Looming catastrophe in Somalia or "scarcity scare"?

Update #3 (7/26/2011) ‪What can be done to make the Horn of Africa self- sufficient?

Update #2 (7/26/2011) The NGO CARE urgently seeking donations.

Update #1 (7/24/2011)- Just discovered a piece linking US foreign policy malfeasance to Somalia famine (dap @ Prof. James Small) --> Somalia: the Real Causes of Famine by Michel Chossudovsky

There is now a steady stream of media reports warning that the Horn of Africa is, yet again, in the midst of a catastrophic famine. According to these reports, millions of Africans in Somalia and neighboring nations are in desperate need of food rations. The BBC laments that despite these dire predictions little is being done to mobilize a comprehensive response; they have put the number of those who need urgent assistance at 14.5 million.[1] 

Image via Wikipedia

SOLDIER OF ETHIOPIAN NATIONAL DEFENSE FORCE, 2006

UNICEF reports that 2 million children in the Horn are at risk and that 500,000 of those children need immediate attention or they will face certain death.[2] According to these accounts, harsh weather, "Islamic militants," and a weak national government are some of the factors that have converged to produce a bleak situation in Somalia. Others complain that violent militias make aid delivery a risky activity [3]. Predictably these accounts are often supported with stereotypical images helpless adults and bone-thin African children with swollen bellies.

TransAfrica recognizes that the current crisis in Somalia is compounded by the lingering effects of the Cold War. During that time, the U.S. supported—both militarily and economically—the autocratic rule of General Siad Barre. The entrenchment of the Barre regime created violent conflict throughout the country and a civil war which led to the eventual overthrow of the government in 1991.[4]

Of course, none of these reports make mention of the proxy war in Somalia--instigated by George W. Bush [5] and now sponsored by Barack Obama--being fought with Drones, illegal detention camps,[6] and Ethiopian troops backed by the United States. And no African should forget the ongoing aggressions against so-called Somali "pirates."[7][8] 

How are western military objectives, western NGOs and foreign aid schemes contributing to instability and food shortages in the region? None of the mainstream media reports about this latest cycle of famines raises these important questions. Libertarian, Bob Adelmann, calls the reports of a looming famine "scarcity scare"--a conspiratorial tactic used to justify a one-world government (Note: Adelmann also believes that global warming is part of the conspiracy. I don't share this view. GI).[9] TransAfrica, an NGO that advocates for equitable US-Africa relations, has not been the same since the departure its founder, Randall Robinson,[10] but at least they attempt to link famine in the Horn of Africa with the "lingering effects of the Cold War." Not a very strong statement but at least its a starting point for a more comprehensive understanding of the politics of famine. You can read their  statement, which includes a list of NGOs that are actively aiding Somalia @ United Nations States Must Step Up and Fully Fund the Somali Relief Fund | TransAfrica

Notes: 

[1] BBC NEWS | Africa | Somali catastrophe 'largely unnoticed'

[2] allAfrica.com: Resources » Hunger Crisis Hits Horn of Africa

[3] Somali militants vow to block aid groups | Deseret News

[4] TransAfrica

[5] Saline Lone, writing in 2006, predicted correctly that US policy in Somalia would only serve to embolden radical Islam in that region: "An insurgency by Somalis, millions of whom live in Kenya and Ethiopia, will surely ensue, and attract thousands of new anti-U.S. militants and terrorists." Read his essay @  In Somalia, a reckless U.S. proxy war - Opinion - International Herald Tribune - The New York Times

[6] The CIA's Secret Sites in Somalia | The Nation

[7] BBC NEWS | Africa | US captain rescued from pirates

[8] Watch this clip, Pirates of Somalia, for some insights into how western policies help create "piracy" -->  ‪PIRATES of SOMALIA Trailer‬‏ - YouTube

[9] Using the Food Crisis

[10] Quitting America

Also dig:

• How America Underdevelops Africa: Death, Plunder, Resistance
• Stones, Bombs, and Planes: A Tale of Two Barbarisms
• You: Somali children's famine has been ignored (nation.com.pk)
• Why are Somalia's militants clamping down on famine aid? (csmonitor.com)
• Antiterror laws could impede US aid for Somalia famine victims (csmonitor.com)

Bombing for "democracy" in Libya‬‏? One million Libyans say no!

