By Mathew Ogunsina
This economic slavery is important for the development
of the French economy. Whenever this traffic is likely to fail, France is ready
for anything to reconquer it. If a leader of the CFA zone no longer meets the
requirements of France, Paris is blocking its foreign exchange reserves and
more, France closes the banks in this country considered “rebel”. This was the
case of Côte d’Ivoire with Laurent Gbagbo.
A German newspaper accuses France of looting 440 billion
euros each year from Africans through the CFA Franc.
“The French government collects from its former colonies
each year 440 billion euros of taxes. France relies on the revenues coming from
Africa, not to sink into economic insignificance, warns the former president
Jacques Chirac.
In the 1950s and 60s, France agreed to the French
colonies of Africa becoming independent. Although the Paris government accepted
formal declarations of independence, it called on African countries to sign a
so-called “pact for the continuation of colonization.” They agreed to introduce
the French colonial currency FCFA (“Franc for the French colonies in Africa”),
to maintain the French schools and military system, and to establish French as
an official language.
The CFA franc is the denomination of the common currency of 14 African countries members of the Franc zone. This currency, which constitutes a brake on the emergence of these countries, was created in 1945, when France ratified the Bretton Woods agreements and proceeded to implement its first declaration of parity to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This was called “Franc of the French Colonies of Africa”.
Under this law, 14 African countries are still obliged
to store about 85 per cent of their foreign exchange reserves at the Banque de
France in Paris. They are under the direct control of the French Treasury. The
countries concerned do not have access to this part of their reserves. As the
15 per cent of reserves are insufficient for their needs, they must borrow
additional funds from the French Treasury at market prices. Since 1961, Paris
controls all foreign exchange reserves in Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau,
Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Cameroon, Central African Republic,
Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.
In addition, these countries must each year transfer
their “colonial debt” for infrastructure built in France to Paris as Silicon
Africa 3 reported in detail. France takes around 440 billion euros a year. The
government in Paris also has a right of first refusal on all newly discovered
natural resources in African countries. Finally, French companies must have
priority in awarding contracts in former colonies. As a result, there is the most
assets in the fields of supply, finance, transport, energy and agriculture in
the hands of French companies.
The ruling elite in each African country must fulfill
these compulsory claims without any other choice. African leaders who refuse
are threatened with assassination or overthrow of their government. Over the
past 50 years, there have been 67 coups d’état in 26 African countries. 16 of
these 26 countries were former colonies of France.
An example is the first president of Togo West Africa,
Sylvanus Olympio, overthrown by a coup. He had refused to sign the “Pact for
the Continuation of Settlement”. But France insisted that Togo pay the
compensation for the infrastructures that had been built by the French during
the colonial period. The sum is equivalent to about 40 per cent of households
in Togo in 1963, requiring the fairly independent country to reach its economic
limits quickly.
In addition, the new president of Togo decided to remove
and print his own national currency, the French colonial currency FCFA. Three
days after this decision, the new government was overthrown by a group of
former foreign legionaries and the President killed. The head of the
Legionaries, Gnassingbe Eyadema, received 550 euros from the French embassy for
the attack, according to the British Telegraph. Four years later Eyadema was
promoted with the support of Paris, the new president of Togo. He established a
tyrannical dictatorship in this West African country and remained in power
until his death in 2005.
In the following years, the Paris government kept the
link with the former legionaries to overthrow unpopular governments in its
former colonies. This was the case of the first president of the Central
African Republic, David Dacko, overthrown by former members of the Foreign
Legion in 1966.
The same thing happened to the President of Burkina Faso, Maurice Yaméogo, and with the President of Benin, Mathieu Kérékou, the author of a coup d’état. This was also the case of the first President of the Republic of Mali Modiba Keita, who was also the victim of a coup by former legionnaires in 1968.
The reason, a few years earlier, he had simply decided to part with the French colonial currency.“
Source: Ethiomedia
Editorial
POOR AFRICANS
The disclosure that 14 African countries contribute as
much as 44 billion euros every year to the French economy may be shocking for
the uninitiated but the truth is that
many of the advanced capitalist states will simply collapse if Africa stops
feeding them.
The sad part is that over the years the impression has
been that Africa is dependent on the west for its survival when the reverse is
the truth.
From the Trans Sahara Slave Trade through classical
colonialism to today’s neo-colonial era, it is African labour and resources
which continue to feed the capitalist world.
In our view, the African people can only liberate
themselves from poverty in all its ramifications only if they insist on the
exploitation of their resources for their own benefit.
The success of Africa should not be based on the size of
the profits of the multi-national companies operating on the continent but on
the wellbeing of the African people.
Like Laurent Gbagbo, all African leaders who see through
the facade of aid from the west will be attacked but we need to stay firm and
continue the struggle against neo-colonialism in all its forms.
KWAME
NKRUMAH: A PAN AFRICAN VISIONARY EXTRAORDINAIRE
By Pusch Commey
If there ever was a man whose heart, body and soul was
totally African, that man was the first president of the republic of Ghana, Dr
Kwame Nkrumah. And if there was a man who thoroughly understood the African
condition and how Africa could win the future, it was the man then popularly
known in Ghana as Osagyefo (saviour). A visionary, real leader and philosopher
King, his untiring effort to unify and make Africa great again is unrivalled in
the post independence history of the continent.
For Nkrumah, African independence was not an end in
itself. The impact of an Africa deliberately divided and partitioned served no
other purpose than the satisfaction of the economic needs of the marauding
colonialists. He knew that most of the colonies could not make viable
countries. In most cases the borders had divided families into different
countries, where tribalism, colonial languages, education systems and religious
differences were promoted as a means to keep the people divided.
Nkrumah knew that without unity Africa will lag behind
the world for a long time to come. For him, the ideology of Pan-Africanism was
the only means for Africans to recover their humanity taken away by centuries
of slavery and colonialism. He also understood that 500 years of subjugation
was temporary – just a blip in the worlds history spanning thousands of years.
And that a historical understanding of the world many centuries before that,
pointed to Africa as the origin of civilization. And that Africa had had an
enormous civilizing impact on the rest of the world. His seminal and insightful
book Africa must Unite, first published by Panaf books in 1963 ( amongst
several others ) lays out a roadmap for African self-realisation.
As the first sub-Saharan African nation to win
independence in 1957, Nkrumah also knew that a huge responsibility fell on
Ghana to show the way towards the redemption of Africa. But as most African
countries were still fighting for independence, the first step was for Ghana to
commit her resources to lead a collective effort towards ridding Africa of
colonial rule. It is why on the attainment of independence by Ghana he
announced that “The Independence of Ghana is meaningless without the total
independence of the continent. Africa today, the United Sates of Africa
tomorrow”. Without a United Africa, the continent was bound to be a vassal
state of those intent on exploiting it for their own gain.
