Essential The Africa the Media Doesn't Tell You About

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

How Kleptocracy Impoverishes Angola, Côte d’Ivoire, and South Africa

Reminds me of when the ANC took over in the mid 90s, they were told not to put capital controls in place. They listened to the cacs who then set up their mining companies on the London Stock Exchange

 

[loyola llothta]

Counter Chinese Influence: Is Boko Haram a CIA Covert Op to Divide and Conquer Africa?

The objectives of the US military presence in Africa are well documented: counter Chinese influence and control strategic locations and natural resources including oil reserves. This was confirmed more than 8 years ago by the US State Department:

In 2007, US State Department advisor Dr. J. Peter Pham commented on AFRICOM’s strategic objectives of “protecting access to hydrocarbons and other strategic resources which Africa has in abundance, a task which includes ensuring against the vulnerability of those natural riches and ensuring that no other interested third parties, such as China, India, Japan, or Russia, obtain monopolies or preferential treatment.” (Nile Bowie, CIA Covert Ops in Nigeria: Fertile Ground for US Sponsored Balkanization Global Research, 11 April 2012)

At the beginning of February 2015, AFRICOM’s “head General David Rodriguez called for a large-scale US-led ‘counterinsurgency’ campaign against groups in West Africa during remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC:

In similar remarks at a the US Army West Point academy last week, US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) chief General Joseph Votel said that US commando teams must prepare for new deployments against Boko Haram and the Islamic State. ” (Thomas Gaist, US AFRICOM Commander Calls for “Huge” Military Campaign in West Africa, World Socialist Web Site, February 02, 2015)

Mark P. Fancher highlighted the hypocrisy and the “imperialist arrogance” of western countries, which “notwithstanding the universal condemnation of colonialism”, are evermore willing “to publicly declare (without apologies) their plans to expand and coordinate their military presence in Africa.” (Mark P. Fancher, Arrogant Western Military Coordination and the New/Old Threat to Africa, Black Agenda Report, 4 February 2015)

Now more troops from Benin, Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria and Chad are being sent to fight against Boko Haram.

This new war on yet another shadowy terrorist entity in Africa is reminiscent of the failed Kony 2012 propaganda campaign cloaked in humanitarian ideals. It is used as a smoke screen to avoid addressing the issue of the victims of the war on terror, the real causes of terrorism and to justify another military invasion. It is true that Boko Haram makes victims, however the goal of Western intervention in Africa is not to come to their rescue.

The deadliest conflict in the world since the Second World War and still raging is happening in Congo and the Western elite and its media couldn’t care less. That alone shows that military interventions are not intended to save lives.

To understand why the media focuses on Boko Haram, we need to know what it is and who is behind it. What is the underlying context, what interests are being served?

 

[loyola llothta]

Is Boko Haram another US clandestine operation?

Boko Haram is based in northeast Nigeria, the most populated country and largest economy in Africa. Nigeria is the largest oil producer of the continent with 3.4% of the World’s reserves of crude oil.

In May 2014, African Renaissance News published an in-depth report on Boko Haram, wondering whether it could be another CIA covert operation to take control of Nigeria:

[T]he greatest prize for AFRICOM and its goal to plant a PAX AMERICANA in Africa would be when it succeeds in the most strategic African country, NIGERIA. This is where the raging issue of BOKO HARAM and the widely reported prediction by the United States Intelligence Council on the disintegration of Nigeria by 2015 comes into perspective…(Atheling P Reginald Mavengira, “Humanitarian Intervention” in Nigeria: Is the Boko Haram Insurgency Another CIA Covert Operation? Wikileaks, African Renaissance News, May 08, 2014)

In the 70’s an 80’s Nigeria assisted several African countries “in clear opposition and defiance to the interests of the United States and its western allies which resulted in a setback for Western initiatives in Africa at the time.” (Ibid.)



Nigeria exerted its influence in the region through the leadership of the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG, right), an army consisting of soldiers from various African countries and set up by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and which intervened in the Liberian civil war in the 90’s. Liberia was founded in 1821 by the US and led by American-Liberians for over a century.

The Western powers, first and foremost the US, are obviously not willing to let Africans have a multinational army in which they have no leading role. ACRI, which later became Africom, was formed in 2000 to contain Nigeria’s influence and counter ECOMOG, thus avoiding the emergence of an African military force led by Africans.

