Copyright Darren, November 2002-January, 2004
Articles about the Prestige oil spill:
Twin Peaks and Oil Spills
In 1990, David Lynch created the strangest, ground-breaking
TV series in the history of the medium. Twin
Peaks was a murder mystery. The murder mystery
is an old genre in literature and film, so it might seem
that it would be doomed to quick cancellation--even with
the masterful David Lynch at the helm. Stranger
still, it was a TV series of twenty-some episodes based
entirely on the investigation of a single murder.
But, the show had a number of quirky twists that kept
it alive, and created an immediate cult following that
I doubt has been matched before or since it aired. It
was also incredibly frustrating to many TV viewers.
The main trick used by Lynch to keep the single murder
mystery going, and drive some viewers mad was the divergent
narrative. Whereas the mystery form depends on a
convergent narrative--clues that eliminate innocent parties
and lead us to the real killer--Lynch's obvious intention
was to create a story in which the clues consistently
expanded the dark cloak of culpability, and further confused
us. By the time the show concluded, Laura Palmer's
death was tied to nearly every citizen of the small town,
Canadian drug smugglers in a border brothel, UFO's, government
conspiracy, an amorphous evil somehow connected to the
owls in the pine forests surrounding the town, a supernatural
Black Lodge, a magical cave used by Native Americans,
an evil inter-dimensional sorcerer named Bob, pursued
by a giant and a midget, a spacey FBI detective with a
lust for coffee and sugar who was supernaturally linked
to Laura, Laura's own pedophile father possessed by Bob,
a brutish boyfriend, a violently greedy timber tycoon,
a Chinese prostitute, a drug addicted traveling salesman
with one arm, a loony psychiatrist, a crazy woman who
talked to a small clairvoyant log that she carried everywhere
she went and a reclusive orchid cultivator. Viewers
expected the show to lead to a single killer--which seemed
to be her father. However, the divergent narrative
continued outward, driving away some viewers who
expected something like an extension of Dallas' "who
shot J.R. Ewing?"
Fans who didn't get the point were further miffed when
the prequel to Twin Peaks brought in even more divergent
clues. The ultimate message was, I believe, everyone
is guilty of Laura Palmer's death--society, individuals,
aliens, demons, angels, nature. All the while, the
mysterious agent Cooper is scarffing down blueberry pie
and
talking to an ever-absent Diane through a hand-held tape
recorder--perhaps his tape recorder is named Diane,
or he is sending the tapes to a secretary named Diane.
It was all too much for the tiny minds of American TV
consumers to grasp.
What does all of that have to do with the horrendous
oil spill off the Galician coast of Northern Spain--perhaps
the largest in history? Nothing, if you are looking
for literal connections. Twin Peaks is a metaphor
of what happened there. I have searched for the
culpable party, and discovered a very divergent narrative.
We aren't graced with special agent Cooper's powers of
dreams and intuition, but we do have the Internet, where
the various culpable parties have created a trail of clues.
Although this is a terribly serious and scandalous story,
I thought that it would be interesting to play with some
pop-culture to tell this story, and help drive home the
absurd complexity of the truth.
[click
here to add appropriately spooky Twin Peaks soundtrack
in mp3 format]
It is undisputed that Crown
Resources is the primary owner of the tanker, which
apparently is stationed in a Gibraltar port. According
to representatives of Crown, the fuel oil cargo came from
both St. Petersburg and Latvia. It had sailed through
the Baltic with a destination of Singapore. Russia
has been importing smuggled Iraqi oil, and the Baltic
is their most important sea port. Also, the Jordanians
have a nifty pipeline to keep Iraqi oil flowing toward
the Mediterranean. The Prestige could easily cruise
from Gibraltar to Lebanon to pick up a load of Iraqi oil
too. We are told that the ship was in Gibraltar
before leaving to pick up its ominous cargo in the Baltic.
There are numerous indications
that this ship was sneaking around to hide something,
so we should probably be suspicious of any claims made
by the interested parties. The rickety, single-hulled
ship was clearly unsafe. European Union laws demanded
that this type of ship be phased out by 2015. This
ship was sailing under a "flag of convenience."
Wealthy owners register bad ships in third world countries
to avoid safety regulations, instead of investing in safer
ships. How else can they pay for those Lexus SUVs
and yachts? After a similar disaster in 1999 off
the same Galician Costa da Morte, which is notorious for
shipwrecks, the European
Union determined that these junker boats were to be subjected
to special scrutiny until they were eliminated.
According to European papers, the Prestige left Gibraltar
(a British military base on Spanish soil) numerous times
this year without inspection. Naturally, the British
government is denying this.
The Prestige was in all likelihood, hoping to avoid any
contact with European ports. However, a split in
its hull occurred during a storm, and it was forced to
come to port in Spain in search of a place to pump out
the remaining oil before it sank. The Spanish decided
to haul it out to rough, open sea rather than risk draining
it close to shore. Experts seem to agree that this
was a bad decision, and now everyone is fighting over
who is to blame.
