Since 1970, $350 billion in oil revenue has flowed to Nigeria, yet 75% of Nigerians live on less than $1 a day. Niger Delta communities continue to live in abject poverty, without schools, hospitals, or basic infrastructure, as oil profits fill the bank accounts of multinational oil companies and the Nigerian elite. Nigerian governments have negotiated joint ventures with multinational companies for unregulated oil production since 1958. Over 50 years of exploitation in the Niger Delta has resulted in systematic human rights abuses and environmental devastation.
(...) According to an independent 2006 report by environmental experts from the U.K, U.S and Nigeria, and convened by the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, the Niger Delta is "one of the world's most severely petroleum-impacted ecosystems and one of the top five most polluted places on the face of the Earth. More than 1.5 million tons of oil, equivalent to one Exxon-Valdez disaster every year for 50 years, have spilled into the delta, poisoning delicate mangrove and rain forest ecosystems and destroying fishing and farming livelihoods. Constant gas flaring releases toxic chemicals into the atmosphere, causing cancer, birth defects, respiratory diseases, and acid rain so toxic it corrodes metal roofs.
Showing posts with label nigeria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nigeria. Show all posts
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
destination darfur:
Eighty per cent of the oil reserves discovered between 2001 and 2004 come from West Africa, where the U.S. currently procures only 12 per cent of its total supply. West Africa is a crucial site for U.S. interests, so much so that the U.S. is willing to be openly hypocritical about its promotion of democracy and human rights when it comes to the region.
(...) In April 2006, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warmly welcomed her “special friend”, Equatorial Guinea’s man of all seasons and many decades, Teodoro Obiang. Her own department annually chastises Obiang’s regime for corruption, human rights violations and electoral fraud. Despite being home to some of the poorest people in Africa, Equatorial Guinea is the third largest oil producer in the continent, whose oil the U.S. government hopes will flow across the Atlantic to power the U.S. The U.S. has been loath to put pressure on Nigeria for the very same reasons.
(...) Resource wars in the Congo (over diamonds and coltan) and in West Africa (over oil) have set the continent on fire. The U.S. has thus far engaged with these conflicts through Africa’s national armies, who have increasingly become the praetorian guards of large corporations. None of this can be justified directly as protection of the extraction of resources, so it has increasingly been couched in the language of the War on Terror.
(...) The Heritage Foundation lobbied for the creation of AFRICOM for several years, and arguably its work moved Donald Rumsfeld to consider an African Command. In a 2003 study entitled “U.S. Military Assistance for Africa: A Better Solution”, the Heritage Foundation argued: “Creating an African Command would go a long way towards turning the Bush Administration’s well-aimed strategic priorities for Africa into a reality.” Rather than engage Africa diplomatically, it is better to be diplomatic through the barrel of a gun. “America must not be afraid to employ its forces decisively when vital national interests are threatened,” the study said. Nevertheless, the U.S. will not need always to send its own soldiers. “A sub-unified command for Africa would give the U.S. military an instrument with which to engage effectively in the continent and reduce the potential that America might have to intervene directly.” AFRICOM would analyze intelligence, work “closely with civil-military leaders”, coordinate training and conduct joint exercises. In other words, the U.S. would make the friendly African military forces “inter-operatable” not only with U.S. hardware but also with U.S. interests. When AFRICOM became a reality, Heritage’s Brett Schaefer welcomed the “long overdue” move.
(...) In January, the Chinese Foreign Ministry released a White Paper that pointed out that unlike U.S. and European investment, Chinese finance for Africa would be driven by equity and sustainable development. Technology transfer, the entry of African goods into the Chinese market without barriers, and the entry of Chinese finance for development projects are the main elements of the Chinese strategy (also the main features of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and the Addis Ababa Action Plan of 2004-06). With the U.S. and European aid at a low point and with resistance from the U.S. and Europe to compromise on the debt burden of African states, the Chinese proposal was welcomed in many parts of Africa.
(...) For people in the Heritage Foundation and in the White House, AFRICOM is as much a response to China as it is to the increased anti-terrorist efforts in the continent.
(...) China is not in Africa for altruistic reasons. A quarter of China’s crude oil imports already come from Africa. African governments are well aware of the competition between the US and China, and they have used that standoff to their partial advantage (when the U.S. would not act fast enough to get Nigeria’s armed forces 200 patrol boats and funds, the Nigerian government turned to China).
(...) China blocked votes in the United Nations Security Council on the ongoing violence in Darfur, although global pressure has now forced Beijing to appoint a special envoy to Darfur and put some modest pressure on Khartoum. The close relationship between the US and the leaders of Equatorial Guinea or Nigeria is repellent but not half as dubious as that between the Chinese and Sudanese governments. The U.S. government has, therefore, a potent weapon to wield against Beijing’s claim to be in favor of African development.
(...) Since 1984-85, the western Sudanese province of Darfur has been in a prolonged crisis. The drought of those years made it hard for pastoralists to find grazing ground for their camel herds. Battles over land went on for two decades before an embattled and split Islamist government in Khartoum armed the most impoverished of the tribes (who had begun to regain their self-respect through a virulently supremacist ideology promoted by a group called Tajamu al Arabi, or the Arab Gathering).
(...) These tribes began an onslaught against their settled neighbors, with Khartoum’s support. In a few years over a million people were driven out of their homes to neighboring Chad (the U.N. estimates that around 70,000 have been killed). (These numbers, incidentally, are dwarfed by the death toll and the population displacement forced by the U.S. occupation of Iraq.) The U.N. called the Sudan situation a “crime against humanity”, while the U.S., uncharacteristically, labeled it genocide. For a while the African Union was able to stabilize the situation, although it did not succeed in crafting a political solution to the problem. The African Union, created in 1999, has neither the financial ability to pay its troops nor the logistical capacity to do the job. The European Union, which paid the troops’ salaries, began to withhold funds on grounds of accountability, and this gradually killed off the peacekeeping operations.
