Commentary from xcroc:
There is a lot of misinformation here, the only thing really accurate is the names of the countries. I don’t have time available to go through and document point by point, but I will recommend some reading for those who may wish to know more.
First I looked up the author Dr. Jack Zeller. There isn’t very much, from what I found, I think this is the guy. I couldn’t find much else in terms of biography.
Jack Zeller
Founder and president emeritus of Kulanu, is a clinical pathologist and a Jewish activist. He is a graduate of Columbia College, New York Medical College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, all located in New York City. Jack’s activism began when he served as a board member for American Association for Ethiopian Jews. After Operation Solomon, which air lifted thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 1991, Jack and his wife Dr. Diane Zeller, a specialist in African history, decided to take on the broader issue of dispersed and isolated Jewish communities. After working with an Israel-based organization called Amishav, Jack founded Kulanu, serving as its president for 14 years. Kulanu works in Uganda, Ghana, India, Latin America and other places to help dispersed remnants of the Jewish people.
Of the article I would say this. It begins by talking about newly arrived Arab Muslim extremists in Africa. This comes from the banana theory developed by the Bush administration. The idea was that Muslim militants were spreading out from Iraq and Afghanistan over north and east Africa in the pattern of a bunch of bananas. This supposed growth and spread of Muslim extremism was the excuse to extend the war on terror into Africa and militarize the Sahara. It is a lie, just like the WMDs in Iraq. By claiming this, the US was able to justify a huge militarization of North Africa and the continent, mostly to support US oil interests. The best place to read about this is the book Dark Sahara by Jeremy Keenan. You can look it up on Amazon. You can also read online, Demystifying Africa’s Security by Jeremy Keenan who tells us how the lie came into being. You might also want to read Counterterrorism’s blindness: Mali and the US by Vijay Prashad.
For information on exactly what is happening and has happened in Darfur. I highly recommend the book Saviors and Survivors by Mahmood Mamdani, which you can also find at Amazon, and probably in libraries. Mamdami talks about the word genocide, and the politics regarding which mass killings are called genocide, and who gets to call them genocide and how they decide. He has spent a great deal of time in Sudan and Darfur, studied the history and documents, and spoken with most of the parties and major individuals involved.
I found it particularly disturbing that Zeller seems to be calling for military interventions in what are political problems, with no attention to the context, the history, and no sense of what might be the result of military escalation and intervention. More arms and more soldiers means escalation, more chaos, death, and destruction. From an interview with Mahmood Mamdani:
Q. Are you saying that humanitarianism is a form of colonialism?
A. I’m saying that historically it has been. The movement after which Save Darfur patterned itself is the antislavery movement of the 19th century. Remember that the elimination of slavery was the ostensible reason given by British officials for colonization of the African continent. The cataloging of brutalities – real ones, not exaggerated – was essential preparation for seizing chunks of real estate, again ostensibly to protect victims. Today, the humanitarian claim uses ethics to displace politics. Conflicts are typically presented as tribal or race wars between perpetrators and victims whose roles are unchanging.
Q. Does the problem lie in who uses the humanitarian label?
A. The language of human rights was once used primarily by the victims of repression. Now it has become the language of power and of interventionists who turn victims not into agents but into proxies. It has been subverted from a language that empowers victims to a language that serves the designs of an interventionist power on an international scale.
All the narratives about war and disasters in Africa enable more “humanitarian” intervention. The intervention is “justified” by a disasterous situation. But the intervention is not designed to alleviate the situation, but rather, take advantage of it, allowing the “humanitarians” to acquire land and resources. Only the surface of the intervention is designed to appear humanitarian to the people outside the affected countries, who are generally not knowledgeable, and not particularly interested.
Zeller also calls for military interventions, and for more military assistance for Uganda. Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi are major recipients of US arms and military training. Both Uganda and Burundi have forces in Somalia, proxies representing US interests. Uganda and Rwanda are favored “partners” of the US Africa Command. Both countries have invaded the DRC Congo on several occasions, and both support militias there and reap enormous profits from minerals looted from the Congo. For more on the Rwanda and the Great Lakes region there is a review of three recent books: Kagame’s Hidden War in the Congo in the New York Review of Books. Most conflicts labeled tribal conflicts are resource wars. People on both sides try to whip up ethnic hatreds and resentments in order to use the opportunity to acquire resources, oil, minerals, land, water, etc. International players take advantage of the conflict to acquire those same resources.
Dr. Zeller does not know the history and context very well, or he may have his own interventionist agenda. There is a very real scramble for Africa going on right now.
This reply sounds more like an attack on an individual and Countries (Rwanda,Burundi,Uganda),no name attached to the article.
On your Blog’s profile, you mention you live in the US, which does not make you understand much of what we lived as Africans on the continent.
You talked about DRC, a Country which you only know through the media and Books. In your reply, you fail to challenge US role in assassinating Patrice Lumumba, a crime which CIA Agents and Belgian intelligence agents have held as an achievement!
It is so easy to scapegoat Countries or individuals, but we are all aware (as Africans) that this region you talk about (Great Lakes of Africa) was much in the hands of the US, it is still a region highly desired by all Continents (Africa,Middle east,Asisa,Europe,US), no one is an Angel.
I don’t think it was right from you to direct attacks on Zeller’s family when you fail yourself to provide your own name on your Blog or this reply.
I’ll conclude by saying that your amazon books shopping does not make you an expert on what our continent has endured, or continues to endure.
DK,
I think you and I share a lot more opinions than you realize. I read your comments on another post here and admired what you have to say, so I thought I would reply. Africa is a big place, larger than China, the USA, Western Europe, India, Argentina and the British Isles combined, as we can see on this map(I like maps, and this one is pretty nice). We are lucky to know whatever parts we know.