When the Spanish began looking for a party to sue for
damages, they discovered that the Prestige was under Greek
public relations managers (Universe Maritime), but it
was a Liberian ship (Mare Shipping) with a Bahamas port,
but apparently parked clandestinely in Gibraltar.
In the past, Gibraltar was primarily a British military
base for army, navy and air force. The bases are
still there, but much less important. Gibraltar
has moved toward an "off-shore tax haven" economy.
Like the tiny country of Andorra, Gibraltar is the Bahamas
of Europe. But, it still has strategic importance
from a military perspective for controlling the entrance
to the Mediterranean Sea. It is also very convenient
for Atlantic and Mediterranean shipping. The
multinational corporation Crown Resources Corporation
was the primary owner of the Prestige, and Crown has a
branch office in Gibraltar. All of this deferral
of ownership ought to send up some warning flags.
Although the European media is talking
about Crown Resources as a multinational company that
is based in Switzerland (or the UK?), it is controlled
by Alfa Group bank of Russia. Crown Resources is
a European energy trading company, like Enron. There
is also a Crown Resources Corporation in the mineral extraction
business stationed in Colorado, in the United States.
This Crown was restructured after a Chapter
11 bankruptcy. [More: http://news.cnet.com/investor/news/newsitem/0-9900-1028-20068786-0.html
] Bourse
de Luxembourg has a list of international securities issues,
and the only mention of Crown Resources Corporation states
that the payer is the United States.
Crown
gained some notoriety in the early 1990's for a failed
attempt to build an open pit mine in Washington state.
News sources acknowledge the Crown connection, but refuse
to make the connection to this American branch (or is
it just a coincidence that the company name is the same?). Undoubtedly,
a story like this would not play well for Bush and Cheney.
Sources across the 'net seem to agree
that Crown was Swiss, and that it has bought up various
companies, including Marc Rich's investment firm in Switzerland.
However, there are several recent articles that describe
Crown as UK-based. None acknowledge an American
connection. But, the CEO of Crown Resources Corporation
in America is Steven Webster. The company
has a current headquarters in Colorado. The
American Crown Resources is active in mineral extraction
in the Western US. Steven Webster is also on the
board of directors of a Russian mining company called
Zoloto (Russian word for gold), and chairs the board of
Global Energy Partners. He is also connected to
the Latin American mining company Solitario. Global
Energy Partners is an affiliate of Credit Suisse First
Boston, who together with the Carlyle/Riverside, are major
investors in companies that ship oil in tankers. The
Russian/UK Crown Resources is definitely connected to
CSFB, so there is at least a financial tie.
The globe trotting Webster also
sits on the board of Florida-based Seabulk,
another company that survived bankruptcy by selling to
Carlyle/Riverside is the shipping investment division
of the Carlyle
Group [and
more Carlyle connections ]. Clearly,
Webster has close links to Carlyle--a winning circle of
Republican partisan investors that include: George Bush
Sr., James
Baker III and Frank
Carlucci--not to mention former British PM John Majors,
and the patriarch
of the Bin Laden family. The wealthy Carlyle
investment group also owns a dry dock shipyard that
specializes in all sorts of service large ships like the
Prestige, as well as naval vessels. [ more
on Shipco, now Norshipco [1]
now owned by United
Defense Industries and TC
Group, all of which are heads on the Carlyle Hydra.
They're even into the internet and telecom: Bandwidth
Market. Take a look at this Rand
corporation National Security Research Division document--look
through the long list of names: Carlucci and the Carlyle
gang, Henry Kissinger, Kenneth Lay.]
November 10th 2003 Update: Mikhail
Khodorkovsky (Yukos Oil) and Platon Lebedev (Menatep
Bank-shareholder in Yukos), the Russian oil "tycoons" arrested recently by Putin
have close ties to the Carlye Group.
Carlyle has been looking at investment in
Russia--completely new territory for their
"take-over" model of business.
Interestingly, they have been discussing a joint
investment scheme with Alfa Bank.
So, is it plausible that these two
Crown Resources are connected? Interestingly, the Russian
Crown Resources is owned by Alfa/Eco, who state clearly
that they are working on developing the oil resources
in the Caspian area--a
project that greatly interests Dick Cheney and George
Bush. [ Caspian Sea area
maps: North,
South--show
all the oil real estate!, more on Crown/Alfa: Le
Monde ] Even more curious: Crown Resources
has a branch office in Gibraltar (which is also a British
military base), and the president
of Alfa, Michael Freedman (Mikhail Fridman), is a business
partner with the infamous fugitive Marc Rich.
Besides being closely tied to the European Crown Resources,
you might recall that Marc Rich was charged with illegal
oil trading with Iran during the hostage crisis and fifty
cases of fraud. Mr. Rich was pardoned by Bill Clinton,
causing quite a stir from people on the right. Observers
assumed that Bush didn't push for legal action against
Clinton because he wanted to get Clinton out of the limelight.
