Nigeria: Petroleum, Pollution and Poverty Violating Human Rights In the Niger Delta

Up to 13 million barrels of oil have spilled in the Niger Delta ecosystem over the past 50 years, representing about 50 times the estimated volume spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska in 1989. Niger Delta Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration Project, PDF.

Oil spill in the village of Ikarama, Bayelsa State, Nigeria, 7 February 2008 © Kadir van Lohuizen/NOOR

These spills equal the amount of 1 Exxon Valdez sized oil spill per year. And this is taking place in one of the most sensitive wetlands of our planet, part of the lungs of the planet. The spills pollute the land, pollute the water, clog the creeks, and gas flaring pollutes the air and the rainwater, bringing down toxic acid rain on land and water and all that live there.

As one Niger Delta fisherman stated:

If you want to go fishing, you have to paddle for about four hours through several rivers before you can get to where you can catch fish and the spill is lesser … some of the fishes we catch, when you open the stomach, it smells of crude oil.

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The Niger Delta is one of the 10 most important wetland and coastal marine ecosystems in the world and is home to some 31 million people. The Niger Delta is also the location of massive oil deposits.
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Under Nigerian law, local communities have no legal rights to oil and gas reserves in their territory.
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This report focuses on one dimension of the crisis: the impact of pollution and environmental damage caused by the oil industry on the human rights of the people living in the oil producing areas of Niger Delta.

This report is a report from Amnesty International Nigeria: Petroleum, Pollution and Poverty in the Niger Delta – Report PDF. The report was released June 30, 2009.

The main human rights issues raised in this report are:

• Violations of the right to an adequate standard of living, including the right to food – as a consequence of the impact of oil-related pollution and environmental damage on agriculture and fisheries, which are the main sources of food for many people in the Niger Delta.

• Violations of the right to gain a living through work – also as a consequence of widespread damage to agriculture and fisheries, because these are also the main sources of livelihood for many people in the Niger Delta.

• Violations of the right to water – which occur when oil spills and waste materials pollute water used for drinking and other domestic purposes.

• Violations of the right to health – which arise from failure to secure the underlying determinants of health, including a healthy environment, and failure to enforce laws to protect the environment and prevent pollution.

• The absence of any adequate monitoring of the human impacts of oil-related pollution – despite the fact that the oil industry in the Niger Delta is operating in a relatively densely populated area characterized by high levels of poverty and vulnerability.

• Failure to provide affected communities with adequate information or ensure consultation on the impacts of oil operations on their human rights.

• Failure to ensure access to effective remedy for people whose human rights have been violated.

The report also examines who is responsible for this situation in a context where multinational oil companies have been operating for decades. It highlights how companies can take advantage of the weak regulatory systems that characterize many poor countries, which frequently results in the poorest people being the most vulnerable to exploitation by corporate actors. The people of the Niger Delta have seen their human rights undermined by oil companies that their government cannot or will not hold to account. They have been systematically denied access to information about how oil exploration and production will affect them, and are repeatedly denied access to justice. The Niger Delta provides a stark case study of the lack of accountability of a government to its people, and of multinational companies’ almost total lack of accountability when it comes to the impact of their operations on human rights.

More oil is being prospected and discovered throughout Africa. Rather than an outdated holdover from an ugly past, Shell’s pollution of the Niger Delta is probably the model for oil exploitation across the African continent. Only if African countries stand up for themselves and their people, can the devastating effects be mitigated. Far too many governments in Africa are not accountable, or only barely accountable to their people. And even where there is a will, the outside powers and donor countries will not make it easy. Look at what is happening in Somalia, another potential source of oil. The international donor countries are keeping it destabilized in the name of fighting “terrorism”. When Somalia did develop its own government in 2006, it was rapidly crushed by the US using Ethiopia as a proxy. This is what is known as stability operations.

In response to a question, I was talking to someone in the neighborhood where I work about pollution and oil exploitation in the Niger Delta. He was not really interested and brushed it off, saying, “we have to get our oil from somewhere.” This is someone with whom I’ve had a number of friendly conversations, and generally think of as a nice guy. I think his response typifies the attitude of people in the US, and in the developed and rapidly developing world.

Just as the European colonial powers spoke of bringing Africa the 3 Cs, Christianity, Civilization and Commerce, the US, and the US Africa Command speak with straight faces of bringing Africa the 3 Ds, Defense, Diplomacy, and Development. It was a mirage the first time, and this is pretty much the same thing, minus Christianity. It is not done to benefit the people of Africa but to fool them. It is like the distraction of a magician, so you don’t see how he does the trick.

As Dr. Wafula Okumu testified:

To paraphrase Kenyatta’s allegory, “when the Whiteman came to Africa, he was holding a Bible in one hand and asked us to close our eyes and pray. When we opened our eyes after the prayer, his other hand was holding a gun and all our land was gone!” Africa’s colonial history was characterised by military occupations, exploitation of its natural resources and suppression of its people. After testing decades of independence, these countries are now jealously guarding their sovereignty and are highly suspicious of foreigners, even those with good intentions.

There are many professed good intentions, and very few genuine good intentions among the powers gathering around for this latest scramble for Africa, particularly in the search for oil. It behooves Africans to be very wary indeed.

 

Is Obama Running US Foreign Policy? Is He Running It Off A Cliff?

It looks like Obama is marching in zombie lockstep with Bush policy in Somalia and Honduras. It also looks like a Great Leap Backward to the days of US suported military coups in Latin America, and despots propped up by US aid in Africa. In both cases the United States provides the military training and the weapons.

Follow me!

In Honduras, the leader of the coup:

… General Vasquez attended the School of the Americas and … a good part of the Honduran military were trained there and in its successor, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).

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… the U.S. has a military base in Honduras, gives the Honduran military a few million dollars each year, and … most of the military equipment used against the people was from the U.S.

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… a group that openly supported the coup, “Paz and Democracia” (Peace and Democracy), received money from the USAID. (Eva Golinger reported that the USAID pumps more than 50 million dollars into the country each year.)

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… the immediate response from Washington was tepid and non-committal. … Dan Restrepo, the presidential advisor for Latin American affairs, said the administration was waiting to see how things would play out. (The response has been stronger since then, but still seems to lack the strength other America nations have put forward in their demands.)

This is most unfortunate for the Obama administration, or for any US government and ongoing relations with Latin America. Like Africa, most people in Latin America want the military back in the barracks, and want democratic governments. A coup is not democracy. Supporting, or even tolerating a coup is a US blow against democracy. Eva Golinger writes:

Yes, I know Fox News is not the best way to judge the political scene in the US, but this video clip is a hint into the way US media is now beginning to portray the coup events in Honduras over the past few days. And note the NPR correspondent’s comments, very similar analysis as to mine over the past few days regarding Washington’s ambiguity regarding this coup so as to buy time and possibly recognize the coup government as “transitory” until the elections in November…….very dangerous.

Note, this will isolate the US/Obama Administration from the rest of Latin America and definitely show Obama is not an agent of change.

Meanwhile, in Somalia, the US is still trying to prop up the TFG, the Transitional Federal Government, in Somalia. As one Somali commentator put it, the only true word in that name is the word transitional. The TFG is neither federal, nor a government. The TFG only controls a few blocks in Mogadishu.

Reuters:  Al Shabaab and allied fighters control much of southern and central Somalia and have boxed the government and 4,300 African Union peackeepers into a few blocks of Mogadishu.

The US has stepped up arms transfers and training, ostensibly to the AMISOM troups, but in actual fact it is violating the UN arms embargo, US, EA gunrunners violating UN’s Somalia arms ban.  And the US is stepping up the training of troops in Somalia.

US violations are said to include a missile attack on a target inside Somalia along with “intensive and comprehensive military training” conducted inside Ethiopia for officers from the breakaway Somalia region known as Somaliland.

The previous incarnation of the TFG was an alliance of the oppressive warlords and the hated and oppressive Ethiopian army. The current incarnation of the TFG was engineered by the US ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, in an election held in Djibouti. Because the TFG is under siege, and controls so little of Mogadishu, and none of the rest of Somalia, the TFG has invited the hated Ethiopians back in for help. The US, Ambassador Ranneberger, and the UN donor countries characterize the the TFG as a representative government, although they are the only ones it represents. They characterize the opposition as al Qaeda, although their only proof is to keep invoking the names of two men who bombed the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. al Qaeda has never been welcome or successful in Somalia. But as long as the US government and media say al Qaeda whenever any opposition in Somalia is mentioned, US citizens will shiver with fear and support more bombing and killing. And it looks like the US and the donor countries are stepping up their outside interference, rather than letting the Somalis settle their own affairs.

Daniel Volman writes on security policy in Somalia:

The only other indication we have about the president’s true intentions is provided by his decision to authorise the use of force to rescue the kidnapped captain of the Maersk Alabama in May 2009. When he was a candidate, President Obama declared that he believed that ‘there will be situations that require the United States to work with its partners in Africa to fight terrorism with lethal force.’ But his action during the kidnapping episode show that he is also willing to use military force in situations that have nothing to do with terrorism. According to recent news articles, a debate is currently underway within the administration about the wisdom of direct US military intervention against Somali pirates or against the al-Shabaab insurgents. Top administration officials and military officers are convinced that, in the words of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, ‘there is no purely military solution’ to piracy and political conflict in Somalia. And Johnnie Carson, the president’s new assistant secretary of state for Africa, told the BBC that ‘there would be no case of the US re-engaging on the ground with troops’ in Somalia. But some in the military and a number of prominent neo-conservative leaders contend that the United States must strike back at the pirates and the insurgents to prevent future acts of piracy and terrorism against Americans. It would be a mistake to assume that Obama will not take further military action if the situation in Somalia escalates.

If you read this transcript of the June 25 State Department daily press briefing, it sounds like the US government really does not know what it is doing in Somalia. And so far it looks like more US interference just recruits more Somali insurgents. US violence and interference will never resolve Somali problems. The US is interested in possible oil in Somalia. The EU continues to steal fish from Somali waters, and dump toxic and nuclear waste in those same waters. Keeping things unsettled in Somalia works to the advantage of all these outside meddlers.

As b real puts it:

the TFG2 has always been a weak actor in the mix. as i’ve elaborated on in multiple threads, there is more evidence that, rather than create a strong federal govt, the int’l community’s overriding objective has been to pit islamist factions against each other in order to engage them into battle amongst themselves rather than be united and [1] establish an independent govt and [2], so goes the reasoning of the unrestrained paranoid fantasies of the int’l actors, threaten & carry out ‘terrorist’ activities beyond the borders of somalia. letting them wage a war of attrition between themselves requires a minimal amount of overhead & a modicum of commitment.

their lip service to sh. sharif’s govt can be seen as an inside joke, directing, instead, the bulk of support to AMISOM and putting pressure on the UN to get more countries paying for the militarization of east africa. meanwhile, the main beneficiaries are int’l arms dealers, int’l NGOs, and, eventually, the wildcatters up through the big oil companies still comfortably playing the force majeure card.

In the long run it does not pay to be an international bully. It comes back to bite you. And the US cannot afford to garrison the entire world. It cannot afford the wars it is already waging. The proxy armies it is creating with the US Africa Command will go into business for themselves. President Obama has a lot on his plate at home. It may seem easier to let the policies that were already in place continue to run their course. In general Obama seems reluctant to get out front and lead on specific issues. If the US is going to retain its own democracy, and carry any moral weight in the world, President Obama will have to step forward and lead in the democratic direction. There is no hope and change without democratic leadership.

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Note: the illustration above is from BibliOdyssey.

 

Undersea Broadband Fiber Optic Cables To Africa, & Bringing Broadband Inland

Steve Song has created this elegant graphic of the various broadband cables that are under construction to serve the African continent.

African undersea cables by Steve Song (click to enlarge)

I admire graphics that are elegant, clear, and easy to understand, and I think this is a particularly fine example. Song also provides more information on the undersea cables, including ownership, cost, schedules, and capacity.

chart of broadband projects (click to enlarge)

This means there will be a lot more internet access in Africa coming soon. Although, as you can see, these projects just bring broadband to the coast. More work will be necessary to increase broadband access inland.

From FP Passport:

This great map by Steve Song shows where things will be in a few years with line thickness representing bandwith size. The TEAMS cable (green on map above) is one of three international fiber optic cables expected to reach East Africa this year.

The next (red on map) is constructed by SEACOM, a private company in partnership with a number of African companies. It has already landed, to less fanfare because the Kenyan government has a stake in TEAMS, and is supposed to be ready by the end of June, connecting East Africa to Europe and Asia. The third, the East African Marine Cable System (EASSy) is sponsored by the International Finance Corporation, the private sector wing of the World Bank and is scheduled to be finished in 2010 (blue on map).

On the other side of the continent, Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) a cable from Europe all the way down the West African coast to South Africa is underway (pdf) and projected to go online in 2011 (orange on map). Several others are also supposed to go online by that time, immensely increasing Africa’s bandwith access. Song has an interactive version of his map in which one can view any combination of the different cables or each alone to get a better look.

When the cables go online, they will replace satellite connections as the main source of internet access in Africa, increasing speed, reliability and reducing cost. This should improve productivity and allow increased access with the lower price. In Kenya, the internet company Access Kenya has already pledged that the new cables will double internet speed for its users, and companies are scrambling buy access to the broadband and to finalize internal fiber optic cables. Neighboring landlocked states like Uganda and Rwanda are seeking to do the same.

As interconnectivity between African countries increases, economic benefits are expected, especially in Kenya, which has a fast developing IT sector. Other potential impacts include education and access to media.

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Added June 27: BRINGING BROADBAND INLAND

The big question remaining is how to get affordable broadband inland from the coast. And there may be a solution:

Weather balloons may soon provide the first affordable broadband Internet access to the one-billion-strong African mass market.

Accountant Timothy Anyasi and petroleum engineer Collins Nwani, both Nigerian-born serial entrepreneurs based in the U.S., have secured exclusive rights to market a type of near-space technology — developed by American telecommunications company Space Data — throughout the African continent.

In her June 17 article, Weather Balloons to Serve Up Web Access in Africa, Deborah Nason tells us more:

Anyasi and Nwani decided to move ahead with their marketing plans after Space Data secured a contract with the United States military in 2007 to field-test the technology in Iraq and Afghanistan. The partners will operate through a consortium that is now in the formation stages, which they call Spaceloon.

The technology raises hydrogen-filled weather balloons, serving in effect as satellite substitutes, to an altitude between 80,000 and 100,000 feet. As individual users contact the balloons via modem, the balloons bridge them to a nearby Earth-bound network operations center (NOC), which in turn connects to various Internet gateways.

“Network operation centers are located close to a fiber optic cable — say, in Lagos or Accra — and a signal is sent back and forth to the [balloon] in near space,” Anyasi says.

By tapping into countries with fiber optic technology, Spaceloon intends to buy cheap access in the oceanfront capital cities of Africa for resale wirelessly to the interior.

Spaceloon will concentrate its initial efforts in four countries, which run roughly east to west on a similar latitude — from westernmost Sierra Leone to Liberia, Ghana, and Nigeria. The company is seeking subsidies from the governments to prove the concept, followed by plans for a massive rollout as soon as possible.

Transmission speed will depend on the customer’s line of sight and the amount of bandwidth purchased, though Anyasi says download speeds should match or exceed those of satellite Internet solutions. Corporate customers, for example, can pay for a dedicated daily balloon that will deliver speeds up to 10 Mbit/s. Families, on the other hand, could opt for a budget-friendly plan of about 300 kbit/s. That’s not super fast, but it would be the first affordable option ever available to some African residents.

Anyasi says bandwidth can be extended: “In busy times, we can simply send up more balloons.”

The balloons come down every 24 hours due to the limitations of battery life — and to keep them from floating into territories that don’t subscribe to the service. “You’re looking at a wide geographic area — there’s a wide jet stream at near space — and that allows balloons to keep on floating without stop,” Anyasi explains. “It’s cheap to bring them down, as balloons cost only about $50, and since they are equipped with a GPS, it is easy to locate them and reuse them.”

Spaceloon will be the first ISP option available to the African mass market (outside the largest cities) without huge up-front costs. Currently, customers wishing fixed-line Internet access must either purchase a VSAT for as much as $10,000 or procure a personal wireless tower and roof-mounted dish for about $1,000.

Spaceloon customers would need only buy a locally made satellite dish for about $10, a regular modem, and connection to the service. Monthly pricing will be at least half the cost of all current options, according to Anyasi.

The impact on Africa’s Internet industry could be enormous.

Besides providing Internet access to previously unserved markets in city outskirts and rural regions, the technology would allow mobile phone operators to offer wireless modems to their customers. (Currently there are about 320 million mobile phone users in Africa.) To this end, Spaceloon is in discussions with large wireless providers Mobile Telephone Networks (MTN) and Vodafone, which each have a large business presence in a number of African countries.

The concept is simple, but the implications are massive. As Anyasi says, “Anyone, anywhere can get [wireless] Internet access. All you need is access to the sky and you have reception.”

The comments on the article are also interesting, especially this answer to a query by Timothy Anyasi:

I will answer your questions point for point and perhaps we can move on to solving the immeditate needs.

