Kenya – Strategic Culture Foundation https://www.strategic-culture.org Strategic Culture Foundation provides a platform for exclusive analysis, research and policy comment on Eurasian and global affairs. We are covering political, economic, social and security issues worldwide. Mon, 11 Apr 2022 21:41:14 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.16 Obama’s Africa trip: The unfinished dreams from his father https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/07/31/obama-africa-trip-unfinished-dreams-from-father/ Fri, 31 Jul 2015 14:00:24 +0000 https://strategic-culture.lo/news/2015/07/31/obama-africa-trip-unfinished-dreams-from-father/ President Obama has been able to make strides in transforming American society from within by pushing through significant laws, such as, the Affordable Care Act and Marriage Equality Act, and foreign policy gains by pulling out the US troops from the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, negotiating the Iranian civil nuclear deal, and the opening up of diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Yet, his efforts on behalf of the Kenyan people, his ancestral homeland, and the continent of Africa, or what Joseph Conrad  during heyday of British colonialism derogatorily called “the heart of darkness” [1], have been slow to materialize. Thus, the dreams from his father, Barack Obama senior’s post-colonial ideas about transforming African society and political economy remain unrealized.

In the landmark book, “The Dreams from My Father,” Obama shared two actual dream sequences that he reconstructed in relation to his father and grandfather, both key paternal figures he neither fully knew nor physically lived with for any significant period of time. Yet, in his imagination these larger-than-life patriarchal men have indeed shaped his memories, reflections and dreams. In this coming of age bildungsroman, Obama revealed in telling details how he learned of the passing of his father in the opening pages of the biography [2].

The dreams

First, the father-in-prison dream, recounted how the young Obama tried to regain his father’s release from a jail, but unable to gain his freedom left the jail disappointed.  The young dreamer woke up crying from this nightmare, the only tears he had shed for his father.

Second, the dream of being chased by “Terror” included a haunting by a larger-than-life figure through the bush in his ancestral village of Kogelo, Kisumu.  The vaguely totemic figure turns out be his grandfather Hussein Onyango, whom everyone feared.  In the dream, the young Obama collapsed to the ground with exhaustion and dread, while his grandfather’s image loomed large over his body.

In “Barack Obama in Hawaii and Indonesia,” I attempted an ‘armchair analysis’ of the president’s dreams in a chapter called, “Obama’s Mythic Dreams,” using both Freudian and Jungian theories.  I argued these two dreams were central to Obama’s archetypal journey from the White Nile, where the Luo tribe originated, to the White House, the seat of the most powerful democracy in the world [3].

Obama, as the prodigal son or what Joseph Campbell called “a mythic hero,” carries the magical potion [4]. The magic was evident this week in Nairobi City and the village of Kogelo when Obama completed a return journey to Kenya as the first American president to arrive in the nation of marathon-runners and now possibly the fastest growing economy in East Africa.  The land of his forefathers became overjoyed with Obama-mania.

Obama’s outer and the inner world converged this week.  How dreams shape an individual’s destiny is a complicated matter, always subject to different interpretations.  Yet, it is clear “big dreams,” often passed on generationally, as if through a mystical alchemy continue to shape our lives and the destiny of nations.  In Kenyan media, Obama was being compared to the ‘Baby Moses’ who has returned home to lead his people to the promise land, or the lion cub Simba, now grown-up through his exile has returned to restore Mufasa’s honor.

Thus, the dreams that inspired the father, Obama senior, to undertake an arduous journey through “Airlift to America” in the 1950s – from Hawaii to Harvard and back to Kenya — became a milestone for the son [5].  Barack Obama has been compelled by an overarching sense of destiny to carry out the unfinished dreams of his father into the 21st century.  It was a poignant moment when President Obama stood next to President Kenyatta at the State House.  Only a generation ago Obama senior worked in the Kenyatta government, whose career may have been sidelined due to internal politics, as President Obama himself talked about this during his speech at the Safaricom auditorium.

In other words, while President Obama may have realized in some significant measures the dreams of transforming American society, his father’s dreams of transforming Kenya and reviving a sense of pan-Africanism are still fleeting or hang in the balance. The list of targeted goals is long and complicated and may take another historical trajectory, or perhaps another generation of young Africans to fully achieve.

Ancestral homeland in Kogelo

In the ancestral homeland, Kogelo, Siaya County, when I asked Obama’s grand-mother Mama Sarah, now 94 years of age, what is her one wish she said, in her Luo dialect, the need to keep working to improve the lives of orphans and widows through her charitable work.

The governor of Siaya County chimed in at the same time, “The infant and maternal mortality is one of the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa. We will petition President Obama to do something about it.” The governor wants the president to help build a full-scale hospital, a four year college or a university, and upgrade the secondary school named after the then Senator Obama, who came here in 2006.

“While the President’s father, Obama senior, may have journeyed through the hardship from this region by the grace of God, everyone is not so lucky,” the Siaya governor told the large crowd gathered to hear him speak.  In the compound of the Obama school, hundreds of visitors and school children filled the tents organized for cultural events, tribal song and dance, and to honor the native son of the soil.

The secondary school children appeared very serious and impressionable, full of purpose and meaning, intently listening to the praises being showered on the Obama family.  The young people were clearly touched by America’s first Kenyan-American president and America’s soft power working its magic in their remote sub-Saharan village.  All the talk of entrepreneurship amazed the students, with wall-to-wall coverage of the Obama visit in the local media, and almost all of the newspapers were replete with biographical and historically relevant information about the Obama family.

African entrepreneurship and the Chinese inroads

While President Kenyatta announced Kenya is ready for progressive policies throughout his government, he is putting a special emphasis on business entrepreneurship among the younger population.  Several innovative Kenyan start-ups were showcased here, including M-Pesa and M-Kopa Solar.

President Obama gave a boost for American entrepreneurship and the potential of partnering with the American companies.  Steve Case, former AOL founder and CEO of Revolution, said his group is investing in many startups in Kenya.  Nils Tcheyan, GE’s director of government relations in Africa, said US needs to be fully engaged and present in Africa in order to be not left behind.  Julie Hanna, head  of the board of Kiva, previously founder of Healtheon or WebMD, said startup culture is about the hope and aspirations of people and it is part of Kenyan culture, where women and mothers are central to the boosting of the local economy. The founder of clothing brand FUBU and host of Shark Tank, Daymond John said he has found walking around here that young people in Kenya are very interested in innovation and startups.

When I asked what is the White House strategy for dealing with the competition from China, whose government has more than two decades of investments in infrastructure, Steve Case said, “The first wave of investment in Africa was around infrastructure. I think the next wave which is now just breaking is around innovation. That is where I think the US is particularly advantaged. And trying to take some of the skill sets that have been learned not just in Silicon Valley but all around the US and apply them to Nairobi and Lagos and other emerging entrepreneurial ecosystems I think is the real opportunity.“

Mr. Tcheyan of GE said, ”I mean we can talk about China as a competitor, and there’s no doubt about it, they are a competitor. But if you’re not here, you’re not competing. So one of our messages back – and again, we appreciate the entrepreneurship summit and President Obama’s focus on Africa over these past years is a message to get more American companies here. Because once you are here, you start to see huge opportunities that can be developed. And then you’re competing with China in a different way, because you’re here and you’re present. The other thing that I can’t help but mention is the importance of the Ex-Im Bank reauthorization because that is – if we don’t have the Ex-Im Bank, that is really going to make it much tougher for us to match some of the financing that’s available from other countries.  So we’re very hopeful that that’s going to get through.”

Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security advisor said, “President looks at this – we welcome China in Africa. They’ve played a constructive role in developing infrastructure. …You asked though about what we bring to the table. First of all, we have decades of development relationships here. If you look at where we are, we’ve been very focused on food security. We’ve been very focused on power, increasingly, under this President. But there is shift from a paradigm where we’re providing assistance to a paradigm where we’re building capacity here in Africa. … So what we uniquely bring to the table I think is a relationship with Africa where we’re not just in for a set of natural resources; we’re here to build African capacity.”

Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker noted that the US strategy for infrastructural development in Kenya is emerging.  She disclosed that “US has just signed an MOU with the Kenyatta government, whereby American companies will compete for large infrastructure contracts.” There will be an upcoming meeting on the joint infrastructure projects and subsequently an infrastructure roadshow during the sideline meetings of the UNGA summit in New York in September 2015.

Will Obama spur Africa’s transformation?

