1997

Newt Gingrich was reprimanded and fined as the House voted for the first time in its history to discipline its leader for ethical misconduct.

Clinton began his second term in office. Cabinet changes: Madeleine Albright became Sec of State; Robert E Rubin, Treasury; William Daley, Commerce; Alex Herman, Labour; William Cohen, Defence; Andrew Cuomo, Sec of Housing and HD; Rodney Slater, Sec of Transport; Frederico F Pena, Energy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_September_Movement
British psyops
The role of the United Kingdom's Foreign Office and MI6 intelligence service has also come to light, in a series of exposés by Paul Lashmar and Oliver James in The Independent newspaper beginning in 1997. These revelations have also come to light in journals on military and intelligence history.
The revelations included an anonymous Foreign Office source stating that the decision to unseat Pres. Sukarno was made by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan then executed under Prime Minister Harold Wilson. According to the exposés, the United Kingdom had already become alarmed with the announcement of the Konfrontasi policy. It has been claimed that a CIA memorandum of 1962 indicated that Prime Minister Macmillan and President John F. Kennedy were increasingly alarmed by the possibility of the Confrontation with Malaysia spreading, and agreed to "liquidate President Sukarno, depending on the situation and available opportunities." However, the documentary evidence does not support this claim.
To weaken the regime, the Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD) coordinated psychological operations in concert with the British military, to spread black propaganda casting the PKI, Chinese Indonesians, and Sukarno in a bad light. These efforts were to duplicate the successes of British Psyop campaign in the Malayan Emergency.
Of note, these efforts were coordinated from the British High Commission in Singapore where the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Associated Press (AP), and New York Times filed their reports on the Indonesian turmoil. According to Roland Challis, the BBC correspondent who was in Singapore at the time, journalists were open to manipulation by IRD because of Sukarno's stubborn refusal to allow them into the country: "In a curious way, by keeping correspondents out of the country Sukarno made them the victims of official channels, because almost the only information you could get was from the British ambassador in Jakarta."
These manipulations included the BBC reporting that Communists were planning to slaughter the citizens of Jakarta. The accusation was based solely on a forgery planted by Norman Reddaway, a propaganda expert with the IRD. He later bragged in a letter to the British ambassador in Jakarta, Sir Andrew Gilchrist that it "went all over the world and back again," and was "put almost instantly back into Indonesia via the BBC." Sir Andrew Gilchrist himself informed the Foreign Office on 5 October 1965: "I have never concealed from you my belief that a little shooting in Indonesia would be an essential preliminary to effective change."
In the 16 April 2000 Independent, Sir Denis Healey, Secretary of State for Defence at the time of the war, confirmed that the IRD was active during this time. He officially denied any role by MI6, and denied "personal knowledge" of the British arming the right-wing faction of the Army, though he did comment that if there were such a plan, he "would certainly have supported it."
Although the British MI6 is strongly implicated in this scheme by the use of the Information Research Department (seen as an MI6 office), any role by MI6 itself is officially denied by the UK government, and papers relating to it have yet to be declassified by the Cabinet Office. (The Independent, 6 December 2000)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bali


Fast Flux Plant
Hanford was among the most contaminated places on earth. When it stopped producing enriched uranium in 1989 it had accumulated 450 billion gallons of liquid radioactive wastes stored in leaky underground storage tanks and 200 miles squared of ground water were contaminated threatening the Columbian River.
Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state – near Seattle. Emergency responses broke down after an explosion in a plutonium plant released radioactivity in May. US government did not shut it down and was planning to produce medical isotopes and tritium to boost hydrogen bomb blasts. Senator Edward Kennedy backed the restart – might lead to a “cure for cancer” he said, weakly. Clinton connections – see article.

