Tag Archives: Panama Papers

What the arrest of Assange means for human rights of all

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By Prof Marcello Ferrada de Noli, chairman of Swedish Doctors for Human Rights, SWEDHR

Source: The Indicter

We have repeatedly expounded the issue of right to existence as the primary of all human rights, and of human rights for all. War and its willfully killing is thus N° 1 enemy of such humanity’s essential right.

Hence, we have warmly supported the denounce of preparations, propaganda and perpetration of occupation-wars, illegal wars, war-abuses, crimes perpetrated under the name of one power’s ‘national security’ against the international security of many nations, the widespread killing of civilians, the using of prohibited chemical weapons, etc. All that denouncing has been a leit motif in the endeavors of WikiLeaks. Julian Assange, the founder of that organization, has established an example of civil courage, a behaviour  which has been followed by important other exposures at different latitudes.

This movement, which also perfectioned the mechanisms of modern alternative media to counter arrest the disinformation routine that has characterized MSM,  have provided free information, and thus education, as to how deal with the alienation pursued by the messages of those in power that are transmitted by the media at their service.

The arresting of the WikiLeaks publisher Mr Julian Assange signifies not only a hard blow for Western democratic principles referred to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. It also entails a further threat to all honest journalists, public and private officials which have undertaken the honourable mission of  denouncing war crimes allegedly perpetrated by NATO and its aligned forces in various scenarios of illegal wars.

On the other hand, amidst the dramatic circumstances in the now unpredictable fate of Mr Julian Assange, emerges another truth. This is, the Western media  in consensus, invariably dismissed the risk of extradition of Assange as the invention of “conspiracy theorists” –referring to the NGOs that defended Assange’s human rights. Instead, the first news arising after the arrest of Assange was known, is the public acknowledgement of an extradition request from the part of the US government. Hence, it was not “Assange’s paranoia”. And our analyses were accurate.

Let’s began by clarifying that Julian Assange has never been charged with any crime, neither in Sweden nor elsewhere. Instead, he has been made responsible for the legendary exposures in “Collateral Murder”, the documentary which denounced atrocities in the Iraq war, including the killing of civilian journalists ­–and already viewed by over 16 million people.

Due to WikiLeaks exposures on alleged US war crimes in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars,  the US has been after the extradition of Assange since 2010. After the publication of WikiLeaks of over 70,000 classified documents covering the war in Afghanistan, the US urged nations participating in the US-led coalition in Afghanistan to initiate prosecution against Julian Assange. This is documented in the ‘Snowden papers”, which text relevant to this issue  was republished in The Indicter Magazine in 2016. Of the countries then consulted, only Sweden complied with the US request and subsequently they opened an investigation against Assange on alleged sexual offences to permit a warrant for his arrest. Those accusations probed to be unsustainable, and the case had to be dropped afters years of Assange being held under the Swedish arrest warrant.

The real reason for the arrest was, according to open investigations SWEDHR has access to and which we earliest denounced, the extradition of Assange to the US.  A sealed process against Assange had been opened in Virginia –also negated by the authorities at that time– and which only recently has been confirmed by the U.S. Department of Justice.

While in house arrest, and in order to avoid the impending rendition to Sweden from the part of the London authorities, Julian Assange sought asylum at the Embassy of Ecuador in London.  The government of Ecuador under the presidency of Rafael Correa granted political asylum to him due to the risk of his extradition to the US from Sweden.

The UK then instructed Sweden to protract the ‘investigation’ on Assange, to which the Swedish authorities docilely complied. Meanwhile the process against Chelsea Manning continued.

But after Sweden dropped the investigations on Assange, The UK has said that it will arrest Assange anyway in case he leaves the embassy’s premises. This on the argument that Assange would have violated the conditions of his house arrest by seeking instead asylum at the Ecuador embassy.

In the meantime the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD), had requested the immediate freedom of Mr Assange.

When I met Julian Assange at the embassy in London in August 2017, his situation had been substantially changed. Although efforts deployed by the outgoing ambassador, Assange’s health was deteriorating after years of isolation, sun deprivation, etc. He also told me about the unjustified accusations of involvement with Russian interests around the US presidential election narrative, which he categorically denied.  But the change of government in Ecuador had started to show consequences for his juridical, and physical safety at the Embassy.

