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http://www.BreakForNews.com/Polio-Population-Control.htm
Since then a number of articles, interviews and opinion pieces have appeared in various local papers as well as Internet websites discussing the issue. The aetiology, epidemiology, pathogenesis, clinical manifestation and prophylaxis of poliomyelitis, as well as the risks this may entail have adequately been covered in these efforts and require no repetition here.
The main thrust of this contribution, therefore, is to attempt to shed more light on the concerns raised by the SCSN and others before and after it based on established facts from the past and present. Do the facts on the ground suffice for anyone to make allegations of ulterior motives against the sponsors of an otherwise commendable effort at eradicating a serious condition such as polio? Is there a real cause for concern or is the SCSN only making a mountain out of a molehill?
I shall, in what follows, quote extensively from various articles, opinion pieces, declassified U.S. government documents and books. The reader is advised to note that all emphases, in italics, are mine.
Demographics and the Politics of Population Control:
The wealth and development potential of any particular country is defined in terms of its human as well as natural resources. The relatively recent examples of Japan and the so-called "Asian tiger economies" provide ample proof that as long as its human resources are adequately harnessed, a country’s development need not be hampered by scarcity or non-availability of natural assets.
The realization of the importance of human resources explains the proliferation, in the modern age, of all manner of population groups, commissions, agencies and programmes aimed in some countries at controlling population growth whilst in others the target is promoting same. It is ironic that while the industrialized nations of the West spend billions annually to bombard the nations of the "Third World" with malthusian propaganda and sponsoring programmes aimed at reducing their population, they are busy trying to maintain, if not increase, population growth at home.
In 1922, Lothrop Stoddard, Harvard academic and a leading expert on demographics in his day, authored "The Rising Tide of Color against White World Supremacy". In this book which has, alongside Adolf Hitler’s "Mein Kampf", since become a major contender to the title of the racial supremacists’ bible, Stoddard ventures that: "the world-wide struggle between the primary races of mankind - the 'conflict of color,' as it has been happily termed - bids fair to be the fundamental problem of the twentieth century, and great communities like the United States of America, the South African Confederation, and Australasia regard the 'color question' as perhaps the gravest problem of the future." He exults over "the overwhelming preponderance of the white race in the ordering of the world's affairs" at the turn of the century adding that: "Judged by accepted canons of statecraft, the white man towered the indisputable master of the planet. Forth from Europe's teeming mother hive the imperious Sons of Japhet had swarmed for centuries to plant their laws, their customs, and their battle-flags at the uttermost ends of the earth. Two whole continents, North America and Australia, had been made virtually as white in blood as the European motherland; two other continents, South America and Africa, had been extensively colonized by white stocks; while even huge Asia had seen its empty northern march, Siberia, pre-empted for the white man's abode."
The book, however, was written in an attempt forewarn about the foreboding loss of this supremacy enjoyed by his race. Thus, he ends by exhorting that efforts have to be made to, at least maintain the status quo of that age whereby: "of the 53,000,000 square miles which (excluding the polar regions) constitute the land area of the globe, only 6,000,000 square miles had non-white governments, and nearly two-thirds of this relatively modest remainder was represented by China and its dependencies."
It is worth noting that Stoddard was, at the time of the book’s publication, a sitting member of the Board of Directors of the American Birth Control League (ABCL), the precursor to what is today the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA). Of the many population groups having demographics in their sphere of interest in the United States today, the Population Council, established over forty years ago by the Rockefeller family, is one of the most respectable and influential. This body is a recipient of annual grants in excess of 20 million dollars from the United Nations, governments of the U.S. and eight other developed countries, the World Bank, as well as numerous other private foundations. The Council’s Centre for Policy Studies is headed by Paul Demeny, an "expert on reproductive politics". Modern day zeitgeist of "political correctness" would clearly consider the characteristic brusqueness of Stoddard’s day unacceptable. Therefore in one of his reports titled ‘International Aspects of Population Policies’, Demeny limits himself to the observation that "relative demographic weights tend to translate into relative political and economic power," to put forward the argument that "the present pattern of demographic growth differentials in the world represents a serious long-term problem from the point of view of the slower growing nations."