Telecommunication is not a cheap enterprise especially in Africa. You really have no idea what it cost to run a single cell tower in Africa. So I will share that info with you.

• First you need to shell out $200,000 http://tinyurl.com/myrwcs minimun to build a tall enough cell tower ( enough to buy 4,000 balloons – 6,000 with mass production. enough balloons for 11yrs daily launch of a single balloon)
• Secondly – Electricity infrastracture is very poor so cell towers need there own $5,000 power generators, that needs to be fueled and maintained. I will not go into the environmental impact of burning fossil fuel. Compare this with our rechargable batteries and we will be using solar panels in the near future.
• Thirdly – security personnel need to be posted to each cell tower to protect the generators. if the generators are stolen, so goes the service.
• finally – I think you also need transportation to haul gas and personnel to these cell towers

You made mention of how much the access point cost. Hello? all internet service providers have access points.

Also our devices will not be stolen for 3 reasons

1. there is no market for it ( same reason cell relayers are hardly stolen)
2. We pay people to return if found
3. we set what time, location they land and have gps to know exactly where they landed. This means we are usually the first to get to it.

Any object at 80,000ft has a coverage area of a little more than size of New Jersey.

Payloads are assembled parts, so usually all parts do not fail at once. But on average, a payload on average runs for at least a few years

with a few hundred balloons, we got the whole continent well served, compared to 20,000+ cell towers

We work within the jet stream in near space, if the current is eastbound we launch from the west. get the picture?

NOC does not have to be in the foot print of a particular balloon. We create a network mesh in the sky and do relays.

Also hydrogen is cheap and pretty safe to transport and can be stored in tanks at launch locations. we pay farmers to help us launch the payloads.

Number of NOC depends on demand pattern and spread of our subscribers.

bandwidth capability of each balloon depends on number of users within it’s footprint. We use higher payload for denser areas.

We monitor, the coverage area of each balloon from the NOC and since the wind speed is fairly consistent and predictable there is only a slow drift and we launch new balloons once we notice a gap in coverage, is about to happen. Also we can steer a balloon in a desire direction.

On the issue of failure, more than $80m has been invested to get this technology to where it is right now. And the US military definately will not buy into this if it was some crap. All technology must go from small scale to large, so why is this any different? And let us know how to raise the $100b to run fiber optics through half of Africa. until then, we will make do with a $100m solution.

Lastly, please do not preach to me, how ignorance is cheaper than education. We are interested in bridging the digital divide. Obama won simply becuase there was internet in the US. remove the internet and there is no Obama. So what is your point?

Btw thanks for your questions.

 

Lied Into The War On Terror In The Sahara

The Bush administration lied the US and the world into war in Iraq, and lied into opening a second front of its GWOT in the Sahara that continues going strong today. The Bush administration went bananas over the banana theory that terrorists would spread out into over north Africa from Afghanistan, west across the map in the pattern of a bunch of bananas. So far the Obama administration seems to be buying right in and continuing the fiction. (Remember the domino theory and what it did for the US and southeast Asia?) Since 2003 there has been a huge amount of US military action in north Africa in and around the Sahara. In 2004:

… U.S. military commanders were describing terrorists as “swarming” across the Sahel and the region as a “Swamp of Terror.” The area was, in the words of European Command’s deputy commander General Charles F. Wald, a “terrorist infestation” that “we need to drain.” Stewart M. Powell, writing in Air Force Magazine, claimed that the Sahara “is now a magnet for terrorists.”

In the africom.mil picture gallery there are plenty of pictures of US military activity in north Africa. Here are two recent examples:

CAP DRAA, Morocco - Marine radio operators from the ground combat element of Task Force African Lion observe the smoke-filled battlefield of the final training exercise as they relay information from the commanders to the units in the field May 29, 2009. The annually scheduled, combined U.S. -Moroccan exercise, AFRICAN LION, is designed to improve interoperability and mutual understanding of each nation's tactics, techniques and procedures and is scheduled to run until June 4. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sergeant Rocco DeFilippis)

MALI - Malian commandos advance with a member of the U.S. 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) during training rehearsals May 13, 2009, at a military training area north of Bamako, Mali. Building on specialized skills previously acquired during joint exercises such as Flintlock, which is Special Operations Command-Africa's premier Special Operations Forces exercise in the Trans-Saharan region, the "Warrior-Ambassadors" of the 3rd SFG (A) were continuing their Africa-focused security forces assistance mission to enhance African Partner Nation capabilities to help achieve regional cooperation and security. The 3rd SFG (A) is based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. (Photo by Max R. Blumenfeld, JSOTF-TS PAO)

In December 2008 the New York Times described:

… a five-year, $500 million partnership between the State and Defense Departments includes Algeria, Chad, Mauritania, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia, and Libya is on the verge of joining.

This effort is aimed at a small force, maybe 200 fighters, they call Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb

The GWOT activity in Africa was begun by EUCOM, the European Command, long before AFRICOM, the US Africa Command, was even announced as a plan. There were no terrorist incidents in north Africa, unless you count the Algerian government actions in the dirty war against their own people, which were estimated to have left 200,000 dead. Algeria was worried about being cut off from arms supplies, and the US interest in fighting terror came along just at the right time. Jeremy Keenan described the creation of the Saharan war on terror in a 2006 article:

The “why” has much to do with Washington’s “banana theory” of terrorism, so named because of the banana-shaped route Washington believed the dislodged terrorists from Afghanistan were taking into Africa and across the Sahelian countries of Chad, Niger, Mali, and Mauritania to link up with Islamist militants in the Maghreb. Hard evidence for this theory was lacking. There was little or no Islamic extremism in the Sahel, no indigenous cases of terrorism, and no firm evidence that “terrorists” from Afghanistan, Pakistan, or the Middle East were taking this route.

Washington appears to have based its notion on some unpublished sources and Algerian press reports on the banditry and smuggling activities of the outlaw Mokhtar ben Mokhtar. It also misconstrued the Tablighi Jama`at movement, whose 200 or so members in Mali are nicknamed “the Pakistanis” because the sect’s headquarters are in Pakistan. Finally, local government agents told U.S. officials what they wanted to hear.

Notwithstanding the lack of evidence, Washington saw a Saharan Front as the linchpin for the militarization of Africa …
…

Washington’s interest in the Sahel and the flimsiness of its intelligence were extremely propitious for Algeria’s own designs. As western countries became aware of the Algerian army’s role in its “dirty war” of the 1990s against Islamic extremists, they became increasingly reluctant to sell it arms for fear of Islamist reprisals and criticism from human rights groups. As a result, Algeria’s army became progressively under-equipped and increasingly preoccupied with acquiring modern, high-tech weapon systems, notably night vision devices, sophisticated radar systems, an integrated surveillance system, tactical communications equipment, and certain lethal weapon systems. Whereas the Clinton administration kept its distance, the Bush administration invited Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika as one of its first guests to Washington. Bouteflika told his American counterpart that Algeria wanted specific equipment to maintain peace, security, and stability.

September 11 was a golden opportunity for both regimes, especially Algeria, which sold its “expertise” in counter-terrorism to Washington on the basis of its long “war” against Islamists through the 1990s that left 200,000 people dead.

The two governments created terrorism together. It started with:

… the hostage-taking of 32 tourists in the Algerian Sahara. The United States attributed their capture in March 2003 to Algeria’s Islamist “terrorist” organization, the Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPC). The presumed mastermind of the plot was the GSPC’s second-in-command, who goes by many aliases, including El Para after his stint as a parachutist in the Algerian army.

The GSPC held the hostages in two groups approximately 300 kilometers apart in the Algerian Sahara. An Algerian army assault liberated one of the groups. The captors took the other group to northern Mali and finally released the hostages following the alleged ransom payment of five million Euros. The hostage-taking confirmed U.S. suspicions. Even before the hostages were released, the Bush administration was branding the Sahara as a terror zone and El Para as a top al-Qaida operative and “bin Laden’s man in the Sahel.”
…

By the end of January, Algerian and Malian forces, reportedly with U.S. support, were said to have driven the GSPC from northern Mali. Then, in a series of engagements, a combined military operation of Niger and Algerian forces, supported by U.S. satellite surveillance, chased El Para’s men across the Tamesna, Aïr, and Tenere regions of Niger into the Tibesti Mountains of Chad. There, thanks to the support of U.S. aerial reconnaissance, Chadian forces engaged the GSPC in early March in a battle lasting three days, reportedly killing 43 GSPC. El Para managed to escape the carnage but fell into the hands of a Chadian rebel movement. This group held him hostage until October 2004 when he was returned to Algeria, allegedly with the help of Libya. In June 2005, an Algerian court convicted him in absentia of “creating an armed terrorist group and spreading terror among the population.” It sentenced El Para to life imprisonment.

Within a year, the United States and its allies had transformed the Sahara-Sahel region into a second front in the global “war on terror.” Prior to the hostage-taking in March 2003, no act of terror, in the conventional meaning of the term, had occurred in this vast region. Yet, by the following year, U.S. military commanders were describing terrorists as “swarming” across the Sahel and the region as a “Swamp of Terror.”
…
But the incidents used to justify the launch of this new front in the “war on terror” were either fiction, in that they simply did not happen, or fabricated by U.S. and Algerian military intelligence services. El Para was not “Bin Laden’s man in the Sahara,” but an agent of Algeria’s counter-terrorist organization, the Direction des Renseignements et de la Sécurité. Many Algerians believe him to have been trained as a Green Beret at Fort Bragg in the 1990s. Almost every Algerian statement issued during the course of the hostage drama has now been proven to be false. No combined military force chased El Para and his men across the Sahel. El Para was not even with his men as they stumbled around the Aïr Mountains in search of a guide and having themselves photographed by tourists. As for the much-lauded battle in Chad, there is no evidence that it happened. Leaders of the Chadian rebel movement say it never occurred, while nomads, after two years of scratching around in the area, have still not found a single cartridge case or other material evidence.

They were able to fabricate this war because:

First, the Algerian and U.S. military intelligence services channeled a stream of disinformation to an industry of terrorism “experts,” conservative ideologues, and compliant journalists who produced a barrage of articles. Second, if a story is to be fabricated, it helps if the location is far away and remote. The Sahara is the perfect place: larger than the United States and effectively closed to public access.
…
The Bush administration fabricated an entire front in the “war on terror” for its own political purposes. Its obsession with secrecy is not for reasons of national security but to conceal falsehood.

And this is still going on. President Obama has continued to support many of Bush’s secrecy policies that continue to conceal falsehoods. Obama has embraced AFRICOM, and made Gen. James Jones his National Security advisor. Gen. Jones was Commander of the US European Command during the first Bush administration and played an enthusiastic and crucial role in initiating the lie based second front of the GWOT in north Africa.

 

If Uganda Has Oil It Must Need The Pentagon’s Democracy

If there is oil in Uganda, there must be bad people there who need the Pentagon to bring them democracy, a colleague observed. And indeed this is in part correct, there are some very bad people there. The Lords Resistance Army has plagued Uganda for 20 years, committing murders and atrocities, and kidnapping children to be child soldiers and sex slaves. The map below shows the historical areas in which the LRA operated. Much of the time the problem was ignored. But it has been a huge problem, creating hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people, especially children.

Ugandan districts affected by Lords Resistance Army, map created by Mark Dingemanse for Wikimedia.

The US has not taken much notice of this until very recently. The Ugandan Army has stepped up its battle against the LRA in recent years, and the LRA has moved and expanded its operations into the DRC, as well as Sudan and the Central African Republic. In December 2008, the US Africa Command, AFRICOM, helped plan and arm a badly botched raid on the LRA, including contributing $1 million worth of fuel. Without the money for fuel, the raid could not have taken place. No effort was made to warn or defend the civilian population. The raid failed, the raiders came up empty handed, but the LRA attacked the civilian population in reprisal. It carried on a reign of terror throughout areas of the DRC that went on for weeks and months. Hundreds have been killed and maimed, children were kidnapped, and are still being kidnapped, and hundreds of thousands displaced. I wrote about it earlier, with links to accounts of what happened, Stability operations cause 900 civilian deaths, 100,000 displaced, miss target and Botched raid. Here is a map of LRA attacks outside Uganda, mostly in the DRC:

Map of LRA attacks in the DRC, December 2007 - January 2009. Total number of villages attacked: 74, Attacked once: 47, Attacked twice: 9, Attacked three times: 5, Attacked eight times: 1 (Duru)

Now there are oil discoveries in the neighborhood. With the oil discoveries there is a lot more US interest in doing something about the LRA.

US Senate wants Obama to crush LRA for good

The East African, June 1 2009
Republicans as well as Demo-crats are pressing President Barack Obama to help the Ugandan military destroy the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Legislation introduced last week in the US Senate would require the Obama administration to move towards “eliminating the threat posed by the Lord’s Resistance Army.”

The proposal calls for military and other forms of US support for multilateral efforts to “apprehend or otherwise remove Joseph Kony and his top commanders from the battlefield and to disarm and demobilise Lord’s Resistance Army fighters.”

Introduced by key members of both major US political parties, the legislation would also provide $20 million in the coming year for humanitarian aid to civilians in Central Africa affected by LRA actions and for efforts to promote recovery and reconciliation in northern Uganda.

“The introduction of this Bill demonstrates the growing consensus on the need for greater US leadership to disarm top LRA leaders and permanently end this violence,” said Democratic Congressman James McGovern.

Republican Congressman Ed Royce said the bill “rightly targets” LRA leader Joseph Kony.

“Kony’s removal is essential to peace in the region,” Royce declared.

It is fashionable to blame conflict in Africa on poverty and other environmental factors,” Royce wrote in a blog he posts on his congressional website.

“But sometimes just getting rid of one person does make a big difference. History is full of captivating leaders with bad ideas who do great damage. It’s a lesson I learned from West Africa, where Liberian president Charles Taylor, ran a gangster regime that brought havoc to neighbouring Sierra Leone. After his hard-fought removal, the region is peaceful. Kony’s removal won’t guarantee peace — but it will make it possible.”

That approach is being endorsed by Human Rights Watch and 21 other non-governmental organisations in the US that are jointly backing the legislation known officially as the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act.

Thousands of young Americans have also taken up the cause of pushing the US government to help put an end to the atrocities that Kony’s forces have inflicted on civilians in Congo, Sudan and the Central African Republic as well as in Uganda.

This co-ordinated campaign by the US president’s political allies is likely to influence the Obama administration thinking. It increases the likelihood that the US Africa Command (Africom) will be ordered to help plan and execute a new Uganda-led offensive against the LRA.

Senator Russell Feingold said in introducing the anti-LRA legislation that the earlier “botched operation does not mean that we should just give up on the goal of ending the massacres and the threat to regional stability posed by this small rebel group.

Moreover, given that the US provided assistance and support for this operation at the request of the regional governments, we have a responsibility to help see this rebel war to its end.”

The LRA is an entirely appropriate target for the Ugandan government. I think everybody would be glad to see the last of the LRA. However, the presence of oil in Uganda and probably the DRC, plus the multitude of other minerals in the DRC makes any incursions there more complex. I doubt the Pentagon’s Africa Command will improve the democracy situation. You can see some some of the problem in this map of the DRC. It includes mineral resources, and the areas where both Rwanda and Uganda operate inside the DRC, ostensibly to go after the various militias originating in their countries, that now include the LRA. Though both Uganda and Rwanda rake in big profits from minerals mined in the DRC.

DRC map, coltan, minerals, with areas of Ugandan and Rwandan military activity marked

There is also the possibility of major oil finds in northwestern Kenya, bordering on northern Uganda and southeastern Sudan. So the LRA is very much in the way, wherever it is holed up or active. This more than any humanitarian concern is making it more urgent and important to get rid of them. AFRICOM is still wearing its humanitarian makeup in Northern Uganda. If you look at the map of Northern Uganda at the top of this post, Pader, Gulu, and Lira are all featured in the photos at the africom.mil photo gallery photos from Uganda. The one following is of US soldiers grading the road for a bridge crossing that will, among other things, help get goods to market at Lira. I so not wish to minimize the value of this and similar projects. They are a boon and blessing for the local people, until and unless they may be used against the local people. But humanitarian assistance is not the reason for AFRICOM. It would be better for development and democracy if such projects were funded and undertaken by civilian agencies. And the funding for these projects is peanuts compared to the military spending.

AROMA, Uganda - Local residents of Aroma, Uganda look on as service members from the U.S. Naval Mobile Construction Battalion-11, Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, grade the area surrounding the Walela Cultvert Bridge on May 5, 2009. This was the final construction phase of a bridge that connects the main Lira road to the Aroma sub-county. Funded by Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa, the Walela Bridge was constructed by 25 U.S. Navy construction engineers in partnership with their counterparts from the Uganda People’s Defense force. It will improve the lives of more than 60,000 people from three villages by enhancing their transportation ability, providing them with year-round access to the Lira market, and aiding in the delivery of humanitarian assistance supplies. (Photo by Technical Sergeant Dawn Price, CJTF-HOA)

There is another danger from US militarism in Uganda’s path. Back in February Charles Onyango Obbo wrote in Uganda’s Daily Monitor:

Iraq war could end up on Museveni’s doorsteps

Two weeks ago The Sunday Times (of London) magazine had a striking photograph of Ugandan guards in Iraq. But even more telling was the short text that accompanied it. It reported that while Britain and America are planning on withdrawing their troops from Iraq, “the Ugandans are coming”.

