The China Card

There is tendency in the 'West', one that it not difficult to pursue in light of its dismal human rights record, to accuse China of crassly exploiting Africa. A typical piece reads like this 2007 Ope-Ed in the NYTimes:

"The World Bank --- proposed a project based on the commonsense observation that there was no point in lending the Nigerians money without also tackling the corruption that had crippled the railways. After months of negotiation, the bank and Nigeria’s government agreed on a $5 million project that would allow private companies to come in and help clean up the railways.

But just as the deal was about to be signed, the Chinese government offered Nigeria $9 billion to rebuild the entire rail network — no bids, no conditions and no need to reform. That was when my friend (an aid-worker) packed his suitcase and went to the airport."

Ah yes, Western paternalism at its finest. Apparently Americans still believe Africans cannot count. And there the truth lies naked. Having learned from 100 years of colonial rule the fine distinction between imperialism and political corruption Africans have decided that an aspiring capitalist always sells to the highest bidder.

Another pet argument is that Chinese projects in Africa largely ignore environmental consequences. No doubt that is true but talk about the pot calling out the kettle. Where in Africa has a Chinese company left behind this kind of devastation?

Nigerian Delta courtesy of Shell Oil

How many activists have they caused to be killed.

The truth is the West had its chance to befriend the African. But instead, it stole his resources then left him a continent riven by war, racism and under-development. China, on the other hand, has not sought any overt quid pro quo beyond a chance to do business.. Take for example their approach to tackling the problem of snail fever. "We will share with them our methods so they can design their solutions according to their own situation," said Zhou Xiaonong, director of China's National Institute of Parasitic Diseases in Shanghai.

The West response to the end of the Cold War was to give Africa the cold shoulder. China saw its chance and grabbed it:

"[the] Chinese advantage has been that many countries in Africa, including Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Namibia and Sudan, feel a sense of obligation toward China after it helped them when they were confronted with the spectre of civil war following the demise of the Soviet Union.

After a surge of attention on the continent during the Cold War, the US and Russia lost interest in spending money in Africa, leaving instability—and space for China to step in. The gaps the two big powers left that China has sought to fill were big ones, with many African nations having depended heavily on their Cold War sponsors in the 1960s and 1970s for state-building assistance after securing independence from their colonial masters. Withdrawal pulled the rug from under any prospects for stability."

The truth is the Chinese in Africa are on the right side of history. It is a history most Africans will not soon forget.

Pirates, Victims and Terrorists

As often happens now that the corporate press is inclined to massage the news to conform with the market the public ends up believing half truths. Take for example the tale of the Somali Pirates. Rather than villainous sea-bandits the pirates are mostly desperate fishermen caught in a swirl of international crime and political intrigue. While the NYTimes is correct that Somalia is now a country of grinding poverty and internal chaos, [where] the pirate economy is booming, the assertion that "piracy is an extension of the corrupt, violent free-for-all that has raged on land since the central government imploded in 1991, is not the whole story. The real story reads like a modern-day tragedy. Much like Afghanistan, Somalia was systematically destroyed, all for the sake of the defunct Cold War and the East/West's 'Great Oil Game'.

Already in 1992 the Nation Magazine had predicted that "Somalia as "one of the most strategically sensitive spots in the world today: astride the Horn of Africa, would be where oil, Islamic fundamentalism and Israeli, Iranian and Arab ambitions and arms were apt to crash and collide."

Just as in the present, at the time, the U.S. mainstream press seemed at pains to ignore the obvious. And so The Washington Post did not blush to report after the Clinton administration's ill-fated intervention that "unlike previous large-scale operations, there is no U.S. strategic or economic interest in the Somalia deployments."

Considering that Somalia is geologically analogous to oil-rich Yemen just across the Red Sea (another country primed for U.S. attention), and has been the site of oil exploration by the likes of Amoco, Chevron and Conoco the Post's feigned innocence is almost laughable. It took weeks into the operation for the L.A. Times, to finally report on the "close relationship between Conoco and the U.S. military which used Conoco's Mogadishu headquarters as a "de facto U.S. embassy."

The Somali government's collapse made it easy hunting ground for what Loretta Napoleoni describes as the rogue economies of the Post-Cold War's 'New World Order'.

"Very sophisticated factory-style fishing-vessels from faraway countries whose own fisheries resources are either under tight legal protection or already drastically overexploited, poured into the unprotected Somali waters.

They are in search of high-priced tuna, mackerel, swordfish, grouper, emperor, snapper, shark and of course the other valuable species in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. With impunity they rob rock-lobster and shrimps for the tables of the wealthiest in this world, and dolphins, sea turtles and sea-cucumbers for the deranged tastes of the Far East. They have diminished the extraordinary population of dugong to near extinction." Andrew Mwangura, Pambazuka News

As Greenpeace reports: Pirate fishing is now a global business. "Far from policing the rogue traders, governments around the world do little to check their activities or what is landed in their own ports, despite the various international commitments and plans. The pirate booty is often illegally transferred to factory ships, mixed with legally caught stocks and then knowingly sold in "legitimate" ports like Las Palmas and Suva."

Insult to Injury

As Johann Hari in the Huffington Post reports: 'As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury - you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply.'

This is the reality of the New World Order. Those who would resist our corporate-sanctioned outlaws are branded as victims or pirates or ultimately, suicidal, anti-Western terrorists.