Icelandic Government to Ban Imports of Latin American Cacao Products, Levy Fines Against Businesses Engaging in Retail of Newly Banned Substance

 

During an emergency session yesterday, the Icelandic alþingi introduced legislation which has left many restaurateurs in the sparsely-populated island in shock, moving to ban the sale of cacao and other natural, dark chocolate products.

Björn Leví Gunnarsson, a member of the Pirate Party, decried the newly-passed legislation as an affront to democracy, stating that "this legislation was clearly passed at the behest of big business interests who want to monopolize the chocolate market with their own products, many of which are produced under deplorable conditions."

Ásmundur Einar Daðason, a member of the Progressive Party, disagreed with remarks made by his colleagues in parliament, stressing that "the legislation was passed in response to recent reports that chocolate contains high contents of cadmiun and lead."

A recent article in the New York Times, "Do I Need to Avoid Dark Chocolate Now?" quoted Melissa Melough, an assistant professor of behavioral health and nutrition at the University of Delaware, wherein she stressed that, “if you’re a regular consumer of these dark chocolates, I would be concerned,”

The jury isn't out yet on how this decision will be received by the Icelandic public, but one regular consumer of cacao told Abreu Report: "They [the Icelandic government] have a complete monopoly on alcohol sales, and this appears to be yet another attempt by the government to monopolize the sale of a product that is beloved by many people who enjoy its healing energy. This appears to be nothing but a cash grab by the government, and I'm disappointed in the fact that I'll have to buy my cacao at Vínbúðin now."

CIA Conducted Biological Weapons Experiments in The New York City Subway as Part of Project MK-NAOMI

Starting in 1952 and allegedly concluding in 1970, the Central Intelligence Agency undertook a highly-secretive project to develop a dart gun which could administer super-secret poisons or biological and biochemical agents, as reported by the New York Times in 1975.
Will microbioinoculate you. UPI

Former CIA Director William Colby told the US Congress that the agency's dart gun, or "nondiscernible microbioinoculator," was electrically-powered but fashioned after the Army's Colt semi-automatic pistol.

Unlike the Army's pistols, however, the CIA's dart gun was not meant to be used openly against combatants on the field of battle, but rather in crowded cities, under the cloak of secrecy, and against non-combatants.

There are reports that CIA agents involved in Project MK-NAOMI trained in using their dart guns in the New York City subway during rush hour, with commuters remaining completely unaware that an assassin was training in their midst.

Not only did the CIA use American citizens as shooting targets, the agency flooded the New York City subway with "a harmless stimulant of disease-carrying gas." According to the New York Times, the CIA was stockpiling and using these toxins even as President Richard Nixon ordered against it, showing that the agency considered itself not to be just above the law, but also the White House itself.

The Times went on to further detail that the CIA bioweapons stockpile developed as part of Project MK-NAOMI included agents which could induce tuberculosis, encephalitis, smallpox, "food poisoning that appeared to be botulism," and a diabolical list of other horrifying killers from the Middle Ages.  

In 2010, United Nations forces were alleged to have accidentally dispersed cholera in Haiti, with CNN and other major news organizations calling on the international body to "take responsibility" for the deadly epidemic ravaging the collapsed state. The United Nations denied involvement and has refused to compensate victims, setting a terrifying precedent for the mass dispersal of biological agents on the American continent.

Since the 1970s, carrying out experiments on US soil and with US nationals has become more legally problematic, but no such problematic restrictions exists on foreign soil, in a country without a military or stable government. Recent revelations about the weaponization of cholera have stoked suspicion in Dominican radio that the CIA is using the Haitian population as guinea pigs in the same way that the people of New York City were used.

The United States was behind the coup which took down the democratically-elected government of Bertrand Aristide, and Washington was so adamant about maintaining a strong presence in Haiti that it politely requested that the general in charge of the United Nations peacekeeping force use more bullets to subdue dissidents opposed to the removal of Mr. Aristide.

The CIA is probably not experimenting with its dart gun anymore, which in the 1970s had an effective kill-range of 100 meters [330ft.] There are reports that the agency has developed a dart rifle capable of nondiscernibly microbioinoculating from exponentially longer distances, and which has been used extensively to kill covertly as part of the War on Terror.

Dominican President: "Cover-up" in "Assassination" of Brazilian General who Faced "Intense Pressure from Washington" in Haiti, Secret Documents Expose

It's no secret that the United States wanted Aristide out of Haiti, and to squash any popular mass support movement that could see his return from exile after the 2004 coup that ousted him from power. After Aristide's departure, the United Nations sent a special mission to Haiti -- Minustah -- in order to "restore a secure and stable environment." This generally entailed squashing pro-Aristide rebels and protesters in the impoverished Caribbean island-nation's shanty towns.

