,
While red-hot pins tear off flesh from its place,
No water to assuage the parching thirst
Or cool the burning fever, growing worse.

For days and weeks to endure infernal pain
Until delirium grips the tortured brain,
And soothing death the torment comes to ease,
When their contortions and convulsions cease,
Beyond the reach of aid, as no one near
Is left alive a helping hand to bear.

With such a prospect and two bloody wars
Before our eyes, what mental twist debars
The elite from seeing that a bloodier third,
With nuclear weapons, plunging all the world
Into a blazing hell-fire, to our shame,
Might be fought leaving mankind broke and lame,
So dreadfully mangled that it would take an age
To patch the damage done by nuclear rage?

Why do we disbelieve or disregard
The words of those who put us on our guard
Against a possibility that can be
A stark reality for you and me,
Or all of us, demanding from our part
Preventive efforts done with all our heart?

Look at the people passing unconcerned,
Absorbed deep in what they have lost or earned,
And mark there is no serious talk about
What should, indeed, fill them with fear and doubt:
About the alarming state the world is in
Where our existence hangs upon the spin
Of change to cause the initial clash that can,
In but a day effect the wreck of man,
And then no one can tell what will befall
Or who will suffer-others or us all.

There must be some defect beyond our ken
Which, yet unnoticed by the world of men,
Has caused a partial torpor of the sense
Of safety, made this instinct slack and dense,
Has in some way eclipsed the Orb of Light,
The Source of all our sense of wrong and right,
Has somehow caused obstruction in the Ray,
Which keeps the evil threatening us at bay,
And like the commonly met morbid streak,
In those towards drink or vice who are weak,
Is not perceptive of the nuclear threat,
Although to other hazards most alert.

Is there not something morbid in this calm,
This sense of safety, this pretense and sham,
That keeps us tongue-tied and somehow contrives
To make us dead to a danger to our lives?
Which having now become a usual trait
Keeps us from knowing our abnormal state?
Keeps us from knowing e'en that there is ground
For worry, for which some cure must be found?
While some deceived by hope that Heaven will save
The world somehow, ignore the yawning grave,
Again forgetting that Celestial Laws
Are always just in the events they cause.

There might come heavier blows that will not spare
Anyone but will be for all to share;
For those who tamely follow a wrong lead
Cannot escape the guilt of evil deed.
The more our weapons gain in power and range
The more the urgency that we should change.

When heaven intends, to suit the Cosmic Plan,
To change unhealthy habits formed by man,
To humble and deflate his bloated head,
Or cleanse the poison skeptic thought has spread;
In short, when there occurs a need for change,
A tangled thread of life to rearrange,
Then ere the evil grows beyond repair
To cure it, as a vacuum in the air,
When it exceeds a certain point, entails
From denser regions furious storms and gales;
Terrestrial life creates a mental storm
A faulty social order to reform.

See how a raging tempest sweeps away
The dust and dirt and throws in disarray
One whole affected region, bringing down,
Like match-sticks, giant trees in many a town
And country, smashing doors and window panes,
And hurling down the roofs in streets and lanes,
Causing a pandemonium while men dash
For shelter, midst the deafening din and crash
Of falling debris and the thundering roar
Of wind, in fury rising more and more,
Until with fitful gusts its rage abates,
When men and things resume their normal states.

Does not the same befall when dreadful storms
Of riot and revolution change the forms
Of governments and social systems which
In man's progressive movement cause some hitch?

Did not the same befall whene'er the rage
Of great historic wars in any age
Hit kingdoms and world empires, like a blast,
Their sovereignty and boundaries to recast?
Did not then millions with their precious lives
Remove impediments which, with the gyves
Of wealth and power, enchained a massive part
Of mankind, ruling it with as much art
As is displayed now by some nations which
In man's advancement cause again a hitch,
And so, as has befallen oft before,
The same dread process may recur once more;
This time with more destructive weapons than
Those used before by power-besotten man?

