Tag: Haiti

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler, Pitasanna Shanmugathas March 29th/April 2nd, 2023

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded March 29th and April 2nd, 2023.

And welcome to the Spring of discontent! While leaders In the capitals of Europe and America promise to carry on the Ukraine proxy war no matter the price, the People are already in the streets protesting the real and rising costs of that belligerence. For Canadians, whose government is already full-throatedly behind: the bellicose stance against Russia, prospects of an expanded war against China and Iran, battles by sanction in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and elsewhere, there is too Haiti.

Last week, the Trudeau Liberals blithely announced another $100 million dollars to be delivered to the tiny island nation’s military and police effort to keep the restive population under heel. This on top of millions already delivered. It’s almost as if Ottawa believes the fatted tax goose’s golden eggs will never flag.

Yves Engler is an independent, Montreal-based journalist and author. He’s written twelve books on Canadian foreign policy, including ‘Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority’, co-authored with Anthony Fenton. His recent article, ‘Canadian government prioritizes war over climate crisis‘ is a troubling portrait of a country few here in our home and native land would recognize.

Yves Engler in the first half.

And; just what is Canada’s place in the world? Generations of us have been taught we are global agents of good; fair-minded, and justice-seeking. You know, “Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, we’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy“, etc., etc.

It’d be a great story, if only it were true.

Pitasanna Shanmugathas completed an advanced degree at one of Canada’s world-class Universities but found, beyond Canada’s “two solitudes” another bifurcation – one not in the curriculum – separating the real from an imagined nation. And so, he says, he set out on an epic three year journey of discovery, from coast to coast to coast, and across the tractless prairies. He documented his Canadian quest in the film series, ‘Truth to the Powerless: An Investigation into Canada’s Foreign Policy‘.

Pitasanna Shanmugathas and the hunt for Canada’s elusive identity in the second half.

But first, Yves Engler and Trudeau of the Tropics, taking Haiti.

Song: The Panic Is On

Artist: David Rovics

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler (extended) March 29, 2023

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded March 29th and April 2nd, 2023.

And welcome to the Spring of discontent! While leaders In the capitals of Europe and America promise to carry on the Ukraine proxy war no matter the price, the People are already in the streets protesting the real and rising costs of that belligerence.

For Canadians, whose government is already full-throatedly behind: the bellicose stance against Russia, prospects of an expanded war against China and Iran, battles by sanction in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and elsewhere, there is too Haiti.

Last week, the Trudeau Liberals blithely announced another $100 million dollars to be delivered to the tiny island nation’s military and police effort to keep the restive population under heel. This on top of millions already delivered. It’s almost as if Ottawa believes the fatted tax goose’s golden eggs will never flag.

Yves Engler is an independent, Montreal-based journalist and author. He’s written twelve books on Canadian foreign policy, including ‘Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority’, co-authored with Anthony Fenton.

His recent article, ‘Canadian government prioritizes war over climate crisis‘ is a troubling portrait of a country few here in our home and native land would recognize.

Yves Engler and Trudeau of the Tropics, taking Haiti.

Song: The Panic Is On

Artist: David Rovics

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler, Tyan Cherepuschak, Tyson Strandlund February 11th, 2023

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded February 11th, 2023.

This past week, Canadian Forces redeployed a CP-140 Aurora surveillance plane from its dedicated mission assisting U.S.-led drugs smuggling interdiction efforts in the Caribbean to spend two days flying reconnaissance over Haiti. Foreign Affairs Minister, Melanie Joly characterized the escalation of Canada’s military involvement in the country as a “demonstration of Canada’s commitment to Haiti”. Last month, Canada demonstrated that commitment in the form of an unspecified number and type of armored vehicles being sold to a government that has already called for foreign military intervention to quell wide-spread public discontent with its corrupt and entirely unelected leadership.

Yves Engler is an independent, Montreal-based journalist and author. He’s written twelve books on Canadian foreign policy, including ‘Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority’, co-authored with Anthony Fenton. His recent article, ‘Ottawa’s support for repressive Haitian police grows as democracy fades’ appears at his website, YvesEngler.com, and puts to the lie – again – Canada’s “concern for the people” of that benighted island.

