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WINNIE MADIKIZELA-MANDELA 1936-2018 “having a hand in history – from fame to infamy”

Posted in Africa, iHitNews tableaus, tagged , , , , , on April 2, 2018| Leave a Comment »

iHitNews36_Winnie-Mandela_Having-a-hand-in-history

[iHitNews no.36 2/4/2018].

Most of her life dedicated to the struggle against Apartheid, a violent system, a violent struggle, more alone than together with her husband Nelson Mandela who was imprisoned from 1963 to 1990. She has been instrumental in years of mobilising campaigns for the ANC and the end of Apartheid. It made her a symbol of that struggle. That role was all fine when it was about community support (founding local medical clinics) and political attacks on the Apartheid regime, but became problematic after the mid 80s of last century when regime violence, counter-violence, spying and infiltration by the secret police, lead to distrust, suspicion, and accusation. Some suspicions of infiltration and betrayal proved to be right, others remained non proven or were simply false. Brutal reactions to state violence. Beatings, arson and murder became tools to forge ‘unity’. Most brutal the execution by burning people alive, with car tires in flames around their neck (necklacing). Winnie Mandela refrained from calling a halt to such methods, she even endorsed it.

13 April 1986 video recorded statement in Munsieville, South Africa she said:

‘We have no guns—we have only stones, boxes of matches and petrol. Together, hand in hand, with our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country.’

Emma Gilbey, The Lady: The Life and Times of Winnie Mandela, London, Jonathan Cape, 1993, pp. 145–46.

[NB Violence was official ANC policy in those days. At its Kabwe Conference in Zambia in June 1985 Joe Slovo, chief of staff of ‘Umkhonto we Sizwe’, para-military wing of the ANC, affirmed that there was ‘No Middle Road’, and the only acceptable strategy was the revolutionary overthrow of apartheid. Quoted in “Trust in the Capacities of the People, Distrust in Elites” by Kenneth Good (2014), p.71]

This statement on necklacing, dating back to 1986, is one of the most quoted endorsements of disciplining violence against ‘traitors to the cause’ by Willie Mandela. It is not the only time – though – she said it publicly, as can be seen on this video of her speech for a crowd in Soweto which is most probably at the day of her return to Soweto in 1985, from which she was officially still banned. The image and sound quality of this video are very bad, and there is no proper source, but still it serves it’s purpose as a historical document of those times.
We seeWillie Mandela addressing a huge crowd, speaking in English, pausing after each sentence for a translation (could be Zulu or Sotho). Her discourse as show starts of with:

You are not going to fight this government with AK47s because you do not have any. We are not prepared for any reform of Apartheid. You can not reform sin. Apartheid is a criminal act against mankind. We are not able anymore to accept that criminal act by a minority…we are 30 million… Power to the People!… 

It is often difficult to hear what she says…

…we have no arms but boxes of matches…

and then when you click the video-player once again there is the sentence:

With our necklaces we will liberate our country

It is in this suppressive atmosphere that the abduction, torture and murder of a young boy – Stompie Moeketsie – took place in 1988. The boy, 14 year old, was suspected of being a police informer and his abduction and murder was the work of the strong hand gang – and personal security force of Winnie Mandela – know as the ‘Mandela United Football Club’. It lead to several court cases against Winnie Mandela. In 1991 she was acquitted for the murder, but not for the kidnapping. It was proven that she had witnessed the torture of the boy before he was found killed. This was not the only case of civil terror during the 80s linked to Winnie. It hurt her public image. It also hurt her political career in post-Aparheid society. Attempts at reconciliation during hearings in 1997 failed. She did get government positions in the first ANC governments, during which there were allegations of corruption. Still she kept a large following among the ANC electorate. In 2009 she was second on the ANC list, after Jacob Zuma.

The depiction of Winnie Mandela in several movies tend to focus on the more glorious aspects of her life. Her role in the decades of struggle – some say – has been more important then that of her imprisoned husband Nelson Mandela.

It must be noticed that later in her live Winnie Mandela did condemn the outburst of communal violence against black immigrant workers from Zimbabwe, Mozambique and the Congo in the year 2008 in the Johannesburg and Pretoria area. Violent xenophobic riots whereby necklacing, did appear again.

It is the old question of means and ends, if violent acts can be used for constructing a beter and peaceful society. It certainly is questionable if the Apartheid regime would ever have collapsed without counter-violence. Was it no the utter dangerous situation in the townships that made them into no-go-zones beyond direct Apartheid regime control?

