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THE American Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, on being told that imperialism’s ‘revolutionaries’ organised in the Libyan Transitional Council, NTC, had captured and killed Moammar Gaddafi in Sirte, tried an uneducated re-interpretation of Julius Ceasar’s famous quote: “Veni, vidi, vici”, which translates from Latin to: “I came, I saw, I conquered”.
Clinton’s naked gloating over the public lynching of America’s old adversary revealed the depravity of the leading politicians of the imperialist world, while underlining the length they will go to achieve their imperial aims in the contemporary world.
It was clear that NATO’s “Operation Unified Protector” was not about implementing UN Resolution 1973, but as Thierry Meyssan, writing for Voltaire.org said, was “to overthrow a political system and to kill the leader, even if the assassination of a serving head of state is strictly prohibited by US law and universally condemned”.
It was also clear that NATO was not really enthusiastic about handing Gaddafi over to the ICC, because it was unlikely to be able to sentence him for crimes against humanity, anymore than the Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia was able to prove its case against former Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, after two years of prosecution.The imperialist media parroted the same set of accusations against Gaddafi over and over, giving an indication that there was really little incriminating evidence which could hold in a court, against the man. One of the most repeated accusations was that he stashed away billions of dollars, but none of the imperialist countries: France, Britain or the USA that bunched together with their Gulf clients like the feudal Emirate of Qatar, was able to track the alleged fortune of the Gaddafi clan.
Money seized in the course of the criminal aggression against Libya, belonged to the Libyan state, not Muammar Gaddafi. Interestingly, the only international arrest warrant against Gaddafi before the NATO aggression was issued by Interpol. He had been accused by Lebanon of having killed Imam Moussa Sadr and a group of companions in 1978.
The imperialist media was silent on that warrant, because the kidnapping of Imam Sadr had been sponsored by the United States which wanted to get rid of the Imam, to prevent the spread of the radicalism which Ayatollah Khomeini had inspired in the Middle East.
The imperialist media similarly conveniently ignored the role which Gaddafi played in the political life of countries like France, where Gaddafi illegally financed the presidential election campaigns of Nicholas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal. We must not forget that deeply ingrained in imperialist politics is immorality and gluttony.
The same characters that sponsored the destruction of Libyan infrastructure had been lining up to kiss Gaddafi’s hand in order to secure lucrative oil deals a few years ago as well as outsourcing to his security forces, the torture of Islamists.
And as soon as the puppets of the NTC were knocked together, discussions emerged in imperial centres about the privatization of Libyan assets.
They want to parcel out oil concessions, take over the ports and banks as well as other infrastructure. Libya will become a dependent protectorate and a NATO bridgehead for all sorts of aggression against African and Middle Eastern interests.
I have never admired Gaddafi, who I think lived far more on the lunatic fringe to be able to understand the fundamental necessities for the revolutionary change that Africa required. He was too eclectic in his actions and too befuddled in his thoughts. He supported national liberation movements in Southern Africa alright, but was also the sponsor of bandits like Charles Taylor and Foday Sankoh. He was forever attempting to annex the Aozou Strip of Chad and in one of his most unforgivable crimes ever, he stormed a plane in Tripoli, arrested the leaders of the Sudan Communist Party and handed them over to another lunatic like himself, Gafar Numeiri, for execution, in 1971! He was forever blowing hot and cold and ran a most personalised regime which alienated the people and did not allow the development of the Libyan state; Gaddafi was the state! Nevertheless, despite all the imperialist media’s attempt to delegitimize him totally, they could not erase the most important of his achievements. He overthrew the puppet monarchy which had been imposed by imperialism after the Second World War; he removed imperialist troops from bases in Libya; nationalized Libyan oil to serve the interests of Libyans as well as giving aid to impoverished African countries; constructed the Great Man-Made River (the largest irrigation project on earth). Thierry Meyssan said: “Libya’s development aid was more important than all the G20 countries put together”. Well, as Hilary Clinton vulgarly declared, they went, they saw and he died. But imperialism will not have the last word in history!
