I really can't say much on this story, since it might be considered overtly anti-American & then who wants to deal with its "consequences". But, this is still a great opinion piece on one of the most powerful men in the world. Reading this piece reminded me of a piece Canadian Business magazine did back in August 2013 in which it showed that Henry Kissinger is the only man in the world who is a member in all of the 3 most powerful & elitist organizations in the world (World Economic Forum, Bilderberg Group, & Trilateral Commission).
Henry Kissinger is also the one who said that "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." In my personal experience, whoever loves power so much, he/she will certainly abuse it & will hurt a lot of people in the process. This piece made me think that the way this man thinks, he has done & will still do anything to achieve what he wants more, which is, power. We try to teach our children that "with great power comes great responsibility," but, as this piece suggests, Kissinger's hunger for power almost makes him a sociopath.
As the piece below states how Kissinger supported prolonging the Vietnam war & the secret Cambodian war, in which hundreds of thousands people died. His powerful actions in the hallowed halls of government irreversibly changed the lives of millions around the world, from Latin America to North America to Asia. He apparently loved to attack other countries to show American military prowess. He loved more violence, government secrecy, militarism & ruling with the classic dictatorial "divide & conquer."
The piece ends with an excellent, & rather unfortunate, line that the world's humanity still has dark days ahead, since, his methods are still being employed by the American government & he is still deeply involved with the foreign policies of US governments.
But, hey, he will not be tried, for his actions, in the International Criminal Court (ICC) or any other court of justice in this world. Per my last quote picture of Criminal Minds here, the society is definitely not taking the place of thousands of victims & on their behalf demanding any atonement for Kissinger's push for military actions against innocent people around the world. At least dictators like Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, Joseph Stalin, Robert Mugabe, & several others from Latin America, Africa, or Asia killed innocent people of their own country. Henry Kissinger's actions made the life hell for thousands of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Vietnam, Cambodia, Chile, Panama & who knows wherever else. So who is the bigger dictator here? Where is the justice coming from the largest self-anointed "just" & "fair" country of the world?
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In 1950, Henry Kissinger - who would go on to serve as an inordinately powerful US National Security Adviser and Secretary of State - wrote that "life is suffering, birth involves death".
As historian Greg Grandin documents in his just-released book "Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman", the man's "existentialism laid the foundation for how he would defend his later policies". In Kissinger's view, Grandin explains, life's inherently tragic nature means that "there isn't much any one individual can do to make things worse than they already are".
Of course, the victims of Kissinger-sanctioned military escapades and other forms of inflicted suffering might beg to differ. Among the countless casualties are the dead and maimed of the Vietnam War - a disaster Kissinger fought to prolong despite recognising that it was unwinnable - and the secret US war that was launched on neutral Cambodia in 1969.
'Power for power's sake'
A pet project of Kissinger and then-President Richard Nixon, the bombing of that country killed more than 100,000 civilians in four years, according to Ben Kiernan, the director of Yale University's Cambodian Genocide Program.
To this day, the cluster bombs with which the US saturated sections of southeast Asia continue to wreak deadly havoc.
And from Chile to Panama to Iraq to Angola to East Timor, there's no dearth of evidence linking increased earthly suffering to Kissingerian policy & tradition, which still exert a preponderant influence over the US political establishment. (Complaints could even be filed by impoverished victims of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Kissinger unofficially helped negotiate years after leaving office.)
As Grandin notes, Kissinger had an "outsized role… in creating the world we live in today, which accepts endless war as a matter of course".
Embracing the pursuit of "power for power's sake", Kissinger advocated for war in order to "show that action is possible", Grandin writes, and to thus maintain American power - the purpose of which "is to create American purpose". With such an approach to existence, it's perhaps no wonder the former statesman found the whole phenomenon to be rather dismal.
Campaign against history
Grandin details Kissinger's contributions to the "rehabilitation of the national security state" in the US around a "restored imperial presidency", which, he contends, was based on "ever more spectacular displays of violence, more intense secrecy, and an increasing use of war and militarism to leverage domestic dissent and polarisation for political advantage".