January 1997
Afghanistan and Eurasia
“The latest mutation of the Mojahedin, The Taliban, now ruled Afghanistan.”
“US State Dept officials and executives of Unocal discretely entertained Taliban leaders in Washington and Houston, Texas. They were entertained lavishly, with dinner parties at luxurious homes in Houston. They asked to be taken shopping at a Wal-Mart and flown to tourist attractions, including the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida and Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.”
“Wall Street Journal…effused, “The Taliban are the players most capable of achieving peace in Afghanistan at this moment in history.”
“In January 1997, a state dept official told journalists in a private briefing that it was hoped Afghanistan would become an oil protectorate, “like Saudi Arabia.” It was pointed out to him that Saudi Arabia had no democracy and persecuted women. “We can live with that,” he said.
For 60 years the US had wanted a pipeline from former Soviet Caspian across Afghanistan to a deep water port. Taliban were set up to make money from gas passing through Afghanistan. Those pushing the deal were three former members of Bush’s cabinet – Cheney representing nine oil companies, Condoleeza Rice, director of Chevron-Texaco with special responsibility for Pakistan and central Asia. Bush too was paid consultant of Carlyle Group with 164 companies specialising in oil and gas pipelines and weapons, and clients included the bin Ladens. – John pilger’s article on Afghanistan in 2003.

Unocal began training Afghan men in pipeline construction, with government approval. BBC News on 4th December 1997, “A spokesman for the company Unocal said the Taliban were expected to spend several days at the company’s [Texas] HQ…a BBC regional correspondent says the proposal to build a pipeline across Afghanistan is part of an international scramble to profit from developing the rich energy resources of the Caspian sea.”
IPS: “Some western businesses are warming up to the Taliban despite the movement’s institutionalisation of terror, massacres, abductions and impoverishment.”

Zbigniew Brzezinski tells us in a 1997 Council on Foreign Relations study – what there is worth conquering in dismal dry sandy Afghanistan. Called the “Grand Stans”- Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikstan and Kyrgyzstan – all “of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambition to at least three of their most immediate and most powerful neighbours – Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China signalling.”
Brzezinski notes how the world’s energy consumption keeps increasing: hence, who controls Caspian oil/ gas will control the world’s economy. Brzezinski then goes into the standard US rationalisation for empire. “We want nothing, ever, for ourselves, only to keep bad people from getting good things with which to hurt people. “It follows that America’s primary interest is to help ensure that no single [other] power comes to control the geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it.”
Brzezinski is quite aware that American leaders are wonderfully ignorant of history and geography so he really lays it on, stopping just short of invoking politically incorrect ‘manifest destiny’. He reminds the council just how big Eurasia is. 75% of the world’s population is Eurasian. That means we’ve only got control of 25% of the world’s folks.
“Brzezinski’s master plan for ‘our’ globe” was to be “accepted by the Bush-Cheney junta. Corporate America, long over-excited by Eurasian mineral wealth, has been aboard from the beginning.”
“the establishment, consolidation and expansion of US military hegemony over Eurasia through Central Asia would require the unprecedented, open-ended militarization of foreign policy, coupled with an unprecedented manufacture of domestic support and consensus on this militarization campaign.”
Afghanistan is the gateway to all these riches.
Brzezinski “Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstances of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.2 this was the symbolic gun produced that belched black smoke over Manhattan and the Pentagon.” (see 2001)
 – gore Vidal.

The US knew in 1997 the location of militant training camps in Afghanistan and had planned to visit these camps. www.nsarchive.org

Whitewater
Starr (30th Jan) subpoenas the White House for documents on 14 people and six companies with connections to the wealthy Riady family, which controls the Indonesia-based Lippo Group. The implication was that payments to Webster Hubbell from Clinton allies were being investigated.

February 1997
Press reports that Starr's team is assembling a memo to review the evidence assembled against key figures including the president and first lady (6th Feb). The New Yorker magazine reported Jim McDougal will now testify Clinton did engage in a conversation about an illegal $300,000 loan (9th Feb). David Hale, in prison, told The Associated Press (12th Feb) he had only told investigators "a small, small part" of the whole Whitewater saga, and that "a lot more information will come out by the time this investigation is all over."
Starr was offered the  job of dean of Pepperdine University School and unexpectedly announced he will leave his post as independent counsel (17th Feb), but after intense criticism, Starr said he’d stay (22nd Feb). The Los Angeles Times reported that Starr had concluded Vincent Foster's death was a suicide (23rd Feb).

