A Call to the People of the World to Support Iceland Against the Financial Blackmail of the British and Dutch Governments and the IMF

Angry Iceland Defies the World

by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard January 8, 2010

Iceland's president has blocked a Bill to pay Britain and Holland up to £3.4bn for Icesave depositors, acknowledging that popular feeling in the island nation is too strong to proceed without a referendum.

The move reopens a bitter dispute and greatly complicates Iceland's loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund. It has already led to a fresh downgrade to BB+ by Fitch Ratings, which called the decision "a significant setback to Iceland's efforts to restore normal financial relations with the rest of the world."

The Icesave law was passed by Iceland's parliament in a knife-edge vote late last year, but a petition by the InDefense movement has changed the political landscape. The lobby collected 56,000 signatures – a quarter of voters.

President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson said the "overwhelming majority" wanted a direct say over the matter, and that no settlement would hold without their assent.

"It is the cornerstone of the constitutional structure of the Republic of Iceland that the people are the supreme judge of the validity of the law," he said. "At this crucial juncture it is also important to emphasise that the recovery of the Icelandic economy is a matter of vital urgency".

If voters say "No" when the referendum takes place in a couple of months, the accord thrashed out with London and the Hague during months of wrangling will no longer have any credibility, whatever the legal niceties.

The reality is that Icelanders have erupted in collective rage at what they believe to be gross injustice and "gunboat diplomacy" by Downing Street. What rankles is Britain's use of anti-terrorism law to freeze Iceland's assets. The Icelandic central bank was listed besides al-Qaeda as a terrorist body – unprecedented treatment for a NATO ally. Holland was careful not to go so far.

"Importers couldn't get trade finance for food. We feel deeply wronged," said Johannes Skulason from InDefence. Shelves were bare for weeks in Icelandic shops as the banking system disintegrated.

Einars Már Gudmundsson, a novelist, said most citizens were unaware that Iceland's three leading banks –Landsbanki, Glitnir and Kaupthing – were operating as global hedge funds with exposure of 11 times Iceland's GDP.

"I had never heard of Icesave till this happened," said Mr Gudmundsson. "We were told that what these banks did abroad was nothing to do with us but when it all went wrong the responsibility fell back on us. Profits were privatised, but losses were nationalised."

He added: "We're told if we reject the terms, we will be the Cuba of the North. But if we accept, we'll be the Haiti of the North."

Both Britain and Holland expect Iceland to stick to its agreement, but the legal claims are far from watertight. Iceland accepted "political responsibility" for the 320,000 British and Dutch deposits in exchange for lenient terms (arguably denied) in November 2008, but never accepted the legal claim.

The UK has refunded private savers up to £50,000, but councils such as Kent are relying on the deal to recoup their money. They have retrieved £100m of the £900m put in Icelandic accounts.

Iceland's Left-wing coalition – which unseated free marketeers in February's "Saucepan Revolution" – has backed the Icesave terms, deeming it is the only way for Iceland to move beyond the disastrous episode. The petitioners said they accept that Iceland's people should foot part of the bill, but object to the "Versailles" terms: a loan at 5.55pc interest, to be repaid within 15 years. The central banks said this will increase Iceland's public debt by 20pc of GDP.

A report by Sweden's Riksbank said Britain and Europe share blame for the fiasco. It said "absurd" EU rules – which cover Iceland indirectly – told states to set up a "guarantee scheme" for banks, but never said taxpayers were liable for losses.

The reports added that the UK "hardly bothered" to inform savers that the schemes were ill-funded. "The conclusion is clear: the EU host countries (UK and Holland) are also to blame for Iceland's disaster. It would be reasonable that they carry some of the burden. It takes two to tango," it said.

The UK Financial Services Authority said it was unable to stop Icelandic banks raising deposits in the UK under the EU's "passport" system, even when they began milking UK customers to cover losses at home.

Whatever the rights and wrongs, Iceland was by then already being crushed by a financial tsunami. Britain's use of anti-terror laws at that moment will not sit pretty in diplomatic history. [link to www.globalresearch.ca]

from the

Pretty soon USA will be in same boat as Iceland.

Go Iceland! You guys rock!

They are better off than the USA if they fight this. They have hydropower. Heating is all geothermal. Geothermal can heat their greenhouses to grow their own food. Plus they can always fish as they always have.

Good luck to them all.


Population of Iceland.
The population of Iceland was 317593 on 1 December 2009.
[link to www.statice.is]



BRAVE ICELAND!

by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

January 7, 2010

It goes virtually without saying, that I am proud of Iceland and its President.

Iceland President Stands by His People

January 8, 2010 (LPAC)-- Despite the hostility of the governments of Great Britain and the Netherlands, which have threatened to kick Iceland out of the "international community," Iceland President Olaf Ragnar Grimsson is standing by his decision, and defending, in interviews and statements, the right of his people to national sovereignty. In the Financial Times today, he is quoted as saying, "The Icelandic constitution is based on the fundamental principle that the people have sovereignty. It is the responsibility of the President to make sure that the will of the people will prevail."