Post Apartheid euphoria has long faded away and the question of tactics for change are posed again. The controversies about the role of Winnie Mandela in this proces of change – flaming up again at the moment of her death – will not come to any conclusion, the camps of those for and against her seem to be in balance. Still this debate may lead to reflection on the importance of finding ways of social change whereby means and ends are more closely related, some may call it a luxury to be able to do so. This I will illustrated by a citation from a review of a movie on South Africa, the ANC and the Mandela’s, “Long Walk to Freedom” by Justin Chadwick (2013), by Gugulethu oka Mseleku in the Guardian (several years ago), in which Willie Mandela’s apology of violence is noted and also explained:

The fact is that, for South African women, Winnie’s role was more fundamental than her husband’s. Though the world’s leading opinion formers have been all too keen to demonise her, Chadwick’s film is a reminder that Winnie, with the help of her daughter Zindzi, was largely responsible for perpetuating Nelson’s image as the embodiment of the liberation struggle.
More importantly, the Mother of the Nation suffered, not only because of Nelson’s incarceration, but also through her own constant arrests and torture. Despite the cowardly, misogynistic regime’s torment of a single mother and her daughters, Winnie remained strong and resilient in her defiance.”

The article also mentions the case of the murder of Stompie and reacts on it like this:

Our hearts bled for Stompie and his mother, and recognised the brutality of his killing. But we understood that the system she was fighting against was brutal and brutalising. Where was the reconciliation that had been so freely offered to Europeans, for Mama Winnie? After all she had been through, could Nelson and the ANC really not be reconciled to the fact that she had been fighting a war “by any means necessary”?

There are 428 comments on this article which you can read for yourself. I just cite this one (number 110):

Habakuk 3 Jan 2014 15:26
“Her reputation was damaged by such rhetoric as that displayed in a speech she gave in Munsieville on 13 April 1986, where she endorsed the practice of necklacing (burning people alive using tyres and petrol) by saying: “With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country.”
No thank you Winnie. Shove off.

And this one more moderate (Number 11):

Keo2008 3 Jan 2014 17:57 11 12 The writer is pointing out that Winnie hasn’t received the same clemency that has been enjoyed by other perpetrators of brutal violence during Apartheid. Personally I’m not so sure about this peace and reconciliation business and seeing thugs on both sides getting away with the most atrocious acts is sickening (and not just in South Africa…remember the Good Friday Agreement…?) but in the name of fairness I think the writer does have a point…

The full article can be found at:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/03/long-walk-to-freedom-winnie-mandela-nelson
—
ref. image elements:
(1) Photograph at top, Winnie during her seven year banishment and house arrest in Brandfort (free State) starting in 1977 (the house had no floor or ceiling, no running water and no electricity, no visitors allowed as well).
(2) The painting left under us by the artist Noel Hodnett (born in what was then Southern Rhodesia in 1949, later moving to South Africa).
http://www.noelhodnett.com/Stompie_info.htm
(3) Winnie Mandela is a 2011 drama film adaptation of Anne Marie du Preez Bezrob’s biography Winnie Mandela: A Life. The film is directed by Darrell Roodt, and stars Jennifer Hudson, Terrence Howard, Wendy Crewson, Elias Koteas, and Justin Strydom. Image Entertainment released the film in theaters on September 6, 2013
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie_Mandela_(film)
Film citic of the Guardian Ed Gibbs had this comment: “This syrupy biography of the former wife of Nelson Mandela seeks to sugar-coat South Africa’s complex history.”

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Historical handshakes confirming Oil Ententes of the Elysée with Libya and Syria 2007 – 2009

Posted in Africa, European politics, Middle East, news-tableau, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »

EntenteElyseeSarkozyGaddafiAssad

The backdrop of the policy for Libya and Syria by European Union and associated NATO countries is always painted with oil. (1) British/Dutch Royal Dutch Shell, French Total,  CNPC from China and ONGC of India are main investors in Syrian crude oil and gas. (2)

 

His Excellency President Al-Assad described his talks with President Sarkozy as ‘very successful”, ‘constructive” ”transparent” and as ”bolstering the confidence built between Syria and France”, ”dealing with many international as well as regional issues, bilateral relations, the Iranian nuclear file, the recent positive developments in Lebanon, particularly following the formation of the Lebanese Government, which we expect to be an important step for the stability in Lebanon.” (…) ”The talks, further, dealt with the situation in Gaza from a human perspective; I asked President Sarkozy to interfere as to stop the daily killing of the Palestinians by the Israel Army,” said H.E. President Al-Assad citing today’s killing of a Palestinian citizen.

 “… discovery of treasure, a huge oil and gas in the basin of the Mediterranean is estimated reserves to 122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 107 billion barrels of oil.”

SYRIAN OIL AND GAS NEWS: Announcement for International Offshore Bid Round 2011 Category: Oil Ministry Decisions & Declarations | Posted on: 30-03-2011 The Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources and General Petroleum Corporation (GPC) invite international petroleum companies for an International Bid Round to explore, develop and produce petroleum from three offshore blocks in some areas of the territorial waters and the exclusive economic zone of the Syrian Arab Republic in the Mediterranean Sea according to the production sharing contract.The announcment contains three marine areas ( block I, block II, blockIII) with covarage area estemated by 3000 cubic kilometers per one block. the annoncement date starts in 24/3/2011 for six monthes and closed on 5/10/2011.The modern American studies recently confirmed the discovery of treasure, a huge oil and gas in the basin of the Mediterranean is estimated reserves to 122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 107 billion barrels of oil. (4)

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(1) oilprice.com 14/4/2011: “Oil Production Figures in Areas of Unrest (Middle East & North Africa)”

(2) royaldutrchshellplc.com 3/12/2011: “E.U. sanctions force Shell to leave Syria.”