(...) Professor Mahmood Mamdani of Columbia University (one of the world’s leading experts on contemporary Africa), says of this: “There is a concerted attempt being made to shift the political control of any intervention force inside Darfur from inside Africa to outside Africa”. In other words, the U.S. and Europe are eager to control the dynamics of what happens in Africa and not allow an indigenous, inter-state agency to gain either the experience this would provide or the respect it would gain if it succeeds. The African Union has been undermined so that only the U.S. can appear as the savior of the beleaguered people of Darfur, and elsewhere.
(...) Meanwhile, it suits the U.S. that the campaigns to save the people of Darfur concentrate on the role of China and on what is often framed as an “Arab” assault on “Africans.” The Save Darfur Coalition in the U.S., for instance, has a report on the “Deadly Partnership” between Sudan and China but says nothing of the role of the U.S. in undermining the African Union’s attempts. The Coalition is more sophisticated than can fit into the Arab-African stereotypes, but its members include groups that are less careful (the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America, for instance, is an organizational member; it has not yet tried to distance itself from its parent organization's role in the Gujarat pogroms).
(...) The Save Darfur Coalition, which is the largest U.S. umbrella organization, was formed in 2004 through the work of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Jewish World Service. People who have been motivated by the efforts of the group are aware of what is happening in Darfur. This is a worthwhile goal, particularly if it is able to bring a ceasefire and an eventual peace settlement in Darfur. But, the movement seems to have no viable strategy to do this beyond putting pressure on China and pleading with the U.S. government to take “tough” stands against Khartoum. The complexity on the ground is irrelevant.
(...) The heads of the Save Darfur Coalition and the Genocide Intervention Network (set up by the Center for American Progress) are all liberal Democrats who played some kind of a role in the Bill Clinton administration. The Darfur campaign enables them to distance themselves from the excesses of the Bush regime and yet preserve an essential element of the Clinton foreign policy arsenal, “humanitarian intervention” (as in the Kosovo war of 1999). For that reason, these groups have begun to offer the slogan, “Out of Iraq and Into Darfur”. At a forum in New York City on July 15, a young woman asked why the U.S. could not use its superior firepower to defeat the Janjaweed in Sudan. At the same event, the documentary film The Devil Came on Horseback shows the former U.S. Marine Brian Steidle photograph a band of Janjaweed militia leave a village and wish he could exchange his telephoto lens for a gun-scope to “end it now”. Private mercenary armies such as the International Peace Operations Association and DynCorp International clamor to cross the Chad border and conduct operations against the Janjaweed.
(...) That the first head of AFRICOM is the former commander of the battalion that led Operation Restore Hope in Somalia in 1993 is an ominous sign. Would a cruise missile strike on Khartoum (a replay of 1998) and an invasion of Darfur create a solution to the current crisis, or would it only create an Iraq in Africa?
Eighty per cent of the oil reserves discovered between 2001 and 2004 come from West Africa, where the U.S. currently procures only 12 per cent of its total supply. West Africa is a crucial site for U.S. interests, so much so that the U.S. is willing to be openly hypocritical about its promotion of democracy and human rights when it comes to the region.
(...) In April 2006, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warmly welcomed her “special friend”, Equatorial Guinea’s man of all seasons and many decades, Teodoro Obiang. Her own department annually chastises Obiang’s regime for corruption, human rights violations and electoral fraud. Despite being home to some of the poorest people in Africa, Equatorial Guinea is the third largest oil producer in the continent, whose oil the U.S. government hopes will flow across the Atlantic to power the U.S. The U.S. has been loath to put pressure on Nigeria for the very same reasons.
(...) Resource wars in the Congo (over diamonds and coltan) and in West Africa (over oil) have set the continent on fire. The U.S. has thus far engaged with these conflicts through Africa’s national armies, who have increasingly become the praetorian guards of large corporations. None of this can be justified directly as protection of the extraction of resources, so it has increasingly been couched in the language of the War on Terror.
(...) The Heritage Foundation lobbied for the creation of AFRICOM for several years, and arguably its work moved Donald Rumsfeld to consider an African Command. In a 2003 study entitled “U.S. Military Assistance for Africa: A Better Solution”, the Heritage Foundation argued: “Creating an African Command would go a long way towards turning the Bush Administration’s well-aimed strategic priorities for Africa into a reality.” Rather than engage Africa diplomatically, it is better to be diplomatic through the barrel of a gun. “America must not be afraid to employ its forces decisively when vital national interests are threatened,” the study said. Nevertheless, the U.S. will not need always to send its own soldiers. “A sub-unified command for Africa would give the U.S. military an instrument with which to engage effectively in the continent and reduce the potential that America might have to intervene directly.” AFRICOM would analyze intelligence, work “closely with civil-military leaders”, coordinate training and conduct joint exercises. In other words, the U.S. would make the friendly African military forces “inter-operatable” not only with U.S. hardware but also with U.S. interests. When AFRICOM became a reality, Heritage’s Brett Schaefer welcomed the “long overdue” move.
(...) In January, the Chinese Foreign Ministry released a White Paper that pointed out that unlike U.S. and European investment, Chinese finance for Africa would be driven by equity and sustainable development. Technology transfer, the entry of African goods into the Chinese market without barriers, and the entry of Chinese finance for development projects are the main elements of the Chinese strategy (also the main features of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and the Addis Ababa Action Plan of 2004-06). With the U.S. and European aid at a low point and with resistance from the U.S. and Europe to compromise on the debt burden of African states, the Chinese proposal was welcomed in many parts of Africa.
