President Obama has been mistakenly referred to by his right-wing critics of being influenced by the anti-colonialist feelings of his Kenyan father, Barack Obama, Sr. However, Junior Obama, far from being anti-colonialist, champions neo-colonialism in his policies toward America’s colonies and those that continue to be maintained by America’s European NATO allies.
During his recent four-hour stop in Puerto Rico, Obama, who was in the U.S. colony long enough to bag $1 million in presidential campaign contributions from the Caribe Hilton Hotel in San Juan, made no mention of Puerto Rican governor Luis Fortuno’s violent crackdown on protesting University of Puerto Rico students upset about the far right-wing governor’s plans to privatize higher education in Puerto Rico. Police have beaten, maced, shot, and sexually assaulted student and worker protesters in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rican police are believed to have carried out extra-judicial killings of Afro-Puerto Ricans in racially-motivated attacks. Yet, Obama, America’s first “African-American” president, failed to mention any of these atrocities to Fortuno during his four-hour stop in Puerto Rico.
Obama represents the global elites who will sell out the interests of African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and African people at the drop of a campaign donation collection plate.
Fortuno is allied with the mainland Republican Party and he favors fast-tracking Puerto Rico to statehood via a rigged referendum procedure. Obama has obliged Fortuno and those favoring continued commonwealth status by calling for a two-stage referendum, one that will certainly eliminate the proposal for full independence from the United States in the first vote on the future status of the island.
Obama, who has championed the rollback of labor rights and civil liberties in the mainland United States, has also embarked on a policy of neo-colonialism in America’s Caribbean and Pacific colonies. In addition, Obama has backed moves by America’s European NATO allies, Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark to re-assert colonial control over their overseas territories. The reasons are plain: oil and other natural resource reserves have been discovered near many of these territories and the U.S. wants to ensure that its military continues to have basing rights from islets in the Indian Ocean to the Caribbean and south Pacific.
While Guahan (Guam) and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas (Saipan, Rota, Tinian, and the Northern Islands) talk about re-unification and eventual independence from the United States in a Chamorro federation, Obama’s Pentagon is expanding its military presence on Guam. Plans for the expansion of U.S. military installations in Guahan will destroy 10 percent of the current forest cover on the island. Also slated for destruction are over 1300 acres of habitat for recovering nearly-extinct species, including tropical birds.
Guahan’s concerns never rise to the attention of the power elite in Washington. In April, the US Senate leadership of Senators Harry Reid (D-NV) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and 13 other senators secretly landed at Anderson Air Force Base on Guam on their way to a top-level meeting in Hong Kong. Neither Guahan Governor Eddie Calvo, a Republican, nor any member of his administration was informed of the Senate delegation visit to Guam and Calvo questioned why the 15 senators landed in secret at Anderson instead of publicly at Won Pat International Airport, near the capital of Hagatna. The snub was even more stinging just a few months after the House of Representatives delegates of Guahan and other U.S. colonies, including the District of Columbia, lost their voting rights in House committees.
The United States is also resisting efforts by Eastern Samoa, known officially by its colonial name of “American Samoa,” to gain more control over its internal affairs. Washington will resist any attempt to unify Eastern Samoa with its independent neighbor, Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa. “American Samoa” Governor Togiola Tulafono has decried the fact that the colony is subservient to the U.S. Department of the Interior and that the Secretary of the Interior appoints American Samoa’s chief and associate justices. The Obama administration has decided to maintain the status quo and not allow Eastern Samoa to appoint its own top justices.
According to leaked State Department cables, the United States has also made it clear it will resist efforts by the Tokelau islands, now a dependency of New Zealand, to regain sovereignty of Swain’s Island, now a dependency of “American Samoa.” New Zealand told a visiting U.S. diplomat that New Zealand would not permit Tokelau’s leader, Koluei O’Brien, to press for a return of Swain’s Island to Tokelau. Obama, the neo-colonialist, does not seem to mind using America’s might to threaten Tokelau, a small nation made up of three atolls.
