Green Cross: Gorbachev and global enviro-communism

By Natalie Grant
Date Unknown

Moscow State Manager

A major Moscow-directed hoax of the 1950s was the “Peace Movement”. The Moscow regime, expert in political deception, following attentively Western opinion, which it then uses as a foundation to spread disinformation. Concern by some people in the free world over any particular development which might threaten their well being—fo example, nuclear weapons—is seized upon by Moscow disinformation strategists. By means of selected, slanted, and deceptive data, concerns are gradually transformed into fear. Scared and under considerable stress, the victims of this Moscow game can thus be influenced into accepting policies and taking steps harmful to their own interests—like “disarmament”.

The Soviets took advantage of anti-war sentiments that had developed in the West. They were interested, of course, in promoting peace for their own protection to make Soviet policies more receptive to the public. The main purpose of the “Peace Movement”, stage managed from Moscow since its inception, however, was to spread communist influence throughout the world.

The urge of the Soviet leadership to expand in the West was confirmed by D. Volkogonov, a prominent Soviet official, archivist, and historian. In a speech at The National Archives in Washington, D.C., shortly before his death, Volkogonov admitted that the objective of the men in power in the Soviet Union had always been to gain greater influence in the world at large. Expansion of influence is, therefore, one of the principal purposes of every major Moscow disinformation hoax. Moscow’s methods have not changed.

The environment has replaced peace, as an astute journalist recently remarked. Although “peace” still remains a prominent item on the list of deceitful operations of Soviet leaders, protection of the environment has become the principal took for attack against the West and all it stands for. Protection of the environment may be used as a pretext to adopt a series of measures designed to undermine the industrial base of developed nations. It may also serve to introduce malaise by lower their standard of living and implanting communist “values”.

The modus operandi in organizing the attack against the West via the environment is similar in many respects to methods employed by the organization of the “Peace Movement”. True facts are exaggerated to the extreme with the intention of terrifying rank-and-file citizens, while doubtful evidence is presented as scientifically proven fact.

The set up of the environmental operation, however, is more complex. Instead of one world council representing the entire “Peace Movement”, the environmental extremists (also known as professional environmentalists) fall into two groups. One, a non-governmental organization, is the so-called Earth Council, chaired by Maurice F. Strong, a top-level official of the United Nations. The other group, also an NGO, is linked with Moscow through the Green Cross International, or GCI. Mikhail S. Gorbachev is its chairman and founder.

An early definition of Green Cross International depicts GCI as an American non-governmental organization, a private foundation created in April 1993. It was formed through a merger with another environmental group, known as World Cross International, which existed in Switzerland. The Swiss group had been formed for months prior to the merger. This raises the question as to whether the creation of WCI and its merger with GCI were moves to facilitate the establishment of GCI headquarters in Geneva.

The early description of Green Cross International as American was false. Even while GCI now has a chapter in the United States, GCI is not and was never an American movement.

Global Forum

Green Cross International traces its origin to a group that started out under the somewhat clumsy appelation of “Global Forum for Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders of Human Survival”, which it abbreviated to Global Forum, using the full name only in official documents. It was formed upon the initiative of Aiko Matsumura, a Japanese activist and now executive co-ordinator of the organization.

Global Forum’s purpose was to establish a dialogue with C. Nobel, founder of Earth Aid Society. It is difficult to determine whether the idea of a dialogue came to Mr. Matsumura from Moscow, which favours dialogues as a tool for infiltration. Mr. Nobel recruited the Rev. James Park Morton, Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, who arranged to have the first meeting of the group in June 1985 in the Cathedral. Among other things, they discussed a solution to “critical issues”, such as degradation of the environment and the depletion of the Earth’s resources. There were only about a dozen participants. They included, however, prominent figures Angier Biddle Duke, the former chief of protocol in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and Congressman James H. Scheuer of New York.

The meeting at the Cathedral was soon followed by a conference in Tarrytown, New York. The Tarrytown meeting had a more numerous audience. In Tarrytown, the question was raised and the motion was approved of holding an international conference in Oxford, England.

Sometime later, Congressman Scheuer visited Moscow. He took along invitations to the conference and handed a few to the office of the President of the Supreme Soviet for transmissions to parliamentarians. Several Soviet officials accepted the invitation and attended the conference. The Soviet delegation was led by Yevgeniy Velikhov, Vice Chairman of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

The Oxford Conference was well attended, mostly by leaders of non-Christian faiths and indigenous personalities. In addition, there were representatives from Britain (including the Archbishop of Canterbury) and the Netherlands. Among the delegates were Chief Oren R. Lyons and Mother Teresa. There were elections to the Council of Global Forum. Nominated to the Council were a number of religious leaders form non-Christian faiths, as well as Yevgeniy Velikhov.