A perfunctory study of the "demographic growth differentials" he was referring to shows that while the average fertility rate for most African women, for example, is at least six children, the average Western woman has fewer than two. If one considers that the average number of children accruing to a family in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is seven compared to just 1.3 in Germany, the demographic giant of Europe, then the "demographic dilemma" which has been the focus of many projections, speculations, and even so-called "threat papers" is brought into its proper perspective. The fear is that the hegemony the West had thus far been enjoying in exploiting the resources of the "developing/Third World" would stop if the population balance is allowed to shift according to current trends. Perhaps nowhere is this trepidation more succinctly stated than in the March 1977 CIA report titled "Political Perspective on Key Global Issues", declassified in response to a Freedom of Information Act request in January 1995. Herein it was stated that "world population growth is likely to contribute, directly or indirectly, to domestic upheavals and international conflicts that could adversely affect U.S. interests. Population growth will also reinforce the politicization of international economic relations and intensify the drive of less-developed countries for a redistribution of wealth and of authority in international affairs." This "redistribution", they would obviously rather avoid.
The same concerns are expressed by Stephen D. Mumford, a retired military officer turned researcher. In his ‘Population Growth Control: The Next Move is America's’ (1977), Mumford opined that: "clearly, an effort of unprecedented proportions is required to halt world population growth. Without massive intervention the world's course over the next 50 years is now clear. The stakes are high and so is the risk of losing. Massive intervention is an absolute must -- our survival is at stake." In an interview he later granted to the BBC, he admitted that George Bush (Snr.), who was head of the CIA when the book was written, had told him that it accurately reflected his (Bush's) own view, as well as the official position of the CIA.
Almost twenty years later, he is echoed by a former Deputy Director for Intelligence at the CIA Ray S. Cline, who in his 1994 book about the relationship between power and population, ‘The Power of nations in the 1990s: A Strategic Assessment’, warned that: "the greatest population growth -- indeed most of it -- will occur in the economically undeveloped regions of the Southern Hemisphere in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The implications of these facts are clear enough ..." More recently, in an essay published in the December 1994 edition of ‘The Atlantic Monthly’ Matthew Connelly and Paul Kennedy of the Department of History at Yale argued that "the key global problem" for the immediate future is what they termed "unbalanced" demographic trends. They decried the "demographic suicide" being committed by the nations of Europe and North America, "which contained more than 22 percent of the world's population in 1950, [and] will contain less than 20 percent by 2025". Coupled with high birth rates and potential economic progress in "some of the poor regions of the globe" the authors expressed apprehensions that this would set in motion a trend which will result in "the economic and political balances of power" moving away from today's allied powers.
If such revelations could be dismissed by some as mere academic speculations or even hear-say, declassified U.S. government documents can not. And the story they tell is no different. Measures to control population growth in less-developed regions were suggested by Gen. William Draper’s presidential panel as far back as in 1959. This panel proposed that organised birth control activities should at once be made part of U.S. intervention abroad. Then in 1974, President Richard Nixon, acting on the advice of his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, directed that a study be undertaken on the impact of world population growth on U.S. security and overseas interests. The study, in which the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Department of Agriculture contributed, was aimed to look forward at least up till the year 2000. Accordingly, the infamous document titled ‘National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests’ was drafted and submitted by December of the same year. Since it was declassified and released in July1989, it has assumed its rightful place in the hall of shame of U.S. foreign policy. The NSSM 200 study noted that the data on availability of vital natural resources globally points to a trend of increasing dependence of all the industrialized countries on imports from less developed countries, and that while the "basic physical sufficiency'' presents no problem, the major concern would be the "politico-economic issues of access, terms for exploration and exploitation, and division of the benefits among producers, consumers and host country governments.''
It continued that in cases where political instability and/or policies unfavorable to the U.S. are allowed "concessions to foreign companies are likely to be expropriated or subjected to arbitrary intervention. Whether through government action, labor conflicts, sabotage, or civil disturbance, the smooth flow of needed materials will be jeopardized. Although population pressure is obviously not the only factor involved, these types of frustrations are much less likely under conditions of slow or zero population growth.''
Considering that the U.S., like other developed countries "will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries" the conclusion was reached that this "gives the U.S. enhanced interest in the political, economic, and social stability of the supplying countries. Wherever a lessening of population pressures through reduced birth rates can increase the prospects for such stability, population policy becomes relevant to resource supplies and to the economic interests of the United States.''
To this end, the 1974 memorandum targeted for massive population control campaigns 13 "key countries'' - India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey, Ethiopia and Colombia - where they perceived a "special U.S. political and strategic interest." It would be erroneous, indeed na?ve, to assume that these policies have been shelved by subsequent administrations since the 1970s. In fact, as a report made to the U.S. Army as recently as in the early 90s cites the example of the apartheid regime of South Africa to demonstrate the importance of population control. According to that report, it was easy for the system to effectively control the black majority when the ratio of blacks to whites was four-to one. As the black population grew and that of whites dwindled, it became "considerably more costly and more difficult to maintain the status quo" leading to an eventual collapse of the apartheid establishment when blacks and "coloureds" outnumbered whites nine-to-one. In full realisation that they would inevitably eventually be forced from power, the white government was forced to seek a compromise solution. Presently it may be noted that it is this same fear of "population pressure" that is indubitably the driving motif behind Israel’s attempts at mass annihilation of Palestinians coupled with incentives for more Jewish immigration and births.
