Hardial Bains – A Man of Revolutionary Action

82nd Anniversary of the Birth of Hardial Bains, August 15, 1939

Hardial Bains

On August 15, we celebrate the birth, life and work of Hardial Bains, founder and leader of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist). Hardial Bains was, above all else, a man of revolutionary action. He came to Canada as a youth from India in 1959 and immediately integrated with the life of the working people in British Columbia and took up the struggles of the student youth with whom he shared weal and woe.

• Hardial Bains – A Man of Revolutionary Action

• A Biographical Sketch

This Day. A reflection on Amílcar Cabral, Portugal and NATO

Amílcar Cabral (1924-1973)

By TONY SEED

Originally published on January 20, 2019 on this blog and Stop Foreign Intervention in Africa , a website organized by activists opposed to foreign intervention in Africa on a military, economic, political and cultural level. 

On January 20, 1973, Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral, leader of the national liberation movement in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde in West Africa, was assassinated, just months before Guinea Bissau won its long independence struggle against Portuguese colonialism.

Guinea-Bissau was once part of the kingdom of Gabu, part of the ancient Mali Empire; parts of this kingdom persisted until the 18th century. Other parts of the territory in the current country were considered by the Portuguese as part of their empire. Portuguese Guinea was known as the Slave Coast, as it was a major area for the exportation of African slaves by Europeans to the western hemisphere.

Flashback: Belgium’s ‘apology’ for assassinating Patrice Lumumba

Patrice Lumumba (July 2, 1925–January 17, 1961)

I only gave voice to words of freedom and brotherhood, words they couldn’t accept. Just words. – Patrice Lumumba

Updated from an article published on this blog on March 22, 2016

Sixty years have passed since the assassination on January 17, 1961 of the first democratically-elected President of the Republic of Congo, Patrice Lumumba. His government sought to give citizens political rights and build a national economy independent of the imperialist system of states. The country’s rich resources were supposed to serve its residents instead of being exploited by foreign concerns. His assassination was carried out by Belgian troops for the CIA.

A CIA officer has a headache. Media blame Russia.

More plausible explanations for these maladies include headaches, crickets, paranoia, mass hysteria or simply lying, rather than a vast global conspiracy using heretofore unknown science fiction weapons in order to mildly inconvenience a few American operatives | ALAN MACLEOD

Julia Ioffe (GQ, 10/20/20) reported that “dozens of American diplomats, spies and government employees” were “targets of what some experts and doctors now believe were attacks perpetrated by unknown assailants wielding novel directed energy weapons.”

A 9,000-word story for GQ (10/20/20) about the mystery ailment of a CIA officer in Moscow has become the unlikely subject of a weeks-long media storm.

This Day. Allende and Chile: ‘Bring him down’

Salvador Allende’s Historic Inauguration 50 Years Later – Declassified White House Records Show How Nixon-Kissinger Set Strategy of Destabilization – And Why

Naul Ojeda photo

Briefing Book #732, National Security Archive, Edited by Peter Kornbluh and Savannah Bock

(Washington D.C., November 3) – Several days after Salvador Allende’s history-changing November 3, 1970, inauguration, Richard Nixon convened his National Security Council for a formal meeting on what policy the U.S. should adopt toward Chile’s new Popular Unity government. Only a few officials who gathered in the White House Cabinet Room knew that, under Nixon’s orders, the CIA had covertly tried, and failed, to foment a preemptive military coup to prevent Allende from ever being inaugurated. The SECRET/SENSITIVE NSC memorandum of conversation revealed a consensus that Allende’s democratic election and his socialist agenda for substantive change in Chile threatened U.S. interests, but divergent views on what the U.S. could, and should do about it. “We can bring his downfall, perhaps, without being counterproductive,” suggested Secretary of State William Rogers, who opposed overt hostility and aggression toward Chile. “We have to do everything we can to hurt [Allende] and bring him down,” agreed the secretary of defense, Melvin Laird.

