{UAH} SUBSIDISING FRENCH CRIMES IN AFRICA

Subsidising French Crimes in Africa

December 12, 2013 silence muchemwa Opinion & Analysis

Mr Ban Ki-moon

Finian Cunningham
French neo-colonialism in Africa is now official fact after the recent deployment of hundreds of its troops in the poverty-stricken Central Africa Republic. The manipulation of events and public opinion to justify this French intervention has all the garish choreography of a can-can dance troupe.

Yet there is hardly a murmur of international protest at this audacious interference in a sovereign country. UN chief Ban Ki-moon has even praised France, and indeed there are some African leaders, such as Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan, who have welcomed the French initiative. How naive can these people be?

France’s President Francois Hollande claims that his troops have been dispatched to bring a halt to sectarian clashes in the CAR and to pave the way for elections.

But the real agenda is that France is cynically embarking on yet another military intervention under the guise of humanitarian concern – in order to secure its strategic interests in this former African colony.

The Central African Republic (CAR), despite immense poverty, is teeming with untapped natural resources of oil, agriculture, gold, diamond and other minerals, as well as potential hydropower.

In particular, France is after securing a US$200 million new mining plant for vast uranium reserves needed to fuel the vital French nuclear power industry.

The plant at Bakouma, run by French company Areva, is due to hit maximum output of uranium next year.
Recently, France sent another 600 troops to the CAR to join a 1 200 French contingency already stationed there. There are also some 3 000 African Union forces present, but it is the French who have command of operations.

A review of events over the past few weeks clearly shows that the French “humanitarian mission” to “save” the heart of Africa is a cynical set-up or ulterior motives.

Some two weeks ago, the Paris government started whipping up sensationalist headlines that the CAR was “on the verge of genocide”.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told French media: “It is total disorder … we have to act quickly.”
Paris did not provide any evidence or victims to back up its blood-curdling claims of imminent genocide.

But the rhetoric set the tone for a French draft resolution before the United Nations Security Council calling for a peacekeeping force to be sent to the CAR – led by the French.

A week later, the French government went ahead with the dispatch of 600 of its troops. That dispatch preceded the UNSC vote later in the week. As it turns out, the UNSC vote mandated a French-led peacekeeping mission. But the fact is that Paris sent its troops to the CAR four days before it had received authorisation from the UNSC.

The latest French military intervention in Africa is therefore unlawful since it occurred before it received legally required approval.
On the same day that the UNSC was scheduled to vote on the French draft resolution, there were reports of deadly violence in the CAR capital, Bangui. Since (then), nearly 400 bodies of mostly civilians have been recovered. Hours later, the UNSC authorised the French-led “peacekeeping” operation. But the question is: who is behind this surge in violence in the Central African Republic?

Western and French mainstream media are reporting on “spiraling, sectarian violence” between Christian and Muslim communities in the African country.

This very much suits the official French government narrative that it is intervening to halt inter-communal bloodshed.
The rebel movement known as Seleka that ousted the French-backed Christian President Francois Bozizé last March is mainly Muslim.

The new interim president that the Seleka brought to power, Michel Djotodia, is the first Muslim leader of the CAR.
Western media have tended to blame the Seleka rebels for most of the violence, without substantiation or verification. But, contrary to this narrative, the reports of sectarian violence in the CAR first began to emerge in September, and those attacks were carried out against Muslim communities by shadowy militia groups known as “anti-balaka”.

Finian Cunningham has worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. He is now a columnist on international politics for Press TV and the Strategic Culture Foundation.

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