He then called on the peoples of Britain and Netherlands ("and their political leaders") to stand "with the longstanding democratic traditions of Britain and the Netherlands, acknowledging that a referendum is a democratic way of making a decision,"

Grimsson was also interviewed in Swedish radio.

In an interview with BBC on Wednesday evening, Grimsson was verbally assaulted by the host, who looked like an attorney for Shylock and treated the President of a state like a felon. "Don't trust an Icelander," "Aren't international agreements more important than a President's will?" and "Are you happy with these results?" (downrating, loss of international credit, etc.) were the interviewer's questions and remarks. Grimsson taught the arrogant fellow a lesson, telling him, "I understand that Britain is not familiar with systems where the people is called to express its will " and that in Iceland, "not the parliament, but the nation is sovereign."

In contrast to the oligarchy, the British people continue to express their sympathy for Icelanders, at least judging from readers' comments continuing to flow in to major dailies (see below). It is probably due to this that a faction of the British establishment, represented by the Financial Times, has taken a distance from the government and openly rejected the "hard-line" approach towards Iceland. Significantly, an FT editorial today is entitled "Do Not Put Iceland in a Debtors' Prison." The FT also chose to publish a letter by Advocacy International, saying that it is "unjust" to make Iceland take sole responsibility for the "reckless behavior of private bankers and risk-takers."

The FT ran as a blowup quote, the view of its chief financial commentator, Martin Wolf: "This is not about cutting a running deficit, which is, indeed, unavoidable. It is about forcing innocent people to assume gigantic liabilities for which they have no legal or moral responsibility. How would U.K. citizens feel if they were forced to assume a debt of ￡400 billion because of HSBC's failure to meet deposit insurance liabilities in Asia? Let the U.K. take the bank's assets and leave it at that."

Also, Michael Hudson from the University of Missouri writes that "Iceland has the right to refuse debt servitude." Hudson argues that Iceland could pay foreign debt only out of balance-of-payments receipts, i.e. through export revenues. But already fish export revenues have been entirely earmarked to service existing debt; the same goes for aluminum exports and its geothermal and hydroelectric resources. Add to this the fact that most families have mortgages which, if the currency is depreciated, can only get worse, and you have the picture: It is impossible for Iceland to pay the debt. "A pragmatic economic principle is at work in such conditions. Debts that cannot be paid, will not." If we have learned the lessons of the collapse of living standards in post-Soviet Russia, he ends by asking, "by how many years must Icelandic lifespans shorten?"

According to a European banking source, the British and the Dutch are going to dump the burden on Scandinavian countries. On their side, the resistance organization in Iceland is calling on the Scandinavian governments to support them against the London and The Hague.
[link to www.larouchepac.com]

I hope Iceland tells the British to get fucked!



Iceland President Warns British Leaders Who Behave in a "Versailles Mode"



January 9, 2010 (LPAC)—Iceland President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson warned British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling to be careful about the Iceland-bashing. "It is very important for Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown to realize that a few minutes after they speak to their audience in Britain, everything they say is being talked about in Icelandic fishing plants, and every village, and every office. We live in a global village where leaders in Britain can have a negative or positive impact on a referendum in Iceland," Grimsson told Britain's "Today" program. "If they want a constructive outcome of this dispute, they should be aware every sentence they say will have repercussions on the debate in Iceland."

Nothing has changed at Downing Street since the Versailles Congress 1918: the British government is behaving towards Iceland as it did with German reparations after World War I. The Financial Service Secretary to the U.K. Treasury, Paul Myners, has written a letter to the Financial Times making the point that it is "Important that this international agreement is honored." Apparently annoyed by the Financial Times opposition to the gunboat methods of the British government, Myners says: "It is very important that Iceland honors its international obligations and repays money provided by the U.K. to protect Icesave depositors." Myners argues sophistically that the repayment agreement allows Iceland to honor the debt without hampering its economic recovery, but does not move one inch away from his position. According to Myners, for Iceland to dedicate 4% of its GDP just to repay Icesave's speculative losses is fair! And this, at the same time that Iceland is promised EU membership, which means submitting to a 3% cap on deficit!

Myners' rantings are published under a letter pushing the opposite view, written by a Cambridge Fellow named Michael Waibel, who warns Britain that under EU laws, Britain has "no clear legal obligation to pay up." That in the best case, England has only 60% chance of winning its case. And even then, one should remember "the advice given by Elihu Root, a former U.S. Secretary of State and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, to James Brown Scott, his legal adviser: 'We must always be careful, and especially so in our relations with the smaller state, that we never propose a settlement which we would not be willing to accept if the situation were reversed.'"