According to Wikileaks reports mentioned in Mavengira’s article above, the US embassy in Nigeria serves as an

“operating base for wide and far reaching acts of subversion against Nigeriawhich include but [are] not limited to eavesdropping on Nigerian government communication, financial espionage on leading Nigerians, support and funding of subversive groups and insurgents, sponsoring of divisive propaganda among the disparate groups of Nigeria and the use of visa blackmail to induce and coerce high ranking Nigerians into acting in favour of US interests.” (Mavengira, op., cit., emphasis added)

Mavengira is part of the GREENWHITE Coalition, “a citizen’s volunteer watchdog made up of Nigerians of all ethnic groups and religious persuasions.” He writes that the ultimate goal of the American clandestine operations in his country is “to eliminate Nigeria as a potential strategic rival to the US in the African continent.” (Ibid.)

An investigation into Boko Haram by the Greenwhite Coalition revealed that the “Boko Haram campaign is a covert operation organized by the American Central Intelligence Agency, CIA and coordinated by the American Embassy in Nigeria.” The U.S has used its embassy for covert operations before. The one in Benghazi was proven to be a base for a covert gun-running operation to arm the mercenaries fighting against Bashar Al-Assad in Syria. As for the embassy in Ukraine, a video from November 2013 emerged recently showing a Ukrainian parliamentarian exposing it as the central point of yet another clandestine operation designed to foment civil unrest and overthrow the democratically-elected government.

 

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The Greenwhite Coalition report on Boko Haram reveals a three stage plan of the National Intelligence Council of the United States to “Pakistanize” Nigeria, internationalize the crisis and divide the country under a UN mandate and occupying force. The plan “predicts” Nigeria’s disintegration for 2015. It is worth quoting at length:

The whole [National Intelligence Council] report actually is a coded statement of intentions on how [by] using destabilization plots the US plans to eventually dismember Nigeria […]

Stage 1: Pakistanizing Nigeria

With the scourge of Boko Haram as an existential reality, in the coming months the spate of bombings and attacks on public buildings are likely to escalate.

The goal is to exacerbate tension and mutual suspicion among adherents of the two faiths in Nigeria and leading to sectarian violence […]

Stage 2: Internationalizing the Crisis

[T]here will be calls from the United States, European Union and United Nations for a halt to the violence. […] For effect, there will be carpet bombing coverage by the International media on the Nigerian crisis with so-called experts discussing all the ramifications who will strive to create the impression that only benevolent foreign intervention could resolve the crisis.

Stage 3: The Great Carve out under UN Mandate

There will be proposals first for an international peace keeping force to intervene and separate the warring groups and or for a UN mandate for various parts of Nigeria to come under mandated occupying powers. Of course behind the scenes the US and its allies would have secretly worked out which areas of Nigeria to occupy guided as it were by naked economic interests […] (Ibid., emphasis added)

In 2012, Nile Bowie wrote:

The Nigerian Tribune has reported that Boko Haram receives funding from different groups from Saudi Arabia and the UK, specifically from the Al-Muntada Trust Fund, headquartered in the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia’s Islamic World Society [8]. During an interview conducted by Al-Jazeera with Abu Mousab Abdel Wadoud, the AQIM leader states that Algeria-based organizations have provided arms to Nigeria’s Boko Haram movement “to defend Muslims in Nigeria and stop the advance of a minority of Crusaders” [9].



It remains highly documented that members of Al-Qaeda (AQIM) and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) who fought among the Libyan rebels directly received arms [10] and logistical support [11] from NATO bloc countries during the Libyan conflict in 2011[…]

Image: Abdelhakim Belhadj, rebel leader during the 2011 war in Libya and former commander of the Al-Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.

As covertly supporting terrorist organizations to achieve foreign policy aims appears to be the commanding prerequisite of foreign policy operations under the Obama Administration, Boko Haram exists as a separate arm of the US destabilization apparatus, aimed at shattering Africa’s most populous nation and biggest potential market. (Nile Bowie, CIA Covert Ops in Nigeria: Fertile Ground for US Sponsored Balkanization Global Research, 11 April 2012)

Reports also indicate that some Nigerian commanders may be involved in fuelling the insurgency.

