WATCH: The Utilization of Western NGOs for the Theft of Africa’s Vast Resources

Imperial Social Media: Avaaz and the Arms Merchants

Skookum

December 25, 2015

by Jay Taber

Avaaz Hones In On Burundi as Next U.S. Fait Accompli

 

Promoting the imperial social media fad of equivocating on US and NATO invasions that destroy entire societies, ostensibly because the current head of state is ruthless or corrupt, Avaaz apologists neglect the growing list of countries where these invasions have made things worse. Indeed, I am at a loss to find a country in my lifetime (1952-present) where US military aggression — either directly or through proxy mercenaries and US-financed and trained death squads — made things better.

Of course, if you look at militarism as a market-oriented strategy, then making war or creating armed mayhem is just part of doing business. With the crippling financial sanctions available to the US through the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, invasion is just for show — part of the expected social spectacle — that routinely transfers wealth from the U.S. Treasury to Wall Street and the military industrial complex.

Given the US influence at the UN Security Council, any country seeking to conduct its governance, diplomacy and trade independent of the US and EU risks destruction. The evidence can be seen in the chaotic, murderous aftermath reigning in these unfortunate societies, and in the tsunami of refugees seeking asylum. Meanwhile, the revolving door between the arms merchants, the Pentagon and the State Department is now open to NGOs like Avaaz and its PR firm Purpose.

 

Image: U.S. President Barack Obama with Avaaz co-founder and former U.S. Representative Tom Perriello

The Empire’s War against Burundi: War Propaganda in Preparation for an R2P “Humanitarian Intervention”

Meeting with Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame (R) and Samantha Power, US Ambassador to the UN- Washington DC, 4 August 2014

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry releases the 2015 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) with USAID Acting Administrator Alfonso Lenhardt, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Heather Higginbottom, and Special Representative for the QDDR (and Avaaz co-founder) Tom Perriello at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, DC on April 28, 2015. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]

Meeting with Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame (R) and Tom Perriello, US Special Envoy for Great Lakes Region- Kigali, 19 August 2015

Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame (R) walks past US President Barack Obama (2nd R) as US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) and National Security Advisor Susan Rice (C) look on during a “Peacekeeping Summit” at the United Nations headquarters on September 28, 2015 in New York. AFP PHOTO/MANDEL NGAN

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry gives the thumbs-up to participants in the “Leaders’ Summit on Peacekeeping” with National Security Advisor Susan Rice (R), U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power and Rwandan President Paul Kagame during the 70th annual UN General Assembly at the UN headquarters September 28, 2015 in New York City. Source: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

 

 

 

 

SAMANTHA POWER, LOUISE MUSHIKIWABO & COLETTE BRAECKMAN BRING THE DEAD BACK TO LIFE, IN ORDER TO PERPETUATE A LIE

The Intense Western Media Assault on Burundi, its Toxic False-equivalencies & the Lying Mass Murderers Behind It

Urugaga

November 13, 2015

President Kagame with Michael Milken, Bill Gates, Tony Blair and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles following the closing panel on Investing in African Prosperity at the Milken Institute Global Conference – Los Angeles, 1 May 2013

In recent days a fake letter claiming that the FDLR was in Burundi, working with President Nkurunziza to exterminate the Tutsia surfaced out of thin air, and was immediately promoted on social media by Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo, Belgian Journalist/Rumour monger Colette Braeckman, and various Burundian opposition figures. This cynical choir of sinister characters claimed that this was the smoking gun they had long waited for, to prove that the FDLR was in Burundi working with President Nkurunziza to kill tutsis. According to these people, this was the final piece that gave President Kagame the right to march into Burundi to set things straight. All that was left, a decision by the UN Security Council,declaring Burundi a property of the UN/US where Kagame can lead his band of looters and pillagers to dispose of as they please. The task to bring this so called compelling evidence to the Security Council was assigned to the US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, who has been itching for a fight with Burundi for the last couple of years.

Samantha Power

It turns out the letter in question was written on November 4th 2015, by an FDLR Commander by the name of Col. Kabuyoya who passed away several years ago, May He Rest in Peace. Now, unless, the UN wants to accuse the FDLR of running an army of Whitewalkers like in Game of Thrones (an unsettling thought for Kagame who apparently loves the HBO TV show) whereby its fallen soldiers come back to life to fight as fearless ghostly commandos, Col. Kabuyoya did not write any letters. lately; not to his enemies, not to his old comrades, let alone to a sitting President of a Sovereign Country which Burundi is, despite the madness that this trio from hell ( Louise, Samatha and Colette ) may want us to believe. Instead I am of the opinion that, this was supposed to be the equivalent of General Dallaire’s phony genocide fax which was debunked by the International Tribunal, and yet it is still being used by spin doctors such as Mushikiwabo and of course Dallaire himself, as having been a credible piece of evidence that a genocide was planned and executed by the former Rwandan Government.

We have seen this movie before. Now, if you think I am being too tough on the ladies, they weren’t the only ones predicting doomsday for Burundi and calling for President Nkurunziza’s head. Luis Michel, the Belgian loud mouth who claims to know everything about Africa and the Africans took it to the airwaves and he accused President Nkurunziza of being the embodiment of evil leaving nothing to the imagination as to what he would like to see happen to the President, at the same time suggesting that Kagame is the Messiah who is going to deliver the Burundians from a President they just voted for overwhelmingly, just a few months ago, and the same UN that is scrambling to destroy the the President, did recognize his election. And of course, General Dallaire came out from whatever rock he’s been hiding under to give a motivational speech to a unit of the genocidal army (RDF) which he helped bring to power in 1994. The UN Mapping Report clearly states that what the RDF did inside Congo is genocidal in nature and a competent court of law should come to the same conclusion. It is unthinkable to imagine why a General who claims to oppose genocide would go hang out with these type of soldiers. Although his speech is only being promoted by the Kigali media, I can hardly believe his appearance in Africa around the time, the US is trying to coerce the world into taking over a Sovereign country for some mysterious social experiment to be a coincidence. For Dallaire to be back on the scene at this time is like a serial killer who goes back to the scene of the crime to relish in his or her macabre handiwork.

The western mass media assault on Burundi has been so intense that it will take a miracle for the Burundians to overcome the pressure to act out the media predictions, intentionally or unintentionally.

Just like in 1994, the same individuals such as Colette Braeckman, Louis Michel and Dallaire are bent on creating a narrative that only the Government of Burundi is responsible for violent acts, even when we know that a General belonging to the opposition went on TV and claimed responsibility for a string of grenade attacks on civilians inside Bujumbura, terrorist acts by any standard. During the Security Council Meeting, everyone talked about hot political rhetoric from Burundian officials and they forgot to mention Louise Mushikiwabo and her boss’s incitement and threatening speeches against the Burundian government.