During the proceedings, the GF leadership announced that their next international conference would take place in Moscow, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Under the circumstances, one wonders whether the Global Forum received assistance from some powerful ally. The international conference in Oxford was a clever move on the part of a practically unknown and questionable group. With the Oxford Conference of 1987, the Global Forum entered the international arena.

The Big Even—The Moscow Conference

The Moscow conference met in January 1990. Cosponsored by the Supreme Soviet of the (then) USSR, the conference had the active support of the Academy of Sciences. All Soviet religious communities were called upon to ensure co-operation of various religious communities. The speakers included the Secretary General of the United Nations and the President of the USSR. Senator Al Gore was also among the speakers. He had by then become a member of the Global Forum Council and had even contributed an article to Shared Vision, the official publication of the Gobal Forum. (1)

The key event was the speech by Mikhail S. Gorbachev, President of the Soviet Union. As it was summarized in Shared Vision, (2) Gorbachev’s speech presented Soviet suggestions on how to respond to an “ecological imperative”. The Soviet recommendations comprised the demand for a nuclear test ban, the establishment of an international environmental monitoring system, the signing of a covenant to protect unique ecological zones, the support of United Nations environmental programs and of the international conference on the environment and development, which was scheduled to meet in June 1992 in Brazil. Gorbachev noted that environmental tragedy could be averted only through international effort.

You should remember that at the time of his speech, Gorbachev was still the President of the Soviet Union and he was expressing the “views” and “suggestions” of the Communist Party Soviet Union, of which he was the leader.

These “suggestions” did not fall on deaf ears. Before long, the activities of Global Forum began to reflect the communist “recommendations”. Indeed, had there been any doubts as to the political stand by certain leaders of Global Forum or Moscow’s attitude toward this barely known group, they were dispelled by events at the Moscow Conference. Intention Soviet interest in the proceedings was obvious.

By 1990, certain leaders of the Global Forum had transformed their group into a communist front and were ready to act upon Soviet “suggestions”. The services they began rendering to international communism were important. In its appeal, Global Forum played on hostility toward certain aspects of Western civilization. Global Forum recruited non-communist environmentalists and placed them under the direct, controlling influence of communists. Naive indigenous peoples, non-Christian religious figures, and a few government officials were the main target. Senator Al Gore may serve as an example. (3)

The First Earth Summit

Meanwhile, the United Nations was embarking on its own program to protect the environment. Leading among the environmentalists at the U.N. was Maurice F. Strong, a multimillionaire with top-level business contacts. In 1972, Maurice Strong acted as Secretary General at the Stockholm Conference (4), which was convented to put the environment on the world agenda.

In 1987, the U.N. World Commission on Environment and Development called for the establishment of a code which would prescribe principal norms for behaviour of states and individuals in matters relating to the Earth. And in June 1992, the U.N. held an international conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which discussed to a large extent matters connected with “protection” of the environment. Maurice Strong was one of the organizers. In environmental circles, this conference was known as The Earth Summit.

All was not smooth sailing at the first Earth Summit. Heads of state refused to accept some proposals, and arguments were often bitter. Insults were exchanged, and President Bush, who attended the meeting, got his share of comment. Timothy Wirth, a former senator from Colorado, accused him of engaging in “adolescent politics” and looking “silly” for not signing a treaty on biodiversity. (5) Global Forum, for some reason, held a simultaneous conference of environmental parliamentarians in another section of the city. The presence of two similar meetings in Rio de Janeiro led to confusion. Resolutions passed by Global Forum were attributed at times by observers to the United Nations Earth Summit.

The conference of parliamentarians served Global Forum as an opportunity to put into effect Soviet President Gorbachev’s “suggestion” to establish an international monitoring institution to protect the environment. This was accomplished by having the parliamentarians pass unanimously a resolution creating an organization, named International Green Cross, later changed to Green Cross International. According to a GCI press release, Mikhail Gorbachev’s Moscow speech was at the root of Green Cross International’s foundation. He was, therefore, invited to accept the position of founder and chairman of GCI. The formal launching of GCI could not take place at Rio and had to be postponed to a future international conference. That took place in 1993 in Kyoto, Japan. Gorbachev attended the Kyoto conference and accepted the nomination.

Although environmentalist circles were disappointed by the results of the 1992 Earth Summit, it actually proved to be a step forward in their campaign for global “protection” for the environment. The U.N. conference, thus, adopted a program for the coming century. The course of action based off “sustainable development” was set down in a document known as Agenda 21, which was further amplified by meetings in Copenhagen, Cairo, and Beijing.

