New York City, October 9, 2005.

KATRITASTAN are the lands on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, stretching from the tip of Florida to the east and the oil refinery at Limon, on the shores of Costa Rica, to the south-west.

KATRITASTAN was defined by the destruction caused by the recent sequence of super-hurricanes - Katrina, Rita and Stan.

KATRITASTAN is expected to be visited by many more hurricanes — this hurricane season and in future seasons.

KATRITASTAN, like many another “…stans”, is in real trouble because of the outcome of activities started by oil industry interests.

KATRITASTAN is being reduced to ruble not just because of the exploitation of oil resources in its own region, but mainly by the simple fact that the burning of fossil fuels is the reason for global warming. The warming up of the surface of the ocean has turned the natural phenomenon of hurricanes into a man made series of super-hurricanes. The destruction caused by Katrina, Rita and Stan is not a series of natural disasters as the U.S. Administration in Washington wants us to believe.

KATRITASTAN has had by now more fatalities then New York City at 9/11, and the costs the destruction has caused are by now at least fifteen fold the costs of 9/11. The Administration in Washington, and US Congress seem to be oblivious to this fact. The laws being voted these days seem to be more interested in providing further gains to the oil industry rather than helping the people that were affected on the ground. A case in point is the GOP Oil Refinery Bill that was just passed by the House of Representatives 212 to 210 after serious arm twisting. Representative Henry A. Waxman even remarked that this vote turned us into a “Banana Republic” — a quite fitting image to our location next to the Gulf (the Gulf of Mexico as well as the Arab Gulf or the Iranian Gulf). Another shameful law — this one to be actually effective starting October 17, 2 005, is the bankruptcy law. This law will help banking interests and credit card issuers by making it impossible for the simple folks to declare bankruptcy because of losses from these hurricanes. Like in any other “…stan” religion and conservatism have no place for human compassion but are just excuses for an attempt at further enrichment by those that are already rich.

KATRITASTAN will use the disasters caused by Katrina and Rita in this country in order to ask for hundreds of billions of dollars for purported reconstruction projects without serious discussion of the causes of the disasters. The losses from Stan, which occurred outside the US will not have such generous sympathizers like we have in Washington. Those folks will simply be forgotten. The survivors in Central America, and the simple poor black Americans we saw on TV on the roofs of New Orleans, that will be left out from Washington’s generosity, will eventually be the revolutionaries of these lands.

KATRITASTAN, like any other “…stan” is a land of terrorism caused by our inept oil-interests. Rather then voting themselves more funds to dig for a loosing proposition - the drilling for oil - and enhance the destruction; rather then creating new distraction from the search for new and better energy solutions - we must demand from Washington an honest look into the alternative futures, the alternatives to the dependence on fossil carbon. The recent Petrocollapse Conference in New York made it clear that we must embark on the search for these new futures. KATRITASTAN will never be the same again.