 

For the last two years Burundian opposition figures have used incendiary language meant to raise the specter of calamity, trying every trick in the book to connect the FDLR to the Burundian Government as a way to draw the Rwandese Army into an inter Burundian dispute that started as political and has now reached a point where Kagame threatens to invade and he is cheered on by his old groupies, such as Louis Michel and Colette Braeckman. Rwanda is now home to a Burundian opposition Radio Station that just one week ago ran a broadcast of a Burundian opposition activist who claims that Tutsis are Jews, and that it is their duty to drive the likes of Pierre Nkurunzinza into Congo or Angola or even further South. He goes on to state that if the Tutsis (Jews as he keeps insisting) attack the rest of the Bantus with the aim to subjugate them, Israel will send in a hundred thousand soldiers and heavy weapons to help them wipe out everybody and live happily ever after in a world free of ungodly people.

Louis Michel

This kind of poisonous rhetoric, is going on in synch with multiple propaganda experts going around the world masquerading as human rights activists, using a conciliatory language and blaming all their country’s ills on President Nkurunziza. One such character was on Canadian TV the other day, accusing Nkurunziza of every nasty thing she could think of stopping short of calling him a baby eating monster. She called herself a peace loving mother, then got off TV and headed to a fundraiser where money was collected to buy more grenades to throw into crowded markets into Bujumbura, which of course the likes of Colette Braeckman blame on Nkurunziza without fact checking anything they hear. The Burundian opposition’s double speak is aimed at angering the hutu masses as it was done with Radio Muhabura in the 90’s, and creating international sympathy for their political cause, at the same time creating insecurity within the country, knowing full well that everything is going to be blamed on the Government.

Colette Braeckman

This strategy worked for the RPF to perfection, and as a result the whole region has been in turmoil ever since, and more than 12 million people have lost their lives. Therefore, anyone who claims to care about the region to be engaged in this kind of politics, is outright criminal, and the international actors who are party to this are just as guilty. What is clear to me and most rational people is this: BURUNDI IS NOT RWANDA NOR GERMANY, PRESIDENT NKURUNZIZA IS NOT HITLER AND CNDD-FDD IS NOT THE THIRD REICH, TUTSIS ARE NOT JEWS, HUTUS ARE NOT GERMANS AND THE TIMES OF CONQUEST AND EMPIRE BUILDING HAS LONG PASSED, ANY ATTEMPT TO SUBJUGATE THE PEOPLE BY ANY BODY REGARDLESS OF THEIR FOREIGN BACKERS WILL MEET STIFF RESISTANCE AND IS DOOMED TO FAIL. THOSE WHO BLINDLY TAKE SIDES BEHIND THIS KIND OF POLITICS HAVE NOTHING TO OFFER TO AFRICA BUT PAIN AND SUFFERING/ IT IS UP TO THE BURUNDIANS TO SOLVE THEIR OWN PROBLEMS AND RWANDANS SHOULD SOLVE THEIR OWN PROBLEMS FIRST, BEFORE GETTING INVOLVED INTO BURUNDI.

The Empire’s War against Burundi: War Propaganda in Preparation for an R2P “Humanitarian Intervention”

Gearóid Ó Colmáin

December 23, 2015

by Gearóid Ó Colmáin

Agriculture in the beautiful Burundi countryside. “The green patches are tea, and there’s some wheat in there too.” Photo: Jane Boles

Since April of 2015, the Republic of Burundi has been beset by a violent protest movement organised by NGOs financed by the United States and the European Union. These so-called ‘civil society’ organisations have engaged in mass murder, arson, and sabotage in a concerted attempt to spread anarchy in the country on behalf of neocolonial interests.

Pierre Nkurunziza, the country’s president, is among the most popular leaders in Africa today. The reason for this is quite simple. Since coming to power in 2005, Nkurunziza has built more schools than all the combined rulers since independence. A keen ecologist, Nkurunziza is known to spend weekends working in the fields with peasants. He has initiated a vast tree planting programme to protect the country’s environment. The Burundian government intends to turn the country into a major exporter of fruit and free medical care for pregnant women has been provided in newly constructed healthcare centres throughout the country.

The pretext for escalating the destabilization of the country came when Nkurunziza sought a third term as president.US/EU backed opponents claimed that this was contrary to the constitution. However, the legal authorities of the country judged that it was not contrary to the nation’s constitution. Under international law, each nation state is responsible for the internal affairs of that country. However, when it comes to African countries, this principal is rendered null and void. Brussels and Washington have said Nkurunziza must go and have been fomenting instability in the country since 2006, a process that has accelerated since April of 2015.

Among his many achievements as president of Burundi, Pierre Nkurunziza has made community work on Saturdays mandatory in order to foster national voluntarism and a sense of civic spirit in a country just recovering from one of the twentieth century’s worse genocides. From 1993 to 2005, up to 4 million people were murdered during the French, Belgian and US-backed military dictatorship of generals Micombero, Bagaza and Boyoya. Nkurunziza’s Community Work Days have helped reconstruct a war-raved nation, creating a sense of self reliance, unity and social hope among his people. The project has already led to the construction of over 5000 schools in the country.

Situated in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, Burundi is of major interest to multi-national corporations due to its rich agricultural land, natural resources and its strategic location near the some of the most mineral-rich lands on earth. Belgian and French neocolonial rule in Burundi involved stoking up ethnic tension between the Tutsi minority, favoured by Belgian colonialism and the majority Hutu population. Although the government has made every effort to reconcile the two communities, ensuring an ethnic balance in the military and state institutions, and notwithstanding the fact that there is no evidence of state-sponsored racial discrimination in the country, the Western corporate press have been attempting to create the impression that the Burundian government is threatening to exterminate the Tutsi minority. They do this by twisting almost every statement the government makes calling for calm and unity among all Burundians into incitment to racial hatred and genocide.The spreading of rumours that promote fear is a integral part of imperial destabilization techniques.

The Western powers never wanted Pierre Nkurunziza to take power. They understand that a leader who would be capable of uniting all the ethnicities in a country would inevitably pursue socially orientated policies inimical to Western corporate and geostratigic interests. Nkurunziza has repeatedly declared his intention to wipe out poverty in the country. Although the Burundian president is no Thomas Sankara, his concern for the livelihood of the poor makes him a danger to Western corporate interests.