This issue dominates on the agenda of Europe’s strategists as well. The ‘European Economic Community Resolution (No.C127/78) on Measures to Promote Population Growth’ passed by its parliament in 1984 admits the serious concerns of Europe’s leaders on "recent statistics showing a rapid decline in the total fertility rates in the EEC" and admonished that: "unless steps are taken to reverse this trend, the population of the Europe of Ten will account for only 4.5 percent of the total world population by the year 2000 and only 2.3 percent by 2025, as opposed to 8.8 percent in 1950." This concern was premised on the fact that: "Europe's standing and influence in the world depend largely on the vitality of its population" and that "population trends in Europe will have a decisive effect on the development of Europe and will determine the significance of the role which Europe will plan in the world in future decades."
The concern was further expressed by non other than President Jacques Chirac of France that the technologically advanced weaponry they had hitherto employed might will prove inadequate in keeping the West’s economic and political stranglehold on the rest of the world in place as long this demographic trend is allowed to continue. He was quoted, in the aforementioned piece by Connelly and Kennedy, to have remarked not long ago that: "When you compare Europe with the other continents, it's terrifying. In demographic terms, Europe is disappearing. Twenty or so years from now our countries will be empty, and no matter what our technological power, we shall be incapable of putting it to use."
Fortunately, a sober appreciation of the issues can also be found on the other side of Stoddard’s "conflict of color". In the words of one Kishore Mahbubani of the Singaporean Foreign Ministry, also quoted in the same article: "Simple arithmetic demonstrates Western folly". Criticizing what he termed the "siege mentality" of the West, he adds that: "The West has 800 million people; the rest make up almost 4.7 billion.... no Western society would accept a situation where 15 percent of its population legislated for the remaining 85 percent." The truth, it is said, stings the ears. To white supremacist "experts" like Stoddard, Demeny, Kennedy, Connelly, Mumford, and Cline as well as their political brethren Nixon, Kissinger, Bush, Chirac and their ilk, no other truth could sting harsher.
Lessons from History:
If anything, history has repeatedly shown the governments of the United States and its European allies, as well as the various corporate interests that help prop them, have no limit on how low it can and will stoop in pursuit of what it conceives as policy objectives. Perhaps the most poignant reminder of this in relatively recent history is what has come to be known as the "Tuskegee Experiments". Starting in 1932 and spanning 40 (!) years more than 430 black men – mostly labourers and sharecroppers - who were clinically diagnosed with syphilis were deceived by the U.S. Public Health Service into believing they were receiving free medical care for their "bad blood". In reality, they were used as human guinea-pigs in what was officially the ‘Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.’ The study closely monitored and evaluated the effects of the ravaging disease - mental illness, paralysis, and subsequently death. To make matters worse, this sadistic experiment continued long after it was discovered in the early 1940s that penicillin could effectively treat the disease. The end came only in July 1972 as it came to U.S-wide national attention when it was made public through the media. The U.S. government was subsequently forced to pay $10 million in compensation to victims and their heirs, but never admitted to, or apologized for any wrongdoing. Only in May 1997 did President Clinton officially offer apologies to eight elderly black men who were the only surviving victims. At the White House occasion attended by five of the survivors, Clinton had described the actions of the U.S. government as "shameful".
Unfortunately such shameful acts are the rule rather than the exception – the 1935 "Pellagra Incident" which costs the lives of millions over two decades courtesy of the same U.S. Public Health Service; the malaria study of 1940 in Chicago during which 400 prisoners were intentionally infected with malaria just so as to study the effects of some new experimental drugs (which was incidentally cited by Nazi doctors later on trial at Nuremberg to defend their own actions during the Holocaust); the use of human subjects by the CIA in the late forties in its study on the use of a mind-altering drug they had developed, named LSD, as a potential weapon; the "ethnic weapons" program which according to the journal ‘Military Review’ of November 1970, are designed to selectively target and eliminate specific ethnic groups who are susceptible due to genetic differences and variations in DNA; the admission in 1987 by the American Department of Defense that, despite a treaty banning research and development of biological agents, it continues to operate research facilities at 127 sites and universities across America…. one can go on and on ad nauseam uncovering the dirt beneath the surface of history.
