“The countries that cooperate with us get at least a free pass,” acknowledged a senior U.S. official who specializes in Africa but spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution. “Whereas other countries that don’t cooperate, we ream them as best we can.”
WP

This has been the essence of US foreign policy as it is actually practiced for the past several decades. It has escalated over time, particularly in the 1980s under Reagan, and with the proliferation of pointless wars this century begun by Bush and expanded under Obama. I say pointless, because although there may have been objectives, they were not related to the means used to achieve them, or to the eventual outcomes, in any coherent way. The US has tried to solve political problems with the brute force of military power. US foreign policy appears divorced from the realities of who what when where and why the US is conducting its policy. The result has been destruction without achievement. US policy in Africa continues this pattern. The destruction of Libya is the most aggressive recent example.

AFRICOM – a map of US military presence in Africa, countries where the U.S. has recently, as of spring 2013, conducted exercises, operations, or has bases in Africa.

Map of known US military locations in Africa.

The interactive version of the above map courtesy of John Reed in Foreign Policy.

You can see another map with more information about the drone base locations here. The map of what we know is shown below, but US drone activities are so shrouded in secrecy, this map only provides a small part of the story.

Known U.S. drone and surveillance flight bases in Africa February 2013

Go to the link to see more details of the specific bases from satellite maps.

U.S. military presence in Africa. Here are more details about US military bases and activities pinpointed in the maps above.

Morocco
Last month, about 1,200 U.S. Marines, sailors and airmen participated in African Lion ’13 where they drove 250 tons worth of vehicles and equipment on a 300 mile convoy and practiced low-level flying and aerial refueling.

Mali
U.S. troops are aiding the French fight against Islamist rebels here.

Niger
The northwest ramp of the airport at Niamey, Niger is the possible site of a U.S. drone base. About 100 U.S. troops have been deployed to Niger to set up a drone base to support a French-led military operation against al-Qaeda in neighboring Mali.

Burkina Faso
A special ramp at Ouagadougou’s airport is reportedly a hub for U.S. military surveillance planes operating in the region. The United States flies PC-12 surveillance aircraft from here north to Mali, Mauritania and the Sahara.

Cape Verde
U.S. coast guardsmen and sailors from the Navy and the Royal Navy helped sailors from Cape Verde’s navy conduct maritime law enforcement operations. The Royal Navy frigate HMS Argyll and a Cape Verdean patrol boat conducted joint operations

Mauritania
In February and March, more than 1,000 troops from African countries and the U.S. participated in Flintlock 13. Flintlock is an annual special operations exercise held in the region. In April, U.S. Army medical troops trained Mauritanian medical personnel the latest in suture-less cataract surgery techniques during exercise MEDRETE 13-2.

Senegal
In March, the U.S., five European countries and eight African nations participated in exercise Saharan Express 2013 aimed at developing anti-piracy skills here.

South Sudan
The South Sudanese village of Nizara is the possible site of a new U.S. drone base. The U.S. military has been in talks with South Sudan about basing surveillance planes here. U.S. special operations troops are also here helping to hunt Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army.

Kenya
An airstrip under construction near Lamu in coastal Kenya is reportedly home to a new U.S. drone base. More than 100 U.S. commandos and other personnel are based at a Kenyan military installation

Tanzania
In February, U.S. special operations troops co-hosted a conference for special ops forces from east Africa.

Djibouti
Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti is home to roughly 2,000 U.S. troops and serves as the major U.S. base in Africa. The U.S. military targets al-Shabab in Somalia and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula from this key base.

Uganda
Entebbe airport is apparently home to U.S. drone operations. U.S. special operations troops are also here helping to hunt Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army. The United States flies PC-12 surveillance aircraft from here over territory used by the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Ethiopia
Arba Minch, Ethiopia is reportedly home to a U.S. drone base. The United States flies Reaper drones from here over Somalia.

Seychelles
The U.S. has a drone base at the airport on the island of Mahe in the Seychelles. The U.S. military flies Reaper drones over East Africa from this island base.

Cameroon
U.S. Navy and Air Force troops provided medical treatment to more than 1,300 people here over five days in early April under the aegis of the U.S. Navy’s Africa Partnership Station. Around the same time, U.S. special operations forces were teaching Cameroonian troops ground combat techniques.

Central African Republic
U.S. special operations troops are here helping to hunt down Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army.

Democratic Republic of the Congo
A two-man “travelling contact team” from the U.S. Army “recently” ran a three week course training 29 local troops in basic intelligence techniques. U.S. special operations troops are also here helping to hunt Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army.

Nigeria
Last week, U.S. milirary medical personnel and staff at the Nigerian navy hospital in Lagos exchanged “best practices” for treating trauma casualties.

Liberia
A two-man “Travelling Contact Team” from U.S. Army Africa’s Inspector General’s office went to Monrovia to help the Liberian military stand up its own inspector general cadre.

Drones are now the preferred instrument of policy in the mammoth portion of US foreign policy that is run by the Pentagon and the CIA. They are also designed for domestic surveillance and control within the US. And many new varieties of drone are being introduced or are under development. This includes drones that can land and take off from carriers, sea going drones on the surface and under water, and tiny drones the size of an insect. Some are pictured below.

Drone on carrier deck

The Navy plans to use unmanned surface vessels to patrol harbors and, when armed with missiles or a .50-caliber machine gun, to protect ships

“In one of the more unbeliable developments of the technology, the United States Air Force recently released a video showing their progress on development of tiny insect sized drones or what they are calling Micro Air Vehicles. These Micro Air Vehicles can hover, crawl, and even kill. And these drones can be out on missions for days at a time laying in wait, gathering energy from power lines or the sun. In the video seen above, the Air Force shows how these drones would be able to follow a target inside a building.”

See the full article and video (which may have been taken down): U.S. Air Force Developing Swarms of Tiny Insect Sized Drones

US Air Force Micro Air Vehicles can hover, crawl, and even kill.

US Air Force Micro Air Vehicles can hover, crawl, and even kill.

From the beginning drones have been a tool of political assassination.

The first CIA targeted killing by a US killer drone was a political assassination:

“Mr. Muhammad and his followers had been killed by the C.I.A., the first time it had deployed a Predator drone in Pakistan to carry out a “targeted killing.” The target was not a top operative of Al Qaeda, but a Pakistani ally of the Taliban who led a tribal rebellion and was marked by Pakistan as an enemy of the state. In a secret deal, the C.I.A. had agreed to kill him in exchange for access to airspace it had long sought so it could use drones to hunt down its own enemies.”

You can see the drone attacks and who they have been killing in Pakistan in this infographic:
Out of sight out of mind

And we really don’t know who is being killed and why. Obama and Co. keep telling us it is al Qaeda, but that is not who we see dying when information does get out. Terrorist is even more convenient than the cold war communist as a name to demonize opposition as enemy. Anyone in the world can be called a terrorist. It is particularly useful to use it on political opponents, justifying almost any action against them.

As Senator Feinstein said:

“
 it’s a perfect assassination weapon. It can see from 17,000 to 20,000 feet up in the air, it is very precise, it can knock out a room in a building if it’s armed, it’s a very dangerous weapon.”

And see my earlier post: Political Assassin Robots Flying In African Skies.

US policy continues to blunder along in military recolonizing mode. AFRICOM looks for partners in African countries to act on its behalf, using proxies and drones to do its dirty work. This mostly results in US support for anti-democratic leadership, people who are willing to sell their countries out from under the feet of their fellow citizens. And when a leader pops up in any country who may actually want to work with fellow citizens to determine what they want, regardless of what the US wants, there will be plenty of drones to monitor and dispose of the problem. Its a perfect assassination weapon.

US Africa policy:

“The countries that cooperate with us get at least a free pass. Whereas other countries that don’t cooperate, we ream them as best we can.”

 
 
Crossed Crocodiles

*DRAFT*

#OurFoodUnderOurControl!

“Food of the people, for the people, and by the people!”

Campaign: “Just Say No To GM Foods!”

Action Brief On The Campaign Against GMO Contamination In Ghana

INTRODUCTION:

Should Africa Go GMO Free?