Agenda 21 is viewed by environmental extremists as a blueprint in “sustainable development”. It was circulated among world leaders who are expected by environmental extremists to implement its provisions. The document is divided into forty chapters, some of which contain, on their face, what appear to be reasonable demands, until those demands are juxtaposed with other chapters (i.e., the chapter on “social justice”) that reflect adherence to blatantly communist doctrines.

The Earth Council

The Earth Council, an international non-governmental organization, also arose as a direct result of the Earth Summit. The probable creator of the Earth Council is its chairman Maurice F. Strong. It states its mission to be the support and “empowerment” of “people” in building a more “secure”, “equitable”, and “sustainable” future. The Council, therefore, aims at strengthening the participation of “equal rights” groups, particularly women, indigenous peoples, and “youth”, in its work. (6) The special focus on the Earth Council is to ensure the “operationalization” of indigenous people, women, and “youth”.

Canadian born, in his sixties, Mr. Strong is a self-made man and has innumerable contacts in highly placed and wealth business circles where he seems to enjoy a good reputation. He admits to holding a “socialist ideology” and has been described by a former UN Deputy Ambassador as a “very dangerous ideologue, way over the Left”. (7) Mr. Strong’s immediate assistance is the Executive Director of the Earth Council, Maximo T. Kalaw. He is said to be an “activist” from the Philippines. Mr Kalaw, who also heads the Earth Council Institute and is the Chairman of the Green Forum of the Philippines, holds some rather bizarre views. For instance, according to Mr. Kalaw, economic society, although the main engine for economic development, does not hold “public interest” as its primary concern and, therefore, its members should not be allowed to be part of public governance. Moscow is represented on the board of the Earth Council by Yevgeniy Velikhov, vice chairman of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

Since its establishment, the Earth Council has been in close collaboration with Green Cross International. In April, 1994, Maurice Strong and Mikhail Gorbachev met at the Hague and launched an “initiative” for an earth charter. They proposed the signing of the charter, which would, according to its promoters, provide a “new mode of life” based upon radical “principles for the whole of humanity”. Both Strong and Gorbachev viewed The Earth Charter as a priority. In this respect, they seemed to be following the precepts of the UN World Commission on Environment and Development (UNCED). Indeed, in 1987 UNCED had called for the formation of a charter which would prescribe “norms” for states and individuals to maintain life on earth.

In order to produce an “ethical and moral” set of “imperatives”, environmental extremists supported the idea of an earth charter plan to precede its acceptance by a worldwide consultation involving all sectors of society. To reach consensus in a world inhabited by people of totally opposite views is an impossible undertaking. Therefore, “consensus” will be achieved by limiting consultation to individuals and NGOs already favouring the Earth Charter.

Green Cross International

The political line adopted by Green Cross International is that of Mikhail Gorbachev, founder and chairman of GCI, who, appropriately, is its mouthpiece. Of course, as a communist, Gorbachev and the Green Cross will want to install communist “values”. In its pronouncements, Green Cross usually calls for action by leaves untold the action it plans to take. Generalities permeate the statements of GCI—and Gorbachev as well—relating to doctrine and activities. In discussing the aims of his enterprise, Gorbachev calls for a “new civilization”, asserting that neither democracy nor prayers to God can solve the alleged “world crisis”. What is a “new civilization”? He does not explain. Because civilization is usually understood to be cultural and technological development, the qualifying “new” requires interpretation that is (conveniently) not supplied. Gorbachev constantly demands a “change of values” but never specified the values he wants changed, or what should replace them.

In its analysis of the Earth Charter, GCI also follows Gorbachev’s lead. GCI laments that despite repeated efforts, the “international community” has not yet been able to agree on an effective international treaty that would guarantee the “rights of the earth. (8) With the creation of international law, a “slow and tedious process”, GCI suggests greater focusing on “soft law”. (9) Soft law refers to non-binding documents drawn up by special interest groups, that as GCI or The Earth Council, that establish “norms”, hoping they will take on the force of “law” through customary practice. Majority rule and dissent are thereby circumvented. (10) Green Cross International hopes, however, to persuade the government of each country to ratify the Earth Charter in time for its proclamation on 01 January 2000.

The administrative director of Green Cross International is Andreas Eggenberg. He advocates integration of all sectors of society at every level in order to achieve “constructive” overall prevention of and response to disasters. In his opinion, this approach will stabilize the ecological and political “situation” of humanity. (11)

The top figure in Green Cross International remains Mikhail Gorbachev, admitted community by training and conviction. The vice president of GCI is Daniel Goeudevert, a Frenchman, self-made businessman, who occupied prominent positions in the automotive world. He is a member of the Club of Rome and an advisor to the Director General of UNESCO. He also presides over the Economic Council of the Gorbachev Foundation.

