The western powers have also tried to control who runs African countries.For thier economic interest

This article focuses on the continuation of inequalities between Africa and Europe as the result of the racism of transatlantic slavery. Modern racism and images of Africans (for example as corrupt and unable to help or govern themselves) will relate to this. However, we should also remember that despite the ravages of slavery, vibrant, coherent African cultures survived and continue to develop and have a strong dynamic to this day.

Independence and inspirational Africans
Also, we should remember the successful struggles of African nations to organise independence movements and military struggles to overthrow the European masters from their colonies, despite the heavy odds against them and the consequent losses in the process. The leaders that emerged from this period, such as Kwame Nkrumah, Thomas Sankara and Nelson Mandela, have become inspirational voices across the world.

Colonisation
The exploitation of Africa began with the wars inspired to procure enslaved people and the export of the most fit and strong members of Africa's population. It continued with colonisation in the nineteenth century.



Map of Africa from Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1890
Colonies were areas of Africa and other regions (such as India) which became placed under direct governmental control by European powers, effectively extensions of those European countries. The Europeans took mineral and agricultural products from these colonies at the cheapest possible price. The colonies also provided markets for manufactured European goods. Manufacturing by Africans in African colonies (and in the Caribbean) was forbidden and African enterprise was diminished or eliminated in every possible way.

Western extortion of Africa continues, as do wars within the continent, often fought with guns supplied by westerners wanting the cheapest access to vital raw materials. The slaughter in Darfur (western Sudan) in the early twenty first century is partly if not mainly due to this, as is, for example, the situation in the Niger delta in Nigeria.

Power struggles
The western powers have also tried to control who runs African countries. The best documented case of western involvement in the murder of elected heads of state is that of Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, murdered with the complicity of Belgium and the USA in 1961. Lumumba was a pan-Africanist and believed in the necessity of freeing Africa from European economic domination. The USA got involved in his removal from power for two reasons.

Firstly, they were interested in the Congo's copper, diamonds, cobalt, oil, uranium, and other minerals. Secondly, the 1960s were the time of the Cold War between the United Soviet States of Russia (the USSR) and the USA. In this paranoid era the USA needed someone it could trust and encourage to derail any moves by the USSR to influence Africa or procure materials. It paid Mobutu Sese Seko to help in the murder of Lumumba and then helped him organise a coup d' état in 1965 (he was given an aeroplane, for example).

The corrupt Mobutu then ruled until 1997, acting as the USA's watchdog. He suppressed all attempts in his own country to stop exploitation by the neo-colonial powers and helped to crush any such movements in neighbouring countries. For this the USA 'gave him well over a billion dollars in civilian and military aid', much of which ended up in his own pocket: his private wealth was 'estimated at $4 billion' (Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghosts, London 2000, p.303).

Congo became impoverished despite its vast mineral wealth, partly because of corruption and partly because of the huge profits permitted to the non taxpaying foreign investors. Riots ensued and Mobutu was overthrown in 1997. (See also 'The Assassination of Lumumba' by Ludo de Witte). China has now been added to the list of foreign investors manipulating Congo.

Recent investigations also confirm the contemporary allegations of the USA's involvement in the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah, the socialist, pan-Africanist president of Ghana in 1966.

Climate and food supply
Other forms of exploitation are perhaps less obvious. Climate change, caused mainly by the west, is expected to have the greatest effect on sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. Food prices have risen. As a result, free school meals supplied by the World Food Programme are being cut, for example by 50% in Kenya. Agricultural subsidies by the USA and the EU make imported food cheaper in Africa than locally produced rice, chicken, tomatoes and so on, and limit the export of crops such as cotton.

According to a World Development Movement report it is the EU that benefits from bilateral trade agreements. Assessing the development impacts of two existing EU bilateral trade agreements with South Africa and Mexico, the new report 'Raw Deal' shows how one sided these deals have been in favour of the EU. For example, there has been an almost 50% increase in food and drink imports by South Africa from Europe see

Years of Deceit: United States Openly Admits Bin Laden Long Dead

Conservative commentator, former Marine Colonel Bob Pappas has been saying for years that bin Laden died at Tora Bora and that Senator Kerry's claim that bin Laden escaped with Bush help was a lie. Now we know that Pappas was correct. The embarrassment of having Secretary of State Clinton talk about bin Laden in Pakistan was horrific. He has been dead since December 13, 2001 and now, finally, everyone, Obama, McChrystal, Cheney, everyone who isn't nuts is finally saying what they have known for years.

However, since we lost a couple of hundred of our top special operations forces hunting for bin Laden after we knew he was dead, is someone going to answer for this with some jail time? Since we spent 200 million dollars on "special ops" looking for someone we knew was dead, who is going to jail for that? Since Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney continually talked about a man they knew was dead, now known to be for reasons of POLITICAL nature, who is going to jail for that? Why were tapes brought out, now known to be forged, as legitimate intelligence to sway the disputed 2004 election in the US? This is a criminal act if there ever was one.

In 66 pages, General Stanley McChrystal never mentions Osama bin Laden. Everything is "Mullah Omar" now. In his talk at West Point, President Obama never mentioned Osama bin Laden. Col. Pappas makes it clear, Vice President Cheney let it "out of the bag" long ago. Bin Laden was killed by American troops many, many years ago.





© Unknown
America knew Osama bin Laden died December 13, 2001. After that his use was hardly one to unite America, but rather one to divide, scam and play games. With bin Laden gone, we could have started legitimate nation building in Afghanistan instead of the eternal insurgency that we invented ourselves.

Without our ill informed policies, we could have had a brought diplomatic solution in 2002 in Afghanistan, the one we are ignoring now, and spent money rebuilding the country, 5 cents on the dollar compared to what we are spending fighting a war against an enemy we ourselves recruited through ignorance.

The bin Laden scam is one of the most shameful acts ever perpetrated against the American people. We don't even know if he really was an enemy, certainly he was never the person that Bush and Cheney said. In fact, the Bush and bin Laden families were always close friends and had been for many years.

What kind of man was Osama bin Laden? This one time American ally against Russia, son of a wealthy Saudi family, went to Afghanistan to help them fight for their freedom. America saw him as a great hero then. Transcripts of the real bin Laden show him to be much more moderate than we claim, angry at Israel and the US government but showing no anger toward Americans and never making the kind of theats claimed. All of this is public record for any with the will to learn.

How much of America's tragedy is tied with these two children of the rich, children of families long joined through money and friendship, the Bush and bin Laden clans.

One son died in remote mountains, another lives in a Dallas suburb hoping nobody is sent after him. One is a combat veteran, one never took a strong stand unless done from safety and comfort. Islam once saw bin Laden as a great leader. Now he is mostly forgotten.

What has America decided about Bush?

We know this: Bin Laden always denied any ties to 9/11 and, in fact, has never been charged in relation to 9/11. He not only denied involvement, but had done so, while alive, 4 times and had vigorously condemned those who were involved in the attack.

This is on the public record, public in every free country except ours. We, instead, showed films made by paid actors, made up to look somewhat similar to bin Laden, actors who contradicted bin Ladens very public statements, actors pretending to be bin Laden long after bin Laden's death.

These were done to help justify spending, repressive laws, torture and simple thievery.

For years, we attacked the government of Pakistan for not hunting down someone everyone knew was dead. Bin Laden's death hit the newspapers in Pakistan on December 15, 2001. How do you think our ally felt when they were continually berated for failing to hunt down and turn over someone who didn't exist?

What do you think this did for American credibility in Pakistan and through the Islamic world? Were we seen as criminals, liars or simply fools? Which one is best?

This is also treason.

How does the death of bin Laden and the defeat and dismemberment of Al Qaeda impact the intelligence assessments, partially based on, not only bin Laden but Al Qaeda activity in Iraq that, not only never happened but was now known to have been unable to happen?

How many "Pentagon Pundits," the retired officers who sold their honor to send us to war for what is now known to be domestic, political, dirty tricks and not national security are culpable in these crimes?

I don't always agree with Col. Pappas on things. I believe his politics overrule his judgement at times. However, we totally agree on bin Laden; we simply disagree with what it means. To me lying and sending men to their deaths based on lies is treason.

Falsifying military intelligence and spending billions on unnecessary military operations for political reasons is an abomination. Consider this, giving billions in contracts to GOP friends who fill campaign coffers, and doing so based on falsified intelligence is insane. This was done for years.

We spent 8 years chasing a dead man, spending billions, sending FBI agents, the CIA, Navy Seals, Marine Force Recon, Special Forces, many to their deaths, as part of a political campaign to justify running America into debt, enriching a pack of political cronies and war profiteers and to puff up a pack of Pentagon peacocks and their White house draft dodging bosses.

How many laws were pushed through because of a dead man?

How many hundreds were tortured to find a dead man?

How many hundreds died looking for a dead man?

How many billions were spent looking for a dead man?

