Portugal's National Weekend Newspaper in English

MAIN - 15/06/2002

World power brokers meet in secret - again

In June 1999 THE NEWS gave extensive and exclusive coverage to the Bilderbergs' annual meeting held in Lisbon. THE NEWS called, without success, for the agenda of the three day secret meeting, between the world's top financiers, industrialists and politicians, to be made public. Three years on and the Bilderbergs have met yet again - this time at the Westfields Marriott Hotel in the town of Chantilly, Virginia, USA, from May 31st to June 3rd.

With the same high level of security and secrecy as in Lisbon, the world's power brokers were put under the spotlight by several American civil rights organisations. Among them the Liberty Lobby group and journalist, Jim Tucker of the American Free Press Association. During the past twelve years Tucker has been fed inside information on Bilderberg meetings by a most reliable source.

A spokesman for Liberty Lobby echoed the strains of THE NEWS in 1999 asking why it was that the future of the world was being orchestrated behind closed doors by a handful of bankers and their political lackeys.

Portugal's political and financial institutions have been well represented at Bilderberg meetings. President Jorge Sampaio, Prime Minister Durão Barroso and some of his predecessors (António Guterres and Francisco Pinto Balsemão) and ex-cabinet ministers João Cravinho and Eduardo Grilo, have been regular attenders - as have members of the ruling PSD Party and Ricardo Salgado, President of Espírito Santo Bank, and Artur Silva, President of BPI Bank.

Delegates have also included the presidents of some of the country's major commercial organisations such as Portugal Telecom, IPI Holding and Grupo José de Mello. Nicolau Santos, Editor-in-Chief of the Expresso newspaper, has fronted for the news media.

Jim Tucker told THE NEWS that in all his experience of covering Bilderberg meetings, including Lisbon, he had never seen such stringent security. He said: "The FBI secret service and White House security staff are crawling all over the place - obviously at the American taxpayers' expense. They all have coded magnetic identification symbols on their lapels. The hotel is completely cordoned off and its staff under strict orders not to speak to anyone about the event."

Among those attending were David Rockefeller, head of the global banking dynasty, members of the Rothschild family and Henry Kissinger. Lesser mortals such as Lord Robertson, Secretary General of NATO, Donald Rumsfield, US Secretary of State for Defence, and TV mogul, Ted Turner, were also present.

According to Jim Tucker's informant, the topics under discussion ranged from Iraq through to the euro zone and global taxation. President Bush's recent tariff increases on steel imports into the USA were also questioned by some of those European MP's among the 120 delegates present.

Speakers from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank informed their audience that once the enlargement of the European Union had been completed, and the Euro currency accepted by all member states, the Euro will be pegged to the Dollar. This would create a de facto world currency paving the way for a global taxation policy. Portugal, among others, was warned that it must cut back on public spending to remain within its agreed budget deficit.

The USA Deputy Secretary of State for Defence, Kenneth Dam, stated that the sanctions against Iraq, which according to aid agencies are costing the lives of 6000 children every month, will not be lifted. He anticipated that the impending war against Saddam Hussein would now begin in Autumn 2003.

It was in 1954 that the international bankers convened their first formal assembly of the world's top industrialists and political leaders at the Hotel Bilderberg in Holland. Since then all of the major news agencies including Reuters, News International and The Washington Post, have maintained a veil of secrecy around the names of the participants and the agendas up for discussion.

The list of American and British politicians who have attended previous Bilderberg meetings reads like a who's who. Before, during, and after, their rise to high office Presidents Clinton, Bush, Ford, Eisenhower, and Prime Ministers, Heath, Callaghan and Blair, are but a few of the Western leaders who have taken part in these clandestine get-togethers. More recently Eastern European politicians and those from Russia have graced the assembly halls of the Bilderberg Group.