Alas, our lust for power or wealth untold
Should so befool us and our thinking mold
That, with our brilliant intellectual rise,
We should think that the measures we devise
Or contemplate, untrue to man and God,
As diplomatic trick, pretense or fraud,
Can e'er succeed against the Almighty Plan
Of Heaven aimed at the unity of man.

Can we arrest the movement of the earth,
Or shorten by an inch its mighty girth,
Prevent the sun from rising in the east,
Or cool its fiery ardor in the least,
Or hold a while an atom from its course
Without encountering its explosive force?

If not, what lack of sense in us denies
The knowledge that when nought under the skies
Can flout the laws of nature or its might
Resist, can puny man put up a fight,
By mean resort to sneaking trick and ruse,
Against a measure Heaven decides to use?
So either nature is unjust and blind,
Or there is some unfathomed Law behind
Our present fatal choice to act like this,
And has a meaning which today we miss,
But must become apparent at its time
To strengthen mortal faith in Laws Sublime;
And if it be not so, then Faith should cease
And leave men free to frolic as they please.

For if you hold belief in God, can He
Be so impotent or leave men so free
That they kill millions, as one kills a louse,
While He looks timidly on, like a mouse?
An infantile belief that cannot stand
The probe of reason or the keen demand
Of stern morality, for it would mean
That Satan is the master, and we lean
On God, as slaves to false beliefs, and not
Because He is the ruler of our lot.

I know my these few words will not avail
Against the summoned force of Doom's assault,
But hoping better counsels might prevail
For Heaven's mercy soon to mend our fault;
I, in obedience to an Inner Voice,
Coming from regions deeper than the mind,
Beyond the sphere of mortal will and choice,
Make this submission to alert mankind
That we have passed beyond the safety line
In our immoderate thirst for wealth and might,
Which is against Creation's Grand Design,
And forces Nature too to set us right.

Past all defenses, past all ramparts built
At such enormous cost as could suffice
To keep earth's starving millions from the guilt
Of crimes committed for a morsel twice
A day, the infernal engines, as if wrought
By nature for requite through mortal hands,
Shall spread destruction, poison, death and rot
Among the people of contending lands.

And this to such a staggering extent
That future men shall shudder at the thought,
And centuries of time and labor spent
On pomp and vanity shall come to naught.
The awe-struck world shall shiver, numb with fright,
Deprived of feeling, movement, joy and mirth,
As monstrous globes of fire site after site,
Teeming with human crowds, wipe off the earth.

Thus shall be fought, to purge the poisoned world
Of sin, a bloody Mahabharata*,
With hellish arms by human agents hurled,
To re-establish faith in Moral Law.

Conclusion

Today mankind cannot survive for long,
Divided into fragments, if a strong
Decision-making body at the head
Of one United World, whose rule is spread
To each and every corner of the globe,
Is not appointed soon to look and probe
Into the main affairs of every state,
Drawn from all nations now, and not too late,
Kept on the o'erall task to build and plan
A new world order for progressive man.

It is high time that mankind heeds the signs
Which point to what the racial mind designs,
What is the surest method we can find
To build a war-free world for humankind,
And end the menace of a nuclear war
Which, from all indications, is not far,
To save from horror, death and agony
Millions of guiltless souls who cannot see
How close they are to yawning jaws of death
Or life-long torture borne to the last breath.

Of all this mad race for supremacy
In nuclear power the only end can be
A confrontation on a luckless day,
And this is what my visions, too, portray.

A cry arises from my troubled heart,
A crushing load descends to press me down,
I feel all of my body ache and smart
And in a gloomy sea of sorrow drown,
As with eyes open and the mind awake
I am allowed to watch scene after scene
Of stark, appalling horror that will make
The blooming earth, now lovely and serene,
A foul inferno, glowing red in space,
Where human lust, become the cause of doom,
Millions will kill, and millions clean efface,
Or slowly with dire agony consume.