President Moreno had another stance on issues of Ecuador’s national sovereignty – read, relationships with the US government. which openly consider South America as “our backyard”–  and in pursuing better terms for financial deals for his country with the US, president Moreno was said to include the fate if Assange in those negotiations. At east, according to WikiLeaks reports.

One first complaint against Assange was his use of Internet connections, provided to him at the Embassy, to embarrass “friendly governments”, such the US. But the real reason turn out being another “embarrassing”. Which was President Moreno’s own.

And so we arrive to the “INAPapers” affair, which was appartently used by Moreno as a pretext to justify his decision of rendering Julian Assange to the UK authorities (and subsequently to the US). Here is the “INAPapers affair in summary:

According to reports published in Ecuador local media, Ina Investment Corporation is an offshore company related to Xavier Macías Carmigniani, his wife María Auxiliadora Patiño Herdoiza, and the Ecuador president Lenin Moreno’s family.

Between 2012-2016 the company had a bank account in the  Balboa Bank de Panamá. WikiLeaks mentioned in a tweet some of the information that has been already published in Ecuador. Also an investigation in Ecuador’s National Assembly was opened. One issue that I could read is that that several furniture items were acquired and stored at Lenin Moreno’s apartment in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2015. The published source that I am using here (Periodismo de Investigación),  also reported that from such account departed transfers to purchase  an apartment in the Mediterranean coast, in 2016.

The transfer pertaining the furniture deal, is alleged to consist in $19 342, and the recipient firm was described as  “Moinat S.A. Atiquities” en Suiza. And regarding the apartment of Moreno in Switzerland, this would have correspond to the residence he has at the time he served as UN Special Envoy on Disability and Accessibility –an appointment he received from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. All according to what has been described by  Periodismo de Investigación.

Already on April 4, WikiLeaks tweeted that “A high level source within the Ecuadorian state has told WikiLeaks that Julian Assange will be expelled within “hours to days” using the INAPapers offshore scandal as a pretext–and that it already has an agreement with the UK for his arrest.”

This was immediately denied by Ecuador’s Foreign minister José Valencia:

In the morning of April 5, 2019,  Ecuador Foreign Minister José Valencia tweeted (he later did withdraw it) in response to the above mentioned post by WikiLeaks:

“Diplomatic asylum is a sovereign privilege of a state, which has the right to grant it or withdraw it unilaterally when deemed necessary”

Ensuing, SWEDHR produced the following statement:

Trump and Hillary Refuse to Explain Why They Both Share the Same Address in Delaware

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By Claire Bernish

Source: AntiMedia

As it turns out, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump share something pertinent in common, after all — a tax haven cozily nested inside the United States.

This brick-and-mortar, nondescript two-story building in Wilmington, Delaware would be awfully crowded if its registered occupants — 285,000 companies — actually resided there. What’s come to be known as the “Delaware loophole” — the unassuming building at 1209 North Orange Street — has become, as the Guardian described, “famous for helping tens of thousands of companies avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in tax.” 

Reportedly dozens of Fortune 500 companies — Coca-Cola, Walmart, American Airlines, and Apple, to name a few — use Delaware’s strict corporate secrecy laws and legal tax loopholes by registering the North Orange Street address for official business.

“Big corporations, small-time businesses, rogues, scoundrels, and worse — all have turned up at the Delaware address in hopes of minimizing taxes, skirting regulations, plying friendly courts or, when needed, covering their tracks,” the New York Times’ Leslie Wayne described in 2012. “It’s easy to set up shell companies here, no questions asked.”

While the legitimacy of taxes as a concept may be up to personal interpretation, what matters in Clinton’s use of the so-called Delaware loophole, in particular, is her constant harping on the need for corporations and elite individuals to pay their fair share. In other words, Clinton’s employment of North Orange Street amounts to a telling, Do As I Say, Not As I Do. And, as the Guardian notes, both of “the leading candidates for president – Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump – have companies registered at 1209 North Orange, and have refused to explain why.”

As Rupert Neate explained for the Guardian, being registered in the tiny state allows “companies to legally shift earnings from other states to Delaware, where they are not taxed on non-physical incomes generated outside of state.”

In fact, some have claimed — all revelations of Panamanian documents aside — the use of tax-friendly locations inside the U.S. makes it the biggest tax haven in the world, with Delaware, alone, costing other states some $9 billion in lost taxes over the past decade. Clinton has repeatedly touted the needs for tax transparency and to shut down foreign havens with similar loopholes.

