Corruption can bear many ugly faces across the world. But what does it look like across the modern world? With the recent Panama Papers debacle in the last edition, “dirty” business dealings and the illegal funding of political officials were brought to light. The Papers showed the vastness of international corruption, spanning over 55 countries upon release.
Let’s look at what some of these countries are facing. Take a look at South America, Brazil to be exact. Millions of their people are rioting and demanding the current President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff resign. She has denied any such possibility. What’s happening in Brazil?
The first reason is their former president, Mr. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is currently under speculation in whether he diverted funds from Petrobras, a semi-public Brazilian multinational corporation in the petroleum industry, to fund election campaigns. It is speculated whether he used those same funds to make his beachside penthouse and a country estate with construction companies implicated in the Petrobras investigation.
President Rousseff offered him a position in the government which enabled him to avoid the charges. The current president is under threat of impeachment not only for the possible aid and abetment of a criminal, but for the accusations from Brazil’s lower house of congress that she manipulated the numbers of her government’s budget to disguise Brazil’s poor fiscal performance last year.
Both the former president and current president remain in politics even with evidence of their misdeeds coming to light. The former president da Silva has said he might even run for office next cycle in Brazil (2018).
The oil company, Petrobras, has also received it’s own corruption probes from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission due to their corruption scandal with the ex-president da Silva. It is wracked with debt and with the recent economic crises, they have cut their investment spending by half which has had a ripple effect on Brazil’s oil industry.
With millions of Brazilian people unemployed from the recent economic recession, it’s only a matter of time before they demand a change in politics, or worse… begin to demand change by rioting.
On the opposite side of the world in the continent of Asia, we have Mongolia. In 2012, the Mongolian government discovered copper, gold, coal and uranium which gave them a new source of income, however, it also brought greed.
In 2012, the former president Nambaryn Enkhbayer was placed under arrest in the dead of night by the current president Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj. The Mongolian people disputed those claims since it was before their parliamentary elections. The charges were dropped after Enkhbayer went on a hunger strike and also because of the lack of validity.
Next to Asia in the Middle East, there’s Libya who had the former dictator Muammar Gadhafi. He used chemical weapons to fight the rebel uprising in 2011. According to several news sources, his former chief of protocol Nuri Al Mismari revealed later (after Gaddafi’s death) that he would sexually take advantage of both his female and young male bodyguards. Most Middle-Eastern countries are currently seeing dictators similar to Gaddafi. Egypt overthrew their president in 2011 and have had a string of protests ever since.
The people of these countries demanded a change in their political atmosphere by overthrowing their leaders. They couldn’t stand for their leaders’ immoral practices and took matters into their own hands.
Europe and North America haven’t been left out of this. Even though Transparency International shows Western societies as being less corrupt, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still exist. Italy is one of the top most corrupt countries in Europe. Their political leaders have been known to have sketchy relationships with businesses and organized crime. Money laundering, fraud, and bribery have become known among Italy’s government officials.
In 2014, up to 35 people were arrested for claims of taking bribes during what was called the Moses Project. The Moses Project was an ongoing plan to create new flood barriers to protect the city of Venice. Among those arrested was the Mayor of Venice himself, Giorgio Orsoni. He was placed under house arrest for more than bribery; the charges included money laundering, extortion, and corruption.
The flood barriers were a way to protect the city of Venice from extreme flooding to help the city from further sinking. The city is still sinking with no help from its former mayor. Orsoni later resigned after the corruption charges. Information on all these countries and how a country ranks on a global corruption scale can be found on Transparency International.org.
Over here in the U.S, it’s a similar story. Since the 1960s, the suspicion of corruption has been high. For instance, the assassination of President JFK. Several witnesses said there were multiple gunshots from multiple angles within a short amount of time. Those witnesses happened to disappear or end up in convenient “car wrecks” soon after their testimonies were given. To this day, the JFK assassination is still being investigated as an inside job from a CIA hit team.
The American people during the time felt connected to the president and the event caused many Americans to lose trust in the government and speculate its involvement in the incident.
When events like those happen today, keep an eye out for witnesses mysteriously disappearing from heart attacks to being hit by a car. That’s when something fishy arises and begs the question, was there more to the story than the media and government is telling me?
Or in the case of JFK’s brother, Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated when running for president. Once it seemed like he may win the election, the threat of exposure on the assassination of JFK made him a threat (due to Robert Kennedy being Attorney General during the JFK administration).
Another example is of Martin Luther King Jr. where he began to bring social justice and was also assassinated under suspicious circumstances. A further example is the Vietnam war where on June 13, 1971 the Pentagon Papers were published by The New York Times on the government’s secret and ethically questionable history in Vietnam. Later that week, the Washington Post followed and published an article on the topic.
The American people’s involvement in demanding that the war come to an end ushered in a new era that gave more power to the hands of the public. The peaceful protests of the ‘60s “flower children” resonated the voice of the American people for peace.
That brought evidence that the war was unjust and that certain U.S politicians were benefitting from the war. In continuation, the Watergate incidence is a further illustration of corruption with President Richard M. Nixon having CIA agents tap phones during the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel so he could spy on his rivals.
He later received a landslide victory against the Democratic frontrunner Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota in one of the largest victories in American history. That further raised suspicion from American public. After many more suspicious events like denying the special prosecutors access to presidential tape recordings and claiming innocence, Nixon later resigned when he couldn’t dodge anymore bullets. The above can all be found on Watergate.info.
His Vice President, Gerald R. Ford, took the office and later pardoned him which raised the questioned if he was connected to the corruption. These events and more have left an impact on the American people up to the modern day. The public approval and trust the American people had in the federal government went from almost 80 percent before the JFK assassination to under 20 percent in 2015 according to Pew Research Center.
This shows that the jokes of “the man” controlling government entities and pulling strings isn’t so far fetched. The corruption swept up through President George Bush’s term with the start of involvement in the Middle East (to take their oil) up to President Bill Clinton where he was almost impeached.
According to The Washington Post, millennial’s distrust with the media was at an astounding 88 percent and an 86 percent distrust with Wall Street. The government only fares slightly better with an 82 percent distrust with Congress, and 63 percent distrust with the President, and a 58 percent distrust with the Supreme Court. Seventy-four percent of millennials said they don’t trust the federal government to do the right thing in a situation. Clearly, younger generations have shown the distrust with the government and it has become a hot topic among presidential candidates in the 2016 race. The question is, will we be able to vote someone who can clean up the mess, or will we vote in another crook?
Ehron Ostendorf
Copy Editor