adipocere
6th December 2013, 16:58
If you read the main news coverage, you will see the lengths that the media is going to blame Muslims for inciting sectarian violence with Christians. It goes something like this:
Well-armed militant group with scary sounding Islamic name attacks Christian civilians who fight back in self defense causing a spiral of violence that may verge on genocide. While the international community sits on it's thumbs, former guilt-ridden colonial power, France is sending troops in a purely humanitarian capacity to help stop the violence.
About a year ago something occurred to me. The new buzzword for western neocolonialism in Africa would be "genocide" - a sort of selective(Rwanda) Never Again battle cry to garner the support of a mostly apathetic and passively racist white populace to unquestioningly throw support to the extreme militarization, by the west, of Africa. (Africom, Rwanda and the appointment of Samantha Power as US Ambassador to the UN was what cinched it for me.)
This of course requires that people believe that Africans are inherently violent or that the African capacity extreme violence is only one sided. Take Liberia and Sierra Leone for example, where brutal African violence was enthusiastically celebrated in Europe like some sort of vindication of the benevolence of colonial rule. You see, they are much too savage to govern themselves. Nevermind the cluster bombs dropped by NATO on villages or the pillaging private foreign mercenary armies employed to cleanse the rebels. Nevermind the local and international politics involved.
Anyway it's playing out (exactly as I had imagined to myself) in C.A.R., that phantom country whose borders are defined by the countries around it. Humanitarian Intervention is being definitively used in a way that prevents "genocide." Most people have probably never even heard of CAR but once modern, democratic whites see the faces of very poor, very black people in jungle villages - they will certainly agree that the west has a moral responsibility to prevent them from slaughtering each other.
My point is not to trivialize or downplay any and all violence going on in CAR and Central Africa, just to suggest to my fellow comrades to think long and hard before you endorse the rallying cry of humanitarian intervention anywhere in Africa.
Humanitarian Intervention, Or Militarized Quest for Resources? (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/12/05-9)
As violence spirals in Central African Republic, UN authorizes deployment of African Union, French forces
- Andrea Germanos, staff writer
As a "humanitarian crisis that has been largely ignored by the rest of the world (http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/article.cfm?id=7185&cat=field-news)" continues to grip the Central African Republic (CAR) on Thursday, new military forces are on their way to intervene, causing some to question the motives when a country with military might sends troops into its resource-rich, former colony.
https://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imagecache/headline_image/article_images/carmap.jpg "France is nervous about shoring up its influence on the continent that is one of the key sources of French prosperity: the ongoing, never-ending resource rape of Africa," writes Rob Prince. (Image: Google) The UN Security Council on Thursday authorized (http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=46667&Cr=&Cr1=) the deployment of African-led and French-backed forces there, the same day clashes in the capital of Bangui left over 100 dead (http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/un-approves-french-intervention-in-central-african-republic-1.2452232).
The additional troops mean that France is doubling (http://www.lakeplacidnews.com/page/content.detail/id/419691/France-doubling-troops-in-Central-African-Republic.html) its number of forces there.
Reports about the current situation in the CAR are indeed dire. One AP photographer tweeted (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/reports-from-the-central-african-republics-darkest-days/?_r=0), "In 30 years I have rarely seen such scenes of desolation and despair." Over 400,000 people have been displaced, according to the UN, there have been reports of sexual violence, child soldiers and targeted assassinations, and the crisis has been called a "human catastrophe of epic proportions (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/11/26-4)."
“There is a consistent pattern of reprisal attacks after military incursions in the Central African Republic which leaves civilians exposed and in great danger,” said (http://www.amnesty.ca/news/news-releases/central-african-republic-escalating-bloodshed-and-reported-revenge-killings) Christian Mukosa, Amnesty International’s Central Africa expert.
While most reporting on the violence that has rocked the central African nation since a coup in March (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/world/africa/rebels-seize-capital-of-central-african-republic.html) portrays the root of the problem as sectarian, international studies lecturer Rob Prince says that France's role should not be overlooked, writing (http://fpif.org/central-african-republic-verge-genocide/) that "France has been much more a part of the problem the C.A.R. faces than a part of any solution."
