Enrico Piovesana

Peace Reporter

June 4, 2008

It was particularly difficult this year to find out when and where the annual conclave of world powerbrokers, the Bilderberg Group, would take place. Finally, it appears certain that the highly secret meeting of western political-military elites will take place from June 5 – 8 in Chantilly, Virginia, near Washington, in a luxury hotel immersed in nature, the Westfield’s Marriott.

The first Bilderberg meeting at the Hotel de Bilderberg in Arnhem, Holland, on May 29, 30, and 31, 1954.

What is Bilderberg? The Bilderberg group, which convened for the first time in 1954 in Holland, is considered the most powerful decision-making organization in the world. Semi-secret (without even a website), the group consists of elite political, financial, managerial, military, and media leaders from North America and Western Europe. In contrast with the Trilateral Commission, which was created out of the Bilderberg Group specifically to work with emerging Asian nations (Japan in the Seventies, China and India today), the Bilderberg Group is a genuine “shadow government” of the West that, some critics say, decides the fate of the world to suit the interests of the restricted oligarchy it represents.

Ottawa newspaper reporting the "world’s elite" arriving at a "secret meeting" in Canada in 2006.

On the Table. Two years ago, a press release sent out on the date of the opening session in 2006 (held in Ottawa, Canada), explained that the annual meeting would discuss the War on Terrorism, the situation in Iran and the Middle East, Oil, Russia, US-EU relations, and relations between the West and Asia, as well as Immigration. It is to be supposed that this year’s meeting will include discussion of current international emergencies, such as Afghanistan, the high cost of oil, and the world economic crisis. Concerning oil: after the Ottawa meeting, indiscreet leaks reported that a decision had been announced by oil producers to raise the cost of oil to over $100 a barrel over the course of two years.

The most recent list of Bilderberg members dates from the 2006 meeting, and includes high Bush administration officials, Henry Kissinger, the directors of the Federal Reserve Bank, Credit Suisse, Rothschild Europe (Vice President Franco Bernabè), representatives of Shell, BP, and ENI (Paolo Scaroni), Coca Cola, Phillips, Unilever, Time Warner, AOL, Tyssen-Krupp, and Fiat (Vice President John Elkann). Also present were representatives from Nato, the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Union, and economists (including Giulio Tremonti and Mario Monti) and many Western leaders (Italy’s representative was Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa). See below other Italian participants at past Bilderberg meetings.

Why all the privacy? Considering the grave importance to the public of the subjects discussed and the people present at the meetings, it would be logical – if for no other reason that to discourage paranoid theories – not to keep the meetings so private (or secret, if you prefer), and not to hold them behind closed doors in super-secure locations surrounded by armed guards, far from the prying eyes of journalists and the curious. If they have nothing to hide, why are they hiding?

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