March 4, 2004 - May 17, 2004
Re-writing the History of the Rwandan Genocide
Posted: Monday, May 17, 2004
That Halo Over Romeo Dalliare's Head Has More Than One Hole in It!
By ROBIN PHILPOT
When International Criminal Tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte learned from a Canadian newspaper in 2000 that the Rwandan Patriotic Front and its leader Paul Kagame were prime suspects in the April 6, 1994, assassination of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, she reportedly said: "If it is the RPF that shot down the plane, the history of genocide must be rewritten".
Hopefully others will be as candid as Ms Del Ponte as more and more information surfaces on events in Rwanda in the early 90s. First on that list should be retired Canadian general and former UN peacekeeper in Rwanda Romeo Dallaire. However, Dallaire may find it hard to swallow his pride after enjoying such a massive PR campaign organized for him ever since his 600-page book appeared in October 2003 (Shake Hands with the Devil, The failure of Humanity in Rwanda, Random House Canada).
Dallaire toured Canada, parts of the US, Belgium, France, Tanzania, where he witnessed for the prosecution at the ICTR, and Rwanda, where he joined Paul Kagame for commemorations in Kigali. He appeared on all the right programs, with the right people, and his verge-of-tears attitude protected him from the tough questions that reporters should have been asking him. One of his Canadian government handlers justified the enormous security for Dallaire in Tanzania by describing him as Canada's "national treasure". He is now being touted as the future Governor General of Canada.
The saintly halo carefully placed over his head has also prompted Michael Ignatieff to invite him to be a fellow of Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, where paradoxically he will specialize in "conflict resolution". Ignatieff probably sees the appointment as a way to cover his own conflict-inflicting support of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Romeo Dallaire supposedly told all in his book. However, since so many people in influential positions have been bluntly contradicting Dallaire, it's time he and his ghostwriters sat down and rewrote the book. These include former the Chief of the 1994 United Nations Mission in Rwanda the Cameroonian diplomat Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh--Dallaire was only in charge of the military component , UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the French anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, Colonel Luc Marchal, the Belgian commander of UN troops in Kigali who worked under Dallaire and many more. If we accept as true half what these people have said, either most of the information in Dallaire's book can no longer be taken seriously or the book as whole should be rejected as base propaganda.
Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh was the UN Secretary General's Special Representative in Rwanda, and therefore in charge of the mission in Rwanda.
An experienced diplomat having served as Cameroon's Ambassador to France and to the former USSR, Booh-Booh was also very familiar with African politics, unlike Dallaire who admits not knowing that Rwanda was in Africa when he was appointed in 1993. Since the Rwandan tragedy, Booh-Booh has remained silent and respected the neutrality that comes with his position. (Dallaire of course never respected the obligation of neutrality). Booh-Booh broke that silence in April in an interview with the French-language monthly Africa International.
When asked to react to criticisms leveled by Dallaire, Booh-Booh replied that General Dallaire never accepted the fact that he was only a military officer reporting to the civilian authority appointed by the UN Secretary General, and that he has been inconsolable ever since because he never obtained Booh-Booh's job though he tried very hard. In the field, according to Booh-Booh, Dallaire abandoned his military responsibilities to do politics, though that was not his job, and he violated the principle of neutrality by becoming the objective ally of the RPF. Moreover, Dallaire's "duplicity" was widely known in UN mission circles. Booh-Booh adds that "from a strictly military standpoint, UNAMIR controlled absolutely nothing under Dallaire's command", citing as an example his total failure to rid Kigali of arms and militias.
Booh-Booh's comments about Dallaire's political involvement in Rwanda raise important questions, especially in light of Boutros-Ghali's statements during the 10th anniversary commemorations.
Boutros-Ghali, who told me in a 2002 interview that the Rwandan genocide was 100 percent American responsibility, also told the French daily Libération that one of the UN's problems in Rwanda was that "the Department of Peacekeeping Operations [headed by Kofi Annan at the time] was very much infiltrated by the American authorities. Since the we [the UN] lacked money, we recruited officers who were on their own government's payroll."
This statement should be considered together with Dallaire's candid boasts in his book that he violated fundamental rules of a peacekeeping mission by going over the head of the mission chief, Booh-Booh, and communicating directly to the DPKO leaders Kofi Annan and Maurice Baril at UN headquarters.
Can Dallaire's intense--and unsuccessful--involvement in Rwandan politics and his pro-RPF stance be explained by the fact that he was receiving instructions directly from US or pro-US people in the UN's peacekeeping operations department? This is very plausible since we know that from the early 1990s the United States, along with Great Britain, was openly challenging France in French-speaking Africa, and particularly in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). The English-speaking Rwandan Patriotic Front, based as it was in Uganda, was perceived as a means to accomplish that end.
On the other hand, Boutros-Ghali, whom Madeleine Albright nicknamed "Frenchie", was perceived as an obstacle, as undoubtedly was the head of the UN mission in Rwanda, Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh. Soon after the Rwandan tragedy, the US unceremoniously dumped Boutros-Ghali--Albright vetoed renewal of his mandate--and installed Kofi Annan, thereby further advancing their strategy in French-speaking Africa.
Add to this the fact that Dallaire was chosen for the position in 1993 mainly because the United States demanded a French-speaking military commander, and ideally anti-French. Obviously that excluded a French national. Anybody who follows Canadian politics knows that that type of military person can be found in Ottawa, where distrust and dislike of France are at the heart of all foreign policy.
These links help explain both Kofi Annan's and Romeo Dallaire's silence regarding the shooting down of the plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi--both have persisted in calling that SAM missile attack an "accident" or a "crash", and Kofi Annan's reaction regarding the plane's Black Box following the Bruguière revelations was frankly insulting. All information, all research and all investigations, and especially Judge Bruguière's, now point to Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Front. If and when France issues international arrest warrants for the perpetrators of that crime, Kofi Annan and Romeo Dallaire will have a lot of questions to answer.
Another example of Romeo Dallaire naysayers is Colonel Luc Marchal who led the UN troops in Kigali. Unlike Dallaire who tours the world to defend Paul Kagame and the RPF, Marchal is very critical of both. "I am personally very convinced in the RPF's implication in the Rwandan tragedy", writes Marchal in a 1998 letter, "because I too had been fooled by their smart propaganda during the Arusha negotiations [in 1993]. Once I was in Kigali, the gulf that separated what was said and what was really happening became obvious. In fact the RPF movement is totalitarian and it crushes absolutely everything in its way." He also pointed out in a 2003 interview that the shooting down of President Habyarimana's plane would have required months to plan and carry out, and that the rapid deployment of RPF troops in Kigali and in the North on April 7, 1994 would also have required months to prepare. Marchal leaves no doubt that he suspects the RPF of committing that crime and considers it to be crucial to understanding what happened after.
In a much more honest book about the Rwandan events published in 2001, Marchal also clearly implicates the United States in the 10-year cover-up of the April 6, 1994, terrorist attack that triggered the terrible massacres. "Who is powerful enough to have prevented a real international inquiry from casting light upon the events that occurred when President Habyarimana was flying home from a regional summit in Dar Es-Salaam?"
Robin Philpot is a Montreal writer. His book Ça ne s'est pas passé comme ça à Kigali (That's not what happened in Rwanda) will soon appear in English. Robin Philpot can be reached at rphilpot@sympatico.ca This article was originally published at counterpunch.org
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Ethnic Cleansing In Africa
Posted: Sunday, May 9, 2004
by Linda Edwards
Once again, the painful images of bone-thin African children and their mothers on the move fill our TV screens. The headlines shout that ethnic cleansing is going on in the Southern Sudan, and that the government of the Arab north is practising a scorched earth policy to get rid of the dark skinned people of Southern Sudan. And for a moment, we are shocked. There are pious mouthings, of course, from all the right poeple, all of whom are overweight. (Aid agencies, UN rights people and so on).
So this is news? This was documented by World News Television, Channel 366 on Direct TV, three years ago. Maybe the world's policy makers do not watch that version of reality TV.
The people, it was reported on channel 366, are having their houses burned because a Canadian oil company wants them moved from its drilling area. The company, it was reported, is financing the Sudanese government's purchase of weapons for the brown Arab soldiers of the north to kill and drive off the dark skinned Africans of the Nubian area.The Canadian company official denied it, but there was film footage to back up the TV report.
At one time, the government said it wanted to build a dam there. Professor Gates of Harvard University documented that also, that they would be flooding the pyramids of the Kushite people, and their heritage would be lost under the rising water. They were being driven off, and their civilization destroyed, in the interests of modernity. I do not know what happened to the dam proposal.
