Bern, 04.03.2022 – Der Bundesrat möchte den Schutzstatus S aktivieren für Ukrainerinnen und Ukrainer, die ihre Heimat aufgrund der Kriegshandlungen verlassen müssen. Mit diesem Status würden die Geflüchteten rasch ein Aufenthaltsrecht in der Schweiz erhalten, ohne dass sie ein ordentliches Asylverfahren durchlaufen müssten. Der Bundesrat hat in seiner Sitzung vom 4. März 2022 die zur Verfügung stehenden Instrumente geprüft und sich für dieses Vorgehen ausgesprochen. Mit dem Status S kann sich die Schweiz der Lösung anschliessen, für die sich die EU-Mitgliedstaaten am Vortag mehrheitlich ausgesprochen haben. Der Bundesrat wird nun bis Mitte nächster Woche die Kantone und Partnerorganisationen konsultieren, bevor er definitiv über die Einführung entscheidet.
Infolge des russischen Angriffs haben bereits weit über eine Million Menschen die Ukraine in Richtung Schengen-Raum verlassen. Je nach Entwicklung könnte diese Zahl noch stark steigen. Der Bundesrat erwartet, dass zunehmend auch Ukrainerinnen und Ukrainer in der Schweiz Schutz suchen. Sie können visumsfrei einreisen und sich insgesamt 90 Tage frei im Schengen-Raum aufhalten. Der Bundesrat hat nun aber nach Möglichkeiten gesucht, um Ukrainerinnen und Ukrainern schnell und möglichst unbürokratisch auch nach diesen 90 Tagen Schutz gewähren zu können.
Zum Schutzstatus S
Dafür stehen im Rahmen des Schweizer Rechts verschiedene Instrumente zur Verfügung. Der Bundesrat hat die Optionen geprüft und sich für die Einführung des Schutzstatus S ausgesprochen. Dieser ist im Asylgesetz vorgesehen. Schutzbedürftigen kann für die Dauer einer schweren Gefährdung, insbesondere während eines Krieges, vorübergehend Schutz gewährt werden. Das Instrument wurde aufgrund der Erfahrungen der Jugoslawien-Kriege in den 1990er-Jahren geschaffen mit dem Ziel, das Asylsystem zu entlasten. Mit dem Schutzstatus erhalten schutzsuchende Personen aus der Ukraine einen Ausweis S. Das damit verbundene Aufenthaltsrecht in der Schweiz ist auf ein Jahr befristet, kann aber verlängert werden. Der Status S ermöglicht es auch, Familienangehörige nachzuziehen.
Durch diesen Schutzbedürftigenstatus kann das Asylsystem entlastet werden, so dass für die regulären Asylverfahren von Schutzsuchenden aus anderen Ländern weiterhin genügend Kapazitäten bereitstehen und der ordentliche Betrieb fortgeführt werden kann. Der Status S entspricht zudem weitgehend dem Status, für den sich auch die EU-Mitgliedstaaten mehrheitlich ausgesprochen haben.
In einzelnen Punkten wie der Reisefreiheit oder der Erwerbstätigkeit schlägt der Bundesrat Anpassungen am Status S vor, damit er gleichwertig ist wie der Status, den die EU-Mitgliedstaaten den Ukrainerinnen und Ukrainern gewährt. Mit diesen Anpassungen wird sichergestellt, dass die geschützten Personen auch nach 90 Tagen im Schengen-Raum reisen und bereits nach einem Monat einer Erwerbstätigkeit nachgehen können. Die Unterbringung erfolgt nach der Erteilung des Schutzstatus direkt in den Kantonen. Diese kann auch in Privatunterkünften erfolgen. Die Kantone werden vom Bund mit einer Globalpauschale für die Unterbringung, die obligatorische Krankenversicherung und die Betreuung der Betroffenen entschädigt. Hat der Bundesrat den vorübergehenden Schutz nach fünf Jahren noch nicht aufgehoben, so erhalten Schutzbedürftige eine Aufenthaltsbewilligung B.
Wie vom Gesetz vorgesehen, wird der Bundesrat nun die Kantone, Hilfswerke sowie das UNHCR zu diesem Beschluss anhören.
Die Beschlüsse der EU
Die Innen- und Justizminister der EU haben am 3. März 2022 einen vorübergehenden Schutz für geflüchtete Ukrainerinnen und Ukrainer beschlossen. Dafür aktivierte der Rat erstmals die 2001 eingeführte TPD-Richtlinie (Temporary Protection Directive). Diese gilt für alle EU-Mitgliedstaaten, für die Schweiz ist sie hingegen nicht direkt anwendbar. Der Schutzstatus S kommt der EU-Richtlinie jedoch nahe.
Please note, that this is a (with DeepL) machine created translation. We work on a better version. Thanks for understanding.
The youth unrest and political scandals in the 80s
The journey around the globe to various trouble spots and cultural highlights begins in my hometown of Zurich. 1980 was the year that would shake up staid society in Switzerland and plow it over the course of the 1980s, as a tsunami rolled in on the conservative middle class and political class. In May of the same year, the „Opera House Riots“ began as a prelude to the „Zurich Youth Riots“ that followed. This was triggered by the latent dissatisfaction of the youth with the few facilities and free spaces available to them. This manifested itself most conspicuously in the upcoming vote on a city subsidy of 60 million francs for the opera house and, in return, no 10,000 francs for the „Rote Fabrik,“ at that time the only youth cultural center in the city of Zurich. It was the time of rebellion, free development, politicization, sex and drug orgies and street fights, musically accompanied by the „Rolling Stones“, „Doors“ or „Deep Purple“, who were as much our musical gods as Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin and Jil Scott Heron. Nothing was the same anymore and there was no going back! When the „punks“ emerged in the mid-1970s, first in New York, then the punk scene in London, the offshoots also spilled over into Switzerland. Soon local scenes developed, especially in Zurich. It was also the time of the anarchists and utopians. We debated and criticized fiercely, argued and showed solidarity with the oppressed peoples. In the maelstrom of this explosive attempt at liberation and boundless life, there were no end of raucous parties, but more and more hard drugs, such as heroin, cocaine and amphetamines, were added to the mix. …
Coincidentally, on Saturday afternoon, May 30, 1980, I was riding the streetcar past the Zurich Opera House, exactly at the moment when hundreds of policemen poured out of the Opera House entrance, which had been blocked by demonstrators, and beat the people lying on the ground (the so-called „cultural corpses“). They maltreated women and men alike. The naked state violence and brutal scenes took my and other passers-by’s breath away and made the rage in our bellies explode. Immediately I got off the streetcar, the first containers were burning and the skirmishes with the police began. When the police immediately started to use tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons, the situation escalated within a few hours, as many young people were on their way home after the Bob Marley concert in the Hallenstadion and then streamed into the city center. Many spontaneously took part in the protests, which after a short time turned into veritable street fights. From then on, the police had nothing under control for three or four days and the street fights erupted with full force. The cantonal police station on Limmatquai was surrounded, two of the police vehicles were completely burned out, and the entrance to the town hall also looked a mess. The air in the Niederdorf was saturated with acrid clouds of tear gas smoke, denser than London in the November fog. The extent of the destruction was inconceivable, as was the impotence of the security forces, as the frustration of the youth and old-68s, pent up for years, turned into sheer rage, with which the demonstrators wanted to show the opera house visitors the one-sided subsidy policy. The first night of riots was followed by several more street battles in the course of that year, during which the „Bewegig“ of the autonomists formed themselves every Wednesday in the Volksversammlungen (VV’s) in the Volkshaus or occasionally also on the Platzspitz. Almost every Saturday demonstrations were announced, regularly the stores in the Niederdorf barricaded their store windows with boards at 14.00 o’clock, because the protests continued to gain momentum and formed up to large demonstrations with almost 20’000 people. The demand of the youth was simple: „We want an autonomous youth center“, an „AJZ“ must come! And that „subito!“
Legal? Illegal? „I don’t give a damn!“ was the motto of the rebellious youth
On the shores of Lake Zurich, topless bathing was widespread and women enjoyed the freedom and the pleasures of the new independence that the pill and thus the possibility of autonomous contraception gave them to live fully, which also expressed itself in uninhibited sexuality and polygamy or in the form of the first gay and trans parties. It was not a crime among us at that time and was not frowned upon for either women or men to have sex with dozens of partners and to try out different partnership models in the course of a year. „Sex, Drugs & Rock & Roll“ or rather „Amore et Anarchia“? Well, why the agony of choice? Preferably all together! Every kind of restriction was rejected, pure hedonism was the goal and the time of the birds of paradise had dawned. We wanted to experiment on all levels without restrictions and try out free love, while unmarried couples were not even legally allowed to live together at that time. That’s how prudish Zurich and the whole of Switzerland was back then. So it was all the more astonishing that the girls just melted away like ice cream or took the reins themselves, flirted fiercely and were out for a one-night stand. Anyway, back then, as a young man, every now and then you were uninhibitedly hit on by women who had only one goal, to share lust and bed and try out all kinds of things. An equally aphrodisiac and inspiring time, which is still unparalleled today! The women were shining lights for us, many of them very feminist self-confident and eager to experiment. „Emancipation, yes of course, we said to ourselves, and finally introduced women’s suffrage by political means. One (wo)man, one vote“ applied equally to men and women in the youth movement. There were a great many women activists who either made themselves heard or simply did what they wanted and how they wanted it, and no one from our circles was bothered by it. We, that is also the men, put make-up on each other and often walked through the streets to the „Rote Fabrik“, the „Drahtschmidli“ or the „AJZ“ with black painted lips, colorful painted faces and fluttering hair. …
In the maelstrom of Swiss political scandals
In 1990, it came to light that both the federal authorities and the cantonal police corps had created some 900,000 „fiches“ on politically suspicious persons. According to official figures, more than 700,000 individuals and organizations were recorded, meaning that over a tenth of the population was classified as subversive. The radius of observation initially targeted foreign anarchists, Swiss socialists and trade unionists, writers, unwelcome political refugees and foreigners who were often expelled. With the rise of anti-communism, left-wing politicians and trade union members in particular were monitored. The official goal of the „fiching“ was to protect the country from subversive activities directed from abroad. The fight against subversion was a widespread slogan during the Cold War. The Parliamentary Investigation Commission „PUK“ brought to light how broadly this woolly term was understood. As the documents of the „Nach-richtendienst und Abwehr“ (UNA) sub-group revealed, zealous state protectors also considered „alternative“, anti-nuclear activists, „Greens“, peace and Third World activists to be potentially dangerous, because they could be communist-immigrant, enemy- or foreign-controlled or otherwise manipulated. So I, too, ordered my „fiche“ from the police and the Ministry of Justice, which turned out to be more detailed than expected, as far as the movement profile and contacts were concerned, but otherwise was very insignificant, except for the many black spots in the 14-page protocol, which was probably more intended to cover and protect the top identities than to bring to light state secrets, anti-state activities or a „treason“ of the monitored person. It showed the blind zeal of the authorities and the sad reflection of their informers. Very few of us were Marxists, Leninists, Maoists or communists or enemies of the state even if the slogan: „Make cucumber salad out of the state“ was chanted. There was a lot of state propaganda to shoot with cannons at sparrows. But we „chaots“ never received a „ticket to Moscow“. …
Then there was another political scandal: The „P-26“ secret lodge (Project 26) was a secret cadre organization to maintain the will to resist in Switzerland in the event of an occupation. It was set up in 1979/1981 as the successor to the Special Service in the Intelligence and Counterintelligence (UNA) subgroup and was disbanded in 1990 by Federal Councillor Moritz Leuenberger after it was made public by a Parliamentary Investigation Commission (PUK). P-26 members were not supposed to be armed in peacetime, but the illustrious secret society did not care about that. It was planned that they would become active as a group on the orders of any government-in-exile that might remain abroad, in order to serve as a source of intelligence; a combat mission was not envisaged, for that was reserved for the army alone. Nevertheless, the underground organization hoarded weapons and amassed large ammunition depots. …
Switzerland as Apartheid Aid to the Boers
Peter Regli was such a cult figure of the „Cold Warriors“ and, as head of the Swiss intelligence service from 1991 to 1999, an illustrious, shady secret service figure. He organized secret pilot exchanges with the apartheid regime in the early 1980s. According to former South African intelligence chief Chris Thirion, the intelligence services of Switzerland and South Africa also agreed in 1986 to exchange know-how on chemical weapons. On January 25, 1988, the head of South Africa’s NBC weapons program, Wouter Basson, who later went down in history as „Doctor Death,“ and police general Lothar Neethling met with representatives of the „AC Laboratory Spiez“ in Bern. Under the „Project Coast“ the military doctor Basson wanted to nip possible uprisings of the black population in the bud with B- and C-weapons at that time. „It is a horrible idea that Switzerland could have secretly participated in this diabolical plan and could have been involved in the extermination of tens of thousands of blacks. Sources from the „NDB“ environment lead to the secret meetings of the „Club de Berne“. This informal organization was founded in Berne during the Cold War in 1971. It brings together the heads of all the secret services and the federal police from about ten countries, including Germany, the United States, Great Britain and Switzerland, and is still operational today. Switzerland was one of the founding members. The initiator of the „Bern Club“ was the Italian intelligence chief Umberto Federico d’Amato. The aim at that time was to build up a common cipher system, which also served well for intercepting foreign nations and in 2020 led to the „Crypto-Affair“… In the mid-1970s, the „Club“ was given an active role in taking action against left-wing terrorist organizations such as the „RAF,“ the Red Army Faction in Germany, and the „Red Brigades“ in Italy. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, the „Club“ gained increased importance as a body for political consultation between intelligence and state security services.
In 2001, the „Club“ initiated the Counter Terrorism Group (CTG). This group has reportedly been running a European intelligence center in The Hague since 2016. Since 2016, exploratory talks have been underway with „Europol,“ as the „CTG wanted to network with the police structures of the EU or individual member states. In 2017, German MP Andrej Hun-ko described the „Berner Club“ and its informal association „CTG“ as „hardly controllable. He also criticized the increasing secretiveness of police work. In Germany, riots broke out in Chemnitz in 2018 on the occasion of the controversy surrounding statements made by Hans-Georg Maassen, president of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. His speech to the „Berner Club“ on October 18, 2018, resulted in his transfer to temporary retirement. By participating in the „Club de Berne“, Regli received information from the „CIA“ and the „Mossad“. But Regli went too far in doing so, „by taking too high a risk of endangering the security of the country and the international obligations and neutrality of political Switzerland. The fact that Regli was able to exchange information with „CIA and „Mossad also had to do with other persons who had his back and opened doors for him, such as the head of the internal intelligence service „DAP“. Urs von Daeniken and his superior, Peter Huber, both members of the „Club de Berne“. They fell out of favor after the „Fichenaffäre“ in 1989 and were cold-cocked due to public pressure. …
The 1980s were thus marked by great political upheavals, which the youth movement had triggered and thus politicized an entire generation, because the domestic political upheavals also had a lot to do with the international situation. With the schemas of the Cold War, the Vietnam War, the Six Days War and invasion of Israel in the Palestinian territories, the liberation movements in Latin America such as the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the Tupamors or the „Sender Luminoso“ in Peru, as well as the struggle of the „Red Army Faction“ (RAF) in Germany and the „Red Brigades“ in Italy. Fueled by this, young activists were also inclined to abolish the army and shut down nuclear power plants (sometimes a reaction because of the Chernobyl nuclear accident). So we looked far beyond the horizon and showed solidarity or got involved with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, who wanted to say goodbye to dictator Somoza, and with the Palestinians. The imperialist skirmishes of the USA in Cuba, Grenada and Panama also infuriated us and so it is no wonder that we went out into the world to discover new things and to abolish old ones. …
Attacked by a Guardia Civil special unit
Let me briefly recount at this point the Lanzarote adventure involving an operation by the Guardi Civil anti-terrorist special unit on our boat. We, a handful of people, were living in Playa Blanca on the Canary Island of Lanzarote at the end of the 70’s on board a sailing boat owned by a Swiss who lived in the USA and had arrived here only a few days before. A French skipper, a Moroccan boat boy, a Briton and the American friend of the Swiss boat owner had brought the boat here from France. Then there was a dispute between the boat owner and the skipper the night before about the fee for bringing the yacht from the south of France to here and the longer wait in Playa Blanca. The dispute escalated, first the Frenchman wanted to sink the boat, which the crew could fortunately prevent, then the Frenchman hissed in a rage and we already thought „that’s it“. But the „nasty guy“ took revenge on us by giving the Guardia Civil an anonymous call from Arecife airport before he left, telling them we had weapons and drugs on board. Then, the morning after the skipper left at 5:30 a.m., we were jolted out of a deep sleep because suddenly a herd of elephants stampeded on the boat, then military orders were heard and when I was the first to stick my head out of the hatch, I looked in at four submachine guns not half a meter from the tip of my nose. There any movement and excitement froze immediately. I froze and was then allowed to get out, then all my boat friends too. Half a dozen heavily armed elite soldiers of the Guardia Civil stood around us. After six hours, the search of the sailboat was completed without result and our torment was over. The task force departed again. We were relieved, but the day was not over yet and still had a surprise in store for us. …
Senegal 86: Zwischen den Fronten und in der Welt der Hexen und Heiler
Senegal is a world of spirits, witches, healers and fortune tellers. Everything is very mystical. Curses are cast and people are bewitched, and somehow everyone is afraid of them. That’s why everyone wears a boubou, a lucky charm that is supposed to protect them. The dress cult is also legendary. The most beautiful, very colorful dresses and costumes are hawked in Dakar. The colorfully painted pirogues, the dugout canoes, line up on the beach in the hustle and bustle of fishermen and traders. As a means of transportation, there are minibuses that travel in all directions and stop wherever a passenger wants to get on or off. Dakar is an extremely vibrant metropolis. Day and night, because only from the evening hours the temperature is pleasant, while over noon it rises up to 40 degrees. In 1986, I was assigned as a station and tour manager first for three months in Senegal, then in Warsaw in Poland (i.e. in the then Eastern Bloc) and finally in London for another three months. On the first resident manager assignment in Senegal, there was a lull (as well as in Covid times), because at that time „AIDS“ had just appeared on the radar and medical science was still puzzling over where the virus came from and how it was transmitted. Therefore, there was not much going on at „Club Aldiana“ near M’Bour, here on the coast about a four-hour drive south of Dakar. Due to the „AIDS“ crisis, which drastically reduced African tourism, I had time for a short trip to the south of Senegal to the Casamance and also passed through Gambia. In a small town I rented a bungalow and walked around with my camera in the wilderness near the border and was suddenly stopped in the bushes by a troop of soldiers of the military of Guinea-Bissau and interrogated for hours. Since the commander spoke only Portuguese, it took me a while to learn that there was a conflict over the oil reserves in the border area between the two countries and I remembered a TV report a few days ago that the parties to the dispute were meeting in Geneva for negotiations at exactly this time. This was my lifeline and trump card, as a Swiss in this precarious situation. So I tried to make it clear to the commander that it would not be advisable if they captured me and thus endangered the negotiations in Geneva. He understood and, thanks to a relatively generous donation of money, let me leave unharmed. Relieved, I ran back to Casamance, that is, to Senegal. Once there, I had no more cash to pay the rent for the lodge. To do so, I first had to travel a day’s journey away to Zuiginchor to change the traveler’s check. So I told the hotelier about the frontier experience and my donation, which included the rent, and then walked exhausted to the bungalow to go to sleep first. But it did not last long, then two military jeeps drove up before my hut and eight weapon staring, Senegalese soldiers, got out. They had orders to escort me to the military governor,“ they said to me. „What’s going on now?“, I thought, trying to slow down the adrenaline rush. Half an hour later I was sitting in front of the military commander, who questioned me about the border incident. He had been told about it by the landlord and wanted to know more. „Shit“, I thought to myself, but today is a busy day, is war diplomacy starting all over again now? Now it’s a matter of playing everything down as much as possible and saying as little as possible, I thought to myself. I practiced this for a good four hours with the Senegalese commander, after which I was exhausted. Two military interrogations with hostile states in one day was a special test of endurance. …
Warsaw 86: In pole position behind the Iron Curtain
From the mission in Senegal, after only one day’s stay in Zurich, I went straight to Poland. On my arrival in Warsaw, where a „LOT“ airliner had crashed 14 days earlier, killing about 140 people, I was able to speak to an elderly man who understood English and helped me with the customs and immigration formalities for the 70 passengers from the West. When I thanked him for his help and asked his name, he replied, „My name is Henry Zwirko. This was the name on the piece of paper that the last guest in Senegal had given me. This could not be a coincidence, I thought intuitively, but was busy with the passports and entry papers, which could drag on for hours, since I was a newcomer here behind the „Iron Curtain“ in Warsaw. But the procedure was considerably shortened by the man who had introduced himself as this very Henry Zwirko, with a few gentle but firm words to the border official, and we were all able to quickly pass through border control unhindered. „OK,“ I thought to myself, the man is indeed promising. No wonder his influence reaches far, after all he is a Polish cabinet minister and his father a WW2 war hero. That much I already knew about him. But that I would meet this special man as soon as I arrived in Warsaw was quite eerie. Later, my suspicions were confirmed that the Chairman of the Board had facilitated the meeting and thus opened the door to an extraordinarily closed world for me, a world that many intelligence officers at that time, including our counterintelligence, would surely have envied. Less than two weeks after my arrival in Warsaw and an initial tour of Poland to Krakow and Zakopane, the body specialists and forensic experts from abroad arrived to investigate the plane crash three weeks earlier. As a result, our entire tour group (always around 50 to 70 people) was kicked out of the only middle-class hotel, the „Forum“ in Warsaw, from one hour to the next. From then on, we had to make do with lousy, run-down hotels for the next 14 days, sometimes sharing a hotel room in threes or a double bed in twos. Then I had enough of the disaster and had the local guests kicked out of the hotels with the bundle of dollars available, putting double or triple the room rate on the table and rented the luxury suite in the five-star hotel. As a result, things took off. …
„London 87: The first contacts with „ANC“ exiles“.
In 1979, a massacre took place in Soweto when 15,000 students protested on June 16 against being taught in Africaans from then on. 575 people died in the uprising, which lasted for months. Swiss banks doubled their lending volume. In 1980, the „World Alliance of Reformed Churches“ declared apartheid a heresy. This left Switzerland and the Swiss secret service cold. Unimpressed by the sanctions, Peter Reggli initiated the exchange of pilots with South African fighter pilots, but the Federal Council was not informed until 1986. The amount of credit granted by Swiss banks to the apartheid regime quadrupled. Year after year by 100 percent. As a result of the international condemnation of the Apartheid regime, Switzerland profited from the contemptuous, racist policy of the whites at the Cape. The „ILO“ demanded the world corporations to withdraw from South Africa and criticized the „SBG“ in particular as a sanction breaker. Nevertheless, in 1985 the South African regime receives another 75 million Swiss francs in loans from Swiss banks at its free disposal. In 1986, a state of emergency was imposed on the heavily indebted country and over 10,000 people were arrested, 1800 of whom died. „Peace became a threat to public security,“ says Archbishop Desmond Tutu, as the church paper, the New Nation, was shut down.