According to the report, a Nigerian soldier in Borno state confirmed that Boko Haram attacked Gamboru Ngala in their presence but their commander asked them not to repel the attack. The soldier told BBC Hausa Service that choppers hovered in the air while the attacks were ongoing. 300 people were killed, houses and a market burnt while soldiers watched and were ordered not to render assistance to those being attacked. The soldier said that the Boko Haram insurgency will end when superior officers in the army cease to fuel it.

At the abductions of Chibok girls, one soldier in an interview told SaharaReporters,

“…we were ordered to arrest vehicles carrying the girls but just as we started the mission, another order was issued that we should pull back. I can assure you, nobody gave us any directives to look for anybody.”

Some soldiers suspect that their commanders reveal military operations to the Boko Haram sect. (Audu Liberty Oseni, Who is Protecting Boko Haram. Is the Nigerian Government involved in a Conspiracy?, africanexecutive.com, May 28, 2014)

Could it be that these commanders have been coerced by elements in the U.S. embassy, as suggested by the aforementioned Greewhite Coalition investigation?

Boko Haram: The next chapter in the fraudulent, costly, destructive and murderous war on terror?

It has been clearly demonstrated that the so-called war on terror has increased terrorism. As Nick Turse explained:

[Ten] years after Washington began pouring taxpayer dollars into counterterrorism and stability efforts across Africa and its forces first began operating from Camp Lemonnier [Djibouti], the continent has experienced profound changes, just not those the U.S. sought. The University of Birmingham’s Berny Sèbe ticks off post-revolutionary Libya, the collapse of Mali, the rise of Boko Haram in Nigeria, the coup in the Central African Republic, and violence in Africa’s Great Lakes region as evidence of increasing volatility. “The continent is certainly more unstable today than it was in the early 2000s, when the U.S. started to intervene more directly,” he told me. (Nick Turse, The Terror Diaspora: The U.S. Military and Obama’s Scramble for Africa, Tom Dispatch, June 18, 2013)

 

[loyola llothta]

What exactly does the U.S. seek in Africa?

When it comes to overseas interventions, decades of history have shown that the stated intents of the U.S. Army are never its real intents. The real intent is never to save humans, but always to save profits and power. US-NATO interventions do not save. They kill.

US-led interventions since the beginning of the century have killed hundreds of thousands, if not over a million innocent people. It’s hard to tell because NATO does not really want to know how many civilians it kills. As The Guardian noted in August 2011, except for a brief period, there was “no high-profile international project dedicated to recording deaths in the Libya conflict”.

In February 2014, “at least 21,000 civilians [were] estimated to have died violent deaths as a result of the war” in Afghanistan according to Cost of War. As for Iraq, by May 2014 “at least 133,000 civilians [were] killed by direct violence since the invasion.”

As for Libya, the mainstream media first lied about the fact that Gaddafi initiated the violence by attacking peaceful protesters, a false narrative intended to demonize Gaddafi and galvanize public opinion in favour of yet another military intervention. As the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs reported, “violence was actually initiated by the protesters.”

It stated further:

The government responded to the rebels militarily but never intentionally targeted civilians or resorted to “indiscriminate” force, as Western media claimed […]

The biggest misconception about NATO’s intervention is that it saved lives and benefited Libya and its neighbors. In reality, when NATO intervened in mid-March 2011, Qaddafi already had regained control of most of Libya, while the rebels were retreating rapidly toward Egypt. Thus, the conflict was about to end, barely six weeks after it started, at a toll of about 1,000 dead, including soldiers, rebels, and civilians caught in the crossfire. By intervening, NATO enabled the rebels to resume their attack, which prolonged the war for another seven months and caused at least 7,000 more deaths. (Alan Kuperman, Lessons from Libya: How Not to Intervene, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, September 2013)

Despite these figures, the media will once again try to convince us that what the world needs most at the moment is to get rid of the terrorist group Boko Haram and that a military intervention is the only solution, even though the so-called war on terror has actually increased terrorism globally. As Washington’s Blog pointed out in 2013, “global terrorism had been falling from 1992 until 2004… but has been skyrocketing since 2004.”