Obama’s Justice Department has opposed provisions in the US Senate Resolution calling for a Fifth Constitutional Convention of the US Virgin Islands. Eric Holder’s Justice Department objects to provisions that call for more autonomy for the U.S. colony, once a territory of Denmark that was sold to the United States during World War I.
The Obama administration has also stood by Britain as it has imposed a neo-colonial regime in the Turks and Caicos Islands, in an area believed to hold marine oil deposits. The British government abrogated the 2006 Constitution for the islands and given the British Governor wide-reaching powers. The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Bermuda condemned the abrogation of the Turks and Caicos Constitution and re-imposition of colonialism. The Premier of Bermuda, Ewart Brown, who has challenged Britain’s attempt to roll back the self-government of Bermuda, said that if what happened to the Turks and Caicos happened in Zimbabwe, “the world and the UK government in particular would refer to the move as barbaric and characterize its government as a cruel dictatorship.”
Britain has downgraded the Bermuda passport by deciding that to travel through the Schengen area of the European Union, Bermudians must possess British passports. Bermuda has also seen the arrival of FBI and Miami-Dade police officials to supplement law enforcement on the island, a further erosion of sovereignty to the Anglo-American neo-colonialists.
Britain has decided to allow UK citizens to flood into the Turks and Caicos, as well as the British Virgin Islands, to vote in local elections to ensure that pro-independence forces are marginalized. With pro-independence talk increasing in Anguilla and the Cayman Islands, as well as Turks and Caicos, Bermuda, and British Virgin Islands, Britain’s Royal Navy has announced plans to maintain a permanent naval presence in its Caribbean colonies. The U.S., through its own gunboat diplomacy in the region, sees the move as complementing its own neo-colonialist policies in the Caribbean area, from Puerto Rico and Haiti to Honduras and Colombia.
In the TCI (Turks and Caicos Islands), Britain has justified its re-colonization by calling officials of the former autonomist government corrupt and being involved with drug money laundering. However, the corruption comes from New York- and Miami-based resort developers who want to turn the TCI into a tourist colony, with the revenue going to the pockets of the wealthy land developers in the United States, many of whom are contributors to Obama, the “savior of Goldman Sachs” and the other big Wall Street firms.
According to a 2009 leaked State Department cable from the US Embassy in London, the Obama administration’s first priority when it comes to Britain’s dependent territories is military bases. The Obama administration wants to see nothing affect the status of three bases where the U.S. maintains strategic and intelligence assets: Diego Garcia in the British Indian Ocean Territory; Wideawake Airfield on Ascension Island, part of St. Helena; and the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia on Cyprus. The U.S. has backed the UK on the rights of the former residents of Diego Garcia, the Chagossians, to return to their homeland from exile in Mauritius. Mauritius also claims Diego Garcia.
The Netherlands has cleverly disestablished the self-governing Netherlands Antilles to replace it with three islands directly absorbed into the Netherlands, Saba, Bonaire, and St. Eustatius, while granting phony “autonomy” to Sint Maarten and Curacao. Sint Maarten’s Deputy Prime Minister Theo Heyliger has called the situation “modern day slavery.”
Another retrogressive NATO colonial power, Denmark, has followed the Obama’s orders by refusing to give Greenland Prime Minister Kuupik Kleist any information on the CIA’s use of Greenland airspace for its rendition and torture program. In fact, leaked State Department cables showed that Greenland and Faroes airspace were used by the CIA in its kidnapping program but the Danish government has steadfastly refused to provide details to the governments of its two colonies.