From 1958 Nkrumah embarked on a liberation crusade,
organizing several conferences of leaders of African States , leading to the
rapid decolonization and independence of several African States in the short
space of time until he was overthrown by a coup d’etat orchestrated by the CIA
on February 24 1966.
Nkrumah was a man of action who believed that only a
united effort by Africans, and not just the heads of states, would secure the
total liberation of the continent. On this note, he sent invitations to all
known nationalist organizations, women’s groups, trade union groups, and youth
groups, all over Africa, to come and discuss the final overthrow of
colonialism. And between 5th-13th December 1958, at the First All African
People’s Conference (AAPC) held in Accra, Ghana, Nkrumah dubbed the conference
“The Plan for the Liberation of Africa by Gandhian Nonviolence”.
The conference, whose slogan was “Hands off
Africa—Africa must be free” condemned imperialism and colonialism in whatever
guise they were perpetuated. It was also resolved that “a permanent secretariat
of the All-African People’s Conference be set up to organize the All-African
Conference on a firm basis”. The conference declared full support to all
freedom fighters in Africa, including, “those who resort to peaceful means of
non-violence and civil disobedience, as well as to all those who are compelled
to retaliate against violence to attain national independence and freedom for
the people”. It further condemned all laws that treated such freedom fighters
as common criminals.
The conference had condemned apartheid in its totality
and had called on the independent African countries to boycott South African
goods and impose other economic sanctions, as a protest against racial
discrimination. It was also declared that “no African state should have any
diplomatic relations with any country on our continent that practices race
discrimination”. What later became known as the international movement for
sanctions against apartheid South Africa originated at this historic conference
organized by Nkrumah.
Nkrumah was also keenly aware that the battle for
liberation would not end with political independence, and that the colonialist
would re-invent themselves in several forms to continue to exploit and enrich
themselves at the expense of Africans.
Nkrumah was thus deeply troubled when a crisis unfolded
in the newly independent Republic of Congo in 1960 , where the tiny country of
Belgium had colonized plundered and sought to reduce this independence into a
farce. Kwame Nkrumah exploded in rage, and mobilized Ghanaian troops to go into
Congo to support the democratically elected nationalist president Patrice
Lumumba. It ended tragically when Ghana placed its troops and faith in the
United Nations, who under their watch stood by and allowed Lumumba to be
captured by Belgian forces backed by the CIA , summarily executed, and his body
reportedly dissolved in acid. Belgium had then sent its troops to the Congo and
bankrolled a secession in the copper rich Katanga province. Its companies had
then extracted concessions from the puppet regime of Moise Tsombe in the
province to exploit mineral rich areas in the Congo half the size of Belgium.
The Congo is still yet to recover from the devastating impact of the
kleptocratic misrule of Mobutu Sese Sekou, the Army chief installed by the
colonialist to replace the nationalist Patrice Lumumba, and who opened up the
mineral wealth of the Congo for their further plunder. It is instructive also
to note that those same patterns of economic exploitation stubbornly persists
some 22 years after the last of the African states, South Africa, was
politically decolonized.
NEO-COLONIALISM (NEW COLONIALISM)
In a Speech to the Ghanaian National Assembly during the
Congo Crises Nkrumah ably summed up THE AFRICAN CHALLENGE. He notes:
“Political freedom is essential in order to win economic freedom, but political freedom is meaningless, unless it is of a nature which enables the country which obtained it to maintain its economic freedom. The African struggle for independence (political and economic ) and unity must begin with a political union. A loose confederation of economic cooperation is deceptively time delaying. It is only a political union that will ensure a uniformity in our foreign policy projecting the African personality and presenting Africa as a force to be reckoned with. I repeat, a loose economic co-operation means a screen behind which detractors, imperialist and colonialist protagonists and African puppet leaders hide to operate and weaken the concept of any effort to realise African unity and independence. A political union envisages common foreign and defence policy and rapid social, economic , and industrial development. The economic resources of Africa are immense and staggering. It is only by unity that these resources can be utilised for the progress of the continent and happiness of mankind.”
Nkrumah was prepared to surrender the sovereignty of
Ghana for African unity when he joined with Guinea and Mali in January 1961 to
form the Union of African States as a precursor to the United Sates of Africa.
But soon different blocs of African groupings in the form of the The
Casablanca, Monronvia, and Brazzaville groups emerged, some influenced by their
colonial masters. A protégé of Nkrumah was Lumumba, amongst many others
including Robert Mugabe. The Congo, among the richest countries in the world in
terms of resources, was to join the union after its independence, to spearhead
the economic revitalization of the continent, only to be subverted by the
colonialists, who also controlled the United Nations.
Internally, on the continent itself, many leading
African leaders including Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere had a different
view and sought to protect their own small power bases and regional influences,
even accusing Kwame Nkrumah of being over ambitious and desirous of becoming
the President of Africa ( the same charge against Muammar Gadaffi who carried
Nkrumah’s vision and championed the re-invention of the Organization of African
Unity into the African Union).
It was the very danger Kwame Nkrumah spoke about
tirelessly. Many decades later after his overthrow and death in 1972, and after
his warnings manifested itself years down the line, Nyerere made a famous
confession.
To mark the 40th anniversary of Ghana’s independence,
Julius Nyerere, while talking about Nkrumah in his speech said, “He ( Kwame
Nkrumah ) wanted the Accra summit of 1965 to establish Union Government for the
whole of independent Africa. But we failed. The one minor reason is that Kwame,
like all great believers, underestimated the degree of suspicion and animosity
which his crusading passion had created among a substantial number of his
fellow Heads of State. The major reason was linked to the first: already too
many of us had a vested interest in keeping Africa divided”.
Nyerere further confessed when he added , “We of the
first generation leaders of independent Africa have not pursued the objective
of African Unity with vigour, commitment and the sincerity that it deserves.
Yet that does not mean that unity is now irrelevant.”
Pusch Commey is an Advocate of the High Court
of South Africa, Associate Editor of the London based New African Magazine, and
author of several books, including the best selling 100 Great African Kings and
Queens.