March 1997

“We have heard that a ½ million children have died”, said “60  minutes” reporter Lesley Stah, speaking of US sanctions against Iraq. “I mean that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And – and you know, is the price worth it?” Her guest, May 1996, UN Ambassador Madeleine Allbright, responded, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it.”
http://members.aol.com/bblum6/American_holocaust.htm
Iraq Oil For Food
“Several different UN agencies provided expertise, service delivery and monitoring once oil-for-food was finally implemented in March 1997, including UNICEF, the WHO, the World Food Program. The Food and Agriculture Organisation and the UN Development Program.”  - Joy Gardens, ZNET.
“Between 1997 and 2002, the nutritional value of the food basket distributed monthly by the program almost doubled, from 1,200 calories per person per day to about 2,200. The incidence of communicable diseases, including cholera & malaria, was cut down substantially. Electricity became more reliable, as did the availability of potable water.” However “sanctions continued to take a toll.” Joy Gardens, ZNET.

News reports about earlier White House subpoenas show that Starr is investigating some $400,000 in payments from Clinton allies to Webster Hubbell for unspecified legal work in 1994 before he went on trial. The White House acknowledges on March 11 that the president was aware some of his friends had hired Hubbell. Linking the Whitewater inquiry to the flap over Democratic fund-raising, reports surface that $100,000 came from James Riady, an Indonesian businessman and long-time associate of the Clintons.
March 24, 1997 -- Starr asks a federal judge to reduce David Hale's prison sentence, saying that Hale "continues to provide information material to the grand jury's ongoing investigation into highly complex financial arrangements."

April 1997
April 2, 1997 -- The White House acknowledges that Erskine Bowles and Mack McLarty contacted associates in March 1994 in an effort to get work for Webster Hubbell.
April 10, 1997 On a radio talk show, Hillary Clinton denies that hush money was arranged for former law partner Webster L. Hubbell. She says Whitewater reminds her "of some people's obsession with UFOs and the Hale-Bopp comet some days." April 14, 1997 -- Jim McDougal is sentenced to three years in prison, one year in house arrest, and fined $10,000 for his Whitewater crimes. McDougal had faced as many as 84 years in prison before he decided to cooperate with Starr, who described the former Clinton business partner as at the "epicenter" of his case. McDougal claimed last year his testimony absolved the Clintons of Whitewater wrongdoing, but asked by a reporter if that was still the case, McDougal said, "I wouldn't go to the bank on that." James B. McDougal is sentenced to three years in prison for his conviction on 18 fraud and conspiracy charges. Starr requested a reduced sentence for McDougal for assisting the prosecution.
White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles testfied for about seven hours before the Whitewater grand jury in Little Rock, Ark. regarding efforts he made in 1994 to help Webster Hubbell find work (15th April). At Kenneth Starr's request, a federal judge extended the term of the Little Rock federal grand jury by six months (22nd April). Starr cited "extensive evidence" of possible obstruction of justice provided by Jim McDougal and other sources. The night before, McDougal repeated his claim on CNN's "Larry King Live" that Bill Clinton had discussed an illegal loan, and suggested Hillary Clinton had perjured herself. (Transcript of King show). The U.S. District Court extended the Whitewater grand jury's term six more months, until Nov. 7, after Starr said he has "extensive evidence" of possible obstruction of justice.
Bosnian bomb plot aimed at the Pope, 12th April 1997.

