 |
| Explo Nani-Kofi |
Building on his activities from Mock Parliament,
Students and Youth Movement for African Unity and Current Affairs Society in
Mawuli School, Explo became the national leader of the Students and Youth
Movement for Africa Unity (SMAU) organizing branches around the country.
He was also a member the Kwame Nkrumah
Revolutionary Guards (KNRG) and worked very closely with Johnny F.S.Hansen,
H.S.T. Provencal and Kofi Ameko but also had close relations with comrades in
June 4 Movement, People’s Revolutionary League of Ghana, New Democratic
Movement, Movement On National Affairs, African Youth Command and African Youth
Brigade. Explo was involved in an initiative of setting Workers
Committees in Volta Region under the joint initiative of the June 4 Movement,
Kwame Nkrumah Revolutionary Guards, Pan African Youth Movement and Prof Mawuse
Dake before the 31st December 1981 coup d’etat .
At the time of the 31st December 1981 coup
d’etat, Explo was the 1st National Vice President of the National Union of
Ghana Students (NUGS). After the 31 December 1981 coup, he became the
Coordinator of the Political Education Committee of the Volta Regional Students
and Youth Task Force after he turned down an appointment to be the Ashanti
Regional Coordinator of the Students and Youth Task Force. In April 1982, he
became the Regional Coordinator of the Peoples’ Defence Committees.
The anti-corruption campaign of the early days
of the Provisional National Defence Council brought Explo into conflict with
many powerful forces who were well connected with the leading military
bureaucrats. His involvement in the critique of World Bank and IMF dictate of
the political and economic direction of the PNDC government also found him in
conflict Flt – Lt J.J. Rawlings.
Explo was committed to the National Mobilisation
Programme which was to help neutralize the hardship that could be imposed by a
solely IMF and World Bank dictated programme. Explo had initiated a programme
to take off in the Volta Region on 8th December 1982 on the National
Mobilisation Programme. Another area of difference with the PNDC Chairman and
others was Explo’s commitment to strengthening emerging structures of popular
power which were countering the monopoly of the hold on power by the wealthy
classes.
An additional point of conflict was that between
those organized in organizations before 31st December 1981 and those who had
come to join the process after the coup - many of the latter were out and
out coup supporters and therefore sycophantic and hero-worshipping. On 24 November
1982, Flt – Lt J. J. Rawlings held Explo and others at gun point and on their
knees tormenting them in a scene which Emmanuel Hansen describes in his book
Ghana Under Rawlings Early Years as “On 24 November, in a spectacular show of
force characteristic of the James Bond extravaganza, Rawlings led a platoon of
armed soldiers in a helicopter assault on the house of Zaya Yebo, Secretary for
Youth and Sports and arrested two inmates ….. Other cadres were also picked up”
(p 124 – 125).
On their knees that day were Mustafa Kutana
(Then National Deputy Coordinator of the National Defence Committee), Kwasi Adu
(National Coordinator of the National Youth Organising Commission), George
Agyekum (Chairman of the Public Tribunal), Taata Ofosu (Deputy Editor of the
Workers Banner), Napoleon Abdulai (Member of the National Youth Organising
Commission Secretariat), Rich Asamany (PNDC District Secretary for Kpandu),
Propsper Lagble (PNDC District Secretary for Ho), Explo Nani-Kofi , Kwame
Adjimah (Volta Regional Secretariat of the National Defence Committee) and
Esther Akuamoah Boateng (Volta Regional Organiser and Founding Member of the
31st December Women’s Movement). Explo was detained and physically
tortured from 7 December 1982 to 19 June 1983.
 |
| Jerry John Rawlings |
JUNE 19 1983
ESCAPE FROM DEATH.
On 19 June 1983, Cpls Baba Kankani and Umar
Farouk, military cadres who had escaped to Togo entered Ghana and coordinated a
jail break in a number of guard rooms and three prisons (James Fort, Ussher and
Nsawam). Explo was released from Field Engineers Guard Room by Corporals
Tekpor, Hiawotepe and Alhassan.
With the assistance of L/Cpl Isaac Nimo , he
came to the Accra city. Right from the time of his exit from the Guard Room
till the time Explo crossed the Togo border he continued to recite Psalm 23 non
stop carrying Pte Adjei Kwapong’s small New Testament with Psalms. Pte
Adjei Kwapong was a Boys Company trained soldier also escaping from the Wajir
Barracks Guard Room on 19th June 1983.
He spent 19 June 1983 night at the residence of
Dr Ababio with his aunt, Mrs Eneas Kom up to the curfew time of 5am. Explo went
the following day to his cousin, Mr Bobson Godonu, who drove him in his car
from Kaneshie to the station at Kinbu whilst radio announcements continue
to be made that all those escaping and those assisting them should be shot on
sight . He then took a Kpong vehicle which took the Teshie route because of the
massive road blocks in Accra Central.
When the vehicle got to the check point at
Teshie, Explo paid the mate and jumped into the bush to avoid the soldiers at
the road block as they were soldiers from Wajir Barracks where he was detained
and would have arrested and definitely would have been shot dead as instructed
by Flt – Lt J.J. Rawlings. Explo then walked through the bush and sometimes
through town all the way to Ashaiman. From Ashaiman, he took another vehicle to
Kpong. When they got to 1st Infantry (Michel Camp) there was another road block
and every passenger had to come out and pass by the soldiers one after the
other. Cpl Habada was the soldier at the barrier . From Kpong, Explo took a
vehicle bound for Tsate with the intention of going to his cousin Gladys Afua
Nani who was in Tsate. He saw Bombadier Douglas Tsikata Ayensu at the Asikuma
barrier .