On the surface things are not rosy either. In 1990 more than 1500 six-month old Black and Hispanic babies in Los Angeles were given an "experimental" measles vaccine that had never been licensed for use in the United States. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) was later forced to admit that parents were never informed that the vaccine being injected to their children was experimental. Like the Tuskegee incident, it might take another empathic president, or whomever the unsavoury task falls to, another lifetime to offer apologies to these victims. Just as that day is long off when we would hear the real story behind the use and subsequent effects of biological agents and depleted uranium in the United States’ contemporary military campaigns. For today the U.S. government is in denial although as far back as 1995 Dr. Garth Nicolson, Chief Scientific Officer and Research Professor at the Institute for Molecular Medicine in Huntington Beach, California had uncovered evidence that biological agents, which had been manufactured in Houston, Texas and Boca Raton, Florida and tested on prisoners in the Texas Department of Corrections, were used during the Gulf War.
Senate hearings on Health and Scientific Research as far back as 1977 confirmed that just in the period between 1949 and 1969, a total of 239 populated areas, including Washington, D.C., San Francisco, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Panama City, and Key West had been deliberately contaminated with biological agents. These are the actions of the U.S. establishment with regards to a part of its population, purportedly American citizens, which it considers expendable. Keeping in mind these
historical facts, coupled with the noted "concerns" of the
Western experts and politicians on "population pressure"
and having appreciated the fact that policies are indeed in place
to counter them, with Nigeria identified by the NSSM 200 report as
one of the 13 "key countries" intended for massive depopulation,
we shall now take a look at some of the measures that are evidently
aimed at such a target.
As had been the case with the preceding part of this essay, the reader is advised to note that all emphases (in italics) in the numerous quotations to follow are mine.
Malthusian Propaganda: Different Strokes for Different Folks
Contemporary concerns of Western academics and "population experts" about overpopulation could be regarded as a phenomenon bequeathed from their ancient predecessors. Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle warned of what they conceived as its dangers. Their Roman counterpart Tertullian went a bit further – in his view the occurrence of natural catastrophes should be considered a "blessing" as they help curb overpopulation. Such views were however, largely fringe and came into mainstream Western thought only after the advent of Thomas Malthus, who is credited with making the issue of population a topic of scholarly discussion.
Published in six editions between 1798 and 1826, Thomas Malthus’ "Essay on the Principle of Population" has since become the locus classicus major in the arsenal of various proponents of population control under one guise or the other. In this odious work, Malthus argues that since human population tended to increase by multiplication while the means of sustenance increased only incrementally, the rate of population growth should be restricted otherwise the natural course of events would lead to an elimination of what he termed "redundant" people through hunger and disease. In consonance with Tertullian, Malthus found nothing wrong in allowing the children of the poor to die of want, since he viewed this only as nature's way of ensuring the survival the affluent class to which he belonged.
Perhaps the most chilling of Malthus’ observations was his insistence that under no circumstances should the living conditions of the lower classes be alleviated, since this is what ensures that they remain satisfied with puny wages without which what he considered the "necessary stimulus to industry" – outrageously cheap labour - would be lost. Fortunately for him, ‘political correctness’ was not an issue in Malthus’ day; otherwise he would not have remained the parson that he was in the Church of England.
The casuistry in Malthus’ theory has since been proven beyond doubt. However, for the sake of argument, we shall for the moment assume it to be correct since it, by and large, serves as the premise on which the argument of a "need" for family planning/population control in developing countries is based.
Since Malthus’ argumentum is that of an inadequacy of the means of sustenance under conditions of uncontrolled population growth, it would be safe to surmise that in any given place and situation, the "need for elimination of redundant people" should be directly proportional to the population: resource ratio.
Germany , for example, with a population of 82,081,365 people (2000 estimate) living in an area of 356,970 square kilometres, has a whopping 230 persons per square kilometre. In comparison, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has a population of 51,987,773 (2000) on a land mass of 2,344,885 square kilometres. This gives it a density of 22 persons per square kilometre. It is indubitable that, speaking in terms of natural resources and hence economic potential, Germany does not stand a chance in comparison with the DRC. In the fact that Germany expends an estimated $30 million annually on population control in countries like the DRC while paying incentives to its own people to boost population growth we thus find the quintessential non sequitur. One would have loved to hear Malthus’ assessment.