(3) www.presidentassad.net: Presidents Al-Assad/ Frnace visit statements (13/11/2009)

(4)  Syrian Oil and Gas News; 8/2/2010:International announcement for developing 7 oil field in Arraqah

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World news on the cheap in Cairo November 2011: who speaks English here?

Posted in Africa, Middle East, tagged , , , , , on November 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »

WORLD NEWS ON THE CHEAP like yesterday a Dutch crew of the television news (NOS/NTR Nieuwsuur) in Egypt doing ‘street interviews’ and proving that the support for the Egypt Revolution is faltering with two third of those interviewed speaking some form of English and only one or two questions posed in Arabic, whereby it remains unclear who is posing the question.

Gone are the days of a correspondent in Cairo for the Arab world, gone are the days of at least having a journalist speaking Arabic being part of a crew, gone is any historical knowledge on the part of the journalists, at best a quick check of Wikipedia before leaving or in the hotel room…. as a multi-cultural nation it is a shame that the Netherlands have not been able to train and recruit a group of say Moroccan young students to become journalists for events in the Arabic world….

“Who speaks English here?” asks the camera crew on Tahrir Square in Cairo untill they bump into a man that does not like the way they are filming… and when people on the street might return the question to them  (hal tatakallam al-lughah al-‘arabīyah?) هل تتكلم اللغة العربية؟, the Dutch journalists of the crew fail to understand.

There seems to have been a translator with the crew, but  the position of the translator remains unclear. The tiny bit of Arabic we hear spoken from the side of the crew seems clumsy, was it a Dutch Arabic speaker or a locally rented service. If the last thing is the case, how much embedded is this translator in the Egyptian state media, how does the translator relates to the political spectrum of Egypt, how were the choices of who to speak to made?

The clumsiness of the reportage is at times embarrassing, but fully in line with the cheap glamour of the Nieuwsuur television studio in the Netherlands and the anchor woman waving her hairs while posing question to the crew in Cairo to enlighten the Dutch audience.

Nieuwsuur (NOS/NTR) reporter Jan Eikelboom explains how he found out that the Egyptian revolution is faltering on the basis of "hear say" from the streets, speaking with shopkeepers in the bazars, tourist entrepreneurs and a man at the Cairo stock exchange, they outcome of these talks are of course fully predictable, as all these people see their business frustrated by the social unrest. Shopkeepers, tourist workers and a broker can of course not stand as a representative group for Egyptian society as a whole... but the Dutch crew clearly had no access to other social layers.

(19':50'') Dutch captions for a tourist entrepreneur in Giza interviewed in English: "I do not know what those people want. It is not good for us, we are working with tourists"

(20':38'') Dutch captions for an interview in English. "On the square they say: We want peace." Actually the reporter says not 'peace' but 'freedom'... sloppy translator there, at the NOS/NTR... The over-generalized question may have been posed in English by Jan Eikelboom and the answer is as general as the question: "...freedom will come, but slowly."

========

Source = http://beta.uitzendinggemist.nl/afleveringen/1116886

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Who are the virtual murderers of Gaddafi?

Posted in Africa, Colonial history, Justice, Revolts, tagged , , , , , on October 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Grotesque and hypocrite the new Libyan Government statement on the persecution of the alleged killers of Gaddafi. Stating that these could not have been regular opposition groups and that the new government knows the rules of war… and taking prisoners.

“With regards to Qaddafi, we do not wait for anybody to tell us,” NTC vice chairman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga.

 “We had already launched an investigation. We have issued a code of ethics in handling of prisoners of war. I am sure that was an individual act and not an act of revolutionaries or the national army,” the top interim official said.

 “Whoever is responsible for that (Qaddafi’s killing) will be judged and given a fair trial.”

What a lie, as both NATO and the insurgents – that became the army of the new Libyan government – have thrown tons of munition on any spot they thought Gaddafi would be at a certain moment. A fair trial of Gaddafi has never been on the agenda of neither NATO nor the insurgents, who became the new government. Only the International Criminal Court in The Hague lent itself to suggest that such a trial was a viable option, never protesting in public against the repeated attempted killing of their indicted trial candidates, Gaddafi and his close circle.

Photograph published in The Independent 2011/07/24 with this caption: "Nato planes bomb a Gaddafi compound in Tripoli last month. Air strikes by allied forces have become increasingly ineffective"

NATO and insurgents were out to kill all those months, but failed in spite of all the high tech devices put to the task. Now a few hot heads – which are necessarily part of any insurrectionist forces – finished Gaddafi’s life by hand, and they will be made into culprits, to wash the virtual bloody hands of NATO and the new  government.

Photograph published on the web site of the Daily Mail 2011/10/21 with the following caption: "Celebration: Rebel fighters carry a young man holding what they claim to be the gold-plated gun of Colonel Gaddafi which was taken from him."

It is sad that such distortions of reality  are published in the international press without any direct rebuttal.

