After some 8,000 bombing raids, with estimates of 4 bombs used per attack NATO has already dropped over 30,000 bombs on Libya. That’s almost 200 bombs per day for 6 months, some tens of thousands of tons of high explosives. With an estimated 2 Libyans killed per bomb and without a single NATO casualty the Western regimes have massacred over 60,000 Libyans in the past half year with the rebels themselves having said there have been 50,000 Libyan deaths. One hell of a humanitarian intervention isn’t it?
How the “civil war” in Libya has proceeded can best be described in light of the events of August 21. On that Sunday afternoon a BBC film crew showed a rebel column fleeing the approaches to Zawiya outside of Tripoli. With their tails between their legs, glancing fearfully over their shoulders as they fled wildly back down the road from whence they came, even the BBC presstitute on the scene could not contain his disgust at the sight. Once again the rebels had run into stiff resistance and had shown their true mettle by fleeing the fight.
The next morning a France24 reporter recounted how later that Sunday night she had accompanied these same rebels as they drove almost unopposed through Zawiya into Green Square in the heart of Tripoli, this time passing row upon row of bombed out still burning buildings.
This has been NATO’s war and while the world may not understand this, the Libyan rebels certainly do.
A major problem for NATO and its Libyan Quisling League a.k.a the National Transitional Council (NTC) is that most of rebel military is now under the leadership the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a self described affiliate of Al Queda in the Maghreb (North Africa). The “general” in command of the mainly ethnic Berber rebel fighters that have captured the Libyan capital, known as the Tripoli Military Council, is the head of the LIFG. One of his top commanders is head of the Benghazi based rebel army. With the recent murder of “General” Younnis, former head of the Libyan secret police and once considered the most feared man in the country, the LIFG has now taken over leadership of almost all of the most effective fighting forces of the Libyan rebellion.
Quite an accomplishment and Al Queda in the Maghreb’s sincere thanks must go to the USA and its allies in NATO.
As the former LIFG terrorists turned “freedom fighters” go house to house arresting and executing “Gaddafi supporters” and “African mercenaries” in Tripoli life for the ordinary people of the city has become one of survival. Without water for almost two weeks now, without cooking gas or fuel for their cars and with food in short supply the future for the people of Tripoli remains uncertain.
Some reports in the international media have claimed that the Great Man Made River (GMMR), the irrigation system that supplies northern Libya with almost all its water was bombed by NATO. Other reports claim that “Gaddafi loyalists” still control the southern water wells and have shut off the water supply. If the later is true then even Benghazi’s water supply is in jeopardy. In any case, Tripoli is going to be dependent on imported water for quite some time and how a city of almost 2 million is to survive using water imported via water trucks is a question the western media has stopped talking about.
The “Transitional National Council” now recognized as “the legitimate government of Libya” by NATO governments and their allies is made up of many former high ranking Libyan Government officials and is increasingly caught in a tough spot. With the African Union trying to block the release of Libyan Government funds held in western banks, there is little time to spare if this NTC’s control is to remain in place.
South African President Jacob Zuma has condemned the NTC leaders as embezzlers and demanded they return the tens of millions of dollars the NTC top leaderships is charged with stealing during their days in office in the Libyan government before the AU lifts its opposition to Gaddafi government funds being released to the NTC.
NATO leaders are having to scramble to keep the NTC afloat. Images of pallets stacked 6 feet high with 200 million Libyan Dinars flown in from London show just how touch and go it has become for the NTC’s attempts to maintain its influence. While NATO’s “Friends of LIbya” circus held in Paris promises the release of Libya’s $billions held ransom by the west, implementing these promises is another matter all together. Corruption and incompetence mark the NTC leadership’s past and it will come as no surprise to hear reports of massive embezzlement of these funds in the future.
How much longer the LIFG/Al Queda lead rebel armies will stand by and allow their former bitter enemies in the TNC to remain in power is the $60 billion question. Already the rebel “government” in the port city of Misrata has announced they do not recognize the authority of the TNC and rally’s demanding the removal of the former Libyan government officials in the TNC have been reported taking place on an almost daily basis there.
In the mean time the vast reaches of the southern Libyan desert has not been conquered by NATO and almost all of Libya’s water and much of its oil remains outside of the control of the NTC.
With hundreds of villages and small towns scattered across an immense area Col. Gaddafi and his supporters still have a vast area at their disposal. With Algeria fighting Al Queda in the Maghreb their border on Libya’s western flank remains open and allows opponents of the NATO backed rebels a safe haven. The NTC has already raised the alarm about a nasty long term insurrection based in southern Libya using Algeria as base.
So far the Al Queda lead rebel fighters and the west’s bully boys in the NTC have yet to begin to eat each other, though it seems almost inevitable that internal warfare amongst the rebels will take place. We may yet see NATO warplanes bombing its erstwhile allies in the Libyan rebellion.
The one thing that is clear is that the Libyan Tragedy has just begun and that the capture of most of northern Libya by the NATO backed rebels is just its first phase. 30,000 bombs over Libya killing some 60,000 Libyans marks the beginning rather than the end of this disaster.
Thomas C. Mountain was a member of the 1st US Peace Delegation to Libya in 1987 and is the only independent western journalist in the Horn of Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006. He can be reached at thomascmountain at yahoo dot com.
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French leader Nicolas Sarkozy in the Ivory Coast capital for President Alassane Ouattara's inauguration. Photo CNN
How long will this farce of pretend government in the Ivory Coast be tolerated by the other African states? The French and UN forces attacked and killed thousands of peaceful Ivoirians supporting the presidential candidate for whom they had voted and brought in its place the French puppet Ouattara and a ragbag of barely civilised, illiterate irregular troops calling themselves the Republican Force (FRCI). The issue at hand is not about the divergent claims about who won the election. It is about how one creates a productive and peaceful country from the rubble of its destruction and wresting democratic control of the nation by harnessing the corrupt and murderous thugs and rabble who have been imposed to run it.