In 2012, the French Ministry of Defense published a report in their journal Horizons Strategiques which warned about the dangers for French interests posed by a resurgence of the ‘politics of dignity’ in Africa. National sovereignty and panafricanist movements were cite as  presenting a grave danger to French control over African resources. This is why all African nations are being systematically destablised by mercenaries and pseudo ‘civil society’ movements working to effect regime change on behalf of neocolonialist interests. Most of these movements received generous funding from the US National Endowment for Democracy, a US think tank which works closely with the CIA to overthrow governments who threaten US imperial interests.This is precisely what is happening in Burundi.

Amnesty International is now publishing serious accusations against the Burundian government in the corporate press. This is an organization which claims to be independent yet has counted among its board members former US National Security Advisor Zbiigniew Bzrezinski, who stated to French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur in 1998 that he couldn’t care less regarding the CIA’s backing of terrorists in Afghanistan, as long as US geopolitical interests were served.

Amnesty International helped spread the racist lies about ‘African mercenaries’ during NATO’s propaganda campaign that preceded the carpet bombing and total destruction of that country in 2011. Amnesty international have been lying and lying  over and over again about Syria since NATO launched its war on the country in 2011, using proxy terrorist gangs. The human rights group have repeatedly blamed the crimes of Al Qaeda linked terrorists in Syria on the Syrian government.

Now the terrorist human rights organisation is sharpening its knives in preparation for the mutilation of another African nation resisting globalisation, resisting the Pentagon’s Africom, resisting neocolonial enslavement. Human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are the avant garde of contemporary imperialism. They are, ipso facto, deeply complicit in genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

These organisations provide moral justification for devastating wars of aggression that murder hundreds of thousands of civilians, rendering millions more homeless and destitute. They are nothing less than evil doers and should be tried for their crimes by the Kuala Lumper War Crimes Tribunal, the only credible legal entity in the world today for the prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Amnesty’s mendacious report on the ‘crackdown’ on ‘peaceful protesters’ and ‘human rights’ activists in Burundi has now been released in order to provide justification for the invasion and occupation of Burundi by international ‘peace-keeping’ forces under the spurious UN doctrine of ‘responsibility to protect’, which translates as the responsibility of the global corporate polyarchy and its puppet governments to ensure that no nation, no matter how small or insignificant, dares challenge the self-proclaimed authority of their ‘global governance’.

 

[Gearóid Ó Colmáin is a journalist and political analyst based in Paris. His work focuses on globalization, geopolitics and class struggle. He is a regular contributor to Global Research, Russia Today International, Press TV, Sputnik Radio France, Sputnik English , Al Etijah TV , Sahar TV,and has also appeared on Al Jazeera and Al Mayadeen. He writes in English, Gaelic and French. Please donate to his new website and keep the truth flowing.]

 

Further reading:

Burundi: L’ingérence de Washington et de l’UE ne sont pas inévitables

Creating Failed States | Next up: Burundi

Avaaz Hones In On Burundi as Next U.S. Fait Accompli

Are the US and the EU Sponsoring Terrorism in Burundi?

Rwanda and Burundi : Who’s ‘promoting instability through violence’?

THE PURPOSE OF AVAAZ: CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

POSTER SERIES: WANTED FOR DESTROYING OUR FUTURE: AVAAZ

Climate Criminals

The Dirtiest Fossil Fuel Lobbyists behind the doors of #COP21

The consultants for Gates, Rockefeller, & UN behind the doors of #COP21

The world is calling for a commitment to a 100% clean future at the climate summit in Paris. But a group of climate criminals is trying to stop that deal. Their tactics are different, but their end game is the same: shift the focus away from emissions targets and keep fossil fuels at the centre of human development. Some even argue that more money should be spent on coal – the worst carbon-polluting fuel. Most get paid by fossil fuel companies like Exxon to speak against climate action. Some of them have launched extreme public attacks against scientists and others.

Grassroots groups across the world are calling for a dismantling of the suicidal capitalist economic system. But a group of climate criminals (also known as the non-profit industrial complex) is trying to stop this imperative. Their tactics are different, but their end game is the same: shift the focus away from necessary emissions targets and keep first world consumption and the capitalist economic system dependent on infinite growth at the centre of “human development”. Some even argue that more money should be spent on a third industrial revolution – all of which is fossil fuel based and fossil fuel dependent. Most get paid by foundations such as Rockefeller to create acquiescence to the expansion of corporate power and privatization. Some of them have launched extreme public attack campaigns to feign legitimacy, but ultimately they defend the current power structures (upon which they depend and often are created by) and capital while advancing imperial interests and western ideologies throughout the globe.

That is why Avaaz is exposing the seven biggest climate criminals attending the COP21 Paris climate summit. We are publishing their photo and their biographies and insider dossiers on their activities to shine a spotlight on their dirty backroom dealings and stop them from destroying our future.

That is why WKOG is exposing the seven biggest criminals accelerating climate change and destabilizations/wars. We are publishing their photo and their biographies and insider dossiers on their activities to shine a spotlight on their dirty backroom dealings and stop them from destroying our future.

#1: Avaaz co-founder Tom Perriello

Tom Perriello is a long-time collaborator with Avaa co-founder Ricken Patel. Together, they co-founded Avaaz.org, Res Publica and FaithfulAmerica.org. Perriello is a former U.S. Representative (represented the 5th District of Virginia from 2008 to 2010) and a founding member of the House Majority Leader’s National Security Working Group.

Today Perriello is involved in the current destabilization of Burnudi and Congo well underway. On July 6, 2015 it was announced by the U.S. State Department that Avaaz co-founder Tom Perriello would be fulfilling his role for the expansion of U.S. imperialism as special envoy for the African Great Lakes region and the Congo-Kinshasa. [Further reading: Avaaz Hones In On Burundi as Next U.S. Fait Accompli]

The role of Avaaz, Purpose Inc. (the for-profit PR arm of Avaaz), and Avaaz co-founders in U.S./E.U. led destabilizations/invasions across the globe is now extensively documented. Burundi serves as a rinse, rather, repeat performance, only with far less notoriety/interest.

Perriello and Patel also co-founded and co-directed DarfurGenocide.org which officially launched in 2004. “DarfurGenocide.org is a project of Res Publica… Today, this organization is now known as “Darfurian Voices”: “Darfurian Voices is a project of 24 Hours for Darfur.” The U.S. Department of State and the Open Society Institute were just two of the organization’s funders and collaborating partners. Other Darfurian Voices partners include Avaaz, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), International Centre for Transitional Justice, Darfur Rehabilitation Project, Humanity United, Darfur People’s Association of New York, Genocide Intervention, Witness, Yale Law School, The Sigrid Rausing Trust and the Bridgeway Foundation. Of all the listed partners of DarfurGenocide.org, with the exception of one located in London, England, all of the entities involved are American and based on U.S. soil.