Documents unearthed from Pharonic tombs show that this sort of conflict has gone on for three thousand years. Now, however the stakes are higher. There is oil in that soil, and western greed demands that Africans be sacrificed for gas guzzling modern lifestyles. Africans are quite expendable, actually. People have been trying to wipe them out for a long time, and they always come back. The Atlantic slave trade, which cleared the coast of western Africa up to a hundrd miles inland is the most horrific example. More recently there have been civil wars in Angla, Congo, Rwanda, South Africa which wipe out, and displace, millions. These have all been attempts at ethnic cleansing, and in every case it was what was under the soil that was important. In most cases the weapons-guns- were supplied by the west, and hired mercenaries trained the population in the use of them. Child soldiers are equipped for these purposes with guns that cost more than a family's annual wages.
You see, Africa is a very important continent for modern industrialists. The mother lodes of all the world's significant minerals are there. The problem is that Africans, dark skinned people who are still not recognized as fully human by others, live on top of those minerals, and they have to be moved, these stubborn people, so that we could move ahead with the business of amassing wealth. In such a case, it is easy to finance the government of Muslim Northern Sudan to eradicate the Christian south. The two peoples do not look alike. They are distinctly different. We call the conflict by many names. It is good for the business of that Canadian oil company.
Next week, I am going to hear the UN Commissioner For Human Rights, and former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson talk. Will she be concerned about this issue of three African women in the southern Sudan sharing one dress? And the stillborn children who will be expelled from their wombs due to inadequate nutrition? Maybe not. African women are so fertile, they will
recover.
Will the world pay attention to the fact that Ghanain boys, as young as six years old, living in the area of the Ashanti Gold Fields are urinating blood? Yes, pissing blood, because their vital organs are failing due to chemical pollution. This too was documented years ago by World News Television. The Ashanti Gold Fields are named for the Royal House of Ghana, but is foreign owned. Media houses should check the ownership.
Wherever African children are being forced from their homes, and dying of malnutrition and chemical poisoning, one must ask what lies under the land that they are being moved from. The answers are three: oil, gold, diamonds.
Think of this mothers of the world, as you hang that new gold chain on your neck this Mother's Day. Think of this fathers, as you drive mother to dinner at a fancy restaurant. Think of this as you give her a new ring with diamondas that are forever.
I do not say not to give the gifts. All I ask is that you think of the cost in human lives, of children, of mothers, of the unborn, of those aborted not for fashion; but because the body expels the child that is so deformed it will not live, and the child which takes too much of a toll on the nutrients it's mothers weakened body cannot provide.
This is my Mother's Day wish for all of you, in 2004. I do not mean to be kind, but to be truthful. Kindness can cloak many realities. Later, we say, "if I had known..."
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Arabs attack Africans in Sudan: report
Posted: Monday, April 26, 2004
REIGN OF TERROR: The Arab-led Sudanese government is being accused of joining Arab militias in attacks on black Africans, clearing villages and executing 'enemies'
THE GUARDIAN, DAKAR, SENEGAL
Sunday, Apr 25, 2004,Page 7
www.taipeitimes.com
Human Rights Watch on Friday issued a stinging report accusing the Arab-led Sudanese government of joining Arab militias in attacks on black Africans in the Darfur region of western Sudan, clearing villages, destroying their food supplies and executing men deemed enemies. It came on a day that the UN's top human rights body passed a resolution on human rights abuses in Darfur that the US rejected as too soft on Sudan.
In an unusually strong report, based on interviews with Sudanese refugees across the border in Chad, a four-member team of investigators described the raids by the Arab militias, or janjaweed, as "a reign of terror." The report, released to the press earlier this week, documents rapes and killings of civilians, forced displacement of black Africans from their villages and aerial bombings by Sudanese military planes.
"Attacks carried out by the armed forces of Sudan and the janjaweed reflect a disturbing pattern of disregard for basic principles of human rights and humanitarian law," the report read. It went on to say that the human rights violations reported in Darfur "may constitute war crimes and/or crimes against humanity."
In some places, government planes bombed villages ahead of the militias' attacks and circled overhead afterward to see if the area had been cleared, according to Human Rights Watch. Elsewhere, the military and the militias set up a joint presence, "often in the local police station," before launching an attack on a village, the group said in a statement accompanying the report.
One of the researchers, Julie Flint, who spent 25 days this month inside Darfur, said in a telephone interview from London on Friday that in a roughly 66km2 area she saw 11 of 13 villages burned, with the other two deserted. Homes and food storage areas were burned, she said. All that was left were bits of peanuts and shards of glass -- remnants of tea glasses.
One villager, she said, brought her a list of 62 mosques that had been burned. She said she collected reports of massacres during prayer time at mosques. In two sweeps in March, she reported, Sudanese soldiers detained 136 African men whom the militias massacred hours later. "They are no longer working alone," Flint said of the militias.
According to UN estimates, the attacks have displaced 900,000 people inside Darfur and roughly another 100,000 refugees who have fled across the frontier, to Chad. Low-level clashes over land between Arabs, who are herders, and black Africans, who are farmers, broke out in a full-scale war in February last year, when a rebel movement emerged.
Meanwhile, aid workers, so far restricted in their movements inside Darfur, are scrambling to ferry food, tarpaulins and other relief supplies to displaced peasants camped out across the vast, largely arid territory. Seasonal rains are likely to come in less than two months, making roads impassable. The government in Khartoum said earlier this week that it would allow a UN humanitarian assessment team to travel through the area.
Meanwhile, in Geneva, the UN's top human rights body stopped short of condemning the Khartoum government for "ethnic cleansing," choosing instead milder language to express its concern about "the scale of reported human rights abuses and the humanitarian situation in Darfur" and appointing a monitor to investigate the charges.
Fifty members of the UN Human Rights Commission backed the resolution, drafted by EU countries. Washington rejected it, calling for stronger language, and there were two abstentions. The African Union also on Friday said it would dispatch ceasefire monitors to Darfur, and peace talks between the Sudanese government and two guerrilla groups resumed in Chad.
After the vote in Geneva, Richard Williamson, head of the US delegation, called for an emergency session to review their decision after UN investigators return from a trip to Darfur. The team is in Sudan now.
Sudan's allies on the UN team this week lashed out at UN officials, calling for an investigation into the leaks. Sudan has consistently denied responsibility for the actions of the janjaweed.
The UN, which has so far received pledges of US$30 million, is calling on donor countries to provide another US$130 million in emergency aid. UN officials have lately stepped up their criticism of the government in Darfur, as have those within the Bush administration.
In a report prepared for the UN commission meeting in Geneva, the Bush administration lashed out at Khartoum for barring aid groups and human rights investigators from the hardest-hit areas of Darfur. "The government of Sudan is denying assistance from reaching its own people," the report declared. "It is time that the international community stand united and denounce the violence and ethnic cleansing taking place in Sudan."
Reproduced for Fair Use Only from:
www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/04/25/2003138028
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White Whine
Posted: Friday, April 23, 2004
Reflections on the Brain-Rotting Properties of Privilege
By Tim Wise
April 20, 2004, www.zmag.org
To truly understand a nation, a culture, or its people, it helps to know what they take for granted.
After all, sometimes the things that go unspoken are more powerful than the spoken word, if for no other reason than the tendency of unspoken assumptions to reinforce core ways of thinking, feeling and acting, without ever having to be verbalized (and thus subjected to challenge) at all.
What's more, when people take certain things for granted, anything that goes against the grain of what they perceive as "normal" will tend to stand out like a sore thumb, and invite a hostility that seems reasonable, at least to those dispensing it, precisely because their unspoken assumptions have gone uninterrogated for so long.
Thus, every February I encounter people who are apoplectic at the thought of Black History Month, and who insist with no sense of irony or misgiving that there should be no such thing, since, after all, there is no White History Month--a position to which they can only adhere because they have taken for granted that "American history" as told to them previously was comprehensive and accurate, as opposed to being largely the particular history of the dominant group.
In other words, the normalcy of the white narrative, which has rendered every month since they popped out of their momma's wombs White History Month, escapes them, and makes the efforts of multiculturalists seem to be the unique break with an otherwise neutral color-blindness.
Sorta' like those who e-mail me on a semi-regular basis to insist, as if they have just stumbled upon a truth of unparalleled profundity, that there should be an Ivory Magazine to balance out Ebony, or that we need a White Entertainment Television network to balance out BET, or a NAAWP to balance out the NAACP.
Again, these dear souls ignore what is obvious to virtually all persons of color but which remains unseen by those whose reality gets to be viewed as the norm: namely, that there are already two Ivory Magazines--Vogue and Cosmopolitan; that there are several WETs, which just so happen to go by the names of CBS, NBC and ABC; and that the Fortune 500, U.S. Congress and Fraternal Orders of Police are all doing a pretty good job holding it down for us white folks on the organizational front. Just because the norm is not racially-named, doesn't mean it isn't racialized.