Ouattara cannot control the warlords who actually run his country. He admitted during his visit to Washington that he is afraid for his life. That is why he spends most of his time out of the country on ‘missions’ which keep him away from the assassin’s bullets. His Prime Minister, Soro, has not been seen or heard of for two weeks as he, too, is afraid for his life. The two major warlords, Wattao and Vecho, are fighting each other for the right to collect ‘informal taxes’ on anyone or anything that passes through their territories by using their brutish lieutenants to enforce roadblocks on all maj0r routes and within Abidjan itself. This is in addition to their smuggling of diamonds and cocoa from the territories they control. There is a total breakdown of law and order as these hordes of armed rabble search for sustenance among a captive audience.
The post-war violence has not been much different than the violence perpetrated during the conflict, except that the French and UN helicopter gunships and tanks are not presently being used. According to Guillaume Ngefa, the acting human rights chief in the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) “Violations committed include proven cases of summary, extrajudicial executions, illegal arrests and detention, the freeing of people in return for cash, extortion, and criminal rackets against numerous drivers.” There have been twenty-six extrajudicial executions in Côte d’Ivoire cited last week by the UN, including that of a 17-month-old baby; over a hundred other human rights abuses were perpetrated in the past month by the FRCI. This is not only in the military fiefdoms operated by these tin pot warlords in the North since their rebellion in 2002, but in the heart of Abidjan itself.
Mr. Ngefa also voiced concern at violent clashes between the army and young villagers in several areas, denouncing “acts of intimidation, extortion and numerous obstacles to free movement committed by army elements.” Citing cruel and inhuman treatment and violation of property rights, he said similar abuses had also been perpetrated against ethnic groups, such as the Bété, Bakwé, Attié and Ebrié. People are being attacked, robbed and killed for their tribal identity. This is what the UN and France have achieved.
Alassane Ouattara gives Guillaume Soro a decree naming him prime minister in Abidjan
What did they expect? The rebels who separated the North from the South of the country after their 2001 rebellion were not regular soldiers. There were less than 1,250 regular soldiers in the New Forces which morphed, by decree, into the FRCI. These rebel troops were shoemakers, porters, rubbish collectors, itinerant labourers. They were joined by experienced mercenaries from the wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia who showed them how to run these rackets. At the time of the rebellion, all the civil servants, educators, doctors and the other members of the professional class fled the North. The poor farmers who were left there paid no taxes, no rents, no customs fees, and no services to the central government. They paid these to their local rebel commanders. They are still paying these to their local commanders. Only now, this corrupt and vicious system has been spread to cover the whole of the Ivory Coast when this malignant northern scum took over power in the South and the municipalities.
There is no government. At the top there is only a bunch of black Frenchmen kowtowing to the wishes of their French masters in giving out contracts and cash to the French business community. Alternatively they have the FRCI raping, looting and persecuting. There is nothing in between. The rebels looted and destroyed the records in every ministry in the capital. They burned and looted all the schools and universities. There is little left on which to build. The feeble efforts at disarmament of the rebels have succeeded in rounding up some ancient equipment from the 1970s, most of which had already been turned in for cash in prior disarmament operations. Things are growing worse and there is little hope of any improvement.
The whole operation by the UN, the French and the notional ‘international community’ has been a nightmare for the people of the Ivory Coast. These FRCI troops have not worked in ten years. They have no useful skills. They have survived by pillage and extortion for a decade. Who would believe that they would give this up to return to their wretched lives as porters or itinerant labourers? The Ivoirians knew this which is a good portion of the reason they supported Gbagbo. Only the French benefit from this continued dependence. Why the African states and the other European states tolerate this behaviour is an imponderable question.
This wizened, disease-inflamed and corrupt system will never give birth to a democratic organised nation capable of fulfilling the role demanded of it. Pity the Ivory Coast as it is the victim of other nations’ indifference and moral bankruptcy.
By Dr. Gary K. Busch
Gary K. Busch is an international trades unionist, an academic, a businessman and a political affairs and business consultant for 40 years, and has traveled and worked extensively in Africa.
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NATO air attack on Libya’s state TV [Reuters]
NATO Friday night attacked the Libyan television station in Tripoli killing three people and injuring 15 others in direct violation of their own UN Resolution 1973 which stipulates they may attack military targets “to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi” and to impose a ‘no-fly zone’.
It has long become clear that the UN Resolution is just a pretext for regime change in Libya, yet NATO continues to look us straight in the eyes as they tell the wildest whoppers, and this time to justify attacking a hostile press.
The attack “was necessary,” said NATO spokesman Colonel Roland Lavoie, “as TV was being used as an integral component of the regime apparatus to systematically oppress and threaten civilians.”
If that were true, why did it take four months for NATO to discover this? Of course, it is not true. What is true is they attacked the TV the day rebel commander, General Abdel Fattah Yunis, was killed by another rebel faction. I believe NATO did not want Tripoli to explain to the Libyan people what had happened and certainly does not want public opinion to know the tribal nature of the rebellion and the large presence of al-Qaeda sympathizers in its ranks.
But whatever the case, there can be no justification for bombing the press, even a hostile press.
Libyan TV director, Rabea Mukhtar, said this is the second time his TV has been attacked by NATO. “What is there inside?” he asked. “Are there weapons inside them? What is inside Libyan Television to attack?”
Mukhtar went on to warn NATO they could “bomb us again four or five times, we will continue doing our duties…”.
The director of Libyan TV’s English Channel, Khaled Bazelya, said bombing is an act of “international terrorism… We are employees of the official Libyan TV. We are not a military target.”
The West’s Long History of Bombing the Press
But NATO and the US have a ling history of attacking the press. On April 23, 1999, during the needless Kosovo War, a NATO missile blew up Serbian Radio and TV in Belgrade, killing 16 people and using the same excuse.
On November 13, 2001, a US missile hit Al-Jazeera’s office in Kabul. On April 8, 2003 a US missile hit an electric generator at Al-Jazeera’s offices in Baghdad leading to the death of one reporter and hurting a second.
In April 2003 they shelled the Basra hotel where Al-Jazeera reporters were the only guests. Al-Jazeera reporters have been arrested with at least one sent to Guantanamo.
On November 22, 2005, according to minutes received by The Daily Mirror , US President George W. Bush, in a White House meeting in April 2004, speculated with his good friend, then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, about a US bombing raid on Al-Jazeera world headquarter is Doha, Qatar and other locations. The Mirror says Blair convinced Bush to take no action. The UK government run BBC came to the rescue saying that Bush’s comments could have been intended as “some kind of joke.” The Independent countered “official note takers don’t normally record jokes”. The Pentagon denied the story.
