2020: The ‘NeWay’ to Serfdom

The above interactive diagram includes active links and is intended to help you visualize the connections and key roles and organisations involved in the ZEDE Project in Honduras.

It is interesting that the architect of many of the free market reforms in Russia was Babson Global Inc’s Shanker Singham is also one of the key architects of both Brexit and Enterprise Cities. A look at Singhams past speeches, in particular those in Moscow and the USA shed light on how long he has been lobbying and planning these monumental events. See https://competere.co.uk/speeches-and-conferences

Dr Illarionov, now with the US Cato Institute, as well as running his own Russian IEA Think Tanks http://iea.ru/ was fiercely critical of the Russian Goverments economic approach when he resigned in 2005 and especially concerning the scandal involving the sale of Yukos Oil and Mihkail Khorodovsky, (whose son studied at the US Babson College between 2003-2007). https://www.businessinsider.com/ten-years-after-mikhail-khodorkovskys-arrest-2013-10?r=DE&IR=T .

Private Government Syndicates

German born Titus Gebel, is the opinionated, self-styled ‘King Gebel of Roatan’. He has his own particular views on how governments should look, which includes the authoritarian ‘removal of politics’ in what seems to perceive as his own state. This is a proposition to billionaires that he canvassed in an open letter inviting them to invest in Private Cities.

There are a number of things that strike you when looking at the organisations and people involved with the world’s first ZEDE Enterprise City.

• The first thing you notice is that the vast majority are young white American males associated with libertarian think tanks and pressure groups.
• The second thing that strikes you is that the same names keep popping up in a variety of roles and organisations – often with clear conflicts of interest. This is a cross-population of group-think and vested interests that typifies this project.
• The third, and most alarming theme of ZEDE Roatan, is the exclusion of the local indigenous traditional landowners, who don’t even merit representation on the local ZEDE Roatan Committee and who have not been balloted on the adoption of the ZEDE Charter. Questions still remain unanswered about indigenous traditional landowner status and civil liberties within ZEDEs, especially worrying given the extreme poverty and low literacy rate amongst local Honduran and Garifuna populations.

Imagine

… if half of the small Caribbean island paradise of Roatan off the North coast of Honduras has been partitioned and the annexed land is leased for 50 years to a private US company, registered in Delaware in the United States to avoid tax and financial scrutiny.

… if this enclave is the site of the most daring social and economic experiment since China’s Cultural Revolution and with an economic model that aims to build on the Special Economic Zones (SEZs), such as Shenzhen City and Guangdong Province, that enabled China to rapidly expand as the World’s leading trading nation. A vision for an autonomous privatised nation-within-a-nation, a center for finance and trade, wrapped in a cloak of privacy with light-touch laws, minimal red tape and very little tax to pay.

… your government was selling your sovereignty to wealthy overseas investors who will become your neo-feudal overlords. These libertarian colonialists have the right to evict you from your own property using their own private police and military forces and an ‘outsourced’ judiciary system and ad-hoc penal code.

… if these ‘Charter Cities’ were linked in a global web of economic secrecy in a way that would make it virtually impossible for the European Union’s powerful new Tax Avoidance Directives to be enforced, whilst Honduras is at the same time receiving significant EU development funds:

Imagine

…if companies like McKinsey are warning of very significant risks

ZEDE Roatan – A Viennese Waltz

The ZEDE model in Roatan has now been populated with private companies and organisations that will operate the jurisdiction. The image is that of a syndicate of interconnected libertarian billionaire investors, politicians, economists, think tanks and global business interests.

Two of these shown below at Freedom Fest in Las Vegas in 2013, Dr Barbara Kolm and Dr Richard Rahn are operating at the highest levels worldwide to ensure the project succeeds at any cost. In the case of Dr Rahn, and Dr Kolm, who is Vice President of the Austrian National Bank, it is curious that their fellow Americans and Austrians seem to be blissfully unaware of what they and the other extremely powerful individuals on this vast project are doing to disrupt democracy in a Central American country, infamous for cocaine and gun smuggling.

In fact there is a history of foreign exploitation and manipulation of this part of the world. Edward Bernays – famous for rebranding propaganda as ‘Public Relations’ and using ethically questionable techniques to sell people things they didnt need – managed to meddle in Latin American politics, and worked closely with the CIA . Bernays controversially used the work of his uncle, the infamous Austrian founder of Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud to achieve his goals and gain great personal wealth in the process.

Indeed. from the Ronald Reagan government’s Nicaraguan Contras, back to the slave traders of the British and Austro-Hungarian House of Habsburg Empires’ there is history of foreign interference. Not forgetting also the well-documented post-war drug and gun smuggling that Nazi war criminals like Klaus Barbie carried out in Latin America, often in collaboration with the CIA and various European Governments.

Perhaps it is time that a lot more scrutiny was placed on the people and their hugely powerful backers who are intent on disrupting democracy?

The Boards and Committees of the first Honduran ZEDE in Roatan are stacked with representatives from Atlas Network’s 447 Libertarian partner think tanks which operate in 95 countries and include representatives of the climate-change-denying the Heritage Foundation, World Taxpayers Associations the CATO Institute, The Mont Pelerin Society, the UK’s Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and the Austrian Economic Center.

Note: The World Taxpayers Associations (WTA) is huge umbrella which brings together most of the Far Right Libertarian organisations worldwide. Matthew Elliot, CEO of Brexit Vote Leave campaign who worked very closely with Shanker Singham at Legatum, is on the Board of Advisors. Matthew’s obliquitous wife Sarah Elliott of Republicans Overseas (UK), was a previous WTA Secretary-General and worked for Grover Norquist, who helped Matthew form the Taxpayers Alliance.