(...) For people in the Heritage Foundation and in the White House, AFRICOM is as much a response to China as it is to the increased anti-terrorist efforts in the continent.
(...) China is not in Africa for altruistic reasons. A quarter of China’s crude oil imports already come from Africa. African governments are well aware of the competition between the US and China, and they have used that standoff to their partial advantage (when the U.S. would not act fast enough to get Nigeria’s armed forces 200 patrol boats and funds, the Nigerian government turned to China).
(...) China blocked votes in the United Nations Security Council on the ongoing violence in Darfur, although global pressure has now forced Beijing to appoint a special envoy to Darfur and put some modest pressure on Khartoum. The close relationship between the US and the leaders of Equatorial Guinea or Nigeria is repellent but not half as dubious as that between the Chinese and Sudanese governments. The U.S. government has, therefore, a potent weapon to wield against Beijing’s claim to be in favor of African development.
(...) Since 1984-85, the western Sudanese province of Darfur has been in a prolonged crisis. The drought of those years made it hard for pastoralists to find grazing ground for their camel herds. Battles over land went on for two decades before an embattled and split Islamist government in Khartoum armed the most impoverished of the tribes (who had begun to regain their self-respect through a virulently supremacist ideology promoted by a group called Tajamu al Arabi, or the Arab Gathering).
(...) These tribes began an onslaught against their settled neighbors, with Khartoum’s support. In a few years over a million people were driven out of their homes to neighboring Chad (the U.N. estimates that around 70,000 have been killed). (These numbers, incidentally, are dwarfed by the death toll and the population displacement forced by the U.S. occupation of Iraq.) The U.N. called the Sudan situation a “crime against humanity”, while the U.S., uncharacteristically, labeled it genocide. For a while the African Union was able to stabilize the situation, although it did not succeed in crafting a political solution to the problem. The African Union, created in 1999, has neither the financial ability to pay its troops nor the logistical capacity to do the job. The European Union, which paid the troops’ salaries, began to withhold funds on grounds of accountability, and this gradually killed off the peacekeeping operations.
(...) Professor Mahmood Mamdani of Columbia University (one of the world’s leading experts on contemporary Africa), says of this: “There is a concerted attempt being made to shift the political control of any intervention force inside Darfur from inside Africa to outside Africa”. In other words, the U.S. and Europe are eager to control the dynamics of what happens in Africa and not allow an indigenous, inter-state agency to gain either the experience this would provide or the respect it would gain if it succeeds. The African Union has been undermined so that only the U.S. can appear as the savior of the beleaguered people of Darfur, and elsewhere.
(...) Meanwhile, it suits the U.S. that the campaigns to save the people of Darfur concentrate on the role of China and on what is often framed as an “Arab” assault on “Africans.” The Save Darfur Coalition in the U.S., for instance, has a report on the “Deadly Partnership” between Sudan and China but says nothing of the role of the U.S. in undermining the African Union’s attempts. The Coalition is more sophisticated than can fit into the Arab-African stereotypes, but its members include groups that are less careful (the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America, for instance, is an organizational member; it has not yet tried to distance itself from its parent organization's role in the Gujarat pogroms).
(...) The Save Darfur Coalition, which is the largest U.S. umbrella organization, was formed in 2004 through the work of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Jewish World Service. People who have been motivated by the efforts of the group are aware of what is happening in Darfur. This is a worthwhile goal, particularly if it is able to bring a ceasefire and an eventual peace settlement in Darfur. But, the movement seems to have no viable strategy to do this beyond putting pressure on China and pleading with the U.S. government to take “tough” stands against Khartoum. The complexity on the ground is irrelevant.
(...) The heads of the Save Darfur Coalition and the Genocide Intervention Network (set up by the Center for American Progress) are all liberal Democrats who played some kind of a role in the Bill Clinton administration. The Darfur campaign enables them to distance themselves from the excesses of the Bush regime and yet preserve an essential element of the Clinton foreign policy arsenal, “humanitarian intervention” (as in the Kosovo war of 1999). For that reason, these groups have begun to offer the slogan, “Out of Iraq and Into Darfur”. At a forum in New York City on July 15, a young woman asked why the U.S. could not use its superior firepower to defeat the Janjaweed in Sudan. At the same event, the documentary film The Devil Came on Horseback shows the former U.S. Marine Brian Steidle photograph a band of Janjaweed militia leave a village and wish he could exchange his telephoto lens for a gun-scope to “end it now”. Private mercenary armies such as the International Peace Operations Association and DynCorp International clamor to cross the Chad border and conduct operations against the Janjaweed.
(...) That the first head of AFRICOM is the former commander of the battalion that led Operation Restore Hope in Somalia in 1993 is an ominous sign. Would a cruise missile strike on Khartoum (a replay of 1998) and an invasion of Darfur create a solution to the current crisis, or would it only create an Iraq in Africa?
Monday, July 16, 2007
stop trying to 'save' africa:"Don't you want to help us save Africa?" she yelled.
(...) Such campaigns, however well intentioned, promote the stereotype of Africa as a black hole of disease and death. News reports constantly focus on the continent's corrupt leaders, warlords, "tribal" conflicts, child laborers, and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation. These descriptions run under headlines like "Can Bono Save Africa?" or "Will Brangelina Save Africa?" The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and "civilization."
(...) Why do the media frequently refer to African countries as having been "granted independence from their colonial masters," as opposed to having fought and shed blood for their freedom? Why do Angelina Jolie and Bono receive overwhelming attention for their work in Africa while Nwankwo Kanu or Dikembe Mutombo, Africans both, are hardly ever mentioned? How is it that a former mid-level U.S. diplomat receives more attention for his cowboy antics in Sudan than do the numerous African Union countries that have sent food and troops and spent countless hours trying to negotiate a settlement among all parties in that crisis?