He changed immediately into a vehicle
bound for Kpandu with the intention of going to the PNDC District Secretary,
Rich Asamany, but at Kpeve, he changed his mind and took a vehicle going to
Hohoe. At Hohoe, he was hosted by Sammy Dagadu Wosoryie and Z. Q. Darrah
who coordinated his escape programme during the period.
They tried getting through one border town on 21
June but failed and later in the day heard that his other colleague, Kwame
Auste Adjimah (Kabongo), had been arrested at the Kpedze border town, having
been betrayed by one Dzrakasu Komla, and taken to Accra where he was executed
immediately he came out of the military vehicle which took him there. He
(Explo) stayed with John Lee and Mark Badasu at various times during the hide
out. After unsuccessful attempts to cross into Togo through Lolobi and Ayoma,
he sought assistance from the Jasikan District Secretariat of the National
Defence Committee of Barima Sakyi, Kofi Dzandu Titriku, Petit Akpatsi and Mercy
Mensah on 29 June 1983. He traveled to Jasikan and with immaculate precision he
was led by Kofi Dzandu Titriku all the way into Togo after a tiresome long
journey through Badou on 30 June 1983 to safety.
LIFE IN EXILE
He travelled to Atakpame, and then to Kpele,
then finally to Kpalime where he took the whole day to look for his mother who
was a trader there. He met his aunt, Donkor, from Vakpo who took him to his
mother who was very surprised to see her son who she knew was in military
detention in Ghana. In Kpalime, Explo, did not know that he was being followed
by informants from Ghana. He sent a letter to his friend, Emmanuel Kwakutse
Akpese, in Kpedze, but when the courier Wachukwu Dzisah got to Kpedze, an
informant got the police to arrest him and take the letter from him which was
handed over to the BNI. Everybody whose name was mentioned in the letter was
arrested and detained at BNI. Those arrested include Emmanuel Akpese, Stephen
Glala, Lucas Kumi, Dzrakasu Komla, Ameflu and Sammy Dagadu Wosoryie. Most of
them were released by December 1983 but Emmanuel Akpese continued to be kept
for a long time and nobody knows when he was released until his sad death.
When one of his colleagues, Taata Kwadzo Ofosu,
visited him in Kpalime, the informants went and told lies in Ghana that Taata
and Explo were loading arms into a vehicle to invade Ghana. By the time, Taata
got back to Lolobi, there were soldiers waiting for him. Taata was arrested,
tortured and subjected to blindfolding mock execution as a result of this lie.
Explo’s mother was evicted by her landlord because he felt that the young
Ghanaian men who visited Explo in the house could be thieves who will come one
day to rob him so others, including his mother, suffered because of him.
Later in 1983, Delali Francis Yao Klu, who was
the Ho District Coordinator of the People’s Defence Committees but resigned
when Explo, was arrested visited Explo in Kpalime. He gave Explo his (Delali’s)
brother’s, Kofi Klu’s, address in Moscow and through him (Kofi Klu),
Explo got in touch with his colleagues of the United Front, Kofi-Ansa Kpatakpa
and Napoleon Abdulai, who directed him to others in exile in Lome( Nyeya Yen,
Ahmed Gariba, Kodjo-Ababio Nubuor, Richard Abonie, Jordan Djikunu). He
sought political asylum with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in
Lome in October 1983.
He left to Czechoslovakia in 1984 through a
scholarship of the International Union of Students to pursue a Masters course
in Economics. In 1989, he was admitted on to a PhD programme but he left to
London, UK.
Exile life was not smooth even in political
terms as lies and slander became a hall mark of some of the exiles. In 1990, in
a paper with an ISBN number it was alleged that Explo Nani-Kofi has been
collaborating with agents of J.J. Rawlings and the Provisional National Defence
Council (PNDC) whilst in exile. This group of liars, with all the shame, cannot
even come out to withdraw this statement whilst some activists also very
unprincipled say the way forward is to sweep this under the carpet so that
unknowing students of Politics could one day quote these lies as reference.
Editorial
PROBE THIS
The
Communication Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (EGC) has denied
that the companies’ workers are receiving unreasonably high levels of salaries
and allowances as published by “The Insight” Last Friday.
According to him the story could not be true because “The
Insight” failed to publish the pay slip of workers to back its claims.
We stand by our story and disclose that the documents we
relied on were provided by them in their negotiations for a 35 per cent
increase in salaries.
In due course, we
will publish those relevant documents.
However, given the
attempt to rationalize salaries and allowances in the public sector, we call
on
the Government to initiate an enquiry into pay for the Utility sector.
There is the need to establish an empirical basis for
official reaction.
Obama: The Most Effective of Two Evils
 |
| Hussein Obama and his god father, George Bush |
Arnold August is a political scientist, author
and lecturer living in Montreal. He is the author of Democracy in Cuba and
the 1997–98 Elections (Editorial José Martí). He has also contributed a chapter
entitled “Socialism and Elections” for the volume Cuban Socialism in a New
Century: Adversity, Survival and Renewal (University Press of Florida).
His latest book is Cuba
and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion. In this interview with
Julie
Lévesque, he talks about Barack Obama, Martin Luther-King and many more.
Arnold August: In this book I chronicle in a very detailed manner what I call “the Obama case study” because one of my main fears and preoccupations is not so much from the so called “right”, but rather the illusions that exist among liberals and among some people on the left with regards to Obama. So I dissected everything that Obama wrote in his first two books, his book of 2004 as he was running for senate and his book of 2008, just before he was nominated. Now looking into that, it very clearly indicates that Obama, with the support of others who were responsible for building the image of change, gave the right signals to the oligarchy that he is not in favour of changing the status quo. At the same time, he provided some indications that people might look to him as a source of change.