A key aspect of Kissinger's own dominant role in contemporary history is his philosophy of history itself, which Grandin summarises as follows: "For Kissinger, the past was nothing but 'a series of meaningless incidents'". According to this mindset, under no circumstances must history be seen as a collection of causal relationships capable of guiding current policy choices.
The concept of blowback, for example, is conveniently disappeared - such that Kissinger, for one, is excused from having to acknowledge the reality that US military aggression against Cambodia in fact helped propel the Khmer Rouge to power. Instead, further US military aggression was deemed to be the proper antidote to the new state of affairs.
Two and two
The forcible severing of cause from effect has also come in handy in places like Afghanistan, a country whose history is often reduced to one date: September 11, 2001. But go a bit further back in time, as Grandin does, and you'll find that the conversion of the country into a base for transnational jihad was in no small part an effect of policies put into place by - who else? - Kissinger.
These included facilitating destabilising behaviour vis-a-vis Afghanistan by the shah of Iran, Pakistani intelligence, and Saudi Arabia, and encouraging the flow of weapons to radical Islamists.
Naturally, none of this history prompted an internal questioning of US qualifications to spearhead the post-9/11 war on terror. Now, nearly 14 years and trillions of dollars later, it might be a good time to start putting two and two together - particularly given the expansion of the war to encompass the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an entity the US helped create in the first place.
Dark days
In an interview last year with radio host Todd Zwillich, Kissinger defended his infamous bombing of Cambodia on the following grounds: "The current administration is doing it in Pakistan, Somalia". The "it" apparently refers to Barack Obama's covert drone strikes on countries with which the US is not at war.
But as Grandin points out, this retroactive justification fails to account for the fact that "what [Kissinger] did nearly half a century ago created the conditions for today’s endless wars". In Cambodia and elsewhere, he "institutionalised a self-fulfilling logic of intervention", whereby US "action led to reaction [and] reaction demanded more action".
Of course, if power depends on the constant proof that "action is possible", this seems like a pretty logical - if sociopathic - arrangement.
As for Kissinger's shadow, it doesn't appear to be budging anytime soon - portending many a dark day ahead for humanity.
Belen Fernandez is the author of The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, published by Verso. She is a contributing editor at Jacobin Magazine.
After I keep hearing news of how adults & youths, of both genders, were keep getting enslaved in war torn countries, where there is no law & order, I came upon this article & thought to put some perspective to this news of slavery ... in a developed Western country. Now, this article is highlighting the problem of slavery in UK, but US & Australia have a similar problem.
These 3,000 children are enslaved in UK. They are being sexually & physically abused & put in domestic labour as a slave. The authorities, as usual, keep saying that they are trying to end it but losing the war against slavery. The reality of 21st century is that the slavery has actually increased in this century.
Slavery is wrong, regardless of whoever or wherever it happens. But, considering, there are almost 10,000 to 13,000 slaves in Britain, then how can the Western developed countries expect people in war torn countries to prosecute people in slave trade (criminal gangs & organizations) & protect people from being enslaved. It's very easy to blame others for their practices & ideologies before judging oneself where he/she is standing.
Furthermore, we need to keep in mind that these criminal gangs are only suppliers of slaves. Supply cannot exist without demand. That means then that people in the West, regardless of their race, education, national origins, ethnicity, religion, are open to knowingly taking in a slave, as long as it benefits them, somehow. Slavery exists because the general public demands it. Now, it might be a small section of the general public who is demanding it, but they definitely are the customers. The public supports slavery by either directly buying the slaves (usually rich elites) or indirectly asking for quality products at the lowest prices possible, which is possible only by businesses paying no or extremely low wages (recall my blog on Thailand's fishing, & Australian & Spanish agricultural industries employing slaves).
