What a wonderful piece of work. It makes me feel like going out into the
open shouting, hollo there can´t you people see what is going down. Thank
you very much Mr Njie, keep them coming

Modou


>From: Amadu Kabir Njie <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Fw: British hypocrisy at Commonwealth conference in Nigeria
>Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 02:53:01 -0500
>
>(NB! Mugabe did pull Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth yesterday, Sunday. The
>article must have been written before that news reached the author).
>
>Regards,
>
>Kabiir.
>
>
>
>British hypocrisy at Commonwealth conference in Nigeria
>
>http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/dec2003/nige-d08.shtml
>
>By Ann Talbot
>
>8 December 2003
>
>At a state banquet opening the Commonwealth conference, Australian Prime
>Minister John Howard commended President Olusegun Obasanjo for returning
>Nigeria to democratic rule. Howard was handing over the chairmanship of
>the 54-member Commonwealth, which is mainly made up of former British
>colonies. Howard’s praise for Obasanjo was an eloquent expression of the
>double-dealing that characterises the organisation.
>
>The very building that Howard stood in was evidence of the lack of
>democracy in Nigeria. It cost an estimated N5 billion. A total of N21
>billion ($150 million) was spent on the entire conference. The bill
>included renovating the International Conference Centre in Abuja, and the
>guesthouse where Queen Elizabeth stayed, as well as buying 400 bulletproof
>cars. This obscene expenditure took place in country where many citizens
>earn less than a dollar a day. To speak of democracy when there is such a
>vast disparity of wealth exists is grotesque.
>
>Further evidence of the political situation in Nigeria came with the
>publication of a report by Human Rights Watch. The report itemised
>evidence of “persistent violence, corruption and poverty.” The impression
>that there had been an improvement in freedom of expression was
>misleading, the report’s authors said: “In extreme cases, the government’s
>reaction to dissent or protest has resulted in extrajudicial killings.”
>
>Elections earlier this year were characterised by politically motivated
>violence in which several hundred people were killed, the report said.
>Despite this, the report points out, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack
>Straw hailed Obasanjo’s victory as, “a landmark in the advancement of
>Nigeria’s democracy.”
>
>Since then opposition rallies and other public events have been suppressed
>and their organisers arrested. A 10-day general strike against the 50
>percent rise in fuel prices was brutally suppressed in July. Up to 20
>people were killed when the police opened fire on peaceful fuel
>protestors. In some documented cases the dead were passers-by. There is
>evidence, according to Human Rights Watch, that the orders to shoot came
>from the highest level. No police officers have been arrested or charged
>in connection with the killings. This is despite a Nigerian Senate report
>accusing the police of “a bloody reaction” to protests and “inhuman”
>behaviour. Lawrence Alobi, Commissioner of Police for Operations, has
>denied that anyone was killed.
>
>When President George Bush toured Africa in July the Concerned Youth
>Alliance of Nigeria delivered a letter of protest to the US embassy.
>Thirty of them were arrested and detained for two weeks. They have told
>Human Rights Watch that they were tortured.
>
>While there is officially freedom of the press, Human Rights Watch reports
>an unofficial form of censorship. Those journalists who refuse to toe the
>line are subject to harassment. Their own union is often responsible for
>suppressing journalists’ freedom of expression. Several journalists have
>been expelled from the union for writing articles critical of government
>corruption.
>
>The evidence against Nigeria is all the more striking because of the
>campaign that Britain, Australia and Canada waged to maintain Zimbabwe’s
>exclusion from the Commonwealth. Zimbabwe has been suspended since the UK
>challenged the result of the 2002 elections.
>
>Despite opposition from some African countries, the Commonwealth upheld
>the ban. Africa expert Richard Dowden told reporters, “A lot of African
>countries have said in private they think this human rights stuff is just
>a cover for British interests there and they want to resist it.”
>
>In the light of Nigeria’s human rights record it is difficult to disagree
>that forwarding British interests rather than human rights is the main
>consideration for Prime Minister Tony Blair. He said, “The whole point
>about the situation in Zimbabwe is that it is not getting better. The key
>thing is to maintain the suspension of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth
>because I think that sends the right signal of disapproval.”
>
>Almost as he spoke the Nigerian military were reported to have opened fire
>from a helicopter on a village in the Niger Delta region. Official figures
>claim that four people were killed. But Daniel Ekpebide, a member of the
>Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities, claims that at least 50 people
>were killed.
>
>
>Zimbabwe conflict
>
>The dispute over Zimbabwe led to tension at the Commonwealth conference.
>Unusually, the post of secretary general was put to a vote when a rival
>candidate challenged former New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Don
>McKinnon. Normally the post is agreed privately without the necessity of a
>vote.
>
>President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa backed Lakshman Kadirgama, a former
>foreign minister of Sri Lanka, for the post of secretary general. Mbeki
>opposes the continued exclusion of Zimbabwe and clearly hoped to unseat
>McKinnon, who is a vociferous proponent of the ban.