On July 12, 2007, a US helicopter killed a group of men in Baghdad including two Reuters staff. The US denied any knowledge of the incident until Wikileaks put the secret helicopter video online showing clearly the US soldiers not only shot unarmed civilians but also shot the wounded and those who came to help them.
Of the 189 journalists killed in Iraq since the invasion, at least 18 have been killed by the US. The Geneva Conventions stipulate that parties that have “no active part in the hostilities” shall “in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, color, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.” This includes journalists and media technicians.
But then again, UN rules outlaw foreign intervention for regime change and the Nuremburg trials banned pre-emptive war. That does not stop NATO powers from doing both: Iraq, Ivory Coast, Libya….
Yes, information is a weapon. That is why NATO has professional spin-doctors and tells us lies while looking us straight in the eyes such as the French Defense Minister, Gérad Longuet, on May 1st when he said there is no information of Islamic Fundamentalists in the Libyan rebellion.
If the US wants to bomb media they say is “inciting to violence against civilians” they can start by bombing Fox News, Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh who never hesitate to tell a whopper if it can stir up hate.
By George Kazolias
George Kazolias is an American Journalist based in Paris and a Professor of Global Communications at the American University in Paris. He runs the blog kazodaily.
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France's President Sarkozy. Source: thisisafrica.me
The French Treasury is holding billions of dollars owned by the African states of the francophone nations of West and Central Africa in its own accounts and invested in the French Bourse. The Africans deposit the equivalent of 85%of their annual reserves in these accounts as a matter of post-colonial agreements and have never been given an accounting for how much the French are holding on their behalf, in what have these funds been invested, and what profit or loss there have been. The French have been acquiring and holding the national reserves of fourteen countries since 1961. Even allowing for losses and expenditures in keeping the CFA franc viable, the French are holding about at least four hundred billion dollars of African money, wholly unaccountably to the money’s putative owners, the African states. Even Bernie Madoff couldn’t have constructed a Ponzi scheme that large without being exposed.
This ‘bargain’ was made between the African former colonies and the French as part of the Pacte Coloniale which accompanied their independence and controlled through a single currency, the CFA franc… This was largely the work of the French presidential adviser, Jacques Foccart. Jacques Foccart was the chief adviser for the government of France on African policy as well as the co-founder of the Gaullist Service d’Action Civique (SAC) in 1959 with Charles Pasqua, which specialized in covert operations in Africa.
It was Foccart “the eminence grise” who negotiated the Pacte Coloniale with the evolving French West African states who achieved their “flag independence” in 1960. Not really having planned for it, in 1960 de Gaulle had to improvise structures for a collection of small newly independent states, each with a flag, an anthem, and a seat at the UN, but often with precious little else. It was here that Foccart came to play an essential role, that of architect of the series of Cooperation accords with each new state in the sectors of finance and economy, culture, education, and the military. There were initially eleven countries involved: Mauritania, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Dahomey (now Benin), Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), Niger, Chad, Gabon, Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, and Madagascar. Togo and Cameroon, former UN Trust Territories, were also co-opted into the club. So, too, later on, were Mali and the former Belgian territories (Ruanda-Urundi, now Rwanda and Burundi, and Congo-Kinshasa), some of the ex-Portuguese territories, and Comoros and Djibouti, which had also been under French rule for many years but became independent in the 1970s. The whole ensemble was put under a new Ministry of Cooperation, created in 1961, separate from the Ministry of Overseas Departments and Territories (known as the DOM-TOM) that had previously run them all.
The key to all this was the agreement signed between France and its newly-liberated African colonies which locked these colonies into the economic and military embrace of France. This Colonial Pact not only created the institution of the CFA franc, it created a legal mechanism under which France obtained a special place in the political and economic life of its colonies.
The Pacte Coloniale Agreement enshrined a special preference for France in the political, commercial and defence processes in the African countries. On defence it agreed to two types of continuing contact. The first was the open agreement on military co-operation or Technical Military Aid (AMT) agreements, which weren’t legally binding, and could be suspended according to the circumstances. They covered education, training of servicemen and African security forces. The second type, secret and binding, were defence agreements supervised and implemented by the French Ministry of Defence, which served as a legal basis for French interventions. These agreements allowed France to have pre-deployed troops in Africa; in other words, French army units present permanently and by rotation in bases and military facilities in Africa; run entirely by the French (and, incidentally, paid for by the Africans).
Source: cfr.org
In summary, the colonial pact maintained the French control over the economies of the African states; it took possession of their foreign currency reserves; it controlled the strategic raw materials of the country; it stationed troops in the country with the right of free passage; it demanded that all military equipment be acquired from France; it took over the training of the police and army; it required that French businesses be allowed to maintain monopoly enterprises in key areas (water, electricity, ports, transport, energy, etc.). France not only set limits on the imports of a range of items from outside the franc zone but also set minimum quantities of imports from France. These treaties are still in force and operational.
One of the most important influences in the economic and political life of African states which were formerly French colonies is the impact of a common currency; the Communuate Financiere de l’Afrique (‘CFA’) franc. There are actually two separate CFA francs in circulation. The first is that of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) which comprises eight West African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. The second is that of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) which comprises six Central African countries (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon), This division corresponds to the pre-colonial AOF (Afrique Occidentale Française) and the AEF (Afrique Équatoriale Française), with the exception that Guinea-Bissau was formerly Portuguese and Equatorial Guinea Spanish).
Each of these two groups issues its own CFA franc. The WAEMU CFA franc is issued by the BCEAO (Banque Centrale des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest) and the CEMAC CFA franc is issued by the BEAC (Banque des Etats de l’Afrique Centrale). These currencies were originally both pegged at 100 CFA for each French franc but, after France joined the European Community’s Euro zone at a fixed rate of 6.65957 French francs to one Euro, the CFA rate to the Euro was fixed at CFA 665.957 to each Euro, maintaining the 100 to 1 ratio. It is important to note that it is the responsibility of the French Treasury to guarantee the convertibility of the CFA to the Euro.