I am old enough to remember the overthrow and murder of Lumumba and what a bitter betrayal that was by the US working with the Belgians. I was an admirer of Patrice Lumumba, and he had my prayers and well wishes while he was alive. A great deal of hope rode on his shoulders and died with him. I also remember the overthrow of Nkrumah with the help of the CIA and US Embassy in Ghana. I may not include these in everything I write, but I am not unaware of them.
I learned to write reasonably well in the course of my job. I had some very good and ruthless editors. Doing research is part of my job. When I write I prefer data driven analysis. I hope people will judge the information I provide by my links and sources. What I think or what I feel is not really important. Getting at the facts, finding out what is really going on is what interests me. Knowledge requires external influences and sources of information. The written word is one of the simplest ways to share information. I assume that is part of why you write a blog. If I provide a link or recommend a book it is not because that is the only thing I know. It is because, based on what I know, I think that source provides the most complete, concise, or most targeted information relative to the topic under discussion. If any reader of my words wishes to know more, I hope to provide them an opportunity. It is an opportunity, not an assignment or an obligation. One of the things I have been doing since the announcement of the creation of the US Africa Command is try to follow US Africa policy, which is increasingly military policy.
I meant no disrespect to any country in my comment. The information I mentioned is fairly common knowledge to those following events, and is published in a number of places, including US budget figures. The biographical information about Dr. Zeller was from the biographical information he provided for the website of his organization, Kulanu. I made no mention of his family other than copying and pasting what he wrote about himself.
You write:
And you are quite correct.
In his last 3 paragraphs Dr. Zeller appears to be calling for military intervention by the US, Great Britain, and Israel. All three are major scramblers in the latest scramble for African resources. Military intervention by these or any other countries, or by mercenaries in the pay of these, or other countries or large corporations, many of which are richer than countries, is simply the latest manifestation of colonial exploitation. I suspect you and I do not disagree too much on this.
I wish you much success. You have an excellent blog.
Thanks for a wonderful reply, I don’t see any points on which we disagree on.
If you check one of my Blog “Africa rise”, you’ll soon notice that I am strongly opposed to Africom.
Keep up the good work!
If people choose to read Mamdani’s work on Darfur, I would encourage them to also read my book review. Mamdani raises important issues, but fails to conduct adequate research on the international community’s response to Darfur, the history and policies of the Save Darfur Coalition, and the important role of African and Arab civil society in raising the alarm about the conflict in Darfur. In many instances, therefore, his analysis is quite weak.
Here is a link to the review: http://www.seanbrooks.net/2010/01/when-killers-become-victims-darfur-in-context-part-i/.
DK, Thanks for writing back, I appreciate what you have to say and continue to wish you much success.
Sean Brooks, You neglect to mention that you are an employee of the Save Darfur Coalition. The Save Darfur Coalition comes under a great deal of well merited scrutiny in Mamdani’s book. As he says of your review:
Mamdani’s observations on the Save Darfur Coalition include the following:
In his book Mamdani is precise and specific about the consequences of those actions.
Your comment here is just one more effort in that savvy public relations campaign to advance the interests of the Save Darfur Coalition and its backers. Mamdani has much more more to say than I have quoted. Anyone reading your review would benefit from reading his response as well.
I’d recommend to read this article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7821600.stm
I find it difficult to think that the international community cares about the Darfur People.
Just watched a live interview of British National Party Leader Nick Griffin on BBC, I could not believe what I was hearing, he said:”If elected,I’ll ask Muslims to leave the Country,I’ll offer to Blacks and Asians money so that they can leave.”
All of this racism growing in Europe makes me think of President Mugabe, Europe was among the first continent to condemn President Mugabe, Europe put pressure on the African Union to cut off relationship with Zimbawe.
This also makes me think about the reason that got me into Europe in the first place, if it wasn’t for the chaos caused by Belgian/German colonization in my native Country (Burundi), I wouldn’t be here.
From the Congo to Rwanda, Belgium and the Catholic church committed crimes which we can never forget, scars are physically and emotionally still present.
Violation of Africa’s territory continues, from looting to creating conflict, the culprits are the same ones who continue to abuse us because of the color of our skin.
What do we do?
Forgot this one:
An Afrikan reporting, obviously colonialist and pro apartheid:
Thatcher’s son involvement in Equatorial guinea coup (an oil rich Nation):
http://www.theinsider.org/news/article.asp?id=564
Here’s the real Blood Diamond documentary (basically,it covered DRC,Angola,Sierra Leone):
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-4152057515221402986&ei=oR7OS4GnOtfY-Qbb_ZyWDg&q=blood+diamond&hl=en#
For those who doubt about oil interests wars on the African continent,from Angola to DRC, Chad, every conflict has economic/commercial reason behind it:
DK, I followed the Mark Thatcher case at the time. He was stupid and lucky to get off as well as he did. Thanks for the article about Lloyd. You are exactly right about the conflicts all having commercial reasons. I have quoted this from Nicholas Shaxson before, but you might find it of interest:
I remember when Rebels attacked us in Burundi, we heard from survivors that there were White fighting together with the Rebels, it’s only when I left Burundi that I understood what that meant just like in the case of Equatorial Guinee,Mercenaries!
At the time, we just thought that no one would be interested in this tiny Nation, poor Nation, no, we were wrong, Burundi is sitting on oil,uranium, coltan!As soon as Rebels came to power, foreign companies started flying in!
Just watch Lord of wars, Blood diamond, the international (http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi815137561/), every detail of these movie is a reality we’ve seen on the african continent,this continues as more oil is being discovered!