US GAME PLAN IN AFRICA-AN AMERICANS ASSESSMENT

AN RENOWNED AMERICAN ACADEMIC ON US GAMES IN AFRICA

 

Major Amin:  You are right on in your assessment of the AFPAK issue and USA involvement that is not unique in its approach.   See attached Alalade article. I just talked to an Ivorian.  This is how I read the situation in the Ivory Coast - with what information I have before me:

 

In the past the USA supported Gbabgo and the French Ouattara - that is they opposed each other.  This is not uncommon with Franco-American rivalries in the DRC (using Ugandan/Rwandan proxy armies to push out the French) and Congo-Brazzaville (French supporting one rebel group and the USA another) that have resulted in millions dying within and in surrounding countries - over controlling access to key natural resources - oil, COLTAN, etc..  They won't send in too many white boys as if one white harms a black the World will cry out.  They use black African proxy armies - if blacks kill blacks no one cares - in this case militaries from ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West African States) such as Nigeria, Liberia, Senegal, etc..

 

In this case, it appears that the USA and France have joined hands.  The USA has switched and joined with the French to support Ouattara.  Issues include:

 

1. North/South split along ethnicities & religion (north mostly Muslim, south mostly Christian
2. Who can own land (northern immigrants from Burkina Faso, Mali, etc.) or "indigenous" Ivoirians 
3. Gbabgo being a nationalist and not wanting 65-75% of national wealth annually in an account controlled by France (see attached Alalade article)
4. Major oil & gas deposits being found - and France/USA teaming up against China that is moving in quickly to take control
5. Ivory Coast largest producer of cocoa in the world - nice resource to control
6. Many French companies making lots of money off this country (see attached Alalade article)

This is being made out to Americans and Europeans in our news media (filtered propaganda) as a defiant Gbabgo refusing to accept Democracy after having lost in the elections.  He actually appears to have ???won - who knows what reality is??? and the Ivorian I talked to says that they will never accept this attempted change forced upon them by the USA & France.  Chaos is around the corner as a result of the alliance between the Western military/industrial/political elites.

 

 

Alalade News Africa Dec 13 2010 Nigeria's Policy Fiasco In The Ivorian Crisis

http://thenewsafrica.com/2010/12/13/nigeria%E2%80%99s-policy-fiasco-in-the-ivorian-crisis/

Posted by TheNEWS on December 13, 2010 // 1 Comment

President Goodluck Jonathan's handling of the Ivorian challenge has again revealed  the deep crisis of Nigeria's foreign and security policy process. By his statement  lining behind the western herd policy instinct on African affairs, he has  demonstrated a very simplistic appreciation of the Ivorian debacle and an  unfortunate incapacity to sort out and articulate Nigeria's interests in the complex  Ivorian conundrum. In joining the western chorus' dismissal of the decision of Cote  d'Ivoire's Constitutional Council, the country's apex court on Constitutional  Affairs, our President has betrayed how impervious he is to Nigeria's contemporary  lessons on the final role of the judiciary as the final arbiter of the political  process; a lesson profoundly reiterated in the US Supreme Court's decision in favour  of Presidential candidate George W. Bush against democratic challenger Al Gore in  2000. Lately the courts in Ilorin and Ibadan have taught the Nigerian political  class this lesson. Obviousy, President Goodluck Jonathan has not been paying  attention to this. This raises concerns about the sophistication of our foreign  policy process. It also challenges our very understanding of profound questions that  impact on our very existential conditions as black humanity. The controversy on the  last elections in Cote d'Ivoire is the culmination of the shenanigans of Cote  d'Ivoire colonial master seeking to reoccupy its previous dominant role in Cote  d'Ivoire and by implication retain its preeminent place as the first power in West  Africa.

Goodluck Jonathan.

As complex as it may seen, the matter of President Laurent Gbagbo versus Alassane  Ouattara can be distilled into the struggle of nationalists in Cote d'Ivoire against  a France seeking to reassert its ascendance in the Ivorian socio-economic and  political space through its proxies that it has managed to re-energise.  These  proxies were routed out of power by the policy failures of France after the demise  of Houphouet Boigny that led to the emergence of the nationalists in 2000. Houphouet  Boigny, like his illustrious contemporaries such as Sedar Senghor of Senegal and  other lovers of River Sienne, was dedicated to the promotion of France over all  else. The pandemonium in Cote d'Ivoire, including the passionate search for  electoral victory, is thus the titanic confrontation of two visions of the  post-Boigny Ivorian state. On the one hand is the vision of a Houphouetiste Ivorian  nation inextricably linked to France and a struggling alternative nationalist Cote  d'Ivoire pooling its vast resources and energies into a common African strive for  development as an element in the larger blueprint of black emancipation. Alassane  Ouattara is the newly minted poster child of the continuity of French policy in its  pre carre replacing the likes of the late Omar Bongo of Gabon, who was his close  friend, the Sassou Nguesso in Brazaville who, with the aid of ELF resources, hounded  a democratically elected Pascal Lissouba from office. There are similarities in the  case of Pascal Lissouba and Laurent Gbagbo. Lissouba's crime was to open up the oil  deposits in Pointe Noire to American oil interests. Laurent Gbabgo's crimes are  worse. He cut down the French beefsteak in Cote d'Ivoire by opening up the Ivorian economy to all. Unlike never before, he has also accommodated Nigerian enterprises  and generally promoted sub regional integration.