Since, we also know that criminal gangs would not be involved into this business without making a good return on their investments, they charge high prices for these slaves. So, their customers must be well-heeled to be paying such high prices for these slaves, which, in turn, means that they themselves are earning handsomely. So, the "respected" rich elites of our society don't hesitate from slavery. Hey, I thought, that happened in 1800s in the Western countries. So, after all, it seems like that the society hasn't developed, at all.
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Hien was 10 when he arrived in Britain. He did not know where he was or where he had been. He knew only that he was here to work. Since he emerged from the back of a lorry after crossing from Calais 7 years ago, his experience has been one of exploitation & misery. He has been a domestic slave, been trafficked into cannabis factories, been abused & beaten & was eventually prosecuted & sent to prison. It has been a life of terror, isolation & pain.
... . He is one of an estimated 3,000 Vietnamese children in forced labour in the UK, used for financial gain by criminal gangs running cannabis factories, nail bars, garment factories, brothels & private homes. Charged up to £25,000 for their passage to the UK, these children collectively owe their traffickers almost £75m.
While there is growing awareness of the use of trafficked Vietnamese people in the booming domestic cannabis trade, child trafficking experts are now warning that the British authorities are unable to keep up with the speed at which UK-based Vietnamese gangs are recruiting & exploiting children for use in other criminal enterprises such as gun-smuggling, crystal meth production & prostitution rings.
“By our calculations there are around 3,000 Vietnamese children in the UK who are being used for profit by criminal gangs,” says Philip Ishola, former head of the UK’s Counter Human Trafficking Bureau.
“The police & the authorities are now aware that trafficked children are being forced to work in cannabis farms but this is really only the tip of the iceberg. Often the same child will be exploited not just in a cannabis farm but also in myriad different ways. This is happening right under our noses & not enough is being done to stop it.”
Police admit that they are struggling with the speed at which Vietnamese criminal gangs are diversifying & expanding their activities across the England & into Scotland & Northern Ireland. “Right now we are just fighting in the trenches, fighting in the nail bars,” said detective inspector Steven Cartwright, who heads Police Scotland’s human trafficking unit. “It is vital that we that we understand new methods being deployed by the gangs because we need to stop demand at one end or limit their ability to make money at the other.”
Hien’s journey to the UK started when he was taken from his village at the age of 5 by someone who claimed to be his uncle. As an orphan, he had no option but to do as he was told. He spent 5 years travelling overland, completely unaware which countries he was going through, from Vietnam before being smuggled across the Channel & taken to a house in London. Here he spent the next 3 years trapped in domestic servitude, cooking & cleaning for groups of Vietnamese people who would come in & out of the property where he was held.
The men in the house beat him & forced him to drink alcohol until he was sick. Other things happened to him that he still cannot talk about. He was never allowed out of the house & was told that if he tried to escape, the police would arrest him & take him to prison.
During his time in that house, Hien says, many other Vietnamese children were brought in. They told him that they were here to work & to pay off debts for their families back home. They would stay for a few days & then be taken away, & Hien never saw them again. He became homeless after his “uncle” abandoned him. He slept in parks & ate out of bins. He was eventually picked up by a Vietnamese couple, who offered him a place to stay but then forced him to work in cannabis farms in flats in first Manchester & then Scotland.
In his testimony to police, he says he still does not understand exactly what the plants were, although he understands now that they are worth a lot of money. He looked after the plants, using pesticides that made him ill, & only left the flat when he helped transport the leaves to be dried elsewhere. He was locked in, threatened, beaten & completely isolated from the outside world.
“I was never paid any money for working there,” he says. “I did not stay there for money but because I was afraid & I hoped the whole thing would end soon.”
When the police came, they found Hien alone with the plants. He told his story to the police, but was still sent to young offenders’ institution in Scotland, where he spent 10 months on remand, charged with cannabis cultivation. He was released only after the intervention of a crown prosecutor led to him being identified as a victim of trafficking.