The Ugandans, said The Sunday Times, were ‘desperate’ to be sent to Iraq, and already almost 10,000 of them are working as private security guards in Iraq, risking their lives to guard various American installations. We know this already, but then it gets quite interesting. It describes the war in Iraq as the ‘most privatised’ in history.

Over the last five years, America has dished out contracts worth about $100 billion. More and more of the 230,000 private-sector jobs related to the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, it said, have been outsourced to the Third World, what it called “the military equivalent of installing call centres in India”.

It discussed why American and British contractors moved into Uganda to hire guards for Iraq (we speak English, have surplus veterans from our many wars) but, ultimately they came because Uganda “is cheap”. Since the first lot of guards was sent in 2005, the paper reports, competition has driven wages down from $1,300 a month to around $600 today.

To understand how cheap our lives are, the $6000 compares with the $15,000 a British and American guard could make.
It would take a Ugandan two years to earn what a Brit or American makes in a month. It becomes very ironical: The Uganda government backs Zimbabwe President Robert Zimbabwe in his insane drive to destroy his once prosperous country, and Kampala officials and security officers own the firms that have a monopoly on exporting Ugandan guards to Iraq. However, most of the chaps who train the Ugandan Iraq guards are white instructors from Zimbabwe. Some of them, probably, were officers in the white supremacist army against which Mugabe and his guerrillas fought!

The story of Ugandan Iraq guards, however, is just in the first chapter of its telling. Even at $600 (before the Ugandan firm deducts its njawulo), these guards are already making more than they possibly could at home. Now that the American presence is winding down, by the end of next year, there might be little work for Third World guards in Iraq. If there is, the salaries could be so low, it would no longer be worth it.

When these 10,000 guards return home, then the reckoning will start. Their story might be much like that of the African veterans of World War II. The unintended effect of that war was that when the Africans returned home, they were inspired to join the struggle for independence. Their fear of the colonialist had gone. They had killed the mzungu in war, seen them wail in pain, and flee hot battles, and their allies. They realised that; ‘Hey, these guys are just like us’, and decided that there was nothing special that gave them the right to colonise us.

The Ugandans who are serving in Iraq have seen even a more dramatic humbling of the world’s sole superpower, America. If America can be brought to its knees by a rag tag bunch of dissidents, the UPDF – a comparatively rudimentary and unsophisticated force (its notable bush credentials notwithstanding) – must look very ordinary to them now.

President Yoweri Museveni is a not a fool, one reason he has been able to cling to power as long as he has. He realises that the guards are probably better trained than the average UPDF soldier. And, farther, that having so many people with their skills who are not intimidated by the UPDF returning home and not being within the control of the security services, is dangerous.

Just like the government has done with many LRA former rebels, it will incorporate the guards into the UPDF. That, however, has its risks. Even when they were badly treated, the Uganda guards in Iraq lived better, were paid more and more promptly, than many rank and file UPDF soldiers, some of whom still live in manyattas, and make do with tired sandals for boots. They could spread discontent, and that is hazardous. Also, UPDF cannot possibly absorb 10,000 guards, some of whom might not necessarily have the “correct” political and ethnic profile for the army.

The best option, therefore, would to create a Reserve Foreign Force in which all the former guards are placed, and get a trusted general who is on kateebe, to head it. That will partially solve the problem of control, but it won’t help in ensuring loyalty to the “Museveni way”, as the bulk of the Iraqi guards are unlikely to ever be dyed-in-the-wool NRM cadres.

The private need by the regime to reward insiders by letting them corner the Iraqi guards supply contracts could one day clash with its public need to keep power by monopolising the means and skills of war. Will the Museveni government avoid the fate of the British colonialists after WW II? Only time will tell.

Charles Onyango Obbo is an astute observer and journalist. As he points out, we only know the opening chapters of this story. The comments that follow the original text at the link are worth reading as well, and lend credence to Obbo’s observations. The oil discoveries, and competition for oil money will further complicate the tale. The presence of AFRICOM, which is already on quite friendly terms with Museveni, and the US habit of picking favorites and interfering with domestic politics, as it has been doing in Kenya and Somalia, is likely to play a part in the unfolding story.

________

Map links:
LRA in Northern Uganda
LRA attacks in the DRC
DRC, coltan, and military activity

________

Added June 20:

It looks like Uganda is in for a bunch more partnering with AFRICOM. Obama just appointed/nominated the ambassador to Uganda, from the White House:

Jerry P. Lanier, Nominee for Ambassador to the Republic of Uganda

Jerry P. Lanier is a career diplomat with 26 years of service in the Department of State. He is currently the Foreign Policy Advisor for U.S. Africa Command headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany.
Prior to that, he was the Director of the Office of Regional and Security Affairs in the Africa Bureau at the State Department. Mr. Lanier has also served in the Philippines, Kenya, Thailand, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Ghana. At State he has served as the Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, country officer for the Republic of Korea, Legislative Management Officer for Africa, Deputy Director for the Office of West African Affairs, and Deputy Director for the Office Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh Affairs. He received his B.A. at Pembroke State University, his M.A. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and served three years as lecturer in the history department of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Mr. Lanier’s employment history looks like he has experience interfering with the internal affairs of other nations.

 

Uganda – Oil Reserves To Rival Saudi Arabia?

Huge deposits of oil have been identified in Uganda along the shore of Lake Albert:
Uganda’s oil reserves rival Saudi Arabia’s, says US expert

map of Uganda showing the Bunyoro kingdom in green, located along the side of Lake Albert, where much of the oil is located

Uganda along lake Albert, the white line in the lake is the border between Uganda and DRC. On the Uganda side you can see the places Tonyo, Hoima, and Butiaba marked on the map. These are locations of oil discoveries.

These are the oil blocks around Lake Albert, with Uganda on the east/right, and the DRC on the west/left

KAMPALA, UGANDA - Uganda’s oil reserves could be as much as that of the Gulf countries, a senior official at the US Department of Energy has said.

Based on the test flow results encountered at the wells so far drilled and other oil numbers, Ms. Sally Kornfeld, a senior analyst in the office of fossil energy went ahead to talk about Uganda’s oil reservoirs in the same sentence as Saudi Arabia.”You are blessed with amazing reservoirs. Your reservoirs are incredible. I am amazed by what I have seen, you might rival Saudi Arabia,” Kornfeld told a visiting delegation from Uganda in Washington DC.

The group of Ugandans was in Washington on an international visitor programme and looked at the efficient use of natural energy resources.

The group comprised Ministry of Energy officials, a Member of Parliament, members from the civil society and one journalist.

At present, Uganda has four oil prospectors on the ground including Heritage Oil, Tullow Oil, Tower Oil and Dominion Oil.

Of the four prospectors, Tullow and Heritage have registered success at wells in two blocks in the Albertine basin, which lies in the upper-most part of the western arm of the Great Rift Valley.

According to data so far aggregated since the first discovery was made by Australian prospector Hardman Resources (now taken over by Tullow) in June 2006, Uganda has established reserves at 3.5 million barrels of oil per day.

Experts in oil exploration say this could be just a tip of the iceberg.

…

In April last year, Tullow embarked on what it termed as a major drilling campaign in the Butiaba area around Lake Albert targeting an overall reserve potential in excess of a billion barrels.

The Butiaba campaign was preceded by successes in two drilling campaigns in the Kaiso-Tonya area and the Kingfisher field and all these have been 100% successes so far.

The Butiaba campaign has thrown up successes but the two biggest so far have been the Buffalo-Giraffe wells – described as “one of the largest recent onshore oil discoveries in Africa“.

“Combined with our other finds in the region, we have now clearly exceeded the thresholds for basin development,” the chief executive of Tullow commented then.

The Giraffe-1 exploration well, which is located in the Butiaba region, came up with over 38 metres of net oil pay within an 89-metre gross oil bearing interval.

The data from the Giraffe discovery indicate a net reservoir thickness of 38 metres, the largest encountered in the area to date.

The Buffalo-1 exploration well in Block 1 encountered 15 metres of net gas pay and over 28 metres of net oil pay.

The gas and oil columns encountered are 48 metres and 75 metres respectively with the potential to be even larger.

As Kornfeld marveled at Uganda’s oil finds, she was quick to add that for the country to benefit from the oil and gas resources but also avoid the pitfalls of oil producing countries like Nigeria, it is extremely important to set up strong governance structures.

Kornfeld and the other United States officials said they are ready to help Uganda’s nascent oil and gas sector with anything including the key environmental issues that are crucial to the efficient management of oil and gas.

“Anything you might want us to help you with we will and we have a lot of expertise in environmental issues relating to oil and gas,” Kornfeld said.

And in a quote from the article written a year ago, with the oil blocks pictured above:

“The Albert Basin now looks increasingly like it has the elements to make it a world-class petroleum basin. The flow rates, even constrained by available completion and test facilities, far exceeded our expectations,” Tony Buckingham says.

It is certainly true the the US has a lot of experience, and one might say expertise, in environmental issues relating to oil and gas. Unfortunately much of that expertise and experience is involved in circumventing and evading environmental law and responsible environmental management.

Then, as Ms. Kornfeld said, there is the issue of avoiding the pitfalls of other oil producing countries like Nigeria. In general, the US has supported the policies and governments in Nigeria that have engineered these pitfalls, into seemingly bottomless pits, working along with the US based oil corporations operating in Nigeria. So although they might know what to avoid in order to be socially and environmentally responsible, there is no indication that the US government or the oil corporations have any intention of acting in socially or environmentally responsible ways. Uganda does not have much history of environmentalism it can point to with pride either. So far the US response to African oil issues has been almost entirely military, hence AFRICOM, the US Africa Command.

The Uganda government may be strong in the sense of using muscle to insure compliance. It employs muscle internally against dissent, and externally to assist in exploiting the resources of its neighbors, particularly in the DRC. However its democratic history is weak, and employment of any form of participatory democracy in decision making is sadly lacking. The US has been an enthusiastic supporter of Uganda’s “strength”. Mahmood Mamdani points out that Museveni has been a US proxy in Rwanda, and is still a US proxy in the DRC. AMISOM soldiers from Uganda are in Somalia acting as US proxies, and the underlying issue there too is oil.

Museveni‘s name means son of a man of the seventh, meaning from the Seventh Battalion of the Kings Africa Rifles. That seems ironically appropriate, as Uganda is acting as a US proxy in the DRC, Somalia, and Ugandan mercenaries have played a prominent role in Iraq. US proxy warriors in Africa have been referred to as Bush’s Africa Rifles, now Obama’s Africa Rifles, not too different from the colonial proxy war tradition of the King’s Africa Rifles.

Museveni has shown no interest in allowing any democratic opposition to his presidency. In May he declared: I see no successor in NRM.

He may have ruled Uganda for the past twenty three years but President Yoweri Museveni is still hesitant to hand over power, not even to members of the National Resistance Movement, of which he is the leader.

On Thursday the president told NRM Members of Parliament that while he would be “happy” to hand over power, he saw “nobody” ready to take on the daunting responsibility of leading Uganda.

So the Uganda government will continue to run along lines that Museveni sees as in his/Uganda’s interest. I don’t know if this is the “strong governance structures” to which Kornfeld refers. It may well be. She and her cronies may see this as the most convenient way for the US to access Ugandan oil. But it cannot be described as democratic, or in any way resembling participatory democracy. Unless people who live where the resources are can benefit from those resources, and have some say in how they are disposed, there will be conflict. And problems are already brewing. In April 2009 Uganda Bunyoro Kingdom Threatens Lawsuit over Oil Exploration:

Cultural leaders of Uganda’s Bunyoro kingdom, located on the Ugandan side of the oil-rich Albertine rift, have threatened legal action against the central government over oil exploration and production activities there, a kingdom official said Monday, but the government has promised talks to resolve the issue.

Yolamu Nsamba, the principal private secretary of the king of Bunyoro, said the government has breached the pre-independence agreement of 1955, which provides that Bunyoro is entitled to substantial amounts of revenue from mineral exploration in its kingdom.

“For years now, the central government has been dealing with oil exploration companies secretly yet the law has never been changed,” he said, adding that kingdom officials have already informed the central government of its intentions.

A government official told Dow Jones Newswires separately Monday that the central government would soon start talks with kingdom officials to resolve the issue. Uganda is expected to embark on an early oil production scheme in the first quarter of 2010.

The 1955 agreement was signed between the Bunyoro Kitara Kingdom and the U.K. protectorate government and stipulates that in the event of mineral development taking place in Bunyoro, a substantial part of the mineral royalties and revenue from mining leases would be paid to the native government of Bunyoro Kitara.

Bunyoro remains influential in Uganda although its cultural leaders are prohibited from engaging in national politics.

It will be interesting to see how Bunyoro fares in maintaining some control over its riches. And there are troubles with the neighbors too. In May 2009 Uganda beefs up marine surveillance on its waters.

Uganda has stepped up security on its waterways and is quietly revamping its marine police in anticipation of tensions with its neighbours over the country’s natural resources.
…
Apparently, the discovery of high-value natural resources such as oil and gas under and near Uganda’s lakes and the need to protect fisheries resources are the imperative behind moves to improve security on the country’s waters.
…
The Police Marine Unit has acquired four specialised boats at a cost of $8.6 million to be paid over a period of five years.

The acquisitions and keen interest in marine security come in the wake of an incident in August 2007, when Congolese troops on the disputed Rukwanzi island in Lake Albert shot and killed oil prospectors who were carrying out surveys on the Ugandan side of the lake.

Officials say terror threats have also underscored the need for improving security on the country’s lakes because Uganda’s main Entebbe airport — the kind of key infrastructure usually targeted by terrorists — is located on a peninsula in Lake Victoria.
…
Much as the boats are up and running and have recently been seen around Migingo island, over which Kenya and Uganda are squabbling, questions are being raised over the capacity of the police to take on and maintain such infrastructure both financially and technically.

Uganda is landlocked, so issues of how and where the oil will be refined and transported are still up in the air. Tullow, Heritage Face Tough Choices on Uganda Oil Devt.

After remarkable exploration success in Uganda, Tullow Oil PLC (TLW.LN) and Heritage Oil Ltd. (HOIL.LN) face tough choices over how to develop the oil they’ve discovered.

Both companies face immense infrastructure challenges bringing the oil from its remote region to world markets. They have to walk a fine line between their commercial goals and the sometimes conflicting ambitions of the Ugandan government. Tullow and Heritage also have to handle overtures from much larger rivals that want in on the substantial quantities of oil they have discovered.
…
“Lake Albert is a multibillion-barrel basin,” with great potential to expand reserves even further once problems with licenses on the Congolese side of the lake are resolved and exploration begins there, said Paul Atherton, chief financial officer of Heritage.
…

Tullow and Heritage have long talked of exporting the Lake Albert oil to world markets via Kenya, initially by rail to the port of Mombassa and eventually through a large enough pipeline to carry the 150,000 barrels of oil per day the basin is thought to be capable of producing.

The government has clashed recently with Tullow over the pipeline, said an official at the energy and minerals ministry.

And Uganda’s energy minister recently said no unrefined oil should be exported from Uganda and instead the country should build a refinery to process all domestic crude and supply oil products to the whole region.
…

As talks on the development move slowly forward, one voice that has been heard little so far is that of the local communities, said Dickens Kamugisha, chief executive of the African Institute for Energy Governance, a non-governmental organization based in the Ugandan capital.

Local people are worried about the problems caused in Nigeria, Angola and Chad by the exploitation of oil resources and unchecked flows of petrodollars to governments with a reputation for corruption, he said. “The process has been secretive,” with insufficient public discussion over the competing development plans and no publication of the production-sharing contracts between the Ugandan government and the companies, he said.

Tullow and Heritage stressed that they have maintained good relationships with local communities. Tullow said it has shown local people around their drill sites to explain what they are doing and both companies are contributing to local development by funding schools, health clinics and even lifeboat training on the lake. Employment of local people “would be an integral part of any development plan,” along the lines of work the company has done in Ghana, said McDade.

Kamugisha acknowledged the local work of the companies, but expressed concern about the lack of transparency from the government. He said he wants the Ugandan government to follow the principles of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and declare all oil revenues openly in order to prevent corruption. Both Tullow and Heritage said they are happy to disclose the terms of their contracts — which they described as containing good terms for Uganda — if the government allows it.

Whether this is enough is unclear. A dispute is already brewing over who controls rights to minerals in the Lake Albert area and how revenues will be distributed between the government and leaders of the Bunyoro Kingdom — the ethnic grouping that occupies districts on the lake’s eastern shore . Local communities “say they have been completely left out of the process and are not satisfied,” said Kamugisha.

It looks like some rough roads ahead.

__________

Note:
h/t to b real whose research identified many of the links above
Bunyoro map from Face Music – History of Uganda 
Oil blocks pictured above blocks from this article .

 

AFRICOM’s Latest Sea Basing Exercise, In Benin June 3-25

Will U.S. economic interests trump the rule of law, democracy and accountability in Africa?