Now, if one looks at his books very carefully, on key issues, for example on Vietnam, he stood firmly in favour of U.S. aggression of Vietnam. He ridiculed people on the left, liberals who took a stand against the Vietnam war.
JL: Like Doctor Martin Luther King.
AA: Exactly. He took a stand against Vietnam. He didn’t ridicule Martin Luther King but he ridiculed people on the left who took a stand. On the issue of Chile for example, he complained in his book about people on the left, or liberals, being so concerned about the need to support the struggle of the people in Chile against Pinochet, when at the time, Obama asserted, they ignored that there was a dictatorship in the Soviet Union and other countries in the Eastern Bloc. And so he indicated clearly to the ruling circles that, as far as the basic fundamentals of U.S. foreign policy and domestic policy were concerned, that he is their man. At the same time, he gave the impression that he was in favour of change. Now he had a very specific assistant in this whole attempt to present him as the person of change, David Axelrod, who has very close ties to the ruling circles. He specializes in getting Afro-Americans elected in positions of power. He did that with the mayor of Washington D.C. and then his next customer was Obama.
JL: You explain in your book that Barack Obama was used to reduce the credibility gap among the African Americans. Could you tell us how that was done?
AA: That is really important. For example, Brzezinski who was Bill Clinton’s advisor, very cleverly pointed out – he was right – that there was a major credibility gap for the American ruling circles with regards to Latin America, with countries such as Venezuela and the new movement there; and with regards to the Middle East, before the eruption took place in Egypt; and with other parts of the world. And they had to put a new face on the American foreign policy in order to recuperate that credibility and that’s why he said “I am proposing Obama; he could do it.”
The same thing goes for domestic policy. I think that one of the main things was that the United States has always been, and rightly so, very fearful of an African American revolt against the ruling circles. Now, when Obama made his famous speech, I believe it was for senator, he said that there is no Afro-America, no Latino-America, that there is just one United States of America. In other words, let’s forget about racism especially if I get elected to the White House. And so the the most effective of two evils, is an important point.
JL: Because when one criticises Obama, a lot of people say “well, he’s better than Bush”. But that is not an argument and it’s a way to avoid any criticism.
AA: That’s right. Well, this is exactly what the problem is. Especially among people who call themselves liberals or, unfortunately, many people on the left say “well, he’s better than Bush, he is the lesser of two evils.” Now, I am from Montreal, and I am not an American, so in order to deal with criticism of Obama and that usual way of looking at things, I have investigated carefully other writers from the United States, for instance Black Agenda Report in the United States, based in California. They represent what is the best among African Americans, that revolutionary progressive tradition that goes back from the time of the struggle against slavery, to the 1960’s and 1970’s.
JL: And they are very critical of Barack Obama.
AA: Yes, because there is a major pressure from the ruling circles to declare: “We people, on the left, or liberals or progressive, we cannot criticise Obama because he is being criticized by the right.” So, I ally myself if you like, with Black Agenda Report and other American scholars, intellectuals concerned with civil liberties, African American lawyers such as Michelle Alexander who wrote an excellent book on the situation of African Americans today. And I agree with Black Agenda Report that Obama, far from being the lesser of two evils, is the most effective of the two evils. One of the main themes in that chapter of my book is that Obama does not really represent a continuation of Bush policies. Quite the contrary; he represents an offensive, a new offensive on behalf of the U.S. ruling circles, domestically as well as internationally.
JL: All that while giving an illusion of positive change?
AA: Yes and it still works, because the second time around, a lot of people were still claiming “well, he is better than Romney.” But he represents an offensive, if you just take for example, the upsurge among the Wall Street Movement not long after Egypt, Madison, Wisconsin and Spain, three countries in a row, which followed up on the Egyptian revolution. Now there were a lot of positive things about the Occupy Wall Street movement, and it’s not a homogeneous movement, it was not then, it is not now; some are openly against the two-party system, some are not, some make themselves unwittingly easy prey for the Obama administration. But the movement is mainly based on white middle class or lower middle class people of the United States. So you could imagine if the African American population at that time had been liberated from this illusion that Obama being in the White House means salvation to African Americans and instead join the Occupy Wall Street movement, it would have been a major problem for the U.S. ruling circles. So this is what Brzezinski had in mind, credibility gap internationally as well as domestically.
The health care reform is another example. It was just another way of increasing the profit of the insurance companies – there was nothing more than that, another offensive on the part of the ruling circles. And while providing the image that he is in favor of change, he is the one who plays the African American card every single day. Every time something happens, let’s say they are honoring Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks, he says “if it was not for Martin Luther King” or “Rosa Parks, I would not be here.” He never misses an occasion to raise the fact that he is an African American. At the same time, when African Americans are being killed on the streets, he has nothing to say. So in fact, and I quote some people, American scholars and people involved in legal rights and civil rights, he in fact assists in the killing of African Americans by, on the one hand, giving the impression that they are safe, because there is an African American in the White House, and at the same time not saying anything when they are killed.
If you take the example of the famous issue of the so called gun control, I wrote in my book published before the Newtown shooting that the killings are going to carry on because no one in the ruling circles raises the issue that the second amendment is a major problem. Now they have this false debate going, for or against gun control, but the competition between the Obama forces on the one hand and the so called “right forces” on the other side, merely revolves around which of these two forces are more faithful to the second amendment. None of them even think or hint at the necessity to challenge the second amendment because, in my view, the real question which should be asked in relation to gun control is “how come, in the United States, we are allowed to have an arms manufactory industry with no control, that companies can just manufacture arms of all kinds, the most devastating arms and sell them on the market?” But neither the Obama nor the other forces challenge this.
