The Real Agenda Behind the U.N. Conferences and Global Protests

The American people are being treated to news coverage about several different United Nations conferences and international "anti-globalization" protests. What is the thread that pulls them all together? The answer is provided in a new special report from America's Survival, Inc., a pro-sovereignty group based in the Washington, D.C. area.

What drives the conferences and protests is a Marxist view of history that holds that oppressive Western civilization has exploited the people and natural resources of the world. As a result, special "rights" and even financial compensation must be awarded to these "victims." According to this view, international institutions such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank must be restructured and provided with new financial resources (i.e. global taxes) to supervise and manage the redistribution of the world's wealth. The United States, being the leading capitalist state, has to pay the largest price.

There is a domestic component to this Marxist view. Here in America, the category of "oppressed persons" includes children, who have been treated as virtual slaves by their parents. They must be "liberated" and given their rights, which are ultimately guaranteed by the federal government answering to the U.N.

"The actions of international agencies and protesters must be understood in context," noted Cliff Kincaid of America's Survival, Inc. "The agenda and motives remain the same regardless of whether the issue is globalization, racism, or 'children's rights.' It is no surprise that identified Communists are organizing the 'anti-globalization' protests. What we are witnessing is an international Marxist push for a form of global government, to be financed largely by U.S. taxpayers."

Communists and fellow travelers are in action at the end of September when protests are planned in Washington, D.C. "against" the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, the aim is not to dismantle these agencies but rather to strengthen them with more power and resources. One "solution" - global taxes - is openly being pushed by those in the international institutions themselves and by the street protesters. The apparent conflict creates the perception that the World Bank, IMF and even the United Nations are being reluctantly drawn into establishing more control over the global economy. In fact, that has been their design all along. Then the issue becomes who controls these institutions. Here, the Marxists have the upper hand. Some conservative groups are being led to believe they will have some clout at these events and affect the outcome of international deliberations if they sign up as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at the U.N. But conservatives are outnumbered literally tens of thousands to one. What's more, NGO status requires pledging allegiance to the U.N. vision. The Communists have the upper hand because they are using an old trick - coalitions and front groups. Some of the protest organizers, for example, operate under the banner of the International Action Center. Their key spokesmen, Larry Holmes and Brian Becker, are activists in the Workers World Party, an openly Communist group. The International Action Center fails to disclose their involvement with the Workers World Party but Holmes is in fact a "national leader" of the party and Becker has spoken before a party conference on the subject of "Defending the gains of workers' revolutions," where he declared, "We supported the Soviet Union against imperialism and domestic counterrevolution…[because] the Russian revolution had taken the historic first step in the transition toward socialism…"

Another group behind the protests is the Mobilization for Global Justice, which is linked with the AFL-CIO, the federation with 65 member unions and more than 13 million members. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, a Socialist affiliated with the Socialist International, has urged union members from across the U.S. to come to Washington D.C. for a Global Justice Week that includes the protests against the World Bank and IMF. One of the organizations in the Mobilization for Global Justice is called "Anti-Capitalist Convergence," which states, " We are opposed to capitalism. We fundamentally reject a social and economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and exchange." In a story about the protests, the BBC noted that "The Tobin tax has become one of the key demands of many anti-globalization protesters." Named for Yale University economist James Tobin, it is a global tax on international financial transactions. A United Nations panel that included Clinton's former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin recently recommended an international tax to generate more foreign aid money and specifically mentioned the Tobin tax as a possibility. But it preferred a global tax on oil and gas "as a way of combating global warming."

"The Financing for Development conference should explore the desirability of securing an adequate international tax source to finance the supply of global public goods. It has been suggested that a currency transactions tax might provide such a source, but the Panel concluded that further rigorous study would be needed to resolve the doubts about the feasibility of such a tax. A better possibility would be for all countries to agree to impose a minimum level of taxation on consumption of fossil fuels (a carbon tax) as a way of combating global warming."

"The international union movement, student organizations, women's groups, human rights advocates, faith-based activists, solidarity groups, immigrants, environmentalists, unemployed people, small farmers and business people will come together in a week of action to reject the global economic system that values profits over people…The struggle against the IMF and World Bank is about much more than trade. It is the struggle to address the inequalities of the global economy through the institutions that perpetuate them."