The popular uprisings led Washington to call for "robust" action, a directive which was not well received by Minustah's Brazilian head, General Urano Teixeira da Mata Bacellar. According to the Haiti Action Committee, "Bacellar had tense meetings with UN and coup regime officials and the rightwing business elite" of Haiti just before his death, who pressured him to use UN troops to quash any pro-Aristide sentiment in Haiti.

Pres. Aristide
General Bacellar, whose predecessor was replaced after voicing concerns about the introduction of US troops and of facing a potential war crimes trial, took over after Minustah had used tanks and artillery to squash a rebellion against the UN occupation.

Gen. da Mata Bacellar
The Guardian reported that General Bacellar confronted the civilian head of Minustah, informing him that he was unwilling to deploy troops for the occupation of Cite Soleil -- a destitute, densely-populated enclave in Port-au-Prince, the nation's capital. According to The Independent, "the general had insisted that his job was to defend the Haitian constitution, but not to fight crime."    

Then, just one day after Minustah's civilian head announced that UN troops would indeed occupy Cite Soleil, the "happily married man with two children he adored, and a soldier used, in 39 years of service, to pressure far worse than he had seen in his four months in Haiti" put a gun to his mouth and committed "suicide." No one heard a shot, no casing was found, and General Bacellar was apparently in his underwear reading a book.

Shockingly, however, a classified document released by incarcerated former US Private Chelsea Manning reveals that Leonel Fernandez, the ex-President of the Dominican Republic, in  a 75-minute conversation with State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary Patrick Duddy, told the US government that he believed there was a "cover-up of an assassination" in the death of General Bacellar, and that he was "firm" in his belief.

Though the meeting took place just 5 days after General Barcella's death, Secretary Duddy was firm in insisting that the General's death was a "suicide." At first, the death was classified as a "firearms accident" by Brazilian army officials, but the verdict was changed to "suicide" just before the meeting between the Dominican head of state and the American representative. President Fernandez, who had personally met the General, insisted that he thought suicide was unlikely for someone of Barcella's "caliber."

According to the classified document, Fernandez believed that there was in Haiti operating a "small group" killing Minustah soldiers, and that this secretive group had killed "a Canadian and a Jordanian, and now the Brazilian General." Fernandez did not specify where he acquired this information, but said he knew of a case in which "a Brazilian Minustah member had killed a sniper;" a troubling development in a nation where almost no civilian could afford such a weapon. 

Fernandez went on to tell Secretary Duddy that Brazil's at-the-time president, Inacio Lula da Silva, had covered-up the assassination in order to prevent a domestic crisis in Brazil that could dismantle the US mission and squash Lula's aspirations for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. Secretary Duddy then informed President Fernandez that "specific circumstances of the other assassinations in all likelihood ruled out a conspiracy."

Nonetheless, President Fernandez told the US government that during a visit to Port-au-Prince, he had acquired actionable intelligence that anti-Aristide rebel, Guy Phillippe, who "had people working for him inside the National Palace," was actively working against certain foreign interests. During that visit to Port-au-Prince, President Fernandez' entourage was ambushed with machine gun fire, requiring a contingent of Dominican army troops and helicopters aided by Minustah forces to rescue his motorcade. 

At the time, the incident was downplayed in the Dominican media, with there being few reports that Mr. Fernandez was in actual grave danger, but the truth is that situation was "very serious" and Fernandez came within inches of his life. President Fernandez told Secretary Duddy that the snipers who were carrying out assassinations would strike again, and that he had "downplayed" the incident because he feared that whoever had organized the ambush and assassination attempt wanted "chaos" and "the wholesale persecution of Haitians in the Dominican Republic."

Pres. Fernandez bluntly told Secretary Duddy that he believed Minustah troops were not "peacekeeping" but rather "state building."  Mr. Fernandez and Mr. Duddy ended their conversation by discussing the film The Good Shepherd, which was partly filmed in the Dominican Republic and detailed the creation of the CIA by members of Yale University's Skull & Bones secret society. In that movie, individuals under orders from the CIA throw an Angolan KGB spy who had ensnared the son of the chief of the American spy agency out of a plane, sending her to her death in the middle of a dense jungle.

In August of 2015, General José Luiz Jaborandy Júnior, the most recent Brazilian head of Minustah, died of "natural causes" onboard a plane leaving Miami. He was 57 years old.

Source: 1 [Warning to US personnel: public disclosures of classified documents do not alter the documents' classified status or automatically result in declassification of the documents.]