Image via Wikipedia

A Million People March (BBC says "tens of thousands") in Tripoli to  support their leader Gaddafi. The rally is not likely to get much analysis in the western media because the USA-AFRICOM/NATO excuse for removing Gaddafi is that he is "killing his own people" and, presumably, most Libyans want him out--or so we are told. We are not supposed to notice that Gaddafi still has solid support in Libya. Of course none of this is about "the people" or "democracy," its about oil, lots of it and propping up compliant leaders in Libya or a partitioned Libya. And while its distressing to watch the first black president waging a senseless war in an African nation, its not surprising. All American presidents routinely violate the human rights of its citizens [1] and the global community in the service of elite white power.

I stand with Gaddafi...

...and for those Africans who say that Libya is none of our concern, that Libyans are Arabs and anti-black. Remember that your nation might be next if AFRICOM decides they want your resources.





Notes:

1. Despite centuries of black struggle, African Americans were not full citizens in the USA until the 1970s when the Equal Employment and Opportunities Act was passed. Post civil rights, the prison system has become the new slavery plantation. And many Native Americans still live in poverty on "reservations."

Related articles

• What Obama would have us ignore
• Stones, Bombs, and Planes: A Tale of Two Barbarisms
• First Nations: The Oglala Lakota (Sioux) Nation (No. 2)
• Libya War:NATO bombs Gaddafi's residence (laaska.wordpress.com)
• African Union refuses to recognize Gaddafi arrest warrant (rt.com)
• America's New Frontline - Witness - Al Jazeera English

Academics and Other War Mongers Meet to Legitimize AFRICOM

General William E. Ward, commander of AFRICOM

See also:

• Africa, AFRICOM, and the Private Military Economy

• "A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy": Aljazeera Investigates AFRICOM

• AFRICOM: The Pentagon's First Direct Military Intervention in Africa (this title is obviously inaccurate. GI)
• AFRICOM and the US's Hidden Battle for Africa


Ever wonder how neo-colonial, global white supremacist projects like AFRICOM are legitimated? One piece to the puzzle is conferences like the one below. They don't actually use the phrase AFRICOM, but the intent is obvious. Manifest Destiny--protecting "American" (read: white elite supremacists) interests by any means necessary.

We need to organize a scholarly pan-African response. GI

Read call for papers below.



Reducing Insecurity in Africa: Roles and Responsibilities of the U.S. Military, U.S. Government and Non-Governmental Communities
The Naval Postgraduate School is hosting a workshop that assesses the various roles played by different actors involved in projects that span the nexus between development and security in Africa. In regions where any efforts to reduce insecurity will fail without addressing fundamental issues such as poverty, inequality, corruption and poor governance, what are the respective roles of military, non-military governmental, and non-governmental actors? Where does “development” end and “security and stabilization” begin?

In an environment where most security problems are complex security issues, however, development and security are deeply intertwined [This phrase is key. On the face of it, pairing development and security sounds reasonable, but "security" is, in reality, military mumbo jumbo for American military intervention/occupation. GI]. In this scenario, what is the role of the U.S. military in Africa and what are suitable military approaches to African security? Defining the roles and responsibilities of various actors – U.S. military, U.S. government non-military, international organizations, non-governmental organizations – becomes part and parcel of defining the challenge of finding sustainable and long-term solutions to the political and regional instabilities that plague Africa and prevent the continent from truly realizing its full potential for economic and political development. This workshop will investigate these various issues through a set of solicited papers that are presented in a close-collaborative workshop format.

Read more @ HNET

tags: africom, neo-colonialism, william e. ward

Africa, AFRICOM, and the Private Military Economy

Posted by the ghetto intellectual on 3/26/2010

• U.S. Achieves Deep Penetration of African Armed Forces

• What is AFRICOM?

• Obama moves ahead with AFRICOM

• Official AFRICOM website

by David Isenberg

AFRICA: The Mother of All PMC

With all the attention being paid to private military and security contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan it is easy to forget they operate in other parts of the world. But it would be wrong to do so. While PMCs are to the best of my knowledge not, at least not yet, operating in the Arctic, they are just about everywhere else.

And one region where they are increasingly prominent is Africa, the region most closely identified with the modern private security contractor. This is the region that produced the now disbanded Executive Outcomes, the most famous PMC in modern history. Just as Africa is the birthplace of humanity it is also the birthplace of the modern PMC.