The United States chapter of Green Cross International was officially opened by Mikhail Gorbachev during his visit in October 1994. Named “Global Green USA”, it maintains offices in several cities, including New York and Cleveland, Ohio. It also has an office in Washington, D.C., where it is represented by one Paul Walker. The president of the American chapter is one Diane Meyer Simons, whose slogan is “one world, one people”. She apparently intends to use this motto to rally public and political leaders for action and support of Global Green USA. Global Green USA is directed by Hugh Locke, who in his first year of activity concentrated on a campaign against “toxic military waste”. Locke also seems interested in the production of documentary films devoted to leaders of the environmental movement. As are most of his colleagues, Locke is vague in his comments. It is, therefore, difficult to understand what he means when he too calls for the creation of a “new civilization”.

Expansion

Green Cross and Crescent International is now in its fourth year. (Sometimes “Crescent” is addted to the GCI name.) At first glance, it does not seem to have performed any spectacular feat. Its name has never been mentioned during volcanic eruptions, nor does GCI seem to have intervened in saving the victims of extensive floods, nor has it received publicity at the time of oil spills. GCI has been silent on the Three Gorges Dam Project in China, scheduled for completion in 2009, although the project is expected to have a profound ecological, environmental, cultural, archaeological, and historical impact. Yet, rescuing the victims of disasters and protecting ecological zones are in the GCI program. In fact, skeptics argue that so far, GCI has been long on rhetoric and short on action. (12)

Green Cross International, however, has not been idle. It has actively collaborated with UN environmental extremists at numerous meetings and conferences and has taken a leading role in launching the Earth Charter. Gorbachev and his staff have further been seeking and finding support in government circles, particularly in Holland, and have been engaged in expanding GCI into a truly international organization. Barely one year after its establishment, Green Cross and Crescent International had already formed five national chapters. The GCI operates two centres. One is in the Hague, where GCI maintains its programs on “values” education, as well as matters related to the media and communications. The other centre is in Geneva, Switzerland, where GCI handles emergency operations. In addition, the group has chapters in a  number of countries, including Estonia, France, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands (where government circles have donated at least $75,000 to GCI), Sweden, Switzerland, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.

The Second Earth Summit

In March 1997, five years after the Earth Summit, a conference on environment met in Rio de Janeiro with an attendance of some 500 people. It has been named Rio+5. The participants met in order to review the progress in “sustainable development” made since the Earth Summit and apparently to prepare for the Second Earth Summit.

Rio+5 issued a set of recommendations dealing with the necessity to focus attention on The Earth Charter and to reach a consensus on “values”. The meeting parties stressed the need to strengthen the participation of “equal rights” groups, i.e., women, indigenous peoples, and youth in councils for sustainable development. The emphasis placed by environmental extremists upon “sustainability” raises questions.

Supporters of “sustainability” often disregard the fact that nature is their most dangerous opponent. With one sweep, nature can destroy the most carefully laid plans. The volcano at Montserrat, which transformed a flourishing community into a desert of ash, may serve as an example. The U.N. Second Earth Summit opened its doors in June 1997. Dignitaries from over 160 countries flocked to the meeting in New York City. President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore also attended. The summit reportedly began with “recriminations between Europe and the United States and by Third World countries condemning developed countries for broken promises.” (13) The main points in the discussion concerned aid to developing countries by the West—or rather, by the United States. Another point dealt with the signing of a pact reducing “greenhouse gases” and their emission; a pact specifically designed to cripple what’s left of American industry. This was presented to the conference in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997. Environmental extremists proclaimed their disappointment with the results of The Second Earth Summit. They failed to note, however, as did herbalist Charles K. Hanley (14) that the environmental movement made progress by “slow bits” over the last four decades.

Conclusion

Information available at the present time seems to show that the environmental extremists maintain contact with and are supported by Moscow. The “movement” has all the traits of a Soviet disinformation operation. Facts are exaggerated into a “nightmarish” picture of floods, scorched earth, disease, and death. The target, the industrialized West—scared and confused by Moscow’s sympathizers in “science”, academe, and the slavishly obedient Establishment media—is influenced to accept measures and regulations harmful to the Western world.

These are not the only consequences of the action of the environmental extremist movement. It is promoting conflict, domestically and internationally. We can only marvel at the skill with which the two top leaders have proven able to introduce dissent and conflict into usually pacific circles.

These two leaders, Maurice Strong and Mikhail Gorbachev, are men of considerable experience. They understand economics and politics. They are, therefore, fully aware of what they are doing. Strong has the power of the United Nations at his disposal. Gorbachev, and able public relations men, gained considerable influence in the period following his retirement from president of the USSR. They are consciously harming the United States.

Who profits from the activities of these two men?

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