Ghana On The Verge Of GMO Contamination

Come this year’s planting season, that is, within a matter of weeks, Ghana is poised to roll out its first row of genetically modified seeds into our food chain. This revelation came out in the course of a Parliamentary Vetting of Hon. Clement Kofi Humado, as required by the Constitution of Ghana prior to being appointed as a Minister of State. The Minister of Food and Agriculture designate, made a rather startling observation:

Hon. Humado indicated that when given the nod, he would want to see that Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are used by commercial farmers saying, “Parliament recently passed the legal framework and regulatory mechanism and we will have to liberalize the situation so farmers who are interested in all types of seeds including GMO seeds will be allowed to use it. I will want to see that GMOs are used by commercial farmers.” [1]

Hon. Humado Taking an oath before the Parliamentary Vetting

This is against the backdrop that in the run-up to the Presidential elections in 2012, one of the key elements cited by the NDC supporters against the NPP was the accusation of “the opposition New Patriotic Party and its presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of being puppets of multinationals such as the United States’ agricultural company Monsanto.” For example, in predicting a win for the NDC, Africa Confidential published an article on 16 November 2012, Elections 2012: Mahama ahead by a hair, in which it pointed out that “NDC critics claim the NPP’s agricultural expansion policies are based on imposing Monsanto’s genetically modified seed varieties on local farmers. More widely, they paint the centre-right NPP as the party of ‘bosses in suits’ who have little understanding of or interest in the lives of the urban or rural poor.” [2]

The Pan-Africanist International was one of the organisations that flagged the NPP Manifesto on Agriculture. In an article “The NPP Manifesto on Agriculture is Bogus and Fraudulent!“, the P-AI argued that:

“Like the poor cat in the adage, who wanted to catch the fish but did not want to wet its paws, the NPP wants a mandate to introduce Genetically Modified Organisms into our food chain, but they do not want a discussion! They do not even want the people to get the full picture, even less, to be informed! We are going to discuss this, whether they like it or not! And we are going to inform the good people of Ghana. There is something fundamentally flawed in the bid by the NPP to seek the mandate to assault our agriculture under false pretences. We want the NPP to come out to clearly explain that anomaly, or to formally rule out the introduction of GM crops under their administration. The people of Ghana need to know if a vote for the NPP is equal to a vote for GM crops. The NPP is being unfair to Ghanaians by asking them to vote NPP on the basis of promises to provide “improved seeds”, a well known term commonly used to disguise and greenwash the fact that those seeds are genetically modified organisms that carry with them a myriad of dangers.”  [3]

GMO Contamination: A Real And Present Danger!

The introduction of genetically modified crops into our food chain is nothing but an unmitigated disaster. There is no independent science studying the performance or the safety of GMOs. The agrochemical companies forbid it by contract. Claims for performance and yields or claims of safety and efficacy can only be regarded as self serving and speculative. There is no independent evidence to support them.

GMOs are not designed to help farming, farmers, increase yields or preserve the environment. They are a predatory business model designed to further enrich giant corporations. Because of patents and royalties the price of seeds farmers pay will continue to climb. Monsanto buys up or crushes the competition, so there are no conventional or alternative seeds available after a few years.

GM traits don’t improve yield, it is the underlying quality of the unpatented germplasm, or seed, plus soil quality and water that determine yields. GMO crops are providing opportunity for proliferation of super insect pests and super weeds. Super weeds, resistant to herbicides, now occupy 1/2 of US farmland, in some areas, 90%. GMOs therefore increase the use of increasingly stronger herbicides and pesticides, contrary to the claims made for them, claims that they decrease use of chemicals and are good for the environment.

Farmers are caught by GM crop failures and by the increasing price of seeds, plus the agrochemicals, fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, with no way out or relief available, leading to hundreds of farmer suicides in India. Monsanto uses the courts aggressively and sues farmers who inadvertently grow patented GM crops, even if they are growing them accidentally due to cross pollination or other legally obtained seeds. US and Canadian courts have supported Monsanto, awarding huge judgements against farmers.

The USDA is not even trying to regulate large areas of GMO research. How can countries, particularly with the often limited resources in developing countries tackle the problems of the unintentional release of GMOs and the resulting damage to native crops and the damage to biological diversity? Seralini’s study of the tumours produced in rats fed glycophosphate resistant GM corn should make us all call for more independent scientific studies of the properties of GM foods, and of their long term effects on humans and on the environment.

Thus the attempt by the NDC government to go ahead with commercial farming of GM seeds is clearly a fundamental betrayal of all those who supported the NDC in opposition to the real and present danger the NPP represented in their obvious bid to introduce GMOs into our food chain. The struggle now is to stop the NDC from carrying out such an unconscionable mischief. A people with a history of 500 years of foreign domination of the most horrible forms, including slavery, apartheid, colonialism, and neo-colonialism, and all forms of imperialist aggression, deserve to be treated better than this by their own elected representatives.

These moves to impose genetically engineered crops on Ghanaians by Ghana’s political class, both in the opposition and within the ruling government ought to raise a serious alarm that imperialism has not finished with us yet. In the NDC, they have found a convenient stooge to sow the new chains of 21st century enslavement of the people. Where a government becomes an accessory to the new imperialist scramble for Africa, to the detriment of the very people they have been elected to serve, it loses its legitimacy. The least that can be asked is to compel the government to account for its actions.

REFERENCES:

[1]  Parliament Vets Minister Designate, Tuesday, January 29th, 2013: http://mofa.gov.gh/site/?p=11483

[2] Elections 2012: Mahama ahead by a hair, 16 November 2012, http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=257839

[3] NPP Manifesto on Agriculture is Bogus and Fraudulent! September 10, 2012, http://www.panafricanistinternational.org/?p=1832

Join the Campaign:

It is high time we let them know that they can forget about it!

OurFoodUnderOurControl!

OUR FOOD UNDER OUR CONTROL!

Campaign: “Just Say No To GM Foods!”

Weekly Meeting: Our Food Under Our Control

Time: Every Thursday, at 5.00 pm,

Venue: At the Accra Freedom Centre, Kotobabi Avenue, Kokomlemle, Accra,

(next door to the Insight Newspaper Office, and near Benz Gate at Mogya Bi Ye Dom).

For further information, please contact:

Comrade Duke Tagoe, Accra Freedom Centre,

Telephone: (+233) (0)265 743 484; or 0234341541.

OUR FOOD UNDER OUR CONTROL!

AUDIO PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIRST BRAINSTORMING SESSION

Thursday, 21st March, 2013, at the Accra Freedom Centre:

INTRODUCTION:

Part One: Introduction by Comrades Duke Tagoe and Kweku Dadzie: Part 1. OUR FOOD UNDER OUR CONTROL – Audio First Meeting Thursday, 21st March, 2013, Accra Freedom Centre

Part Two: Preliminary Remarks by Comrades Kweku Dadzie (Continued from Part 1) and Ali-Masmadi Jehu-Appiah, (Nana Akyea Mensah, by Skype, from Belgium)  OUR FOOD UNDER OUR CONTROL 2 – Audio First Meeting Thursday, 21st March, 2013, Accra Freedom Centre

ROUND TABLE DISCUSSIONS: NAME AND SCOPE OF ASSOCIATION:

Part Three: Round Table Discussions 1, Contribution From Comrade Nii Aryeh: Part 3 Round Table Discussions: Comrade Nii Aryeh On Social Media

Part Four: Round Table Discussions 2, New Arrivals: Ara, Dr. David Pessey, and others… Contribution by Ara Oforiwa “On the need for a direct narrative”, and Comrade Dadzie on “Getting the campaign started…” Part 4: Round Table Discussions – 2: Ara Oforiwa and Comrade Dadzie On Mobilization Strategies

Part Five: Round Table Discussions 3, Clarification of Origins, by Comrade Tagoe, and  “The approach must be political,“ Contribution by by Dr. David Pessey. Part 5: Round Table Discussions – 3: Clarifications on Origin of Group” by Comrade Tagoe, and “The apprach must be political” Contribution by Dr. David Pessey.

Part Six: Round Table Discussions 4, Continuation: “The approach must be political”, by Dr. Pessey. Part Six: Round Table Discussion, 4 Continuation of “The approach must be political” by Dr. David Pessey

Part Seven: Round Table Discussions 5, “Maintaining Collective Control Over Our Genetic Resources…” by Dr. Pessey

Part Eight: Round Table Discussions 6, “The Fundamental Problem Of The Ghanaian Farmer Is The Security Of Land Tenure, Not GM Seeds” by Dr. David Pessey.