In 1987, when the United States wanted to punish companies that did not comply with the sanctions, South Africa’s President Peter Botha and his Foreign Minister came to Zurich to meet with „SBG“ Deputy Director Georg Meyer and the board of the „Association Switzerland-South Africa“, where they were presented on the spot with an „Order of Good Hope“ and another 70 million. And in 1989, thanks to Robert Jeker, South Africa’s regime also got a breather in the repayment of the outstanding loans of eight billion Swiss francs. This was the situation at the time that prompted me to go underground in South Africa for an inspection and further research. Switzerland’s relations with South Africa were at their most intense politically, militarily and in terms of the arms industry in the 1980s, when the enforcement of South Africa’s policy of racial segregation (apartheid) was at its strongest and was accompanied by serious human rights violations and of- fensive violence. Swiss industry has been a major player in undermining the arms embargo imposed on South Africa by the UN. The exchange of intelligence information directly contributed to the initiation of arms deals, the fight against apartheid opponents and political propaganda in favor of the South African government. Swiss industry was one of the pillars of the secret South African nuclear weapons program. The „Gebrüder Sulzer AG“ and the „VAT Haag“ supplied important components for the South African uranium enrichment, which provided the necessary fissile material for the six atomic bombs produced by South Africa. Thus, Switzerland was undoubtedly a supporter of the apartheid government in more ways than one. How did this come about? …
Underground in the fight against apartheid
Politically sensitized by the youth unrest of the early 80s, as an opponent of nuclear power plants, a pacifist, and a conscientious objector on the political left, as well as focused on South Africa from a humanitarian point of view through my professional activities during my apprenticeship at the „Oerlikon Bührle“, I decided to fly to Johannesburg at the end of 1986 with the aim of getting to know the tense situation and the inhumane conditions on the spot, thanks to the contacts I had made with ANC exiles in London and the connections I had obtained through the „Anti Apartheid Movement“ (AAB) in Switzerland. I arrived in South Africa just at the time when the „New Nation“, one of the last liberal, critical papers of the Catholic Bishops‘ Conference under Desmond Tutu, was banned and closed down. I conducted a last interview with the just dismissed editor-in-chief Gabu Tugwana, which appeared at that time in the „WOZ“ (weekly newspaper), and was thus the first foreign journalist to see and photograph the decree of the hated Minister of the Interior. The apartheid regime censored or banned many newspapers until all possible critical voices were silenced. Spending on internal security, that is, on maintaining the racist apartheid system, swallowed up more than 20 percent of the gross domestic product. Then I dared to take the suburban train from Down town Johannesburg to Soweto, that is, to the black townships, at that time an extremely dangerous thing to do. Once you arrived in Soweto, you were quite alone and conspicuous as a white person at that time. Fortunately I had long hair and looked neither like a Boer nor like an Englishman, which probably kept many from killing me in the townships. Curiosity grew as to what I was doing here, and thanks to the „ANC“ contacts I had made in London and Zurich, I was able to reassure them, so that they trusted me and introduced me to the Town Ships. For a few weeks I lived with a family of eight in a small shack surrounded by tens of thousands of other shacks without light, electricity or water. The goal was to feel the living conditions of the blacks and their everyday life within the framework of the racist laws on my own body and to probe with my own eyes. Soon it was possible for me to move freely and safely with my black friends in Soweto. And so I myself was scared as hell when I suddenly stood in front of an armored vehicle of the „SADF“ (South African Defence Force) again and firearms were pointed at me and one of the armed men shouted down from above; „What are you doing here? At the first meeting I could think of nothing better than to ask him the same question, only an undertone sharper. „What the hell are you doing here?“ and gently pulled out my Swiss passport, which helped defuse the tense situation and they then let me go each time unharmed. …
Mandela’s release and his visit to Switzerland in 1993
From that first trip, I developed a deep connection with the country that I visited over 20 times, meeting Nelson Mandela twice. The first time shortly after his release here in Soweto, the second time, as President of South Africa and newly elected Nobel Laureate in Zurich’s „Dolder Hotel“ in front of the „class politique“ and economic elite (National Bank President and bank representatives), when Mandela spoke about his vision of a new South Africa as a „rainbow nation“. I was also invited to this historic meeting and took a few pictures of Mandela. When he mingled with the crowd at the aperitif after his speech, I stayed discreetly in the background. But obviously Mandela had a good memory and very attentive eyes, maybe he even remembered where and when in Soweto I was the only white person standing in the crowd of blacks shortly after his release. In any case, this prompted him to approach me and ask if we had ever met. I was astonished! When I replied, „yes in Soweto,“ he extended both hands to me. That was very touching! Thereupon all present bankers and politicians in the room stared at me and wondered who the long-haired freak was here. Fortunately, this remained a secret of me, Mandela and the South African ambassador in Bern, Dr. Konji Sebati, with whom I was once a guest in the embassy in Bern at a high-ranking event. …
IKRK-Einsätze im «ANC-IFP» Bürgerkrieg
In late 1993, I accompanied a friend of mine, who was stationed in Johannesburg as an ICRC/Red Cross South Africa delegate, on his trip to the refugee camps to assess the situation there, to help the victims, and to support peace efforts to stabilize the country with a view to a democratic constitution and government for the „Rainbow Nation.“ We went to the then hotspots „Margate“ and „Ladysmith“ and „Empendle“ pro-logged the burned houses and the dead, talked to bereaved families and tried to mediate between the conflicting parties. A difficult, if not almost hopeless task. In 1994, another interesting meeting took place, with Miss South Africa Basetsana Kumalo and at her side Kwezi Hani, the young daughter of Chris Hani, who had just been murdered. Chris Hani was secretary general of the South African Communist Party (SACP), a high-ranking member of the ANC and chief of staff of its armed arm, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). The meeting with Hani and Basetsane took place in a casino and was observed. It was a very hot time and the spying on political actors and their families and surroundings was a well-known fact. And so I also became a target of observation. First a black man and later two white gentlemen tried to question me discreetly but emphatically and later another illustrious person tried to involve me in Gabarone, i.e. in Botswana, in South Africa’s internal power struggles. …
Thanks to the Zulu healer and book author Credo Vusama Mutwa, I was also able to visit Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town (where Nelson Mandela spent the last years of his imprisonment) in 1997 with a team of Canadian UN health inspectors. The prison, designed for 3,000 inmates, held about 7,000 prisoners. Nearly 30% of the inmates were HIV-positive at the time, and many prisoners were held without charge for years, with many dying. The conditions we encountered were shocking. One spoonful of food in the prison kitchen was enough to give me staphylococcus and streptococcus. …
2011: Gadaffis Milliarden in Zumas und Ramaphos Händen untergetaucht
Aziz Pahad was appointed by Mandela as deputy foreign minister in 1994 and worked for the government from 1999 to 2008. Before that, he collected donations for Mandela’s election campaign and also received about 15 million from Gadaffi. The Libyan dictator also supported Tabo Mbeki. But Mbeki did not want to comply with Gadaffi’s wish to become „King of Africa“ and refused to support him, which led to Gadaffi buying Jacob Zuma as his next choice and helping him to be elected South African president. Through the decades of relations with the „ANC“ Gadaffi planned to have in the worst case a retreat and base abroad from where he could start the counterrevolution and for this he had a part of his unimaginable fortune of about 150 billion dollars (Forbes) flown to Johannesburg on 26 December 2010. The plane landed on the orphaned military base Water-kloof on the 2nd day of Christmas. Reportedly, there were a total of 179 such flights from Tripoli, all of which were performed by military pilots. The flight data was after each operation. Deleted. The value of the cargo, which was in ICRC crescent labeled containers with Libyan dialect from Syrte amounted to approximately 12.5 billion. US dollars. Besides mountains of cash also tons of gold and diamonds. Serbian George Darmanovitch, a Secret Service agent known as Zuma’s henchman, photographed the shipment upon arrival in Johannesburg and confirmed to investigators that the money was picked up by trucks from the ANC. He was obviously a little too vocal about the contents and size of the cargo. In any case, Dar-manovitch was shot dead in the street shortly afterwards in Belgrade, where he was meeting his family, and his two killers were also found dead. This was too big for Darmanovitch and his killers. From then on, Gaddafi’s billions disappeared somewhere in South Africa and only a few know where they are. In 2012, the first rumors surfaced that considerable assets of the dead dictator were in South Africa. In response, the transitional Libyan government contacted Eric Goaied, a Tunisian who was a close friend of Gaddafi. He was to search for the missing assets in South Africa. One of the reasons was that the new government had to build up an army and procure more than 200 combat helicopters and G5s as well as other war material for a good five billion, but had no money. When the Libyan government, namely Taha Buishi, confirmed the high finder’s fee (of 10 percent, i.e. $1.25 billion) for the return of the Gaddafi assets, this attracted a few treasure hunters who did not want to miss out on this deal. …
Gupta Leaks: South Africa as prey to Indian klepocrats“
The mischief began with Malusi Gigaba when he came into government and successively filled all the important posts in state enterprises with Gupta confidants. Where is most of the public money spent and how do we get it? That was the business model of the three Indian brothers who came to South Africa with their mouse-poor father in 1993. First came „Transnet.“ „Transnet“ manages all airports, train stations and transport companies. Malusi Gigaba appointed Brian Molefi as CEO and Arnosch Sinn as CFO (2 orders for locomotives worth 5 billion went to two Chinese companies) „Mc Kinsey“ received more than a billion for consulting contracts from Salim Essa, business partner of the Guptas. 450 million commission jumped out for the Guptas on the locomotive deal. Money that flowed through offshore companies to Hong Kong and the Arab Emirates. Then Duduzane Zuma, Zuma’s son, came into the picture. He was closely associated with the Guptas and worked with them to perfect corruption and foster kleptocracy. Also, Cyril Ramaphosas, once a union leader who became a billionaire through mining company licenses at the end of apartheid, becomes Zuma’s vice president and shortly thereafter travels to Russia for a nuclear deal and the construction of eight nuclear power plants in South Africa that would cost more than $100 billion. US dollars, whereupon the „Shiva“ uranium mine was bought by the Guptas and Zuma’s son was given a leading position. This was how they positioned themselves for the nuclear deal, which was supposed to increase the windfall. And Russia wanted to achieve that South Africa is dependent on the donor country and the Zuma clan intended to commit itself with the help of the Guptas to an even greater plundering of the state. …
1986-2006: Mit den Khoi-San durch die Kalahari gestreift
Botswana can claim to possess all the facets of a sparkling diamond with its magnificent wealth of fauna and flora in the Okavango Delta, which is constantly changing its face. An eye-opener as a fence-sitter in Africa’s Garden of Eden, where a vital network of water veins supplies the largely parched southern Africa from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean with the vital elixir. The Okavango, third largest river below the Tropic of Capricorn, originates in the rain-fed highlands of Angola. Although it would only be a few hundred kilometers to the sea, after 1600 kilometers the river heads for the 800,000 square kilometer Kalahari – and fans out into the world’s largest inland delta. In bands, the river branches advance into the barren and thirsty desert and form a unique biotope in the middle of the Kalahari. The world’s largest inland delta is about the size of Schleswig-Holstein. Ninety-five percent of Botswana’s water reserves come from the Okavango Delta, through which more than 18.5 billion gallons of water flow each year, most of it seeping into the sands of the Kalahari. If you look down on the pristine landscape of the Okavango swamps, which is crisscrossed by a labyrinth of river arms, swamps, islands, steppes and lagoons, the Kalahari shimmers to the horizon, sometimes golden yellow, sometimes deep green with blue spots. …
In the Central Kalahari live at that time about 16’000 bushmen and in the whole southern Africa their number is estimated at about 100’000. They are masterly trackers, notorious hunters, gifted archers – and true ecologists. They live according to the Eros principle, which connects everything with everything else: „Everything belongs to Mother Nature and Mother Earth. No one owns anything. Everything is shared,“ the young Khoi-San Suruka explains to me the worldview of the Kung-San at the foot of the Tsodillo Hills, the four sacred, whispering hills with the ancient petroglyphs, the oldest of which are said to be over 30,000 years old, which would probably bring us to the cradle of human civilization. And then there is the cave of the stone python snake, which according to scientists was carved about 70,000 years ago. To illustrate their closeness to nature, the smallish, tough people with the short, pitch-black curls and peachy skin tones tell us. They coat the shaft of their arrows with a poison they extract from caterpillars. The dose of the poison is chosen precisely depending on the animal that is being killed. Nothing is wasted – not even a drop of the poison. It is the same with everything else, the Bushmen and their wives take only what they need at the moment to survive. If they dig a fruit or a vegetable out of the ground, they cut it off at the bottom and leave the rest with the roots in the ground so that new shoots can grow again. The San have learned to survive even in the most inhospitable and arid regions of the Kalahari. This adaptability was born out of necessity, as Suruka continues to tell us, „When the Boers and other white masters threatened, drove and killed us, we had to flee to areas without water. So we filled ostrich eggs with water and buried them in the desert sand. So we could survive there as well. Our rhythm of life is based on the migration of animals and the tides, and we live according to the principle that nature belongs to all people and everyone should take only what he needs. Yet for centuries our people have been hunted, driven out and killed like fair game. Perpetrators were other African tribes as well as the European colonial masters among them the Germans. …
Kenya: IKRK-Mission im Rift Valley nach den ethnischen Unruhen
When I came to Kenya in 2008, I first visited the region near Samburu National Park and was stationed at „Joys Camp“. The Samburu National Reserve is a 165 sq km nature reserve in the center of Kenya. The Shaba National Reserve to the east of it belongs to the same ecological area. Characteristic of the area are the very dry habitats for oryx antelope, grant gazelles, two dikdik and grevy zebras. Also typical of the region are the reticulated giraffes, which are distinguished from other giraffe subspecies by their particularly contrasting coloration. Other ungulate species of the reserve are eland and waterbuck. Among the predators, lions, leopards, cheetahs and striped hyenas are present here. In addition, the park was once characterized by large herds of elephants and numerous other game species such as waterbuck and Nile crocodiles. Sadly, elephant populations are declining here as well. …
In the election forecasts and preliminary results, opposition leader Odinga was still in the lead by a narrow margin. After incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of the election, the opposition party ODM protested. Its presidential candidate Raila Odinga declared that the election results were fraudulent. In the ensuing unrest, it is estimated that over 1,500 people were killed and 623,692 people, mostly Kikuyu, were forced to flee the violence. Finally, I flew to Eldoret and went to the local „ICRC Red Cross Committee“. I spent three days with the local staff driving around the refugee camps and seeing the reconstruction projects. It seemed to me that there was still a long way to go back to normality and the misery in the refugee camps with a total of over 100,000 people was very depressing. I had never seen such a scale, not even in South Africa at the time of the ANC-IFP conflict. Over 10 million Kenyans were starving and hundreds were dying daily from water shortages and lack of food. 3.2 million people were affected by acute water shortages at the time. Many of them had to walk up to 30 kilometers a day for a bucket of water and then carry it back. These are some of the staggering figures that the Assistant Secretary General of „ICRC“ and „Red Cross Kenya“ presented to me in his office in Nairobi. And more than 100,000 people were staying in refugee camps. …
Namibia: Schweizer Entwicklungshilfe im Reich der Geparde
Due to the many travels and conflict experiences in numerous countries, I wanted to get into development cooperation and fly to Namibia via „Interteam“ (a Swiss aid organization) to work there for three years in the field of tourism and development cooperation. Specifically, it was a project with the local parastatal organization „NACOBTA“, which wanted to integrate the indigenous people ecologically and more sustainably in the tourism industry, in order to let the indigenous tribes there participate in the economic and sustainable tourism development. Unfortunately, shortly before the assignment, some foreign aid organizations cut their budget for „NACOBTA“ and so the „EZA“ assignment in Namibia was cancelled. Nevertheless, the „Inter-team NACOBTA“ assessment made me curious about the South West African country with a German colonial past and I decided to travel there. A key challenge in Namibia’s rural areas is building capacity to address human-wildlife conflict. The Cheetah Foundation (CFF) in Ojjowaringo has identified several landscapes in Namibia that need an urgent focus on science-based solutions to mitigate human-wildlife conflict (HWC). Key focus regions include the Greater Waterberg Landscape, the Gobabis Landscape, and large parts of the Kalahari ecosystem.The „Cheetah Foundation“ is one of the impressive wildlife projects in Namibia. It was the first time I watched these noble, elegant predatory cats in the wild and hunting for some poor rabbits, which were thrown to the cheetahs as breakfast food. CCF’s Namibian cheetah population study has been ongoing since 1990, with over 750 tissue samples and 1000 fecal samples collected to date. These samples allow for the study of Namibian cheetah populations over a 30-year period. Population monitoring within the 50,000 hectare game reserve is made possible by combining this with genetic analysis using microsatellite markers. This allows CCF researchers and wildlife managers to identify individual cheetahs based on both visual and genetic characteristics. …
Das dunkle Kapitel Deutschlands: Völkermord, Sklaverei, Landraub, Vergewaltigung
A brief review of Namibia’s history: In 1884, Africa was divided among the European powers and colonial rulers at the „Congo Conference“ in Berlin. Germany rises to colonial power, whereupon German Southwest Africa, today’s Namibia, was established and developed into a colony. By 1914, some 15,000 white settlers had arrived in German Southwest Africa, including more than 12,000 Germans. The German colonial administration ruled the area by means of racial segregation and oppression. The natives were treated as second-class people by the European settlers and were practically disenfranchised. Native tribes were forced to vacate their land. The pastureland that was vital for the nomadic tribes and their ancestral homeland thus increasingly passed into the hands of the settlers. This threatened above all the livelihood of the Herero and Na’ama pastoralist tribes living there. Slavery, land theft, public execution, forced labor, rape and humiliation became the doctrine and the agonizing daily order for the maltreated population. The uprising against the white occupiers began in 1904 with Samuel Maharero. The Na’ama chief, Captain Hendrik Witboo, was the icon of the anti-colonial resistance. He accused the Ovambo leader of cooperating with the so-called „protecting power“ of the Germans, thus opening the floodgates for conquest. Only after 20 years of oppression by the „Herrenmenschen“, the peoples of Namibia for the first time united against their oppressors. On January 12, 1904, the first shots were fired against the occupiers. The rebels besieged military stations, blocked railroad lines and raided trading posts. …
Mexico: Von Göttern inspiriertes, von Gott beseeltes Reich
Mexico’s face, the cradle of archaic Indian civilizations, shines brilliantly. Both the ancient temple complexes and the contrasting, magnificent colonial cities of Oaxaca and San Cristobal de las Casas stand out like dazzling jewels from the Sierra Madre. In the homeland of the Tzotziles, Tzetales, Chamulas and Lacandones, the indigenous people are about as primitive as the people of Valais or Grisons. In the highlands of Mexico, one of the oldest peoples in Central America, the Mixtecs, celebrate their impressive Stations of the Cross processions every year. The ceremony represents a strange symbiosis of Christianity and the world of the Mixtec gods. In the deepest religiosity, the Indians worship both Jesus Christ and Mary Virgin, the Virgen de Guadaloupe, and their charismatic hero Rey Condoy, who saved them from annihilation and oppression. The sparse candlelight, the clouds of copal incense and the sea spreading out on the floor, smelling strongly of spruce needles, as well as the magnificently decked out dignitaries with their silver-studded canes as insignia of their dignity, transformed the nave into a very spiritual and mystical world. I myself felt like an alien in this indigenous community. Flickering candles illuminated all the serious faces marked by hardships. Then the Indio women shouldered the Virgen de Guadaloupe and the men a statue of Jesus Christ on their shoulders, after which the whole Indio troop climbed up the steep mountain. They split into two groups and I decided to join the women’s torch and candlelight procession. At the seventh Stations of the Cross, the two processions united at a small clearing in a square around the banner bearers and the women kneeling before their thuribles. Now the Padre gave another speech and just at that moment the sky fully opened for the first time and the sun shone like a divine spell directed at the small Indio community, as if they were being specially blessed by this gathering. Their chants put me in a trance and it was extraordinary to live this spiritual experience as the only „gringo“ and foreigner among the Mixtec Indians. Devout and overwhelmed by this authentic spectacle of deepest indigenous and poignant emotions, we too became part of this world and merged, so to speak, with them and their ancestors. The Indians must have felt this as well and gave me their trust and pulled me into their innermost circle. When one of the banner bearers came out of the circle of dignitaries and approached us, I was at first very frightened, because I had secretly taken pictures of the reunion of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. I was afraid that they had caught me taking pictures and that I would be offered as an expiatory sacrifice and impaled on one of the lances. The fear was not unfounded, as tourists have been killed in Chiapas for photographing the local Indians. Instead, as a gesture of their hospitality, I was brought in to the center of the procession and allowed to be one of the three banner bearers. What a gesture and honor for me, which touched me very much. …
1994: Zeuge Zapatistischer Indio-Aufstände in Chiapas
The Chiapas Uprising was sparked by the „Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional“ (EZLN), a so-called radical leftist movement that rebelled against new state impositions in the state of Chiapas and closely resembled a new edition of the Mexican Revolution. The Mayan Indians were suffering from the free trade agreement of globalization and racist policies in the Mexican administration, and they wanted to resist this because they were being oppressed and excluded from participating in the political process. The conflict began when, in January 1994, an „EZLN“ offensive occupied four towns around San Cristobal de las Casas, whereupon the Mexican military used violence and repression to end the situation on the ground, including the use of torture methods. In 2001, under the leadership of MARCOS, the Zapatistas made a march from Chiapas to Mexico City, and on January 1, 2003, they took San Cristobal de las Casas. Only after that did more and more NGOs advocate for peace negotiations and put pressure on the government. In the end, however, the fate of the indigenous communities did not change much for the better. After escaping this incendiary place, I experienced another severe earthquake in Chiapas and a turbulent hurricane in Yucatan. So Mexico has really not spared with impressions, it has always been a hellishly hot country, not to mention all the drug cartels that were fighting each other bestially at that time. Impressive was the river trip through the Sumidero Canyon, on whose slippery rock walls up to 1000 meters high, experienced climbers could pull themselves up over the heads of ravenous crocodiles and dozens of vultures were already waiting for possible victims. The misty valleys and enchanting lake and river landscapes of Lago Monte Bellos on the Guatemalan border and the wildly gushing cascades of Agua Azul were also among the highlights of this trip. I avoided the tourist strongholds, preferred small dreamy places and visited many Mesoamerican temples – from Teotihuatlan to Monte Alban, Palenque, Chinchen Itza and Uxmal and was deeply impressed by the sophisticated architectural masterpieces of the local indigenous high cultures with their apocalyptic drug use. …
Cuba 93: With the socialists who feed on hope
In 1993, I flew to socialist Cuba for the first time. It was for a Swiss film project about Fidel Castro and Geraldine Chaplin was the door opener to the socialist rulers. It was the „Periodo especial en tiempo de paz“ (the time of emergency in peacetime) when Cuba, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall, was plunged into an extreme economic crisis and had to undergo a soft system change. Through the „dollar liberalization“ in the socialist Caribbean paradise, in order to switch from the sugar economy to tourism, a revolution from the „socialist heart to the capitalist mind“ took place. The classless society was now split into two camps: Those with the green U.S. bills („fulanos“) and those with the worthless pesos, the „esperancejos“, the hopeful ones. Thus, the hunt for the „fula“ (bad money) has taken on Kafkaesque forms. The change was marked by an unswerving determination not to give up the socialist achievements at any price. And yet, since the liberalization of the dollar, a dramatic, inexorable change in values has taken place. …
La Habana – the Latin American splendor of the 19th century presented a picture of monumental desolation. Entire neighborhoods were in danger of collapse, the Malecon was a mile-long, dilapidated colonial-style ensemble, and the decay of the old city was far advanced despite financial help from Unesco, which wanted to preserve, renovate or rebuild parts of the urban ensemble. The two-million metropolis was a conspicuous symbol of the fact that the country lay in ruins after the fall of the Wall and the withdrawal of the Soviets. The dilapidated ruins of the five-story colonial-style buildings were removed by hand, pillar by pillar, under life-threatening conditions until the building sections collapsed. Since economic aid and subsidized fuel supplies from the Soviet Union stopped, the mercado negro, where 85 percent of all goods are traded, has become Cuba’s main artery. Almost everything had to be imported at high cost, even the staple food rice. Export revenues fell from over eight billion in 1989 to barely two billion U.S. dollars within three years. Crude oil was only available in half that amount, the transportation system collapsed, the electricity supply functioned only on an hourly basis because the supply situation was precarious, the peso was worthless and the age of dollar apartheid had begun. „Our money is worthless and prices have increased tenfold in a short time,“ complains Ernesto Solano, a pensioner who had to get by on 80 pesos a month. Despite the miserable situation, he has not lost his sense of humor and sums up the predicament of the „Periodo especial en tiempo de paz“, which has now lasted two years, with a joke alluding to the slogans „luchan y resistan“ (fight and persevere) and „Long live the revolution – persevere compãgneros: A Cuban comes home hungry and shouts to his wife to fry the fish he brought with him. „We have no oil,“ is her reply, „and no gas for cooking, nor water, nor a lemon.“ So the only thing left for the man to do is to resignedly throw the fish back into the sea, whereupon it happily cries out, „Long live the revolution.“ …