His far-right critics call Obama a “Marxist-oriented anti-colonialist.” For those who groomed Obama for the presidency, he is anything but anti-colonialist. In fact, Obama shows all the enthusiasm for Anglo-American colonialism as displayed by its British patron saint, Cecil Rhodes.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
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Obama, purveyor of Anglo-American neo-colonialism
Second in a two-part series on Obama and his neo-colonialist policies
Posted on June 30, 2011 by Wayne Madsen
President Obama has been mistakenly referred to by his right-wing critics of being influenced by the anti-colonialist feelings of his Kenyan father, Barack Obama, Sr. However, Junior Obama, far from being anti-colonialist, champions neo-colonialism in his policies toward America’s colonies and those that continue to be maintained by America’s European NATO allies.
During his recent four-hour stop in Puerto Rico, Obama, who was in the U.S. colony long enough to bag $1 million in presidential campaign contributions from the Caribe Hilton Hotel in San Juan, made no mention of Puerto Rican governor Luis Fortuno’s violent crackdown on protesting University of Puerto Rico students upset about the far right-wing governor’s plans to privatize higher education in Puerto Rico. Police have beaten, maced, shot, and sexually assaulted student and worker protesters in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rican police are believed to have carried out extra-judicial killings of Afro-Puerto Ricans in racially-motivated attacks. Yet, Obama, America’s first “African-American” president, failed to mention any of these atrocities to Fortuno during his four-hour stop in Puerto Rico.
Obama represents the global elites who will sell out the interests of African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and African people at the drop of a campaign donation collection plate.
Fortuno is allied with the mainland Republican Party and he favors fast-tracking Puerto Rico to statehood via a rigged referendum procedure. Obama has obliged Fortuno and those favoring continued commonwealth status by calling for a two-stage referendum, one that will certainly eliminate the proposal for full independence from the United States in the first vote on the future status of the island.
Obama, who has championed the rollback of labor rights and civil liberties in the mainland United States, has also embarked on a policy of neo-colonialism in America’s Caribbean and Pacific colonies. In addition, Obama has backed moves by America’s European NATO allies, Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark to re-assert colonial control over their overseas territories. The reasons are plain: oil and other natural resource reserves have been discovered near many of these territories and the U.S. wants to ensure that its military continues to have basing rights from islets in the Indian Ocean to the Caribbean and south Pacific.
While Guahan (Guam) and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas (Saipan, Rota, Tinian, and the Northern Islands) talk about re-unification and eventual independence from the United States in a Chamorro federation, Obama’s Pentagon is expanding its military presence on Guam. Plans for the expansion of U.S. military installations in Guahan will destroy 10 percent of the current forest cover on the island. Also slated for destruction are over 1300 acres of habitat for recovering nearly-extinct species, including tropical birds.
Guahan’s concerns never rise to the attention of the power elite in Washington. In April, the US Senate leadership of Senators Harry Reid (D-NV) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and 13 other senators secretly landed at Anderson Air Force Base on Guam on their way to a top-level meeting in Hong Kong. Neither Guahan Governor Eddie Calvo, a Republican, nor any member of his administration was informed of the Senate delegation visit to Guam and Calvo questioned why the 15 senators landed in secret at Anderson instead of publicly at Won Pat International Airport, near the capital of Hagatna. The snub was even more stinging just a few months after the House of Representatives delegates of Guahan and other U.S. colonies, including the District of Columbia, lost their voting rights in House committees.
The United States is also resisting efforts by Eastern Samoa, known officially by its colonial name of “American Samoa,” to gain more control over its internal affairs. Washington will resist any attempt to unify Eastern Samoa with its independent neighbor, Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa. “American Samoa” Governor Togiola Tulafono has decried the fact that the colony is subservient to the U.S. Department of the Interior and that the Secretary of the Interior appoints American Samoa’s chief and associate justices. The Obama administration has decided to maintain the status quo and not allow Eastern Samoa to appoint its own top justices.
According to leaked State Department cables, the United States has also made it clear it will resist efforts by the Tokelau islands, now a dependency of New Zealand, to regain sovereignty of Swain’s Island, now a dependency of “American Samoa.” New Zealand told a visiting U.S. diplomat that New Zealand would not permit Tokelau’s leader, Koluei O’Brien, to press for a return of Swain’s Island to Tokelau. Obama, the neo-colonialist, does not seem to mind using America’s might to threaten Tokelau, a small nation made up of three atolls.