Further reading, full background and bio: Avaaz: Imperialist Pimps of Militarism, Protectors of the Oligarchy, Trusted Facilitators of War | Part II, Section I

#2: Avaaz co-founder Ricken Patel

Ricken Patel is co-founder and executive director of Avaaz International. Patel has served as a consultant for the United Nations, the Rockefeller Foundation, the International Crisis Group, Harvard University, CARE International, and the International Center for Transitional Justice.

Patel serves on the 350.org International Advisory Council. 350.org and Avaaz are two of twenty NGOs that founded GCCA (TckTckTck), the NGO at the helm of the global climate marches. [Source: http://350.org/about/intl-ad-council/]

Patel is also co-founder and executive director of Res Publica, which was formally launched in 2003. Res Publica is based in New York.

Res Publica is a primary co-founder of Avaaz along with MoveOn. Res Publica’s stated goal is to “develop innovative solutions to global justice and security threats.” Res Publica “ran as a pilot project” in Sierra Leone in 2001-2002 and has three full-time fellows, Ricken Patel, Tom Perriello and Tom Pravda. Res Publica is supported by a broader network of “Friends of Res Publica” and a Global Advisory Board. Who the broader network of “Friends of Res Publica” actually are, is anyone’s guess.

29 December 2004: “Over two days in early December approximately three-dozen religious activists met at the Washington office of the Center for American Progress, a recently formed think tank headed by former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta. The Res Publica-driven agenda for the closed-door gathering included sessions on ‘building the movement infrastructure’ and ‘objectives, strategies and core issues.’”

Perriello (now President and CEO of Center for American Progress) described Res Publica as an “incubator for social entrepreneurship.”

The Res Publica email address is actually respublica@avaaz.org.

Patel was co-director of DarfurGenocide.org, an organization he helped establish with Perriello and the U.S. State Department.

Avaaz (one of the 20 NGOs that founded GCCA/TckTckTck) was instrumental in the undermining of the small vulnerable states in 2009 at COP15. [Further reading: The Most Important COP Briefing That No One Ever Heard | Truth, Lies, Racism & Omnicide]

Further reading, full background and bio: Avaaz: mperialist Pimps of Militarism, Protectors of the Oligarchy, Trusted Facilitators of War | Part II, Section I

#3: Avaaz co-founder Jeremy Heimans

Jeremy Heimans is co-founder of both Avaaz and GetUp! GetUp, founded in 2005, is an internationally recognized social and political online “movement” that purports to have more members than all of Australia’s political parties combined. Heimans is also co-founder and CEO of Purpose: “a profit-with-purpose business that builds movements to help solve major global problems.”

Vision: “Purpose is a global initiative that draws on leading technologies, political organizing and behavioral economics to build powerful, tech-savvy movements that can transform culture and influence policy.”

Avaaz co-founder David Madden is also a co-founders of the New York consulting firm, Purpose Inc. Utilizing the “behavioral economics of hatred”, Purpose has created at least four anti-Assad NGOs/campaigns: The White Helmets, Free Syrian Voices, The Syria Campaign and March Campaign #withSyria. [Further reading: SYRIA: Avaaz, Purpose & the Art of Selling Hate for Empire] [Further reading: Syria’s White Helmets: War by Way of Deception – Part I]

Further reading, full background and bio: Avaaz: Imperialist Pimps of Militarism, Protectors of the Oligarchy, Trusted Facilitators of War | Part II, Section II

#4: Avaaz co-founder Tom Pravda

Tom Pravda is a British diplomat who co-founded both Res Publica and Avaaz. He has been listed as both secretary and treasurer to Avaaz. Pravda also sits on the advisory board of Res Publica. Pravda has worked for the United Nations in New York and is an advisor to the U.S. State Department, the UK Foreign Office and the European Union. Pravda has been a member of the UK Diplomatic Service since 2003 where he has worked on EU trade and development policy and relations with the Middle East and Africa.

Pravda is a specialist in the Great Lakes Region/DRC, where he advised/advises the U.S. State Department, the UK Foreign Office and the European Union on diplomatic, security and development strategies and programming for the region.

Pravda has also interned for Global Witness and the World Development Movement. Global Witness receives immense funding from governments including Canada and the UK. In 2005, Global Witness also received funding from the NED for their work to “advocate for good governance of natural resource management in Liberia.”

Further reading, full background and bio: Avaaz: Imperialist Pimps of Militarism, Protectors of the Oligarchy, Trusted Facilitators of War | Part II, Section II

#5: Avaaz co-founder Eli Pariser

Eli Pariser is co-founder of Avaaz as well as president/chairman of MoveOn.org’s board. Prior to position of chair, Pariser served as the Executive Director of MoveOn.org. Pariser has worked directly with former Vice President Al Gore on drafting MoveOn-sponsored speeches and assisted in fundraising for John Kerry’s presidential campaign. In December 2003 Pariser worked with Jonathan Soros, son of George Soros, on a MoveOn.org campaign. On December 9, 2004, one month after Kerry’s defeat, Pariser declared that MoveOn had effectively taken control of the Democratic Party.

In an e-mail distributed to MoveOn.org members on November 22, 2005, Pariser announced that his organization had created a spinoff entity called the New Organizing Institute, “a unique grassroots program that trains young, technology-enabled political organizers to work for progressive campaigns and organizations.”

A fellow of the Soros-funded New Organizing Institute, he served as Obama’s ghostwriter for social media applications such as Twitter.

Pariser has recently aligned himself with SumOfUs as a U.S. Advisory Board member and is a co-founder of Upworthy (which works to make trending issues go viral online).

Further reading, full background and bio: Avaaz: Imperialist Pimps of Militarism, Protectors of the Oligarchy, Trusted Facilitators of War | Part II, Section II

#6: Avaaz co-founder David Madden

David Madden, is the co-founder of the Australian NGO, GetUp, co-founder of its U.S. counterpart MoveOn.org, as well as co-founder of Avaaz.

Madden has consulted for the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program. As well, Madden has worked for the World Bank in Timor Leste, and for the United Nations in Indonesia. Prior to this, Madden served as an officer in the Australian Army.

Madden is also a co-founders of the New York consulting firm, Purpose Inc. with Avaaz co-founder Jeremy Heimans and Avaaz’s James Slezak. [Further reading: SYRIA: Avaaz, Purpose & the Art of Selling Hate for Empire]

Madden has taken up residence in Burma/Myanmar [March 23, 2013: Western Media Celebrates Faux Progress in Myanmar] where he has co-founded the marketing firm, Parami Road: “Our clients are mostly international companies entering Myanmar and they demand an international standard of work.”