Charter Cities and the ‘Leap Model’

The original vision for Enterprise Cities was based on a model proposed by Paul Romer had an elegant simplicity. Each special administrative zone engaged with a developed nation and adopted the legal code of that nation, for example, Canada. Paul Romer’s TED Talk on Charter Cities was the catalyst for ZEDEs in Honduras. Having been involved in the project from the outset, Romer withdrew from the project when Mark Klugmann’s LEAP model was selected by the Honduran Government, defying Romer’s requirement for a Transparency Committee.

The following short film from FreedomFest 2013, Mark Klugmann explains his LEAP (Legal, Economic, Administrative and Political) Zones.

Honduras needed to implement a number of constitutional changes to allow the ZEDE in Roatán to proceed. This slide deck details the constitutional changes and also names the members of the Committee of Best Practices.

Slide 12 | Removal of requirement for a plebiscite for ZEDE approval on rural land
Slide 17 | ZEDEs permission to create their own economic and employment laws
Slide 18 | ZEDEs permission to operate autonomous laws and legal system
Slide 19 | Appointment of Committee of Best Practices (CAMP) members by Honduran President Lobo
Slide 20 | Ability for ZEDE to expand to incorporate more land

The Charter for the Próspera ZEDE can be viewed here.

The Investors

Imagine

… if some of the wealthiest people on the planet, such as Peter Thiel and Titus Gebel, were funding this social and economic experiment without the informed consent of the local population. These people, with radical ideas about the future, that have no alignment with your cultural or social values, feel empowered by wealth to use your life and home as part of a neo-libertarian experiment designed to break your current society and rebuild it to meet their dictatorial vision.

ZEDE Committee of Best Practices (CAMP)

Imagine…

…if unproven experimental right-wing think tank theory is implemented without any ethical, social or environmental safeguarding or public representation?

… if Honduran ex-President ‘Pepe Lobo’ Porfirio Lobo Sosa, had handpicked a 21 member global Committee of Best Practices (CAMP) and appointed the Hayek Institute’s Dr Barbara Kolm as the President of the CAMP Committee and head of ZEDE Board of Trustees. This is the same President Lobo whose wife is currently in prison serving 58-years for corruption, and whose son is in prison in the USA serving 24 years for narcotics crimes.

… if the same Honduran President Lobo forced through the ZEDE legislation by removing opposing judges in a secretive midnight session in what was referred to as a ‘Technical Coup‘. Initially, the Honduran judiciary ruled ZEDEs as unconstitutional with judges voting 4:1 against the required constitutional change. However, legislation was passed once ‘Pepe Lobo’ sacked the four opposing judges and later the one judge supporting ZEDEs was made Attorney General.

… if the mastermind of modern Charter Cities, Paul Romer, had withdrawn from the project due to Dr Barbara Kolm’s CAMP refusing to implement a Transparency Commission. (Although Professor Lan Cao’s Charter City report in the William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, page 743, suggests that Romer’s departure may have been in protest to the extrajudicial murder of two human rights lawyers opposing such schemes, and states that “Romer withdrew from the reform shortly after the assassination of a Honduran human rights attorney, who was responsible for bringing a constitutional challenge to the RED legislation prompting the questionable removal of four Supreme Court justices who posed a threat to the reform”. REDs were a precursor to ZEDEs.

…if the Honduran Government had handed the powers of a pseudo-Congress to the ZEDE Committee of Best Practices, in effect making them the unelected dictators within the new jurisdiction (and without a plebiscite).

Imagine

… if the current Honduran President, Juan Orlando Hernández, who gave the Roatan project final approval in May 2020, has been auctioning-off ZEDE investment opportunities on the global money marketplace. Notably, Hernandez himself is under investigation for narcotic crimes, and his brother, Tony, has been convicted in the USA for major cocaine and gun trafficking and is linked to notorious Mexican cartel boss ‘El Chapo’ Joaquín Guzmán Loera.

ZEDE Government and Governance

The model for government and governance within the Roatán ZEDE is exceptionally lean, in line with libertarian ideals.

The Committee of Best Practices (CAMP) has oversight and control over all aspects of life in a ZEDE, for example, new residents in the ZEDE have to be proposed by the local ZEDE Roatán Committee and approved by CAMP. The local committee can propose new laws and regulation however it appears CAMP has the right of veto. Dr Tom W. Bell of the CATO Institute and ULEX, likens CAMP to the US Congress, the obvious difference being that the US Congress consists of elected officials rather than an international panel of vested interests appointed directly, in the case of Honduras, by a President with apparent links to organised crime. Undaunted, Chair of ZEDE CAMP, Dr Barbara Kolm is extremely clear on her view of that the singular role of government is the provision of the rule of law.

Under the oversight of CAMP, NeWay Capital LLC and Honduras Próspera have emerged as the investment vehicle and the development company. The CEO of both companies, Erick Brimen is a Babson College graduate who works closely with Babson Global Inc’s Shanker Singham as you may remember from Case 1 – The Tabula Rasa – A Clean Slate. Interestingly both NeWay Capital and Próspera Honduras have almost identical Boards and Advisory Boards, rather peculiar given the different functions they perform.

International Advisory Boards

Despite reassurances that local Hondurans will be employed wherever possible, there are currently no indications that long term training programs and resources will be sufficient to raise skill levels high enough for this new cutting edge hypercapitalist society. The only commitment is that 90% of day-labour will be Honduran.

Whilst the ZEDE Syndicate claim they will raise living standards of the local population, they are in fact only offering salaries 10% higher than the rest of Honduras, which for poverty-stricken people is unlikely to cover the cost of the annual residency fee and mandatory personal indemnity insurance. If either of these ‘existence taxes’ within the ZEDE are not paid then Hayeks recommendation of using market forces to drive these people off their own land will become reality, as he had proposed to the British Government as a solution for ridding Gibraltar of it’s local inhabitants in 1944.