The monetary policy governing such a diverse aggregation of countries is uncomplicated for African Central Banks because it is, in fact, operated by the French Treasury, without reference to the central fiscal authorities of any of the WAEMU or the CEMAC. Under the terms of the agreement which set up these banks and the CFA the Central Bank of each African country is obliged to keep at least 65% of its foreign exchange reserves in an “operations account” held at the French Treasury, as well as another 20% to cover financial liabilities.
The CFA central banks also impose a cap on credit extended to each member country equivalent to 20% of that country’s public revenue in the preceding year. Even though the BEAC and the BCEAO have an overdraft facility with the French Treasury, the drawdowns on those overdraft facilities are subject to the consent of the French Treasury. The final say is that of the French Treasury which has invested the foreign reserves of the African countries in its own name on the Paris Bourse.
In short, more than 80% of the foreign reserves of these African countries are deposited in the “operations accounts” controlled by the French Treasury. The two CFA banks are African in name, but have no monetary policies of their own. The countries themselves do not know, nor are they told, how much of the pool of foreign reserves held by the French Treasury belongs to them as a group or individually. The earnings of the investment of these funds in the French Treasury pool are supposed to be added to the pool but no accounting has ever been given to either the banks or the countries of the details of any such changes. The limited group of high officials in the French Treasury who have knowledge of the amounts in the “operations accounts”, where these funds are invested; whether there is a profit on these investments; are prohibited from disclosing any of this information to the CFA banks or the central banks of the African states.
This makes it impossible for African members to regulate their own monetary policies. The most inefficient and wasteful countries are able to use the foreign reserves of the more prudent countries without any meaningful intervention by the wealthier and more successful countries. Most importantly, the French Government uses these funds on deposit in France as assets of France. The CFA franc devaluation of 50 per cent against the French franc in January 1994 was a great surprise to several of the African states and caused major problems for them.
Africa Colonial Map. Source: sandafayre.com
The problems for the African states are growing. The coming crisis in the Euro, with the bailouts of Greece, Portugal and others will have a strong effect on the value of the Euro. With the CFA franc pegged to the Euro the value of the CFA will decline with it. The cost of commodities (petroleum products, foodstuffs, etc.) priced in dollars will grow to be a heavier burden on the African economies. Moreover, France itself is in deep financial trouble.
The International Monetary Fund has warned this week that France will have to carry out more spending cuts to ensure it reaches its deficit reduction commitments amid lower-than-expected growth expectations. While France has predicted 2.25 per cent growth for 2012, the IMF has downgraded this to 1.9 per cent next year.
The French are spending almost US$2 million a day bombing Libya; above the budgeted expenditure in its defence budget. France is very short of money. However, the cost of massacring Ivoirians, using tanks, helicopter gunships and Special Forces were offset against the Ivory Coast money it was holding, so it didn’t add to the budgetary problems. The killing of Africans in the Ivory Coast, Cameroons, Rwanda, Chad and the Central African Republic have never been the subject of a budget request to the French defence budget as the Office of the President deducts these from the tranche at the Treasury (which is why it has never been debated in the French National Assembly). To add insult to injury the French estimated that the French business community had lost several millions of dollars when, in the rush to leave Abidjan in 2006 when the French Army massacred 65 unarmed civilians and wounded 1,200 others, the French lost money as they feared the revenge of the Ivoirians. The French demanded that the Ouattara government which they had installed paid them compensation for these putative losses. Indeed the Ouattara government paid them twice what they said they had lost in leaving.
Surely the time has come for the francophone governments to ask the French for a proper accounting of the money they are holding. Perhaps the next government in the Ivory Coast which will succeed Ouattara’s assassination or defeat at the polls will ask the French for an accounting. Wade in Senegal has asked but was never answered. The solution seems simple. Until the French give a proper accounting for Africa’s billions the African states should stop sending more to them. It is bad enough paying their overseer for the cost of his whip used to chastise them. It is wholly unreasonable to continue to do so when there is no upside, only potential losses.
By Dr. Gary K. Busch
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Every time US drones mistake a wedding or a funeral or some other party for an ‘Islamic militant gathering’, the missile fired causes carnage on the scale of Oslo. This has been going on for ten years and the number of drone strikes has doubled since Obama came into office. For example, of the 258 air strikes in Pakistan, 248 have taken place since 2008 (The Long War Journal). Drones have killed tens of thousands in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. That the US should be bombing in these countries at all is an outrage.
Drones: Should we not be outraged when American kids playing a deadly video game with joy-sticks, sometimes thousands of miles away from their target, kill people who did nothing to them, or us for that matter? And is this not one of the most cowardly acts you can think of? What if a Pakistani drone killed hundreds of people mistakenly taken for ‘Christian Fundamentalists’ in Cincinnati?
How many military videos does wekileaks have to release before we see that our soldiers are having fun killing unarmed people from a cowardly safe distance? If you have not seen one go here:
Click here to view the embedded video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0
Shooting the wounded, torture, secret prisons in Bagram, Mogadishu ,Guantanamo, extra-judicial executions … where’s the outrage?
In the first six months of this year alone, Israel has shot hundreds of unarmed protesters, killing scores. For example, on June 6, Tsahal shot dead 23 unarmed people and wounded 350 more in the Golan. The Jewish state was mildly chastised for shooting before they even tried tear gas.
When western supported Bahraini and Saudi troops shoot unarmed protesters seeking better lives, there is hardly a whimper. When US trained and equipped special-forces in Yemen shot down hundreds of protesters, Washington said nothing for three months. Then the US called on the thug President Saleh to step down and hand power over to another pro-American kleptocrat while the US continued to pound the country with Hellfire missiles from drones. The ‘collateral damage’ (i.e. dead civilians) from these attacks is pushing people “who never hurt US interests” into the arms of more radical groups (interview with Abdul Jabbar, The National).
The British medical review The Lancet along with John Hopkins University published a second Iraqi survey on October 11, 2006 which estimated there were 654, 965 excess deaths related to the war (2.5% of the population). Civilians died in droves during the US invasion and subsequent street battles with Iraqi Insurgent/Resistance fighters.
