Bilderberg Convenes In Versailles

The annual meeting of the global elites kicked off mid May in secrecy. However, two resourceful AFP correspondents were there to greet them, unveiling to the world what goes on behind closed doors when the world’s most powerful meet to discuss pressing issues of the day.

 

By James P. Tucker Jr. and Christopher Bollyn

 

VERSAILLES, France—The rift between American and European Bilderberg participants is widening over both the U.S. invasion of Iraq and blind, blank-check support of Israeli aggression against Palestinians.

These are hotly debated topics as Bilderberg luminaries began filling the posh Trianon Palace Hotel on May 14.

Another issue high on the Bilderberg agenda is the proposed European Union army independent of NATO. Unlike the other two major issues, this is not a confrontation between Americans and Europeans. All Americans oppose the EU army, but so do many Europeans. Leading the anti-army European faction is “Lord” George Robertson, secretary-general of NATO.

French President Jaques Chirac, as head of the host state, delivered a welcoming speech during Bilderberg’s first full working day on Thursday, May 15. Chirac tried to calm tensions by recalling that, despite dissension over the invasion of Iraq, Americans and Western Europeans are traditional allies. France was among the harshest critics of the war and the U.S. administration is bent on “punishing” the French.

Germany and Russia were harsh critics too, like most European states, but Secretary of State Colin Powell, even as Bilderberg was meeting, traveled to both those countries for make-up sessions.

Bilderberg’s annual secret meeting was delayed for hours by people they scorn as the unwashed multitudes—workers in France. Their strike on May 13 allowed only one in five planes to land at deGaulle International Airport and at the older Orly Field in Paris.

Versailles is a short distance from Paris. The “one day strike” was so successful—with millions of supporters filling the streets of Paris and other cities—that it was extended through Thursday, May 15.

Bilderberg staff had started slipping inconspicuously into the Trianon on May 13, preparing for the planned shutdown about noon the following day. On Thursday morning, May 15, the last of the Bilderberg luminaries were arriving in long, black limos, behind police escorts and shrieking sirens.

Bilderberg had planned to shut down the Trianon Palace at noon on May 13, as usual, so their functionaries could arrive absent the masses. Instead, the Trianon was open to the public until late Wednesday evening and the shutdown occurred early Thursday morning. Then Bilderberg commenced its work.

Until last year, when meeting in the Washington suburb of Chantilly, Va.—near Dulles International Airport for security reasons in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks—Bilderberg had a tradition of congeniality.

Three sources within the Trianon Palace are providing detailed information about what is transpiring behind the guarded, sealed-off resort.

Bilderberg remains united on the common goal of establishing a world government under the United Nations while retaining control over the wealth of the Earth and all inhabitants. But on the issue of U.S. policy in the Middle East war anger runs high.

Europe opposed U.S. war plans a year ago, extracting a promise from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld not to invade Iraq in 2002. But the Europeans like the war no more this year than last. There was taunting, such as “where are all these awful weapons of mass destruction?”

Europeans are also skeptical of U.S. plans to “control” Iraq’s oil for the “benefit” of the Iraqi people. “Who are the ‘other’ beneficiaries?” one asked sarcastically. So Iraqi oil money will be used to rebuild what Americans destroyed? “How many fat contracts will go to Europeans?” came the question.

But emotions are running even higher on the issue of U.S. Middle East policy. At the moment Bilderberg was gathering in Versailles, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was contemptuously rejecting the “road map” to peace introduced by Bush and endorsed by the other members the “quartet”—the UN, EU and Russia.

Powell had just visited Sharon to beg him to accept the peace plan. But Sharon dismissed as “not on the horizon” any discussion of dismantling Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory.

In The Jerusalem Post, Sharon ridiculed any idea that U.S. aid may be reduced. He said no U.S. administration had ever supported settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied after launching the Six-Day War in 1967.

Referring to Sharon’s arrogance toward the country that has given Israel countless billions of dollars over the past half century while asking nothing in return, a European Bilderberg luminary told a grim-faced American: “you are too stupid to know when you’ve been insulted by a moral mid get.”

Adding to the embarrassment of Americans at Bilderberg is the fact that the peace plan thrown back into Powell’s face asks only modest moves by Israel. It only asks that Israel abandon settlements built on Palestinian lands since March 2001. Israel, in this initial “peace move,” is not required to give up the land it seized in doubling its size in the1967 war.

The idea of an independent UN army arose from Europe’s resentment over U.S. domination of NATO. Some suggest it be a separate force but party of, and controlled by, NATO. But opponents in Europe as well as the United States argue that a separate EU force would make NATO’s role as the UN’s world army incoherent.

NATO has said repeatedly that it is no longer confined to defending Europe but will deploy troops anywhere in the world at the direction of the UN Security Council.

UN “peacekeepers” are on patrol at 16 far-flung missions throughout the world.