Every time Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld stood before troops and talked about hunting down the dead bin Laden, it was a dishonor. Lying to men and women who put their lives on the line is not a joke.

Who is going to answer to the families of those who died for the politics and profit tied to the Hunt for Bin Laden?

The sun is setting on European neo-colonialism

On Tuesday 22 March 2011 the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, took time off from fulminating about the ‘no-fly zone’ in Libya to warn President Mugabe that he should beware the tide of revolution sweeping down from North Africa. The clear implication was that since the European ex-colonial powers were able to get the UN Security Council to back their policies that Mugabe and, presumably, Laurent Gbagbo in the Ivory Coast would become fair game for the exercise of their military might and that the ‘international community’ could impose a new government in any country it chose by virtue of how the ‘international community’ viewed the benevolence of that government’s rule.

In short, the ex-colonial powers assert they have the right to determine who governs whom in Africa, irrespective of the African constitutions, elections and sovereignty. This has always been the position of France and Chirac and Sarkozy but it is a rare statement by the British who couched their language more carefully. It didn’t stop them from sending troops to post-colonial Tanganyika, Zanzibar, Kenya, Uganda, Sierra Leone, among others, to ‘restore order’, but they withheld from making such a baldly outrageous assertion before.

This series of crises in North Africa and parts of the Middle East have broken the restraints on their megalomaniacal grasping for power and influence and allowed them to pretend that they know what is best for everyone and that they have a deep-seated commitment to democracy, fair play and human rights; except in those countries which have oil or are good customers for their weapons industries. This is part of a long tradition which followed directly from the colonial ethos.

Despite the seizure of power by Ian Smith and the Rhodesian Front from British colonialism and its Unilateral Declaration of Independence the British did nothing to impede the Rhodies in their creation of a breakaway state. They didn’t act because they were the “kith and kin” of the Rhodies. That is, they were white. This didn’t impede the British from brutalising the Kikuyu in Kenya who weren’t white. There are few who argued then or can argue now that the Rhodesian Front was acting to support the human rights and dignity of the inhabitants of Southern Rhodesia. They were acting for the white population in Southern Rhodesia and imposed a form of junior apartheid on the African population. The British Government refused to act. Now that Southern Rhodesia is Zimbabwe and run by elected African leaders operating under a Constitution they feel they do have the right to intervene and change the government. The Zims aren’t kith and kin; they are Black. What sheer hypocrisy and self-delusion.

This has always been the posture of the French. Its actions over the years in Ivory Coast are a good example of the lure of neo-colonialism. The long period of political dominance of Felix Houphouet-Boigny was a period of accommodation to the will of France. It was a colony in all but a name. It had a flag, a national anthem and a seat in the UN, but otherwise was operated as if colonialism had never ended. At the death of Houphouet-Boigny the French did all they could to hold the system together but Bedie wasn’t strong enough to do so. Moreover, Bedie attacked the immigrants from the neighbouring countries as intruders and established the notion of ‘Ivoirite”, a local form of xenophobia. As they were primarily Muslims from Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali this added the dimension of an ‘oppressed minority’ to the equation. The brief military takeover of Guei led to the first election in which the candidate of the Ivoirian masses was elected to office; the university lecturer and trades unionist Laurent Gbagbo and his politically-active wife Simone Ehivet. They began to question the strict controls that the French had maintained over the country and the monopoly positions granted to French corporations. The French found this odious and, having warned Gbagbo and offered him large rewards to change his policies, they vowed to oust him from power. They enlisted the help of a Burkinabe immigrant, Alassane Ouattara, who had been brought in to assist with the economic planning by Houphouet-Boigny. Ouattara rested his claim to power on his affiliation with the Muslim migrants and the Muslim northerners. They lost at the ballot box and staged an attempted coup when Gbagbo left for a meeting with the Pope.
This rebellion quickly faltered and was in danger of being wiped out in Bouake and Korhogo by loyalist forces when the French landed paratroopers to protect them. This effectively split the country between North and South. Despite periodic attempts at coups by the North against Gbagbo, the Gbagbo government remained in power. The ‘international community’ (that is France and its friends) insisted on power sharing and a range of other demands on the Government of the Ivory Coast. In a range of treaties between the rebels and the government (Linas-Marcoussis, Accra, Pretoria, Ouagadougou) the key demand on the rebels which they signed up to was that they disarm so that elections could take place. They never disarmed. When the recent election took place, despite the lack of disarmament, the rebel soldiers surrounded the voting places in the North and rigged the ballot boxes. The representative of Ouattara announced unofficially that Ouattara had won the election. The Constitutional Court which was charge under the Constitution said that Gbagbo had won.

This same ‘international community’ took the French lead and recognised Ouattara as the President of the country despite the constitution. The people had elected Gbagbo and he refused to leave office. That has meant that the United Nations forces which worked with the French soldiers in Ivory Coast have armed the rebels and conducted warfare against Gbagbo and his troops. They imposed sanctions against the Ivory Coast and have allowed violence to take place against the populations in areas they and the rebels control.

Gbagbo and his government are not leaving. President Sarkozy ordered Gbagbo to leave the country within forty-eight hours. The Ivory Coast demanded that the French leave and to take their UN thugs with them. This has not yet been resolved. The UN force, the UNOCI have armed the rebels, given them N uniforms and supported them in their rampage against the civil population. They are trying to create a situation in which Gbagbo’s troops rise to the bait and retaliate. Then they can weep their crocodile tears about the attacks on human rights and demand military intervention. The UNOCI just sacked its commander, the Bangladeshi General Hafiz who said it was not the job of the UNOCI to kill Ivoirian citizens. He has been replaced by the genocidal Général Gankoudé Berena of Togo who is famous for his role in the Rwanda genocide where he commanded a brigade; in Guinea-Bissau where he supervised a bloodbath; and at home in Togo where he killed scores of students in the Bay of Lome. This is the kind of peacekeeping the UN has set up in the Ivory Coast.

The UN threatens to attack Gbagbo and to oust him but has no mandate to do it on their own. They are relying on using military forces from other African countries. Until now the other African countries have shown more sense and refused to do so.

The French have ben he main force behind this attack on Gbagbo since 2000. It has backfired badly on them. French business leaders are complaining to Sarkozy that their businesses in the country are being ruined. Their banks have been taken over and they will lose their cocoa by the end of March. Sarkozy promised them that he would oust Gbagbo within a week. This is clearly unlikely to happen. Moreover the French don’t dare attack Gbagbo themselves as there are over fourteen thousand French nationals in the country who are, effectively hostages to French behaviour.

This self-destructive behaviour was equally true in Libya. France's biggest corporations are concerned about President Nicolas Sarkozy’s gung-ho approach concerning Libya: he was the first to recognize the Libyan insurgent leadership and to call for a no-fly zone over the country. Some groups like Total and Alstom are worried about their assets in the country and their local employees while others fear the Libyan regime could publish documents concerning on-going negotiations. A few months ago Dassault Aviation was still deep in talks to sell Rafale fighters to Tripoli, aircraft that Libya wanted to be equipped with Scalp cruise missile and Exocet AM 39 missiles. Suez was keen on landing a water supply contract for Tripoli and Benghazi. Its adviser in Libya was Tunisia’s Slah Knifen who is close to Saif El Islam Gaddhafi and also acts as EADS’ adviser in Libya. Sarkozy has screwed up French business in both countries.
Why are the French, and to a large degree the British, so caught up in this benighted endeavour? The answer is that they are desperate. France’s economy is smaller than that of California; Britain’s is smaller than Texas. They are in desperate financial straits and growing poorer and deeper in debt every year. As they grow poorer and weaker Africa is growing and expanding at a marvellous rate.. Over the last six years the French have been losing their power in Africa, They are not in the same economic league as the Chinese, Russian and US corporations. They can’t afford to support the economic basket cases of Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, and the Central African Republic. The Ivory Coast has oil, gas, cocoa, coffee, cotton and timber. It is a rich country and the French are being frozen out. It is too late to get their dominant position back. France has already lost and only the hope of installing Ouattara may allow them to get back in, even a little bit. That is what the battle in the Ivory Coast is about.

Africa is going through boom time. Its economies are among the fastest growing in the world. The rates of growth of many African economies are multiples of European growth rates. African stock markets are expanding. In 1989 there were five African stock exchanges. Now there are twenty, including two regional exchanges. African banks are spreading across the world. The insatiable markets for commodities in China and India have opened new doors for African business. There is a rapid and spreading prosperity in Africa and very little of any of this has to do with France or Europe in general. The Ivory Coast doesn’t have to sell its cocoa to Europe; Asia is happy to take it along with the oil. The sun has already started its descent on Europe and there is no way for them to change this. Africa has a wonderful future and is on the cusp of great prosperity. Fortunately, their former colonial masters can only stare and grimace in envy as Africa becomes integrated into the global economy and moves on to become an economic powerhouse as they fade and wither. Their threats of violence and intervention are primitive and demeaning.

