Death Squads and Privatising Healthcare

[outsider]

Death Squads and Privatising Healthcare

CRUSHING freedom fighters and privatising the world's health services are just two of the startling items on the agenda at a high-level conference centre in Sussex over the next few weeks.
The venue is Wilton Park, which describes itself as "one of the world’s leading centres for the discussion of international issues" and is run by the Foreign Office.
It is tucked away in the countryside at Wiston (with an 's'), near Steyning, where locals have long since muttered darkly about the strange goings-on at the secluded estate, with its Chinook helicopter landings and mysterious convoys of limousines.
Wilton Park aims to keep a low profile and likes to present itself as a harmless, even progressive, home for global co-operation and debate, but the reality is less palatable.
Its 904th conference, for example, scheduled for Thursday March 13 to Sunday March 16, goes under the decidedly non-fluffy title of "Meeting the Challenges of Counter-Insurgency and Stabilisation Operations: Strategic Issues and Options".
Among the top-rank line-up of speakers is Juan Carlos Pinzon, Vice Minister of Defence for Stratgey and Planning in the right-wing Colombian government, well known for its use of death squads to crush opposition groups.
He will be giving a few handy tips on how to brutally stamp out dissent in a talk on "Colombia and Counter-Insurgency: Stratgey, Accomplishments and Way Forward."
There is also a fascinating section on National Security Interests and "Irregular Operations", to be addressed by Thomas Mahnken, the USA's Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning and Major General Robert Ranquet, the French Deputy Director of Strategic Affairs at the Ministry of Defence in Paris.
Another session, entitled "Creating Civilian Expeditionary Capability", will ask: "Are there any lessons to be drawn from British and French imperial experience or from the US CORDS programme in Vietnam? How far can the "contracting out" model work for hot stabilisation and COIN [Counter-Insurgency] operations?"
Further speakers will be General Dick Berlijn, the Dutch Chief of Defence; Diego Ruiz Palmer, Head of the Planning Section at NATO HQ in Brussels; and General Sir David Richards, Commander in Chief of UK Land Forces.
A few weeks later, from Wednesday April 9 to Friday April 11, the 909th Wilton Park Conference is being staged in co-operation with the Global Health Group, UCSF Global Health Sciences, San Francisco, and The Health Redesign Group Inc and with support from BUPA, Crown Agents, Eversheds,
Ovations Health and The Rockefeller Foundation.
It goes under the rather clumsy title of "Public-Private Investment Partnerships in Health Systems Strengthening". The agenda preview explains: "The conference will develop the concept of what we are calling public-private investment partnerships (PPIPs) that go beyond private investment in hospital buildings and maintenance, such as that characterised by Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs), or the contracting out of selected services to the private sector, which is common in many countries.
"PPIPs encompass private capital investment in hospitals, clinics and other facilities but take this a step further to include ongoing private management of clinical and support services."
Planned speakers include April Harding of The World Bank in Washington DC; Ken Anderson, former Commercial Director General and the UK Department of Health and now Managing Director of the UBS Investment Bank; Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick, an International Director of KPMG International and, notably, Chinese Minister of Health Chen Zhu, who is to speak on "China's Reform Agenda".
Among other subjects for discussion are "Public-Private Investment Partnerships in Developing Countries' Health Systems", "Increasing Investment in Africa" and "Smoothing the Road: What the Global ommunity Can Do".
Commented Dave Phillips of The Porkbolter, a campaigning newsletter and website based in nearby Worthing: "Wilton Park is clearly promoting a hard-core and extreme agenda of global privatisation backed with ruthless military repression.
"I think local people will be shocked to hear that a member of a notorious right-wing Latin American government is coming to Sussex to boast about the use of death squads against his regime's opponents.
"And the conference on privatising healthcare is simply sickening. It is particularly insulting for a county which has recently demonstrated in such numbers for the preservation of its vital NHS services and against the public funding cuts and privatisation-by-stealth that is being imposed on us.

"Public pressure must be brought to bear to ensure that Wilton Park is closed down and the poisonous agenda it is peddling is exposed to full public scrutiny and democratic debate."


WARNING: Wilton Park has a track record of 'disappearing' conference details if they get any whiff of adverse publicity. In 2004, details of a globalisation conference were bizarrely removed from the Wilton Park website just 24 hours after a protest was advertised online (see www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news471.htm). Details of the two conferences
mentioned above should be online at www.wiltonpark.org.uk, but they have also now been saved as pdf documents and are available on request from porkbolter@eco-action.org or porkbolter@hushmail.com.

NOTE: According to the agendas, the man responsible for organising the
counter-insurgency conference is Dr Robert Grant, who can be contacted
on 01903 817797, fax 01903 814445, email robert.grant@wiltonpark.org.uk.
The contact for the health privatisation conference is senior programme
director Ms Robin Hart, tel 01903 817759, tax 01903 879231, email
robin.hart@wiltonpark.org.uk

[kbo234]

This is the kind of place where where real political decisions are taken, policies developed and strategies agreed on.............not Parliament.....that's just showbiz central.......

