We have opened a Pandora’s Box of new problems especially in Africa. First, Why we can’t
say that we did not expect the problems that followed after attacking
Iraq because we did.
We for some irresponsible reason chose to ignore
them. At this point someone must sit down and look at the myriad of
potential problems getting ready to erupt. We must ensure that we
have the ability to handle them.
We must also now figure out how we
will prioritize resources in order to do so. We had proven ourselves
grossly inadequate as an Administration of accountability and
responsibility. We are now unnecessarily fighting on an additional
front while the Afghan situation is only going to get worse.
The
Afghan warlords are being left to carry on their tribal wars as they
have done for centuries. The problem now is that we do not have the
forces and resources available to keep potential insurgents from
crossing into Afghanistan.
Nor do we now have the ability to keep the
warlords in line as we must. We are finding our ability to change
their economy from one operating on opium income to something
agriculturally productive and legal less than stellar.
We have still
not been able to do enough to teach them and give them the tools and
equipment to make a legal living. We must get in gear quick. we are
killing valuable time we will never get back.
Okay, let’s talk about Africa for a bit. There is not a
continent on earth more torn apart with mindless bloodshed and
ruthless murder than Africa. Military dictators readily steal money
and goods intended to help the starving people.
Their callous,
senseless greed combined with famine and poverty was a recipe for
disaster. This is especially true when talking of the Horn of Africa.
Except for Libya, who has its oil reserves to thank, they are all
having serious problems. The other countries in the region,
especially Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea, have been dealing with
corruption, poverty, and war.
Ethiopia was governed for years under Haile Selassie. Despite
financial aid from the U.S. Ethiopia has remained an underdeveloped
undemocratic country. By 1974 the frenzy for an end to oppression,
poverty, and corruption, had peaked.
The army was able to seize more
and more control from Selassie. Selassie was eventually stripped of
his powers and imprisoned. It was in prison where he was murdered by
coup leaders in 1975. After bad came worse, he was replaced by Haile
Mengistu who crushed thousands of political opponents, and began a
reign of terror.
Thousands of young men and women turned up dead in
the streets. The process of elimination was well organized. However,
even as he was murdering his own people Mengistu had two other
problems. He had a border dispute with Somalia, and a long standing
dispute with Eritrea to contend with.
With Eritrean’s attacking from the North, Somalis in the South,
and counter-revolutionaries to fight in the middle, all assets were
diverted to fight the enemies. Because of all this, Ethiopia had one
of the lowest standards of living in the world. Then things only got
worse in 1984 when famine struck.
Other countries were hesitant to
help because they feared Mengistu would just steal the food for his
men and this is what did happen. In 1995 they got a new government
under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The new government inherited 6
million people, starving, both physically and financially.
Eritrea who is right next door to Ethiopia has worse problems.
Britain saw fit around 1943 to divide the country between its
neighbors; they gave the coast and highland areas to next door
neighbor, Ethiopia. Then they gave the Muslim northern and western
lowlands to Sudan.
In 1962 a civil war ensued that lasted for 30
years. Finally with the overthrow of Mengistu, Eritrea was given its
independence. Eritrea and Ethiopia ended up in a brutal, vicious,
war. During the war were there were 100,000 killed, one million
displaced.
There were also hundreds of millions of dollars that went
from much needed financial help in the form of food and rebuilding
the countries infrastructure and redevelopment to war. In December
2000 the two countries ended hostilities by signing an
internationally brokered peace agreement; we’ll see how it goes.
Most of us know of Somalia because of Blackhawk down and their still on going war with terrorists. However,
well before that Somalia too had been victimized by colonization. The
British controlled the northern part while the southern part was
controlled by Italy.
Italy had gained its foothold in an 1888 agreement with the Sultan
of Hoya in exchange for protection. Of course Italy lost their share
during WW2. For some reason Britain ended up making it one country.
Italian and British rule had of course made these two distinctly
different countries so it too was disastrous.
Major General Muhammad Siad Barre assumed leadership eventually.
He reigned supreme, and ultimately became a tyrant. Like all
dictators he eventually ended up unleashing his private armies on his
enemies, things got even worse.
