The EU's Dirty Secret: Germany Is The Biggest Welfare Recipient There Is

From The Business Insider:

The standard way of thinking about the eurozone is this: Germany is strong, France is a bit less strong, and everyone else mooches off their strength.
Certainly that's how it's appeared lately, post-crisis, but that's thinking way too small.


Floyd Norris at NYT sheds some light on what's actually been the case, going back to the creation of the Euro: Germany is the biggest beneficiary around, and everyone else has been losers.
Basically, because periphery countries like Portugal and Greece and Spain are not able to devalue their currencies to a point where they have competitive labor forces, Germany is the huge winner.


Its trade balance has surged from being in a small deficit pre-Euro to a huge surplus post euro.
These charts, via NYT, show how it looks.

Sans euro, Germany's neighbors would be far more competitive than they are now. Also, if we went back to each country having their own currencies, the Deutsche Mark would surge beyond where the euro is now, making Germany even less competitive as BMWs became less affordable for everyone else.


The workers of Spain, Italy, France and everyone else are crippled to benefit the Germans, and its insistence on a strong Euro. Also it should be noted that pre-crisis, the huge consumption booms in countries like Greece were another subsidy to the Germans.


It's ironic, then, that German politicians are giving Merkel such a hard time about bailing out her peers. It seems like a classic case of overvaluing the seen -- direct transfers to other countries -- over the unseen, the pernicious effects of currency system that doesn't work.


For the latest investing news, visit Money Game. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Join the conversation about this story »

China Is Ageing, And The Rich Are Fleeing

From Clusterstock 

China will face an ageing population.  Worse still, the rich are fleeing.

Bain & Co and China Merchant’s Bank Private Wealth Report 2011 found that the so-called high net worth individuals rose 19% in 2010 compared to 2009.  Sadly, 60% of them are considering emigration or are already doing so, and 27% of those with 100 million yuan have already emigrated, and 47% of those are considering.

According to the Global Times:

There are three major reasons behind rich people’s immigration: a better education for children, safety of personal wealth and a preparation for retirement, the report showed.

“Safety of personal wealth” is probably the main motivation.  The story I have been hearing is this: these folks emigrate to other places and invest in real estate in other places as a form of “political insurance”.  Too many of these rich folks got their wealth because of their connections with officials, probably bribery and corruptions, and they don’t see their assets in China being “safe” in a sense that if they get caught, they will have nothing left.  So it makes some sense for them to flee before it is too late. 

So the implications?  Anything but good.  Ageing is generally not very good for economy, and ageing is bad for real estate.  People fleeing might be even worse.

This article originally appeared here: China Is Ageing, And The Rich Are Fleeing
Also sprach Analyst - World & China Economy, Global Finance, Real Estate

U.S. officer: ‘You have to show up at their door … and start killing people’

From The Ugly Truth

By Brian Becker, National Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition

ANSWER, April 21, 2011

“You can’t just convince them through projects and goodwill,” another Marine officer said. “You have to show up at their door with two companies of Marines and start killing people. That’s how you start convincing them.”

This was the comment made by a Marine officer to the Washington Post for its April 16 story about “signs of progress” for President Obama’s surge strategy in southern Afghanistan.

The officer was discussing how the U.S. strategy succeeded in the signing of a security pact between elders of the Alikozai area in southern Afghanistan and the U.S.-backed Karzai government.

Many hundreds of young men from the Alikozai area were killed in an onslaught by U.S./NATO troops in months leading up the agreement, according to the Washington Post account.

“We started stacking bodies like cordwood,” said an officer in Sangin, who like other Marines asked for anonymity to speak frankly. “And they came to a point where they said, ‘Holy [expletive], there aren’t that many of us left.’ ”

The Washington Post is an enthusiastic supporter of the expanding war in Afghanistan. The newspaper editorial policy insists that the war is necessary for an improvement in the lives of average Afghans.