(...) Last month the Group of Eight industrialized nations and a host of celebrities met in Germany to discuss, among other things, how to save Africa. Before the next such summit, I hope people will realize Africa doesn't want to be saved. Africa wants the world to acknowledge that through fair partnerships with other members of the global community, we ourselves are capable of unprecedented growth.
(...) Such campaigns, however well intentioned, promote the stereotype of Africa as a black hole of disease and death. News reports constantly focus on the continent's corrupt leaders, warlords, "tribal" conflicts, child laborers, and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation. These descriptions run under headlines like "Can Bono Save Africa?" or "Will Brangelina Save Africa?" The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and "civilization."
(...) Why do the media frequently refer to African countries as having been "granted independence from their colonial masters," as opposed to having fought and shed blood for their freedom? Why do Angelina Jolie and Bono receive overwhelming attention for their work in Africa while Nwankwo Kanu or Dikembe Mutombo, Africans both, are hardly ever mentioned? How is it that a former mid-level U.S. diplomat receives more attention for his cowboy antics in Sudan than do the numerous African Union countries that have sent food and troops and spent countless hours trying to negotiate a settlement among all parties in that crisis?
(...) Last month the Group of Eight industrialized nations and a host of celebrities met in Germany to discuss, among other things, how to save Africa. Before the next such summit, I hope people will realize Africa doesn't want to be saved. Africa wants the world to acknowledge that through fair partnerships with other members of the global community, we ourselves are capable of unprecedented growth.
Friday, July 6, 2007
the crisis of imperialism:
Things reached a crisis in the mid 1980s when, to stave off the prospect of a world depression due to the bad debts incurred by Third World countries, the IMF and WB stepped in and took over responsibility for those debts from the big private banks like Barclays, Credit Lyons, Chase Manhattan, etc., which were threatened with collapse. It was a move which put the IMF and WB into an unassailable position of power which they have never relinquished since.
(...) These austerity programs pave the way for transnational corporations, always looking to reduce costs and access cheap sources of raw materials, to come in and set up their manufacturing operations, driving people, including children in many cases, from the land into factories, where they are forced to labour long hours under horrendous conditions for starvation wages. This serves two purposes: it destroys the agro-economies of the Third World, which are now required to import their food from the First World, and ensures the outward flow of wealth to First World transnational corporations and their international investors.
(...) The case of Nigeria is typical. Today, life expectancy in this oil-rich, aid-dependent nation is 47 years for males and 52 years for females. Of a population of 120 million, 89 million people live on less than a dollar a day, this despite the fact that the Niger Delta region contains large deposits of oil. One IMF loan of $12 billion has become a continuous unpaid debt of $27 billion.
(...) Six million children under the age of 5 die each year in the Third World as a whole due to hunger and preventable disease.
Things reached a crisis in the mid 1980s when, to stave off the prospect of a world depression due to the bad debts incurred by Third World countries, the IMF and WB stepped in and took over responsibility for those debts from the big private banks like Barclays, Credit Lyons, Chase Manhattan, etc., which were threatened with collapse. It was a move which put the IMF and WB into an unassailable position of power which they have never relinquished since.
(...) These austerity programs pave the way for transnational corporations, always looking to reduce costs and access cheap sources of raw materials, to come in and set up their manufacturing operations, driving people, including children in many cases, from the land into factories, where they are forced to labour long hours under horrendous conditions for starvation wages. This serves two purposes: it destroys the agro-economies of the Third World, which are now required to import their food from the First World, and ensures the outward flow of wealth to First World transnational corporations and their international investors.
(...) The case of Nigeria is typical. Today, life expectancy in this oil-rich, aid-dependent nation is 47 years for males and 52 years for females. Of a population of 120 million, 89 million people live on less than a dollar a day, this despite the fact that the Niger Delta region contains large deposits of oil. One IMF loan of $12 billion has become a continuous unpaid debt of $27 billion.
(...) Six million children under the age of 5 die each year in the Third World as a whole due to hunger and preventable disease.
Monday, May 7, 2007
on uk foreign policy as brown replaces blair:
Virtually every speech for the last ten years has been a reassurance to business that Labour is on its side and a defence of ‘free trade’ and ensuring climates around the world favourable for British foreign investment, along with ongoing commitments to low corporation taxes and cutting business regulation. Brown is the ultimate liberalisation theologist and every one of his policies has pushed in this direction. Brown (and indeed Blair) should be known for their (largely successful) imposition of neo-liberal economics on Africa – instead they are hailed in the mainstream as the champions of Africa. The government’s propaganda campaign on ‘development’ has been if anything deeper than over Iraq, yet the mainstream media have reported it uncritically, with hardly any deviation. In reality, debt relief, aid and trade policy have all been geared to further liberalizing and privatizing economies in Africa and elsewhere, with deepening poverty the (well-documented) result.
(...) I’ve no doubt that Blair will be seen in the mainstream as a ‘liberal interventionist’ who started well (in Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan) and then overstepped the mark with Iraq, to the extent that he ‘mislead’ the British public, but who was genuinely committed to the cause of Africa. This view is totally absurd and therefore can be expected to dominate discussions in the mainstream. It doesn’t matter how much evidence emerges as to the reality of Kosovo in 1999 and the bombing of Yugoslavia to counter the mainstream view that Kosovo was all about defending human rights; I dealt with more plausible explanations in Web of Deceit and there are various other analyses.
