Very interesting read about Dictatorships in Africa and their relationship to the United States!

Wednesday, 09 July 2008
African Dictatorships and Double-Standards
Stephen Zunes

This article originally appeared in Foreign Policy In Focus

“U.S. credibility as a defender of human rights and free elections is seriously compromised.”

The Bush administration has justifiably criticized the Zimbabwean regime of liberator-turned-dictator Robert Mugabe. It has joined a unanimous UN Security Council resolution condemning the campaign of violence unleashed upon pro-democracy activists and calling for increased diplomatic sanctions in the face of yet another sham election. In addition, both the House and the Senate have passed strongly worded resolutions of solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe in support of their struggle for freedom and democracy.

However, neither the Republican administration nor the Democratic-controlled Congress is sincerely concerned about human rights and democratic elections as a matter of principle. Rather, they are more likely acting out of political expediency. Despite claims of support for the advancement of democracy, the United States continues to support other African dictatorships that are as bad as or even worse than that of Zimbabwe.

Indeed, the United States currently provides economic aid and security assistance to such repressive African regimes as Swaziland, Congo, Cameroun, Togo, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Rwanda, Gabon, Egypt, and Tunisia. None of these countries holds free elections, and all have severely suppressed their political opposition.

The Worst Abuser

Among the worst of these African tyrannies has been the regime of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea. Obiang has been in power even longer than the 28-year reign of Mugabe and, according to a recent article in the British newspaper The Independent, makes the Zimbabwean dictator “seem stable and benign” by comparison. Obiang originally seized power in a 1979 coup by murdering his uncle, who had ruled the country since its independence from Spain in 1968. Under his rule, Equatorial Guinea nominally allowed the existence of opposition parties as a condition of receiving foreign aid in the early 1990s. But the four leading candidates withdrew from the last presidential election in December 2002 in protest of irregularities in the voting process and violence against their supporters. In that election, Obiang officially received more than 97% of the vote (down from 99.5% in the previous election.)

Though the U.S. State Department acknowledged that the election was “marred by extensive fraud and intimidation,” the Congress and the administration devoted none of the vehement condemnation that was so evident after the recent, similarly marred election process in Zimbabwe.

One major reason for the difference in response is oil. The development of vast oil reserves over the past decade has made Equatorial Guinea one of the wealthiest countries in Africa in terms of per capita gross domestic product. Virtually all of the oil revenues, however, goes to Obiang and his cronies. The dictator himself is worth an estimated $1 billion, making him the wealthiest leader in Africa; his real estate holdings include two mansions in Maryland just outside of Washington, DC. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the country’s population lives on only a few dollars a day, and nearly half of all children under five are malnourished. The country’s major towns and cities lack basic sanitation and potable water while conditions in the countryside are even worse.

“The development of vast oil reserves over the past decade has made Equatorial Guinea one of the wealthiest countries in Africa in terms of per capita gross domestic product.”

During his most recent visit to Washington in 2006, Obiang was warmly received by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who praised the dictator as “a good friend” of the United States. Not once during their joint appearance did she mention the words “human rights” or “democracy.” At the same press conference, Obiang praised his regime’s “extremely good relations with the United States” and his expectation that “this relationship will continue to grow in friendship and cooperation.” None of the assembled reporters raised any questions about the regime’s notorious human rights record or its lack of democracy, instead using the opportunity to ask Secretary Rice questions about the alleged threat from Iran.

In 2002, the dictator met with President George W. Bush in New York to discuss military and energy security issues. He followed up in 2004 with meetings with then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and then-Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham.

Cozy Relations

Equatorial Guinea receives U.S. government funding and training through the International Military Education and Training Program (IMET). In addition, the private U.S. firm Military Professional Resources Incorporated - founded by former senior Pentagon officials who cite the regime’s friendliness to U.S. strategic and economic interests - plays a key role in the country’s internal security apparatus. Furthermore, as a result of Obiang’s understandable lack of trust in his own people, soldiers from Morocco - one of America’s closest African allies - have served for decades in a number of important security functions, including the role of presidential guards.

Maintaining close ties with such a notorious ruler has led even conservative Republicans like Frank Ruddy, who served as President Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to Equatorial Guinea in the mid-1980s, to denounce the Bush administration for being “big cheerleaders for the government - and it’s an awful government.”

“U.S. oil companies paid hundreds of millions of dollars destined to state treasuries directly into the dictator’s private bank accounts.”