Yves Engler in the first half.

And; the University of Victoria’s Student Union has become another front in the Ukraine/Russia war. Last month, UVic’s Ukrainiain Students’ Society alleged harassment of its members and intimidation in the form of “hate crime” graffiti scrawled on one of its posters. They’ve also made allegations of “ongoing hate and harassment demonstrated by the YCL [Young Communist League]…” UVic’s USS is, with similar student societies on campuses across the country, associated with the politically influential Ukrainian Canadian Congress.

Tyan Cherepuschak is an undergraduate student at the University of Victoria, and is a Ukrainian-Canadian who until recently served as Vice-President to the UVic chapter of the Ukrainian Canadian Students Union (SUSK).

And; Tyson Strandlund is a member of both the UVic chapter of the Young Communist League and the Vancouver Island Peace Council, a local chapter of the Canadian Peace Congress. He too is a Canadian of Ukrainian descent, who has studied in and visited Ukraine both before and after the 2014 Maidan coup.

Tyan Cherepuschak & Tyson Strandlund on bringing the Ukraine conflict to Canadian campuses in the second half.

But first, Yves Engler and Canada’s caring military gestures to Haiti.

 

Song: Watch the Buildings Crumble

Album: May Day

Artist: David Rovics

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler February 11th, 2023

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded February 11th, 2023.

This past week, Canadian Forces redeployed a CP-140 Aurora surveillance plane from its dedicated mission assisting U.S.-led drugs smuggling interdiction efforts in the Caribbean to spend two days flying reconnaissance over Haiti. Foreign Affairs Minister, Melanie Joly characterized the escalation of Canada’s military involvement in the country as a “demonstration of Canada’s commitment to Haiti”. Last month, Canada demonstrated that commitment in the form of an unspecified number and type of armored vehicles being sold to a government that has already called for foreign military intervention to quell wide-spread public discontent with its corrupt and entirely unelected leadership.

Yves Engler is an independent, Montreal-based journalist and author. He’s written twelve books on Canadian foreign policy, including ‘Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority’, co-authored with Anthony Fenton. His recent article, ‘Ottawa’s support for repressive Haitian police grows as democracy fades’ appears at his website, YvesEngler.com, and puts to the lie – again – Canada’s “concern for the people” of that benighted island.

Today Yves Engler and Canada’s caring military gestures to Haiti.

 

Song: Watch the Buildings Crumble

Album: May Day

Artist: David Rovics

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Alfred de Zayas, Yves Engler November 19, 2022

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded November 19th, 2022.

Last week a missile landed on a farm in the Polish countryside. Two people were reportedly killed, and the rocket that killed them was reported to be Russian. Immediately the media machine in the West began to churn, and perhaps without meaning to brought the World a step closer to the next and last World War. That the story was wrong – false at first, and faked after the fact – made little difference to its dangerous amplification.

Alfred de Zayas is a law professor at the Geneva School of Diplomacy whose lengthy career in the service of human rights law includes twenty five years at the United Nations as a staff member, special rapporteur, and after “retirement” a six year stint as Independent Expert on International Order to the UN.

De Zayas is too the author of twelve books, including “Nemesis at Potsdam” with a preface by the late Ambassador Robert Murphy, Eisenhower’s political advisor, “The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau”, with a preface by the foremost US expert on Prisoner of Wars, the late Professor Howard Levie.

His recent “human rights trilogy”: ‘Building a Just World Order,’ ‘Countering Mainstream Narratives: Fake News, Fake Law, Fake Freedom,’ and the forthcoming, ‘The Human Rights Industry’ are published by Clarity Press.

Alfred’s many essays appear online at Truthout and CounterPunch, where I found his recent article, ‘Peace as a Human Right‘ on the topic of “25 Principles of International Order to Ensure Sustainable Peace”.