Gaddafi should have been put on trial. His murder will hamper any attempt to cleanse Libya of decades of dictatorship.

It is most disturbing to notice that – apparently – distant killing by regular armies using state of the art guided missiles airplanes with remote sensing, and the like, is not conceived as murder and somehow a civil way of getting rid of an adversary, whereas traditional lynching on the spot or firing a gun at a victim at close range is perceived as a barbaric act that can be classified as a crime of war or murder.

—-
Two additional sources that give details on other summary executions of pro-Gaddafi forces  in the same town of Sirte, less in the picture than the person of Gaddafi:
– Media Lens: “Killing Gaddafi” 2011/10/27
– Human Right Watch report on Libya: “Apparent Execution of 53 Gaddafi Supporters” 2011/10/24

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The art of bombarding retreating troops: Kuwait 1991 ~ Libya 2011

Posted in Africa, Middle East, war crimes, tagged , , , on October 22, 2011| 1 Comment »

Some side images of the killing of Gaddafi near Sirte, of the alleged bombing by NATO of a retreating/escaping convoy of Gaddafi (*), reminded me of the Highway Of Death in Kuwait in 1991, the bombarding of retreating Iraqi troops… a massacre not only of soldiers and their equipment but also of civilians related to the Iraqis that tried to make their way out of Kuwait City. Kicking your adversary in the ass… there is a ‘virtual black book of military history’ to which a page seems to have been added by NATO. Do you let your enemy escape or will you destroy him? What are the long lasting effects of such non glorious  military acts of revenge on an enemy that has lost or is about to loose. Is there art in ‘the bombing of retreating troops’?

The pictures I choose are not the most gruesome that exist. The Kuwait highway bombing photographs include charcoaled faces of  people burnt alive by the aerial strike, images that have burnt themselves in my memory as a reminder that ‘the art of surrender’ is a much more noble art that should be exercised by the troops of our European nations. We need a civilian campaign on how war is conducted.

There is not enough public scrutiny on NATO military strategies. The critical level of reporting in the news of war events remains often 19th century imperial, rejoicing in what is thought to be ‘a victory for the good of the human race’. The NATO involvement in this last phase of the Libyan war seems to be completely out of line with their mandate based on the UN resolution that asks to bring to court the Libyan head of state Gaddafi, not to kill him or have him killed without a trial.


Let me give one example of historical back firing: the massacre of the retreating Croatian troops of the fascist regime of Ante Pavelic in May 1945, near the town of Bleiburg at the Slovenian/Austrian border by partisan troops (40/50.000 killed). This negative event has remained a rallying point for Croatian nationalist ever since and played its nasty role in the much later enfolding new Balkan War at the end of the 20th century..

—

*) Mail on-line gruesome photographs, scroll down the page for the vehicles bombed out by NATO photograph

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Gaddafi, tyrannicide: who are the puppets that are dancing in the streets

Posted in Africa, End of voluntary servitude, international justice, Is everything propaganda then?, Justice, tagged , , on October 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »

A dictator is never alone. A dictator is a system whereby one man or woman is the figurehead with whole strata  of society deriving their social position and wealth from their participation in a system of rule both headed and symbolised by a specific ruler. Removing just the figurehead and his or her direct entourage does not cleanse a nation of its dictatorial past. With a figurehead removed in a spectacular way, entrenched deeper layers of a system of dictatorship tend to remain largely intact. Summary execution – which may have happened today to Gaddafi by unruly troops of the new power – bypasses any attempt at reestablishing a just society.

Trying a dictator in court may help to lay bare the social strata that have been keeping a dictatorship in place. The dictator and his entourage may defend themselves and point to others who were part of their rule and may now pose as liberators. The defence of a dictator in court  may also expose all forms of international support for a regime by countries, parties and other leaders who may only recently have turned against a dictator whereas before they were supporting a totalitarian system in economic, military and diplomatic ways.

The killing of Gaddafi without any form of justice serves many interests: many members of the new Libyan government involved in Gaddafi’s regime; Libyan businessmen that derive their wealth from dealing with the Gaddafi rule; political leaders both retired and active who have received Libyan support or did make economic deals; academics, intellectuals, artists, architects and so on  that did get Gaddafi’s financial support or who performed for him. The killing has been tried by NATO many times in the last months, throwing tons of bombs on Gaddafi’s premises and saying that they were not targeting the leader as such. Now we will have to wait to see if sufficient details of the circumstances of the violent death of Gaddafi will come out to establish at least some form of truth of what has happened today.

Those who dance in the streets  to rejoice the violent death of a dictator may well be the recruiting force for the next totalitarian regime in the making.

====

written Thursday October 20th 2011

See also these related articles from previous months on Libya, Gaddafi and international law:

– 2011/05/02 NATO’s Collateral Tyrannicide: will it bring Justice and Peace?
– 2022/05/16 Yet another telephone call from Libya to The Hague…
– 2011/05/26 2006 Saddam ~ 2008 Karadzic ~ 2011 Mladic captured alive: what about Gaddafi?
– 2011/05/28 G20 2011 dinner: dessert from the desert: a Libyan Oil Cocktail
– 2011/07/23 The disembodied Leviathan of Libya
– 2011/08/02 Emblem for the International Criminal Court: Iustitiae Languor
– 2011/08/21  What will be the last view of Gaddafi of this world?

