Africa News Digest
U.S. Coerced African Nations To Vote for UN War Resolution
At press time, Angola is still officially one of the six members of the UN Security Council who are uncommitted on the issue of a U.S. second resolution against Iraq. There is opposition within the government, but there is also tremendous U.S. pressure in the form of threats and promises. The other two African countries on the UNSC are Guinea-Conakry, which holds the Presidency of the Council for the month of March, and Cameroon.
Contradictory statements have been coming from Angola following visits, telephone calls, and behind-the-scenes pressure from the U.S. and Britain.
Angola Officials Say 'No' and 'Yes' to Second UN Resolution
Angola will not back a second resolution against Iraq in the Security Council, its Deputy Foreign Minister, Jorge Chicote, told BBC on March 9, in a broadcast interview. He also exposed an attempt at International Monetary Fund bribery to get Angola's vote. In the interview, Chicote said, "We will not back this resolution ... its terms are not accepted by anyone.... France, China and Russia strongly believe we should find a better solution to the matter.... The spirit of the Security Council is to try and negotiate and reach a consensus."
News24 of South Africa reports that "Chicote said Angola has been under tremendous pressure to vote in favor of the U.S., but denied reports that Luanda has promised to vote for a resolution favoring war in exchange for IMF and World Bank support. 'It is not $50 or $100 million or an increase in aid that will solve Angola's problems,' he said. He added it would be wrong to link the softening of IMF loan conditions to Angola's vote in the Security Council. 'What I feel is unfair, is people connecting the two things, telling us that before, we did not meet the conditions required by the IMF and today, because of the vote, we do,' he said."
BBC was evidently not happy with the interview, although the broadcaster has generally been opposed to an Iraq war. After AFP, IslamOnline, Utusan Malaysia Online, News24 and Voice of America quoted Chicoteand the first three said his comments were from a BBC interviewBBC News Online confessed, in two buried sentences, "And Angola... seems opposed as well. Its Deputy Foreign Minister Jorge Chicote told the BBC that Angola would not support the draft resolution."
One day after Chicote's interview, African and British press reports contradicted the Deputy Foreign Minister's statement. Angolan Foreign Minister Joao Bernardo de Miranda told the press March 10, according to News24, "The position of Angola is to back neither France nor the U.S. We must evaluate the consequences of a war and help to reconstruct Iraq. What the international community needs to do now is prepare for what comes after the war." He said that war is "inevitable," according to News24. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, standing next to him, said that war is not inevitable.
Britain's Daily Telegraph, in an article called "Angola wooed and blackmailed into backing U.S.," stated that Miranda, "speaking last week during a stop-off on his way to Washington for a week of talks with senior officials, said, 'We understand that if it is necessary to make war to ensure peace, then we will lend our support.' A senior diplomat in Luanda told the Telegraph: 'The consensus is that the U.S. and U.K. have already won the Angolan vote.' Diplomats were reluctant to speculate on whether American and Britain had threatened to expose the spectacular corruption of the Angolan elite."
Oil Weapon Wielded in Pressure on Angola
EIR notes that Angola depends on $5 billion in annual oil exports, 63% of which goes to the United States. On the other hand, the current, IASPS-based policy of Vice President Dick Cheney and his pro-war Chickenhawks involves an increased U.S. dependence on African oil imports, with Angola playing a major role.
Ironically, as the U.S. and Britain are trying to buy up the votes of the Africans, the neo-conservative warmongers are using the very organization that wrote the Iraq war plan in 1996 to offer the "carrot" of oil deals. As EIR has reported, this organization is IASPSthe Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, a right-wing think tank based in Jerusalem and Washington. In 1996, IASPS was staffed by the likes of Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser, who are among the top Iraq war "Chickenhawks" in the Bush Administration. At that time, IASPS wrote a detailed war plan against Iraq under the name, "Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," for Israel's Prime Minister at the time, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Ivory Coast Still Unstable as First Cabinet Meeting Takes Place
A new government has been formed in Ivory Coast, but rebels and the opposition RDR Party failed to attend the first Cabinet meeting March 13, citing logistical and security considerations. The next meeting is set for March 20. The Defense and Security portfolios will not go to the rebels, but have not yet been assigned; they will be determined by a National Security Council that includes all major factions.
At this point, the Bush Administration, in all probability, has more influence over the Ivorian government than it had before the rebellion began; the government of French President Jacques Chirac clearly has less than it did before the rebellion. From the standpoint of a return of peace and effective government, the general picture is more promising than it has been at any earlier time. The new government was formed through the efforts of Ghana's President John Kufuor, with U.S. and French support. U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher hailed the agreement underlying the new government March 12. A similar endorsement does not appear to have come from the French government.
President Gbagbo presided at the meeting in the official Ivorian capital, Yamoussoukro. Among those present, according to Ivorian radio RFI, were the new Prime Minister Seydou Diarra, to whom President Gbagbo has given extensive powers for the next six months; Ghanaian Foreign Affairs Minister Hackman Owusu Agyemang; Interim President of the Commission of the African Union Amara Essy (an Ivorian); and members of the Marcoussis Accord Followup Committee.
The new Cabinet has 41 portfolios, of which Gbagbo's party received 10, including the Ministry of Finance and Economics and the Ministry of Mines and Energy.
The PDCI Party (for years the only party, under President Houphouet-Boigny) led by Henri Konan Bedie, received seven posts, including the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Industry and Private Sector Development.
Four small parties received six posts among them.
Le Rassemblement des Republicains (RDR) of IMF apostle Alassane Ouattara, the main opposition party, which is aligned with the northern rebels, received seven posts, of which two are Ministries of State (major portfolios). The names of the posts and of those who will fill them have not yet been made public, however.
The northern rebels, the MPCI, also received seven posts, of which two are Ministries of State, also not yet named.
The two minor rebel movements of the West, MJP and MPIGO, each received one post, not yet named.
"Diplomats said they believed the absence of the rebels and the RDR [from the meeting] was down to the fact they had yet to agree with Gbagbo who should occupy the 16 Ministries allotted between them," according to Reuters March 13.
After Bush's Executive Order Against Mugabe Government...
The dirty operations of the British Empire against Zimbabwe got a boost from Washington on March 7, when President George W. Bush signed an Executive Order stating that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's policies constitute an "extraordinary threat" to the foreign policy of the United States. The order freezes all assets in the U.S. belonging to President Robert Mugabe and 76 other Zimbabweans, including Cabinet ministers, the head of the Central Intelligence Organization, and the Speaker of Parliament. The order also bans U.S. citizens from doing business with any of the 77 Zimbabweans named.
The only individual whose name has surfaced as a potential successor to Mugabe, and who is not on the list of those named in Bush's Executive Order, is Simba Makoni, former Minister of Finance and Economic Development, whom Mugabe dumped in late August 2002. Makoni is sympathetic to the World Bank and IMF. He is still a member of the Zanu-PF politburo. He was mentioned in Johannesburg's Business Day Feb. 24 as "tipped by observers as a potential future President of Zimbabwe...." Makoni had just concluded a visit to South Africa at the invitation of the government.
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