Obama keeps on saying “our Constitution is the oldest democratic Constitution in the world.” It’s true that it’s a very old constitution, but that’s a negative thing. Is it not time for the constitution to be updated? That people should have a say about what the constitution should be in the United States of America? The basic clauses such as the right to be armed should be rethought in order to eliminate this whole plague on American society?
JL: You also talk about the fact that the military industrial complex as well is never challenged by any of the two parties.
AA: Now, for example there is – if you watch CNN or any other U.S. broadcast – they keep on repeating continuously that in the United States you have democrats/republicans – left/right – liberals/conservatives. They keep giving the impression there’s two opposing forces in the United States of America. But it isn’t the case. It is basically the same force which changes its appearance from time to time. When one force gets discredited, they put the other in its place.
JL: You mean the same economic interests are behind the two parties?
AA: That’s right. Now there has been a lot of debate over the last while regarding budget, amounts of money necessary, but there are several American academics, which I mention in my book, who say that you can say anything about the U.S. budget or U.S. spending, but you cannot touch upon the issue of military spending. I think that one of the weaknesses of the Occupy Wall Street movement is that they talk about the banks in general without putting in perspective or without highlighting the proportion of military spending due to the fact that the United States is an imperial power. As a result of this imperialism, therefore, the U.S is necessarily spending money on armaments, and there is the fusion of the military, the industries and the banks resulting in military spending. The whole economy in the United States is built on military spending but no one challenges that, including Obama. They can make some adjustments, a few dollars less here, a few dollars more here, but addressing the reasons why a very important portion of American spending goes on the military is not allowed to enter into the discussion.
JL: And if both parties agree on that issue, does that not mean that when it comes to foreign policy, they agree that America needs to maintain and increase its military power everywhere on the globe?
AA: That’s exactly it. In fact Obama, right from the beginning, said that the United States taking it from the puritans at the end of the 18th century is a light for the world; it is the most powerful country in the world, it is the best nation in the world, even after the American soldiers would commit atrocities against people in Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere, he would say “We have the best army in the world – the best nation in the world.” And sometimes he’s been accused of being against “American exceptionalism”, the idea that America is an exceptional country. But that is not true that he is against this concept. He even said he agrees with American exceptionalism, that this was born at the end of the 18th century with the puritans. He said “We are an exceptional nation and we have a special role to play in the world to bring democracy, civilization and culture to the people in the world.”
So there is no difference between him and people such as Palin, Romney or McCain. The only difference is that the Obama approach as manufactured by Axelrod and others is much more effective in pulling the wool over the eyes of many people; and my basic conclusion is that democracy in the U.S. now works very well, it is not in crisis. They are able to recuperate themselves after Bush, to put an entirely new face on a policy that is increasing the attacks on a world scale on behalf of Obama. Just look at what he’s done over the last five years from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other attacks in several countries; Soon after he was elected for his first mandate, a coup d’état took place in Honduras. Bush, McCain, Palin would not have been able to get away with it, but Obama got away with doing this coup d’état because there was still – even still now amongst some Latin American, progressive circles – a certain degree of illusion regarding Obama, that he was different from the Republicans or the right.
But he really worked in favour of this Honduras coup d’état using with the better Ivy League language, and body talk, to give the impression that he’s not really behind it. But what did he say during the Honduras coup? Once Zelaya, the president was kidnapped, taken out of Honduras and then people were on the streets for over 100 days, risking their lives to demonstrate against the coup d’état and the American-backed military there, Obama kept on saying (and also Clinton and the others) that both sides have to use restraint. That’s very interesting. You have the military in power there, Zelaya outside of the country, people with their bare hands trying to resist, and he puts both sides on the same level – both sides have to use restraint.
JL: He tried to look neutral?
AA: Right. But in fact Obama never agreed that Zelaya should return to Honduras as a president. He said “I am against the coup, it’s no good, I am against the military, it’s no good,” but he would always oppose the return of Zelaya , who was elected, to Honduras. So that’s how they operate, that’s how the United States got away with it.
Russia and Arms Sales to Africa
 |
| Comrade Vladimir Putin |
By Kester Kenn Klomegah
As part of the foreign policy, Russian
authorities have been strengthening military-technical cooperation, which
includes officer training, the sale of arms and military equipment often coming
up short on publicly available details, with a number of African countries.
Besides Africa, Russia has also intensified cooperation, gaining a stronghold,
in the usual business sphere with Asian and Latin American countries.
Dr Scott Firsing, who is a visiting Bradlow fellow at the South African Institute for International Affairs (SAIIA) and a Senior Lecturer in International Studies at Monash University in Johannesburg, told Buziness Africa that many African countries were purchasing equipment from Russia. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported in December 2011 that Russia accounted for 11% of the volume of major arms supplied to sub-Saharan Africa.
For Russia, the arms sales business is a lucrative one. African buyers prefer weapons from Russia due to their reliability and costs. Russia is the world's second largest arms exporter after the United States, but like the US, this doesn't mean Russia is ignoring development. Dr Firsing further argued that Moscow wrote off debt of over $20 billion to several African countries in October of last year. Russia allocated $43 million to the World Bank program during the last four years, mostly for education.
Dr Scott Firsing, who is a visiting Bradlow fellow at the South African Institute for International Affairs (SAIIA) and a Senior Lecturer in International Studies at Monash University in Johannesburg, told Buziness Africa that many African countries were purchasing equipment from Russia. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported in December 2011 that Russia accounted for 11% of the volume of major arms supplied to sub-Saharan Africa.
