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Tell me, what's THE point of this article?  To tell us
that the "international community" (namely, the world
powers) control world affairs?  OK, we know now, or,
more accurately, we already knew.  Now what?

If this article and others like it prompts us and our
leaders in Africa to press hard for AND PRACTICE good
governance and take care of the welfare of our people,
irrespective of what the "international community" is
doing, then I applaud the author.  Otherwise, I say,
so what?!?

- Wilmot


--- Sam Jimba <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>
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> 
> Join African Association of Madison, Inc. for $25
> per year
> 
> Mail check to; AAM, PO Box 1016, Madison, WI 53701,
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> www.AfricanAssociation.org
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> 
> 
> Charles Taylor and the international community
> By Edwin Madunagu, The Guardian (Nigeria), April 13,
> 2006 
> The story of Charles Taylor - just like those of
> Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia and Saddam Hussein
> of Iraq, among others -shows very clearly the nature
> and character of the forces that now rule the world,
> the near-total control they exert over our affairs,
> and the roles they make us, or rather, our
> "leaders", play. They call themselves the
> "international community" and, under that cover,
> commit heinous crimes and tell horrible lies.
> Uncritically we appropriated the term, and use it as
> if it includes us. But the term "international
> community" does not include us and was not meant to.
> There is, of course, a reconstituted global system
> which is dominated by the new imperialism. 
> This global system now exercises power over the
> United Nation (UN), the International War Crimes
> Tribunal, the World Bank, the International Monetary
> Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organisation (WTO), etc.
> These institutions are, today, not world
> institutions - as we used to know them, or as we
> used to believe - but the institutions of the global
> system created and dominated by the new imperialism,
> or what it calls itself: the International
> Community. 
> The leading economic organisation of the new
> imperialism is the G7 whose summit brings together
> the Heads of Governments of the seven most
> industrialised capital countries. Samir Amin has
> described the World Bank as the Ministry of
> Propaganda for the G7. Of the World Trade
> Organisation (WTO) he had this to say: "the WTO, far
> from being an institution responsible for managing
> world trade, is devoted to the objective of shaping
> the productive systems of the peripheries to the
> needs of the commercial expansion of the North, that
> is, to operate like a Collective Ministry of
> Colonies." The International Monetary Fund (IMF) he
> called the "Collective Colonial Monetary Authority
> of the new imperialism." 
> The new imperialism is re-writing our own history
> before our very eyes. And, on the basis of this
> false version - backed by bribery , blackmail,
> sanctions, threats and force - they are demonising
> their former allies, stooges and agents among us.
> The falsehood is not that the "war lords" were
> demons and villains. They were. The falsehood is in
> the account of how they became demons and villains,
> and how they were able to do what they did. To
> legitimise, or cover up, historical falsehood the
> international community enrols us as sheer leaders
> in their unilaterally designed and controlled
> process of justice and restitution. Thus we are
> barred from the whole truth, and sometimes, any
> truth at all. 
> The new imperialism mounts huge deceptions and
> deliberate misinformation on events taking place
> before our very eyes. The Charles Taylor story is a
> good illustration. It forcefully reminds me of the
> series of stories in The Deceiver, a novel by
> Frederick Forsyth. Each story, in fact, embodies two
> stories. Sometimes they run parallel, sometimes they
> curve and across, sometimes they merge and continue
> as a single story, only to diverge again. 
> From Saturday, March 25, to Monday, March 27, 2006
> rumours were circulating in the "international
> community" that Charles Taylor had escaped from his
> residence in Calabar. But on that Monday, he, or his
> "look-alike" , was twice sighted in public in
> Calabar. The first time was about 2.00pm when he was
> taking a stroll near his residence (a government
> guest house). The second time was about 8.00pm when
> he was seen driving into an estate in the centre of
> the city. On the first occasion security agents were
> visibly near, while a truck-load of mobile policemen
> was "standing by"; and on the second occasion, he
> was accompanied in the vehicle by a couple of men,
> suspected to include some security personnel. A
> truck-load of mobile policemen drove behind him. He
> was said to be visiting some of his "relations" and
> "townspeople". 
> In the early afternoon of the following day,
> Tuesday, March 28, the announcement came that
> Charles Taylor had escaped. The "international
> community" reacted very angrily, accusing the