While EO no longer exists the use of PMC by the U.S. and commercial firms has steadily increased.

One impetus for the growth of PMC there was the Pentagon's October 2007 establishment of AFRICOM (United States African Command), the U.S. military's most recent unified command. To its credit, unlike other unified commands, AFRICOM, responsible for military relations with 53 African nations, focuses on war-prevention, rather than war-fighting. But because the U.S. military deliberately chooses to keep a small military presence in Africa it must rely to a greater degree on private contractors.

Read more @ The Mother of All PMC

Is Africa a breeding ground for terrorism?? April Ryan says yes.

Dig it!

I don't own a Tell-lie-vision...



but I happened to be in a restaurant ordering a salmon burger (don't judge me!) and stumbled upon a live broadcast of a briefing to reporters on the state of US counterterrorism in light of the "Underwear Bomber" incident.  I looked up in time to see journalist April Ryan (Yep, the same April Ryan who was dissed by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs not long ago.) asking several questions. As her words came tumbling out I got the sense that she was out of her element, that she really didn't know much about international affairs. The longer I listened the more perplexed and concerned I became. Ryan declared that Africa was a "breeding ground" for terrorists and that these African terrorists would eventually invade Europe:

on the Africa issue, some in the national security community are saying that the focus needs to be placed on the continent of Africa.  You talked -- the President has talked about Somalia.  And there are breeding grounds in Africa where extremists from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border are going to Somalia.  And there's a fear that the tentacles will spread from there into Northern Africa, into Europe. Have you or anyone here talked to any of the African leaders?  And is AFRICOM appropriate to handle this kind of situation right now after the Christmas attack?

She posted a near identical statement on her blog (no mention of AFRICOM).

Meanwhile, Robert Gibbs White House Press Secretary contends the President has not placed calls to African leaders on the Detroit incident. Some countries in Africa are breeding grounds for terror. Some members of Al Qaeda and other extremists are leaving the Afghanistan and Pakistan boarders to flee to Somalia. Some in the National Security field fear the extremists in Somalia will create tentacles throughout the continent, particularly in lawless areas there.

Ryan is wrong about Somalia and other unnamed African nations being strongholds for terrorist plots. But she is not solely to blame for this nonsense. US discussions about "terror" are deeply flawed. The majority of what we call terrorist acts are actually legitimate responses to our dreadful foreign policy. 


Read the transcript of the press briefing including Ms. Ryan's statement here and her blog post here. If you have questions for April Ryan, you can leave them at her blog. 

Map of Terror

US intelligence terror map. African nations on the "terror map" are Algeria, Libya, Sudan, Nigeria and Somalia. (The tiny sliver of red on the west (left) side of the map is Cuba. Someone please remind me again why are we still bullying Cuba after all these years?!)


Map source: CNN

Naked plane source: trashselector

tags: africom, cuba, method man, Nigeria, war on terror

Nigerian (so-called) terrorists' Links to Ghana (or "We almost lost Detroit")

So along with a severely ill president, Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, running the country from a hospital in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria now has a 23 year-old citizen who stands accused by the world's superpower of plotting to blow up an airplane in Detroit. This could not happen at a worst time for Nigeria (but it is a great opportunity for AFRICOM). And God knows Detroit doesn't need any more problems--"terrorism" is not the sort of growth industry you want to be known for. 

This Ghanaweb article about the Nigerian so-called "terrorist", Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, reports a number details on the alleged plot including Abdulmuallab's purchase of a seat over the aircraft's fuel tanks, a syringe "sewn into his underwear," and several loose connections to Ghana.

Federal authorities on Saturday charged a 23-year-old Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , with trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, and officials said the suspect told them he had obtained explosive chemicals and a syringe that were sewn into his underwear from a bomb expert in Yemen associated with Al Qaeda.

Abdulmutallab appeared to have chosen his seat on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 carefully. The Christmas Day seat in aisle 19 placed him right over the fuel tanks of the jetliner and at the window, where an explosion would have maximum effect, US security experts told US broadcasters.

Read full story @ Ghanaweb.



