WHERE JOURNALISTS DARE TO TREAD, THE GRIM REAPER SOON FOLLOWS

http://themoderatevoice.com/192083/where-journalists-dare-to-tread-the-grim-reaper-soon-follows-2/

 

Be Careful on your next Caribbean vacation:

Drugs and Crime Make For A Nasty Hangover:

The View From The Virgin Islands

 

                                                By John McCarthy

                                         Moderate Voice Columnist    

     Did you ever notice how some of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists – are also the most dangerous for civilians?

     When it bleeds it leads, as the old newspaper adage goes, but that also means that a lot of journalists get caught up in the fray.
     The mystique of the foreign correspondent overseas doesn’t extend to places like Honduras, Colombia and Venezuela.
     Honduras holds the dubious distinction of being the world’s murder capital. But only five journalists have been killed there since 1992. In Mexico, journalists are self-censoring to save their own lives. Forty-five journalists have died in Colombia over the same period.
     Not to say that I’m disappointed, but it does almost skew the stax enough to destroy the premise of this piece -- because Venezuela's murder rate is roughly half that of Honduras at 45.1 per 100,000 people.

     Experts say that 42 percent of all cocaine headed to the United States and 90 percent of all cocaine flights transit through Honduras. The drug trade, which also involves illegal gun running, is harder on civilians than journalists.
     Most of the murders of journalists are by native-born people on native-born people. So a reporter who is blown to bits by a roadside IED in Kabul is different than a journalist hung from a bridge in Nuevo Laredo – same result, just different ways to get there – and statistically more “foreign correspondents” die in the war-torn areas of the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
     According to the United Nations, Afghanistan had just 2.4 killings per 100,000 people last year. Honduras, at the top of the charts, had 91.6 killings per 100,000. Despite knowing those facts, I don’t believe Americans would chose to vacation in Kandahar over Tegucigalpa.
     It might be counterintuitive – but the region I live in – where white sand beaches, tropical breezes and turquoise ocean waters prevail – is a hotbed for murders. In fact, the U.S. Virgin Islands has a higher murder rate than Uganda in East Africa. According to the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) -- St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John have a murder rate of 39.2 per 100,000 people while Kampala’s is 36.3.
     In fact, in these places where “corruption is rampant,” the same percentage of violent offenders – two percent – are jailed in Honduras as are jailed in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Virgin Islands Daily News on St. Thomas won a Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for pointing out that fact.
     “The attorney general was recently suspended amid charges of corruption and incompetence,” National Public Radio reported on Tegucigalpa’s murder rate. “And the current police chief has been linked to extra-judicial murders and disappearances.”
     I once asked the local police chief in St. Croix about a murder of an American expat that took place in the Gallows Bay area in the 1990's and was told: “Well, John, that guy wasn’t well liked.” The wheels of justice turn slowly – or not at all – for murder victims who have no roots in the place they are killed.
     “My constituents also repeatedly called the local police for updates into the investigation, but were rebuffed and told that if they continue to call their case will be moved to the ‘bottom of the pile,’” United States Senator Robert “Bob” Menendez (D-NJ) wrote about the murder of 41-year-old expat James Malfetti III in St. John last month. “Even after over two weeks, the police have told the parents that they have not begun to trace the stolen cell phone.”
     Sen. Menendez also alleged that the Virgin Islands Police Department “discarded forensic evidence” and failed to do Detective 101 stuff like dusting for fingerprints at the crime scene. From my experience, Senator Menendez’s call from New Jersey is right – and unfortunately for us who live here – this one case is representative of them all. Most violent crime prosecutions are botched and bungled in a way that is disrespectful to the murder victims themselves. Menendez asked the FBI to help.
     Places you wouldn’t think to be dangerous on vacation – often are. Destinations like the Bahamas, Trinidad & Tobago and St. Kitts-Nevis have murder rates of 36.6, 35.2 and 38.2 respectively per 100,000 people. Jamaica is No. 2 in the Caribbean for murders – it ranks in at 40.9 per 100,000 people. Belize, though technically the northeastern coast of Central America – is culturally considered to be part of the Caribbean (where computer wiz John McAfee ran amuck in 2012) – it has the rare distinction of being the region’s murder capital at 41.4 killings per 100,000 people.
     The two tourist hotspots of the Caribbean – Cuba and the Dominican Republic – are a tale of two political systems when it comes to murders. In Havana you are "safe, mon;" but, off the north coast of the Dominican Republic they literally beat and hung a French tourist on his own yacht last year. Still, Santo Domingo's rate is more like Puerto Rico's at 25.0 per 100,000 people. (Cuba’s murder rate is roughly twice that of Afghanistan’s.)
     Honduras has eight million people and had 7,172 murders in 2013 – by comparison, Puerto Rico, an American Commonwealth about 120 miles north of here – had about four million people (before the economic exodus) and 1,136 murders in 2011. In one Honduran city alone, San Pedro Sula, 1,200 people were killed. New York City – with 22 million people had "only" 417 murders last year.
     One blog site, “The Canal” claims that one of the islands that make up the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico – Vieques (which was written about in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” and “The Rum Diary”) is the per capita murder capital of the world at 160 per 100,000 people with just 17 murders per year. People in the nearby British Virgin Islands tell me when I go to play tennis in Road Town, Tortola – that I must be “suicidal” to live in its United States namesake.
     But even in our worst year (2010) St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John "only" had 66 murders with a population of roughly 100,000 people. The whole territory could fit into the University of Michigan's football stadium -- so what would the reaction be if all 66 people were murdered in the stands during one game? Sounds like a Hunger Games sequel. Somehow when murders are spaced out over different days, they are more palatable to the public.
     I guess Virgin Islanders should be grateful that only one person was killed every six days here in 2012 – when at least 20 people are murdered per day in Honduras. In our worst crime years, this unincorporated territory of the United States is closer to the Ivory Coast’s murder rate of 56.9 per 100,000 people.
     I have a statistically small sample – but my best guess is – that people here are not “well pleased”  by that news.
     The Virgin Islands is the only part of the United States never to have had an incidence of terrorism -- or the death of a journalist -- at this writing.
     Kind of ruins the premise of this piece - but I count those two facts as good things in my book.