Like other U.S. corporate-owned media outlets, the Post pretends that the U.S. counter-insurgency strategy is aimed at winning the hearts and minds of impoverished Afghan villagers. Its own reports about war strategy, however, reveal that the Pentagon cares as much about Afghan villages as it did about those in Vietnam that were razed and burned by U.S. troops to “save them” from falling under the control of Vietnamese communists.

In this recent story, the Post approvingly explains why it was necessary for a battalion of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division to completely destroy the village of Tarok Kolache after seven U.S. soldiers were killed and 70 others wounded in the first 100 days of an operation in the Arghandab district of Kandahar province last July:

… [I]nstead of sipping tea, [Lt. Col. David] Flynn decided to strike back.

An initial target was the village of Tarok Kolache, a collection of about a dozen mud-brick, multi-family housing compounds surrounded by pomegranate orchards. Video from surveillance aircraft indicated that the village had been vacated, save for insurgents who were manufacturing homemade explosives in the walled-off courtyards.

The Post carries before and after pictures of the entirely flattened village. “U.S. B-1B Lancer and A-10 Warthog jets conducted repeated bombing runs. A new ground-launched artillery rocket system also pelted the enclave. All told, almost 25 tons of ordnance was dropped on Tarok Kolache,” the Post states.

The U.S. war in Afghanistan is a terrorist enterprise. By employing these tactics of terror, the Pentagon seeks to force Afghan peasants to end their resistance to foreign occupation. They are succeeding in creating oceans of suffering among people, most of who have never heard of the World Trade Center or the September 11 attacks. In fact, a 2010 survey conducted by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) showed that 92 percent of 1,000 Afghan men surveyed in Helmand and Kandahar provinces knew nothing of the hijacked airliner attacks in 2001.

The real goal of the operation is not to “protect the American people.” Rather, it is to create a network of permanent military bases in an energy-rich and geostrategically important region that the U.S. Empire has targeted for enduring domination. The U.S. effort can kill thousands of Afghans and destroy their villages but it will not succeed in liquidating the resistance of the people. From Vietnam to Afghanistan—the Pentagon Brass have learned nothing.

US$ SHTF possibly imminent

 From Panamalaw.org:

Emergency Alert USD – April 2011

BRIC Nations Not Using US Dollar for Credit Transactions - BRIC is an acronym referencing the nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China. It is sometimes referred to as BRICS with South Africa added in at the end. I do not think South Africa is significant economically but it is grouped in there anyway. The combined economic strength of these nations is massive. It dwarfs the USA. Just think of the population of India and China alone. These nations account for 40% of the population in the world (3 billion approx.) and 20% of the World Domestic Product. The BRICS nations hold 40% of the world currency reserves most of which is in USD. BRICS is a serious group of players.


What Did BRICS Nations Do – Well they signed an agreement to use their own currencies instead of the US Dollar in issuing credit or grants to each other in commerce. Let's see their own statement:
"Our designated banks have signed a framework agreement on financial cooperation which envisages grant of credit in local currencies and cooperation in capital markets and other financial services," Manmohan Singh told reporters at a news conference with other BRICS leaders.” Thus the death certificate for the USD has been signed. It will take some time for Rigor Mortis to set in.


Who Signed This - The agreement, the first-of-its-kind, was signed at the 3rd BRICS summit here attended by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, China's Hu Jintao, Brazil's Dilma Rousseff, Russia's Dmitry Medvedev and South Africa's Jacob Zuma. This is quite a cast of characters.


Mainstream Media Blacking Out this Story – Let me prove this to you:
Here are links to the truthful depiction of the story:
BRICS credit: Local currencies to replace dollar
Brics want global monetary shake-up
World’s Five Major Economies (BRICS) Dumped the US Dollar
Now here is a link that covers up the true story from Bloomberg:
BRICS ‘Wary’ of IMF Rules on Capital Controls, South Africa's Davies Says
The mainstream Media in USA will pooh pooh this story as insignificant and not meaning very much to avert panic.