For Russia, the arms sales business is a lucrative one. African buyers prefer weapons from Russia due to their reliability and costs. Russia is the world's second largest arms exporter after the United States, but like the US, this doesn't mean Russia is ignoring development. Dr Firsing further argued that Moscow wrote off debt of over $20 billion to several African countries in October of last year. Russia allocated $43 million to the World Bank program during the last four years, mostly for education.
"In the past, during the Soviet era, The Soviet Union pursued this military policy against the western domination in Africa. Russia has revived their contacts with their African comrades that used to be the traditional buyers of Soviet weaponry. It is a similar policy, in the sense, that they are using military diplomacy once again in order to gain stature and influence in certain countries," Dr Firsing told Buziness Africa.
"They think strategically. And they are taking the right approach by using their expertise in everything from arms to nuclear power to satellite technology in order to ensure mutually advantageous cooperation with strategic African partners. They are late into the game, but have a historical advantage over others, helping many African countries win independence. And there are signs it is working. Alrosa has prospecting mining operations in Botswana and Zimbabwe. Lukoil is now drilling three wells in the Ivory Coast, one in Ghana and one in Sierra Leone. Better late than never as they say," he concluded.
Dr Shaabani Nzori, a Moscow based oil and gas specialist and foreign policy expert, thinks that Russia's military-technical cooperation with African countries is appropriate in Russia's foreign policy but African leaders should also allocate enough money to spend on priority development projects in Africa.
"The right question is that it shows clearly Russia's weak business engagement with Africa on the other hand. There are so many investment areas, what is important these days is that Russia has to go beyond just selling arms to Africa! Still, Russia has the chance to transfer its technology to agriculture and industries in Africa," Dr Shaabani told Buziness Africa in an interview.
Charles Robertson, a Senior Economist from Renaissance Capital, an investment bank with operations in Russia, the CIS, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa, says "a key reason is that military equipment is one of Russia's competitive advantages. It is unfortunately (for Russia) less valuable than it used to be and military equipment are some if the few industrial products where Russian brands are well known."
State arms exporter Rosoboronexport accounts for around 80 percent of all Russian arms sales in a given year and nearly 20 independent firms comprise the rest with sales of spare parts and upgrades. Top weapons clients also include Soviet-era cliental and regional Asian heavyweight India, as well as Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations wary of China's growing military might.
President Vladimir Putin said a major part of Russia's weapons business includes upgrades and refurbishment of Soviet-era technology and hardware. "We understand that competition in this sector of the international economy is very high and very serious," he said.
However, Russia's overseas arms sales exceeded $14 billion in 2012, outperforming forecasts by more than $500 million, according to the official website transcript text of Vladimir Putin at the Federal Security Council meeting on the defense industry held in December 2012.
Russia sealed global export contracts worth $15 billion in 2012 and wants to expand its scope and strengthen its position on the market for the maintenance and modernization of military equipment. Rosoboronexport's cooperation with traditional importers of Russian weapons from Africa include Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Libya, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Sudan, South Africa and Uganda.
Another potential buyer in this market niche is Zimbabwe. At the moment the country doesn't have the hard cash to pay for Russian fighter jets, and Russian suppliers may face stiff competition for Zimbabwean contracts from the Chinese. But, Zimbabwe is very rich in mineral resources, so it should be possible to find some flexible way of financing the deal. Russian media outlet Kommersant also reported that Russia may supply military helicopters to Zimbabwe in a swap deal to buy the world's second largest platinum deposits.
In 2007, the MiG corporation was accused of providing low-quality equipment for MiG-29 fighters that were rejected by Algeria. Russian investigators insisted that officials deliberately signed contracts with firms that sold old and faulty aviation equipment to the MiG company using forged certificates and tags while charging as if it were new equipment. Some of the faulty parts were installed on MiG-29 fighter jets sold to Algeria through Russia's state arms exporter Rosoboronexport.
Rosoboronexport signed a $1.3 bln contract to deliver 28 one-seater MiG-29SMT fighters and six two-seater MiG-29UB combat trainers to Algeria in March 2006 as part of an $8 billion military cooperation agreement. However, after receiving 15 MiG fighters, Algeria refused further deliveries in May 2007. It then froze all payments under contracts with Russia in October 2007, requiring that Moscow first take the 15 MiG-29s back due to their "inferior quality."
Uganda signed its first contract to buy six Sukhoi Su-30MK2 fighters from Russia in early 2012 for an undisclosed sum and is currently in talks with the Russian state arms export company Rosoboronexport over an option to purchase six more Su-30jets. Rosoboronexport Deputy Director, Alexander Mikheyev, on September 20, 2012 at an arms exhibition held in South Africa, assertively said and was quoted by Russian media: "Now, we are talking about an option, the Ugandans expressed interest in buying another six aircraft of this type."
Additionally, Russia continues targeting some other African countries. An official told the Interfax news agency in mid-February that Russia could revive military-technological cooperation if Mali situation stabilizes and assertively further added that the Libyan weapons market was not lost completely for Russia.
Last year, Vyacheslav Dzirkaln, Deputy Director from the Russia's Federal Military-Technical Cooperation Service, noted in remarks published in the local media that Moscow would determine the possible areas of Russian-Libyan military-technical cooperation and that would include the maintenance and restoration of the contracts that have been signed, but have never been implemented before the overthrow of Gaddafi's regime.
Alexander Fomin, Head of Russia's Federal Military-Technical Cooperation Service who headed Russia's delegation to the Aero India show in the city of Bangalore, said that Russia had lost a number of clients for its weapons due to recent events in the Middle East and North Africa.