Whole towns will vanish or in ruins lie,
And deserts burn where crowded cities were,
Millions with hunger, thirst or terror die,
And millions run round shrieking mad with fear.
Millions disfigured, crippled, wounded, maimed,
Tortured at every step, would limp and crawl,
Their faces pale with anguish, eyes inflamed,
With hardship or exhaustion dead to fall.

Men, women, children, sick, infirm and weak
Disheveled, sleepless, hungry, plagued by flies,
Too ill to drive them off, to move or speak,
In vain will look for help till their hope dies.
No horror story e'er conceived so far,
No tale of ghastly murders ever told,
No picture of the havoc done in war
Can match the ghastly scenes that will unfold.

Fiery cyclones racing with lightning speeds,
And flaming hurricanes, extending far,
Will chase escaping crowds to burn, like reeds,
Or roast them coal-black, as if dipped in tar.
This false, deceptive glamor, pomp and show,
In which pretentious vanity delights,
Nemesis will into disorder throw,

And on more sober lines rebuild the sites.
For nature has decreed that every time
Man barters his soul to indulge his lust,
All that he harvests by this heinous crime
Against himself, will be reduced to dust.

This age of boundless wealth, uncounted goods
And endless wonders, which grow day by day,
May end soon, for on it disaster broods,
And scorching hurricanes are on the way
To close an era that has grown too rich
And reckless for man's health and safety both,
And, if not ended at this moment, which
Would seriously distort his inner growth.

Why view the future with a sinking heart,
And try to find retreats to escape the doom,
The Lesson is designed to cause a smart,
For wholesale healthy changes to make room.

The wonder is we readily accept
The world of matter from the tiniest grain,
But when it comes to mind do we suspect
A World of which an Atom runs our brain?
This atom, clothed in flesh, we call the soul,
Ordained by slow ascent to know itself,
But oft in dark about its real goal,
Is lured by tempting pleasure, power and pelf.

For ages alchemists endeavored hard
To find the secret of eternal youth.
But nature does her Treasures so well guard
That few of them could hit upon the Truth,
Which is that hidden in the mortal frame
There is a splendor, blissful, calm and bright,
Not bound by time, devoid of form and name,
Which keeps the flame of life in us alight.

This wonder of creation we cannot
Imagine nor describe nor paint nor draw,
For here we reach the end of human thought,
The point where scholars line up with the raw.

These are the alternatives to choose from:

Either cremation in a nuclear storm,
And for the injured torment to the end,
A bleak and blasted world in which to spend
One's life, all comfort, joy and rest denied;
Or to renounce hate, prejudice and pride,
Excess, immoderation, greed and lust
For power, to foster mutual love and trust,
In tune with Faith's decrees and Laws of God,
To foot the same Path which the Enlightened trod.

Our progress on the path of truth involves
Greater concern for other's woe and weal,
Because the more the human mind evolves
The more it oneness with the rest should feel.

This is the reason why the enlightened mind
Has shown this noble trait throughout the past:
True Love and deep concern for all mankind
With selfless zeal for service to the last.

That is how nature regulates the play
Of life, as she ordains the eves and morns.
Some come, with bleeding hands, to sweep away
What some have sown and scattered-pins and thorns.

Remember, life can be a fairy tale,
A dancing sunbeam when it bathes in light
Some charming landscape, a blooming hill or dale,
And makes all that it touches alive and bright,
If for a fraction of the time we spend
In idle gossip, fun or vain pursuit,
We pray to Heaven a helping hand to lend
To those in pain, distress or want acute,
To see their shrunken hearts expand with joy,
And hope return to light their darkened lives;
To ease their pain and grief or to destroy
Their fear until the ebbing strength revives.

This highly gifted being is not born
To work himself to death for earthly things,
But to irradiate, like the sun at morn,
The light of love which cheer and warmth brings.