Grenada 92: On the aircraft carrier „US John Rodgers“ for a press breakfast
In 1992, I traveled to the Caribbean twice. First I took part in a sailing trip from Grenada to Trinidad for Carnival, then I arrived in Grenada via Barbados exactly at the time when the ninth anniversary of the „liberation“ or „occupation“ of Grenada (depending on your point of view) by US forces was celebrated. In St. George, the capital of Grenada, I was able to attend the official ceremony with the Prime Minister of Grenada, Nicolas Brathwaiter and the U.S. Ambassador in the presence of high-ranking U.S. military officials, after which I was invited by the U.S. Ambassador to the exclusive and ultimate press breakfast on the aircraft carrier „U.S. John Rodgers“ stationed off Grenada. I didn’t want to miss that, after all, it’s not every day that you can have breakfast on a warship that has a huge potential for destruction. The next morning, a U.S. Navy boat picked me up on the beach and drove me over to the warship, which was anchored off the coast of Grenada. First I was able to take a short tour and then have a conversation about U.S. policy with the commander and his press aide on the command bridge. In retrospect, this visit was not a good idea, because I have been on the radar of U.S. intelligence agencies since this incident and later felt it in the Philippines. …
The invasion of Grenada was probably one of the few U.S. operations that, first of all, went smoothly for the civilian population and ultimately led to stabilization. The U.S. invasion of Panama was not too disastrous either, but all other interventions, invasions and infiltrations on the part of the U.S. from the Vietnam War to the Afghanistan operation, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the hopeless and devastating Iraq War that led to IS or even the overthrow of long-term despot M. Gaddhafi in Libya and the miserable failure in the Syria war, for the most part the USA failed miserably after WW2, whether as aggressor or world policeman. A „failed state“, with obvious consequences for the whole world: The radicalization in the Muslim world, which gave a boost to the terrorist organizations Al Qaeda and IS, or the „War on Drugs“ proclaimed by the USA was a disaster and hypocrisy for 50 years. …
1997: Hell Trip to the Drug Cartels of Colombia
In Bogota, I met my professional colleague, aviation journalist and military pilot Hans-Jörg Egger. Together we flew from the capital of Colombia in all directions in one week on behalf of Swissair. First to Letica in the border triangle of Brazil, Colombia and Peru in the south of the country in the middle of the Amazon jungle, then to Cartagena in the colonial pearl, with the magnificent colonial style buildings similar to Havana. We continued to Cali, then the drug stronghold of Pablo Escobar, another destination was Villa Vicencio, also known as a drug transshipment point, and finally we flew up to the Caribbean island of San Andres, located off the coast of Nicaragua. The purpose of the trip: We were to put together a travel itinerary for the Swissair VIP shareholders trip and reconnoiter the best places where ancient aircraft types still fly around. It was to be a fantastic vintage aviation trip. …
The harbingers of the jungle begin less than 100 kilometers from Bogota, but in order to get there you have to overcome the grueling pass road of the Sierra Oriental at an altitude of 3700 meters above sea level and then master and survive the winding descent on narrow paths along abyssal canyons down to a hundred meters above sea level. The sun is just setting on the blood-red horizon above the steaming jungle, where tropical thunderstorms rain down heavily on the esmerald green jungle just before dusk, making the ride on the slippery pass road hell. Arriving in Villa Vicencio, we board the silver fuselage of the DC-6 after an interview with the airport director, and soon we are flying through the lashing rain with a loud propeller howl. The pilot’s forehead is also covered with thick beads of water, as it looks to him like difficult flying and landing conditions. The propeller engines are roaring as they fight against the dense, fast-moving clouds. The view from the small round windows sweeps over the green jungle sea in the Amazon basin, the meandering river courses and island dots. Then the descent begins and we set down for landing, whereupon we are soon relieved to have arrived unharmed. …
At the end of our Colombia trip we arrived at the airport in Bogota as always in the last days only shortly before departure. We had gotten used to the fact that 15 minutes were enough to board the plane. This worked well with all Colombian flights, but the upcoming flight to Ecuador was just a flight out of the country. We had not thought about that and that the procedure would take much longer. When we arrived at the counter and learned that boarding was already completed, I showed the check-in counter employees two seat cards and said: „Stop the airplaine, now immediately“ and simply ran through the gate past the surprised securities out onto the airfield. Without being shot at, we ran towards the plane that was taxiing to the runway. At the same time we saw a stair car racing towards the plane and the jet stopped. After a few dozen meters, we made it and were allowed to rush up the stairs, whereupon the boarding door opened and we were able to board. „Wow, what awesome action!“ Why did the plane stop, you ask? Well, one business card was that of the Colombian Minister of Aviation and the other, that of the Bogota Airport Director. Both of these people we had interviewed before. And so it happened that for us two Swiss journalists in Colombia, a commercial airliner on an international flight was stopped on the taxiway for departure so that the two VIPs could board. …
Species extinction through overexploitation: Amazon Cruise with scientists
Its name is a legend and sounds as exotic as the myth that surrounds it: the Rio Amazonas. It is the second longest and most water-rich river on earth, the one with the most tributaries, the strongest water discharge, the largest catchment area and the most enormous delta. In thousands and thousands of meanders it flows majestically through the most diverse and opulent rainforest on earth, nourishing, watering and sustaining an immense variety of fauna and flora and at the same time being the lifeline of millions of people. The Amazon is called „Maranhão“ by the Indians, „which only God can unravel“ and it consists of a bizarre network of over 1100 rivers, 20 of which are longer than the Rhine. But it is only after the encuentro dos aguas, the confluence of the Rio Negro and Rio Branco at Manaus, that the river is called Rio Amazonas. With its catchment area of more than seven million km2 and its daily deposit of three million tons of sediment in the delta, the Amazon outranks all other rivers. One fifth of the fresh water in the world’s oceans is fed by the king of rivers. More than 30,000 species of plants, which thrive on three levels above each other, and more than 2,000 species of fish and birds live in its catchment area. …
An expedition to the Amazon jungle is both a journey into an exotic world full of overwhelming flora and an encounter with a species-rich fauna – full of giant snakes, such as anacondas and phytons, anteaters, sloths, howler monkeys, piranhas, shy river dolphins, colorful parrots (macaws) or magnificent tucans as well as nimble hummingbirds. The list could, it seems, be continued almost indefinitely. But the opposite is the case. The number of species threatened with extinction is increasing dramatically. According to experts, the rainforest is irretrievably destroyed when 40 percent of its area has been destroyed. In the last 50 years, a quarter of the rainforest has already been cut down or burned – with catastrophic consequences for the climate, the environment, people and animals. The indigenous people in the rainforests had destroyed barely one percent of the rainforest over the period of the last 15,000 years. A single human generation is therefore sufficient to bring the entire ecosystem of planet Earth out of balance and the human race as such into danger. …
In Brazil today there are still about one million square kilometers of Amazon rainforest, which is not protected and not zoned, but also does not belong to the indigenous tribes living there (because they must first prove their centuries-old legitimacy in lengthy processes), so that their land is not sacrificed to overexploitation and investor rapacity. Because the common principle goes as follows: Areas are illegally confiscated, burned or cleared and thus destroyed. In the years that follow, attempts are then made to legalize land grabbing in this area through lucrative cattle ranching, which has been a piece of cake since President Bolsonaro. Land speculation is fueled by interna-tional investors. In the region, some 30 billion U.S. dollars will be spent in the next few years on road construction, electricity and infrastructure to develop and exploit the primary forest. 92 dams are planned in the Amazon region. These are devastating prospects. What capitalist madness. To add to the misery, the government of Jair Bolsonaro plans to build a railroad almost 1000 kilometers across the jungle and many indigenous protected areas. The agricultural lobby is delighted, as the Ferrogrão infrastructure project promises lower future transport costs to the Atlantic and thus higher profits. A study by economists Juliano Assunçao, Rafael Araújo and Arthur Bragança has shown that additional clearing of an area of 2050 square kilometers is to be expected, which corresponds to around 300,000 soccer fields. Not only would the clearing of this virgin forest produce about 75 million tons of carbon, but the increasing loss of the green lung will soon lead to the collapse of the climate and irrigation system in the entire Amazon basin. …
Borneo 96: Stalking through the jungle with a handicapped orang utan
The orang utan, the „forest man“ in Malay, has been threatened with extinction since the mid-1960s. Despite international species protection agreements, at that time still extremely restrictive trade agreements and the two rehabilitation stations on Semengho in Sarawak and Sepilok in Sabah on the Malaysian island of Borneo, the close relatives of Homo Sapiens are acutely endangered. Greed for tropical timber and palm oil is destroying their habitat, the primary forest. Due to the destruction of their refuges, they are now isolated in small groups. The apes have also become known through the Swiss environmental and human rights activist Bruno Manser. Manser lived in Borneo from 1984 to 1990, recorded the fauna and flora of the tropical rainforest, learned the language and culture of the Penan and lived with them. In 1990 he had to flee to Switzerland after he was expelled by the Malaysian government and declared an „undesirable person“. A bounty of 50000 dollars was put on his head. In 1993, Manser participated in a fasting action and a hunger strike in front of the Federal Parliament in Bern to protest against the import of tropical timber. In 2000, despite an entry ban and a bounty on his head, he traveled from the Indonesian part of Borneo (Kalimantan) across the green border into the Malaysian Sarawak to the Penan and was never seen again. Since then, Bruno Manser has been considered missing and was officially declared dead in 2005. …
In 1996, I made a trip to Malaysia to celebrate 50 years of independence from the British crown and after the state celebration with all Asian heads of state, I first traveled by car all over Malaysia and visited the Taman Negara National Park in the rainforest. After the detour to Langkawi, I flew to Borneo and landed in Sarawak with the goal of exploring the situation of forest clearing for palm oil production, the threatening situation of the headhunters and the destroyed habitat of the Orang Utan. At Lake Batang Ai in Sarawak on Borneo I started the expedition into the rainforest and hired a guide with a dugout canoe to lead me to the Iban Headhunters living here. After two days‘ travel from Lake Batang Ai, paddling a canoe through a sea of deforested tropical tribes flowing downstream, I ended up in one of these remote longhouse villages. The days of decapitating intruders with the parang, the dreaded long knife, and hanging the trophies in the form of shrunken mini-skulls from the beams of the longhouses are thankfully over. The longhouses of the head hunters are built on stilts, up to 100 meters long and have a continuous wide corridor leading to a longitudinal veranda.
Unfortunately, I came down with malaria. Shaken by fever cramps and checkmate, I lay around for three days like a dead fly in the „longhouse“ of the headhunters, before I could go back by dugout canoe to a jungle camp, which had a radio station, in order to take up contact with Switzerland over the radio connection and the telephone handset held to the radio, with my family. When at home in Switzerland the tape recorder instead of a connection came, I said only briefly that I wanted to say goodbye, because I would probably not survive the night. After that I lay down outside under the starry night sky, shaken by further bouts of fever. I wanted to die at least in the open air and not in the tiny, stuffy wooden hut in which I had been quartered. What happened now was unique and should shake my distinctive sense of reality fundamentally. Whether it was just hallucinations or whether I was actually brought back from the Ascension is not clear to me to this day. In any case my astral body took off and then I saw purely optically already the stars with comet-like rapid speed coming towards me and felt pulled weightlessly up into the orbit and glided like the spaceship „Enterprise“ which jetted with light speed through the orbit towards the starry sky. But since the stars can’t come at me, I realized that I must have taken off like an angel and was now racing toward the sparkling firmament, unless my fevered brain was doing its antics and hallucinogenic vision with me. With the help of the jungle camp residents, I got back on my feet after two days, traveled on to Kota Kinabalu to the Orang Utan Rehabilitation Station in Sepilok, and arrived just in time for the feeding from a platform two kilometers further into the forest. The tourist groups had already started walking before me on the wooden walkway that led a good two meters above the ground into the rainforest to the large visitor platform and the two feeding stations in the trees behind it.
Then I watched as the babies got their food and gobbled it down and then disappeared back into the trees. After feeding, I wanted to get back to the rehab station before the others, so I made my way back along the walkway before the others. As I tried to sneak past a young handicapped orangutan, with a chopped off but already healed arm, lying backwards on the walkway, blocking the passage, he grabbed me by the lower leg. What was I supposed to do? When I wanted to gently loosen his hand that was clutching my leg, he simply grabbed me by the wrist, whereupon we both, the young orangutan and the still feverish and sweaty photographer ran hand in hand through the jungle to the station. He could have taken me right up into the treetops with his cronies. That didn’t work, but I made a good appearance in the rehabilitation ward when we arrived there hand in hand, like old friends. …
Indonesia: Dramatic deforestation and species extinction accepted
What is the situation today? The habitat of the great apes has been drastically reduced and their population has not increased but has been further decimated. Genomicists at the University of Zurich have recently discovered a new species on Sumatra, the Tapanuli orangutan, whose refuge lies in the rugged mountains of the Batang Toru region in Indonesia. The estimated 800 primates are affected by forest clearing for palm oil plantations, urban sprawl and a dam project here in Indonesia, as they are on Borneo. And they are not the only ones silently dying out. Many other species are also going extinct. One million species are threatened with extinction in the next decades. This is the devastating conclusion of the 2019 „World Biodiversity Council“ (IPBES). Reptiles and birds are having a hard time, but more and more mammals are also becoming extinct. 540 land vertebrate species were wiped out in the 20th century. Most of them in the Asian region.
Switzerland has concluded a controversial economic agreement with Indonesia and relies on „RSPO“ standards in the agreement, which was created in cooperation with companies, environmental organizations and aid agencies. But this will not stop deforestation or dam projects, and the habitat of the orang utan and many other species continues to be doomed. An agreement with sustainability goals is a small step forward, but unfortunately does not change the fact that overexploitation continues and there are too few protected areas, because the demand for palm oil has increased extremely and continues to rise. Accordingly, the area under cultivation has also grown, resulting from the clearing of primary forest. Since 2008, the area under palm oil cultivation has increased by 0.7 million hectares per year, an area four times the size of the canton of Zurich. And demand is expected to more than double again by 2050. On the island of Borneo, 50 percent of deforestation is due to palm oil cultivation. In the much larger Indonesia, the figure is already 20 percent. Six percent of all animal species are found on the island of Borneo. For over 4000 years, the rainforests of Borneo have been populated by indigenous peoples. Over the last 50 years, almost half of the rainforest in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, has been cleared. There are thousands of land conflicts by indigenous communities against large logging companies, but the state and the judiciary make it difficult for the people to access their rights and defend their land against overexploitation. Although a convention to protect the rainforests has existed for 30 years, it has never been ratified and implemented by the Indonesian parliament. Furthermore, it can be observed that almost all politicians are either former or still incumbent timber industrialists in Jakarta, as Norman Jiwan of the NGO „TuK“ reports. And only less than 30 of the richest Indonesian families profit from the palm oil industry. …
Philippines 95: Incredible Spirit Healing Skills
On my second trip to the Philippines, I first took a boat trip to explore Palawan Island, Busuanga Island and the Coron Islands, and then visited Filipino spiritual healers in Luzon. Half a year before, a 25 year old healer came to Switzerland and Germany, who obviously already had cult status. In any case, three dozen people were waiting in Zurich for a short session with this spiritual healer. One after the other, the people gathered in a darkened room and briefly told the spiritual healer, who was in a trance, their concerns, whereupon he examined them, palpated them and did strange things before my eyes, such as opening the body with the fingertip in certain places, whereupon the flesh wound opened up and he dipped his fingers into it. The Filipino spiritual healers are said to have the ability to dematerialize their fingers as they are dipped in order to merge with the body tissue. When he pushed his fingers deep into the flesh, they immediately became invisible under the surface of the skin and fused with the tissue. There were no more finger tips or tips to be seen, only the base of the fingers above the skin surface remained visible. And when he pulled his fingers out, they immediately closed the gaping wound, leaving behind a slightly reddened area on the skin’s surface. „Absolute madness!“ I have never seen anything like this before and only twice – with two spiritual healers in Zurich and now here in Luzon. Since then I perceive the world with different eyes and sensors. …
At the end of this Philippines trip I experienced another uncomfortable surprise. I was arrested at the airport when leaving the country, because I had the name of a person who was written out in the Philippines. So I had to go to the Minister of Tourism, on whose invitation I was in the Philippines, to be released and allowed to leave. Had it not been for him, I would have had to travel to Manila and present myself at the Department of Justice. Fortunately, I was spared that and so that other tourists in Switzerland would also be spared such a thing, I published the telephone number of the Minister of Justice in the daily newspapers with the reference that in such a case one should contact the head of the justice authority directly. This reference in the Swiss media was not appreciated by the Philippine Embassy. Even more: A few years later, when „Singapore Airlines“, my most important airline partner, invited me to the Philippines, I was suddenly disinvited again and elevated to persona non grata. …
India 2006: In the realm of loving hands with the Ayurveda pioneers
In 1996 I flew for the first time to India, namely to Kerala at the southern tip of the country to the up-and-coming Ayurveda resorts and clinics. I had previously come into close contact with Ayurvedic medicine in Sri Lanka and had done a Pancha Karma cleansing treatment and visited seven of the then best Ayurvedic resorts on the tropical island and compared them with each other. I was so fascinated by the Ayurvedic medicine I had experienced in Sri Lanka that I decided to travel to Kerala and met the South Indian Ayurvedic pioneers, the „cgh earth group“, who had already made a name for themselves with very exclusive resorts. Ayurvedic medicine was discovered over 5,000 years ago by highly gifted Indians in the depths of their meditation and spirituality, but as a result of colonization and professional bans by the British colonial government, it was suppressed for over 50 years before experiencing a revival in the 1990s. „A lot of knowledge was lost because of the ban,“ says Dr. Jayawardhana of the University of Colombo. Developed thousands of years ago in northern India, Ayurveda is a holistic system of nature that considers body, mind and spirit a single entity.Ayurvedic philosophy holds that all matter, including humans, can be traced back to the five elements of earth, water, air, fire and space. Ayurveda assumes that everything grows in nature that is needed to make and keep man healthy. Thus, plants, minerals, ashes, salts, barks, woods, roots and animal products are cooked and powdered and then made into pills, ointments and oils. The delicate yellow sesame oil is the base of all massage oils. It is rich in unsaturated fatty acids and makes brittle skin soft and smooth. To the sesame oil the doctor mixes other natural ingredients that are specifically adapted to the particular dosha type. The oil can thus have an optimal effect on the individual constitution of the person. No other medicine in the world has such a universal, profound and holistic cleansing system as Ayurvedic medicine and the Pancha Karma cure in particular. It is the mother of all cures! …
Gujarat 2013: the meeting with Narenda Moodi in Ahmedabad
In March 2013, at the annual tourism trade fair „ITB“ in Berlin, in the hall where India and Indian tour operators presented themselves, I was approached about a press trip to Gujarat and gave my business card to the initiators. Just two months later, I flew via Dehli to Ahmedabad, the capital of the state of Gujarat, and there, to my amazement, I met about 150 journalists and influencers who had flown in from all over the world to get to know the tourist attractions of Gujarat. After splitting into different interest groups, we were carted around for five days and introduced to the tourist highlights. First was the Rani ki Vav stepwell near the town of Patan on the banks of the Saraswati River. A Unesco World Heritage Site, the temple complex was dedicated in the 11th century in honor of the king’s daughter of Khengara of Saurashtra of the Solanki Dynasty. The temple complex was a huge eight-story water reservoir and contains over five hundred frescoes from Hindu mythology of that time and still valid today. Another highlight was the Sun Temple in Modhera, this temple complex is also located on the banks of a river, the Pushpavati River. The sacred site was built between 1026 and 1027 BC during the era of King Bhima I of the Chaulukya dynasty. The temple complex consists of three com-plexes: The Shrine Gudhamandapa, the Unification Hall Sabhamandapa and the water reservoir Kunda. Then the journey continued in a jeep and took us into an inhospitable, dust-dry land to the Rann of Kutch, a saltwater marshland on the border between India and Pakistan. The Rann of Kutch is divided into two regions: The Great Rann Kutch and the Little Rann Kutch. The Greater Rann is located in Pakistan, while the Lesser Rann of Kutch borders it to the southeast and extends to the Gulf of Kutch. 20,946 km2 of the Little Kutch are protected area with a Wildlife Sanctuary, which was established in 1973. At the end of the trip we spent one more night in the Maharaja Palace in Poshina and before it went back to the capital of Gujarat Ahmedabad, where I visited the Ghandi Museum and then it came to the final meeting of the journalist event with the appearance of Narenda Moodi, of which until the hour none of the media representatives knew anything. It was only when some heavily armed soldiers with mine detectors and search dogs showed up that it was clear that there would be high ranking visitors shortly. Then a small escort drove up and Narenda Moodi ascended in the presence of the tourism minister of Gujarat and some other officials and made clear to all his ambitions for the Indian presidency, a goal that he then also achieved and since then has divided India with his Hindu nationalist course. …
Egypt 2004: Witnessing two terrorist attacks among the Bedouins in Sinai
Arrived in Sinai in 2005, more precisely in Sharm el Sheikh, the situation as resident manager for a Swiss tour operator was again quite different. this assignment was a real challenge. The first two months in Sinai I lived in the „Radisson „Hotel“ with all tourist amenities, good infrastructure and nice ambience. Then I was shipped off to a spartan concrete block for the local tour guides in a dreary environment, whereupon I got a special permit from the Governor General for the restricted military areas in Sinai (due to the UN peacekeeping mission after the Six-Day War), so that I was allowed to drive into the restricted areas in the desert outside Sharm-el-Sheikh at night. What was I doing there at night? Well, as always, access to the local color and locals outside the tourist hotspots. In this case, access to the life of the Bedouins in Sinai and to my friend Faroud. With outside temperatures during the day reaching over 50 degrees Celsius, life in the desert takes place at night. Since I had made the acquaintance of Faroud, who lived alone at the shipwreck „Maria Schroeder“ in the Nabq National Park, I could now meet him after work in the seclusion of the desert, escaping the tourist hustle and bustle, and spend a few spiritual and poetic hours under the sparkling firmament. The journey to him was not so easy, because the 35 km through the desert and sand dunes had it in itself. I covered the distance with the official vehicle, thus a conventional passenger car. In pitch-dark surroundings it meant to drive then with much speed over the dunes, without getting into the faltering, because without 4-wheel drive there was normally no getting through here. But I found a way and twice a week I drove into the desert at night to parley with the young Bedouin, to philo-sophize and to enjoy the twinkling stars without light pollution. …
At the time I was stationed in the Sinai, there were two of a total of three major terrorist attacks. The first was in Taba, the second and largest attack occurred in July 2005 in Sharm-el-Sheikh and claimed 88 lives, and well over 100 were injured. The third terrorist attack occurred on the evening of April 24, 2006, in Dahab, a diving hotspot, in which three fragmentation bombs were detonated. The first detonated at a busy intersection in front of the „Ghazala“ supermarket across from the police station. Two others exploded a short time later on the seafront. Around 30 people, almost all Egyptians, lost their lives in the attack. Many more people were seriously injured. We were very close to a catastrophe, because we remember the terrorist attacks of November 17, 1997 in Luxor, where 36 Swiss lost their lives. But the fear was great and the security measures in front of each hotel rigorous. Each car was carefully mirrored and frisked before entering the hotel driveway. X-ray machines scanned every hotel guest entering. …
All the crazier was a trip with two vehicles and seven Swiss tourists, who absolutely wanted to make a trip to Cairo with me in the car, across the whole Sinai, from the southern tip of Sharm-el-Sheikh in one day to Cairo including the return trip with a total distance of over 1000 km and a good 30 military roadblocks on one way. My local co-driver and I managed the feat and needed 27 hours for the oxen tour. Three hours longer than planned, because I overlooked the last but one military roadblock in my tiredness after more than 24 hours at the wheel and roared with about 70 kilometers per hour through the barriers built up in a serpentine line – nota bene without touching a single one. …