And; this past week, Justin Trudeau broadcast on social media a conciliatory call he and British counterpart, prime minister Rishi Sunak made to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy regarding that infamous missile strike in Poland.

The call, made public in the most recklessly manner, proves again the current leadership in the West care little for either the sober conduct of governance or subtly international diplomacy demands.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based activist and author who has published 12 books, mostly on Canadian foreign policy, including his latest ‘Stand on Guard For Whom? A People’s History of the Canadian Military‘. Yves is coming our way; November 26th in Nanaimo, the 28th in Victoria, and November 29th in Duncan. He’ll also be on the mainland November 30th in Powell River, and December 1st in Vancouver.

Yves Engler and handsome prime minister Justin’s ugly Canadian foreign policy in the second half.

But first, Alfred de Zayas and building another Order for the World.

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Song: Fighting Injustice

Artists: The Four Fathers

 

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler November 19th, 2022

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded November 19, 2022

This past week, Justin Trudeau broadcast on social media a conciliatory call he and British counterpart, prime minister Rishi Sunak made to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy regarding that infamous missile strike in Poland.

The call, made public in the most recklessly manner, proves again the current leadership in the West care little for either the sober conduct of governance or subtly international diplomacy demands.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based activist and author who has published 12 books, mostly on Canadian foreign policy, including his latest ‘Stand on Guard For Whom? A People’s History of the Canadian Military‘. Yves is coming our way; November 26th in Nanaimo, the 28th in Victoria, and November 29th in Duncan. He’ll also be on the mainland November 30th in Powell River, and December 1st in Vancouver.

Yves Engler and handsome prime minister Justin’s ugly Canadian foreign policy.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Song: Fighting Injustice

Artists: The Four Fathers

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler, Yves Smith July 16th, 2022

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded July 13th and 16th, 2022.

The late, and truly great, British playwright, Harold Pinter summed up the age in his 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech. Delivered dramatically via video stream – something not so common then – and at the height of America’s military demolition of Iraq . The terminally ill Pinter spent most of his thirty two and a half minute address addressing the profoundly ignorant state in which We the people exist, and how we blithely allow the horrors of our times be committed in our name. Who hearing that speech could forget his hoarsely stentorian remonstration of the Bush claque and its cowardly coalition’s willful crimes? “It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter.”

Seventeen years later, and millions killed, maimed, dispossessed and made desperate the lying and killing continues apace. Pinter would be unsurprised, because as he said then, for the powerful, “… it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives.” And so it is in Canada today, as we march towards another global war, standing on guard in ignorance.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based activist, and author of 12 books, mostly on Canadian foreign policy, including his latest, ‘Stand on Guard For Whom? A People’s History of the Canadian Military’. He’s also a prolific essayist whose many articles appear at numerous sites online, including at his website, YvesEngler.com, where his recent article, ‘Is It Time for Canada to Apologize to Libya?‘ appears.

Yves Engler in the first half.

And; what’s old is news again: Inflation, the economy’s nemesis so long thought slain has resurfaced, its dragon’s teeth popping up in balance sheets and union negotiation positions, and most scarily, ravishing family budgets the World over.

Yves Smith is a Harvard Business School grad, blogger, and author whose investment banking and management career has intersected all the biggest names on Wall Street. In late 2006, seeing the financial ice bergs on the horizon and frustrated by the “obvious under-reporting…of the risk in all credit instruments” she started Naked Capitalism in an effort to “promote critical thinking through the medium of a finance and economics blog.”

Her 2010 book, ‘ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism‘ followed, dissecting the “obvious” and inevitable 2008 financial disaster and the dismal Obama administration reaction to it. Yves’ has also written articles for many major publications, appeared on US network television and alternative online news programs like The Real News, Democracy Now, and the now-banned RT.

Her recent article at Naked Capitalism, ‘The G-7 is Still Pushing Its Nutty Russia Oil Price Cap Idea‘ reveals how at sea the West is in what is rapidly emerging as a truly New (economic) World Order.

Yves Smith and the stark state of a capitalist system in crisis in the second half.