Is BRICS Significant – China had $59,000,000,000 of trade with three other BRICS nations in just the first quarter this year. This projects out to 240 Billion in trade per year just for China. Bear in mind that Russia and China already have a pact to trade with each other (non credit transactions) using their own respective currencies. See links for this below going back to Nov. 2010 which we reported at that time.
China-Russia currency agreement further threatens U.S. dollar
Currency settlement benefits Sino-Russia traders
This is just China we are talking about regarding the $59 billion in trade. The BRICS nations settling in their local currencies is going to get their trading figure to rise significantly. They will not have to be converting to the declining USD anymore. Every time the USD takes a hit one of the trading partners in a deal paid in USD also takes a hit. Converting to the USD incurs conversion charges. Yes folks this is of financial Tsunami proportions.


What to Expect – Expect to see the USD decline more fairly shortly. The decline will be more rapid than in the past. BRICS has 40% of the worlds currency reserves and they just took a major step (past tense) to get away from the USD. The demand for the USD just dropped BIG TIME. Less demand and thus the price of the USD will decline. Basic economics. Expect to see precious metals go up. Expect to see more rising fuel prices. Inflation will of course go up. The safe harbor today is some foreign currencies and precious metals. Real estate needs to drop another 25% before it becomes a haven of any sort and even then it may stay stagnant for many years. This is the trigger. Problem is most people are too deaf to hear it. Please do not keep waiting to get out of dollars, pounds and euros. Things are only go to get worse for the USD, the UK Pound and the Euro. The BRICS nations are not going to be using the Euro or Pound Sterling either. On the other hand you can make some excellent gains holding foreign currencies. The Swiss France went up over 10% this year against the USD just as a for instance. That is a nice return but let's wait until the year is over to see the real gains.


What to Do – Do not get caught holding US dollars. You will be sorry. Instead of making money by holding foreign currencies and precious metals you are going to be losing money due to the declining value of the USD. Same for the Euro and Pound Sterling. Now is the time to move out of theses currencies and increase your assets. Get on the right side of this. How many of your friends, relatives, co-workers and neighbors know and understand what just happened? I rest my case.


Time Estimates – These countries need to trim their USD reserves down as they slowly dump their USD holdings. The idea is not to crash the USD. If they crash it they wind up taking a large loss. I think there is about a one year window, maybe less to get out of USD before it become a second world currency. It will take a longer time to become a third world currency. This announcement and the one in Nov. 2010 were not warning shots across the bow of Washington, D.C. To get them to stop watering down the currency. They know Obama for what he is and who he really is. They have intelligence services. Their confidence has diminished and they are well into the action mode. Two years ago they were firing warning shots and trying to work with Obama. Obama is either trying to destroy the USA with intent or he is as dumb as a bag of hammers. The longer you wait to adjust your holdings the less foreign currency and precious metals your Dollars, Euros, Pounds are going to buy. The choice is yours.


Solutions - We can offer you solutions. Banking in Hong Kong using many different foreign currencies and holding gold is an excellent choice.
Hong Kong Bank Accounts and Hong Kong Corporations
There are other options.
Allocated Gold and Silver, Forex, Futures Trading
Feel free to call us to discuss solutions.

Discuss this article and more in our Forum! Click Here!

_________-

Related:

China to revalue yuan by 10% this weekend?

The U.S. Government Deficit on an Unsustainable Path

Sorry Folks, Uncle Sam Can’t Solve This One

Is a US Default Inevitable?

It’s GAME OVER For the US

The EU Crackup

Why Is Gaddafi Being Demonized?

By Anonymous African Woman* / Dissident Voice / April 21st, 2011

It was [Mouammar] Gaddafi’s Libya that offered all of Africa its first revolution in modern times – connecting the entire continent by telephone, television, radio broadcasting and several other technological applications such as telemedicine and distance teaching. And thanks to the WMAX radio bridge, a low cost connection was made available across the continent, including in rural areas.


It began in 1992, when 45 African nations established RASCOM (Regional African Satellite Communication Organization) so that Africa would have its own satellite and slash communication costs in the continent. This was a time when phone calls to and from Africa were the most expensive in the world because of the annual US$500 million fee pocketed by Europe for the use of its satellites like Intelsat for phone conversations, including those within the same country.