Ghana Is Not Just A
Place, It Is a Feeling
 |
| Catherine Afeku, Minister of Tourism |
By Stacey Julie
In the spring of 2014, I decided to do a semester abroad
with my university through the University of California Education Abroad
Program (UCEAP). While many of my classmates were submitting applications to
study abroad in London, Madrid and Paris, I decided to pursue the road less
taken. In my heart, I knew I was destined for Africa. But as vast as it is, I
had no idea where exactly to start. At the time, EAP provided programs in
Botswana, Ghana and Egypt. By the time I decided I wanted to study abroad, I’d
already missed the deadline to apply for the Botswana program and the Egypt
program was limited to certain majors. So, Ghana it was! A few weeks later, I
received my acceptance letter to study at the University of Ghana, Legon and I
was overwhelmed with joy and excitement. But as the pre-departure process began
I would soon be filled with doubt from external sources. As I informed family
members and friends of my study/travel plans, those feelings of excitement
quickly turned into nausea.
The reactions all varied from “wow, you’re so brave!” to
“be careful, girl, I heard some shit is going down over there” to “aren’t you
scared you’ll catch something?” It was incredibly frustrating to me that people
didn’t seem to share my enthusiasm. And I knew, had I decided to go to London,
Madrid or Paris the reactions would not have been as discouraging. I began to wonder,
had I been hasty in making such an important decision?
For many, the continent of Africa is a mystery, making
it easy to create generalizations.
When people think of Africa, they picture the emaciated
poster child often times used by Save the Children campaigns, conjuring images
of war, famine and disease. And although this may be the case for a small
number of African countries, it is not the same for the vast majority. Africa
is extremely diverse – possessing 47 countries (55 if you include the islands
off the coast), over 1,500 official spoken languages and dialects and many
various religions. These are just some of the factors that influence culture,
philosophy, governance, economics, societal values and art in all of these
countries.
The city of Accra (Ghana’s capitol), itself, is bustling
with activity day and night. The earth is a beautiful redbrick color, the skies
are always blue and the people always in high spirits. Ghanaians are some of
the most peaceful people I have ever met and the level of hospitality is
heartwarming. At the same time, Ghanaians are also extremely hardworking. Many
service jobs require long overnight 12-hour shifts. And most clerical jobs
often involve waking up at 4:00am daily in order to avoid rush hour or take
public transportation. Ghanaians are not afraid to perform backbreaking labor.
Simultaneously, Ghana possesses some of the most innovative businesses in West
Africa.
I don’t blame anyone for having a misconstrued image of
Africa. It is difficult to understand a place you have never been to. My hope
is that I can change at least one person’s misconceptions about Africa –
easing fears and concerns about safety and encouraging travel to
lesser-acknowledged destinations. I have put together a list of recommendations
and travel advice – including a few things I wish I’d known prior to my
departure (for peace of mind). I hope that I can shine some light on the
otherwise mysterious cloud that shrouds the continent of Africa.
Pre-departure
§ Lets just get this
clarified and out of the way: You are not going to die from Malaria!
§ My university’s health
insurance only covered half of the daily anti-malaria medication that I was
prescribed. I was in a panic because the nurse at the health center told me any
anti-malaria medication sold in Ghana is counterfeit. I went through a grueling
process of rushing to the local Emergency Room and having my personal
insurance cover the remainder of the medication, which also had to be
switched to a generic brand. HOWEVER, weeks into my study abroad program I
decided to stop taking the medication and never contracted malaria throughout
my entire six-month stay. On the other hand, there were kids in the program who
took their anti-malaria medication faithfully every day and still contracted
malaria
Yes, malaria is common. However,
§ Anti-malaria medicine is
extremely easy to find over-the-counter (and affordable) and you don’t
necessarily need it pre-departure (which can be very pricey if you don’t have
insurance that will cover it)
§ If you happen to
contract malaria, it is extremely easy (and affordable) to find treatment
over-the-counter. Recovery time is usually 2-3 days (about the same amount of
time it takes to recover from a cold or the flu)
§ Signs of malaria: Fever,
shivers, nausea, lack of appetite, diarrhea. If you start to feel any of these
symptoms, I highly recommend going straight to any corner pharmacy and asking
for malaria treatment medication. Usually, people begin to feel better within
12 hours of the first dose and this will reduce recovery time. Make sure to eat
properly and take cold showers to reduce fever
§ You will need to show
your yellow fever vaccination card upon entrance into Ghana
§ I strongly advise buying
a voltage convertor if you plan on using electronics like laptops or home
appliances like hair dryers, etc.
Tips for travel
§ Always bargain and
negotiate the price! This goes for taxi rides (negotiate fares before getting
into the taxi), most articles of clothing, fabric etc. Never just settle for
the first price they offer
§ Some Ghanaians can be
very pushy when it comes to selling items
§ Nightlife in Ghana is
amazing
§ For nightclubs, lounges
and bars, locals will dress to impress in heels and dresses, etc. However, for
daytime, dress modest and appropriate for the weather since it is usually hot
and humid year-round: flip flops, etc.
§ Nightlife in Accra does
not begin until midnight and will typically last until dawn
§ BUG/MOSQUITO REPELENT!
§ This is also the best
way to avoid catching malaria, since malaria is spread by mosquitos
§ Tons of sunblock
§ It is good to have a lot
of cash (of course I wouldn’t advise carrying it all at once), especially small
bills. Only supermarkets accept credit/debit cards
§ ATMs are fairly
accessible and for the most part open 24/7
§ For people who bank with
Bank of America – Barclays is a sister branch and will not charge international
ATM fees. Otherwise, I suggest signing-up for an account with Charles Schwab,
in order to avoid ATM fees
§ Come prepared with your
own hygiene products especially (girls) if you normally use tampons, as these
items are a bit difficult to find and pricey
§ Almond milk is EXTREMELY
over priced, as well as some other imported items like coconut oil,
cashews, dark chocolate, etc.
§ Try as many of the local
dishes as possible – fufu, banku & tilapia, jollof rice, fried rice,
kenkey, indomie, waayke, yam (chips or boiled). (Prepare to put on a few
pounds, but its worth it!)
§ Some of these may cause
diarrhea/constipation (but its worth it if you want the full local experience!)