(...) we are dealing here with a very primitive mainstream political culture: it doesn’t and cannot recognize obvious policies such as the extraordinary British support provided to the brutal regime in Colombia, the total backing of Russia bloody onslaught against Chechnya (including the flattening of its capital city in 1999/2000) and of support for Indonesia’s attacks on Aceh and West Papua (with British arms), to name but some, while it remains incapable of recognizing British support under Blair (fairly unequivocal, actually) for Israel. One day, you never know, the BBC might mention Britain’s extraordinary abuse of the legal system to prevent the Chagos islanders returning to even the outlying islands in the archipelago, let alone Diego Garcia – but this is admittedly very unlikely. Or perhaps mention might be made that while Blair and Brown profess their support for ‘democracy’ in the Middle East, their closest ally is Oman – whose despot was installed in a British coup 37 years ago! The official theology has it that Zimbabwe is the only repressive regime in Africa – since it is an official enemy, it is the subject of endless media articles while Mugabe is (correctly) seen as a total despot. Nigeria, on the other hand, is a key ally and oil-rich state which our companies benefit from – therefore it wouldn’t be right to mention obvious facts such as that the military in Nigeria is complicit in far more deaths in recent years than even Zimbabwe’s.
(...) Blair should be remembered as a war criminal who has made the world a more dangerous place. I can think of no other British prime minister who has been so contemptuous of human rights as Blair, the one possible exception being Harold Wilson’s government of 1964-70, which covertly supported the bloodbath in Indonesia in 1965, removed the Chagos islanders, provided a mountain of weaponry to the Nigerian government to wipe out three million people in Biafra, armed Baghdad as began major operations against the Kurds and offered significant private support to the US attack on Vietnam.
(...) For example, it would be entirely rational for Iran to develop nuclear weapons – it has been repeatedly threatened with invasion. Indeed, there is a much stronger rational case for Iran to have these weapons than Britain. The UK faces no conceivable military threat and is not surrounded by enemies. It is simply a rational insurance policy for any regime to have nuclear weapons these days since you might end up on the receiving end of a cruise missile attack or carpet bombing on some flimsy pretext or other from the wackos in the White House and Number 10.
(...) One should also not underestimate the extent of British arms exports around the world under Blair – arming (modernizing) key states such as Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Israel – heaven knows how these might be used in the future. I’ve just done some research on UK arms exports – at least £45 billion worth has been sold by Britain over the past 10 years, an incredible legacy. In all this light, if it is possible to think of some positive features of foreign policy under Blair – they pale in comparison with the big picture.
(...) I am presuming that the British elite is opposed to, and extremely worried, by the prospect of a US attack on Iran. For one thing, the military is totally opposed – they already want to pull out of Iraq without getting bogged down against a much more powerful opponent. For another, the incoming Gordon Brown would barely survive politically a UK role in a US attack on Iran given that the British public is likely to be overwhelmingly opposed.
(...) No doubt, the UK and US are using all their available assets to covertly incite unrest within Iran, as some reports suggest. This of course was a feature of the 1953 overthrow and is entirely to be expected now. UK planners must be extremely worried about the prospect of rising Iranian influence in southern Iraq, a majority Shia area, together with perennial ongoing concerns about the majority Shias areas in the other major oil state, Saudi Arabia.
(...) I think the 2003 invasion was intended to ensure that at least one of the three major oil producers – Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia – was made a pure Western bastion and ‘stable’, given an enemy government in Iran and ongoing major uncertainty in Saudi Arabia. The government’s concerns about ‘energy security’ were clearly outlined in a February 2003 document, released just weeks before the invasion, which stated that the UK would soon become dependent on imported oil and gas and that key relations needed to be developed with the world’s leading energy suppliers.
(...) If even a weak state with a reluctant army and hated dictator (Iraq) cannot be controlled, and neither can a failed state with no formal army (Afghanistan), what hope does the Anglo-American alliance have of continuing to shape the world in its interests? I think there is a lot at stake here for the UK/US elite, especially at a time of a rising China threatening the established world order and with energy resources far from under the full control of the US/UK alliance.
Virtually every speech for the last ten years has been a reassurance to business that Labour is on its side and a defence of ‘free trade’ and ensuring climates around the world favourable for British foreign investment, along with ongoing commitments to low corporation taxes and cutting business regulation. Brown is the ultimate liberalisation theologist and every one of his policies has pushed in this direction. Brown (and indeed Blair) should be known for their (largely successful) imposition of neo-liberal economics on Africa – instead they are hailed in the mainstream as the champions of Africa. The government’s propaganda campaign on ‘development’ has been if anything deeper than over Iraq, yet the mainstream media have reported it uncritically, with hardly any deviation. In reality, debt relief, aid and trade policy have all been geared to further liberalizing and privatizing economies in Africa and elsewhere, with deepening poverty the (well-documented) result.
(...) I’ve no doubt that Blair will be seen in the mainstream as a ‘liberal interventionist’ who started well (in Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan) and then overstepped the mark with Iraq, to the extent that he ‘mislead’ the British public, but who was genuinely committed to the cause of Africa. This view is totally absurd and therefore can be expected to dominate discussions in the mainstream. It doesn’t matter how much evidence emerges as to the reality of Kosovo in 1999 and the bombing of Yugoslavia to counter the mainstream view that Kosovo was all about defending human rights; I dealt with more plausible explanations in Web of Deceit and there are various other analyses.
(...) we are dealing here with a very primitive mainstream political culture: it doesn’t and cannot recognize obvious policies such as the extraordinary British support provided to the brutal regime in Colombia, the total backing of Russia bloody onslaught against Chechnya (including the flattening of its capital city in 1999/2000) and of support for Indonesia’s attacks on Aceh and West Papua (with British arms), to name but some, while it remains incapable of recognizing British support under Blair (fairly unequivocal, actually) for Israel. One day, you never know, the BBC might mention Britain’s extraordinary abuse of the legal system to prevent the Chagos islanders returning to even the outlying islands in the archipelago, let alone Diego Garcia – but this is admittedly very unlikely. Or perhaps mention might be made that while Blair and Brown profess their support for ‘democracy’ in the Middle East, their closest ally is Oman – whose despot was installed in a British coup 37 years ago! The official theology has it that Zimbabwe is the only repressive regime in Africa – since it is an official enemy, it is the subject of endless media articles while Mugabe is (correctly) seen as a total despot. Nigeria, on the other hand, is a key ally and oil-rich state which our companies benefit from – therefore it wouldn’t be right to mention obvious facts such as that the military in Nigeria is complicit in far more deaths in recent years than even Zimbabwe’s.