Vietnamese children such as Hien are easy pickings for the increasingly sophisticated trafficking gangs operating between the UK & Vietnam. Children make up nearly a quarter of the estimated 13,000 people trafficked into the UK every year, & Vietnamese children are the largest group of children trafficked to the UK. The United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime estimates that 30 Vietnamese children arrive illegally in the UK every month, on well-established smuggling routes.
“Children are an increasingly valuable assets to criminal gangs because they are easy to get hold of, easily intimidated & exploited, & easy to keep isolated & unaware of what is really happening around them, which makes it far less likely for them to be able to disclose anything of use to the police,” says Ishola.
When it comes to Vietnamese children, he says, the culture of seeing a child as the “golden egg”, who will be sent to work abroad & provide for their families still prevails. This attitude is exploited by gangs, who deceive families into believing that there is legitimate work in Britain for their children.
“During their journey to the UK, the traffickers keep charging the children more & more money, & by the time they arrive, the pressure to pay back this enormous debt is a key factor in their vulnerability to ending up trapped in forced labour,” he says. “Upon arrival the children are faced with a highly organised system of criminal activity, with methods of control ranging from extreme physical brutality to debt bondage. Before they even arrive, that trap is set for them.”
Members of the Vietnamese diaspora in London told the Observer that they had seen an explosion in child trafficking by criminal gangs operating on the peripheries of their communities in recent years. “Some of these children & victims have told me that it cost them £25,000 to get to the UK,” said one Vietnamese community leader in London, who did not want to be named. “They come with a debt & they are not allowed to leave until the debt is paid. That is slavery & exploitation.”
Like Hien, many of the children end up working on cannabis farms. The link between child trafficking & the UK’s domestic cannabis industry has been increasing, with Vietnamese children the main group at risk. According to a 2014 report by the NGO AntiSlavery International, almost all potential victims of trafficking linked to cannabis are Vietnamese, & more than 80% are children.
Many of these children are subsequently prosecuted by the UK justice system, despite many being identified as potential victims of trafficking. This has led to Vietnamese children becoming the second-largest ethnic group held in youth detention centres across the UK.
Vietnamese gangs have historically dominated the UK’s £1bn cannabis trade & have been instrumental in the proportion of domestically grown cannabis in Britain rising from 15% in 2005 to about 90% now. While the trade remains enormously profitable – the number of Vietnamese cannabis factories in the UK has grown by 150% in the past 2 years – their grip has been weakened thanks to increased law enforcement & under competition from British growers. Now they are finding new & more efficient ways of doing business.
“In terms of law enforcement, I think we’re about 2 years behind the curve,” says Daniel Silverstone, a criminologist at London Metropolitan University who has written extensively on Vietnamese gangs in the UK.
“Traffickers have changed their modus operandi in recent years in direct response to the attention & interventions of law enforcement. A few years ago it was almost exclusively cannabis farms, but their business interests have now become much more diverse. So we’re seeing an expansion into Scotland & Northern Ireland, the use of nail bars for forced labour & money laundering, & moves into drugs like crystal meth.” This means that children, who are an integral part of the gangs’ business operations, are also now being moved into other areas of exploitation. “As their grip on the domestic cannabis trade slips a little, they are looking to maximise their profits from these children in whatever way they can,” he adds.
The Metropolitan police say that there is now much more awareness of the complexity of tackling the UK’s child trafficking problem but that the closed nature of the Vietnamese community has made things difficult. “What has persistently been a challenge for us is making inroads into this community,” says Phil Brewer, who heads its new human trafficking & kidnap unit. “We usually only find out about a child when we make a raid & find someone in a cannabis factory or nail bar, but often this person has been through multiple forms of exploitation before we reach them.”
Parosha Chandran, a leading human rights barrister & UN expert on trafficking, has represented Vietnamese children charged with cannabis cultivation who have gone through many different trafficking situations before being moved into cannabis farms.