This Day. The CIA and Chile: Anatomy of an Assassination

General René Schneider official portrait

(October 22, 2020) – On October 23, 1970, one day after armed thugs intercepted and mortally wounded the Chilean army commander-in-chief, General Rene Schneider, as he drove to work in Santiago, CIA Director Richard Helms convened his top aides to review the covert coup operations that had led to the attack. “[I]t was agreed that … a maximum effort has been achieved,” and that “the station has done excellent job of guiding Chileans to point today where a military solution is at least an option for them,” stated a Secret cable of commendation transmitted that day to the CIA station in Chile. “COS [Chief of Station] … and Station [deleted] are commended for accomplishing this under extremely difficult and delicate circumstances.”

50th anniversary of War Measures Act (III) – State-sanctioned Black Ops and cover-ups

Third of a series on the issues and goals of the “October Crisis” and the forces in motion, reposted from TML Weekly.

Police attack demonstration led by CPC(M-L) activists outside the Royal York Hotel in Toronto, March 3, 1971. The demonstration supports the Quebec people and opposes the attacks launched on them by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s government.

By Anna Di Carlo

There are many official as well as media accounts of crimes committed against Canadians, Quebeckers and Indigenous peoples by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Some of the crimes are left out of the accounts altogether; others are said to be unacceptable aberrations or necessary despite the violations of rights. All in all, it is said that such crimes belong to the past or even that they have contributed to strengthening our democracy. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) was created in 1984 to, allegedly, “collect intelligence but not pass to action” and thus we were to believe that the days of the dirty deeds of the RCMP were over. Of course, it is not true that after 1984 the security services stopped violating the rights of the people. These include cover-up of their involvement in the 1985 Air India disaster. Since 9/11, every manner of excuse has been given to violate rights with impunity. Bill C-51, the Anti-Terrorism Act 2015 extends powers to CSIS to allow it to conduct activities that resemble those of the RCMP prior to 1984.

This article provides a brief review of the official story and what the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) had to say about this at the time the events were taking place. The aim of the review is to sum up this experience so that people can provide themselves with a suitable guide to action which serves the present and opens a path to a safe and bright future.

This day. The Barbados crime, Cubana flight 455 (I)

Memorial at the monument to the victims of the bombing of Cubana Flight 455, near Bridgetown, Barbados, October 4, 2014.

By TONY SEED

This article was first published in October 11, 2014 by TML Weekly and Global Research. It is of particular relevance to an understanding of the ongoing “war on terror” in the Americas, the role of successive US and Canadian governments, and Canada-Cuba relations. An expanded version with newly-researched material which will be posted in due course.

October 6 marks the 38th anniversary of the first act of terrorism against civilian aviation in the western hemisphere – the unparalleled Cubana Airlines disaster on the coastline of Barbados on October 6, 1976 – the Barbados crime. Cubana Flight 455 was hit by two C-4 explosives bombs just after the aircraft took off from the then Seawell Airport (now the Grantley Adams International Airport) in Barbados at an altitude of 18,000 feet.

This Day. ‘Extreme Option – Overthrow Allende’

National Security Archive marks 50th anniversary of Nixon order to foment coup in Chile

Salvador Allende on the street | Naul Ojeda

(September 15) – On September 15, 1970, during a twenty-minute meeting in the Oval Office between 3:25 pm and 3:45 pm, President Richard Nixon ordered the CIA to foment a military coup in Chile. According to handwritten notes taken by CIA Director Richard Helms, Nixon issued explicit instructions to prevent the newly elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, from being inaugurated in November – or to create conditions to overthrow him if he did assume the presidency. “1 in 10 chance, perhaps, but save Chile.” “Not concerned [about] risks involved,” Helms jotted in his notes as the President demanded regime change in the South American nation that had become the first in the world to freely elect a Socialist candidate. “Full time job – best men we have.” “Make the economy scream.” 

Bridge of Spies: Will the real James B. Donovan stand up?

Tom Hanks is today’s Everyman good guy movie star – an honest, trustworthy and stand-up white man just like Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Gregory Peck and, yes, even John Wayne. In the recent film Bridge of Spies, one of those “inspired by true events” obfuscations, Hanks plays a certain James B. Donovan. In the movie, Donovan is an insurance lawyer lured into defending Soviet spy Rudolf Abel back in the good old days of the Cold War in order to prove that this is the land of justice and due process. Bridge of Spies, directed by Steven Spielberg, appears to be headed into Oscar territory.