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I never knew there were so many Libyan specialists …

Posted in Africa, tagged , , on September 1, 2011| Leave a Comment »


I never knew there were so many Libyan specialists with all the international news networks…
still I keep wondering why they did not speak out
a decade or so before about this “African Hitler dictator and his unbearable reign of terror…”

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What will be the last view of Gaddafi of this world?

Posted in Africa, Is everything propaganda then?, tagged , , , , on August 21, 2011| 1 Comment »

What will be the last view of Gaddafi of this world?

which way up?

which way down?

what will be our last view of him?

the anti-colonial guerilla fighter hero he associated with Omar al Mukhtar – Lion of the Desert – hung in 1931 by the Italian fascist colonial regime under Benito Mussolini
(Gaddafi wore the last photograph of Mukhtar alive just before his execution as a badge on his military uniform when visiting Berlusconi in Italy in 2009)

or

the ruthless dictator Benito Mussolini, as captured by Italian Partisans in 1945, when he tried to flee to Switzerland and executed on the spot, hung by his feet

—
the flag of his copy cat green revolution waved four decades

the regime he helped create repressed as many people as it did bind, to its peculiar form of common wealth

despised and embraced at the same time, by other leaders from other countries
who drew their plans for his removal while celebrating their meetings with him

those from his own camp, who now leave him to face up to his last days
will trample on his face to hide their own past

will his court be in the streets or in The Hague?

there will be no singular view of Gaddafi

as with all dictators both his face
and the way we see it
are split.

========
see also “The disembodied Leviathan of Libya” on this blog.

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The disembodied Leviathan of Libya

Posted in Africa, Art & Politics, Colonial history, Is everything propaganda then?, tagged , , , , on July 23, 2011| 2 Comments »

A picture today in Aljazeera of the Green Square (1) in Tripoli struck me, it had a caption “People gather near a portrait of Gaddafi in Tripoli’s Green Square on Friday, before the explosions [Reuters]”. This news picture showed a huge street painting or print of Gaddafi and what seems to be a dwindling crowd around it. There is a fence around the picture that must be something like 50 by 250 meter in size. On the inside of the fence once sees guards posted at regular intervals. The picture shows Gaddafi in one of his hundreds of outfits, possibly the uniform of an air marshall  he wore when visiting the Italian president Berlusconi in June 2009. On the right side of his uniform jacket Gaddafi wears a gallery of medals and on the left the a photograph has been pinned on his uniform. The photograph shows the martyr of Libyan resistance Omar Mukhtar, the “Lion of the Desert”, on the day before he was hanged by his Italian colonial masters in 1931. A provocative statement for his host Berlusconi, who hugged  him nevertheless as he was about to make some big business deals with the Libyan leader.

The people around the fence at the Green Square in Tripoli in July 2011 look at the picture of this moment of theatrical revenge on the former colonial power, a picture that shows the leader completely, from his golden adorned cap to this shoes, with a saintly light blue glowing aura all around him. If one would not trust the strict editorial rules of Aljazeera and Reuter’s photo agency,  it could have been a photoshopped picture.

This made me think of the frontispiece of the book by Thomas Hobbes “Leviathan” published in the mid 17th century during the English Civil War, which describes the necessity of a sovereign authority to be accepted by all, to avoid ‘the state of nature’, everybody for themselves, a ‘war of all against all’ (Bellum omnium contra omnes).

For the sake of peace, the people, so did Hobbes argue,  had to make a social contract with an absolute ruler, best in the form of a king. The ruler in 1651 is depicted as an embodiment of ‘the people’. There is a crowd that marches from a landscape into the body of the ruler. The ruler has a sword in one and a crosier s used by priests in the other hand, showing he is in command both of state and church.


The display of the picture of the ruler as if he was a landscape, one could walk in, at the Green Square in Tripoli, has a similar function: Gaddafi as embodiment of the Libyan nation. Only, the aerial photograph unveils that it is but a meagre crowd assembled around their leader. It expresses how the maximum leader has inflated himself disproportionally to the feelings of embodiment by ‘his people’. In mathematical terms one can even speak of an ‘inverse proportionality‘, the more his popularity shrinks, the bigger his pictures.

The 17th century theory of state of Hobbes can still be used today, to understand the prolonged rule of dictators. There is some form of common interest, expressed in a social contract, by the ruler and his subjects. (2) How such a two dimensional state of affairs – ruler and ruled – may become a more diverse structure where more people can participate in the affairs of state, is apparently not well understood. The attempts of outsiders – like the Western coalition forces under NATO command – to kill the ruler have failed until now. Aerial bombing, even under the title of a UN mandate to protect civilians from attacks by their own ruler, are counterproductive. To deliver the idea of democracy to a nation does not work, or at least it takes many generations to wear off the effect of long distance destruction perpetuated by outside forces in one’s own country. (3) Interventionist regime change – as we witness for a few months now – does do little to empower the common people. Meanwhile, the ranks of the opposition forces are more and more filled with former supporters of the Gaddafi regime that try not only to evade the eminent purges after Gaddafi’s downfall, but also are preparing to continue the old rule, hidden under new revolutionary slogans.