“Trafficked Vietnamese children have rarely faced just one type of forced labour,” she says. “I’ve come across cases where young people have been subjected to a spectrum of exploitative practices. In one of my cases, for example, the child was forced to look after people’s homes & care for their children, when he was just a child himself, then he was taken to work cleaning a nail bar, then moved to another place where he was forced to sew labels on to clothing – & all of this happened before he even arrived in the cannabis factory.”
In March the UK passed its first Modern Slavery Bill, designed to increase the prosecution of traffickers & give better protection to victims of modern slavery in the UK. However, Chandran says that Vietnamese children continue to be prosecuted for cannabis cultivation while their traffickers remain free.
“The Modern Slavery Act’s central focus on prosecution is misguided & its provisions fail to fully protect the rights of trafficked children,” she says. “We as a democratic country need to find durable solutions to ensure these children remain protected from harm for the rest of their lives.”
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Methods used to lure children from Vietnam to the UK are also becoming increasingly sophisticated, including use of social media. “Vietnamese children are brought to the UK, taken in by Vietnamese adults & put to domestic work,” says Swat Pandi, from the NSPCC’s child trafficking advice centre. “The child feels indebted to the adults for food & shelter & is told they need to return the favour by looking after cannabis plants. These children suffer high levels of neglect, emotional abuse &, in the absence of any protective factors, are highly vulnerable to physical & sexual abuse.”
Despite the government’s pledge to end modern slavery & the UK’s first modern slavery bill, passed in March, Chitty says she has seen no change in the numbers of Vietnamese children coming through her charity’s services. “It’s very much business as usual,” she says. “We still have a problem with immediate safeguarding & appropriate placements for trafficked children. And young people are still being criminalised by the courts.”
Even when a child has been taken out of trafficking & come under the care of a local authority, he or she is likely to return to the control of the traffickers. In 2013, a report by independent thinktank the Centre for Social Justice concluded that 60% of trafficked children in local authority care go missing, nearly a third of them within a week of arrival. Most are never found again. There are increasing reports of children being retrafficked from foster homes or when they have been given asylum status.
“I don’t think we understand the entire enterprise,” says detective inspector Cartwright. “Despite our best intentions I think we’re not offering them anything that would persuade them to stay. Many will get retrafficked because we didn’t offer them a better alternative to what the traffickers are providing.”
Hien is trying to rebuild his life after being given asylum in Scotland, but is struggling to find peace after years of trauma. “I still worry that the traffickers may find me & come to my house. But I know this time that I will ask for help,” he says. “I think they have justice here but I wish they hadn’t kept me in prison for so long. By telling my story, I want people to understand what I have experienced here.”
Great opinion piece by Eric Margolis.
As the saying goes, "those who forget the history are doomed to repeat it," because we, humans, always think that other man was stupid & I won't make that mistake, & ironically, he makes that same mistake (at least the net result is same).
Other man was stupid or not (we can only justify it if you are better educated or know more than that guy or have some kind of a better knowledge about the case at hand than that other guy); the primary problem is the person, who is currently in change of the situation, has never tried to understand the situation, old or new.
US wouldn't have gone into Afghanistan, albeit in a fit of rage like a little kid or a teen with raging hormones, or Iraq, if the leadership would've sincerely looked at why did we ever fail in Vietnam. What was the real underlying causes for that failure & then try not to repeat those actions.
But, since, US never looked / analyzed those failures with a critical eye, they went, guns blazing, in both countries & after sacrificing manpower & billions of dollars on countries, whose citizens still hate US (America never won their "hearts & minds"), & the end result is that one country (Iraq) is in complete chaos, while in the other one (Afghanistan), Taliban have amassed enough power that Americans have to negotiate with them (just so they can still come out of the country unscathed & claim that "adventure" as a "win").
