Dr. Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History & African Studies
www.africahistory.net
www.esnips.com/web/GloriaEmeagwali
________________________________________
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ibrahim Abdullah [ibdullah@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2011 11:06 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Gaddafi Where have al the Billions Gone?
Ghadafi, sorry Libya's current King Idris, is no Rommel--nick named
the desert fox--and he cannot easily move against the resistance and
win. Let's watch the war/battle unfold!
Who said the revolution would not be televised? Its happening right
under our noses. And it is and cannot be leaderless!
A lutta continua!!!
===================
On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 10:03 PM, Prof. Alfred Zack-Williams
<abzw@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> By Richard Dowden (Director, RAS)
>
>
>
> The battle for North Africa 60 years ago was - as Rommel and Montgomery knew
> – a question of firepower and supply lines. The hot, bleak, featureless
> landscape does not allow for a long drawn out civil war or the sort of 'bush
> wars' in the rainforests and savannah of African countries further south. In
> a war for Libya, the side that has the most tanks, armoured cars, planes and
> helicopters is going to win.
>
>
>
> Gaddafi looks like a man with the temperament to create a Gotterdammerung of
> an ending too. Or have the anti-Gaddafi forces sufficient firepower to hold
> the East? It seems that the war has opened up clan divisions that lie just
> beneath the surface. I had not realised there are some 300 'tribes' in
> Libya. (Who speaks of politics as tribal in Egypt or Tunisia? – though they
> are just next door?) Do these divisions coincide with a regional split
> between the two former Ottoman Empire provinces of Cyrenaica and
> Tripolitania that make up Libya? If so, would these form the basis of two
> new countries if they agreed to separate like North and South Sudan?
>
>
>
> It is all very depressing and unclear at the moment, so I will concentrate
> on Britain's role in all of this. The government's top priority is to
> protect British oil interests there. After all, they came at a cost. Post
> the 2002 Iraq invasion, Tony Blair expected his loyalty to George Bush to be
> rewarded with contracts to rebuild the country. Almost none were
> forthcoming. So Britain Inc moved in on Colonel Gaddafi – did you see the
> clip of Blair kissing him on both cheeks? This was driven partly by the
> provision of oil contracts for British companies, and partly about getting
> one back at the US.
>
>
>
> So now Britain needs to protect these newly won gains. But whoever ordered
> the mission to send a British envoy protected by the SAS to meet the rebels
> should resign. They clearly had no understanding of the rebellion. Any
> journalist already there could have told them that the last thing the rebels
> wanted was to be seen fraternising with Western governments or collaborating
> with foreign forces. And the envoy could have strolled in and chatted
> quietly to the leaders as safely as any of the journalists already there.
> There was absolutely no need for night helicopter landings and the SAS. More
> evidence that our security services and, or our politicians do not live in
> the real world.
>
>
>
> On the other hand the UK government moved commendably fast to freeze the
> Gaddafi assets in the UK as they had done with Mubarak's millions – or was
> it billions? But I have a question - bankers are supposed to report any
> movement of money that they suspect might be connected to terrorism, drugs
> or corruption, Colonel Gaddafi presumably takes a salary for being the
> 'leader', which though not President, is probably a full-time job. Maybe he
> has a decent army pension as a colonel. And perhaps he is allowed a tent
> maintenance grant. But surely this does not amount to billions. Surely
> someone noticed billions of Gaddafi dollars moving into London? Mubarak was
> an Air Chief Marshall before he became President but even that elevated post
> does not pay billions. Suspicion of corruption surely. Was it reported? Was
> anything done?
>
>
>
> Which brings me to one of my favourite themes. It's called: The Damage We
> Do. The chorus goes: Don't try to develop Africa with aid - Instead, Stop
> doing things that prevent Africa developing.
>
> Yesterday we heard more about the biggest development blocker of all. Dev
> Kar of the US think tank Global Financial Integrity has been the guest of
> the RAS this week. He spoke at a seminar at Queen Elizabeth House in Oxford
> on Monday, to the Africa All Party Group at Parliament on Tuesday evening
> and to the BBC World Service. Kar wrote the report Illicit Financial Flows
> from Africa in which he revealed that between 1980 and 2008 Africa had been
> looted of between $854bn and £1.8 trillion by illicit capital outflows.
> Although asset-stripping by African Presidents ripping off their own
> countries is a factor, the main culprits are big Western companies. They do
> it through mispricing and transfer pricing. They over-invoice their imports
> and under-invoice their exports, or simply invent charges and values when
> they import or export goods to themselves. These are not small figures. They
> have a lot of zeros after them.
>
>
>
> So many zeros that Kar reckons that the total sum bled from Africa amounts
> to between two and three times the amount of aid we have so kindly donated.
>
>
>
> Yes, do read that again. The amount of money flowing into Africa through aid
> is between a half and a third of the amount flowing out of Africa illicitly
> and into our banks here. This may come as a surprise to most of us but not
> it seems to our governments. When Kar innocently asked the Swiss, US and
> British authorities for simple totals of money from named countries held in
> their banks, the officials all said it was too complicated and the
> information was not available. So how come they found and publicised the
> Mubarak and Gaddafi money so quickly?
>
>
>
> As Leo Tolstoy put it:
>
> I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure
> myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by
> all possible means - except by getting off his back.
>
>
>
> You might also be interested in...
>
> George Joffe - Libya: the internal dynamics of collapse
>
> Richard Dowden - Gadaffi: King of Kings
>
>
>
> Follow this further...
>
> Global Financial Integrity http://www.gfip.org/
>
> Transparency International http://www.transparency.org/
>
> Global Witness http://www.globalwitness.org/
>
>
>
>
>
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