How many martyred cities like Falluja, 90% destroyed, are there in Iraq and Afghanistan? We can only mimic US Army Major Phil Cannella in Vietnam who explained to Peter Arnett “we had to destroy the village to save it,” after Ben Tre was wiped off the map on February 7, 1968.
And what do we say of the 200 000 Blackwater type mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan; those we euphemistically call “civilian contractors”? Each and every one of them is an Anders Behring Breivik, murdering with impunity in our name. Even the idea of privatizing and subcontracting war should spark outrage.
It is estimated that the embargo on Iraq from 1990 led to the deaths of over five hundred thousand children under the age of five (UNICEF). In an interview on May 12, 1996, then US Ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Albright was asked on 60 Minutes if the embargo was worth the price in lives. Her response was “We think the price is worth it.”
And yes, the instability caused by the US (and Israel) has led to Muslims killing other Muslims on the Oslo scale daily.
Our use of selective outrage is not new.
How many people died under US bombs in the first Gulf War like the one that killed over four hundred civilians in Baghdad’s Amiriyah bomb shelter on February 13, 1991? What could be more cowardly than the US air attack on fleeing Iraqi troops on Iraq’s Highway 8 (the Highway of Death) on February 26 – 27, 1991. A US pilot said “It was a turkey shoot. Like shooting ducks in a barrel.” The war was over. The Iraqis had abandoned Kuwait. The attack was cowardly mass murder.
This year France went to war against, I believe, the legitimate government of Ivory Coast to put a puppet in power whose Coup d’Etat had failed in 2002. The French backed and armed rebels killed thousands as they marched on the capital, Abidjan. Since the take over, there have been many more killings. But the western press and governments are not nearly as interested as they were when people got killed in attacks on the forces of a government they did not like. Almost total silence. Very often ‘theirs’ and ‘ours’ determines the worthy dead from the unworthy to quote Chomsky and Hermann.
In Libya, the rebels supported by NATO systematically executed the Black African prisoners they took, accusing them of being mercenaries. Most were merely migrant workers. Where is the outrage? It is known that NATO bombs are killing civilians in Libya and all of this, I believe, because Qaddafi threatened to nationalize the country’s oil and create an African Central Bank which would make the IMF and World Bank useless and, more importantly, powerless. There was nothing spontaneous about the Benghazi revolt as far as I am concerned. The flags had been industrially made and were in the streets the first day. The posters and banners, in several languages, were professionally printed in a country without private printers and were out the first day. The ‘rebels’ were armed and ready on the very first day. How is it reporters have not picked up on this. Where is the outrage?
The reality is some deaths are worth more than others. Every now and then a Twin Towers(9/11/01), London underground bombing (7/7/07), Madrid metro bombing (11/3/05) or Oslo killing spree comes along and because more worthier people are killed, we get outraged.
By George Kazolias
George Kazolias is an American Journalist based in Paris and a Professor of Global Communications at the American University in Paris. He runs the blog kazodaily.
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France's President Sarkozy welcomes Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou at the Elysee Palace in Paris. Source: Yahoo News
Recently elected President of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, is a soft speaking man with a big problem not of his doing. He was in Paris Wednesday to speak to French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, about the problem: NATO’s war on Libya.
Two-hundred-and-ten-thousand Niger citizens have returned to their home country to flee the fighting in Libya. People like Mallam Abdou who worked as a garbage-man in Ourba and sent 300 dinar (150 euros) back home every month. Multiply that by the number of Niger workers who have come back, and you get the scale of the disaster France, the UK and the US have imposed on the countries of the Sahel.
Niger is a country where two-thirds of the people live on less than a euro a day! “I came back with nothing,” Abdou says. “Not a penny.” Today Abdou sits with other refugees under a tree in Niamey wondering how they will feed their families.
President Issoufou now finds himself with an army of unemployed to feed in a country which is suffering from drought and food insecurity so bad international organizations last year warned of impending famine.
Beyond the massive influx of refugees and the money no longer being sent home, NATO’s war on Libya has hurt the state coffers. “There are no longer any exchanges between Niger and Libya since the crisis started.” Issoufou said. “And that has an effect on government tax revenue.” Niamey announced in May they are reducing their meagre budget by seven percent. You can be sure there are more cuts to come as Libya descends into anarchy.
Niger is a fragile Democracy. Issoufou was elected in March following a coup d’etat and transition which put an end to the ten year rule of military strongman Mamadou Tandja. The people were hoping things could finally improve, and then came the war.
Mahamadou Issoufou also told Sarkozy what he already knows: arms which fall into the rebel hands in Libya end up in the hands of terrorists. “There is the spread of weapons throughout the Sahel region, even heavy- weapons,” the president said.
Over the past couple of weeks there has been fighting in Mauritania and Mali with Islamic guerrillas benefiting from the chaos in Libya.
Niger stopped a truck load of arms and explosives from Libya in mid-June destined for Al Qaeda in the Maghreb. How much has already got through in this Uranium rich country? A diplomat in Niamey told AFP that now “You find more AK-47s than millet in the country.”
France gets practically all its uranium from Niger, and given that 80% of French energy comes from nuclear reactors, you can bet Issoufou has Sarkozy’s short-sighted attention. Last September, al Qaeda kidnapped four French nationals (along with five other non-French foreigners working for Areva, the French nuclear giant.
Although Issoufou reiterated that there is no question of French troops being sent to his country, he may not get the final word if the situation spins out of (French) control. Just ask President Gbagbo of Cote d’Ivoire.
Mahamadou Issoufou relayed the position of the African Union, drawn up in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, last week: the bombing must stop, a ceasefire put into effect and talks opened among the Libyan factions. The result of the AU declaration was a sharp increase in French bombing this week and the launching of rebel offensives on all fronts.
By George Kazolias
George Kazolias is an American Journalist based in Paris and a Professor of Global Communications at the American University in Paris. He runs the blog kazodaily.
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Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi right, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy stand while national anthems are being played, at the Bab Azizia Palace in Tripoli, in this July 25, 2007, file photo. European defense and aviation group EADS said Friday it had finalized two military contracts with Libya to supply anti-tank missiles and communications systems. French Defense Minister Herve Morin said the contracts had not yet been formally signed, despite the comments of a Libyan official, who said Thursday in Tripoli that Libya had signed the contracts. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)
Mauvaise foi: that is what the French call a bare-faced lie you tell to a person you know is aware you are lying but you pretend everything is up front and normal. This year, in Cote d’Ivoire and Libya, the French have demonstrated they are the masters at mauvaise foi.