 

© 2014 John Francis McCarthy/Secret Goldfish Publishing House

 

John McCarthy is an investigative reporter, photojournalist and author. Please send comments to johnfmccarthy807@msn.com or (340) 514-4087

REMEMBER THE ALAMO AND REMEMBER MA LAUREYS: THE CHRIS CHRISTIE JOURNAL

http://themoderatevoice.com/191863/chris-christies-puerto-rico-vacation/

 

REMEMBER MA LAUREYS: SOMETHING ABOUT BOB:

CHRIS CHRISTIE VACATIONS IN PUERTO RICO:

THE VIEW FROM THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

 

By John McCarthy

Moderate Voice Columnist         

 

     While Chris Christie was leaving for a vacation in Puerto Rico, Sen. Robert Menendez was making the front pages of a newspaper just 120 miles south of there.
     The two men are joined at the hip – here’s how.
     United States Senator Menendez (D-NJ) made the front page of the St. Croix newspaper because he was calling out the Virgin Islands Police Department for a perceived sluggish response to the murder of a 41-year-old New Jersey man in Chocolate Hole, St. John last month.
      What you might not know is that eight years ago Chris Christie (R-NJ) – then a swashbuckling U.S. District Attorney – began a prosecution of Robert “Bob” Menendez, a six-term Congressman who had been appointed to a one-year term as Senator to fill a seat vacated by John Corzine (D-NJ) when he was elected Governor of New Jersey.
     This is not a “French journal,” so with apologies to Ernest Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast” – there will be background.
     The question is: why did Chris Christie begin a federal investigation into a Bob Menendez real estate deal just 60 days before the senatorial special election? Menendez had run afoul of local Republicans who filed an ethics complaint against him for renting out a property he owned to a nonprofit agency that accepts federal funds.
     Christie says the conflict of interest case went forward because it had already broken in the press and it was timed to prevent destruction of documents and other evidence. But looking back today, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writes: “Menendez’s claims of persecution now seem quite plausible.”
Christie was someone who weighed suing the government in order to run for political office before he reached the age of 18 – so he must have had higher political aspirations of his own at that time – the year was 2006 and the New Jersey heavyweight would be eligible to sit down in the mansion of Drumthwacket just three years later.

     But Christie had somehow earned the ire of the “W.” Administration – one he had campaigned and lobbied for so successfully that he was appointed to U.S. Attorney for New Jersey despite never having practiced in a federal courtroom before. He proved George Bush right because within a short space of time he was one of the top two or three District Attorneys in the whole United States. All total, Chris got 130 convictions or guilty pleas in seven years. He lost none; no wonder “W.” called him “Big Boy.”
    
     Not bad for a small firm attorney specializing in medical malpractice suits. But he was so good at securing convictions of corrupt politicians and obtaining deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) from corporations – which allowed conglomerates to avoid prosecution altogether if they paid a hefty fine and agreed that they’ll never do it again – that the U.S. Department of Justice had to institute new rules to ensure that like-minded prosecutors wouldn’t also give $52-million dollar, 18-month contracts to their ex-bosses or $5 million to the law school they graduated from.
     Just as Michael Jordan’s basketball wizardry brought about the “Jordan Rules” – a way to systematically defend the greatest player who ever played the game – the U.S. Department of Justice had to devise “Christie Rules” – new ways to guard against leaving it to future feds’ discretion as to which friends and organizations will benefit from these fines. Shakedowns are apparently questionable ethics even for U.S. Attorneys – but Christie’s groundbreaking tactic is still used nationwide today.