ULEX

The ZEDE Roatan Charter enables the leaseholder of the ZEDE, in this case, Próspera Honduras LLC, to create their own civil and commercial laws. Justice in ZEDEs is based on a system being called ‘baseball arbitration’ whereby each party appoints an arbiter, then the arbiters select a third arbiter to work as an adjudicator.

ULEX, a team of legal professionals headed up by the CATO Institute’s charismatic Professor Tom Bell, is developing the legislative code and also the tool used to initiate ‘baseball arbitration’. An ‘independent’ arbitration service, Próspera Arbitration Center (PAC), has been established with an international panel of arbiters to adjudicate on legal disputes. Juries and the right of appeal, do not exist in ZEDEs.

It is important to recognise, as stated in the video above, that this system is designed so that the losing party in any dispute pays. Working-class people of the ZEDE are in effect being frozen-out of legal representation due to the cost, and complexity of employing these highly skilled international resources. This is an extremely important fact when you are a subsistence farmer or fisherman fighting the might of the ZEDE organisation to retain your traditional indigenous landowner rights.

In 2013, Professor Tom W. Bell, Adjunct Scholar and Policy Director at the CATO Institute, described his vision for creating a new form of legislature, called ULEX.  The ULEX online platform of reference laws for the ZEDE jurisdictions and has been approved by the CAMP or ‘Congress’ as Tom Bell described it.

The modular functionality of ULEX effectively allows businesses, organisations or individuals to ‘cherry-pick’ sections of law from almost any country and incorporate these into the’organic’ legal framework of any ZEDE to suit their particular purposes. Whilst this may appear to be an easy legal tool, there are risks involved in terms of lack of holistic continuity in contrast to a system which has evolved over time with appropriate scrutiny and change control. It may also be more open to abuse and could diminish the rights of the indigenous population even further.

This ULEX vision is now a reality, and the ULEX system has been selected as the legal framework for ZEDEs, with Roatan earmarked as the testbed for this experiment. In the following video, Professor Tom Bell explains from timestamp 4:00 the progress of ULEX and his roles with multiple organisations. The latest version of the ULEX opensource legislation, mandated by the ZEDE Common-Law code, can be found on GitHub https://github.com/proftomwbell/Ulex/tree/master/versions/1.2.

Given the number of years that ULEX has been in development, at first glance there are some notable omissions as detailed in the Report of the National Lawyers Guild Delegation Investigation of Zones for Economic Development and Employment in Honduras, details the failings of the ZEDE legal framework, including key omissions, including:

• Indigenous landowner rights
• Anti-sex-discrimination laws
• Racial and religious discrimination
• Habeas Corpus
• Disability rights
• Universal suffrage
• Anti-money laundering legislation
• Privacy
• The right of appeal on Próspera Arbitration Centre rulings

On deeper inspection we have discovered that many of the links in the new ULEX Roatan Legal Code trace to Wayback Machine, an automated web archive used to retrieve deleted pages. For example, section 2.6.2. Wards: ULC, Uniform Guardianship and Protective Proceedings Act (1997).

Wayback archive:

Page not found on Uniform Law Commission website:

Is this a legal system that you would like to live under? The Centre for International Environment Law are not convinced.

Próspera Arbitration Centre (PAC) – a Kangaroo Court?

A new company has been established to provide arbitration and judicial services within the Roatan ZEDE, Próspera Arbitration Centre (PAC). The autonomy of PAC is at best questionable as the CEO, Humberto Macias, is Deputy Legal Counsel for both NeWay Capital LLC (the ZEDE investment vehicle) and Honduras Próspera (the ZEDE leaseholder). One of the arbiters, Australian mining and resources barrister, Martin Klapper, is an ambassador for Titus Gebel’s Free Private Cities.

A PAC Standing Competence and Ethics Committee (SCEC) has been established, with responsibilities including, “Receiving and adjudicating complaints filed by members of the public concerning the conduct of Artibers and Senior Arbiters in active service”. The SCEC is comprised entirely of PAC arbiters with one notable exception – Nick Dranias, who is the General Legal Counsel both Honduras Próspera LLC and NeWay Capital LLC.

This conflicted PAC structure has been approved by Dr Kolm’s Committee of Best Practices and is a cause for great concern for the local residents being forcibly incorporated into the ZEDE.

“What is the legal status of Roatán Próspera and how can it guarantee continuity?

The Próspera ZEDE was legally established on December 29, 2017, as a public-private partnership with a renewable 50-year term. In doing so, the government of Honduras allowed Honduras Próspera LLC, incorporated in Delaware, to promote and organize the 60-acre parcel of land that it acquired on Roatán. “https://econamericas.com/2020/07/first-charter-city-honduras-prospera-revives-zedes/

Próspera Roatan Committee

The Technical Secretary plays a key role in society within a ZEDE. Likened to an ‘overseer’ by Mark Klugmann, this colonial-style governor has the ability to create new laws and regulations, and sign contracts with service providers for the zone. In the case of ZEDE Roatan, the Technical Secretary, Tristan Monterroso, a local pastor, real estate agent and friend of the CEO of the ZEDE leaseholder, Eric Brimen.

There is little to write about this committee as there seems to be no transparency.

NEXT…

Shining City Upon a Hill

A brief encounter…

“Mr Campbell, Mr Campbell,’ – usually it’s ‘Alastair’, so the more formal approach felt different, and as I couldn’t work out where the voice was coming from, I walked on. Then ‘Mr Campbell, Mr Campbell’ became louder, more intense. And then he was there, mid-heatwave a little out of breath.”

On July 24th 2018, former comms and strategy director for the UK Labour party under Prime Minister Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell, had a strange encounter with someone who claimed to know the real reason behind Brexit.