Iceland's Economy Minister Gylfi Magnusson confirmed in Dagens Nyheter today that the government will probably resign if the referendum turns down their Icesave bill.
[link to www.larouchepac.com]

A republic where the will of the people comes first? Wow. USA is a republic, but we'll never see Congress doing the will of the people.

The obvious question is. What wankers from the UK and the Netherlands would base such an income stream on the economy and industry pertaining to a population of people, numbering 300,000+ such as Iceland.

Unreleased icesave commercial

[link to www.youtube.com]

The sole responsibility lies with the financial regulators of both the UK and Holland. Both regulated the Icleandics Banks operations and supposedly made sure that their obligations were covered.

A private business, as these banks were are not the responsibility of citizens, if that was the case every USA geezer would be shelling out thousands of dollars to pay off world com, enrom , gm etc.

First target is the owners and the billions in assets that they "own"

People of Iceland tell those asseholes to fuck themselves

btw

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And our portion will be much larger per person.

Obama would have the remaining hairs on his head, go grey when faced with a prospect of having to state such a principle.

Saint Birgitta is trying to save her beloved country from the evil grasp of the IMF and political whores like Gordon Brown. Who does this tool serve?

Gordon Brown (the evil tool) called Iceland a terrorist state, why?

They say Gordon Brown isn't a Jew, lol, click on this link for image of GB wearing a yarmulke:

[link to www.davidicke.com]

The international banksters are evil parasites interested in total supremacy and debt enslavement. No one should pay back debt money that was created out of thin air. Central banking is a criminal fraud, a scam of a Jewish criminal syndicate who are destroying the civilized world with their debt. Most people don't understand that this enslavement of the goy is in their holy books like the Talmud and the Protocols.

Every one denies the common denominator behind the control grid, that the leaders of western nations like Sarkozy of France ( [link to www.abbc.net] Obama admin is Jewish (ie. Summers, Geitner, Rahm Emmanuel)are Jews or under the control of Jews. That's the big secret, the elephant in the living room that no one dares discuss.

I'm predicting that Iceland will default:

[link to phishna2009predictions.blogspot.com]

The Case for Deflation in 2010
Prediction #25: Deflation is the primary economic theme of 2010.

"Debt default is going to accelerate, in 2010 dozens of countries are going to start defaulting on debt, IMF debt. Inspired by Argentina's previous debt default a decade prior, in 2010 Greece and Iceland will default first then other nations will follow suit until a mad rush out of central bank debt becomes a primary political trend. This will drive the Jew owners insane and they will start threatening everyone, already in late 2009 the Jew controlled USA is attacking Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and planning on attacking Columbia, Iran, and Russia. The Jew banksters will threaten everybody who attempts to default but nation states asserting their sovereignty will do it anyways, safety in numbers.

At first debt money creates tremendous stimulus to an economy. But as debt piles up the ball and chain of debt payments starts to drag on the economy until the deflationary effect of to much debt causes the growing economy to slow and crash. DEBT "MONEY" CAN ONLY EXIST SO LONG AS DEBT CREATION ACCELERATES. When debt levels reach the point that taking on more debt becomes impossible then deflation automatically starts to implode existing debt. It's not a conspiracy of central banks to crash economies, they want you in debt and enslaved to payments. It's a great big scam. As people figure this out they are going to default on debt owed to the supranational IMF and World Bank because they will reason that the economy could grow if it was not saddled with debt, especially if the debt was artificially created out of thin air by a criminal network of Jew banksters.

Deflation will become the new norm because if inflation was caused by debt creation, the elimination of debt by default will cause deflation. Already there are indicators of upcoming deflation, interest rates are near zero and the economy is still slowing. "

True.

Iceland is a good example with how just 300,000+ people can get screwed. Apply the rationale to the current US population. 305 million and counting.

Im Dutch and feel that what goes bankrupt must go bankrupt.

Clean slate so to say.

Yes 4 hard years, than pick it up.

Why should people need to buy out banks? let them die.

No

Iceland will not "default"

They will tell the thieves, fraudsters and con men to fuck off.

Big difference

Icelanders also have bigger balls than Yanks or Brits or Clogs

The only way to save Iceland is to allow them to come into the Union as the fifty first state. I am all in favor of that. Let's take a vote on the issue in Washington.

Of course, Democrats, like the Icelandic left, want the private losses to be picked up by the public. That's why they took over GM.

OK Iceland use your bargaining skills as well as your...........................

1. Join the EU, a group that tried to shaft yo
2. Join Canada, mmmmm well they are nice people
3. Join USA but you will need to fix them.

It wouldn't even be 4 hard years. Bankruptcy would bring immediate relief and make sure that all Icelanders aren't paying for anyone elses debt. All of their money would be their own.

Iceland has a chance to do what the rest of the world should have done.

tell them all to piss off!

from the UK

iceland needs to pay up!!!

if there was no financial downturn they would have been quiet and filled their pockets !!!

if you place a bet and you lose then you pay up.

or else.....

:5::5::5::5::5:

we need robin hood to robe all sheik :D