“Some of you may have just heard about these disclosures about outrageous tax havens and loopholes and superrich people across the world are exploiting in Panama and elsewhere,” Clinton told the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO annual Constitutional Convention earlier this month. “We are going after all these scams and make sure everyone pays their fair share here in America.”

Oh, the irony.

According to Neate, a Clinton spokesman explained, “ZFS [Holdings, LLC] was set up when Secretary Clinton left the State Department as an entity to manage her book and speaking income. No federal, state, or local taxes were saved by the Clintons as a result of this structure.”

Why, if what the spokesman claims to be true, would Clinton bother using an address in Delaware?

Of the 515 companies Trump officially registered with the Federal Election Commission, “We have 378 entities registered in the state of Delaware,” the billionaire told the Guardian, “meaning I pay you a lot of money, folks. I don’t feel guilty at all, OK?”

Delaware’s incredibly business-friendly structure that allows for such a crowded address is completely legal, though the ability to create shell corporations lends to shady dealings and is “a magnet … which individuals and corporations can use to evade an inestimable amount in federal and foreign taxes,” as a report by the Institute on Taxation and Foreign Policy has described.

Still, Clinton’s constant moralizing on tax transparency — and her spokesperson’s claims she hasn’t benefited from the North Orange Street address — proves, yet again, her stances offer little in the way of a solid foundation.

Corporate Media Guard Secrets of Western 1% in Panama Leak – Wage Info War on Russia/China

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A Mossack Fonseca law firm logo is pictured in Panama City April 3, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

A Mossack Fonseca law firm logo is pictured in Panama City April 3, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

By Jay Syrmopoulos

Source: The Free Thought Project

While it seems the Panama Papers are a genuine attempt at exposing rampant corruption of the world’s corporate-political uber-elite, a closer inspection reveals a likely Western geopolitical power play utilizing the latest techniques in information warfare.

The 11.5 million documents that were stolen from Mossack Fonseca were leaked to Suddeutsche Zeitung, which then turned to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists to investigate the documents.

This process created a dynamic where control of the information resides in the hands of corporate mainstream media, thus allowing them to cherry pick stories they deem “newsworthy” – this exclusive access is troubling.

The reason this exclusive access is troubling becomes apparent when one recalls the infamous incident where The Guardian physically smashed the copies of the Snowden files in their possession upon the command of MI6 and the British government.

Had the Mossack Fonseca documents been turned over to WikiLeaks, the information would have been released en mass, as to allow for a publicly searchable database that would allow for anyone to search the documents in detail.

The immediate initial reporting on the Panama Papers has been curiously focused on Russian President Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, the leaders of two countries that have been recently labeled as strategic threats by Washington – with explicit implications that both of their leaders are corrupt.

Coincidentally, the U.S. has been working to actively “contain” both of these states – actively hedging against Russian influence in Syria and Ukraine, as well as actively engaging in an “Asian pivot” strategically designed to usurp a rising China and maintain U.S. hegemony.

And while there are some pro-Western interests revealed thus far, such as holdings by British Prime Minister David Cameron’s father, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Saudi Arabian King Salman, the vast amount of the reporting has focused on the usual suspects demonized by the West.

Curiously, there is no mention of any Western corporations or billionaires – the primary customers of Mossack Fonseca – in any of the articles written on the leak thus far, with The Guardian ominously stating that “much of the leaked material will remain private.”

With so much power residing in the hands of journalists, it begs the question; who or what is behind the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists?

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists was launched by the Center for Public integrity – a group heavily funded by Putin arch-nemesis George Soros. Soros has been implicated in being a hidden hand behind numerous revolutions across the world.

Other groups that provide funding include:

Rockefeller Family Fund
Open Society Foundation (Soros)
Carnegie Endowment
Ford Foundation
W K Kellogg Foundation

The simple fact that information is being kept out of the public’s reach seems to speak clearly to the fact that this leak is most likely being perpetrated with an agenda to destabilize certain powerful states that are working to create a more multipolar world i.e. (Russia and China) at the expense of U.S. hegemony.

While there is no mistaking the corruption within every state apparatus on earth, curiously these leaks seem to focus heavily on those the U.S. political elite has established as threats. Perhaps there is more to come that will bring to light the corruption of the West as well… but until then, it looks to be a geopolitical hit job by the West — with a few sacrificial lambs thrown in to cause reasonable doubt.