But first, Yves Engler and “the considerable bearing of the truth on where the World stands now“.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing since 1998; in Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: cfuv.ca.  Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler August 15th, 2021

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Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s Home Edition, recorded August 15, 2021.

Haiti has again suffered a massive earthquake close to urban centres. So far, Sunday August 15th, the toll is reported as 724 killed, and many more injured and made homeless by the 7.2 magnitude tremblor. For Haitians, it’s reminiscent of the 2010 earthquake that killed as many as 300,000 and from which the country is yet to fully recover. Making matters more dire, Tropical Storm Grace is heading for the island, due to make landfall there sometime Monday, August 16th.

Yves Engler is an independent, Montreal-based journalist and author. He’s written ten books on Canadian foreign policy, including ‘Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority’, co-authored with Anthony Fenton. His latest article, ‘Earthquake devastates Haiti, Canada shouldn’t make it worse‘ warns off those who would wreck more havoc in Haiti with kindness after the calamity.

Today, Yves Engler and with “friends” like Canada, Haiti is in deep trouble.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler August 7, 2020

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Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s continuing efforts, NOT broadcast live from CFUV Radio in the basement of the Student Union Building at the University of Victoria, but emanating live-to-tape via Skype from our home-based … studios on this date, August 7th, 2020.

Bolivians reacted to news the September 6th general election is off by taking to the streets and declaring a General Strike. It’s a dangerous move, considering interim caretaker president, Janine Anez has shown little hesitation, or contrition, loosing the military and police to lethal effect on perceived enemies of her nine-month old coup regime. But then Anez can afford to be unrepentant about the lives lost through both her jack-boot political sensibilities and tragically incompetent mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic, because no-one is holding her responsible. Neither the Organization of American States as a body, nor its northernmost members the United States and Canada seem concerned about the destruction of Bolivian democracy, let alone over the fate of those crushed underfoot in the process. In fact, in Canada’s case, it’s a welcome development.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based activist, essayist, and author whose articles appear at The Palestine Chronicle, Pacific Free Press, and at his site, YvesEngler.com among other places. The latest of Engler’s eleven books, ‘HOU$E of MIRRORS: Justin Trudeau’s Foreign Policy‘ questions the Liberals’ progressive pretense, while challenging the persistent national delusion that Canadians are “a benevolent force in the world”. His recent article, ‘Canada’s Support for Bolivian Coup Deserves Closer Scrutiny’ appears at Ricochet.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Amy Miller, Kevin Pina/Frantz Jerome, Janine Bandcroft July 23, 2020

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Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s continuing efforts, NOT broadcast live from CFUV Radio in the basement of the Student Union Building at the University of Victoria, but emanating live-to-tape via skype from our home-based … studio on this date, July 20th, 2020.

This month marks the tenth anniversary of the infamous police riots that rocked the Toronto G20 manifestations. As Portland, Oregon suffers police ministrations reminiscent of the tactics deployed against citizens in Toronto back then.

Amy Miller in the first half.

And; while the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States gains support, actions of the government there make clear, “some black lives matter more than others.” Despite wide-spread global travel bans, the US continues to deport foreign nationals, in many cases to countries whose health care systems are already challenged.

Kevin Pina is a filmmaker, journalist, lecturer and media consultant. His documentary film credits include: ‘Haiti: Harvest of Hope,’ and ‘HAITI: We Must Kill the Bandits.’ And, Frantz Jerome is a Haitian-American political and human rights activist who has worked for democracy in Haiti since the seventies and the first Duvalier dictatorship. The retired college professor now serves as country expert for Pacifica Radio’s Flashpoints program.

Kevin Pina and Frantz Jerome on Haitians coping with Covid and more in the second half.

And; long-time Gorilla Radio contributor and Green Vegan Grandma Youtuber, Janine Bandcroft will be there at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with some of the good things to be gotten up to in and around our town in the coming week. But first, revisiting 2010 and the G20 with independent journalist and documentary filmmaker, Amy Miller.