§ And don’t be afraid to eat
with your hands! (Ghanaians will appreciate your effort)
§ Google Maps is not very
useful in Ghana and most locals do not go by addresses/street names. When
telling the taxi driver where you are going it is important to know points of
references
§ Always agree upon a fare
before getting into the taxi
§ It helps to have exact
change when bargaining fare price
§ Taxi drivers like to be
called “boss” or “boss man”
§ Warning: Local Ghanaian
men are quick to profess their undying love/ask for your hand in marriage. Ghanaian
women, on the other hand, are typically more conservative/reserved
§ When it comes to
trusting locals use your instincts. Some locals are more exposed to foreign
influences and cultures than others and can assist you in reducing culture
clash/misunderstandings. Overall, most locals are extremely friendly and
willing to lend a helping hand
§ Always use your right
hand when greeting, shaking hands, picking something up, etc. The use of the
left hand is considered bad luck/taboo
§ Ghanaians have a
different standard of costumer service. Do not be frustrated or discouraged if
the service is slow. It is also common for some of the items on the menu to be
unavailable or made differently than described. They don’t share the same “the
costumer is always right” philosophy. Patience is very important
§ It is typical for
Ghanaians to be behind schedule. So if they tell you they are going to meet you
at 2:00pm don’t be surprised if they arrive closer to 3:00pm
§ The official language of
Ghana is English and is heavily influenced by its British colonizers. There are
nine local tribal dialects spoken all throughout Ghana. Make an effort to pick
up colloquial phrases such as “Charley” meaning friend, “Akwaaba” meaning you
are welcome/invited and “Obruni” meaning foreigner or white person
Recommendations for Nightlife
Republic Bar and Grill – Osu
Bella Roma nightclub and shisha – Osu
Purple Pub – Osu
Shisha Lounge – Osu
Firefly Lounge – Osu
Coco Vanilla Lounge/Shisha – Adjiringanor/East Legon
opposite John Jerry Rawlings house on Argriganor Road
Beaches
Labadi Beach
§ Best during the day on
the weekends, or
§ Reggae nights on
Wednesday and Friday
Krokrobite Beach
§ Here you can also shop
for beads, fabric, clothing etc.
(it is acceptable to consume alcohol on the
beach, and there are often beachside bars that will serve alcohol)
If you are looking to explore beaches outside of
Accra, Cape Coast and Ada Foah also offer breath taking beaches
Concluding Thoughts
Ghana is a feeling I wish I could share with everyone.
Ghana felt like home in so many ways. I understand that Ghana is only one
country in Africa and many African countries are far from the same. But so many
of them offer such beautiful cultures and experiences. In Ghana I found love, I
found peace of mind, I found thrill and excitement, I found kindness and
compassion. I learned to appreciate things that we often take for granted in
our high pace society. I learned to slow down. I learned to pause and enjoy a
fresh breeze or a cold glass of water on a hot day. If there is anything that I
would like my readers to take away with them, it is this – do not be afraid to
go beyond your comfort zone. Do not let others discourage you from following
your path. There is so much more to gain from taking a risk and following your
heart.
Source: Travel
Latina
Patrice Lumumba
(1925–1961)
 |
| Patrice Lumumba |
By Sean Jacobs
Patrice Lumumba was prime minister of a newly
independent Congo for only seven months between 1960 and 1961 before he was murdered,
fifty-six years ago today. He was thirty-six.
Yet Lumumba’s short political life — as with figures
like Thomas Sankara and Steve Biko, who had equally short lives — is still a
touchstone for debates about what is politically possible in postcolonial
Africa, the role of charismatic leaders, and the fate of progressive politics
elsewhere.
The details of Lumumba’s biography have been endlessly
memorialized and cut and pasted: a former postal worker in the Belgian Congo,
he became political after joining a local branch of a Belgian liberal party. On
his return from a study tour to Belgium arranged by the party, the authorities
took note of his burgeoning political involvement and arrested him for
embezzling funds from the post office. He served twelve months in prison.
Congolese historian Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja — who was
in high school during Lumumba’s rise and assassination — points out that the charges were
trumped-up. Their main effect was to radicalize him
against Belgian racism, though not colonialism. Upon his release in 1957,
Lumumba, by now a beer salesman, was more explicit about Congolese autonomy and
helped found the Congolese National Movement, the first Congolese political
group which explicitly disavowed Belgian paternalism and tribalism, called
unreservedly for independence, and demanded that Congo’s vast mineral wealth
(exploited by Belgium and Euro-American multinational firms) benefit Congolese
first.
For Belgian public opinion — which played up Congolese
ethnic differences, infantilized Africans, and in the late 1950s still had a
thirty-year plan for Congolese independence — Lumumba and the Congolese
National Movement’s pronouncements came as a shock.
Two months after his release from prison, in December
1958, Lumumba was in Ghana, at the invitation of President Kwame Nkrumah who
had organized the seminal All Africa People’s Conference. There, as a number of
other African nationalists pushing for political independence listened, Lumumba
declared:
The winds of freedom currently blowing across all of
Africa have not left the Congolese people indifferent. Political awareness,
which until very recently was latent, is now becoming manifest and assuming
outward expression, and it will assert itself even more forcefully in the
months to come. We are thus assured of the support of the masses and of the
success of the efforts we are undertaking.
The Belgians reluctantly conceded political independence
to the Congolese, and two years later, following a decisive win for the
Congolese National Movement in the first democratic elections, Lumumba found
himself elected to prime minister and with the right to form a government. A
more moderate leader, Joseph Kasavubu, occupied the mostly ceremonial position
of Congolese president.
On June 30, 1960, Independence Day, Lumumba gave what is
now considered a timeless speech. The Belgian king, Boudewijn, opened
proceedings by praising the murderous regime of his great-great uncle, Leopold
(eight million Congolese died during
his reign from 1885 to 1908), as benevolent, highlighted the supposed benefits
of colonialism, and warned the Congolese: “Don’t compromise the future with
hasty reforms.” Kasavubu, predictably, thanked the king.
Then Lumumba, unscheduled, took the podium. What
happened next has become one of the most recognizable statements of
anticolonial defiance and a postcolonial political program. As the Belgian
writer and literary critic Joris Note later pointed out, the
original French text consisted of no more than 1,167 words. But it covered a
lot of ground.
The first half of the speech traced an arc from past to
future: the oppression Congolese had to endure together, the end of suffering
and colonialism. The second half mapped out a broad vision and called on
Congolese to unite at the task ahead.
Most importantly, Congo’s natural resources would
benefit its people first: “We shall see to it that the lands of our native
country truly benefit its children,” said Lumumba, adding that the challenge
was “creating a national economy and ensuring our economic independence.”
Political rights would be reconceived: “We shall revise all the old laws and
make them into new ones that will be just and noble.”
Congolese congressmen and those listening by radio broke
out in applause. But the speech did not sit well with the former colonizers,
Western journalists, nor with multinational mining interests, local comprador
elites (especially Kasavubu and separatist elements in the east of the
country), the United States government (which rejected Lumumba’s entreaties for
help against the reactionary Belgians and the secessionists, forcing him to
turn to the Soviet Union), and even the United Nations.
 |
| Joseph Mobutu |
These interests found a willing accomplice in Lumumba’s
comrade: former journalist and now head of the army Joseph Mobutu. Together
they worked to foment rebellion in the army, stoke unrest, exploit attacks on
whites, create an economic crisis — and eventually kidnap and execute Lumumba.