Gary K. Bush in ocnus

Blaise Compaoré, une autre complaisance française

Alors que les élections récentes au Togo, en Guinée et en Côte d'Ivoire ont été si disputées et si commentées par les médias internationaux, personne ne s'étonne aujourd'hui que Blaise Compaoré ait été réélu le 25 novembre dernier président de la république du Burkina Faso, pour la quatrième fois consécutive, avec un score de 80,15 % dès le premier tour de scrutin. Blaise Compaoré est pourtant connu pour avoir pris le pouvoir dans le sang le 15 octobre 1987, lors du coup d'Etat au cours duquel fut assassiné son prédécesseur et jadis ami, le très populaire Thomas Sankara.

Longue de plus de 23 ans, la présidence de Blaise Compaoré est depuis sans partage, si ce n'est celui des armes ukrainiennes livrées via son pays à plusieurs rébellions sanguinaires dont celle du RUF en Sierra Leone, ou celui des contrats d'exploitation des infrastructures burkinabé, lesquels sont régulièrement attribués à des groupes français comme Bolloré, qui sécurise la route de l'uranium entre les installations d'Areva au Niger et les ports d'expédition ivoiriens et togolais.

Est-ce la raison pour laquelle Blaise Compaoré est si choyé par les gouvernements français successifs depuis son élection ? Est-ce la raison pour laquelle ce président autoritaire est devenu un pôle de stabilité si important en Afrique de l'Ouest qu'il a été désigné avec la bénédiction de l'Union européenne comme "facilitateur" entre les parties dans les scrutins récents de ses trois pays voisins ?

La "visite de travail" qu'il effectue à Paris les 17 et 18 janvier en compagnie d'une délégation de la Cédéao pour rencontrer le président Nicolas Sarkozy en plein imbroglio ivoirien laisse en tout cas penser que Blaise Compaoré reste à Paris un partenaire de choix. Cette complaisance envers un chef d'Etat mal élu ressemble au soutien affiché jusqu'au dernier moment à l'ex-dictateur tunisien Zine el Abidine Ben Ali : même origine françafricaine moribonde, même rempart prétendu contre l'islamisme radical, mêmes intérêts géostratégiques inavouables. Une telle complaisance doit cesser, d'autant que la France fait actuellement valoir son attachement au respect de résultats électoraux transparents dans un pays voisin et très lié au Burkina Faso.

If God is supposed to protect us from evil and is supposedly omnipotent (everywhere at any time) why doesn't he save us from present evil already?!

I don't know if I will get lots of hate from religious nuts or not so I'm posting this to see the reaction.Religion is one of the most phony,yet interesting, human topics ever.Here are 6 things that prove that God does not exist and that every religion is wrong (in the last reason)If God is supposed to protect us from evil and is supposedly omnipotent (everywhere at any given time) and omnibenevolent (the ultimate in good),why doesn't he save us from the present evil already?!
2. If God already knows the future and created us in his image, then humanity is destined to know everything He knows and we will not have the true free will we have. An example is this very post. If I knew what the reaction would be, like "God", I wouldn't be writing this.
3. If God is omnipotent and not everyone believes in Him, He would do a better job gathering believers.
4. Why would a supernatural being create a universe? Because He was bored to death? He can't desire it because the concept of desire is subjectively human.
5. Ma and Pa told me that God meant to make us imperfect. Why the hell would God make us imperfect if He, according to the Bible, expects so much from us as individuals. They never gave me a straightforward answer, or even a relevant one.
6. Religion is very inconsistent about the idea of God and what He wats from us (if God can even feel desire). So that also proves, not only the non-existence of God, but the inaccuracy and incorrectness of many, if not all, religions.

Now I would love to stick around and watch the discussion unfold, but I have a Rush concert to catch in an hour. See ya. I respond to your comments later.
If God is supposed to protect us from evil and is supposedly omnipotent (everywhere at any time) why doesn't he save us from the present evil already?!

Oil, IMF And Election Theft; The Makings Of An Ivory Coast Coup

Newly discovered oil, an IMF henchman and good old fashioned election robbery are the ingredients of the west’s latest electoral coup attempt, this time in the west African country of the Ivory Coast.

The real winner of the Ivorian election was President Gabagbo, who as required under the Ivorian Constitution, was declared the victor by the Ivorian Constitutional Court, the only party empowered to do so by Ivorian law. The west’s attempt to install their own puppet as President is part and parcel of the western policy of “crisis management” used to control Africa and exploit its resources.

Very few readers outside of the Ivory Coast have any background in this matter so lets start by reviewing recent Ivorian history.

For decades the French supported Felix Boigny ruled Cote D’Ivoire. During his reign the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and its evil twin the World Bank forced one of their local henchmen upon Boigny as his “Prime Minister”, Monsieur Ouattara.

During this time an Ivorian academic named Laurent Gabagbo came to the fore as a spokesperson for a popular movement opposed to the rape and pillage imposed on the Ivorian people by the draconian social spending cuts mandated by the IMF and World Bank. Professor Gabagbo was soon thrown into prison with much of the credit for such laid at Prime Minister Ouattara’s door.

After the death of President Boigny in 1993 an election was held, previous to which Ouattara had lost an internal power struggle and left the country, going back to working directly for the western financial mafia.

By 1999 relations between the new Ivorian president and the French and USA had grown increasingly tense and that year a military coup supported by the west overthrew the elected government. Behind the scenes pulling the strings was Ouattara and his western godfathers.

By 2002 the western policy of crisis management had lead to a nasty civil war between northern and southern Ivorians. This conflict developed into an ethnic/religious based war with eventual President Laurent Gabagbo leading the south, mainly Christian and Ivorian nationalist movement versus Ouattara with his western overlords funding his operation based in the north and a more muslim, high percentage of immigrants demographic.

The west, mainly the French, have sided openly with the northern based rebellion and the French air force went so far as to bomb the Ivorian military supporting Gabagbo. A stalemate developed with the south lead by Gabagbo and the north under the control of various local warlords

After years of international pressure, the French and USA, along with the UN, forced another election in the Ivory Coast which was held at the end of 2010 with the two main candidates being Ouattara and Gabagbo.

Before the election the polls predicted a victory for President Gabagbo. While vote counting was under way, several hundred thousand votes from northern Ivory Coast where Ouattara has his base of support were challenged by President Gabagbo’s camp and subsequently disqualified by the Ivorian Constitutional Court who declared President Gabagbo the winner. Under the Ivorian constitution, the Election Commission can only tabulate and pass on its findings to the Ivorian Constitutional Court which is the sole power allowed to declare the winner. As such, under Ivorian Law President Gabagbo won the election.

The western supported “independent election commission” disputed the Ivorian Constitutional Court ruling, having marched from a meeting with the USA and French ambassadors to a press conference to declare Ouattara the real winner. The west, with the support of the UN in-Security Council announced that they, not the Ivorian Constitutional Court would declare the winner, and proceeded to try and install Ouattara as president. The Ivorian people in the south were outraged and declared their support for Ivorian sovereignty and the leadership of President Gabagbo in large demonstrations.

Ouattara, the “Independent Election Commission” and their western handlers tried to play hardball, refusing to allow a review of the disputed votes, refusing to even talk to Gabagbo. President Gabagbo prepared to wait out the crisis, continuing to operate as he has done for several years as the leader of at least the southern half of the Ivory Coast.

Ouattara, with all the international recognition seemed to suffer from delusions of grandeur and called for a nation wide general strike.

When the next day made it apparent that Ouattara couldn't even mobilize support amongst his base in the north for the strike it became clear that he was little more than what he was, another African puppet dancing to his masters tune. Ouattara recently called for another general strike, which failed miserably, again.

Ever more desperate, Ouattara, who remains holed up in a 5 star hotel protected by thousands of UN “peacekeepers” and a combat alert French Air force ten minutes away, has repeatedly called for a military invasion of the Ivory Coast and his installation as “the rightful President of the Ivory Coast”. Gabagbo remains calm and the standoff continues.

Compared to the rest of west Africa the Ivory Coast historically has been fairly well off economically. Not only is the Ivory Coast the cocoa capital of the world, large offshore oil deposits have been discovered which have the potential to turn the Ivory Coast into even more of an economic and political power in the region.

The Ivory Coast is surrounded by neighbors who have fallen victim for many years to a series of wars and ethnic cleansing resulting from decades of “crisis management” imposed on them by the west. Millions have fled their homelands for reason of economic turmoil compounded by periodic civil wars and have been settling throughout the Ivory Coast for decades now. With the north having the highest percentage of immigrants, up to 40%, some 25% of the people living in the Ivory Coast today are non-citizens. Living and working in an adopted land are one thing, holding an Ivorian passport and voting in an Ivorian election is another matter. The pre-election polls conducted of documented Ivorians reflected the results announced by the Ivorian high court, and only a flood of suspect last minute votes from areas with high concentrations of non-Ivorians allowed any pretense of an Ouattara victory.

