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    Max Blumenthal: Why did Amnesty UK, Bellingcat and White Helmets sabotage Roger Waters webinar on Archived Message

    Posted by sashimi on October 14, 2020, 9:32 am

    - corporate pollution?

    (quote)
    The Grayzone obtained audio of a call in which Roger Waters confronted
    Amnesty leadership over efforts by Syria regime-change operatives -
    including its own staff - to sabotage an Amazon Watch webinar on
    Chevron's pollution of Ecuador.

    The campaign manager of Amnesty International UK, Kristyan Benedict,
    appears to have removed an Amnesty International tweet announcing an
    Amazon Watch webinar to raise awareness both of Chevron's pollution of
    an indigenous region of Ecuador and the company's ruthless persecution
    of environmental lawyer Steven Donzinger.

    A hardline advocate of Western intervention in Syria, Benedict
    apparently deleted the announcement because of the participation of
    Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters in the event.

    Besides being Donzinger's most prominent public supporter, Waters is
    an outspoken opponent of US and UK regime-change policy toward Syria.

    Donzinger, for his part, is a self-described "corporate political
    prisoner" whose persecution began in 2011 after he won a multi-billion
    dollar legal judgment against Chevron over the oil giant's toxic
    dumping in Ecuador's indigenous Lago Agrio region. He is charged with
    contempt of court for refusing a federal judge's order to turn over
    his cellphone and computer to Chevron. With the order still under
    appeal on constitutional grounds, Donziger has refused to obey it

    Chevron has never paid the $9.5 billion it owes in damages. Instead,
    it has retaliated with a multimillion-dollar campaign to demonize
    Donzinger, hiring a massive team of corporate lawyers to oversee an
    attempt to disbar the environmental lawyer and freeze his personal
    bank accounts.

    In August 2019, a federal judge ordered Donzinger placed under house
    arrest pending a contempt of court hearing, and confined him to his
    New York City apartment.

    "I'm like a corporate political prisoner," Donzinger told reporter
    Sharon Lerner this January. "They are trying to totally destroy me."

    Roger Waters has worked since 2012 to draw attention to Donzinger's
    persecution, as well as to the suffering of the victims of Chevron's
    toxic practices in Ecuador. The Amazon Watch webinar which Amnesty was
    supporting was to have been one of the most important events on the
    issue this year. Though the event itself was not canceled, its
    attendance was undoubtedly limited thanks the censorship campaign
    initiated by regime-change fanatics incensed by Waters' views on
    Syria.

    A crusading anti-war activist, Waters has been a vehement critic of US
    and British government intervention in Syria, and especially their
    funding of extremist proxy forces to advance a destabilizing
    regime-change policy.

    At the end of the first week in April 2018, Washington claimed the
    Syrian government had launched a chemical weapons attack on the
    Damascus suburb of Douma, which had just been cleared of Saudi-backed
    extremist forces in a dramatic victory for the national army.

    The central piece of evidence bolstering the dubious US claims was a
    video circulating on social media and produced by a US- and UK-created
    organization called the White Helmets. Waters told The Grayzone he
    "smelled a rat, did some research, realized the video was not
    credible, and decided to speak out."

    From the stage at his "Us and Them" show in Barcelona, Spain, on April
    13, the Pink Floyd co-founder denounced the US and UK-funded White
    Helmets as "a fake organization that exists only to create propaganda
    for jihadists and terrorists." By this point, the US, UK and France
    were signaling their intention to bomb Syria in reprisal for the
    supposed chemical attack.

    Waters pleaded with his audience "to encourage the governments of the
    USA, UK, and France to properly investigate the alleged attacks before
    dropping bombs on the Syrian people."

    This August, when US- and UK-based Syria regime-change lobbyists
    learned of Waters' participation in the Amnesty
    International-supported Amazon Watch event with Donzinger, they
    launched a coordinated campaign to pressure Amnesty into cancelling
    its support. Within hours, Amnesty's Twitter announcement of the event
    mysteriously disappeared.

    "Yep - not good at all - it's been deleted," Amnesty UK's Benedict
    assured several allies after the tweet promoting Waters' Amazon Watch
    event with Donzinger was erased.

    Among those who complained vociferously about Waters' participation in
    the Amnesty USA event was Eliot Higgins, the founder of the US- and UK
    government-backed Bellingcat "open source" media operation, which was
    among the first major Western outlets to accuse the Syrian government
    of a chlorine attack in Douma in April, 2018.

    In a tweet addressed to Amnesty USA, Higgins denigrated Waters as a
    "famous war crimes denier." One minute later, he accused Waters of
    "spread[ing] conspiracy theories about chemical attacks."

    Benedict responded by assuring the Bellingcat founder that the "tweet
    was deleted a few hours ago."

    The coordinated attempt at canceling or undermining an event on
    corporate wrongdoing and the environment was just the latest instance
    of a tight-knit motley crew of Syria regime-change operatives
    sabotaging left-wing or social justice organizing.

    The same cadre of regime-change fanatics has also sought to divide the
    Palestine solidarity movement, encouraging the movement to turn
    against any activist who contradicted the Syrian opposition's line -
    which also happens to be the official line of the US State Department
    that has sponsored it.

    This regime-change cadre has also viciously attacked critics of
    Washington's hostile policy towards other sovereign nations like
    Venezuela, Nicaragua, Russia, and China.

    Kristyan Benedict, for his part, is a central figure among the echo
    chamber of regime-change operatives. In recent years, he has helped
    organize several actions promoting Western military intervention and
    economic sanctions against Damascus.

    Asked on Twitter by this reporter if he was responsible for deleting
    the tweet advertising the event on Chevron's abuses, the Amnesty UK
    staffer declined to respond.

    The Grayzone has obtained audio of a phone call between Waters and
    Amnesty International Chief Impact Officer Tamara Draut in which Draut
    claimed her organization had been lobbied to retract its support for
    the event by "folks in the White Helmets," as well as "Syrian human
    rights activists," who said they were "hurt by what they saw as
    [Amnesty's] promotion" of Waters.

    "What on earth has this got to do with a webinar about the plight of
    rain forest dwellers in northern Ecuador?" Roger Waters asked.

    "Because your position on the White Helmets and [Amnesty USA's]
    position on the White Helmets is so different from one another," Draut
    replied, "people interpreted our promotion of an event where you were
    speaking as promoting your position on the White Helmets."

    Draut has spent her career in liberal non-profits and authored several
    books on the US economy; she has no apparent record of foreign policy
    experience or Middle East affairs.

    Draut was joined on the call by Amnesty USA's Head of Artist Relations
    Matt Vogel, a recruit from the recording industry who also has no
    notable experience in international affairs.

    Without mentioning Benedict by name, Draut appeared to distance
    herself and the organization from his apparent actions.

    "Sometimes staff try and solve problems on their own. I would not have
    taken down this tweet," Draut told Waters. "That is not the policy I
    like to follow on Twitter. Instead, I would have much rather dealt
    with this directly and honestly, as opposed to disappearing the
    tweet."

    Draut privately apologized to Waters during the call. Waters responded
    by requesting a public apology from Draut for Amnesty USA's withdrawal
    of support from the Amazon Watch event to free Donzinger and support
    Ecuador's indigenous population.

    Since the September 25 conversation, neither Draut nor anyone
    affiliated with Amnesty have expressed regret for the organization's
    actions. Further, they have not clarified Benedict's role in
    undermining the Amazon Watch event.
    (/quote)
    -- Cont'd at https://thegrayzone.com/2020/10/12/amnesty-uk-bellingcat-white-helmets-sabotage-roger-waters-amazon-watch/

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