Likewise the ongoing backlash against affirmative action, by those who seem to believe that opportunity would truly be equal in the absence of these presumably unjust efforts to ensure access to jobs and higher education for persons of color.
We are to believe that before affirmative action things were fine, and that were such efforts abolished now, things would return to this utopic state of affairs: to hell with the persistent evidence that people of color continue to face discrimination in employment, housing, education and all other institutional settings in the U.S.
So if the University of Michigan gives applicants of color twenty points on a 150-point admission scale, so as to promote racial diversity and balance out the disadvantages to which such students are often subjected in their K-12 schooling experience, that is seen as unfair racial preference.
But when the same school gives out 16 points to kids from the lily-white Upper Peninsula, or four points for children of overwhelmingly white alumni, or ten points for students who went to the state's "top" schools (who will be disproportionately white), or 8 points for those who took a full slate of Advanced Placement classes in high schools (which classes are far less available in schools serving students of color), this is seen as perfectly fair, and not at all racially preferential.
What's more, the whites who received all those bonus points due to their racial and class position will not be thought of by anyone as having received unearned advantages, in spite of the almost entirely ascriptive nature of the categories into which they fell that qualified them for such bonuses. No matter their "qualifications," it will be taken for granted that any white student at a college or University belongs there.
This is why Jennifer Gratz, the lead plaintiff in the successful "reverse discrimination" suit against Michigan's undergraduate affirmative action policy, found it a supreme injustice that a few dozen black, Latino and American Indian students were admitted ahead of her, despite having lower SATs and grades; but she thought nothing of the fact that more than 1400 other white students also were admitted ahead of her and her co-plaintiffs, despite having lower scores and grades.
"Lesser qualified" whites are acceptable, you see, while "lesser qualified" people of color must be eliminated from their unearned perches of opportunity. This is the kind of racist logic that people like Gratz, who now heads up the state's anti-affirmative action initiative with the financial backing of Ward Connerly, find acceptable.
This kind of logic also explains the effort of whites at Roger Williams University to start a "white scholarship fund," on the pretense that scholarships for students of color are unfair and place whites at a disadvantage.
This, despite the unmentioned fact that about 93 percent of all college scholarship money goes to whites; despite the fact that students of color at elite and expensive colleges come from families with about half the average income of whites; despite the fact that there are scholarships for pretty much every kind of student under the sun, including children of Tupperware dealers, kids whose parents raise horses, kids who are left-handed, kids whose families descend from the founding fathers: you name it, and there's money available for it.
While there are plenty of whites unable to afford college, the fault for this unhappy reality lies not with minority scholarships, but rather with the decisions of almost exclusively white University elites to raise the price of higher education into the stratosphere, to the detriment of most everyone.
But to place blame where it really belongs, on rich white people, would be illogical. After all, we take it for granted that one day we too might be wealthy, and we wouldn't want others to question our decisions and prerogatives come that day either.
Better to blame the dark-skinned for our hardship, since we can take it for granted that they're powerless to do anything about it.
Whites, as it turns out, take most everything for granted in this country; which makes perfect sense, because dominant groups usually have that privilege.
We take for granted that we won't be racially profiled even when members of our group engage in criminality at a disproportionate rate, whether the crime is corporate fraud, serial killing, child molestation, abortion clinic bombings or drunk driving. And indeed we won't be.
We take it for granted that our terrorism won't result in whites as a group being viewed with generalized suspicion. So Tim McVeigh represents only Tim McVeigh, while Mohammed Atta gets to serve as a proxy for every other person who either has his name or follows a prophet of that name.
We take it for granted that our dishonesty will be viewed in purely individualistic terms, while the dishonesty of others will result in aspersions being cast upon the entire group from which they come.
Thus, Jayson Blair's deceptions at the New York Times provoke howls of indignation at any effort to provide opportunity to journalists of color--because after all, diversity and quality are proven by this one man's exploits to be incompatible--but Jack Kelley's equally egregious fabrications and fraud at USA Today fails to prompt calls for an end to hiring white guys as reporters, or for scrutinizing them more carefully, or for closing down whatever avenues of opportunity have helped keep the profession so white for so long.
We take it for granted that we will never be viewed as one of those dreaded "special interest" groups, precisely because whatever serves our interests is presumed universal.
So, for example, while politicians who pursue the support of black, Latino, gay or other "minority" voters are said to be pandering to special interests, those who bend over backwards to secure the backing of NASCAR dads and soccer moms, whose racial composition is as self-evident as it is unmentioned, are said to be politically savvy and merely trying to connect with "normal folks."
We take it for granted that "classical music" is a perfectly legitimate term for what really amounts to one particular classical form (mostly European orchestral and piano concerto music), ignoring that there are, indeed, classical forms of all musical styles, as well as their more contemporary versions.
We take it for granted that the only controversy regarding Jesus is whether or not he was killed by Jews or Romans; or whether the depiction of his execution by Mel Gibson is too violent for children, all the while ignoring a much larger issue, which is why does Gibson (and for that matter every other white filmmaker or artist in the history of the faith) feel the need to make Jesus white: something he surely could not have been and was not, with all due apology to Michelangelo, Constantine, Pat Robertson, and the producers of "Jesus Christ Superstar."
That the only physical descriptions of Jesus in the Bible indicate that he had feet the color of burnt brass, and hair like wool, poses a slight problem for Gibson and other followers of the white Jesus hanging in their churches, adorning their crucifixes (if Catholic), and gracing the Christmas cards they send each December.
It is the same problem posed by the anthropological evidence concerning the physical appearance of first century Jews from that part of Northern Africa we prefer to call the "Middle East" (and why is that I wonder?). Namely, Jesus did not look like a long-haired version of my Ashkenazi Jewish, Eastern European great-grandfather in his prime.
But to even bring this up is to send most white Christians (and sadly, even many of color) into fits, replete with assurances that "it doesn't matter what Jesus looked like, it only matters what he did."
Which is all fine and good, until you realize that indeed it must matter to them what Jesus looked like; otherwise, they wouldn't be so averse to presenting him as the man of color he most assuredly was: a man dark enough to guarantee that were he to come back tomorrow, and find himself on the wrong side of New York City at the wrong time of night, reaching for his keys or his wallet in the presence of the Street Crimes Unit, he'd be dispatched far more expeditiously than was done at Golgotha 2000 years ago.
But never fear: we needn't grapple with that because we can merely take it for granted that Jesus had to look like us, as did Adam and Eve, and as does God himself. And indeed, most whites believe this to be true, as proven by every single picture Bible for kids made by a white person, all of which present these figures in such a way.
Consider the classic and widely distributed Robert Maxwell Bible Series for children, popularly known as the "blue books," which are found in virtually every pediatrician and OBGYN's office in the U.S. In Volume I, readers learn (at least visually speaking) that the Garden of Eden was in Oslo: a little-known fact that will stun Biblical scholars to be sure.
It would all be quite funny were it not so incontestably insane, so pathological in terms of the scope of our nuttiness. What else, after all, can explain the fact that when a New Jersey theatre company put on a passion play a few years ago with a black actor in the lead role, they received hundreds of hateful phone calls and even death threats for daring to portray Jesus as anyone darker than, say, Shaun Cassidy?
What else but a tenuous (at best) grip on reality can explain the quickness with which many white Americans ran around after 9/11 saying truly stupid shit like "now we know what it means to be attacked for who we are?"
Now we know? Hell, some folks always knew what that was like, though their pain and suffering never counted for much in the eyes of the majority.
What else but delusion on a scale necessitating medication could lead one to say--as two whites did on CNN in the wake of the first O.J. Simpson verdict--that they now realized everything they had been told about the American justice system being fair was a lie? Now they realized it! See the theme here?
That's what privilege is, for all those who constantly ask me what I mean when I speak of white privilege. It's the ability to presume that your reality is the reality; that your experiences, if white, are universal, and not particular to your racial identity.
It's the ability to assume that you belong and that others will presume that too; the ability to define reality for others, and expect that definition to stick (because you have the power to ensure that it becomes the dominant narrative).
And it's the ability to ignore all evidence to the contrary, claim that you yourself are the victim, and get everyone from the President to the Supreme Court to the average white guy on the street to believe it.
It is Times New Roman font, one inch margins, left hand justified. In other words, it is the default position on the computer of American life. And it has rendered vast numbers of its recipients utterly incapable of critical thought.
Only by rebelling against it, and insisting on our own freedom from the mental straightjacket into which we have been placed as whites by this system, can we hope to regain our full humanity, and be of any use as allies to people of color in their struggle against racism.