Ouattara’s western handlers now realize that the only way to remove Gabagbo would be by force and the only force capable of doing so, no matter the bluster by Nigeria’s President Bad Luck Johnson, is the French army and air force, a sizable contingent of which is stationed on Ivorian soil.

Even the French peacock Sarkozy seems to have realized what a disaster it would be to have the French military killing Africans and is loath to order such. The UN “peacekeepers” are mainly from Bangladesh and of little more than symbolic use. Time seems to be on Gabagbo’s side with Ouattara alternating between taking a military invasion line and trying other, behind the scenes efforts to destabilize the southern Ivory Coast.

About the only weapon in the west's arsenal against the Gabagbo government are financial and economic sanctions, both of which have been imposed. Even this has been resisted with the director of the West African Central Bank, the main center of financial transactions in the region, resigning over western pressure to cut off funding to the President Gabagbo’s government.

Cracks have begun to appear in the seemingly unanimous support for the western coup attempt, with President of Angola pointing out the obvious legality of Gabagbo’s victory due to the ruling of the Ivorian Constitutional Court. So far the so called “free press in the west” has continued their propaganda campaign on behalf of the attempted coup and maintained a white out of the basic facts in this conflict.

If the Ivory Coast, at least the southern, Gabagbo lead part, can withstand these attacks for the next months, possible years, it is seems that the Ivory Coast electoral coup attempt by the west has failed. As for all the talk in the west about “supporting democracy in Africa” one only has to remember the west's support for the completely bogus Ethiopian 99% election victory by Meles Zenawi, the most hated man in the Horn of Africa if not the entire continent. With over a dozen “elections” slated in Africa over the next year or two stay tuned for more “buy, rig or steal” electoral coups, all part of the west's “crisis management” policy in Africa. In other words, create a crisis and then manage or manipulate such the better to loot and pillage Africa’s natural and human resources. When it comes to “democracy” nothing seems to be to low for the increasingly desperate attempts by the former colonial powers in the west and their godfather in the USA to continue imposing their rule on Africa. For without Africa’s oil and mineral wealth the western economies will slowly grind to a halt, leaving Europe and the USA little choice but more futile attempts to enforce what was once their unchallenged rule.

Thomas C. Mountain is the only independent western journalist in the Horn of Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006. In a previous life he was publisher of the Ambedkar Journal, an educator, activist and founding Director of the Honolulu Medical Marijuana Patients Coop. thomascmountain at yahoo dot com

The so called military intervention "constitutes a gross manipulation

The very same criminal gang that have attacked Iraq&Afghanistan have today lauched one of the most catastophic military attack on a sovereign Libya
The very same criminal gang that have attacked Iraq and Afghanistan have today lauched one of the most catastophic military attack on a sovereign state( Libya)beginning what the open minded people believe will be yet another mass slaughter of innocent civilians.What is obvious to all but the most duped and apathetic is that once again we have another war launched by the imperialist powers thinly veiled as a “humanitarian intervention”,backed by an arm twisted UN resolution, dressed up as a mission of peace driven by the use of heavy bombardment and murder, where the truth lies diametrically opposed to the propaganda being pushed by the castrated capitalist mainstream media. Nothing is what it seems; the lies and deceptions are far dangerouse than the world may have thought.
The similarities with Iraq go well beyond the date of the opening salvo indeed, there are many consistencies between the current aggressive attack on Libya and numerous other military interventions and acts of aggression carried out by the US, NATO and their criminal allies in recent years.
Largely fabricated case for humanitarian intervention based on violence stoked by special forces troops and CIA,MI6 covert operations inside libya, with the consistent demonisation of the leader recast as a mass murdering tyrant to justify a heavy saturation bombing campaign in the name of human rights and justice. Any historical context that might cast the so-called “Allies” in a negative light for instance large-scale sales of weapons to the new enemy figure is carefully omitted from the narrative.
The imperialist aggressors are specifically responsible for the deaths of over a million civilians in Iraq and more than 70,000 in Afghanistan, which are downplayed by the term collateral damage.
The so called United Nations was formed by the nations that joined together against Germany in the Second World War. These countries formed a body called the Security Council, made themselves permanent members and granted themselves the power of veto ,such action is authocratic and illegal by democratic standard.The rest of the world were not part of that process during that time.The United Nations was formed in line with those three countries. That happened in the absence of some 165 countries, that is, one country was present and eight were absent.
If a country,like Libya for instance, were to exhibit military aggression against France or the United states, then the entire Organization would respond because France or the US is a sovereign State Member of the United Nations and the entire UN share the collective responsibility to protect the sovereignty of all nations. However, 65 aggressive wars have taken place since the formation of the UN without any United Nations action to prevent them.
Eight other massive, deadly wars, whose victims number some two to thress million civilians, have been waged by Member States that enjoy veto powers(US,Britain,France,Russia). Those countries that would want other countries to believe they seek to maintain the sovereignty and independence of peoples actually use military aggressive force against other sovereign states who are also member of the UN. Why would an open minded person believe that these aggressors want to work for peace and security of the world ?Instead they have resorted to aggressive wars and hostile behaviour. The US,Britian,France,Russia with the exception of China who was unanomously granted membership through UN voting process enjoy the veto they granted themselves as permanent members of the Security Council.
This intevention is illegal by all standard.
The so called military intervention "constitutes a gross manipulation" of the United Nations (UN) Charter and of the authority of the UN Security Council, and shows the "double standards which characterize its behavior."It is highly illegal from a realistic point of view
The "UN Resolution adopted by the Security Council does not authorize in any way these attacks on Libyan territory, which constitutes a violation of the international law,it is illegal by all standard.The war mongering cliq carrying out the military attacks against Libyan territory "have already started causing death, injury and suffering to innocent libyans and other civilian infrastructures.The events taking place in libya should not be a news to the conscious and the informed fellows,it's nothing new to me,because there are fundamental causes behind the strategy aimed at ruining Libya. Years ago, it was designated as a target by the architects of the "NEW WORLD ORDER"(NWO) , and the air raids against Libya were just a matter of time."
The question arising under this circumstances is: in the world of today, where force prevails over right, are there healthy political forces capable of preventing the devastation of yet another stable and prosperous country? I do believe that such forces exist.HELL is on earth.
The so called military intervention "constitutes a gross manipulation" of the United Nations (UN) Charter and of the authority of the UN Security Council, and shows the "double standards which characterize its behavior."It is highly illegal from a realistic point of view
The "UN Resolution adopted by the Security Council does not authorize in any way these attacks on Libyan territory, which constitutes a violation of the international law,it is illegal by all standard.The war mongering cliq carrying out the military attacks against Libyan territory "have already started causing death, injury and suffering to innocent libyans and other civilian infrastructures.
Seems it wont be wrong afterall to believe that the issue in Libya is far beyond "Qadhafi 42years dictatorship", though thats part of it and its being used to justify : protesters turned to armed to teeth rebels, france recognising the rebel government, seriously considering no-fly zone over Libya, arab league hypocritically or maybe self-servingly calling for no-fly zone over Libya for balance of power, imperialists disguisng their lust for Libyan Oil as humanitarian and democratiic champions. If we do our arithmetics, the losers remain Africa and Pan-Africanism. Outsiders can never love u more than u. Their are so many other peaceful avenue to reign in sit-tight dictators. Imperialist did not use it because they were benefitting from the dictators. Look at the mucky UK-Libya oil-related deal that led to release of Abdul-Basit Meghrahi? Look at the secret advances UK made to the rebels before their secret servicen were captured & locked up? Look at France's unilateral recognition of the rebel council? That one reminds me of the race at sharing Africa by the Imperialist in the olden days. Look at the fight for African slavery reparation? What happened to the champion? he die of America tea & hand-shake dem give him in Abuja Nigeria !
Attack on Libya is not new, the devils only used the situation in Arab word today to carried out their pre-planned agenda...................see the article that was written in 2002 by one of the British newspaper.......MI6 'halted bid to arrest bin Laden'
Startling revelations by French intelligence experts back David Shayler's alleged 'fantasy'about Gadaffi plot
Martin Bright , home affairs editor
The Observer, Sunday 10 November 2002 01.48 GMT
Article history
British intelligence paid large sums of money to an al-Qaeda cell in Libya in a doomed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi in 1996 and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.
The latest claims of MI6 involvement with Libya's fearsome Islamic Fighting Group, which is connected to one of bin Laden's trusted lieutenants, will be embarrassing to the Government, which described similar claims by renegade MI5 officer David Shayler as 'pure fantasy'.

The allegations have emerged in the book Forbidden Truth , published in America by two French intelligence experts who reveal that the first Interpol arrest warrant for bin Laden was issued by Libya in March 1998.