(...) Blair should be remembered as a war criminal who has made the world a more dangerous place. I can think of no other British prime minister who has been so contemptuous of human rights as Blair, the one possible exception being Harold Wilson’s government of 1964-70, which covertly supported the bloodbath in Indonesia in 1965, removed the Chagos islanders, provided a mountain of weaponry to the Nigerian government to wipe out three million people in Biafra, armed Baghdad as began major operations against the Kurds and offered significant private support to the US attack on Vietnam.
(...) For example, it would be entirely rational for Iran to develop nuclear weapons – it has been repeatedly threatened with invasion. Indeed, there is a much stronger rational case for Iran to have these weapons than Britain. The UK faces no conceivable military threat and is not surrounded by enemies. It is simply a rational insurance policy for any regime to have nuclear weapons these days since you might end up on the receiving end of a cruise missile attack or carpet bombing on some flimsy pretext or other from the wackos in the White House and Number 10.
(...) One should also not underestimate the extent of British arms exports around the world under Blair – arming (modernizing) key states such as Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Israel – heaven knows how these might be used in the future. I’ve just done some research on UK arms exports – at least £45 billion worth has been sold by Britain over the past 10 years, an incredible legacy. In all this light, if it is possible to think of some positive features of foreign policy under Blair – they pale in comparison with the big picture.
(...) I am presuming that the British elite is opposed to, and extremely worried, by the prospect of a US attack on Iran. For one thing, the military is totally opposed – they already want to pull out of Iraq without getting bogged down against a much more powerful opponent. For another, the incoming Gordon Brown would barely survive politically a UK role in a US attack on Iran given that the British public is likely to be overwhelmingly opposed.
(...) No doubt, the UK and US are using all their available assets to covertly incite unrest within Iran, as some reports suggest. This of course was a feature of the 1953 overthrow and is entirely to be expected now. UK planners must be extremely worried about the prospect of rising Iranian influence in southern Iraq, a majority Shia area, together with perennial ongoing concerns about the majority Shias areas in the other major oil state, Saudi Arabia.
(...) I think the 2003 invasion was intended to ensure that at least one of the three major oil producers – Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia – was made a pure Western bastion and ‘stable’, given an enemy government in Iran and ongoing major uncertainty in Saudi Arabia. The government’s concerns about ‘energy security’ were clearly outlined in a February 2003 document, released just weeks before the invasion, which stated that the UK would soon become dependent on imported oil and gas and that key relations needed to be developed with the world’s leading energy suppliers.
(...) If even a weak state with a reluctant army and hated dictator (Iraq) cannot be controlled, and neither can a failed state with no formal army (Afghanistan), what hope does the Anglo-American alliance have of continuing to shape the world in its interests? I think there is a lot at stake here for the UK/US elite, especially at a time of a rising China threatening the established world order and with energy resources far from under the full control of the US/UK alliance.
Friday, May 4, 2007
nigerian delta:
"Our resources, as you know, they are spoiled by the government," says Mr. Tom, a militant commander, meeting a pair of reporters in a camp of ramshackle tents, surrounded by his personal bodyguards. "Everywhere in the Delta, we are suffering. All the promises, and they do nothing. We want schools, we want them to employ our people, we want lights and water, all those things. It is for this that we are fighting, for our freedom."
(...) "People have realized their votes don't count," says Anyakwee Nsirimovu, director of the Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Port Harcourt. "For the past nine months, people have been distancing themselves from the militants, but what does [Nigerian President Olusegun] Obasanjo do? He gives poverty instead of development. He gives bullets instead of bread. People realize these guys with guns are more effective, and sympathy is being built. And what do you get? Chaos."
(...) "People are so upset, and if the elected officials take office, then there will be more and more people, especially the youth, that will start going after officials," he says. "People can't accept the ballot, and [they] will start to use self-help – the AK-47 – against the politicians who do not care about them except at election time."
(...) On paper, a bustling region like the Niger Delta should be prosperous. The gross domestic product of the three top oil-producing states – Rivers, Delta, and Bayelsa – are equal to that of a growing central European country like Croatia. The annual budget of Rivers State alone – at more than $1.3 billion – is larger than the national budgets of many African countries.
(...) Militant groups say that they no longer trust in government promises or even in completed projects. "We are not interested in schools and clinics and the like," writes Jomo Gbomo in an e-mail. Mr. Gbomo claims to speak for the militant group MEND and has helped journalists arrange visits with MEND in the past. "We are demanding control over our resources."
(...) "We are stranded here," he says. "There are no factories where our boys can go work. We used to fish, but our fish are being poisoned by the pollution coming from these refineries." He sighs. "If you box me, what am I going to do? I must fight. That is what is happening. It's not a thing we want to do, it's because of frustration."
(...) "The problem is that our refineries are not working to capacity, so we can only turn 300,000 barrels per day into diesel or petrol for domestic consumption," says Fingesi, who quit his government job in 2003 because of death threats. "So then Nigeria has this excess crude that it cannot sell, and the only way to sell it is illegally. 1.6 million barrels a day, at $65 per barrel, you're talking $100 million a day, and none of it goes into government coffers."
(...)
