Update [2005-7-5 21:20:10 by susanhu]: Chris Floyd, a rockstar blogger (imo), blogs Monbiot’s latest.
Update [2005-7-5 19:33:51 by susanhu]: Infoclearinghouse has a new Monbiot piece, “Africa’s new best friends.” (Those are the U.S. and Britain. Huh.)
“UK gunrunners fuelling killings, mass rape and torture in Democratic Republic of Congo”: Today’s press release from Amnesty Int’l to pressure G8 members convening this week. On June 22, BooTrib noted, Amnesty issued another shocker: “G8 sales account for 84% of all worldwide arms supplies.”
Money makes the world go ’round, doesn’t it.
No matter that Pygmies are massacred and cannibalized. Or that young girls are gang-raped.
I popped in on Under the Same Sun blog, which quotes Guardian columnist George Monbiot at his blog on debt relief:
More below:
Robert Mugabe, the west’s demon king, has deservedly been frozen out by the rich nations.
But he has caused less suffering and is responsible for less corruption than Rwanda’s Paul Kagame or Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, both of whom are repeatedly cited by the G8 countries as practitioners of “good governance”.
Their armies, as the UN has documented, are largely responsible for the meltdown in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which has so far claimed four million lives, and have walked off with billions of dollars’ worth of natural resources. Yet the United Kingdom, which is hosting the G8 summit, remains their main bilateral funder.
The difference, of course, is that Mugabe has not confined his attacks to black people …
Monbiot — who wrote the best-sellers The Age of Consent: a manifesto for a new world order and Captive State: the corporate takeover of Britain — continues:
Genuine corruption, on the other hand, is tolerated and even encouraged. Twenty-five countries have so far ratified the UN Convention Against Corruption, but none of them are members of the G8. Why? Because our own corporations do very nicely out of it. In the UK companies can legally bribe the governments of Africa if they operate through our (profoundly corrupt) tax haven of Jersey.(5) Lord Falconer, the minister responsible for sorting this out, refuses to act. When you see the list of the island’s clients, many of which sit in the FTSE-100 index, you begin to understand. …
Which takes us back to today’s Amnesty press release:
This included several million rounds of Kalashnikov ammunition. At least one shipment contained grenades and rocket launchers.
Amnesty International has found that three of the companies involved in these arms deliveries operated from the UK: …
Writes Monbiot, “The idea swallowed by most commentators – that the conditions our governments impose help to prevent corruption – is laughable.”
“The real problem with the G8’s conditionalities, says Monbiot, is that “[t]hey do not stop at pretending to prevent corruption, but intrude into every aspect of sovereign government.”
There’s much more from Monbiot — including a detailed discussion of Uganda as an example of what Western aid does to an African country.
Curious about the United Nations Convention against Corruption?
At its site, you can scan the list of signatories As Monbiot said, none of the G8 members has ratified or approved the convention.
Meanwhile, in the Congo:
[…..]
Congo’s conflict killed around 4 million people, mainly from war-related hunger and disease, in a nation roughly the size of western Europe.
Despite the 2003 peace deal, the resource-rich country has seen little economic progress and the government has failed to impose its authority over vast areas of the east, where armed gangs still pillage and kill with impunity.
Human Rights Watch says FAPC members tortured 24 civilians and killed six of them in the volatile northeastern district of Ituri last October, putting them in a makeshift underground prison at a military base and beating them with sticks.
Some of the most feared Ituri warlords, including the FAPC’s Jerome Kakwavu, were made generals in the national army in January, a move meant to help the dismantling of rebel groups. (Reuters/Alternet)
WTF? We’re disguising ARMS DEALS as anti-terrorism aid? Am I reading this right?
From Amnesty:
On 23 October 2003, it was reported that the US government had resumed US military assistance to Uganda.(197) In June 2003, President Bush announced the United States would spend $100 million on “anti-terrorism aid” to Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and Djibouti.(198) On 28 January 2004, the Russian helicopter production company, Rostvertol, announced that it was to supply modernized Mi-24PN military attack helicopters to Uganda. The company did not specify the value of the contract or the number of helicopters to be supplied but said that the contract would be fulfilled in the first half of 2004.(199)
The Rwandan government has successfully exploited Western guilt over its inaction in the 1994 genocide to cover its own crimes in DR Congo. These are not anywhere near the magnitude of the genocide, but they are real and have been sidestepped.
Uganda is an especially difficult case. The rebels in Acholi province carry out sex slavery, kidnapping, and terrorization as part of their Christian fundamentalism gone wild. Military aid to fight them seems eminently sensible. But military aid is just as likely to be diverted towards old-style repression – or smuggled over to Uganda’s proxy militias which continue to carry out terror in DR Congo.
Good post, Susan. Monbiot points out some of the deeper issues here. Debt relief, while not a total red herring, would be far from the highest priority if G8 countries really were prepared to make sacrifices. A ban on arms sales should be far more effective, but politically it’s out of the question.
With respect to conditionality, however, it’s my impression that the IMF and (especially) the World Bank have improved somewhat since the late 80s/early 90s heyday of ‘structural adjustment.’ They take the sociopolitical particularities of each country more into account before demanding rigid austerity programs. I also have to say that without strict conditionality with respect to transparency, debt relief will be worse than useless, since it is then bound to enable further dictatorial kleptocracy just as billions and billions of ‘aid’ have already done.
One of the sharpest point Monbiot makes – although he gives the impression that Rwanda and Uganda have armies in the DRC now, which is probably wrong – is that the West has not forced them to quit funding and arming rebel groups in the Ituri region in order to access gold, coltan and other minerals, lining the pockets of officials in both of these countries. The US especially could have made a difference, since the Kagame and Museveni regimes are its regional clients. And the UK, as he notes, is their main bilateral funder. But it’s more convenient to focus on Zimbabwe. (Not that Zimbabwe doesn’t merit the attention in its own right.) And one should keep in mind that the Congo war almost surely is the worst disaster on the planet, far more deadly than, say, Iraq.
Not surprised at the dearth of comments to this post. I did a round-up on Museveni over at Eurotrib, which is the only post I’ve made anywhere to attract 0 comments.
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BBC World reported this week in Liberia and West Africa a large number of ritual killings have taken place due to upcoming democratic elections! An account was given how a woman and mother, aged 36, left for journey to town.
Family and children found her body in the fields after nine days search. She was beheaded, fingers and private parts were removed, as well as internal organs.
For the children, their future is at risk as the little income that meant survival and some education was now lost. The local police had no interest in an investigation to the slaughter. A distant uncle would try to offer the orphans some assistance.
Liberia ritual killings warning
The leader of Liberia’s transitional government Gyude Bryant, has promised to use the death penalty against anyone found guilty of sacrificial killings. During an address on state radio Mr Bryant said people were killing in the belief it would make them successful, rich, or the next president.
A BBC correspondent in Liberia says the number of ritual murders is growing. Sacrifices have been reported in three of Liberia’s counties – the latest involving beheading and organ removal.
Election edge
“We’ll find you, we’ll arrest you, we’ll prosecute you and let me say again to everybody, if the judge passes down a ruling to say you must die by hanging, I will hang you,” Mr Bryant said. “I will sign the death warrant without batting my eye.”
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