His forces began terrorizing the
citizens, treasuries were looted, and clans were systematically
targeted and murdered. Somalia’s Roman Catholic priest was gunned
down. People were being tortured and murdered.
Soon after that 450
who were demonstrating against the murders of their leaders and they
too were killed.
Things were beginning to get very desperate so in steps America.
Over the next two years 50,000 Somalis would be killed in factional
fighting and another 200,000 died of starvation.
Then on October 3,
1993 a Ranger helicopter trying to feed starving Somalis, went down.
The next day there were two helicopters down and 18 dead Americans.
The Ethiopian war has killed or displaced millions. Relief efforts
have been thwarted, and Somalia is ruined.
Enter Sierra Leone, according to Amnesty International, civilians
continued to be arbitrarily killed, mutilated, raped, and abducted.
The perplexing thing is that this was a year after the agreement
between the government of Sierra Leone and the United Front was
signed.
This situation seems to be particularly sinister and
underhanded. Against President Sankoh the rebels knew they didn’t
stand a chance. So they formed an alliance with Liberian leader
Charles Taylor. Together they launched a war against the Sierra Leone
government.
As the rebellion got underway a group of soldiers arrived in the
Capital of Freetown in 1992. Supposedly this was to demand better pay
and conditions. However, it was found that their mission was to
overthrow the government. Due to rapidly deteriorating social
conditions, the coup was extremely popular. The RUF, (revolutionary
United Front), overran titanium and Bauxite mines, that were the
major source of state income.
Unlike most wars where civilian casualties are an unfortunate by
product of war, the RUF deliberately targeted civilians for murder
and mutilation.
They indiscriminately did machete lacerations to the
head, neck, arms legs, and torso. We also can’t overlook the
gouging out of one or both eyes, rape, gunshot wounds, acid
injections, genital mutilations, and any other kind of torture or
mutilation they could think of.
They also liked to use amputations as
their favorite tool of terror. They used the shirt sleeve method
where the arm is amputated close to the shoulder, and the long sleeve
method, where the arm is amputated at the wrist.
Human Rights Watch
found civilians with hands, arms, feet, legs, ears, buttocks, any
number of fingers, all amputated by machete. This was all pointless,
horrible, nightmarish torture.
They also used children to do their killing. One teenager recited
how he would cut out the heart and lungs of his victims to eat. The
children too were abused by the rebels, and were a favorite to use
because they were particularly ruthless.
Practically half of the
countries 4.5 million inhabitants were displaced by the war. Another
500,000 were refugees in neighboring countries. While at least 50,000
died in the fighting this is still not the end of it. This while
there is also an estimated 100,000 mutilation victims. The economy is
in ruins.
The national infrastructure needed to run the country had
collapsed. It is just one more casualty of colonization.
Okay, Liberia, founded in 1822 by freed African American slaves
became a Republic in 1847; you might think this country at least must
be okay. After a military coup in 1980 Samuel Doe became President in
1986.
In 1989 violence erupted, and he was dragged into the street
and shot. Guerillas killed 250,000 people, and more than one million
were displaced, and yet another colony heard from.
In Angola, a long established colony of the Portuguese they
clamped down on resisting colonies by killing, capturing, and
exporting even more slaves.
Portugal would not cooperate with a
peaceful decolonization so rebel groups emerged. The Popular Movement
for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), The National Liberation Front
(FNLA), and Dr. Jonas Savimbi’s National Union for Independence
(UNITA) were formed.
The US and Zaire Supported the FNLA, South
Africa backed UNITA, and the communist Nations helped the MPLA. So
once again the table has been set for mass mayhem and murder.
So, even after the Portuguese were tossed out and as a result of
outside meddling, the killing still continued. There was upward of
one million dead. In 1994 the United Nations sent in peace keeping
forces. Under the agreement, Savimbi was made the Vice President and
his forces were allowed to join the Angolan army.
Despite the
concessions Made, Savimbi refused any future participation and
negotiations stopped. At this point in time, Angola’s civil war has
the distinction of being the longest in history, thank you Portuguese
colonizers.
Talk about slaughter and mayhem for the world to deal with as a
result of colonization. Let’s talk about Rwanda for a minute.
The
Hutu’s and Tutsi’s had lived together, and gotten along well with
each other for years. However, as a result of the way in which
Belgium had run the colony, contention had been built in and
exploited.