At the press conference with President Kenyatta, Obama highlighted the wide-ranging discussion he had on the US-Kenya relationship:  the need for maintaining free press and civil society; building infrastructure and sustainable energy sources; building clean energy projects  through the Power Africa initiative; reauthorization of African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA); counter-terrorism and defeating al-Shabab; political c

orruption and graft; poaching of wildlife; banning ivory trade, security and border issues in Southern Sudan , Burundi’s recent election, investments in healthcare (Feed the Future initiative), girl’s education, direct flights and visa extensions for Kenyan citizens; and finally the Young Africans Leadership Initiative (YALI).  It sounded as if Obama was now gearing up to transform Kenyan society as he nears the end of his term in the U.S.

On the success of the Kenyan homecoming, Obama’s intergenerational dream of transforming the African continent – inherited trough his father’s journey – capped off a very important week as the president headed to the African Union summit in Adis Abbaba, Ethiopia, where the US is following a multipronged strategy towards “advancing democracy, human rights, gender equality, wildlife conservation, and governance in Africa.”

According to the White House, President Obama is committed to pursuing “these goals through our development assistance, high-level diplomatic engagement, partnership with like-minded stakeholders, and public diplomacy that engages directly with citizens across the continent.  Several of President Obama’s signature initiatives directly promote and elevate inclusive, transparent, and democratic governance in Africa.”

A Kenyan journalist asked the President Obama what are his plans for Kenya after his presidency, to which he replied, “I will be back.”  I followed up this question with his National Security adviser Ben Rhodes, who said that while Obama’s post-presidency plans for Africa have not been fully developed yet, he can say with some certainty, “I think the President has gotten a lot of satisfaction out of seeing how the Young African Leadership Initiative and the Global Entrepreneurship Summit process have galvanized young people in Kenya.”

Obama’s early days of community organizing in Chicago, with very little money and resources, may find a resonance among the youth in Kenya and all over Africa. In addition to organizing people he gets a high from mobilizing the young entrepreneurs. “I think he sees a lot that can be done in terms of bringing people together and promoting youth empowerment and entrepreneurship. So those are certainly two areas that he touched on that I think he’ll carry forward,” said Rhodes.  And as a private citizen he will be able to do more Kenya-specific projects as he likes.  As a president he has been focused specifically on development, health and security relationship with Kenya.

While many American presidents have spent their post-presidency devoted to Africa’s renewal (President Carter, Bill Clinton chief among them), Obama as the son of an African father will have a special place in the hearts and minds of Africans. The president’s global persona around the world has always received higher approval ratings abroad than at home, as I have shown in my book, “The Global Obama.”[6]  Whether Obama ever runs for a higher office in Kenya or other parts of Africa seems like a remote possibility, but there is no doubt he will continue to work for Africa’s transformation throughout his lifetime, always in pursuit of the unfinished dreams from his father.

Dinesh Sharma is associate research professor at Binghamton University’s Institute for Global Cultural Studies in Binghamton, N.Y. He is the editor of “The Global Obama: Crossroads of Leadership in the 21st Century,” published by Routledge Press. His previous book, “Barack Obama in Hawaii and Indonesia: The Making of a Global President,” was rated as the Top Ten Black History Book for 2012. He also teaches on “UN and Global Leadership” at Fordham University, NYC.

[1] Conrad, Joseph. 1902. Heart of Darkness.
[2] Obama, Barack. (1995). Dreams From My Father. New York: Three Rivers Press.
[3] Sharma, Dinesh. (2012). Barack Obama in Hawaii and Indonesia. Connecticut: Praeger.
[4] Campbell, Joseph. (1968). The hero with the thousand faces. New Jersey: Princeton Press.
[5] Schactman, Thomas. (2009). Airlift to America. New York: St Martin’s Press.
[6] Sharma, Dinesh. (2014). The Global Obama.
 
atimes.com
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2015 AU Summit Wound Up in Johannesburg: Meetings on the Sidelines and Afterthoughts https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/06/19/2015-au-summit-wound-up-johannesburg-meetings-on-sidelines-afterthoughts/ Thu, 18 Jun 2015 20:00:01 +0000 https://strategic-culture.lo/news/2015/06/19/2015-au-summit-wound-up-johannesburg-meetings-on-sidelines-afterthoughts/ The African Union (AU) summit took place on June 7-15 in Johannesburg. It was the most intriguing and fruitful meeting in many years. African leaders made a big step on the way to economic integration as Africa is turning into an international entity.

The implementation of Agenda 2063 (a far-reaching plan indeed!) was a priority topic. (1) This is a program of general development and economic independence. There may be obstacles on the way, but Africa has achieved a big economic success and that’s an undisputable fact. With all hurdles to overcome (1), Africa is certainly outpacing the European Union. 

There were other events to occur this year related to the summit. It all mirrors a certain trend. The NEPAD summit is worth to be mentioned. The abbreviation stands for the New Partnership for Africa's Development, an African Union strategic framework for pan-African socio-economic progress sometimes called the program of African Renaissance. (3) The initiative was put forward by Tabo Mbeki, former South African President, as a plan for social, economic and cultural regeneration of the continent. No doubt the emergence of the program was one of the reasons President Mbeki was dismissed (outside forces played an important role to make him resign). South Africa is involved in the North-South Corridor – a multi-modal and multi-dimensional infrastructure system that includes road, rail, border posts, bridges, ports, energy and other related infrastructure – which passes through 12 countries. The 12 countries include Tanzania, Congo, Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt.

The June 10 tripartite summit brought together the Southern African Development Community (SADC), The East African Community (EAC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). The parties signed an agreement on trade free zone (TFA). The Tripartite TFA encompassing 26 Member/Partner States from the three organizations with a combined population of 625 million people and a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of USD 1.2 trillion will account for half of the membership of the African Union and 58% of the continent’s GDP. The agreement is one more step on the way of boosting trade and establishing an economic entity. It took four years to form the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite association. The African Union officially began negotiations on plans to create a continent-wide free trade zone called the new Continental Free Trade Area by 2017. South Africa and 11 other countries signed up for an ambitious proposal of having a single air-transport market on the continent within two years. (4)  Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta urged African countries to end their reliance on foreign aid saying the future of the continent cannot be left to outside forces. In a message posted to his Twitter account on June 12, Kenyatta says foreign aid often carries unacceptable conditions and is not a solid basis for prosperity and freedom in Africa. 

Everything’s not that rosy, there are also hitches on the way. Some issues evoke sharp controversy. One of them is the reform of the United Nations. On the one hand, the African Union is unanimous in its desire to make the United Nations Security Council more democratic. In 2005 the AU reached the Ezulwini Consensus (5), a position on international relations and reform of the UN (6). It calls for a more representative and democratic Security Council, in which Africa, like all other world regions, is represented. The AU put forward a demand for two permanent seats and a total of five non-permanent seats with the African Union to select candidates. Allegedly, an agreement was reached on South Africa and Nigeria to become permanent UN Security Council members. But speaking at the summit Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe blasted the two candidates saying Africa would never agree to them getting permanent seats on the UN Security Council. This was because they both voted for UN Security Council Resolution 1973 in 2011, which authorized military action against the regime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. According to him, they betrayed the continent which could never trust them. (7)

There is another important issue on the agenda. Since a long time the AU has been unwilling to recognize the governments that came to power through coup, even when a regime was popular and enjoyed political support within the state. Some unconstitutional regimes are subject to collective ostracism while in other cases the AU turns a blind eye on those who evidently come to power as a result of coup. The 2012 coup in Mauritania was quite, but it entailed a wave of indignation to suspend the country’s membership in the Union. In 2010-2011 an internal crisis hit Cote D’Ivoire (Ivory Coast).Alassane Dramme Ouattara, the incumbent «president», came to power with the help of French military. The presidential palace was destroyed. No reaction followed. There are cases of absurd hypocrisy, especially when it comes to the right to re-election. This May the Burundi's constitutional court approved President Pierre Nkurunziza's bid for a third term. The decision provoked a flurry of indignation on the part of African Union though the ruling in no way contradicts the country’s constitution. The African Union openly interferes into the internal affairs of a sovereign state which is its member.