Though the Chinese have also recently begun investing in the country’s oil sector, U.S. companies ExxonMobil, Amerada Hess, Chevron/Texaco, and Marathon Oil have played the most significant role. A report by the International Monetary Fund notes that U.S. oil companies receive “by far the most generous tax and profit-sharing provisions in the region.” Congressional hearings recently revealed how U.S. oil companies paid hundreds of millions of dollars destined to state treasuries directly into the dictator’s private bank accounts. A Senate report faulted U.S. oil companies for making “substantial payments to, or entering into business ventures with,” government officials and their family members.

The irony of the relative silence of Congress and the Bush administration regarding the human rights abuses and the undemocratic nature of Obiang’s regime is that, due to the critical role of U.S. economic investment and security assistance, the United States has far more leverage on the government of Equatorial Guinea than it does on the government of Zimbabwe. As a result, Americans can feel self-righteous in their condemnation of a regime in Zimbabwe with which the United States has little leverage while continuing to support an even more repressive regime over which the United States could successfully exert pressure if it chose to do so.

This does not mean the United States should have waited until it first ends its support of Obiang and other African dictatorships before joining the rest of the international community in condemning the repression in Zimbabwe. However, as long as the United States maintains such blatant double-standards, U.S. credibility as a defender of human rights and free elections is seriously compromised and thereby plays right into the hands of autocrats and demagogues like Robert Mugabe.

Stephen Zunes is a senior analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus and a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco.

Officials: Iraqi councilman kills U.S. soldiers

Do we really need any other reason to get the hell out of Iraq. The Iraqi’s do not respect us and we continue to lose valuable American lives. Please someone tell me why this Iraqi official fired upon U.S. Troops.

While we may not like our government at times, and we may not like the strategies that they employ we must support our troops. Innocent men and women are dying all in the name of weapons of mass destruction that never existed. The Iraqi’s are tired of us being there, we really need to stop trying to police the world and spend some of our tax dollars on making it safer here at home. I’M DISGUSTED!

Interesting analysis on Police Use of Force by the NYPD. I will be teaching a lesson to 8th graders about the use of force; when it is necessary and when it is excessive this upcoming Monday. For that reason I find it interesting that I found this article, maybe I will print it out for my students.

This article reminds me why we must never forget our fallen soldiers like Sean Bell and Amadou Diallo. It is because of the excessive practices of the NYPD that these two men are not here today. Just some quick facts cops are allowed to use physical force when they are making an arrest, when they fear that a suspect is trying to escape from custody and when they feeel physically threatened.

In the article below you will see scenarios that are the exact opposite of what I have described.

Cops use force - from restraint to drawn guns - in 20% of stops, data show

blesser@nydailynews.com

Then the LORD said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight in.” Joshua 6: 2-5

Happy Memorial Day, I just got back from the local parade in my town where there was a nice sound off for our soldiers, the ones living and those who have had an untimely demise. I wound up there because my little sister is in the marching band, sweet little girl, she’s growing so big. However, hearing the horns made me think of our soldiers fighting at war right now. My cousin has been in Iraq for the past however many moths and just this past Friday my God Sister told me that her orders have her leaving for Iraq soon. Immediately, I was upset by this but after hearing her energy I thought that it is just best for me to support her and pray for her.

So as I read the scripture above and I think of all of the family members and friends that we have at war I ask myself where are our priests? Where are our horns, where is our protection, where is the support for our troops in the name of our Lord. I know often my disdain with the government and our rationale for being at war makes me angry with the military but I recognize that this is misplaced anger. I look at the story of Jericho and it makes me want to support our troops even more, makes me think that we as a community of Christians we should be as supportive of the troops as possible to ensure that they come to a victory and come home safely. It is only through God’s will that our families and friends will be safe so I believe we must invoke the spirit of the days spoken of in the scripture and protect our troops with the armor of God. Peace and Grace be unto you.

No matter how long the night, the day is sure to come.

Photo courtesy of New York Times

Wear all black on Monday for the injustice verdict in the Sean Bell case Please pass this on to anyone who can receive a text.

I received this text message numerous times throughout the course of the weekend and again I ask “Is wearing all black the new activism”. Has wearing all black taken the place of such notable activism as the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I remember back when the Jena 6 movement was thriving and we were all wearing black as a means to show the masses our “black solidarity”. I participated and heard many say that they felt good walking into their corporate offices and seeing other people of color representing the injustice that was being served in Jena. But does our action stop there, does what we wear really signify that an injustice has been done?