     How Chris Christie got elected to the Freeholder Board of Morris County in 1994 is also significant – he did so by stating incorrectly – and very close to an election – that his incumbent opponent was under “investigation” for violating local laws. So he knew the dirty tricks Nixon political game – right out of the gate in his own career.
     Which brings us back to Bob Menendez, the Cuban-American U.S. Senator from New Jersey who earned his chops by fighting political corruption in Union City as its mayor. It’s possible, just possible, that Christie thought that the town of New Jersey wasn’t big enough for two crime fighting McGruffs – so as a hedge that someone named Bob wouldn’t run against him as a Democrat for Governor of the Garden State one day …
     The biggest question that remains is why – despite raising $350,000 for the election campaign of George W. in 2000 and achieving “pioneer” status with the Bush Machine – by the time 2005 rolled around “Big Boy’s” name was on a list of U.S. attorneys facing dismissal? Big time Democrats like Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Krugman were outraged. They crossed party lines and came to his defense on professional grounds.
     Perhaps only long-time members of the Masonic Lodge subset “Skull and Bones” and former Christie backer Karl Rove know how Big Boy got on W.’s “enemies list.” Also, it has been widely reported that the Castro regime has long been looking to discredit Menendez for his pro U.S. sanctions stance against Communist Cuba.
     But when the subpoenas were delivered to Senator Menendez’s offices two months before the elections that eventually ratified Bob’s appointment anyway, Big Boy was safely reinstated in his old job as corruption-fighting prosecutor. Menendez's career; however, was badly tarnished by the federal witchhunt.
     Oh, how the pendulum swings.

     Now those same feds – in the office Christie once ran as an undefeated champion – is subpoenaing records of their former standard bearer.

     And Menendez, despite setbacks of an underage prostitutes scandal in the Dominican Republic and an Ecuadorean bank scandal in Florida – has found time to wax rhapsodic about the hinterlands of the Virgin Islands.
     “Remember Ma Laureys!” Some people in Morris County still say that today. The same way people in San Antonio say: “Remember the Alamo!”

     Ma Laureys is the mother of 10 Big Boy slandered to get onto the seven-member board of the Chosen Freeholders of Morris County twenty years ago.
     As Mark Twain said: “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”
Big Boy said there was “an investigation” into Ma Laureys. It was actually just “an inquiry.” The difference between the two words is what put him into elected office in New Jersey for the first time.
     The writing has been on the wall – or water under the bridge – for a long time on Big Boy.
     And the bigger you are: the harder you fall.
     Or is it bully for you and chilly for me?
     How was your President’s Day holiday?

 

John McCarthy is an investigative journalist, artist and author who lives in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Please send comments to: johnfmccarthy807@msn.com or (340) 514-4087

EVERY NOW AND ZEN THEY CHOOSE A NEW DALAI LAMA, THE CHINESE WILLING ...

http://themoderatevoice.com/191550/in-china-dl-stands-for-more-than-disabled-list-ambert-alert-is-nearly-20-yars-old-on-the-panchen-lama/

 

IN CHINA “DL” STANDS FOR MORE THAN “DISABLED LIST”: AMBER ALERT IS NEARLY 20 YEARS OLD ON THE PANCHEN LAMA: THE VIEW FROM THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

 

By JOHN F. McCARTHY

MODERATE VOICE COLUMNIST

 

     Ever wonder why you see those “Free Tibet” bumper stickers on peoples’ cars?

     We have a few of them here – in St. Croix, the U.S. Virgin Islands – where I live.

     For Liberals it used to be “End Apartheid” – a bumper sticker that you can still see on Danny Glover’s fridge in the movie “Lethal Weapon.”

     But in the year of Nelson Mandela’s death – Apartheid is dead but the reason to “Free Tibet” is not.

     One reason Tibet deserves to be a free and independent nation – free and apart from a China that controls it – is that it is the historical home of the Dalai Lama. A Dalai Lama who currently is forced to live in exile in northern India – and who has chosen his rightful successor – but now HE can’t be found – he was disppeared from Tibet nearly twenty years ago – and was last seen in the hands of the Chinese.

     How could that possibly be? You might ask.

     Well, six Nobel Laureates and four hundred celebrities can’t be wrong.

     Or can they be?

     A little background might help. The Dalai Lama is: the Buddhist spiritual leader from Tibet. More specifically – to about 20 million Buddhists – he is the “Pope” of their religion. They believe that he is the living reincarnation of the first Buddha, born Siddhartha Gautama.

     Great Wall of China. So where’s the problem?

     The problem is: The Dalai Lama (which means “High Priest” or literally “ocean guru” in Mongolian) chose his legitimate successor – and, uh, well – the Chinese government “vanished” him three days later.