Lebanon 2006: In the Palestinian Camp „Shatila
I have already visited many conflict regions and even experienced critically hot phases, but I did not dare to enter the Hezbollah quarters without appropriate contacts and connections or a locally familiar person in the background. But in order to establish contacts, the time until my departure within a few days was too short. In addition, one of the most important protective factors in my work is not only to speak the language of the population, but if possible not to be recognized as a foreigner or stranger. I could not use these trump cards here. During my short stay, I was stopped and briefly interrogated by the Lebanese army three times in one day alone. In the Hezbollah quarters it became even more uncomfortable. Almost on every third corner you were stopped as a foreigner and asked who you were and what you wanted here. Hezbollah is Iran’s most important ally in Lebanon, not only from a military but also from a political point of view, because Hezbollah, together with its allies, is the most important political force in the imploded country on the Levant. Lebanon serves Iran as a military front against Israel and that outside its own territory, therefore the Assad regime in Syria is also an ally and Iran’s only strategic partner. Due to the precarious security situation and without local contacts or adequate protection, I withdrew from this neighborhood and arrived instead at the Palestinian refugee camp of Shatila. There, a Palestinian refugee showed me the three massacre sites. The Sabra and Shatila massacre is the name given to a cleansing action perpetrated by Phalangist militias, i.e. Christian Maronite soldiers, directed against Palestinian refugees living in the south of Beirut. In September 1982 – in the middle of the Lebanese civil war – the two mentioned refugee camps, which were surrounded by Israeli soldiers at that time, were stormed and hundreds of civilians were massacred by the Christian, i.e. Phalangist militias. …
The Persian Poppy Shah and His Diplomatic Drug Princes
Humanitarian reasons did not count in the Persian empire of the Shah of Persia. As one of the most merciless persecutors of narcotics traffickers, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had had well over 100 people shot for illegal possession of drugs since 1969 on the basis of his anti-drug law. Anyone caught in Persia with more than ten grams of heroin or two kilograms of opium was sentenced to death. All the greater was the unease and political dilemma in Switzerland over the course of the Geneva affair, when a member of the Shah’s team, who broke off his winter vacation in St. Moritz because judges and individual members of the authorities in Geneva had demanded that the immunity of the opium prince, who was not accredited in Switzerland, be lifted in order to initiate criminal drug proceedings. After all, Persia was Switzerland’s third most important trading partner in Asia at the time and, moreover, one of its largest arms buyers. In 1969/70, Swiss war material producers sold weapons systems in Iran for over 90 million Swiss francs. For the sake of the prominent St. Moritz winter sportsman Resa, the most prominent anti-Shah agitator, Bahman Nirumand, was also not allowed to speak publicly in Switzerland at that time. In the same year that the Shah enacted the world’s toughest drug prohibition laws, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi lifted a 1955 ban on opium poppy planting and ascended to the throne of poppy farmers: 12,000 hectares of poppy crops belonged to him and his family. According to the WHO in Geneva, the heroin and opium extracted from the imperial poppy could only be used medicinally to a very small extent. Thus Persia, along with Afghanistan and Turkey, was the hubs for the illicit trade. At the time, UN drug investigators noted another conspicuous fact: While all countries had destroyed the drugs they had seized, only 329 kilos of the 18.4 tons of seized drugs were destroyed in Iran, 152 kilos went to the legal trade. of the remaining 17 tons, the Shah had them distributed throughout the world via his diplomatic couriers. Suspicions that Persian diplomats were smuggling heroin and opiates for their emperor’s foreign exchange coffers had not only arisen since the Huschang affair in Geneva. In 1961, when poppy planting was banned in Iran, the Shah’s twin sisters, Princess Ashraf, were also reportedly caught at Geneva’s Cointrin airport with a suitcase full to the brim of heroin. Only their diplomatic immunity, according to the „National-Zeitung“, saved them from prosecution. How does the situation look today? …
The Murderous God State and General Qassam Soleimani’s Execution
What „the hell“ prompted the Iranian ambassador in Switzerland, Alireza Salari, to invite me to the diplomatic celebration on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Iranian revolution at the embassy in Bern, I do not know. I expected a short media appointment amidst a crowd of journalists and a few words „on the state of the nation“. But it turned out differently, I was the only media representative and press photographer among a hand-picked selection of non-state guests. All the other 150 or so invited guests were diplomats, spies or both. Things got even more interesting when Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Sarif also appeared at the Iranian Embassy in Bern and was enthusiastically greeted by Alireza Salari. Switzerland and the Iranian Embassy in Bern, as well as the accredited representatives to the United Nations in Geneva, played an important role in world politics in the diplomatic relations between Iran and the United States. As with Cuba, Switzerland serves and acts as a neutral country and mediator of diplomatic interests between these countries. The nuclear negotiations with Iran also took place in Montreux at that time. From this point of view, Switzerland and the „UN“ in Geneva are the hub for the diplomatic relations of the USA with Iran and Cuba. Therefore, I would like to introduce a string-puller of Iranian foreign policy and look at his capabilities as well as his great influence on world affairs. We are talking about General Qassam Soleimani, the „Che Guevara“ of the Iranian revolution, who ended up in about the same way as his famous Cuban predecessor, who had the same idea and exported the Cuban revolution not only to all the countries of Latin America, but also went so far as to support communist or Marxist countries in Africa as well. …
General Qassam Soleimani, Tehran’s longtime gray eminence, was appointed head of the „Khuz“ brigades by Khomenei in 1998 and coordinated attacks on the Israeli occupiers from Lebanon until they withdrew two years later. Israel’s invasion of Lebanon is a grave mistake in retrospect because it fueled Iran to build up Hezbollah in Leba-non and to attack Sunnis in Iraq with Shiite militias, according to then-Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. Soleimani was also the creator of the „Axis of Resistance to Imperialism“ and the longtime chief strategist in Iranian foreign policy aimed at „engaging imperialists abroad, uniting the Shiite community across the Middle East, and defending the faith community against Sunni claims to power.“ In particular, the eight-year Iraq war, which cost the lives of over a million Iranians, and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, shaped Soleimani, who grew up under the „Revolutionary Guards“ and „Khuz“ brigades, a special forces unit. Iran has benefited from the collapse of Iraq and the consequences of the Arab Spring, massively expanding its influence in the region. Tehran is driven by three main interests: the three components of Iran’s foreign policy are ideological, geopolitical and security strategies. Ideologically, Iran sees itself as a protective power of oppressed Muslims in the context of a revolutionary resistance force against Israel and the United States. Geopolitically, Iran aims to stand up to Saudi Arabia to expand its influence in the region. The rivalry is being played out in Syria or Yemen. …
Species extinctions & pandemics: Will we survive?
In this chapter, I would like to go into detail about the scientific findings of the SOS state of Mother Earth as a result of climate change and the consequences for the world’s population, as I have been dealing with this for a good 30 years and have seen the dramatic effects worldwide. I have been most impressed by the indigenous peoples around the globe with their understanding of nature. It is they who are often among the first to suffer and be displaced. But also the young and the next generations will have to realize stunned that in the consumption rush after the oil crisis in 1975 and especially since the beginning of the 90s we have burned almost as much gas, coal and oil as not in a million years of earth history before. And this, although the sun has always sent 10,000 times more energy to the earth’s surface than man needs and mankind, despite environmental scientific knowledge and photovoltaics available since the 1950s, is politically unable to follow and certainly unable to act adequately. Also all the causers, the oil, coal and gas industry, which despite better knowledge for 50 years with billion-heavy disinformation campaigns their disastrous raison d’être at the expense of the society, nature and geosphere legitimates – unfortunately until today with success. It is not excluded that with the great species extinction also our species will become extinct and man will become planetary history. Mankind has blown more than 2000 billion tons of CO2 into the earth’s atmosphere. There are still 350 billion. tons of CO2 emissions to meet the climate goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees and a good 1100 tons to limit warming to two degrees. An analysis by the scientific journal „Nature“ concludes that all existing plants worldwide will still emit around 700 billion tons of CO2 over the course of their normal lifetime. tons of CO2 over the course of their normal lifetimes. So there is little hope that we will reach the two degree target at all“, says Walter Rüegg, who worked for 15 years as a nuclear and particle physicist at the „ETH“ and then for 30 years for „ABB“. …
Butterfly effect: Hedge funds are the drivers of wars and climate change
A good 500 companies with well over 10,000 employees work in the commodities industry in Switzerland, which had its first notorious protagonist in March Rich, who made it to dubious fame when he first hit the headlines in the 1970s. The Belgian-born U.S. citizen ensured that commodities trading became significant in Switzerland. His unscrupulous oil deals with South Africa and Iran, circumventing international sanctions during apartheid, helped the „father of the Swiss success model“ to immense wealth and put him on the list of most wanted criminals in the US until Bill Clinton, the godfather of neoliberals pardoned him in 2001. We recall that Clinton and Greenspan also pushed for the liberalization of food markets, triggering the hedge fund scourge. Back to Switzerland. In this country, Christoph Blocher and Martin Ebner were among the most ruthless liberalizers in the 1990s. We know from „Bloomberg“ journalists Javier Blas and Jack Farchy that Ebner was among the saviors of Marc Rich’s empire, and „Glencore“ boss Ivan Glasberg also earned his spurs in Johannesburg, South Africa, and learned much from his master in illegal oil deals and evasion of sanctions, even though he worked in the coal department. Low taxes, a central location in Europe, a stable Swiss franc and access to the international financial system, and weak regulation have provided fertile ground in Switzerland in recent decades for companies that exploit the world’s resources and pay little in the way of taxes. From „Glencore’s“ environment emerged other successful commodity traders such as „Vitol,“ which helped the island nation of Cuba secure oil deals in exchange for sugar at favorable prices when Cuba defaulted.
Swiss commodity traders control almost 80 percent of global trade and act unscrupulously. The „Gunvor“ case in the Congo, the machinations of „Credit Suisse“ in Mozambique and the money laundering affair in Bulgaria are examples of the tip of the corruption iceberg. Although the Federal Council confirmed in a report „the great risk of corruption“, it did nothing further to strengthen banking supervision and curb money laundering. Commodity traders „Glencore,“ „Trafigura,“ „Vitol,“ „Mercuria“ and „Gunvor“ received a total of $363.8 billion in loans from 2013 to 2019, according to research by Public Eye. „Public Eye“ also investigated the high-risk financial instruments and practices of commodity traders, which now function as banks themselves, but largely evade financial control and banking and financial supervision „finma“. „Gunvor“ paid 164 million fine in the USA for the misconduct in Brazil, Ecuador and Mexico. It is repugnant that large corporations, banks and the super-rich can repeatedly buy their way out with ridiculous fines, while others go to jail for much lesser acts. …
South Seas Pearls 1996: At the Gate to Paradise
The magic of the South Seas has made many poets go into raptures. The whole fund of occidental poetry and fantasy has been exhausted to describe the glory of Polynesia and the gentle way of life of the Maori. A mosaic of light and color surrounds the widely scattered chain of islands. Like luminous white pearl necklaces, the shimmering islands, covered with emerald green vegetation and fringed by ring-shaped reefs, stand out from the first turquoise, then deep blue Pacific Ocean. Well over 2500 atolls are lost in the boundless expanse of the Pacific Ocean, which with its 182 million square kilometers swallows up a third of the earth’s surface. The volcanic islands and coral atolls delimit the depths of the sea, turn its opulent underwater splendor upward and unfold the beauty of the colorful coral gardens with great abundance of species and shield the islands, often located only a few meters above the sea surface, from the surf. Tahiti, the „island of multicolored waters“ is also a symbol of the transfigured myth that covers the South Seas like its sparkling firmament with enchanting impressions. In the South Seas the creator once wanted to show what he was capable of, the poet Robert Brooke recorded. Gaugin, too, fell into a painterly impressionistic frenzy of colors and senses. Especially Moorea, which is less than half an hour away from Papeete by catamaran, is taken to heart by many. Right next to the 900 meter high Mount Rotui is the famous Cook Bay. Indeed, one cannot help but paint the South Seas in the most beautiful colors and praise it in the highest terms. In view of the gentle and strong charisma of the islanders, one is tempted to elevate their world to a paradise on earth, when graceful, strong men row their canoes through the water at the speed of an arrow or graceful creatures sit under the coconut palms, mango, papaya, avocado and breadfruit trees.
Mauritius: Symphony in turquoise and white with the world’s best spa resorts
To be under shady filaos on the coral-white sandy beach under the steel-blue sky and to have the turquoise-blue shimmering lagoon in front of your eyes – Mauritius offers such paradisiacal views. You should be a painter, you think, when you see Mauritius for the first time. The shades of blue of the sea and the sky, which contrast so clearly with the white of the beaches, captivate you. Behind them, the lush green of meadows, palm trees, sugar cane plantations and tropical vegetation. The fertile volcanic soil allows the most wonderful fruits to flourish, for example sugar-sweet pineapples, mangos, papayas or cinnamon apples. What a variety of colors. The same is true for the Mauritians. From ebony black to saffron yellow to pearl white, the color shades of the Mauritian population range. It is a colorful mixture of peoples, two thirds of the islanders are Hindus, about 180’000 are Arabs, mainly Sunnis. There are also tens of thousands of Chinese, Hakkas and whites, mostly of French origin. The more than 300,000 Creoles are descended from African and Malagasy slaves, white settlers, Indian agricultural workers and Chinese traders. Thus, Asian art of living mixes with the European colonial heritage, the result makes the magic of this island area and captivates tourists. …
Australia’s fantastic natural paradises and the dirty coal industry
Fraser Island is ancient and carries the eternity of over 220 million years of evolutionary history under its hump. Sand has been washing up and accumulating on the island for two million years. During the Ice Age, this landscape was formed and in its present form it has existed for about 6000 years. With the warming of the climate 140,000 years ago, the first traces of the Aborigines appeared there, but it is assumed that the Butschulla aborigines settled on „KGari“ Island, as they called the island at that time, only 20 million years ago. The attraction of the island microcosm are the up to 240 meters high sand dunes, 120 kilometers of beach, over 100 crystal clear freshwater lakes, which spread between eucalyptus forests, palm groves and a sea of ferns in the gigantic dune landscape as well as a large, protected bay, the Hervey Bay, which offers the humpback whales between August and October a protected retreat. The crystal clear waters of Lake Mc Kenzie beckon for a refreshing swim. Its shore lined with white sand is not only a popular resting place after the trip through the rainforest, but also the dingos and walabis (mini kangaroos) come here to drink. But the dingos also come because of the bulging provision bags of the tourists. Many a fine morsel falls off for the wild dogs. Then we continue to Lake Wabby, which is surrounded by dense rainforest on this side, while on the other shore you can roll down from the sand dunes almost reaching into the sky and splash into the water. The gigantic freshwater reservoirs hold a combined ten to twenty million mega-liters of fresh water. Fraser Island is ancient and carries the eternity of over 220 million years of evolutionary history on its hump. Sand has been washing up and accumulating on the island for two million years. During the Ice Age, this landscape was formed and in its present form it has existed for about 6000 years. With the warming of the climate 140’000 years ago, the first traces of the Aborigines appeared there. …
Not far from the city of Cairns is the Tapukjai Cultural Village, where visitors are introduced to the culture and customs of the local Aborigines. If you drive further north along the coast, you first come to Palm Cove, a small charming nest, then you continue to Port Douglas, where the famous Thala Beach Lodge and the Daintree Forest Lodge are located, the latter has been awarded several times as the most environmentally friendly accommodation in Australia. At the Wawu-Jirakul Spa (which means „cleansing of the spirit“ in the Aboriginal language), the five elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether are celebrated into a fantastic wellness cocktail amidst a waterfall in the jungle that served as a sacred cleansing kraal for the Kuku Yalanji Aborigines and a yoga site for Brook Shields. For the spa treatments, in addition to essential oils, various sandstones are used, which the Aborigines use not only for their body paint but also as food. I am amazed, whereupon the Aborigines walks with me around the spring, reaches into the loamy earth at three places and strokes a smear on my naked leg. Immediately I see that one stripe is sand-yellow, the second clay-gray and the third reddish colored. „See here we have zinc, copper and calcium mineral layers. Once you run out of food,“ he says to me, „you flush the clay down with water and get minerals that way!“ Not bad, I thought, nevertheless I would not like to come into such a situation to have to eat this porridge. …
Opal seekers in Coober Pedy: Hope lives underground
Between Adelaide and Alice Springs, somewhere in the middle of a glowing hot, inhospitable lunar landscape, lies the then 5000-strong nest of Coober Pedy, also called „Opal-Miner City“. The inhabitants live in subterranean mole-like structures and also spend the day underground, in tunnels, equipped with dynamite to carry out further blasting. Glimpses of the life of opal prospectors in a dynamite-laden underground, driven by the hope of quick riches and exposed to the risk of failing miserably – real fortune seekers, in other words, from all parts of the world can be found here doing their dangerous work. Men from Albania, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Serbia, Poland and even Switzerland are digging for precious stones in the hot outback. Desolation, scorching heat, lots of dust and rubble, and endless hardships – the opal prospectors are spared nothing. Four-fifths of the population lives underground in the tunnels, which have been converted into apartments and have light and ventilation shafts to the top. The supermarket, the gas station and the church are also underground. As recently as the late 1990s, you could just stake a „claim“ and start drilling and blasting. Lucky people who left Coober Pedy as rich men are few and far between. The large cemetery in the desert nest is eloquent testimony to that. …
Maldives 93: First signs of climate change become visible
The nearly 1800 coral atolls stand out from the deep blue Indian Ocean like a shining white string of pearls. A mosaic of light and color surrounds the chain of islands scattered from north to south across seven degrees of latitude. Each of these islets, covered with smaragd green vegetation and fringed with turquoise blue lagoons and ring-shaped reefs, which rise from the depths of the seabed and turn its opulent underwater splendor upward, looks slightly different again. The outer reefs shield the atoll, which often rises only a few centimeters above the water surface, from the surf. The colorful coral gardens were then home to a tremendous abundance of species. A picture book idyll of sea, sun and palm beach and secluded island romance as well as an Eldorado for divers as well as water sports enthusiasts, awaited me on the first tourist island of Ihuru. The downsides, however, are: A fragile ecosystem, which is endangered by the rise of the sea level and especially by tourism. An island kingdom that was already visibly threatened in its existence by global warming in the early 1990s and is probably irrevocably doomed. In addition, the mountains of garbage left behind by tourists on the islands and on nearby Male are testimony to the growing environmental pollution and the destruction of fragile ecosystems. Since tourism has replaced fishing as the main source of income, a flood of garbage has poured over the tourist islands and coral gardens along with the tourist boom. Apart from fish, coconuts and bananas, all other consumer goods have to be imported. The fuel consumption for the transport of the goods to the tourist islands already devoured a lot of fuel at that time and was reflected in second place in the import statistics.
In the realm of loving hands at the top Ayurveda resorts in Kerala
No other medical system in the world has such a universal, profound and holistic purification system as the ancient Ayurvedic Pancha-Karma cure. Where stressed Westerners become healthy again, filled with Eastern wisdom and mediative calm, and which are the best Ayurvedic fountains of youth in Sri Lanka and India, is what I would like to discuss here. Slowly the warm herbal sesame oil runs in a fine stream over the forehead during the Shirodhara treatment. Back and forth, evenly and soothingly. For a good 20 minutes. Everyday thoughts dissolve and make room for a soothing emptiness. Attention turns inward. Deep relaxation spreads through my body. The mirror to the soul opens, even old memories emerge from the depths of consciousness. Although the oily Ayurvedic massages make you feel like an oil sardine, you quickly get used to them and enjoy the soothing touches. An extremely relaxing experience is the synchronous massage, called Abhayanga, also known as the loving hands massage. This describes the sensation during the massage very well, because being massaged synchronously by four hands is more beautiful than any caress. The gentle movements of the hands massage the herbal oil into the skin so that it reaches the lower layers of the tissues, involving the blood and nervous systems and isolating the toxins and waste products to be eliminated afterwards. What was developed thousands of years ago in Nordin-dien is a holistic natural system, which sees body, mind and soul as one. The Ayur-veda philosophy assumes that all matter, including human beings, can be traced back to the five elements: earth, air, water, fire and space. From this connection three basic constitutions are formed, the so-called Doshas, which are understood as essential bio-energies. The elements air and space form the Vata-Dosha and stand for the life principle movement. It controls the movement processes in the body, breathing and the nervous system. The second dosha is called pitta and is dominated by the element fire. Pitta energy is responsible for all reactions, i.e. digestive and metabolic processes. The elements earth and water influence the third dosha, called kapha. Their energy is structuring, shaping and responsible for the cell and skeleton structure as well as for the characteristic features. Only when the doshas are in balance, body and soul are healthy. …
Cannabis: Prohibition never worked, medical potential neutered
The hemp plant and its medicinal potential have suffered the same fate as Ayurvedic medicine. It too was banned for 50 years. Therefore, we make another spiritual cannabis journey from the advanced cultures of indigenous peoples to today’s lowlands, errors and confusions in drug use, delving into the international and state repression machine in dealing with psychoactive substances and focus on the local drug policy, which mainly protects and supports the pharmaceutical industry, but has little to do with prevention and public health. For while the globally acceptable drug alcohol, causes far more health damage and deaths, the hemp plant and THC consumption are still stigmatized and banned in Northern Europe. Spain and Portugal, as well as Czechoslovakia, have relaxed the laws and allowed consumption on a limited basis in so-called social clubs. Besides the USA and Canada, which have long since legalized, Mexico and other countries are now following suit. …
Berthel and other addiction experts are convinced that in a free society adults do not need „lifestyle know-it-alls,“ and that this also applies to psychoactive substances of all kinds. Berthel is convinced that bans are useless, and that regulated distribution combined with addiction prevention is the better way to go, and that „a drug-free society is an illusion. Moreover, it is not tenable to ban a drug with a low addictive potential and little harmful indications such as cannabis, while a substance with such a high addictive potential as alcohol is consumed naively. On this point, Berthel and pharmacopsychologist Boris Quednow, who researches substance use and its consequences at the Psychiatric University Hospital in Zurich, agree. He, too, is of the opinion that consumption should be decriminalized as soon as possible, „otherwise we will continue to punish the most severely affected.“ …
Cannabis is also used to treat type 2 diabetes. Certain molecules in the cannabis plant can help prevent and treat the disease. Type 1 diabetes is a genetic disorder in which the body cannot produce insulin. Type 2 diabetes or diabetes mellitus is much more common and occurs when the pancreas, does not produce enough insulin. A cannabis drug developed in the UK that eliminates the need for insulin injections in diabetes. It targets the use of the cannabinoids CBD and THCV (tetrahydrocannabivarin), which lower blood sugar levels and improve insulin production. THCV is a potent cannabinoid and has already been shown to suppress appetite. In turn, the cannabinoids CBD and THC enhance each other’s therapeutic properties. Cannabigerol (CBG), like cannabidiol (CBD), is a non-psychoactive cannabinoid from the cannabis plant. CBG content is usually higher in indica varieties than in sativa varieties and has anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, analgesic, and intraocular pressure-lowering effects. Researchers from the „University of Barcelona“ have proven that CBG is a partial agonist of cannabinoid receptor 2 (CB2) and acts as a regulator of endocannabinoid signaling. Italian researchers proved that inflammation and oxidative stress play a central role in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis and found that cannabis also exerts neuroprotective effects against inflammation and oxidative stress, protecting neuronal cells. Researchers from the „Uni-versidad Complutense“ Madrid in Spain studied the effects of CBG and identify genes associated with Huntington’s disease (e.g., gamma-aminobutyric acid A receptor (GABA). The study was conducted under the supervision of scientists from 18 countries. The Journal of Investigative Dermatology published a study in which mice with melanoma were treated with THC and CBD, and an international team of researchers found that these substances lead to the death of cancer cells through apo-ptosis and autophagy. The term autophagy refers to a process in which the cell disassembles itself to get rid of damaged parts. Apoptosis is the natural suicide of the cell. It breaks apart and then the immune system cleans up the rest. …
Abuse of power monopoly & media mistrust
In the final chapter, I would like to take you on another contemporary and futuristic journey, questioning and reflecting with you on the achievements and dangers of digitalization, the credibility of the media, and the disruptive division of society by self-proclaimed gurus, (a)social fake news and filter bubbles.