"Our resources, as you know, they are spoiled by the government," says Mr. Tom, a militant commander, meeting a pair of reporters in a camp of ramshackle tents, surrounded by his personal bodyguards. "Everywhere in the Delta, we are suffering. All the promises, and they do nothing. We want schools, we want them to employ our people, we want lights and water, all those things. It is for this that we are fighting, for our freedom."
(...) "People have realized their votes don't count," says Anyakwee Nsirimovu, director of the Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Port Harcourt. "For the past nine months, people have been distancing themselves from the militants, but what does [Nigerian President Olusegun] Obasanjo do? He gives poverty instead of development. He gives bullets instead of bread. People realize these guys with guns are more effective, and sympathy is being built. And what do you get? Chaos."
(...) "People are so upset, and if the elected officials take office, then there will be more and more people, especially the youth, that will start going after officials," he says. "People can't accept the ballot, and [they] will start to use self-help – the AK-47 – against the politicians who do not care about them except at election time."
(...) On paper, a bustling region like the Niger Delta should be prosperous. The gross domestic product of the three top oil-producing states – Rivers, Delta, and Bayelsa – are equal to that of a growing central European country like Croatia. The annual budget of Rivers State alone – at more than $1.3 billion – is larger than the national budgets of many African countries.
(...) Militant groups say that they no longer trust in government promises or even in completed projects. "We are not interested in schools and clinics and the like," writes Jomo Gbomo in an e-mail. Mr. Gbomo claims to speak for the militant group MEND and has helped journalists arrange visits with MEND in the past. "We are demanding control over our resources."
(...) "We are stranded here," he says. "There are no factories where our boys can go work. We used to fish, but our fish are being poisoned by the pollution coming from these refineries." He sighs. "If you box me, what am I going to do? I must fight. That is what is happening. It's not a thing we want to do, it's because of frustration."
(...) "The problem is that our refineries are not working to capacity, so we can only turn 300,000 barrels per day into diesel or petrol for domestic consumption," says Fingesi, who quit his government job in 2003 because of death threats. "So then Nigeria has this excess crude that it cannot sell, and the only way to sell it is illegally. 1.6 million barrels a day, at $65 per barrel, you're talking $100 million a day, and none of it goes into government coffers."
(...)
Monday, April 30, 2007
recent nigerian history:
Even the European Union observer mission stated that the "elections have not lived up to the hopes and expectations of the Nigerian people and the process cannot be considered to have been credible,". This is a departure from 1999 and 2003 when the team leaders of EU observers in Nigerian elections noted irregularities, but did not condemn the process. In the weeks following the elections in 1999, I attended a forum on Nigeria in Bonn and had to confront the leadership of the EU observer mission that argued that though the elections of 99 were rigged, the outcome reflected the wishes of the Nigerian people. Such warped conclusion only reflected the policy of the EU at the time: to play safe with the Nigerian ruling clusters with the expectation that the new government would work to maintain stability at a level necessary to guarantee continued profits from Niger Delta oil and gas supplies, and the revenue for debt servicing.
(...) It did not matter much to the "international community" at the time that the mass of the Nigerian people had been disenfranchised by a military transition programme that denied pro-democracy groups and others the right to participate in the elections. General Abdusalami Abubakar (who became Head of State after his colleague, General Sani Abacha dropped dead in unclear circumstances) had decreed elaborate conditions and criteria for political parties to meet for participation in elections. Some of the criteria included having offices and staff in Abuja and in the over 700 local government councils across the country. Only retired soldiers and politicians that had participated in the grand looting of Nigerian oil revenues could cough up the money and hire people to meet those conditions.
(...) In 1999, the Clinton administration of the United States was more comfortable with the military plan than the popular alternative being proffered by groups like the United Action for Democracy, National Conscience, Democratic Alternative, Campaign for Democracy, Chikoko Movement, Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) etc. As a part of the Nigerian pro-democracy movement in the late 90's the IYC in its Kaiama Declaration had condemned the General Abdusalami transition programme as being undemocratic while demanding for an SNC. With mass protests in the streets and creeks of the Niger Delta, the youths of Ijawland insisted on justice and made it impossible for the soldiers to conduct their elections in Bayelsa state, for a month. In the heat of the moment, President Clinton had sent ex President Jimmy Carter to meet with Ijaw Youth leaders in Port Harcourt. Carter said that the US government supported the conduct of elections as planned by the military while rejecting all the key democratic demands from the Niger Delta peoples, as indeed the demands for free multi party democracy and SNC.
(...) If the EU and the US expected the new regime of General Obasanjo, which emerged after the elections of 1999, to maintain social stability, they got it wrong. With Nigerian peoples cut off from political representation as a result of rigged elections, corruption and increasing impoverishment flamed anger among the people. And months after those elections, thousands of Nigerian had perished in ethnic violence in the north of the country. In the south, marginalized Niger Delta youths got armed and attacked the oil and gas industry while challenging the legitimacy of the state. This brought panic to the global oil market and threatened the energy security of the international community.
(...) Taking oil workers hostage in the oil fields of the Niger Delta is merely symptom of a system in collapse. The entire Nigerian people have been held hostage by criminal gangs occupying the State House at Abuja.
Even the European Union observer mission stated that the "elections have not lived up to the hopes and expectations of the Nigerian people and the process cannot be considered to have been credible,". This is a departure from 1999 and 2003 when the team leaders of EU observers in Nigerian elections noted irregularities, but did not condemn the process. In the weeks following the elections in 1999, I attended a forum on Nigeria in Bonn and had to confront the leadership of the EU observer mission that argued that though the elections of 99 were rigged, the outcome reflected the wishes of the Nigerian people. Such warped conclusion only reflected the policy of the EU at the time: to play safe with the Nigerian ruling clusters with the expectation that the new government would work to maintain stability at a level necessary to guarantee continued profits from Niger Delta oil and gas supplies, and the revenue for debt servicing.