An African satellite only cost a onetime payment of US$400 million and the continent no longer had to pay a US$500 million annual lease. Which banker wouldn’t finance such a project? But the problem remained – how can slaves, seeking to free themselves from their master’s exploitation ask the master’s help to achieve that freedom? Not surprisingly, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the USA, Europe only made vague promises for 14 years. Gaddafi put an end to these futile pleas to the western ‘benefactors’ with their exorbitant interest rates. The Libyan guide put US$300 million on the table; the African Development Bank added US$50 million more and the West African Development Bank a further US$27 million – and that’s how Africa got its first communications satellite on 26 December 2007.


China and Russia followed suit and shared their technology and helped launch satellites for South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and a second African satellite was launched in July 2010. The first totally indigenously built satellite and manufactured on African soil, in Algeria, is set for 2020. This satellite is aimed at competing with the best in the world, but at ten times less the cost, a real challenge.


This is how a symbolic gesture of a mere US$300 million changed the life of an entire continent. Gaddafi’s Libya cost the West, not just depriving it of US$500 million per year but the billions of dollars in debt and interest that the initial loan would generate for years to come and in an exponential manner, thereby helping maintain an occult system in order to plunder the continent.


African Monetary Fund, African Central Bank, African Investment Bank
The US$30 billion frozen by Mr Obama belongs to the Libyan Central Bank and had been earmarked as the Libyan contribution to three key projects which would add the finishing touches to the African federation – the African Investment Bank in Syrte, Libya, the establishment in 2011 of the African Monetary Fund to be based in Yaounde with a US$42 billion capital fund and the Abuja-based African Central Bank in Nigeria which when it starts printing African money will ring the death knell for the CFA franc through which Paris has been able to maintain its hold on some African countries for the last fifty years. It is easy to understand the French wrath against Gaddafi.


The African Monetary Fund is expected to totally supplant the African activities of the International Monetary Fund which, with only US$25 billion, was able to bring an entire continent to its knees and make it swallow questionable privatisation like forcing African countries to move from public to private monopolies. No surprise then that on 16-17 December 2010, the Africans unanimously rejected attempts by Western countries to join the African Monetary Fund, saying it was open only to African nations.


It is increasingly obvious that after Libya, the western coalition will go after Algeria, because apart from its huge energy resources, the country has cash reserves of around €150 billion. This is what lures the countries that are bombing Libya and they all have one thing in common – they are practically bankrupt. The USA alone, has a staggering debt of $US14,000 billion, France, Great Britain and Italy each have a US$2,000 billion public deficit compared to less than US$400 billion in public debt for 46 African countries combined.
Inciting spurious wars in Africa in the hope that this will revitalise their economies which are sinking ever more into the doldrums will ultimately hasten the western decline which actually began in 1884 during the notorious Berlin Conference. As the American economist Adam Smith predicted in 1865 when he publicly backed Abraham Lincoln for the abolition of slavery, ‘the economy of any country which relies on the slavery of blacks is destined to descend into hell the day those countries awaken’.


Regional Unity as an Obstacle to the Creation of a United States of Africa
To destabilise and destroy the African union which was veering dangerously (for the West) towards a United States of Africa under the guiding hand of Gaddafi, the European Union first tried, unsuccessfully, to create the Union for the Mediterranean (UPM). North Africa somehow had to be cut off from the rest of Africa, using the old tired racist clichés of the 18th and 19th centuries , which claimed that Africans of Arab origin were more evolved and civilised than the rest of the continent. This failed because Gaddafi refused to buy into it. He soon understood what game was being played when only a handful of African countries were invited to join the Mediterranean grouping without informing the African Union but inviting all 27 members of the European Union.
Without the driving force behind the African Federation, the UPM failed even before it began, still-born with Sarkozy as president and Mubarak as vice president. The French foreign minister, Alain Juppe is now attempting to re-launch the idea, banking no doubt on the fall of Gaddafi.


What African leaders fail to understand is that as long as the European Union continues to finance the African Union, the status quo will remain, because of no real independence. This is why the European Union has encouraged and financed regional groupings in Africa.