Further reading, full background and bio: Avaaz: Imperialist Pimps of Militarism, Protectors of the Oligarchy, Trusted Facilitators of War | Part II, Section II

#7: Avaaz co-founder Andrea Woodhouse

Avaaz co-founder Andrea Madden works for the World Bank in Burma [Myanmar]. Her husband is Avaaz co-founder David Madden who has taken up residence in Burma (see above).

Woodhouse is a consultant to both the United Nations and the World Bank. Woodhouse is a  social entrepreneur having founded two social ventures, Avaaz and Win Back Respect, “a foreign policy advocacy group that ran a $5 million media campaign during the 2004 U.S. presidential election promoting ‘a more multilateral foreign policy’ and ran an advocacy tour with General Wesley Clark.”

Further reading, full background and bio: Avaaz: Imperialist Pimps of Militarism, Protectors of the Oligarchy, Trusted Facilitators of War | Part II, Section III

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WATCH | Eritrea: The Danger of a Good Example in Africa

WATCH: Politicizing Eritrean Migration

J’Accuse Human Rights Watch [Eritrea]

The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) was an egalitarian movement in which 30% of the fighters were women. Eritrean Women’s important role in the War for Independence: Eritrean Women fought in the war for Independence from Ethiopia, helping to continuously elevate their status in society as time progressed. Women played a vital role in winning Eritrea’s independence on the battlefield, but also in the community, as health care providers, educators, army assistants and of course as nurturing grandmothers, mothers, aunts, cousins and sisters to their families. Eritrean women continue to be held in high regard and respected in today’s society in their many different positions in society. They do all of this while continuing to nurture and pave the way for their children, grandchildren and future generations. Source: knowledgeequalsblackpower

 

Letter to Mr. Kenneth Roth (Executive Director of HRW)

April 20, 2015

by Daniel Wedi Korbaria 

I – WORLD REPORT ERITREA

Dear Mr. Roth,

Reading your latest annual report on Eritrea (2014), at first, I strongly doubted it was even my country. But, unfortunately, it was my homeland you were writing about.

I would be really pleased if you could help me understand a few passages.

First, I was wondering whether by putting the logo of Bisha’s gold mine at the centre of Eritrea’s map corresponded with an inexplicit message to point out the country’s natural resources or just to make the report more appealing to the reader?

Secondly, you compile your report with a heavy load of according to, reported by, it said, it told, he describes, etc. It also seems appropriate to mention that Human Rights Watch does not operate within Eritrea, neither it acquires reliable information from inside the country. So HRW continues, through its reports, to spread unconfirmed stories and fabrications.

The report states: “Eritrea is among the most closed countries in the world; human rights conditions remain dismal. Indefinite military service, torture, arbitrary detention, and severe restrictions on freedoms of expression, association, and religion provoke thousands of Eritreans to flee the country each month.”

Young Eritreans are fleeing their country. That is true. They run away for extended military service, this is also true. But why does the report fail to rightly address Ethiopia’s incompliance with the EEBC final and binding decisions, Ethiopia’s continuing illegal occupation of Eritrean territories? Is Human Rights Watch aware of the no war – no peace situation persisting since the end of the conflict in 2000 and that forces everyone to stay alert?

Given our history, which has taught us in the most terrible way how this world and politics work, you should already understand that any genuine, patriotic, and conscious Eritrean would just never naively accept incorrect reports by the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Eritrea.

The UN unlawful decisions have negatively affected the course of Eritrean history. It started in 1952, with the federation of Eritrea to Ethiopia and the total annexation ten years later by Emperor HaileSellasie. During the thirty-year struggle for freedom more than 100.000 Eritreans sacrificed their lives during which the UN only watched silently and it was only because of their ultimate sacrifice that we have been able to become a Nation!

So Mr. Roth, I wonder where the UN was when Eritreans were getting killed by the regimes of HaileSellasie and MengistuHailemariam? Was the UN not aware of the Red Terror Campaign? Was the UN not aware of the Napalm bombs used to kill innocent civilians? Why wasn’t a “Special Rapporteur” of the UN on Eritrea constituted during these bloody years?

“Eritrea has no constitution, functioning legislature, independent judiciary, elections, independent press, or nongovernmental organizations; it does not hold elections.”

We have been strongly demonized for not welcoming foreign NGOs, although they seem to have become a way of western control in Africa. Like many other Eritreans, I believe in the principle of self-reliance and a way for me to proudly-and-rightly contribute to the development of my nation is by paying the two percent tax.

“Children as young as 15 are inducted and sent for military training, according to recent interviews by refugee agencies.”

This statement is utterly false. In Eritrea every child has to go school and their main concern age would be about their homework, semester exams and probably falling in love with his/her classmate. The military training only starts at the completion of the secondary school.

“Some prisoners are offered release on condition that they sign statements renouncing their faith. Three deaths during captivity were reported by foreign based religious monitoring groups in 2013, but given the difficulties of obtaining information, the number may be higher.”

Or maybe even lower?

In my country, from thousands of years, Christians and Muslims have co-existed in peaceful harmony and total respect of each other’s faith. Islam and Christianity are both secular religions that have become part of the Eritrean history and culture. Having said that, Eritreans remain conscious about those western-driven religions, which aim at controlling and dividing populations. In Eritrea, it is the established religions, especially the Orthodox Church, that have been targeted by Christian fundamentalist groups from the West.

“Eritrea has been under United Nations sanctions since 2009 because of its support for armed Islamic insurgents in Somalia and its refusal to release Djibouti prisoners of war captured during a 2008 invasion of Djibouti’s border territory.”

Supposedly, Human Right Watch should act as a neutral observer but the biases are quite obvious. Nothing could be more false than linking Eritrea with warlords in Somalia, invasion of Djibouti’s territory – all started as Ethiopia’s propaganda and proved to be totally unfounded. Moreover, the Report of the Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea pursuant to Security Council resolution 2111 (2013) -13 October 2014- boldly states: “The Monitoring Group has found no evidence of Eritrean support to Al-Shabaab during the course of its present mandate.”

Similarly, the recent UN sanctions have been unjustly imposed on the Eritrean people by the US pressure, eternal ally of Ethiopia since the times of Emperor HaileSellassie.

Blatant was the take of US when Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, in 1952, openly declared: “From the point of view of justice, the opinion of the Eritrean people must receive consideration. Nevertheless, the strategic interests of the United States in the Red Sea Basin and world peace make it necessary that the Country (Eritrea) be linked with our ally Ethiopia.”