According to journalist Guillaume Dasquié and Jean-Charles Brisard, an adviser to French President Jacques Chirac, British and US intelligence agencies buried the fact that the arrest warrant had come from Libya and played down the threat. Five months after the warrant was issued, al-Qaeda killed more than 200 people in the truck bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The arrest warrant was issued in connection with the murder in March 1994 of two German anti-terrorism agents, Silvan and Vera Becker, who were in charge of missions in Africa. According to the book, the resistance of Western intelligence agencies to the Libyan concerns can be explained by MI6's involvement with the al-Qaeda coup plot.

The Libyan al-Qaeda cell included Anas al-Liby, who remains on the US government's most wanted list with a reward of $25 million for his capture. He is wanted for his involvement in the African embassy bombings. Al-Liby was with bin Laden in Sudan before the al-Qaeda leader returned to Afghanistan in 1996.

Astonishingly, despite suspicions that he was a high-level al-Qaeda operative, al-Liby was given political asylum in Britain and lived in Manchester until May of 2000 when he eluded a police raid on his house and fled abroad. The raid discovered a 180-page al-Qaeda 'manual for jihad' containing instructions for terrorist attacks.

The Observer has been restrained from printing details of the allegations during the course of the trial of David Shayler, who was last week sentenced to six months in prison for disclosing documents obtained during his time as an MI5 officer. He was not allowed to argue that he made the revelations in the public interest.

During his closing speech last week, Shayler repeated claims that he was gagged from talking about 'a crime so heinous' that he had no choice but to go to the press with his story. The 'crime' was the alleged MI6 involvement in the plot to assassinate Gadaffi, hatched in late 1995.

Shayler claims he was first briefed about the plot during formal meetings with colleagues from the foreign intelligence service MI6 when he was working on MI5's Libya desk in the mid-Nineties.

The Observer can today reveal that the MI6 officers involved in the alleged plot were Richard Bartlett, who has previously only been known under the codename PT16 and had overall responsibility for the operation; and David Watson, codename PT16B. As Shayler's opposite number in MI6, Watson was responsible for running a Libyan agent, 'Tunworth', who was was providing information from within the cell. According to Shayler, MI6 passed £100,000 to the al-Qaeda plotters.

The assassination attempt on Gadaffi was planned for early 1996 in the Libyan coastal city of Sirte. It is thought that an operation by the Islamic Fighting Group in the city was foiled in March 1996 and in the gun battle that followed several militants were killed. In 1998, the Libyans released TV footage of a 1996 grenade attack on Gadaffi that they claimed had been carried out by a British agent.

Shayler, who conducted his own defence in the trial, intended to call Bartlett and Watson as witnesses, but was prevented from doing so by the narrow focus of the court case.

During the Shayler trial, Home Secretary David Blunkett and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw signed Public Interest Immunity certificates to protect national security. Reporters were not able to report allegations about the Gadaffi plot during the course of the trial.

These restrictions have led to a row between the Attorney General and the so-called D-Notice Committee, which advises the press on national security issues.

The committee, officially known as the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee, has objected to demands by the prosecution to apply the Official Secrets Act retrospectively to cover information already pub lished or broadcast as a result of Shayler's disclosures. Members of the committee, who include senior national newspaper executives, are said to be horrified at the unprecedented attempt to censor the media during the trial.

Shayler claims Watson later boasted that there had been MI6 involvement in the Libyan operation. Shayler was also planning to call a witness to the conversation in which the MI6 man claimed British intelligence had been involved in the coup attempt.

According to Shayler, the woman, an Arabic translator at MI5, was also shocked by Watson's admission that money had been paid to the plotters.

Despite the James Bond myth, MI6 does not have a licence to kill and must gain direct authorisation from the Foreign Secretary for highly sensitive operations. Malcolm Rifkind, the Conservative Foreign Secretary at the time, has repeatedly said he gave no such authorisation.

It is believed Watson and Bartlett have been relocated and given new identities as a result of Shayler's revelations. MI6 is now said to be resigned to their names being made public and it is believed to have put further measures in place to ensure their safety.

A top-secret MI6 document leaked on the internet two years ago confirmed British intelligence knew of a plot in 1995, which involved five colonels, Libyan students and 'Libya veterans who served in Afghanistan'.

Ashur Shamis, a Libyan expert on radical Islam said: 'There was a rise in the activities of the Islamic Fighting Group from 1995, but many in Libya would be shocked if MI6 was involved.'
They can never love Africa more than Africans

Let Libyans Solve Their Own problems By President YOWERI KAGUTA MUSEVENI of Uganda

By the time Muammar Gaddafi came to power in 1969, I was a Third Year university student at Dar es Salaam. We welcomed him because he was in the tradition of Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt who had a nationalist and pan-Arabist position.Soon, however, problems cropped up with Gaddafi as far as Uganda and Black Africa are concerned:

1. Idi Amin came to power with the support of Britain and Israel because they thought he was uneducated enough to be used by them. Amin, however, turned against his sponsors when they refused to sell him guns to fight Tanzania.

Unfortunately, Gaddafi, without getting enough information about Uganda, jumped in to support Amin presumably because Amin was a ‘Muslim’ and Uganda was a ‘Muslim country’ where Muslims were being “oppressed”’ by Christians.

Amin executed a lot of people and Gaddafi was identified with these mistakes. In 1972 and 1979, Gaddafi sent Libyan troops to defend Amin when we attacked him.

2. The second big mistake was Gaddafi’s position vis-à-vis the African Union. Since 1999, he has been pushing for a United States of Africa. We tried to politely point out to Gaddafi that this was difficult in the short and medium term. We should, instead, aim at the Economic Community of Africa and, where possible, also aim at regional federations.

Gaddafi would not relent. He would not respect the rules of the AU. He would resurrect something that has been covered by previous meetings. He would ‘overrule’ a decision taken by all other African Heads of State. Some of us were forced to come out and oppose his wrong position and, working with others, we repeatedly defeated his illogical position.

3. The third mistake has been the tendency by Gaddafi to interfere in the internal affairs of many African countries using the little money Libya has compared to those countries.

One blatant example was his involvement with cultural leaders of Black Africa — kings, chiefs, etc. Since the political leaders of Africa had refused to back his project of an African government, Gaddafi, incredibly, thought that he could by-pass them and work with these kings to implement his wishes.

I warned Gaddafi in Addis Ababa that action would be taken against any Ugandan king who involved himself in politics because it was against our Constitution. I moved a motion in Addis Ababa to expunge from the records of the AU all references to kings who had made speeches in our forum because they had been invited there illegally by Gaddafi.

4. The fourth big mistake was by most of the Arab leaders, including Gaddafi, to some extent. This was in connection with the long suffering people of Southern Sudan.

Many of the Arab leaders either supported or ignored the suffering of the Black people in that country. This unfairness always created tension and friction between us and the Arabs, including Gaddafi to some extent.

However, I must salute him and former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for travelling to Khartoum just before the Referendum in Sudan and advising President Omar el-Bashir to respect the results of that exercise.

5. Sometimes, Gaddafi and other Middle Eastern radicals do not distance themselves sufficiently from terrorism even when they are fighting for a just cause. Terrorism is the use of indiscriminate violence — not distinguishing between military and non-military targets.

The Middle Eastern radicals, quite different from the revolutionaries of Black Africa, seem to say that any means is acceptable as long as you are fighting the enemy. That is why they hijack planes, use assassinations, and plant bombs in bars.

Why bomb bars? People who go to bars are normally merry-makers, not politically minded people.

We were together with the Arabs in the anti-colonial struggle.

The Black African liberation movements, however, developed differently from the Arab ones. Where we used arms, we fought soldiers or sabotaged infrastructure, but never targeted non-combatants.

These indiscriminate methods tend to isolate the struggles of the Middle East and the Arab world. It would be good if the radicals in these areas could streamline their work methods in this area of using violence indiscriminately.

These five points above are some of the negatives associated with Gaddafi. The positions have been unfortunate and unnecessary.

Nevertheless, Gaddafi has also had many positive points, objectively speaking. These have been in favour of Africa, Libya and the Third World. I will deal with them point by point:

1. Gaddafi has been having an independent foreign policy and, of course, also independent internal policies. I am not able to understand the position of Western countries, which appear to resent independent-minded leaders and seem to prefer puppets.

Puppets are not good for any country. Most of the countries that have transitioned from Third World to First World status since 1945 have had independent-minded leaders: South Korea (Park Chung-hee), Singapore (Lee Kuan Yew), China People’s Republic (Mao Zedong, Chou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Marshal Yang Shangkun, Li Peng, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jing Tao, etc), Malaysia (Dr Mahthir Mohamad), Brazil (Lula Da Silva), Iran (the Ayatollahs).

In Africa, we have benefited from a number of independent-minded leaders: Col. Nasser of Egypt, Mwalimu Nyerere of Tanzania, and Samora Machel of Mozambique. That is how Southern Africa was liberated. That is how we got rid of Amin. The stopping of genocide in Rwanda and the overthrow of Mobutu were as a result of efforts of independent-minded African leaders.