The CIA had tried to poison him, but eventually settled
on local politicians (and Belgian killers) to do the job. He was captured by
Mobutu’s mutinous army and flown to the secessionist province of Katanga, where
he was tortured, shot, and killed.
In the wake of his murder, some of Lumumba’s comrades —
most notably Pierre Mulele, Lumumba’s minister of education — controlled part
of the country and fought on bravely, but was finally crushed by American and
South African mercenaries. (At one point Che Guevara traveled to Congo on a
failed military mission to aid Mulele’s army.)
That left Mobutu, under the guise of anticommunism, to
declare a one-party, repressive, and kleptomanic state, and govern, with the
consent of the United States and Western governments, for the next thirty-odd
years.
In February 2002, Belgium’s government expressed “its
profound and sincere regrets and its apologies” for Lumumba’s murder,
acknowledging that “some members of the government, and some Belgian actors at
the time, bear an irrefutable part of the responsibility for the events.”
A government commission also heard testimony that
“the assassination could not have been carried out without the complicity of
Belgian officers backed by the CIA, and it concluded that Belgium had a moral
responsibility for the killing.”
Lumumba today has tremendous semiotic force: he is a
social media avatar, a Twitter meme, and a font for inspirational quotes — a
perfect hero (like Biko), untainted by any real politics. He is even free of
the kind of critiques reserved for figures like Fidel Castro or
Thomas Sankara, who confronted some of the inherent contradictions of their own
regimes through antidemocratic means.
As such, Lumumba divides debates over political
strategy: he is often derided as a merely charismatic leader, a good speaker
with very little strategic vision.
For example, in the famed Belgian historical fiction
writer David van Reybrouck’s much-praised Congo: An Epic History of a
People, Lumumba is characterized as a poor tactician, unstatesmanlike, and more
interested in rebellion and adulation than governance. He is faulted for not
prioritizing Western interests.
Lumumba’s denunciation of the Belgian king in June 1960,
for example, only served to embolden his enemies, argues Van Reybrouck. Lumumba
is also criticized by his Western critics for turning to the Soviet Union after
the United States had spurned him.
But as the writer Adam Shatz has argued: “It’s
not clear how . . . in his two and a half months in office, Lumumba
could have dealt differently with a Belgian invasion, two secessionist
uprisings, and a covert American campaign to destabilize his government.”
More powerful perhaps is how Lumumba operates
unproblematically as a figure of defiance. As the disappointment with national
liberation movements in Africa (in particular, Algeria, Angola, Zimbabwe,
Mozambique, and more recently South Africa’s African National Congress) sets
in, and new social movements (#OccupyNigeria, #WalktoWork in Uganda, the more
radical #FeesMustFall and struggles over land, housing, and health care in
South Africa) begin to take shape, references to and images of Patrice Lumumba
serve as a call to arms.
In Lumumba’s native Congo, ordinary citizens are
currently fighting President Joseph Kabila’s attempts to circumvent the
constitution (his two terms were up in December, but he refused to step down).
Hundreds have been killed by the police and thousands arrested. Kabila, who inherited
the presidency from his father, who overthrew Mobutu, exploits the weakness of
the opposition, especially the power of ethnicity (via patronage politics) to
divide Congolese politically. In this, Kabila is merely emulating the Belgian
colonists and Mobutu.
Here Lumumba’s legacy may be helpful. Lumumba’s
Congolese National Movement was the only party offering a national — rather
than ethnic — vision and a means to organize Congolese around a progressive
ideal. Such a movement and such politicians are in short supply in Congo these
days.
But Lumumba’s story offers not just an invitation to
revisit the political potential of past movements and currents, but also
opportunities to refrain from projecting too much onto leaders like Lumumba who
had a complicated political life and who did not get to confront the messiness
of postcolonial governance. It also means treating tragic political leaders as
humans. To take seriously political scientist Adolph Reed Jr’s advice about
Malcolm X:
He was just like the rest of us — a regular person
saddled with imperfect knowledge, human frailties, and conflicting imperatives,
but nonetheless trying to make sense of his very specific history, trying
unsuccessfully to transcend it, and struggling to push it in a humane
direction.
It is perhaps then that we can begin to make true
Patrice Lumumba’s critical wish, perhaps as self reflection, that he wrote in a
letter from prison to his wife in 1960:
The day will come when history will speak. But it will
not be the history which will be taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington or the
United Nations. It will be the history which will be taught in the countries
which have won freedom from colonialism and its puppets. Africa will write its
own history and in both north and south it will be a history of glory and
dignity.
Sean Jacobs is the founder and editor of Africa is
a Country. He is on the international affairs faculty of the new school in New
York..
How ‘classy’ is the African middle class?
By Henning Melber
It is dubious that African middle classes by their sheer
existence promote economic growth. Their increase was mainly a limited result
of the trickle down effects of the resource based economic growth rates during
the early years of this century. Their position and role in society has hardly
economic potential and dynamics inducing further productive investment
contributing towards sustainable economic growth.
The middle classes in the global South gained growing
attention since the turn of the century mainly through their rapid ascendancy
in the Asian emerging economies. One of the side effects of the economic growth
during these ‘fat years’, which also benefited the resource rich economies on
the African continent, was a rapid relative increase of monetary income for a
growing number of households. Many of these in the lower segments of society
crossed the defined poverty levels of $1.25 a day. The ominous term ‘middle
class’ was part of the effort to quantify this trend and at the same time to
classify it.
The concept advocated by this new discourse remained,
however, vague and limited to number crunching. The minimum threshold for
entering a so-called middle class in monetary terms was critically vulnerable
to a setback into impoverishment. After all, one sixth of the world’s
population has to make a living with two to three dollars a day. This is a
degree of existential insecurity, which motivated Raphael Kaplinsky in his
keynote delivered at the General Conference of the European Association of
Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) in June 2014 to make the
observation that these days everyone not starving is considered to be middle
class.
What is ‘the middle’ in Africa’s middle class?
The African Development Bank (AfDB) played a defining
role in promoting and transferring the middle class debate onto the continent.
Using the two US$ benchmark, it declared some 300 million Africans (about a
third of the continent’s population) as being middle class. A year
later it expanded its guestimates to 300 to 500 million and declared them to be
a key factor.
As problematic as such monetary acrobatics remain the
analytical deficit, which characterizes such purely numerical classification.
The so-called middle class appears to be a ‘muddling class’. Rigorously
explored differentiations remained largely absent – not to mention any
substantial class analysis. Professional activities, social status, cultural,
ethnic or religious affinities or lifestyle as well as political orientations
were in the original discourse hardly (if at all) considered. But all these
attributes do matter, if one wants to properly define a middle class as an
array of collective identities (once also including reference to class
consciousness), whose bearers act in a political and economical way.