In my opinion dear Mr. Roth, your reports on Eritrea also seem to carry on such legacy.

Below some few examples of Human Rights Watch’s curriculum.

1) IRAQ: in your article Indict Saddam published on Wall St. Journal (Mar. 22, 2002) you conclude saying: “That delegitimization would not guarantee his ouster, but it would certainly help build consensus that he is unfit to govern, and thus that something must be done to end his rule.”
By now, everyone knows what has later happened to Saddam Hussein and the cycle of chaos and instability reigning in Iraq since the end of the ‘rule’. I wonder what your opinion on ‘human rights’ after Saddam is and whether you believe Iraqis have been better off since US and UK intervention. How many people have died because of foreign intervention? Will Human Rights Watch ever denounce the crimes of Bush and Blair among others?

In the Briefing Paper (February 20, 2003) Section II: Weapons of Mass Destruction it was clear that Human Rights Watch believed on Iraqi’s possession of weapon of mass destruction, as the report stated: “No party to a conflict in Iraq would be legally justified in using any weapon of mass destruction under any circumstances. Given that a stated rationale for a potential attack on Iraq is the desire to remove any threat from weapons of mass destruction (WMD), there are two issues that are of particular concern. The first is a deliberate use of WMD by Iraqi forces against invading coalition forces or as an act of vengeance against Iraqi civilians. The Iraqi government might also use conventional weapons to commit mass atrocities against Iraqis.(…) Similarly, any use of biological weapons by either party to the conflict would violate international law. The 1975 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) prohibits the development, production, acquisition, and stockpiling of biological weapons.”

Did Human Rights Watch ever explain that these weapons were never found? Has HRW ever taken responsibility for the consequences of its sinister fabrications? Has HRW ever apologized to anyone?

2) SYRIA: the Syrian uprising started on spring 2011 and World Report 2011 on Syria (Events of 2010) reports: “There was no significant change in Syrian human rights policy and practice in 2010. Authorities continued to broadly violate the civil and political rights of citizens, arresting political and human rights activists, censoring websites, detaining bloggers, and imposing travel bans. (…) The international community’s interactions with Syria have focused almost exclusively on its regional role. Key European Union and US officials have condemned the arrest and trials of prominent activists, but their interventions have had no impact on Syria’s actions.”

Does Human Rights Watch consider the atrocities of war in Syria being the reason of the situation of earlier years? Is HRW satisfied with today’s human rights situation?

3) LIBYA: the protests in Benghazi began Tuesday the 15th of February 2011 and about a year earlier, the World Report 2011 on Libya (Events of 2010) reads as follows: “Libya has no independent NGOs and Libyan laws severely restrict freedom of association. (…) in June Libya ordered UNHCR to close its office and expelled its representative (…)”
Ten days since the beginning of the uprising, 63 Organizations around the World signed a Petition to the General Assembly as reported by Peggy Hicks, global advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. She reported the words of Jose Luis Diaz, Head of Office and Representative at the UN for Amnesty International: “Allowing Libya to continue to serve on the Human Rights Council today would be an affront to those suffering in Libya and to human rights defenders across the globe who are demanding Libya’s suspension.”

So, again I ask: is Human Rights Watch satisfied with the human rights situation in Libya since the defeat of MuammarGadhafi? Has the country’s human rights situation gotten any better?

4) SUDAN: before the Sudan was split, the report: Sudan, Oil, and Human Rights (November 25, 2003) Human Rights Watch advices all oil companies to suspend their activities in Sudan. “None of these nor any oil company, including TotalFinaElf, nor industry contractors and subcontractors, should resume or commence operations in Sudan unless(…)”

Below other two recommendation, the first was addressed to the Government of Sudan: “Adhere in full to the IMF Code of Good Practices on Fiscal Transparency and publish a detailed account of military expenditures and the source of such revenue under IMF guidance (…)”
The second was addressed to the US: “Condemn abuses by all parties to the conflict-including the Sudanese government armed forces and its ethnic militias, SSDF, Baggara militias, Popular Defence Force, SPLM/A, and others-and insist that those responsible for abuses be held accountable. Continue existing sanctions on Sudan until concrete and measurable progress has been made toward ceasing human rights abuses.”

I wonder why would Human Rights Watch consider the US a crucial party to be involved in the affairs of Sudan? Can the US even be regarded as a benign guardian or fair mentor lecturing other countries about human rights standards?

Again, is HRW satisfied with the human rights situation of Sudanese people today?

II – BACK TO ERITREA

Here are the contents of the report Eritrea: Mining Investors Risk Use of Forced Labor on the gold found in Eritrea (15 January 2013). It reads: “Hear No Evil: Forced Labor and Corporate Responsibility in Eritrea’s Mining Sector,” describes how mining companies working in Eritrea risk involvement with the government’s widespread exploitation of forced labor (…) “If mining companies are going to work in Eritrea, they need to make absolutely sure that their operations don’t rely on forced labor,” said Chris Albin-Lackey, business and human rights researcher and senior Human Rights Watch.

“Based on the Bisha experience the greatest risk of abuse may occur during the construction phase of these projects. (…) All mining firms working in Eritrea should undertake Human Rights(…) It is negligent for mining companies to ignore the risks of forced labor that clearly exist in Eritrea, (…)”
In other words, HRW efforts can clearly be interpreted as another futile attempt to undermine Eritrea economically.

Already seven months before (June 20, 2012), in US: Joint Letter Regarding US Engagement at Upcoming Human Rights Council Session, Frank Jannuzi (Deputy Executive Director, Amnesty International USA) wrote a letter to Hillary Clinton (Secretary of State Department of the United States).

“Dear Secretary Clinton, The joint statement on Eritrea signed by 44 countries at the March HRC Session marked a positive step forward in drawing international attention to grave human rights violations in that country. The dire situation in Eritrea merits further attention from the Human Rights Council, and we call on the U.S. to work with partners to mobilize African leadership for a strong resolution at the June session that will establish a Special Rapporteur to report on the widespread and systematic human rights violations that have been continuing in Eritrea for over a decade. Sincerely yours… ”
Co-signatory Juliette de Rivero (Director of Human Rights Watch in Geneva).

It seems quite obvious that Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are moving in perfect symbiosis.

In the report: Ten Long Years of September 24, 2011 HRW was recommending with the Government of Eritrea, writing: “Allow independent monitors such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and UN and African Commission special mechanisms access (such as the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment) to Eritrea’s detention facilities.” (…) “Human Rights Watch and other independent human rights entities, including the UN special Rapporteur on Eritrea, have documented serious patterns of human rights violations in Eritrea.”

A judgment already written, it seems.