UN Resolution 1970 imposed a military embargo on Libya but this week we learned the French have been parachuting arms to the rebels since the beginning of June. The French response? It is not in violation of the resolution because it is to “protect civilians”.
Ah, yes, UN Resolution 1973 which imposed a no-fly-zone to “protect civilians”. Lets see how that panned out. France, the UK and the US opened hostilities as Gaddafi’s forces were about to regain control of Benghazi on March 19. To “protect civilians” Gaddafi’s infrastructure was attacked through-out the country, especially his radar and anti-aircraft batteries. Normal when you want to impose a no-fly-zone.
But quickly, from the first days, mission creep set in and NATO aircraft began giving combat support to the rebels to help them advance on loyalist forces all in the name of “protecting civilians”.
Then NATO began targeting Libyan leaders, including Gaddafi himself, in violation not only of the UN resolutions but of international law. Civilians have died by the scores under NATO bombs in this war to “protect civilians”.
As a matter of fact, mauvaise foi has gone so far that Obama pretends it is not even a war and so he does not have to consult Congress. Not a war? It certainly looks like one when you are on the receiving end of a Cruise missile.
It was not long before France recognized the rebels as the official government of Libya while denying the war was about ‘regime change’. The French must take us all for perfect idiots. But then again Obama says “Gaddafi must go” while also denying this is about regime change.
And what of the African Union hypocrisy, condemning the NATO attack on Libya while most sat back and applauded the French intervention in Cote d’Ivoire which overthrew elected President Gbagbo to put French puppet Ouattara in power.
AU Secretary General Jean Ping, former member of Omar Bongo’s clique of kleptocrats, is worried about the “Somaliazation” of Libya and contagion to neighboring countries. But he is hardly bothered by the Burkinabe backed, equipped and often manned rebels who stole democracy from the Cote d’Ivoire. Is it because Gbagbo does not have billions tucked away and invested around the continent?
I have received reports from very reliable sources that Chadian soldiers killed while fighting against the rebels in Libya are coming home in body-bags by the dozens. The grieving families have been banned from holding public mourning. President Idriss Deby does not want the world to know his troops are in Libya backing Gaddafi, the way Gaddafi backed him in the past. It would be interesting for the mainstream press to investigate this but the press has been failing miserably by being “on side” in Libya.
France has troops and fighter aircrafts in Chad under a longterm military operation called ‘Epervier’. Would it not be ironic if the aircraft in N’djamena were flying sorties into Libya and targeting Chadian men? (I understand the French fighter-planes that were staioned in Abeché are no longer there). “Oh, what a lovely war” to quote Teddy Roosevelt after the conquest of Cuba in 1898.
The Spanish America war was also a war “to protect civilians’. We know how well that worked out for the Cubans (with Batista among others) and the people of the Philippines (over a million-and-a-half dead). Ah, beware imperialist liberators. They speak with forked-tongues but their Tomahawks are real and deadly and their mauvaise foi knows no limit.
By George Kazolias
George Kazolias is an American Journalist based in Paris and a Professor of Global Communications at the American University in Paris. He runs the blog kazodaily.
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10 richest countries in Africa in term of GDP per Capita (Source: snippets.com)
Bantu-speaking peoples, predominantly Fang, establish the majority of population of the Equatorial Guinea. Bantus have a proverb that deals with the common sense: “There are forty kinds of lunacy, but only one kind of common sense.” Based on how the Equatorial Guinea is currently governed it’s clear that the common sense stopped applying there long time ago violating the great historical and cultural traditions of the Bantu speakers who introduced Iron Age and an agriculture civilization into a surrounding Neolithic hunting and gathering societies very early and probably around the sixth century BC.
The Equatorial Guinea, by far, in term of GDP per capita, is the richest country in Africa, and equal in it to the average for the European Union, exhibits at least five lunacies which replace the common sense in all the Five Principles of Good Governance (see table below): by illegitimizing the voice of its population – rigging elections is a norm, providing imbalanced direction of its internal development, grossly misusing public resources, showing no executive, legislative or judicial accountability, nor producing an evidence of basic social fairness, while remaining rated as “Worst of the Worst 2011″ in the human rights’ metrics. Let’s look closely.
From "Principles for Good Governance in the 21st Century", Institute on Governance (IOG), Ottawa, Canada
Spanish Guinea, as it was then called, gained independence from Spain in 1968. From the outset, President Francisco Macías Nguema, began a brutal reign, destroying the economy and abusing human rights to become one of the worst despots in African history. In 1971, the U.S. State Department reported that his regime was “characterized by abandonment of all government functions except internal security, which was accomplished by terror. That approach led to the death or exile of up to one-third of the population.” In 1979, Nguema was overthrown and executed by his nephew, Lieut. Col. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.In spite Teodoro Obiang appeared like a revolutionary savior he retained many of his uncle’s dictatorial practices.
Equatorial Guinea is Africa’s only Spanish-speaking country, with the area twice size of the State of Connecticut, and with a population of less than 3/4 of a million. Equatorial Guinea’s economic boom first began in 1995 through discovery of oil and establishing oil export. Since then, the oil based economy grew nearly 130 times, making Equatorial Guinea the 7th largest producer of oil in Africa, while remaining only the Africa’s 6th smallest population. U.S. imports are up to a hundred thousand barrels of oil a day from the country, steering high interest of large oil companies, and others, whose least concern remains the political corruption and misgovernment.