Senator Mikhail Margelov, who is Russian President's Special Envoy to Africa and also Chairman of the Federation Council's Foreign Affairs Committee, has on several occasions reiterated Russia's position on the intensification of military technical cooperation with Africa.
Academic experts have also shown concern. "With African countries, the primary aim now for Russian business is to regain a competitive edge in the global arms trade, and what’s interesting today is that the approach is not ideological but very pragmatic, you pay we ship, it's simply business and nothing more," Professor Dmitri Bondarenko, a Deputy Director from African Studies Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, told Buziness Africa.
Similarly, Tom Wheeler, a Research Associate at the South African Institute of International Affairs, explained to Buziness Africa in an interview that Russia has two categories of export products: minerals, especially oil and gas, and military hardware. Africa does not need the former. It has plenty of its own. So what is left? There is still plenty of internal violence, for instance, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Nigeria and, of course, Republic of Mali.
According to Wheeler, if the price is right, African governments will go for Russian products and back-up support. These days it is not a simple, East-West competition for influence in Africa. There are many more players: China, Turkey, India, South Korea, Brazil, in addition to the EU countries and, of course, the United States.
He added: "the current Russian arms transfers to Africa should not be interpreted the same way as they occurred under the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union provided huge quantities of arms to client states such as Ethiopia and Angola during the Cold War. It also provided a significant amount of military training to select African countries. The focus was to counter western interests in Africa. Military transfers and training by Russia are commercial deals as a way to make money. Ideology is not a significant factor. Russia's major competitors in this business are China, Iran, North Korea and several former Soviet republics."
Significantly, Russia's overseas arms sales exceeded $14 billion in 2012 has made it enough to maintain its position as the world's second largest arms exporter after the United States. Russia plans "to enhance multifaceted interaction with African states on a bilateral and multilateral with a focus on promoting mutually beneficial trade and economic cooperation" - the full text of the new foreign policy concept was approved by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin on February 12, 2013.
Hoax
 |
| Here are the terrorists spliting Syria apart |
By Jim W. Dean
It came as no surprise that when requested to provide a
cover for more American military support for the Syrian rebels that the
Intelligence community complied with the order.
Such is the world we still live in, where the legacy of orchestrated provocations from the Cold War is still wrapped around our collective necks and a threat to us all.
The international Intel community knew that the Syrian WMD card would be played when conveniently needed. Virtually all the 'red line' propaganda is just that, nothing more than preconditioning the public for events you want to take place down that road. What is scary about this current state of affairs is how casually it was rolled out.
Because it does not matter what the public thinks about anything like this anymore in our so-called democracy, no effort is really made to sell them on policy. When you are lying, the more specific you are about the lie the more open you are to having the lie attacked and exposed.
The PR spinmeisters all advise in that case just putting your conclusion out there with no backup for it whatsoever by claiming that the details are all classified. How convenient. Part of the rationale is that it establishes a formula which can be used over and over as a kind of institutionalized deception. What kind of government would want to be able to do that to its own people...a democracy? I don't think so.
We are living under 'government by psy ops' now, where
selling policy to the public to validate its support is replaced with an
twisted adult version of the children's birthday party magic show where you
entertain and distract them with tricks and gags while getting paid for it at
the same time.
There is some justification for that hype. The American public polls are not with the policy. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed only 15% of Americans approving US military action in Syria, and less, 11%, approve arming the rebels. That may be the lowest approval for a foreign policy/war issue on record.
So what we have here is our government does not care if the people are with them on what is in reality engaging in an offensive war against Syria. It turns the theme of government, “of the people, by the people and for the people,” on its ear. It is a lie...a black lie. But it appears that while the public may not approve it remains on its knees in terms dealing with a huge threat to the Republic. We have effectively surrendered to domestic politico-business gangsters.
Our Intel feedback on the sarin hoax has been 90% consistent. What happened is exactly what everyone expected. The West had hoped that the Syrian military defections would gain momentum where the generals would try to save their own positions by going along with dumping Assad but remaining as part of a new coalition government. That did not happen.
If you review the chronology you will see that when the defections stalled we began hearing about chemical weapons red lines, out of the blue, in an orchestrated press campaign.
Everyone knew that was setting up a situation where any
number of malevolent Western players would stage a sarin attack in Syria, the
US, Britain, France, Israeli, or one of the Persian Gulf states, to kill people
in one of the battleground cities and claim that Assad did it. An assumed close
was done on the public that if rebels and civilians died, that only Assad would
have had the motivation to do it.
We have 100% agreement even within our the US Intel community sources that Assad would never use such weapons as they would be of no real strategic or even tactical value in his battle to survive. On the contrary, he would be handing his head over on a silver platter. Neither Assad nor his military people would be so stupid. The White House gave up the ghost really in their statement with this much hedged comment.
The Intelligence community concluded with "high confidence" that the Assad regime had used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, “on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year,” said Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes.
And then a slightly different version that Assad... “has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale” against the foreign-backed Takfiri militants “multiple times in the last year.”
Are we to believe that anyone in world would care (other than their supporters) about gas being used on the Al-Nusra gangs after the horrors they have committed? Or does the administration claim that this was an attack on an 'ally', their terrorist buddies brought in as a second flank using the Persian Gulf state proxies in what was supposed to be a pincher movement to collapse Assad?
Who is more guilty of having engaged in war crimes and crimes against humanity? Who can beat out the West at this point for that gold medal? I don't want that on my personal tab so I am denouncing it as I always have. It was not only immoral, but worse...it was stupid.