Campbell later wrote in his blog and the UK’s New European Newspaper:

The book given to Alastair was “The Sovereign Individual” by William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson, published in 1997. Rees-Mogg & Davidson’s dystopian vision, along with the condensed edition of Hayek’s Road to Serfdom’ (PDF download), published in 1945 would become pivotal chapters of the ‘bible’ of authoritarian-right.

The doctrines in these books, powerful libertarians all over the world including the controversial Peter Thiel (see below), could introduce, implement and expand the radical concept of Enterprise Cities in various formats known as SEZ’s, Charter Cities, Freeports and ZEDE’s.

This , together with totally redesigning global economic and data systems, would create a tectonic shift in how governments, global trade and indeed how the whole world currently function

The 4th Industrial Revolution has already begun.

The Sovereign Individual – how to survive and thrive during the collapse of the Welfare State. Read online or download: https://kupdf.net/download/james-dale-davidson-william-rees-mogg-the-sover_59af3e4adc0d60fd58568ede_pdf#modals

How to explain Jacob Rees-Mogg? Start with his father’s books https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/09/mystic-mogg-jacob-rees-mogg-willam-predicts-brexit-plans

The other is Anglo-American Trade Lawyer and economist Shanker Singham, who along with right-wing libertarian extremists including the guileful Matthew Elliott, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Steve Baker MP and Peruvian born Daniel J. Hannan, is now very much controlling Britain’s Brexit and a staggering amount more.

Excellent article by @SteveBakerHW in @Telegraph referring to our GENN report @GEconomies by @CapacityNow , Daniel Gottschald and myself. https://t.co/COQT1Lzc2Y

— Shanker Singham (@ShankerASingham) September 26, 2020

Singham is the founder of the International Roundtable on Trade and Competition (1997), the Competitiveness and Enterprise Cities Project (“CECP”) (2013), and the lead author of the SRB economic model to measure Anti-Competitive Market Distortions. He has worked on a number of trade negotiations including the Free Trade Area of the Americas, US-Colombia, US-Peru, US-Panama, TTIP, and TPP. Source: The International Summit on Borders September.

The Sovereign Individual gives a worrying insight into Jacob Rees-Mogg’s enthusiasm for Brexit. This blind faith in disrupting democracy and demolishing regulations is shared by many people of influence across the world, including libertarian former Australian Prime Minister now working for Daniel Hannan’s IFT, Tony Abbott, who are helping make this book’s highly disturbing themes become reality.

Perhaps in the tweet below, Mr Rees-Mogg should have said: “Enterprise Cities shall with commerce shine”.

An excellent appointment to ensure that “cities shall with commerce shine.”https://t.co/ubK5aEI88w

— Jacob Rees-Mogg (@Jacob_Rees_Mogg) August 26, 2020

Mr Rees-Mogg, was clearly echoing the words of former US President Ronald Reagan.”Shining cities” have been a long-term theme with libertarians.

The Babson Simulator – A World Operating System

Our research into what is happening behind all the seemingly endless global political chaos led us to US Babson College, in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Babson Global Inc., the powerful commercial wing of Babson College, announced on September 26, 2013, that dual US-UK citizen, Shanker Singham, was to head a colossal project which makes the famous novel ‘Brave New World’ look boring in comparison.

To realise this project, Shanker Singham has created what he calls the “World Operating System”.

Babson Global’s plan is extraordinary, and it is real and it is happening right now. It will profoundly affect the existence of every one of us on the planet, and it will soon increase at a pace which will make it virtually impossible to properly scrutinise or to stop.

Using gargantuan amounts of data, a syndicate of wealthy and powerful libertarians partnered with Babson Global Inc, to create an economic simulator the likes of which the world has never seen before. This simulator has been designed, among other things, to model the impact of removing or modifying laws and regulations to gain massive investment and commercial growth. It will soon be tested in an unprecedented real world experiment without the informed consent of tens of thousands of people whose lives will be turned upside down.

Babson Global Inc’s Competitiveness and Enterprise Cities Project (CECP), headed by Shanker Singham, has created an end-to-end package of products that take an Enterprise City from concept and feasibility through to regulatory framework creation (starting with a blank slate), asset management and city operations. The Competitiveness and Enterprise Cities Project team calls it a World Operating System.

This world changing project is publicly available but Singham and Babson Global Inc have for some reason not yet decided to invite the full awareness and participation of all stakeholders. Could it be that they wish to avoid scrutiny? And who in various Governments is collaborating with them?

The diagram below clearly shows the major backing that the Enterprise Cities project has from some unexpected sources including the World Bank, MIT, Harvard University, CISCO, IBM, AECOM, the European Union, the United States Government, OPIC….and many more.

From an economic viewpoint, the key roles for each Enterprise City appear to be split as follows:

• Shanker Singham – Macroeconomics, investment and capital community relations, and regulatory/constitutional/data negotiations with host governments
• Erick Brimen – Enterprise City development and operations
• Dr Barbara Kolm – Enterprise City governance

Babson Global Inc is aggressively marketing to Governments all over the world, offering three levels of Enterprise City design (see slide presentation below):

• eCity-1 – reforms are made within the existing regulatory framework to increase ease of doing business within the City zone.
• eCity-2 – is a City that has a degree of regulatory/legal autonomy and can attract some types of foreign investment.
• eCity-3 – is effectively a free market micro-nation with near full autonomy from the host nation.

[gview file=”https://bakerstreetherald.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Cartagena-Conference-Presentation.pdf”]

Source: https://www.babson.edu/media/babson/site-assets/content-assets/images/alumni-amp-friends/Cartagena-Conference-Presentation.pdf

The staggering projected economic growth rates for eCity-3 type developments, where the administration are free to create their own regulatory framework without needing the authorisation of anyone other than the host Government, may come at an extraordinarily high human and environmental cost.