What, after all, is thoughtful man here for?
To toil and sweat for wealth or seats of power?
And lose them both at death or in a war,
Living in dread of this to the last hour?
There is enough provision, talent, wealth
To keep the race in plenty and in peace,
If greed and lust for power by trick or stealth
Did not the artless of these treasures fleece.

A warring mankind cannot co-exist
With modern weapons, one of them must cease:
Either complete ban on the Iron Fist
Or One World Order, for which labor pleas.
Contentment, truth, compassion, love and peace
Are more necessary for the health of brain
Than all the fabulous wealth of Rome and Greece,
To keep evolving mankind safe and sane.

Excessive lust, ambition, passion, greed
For earthly goods or power or carnal feasts
Can warp and twist the tender human seed,
And change the angels-to-be into beasts.

Allowed to wallow longer in the mire
Of reckless pleasure, craze for power and gold,
Mankind one day consumed in nuclear fire
Might cease-her story but a legend old.
The tragedy is that our leading minds,
Regardless of the crisis we are in,
Engrossed in their ambitious dreams of kinds,
Know not that we against our future sin.

This is why Revelation came to warn
Mankind, in time, to moderate her lust,
But treating Faith as a fictitious yarn
Science this crisis on the race has thrust.

Next two eventful decades will unfold,
An awe-inspiring Drama, staged by Fate,
To end the present order, as foretold,
With fires of war lit by greed, power-lust, hate.

When dust has settled on the fiery scene,
Then on the ashes of the past would rise
A One-World State built on the Golden Mean
To make man happy, healthy, peaceful, wise.

That air-befouling, earth-polluting ware
Upon which greed's ambitious empire stands,
Replaced by safer types, with thought and care,
Will pass from wasteful into thrifty hands.

In every civilization of the past
The storm came, when to pleasure, rank or gold
The rich and powerful, hungry to the last,
Like children mad for toys, their soul had sold.

The high and mighty of our day, again,
Do what their counterparts did in the past,
And hostile to the still-evolving brain,
Wait for their exit, too, the atomic blast.

Unlike the men of learning, I do not
Depend on effort for creative thought,
Or on the opinions of great men to find
Support for the new thought born in my mind.

A formless Presence, infinitely wise,
An ocean of thought from which insights rise,
A grace unbounded and compassion deep,
Permit me many a time to have a peep
At a stupendous Something which no mind
That found access to it has e'er defined.

And born of firm conviction that cannot
Be had from aught conceived by mortal thought,
Or aught observed by eye or heard by ear,
But far more clear and intimately near,
I write these verses, like a pupil taught
By silent whispers coming out of naught.

And having gained this rare estate akin
To that of ancient seers, allowed to win
Approach to higher planes of consciousness,
So marvelous that no words can express
The wonder of it, I, although remiss
In many ways, transported to a bliss
And to abodes of such effulgent light,
Dancing before my vision day and night,
Such a Divine, effulgent silvery sheen,
Which fills with glory all the objects seen,
That in unbounded wonder at this sight,
At this enchanting Eden always bright,
I live in ecstasy day, night and morn,
Into a new world of experience born,
So rich, so full of grandeur, peace, delight,
That mind and senses, ravished by the sight,
Their contact with the external world withdraw

To watch the Inner with amaze and awe.
And Ah! the glorious realm in which I live,
Transporting, elevating, always new,
Beyond the horizon of my hopes and dreams,
All our philosophies and clever streams
Of thought, beyond conception, knowledge, guess,
That cannot be imagined more or less,
As foreign to the normal human mind
As sunlight is to one from birth is blind,
Or sugar to a man devoid of taste,
Or rapture of love to a virgin chaste:
A state of consciousness as far removed
From our conceptions though hard to be proved,
As light from darkness, summit from the base;
The future common asset of the race,
Towards which with slow, halting steps our brains
Are working their way up pulled back by chains
Which, due to ignorance, we often forge,
When we ourselves with earthly dainties gorge.