"In the short run, a French or United Nations Security Council-condoned military intervention could temporarily help avoid the current disaster from spinning out of control," Price writes; however, there's much more to the story:
Of course omitted from France’s concern about the human rights tragedy unfolding in the Central African Republic is Paris’ history – uninterrupted over the past 125 years – of exploiting the country’s rich national resources and manipulating the country’s political system through the employment of France’s Africa holy quartet: intelligence, bribery, special forces intervention, control and manipulation of mercenary forces to undermine any political leader or movement that challenges French corporate interests. Indeed, France’s involvement in the C.A.R. is yet another fine example of how ”liberty, equality and fraternity” translates into “repression, glaring inequality and ethnic hatred” in France’s former African colonies.
[...]
Beneath the surface of France’s concern is a new, more militarized posture – under the New Age pretext of humanitarian intervention – to re-militarize its role in Africa that has included its military role in recent times in Libya, Mali, Niger (where its military force has been reinforced) and the C.A.R. The common unspoken denominator in all these cases? Uranium (Mali, Niger, C.A.R.) and oil (Libya). Concerned about the Chinese-U.S. African energy/mineral offensive of the past decade, France is nervous about shoring up its influence on the continent that is one of the key sources of French prosperity: the ongoing, never-ending resource rape of Africa. Few comments could be more disingenuous than French President Francois Hollande explaining the recent French military role in Mali: “We have no vested interests here; this is a humanitarian venture.” Is it only a French audience would be fool enough to believe that? It has about the same credibility as George W. Bush (or was it Rumsfeld?) arguing that invading Iraq was “not about oil.”
If military intervention is temporarily possible to freeze the violence, France is equally concerned about protecting its vast economic interests in uranium, diamonds, gold rare timber and tobacco which makes the C.A.R. one of France’s most valuable African assets, all of which France has extracted – if not downright looted – from the time the region came under French colonial control in the 1890s. Since the country’s 1960 independence, France has been much more a part of the problem the C.A.R. faces than a part of any solution. In fact, while nominally independent, the country has remained both economically and politically very much of an informal French Colony and an integral part of a system put in place by Charles De Gaulle at the end of the 1950s which is referred to as “Francafrique.“
[...]
If, once again, the C.A.R. is today on the verge of collapse, as in Rwanda, France, through its unbridled greed, unending economic corporate exploitation and profound political cynicism, bears no small amount of the responsibility for the unfolding tragedy there. Having in large measure created the socio-economic conditions, the underlying causes of Central African misery, now France sends in the troops in an effort of damage control. But sending a few thousand soldiers to freeze the political crisis, done in a manner to maximize France’s public image can hardly undo the damage of six decades of Francafrique.
Well-armed militant group with scary sounding Islamic name attacks Christian civilians who fight back in self defense causing a spiral of violence that may verge on genocide. While the international community sits on it's thumbs, former guilt-ridden colonial power, France is sending troops in a purely humanitarian capacity to help stop the violence.
About a year ago something occurred to me. The new buzzword for western neocolonialism in Africa would be "genocide" - a sort of selective(Rwanda) Never Again battle cry to garner the support of a mostly apathetic and passively racist white populace to unquestioningly throw support to the extreme militarization, by the west, of Africa. (Africom, Rwanda and the appointment of Samantha Power as US Ambassador to the UN was what cinched it for me.)
This of course requires that people believe that Africans are inherently violent or that the African capacity extreme violence is only one sided. Take Liberia and Sierra Leone for example, where brutal African violence was enthusiastically celebrated in Europe like some sort of vindication of the benevolence of colonial rule. You see, they are much too savage to govern themselves. Nevermind the cluster bombs dropped by NATO on villages or the pillaging private foreign mercenary armies employed to cleanse the rebels. Nevermind the local and international politics involved.
Anyway it's playing out (exactly as I had imagined to myself) in C.A.R., that phantom country whose borders are defined by the countries around it. Humanitarian Intervention is being definitively used in a way that prevents "genocide." Most people have probably never even heard of CAR but once modern, democratic whites see the faces of very poor, very black people in jungle villages - they will certainly agree that the west has a moral responsibility to prevent them from slaughtering each other.
My point is not to trivialize or downplay any and all violence going on in CAR and Central Africa, just to suggest to my fellow comrades to think long and hard before you endorse the rallying cry of humanitarian intervention anywhere in Africa.