~~~~~~~
Tim Wise is an antiracist activist, essayist and father. He can be reached at timjwise@msn.com. Death threats, while neither appreciated nor desired, will be graded for form, content and originality.
www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2004-04/20wise.cfm
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Robert Mugabe and the Human Rights Imperialists
Posted: Wednesday, April 7, 2004
By Stephen Gowans, www3.sympatico.ca/sr.gowans
September 22, 2003
Amir Attaran and Craig Jones say Canada's Attorney-General Martin Cauchon should indict Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe for crimes against humanity.
Attaran is a lawyer and associate fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. Jones is a lawyer in private practice in Vancouver.
The two lawyers are emblematic of a large group of NGO's, human rights organizations and progressives in Canada, the US and the UK, who want something done about foreign leaders accused of committing crimes against humanity.
But the high dudgeon of these groups seems to fall heavily on leaders of small and weak countries that resist integration into the US dominated capitalist system, and to fall less heavily on human rights abusers who preside over privately owned economies. And their attention almost never falls on deserving figures closer to home.
For example, while citing what they call Mugabe's "racially motivated sponsorship of armed thugs to confiscate white-owned farms," Attaran and Jones have no words of condemnation for US President George W. Bush, his key advisors, and his principal backer British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
On top of operating a concentration camp at Gauntanamo Bay and carrying out extrajudicial assassinations, the Bush administration has pursued two wars of aggression, crimes for which leading Nazis were condemned to death at the Nuremberg trials. Surely, crimes of this magnitude should put Mr. Bush and his key advisors at the top of Mr. Attaran's and Mr. Jones' list.
And the list needn't stop there. It could also include former General Wesely Clark, who's making a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Clark led NATO's 78-day air war on Yugoslavia, an illegal affair from start to finish that saw the retired General order his bombers to attack bridges, roads, homes, factories, schools, hospitals, petrochemical plants, electrical power stations, an embassy and a radio-TV building, none of which had anything to do with the Yugoslav military, or its presence in Kosovo, and all of which were civilian targets, presumably safe from attack
Clark, for whom the obloquy "Butcher of Belgrade" fits like a glove, is an obvious war criminal. So why are Attaran and Jones going after Mugabe. Surely, whatever Mugabe is accused of is small potatoes next to Clark's crimes.
Indeed, Jones, a Canadian, should have an especial interest in his own Prime Minister, Jean Chretein, who approved Canada's participation in the Kosovo campaign. Ottawa once boasted that Canadian warplanes flew the third highest number of sorties in the weeks-long war, accounting for 10 percent of all the bombs dropped.
But Canada's participation in the destruction of a country is hardly something to boast about. Chretien is ultimately responsible for 10 percent of the bridges, roads, factories, and other civilian targets that were destroyed. That makes the Canadian Prime Minister party to war crimes, and certainly deserving of prosecution. Yet he doesn't make the list.
Instead, human rights groups, NGO's and lawyers like Attaran and Jones almost invariably condemn leaders of countries called hostile to the West, that is, leaders who have closed important parts of their economies to Western trade and investment, and pursue independent foreign policies. Dictators, and human rights abusers who preside over privately owned economies, escape almost unscathed.
Take Saudi Arabia, for example. It is equally, if not more so, as much a human rights nightmare as pre-war Iraq was. Yet it is rarely mentioned by the those who call for the heads of Milosevic, Hussein and Mugabe. And given the hue and cry about Hussein being a dictator, and North Korea developing nuclear weapons, you'd never know Pakistan is ruled by a military dictator and is equipped with nuclear arms. Pervez Musharraf is rarely ever mentioned, except in friendly tones.
But then there's little to be gained by Western powers targeting Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. They're already firmly ensconced in the Western orbit.
There was, however, once something to be gained by ousting Slobodan Milosevic, the Serb president of the Yugoslav federation. Yugoslavia once had a largely socially and state-owned economy. And it pursued an independent foreign policy.
Western powers encouraged the federation's republics to secede, and backed their most right-wing elements. The Serbs, led by Milosevic, resisted.
Soon enough, Milosevic was transformed into a human rights monster. A program of destabilization, economic warfare, bombing, a proxy guerilla war, and interference in elections, eventually toppled Milosevic, to the cheers of human rights liberals, convinced the Yugoslav president was Hitler-reborn.
Today, the economy has almost been wholly transformed from a socially-owned one, to one owned by Western investors.
It's no accident that the so-called "democratic opposition" in target countries, seen as champions of democracy and human rights, are, first and foremost, champions of neoliberal economics and of their country's integration into the US dominated global capitalist order.
The Democratic Opposition of Serbia, much beloved by US progressives, is firmly neoliberal.
The Movement for Democratic Change, Zimbabwe's main opposition group, is a fervent proponent of free market economics.
And the Iraqi National Congress, pre-war Iraq's main exile opposition group, also favors penetration by US capital.
Yesterday, the puppet regime Washington installed in Iraq announced that 192 state-owned and state-controlled companies would be put on the auction bloc, up for sale to foreign investors.
Hailed as a measure that will kick-start the economy, the sell-off is hardly stimulative. It simply transfers ownership of Iraq's non-oil assets from the rightful owners -- Iraqis -- to Western firms and investors.
This is theft, pure and simple. Iraqis -- other than those handpicked by Washington -- haven't consented to it. And its Washington's masters – Wall Street – that will benefit.
So what of Zimbabwe -- what does it have to do with Iraq and Yugoslavia?
First, its land redistribution program challenges the idea of the inviolability of private property, one US administrations hold as a moral principal.
Second, it has been less than biddable where the IMF is concerned, balking at the organization's dictates. This, Yugoslavia, under Milosevic, did, as well.
And third, it has interfered with the West's proxy wars in Africa.
In short, Zimbabwe isn't playing by Washington's economic rules.
Nor, significantly, is Iran or North Korea, two countries in Washington's cross-hairs, about which human rights concerns have also been raised.
To be sure, no country is free from human rights abuses, corruption, or abuse of power, and there's much about Zimbabwe and Mugabe that can be criticized.
But before jumping aboard campaigns to take foreign leaders to task for transgressions, we should ask:
Do the charges have substance, or are they part of a propaganda program intended to build public support for intervention later on? It's easy to believe the worst of foreign leaders, especially when the mass media seem to agree unanimously on the leaders' crimes, but the Left, which prides itself on media analysis, should be wary. Often, it's not.
Does the West have an economic interest in ousting the foreign leader in question? Is he or she presiding over a largely socially or state-owned economy, resisting IMF demands to privatize state-controlled assets, or threatening Western investments?
Are there other leaders who are abusing human rights about whom little is said? If so, why not? What's the nature of their economy?
To what extent are the acts we condemn foreign leaders for – Mugabe's repression of the Western-backed press, Korea's pursuit of a nuclear weapons program, Cuba's jailing of dissidents working on behalf of Washington to restore the island to capitalism – defensive manoeuvres against pressure and interference by the West?
What about our own leaders? Are their crimes more notorious than those foreign leaders are accused of. Mugabe is accused of inspiring the racially-motivated take-over of white-owned farms, and of stealing an election. If these charges are true, they hardly compare to the crimes of pursuing wars of aggression or ordering attacks on civilian infrastructure. Where should our attention be directed? What does it say when we focus on foreign leaders that resist integration into the US-dominated capitalist system, while ignoring, or minimizing, the huge -- and imperialist -- crimes of our own leaders?
There's no question the West is pressuring Mugabe to step down, in favor of Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, who would prove far more congenial to Western economic interests. Tsvangirai has no serious plan for land redistribution, and wouldn't challenge Western interests that stand in the way. Rather than calling for Mugabe to be prosecuted, anyone genuinely interested in justice in Zimbabwe should be demanding the West support the country's land reform program, and free Harare from the IMF's neoliberal dictates.
Unfortunately, it will be said -- by the same people who cheered on the Western-backed Democratic Opposition of Serbia, backed Saddam's ouster, and are lining up behind Wesley Clark -- that not condemning Mugabe is bad politics and is no way to carry out a progressive anti-imperialism.
On the contrary, calling for Mugabe's prosecution, rather than demanding Zimbabweans be given space to deal effectively with past colonialism and current imperialism, is hardly anti-imperialist, progressive or otherwise.
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Haiti inspires Africans - Mbeki
Posted: Friday, March 26, 2004
iafrica.com/news/sa/312208.htm
The victory of African slaves over French rule in Haiti in the 1800s should be used by Africans to inspire them to successfully address the challenges facing them across the world, South African president Thabo Mbeki said on Friday.
He told delegates attending the sixth African Renaissance Conference in Durban: "Today I am absolutely sure that the people of the Bahamas are inspired as we should be here to make sure that (this) great African victory be used as an inspiration... to address the challenges of the African Renaissance."