"U.S. labor unions have broadened their support for anti-globalization protesters in advance of…Washington meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank by financing training workshops for activists and transport to the protests. The support of the AFL-CIO, the umbrella organization for America's labor unions, will lend weight to what is emerging as one of the most important issues for people converging on Washington DC: opposition to trade liberalization. The AFL-CIO gave a late endorsement to the demonstrations around the World Bank and IMF meetings in April last year. But this year the unions have sponsored the Global Justice Week of Action meetings and have become a key player in the planning."

Senator Paul Wellstone and Rep. Peter De Fazio have introduced a congressional resolution calling for a global tax on international currency transactions to benefit international agencies and bankrupt Socialist regimes. What follows is a list of U.S. groups pushing for international taxes:

Tobin Tax Initiative - The TTI has gained numerous endorsements, including the Preamble Center, Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment, National Lawyers Guild, Global Exchange, 50 years is Enough National Network, RAN (Rainforest Action Network), City of Arcata, Seventh Generation Fund, and the Center for Environmental Economic Development. TTI - USA, also formed and now serves to coordinate the TSAN Alliance (Tax Speculation Action Network). TSAN is a formal alliance of US-based groups promoting taxes on speculation, and includes groups and/or individuals from: Tobin Tax Initiative-USA, Center for Economic and Policy Research, Rainforest Action Network, AFL-CIO Public Policy, CEPR, National Lawyers Guild, Economic Justice Now, 50 Years is Enough National Network, Global Exchange, EarthAction, Preamble Center, 1ATP, and Just Act: Youth Action for Global Justice.

AFL - CIO, Policy Department has published studies on Tobin Tax. AFL-CIO President Sweeney has endorsed it.

Economic Policy Institute, published the study "Policies for Restoring Financial Stability and Global Prosperity" by Robert Blecker, including Tobin Tax to "cool down hot money flows."

World Energy Modernization Plan, actively working on the Tobin Tax as a financial mechanism to fund the battle against global warming.

The Real Agenda Behind the "World Conference Against Racism,
Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance,"
August 31-September 7, South Africa.

Imagine the United States as Toyota and Jesse Jackson as the United Nations and you have some idea of the real agenda behind the U.N.'s "racism" conference in South Africa. Regardless of whether they use the term "slavery reparations," the agenda of this conference has always been one thing - money. It is laughable to think that U.N. bureaucrats, professional race-baiters, black racists and guilty white liberals have anything else in mind. The issue isn't whether Colin Powell goes to the conference, it's why there's a conference in the first place. This is another shakedown operation designed to squeeze and penalize the hard-pressed American taxpayers for their success in the world. The U.N. has never been concerned about slavery, as demonstrated by its nonchalance toward slavery in Sudan and U.N. Boss Kofi Annan's native Ghana. And racism? Zimbabwe's black racist ruler Robert Mugabe is running whites out of the country and the U.N. remains silent. Mugabe will run the whites out and turn the once-productive farms over to black "war veterans" who don't know how to grow a tomato. They'll bankrupt the place, hurt their own people, and then blame colonialism, racism and slavery.

An August 30 report in the Financial Times of London noted that a group of African-American lawyers, led by Charles Ogletree of Harvard University, traveled to South Africa to attend the U.N. conference and "is drawing up litigation expected to be filed early next year" targeting companies that profited from the slave trade. The suit will draw "heavily on the recent successful claims for billions of dollars in compensation for victims of the Nazi Holocaust." However, President Abdoulaye Wade, the president of Senegal, admitted his own ancestors were slave-owners. Kofi Annan himself comes from a prominent family in Ghana who were members of a tribal group that profited from slavery.

Human Rights Watch, a leading liberal non-governmental organization at the U.N., has endorsed slavery reparations paid by governments. "Groups that suffer today because of slavery or other severe racist practices should be compensated by governments responsible for these practices," said Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch. "Those most seriously victimized today by past wrongs should be the first priority for compensation to end their victimization."

In place of en explicit demand for slavery reparations, however, the conference agenda included a call for "the creation of a special development fund, the improvement of access to international markets for products from developing countries affected by these [racist] practices, [and] the cancellation or substantial reduction of their foreign debt …" The bottom line is money - OUR money.

Regardless of the nature of U.S. attendance at this event, the U.S. still comes under U.N. monitoring and surveillance for our performance on the racism question. This is because of a U.N. treaty and Clinton executive order giving the U.N. power over our domestic affairs. On December 10, 1998, President Clinton issued executive order 13107 on the "Implementation of Human Rights Treaties." Claiming that the U.S. had "obligations" under various treaties, Clinton announced that federal agencies would carry out their terms and monitor compliance by the states. The executive order also mandated federal cooperation with U.N. representatives who travel throughout the U.S. to monitor U.S. compliance with U.N.-sponsored treaties. This executive order specifically mentioned the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD). It also required U.S. compliance with "other relevant treaties concerned with the protection and promotion of human rights to which the United States is now or may become a party in the future..." (emphasis added). Hence, it appeared that Clinton was implementing treaties that haven't been ratified by the U.S. Senate. This was unconstitutional on its face because it overrides the Congressional action that is required to ratify and implement treaties. Yet the Clinton order remains on the books.