This scenario plays itself out again and again when one considers other European countries in contrast with their African counterparts. 2002 estimates show that Africa ’s most populous, and amongst its most densely populated countries – Nigeria - for instance, has 141 people per square kilometre; Uganda has 105; Ethiopia 60; Kenya 53, Guinea 32; Zambia 13; Central African Republic 5.8 and Gabon 4.6. Notwithstanding the tendency towards a decline in population, the corresponding figures for Europe are - 244 in Britain ; 337 in Belgium ; 387 for the Netherlands ; 192 in Italy and 177 in Switzerland . Mean values for the continents are: Asia – 78; Europe – 52; South America – 28; Africa – 25; North America - 12 and Australia/Oceania – 3.5 people per square kilometre.
Therefore, considering the fact that the average population density of the habitable land area of the planet is about 44 persons per square kilometre, only Asia and Europe are above average. If one discounts the south Asian Bengali region – which by itself has 774 persons per square kilometre, and Japan (336 persons per square kilometre), Europe is left as the sole "overpopulated" region of the world. If Malthusianism is the name of their game, the advocates of population control are not playing by the rules.
The bottom line is that Africa has more potential – both in terms of arable land and the natural resources beneath it - than other parts of the planet. Its population, on the other hand, is conspicuously low, by any standards. Covering a fifth of the land area of the planet, Africa is home to only 13% of its inhabitants.
No doubt under the guidance of the policies of its major stakeholders, the World Bank is currently at the forefront of attempts to compel developing countries to embrace population control policies and programmes. It is ironic that while the Bank itself does not posit that population control is necessary for development, it still insists on birth control as a de rigueur prerequisite for obtaining development loans.
A casual perusal of the numerous publications of the World Bank, from its annual development reports to various specialised studies, reveals that Africa - the continent towards which a substantial proportion of these population policies are directed - is well endowed with resources and "so far only a fraction of this wealth has been extracted." Of the estimated arable one-third of the land-mass in Sub-Saharan Africa, only a meagre 6 per-cent is in actual use as a result of many areas being "substantially underpopulated." In the 1990 Development Report, the Bank even admits "that population growth has long-term advantages for African development."
Another World Bank publication, ‘Population and the World Bank - Adapting to Change’ (2000) states that: "Most of the increase in global population over the last four decades has occurred in developing countries, and future increases are projected to occur in the poorest of these, mainly in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the pressures of rapid population increase, developing countries have made substantial progress in improving living standards. Average incomes per person in the developing world have doubled in twenty-five years. This took nearly forty years in the U.S. and more than sixty in the U.K. " The study further emphasizes that: "There is little evidence that population growth in and of itself causes poverty."
Views of a similar nature were expressed by M.C. Azusu of the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Ibadan at the end of a National Symposium on ‘Family Planning, Birth Control and Western Imperialism’ (Ibadan, October 1992): "Every society in the world, from primitive ages, needs a certain child survival level to attain desirable population density before such a society can technologically develop. Most African countries have not attained that population density, and that is part of the reason that they are poor."
Writing along the same themes was Walter Rodney who had, two decades earlier in his widely acclaimed and edifying ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’, discussed the issue in graphic and lucid detail. Rodney points out that by far the most significant consequence of the slave trade was depopulation which lead to a subsequent weakening of the African continent that rendered it prone to colonisation and exploitation in later years.
Rodney writes that no accurate measurements of the continent’s population existed at the beginning of the trans-Atlantic trade in the 15th century. At its height in the 17th century however, the estimated population of the African continent was a hundred million compared to Europe ’s 103 million. By the Abolitionist era in the late 19th century, the population of Europe , despite emigration to the "new world", stood at an estimated 400 million while that of Africa was just 120.
While "population growth played a major role in European development in providing labour, markets, and the pressures which led to further advances", Rodney also noted that deprived of its "effective labouring population", the African continent could naturally not be expected to develop under such circumstances. "In effect," he concludes, "enslavement was causing them to lose their battle to tame and harness nature -- a battle which is at the basis of development."
Centuries later, in an attempt to maintain the advantages slavery and colonialism had given, from the consequences of which the African continent is yet to recover; the Western world continues to bombard us with discredited Malthusian hogwash to the effect that our salvation lies in further depleting our numbers.
To make matters worse for those determined to maintain Western economic dominance, the fact that, their efforts notwithstanding, population on the African continent is steadily increasing while that of Europe declines is not the least of their headaches. Declining fertility rates have led to a gradual ageing of their populace, giving rise to an even more dismal prognosis.
An October 16, 1993 report in the Economist laments the trend of increased social security spending in Britain with each passing year. It points out that as the population ages and fewer children are born, the elderly are increasingly becoming a large portion of the total population, and whilst they do not contribute to economic growth, their needs are increasingly accounting for a greater share of the annual budget.