The difficulty, faced by ancient seers
To bring conviction home to their compeers,
Crops up as people cannot see the way
How this mysterious soul-uplifting ray
Of Cosmic Consciousness can bring about
So marvelous a change, remove all doubt
About Divinity, transform a man
Into a gifted seer, with power to scan
The complex problems which confront mankind,
At times too mixed up for a normal mind;
But clear as crystal to an illumined sage,
Ordained to expose the errors of his age.

The flash of great discoveries, matchless skill,
And gift of poesy, not gained at will,
And inspiration of great authors rise
From depths of consciousness, where genius lies,
Thence come the moods and visions that create
New gems of thought and masterpieces great
Of science, art, and literature which
Have made mankind so cultured, wise and rich.

The fire that has transformed the face of earth
From man's cortical matter ne'er took birth;
But comes, by Grace, from regions far away
Where mortal lusts and passions hold no sway,
Where sovereign Consciousness in state abides,
And in the appointed manner mankind guides
With vision, insight, flash of thought or trance
Which scholars wrongly attribute to chance.

The blooming garden of creative thought
In man, which has such sweeping changes wrought,
That from a helpless, weak, impoverished state
He touched the peak of progress in a spate
Of great discoveries that had lain concealed
In mortal mind for long to be unsealed,
By Chosen Vessels, only at the time
And place ordained before by Laws Sublime,
And who can say what other priceless gems
Still lie uncovered to become the stems
For e'en more precious buds of thought and skill
To raise evolving mankind higher still.

From war to peace, barbarism to the height
Of culture, to ideals and visions bright,
Man is ascending step by step without
The least idea what all this is about,
Why this bewildering life, why peace and war,
Why love and hate and why these problems bar
The understanding of what brought him here
To think and wonder, to run here and there
To meet his pressing needs, to have a weight
Around his neck, tied hard by cruel Fate.

These hard, unanswered Riddles from the dawn
Of reason many vainly brooded on,
To leave as mystified as when they came,
Including wise men of great name and fame,
All working, sleeping, loving, hating in
Their own peculiar way to lose or win,
To pass the round of day, night, eve and morn,
And leave as empty-handed as when born.
The sweating labor done through all their life,
The daily chores, the struggles and the strife,
All fading, like an ended dream at morn,
With the last breath of every mortal born,
A dancing bubble on the ocean's face,
Lost in immensities of time and space.

All this alarm of war and threat of guns,
Of frightful missiles and dread megatons
Is nature's warning of a faulty trend
Which makes material goals the aim and end
Of life, for man comes not to act a farce,
To be a well-led, brightly harnessed horse,
Who makes his round of duties with his eyes
Only half open to the earth and skies,
Oblivious to his glorious destiny,
From what he is now what he has to be.

Man does not know that he has woken up
To earthly life to sip the ambrosial cup
Of Life Sublime, to realize that he,
Free from the earth belongs to Eternity:
The cream of earth, the bright Immortal Spark,
The priceless Gem of Life, lost in the dark
Of ignorance, the Glory of the Sun
And stars, the countless host contained in One.

The fragment and the whole, of all the known,
The knower in his majesty alone;
The ocean, all-surpassing, e'er supreme
Of Cosmic Consciousness a Deathless Beam
That has to know itself to rise above
The lower passions, high in Truth and Love,
And building on this earth a Paradise,
In ecstasy to roam the boundless skies;
And drawn in oneness with all that exists,
Released from mental clouds and sensual mists,
To taste the bliss of rapturous union with
The Fount of Life-the Eternal Ground beneath
The massive Cosmos of effect and cause,
Which melts away, as if it never was!

Gopi Krishna – The Shape of Events to Come

www.goptikrishna.net

Please also watch the following pictures:

http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/chernobyl

http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/extremedeformities.html

http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/DU-Baby2003.htm