>
>Despite this break with the usual consensus politics of the Commonwealth,
>McKinnon succeeded in winning a second four-year term. He had the support
>of Britain, Australia and Canada. Only 11 countries backed Mbeki’s
>candidate. How much political pressure Britain brought to bear to get this
>result is not known.
>
>As a face-saving gesture a six-member task force was set up to consider
>the question of readmitting Zimbabwe. It consisted of South Africa and
>Mozambique, who are supporters of readmission, Canada and Australia, who
>are opposed to it and India and Jamaica, who are thought of as neutral.
>Setting up a committee avoids complete humiliation for the African
>governments who want Zimbabwe back in the Commonwealth. It gives the
>appearance that the organisation is in some way democratic and listens to
>the opinions of all its members. The reality is that Britain continues to
>dominate an organisation that perpetuates a colonial relationship.
>
>The current African governments are desperate for aid and trade. They will
>not seriously oppose the British government. At the same time they want to
>appear as anti-imperialists to their own populations at home.
>
>Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s own strident anti-imperialist
>rhetoric has put them all in a difficult position. This is especially true
>of South Africa. Mugabe’s seizure of white-owned farms has raised the
>question of the distribution of land in South Africa too.
>
>Mbeki cannot afford to distance himself from Mugabe. If he is seen to side
>with Britain he will lose all political credibility as a supposed leader
>of the national liberation struggle. His failure to mobilise any
>significant level of support at the conference points to the impotence of
>Mbeki’s nationalist politics.
>
>In the past it was possible for African leaders to wring certain
>concessions out of the West because of the existence of the Soviet Union.
>Since the end of the Cold War this has become impossible. Africa’s former
>colonial masters are in the process of clawing back every concession they
>ever granted.
>
>In the face of the assault on his people’s living conditions, Mugabe
>demonstrated the same impotence as Mbeki. He launched a bitter verbal
>attack on the British government. “There are other clubs we can join,” he
>blustered. But so far he has not quit the Commonwealth despite his threats.
>
>For all his denunciations of British interference in Zimbabwe he is
>reluctant to burn all his bridges. Membership of the Commonwealth has no
>tangible benefits in itself. But it offers certain advantages to members.
>Mozambique, which was never a British colony, recently joined the
>organisation.
>
>Principally the Commonwealth offers a place on the world stage for the
>leaders of semi-colonial countries. Nigeria’s expenditure on the
>conference is an indication of how seriously they take it. Their desire
>for political kudos makes them easy for Britain to manipulate.
>
>As an old colonial power, the United Kingdom excels in this kind of
>politics. Blair himself may be a political lightweight in comparison to
>many of the African leaders with whom he has to deal, but he has the
>weight of generations of experience behind him.
>
>Zimbabwe finds itself denied aid and expelled from the International
>Monetary Fund as a result of its clash with Britain. Regimes with no
>better democratic record but which have taken care to keep on the right
>side of their old colonial master are viewed more favourably. They still
>have lines of credit and aid.
>
>The price they pay, or rather their people pay, is that they have to
>follow all the prescriptions of the IMF. Living conditions, health care,
>education and jobs have been systematically wiped out over the last two
>decades as a result. Commonwealth leaders spoke about the need to combat
>AIDS and poverty, but their policies have created the conditions in which
>poverty and diseases have spread unchecked across Africa.
>
>Zimbabwe is suffering the same fate in worse degree. Many of its people
>are starving. Half of them rely on food aid to survive. Mugabe opposed the
>free market measures that the Commonwealth and the IMF tried to impose on
>him, but his autarkic economic model is not a viable alternative. It has
>plunged his country into economic regression.
>
>If the UK and the international financial institutions bear the primary
>responsibility for the condition of Zimbabwe, Mugabe has played a
>secondary role. For two decades he has remained a member of an
>organisation that perpetuates the colonial relationship. This most
>militant of nationalists, who endured prison and led an armed struggle
>against a better-armed military force, loved to strut on the Commonwealth
>stage. Even now he would go back to it if he could. At no point did he
>ever envisage breaking with the imperialist framework of international
>relations. His own nationalist outlook locked him into the Commonwealth
>and all that it stands for.
>
>Blair’s role in the conference was characterised by his usual
>sanctimonious moralising. And also as usual this failed to conceal his
>rank hypocrisy. He demanded that Zimbabwe was excluded, while pressing for
>the readmission of Pakistan which remains a military dictatorship.
>
>Pakistan was excluded from the Commonwealth in 1999 when General Musharraf
>came to power. McKinnon praised Pakistan for “moving in the right
>direction.” Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien pointed out that
>Pakistan was “making a good contribution to the war on terrorism.”
>
>If human rights were indeed criteria for Commonwealth membership, then
>both Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and her prime minister would have
>found themselves excluded. The UK government is systematically violating
>human rights in its “war against terrorism.” It is detaining people
>without access to lawyers. Over the last week more than a dozen people
>have been arrested in this manner. It is sharing US intelligence that has
>been extracted under torture. In its most flagrant breach of human rights,
>and one that far out strips anything that Mugabe can claim, it has
>launched an unprovoked war against another country.
>
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