According to a table titled: ‘Population/Reproductive Health Indicators’, appended (as annex 10) to the aforementioned ‘Population and the World Bank - Adapting to Change’ study, it is anticipated that by the year 2025 only 17 per cent of the British population would be below 15 years of age while 28 per cent would be above 60. The United States would have 19% below 15, with 27% above 60. Sample corresponding figures for the other industrially advanced countries are: Japan - 14% under 15 vs. 34% over 60; Sweden – 16 vs. 30%; Italy - 13 vs. 32% and Canada – 16 vs. 30%. In contrast, the figures for some of the countries of the "Third World" are: Nigeria – 35% vs.5%; Cameroon 33 vs. 6%; Kenya 29 vs. 6%; Senegal – 35 vs. 5%; Pakistan – 30 vs. 8%; Philippines – 25 vs. 11%; Sri Lanka - 21 vs. 17%; India 24 vs. 12%; Panama – 23 vs. 15%; Mexico – 23 vs. 13%; Paraguay 26 vs. 10%; Argentina – 22 vs. 17% and Brazil – 23% under 15 vs. 14% over the age of 60.
Analysis of these figures reveals that in a quarter of a century whilst the nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America could look forward to an average of over 60% of their populations in the "economically-active" age group (those between the ages of 15 - 60), Europe will have to make do with just over 50%. To make matters worse, the future outlook is even bleaker for them. For their demographic potential, as expressed by the percentage of those in the under-15 age group, stands on average at 15%. In sharp contrast, that of Africa is way above the 30% mark, while the Asian and Latin American countries have an average demographic potential of 25%. The "nightmare" scenario – that of "The Rising Tide of Color against White World Supremacy" envisaged by Lothrop Stoddard in his 1922 book of the same title could not have been more germanely enunciated than in these figures.
Family Planning vs. Population Control: Heads we win; tails you lose
Despite the cornucopia of evidence suggesting that the peoples of the "Third World" are - for a variety of reasons ranging from religious to cultural, political to ethical – overwhelmingly opposed to the arguments of the industrially developed nations on the need for population control, the efforts directed at this target are far from subsiding. Indeed, there is no shortage of proof, in the form of publicly circulated material as well as declassified documents, to show that those at the head of these efforts are quite aware of this opposition.
In a late 80s publication the World Bank avers that in many parts of the African continent, people still "find it in their interests to have large families. Children provide reliable help around the farm and support and protect their parents in old age", and adds that the African tradition of extended families ensures that the attendant costs and responsibilities are widely shared with the overall result being "most African couples want and have large families." Another study notes that "Few Africans are yet persuaded of the advantages of smaller families; they see land as abundant and labor as scarce."
Alas! For the pontifical advanced nations the rest of us are, and shall hopefully forever remain, non compos mentis. In order to mask the real motive, the Malthusian sophistry of population control is thus repackaged and re-issued in the name of "family planning". But as Kingsley Davis, a former Director of International Population and Urban Research at the UCLA observed in 1967: "The things that make family planning acceptable are the very things that make it ineffective for population control. By stressing the right of parents to have the number of children they want, it evades the basic question of population policy, which is how to give societies the number of children they need."
The covert efforts of the United States and its European allies at controlling population growth in Nigeria and other " Third World " countries are now mostly directed through the auspices of the United Nations and its affiliate agencies, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other such "humanitarian" and "aid" organisations. If these were to prove ineffectual in any given situation, there always remains the option of blackmail through the World Bank’s policy of making their "aid" contingent on requirements of birth and fertility control.
Hence the United States ’ government championed the cause of establishment of a Population Commission within the UN in its early days. Of considerable interest is the fact that a little earlier, in 1944, a leading associate of the Milbank Memorial Fund in New York presented a paper titled ‘Problems of Policy in Relation to Areas of Heavy Population Pressure’. Therein, the author expressly acknowledged that the political and economic development of the nations of the southern hemisphere depended not only on their natural wealth, but also on the policies of the dominant powers towards these countries. In view of growing nationalist tendencies and the resurgent drive towards political and economic independence, he argues that the past policies of these dominant countries have failed to ward off "critical situations". Thus, he recommends, that alternative measures are necessary in order to maintain the status quo.