......Well done Paul. Thanks for that.


.

[TonyGosling]

What a Godawful place this appears to be. And what a bunch of weak-minded lemons must go to such affairs. Only for the impressionable.

Only those already well greased and on the gravy train need apply.

The health privatisation conference sounds particularly evil. How do these people sleep at night?
They may as well call it the Poor and Disabled Go Rot in Hell conference.

PAKISTAN: SOURCES OF STABILITY AND INSTABILITY
http://www.wiltonpark.org.uk/themes/environment/conference.aspx?confre f=WP909
MI6 and CIA get the **** out of Pakistan

[outsider]

I got this info from Hands Off Venezuela; apparently the Colombian Vice-Minister of Defence is going to talk about 'Counte-Insurgrncy' techniques!!!
Colombia, backed by the US, is bringing Venezuela and Ecuador before the International Court charging aiding the FARC. They 'found' a video of OBL (sorry, a 'laptop with details of $300m assitance'.
Watch this space!

[Mark Gobell]

Whilst researching the origins of the UK's terrorism legislation, Wilton Park predictably popped up as the venue for the two day seminar organised by Lord Lloyd of Berwick and hosted by Douglas Hurd back in June 1996.

Lord Lloyd was appointed by the Tories in December 1995 to report on the need for future terrorism legislation to replace the temporary legislation then in place in response to events in Northern Ireland.

His report was in two volumes. The second was written by Professor Paul Wilkinson, head of the RAND-St Andrews Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV)

In response to a FOI request, CSTPV confirmed to me that they received £384,000 funding CFR affiliate, Washington Policy and Analysis Inc.

[outsider]

[outsider]

Re Privatising Healthcare, please read and sign petition:

(it was forwarded to me today):

Petition FROM Wendy Savage, National Secretary of Keep our NHS Public.

If you go to the Downing Street petition list at

http://tinyurl.com/2lvtyr

(click add your name to the petition and then remember to click on the link in the confirmatory email which you ar sent).

As I am sure you are all aware, the contract for a number of Camden NHS general practices has been offered to the biggest US provider of health care, United Health. This would mean a massive transfer of NHS resources into the pockets of multinational profiteers and a distortion of provision in some of the neediest parts of the borough. Wendy has forwarded me this link to the petition against it on the Downing Street website and it is important you sign and pass it round.

Obviously this is only part of the campaign. As you probably know, on Tower Hamlets the St Pauls Way Practice went to ATOS origin, but the PCT in face of public protest including a rally outside the surgery covered widely in the press and TV and a vote of no confidence by local GPs, has not, as originally intended, gone to out to contract for its other directly managed practices, but is working on developing them within the NHS. However the threat remains, especially in the face of Darzi. We hope to see Tower Hamlets people at the Hustings at Oxford House on 9 April.

[acrobat74]

This is a great thread, thanks.

[outsider]

Negroponte sticking his bloody nose into South American affairs again?

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3305

The US is using Colombia in general, and Santos in particular, as it's 'stalking-horse' against Venezuela.
We should be watching this situation carefully; as Hugo Chavez jokingly said: "It shouldn't surprise you if a photo of me with Bin Laden comes out of that computer" (talking about the captured laptop from the Reyes assassination).
I hope many of you in London will show solidarity when 'Hands Off Venezuela' or other Venezuelan solidariity or information groups calls for protests.

[outsider]

Interpol gets involved in Raul Reyes' laptop affair; and US 4th Fleet 'reactivated' after 58 years (it was deactivated after end of WW2)

http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=118341#118341

[rodin]

[TonyGosling]

Rail boss facing corruption allegations found dead after 'suicide pact with his wife'

By Martin Delgado and Nick Craven
Last updated at 1:38 AM on 05th April 2009

Network Rail boss Anthony Burgess is said to have killed himself after being arrested on suspicion of taking bribes

A senior Network Rail executive facing corruption allegations has been found dead in an apparent suicide pact with his wife.

Anthony Burgess is understood to have killed himself after being arrested on suspicion of taking bribes, including Rolex watches and a Porsche, from firms bidding for contracts with the company, which runs Britain’s rail infrastructure.

He and his wife Marian were found dead at their ?350,000 detached home in a cul-de-sac in the quiet Essex village of Clavering.

They are understood to have left a note for relatives. It is unclear how they died but the deaths are being treated as ‘non-suspicious’ by the coroner, who has opened and adjourned an inquest.

Mr Burgess, 45, was sacked from his ?75,000-a-year job as corporate offices manager, responsible for handing out millions of pounds worth of contracts to equip, furnish and manage Network Rail offices across the country, and was on police bail when he died.

Mrs Burgess, 51, was a part-time classroom assistant at a local school and was not suspected of any wrong-doing......

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1167574/Rail-boss-facing-corru ption-allegations-dead-suicide-pact-wife.html