No Campaign Supports Eating Babies September 20, 2009
Posted by Garibaldy in Lisbon Treaty.trackback
And so it’s finally happened. Those demanding a Yes vote have finally sunk just about as low as they can go. And it will surprise no-one to find that this depth has been plumbed by none other than Jim Cusack of the Sunday Independent. Discussing the Congo, Cusack notes
A security source in the region who spoke to the Sunday Independent recently said that these practices are still going on. “They go into a village and kill most the adults. They rape the women before they kill them. They take the children with them. When they get hungry they cook them.”
Nothing on the colonial and political history of the Congo, its massive natural resources, nor of the outside interference there. Hmmm. I wonder why. Cusack also cites the example of the British action in Sierra Leone. Nothing about diamonds there either. Chad is held up as
a successful example of what a small, well-ordered Western force can achieve in a region torn apart by warring militias.
Nothing on the colonial history of Chad, nor of French interests there. Nor any comment on Somalia in 1993, nor to pick one example at random, Afghanistan, where the warring militias haven’t been doing too badly against a large western force. Once again I wonder why.
Those in favour of Lisbon have denied that it entails any commitment to militarisation. Well Cusack, who has strong links to the army in the south and acts as a publicity agent for them (as indeed he does in this piece), begs to differ.
The Lisbon Treaty actually has the effect of pushing the highly reticent EU member states to do more about places like these, proposing that EU states improve their military capability and engage in tasks such as “joint disarmament operations…military advice and assistance tasks … tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking and post conflict stabilization”.
So Cusack is in no doubt anyway that the aim of the Treaty is to make the EU an effective military power, even though many states within it don’t want it to be such. Food for thought for those who the Yes side I’d have thought. And what of the No campaigners? They
equate the proposals on military intervention to prevent genocide in third world countries to some kind of huge multi-national EU force bent on re-colonising the region.
The only “militarisation” being put forward is the type that would end the eating of children and the other horrific acts of genocides.
So there you have it. Vote Yes or you are directly responsible for the cannibalising of innocent children in Africa. You evil bastards.
Damn. After reading this, I’d better vote Yes. Nothing like a bit of sophistry to get me to vote Yes.
I’m sure Cusack will feel that’s a job well done Craig
My god. Even for Cusack, that’s bonkers.
Jim has really set a new bar there for sheer fantasy, Christ I’m happy I don’t live in his world, well scary.
You do wonder how stuff likes this makes it past an editor. Wouldn’t happen under Denis O’Brien I tell ya!
Jesus Christ, that’s fucking disgusting – for its errors of fact, errors that are unforgivable due to the fact that they were easily avoidable.
1. The reports of cannibalism in the DRC are probably well-founded. What Cusack doesn’t mention is that DRC civil war is the result of years of interference by outside powers ranging from Belgium, to the United States, to the RPF regime in neighbouring Rwanda. And a major factor is the need of the outside world to access the natural resources of the eastern DRC (e.g. coltan, vital for mobile phones and laptops). And the highest estimate of deaths in the conflict is not 2.5 million: it is 5.4 million.
2. In all the literature on the Sierra Leone the ‘west side boys’ are referred to by that name – I’ll look it up in a second, once I’m done writing this, but while they may have gone by the name ‘west side niggaz’ at one point, the west side boys name is not an invention of politically correct western journalists. As for the mutilation of civilians, this was a practice of the Revolutionary United Front, an entirely different faction in the civil war. Did this shithead Cusack even bother to read Wikipeadia before penning his screed?
3. The SL civil war would seem to be a straightforward case of the value of western intervention. A Sierra Leonese colleague of mine thinks that by 2000 things were so far gone that the British intervention was inevitable. He also says taht most of the heavy lifting in terms of fighting the rebel/sobel factions was done by the ECOWAS intervention troops.
4. There is nothing ‘unofficial’ about the government of Southern Sudan. It is the official, legally constituted government of that region of Sudan. While the referendum on independence due for next year may lead to problems, there’s no reason to assume a return to war is inevitable.
I am fucking incensed after reading this contemptible rubbish.
OK, some better informed material on the ‘West Side Boys’, from the peer-reviewed Journal of Modern African Studies.
Mats Utas, in his paper ‘The West Side Boys: military navigation in the Sierra Leone civil war’ gives some data on the origins and subsequent history of the WSB. Many members of the militia were sons of soldiers in the SL army: ‘A partial explanation for the name ‘West Side Boys’ was their background in the Western Area, the small peninsular district with Freetown as capital. Moreover, many had been based at the barracks in Western Freetown (chiefly Wilberforce but also Juba,
Cockrill). The main reason for the ‘West Side’ name was however the music of the American rapper Tupac Shakur.’