The alternative measures being referred to included, amongst others no less execrable, population control. To achieve this, the use of widespread propaganda aimed at encouraging new societal norms favouring small families and the recruitment of a political leadership that will "acquire new values rapidly and serve as a medium for their diffusion" amongst the populace is advocated. Failure to do this, he warns, will result in a radicalized Third World and "population pressures", the only "escape" from which will have to be programmes of pacification and modernisation with the attendant unwanted effect of strengthening the less-developed regions, thereby leaving the industrialized and hitherto dominant countries with "a progressively smaller proportion of the world's wealth and power." The author of these views was one Frank Notestein, a demographer at New Jersey ’s Princeton University . Of all people, this was the "expert" the United States chose to head the new UN Population Commission.
Having chosen the right man for the job, an appropriate plan of action was required. The plan, dubbed the United Nations’ World Population Plan of Action (WPPA) was adopted at the Third United Nations World Population Conference which took place in Bucharest , Romania in August 1974. This conference markedly differed from the first two, held at Rome and Belgrade in the August-September periods of 1954 and 1965 respectively, in that representatives of governments and policy makers participated alongside the demographic experts who had heretofore been the exclusive participants. As it turned out, this was done in order to allow for the presentation of the United States ’ formulated WPPA for approval by the delegates. Howbeit, based on religious and ethical concerns, the African, Arab, Latin American, Holy See, as well as the socialist bloc delegations were opposed to the proposal. Nonetheless, as it so often happens, the WWPA was approved due to support from the industrialised nations. The stage was thus set for a confrontation between the dominant powers who have taken it upon themselves to administer the bitter pill to the contumacious minor – the Third World – that is, albeit in "need" of the treatment, stubbornly refusing to submit.
Perhaps none epitomises the ongoing struggle faced by developing countries in an attempt to shake off forced population control as the example of Senegal, a predominantly Muslim African country. Under statutes of its criminal law, up until the late 80s, Senegal had strictly forbidden the use of birth control drugs and devices. However, under the auspices of various organisations, most prominent of which is the Association Senegalaise pour le Bien-Etre Familial (ASBEF), the United States had been, beginning in the mid 60s, financing population control in that country. Acting indirectly through the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the United States , in clear violation of the human rights of these people as well as the laws of their sovereign state, provided funds for "Senegalese family planning" organisations such as the ASBEF to, amongst other things, implant intra-uterine devices into thousands of unsuspecting Senegalese women without their consent.
By the late 80s, as the World Bank prepared to legalise and hopefully widen these efforts, the Columbia University of New York was contracted by USAID to conduct a survey on the attitudes of Senegalese women towards birth control. The outcome of this study was that none of nearly 600 women interviewed in health centers nationwide expressed any willingness to use "modern" birth control. Over a decade of costly funding had thus gone down the drain. In spite of this, it appears that this has only made the U.S. even more determined to pursue the project. Thus Senegal, whose population is smaller than that of Los Angeles or New York City, now represents a serious objective in America's population control drive - a sort of ‘laboratory’ in which its methods directed at all of francophone West Africa can be tested.
The Senegalese case does not stand alone in demonstrating instances where, despite the fact that a sovereign state is coerced into implementing a birth control policy against its needs and the wishes of its people, supplementary means are contrived to ensure that this "family planning" is enforced, thus hedging the bets of colossal expenditure on population control.
U.S. government records and press reports reveal that since the beginning of the U.S. population programme in the mid-1960s, huge numbers of Asian and Latin American women have undergone involuntary sexual sterilization. From Bangladesh to Brazil , the Dominican Republic to India and Indonesia millions have been rendered barren without their consent. Brazilian government statistics and reports in prominent Brazilian media outlets suggest that an estimated one-third to almost half of the country's women have been sterilized surreptitiously, courtesy of USAID.
The U.S. government as well as the numerous population groups are constantly funding research into methods of birth control. Recent breakthroughs have given them the wherewithal to successfully end an unsuspecting victim’s reproductive life under conditions resembling a gynecological clinical examination. In fact the procedure is so simple that in Vietnam some authors report that they have been increasingly carried out by nurses and paramedical personnel quite efficiently. All that it required is insertion of a few pellets containing quinacrine, an antimalarial and anthelmintic drug, into the uterus. The resulting fibrosis (formation of scar tissue) within the womb ensures barrenness.
The fact that it can be used to accomplish clandestine sterilisation on a massive scale no doubt makes quinacrine a useful weapon in the hands of eugenicists. Quinacrine sterilisation is, however, fraught with medical complications – the risk of infection, cancer, ectopic pregnancy, digestive disturbances, potentially fatal internal haemorrhage, and even toxic psychosis (a form of chemically-induced insanity) have all been associated with the method. Not surprisingly, it has been banned in some countries. But going by their antecedents, one should not expect this to stop those whose apparent mission in life is "planning" other people’s families.