The Guardian reported back in November 2014:

The Global Terrorism Index recorded almost 18,000 deaths last year, a jump of about 60% over the previous year. Four groups were responsible for most of them: Islamic State (Isis) in Iraq and Syria; Boko Haram in Nigeria; the Taliban in Afghanistan; and al-Qaida in various parts of the world. (Ewen MacAskill, Fivefold increase in terrorism fatalities since 9/11, says report, The Guardian, November, 18, 2014)

What the Guardian fails to mention is that all these groups, including Boko Haram and the Islamic State, have been, in one way or another, armed, trained and financed by the US-NATO alliance and their allies in the Middle East.

Thanks to the covert support of Western countries, arms dealers and bankers profiting from killing and destruction, the war on terror is alive and well. The West advocates for endless military interventions, pretending to ignore the real causes of terrorism and the reason why it expands, hiding its role in it and thereby clearly showing its real intent: fuelling terrorism to destabilize and destroy nations, thus justifying military invasion and achieving their conquest of the African continent’s richest lands under the pretext of saving the world from terror.

The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Julie Lévesque, Global Research, 2018

 

[loyola llothta]

NGOs, mining companies, and rock-splitters


Contextualising NGOs in Moroto Town, Uganda

Photos credit: Aran Valente
Aran Valente

Feb 02, 2019

In this article, the author talks about the complicity of non-governmental organisations and mining companies in impoverishing the people of Moroto, northeast of Uganda.

Beyond the summit of Mount Moroto, in the Moroto District of northeast Uganda’s Karamoja Region, another peak touches the sky ahead. A local man describes this next peak as home to “the Tepeth people” who are in conflict with the Ugandan People’s Defence Force (UPDF) and have raided cattle in the past. In Karamoja, cattle raiders and the UPDF engage in constant conflict since the early 2010s. The conflict zone is close to Mount Moroto, just a few kilometres away. The UPDF monitors the other side of the mountain. No one can go there unless armed with a gun.

According to Human Rights Watch, between 2004 and 2006, there were 474 raids and 1,057 casualties before the UPDF began disarming raiders. Local people gave examples of the politics of cattle raiding around Moroto. A rock-splitter at Mount Moroto remembered stealing cattle from Bokora, another ethnic group, who would then steal them back the next day. Another resident recalled being handed an AK-47 when he was ten years old to raid rival groups, though he raided cattle for “only two days.”

On one of the mountain’s ridges, we meet members of the Karamajong ethnic group, described by the UPDF as “warriors,” who had their guns seized but still walk along the mountain with bows, arrows, and dogs. From a precipice looking down, the “warriors” gesture towards Moroto Town, which is filling up with buildings for projects in the name of international development. This means more non-governmental organisations (NGOs), United Nations agencies, foreign governmental groups, and wealthy investors, whose interests influence the politics of residents’ livelihoods.

Below us, heavy machinery extracts large rocks from the mountain, which are brought down to human rock-splitters at the base. At the same time as NGOs were coming to Karamoja, the UPDF disarmed cattle raiders, and mining companies arrived in the area. These NGO projects focused on problems perceived to be created by local, violent conflicts rather than conflicts that can be associated with problems arising from “development.” “Development”, in this context, means an approach to urbanising and bringing industries to extract resources where the ends justify the means.

According to the 2015 National Development Plan II, Moroto is set to become a “strategic city” for mining. For Moroto, one outcome is international investment and funding from the Central Government for the construction of city roads, according to the Daily Monitor. In November 2016, Moroto Municipal Authorities described plans to tarmac roads in town, according to New Vision. Mining companies arriving with the UPDF to profit from the region meant some NGOs perpetuated development abuses.

Stone quarries have accompanied a larger mining boom as gold, marble, limestone, and gypsum were discovered in 2011 in the area of Moroto, according to the Daily Monitor. In 2012, NGOs rushed to Karamoja’s new “hotspot,” where mining is the priority for the state and international companies. A rock-splitter notes that, with the arrival of a number of NGO buildings for offices in town, the demand for split rocks to build roads has increased.

Rock-splitters explained that for every basin (approximately 27 litres) of rocks they produce, they receive 200 shillings (US$ 0.06). One man explains how the mining company originally paid 2,000 shillings (US$ 0.57) to rock-splitters at mid-day so they could get a meal but they haven’t been paid for a mid-day meal in three months. Rock-splitters criticised NGOs for favouring road development over agricultural income-generating alternatives for residents struggling with financial precarity and splitting rock for starvation wages in stone quarries.