There was a scandal during the event. The International Criminal Court's 2009 quest to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and genocide took a step closer to reality on June 14 after he arrived at the African Union summit in South Africa. The North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria barred al-Bashir from leaving the country while hearings determine the fate of the ICC arrest warrant. The ICC always closely watches the Sudanese President’s moves when he leaves his country. Local NGOs rushed to court in an effort to have a decision ordering the South African government to arrest the President of Sudan. The court needed just a few hours to hand down the ruling in favor of claimants. It proves the fact that there are instruments to exercise internal leverage upon the country’s government to make it comply with what the global power tells it to do. There was no legal ground for detaining and putting the Sudanese President under arrest. The mantra about the need for South Africa to cooperate with the International Criminal Court is legally groundless. Any young and inexperienced lawyer knows that cooperation and arrest are not the same thing. It’s clear that the judges realized how absurd their ruling was. Even an ordinary person cannot be arrested upon the demand of foreign or international bodies. The case should be studied first before a ruling on extradition or refusal to extradite is handed down. This time in South Africa human rights activists filled TV channels to persuade that it should be done automatically. The judges were confused. Declaring the decision to take the Sudanese President into custody the court said it would submit the legal opinion for the ruling …next week.

The South African government should be given its due. It guaranteed in practice its obligations and respected the immunity of foreign head of state coming to the country upon an invitation to take part in a session of international body. Omar al-Bashir left the country an hour before the ruling was handed down.

All told, the Johannesburg summit showed that there are serious contradictions between the members of the African Union while the West exerts pressure on Africa. No matter that, the AU is moving to economic integration and independence. No doubt, the pressure will grow. It had to fight hard for political independence. Achieving economic independence requires no less effort.

Johannesburg, South Africa

Footnotes:

(2) Raw materials extraction has grown exponentially
(3) NEPAD official website: http://www.nepad.org/about
(4) Africa ready for a single airline market
(5) Three non-permanent members represent Africa in the United Nations Security Council. non-permanent members are elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms. At that 80% of issues on the UNSC agenda are devoted to Africa (individual states or the issues relevant for the whole continent). There were times when seats were held by Africa-located Arab states that were not members of the African Union (for instance, Morocco).
(6) The Common African Position on the Proposed Reform of the United Nations: «The Ezulwini Consensus»
(7) Mugabe blasts SA and Nigeria [ANA] // The New Age (Johannesburg, South Africa), 2015, June 15, p.2.
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Militant group threatens additional attacks on Kenya https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/04/05/militant-group-threatens-additional-attacks-on-kenya/ Sun, 05 Apr 2015 16:38:25 +0000 https://strategic-culture.lo/news/2015/04/05/militant-group-threatens-additional-attacks-on-kenya/
Two days after al-Shabab militants slaughtered 148 people in a devastating attack on a university in northeastern Kenya, the Islamic extremists issued a chilling threat that its terrorizing of Kenya was far from over.

“Kenyan cities will run red with blood,” al-Shabab said, according to the SITE intelligence monitoring group. “No amount of precaution or safety measures will be able to guarantee your safety, thwart another attack or prevent another bloodbath.”

President Uhuru Kenyatta was defiant when he addressed the nation in response to the attacks and al-Shabab’s statement. “We will fight terrorism to the end,” he said. “I guarantee that my administration shall respond in the fiercest way possible.” He declared three days of national mourning for the victims of the attack.

A Kenyan official said that five people suspected of involvement in the massacre have been arrested and that the government is pursuing other suspects, including Mohamed Mohamud. He is a former teacher at a Kenyan madrassa, or Islamic school, and the alleged mastermind of the attack.

One of the alleged al-Shabab gunmen has been identified as the son of a Kenyan official.

A chief in Mandera County reported his son missing last year, fearing he had gone to Somali. His worst fears were confirmed Sunday when his son, Abdirahim Mohammed Abdullahi, was identifed as one of those involved the attack. All four attackers were killed by Kenyan security forces.

Abdullahi was a University of Nairobi graduate who received a law degree in 2013.

“We will bring all of them to justice,” Kenyatta said. “We are also in active pursuit of the mastermind and have placed a reward for his capture,” he said of the $220,000 being offered for information leading to Moha­mud’s arrest.

Interior Ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka said, in a Twitter post, that three people trying to cross into Somalia were arrested by Kenyan security forces. Two other suspects were arrested at the Garissa University College campus.

Thursday’s assault on the university is the worst terrorist attack in Kenya since the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in 1998, which killed 224 people. An attack on the upscale Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi in September 2013 left 67 dead.

Saturday morning, a surviving Christian student was found at the university. She had been hiding in a wardrobe for two days since the attacks. Cynthia Cheroitich was taken to Garissa Hospital, where she told the Associated Press that she hid in the wardrobe, covering herself with clothing, when the attack started. She said she remained there as al-Shabab militants massacred her classmates.

She continued to hide as the militants were eventually killed by security forces and rescue workers evacuated surviving students. Even as volunteers began mopping the bloodied dormitories, she kept hiding. Cheroitich told the AP that when rescuers came, she thought they were militants and refused to emerge. It took one of her teachers to coax her out of her hiding place.

Families in Kenya attack learn fates of loved ones
 
“I was just praying to my God,” Cheroitich said.

The bodies of many of those killed in Garissa have been transported to the capital, Nairobi, and hundreds of surviving students were bused back to their homes Friday.

Life in Garissa is slowly beginning to return to normal, but citizens are reeling from the attacks.

“What has happened is sad; it’s devastating,” said Hassan Sheikh Ali, the first principal of Garissa University College. “This is the only university in the entire pastoralist domain, and unfortunately the same university has been destroyed. All that we have been building, all the hopes we had, destroyed.”

Many Garissa residents channeled their emotions by turning out in the traffic-clogged streets Saturday to view the bodies of four men alleged to have taken part in the assault, even as Somali militants issued a statement threatening Kenya with more attacks.

Some wanted desperately to verify that the attackers weren’t their countrymen, others wanted to see if they recognized a face, and still others wanted to see that those capable of such brutal acts had experienced some vague form of justice.

“I want to see them,” Muna Haji said. “I want to know that these people are dead. They have killed innocent people.”

The four naked bodies were loaded haphazardly into the back of a pickup truck at the morgue where they had been held since morning. Local and international forensics teams had taken their clothes as evidence.

The truck paraded the bodies through town as residents ran alongside, clamoring for a glimpse, until it arrived at Garissa Primary School, where about 2,000 people had gathered. There, it parked, and the bodies sat. Flies gathered on the bloated limbs hanging from the truck bed as the crowd swelled.

“Are those the real terrorists? During Westgate, we never found out whether the terrorists were really killed,” said Abdihakim Mowlio, an intern at Garissa Provincial General Hospital, referring to the deadly Westgate mall attack. “If they show the dead bodies, we believe that they’ve really been killed. We’ll feel safer because we’ve seen that the government has actually responded.”

As it had with its previous assaults in Kenya, which have claimed the lives of more than 200 Kenyans in the past two years, al-Shabab said the attacks were in retaliation for Kenya’s 2011 invasion of Somalia and its continued presence in the country. The invasion — called Operation Linda Nchi — was allegedly in response to the kidnapping of Westerners in northeastern Kenya.

“Since October 2011, Kenya has been the most insecure that we have seen in decades. If going into Somalia was to secure Kenya, then they have failed,” said Abdullahi Halakhe, a Horn of Africa analyst with Amnesty International. “The elephant in the room is what is Kenya’s plan as far as Somalia is concerned? What does the exit plan look like? Is it two years, is it three years?”

Abigail Higgins, washingtonpost.com
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Who is Behind the Slaughter of Christians in Kenya? https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/04/05/who-behind-slaughter-christians-kenya/ Sun, 05 Apr 2015 15:29:02 +0000 https://strategic-culture.lo/news/2015/04/05/who-behind-slaughter-christians-kenya/ On April 2, terrorists committed one of the worst terrorist attacks in Kenya. Up to 150 people were murdered by masked al-Shabaab terrorists who raided the Garissa University College campus. (1) A few dozen people were wounded. Hundreds of hostages were freed as a result of special operation conducted by government security forces. 

A wave of terrorist attacks hit Kenya after Somalia collapsed as a unified state with large swathes of its territory going out of government control. Al-Shabab is a leading Somalian terrorist group. On September 21, 2013, its gunmen attacked the upmarket Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. The attack resulted in at over 80 deaths. The Garissa attacks in many respects resemble the Nairobi terrorist act. The al-Shahab militants killed only those who said they were Christians while letting go the people who said their faith was Islam. The Nairobi slaughter was organized on the eve of Catholic Good Friday. 

Al-Shabab (2) is a Wahhabi terrorist group. Its troop strength is estimated at 7,000 to 9,000 militants. By and large, it employs the same tactics as Boco Harum in Nigeria. The both organizations strike Christians with utmost cruelty and do their best to attract public attention to the committed acts. To achieve the desired effect they target Christian churches during religious holidays. 