More recently, the debate has finally arrived in African
Studies too, where scholars have undertaken more serious efforts to claim
ownership over what has initially been a discussion imposed by economists from
the outside. They offer much more nuanced assessments from the point of view
of social anthropology, sociology, political science and economics. This
claim to ownership is also reflected in edited, inter-disciplinary volumes both
in English and
in German.
The compilations show how African Studies have advanced as regards the
need for a more profound engagement with the African middle class and the need
to deconstruct the mystification of such segments being declared as the torchbearers
of progress and development. As alerted in a paper by UNU-WIDER, a new
middle class as meaningful social actor does require a collective identity in
pursuance of common interests. Once upon a time this was called
class-consciousness, based on a class in itself while acting as a class for
itself.
Politics, development and the middle class
Politically such middle classes seem not as democratic
as many of those singing its praise song assume. While middle classes elsewhere
have shown ambiguities ranging from politically progressive engagement to a
status quo oriented, conservative approach to policies (if being political at
all), this is not different when having a closer look at African realities. In
South Africa, the only consistency of the Black middle class in historical
perspective is its political inconsistency, as Roger Southall suggested.
They are no more likely to hold democratic values than other Black South
Africans, but are more likely to want government to secure higher order, rather
than basic, survival needs if one trusts the results of an Afrobarometer survey.
It is also dubious that African middle classes by their
sheer existence promote economic growth. Their increase was mainly a limited
result of the trickle down effects of the resource based economic growth rates
during the early years of this century. Their position and role in society has
hardly economic potential and dynamics inducing further productive investment
contributing towards sustainable economic growth. There is little evidence of
any correlation between economic growth and social progress, as even a working
paper of the IMF admits.
While during the ‘fat years’ the poor partly became a little bit less poor, the
rich got much richer. Even the AfDB admits that the income discrepancies as
measured by the Gini-coefficient have increased, while six among the ten most
unequal countries in the world remain in Africa.
That a sensible political economy analysis needs to
differentiate between the rich with political leverage and the rest was even
conceded by Nancy Birdsall who
is among the most influential and persistent advocates of the support of a
middle class rather than a pro-poor developmental orientation. She remains
adamant that the middle class is an ingredient for good governance. This is
based on her assumption that economic growth continues and inequalities will be
reduced, that a growing middle class has a greater interest in accountable
government and is willing to support a social contract, which taxes them as an
investment into collective public goods to the benefit also of the poor. Dream on!
Caught in the middle?
Meanwhile it is necessary to put the record straight and
lift the ideological haze. Already the UNDP’s Human Development Report of 2013, which
promoted the middle class hype, predicted that 80 per cent of
middle classes would in 2030 come from the global South, but only two per cent
from Sub-Saharan Africa. Recent assessments claim that it is not the middle of
African societies which expands, but the lower and higher social groups.
According to a report by
the Pew Research Centre only a few African countries had a meaningful increase
of those in the middle-income category.
Multinationals in the retail and consumption sector have
already reacted to the dwindling purchasing power of the middle class by
reducing investments. Nestle has downscaled its presence in Africa by 15 per
cent of its employees. And a report in
The Economist, which earlier shifted its doomsday visions of a ‘Hopeless
Continent’ towards ‘Africa Rising’ and ‘Continent of Hope’, concluded end of
October 2015 that Africans as a worrying trend are mainly rich or poor but not
middle class.
Fortunately, the debate has now created sufficient
awareness within the scholarly community to explore fact and fiction of the
assumed transformative power of a middle
class. This also includes the need to sensitize towards
ideological smokescreens close to the neoliberal paradigm, which try to make us
believe that a middle class is the cure. In
reality, little has changed as regards leverage and control over social and
political affairs. José Gabriel Palma had
already summed up what really matters: ‘It’s the share of the rich, stupid!’
Despite such conclusion, however, the current engagement
with the African middle class phenomenon is anything but obsolete. Independent
of their size, its members signify modified social relations, which deserve
attention and analysis – with the emphasis on the latter. Göran Therborn stresses that
discourse on class – whether right or wrong – is always of social relevance.
The boom of the middle class debate is therefore a remarkable symptom of our
decade. Social class will remain also in the future a category of central
importance.
* Henning Melber is a Senior Research Associate
with the Nordic Africa Institute and Director emeritus of the Dag Hammarskjöld
Foundation, both in Uppsala/Sweden. He is an Extraordinary Professor at the
Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria and the Centre for
Africa Studies, University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, and a Senior
Research Fellow with the Institute for Commonwealth Studies/School for Advanced
Study at London University. He is editor of The Rise of Africa’s Middle
Class: Myth, Realities and Critical Engagements (London: Zed 2016).
Middle East:
Israel’s Crime of
Apartheid: Text of Resignation Letter by ESCWA Executive Secretary Rima Khalaf
 |
| Rima Khalaf |
By Jadaliyya Reports
[The following
text is the resignation letter submitted by ESWA Executive Secretary Rima
Khalaf in response to the formal request by UN Secretary General that
ESCWA withdraw the publication of a report that asserts Israel is committing
Apartheid. Click here to
access the full ESCWA report, which has since been removed from the UN
website.]
Dear Mr. Secretary-General,
I have carefully considered your message conveyed
through the Chef de Cabinet and assure you that at no point have I questioned
your right to order the withdrawal of the report from our website or the fact
that all of us working in the Secretariat are subject to the authority of its
Secretary-General. Nor do I have any doubts regarding your commitment to human
rights in general, or your firm position regarding the rights of the
Palestinian people. I also understand the concerns that you have, particularly
in these difficult times that leave you little choice.
I am not oblivious to the vicious attacks and threats
the UN and you personally were subjected to from powerful Member States as a
result of the publication of the ESCWA report “Israeli Practices towards the
Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid”. I do not find it surprising
that such Member States, who now have governments with little regard for
international norms and values of human rights, will resort to intimidation
when they find it hard to defend their unlawful policies and practices. It is
only normal for criminals to pressure and attack those who advocate the cause
of their victims. I cannot submit to such pressure.
Not by virtue of my being an international official, but
simply by virtue of being a decent human being, I believe, like you, in the
universal values and principles that have always been the driving force for
good in human history, and on which this organization of ours, the United
Nations is founded. Like you, I believe that discrimination against anyone due
to their religion, skin color, sex or ethnic origin is unacceptable, and that
such discrimination cannot be rendered acceptable by the calculations of
political expediency or power politics. I also believe people should not only
have the freedom to speak truth to power, but they have the duty to do so.