Part Nine: Round Table Discussions 7, “On Self-Definition And The Need For A Comprehensive Approach To Agriculture” by Ali-Masmadi Jehu-Appiah.

Part Ten Round Table Discussions 8, “Research And Inventory On The State Of Affairs, Where Do Farmers Get Their Seeds Today?” by Comrade Kweku Dadzie.

Part Eleven: Round Table Discussions 9, “Key Issues of the GM Debate” Comrade Ali-Masmadi Jehu-Appiah

NAME OF ASSOCIATION

NEXT MEETING

Should Africa Go GMO Free?

CONTENT

Part One: Key Issues In The GMO Debate

“Food Is A Weapon”
“No Food Shall Be Grown That We Don’t Own!”
“The White Man’s Dream For Africa”
Are We Safe With GM Foods?
Green & Poor Washing Africa With A Failed Technology

1. “Food Is A Weapon”

 

Food is a weapon. – Earl Butz, 1974, the United States Secretary of Agriculture

The focus of this segment is to take a look at the implications of seed patents, disappearance of natural seeds, and the monopoly of food by giant multinational corporations. Fortunately, if we are to learn from our history, we would not require a genius to point out the extreme dangers associated with having foreign multinational corporations in control of whether we live or die. Our history over the period of the past 500 years has been a history about foreign domination.

A people with a history of slavery and colonialism must not find it too hard to understand the new forms of bondage that are creeping in and being designed and reinforced with chains much cheaper and much more effective than the metal shackles, and the military accoutrements associated with slavery, cannon balls and all. The lesson is a serious one because the use of food as a weapon surpasses all chains.

It is a widely known fact that hungry people will do anything in order to get food. Whoever is able to control the access to the food of the people, controls the people. Anthony Gucciardi puts it nicely in How food is being used as a weapon, when he writes:

“When people begin to starve instinctive primal triggers lead to a desire to do absolutely anything for food. Those with food, whether it is the government or a nearby family, will have complete power over others. Food could essentially be used as a weapon, thousands of times more powerful than money or most any other resource. But even in current times, food is used as a weapon by those in power through the use of government regulations and chemical additives that destroy both your health and your bank account. Artificial inflation and speculation, toxic substances hidden in the food, and government regulations are but a few examples. But where did the idea of using food as a supremely powerful weapon begin?” []

Of course, throughout history, examples are replete with the use of food as a weapon of war. “Sieges of fortified positions have been used since time immemorial to starve, demoralize, and physically weaken the ensconced combatants. Pictorial representations in Egypt depict sieges over 4,000 years ago, while the Iliad of Homer describes the siege of Troy by the Greeks over 3,000 years ago. It, like many of the numerous sieges that followed, ended not through force of arms, but through deception and treachery.” []

The current sanctions against Iran could have been far more devastating and effective if Monsanto had a monopoly over the seeds in that country. In surrendering our natural and fundamental rights to seeds to multinational corporations, we surrender our very sovereignty to them.

Anthony Gucciardi answers his own question. In the article he explains that, in 1974, the idea of using food as a weapon was introduced in a 200-page report (http://wlym.com/text/NSSM200.htm) by US politician and former Secretary of State, Dr. Henry Kissinger. The report, entitled National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests, stated that food aid would be withheld from developing countries in need until they submitted to birth control policies that would effectively sterilize large numbers of the population to curb growth.” [2]

In this document, Dr. Kissinger writes:

“There is also some established precedent for taking account of family planning performance in appraisal of assistance requirements by AID [U.S. Agency for International Development] and consultative groups. Since population growth is a major determinant of increases in food demand, allocation of scarce PL 480 resources should take account of what steps a country is taking in population control as well as food production. In these sensitive relations, however, it is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion.” [3]

The transition from the use of “food aid” as a tool in international diplomacy to “food monopoly” as a weapon of control has only been made possible through the patents on life… TO BE CONTINUED… Focusing on Life Patents…

“No Food Shall Be Grown That We Don’t Own!”
“The White Man’s Dream For Africa”
Are We Safe With GM Foods?
Green & Poor Washing Africa With A Failed Technology

Keynote by President Barack Obama at The Chicago Council’s Symposium

Objectives Of The Campaign

* The Principle of the Multifunctionality of Agriculture
* The Benefits of Agroecological Agriculture
* Food Sovereignty, Economic Development and Social Progress

 

Round Table Discussions, Contribution From Comrade Nii Ayee:

CPP UK BRANCH MEETING

Sunday March 17 2013

Time: at 5.30pm

1. Matters arising from last meeting (January 2013)

2. Discussion: What would our ideal CPP look like ? – Facilitator – Nana Ama Amamoo

3. AOB

“Dominique Strauss-Kahn 
 expressed his desire for a Europe stretching “from the cold ice of the Arctic in the North to the hot sands of the Sahara in the South 
  and that Europe, I believe, if it continues to exist, will have reconstituted the Mediterranean as an internal sea, and will have reconquered the space that the Romans, or Napoleon more recently, attempted to consolidate.”
from: Libya: NATO Provides the Bombs; The French “Left” Provides the Ideology

Sarkozy spoke of this in 2007.

“On that occasion, he glorified “the shattered dream of Charlemagne and of the Holy Roman Empire, the Crusades, . . .” Thereupon continued Nicolas Sarkozy: “Europe is today the only force capable of carrying forward a project of civilization.” He went on to conclude: “I want to be the president of a France which will bring the Mediterranean into the process of its reunification (sic!) after twelve centuries of division and painful conflicts (. . .). America and China have already begun the conquest of Africa. How long will Europe wait to build the Africa of tomorrow? While Europe hesitates, others advance.”

And as Boubacar Boris Diop points out about the current conflict in Mali:

“Whether we like it or not, the Arab Spring is completely detaching north Africa from the rest of the continent, and in some respects, the “new border” is northern Mali. This is a clear and coherent strategy that the west is in the process of implementing.”

“Between 1960 and 2005, France launched 46 military operations in its former colonies in Africa“. Since then the total number of military interventions has grown. The pattern continues, most notably with the assault and seizure of Gbagbo in Ivory Coast and the installation of Ouattara as President there, and the current operation in Mali.  The current French intervention is called operation Serval, after the species of cat, but has been nicknamed operation hissyfit by some. The US has engaged in military training in Mali since 2003, but it does not seem to have helped Mali’s army much. So far the only accomplishment of US training has been to train Captain Sonogo, who then made a coup in Bamako which weakened the country and helped enable the Islamists to take over in northern Mali.

Map of conflict in Mali, Jan 14, 2013

MOPTI, MALI — A Malian airmen set up a cordon around a helicopter box as part of the air drop recovery training with the 2/19th Special Forces as part of operation Atlas Accord 2012, near Mopti, Mali on Feb. 13, 2012. The US has announced plans to renew military aid and training in Mali. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Mark Henderson)

Areva uranium mining operations in Niger

Bruce Whitehouse provides valuable background to the present political situation in Mali. He describes how Mali’s democracy had been hollowed out over time, and that the majority of the people in Bamako supported the coup when it occurred in March 2012.  Most people saw the government as corrupt.

“Touré’s ‘rule by consensus’ became a euphemism for the suppression of political debate and a trend towards absolutism. Checks and balances existed only on paper. Journalists were afraid to challenge the president’s agenda, especially after five of their colleagues were arrested in 2007.”

He also informs us that the conflict in Mali is not strictly speaking a civil war.  Mali is being invaded from the north as well as from the south.  Much of the funding for the salafist jihadi militias comes from the Gulf Cooperation Council, GCC (nicknamed the Gulf Counter-revolutionary Club by Pepe Escobar.)  The GCC works closely with NATO.  As @IfyOtuya said on Twitter “It is this same GCC-West petro tyranny hegemony that runs colonialism in North, East and West Africa.”

Whitehouse continues:

“Moreover, I’m not sure how accurate it is to call the forces fighting against the French “Malian rebels” or to describe the conflict as a “civil war“–the command structures of AQIM and MOJWA in particular are dominated by Algerians and Mauritanians. Malians widely perceive these groups as foreign invaders, motivated by racism and greed as well as a perverted, even ignorant view of their faith.