Many Africans ignorant of Haiti's history
Mbeki, a proponent of the African Renaissance concept, gave his audience a history lesson on Haiti, saying that many Africans were not taught about the struggle of the impoverished Caribbean country. Due to this many Africans did not know an important part of their history.
He said when a person read about the history of that country, he became angry because it was kept away from Africans because the powers that be knew it would inspire pride amongst all Africans and make them realise what they could accomplish.
Mbeki said he did not want to offend the people who had fought for South Africa's liberation, but it would be very difficult to find a struggle as inspiring as the one by the slaves in Haiti.
Haiti became an independent country and abolished slavery on January 1, 1804. This was after the slaves defeated French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte's army.
Mbeki said the French government of that time told Haiti it would not recognise its independence if it did not pay reparations for the loss French slave owners would suffer. This would have led to the French government blocking the exports of Haiti.
"They had no choice but to pay," he said.
The French set up a central bank through which the payments would be made, and because the Haitians could not make the first instalment, money was borrowed from a French bank, and that debt was serviced with interest.
The world's first black republic
In later years the United States took over the debt and only in 1945 did Haiti pay its last reparation.
This was a main reason why Haiti, the world's first back republic, was so impoverished.
Mbeki said there were no centenary celebrations for Haiti's independence because the French government was opposed to this because they would celebrate the defeat of Napoleon. The French government decided that this matter would be reviewed in a 100 years. The same decision was taken for this year's bicentenary celebrations.
Mbeki, who attended this year's celebrations in January, said he had been questioned by Haitian opposition parties and civil society groups about his attendance because it could have been interpreted as showing support for then president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted after a military coup earlier this year.
Mbeki said he explained to them that the independence of Haiti was an important part of the history of Africans, and he was there to participate in the celebrations.
He said it was agreed by all parties that Haiti's problems should be discussed under the auspices of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). During discussions the armed uprising, by gangsters and spread by former Haitian soldiers, started.
Haiti's police service did not have any equipment
Mbeki said CARICOM and the Haitian government requested South Africa's help in the matter because its police service did not have any equipment, such as teargas, ammunition and weapons.
Mbeki agreed to help, and after a list was sent to South Africa, the equipment was sent to Jamaica.
However, before the material arrived in Haiti, Aristide was ousted and sent to the Central African Republic.
"He did not ask to leave... but others said he should leave," Mbeki said.
He told the audience that in the midst of all this turmoil, a marvellous thing had happened because the injustice concerning Haiti and Aristide's forced departure, had brought greater unity amongst Africans across the globe.
"I think we have never seen as much unity amongst Africans on a matter," Mbeki said. "All of us are saying a great injustice has happened and all of us are saying we must... help the Haitians."
Africans should address common problems together
Mbeki said Africans would have a bright future if they addressed common problems together.
"Our African people in the United States are still African and are less equal than other Americans," he said to applause.
The small Caribbean countries could only succeed if they were part of the greater African home.
Mbeki said whether Africans were living in Johannesburg or New York, they faced the same difficulties.
He called on those attending the conference to find ways of taking the African Renaissance forward, saying its success would have a positive affect on all Africans.
"What do we need to do to build a global, united movement of Africans?" Mbeki asked.
"Don't lose this opportunity to reinforce the cohesion... so that together we can fight the common problems of Africans."
DA wants answers
Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said this week he had written another letter to Mbeki regarding a consignment of arms sent to Haiti in the dying hours of Aristide's rule.
Leon said he had to date received no answer to his previous query regarding the dispatch in late February of an SA Air Force Boeing 707 to the Caribbean island state loaded with 150 R1 assault rifles, ammunition and assorted equipment.
"This is a most extraordinary thing in a constitutional democracy. If it wasn't for a journalist and a newspaper in Jamaica, we would never have known about this deployment," Leon told a press conference in Johannesburg.
The DA leader said he had taken legal advice on the matter from an advocate in Cape Town who advised him that the flight to Haiti amounted to the employment of the Defence Force as contemplated in the constitution as well as in the new Defence Act and that government, by not reporting this deployment to parliament within the stipulated 14 days, was in breach of the law.
Sapa
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State, defence row over terrorism remand hearing
Posted: Friday, March 19, 2004
Court Reporter www.herald.co.zw
THE State and defence were still debating yesterday where to hold the remand hearing for 70 suspected terrorists linked to an alleged coup plot in the Equatorial Guinea.
The Attorney General's Office wants a secure and convenient venue and suggestions have been made to have the hearings in a prison complex, which is allowed by Zimbabwean law.
The defence is holding out for a hearing in a public court.
The suspected terrorists, who were arrested last week in Harare on their way to the West African country to oust the government of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, are still in detention at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison.
The director of public prosecutions, Mr Joseph Musakwa, said the suspects would appear in court as soon as the issue of venue was settled.
"We are resolving the issue of venue for their remand hearing. We want a suitable venue in respect of the number of the suspects and security concerns," said Mr Musakwa.
Mr Musakwa could not comment on whether the proceedings in the case might take place at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison, as suggested in some media reports.
The suspects, comprising men from South Africa, Angola, Namibia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and one Zimbabwean, were arrested after their United States-registered Boeing 727 plane landed at Harare International Airport on March 7 before it was impounded by security authorities.
The State has already indicated that the 70 Equatorial Guinea-bound suspected terrorists would be charged for breaching the Immigration, Firearms and Public Order and Security Acts.
Charges under these laws carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail.
Mr Jonathan Samkange of Byron Venturas and Partners, who is representing the suspects, said all his clients had been charged for subversive activities.
He, however, said everything had been finalised except the venue for the remand hearing.
"We are still debating the issue. The State wants the remand hearing to be done in Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison citing security reasons. The defence is totally against the idea," said Mr Samkange.
He said the security fears expressed by the State were unfounded because Zimbabwe had one of the best armies in the world in terms of defence.
"Even the US and Britain cannot do what they are doing to other countries. In Zimbabwe it is very impossible," he said.
Mr Samkange said if his clients were not taken to court by noon today he would seek an order to have them brought to court.
www.herald.co.zw/index.php?id=30133&pubdate=2004-03-19
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Land reforms anchor economy: President
Posted: Monday, March 15, 2004
www.herald.co.zw
PRESIDENT Mugabe has said land reforms undertaken in the last four years had anchored the economy for sustained growth, and underpinned the country's sovereignty.
In an interview with a group of local and visiting Cuban journalists, the president said land was any nation's main resource, which had to be equitably owned and shared mainly by the indigenous people.
The Government has brushed off strong Western opposition, led by Britain and the United States, and re-distributed to peasants the bulk of the country's prime farmland previously controlled by a handful of white farmers.
President Mugabe said the programme had laid a strong foundation for sustained economic growth in Zimbabwe, and consolidated the country's independence and sovereignty.
He said political independence which the country gained from Britain in 1980 was hollow if not accompanied by economic empowerment of the majority black Zimbabweans in vital sectors such as agriculture.
"There is no nation that can feel sovereign if its resources, whether it's lands or minerals or any other resources, are in the hands of enemies or foreigners.
"Much as we respect the principles of international capital and investment, that cannot be the excuse that our land was being owned by the British," he said.
"We feel that our land has now been liberated. It is now the land of our people for our people. It (land) gives the people a sense of belonging and ownership," he added.
President Mugabe said the other main aim of the land reforms, in addition to consolidating Zimbabwe's nationhood, was to turn around the economy, and ensure its sustained growth by expanding production in the agricultural sector -- the economy's mainstay.
"Agriculture is an extremely vital sector of our economy -- it yields exports, our food and is the main source of raw materials for our industrial sector," he said.
The bulk of the country's exports are agricultural products such as tobacco, which is Zimbabwe's biggest single export, and cotton.
The president said the next focus, after resettlement, of the Government in the agricultural sector was to provide financing and technical support services to farmers to ensure efficiency and optimal use of the land.
"Now we want to organise the people (resettled farmers) properly, and give them all the assistance they want to be confident and productive, and use the land optimally," said President Mugabe.
"It is necessary that we put inputs at the disposal of the people, things like fertilisers, small tractors and ploughs. We want the people to be efficient and to be mechanised," he said.
He said the land reforms were easy to implement in the country, in part, because Zimbabweans were natural farmers, and deeply attached to their land, giving himself as an example.
"I am also farming in my village. I've 1 000 chickens, but I want to increase that to 2 000, and I keep some pigs also. I produce and sell eggs, and the income from this helps pay for the maintenance of my (village) home," he said.
"The people love their soil," said President Mugabe.
He vowed no amount of pressure -- political, economic or military -- would sway him and the Government to relent on land reforms, which were now spreading to other countries in the region with similar land ownership disparities between white farmers and the indigenous blacks.