Rupert Murdoch is one of the most evil string-pullers in the division of society in the UK and in the US, he was an Iraq-war-monger and is an avowed climate skeptic like Donald Trump. Thus, after the decline of the Conservatives in Great Britain, he and his me-dies supported the course of Toni Blair’s government, which promised a referen-dum on Britain’s euro entry in the 1997 election campaign. Among other things, Murdoch is accused of having taken a Euroskeptic stance on Fox TV and the 175 newspapers of „News Corporation“ in the run-up to the Iraq war. „The Sun“ and the „News of the world,“ which was discontinued in 2011, were known for their anti-EU and anti-German stances. „Fox TV was repeatedly criticized for one-sided partisanship in favor of the Bush administration. In 2007, Murdoch publicly admitted in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos that he had actively tried to influence public opinion in favor of George W. Bush’s Middle East policy. Murdoch was with Blair more often than the British Foreign Secretary or other members of the government during the hot phase and debate on Britain’s entry into war in alliance with the United States. Murdoch urged Blair to side with the USA. First, Murdoch’s tabloid media desa-vouirized all Labour government ministers with smear campaigns under the Thatcher government, bringing the Torries to power.
Under Cameron, the gigantic wiretapping scandal of the „News of the World“ was uncovered. In 2009, journalist Nick Davis published the background to the bugging scandal in The Guardian. According to the report, hundreds of politicians and celebrities were systematically spied on, monitored, blackmailed or bribed for years. Four British prime ministers were finally invited to the Leveson Inquiry. There, it was also learned that Murdoch also encouraged Nigel Farage of „UKIP“ to further push for Brexit and thus managed to strongly divide British society. Murdoch represents a real danger to liberal democracies – without him, there would have been no „Bre-xit,“ politicians and political scientists agree. The „Brexit“ was the peak of Murdoch’s power in Great Britain and with „FOX NEWS“ he made Trump great and promoted him to president – not the Russians. Yvanka Trump apparently managed the assets of Murdoch’s daughters – that’s how the contact came about. At first Murdoch was not enthusiastic about Trump, but he recognized Trump’s potential for his purposes. The meeting of the tribal chiefs took place on the golf course in Scotland in 2006. There, Rupert chose Trump over Hillary Clinton. The rest is history. Trump would never have become president without „Fox News,“ that much is certain. Murdoch is directly responsible for the political contamination of the media and thus the contamination of society.
Man or machine – who is superior? Who makes the decisions?
An example of Big Data in military use with deadly errors and consequence: In late August 1988, as the nine-year war between Iran and Iraq was winding down, civilian oil tankers were attacked in the Persian Gulf. After Kuwait’s request to the U.S. for escort protection, American troops began deploying tanker escorts. The U.S. cruiser „USS Vincennes“, which had a complete air defense system consisting of the most modern radars at the time, extensive anti-aircraft armament and an air reconnaissance center, was also on the scene. The Combat Information Center (CIC) is where all the threads come together. The high-tech radar system „Aegis“ has the task of evaluating complex air battles with up to 200 aircraft in real time and sorting out a large number of threats, be it from ground missiles or to detect enemy aircraft, their armament, course and other details. Just when the „USS Vincennes“ was attacked by an enemy craft on July 3, 1988, a flying object that had taken off from Iran also appeared in the sky. Manuals with civilian flight plans and the „IFF codes“ are consulted to identify the aircraft. „IFF“ stands for „Identification, Friend or Foe.“ What unfolded next is a sequence of chaos, software problems and disinformation that led to one of the most tragic air traffic disasters, killing 298 people. At 10:17 a.m., Captain Mohsen Rezaian had departed on the short routine flight from Bandar Abbas to Dubai with 290 Mecca pilgrims on board. The flight distance of only 120 miles required a short climb of the Airbus 320, and the flight of Iran Air 655 was probably doomed by the fact that military aircraft had also landed at Bandar Abbas airport the day before due to military aerial reconnaissance. When the white dot appeared on the radar of the „US Vincennes“ and the commercial aircraft did not listen to the warnings of the US naval officer and the „Aegis“ system erroneously classified the aircraft as an „IFF Model II“, i.e. a fighter jet, the situation escalated. Since even a fire control beam did not cause the Iranian aircraft to turn away, it was shot down and over 290 people lost their lives. What was the cause of the catastrophic misjudgment that led Captain Rodgers to order the plane to fire? …
Another example from the tragedies of aviation history and the conflict between man and machine in the collision of two aircraft near Überlingen on Lake Constance on July 1, 2002, when the Boing on its way to Brussels collided with the Russian Tupolev of Bashkirian Airlines 2937 on its way to Barcelona in the Lake Constance region. This air accident, however, was partly caused by a Swiss air traffic controller who paid for it with his life, as the father of a daughter who was killed took revenge and murdered the air traffic controller. Back to the cause of the accident: When the safety distance between the two aircraft became dangerously close, both aircraft used the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System „TCAS“ to process the data of the contact, such as course and speed, and to warn their crews. While the system of the Russian pilot, Alexander Gross, instructs to climb, the British pilot Paul Philipps receives the instruction to descend, which he follows immediately. Only now the air traffic controller of „Skyguide“ in Zurich intervenes and it comes to a man-machine decision conflict and momentous intervention of a human being. …
Upside-down world: Whistleblowers are punished and tortured, the mass murderers walk around free
Finally, a detour into the political abyss and the role and fate of whistleblowers. 20 years ago the terrorist attacks of September 11 on the Twin Towers of the „World Trade Center“ in New York took place. These fundamentally changed the world and the „War on Terror“ replaced the „Cold War“ with the Soviet Union, with NATO Allies immediately joining the U.S. in unconditional solidarity and declaring an alliance emergency for the first time in NATO history. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. security apparatus was left without a significant enemy. The „War on Terror“ gave the war machine another powerful boost and large military budgets, and the arms companies profited even more. The war in Iraq and in Afghanistan were the consequences and Europe has blithely participated – also in the knowledge of the torture prisons of the USA in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in the Eastern Bloc and on Guantanamo. Switzerland also helped in the US kidnapping and torture flights and played a disastrous collaborative role in humanitarian terms. Germany is no better off and the British do what the Americans want anyway. We Swiss are also lapdogs of the United States and kowtow at all levels. In addition, we are also the European, not to say global intelligence operations hub with all the inter-national organizations and the many oligarchs, tax evaders and Mafiosis who live and work here. They all love Switzerland, not only because of the beautiful mountains. …
Since there is no internationally recognized definition of terrorism under international law, states have extended the concept further and further, ramped up and inflated the security apparatus to a preventive surveillance state, and in the meantime everyone is a suspect. Terrorism today includes crimes that have nothing to do with political, subversive violence. This is also the case in the new „Swiss Police Measures Act“ (PMT), which gives one food for thought, because in the law even the spreading of fear and terror is considered „terror“. In criminal law, there has been a gradual shift to the preventive and thus to the private sphere. Preventive surveillance has increased dramatically and disproportionately. After 2015, Switzerland also decided on an anti-terror strategy and tightened the Intelligence Act, whereby coercive measures are now permitted on the basis of suspicions, vague indications and equally opaque algorithms in dragnet searches. I wonder where all the freedom-trychlers, the original Swiss, SVP corona deniers and conspiracy theorists stayed when our basic rights have been continuously curtailed for two decades and the population has given its nod to all the tightening and restrictions. A tragedy and a hypocrisy beyond compare. …
Thanks to courageous whistleblowers, such as Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, or Edward Snoden, or investigative journalists and research networks such as „Bellingcam“ or „correctiv“, some of the dirty tricks of despots, corrupt politicians, military operations, surveillance measures and economic crimes come to light. Fortunately, one would think. But far from it. „Julian Assange has produced evidence of the most serious state-sanctioned crimes, such as torture and mass murder,“ says none other than UN Special Rapporteur Nils Melzer in his book „The Case of Julian Assange – History of a Persecution.“ Apparently, Melzer’s visit to investigate alleged human rights violations, announced at the Ecuadorian embassy in April 2019, led to a three-day coordinated blitz by the three countries involved that allowed Assange to be handed over to British police and has since been back in custody. First, the Ecuadorian embassy withdrew his asylum status and citizenship without due process of law, and at the same time the British government received an extradition request from the U.S. authorities, after which Assange was handed over to the British police. Prior to that, he stayed in asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy for seven years to avoid extradition to the U.S. via Sweden. …
„That the person who exposed mass murderers and crimes of torture against humanity should now himself be jailed as a criminal for 175 years, while not a single crime has been atoned for or those responsible punished,“ is evil for Europe, Melzer continues. „I didn’t think it was possible at first that Sweden or the United Kingdom would have such a disregard for human rights. But when it comes down to the wire, the rule of law doesn’t work anymore, even here in Europe. Assange is, so to speak, „the skeleton in the closet of the self-righteous West.“ This has already shaken him (Melzer), although he has experienced and seen a lot as an ICRC delegate. Also the procedure in Sweden because of alleged Verge-waltigung at and other sex offences had been stopped, after Meltzer had written a letter to the Swedish government and had pointed them to approximately 50 partly most serious procedure injuries. Asked whether the same could happen in Switzerland, the UN special rapporteur replied, „Absolutely.“ He said he regularly has to approach massive authority collusion in this country as well. …
Butterfly Effect: Hedge Funds are the Drivers of Wars and Climate Change
Let’s face it, financial markets are at the center of the neoliberal economy, they determine commodity and food prices worldwide, and they dictate events around the globe. Hedge funds are the bane of food, water and commodity capitalism at its purest. Let’s take a closer look: In 2008, food and commodity prices rose sharply even though the world was in recession after the financial crisis. This shows that prices rose because of speculation, not because of increased demand. What began in the 1980s with Thatcher’s and Reagan’s neoliberalism and became known as the flapping of a butterfly’s wings on Wall Street in 2010, led to riots, wars and global refugee crises from then on. The flapping of wings was triggered by then President Bill Clinton and National Bank President Alan Greenspan with the Commodity Modernization Act, i.e. the liberalization of markets that had been strictly regulated since the 1930s and a limited number of speculators. But from then on, everyone could speculate with commodities and food without limits, whereupon the financial markets licked blood and Wall Street and hedge funds henceforth dictated events in the most evil way.
These speculations and the developments in the oil states also had even more far-reaching consequences. Due to the enormous rise in the price of petrodollars, Russia and Saudi Arabia, but also Venezuela, came into immense wealth and increased their military budgets and police forces either to suppress revolts in their own countries or for further offensives, as Russia did in Syria, in Ukraine and most recently in Crimea. In the case of Saudi Arabia, war came to a head in Yemen and in many other regions in the conflict between Shiites and Sunnis, meanwhile Iran, infiltrated the Middle East in its own way, pumping it full of its crude ideologies, weapons and fighters. The rise in oil prices was also the beginning of doom for Venezuela, which ultimately perished from the resource curse. Here, too, the speculators were ultimately the trigger and responsible for the refugee flows from Latin America to the USA and from Africa and the Orient to Europe. …
A good 500 companies with well over 10,000 employees work in the commodities industry in Switzerland, which had its first notorious protagonist in March Rich, who made it to dubious fame when he first hit the headlines in the 1970s. The Belgian-born US citizen ensured that commodities trading became significant in Switzerland. His unscrupulous oil deals with South Africa and Iran, circumventing international sanctions during the Apard era, helped the „father of the Swiss success model“ to immense wealth and put him on the list of most wanted criminals in the US until Bill Clinton pardoned him in 2001. We remember that Clinton and Greenspan also pushed the liberalization of food markets, triggering the hedge fund plague. In Switzerland, Christoph Blocher and Martin Ebner were among the most ruthless liberalizers in the 1990s. We know from „Bloomberg“ journalists Javier Blas and Jack Farchy that Ebner was among the saviors of Marc Rich’s empire and that „Glencore“ boss Ivan Glasberg also earned his spurs in Johannesburg, South Africa. …
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Thank you for your interest. Here you can find the access to the whole document as well as to the other versions:
Auszug aus der noch unveröffentlichten Autobiografie «Das Pendel schlägt zurück» des Zürcher Fotojournalisten Gerd Michael Müller
VORWORT
Das Buch des Zürcher Foto-Journalisten Gerd Michael Müller nimmt Sie ab den wilden 80er Jahren mit auf eine spannende Zeitreise durch 30 Länder und 40 Jahre Zeitgeschichte mit Fokus auf viele politische Vorgänge in Krisen-regionen rund um den Globus. Er beleuchtet das Schicksal indigener Völker, zeigt die Zerstörung ihres Lebensraumes auf, rückt ökologische Aspekte und menschenrechtliche Schicksale in den Vordergrund und analysiert scharfsichtig und gut informiert die politischen Transformationsprozesse. Müller prangert den masslosen Konsum und die gnadenlose Ausbeutung der Ressourcen an, zeigt die Auswirkungen wirtschaftlicher, gesellschaftlicher und politischer Prozesse in einigen Ländern auf und skizziert Ansätze zur Bewältigung des Klimawandels. Pointiert, hintergründig, spannend und erhellend. Eine gelungene Mischung aus globalen Polit-Thrillern, geho-bener Reiseliteratur, gespickt mit sozialkritischen und abenteuerlichen Geschichten sowie persönlichen Essays – den Highlights und der Essenz seines abenteuerlich wilden Nomaden-Lebens für die Reportage-Fotografie eben. Es erwartet Sie eine Reise durch die epochale Vergangenheit und metamorphorische Phasen vieler exotischer Länder rund um den Globus. Nach der Lektüre dieses Buchs zählen Sie zu den kulturell, ökologisch sowie politisch versierten Globetrotter.
Rot-Kreuz Fahrzeuge fahren zur einer von zehn Holzwerkstätten für den Wiederaufbau der Bauernhäuser nach dem verheerenden Bürgerkrieg mit vielen Flüchtlingen. Bild: GMC
SchülerInnen im Haller Wildlife Reservat in Mombassa
Als ich 2008 nach Kenya kam, besuchte ich erst die Region beim Samburu Nationalpark und war im «Joys Camp» stationiert. Das Samburu-Nationalreservat ist ein 165 qkm großes Naturschutzgebiet im Zentrum Kenias. Das östlich davon gelegene Shaba-Nationalreservat gehört zum gleichen ökologischen Gebiet. Charakteristisch sind die hier sehr trockener Lebensräume für Oryxantilopen, Gerenuks, Grantgazellen, zwei Dikdikarten und Grevyzebras. Auch typisch für die Region sind die Netzgiraffen, die sich durch ihre besonders kontrastreiche Färbung von anderen Giraffen-Unterarten unterscheiden. Weitere Huftierarten des Reservates sind Elenantilopen und Wasserböcke. Unter den Raubtieren sind Löwen, Leoparden, Geparden und Streifenhyänen hier vorhanden. Darüber hinaus zeichnete sich der Park einst durch grosse Elefantenherden und zahlreiche andere Wildarten wie Wasserböcke und Nilkrokodile aus.Traurigerweise nehmen auch hier die Elefantenbestände ab. Deren Zahl im Samburu-, Buffalo-Springs- und Shaba-Nationalreservat betrug 1973 noch über 2500 Tiere, 1976/1977 hatten sie sich schon auf 531 verringert. Jetzt sind es noch weniger. Es war eine schöne, entspannte Reise und dann ging es nach Mombasa weiter, um die Touristenenklave an den Gestaden des Indischen Ozeans kennenzulernen.
Als ich 2008 nach Kenya kam, besuchte ich erst die Region beim Samburu Nationalpark und war im «Joys Camp» stationiert. Das Samburu-Nationalreservat ist ein 165 qkm großes Naturschutzgebiet im Zentrum Kenias. Das östlich davon gelegene Shaba-Nationalreservat gehört zum gleichen ökologischen Gebiet. Charakteristisch sind die hier sehr trockener Lebensräume für Oryxantilopen, Gerenuks, Grantgazellen, zwei Dikdikarten und Grevyzebras. Auch typisch für die Region sind die Netzgiraffen, die sich durch ihre besonders kontrastreiche Färbung von anderen Giraffen-Unterarten unterscheiden. Weitere Huftierarten des Reservates sind Elenantilopen und Wasserböcke.
Unter den Raubtieren sind Löwen, Leoparden, Geparden und Streifenhyänen hier vorhanden. Darüber hinaus zeichnete sich der Park einst durch grosse Elefantenherden und zahlreiche andere Wildarten wie Wasserböcke und Nilkrokodile aus.Traurigerweise nehmen auch hier die Elefantenbestände ab. Deren Zahl im Samburu-, Buffalo-Springs- und Shaba-Nationalreservat betrug 1973 noch über 2500 Tiere, 1976/1977 hatten sie sich schon auf 531 verringert. Jetzt sind es noch weniger. Es war eine schöne, entspannte Reise und dann ging es nach Mombasa weiter, um die Touristenenklave an den Gestaden des Indischen Ozeans kennenzulernen.
Die Reise führte mich darauf hin weiter zum «Ol Pejeta Rhino & Chimpanzee Sanctuary» in der Nähe des Mount Kenya. Wie der Name schon sagt wurden dort vor allem Rhinozerosse vor Wilderern geschützt und eine grosse Chimpansen-Kolonie gehegt und gepflegt. Zum ersten Mal berührte ich dort die Panzerhaut eines Nashorns, als ich ehrfürchtig neben dem Landrover und einem dieser Kolosse stand und hoffte, dass mich das zwei Tonnen Muskelpaket als harmlosen Spatzen betrachtete und nicht wie eine Fliege zerquetschte.
Zum Glück ist tatsächlich nichts passiert, denn das Nashorn liess sich durch mich nicht beim Grasen stören. Nachdem meine Wildlife-Abenteuerlust gestillt war, kam wieder die humanitäre Mission dran. Zurück in Nairobi ging ich zum «IKRK»-Hauptsitz in Afrika und machte ein Interview mit dem Stellvertretenden Generalsekretär James Kisia über die Lage der Flüchtlinge im Rift Valley nach den blutigen Unruhen und ethnischen Vertreibungen, da Kofi Annan abwesend war. Die politischen Unruhen in Kenia begannen am 30. Dezember 2007, am Tag der Veröffentlichung der offiziellen Ergebnisse zur Präsidentschaftswahl..
Bei den Wahlprognosen und vorläufigen Ergebnissen war Oppositionsführer Odinga noch knapp führend. Nachdem der amtierende Präsident Mwai Kibaki zum Gewinner der Wahl erklärt wurde, erhob sich Protest seitens der Opposi-tionspartei ODM. Ihr Präsidentschaftskandidat Raila Odinga erklärte, dass das Wahlergebnis gefälscht sei. Bei den anschliessenden Unruhen wurden schätzungs-weise über 1.500 Menschen getötet und 623.692 Menschen, vor allem Angehörige der Kikuyu mussten vor den Gewalttätigkeiten fliehen. Schliesslich flog ich nach Eldoret und ging zum lokalen «ICRC Red Cross Commitee». Mit den dortigen Mitarbeitern fuhr ich drei Tage lang in den die Flüchtlingscamps herum und sah mir die Wiederaufbauprojekte an. Es schien mir noch ein langer Weg zurück zur Normalität zu sein und das Elend in den Flüchtlingslagern mit insgesamt über 100‘000 Personen war sehr bedrückend. Ein solches Ausmass hatte ich noch nie gesehen, auch nicht in Südafrika zur Zeit des ANC-IFP-Konflikts.
Provisorische Flüchtlingshütten vom IKRK in der Region Eldoret nach dem Bürgerkrieg aufgestellt. BIld: GMC
Die politischen Unruhen in Kenia begannen am 30. Dezember 2007, am Tag der Veröffentlichung der offiziellen Ergebnisse zur Präsidentschaftswahl. Bei den Wahlprognosen und vorläufigen Ergebnissen war Oppositionsführer Odinga noch knapp führend. Nachdem der amtierende Präsident Mwai Kibaki zum Gewinner der Wahl erklärt wurde, erhob sich Protest seitens der Oppositionspartei ODM. Ihr Präsidentschaftskandidat Raila Odinga erklärte, dass das Wahlergebnis gefälscht sei. Bei den anschliessenden Unruhen wurden schätzungsweise über 1.500 Menschen getötet und 623.692 Menschen, vor allem Angehörige der Kikuyu mussten vor den Gewalttätigkeiten fliehen.
Schliesslich flog ich nach Eldoret hoch und ging zum lokalen «ICRC Red Cross Commitee». Mit den dortigen Mitarbeitern fuhr ich drei Tage lang in den die Flüchtlingscamps herum und sah mir die Wiederaufbauprojekte an. Es schien mir noch ein langer Weg zurück zur Normalität zu sein und das Elend in den Flüchtlingslagern mit insgesamt über 100‘000 Personen war sehr bedrückend. Ein solches Ausmass hatte ich noch nie gesehen, auch nicht in Südafrika zur Zeit des ANC-IFP-Konflikts.
Über 10 Millionen Kenianer hungerten und täglich starben Hunderte an Wassernot und Ernährungsmangel. 3,2 Millionen Menschen waren damals von akutem Wassermangel betroffen. Viele von ihnen mussten täglich bis zu 30 Kilometer für einen Eimer Wasser zurücklegen und diesen dann zurück tragen. Das sind einige der erschütternden Zahlen, die der Stellevertretende Generalsekretär des «IKRK» und «Red Cross Kenya» mir in seinem Büro in Nairobi präsentierte. Und über 100‘000 Personen harrten in Flüchtlingscamps aus.
Kenya Red Cross Mission Eldoret: Die Strassen sind nicht immer gut passierbar. Bild: GMC/Gerd Müller
Am Schluss der Reise interviewte ich Tourismusminister, Najib Balala, den ich auch auf die Konflikte ansprach und der zwar überrascht war über die politische Flanke und Befragung zu den Unruhen, aber sehr souverän reagierte. Von Nairobi aus führte mich die nächste Mission wieder in den Bush. Via Johannesburg, Gabarone und Maun flog ich wieder einmal ins Okavango Delta und zwar zu den renommierten «Wilderness Wildlife Fund» Bush-Lodges und besuchte die HIV-Foundation «Children in the Wilderness», welche sich der vielen durch AIDS verursachten Waisenkinder annahmen und ihnen ein zuhause gaben.