We cannot say that the war in Mali is primarily about natural resources, Western meddling, or religion. We can say, however, that it is a direct consequence of state failure, which as I have argued elsewhere came about largely due to factors internal to Mali. My experience as an anthropologist has made me suspicious of reductionist theories and grand narratives of history, from Marxism to dependency theory to modernization theory. The notion that what’s today playing out in Mali is the product of a “great game” between major powers ignores the realities on the ground there.”

It is not a product of a great game, but the near collapse of Mali’s governance provides an enticing playing field for the gamers.  France, the UK, and US, and other NATO countries are happy to engage with the conflict in Mali one way or another. Their motives are all about resources and geopolitical fantasies, taking advantage of state failure, the chaos, and Mali’s weakness, to advance their national and corporate interests. They are unlikely to be able to control the results.  The people of Mali are not simple pawns to be moved around at the direction of outsiders.  Imperialists may think they are playing the great game.  In the long run things are most unlikely to turn out as they desire or expect, especially when so many of their expectations are based on ignorance of country, people, and history.  Unfortunately,  far too many lives will be wasted and destroyed in the process.   Captain Sonogo’s coup is an excellent example of unexpected consequences.  It was an unexpected result of the realities on the ground in Mali, partially enabled by Captain Sonogo’s IMET training and ties with AFRICOM.

Bruce Whitehouse writes about Understanding Mali’s “Tuareg problem”. It is far more complex than you will hear in most accounts. He makes several points, please see the article for more explanation of each of these points:

“Even in northern Mali, the people we call “the Tuareg” are a minority.
Most of the people we call “the Tuareg” are black.
The people we call “the Tuareg” are not united on anything, least of all separatism.
The people we call “the Tuareg” have not been excluded from Mali’s government.
Innocent civilians identified as “Tuareg” have been abused and murdered.
The label of historically oppressed minority does not easily fit the people we call “the Tuareg.”’

He concludes with:

“I’m no expert on the Tuareg or northern Mali in general, and I don’t claim to offer any solutions. But I know three things. One, whatever the “Tuareg problem” is, an independent or autonomous state for “the Tuareg” is unlikely to solve it. Two, simplistic categories used to describe these people and their relations with neighboring groups actually keep us from understanding, let alone preventing, the race-based injustices that have occurred in Mali and throughout the region. And three, until Malians of all backgrounds can meet for open dialogue about the crimes they have endured — and carried out — they will continue talking past each other, and their divergent views of their common history will only grow further apart.”

This does not look like a problem that war is likely to solve. It is, as with so many governance problems in Africa and globally, a political problem that is being treated to a military solution that cannot solve, or even address, the real issues.

Gregory Mann writes that the invasion was necessary against a formidable enemy. He writes that the intervention was popular and at the request of Mali:

“This is not a neo-colonial offensive. The argument that it is might be comfortable and familiar, but it is bogus and ill-informed. France intervened following a direct request for help from Mali’s interim President, Dioncounda Traore. Most Malians celebrated the arrival of French troops, as Bruce Whitehouse and Fabien Offner have demonstrated. Every Malian I’ve talked to agrees with that sentiment.”

In contrast, the French client state Central African Republic asked for French intervention this year as rebels neared its capitol, but the French declined to intervene despite the precarious position of the CAR government and the proximity of rebels to the capitol.  The French jumped into Mali, but avoided involvement in the CAR.

It is very difficult to get accurate information on what is going on now in Mali. Bamako is rife with rumors. And the French are carefully controlling any coverage of their military movements and actions.  Reporters are kept far away from any action.  Bruce Whitehouse is an excellent source of information and commentary on Mali, particularly the capitol, Bamako.  He writes “These days You can believe whatever you want and find reporting to back you up.”

Pepe Escobar describes some of the geopolitical features of the conflict in Mali.

“It’s now official – coming from the mouth of the lion, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, and duly posted at the AFRICOM site, the Pentagon’s weaponized African branch. Exit “historical” al-Qaeda, holed up somewhere in the Waziristans, in the Pakistani tribal areas; enter al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). In Dempsey’s words, AQIM “is a threat not only to the country of Mali, but the region, and if… left unaddressed, could in fact become a global threat.”

With Mali now elevated to the status of a “threat” to the whole world, GWOT [Global War On Terror] is proven to be really open-ended. The Pentagon doesn’t do irony; when, in the early 2000s, armchair warriors coined the expression “The Long War”, they really meant it.




Follow the gold. A host of nations have gold bullion deposited at the New York Federal Reserve. They include, crucially, Germany. Recently, Berlin started asking to get back its physical gold back – 374 ton from the Bank of France and 300 tons out of 1,500 tons from the New York Federal Reserve.

So guess what the French and the Americans essentially said: We ain’t got no gold! Well, at least right now. It will take five years for the German gold in France to be returned, and no less than seven years for the stash at the New York Federal Reserve. Bottom line: both Paris and Washington/New York have to come up with real physical gold any way they can.

That’s where Mali fits in – beautifully. Mali – along with Ghana – accounts for up to 8% of global gold production. So if you’re desperate for the genuine article – physical gold – you’ve got to control Mali. Imagine all that gold falling into the hands of… China.
Now follow the uranium. As everyone who was glued to the Niger yellowcake saga prior to the invasion of Iraq knows, Niger is the world’s fourth-largest producer of uranium. Its biggest customer is – surprise! – France; half of France’s electricity comes from nuclear energy. The uranium mines in Niger happen to be concentrated in the northwest of the country, on the western range of the Air mountains, very close to the Mali border and one of the regions being bombed by the French.

The uranium issue is intimately connected with successive Tuareg rebellions; one must remember that, for the Tuaregs, there are no borders in the Sahel. All recent Tuareg rebellions in Niger happened in uranium country – in Agadez province, near the Mali border. So, from the point of view of French interests, imagine the possibility of the Tuaregs gaining control of those uranium mines – and starting to do deals with… China. Beijing, after all, is already present in the region.

All this crucial geostrategic power play – the “West” fighting China in Africa, with AFRICOM giving a hand to warlord Hollande while taking the Long War perspective – actually supersedes the blowback syndrome. It’s unthinkable that British, French and American intelligence did not foresee the blowback ramifications from NATO’s “humanitarian war” in Libya. NATO was intimately allied with Salafis and Salafi-jihadis – temporarily reconverted into “freedom fighters”. They knew Mali – and the whole Sahel – would subsequently be awash in weapons.

No, the expansion of GWOT to the Sahara/Sahel happened by design. GWOT is the gift that keeps on giving; what could possibly top a new war theatre to the French-Anglo-American industrial-military-security-contractor-media complex?”

Well-wishers gather to greet French President Francois Hollande during his two-hour-long visit to Timbuktu, Feb. 2, 2013.

Boubacar Boris Diop, Senegalese writer and intellectual, has reservations and grave doubts about the French intervention in Mali. He was interviewed by Souleymane Ndiaye for the Senegalese paper Le Pays au Quotidien. From the translation in The Guardian:

“
 it is, in fact, a stroke of genius on the part of Paris that France can be depicted as an enemy of the “villains”. I use this word deliberately because international politics often reminds me of a Hollywood movie in which the whole plot depends on us being conditioned to be on the side of the good guys. When you learn that narco-terrorists occupy two-thirds of Mali, and that they destroy mosques and the tombs of saints, set fire to the Ahmed Baba Library and cut off people’s hands, your first impulse is to approve of those trying to help innocents out of harm’s way.




After Qaddafi was killed, under appalling circumstances, the French government believed the time had come to entrust the outsourcing of war against AQIM [al-Qaida in the Maghreb] and MUJAO [Movement for Unity and Jihad in west Africa] to the Tuareg rebellion. As Ibrahima Sene recently pointed out in his response to Samir Amin, Paris and Washington then decided to help the Tuareg in Libya return, heavily armed, to Mali – but, more interestingly, not to Niger, where they did not want to take any risk because of Areva [uranium mines]. The Tuareg were delighted to finally realise their dream of independence through the new state of Azawad, an ally of the west.

Some French media were then asked to “sell” the project of the “blue men of the desert” who were willing and ready to go to war against Mali. Just take a look in the archives of France 24 and RFI 
 France clearly occupies the role of a pyromaniac firefighter. Everything suggests that the French will defeat the jihadists, but this victory will cost the Malians their government and their honour.