The next Intel analysis area you look to is what is not
being said, where you often learn much more. With Russian support being a
critical lifeline to the Syrian government you can bet your behind that some
ground rules were laid about guarantees that nothing stupid would be done
during the struggle like using chemical weapons. I suspect Iran might have
sought similar assurances because that would complicate even the political
support being offered.
The claim the Assad government has used sarin gas is totally, 100%, nothing more than a complete hoax being trotted out in a card game where few cards are left to play. This has been picked up on by some of the international press.
BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus brings in some badly needed fresh air with his reporting that Obama is throwing in with Britain and France that Assad cannot be allowed to prevent his country from being invaded by what is widely known to be a bunch of misfit Syrian expats looking to set themselves up in a new Syrian government, and then a whole mix or criminal and terrorist gangs in it for their own financial, political and religious conquest motives.
Missing from any Western government statements is even the slightest acknowledgement that the war is no longer against the Assad regime, but against the Syrian people who correctly see themselves defending their country against a variety of outside invaders.
Western 'democracies' have hooked up with Persian Gulf
state-funded terrorists to destroy Syria whose only international conflict has
been in supporting the Palestinian freedom movement from persecution by the
Israelis.
When it comes to blood on its hands for cruel oppression, the US's corrupt and heartless backing of all Israeli crimes against the Palestinians makes Assad look like a choir boy. This cannot be washed off as it it is written in blood and carved into too many headstones now.
We have usually been on the wrong side...never with the people, always with their oppressors as long as they played ball with American geopolitical interests. During the Cold War was a different situation, with at least a fig leaf of defense justification. But now, it is just wanton aggression, and clear for all to see.
The problem now lies in the American war elites not caring what anyone thinks, proof that we have our own tyrant problems to deal with where American military power has become a permanent tool for American business interests.
Cuba on Syria
 |
| Fmr. Cuban President Fidel Castro |
Addressing
the Human Rights Council in Geneva today, Cuba reiterated its support for a
peaceful, negotiated solution to the crisis in Syria, and rejected calls for
the use of force and violence.
The Cuban representative condemned the tendency to disregard the Syrian government’s proposals and measures and to ignore efforts being made by certain countries to avert the continuation of violence in the country.
"Particularly alarming are calls for a regime change in Syria and the use of force and violence, instead of contributing to dialogue and negotiations among all the parties involved," she observed.
Cuba condemns the death of innocent people wherever this occurs and rejects its selective attribution and manipulation, placing the blame on one side, in accordance with certain countries’ interests, Rodríguez affirmed.
The diplomat referred to recent experiences and precedents demonstrating manipulation of the UN Charter and the double standards of the United States and other NATO member countries.
"The role of the international community is to help to safeguard peace and stability in Syria, not to incite actions leading to deaths, innocent people being attacked and citizens’ insecurity," she noted.
Syria:
Israel Is Losing the Battle
By Gilad Atzmon
In the last week we have been
following British and French’s desperate attempts to push for a military
intervention in Syria. It is far from being a secret that both British and
French government are dominated by the pro-Israeli Lobby. In Britain it is the
ultra Zionist CFI (Conservative Friends of Israel) – apparently 80% of
Britain’s conservative MPs are members of the pro Israeli Lobby. In France the
situation is even more devastating, the entire political system is hijacked by
the forceful CRIF.
But in case anyone fails to grasp
why the pro-Israeli Lobby is pushing for an immediate intervention, Debka, an
Israeli news outlet provides the answer. Seemingly, the Syrian army is winning
on all fronts. Israel’s military and geo-political calculations are proved to
be wrong.
According to Debka, “the battle for
Damascus is over”. The Syrian army had virtually “regained control of the city
in an epic victory”. The rebels, largely mercenaries, have lost the
battle they “can’t do much more than fire sporadically. They can no longer
launch raids, or pose threats to the city centre, the airport or the big Syrian
air base nearby.
The Russian and Iranian transports constantly bringing
replenishments for keeping the Syrian army fighting can again land at Damascus
airport after months of rebel siege.”
But it isn’t just the capital. Debka
reports that “Hezbollah and Syrian units have tightened their siege on the
rebels holding out in the northern sector of al Qusayr; other (Syrian army)
units have completed their takeover of the countryside around the town of Hama;
and a third combined Syrian-Hizballah force has taken up positions around
Aleppo.”
Debka maintains that senior IDF
officers criticized the Israeli defense minister (Moshe Ya’alon)
who “mislead” the Knesset a few days ago estimating that “Bashar Assad
controlled only 40% of Syrian territory.” Debka suggests that Israeli
defense Minister drawn on a “flawed intelligence assessment and were concerned
that the armed forces were acting on the basis of inaccurate intelligence.”
Debka stresses, “erroneous assessments… must lead to faulty decision-making.”
Debka is clearly brave enough to
admit that Israeli military miscalculations may have lead to disastrous
consequences. It reports, “the massive Israeli bombardment of Iranian weapons
stored near Damascus for Hezbollah, turned out a month later to have done more
harm than good. It gave Bashar Assad a boost instead of weakening his resolve.”
Debka is obviously correct. It
doesn’t take a genius to predict that an Israeli attack on an Arab land cannot
be accepted by the Arab masses, not even by Assad’s bitterest Arab opponents.
Debka maintains that the
“intelligence focus on military movements in Syria especially around Damascus
to ascertain that advanced missiles and chemical weapons don’t reach Hezbollah
laid to a failure of in detecting major movement by Hezbollah militia units
towards the Syrian-Israeli border.”
Israel is now facing a new
reality. It is facing Hezbollah reinforcements streaming in from
Lebanon towards the Golan heights and its border with Syria.