Utas quotes one informant who says:
So when we were in the camp we just wanted to listen to Shakur music. So we went singing ‘West Side’ and go on ‘ah-ah-ah-ah’ [like the background fill-in in many rap songs]. So all the other soldiers they made the name famous. So we began to plait our hair and behave like American boys. If you go to some towns in the interior you will see West Side Niggaz written on the walls. It was only when the government put charges against us that they started to call us West Side Boys. We called ourselves West Side Niggaz, yes [he says the words slowly, as if tasting them with full satisfaction]. So when we later formed the camp [in Okra Hills] we said this is the West Side Camp – because this is the Western Area.
So, yes the ‘West Side Boys’ did use the other name for a time – but the change from ‘Niggaz’ to ‘Boys’ is not an invention of ‘politically correct western journalists’.
Thanks for all that Dr. X. Nothing like some facts to combat the Sindo. I wasn’t suggesting there should or shouldn’t have been intervention in Sierra Leone. Just that the presence of diamonds seems to me to be worth commenting on as compared to other countries where no intervention happened.
No, nothing about (re-)colonial ambitions by the old European imperial powers there – we’re just going to be undertaking the White Man’s Burden to civilise the natives, dontcha’ know.
Christ, it’s like a time-warp back a hundred years.
It’s unfortunate that both sides of the debate have started stooping to personal attacks, as well as faulty arguments, such as that of the good Mr Cusack above. I am still going to vote against this farcical repeat treaty, but doesn’t this all feel a bit too much like the run up to Nice-II seven years ago? Wild apocalyptic accusations… Snide insinuations… Deja vu all over again.
Yeah Craig it’s a great shame. The issues are too important to be left in the hands of idiots.
Dr. X
I’m fucking incensed at reading YOUR contemptible rubbish. You are honestly suggesting that the dispicable goings-on in the Congo -among other places – are the fault of Western governments?
You don’t mention the interference of China and the USSR, however.
You don’t live in Africa, you have NO idea what goes on here, although to be fair you aren’t disputing the allegations of cannibalism. Have you noticed that no-one has, by the way?
Genocide occurred also in Rwanda where there are little in the way of mineral resources (- they fought over land essentially, it being Africa’s most densely populated nation.).
So we’re damned if we do (intercede) and damned if we don’t.
Contrary to some of the claims in the above post, the wars and genocide in Africa are PREVENTING to extraction of minerals and other resources.
I will still be voting no on Lisbon, however. For entirely other reasons.
1. WRT the Democratic Republic of, there Congo the conflicts there are indeed partly (PARTLY) the responsibility of western governments. Had the United States not fostered the rise of the kleptocratic dictator Mobutu, that unfortunate country might not have collapsed into economic and social catastrophe.
2. China is certainly moving into Africa in a big way, with highly questionable results. And the USSR made some unfortunate choices in backing e.g. Mengistu in Ethiopia (the people in the village in Eritrea where I did my doctoral research said of Mengistu’s regime, ‘they bombed our villages, killed our animals, killed people, even old people, and we were in hell’). That only underlines the nature of great power imperialism in Africa, it doesn’t let the western great powers off the hook.
3. Overpopulation may well have played a role in setting the stage for genocide in Rwanda, but it was not the only variable at work there. Rather than simply being about land, the struggle between the Hutu-led government and the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front was about control of the state. And the ethnic divisions of Rwandan society into Hutu and Tutsi was the result of Belgian colonial policy – as even the most ‘Janet and John’ account of the genocide would tell if you, if you’d bothered to read up on the subject, which I don’t think you have.
3. No one has disputed allegations of cannibalism in DRC? What’s your point caller? I doubt, somehow, that your point is that human beings in terrible situations can do terrible things (e.g. cannibalism, or at least anthropophagy in the siege of Leningrad). I notice no one has disputed the role of mineral exports as a key prize of the contending factions in that unfortunate country.
4. ‘Contrary to some of the claims in the above post, the wars and genocide in Africa are PREVENTING to extraction of minerals and other resources.’
What exactly do you mean here? That the wars prevent THE extraction of mineral resources? Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t – and the connection between the ‘resource curse’ and war is a more complex one than the econometric models of Paul Collier would suggest. But the link between resources and war in Africa is a very real one, believe me.
5. What was the author and title of the last book on Africa you read, Tim? I mean, you wouldn’t barge in here and start shooting your mouth off about something you know nothing about, would you?