Earlier that year, rock-splitters asked both mining companies and NGOs for “hammers, pick-axes, or tools” to produce enough rocks for economic stability, but they were refused by both groups. According to rock-splitters, NGOs argued that it was not part of their proposal, procedure, or plan. NGOs may have worried that the tools would be used as weapons for conflict rather than implements to alleviate poverty.

In an effort to alleviate stress created by raids in a cattle-oriented region, NGOs had provided seeds in the past for generating crops as an alternate source of income and sustenance. The choice of NGOs to refrain from offering seeds, then, had a detrimental effect on the livelihood of the population. A rock-splitter explained, “Last time, NGOs brought seeds for nursery beds [to grow crops], but this time they didn’t.” No seeds from NGOs mean fewer crops, which means splitting rock to build roads is a better livelihood option.

The UPDF and mining companies limit options local people have for making a living. NGOs buy property requiring new roads that depend on the exploited labour of the rock quarries, and on local people who will work in the quarries rather than survive through agriculture or maintaining livestock. NGOs’ decisions not to provide seeds, and the UPDF collaboration with mining companies after the disarmament of cattle raiders are some reasons why rock-splitters critique the role of humanitarian and development agendas in their communities. International groups’ relationships to the continent often create wealth at the expense of local economies, workers’ rights, and African autonomy.

Note:A 2011 survey by the Uganda department of geological survey and mines at the Ministry of Energy found that Karamoja is also endowed with other minerals including limestone, uranium, marble, graphite, gypsum, iron, wolfram, nickel, copper, cobalt, lithium and tin. See: Mineral deposits in Uganda's Karamoja heighten human rights abuse – report

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Nigerians did Boko Haram to themselves

 

[Premeditated]

Kenya outperforms the world’s frontier markets to become number 1

Kenya had the best performance among key frontier markets , analysts at Citi have said in their latest report.

Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) index ranked Kenya as the best performing frontier market since the start of 2019. According to the MSCI Frontier markets index, Kenya has gained 17.64 percent in US dollar terms. The average gain on MSCI index for all frontier markets is 5.39 percent. It means Kenya has outperformed the world’s frontier markets by 12.25 percent.

Kenya outperforms the world’s frontier markets to become number 1 – Daily Active Kenya
not bad

 

[loyola llothta]

Buhari on existentialism

Picture credit: Daily Post Nigeria

Feb 02, 2019

The author wonders whether existentialism could have been the reason behind the recent firing of Nigeria’s Chief Justice Walter Nkanu Onnoghen by President Buhari.

In rationalising his suspension of the Chief Justice of the Nigerian Supreme Court, President Muhammadu Buhari stated without explanation, “This is an existential policy”. What is the “this” referring to? Within the context of the speech, he could be referring to the fight against corruption as a fight that must be won if the country must continue to exist. However, since corruption is found in every existing country, it is doubtful that fighting corruption alone could be “an existential policy”. Perhaps, Buhari’s speechwriters were giving us a hint of his ideological or philosophical orientation by invoking existentialism to define the man and his policies as guided by the fear of the end of existence. What is existentialism?

Existentialism is the European belief that existence comes before essence. A country exists before the essential policies of the country can be shaped and implemented by individual social agents. An individual exists before the subjective opinions of the individual can be interpreted by other individuals. Existentialists, therefore, see the world as absurd in the sense that the actions of individuals or the policies of nations do not always make rational sense especially when such actions and policies go against the interests of the actors or policymakers. Existentialists wonder why some policymakers pursue goals that may threaten the existence of the nation state or why some individuals indulge in actions that would harm them personally even while experiencing thrill, angst and dread about the consequences?

It is probably flattering to suggest that Buhari is philosophical in any sense of the term but his speechwriters may be individuals who strongly believe that what matters is the existence of political power and not the essence of good and evil policies. The speechwriters are indicating the obvious existentialist dogma that what makes a person like Buhari is the past existence of the individual and Buhari, having been a dictator in the past, is bound to continue existing as a dictator; irrespective of the essence of the present presidential constitution. It is possible that if Buhari understood this self-mocking implication of the concept of existential policy, he would fire the speechwriters with what he called “alacrity” in his judge-jury-executioner speech.