There are a few things worth to be noted in relation to the Garissa attack. First, al-Shabab is based on the Somalian territory beyond the government’s control. Since 1991 (3) the Somalian «presidents’ and «governments» have been coming and going while the UN-supported transitional federal government’s control never extended beyond some districts of the capital (it has never succeeded in establishing control over the entirety of Mogadishu). Somalia is a safe haven for various terrorist groups. Second, the actual absence of central government does not mean there is no power at all. Groups like al-Shabab compete for influence. The African Union offers the government military aid. (4) The al-Shabab militants would have done better by concentrating on internal strife than staging raids in neighboring Kenya – the actions that seemingly do not serve any purpose. Why cover the distance of 200 kilometers to the Kenyan border? Why choose Garissa as a target? Third, the al-Shabab’s actions seem to have no relation to the declared goals. It’s hard to imagine the group trying to spread Islam in the predominantly Christian Kenya. (5) Then why commit the terrorist acts at all? 

As in the case of Boco Harum the mission is to incite ethnic hatred. They want to make Christians hate Muslims. This is the way to plunge Kenya and Nigeria into internal chaos. It’s not just a coincidence that the International Criminal Court is investigating the situations in the both countries. The leadership of these two states should be prevented from cracking down on terror. Each time one of the governments makes an attempt to do it the International Criminal Court says it is guilty of human rights violations. In case of Kenya, the government is accused of war crimes. The case of Uhuru Kenyatta, the incumbent president of Kenya, was closed under the pressure of the African Union. The organization threatened to withdraw from the Rome Statute. The International Criminal Court’ trial of Kenya's vice-president, William Ruto, continues. 

The mass terror attacks in the country started at the time the country achieved some economic success. In the early 2000s substantial crude oil deposits were found there. The government has made a deal with China to attract investments into oil production. The terror attacks from Somalia make Kenya subject to never ending instability. The US military 1992-1995 operation in Somalia is widely believed to have failed. There is ground to believe it’s not so. In reality the operation was quite a success. Media painted it as a defeat to disguise the real goal – to have a large territory beyond the control of any government – a unique place on the world map (at least on such a scale). 

* * *

These days we have become the witnesses of how 147 Kenyan boys and girls died as martyrs when they confessed of being Christians looking in to the eyes of death. Let’s face up to reality – the global forces destabilize Kenya, Nigeria and other countries that strive for self-determination and independence. The implementation of their evil plans would require many more victims. 

Footnotes:
 
(1) Garissa is a Kenyan city located about 400 km east of Nairobi. 
(2) Full name – Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen («Mujahideen Youth Movement").
(3) The year former president Siad Barre was overthrown.
(4) Report of the United Nations Secretary General on Somalia, January 23, 2015 
(5) Christians account for over 82% of the Kenya’s population Islam is the second largest religion practiced by over 11% of the total population. 
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Al Shabaab Benefited from Western Destruction of Libyan State https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/04/03/al-shabaab-benefited-from-western-destruction-of-libyan-state/ Fri, 03 Apr 2015 19:17:39 +0000 https://strategic-culture.lo/news/2015/04/03/al-shabaab-benefited-from-western-destruction-of-libyan-state/ Al Shabaab, the Islamic terrorist group that has just laid siege to a Kenyan university, killing nearly 150 people, benefited from the 2011 Western aggression that backed al Qaeda and affiliated militias to destroy the state of Libya:
 
The Telegraph: Libyan arms that went missing during the fighting to remove Col Muammar Gaddafi are now spreading even further afield…
 
The new report by a special UN security council committee suggests that they have now travelled even further, with Libyan ammunition showing up in the continuing war being waged by al-Shabab [pictured above], an al-Qaeda offshoot in Somalia.
 
Somalia borders Kenya, where Al Shabaab has just attacked a university.
 
Al Shabaab has “Wahhabi roots”; Wahhabism is the extremist version of Islam exported by missionary theocracy Saudi Arabia, which is itself currently carrying out US-coordinated terrorist attacks against people in Yemen.  “Al-Wahhab’s teachings are state-sponsored and are the official form of Sunni Islam in 21st century Saudi Arabia”.
 
In addition to support for Saudi Arabia dating to the 1930s, the US has on numerous occasions openly or indirectly supported al Qaeda and other Wahhabi terrorist groups.
 
The Western aggression that destroyed Libya also benefitted other al Qaeda and al Qaeda linked militias, such as Boko Haram:
 
Al Jazeera: “…heavy weapons such as SAM-7 anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles…were either surreptitiously obtained by posing as Gaddafi’s supporters or indirectly purchased from mercenaries who had acquired these arms from Libyan depositories. …these arms have been transferred to groups such as Ansar Dine, Boko Haram and MUJAO, emboldening and enabling them to mount more deadly and audacious attacks.
 
Commentary Magazine: “Unsecured Libyan weapons went to Boko Haram”
 
Human Rights First: “Unsecured Libyan stockpiles empower Boko Haram and destabilize African Sahel”
 
NBC News: “Apart from benefiting from sympathizers in the Nigerian military, the Islamic terror group is able to purchase small arms and occasionally some larger weaponry in nearby conflict zones, ‘probably Libya’ … The collapse of Libya has further flooded the market”
 
Reuters and United Nations: “The Libyan civil war may have given militant groups in Africa’s Sahel region like Boko Haram and al Qaeda access to large weapons caches, according to a U.N. report released on Thursday. … Boko Haram killed more than 500 people last year and more than 250 this year in Nigeria.”
 
Washington Post: “Boko Haram … militants, who traveled to northern Mali last year to join the fight there, have returned with heavy weapons from Libya, presumably from former Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi’s arsenal.”
 
Robert Barsocchini, globalresearch.ca
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International Criminal Court Challenging Russia https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/12/15/international-criminal-court-challenging-russia/ Sun, 14 Dec 2014 20:00:01 +0000 https://strategic-culture.lo/news/2014/12/15/international-criminal-court-challenging-russia/ Formally international criminal tribunals have been set up to hold accountable those who carry primary responsibility for perpetrating international crimes. In fact it is nothing but eyewash. The real purpose was to do away with state leaders who have been fallen out of favor. The practice of going beyond the established legal system to substitute it with new laws has become commonplace. If the politicians fallen out of graces had no relation to committed «international crimes», then the criminal actions were perpetrated by somebody else. That’s what has taken place in the cases of Slobodan Milosevic, the President of Yugoslavia, Laurent Gbagbo, the President of Côte d'Ivoire, Jean Kambanda, the Prime Minister of Rwanda, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, the President of Sudan, Muammar Gaddafi, the leader of Libyan revolution, Radovan Karadžić, the President of Republika Srpska… 

The event that took place on December 2, 2014 served as a warning of imminent attack against Russia prepared by the so-called international justice. But before we switch over to Russia let me say a few words about…Kenya. This African country provides the most recent example of an attempt by International Criminal Court (ICC) to topple a head of state. The charges against Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta, the President of Kenya, were brought as far back as 2011, but the trial has not begun as yet. (1) The prosecutors had no witnesses! On December 5, the case was dismissed by ICC prosecutors. It had been preceded by the Court’s ruling to either launch the judicial proceedings or acknowledge the fact that it lacked evidence to do so and terminate the case. It means that the prosecutor’s office admitted it had absolutely no evidence to go upon in the case of Kenyan leader! It’s all just a game played to deceive common people with no experience in such matters. The judges and prosecutors are all part of one entity – the International Criminal Court – and they all take part in the decision making process. The ICC just put on a show for public. Even as far back as in 2011 it was evident that the charges against the President of Kenya had no relation to law. It was a politically motivated action. But the Court signed the indictment in January 2012. To be exact, it was related to only two out of three defendants. I emphasize that it was done by judges, not the prosecutors. It means the court cannot act as protector of Uhuru Kenyatta’s rights because two years ago it decided that the submitted evidence was not convincing enough. Now it has been revealed that there is no any evidence at all (!!!). The further unfolding of events is nothing but a big scandal. First the indictment was signed against two persons (out of three). Then the case against one of them (Francis Muthaura) was dropped by the prosecutor’s office. It means that the prosecutor’s office admitted that the evidence submitted to the court was not sufficient after the court found it quite conclusive! Obviously all this evidence tampering put the prosecutors and the judges into an awkward situation. 