Obama’s Justice Department has opposed provisions in the US Senate Resolution calling for a Fifth Constitutional Convention of the US Virgin Islands. Eric Holder’s Justice Department objects to provisions that call for more autonomy for the U.S. colony, once a territory of Denmark that was sold to the United States during World War I.
The Obama administration has also stood by Britain as it has imposed a neo-colonial regime in the Turks and Caicos Islands, in an area believed to hold marine oil deposits. The British government abrogated the 2006 Constitution for the islands and given the British Governor wide-reaching powers. The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Bermuda condemned the abrogation of the Turks and Caicos Constitution and re-imposition of colonialism. The Premier of Bermuda, Ewart Brown, who has challenged Britain’s attempt to roll back the self-government of Bermuda, said that if what happened to the Turks and Caicos happened in Zimbabwe, “the world and the UK government in particular would refer to the move as barbaric and characterize its government as a cruel dictatorship.”
Britain has downgraded the Bermuda passport by deciding that to travel through the Schengen area of the European Union, Bermudians must possess British passports. Bermuda has also seen the arrival of FBI and Miami-Dade police officials to supplement law enforcement on the island, a further erosion of sovereignty to the Anglo-American neo-colonialists.
Britain has decided to allow UK citizens to flood into the Turks and Caicos, as well as the British Virgin Islands, to vote in local elections to ensure that pro-independence forces are marginalized. With pro-independence talk increasing in Anguilla and the Cayman Islands, as well as Turks and Caicos, Bermuda, and British Virgin Islands, Britain’s Royal Navy has announced plans to maintain a permanent naval presence in its Caribbean colonies. The U.S., through its own gunboat diplomacy in the region, sees the move as complementing its own neo-colonialist policies in the Caribbean area, from Puerto Rico and Haiti to Honduras and Colombia.
In the TCI (Turks and Caicos Islands), Britain has justified its re-colonization by calling officials of the former autonomist government corrupt and being involved with drug money laundering. However, the corruption comes from New York- and Miami-based resort developers who want to turn the TCI into a tourist colony, with the revenue going to the pockets of the wealthy land developers in the United States, many of whom are contributors to Obama, the “savior of Goldman Sachs” and the other big Wall Street firms.
According to a 2009 leaked State Department cable from the US Embassy in London, the Obama administration’s first priority when it comes to Britain’s dependent territories is military bases. The Obama administration wants to see nothing affect the status of three bases where the U.S. maintains strategic and intelligence assets: Diego Garcia in the British Indian Ocean Territory; Wideawake Airfield on Ascension Island, part of St. Helena; and the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia on Cyprus. The U.S. has backed the UK on the rights of the former residents of Diego Garcia, the Chagossians, to return to their homeland from exile in Mauritius. Mauritius also claims Diego Garcia.
The Netherlands has cleverly disestablished the self-governing Netherlands Antilles to replace it with three islands directly absorbed into the Netherlands, Saba, Bonaire, and St. Eustatius, while granting phony “autonomy” to Sint Maarten and Curacao. Sint Maarten’s Deputy Prime Minister Theo Heyliger has called the situation “modern day slavery.”
Another retrogressive NATO colonial power, Denmark, has followed the Obama’s orders by refusing to give Greenland Prime Minister Kuupik Kleist any information on the CIA’s use of Greenland airspace for its rendition and torture program. In fact, leaked State Department cables showed that Greenland and Faroes airspace were used by the CIA in its kidnapping program but the Danish government has steadfastly refused to provide details to the governments of its two colonies.
His far-right critics call Obama a “Marxist-oriented anti-colonialist.” For those who groomed Obama for the presidency, he is anything but anti-colonialist. In fact, Obama shows all the enthusiasm for Anglo-American colonialism as displayed by its British patron saint, Cecil Rhodes.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2011 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).