On March 16, 1997 the Sunday Times of India reported the incidence of "clinical trials" by "a number of unscrupulous doctors" largely sponsored "by two U.S. doctors, Stephen Mumford and Elton Kessel (both head single-man NGOs), who receive funds from the right-wing anti-immigration lobby in America which believes that population explosion in third world will consume their resources, overrun their borders and ultimately cause a crisis in their country." The recollection that this is indeed the very same Stephen Mumford we had earlier alluded to (in Part I) - the former U.S military officer now involved in research; whose 1977 book: ‘Population Growth Control: The Next Move is America's’ accurately reflected the official position of the CIA as well as that of its then Director George Bush - puts in place many missing pieces in our puzzle.
We have thus seen how and when population control has been, and is still being, imposed and implemented in various "Third World" countries – covertly and overtly – by the U.S., its allies in the industrialized West, and their proxies. In the concluding part of this contribution we shall take a look at the imposition and implementation of these same policies in Nigeria and the conclusions we may draw from current events. Oroginal at I and IISOURCES Part1: 1. Baobab Press:
"What’s Fair for One……" Vol.1, No.17, 1991.
1. Baobab Press: "Phantom Sterilizations: The Quinacrine Story". Volume 3, Number 23, 1993. 2. Baobab Press: "Population Control for Francophone West Africa ". Volume 2, Number 33, 1992. 3. Hieu D.T., Tan T.T., Tan D.N., Nguyet P.T., Than P. and Vinh D.O.: "31,781 cases of non-surgical female sterilization with quinacrine pellets in Vietnam ." Lancet, 342, pgs: 213-17; 1993. 4. Kessel E., Zipper J. and Mumford S.D. (Eds.): "The quinacrine pellet method for non-surgical female sterilization: a collection of background materials." Research Triangle Park , NC : Center for Research on Population and Security, 1990. 5. Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2001 entries for: "Africa", "California", Congo, Democratic Republic of the", "Germany, Federal Republic of", "New York", "Senegal". Microsoft Corporation 1993-2000. 6. "Population and the World Bank - Adapting to Change". Revised Edition. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, 1818 H Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20433, U.S.A. 2000. http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/hnp/overview/overview.htm 7. Robey B., Rutstein S.O., Morris L., and Blackburn R.: "The reproductive revolution: new survey findings." Popul. Rep. [M] No.11. Baltimore , MD : Population Information program, 1992. 8. Sakina Yusuf Khan : "Women are guinea pigs in contraceptive trial". Sunday Times. The Times of India News Service, Mumbai, March 16, 1997 . 9. Sokal D.C., Zipper J., Guyman-Serani R., Aldrich T.E: "Cancer Risk among women sterilized with transcervical Quinacrine hydrochloride pellets, 1977 to 1991". Fertil. Steril. 64, pgs: 325-334; 1995. 10. The John Hopkins Program for International Education in Gynaecology and obstetrics: "Dr. Rohit Bhatt of India Relates Experiences." JHPIEGO Newsletter, Vol IV, No. 3, October 1979. 11. Thomas Malthus: "Essay on the Principle of Population". Penguin English Library USA , June 1983. 12. Walter Rodney: "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa ". Revised Edition. Howard University Press, December 1981. 13. World Bank Policy Research Bulletin: "Population policies for Sub-Saharan Africa" Volume 5, Number 5, November-December 1994. http://www.worldbank.org/html/dec/Publications/Bulletins/PRBvol5no5.html
14. World Wide Web population resources: http://www.geography.about.com http://www.nationmaster.com http://www.photius.com/wfb1999/rankings/population_density_0.html
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density BreakForNews 9 August, 2004 |
Unlike
the West, AIDS in Africa is diagnosed without any laboratory tests.
Patients are classified as AIDS cases without laboratory proof that
they have either immunodeficiency or HIV infection. All that is required
is to have various clinical conditions. However
in Africa, AIDS is diagnosed according to common non-specific symptoms,
such as cough, fever, diarrhea, tuberculosis (TB) and a cancer called
Kaposi's sarcoma. Of the
661 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, 2-3 million have active
TB with an annual mortality of 790,000. Despite this and the fact
that in adults, "HIV infection" usually follows TB infection, TB has
now become an AIDS defining illness. |
Introduction:
On July 26, 2003 the
President of the Supreme Council for Shari’a in Nigeria (SCSN)
addressed a press conference at the Arewa House in Kaduna. Amongst
the issues raised at this event were the strong reservations the SCSN
had on the widely publicized polio eradication programme being undertaken
nationwide. 
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