US Intelligence Spied on Dominican Military Attaché, pro-Chavez Group in Dominican Republic, Diplomatic Cable Reveals

A 2005 diplomatic cable sent by US Ambassador Hans Hertell highlights the extent to which the George W. Bush administration was concerned about the government of late President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, going to such lengths as to compile profiles on Dominican citizens involved in the Bolivarian Society of the Dominican Republic, a pro-Chavez group. The cable begins by detailing that although Dominican/Venezuelan relations were cordial and former President Leonel Fernandez praised Chavez in public, Fernandez had confessed to Ambassador Hertell in private that he believed Chavez' politics were "mistaken" and "obsolete," joking to the ambassador that Chavez was "Castro with oil."

Despite President Fernandez criticizing Chavez in private with the American ambassador, it appears nonetheless that the US government remained concerned. This concern was propagated by conservative Dominicans opposed to Fernandez praising Chavez in public. The cable details that: "Conservative political contacts warn us privately that Chavez exerts undesirable influence on President Fernandez and will damage U.S. interests in the Dominican Republic."

Mejia Abreu with Fidel Castro
US scrutiny fell on the Dominican Republic's ambassador to Venezuela, Jose Miguel Mejia Abreu [no relation.] The cable details that Mejia Abreu was "a regular intermediary with Chavez and the Venezuelan authorities." The use of the word "authorities" may differ from "officials," indicating that there were police matters at stake. There is a large Dominican diaspora in Venezuela, and foreign nationals naturally have the right to ask for consular assistance when arrested in a foreign country. 
 
Beyond the fact that Ambassador Mejia Abreu interacted regularly with Chavez in matters involving the authorities, the US cable reveals that he had links to United Left, a group which the confidential document claims was defunct and that Ambassador Hertell describes as a "radical movement." Further, the US worried that Mejia Abreu enjoyed extensive contacts in North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, and China. It becomes apparent that US intelligence built a profile of the Ambassador, and the cable doesn't hide the fact that the State Department tried to determine if Mejia Abreu was of the same ideological ilk as Chavez. 

Though the cable does not mention it, Mejia Abreu detailed in a 2013 interview with el Listin Diario that he was multiple times arrested in the 70s, spending at one point almost three years in prison, for membership in the MPD -- Dominican Popular Movement -- an at-the-time banned organization which had cells throughout the nation, so-called "clandestine revolutionary commands." If US intelligence was aware of Abreu Mejia's ties to the MPD, then perhaps it naturally led them to ponder if similar groups were still active on the island. And indeed, in his 2013 interview with el Listin Diario, Mr. Mejia Abreu claims that he still remains the president of United Left.

The President of the Bolivarian Society of the Dominican Republic [BSDR,] retired Army Major General Hector Lachapelle Diaz, a private Dominican citizen, was mentioned in the US cable. The fact that the US embassy in Santo Domingo is compiling classified cables wherein individuals who have no ties to the US are mentioned, only goes to show the level of surveillance which foreign nationals have to fear when becoming involved in matters that could potentially involve/affect US interests. 

The classified document highlights that although there existed no agreements for information-sharing between the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, the two nations' militaries enjoyed "close ties at senior levels," with the at-the-time commander of the Dominican elite military anti-terrorism unit having trained in Venezuela. This close relationship was compounded by the fact that Venezuela is one of only four countries to post a resident foreign defense attaché to the Dominican Republic. 

Eyes on the camera
The Dominican attaché to Venezuela, Brigadier General Eufemio Torres Mejia, was under such close surveillance that US intelligence even knew with whom he socialized; Ambassador Hertell reported that Torres Mejia did "not socialize with other foreign country attachés in Venezuela, preferring to associate almost exclusively with Venezuelan military." 

Despite his long military tenure, it is extremely difficult to find a picture of Mr. Torres Mejia. He was recently present at a pledge-of-support rally for Luis Abinader, the main political foe of his former party. Even at the rally, the man knew how to keep a low profile, despite being a guest of honor.

When it comes to foreign espionage, it is much more difficult for US intelligence services to spy on foreign leaders inside of the US. However, US laws don't apply in foreign countries; thus, a CIA agent -- who is constrained by US law from operating on US soil -- can simply follow around a senior citizen exercising democracy in his country, as is the case with Mr. Lachapelle Diaz. More worryingly, it becomes apparent that private citizens, having private conversation in settings which they believe are private, can be subjected not only to tracking on the part of the US, but that those conversations can be transcribed for posterity by the might of the US Department of State. 

More worryingly, the Dominican Republic is a friendly nation to the United States, for US intelligence to spy on the social activities of Dominican military officials in their foreign capacities denotes a lack of trust that may in the end simply build more anti-Americanism than it does American goodwill.

Source: Wikileaks [Warning to US personnel: public disclosures of classified documents do not alter the documents' classified status or automatically result in declassification of the documents.]