May 1997

May 2, 1997 -- The White House indicated it will appeal to the Supreme Court a lower court's ruling that Hillary Clinton must turn over to Starr notes taken by former White House deputy counsel Jane Sherburne on Jan. 26, 1996, after the first lady's testimony before a federal grand jury in Washington.
The White House announces that it will appeal the decision on the subpoenaed notes to the Supreme Court.
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, overruling a lower court, said the White House must turn over subpoenaed notes to Starr. The notes, for which the White House claimed attorney-client privilege, were taken by White House lawyers when investigators questioned the First Lady.
May 5, 1997 -- The New York Times reports the Clintons were warned by their friend Jim Blair in March 1994 about the gravity of Webster Hubbell's legal problems, and that their personal attorney David Kendall was also aware. The White House denies the report undermined previous assertions by both Clintons that neither they nor any others at the White House were aware of the extent of Hubbell's woes at the time business calls were made on his behalf.
May 6, 1997 -- Starr defied a Los Angeles Superior Court judge's order to appear in his court to testify on why Susan McDougal is being held in jail.
May 6, 1997 -- In documents released by the federal judge in Little Rock, Independent Counsel Starr "candidly states ... Mrs. Clinton's testimony on several issues under investigation 'has changed over time or differs from that of other witnesses' and that she is a 'central figure' in his investigation."
May 12, 1997 -- White House lawyers petition the Supreme Court to protect the secrecy of conversations that Hillary Rodham Clinton had with former White House Deputy Counsel Jane Sherburne on Jan. 26, 1996, and with administration attorneys on July 11, 1995. Earlier, a federal appeals court ruled the attorney-client privilege does not exist for government lawyers, and that the notes had to be turned over to a Whitewater grand jury. In rare public comments, Starr says the administration is "duty-bound" to turn the notes over, while the White House accuses Starr of engaging in a "fishing expedition." Starr also says Susan McDougal, in demanding immunity from perjury charges as a precondition to testifying, is seeking a "license to lie."
May 15, 1997 -- A Washington-based federal grand jury investigating Whitewater is dismissed. On May 17, Whitewater investigators disclosed they are using another federal grand jury in Washington to on their probe.
May 18, 1997 -- ABC-TV reports that John Bates, an aide to Kenneth Starr, told an appeals judge that "we certainly are investigating individuals, and those individuals -- including Mrs. Clinton -- could be indicted."
May 19, 1997 -- A federal judge in Little Rock, Ark., rules that Jim McDougal must report to jail to begin serving his three-year sentence. Four days before reporting to prison, McDougal predicts Hillary Clinton may join him there.
May 29, 1997 -- In a 30-page brief, Starr objects to the White House appeal to the Supreme Court to deny his investigation access to Hillary Clinton's Whitewater notes taken by former deputy White House counsel Jane Sherburne. "What the case presents, at bottom, is a bold assertion of a governmental privilege against a federal grand jury's interest in securing relevant evidence," Starr said.

June 1997

Fascism in Europe
Amsterdam Treaty negotiations in June 97 – SIS and Sirene – UK’s MI5, police, customs and excise all in favour of joining.
Neither national parliaments or Euro parliament to have a say in Schengen related decisions – only officials delegated by ministers. Treaty to be signed in autumn. Expressly excludes the Eruopean Court of Justice from any role.

June 3, 1997 -- David Kendall, the Clintons' Whitewater lawyer, accuses Starr's office of violating grand jury secrecy rules to inflict "leak-and-smear damage" on his clients. In a letter to Starr, Kendall says a news article that quoted unnamed prosecutors on Starr's staff contained "plain violations of grand jury secrecy" rules. "The comments of you and persons in your office directly and indirectly quoted in the magazine article flout all these obligations," Kendall wrote. "...Grand jury secrecy rules are aimed at preventing precisely this kind of leak-and-smear damage." Starr later says that since the comments were made in court proceedings, they were proper.
June 7, 1997 -- In court papers, Starr suggests that the president might urge Susan McDougal to testify.
June 16, 1997 -- Jim McDougal reports to prison to begin his three-year sentence. Ever theatrical, he predicts Hillary Clinton may join him there.
June 20, 1997 -- Starr adds four seasoned prosecutors to his team.
June 23, 1997 -- The Supreme Court without comment refuses to consider a White House appeal of a lower court's ruling that Whitewater notes taken by government attorneys for Hillary Clinton are not protected by attorney-client privilege and must be turned over to Starr.
The Supreme Court refuses to hear the appeal, and the White House turns over the notes.
June 25, 1997 -- The Washington Post reports that Starr's team has questioned Arkansas state troopers about possible affairs Clinton may have had while governor of Arkansas. Democrats cry foul while Starr defends the interviews as standard prosecutorial procedure.
The Washington Post reports that Whitewater prosecutors have been questioning Arkansas state troopers about President Clinton's personal life, including possible extramarital affairs he may have had while Arkansas governor.