Gaddafi, whatever his faults, is a true nationalist. I prefer nationalists to puppets of foreign interests.

Where have the puppets caused the transformation of countries? I need some assistance with information on this from those who are familiar with puppetry.

Therefore, the independent-minded Gaddafi had some positive contribution to Libya, I believe, as well as Africa and the Third World.

I will take one little example. At the time we were fighting the criminal dictatorships in Uganda, we had a problem arising from a complication caused by our failure to capture enough guns at Kabamba on the 6th of February, 1981.

Gaddafi gave us a small consignment of 96 rifles, 100 anti-tank mines, etc., that was very useful. He did not consult Washington or Moscow before he did this. This was good for Libya, for Africa and for the Middle East.

2. Before Gaddafi came to power in 1969, a barrel of oil was 40 American cents. He launched a campaign to withhold Arab oil unless the West paid more for it. I think the price went up to US$20 per barrel. When the Arab-Israel war of 1973 broke out, the barrel of oil went up to US$40.

I am, therefore, surprised to hear that many oil producers in the world, including the Gulf countries, do not appreciate the historical role played by Gaddafi on this issue. The huge wealth many of these oil producers are enjoying was, at least in part, due to Gaddafi’s efforts.
The Western countries have continued to develop in spite of paying more for oil. It, therefore, means that the pre-Gaddafi oil situation was characterised by super exploitation by Western countries.

3. I have never taken time to investigate socio-economic conditions within Libya. When I was last there, I could see good roads even from the air. From the TV pictures, you can even see the rebels zooming up and down in pick-up vehicles on very good roads accompanied by Western journalists.

Who built these good roads? Who built the oil refineries in Brega and those other places where the fighting has been taking place recently? Were these facilities built during the time of the king and his American as well as British allies or were they built by Gaddafi?

In Tunisia and Egypt, some youths immolated themselves because they had failed to get jobs. Are the Libyans without jobs also? If so, why, then, are there hundreds of thousands of foreign workers? Is Libya’s policy of providing so many jobs to Third World workers bad?

Are all the children going to school in Libya? Was that the case before Gaddafi? Is the conflict in Libya economic or purely political?

Possibly Libya could have transitioned more if they encouraged the private sector more. However, this is something the Libyans are better placed to judge.

As it is, Libya is a middle income country with GDP standing at US$89.03 billion. This is about the same as the GDP of South Africa at the time Mandela took over leadership in 1994 and it about the current size of GDP in Spain.

4. Gaddafi is one of the few secular leaders in the Arab world. He does not believe in Islamic fundamentalism, which is why women have been able to go to school, to join the Army, etc. This is a positive point on Gaddafi’s side.

Coming to the present crisis, therefore, we need to point out some issues:

1. The first is to distinguish between demonstrations and insurrections. Peaceful demonstrations should not be fired on with live bullets. Of course, even peaceful demonstrations should co-ordinate with the police to ensure that they do not interfere with the rights of her citizens.

When rioters are, however, attacking Police stations and Army barracks with the aim of taking power, then, they are no longer demonstrators; they are insurrectionists. They will have to be treated as such. A responsible government would have to use reasonable force to neutralise them.

Of course, the ideal responsible government should also be an elected one by the people at periodic intervals. If there is a doubt about the legitimacy of a government and the people decide to launch an insurrection, that should be the decision of the internal forces. It should not be for external forces to arrogate themselves that role, for often, they do not have enough knowledge to decide rightly.

Excessive external involvement always brings terrible distortions. Why should external forces involve themselves? That is a vote of no confidence in the people themselves.

A legitimate internal insurrection, if that is the strategy chosen by the leaders of that effort, can succeed. The Shah of Iran was defeated by an internal insurrection; the Russian Revolution in 1917 was an internal insurrection; the Revolution in Zanzibar was an internal insurrection; the changes in Ukraine, Georgia, etc., all were internal insurrections. It should be for the leaders of the resistance in that country to decide their strategy, not for foreigners to do so.

I am totally allergic to foreign, political and military involvement in sovereign countries, especially the African countries.

If foreign intervention is good, then, African countries should be the most prosperous countries in the world because we have had the greatest dosages of that: slave trade, colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism, etc.

All those foreign imposed phenomena have, however, been disastrous.


It is only recently that Africa is beginning to come up partly because of rejecting external meddling. This, and the acquiescence by Africans into that meddling, have been responsible for the stagnation in Africa.

The wrong priorities in many African countries are, in many cases, imposed by external groups. Failure to prioritise infrastructure, for instance, especially energy, is, in part, due to some of these pressures. Instead, consumption is promoted.

I have witnessed this wrong definition of priorities in Uganda. External interests linked, for instance, with internal bogus groups to oppose energy projects for false reasons. How will an economy develop without energy? Quislings and their external backers do not care about this.

If you promote foreign backed insurrections in small countries like Libya, what will you do with the big ones like China, which has got a different system from the West? Are you going to impose a no-fly-zone over China in case of some internal insurrections as happened in Tiananmen Square or in Tibet?

The Western countries always use double standards. In Libya, they are very eager to impose a no-fly-zone. In Bahrain and other areas where there are pro-Western regimes, they turn a blind eye to the very same conditions or even worse conditions.

We have been appealing to the UN to impose a no-fly-zone over Somalia so as to impede the free movement of terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda who killed Americans on 9/11, killed Ugandans last July and have caused so much damage to the Somalis, without success.

Why? Are there no human beings in Somalia similar to the ones in Benghazi? Or is it because Somalia does not have oil which is not fully controlled by western companies on account of Gaddafi’s nationalist posture?

The West is always very prompt in commenting on every problem in the Third World — Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, etc. Yet, some of these countries were the ones impeding growth in those countries.

There was a military coup d’état that slowly became a revolution in backward Egypt in 1952. The new leader, Nasser, had ambition to cause transformation in Egypt. He wanted to build a dam not only to generate electricity but also to help with the ancient irrigation system of Egypt.

The West denied him money because they did not believe that Egyptians needed electricity. Nasser decided to raise that money by nationalising the Suez Canal. Israel, France and Britain attacked him.

Another negative point is going to arise out of the habit of the Western countries overusing their superiority in technology to impose war on less developed societies without impeachable logic. This will be the igniting of an arms race in the world. The actions of the Western countries in Iraq and now Libya are emphasising that might is “right.”

I am quite sure that many countries that are able will scale up their military research and in a few decades, we may have a more armed world.

All this notwithstanding, Mr Gaddafi should be ready to sit down with the opposition, through the mediation of the AU, with the opposition cluster of groups which now includes individuals well known to us — Ambassador Abdalla, Dr Zubeda, etc. I know Gaddafi has his system of elected committees that end up in a National People’s Conference.

There is now, apparently, a significant number of Libyans that think that there is a problem in terms of governance. Since there has not been internationally observed elections in Libya, not even by the AU, we cannot know what is correct and what is wrong. Therefore, dialogue is the correct way forward.

The AU mission could not get to Libya because the Western countries started bombing Libya the day before they were supposed to arrive. However, the mission will continue. My opinion is that, in addition, to what the AU mission is doing, it may be important to call an extraordinary Summit of the AU in Addis Ababa to discuss this grave situation.

Regarding the Libyan opposition, I would feel embarrassed to be backed by Western war planes because quislings of foreign interests have never helped Africa. We have had a copious supply of them in the last 50 years — Mobutu, Houphet-Boigny, Kamuzu Banda, etc.

Recently, there has been some improvement in the arrogant attitudes of some of these Western countries. Certainly, with Black Africa and, particularly, Uganda, the relations are good following their fair stand on the Black people of Southern Sudan.

With the democratisation of South Africa and the freedom of the Black people in Southern Sudan, the difference between the patriots of Uganda and the Western Governments had disappeared. Unfortunately, these rash actions on Libya are beginning to raise new problems. They should be resolved quickly.

Therefore, if the Libyan opposition groups are patriots, they should fight their war by themselves and conduct their affairs by themselves. To be puppets is not good.
writer: Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is the President of Uganda

The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution is unconstitutional because it allows slavery to exist under a narrow exception only when a perso

The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution is unconstitutional because it allows slavery to exist under a narrow exception only when a person has been "duly" convicted for crime. This necessarily promote discrimination and denies a convicted person "equal protection of the law" guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, i.e.,housing, employment, equal opportunity, etc. This also subjects a convicted person to "cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of the 8th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

In essence, according to the 13th Amendment, a convicted person, especially a felon, is programmed into the legal system as a slave. Consequently, slaves in america have very little to almost no rights at all. This is evident in the treatment of people living in ghettos as well as most middle class societies all across america. Many of those american citizens are convicted felons, therefore, according to the law, must now forever be condemned by the title of a slave.

This has a dramatic impact on those people, like myself, who still suffers from a wrongful felony conviction. But the 13th Amendment is also in clear violation of the UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE UNITED NATIONS; ARTICLE 4. That Article states: "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms". Furthermore, UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE UNITED NATIONS; ARTICLE 5 states: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".