Auszug aus dem Buch «Das Pendel schlägt zurück» des Zürcher Fotojournalisten Gerd M. Müller
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Auszug aus dem noch unveröffentlichten Buch «DAS PENDEL SCHLÄGT ZURÜCK – POLITISCHE & ÖKOLOGISCHE METAMORPHOSEN» des Zürcher Fotojournalisten Gerd Michael Müller
Berührende und bewegende Momente in meinem abenteuerlichen Leben, wie hier in der Kalahari.
VORWORT
Das Buch des Zürcher Foto-Journalisten Gerd Michael Müller nimmt Sie ab den wilden 80er Jahren mit auf eine spannende Zeitreise durch 30 Länder und 40 Jahre Zeitgeschichte mit Fokus auf mehrere politische und ökologische Vorgänge in Krisenregionen rund um den Globus. Er beleuchtet das Schicksal indigener Völker, zeigt die Zerstörung ihres Lebensraumes auf, rückt ökologische Aspekte und menschenliche Schicksale in den Vordergrund, analysiert scharfsichtig und gut informiert die politischen Transforma-tionsprozesse. Müller prangert den masslosen Konsum und die gnadenlose Ausbeutung der Ressourcen an, zeigt die Auswirkungen wirtschaftlicher, gesellschaftlicher und politischer Prozesse auf und skizziert Ansätze zur Bewältigung des Klimawandels. Pointiert hintergründig, spannend und erhellend. Eine Mischung aus globalem Polit-Thrillern, gehobener Reiseliteratur, gespickt mit sozialkritischen und abenteuerlichen Geschichten sowie persönlicher Essays – den Highlights und der Essenz seines abenteuerlich wilden Nomaden-Lebens für die Reportage-Fotografie. Nach der Lektüre dieses Buchs zählen Sie zu den kulturell, ökologisch sowie politisch versierten Globetrotter.
Nach dem das Apartheid-Regime durch den UNO-Boykott und den südafrikanischen Widerstand zusammenbrach, kam es zu einem erbittertem Machtkampf zwischen dem «ANC» (African National Congress) und Buthelezi`s «IFP» (Inkhata Freedom Party). Der Bürgerkrieg forderte X-tausend Opfer und machte Zehntausende zu Flüchtlingen. Eine weitere Tragödie, denn zuvor hatte das weisse Regime im Zuge der Rassentrennung Hundertausende von schwarzen Menschen wie Vieh zwangsumgesiedelt. Nun gab es wieder eine Welle von Vertriebenen im Land und Grabenkämpfe unter den Schwarzen. Es war eine erklärte Strategie, der abtretenden beziehungsweise gefährdeten Machthabern, mit allen Mittel Zwietracht unter den Schwarzen zu säen und so hat das Botha-Regime Buthelzi als Gegenkandidat zu Mandela aufzustellen. Alle Mittel der Destabilisierung wurden angewandt und die Saat ging auf. Der darauf folgende Bürgerkrieg war fürchterlich.
Im Südafrika der Nach-Apartheid beschäftigten die Menschen vor allem eins: die ständig wachsende Gewalt-Kriminalität. Hatte die Polizei früher in erster Linie die Verfolgung politischer Gegner zum Ziel, fochten die Sicherheitskräfte und Politiker nun einen fast aussichtslosen Kampf gegen die Brutalität der Kriminalität aus. Der «Taxi-/Minibus-Krieg» in Durban forderte seit Jahren zahlreiche unschuldige Menschenleben. In Kapstadt tobte ein Bandenkrieg unter 80‘000 Jugendlichen, auch Johannesburg wurde Schauplatz zahlreicher Verbrechen. Als Tourist oder Geschäftsreisender spürte man die «Atmosphäre der Angst» intensiv. Die Polizeikräfte operierten wie paramilitärische Organisationen und hatten einen üblen Ruf, in den jeweiligen Städten.
ICRC-Delegierte beim Rapportieren der Bürgerkriegs-Greueltaten in Ladysmith. Bild: GMC/Gerd Müller
Die Arbeitslosigkeit betrug fast 40 Prozent und liess so die weit verbreitete Armut und die Kriminalität in die Höhe schnellen, begünstigt durch die Ohnmacht und Korruption des mit sich selbst beschäftigten Justiz- und Polizeiapparates, der im Zuge des radikalen Umbaus gelähmt war. Täglich wurden in Südafrika über 60 Menschen, also jährlich insgesamt gegen 20‘000 Personen umgebracht. Südafrikas Gefängnisse platzten aus allen Nähten. Strafuntersuchungen bleiben jahrelang unbearbeitet liegen. Auch Jugendliche unter 14 Jahren sind vielfach lange Zeit inhaftiert.
1993begleitete ich einen Freund von mir, Daniel S., der als IKRK-/Rotkreuz Südafrika-Delegierter in Johannesburg stationiert war, auf seiner Reise in die Flüchtlingslager, um die dortige Lage zu sondieren, den Opfern zu helfen und die Friedensbemühungen zur Stabilisierung des Landes im Hinblick auf eine demokratische Verfassung und Regierung der «Regenbogen-Nation» zu unterstützen. Wir fuhren zu den damaligen Hotspots «Margate» und «Ladysmith»,«Ezakhweni» und «Emphangeni», «Mfung» und «Obizo» sowie «Empendle» protokollierten die abgebrannen Häuser und die Toten. Führten Gespräche mit Hinterbliebenen und versuchten zwischen den Konfliktparteien zu vermitteln. Eine schwierige, wenn nicht fast aussichtslose Aufgabe. Damals kam es alle 40 Minuten zu einem Mord, 20‘000 pro Jahr insgesamt.
1994 kam es zu einem weiteren interessanten Treffen, mit Miss South Africa Basetsana Kumalo und an ihrer Seite Kwezi Hani, die junge Tochter von Chris Hani, der gerade ermordet worden war. ChrisHani war Generalsekretär der South African Communist Party (SACP), ein hochrangiges Mitglied des «ANC» sowie Stabschef von dessen bewaffnetem Arm «Umkhonto we Sizwe» (MK).
Als sich in den frühen 1990er Jahren das Ende der Apartheid abzeichnete, war er im «ANC» nach Nelson Mandela eine der beliebtesten Führungsfiguren. Hani wurde im April 1993 von dem polnischen Einwanderer Janusz Waluś ermordet. Dahinter stand ein Komplott, dessen Drahtzieher der ehemalige Parlamentsabgeordnete Clive Derby-Lewis von der Konserwatiewe Party war. Ziel war es, den Verhandlungs-prozess, der zur Beendigung der Apartheid führen sollte, zu zerstören.
Ein teuflischer Plan, der aufging. Das Treffen mit Basetsane fand in einem Spielcasino statt und wurde offensichtlich beobachtet. Es war ja auch eine brandheisse Zeit und die Bespitzelung politischer Akteure und deren Familien und Umfeld eine wohlbekannte Tatsache. Und so wurde auch ich zur Observationszielscheibe.
Erst versuchte ein Schwarzer und später zwei Weisse Herren mich unauffällig diskret aber mit Nachdruck auszufragen. Und eine weitere illustre Person versuchte mich dann sogar in Gabarone, also in Botswana zu kontaktieren und in Südafrikas interne Machtkämpfe zu involvieren. Ich lehnte alle Annäherungsversuche ab und kam so ungeschoren aus den Wirren der politischen Machtkämpfe davon.
Zulu Heiler und Bantu-Schriftsteller Credo Vusama Mutwa
Im Februar 1996 begann die von Mandela eingesetzte Wahrheits- und Versöhnungskommission (TRC) unter Leitung des Friedensnobelpreisträgers Desmond Tutu. mit der Aufarbeitung der Verbrechen zur Zeit der Apartheid. Die wurde vor allem zur Abrechnung und Demontage von Winnie Mandela genutzt, die in diesen Jahren nach Madibas Freilassung viel mehr gelitten hatte und härter kämpfen musste, als ihr Mann. Es war die damalige ANC-Spitze, die beschloss Winnie müsse sich von Nelson trennen um ihm die Wahl zum Präsidenten zu sichern.
Winnies Stern stand immer unter dem Nelsons, aber sie war die eigentliche Powerfrau, die während seiner Haftzeit Mandelas Augen und Ohren waren und sie war es, die die Massen mobilisierte. Einigen Gruppen gingen die in Mandelas Amtszeit erreichten sozialen Verbes-serungen auch in Bezug auf die AIDS-Krise, nicht weit genug. Kritiker bemängelten ebenso, dass die Verbrechen des Apartheid-Regimes nicht strafrechtlich genug gesühnt wurden.
Kinder unter sechs Jahren, schwangere und stillende Mütter erhielten zum ersten Mal eine kostenlose Gesundheitsfürsorge; 1996 wurde die Gesundheitsfürsorge für alle Südafrikaner kostenfrei. Mit dem «Land Restitution Act» (1994) und dem «Land Reform Act 3» (1996) wurden Schritte zu einer Landreform unternommen. Während seiner Amtszeit wurden zahlreiche Gesetze der Apartheid-Zeit widerrufen, Armee und Polizei wurden neu aufgestellt.
Rührend: Schulkinder Gesangs- und Musikperformance in Kapstadt. Gerd M. Müller
Im Rahmen meines humanitären Engagements in Südafrika konnte ich dank dem Zulu-Heiler Credo Vusama Mutwa 1997 auch das Poolsmoor-Gefängnis in Kapstadt (in dem Nelson Mandela die letzten Jahre seiner Haft verbrachte) mit einem kanadischen UN-Gesundheitsinspektorenteam besuchen. In dem für 3‘000 Häftlinge konzipierten Gefängnis waren rund 7‘000 Häftlinge inhaftiert. Fast 30% der Insassen waren damals HIV-positiv und viele Häftlinge wurden jahrelang ohne Anklage festgehalten. Etliche verstarben.
Es waren schockierende Zustände, die wir da antrafen. Ein Esslöffel Kostprobe in der Gefängnisküche reichte aus, dass ich hernach Staphylokokken/Streptokokken hatte. Pädagogisch befremdend war auch, dass es im Kinderspielzimmer einzig eine Plastik-Schusswaffe als Spielzeug gab. So züchtet man von Kindesbeinen an eine neue nachwachsende Generation von Armut getriebener Krimineller heran.
Wegbegleiter wegweisender Wildlife & Ökoprojekte
Den Zulu-Sangoma, Bantu-Schriftsteller & Historiker Credo Vusama Mutwa lernte ich im «Shamwari Game Reserve» kennen zusammen mit Dr. Jan Player, dem Rhinozeros-Retter und «Wilderness-Leadership-School»-Gründer. Die ganze Nacht über erzählte mir der gebildete Mensch die spirituellen Geheimnisse und ethnischen Zusammenhänge sowie kulturellen Eigenschaften und Besonderheiten der Bantu-Völker von Nord- bis Südafrika. Auch war er der erste, der den Klimawandel erkannte und mir erklärte, was es für die Völker und Regionen bedeutet, wenn der eine oder andere Käfer, diverse Insekten, die Schildkröten oder andere Wildtierarten und Meeressäuger aussterben und das zu Dürren und Plagen führe. In prophetischer Weitsicht hat Credo die Konflikte erkannt die daraus entstehen würden sowie es auch bei Staudamm-Projekten immer wieder zu Konflikten kommt, weil das ja die Lebensgrundlage vieler Menschen in mehreren Ländern verändert. Auch die Plagen wie wir sie in den letzten 20 Jahren erleben, hat er voraus gesagt. Und das gute 10 Jahre vor dem erste «IPPC» Klimabericht.
Nur war ich gerade mit meiner Tochter und ihrer Mutter unterwegs und hatte noch Termine und Treffen bezüglich Wildlife- und Ökoprojekte und konnte nicht hier bleiben, um Credo beim «Kaya Lendaba» zu helfen. Ich war hin und her gerissen. Der Zulu-Heiler wollte die Wunden der Regenbogennation heilen und beim «Shamwari Game Reserve» ein multikulturelles Dorf bauen, in dem alle südafrikanischen Ethnien vertreten sein würden. Es sollte als Leuchtpfahl für die Wiedervereinigung Südafrikas dienen und helfen, die Konflikte zu beenden. Gerne hätte ich die Ausbildung zu einem «Sangoma», also einem Heiler gemacht, da Credo mir die Qualifikationen und die geistig spirituelle Weltsicht zutraute.
Dies erfüllte mich mit Stolz und wäre wohl eine wegweisende Weiche in meinem Leben gewesen, denn ursprünglich wollte ich auch mal als Game Ranger in einem dieser neu entstehenden Wildlife-Reservate arbeiten. Ich konnte mir nichts Schöneres vor stellen, als Wildlife-Manager in einem intakten und geschützten oder schützenswerten Umfeld zu arbeiten. Daher reiste ich immer wieder nach Botswana, Südafrika und Namibia, um mir einen Teil dieses Traums zu erfüllen und es war immer ein grossartiges Gefühl im Busch und in der Wildnis unterwegs zu sein.
Kommen wir nun zur aktuellen Lage am Kap der guten Hoffnung, die keineswegs rosiger geworden ist. Nach den Freveln des Apartheidregimes kam eine neue schwarze Elite, die sich an Südafrika ebenso schamlos bereicherten, wie ihre weissen Vorgänger. Hier zwei Beispiele:
Im Kaya Lendaba sollten alle Stämme der Regenbogennation Platz finden.
Neben dem Long Lee Manor House hat das Shamwari Game Reserve fünf weitere exklusive Lodges geschaffen, zu dem neben dem Eagles Crag und der Bushmen River Lodge auch noch die Lobengula Spa Lodge gehörte. Im November 2005 erhielt Adrian Gardiner zum sechsten Mal die internationale Auszeichnung am «Word Travel Market» in London (WTM) als «weltbester privater Tierpark mit den höchsten ökologischen Anforderungen». Zudem wurde das «Shamwari Game Reserve» auch als «zweitwichtigstes Projekt der südlichen Hemisphäre» eingestuft und mit dem «British Airways for tomorrow-Award» ausgezeichnet.
Nicht nur dieses, auch andere wegweisende Öko- und Wildlife-Projekte in Südafrika und Botswana begleitete oder vertrat ich fast ein Jahrzehnt lang und berichtete immer wieder über die Fortschritte und Hindernisse, weil ich ja jedes Jahr in Südafrika war und dort auch immer die südafrikanische Tourismusfachmesse «INDABA» in Durban besuchte. Beim Londolozi Game Reserve der Varty Brothers, die spektakuläre Tierfilme drehten, war ich von Anbeginn dabei und hatte auch hier den richtigen Riecher, wie an den verschiedensten Orten in der ganzen Welt.
Auch in Australien bewiese ich mit der Daintree Forest Lodge und in Botswana mit der «Wilderness Leadership School» ein feines Gespür und lag ich bei den absoluten Top Performers der damaligen Zeit. Hinzu kamen das «Mara Mara», «Sabi Sabi» und «Phinda Game Reserve» und schliesslich noch das «The Pezula in Knysna, wo das Schweizer Tennis-Ass Roger Federer seine Villa hat. Im noblen Mount Nelson Hotel in Kapstadt, sass plötzlich Margret Thatcher neben mir im Coiffeur-Salon, was das Gespräch mit der ehemaligen britischen Permierministerin sehr einfach machte. Nur die alte Dame der britischen Politikmachte machte einen dementen Eindruck
Aufgrund meiner vielen Kontakte in Südafrika, erhielt ich vom südafrikanischen Fremdenverkehrsamt (SATOUR) über den Botschaftskontakt den Auftrag Südafrika in der Schweiz mit PR-Kampagnen zu vertreten, wodurch ich auch noch an das «South African Airways»-Mandat heran kam und in der Folge meiner vielen Südafrika-Besuche zwei Reiseführer über Südafrika schrieb. Ob es sich nun um «Ökotourismus – und seine soziale Bedeutung» (Bund), um den aufrüttelnden Bericht und die erfolgreiche Spendenaktion für die bedrohten «Orang Utan im Regenwald von Borneo» («Brückenbauer»), um die «Rettung der Wale» (in der «SonntagsZeitung») oder die «Klimakatastrophe in den Alpen» («Südostschweiz») geht, stets hatte ich meine markante Nase im (Gegen-)wind und war meiner Zeit oft weit voraus.
So auch bei der «Swissair», deren Untergang ich schon 1997 im «Der Bund» mit dem Bericht «Wird die Swissair überleben?» und bei zwei anderen Zeitungen vorwegnahm. Der Klimawandel, der heute fast 30 Jahre später immer noch ein brandaktuelles Thema und das grösste Problem auf dem Planeten Erde ist, beschäftigte mich schon sehr früh und ich zog daraus Konsequenzen und verzichtete weitgehend auf Flugreisen.
Ob es sich nun um «Ökotourismus – und seine soziale Bedeutung» (Bund), um einen aufrüttelnden Bericht und erfolgreiche Spendenaktion für die «Orang Utan im Regenwald von Borneo bedroht» (im «Brückenbauer»), um die «Rettung der Wale» (in der «SonntagsZeitung») oder die «Klimakatastrophe in den Alpen» (in der «Südostschweiz») geht, stets hatte ich meine markante Nase im (Gegen-)wind und war meiner Zeit oft weit voraus. So auch bei der «Swissair» deren Untergang, deren Ende ich schon 1997 im «Bund» mit dem Bericht «Wird die Swissair überleben?» vorwegnahm.
Der Klimawandel wurde zum Thema
Auch beim Klimawandel, der heute immer noch ein ungelöstes brandaktuelles Thema und das grösste Problem auf unserem Planeten ist, könnte ich heulen über all die irrelevanten Labels, CO2-Kompensationen, politischen Bekenntnisse, leeren Versprechen und Todsünden wie die Billig-Airlines und die «SUVs» die in den letzten 20 Jahren – wohlwissend um den schlechten Zustand des Planeten-, getätigt wurden. Die Billig-Airlines verurteilte ich damals aufs schärfste. Die Generation «Easy Jet» war mir zu wieder.
In Europa habe ich nie ein Flugzeug genommen. Da war die Bahn angesagt. Natürlich kann man mir zu Recht vorwerfen, dass ich als Reisejournalist mit meinen Reisereportagen den globalen Flugverkehr angekurbelt habe. Das kann ich nicht bestreiten. Doch habe ich mir immer die Mühe genommen, ökologisch nachhaltige Projekte und umweltverträgliches Reisen zu fördern. Und als Konsequenz auf den IPPC-Bericht habe ich das «Tourismus und Umwelt Forum Schweiz gegründet».
Hardy Reef/Australien: Das grösste Bauwerk der Welt ist durch den Klimawandel bedroht. Bild: GMC
IN EIGENER SACHE: IHR BEITRAG AN HUMANITAERE UND OEKO-PROJEKTE
Geschätzte Leserin, werter Leser
Der Autor unterstützt noch immer zahlreiche Projekte. Infolge der COVID-19 Pandemie ist es aber für den Autor selbst für und zahlreiche Projekte schwieriger geworden. Die Situation hat sich verschärft. Für Ihre Spende, die einem der im Buch genannten Projekte zufliesst, bedanke ich mich. Falls Sie einen Beitrag spenden wollen, melden Sie sich bitte per Mail bei mir gmc1(at) gmx.ch. Vielen Dank im Namen der Empfänger/innen.
Dieses Buch des Zürcher Foto-Journalisten Gerd Michael Müller nimmt Sie ab den wilden 80er Jahren mit auf eine spannende Zeitreise durch 30 Länder und 40 Jahre Zeitgeschichte mit Fokus auf viele politische Vorgänge in Krisenregionen. Er beleuchtet das Schicksal der indigenen Völker, zeigt die Zerstörung ihres Lebensraumes auf, rückt ökologische Aspekte und menschenrechtliche Schicksale in den Vordergrund, prangert den masslosen Konsum und die gnadenlose Ausbeutung der Ressourcen an, zeigt die Schmetterlingseffekte der Hedge Funds und Auswirkungen wirtschaftlicher, gesellschaftlicher und politischer Prozesse auf und skizziert Ansätze zur Bewältigung des Klimawandels. Pointiert, hintergründig, spannend und erhellend Eine gelungene Mischung aus gehobener Reiseliteratur, globalem Polit-Thriller, gespickt mit abenteuerlichen Geschichten und persönlichen Essays – den Highlights seines abenteuerlich wilden Nomaden-Lebens für die Reportage-Fotografie eben. Der Autor publizierte Hunderte von Reportagen in deutschsprachigen Tageszeitungen und Magazinen.
Es war wieder einmal eine alte „Airline-Connection“ die mich in den Libanon verfrachteten sollte, denn dorthin wollte ich schon immer. In meiner Jugend war der Libanon die «Schweiz des Nahen Ostens», eine kulturelle Hochburg im Orient, ein Schmelztiegel von Jet Set, Aussteiger und kreativen Musik-Freaks. Zudem kam von der Beeka Ebene in meinen Augen der weltbeste Shit, also Haschisch aus von Hand geernteten Hanfblüten, von feinstem Geschmack und bestem Feeling sowie besonders intensiven und wohlriechenden Geschmacksnoten versehen. Tempi passati, als ich endlich in den Libanon kam. Da war das Land bereits vom Krieg mit Israel gezeichnet und wirtschaftlich am Boden zerstört, sowie gesellschaftlich zu tiefst gespalten zwischen ethnischen Gruppen wie den Shiiten, Suniten, Drusen und Maroniten sowie anderen Minderheiten. Beirut war ein heisser Boden und eine heikle Mission, selbst für einen krisenerprobten Reporter. Das grösste Problem war, dass ich kein Wort arabisch sprach oder verstand.
Ich habe Ich habe ja schon viele Konfliktregionen besucht und das selbst kritisch heisse Phasen erlebt, aber in die Hisbollah-Quartiere vorzustossen, habe ich mich ohne entsprechende Kontakte und Verbindungen oder eine ortsvertraute Person im Hintergrund dann doch nicht getraut. Doch um Kontakte zu knüpfen, war die Zeit bis zur Abreise innert wenigen Tagen zu knapp. Ausserdem ist einer der wichtigsten Schutz-Faktoren in meiner Tätigkeit, nicht nur die Sprache der Bevölkerung zu sprechen, sondern wenn möglich gar nicht als Ausländer oder Fremdling erkannt zu werden..
Während meines kurzen Aufenthaltes wurde ich alleine drei Mal an einem Tag von der libanesischen Armee angehalten und kurz verhört und in den Hisbollah Quartieren wurde es noch ungemütlicher. Fast an jeder dritten Ecke wurde man als Ausländer angehalten und gefragt, wer man sei und was man hier wolle. Die Hisbollah ist Irans wichtigster Verbündeter im Libanon und das nicht nur aus militärischer sondern auch aus politischer Sicht, denn die Hisbollah ist zusammen mit ihren Verbündeten die wichtigste politische Kraft im implodierten Land an der Levante. Doch der Libanon dient dem Iran als militärische Front gegen Israel und das ausserhalb des eigenen Staatsgebietes. Daher ist das Assad Regime in Syrien auch ein Verbündeter und Irans einziger strategischer Partner des Irans mit starken Kräften im Libanon.
Aufgrund der prekären Sicherheitslage und ohne lokale Kontaktpersonen sowie einen angemessenen Schutz zog ich mich aus diesem Quartier zurück und kam stattdessen im Palästinenser-Flüchtlingscamp «Schatila» an. Dort zeigte mir ein Palästinenser die drei Massakerstätten. Als Massaker von «Sabra» und «Schatila» wird eine Aktion von phalangistischen Milizen , also maronitisch-katholischen Gruppen bezeichnet, die gegen die im Süden von Beirut lebenden palästinensischen Flüchtlinge gerichtet war.
