Pushing The Merchandise
"You first get the news that your husband was killed, and within two or three days you see images of some thug removing the wedding band from their hands."
"To my dying day, I will not understand why it took so long for rescue workers to be allowed to do their difficult jobs."
Netherlands Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans
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| Flight attendants and mourners gather near flower bouquets as they pay their respects at Schiphol Airport during a national day of mourning for the victims of the downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, in Schiphol July 23, 2014. (REUTERS/Cris Toala Olivares) |
Surely Mr. Timmermans is being deliberately disingenuous,; alternately obtuse perhaps? Rescue workers were unable to 'do their difficult jobs', simply because of the obvious: ethnic Russian opponents of the Ukrainian government refused them the opportunity to do so. A cursory glance at the vast Malaysian Airways passenger jet explosion out of the sky site was permitted, nothing else. When investigators attempted closer scrutiny they were threatened by armed thugs. Understand now?
"In the beginning I was angry" said 63-year-old retired teacher Nilva Martina, mourning a close friend and relative who died in the crash of Flight 17. "I said, 'Netherlands and America, throw bombs, destroy everyone, destroy Putin'." Now, she fully understands that there will be no backlash, her country will not, despite the anguish, the misery over the atrocity, the anger at Moscow, Putin and the Ukrainian-Russian rebels, do anything. "There is no alternative. Europe needs Putin" she sighs.
"We will make sure that justice will be done for all people who lost their lives ... [in the] crime against humanity", pledged Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. A post-crash opinion poll whose results appeared in the daily De Telegraaf found 78% of the Dutch population feel sanctions should be imposed on Russia, even if the Dutch economy is harmed in the process.
To put things into perspective; the percentage of the population that perished on that plane represents a greater number than equivalent American citizens killed in the 9/11 attacks.
Yet Bernard Bot, former Dutch foreign affairs minister says: "Russia will remain our neighbour, we share our borders, we depend on Russian gas. There are a hundred-and-one reasons why we have to figure out how to resolve this issue". Resolve it? Well, just let it pass, mourn the dead and then forget about it, right? "We have our long-term plans in every country, including Russia, and they are not changing right now", said Paul Polman whose company Unilever obtains 3% of its revenue from Russia.
Royal Dutch Shell PLC lost four employees in the crash, and they have declined comment. It has roughly $6.7-billion of oil- and gas-producing assets in Russia, is busy exploring for shale gas and plans an expansion of its Sakhalin-2 project, research by Deutsche Bank AG affirms. As the world's eighth-largest company in market value Shell employs 92,000 people worldwide, the fifth-largest employer listed and traded in the Netherlands. Its production last year from Russia represented 5% of its total.
That's 5% it has no intention of imperilling. Russia is the Netherlands' seventh-most-important trading partner and remains a critical investment destination for Anglo-Dutch multinationals like Shell and Unilever. Multinationals may have their origin in a specific country but they end up owing no particular allegiance to the country of their origin; their allegiance is specific to their stockholders and their bottom line.
Tens of billions in corporate assets have been moved by Russia's largest oil, gas, mining and retail companies into the Netherlands or make use of financial institutions located in Amsterdam as profits routes to low-tax, offshore financial centres like Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands.
"The Netherlands, as a country, will be juggling the fact that on the one hand it may want to hurt Russia in some way. On the other hand, we value our position as a country with an attractive tax climate. We are still merchants", explained tax law professor Gerard Meussen from Radboud University in Nijmegen.
Mercantilism and profit win the struggle and remain the philosophical order of the day.
Labels: Atrocity, Conflict, Economy, Holland, Hypocrisy, Russia, Ukraine
posted by Pieface @ Monday, July 28, 2014
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