Israel, Debka concludes, will
soon find itself “face to face for the first time with Hezbollah units
equipped with heavy arms and missiles on the move along the Syrian-Israeli
border and manning positions opposite Israel’s Golan outposts and villages.”
Debka is correct to suggest that
instead of “growing weaker, Iran’s Lebanese proxy is poised to open another
warfront and force the IDF to adapt to a new military challenge from the Syrian
Golan.”
Rather than The Gurdian or the Le
Monde, it is actually the Israeli Debka that helps us to grasp
why Britain and France are so desperate to intervene. Once again, it is a
Zionist war which they are so eager to fight.
Sadly enough, it isn’t The Guardian
or The New York Times that is there to reveal the latest development in Syria
and expose Israeli lethal miscalculations.
Seemingly, the media in Israel is far more tolerant toward criticism than the Zionist dominated Media in the West.
Material
World: Capitalism - Blind and Deaf to the Natural World
One of the advantages of the market ‘mechanism’
– so we are told – is its ability to adjust economic activity to changes in the
situation in which it takes place. In particular, investment capital is
supposed to flow away from geographical areas where the risks of economic
activity are rising into areas where the risks are lower.
Things do often work this way for risks
associated with social conditions. Turbulent labour relations, armed conflict,
political upheaval and extortion by corrupt government officials are among the
risks routinely factored into the expert assessments of ‘business climate’ that
guide investment decisions.
However, it is by no means routine for such
assessments to take account of risks coming from the natural environment –
earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and other natural disasters, and changes
caused by global heating.
Earthquakes – no lasting impact?
For example, there is no sign of large-scale
capital flight from southern California or the Greater Tokyo Region, both of
which are virtually certain to be hit by powerful earthquakes in the not too
distant future.
In one chapter of The Coming Tokyo Earthquake
(Tuttle Publishing, 1995), Peter Hadfield analyzes how different Japanese
companies will be affected. Some will bear much greater losses than others;
building firms based outside the danger zone will make a good profit from
post-quake reconstruction.
Now, the fund where I had my retirement savings
at the time when I read this book invested in Japanese companies, so I wrote to
the director of the fund to draw his attention to Hadfield’s analysis and ask
whether their portfolio managers took these differential effects into account.
I received a courteous reply, assuring me that what I was suggesting was quite
unnecessary because earthquakes, though tragic from a humanitarian viewpoint,
have no lasting economic impact of any significance.
Water: ‘a good thing in real
estate’
Nor is the rising sea level deterring investment
in low-lying coastal areas. In Washington, DC the SunCal company is promoting
‘a new upscale housing development and retail center’ along the River Potomac,
right at sea level. Eddie Byrne, SunCal’s vice president of project management,
is quoted as saying that the name of the development – Potomac Shores – ‘invokes
water, a good thing in real estate’ (The Washington Post, 28 March 2013). And
this after Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy and all the other storms that have been
battering the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the US!
Recently I was looking at some internet ads for
seaside properties in Florida, built right on the beach and selling for upward
of a million dollars. The realtor who placed the ads offered to answer
questions about the state of the market, so I took up the offer. No, he told
me, house prices are not falling in anticipation of the rising sea level. On
the contrary, they are rising. Clearly buyers are not worried about the sea
level. I asked how difficult it was to get these beach houses insured. Also no
problem, he assured me.
Carbon bubble?
In August 2012 the Carbon Tracker Initiative
(CTI), a project of Investor Watch, issued a report by Jeremy Leggett and Mark
Campanale entitled Unburnable Carbon: Are the World’s Financial Markets
Carrying a Carbon Bubble? (www.carbontracker.org).
The authors argue that the financial markets overvalue hydrocarbon companies –
in February 2011 the combined value of the top 100 coal companies and top 100
oil and gas companies was $7.42 trillion. This is vastly inflated because it
ignores the risk that environmentally responsible governments will force
companies to curtail operations and leave much of the remaining coal, oil and
gas in the ground. When this happens the ‘carbon bubble’ will burst, triggering
a financial crisis.
In a response to the report, The Economist (4
May, 2013) notes that in 2012 the top 200 companies spent $674 billion
developing new reserves and suggests that they are betting on governments not
taking effective action to restrict hydrocarbon extraction. That, after all,
has been the situation up to now. In that case the ‘markets’ (i.e., investors)
are not mistaken in their expectations and there is no carbon
bubble.
What is the CTI really about? The key person
behind it, Jeremy Leggett, has long been committed to environmental causes – in
the 1990s he was a prominent figure in Greenpeace International – and also to
relying on market mechanisms to solve environmental problems. His real concern
is not helping investors maximise their returns or even maintaining financial
stability but saving the planet.
How does he hope to achieve this worthy goal? By
manipulating the market – i.e., persuading investors, most of whom know little
about the environment and care less, that disinvestment from hydrocarbons is
not just good for the planet but in their financial interest. It will be
marvellous if the subterfuge works! But that’s a rather big ‘if’.
Psychological block
Isn’t it in the interests of the capitalists
themselves to preserve the ecosystem? Don’t they depend on it like everyone
else?
Of course. The trouble is that they are
incapable of rationally assessing their interests. Their money-making obsession
creates a psychological block against any idea that they sense may threaten
their pursuit of profit. They repel the voice of nature from the very threshold
of consciousness, so the question of factoring it into the equation can never
even arise.
At some level the capitalists rightly fear that
the natural world demands an end to the system they embody. They blind and
deafen themselves to nature so that they cannot see they are harming it or hear
it screaming in its death agony.
No comments:
Post a Comment