He said sanctions, which Western countries had imposed in protest against the reforms, had boomeranged in that they had opened the eyes of blacks in Zimbabwe and elsewhere to the injustice of land ownership in the country.
"Our people are getting stronger in their will and resistance; they no longer listen to them (Western countries) and their puppets," said President Mugabe.
"Yes, sanctions do harm, but we have ourselves realised that we cannot sacrifice our independence (for aid)," he said. -- New Ziana.
Reproduced from:
www.herald.co.zw/index.php?id=29935&pubdate=2004-03-15
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Rwanda 'black box' turns up in UN drawer
Posted: Saturday, March 13, 2004
By David Usborne in New York
13 March 2004, Independent UK
An embarrassed United Nations was struggling to defend itself yesterday following the discovery that a data recorder, that may have come from an aircraft shot down in 1994 while carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, had been hidden in a locked drawer in New York for 10 years.
Called a "first class foul-up" by UN secretary general Kofi Annan, the affair surfaced after questions were put to UN officials earlier last week by reporters from Le Monde newspaper of France. The world body initially responded by ridiculing the suggestion it had the recorder. But, by Thursday, it found itself performing a humiliating about-face.
The chief UN spokesman, Fred Eckhard, confirmed a recorder that could have come from the aircraft had been found in a drawer in the Air Safety Unit of the UN, in a building across the road from its New York headquarters. He further admitted it had apparently never been opened, nor its tapes analysed. Full Article
Assassination of former Rwandan President Habyarimana? By Robin Philpot
Rwandan Genocide: Crisis in Central Africa raceandhistory.com
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Mercenary suspects: Investigations widen
Posted: Friday, March 12, 2004
By Michael Padera, www.herald.co.zw
An eight-man team from Equatorial Guinea arrived in Zimbabwe yesterday to exchange notes on the 67 suspected mercenaries who were arrested in Harare on Sunday while police and the Attorney General's Office continued with investigations and the framing of charges.
The suspected mercenaries are believed to have been on their way to Malabo, the capital of oil-rich West African country, to topple the government of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
"Yes, I can confirm we have received a special envoy from Equatorial Guinea. It is an eight-member delegation led by the country's Deputy Foreign Minister," said Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mrs Pavelyn Musaka.
The delegation led by Mr Jose Esono Micha visited South Africa where they held talks with Foreign Minister Cde Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
Acting Attorney General Mr Bharat Patel yesterday said his office is finalising charges against the suspected mercenaries. In an interview with The Herald, Mr Patel said his office had instructed police to record statements from all 67 suspects.
He said the suspects' appearance in court would depend on how fast the police completed recording statements from individual members of the group. The group leaders -- Simon Mann, Nicholas du Toit and Simon Witherspoon -- could be charged separately from the rest of the group.
Mr Patel said in a separate interview with Newsnet that they were likely to appear in court today but it could be tomorrow or very soon thereafter. He could not say whether the suspects would go to court as one group, saying that would depend on the charges preferred against them.
Mr Patel said charges against the suspects were likely to include contravening the Civil Aviation Act but there "may also be other charges relating to the Firearms Act, possibly also in relation to our immigration laws".
In Pretoria, the South African government said its nationals arrested in Zimbabwe and Equitorial Guinea will have to stand trial and serve any prison sentences in these countries.
"We have no prisoner transfer agreement with any country," said foreign ministry spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa. "As with all South Africans arrested in foreign countries, they will have to face the laws of those countries should it turn out that they were mercenaries," he told AFP.
"We do however, offer consular services. But bringing them back would be out of the question."
South Africa passed a law in 1998, which specifically forbids any mercenary activity and which carries heavy penalties.
In Malabo, in Equatorial Guinea, the leader of a group of 15 suspected mercenaries appeared on national television admitting the group planned to kidnap Obiang and force him into exile in Spain, the former colonial power.
In South Africa, the Afrikaans daily Beeld quoted Foreign Minister Cde Dlamini-Zuma as saying that Pretoria was investigating the matter, but adding it was "clear however, that any South African nationals should not expect too much assistance from the government.
"One of the South Africans apparently told the diplomatic corps in Equatorial Guinea what nonsense he committed there. He will have to explain that himself," the paper quoted her as saying.
That man, identified as 48-year-old Nick du Toit, a South African, said the group was supposed to meet other mercenaries due to arrive from South Africa, but that they were told at the last minute the group had been arrested.
In Harare on Wednesday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Cde Stan Mudenge told diplomats accredited to Zimbabwe that the Government would work with authorities in Equatorial Guinea, South Africa and DRC in the investigations.
The suspects were arrested on Sunday night in Harare allegedly on their way to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, to remove the government of President Obiang.
President Obiang came into power in 1979.
The leader of the suspected mercenaries Simon Mann had allegedly been promised cash payment of one million British pounds and oil mining rights in the Malabo Islands.
The country's rebel leader Severo Moto, who is currently resident in Spain allegedly hired them to do the job. However, news agency reports from Madrid said Moto denied involvement in the planned coup but said President Obiang should go, by force if needed.
In 1997 Moto was arrested in Angola and expelled to Spain on suspicion of plotting a coup. He said links to the foiled coup were a fabrication designed to discredit him ahead of legislative and municipal elections due in April.
In Washington, United States Secretary of State Colin Powell denied US government involvement in the issue, but said the plane, a Boeing 727-100, was headed to another country and not Zimbabwe.
"We know nothing about the plane," the US chief diplomat said during an appearance before Congress.
"What we've learned from the information available to us is there are a group of individuals on the plane who were heading somewhere, not to Zimbabwe, they ended there, but that's not their intended destination as near as we can tell," Mr Powell said.
Mr Powell strenously denied the men had been dispatched by the US to overthrow President Mugabe. "We have no intention in going and displacing President Mugabe," Mr Powell said.
"But are we disappointed in his leadership? Do we speak critically of his leadership? Yes, we do," Powell said.
The suspects comprise 20 South Africans, 18 Namibians, 23 Angolans, two Congolese (DRC) and one Zimbabwean with a South African passport and three others believed to be the leaders.
Equatorial Guinea is Africa's third largest oil producer behind Nigeria and Angola. The discovery of massive oil reserves has boosted Equatorial Guinea's economy by as much as 70 percent a year, but critics say the newfound wealth has not been evenly distributed.
Cde Mudenge said investigations pointed to the availability of oil as the reason behind the ill-fated mission.
US giant Exxon Mobil Corp is the biggest oil producer in Equatorial Guinea. Other companies operating there include independent oil company Amerada Hess Corp, US Chevron Texaco Corp, Noble Energy Inc, Devon Energy Corp, Houston-based Marathon Oil Corp, South Africa's Engen Africa, Sasol and Nigeria's atlas Petroleum. -- Additional reporting by Reuters and AFP.
Reproduced from:
www.herald.co.zw/index.php?id=29915&pubdate=2004-03-12
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Mercenaries captured in Equatorial Guinea coup bid
Posted: Thursday, March 11, 2004
By Michael Padera, www.herald.co.zw
THE 67 suspected mercenaries arrested in Harare on Sunday were on their way to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, to remove the government of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the Minister of Home Affairs, Cde Kembo Mohadi revealed yesterday.
The leader of the group, Simon Mann, had allegedly been promised cash payment of one million British pounds and oil mining rights in the Malabo Islands. Equatorial Guinea is rich in oil.
The country's exiled rebel leader Severo Moto who is currently resident in Spain, Madrid, hired them to do the job.
Cde Mohadi said this during a media briefing yesterday evening.
He said the group, which landed in Harare on Sunday, wanted to collect arms and ammunition from the Zimbabwe Defence Industries.
"From Zimbabwe the plane was expected to fly straight to Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, landing in Malabo in the early hours of Monday the 8th of March. On landing the group was expected to be joined by co-conspirators already in Malabo to stage a coup to remove President Obiang from power," he said.
After the mission, the mercenaries were to fly to the DRC where the arms and ammunition bought from Zimbabwe were to be handed over to Katangese rebels.
Mann and Nicholas du Toit were assisted by another man only identified as Bonds in planning the coup.
"As part of his assignment Bonds spent December 2003 and January 2004 in Malabo carrying out reconnaissance. It was Bonds who was expected to give the signal for the planned coup," said Cde Mohadi.
He said in the event of stiff resistance from forces loyal to President Obiang, the mercenaries were to fly to a safe haven in Sao Tome and Principe.
Cde Mohadi said Mann had revealed that the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Spanish Secret Service aided the group.
The secret services persuaded the Equatorial Guinea service chiefs, that is the head of police and commander of the army, not to put up any resistance.
They were promised cabinet posts in Moto's government.