So, in a way, just like the lives of 250,000 American soldiers were wasted in the Vietnam conflict, the lives of some 4,000 American soldiers are now wasted in the Afghanistan conflict. I don't even know how many died in Iraq conflict. And I am not going to even put the numbers here for the injured soldiers, who are injured physically & mentally (PTSDs etc.). American economy is also in shambles that billions are spent in those countries but American veterans & own patriotic citizens are going hungry & homeless.
So who actually destroyed America? Foreign terrorists or the hubris of its own leadership?
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LIFE CAN only be understood in retrospect. With the wisdom of hindsight, most people consider the 20-year long Vietnam War a terrible mistake, even a crime. But at the time, US military involvement in Indochina appeared to make sense. It certainly did to me. I was proud to wear my nation’s uniform.
General Douglas MacArthur warned Americans “never fight a land war in Asia.”
But that is exactly what the Kennedy administration foolishly did. At the time, US power was at its zenith. Washington was gripped by post-war arrogance & hubris.
There was also a very compelling geopolitical reason. At the time – the later 1960’s – it appeared certain that the Soviets & Red China were working together to dominate all of Indochina. “If we don’t make a military stand in SE Asia,” was the consensus, “the Reds will take the entire region.” So it looked in 1967. So we hear again today. Just replace “Reds” by Al Qaeda or Daesh.
But the basic Western premise back then – as now — was dead wrong. In one of history’s biggest intelligence failures, we failed to see the seismic split between the Soviet Union & Mao’s China, one so profound that the two super-powers almost went to war over their contested Manchurian borders in 1968-1969. Just as our intelligence services also missed the impending collapse of the Soviet Union three decades later.
Had the US been aware of the violent tensions between Moscow & Beijing, it would likely have avoided expanding the Vietnam War, or just left it to its own devices.
Instead, the US & its allies waged a long struggle against the Vietcong local guerillas & the battle-hardened North Vietnamese Army that had defeated some of France’s finest soldiers a decade earlier. President Lyndon Johnson drove the US deeper into the war by staging the phony Gulf of Tonkin naval incident.
It did not take long for US troops in South Vietnam to realise the war was a pointless bloodbath. Without the 24/7 support of US airpower, the American army & marines in Vietnam would not have been able to hold out. Today, without US airpower, American forces would be driven from Afghanistan. By the January, 1968 Tet offensive, it was clear to many of us in uniform that the war was lost (I was stateside at the time). The US won almost every battle thanks to air power, but it lost both the military momentum in the war, the strategic direction & the political struggle. America’s South Vietnamese allies often fought bravely but their political leaders were hopeless.
Much of Vietnam, Laos & Cambodia were ravaged by US bombing & toxic chemical defoliation. In the process, some 250,000 American soldiers were killed or wounded; 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died. At least three million Communist soldiers & Vietnamese civilians were killed, mostly by US air power. As I look back, it’s very painful to realise that the war was, to paraphrase the wicked Tallyrand, “worse than a crime, a mistake.”
The red hordes did not swamp Indochina nor did they march on Cleveland. Our side committed as many crimes as our enemies. The CIA-run Phoenix programme, for example, “liquidated” up to 41,000 communist cadres. Our “counter-terrorism” campaign today in Afghanistan, Iraq & Somalia follows the same pattern.
Today, the US & united Vietnam have $36 billion in bilateral trade & warm commercial & diplomatic relations. Vietnam is becoming an important ally for the US against China.
Alas, we seem to have forgotten everything about Vietnam & learned nothing. The new bogeyman is Iran instead of China, but the song remains the same.
As I previously blogged that how everything of ours, tangible or intangible, is up for sale, this story fits right in. Everything of ours has been commoditized & ready to be sold. These women are not doing it for the fun of it, but these Thai, Vietnamese, & even Indian (not in this story) women are put into such a dire position, financially, that they are ready to lease out their wombs.
Now, women, most likely from developed countries, who can't conceive child due to health reasons, or won't conceive child due to vanity (don't want to "destroy" their figure or can't take the pain of childbirth) can outsource this function to a poor woman in a developing country. It seems nothing is sacred enough to not outsource.