July 1997

A military coup in early July 1997 plunged Cambodia back into political chaos and once again Cambodia seemed stuck in the cycle of violence and despair that has stained its history for the last 40 years.

July 15, 1997  Starr's office concludes that Vincent Foster's death in 1993 was a suicide.
July 30, 1997  Susan McDougal, being detained for contempt of court, is moved into a federal detention facility after seven months in two Los Angeles jails, much of which she spent locked in a windowless cell 23 hours a day. The move comes a week after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit alleging that McDougal was being held, at Starr's request, in "barbaric" conditions in an attempt to coerce her to testify.
31st July “Israel’s 47th air raid on Lebanon this year” R.Fisk
Cease fire violations in the south. Israel shelling Habbouch. Civil disobedience of Shia Muslim clerics in July in Baalbek and Lebanese government’s determination to prevent a repeat.

August 1997
On 7th August US embassies in Dar es Salam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, killed 224 and injured 5000. Suddenly the idea of doing business with the Taliban, harbouring OBL and other muslim fanatics, became politically less acceptable.
In Luxor, Egypt, close to 70 western visitors were sprayed with machine gun fire by Muslim fundamentalists.

September 1997
Sept. 30, 1997 The General Accounting Office announces that Starr had spent over $25 million on his investigation as of March 1997.

A report by French Secret Service appears, about the Al Qa’aida netwrok. Written by Jean Charles Brisard, a French Intelligence Analyst.

October 1997
Trade War with Japan and Economic Collapse
Major trade confrontation between US and Japan reported by the Grauniad on 17th October. The US Maritme Commission voted unanimously to deny Japanese ships entry to US ports and to seize all Japanese ships there. Japanese shipping companies had failed to pay around $4m in fines resulting from long running shipping dispute between the two countries. The fines had been due on Wednseday night.”
“we have been forced…to ask the coast guard and the customs service to deny entry into the United States and to deny clearance to Japanese flag vessels.”
Fines were in retaliation for what the US described as discriminatory practices against non-Japanese vessels in Japanese ports – “immensely bureaucratic and costly set of procedures imposed in Japanese ports on handling of all foreign trade entering Japanese waters.”
Clinton had powers to intervene, but hadn’t decided to up to the Grauniad report. It was all about US putting pressure on Japan to liberalise protective barriers to foreign trade. US objected to a set of procedures imposed in Japanese ports affecting the handling of all foreign trade entering Japanese waters. US officials claimed the procedures are used to defend Japan’s existing advantages. “This has been building up since at least the early 1980s” Carla Hills (former US trade representative) told CNN, “it’s not a new problem.”
South Korea and Japan’s banking systems were on the brink of collapse (23/11/97). Rising global panic on the stock markets.
IMF to bail ou t South Korea – but World Bank said it couldn’t help – SK was “too rich”. Support package to reach $100bn – supported by US government and IMF. Huge bankruptcies in Japan – the US seem keen to stop the rot – or ‘Asian Flu’ as they were calling it – as economic collapse spread from country to country.
Asia Pacific Economic Conference in Vancouver: Treaty Sec to meet Japanese and Korean counterparts. The Japanese prime-minister was being pressed by the Us to step up support for its banks. SK has begged the IMF for a $20bn loan to reverse collapse in the former showpiece of south east Asia’s tiger economies.
Commissison chairman was Harold Creel.
US Treasury Sec Larrie Summers
Collapse of Yamaichi in Japan
Fuji Bank was Yamaichi’s largest shareholder and collapsed too.
The west feared that a chain of events would trigger global depression. Stockmarkets crashed in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. They devalue. Half of Thailand’s banking system collapses. Panic spreads to Korea and its banking system cracks. It applies for to IMF. Japan’s banks withdraw credit lines. Top Japanese bank and investment bank both close. Japan’s economy in recession for 5 years, may slump. Asia economy goes into recession in 1998. Imports from Europe and US fall. Investment abroad withdrawn. Global recession.