The International Criminal Court has become a driving force for promoting the repressive laws fully ignoring the rights of the accused. Today any person in any country can be called a criminal without producing any evidence. Even after the case is dismissed there is a chance that new charges will be brought against him (or her). 

There is one more aspect to be mentioned in relation to the case described here. The activities of the International Criminal Court are called «witch hunt targeting Africans» or «race hunting». This definition coined by Uganda’s President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni hits the nail right on the head. All the cases currently open at the ICC are exclusively in Africa (1). The Court’s legitimacy is derived from the consent of countries – parties to the Rome Statute of the ICC. African countries represent a large regional group. The International Criminal Court presupposes that all international criminals live in the Dark Continent only. This policy has been questioned since a long time ago. The ongoing crisis in the relations between the International Criminal Court and African states was sparked as a result of bringing a legal action against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. It was absolutely clear in 2011, as the legal proceedings were launched, that there was no proof of the President’s guilt! An African Union’s summit demonstrated the readiness of African states to withdraw from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The ICC has withdrawn the charges against Kenyatta in an attempt to prevent such a turn of events. It’s clear that without African states being unanimous in their opposition to the arbitrary behavior of the Criminal Court the case would not have been dismissed. 

International tribunals are not juridical legal institutions, but rather political entities taking only politically motivated decisions.

Now about Russia. The Russian Federation is not a party to the Statute of the International Criminal Court. It does not recognize the jurisdiction of this repressive organ of «global governance». But the fact does not prevent the ICC from brazen interference into Russia’s internal affairs. The same thing happened with Libya and Sudan – the states that were not parties to the Statute. The cases of Libya and Sudan were forcibly referred to the International Criminal Court to set a precedent of practicing repressive international law. Actually it requires some stretch of imagination to call it «a law». The existing international legal base is going through changes. The goal is to coercively make the heads of states who have fallen out of favor face the International Criminal Court. The changes are introduced without the participation of those who are supposed to become prisoners of international legal system. 

On December 2, 2014, Mrs. Fatou Bensouda, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, published her annual Report on Preliminary Examination Activities. The section devoted to Georgia attracts special attention. As far back as September 2011, Russia asked the International Criminal Court to investigate the crimes perpetrated by Georgian government against Russian peacekeepers and the population of South Ossetia. Individual victims of the crimes committed by Georgia in August 2008 also independently asked the Court to examine the case. A few years had passed and the ICC never reported anything in concrete terms. All of a sudden there was an unexpected turn of events. The recently issued report by International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor says the examination has entered into a new phase and there are serious reasons to surmise that large-scale systematic attacks against civilians did take place in August-October 2008, but not by Georgian military against South Ossetian civilians. The report states quite the opposite! Moreover, the Chief Prosecutor insistently emphasizes the participation of the Russian Federation in the conflict. Paragraph 138 says that the return of Georgian refugees became possible only after Russian forces had been withdrawn! The conclusion strikes an eye – the Chief Prosecutor says «the information available on the alleged attack remains inconclusive» because «Georgian and Russian authorities gave contradicting accounts of the events that happened just before and right after 7 August as well as during the subsequent aerial and ground offensive». (paragraphs 141-144). Here is the news! If all prosecutors followed this logic then not a single case would ever be examined at all. Such a conclusion made by the International Criminal Court’s Chief Prosecutor looks like mocking Russia. 

So the International Criminal Court has used the crimes committed by Georgia against South Ossetian civilians for bringing charges against Russia. The ICC examination is not over as yet, but the message is clear. The Chief Prosecutor said the ruling is to be expected very soon… 

The arrests and kidnappings of state leaders by international tribunals have become a routine matter. But taking somebody under arrest is not the main goal. Trumped up cases presuppose public hearings and there is always a risk of being accused of preparing false witnesses and deceiving international community. In some cases it’s more expedient to accuse or just threaten with lodging charges against someone. For instance, the President of Sudan al-Bashir freely travels around the world and could be easily arrested if need be, no matter the arrest warrant was issued a long time ago. But the «international community» keeps on talking about the need to execute the warrant and does nothing in practical terms. Why? Because the warrant issued to the Sudanese President helped the West to dismember the country. True, the recognition of South Sudan’s independence (the country lost around 20% of its territory with main oil reserves) does not meet the Sudan’s interests. At that Omar al-Bashir agreed to hold a referendum, no matter the result was known in advance. In fact he became the founder of the new state called South Sudan. This behavior explains why no action has been taken in accordance with the arrest warrant issued by ICC. 

The International Criminal Court may not issue a warrant to arrest Russian officials. The very threat to do so is enough. It’s easy to guess what the International Criminal Court expects from the main defendant in the «South Ossetian case». The example of Sudan provides a clue… 

There is also another example – Kenya. It’s time for Russia to make known its position with regard to repressive organs of the so-called international legal system and support the states ready to oppose the arbitrary activities of the International Criminal Court, first of all the states of Africa. Africa should withdraw from the Statute of the International Criminal Court delivering a death blow to this judicial body, especially depriving it of funds. Is it not peculiar that the African states constituting the largest regional group among the International Criminal Court’s member-states provide funds to support their own oppressors? 

____________________

(1) Today the cases of Kenya, Sudan, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Uganda, Congo, the Central African Republic and Libya are referred to the International Criminal Court.

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What is Germany’s Interest in South Sudan? https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/01/16/what-is-germany-interest-in-south-sudan/ Wed, 15 Jan 2014 20:00:01 +0000 https://strategic-culture.lo/news/2014/01/16/what-is-germany-interest-in-south-sudan/ The division of Sudan, which until very recently was still a united country, and the separation of South Sudan from it (with the capital of Juba) is a project that has received active support from Berlin. And not just political support, but programmes to create government agencies and an administrative apparatus in the newly established state. It has been reported that international lawyers from the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg were involved in creating the constitution of South Sudan, that the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation has invited Sudanese separatists to Germany, that various German ministries have provided South Sudanese authorities with consulting services, and that German soldiers have been in South Sudan since 2005. 

Berlin’s interest in this turbulent, far-off African country is motivated by both economic and geostrategic considerations. Three quarters of Sudan’s oil reserves are located in South Sudan, and the country has borders with Kenya and Uganda – countries that are generally regarded to be pro-Western. Khartoum, meanwhile, occupied an anti-Western position, for which it seems to have paid the price of the country’s partition. You may recall that South Sudanese President Salva Kiir’s first visit was to Tel-Aviv, where he met with the Israeli president, as well as the heads of Israel’s foreign and defence ministries. Subjects under discussion included economic cooperation between Juba and Tel-Aviv, and the opening of a South Sudanese embassy in Israel. Israel’s political and economic presence in East Africa is traditionally strong. Relations between Germany and Israel are collaborative in every way. Uganda and Kenya have always been in Tel-Aviv’s field of vision, since presence in the former meant control over a strategically important position in East Africa, and in the latter ensured transit from Israel to the Indian Ocean. It also enabled Israel to have a backdoor influence on the politics of its enemies among North Africa’s Muslim states – Egypt, Sudan and others. 

A rapprochement between South Sudan and the East African Community, which is also being regarded as a united project of the pro-Western faction, is now in the interests of both Uganda and Kenya. A close cooperation between Juba and the East African Community will bind South Sudan with Kenya and Uganda in a number of ways, while closer relations with an oil-rich region is also arousing genuine interest in these two countries. Juba, unlike Khartoum, does not have access to the sea to transport its oil to the international market. 

Kenya has agreed to let South Sudan use its own ports for the transportation of oil. Furthermore, back in 2005, Kenya announced its intention to open a consulate in South Sudan in order to attract Kenyan companies to South Sudan’s oil market. Military cooperation between Juba and Nairobi is also gaining momentum. The stakes are so high that the Kenyan government has repeatedly expressed its willingness to begin training several thousand South Sudanese police officers, and the Ugandan air force has subjected the positions of those supporting former South Sudanese Vice-President Riek Machar to bombing campaigns (although Kampala denies this). Machar is a member of the Nuer ethnic group, while South Sudanese President Salva Kiir is a member of the Dinka ethnic group. There is a long-standing conflict between these two South Sudanese ethnic groups which emerged fully as soon as Juba obtained its independence from Khartoum. 

Berlin’s policy regarding Sudan should generally be in keeping with the policies of Washington and London, namely: the partition of a formerly united country and the separation of South Sudan should not just mean the separation of a large area with considerable strategic importance from Khartoum, but also a change in the ownership of a significant part of Sudan’s oil resources. In this instance, the interests of Germany, the US and Great Britain are the same – these Western powers are eager to «protect» East Africa from penetration by China… Today, more than half of Sudan’s oil is being exported to the People’s Republic of China, and Chinese workers and engineers in Sudan are no longer an uncommon sight. 