So today I woke up and threw on my black shirt and my black Chuck Taylor sneakers in memory of the brother Sean Bell. I walked into my classroom and unlike that glorious Jena day, barely any people of color were wearing all black. What does wearing all black mean anyway; do the people who we want to see our solidarity even know that we are wearing this color to represent the fact that a brother was murdered by the NYPD. That yet again the NYPD walked out of a court of law not guilty of all charges. My own Constitutional Law professor had no idea who Sean Bell was and that this verdict had drastically affected the lives of many people. He was unaware that many young brothers and sisters had taken to the streets and were seeking Justice for the loss of yet another young talented black man. He definitely had no idea why one of his students had on black today; all he wanted to know was if I was familiar with the material that will be on his exam next week.

I checked through my usual news media outlets hoping that I would see something in the headlines about the injustice the Bell family was served this past Friday. Instead, I was inundated with news of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and the Democrat Primary’s, but there was no sign of any measures that would be taken towards the Bell family finding JUSTICE. And why should their be, a brother is dead and we all go back to our regularly scheduled lives. More concerned with celebrity gossip than the fact that black men can be killed in this country and their murderers receive absolutely no punishment.

The NY Times had a brief article about this issue however, and it largely dealt with the few people who were outraged by the verdict and were protesting in Harlem yesterday. One of the brothers on the bull horn asked “why aren’t more people out here”. The days of marching and blocking traffic for a day or two didn’t work then and they will continue not to work now. All the police do is re-direct the traffic and the protest becomes more of a nuisance than a movement that affects change. So what my generation has come up with as a means of fighting injustice is wearing all black; then we are really fighting institutionalized racism and brutality, we’ll show em!

Wrong, we need a strategic effort on a variety of fronts to fight the injustices that are facing our people. I refuse to believe that we are as lazy as the Civil Rights Guard of Leadership paints us. No we are not lazy at all, we are the internet generation; the text message generation. All of that to say we have the fastest and often most effective modes of communication to get messages across to our peers and move in a organized manner. We have to fight these different injustices on many different fronts. The Judge who rendered the verdict; we have to find out if he was elected or appointed; if elected we make sure that those who are eligible to vote in that district show up in record numbers to relieve him of his position.

Let’s take it back to the boycott days since the loss of revenue is the only thing that makes politicians and businessmen understand that we are angry about something and are seeking some type of remedy. This shouldn’t be hard to do because we are spawning into a recession anyway and people are already strapped for cash. We need to find out exactly what businesses that if we stopped patronizing would affect Michael Bloomberg the fastest. Once those major businesses are affected they will call up their high powered friends ad say “hey we have to do something about this’ its affecting my pocket”! You see when when we start to use our creativity and organize our efforts we begin to fall upon the ears who really create change in our cities. Maybe then the NYPD will stop believing that it is perfectly fine and legal to kill young black men. But if all we are doing is wearing black; trust me the courts, the politicians, the police and definitely the law are not hearing our voices.

We need to tap into the resources in our communities who have the know how and ability to propose legislation for stricter monitoring practices over the police departments who brutalize communities of color. All cops are not the scum who murder and harass people of color so we need to reach out to those who are fed up with their colleagues behavior and off the record find out what we can do to upset their internal situation that will help us make the changes we wish to see. I could write on for days about different measures that we could take however my one voice will not create this change. Our collective voice will not change these scenarios but our collective voices coupled with our strategic collective actions will create this change. In memory of Sean Bell and all of the other forgotten fallen soldiers; please let’s Make It Happen!

ps. I will be at the Black and Male In America Conference the weekend of June 15 - 17 in Brooklyn, NY. I think we all need to be there!

Food for thought:

Do not believe everything that you read in the newspapers, hear on the radio, or see on television or youtube. I was browsing through a forum and I read the title “Oprah denies Christ, Trouble for Obama”! I quickly clicked the link because I was curious as to where this information could be coming from. Low and behold; the same bible toting soldiers who have been claiming Barack Obama is a Muslim and substituting Jesus’s love message with hate for all those who do not believe as they do, are behind this same message. These same evangelists, as they call themselves must have never read the book of Romans where we are taught not judge for if we judge then we condemn ourselves.