BBD: I just want to say that this is the end of independence for Mali for a long time, and for its relative territorial homogeneity. It would be naive to imagine that, after having worked so hard to liberate the north, France will hand over the keys of the country to Dioncounda Traore and to the Malians and be satisfied with effusive farewells. No, the world does not work that way. France has put itself in a good position in the race for the prodigious natural resources of the Sahara, and it would be hard to imagine that the French will just drop the Tuareg rebellion, which has always been their trump card. There is an episode in this war that has gone unnoticed, yet deserves some consideration: the capture of Kidal. We initially conceded that Kidal was “captured” by the MNLA, which no longer has any military presence, and a few days later, on January 29th, French troops entered the town alone, not allowing Malian forces to accompany them. Iyad Ag Ghali, head of Ansar Dine, discredited by his affiliation with AQIM and MUJAO, is already almost out of the game and his “moderate” rival, Alghabasse Ag Intalla, head of MIA (Islamic Movement of Azawd) is in the best position to find common ground with Paris. As a matter of fact, after this military debacle, the Tuareg separatists are going to have political control over the north, something they have never had before. It’s a great paradox, but it is in the interest of the west that Mali has no hold over the northern part of it’s country. TraorĂ© is already being pressured to negotiate with the moderate Tuareg backed by Paris, and it is unlikely that we are going to see a president as weakened as Dioncounda trying to resist Hollande. Whether we like it or not, the Arab Spring is completely detaching north Africa from the rest of the continent, and in some respects, the “new border” is northern Mali. This is a clear and coherent strategy that the west is in the process of implementing.

SN: What did you think when you saw young Malians waving French flags?

BBD: Some say it has been fabricated. I don’t agree. I think these pictures reveal the immense relief that the Malians feel. They are particularly disturbing images, and this is why should have the guts to confront them. The real question is not so much what we, as African intellectuals and politicians, should think of the French. More importantly, the question is how is it that our people are left in such a state of abandonment? The question that these images really raise for us is how is it that the French troops who occupied Mali for centuries as barbaric colonisers have come back 50 years later to be greeted as liberators? Does this not leave us seriously perplexed? What is Malian independence really worth?

The outpouring of affection towards French soldiers is from the heart, but it is temporary. The real aims of the war will become clearer for Malians, and time will not be on the French’s side. Benign foreign forces don’t exist anywhere.





 it must be extremely hard these days to be in the Malian military. Here is a national army fighting in its own country, and its soldiers’ deaths do not even count, unlike that of the French helicopter pilot, Damien Boiteux, who was shot on the first day of fighting. All these humiliations will show Mali that a certain democratic comedy, aimed at pleasing foreign backers, is meaningless. Mali is a case study, cited everywhere as an example. Very little is needed for the country to collapse. We already see the mechanisms of exclusion in the works, and these create more and more murderers: All Tuaregs and Arabs will come to be seen as accomplices of jihadists or of the Tuareg separatist movement. Already aware of this danger, intellectuals like Aminata Dramane TraorĂ© of Mali have repeatedly sounded the alarm in recent months, but nobody wants to listen. Relations between the different communities in Mali have always been fragile, and the threat of racial hostilities has never been as grave.





 the procrastination of the African states has been rightly criticised, but you have to understand that it is ultimately suicidal for them to engage in a complex war with their bare hands. Yet this is precisely the criticism we can dole out to our countries: A failure to have the means to defends ourselves, collectively or individually.”

Dan Glazebrook writes in The West’s War Against African Development Continues

“
 it is the West that is reliant on African handouts. 
”

Gold and uranium are the handouts of particular interest in Mali, Algeria’s oil and independence are also of interest.

“As long as Gaddafi was in power [in Libya]  and heading up a powerful and effective regional security system, Salafist militias in North Africa could not be used as a ‘threatening menace’ justifying Western invasion and occupation to save the helpless natives. By actually achieving what the West claim to want (but everywhere fail to achieve) – the neutralization of ‘Islamist terrorism’ – Libya had stripped the imperialists of a key pretext for their war against Africa. At the same time, they had prevented the militias from fulfilling their other historical function for the West – as a proxy force to destabilize independent secular states (fully documented in Mark Curtis’ excellent Secret Affairs). The West had supported Salafi death squads in campaigns to destabilize the USSR and Yugoslavia highly successfully, and would do so again against Libya and Syria

With NATO’s redrawing of Libya as a failed state, this security system has fallen apart. Not only have the Salafi militias been provided with the latest hi-tech military equipment by NATO, they have been given free reign to loot the Libyan government’s armouries, and provided with a safe haven from which to organize attacks across the region. Border security has collapsed, with the apparent connivance of the new Libyan government and its NATO sponsors, as this damning report from global intelligence firm Jamestown Foundation notes 


The most obvious victim of this destabilization has been Mali.”

As Escobar points out above, the flood of arms and militias out of Libya were foreseen by Western intelligence.    Algeria is rich in oil and borders the Mediterranean, another target in the Long War as well as a target of those who envision the Mediterranean as a European internal sea with Europe extending over North Africa.  The “French-Anglo-American industrial-military-security-contractor-media complex” do very nicely by continuing the GWOT.   Glazebrook continues:

“
  disaster zones can be tolerated; strong, independent states cannot.

It is, therefore, perceived to be in the strategic interests of Western energy security to see Algeria turned into a failed state, just as Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have been. With this in mind, it is clear to see how the apparently contradictory policy of arming the Salafist militias one minute (in Libya) and bombing them the next (in Mali) does in fact make sense. The French bombing mission aims, in its own words, at the “total reconquest” of Mali, which in practice means driving the rebels gradually Northwards through the country – in other words, straight into Algeria.


   Like a classic mafia protection racket, the West makes its protection ‘necessary’ by unleashing the very forces from which people require protection. Now France is occupying Mali, the US are establishing a new drone base in Niger and David Cameron is talking about his commitment to a new ‘war on terror’ spanning six countries, and likely to last decades.”

Bill Van Auken writes:

“Both Paris and Washington have justified their military incursions into the African continent in the name of defeating Al Qaeda and associated organizations in Africa. British Prime Minister David Cameron chimed in last month, warning that the prosecution of this war in Africa could span “decades.”

The glaring contradiction between this pretext for war in Africa’s Sahel region and the line-up of these imperialist powers behind Al Qaeda-linked militias in the sectarian-based war to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria is passed over in silence by the media and the political establishments in all three countries.


Behind the incoherence of the pretexts for imperialist intervention, the real forces driving it are clear. Washington finds itself being economically eclipsed in Africa by China, which has emerged as the continent’s leading trade partner. Increasingly in competition over strategic resources—West Africa is soon expected to account for 25 percent of US petroleum imports—US imperialism is relying on its residual military superiority to combat this economic challenge.

In the prosecution of this predatory strategy, Al Qaeda serves a dual purpose—providing shock troops for the toppling of regimes seen as obstacles to US hegemony, and serving as a pretext for other interventions carried out in the name of combating “terrorism” and “extremism.”’

A Malian man dressed in green walks between green doors of closed shops in Gao, Feb. 5, 2013.

In Foreign Policy Gordon Adams describes a Continental Shift in US policy towards Africa.

“U.S. engagement in Africa is shifting from a focus on governance, health, and development to a deepening military engagement. And while the Pentagon portrays this expanding military engagement as a way to empower Africans, it is actually building security relationships that could backfire, harming our long-term foreign policy interests.