Finally, a recommendation to all countries of the world: “Abide by the guidance of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that particular categories of asylum seekers may be at risk upon return, in particular, persons avoiding military/national service; members of political opposition groups and Government critics; journalists; trade unionists; members of minority religious groups; members of certain minority ethnic groups; and victims of trafficking. Facilitate full access for UNHCR to Eritrean asylum seekers.”

At the Clinton Global Initiative in 2009, President Obama declared: “I recently renewed sanctions on some of the worst abusers, including North Korea and Eritrea. We’re partnering with groups that help women and children escape from the grip of their abusers. We are helping other countries step up their efforts and we have seen results.”

And when Obama speaks of ‘groups that help women and children escape’ might he be alluding to the refugee camps in Ethiopia and Sudan? And what are these results of which he speaks of? Our young people running away?

“(…) Eritrean refugees have become a crucial source of information on the human rights situation in Eritrea given that Eritrea has not allowed United Nations special rapporteurs or other international human rights investigators to visit the country” states the latest report of Human Rights Watch dated 26 September 2014, although it does not sufficiently address on these other international investigators.

But young Eritreans also flee from the refugee camps in Ethiopia or Sudan. What happens there? HRW explains: “Few Eritreans seek refuge in countries near Eritrea – including Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, and Sudan – because those countries force them to live in closed remote refugee camps, deny them access to work, or detain and abuse them in inhuman and degrading conditions”
Almost justifying their journey through the desert and sea, which has led to a terrible number of deaths.

I wonder how many of those drowned in the Mediterranean Sea does HRW feel on its conscience. How many of those who vanished in the desert did HRW actually meet and did question? How many of them did HRW deceive with a false pretense of humanitarian reception in refugee camps? Did HRW really listen to their voices, catch the hopes painted in their eyes? Does HRW consider the voices of all Eritrean migrants including those who did not lament of a ‘dictatorship’ in Eritrea? Probably not.

“Cui prodest?” said the Latins. The Exodus helps neither Eritrea nor its President. So who would be more interested in ripping Eritrea of its young people than the United States and Ethiopia? Human Rights Watch too?

Dear Mr. Roth, as Human Rights Watch wrote: “The Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on June 27 to establish the Commission of Inquiry to investigate human rights violations in Eritrea “since independence” in 1991” clearly stating that abuses have been a recurring factor in Eritrea since liberation. Was the situation during the Ethiopian annexation regime of Colonel MengistuHailemariam and before harmonious?

The one charm about the past is that it is the past – Oscar Wilde

Dear Mr. Roth, are you truly committed in protecting the human rights of Eritrean citizens?
If so, as an Eritrean citizen I ask you and HRW to understand that since the 1950s the very first human right has been denied to us: the right to peace. I challenge you to help us assure peace, the respect of Eritrea’s sovereignty and guarantee that our borders are finally respected.

The right to peace should be the root and the mother of all human rights. To deprive a nation of this fundamental right is, for me, to deprive it of its very right to exist.

Eritrea is a country that has continuously committed to development through its own efforts and without the usual borrowing from legalized loan sharks, that has made incredible progress in the achievement of almost all eight Millennium Development Goals (according to UNDP, Eritrea is among the only four countries in Africa to succeed), ensuring a long-term solution to water shortage through the construction of several dams – which has also served to guarantee food security. Dams are used to retain water, without water there would be no food, and that would highly compromise the well-being of this and future generations.

So again I ask: can a country like Eritrea, which has consistently shown its commitment to social welfare and development, instead be accused of depriving its citizens of fundamental human rights?
It is with noble ideals of serving future generation on long-term commitment that the Eritrean People build their country from scratch today. How can HRW just belittle the efforts of Eritreans by labeling it ‘forced labor’?

Is it plausible that a Country, which has uniquely managed to reduce infant and maternal mortality, eradicate malaria and extraordinarily reduce HIV rates, can be called “Hell on Earth”? Eritrea is also one of the few countries in the world that offers its students free education from kindergarten to College. A Country that in 2014 successfully involves students and teachers in projects to plant 4,000,000 trees to prevent desertification, a Country that cares for the well-being of those who will come tomorrow and for them today plants Eritrea’s future trees. Is it credible that a Country that puts all this determination and care should be accused, tried and punished for serious crimes against its people?

I find these allegations to be very unreal and HRW attitude to perpetrate the crime of theft and deprivation of basic human rights to the Eritrean people. An injustice that, however, will not escape history books.

But it is never too late to repair and a letter can be an opportunity to encourage you with that. HRW should be on the side of Eritreans who are still fighting for justice. The solution to all ills has already been recognized and ruled on paper by the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) but, inexplicably, it was never respected nor implemented. Twelve long years have been wasted and that has served for some to provide their own distorted versions of history. Brush up on those records and you will find the whole truth printed in large letters, and it’s simpler than HRW may believe.

Dear Mr. Roth, if you properly looked at our History, you would have discovered all the injustices that we have faced and still do. Since the days of our grandfathers, Eritreans were made Ascari of the Italians fighting in Libya, Somalia and Ethiopia, during which nearly one million Eritreans never returned home. Then we suffered other oppressors: English rule for 11 years and Ethiopian occupation for 40 years, which set off the thirty year-war for Liberation with more than 100,000 Eritreans killed. Again, thousands of youngsters were martyred because of the border war 1998-2000.

Today, those young Eritreans who are “tired” of the environment Eritrea was forcefully put into, end up drowning in the sea as it happened in the Tragedy of Lampedusa despite many human rights NGOs instead encourage them to leave. All while we Eritreans continue to suffer!

Mr. Roth, however you want to put it, we would always send up talking about the death of these Eritreans.

Therefore Mr. Roth, not only as an Eritrean citizen, but also as a global citizen, I launch my own J’Accuse to Human Rights Watch and to you as his lawful Representative.

J’Accuse Human Rights Watch to be part of the creative mind to foment the global chaos of our times, and that will continue time and time again, as in the past, to be used to justify more wars;

J’Accuse Human Rights Watch to be the one of best tools ever invented by the Western Powers to destabilize and promote new-colonization of Africa; and

J’Accuse Human Rights Watch to be who, in the name of human rights, is dictating laws around the World particularly focusing its attention on the African continent!

Expressing my inner disregard for such “humanitarian” job, hope you can live up to the day when there will be a new Era for Africa, the day of an African Renaissance, the day when there will be an International African Court of Justice to indict Human Rights Watch and similar “humanitarian” organizations for crimes against humanity.

And I hope that day will come very soon!