Could it be that Rich was pardoned by Clinton as a house
warming gift to Bush? [more on Fridman and Rich:
several links I was carrying have vanished since I
published this, a
fictional story that explains how Rich got rich, Alfa
Bank] One of the major impediments to the Alfa
Group's further progress has been a tarnished reputation
that makes it difficult for them to purchase companies
outside of the former Soviet Union. Obviously, Crown
Resources has served as a bridge for them. I'm not
an economist or lawyer, so the nuances of this complex
relationship are beyond my comprehension.
Agent Cooper talks to his hand-held
tape recorder again:
"Diane, I found an article
in an Israeli hard-liner site, loaded with anti-Palestinian
rhetoric. The
article says that Marc Rich has been an extremely generous
philanthropist to Israel. [More on Rich's
relationship with Israel and nationalism] They were
the ones who overtly lobbied Clinton to pardon Rich.
They are angry that Rich was pardoned, but Johnathan Pollard,
imprisoned on the same offenses, will rot in prison.
Diane, I don't know exactly whether this is reliable information,
but this conspiracy site has an interesting
biography of Marc Rich as a CIA mercenary. Oh,
and by the way, Marc
Rich has a resort in Marbella, Spain. He has Spanish
citizenship."
The PR/legal guy handling the situation
for Crown from Greece is an interesting British chap named
Stephen Askins who was trained in media relations (propaganda)
by the Royal Marines. That means he is probably
connected to the MI5, the British equivalent of the CIA.
He
now works at the Ince & Co. international law
office in
Piraeus in Greece, which is on the road between Lebanon
and Gibraltar. He specializes in handling environmental
disasters caused by oil tankers.
Gibraltar
is a dependent territory of England, and it's economic
role as a tax haven is similar to the Bahamas for American
companies--offshore paradise for corporate corruption.
Continuing my Twin Peaks analogy, Gibraltar is One-Eyed
Jack's, just across the Canadian border.
All of this is happening at a time
when Kurds
are smuggling oil from Iraq into Turkey, where it
can be carried to the Black
Sea, the Volga-Don canal, and then to the Baltic.
A pipeline also carries oil Westward to Lebanon and the
Mediterranean. The spill occurred two weeks
after a four-day official visit of Iran's president Mohammed
Khatami to Spain for a negotiation of trade relations.
Dick Cheney was probably a bit jealous. Private
citizen
Cheney lobbied congress in 1998 to lift trade restrictions
on Iran. Also, Dick
Cheney's Halliburton is profiting from a major deal with
Iraq to sell them equipment--for oil?-- in spite of the
sanctions.
Potentially venal motives abound. Distracting smoke
and mirrors surround every element of this horrible disaster.
Could it possibly be that the oil on this ship was Iraqi
oil being shuffled around secretly to launder it for the
American market, to keep oil prices down? We will
probably never know, but it is certain that Iraqi oil
is coming into the US. It is also certain that Halliburton
is profiting from trade with Iraq. Whatever the
case, this all clarifies the multinational economic infrastructure
of petroleum and mining that is pushing for war in Iraq,
which brings us back to Twin Peaks--Russia and America.
If we weave together the Russians, the British, the Greeks,
the Swiss, the Americans, lots of third world shell games--and
a modern world with an unquenchable thirst for petroleum
to fill the tanks of gas-guzzling SUV's and heat 10,000
square foot homes--a hazy picture of the amorphous evil
begins to materialize.
(Spooky saxaphone music starts, and an eerie reddish
light bathes the room where a midget in a suit dances
alone. He stops, and in a voice that sounds like
he's talking backwards, he speaks the barely comprehensible
words slowly and stiffly:)
"Government conspiracies, smuggled oil, unsafe tankers,
and an untraceable maze of eternally deferred liability.
Indispensable oil from a persona non-grata, smuggled
by his own declared enemies, who once used him to try
to conquer Iran. A mysterious coalition of nations
who once opposed war on Iraq. A
sudden visit by the unelected President Arbusto (George
Bush) to Russia. Pipelines, greed, secret energy
policies by an aggressive oil tycoon president and his
oil tycoon cronies, a dictator with weapons of mass destruction
sold to him by the very people who want to kill him now
... "
But where is Laura Palmer? Laura Palmer is the
beautiful coastline of Galicia--the Celtic jewel of Spain,
defiled by the greed of a cynical plutocracy and a selfish
population of thoughtless brutes. Perhaps there
are mysterious owls hooting in the tall pines of misty
forests overlooking the rocky shores of Galicia.
Click
here to hear that pretty mp3 theme song from Twin Peaks
Click here to see
beautiful images of A Costa da Morte in Galicia
for a 360 auto-pan view, click here, then click the link
at the bottom of the image that says "ver a pantalla
193k" (Full Screen View) to get a larger view: View
of the coast from a mountain, and a view of typical
Galician inland. It looks like Ireland, doesn't
it? They even play bagpipes and Celtic music there.
NEW-The
Prestige Oil Spill One Year Later--a report made in
November of 2003 by the Association
for the Ecological Defense of Galicia.
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