Cooperation between Beijing and Khartoum does not just involve oil, but arms as well. China supplies Sudan with tanks, aircraft, and artillery equipment. The international isolation of Khartoum initiated by three leading Western states (the US, Great Britain and Germany) has pushed Sudan even closer to Beijing, but this does not mean that Beijing is not looking for ways to cooperate with the South Sudanese authorities. It is important for the West to make sure that the oil contracts in South Sudan bypass the Chinese. Despite the fact that Western companies managed to be the first to entrench themselves in South Sudan’s oil market, China’s presence there is becoming increasingly more noticeable. 

It must be admitted that Khartoum gave the West a number of reasons to intervene during the conflict, carrying out policies of Arabisation and Islamisation in South Sudanese provinces inhabited by Christians. Washington, London and Berlin are now positioning themselves as fighters for the rights of the South Sudanese population. In truth, however, prolonged interethnic conflicts are tearing apart many African countries, and far from all of these have been awarded the «good fortune» of becoming an object of concern for Western proponents of democracy. South Sudan was «lucky» because it has oil.

Berlin’s awareness of East Africa is not a new trend in Germany’s foreign policy, but a long-forgotten old one. At the end of the 19th century, German East Africa included Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. Today, these countries are members of the pro-Western East African Community, whose zone of influence is expected to pull in South Sudan. 

However, German experts are not sure whether it is worth Berlin interfering in events in this part of the world. South Sudan is quickly sinking into the abyss of an intertribal war. There is no guarantee that the conflict will not spread to neighbouring countries, with the whole of East Africa plunging into an abyss of drawn-out armed conflicts.

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Asia Pivot Declared, US Army Eyes Africa https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/11/19/asia-pivot-declared-us-army-eyes-africa/ Mon, 18 Nov 2013 20:00:03 +0000 https://strategic-culture.lo/news/2013/11/19/asia-pivot-declared-us-army-eyes-africa/ U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Africa in June-July was widely seen as evidence of the White House's broader foreign policy objectives which have included an expansion of U.S. military operations across Africa. With the forces leaving Afghanistan, the Army is looking for new missions around the world. «As we reduce the rotational requirement to combat areas, we can use these forces to great effect in Africa», Gen. David M. Rodriguez, the head of the Africa Command, told Congress this year… Washington has publicly proclaimed a «pivot to Asia,» a «rebalancing» of its military resources eastward, however, the Pentagon is increasingly engaged in shadowy operations elsewhere, for instance, in Africa. Officials call it «light footprint» or «small footprint» saying the military is engaged in small-scale operations there. But picking up odds and ends and piecing them together gives ground to conjecture that the continent is seen as the battlefield of tomorrow. 

The «pivot» toward Asia-Pacific substantiated by the putative threat posed by a rising China will justify the need and expenditure to have strong Navy and Air Force. Large-scale Army commitment is hard to imagine in the Asia –Pacific region but expanding the «global war on terrorism» into the heart of Africa allows this service to have a pivot of its own. With combat boots on the ground, the formally declared purpose is to provide training. At that, the strike capabilities are on the rise and upgrading African militaries will no doubt foster opportunities to sell US-manufactured weapons, a benefit for U.S. defense industry.

Expanding presence

The Pentagon has begun expanding its main base on the continent and investing in air facilities, flight services and telecommunications as the U.S. military deepens its footprint in the region. Base construction, security cooperation engagements, training exercises, advisory deployments, special operations missions and a growing logistics network – all signs are there to provide undeniable evidence of expansion. The troops strength is estimated to be around 5 thousand. The forces are scattered across the continent in the places like Djibouti, the Central African Republic and now – Niger. There formal reason is countering extremists, the informal is obvious – boosting US clout as China's presence is on the rise.

According to the Washington Post, over the past two years, the Pentagon has become embroiled in conflicts in Libya, Somalia, Mali and the Central African Republic. Meantime, the Air Force is setting up a fourth African drone base, while Navy warships are increasing their missions along the coastlines of East and West Africa.

In a written statement provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Army Gen. David M. Rodriguez, the commander of Africa Command, estimated that the U.S. military needs to increase its intelligence-gathering and spying missions in Africa by nearly 15-fold. «I believe additional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities are necessary to protect American interests and assist our close allies and partners», he wrote in the statement, which was released during his confirmation hearing in February. «The recent crises in North Africa demonstrate the volatility of the African security environment». Rodriguez said the Africa Command needs additional drones, other surveillance aircraft and more satellite imagery adding that it currently receives only half of its «stated need» for North Africa and only 7 percent of its total «requirements» for the entire continent.

United States Army, Africa (USARAF) is part of United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), a unified combatant command with headquarters in Caserna Elderle, Vicenza, Italy. It had been called SETAF – South European Task Force – till December 2008. The change of name marked the end of the airborne chapter of the unit’s history and the beginning of its new role as the Army component of AFRICOM. The Army is supported by U.S. warships combating piracy off both East and West Africa, which have become increasingly frequent visitors to local ports. The Navy maintains a forward operating location—manned mostly by Seabees, Civil Affairs personnel, and force-protection troops – known as Camp Gilbert in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia. Since 2004, US troops have been stationed at a Kenyan naval base known as Camp Simba at Manda Bay. 

Infrastructure

Camp Lemonnier is situated in Djibouti, a tiny country in the Horn of Africa, a sleepy backwater on the coast of the Gulf of Aden sandwiched between northern Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea. A former French Foreign Legion base, the facility hosts US Special Forces, strike jets and armed unmanned aerial vehicles. It houses about 4,000 U.S. military personnel (instructors and several hundred SOF) and civilian contractors. The base has provided a staging post for occasional special forces deployments and drone and air attacks. According to the LA. Times, Camp Lemonnier is going through by far the most significant expansion. In September defense officials awarded $200 million in contracts to revamp the base's power plants and build a multistory operations center, aircraft hangar, living quarters, gym and other facilities on a sun-scorched 20-acre site next to the tiny country's only international airport (with which it shares a runway). The projects are part of $1.2 billion plan over the next 25 years to transform Camp Lemonnier from a makeshift installation into an enduring 600-acre base. As the L.A. Times reports, «the base has quietly evolved into what Pentagon planning documents call «the backbone» of covert missions across Africa and the Arabian Peninsula». 

There are surveillance and special operations outposts in Entebbe, Uganda and Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. Last year, an airfield was revitalized in South Sudan for Special Operations Command, Africa. This February the US announced the establishment of a new drone facility in Niger. More recently, the New York Times noted that the deployment of one Predator drone to Niger had expanded to encompass daily flights by one of two larger, more advanced Reaper remotely piloted aircraft, supported by 120 Air Force personnel. Additionally, the US has flown drones out of the Seychelles Islands and Ethiopia's Arba Minch Airport. All told, according to Sam Cooks, a liaison officer with the Defense Logistics Agency, the US military now has 29 agreements to use international airports in Africa as refueling centers. The Pentagon has run a regional air campaign using drones and manned aircraft out of airports and bases across the continent including Camp Lemonnier, Arba Minch airport in Ethiopia, Niamey in Niger, and the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean, while private contractor-operated surveillance aircraft have flown missions out of Entebbe, Uganda. Recently, Foreign Policy has reported on the existence of a possible drone base in Lamu, Kenya. ‎The US has built a sophisticated logistics system, officially known as the AFRICOM Surface Distribution Network. It connects posts in Manda Bay, Garissa, and Mombasa in Kenya, Kampala and Entebbe in Uganda, Dire Dawa in Ethiopia, Ghana's Tema and Senegal's Dakar, as well as crucial port facilities used by the Navy's CTF-53 (Commander, Task Force 53) in Djibouti. The US maintains 10 marine gas and oil bunker locations in eight African nations, according to the Defense Logistics Agency.

Moving stand-by forces nearer

This October the U.S. deployed 200 Marines to the Naval Air Station at Sigonella, Sicily, which will eventually have a force of 1,000 Marines with the main focus on Libya only 100 miles away, actually a short hop across the Mediterranean. It proves that the US operations in Africa are growing switching from drone strikes against al-Qaida to pinpoint raids by small Special Forces teams, as seen in Somalia and Libya Oct. 5. These raids reflect a U.S. move away from the kind of risk-averse operations the Americans have been mounting with missile-firing drones to on-the-ground raids against high-value targets.