Some of the other treaties referred to by Clinton were apparently the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which mandates government control of the economy to guarantee "women's rights," and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which authorizes government involvement in the care and raising of children.

Under these treaties, when ratified, "compliance reports" from the U.S. Government are required to be submitted to the U.N. Clinton's executive order was clearly an effort to enforce compliance. But the World Organization Against Torture, USA, has already issued reports claiming that the U.S. is currently violating the ICCPR, the CAT and CERD by operating a criminal justice system that imposes the death penalty in a racially discriminatory manner. Indeed, the Clinton executive order - still on the books -- could be cited in a court case as part of an effort to make its use a violation of international law in the U.S.

In the initial compliance report of the U.S. to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Clinton Administration raised the issue of race and the death penalty and said that, "While capital punishment continues to be supported by a majority of the citizens in a majority of states in the United States, a significant number do not support it." It then went on to cite the arguments of death penalty opponents. The report only mentioned in passing that the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case McClesky v. Kemp, rejected the claim that numbers relating to black and white defendants and victims supposedly proved that the death penalty was racist and therefore a violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The U.N. "World Conference Against Racism" is designed in part as a forum for international attacks on the U.S. death penalty as racist.

The Bush Administration will attend a September 19-21 U.N. conference calling for "national legislation" to implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child because it is an "essential standard" for "building a world fit for children." President Bush has failed to revoke a Clinton executive order that calls for U.S. domestic law to conform with the demands of this unratified treaty. The conference document also includes these recommendations:

"Regional and international organizations, in particular all United Nations bodies…have a key role to play in achieving full collaboration to accelerate progress for children. " TRANSLATION: THE U.N. WILL RAISE YOUR CHILD.

"The right of children and adolescents to express themselves must be respected and promoted and their views taken into account in all matters affecting them." TRANSLATION: DON'T TELL KIDS TO DO CHORES OR HOMEWORK.

"Enhance the status, morale, training and professionalism of teachers, ensuring appropriate remuneration for their work and opportunities and incentives for their development." TRANSLATION: MORE MONEY FOR THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION SO IT CAN HAVE MORE INFLUENCE OVER YOUR KIDS.

"Greater recognition of the challenges faced by boys growing up in the modern world, where traditional gender roles have changed." TRANSLATION: WOMEN ARE IN CHARGE.

"The right of adolescents to sexual and reproductive health education, information and services in order to promote gender equality and responsible sexual behavior…full access to affordable, quality reproductive health care, as agreed at the International Conference on Population and Development and the Fourth World Conference on Women…TRANSLATION: ABORTION ON DEMAND.

"Develop systems to ensure the registration of every child at or shortly after birth, and fulfill his or her right to acquire a name and nationality." TRANSLATION: A NATIONAL IDENTITY CARD TO TRACK THE CHILD FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE.

"Adopt special measures to eliminate discrimination against children on the basis of race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status." TRANSLATION: LET THEM BE GAY.

"A number of environmental problems and trends, such as global warming…need to be addressed to ensure the health and well-being of children." TRANSLATION: USE KIDS TO RESURRECT THE GLOBAL WARMING TREATY THAT BUSH REJECTED.

"Curb the illicit flow of small arms and eliminate threats posed by landmines, unexploded ordnance and other war materiel that victimize children." TRANSLATION: ELIMINATE THE SECOND AMENDMENT.

"Children and their families must be protected from the devastating impact of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). TRANSLATION: MANDATORY AIDS VACCINE SHOTS.

Some conservative groups, invited to attend the U.N. children's rights conference by the Bush Administration, believe they're somehow shaping the final conference document. But these groups, led by the Family Research Council (FRC), are focusing on the single issue of abortion and are in a tiny minority. "If the final document endorses abortion counseling and services for adolescents, as the draft does, then the administration should disavow the special session," says Kenneth Connor, president of FRC. However, there's much more to the conference and the final document than abortion. What's more, conservative and Bush Administration attendance at the event give the U.N. undeserved credibility in the private area of family affairs.