Shady deals are what Obiang regime specializes in. As per The New York Times, these includes:
• U.S.-based military contractor Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI), a Virginia based company headed up by former Donald Rumsfeld’s aide Bantz Craddock, hired for training Equatorial Guinea’s security forces. Former Democratic lobbyist and Clinton administration official Lanny Davis, a recipient of a $1 million per year contract with Equatorial Guinea until earlier this year;
• Qorvis Communications which represents Obiang in Washington and receives a lucrative $60,000 per month retainer in a contract which runs through August 2011, which listed the client’s contact address “3620 Sweetwater Mesa Road, Malibu, CA 90265”, which is the address of Teodoro’s $32 million Malibu mansion;
• Hess Oil, which was paid over $1.3 million to lobby on “education and dissemination of information that ration regarding registrant’s assets in Equatorial Guinea and Libya” in 2009 (Check this lesson). Marathon Oil which spent $1.08 million in the first quarter of 2011 lobbying on a number of foreign policy issues including “investment by Marathon Oil Corporation for developing energy resources in Equatorial Guinea” and “Equatorial Guinea – U.S. Engagement”;
• Exxon which was paid $6.6 million in 2008 for lobbying, and among other issues of concern, “discussions regarding background on business in Equatorial Guinea.”
Cartoon by Brandon Reynold (Source: africancartoon.com)
The political, economic and social game the Equatorial Guinea plays is conducted in a fashion similar to other oppressive regimes: besides conducting shady international business deals, the governing elite makes a constant efforts at, and allocates significant resources to, maintaining an appearance of legitimacy by financing the international public relations campaigns, while enforcing an internal constitutional and legal framework that works only on paper, with no evidence of any accountability process. Luckily, not everything goes right such as last year when a United Nation agency decided to suspend plans to award a life sciences prize sponsored by Equatorial Guinea.
Every citizen shall enjoy the following rights and freedoms:
…
- Freedom of expression;
- Equality before the law. …
- Freedom of movement and residence;
- Honour and good reputation; …
- The inviolability of the home and the privacy of all correspondence. …
- The right to speak;
- The right to a fair hearing before the courts;
- Freedom of association, of assembly and the right to strike;
- The deprival of liberty except in the cases and according to the manner determined by law;
- The right to hear the charges levied on him;
- The right to presume innocence until found guilty during hearing;
- No person shall arrogate to himself the right to do justice; …
- Shall not be condemned without proof, nor deprived of the right to defense; …Constitution of the Equitorial Guinea, Item 13 (fragments).
Although the constitution guarantees press freedom, the 1992 press law authorized government censorship forcing all journalists to register with the government. The state holds a near-monopoly on broadcast media, reportedly monitoring Internet communications, planting its own censored information posts such as Equatorial Guinea News on Blogspot.com while providing no access for the independent correspondents.
The constitution also seems to protect religious freedom, while official preference is given to the Roman Catholic Church and the Reform Church of Equatorial Guinea, the freedom of assembly and association is severely restricted, and official authorization for political gatherings is mandatory. There are no effective human rights organizations in the country, and international NGOs are prohibited from promoting or defending human rights. The constitution provides for the right to organize unions but there are solid legal barriers to collective bargaining.
Black Beach Prison
The judiciary is not independent, and the enforcement of the law is done through the security forces that generally act with impunity. Prison conditions, especially in the notorious Black Beach prison, are extremely harsh. The authorities have been accused of widespread human rights abuses, including torture, detention of political opponents, and extrajudicial killings. In a manner similar to other totalitarian regimes all citizens are required to obtain exit visas to travel abroad, denying the opposition parties such visas. Constitutional and legal guarantees of equality for women are largely ignored, and violence against women is reportedly widespread.
Meanwhile, the president and his family still can use the country’s wealth as their personal ATM machine. Take the president’s son, Teodorin who acquired an impressive collection of luxury properties throughout the world. Back home, he’s the Minister of Forests and with his official income of about 4 thousand dollars a month and still was able to spend almost $44 million on mansions and luxury cars in the US and South Africa between 2004 and 2006. By comparison, the total education budget of the country was less about $43 million in 2005. His recent splurge includes his infamous yacht with a price tag of $380 million which is nearly triple what his country spends on health and education every year.
The lavish lifestyles of the ruling top persist while most people live in crushing poverty and international money laundering is aided by corrupted banks and remains a routine practice. For example, the president kept the country’s oil money at Riggs Bank in Washington DC, and Equatorial Guinea was the bank’s largest client. In 2004, Human Rights Watch helped expose the government’s lavish spending habits. After the US Senate investigation, Riggs received a total of $41 million in fines for failing to comply with anti-money laundering laws. Their dealings with the government of Equatorial Guinea ultimately ruined the bank’s reputation and led to a takeover but no official of Equatorial Guinea’s government was punished.
Equatoguinean President Obiang and Libyan leader Ghaddafi at an EU-African summit (Source: afrol.com)
Another example of lunacy related to PR campaign by Equatorial Guinea authorities is the fact that this month President Teodoro Obiang Nguema inaugurated the city of Sipopo. Sipopo development with the total cost of about $300 million consists 52 luxury presidential villas, a conference hall, an artificial beach, a golf course and the French luxury hotel Sofitel that will be used when Obiang Nguema chairs the African Union and will host its summit for just 2 weeks, starting at the end of June, while the country’s population receives no sufficient social service attention and Equatorial Guinea exhibits the 18th highest infant death rate in Africa. The country will be the host the Africa Cup of Nations in 2012 and more misappropriations are expected.
A poet may express the Equatorial Guinea’s lunacy the best. In the poem, titled “Delirium”, which comes from Marvin Lewis’s “An introduction to the literature of Equatorial Guinea: between colonialism and dictatorship”, the author writes:
Delirium
In the mirror of my past
there appear ghosts enmeshed
in a dark curtain, where my present
is shattered, and my future
crumbles in nothingness.Faces of shadows swarm
in my mirror!Your faces sketched by hunger
carry a stamp of misery as deep
as the revolving song of my sadness
that shouts at me to the depth of my bones
that I shall die like the offended Christ
who having been born in his time
those of his era did not recognize him.—by María Nsue Angüe
Equatorial Guinea is not an exception and other African countries have similar constitutions and proclaim a commitment to constitutional democracy and constitutionalism (a system of laws that must be obeyed by the rulers) in documents such as the Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU, 2000), the Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance (2002) and the Base Document of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM, 2003) adopted within the framework of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD, 2001). Arguably, the absence of constitutional democracy, lack of respect for constitutionalism, and poor governance has been and still remains a significant cause of problems on the continent.