Iraq - The UN demanded Iraq – in October – allow inspection teams access to disputed sites.

Yugoslavia
Through 1997/1998 there was a lull in Yugoslav Crisis
October - December - Massive non-violent student demonstrations in Prishtina demanding the right to education.
1997-1998: A small underground organization, the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) emerged - dedicated to Kosovon independence and opposed Rugova's non-violence policy in dealing with the Serbs.
Milosevic became president of the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, consisting of Serbia and Montenegro, in 1997. Ethnic violence and unrest continued in 1997 and 1998 in the predominantly Albanian province of Kosovo, as a period of non-violent civil disobedience against Serbian rule gave way to the rise of a guerrilla army. http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0771127.html
Barred from serving another term as president of Serbia, Milosevic was elected President of Yugoslavia. The Milosevic Era according to PBS
The KLA claims responsibility for a further series of violent incidents, including bombings, attacks on police stations and raids on refugee camps. Serb police crush Albanian student demonstrations in September. Document compiled by Dr S D Stein, Stuart.Stein@uwe.ac.uk, ©S D Stein, http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/Kosovo/Kosovo-chronology3.htm
1997 Albania's government, led by the Democratic Party, is forced to resign after the collapse of a pyramid investment scheme in which thousands of Albanians lose their life savings. After a period of civil disorder in which some 2,000 Albanians die, a Socialist-led coalition sweeps the elections.

November 1997
Iraq demanded that US delegates on the UN inspection team leave – November 13th they were expelled, but returned on November 20th when Iraq agreed to allow them back.

December 1997
 “Gore heads for Kyoto to state US case” – Guardian 3rd December 1997
Climate talks in Japan – and Al Gore went “on a mission to explain” the country’s position on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. “But has been told to “walk away” if he cannot get a deal on America’s terms.”
On alliance – Europe, Japan, China, developing countries of the G77 – favoured cuts in gas emissions in first ten years if the next century – the US appears stuck at stabilising 1990 levels by 2012 and then only if the developing world agrees the cuts.

There was an uprising in the south of Albania which, within weeks, led to the overthrow of the government.  date?

Indonesia
The year before the Indonesian people drove Suharto into exile, Wolfowitz told congress that “any balanced judgement of the situation in Indonesia today including the very important and sensitive issue of human rights, needs to take account of the significant progress that Indonesia has already made and needs to acknowledge that much of this progress has to be credited to the strong and remarkable leadership of President Suharto.

China
Deng Xiaoping died. His last political act – statements that unleashed a new economic entrepenourialship and an economic boom. “Anyone who does not reform should step down.”

Turkey
During 1997 “the flow of US arms to Turkey exceeded the combined total of US military aid to Turkey for the entire Cold War period prior to the onset of its counterinsurgency campaign against its miserably repressed Kurdish population. By 1997 the campaign had driven millions of people from the devastated countryside, with tens of thousands killed and every imaginable form of barbaric torture, ranking high among the crimes of the grisly 1990s. As atrocities escalated, Turkey became the leading recipient of US arms worldwide, Israel and Egypt aside, with 80% of its supply coming from Washington.” Chomsky, “Hegemony or Survival”, page 52.
US aid to Colombia began to skyrocket, increasing from $50m to $290m” in 1999. Chomsky “H or S” page 52.

Brazil
The Brazilian constitution was changed to allow president to run for re-election.