In support of this, the 13th Amendment must be repealed and/or rewritten since it conflicts with other federal constitutions as well as fail to fully abolish slavery altogether. It also violates the Universal Declaration of humanity. Most importantly, according to the language of the 13th amendment slavery is suppose to be abolished completely in the united States and "any place subject to their jusirdiction". This "lack of jurisdiction" imposed in the language of that AMENDMENT concering the abolition of slavery secretly gave jurisdiction to the courts of law who have the power to convict. Therefore, supplying proof that U.S. Congress clearly written the 13th Amendment to conflict with the intent and meaning of Article 4 of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. See http://archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_amendments_11-27.html. (in particular, Amendment XVI).

Obviously, Jurisdiction to secretly invoke slavery on the "convicted" by all criminal Courts in the United States was not part of the discussion outlawing slavery during the creation of the 13th Amendment. Clearly, every criminal court in the United States is, in fact, a United States jurisdictional court!!! As such, slavery in america is still going strong which further demonstrates that the language in the final paragraph of the 13th Amendment (Neither slavery nor involuntary Servitude.... "shall exist within the United states, nor any place subject to their jurisdiction") granted a certain governmental body "the privilege" to violate constitutional jurisdictional safeguards which was written into the 13th Amendment as a protection clause for all american citizens. Specifically, criminal courts was granted this illegal Jurisdictional privilege.

The entire purpose of that Amendment, however, was supposed to be designed to outlaw slavery. The 13th Amendment did not do this. The end result is that this particular illegal constitutional scam, ratified into law by Congress in1865, was ultimately designed to target Africa Americans for criminal convictions. This is especially true where African/Americans have the highest conviction rate than any other race in the country. Such information regarding modern-day-slavery is published in a book titled: Slavery by Another Name. See www.slaverybyanothername.com. Unfortunately, people of all races and ethnicity is becoming victims of this political scam concerning modern-day-slavery, primarily because of the secret development of NEW WORLD ORDER. For proof, Everyone must watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPkFHLGmJ4Q. Also, go to www.prisonplanet.com.

When the Constitution fails to provide all constitutional protections and guarantees to all citizens of the United States of America because of (1) contradictions in them or (2) when the language in a particular amendment offers oppression against the rights of some citizens, then the written laws become meaningless. Therefore, we as a people in the United States must combat this injustice of modern-day-slavery by protest and holding congress responsible under Article 5 of the United States Constitution to propose an amendment in place of the unconstitutional 13th Amendment. There exists a ligitimate case or controversy surrounding Jurisdiction and slavery which conficts within the body of the 13th Amendment. All forms of slavery must be abolished. For this to happen, it may require a second million-man-march to Washington D.C.

I really and urgently need everyone to sign this history-making petition. We cannot allow the U.S. Government to secretly set us up for the ultimate death trap, New World Order.
The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution is unconstitutional because it allows slavery to exist under a narrow exception only when a person has been "duly" convicted for crime.

Why blacks can't be racist

The danger of not grasping the full meaning of blacks can’t be racist is playing itself out with tragic consequences.

It is blacks who are being punished for racism, not the historical and ­contemporary authors and beneficiaries of the system of racism.

In one week, a black columnist was fired for writing a satirical piece (she regularly writes offensive ­material).

The swiftness with which Kuli Roberts was removed from the pages of Sunday World serves as a warning to blacks not to raise the race question.

Gareth Cliff was rewarded with a presidential lunch for insulting blacks, including the president. Roberts loses her column?!

Jimmy Manyi is currently under extreme pressure as a result of comments he made about coloureds and Indians.

If he loses his job, then we can safely assume that any black who speaks about racism is fair game.

We shall be terrorised into silence.

We have to understand racism to defeat it.

A dangerous animosity within the black group has been orchestrated by extreme right wingers with the help of a media bereft of an understanding of anti-racism.

Is it not shocking that it was the anti-transformation and anti-black trade union Solidarity that dug up a year-old clip on Manyi’s comment about a coloured “oversupply” and then placed it on the public forum out of context?

Is it not ironic that it is the DA, a party of white interests, that has released a year-old clip on Manyi’s factually correct statement that Indians are over-represented in senior management?

Why now? And who stands to benefit?

What is even more shocking is the fact that Trevor Manuel has come out against Manyi with guns blazing. The Broederbond has come out to praise Manuel for being a true warrior of non-racialism.

Are we that stupid or is it because we have lost all sense of building a unified society based on values of justice? Has the ANC joined the DA to go to the ethnic gutter for the “coloured vote”?

Blacks can’t be racist for the simple reason that racism was created by whites to oppress blacks.

Steve Biko defined blacks as all the oppressed (African, coloured and Indian), but Biko’s definition has a proviso – that the oppressed identify “themselves as a unit in the struggle towards the ­realisation of their aspirations”.

Only blacks have suffered racist oppression from slavery, colonialism and apartheid.

Therefore, racism defines a specific act of oppression against a specific group who have suffered as a result of their skin colour.

If we do not maintain “conceptual fidelity”, we end up with the nonsensical situation where victims of racism end up being punished as racists when they seek justice.

To be sure, there are tribal prejudices among Indians, coloureds and Africans, but they are not of our making; they are the result of the divide-and-rule strategy of the apartheid regime.

The failure of the ANC to transform South Africa into a society that cares for blacks is responsible for recurring ethnic tensions.

Right now, our attention is removed from continued white racism under the ANC’s watch.

We are allowing whites to divide us yet again. It’s a sad day in our country and continet.Most Africa country employed uneducate white with jambo payment and expatriate allowance,when most educated citizen have no job or work and be paying pinut,Africa goverment must learn how to love their citizen,especialy Nigeria and sub shara Africa.

Man who was left paralysed after Germany racist attack him says he wants to die on his 48 birthday

A single Racist Stone Ruined Noel Martin’s Life.The attack that occurred on June 16, 1996 in Mahlow,a town in the former East German state of Brandenburg is one of the greatest acts of man’s inhumanity to man.The event extinguished the ambition,aspiration,name it,of Noel martin the dark-skinned, Jamaican-born Briton- Noel Martin who was at the time, working in a construction company in East Germany. His life in a split second nose-dived from the pinnacle to the abyss. His life would never be the same again. A stone thrown by one of the young Nazis crashed through the windshield of his car and Martin''''''''s car veered off the road. The last and only thing he remembered was seeing a tree careening towards him and jerking the steering wheel. And then, a thud. Darkness. When Martin woke up, he was lying on his back. He has been paralyzed for life. It was Mark Twain who said- "I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me; he can''''''''t be any worse."
Two young Germans, Sandro R. and Mario P. were responsible for throwing a lump of concrete at Martin''''''''s car. They were 17 and 24 years old then. The motive for their action was "explicit xenophobia," as was later determined by a court. They were sentenced to five and eight years in prison. Noel Martin never got an apology, but by now he doesn''''''''t care any more. He noted that "It would be a waste of time. God will take care of them; life will take care of them." Both of his attackers are now free. But Martin is still imprisoned –- in his own body.
Fate can be harsh sometimes on some people. Jacqueline, his strong-willed wife, used to take care of him. However, six years ago she died of cancer. Two days before she passed away, they married at Jacqueline’s sickbed -- after having lived together for 18 years.

When the news broke out that Noel martin was seeking assisted death to take his own life in less than a year, it was not a surprise. But reason prevailed and he gave up the idea. He plans to fight right-wing extremists to the very end and in a positive way.
The sordid picture of such man’s inhumanity to man is painted in his residence in Birmingham. According to him the attack left him paralyzed from the neck down. “I am not a part of life,” he says, “I just exist.” Before he had his operation last year he was able to sit down at home in Birmingham, in his giant wheelchair, his head was held with a special fixture so that he does not fall down. But for some months now he has only been confined. “Everything has to be figured out by your head. It’s torture, mental torture,” he sighs. Martin will never be able to move his arms or legs again and he’ll never be able to feel what his fingertips touch. Nor will he ever feel his own heartbeat. There is no privacy in my world. All my emotions are played out in public. Any pain, any tears, are witnessed by an ever-changing cast of cares. I am washed and dressed by others. Helped to the lavatory by strangers. Privacy is something that exists only inside my head.

The fall out of the attack was a rise to an unprecedented proportion on the campaign against xenophobia. Citizens in Mahlow spontaneously started up a local project called “Tolerant Mahlow.” Martin returned to the city in 2001 and he called on its citizens to continue to stand up for the rights of others. He also established a charitable foundation against xenophobia. Part of his message is that- “The government should make sure everyone can go wherever they want and be safe.” Martin intoned “Of the 6 billion people in the world, 5 billion are people of colour. Sooner or later they’ll all mix.” He grins. “Who knows? Maybe the children of these Nazis will marry a black man or a black woman one day?” He likes the idea. The Nazis are running out of time with or without Noel Martin.