(...) It did not matter much to the "international community" at the time that the mass of the Nigerian people had been disenfranchised by a military transition programme that denied pro-democracy groups and others the right to participate in the elections. General Abdusalami Abubakar (who became Head of State after his colleague, General Sani Abacha dropped dead in unclear circumstances) had decreed elaborate conditions and criteria for political parties to meet for participation in elections. Some of the criteria included having offices and staff in Abuja and in the over 700 local government councils across the country. Only retired soldiers and politicians that had participated in the grand looting of Nigerian oil revenues could cough up the money and hire people to meet those conditions.
(...) In 1999, the Clinton administration of the United States was more comfortable with the military plan than the popular alternative being proffered by groups like the United Action for Democracy, National Conscience, Democratic Alternative, Campaign for Democracy, Chikoko Movement, Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) etc. As a part of the Nigerian pro-democracy movement in the late 90's the IYC in its Kaiama Declaration had condemned the General Abdusalami transition programme as being undemocratic while demanding for an SNC. With mass protests in the streets and creeks of the Niger Delta, the youths of Ijawland insisted on justice and made it impossible for the soldiers to conduct their elections in Bayelsa state, for a month. In the heat of the moment, President Clinton had sent ex President Jimmy Carter to meet with Ijaw Youth leaders in Port Harcourt. Carter said that the US government supported the conduct of elections as planned by the military while rejecting all the key democratic demands from the Niger Delta peoples, as indeed the demands for free multi party democracy and SNC.
(...) If the EU and the US expected the new regime of General Obasanjo, which emerged after the elections of 1999, to maintain social stability, they got it wrong. With Nigerian peoples cut off from political representation as a result of rigged elections, corruption and increasing impoverishment flamed anger among the people. And months after those elections, thousands of Nigerian had perished in ethnic violence in the north of the country. In the south, marginalized Niger Delta youths got armed and attacked the oil and gas industry while challenging the legitimacy of the state. This brought panic to the global oil market and threatened the energy security of the international community.
(...) Taking oil workers hostage in the oil fields of the Niger Delta is merely symptom of a system in collapse. The entire Nigerian people have been held hostage by criminal gangs occupying the State House at Abuja.
Monday, April 23, 2007
nigerian elections:
Nigeria's ruling party looked headed for victory in a presidential election which independent monitors and the opposition said on Sunday was deeply flawed. The main opposition candidate said he would not accept the result and called for outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo to be impeached. "We will not accept it. Clearly there was no election in more than half of the states," former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari told Reuters at his home in the northern state of Katsina.
(...) There were widespread reports of rigging in Saturday's election, including ballot stuffing, missing voting slips and intimidation.
Nigeria's ruling party looked headed for victory in a presidential election which independent monitors and the opposition said on Sunday was deeply flawed. The main opposition candidate said he would not accept the result and called for outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo to be impeached. "We will not accept it. Clearly there was no election in more than half of the states," former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari told Reuters at his home in the northern state of Katsina.
(...) There were widespread reports of rigging in Saturday's election, including ballot stuffing, missing voting slips and intimidation.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
in the niger delta:
Ateke Tom, known as the godfather of the vigilantes in the dangerous Niger Delta, has threatened war against Nigeria's government and admitted to carrying out deadly attacks on two police stations.
(...) The Niger Delta accounts for all of the oil production in the world's eighth biggest oil producer which has an estimated income from oil of $20bn a year. It is estimated that 70 per cent or $14bn of that is stolen or goes missing.
(...) A former fighter now working as a peace mediator in Port Harcourt told Simmons that the government completely neglects the youth. He said: "You can look at this youth: they are not being attended to. No good school, no good medical care, you can see, [and] no good feeding. "So when you see them growing wilder every day, so that is that." For many Niger Delta youth, Simmons said it is a journey from destitution to a "violent life on the run". "Criminals, militants, kidnappers call them what you will," he said. "There is no doubt that whoever becomes president this weekend needs to seriously review how the [Niger Delta] crisis is handled."
Ateke Tom, known as the godfather of the vigilantes in the dangerous Niger Delta, has threatened war against Nigeria's government and admitted to carrying out deadly attacks on two police stations.
(...) The Niger Delta accounts for all of the oil production in the world's eighth biggest oil producer which has an estimated income from oil of $20bn a year. It is estimated that 70 per cent or $14bn of that is stolen or goes missing.
(...) A former fighter now working as a peace mediator in Port Harcourt told Simmons that the government completely neglects the youth. He said: "You can look at this youth: they are not being attended to. No good school, no good medical care, you can see, [and] no good feeding. "So when you see them growing wilder every day, so that is that." For many Niger Delta youth, Simmons said it is a journey from destitution to a "violent life on the run". "Criminals, militants, kidnappers call them what you will," he said. "There is no doubt that whoever becomes president this weekend needs to seriously review how the [Niger Delta] crisis is handled."
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
on gender in nigerian politics:
"Men are the decision makers; women should be cooking in the kitchen while men play politics." This is the type of comment that Dorothy Ukel Nyone's male counterparts repeatedly made when she announced her intention to contest a seat in Nigeria's state elections, which got underway Saturday.
(...) Since independence from Britain in 1960, no woman has been elected governor in any of Nigeria's 36 states -- and the West African country has never had a female president.
"Men are the decision makers; women should be cooking in the kitchen while men play politics." This is the type of comment that Dorothy Ukel Nyone's male counterparts repeatedly made when she announced her intention to contest a seat in Nigeria's state elections, which got underway Saturday.
(...) Since independence from Britain in 1960, no woman has been elected governor in any of Nigeria's 36 states -- and the West African country has never had a female president.
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