Im September 1982 – mitten im libanesischen Bürgerkrieg – wurden die Flüchtlingslager «Sabra» und «Schatila» gestürmt, die zu jener Zeit von israelischen Soldaten umstellt und Hunderte von Zivilisten massakriert. Da es sich bei der Kampfhandlung um einen Konflikt zwischen christlichen Milizen und palästinensischen Kämpfern handelte, entzündete sich die internationale Empörung an der israelischen Mitverantwortung. Denn nach dem Abzug des israelischen Militärs in eine Sicherheitszone vor der israelischen Grenze übernahm Syrien die militärische Kontrolle des Gebiets rund um das Flüchtlingslager.
Da auch Syrien daran interessiert war, die im Libanon verbliebenen «PLO»-Kämpfer und palästinensischen Nationalisten zu schwächen, wurde die Lage der Menschen im Flüchtlingslager noch schlimmer. Im Zuge der Lager-Kriege verübte die schiitische Amal-Miliz im Mai 1985 ein von libanesischen und syrischen Armeeverbänden geduldetes Massaker an Zivilisten in denselben palästinensischen Flüchtlingslagern von Sabra und Schatila. Der libanesische Bürgerkrieg dauerte noch bis 1990. Das Massaker wurde daraufhin von der Generalversammlung der Vereinten Nationen am 16. Dezember 1982 als Genozid gewertet. Soviel zu dieser tragischen Geschichte der palästinensischen Flüchtlinge im Libanon.
Nachdem ich Beirut ein wenig erkundet hatte, machte ich einen Abstecher nach Byblos, das zu den ältesten Städten der Welt zählt und seit über 7000 Jahren besiedelt ist. Der Hafen wurde schon seit der Steinzeit genutzt. Berühmt wurde der Ort auch durch die Sage von Adonis, der eine Tagesreise entfernt bei der Quelle des Adonis Flusses ums Leben kam. Der Aufstieg Byblos kam mit dem Bedarf der Aegyptischen Pharaonen am libanesischen Zedernholz für ihre Schiffe.
Dann kamen die Griechen, die dem Ort den heutigen Namen gaben, als Papyrus die grösste Rolle beim Aufstieg der Phönizier spielte, weil hier das erste Alphabet entstand und Byblos daher auch zum Geburtsort der Schrift und der Bibel wurde. Nach den Asyren und Babyloniern eroberten die Perser den Raum bis Alexander der Grosse den griechischen Einfluss durchsetze. Schliesslich kamen auch die Römer in Byblos an. Eine Stadt also, die geschichtlich gesehen immer eine grosse Rolle gespielt hat und verschiedenste Einflüsse und Strömungen erlebt hat.
Wenn man bedenkt, dass der Libanon in den 70er und frühen 80er Jahren ein sehr liberales Land mit einem ausgeprägtem französischen Savoir vivre war und Beirut, als auch Teheran im Iran und Kabul in Afghanistan, Hochburgen des Vergnügens waren und des internationalen Jet-Set ebenso wie Aussteiger auf dem Weg nach Indien anzog. Heute strahlte Beirut nur noch einen erbärmlich heruntergekommen „Katastrophen-Chick“ aus. Die Spuren der vielen Kriege und Bombenattentate sind unübersehbar und äusserst bedrückend. Als 2020 auch noch der ganze Hafen in die Luft flog und das umliegende Quartier pulverisierte, war der von einigen Clans ausgeblutete Staat total am Ende angelangt.
Zudem beherrbergt der Libanon auch noch eine weitere Last, die der über eineinhalb Millionen syrischen Flüchtlinge. Eine aussichtslose Lage für das Zedernland. Mit dem Mietauto fuhr ich von den Tempelruinen des Unesco Welterbe Byblyos nach Tripolis und dann in das Hochgebirge weiter bis nach Bsharreh zu den maronitischen Felsenklostern hoch. Für die Bekka-Ebene reichte die Zeit leider nicht. Heute ist der Libanon ein implodierter, höchst korrupter, abgehalfter Staat und die religiösen Gruppen sind zerstrittener, den je zuvor. Aber halten wir uns in Erinnerung, dass auch Europa über 150 Jahre von religiösen Konflikten erschüttert wurde bis eine säkulare Gesellschaft entstand.
Weitere Berichte, die Sie interessieren könnten bevor wir zur Fotostrecke kommen.
IN EIGENER SACHE: IHR BEITRAG AN HUMANITAERE PROJEKTE
Geschätzte Leserin, werter Leser
Der Autor unterstützt noch immer zahlreiche Projekte. Infolge der COVID-19 Pandemie ist es aber für den Autor selbst für und zahlreiche Projekte schwieriger geworden. Die Situation hat sich verschärft. Für Ihre Spende, die einem der im Buch genannten Projekte zufliesst, bedanke ich mich. Falls Sie einen Beitrag spenden wollen, melden Sie sich bitte per Mail bei mir gmc1(at) gmx.ch. Vielen Dank im Namen der Empfänger/innen.
Bern, 29.01.2017 – Die Immigrationspolitik der USA wirft praktische Fragen auf und löst gleichzeitig eine ernsthafte Wertedebatte aus.
«Aus praktischer Sicht ist es zweifelsohne an den US-amerikanischen Behörden, die Migrationsbedingungen im eigenen Land festzulegen. Ebenso offenkundig ist es, dass diese Bedingungen direkte Auswirkungen haben auf viele Menschen auf der ganzen Welt, einschliesslich auf Personen mit Wohnsitz in der Schweiz, namentlich auf jene mit doppelter Staatsangehörigkeit, die von diesen neuen Massnahmen betroffen sind.
Wir verfolgen daher die Entwicklungen sehr genau, wir stehen in Kontakt mit den US-amerikanischen Behörden, um möglichst klare Informationen über die geplanten Modalitäten zu erhalten, und wir behalten uns Massnahmen vor zum Schutz der Rechte der betroffenen Schweizer Staatsangehörigen.
Was die Werte anbelangt, möchte ich die Haltung unseres Landes bekräftigen:
Die Schweiz unterstützt aktiv die Terrorismusprävention, die sie als zentrales Anliegen erachtet. Bei allen Massnahmen, die zur Terrorismusbekämpfung getroffen werden, dürfen jedoch die Grundrechte und das Völkerrecht nicht missachtet werden. Wir verurteilen jegliche Diskriminierung von Menschen aufgrund ihrer Religion oder Herkunft. Das neue Dekret der USA geht also eindeutig in die falsche Richtung.
Soweit es sich um Flüchtlinge handelt, sind alle Länder durch die Genfer Konventionen verpflichtet, Kriegsopfer aus humanitären Gründen aufzunehmen. Der allgemeine Einreisestopp für Menschen aus Syrien stellt folglich einen Verstoss gegen die Genfer Konventionen dar.
Ich bin überzeugt, dass es überaus wichtig ist, alles zu unternehmen, um weitere Frustrationen zu vermeiden – auch im Hinblick auf die Bekämpfung des gewalttätigen Extremismus. Wir müssen darauf hinwirken, dass die internationale Gemeinschaft gemeinsam nach Lösungen für die Ursachen der Probleme unserer Zeit sucht.», so Bundesrat Didier Burkhalter in seiner Stellungnahme zum US-Einreiseverbot für gewisse muslimische Länder.
Genf, 03.02.2016 – Ansprache von Bundesrat Didier Burkhalter auf französisch anlässlich der öffentlichen Konferenz von der FDP organisiert in Genf.
Mesdames, Messieurs,
Inès B., 59 ans, vient d’un pays d’Europe méridionale. Elle vit en Suisse depuis plus de 30 ans. Elle est veuve. Ses enfants et ses petits enfants vivent en Suisse.
Il y a deux ans elle a perdu l’emploi qu’elle avait dans un hôtel de la région et n’en a pas retrouvé. Elle est actuellement à l’aide sociale.
Depuis quelques mois, elle s’est mise à faire quelques ménages, environ un jour par semaine. Elle touche ainsi entre 700 et 800 Frs par mois. Elle a déclaré ce revenu à l’AVS/AI et à l’assurance accident. Mais ce travail « au gris » n’a pas été déclaré à l’aide sociale. Inès a ainsi reçu indûment un montant trop élevé de l’aide sociale ces derniers mois. Les services sociaux découvrent cela lors d’un contrôle.
Si l’initiative est acceptée le 28 février : à 59 ans, Inès tombera sous le coup du nouvel article constitutionnel. Selon l’initiative, elle devra, dans un cas grave, être expulsée avec une interdiction d’entrer en Suisse de 10 ans au moins. Elle sera séparée de sa famille et du lieu où elle vit depuis plus de 30 ans.
La loi votée par le Parlement permettrait aux tribunaux, contrairement à l’initiative, de tenir compte de sa situation personnelle : si son expulsion rend sa situation personnelle excessivement difficile et que l’ordre public en Suisse n’est pas menacé, le juge pourra décider de la condamner à la peine qu’elle mérite pour son erreur, mais sans la renvoyer du pays.
Malik D. lui vient du Maghreb. Il vit en Suisse depuis quelques mois. Il n’a pas d’antécédent judiciaire. Il est manutentionnaire dans une grande entreprise.
La police l’a arrêté après qu’on a découvert qu’il a fabriqué une bombe sur la base d’informations trouvées sur internet. Des documents retrouvés sur son ordinateur indiquent qu’il est en contacts avec des milieux islamistes intégristes. Condamné, il ne sera pas automatiquement expulsé sur la base de l’initiative. L’initiative ne prévoit pas la construction d’une bombe parmi les crimes et délits conduisant à une expulsion automatique de Suisse.
Par ailleurs une telle décision d’expulsion, si elle était décidée, resterait difficilement applicable dans les faits, certains pays, dont celui de Malik, collaborant mal au retour de leurs ressortissants.
Si Malik avait planifié un meurtre ou une prise d’otage, pollué des réservoirs d’eau potable ou propagé volontairement une maladie dangereuse, il ne serait pas non plus un condamné à l’expulsion automatique de Suisse, en tous les cas pas s’il n’a pas d’antécédent judiciaire. L’initiative ne prévoit en effet pas de tels cas (ou – pour certains d’entre eux – seulement si la personne a été déjà condamnée précédemment).
Si par contre l’initiative est refusée le 28 février, c’est la loi votée par le Parlement qui entrera en vigueur et le code pénal prévoira une décision d’expulsion pour Malik, indépendamment de ses antécédents.
3e exemple : deux amis de 18 ans, Laurent et Daniel, un Suisse et un Italien né ici et ayant toujours vécu en Suisse, sont en week-end dans une station de ski dans le chalet des parents de l’un d’entre eux.
Un soir en rentrant au chalet, tard dans la nuit après avoir fait la fête au village, ils entrent par effraction dans une résidence secondaire manifestement inoccupée. Ils y volent plusieurs bouteilles d’alcool.
Les deux auteurs de ce cambriolage sont retrouvés le lendemain grâce à un témoin et aux traces qu’ils ont laissées. Ils sont arrêtés et avouent leur forfait. Il est établi que l’idée a été lancée, comme un défi, par Laurent, le jeune Suisse. Mais les deux jeunes ont commis le forfait d’un commun accord.
Si l’initiative est acceptée, Laurent, le Suisse, sera condamné à une amende alors que Daniel sera expulsé du territoire suisse pour être envoyé dans un pays, l’Italie, où il n’a jamais vécu.
Et que se passerait-il, si ces jeunes avaient, non pas cette fois par bêtise, mais dans un élan criminel, intentionnellement mis le feu au chalet ?
L’initiative ne prévoit pas un renvoi automatique de Suisse dans un tel cas si la personne n’a pas d’antécédent judiciaire. Cette infraction figure dans la seconde liste de l’initiative, celle qui recense les délits qui provoquent l’expulsion uniquement en cas de condamnation préalable. Or notre jeune n’a pas d’antécédent.
Est-ce proportionné d’expulser pour un larcin – certes inacceptable mais sans réelle gravité – mais pas pour un incendie volontaire ?
La loi, elle, prévoit l’expulsion pour 5 ans au moins pour un incendie intentionnel. Pour le vol par effraction le juge pourrait aussi prononcer l’expulsion pour cinq ans au moins. Il peut cependant renoncer à l’expulsion s’il existe un cas de rigueur – c’est-à-dire si l’expulsion mettait la personne dans une „situation personnelle grave“ – et si les intérêts publics à l’expulsion ne l’emportent pas.
Mesdames, Messieurs,
Ces trois exemples au fond disent tout ou presque des raisons pour lesquelles le Conseil fédéral et le Parlement considèrent que l’initiative dite « de mise en œuvre » ne règle pas correctement les défis de l’expulsion des criminels étrangers et pourquoi ils recommandent le rejet de cette initiative.
Ce texte est dur. Et il faut l’être avec la criminalité et la délinquance. Mais il ne suffit pas d’être dur. Il faut être efficace, cohérent et, surtout, il faut être juste.
Il faut donc cibler correctement, de manière proportionnée, les crimes et délits que l’on vise pour assurer la sécurité du pays et l’ordre public. Il ne faut pas créer des injustices en voulant se montrer trop rigoureux, voire inflexibles. Et il ne faut pas oublier les crimes importants dans la liste de ceux passibles d’expulsion.
Or, l’initiative soumise au vote le 28 février ne répond que partiellement à ces critères, à l’inverse de la loi votée par le Parlement.
Expulser une femme de ménage et laisser en paix un apprenti terroriste n’est pas la meilleure manière d’assurer la sécurité du pays. L’initiative n’est pas un texte dur mais juste : c’est un projet parfois dur et souvent injuste.
J’aimerais vous en dire un peu plus ce soir sur ces deux textes : l’initiative populaire et la révision de la loi qui entrera en vigueur en cas de non à l’initiative.
Pour ce faire je vais répondre à quelques questions que j’entends et que l’on est en droit de se poser.
1ère question : est-ce que, si le peuple vote non à l’initiative de « mise en œuvre », la décision populaire de renvoyer les criminels étrangers ne sera pas mise en œuvre ?
La décision populaire de 2010 sera appliquée dans tous les cas. Et elle le sera mieux en votant « non ».
En 2010 la population a accepté l’initiative sur les renvois de délinquants étrangers et la Constitution a été adaptée en conséquence. La population veut être plus ferme face à la délinquance et au crime, notamment à l’égard de personnes qui ne sont pas nées ici.
Suite à cela, le Conseil fédéral et le Parlement ont fait leur travail, comme le prévoient nos institutions.
Ils ont travaillé à une législation de mise en œuvre qui passe par une révision du code pénal (et du code pénal militaire).
Les nouvelles dispositions constitutionnelles seront donc mises en œuvre. Ce cadre légal a déjà été adopté par le Parlement (le 20 mars 2015). Le référendum n’a pas été demandé. La loi sera mise en vigueur si la population suisse refuse l’initiative. Sinon c’est cette dernière qui entrera en force.
La population suisse a donc le choix entre deux textes :
– celui de l’initiative – qui comporte des lacunes et peut provoquer de graves injustices – et
– celui de la loi adoptée par le Parlement, plus complet et plus équilibré.
En disant non à l’initiative, le citoyen ne vote pas contre la mise en œuvre des dispositions constitutionnelles. Il dit au contraire oui à la loi de mise en œuvre adoptée par le Parlement.
Il faut aussi savoir que l’initiative ne se contente pas, contrairement à ce que son titre suggère, de « mettre en œuvre » l’initiative de 2010. Elle a ajouté à la liste des crimes et délits donnant lieu à une expulsion une série de délits de moindre gravité qui donneront aussi lieu à une expulsion, notamment si l’auteur a déjà été condamné au préalable.
Ainsi un père de famille qui aurait été condamné à des jours-amende pour avoir injurié un voisin il y a quelques années et qui se retrouverait pris dans une rixe sera expulsé de Suisse. Même s’il est par ailleurs bien intégré, qu’il a un travail ici et que sa famille est installée et intégrée.
Ce n’est pas ce que prévoyait l’initiative adoptée en 2010 qui ne parlait que de crimes graves ou d’abus des assurances sociales.
L’initiative n’est donc pas une « simple » mise en œuvre, en ce sens son titre est trompeur. Elle correspond à un durcissement de la législation en matière d’expulsion visant notamment, non pas les dangereux criminels, mais des personnes ayant commis des actes parfois de peu de gravité.
Celles-ci seront condamnées à l’expulsion pour le simple fait qu’elles ont déjà subi une condamnation, elle-même peut-être de peu de gravité, dans les dix dernières années. L’initiative fait preuve d’acharnement à l’égard des étrangers, soit un quart de notre population.
Cela n’améliorera pas la sécurité en Suisse, cela risque de créer des situations personnelles et familiales insupportables et cela pourrait nous créer des difficultés avec nos engagements internationaux et avec l’Union européenne – j’y reviendrai.
On peut donc dire que l’initiative ne met pas en en œuvre la décision populaire de 2010, elle la rend plus sévère au point de devenir injuste.
La loi votée par le Parlement met, elle, en œuvre la décision populaire de 2010 dans un cadre à la fois dur et juste.
2e question : Le texte de l’initiative est-il compatible avec le droit international ?
La réponse est non. L’initiative, comme la loi, respecte certes le noyau dur du droit international, à savoir que même en cas de décision d’expulsion, celle-ci ne sera pas mise à exécution si la personne concernée risque d’être persécutée, tuée ou torturée.
Néanmoins l’automatisme de la décision que prévoit l’initiative est en contradiction à certains égards avec la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme (CEDH) et le Pacte international relatif aux droits civils et politiques (Pacte II de l’ONU).
Pour un juge il ne serait plus possible d’examiner si l’expulsion porte atteinte de manière disproportionnée à la vie privée et familiale de la personne concernée.
On ne tiendrait plus compte de critères tels que la gravité de l’acte commis ou la situation familiale de l’intéressé.
Ainsi on expulsera automatiquement une maman ayant manqué de déclarer, dans un cas grave, des revenus accessoires aux services sociaux par exemple, ou un père engagé dans une rixe qui avait quelques années auparavant été condamné à des jours amendes pour injures. On le fera sans tenir compte de l’impact de cette décision sur leur famille, et en particulier sur leurs enfants.
Or la Convention relative aux droits de l’enfant, que la Suisse a aussi signée et qu’elle s’est engagée à respecter, fixe comme principe que l’intérêt supérieur de l’enfant doit être une considération primordiale dans toute décision des autorités.
Voulons-nous régulièrement, de par l’application de ces nouvelles normes proposées par l’initiative, violer les droits fondamentaux qui sont garantis à chacun par notre Constitution et par la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme?
Voulons-nous que notre pays soit régulièrement condamné par la Cour de Strasbourg pour violation de la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme ?
Voulons-nous que la Suisse fasse partie de ce tout petit club de pays qui ont signé ce texte fondamental mais qui ne l’appliquent pas correctement et ne donnent pas suite aux jugements de la Cour, garante de nos libertés fondamentales ?
Voulons-nous mettre notre Tribunal fédéral dans la situation de ne pas appliquer une partie de notre Constitution, le forçant à choisir entre les dispositions excessives de l’initiative et la garantie des droits fondamentaux qu’il est également tenu de respecter ?
L’initiative pose on le voit de sérieux problèmes.
La loi votée par le Parlement, elle, permet de tenir compte de ces éléments. Elle ne prône pas la clémence et le laxisme. Loin de là ! Mais dans les cas de rigueur elle permet d’intégrer ces dimensions humaines et familiales dans la décision, au cas par cas et à la stricte condition que la sécurité du pays n’en soit pas affectée.
L’initiative est donc dure et injuste, elle nous met en porte-à-faux avec la garantie des libertés individuelles, alors que la loi adoptée par le Parlement est à la fois dure et juste.
Par ailleurs l’initiative créerait une difficulté supplémentaire avec l’Union européenne sur le thème de la libre circulation des personnes. Et ceci au pire des moments.
La Suisse s’évertue depuis deux ans à négocier avec l’Union européenne une solution qui permette de mieux contrôler la migration, comme le peuple l’a décidé en février 2014, et de préserver et développer la voie bilatérale. Une voie bilatérale voulue et confirmée par le peuple suisse à de nombreuses reprises. Une voie qui a contribué fortement au succès économique de la Suisse depuis 15 ans. Une voie qui nous permet d’atteindre notre objectif constitutionnel de prospérité.
Le chemin pour trouver une solution en concertation avec
l’Union européenne est particulièrement étroit. Le Conseil fédéral a engagé toute son énergie dans la recherche d’une solution concertée, seule à même de préserver nos intérêts et d’atteindre nos objectifs. Il n’a pas ménagé ses efforts et a multiplié les contacts. A force d’explications, de diplomatie, d’inventivité et d’insistance, nous avons pu démontrer aux institutions européennes et aux Etats membres qu’une solution est possible sur la base de l’accord existant, et qu’elle est souhaitable pour les deux partenaires.
Ces discussions atteignent actuellement un moment important. Les rencontres se multiplient et les prochaines semaines et mois seront décisifs puisque la Constitution prévoit un délai à début 2017 pour appliquer le nouvel article 121a.
Or c’est précisément à ce moment crucial que nous votons sur l’initiative de « mise en œuvre ».
Et cela risque d’être un grain de sable, voire un morceau de gravier, jeté dans les rouages de ces discussions diplomatiques.
Les standards européens auxquels la Suisse a souscrit permettent d’expulser un étranger qui nuit gravement à l’ordre public en Suisse. Mais il faut pour cela que cette peine soit proportionnée à la gravité de l’acte et qu’elle fasse l’objet d’un examen individuel.
Or l’initiative prévoit un automatisme borné qui ne permet pas un examen individuel. Elle prévoit par ailleurs, comme nous l’avons vu, l’expulsion même dans des cas bénins. Ces deux éléments la rendent incompatible avec les engagements pris par la Suisse.
Dans le cas d’Inès, que je vous livrais tout à l’heure, qui a omis d’annoncer un revenu mensuel de quelques 800 francs aux services sociaux, une peine d’expulsion de 10 ans est-elle proportionnée ?
Et Inès nuisait-elle gravement à l’ordre public en Suisse ?
C’est au peuple de trancher cette question le 28 février.
Là encore, la loi votée est, pour le Conseil fédéral et le Parlement, plus équilibrée, et au fond simplement mieux faite.
Elle permettra au juge de faire une exception lorsque manifestement la peine d’expulsion est disproportionnée par rapport à ce que la société a à y gagner et que cela ne nuit pas à la sécurité de la Suisse.
Est-ce une vision laxiste ? Non car les cas de rigueur sont strictement encadrées et resteront l’exception. Il ne suffit en effet pas que l’expulsion risque de mettre l’étranger dans une situation personnelle grave pour que le juge puisse renoncer à cette mesure. Il faut en outre que les intérêts publics à l’expulsion ne l’emportent pas sur l’intérêt privé de l’étranger à demeurer en Suisse.
Concrètement cette exception pour les cas de rigueur ne pourra être appliquée qu’à un étranger qui a commis une infraction mineure. Face aux infractions graves, l’expulsion sera toujours prononcée lorsque l’intérêt public à le faire l’emporte.
Le Parlement n’a fait preuve d’aucun laxisme.
La formulation qu’il a choisie permet par contre, tout en étant ferme, de ne pas créer des difficultés supplémentaires avec l’accord sur la libre circulation des personnes et ceci au pire des moments car la négociation en cours entre dans une phase décisive.
Un oui à l’initiative risquerait donc de compromettre une solution concertée avec l’UE et de rendre utopique la possibilité de maintenir la Suisse dans le programme-cadre de recherche européen Horizon 2020, un élément essentiel pour nos centres de recherche, nos emplois, notre compétitivité, notre prospérité.
Là encore : l’initiative est dure mais maladroite et injuste alors que la loi votée par le Parlement est dure mais juste.
3e question : l’initiative permet-elle de faire la différence entre un étranger arrivé dans notre pays depuis quelques semaines et un étranger né ici et parfaitement intégré ?
Là encore la réponse est non.