The inflated picture on the pavement of the square of revolution in Tripoli of  the dictatorial ruler Gaddafi, serves more than one purpose. It glorifies him and at the same time it shows him as an ancient non-heriditary king who knows his days are counted when he hears the song in the streets: “the king must die“. (4) The ruler as scapegoat to cleanse the history of a nation. The ‘effigy of Gaddafi’  may serve an extra purpose, as a painting to be trampled on by thousands of feet in a direct release of anger , thus avoiding or diminishing the acts of revenge that accompany any change of regime.

———–
(1)  Green Square named so after the Green Revolution coup d’état of Gaddafi in 1969 (Arabic: الساحة الخضراء‎ As Sāḥah āl Ḥaḍrā), also known as Martyrs’ Square (Arabic: Maidan Al Shohdaa‎); a downtown landmark at the bay in the city of Tripoli. Mainly constructed during Italian colonial times. Named Square of Independence during the short lived Libyan monarchy (1951-1969). On February 20th an anti-Gaddafi demonstration took place here, which was harshly suppressed. One source, a mortuary orderly from Tripoli who fled to Tunesia, later told the BBC that he saw hundreds of dead and wounded be brought into the hospital where he worked: “Many young people went to protest in Green Square that day, and I believe almost no-one came back alive that night.”

(2)  This phenomenon is explained in another way one century earlier (1548) – and with more foresight – by Etienne de la Boétie in his “Discours de la servitude volontaire” (The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude). Boétie notes  that “…the best and most virtuous man would not remain so if he ruled alone…” See also the study of David Lewis Schaefer “Freedom over servitude: Montaigne, La Boétie, and On voluntary servitude”, page 40, partly available at GoogleBooks.

(3) Incendiary carpet bombing of Germany, Japan, Korea, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, imprecise precision bombing of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan…

(4) See the famous chapter of Frazer in his book the ‘Golden Bough’: “Kings killed at the end of a fixed term.”

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G20 2011 dinner: dessert from the desert: a Libyan Oil Cocktail

Posted in Africa, Economics, tagged , , , , , on May 28, 2011| 2 Comments »


Sarkozy explaining the recipe for the dessert from the desert at the upcoming dinner at the G8 top meeting in France May 2011: a Libyan ‘oil cocktail’ named ‘”Tour de Force de la Tour Eiffel” to be served by Apache waiters with NATO bonfires providing a festive backdrop. He makes it clear why the chosen interventionist taste is ‘Libyan’ and – say – not ‘Algerian’ or ‘Sudanese’, as there are 20 G-force countries wanting their sweet-oil-tooth to be served at a regular basis and one must make sure that there is enough constant supply of the needed ingredient.

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NATO disrupting the course of justice in Libya and International Criminal Court not reacting

Posted in Africa, international justice, tagged , , , on May 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Flying NATO warrant for Gaddafi over Libyan desert.

When a court orders an alleged killer to be arrested and it notices that someone else tries repeatedly to kill ‘their killer’…. it would issue also an arrest warrant for the murderer ‘in spe’ of the indicted. Sounds logical but we see today that the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court fails to do so. He did not issue any public statement ordering the chiefs of NATO to stop their attempts at the life of someone who needs to face his judges here on earth.

Below is the concluding statement by the ICC Prosecutor at the press conference on Libya in The Hague on 16 May 2011:

My Office has not requested the intervention of international forces to implement the arrest warrants. Should the Court issue them and the three individuals remain in Libya, Libyan authorities have the primary responsibility to arrest them. Libya is a member of the United Nations and it has the duty to abide by Security Council Resolution 1970.

When the time comes, implementing the arrest warrants will be the most effective way to protect civilians under attack in Libya and elsewhere. As in any other criminal case, the execution of the warrants will have a deterrent impact for other leaders who are thinking of using violence to gain or retain power.

 

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Yet another telephone call from Libya to The Hague…

Posted in Africa, End of voluntary servitude, European politics, international justice, tagged , , , , , on May 16, 2011| 1 Comment »