Assembled by Mark Bajkowski
Mark, born in Poland, is a Jack of all trades, master of none, who lives in New York since 1979. Mark has an unusually wide range of interests and is known to relate well to people half his age. Since his early childhood, he felt a curious relation to Africa, which unavoidably brings up the controversial subject of past-life memories.
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The French army (Force Licorne) is fighting in Cote d’Ivoire. Source: panafa.net
UNITED NATIONS, updated — With Cote d’Ivoire’s defiant Laurent Gbagbo surrounded after French and UN military action in Abidjan’s Cocody neighborhood, internal French government documents obtained by Inner City Press and published exclusively today [8/4/11] paint a picture of France’s communications with the UN Mission UNOCI, its analysis of the politics of Guillaume Soro, Liberia and the Malian press, even its recycling of a French diplomat arrested in New York as France’s new general consul in San Francisco.
In the first document, France’s Force Licorne (Unicorn) wrote to the Special Representative of the Secretary General about Gbagbo’s import of heavy weapons. Click here to view. More recently, France is accused of violating the arms embargo by providing and facilitating weapons to the forces of Alassane Ouattara.
The second document is an internal French cable detailing the Financial Organization of the Rebellion, down to a “racket” of shaking down money for taxi licenses.
In the third document, France bemoans the failure of a visit of three African heads of state to Cote d’Ivoire, including Nigeria’s Obasanjo and South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki now active in Sudan, complaining that this situation can be prolonged until the international community decided to “impose a solution.”
In the fourth document, France analyzed and critiques South African policy toward Cote d’Ivoire and Gbagbo.
In the fifth document, France analyzes Liberia’s foreign policy as pro-American. More recently, a purported interview of a Ouattara commander describing coordinating with a French citizen working with the UN Mission in Liberia has surfaced.
In the sixth document, France analyzes the “discrete attitude” of the Malian press.
One of the French diplomats involved was Romain Serman, who was later arrested by the New York Police Department. See arrest sheet and signed statement, here. Then French Ambassador de la Sabliere, to “avoid a scandal,” sent Serman back to Paris.
But in 2010 he was re-assigned to the US, as general consul in San Francisco. And so it goes.
Update at 1pm, April 8: at the UN noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman Martin Nesirky to describe how UNOCI has allowed Licorne to lobby it and attend its meetings, and if other countries have been allowed.
Nesirky said he would not comment on leaked documents, and also directed Inner City Press to ask the (French) chief of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Alain Le Roy.
Matthew Lee is a senior reporter at Inner City Press. He can be reached at Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com.
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Juppe & Ban Ki-moon on June 7, protection of civilians not assured
Amid reports of attacks on supporters of Laurent Gbagbo by the forces of Alassane Ouattara in Cote d’Ivoire, there appears to have been a hiatus in the “protection of civilians” trumpeted earlier this year by the UN and the French “Force Licorne” or Unicorn.
Last week Inner City Press asked the UN what its mission in Ivory Coast, ONUCI, is doing to protect civilians, and how it responds to reports of the killings of those perceived to support Gbagbo. Transcript below. So far there has been no answer.
On June 7 outside the UN Security Council, where previously France’s Ambassador to the UN Gerard Araud spoke at length about the need for a resolution to empower UN and French attack helicopters to “protect civilians,” Inner City Press asked Araud’s boss French foreign minister Alain Juppe what France is doing to protect civilians:
Inner City Press: I want to ask on Côte d’Ivoire, whe[ther] the Force Licorne has a responsibility to protect civilians, even now. There has been a report of Ouattara’s forces engaged in reprisal killings, is Licorne still on the streets to defend people or is it to return to its [base] ?
Alain Juppe: Please don’t mix everything. In Libya we think that we are acting in the framework of resolution 1973 of the Security Council. We are targeting military objectives and we are avoiding the civilian casualties. On Côte d’Ivoire, everybody recognized that our intervention has been successful. We are now supporting the process of national reconciliation engaged by President Ouattara and President Ouattara said that there will not be impunity for any kind of massacres or of casualties made either by one side or the other one.
But the allegations are not only of impunity for killings before Gbagbo was seized, but after. Human rights groups report on killings since then, presumably with ONUCI and Licorne standing by.
Like Juppe, the UN has not answered. From the UN’s June 2 noon briefing transcript:
Inner City Press: there have been at least a number of major NGO [non-governmental organization] reports out about the killing of pro-Gbagbo supporters by Ouattara forces since Gbagbo was put under arrest. There is also an ICG report saying that the Government formed by Ouattara has virtually no members of Gbagbo’s party. So, on both of these two fronts, both the protection of civilians and on the sort of, quote, reconciliation, what does UNOCI [United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire] say? It seems that both of these respected NGOs have said that things are not going well, that the retaliation killings taking place, which presumably UNOCI should be trying to stop — So, what’s the UN’s response to that?
Associate Spokesperson: On human rights violation and abuses, there is the international commission of inquiry. It’s about to report — it was in Côte d’Ivoire, maybe it still is — and it’s about to report to the Human Rights Council in June, that session. So, I can check for the exact date if that’s helpful, but I think it would be that first and then I think the High Commissioner also will have a report during that session, also in June, in Geneva on Côte d’Ivoire. So, that’s the first thing. On the formation of the Government, I don’t really have a comment.
Inner City Press: Just to be clear, and I am talking about what UNOCI does day to day to quote, protect civilians, which is part of its mandate.
Associate Spokesperson: Yeah, yeah.
Inner City Press: Human Rights Watch is saying that since 11 April.. Gbagbo supporters have been killed in the Yopougon neighbourhood. So, I wanted to know… it’s not happening? Is UNOCI trying to stop it? it seems like a very different picture than what UNOCI is saying.
Associate Spokesperson: Well, UNOCI’s mandate includes the protection of civilians, as you know. So, if there are allegations they’ll certainly go and investigate them. They have a human rights division, and it documents human rights abuses and violations. I can check specifically if you want the Yopougon thing, okay. Anyone else?
But in the five days since, the UN has provided no answer. And on June 7, the Spokesman for Ban Ki-moon, Martin Nesirky, rushed in a nine minute noon briefing at exactly the time Alain Juppe was speaking at the Security Council, such that no questions could be asked of the UN. Watch this site.
By Mathew Lee