The name Tutsi refers to a group of people rich in cattle.
When Belgium needed help running the colony it used the better
educated wealthier Tutsi’s. As a result the Tutsi ended up having a
monopoly on public life.
They were confronted with economic problems and the ever
increasing corruption on the part of the government. As a result
country leaders started demanding reforms. They especially wanted the
return of the more than 600,000 refugees who happened to be mostly
Tutsi’s.
In response the Hutu authorities in charge declared that
the country was too overpopulated to permit their return. The stage
had been set once again for horror. Rwandan Tutsi opposition forces
crossed the border from Uganda on October1, 1999.
The President and
his closest colleagues began portraying all Tutsi’s as the enemy in
order to turn the Hutu against them. They managed to do this even
though they had been living together in peace for years. The result
of this was slaughter.
The organizers of genocide planned for the
Tutsi’s had gained control of the state political apparatus, and so
the genocide began. This was genocide in its truest form a true
systematic premeditated murder of a distinct group of people.
The
Rwandan genocide was unique in that rather than hiding the fact of
what they were doing, they were quite open in their goal of Tutsi
extinction. When all was said and done there were up to one million
Rwandans murdered by their fellow citizens. Answers to on going
investigations are due in 2008.
The instability to Burundi’s future lies in the fact of
colonialism. One of the missteps in forming new countries was in
dividing the Hutu’s and Tutsi’s between two distinctly different
countries, Burundi and Rwanda.
Sadly this was not the first or last
time the western countries would be totally insensitive to the plight
of the lands and people of their colonized countries.
They were
eventually given their independence and of course chaos ensued.
Following was a coup where 100,000 were killed in ethnic fighting.
They were mostly Hutu’s, who in turn killed Tutsi’s.
This was the
beginning of a cycle of retaliatory violence killing tribesmen of
both tribes, civil war was on. A ceasefire was brokered in 2000 by
Nelson Mandela. This resulted with South African peacekeepers being
sent in 2001. But Africa being Africa, what’s next is anyone’s
guess.
The Democratic Republic of Congo was another victim of
colonialism. Here the British once again saw it fit to change
borders. They displaced local populations, in order to create the
countries as they thought they should be.
The British left in 1960,
elections were held and Patrice Lumumba was elected as Prime
Minister. With the help of the CIA, the army chief of staff carried
out a successful coup.
He was removed and they got Mobutu who began
his 30 year reign as one of the most autocratic and corrupt dictators
in the world. He was well also a crook, stealing billions from the
national treasury.
Despite his corrupt regime he continued to get U.S. support as
well as from the World Bank. In 1991, Mobutu adopted a new
constitution, and scheduled multiparty elections.
Well, as usually
happens during elections in Africa, opposing parties emerged. Chaos
ensued and Mobutu ended up killing 100 student demonstrators.
This
event provoked International outrage but elections went on anyway.
Mobutu, who lost decided to fire the new Prime Minister. Mobutu had
dominated the country for thirty years by pitting rival army factions
against each other. He thought he would do it once again but he was
wrong, it didn’t work this time. Events beyond his control will
bring him down soon.
Then tiny Rwanda felt compelled to invade its huge neighbor. They
did this in order to flush out the Hutu extremists who carried out
their genocide.
The Zaire army fled, and the Rwandan army along with
anti Mobutu forces then pushed to the Capitol of Kinshasa. Mobutu was
removed from office and at the time of his death, was one of the
richest men in the world.
Soon after, the Lawrence Kabila era began.
He changed the countries name from Zaire to the Democratic Republic
of Congo. He banned opposition parties, arrested the former elected
Prime Minister, and, angered and alienated their allies. Of course,
war erupted, a massive seven country war.
Then in January 2001, Kabila was assassinated. Then in February
that year the U.N. Security Council approved a plan to have all
fighting factions withdraw and be replaced with U.N. peace keeping
forces throughout the country.
They are still embroiled in turmoil
and to my knowledge, we are still watching. These, like all the other
problems we have been talking about are ours. They are all of ours,
and it’s up to us to figure out how to fix them and I believe we
have.
Life Today The Real Story "2005"
James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com