Yours sincerely,
Daniel Wedi Korbaria (Eritrean artist)

The Virgin Fallacy: From the Famine Cotton Board to the Millennium Village Project

Critical Investigations into Humanitarianism in Africa (CIHA)

February 13, 2015

by Cilas Kemedjio

 

In this three-part series (we post Part One today), Cilas Kemedjio takes on the ongoing crusade to spread neoliberal dogma and “western values.”  Part Two addresses William Easterly’s call to governments and aid agencies to be “guardians of virtue,” while Part Three moves to the continued efforts of Jeffrey Sachs to create development nirvanas in African (and other) societies.

 

The cover story in The Economist (June 1997) was “Emerging Africa.” It was a classic display of the arrogant paternalism that has come to be the hallmark of the new humanitarianism. We are told that poor countries, referred to as “swallowers of endless charity,” will continue to make “legitimate demands on the conscience of the rich world.” In order to maximize the efficiency of aid programs, reforming corrupt models of governance should be the priority of donors: “If a country’s government is too venal or incompetent to spend the money as specified, it must be told to allow non-governmental organizations to step in or do without aid altogether” (The Economist 13-14). William Easterly makes the case for this neoliberal agenda in the language of virtue in his book The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor. Easterly, a believer in the “Invisible Hand” theorized by Adam Smith, advocates an orthodox laissez-faire capitalism, that, coupled with democratic institutions, is the golden path towards growth. Jeffrey Sachs, in an article (“The Limits of Convergence: Nature, nurture and growth”) published in the same issue, credits Adam Smith for understanding better than modern economists the curse of tropical geography, that is, the link between geography and poverty (or growth). Sachs contends that global capitalism is “the most promising institutional arrangement for worldwide prosperity that history has ever seen.” Sachs claims that market-based policies and “fiscal rectitude” can help mitigate the “disabilities of the tropics.” The Economist, Easterly and Sachs all agree that good governance constitute the most important factor in the march out of extreme poverty: “Good government is not just a moral concern, or a basis for social stability and political legitimacy. Corruption, government breach of contract, expropriation of property, and inefficiency in public administration are found to harm growth.” For Sachs western economic domination may have been built upon the West’s nearly exclusive hold on capitalism. In the era of globalization, he suggests that economic prosperity should become “common property.” Jeffrey Sachs, the humanitarian at the center of Nina Munk’s The Idealist Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty, and Easterly, the unapologetic advocate of globalization, do find another common ground: the virgin fallacy.

The concept of virginity is at the heart of the undertakings of European colonization, from slavery to humanitarianism without borders by way of colonization. The tabula rasa authorizes the colonial project with the attendant exploitation of human resources whose privileged modality is constituted of forced labor. The virginal state presupposes a certain laziness or morbidity of native residents, whence the exotic mythologies of the unused reserves of human energy that precede the enslavement of peoples expropriated from their virgin lands. Allen Isaacman and Richard Roberts, in Cotton, Colonialism, and Social History is Sub-Saharan Africa (1995), argue that programs of cotton colonialism were built upon the empirical observations and fantasies of European visitors, traders, missionaries, and administrators. Their view of Africa’s potential to produce cotton stemmed from the nineteenth-century romantic images of Africa as a beautiful tropical region through the prism of neo-mercantile policies. Most expectations rested on the assumption that African rural societies enjoyed abundant leisure that could be used to fuel the cotton industry. The colonial production scheme was also based on the presumption of an underutilized labor force, the consequence of Africans being “congenitally lazy.” Therefore, it was the divine duty of colonial nations to “heal” this malady by forcing Africans in the cotton fields.

Jean-Paul Sartre, in his much-celebrated preface to Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, writes that the invention of the native was a result of the reduction of “the inhabitants of the annexed country to the level of superior monkeys in order to justify the settler’s treatments of them as beasts of burden.” Starvation was only one of the modalities for achieving the complete breakdown of the humanity of the colonized. Isaacman argues that “Mozambican peasants underwrote the Portuguese textile industry with their labor and were forced to sacrifice their own food security” (Cotton is the Mother of Poverty 1996). The Famine Control Board, established by the Portuguese, could be said to represent a Humanitarian Mission at the heart of colonial exploitation.

If colonies were the grounds for the first Humanitarian missions of modern times, the battlegrounds of the Nigerian civil war, otherwise known as the Biafra war (1967-1970), became the theater of another experimentation: partisan humanitarianism. This new brand of humanitarian intervention, popularized by Doctors Without Borders, has recently become the cornerstone of the new ethical order world order. The Right to Protect, as it is known, institutionalizes the sovereignty of human rights over State sovereignty. Libya and Côte d’Ivoire have been, for better or for worse, targeted for this humanitarian experimentation. Jean Ping, the former President of the African Union Commission, laments how Libya is in chaos, after the NATO bombings that left the country in shambles and more than 50,000 deaths according to various estimates (Éclipse sur l’Afrique. Fallait-il tuer Kadhafi? 2014). Côte d’Ivoire has yet to recover from the disastrous French and United Nations military intervention following what amounted to be nothing more than a post-electoral dispute (Laurent Gbagbo selon François Mattei. Pour la Vérité et la Justice. Révélations sur un scandale français, 2014). I argue that this transformation of Africa as a ground where new experiments in international affairs are conducted proceeds from the Virgin Fallacy.

Easterly, in the name of fighting poverty, ends up casting Africa as a virgin land waiting to be molded by the conquistadores of morality and democracy, this time charged with the mission to protect the rights of the poor: “If you wonder what you can do about global poverty, here is virgin territory for action” (Easterly 34; emphasis added). The salvation of the poor, this theory surmises, will only come as a consequence of the spread of individual rights that are “Western values.” Sachs would probably agree with the assessment about the failure of development in Africa, but contends that it’s because foreign aid has been insufficient to generate satisfactory results. Sachs’s humanitarian approach to fight extreme poverty takes the form of the Millennium Villages Project while Easterly’s relies on the neoliberal dogma of free enterprise, globalization, and political freedom. Easterly is critical of Sachs’s philanthropic approach that seeks to create islands of successes in a sea of failure. Sachs’ humanitarianism is an experiment designed “to test his theories about ending poverty, and to demonstrate that his proposed series of interventions could be used on a grand scale to eradicate extreme poverty across Africa” (Munk 213). These theories, manufactured in Western laboratories, do not account for the complexities of African communities. The inability to learn from failures and successes that are written into the long history of fighting poverty in Africa calls into question this experiment that inevitably resurrects the tabula rasa mindset. In this sense, it does remain trapped within the paradigm of Africa as virgin territory.

 

[Cilas Kemedjio is Director of the Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies at the University of Rochester and co-editor of the CIHA Blog.]

Western Intervention and The Colonial Mindset