Similar to how outsourcing of manufacturing & clerical jobs to developing countries raised multiple ethical issues in regards to working conditions in those developing countries, this "womb-for-rent" program also raised several complicated & ethical issues.
Can a country effectively control this process & make it better through laws & regulations or simply shut it down? I think not. The process was already sort of running underground with some people abusing this program. Now, the laws will essentially further make this go underground & more women will be abused more severely, & the abusers will most likely won't be punished.
Why this process can't be improved through laws? Because, these poor women are especially sought out for these tasks & since, they need money desperately, they will be willing to do anything at any cost.
Also, this process won't grow much love & won't grow the bond stronger between a mother & her child. Why? Because, it's simply unnatural. The love between a child & a mother starts & grows stronger during those 9 months of pregnancy. Any mother will testify to it. Heck, the women in this story had a hard time giving those kids, for whom they were merely surrogates, to their biological parents. How can a mother who didn't endure those 9 months of pregnancy hardships can ever truly love a child, who is still her own flesh & blood, like a mother who goes through the pregnancy & has a spiritual, & flesh & blood link with that little fetus in her womb?
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When a surrogate baby scandal erupted in Thailand last year, many in the country did not know what to expect next.
First there was the young boy, apparently abandoned by the Australian couple who had commissioned a Thai surrogate mother to carry him.
The boy had Down's syndrome, but the couple had taken his twin sister back to Australia with them.
Then there were the 12 babies found living in a single apartment with nannies, all fathered by the same, mysterious young Japanese man.
Many more babies had already been spirited out of Thailand.
Today the Australian boy - named Gammy - lives with the woman who was paid to give birth to him, seemingly a loved member of his adopted family.
"I don't regret anything about the surrogacy", Pattaramon Chanbua told me. "I don't blame anyone. To me, Gammy is a blessing."
Mitsutoki Shigeta, the mystery Japanese man, is still fighting to get custody of the 12 babies he sired through various Thai surrogates.
Now, 5 years after it was first drafted, the Thai parliament has passed a law which it hopes will shut down the "wombs-for-rent" business for good.
Foreigners are banned from seeking surrogates in Thailand. Thai couples can find surrogate parents, but not through agents, or on any kind of commercial basis.
At the heart of the business are hard-up Thai women, who see 9 months carrying someone else's child as a relatively easy way to make good money.
Daeng, a factory worker living outside Bangkok, is another. A single mother in her 30s, she agreed to carry twins for Mr. Shigeta.
When the time came to hand them over, she admitted it was hard.
"I carried them for 9 months, & I loved them," she said. But she went through with the contract, & "would do it again - so would anybody - because of the money".
Daeng says she was paid the equivalent of 10 years' salary.
Other women have had unhappier surrogacy experiences.
4 years ago, 15 Vietnamese women were found in a Bangkok apartment, seven of them pregnant.
Some of them said they had been lured there with the promise of well-paid jobs; 2 said they had been raped.
A Taiwanese company called Babe-101 was accused by anti-trafficking groups of being behind the operation, but the police never pressed charges, & the doctor who supervised the conceptions & the births is still practising at a well-known Bangkok hospital.
Like much of Thailand's medical industry, the surrogacy business is profit-driven & poorly regulated.
The surrogate business in Thailand has often been a shadowy, unaccountable one. Now the practice has been more or less outlawed, there are justified fears that, with so much money on offer, it will simply be driven underground.
"We have no law enforcement", admits Dr Somsak Lolekha of the Thai Medical Council. "Just like drinking & driving. We have the law. But they never enforce it."
No Western countries crying foul over China's treatment of its minority & why will they? After all, China is driving their economies. These kinds of news stories don't get any airtime, if any, on Western media.
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But international human rights groups say that Beijing's policies against the Uighur's culture & religion has resulted in systematic oppression, the imprisonment of many peaceful activists, & has forced more people to flee China.
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