Buhari wants us to believe that he was only obeying the order of the Code of Conduct Tribunals by suspending Chief Justice Walter Nkanu Onnoghen and replacing him with an interim Justice. Critics shout that coming only weeks before a presidential election, Buhari is trying to hedge his bets that the election results may be determined by the Supreme Court. Thus, appointing an interim Chief Justice who happens to share his own religious affiliation, ethnicity, and regional origin on the existential ground of being the next most senior Justice of the Supreme Court, is just what it is, neither good nor evil, according to existentialism. Being, perhaps, the only Supreme Court Justice with a doctoral degree and having been a Justice of the Sharia Court of Appeal in the past are just existential facts that should not be confused with the essence.

The essence of the policy of rule of law is that the suspended Chief Justice remains innocent before the law until proven guilty. The allegations against him are heavy and if found guilty following a proper investigation and fair trial, Buhari is right that he should not return as the Chief Justice because no one is above the law. However, if the Chief Justice is proven to have been corrupt, it is likely that the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court share in his guilt.

Unknown to Buhari’s speechwriters, it is not the Chief Justice alone who determines cases that come before the court and so if people suspected of corruption have been freed by the Supreme Court on “mere technicalities” as alleged, is there evidence of dissenting opinions and concurring opinions to show how the Chief Justice could over-rule the jury of his peers?

By the way, the Supreme Court usually considers “mere technicalities” or points of law and not the facticity or substantive evidence that may have been examined by the court of first instance. The rule of law uses such “mere technicalities” to ensure that it is better for ten guilty persons to escape punishment than for one innocent person to be punished. Nigerian courts may be corrupt but they are clearly more accountable than the legislative and executive arms of government perhaps because of the relative security of tenure that should not be undermined.

If all judges are tainted in Nigeria, as many suspect, then where would the country find the angels to preside over court cases under a corrupt neo-colonial regime? Kwame Nkrumah also removed the Chief Justice of Ghana from office after people suspected of plotting to kill Nkrumah were acquitted by the apex court. Buhari points to undeclared assets worth millions of dollars that the Chief Justice himself admitted that he mistakenly did not declare or failed to declare correctly and the postponement of the National Judicial Council that could vote to suspend the Chief Justice. Critics say that if the same existential policy is applied to Buhari himself and to his nepotistic appointees, there would be a government shutdown in Nigeria.

One of the greatest weaknesses of existentialism as a Eurocentric philosophy is the over-emphasis on the individual who interacts with other individuals in arts and philosophy. Greater attention to the structure of an unjust society would need to go beyond existentialism and individualism to address the on-going generational ethnic-religious-gender-class struggles.

Buhari must be commended for fighting corruption but he must be reminded that he cannot fight corruption by targeting individuals who may not be loyal to him while turning a blind eye to his cronies. His existential policy of giving more to areas that gave him 95 percent of their votes and less to those who wisely gave him 5 percent of their votes with knowledge of his unrepentant chauvinism may not be challengeable in corrupt courtrooms but voters still have the limited power to hold the politicians accountable to some extent if they bother to vote.

In the final analysis, it is not the law that will determine the nature of the society; it is the society that will determine the nature of the law in Nigeria. So long as Nigerian politicians and the masses refuse to address historic wrongs done with the support of the law against millions of the people in the past and the present, for so long will the existential policy of fighting corruption remain a smoke-screen. Buhari does not need the Supreme Court or the Code of Conduct Tribunal to order him to apologise to the survivors of the genocide that he helped to lead against the Igbo in Biafra, of which he was reported as saying that he had no regrets and that he was ready to do it again.

Nigeria should offer reparations to the survivors as recommended by the Justice Oputa Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights Abuses in the country. Many survivors of other tragic wrongs in the country have been offered some atonement but not the Igbo who still feel unwanted by a country that dreads letting them go to build their own nation. There is no need for a court order before the politicians wage a war against intolerance, illiteracy, disease, and poverty in the country in concert with other African states towards the Peoples Republic of Africa in which no existential individual will be able to impose his free will on the masses ever again.

