Klub Bilderberg

Bilderberg - The News, the Portuguese press and the wall of silence

Following five weeks of incessant pressure from this newspaper, some of our colleagues in the Portuguese media put pen to paper last week and ran reports of differing prominence on the arrival of what we termed 'the world's most secret society' for their meeting in Sintra.

Even so, it was only four nationals that ran the story, Jornal de Noticias, Público, O Independente and 24 horas, two of them acknowledging The News reports. Conspicuous by its absence is the prestigious Expresso, owned by Francisco Pinto Balsemão, who is also a leading member of the Bilderbergs for Portugal. Coincidence? As far as we can establish, SIC TV, also part of the Balsemão empire also gave the story a miss. Our reporters at Sintra met with reporters from Visão, again part of the Balsemão empire, and will wait with eager anticipation to see if this respected investigative magazine will run the story.

Yet again, the trend over the years in the media, particularly media owned by Bilderberg members, is to remain tight lipped on the subject of the Bilderberg meetings. This in itself does not mean that the activities of this organisation are sinister, but it surely adds fuel to the fire for the conspiracy theorists.

Writing in Jornal de Notícias, Antonio Garcia acknowledged that The News had scooped the world's press by publishing the details of the meeting on May 1st. Unlike other commentaries, he tackled the issue of our comments regarding the 'wall of silence' that continued in the Portuguese media until only days before the meeting. Garcia wrote that The News had received enormous feedback via the internet, stating that many of the sites are linked with the far right and conspiracy sites, who might be kindly described as a bit 'extreme'. Dig a little deeper however, and you find many other sites, many of them credible organisations, who are more balanced in their information.

There is clearly a genuine concern about the activities of this group, and it must be said that they seem to be their own worst enemies. Since The News started reporting on the Bilderbergs in May, we have had over 1,1 million hits on our site, which indicates the level of world wide interest.

If, as they say, The Bilderbergs are simply an influential group discussing world affairs, why the need for such secrecy?

Do these people simply meet for a few days, discuss global matters, and then shred the results on the way out of the conference room, and forget about the whole weekend? I think not. If they are discussing world affairs, they will then feel the need to act on their findings. Otherwise, the whole meeting would have been a complete waste of time, energy and money. According to 24 Horas, amongst other things the Bilderbergers brought over 200 of their own armed guards to keep their meeting secret.

Having established that this group will feel the need to act on their findings, or at least to seek to influence those elected to govern, you have to ask how much influence they are able, should they wish, to exert on the politicians.

It is no secret that most political parties are supported to a greater or lesser extent by big business. Without their donations, financial influence and media clout, they would find it more difficult to gain, or stay in, power. Our readers may recall a recent article in The News by Gwynne Dyer 'Trust me, I'm a Genetic Engineer' in which he outlined how Monsanto wielded such influence over the US government over GM foods, even getting them to block attempts by the EU to label GM products. It went as far as getting Clinton to threaten a trade war if the EU persisted in this plan. Coincidentally, Monsanto CEO Bob Shapiro became one of the biggest contributors of 'soft money' to Clinton's 1996 election campaign, and then, guess what, became a special trade advisor to the President.

According to the only Bildergberg press release, sent to The News, one of the items on the agenda was Genetics, and who was at the meeting last weekend? Monsanto CEO Bob Shapiro.

This is but one example of the close links between big business and politics. There are so many that there can be little or no doubt how closely the two work together in many countries.

The Bilderberg group comprises the very top echelon of the worlds business, media and finance groups.

The others who attend could well be seen as representing politicians who would rather not be seen at the meetings. Why was Peter Mandleson there last weekend?

I for one would be perfectly happy to consider that these top business and financial people, with years of experience and success behind them, may have some excellent ideas and suggestions for world affairs. If they published even an outline of their findings, we might well feel moved to support their views. Our confidence in politicians varies, but there are few of us who don't think they could learn a thing or two from top commercial leaders.

The problem with the Bilderbergs remains their uncanny need for total secrecy in what they do and decide. If they feel unhappy about the attention they get from the conspiracy theorists and the far right, they have only themselves to blame.

As far as the media is concerned, we all have a responsibility to ensure that the public knows what politicians, financial power brokers and big business, amongst others, would like to keep secret. It is not usually in the public interest that the elected, let alone the unelected, can act in secret. They may claim they do it in our best interests, that's what Nixon would have said about Watergate; Clinton about his 'affairs'; the British Government about the Iraqi super gun; Oliver North on Iran Contra, all brought to the public attention by the media.

What is stranger than fiction is that it should fall to a relatively unknown newspaper like The News, to do what our larger and more influential colleagues failed to do. That in itself is even more suspicious.

Paul Luckman