Certains auteurs de l’initiative ont bien essayé récemment de prétendre le contraire, voyant le problème, mais un peu tard. Ils ont d’ailleurs été immédiatement contredits par leur propre famille politique et par les faits. Car le texte de l’initiative est limpide et ne permet aucune interprétation sur ce point : l’initiative ne fait aucune différence entre les différentes catégories d’étrangers.
Mesdames et Messieurs,
Je me méfie des termes absolus en politique, mais dans un tel cas je pense qu’on peut se poser cette question: mener une telle politique est-ce se montrer dur, ou est-ce se montrer inhumain ?
Cette initiative, par les automatismes qu’elle induit et les excès auxquels elle peut conduire, sans qu’un juge ne puisse les corriger, risque de nous vider d’une partie de notre humanité.
Voulons-nous prendre un tel risque ?
Ce point me tient particulièrement à cœur par mon expérience personnelle. J’ai presque toujours vécu à Neuchâtel, une ville qui compte de nombreux étrangers. Ceux-ci sont pour la plupart non seulement parfaitement intégrés, ils forment une partie de l’identité de la ville.
Mes enfants ont grandi, fait leurs classes, fait du sport dans des environnements où ils étaient entourés de nombreux enfants d’origine diverse.
Leurs amis d’enfance ont la nationalité suisse, mais aussi italienne, portugaise, croate ou kosovare, …. Et ces amis sont parfaitement intégrés.
Je trouve normal qu’on ne décide pas d’expulser des personnes nées ici pour une simple bagatelle, en raison d’un texte mal conçu et excessif, et ceci de manière automatique.
Ils ne doivent pas devenir des citoyens de seconde zone, dépourvus de la protection de leurs droits constitutionnels.
Bien sûr en cas de crime ou délit grave, il faut expulser un étranger, pour protéger notre société.
Dans la loi votée par le Parlement tous les crimes d’ordre sexuel, ceux qui se soldent par la mort ou la mise en danger d’un être humain ou des lésions corporelles graves entraînent l’expulsion. Aussi pour un jeune né ici.
La Suisse ne laissera pas de place à des violeurs, des meurtriers ou des criminels violents.
Mais je ne crois pas qu’on protège une société en expulsant quelqu’un qui a toujours vécu ici, pour des délits d’importance secondaire ou un dérapage aussi malheureux qu’unique.
La loi votée par le Parlement reste sévère quand il faut l’être. Les crimes graves seront punis d’expulsion. Mais pour les délits de gravité moindre, le juge pourra tenir compte de la situation particulière de l’intéressé.
Le juge devra aussi, c’est explicitement inscrit dans la loi, tenir compte de la situation particulière des étrangers nés en Suisse ou qui y ont grandi. Ce que l’initiative ne permet pas.
Là encore l’initiative se révèle si maladroitement dure qu’elle en devient injuste, alors que la loi votée par le Parlement est dure, mais juste.
Dernière question que j’aimerais traiter avec vous : en quoi l’automatisme prévu par l’initiative est-il si problématique?
Il l’est à de nombreux égards, on touche là à des questions institutionnelles importantes.
J’ai entendu récemment des initiants dire qu’aucun texte légal n’était parfait, que tous peuvent provoquer parfois des situations injustes. C’est exact. Aucun texte, aussi bien fait qu’il soit, ne peut couvrir tous les cas de figure. La complexité de la vie ne se laisse pas réduire à un texte de loi.
Mais c’est encore plus vrai lorsque, malheureusement, le texte législatif n’est pas bien fait. Or c’est le cas du texte de l’initiative.
Elle introduirait, on l’a vu, toute une série de délits de seconde importance qui n’étaient pas visés par la votation de 2010.
D’un autre côté elle oublie toute une série de délits ou de crimes graves qui ne donneraient pas lieu à une expulsion automatique.
La loi votée par le Parlement, elle, n’oublie pas d’expulser celui qui construit une bombe, empoisonne un réservoir d’eau potable, diffuse volontairement une maladie grave, endommage volontairement une installation hydraulique, arrange des mariages forcés, pratique des mutilations génitales ou encore commet des abus sexuels sur des mineurs !
Toutes ces infractions graves figurent dans la loi. Elles impliqueront une expulsion.
Pourtant elles ont été oubliées par l’initiative ! Cette même initiative qui cible et risque d’expulser une femme de ménage qui aurait omis de déclarer quelques centaines de francs de revenu accessoire… !
L’automatisme est un problème car aucun texte de loi, qui fixe par définition des principes abstraits, ne peut couvrir toutes les situations humaines dans des cas concrets. Cela risque donc de créer des situations d’injustice.
C’est pourquoi la loi prévoit une marge d’appréciation pour le juge. Elle fixe des peines-plancher et plafond, dans le cadre desquels le juge peut tenir compte de circonstances atténuantes ou aggravantes, des antécédents, du contexte mais aussi par exemple des conséquences que la peine aura pour la personne concernée.
Or l’initiative, par méfiance atavique des juges (qu’ils soient suisses ou étrangers d’ailleurs !), accusés de « comploter » contre le peuple – ce qui est une accusation non seulement grave mais dangereuse en démocratie – refuse cet examen et prévoit des peines automatiques.
C’est problématique pour tout type de législation. Plus encore quand le texte est lacunaire. Et plus encore lorsqu’il a des conséquences graves pour la personne concernée et ses proches et met en cause une partie de leurs droits fondamentaux.
La loi votée par le Parlement non seulement définit mieux et de manière plus ciblée et plus complète les crimes graves qui donnent lieu à une expulsion, mais elle laisse au juge une marge d’appréciation, strictement encadrée, pour tenir compte de chaque situation humaine dans toute sa complexité.
Au fond, la question qui nous est posée est de savoir si nous voulons appliquer la justice avec discernement et humanité ou avec un couperet automatisé.
L’initiative pose des problèmes institutionnels à plusieurs égards.
Elle met les juges hors-jeu.
Elle veut également mettre le Parlement hors-jeu, ne lui reconnaissant pas son rôle de mise en œuvre d’une initiative, tel qu’il est prévu par la Constitution.
On assiste à un phénomène nouveau, qui est aussi une inquiétante marque de méfiance à l’égard de nos institutions démocratiques, des pouvoirs et contre-pouvoirs qui sont conçus pour protéger les citoyens des abus d’un pouvoir absolu. Voilà qui doit nous interpeller.
J’ai la conviction que nos institutions ont, depuis plus d’un siècle et demi, contribué à faire de la Suisse ce qu’elle est devenue : un miracle de stabilité, de bien-être et de réussite.
Nous devrions réfléchir à dix fois – et probablement plus – avant de modifier leur subtil équilibre.
L’automatisme est aussi un problème parce qu’il nous met en porte-à-faux avec nos engagements internationaux.
Enfin, toujours au plan institutionnel, rappelons que s’il faut modifier la législation sur un point ou l’autre, parce qu’elle ne produit pas les effets voulus, c’est possible par un processus parlementaire. Mais si l’initiative est acceptée, c’est dans le marbre constitutionnel que ces dispositions d’application seront gravées. Une erreur de conception ou de rédaction, une imprécision ou une omission – et on a vu qu’il y en a – sera beaucoup plus difficile à corriger, nécessitant d’organiser une votation populaire avec double majorité pour toute modification, même de détail !
Là encore, l’initiative est dure, mal conçue et injuste alors que la loi est dure, mais juste.
Conclusion
Mesdames et Messieurs,
Il est temps de conclure.
Suite à la votation de 2010 qui a inscrit le principe de l’expulsion des étrangers criminels dans la Constitution, le Conseil fédéral et le Parlement ont fait leur travail.
La loi de mise en œuvre adoptée par le Parlement permet d’appliquer la décision populaire tout en respectant nos principes institutionnels et les libertés fondamentales de chaque être humain, qu’il soit Suisse ou étranger.
La loi ne met pas le Parlement hors-jeu.
Elle ne met pas la Justice hors-jeu, mais elle lui donne un cadre strict dans lequel il est possible de faire preuve d’humanité afin d’éviter de commettre des injustices.
On doit se demander s’il est proportionné ou nécessaire à la sécurité de la Suisse d’expulser Inès, la femme de ménage, ou Daniel, le jeune italien entré par effraction et surtout par bêtise dans un chalet. Les punir bien sûr ! Mais les expulser… ?
Avec la loi un juge pourra éviter les excès choquants. Avec l’initiative, ces personnes seront expulsées dans un automatisme aussi glacial qu’absolu.
Avec la loi, il est prévu d’expulser celui qui, comme Malik, construit une bombe, organise des mariages forcés, pratique des mutilations génitales ou se rend coupable de sévices sexuels sur des enfants. On expulsera aussi celui qui commet un incendie intentionnel. Or l’initiative, elle, oublie de tels crimes !
En résumé
– la loi est plus juste
– elle est plus complète et plus dure là où il faut l’être
– elle assure la sécurité de la Suisse en préservant son humanité
Les Suisses aiment le travail précis et de qualité : l’initiative, par ses excès et ses lacunes ne correspond pas à cette définition.
A plusieurs égards on peut la qualifier d’anti-suisse.
Pour toutes ces raisons, le Conseil fédéral et le Parlement vous invitent à voter non à l’initiative dite « de mise en œuvre » ce qui permettra à la loi de mise en œuvre, adoptée par le Parlement, d’entrer en vigueur.
Je vous invite à dire non à une initiative dure et injuste au profit d’une loi dure mais juste.
Der Mangel an internationaler Unterstützung und eine Politik der Diskriminierung seitens der libanesischen Behörden führen dazu, dass weibliche Flüchtlinge im Libanon vermehrt sexueller Ausbeutung und Gewalt ausgeliefert sind. Das stellt Amnesty International in ihrem jüngsten Bericht «‘I want a safe place‘: Refugeee women from Syria uprooted and unprotected in Lebanon» fest.
Die Weigerung der libanesischen Behörden, Aufenthaltsbewilligungen zu verlängern sowie die Kürzung der finanziellen Unterstützung seitens der internationalen Gemeinschaft führen dazu, dass weibliche Flüchtlinge zunehmend in prekäre Situationen kommen. Das Risiko der Ausbeutung ist für sie beträchtlich gestiegen, sei es durch Vermieter, Arbeitgeber und sogar durch Polizeibeamte.
Neben den syrischen Flüchtlingen gibt es auch noch mehrere Palästinenser-Flüchtlingscamps wie Schatila. Bild: GMC Photopress/Gerd Müller
Seit 2015 verhindert die libanesische Regierung, dass das Uno-Flüchtlingshilfswerk (UNHCR) weiterhin syrische Flüchtlinge im Libanon registriert. Zudem haben die Behörden neue Regelungen erlassen, die es den Flüchtlingen erschweren, ihre Aufenthaltsgenehmigung zu verlängern. Ohne offiziellen legalen Status steigt die Gefahr für Flüchtlinge, willkürlich verhaftet, eingesperrt oder sogar ausgewiesen zu werden. Das führt dazu, dass viele es nicht wagen, Misshandlungen und Ausbeutung bei der Polizei zu melden.
Bei 20 Prozent der Flüchtlingsfamilien, die im Libanon leben, sorgen allein die Frauen für den Lebensunterhalt, weil ihre Männer in Syrien entweder getötet, verhaftet, entführt oder an einen unbekannten Ort verschleppt wurden.
Bei 20 Prozent der Flüchtlingsfamilien, die im Libanon leben, sorgen allein die Frauen für den Lebensunterhalt.
Offiziell hat die libanesische Regierung 546’000 syrische Flüchtlinge aufgenommmen. Aber 500’000 Personen wurden von der Uno noch nicht registriert. BIld: GMC Photopress
«Die meisten syrischen Flüchtlinge im Libanon kämpfen unter schlimmsten Bedingungen um das Überleben. Sie leiden unter Diskriminierung und haben es schwer, an Lebensmittel, eine Unterkunft oder gar einen Job zu kommen. Für weibliche Flüchtlinge ist die Situation besonders schwer. Wenn sie alleine für ihre Familie sorgen müssen, werden sie häufig bedroht, ausgebeutet oder missbraucht, sowohl bei der Arbeit als auch auf der Strasse», sagt Kathryn Ramsay, bei Amnesty International verantwortlich für Gender Research.
Armut und Ausbeutung
Zählen zu den Ärmsten: Die Palästinensischen Flüchtlinge im Lager Schatila. Bild: GMC Photopress/Gerd Müller
Rund 70 Prozent der syrischen Flüchtlingsfamilien im Libanon leben deutlich unter der libanesischen Armutsgrenze. Die humanitäre Hilfe der Uno für syrische Flüchtlinge war im vergangenen Jahr systematisch unterfinanziert. 2015 hat die Uno nur 57 Prozent der finanziellen Unterstützung erhalten, die sie für ihre Arbeit im Libanon angefordert hatte. Diese Unterfinanzierung hat vor allem das Welternährungsprogramm getroffen und dazu geführt, dass die Lebensmittel-Unterstützung für besonders schutzbedürftige Flüchtlinge ab Mitte 2015 von 30 US-Dollar auf 13,50 US-Dollar pro Monat gekürzt werden musste. Nach einer Finanzspritze gegen Ende des Jahres konnte die Unterstützung wieder auf 21,60 US-Dollar im Monat angehoben werden, das macht pro Tag aber gerade einmal 72 Cent. Ein Viertel der Frauen, mit denen Amnesty International sprechen konnte, bekam im vergangenen Jahr keine Lebensmittelhilfe mehr.
Ein Viertel der Frauen bekam im vergangenen Jahr keine Lebensmittelhilfe mehr. Sie sind einem erhöhten Missbrauchsrisiko ausgesetzt.
Viele weibliche Flüchtlinge berichten, dass sie hart kämpfen müssen, um die gestiegenen Lebenshaltungskosten im Libanon zu bestreiten. Sie sind einem erhöhten Missbrauchsrisiko ausgesetzt, weil sie es schwer haben, Geld für Essen und Unterbringung zu beschaffen. Einige berichten von sexuellen Annäherungsversuche seitens Männern oder Angeboten, «Hilfe» mit Sex zu bezahlen. Frauen, denen es gelungen ist, einen Job zu ergattern, werden häufig von ihren Arbeitgebern ausgebeutet und müssen sich in diesem Klima der Diskriminierung oft mit extrem schlechter Bezahlung zufrieden geben.
Leben in der Illegalität
Beirut: Im palästinensischem Flüchtlingszentrum Schatila leben weit über 150’000 Personen. Bild: GMC Photopress
Die bürokratischen Hürden für die Verlängerung der Aufenthaltsbewilligung wurden im Januar 2015 von den libanesischen Behörden erhöht. Ohne diese Bewilligung leben die Flüchtlinge in ständiger Angst vor Verhaftung und gehen deshalb nicht zur Polizei, um Missbrauch anzuzeigen. Das betrifft besonders weibliche Flüchtlinge.
Im Libanon leben mehr Flüchtlinge pro Einwohner als in jedem anderen Land. Die internationale Gemeinschaft hat versagt, das Land bei der Bewältigung dieser Aufgabe zu unterstützen. Das ist trotz allem keine Entschuldigung dafür, Flüchtlingen Schutz vor Ausbeutung und Missbrauch zu verweigern.
«Statt ein Klima der Angst und Einschüchterung zu schüren, sollten die libanesischen Behörden ihre Politik revidieren und dafür Sorge tragen, dass Frauen auf der Flucht besser geschützt werden und alle Flüchtlinge im Libanon ihre Aufenthaltsbewilligung ohne bürokratische Hindernisse verlängern können», sagt Kathryn Ramsay.
Internationale Unterstützung dringend erforderlich
Ein palästinensischer Junge mit einer Spielzeugwaffe im Anschlag. Bild: GMC Photopress/Gerd Müller
Die mangelnde internationale Finanzierung und Unterstützung für Flüchtlinge im Libanon ist ein entscheidender Faktor für die grosse Armut und das steigende Risiko der Ausbeutung für Frauen auf der Flucht. Das Uno-Flüchtlingshilfswerk geht davon aus, dass 10 Prozent der syrischen Flüchtlinge in Gastländern, also rund 450‘000 Menschen, als besonders verletzlich gelten und deshalb dringend auf einen Wiederansiedlungsplatz ausserhalb der Region angewiesen sind. Dazu zählen Frauen und Kinder.
Amnesty International ruft die internationale Gemeinschaft deshalb auf, deutlich mehr Plätze für die besonders verletzlichen Flüchtlinge zur Verfügung zu stellen, damit sie sich in einem sicheren Land niederlassen können. Ausserdem müssen sichere und legale Wege geschaffen werden, damit diese Menschen die Region verlassen können, ohne ihr Leben zu riskieren. Die finanzielle Unterstützung für die Region muss deutlich aufgestockt werden. Die Geberkonferenz für Syrien für die Jahre 2016 und 2017 bietet dafür eine gute Gelegenheit.
Bern, 18.12.2015 – Im Jahr 2015 sind so viele Menschen auf der Flucht, wie seit dem zweiten Weltkrieg nicht mehr. Auch die Schweiz verzeichnete im zweiten Halbjahr 2015 anhaltend hohe Asylgesuchseingänge. Aus diesem Grund hat der Bundesrat am Freitag zusätzliche Mittel im Umfang von gut 11 Millionen Schweizer Franken bewilligt, damit die zusätzlichen Schutzsuchenden untergebracht, alle prioritären Verfahren zeitnah durchgeführt und Rückstände abgebaut werden können.
Seit Juni 2015 sind die Asylgesuche in ganz Europa markant gestiegen. Auch die Schweiz verzeichnete eine bedeutende Zunahme der Gesuche bis auf rund 5700 Gesuche im November. Im Vergleich zu Gesamteuropa verlief der Anstieg der Asylgesuchszahlen allerdings moderat. Das Staatssekretariat für Migration (SEM) erwartet bis Ende Jahr gesamthaft rund 39 000 Gesuche.
Unterbringung und Registrierung sicherstellen
Bundesrat und Parlament hatten im Voranschlag 2016 die personellen Ressourcen für die Bearbeitung von rund 30 000 Gesuchen bewilligt. Die zusätzlich notwendigen personellen und finanziellen Ressourcen für die laufende Gesuchsbewältigung und den Pendenzenabbau müssen deshalb zusätzlich eingestellt werden. Zudem hat das SEM die Unterkunftsplätze des Bundes von 2300 Anfang 2015 auf rund 5000 Plätze Ende Jahr erhöht, was zu einem Mehrbedarf für die Zumiete und den Betrieb von Unterkünften im zivilen Bereich führt.
Der Bundesrat ermächtigt deshalb das Eidgenössische Justiz- und Polizeidepartement (EJPD) zur Bewältigung der steigenden Asylgesuche sein Personal befristet bis Ende 2016 um zusätzliche 75 Stellen aufzustocken. Die Finanzierung dieser Stellen kann durch Kredit-Verschiebungen innerhalb des Voranschlags 2016 abgedeckt werden. Im Rahmen eines dringlichen Nachtragskredit beantragt der Bundesrat der parlamentarischen Finanzdelegation zusätzlich insgesamt rund 11,1 Millionen Franken für weitere Dolmetscherinnen und Dolmetscher, für die Informatikausstattung zusätzlicher Arbeitsplätze sowie für die Zumiete von Unterkünften und deren Betriebskosten.
Im Anschluss an den heutigen Entscheid muss die Gutheissung der Finanzdelegation zu den dringlichen Nachtragsbegehren eingeholt werden. (Quelle: EJPD)
Bern, 18.09.2015 – Der Bundesrat hat heute den Nachtrag II zum Budget 2015 verabschiedet. Damit unterbreitet er dem Parlament zehn Nachtragskredite von insgesamt 258,8 Millionen Franken. Die Budgetaufstockungen führen im laufenden Jahr zu einer Erhöhung der budgetierten Ausgaben um 0,3 Prozent.
Mit 207,1 Millionen entfallen rund 80 Prozent des Nachtragsvolumens auf den Asylbereich. Die instabile Situation im Nahen Osten und in Nordafrika, der anhaltende Migrationsdruck aus Afrika sowie die Verschärfung von Konflikten in wichtigen Herkunftsstaaten (insbesondere Syrien) führen zu sehr hohen Asylgesuchszahlen in der Schweiz. Zudem ist die Bleibequote gestiegen, der Beschäftigungsgrad tiefer und der Pendenzenabbau aus dem Vorjahr verzögerte sich. Das Staatssekretariat für Migration (SEM) rechnet für das Jahr 2015 mit 29 000 Asylgesuchen. Da dem Voranschlag 2015 22 000 Gesuche zugrunde gelegt waren, müssen die eingestellten Mittel für die Sozialhilfe der Asylsuchenden (205,9 Mio.) sowie den Asylverfahrensaufwand (1,1 Mio.) aufgestockt werden. Der Asylbereich ist rasch ändernden Situationen ausgesetzt und daher nur sehr beschränkt steuerbar. Die Zahl und Zusammensetzung der Asylgesuche mit den Auswirkungen insbesondere auf den Gesuchsbestand und die Bleibequote sind nicht vorhersehbar. Die Budgetierung, die jeweils Mitte Juni abgeschlossen werden muss, beruht daher auf vergangenheitsbezogenen Schätzregeln. Diese Regeln haben sich in der Vergangenheit bewährt und wurden auch von den Finanzkommissionen gutgeheissen. In den Jahren 2007-2014 reichten die budgetierten Mittel nur zweimal nicht aus. Insgesamt resultierten in dieser Periode Kreditreste von durchschnittlich 15 Millionen pro Jahr (rund 2%).
Weitere grössere Nachträge betreffen die Beschaffungsvorbereitung von Armeematerial (22,0 Mio.) sowie die Finanzierung von Projekten im Bereich der Kommission für Technologie und Innovation KTI (20,0 Mio.).
Bringt man von den Nachträgen die auf andern Budgetkrediten erbrachten Kompensationen (44,4 Mio.) in Abzug, resultieren effektive Mehrausgaben von 214,4 Millionen Franken. Diese Erhöhung entspricht 0,3 Prozent der mit dem Voranschlag 2015 bewilligten Ausgaben und liegt im langjährigen Durchschnitt (2008-2014: 0,3 %).
Zusätzlich hat der Bundesrat heute beschlossen, dem Parlament eine Verstärkung des finanziellen Engagements zur Linderung der Krisen in Syrien/Irak und in Afrika zu unterbreiten. Die Mittel dienen der Alimentierung von multilateralen humanitären Partnerorganisationen sowie der Mitfinanzierung des UNO-Friedensprozesses und betragen insgesamt 50 Millionen. Davon werden vom Eidgenössischen Departement für auswärtige Angelegenheiten (EDA) 20 Millionen kompensiert. Da diese Kompensation grösstenteils auf Krediten der Entwicklungshilfe erfolgt, beläuft sich der Nachtragskredit auf 31,2 Millionen. Diese Mittel sind in der Botschaft zum Nachtrag II noch nicht berücksichtigt. Sie werden dem Parlament mit einer Nachmeldung unterbreitet.
Was sind Nachtragskredite?
Nachtragskredite ergänzen das Budget des laufenden Jahres mit unvermeidlichen Aufwendungen oder Investitionsausgaben und müssen vom Parlament bewilligt werden. Die Verwaltungseinheiten haben den zusätzlichen Kreditbedarf eingehend zu begründen und dabei nachzuweisen, dass erstens der Mittelbedarf nicht rechtzeitig vorhergesehen werden konnte, zweitens ein verzögerter Leistungsbezug zu erheblichen Nachteilen führen würde und drittens nicht bis zum nächsten Voranschlag zugewartet werden kann.
Der Bundesrat unterbreitet dem Parlament die Nachtragskredite zweimal jährlich mit einer Botschaft. Die Behandlung in den eidgenössischen Räten erfolgt in der Sommersession (Nachtrag I, gemeinsam mit der Rechnung des Vorjahres) bzw. in der Wintersession (Nachtrag II, gemeinsam mit dem Budget für das folgende Jahr).