It is obvious that the West African Economic Community (ECOWAS), which has an embassy in Brussels and depends for the bulk of its funding on the European Union, is a vociferous opponent to the African federation. That’s why Lincoln fought in the US war of secession because the moment a group of countries come together in a regional political organisation, it weakens the main group. That is what Europe wanted and the Africans have never understood the game plan, creating a plethora of regional groupings, COMESA, UDEAC, SADC, and the Great Maghreb which never saw the light of day thanks to Gaddafi who understood what was happening.


Gaddafi, the African Who Cleansed the Continent from the Humiliation of Apartheid
For most Africans, Gaddafi is a generous man, a humanist, known for his unselfish support for the struggle against the racist regime in South Africa. If he had been an egotist, he wouldn’t have risked the wrath of the West to help the ANC both militarily and financially in the fight against apartheid. This was why Mandela, soon after his release from 27 years in jail, decided to break the UN embargo and travel to Libya on 23 October 1997. For five long years, no plane could touch down in Libya because of the embargo. One needed to take a plane to the Tunisian city of Jerba and continue by road for five hours to reach Ben Gardane, cross the border and continue on a desert road for three hours before reaching Tripoli. The other solution was to go through Malta, and take a night ferry on ill-maintained boats to the Libyan coast. A hellish journey for a whole people, simply to punish one man.


Mandela didn’t mince his words when the former US president Bill Clinton said the visit was an ‘unwelcome’ one – ‘No country can claim to be the policeman of the world and no state can dictate to another what it should do’. He added – ‘Those that yesterday were friends of our enemies have the gall today to tell me not to visit my brother Gaddafi, they are advising us to be ungrateful and forget our friends of the past.’


Indeed, the West still considered the South African racists to be their brothers who needed to be protected. That’s why the members of the ANC, including Nelson Mandela, were considered to be dangerous terrorists. It was only on 2 July 2008, that the US Congress finally voted a law to remove the name of Nelson Mandela and his ANC comrades from their black list, not because they realised how stupid that list was but because they wanted to mark Mandela’s 90th birthday. If the West was truly sorry for its past support for Mandela’s enemies and really sincere when they name streets and places after him, how can they continue to wage war against someone who helped Mandela and his people to be victorious, Gaddafi?


Are Those Who Want to Export Democracy Themselves Democrats?
And what if Gaddafi’s Libya were more democratic than the USA, France, Britain and other countries waging war to export democracy to Libya? On 19 March 2003, President George Bush began bombing Iraq under the pretext of bringing democracy. On 19 March 2011, exactly eight years later to the day, it was the French president’s turn to rain down bombs over Libya, once again claiming it was to bring democracy. Nobel peace prize-winner and US President Obama says unleashing cruise missiles from submarines is to oust the dictator and introduce democracy.


The question that anyone with even minimum intelligence cannot help asking is the following: Are countries like France, England, the USA, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Poland who defend their right to bomb Libya on the strength of their self proclaimed democratic status really democratic? If yes, are they more democratic than Gaddafi’s Libya? The answer in fact is a resounding NO, for the plain and simple reason that democracy doesn’t exist. This isn’t a personal opinion, but a quote from someone whose native town Geneva, hosts the bulk of UN institutions. The quote is from Jean Jacques Rousseau, born in Geneva in 1712 and who writes in chapter four of the third book of the famous Social Contract that ‘there never was a true democracy and there never will be.’
Rousseau sets out the following four conditions for a country to be labelled a democracy and according to these Gaddafi’s Libya is far more democratic than the USA, France and the others claiming to export democracy:


1. The State: The bigger a country, the less democratic it can be. According to Rousseau, the state has to be extremely small so that people can come together and know each other. Before asking people to vote, one must ensure that everybody knows everyone else, otherwise voting will be an act without any democratic basis, a simulacrum of democracy to elect a dictator.
The Libyan state is based on a system of tribal allegiances, which by definition group people together in small entities. The democratic spirit is much more present in a tribe, a village than in a big country, simply because people know each other, share a common life rhythm which involves a kind of self-regulation or even self-censorship in that the reactions and counter reactions of other members impacts on the group.