     Unbelievable you say.

     Well, that was 1995 – when the once and future Dalai was just six years old – nineteen years later nothing has changed. Or nearly nothing. At least as far as we know.

     Because when it comes to “transparency,” the Chinese government is always on high smog toxic alert.

     What do you mean by “nothing?” Well, you might say: “nothing” if you feel that the 376 million people worldwide who practice Buddhism don’t add up. It is only about one-third the size of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. And the number of Buddhists who follow Tenzin Gyatso, the 14^th Dalai Lama – could fit inside the New York City metropolitan area.

     So we’re NOT talking about a lot of religious people here – only about 20 million – give or take a few.

     But what if, prior to Pope Francis of Argentina succeeding Pope Benedict of Germany, the government of Italy decided to kidnap Jorge Mario Bergoglio from St. Peter’s Basilica inside Vatican City – and not only kidnap him and make him disappear – but also Jorge and all of his immediate Bergoglio family members?

     Sounds like something out of “The Sopranos.” Or “The Gotti Files.” And that’s exactly the scenario the 79-year-old Dalai Lama (born Tenzin Gyatso) finds himself in today.

     If you have seen the brilliant documentary “10 Questions for The Dalai Lama,” then you have a better understanding of what happened to six-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima – a person human rights experts used to call “the world’s youngest political prisoner” – only the movie suggests that neither he – nor his relatives – are still with us.

     So they ended up like that guy who accidentally bumped his car into John Gotti’s school-age son in Howard Beach, Queens – and then disappeared in a van four months later – never to be heard from – or seen – again.

     If you ask the Chinese government, as the United Nations Council on Human Rights did in 2007 – Beijing said that the then 12-year-old Panchen Lama –as the successor to the Dalai Lama is known – was a healthy and growing boy.

     "Gedhun Choekyi Nyima is a perfectly ordinary Tibetan boy, in an excellent state of health, leading a normal, happy life and receiving a good education and cultural upbringing. He is currently in upper secondary school, he measures 165 cm in height and is easy-going by nature. He studies hard and his school results are very good. He likes Chinese traditional culture and has recently taken up calligraphy. His parents are both State employees, and his brothers and sisters are either already working or at university. The allegation that he disappeared together with his parents and that his whereabouts remain unknown is simply not true."

     The part about his brothers and sisters “EITHER WORKING OR AT UNIVERSITY” must be one of those lost in translation bits – because it reads ominously today as if what we suspect to be true – is true.

     Seven years later – when “the boy” should be at least twenty-five years old – if he is still alive at all imprisoned somewhere – there is simply no credible report! Imagine if Italy had done the same thing with Pope Francis – as loveable and cuddly as the 77-year-old Pontiff is now – can you imagine the uproar? It might have caused even Mussolini to turn over in his grave – and most certainly would have triggered a brief World War III – with Rome bearing the brunt of a few Tomahawk missles.

     Instead, because it is China – where the record on Human Rights – is, shall we say “compromised” at best – no one says nothin’ at all – and gets away with it! In fact, everyone right now is talking about the Olympics in Russia, another place that is a total stranger to the Rule of Law.

     To make matters worse, the Chinese government, citing Emporer Qing from 1735 (when a Dalai Lama was once chosen by a lottery drawing the names written on barley leaves from a golden urn) installed their own Panchen Lama six months after they made the legitimate one disappear from Tibet – and his name is Gyaincain Norbu.

     Some magic trick. So as it officially stands – who will be the next Dalai Lama is officially in “dispute.” Like what happened in Tiananmen Square that the Chinese people can’t read about because the government has whited out most of the Internet there.

     This “dispute” was executed by the Chinese government in lands they control near the Himalaya Mountains – where they allegedly kidhapped Gedhum Choekyi Nyima from Tibet – along with him and every living immediate family member.

     Now Buddhists are known to be “Zen” in the face of difficult times – and the Dalai Lama himself  – who is 78 years old – has said that there might not ever be another Ocean Guru of Buddhism – and if there is – it might even be a woman this time – but it will definitely not be someone “reborn” in a country controlled by the Chinese, he insists.

     That means Tibet – the homeland of the current Dalai Lama and every “enlightened one” since Buddhism began (except the 3^rd Dalai Lama who was born in Mongolia) – is out. Places inside the Tibetan cultural beltway; however – India, Nepal and Bhutan – are in. That is – unless we can “free Tibet” – which seems unlikely at this point.

     So the next time you see a “Free Tibet” bumper sticker on a car in front of you, don’t allow your karma to run over my dogma.

     Or something like that – just remember that China has re-written the book on Human Rights when it comes to the Dalai Lama and Tibet.

     Now and Zen, you’ll be right.

 

© 2014 Copyright John Francis McCarthy/Secret Goldfish Publishing House