The fight against racism is an immediate and urgent challenge to the world all over. Humans are not isolated, atemporal, static beings who conform to these labels and stereotypes. Humans are social beings, who exist in human relationships.
Stereotyping of human beings is a phenomenon that has been widely noticed in multicultural societies, which result in enkindling the flames of prejudices, racism. The existence of negative stereotyping has impinged horrible socio-economic, political and cultural chaos around the world. Negative stereotyping and its obvious consequences have forced many groups of people to the margins of society under dire psychological dysfunctions.

INTERVIEW:
The incident that paralyzed Noel Martin has been told and retold over these years. The Voice ran into a German woman-Regina Andresen who resides in The Netherlands. She was so touched by the story and condition of Noel Martin and the incident surrounding his accident that she on November 2008 embarked on a fact-finding tour to Birmingham, to see things for herself and hear from the horses’ mouth. You would recall Angela Merkel –German Chancellor’s remark during her visit to Israel last year-“Holocaust fills us Germans with shame….I bow before the victims etc”. But in this case Regina went just as a concerned person and one who is averse to acts of prejudice, discrimination and racism as motive for such hideous acts. In these excerpts she recounted her experience with Noel Martin in his residence amidst suppressed tears.

The Voice: What was your motive to visit Noel Martin in his house in Birmingham on 19th November 2008?

Regina: I had my first contact with Noel about two years ago after I had seen him in the German TV program –“People with Maischberger”. My heart went out for him and since then I have been in regular telephone contact with him. During our telephone discussion at the beginning of November, we talked about a visit to Birmingham and he agreed to an appointment with me.

The Voice: How was your first meeting with Noel Martin like?

Regina: I saw the pictures of Noel on various Internet sites and television programs, but that was not enough preparation for the miserable and shocking encounter that awaited me on arrival in his house in Birmingham. On entering his room, I was gripped with hysteria on seeing him lying on his sickbed, the free upper part of the body (the only active portion), his lifeless outstretched arms and on his head, his two eyes were directed upon me. I exclaimed -“Noel, I cannot believe it at all!” I paused a moment before approaching his bed for a gesture of welcome. Even though he told me he feels no more touch, I still made a greeting gesture. With his lifeless arm beside me, I had to control myself, in order to withstand all emotional invocations and the anger revolving on the cause and what he has gone through and still going through. Later, I was alone –and let loose, suppressed feelings which to date occupies me very much.

The Voice: Around which issues did your discussion with him revolve?

Regina: We had spoken about anything and everything in the few hours I spent there. However, the core issue was that we agreed we were all human beings. The terminologies of black and white as the Germans call it “Schwarz and weiss” skin colour are sheer chromatics. But he responded to me that the “Black” man needs no explanation of the meaning of racism as he is confronted with it on a daily basis and in different forms. He said that he would like to find out from the Neo-Nazis the “reasons” why they became racists. He would like to know why he faces strangers’ hostility and their justifications for it. “A convincing argument from the nazis would persuade me to jointly start a campaign like “all foreigners out”, etc.” he said. On his own part, he could table one thousand reasons why he could be a racist. Since his birth, his skin colour has made him attract such odd words as “nigger, bastard, monkey,” etc. Still those did not make him a racist. Does the white ever conceive a situation the world turns round and whiteness becomes a cliché?

The Voice: What was Noel like prior to the accident?

Regina: Noel was very hard-working and enterprising man before the incident as contained in his book- “Call it My Life”. He knows what hard work and independence means. But now he is unable to do anything unaided anymore. The two phases of his life are irreconcilable. He noted that there were people born with similar impairments and impediments. While some others become paralyzed through sickness or accidents of some sort, and are grappling with the difficulties like me. He said that if he was paralyzed through any of those acts of nature; his plight would have been easy for him to come to terms with. He added that he does not need a psychologist to explain to his impediment to him because he is quite conscious of the fact that his ordeal was a racist-motivated act in its entirety. He said he is grateful that he is still alive and hope to contribute as far as he is able to effect a change in the minds of people of the need to promote peaceful co-existence of multicultural societies around the world.

The Voice: Are there ways you think assistance could be given to Noel Martin’s cause and concern?

Regina: Through Noel’s initiative, an orphanage has been built in Potsdam. Also an endowment fund- Noel and Jacqueline Martin’s endowment which promotes lectures, seminars and activities for inter-cultural and anti-racists youth works and programmes. You can access www.noel-martin.de to see how you can be of assistance.

The Voice: Has Noel made any other wish apart from fighting for multi-culturalism?

Regina: His miserable vegetative mood robs one of requests. He can move only his head. He is nursed and fed like a child, even a cigarette has to be put on and out of his lip, including his hygienic and therapeutic chores. As a jockey fan, he jokingly made a request of four wild horses. I had told him our meeting would be published for public consumption and when last I phoned him he said to me that “Time is the master.” I therefore see this interview as positive move of my visit to Noel.

The Voice: Would you maintain your contact with Noel Martin?

Regina: The strong-will and transparent determination in the eyes of Noel makes him so special to me that the discontinuation of contact with him is out of my thought. He grants peoples series of interviews from his bed because he knows that it is only through people that he can reach out to people. During my six hours of visit to him, I felt moved and encouraged to work with him and other concerned people to project and realize his aims. I have therefore resolved that this would not be my last visit. I promise also to keep in touch with your magazine-The Voice, as soon as I make another visit.

The Voice: Thank you Regina for the opportunity to share this touching experience with us and we pray God to guide you in such humanitarian gestures.

Regina: Thank you also for the opportunity to air my story. in support of Noel’s cause
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7731904.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_5110000/newsid_5118700/5118752.stm?bw=nb&mp=wm&news=1&ms3=14&ms_javascript=true&bbcws=2
Menschlichkeit e. V.
- humanity -
Contact:Regina Andresen
0031(0)6 20 46 7799
: humanityfirst@hotmail.com
Birmingham UK - NOEL NEED US

Libya Rebels'were probably as racist as most arabs.You are providing troops for Qaddafi.The Sudanese refuges were also massacred

One Turkish construction worker described a massacre:We had 70-80 people from Chad working for our company.They were cut dead with pruning shears and axes,attackers saying:You are providing troops for Qaddafi.The Sudanese were also massacred.We saw it for ourselves.i heard this interview on the radio and knew the 'rebels' were probably as racist as most arabs.

to be honest , i don't know what to make of gaddafi. the western media and surprisingly even al jazeera are doing such a blatant character smear job of gaddafi as 'crazy' and his children as not much better that from disgust i have written not so much in his defense but in outrage over the gross lies and war propaganda they keep spouting. which includes the lies about libya being responsible for the cia inspired lockerbie airline bombing.

when the reports from russian military began circulating that their satellite evidence indicates that gaddafi did not use his aircraft to attack protestors as the media had loudly claimed--it was 2003, iraq, "saddam hussein has weapons of mass destruction" and "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud", media and politicians lying-to-justify-an-invasion-and -oil-grab all over again.

my impression of gaddafi as a man is that he seems sincere in his pronouncements of support for a racially 'inclusive' nkrumah / nasser type of pan-africanism/ anti-imperialism .

although he is an arab and not black, at times gaddafi seems like some of my very light complexioned and mixed heritage former comrades from the old student activist days who were staunchly more pro-black, pro-africa and politically more conscious than a lot of racially unmixed blacks .

i was willing to accept these people because of their daily support for black liberation and reliable willingness to do grunt work for and put themselves at risk for the 'cause' when other 'brothers and sisters' balked at the responsibilities. i wonder at times if perhaps gaddafi is legitimately similar to one of these types.

but when i see or am reminded of the pics of the cadre of black female soldiers in libya that western media derisively refers to as gaddafi's female body guards and hear the, as far as i know, still unfounded accusations that he was having sexual relations (media said ' orgies') with these women (as well as the accusations about gddafi and his blonde ukrainian 'nurse' ) and couldn't help wonder if gaddafi was playing both sides of the fence.

did gaddafi the politician believe that the sight of these black women soldiers would strike an impressive chord in blacks throughout the world and encouraging a view of gaddafi's libya as revolutionary , egalitarian and non racist, while at the same time sending also an unconscious reassurance to the racist minds of the arab world by playing on old arab male prejudices and desires about harems of black 'concubines' at an arab leader's disposal ?

also, the media in these recent events and the 'libyans being interviewed consistently refer to blacks in libya as "africans" and the arabs there as" libyans" as if libya is not in africa and where carthage, black hannibal, his soldiers and his battle elephants once fought against rome in the last acts of the struggle to save what was left of what was once a black controlled mediterranean--a struggle beginning with ancient 'troy' and ending with carthage, that i have named "the 1000 year war".They were cut dead with pruning shears and axes,attackers saying:You are providing troops for Qaddafi. The Sudanese were also massacred