Those who accepted the NATO aggression against Libya and the public lynching of Moammar Gaddafi must remember the way that French troops also publicly defied Ivorian sovereignty a few months back, to invade the Abidjan presidential palace, to capture the recalcitrant Laurent Gbagbo. These are markers of the new imperialist attitude in Africa. The Americans have been shopping for bases to locate AFRICOM, the forward operational arm for Africa’s re-colonization. It has been unpopular in the continent. But the new theory of linkage between AQIM, Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram, is becoming the red herring to interfere even more vigorously in African affairs.
New secret bases
They are planning new secret bases to launch drones against targets in Africa and already, they have been used against targets in Somalia, from secret bases in Yemen and Djibouti. West Africa will be targeted from secret bases in southern Algeria and with the imposition of a puppet regime in Libya, that country will enter the loop.
In the long run, there is also the underlining rivalry between the old imperialist powers and the emergent nations, such as China, for Africa’s natural resources. The Chinese method of offering infrastructural development, non-interference plus mineral deals, became popular with African ruling elites, to the chagrin of the Western countries, long used to a monopoly of exploitation of African resources.
The battle for the economic domination of the world of the 21 Century will increasingly be fought on the African continent.
Of course, imperialism will exploit slogans about democracy and human right, to try to claim the upper hand in that battle, because Africans want democracy and a respect for our human rights.
But the history of slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism, show that in the long run, imperialism cannot defend the values of Africa. Leaders who stand for an independent political or economic line, will suffer the fate of Moammar Gaddafi!
But what really happened to President Jonathan at the Commonwealth Summit?
THE AUSTRALIAN newspaper of October 28, 2011, carried a report written by Amanda O’Brien titled “Goodbye Goodluck, but Nigerian show goes on”.
The article talked about “the mysterious non-appearance of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan at a packed CHOGM forum yesterday where he was scheduled to outline his country’s mining potential…”.
Nigeria, O’Brien noted, had “one of the biggest delegations with more than 120 people and its towering President with his distinctive black hat ha[d] cut an imposing figure at the business forum all week”.
She added however, “but there was no explanation yesterday when he failed to appear for two scheduled speeches”. But it was instructive that Nigerian newspapers had carried frontpage pictures of the president “feeding his wife, Patience, with a piece of cake to commemorate her birthday in Perth, Australia…yesterday (October 26, 2011), according to THISDAY newspaper’s version of the event.
Was there a link between the birthday celebration and the “mysterious non-appearance” of President Jonathan “for two scheduled speeches”, that Amanda O’Brien reported in THE AUSTRALIAN newspaper? Well, Presidential spokesman, Reuben Abati, reacted the following day, denying reports that President Jonathan failed to attend the forums.
“I find the story mischievous and the innuendoes contained therein entirely misleading”. Abati added that “the President was not scheduled to deliver speeches at two events on Thursday as claimed…”.
In matters like that, the issue of trust creeps in; the reader might choose the side he believes!
Northern Nigeria’s education deficit
LAST Friday, the Kano State Commissioner for Higher Education, Umar Doguwa, was reported to have lamented the falling standard of education in the state.
He then revealed that literacy level was only 30 per cent in Kano, Northern Nigeria’s largest state. It was also recently revealed that 70 per cent of school-age children in Zamfara are not in schools.
The same depressing statistics can be quoted from several states in our region of Nigeria. For instance, in the same Kano, one out of every 14 children now lives on the streets. In the meantime, 45 per cent of the population is under the age of 15 while 70 per cent is under 30!
We are clearly sitting on a keg of powder that might explode anytime! Fifty-one years down the road of independence, it is simply irresponsible that we have not instituted a compulsory educational revolution in Northern Nigeria. Until and unless we break the yoke of oppressive traditions, we will not achieve modernity.
My experience of acquisition of both Islamic education and BOKO (and several others too!), shows that it is possible, if we put our hearts into it.
I am a member of a new committee instituted by the Sultan of Sokoto to look at the various challenges we face in Northern Nigeria, and this is one of the central issues. We cannot become competitive in the post-modern realities of the 21st Century, when modernity in terms of education has continued to elude us!