Benin on the map, bordering Nigeria to the east, bordering Togo, and near Ghana to the west

COTONOU, Benin - Beninese stevedores and U.S. Marines from 4th Landing Support Battalion offload an incoming military vehicle during Exercise SHARED ACCORD June 3, 2009. The exercise is a scheduled, combined U.S.-Benin military exercise designed to improve interoperability and mutual understanding of each nation's tactics, techniques and procedures. Humanitarian and civil affairs projects are also scheduled to run concurrent with the exercise. The exercise concludes on June 25. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Major Keith Nunn)

In March 2008 the Navy executed its first sea basing exercise in West Africa in Liberia. I wrote about it in Sea basing begins off the coast of Liberia.
The exercise was:

… designed to evaluate the progress of the seabasing model.
“This sea-basing portion is designed to take future operational concepts and execute them using today’s platforms,” said Michael Harvey, prepositioning officer, U.S. Marine Corps Forces Europe. “We are taking equipment that was originally designed for ship-to-shore movement and we are using it as a ship-to-ship connecter.”

The current exercise in Benin looks like an expanded continuation of that model.

Exercise Shared Accord 2009
June 05, 2009
Marine Corps News

COTONOU, Benin – Approximately 400 U.S. military personnel have begun arriving in Bembereke, Benin to take part in Exercise SHARED ACCORD 09.

Exercise SHARED ACCORD is a scheduled, combined U.S.-Benin exercise focusing on the conduct of small unit infantry and staff training with the Beninese military and is designed to improve interoperability and mutual understanding of each nation’s tactics, techniques and procedures.

Infantry Marines from New Orleans-based 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division will work with their Beninese counterparts to focus on individual and crew-served weapons proficiency and small unit training tactics, techniques and procedures, as well as company- and battalion- level staff training in order to build our partner nation’s capacity to conduct peacekeeping operations.

Medical and dental personnel from 4th Marine Logistics Group and U.S. Air Force Reserve Command’s 459th Aerospace Medical Squadron will provide various medical related humanitarian assistance efforts for the local population in the towns of Sinende, Guessou-Sud and Gamia.

During the exercise, Marine engineers from 6th Engineer Support Battalion will participate in a humanitarian and civic assistance project at a school in the village of Konarou.

In addition to the infantry training, medical and dental assistance, and school construction project, SHARED ACCORD will feature soldiers from the 404th Civil Affairs Battalion who will provide veterinary assistance to several villages in the vicinity of Bembereke.

Exercise SHARED ACCORD is a U.S. Africa Command-sponsored, U.S. Marine Corps Forces Africa-planned exercise that supports U.S. Africa Command’s Theater Strategic Objectives. The exercise is scheduled to conclude on June 25. All U.S. forces will return to their home bases at the end of the exercise.

In this exercise the US is demonstrating that the work of government, building schools, public health, agricultural extension services, are best done by the military. Is this the message we wish to send? or the example we wish to display? Since US foreign policy is increasingly military policy, particularly in Africa, perhaps this is the intentional message, a message that supports and encourages undemocratic military governments with military to military partnerships.

At the top of this post is a question posed by Africa Action’s Gerald LeMelle. The US Africa Command inspired his list of critically important questions. None of these questions has been answered directly so far. The implied answers, implied by recent US actions in African countries, paint a grim and depressing picture.

• Who does the United States intend to stabilize by introducing more military equipment and approving more arms sales into the region?
• How does the United States decide when to use force in “stabilizing” a conflict?
• If people are protesting unfair corporate practices near the grounds of an oil company, will the United States use force, or encourage the use of force by African military units, to protect these corporate assets?
• Will U.S. soldiers be accountable in any way to African governments or their citizens?
• To what degree will the United States employ mercenaries and other contractors in Africa?
• Will U.S. economic interests trump the rule of law, democracy and accountability in Africa

I have previously quoted some of the sources quoted here, but the words bear repeating, especially since the plans and exercises for sea basing appear to be going forward. No country in Africa, aside from Liberia, has welcomed a US Africa Command headquarters. Djibouti has a base now, the CJTF-HOA, although originally that was supposed to be temporary. The Gulf of Guinea has large oil resources, relatively convenient to the United States. A mobile military base might be just what the Pentagon would like to help “stabilize” countries so their resources can be extracted. “Interoperability” produces proxy warriors. Nigeria, with its huge oil reserves, and history of ruthless resource exploitation, is right next to Benin. Many in the US military and government have spoken of Nigeria as a “failed state” in need of “stability operations.” In July 2007 Nick Turse wrote in Planet Pentagon:

The Pentagon is now considering — and planning for — future “sea-basing.” No longer just a ship, a fleet, or “prepositioned material” stationed on the world’s oceans, sea-bases will be “a hybrid system-of-systems consisting of concepts of operations, ships, forces, offensive and defensive weapons, aircraft, communications and logistics.” The notion of such bases is increasingly popular within the military due to the fact that they “will help to assure access to areas where U.S. military forces may be denied access to support [land] facilities.” After all, as a report by the Defense Science Board pointed out, “[S]eabases are sovereign [and] not subject to alliance vagaries.” Imagine a future where the people of countries at odds with U.S. policies suddenly find America’s “massive seaborne platforms” floating just outside their territorial waters.

The Liberian exercise brought ashore about 58K worth of assistance, pennies compared to the cost of the exercise.  I have not seen any costs listed for the Benin operation.   A recent contract for just transporting naval lighterage equipment within the US came to $6.3 million, just a percentage of a $405.6 million cumulative contract. The difference in dollars for money spent on the “humanitarian” window dressing, compared to money spent on Naval equipment and operations, tells us the relative importance of these features of the current mission.

 

Ghanaians Discuss AFRICOM & Obama’s Visit

This is something that no one among us has the power to do with our sovereignty. It amounts to the attempted robbery of the nation by the force of arms. In a fundamental matter such as this, that has serious implications on our status as an independent nation, that could even mean life or death to Ghanaians, as we have seen in the bombs that continue to fall on marriage ceremonies in Afghanistan, the minimum expectation ought to have been an open democratic national debate and not secretive and conspiratorial manoeuvres.

TAKORADI, Ghana - A traditional fishing boat sails in the Gulf of Guinea near the fishing village of Takoradi, west of Ghana's capital, Accra, on March 2, 2009. U.S. Africa Command's civilian deputy, Ambassador Mary C. Yates, met with local fishermen to discuss ways that maritime security programs can protect fishing stocks, which are a vital source of food in West Africa. Inset: Nana Ekow Akon, chief of the Takoradi fishing community, speaks with U.S. Africa Command's civilian deputy, Ambassador Mary C. Yates, on March 2, 2009. Yates visited West Africa to discuss international cooperation in illegal fishing, counter-narcotics and illicit trafficking. (Photos by Vince Crawley, U.S. Africa Command)

Nana Akyea Mensah writes in US Military Base In Ghana in response to a feature article on GhanaWeb by Asare Otchere-Darko, Obama’s Visit – What’s In It For Us And U.S.? Otchere-Darko’s article describes and implies that Kufuor did a deal with Bush and General Ward, bringing the Africa Command into Ghana without informing the Ghanaian people.

… in August 2007 Major-General Ward, who was later confirmed as AFRICOM’s first commander, visited Accra. He held discussions with President Kufuor on “ways of strengthening military cooperation.” His high-powered secret meetings with the President, Minister of Defence and the Chief of Defence Staff triggered huge speculation. Much was made of Maj Gen J B Danquah’s public statement about the visit when he said Maj Gen Ward had ‘done enough to resolve’ Ghana’s concerns about AFRICOM, adding, “I have had the chance to hear [Ward] explain what is the reasoning behind the command, and it’s all about partnership.”

This passage is preceded by:

At the moment the Americans say they are happy to keep the U.S. Africa Command headquarters in Germany, to coordinate all U.S. military and security interests throughout the African continent. But any reasonable assessment must conclude that this can be nothing but a temporary address and arrangement. Ghana should welcome that it is thus the target of America’s desire – and we should make the most of this, using it for our own advantage. After all, the process has already started.

The U.S. and Ghanaian militaries have cooperated in numerous joint training exercises, including the African Crisis Response Initiative, an international activity in which the U.S. facilitates the development of an interoperable peacekeeping capacity among African nations. And the head of AFRICOM has already reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to assisting the Ghana Armed Forces “to become more robust”. There is also the African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance program. Beyond that, Ghana and the U.S. have an active bilateral International Military Education and Training program. In 2007, Kwesi Pratt Jnr, the Managing Editor of The Insight newspaper and the energy behind the pressure group Socialist Forum, warned Ghanaians against what he saw to be the looming danger of a U.S. military base in Ghana. He cited, inter alia, the erection of the huge American Embassy complex in Cantonments as evidence of this.

And Otchere-Darko follows it with this:

General T. Hobbins, head of the U.S. Air Forces Europe, has held discussions with his counterparts here on the possibility of establishing “lily pads”, landing and rapid airlift facilities in otherwise deserted terrain in certain strategic sites in Africa. Tamale Airport has come up as one of the “forward operating sites” targeted. That airport is said to have a runway capacity of accommodating massive U.S. C-3 cargo planes and troop transports.

Ghana is also already the site of a U.S.-European Command-funded Exercise Reception Facility that was established to facilitate troop deployments for exercises or crisis response within the region. The direct link to our oil is only too apparent: the Facility came out of Ghana’s partnership with the United States on what is termed a Fuel Hub Initiative. It may sound like a mere gas station for the troops. But the choice of stable, imminently oil-rich Ghana as a Fuel Hub reflects a greater strategic interest in the country than as merely a filling station.

The Americans have not been shy in establishing a clear economic link alongside their military cooperation.

There are already lily pads and a robust American military presence in Ghana, which I have written about previously in this blog.

Kwesi Pratt was one of the first to raise the alarm about oil and US military bases in Africa. In a 2007 interview he said:

Kwesi Pratt: I am very alarmed after reading what is called the Cheney Report. When Bush came to power, he set up a committee chaired by Dick Cheney his Vice President to assess America’s energy requirements up to the year 2015. The Cheney Report actually says that by the year 2015, twenty percent of American oil requirements will be supplied by West Africa and therefore it is important to maintain a foothold in West Africa in order to ensure that oil supplies from West Africa to the United States of America will not be interrupted.

Consequently, the United States is planning to establish military bases across West Africa including Ghana. And I am very worried that at a time when we are celebrating our national independence we are going to tolerate the establishment of foreign military bases, especially American military bases on our soil. The great Osageyfo Dr. Nkrumah, Malcolm X, Kwame Ture, and all of them emphasized that Africa ought to be free from foreign military bases and weapons of mass destruction. We cannot allow that dream to die.

That is why, it is important for us to resist all attempts to establish foreign military bases on African soil especially forces of the United States, must be prevented from establishing on African soil. Clearly because they are not on African soil to protect our interests, they are on African soil to facilitate the exploitation of our resources for the benefit of the tiny minority that controls the wealth of the American people and who are sitting on top of this world exploiting the Chicanos, exploiting the African Americans and exploiting all of the other independent and healthy forces in the United States on America. We have to resist all attempts to build U.S. military bases in Ghana and elsewhere in Africa.

Nana Akyea Mensah writes:

I feel greatly incensed by the casual manner Mr. Ochere-Darko breaks this news as though it is simply a matter of business, and not even making any attempt to explain the basis of the conspiracy that he confesses in the article. What does this mean? According to Asare Ochere Darko, even though the NPP government did not allow Ghanaians to have a say in whether or not they want a US military base on our soil, it is too late for the Atta-Mills government to say “No”! In other words, without any national debate, whether we like it or not the process has already been started and they cannot be reversed, so we are as good as being already occupied by a foreign power!
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Is this supposed to mean that the NPP government was simply throwing dust into our eyes whilst plotting secretly to undermine our national independence and sell us to the Americans? Fortunately for Ghana and Africa, the elections did not go their way. From the article under discussion, it seems to me that with Obama and Atta-Mills in power, the same special interests behind the establishment of the military base in Ghana, the military industrial complex of the USA, are acting as ventriloquists, using their local stooges, to revive their diabolic plot, and rope the two newcomers into the deal. Who else could fit better in the role of selling Ghana to the imperialists more than the very right hand man of Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo, the great Asare Ochere-Darko, himself? If you should ask me what it was that worried me most in the article, I believe I would put my finger on the following seven words written by Mr. Ochere-Darko: “After all, the process has already started.” Most of us are still dazed by the question. What this man is virtually telling Ghanaians is that for months, the NPP has been secretly plotting with foreign powers to establish military bases on our lands without letting out a word about it to the Ghanaian public.

The picture above is of Mary Carlin Yates, AFRICOM’s top civilian employee, promising that AFRICOM can help protect Ghana’s fishing rights, and help protect against drugs. But money for these programs was cut from the Pentagon’s budget. As Daniel Volman informs us in AFRICOM from Bush to Obama:

AFRICAN COASTAL AND BORDER SECURITY PROGRAM (ACBS) – provides specialized equipment (such as patrol vessels and vehicles, communications equipment, night vision devices, and electronic monitors and sensors) to African countries to improve their ability to patrol and defend their own coastal waters and borders from terrorist operations, smuggling, and other illicit activities … No dedicated funding was requested for FY 2008 [or in 2007]

With this in mind, I cannot help thinking that Ms. Yates is, in the very best interpretation, being misleading.

Ms. Yates said in Washington on May 12th:

She disclosed that of the four major target areas of its mission-statement, which explicitly are, reducing conflict, improving security, defeating violent extremism and supporting crisis response. The three words that highlight the Command’s activities are “sustained security engagement”.
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“When I was U.S. Ambassador in Ghana, we had a robust military-to-military program. We started the State Partnership Program. What we want to do is to find the African partners who are looking to build peace and stability in their nations and in their regions – partnering with those African standby forces as they build their goal is to come online with battalions for each of the five geographic areas by 2010”.

Five battalions do not mean more peace. Just like lots of police in a neighborhood are an indication of crime and violence, lots of soldiers in a country or region are a sign of war and conflict. If it is not there already, they will bring it.

Open and democratic debate is the currency of democracy. It is sadly lacking in many places that call themselves democracies, including being far too lacking in the United States. Mr. Ochere-Darko says:

But we must not ignore America’s interest. After all, whatever his connection to the African continent, Obama is President of America – and acts in the interest of its people at home above all else.

And so far, in terms of policies, Obama has shown himself to be a willing and enthusiastic supporter of the entrenced elites, what Kwesi Pratt calls the tiny minority that controls the wealth of the American people. Obama has allowed a certain amount of democracy theater in his political manueverings so far. But he has carefully closed off any areas of debate he does not wish to entertain. And President Obama seems to be continuing all the same military imperialist programs initiated by Mr. Bush.

I have been an enthusiastic supporter of President Obama. I made my own small contributions to his campaign. He is wildly and justifiably popular in Ghana and Africa. This should not blind us to what is going on. And it should not stop us from exercising our democratic responsibility to speak out and say what we see.

ADDED June 8th:
For a broader sampling of Ghanaian opinion, read the comment threads on these three posts, listed below, from GhanaWeb. As Nana Akyea Mensah says:

We had an interesting discussion on Ghanaweb yesterday, and as usual an overwhelming consensus was a clear and mighty “NO TO AFRICOM!”

US Military Base In Ghana

Obama’s Visit – What’s In It For Us And U.S.?

Ghanaians Discuss AFRICOM & Obama’s Visit

 

Accounts And Analysis Of The War In The Creeks

Burnt palace of the monarch of Gbaramatu kingdom in Oporoza near the volatile oil rich Niger Delta. Photo: GEORGE ESIRI from 234next.com.

Here is a rundown of a variety of news reports and commentaries on the JTF attacks in Nigeria’s Delta State.

Sokari writes of the initial attack, and includes moving testimonies of what happened from the surviviors:

On May 14, 2009 at about noon, Gbaramatu Kingdom,Delta State, was in a festive mood. There had been an influx of guests into the community from far and near. They all came to witness the presentation of the Staff of Office to the Pere of Gbaramatu Kingdom, His Royal Majesty Ogie the third. The palace located in Oporoza was filled with well- wishers as the day also marked the King’s one year anniversary. Suddenly, three low flying helicopters were seen approaching the Kindgom. The community people initially thought they were flying dignitaries to the ceremony or that they were part of the glamour for the ceremony. They were wrong. Dead wrong!

The three choppers were actually gunships of the Joint Military Task Force, on a mission to mow down the Gbaramatu Kingdom. Suddenly the gunships started bombing everywhere, the King’s palace inclusive.

Next reports that the JTF assault on the Gbaramatu communities is of questionable legality:

The legality of the current onslaught against militants in Delta State by the Joint Military Task Force is stoking controversy among lawyers, lawmakers and military officials spoken to by NEXT on Sunday

Although the Nigerian defence headquarters claimed it sought and got the nod of the Nigerian president, Umaru Yar’Adua to embark on the campaign, critics of the action said the president erred in not seeking the support of the National Assembly for the exercise. The Assembly, last Wednesday however, voted to support the campaign.

Neither the Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan nor the Delta State governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan received any prior notice of the action, as NEXT reported last Sunday.

The lack of debate in the House is also said to be responsible for the rather lax operating rules under which the military is conducting the war.