A focus on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations has driven this engagement forward 



[T]he U.S. plans its security assistance programs in a strategy and policy void and, with a focus on “security” but not “governance,” they are largely implemented to meet the bureaucratic, regional, and program priorities of the Defense Department, in this case, Africom. The choice of countries, programs, and individuals to receive support in Africa is driven largely by the military — the regional combatant commander, the military services, and DOD policy officials.
U.S. security assistance, especially after Iraq and Afghanistan, does put “security” first and “governance” second, which is characteristic of these Africa programs.  
  The downside is that by putting security first 
  too many [African countries] will end up insecure in another way: hostage to a strongly developed military-paramilitary-gendarme-police force which is the only effective form of political power. As the Perry report said in its subdued way: “In many countries, whether intended or not, the U.S. is choosing sides in the partner nation’s political process when it provides assistance to security forces.”‘

Gordon Adams is describing what I and others have been writing about since 2007 and before.  The US choice to invest the  money and attention it devotes to Africa on military development is to choose sides in the political process of the nations it engages.  Africans want to move away from military governments.   US national interests are not being served when the Department of Defense, DoD, bureaucratic, regional, and program priorities drive national foreign policy.  The US military remains on the wrong side of history in Africa.   There is a long US history of military assistance and covert intervention in Africa throughout the cold war and particularly in the lengthy US support for apartheid.  In the course of those conflicts the US was party to the introduction of state sponsored terrorism into African conflicts.  The US has been party to coups and assassinations against the most progressive and visionary of Africa’s leaders, including Nkrumah, Lumumba, and Sankara.  US support for Savimbi and manipulation of the electoral process precipitated an extra decade of war in Angola. The US installed and maintained Mobutu in Congo, DRC, for decades of theft and misrule.  The US arms and supports Rwanda and Uganda as they loot the Eastern Congo.   It would behoove US long term interests in Africa to avoid looking like the leader among those who would recolonize the African continent. Mali’s current fractures make it vulnerable to military opportunism. France, the UK, and US (fukus) along with NATO and the GCC, are engaged in a short sighted Long War of neocolonialism.

Crossed Crocodiles

“The base in Niger marks the opening of another far-flung U.S. military front against al-Qaeda and its affiliates, adding to drone combat missions in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. The CIA is also conducting drone airstrikes against al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan and Yemen.”

Location of US drone and aerial surveillance bases in Africa.

“A U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to provide details about military operations, said that the 40 troops who arrived in Niger on Wednesday were almost all Air Force personnel and that their mission was to support drone flights.

The drones will be based at first in the capital, Niamey. But military officials would like to eventually move them north to the city of Agadez, which is closer to parts of Mali where al-Qaeda cells have taken root.

“That’s a better location for the mission, but it’s not feasible at this point,” the official said, describing Agadez as a frontier city “with logistical challenges.”

The introduction of Predators to Niger fills a gap in U.S. military capabilities over the Sahara, most of which remains beyond the reach of its drone bases in East Africa and southern Europe.

The Pentagon also operates drones from a permanent base in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, and from a civilian airport in Ethiopia.

The U.S. military has been flying small turboprop surveillance planes over northern Mali and West Africa for years, but the PC-12 spy aircraft have limited range and lack the sophisticated sensors that Predators carry.”

The United States is now carrying out surveillance all along the coasts of Africa and continually increasing surveillance from the air. The map above is just the beginning. There will be more political assassin robots flying in African skies.

Crossed Crocodiles

Belgian MP LAURENT LOUIS stands against war in Mali and exposes the international neo-colonial plot
Feuillien Geraldine·

Thank you, Mr President.
Dear Ministers, dear Colleagues.
Belgium is indeed the land of surrealism.
This morning we learned in the media that the Belgian army is incapable of fighting some extremist soldiers having radical Islamist beliefs existing within its own ranks and who can not be dismissed by lack of legal means. However, at the same time, we decide to help France in its war against “Terror” by providing logistical support for its operation in Mali. What wouldn’t we do in order to fight against terrorism outside our borders?

I just hope we took care not to send for this anti-terrorist operation, in Mali, these much talked about Belgian Islamists soldiers! I seem to be joking, but what is going on in the world today does not make me laugh at all. It doesn’t make me laugh, because without any doubt, the leaders of our Western countries are taking the peoples for imbeciles with the help and support of the Media which are nothing more today than an organ of propaganda of the ruling powers.

Around the world, military actions and regime’s destabilization are becoming more and more frequent. Preventive war has become the rule. And today, in the name of democracy and the fight against terrorism, our states grant themselves the right to violate the sovereignty of independent countries and to overthrow legitimate leaders.

There has been Iraq and Afghanistan, the wars of the American lie. Came later, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, where thanks to your decisions, our country has been “first in line” to participate in crimes against humanity, in each case to overthrow progressive and moderated regimes and to replace them by Islamist regimes, and – isn’t it weird ? – their 1st will was to impose Sharia law.

This is exactly what is currently happening in Syria where Belgium is shamefully funding the arming of the Islamist rebels who are trying to overthrow Bashar Al Assad. Thus, in the midst of economic crisis, as more and more Belgians can no longer house themselves, feed, heat and cure themselves – Yeah, I can hear what a filthy populist I am – well, the Minister of Foreign Affairs decided to offer the Syrian rebels 9 million euros!

Of course, they’ll try to make us believe that this money will be used for humanitarian purposes … one more lie! And as you can see, for months, our country is only participating to put in place, Islamic regimes in North Africa and the Middle East. So, when they come and pretend to go to war in order to fight against terrorism in Mali, well… I feel like to laugh.

It’s false! Under the appearance of good actions, we only intervene to defend financial interests in a complete neo-colonialist mindset. It’s a real nonsense to go to help France in Mali in the name of the fight against islamic terrorism when at the same time, we support in Syria the overthrow of Bashar al- Assad by Islamist rebels who want to impose Sharia Law, as was done in Tunisia and in Libya It is about time to stop lying to us and treating people like imbeciles

The time has come to tell the truth. Arming the Islamist Rebels, as Westeners have, in the past armed Bin Laden, that friend of the Americans before they turned against him, well, the western countries are taking the opportunity to place military bases in the newly conquered countries while favoring domestic companies. Everything is therefore strategic. In Iraq, our American allies, have put their hands on the country’s oil wealth. In Afghanistan, it was its opium and drugs always useful when it comes to make lots of money pretty quickly.

In Libya, in Tunisia, in Egypt, or then again in Syria, the aim was and is still today to overthrow moderate powers, to replace them by Islamist powers who very quickly, will become troublesome and that we will shamelessly attack pretending once again, to fight terrorism or protect Israel.

Thus, the next targets are already known. Within a few months, I bet that our eyes will turn to Algeria and eventually to Iran. To go to war, to free people from an outside aggressor, is noble But go to war to defend the interests of the USA, To go to war to defend the interests of big companies such as AREVA, go to war to put our hands on gold mines, has nothing noble at all and it reveals our countries to be attackers and thugs!

No one dares to speak, but I will not shut up! and if my battle makes me look like an enemy of this system who flaunts the Human Rights in the name of financial, geo-strategic and neo-colonialist interests, so be it! Flaunting and exposing this regime is a duty and makes me proud And honestly, I apology for my low class speech, but I fuck you all, the so-called do-gooders, both left and right wingers or from the center who are today licking the boots of our corrupted powers and who will be pleased to ridicule me.

I fuck you all, leaders who are playing with your bombs as kids do in a playground!

I fuck you, you who pretend to be democrates while you are nothing more than low class criminals. I don’t have much respect neither for the journalists who have the audacity to label the opponents as mentally retarded while basically, they know very well that these opponents are right.

Finaly, I despise, at the highest point, those who believe they are the kings of the world and who are dictating their laws, because I AM on the side of truth, the side of justice, the side of the innocent victims of looting at all cost. And it is for this reason that I have decided to clearly oppose this resolution that is sending our country to support France in its neo-colonialis operation.

Since the beginning of the French operation, the lie is organized. We are told that France is only answering the call for help of a Malian president. We almost forget that this president has no legitimacy and that he was put in place to ensure the transition following the coup of March 2012.

Who supported this coup d’Ă©tat? Who started it? For who is this president of transition actually working? This is the first lie! The French president, François Hollande dares to pretend to wage this war to fight against the jihadists who threaten (ohhhh do you realize!) who threaten the French and European territory! But what an ugly lie!

By taking this official argument, while taking the opportunity to frighten the population increasing the terror allert level, implementing the Vigipirate plan our leaders and media are demonstrating an un-imaginable outrage! How dare they use such a point while France and Belgium have not hesitated to arm and support Jihadists in Libya and that these same countries continue to support these jihadists in Syria.

This pretext hides strategic and economic purposes. Our countries are no longer fearing inconsistency because everything is done to hide it. But the inconsistency is well present. It is not tomorrow that you’ll see a Malian citizen commit a act of terrorism in Europe. No! Unless we’ll suddenly create one so we can justify this military operation.

Haven’t we created september 11th, after all, to justifiy the invasions, arbitrary arrest, torture and massacre of innocent populations? Thus, create a Malian terrorist is no big deal! It must not be very complicated for our bloodthirsty leaders. Another pretext used these recent months to justify military operations, is the protection of human rights.