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@Dr. X
“I mean, you wouldn’t barge in here and start shooting your mouth off about something you know nothing about, would you?”
Let me introduce you to the internet …
Dr. X
to answer 5. first, the last book I read on Africa was a travelogue/history of the Congo (DRC) by a British journalist, a very balanced account I thought. And, no, I hardly ever comment unless I have something to say, there’re too many trolls about. But, as smiffy says, welcome to the internet..
1. the ‘better the devil you know’ policy of the US and others was a popular one during the cold war, alright.
2. China’s input will do endless harm, particularly as they have questionable human rights awareness. The majority of the guns floating round however, are AK47s (chinese and russian made), not M16s.
3. The Janet and John accounts as found in Sunday magazines like to blame the Belgians – in reality the differences between Tutsis and Hutus go back generations, one group were cattle herders and the other pastoralists. A materialist analysis would place the ultimate source of conflict on competition for land in the region. Farms had been subdivided to the limit, and as you likely know, the entire genocide was orchestrated by academics of all people, although enthusiastically endorsed by the poor on the ground.
3. (again) Cannibalism has nothing to do with hunger!
You must surely be aware of the meaning of ritual cannibalism in Africa? The Congolese survive on the cassava plant, which takes zero effort to grow although it has little nutritional value. The Congo is not short of food.
4. The wars prevent extraction and export of minerals. Yes. In the Congo, particularly the East, warlords control the mines, although the smuggling of materials to Uganda and from there to China etc is a rather haphazard affair. Traditionally, the Congo river itself was the main trade artery, but that has all but been cut off by river warlords and warring factions.
The point is, even within a functioning state, African coutries do not have the infrastructure to compete economically, how much worse when the infrastructure is obliterated by war?
The majority of the guns floating round however, are AK47s (chinese and russian made), not M16s.
And this means what, exactly? Musical-chair arms deals by Western governments (where the US sells to Israel, then Israel sells to South Africa etc.) are rather a well-known phenomenon by this stage.
EWI, none of those countries make the AK. What it means is that weapons proliferation in the Third World, particularly Africa, can not be attributed to Western powers to nearly the same extent as to the Chinese, who are intent on colonising Africa. They are still arming the regime in Zimbabwe.
This article from the Irish Left Review talks about the implications of Lisbon for developing countries
http://www.irishleftreview.org/2009/09/22/lisbon-development/
More later, in the meantime chew on this:
http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/congo.htm
US arms sales to Africa and the Congo war.
Of course inside Tim the Enchanter’s mind, if you dare to criticise the noble paladins of western civilisation in Washington, you must be an apologist for Mugabe and his Chinese accomplices.
Tim the Enchantor – I like that.
Thanks for the link, I only had time to read the “major findings” section now and I found it interesting. I wonder if China will produce a similar report damning its complicity in Africa’s many wars. I somehow doubt it. The point is, nobody denies US involvement (and French direct involvement) militarily in Africa, but criticism should always be made in context. I mention China for the sake of balance, not misinformation.
The point too is, and from this report you can see, the US has checks and balances like the Arms Trade Resource Center, and may well ban arms sales to certain regimes. (Even though guns don’t kill people – people kill people. Those in conflict zones manage fine with pangas and knives).
I just don’t agree with the popular idea that Western countries foster civil war in Africa to lay hands on their resources.
That’s not what I’m saying, you twit. I am not alleging a conspiracy theory whereby London or Washington deliberately foster civil wars and massacres for their own nefarious ends. There is no conspiracy, but there is a structural relationship that produces a particular patten of cause and effect.
And one of the products of that structural relationship, one of the effects it causes, is war.
Yeh – resort to insults, that’ll make the facts go away. Did I use the word conspiracy? Nice misdirection there.
You said:
“DRC civil war is the result of years of interference by outside powers ranging from Belgium, to the United States, to the RPF regime in neighbouring Rwanda. And a major factor is the need of the outside world to access the natural resources of the eastern DRC”.
You don’t mention the USSR, China (if they’re involved), Zimbabwe or Uganda (heavily involved). Maybe I’ve read you wrong but I don’t think I have. Mobutu was a monster but was he better or worse than the Kabilas?
My point is that it is in the interests of Western countries to stop the Congolese -and others- from massacring each other, and that might require “interference” whether we like it or not.
You would agree that to leave one ‘side’ unarmed will not achieve that, but you say that the United States “fostered the rise of the kleptocratic dictator Mobutu” while the USSR just “made some unfortunate choices in backing”. Why not give the US the same benefit of the doubt?