From this perspective, it would appear that Libya fits Rousseau’s conditions better than the USA, France and Great Britain, all highly urbanised societies where most neighbours don’t even say hello to each other and therefore don’t know each other even if they have lived side by side for twenty years. These countries leapfrogged into the next stage – ‘the vote’ – which has been cleverly sanctified to obfuscate the fact that voting on the future of the country is useless if the voter doesn’t know the other citizens. This has been pushed to ridiculous limits with voting rights being given to people living abroad. Communicating with and amongst each other is a precondition for any democratic debate before an election.


2. Simplicity in customs and behavioural patterns are also essential if one is to avoid spending the bulk of the time debating legal and judicial procedures in order to deal with the multitude of conflicts of interest inevitable in a large and complex society. Western countries define themselves as civilised nations with a more complex social structure whereas Libya is described as a primitive country with a simple set of customs. This aspect too indicates that Libya responds better to Rousseau’s democratic criteria than all those trying to give lessons in democracy. Conflicts in complex societies are most often won by those with more power, which is why the rich manage to avoid prison because they can afford to hire top lawyers and instead arrange for state repression to be directed against someone one who stole a banana in a supermarket rather than a financial criminal who ruined a bank. In the city of New York for example where 75 per cent of the population is white, 80 per cent of management posts are occupied by whites who make up only 20 per cent of incarcerated people.


3. Equality in status and wealth: A look at the Forbes 2010 list shows who the richest people in each of the countries currently bombing Libya are and the difference between them and those who earn the lowest salaries in those nations; a similar exercise on Libya will reveal that in terms of wealth distribution, Libya has much more to teach than those fighting it now, and not the contrary. So here too, using Rousseau’s criteria, Libya is more democratic than the nations pompously pretending to bring democracy. In the USA, 5 per cent of the population owns 60 per cent of the national wealth, making it the most unequal and unbalanced society in the world.


4. No luxuries: according to Rousseau there can’t be any luxury if there is to be democracy. Luxury, he says, makes wealth a necessity which then becomes a virtue in itself, it, and not the welfare of the people becomes the goal to be reached at all cost, ‘Luxury corrupts both the rich and the poor, the one through possession and the other through envy; it makes the nation soft and prey to vanity; it distances people from the State and enslaves them, making them a slave to opinion.’
Is there more luxury in France than in Libya? The reports on employees committing suicide because of stressful working conditions even in public or semi-public companies, all in the name of maximising profit for a minority and keeping them in luxury, happen in the West, not in Libya.


The American sociologist C. Wright Mills wrote in 1956 that American democracy was a ‘dictatorship of the elite’. According to Mills, the USA is not a democracy because it is money that talks during elections and not the people. The results of each election are the expression of the voice of money and not the voice of the people. After Bush senior and Bush junior, they are already talking about a younger Bush for the 2012 Republican primaries. Moreover, as Max Weber pointed out, since political power is dependent on the bureaucracy, the US has 43 million bureaucrats and military personnel who effectively rule the country but without being elected and are not accountable to the people for their actions. One person (a rich one) is elected, but the real power lies with the caste of the wealthy who then get nominated to be ambassadors, generals, etc.


How many people in these self-proclaimed democracies know that Peru’s constitution prohibits an outgoing president from seeking a second consecutive mandate? How many know that in Guatemala, not only can an outgoing president not seek re-election to the same post, no one from that person’s family can aspire to the top job either? Or that Rwanda is the only country in the world that has 56 per cent female parliamentarians? How many people know that in the 2007 CIA index, four of the world’s best-governed countries are African? That the top prize goes to Equatorial Guinea whose public debt represents only 1.14 per cent of GDP?