> Nigerian authorities of complicity in the escape.
> The Nigerian government admitted the escape, but
> denied the charge of complicity. The government
> announced the arrest of the security personnel
> guarding him, and the setting up of a panel to
> investigate the escape. In particular, the panel was
> to determine whether what happened was an "escape"
> or an "abduction". Late in the evening of the day,
> Tuesday, March 28, some local media reporters
> insisted that Charles Taylor was in Calabar. A young
> female member of his household also insisted that
> her "daddy" was at home. 
> Then in the morning of Wednesday, March 29, the
> announcement came from Nigeria and the
> "international community" that Charles Taylor had
> been arrested in the Northern state of Borno, at the
> border between Nigeria and Cameroon. Some local
> media reporters doubted the story and suggested that
> someone else had been arrested. They questioned the
> failure of the national and international reports to
> include pictures of this arrest. Later that
> Wednesday night someone told me that he had been
> arrested at Akamkpa, a small town a few kilometers
> north of Calabar. Newspaper reports on the following
> day settled the matter for many people: Charles
> Taylor had been arrested and flown from Maiduguri,
> capital of Borno State, to Sierra Leone. The
> official report was that he escaped early on Tuesday
> morning and was arrested early on Wednesday morning.
> Many people here would, however, be ready to swear
> to a testimony that Charles Taylor was in Calabar on
> Tuesday under heavy guard. 
> Let us now look at the reactions to Taylor's
> "disappearance" before his arrest. An American
> "expert" said that if the report was true, then it
> would not be surprising because Taylor knew so much
> about American intelligence that bringing him to an
> open court would be a very risky affair. He said
> that throughout the 1990s Taylor was a very
> important source of Information for America's
> Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). That was the
> period he was a war-lord and then President. He
> concluded that given this antecedent, the "fugitive"
> would either remain a fugitive, or be dead. While
> several people speculated that he had surfaced in an
> African country, his "spiritual adviser" announced
> in Ethiopia that he was almost sure that Taylor was
> back in the "bush" in Liberia. 
> The most interesting reaction however came from a
> Nigerian government official. When told that an
> American government official had indicted the
> Nigerian government, describing the reported escape
> as "regrettable", the Nigerian official replied that
> Taylor's escape, if it turned out to be true, would
> be as "regrettable" as Alamieseigha's escape from
> London and Taylor's escape from America to start a
> bush war in Liberia. Somehow, I celebrated that
> response which, I am sure, would not be expunged
> from the official record of the "Taylor affair". 
> Now, where lies the truth? Charles Taylor "escaped"
> from an American prison and landed at the border of
> Liberia with Ivory Coast sometime at the end of
> 1989. He formed a guerilla army and started a war to
> remove a monster called Samuel Doe from power as
> Liberian President. The removal of Samuel Doe, by
> any means possible, was a historical necessity. But
> Taylor himself was a monster, or turned a monster as
> the war proceeded. The war itself became more
> monstrous as more armed factions and sub-factions
> emerged. 
> Samuel Doe was monstrously slaughtered by an armed
> faction whose leader became a refugee in Nigeria. An
> unknown number of Nigerians, including two
> journalists, were slaughtered in a section of
> Monrovia controlled by Taylor's fighters. Although
> Taylor became the winner of the savage civil war, he
> was justifiably, not allowed to assume power by a
> combination of forces from West Africa and the
> international community. After a long period of
> peace-keeping and peace-enforcement, a peace deal
> was struck. Elections were held and Taylor won and
> became President. A new armed conflict started. 
> About the same time, another savage civil war
> started in Sierra Leone, and then in Ivory Coast.
> Taylor was alleged to have engineered and fuelled
> the Sierra Leonean savagery - to control the country
> and plunder its mineral resource. The Economic
> Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the
> African Union (AU) and the "international community"
> renewed their intervention and pleaded with the
> Nigerian government to grant Taylor assylum in
> Nigeria. The Nigerian government accepted and Taylor
> was escorted to Nigeria by some African Heads of
> State. He was sent to Calabar. Meanwhile, a United
> Nations-backed court was set up in Sierra Leone to
> try those who committed "war crimes" and "crimes
> against humanity" in that country's civil war.
> Taylor was indicted by the court. Then came popular
> demands that Taylor be arrested and sent to the
> court. The Nigerian government responded that Taylor
> would only be released on the request of a
> democratically elected government of Liberia. 
> 
=== message truncated ===

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