Those of you already familiar with multi-billionaire head of Koch Industries, Charles Koch, may be interested to know he gained his Doctorate of Law from Babson College and also holds bachelor degrees in General Engineering and a masters degree in Nuclear and Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). MIT, Babson College and the Koch funded Heritage Foundation all have seats on the Academic Advisory Board of CECP.

Inside the Koch Brothers’ Toxic Empire by Rolling Stone magazine details the need for concern, especially since people connected with Koch affiliated think tanks and other key libertarians are operating at every level of Enterprise City projects across the globe.

It should be noted that the world’s first Babson eCity-3 project on the island of Roatan in the Caribbean Sea off Honduras is home to the 2nd largest barrier reef on the planet after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

The challenges of implementing the Enterprise City plan is detailed in a CATO Institute article, The Future is Already Here, which outlines the issues associated with ‘land grabbing’, human rights and ecological protections, especially in democratic countries. As you will read in Case 3 – The Three Displacements of the Garifuna – Slavery, Exile and Neocolonialsm the first eCity-3 Enterprise City, a flag-ship development, has already resulted in assassinations, disappearances and intimidation of protestors who have had their land effectively expropriated for the ZEDE projects.

The irony of the focus on property rights within Enterprise Cities is not lost on the local inhabitants, who have next to no faith in the system of organic law being proposed by the CECP team. In Case 2 – The Private Governments of Dr Barbara Kolm, Shanker Singham & Erick Brimen, the highly questionable governance structures of the Honduras ZEDE’s are exposed. Democracy within the ZEDE has been thrown out the window for the duration of the initial 50-year lease, signed by Honduran Ministers with extremely close links to the narcotics trade.

The altruistic propaganda on Enterprise Cities is that they create employment and lift struggling populations out of poverty. However, in the early days of the Enterprise Cities project in 2013, Shanker Singham’s emphasis was firmly on changing the economic environment, “we want a regulatory system that maximises economic freedom and optimises wealth creation”.

As you read further, you will see that what the project members call ‘organic law’ is in effect a path to serfdom for all but the richest people who will flock to these low-transparency, low-regulation and low-tax zones. The ultimate plan is for a global network of ‘Enterprise Cities’ (or states) to compete against each other, forcing standards and protections ever lower in a race to the bottom in the name of wealth creation.

Bearing in mind the size and scope of what is happening, it is extraordinary that Shanker Singham, formerly of the UK’s offshore-sponsored Legatum Institute, and now back at the libertarian Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in Tufton Street in London, has such influence over both British and American politics, economics and law. Singham is deeply embedded in USA foreign policy and Babson Global Inc’s network of world finance giants. In addition, he is on many of the boards of development partners and commercial Universities providing theoretical and practical components for the vast project.

Singham is:

• On the Advisory Boards of Erick Brimen’s NeWay Capital and Próspera Honduras
• Chairman and founder Global Economic Neural Networks – GENN – a campaign to examine ways to expand and improve the links between global hubs
• CEO of Competere, is a trade law and economic policy consultancy
• Chairman of Global Vision, which incidentally has UK Attorney General Suella Braverman and other highly controversial Brexit supporting UK ministers in it’s ranks.
• An advisor to Technical University Munich’s project on Global Nodes and Trade Superhighways (read Freeport SEZ consultation paper)
• A member of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC along with Grover Norquist
• On the advisory Board of Wilton Park, an executive agency of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office providing a global forum for strategic discussion.
• and is a Bretton Woods Committee member. The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the United States, Canada, Western European countries, Australia, and Japan after the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement

What is perhaps even more extraordinary is that fact that no one in Britain, or indeed the rest of the world outside of Singham’s fellow libertarian extremists (which includes the current Vice President of the Austrian National Bank, Dr Barbara Kolm), seem to be aware of the monumental socio-economic changes that are being implemented right under their noses.

Those seeking to understand why the British legal system is being torn apart will now hopefully understand why, and also that is it just the first stage of disrupting democracy, trade and law worldwide.

Many that have followed the UK’s chaotic Brexit saga, will be interested to see the money and resources being invested in re-engineering the global economic model to deliver Shanker’s vision of a new World Operating System. This is Shanker’s New Way.

The Brexit Connection – the UK Tabula Rasa

On the 8th of September 2020, the UK Government made a shocking announcement that in order to deliver their Brexit vision, they would be willing to break the Good Friday Agreement (GFA)., which successfully brought peace to Norhern Ireland after decades of violent conflict. The UK’s top legal civil servant, Jonathan Jones, resigned in protest against this decision, and previous UK Attorney General, Dominic Grieve voiced his outrage and dismay.

Dominic Grieve – "It's a very grim day for the UK & it's belief in freedom & parliamentary democracy & the rule of law… I could almost weep" – "I haven't the slightest idea what Suella Braverman(Attorney General) is doing as she should be upholding the rule of law." pic.twitter.com/FKWvhpv1Za

— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) September 9, 2020

This statement above by former UK Attorney General is particularly noteworthy as current UK Attorney General, Suella Braverman, works for Shanker Singham as a contributor to the Brexit supporting organisation Global Vision, which is directly connected to many of the complex and shady right-wing think tanks in London’s Tufton Street, and many of the more controversial ultra-right-wing lobbyists and climate change deniers in British politics.

In 2018 at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington DC, Shanker Singham (representing the IEA’s  International Trade and Competition Unit) shared a platform with UK MP’s David Davis and Global Vision UK’s Owen Paterson to discuss ‘What Might Brexit Look Like’ and opportunities for market deregulation. Davis stated, ‘in the battle for the heart of the world’s operating system – the global regulatory system if you will, the UK has become the centre of the battlefield….‘. Compared to Babson Global Inc’s Enterprise Cities, the rhetoric for the post-Brexit UK is almost identical to the Babson ‘World Operating System’ pitch, strongly suggesting they are working from the same strategy.

