Wade is History!
===========================
On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 10:09 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com> wrote:
http://bintumani.websitetoolbox.com/post/show_single_post?pid=1272815961&postcount=1
Correction : the last line should read: Meanwhile in neighbouring
Senegal, the moment of truth will soon dawn on Wade who is facing a
united opposition at the ballot boxes, today....
On Mar 25, 12:50 pm, toyin.fal...@mail.utexas.edu wrote:
> Collateral Damage
> The criminal and chaotic situation in Mali,
> today, is a direct result of NATO's intervention
> in Libya to overthrow Gaddafi. In the wake of
> the Arab Spring, many of us were in favor of
> removing Muammar Gaddafi from power to open
> another door to the winds of democracy blowing in
> the region. Most urgently, we wanted to see an
> end to the humanitarian disaster provoked by the
> regime in Tripoli, by throwing boats full of
> African immigrants to the sea; and to stop the
> impending massacre of the population of Benghazi
> threatened by the narcoleptic dictator.
>
> At that time, Presidents Obama and Sarkozy, with
> the help of France's own media-savvy
> intellectual, Bernard Henri Levy, (BHL), had
> concocted a narrative, well packaged for our
> consumption, in which the Libyan strong man, like
> Sadam Hussein, or Hitler, was described as
> capable of committing unprecedented crimes
> against humanity; and the National Transitional
> Council (NTC) as only motivated by their passion
> for democracy.
>
> Thus, the invasion of Libya was clinically
> executed from the air by NATO planes, to the
> greatest relief of the majority of the United
> Nations members and all those who believed that a
> democratic change in the Arab world in general,
> and Libya in particular, will safeguard the world
> against terrorism, gender inequality,
> anti-Semitism and racism against Blacks.
>
> Today, I am not writing about these clichés,
> racist and islamophobic sound bites that are
> often embedded in narratives whose true motifs
> tromp democracy and humanitarian concerns for
> cold neoliberal economic plans.
>
> How else would one explain the situation of poor
> Mali, defenseless with its archaic tanks and
> machine guns pitted against the soldiers of the
> former Gaddafi army and their sophisticated
> weaponery. As the Malian army retreats, the
> rebel army moves in one town after another,
> cutting the throats of soldiers and civilian
> population; destroying everything in their way;
> and creating panic among the populations of Gao
> and Timbuctu, which lie ahead of them. More than
> 250,000 civilians have fled these towns and
> nomadic settlements, to seek refuge in
> neighboring countries such as Mauretania, Burkina
> Faso, Algeria and Niger. The populations of
> Agelhok, Goundam and Tessalit in Northern Mali
> have suffered the horrific crimes that NATO
> forces had prevented Gaddafi's forces from
> committing in Benghazi.
>
> Additionally, Northern Mali, after the fall of
> Timbuctu and Gao, will soon become an
> unchallenged haven for radical Islamist groups
> such as Aqmi, Al Qaeda and Ansardine, all intent
> on imposing the Sharia law from Algeria to Mali,
> Mauretania, Niger, Nigeria, Tchad and Sudan.
> Another major threat to the region is the drug
> trade, transiting in the Sahara desert, on its
> way to Spain, France and Italy.
>
> The defeat of the Malian army in the North has
> created a national discontent with a weakened and
> humiliated regime in Bamako that was considered
> by many as one of the beacons of democracy in
> West Africa. President Amadou Toumani Toure
> (ATT) has now been exposed as a weak leader,
> always seeking consensus and never acting
> decisively to combat corruption, or to draw the
> line on how far he was willing to give in to the
> demands of the Tuaregs in the North. ATT was also
> accused of undermining the democratic
> institutions by always caving in to the demands
> of demagogic religious leaders who were opposed,
> in the name of Islam and tradition, to the
> constitutional amendment for equality between men
> and women.
>
> Faced with this general discontent, wounded pride
> and anger directed at the President, a junta made
> up of junior officers has seized power, like bank
> robbers taking advantage of a black out to put
> their plan into execution. The Coup seems more
> ironic, not to say ridiculous, given that, on the
> one hand, the disarray in Bamako, the capital
> city, sends a strong signal to the rebels that
> they are winning the war; and on the other hand,
> the presidential elections are only one month
> away, and ATT has reached the end of his last
> term in office.
>
> As hard as it is to take a Coup d'état seriously
> nowadays in Africa, the silence of Obama, Sarkozy
> and BHL over Gaddafi's former soldiers in
> Northern Mali, side by side with members of
> Qaeda, Aqmi, Ansardine and narco-trafickers seems
> even more unfathomable. The fact that Gaddafi's
> former intelligence Chief, Abdullah al-Senussi,
> was recently arrested, with a Malian passport, in
> Mauretania, is an indication that NATO and the
> Libyan National Transitional Council did not
> complete the job in Libya; they just
> deterritorialized it and made it the problem for
> Mali today, and soon for Niger, Mauretania and
> Niger. It is a déjà vu of another American and
> NATO botched job, with which we're all familiar.
> Some would even say that it is the logic of
> neoliberalism: follow the money and don't get
> bogged down with moral imperatives.
>
> Now, with the Coup d'Etat in full gear and the
> radical religious groups in control of the North,
> the usual suspects are lining up with their
> condemnations of the Coup, their desire for a
> peaceful negotiation of the conflict in the
> north, and the return to constitutional order in
> Mali. We're familiar with this narrative, too,
> from the UN, the US, the EU, and the AU.
> Likewise, no one will be surprised if they fell
> on deaf ears among the junta in Bamako and the
> Qaeda and Aqmi in the North.
>
> The populations in Bamako and elsewhere are in
> shock, and their only reaction, so far, has been
> to take cover and protect their properties-cars
> and goods-from the soldiers turned looters. It
> is clear therefore that the Malians' discontent
> with their democratically elected President is
> not matched by a show of support for the Coup
> makers. In fact, it has been hard for many
> Malians, who had thought that their country had
> gone past an army take-over of power, to wake up
> for the last three days and find that their
> country has regressed more than twenty years back.
>
> So, I dare predict the imminent collapse of this
> Coup, like the end of a nightmare that people
> have awaken from. By next week, if civil
> servants in Mali stay at home and refuse to
> collaborate with the junta, and if the
> neighboring countries shut their doors to members
> and emissaries of the impostors, then I do not
> think that they will last long. On the
> contrary, I see them retreating to their
> barracks, soon after they have finished looting
> public and private properties.
>
> As for the Northern question, clearly the Tuaregs
> deserve a lasting solution to their plight.
> Successive Malian governments have attempted to
> sweep under the carpet their demands for equal
> rights, better education and better
> infrastructures. Now they have returned from
> Libya, better equipped with an army, comprising
> of Tuaregs from Mali, Mauritania, and Niger, and
> radical Islamists and renegades from Libya and
> Algeria. They are now too strong for any Malian
> army to deal with, single handedly. With the
> elections coming in France and the United States,
> it is also hard to believe that Sarkozy or Obama
> will get too heavily involved in this far removed
> conflict. It would seem that Mali's best option,
> toward the Northern question, remains a regional
> one, with Algeria and Nigeria playing the
> leadership roles, either in negotiation or war.
> This Coup could not have come at a worst time.
>
> MaliCoup.docx
> 206KViewDownload
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