Ah! This pretext is still used today to justify the war in Mali. But yes! We have to act, otherwise the evil Islamists will impose Sharia law in Mali, stoning women and cutting the thugs’ hands off. Oh! The intention is truly noble. Noble and salutary for sure.

But then why is it, Good Lord, why is it that our countries have contributed in Tunisia and Libya to the accession to power of Islamists who have decided to apply this Sharia Law in these countries which were still not so long ago, modern and progressive? I invite you to ask the young Tunisians who have launched the revolution in Tunisia, if they are happy with their current situation? This is all hypocrisy. The purpose of this war in Mali is very clear.

And since no one talks about it, I WILL. The purpose is to fight against China and allow our American ally to maintain its presence in Africa and the Middle East. This is what guides these neo-colonialists operations. And you will see, when the military operation will be over, France will, of course, keep its military bases in Mali.

These bases will be a benefit to the Americans as well. And at the same time, as has always been the case, Western corporates will put their hands on juicy contracts that will once again deprive re- colonized countries of their wealth and raw materials. So let’s be clear, the primary beneficiaries of this military operation, will be the owners and shareholders of the French giant AREVA who has been trying for years to obtain a uranium mine in Falea, a town of 17,000 inhabitants located at 350 km from Bamako.

And I don’t know why, but my little finger is telling me that it won’t take long before AREVA will eventually exploit that mine! I don’t know, it’s an impression I have. It is therefore out of question that I would take part to this mining colonialism, that modern times colonialism. And for those who doubt about my arguments, I sincerely invite them to learn about the wealth of Mali.

Mali is a major producer of gold, but recently it has been designated – recently, eh….- as being a country that offers a world-class environment for the exploitation of uranium. How strange! One step closer to a war against Iran, it is obvious. For all these reasons and in order to not fall into the traps of lies they are tending us, I’ve decided not to give my support to that intervention in Mali.

Therefore, I will vote against it.

And by doing so, I’m being consistent since, I never supported in the past our criminal interventions in Libya or in Syria, and so being the only MP in this country to defend the non-interference and the fight against obscure interests. I really think it is about time to put an end to our participation to the UN or NATO and get out of the EU if Europe, instead of providing peace becomes a weapon of attack and destabilization of sovereign countries submissive to financial rather than human interests

Finally, I can only urge our government to remind the President Hollande the obligations resulting from the Geneva Conventions regarding the respect of prisoners of war. Indeed, I was shocked to hear on television from the mouth of the French President that his intention was to “destroy” – I say “destroy” – Islamist terrorists.

So, I do not want the qualification to be used to name the opponents to the Malian regime – it is always convenient today to talk about Islamic terrorists- to be used to circumvent the obligations of any democratic state in terms of respecting the rights of prisoners of war. We expect such a respect from the Fatherland of Human Rights.

In conclusion, Let me emphasize how lightly we decide to go to war. First, the government acts without any consent from the Parliament. It appears that it has the right to. It sends equipment, men to Mali
The Parliament subsequently reacts and when it responds, as today, well, this institution happens to be composed of only 1/3 of its members.

Much less if we speak of the French speaking MP’s. It is therefore a guilty lightness which does not really surprises me, coming from a Parliament of puppies, submitted to the dictates of political parties. Thank you. (Translation: Geraldine Feuillien)

Is it not simply amazing that the NPP continues to make the sort of public comments they make about their case before the court, knowing very well they would not be allowed to go unchallenged? The problem that this sort of behaviour raises is that is seeks to run a parallel trial in the media to the one being sought at the Supreme Court. To that extent, it would be expedient for the NPP not to run their mouths publicly about this case and expect a timid public response. This article is an example of the sort of robust public reaction the NPP must continue to expect from some of us who want to keep our democracy clean from fraudsters and mathematically challenged pretenders to the throne, and disturbers of the peace. I am specifically referring to the statement by the Communications Director of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akomea, to the XYZ News that they have presented the court with “solid documentary evidence to back each of the claims that we are making”. [1] This was uncalled-for. The Ghanaian public certainly does not need that sort of information in that media, as the right forum for such utterances is before the Justices of the Supreme Court, and not ABC or XYZ News!

In fact, some of us see in this ridiculous performance, a rather cynical and subtle attempt to prepare the minds of the public to reject the Supreme Court decision, once it goes against them. This is why they should not be ignored. This is why it is important to expose the disinformation campaign embarked upon by the NPP regarding their patently bogus and transparently fraudulent claims of having been cheated in an election that independent observers cry in a tremendous unison, including the Ghanaian media, as free and fair and representing the will of the people of Ghana. In “Why Akufo-Addo Will Not Concede Defeat”, written just after the vote, I traced the roots from his records since the 2008 vote and came to a firm conclusion, that Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was not going to accept defeat no matter what. And that the decision not to concede defeat took precedence over the facts, put the cart in front of the horse, and expected the cart to pull the horse!

The decision to contest the results was taken even before they embarked upon desperately seeking whatever evidence that was there to lay hands on. It is a little bit like George Bush’s excuse to go to war against Iraq under the pretext that Saddam Hussein had produced “weapons of mass destruction” and the wild goose chase that ensued! In Nana Akufo-Addo’s case, it is obvious from Gabby Otchere-Darko’s article, “Vigilance Is The Motto For December 7”, Feature Article of Saturday, 1 December 2012, published one week before the vote, that the issue of refusing to concede was foremost on their agenda. They were ready to reject the results “at all cost” once the “wrong” candidate emerged as the winner! The rejoinder I wrote to counter that article has been hailed by many as being very insightful, but it was one of the easiest of predictions. It became easily predictable after reading Otchere-Darko’s article. That is why I wrote the following in my own feature article published on the 3rd of December, 2012, in “Akufo Addo Prepares Not To Concede Defeat!” [2]:

“I smelt a rat as soon as I read the latest article by the Executive Director of the The Danquah Institute. I almost called this article, “Danquah Institute Concedes Akufo-Addo’s Impending Defeat!” Now, why would the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute, deem it fit to devote a complete lie to an article surreptitiously on vigilance? Why would he write a thing like this “Unlike Nana Akufo-Addo, John Mahama has no track record of adopting the gentlemanly course of gracefully accepting defeat after losing an election, simply because he has never tasted defeat at the highest level of political competition where the stakes are most high“? One thing is clear: they have a plan. What is not clear is the nature of the plan. From the way he dwelt so much on violence, it has to be something to do with violence. Difficult to tell who is pulling that off, but a losing candidate who has clearly come out to say that he wants to be in power “at all cost”, whose right-hand man is sanctimoniously complaining against political violence in a feature article that ominously portends that the Akufo-Addo camp are one-step ahead of the Ghanaian electorate. The plan is simple. In the event that Nana Akufo-Addo is rejected by Ghanaians, he is not going to accept defeat.”

Judging from the strange silence that greeted the calls on Akufo-Addo to explain the circumstances under which he left Oxford University in 1962, the rejection of the “Free SHS Education for all”, as a 419, the ethnocentric insults of Ewes as “Trokosi” and “Northerners” as “Cattle Rearers”, it would have been a miracle for the NPP to have come out as a winner! The senseless threats to peace, such as “all die be die” put off many peace-loving voters. Those of us who have been expecting both the defeat of Nana Akufo-Addo at the just-ended elections, as well as his inevitable knee-jerk reaction of refusal to concede, are therefore not surprised at the ridiculous manner they have been gleaning the grounds for excuses to support their ill-fated decision to challenge the electoral results. We are lucky that the 21 day limit was inserted into the Constitution, otherwise, the NPP would still be busy looking for the evidence they fondly call “incontrovertible”, even before they are found! Just as a drowning person does not discriminate between the quality of straws that come his way to clutch on with his life, the NPP is bound to display their straws as they go down, as “evidence”!

Out of curiosity, I just checked the meaning of “clutch at straws” to see how close they are, and you would think the writers of the dictionary had the NPP in mind! The phrase, “clutch at straws” denotes, “Fig. to continue to seek solutions, ideas, or hopes that are insubstantial. When you talk of cashing in quick on your inventions, you are just clutching at straws. That is not a real solution to the problem. You are just clutching at straws”. The McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs, also has: “1. to try any method, even those that are not likely to succeed, because you are in such a bad situation (usually in continuous tenses) He’s hoping that this new treatment will help him but I think he’s clutching at straws. 2. to try to find reasons to feel hopeful about a situation when there is no real cause for hope (usually in continuous tenses) She thinks he might still be interested because he calls her now and then but I think she’s clutching at straws.”