So I watch the clip and Oprah did no such thing, I am not writing this to support Oprah but to ask people to take the lid off of their truck yard minds and allow objective thoughts and reason to seep through. I am a Christian man, I go to church on Sundays when my time permits. I send out daily messages that quote the scripture in the bible. This is all fact; I also listen to the teachings of Brother Malcolm, Louis Farrakhan, Father Pfleger, and a host of other spiritual leaders. I post quotes of the day from spiritual leaders such as the Great Buddha, Dali Lama and other figures who do not represent Christianity. To tell me because I understand that we are all praying to the same God and just calling him different names is the most bigoted, ignorant, non-factual statement that I have ever heard.

Spirituality is about finding the God within; Jesus never taught us to hate or judge anyone! Instead he taught us to love and care for one another, the same principles that other religous groups teach throughout their teachings. The way that media outlets are using these types of edited, chopped up videos to perpetuate a message of evil is rather disgusting. Rather than unify the people of this world under God and create a love language, we would rather use our differences to create further division; only heightening the problems of the world. So the next time you get an email, or a message like the video I am about to show you, think objectively before you react to the propaganda that fear mongers and hate mongers put forth in order to create more chaos in the world as we know it. Peace and Grace be unto you!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW4LLwkgmqA&hl=en]

March 7, 2008

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10

Good morning, I am having an excellent morning, and I hope you are too. Yesterday I had what some would call a horrible day; I got stranded on the Pennsylvania Turnpike with a flat tire and a broke jack as all of those 18 wheeler trucks flew by. I ate some bad chinese that made me throw up for 15 minutes, also on the side of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and I got other extremely bad news. All in all bad stuff kept happening to me yesterday, but I had a great day, you see I had a great day because of this relationship I have been building with the Creator. I already knew that those bad moments yesterday were exactly that, moments. They couldn’t consume me because I knew they were temporary and I know that I am protected as the word spoke of yesterday. Today the word tells us that we are soldiers of the Lord, we are his workers. And as workers we have an arduous task (S.A.T. word), but we have an immeasurable amount of work ahead of us. But look at the bright side, good workers get REWARDED. Often times we feel unappreciated, but we will be rewarded for our good works because our employer is no tyrant, he is the maker of all things. And our reward is the most simplest thing that is so very hard to achieve; peace of the mind, body and soul. We should feel good when we do the work of the Lord, its actually quite simple work. We smile, we encourage others, we lift each other up as a family. We keep within us the principles that are laid before us. Don’t be fooled by rough times, it is then that we must work harder because one of our hating competitors also known as the devil, is trying to throw some salt in  our game so that we will not experience the true blessing of our work. We can not be bothered with such shenanigans, because we are a mighty people and we have a path. Our path has been paved before us by our Lord, we will work to maintain the road but he has already envisioned a life of everlasting love and happiness for us; Lets get to work. Peace and Grace be unto you!

The ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people.

March 6, 2008

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.  I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. Psalm 91: 1-5

pestilence: fatal epidemic disease

rampart: defensive wall or barrier

Good morning, you can find the definitions to two of the words within the scripture today directly above. I am not sure if you knew what these words meant ,but I for one did not and sometimes context clues just aren’t enough. Today’s scripture grabs me in a different way, I see it as a reward for our belief in God, and our continued growth in his understanding. Immediately one part spoke directly to me, when it spoke of not fearing the arrow that flies by day. Yesterday I spoke with one of my cousins who is fighting in Iraq and when I read these words I immediately thought of him. As I continue to think of him, I am happy that the Lord brought me this word, telling me that he is going to protect my cousin, and Lord willing protect your family who may be fighting in this war. Not just protect our soldiers but protect our families from the many troubles and sickness in the world. Secondly, a friend of mine recently had a tragedy in her own family. Her sister was hit by a stray bullet and is in the hospital right now. My prayers are with the family but I cant help but think of this scripture, rather than a loss of sight their family could be struggling with a loss of life. So we must take our victories where we can and be thankful that the our Creator is watching over us, keeping us from sickness and protecting us everyday as we are fortunate enough to return home to our families. That’s something to smile about, thats something to be happy about, man I’m happy for us; that we are fortunate to read this email and grow together spiritually. Darkness may present itself at every corner but as the scripture shows us we must not fear that darkness because we have a connection with a higher power, so we’ll be good; Peace and Grace be unto you!

When a needle falls into a deep well many people will look into the well but few will be ready to go down after it.