The UK’s Brexit is very much integral to the Babson plan.

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak is no stranger to Enterprise Cities (in this instance called a Special Economic Zone (SEZ). His multi-billionaire father-in-law, NR Narayana Murthy, executive chairman of Infosys, laid the first brick of his own Special Economic Zone, in India in 2014. This has particular resonance as Rishi Sunak released his UK Government report on low-tax SEZ Freeports in 2016, which replicates part of the content he had previously prepared for the far-right think tank Centre for Policy Studies. The report attracted criticism for having lax regulatory standards.

The first implementation of a Babson Global Inc’s Enterprise City recently commenced with the Honduras ZEDE Experiment. Hundreds of Enterprise Cities (called a range of names – ZEDE’s SEZ’s, Smart Cities, Charter Cities etc) are already in advanced planning stages right across the globe including six more ZEDEs planned in Honduras and other countries including El Salvador, Panama, Brazil, Ireland, Morocco, Saudi Arabia….and also in wealthy Australia where the concept of using these special economic zones to lift the population out of poverty should be viewed with skepticism.

Like the Royal Chartered Companies and Proprietary Charter Colonies in times of Empire, Enterprise Cities are really Chartered States that are designed to be replicated on a global scale. Recently the Centre for Policy Studies’ CapX posted a very favourable article on Charter Cities, Let’s build Hong Kong 2.0 here in the UK, with benefits and locations sounding very like the Freeports being pitched by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

A report for a ZEDE in New South Wales, Australia is being developed by Emilie Dye. Ms Dye is a regular contributor to the UK’s ultra-right-wing Telegraph (commonly known as the ‘Torygraph’ due to its allegiance with the UK Conservative Party) and Spectator publications. Emily is also Policy Director at the Australian Taxpayers Association and Executive Director of the HR Nicholls Society, a think tank aimed at deregulation of industrial relations. It is worth noting that this report for the first ZEDE project in Australia, being touted as a COVID ‘Special Recovery Zone’, is not being created at the request of Eurobodalla Council. The Councillor proposing the report, and requesting permission to share data, is none other than the ‘mother of libertarianism in Australia’, Maureen Nathan, who is credited with inspiring John Singleton to create Australia’s first libertarian political party, the Progress Party.

Also worthy of note is the fact that two prominent Australian barristers have joined the ‘independent’ Próspera Arbitration Center (PAC) in Honduras – the arbitration-based legal framework that will operate in the ZEDE micro-nations. Martin Klapper, former President of Australia’s Resources and Energy Law Association (AMPLA), chair of the Queensland Law Society Mining and Resources Committee, and a member for the Queensland advisory board for AMEC (Association for Mining Exploration Companies) is also an ambassador for ZEDE investor Titus Gebel’s Free Market Cities.

Brexit and ZEDE’s

You are no doubt wondering how Britain’s Brexit could possibly be linked to the ZEDE Honduras project and the crucial US/UK Trade negotiations. As you read on, please bear in mind that Freeports are potentially stepping stones to ZEDE’s, which would require large areas of unoccupied land and border control zones like those currently being planned in the British county of Kent.

Shanker Singham’s SUBMISSION TO FREEPORT CONSULTATION was submitted in May 2020, and should leave readers in no doubt that this is a Babson Global Inc Enterprise City initiative – take close note of the names and organisations of collaborators. Every company and interested person needs to read this entire report.

Which is just as well because Singham, now a government adviser on DIT's trade and agriculture commission, won't tell us who is clients are.

— Marcus Leroux (@marcusleroux) September 17, 2020

In regard to the Irish border, the ALTERNATIVE ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE IRISH BORDER REPORT & PROTOCOLS, 18th July 2019, shows that Babson Global Inc and Shanker Singham are orchestrating events. The full PDF can be viewed here, however the appendices make for interesting reading. Babson Global Inc is represented by Dr Srinivasa Rangan (on the Academic Advisory Board of Singham’s Enterprise Cities project (see last slide of presentation) and r. Robert MacLean leads International Trade team in Europe for Squires Patton Boggs. Shanker Singham worked for Squire Patton Boggs (1995-2013) as a lawyer and lobbyist in Washington.

Up to ten Freeports are being planned for the UK under the leadership of Shanker Singham/Babson Global Inc and global think tanks. In particular, the libertarians and lobbyists at 55 Tufton Street are critical in forming and communicating the perceived benefits of a free market USA-UK Trade Agreement.

The CATO Institute, co-founded by Charles Koch, has produced a report, as illustrated by the CATO Institute’s report, ‘The Ideal US-UK Free Trade Agreement‘. The authors include Daniel J. Hannan, who together with Matthew Elliott and Douglas Carswell was instrumental as far back as 2012 in instigating Brexit. Hannan is a leading light in Charles Koch’s Atlas Network, and also is :

• director of the Initiative for Free Trade
• founded the organisation that became Brexit’s Vote Leave
• a director of the Cobden Centre, with Toby Baxendale, Steve Baker and Douglas Carswell – an organisation inspired by the work of Austrian economist FA v. Hayek.
• wrote the book ‘Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World’ – a sign of his questionable obsession with the colonialist British Empire.
• a former president of the Oxford University Conservative Association
• wrote ‘The New Road to Serfdom’

In World War II, American soldiers went overseas to rescue England from the Nazi menace. Now, with America threatened from within by the specter of social democracy, British politician Daniel Hannan returns the favor. The New Road to Serfdom is a must-read rallying cry for Tea Party activists, fans of Mark Levin’s Tyranny and Liberty, and anyone who has seen Hannan’s hard-hitting interviews with Hannity & Colmes, Neil Cavuto, and Glenn Beck. A former president of the Oxford Conservative Association, and a member of the EU Parliament, Hannan has the insight and experience to help America recapture its distinctive ideals and avoid turning into a socialist state.