The Marines moved to Italy from Spain last month are the vanguard of a larger force dubbed Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response. It was established after the Sept.11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed. According to U.S. security specialist David Vine, the Pentagon has spent around $2 billion – and that's just construction costs – «shifting its European center of gravity south from Germany» and transforming Italy «into a launching pad for future wars in Africa, the Middle East and beyond.» Vine estimates there are now totally 13,000 U.S. troops in Italy at Sigonella and some 50 other facilities like Vicenza, a former Italian air force base near Venice, with the 173rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (airborne), a rapid response force.

Intensive training programs launched

Thousands of soldiers are now gearing up for missions in Africa at Fort Riley, Kansas. According to the New York Times (11), the Army is implementing a program drawing on troops from a 3,500-member brigade of the First Infantry Division to conduct more than 100 missions in Africa over the next year. The missions range from a two-man sniper team in Burundi to 350 soldiers conducting airborne and humanitarian exercises in South Africa. According to the source, the brigade has also sent a 150-member rapid-response force to Djibouti in the Horn of Africa to protect embassies in emergencies, a direct reply to the attack on the United States Mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year, which killed four Americans. Africa Command is the test case for this new Army program of regionally aligned brigades that will eventually extend to all of the Pentagon’s commands worldwide, including in Europe and Latin America next year. These forces will be told in advance that their deployments will focus on parts of the world that do not have Army troops assigned to them now — creating a system in which officers and enlisted personnel would develop regional expertise, the New York Times reports. 

* * *

Critics in Africa complain Washington's approach to the continent has become increasingly militarized. Counter-terrorism policies live on the edge of international law: SOF raids and drone strikes raise questions about the international legality of such operations and their long-term impact. In some cases U.S. military engagements in Africa have already caused further instability rather than reducing the risks for international peace and security. The divided and poorly controlled Libya is an example. The extremist groups the US is supposed to fight thrive in weak and poorly governed countries, which badly need institution building, good governance and job creation. Building up well-trained and accountable African militaries is only part of the solution. The lessons learned from Somalia, Libya, Mali, the CAR and many others, like the ongoing low-intensity war against Boco Harum in Nigeria, are all important to be learnt. Besides, stiff competition for strategic resources is the specific feature of the situation in Africa. So it’s not only about fighting terrorist groups. The mission of US military is to drive rivals out of the continent or at least to limit their access to the resources and political clout. No matter all the talks going on about the times of budget constraints and sequester, the US military enhances its capability to provide global presence and carry out missions in faraway corners of the globe like Africa. 

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«We’re all Kenyans» https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/09/26/were-all-kenyans/ Wed, 25 Sep 2013 20:00:01 +0000 https://strategic-culture.lo/news/2013/09/26/were-all-kenyans/ The anti-terrorist operation in Nairobi is over. The hostages are free; the terrorists remaining at large are hiding in the underground of Westgate shopping mole. The death toll is being counted. On September 24 it is estimated to be 62 dead and over 200 injured.

According to media reports, the Somalia's Al Qaeda affiliated Al Shabab organization did what it threatened to do since a long time ago – to attack Kenya to take revenge for Kenyan troops invading Somalia’s neighboring areas in 2011 to halt cross-border raids by militants operating on Somalian soil. Back then the Kenyan forces delivered a blow against the military structure of Al Shabab, the group that controls over 40 percent of Somalia’s territory. 

The Nairobi operation wound up with rather unexpected results. According to official sources, with 10 terrorists captured and three dead none of them happened to be the citizens of Somalia. According to the passports found, they crime perpetrators were the nationals of the United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands. It proves the fact that the criminal act was committed by an Al Qaeda affiliated international terrorist network. Its activities are coordinated and spread around the whole world; it would be erroneous to think that the terrorist acts in different countries (Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan and Kenya) were isolated cases.

The interethnic wars have been waged in Somali for many years. As time went by, Al Shabab has become a leading force pursuing the goal of creating an Islamic caliphate. Today the group controls the southern part of the country, including Kismayo, a port city in the southern Lower Juba (Jubbada Hoose) province of Somalia. It is the commercial capital of the autonomous Jubaland region. No doubt it’s an achievement for Al Qaeda affiliated forces. As a result there are two springboards of Islamic extremism situated in the vicinity of each other – the southern part of Yemen and the south of Somalia which are divided by the rather narrow strip of the Red Sea. Just like a cancer tumor it encircles the confined Bab-El-Mandeb Strait, a waterway for oil tankers. The intelligence data on the Al Qaeda’s strategic goals is not made public. The world is simply intimidated with a bogey that it just hates the human kind, so it kills people wherever it is possible. Willy-nilly one gets the impression that this kind of image is created for some purpose… 

What does Al Qaeda want to achieve in Syria? The goal is to destroy the state and create a caliphate instead. In this case why does the West fight Bashar Assad instead of Al Qaeda? 

Washington and its allies never mention the objectives pursued by terrorists in Syria or the threat they pose. Sounds strange, especially in view that, according to official version, it was Al Qaeda behind the September 11, 2001 events that caused a «historic trauma» for American people. 

If the threat to close the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and, this way, provoke oil prices hikes is imminent, then why Washington does not sound alarm? Or do the terrorist plans coincide with the ones of American oil giants? If the war in Libya gave rise to Islamists activities in the Sahel region, then why the United Nations does not study the results of the intervention and the consequent impact on international security? Perhaps because such a study will make inevitable the recognition of the fact that the Libyan war is an example of state terrorism on the part of the West acting in concert with Al Qaeda. 

It all gives a rise to the question: if the international terrorism is steadily and effectively making new steps on the way of gaining ground, then what the United Nations Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee is doing? It was founded exactly for the purpose of fighting terrorism in the wake of terrorist acts committed in New York on September 11, 2001? To answer this question one should have a look at the way the resolution N 1373 of United Nations Security Council is implemented. 1 For instance, it states that all states shall:

«Prevent and suppress the financing of terrorist acts».

Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are involved in providing funds for the terrorist groups that act of the territory of Syria. Is the Committee unaware of the fact? 

– «Freeze without delay funds and other financial assets or economic resources of persons who commit, or attempt to commit, terrorist acts or participate in or facilitate the commission of terrorist acts; of entities owned or controlled directly or indirectly by such persons; and of persons and entities acting on behalf of, or at the direction of such persons and entities, including funds derived or generated from property owned or controlled directly or indirectly by such persons and associated persons and entities».

The Islamists across the entire globe collect funds for those who «fight for the purity of faith». Neither the banking accounts, nor the routes used by couriers with cash are a secret for Western special services. So why do they not stop the financial flows? 

«Deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts, or provide safe havens»;

The militants injured in combat while fighting the Syrian army are getting medical help in Israeli hospitals, Al Qaeda affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra is free to spread its propaganda on the territories of refugee camps situated in Jordan. There is nothing to say about how other provisions of the resolution N 1373 are implemented. 

«Afford one another the greatest measure of assistance in connection with criminal investigations or criminal proceedings relating to the financing or support of terrorist acts, including assistance in obtaining evidence in their possession necessary for the proceedings; of terrorist acts, including assistance in obtaining evidence in their possession necessary for the proceedings».

The Russian Special services have accumulated rather bitter experience of collaborating with Western colleagues in this field. Neither Ahmad Zakayev, the ideological leader of Chechen terrorists and the former leader of an armed gang, nor a number of other, less known, murderers have been extradited to Russia so that they could face justice. 

As a result, we have what we have. On the one hand, the terrorist threat is growing, on the other – what we have is just shooting the breeze in the United Nations, the organizations that has failed to unite the countries in a joint effort to stand up to the terrorist threat. The only thing left is to surmise that this endless breeze shooting, that starts any time the ways to counter the menace are discussed, follows some purpose. The crisis in Syria shows that Al Qaeda is useful for those who aspire to lead the process of «global control». 

The reluctance to act and fight the terrorist threat on the part of international community results in the miserable situation that the USA Today mentions in its comments on the events in Nairobi. The terrorists could attack anywhere in the world and commit the acts of horror, «After the Nairobi attack, the message should be «We Are All Kenyans». Not just in our sympathy. But also in going all out to prevent another terrorist attack».