The French beefsteak in Africa is enormous and Cote d'Ivoire was a large morsel of  this steak. France in Africa refers to 3000 enterprises of which 1800 are affiliates  of big companies and 1200 small and medium scale enterprises. French companies in  Cote d'Ivoire make up a fourth of French firms in the CFA zone. The economic  infrastructure of Cote d'Ivoire revolved around such big companies as PME-PMI as 60  per cent of the Ivorian budget was derived from taxes paid by French enterprises.  The enormous economic interests of France and French control over the Ivorian  national economy were threatened by the ascendance of nationalists to power in Cote  d'Ivoire. With the rise of President Laurent Gbagbo and his Ivorian Patriotic Front, FPI, to power, French multinational enterprises and the French networks, generally, sensed the arrival of the end of the quasi monopoly which they had exercised over the Ivorian market. The exploitative character of French economic relations with  Cote d'Ivoire was demonstrated in a number of projects that were, unlike in the  past, thrown to international competition by the nationalists. This new openness  repudiated the long standing business culture that assured France and its networks  unlimited rent from the Ivorian state. In return, France offered the regime and its  pivotal actors protection and longevity of tenure.

In the evolving business environment under President Gbagbo, the interests of  companies like Bouygues were at stake. This was exemplified in its quotation for the  construction of the famous third Abidjan bridge that was considered to be too high.  The bid of Bouygues was judged to be three times the cost proposed by the Chinese  for the construction of the same bridge. Additionally, the Chinese were prepared to  accept payment in cocoa or coffee. Also in the case of the construction of the  proposed airport at San Pedro, Bouygues lost the bid to a South African company.  Through the old business culture fostered by France and its networks in Cote  d'Ivoire, analysts estimate that since 1960, 75 per cent of the total national  wealth produced by Cote d'Ivoire had been exported to France. Faced with this  situation, the nationalists had preached the economic and monetary independence of  the former French colonies, as it was unacceptable for the country to deposit 65 per  cent of national wealth in an account run by the treasury of the French state. The  long term contracts signed by French companies were to expire in 2004. As such, it  was necessary for France to immediately find a way to ensure that the Ivorian market  did not elude France, its companies and their networks. The coup attempt in  September 2002 was the answer.

In the very unstable political climate of the last ten years, President Laurent  Gbagbo's policy has given impetus to sub-regional integration of the West Africa  region. Things unimaginable in the Boigny past began to happen. Cote d'Ivoire joined  the West African gas pipeline project that begins from Nigeria's gas fields.  Nigerian telecom companies are being licensed to operate in the country. Gbagbo's  Cote d'Ivoire  is working on an agreement on the management of oil field on the  borders with Ghana. He has integrated Cote d'Ivoire into the Mano River Union to  serve as a pole for sub-regional development. These feats are significant in a  sub-region that for so long had been deliberately bifurcated on linguistic lines on  our neo-colonial divisions. On this score alone, Nigeria, to be taken seriously, should have shown some circumspection before joining the usual instinctive chorus of  western government and institutions whose double standards in dealing with African  affairs is legion. On the contrary, again, South Africa has maintained a studied silence and dispatched former President Thabo Mbeki to Abidjan to find out the concrete facts on the controversial elections before making any pronouncement. By  the way, did anyone speak to Ambassador Raph Uwechue who was ECOWAS Special  Representative for many years in Cote d'Ivoire before Nigeria toed the line of  France on a West African policy concern?

Meanwhile, the big question for France was how to go about undermining President  Gbagbo without arousing suspicions. A direct French military surgical confrontation  leading to an overthrow, for which France was famed in the cold war years, was  outmoded. It thus had to count on domestic forces sympathetic to its cause to  project its interests in Cote d'Ivoire. The rebellion was a good instrument to start  with to achieve the policy objectives of France. The resolution of the crisis engendered by the 2002 coup d'etat was going to be ended by some elections. France  and its proxies, the Reassemblement Houphouetistes pour la Democratie et  Development, RHDP, had long prepared its master plan for this electoral crisis. A  look at the election results from zones controlled by the Forces Nouvelles during  the first round indicated what the presidential camp has termed "sovietique  outcomes" such as 93.42 per cent in Denguele, 86 per cent in Savannes and 87 per  cent in Worodougou provinces in the north for Alassane Ouattara. The implications of  this for former President Henri Konan Bedie and the PDCI are stories for another  day. For now, the common aim of the Ivorian proxies of France is to chase out the  nationalists. The scores for the second round of the elections have not been  published as at the time of writing this. But the complaints of President Gbagbo are  that these high scores were repeated in the second round in the same provinces and  documentary evidence is available to prove this point.

These results, deemed improbable, are the results thrown out by the Constitutional  Council. Determined to resolve the crisis on its own terms the international  community simply contemptuously dismissed the pronouncement of the Constitutional  Council. In this regard, no one cast aspersion on the integrity of the US Supreme  Court over its decision in Al Gore versus George W. Bush even though the country was  divided on whether justice had been served. France and the international community  did nothing in Gabon and Cameroon. Everything to my friends, and for my enemies: The  rules!!! So says the maxim. Perhaps, this may be so. The important thing is that  Nigeria did not manage to send someone to Abidjan to understand the issues on ground  before making a decision on such a weighty matter that has serious consequences for  the ECOWAS project and the political cohesion of the sub-region. Worst of all,  Nigeria's interests have not been factored into this knee jerk policy. It depended  on French propaganda in sour sound bites on Radio France Internationale and in the  Agence France Press that the BBC also carried and ran away with. It is not  impossible that, in the final analysis, Thabo Mbeki may come to properly situate the  current France-inspired western herd policy on Cote d'Ivoire. At least, South Africa  would have taken a position on very solid and credible grounds. What about our dear  Nigeria?

—Osuolale Alalade