A Lagos lawyer, Jiti Ogunye said: “The commander of JTF sometime last week said that they were looking for a monarch and that they found some incriminating documents after ransacking his palace. I shuddered with amazement. The question is who made soldiers to be investigating crime? Where did they get that kind of right? They sacked the man’s house in the first instance, which is not right, or shall we now say that we are now subjected to a martial law? I mean all these are very important.”

Paul Adah, the deputy chairman of the House of Representatives Defence Committee said there was no act of parliament that establishes or recognizes the Joint Task Force. He, however, said the Nigerian President, as the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, has the powers to set up such task forces

Samuel Okikiola writes an account of a visit to Camp Five before the attacks, and has this to say about TomPolo:

TomPollo has an effective communication network with which he communicates with other fighters and inhabitants of smaller martial camps. His deputy did the talking most of the time. He said Tompollo was the head of the Ijaw struggle for emancipation. His other assistant has a Masters Degree from the University of Nigeria , Nsukka. His real name is Government Ekpomupolo. He will be 40 this year.

TomPollo has a vast business empire. He has a house in South Africa, where many of the current Niger-Delta governors passed the night whenever they visited. He was a consultant to Chevron, which sustained the relationship with him, owing to his integrity, honesty and charm. He was also a consultant to Shell Petroleum.
…

Top government officials have been visiting Tom Pollo in the past two years. The government was said to have made several overtures to him, including the post of a minister of state, which he rejected. His deputy commandant said the vice-president, Goodluck Jonathan had visited Camp 5 on two occasions; while a woman, said to be President Umaru Yar Adu’a sister, paid TomPollo a visit in 2008,appealing to him to “give her brother a chance to rule Nigeria peacefully.”

The account also describes Camp Five as clean and disciplined.

Ibiba Don-Pedro writes an analysis of the JTF attacks and the war in the creeks:

Two weeks after it began, on May 13, ongoing military attacks on Ijaw communities are taking a high toll on ordinary citizens in the area. The Joint Military Task Force has insisted that its mission was pegged on a search and rescue operation to locate 18 of its officers and men, missing in action since an encounter with fighters from the camp of Ijaw militant, Government Tompolo. The missing soldiers have not yet been found and each day brings fresh reports of attack on another Ijaw community and fresh civilian casualties along the Escravos River.

On Wednesday, May 27, Kokodiagbene, an Ijaw community of mostly fisher folk was invaded. Before this, communities including Oporoza, Okerenkoko, Azama, Kurutie, Kunukunama and Abiteye, among others, were destroyed within the first few days of the military offensive. In the following days, installations of Chevron were attacked by men of MEND, in a show of nerve, leaving unknown casualties.

Although not much has been heard in terms of actual casualty figures, the ongoing military blockade of the Escravos and surrounding creeks has raised fears over the fate of perhaps thousands of women, children, men and the aged who are forced out of their communities into the forests and swamps.

A rescue mission by the National Emergency Management Agency has assumed tragi-comedy proportions, as relief efforts and personnel are being ferried from Ogbe-Ijoh laboriously, through the meandering creeks by hand-pulled canoes. Yet, to reach the closest of the communities to Warri ordinarily takes two hours by a speedboat.

Condemnation of the military action has poured in, even as the military, through the Joint Media Campaign Centre, struggles to shift attention away from the reality of huge human casualties and continued suffering.
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This latest bloody battle, coming barely a week after the expiration of a three month notice by the Ijaw Youth Council, given February 5, 2009 to all militants to disarm and demobilize their camps, is being seen as the Federal Government’s version of the final solution to the Niger Delta conundrum.

It is a solution many groups had warned the administration not to explore. “State sponsors of terrorism cannot sustain oil exploration and production.

Next also has accounts of survivors of the attack on the Gbaramatu communities:

They all fled from Okerenkoko and Oporoza communities. Depending on who was telling the story: the people were either fleeing from soldiers or members of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta.

There has been continious bombardmenent of the area since May 13. A common trend, however, in the narrative of all actors in the saga is that residents of these communities in Gbaramatu kingdom of Ijaw nation, the fourth largest nationality in Nigeria, have become homeless. Many have been killed and many more rendered homeless. Families have been separated with some mothers not knowing the whereabouts of their children.

There are almost no men among the visible refugees. Those who are alive are still hiding in the bush. Any male is likely to be killed or arrested as a militant. The stories of families separated and missing family members are heartbreaking. One woman had to leave her mother because her mother could not walk. Many don’t know where their children are. Another young woman described how:

Together with her three sisters and her mother, she swam for nearly an entire day just to get away from the cascading bullets from helicopters. The whereabouts of their father and brothers remain unknown. She said they were in the bush for three days where they were kept company by the regular sounds of gunshots.

New reports say the JTF Didn’t Raze Ijaw Communities, Say NEMA, Red Cross

Officials of National Emergency Manage-ment Agency (NEMA) and international voluntary relief organisation, the Nigerian Red Cross Society, have said they did not find evidence of communities that were totally razed by Joint Military Task Force (JTF), in the Niger-Delta.

The officials said after visits to at least seven Ijaw communities in Warri South-West Local Government Area, Delta State, where the security task force had extended their two-week military campaign against the militants, they could say without fear of contradiction, that certain accounts they had read in the newspapers were a far cry from the reality on ground.
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Although a number of houses had been torched in the communities visited, there was no evidence of large-scale destruction of residential buildings as reported in some newspapers, they said. “What we found remarkable was that only women and children came out to receive the relief materials we took along with us during the visit,” the Red Cross official said, noting that they had decided to take the relief materials provided by NEMA, despite reports that “no lives remained in the affected communities.”

As reported above, and in other places, NEMA and the Red Cross were only allowed to visit the communities in wooden boats with paddles, even though “to reach the closest of the communities to Warri ordinarily takes two hours by a speedboat“. Regardless of the scale of the destruction, it is clear the military assault has created a huge internally displaced refugee population.

Sokari writes:

The back story to the present military operation in Warri South West is beginning to unfold in some quite sinister ways.
…
… if one takes the view that the military option is a part of a well planned offensive against the Niger Delta resistance by the Northern mafia that runs the country AND the latest report from chidi opara reports then something might be brewing.
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Another piece in this unfolding tragedy is the British and more lately French governments offer to send arms to be used against militants and their support of Nigeria having a seat on the Security Council.

Two issues are at stake here for both Nigeria and these two European governments – the free flowing of cheap oil and preventing the break up of Nigeria in which all three of them will loose big time.

The US is not mentioned here, but it has been increasing its arms transfers to Nigeria for several years. The Niger Delta has been a focus of AFRICOM, and of the mercenaries, the private military and security corporations who thrive on armed conflict.

chidi opara reports says the JTF assault is the result of advice from a secret group of security advisors to Yar’Adua:

Information available to chidi opara reports indicate that the mandate of the Joint Taskforce On Security(JTF), currently engaged in fiece gun battle with the Movement For The Emmancipation Of Niger Delta(MEND) in the creeks of Delta State, may be expanded, if the advice of a group of shadow security advisers to the President is accepted. The JTF currently have a mandate that is limited to the Niger Delta region.

This group, according to a senior Presidency contact, “met recently and forwarded a memo to Mr. President to expand the JTF mandate to include the South-eastern and the South-western regions of the country“. This group we learnt comprises retired senior security and military personnels from Northern Nigeria. It has a retired Colonel who served in the military intelligence corps during the regime of Ibrahim Babangida as leader.
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Meanwhile, chidi opara reports can now reveal that there is increased security survillance on some vocal elements in the country. We can now confirm that security survillance on Professor Pat Utomi, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, Professor Tam David-west and others have increased in the last few days.

chidi opara reports also reports they are ceasing operations for the time being. Due to surveillance they feel there is too much danger to their contacts and volunteers to continue publishing for now.

“it has become necessary to scale down our operations because of the need to protect our network members and contacts, most of whom the security agencies I learnt, have started closing in on”.

This Day is reporting today that the militants may be interested in amnesty.

Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said at the weekend it would consider the federal government’s offer of amnesty only if the movement’s leader, Mr. Henry Okah, was released from detention.

However, THISDAY checks, reveal that many of the militant leaders have been making overtures to government that they were ready to lay down their arms but that they do not trust political leaders from the area.

One of MEND’s commanders, Farah Dagogo, told Dow Jones the movement could also hold off further attacks on the oil industry if the companies can embark on mass employment of capable people from their host communities.

According to Dagogo, “President Umaru Yar’Adua says ‘we want to give amnesty. They should start with (Henry Okah). At least we will know they are sincere.”

I remember hearing someone say there is more to a left hook than meets the eye. That is most certainly metaphorically true in the Niger Delta.

 

Niger Delta War Crimes Trials In The Future?

Sixteen foreign-based civil society organisations have called for the prosecution of the Joint Task Force Commander, Gen. Sarkin Yarkin-Bello, over the killing of civilians in Gbaramatu, Delta State.

Chanomi creeks Gbaramatu area

Sola Adebayo and Ibanga Isine continue in the Punch:

The groups, in a joint petition to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, The Netherlands also requested a probe into the role played by President Umaru Yar’Adua in the incident.
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The civil society organisations include Trans Africa Forum, Centre for Civil Society, Environmental Justice Project of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the Sweet Crude, Communities for a Better Environment, the Borneo Project, the Justice in Nigeria Now and the Center for Third World Organising.

Others are Global Exchange, Rainforest Action Network, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Crude Accountability, Oil Change International, Counter Corp, Foreign Policy In Focus and Sustainable Energy and Economy Network.

The groups claimed that the military carried out land, water and aerial bombardments of Oporoza, Kurutie, Kunukunuma, Kokodiagbene, Okerenkoko, Azama, Benikurukuru and Ubefan communities in Gbaramatu Local Government Area, “under the guise of attacking militants.”

The petition reads in part, “Residents of the villages and those visiting for a festival on the day the bombing began were forced to flee their homes and villages. They are hiding in the bush and do not have adequate food or medical supplies.

“The JTF has not allowed humanitarian aid groups or journalists into the area. As of today, the coordinated aerial and ground attacks by the JTF and mass starvation continue.

“Reports suggest that thousands of innocent civilians are dead already. Reports also suggest that this was a well planned attack with the possible collusion of state government officials.

“We urge the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor to use its power to investigate and prosecute those responsible for these crimes against humanity, including Brigadier General Yarkin-Bello, who is reportedly in command of the JTF’s operations. Questions regarding President Yar’Adua’s involvement must also be investigated.”

The destruction of the Gbaramatu communities in Delta State continues. Sola Adebayo writes in the Punch:

Peace remained elusive in the Niger Delta on Saturday as troops of the Joint Task Force in Delta State razed Benikrukru community in the Gbaramatu clan of Warri South-West Local Government Area of the state.

Report also indicated that the soldiers advanced toward another community identified as Kokodiagbene after the Benikrukru operation. Kokodiagbene community, SUNDAY PUNCH learnt is adjacent to Benikrukru.

Many persons, including an octogenarian, identified as Kuku Olobio, were reported dead during the Saturday raid.
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Bello said the raids would continue until the wanted militant leader, Chief Government Ekpomukpolo, popularly known Tompolo was found dead or alive.

He also tied the withdrawal of the troops to the discovery of the 12 military personnel declared missing in a clash with the militants in Gbaramatu.

It was gathered that the latest raid at Benikrukru, followed the earlier pattern with the JTF using jet bombers, gunboats and warships on the community.

A source from Benikrukru said, ”The community was burnt down this morning. Many people were killed in the air and land raids on the hapless community. The JTF was about to cross over to nearby Kokodiagbene when I escaped from the area.”

Also, some ethnic and political as well as youth leaders in the region have gone underground as the detectives embarked on manhunt for them as a result of their alleged relationship with the militants.

Sunday Punch gathered that wanted leaders, who had a prior knowledge of the planned action, had since fled their homes.

”We (JTF) are after some political and ethnic leaders who have been fingered as sponsors of militant operations and some of them who have benefited from the unwholesome activities of the militants. Some youth leaders are also under surveillance.

We are aware that some of them have taken cover but they can only run but cannot hide. It is a total onslaught this mess they call militancy once and for all,” our source who craved anonymity added.

Meanwhile, President Umaru Yar‘Adua has directed the Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Paul Dike, to establish military bases at the two militants‘ camps seized by the JTF in Delta State.

The hideouts identified as Camp 5 and Iroko Camp were seized by the federal troops on Saturday and Monday, respectively.

A source in JTF told our correspondent that the President gave the directive to facilitate the monitoring of the activities along the waterways in the area.

The centrality of Camp 5 in particular, the source added, would ensure easy monitoring of the creeks in Bayelsa, Delta, Edo and Ondo states and keep the trouble makers under constant check.
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Meanwhile, the President of the Ijaw Youth Council, Dr. Chris Ekiyor, on Saturday raised the alarm that the JTF troops had invaded Warri on the manhunt for innocent Ijaw persons.

Ekiyor in a text message to our correspondent said, “Killings continue as soldiers now invade Warri in search of successful Ijaw business for extinction.

Also, the Delta Waterways Security Committee on Saturday said the peace process in the state was on course. The committee in a statement by its Secretary, Mr. Patrick Origho, said, “Everything was being done to ensure that normalcy returns to the creeks of the state, which was the scene of conflict in the past one week between a group of armed youths and JTF.

However, the JTF has approved the request of a committee set up by the state government to distribute relief materials to displaced persons to carry out its assignment.

The JTF, however, said only wooden boats would be allowed to convey the items to the communities.

This Day reports this statement. This is the deliberate language of discrimination. Paraphrased in shorter version it reads: it was “unfortunate” we had to kill so many, but it was “necessary”, they brought the problem on themselves. It is genuinely unfortunate that this seems to be a common reaction to the slaughter and displacement of the Ijaw communities.  The military action is called Operation Restore Hope. The JTF attacks are successfully characterized as a fight against the militants. It is not clear how badly the militants may have been harmed. But the communities have been destroyed. In the long run these actions just create more militants, and more incentives to crime as communities are destroyed, while the inhibitions against crime are destroyed with the communities.

Chief Sunny Okogwu, business mogul, has said resolution of militancy in the Niger Delta region lies with traditional rulers in the area.

Okogwu said given the level of influence the royal fathers wield among their subjects, all they needed to do was to direct cessation of such activities.
Speaking with newsmen in Kaduna, weekend, Okogwu said, “the traditional fathers know who these boys are and they always obey them. All they need do is tell the boys, ‘enough of these’ and the boys will obey them.”Commenting on the current military operations in the area, Okogwu blamed the militants for incurring the anger of the military by first killing some military personnel on a rescue mission, noting that the action of the militants was tantamount to a declaration of war of some sort.

While decrying the killing of innocent persons during the military operations, Okogwu said, “military tactics they call it. If you declare war on a nation and one man is the cause of the war, destroy him. There is no war without the innocent dying. If you analyse what causes a war and breakdown of civil disorder, it is unbelievable who causes that war. It is the innocent.”

 

Scorching Earth & People In The Niger Delta

… the re-branding Nigeria project has succeeded in rebranding everyone in the Niger Delta militants, including women, children, governors, aged, kings, chiefs, physically challenged et al. – Niger Delta Women

Arms and ammunition recovered from militant camps in Delta State... on Thursday May 21. Sola Adebayo

The destruction of the Ijaw communities in the Niger Delta is terrorizing people into fleeing their homes and creating thousands of internally displaced persons. The JTF and the House of Representatives have threatened to attack “militants” in Ondo, Bayelsa, and Rivers states. People in the communities in those states are fleeing, as they are terrified by what happened to the communities of Delta State.

ABUJA, 22 May 2009 (IRIN) – Thousands of civilians have fled their villages in Nigeria’s Delta state after government troops launched an offensive against militant groups in the state on 13 May.

Villagers in Delta state’s Gbramatu kingdom reported Oporoza and Okerenkoko villages being attacked with heavy machine-gun fire from low-flying helicopters on 15 May. Eyewitness accounts reported at least 100 bodies, according to Amnesty International’s Nigeria campaigner Lucy Freeman.

The Nigerian Red Cross estimates that 1,000 displaced people have fled to Ogbe Ijoh – capital of Warri south government area – where they are sheltering in a primary school and hospital.

Witnesses report that about 3,000 people have fled and Amnesty International estimates that as many as 10,000 could be on the move.

Patricia Okolo from Okerenkoko told IRIN from Ogbe Ijoh: “I had to run from my home. I did not take a single item with me. I have 10 children but I don’t know where any of them are. I could not count the number of people who were killed or injured but there were many. I could not even count.”

“I don’t know where my husband is. I am the only one who got here.”

Most of the displaced are women and children as most men are too frightened of being attacked or killed, said Nigerian Red Cross officer Egbero Ococity from Ogbe Ijoh. Many men are hiding in the forest with no access to clean water, food or shelter, he said.
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“They [the displaced] need food, water, shelter and blankets to relieve their suffering,” the Red Cross’s Ococity told IRIN. “They are sleeping on the bare floor. They are traumatised as a result of the attacks and what they went through in the mangroves while escaping.

“You can see the frustration in their faces. Hunger is taking its toll because most of them did not have anything to eat for four days.”
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The offensive suggests a “worrying change in direction” in the government’s approach, Freeman told IRIN. In recent months a government committee recommended amnesty for some politically-motivated militants.

