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New Colonialism in Africa
In two stories the Financial Times this weekend reports on a new colonial endeavor by U.S. investors that will likely stay unreported in u.S. mainstream media. The first gives the facts and the second some backlground. You should read them both. These links may stop you at the FT's pay curtain but you can use this one and this one and click through from there.
From the first piece :
A US businessman backed by former CIA and state department officials says he has secured a vast tract of fertile land in south Sudan from the family of a notorious warlord, in post-colonial Africa’s biggest private land deal.
Philippe Heilberg, a former Wall Street banker and chairman of New York-based Jarch Capital, told the Financial Times he had gained leasehold rights to 400,000 hectares of land – an area the size of Dubai – by taking a majority stake in a company controlled by the son of Paulino Matip.
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In contrast to land deals between foreign investors and governments, Mr Heilberg is gambling on a warlord’s continuing control of a region where his militia operated in the civil war between Khartoum and south Sudan.
“You have to go to the guns, this is Africa,” Mr Heilberg said by phone from New York. He refused to disclose how much he had paid for the lease.
Jarch Management Group is linked to Jarch Capital, a US investment company that counts on its board former US state department and intelligence officials, including Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador and expert on Africa, who acts as vice-chairman; and Gwyneth Todd, who was an adviser on Middle Eastern and North African affairs at the Pentagon and under former president Bill Clinton at the White House.
It is unknown who owns the leased land, certainly not the warlord's son, but it is fertile and near the White Nil and there are certainly people living there today and for generations who have rights to their land.
An political connected outfit like Jarch will not make such an investment when it is not sure that it can push the U.S. government to protect it.
Laws on land ownership in south Sudan remain vague, and have yet to be clarified in a planned land act.
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Mr Heilberg is unconcerned. He believes that several African states, Sudan included, but possibly also Nigeria, Ethiopia and Somalia, are likely to break apart in the next few years, and that the political and legal risks he is taking will be amply rewarded.
“If you bet right on the shifting of sovereignty then you are on the ground floor. I am constantly looking at the map and looking if there is any value,” he said, adding that he was also in contact with rebels in Sudan’s western region of Darfur, dissidents in Ethiopia and the government of the breakaway state of Somaliland, among others.
Now ask yourself why the U.S. is fighting terror in Somalia.
Who might have financed the tanks and other weapons from the Ukraine with destination to South Sudan and captured by Somali pirates?
And who finances the Safe Darfur campaign that wants the U.S. to militarily intervene in Sudan?
Mr. Heilberg, Joe Wilson and the investors who pay them are obviously ruthless about the consequences of their enterprise. But it is certain that this will end in war which will have to be endured by the people living on the fertile land Mr. Heilberg leased.
Why is such behavior still or again considered legal?
Great reporting, everyone.
In a perverse way, World-Bank/IMF/NGO certified/approved export agriculture is a great cover for strategic resource control, don’t ya think?
Fill the place with earnest naive NGO certified development experts, who, as in Afghanistan make 100 times the going rate where they are stationed, and who, as technical “masters of the universe” have the power and authority via international dollars to remake the world as they see fit. Kick the peasants off the land, end subsistence agriculture as it doesn’t increase GDP, or whatever statistic Billmon is flogging today, indebt the country to international “development agencies,” and pursue export-related activities like growing flowers — what could be nicer? (Read the link.) Build a regimented highly stratified society of a few “experts” and masses of expendable workers in the interest of “efficiency,” and social control of pigmented populations.
This is all part of the “New World Order,” comrades, where every country has its apportioned place in the hierarchy of production, with the US and EU, as intellectual property and high tech weapons providers, on top. If a country refuses to accept its pre-ordained place, if it gets “airs” or “uppity,” the jackals come in, followed by the bombers if that doesn’t work.
Don’t you think it is strange that countries that can’t feed themselves are growing flowers for foreign exchange income? That’s your problem, if
you do. The Army of development experts see no problem whatsoever with this. “We will develop the world into a state of permanent environmental sustainability.” That is their mantra, and woe unto anyone who stands in their way.
The Sudan is a wheat-growing region. Part of the plan for world domination is control of the world’s food supply. The US, as market-maker in wheat (along with junior partners Canada, Australia, and hopefully, the Ukraine) cannot afford competition they do not control. You cannot starve people into submission if you don’t corner the market in grains. Didn’t you play “PIT” as a kid? It was part of my training to take my place at the table as a “Master of the Universe,” as Tom Wolfe might say.
And as John Perkins might say (you DID read him, didn’t you?), the jackals are back. Democratic jackals, to be sure, but after eight years in the think tank/undercover CIA blogging and opinion-molding desert they are lean, mean, and ready to hunt in packs. CIA organized packs. With a kinder, gentler Panetta smiley face as the new marketing logo. Italian Papa gonna tell us how to use our land, how kind’a him!
Note that the same people who trust Obama were the ones who put their faith in Joe Wilson and avidly read Larry Johnson. Remember Amy Goodman’s reverential reporting on Joe Wilson?
“These guys can’t be bad! It must be a mistake. They are only trying to help poor people!”
Some of us will never learn. We are the dog that licks our oppressors hand to thank him for kicking us today.
Remembering the past helps one evaluate the information we receive in the present. Or, at least, it has the potential to, if only we utilize our critical thinking facilities.
They count on the fact that we are raised to respect authority in this country. No matter how many wars the US starts, how many people they kill,… We are a great people, who unfortunately make a few mistakes,… but this time, THIS TIME UNDER OBAMA WE TRUST, we are finally gonna get it right, and help the poor suckers of the world to get ahead. Yeah, right, whatever. Believe what you want, you will anyway.
Anyway, as so many are now so sure, we have a “solid pick” to head the CIA, whatever that means. Was Reinhard Gehlen a “solid pick?” How about Marcus Wolf? How about George Bush, William Casey, Allan Dulles? Anyone from this list?
Or could the problem, perhaps, be structural?
(Hint: DCIA has been demoted to a public sales position, to repair the US’s image (and only image, not substance), He no longer reports to the Vice President. DCI, the “bad cop” of the pair does. DCIA and Obama are in the marketing department, not planning.)
But, believe what you want, you will anyway.
And so it goes….
Posted by: Malooga | Jan 11 2009 20:55 utc | 15
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