Thus the correct English to write about the current posturings of the NPP leadership, ought to be “the NPP is clutching at straws!” After crying foul that the Electoral Commission did not wait enough for them to most probably place an injunction on the declaration of results that were ready, and throw our democracy into total confusion, it emerged that some of the “evidence” they provided to the Electoral Commission were so frivolous that the Electoral Commission had no choice other than to dismiss them. One would have expected some refinement after such effort at weeding off bogus cases from their petition. But it only got worse. In the first place there is a problem with the basic arithmetic of the NPP petition. As you can see in this comment I received by mail, calculated almost the minute the NPP came out with their figures. The result is stunning!

The NPP gives the following figures which form the basis of their grand total of 1, 340, 018 gargantuan electoral fraud for which they seek remedial action: 1. Over voting alone accounted for is 620,443, 2. Voting without verification is also 456, 9333. Figures that did not match accounted is also 3, 841. The total of 620, 443 + 456, 933 + 3, 841 = TOTAL: 1, 081, 217 but NOT 1, 340, 018. – WT, “Poor arithmetic by NPP team”, Dec 28, 2012, 14-55 GMT. It is therefore not surprising that that the NPP even commits more grievous errors as to make the petition itself, vexatious and abuse of Judiciary procedure. A friend of Professor J. Atsu Amegashie who goes by the initials “WT”, wrote, according to the NPP, “The irregularities led to 1,340,018 votes being wrongly counted as part of the result of the 2012 presidential election. These votes were largely to the benefit of the NDC presidential candidate.” The 1,340,018 illegal votes above were obtained by summing votes in the following categories:

(a) OVER VOTE DUE TO TOTAL VOTE EXCEEDING BALLOT PAPERS ISSUED TO VOTERS
(b) VOTING WITHOUT BIOMETRIC VERIFICATION
(c) SAME SERIAL NUMBERS FOR DIFFERENT POLLING STATIONS
(d) MISSING PRESIDING OFFICER’S SIGNATURE ON REDSHEET
(e) WORDS AND FIGURES DO NOT MATCH

This is the most important passage in this article: “Please note that someone who voted without biometric verification is likely to have voted with a ballot paper. Polling stations without the presiding officer’s signature may have involved no biometric verification, a mismatch between words and figures, etc. This means that the five categories above are not necessarily non-overlapping categories. Therefore, adding the votes in these categories as the NPP did is double counting or multiple counting and leads to an inflation of the alleged number of illegal votes.” This effectively buttresses what Mr. Asiedu Nketia said earlier on: “We don’t have a problem with whatever they are talking about in terms of the numbers on the register but our problem is for them to assume that they by their won reckoning have seen that there is a bloated register so therefore all the bloating converts into votes that have been added to the tallying of President Mahama and I think that is where we come back to what I have said all along that the NPP has problem with logic and they have problem with mathematics.”

The General Secretary of the NDC, Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketia on Sunday, December 9, 2012, rightly announced in a press conference that the party was awaiting the declaration of election results by the Electoral Commission (EC), in spite of allegations by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) of electoral fraud. The NPP had requested that the EC delay the declaration of results until an investigation is conducted into the allegations. Mr Asiedu Nketia said all credible political parties collate results and that the NDC’s collations correspond with the results that the EC has released so far. He added in a barely veiled jab at the NPP that “parties who struggle with mathematics should not visit the effects of their incompetence on the nation.” [3] “If you have a problem with maths don’t visit it on us”!

This is what every right-thinking Ghanaian needs to be telling the NPP. The scenarios projected by the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute, Mr Otchere-Darko, in the event of they not being satisfied by the results include, the undoing of “all of this progress we have made as a nation.” Sir John was reported to have said, in the wake of the beating of journalists by NPP supported, and “all die be die” incitements from the NPP leadership, and the fear of an inevitable police crackdown, “If they make the wrong move by arresting any of our officers, they will know no peace and this country will suffer for that”, Sir John said adding “we are not scared to be arrested but if they try to arrest any of us we will make this country ungovernable.” [4] What the NPP needs to know is that an overwhelming majority of Ghanaians want this nation to continue to be governable, and the beating of innocent civilians going about their normal life, such as journalists, shall never be tolerated. Rather than deceiving themselves they are above the law, the NPP must rather think of withdrawing the “all die be die”, if they want their own party to be governable!

At their press conference calling on the Electoral Commission to suspend its intended declaration of the presidential results and conduct an audit of the collated figures as well as the counts from the biometric verification machines before the electoral results were finally released, the Chairman of the NPP, Mr Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey, was reported as saying, “For example, Peace FM and Joy FM have both announced 10,000 more votes for John Mahama, the NDC Presidential Candidates, than what was declared for him at the Ledzokuku collation centre, giving him 63,210 (60.53 per cent), instead of 53,210”, he alleged and stressed that such systematic manipulation of the figures across the country casts serious doubt on the credibility of the results. It has since been revealed by Mr Fifi Kwetey, Deputy Minister for Finance and newly elected Member of Parliament for Ketu-South Constituency, who was also present at the EC Strong Room, that when the issue came up, what exactly transpired, as he described claims being made by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) against the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) that the 2012 General Election was rigged in favour of President Mahama as fraud.

Speaking on Radio Gold’s Gold Power Drive, Friday, Fifi Kwetey said the attempt by the NPP to provide evidence to the so called allegation is an effort to swindle Ghanaians. “You see these guys have absolutely nothing. The whole evidence they are working on is nothing but another 419 just like their Free SHS had been 419 and Azaa,” he said. According to him, in the strong room of the Electoral Commission (EC) on Sunday 9th December, the National Chairman of the NPP, Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey, confronted the Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Afari Gyan, challenging him to withhold declaring the results of the election claiming he had original results which defy those the Electoral Commission received from the various collation centres.

However, Fifi noted that “when the Electoral Commissioner withdrew to examine those results, they realized that, a lot of it was absolutely incomplete. Some of it they were mixing parliamentary figures with presidential figures” He also indicated that the NPP claimed for example that the returning officer announced 67,710 votes in favour of the NDC instead of 53, 710 in the Ledzokuku Constituency in the Greater Accra Region. However when the EC cross-checked the figures it turned out to be false because the true figure recorded was 53,710 votes for the NDC! [5] Interestingly enough, they have quietly left out their initial objections in the case. No one hears of Ledzokuku, any more.

The NPP is now embarrassingly silent over the “Ledzokuku scandal”, as they churn out similar rubbish to replace the discredited ones! They are the ones fooling themselves. Ghana shall move on, with or without them. Nana Akomea, the Communications Director of the NPP, can spare us the yarns that they have presented the court with “solid documentary evidence to back each of the claims that we are making”. The NPP cannot prove before the Supreme Court that 1+1=3, or 4 or perhaps, in this case, a whopping 1,340,018! The major obstacle facing the NPP is not the law, the conduct of the elections, the availability of “solid documentary evidence” but a simple struggle with additions and subtractions. The evidence as presented, is mathematically nonsensical, legally untenable, and politically vexatious. There is nothing out there that can substantiate a mathematically impossible proposition, except probably in quantum physics, where both candidates can be winners and losers at the same time. Such a scenario however, is more likely in a university lab, than we are likely to see at the Supreme Court!
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Nana Akyea Mensah, Ghana Steering Committee,
P-AI, Social Media Campaigns | January 2, 2013
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REFERENCES:
[1] NPP has presented solid documentary evidence – Akomea | General News 2012-12-31 http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=260886:
[2] Akufo Addo Prepares Not To Concede Defeat! Feature Article 2012-12-03 , by Nana Akyea Mensah, http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=258250&comment=8591103#com
[3] If you have a problem with maths don’t visit it on us, Asiedu Nketia replies NPP | Myjoyonline.com | Adam Reese | Published On: December 9, 2012, 15:50 GMT Politics http://politics.myjoyonline.com/pages/news/201212/98457.php
[4] We will make Ghana ungovernable – NPP | General News 2012-12-12 http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=259215&comment=0#com
[5] NPP’s Gathering Of Electoral Evidence Is Another 419 Like Free SHS- Fiifi Kwetey | General News 2012-12-15 http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=259579