The agencies were responsible for the hiring of the Boeing 727-100 from Dodson Aviation and they also provided satellite communication system to link up Moto in Spain, Mann and du Toit in South Africa and Bonds in Malabo.
United States forces are reportedly carrying out military exercises around Equatorial Guinea.
Cde Mohadi said investigations showed that the plane flew from Sao Tome and Principe on March 7, 2004 through South Africa where it was handed over to the crew.
"Investigations are continuing and more information will be released as it comes to hand," he said.
In Malabo, national radio quoted President Obiang as confirming that the 15 suspected mercenaries arrested in Equatorial Guinea were linked to the plane load of alleged soldiers of fortune detained in Zimbabwe.
"A group of mercenaries entered the country and was studying plans to carry out a coup d'etat in Equatorial Guinea," said Obiang.
They were found to be in possession of maps of the capital, Malabo, and satellite telephones, Obiang said, adding they were linked to the plane load of suspected mercenaries who have been detained since the weekend in Zimbabwe.
Although Harare maintains that those on board the impounded plane were mercenaries and threw them in prison, a British company which said it was operating the flight claimed those on board were on their way to work in the mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"We spoke with the South African president who warned us that a group of mercenaries was heading towards Equatorial Guinea ... Angola also sent messages to tell us to be vigilant. That's what I expect of friendly countries," said Obiang.
Obiang said the suspected putschists "were funded by enemy powers, by multi-national companies and also by countries that do not like us," but did not name names.
Equatorial Guninea official radio said Wednesday that the 15 were led by a 48-year-old South African national, Nick du Toit, who was a "trafficker of arms and diamonds".
It added that the others were from Armenia, Angola, Sao Tome and South Africa, and that there was also one German national in the group.
All of them were wanted in their countries, the radio said, adding du Toit had been in Malabo since July 2003 while the others had arrived in waves posing as businessmen.
The radio did not give any more names, but Obiang pointed the finger at opposition activist Severo Moto, who is in exile in Spain, and who tried to mount a coup against Obiang in 1997 from Angola.
Moto, who recently set up a government in exile for the tiny, oil-rich Gulf of Guinea country, was sentenced in absentia by a court in Malabo to 100 years in jail for his role in the 1997 coup bid, and his Party for Progress in Equatorial Guinea was banned.
Moto yesterday denied that he had anything to do with the alleged coup bid, saying in a statement that he "has at no time left Spain." – additional reporting by Reuters and AFP.
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Footage of BBC documentary linked to MDC
Posted: Wednesday, March 10, 2004
The Herald (Harare)
March 10, 2004
Harare
The footage of the BBC documentary, which falsely claimed that the Zimbabwean Government has set up secret camps across the country to train youths to rape, torture and kill, was done by political activists with strong links to the MDC working with well known media personalities, it has emerged.
Sources yesterday said the footage of the documentary was not done by the producer of the documentary, Hilary Andersson, who has since admitted that the stories were inconsistent and could not be substantiated, or the BBC itself but by political activists and media personalities.
According to the sources, among the media personalities co-ordinating the footage was Silas Nhara, a cameraman.
The sources said Nhara is said to have played a key role in the assembling of the hotly disputed footage and links which have been described by some observers as amateurish.
They said Nhara was assisted by Reuters photographer Howard Burditt, who was using his accreditation to do undercover work, and Tsvangirai Mukwazhi, a former photographer of the Daily News.
"This is the core team which has been assembling the fictitious footage. This is a reinforcement particularly in the wake of the demise of the Daily News," the sources said, adding that the British intelligence and the British Embassy in Harare were also involved in co-ordinating the operation.
They said following growing criticism of the BBC documentary, which is now widely seen in diplomatic circles as crude propaganda, the team has been beefed up.
Those brought in to beef up the team include Andrew Chadwick who, together with Charlene Smith, ran the failed MDC media support centre in the run-up to the 2000 parliamentary elections, Edwina Spicer, the Reuters head for Southern Africa and other foreign correspondents based in Zimbabwe.
Spicer had fled the country with her son to Britain who is a well known MDC activist who is wanted by police in connection with a murder case.
The Herald understands that Spicer and Chadwick have since their return been under close surveillance by security authorities because the activities they have been involved in have raised eyebrows.
The back-up team is also linked to the United Nations news agency IRIN in Johannesburg, which is headed by a Nigerian who is known to be anti-Zimbabwe.
According to the sources, the head of IRIN was trying to recruit Zimbabweans in the local media but the recruitment has not been successful following the crackdown on journalists moonlighting for hostile foreign media.
The IRIN head and the Reuters head for southern Africa were also understood to be linking up on the operation.
The Reuters head was recently in Zimbabwe to meet the team running the operation.
The sources added that Tom Kirkhood, who heads Reuters Television, "and is a strong Rhodesian with family land in Zimbabwe and is said to be very bitter about losing land" had been assigned to take over the work of Mighty Movies, which had been doing footage for the same group.
"He has come in because Mighty Movies 'had the luxury of telling a balanced story'," the sources said.
Some of the people accused of co-ordinating the programme denied involvement in the exercise when reached for comment yesterday.
Nhara said he had no dealings with the BBC and that he worked for Independent Television Channel 3, UK.
"Where did you get that? I don't understand how I fit in this and I have no dealings with the BBC at all. I have been a freelance for 10 years now and worked for IT (Independent Television) which competes with the BBC," Nhara said.
Howard also said he had no connections with the BBC and said he was a still photographer.
"I have got nothing to do with the BBC. I'm a still photographer and BBC is a television," Howard said.
The others could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Asked for a comment, a Government spokesman confirmed these developments saying they were fully aware of the whole plot.
"Soon or later they (the co-ordinating team) will find themselves in the quandary of a spider web trapped by its own web," the spokesman said.
The BBC's onslaught to discredit Zimbabwe's human rights record has suffered a major hitch after Andersson backtracked on claims of alleged torture camps in the country.
As part of efforts to place Zimbabwe on the agenda of the March 15 United Nations Human Rights Commission meeting to be held in Geneva Switzerland, the BBC last week recycled discredited claims that the Zimbabwean Government has set up secret camps across the country to train thousands of youths to rape, torture and kill opponents of the Government and Zanu-PF.
Reproduced From:
www.herald.co.zw/index.php?id=29839&pubdate=2004-03-10
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Seized U.S. Plane: Zimbabwe's Probe Continues
Posted: Wednesday, March 10, 2004
The Herald (Harare)
March 10, 2004
Harare
GOVERNMENT yesterday revealed the nationalities of the 64 suspected mercenaries who were detained at the Harare International Airport on Sunday night after the owners of their plane had made false declaration of the cargo and crew.
They are 20 South Africans, 18 Namibians, 23 Angolans, two Congolese (DRC) and one Zimbabwean with a South African passport.
The Minister of Home Affairs Cde Kembo Mohadi said Zimbabwean security authorities became suspicious after the pilot had only kept the cockpit lights on with the rest of the plane in darkness.
"This was deliberate and it was clearly intended to hide the presence of the additional 64 passengers. On the discovery of the undeclared passengers, the plane was immediately grounded and the crew and passengers arrested," he said.
Cde Mohadi said the captain of the plane had advised the Harare tower that the plane was empty except for the crew of three and four loaders.
An advance team met the plane at the Harare International Airport and it consisted of one Simon Mann and two other men who had entered the country on March 5 this year.
The minister said initial investigations revealed that the plane was a former US Airforce aircraft which was sold to Dodson Aviation of the United States, a company he said had links to the US government.
"The plane recently flew to South Africa with an American crew which then swapped with a South African crew in Pretoria. It was at Wonderboom Airport that the mercenaries embarked and loaded their cargo," he said.
The plane is believed to have stopped at Petersburg airport before proceeding to Harare.
Cde Mohadi said Mann had initially visited the country in February this year together with one Nicholas du Toit.
The two referred to themselves as international technical consultants based in the British Virgin Islands.
"Simon Mann claimed to run a company called Logo Logistics while du Toit ran a company called Military Technical Services Incorporated. Both operated from the same address," he said.
The two made inquiries about the purchase of arms and ammunition and indicated they worked with a country in the Great Lakes to train Katangese rebels.
They later changed their story and claimed that they wanted weapons to protect a mining property in the DRC.
"Questions were raised as to why the two South Africans would want to buy weapons from Zimbabwe if the end use was legal. South Africa is a much bigger arms manufacturer," he said.
Cde Mohadi said a sinister motive was suspected and measures to monitor their plans until the arrest were instituted.
He said only the white component of the group seemed knowledgeable of the final destination and the purpose of the expedition.
It is believed a briefing on the mission was to be given to the rest of the members once the plane was airborne.
Cde Mohadi said investigations had also revealed that Mann was a former member of the British Special Airforce Service (SAS).