Buhari on existentialism | Pambazuka News

 

[loyola llothta]

US court denies Namibia genocide compensation from Germany

March 08, 2019

A New York federal court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit by two indigenous Namibian tribes who were demanding compensation from Germany for the genocide of their ancestors over a century ago.

U.S. District Judge, Laura Taylor Swain, in Manhattan, said Germany was immune from claims by descendants of the Herero and Nama tribes, depriving her of jurisdiction over its role in what some have called the 20th century’s first genocide, reports Reuters.

It is widely reported that German troops massacred more than 75,000 Namibians, mainly from the Herero and Nama tribes, between 1904 and 1908.

Many have termed it as “a campaign of racial extermination and collective punishment” that Germany undertook against Africans who rebelled against the autocratic German colonial rule.

Survivors of the Namibian massacres in Namibia. Pic credit: Times of Israel

In January 1904, members of the Herero tribe revolted against the invading Germans, which led to the “Battle of Waterberg.” However, Germans won and drove the Herero to the Namib desert where most of them died of starvation and dehydration.

In October of the same year, members of the Namaqua tribe rose against the Germans but were soon overpowered by the well-armed German troops. They suffered the same fate as the Herero.

Thousands of native Namibians were also imprisoned, where most of them died of abuse and/or exhaustion.

There were also reports of concentration camps where the colonialists carried out exterminations and scientific experiments on the tribes people.

In the “Whitaker Report” of 1985, the United Nations recognized the two Namibian massacres as “an attempt to exterminate the Herero and Namaqua people.”

In 2004, Germany acknowledged the killings but rejected calls for financial compensation for the victims and their descendants. In 2015, the German government declared the events as a “genocide” and “part of a race war.”

Herero chief Vekuii Rukoro has described Wednesday’s ruling as “disappointing”.

“We assert that judge Swain has made some fundamental errors of law in her jurisdictional analysis and we are determined to see to it that this decision is reversed on appeal and that our claims for reparations shall proceed,” he was quoted by the AFP.

The plaintiffs had argued in court that Germany was not shielded by the federal Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act because some of its plunder found its way to Manhattan.

They claimed that plunder from Namibia went to Germany, and this was used to purchase four buildings in New York, said the AFP.

Skulls and other human remains were also sent to the American Museum of Natural History while a written account of the genocide went to the New York Public Library, the plaintiffs added.

But the judge said the transfers of human remains and the account of the genocide bore no “direct” or “immediate” connection to Germany’s activities in southwestern Africa.

More about the Herero and Nama tribes

Largely residing in Namibia and parts of Botswana and Angola, the Herero are one of the most uniquely fascinating tribes in Southern Africa. They are divided into many subgroups including the Tjimba, Himba, Macubal, Mbanderu, Kwandu, Zemba, Hakawona and Tjavikwa.

With their main occupation being pastoralists, the Herero apparently migrated to Namibia from the great lakes of East Africa somewhere between the 17th and 18th century.

They were later on joined by the Nama tribe from South Africa at the beginning of the 19th century, however, there were hostilities and armed confrontations between the two tribes due to territorial issues which lasted almost throughout that century. They later settled their differences. The two tribes would later rebel against German colonial rule.

The Herero people are known for their conspicuous looking traditional outfits depicting their colonialists.

Herero woman in traditional outfit — Photo Credit: Jim Naughten
The women wear Victorian-style dresses with cow horn headdresses while the men wear military-style uniforms.

Their outfits, however, do not glorify German colonialism but rather symbolizes their defeat against adversity and their resilience and survival after attempts to wipe them out.

Herero Day, also known as Red Flag Day/Red Flag Heroes’ Day is held annually on August 26 in Okahandja, Namibia which is the burial place of former Paramount Chief and anti-colonial leader Samuel Maharero.

The day is set aside to celebrate and pay respect to their departed chiefs. August 26 is also Heroes’ Day in Namibia.

US court denies Namibia genocide compensation from Germany - Face2Face Africa

 

[loyola llothta]

wtf blood

 

[Red Shield]

wtf blood

 

[staticshock]

wtf blood

why do African nations continue to do this to themselves?

 

[loyola llothta]

i was telling nikkas. The Zim puppets was crying to Trump last week too

shyt crazy

 

[Red Shield]

i was telling nikkas. The Zim puppets was crying to Trump last week too

shyt crazy

I see they hired a Trump linked lobbyist