From what we have described above, we think you will agree that Shanker Singham’s ‘Babson World Operating System’ is something the public all over the world should be made deeply aware of.

NEXT…

Fear and Loathing in Honduras

The indigenous people of Roatan are rightly outraged. The following documentary by respected film-maker and journalist, Gerry Hadden, investigated the situation in Honduras in 2015 when the eviction process had begun to prepare for the Libertarian syndicate’s takeover.

Imagine

…you live in the most dangerous country in the world that is not in a war zone. You fear your government, and the ZEDE syndicate taking over your homeland as much as you fear the narcotics gangs.

…your homeland will be used as a living laboratory for a global economic experiment where laws and regulations are effectively abandoned in order to provide unprecedent return on investment for foreign interests, led by the self-styled ‘King of Roatan’, uber-libertarian Titus Gebel.

…Instead of a democratically elected Government you now live under the rule of a technical secretary who is in effect a colonial private company governor.

…worse, you discover the ZEDE syndicate implementing this dystopian corpse of colonialism is being directed by Shanker Singham at Babson Global Inc. He is doing this with the full support of US Agencies, mega-rich global investors, members of European royalty, and members of a network of 450+ think tanks associated with the global libertarian Atlas Network (referred to in this piece: by Greenpeace as ‘The Kochtopus‘).

…if these libertarian neocolonial conquistadors sole aim is to eventually force all of you out of their stolen paradise, and eventually expand, swallow and exploit the most precious parts of your country and its resources.

…if a member of the CAMP best practices committee, former CIA economist, and organiser of the annual libertarian Freedom Fest in Las Vegas – Mark Skousen – had taken a group of wealthy investors on their 2019 Global Summit Cruise to showcase your island which they plan to exploit.

…if unproven experimental right-wing think tank theory is implemented without consent or any trace of ethical, social or environmental safeguarding or public representation?

You are a scammer @erickbrimen in that MASTER PLAN there are lands of mine and my neighbors that no one has sold you. @CNN @efacusse @ofraneh @UnivisionDC @usembassyhn pic.twitter.com/5LHn4lz4Lj

— Nancy Maria (@NancyMa45436177) September 21, 2020

ZEDEs: Neocolonialism and land grabbing

This harrowing short film details the threats the Garifuna and local residents of Roatán face as they fight to retain their land and sovereignty:

Honduras is sadly no stranger to discrimination, corruption, murders and disappearances under successive narco-governments going back decades. But even Hondurans were shocked at the assassination on March 3rd 2016 of one of the most popular campaigners for the rights of the indigenous peoples – Berta Cáceres’s name was on Honduran military hitlist, says former soldier.

Berta’s tragic murder is one of hundreds that occur every year which remain largely unreported in the West, as are targeted abductions like the the case of the five Garifuna land defenders below.

It’s been two months since Garifuna land defenders went missing in Honduras. https://t.co/gQ5k9EBPQh

— Daniel Alvarenga (@puchicadanny) September 22, 2020

Roatan ZEDE, Honduras: The Conquest of Paradise

Columbus (representing the House of Habsburg and the Holy Roman Emperor) first made landfall in Central America in 1502. First arriving at the islands in the Bay of Fonseca, where Roatan is located 40 miles off the coast, and then moving to the mainland which he named ‘Honduras’. At 88km long, and just 7km wide, Roatan is currently an unspoilt treasure.

With a population of just 9 million, Honduras boasts the highest number of murders per capita for a country not at war. Not surprisingly, Honduras also has the highest number of private security staff, with estimates that private security outnumbers the police force by at least 10:1. Corruption, the narcotics trade and gang-warfare have brought the economy to its knees and wreak havoc on the daily existence of everyday Hondurans. Adding to the stress, a crippling two-thirds of the population live below the poverty line. Poverty and crime, coupled with low literacy rates, are defining factors in limiting economic growth.

Economics and security are no longer problems that the Honduran Government think they can resolve without international support and a clean-slate strategy. The strategy they have selected is to implement a series of ZEDEs with the hope that adjoining properties will over time become part of an expanding zone of peace, order and prosperity.

Welcome to Roatan ZEDE Special Jurisdiction, where for a small annual fee, and by signing a contract of co-existence (see below), the global rich can obtain residency and benefit from a deregulated, low-tax Libertarian lifestyle, with exotic dwellings designed by Patrik Schumacher of Zaha Hadid, who describes architecture as a means of ‘social control’.

In this new ZEDE experiment the indigenous people on Roatan how have to re-apply and pay to live on the their own land. These applications have to be approved at the discretion of the ZEDE syndicate.

Under the current rules, a public referendum is required in areas of high-density population before a Charter can be approved for a new ZEDE. This rule does not apply to areas of low-density population like Roatan, which is often referred to as ‘unoccupied’ by parties involved in developing the ZEDE.

Despite having the second largest coral reef in the world after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, tourism grows slowly on the island of Roatan. Abundant mangrove forests, which protect the coastline from storm surges, provide the perfect habitat for mosquitos (which carry Dengue fever and malaria) and a raft of other biting insects which may deter many visitors. Drug traffickers, such as the now incarcerated Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, regularly use these islands informal cargo ports and hideaways.

The podcast below between two of the most prominent libertarians is referring to the management of the Roatan ZEDE project, raises questions about the ethical standpoint of key influencers. Not least as Patri Friedman (grandson of economist Milton Friedman) is on the advisory board of ULEX who are creating the radically new legal framework. Patri, is also the founder of Pronomos Venture Capital, which boasts Peter Thiel (of Palantir/Facebook/PayPal) as an investor.