In the space of two months you have instructed me to
withdraw two reports produced by ESCWA, not due to any fault found in the
reports and probably not because you disagreed with their content, but due to
the political pressure by member states who gravely violate the rights of the
people of the region.
You have seen first-hand that the people of this region
are going through a period of suffering unparalleled in their modern history;
and that the overwhelming flood of catastrophes today is the result of a stream
of injustices that were either ignored, plastered over, or openly endorsed by
powerful governments inside and outside the region. Those same governments are
the ones pressuring you to silence the voice of truth and the call for justice
represented in these reports.
Given the above, I cannot but stand by the findings of
ESCWA’s report that Israel has established an apartheid regime that seeks the
domination of one racial group over another. The evidence provided by this
report drafted by renowned experts is overwhelming. Suffice it to say that none
of those who attacked the report had a word to say about its content. I feel it
my duty to shed light on the legally inadmissible and morally indefensible fact
that an apartheid regime still exists in the 21st century rather than
suppressing the evidence. In saying this I claim no moral superiority nor
ownership of a more prescient vision. My position might be informed by a
lifetime of experiencing the dire consequences of blocking peaceful channels to
addressing people’s grievances in our region.
After giving the matter due consideration, I realized
that I too have little choice. I cannot withdraw yet another well-researched,
well-documented UN work on grave violations of human rights, yet I know that
clear instructions by the Secretary-General will have to be implemented
promptly. A dilemma that can only be resolved by my stepping down to allow
someone else to deliver what I am unable to deliver in good conscience. I know
that I have only two more weeks to serve; my resignation is therefore not
intended for political pressure. It is simply because I feel it my duty towards
the people we serve, towards the UN and towards myself, not to withdraw an
honest testimony about an ongoing crime that is at the root of so much human
suffering. Therefore, I hereby submit to you my resignation from the United
Nations.
Respectfully
Rima Khalaf
Rima Khalaf
The original source of this article is Jadaliyya Reports
Copyright © Jadaliyya Reports, Jadaliyya Reports, 2017
Copyright © Jadaliyya Reports, Jadaliyya Reports, 2017
Trump’s Ambassador
to Israel is Truly Terrifying
 |
| David Friedman with Trump |
By Josh Alvarez
In keeping with the logic of the Trump era, Senate
Republicans (along with two Democrats) have hired an arsonist to prevent a
fire. David Friedman, whom
the Senate confirmed today as U.S. ambassador to Israel, spent most
of his confirmation hearing either apologizing for or attempting to walk back
everything he has ever said about Israel, Judaism, and the conflict with
Palestinians.
Friedman was Donald Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer
during the president’s Atlantic City debacles. Apparently, in Trump’s
mind, that qualified him to serve as campaign advisor on Israel and
the Middle East. During the campaign, Friedman contributed commentary
to ArutzSheva, an extreme right-wing
publication based in Israel. In an August 2016 post, he
called for an “end to the two-state narrative,” which he described as the
product of a U.S. State Department “with a hundred-year history of
anti-Semitism.” Friedman will now be collecting a paycheck from that evil
institution. He continued,
“At this juncture, a Palestinian state is the last thing
the [Palestinian] middle class wants—they know better than anyone how corrupt
and inept their people are at self-government.”
According to him, no Palestinians in the West Bank
(he prefers to
call them “Arabs of Judea and Samaria”) are “under any physical threat by the
Israeli government.” This was news to me. I’ve traveled repeatedly to
Hebron, where I’ve seen the barbed wire surrounding the Palestinian part
of town and the watchtowers with heavily armed Israeli soldiers
facing toward the Arabs inside.
Friedman has also contributed money
to illegal settlements in the West Bank as well as to the Jerusalem Reclamation Project, which
works to purchase property and settle Jews in the Muslim Quarter
of Jerusalem’s Old City and Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. The
goal is obvious: push all non-Jews out of Jerusalem and “reclaim” the city.
A month before the election,
Friedman matter-of-factly denied the
existence of the explicitly anti-Semitic alt-right. Anti-Semitism, in
Friedman’s view, is primarily a feature of the left.
“There is anti-Semitic sentiment among Clinton’s
supporters,” he said. “The danger in the U.S. is on the left, not on the
right,” Friedman said. “I’m not saying that there aren’t neo-Nazis floating
around in the United States, because I’m sure there are. But the movement we
ought to be concerned about is on the left.”
But Friedman saved the bulk of his vitriol for
liberal Jews. In one post, he
equated being a Jewish liberal to a young Theodor Herzl (the
forefather of Zionism) joining the German fraternity Burschenschaft, which
became a breeding ground for pre-Hitler anti-Semites. Friedman appears to
believe that liberal Jews are not simply misguided, but are actively
seeking to destroy Israel while falsely proclaiming themselves to be
pro-Israel.
There can be no other explanation, in his mind, for the
liberal Israel lobby J Street’s public support of President Obama’s
negotiations with Iran than intentionally undercutting the Jewish
state and betraying true Jews. Liberal Jews, he wrote, are
“worse than kapos,” the Jews who collaborated with the Nazis in the death
camps. They are “just smug advocates of Israel’s destruction delivered from the
comfort of their secure American sofas—it’s hard to imagine anyone worse.”
Later confronted with his own words at a conference, Friedman doubled
down, saying,
“They’re not Jewish and they’re not pro-Israel.”
The difference between a mere religious bigot and a true
fundamentalist is that a bigot mostly concerns himself with the
Other—people outside his faith—while a fundamentalist concerns himself
foremost with rival groups within his faith. Muslim fundamentalists,
like the ones in ISIS, are more immediately concerned with cleansing
their society of Muslims they deem insufficiently devout than with
destroying Christendom or Judaism. Likewise, for people like
Friedman, discussion of the inferiority of Arabs and Muslims and their
coming subjugation is superfluous. The important thing is to marginalize the
(so-called) Jews who don’t believe that the establishment of a Jewish theocracy
over Greater Israel will bring redemption and God’s grace.
This is the man the Senate saw fit to entrust with
America’s diplomatic mission in a place already suffering from a surplus of
religious zealots. Despite his apologies, there is no reason to believe
Friedman has suddenly abandoned his extremism, nor that he would be under
the strict control of the president, who clearly has no real interest in or
moral conviction on the conflict.
The potential impact of Ambassador Friedman would be
tempered if not for the current makeup of the Israeli government. Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is leader of the Likud Party, which in recent
decades has moved ever further to the right on the traditional Israeli
spectrum. But even Likud has been outflanked by the rise of the Home Party, which could be considered Israel’s version
of the alt-right. The Home Party is now in a coalition government with Likud
and has enough seats in parliament to unseat Netanyahu. The defining features
of its platform is the dismantling of secular democratic laws and institutions,
the full annexation of the West Bank (a one-state solution), and the imposition
of Israeli law on Palestinians, who would be denied full citizenship and civil
rights and forcibly segregated from Israelis. In a word, apartheid.