Air America: Venezuelan officials find large cache of weapons at airport delivered from Miami

Venezuela’s Deputy Minister of Public Security, Endes Palencia (first from left), reveals the shocking discovery of a cache of weapons that was delivered on by a commercial cargo plane from Miami on Sunday. February 3rd | CUENTA DE TWITTER DEL GENERAL ENDES PALENCIA ORTIZ

 

By TONY SEED

(February 10, updated February 14) – It was inevitable. On Sunday, February 3, the day before the Lima Group countries met in Ottawa to fraudulently call for a “peaceful transition of power” in Venezuela and  demand it allow a puppet parallel government to accept its “humanitarian aid”, a Boeing 767 took off from Miami International Airport loaded with warfare equipment. It landed at the Arturo Michelena International Airport in the northern city of Valencia, Venezuela’s third-largest city, and some 170 kilometres directly west of the capital, Caracas.

Huawei case: Trudeau Liberal’s mockery of the rule of law

(From a Facebook post of Dec. 13, revised Dec. 24) – Six people appeared in Halifax provincial court on Monday, December 10 to face charges of mischief and obstructing a peace officer, stemming from Sunday night’s protest at the Canada Post mail-processing plant on Almon Street in that city. The real reason they were arrested is that they were protesting the federal government’s criminalization of their rights.

Lebanon in US action movies: Beirut starring Jon Hamm

By AS’AD ABUKHALIL*

Lebanon often provided a venue for American and Western action films.  In the 1950s and 1960s, it was a place of international intrigue and espionage where spies intersected with other spies, and where car chases on mountainous roads provided for good movie scenes.  There were so many US and European movies shot in Lebanon in those times, with such titles: The Sell-out, Masquerade, Man on the Spying Trapeze, Agent 505, Embassy, among others. But that so-called peaceful Lebanon (where successive Israeli invasions and massacres don’t get a mention in Western movie accounts, and are rarely listed as the reason for undermining the old Lebanon—with all its flaws, inequities, and injustices) does not exist anymore.  The Lebanese civil war provided a totally different venue for American action films that were to come in the 1980s.

This day. Cuba remembers the victims of the 1976 terrorist attack and demands justice

This peaceful people has suffered the loss of 3,478 of its citizens due to brutal terrorist acts, among them the victims of the in-flight bombing of a Cubana de Aviación plane over Barbados

Nicaragua, unraveling a plot

The United States’ National Endowment for Democracy distributed some 4.2 million dollars in Nicaragua, between 2014 and 2017, to train “new leaders” to overthrow the Sandinista government | Francisco Arias Fernández*

(June 29) – AS early as 2016, talk of war against Nicaragua could again be heard in Miami, at a time when the streets of this nation were a regional example of security, peace, and prosperity, where a hardworking, tranquil people proudly enjoyed the social and economic advances achieved by the Sandinista government, that had established a national consensus, in the wake of one of the worst interventions carried out by the United States in Central America. 

War on Syria: CIA program supplied money, weaponry and training to terrorist forces

Introduction

Timber Sycamore was a classified weapons supply and training program run by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and supported by various Arab intelligence services, most notably that of Saudi Arabia. The program is the proverbial tip of the iceberg. It is further evidence that the United States and/or any of its collaborators and accessories including the Canadian government, with its proxy support, training and arms programs in Kurdistan, Jordan, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are guilty of crimes against humanity through aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic, a sovereign country. The use of proxy mercenary armies camouflaged by a fictitious “civil war,” according to the Obama Doctrine, masks the identities of their sponsors. It cannot hide them however, nor their aggression, from the light of day nor the reaches of international law.

The other side of the Washingon Post’s Katharine Graham

The Post’s Watergate team, including from left to right, publisher Katharine Graham, Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, Howard Simons, and editor Ben Bradlee.