The following Twitter exchanges between the campaign organisation for the rights of the Garifuna (Ofraneh) and Patri and his Pronomos Capital company, raises further questions about Patri’s and Pronomos’ motives.

Hey, I'm a fan of your work and your community. Would love to talk sometime about how ZEDEs can help the Garifuna.

That article is from 2014, and at this point it seems that the ZEDE program is well-established.

— Patri Friedman 🌆🚀 (@patrissimo) May 12, 2020

You have a very peculiar partners, hopefully you are not as violenthttps://t.co/yAqzfpWfB9

— ofraneh (@ofraneh) May 22, 2020

Hayek and Displaced People

When it comes to working-class people F.A. Hayek voiced little regard for social concerns and human rights. This elitist thinking is as much a dominant theme in the economics and philosophy of modern-day libertarians. Hayek’s support of General Pinochet’s military dictatorship in Chile is well documented for example, in 1944 Hayek proposed a form of ‘class-cleansing’ in Gibraltar. Hayek had recommended using market forces as the vehicle for displacing the working-class people of Gibraltar to Spain, at which was under the military dictatorship of General Franco and would result in workers having to commute across the border every day. However, this was rejected by the British Government at that time.

Lands to Die For?

We have described above how the Garifuna are being treated, but to fully appreciate how bad this really is, we need to understand the historical context.

Having suffered at the hands of empire once, is it possible that the Garifuna have a binary option to be disenfranchised and pay each year for temporary residency in their own lands or choose self-exile by voting with their feet?

The voice of the Garifuna is barely being heard outside of their native land. The inhumanity and injustice they are being subjected by the Libertarian ZEDE Syndicate, under the direction the Vice President of the Austrian National Bank Dr Barbara Kolm, is not being adressed.

Until this changes the Syndicate will continue to exploit and oppress others, not just in Honduras, but also in Great Britain where the legal system, and citizens’ rights are now being torn apart , and also in all future ZEDE regions.

We at Baker Street Herald want to change this so that the International Community can support the Garifuna and all victims of the land grabbing libertarian syndicate.

You can help starting with sharing this website with as many people as possible, and by the raising concerns of the Garifuna and Ofraneh so that their human rights are fully recognised and protected.

Support Ofraneh – Sign the Petition
Click here to sign petition on Change.org

English Translation:

NO! TO THE ZEDE-MODEL CITY IN THE BAHIA ISLANDS

Non compliance with ILO Convention 169, denying us our right as an English-speaking island people to prior, free and informed consultation, it is questionable, worrying  and disappointing as well as our right to have an opinion about our future, is vetoed.

Within the ZEDE a Honduran has to pay $236 a year for residency. Each resident must purchase personal liability, medical insurance and pay 1% tax on a rapidly increasing land value. For the Garifuna, some of the most impoverished people in Central America who are mostly subsistence farmers or fishermen, the knowledge that a CATO Institute apparatchik has been appointed as the Eviction Arbiter for Próspera Arbitration Center gives no comfort. The scene is set for market forces to be used for the “Third Displacement of the Garifuna”.

For the latest updates on Twitter please follow @ofraneh

We need your help, signing and sharing this petition to achieve the repeal of the ZEDE Law, since we don’t aspire to become theoretical experiences of supposed libertarian investors.  As a democratic established country we will continue to live in democracy as a form of government, where the best decisions will prevail. Especially in one of the areas of greatest national wealth such as the North Coast and therefore other areas of the country that are in the sights to become ZEDE or model cities.

Petición promovida por Mesa para la Defensa del Territorio de Islas de la Bahia
No a la intervención de los libertarios neo rreaccionarios y sus intentos neocoloniales.
NO! A LAS ZEDE-CIUDAD MODELO EN ISLAS DE LA BAHIA – ¡Firma la petición! https://t.co/oW4Ai1YEpm

— ofraneh (@ofraneh) August 31, 2020

Translation:
@ofraneh Petition filed by Mesa for the Defense of the Territory of the Bay Islands No to the intervention of neo-reactionary libertarians and their neo-colonial attempts. NO! TO THE ZEDE-MODEL CITY IN THE BAHIA ISLANDS – Sign the petition!

The National Congress approved the ZEDE Law, Legislative Decree 236, 24th January 2013, taking refuge under this Organic law PROSPERA ZEDE (HONDURAS PROSPERA LLC, Roatan-Prospera).  The application of this law in our island territory will have cultural, social, environmental, economical and political  negative impacts.  The figure of land expropriation explained in detail in articles 25, 26 and 28 under the supposed figure of public use and at fair value to expand the ZEDE territory, for it’s eventual delivery to  foreign investors, is unacceptable. Becoming  one of the most surrendering Decrees in the history of our country to foreign capital, violating our constitutional law (especially article 107), international agreements and others.  

Entrega de territorio insular a través de ciudades modelo en Roatán menoscaba el concepto de soberanía westfaliana, violando el Tratado entre Honduras e Inglaterra conocido como Wyke Cruz de 1864, con el cual Inglaterra reconoció las Islas dela Bahía como territorio Hondureño pic.twitter.com/CII9b1lLYl

— ofraneh (@ofraneh) September 20, 2020

This is the land that was legally handed over to the Garifuna in 1864 by the British Empire.

This is the first part of a homeland that is being systematically stolen by libertarian neo-colonialists in order to launch an inhumane global experiment starting with a ‘clean slate’.

This has been enabled by the same right wing extremists that have also stolen the European citizenship of 72 million people through the illegality of Brexit.

This is not acceptable

Stop the Tabula Rasa

Stop the ZEDE Syndicate

Stop Brexit