It’s with this party that Mr. Friedman most closely
identifies, and his nomination has already further emboldened its members and
sympathizers. A Likud Party minister publicly broke ranks with
Netanyahu, declaring the two-state solution dead and proposing his own Home
Party-esque idea for a one-state solution. Practically speaking, Netanyahu was
never in favor of a two-state solution and has done everything in his power to
nip any negotiations in the bud. But now we have an ambassador who will not
hold Netanyahu to even a vague rhetorical commitment to a two-state
possibility.
Friedman’s appointment further discredits the
Trump administration’s supposed toughness on Israel regarding the annexation of
the West Bank. At his joint press conference with Netanyahu last month, Trump
faced Netanyahu and said, “I would like to see you hold off” on further
settlements. (It was at this same conference that Trump ended America’s
commitment to a two-state solution.) Israel Defense Minister Avigdor
Lieberman said he received a direct message from the Trump
administration warning that “imposing Israeli sovereignty [on the West Bank]
would mean an immediate crisis with the new administration.”
It appears Lieberman himself did not consider this
to be a credible threat. He met with Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson last week and
told him that West Bank settlements—which are, by definition, imposing Israeli
sovereignty—are not an impediment to peace, and that the U.S. should leave the
United Nations Human Rights Council and reconsider its support of the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. Friedman’s appointment
further undermines Trump’s public stance. This incoherence on the part of the
administration, combined with a weak State Department and a
growing morass of self-inflicted crises, is an open invitation for
the Israeli right wing to keep pushing ahead with the settlements, further
narrowing the possibility of ever getting rid of them.
Perhaps the only positive outcome is that Friedman’s
Senate confirmation vote almost entirely fell on party lines: only
two Democrats, Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Joe
Manchin of West Virginia, voted in favor. Israel is no longer an axiomatic
bipartisan issue. This process was helped along by Netanyahu and the Republican
Party during the Obama administration, especially when Netanyahu, at the
invitation of GOP congressional leadership, addressed Congress and directly
undermined the sitting president’s foreign policy—an unprecedented and
disgraceful spectacle that Democrats are unlikely to forget. Perhaps the
United States will become host to the debate about what kind of country
Israel should be, a debate the Israeli government and its enablers are
currently uninterested in having.
On a broader level, Friedman’s appointment further
establishes the conditions for Israel to go down a
potentially irreversible moral path. The current occupation and creeping
land theft is already a crime in slow motion. But the combination of
a radicalized militant
government with a monopoly on the means for mass violence, a strident messianic
movement in the West Bank, and the presence of enablers in the West Wing and
the American embassy opens the possibility for even greater sins from
which Israel and the Israeli soul may never recover.
Josh Alvarez is a journalist in Washington, D.C.
Follow him on Twitter - https://twitter.com/JshAlv.
Russia:
Another Senior
Russian Official Has Died
 |
| Andrei Karlov |
By Tyler Durden
Since the day of Donald Trump’s election, high-ranking
Russian officials have been dropping like flies and today’s reports that
a top official of Russia’s space agency has been found dead brings
the total to eight.
As we noted previously, six
Russian diplomats have died in the last 3 months – all but one died on foreign
soil. Some were shot, while other causes of death are unknown. Note that a few
deaths have been labeled “heart attacks” or “brief illnesses.”
1. You probably remember Russia’s Ambassador to Turkey,
Andrei Karlov — he was assassinated by a police officer at a photo exhibit
in Ankara on December 19.
2. On the same day, another diplomat, Peter
Polshikov, was shot dead in his Moscow apartment. The gun was found under
the bathroom sink but the circumstances of the death were under investigation.
Polshikov served as a senior figure in the Latin American department of the
Foreign Ministry.
3. Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly
Churkin, died in New York this past week. Churkin was rushed to the
hospital from his office at Russia’s UN mission. Initial reports said he
suffered a heart attack, and the medical examiner is investigating the death,
according to CBS.
4. Russia’s Ambassador to India, Alexander
Kadakin, died after a “brief illness January 27, which The Hindu said he
had been suffering from for a few weeks.
5. Russian Consul in Athens, Greece, Andrei
Malanin, was found dead in his apartment January 9. A Greek police
official said there was “no evidence of a break-in.” But Malanin lived on a
heavily guarded street. The cause of death needed further investigation, per an
AFP report. Malanin served during a time of easing relations between Greece and
Russia when Greece was increasingly critiqued by the EU and NATO.
6. Ex-KGB chief Oleg Erovinkin, who was suspected
of helping draft the Trump dossier, was found dead in the back of his car
December 26, according to The Telegraph. Erovinkin also was an aide to former
deputy prime minister Igor Sechin, who now heads up state-owned Rosneft.
If we go back further than 3 months…
7. On the morning of U.S. Election Day, Russian diplomat
Sergei Krivov was found unconscious at the Russian Consulate in New York and
died on the scene. Initial reports said Krivov fell from the roof and had blunt
force injuries, but Russian officials said he died from a heart attack.
BuzzFeed reports Krivov may have been a Consular Duty Commander, which would
have put him in charge of preventing sabotage or espionage.
8. In November 2015, a senior adviser to Putin, Mikhail
Lesin, who was also the founder of the media company RT, was found dead in
a Washington hotel room according to the NYT. The Russian media said it was a
“heart attack,” but the medical examiner said it was “blunt force injuries.”
9. If you go back a few months prior in September 2016,
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s driver was killed too in a freak car
accident while driving the Russian President’s official black BMW to add
to the insanity.
If you include these three additional deaths that’s a
total of nine Russian officials that have died over the past 2 years… until
today…
As AP reports,
a top official of Russia’s space agency has been
found dead in a prison where he was being held on charges of embezzlement.
A spokeswoman for Russia’s Investigative
Committee, Yulia Ivanova, told the state news agency RIA Novosti
that the 11 other people in Vladimir Evdokimov’s cell were being
questioned.
Investigators found two stab wounds on Evdokimov’s body,
but no determination had been made of whether they were self-inflicted.
Evdokimov, 56, was the executive director for quality
control at Roscosmos, the country’s spaceflight and research agency.
He was jailed in December on charges of embezzling
200 million rubles ($3.1 million) from the MiG aerospace company.
So, while motive is unclear in all of these cases, that
brings the total number of dead Russian officials in the past two years to
ten. Probably nothing…
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