Hollywood loves to make heroes of The Washington Post, whose sole owner is a CIA contractor, for the rare moments when it has seemingly stood up for journalism – while forgetting the blood-soaked cases of the Post spreading lies to justify wars, writes NORMON SOLOMON*. To this day it continues to violate universal journalistic protocol by refusing to disclose its $600 million conflict of interest when reporting on the US intelligence community. Its recent efforts include publishing a predictably fact-challenged op-ed arguing that the US Congress must reauthorize the surveillance program known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is deliberately used to collect communications of US citizens. – TS

(Dec. 20) – Movie critics are already hailing “The Post,” directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Meryl Streep as Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham. Millions of people will see the film in early winter. But the real-life political story of Graham and her newspaper is not a narrative that’s headed to the multiplexes.

CIA’s Bin Laden forgery is a psyop: three articles

By TONY SEED

In the context of the offensive of the Trump regime against Iran and for domination of West Asia (Middle East), the CIA released on November 1 a “never-before-seen 19-page document,” as well as a 228-page “journal” ostensibly written by Osama Bin Laden as all U.S. and Canadian media (as directed by the U.S. government) are promoting.

Venezuela’s response to US interference

1. Government rejects CIA Chief’s interventionist admission

The following statement was issued by the Government of Venezuela on July 25, 2017.

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela categorically rejects the declarations of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, Michael Pompeo, and denounces before the international community the systematic attacks against Venezuela from the USA, including:

Che continues to be the man most feared by imperialism

Forty-nine years ago, a vile hired assassin, a terrorist, contracted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, believed he had killed a man in Bolivia | OSCAR SÁNCHEZ SERRA*

(October 12 ) – Forty-nine years ago, on October 9, 1967, a vile hired assassin, a terrorist, contracted by the United States Central Intelligence Agency, believed he had killed a man in Bolivia. But what the bloodthirsty executioner Félix Rodríguez Mendigutía didn’t know then was that his crime actually immortalized his victim. Che continues to be a threat, a challenge, an insurmountable impediment to imperialism.

Looking into the eyes of the terrorists who blew up a Cuban plane

40 YEARS SINCE THE BARBADOS CRIME

We planted the bomb… and so what?

By ALICIA HERRERA

Forty years after the bombing of a Cubana airlines flight off the coast of Barbados on October 6, 1976, which killed 73 innocent people, those responsible for this horrific terrorist act remain unpunished, despite the overwhelming evidence filed to incriminate its material and intellectual authors and their accomplices, and presented to the United States intelligence services.

The Cuban people, revolutionary government, and in particular the families of victims of the Barbados crime have not rested, in all these years, in their struggle for justice. Their pain was transformed into the strength and courage to establish the truth regarding the case, in all settings, not only on the island but across many countries of the world. This long-awaited justice, however, has not materialized.

Vigil to honour victims of terrorism

A gathering to honour the victims of the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner mid-flight off the coast of Barbados was held yesterday evening, October 5, at Havana’s José Martí Memorial, with families of the martyrs in attendance | Alejandra García

Africa Liberation Day at 53: Pentagon and CIA continue to destabilize continent

Today the African Union faces formidable development and security challenges.May 25, 2016 marks the 53rd anniversary of the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), now known as the African Union (AU) since 2002.| ABAYOMI AZIKIWE

The ‘Free Syrian Army’ media efforts are a British government operation

The U.S. government, via its CIA, has financed the “moderate” anti-Syrian mercenaries fighting against the legitimate Syrian government with at least $1 billion a year. The Wahhabi dictatorships in the Middle East have added their own billions to finance al-Qaeda’s efforts against the Syrian people. The U.S. continues to purchase and transport thousands of tons of weapons and ammunition to feed the war against the Syrian people. It also pays the various fighters and opposition groups. The U.S. efforts for regime change in Syria have been running since at least 2006 when the U.S. government started to finance anti-Syrian exile TV stations and held intensive planning talks with various anti-Syrian Islamist elements.

US delivers 3,000 tons of weapons and ammo to Al-Qaeda & Co in Syria

The United States via its Central Intelligence Agency is still delivering thousands of tons of additional weapons to al-Qaeda and others in Syria.