He said when the other members were arrested, du Toit was not there and had started arranging for the legal representation of the accused.
He said a Simon Witherspoon, a known South African mercenary who has operated in various countries in Africa, including Cote d*Ivoire, appeared to be the spokesman of the group.
He left the South African Defence Forces in 1989 to join the mercenary company, Executive Outcomes.
The minister said preliminary investigations indicated that Harare was not the final destination of the group as Bujumbura in Burundi and Mbuji Mayi in the DRC had been mentioned as the other destinations.
"Further investigations are underway and more information will be released to the public as it becomes available," Cde Mohadi said.
Government was working closely with other Sadc members on the issue.
Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe chief executive officer Mr Karikoga Kaseke said the flight plan of the impounded plane had a lot of inconsistencies and was very misleading and at times conflicting.
He said the owners of the plane said the plane had only three crew members and four loaders and carried cargo.
"This is the reason why we parked it in the cargo section. They did not tell us they had people inside," he said.
Mr Kaseke said the crew asked for a technical stopover for refuelling but it later emerged they had other plans.
He said the crew indicated they were flying to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Checks with flying records had also shown that the plane was flying very low which is a security risk, Mr Kaseke said.
South African Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Mr Aziz Pahad said in a statement his ministry would remain in close contact with its ambassador in Zimbabwe Mr Jeremiah Ndou to seek clarity on the circumstances surrounding the incident.
"Should the allegations that those South Africans on board are involved in mercenary activities prove true, this would amount to a serious breach of the Foreign Military Assistance Act which expressly prohibits the involvement of South Africans in military Conventional Arms Control Committee," he said.
Zimbabwe security authorities detained the United States-registered plane on Sunday night after its owners had made false declaration of its cargo and crew.
The capture of 64 suspected mercenaries in Harare on Sunday took a new dimension yesterday in South Africa, the United States, Britain, Democratic Republic of Congo and Equatorial Guinea.
This comes amid contradictory reports over the suspects* mission with Reuters news agency reporting that Equatorial Guinea had arrested a 15-strong "advance party" from the same group while the South African Press Association claimed that the suspected mercenaries were mining contractors travelling to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
SAPA news agency reported that a British company, Logo Logistics Ltd, was operating the impounded plane.
The South African news agency said the company sent it a statement in which it said: "We can make it clear that we have no current or intended business in Zimbabwe and certainly no illegal intentions against its government and people."
Logo told SAPA that what Zimbabwean authorities described as "military" items on board was in fact working equipment such as boots, pipe-bending and wire-cutting tools.
Logo said the aircraft, seized at Harare International Airport on Sunday, was recently purchased and still registered in the United States.
"There is no other link with the US," the company said.
However, authorities in Equatorial Guinea, a country in West Africa, said they had arrested a 15-strong "advance party" from the same group.
"Some 15 mercenaries have been arrested here in Equatorial Guinea and it was connected with that plane in Zimbabwe. They were the advance party of that group," Equatorial Guinea Information Minister Agustin Nse Nfumu told Reuters.
According to Reuters, the arrests come amid speculation among exiled opposition politicians in Equatorial Guinea that a coup was in the offing.
Charles Burrows, a senior executive of Logo Logistics, said most of the people on board were South African and had military experience, but were on contract to four mining companies in Congo.
"They were going to eastern DRC. They stopped in Zimbabwe to pick up mining equipment, Zimbabwe being a vastly cheaper place for such," he said.
Burrows, whose company is registered in Britain*s Channel Islands, denied any connection between the group detained in Harare and those arrested in Equatorial Guinea.
"I haven*t the foggiest idea of what they*re talking about," he said by telephone from London.
South African air traffic control said the plane had left Johannesburg on Sunday and made a stop at Wonderboom airport near Pretoria. From there it flew to the northern South African town of Polokwane, where it took on some 63 passengers and completed departure formalities.
Craig Partridge, a spokesman for South Africa*s Air Traffic and Navigation Services, said the plane had filed full flight plans showing it would travel to Harare and from there to Bujumbura in Burundi on Congo*s eastern border.
In Washington, the State Department said it had no indication that the plane was connected to the US government.
US Federal Aviation Administration records show the plane registered to Dodson Aviation Inc. based in Ottawa, Kansas. Dodson said it had sold the plane about a week ago to an African firm called Logo Ltd.
The white plane with a blue stripe across its body contained an assortment of military hardware that included a rubber boat (dingy), sleeping bags, loud hailers, hammers, sophisticated radio communication equipment, water proof boots and bolt cutters.
According to media reports from South Africa the plane was sold to a South African firm last week.
Jim Pippin the acting general manager for Dodson International, a subsidiary of Dodson Aviation Inc, which is headquartered in Ottawa, Kansas, said the Boeing 727-100 was sold to Logo Logistics.
"The plane was sold by Dodson out of the United States. The company took delivery of the plane over the weekend after it most likely flew out from Florida," Pippin told AFP from Wonderboom airport, just north of Pretoria.
Asked why an internet search showed the plane was still with a US registration in the name of Dodson, Pippin said: "They have not yet had time to do a re-registration."
AFP reports said the owner of a flying school at Wonderboom airport, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Boeing 727-100 landed there about 8.00am on Sunday.
"They asked me to move some of my aircraft because the jetstream from such a large aircraft could have damaged them," he said.
Peet van Rensburg, a spokesman for Wonderboom airport, confirmed that the plane was at the airport on Sunday, but also said he believed it proceeded to Polokwane.
Moses Seate spokesman for the South African Civil Aviation Authorities said the organisation would release a statement as soon as investigations are complete.
Reproduced From: www.herald.co.zw/
Zimbabwe: Mercenary Suspects May Face Death Penalty
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Zimbabwe accuses foreign media of being 'mercenaries'
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Zimbabwe seizes US plane with 'mercenaries'
Posted: Monday, March 8, 2004
Zimbabwe 'alert' over seized jet CNN - Mar 09, 04
HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Zimbabwe's government says it has put its army on full alert after seizing a U.S.-registered cargo plane that officials say was carrying 64 suspected mercenaries and a cargo of military gear. In Washington, a U.S. State Department spokesman said the aircraft had no connection to the U.S. government, and the company listed as the plane's owner said the aircraft was sold recently. Full Article
Mystery plane flew from S Africa BBC- Mar 9, 04
A plane carrying 64 alleged mercenaries impounded by Zimbabwe came from South Africa, say air authorities there. The intended destination of the men on board - described as burly and white, and militarily equipped - is unknown. The US authorities have denied that there is any connection between the plane and the government, while acknowledging that it may be US-registered. US aviation records show the plane - with a tail number N4610 - registered to an Dodson Aviation in Ottawa, Kansas, but a company official said it was sold to Logo Aviation, a South-Africa-based firm, a week ago. Although a BBC correspondent in Johannesburg says this company appears not to exist. Full Article
Zimbabwe seizes US plane with 'mercenaries'
sabcnews.com
Zimbabwe has seized a US-registered cargo plane carrying 64 suspected mercenaries of various nationalities and a cargo of military gear, officials said today. The Boeing 727-100 aircraft was impounded yesterday evening at Harare International Airport "after its owners had made a false declaration of its cargo and crew," said Kembo Mohadi, the home affairs minister, in a statement. "The plane was actually carrying 64 suspected mercenaries of various nationalities," Mohadi said, adding an investigation had also found military material. Full Article
Zimbabwe Seizes U.S.-Registered Plane
guardian.co.uk
The Boeing 727-100 was detained at Harare's main airport late Sunday after its owners allegedly made "a false declaration of its cargo and crew," Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mahadi said at a briefing. "The plane was actually carrying 64 suspected mercenaries of various nationalities," he said. "Further investigations also revealed that on board was military material." Full Article
Zimbabwe 'seizes US cargo plane' BBC
A US-registered cargo plane with 64 suspected mercenaries on board has been impounded in Harare, Zimbabwe's Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi has said. The Boeing 727-100 was held on Sunday after it had "made a false declaration of its cargo and crew," Mr Mohadi said. He said the plane was carrying mercenaries of differing nationalities and "military material". Full Article
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Moyo tells US to 'go to hell'
Posted: Thursday, March 4, 2004
04/03/2004 13:41 - (SA) www.news24.com
Harare - Zimbabwe's information minister has dismissed new US sanctions which target him and other members of President Robert Mugabe's ruling party, saying "imperialist" Washington could go to hell, a newspaper said on Thursday.
"These Americans who are pontificating about human rights and democracy would not recognise these things even if they hit them on their faces. So go and tell the imperialist to go to hell," Information Minister Jonathan Moyo was quoted as saying in Thursday's edition of the state-run Herald daily. Full Article
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