Tags: africom, detroit, ghana, Nigeria, terrorism 

Obama moves ahead with AFRICOM (Dap @ kingdomzx.ning.com )

In his 11 July 2009 speech in Accra, Ghana, US President Barack Obama declared, 'America has a responsibility to advance this vision, not just with words, but with support that strengthens African capacity. When there is genocide in Darfur or terrorists in Somalia, these are not simply African problems – they are global security challenges, and they demand a global response. That is why we stand ready to partner through diplomacy, technical assistance, and logistical support, and will stand behind efforts to hold war criminals accountable. Our Africa Command is focused not on establishing a foothold in the continent, but on confronting these common challenges to advance the security of America, Africa and the world.'

And yet all the available evidence demonstrates that he is determined to continue the expansion of US military activity on the continent initiated by President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s and dramatically escalated by President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009. While many expected the Obama administration to adopt a security policy toward Africa that would be far less militaristic and unilateral than that pursued by his predecessor, the facts show that he is in fact essentially following the same policy that has guided US military involvement in Africa for more than a decade.

Read entire article at Pambazuka

We must resist Africom!


Photo credit: theblackchannel

tags: africom, barack obama, geopolitical, neo-colonialism

U.S. Achieves Deep Penetration of African Armed Forces (H/T Shango)

U.S. Achieves Deep Penetration of African Armed Forces

Posted Mon, 10/05/2009 - 23:55

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A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Supporters of African independence are generally pleased that the U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM, has not yet established an official headquarters on the continent, for fear of igniting anti-imperialist passions. But AFRICOM doeshave a major base on the continent, and more than half the militaries of Africa are at this moment being trained by AFRICOM units.

U.S. Achieves Deep Penetration of African Armed Forces

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“They are creating African militaries that cannot operate without the assistance of the Americans.”

AFRICOM, the U.S. military's Africa Command, has forged deep ties to a growing number of militaries on the African continent. And, contrary to popular belief and official U.S. proclamations, Africom has established a base on the African continent. The base is located in Djibouti, the former French colony in the Horn of Africa on Somalia's northern border. The huge American base in Djibouti, from which the United States coordinates military actions in the region, including operations in Somali territory, is under AFRICOM command. It is, therefore, a fiction to maintain that AFRICOM has no bases on African soil.The U.S. Africa Command has simply opened no new bases, or relocated its official headquarters from Germany – a move that might ignite a wave of protest on the continent.

But the Americans may not have to stage a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a formal AFRICOM headquarters to accomplish the militarization of Africa under U.S. domination. A massive, U.S.-led military exercise is just winding down in the west African nation of Gabon. Dubbed “Africa Endeavor” the training mission involves military units from nearly 30 African countries under the auspices of the Americans: the U.S. Africa Command. It is by far the largest joint exercise with African militaries, and the third in so many years; the first two involved South Africa and Nigeria.

“It is a fiction to maintain that AFRICOM has no bases on African soil.”

The African American who commands AFRICOM, Gen. William Ward, claims the latest exercise in Gabon, which began last week and ends October 8, is designed to improve the ability of armed forces from various African nations to communicate with each other in peace-keeping operations. They are without a doubt learning how to communicate with and operate alongside the United States military. The current focus of U.S. AFRICOM activities appears to revolve around preparing African troops to operate under American command-and-control procedures. In early September, 50 Ugandan military officers were sent to the U.S. military base in Djibouti for training. A spokesman for the Ugandan Armed Forces told reporters the objective was to train Africans to fight with international forces. That is clearly a euphemism for operating alongside the Americans.

If the U.S. can turn the militaries of sovereign African nations into appendages of American forces, operating under American command-and-control, then there is no need to draw attention to the US. military presence in Africa by formally designating an AFRICOM headquarters in, say, Kampala, Uganda, or Monrovia, Liberia. Once the U.S. has subverted the officers corps of Africa's armies and made them dependent on U.S. equipment, procedures and logistics, American military domination becomes a fait accompli.

For its part, the U.S. Africa Command says the military exercises are meant to develop “standard procedures” for the operation of an all-African “Standby Force,” under the African Union. What they are in fact creating is a force that cannot operate without the assistance of the Americans. And, of course, such a force could never resist the Americans in battle. The U.S. will never give Africans the tools to defend themselves from...the Americans.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go towww.BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted atGlen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

tags: africom, geopolitical, war, uganda, africom, military industrial complex