The British military information service Janes found the transport solicitation for the shipment on the U.S. government website FedBizOps.gov. Janes writes:

On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of El Mehdi Ben Barka

By TONY SEED
With the attendance of Fernando González Llort, Hero of the Republic of Cuba and Vice President of ICAP, a flower offering was laid at the foot of the bust of the Third World leader El Mehdi Ben Barka on the 50^th anniversary of his assassination on October 29, 1965 in Paris, France in a solemn ceremony held at the Havana headquarters of the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America (OSPAAL).

Why Russia shut down US NGOs – fronts of the US state

The neocon-flagship Washington Post has fired a propaganda broadside at President Putin for shutting down the Russian activities of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), but left out key facts like NED’s US government funding, its quasi-CIA role, and its plans for regime change in Moscow, writes ROBERT PERRY in Consortium News. The Harper government’s Dept. of Foreign Affairs has been covertly awarding millions of Canadian taxdollars to NED, and its subsidiaries, the National Democratic Institute (e.g., $374,206 on June 18, 2015; $426,054 on March 5, 2015; $698,227 on October 24, 2014) and the International Republican Institute (e.g., $6,000,000 on April 28, 2014 for “Strengthening Multiparty Democracy” in Ukraine and $1,000,620 and $1,125,390 on December 8, 2015). – TS

(July 30) – The Washington Post’s descent into the depths of neoconservative propaganda – willfully misleading its readers on matters of grave importance – apparently knows no bounds as was demonstrated with two deceptive articles regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin and why his government is cracking down on “foreign agents.”

Seymour Hersh and Bin Laden disinformation: killing the messenger

The credibility crisis of the US monopoly media and the role of media to disinform

It has largely been forgotten that after 9/11, the Taliban offered to supply Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind, to a third country for trial. The Bush administration refused, choosing to invade Afghanistan, a strategic country rich in natural resources, and to launch the “war on terrorism” for self-serving ends. Ten years later, the Obama administration, instead of putting him on trail, boasted that it had assassinated him, though suspiciously the body was never produced. The assassination by US special forces was the high point of Obama’s first term, and a major factor in his re-election. TREVOR TIMM* in the Columbia Journalism Review examines the media reaction to Seymour Hersh’s recent exposé challenging the credibility of the Obama White House and its narrative of the high-profile event. Hersh stated in conclusion: “High-level lying nevertheless remains the modus operandi of US policy, along with secret prisons, drone attacks, Special Forces night raids, bypassing the chain of command, and cutting out those who might say no.”

(May 15) – SEYMOUR HERSH HAS DONE THE PUBLIC a great service by breathing life into questions surrounding the official narrative of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Yet instead of trying to build off the details of his story, or to disprove his assertions with additional reporting, journalists have largely attempted to tear down the messenger.

From our archives: Dossier on the 60th anniversary of the victory over fascism

Shunpiking Magazine’s Online Dossier, May-June 2005

INTRODUCTION

May 8, 2005 marked the 60th anniversary of the surrender of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich in 1945 and the defeat of Nazi Germany in Europe. Called Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day) in the English-speaking countries, it is celebrated on May 9 in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union where it marks the victory of the Great Patriotic War. The defeat of fascism in Europe was a historic event with a permanent significance not only for Europe but for all peoples, who made the greatest contribution to its defeat. Imperialists can be stopped and their weapons silenced.

With this Dossier we want to give our readers a vivid idea of how war may and will creep up on them if it is not opposed. We want to try and discover the real political and economic origins and causes of WWII and its conduct, length and end, the war aims of the different parties, and show how war can be hatched in the greatest secrecy. How was the fate of the peoples of Europe sealed? How was fascism defeated? This has special urgency in our own day, when the imperial Washington of George W. Bush has taken on the task of declaring itself above international law and the Charter of the United Nations.

US fifth column: Pretext for regime change in Argentina?

The Politicization of the AMIA Investigation

A fifth column exists in Argentina. It should be noted that some of the individuals involved in this case are leftover elements from the period of the military dictatorship in Argentina that collaborated closely with the US.

By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya*

History has a strange way of replicating itself. Argentina has been going through a process similar to the post-1999 years, after Boris Yeltsin stepped down and Vladimir Putin took his place in the Kremlin as the president of the Russian Federation. While it has been struggling to throw off the foreign yoke, the Argentine federal government in Buenos Aires has been consolidating its economic and political power.