…while the list of Libyan war criminals by  the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Luis Moreno-Ocampo keeps dwindling and until now only three suspects are mentioned by name: Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and Gaddafi’s brother in law Abdullah Senussi. The deserted former head of the Libyan Secret Service and last Minister of Foreign Affairs Moussa Koussa (also spelled in the Western press as Musa Kusa), part of the regime till a few weeks ago, when he crossed the border of Tunis and was welcomed as a valuable informer for NATO in Great Britain, seems not to be on the list of the International Criminal Court. We now have a whole score of pro-active regime members who are defecting by telephone. This tactics seem to be much more effective than throwing big bombs from speedy airplanes onto buildings that are either empty or inhabited by people who were are the wrong place at the wrong moment. What to think about the British Chief of the Defence Staff General David Richards who called last Sunday for “widening targets in Libya”  as NATO tries all it can to keep Gaddafi from being caught alive and being brought for the International Criminal Court in The Hague. All of this is also a show of force to help topple the tank based Assad family from power in Syria, in the near future. Political leaders must by now have received the message of the international legal community, that only in China it is allowed to use tanks against demonstrators. Both politics and justice in Africa and the Middle East seem to be in the hands of  NATO generals, they take the initiative while parliaments have lost all control over this theatre of war. Happily the International Criminal Court in The Hague – that has no own police force to arrest indicted war criminals – still has a telephone line, to prove things can be done differently. Or, one musty believe that the members of Gaddafi’s claque and clique needed some bombs to rain next to their front doors before they would call The Hague, as if the downfall of the Gaddafi reign had not been imminent for many months already, without NATO airplanes. Why diplomatic forms of subversion have failed to be used to oust the regime of Gaddafi? Who does the body count in Libya irrespective on which side death occurs? Who are those Libyan army soldiers that are legitimate targets now?  I read the army consists of 25.000 volunteers and 25.000 conscripts and that their equipment is rather outdated. So what chance they have against the ultra up to date NATO forces? NATO does not have smart bombs that can decide who to kill and who not, bombs that can distinguish between a conscript, a volunteer, a Gaddafi guard or an insurgent. Too many unanswered questions. I have always had a suspicion when ‘civilians’ are protected and soldiers are open for lawful slaughter. We need to widen our vision on such conflicts and develop new tactics for more peaceful methods of transition of power.

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Muammar Gaddafi 1942- …. Looking from the past to the future

Posted in Africa, End of voluntary servitude, tagged , , on May 12, 2011| 3 Comments »

Wednesday May 11th 2011 Gaddafi comes to one of the most safe places for him now-a-days the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli where most of the international journalists accredited by the Libyan Government are staying, though they are having dinner elsewhere in the hotel and know nothing about this meeting of Gaddafi and a whole parade of Libyan tribal leaders that come to him one by one and shake his hand, all the while being photographed as loyal chiefs. On a screen in the room a program of Libyan state television is projected in the background so the date and time of the meeting is documented. The video of this broadcast by Libyan State Television can be seen at YouTube under the title: “Gaddafi Live on Libya State TV May 11 – NATO Assassination Attempt Fails Again !” The video is not subtitled and not translated. It leaves the non Arabic speaking with only the body language of those acting out this scene.

It looks to me very much like a farewell meeting with someone who is going to die soon, knowing his day are counted.

I look in some old archives with different spellings of his name: Khadaffi, Qadhafi and see a young man right after having taken power in 1969: with sparkling open eyes and a smile, looking ahead. Gaddafi has been born – it says – in a Berber tent in 1942, where will he die and how, nobody can look into his eyes anymore to find the answer…

The Guardian of Friday May 13th. uses a subheading about  the Gaddafi unexpected meeting: “Gaddafi sneaks into hotel.”  I reacted with the following short lines:

In spite of a most common felt disgust for Gaddafi which I share, I do not like the suggestive language of your reporting “sneaks.” The Rixus Hotel is one of the safest places for Gaddafi in his country as long as a part of the foreign accredited press resides there. As he has been constantly been targeted, in spite of whatever blunt denials by NATO spokesmen, it makes good sense that he uses the relative safety of this place. We do not need to paint a black sheep black.

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West and East Africa September 2009: floods and droughts & the luxury disasters of some other nations

Posted in Africa, Disasters, Visual Language, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 5, 2009| 3 Comments »

A series of messages of  a friend (François Laureys) on the social messaging system of FaceBook community who keeps active contacts in West Africa alerted me to extra ordinary heavy rains and floodings in Burkino Fasso and other countries in the region. I had not seen any covering of this disaster on national Dutch television, and maybe missed  it on BBC news, anyhow us Europeans are not “flooded” with African news anyhow. It can be that the editors in command of our daily supply of misery are careful about the possible ‘disaster fatigue’ of their audience, but when a local disaster occurs in the low countries we can be sure that the flooded camping outside the village of Hoeksewaard – however minor – will get full attention. A recent example was the so called  ‘Weeralarm’ (weather alarm) of our national meteorological institute KNMI because a combined storm and heavy rains were expected on August 20, 2009. Luckily the “planned” storm did not come and the heavy rains failed to materialize, so many complaints did get in form organizers of the compulsive and commercial late summer outdoor festivals, that were either cancelled or delayed. Before, such nation wide offical alarms, everybody accepted the vicissitude of the weather, but now the eager business minds must have started to think up possible damage claim schemes. The national weather institute KNMI was quick to react and has scaled down their ‘televisionized’ national alarms. Anybody with a computer in this country – my good guess is that there are even more computers than inhabitants in the Netherlands – has instant access to the continuous weather radar and its efficient didactic visualizations so a greengrocer with an outside market stall can check the radar on his iphone and take the needed measures right in time. Those are the disasters of luxury that befall us here in Europe.