Endnotes: 

(1) un.org

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Bloody Weekend Explodes Washington’s Contradictions over Al Qaeda and War on Terror https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/09/23/bloody-weekend-explodes-washington-contradictions-over-al-qaeda-and-war-terror/ Mon, 23 Sep 2013 02:06:02 +0000 https://strategic-culture.lo/news/2013/09/23/bloody-weekend-explodes-washington-contradictions-over-al-qaeda-and-war-terror/ It was a busier and bloodier weekend than usual for Islamic extremists linked to the Al Qaeda franchise, with hundreds killed in bomb and gun attacks in Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and Kenya, as well as the ongoing war in Syria, where the same brand of jihadists form the dominant fighting groups trying to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

This synchronicity is unfortunate for Washington and its Western allies because it emphasizes a fatal contradiction and deception in their claims of fighting a global «war on terror». The so-called war on terror and Al Qaeda are back in the headlines as a global specter of menace – just at a time when Washington and its allies are trying to launch a war on Syria in support of Al Qaeda militants…

Away from Syria, the worst of the weekend violence occurred in Iraq where up to 100 people were killed in a series of bombings and shootings. The biggest single atrocity was in the Sadr City area of the capital, Baghdad, where a triple car bomb devastated a Shia funeral and left more than 65 dead. It is believed Al Qaeda Sunni extremists carried out the attacks.

Meanwhile, in Kenya’s capital Nairobi an up-market shopping mall witnessed scenes of pandemonium as gunmen armed with assault rifles opened fire indiscriminately on family shoppers, killing up to 59 and wounding dozens more. The Somali group Al Shabab – an Al Qaeda affiliate – claimed responsibility for that attack, saying that it was in revenge for the Kenya’s intervention in the Horn of Africa country as part of a US-backed campaign to defeat Islamic terrorists there.

The shoot-out at the Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall developed into a fierce siege against heavily armed Kenyan army and police. Canadian and French citizens are among the dead, with at least four American nationals wounded.

A New York Times correspondent in the East African country told how «the mall’s gleaming floors were smeared with blood as police officers dashed through the corpse-strewn corridors, trying to find the assailants».

US Secretary of State John Kerry said of the carnage in Kenya that it was «a heartbreaking reminder that there exists unspeakable evil in our world».

Elsewhere, in Pakistan, more than 50 were killed when a double suicide bomber is believed to have blasted Christian worshippers in the northwestern city of Peshawar. The bombs went off as people were exiting the city’s historic church causing hundreds of casualties, many of them women and children, according to medics. Again, the killings were attributed to Al Qaeda-linked terrorists who frequently strike Christians and Shia Muslims alike, both of whom they denounce as «infidels».

Finally, in Yemen, on the Arabian Peninsula, rounding off the weekend of Al Qaeda-related mayhem, some 30 soldiers were killed in separate bomb and gun attacks.

The Reuters news agency reported that approximately 20 people were killed early on Friday when two car bombs exploded at a military camp in al-Nashama in Yemen’s southern Shabwa province. Gunmen also killed about 10 members of a military patrol in the town of Mayfaa. Officials believe members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula were behind the bomb attack.

The upsurge in Al Qaeda violence across two continents throws into sharp focus a fatal contradiction in US foreign policy. This contradiction, in turn, explodes the myth of the US «war on terror».

On one hand, the US is seen to be aligning closely with Al Qaeda in Syria for the objective of inducing regime change in that country. The campaign in Syria to destabilize the Damascus government has deployed the full gamut of terrorist tactics, from no-warning car bombs in civilian neighborhoods, to wholesale massacres of villages, including beheadings and the use of toxic chemicals against civilians. The latest incident of alleged chemical weapons near Damascus on 21 August is reliably attributed to the Western-backed militants, according the Russian government and others – not the Syrian armed forces as the Western capitals and media have asserted. That attack is most likely a deliberate provocation to justify Western military intervention in Syria.

Despite denial of links to these mercenaries, and the official listing of such organizations as terrorist, Washington’s sponsorship is crucial to the military operation of Al Qaeda-linked groups in Syria.

Yet on the other hand, as we have seen, Al Qaeda extremists unleashed a spectacular weekend of carnage in US-backed states, including causing American casualties.

Obviously, more than ever, the official Washington narrative about Al Qaeda being the world’s top terrorist enemy does not add up. The dangerous capability of this group and its affiliates is not disputed. What is evidently disputable, however, is Washington’s supposed article of faith that it is waging a global war to defeat terrorism emanating from Al Qaeda.

After all, according to the official narrative, this is the group that perpetrated the terror attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001, which necessitated the American «war on terror». That has led to American-led wars or military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Pakistan and Yemen, among others.

But when it comes to Syria, Al Qaeda and its brand of Islamic extremism is evidently not a prohibitive problem for US planners and politicians. On the contrary, the ruthlessness of these mercenaries is an asset. We have even seen senior Congressman John McCain and US ambassador Robert Ford making clandestine visits into Syrian territory to be photographed congratulating Al Qaeda commanders, some of whom are accused of crimes against humanity, including kidnapping, cannibalism and summary execution of captured Syrian soldiers.

Of course, official US policy claims that in Syria it is supporting «moderates» among the Syrian insurgency, not the «extremists» whom Washington and its Western allies assert that they are wary of. US President Barack Obama last week signed off on sending lethal aid to «carefully vetted» fighting groups inside Syria. This supposed differentiation is illusory. Many sources testify that foreign Islamic extremists affiliated to Al Qaeda form the preponderant mass – up to 70 per cent – of militants fighting in Syria. Even the British military publication, IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly, acknowledges that the Islamist extremists form the bulk of insurgents in Syria.

So we can contemptuously dismiss claims made by Washington, as well as by London and Paris, that it is somehow only siding with the «good rebels» in Syria. That is a propaganda fiction to conceal what should be a disconcerting truth, namely that the US and its Western allies are on the same side as Al Qaeda-linked Islamic extremists in Syria. This nexus is underscored by the collusion of Saudi, Qatari, Jordanian, Israeli and Turk military intelligence in the supply of weapons to the radical Islamist groups, such as Jabhat al Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Shams. These agencies work hand-in-glove with American, British and French military intelligence. Indeed it is known that the American CIA in particular operates training bases in Turkey and Jordan.

Moreover, we should not forget the fundamental reality that Al Qaeda (The Base) and Islamic extremism generally were created by Western intelligence as an instrument for geopolitical leverage. Historically, the British fomented the rise of Saudi Wahhabism in the creation of pro-Western Saudi Arabia to undermine the Ottoman Empire during the early 1900s. More recently, the American, British, French, Pakistani and Saudi intelligence all had a hand in forming Al Qaeda in Afghanistan during the 1980s to thwart the then Soviet-backed government in Kabul and to deal a strategic blow to Moscow. The sponsorship of Islamic extremism by the West and Saudi Arabia in Russia’s Southern Caucus region is a continuation of this strategic menacing by proxy forces.

In that way, the Western support for Al Qaeda in Syria currently is wholly consistent with the historical liaison and purpose of this network serving as a Western instrument. That liaison was deployed to good Western effect in Libya to instigate regime change against Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. During that campaign, NATO pilots were even caught joking among themselves that they were serving as «Al Qaeda’s air force».

Washington’s designation of Al Qaeda as a terror threat, beginning in the late 1990s and early 2000s, is something of an exception to the rule. What you might call a different take on «American exceptionalism».

In the murky and treacherous world of state terrorism there is always a risk of blowback. But in the case of 9/11 that blowback was probably engineered and put to good effect in that it created the myth of «war on terror». That myth has ably afforded Washington and its Western allies an ideological and political cover to launch imperialist wars with legal impunity in any country of desire. This was, for example, the handy pretext for the French neocolonial intervention in Mali earlier this year.

This weekend’s carnage by Al Qaeda groups in Iraq, Pakistan, Kenya and Yemen can be understood as rogue violence that does not always immediately fit with the geopolitical aims of Washington. The violence can be used for good propaganda value by reinforcing the ideological construct that is the «war on terror». However, from the West’s point of view, re-emphasizing that construct creates an unintended embarrassing head-on collision with the fact that Washington, London and Paris are collaborating simultaneously with the same «enemy» in Syria.

By happenstance of events in Syria and elsewhere across the globe this weekend, we see the judicious synchronicity of two seemingly contradictory policies: war on the side of Al Qaeda; and seemingly the war on terror against Al Qaeda. Only one of these two propositions can be true, and logic and ample evidence transpire to explode the proposition of America’s war on terror.

To paraphrase Washington’s top diplomat John Kerry: «It is a heartbreaking reminder that there exists unspeakable deception in our world».

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