In February 2009 the government of President Umaru Yar’Adua assured the UN Human Rights Council it would refrain from military offensives in the Delta region because of the risk of loss of innocent lives.

In my previous post I quoted from the statement of the Ijaw elders and leaders: The Systematic Destruction of the Ijaw. The women of the Niger Delta have issued the statement: Niger Delta Women call for an end to genicide, excerpted below:

… the Yar’adua administration has manufactured its own excuse for a greater massacre of Niger Delta women and children under the guise of fishing out militants. Beginning Wednesday, May 13, 2009 the Joint Task Force has been bombing Kurutie, Kokodiagbene, Kunukunuma, Oporoaza and Okerenkoko communities in Gbaramatu kingdom of Delta State, killing innocent persons, majority of them, women and children. Many more persons are rendered homeless; the Punch of Monday, May 18, 2009 reported that about 20,000 people are trapped in these riverine communities because the waterways are blocked by the JTF.

The displaced persons who took refuge in the Ogbe-Ijoh General Hospital were further made to flee the camp due to the invasion by soldiers from the Joint Task Force. As at Tuesday, May 19, 2009, the soldiers proceeded to carry out a house to house gruesome burning of persons and properties Okerenkoko community. The implication is that the re-branding Nigeria project has succeeded in rebranding everyone in the Niger Delta militants, including women, children, governors, aged, kings, chiefs, physically challenged et al.

Thousands of harmless women and children have been killed while some are displaced. Schooling has been disrupted for a great majority of children in the Gbaramatu kingdom of Niger Delta; having access to food and shelter has suddenly become a luxury; safety & security is far from the people; development has become a mockery; access to sanitary facilities for the women is out of the question. Many are scrambling to safety but no thoroughfare. The cries of the Niger Delta women have re-echoed. The Federal government is the killer of women and children. Instead of giving them food, education, health and security; the women and children of the Niger Delta are given bullets, blood, grief and poverty. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
…
WE SAY NO TO THE JOINT TASK FORCE!
WE SAY NO TO THE GRUESOME MURDER OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN THE NIGER DELTA!!
WE SAY NO TO MILITARY INVASION OF THE NIGER DELTA!!!

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writes in an essay in Curse of the Black Gold:

I have heard from many well-to-do Nigerians who, in the midst of talking about the unrest, the corruption, the underdevelopment in the Niger Delta, equate everything to these words: “the problem of the Niger Delta is that the Ijaw are too lazy.”

This is the language of discrimination. When we discriminate against a group of people, we call them lazy, stupid, ignorant, greedy, promiscuous, unhygienic. These words, individually or in combination, should serve as an immediate warning that discrimination is taking place. This language allows the majority, or minorities that hold power, to oppress and even slaughter an inconvenient group of people. They can feel comfortable with themselves by using these words. Whatever actions they take against the group may then be called “unfortunate”, but “necessary”, or even “for the best”.

Nigeria’s House of Representatives has endorsed the JTF’s violence in the Delta:

N’Delta Crisis: House Backs Military Action
From Onwuka Nzeshi in Abuja and Segun James in Warri, 05.22.2009

Amidst protests and rowdiness, the House of Representatives yesterday threw its weight behind the ongoing military operation in parts of Delta State.
They also demanded that the onslaught against militant groups in the area be extended to Bayelsa and Rivers States to forestall the relocation of the militants to other parts of the Niger Delta.
The lawmakers said given the large scale criminality associated with the militant groups, it would be an aberration for the Federal Government to continue to tolerate their excesses or halt the military from crushing their apparent insurrection against the Nigerian state.
…
Although Hon. Daniel Metu and Hon. Tam Brisibe backed Agoda on the call for restraint, their resistance soon crumbled as the Chairman, House Committee on Judiciary, Hon. Mohammed Ibn N’Allah (PDP, Kebbi), took the floor by storm and unleashed a tirade of verbal attacks on the militants. …
We can do away with 20 million militants for the rest 120 million Nigerians to live,” N’Allah said.

This comment was also quoted in Punch as: “for the survival of 100 million Nigerians, we can do away with 20 million.”

[from N’Delta Crisis…]The comment sparked off widespread protests amongst lawmakers from the Niger Delta region who demanded a withdrawal of the statement and apologies.
There was tension and proceedings of the House were stalled for at least five minutes before N’Allah in a veiled retraction said it was a “parliamentary joke”.

Although communities have been terrified and destroyed, it is unclear if the actual militants have been hurt much at all. Tompolo is still alive and free. From the gun battle in Warri, the JTF alleged they captured 9 militants, assuming they are militants, and not just men who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sola Adebayo’s picture of the weapons seized is reproduced above. After bragging about all the heavy and high tech weaponry they seized from the militants, this was all the JTF had to display.

Abubakar disclosed that the suspected militants are now in JTF’s custody.
The JTF, however, failed to parade the suspects before newsmen when the Commander, Maj. Gen. Sakin Yakin Bello, addressed the world press on the activities of his command in the last one week.

Abubakar said the arrested men are “to assist the force in carrying out investigations to determine the level of their involvement in the militancy in the Niger Delta”.

In a twist, Bello declared High Chief Government Ekpemupolo (alias Tompolo) wanted dead or alive – a week after the reports claimed the militant leader had been killed.
…
Journalists were surprised that no arrests were made during the JTF operation, a situation which gives the suspicion that every moving object in the area was killed by the invading soldiers.

The military paraded what they claimed were the weapons of the militants.
Journalists were shown rusted dane guns, normally used for hunting, unserviceable collection of old guns and dirty old machetes.

It would appear that the militants’ armoury was not as sophisticated as been claimed by the JTF.

No AK47 weapon, said to be the weapon of choice of the militants, was captured by the JTF, even though several militants have been said to have died in gun battle with the soldiers.

Bello refused to name the number of persons killed so far by his man, but declared that they were prepared to kill more, while also pursuing the militants to wherever they were known to hide.

Bello’s declaration followed persistent questions from journalists over the handling of the operation by the JTF whose soldiers invaded the Ogbe-Ijoh General Hospital to harass and arrest doctors who were treating victims of the military attack on communities in Gbaramatu kingdom area of Warri.
The action of the soldiers forced the management of the hospital to close down and discharge all the patients.

The commander denied knowledge of the hospital invasion, but promised that such would not repeat itself.
Bello admitted that a scanty number of weapons, including a pistol, a submachine gun, an Uzzi, a rifle, and a Mark IV, among others were captured from Tompolo’s personal house at Oporoza.

He denied that innocent persons were killed in the operation even when he was confronted with the fact that the attack took place on the day of a traditional festival for which a lot of people from far and near had come to Oporoza.

This Day reports that in the United States Congress Senator Feingold asked President Obama to become involved:

Chairman of Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate, Senator Russ Feingold, has asked President Barak Obama to intervene in the ongoing military action in the Niger Delta.

Feingold in a statement, issued in Washington yesterday said “I urge the Obama administration to think creatively about how we can work multilaterally to help end this long standing crisis in the Niger Delta.

“Some military actions may be justified to stop the criminality, kidnappings and killings by militants in the Niger Delta, but such measures should be accompanied by a larger political strategy.”

“Genuine peacemaking will require not only legitimate political negotiations but a convincing case for transforming the illicit war economy into one of peace,” he stated.

Feingold lamented the killings of thousands of civilians since the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) began its operation in Gbaramatu Kingdom in Warri, Delta State, about a week ago, to fish out militants taking refuge in parts of the Kingdom. He said in order to achieve a lasting peace in the region, federal government “needs to undertake a serious and sustained initiative to address the underdevelopment of the region.”
…
Meanwhile, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Mr. Johnnie Carson, has described Nigeria as the US’ most important strategic partner in the African continent. He disclosed this at the meeting with members of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum led by the chairman, Dr. Bukola Saraki, in Washington, last Wednesday. The Governors are in the US on a working visit. The team include Alhaji Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State, Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom and Comrade Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State.

Carson expressed the need to strengthen the relationship between Nigeria and the US, while promising to push the process that will further deepen the US-Nigeria relationship. He commended the Governors for their patriotic initiative and assured them of his commitment to their cause. He said his doors were open to the Governors Forum at all times.
Carson also described the Governors’ visit as a new dawn in US-Nigeria relationship, “This is a new dawn in the relationship between our two countries. We have never had it so good,” he said. He noted that the Governors were the first foreign visitors he was receiving since he resumed office on Monday, last week.
…
The Governors also visited the Capitol Hill, America’s legislative power house where they had a meeting with Black America’s most powerful congresswoman, Mrs. Sheila Jackson-Lee.
Welcoming the Governors to her office, Jackson-Lee observed that the visit was the first by any delegation of Governors from Africa to any congress person on the Capitol Hill. She said she would be leading a delegation of the congress to “West African sub-region very soon”.
She commended Nigeria for her efforts in global peace-keeping, especially in Dafur, Liberia and Sierra-Leone.

The displacement continues in N’Delta communities. People are fleeing their homes in terror seeing what the JTF has done in Delta State, and hearing the threats that more is coming. We could call this state sponsored terrorism, and not be wrong. From the Punch:

Following the ongoing military onslaught against militants in the Niger Delta region, some Ijaw living in coastal areas of Ondo State have begun fleeing their communities for fear of being attacked by the men of the Joint Task Force.
…

Eleitu-Uguoji who is the National Coordinator of the Ijaw Consultative Forum blamed the indiscriminate attack of civilian settlements in Delta State for the apprehension among Ijaw people all over the country.

He added that the people were afraid because they believed that the men of the JTF were looking for Ijaw people since it was difficult to distinguish a militant from innocent civilians.

He explained that although community leaders were appealing to people in their areas not to panic, he stated that it was not possible to prevent them from fleeing due to the news of killing and maiming of innocent civilians in Ijaw communities in Delta State.

He said, “Although we have not seen either military presence nor militants‘ presence in our communities the people are afraid and they are leaving, especially the women and the children.

“They are afraid because militancy is not written on anybody‘s face and it will be almost impossible to know who is a militant among the crowd.
…

“With this development, even if the soldiers wipe out all the militants today more militants will still rise up if our areas are not developed.”

The Special Adviser to the Ondo State Governor on Niger Delta Affairs, Mr. Bekekimi Idiarhi, told our correspondent on the telephone that he was not aware of movement of Ijaw in Ondo State to safer places. But he said that there was palpable fear among the Ijaw people living along the coast from Ondo State to Akwa Ibom State .

 

War On The Ijaw In N’Delta

In Warri, Delta State, the raging battle between the men of the Joint Task Force (JTF) and militants operating in the creeks shifted to the metropolis yesterday as men of the Nigerian Navy invaded the predominately Ijaw enclave, the “Warri Corner” and Miller waterside near the Naval Base and the Warri Port, a move that resulted in a shoot-out that lasted several hours. – This Day Online

The Niger river at Warri photo by davethompsonministries on Flickr

… the resultant gun battle triggered a stampede as workers from the nearby NNPC Zonal office which also houses the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), the Warri South Local Government secretariat and the Warri ports took to their heels. Some journalists who were in the vicinity at the time of the invasion took shelter at the nearby Police Area Command office as the bullets continued to fly for over two hours.

The fighting in the Delta is costing the Nigerian government over 1 million bpd, barrels per day, of oil revenue. The JTF shows no concern for civilian casualties. Starting a gunbattle in a city such as Warri, is certain to kill far more civilians than fighters, it is a much more visible show of the JTF’s contempt for human life. There is far greater destruction for now in the villages. The civilians in the village communities themselves are most certainly part of the intended military target, they are not accidental collateral damage

The makers of the film Sweet Crude write:

On Wednesday, May 13, the Joint Task Force (JTF) began aerial and ground attacks on militant camps in the Niger Delta. On Friday, these attacks widened to include at least nine Gbaramatu Kingdom Ijaw communities, including Oporoza, the village where much of Sweet Crude was filmed. Based on our most recent information, these attacks on civilians continue.

According to first-hand accounts by village residents, the JTF used gunboats and helicopters to fire on villages, with women and children among the estimated 500 casualties. Some were killed while fishing in canoes. Residents fled in terror into the bush. The villages are now deserted and as many as 30,000 civilians are displaced without adequate food or water supply.

There is no way to accurately report on the number of casualties, as aid agencies have not been able to get into the region. This leaves the injured without medical attention, as there are no hospitals in the area. It is reported that the JTF has closed the waterways, barring outside access and preventing villagers from traveling and fishing.

There is a tragic history of Niger Delta civilian communities being targeted by the Nigerian military. In 1999, Odi, a community of 5,000 was wiped out completely � all residents were killed and the village was razed. In 2005, Odioma suffered a similar fate, as did the village of Agge in 2008.

And in an email yesterday the filmmakers wrote:

It was reported today that the village of Oporoza, where much of Sweet Crude was filmed and where we have many friends, was burned to the ground by the Nigerian military Joint Task Force. Other villages too. The destruction continues and the region is still blocked off to aid agencies.

Ijaw elders and leaders issued a statement: The Systematic Destruction of the Ijaw. It says the violence and destruction is on a scale greater even than in the Nigerian civil war, and includes these statements:

b) The burning, destruction, complete razing of Okerenkoko, Oporoza, Kunukunuma, Peretorukorigbene, Kurutie and many other communities and the killing and maiming of innocent people including women and children amount to systemic annihilation of an ethnic race and this is simply genocide. It therefore deserves international condemnation.
…
d) The Ijaw ethnic nation contributes more than 70% of Nigeria’s wealth. We appear to be a people who have become victims of our own wealth by the use of sophisticated military hardware bought with our own petro-naira to kill our people.
…
e) It is indeed criminal, unjustified, inconsiderate and callous to declare full military operations on communities in the guise of undertaking a search and rescue mission for hostages and missing personnel whereas it is common knowledge that hostages and hijacked vessels are secured within the precinct of militant camps and not villages inhabited by innocent people. This is nothing but a deeply contemplated systemic killing of the Ijaw people in furtherance of the age-long crave by sections of this country to either forcefully relocate us or make the Ijaw identity extinct in the Nigerian map with a view to taking over full possession of our natural resources.

f) The Ijaw ethnic nation appeals to the United Nations Organisation to set up a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the circumstances surrounding this latest assault and killing of hapless and innocent people since we do not foresee the possibility of justice from a Nigerian government commissioned inquiry.

The violence is losing the country a lot of money, also from This Day Online:

At the present price of $60 per barrel, and at the current exchange rate of N145 against the dollar, Nigeria is losing about N8.7 billion daily …

There are comments on many Nigerian websites to the effect of kill them all, or sometimes just kill all the militants. He may not like the loss of money, but Speaker Bankole appears quite comfortable with the violence:

Bankole: Military Action Part of Peacekeeping
Speaker Bankole yesterday said that the military operation in Niger Delta is part of the effort to achieve peace in the violence ridden region.
Bankole, who spoke with journalists at the Presidential /VIP terminal of Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, described the military option recently being employed by the federal government to counter and suppress the insurgence of the militants in the Niger Delta, who have almost held the nation’s social and economic activities to a stand still in the area for some years now, as a necessary option to achieve peace in that part of the country.
“As far I am concerned, it is a peacekeeping option that is going on in the Niger Delta,” he said.
On the innocent citizens who are being killed on daily basis in the crossfire, the Speaker said casualties of that status were inevitable in the cause of attempting to resolve any conflict.
“When two people are fighting and you try to separate them, you might get punched as well,” Bankole added.
He also expressed his sympathy for the families of the victims.

Quite touching that last bit, you can tell just how sincerely he cares.

And it is true the militants are a mixture of actions and motives. In many quarters they get little or no sympathy, from Punch:

While one may count millions of reasons why the military should never engage in its present activities in the Niger Delta, the fact that the militants are causing the nation great pains is incontrovertible.

In the beginning, the militants were protesting the rape of their land by oil explorers and many people regarded it as part of the struggles to get those who are reaping the resources of the area to pay attention to the sufferings of the people. Then they were kidnapping foreign oil workers and setting them free after the payment of ransom. Today, the militants have taken the business of kidnapping to a blood chilling level. Now they kidnap everybody including Nigerian men, women and innocent children many of who neither have business with oil in the Niger Delta nor the oil companies. The kidnapping of a three year old girl is a case in point. Recently, the nation was awe struck with the news that a kidnapped young lady was killed after a N10m ransom was paid.

There are and have been strong links between the militants, elected officials, and even the oil companies.

Punch also reports:

Indications have emerged that the Federal Government’s rebuff of pleas to stop further military onslaught against militants in the Niger Delta communities may have been caused by negative intelligence reports on some leaders of the region.

A security source said that some prominent leaders in the region, including state governors, had been found to be fraternising with militant groups before the ongoing operation.
…
He said, “How can you listen to people you know have openly identified with known militants in the Niger Delta region? Today, they have lost control of the boys and there is nothing they can do about it.

For more information on how this works, Human Rights Watch released an extensive report on the political situation in Nigeria in 2007, called Criminal Politics: Violence, “Godfathers” and Corruption in Nigeria, click here for the Pdf version.