Rousseau maintains that civil wars, revolts and rebellions are the ingredients of the beginning of democracy. Because democracy is not an end, but a permanent process of the reaffirmation of the natural rights of human beings which in countries all over the world (without exception) are trampled upon by a handful of men and women who have hijacked the power of the people to perpetuate their supremacy. There are here and there groups of people who have usurped the term ‘democracy’ – instead of it being an ideal towards which one strives it has become a label to be appropriated or a slogan which is used by people who can shout louder than others. If a country is calm, like France or the USA, that is to say without any rebellions, it only means, from Rousseau’s perspective, that the dictatorial system is sufficiently repressive to pre-empt any revolt.


It wouldn’t be a bad thing if the Libyans revolted. What is bad is to affirm that people stoically accept a system that represses them all over the world without reacting. And Rousseau concludes: ‘Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium – translation – If gods were people, they would govern themselves democratically. Such a perfect government is not applicable to human beings.’ To claim that one is killing Libyans for their own good is a hoax.


What Lessons for Africa?
After 500 years of a profoundly unequal relationship with the West, it is clear that we don’t have the same criteria of what is good and bad. We have deeply divergent interests. How can one not deplore the ‘yes’ votes from three sub-Saharan countries (Nigeria, South Africa and Gabon) for resolution 1973 that inaugurated the latest form of colonisation baptised ‘the protection of peoples’, which legitimises the racist theories that have informed Europeans since the 18th century and according to which North Africa has nothing to do with sub-Saharan Africa, that North Africa is more evolved, cultivated and civilised than the rest of Africa?


It is as if Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Algeria were not part of Africa, Even the United Nations seems to ignore the role of the African Union in the affairs of member states. The aim is to isolate sub Saharan African countries to better isolate and control them. Indeed, Algeria (US$16 billion) and Libya (US$10 billion ) together contribute 62 per cent of the US$42 billion which constitute the capital of the African Monetary Fund (AMF). The biggest and most populous country in sub Saharan Africa, Nigeria, followed by South Africa are far behind with only 3 billion dollars each.


It is disconcerting to say the least that for the first time in the history of the United Nations, war has been declared against a people without having explored the slightest possibility of a peaceful solution to the crisis. Does Africa really belong anymore to this organisation? Nigeria and South Africa are prepared to vote ‘Yes’ to everything the West asks because they naively believe the vague promises of a permanent seat at the Security Council with similar veto rights. They both forget that France has no power to offer anything. If it did, Mitterand would have long done the needful for Helmut Kohl’s Germany.


A reform of the United Nations is not on the agenda. The only way to make a point is to use the Chinese method – all 50 African nations should quit the United Nations and only return if their longstanding demand is finally met, a seat for the entire African federation or nothing. This non-violent method is the only weapon of justice available to the poor and weak that we are. We should simply quit the United Nations because this organisation, by its very structure and hierarchy, is at the service of the most powerful.


We should leave the United Nations to register our rejection of a worldview based on the annihilation of those who are weaker. They are free to continue as before but at least we will not be party to it and say we agree when we were never asked for our opinion. And even when we expressed our point of view, like we did on Saturday 19 March in Nouakchott, when we opposed the military action, our opinion was simply ignored and the bombs started falling on the African people.


Today’s events are reminiscent of what happened with China in the past. Today, one recognises the Ouattara government, the rebel government in Libya, like one did at the end of the Second World War with China. The so-called international community chose Taiwan to be the sole representative of the Chinese people instead of Mao’s China. It took 26 years when on 25 October 1971, for the UN to pass resolution 2758 which all Africans should read to put an end to human folly. China was admitted and on its terms – it refused to be a member if it didn’t have a veto right. When the demand was met and the resolution tabled, it still took a year for the Chinese foreign minister to respond in writing to the UN Secretary General on 29 September 1972, a letter which didn’t say yes or thank you but spelt out guarantees required for China’s dignity to be respected.
What does Africa hope to achieve from the United Nations without playing hard ball? We saw how in Cote d’Ivoire a UN bureaucrat considers himself to be above the constitution of the country. We entered this organisation by agreeing to be slaves and to believe that we will be invited to dine at the same table and eat from plates we ourselves washed is not just credulous, it is stupid.
When the African Union endorsed Ouattara’s victory and glossed over contrary reports from its own electoral observers simply to please our former masters, how can we expect to be respected? When South African president Zuma declares that Ouattara hasn’t won the elections and then says the exact opposite during a trip to Paris, one is entitled to question the credibility of these leaders who claim to represent and speak on behalf of a billion Africans.
Africa’s strength and real freedom will only come if it can take properly thought out actions and assume the consequences. Dignity and respect come with a price tag. Are we prepared to pay it? Otherwise, our place is in the kitchen and in the toilets in order to make others comfortable.