Left the image of the wetaher alarm day that produced some nuissance (or splendour if you want) but was in the end a minor wetaher event and at the right the weather radar image at the moment of writing this text. Click picture for full size view.

Left the image of the weather alarm day that produced some nuissance (or splendour if you want) but was in the end a minor event and at the right the weather radar image at the moment of writing this text. Click picture for full size view.

The Facebook messages from François about Burkino Fasso where illustrated with local television coverage that has been posted in a copy on Youtube, this is just one example … there are many more videos that show the disaster. A whole series can be found  on Youtube as posted by ‘toussiana’ and also François has posted a series of still pictures on the French web site  L’Atellier de média.


The images of the inundated town of Ouaga kept appearing in my mind as there was what we Dutch call “heavy rainfall” this morning (I lived for a while in the real tropics so I know that real prolonged heavy rains do not occur in the Netherlands). At breakfeast my girlfriend mentioned the possible impact of “El Niño” and when I checked this issue, I bumped into this news item in the Guardian, stating:

Climate scientists have warned of wild weather in the year ahead as the start of the global “El Niño” climate phenomenon exacerbates the impacts of global warming. As well as droughts, floods and other extreme events, the next few years are also likely to be the hottest on record, scientists say.

Other images popped up during my internet search, mostly in British sources (so they do care a bit, may it be as part of their colonial legacy). And as said, in the article of the climate scientists, not just flooding, but also drought appeared to be an issue for the African continent, almost at the same latitude and time. Both West and East Africa are effected by the same major climate phenomenon. Emblematic pictures, very recently published came on my screen and merged in my mind. Next step was my routine check of  ReliefWeb (serving the information needs of the human relief community) an initiative of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA, exists since f1996). Within seconds I found the maps that document both recent African disasters: flood  and drought. So what was combined in my mind I have merged in one tableau picture…

A clickable documented versions will be made in the coming days, but I like to post it in its actual state now already. Click picture for full size view

A clickable documented version will be made in the coming days, but I like to post it in its actual state now already. Click picture for full size view.

As long as the clickable version (I intend to make) is not ready these are the four sources:
– West Africa floods picture from a BBC web site: “Many homeless in Burkina deluge”
– Idem a map  from ReliefWeb in PDF format: “West Africa – Floods location (as of 01 Sep 2009)”
– East Africa drought picture from an article in The Guardian by John Vidal: “Climate change is here, it is a reality’ As one devastating drought follows another, the future is bleak for millions in east Africa.”
– Idem a map from ReliefWeb: “Drought early warning stages in Kenya, July 2009” (in PNG picture format)

I keep wondering whether the satellite instant weather maps can be  seen at least by some people in the effected African regions (though I read that most of the infrastructure of urban areas in Burkino Fasso have been flooded as well). Have there been official warnings and alarms? Could some of the effects of these natural disasters have been lessened if ther would have been some sort of  efficient communication of information? Do I see things biased, as too primitive over there?  In these parts of Africa the ownership, or even just access to a computer, seems to be limited and bandwidth and processing speed of the computers used may be insufficient to display such heavy data streams. National or regional weather institutes do they have these public accessible climate information systems? Many question I have to find an answer for. NASA Earht Observatory certainly has all the information and I could find quickly some recent visualizations of the flooding of Burkino Fasso and neighbouring Sahel countries. I will post them just here, and as the sun breaks through in Amsterdam and it is saturday afternoon, it is high time to go and buy that fish for dinner… and I can do very little with my compassion with the victims of these natural disasters. Maybe it is good to  try to stir Dutch media to give some coverage to this… but for the rest nothing more to do as a far away  urban European for the moment.

In late August and early September 2009, widespread flooding occurred throughout western north Africa along the western expanse of the Sahel. By early September, heavy rains and resulting floods killed five people and left 150,000 more homeless in Burkina Faso, The New York Times reported. In Niger, Burkina Faso’s northeastern neighbor, four days of intense rain damaged some 3,500 homes, took out electrical power lines, and caused livestock and crop losses, ReliefWeb reported.

NASA caption: "In late August and early September 2009, widespread flooding occurred throughout western north Africa along the western expanse of the Sahel. By early September, heavy rains and resulting floods killed five people and left 150,000 more homeless in Burkina Faso, The New York Times reported. In Niger, Burkina Faso’s northeastern neighbor, four days of intense rain damaged some 3,500 homes, took out electrical power lines, and caused livestock and crop losses, ReliefWebreported." Technicaal description by NASA: "The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terrasatellite captured these images of Burkina Faso. The top image is from September 3, 2009, and the bottom image is from August 28, 2009. Both images use a combination of infrared and visible light to increase the contrast between water and land. Vegetation appears bright green, clouds appear bright turquoise, and water appears electric blue. Swelling along the Nakambé River is apparent in the image from September 3. In the image from August 28, the same water channel is barely discernible. To the north, the riverbed appears nearly white, but this may result from sunglint—sunlight bouncing off the water’s surface and into the satellite sensor."Click picture for full size view.

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The source page for the NASA picture of the Burkino Fasso floods can be found here….

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