With their village homes destroyed, and their families fleeing, in hiding, or slaughtered, the militants are threatening a nasty escalation, from Punch:

The JRC [Joint Revolutionary Council] is made up of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, the Martyrs Brigade and the Reformed Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force

The spokesperson for the JRC, Ms. Cynthia Whyte, who accused the Joint Task Force of attacking civilian settlements, including the palace of the Agadagba of Gbaramatu, schools and other public places, vowed that the soldiers would be made to pay for the “desecration of Ijawland.”

Whyte said, “Let us also warn that any bandit soldier of the Nigerian state who breaches the rules of engagement in this campaign will be summarily executed.

“Any attack on unarmed and innocent village-folk will be revenged. Any attack on community people will result in an equal attack on families of soldiers in any barracks we choose to attack. It will be an eye for an eye henceforth.”

The militants debunked the claim by the JTF that Camp 5 of the militants had been taken over by the soldiers.

According to the statement, militants had long vacated the camp, adding that it had already become a tourist centre before it was taken over by the JTF.

The statement reads in part, “Let it be known that Camp 5 had long become a tourist centre and a haven of sorts for various Ijaw organisations who seek to keep the peace.

“Let us remind all men of goodwill that the attacks on Gbaramatu Kingdom represent the height of an attempt by a northern cabal to fully sink their teeth in oil production operations in the Niger Delta.”

And this last is one of the huge problems facing Nigeria. The illegal bunkering in the Delta is big time and sophisticated. The criminals and syndicates involved make $60 million a day, by one insider estimate.

From the BBC in an article that also talks about the UK offering Nigeria military assistance for dealing with the militants:

But a source close to the former government of President Olusegun Obasanjo says the problem is not about quashing militants in boats.

Some of the people who run the cartels are among Nigeria’s top political “godfathers”, who wield massive political influence.

“If the president goes after them, they could destabilise the country, cause a coup, a civil war. They are that powerful, they could bring the state down,” said the source, who did not want to be identified.

He says that attempts in the past to bring the trade under control were stopped for that reason.

“This is an industry that makes £30m ($60m) a day, they’d kill you, me, anyone, in order to protect it,” he said.
…
In order to get away with the theft, the bunkering syndicates operate under the cloak of the conflict between militants and oil companies in the Niger Delta.

They need “security” – gangs of armed heavies to protect their cargos – and threaten anyone who tries to interfere.

They don’t have to look far to find large groups of unemployed youths willing to do what they are told for a little money.
…
These youths protect bunkering ships, force local community leaders to let bunkerers pass and bribe the Nigerian military.

The thieves may also need “the boys” to blow up pipelines, forcing the oil company to shut down the flow, allowing them to install a tap in the pipe.

“Hot-tapping”, as it is known, requires considerable expertise, usually supplied by a former oil company employee.

The US and the UK have offered Nigeria military assistance of one sort or another. It is quite clear that there is no possible military solution in the Delta. There are criminals on all sides. There are many many more people who are just trying to live their lives. Lawful regulation and transparency in the oil industry and the related banking would make a big difference, along with lawful and reliable policing. And by reliable I mean citizens would not need to fear the police. The problem that needs to be solved is that the people of the Delta have no clean water, no schools, no clinics, no jobs, and a heavily polluted environment that makes traditional farming and fishing impossible. Nobody seems too uncomfortable with the thought of killing all of “them” to “solve” the problem, the current JTF approach. Any military assistance will certainly assist this “solution”.

Kayode Komolafe writes some wise words in an article printed in This Day:

Not surprisingly the information about the latest bloodbath has been murky as everything about the handling of the Niger Delta crisis over the years. There are no means of getting the records of casualties, if any is being taken at all. Deaths are simply counted in dozens and displaced persons in thousands. Newspapers are awash with photographs of hapless children and old men and women who have been displaced. These defenceless folks are fleeing the spots where soldiers are battling it out with militants. Viewers have been treated to footages on television of people streaming out of the creeks to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. Even the military task force that is “flushing out” the militants has only invited the media to visit the areas of operations “when the dust settles”. Meanwhile, one does not need to be a security expert to know that helpless people will bear the brunt of the crisis.

It is, therefore, not enough to have official declarations that Camp Five and the Iroko Camp of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) have been destroyed. It is even more urgent to stop the suffering of the defenceless persons. While the debate may continue about who is to blame primarily for the Niger Delta debacle, the government and people of Nigeria should be interested about the humanitarian dimension of the fighting now.
…
It is unfortunate that the nation has ignored the lessons in the tragedies of Odi, Zaki Biam, Umuechem and other places where the military response to attacks on soldiers recorded indefensible collateral damage. The extent of this damage should be made clear as we draw on lessons from the past operations. These are steps that should not be delayed.
…
For clarity, the government has the responsibility for security in all parts of the republic. And no sane person can justify the activities of criminals who kidnap persons, vandalise pipelines, steal oil or even chase a way construction workers from sites. These criminals operating in the region have distorted the legitimate struggle of the people for justice and equity in the administration of the revenues from oil. The activities of the criminals should be separated from the justifiable protest against the neglect, poverty and underdevelopment of the region. Security and law enforcement forces should be able to deal with criminals without wreaking havoc on whole communities. It is a professional challenge. For instance, kidnappers have operated in other parts of Nigeria outside the Niger Delta such as south- eastern states, Lagos, Abuja and Kaduna. The crime could be fought without unleashing onslaught on the communities.
…
… Yar’Adua should not stop at flushing out militants out of Camp Five and Iroko Camp, he should move swiftly to implement policies that would flush out inequity, poverty, and underdevelopment in the region.

 

Niger Delta Communities Under Assault by Nigerian JTF

Nigeria from the Escravos oil installation area on the left to Warri on the right. This is the area of the Gbaramatu communities.

There are no roads in the Creeks area of the Niger Delta; village residents must paddle everywhere. Gas flare and oil installation in background. Oporoza, Niger Delta, August 2006. photo: Kendra E. Thornbury

Oporoza Library, which was attacked, at its dedication in 2005, see the library link below for more information, and links to more pictures.

Reports of severe violence are coming in from the vicinity of Escravos near Warri in the Niger Delta. The JTF, Joint Task Force of the Nigerian Federal Government, the FG, attacked several villages and Camp 5, the headquarters of the MEND chief, Tompolo. They brought 7000 troups, 2 warships, and 14 gunboats. Four Ijaw communities have been attacked, and may be destroyed: Oporoza, Kunukunuma, Okerenkoko and Kurutie. The JTF has a history of making reprisals on innocent civilian communities, and destroying them, for the actions of militants and criminals, Odioma and Aker Base are two examples.

From the Vanguard:

Some community leaders from Gbaramatu who managed to escape alive from Friday’s bombardment of some Ijaw communities by the JTF said the number of casualties were high as they were many people who came from far and near to Oporoza for the Amaseikumor festival.

From Punch, by Sola Adebayo in Warri, May 16:

Twenty-four hours to the end of the ultimatum issued by the Movement of the Emancipation of the Niger Delta to oil companies operating in the region to evacuate their employees and shut down, the Federal Government on Friday, launched a major operation to dislodge the militants.

MEND had on Wednesday engaged troops of the Joint Task Force in a fierce battle in which several soldiers were feared dead and their weapons seized. The militants also took 15 foreigners hostage.

Saturday Punch learnt that President Umaru Yar‘Adua was angry about the number of casualties on the part of the JTF and consequently ordered that camps of the militants must be invaded and their leaders captured dead or alive.

As a result, two warships and 14 gunboats were in the early hours of Friday deployed in the coastal Ijaw communities in Delta State. Four helicopter gunboats were also deployed to attack the identified militants‘ hideouts and camps.

Sources said that some Ijaw communities like Oporoza, Kunukunuma, Okerenkoko and Kurutie where leaders of the militant groups are believed to be hiding also came under heavy bombardment by the JTF troops. Unconfirmed reports said the communities had been razed as at 3pm on Friday.

The popular Camp 5 operated by a well known militant, Chief Government Ekpomukpolo, alias Tompolo, in Delta State, was also reportedly razed. The fate of the warlord and his lieutenants could not be ascertained as at 4 pm on Friday.

No fewer than 3,000 troops were involved in the operation in the riverside Gbaramatu Kingdom in Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta State. The Ijaw enclave housed the popular militant Camp 5 and Iroko Camp, which the JTF had been itching to invade and take over in the last 10 years.

It was gathered that the troops were mandated to dislodge the militants from the two camps and regain control of the area.

No fewer than 12 soldiers, including a lieutenant were feared killed in Wednesday‘s battle. It was learnt that 13 others sustained serious injuries before the embattled soldiers were forced to retreat following the superior firepower of the warlords.

Saturday Punch investigation further showed that about 20 military weapons were seized by the militants. The militants hijacked two ships.

Already, one soldier whose body has been recovered, has been declared dead while 11 others have been declared missing by authorities of the JTF.

…

Indications that the JTF was prepared to avenge the killings emerged on Thursday night when movement of soldiers and military equipment into Warri Port for onward journey to Gbaramatu communities and the two militants‘ camps was noticed.

Efforts by the Delta State government and notable Ijaw leaders to stave off the operation were rebuffed by authorities of the JTF, who politely told them that it had been ordered “from above”. It was gathered that Dike, an indigene of the state, who was also contacted to shelve the exercise said it was beyond him.

Consequently, by 5am on Friday, two naval warships identified as NNS Obula and NNS Nwanba as well as 14 gunboats had settled down for business in Camp 5 and at Gbaramatu, Okerenkoko, Oporoza, Kunukunuma and Kurutie.

Saturday Punch also gathered that four helicopter gunboats on the fleet of the Nigerian Air Force embarked on air surveillance and rendered air support.

An Ijaw youth, who managed to escape from the scene, told Saturday Punch on the telephone that, ”Oporoza, Kunukunuma, Okerenkoko and Kurutie towns and Camp 5 in Gbaramatu kingdom in Delta State had been invaded from the air and the river.”

However, Saturday Punch learnt that heavy shooting between the militants and the soldiers still persisted as at 2:30pm on Friday as the warlords mounted stiff resistance at Camp 5.

”What is going on in Gbaramatu Kingdom as I am talking to you now (2:30 pm) is a total war between the militants and the Federal Government. You can call it a show of strength because both sides are well equipped and appeared ready for the battle. The picture is not very clear yet but the troops have burnt some Ijaw communities and the notorious Camp 5 have been razed,” a source said.

The spokesman of JTF, Col. Rabe Abubakar, confirmed the operation but hastily added that it was premature to comment on its details. Abubakar said the federal troops were merely on a rescue operation in the area.

Abubakar said the troops were deployed to rescue the hostages, free hijacked ships and fish out the hoodlums who attacked military personnel on legitimate duties on Wednesday.

He said, ”We (JTF) deliberately went on search and rescue operation in some coastal communities in Delta State. The idea was to apprehend and fish out criminals who are involved in abduction of crew members of two ships and those behind the hijack of the ships. We are also after the criminals who attacked our personnel on legitimate duties.

”But in the process, the so-called militants mounted resistance and this expectedly led to a serious gun duel and they retreated to their camps and hideouts. Our men also pursued them to the camps and hideouts. There is no further detail for now, but heavy shooting is persisting as you are talking to me now.”

The Ijaw National Leader, in his reaction said the Federal Government had declared total war on the Ijaw nation.

Clark said, ”The military (JTF) has declared total war on our people in Escravos in Delta State. They are bombing from the air and water, killing innocent children and women in Okerenkoko, Oporoza, Kurutie and Kunukunuma. They (Ijaw people) are seeking for safety in the bush. “Please intervene immediately by telling Mr. President not to declare total war on fellow Nigerians particularly when the Vice President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan [from the Delta], is away in Europe on official mission.

One of the villages under attack, Oporoza, was host to the people who made the movie Sweet Crude. They send out an email which contained the following information:

There are conflicting reports, but we do know from a friend who called from the bush, where village residents have fled, that the military has opened fire and there are casualties.

We received this text message from one of the film’s main characters:

“The situation is getting worse every minute. Their plan is to wipe Oporoza out of the surface of Earth tomorrow morning.

The leader of the JTF force has claimed the hostages have been rescued, although one hostage was killed, quite possibly by the JTF. However other reports say that MEND still has the hostages. Reports coming in today, Monday, say 9 hostages have been recovered by the JTF. By the time you read this those numbers may have changed. The militants have blown up two major pipelines, one of which was just repaired at great expense. The Vanguard reports:

MEND said it had sabotaged two oil and gas pipelines near to Escravos which supply the 110,000 barrels per day (bpd) Kaduna refinery in northern Nigeria, shut down for maintenance in November.
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The pipeline transports crude produced by Chevron-Texaco to the Warri Refinery and Petrchemical Company (WRPC). It is also used to channel imported heavy crude to the Kaduna Refinery. It was damaged by militants some years ago and its repairs gulped a huge sum of money.
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Tompolo not dead: A top aide of the leader of Camp Five, popularly known as Tompolo, who was reported to have been killed, however, told Sunday Vanguard, “Nothing happened to him, he is alive”. He also said all the 15 hostages were Filipinos, but the JTF said it rescued six Filipinos and four Nigerians. His words, “All the 15 hostages were Filipinos. Two died and three were seriously injured during yesterday’s (Friday) aerial attack on camp 5.

The city of Warri was being considered as one of the hosts of the Under 17 World Cup. FIFA officials were due to visit this week, but that visit has been called off. Officials in Warri said there was no danger and no worry. But they may find themselves out of the running to participate in the cup.

The JTF is said to be in persuit of Gbaramatu leaders, and may be pursuing them into Warri:

We hear that Okerenkoko is next in their plan to attack and that they are even planning to trail Gbaramatu leaders staying in Warri and arrest them, this will be a dangerous development …

And from Business Day:

Reacting to comments by some groups whom he called “MEND supporters” who allegedly raised alarm that the JTF used aircraft to bomb communities, Abubakar said such comments were wrong as JTF was adopting normal convention of Cordon and Search as no responsible military would carry out actions that would be detrimental to the existence of innocent citizens.

Given the history of JTF thuggery and its targeting of civilian communities, I don’t give this denial much credit for truthfulness. The Punch reports the crisis is escalating:

Also killed in the fighting, in which about 20,000 people are said to be trapped, was another Filipino hostage and a nine-year-old child.

Three more Filippino were, however, freed from the militants and one helicopter recovered by the JTF operatives during the attacks in Kurutie, Kokodiagbene, Kunulunuma, Oporoza and Okerenkoko in Gbaramatu clan, all in Warri South- West Local Government Area of Delta State.

… an official of the Delta State Government, who craved anonymity, put the figure at 20,000. “It is true that about 5,000 people have been displaced, but the people trapped are just about 20,000,” he said.

The official craved anonymity because the state government was yet to comment officially.

When one of our correspondents visited the Ogbe-Ijoh General Hospital in Warri South- West LGA, about 5,000 displaced persons were seen weeping as efforts were being made by the council officials to rehabilitate them.

Some of the displaced persons, including seven youth corps members, gave horrifying accounts of their escape from the scenes of the fighting.

The spokesman of the corps members, Mr. Lanre Abayomi, said they were in a library in Oporoza when the JTF operatives invaded the community in jet fighters and gunboats.

Abayomi, who attributed their escape into Warri to divine intervention, claimed that many buildings were attacked from the air by the troops.
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[JTF's] Abubakar said, “The continuous search and rescue operations being carried out were aimed at criminals who made those areas their abode and made it impossible to rescue the remaining expatriates on board MT Spirit earlier hijacked by them.

There have been many claims and counter claims by the JTF and by MEND. The JTF says the militants are lifeless and homeless. MEND says Camp 5 will be the graveyard of the JTF. Reports vary on how much the oil companies are curtailing their activities, or evacuating their personnel. What is clear is that the local communities near the Escravos terminal are under attack, and that the civilians are the ones bearing the casualties and the suffering.

On April 3oth the International Crisis Group issued a briefing:

Since the Yar’Adua administration assumed office in May 2007, its initiatives for ending Delta violence have been ambiguous and at times incoherent. An early attempt to convene a Delta summit was aborted due to local opposition. A May 2008 proposal that militants incorporate as security companies so they could be hired to guard pipelines and other oil installations met with public scepticism and militants’ rejection and never got off the ground. Creation of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs in September 2008 initially drew mixed reactions, but low funding in the 2009 budget, an uncertain division of responsibilities with the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and unclear guiding principles have cost it credibility.

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On 7 January 2009, a number of the country’s leading civil society groups charged that Yar’Adua’s silence on the report showed he was only playing to the gallery on the Delta issue, and subsequent developments have done nothing to dispel those misgivings. The disclosure by a special adviser to the vice president two months after the report was submitted that yet another committee had been established to study the recommendations, coupled with the lack of any further response since then, are deepening doubts over the government’s sincerity. The longer these doubts grow, the more difficult it will become to engage all stakeholders in an effective peace process.The Technical Committee has been the government’s most promising effort to develop a coherent, long-term strategy in the Delta. Launched on 8 September 2008 with broad and credible membership, the committee was mandated to collate, review and distil all previous reports, memorandums and submissions and “make suggestions for Government’s necessary and urgent action”. Vice President Goodluck Jonathan pledged that its recommendations “will not be treated with levity”. It was widely believed that the government would adopt those recommendations as its definitive roadmap for resolving the region’s crisis.