* Anonymous African Woman is from East Africa. She is not Libyan.
__________-


Related:

ROTHSCHILDS FINISH OFF GADDAFI

Euro-American Land Invasion of Libya Imminent

By Glenn Greenwald BAR, April 20, 2011 As if hard-wired for theft of other people's lands, the European Union is preparing to put thousands of its once-and-forever colonial boots on the ground in Libya. "The mass ground onslaught may well commence with the imminent deployment of the European Union’s so-called 'battle groups' – multinational military units of about 1,500 men each." Libyan leader Moamar Gaddafi, who had earlier offered to accept some humanitarian assistance in Misrata, vowed to fight any foreign soldiers on Libyan territory.  "They seek to land a "battle group" in Misrata under humanitarian pretenses, and then inevitably clash with Gaddafi’s soldiers dug in nearby." The official Euro-American invasion of Libya is about to begin. I say "official" invasion because the Europeans and Americans already have boots on the ground making bloody footprints in Libya, from U.S. Special Ops and CIA, British Special Air Services commandos, and their French counterparts. The news media of the invader countries know their armed forces are active on Libyan soil, and occasionally report as much. But they dutifully await announcements from their governments that the "real" invasion has, officially, begun. That time is near. The British announced they are sending a ten-man military adviser team to help the rebels. The French, who were obscenely quick to recognize the rebels’ so-called National Transitional Council as a kind of government, already have military advisors in Benghazi. The American CIA and the Saudi Arabians are thought to be truly in on the ground floor, having sponsored and financed Khalifa Haftar, the Libyan exile who formed the so-called Libyan National Army that has been trying to mount an armed revolt against the government in Tripoli for more than 20 years. The mass ground onslaught may well commence with the imminent deployment of the European Union’s so-called "battle groups" – multinational military units of about 1,500 men each. The 27-nation European Union had been discussing ways to insinuate a force into Libya since the beginning of April. Unexpectedly, Libyan leader Moamar Gaddafi agreed in principle to allow international humanitarian personnel to aid civilians in the contested port city of Misrata. Quickly, the Europeans seized on Gaddafi’s statement as an excuse to send up to 1,000 men on an assignment that could only be accomplished by a large ground military force operating with close air support. The EU battle group would secure the port facilities, which are now held by rebels, and then create land corridors into and out of the city, much of which is held by loyal Gaddafi soldiers whose lines would have to be crossed. "The Europeans seized on Gaddafi’s statement as an excuse to send up to 1,000 men on an assignment that could only be accomplished by a large ground military force operating with close air support." Remembering that once you give the former colonialist an inch, he will take your whole country, Col. Gaddafi vowed that he would fight any foreigner soldiers that attempted to land on Libyan territory, no matter what they claimed their mission was. The European scheme is transparently cynical. They seek to land a "battle group" in Misrata under humanitarian pretenses, and then inevitably clash with Gaddafi’s soldiers dug in nearby. That will be the beginning of the European’s multinational land invasion, with thousands of troops arriving in Libya in short order. The siege of Tripoli will begin, if the regime holds out, and if not, then begins the guerilla war or, as the Euro-Americans like to call it when they steal someone else’s country, the "insurgency." The U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM, used to worry about getting permission to open an office on African soil. Soon, it may be operating from one of the largest countries on the continent. For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com. BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com. _______- Related: Kissinger Calls For US Ground Invasion Of Libya US Begins Drone Strikes on Libya Libya and the new US strategic doctrine Hype of America's Mainstream Media: "Giving War a Chance"