Humanitarian Intervention, Or Militarized Quest for Resources? (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/12/05-9)
As violence spirals in Central African Republic, UN authorizes deployment of African Union, French forces
- Andrea Germanos, staff writer
As a "humanitarian crisis that has been largely ignored by the rest of the world (http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/article.cfm?id=7185&cat=field-news)" continues to grip the Central African Republic (CAR) on Thursday, new military forces are on their way to intervene, causing some to question the motives when a country with military might sends troops into its resource-rich, former colony.
https://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imagecache/headline_image/article_images/carmap.jpg "France is nervous about shoring up its influence on the continent that is one of the key sources of French prosperity: the ongoing, never-ending resource rape of Africa," writes Rob Prince. (Image: Google) The UN Security Council on Thursday authorized (http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=46667&Cr=&Cr1=) the deployment of African-led and French-backed forces there, the same day clashes in the capital of Bangui left over 100 dead (http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/un-approves-french-intervention-in-central-african-republic-1.2452232).
The additional troops mean that France is doubling (http://www.lakeplacidnews.com/page/content.detail/id/419691/France-doubling-troops-in-Central-African-Republic.html) its number of forces there.
Reports about the current situation in the CAR are indeed dire. One AP photographer tweeted (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/reports-from-the-central-african-republics-darkest-days/?_r=0), "In 30 years I have rarely seen such scenes of desolation and despair." Over 400,000 people have been displaced, according to the UN, there have been reports of sexual violence, child soldiers and targeted assassinations, and the crisis has been called a "human catastrophe of epic proportions (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/11/26-4)."
“There is a consistent pattern of reprisal attacks after military incursions in the Central African Republic which leaves civilians exposed and in great danger,” said (http://www.amnesty.ca/news/news-releases/central-african-republic-escalating-bloodshed-and-reported-revenge-killings) Christian Mukosa, Amnesty International’s Central Africa expert.
While most reporting on the violence that has rocked the central African nation since a coup in March (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/world/africa/rebels-seize-capital-of-central-african-republic.html) portrays the root of the problem as sectarian, international studies lecturer Rob Prince says that France's role should not be overlooked, writing (http://fpif.org/central-african-republic-verge-genocide/) that "France has been much more a part of the problem the C.A.R. faces than a part of any solution."
"In the short run, a French or United Nations Security Council-condoned military intervention could temporarily help avoid the current disaster from spinning out of control," Price writes; however, there's much more to the story:
Of course omitted from France’s concern about the human rights tragedy unfolding in the Central African Republic is Paris’ history – uninterrupted over the past 125 years – of exploiting the country’s rich national resources and manipulating the country’s political system through the employment of France’s Africa holy quartet: intelligence, bribery, special forces intervention, control and manipulation of mercenary forces to undermine any political leader or movement that challenges French corporate interests. Indeed, France’s involvement in the C.A.R. is yet another fine example of how ”liberty, equality and fraternity” translates into “repression, glaring inequality and ethnic hatred” in France’s former African colonies.
[...]
Beneath the surface of France’s concern is a new, more militarized posture – under the New Age pretext of humanitarian intervention – to re-militarize its role in Africa that has included its military role in recent times in Libya, Mali, Niger (where its military force has been reinforced) and the C.A.R. The common unspoken denominator in all these cases? Uranium (Mali, Niger, C.A.R.) and oil (Libya). Concerned about the Chinese-U.S. African energy/mineral offensive of the past decade, France is nervous about shoring up its influence on the continent that is one of the key sources of French prosperity: the ongoing, never-ending resource rape of Africa. Few comments could be more disingenuous than French President Francois Hollande explaining the recent French military role in Mali: “We have no vested interests here; this is a humanitarian venture.” Is it only a French audience would be fool enough to believe that? It has about the same credibility as George W. Bush (or was it Rumsfeld?) arguing that invading Iraq was “not about oil.”
If military intervention is temporarily possible to freeze the violence, France is equally concerned about protecting its vast economic interests in uranium, diamonds, gold rare timber and tobacco which makes the C.A.R. one of France’s most valuable African assets, all of which France has extracted – if not downright looted – from the time the region came under French colonial control in the 1890s. Since the country’s 1960 independence, France has been much more a part of the problem the C.A.R. faces than a part of any solution. In fact, while nominally independent, the country has remained both economically and politically very much of an informal French Colony and an integral part of a system put in place by Charles De Gaulle at the end of the 1950s which is referred to as “Francafrique.“
[...]
If, once again, the C.A.R. is today on the verge of collapse, as in Rwanda, France, through its unbridled greed, unending economic corporate exploitation and profound political cynicism, bears no small amount of the responsibility for the unfolding tragedy there. Having in large measure created the socio-economic conditions, the underlying causes of Central African misery, now France sends in the troops in an effort of damage control. But sending a few thousand soldiers to freeze the political crisis, done in a manner to maximize France’s public image can hardly undo the damage of six decades of Francafrique.