Right now it does not look like there is much interest in resolving the crisis. It would be interesting to know if the US Africa Command was acting in any advisory capacity in this exercise. I have no particular reason to suppose it is. However the US has been pouring arms into Nigeria for years, and the numbers soared during the Bush administration. The Africa Command was initially set up largely to safeguard Nigerian oil for the US market. This exercise in violence by the Nigerian government does not seem to be safeguarding anything. The US has demonstrated no serious interest to date in peaceful solutions to the crisis in the Delta. The Africa Command, and the mercenary contractors who are their camp followers, are studying to carry out counter insurgency operations in the Niger Delta. Counterinsurgency operations include attacks like these on Delta communities. The mercenary contractors already have a heavy presence in the Delta, in violation of Nigerian law.

As of today, Monday:

A source told Daily Independent at the weekend that production loss to the on-going violence was over 250, 000 barrels per day as foreign firms remove all but essential staff from the areas.

Chevron, the source added, could soon declare a force majeure on oil from the Escravos operation, while the Shell Petro-leum and Development Company (SPDC) has commenced the evacuation of its staff from the swamp and offshore locations in response to threat by the militants to attack oil workers.

Fears that the violent clash in the region of Nigeria could cause price surge also gripped traders at the global market as transaction resumes Monday. … traders believed that the renewed violence in Nigeria could single-handedly skyrocket the price.

And this is what most of the world cares about. We are largely indifferent to the fate of the local people whose land contains the oil, but who receive no benefit from it. The local people receive instead severe pollution and violent assault. I would like to think this current assault is an aberration, but I suspect it is a big step towards an escalation.

 

US Africa Command – An African Perspective

DJIBOUTI, Djibouti - A U.S. Air Force Guardian Angel team from 82nd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron (ERQS) take a defensive position as a Marine Corps CH-53E helicopter from Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron (HMH) 461 takes off during a training exercise near Camp Lemonier May 2, 2009. The routine training afforded the joint tactical recovery team an opportunity to recover simulated isolated personnel in a austere environment. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sergeant Joseph L. Swafford Jr.)

The South African Institute for Security Studies, ISS, has released a paper:
The Establishment and Implications of the United States Africa Command
An African Perspective English (PDF ·16 pages by Berouk Mesfin. © 2009 Institute for Security Studies (ISS). The summary states:

This paper assesses US foreign policy and policymaking in Africa and the features and purposes of the US African Command (AFRICOM). The paper examines whether AFRICOM will pick its way through a minefield of misunderstandings and whether it will ultimately worsen or improve Africa’s environment of peace and security. The author argues that the US needs to forge a State Department-driven and more enlightened strategy for Africa under President Barack Obama. Driven less by security concerns and oil interests, the author concludes, foreign policy in Africa needs to be based on a nuanced understanding of the socio-political and economic challenges the continent faces.

Much of the subject matter in the report has been touched on at one point or another in the course of this blog. Berouk Mesfin describes the relatively low level of interest in Africa that the US has shown until recently. He also describes the origin and creation of the US combatant commands post World War II and during the Cold War. One of the first points his paper makes is:

It is apparent that for the last five decades the successive presidents of the US – Republican and Democrat alike – and their senior advisors almost never had concern for, knowledge of and experience of managing relations with Africa.
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… decisions on African issues often ignored the empirical evidence that could have been acquired from consultation with specialists on Africa …

There have always been people available with relevant Africa expertise, but they have rarely been consulted in the policy development process.

No other continent was divided among a panoply of combatant commands in such a disjointed way. In effect, in this Cold War-based combatant command structure, Africa was ‘never a number-one priority for any unified command. Each viewed its strategic imperative as being elsewhere, leaving Africa as a secondary or even tertiary concern’.
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As a result, these combatant commands became unmistakably overstretched, and were unable to effectively perform their responsibilities in Africa. The division ‘has reportedly created problems in coordinating activities, and allegedly has increasingly become too great a burden on EUCOM and CENTCOM staff ’. More disturbingly, owing to their lack of concern, the combatant commands never developed a sizeable cadre of experts dedicated to Africa, which was not a ‘priority for the senior officers whose career prospects depended on their services in Europe, the Gulf, and the Pacific’. Nonetheless, after September 2001, the Bush administration recognised Africa ‘as a key area for its counterterrorism operations, specifically against al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in various sub-regions within Africa’. This new-found concern was reflected in the 2006 National Security Strategy, which forcefully notes that Africa ‘is of growing geo-strategic importance and is a high priority’. Hence, the US believed that this challenge and its interests could best be addressed by establishing a single combatant command for all African states.

After operating for a year as a sub-unified command under EUCOM, and regardless of African opinion on the matter, AFRICOM became a fully operational combatant command on 1 October 2008, just 34 days before the election of Barack Obama to the US presidency.

The paper continues to describe the organization of the command. It is supposed to be an innovative command, working with the State Department, and will incorporate humanitarian activities.

According to US officials, the full-time focus of AFRICOM is supposed to be the provision of military aid and training for African states in order for them to viably secure their borders and regulate their internal environments on a sustained basis, and also enhance interregional cooperation.

Mr. Mesfin discusses the positive aspects of AFRICOM for the United States:

AFRICOM may perhaps ‘provide American political leaders with more thoughtful, informed military advice based on an indepth knowledge of the region’. It could thus enable the US ‘to exercise a consistent policy over the region rather than inconsistent or multiple policies arising from two or more commands, with different priorities, responsible for the region’. AFRICOM may also enable the US ‘to improve intelligence and contingency planning, and enhance military-to-military relationship and training’. Under such circumstances, the US could more effectively secure better access to oil, curb China’s growing political, diplomatic and economic influence, oversee counter-terrorism undertakings and anticipate security challenges in Africa.

And he discusses the positive potential for Africa:

The establishment of AFRICOM could be taken as a credible symbol of US commitment, notionally indicating the newly emerging strategic importance attached to Africa by the US. … AFRICOM was not designed to address ongoing conflicts and even prevent nascent crises from intensifying in Africa. But it could provide the context and guidance for solving Africa’s political and military crises early enough for them to be meaningful, or at least for damping down unwelcome developments and reversing external disruptions in Africa.
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It could help in particular with training deployable African peacekeeping battalions and building relatively more professional African militaries that are able to fend off external threats, foil planned terrorist attacks, and protect sensitive areas such as oil installations. It could also provide a channel of communications, and even seek reciprocal restraints and develop mutual trust between warring sides. Finally, it could enhance maritime security along Africa’s coastlines in order to reduce criminality through the provision of eff ective training, intelligence and technical support, as well as conducting occasional joint exercises

As to the positives for Africa in this last paragraph, this is the language that is being used to justify AFRICOM. However the practical meaning of the words may be different from the promises implied when they are spoken. The military training can come at the expense of investment in civilian institutional development, leaving some countries with a well trained military, and not much else. That is currently a worry in Liberia. The well trained militaries can also be used as proxy warriors. Many, including myself, think this is one of the main reasons for the training. As far as protecting oil installations goes, so far the all efforts have had the effect of shoring up repression in the Niger Delta, where this is currently a big issue, as well as shoring up repression in Equatorial Guinea. No serious assistance or incentive has been given to Nigeria to encourage a political solution for the problems of the Delta. Although almost every analysis says there will be no solution to the problems of the Delta without a political solution.

Mesfin also discusses the negatives of AFRICOM for the United States:

The Department of Defense has a comparative advantage in the US government structure in terms of superior organisational, financial and logistical resources …

An AFRICOM that is answerable to the Department of Defense, given wide discretion and granted operational autonomy, as well as possessing a relatively better understanding of Africa’s strategic realities, may ultimately become the major, at times even dominant, influence on the substance of US foreign policy towards Africa.
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It could also lead to a blind endorsement by the US, as occurred during the Cold War, of institutionally ineffective, economically corrupt and politically repressive regimes which are led by astute and ruthless leaders. These regimes would enthusiastically cooperate with AFRICOM, a deceitful alibi for them to commit heinous human rights abuses using Cold War tactics with some modifications. Despite its rhetoric about spreading democracy, the US could thereby be held responsible for the erosion of gains towards multiparty democracy and the derailment of internal motors for political change in Africa.

And the negatives for Africa:

With, on balance, a mixed record of US relations with Africa, most Africans have always been deeply suspicious of US involvement in the continent’s aff airs. Furthermore, the prevailing image of the US military is grimly conveyed to them by images of the Iraqi war, which has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens. Africans are also particularly concerned that AFRICOM will somehow become the lead US government interlocutor with Africa, representing the definite militarisation of US foreign policy towards the continent, despite the ‘brave attempt to put a civilian mask on the face of [the] combatant command’. They are also afraid that an increase in such involvement and militarisation would ‘only fuel the terrorism which it was meant to stop and increase anti-American sentiment in Africa’. Many Africans think that military power is absolutely no panacea for terrorist threats, and that, in most cases, it will backfire and attract them after building animosity and allowing conditions to deteriorate, as in Somalia, where events speak for themselves.

It is also highly doubtful, from the viewpoint of Africans, that an undermanned AFRICOM would better understand and effectively respond on any scale and in a more direct manner to the security priorities of African states and peoples. It could, on the contrary, produce many unintentional and adverse costs, which will linger on for the coming decades, including the risk of triggering a reciprocal militarisation of China’s Africa policy. China could conceivably in the coming decades, and regardless of the associated hassle, vigorously expand its military cooperation with African states through pacts, joint exercises, intelligence exchange and training; pay its oil bills with increased sales of weapons; deploy its military forces; establish military facilities in Africa; and even set up its own Africa Command. Thus, African interests could, once again, be trampled by a revised version of the Cold War between the US and China. In sum, it could unwittingly send the message that Africa is still viewed by the US as a strategic prize in a Cold War style geopolitical struggle, causing damage to US-Africa relations which will take time to mend.

In conclusion Mesfin writes:

AFRICOM will focus practically on providing better support for the pursuit of renewed US interests in Africa, which can be accurately summarised in three words – ‘oil, China and terrorism’.

Deeper analysis suggests, however, that the conception of AFRICOM was – partially owing to a thinness of ‘American understanding of diverse and complex African societies’ – very poorly thought through and badly implemented, for instance leaving out Egypt, which is a major player in the international relations of Africa and key to its stability. Moreover, the name of the combatant command carries a strong colonial overtone. Basing it in Germany was a rather ominous choice, reminiscent of the 1885 Berlin Conference, after which the infamous scramble for Africa by European colonial powers got under way.

It is also increasingly becoming apparent that even a determined, well-staffed and better-prepared AFRICOM will reflect the longstanding contradiction of US policy towards Africa, which perpetually suffers from institutional rivalry and hypothetically requires strengthening democracy. Yet this last concern, traditionally regarded as the centrepiece of US foreign policy, seems to have been thwarted by more immediate and narrower security requirements designed by the Department of Defense. It is in this context that the pragmatist Obama was elected president of the US.
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As he grapples with the numerous practical and immediate political and military necessities related to these problems, the range of options open to him will be limited, and he may, from day one, find it impossible to dispense with military power. Thus, even though he seems to understand the need for ‘less emphasis on military power and more on using diplomacy and foreign aid to bend other nations toward US interests’, Obama will be obliged to somewhat ‘follow the path marked out by the Bush administration’
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It would, nonetheless, be wise of the Obama administration to attain a clear definition and ordering of US interests in Africa. It should also ‘adopt an intelligent approach by realising that dealing with Africa’s crises requires more than just brute military force, but in fact demands a measured and calculated response to deal with any potential threats on the African continent, albeit directly or indirectly related to security’. In the first place, Obama should use the good will which he so skilfully generated during the campaign to dispel the chasm of mistrust among Africans.111 Th is chasm of mistrust was directly caused by the unilateralism and equivocation so characteristic of the eight years of the Bush administration …

The Obama administration should then make sure that AFRICOM is subordinated to a relatively more enlightened policy formulated by the Department of State, which ought to strengthen its organisational capacity, including enlisting more expertise on Africa. It will also have to ensure that AFRICOM’s presence on the continent remains as low-key as possible …
Two arguments can be used against stationing troops on African soil. First, stationing troops in Africa will be regionally disruptive, and will politically undermine the host state, exposing it to intensified criticism that it is just a puppet, while depicting the US as being unnecessarily aggressive. Second, the creation of such capabilities would create incentives for their use by the US military for other purposes, including counter-productive interventions. Thus, the Obama administration should focus more on how to incrementally shore up US interests and influence in Africa, based on the political performance of African states, including their observance of internationally accepted principles of democracy, without further destabilising them and jeopardising their long-term cooperation.

Berouk Mesfin has included extensive footnotes, including some good discussion of these issues in the footnotes. As he points out, Egypt is hydrologically connected to Africa. Egypt is politically linked to Africa because its hydro-political security is dependent on Africa. So it does not make sense to split it off from Africa. The US, in the course of its China paranoia, has ignored the fact that China has provided some states with “real opportunities ofr sustainable economic development”.

Mesfin writes a very thoughtful and balanced analysis of African attitudes towards AFRICOM, AFRICOM’s potential for both Africa and the US, and as he says:

… foreign policy in Africa needs to be based on a nuanced understanding of the socio-political and economic challenges the continent faces.

I included the picture of Djibouti based training at the beginning of this post because Djibouti is shaping up to be AFRICOM’s first permanent base in Africa. It is inextricably linked to the disasterous policies and interventions in Somalia where the US has contributed so much to the deterioration there. The US role in Somalia to date is a textbook example of what Mr. Mesfin calls, in restrained language, counter-productive intervention.

 

Congo Ignored, And Not By Accident

Two graphs, the New York Times gave Darfur nearly four times the coverage it gave the Congo in 2006, while Congolese were dying of war-related causes at nearly 10 times the rate of those in Darfur. Graphs: John Emerson (backspace.com)

Julie Hollar has written a superb analysis of why the conflict in the Congo is ignored by the media; Congo Ignored, Not Forgotten, When 5 million dead aren’t worth two stories a year. She covers when and why coverage was better, and what is going on now. I won’t repeat all she writes, it is well worth reading. Near the end she includes this paragraph:

Paying attention to the Congo would also mean reporting on the main factor fueling the conflict: the plunder of the country’s resources, which primarily benefits multinational corporations. The conflict areas of the Congo are rich with minerals like copper, tin, gold, diamonds, cobalt and coltan, a mineral used for cell phones and other common electronic devices. Rebel groups who hold these areas sell off the minerals at cut-rate prices, using the profits to maintain power as big companies look the other way. As happened with conflict diamonds in Sierra Leone and Angola, activists are pushing for a mechanism to make corporations verify that they aren’t buying the Congo’s conflict minerals.

The GDP of both Rwanda and Uganda include minerals stolen from the Congo. So far both countries are rewarded for this theft by praise for their economic progress, and of course by the money these minerals bring. Too many people in too many countries are profiting from Congo’s wealth. Canada is the largest mining interest in the Congo, and funds a lot of the conflict. Mostly all parties are perfectly willing to see the conflict continue. Despite the massive number of deaths, the use of rape as a form of terrorism, used along with murder and dismemberment to threaten and depopulate areas, and the conscription of children as soldiers by all sides, most of the media coverage of the Congo conflict involves endangered gorillas or Angelina Jolie. Media coverage discounts and ignores the people of the Congo.

The Congo conflict is sometimes known as Africa’s world war. Here is a list from 2001 of many of the parties involved, from Natalie Ware at American University.

• The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC):
  * Hutu Interhamwe militia – mostly from Rwanda and responsible for 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda
  * Former Hutu members of the Rwandan military – also responsible for 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda
  * Mai Mai – group of traditional Congolese local security forces
  These groups operate inside the DRC supporting the government “often as guerillas operating inside territory held by antigovernment forces” (U.S. State 2001)
• Libya – provides arms and logistical support but no troops
• North Korea – sent advisors to train government troops
• Rwanda – supports Congolese Rally for Democracy based in Goma (RCD/Goma) and Congolese Rally for Democracy based in Bunia (RCD/Goma); majority Tutsi
• Uganda – supports the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo (MLC); mainly non-Tutsi
• Burundi – fights against various Hutu groups based in the DRC that are against the Tutsi-led Burundi government
• Angola – supports the government of the DRC
• Namibia – supports the government of the DRC
• Zimbabwe – supports the government of the DRC
• Sudan – supports the Alliance of Democratic Forces (ADF); Ugandan expatriates against the government of Uganda

The conflict in the DRC is often characterized as an ethnic conflict. It is a resource war. The various sides exploit ethnicity when it works to their advantage in the pursuit of mineral and other natural resources. All the groups engaged in fighting in the Congo engage in terrorism and conscript children.

China is missing from the above list, its presence has expanded greatly since 2001. The west is entirely missing from the list. Canada, the United States, the UK, countries of the EU, are all players in one form or another, and have been for some time. They are a huge market for the stolen mineral wealth of the Congo, and home base for the multinational corporations who fuel the plunder. Canada is the biggest player in mining. China is also heavily involved in mining in the Congo. The US is supplying a great deal of military training and arms transfers to Rwanda and Uganda, which extend their reach and power into the Congo.